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If, in the manufacture of any texible fabric, any hair or wool 

 of an inferior chai'acter had been employed the microscope readily 

 revealed the fact, so that so-called alpaca lustres, supposed to be 

 made of the hair of the American camels, the alpacas, were shown 

 at times to be made out of goat's hair. People bought woollen 

 fabrics, or so-called woollen fabrics, and wondered why they 

 codded. The simple explanation was that some vegetable fibre, 

 of different hygrometic properties from wool, had been mixed with 

 wool in the manufacture. The microscope soon revealed both the 

 nature of the wool and the presence of the woody fibre. The same 

 might be said of the cheap furs with names not belonging to them. 

 Genuine sealslci>i turned out to be rabbit or monkey. The same 

 might be said of other and equally expensive furs. 



He must next say a few words about silk, the production of 

 caterpillars of different kinds, and emitted from special organs 

 called the spinning apparatus. Some caterpillars spun but little, 

 and then only to attach themselves during rest, or moulting, to 

 their food plant ; others spun a small quantity to fix them to a 

 twig when about to change into the chrysalis, but others manu- 

 factured a considerable quantity, and with it constructed the 

 silken cocoon, in which the caterpillar changed to a chrysalis. 

 Although many caterpillars went through this process, the 

 cocoons of only a few were utilised in spinning and weaving the 

 substance called silk. The fibres of which it was composed were 

 cylindrical or somewhat flattened, without markings of any kind, 

 and solid. The silk cylinders were coated with a gum-like varnish, 

 while an analysis showed that silk consisted of fibroine, gelatine, 

 albumen, wax, yellow colouring matter, resinous and fatty matter, 

 the colouring matter being absent in white silk. It would be out 

 oi place to enter into the difi'erent kinds of silk used in 

 manufacture, but all possessed similar absence of markings, hence, 

 the readiness with which the presence or absence of an aduitevation 

 in a textile fabric could be detected. Japanese silk, or rather 

 so-called, largely consisted of jute, and a specimen of a said-to-be 

 pure silk fabric, which, owing to unequal contraction when exposed 

 to moisture, was suspected to be impure, turned out when examined 

 under the microscope, to be composed of one-half vegetable fibre 

 having markings. 



All the manuals gave information how to mount hairs, &c., but 

 the structure of a human hair could be made out by making a 



