After a process of "hot-watering" and squeezing, the cloth leaves the croft, and passes into a room where boys and girls rip or pick the pieces asunder, so that each piece of twenty-eight yards becomes again separated from the others. Each piece is folded into a flat square mass, and men heat these masses against the edge of a stone in a peculiar manner, for the purpose of removing creases from the cloth. The cloth is then hung up on wooden bars in a drying-room, which is heated to a high temperature by steam pipes near the floor. Finally, the bleached cloth, which now presents a whiteness of the utmost purity, is brought into the warehouse, sorted, and tied up into par cels of ten pieces each.
Such is a brief sketch of the process of bleaching cotton; and whether we notice it in connexion with dyeing and printing, pr take the instance of a bleachery inde pendent of them, the preceding details will equally serve to convey a general i idea of this important process.
The colour of manufactured wool de pends partly upon its own oil, and partly upon the applications made to it in the loom. These are got rid of in the fulling
mill by the joint action of fullers' earth and soap; the cloth is then well washed and dried, and is white ; if the slight yellow tint which it retains is ob jectionable, it is prevented by adding a little stone-blue to the washing water, or by exposure to the fumes of burning sul phur; this latter method, however, gives it a harsh feel, and if afterwards soaped, its yellowishness returns.
The colour of raw silk depends upon a natural yellow varnish, which is got rid of by boiling it in white soap and water, and by repeated rincings. Certain arti .-les of wove cotton, such as stockings, are bleached as usual, and finished by the action of sulphurous acid, or the fumes of burning sulphur. Straw is also whiten ed by a similar operation ; and hence bleached straw hats are apt to have a dis agreeable sulphurous smell.