DIAPER

is the name of a kind of cloth, used chiefly for table linen. It is known among the French by the name of toile fourré , and is ornamented with the most extensive figures of any kind of tweeled cloth, excepting damask. The mounting of a loom for working diaper is, in principle, much the same as a draw-loom, but the figures being le extensive, the mounting is more simple, and is wrought entirely by the weaver, without the aid of any other person. As tweeled cloths, of any number of leaves, are only interwoven at those intervals when one of the leaves is raised, the woof above, and the warp below, is kept floating or flushed, until the intersection takes place. Of consequence, the floating yarn above, appears acro the fabric, and that below longitudinally. This property of tweeled cloths is applied to form the ornamental figures of all kinds of tweeled goods, merely by reversing the floating yarn when nece ary. In the simpler patterns, this is effected by a few additional leaves of treddles; but when the range of pattern becomes too great to render this convenient, an apparatus called a back harne is employed, and the cloth woven with this mounting is called diaper. Diapers are generally five-leaf tweels, that is to say, every warp floats under four threads of woof, and is raised, and of course interwoven with the fifth. This is done either succe ively, forming diagonals at 45° upon the cloth, or by intervals of two threads, which is called the broken tweel. The latter is generally, if not universally adopted in the manufacture of diaper. The reason of preferring the broken to the regular tweel, where ornaments are to be formed, is very obvious. The whole depending upon reversed flushing to give the appearance of oblique or diagonal lines, through either, would destroy much of the effect, and materially injure the beauty of the fabric. The broken tweel, on the contrary, restores to the tweeled cloth a great similarity of appearance to plain, or alternately interwoven fabrics, and, at the same time, preserves the facility of producing ornaments by reversing the flushing. The simplest kinds of reversed tweels will be found described under Textile Fabrics .