etc.  I would point out that if you, as hat manufacturers, desire to enter the lists with Germany, you must not let her have any advantage you have not, and it is an advantage to pay for what you know exactly the composition of, rather than for an article that may contain 7 per cent. or, for aught you know, 17 per cent. or 30 per cent. of water.  There is, so far as I know, no testing for water in wools and furs in this country, and certainly no “conditioning establishments” (1887), and, I suppose, if a German or French wool merchant or furrier could be imagined as selling wool, etc., in part to a German or French firm, and in part to an English one, the latter would take the material without a murmur, though it might contain 10 per cent., or, peradventure, 30 per cent. of water, and no doubt the foreign, just as the English merchant or dealer, would get the best price he could, and regard the possible 10 per cent. or 30 per cent. of water present with certainly the more equanimity the more of that very cheap element there were present.  But look at the other side.  The German or French firm samples its lot as delivered, takes the sample to be tested, and that 10 or 30 per cent. of water is deducted, and only the dry wool is paid for.  A few little mistakes of this kind, I need hardly say, will altogether form a kind of vade mecum for the foreign competitor.

We will now see what the effect of water is in the felting operation.  Especially hot water assists that operation, and the effect is a curious one.  When acid is added as well, the felting is still further increased, and shrinking also takes place.  As already shown you, the free ends of the scales, themselves softened by the warm dilute acid, are extended and project more, and stand out from the shafts of the hairs.  On the whole, were I a hat manufacturer, I should prefer to buy my fur untreated by that nitric acid and mercury process previously referred to, and promote its felting properties myself by the less severe and more rational course of proceeding, such, for example, as treatment with warm dilute acid.  We have referred to two enemies standing in the way to the obtainment of a final lustre and finish on felted wool or fur, now let us expose a third.  In the black dyeing of the hat-forms a boiling process is used.  Let us hear what Dr. Bowman, in his work on the wool fibre, says with regard to boiling with water.  “Wool which looked quite bright when well washed with tepid water, was decidedly duller when kept for some time in water at a temperature of 160 deg.  F., and the same wool, when subjected to boiling water at 212 deg.  F., became quite dull and lustreless.  When tested for strength, the same fibres which carried on the average 500 grains without breaking before boiling, after boiling would not bear more than 480 grains.”  Hence this third enemy is a boiling process, especially a long-continued one if only with water itself.  If we could use coal-tar colours and dye in only a warm weak acid bath, not boil, we could get better lustre and finish.