The sorting of the wool is the first operation, and is one of much importance, since the quality of the cloth depends greatly on a due admixture of different kinds of wool. Each pack of wool contains many different qualities, according to the part of the fleece whence it was taken, and other circumstances; and much tact and discrimination are called for in the separation. The sorter has to make his °election in relation to the fineness, the softness, the strength, the colour, the ekes sae, and the aright of the wool ; and in reference to these qualities he Inmates the wool into many parcels, which receive the names of prime, choice, super, head, downrights, seconds, fine ebb, coarse ebb, lirery, &c. 'I he finest fibre is that of Spanish ewe, the mean diameter of which is of an inch; while the coarsest is that of Wilts ewe, measuring pa, of an inch. All woolly fibres are thicker at one end than the other ; but the less the difference in that respect, the more valuable is the wool ; and this is one of the favourable points in Merino wool When the proper kinds are selected, they are next scoured and leashed, to free them from the grease which invariably attaches to them. The wool is Peaked in an alkaline ley at a temperature of about 120', rinsed with cold water, and paused letwecn the rollers of a powerful press to free it from nearly all moisture.
If the cloth is dyed in the wool, that operation succeeds the scouring; but if dyed in the piece, many other processes intervene ; and it depends a good deal on the kind of colour as to which plan is followed. Supposing the dyeing to be completed, however, the wool undergoes the process of fringing or willotring, which is somewhat analogous to the batting or snitching in the cottownsanufacture ; the object being to open and disentangle the locks of wool, and cleanse them from sandy and other loose impurities. One among many forme of Willy is a kind of hollow truncated cone, having an axis running through its centre; on this axis are fixed three wheels of different diameters, bearing on their circumference four longitudinal bars studded with sharp spikes. The cone revolves with a rapidity of three or four hundred revolutions per minute, within an outer cylindrical casing, whose inner surface is armed with similar spikes. The machine is fed, by means of an endless apron, with wool, which enters at the small end of the cone, and travels to the larger end by virtue of the centrifugal force produced by the rotation. As it peeses onwards between and among the spikes, it becomes opened and disentangled, the fibres of each lock separated, and the impurities detached. When the wool has reached the lower end of the cone, it passes into a receptacle where a fan is revolving with great rapidity, by which a current of air is generated sufficient to blow away all the dust mixed with the wool ; while at the same time a kind of revolving cage dis tributes the wool in a fiat equable layer or stratum. Thus the same machine disentangles the fibres, separates the impurities, blows away the dust, and lays the wool in a smooth sheet.
Some kinds of wool require willying more than once; but this is not the case with the finer qualities. There are however frequently some impurities which cannot be removed by the Willy ; and such are afterwards picked out by boys or women, called wool-moaters, or wool pickers. A feather opening of fibres results from the process of seriWing; but before this is effected, the wool undergoes that of it being spread out on a floor, sprinkled with olive-oil, and well beaten with staves. The scribbling-machine consists of several cylin ders, on whose external surfaces are rows of teeth or wires. These aro
combined in a strong frame, and so fitted as just to touch and work against each other ; the wires on one cylinder are bent in a direction contrary to those in the adjoining ono ; so that when all cylinders are revolving, and wool is applied to the first one of the series by an endless apron, it is caught from tooth to tooth, carried rapidly from cylinder to cylinder, separated completely from all entanglement, and finally given forth in the shape of a delicate fleece or sheet. It becomes wound on a revolving roller, after having passed through the scribbling machine ; but when it leaves the carding-machine it presents the appearance of slender rods, cylinders, cr pipes, which are called These cardings are then spun into yarn for the use of the woollen. weaver ; the process of spinning being generally effected by means of the slubbsng-bill} or slubbing-maehinc, and afterwards by the common jenny or mule-spinring machine; the slubbiug-billy bringing the wool to the state of a soft weak thread, and the spinning-machine giving it the proper firmness and hardness for yarn. The slubbing-billy has a wooden frame, within which is a moveable carriage, running on lower side-rails on friction-wheel& The carriage contains a number of steel spindles, which receive a rapid motion from a lung cylinder, by means of separate cords passing round the pulleys of the respective spindles ; this cylinder is a long drum of tin plate, six inches in diameter, covered with paper, and extends across the whole breadth of the carriage. The spindles are placed in a frame so as to stand nearly upright at about four inches apart ; their lower ends being so formed as to act as ;pivot& The drum lies horizontally before the spindles, with its centre a little lower than the line of the spindle-pulleys. The drum receives motion by a pulley at one end with an endless band from a wheel placed on the outside of the main frame, turned by the spinner with his right hand applied to a winch ; and by this movement the epindles are made to revolve rapidly. Each spindle receives a soft card or dubbing, which comes through beneath a wooden roller at one end of the frame. A child is employed here, who brings the canlings from the card-engine, and places them upon an inclined cloth. These cardings, being drawn beneath the roller, are then caught between two rails. The movement then is very similar to that in Hargreaves spinning-jenny ; a small portion of each carding is allowed to pass between the rails or clasp ; and this portion is then drawn out or elongated to the state of a thread by the recession of the carriage towards the other end of the frame. Meanwhile the spindles have been kept in motion, by which a slight twist is imparted to the thread or stubbing. A faller-wire and a rail assist in regulating the winding of the thread uniformly on the spindles. The process then is thus con ducted. A child, called a piecener, takes the canlings from the carding machine, and lays them on the inclined apron ; they are thence carried up beneath the roller and between the clasp, and the workmen or slabber, by managing his moveable carriage with one hand, and the wheel which turns the spindles with the other, elongates the cording into slubbing, and winds it on the spindles. The pieceners are employed and paid by the Blubber; some years ago great cruelty was said to be on the by the workmen for any neglect of their duty ; but the inspectorship of factories has removed such sources of discredit to the factory system.