Mr. Baines, in his history of the cotton manufacture, gives a figure of an old Hindoo spinning wheel, and it is extremely likely that this very form of machine was the forerunner of the type which later on found its way into Europe. At the beginning of the sixteenth century what was known as the Jersey wheel came into common use. This machine is shown in Fig. 20. Lying to the left hand of the woman in the illustration is a hand card. This consisted of square board with a handle, and was covered by fine wire driven in, so as to make what was really a wire brush. By means of this, the spinner was enabled to prepare her cotton, and she did with it (though not nearly so well) what is done by the Carding Engine of to-day, viz., fully opened out the fibres of cotton ready for spinning. Having taken the cotton from the hand cards, she produced at first a very thick thread which was called a _roving_. This she wound on a spindle, which was afterwards treated again on the wheel a second time, and drawn out still more, and then having the twist put in, it was made much thinner into so-called yarn. Only one thread could by this method be dealt with at a time by one person, but the main operations carried out on the old spinning wheel have their exact reproductions on the mule of to-day, viz.:--Drawing, Twisting and Winding. Image: FIG. 20.--Jersey spinning wheel (after Baines). But still the process of evolution went on, and following quickly on the heels of the Jersey wheel is the Saxony or Leipsic wheel. Here for the first time is seen the combination of spindle, flyer and bobbin. This machine was so arranged that by means of two grooved wheels of different diameters, but both driven by the large wheel similar to the one in the Jersey wheel, and which was operated by the spinner, two speeds were obtained. The bobbin was attached to the smaller, and the spindle, to which was fastened the flyer or "Twister," was driven by the larger of two wheels. In this form of spinning machine, then, there were the following operations performed:-- By the spindle and flyer both revolving at the same velocity, the thread was attenuated and twisted as it was carried to the bobbin. This latter was, as already named, driven by the smaller of the two wheels and had a motion all its own, though much quicker than that of the spindle. In this way a bobbin of yarn was built up, and the Saxony wheel no doubt gave many fruitful ideas to the inventors who appeared later on, and who, by reason of their research and experiment, evolved the fly frames of to-day; this was notably so in the case of Arkwright.