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. [Illustration: CARDING MACHINE] 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. [Illustration: DYEING THE YARN] ~HOW THE YARN FOR CARPETS IS DYED~ 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. [Illustration: HOW A CARPET IS WOVEN BY MACHINERY WEAVING A RUG BY MACHINERY] [Illustration: 10,000,000 YARDS OF CARPET PER YEAR FROM ONE FACTORY This picture shows the plant of one of the largest carpet factories in the United States at Thompsonville, Conn. From the looms of these mills are annually produced ten-million yards of the twenty-five different grades of carpet manufactured by this concern.