396 /Appendix. 
useful. It was pronounced to be rotten, and what is technically call- 
ed ‘fuzzy,’ and to be unfit even for those operations which are pre- 
paratory to its being spun into yarn. After being left, however, dur- 
ing two or three days, in a room without fire, a great change had taken 
place in its appearance, and it was found on trial to be as capable of 
being spun into perfect yarn, as cotton employed in the ordinary man- 
ner. On an accurate trial of the twist which had been spun from it, 
ahank supported fully an equal weight with a hank of the same fine- 
ness spun from cotton fresh from the bag. ‘This fact, established by 
repeated experiment, proves that with the recovery of its hygrome- 
trical moisture, cotton, which has been heated, regains its tenacity, 
and becomes as fit as ever for being applied to manufacturing pur- 
8. : 
Articles of cotton, silk, and wool, after being manufactured, both 
separately and in a mixed state, into piece goods, for clothing, were 
next submitted’ to the same treatment. Among them were several 
fabries, which were purposely chosen, of the most fugitive colors and 
delicate textures. After being exposed three hours to a temperature 
of 180°, and then left a few hours in a room without fire, they were 
pronounced, by an excellent judge of the articles who furnished the 
specimens, to be peffectly uninjured in every respect. Furs and 
feathers, similarly heated, underwent no change; and there can be 
no doubt that if the apparatus had enabled me conveniently to have : 
raised steam of increased density, a temperature above 212° Fah- 
renheit would have done no injury to the delicate and costly articles 
submitted to it.* prrsesi 
II. The most important point to be ascertained, and that on which 
the utility of the inquiry hinges, is whether a temperature below 212° 
oeoiatle is capable of destroying the contagion of fomites. The 
investigation is one of great nicety, and involves considerable difii- 
culties. It was entirely out of my power to try the agency of heat 
on those contagions which propagate the formidable diseases of cho- 
lera, plague, scarlatina, typhus, &c. The only way, in which I could 
arrive at an analogical inference respecting the decomposing power 
of heat over such contagions, was by determining its effect on some 
me ee 
* I have since found that most of those fabrics may be raised to 
renheit, without injury to their texture. Some delicate colors, however 
temperature; but the ink is not defaced, as it is by the disinfecting agents ap 
to letters, which reach this country from infected places abroad, and whic 
scarcely legible, 
