which the chief compositor is informed when each line is completed. This apparatus consists of a dial-plate and two hands. The plate is divided into inches and eighths of an inch. One of the hands is moveable, and must be placed at starting upon one of the marks, indicating the length of the lines, or width of the page to be composed. The other hand is so connected with the key movements, that it advances

(Rosenberg's Type Composing Machine, Fig. 1.)

a distance equal to the thickness of each type composed; so that when it comes immediately above the other, that gives notice of the line being complete, when it is instantly removed by the compositor, and another begun. There is also a hammer, which strikes a small bell, as a warning to the compositor, a moment or two before each line is completed.

The mode of working with the machine is as follows. The chief compositor, who sits at the front of the machine, having his copy before him, performs upon the keys as he reads. By the action of the keys, the corresponding letters are forced out from their respective compartments, and are laid down upon an endless belt or chain, which is constantly passing through the middle of the machine from right to left. By the motion of this chain, the types, when liberated and placed upon it, are quickly conveyed into the receiver; where, by the action of a small eccentric, which is revolving at considerable speed, the types are deposited horizontally, one above the other, in the same order as the keys are performed upon; and are thus formed into lines,

supported by a T-shaped slider, which is caused to recede in the same proportion as the types accumulate upon it. As each line is completed, (of which the compositor is informed by the dial and bell,) he turns with his left hand a small winch, (seen in the figure in front of the receiver c,) and thus lowers the completed line to the bottom of the receiver; while, by moving with his right hand a lever, (not seen in the figure,) the line is removed from the receiver into the justifying stick d. The time consumed in this operation is less than a second. As soon as the line is thus removed, the assistant-compositor, (as shown in fig. 1, at the left end of the machine,) detaches, with his left hand, the upper end of that stick, (its lower end being moveable upon a fulcrum, as represented at g,) and having lowered it into a horizontal position, he reads the line, the types standing now in a vertical position. Having corrected such faults as may have occurred during the composition, he, by removing a slider, which constitutes the bottom of the justifyingstick, causes the line of type to drop down at once from that stick into a galley, e, where he spaces it out.

The principal feature of novelty in this machine is, the endless chain on which the types are deposited, and by which they are conveyed into the receiver.

For the details of the advantages, we must refer the reader to the Mechanics' Magazine, No. 1003; whose Editor doubts whether the lines can be justified as fast as they can be composed.

(Rosenberg's Type Distributing Machine, Fig. 2.)

Fig. 2-The Distributing Machine-is quite detached from the other, and worked independently of it.

a is the galley, into which a portion of the page or column of type,

after having been printed off, is transferred. b a travelling-carriage, into which the lines are lowered from the galley a, line by line, by means of a slider with a handle on it, seen at the top of the galley. From this carriage, the different letters are distributed, by the action of the machinery, into separate receptacles provided for them. c are keys, with the letters of the alphabet engraved upon them. d a box, fixed to the end of the travelling carriage, containing a convolute spring, by the effect of which the line of type in the carriage is continually pressed against the front of the carriage, until the last type in the line is delivered. e grooves, made in an horizontal plate, into which the types are received, when distributed from the carriage b. In these grooves, the types are formed into long lines, (one sort of letters in each line,) by the revolving motion of a small cam or eccentric, working at the end of each groove. (This part of the machinery is necessarily omitted in the engraving.)

A line of type having been lowered from the galley a, into the carriage b, the distributor takes hold of the handle on this carriage by his right hand, and moves it towards the right. He then reads the line over, and having, by the fore-finger of his left hand, raised the key belonging to the letter, which now is nearest to the front of the carriage, he moves the carriage to the left, until it is stopped by the action of the key he has thus raised. The effect of this is, that the letter corresponding with that key is, through the machinery, forced out from the line; and falling down from a recess which is made to receive it, is guided into its own groove in the horizontal plate e; when by the action of the small eccentric or cam, (working at the end of each groove,) it is instantly pushed forward, for the purpose of giving room for the next type to fall down.

In this manner, the types are distributed and arranged into lines-all the a's in one line, the b's in another, and so on, ready for being replaced into their corresponding compartments in the composingmachine. This operation of replacement is performed through the medium of an instrument denominated "the feeding-stick," by which 200 or 300 letters may be lifted at once from the distributing machine, and transferred to the composing machine.

The number of letters which a lad, with the aid of the machine, can distribute, and replace in the composing machine, is only 6,000 an hour; but this difficulty may be surmounted by employing an extra distributing machine.

CASHMERE SHAWLS.

FROM Mr. Vigne's Travels, lately published, we select and abridge the following minute account of the manufacture of the celebrated Shawls of Cashmere, or Kashmir :—

There are now but five or six hundred shawl-frames in the city of Kabul. Formerly, they were infinitely more numerous. It occupies six or seven frames, of two men at each for six months, to make a pair of very large and handsome shawls. The Poshm-i-Shahal, otherwise Poshmina, (Poshm signifies the wool of any animal,) or shawl-wool, is

ound upon the goats that are pastured upon the elevated regions of Ladak and Changthung. It is, undoubtedly, a provision of nature against the effect of the intense cold to which they are exposed; and is found not only upon the common goat, but upon the Yak or Tibetian grunting ox, and the shepherd's dog which is used in the same inhospitable regions. The poshm is a cotton-like down, which grows close to the skin, under the usual coating of hair.

Goats producing this shawl-wool are common in the countries west of the Caspian, and excellent shawls are made there also. Raduk, a village and district upon the right bank of the Indus, about seven or eight days' march from Lehin, (the latter being the name of the province,) seems to be the first and principal rendezvous of the traders in poshm, which is collected in great quantities from the flocks that are pastured upon the vast plains of Changthung.

The Kashmirian merchants purchase the poshm at Leh, at the rate of eighty puls, (small handfuls,) for a small rupi. It is then cleaned on the spot, and one part in four is only fit for the purposes of the

weaver.

The thread is then dyed of different colours, and of these they use about forty different kinds. Their blues and purples are made chiefly from indigo; their yellows from a Panjabi flower called gul-i-kysu, and from a grass called woftangil in Kashmir; their blacks are procured from iron-filings and wild pomegranate skins, from which also a light brown is obtained; their red from kermes and logwood, and a native wood called lin; a drab from walnut-peels; and the finest of their greens, and a light blue also, are extracted from English green baize. All the thread used in making a large pair of shawls does not weigh more than fifteen or twenty pounds English, and may be purchased for 120 to 150 small rupis. After the thread is dyed, it is dipped in rice-water, a process which makes it stronger, and fits it to be more safely moved by the shuttle, and the stiffness is removed by washing. The undyed shawl-stuff, which sells at five rupis the yard, is called ubra, from ubr, (a cloud,) or alwan-i-sadah, (without colour,) if white; and if a border be worked on it, the remaining white is called "mutun."

Alwan, as the shawl-stuff is called when free from ornament, is not often, if ever, made up by the Kashmiri weavers of the natural colour of the poshm; and may be, of course, dyed of any colour-red, blue, green, yellow, &c. When made with coloured stripes or flowers on it, the chograh of the Afghans, or al-khalek, the long under-coats of the Persians, are made from it. If the pattern be worked with the needle, the shawl is far inferior in every respect to those in which the pattern is woven in. An excellent Pair of the former description may be purchased in Kashmir for 150 rimpis, (about £10); whereas an equally good pair of the Usuleh, (the realt), or the latter kind, could not be procured for less than 700 or 800 redupis.

The productions of the phe Kashmirian looms, which are of old and unimproved constructice an, are very numerous: Du-shalah, or two

shawls, they being always made in pairs; Jamaweh, for bedding; Rumal, or handkerchiefs; Hasheyi, or the shawl of a coloured ground with a small border; Urmuk, resembling very strong nankeen; and the Yek-Tar, (one-thread), a most light and beautiful fabric, being of one-half the thickness of the common shawl, and invented for the Sikh turbans. Besides the above, gloves and socks are manufactured from the shawl-wool; but they also make Gulbudun, or red silk cloth for ladies' trousers, and Chikun, or flowers worked in silk upon a cotton ground, similar to those procured at Multàn. Sashes and trouserstrings are also made from silk; whilst Lungehs, or pieces of blue cloth for turbans, and Kumurbunds, or waist-cloths, are prepared from cotton; and rugs and horse-cloths, &c., from wool. A cloth called " Siling" is manufactured from the shawl-wool in Yarkund and China; it somewhat resembles a coarse English kerseymere in texture.

:

It becomes necessary to wash the shawls, in order to deprive them of the stiffness of the rice-starch remaining in the thread, and for the purpose of softening them generally. The best water for this use is found in the canal, between the lake and the flood-gates at the Drogjun in this the shawl is placed, and water being poured over it, it is stamped on by naked feet for about five minutes, and then taken into the canal, by a man standing in the water: one end is gathered up in his hand, and the shawl swung round and beaten with great force upon a flat stone, being dipped into the canal between every three or four strokes. This occupies about five minutes. The shawl is then dried in the shade, as the hot sun spoils the colours; and in ten days afterwards the coloured shawls undergo a similar process, but occupying less time. The white ones, after being submitted to the process, on the first day are spread in the sun, and bleached by water sprinkled over them; they next are again treated in the same process as the coloured shawls, being stamped upon and beaten a second time, and then bleached again till they are dry; and then for a third time beaten, stamped upon, and finally dried in the sun. In the second time of stamping, soap is sometimes used, but is not good generally, and is never used for the coloured shawls, as the alkali might affect the colours. There is something in the water of the canal which certainly communicates to the shawl a softness, which cannot be given to those manufactured at any place in the plains of Hindustan. At the same time, those made in Paris or at Norwich would, probably, be as soft, were it not for the greater closeness of texture consequent upon their being made by a machine instead of the hand. For the same reason, it is well known that the calico made in India is much softer, and is much more durable, than that made in England. Old shawls that require cleaning, and in some instances new ones, are washed h by nitans of the freshly-gathered root of a parasitical plant calleches kritz. A pound of it is bruised and mixed with about three piumerous of water, and to this is added a mixture of pigeons' dung, (a piecehonths, qual in size to a turkey's egg,) mixed and beaten up with about the saun-i-Sha the shawl is saturated with the liquor and theal,) or

quantity of water; next 1stamped upon, washed