WOOL. The long, soft, curly hair, which covers the skin of sheep, sad some other ruminating animals. Wool resembles hair in many respects ; brides its fineness, which constitutes an obvious difference, there are otherparticulate which may serve also to distinguish them from one another. Wool, like the hair of horses, cattle, and most other animals, completes its growth in a year, sad then falls off as hair does, and is succeeded by a fresh crop. It differs from hair, however, in the uniformity of its growth, and the regularity of its shedding; the whole crop springs up at once, and the whole falls off at once, if not pre viously shorn, which leaves the animal covered with a short coat of young wool, which in its turn undergoes similar mutations. Berthellot has shown that the caustic alkaline leys dissolve wool entirely, and that the acids precipitate it from this solution. The facts elicited by chemical research explain all the phe nomena, and all the properties which wool presents in the frequent and advan tveous uses to which it is applied. While the wool remains in the state in which it is shorn from the sheep's back, it is called a fleece. Each fleece con sists of wool of different qualities and degrees of fineness, which the dealers sort and sell in packs at different rates to the wool-comber. The finest wool grows on and about the head of the sheep, and the coarsest about the tail; the longest on the flanks, and the shortest on the head and some parts of the belly. Wool that is shorn when the sheep is living, is called fleece wool, and that which is pulled off the dead animal is called skin-wool. Wool, in the state in which it is taken from the sheep, is always mixed with a great deal of dirt and foulness of different kinds, and in particular is strongly imbued with a natural strong smelling grease. These impurities are got rid of by washing, fulling, and combing, by which the wool is rendered remarkably white, soft, clean, light, and springy. When boiled in water for several hours, it is not altered in any sensible degree, nor does the water acquire any impregnation.
The wool intended for the manufacture of stuffs is brought into a state adapted for the making of worsted by the wool-comber; who, having cleared it from all impurities, and well washed it with soap and water, he puts one end of a certain quantity on a fixed hook, and the other on a movable hook, which he turns round with a handle, till all the moisture is forced out. It is then thrown lightly into a basket. The wool is next spread qut in layers, and a few drops of oil are scattered on each; which are packed in a bin underneath a bench where the comber sits at work. At the back of the bench is another bin, to highly-tempered and polished steel, fixed in a long handle of wood, and set parallel to one another. Each comber has two combs, which he fills with wool and then works them together, till the wool on each is perfectly fine, and fit to draw out in slivers. The best combs of this kind are said to be manufactured at Halifax, in Yorkshire. In using these combs the workman has a pot made of day, with holes in its side, in which he heats them to a certain temperature before it can be made readily to pass through the wool. Each comb-pot is made to hold eight combs, so that four men usually work in one compartment of the shop, round a single pot. When the wool has been sufficiently worked on the combs, the workman places one comb and then the other on a fixed spike, at a proper height for him to draw it out as he stands. The wool thus drawn out is called a sliver, and is from five to six or seven feet in length. Such is the mode of wool-combing by band, but several patents have been taken out for performing the same operation by machinery ; the first of which was introduced by the ingenious Dr. Cartwright, in 1790, and wool-combing by machinery has now almost wholly superseded the work by hand, owing to the economy of labour and material which it effects.