In the former specification, the patentees state that their improvements are applicable to what were then known as Johnson’s vertical power-looms, in which the warps were extended vertically from the warp-beam at the bottom to the cloth-roller at the top of the loom; and the reed, which served as the shuttle-race during the flight of the shuttle through the warp-shed, moved in a vertical plane when beating up the weft. These vertical looms were made double, to permit of two pieces of cloth being woven in them at the same time; but they had evidently been discarded, and were not then in use amongst manufacturers. The looms made according to Reid and Johnson’s specification were so very different from Johnson’s looms as to have very little in common with them excepting that they also were vertical power-looms in which the warps extended vertically. The specification states that the “great object” of their improvements is to enable =four= webs or pieces of cloth to be woven simultaneously and at one operation in the same loom, with only one slay which has a vertical motion, and also that the warps for the four webs are to be wound on two separate warp-beams. After describing in minute detail the construction of the improved loom, the patentees proceed to describe their invention of a device for the =automatic supply of weft to their looms whilst these continue running=. This part of their invention is introduced as if it were quite incidental and of little consequence, and is described as the “accessories and new improvements” which they apply to their vertical power-looms, as follows:--
“In order to avoid stopping the motion of the loom when any one of the =four= weft threads break, twice or three times as many shuttles as are required for constant use are to be lodged in suitable receptacles or shuttle boxes, which are so arranged that the =breaking of a weft thread will cause a change of shuttles, and a substitution of spare shuttles, which have been provided and placed in the said receptacles ready for such changing=; for instance, the breaking or failure of a weft thread from either of the two shuttles, which work on the same reed as one pair, will cause the pair to be removed, and a pair of spare shuttles to be brought into their place instantaneously, without any act of the person who attends the loom, and who will therefore have no occasion to stop the motion thereof when a weft thread breaks or runs off, but will only have to take care to keep the loom at all times provided with a sufficient number of spare shuttles ready filled and inserted into their proper places in the receptacles, leaving it to the machinery of the loom to remove those shuttles which have been working, and to substitute others the instant that a change becomes necessary in consequence of the breakage or failure of weft thread. But if, by neglect of the attendant, the loom is not so provided with a pair of spare shuttles ready filled and placed in preparation for changing as aforesaid by the machinery on the breakage or failure of any weft thread, then the loom will stop its own motion, wherefore the weaving cannot be continued unless all the four webs have their several wefts duly inserted in a proper manner for working cloth.” From this description it is of interest to note that what probably constituted the first automatic loom was of the shuttle-changing type, to which nearly all subsequent inventors in this particular field have chiefly devoted their attention.