The stock from the small flock of merinos taken out by Colonel Macarthur to what was then only known as Botany Bay, now supports 300,000 souls in prosperity in Australia, and supplies exports to the amount of upwards of a million and a half sterling per annum.

The Great Exhibition afforded an excellent display of the variety and progress of Yorkshire woollen manufactures, proving the immense advantage they derived from choice and mixture of various qualities and materials.  In several examples the body was of stout English wool, with a face of finest Australia,—­in some cases, of mohair,—­and, in one instance, a most beautiful article was produced by putting a face of vicuna on British wool.

As at present conducted, the process of a woollen factory up to certain stages of machinery is the same as that of a cotton factory.  But it will be seen that a great deal depends on an ample supply of water of good quality.

Cloth Manufacture.—­(1.) The first operation is that of sorting the wool.  Each fleece contains several qualities,—­the division and arrangement requires judgment; the best in a Silesian fleece may be worth 6s. a pound, and the rest not worth half the money.  After sorting, wools are mixed in certain proportions.

(2.) The mixture is first soaked in a hot ley of stale urine and soap, rinsed in cold water, and pressed between rollers to dry it.

(3.) If the cloth is to be dyed in that operation, next succeeds the scouring.  Supposing it dyed,

(4) wyllying follows, by which it is subject to the operation of the spikes of revolving wheels, for the purpose of opening the fibres and sending it out in a light cloud-like appearance, to where a stream of air driven through it, clears away all impurities by a sort of winnowing process, and sends it out in a smooth sheet.

(5.) If any impurities remain, it is hand picked.

(6.) It is laid on the floor, sprinkled with olive oil, and well beaten with staves.

(7.) The operation of the scribbling machine follows, by which it is reduced to a fleecy sheet and wound on rollers.

(8.) The carding machine next reduces it to hollow loose short pipes.  These are joined

(9) in the slubbing machine into a weak thread, and here we see the use of the young hands, boys and girls, who piece one of these pipes as they are drawn through the machine by a slow clockwork motion, bending one knee every time as they curtsey sideways toward the machine.  They earn very good wages and look healthy; but, where the wool is dyed, what with the dye and what with the oil, the piecers are all ready toileted to sing to a banjo; and sometimes, with rubbing their faces with their dirty hands, they get sore eyes.

(10.) Spinning hardens the thread.

(11.) Weaving is done by hand or by power-loom.  The power-looms are becoming more common.  After weaving, it is washed in soap-water and clean water by machinery,—­then stretched on tenterhooks and allowed to dry in a smooth extended state: