WOOL

(Germ, wolle.) A term used very indefinitely, being applied both to the fine hair of animals, as sheep, rabbits, some species of goats, ., and to fine vegetable fibres as cotton (called in German baumwoUe, or tree-wool); but when used without restriction it is generally confined to the wool of sheep — a substance which, from the remotest period of history, has been of primary importance to mankind. In reference to textile fabrics, sheep's wool is of two different sorts, the short and the long stapled; each of which requires different modes of manufacture in the preparation and spinning proce es, as also in the treatment of the cloth after it is woven, to fit it for the market. Each of these is, moreover, distinguished in commerce by the names of fleece wools and dead wools, according as they have been shorn at the usual annual period from the living animal, or are cut from its skin after death. The latter are comparatively harsh, weak, and incapable of imbibing the dyeing principles, more especially if the sheep has died of some malignant distemper. The annular pores, leading into the tubular cavities of the filaments, seem, in this case, to have shrunk and become obstructed. The time of year for sheep-shearing most favourable to the quality of 4 Q 4 H J [s. 1348]