MICROSCOPE IN MANUFACTITRES 



the microscope is put, so we will confine ourselves 

 to one or two of the more important and, at the 

 same time, to those which can, for the most part 

 be repeated at home. 



The two most important commodities for man- 

 kind are food and clothing; we cannot live without 

 food and those of us who take but little pride in 

 our appearance, must have clothing of some sort. 

 We have said a little about food in another chapter 

 f and there we have also mentioned the impurities 

 : which find their way, by accident or design, into 

 some of the commoner foods. 



In this chapter we will deal first of all with 

 clothing describing how many of the raw materials 

 may be recognised under the microscope and show- 

 ing very briefly how fraud in connection with the 

 manufacture of wearing apparel is detected. Prac- 

 tically all clothing is made from animal or vegetable 

 fibres, some, however, is made of artificial fibres 

 and these we shall mention. 



The vegetable fibres used in the manufacture of 

 wearing apparel are all either hairs or what are 

 called bast fibres and the latter, in non-scientific 

 language, may be described as the strands which 

 run through the roots and stems of most plants. 

 The chief requirements of vegetable fibres, des- 

 tined to be woven into fabrics, are strength, it is 

 obvious that a weak fibre would be useless; length, 

 the longer the fibre the better and as we shall see 

 later, short fibres are often made up into inferior 

 material; pliability, a stiff fibre would make an 



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