How Are Modern Rugs and Carpets Made?

The best way to learn of this is for us to take a brief visit to one of the largest carpet factories, where we will assume we have already arrived.

There is a sharp whistle, then an outlet of steam, the clang of a bell and a locomotive rolls around the curve of the spur-track into the factory yard. Attached to it are several freight cars that only the day before received their cargoes at the New York docks fresh from steamships coming from foreign lands. Inside the yard, the engine comes to a stop alongside a warehouse. Sturdy men unlock the doors of the cars and begin pulling out bales of the imported wool.

This is the first step in the evolution of a rug. Between the arrival of the rough wool at the warehouse and the placing in the stock room of the finished rug, splendidly woven after an artistic design shown in attractive colors, many interesting processes are followed. It is sufficient to state that few people looking at rugs of the Saxony, or Axminster or Tapestry type realize the high degree of mechanical science and artistic perception that have been brought to bear in the manufacture of these rugs.

After the arrival of the wool there are many steps to be taken until the skeins of yarn receive their coloring treatment in the dye-house and, at the bidding of the great machine, assemble themselves in the beautiful designs that the artists have created. Though there are many details of work in the development of a rug, they have been so well mastered that the employes in charge of every stage of the rug’s evolution give to their work a nicety of attention in little time that careful training and scientific understanding alone can supply.

The travel-stained covers of the bales are removed. The heavy bulk is broken and the tightly-compressed bales loosened. Then the wool is fed into the washing-machine, and after that goes into the picking-machine. The process of cleansing the wool is an elaborate one, for it is so full of dirt and grease that several waters and several operations are necessary to its final appearance in a white and fleecy condition. After the last washing the wool is lifted to a drying-room, where the heat from steam-coils is forced through it by means of blowers.

The wool now passes to the sorting-room, where the blends are carefully made before it goes to the machine which tears the wool fibers apart, and gets them in shape for the carding and combing processes. Next the wool is blown into a spinning mill. The wool is now ready to be converted into yarn. It passes through a picking-machine, which blends the different grades of the raw material, selecting the strands as to fiber and color. Then it is refined and purified.

Through tubes the wool is forced to the carding-room by means of air pressure. In passing through the cards it is carefully weighed to secure evenness in the yarn. Leaving the carding machine, the wool is taken to the floor above, where the big spools of yarn reach the combing machine for the next process. This machine separates the long from the short fibers. The strands of wool are still thick and must go through another process before they are ready to be made into yarn. They are finally united and given sufficient strength to stand the weaving process. As the visitor sees the strands of yarn first appear on the machine they resemble rolls of smoke.

The yarn next appears on rows of spindles in the mule-room, six hundred feet long, where the yarn is twisted and brought to its final stage. The yarn now is ready for the dye-house. Here the atmosphere is very dense. Clouds of steam rise from the many vats of boiling dyes. The yarn receives the coloring for which it is intended, or is bleached in an adjoining department, and then is transferred on poles to the drying-room, after passing through a steaming process which sets the color. Next it passes on an electric conveyor to the weave-shop.

Considerable skill is required in the weaving process. The assembling of the yarns and matching of colors require expert attention. The skeins of yarn are wound on spools, which are put in sets back of the looms, each color or set representing one “frame” of color in the rug. By the famous Jacquard motion of cards each color wanted in the surface of the rug is pulled up in its proper place, the other frame color laying in the back of the rug. The mechanical process is a remarkable sight. As the pattern forms itself from the mechanical devices, the onlooker is struck with the wonder of it.

The weave is now completed; the rug comes out. But it is rough and has to be finished. It is passed through a machine that removes the roughness of the face as a lawn-mower cuts away the top-grass. The ends are finished, and the carpet is complete.

The pattern of tapestry carpet is obtained by printing the colors to appear in the design on the yarn which forms the face before the weaving is started, by means of large drums. After all rugs leave the weave-shop a force of skilled women examine them carefully to make sure that there are no defects. Every yard of the annual output of carpet and rugs is inspected five times before it leaves the factory.

Why Do I Yawn?

When you yawn, you do so because you have not been breathing quite properly and for some reason or other your blood supply has not been getting sufficient oxygen through the air which has been taken into your lungs. Nature’s way, in this instance, is to call for a big intake of air all at one time, and since it is important at such times that a large quantity of air should be supplied to the lungs at once, nature has so arranged matters that certain muscles shall cause you to open your mouth wide and take in as much air as you can at one time, and also has arranged so that it is almost impossible to keep from yawning when the demand for it is once made. The yawn is controlled by a part of our nerve structure which looks after the breathing apparatus.

The satisfaction we feel after a wholesome yawn is due to the fact that having replied to nature’s demand that we bring in more air, our blood secures the oxygen which it needs and we feel the effect of better blood in our arteries at once.

A peculiar thing about the process of yawning is that one person in a room yawning will quite likely set all or nearly all the others to yawning also. There seems to be no explanation of this excepting that when a number of people are in one room and one of them begins to yawn, the others do so, not because they perceive the first yawn so much as the probable fact that the air in the room has become so poor that there is not enough good air for all the people in it, breathing normally, and many of them are forced to yawn at about the same time.

Where Do Living Things Come From?

This is a big subject, but a very interesting one. To understand it fully we must begin at the very beginning of the world.

God made first of all the rocks, the mountains, the sun, the moon, the stars, the soil, and put the water in the lakes, rivers and oceans. This took a long time, but they had to be there before the living things could begin to be.

What is Inorganic Matter?

This thing we have spoken of is called inorganic matter, which means “without life,” and everything in the world which has no life is called inorganic matter. These things do not die, and for that reason do not have to be replaced. The form and appearance of inorganic matter and its location is often changed by man or other causes, but even when man burns the coal which he has dug up out of the ground in the furnace, no part of it is destroyed. Some of it is turned into smoke and gas and some of it is turned into ashes, while every other particle which went to make up the coal originally is still in existence. It remains as inorganic matter in some form or other.

Where Did Life Begin on Earth?

After the inorganic things had been made and the earth was ready for life, the different kinds of living things which we find on the earth began to exist. These are called organic objects, which means objects “with life.” The first living things to appear were the bushes, the grass, the garden vegetables, the flowers, trees, and all the kinds of life which we ordinarily think of as growing things.

This division of living things makes up what we call the vegetable kingdom, and in a general way of classing it is the kind of life which cannot move about from place to place and which has not a sense of feeling, or any of the other senses, seeing, hearing, tasting or smelling.

After this division of life had been established the world was ready for the other and more important form of life—the fishes, the birds, cats, dogs, horses, cows, with others that we call domestic animals, and also the lions, tigers, elephants and others which constitute the division of wild animals.

This kind of life was given some or all of the five senses, but not all classes of animal life possess all these senses. Some of the lower forms of animal life, like the oysters, clams, in the fish family, cannot see, hear, smell or taste. They can only feel; others are able to do more of these things, and many have all of the five senses.

When Did Man Begin to Live?

Man was not created until all the other living things on earth had been started, and he was given additional powers so that he might become the ruler of all the other living things, principally because he was given a brain with power to think, reason and originate.

Why Must Life Be Reproduced?

Life must be reproduced because living things die. They have power to live only for a certain length of time. The other life in the world is used to provide food for man, and if there were no way of reproducing life it would not be long before man had eaten all the vegetables and the animals too, and would himself then starve to death.

To avoid such a calamity God put into each living thing, both vegetables and animals, a power to cause other things of the same kind as itself to grow. This is called the power of reproduction. With this power each kind of living thing can bring other specimens of the same kind into the world and each kind of living thing can do this without aid from any other kind of life.

The trees, the flowers, and other kinds of vegetable life would reproduce themselves without the aid of man, as would also the fishes and other kinds of animal life. Man, however, just to have things conveniently at hand, uses his power over other life to cause his vegetables to grow near where he lives, and keep the animals which he wishes to use as food in some place where he doesn’t have to hunt for them every time he wishes meat for his table. This, however, he does only with the animals which he has domesticated or tamed. When he wants meat from the animals which are still wild he must hunt for them as he used to do.

Each kind of life has the power, however, to reproduce only its own kind. If you plant a peach stone you will sooner or later have a peach tree which will bear peaches, and these peaches from the young tree will look and taste just like the peach whose pit or stone you planted. There may be other kinds of fruit trees all about, and also trees which do not bear fruit. All of the trees secure the food upon which they live and grow from the same soil. Even the grass under your peach tree eats the same things as your peach tree, but it remains always true that things in the vegetable kingdom will grow only to be like the thing from which it came.

Have Plants Fathers and Mothers?

The little trees grow up to be exactly like their fathers and mothers (for they have fathers and mothers), which is something all living things must have. These are not the same kind of fathers, or mothers either, that a boy or girl has, exactly, but they are parents just the same. So far as the trees, flowers and plants are concerned we call the parents father and mother natures, which is a term used merely to keep you from confusing vegetable life fathers and mothers with the regular kind.

In the vegetable kingdom you cannot always see these father and mother natures, which enable them to reproduce their kind of life, but everything in the vegetable and also in the animal kingdom has them.

How Do Plants Reproduce Life?

In the spring we put seeds into the ground and later on plants grow up where the seeds were planted, and later the flowers come. The seeds contain the baby plants, which come to life, and after bursting the covering of the seed, unfold and grow up into plants if placed in the ground, where they can obtain the proper amount of warmth and moisture to give them a start.

Why Do Plants Have Seeds?

To get at this subject in the best manner we must study first how plants produce seeds and what happens. The power in a plant to make another plant like it grow comes from the flower. Ordinarily we think of the flowers as beautiful to look at and delightful to smell, but the flowers do not grow for the mere purpose of being beautiful, but are for a more useful purpose—to develop a seed which, when planted, will produce another plant. The machinery for producing a perfect seed is in the flower or blossom. Every flower has a definite plan of construction. The leaves and colors vary, but the plan for a perfect flower is always there. The petals which are generally colored are called the crown. When you pluck off the petals you see a number of green leaves at the bottom where the petals were attached. These form what is called the calyx, and help to hold the petals in place. Inside the flower are little stems which grow to the petals. These are called stamens. Every one of these little stems is hollow, and if you split one open you will discover a fine powder. This powder is called pollen, and is the “father” nature of the plant. In the calyx, the part we had left after we plucked off the petals, is the “mother” nature of the plant. The main part of the mother nature is the stem of the flower called the ovary, and this is where the seeds grow. These seeds in the ovary, however, will not become perfect seeds unless some of the pollen from the “father” nature of the plant touches them and fertilizes them.

At the proper age of the flower some of this pollen powder passes into the ovary and fertilizes the seeds and makes them good seeds. This is only one kind of flower, however. In this kind the father and mother natures are in the same flower. In other kinds of plants the father and mother natures are found on different parts of the same plant.

Why Does an Ear of Corn Have Silk?

The corn plant is one of this kind. You know what it looks like—a tall plant, generally six or seven feet high. The ears of corn grow out of the side of the corn stalk. The ear is covered with husks and out of the end of the ear hangs a bunch of brown silk threads which we term corn silk. Up at the top of the plant you will see the tassel, but you may not have known that this is the flower of the corn plant. The tassel or flower in this case contains the “father nature” of the corn plant, and the ear of corn contains the “mother nature.” The husks on the outside of the ear of corn protect the grains of corn on the ear inside and keep them tender. The ear of corn is really the ovary of the corn plant, because that is where the seeds grow. You will guess, of course, that the grains of corn on the ear are but seeds of the plant. Were you to examine one of these ears of corn on the plant when it had just started to form you would find no kernels on the cob, but only little marks which indicated where the grains of corn are expected to grow, but if you want to know, then, how many grains of corn were expected to grow on the ear, you could easily tell by counting the little silk threads which you see on the cob and which stick out over the end. There will be a thread of silk for each grain of corn that is expected to grow.

Every grain of corn must receive some of the pollen powder from the tassel or father nature at the top of the corn plant or it will not develop into a nice large, juicy kernel.

How Does the Pollen Touch the Grain of Corn?

Before the kernels of corn grow the tassel is in bloom. The wind blows and shakes the pollen powder off of the tassel and the powder falls on the ends of the silk which stick out of the little ear of corn to be. Each thread of silk then carries a little of the powder down to the spot on the ear where it is attached and thus the grain of corn receives the fertilizing necessary to develop it into a ripe seed. If you leave the ear of corn alone the kernel will eventually become yellow and hard and can then be planted and will produce other corn plants. Man, however, finds the ear of corn a delightful food, if taken at a time when the seeds are fully grown but not yet ripened into perfect seeds. At this stage the grains of corn would not grow up again if planted, because they have not yet become perfect seeds.

Do Father and Mother Plants Always Live Together?

We come now to the kinds of plants on which the “father” and “mother” natures are on different plants of the same kind. At times they will grow side by side, at other times they will be in the same field, but very often they grow at quite a distance from each other. In some instances the nearest father tree will be even miles away from the mother tree of the same kind. But in any event the pollen from the father nature must reach the mother nature of the plant or tree before a perfect seed can be produced. In cases of this kind the father nature will be on one tree or plant and the ovary or mother nature on another. The wind helps out nature in some of these cases by blowing the pollen of the father plant to the ovary of the mother plant. In many other instances the bees and insects help.

Why Do Flowers Have Smells?

Where the bees do this it is because the bee has been visiting the flowers in his search for honey. They do not fly from flower to flower for the purpose of uniting the mother and father natures of plants, but they help the flowers incidentally while getting the honey for which they are searching. In gathering his honey the busy bee will go all over the father flower and get his legs all covered with pollen powder. Sooner or later he comes to a mother flower of the same kind of plant or tree from which he has father pollen on his legs, and, still bent on gathering honey, he incidentally rubs the pollen powder on to the ovary of the mother flower and the fertilization takes place. The wonderful thing about this is that the father pollen of one kind of a plant will not fertilize the mother nature of another kind of plant. To illustrate this, if a bee carrying pollen on his legs from a walnut blossom visits the mother blossom of a hickory tree the pollen of the walnut would not affect the hickory blossom, but would still have the proper effect on the first walnut mother blossom he visited.

This is how life in general is reproduced among the plants and trees. Life in the vegetable kingdom has no sense of feeling or any of the other senses, but this kind of life is still true to its own nature and is a wise thing in the plan of creation, because, since all seed will produce only plants like those from which the seed came, man can control the growth of the vegetables and fruits he needs as food. He knows when he plants corn that he will get corn in return, because perfect seed never makes a mistake. It would mix things up terribly for man if this were not so, because man might then plant one thing and find another thing growing. It would be a sad thing to plant wheat and find thistles growing.

In order that seeds may grow they must be planted under conditions that suit the kind of vegetable life in the seed. Man has to study and learn what these conditions are.

If a seed is planted too deeply the sun may not have a chance to warm the ground to that depth, and if it is planted too near the surface it may become too warm and be killed by the sun. When planted under the proper conditions the seed soon begins to grow. It grows upward toward the sun to get light and air, and it sends roots down into the ground to get food and moisture.

The life in the vegetable kingdom is soon able to take care of itself.

How Are Fishes Born?

The next step in the study of the reproduction of life brings us to the animal kingdom. The first thing we discover in this section is that in the animal kingdom father and mother natures are almost always separated. In plants and trees these parent natures are sometimes in the same flower, often separated, but on the same plant, and in other instances on different plants miles apart. What we must remember, then, is that in the case of plants it is given more or less to the chance of wind or other circumstances to bring the parent natures together.

In the animal kingdom there are a few cases where the mother and father natures are found in the same living object, as in the oyster and clam families, one of the lowest forms of animal life. These have but one of the five senses—that of feeling. This class of animals—the cold-blooded animals—includes the fishes, and in most members of this class the father and mother natures are separated and in different bodies. Step by step from now on we enter higher forms of animal life, and through each step we find a greater difference between the father and mother natures, and in the animal kingdom we speak of the father and mother natures as “male and female.” In the animal kingdom, too, what we have previously called the seed is known as the egg. Seeds and eggs are the same so far as their usefulness is concerned, but we say eggs in the animal kingdom to distinguish from seeds in the vegetable kingdom.

Fish have eggs, then, and it is from the eggs that little fish are born into the world and grow to be of eatable size. You recognize the eggs of the fish in the “roe,” which is eaten as food. Not all fish eggs are used as food, however.

In the fish world the eggs are developed in the body of the female fish. Each little round speck in a “shad roe” is one egg, and there are many thousands in a single “roe.” Each egg will produce a little fish, under favorable conditions. These eggs develop in the body of the female fish in winter. In the spring, which is the time in which most living things are born, and, therefore, the time for hatching out fish eggs, all of the fish swim from the deep water where they live in winter to the places where the water is shallow and warm, and in these shallow waters the female fish expels the eggs from her body where the sun can get at them and hatch them by warming them. After the female fish has thus laid the eggs, the male fish swims over the eggs as they lay in the water, and expels from his body over them a fluid which is white in appearance and which fertilizes the fish eggs. If any of this fluid fails to reach some of the eggs it is not possible for the sun to bring them to life.

When the eggs are laid and fertilized the mother and father fishes swim away and they never see their children or recognize them as such, even if they meet them later in life. The parent fish do not act like other fathers and mothers, and they do not need to, because as soon as a baby fish is born he is able to find his own food and needs no help from father or mother to teach him how to find it or enable him to grow into a real fish.

Of course, many of the tiny fish are eaten by other fish and not all the eggs which the mother fishes lay hatch into live fish, because, if they did, the waters would be so crowded with fish that there would not be any room for the water. A single female fish will lay millions of eggs in a year, and if each egg developed into a fish there would be far too many.

This order of animals, which includes turtles, frogs, etc., is the cold-blooded class of animal life. They have only part of the five senses. They all can feel and some of the fishes can see and hear, but a great many of them, particularly those kinds which live on the bottom of the ocean, cannot either see or hear, and some members of the fish family cannot even swim.

The thing to remember about fishes in connection with the reproduction of life is that the mother fish must select a place which is favorable to deposit the eggs, but after that her responsibility ceases. The father merely fertilizes the eggs, and then his responsibility ceases. The little fish look out for themselves as soon as they are born and never know what it is to have a father or mother to look after them.

When we study the next higher form of animal life we find that the young ones have to be looked after, and that this becomes more necessary as we ascend the scale of animal life until we reach man, the most intelligent of all animals and yet the most helpless of all at birth.

How Birds Are Taught to Fly.

The next step brings us to the birds. Before they can look after themselves the little birds must learn how to search for food and the kinds of food good for them. They have to learn the habits of their kind of life. The higher you go in the study of animal life the greater seem to be the dangers which surround the young animals and the longer it takes to teach them how to look after themselves and what to do for themselves.

The bird family includes not only the robins, larks, sparrows and pigeons, but also the ducks, geese, and chickens, etc. We are all more or less familiar with birds’ eggs, and if not we know what a hen’s egg looks like. The eggs of the bird family are laid in nests, which is the first sign of home building in the animal kingdom.

The birds are the first of the large class of warm-blooded animals. The egg here represents again the reproductive power. The eggs, too, form in the body of the female bird, but are laid in a nest which the parent birds build together. Now this is the first step away from the fish family. The fish looks for a suitable place to lay the eggs and then goes off and leaves them. The birds, however, have to make a nest in which to deposit the eggs. The fish, as you remember, depended upon the warm sun shining on the shallow water to hatch out the eggs, thus depending on an outside force to supply the necessary warmth. In the bird family the mother bird must cover the eggs with her own body and keep them warm until they hatch out. Then, too, the father and mother birds feed the young until they are strong enough to fly and find food for themselves, and so the mother and father birds look after their babies until they are old enough to look after themselves. When this time arrives the old birds cease to bother about the young ones altogether. The fishes never act like parents after the baby fishes are born, because the little fish are able to look after themselves right away. The parent birds are a good deal like fathers and mothers for a time, but only so long as it takes them to teach their little bird children to look out for themselves. Then they forget the children completely.

It requires but a few days and no parental care to hatch out a family of baby fishes and no attention at all after birth. It requires several weeks and much patience for the parent birds to hatch out their eggs, and it involves care and attention for several weeks to teach baby birds to take care of themselves.

This being a father or mother in the animal kingdom becomes a greater responsibility in every step as we get closer to man, and when we reach man we find him to be the most helpless offspring of all at birth, and that it takes more time, care and attention to bring up a human child to maturity than any other animal.

What Makes the Hollow Place at One End of a Boiled Egg?

This hollow place on the end of the boiled egg (sometimes it shows on the side) is the air which is put inside of the egg when it is formed so that the little chicken will have air to breathe from the time it comes to life within the egg until it becomes strong enough to break the shell and go out into the world. There is also food in the egg for him. When you boil the egg this pocket of air within the shell, which would have been used up by the chick if the egg had been set to hatch instead of being cooked for breakfast, begins to fight for its space and pushes the boiling egg back and forms the hollow place.

The purpose of the air in the egg is a good thing to remember when we come to study the higher forms of animal life from the standpoint of how they reproduce themselves.

The mammals are the next higher form of animals. The babies of this class of animals must be fed for several weeks or months before they are ready to come into the world.

A little chicken is ready to come out of the egg almost as soon as it comes to life, and, therefore, needs only a little air and food before it is strong enough to peck its way out, but the babies of mammals begin to live months before they are ready to come into the world, and they need a great deal of air and food during this time. This class includes the dogs, horses, cows, cats and all other animals in the Zoo and in the woods. The name mammals means the same as “mamma,” and indicates an animal which must be fed from the body of a female mammal even after it is born.

In this class the eggs are retained within the body of the female animal instead of being laid in a nest or some other place, as in animals of lower classes, after being fertilized by the male animal, so that the baby animal may secure its food and air from within the mother’s body after the life within the egg is begun.

The mother’s body supplies the necessary warmth to develop the life of the little animal in the egg, just as the birds supplied this with their bodies. In the bird class it only takes a few hours to give the little bird sufficient strength to peek his way out, but in the mammal class it is a long time before the baby animal is strong enough to come out into the world, and even after it is born the babies of mammals require a great deal of care and attention before they are able to look out for themselves. During this period the animal secures all of its food from the breast of the mother animal.

Another reason why the eggs of mammals are retained within the bodies of the females is the need for protecting the young animals from enemies. In the animal kingdom each kind of animal preys upon another kind. They attack and devour each other and are constantly in danger. If, then, mammals laid eggs in nests and sat upon them to hatch them out, the mother animals sitting on the nests would be continually in danger of attack from their enemies. They would either have to flee and subject the nest and its contents to the danger of destruction or else stay and fight, and perhaps be destroyed. But by carrying her egg within her body the mother mammal is able to move about from place to place and protect her baby.

Is Man an Animal?

Men, women and children belong to the “mammal” class of animals. The offspring of the human family is the most helpless of all animals at birth. The young of most kinds of mammals can stand on their legs shortly after being born, but the human baby requires months before it can stand up. A baby horse can also walk within a few hours, but human children do not begin to walk until they are more than a year old.

Why Cannot Babies Walk as Soon as Born?

The human baby has a great many more things to learn than a horse baby before it is safe for him to go about alone. It takes time for the brain to develop, and if a baby could walk before the brain had even partially developed it would only get into trouble.

This, then, is what we have learned about the reproduction of life and the reasons for its being different in different classes of life. First, we had the division of organic life into the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Life in the vegetable kingdom has none of the five senses, for plants cannot see, hear, feel, smell or taste. They cannot move from place to place, but remain where they grow until destroyed or removed. On the other hand, all animal life has at least one of the five senses—feeling. The oysters and clams belong to this class. Starting with this level of life in the animal kingdom we find that as we go on up through the different classes we find each class able to do things which make it superior to the class below it, until we reach the human mammal, who can do most of all. And, further, that since each class as we go up in the scale of life has greater ability to do things than the class beneath it, so in each case the task of the parents in preparing their offspring for their kind of life becomes greater, and the period during which the offspring is learning becomes longer and longer until we reach the human family, in which we find that parents have the greatest responsibility, and the children are the most helpless of all animals, but that in the final result man has a right, on account of his superior qualities, to be the ruler of the other creatures of the world.

What Are Ball Bearings?

Some years ago a gentleman in trying to find some way to reduce the friction, which is constantly developed to a certain extent, even when the axle is oiled, discovered that if between the axle and the inside of the hub a circle of steel balls were arranged, so that the hub of the wheel did not touch the axle at all, but rested on the little balls which in their turn touched the axle, that a great deal of the friction was eliminated. This proved to be a wonderful invention, and when this combination is arranged and oiled, there is hardly any friction.