Identifier: animalproducts00simm (find matches)
Title: Animal products;
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Simmonds, Peter Lund, 1814-1897. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Animal products. (from old catalog) Domestic animals. (from old catalog)
Publisher: New York, Pub. by Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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the dirt in the wool. The sheep arethen handled under one of the torrents from the upper tank,and the loose dirt is effectually washed away. So speedy is the process that three sheep may be washed intwo minutes, and so effectually that the value of the wool in theLondon market is very much increased. The waste in the soak-ing tank is about one gallon for each sheep. It should be observed that the cost of the apparatus is the onlyoutlay, no expensive material being used in the washing. By a new chemical process, the sheep-skins in the tanyards arenow stripped of their wool in an astonishingly rapid and effectivemanner, and the whole process, from the introduction of the rawskin into the place, to the dispatch of the well pressed bale, isinteresting, from the clean, regular system in force. A most ingenious pulling machine has been invented for clear-ing the wool off the skins. It is composed of a large revolvingdrum, driven by a belt, the motive power being steam. The f 1 ii V;;! JJill
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42 FELTING PROPERTY OF WOOL. drum takes two skins at a time, and presses them under a nicelyadjusted knife, which does its work most efficiently at the rate of300 per day, or as much as six men could do in the same time.Moreover, the pelt is in no way damaged, and the appliancerequires only the attention of two boys, who can stop the move-ment in an instant. Wool and hair can be felted, that is, made into a dense andcompact cloth, without the intervention of the processes ofspinning or weaving. So great is this tendency that in a flockbed the carded wool, of which it is made, is constantly feltingitself into lumps, and from time to time the bed requires to betaken to pieces, that the wool may be carded afresh. Thisfelting property of wool and certain kinds of hairs, is caused bythe peculiarity in the structure already mentioned; the filamentsare notched or jagged at the edges, the teeth or imbricationsinvariably pointing upward, that is from the root to the point, sothat the fibres, w

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