The Forrest City times., 1893-04-07
HOW FELT IS MADE.
Legend Says St. Clement. the Hat-NIak- CTS Patron Saint, Was Its Discoverer.

CTS Patron Saint, Was Its Discoverer.
 St. Clement, the patron saint of hat makers, and whose day occurs on the 23d of November, is said to have acci- dentally discovered felt. Starting on a pilgrimage, he put some wool between the soles of his feet and his sandals to make his trip easier. The wool after an interval became felt, owing to the continued pressure to which it was sub- Jected by the feet of the saint St. Clement was not the first to discover felt, as 1t was really known long be- fore his time, but the legend illustrates the simple manner in which the mate- rial itself may be made.
 Great improvements have been made of late years in the felting industry. Felt is composed of wool, fur or hair. of which the fibers are so entanQled and interlaced that they can not readi- ly be separated, and this is done with out spinning or weaving. It's use for caps, hoisery, floor cloth cloaks and tents has long been known in the east by the nomads of the desert. At pres ent it is largely made from waste wool, which is first deprived of it's oil, then carded and placed in a ma chine. Here it is kept wet with hot water and subjected to a process of beating by which the fibers are made to move upon each other until the inter- locking of their parts and the curling of the fiber itself unite the whole into a compact sheet of felt. The ''fulling' n 1ln iS h1f Il fa1+ If already woven. This felted wool is used for carpets, carpet covers, coarse hats, carriage Things, pads in saddlery, shoulder pads for mems clothing. slip pers and shoes and even for cloaks and other garments. The cheapest woolen rags and other articles are worked into felt for covering steam boilers, although felt is being gradually superseded for that purpose by asbestos. Roofing felt is coarse kind, usually coated and filled with coal tar, and sometimes with tar and powdered slate. Felt stiffened with dextrine is used for making sur geons splints. By far the most inn portant use to which felt is put is that of making hats. Technically, felt hats are of three llinds-''plain soft, ''plain hard" and mapped or ''ruffled.' The quality of felt hats has a wide range and in the finer and more expensive qualities the entire body is composed of fur. For commoner qualities mixture of fur and Saxony wool is used, and for the lowest kinds wool alone is em- ployed. The fur used by matters con- sists principally of the hair of rabbits technically 'called coneys) and hares, with some proportion of nutria, mus quash and beaver hair, and generally the parings and cuttings that can be obtained from furriers. Furs intended for felting are deprived of 'their long, coarse hair after which they are treat ed with a solution of nitrate of mer- cury, an operation called carroting or "secretage,' which greatly increases the felting properties of the fur The fur is then cut by hand or machine from the skin, and in this state it is delivered to the hat-maller. Rabbit fur for hat-malling now comes i'll large quantities from Australia, and if is also largely collected in the United King dom in northern Europe. A consider able amount of rabbit fur is exported from Great Britain to the nited States Fashion and Tailoring.