16 SPANISH WOOL. 



the feel, brilliant and heavy, by yolk, but it did not exhibit 

 this in viscid or indurated masses within, or in a black, pitchy 

 coating without. It opened with a fine, flashing luster, and 

 with a yellowish tinge which deepened toward its outer ends. 



Livingston gives the weight of the unwashed Spanish 

 fleeces at 8i lbs. in the ram and 5 lbs. in the ewe. Youatt 

 places the weight of the ram's fleece half a pound lower. The 

 King of England's flock of Negretti's, about one hundred in 

 number, which were picked sheep and included some wethers 

 (but no rams,) yielded, during five years, an annual average 

 of a little over 3^ lbs. of brook -washed wool per head, and 

 each fleece afterwards lost about a pound in scouring.* 



Youatt measured the diameter of the wool of the various 

 flocks first introduced from Spain into England. I judge 

 from his statements that 1-750 part of an inch may be assumed 

 as about the average diameter or fineness of the good Spanish 

 wool of that period. The same ingenious investigator 

 discovered that conformation of the fibers which causes the 

 felting property. It is produced by "serrations," as he terms 

 them, — tooth-like projections on the wool, all pointiug ki a 

 direction from the root to the point, and so inconceivably 

 minute that 2560 of them occur in the space of an inch of the 

 fiber. They are more numerous in proportion to the fineness 

 of the wool, and on their number, regularity and sharpness 

 depends the perfection of the felting property. In this 

 respect the finest grades of Merino wool exceed all others. 

 The following cuts give the magnified appearance of a fine 

 specimen of Spanish wool, viewed both as an opaque and 

 transparent object. 



These tooth-like processes are still finer on choice speci' 

 mens of Saxon wool; on that of the coarse-wooled varieties 

 of sheep they are comparatively few, blunt and irregular. 



The best flocks of Spain, as already mentioned, were lost 

 to that country during the Peninsular war. In answer to an 

 application for ioformation from T. S. Humrickhouse, Esq., of 



* See Sir Joseph Banks' five atmnal reports, from 1798 to 1802, in respect to 

 this floclc. The number of -wethers is not given by him. 



