]54 TRICHOLOGIA MAMMALIUM; 



1st. Hair is, in shape, cylindrical or oval, but wool is eccentrically elliptical or 

 flattened. 



2d. The direction of hair is either straight, flowing or curled; but wool is crisped and 

 frizzled, and sometimes spirally curled. 



3d. Hair issues out of the epidermis at an acute angle ; but wool emerges at a right 

 angle. 



4th. The coloring matter of & perfect hair is contained in a central canal ; but the most 

 perfect wool has no such canal, the coloring matter being disseminated in the cortex, or 

 the cortex and fibres. 



5th. The scales of the cortex of hair are less numerous than those of wool, are less 

 pointed and smoother, and they embrace the shaft more intimately than those of wool, 

 causing wool to felt and full, while hair will not shrink. 



These things surprise, on account of their novelty, but when they are perfectly under- 

 stood, no one will any longer marvel why we say, that "there are two species of Sheep." 

 Let us then, in the first place, examine the subject. 



OF FELTS AND FELTING. The word felt, is from the Saxon "felt," from "fel," the hide 

 or skin of an animal. The fabric is manufactured from wool of Sheep or other animals, 

 the filaments of which are entangled and matted together, so as, without spinning or weav- 

 ing, to form a compact mass. There is no doubt but that felting was practised at a very 

 early day. It is true that the first impulse of uncivilized mind would be, to cover the 

 body with the skins of animals rudely stitched together.* 



"Onto Adam also, and his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Gen., ch. 3, 21. )f 



But it could not have long escaped observation, that the filaments of the woolly covering 

 of some animals, while yet growing upon their bodies, had a tendency to entangle and 

 mat; and this natural felting was, doubtless, imitated by our earliest forefathers, probably 

 long before spinning and weaving were known. 



Travelers tell us of Tartars manufacturing tent-covers and tent-carpets, by spreading 

 two or three layers of wool on the wet ground, and treading them together, making a felt. 

 But they have no idea of 



The Felting Property. Notwithstanding the great antiquity of felting, and the great 

 perfection which it has attained, as a mechanical and manufacturing art, it was not until 

 very recently, comparatively, that the property in the filament of wool, upon which it 

 depends, was known, or even suspected. Experience taught that hair would not felt and 

 that wool would ; and, from the same great teacher, it was learned that among the last 

 mentioned integuments there were various degrees of this matting and mass-making 

 power, it requiring more matting power to felt than to full ; but to explain the cause, or 



* The Stare Indians, occupying the valley of the River MeKinzie, are clothed in rabbit skins tagged together. (U. S. 

 Exploring Expedition.) 



t And see Lucretius, Ixi., v. 1011. 



{ Yet weaving seems to have been known in the time of Job, for he says, " my day's are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." 

 (\iii.6.) 



