couring liquor
penetrates to every part of the wool which is being treated.

To ensure this, care must be taken not to scour too much at one time,
so that the wool is loosely placed in the scouring tub, if placed
loose in the latter, the workmen can by means of forks work it to and
fro while in process of treatment. After the wool has been through
these scouring liquors it is thrown on a scray to drain, and is next
placed in cisterns which have perforated false bottoms. In these
cisterns it is washed with cold water two or three times, the water
being run off from the wool between each washing; it is then spread
out in a room to dry. As a rule, a man can wash from 500 lb. to
600 lb. of wool in a day by this method. Another plan which is
sometimes adopted so as to avoid handling the wool as much as
possible, and thus prevent felting, is to place the wool in cages
having perforated sides which will hold about 1 cwt. of wool. They are
lowered by means of cranes into the washing liquors, and the wool in
them is then worked for a quarter of an hour, when the cages and their
contents are lifted out and the surplus liquor allowed to drain off.
They are then lowered into the next bath, treated or worked in this,
again lifted out and dropped into the wash waters.

There is by this plan a saving of handling, and more wool can be got
through in the same time, but it requires two men to work it. These
hand processes are only in use in small works, having been (p. 020)
replaced in all large works by mechanical methods described below.

#Machine Scouring.#--Wool-scouring machinery has been brought to a high
state of perfection by the successive efforts of many inventors, and
by their means wool washing has been much simplified and improved.
Wool-washing machinery is made by several firms, among whom may be
mentioned Messrs. J. & W. McNaught, and John Petrie, Junior, Limited,
both of Rochdale.

[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Wool-washing Machine.]

Fig. 6 shows one form of wool-washing machine. It consists of a long
trough which contains the scouring liquor. In this machine the wool
enters at the left-hand end, and is seized by a fork or rake and
carried forward by it a short distance, then another rake seizes it
and carries it further forward to another rake, and this to the last
rake of the machine, which draws it out of the machine to a pair of
squeezing rollers which press out the surplus liquor, and from these
rollers the