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the wool-bearing fort, among the Ruffians and other 

 northern nations, where the ikins of fheep, with the 

 fleece on, are ufed for clothing, as they are found 

 to be much more durable. There are, however, a 

 great many varieties among the breeds of fheep in 

 this country, which are mongrels between this clafs 

 and the former. Here, however, as in mod cafes 

 where accurate diftinftions are wanted, although it 

 feems eafy at firfl fight to diflinguifli wool from hair 

 by the crifpinefs of the former, in confequence of 

 which, it flirinks in length fo as to require to be 

 flretched out before it can be accurately meafured, 

 which is not the cafe with hair in general, yet this is 

 found to afford a rule too vague for accurate difcri- 

 -mination. The following charafteriflicks may, I 

 think, be fufficiently accurate to be relied on. 



I/?. Wool, like the body hair of mofl: animals, 

 is an annual produftion, fpringing from the fkin of 

 an animal. It confiils of a great number of diftindl: 

 filaments that grow more or lefs clofe to one another 

 in different breeds, but which fpring out of the 

 fkin about the fame time, like corn from a cultivated 

 field J advance nearly with an equal rapidity, till 

 they have attained their full perfection of growth, 

 when they loofen from the fkin nearly at the fame 

 period, (when a new crop fprings up below) and 

 fall off in large parcels all at once, fo as to leave the 

 body, at one period, nearly bare, or covered only 

 with a ihort coat of wool. Hairs, on the other 



handy 



