Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/141

 F I B F I B 131 the verdict of a jury; and they serve as a rule for ascer taining the value of the gram due to feudal superiors, to the clergy or to lay proprietors of teinds, to landlords as a part or the whole of their rents and ill all cases where the price of grain has not been fixed by the parties. It is not known when or how the practice of &quot; striking the fiars,&quot; as it is called, originated. It probably was first used to determine the value of the grain rents and duties payable to the crown. In confirmation of this view it seems that at first the duty of the sheriff was merely to make a return to the Court of Exchequer of the prices of grain within their counties, the court itself striking the Ears ; and from an old case it appears that the fiars were struck above the true prices, being regarded rather as punishments to force the king s tenants to pay their rents than as the proper equivalent of the grain they had to pay. Co-existent, however, with these fiars, which were termed sheriffs fiars, there was at an early period another class called commissaries fiars, by which the values of teinds were regulated. They have been traced back to the Reformation, and were under tho management of the commissary or consistorial courts, which then took the place of the bishops and their officials. They have now been long out of use, but they were perhaps of greater antiquity than the sheriffs fiars, and the model upon which these were instituted. In 1723 the Court of Session passed an Act of Sederunt for the purpose of regulating the pro cedure in fiars courts. Down to that date the practice of striking tho fiars was by no means universal over Scotland; and even in those counties into which it had been introduced, there was, as the preamble of the Act puts it, &quot;a general complaint that tho said fiars are struck and given out by the sheriffs without due care and inquiry into the current and just prices.&quot; The Act in consequence provided that all sheriffs should summon annually, between the 4th and the 20th of February, a competent number of persons, living in the shire, of experi ence in the prices of grain within its bounds, and that from these they should choose a jury of fifteen, of whom at least eight were to be heritors ; that witnesses and other evidence as to the price of grain grown in the county, especially since the 1st of November preceding until the day of inquiry, were to be brought before tho jury, who might also pro ceed on &quot;their own proper knowledge&quot;; that the verdict was to be returned and the sentence of the sheriff pro nounced by the 1st March ; and further, where custom or expediency recommended it, the sheriff was empowered to fix fiars of different values according to the different qualities of the grain. It cannot be said that this Act has remedied all the evils of which it complained. The propriety of some of its provisions has been questioned, and the competency of the court to pass it has been doubted, even by the court itself. Its authority has been entirely disregarded in one county lladdingtonshire where the fiars are struck by the sheriff alone, without a jury; and when this practice was called in question the court declined to interfere, observing that the fiars were better struck in Haddingtonshire than anywhere else. The other sheriffs have in the main followed the Act, but with much variety of detail, and in many instances on principles the least calculated to reach the true average prices. Thus in some counties the averages are taken on the number of transactions, without regard to the quanti ties sold. In one case, in 1838, the evidence was so care lessly collected that the second or inferior barley fiars were 2s. 4d. higher than the first. Formerly the price was struck by the boll, commonly the Linlithgowshire boll ; now the imperial quarter is always used. The origin of the word fiars is uncertain. Jamieson, in his Dictionary, says that it comes from the Icelandic fe, wealth; Patersou derives it from an old French word fcur, an average ; others connect it with the Latin forum. On the general subject of fiars prices see Patersou s Historical Account of the Fiars iii Scotland, Edin., 1852; Connell, On Tithes, vol. i. 431 ; Hunter s Landlord and Teiumt, 4th ed., ii. 290. FIBRES, TEXTILE, in their widest acceptation include all substances capable of being spun, woven, or felted ; but there are many materials and preparations which, though they can be and actually aro woven, yet do not come within the range of fibres as technically understood. Thus metallic wires, although both spun into ropes and woven into wire-cloth for numerous purposes, are not generally reckoned among textile fibres, nor is horse-hair so re garded ; it would, however, be difficult to frame a general definition that would not Include such substances. Ex cluding these, and also leaving out of account fibres used solely as paper-making materials, there yet remain an enor mous variety of materials more or less used and recognized as textile fibres. It is true that those of any considerable importance are comparatively few ; but frequent additions are being made to the list of fibres of general utility ; and improved methods of cultivation and preparation, as well as increased facilities of transport, tend to bring into general use numerous kinds which formerly may have had only local and limited applications. All textile fibres of recog nized commercial importance will be found noticed in detail under their special headings ; and it is only proposed here to classify commercial fibres generally, and to note some points of interest common to all. Fibres of animal origin are few, but of the highest value, while vegetable fibres are of endless variety, and of the most diverse character as to qualities and general utility. Animal fibres may be comprehended under two heads, silk and wool, using the terms in an extended sense. Silk of commerce is obtained from several cpecies of moth or silk worm; and as wool there may be enumerated that pro duced by the numerous varieties of sheep, the mohair and cashmere wool obtained from varieties of goat, camels hair or wool, alpaca, and vicugna wool (see ALPACA, WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES, etc.). Several other animal fibres or hairs, and notably rabbit fur, are employed for felting, and the long fine hair of various animals has been occasionally woven into useful fabrics, without becoming recognized com mercial staples. Animal fibres are closely related to each other in chemical composition, sharing their leading charac teristics in common with all epidermic products, hair, horn, nails, feathers, &c. They belong to the nitrogenous or albuminoid group of substances, and are in composition in timately related to albumen, gelatin, and fibrin. They are insoluble in water or alcohol, but solutions of caustic alkalies cause them to swell up, and if boiled in these they dissolve with decomposition and the evolution of ammonia. Into the composition of wool sulphur enters, whereas the nitrogenous constituents of silk, which embrace albumen, gelatin, and a peculiar compound called fibroin, are free from that element. As is well known, these animal fibres yield a peculiar odour, like burning horn or feathers, on being ignited, and they carbonize with some difficulty only on the continued application of heat. Chemically, vegetable fibres show a similar intimate re lation to each other, the basis of all being cellulose, a com pound allied in ultimate composition to the carbohydrates, starch and sugar, but possessing very marked and distinct ive characters. In particular, cellulose exhibits a remark able indifference or resistance to the action of chemical re agents which affect allied substances and the bodies with which it is associated in growing plants. It is to th;s power of resisting change that its value for textile purpose:, is due, and on the same peculiarity is also based the ordinary method of separating fibres from other vegetable principles with which they are in general associated. Al-