Journal of 



Applied Microscopy. 



Volume II. MARCH, 1899. Number 3 



The Conditioning of Wool and Other Fibers in the Techno- 

 logical Laboratories of the Philadelphia 

 Commercial Museum. 



Competition and the tremendous industrial development of the present 

 century have injected into commerce a new element which may be designated 

 as the element of exactitude. 



Time was when the span of the hand, the length of the arm, or the length 

 and weight of the barley-corn were considered sufficiently uniform to serve as 

 standards for all ordinary purposes of weight and measure. All this has changed, 

 and absolute accuracy has been substituted for absolute inaccuracy. As alchemy 

 and astrology, shadowy, mysterious, superstitious, and nearly meaningless, have 

 given place to chemistry and astronomy, delinite, certain, and based on known 

 laws, so nearly every kind of industrial and commercial activity has been 

 gradually developing along lines of greater and greater accuracy of workmanship, 

 methods, and knowledge. The supplanting of the " rule of thumb " by methods 

 and instruments of precision has been one of the remarkable features of the 

 present era, and so important a bearing does accuracy have upon the success of 

 an enterprise that a knowledge of the methods and means of obtaining exact 

 information- is now considered one' of the prerequisites to the investing of capital. 



The buying and selling of wool, however, is still done almost entirely by the 

 rule of thumb, but this bids fair to give place to the more accurate method known 

 as " conditioning," i. e., the application of instruments and processes of precision 

 to determine the physical condition of the wools, as for instance, the average 

 diameter of the fiber, the average length of the staple, the strength, elasticity, and 

 probable age, the amount of dirt, grease, potash, and moisture, the breed of the 

 wool, adulterants, etc. 



An idea of the importance of the subject may be gained from the following 

 report of a test, quoted from the records of the Philadelphia Museum's wool- 

 conditioning laboratory : 



Sample No. 10()5, submitted by contained: 



Moisture, . . . . I0.()(j per cent. 



Grease and Dirt, - - - 43.08 " 

 Available Wool Fiber, - - 4G.91 " 

 This means that 10(» pounds of "wool" contained only 4(3.01 pounds of wool. 



(289) 



