STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF WOOL. 



29 



ceive without the slightest trouble, from the tendency 

 it sometimes has to unravel at the apex ; and again, by 

 drawing a hair through the fingers from point to root, 

 when we feel a roughness occasioned by projecting 

 filaments, which only proceed a certain distance up the 

 trunk, the longest being most internal. 



PI. V. Fig. 5, e, exhibits those points in a hair con- 

 siderably magnified. 



These projections, or serrations, which vary in number 

 in different specimens of wool, are what it depends on 

 for its felting properties. They are sharper and more 

 numerous in felting wools than in others, and the better 

 the felting properties of the wool, the more numerous 

 tlie curls ; because what induces curling on the animaFs 

 back leads to felting in the hands of the manufacturer. 

 In felting, these projections catch one upon another, and 

 occasion the hair to move in one direction, which is 

 invariably root foremost, as we perceive on giving it a 

 twirling motion between the finger and thumb ; and it 

 is only by the union of curve and serration, that felting 

 can be accomplished certainly and perfectly. 



Woolly fibre consists of a semitransparent stem, or 

 stalk, supposed to be hollow, as represented at Fig*. 4, PI. 

 V. and is partly distinguished from hair by the latter 

 being opaque. Next to soundness, there are few qualities 

 deserving of so much attention as softness, of which the 

 ancient w riters make frequent mention, and for the pre val- 

 ence of which in our present wools fashion has done not a 

 little. It is a quality that tends, in a material degree, to 

 the cheap and easy working of the cloth, and, as such, is 

 said to render wool 25 per cent, more valuable to the 

 manufacturer than a harsh and brittle pile. It apparently 



