WOOL.

83

the worsted and woollen trades. Halifax began to be specially noted forkerseys. From about this date, these trades finding so much water availablenot only for power, but also for washing, dyeing, scouring, fulling, and allother purposes, the Yorkshire manufacturers and traders were enabled toundersell those of other places. In the West Riding there are upwards of5000 mills and dye works.”

Wool, in the more restricted sense, and excluding such fibres as mohair,alpaca, vicuna, and cashmere, is obtained only from sheep. There are twochief species of sheep, viz., the mountain or highland sheep and the lowlandsheep. The native sheep of Germany and Spain, the merino sheep, and theelectoral sheep introduced into Saxony from Spain about 1765—called electoral,because one of the Electors of Saxony was the importer—belong to the firstvariety; to the second belong the sheep found in the lowlands of WesternEurope and the Russian Steppes, and in this country. The species are furtherdivided, and named according to the county in which they are reared ; thus,we have Southdown, Leicester, Cotswold, &c. Wool derived from sheep bredand fed for producing meat is inferior in quality and quantity to that of sheepleft to follow their natural instinctive selection of food.

Woollen fibre differs in many respeCts from that of cotton. Its qualityvaries not only with the kind or species of sheep from which it has beenderived, but also with the part of the body of the animal from which it hasbeen taken. The best wool is that from the shoulders, the lower part of theneck, the back, and sides. The length of the fibre varies from 40 to 180 m.m.;the thickness from 5 * s to of a m.m. When seen under the microscope witha magnifying power of 300 to 400 diameters, woollen fibres appear as a hollowcylindrical tube with rings or projections in regular order, which in arrangementhave been compared to the scales of a fish, and these scales are, in faCt, theplates of the epithelium. Several of the peculiar properties of wool areattributable to the scaled plates of the epithelium, such as the felting of wool,the harshness felt by the fingers or lips when a fibre of wool is drawn in onedirection but not in the opposite, a property exhibited more strongly by hairsthan by wool. In working woollen cloths, they are, as is well known, liable to“run up ” or contract in certain dimensions, becoming thicker at the sametime. This action is produced purposely in fulling, accidentally by tooroughly handling woollen goods in washing and drying, and is attributableto the construction of the wool fibre, which may be regarded as an arrow ora fish-hook easily moved in one direction, but not capable of returning.

Once a year the wool is shorn from the sheep and washed. By the washingthe wool loses 20 to 70 per cent of its weight. The weight of wool thusshorn off varies from 3 to 12 lbs. per head of sheep. We may here againquote from the Commissioners’ Report on the Pollution of Rivers. “ Theobject of the washing is to remove ordinary dirt and the natural grease, aswell as that which has been applied to the fleece, and to open the wool tothe action of the dye. The wool is immersed in a copper filled with stalehuman urine, diluted with water, and heated by steam. In this bath itremains for a time varying from half an hour to two hours, when it is laidupon a grating placed over the copper to drain, and then removed to anothervessel to be washed with cold water. The action of stale urine probablydepends upon the presence of free ammonia or its carbonate. Pig’s dung is