The conveying of the sliver (pronounced with a long or short i) into the can is in itself an exceedingly ingenious operation, although a very simple one. The device is attached directly to the card, and is called a coiler. The sliver passes into it from the funnel. The hole from which the sliver emerges is off the center of a steel plate which revolves slowly, so that the sliver, as it comes out, has an eccentric motion which causes it to fall into the can in regular coils. Tangling is thus prevented, and ease of handling secured. Combing Necessary in Spinning Fine "Counts" Combing is necessary in the preparation of cotton for the spinning of fine "counts" or coarser yarns where great smoothness and regularity are desired. They are now quite extensively used in the United States, and it is significant of the trend of the industry here that the number is rapidly growing. The first cotton comber was invented by a Frenchman of Alsace named Heilmann. The patent was issued in 1845. Now there are on the market other machines, both English and American, similar in principle but improved in many ways. [Illustration: _Revolving flat cards_] The first of these preliminary processes is that which is done by the sliver-lapper. The slivers from 14 to 20 cans are drawn along side-by-side, passing between three pairs of drawing rollers which will be described later. From the drawing rollers the slivers now reduced in size, pass between two pairs of calendar rollers from which they emerge, not as a sliver, of course, but once more as a lap about a foot wide. These laps are usually passed to a ribbon lapper, where six of them are placed end-to-end, and unrolled simultaneously, passed between four pairs of drawing rollers, and then superimposed, one upon the other, and, calendered once more, issued as a lap a little less than a foot wide. This process may be repeated as many times as the quality of the yarn desired may require, for each drawing process served to straighten the fibers and so to render the thread more even and capable of finer spinning. Combing is exactly what its name implies. The lap is actually raked by a fine-tooth comb with needle-like teeth of steel ranging from 16 to 90 per inch. This involves breaking the lap again and the intricacy of the comber rests in the mechanism which it employs for joining the separated ends. [Illustration: _Cross-section diagram of revolving flat card_]