92 WOOL AND WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE. 



wool is dyed before being spun — in this respect again differing from the 

 worsted or cotton manufacture, for cotton and combed wool are never 

 dyed before being spun. 



In closing this very brief account of the stages of woollen manu- 

 acture, I may add that recently improvements have been made in the 

 preparation of both woollen and worsted yarn. For instance, in the 

 former, one machine now feeds the other ; and scoured wool passes 

 through every stage short of being spun, without it being necessary for 

 a human hand to touch. The fulling stocks are likewise supplanted 

 in many mills by a fulling machine, which does the work in a shorter 

 time, and requires less soap. 



In the preparation of worsted, the disagreeable and tedious process 

 of hand-combing is superseded by a most exquisite machine, in which 

 the movement of the wooden hands, as they draw the wool through the 

 heated steel combs, and then place it upon a revolving wheel, is as nearly 

 copied from a human action as it is possible. 



Three forms under which wool appears in manufactured goods still 

 remain to be described, these three are known as mungo, shoddy, and 

 extract; the former is obtained by tearing up old woollen garments in a 

 machine called the " Devil," and a most formidable looking machine it 

 is with its array of iron teeth, the wheel upon which they bristle making 

 about 600 revolutions in the minute. Shoddy is the result of a similar 

 process exercised upon old worsted stockings, blankets, &c. No less 

 than forty millions of pounds of mungo and shoddy are made annually 

 in Yorkshire, the value of which is 800,000Z. sterling, and yet this 

 branch of manufacture only dates back about fifty years. 



The third article reproduced from old material is known as extract ; 

 it consists of the wool obtained from goods having a cotton or linen 

 warp or mixture, the cotton is destroyed by chemical agency leaving the 

 wool intact. Neither shoddy, mungo, nor extract are used for making 

 new fabrics alone, they are mixed with a varying per-centage of new 

 wool. 



Several qualities of wool are usually mixed together and form 

 blends from which yarns are spun, both fleece wool — i.e. that shorn from 

 the live sheep and skin wool — i.e. that obtained from the skins of such 

 as are slaughtered are used, the per-centage of the latter and of inferior 

 wools being reduced in spinning the better qualities of worsted yarn. 



The threads which extend the long way of any woven material are 

 called the warp, those which pass across the width of the article are the 

 weft. In the process of weaving there is much greater strain upon the 

 warp than upon the weft threads, and, therefore, the former are more 

 twisted in spinning, and indeed are altogether stronger than the latter. 

 A most striking instance of this difference is displayed in the manu- 

 facture of blankets — the warp threads used are spun, but the weft 

 threads are not spun — they are not carried beyond the stage of slubbing, 



