English: Chapter III.-FEATHERBONE MANUFACTURE.
THAT the practical reader may arrive at a better understanding of the peculiar advantages of FEATHERBONE, a simple description of the various stages of manufacture will not be amiss.
Close beside the feather-bins are compact little machines, circular shears, in fact, that cut the plumage, clean and close, from the ivory - like spine. Then comes the splitting machine, an ingenious affair, which neatly divides the quill through its centre, exposing the pith. The latter is expelled from the half-quill by a pair of rollers sheathed with sand-paper? the resultant dust being drawn by a suction-shaft into bins from which it is sold as fertilizer. Then the split and sand-papered quill goes to the fibre machine. Cylinders and segments of interlocking metallic plates, forming a compound shear or cutter, neatly divide the quill into fine strips of equal size, the length of the quill ; the product averaging eight inches.
Thus far, the work has been in the hands of boys and girls. The balance of the labor is done by girls only. Scores of young women feed the light elastic material from the baskets into the bugle-like throats of numerous noisy little machines, in endless supply, the fibres overlapping constantly. You may test the difficulty of breaking one of these tough little fibres. It has almost incredible elasticity. Now test the small cable, not larger than the stem of a rose, which emerges from the machine carefully wound with strong Sea-Island cotton thread. You will find it absolutely unbreakable. These busy machines fill the reels above