w o o 
914 
pound, which being put to them, they must 
stand together for two or three days, often 
stirring the mixture. With this infusion 
strained, and made boiling-hot, brush over 
the wood to be stained till it appears strongly 
coloured ; then, while yet wet, brush it over 
with alum-water made in the proportion of 
two ounces of alum to a quart of water. 
For a less bright red dissolve an ounce of 
dragon’s blood in a pint of spirit of wine, and 
brush over the wood with the tincture till the 
stain appears to be as strong as is desired ; 
but this is, in fact, rather lacquering than stain- 
ing. 
For a pink or rose red, add to a gallon of 
the above infusion of Brazil wood two addi- 
tional ounces of the pearl-ashes, and use it as 
was before directed: but it is necessary, in 
this case, to brush the wood over with alum- 
water. By increasing the proportion of pearl- 
ashes, the red may be rendered yet paler : 
but it is proper, when more than this quantity 
is added, to make the alum-water stronger. 
To 'Stain wood blue. W ood may be stained 
blue by means either of copper or indigo. 
The method of staining blue with copper 
is as follows: Make a solution of copper in 
aqua fortis, and brush it while hot several 
times over the wood ; then make a solution of 
pearl-ashes in the proportion of two ounces 
to a pint of water, and brush it hot over the 
wood stained with the solution of copper, till 
it is of a perfectly blue colour. 
To stain wood green. Dissolve verdigrise 
in vinegar, or crystals of verdigrise in water, 
and with the hot solution brush over the wood 
till it is duly stained. 
To stain zvood purple. Brush the wood 
to be stained several times with a strong de- 
coction of logwood and Brazil, made in the 
proportion of one pound of the logwood, and 
a quarter of a pound of the Brazil, to a gallon 
of water, and boiled for an hour or more. 
When the wood has been brushed over till 
there is a sufficient body of colour, let it dry, 
and then be slightly passed over by a solution 
of one drachm of pearl-ashes in a quart of wa- 
ter. This solution must be carefully used, as 
it will gradually change the colour from a 
brown red, which it will be originally found 
to be, to a dark blue purple, and therefore 
its effect must be restrained to the due point 
for producing the colour desired. 
To stain wood a mahogam/ colour. The 
substances used for staining mahogany colour 
are madder, Brazil wood, and logwood: each 
of which produces reddish brown stains, and 
they must be mixed together in such propor- 
tions as will produce the tint required. 
To stain zvood black. Brush the wood se- 
veral times over with a hot decoction of log- 
wood. Then having prepared an infusion of 
galls by putting a quarter of a pound of pow- 
dered galls to two quarts of water, and set- 
ting them in the sunshine, or any other gentle 
heat, for three or four days, brush the wood 
overthree or four times with it, and it will be 
©f a beautiful black. It may be polished with 
a hard brush and shoemakers’ black wax. 
Wood, fossile : whole trees, or parts of 
them, are very frequently found buried in the 
earth, and that in different strata; sometimes 
in stone, but more usually in earth, but some- 
times in small pieces loose among gravel. See 
Petrifaction. 
WOODCOCK. See the article Scoio- 
*AX. 
11 
Woodcock-shell, in natural history, 
the variegated yellowish purpura, with tuber- 
cles, aud a long beak ; and the thorny wood- 
cock-shell is the yellow long-beaked purpura, 
with long and crooked spines. 
WOODLOUSE. See Oniscus. 
WOODPECKER. See Picus. 
WOOF, among manufacturers, the threads 
which the weavers shoot across with an instru- 
ment called the shuttle. The woof is of dif- 
ferent matter, according to the piece to be 
wrought. In taffety, both woof and warp are 
silk. In mohairs, the wOof is usually wool, 
aud the warp silk. In satins, the warp is 
frequently flax, and the woof silk. 
WOOL, a kind of long, soft, curly hair 
(see the article Hair), which covers the 
skin of several of the ruminating animals, but 
which is particularly cut or shorn from that of 
the sheep, is in such universal use, that we 
should think it must be one of those animal 
substances most accurately known; it is, 
however, within a few years, that chemists 
have occupied themselves with examining it. 
Formerly, they contented themselves with 
considering it as diffusing a disagreeable 
smell when it was burned, and as yielding 
much oil and carbonat of ammonia, by dis- 
tillation. It had been remarked in common 
life, that it did not inflame without great dif- 
ficulty, and that it exhaled a very tetid thick 
smoke, instead of taking a bright flame. I i- 
nally, it was known, that the caustic alkalies 
easily corroded it, and that it quickly received, 
and forcibly retained, the colouring matters 
that were imprinted upon it, so that it deserv- 
ed the first rank amongst the substances to be 
dyed. The extremely numerous uses, to 
which it has been appropriated in a number 
of arts from time immemorial, had brought 
all its useful properties to light ; but chemis- 
try had considered it only under its most ge- 
neral relation with all the animal matters, 
without ascertaining any thing specific in it. 
Berthollet began to occupy himself particu- 
larly with it in 1784 and 1785. .lie has 
shewn that the caustic alkaline leys dissolve 
it entirely, and that the acids precipitate it 
from this solution ; in this combination, he 
has sought the mode of action which the alka- 
lies exert upon animal substances, and he has 
particularly availed himself of it, for explain- 
ing the very remarkable energy which exists 
between these two matters. In this manner 
he has especially accounted for the action of 
the lapis causticus, upon the bodies of ani- 
mals. He has, moreover, shown that the 
coal of wool was difficult to be burned, like 
that of all the animal compounds ; that wool, 
treated by the nitric acid, afforded azotic gas, 
and oxalic acid, with a fatty matter. Chap- 
tal, applying this solution of woo! in the alka- 
lies, to the processes of the manufacture of 
cloth, has represented it as a soap of great 
utility for these manufactures, and very well 
adapted for being substituted instead ot that 
which is fabricated with vegetable oil. Wool 
has, moreover, been considered as a very bad 
conductor of caloric ; and upon this principle 
it has been explained, how, by retaining that 
which exhales from our bodies, it forms the 
warmest clothing, the best adapted for mode- 
rating the severity of the winters. See 
Hair. 
The facts contained in the article to which 
we refer, will explain all the phenomena, and 
, all the properties which wool presents, in the 
frequent and advantageous uses to which it is 
constantly applied. The warmth which it af- 
fords as clothing or covering, its impenetra- 
bility by water, its tine colouration, the dura- 
bility and solidity of its dyes, its destruction 
by the alkalies, the facility -with which grease 
and oils penetrate 'it, the extension of the 
spots which are formed upon it, even the use 
which it has, and the functions which it per- 
forms upon the bodies of those animals which 
are covered with it, and from which we take 
it in order to clothe ourselves ; the adherent 
and fetid oil ; the exudation with which it is 
impregnated upon the bodies of sheep ; the 
manner in which it defends them against the 
rain and the water, which are so hurtful to 
them; its slow combustion; the yellowness 
and loss of tenacity that are produced in it by 
long exposure to the air: in a word, all that 
appertains to its characters, its formation, its 
use, ils so various properties, its destruction,, 
becomes clear and easily conceivable by the 
distinct determination of its nature, and of its 
composition. 
Wool, either in a raw or manufactured 
state, has always been the principal of the- 
staple articles of this country. The price of 
wool was in very early times much higher in 
proportion to the wages of labour, the rent of 
land, and the price of butcher’s meat, than at 
present. It was before the time of Edward 
111. always exported raw, the art of working 
it into cloth and dyeing being so imperfectly 
known, that no persons above the degree of 
working people could go dressed in cloth of 
English manufacture. 
The first steps taken to encourage the 
manufacture of woollen cloths was by Edward 
the Third, who procured some good workmen 
from the Netherlands by means of protection 
and encouragement. The value of wool was 
considered as so essentially solid, that taxes 
were voted in that commodity, reckoning by 
the number of sacks ; and in proportion to 
the price of the necessaries of life and value 
of silver, wool was at least three times dearer 
then than it is now. The manufacturing of 
cloth being once introduced into the country, 
the policy of preventing the exportation of 
the raw’ material was soon evident; and the 
first act, was that of H. IV. c 2., by which, 
the exportation of sheep, lambs, or rams, is 
forbidden under very heavy penalties. 
By stat. 28. Geo. III. all former statutes 
respecting the exportation of w'ool and sheep 
are repealed, and numerous restrictions are 
consolidated in that statute. 
By this act, if any person shall send or re- 
ceive any sheep on board any vessel, to be 
carried out of the kingdom, such vessel shall 
be forfeited, and the person so offending shall 
forfeit 3/. for every sheep, ar.d suffer solitary 
imprisonment for three months. But wether 
sheep, by a licence from the collector of the 
customs, may be taken on board for the use of 
the ship’s company ; and every person who 
shall export any wool, or woollen articles 
slightly made up, so as easily to be reduced 
again to wool, or any fuller’s earth or tobac- 
co-pipe clay, and every carrier, ship-owner, 
commander, mariner, or other person, who 
shall knowingly assist in exporting, or at- 
tempting to export, these articles, shall forfeit 
three shillings for every pound weight, or the 
sum of 50/. in the whole, at the election of 
the prosecutor, and shall also suffer solitary 
imprisonment for three months. But wool 
