CONTRIVANCES TO SUPERSEDE RETTING. 157 



bark of the hemp is the portion which furnishes the 

 tissue ; it is composed of an infinity of longitudinal 

 fibres, lying one over the other, and joined together not 

 only by the force of adhesion proper to vegetable tissue, 

 but still more strongly by a sort of gummy substance, 

 which unites it to the woody part. ]NTo mechanism what- 

 ever can clear the rind from this substance, and still less 

 the woody stem, which also contains it. I have tried 

 several of the methods that have been proposed ; and I 

 have found that unmacerated hemp contains, first, a more 

 flaccid wooden stem, which does not break in the same 

 way as in hemp which has undergone the operation, and 

 which is consequently more difficult to separate from the 

 tissue ; and, secondly, a denser kind of bark, adhering 

 more closely to the woody part. The hemp breaks off 

 during the processes of preparation, resists the action of 

 the seran, or comb, and never acquires the softness and 

 fineness necessary to make it into thread. Maceration 

 is the only process capable of dissolving and decomposing 

 this substance, and of giving to the tissue the flexibility, 

 brilliancy, and disposition to subdivide to the greatest 

 possible extreme, according to the nature of the fibres. 

 This operation appears to act in two ways, by fermenta- 

 tion, and by solution. By the first, the gummy-resinous 

 substance is decomposed, and loses its tenacity ; by the 

 second, it remains dissolved in the water, and is lost. 

 Chemical processes are the only ones capable of obtain- 

 ing from unmacerated hemp fibre of fine and supple 

 quality. But it should be remembered that these 

 processes, obtain such a result only as far as they are 

 exactly equivalent to the maceration for which they are 

 substituted. The gummy substance remaining in the 

 rind prepared by the different machines that have been 

 invented, is dissolved in the chemical apparatus, and the 

 hemp which is the produce experiences the same 

 effects as it would have done from maceration before it 

 was bruised. The only difference in the two cases con- 

 sists in the greater loss which must necessarily occur in 

 the second instance ; because all the operations per- 



