69 
Soap of Wool . 
in all times, both the manufacturer and the government 
have sought how to get rid of the above mentioned incon- 
veniences. Fullers earth, pure alkalies, and other things, 
have by turns been made use of. The first performs the 
operations of bleaching and fulling very imperfectly : the 
second dissolve the cloth 5 and the manufacturers of Lo~ 
deve still recollect, with terror, a quack sent there by the 
government, some years ago, who proposed to make use 
of mineral alkali or barilla, instead of soap. 
To the inconveniences already mentioned we may add, 
that instead of rendering the cloth sufficiently soft and 
pliable, the substitutes just spoken of leave it in a degree 
of harshness, which nothing but soap completely removes. 
It is necessary, therefore, that any substance proposed 
to be used, instead of soft soap, should possess the power 
of scouring, of fulling, and of softening, the cloth. The 
composition which I am now about to describe unites all 
these advantages : experiments have, by my desire, been 
made with it, at Lodeve, by M. Michael Fabriguette; a 
person as well versed in philosophical pursuits as in ma- 
nufacturing of cloth. 
The whole process consists in making a caustic alka- 
line ley or lixivium, with wood ashes or potash ; in caus- 
ing the ley to boil ; and then dissolving therein as great a 
quantity of old woollen rags, or shreds of cloth, as the ley 
will dissolve. By this means a kind of soft soap is pro- 
duced, of a greyish-green colour, the ingredients of w hich 
are well combined with each other, and which is very so- 
luble in water. It has an animal smell ; which, however, 
the cloths get rid of, by being washed, and exposed to 
the air. 
The various experiments I have made on this subject 
have been attended with the following results. 
1. As soon as the wool is thrown into the boiling ley, 
its fibres adhere to each other, and a very slight de 
