FLOUR 461 



FLOOR-CLOTH MANUFACTURE has become of late years a very large 

 branch of trade. The cloth is a strong somewhat open canvas, woven of flax with a 

 little hemp, and from 6 to 8 yards wide, being manufactured in appropriate looms, 

 chiefly at Dundee. A piece of this canvas, from 60 to 100 feet in length, is secured 

 tight in an upright open frame of oaken bars, in which position it is brushed over 

 with glue size, and rubbed smooth with pumice-stones ; it next receives the founda- 

 tion-coats of paint, two or three in number, first on the back side, and then on the 

 front. The foundation-paint, made with linseed oil and ochre, or any cheap colouring 

 matter, is too thick to be applied by the brush, and is therefore spread evenly by a long 

 narrow trowel, held in the right hand, from a patch of it laid on just before with a 

 brush in the left hand of the workman. Each foundation-coat of the front surface is 

 smoothed by pumice-stone whenever it is hard enough to bear the operation. "When 

 both sides are dry, the painted cloth is detached from the frame, coiled round a roller, 

 and in this state transferred to the printing room, where it is spread flat on a table, 

 and variously figured and coloured devices are given to it by wooden blocks, exactly 

 .as in the block printing of calicoes or papers. The blocks of the floor-cloth manufac- 

 ture are formed of two layers of white deal and one of pear-tree timber, placed with 

 their grain crossing one another alternately. There is a block for each colour in the 

 pattern, and in each block those parts are cut away that correspond to the impressions 

 given by the others ; a practice now well understood in the printing of two or more 

 colours by the press. The faces of the blocks are so indented with fine lines, that they 

 do not take up the paint in a heavy daub from the flat cushion on which it is spread 

 with a brush, but in minute dots, so as to lay on the paint (somewhat thicker than that 

 of the house painter) in a congeries of little dots or teeth, with minute interstices be- 

 tween. Applied in this way, the various pigments lie more evenly, are more sightly, 

 and dry much sooner than if the prominent part of the block which takes up the colour 

 were a smooth surface. The best kinds of floor-cloth require from two to three months 

 for their production. 



From the use of the sulphate of baryta with the white lead, sometimes to the 

 extent of 75 per cent, of the former, not merely in the foundation-paint, but in the 

 subsequent colours with which the canvas is painted, there is a very general com- 

 plaint that the floor-cloths for halls, &c., where they are necessarily exposed to 

 washing, very soon lose their colours and become bare, the barytes washing out, and, 

 of course, removing at the same time the lead and other colours. 



The same principle in colouring floor-cloth is now applied to paper, and is carried 

 on to a very large extent at Egham under the patent of Mr. Walton. The oil is 

 there first dried or oxidised, then dissolved in naphtha with the colouring ; as the 

 naphtha dries, the paper is ready for use. See OXIDISED OIL ; WHITE LEAD. 



FXiORAXT. A mining term ; tin ore scarcely perceptible in the stone ; tin ore 

 stamped very small. Pryce. 



FIiOS FERRX. Coral-like forms of aragonite, or carbonate of lime, occurring 

 .especially in the iron mines of the Eisenerz in Styria. 



FLOSS, of the puddling furnace, is the fluid glass floating upon the iron produced 

 by the vitrification of the oxides and earths which are present. See IRON. 



FI<OSS-SIZiK (Filoselle, Bourre de soie, Fleuret, Fr.) is the name given to the 

 portions of ravelled silk broken off in the filature of the cocoons, which is carded 

 like cotton or wool, and spun into a soft coarse yarn or thread, for making bands, 

 shawls, socks, and other common silk fabrics. The floss or fleuret, as first obtained, 

 must be steeped in water, and then subjected to pressure, in order to extract the 

 gummy matter which renders it too harsh and short for the spinning wheel. After 

 being dried it is made still more pliant by working a little oil into it with the hands. 

 It is now ready to be submitted to the carding engine, and it is spun upon the flax 

 wheel. 



The female peasants of Lombardy generally wear clothes of homespun floss silk. 

 Of late years, by improved processes, fine fabrics of this material have been produced, 

 both in England and France. M. Ajac, of Lyons, manufactures a variety of scarfs 

 and square shawls of bourre de soie, closely resembling those of cachemire. 



FLOTSAM. See JETSAM. 



FLOUR. The finely-ground meal of wheat, and of any other corns or cerealia. 

 See BREAD, 



Since thte analysis of grain represents the total chemical constituents of the flour, 

 and the cell in which it is contained, a few analyses from the researches of Way and 

 Ogston are given : 



