Quills

for writing. These consist usually of the feathers plucked out of the wings of geese. Dutch quills have been highly esteemed, as the Dutch were the first who hit upon the art of preparing them well, by clearing them both inside and outside from a fatty humour with which they are naturally impregnated, and which prevents the ink from flowing freely along the pens made with them. The Dutch for a long time employed hot cinders or ashes to attain this end; and their secret was preserved very carefully, but it at length transpired, and the proce was then improved. A bath of very fine sand must be kept constantly at a suitable temperature, which is about 140° F.; into this, the quill end of the feather must be plunged, and left in it a few instants. On taking them out they must be strongly rubbed with a piece of flannel, after which they are found to be white and transparent. Both carbonate of potash in solution and dilute sulphuric acid have been tried to effect the same end, but without succe . The yellow muriatic acid, and then making them perfectly dry. But this proce must be preceded by the sand-bath operation. The above is the French proce . Quills are dre ed by the London dealers in two ways; by the one, they remain of their natural colour; by the other, they acquire a yellow tint. The former is called the Dutch method, and the principal workman is called a Dutcher. He sits before a small stove fire, into which he thrusts the barrel of the quill for about a second, then lays its root quickly below his blunt-edged knife called a hook, and, pre ing this firmly with the left hand, draws the quill briskly through with his right. The bed on which the quill is laid to receive this pre ure is called the plate. It is a rectangular smooth lump of iron, about 3 inches long, 1 1 ⁄ 2 broad, and 2 1 ⁄ 2 thick, which is heated on his stove to about the 350th degree Fahr. The hook is a ruler of about 15 inches in length, somewhat like the patten-makers’ knife, its fulcrum being formed at the one end by a hook and staple, and the power of pre ure being applied by the hand at the other end. The quill, rendered soft and elastic by the heat, endures the strong scraping action of the tool, and thus gets stripped of its opaque outer membrane, without hazard of being split. A skilful workman can pa 2000 quills through his hands in a day of 10 hours. They are next cleaned by being scrubbed by a woman with a piece of rough dog-fish skin, and finally tied up by a man in one quarter of hundred bundles. In another mode of dre ing quills, they are steeped a night in decoction of turmeric, to stain them yellow; taken out and dried in warm sand contained in a pot, then scraped by the Dutcher as above described. The first are reckoned to make the best pens, though the second may appear more beautiful. Crow quills for draughtsmen, as well as swan quills, are prepared in the same way. The quills plucked from well-fed living birds have most elasticity, and are least subject to be moth-eaten. The best are those plucked, or which are spontaneously cast in the month of May or June, because they are then fully ripe. In the goose’s wing the five exterior feathers only are valuable for writing. The first is the hardest and roundest of all, but the shortest. The next two are the best of the five. They are sorted into those of the right and the left wing, which are differently bent. The heaviest quills are, generally speaking, the best. Lately, steaming for four hours has been proposed as a good preparation. FECULA ( Fecule , Fr.; Stärkemehl , Germ.); sometimes signifies corn flour, sometimes starch from whatever source obtained. FELSPAR ( Or those , Fr.; Feldspath , Germ.) is a mineral crystallizing in oblique rhomboidal prisms, susceptible of two cleavages; lustre more pearly than vitreous; spec. grav. 2·39 to 2·58; scratches gla ; yields no water when calcined; fusible at the blowpipe into a white enamel; not affected by acids. The liquid left from its analytical treatment with nitrate of baryta, nitric acid, and carbonate of ammonia, affords on evaporation an alkaline residuum which precipitates platina from its chloride, and appears from this, as well as other tests, to be potash. Felspar consists of—silica, 66·75; alumina, 17·50; potash, 12; lime, 1·25; oxide of iron, 0·75. Rose. This mineral is a leading constituent of granite; and in its decomposed state furnishes the petuntse or Cornish stone, so much used in the porcelain and best pottery manufactures. FELTING; ( Feutrage , Fr.; Filzen , Germ.) is the proce by which loose flocks of wool, and hairs of various animals, as the beaver, rabbit, hare, ., are mutually interlaced into a compact textile fabric. The first step towards making felt is to mix, in the proper proportions, the different kinds of fibres intended to form the stuff; and then, by the vibratory strokes of the bowstring, to to them up in the air, and to cause them to fall as irregularly as po ible, upon the table, opened, spread, and scattered. The workman covers this layer of loose flocks with a piece of thick blanket stuff slightly moistened; he pre es it with his hands, moving the hairs backwards and forwards in all directions. Thus the different fibres get interlaced, by their ends pursuing ever tortuous paths; their vermicular motion being always, however, root foremost. As the matting gets denser, the hand pre ure should be increased in order to overcome the increasing resistance to the decu ation. A first thin sheet of soft spongy felt being now formed, a second is condensed upon it in like manner, and then a third, till the requisite strength and thickne be obtained. These different pieces are succe ively brought together, disposed in a way suitable to the wished-for article, and united by continued dexterous pre ure. The stuff must be next subjected to the fulling mill. See Hat Manufacture . FERMENT (Eng. and Fr.; Hefe , Germ.) is the substance which, when added in a small quantity to vegetable or animal fluids, tends to excite those intestine motions and changes which accompany fermentation. It seems to be the result of an alteration which vegetable albumen and gluten undergo with contact of air amidst a fermenting ma . The precipitate or lees which fall down when fermentation is finished consist of a mixture of the fermenting principle with the insoluble matters contained in the fermented liquor, some of which, like hordeine, existed in the worts, and others are probably generated at the time. To prepare a pure ferment, or at least a compound rich in that principle, the precipitate separated during the fermentation of a clear infusion of malt, commonly called yeast or barm, is made use of. This pasty matter must be washed in cold distilled water, drained and squeezed between the folds of blotting paper. By this treatment it becomes a pulverulent ma , composed of small transparent grains, yellowish gray when viewed in the compound microscope. It contains much water, and is therefore soft, like moist gluten and albumen. When dried, it becomes like these bodies, translucid, yellowish brown, horny, hard, and brittle. In the soft humid state it is insipid, inodorous, insoluble in water and alcohol. If, in this state, the ferment be left to itself at a temperature of from 60° to 70° F., but not in too dry a situation, it putrefies with the same phenomena as vegetable gluten and albumen, and leaves, like them, a residuum resembling old cheese. At the beginning of this change, particularly if the ferment be enclosed in a limited portion of air, there is an absorption of oxygen gas with a fivefold disengagement of carbonic acid gas; while acetic acid makes its appearance in the substance. When distilled by itself it affords the same products as gluten. Dilute acids di olve it very readily; and so does potash with the production of ammonia, a peculiar circumstance, for in di olving gluten the alkali causes no such evolution. The property po e ed by yeast of determining the fermentation of a properly diluted solution of sugar is very fleeting, and is lost by very trifling alterations. It is destroyed by complete desiccation, and cannot be restored by moistening it again. The attempts made in London to squeeze out the liquid part of yeast in bags placed in a powerful pre , and to obtain a solid cake, in order to transport ferment to India, have had but a very partial succe ; for its virtue is so impaired that it will rarely excite a perfect fermentation in the best prepared worts. The same method is adopted in Germany, to send yeast to only moderate distances; and therefore with more advantage. If yeast be boiled for ten minutes, it loses the greater part of its fermenting power, and by longer boiling it becomes inert. When alcohol is poured upon yeast, it immediately destroys its fermenting faculties, though, on filtering it off, it seems to carry no remarkable principle with it. One thousandth part of sulphuric acid equally deprives yeast of its peculiar property, and so does a little strong acetic acid. All the acids and the salts, especially those which part readily with their oxygen, produce the same effect. A very small quantity of sulphurous acid, or sulphites, mustard powder, particularly the volatile oil of mustard, and in general the volatile oils that contain sulphur, as well as the vegetables which yield them, such as horse-radish and garlick, all kill the fermenting agent. Lastly, fermentation is completely stopped by a moderate depre ion of temperature. During fermentation the yeast undergoes a change; it loses the property of causing another wort to ferment. This change probably depends upon the chemical reaction between the ferment and the sugar that is decomposed; for a certain quantity of yeast can effect the fermentation of only a certain quantity of sugar, and all the sugar exceeding this quantity remains unaltered in the liquor. It has been concluded from some rather loose experiments, that one part and a half of yeast (supposed to be in the dry state), is adequate to the fermentation of a solution of 100 parts of pure sugar. When such a solution is fermented by the precise proportion of yeast, the fermenting principle is exhausted, for no new yeast is formed in it. There is a deposit indeed to about half the weight of the yeast employed, of a white matter insoluble in water, which affords no ammonia by dry distillation, and is incapable of acting as a ferment upon a fresh saccharine solution. Of all the bodies convertible into yeast during fermentation, vegetable gluten and albumen po e the most rapid and energetic powers. But ordinary glue, isingla , animal fibrine, curd or caseum , albumine, urine and other azotized substances, all enjoy the property of causing a solution of sugar to ferment; with this difference, that whilst yeast can establish a complete fermentation in le than an hour, at a temperature of about 68°, the above substances require several days, with a heat of from 77° to 87° F., for becoming ferments, and for occasioning fermentation. Substances devoid of nitrogen do not produce a ferment.