HAIRS, FEATHERS, AND SCALES. 13 



seat in her most august assembly, depends on it. The 

 hat on your head, the coat on your back, the flannel 

 waistcoat that shields your chest, the double hose that 

 comfort your ancles, the carpet under your feet, and 

 hundreds of other necessaries of life, are what they 

 are, because mammalian hairs are covered with sheathing 

 scales. 



It is owing to this structure that those hairs which pos- 

 sess it in an appreciable degree are endowed with the 

 property of felting ; that is, of being, especially under the 

 combined action of heat, moisture, motion, and pressure, 

 so interlaced and entangled as to become inseparable ; and 

 of gradually forming a dense and cloth-like texture. The 

 "body" or substance of the best sort of men's hats is 

 made of lamb's wool and rabbit's fur, not interwoven, but 

 simply beaten, pressed, and worked together, between 

 damp cloths. The same property enables woven woollen 

 tissues to become close and thick ; every one knows that 

 worsted stockings shrink in their dimensions, but become 

 much thicker and firmer, after they have been worn and 

 washed a little; and the "stout broad-cloth," which has 

 been the characteristic covering of Englishmen for ages, 

 would be but a poor, open, flimsy texture, but for the inti- 

 mate union of the felted wool fibres, which accrues from 

 the various processes to which the fabric has been sub- 

 jected. 



In a commercial view, the excellence of wool is tested 

 by the closeness of its imbrications. When first the wool- 

 fibre was submitted to microscopical examination, the ex- 

 periment was made on a specimen of Merino ; it presented 

 2,400 little teeth in an inch. Then a fibre of Saxon wool, 

 finer than the former, and known to possess a superior 

 felting power, was tried : there were 2,720 teeth in an 

 inch. Next a specimen of South-Down wool, acknowledged 

 to be inferior to either of the former, was examined, and 

 gave 2,080 teeth. Finally, the Leicester wool, whose 



