CANNON

For the composition of these implements of destruction, see Bronze . CANVASS ( Canevas , Fr.; Segeltuch , Germ.) It has been found that sails of ships made with the selvages and seams of the canva running down parallel to their edges, are very apt to bag, and become torn in the middle, from the strain to which they are subjected by the pre ure of the wind. To obviate this inconvenience, a mode of making sails, with the seams and selvages running diagonally, was proposed by Admiral Brooking, and a patent granted to him for the same on 4th of September, 1828. The invention of Me rs. Ramsay and Orr, which we are about to describe, has a similar object, viz., that of giving additional strength to sails by a peculiar manner of weaving the canva of which they are made. The improvement proposed under their patent of March, 1830, consists in weaving the canva with diagonal threads; that is, placing the weft yarn, or shoot, in weaving, at an oblique angle to the warp yarns, instead of making the decu ation of the warp, or weft threads, or yarns, at right angles to each other, as in the ordinary mode of weaving. To accomplish this object the loom must be peculiarly constructed; that is, its warp and work beams must stand at an oblique angle with the sides of the loom, and the batten and slay must be hung in a peculiar manner, in order to beat up the weft, or shoot, in lines ranging diagonally with the warp. No drawing is shown of the method by which this arrangement of the loom is to be made, but it is presumed that any weaver would know how to accomplish it: the invention consisting solely in producing sail cloth with the threads, or yarns, of the weft ranging diagonally at any desired angle with the direction of the warp thread.