A radical departure from the paths traveled by prior inventors was inaugurated about 1859, in adapting the power-loom for weaving tubular fabrics, resulting twenty years later in perfecting a machine in which the warp threads were arranged in circular series and the weft laid in the circular shed by a continuously moving shuttle. Fire-hose and like tubular cloths resulted. Rapid development continued from the middle of the present century, so that nearly every conceivable form of loom, from the light running plain fabric and gingham looms to the heavy structures for weaving canvas and wire cloth, claimed the attention of the inventor; and in this last decade of the century looms are constructed to weave anything that can be woven. Wire, slats, cane, straw, and glass, as well as the light fibres of cotton, wool, or silk, are now easily manipulated on the power-loom and woven into cloths, mattings, baskets, cane-seats for furniture, bottle-covers, and ever so many irregular forms that, in the dormant condition of this industry prior to the nineteenth century, were quite beyond consideration of the most active enthusiast of the art. Wonderful as these achievements have been, the restless ambition of inventive genius remains unsatisfied. Improvements continue—especially in the United States, under the fostering care of a liberal patent system—and attempts are now being made, and with success, to form the power-loom into a thoroughly automatic machine incapable of producing any but the best quality of cloth. Upon the breakage or undue slackening of a warp thread, the loom would continue to weave and produce imperfect fabric until the attendant had pieced the broken end or adjusted the slack thread. Means were devised some years ago to remedy this defect, but with only partial success until near the close of this century. Breakage or failure more often occurred in the weft, however, and though the weft stop-motion successfully detected the fault and stopped the loom, yet much valuable time was lost, and constant attention was needed to supply new filling. Progressive tendencies of the closing years of this decade have sought to meet this difficulty. As a result, means are now provided whereby, on failure or breakage of the weft, the loom discharges its imperfect filling from the shuttle, supplies itself with a new weft from the hopper, places it in the shuttle, and continues to weave. Such a loom provided with a warp stop-motion is almost incapable of producing imperfect cloth, and so long as the warps remain intact and the hopper is kept supplied with weft-bobbins, it will continue to weave. In fact, in many mills of the New England States these looms are now left to run during the dinner hour without an attendant, and no imperfect cloth is produced.