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A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibres. Spinning wheels appeared in China, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff. Spinning machinery, such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, displaced the spinning wheel during the Industrial Revolution. ==History== The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from Baghdad (drawn in 1234),〔Image of a spinning wheel in: Al-Hariri, ''Al-Maqamat'' (les Séances). Painted by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, Baghdad, 1237 See: Spinning, History & Gallery () (retrieved March 4, 2013)〕 China (''c.'' 1270) and Europe (''c.'' 1280), and there is evidence that spinning wheels had already come into use in both China and the Islamic world during the eleventh century. According to Irfan Habib, the spinning wheel was introduced into India from Iran in the thirteenth century.〔 In France the spindle and distaff were not displaced until the mid 18th century. The spinning wheel replaced the earlier method of hand spinning with a spindle. The first stage in mechanizing the process was mounting the spindle horizontally so it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The great wheel is an example of this type, where the fibre is held in the left hand and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fibre at a slight angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist.〔Spinning wheel. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 7, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.〕 The spun yarn was then wound onto the spindle by moving it so as to form a right angle with the spindle. This type of wheel, while known in Europe by the 14th century, was not in general use until later. The construction of the Great Wheel made it very good at creating long drawn soft fuzzy wools, but very difficult to create the strong smooth yarns needed to create warp for weaving.〔All Things Medieval by Ruth A Johnson〕 Spinning wheels ultimately did not develop the capability to spin a variety of yarns until the beginning of the 19th century and the mechanization of spinning. In general, the spinning technology was known for a long time before being adopted by the majority of people, thus making it hard to fix dates of the improvements. In 1533, a citizen of Brunswick is said to have added a treadle, by which the spinner could rotate her spindle with one foot and have both hands free to spin. Leonardo da Vinci drew a picture of the flyer, which twists the yarn before winding it onto the spindle. During the 16th century a treadle wheel with flyer was in common use, and gained such names as the Saxony wheel and the flax wheel. It sped up production, as one needn't stop spinning to wind up the yarn. On the eve of the Industrial revolution it took at least five spinners to supply one weaver. Lewis Paul and John Wyatt first worked on the problem in 1738, patenting the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing wool to a more even thickness. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, yarn could be twisted and spun quickly and efficiently. However, they did not have much financial success. In 1771, Richard Arkwright used waterwheels to power looms for the production of cotton cloth, his invention becoming known as the water frame. More modern spinning machines use a mechanical means to rotate the spindle, as well as an automatic method to draw out fibres, and devices to work many spindles together at speeds previously unattainable.〔Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article on spinning.〕 Newer technologies that offer even faster yarn production include friction spinning, an open-end system, and air jets.〔Cotton: Origin, History, Technology, and Production By C. Wayne Smith, Joe Tom Cothren. Page viii. Published 1999. John Wiley and Sons. Technology & Industrial Arts. 864 pages. ISBN 0-471-18045-9〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「spinning wheel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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