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According to a work by M. Ternaux (q. v.), Paris, 1827, on sheep-breeding and the wool trade in France, the Spanish wool was, forty years ago, the dearest. Since 1794, but particularly since 1804, its price has sunk considerably, whilst that of Saxon wool has risen. In 1804, a kilogramme of the best Spanish wool cost twenty-four francs, in 1827, only nine francs; the best French wool at the first period, eighteen francs, at present, twenty francs; and Saxon electoral wool, at the first period, sixteen francs, at present, thirty-four francs. As London is the great mart of the world, and the consumption of wool in England so enormous,32,000,000 pounds of foreign wool alone in a year, a table giving the imports of wool from all quarters into Great Britain will afford some idea of the relative production of wool in the various countries.

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Total imports from 10,914,137 13,640,375 9,789,020 43,795,281 29,122,447 32,313,059 foreign parts,

66

66

For the wool of the U. States, the reader is referred to the articles Sheep, and United States. The amount of wool imported into the U. States in the year ending September 30, 1829, was 1,494,439 lbs. 66 "1830, 66 669,883 " 66 1831, 5,622,960 " For more information, we refer the reader to the various English publications on this subject, which include several able treatises on the question of the wool trade. Various German and French treatises also should be mentioned; as Wagner's Contributions to the Knowledge and Treatment of Wool and Sheep (2d ed., Berlin, 1821); F. B. Weber, On the Raising of fine and noble Wool (Breslau, 1822); J. M. baron von Ehrenfels, On the Electoral Sheep and Electoral Wool (Prague, 1822); Christ. Charles André, Latest Views on the Raising of Wool and Sheep, taken from three French Writers (Prague, 1825, 4to.); Sheep and Wool, by professor Ribbe (Prague, 1825); Petri's Whole Subject of Sheep-Breeding, &c. (Vienna, 1825, 2 vols., 2d ed.); The latest and most interesting Notices respecting a Knowledge of the finer Kinds of Sheep and Wool, by the same (Vienna, 1829); On the Wool Trade of Germany in 1829, by Elsner (1830): all of these works are in German: further, Nouveau Traité sur Laine, by viscount Perrault de Jotemps (Paris, 1824); Histoire de l'Introduction des Moutons à Laine fine d'Espagne dans les divers États de l'Europe, &c., by M. C. P. Lasteyrie (Paris, 1802); Notice sur l'Amélioration des Troupeaux de Moutons en France, by G. L. Ternaux (Paris, 1827). The reports on the trade in the newly-erected wool markets at Berlin, Breslau, Stettin, Dresden, Leipsic, Nuremberg, &c., published in the Allgemeine Zeitung, are also of much interest. (See the next article.)

WOOLLENS. The fibres of wool, being contorted and elastic, are drawn out and spun by machinery in some respects similar to that used for cotton, but differing in various particulars. In the preceding article, it is mentioned that there are two sorts of wool which afford the basis of different fabrics, the long wool or worsted, in which the fibres are rendered parallel by the process of combing, the material of which camlets, bombazines, &c., are made, and the short wool, prepared by carding, like cotton, which is used, in different degrees of fineness, for broadcloths, flannels, and a multitude of other fabrics. This wool, when carded, is formed into

small cylindrical rolls, which are joined together, and stretched and spun, by a slubbing or roving machine, and a jenny or mule, in both of which the spindles are mounted on a carriage, which passes backwards and forwards, so as to stretch the material, at the same time that it is twisted. On account of the roughness of the fibres, it is necessary to cover them with oil or grease, to enable them to move freely upon each other during the spinning and weaving. After the cloth is woven, the oily matter is removed by scouring, in order to restore the roughness to the fibres preparatory to the subsequent operation of fulling. In articles which are made of long wool, the texture is complete when the stuff issues from the loom. The pieces are subsequently dyed, and a gloss is communicated to them by pressing them between heated metallic surfaces. But in cloths made of short wool, the web, when taken from the loom, is loose and open, and requires to be submitted to another operation, called fulling (q. v.), by which the fibres are made to felt, and combine more closely. (See Felting.) By this process, the cloth is reduced in its dimensions, and the beauty and stability of the texture are greatly improved. The tendency to become thickened by fulling, is peculiar to wool and hair, and does not exist in the fibres of cotton or flax. It depends on a certain roughness of these animal fibres, which permits motion in one direction, while it retards it in another. It thus promotes entanglements of the fibres, which serve to shorten and thicken the woven fabric. Before the cloth is sent to the fulling-mill, it is necessary to cleanse it from all the unctuous matter which was applied to prepare the fibres for spinning. The nap, or downy surface of broadcloths, is raised by a process, which, while it improves the beauty, tends somewhat to diminish the strength of the texture. It is produced by carding the cloth with a species of burrs, the fruit of the common teasel (dipsacus fullonum), which is cultivated for the purpose. This operation extricates a part of the fibres, and lays them in a parallel direction. The nap, composed of these fibres, is then cut off to an even surface, by the process of shearing. This is performed in various ways; but, in one of the most common methods, a large spiral blade revolves rapidly in contact with another blade, while the cloth is stretched over a bed, or support, just near enough for the projecting filaments to be cut off at a

uniform length, while the main texture remains uninjured.

Manufacture of Woollens. In England, the arts of spinning wool and manufacturing the yarn into cloth, were undoubt edly introduced by the Romans. The manufacture of broadcloths was established soon after the year 1200, if not previously. But the woollen manufacture of Flanders being, at this period, and long after, in a comparatively advanced state, English wool was exported in large quantities to Bruges and other Flemish cities, whence fine cloths and other products were brought back in exchange. Edward III invited over Flemish weavers, fullers, dyers and others. Shortly after the first emigration of Flemings, or in 1337, an act was passed, prohibiting the wearing of any cloths made beyond sea, and prohibiting the export of English wool. From that period, the manufacture has always been regarded as of primary importance. During the reign of Charles II, there were many, though unfounded, complaints of the decay of the manufacture; and, by way of encouraging it, an act was passed, ordering that all persons should be buried in woollen shrouds. This act preserved its place in the statute book for more than 130 years. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Mr. Gregory King and doctor Davenant (Davenant's Works, Whitworth's ed., vol. ii, p. 233) estimated the value of the wool shorn in England at £2000,000 a year; and they

supposed that the value of the wool (including that imported from abroad) was quadrupled in the manufacture, making the entire value of the woollen articles annually produced in England and Wales, £8,000,000, of which about £2,000,000 were exported. In 1700 and 1701, the official value of the woollens exported amounted to about £3,000,000 a year. Owing to the vast increase in the wealth and population of the country, the manufacture must have been very greatly extended during the last century; but the increase in the amount of the exports has been comparatively inconsiderable. At an average of the six years ending with 1789, the annual official value of the exports was £3,544,160 a year, being an increase of only about £540,000 on the amount exported in 1700. The extraordinary increase of the cotton manufacture, soon after 1780, and the extent to which cotton articles then began to be substituted for those of wool, though it did not occasion any absolute decline of the manufacture, no doubt contributed powerfully to check its progress. In 1802, the official value of the exports rose to £7,321,012, being the largest amount they have ever reached. In 1812, they sunk to £4,376,479. During the three years ending with 1830, the official and the declared or real values of the woollen manufactures exported from the United Kingdom have been as follows:

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Official value of woollen manufactures exported, £5,728,969 £5,372,490 £5,558,709 Declared or real value of ditto,

Value of the Manufacture. Number of Persons employed.-The most discordant estimates have been given as to both these points. For the most part, however, they have been grossly exaggerated. Mr. Stevenson, who is one of the writers on British statistics on whose statements the most reliance is to be placed, after a careful

Total value of manufactured articles, Value of raw material,. . .

5,125,984 4,661,259 4,850,884

examination into the subject, has given the following estimate of the value of the woollen manufactured goods annually produced in England and Wales, and of the interest, &c., of the capital, and the number of persons employed in the manufacture:

Interest on capital, sum to replace its wear and tear,

and manufacturers' profits,.

Wages of workmen,

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Number of people employed, 480,000, or perhaps 500,000.

We believe, however, taking Scotland into account, and looking at the probable annual expenditure of each individual on woollens, that the total value of the manufactured articles annually produced in

VOL. XIII.

22

£18,000 000

£6,000,000

2,400,000 9,600,000

£18,000,000

Great Britain may, at present, be moderately calculated at £20,000,000, or £22,000,000. But, on the other hand, Mr. Stevenson has materially underrated the proportion of the entire value of the

manufacture falling to the share of the capitalists, and required to indemnify them for their various outgoings, and to yield them ordinary profits. In estimating the wages of the persons employed at about eight shillings a week, or twenty pounds a year, he is below the mark; and ten shillings a week, or twenty-six pounds a year, would be a more correct average. The number of persons employed in the manufacture does not probably much exceed, if it does not fall short of, 400,000.— The low condition of the woollen manufactures in the U. States at the commencement of the last war with Great Britain, was shown by the request of the secretary of war to congress, that the existing laws might be so far repealed as to allow the importation of six thousand blankets for the Indian department. The law, however, was not repealed, and the want of woollens, during that contest, caused the establishment of some woollen factories, and an extension of the business of those which had previously existed; but they could supply only a small part of the demand, and an illicit trade was, in fact, kept up with the enemy. The growth of sheep, and the manufacture of their wool, was of considerable value soon after the close of the war; and many millions of dollars were invested in these branches of business, fine-woolled sheep having been purchased at most extravagant prices, because fine wool had been sold for from three to four dollars per pound. But the high duties imposed during the war were reduced after its termination, and vast quantities of British and other woollen goods were introduced and sacrificed to break up the American establishments. The manufacturers were ruined, and the sheep were, to a great extent, slaughtered. Soon after the British cloths greatly advanced in price, and the American establishments began partially to revive, and maintained themselves, though the business was not profitable till the passage of the tariff law of 1824, by which the existing duty of fifteen per cent. on cloths and cassimeres, was immediately raised to thirty per cent., and was to be made thirty-three and a half per cent. after June 30, 1825. An ad valorem duty of twenty per cent., instead of the existing duty of fifteen per cent., was also imposed on imported wool, to advance to thirty per cent. after June 1, 1826, on all wool costing more than ten cents per pound. Contemporaneously with the changes in the American tariff, a revision of the English tariff was made, avowedly

with the object of enabling the British manufacturers to command the foreign, and especially the American market of low-priced cloths. The duty imposed in 1824 proved inadequate for the protection of the American woollen manufac tures; and their languishing state indicated the ruin of those engaged in them, unless further legislative encouragement was afforded. A bill to this effect received the sanction of the house, but was laid on the table in the senate by the casting vote of the vice-president. Steps were immediately taken to bring the subject again before congress; and a convention of delegates from the states interested was held at Harrisburg, in August, 1827. This convention prepared a memorial, recommending an ad valorem duty of forty per cent. on woollen manufactures, with an annual increase of five per cent. until it amounted to fifty per cent. In the debates on this subject in the next session of congress, Mr. Mallary estimated the consumption of woollens in the United States at $72,000,000 per annum ; of which $10,000,000 were imported, $22,000,000 the productions of American manufactures, and $40,000,000 the result of household industry. The tariff adopted during that session much increased the existing duties both on manufactured and unmanufactured wool. Some changes in these particulars were made by the tariff of 1832. In the report on wool and woollens, made to the "friends of domestic industry," assembled in New York in the autumn of 1831, the gross annual product of wool and its manufactures in the U. States was estimated at $40,000,000. The fixed and floating capital vested in the woollen manufactories in the U. States, such as lands, waterrights, buildings, machinery, stock on hand, and cash employed, was estimated at an equal amount. The proportion between the amount of wool used in the factories and that worked up by household industry, was estimated to be as three to two.

WOOLLETT, William, an eminent engraver, was born at Maidstone, in Kent, August 27, 1735. He was the son of a thread-maker, and early attracted the notice of his school-master by his display of talent for drawing. Having attempted some engravings in copper, which were seen by Mr. Tinney, an engraver, the latter. took him as an apprentice. When out of his time, his rise in his profession was very rapid; and he brought the art of landscape engraving to great perfection. He

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also engraved historical subjects and portraits with the greatest success. All his best works bring high prices, but particularly his Niobe, Phaeton, Ceyx and Alcyone, Celadon and Amelia, and the Fishery, all from Wilson; and his Death of General Wolfe, and Battle of the Boyne, from West. He died May 23, 1785, at the age of fifty.

WOOLSACK; the seat of the lord chancellor of England, in his capacity of speaker of the house of lords. It is what its name implies, a large, square bag of wool, without back or arms, covered with red cloth. In front of the lord chancellor lie the great seal and the mace. The judges, king's counsel at law, and masters in chancery, who sit in the house of lords, but do not vote, are likewise seated on woolsacks. The practice was derived from the well-known fact of wool having been, from an early period, the great staple of England.

WOOLSTON, Thomas, an English divine, the son of a tradesman of Northampton, was born in 1669. He was admitted of Sidney college, Cambridge, in 1685, of which he was subsequently elected fellow, and took orders. Having become an assiduous reader of the works of Origen, he imbibed a fondness for allegorical interpretations of Scripture; the result of which tendency appeared in 1705, in a work entitled the Old Apology for the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Jews and Gentiles revived. The object of this tract was to prove that all the actions of Moses were typical of Christ and his church, and to show that some of the fathers understood them as such, and not as realities. In 1720, he left his college, and went to London, where he published a Latin dissertation concerning the supposed epistle of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius. In the same year, he published two Latin dissertations in defence of Origen's allegorical mode of interpreting the Scriptures. His next work was an Inquiry whether the Quakers do not, the nearest of any other Sect, in Religion resemble the primitive Christians in Principles and Practice. His chief object in this publication was, apparently, to attack the clergy, which, with his refusal to reside at college, according to the statutes, caused him the loss of his fellowship, in 1721. In 1726, he published a Defence of the Miracle of the Thundering Legion. Engaging in the controversy between Anthony Collins and his opponents, he published several pamphlets, in which he not only argued for mystical

interpretations of the miracles of Christ, but asserted that they were never actually wrought. He was now regarded as an enemy to Christianity, and a prosecution was instituted against him by the attorney-genneral, which Whiston, and other friends to toleration, had the interest to get stayed. He was not, however, silenced, and, in 1727, and the three following years, published his Six Discourses on the Miracles, and two Defences of the Discourses, in which he not only maintained his former opinions, but expressed himself with a sarcasm and ridicule which gave serious offence; and the law again interfered. He was tried at Guildhall for blasphemy, when his counsel pleaded that it was so far from his purpose to bring the Christian religion into contempt, that he intended to place it on a firmer footing. He was, however, found guilty, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and a fine of £100. He purchased the liberty of the rules of the king's bench prison, after the expiration of his imprisonment, not being able to pay his fine. He had obtained some money by his publications, which was swallowed up by legal expenses, and he chiefly relied for support on a small annual allowance from his brother, and the contributions of some respectable persons, who regarded him as a man of learning, misled by mysticism and enthusiasm. Solicitations were made for his release by doctor Samuel Clarke; but he declined giving any security not to offend again in a similar way. He was, however, soon after released by death, being carried off by an epidemic disorder in January, 1732-1733, in his sixty-second year.

WOOLWICH; a market-town of England, in Kent, on the Thames, eight miles below London; lon. 0° 3′ E.; lat. 51° 30′ N.; population, in 1821, 17,008. It was formerly only a small village, and owes its consequence to the establishment of a royal dock in the reign of Henry VIII. The dock-yard has been progressively increasing since its establishment, and, in its present state, includes about five furlongs in length by one in breadth; within which space there are two dry-docks, five slips, three mast-ponds, a mould-loft, storehouses of various descriptions, masthouses, sheds for timber, dwellings for the various officers, a very complete smithery for the manufacture of anchors, &c. This dock-yard is under the direction of a commissioner, who has also the control of that of Deptford; and, during the last war, the number of artificers and

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