RIBBON-FISHES(fTrachyplemdaef a family of marine fishes readily recognized by their long, compressed tapelike body, short head, narrow mouth, and feeble dentition. A high dorsal fin occupies the whole length of the back; an anal is absent, and the caudal, if present, deviates in its direction from the longitudinal axis of the body. The pectoral fins are small, the ventrals composed of several rays, or of one long ray only. Ribbon-fishes possess all the characteristics of fishes living at very great depths. They are extremely fragile when found floating on the surface or thrown ashore, and rarely in an uninjured condition; the rays of their fins especially, and the membrane connecting them, are of a very delicate and brittle structure. In young ribbon-fishes some of the fin-rays are prolonged in an extraordinary degree, and sometimes provided with appendages (see fig. 2). The largest of ribbon-fishes are the species of Regalecus (see Oar-Fish), of which specimens some 20 feet long by 12 inches in depth of body and 2 inches in thickness have been found. Like all deep sea fishes they occur in all seas. The most common of the British seas is the Vagmaer or Deal-Fish lfΓrachypterus arcticus) from 3 to 5 feet long, of which almost every year after the equinoctial gales specimens are picked up on the coasts of North Britain, of the Orkneys, Scandinavia, and Iceland (see also Ichthyology, vol. xii. pp. 684, 691).

RIBBONS. By this name are designated narrow webs, properly of silk, not exceeding nine inches in width, used primarily for binding and tying in connexion with dress, but also now applied for innumerable useful, ornamental, and symbolical purposes. Along with that of tapes, fringes, and other smallwares, the manufacture of ribbons forms a special department of the textile industries. It is obvious that the weaving of very narrow fabrics, piece by piece, on separate looms would be a tedious and expensive process; yet for ages such was the only method of making ribbons. The essential feature of a ribbon loom is the simultaneous weaving in one loom frame of two or more webs, going up to as many as forty narrow fabrics in modern looms. To effect the conjoined throwing of all the shuttles and the various other movements of the loom the automatic action of the power-loom is necessary; and it is a remarkable fact that the self-acting ribbon loom was known and extensively used more than a century before the famous invention of Cartwright. A loom in which several narrow webs could be woven at one time is mentioned as having been working in Dantzic towards the end of the 16th century. Similar looms were at work in Leyden in 1620, where their use gave rise to so much discontent and rioting on the part of the weavers that the states general had to prohibit their use. The prohibition was renewed at various intervals throughout the century, and in the same interval the use of the ribbon loom was interdicted in most of the principal industrial centres of Europe. About 1676, under the name of the Dutch loom or engine loom, it was brought to London; and, although its introduction there caused some disturbance, it does not appear to have been prohibited. In 1745 the celebrated John Kay, ...