Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/702

Rh 662 WOOL [MANUFACTURE. Pressing. revolving cylinder. An automatic arrangement in the machine regulates the lightness or closeness of contact of cloth and teasles. The myriads of elastic hooks scratch the entire surface, disengaging and opening up short fibres, and thus covering the whole with a nap. There are, however, several varieties of pile desired in dressing woollen cloths, aud a pile may be raised in a certain class of fabrics for a purpose quite the opposite of that for which other piles are formed. Thus in cloth dressing the object is to get a glossy and smooth nap which quite covers and conceals the under lying structure, while tweeds and similar goods arc teasled with the view of ultimately removing all pile from the surface and leaving the pattern of the cloth well defined and free from all hairiness. Pile-dressed fabrics are raised by the wet method : that is, the cloth to be operated upon in the dressing-machine is first damped, and the nap so produced lies smooth, flat, and level in one direc tion, covering the surface in much the same way as short hairs cover the skin of an animal. Cloth raised dry, on the other hand, throws its fibre ends straight out from the cloth, the action indeed being a kind of combing- up of all the more loose and open surface fibres so as to prepare them for being entirely cropped or shorn off in order to leave the fabric with a clean, bare surface. Metallic teasles have frequently been suggested and to some extent employed as a substitute for the vegetable product, but hitherto such devices have not proved quite satisfactory. Cropping. The operation of cropping was also formerly a handicraft, the worker using a huge pair of shears, and the employment demanded much dexterity aud skill to produce a uniform smooth pile or a well-cleaned surface. It is now done with equal rapidity and certainty by a machine which in principle is the same as the lawn-mower. It consists of a cylinder armed with a series of helical knives or cutters, the cylinder revolving with great velocity against the smooth stretched surface of the cloth, partly cutting away and partly tearing off the tips of the projecting fibres which come within the range of its ledger-blades. Four hundred years before the practical introduction of this helical cropping machine, it was invented and proposed for modern use by Leonardo da Vinci. With the view of giving lustre to the finished cloth, it is, when taken from the cropping machine and brushed on the brushing machine to remove the flocks produced in shearing, wound tightly round a huge drum, and boiled, or rather immersed in water heated to from 160 to 180 F., for three or four hours. It is then unwound, the ends are reversed, winding first on the roller the end which was on the outside in the previous boiling, and again boiled. Finally it is pressed in an hydraulic press, in which the cloth is heated either by the introduction of hot iron-plates between the folds or by forcing steam through it in the press, this last process adding to the solidity and smoothness of the cloth and developing the lustre characteristic of a well-finished fabric. The range and variety of cloths and other textures made from wool are exceedingly great. Under the heading of cloth manufac tures, there may be enumerated, of piled cloths, broad-cloth, doeskins, cassimeres, meltons, beavers, and friezes. Of cloths milled and cropped bare there are Venetians, sataras, and diagonals, which differ in the arrangements of warp and weft in the weaving. Tweeds, which form an important item, are cloths only slightly felted, raised dry, cropped, and pressed. The variety of worsted cloths is still greater, embracing says, serges, sateens, repps, merinos, mousselaines-de-laine, tartans, camlets, Russell cords, coburgs, lastings, delaines, and Orleans cloth. Hosiery forms a manufacture apart, as do also the processes of making carpets, blankets, flannels, shawls, rugs, and wrappers, curtain-cloths, and alpaca and mohair textures. As an illustration of the advantages Avhich have resulted from the application of machinery to the many and complicated pro cesses of cloth manufacture, it lias been calculated by M. Alcan that, whereas in the 17th century the labour of more than 10,000 men was needed to produce in one day a ton of cloth from a ton of wool, that amount of work now can be done in one day by about 1900. _ Wherever civilized mankind dwell there is found wool produc tion, with more or less of woollen manufacture. This fact not withstanding, the cultivation of wool tends to become increasingly associated with special localities, and from age to age different regions enter into competition as sources of wool, and the great sources of supply correspondingly change their position. Neglect ing the produce of Britain, which probably has not varied to any notable extent during the century, though its movement as an article of export has developed greatly in that interval, we may briefly note the vast developments which have taken place in some sources of supply. In 1800 most of the wool, other than that from native sources, used in England came from Spain. In 1810 167 ft was imported from the Australian colonies, and now the imports from these colonies reach 400,000,000 lb yearly, and the imports from Spain have dwindled to 1,700,000 ft. Similarly the quantity brought from the Cape of Good Hope has grown from about 30,000 ft in 1820 to 61,250,000 ft in 1886. The growth and fluctuation in the imports from these and other regions are exhibited in the following table : Manufac tures in wool. Trade. Imports of Wool into the United Kingdom from the Principal Countries, Foreign and Colonial (given in thousands oflbs.). Impo of we Spain. Germany. Australia. South Africa. East Indies. Total from all Countries. 1800 6,062 412 8,609 1810 5,592 778 &quot;if&amp;gt;7 10,914 1820 3,536 5,113 99 &quot;so 9,775 1830 1,043 26,073 1,967 33 32,30-) 1840 1,260 21,812 9,721 751 2,441 49,43(i 1850 440 9,166 39,018 5,709 3,473 74,326 1860 3,000 9,954 59,lf;6 16,574 20,214 151,218 1870 25 4,406 ] 75, 081 32,785 11,143 203,250 1880 1,580 7,174 300,627 51,386 29,190 463,309 1886 1,710 3,281 401,426 61,257 34,597 615,998 The exports of raw wool have risen in fairly steady proportion Expo to the imports, springing up from 92,542,384 ft in 1870 to of wo 311,902,741 ft in 1886, the average excess of the imports over the exports each year being from 200,000,000 to 230,000,000 ft. The following table exhibits the relative position and progress of Facto I the principal textile manufactures in the United Kingdom at emploj various periods : ment. j Description of Factories. Persons Employed. Power Looms. 1838. 1856. 1870. 1878. 1836. 1856. 1870. 1878. Cotton Woollen.... Worsted.... Flax Silk 259,104 54,808 31.628 43,557 34,303 379,213 79,091 87,794 80,262 56,137 450,087 125,130 100,587 129,772 48,124 482,903 134,344 130,925 108,806 40,985 108,751 2,150 2,969 1,714 209 298,847 14,453 38,956 9,260 7,689 440,676 48,140 64,&amp;lt;i54 35,300 12,378 514,911 56.944 87.393 40,448 12,546 Totals 423,400 682,497 862,700 897,963 115,793 369,205 601,148 712,242 The growth of the export trade from the United Kingdom in Expor woollen and worsted manufactures from 1820 is exhibited in the of mai subjoined table (in thousands of pounds sterling) : factun Manu factured Goods. Woollen and Worsted Yarns. Total Woollen andWorstcd Exports. Matut- factured Goods. Woollen and Worsted Yarns. Total Woollen andWorsted Exports. 1820 5,586 5,580 1857 10,703 2,943 13,646 1830 4,728 122 4,851 1865 20,141; 5.100 25.241 1840 5,327 452 5,780 1870 21,665 4,994 26,659 1850 8,588 1,451 10,040 1880 17,265 3,345 20,610 The following is the detailed statement of exports from the United Kingdom from the Board of Trade Returns for 1887 : Quantities. Value. 40 165 100 lb 3,970,205 17 175 900 yds. 3,843,872 Do., mingled with other materials.... 29,057,500 yds. 49 582 300 yds. 3,682,913 2,311,107 10 038 800 yds. 1,832,072 Vorsted stuffs 151.362 000 yds. 10,925,000 yds. 5,113,191 416,307 12 980 300 yds 1 310,241 Blankets 1,578,912 pairs. 545,576 734,691 794,539 Total Alpaca ana mohair yarn 12,196]lOO ft. 24,554,714 1,081,971 Particular districts have attained a predominant hold on certain Centres branches of the manufacture, and with great tenacity the industries industr have clung for long periods to the districts which have succeeded in establishing a reputation for the branches they cultivated. In this way the manufacture of superfine broad-cloths has been long associated with the West of England, specially with Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and in that district the trade in fine cloth is still chietly centred. In point of quantities produced, how ever, and of persons employed, the West Hiding of Yorkshire woollen cloth districts far outstrip the West of England, and are the true centres of all industries connected with wool. Of woollen cloths of all kinds the towns of Leeds and Huddersfield are the most important producers. The shoddy trade has been specially developed at Batley and Dewsbury, and the numerous manufac tures of worsted have their principal centre in Bradford and the populous district surrounding it. Norwich, at one time the capi tal of worsted manufactures, and a large producer of shawls, thanks to the immigration of Flemings, has entirely lost its supremacy, probably owing to the superior coal facilities of Yorkshire, but it is yet the seat of no inconsiderable worsted manufacture. The hosiery trade is developed chiefly in and around Leicester, and at Kilmarnock the allied knitting of bonnets is a specialty. Flannels and blankets are associated with Wales ; the carpet trade belongs principally to Kidderminster, Halifax, Glasgow, and Kilmarnock. Shawls are made in Paisley, Alva, and Alloa in Scotland, knitting- yarns being a largely developed industry in the two last-mentioned towns. Tweeds are the special industry of Hawick, Galashiels, Dumfries, and Aberdeen, aud also form an important part of the manufactures .of Leeds. (J. PA. )