250 HAS 
between William the Conqueror, and Harold king of 
England ; for the events of which fee the article Eng¬ 
land, vol. vi. p. 558. 
HA'STJNGS BAY, a bay of the ifland of St. Mat¬ 
thew, in the Archipelago of Mergui, in the Indian fea, 
and territory of Siam. 
HASTJN'GUES, a town of France, in the depart¬ 
ment of the Landes: ten miles fouth of Dax. 
HAS'TY', adj. Ihajlif, Fr. from hajle ; haejlig, Dut. ] 
Quick ; fpeedy ; paflionate ; vehement.—He that is 
flow to-wrath is of great underftanding, but he that is 
hajly of fpirit exalteth folly. Proverbs.— Rafh ; precipi¬ 
tate—Seed thou a man that is hajly in his words ? There 
is more hope of a fool than of him. Proverbs. —Be not 
rafh with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hajly to 
utter any thing before God. Eccl. v. 2.—Early ripe.— 
Beauty fhall be a fading flower, and as the hajly fruit 
before the fummer. Ifaiah. 
HAS'TY PUD'DING, /. A kind of pudding made 
of milk and flour boiled up quick together. 
HAT,/ [base, Sax. hut, Germ.] A cover for the head, 
with a brim, which diflinguifhes it from a cap, ora bonnet. 
—His hat was like a helmet, or Spanifh montero. Bacon. 
Hermes o’er his head in air appear’d, 
And with foft words his drooping fpirits cheer’d ; 
His hat adorn’d with wings difclos’d the god, 
And in his hand he bore the fleep-compelling-rod. Dryd. 
The manufacture of hats is of late years become a great 
objedt of national commerce ; and the improvements 
made therein are confiderable. 
The materials for making hats, are rabbits fur cut 
off from the fkin, together with wool, and beaver ; to 
which have been lately introduced mole fur, and kid 
hair. Thefe are mixed in various proportions, and of 
different qualities, according to the value of the hats in¬ 
tended to be made ; but the beaver is now wholly ufed 
for facing the finer hats, and not for the body or main 
fluff. Experience has fliewn, that the hair or fur can¬ 
not be evenly and well felted together, unlefs all the 
fibres be firfl feparated, or put into the fame flate with 
regard to each other. This is the objedt of the firfl 
procefs of hat-making, and is called bowing. The mate¬ 
rial is laid upon a platform of wood, or of wire, about 
four feetfquare, called a hurdle, which is fixed againft 
the wall of the workfhop and is enlightened by a lmall 
wiridow, and feparated by two fide partitions from other 
hurdles, which occupy the reft of the fpace along the 
wall. The hurdle, if of wood, is made of deal planks, 
not quite three inches wide, difpofed parallel to the 
wall, and at the diftance of one-fortieth of an inch from 
each other, for the purpofe of fuffering the duft, and 
other impurities of the fluff, to pafs through ; a purpofe 
Hill more effectually anfwered by the hurdle of wire. 
The workman is provided with a bow, a bow-pin, a baf- 
ket, and feveral cloths. The bow is a pole of yellow 
deal or afh, about feven feet long, to which are fixed 
two bridges, fomewhat like that which receives the hair 
in the bow of the violin. Over thefe is ftretched a cat¬ 
gut, about one-twelfth of an inch in thicknefs. The 
bow-pin is a flick with a knob, and is ufed for plucking 
the bow-ftring. The bafket is a fquare piece of ozier- 
work, confiding of open flraight bars with no eroding or 
interweaving: its length acrofs the bars two feet, and 
its breadth eighteen inches. The fides into which the 
bars are fixed are (lightly bent into a circular curve, fo 
that the bafket may be let upright on one of thefe edges 
near the right-hand end of the hurdle, where it ufually 
flands. The cloths are linen. Belides thefe imple¬ 
ments, the workman is alfo provided with brown paper. 
The bowing commences by fhovelling the material to¬ 
wards the right-hand partition with the bafket, upon 
which, the workman, holding the bow horizontally in 
his left-hand, and the bovv-pin in his right, lightly places 
the bow-ftiing, and gives it a pluck with the pin. The 
HAS 
firing, in its return, ftrikes upon the fur, and caufes it 
to fpring up in the air, and fly partly acrofs the hurdle 
in a light open form. By repeated ftrokes; the whole is 
thus fubjedted to the bow ; and this beating is repeated 
till all the original clots or maffes of the filaments are 
perfectly opened and dilated, and, having thus fallen to¬ 
gether in all pofiible diredtions, form a thin mafs or fub. 
fiance for the felt. The quantity thus treated at once, 
is called a batt, and never exceeds half the quantity re¬ 
quired to make one hat. 
When the batt is fufficiently bowed, it is ready for 
hardening ; which term denotes the firfl commencement 
of felting. The prepared material, being evenly dif¬ 
pofed on the hurdle, is firfl preffed down by the convex 
fide of tfre-ba-fket, then covered with a cloth, and preffed 
backwards and forwards fucceflively in its various parts, 
by the hands of the workmen. This -preffure brings 
the hairs clofer to each other, and multiplies their points 
of contadl: the agitation of them gives to each hair a 
progreflive motion towards the foot; by means of this 
motion the hairs are twifted together, and the lamella of 
each hair, by fixing themfelves to thofe of other hairs 
which happen to be direffled the contrary way, keep the 
whole in that compadt flate which the preffure makes it 
acquire. See the article Hair, p. 163 of this volume. 
.—Upon this fame difpofition of the hairs in felting, the 
hair-balls, or aegagropila, formed in the ftomachs of 
hairy animals which lick themfelves, are alone to be ac¬ 
counted for. See A 2 gagropila, vol. i. p. 134. In 
proportion as the mafs becomes compadl, the preffure 
of the hands is increafed ; not only to make it more 
clofe, but alfo to keep up the progreflive motion and 
twilling of the hairs, which then takes place with greater 
folidity : butr throughout the whole of this operation, 
the hairs fix themfelves only to each other, and not to 
the cloth with which they are covered. It may here be 
proper to explain why that hair which is intended for 
making hats is always cut off with a (harp inftrument, (al¬ 
though that cannot be done without lofing a part of its 
length,) and not plucked out by the roots, as might be 
done after- foftening the lki.n : the reafon is, the bulb of 
the hair, which in the latter cafe would come out with 
it, would render that end which was fixed in the Ikin 
thick and obtufe ; and it would confequently be lefs 
difpofed to introduce itfelf among the contiguous hairs, 
and to contribute by its progreflive motion to the con¬ 
texture of the mafs. But this conformation of the fur- 
face of hairs and wool, is not the only caufe which pro¬ 
duces their difpofition to felting. It is not fufficient 
that every hair poffeffes the beforementioned tendency 1 
to move progreffively towards the root, and that the 
inclined lamella, by hooking themfelves to each other, 
preferve the mafs in that flate to which compreflion has 
brought it : but it is alfo neceffary that the hairs Jhouid- 
not be Jlraight, like needles ; if they were fo, prefling and 
rubbing them together would merely caufe them to con¬ 
tinue their progreflive motion, without changing their 
direction ; and the effedt of thofe operations would only 
be to make them move from the centre of the mafs, 
without producing the requifite compadtnefs. Every 
hair mult therefore be twifted or curled in fuch a 
manner that the extremity which is towards the root 
may be difpofed to change its diredtion perpetually, to 
twift itfelf about other hairs, .and to incline towards it¬ 
felf again, in cafe it fhould be determined thereto by 
any change in the pofition of the reft of its length. It 
is becaule wool has naturally this crooked form thaf it 
is fo proper for felting, and that it may be made ufe of 
for that purpofe without undergoing any previous pre¬ 
paration. But the hairs of the beaver, the rabbit, the 
hare, &c. being naturally flraight, cannot J~o well be em¬ 
ployed in felting, till they have undergone-a prelimi¬ 
nary operation; which confifts in rubbing or combing 
them, before they are taken off the Ikin, with a brufh 
dipped in a folution of mercury in aquafortis, (nitric 
acid.) 
