About the middle of the eighteenth century the drop box was invented. This consists of a receptacle for shuttles carrying different colors of thread which may be selected in a definite order and thrown back and forth so as to vary the pattern of the cloth. In present looms a special machine is provided for taking the threads from the bobbins or cops and laying them in an even sheet to form the warp of the loom. These are wound on a beam and the machine is known as a _beam warper_. As the threads are apt to be somewhat fuzzy it is necessary to size them, and a machine known as a _slasher_ is employed for this purpose. This machine coats each thread of warp yarn with a sizing compound or an adhesive and dries the sheet of warp preparatory to its use in the loom. In common weaving the weft or filling threads run alternately under and over the warp threads with perfect regularity. A pattern can be formed by passing the weft threads under and over alternate groups of warp threads, and this is effected in the ordinary loom by threading the weft in groups through the heddles, _i. e._, instead of having every second thread pass through one heddle and the intervening threads through the other heddle; the threads are arranged in alternate groups of two or more. This gives a regular pattern, but it may be varied to form ornamental designs if the groups are varied. Such designs used to be worked out by hand very slowly and laboriously, with the result that figured weaving was very expensive. THE JACQUARD LOOM At the French Exposition of 1801 a loom was exhibited that made a sensation. With seemingly human intelligence it selected individual warp threads or groups of threads and raised them or lowered them so as to work out elaborate ornamental designs. The inventor, Joseph Marie Jacquard, of Lyons, received a medal for his marvelous invention and was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor.