Page:Fur and the Fur Trade.djvu/7



animals, which inhabit the colder climates, have a covering upon the skin called fur, lying alongside of another and longer covering, called the overhair. The fur differs from the overhair in that it is soft, silky, curly, downy, and barbed lengthwise, while the overhair is straight, smooth, and comparatively rigid. These properties of fur constitute its essential value for felting purposes, and mark its difference from wool and silk; the first, after some slight preparation by the aid of hot water, readily unites its fibres into a strong and compact mass; the others can best be managed by spinning and weaving.

On the living animal the overhair keeps the fur filaments apart, prevents their tendency to felt, and protects them from injury—thus securing to the animal an immunity from cold and storm; while, as a matter of fact, this very overhair, though of an humbler name, is most generally the beauty and pride of the pelt, and marks its chief value with the furrier. We arrive thus at two distinct and opposite uses and values of fur. Regarded as useful for felt it is denominated staple fur, while with respect to its use with and on the pelt it is called fancy fur. For the one purpose the Russian hare skin is more valuable than the Russian sable, while for the other the sable may be valued at one thousand times the former.

History.—The manufacture of fur into a felt is of comparatively modern origin, while the use of fur pelts as a covering for the body, for the couch, or for the tent is coeval with the earliest history of all northern tribes and nations.