In the spinning of the wool, which follows the slabbing, the kind of machines employed and the general character of the processes are so similar to those exhibited in the cotton manufacture, that it will suffice to refer to Correa 3faxurecrussE and SPINNING for details, with the following few additional remarks. The soft cord or sliver is caused to lass between two pairs of rollers; the space between the two pairs being rather more than equal to the length of the fibres. The two pairs of rollers between which the sliver is compressed do not separate farther from each other in order to stretch it, but that effect is pro duced by making the second pair of rollers revolve faster than the first. It is necessary to arrange the distance between the two pairs of rollers with reference to the average length of the filaments of which the sliver is composed; because if the two pairs of rollers were too far apart, the-soft cord would be liable to separate between them, and if they were too near, so that the opposite ends of a fihunent should be compressed between them at the same time, the sliver could not extend or lengthen by the sliding of the filaments, but the filaments them selves must break with the strain. fence, in machinery for spinning wool, on account of the variable length of the filaments, the drawing rollers are so mounted that they may be readily adjusted to different distances. In consequence of the greater elasticity of wool, the relative velocities of the two pairs of rollers are so arranged as to produce a greater degree of stretching or extension than is usual with cotton.
The process next following that of spinning is wearing, by which the yarn is worked tip into a textile fabric. If it be a plain cloth, the loom employed is very simple in its arrangements; if it be a twill or an ornamental fabric, the loom is somewhat more complex ; but the general arrangements will be sufficiently understood by a reference to WE.tessa. Hitherto woollen clothe have been principally woven by hand-weavers; but the power-loom is every year becoming more and more applied to this purpose. Some of the cloths are woven as broad as twelve-quarters, to allow not only for the shrinkage occasioned in the subsequent process of fulling, but for an edging or list, made either of goats' hair or of coarse yarn, into which the tenterhooks are thrust in the process of tsnnering.
As the wool has been dressed with oil before spinning, and with size before weaving, it becomes necessary to cleanse it from these impurities immediately after the weaving. This is the object of a second scouring process, in which the cloth is beaten with wooden mallets in a kind of trough or mill ; soap and water being let in upon it first, and then clear water. Being then carried to the drying-room, or the tentcr-ground, it is stretched out by means of hooks on rails, and allowed to dry in a smooth and extended state. It is then taken into a room and examined by hurlers, who pick out nil irregular threads, hairs, or dirt. After this it is ready for the important process of fulling, or felting, which imparts to woollen goods that peculiarity of surface whereby they are distinguished from all others. A largo mass of cloth folded into many plies is put into the fulling-mill, where it is exposed to the long-continued action of two heavy wooden mallets or stocks. Superfine cloth receives four fallings of three hours each, a
thick solution of soap being spread between each layer of cloth every time. Dining the violent percussions which the cloth thus receives for twelve hours, the fibres, being at every stroke strongly impelled together, and driven into the closest possible contact, at length hook into each other by means of the little smrations on their surfaces, until they become firmly and inextricably united; each thread, both of the warp and weft, being so compacted with those that are con tiguous to it, that thou hole econis formed into one substance, not liable, like other woven goods, to unravel when cut with the scissors. This compacting process in tho cloth manufacture is effected by beating, and is called fulling ; in the hat-manufacture it is effected by prefigure and rolling, and is called /thing; but the two are clearly analogous in prin. civic. This process thickens the cloth remarkably, but diminishes It both in length and breadth nearly one half.
In the fulled state the cloth presents a woolly and rough appearance, to improve which it goes through the processes of :casting or raising, and shearing or cutting. The object of the first is to raise the ends of the fibres above the surface, and of the second to cut them off to a uniform level. The raising of the fibres is effected by thistle-heads, tesszling-cards, or wire brushes. Teazles are the seed-pods of the dipsaeus follonum, having small hooked points on their surfaces. They were formerly used in the cloth manufacture thus : a number of them were put into a small frame with handles, so as to form a kind of curry-comb ; and this was worked by two men over the surface of the cloth, which was suspended horizontally, the direction of working being first parallel with the warp, and then parallel with the weft. From the trouble required to clean the barbs of the teazles when filled with woollen fibres, from the weakening of their points by the water with which the cloth was saturated, and from the high price which the large demand enabled them to command in the market, numerous attempts were made from time to time to substitute metallic points ; but from various causes the teazles are still preferred, and are now used in a more efficacious way than formerly. The teazles are arranged on a cylinder iu a machine called a gig-mill ; the cloth is stretched on two cloth-beams ; the cylinder moves in one direction and the cloth in another, and the fibres become thereby worked or combed up. The annexed cut shows the section of such a machine ; where the cloth, paie'ing from a roller la, round the roller i, comes in contact u ith the brushes c on the wheel a, and afterwards passes round g and t to the roller k ; the roller y being so regulated by the pinion n and the rack m as to keep the cloth thoroughly stretched ; and the revolving brush f being so adjusted as to clean the teazling-cards c. In some machines the teazling-points are uvula of wire, to obviate the waste of 3000 natural teazles, which takes place in the dressing of one piece of cloth.