154* INTRODUCTION. 



hair. From the earliest times, wool has been known to possess the pro- 

 perty of felting, and felted cloth is of great antiquity. Pliny observes, 

 that wool of itself, driven into a felt, without spinning or weaving, serves 

 to makes garments ; and that, if vinegar be used in the working, such 

 felts are proof against the edge, or point, of the sword, and are capable 

 of arresting the progress of fire. (Lib. viii.) Mantles and counter- 

 panes of felt were used at Rome.* Now, hair, however long or deli- 

 cate it may be, does not possess the felting quality. In what, then, con- 

 sists this property in the one, and to what is to be attributed its absence 

 in the other ? And here, in justice, reference must be made to Mr. Youatt 

 (see his work on the " Sheep"), to whom the credit is due of demon- 

 strating the true characters of wool, the principles of felting, and the 

 difference between wool and hair. 



Many are the theories upon which philosophers have attempted to 

 account for the felting of wool. The attraction of cohesion ; the elas- 

 ticity of the fibres, bent in every possible direction, and prevented from 

 returning to their original length by the adhesion of other fibres ; the 

 property, which certain hairs and vegetable filaments have, of attaching 

 themselves more and more to each other, in proportion as the fabric into 

 which they are united is beaten, the fibres entangling each other in 

 circlets, and, by their elasticity, striving to return to their original 

 condition : these, and modifications of similar theories, were accepted 

 as a sufficient explanation. M. Monge was the first who ventured to 

 assert that a feathered, or barbed edge, must be the structure of the 

 surface of wool ; that " the surface is formed of lamellae, or little plates, 

 which cover each other from the root to the point, pretty much in the 

 same manner as the scales of a fish cover that animal from head to tail, 

 or like rows placed one over another, as is observed in the structure of 

 horns." On this theory, the truth of which M. Monge assumes, he ex- 

 plains the mechanism of felting, as accurately as though he had actually 

 seen the serrated edge of the wool.f 



covering, at one time, to throw off the influence of the sun's rays, and, at another time, to retain the 

 animal warmth, when the surrounding temperature would otherwise rapidly withdraw it. Hair and 

 wool are bad conductors of caloric, and admirably adapted for both purposes, and they exist in actual 

 and relative quantity according to the altered situation and wants of the animal. Thus, in summer, 

 the fleece of the Arctic Hare is thin, as, I believe, is that of the Argali ; in winter, a fine wool fills 

 up the interstices between the hair, and protects the animal from the inclemency of the weather. 

 Here is an admirable provision for the wants of animals generally ; but we should stop short of the 

 exact adaptation of the fleeces to these wants, if we did not remark how necessary it is that the wool, 

 so indispensable to the retention of the warmth of the animal, should be protected by a coat of long, 

 smooth hair. Just imagine the Argali, or the Hare; or, to instance animals of the carnivorous genus, 

 the Sable, or Polecat, clothed with wool only, and what a miserable plight the poor animal would soon 

 be in ! The fleece would prove a constant impediment to its movements among underwood, if, indeed, 

 it were not entirely stripped off the back of the animal." See Youatt on the "Sheep." p. 57 ; pub- 

 lished by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 



* Strong and thick felted covering, dyed with a pattern of various colours, has been found on 

 the body of a mummy from Thebes. 



t " The workman," he says, "presses the mass with his hands, moving them backward and 



