Invention of a Flax Spinning Machine by Mr. Hofer of Meran

Appendix.

New invention:

(From the Flora, published in Munich, 18 August of this year)

The challenge of spinning flax by machine, as is done with cotton, has hitherto been one of the greatest for mechanicians and, despite substantial prizes offered by the governments of England and France, has so far been solved only imperfectly. (It is well known that Napoleon set a prize of one million francs for this purpose.) The principal difficulty lay in the lesser elasticity of flax, which caused the thread to break frequently. Now, however, an outstanding mechanical genius, Mr. Hofer from Meran in Tyrol, has succeeded in inventing a flax-spinning machine that solves this great problem through a most ingenious mechanism, promising to bring about a major transformation and simplification in linen production. Mr. Hofer travelled to Munich and shared his ideas with Mr. Ertl, a mechanician renowned for his own works and for those undertaken on behalf of the untimely deceased v. Reichenbach; Mr. Ertl executed this spinning machine according to the inventor's principles with as much insight as skill and in the most excellent manner, so that a 34-spool machine of the handsomest and most elegant design now stands completed, operated by a single person. Mr. Hofer has received a royal patent for this machine, and will apply for the same in Austria and Prussia. Such machines can now also be manufactured for private domestic use with 4, 6, or 8 spools, according to household needs. The feeding of the flax is achieved by an ingenious mechanism, just as the thickness of the thread depends on the setting given to the wheel. This machine is on display in the house of Police Commissioner Huber on Baierstraße in Munich, and the sight of it will be of particular interest to women as well.