USES OF THE TEAZLE. 45 



Ion ; the Danes and Swedes, karde tidsel ; the 

 Flemings, harden distel ; the Hollanders, kaarden ; 

 Italy and Portugal, car do ; the Spaniards, car- 

 dencha, &c. 



I believe that the teazle affords a solitary in- 

 stance of a natural production being applied to 

 mechanical purposes in the state in which it is 

 produced *. It appears, from many attempts, that 

 the object designed to be effected by the teazle 

 cannot be supplied by any contrivance successive 

 inventions having been abandoned as defective or 

 injurious. The use of the teazle is to draw out 

 the ends of the wool from the manufactured cloth, 

 so as to bring a regular pile or nap upon the sur- 

 face, free from twistings and knottings, and to 

 comb off the coarse and loose parts of the wool. 

 The head of the true teazle is composed of incor- 

 porated flowers, each separated by a long, rigid, 

 chaffy substance, the terminating point of which is 

 furnished with a fine hook. (See Plate 1, Fig. 4.) 

 Many of these heads are fixed in a frame ; and 

 with this the surface of the cloth is teased, or 

 brushed, until all the ends are drawn out, the loose 

 parts combed off, and the cloth ceases to yield 

 impediments to the free passage of the wheel, or 

 frame, of teazles. Should the hook of the chaff, 

 when in use, become fixed in a knot, or find suffi- 

 cient resistance, it breaks without injuring or con- 



* Equisctum hyemate, the Dutch rush, or shave grass, is yet used 

 in its natural state for finishing fine models in wood, and in remov- 

 ing roughnesses in plaster casts. 



