Another test to which it was subjected may be cited. It is the custom in France, before the wool is scoured, to put it through a sorting process, by which all the short lengths are weeded out. On a quantity exceeding 11,000 kilogrammes, half of which was scoured by the turbine process, and half by the ordinary process, the former in scouring lost in weight 2 per cent. less than the latter, although the short length extracted from the moiety thus treated weighed only 10 kilogrammes, while that taken from the other weighed over 150 kilogrammes. This saving, even with the unequal treatment, amounted in value to from 30 to 40 centimes per kilogramme.
In order that the importance of this application may be realized, I shall conclude with some figures:
The raw wool imported into England, in the year 1882, amounted to 1,487,169 bales, its total value being about £22,000,000. The cost of washing this wool by the old process, with carbonate of soda, amounts to about ½d. per lb. of the raw material. The cost for the total quantity of wool imported is at least £1,214,000. But it is customary to wash wool with soap, especially for the combing trade, and the cost is then about 1d. per lb. The cost of scouring by the new process is about £1 5s. per ton, or 0.13d. per lb. Taking the least favorable comparison, were all the imported wool (home-grown wool is here left out of the calculation, for want of sufficient returns) cleansed by the turbine process, the actual saving would be £1,214,500 minus £315,700, or nearly £900,000 per annum.
It is thus seen that there is room for a very important economy in the treatment of wool. I have endeavored to show how economy may be practiced in scouring by the old process with soap, and how one dye stuff may be profitably recovered. It is to be hoped that means of extracting other dyes from the residue may soon follow. Unless the process were too costly to repay the trouble of extraction, it would be well worth practicing; for it would not merely be a solution of the problem of how to avoid waste, but would at the same time prevent the pollution of our streams, now, unfortunately, only too rarely pellucid; and were the last process to have as successful a future as I hope it may have, a very important saving of expense would result, and a large quantity of valuable fatty matter would no longer be thrown away.
SUGGESTIONS IN DECORATIVE ART.--DESIGNS FOR IRON GATES.