the art or act of cleansing, scouring, and profiling cloths, stuffs, and flockings, to render them stronger, closer, and firmer: called also milling. Pliny (lib. vii. cap. 56.) affirms, that one Nicias, the son of Hermias, was the first inventor of the art of fulling: and it appears by an inscription, quoted by Sir G. Wheeler, in his Travels through Greece, that this same Nicias was a governor in Greece in the time of the Romans.

Fulling of woollen cloths, depends, like felting, so entirely upon the structure of wool and hair, that those who have read our account of that process, will not find it difficult to comprehend the following observations.

The aperities with which the surface of wool is everywhere surrounded, and the disposition which it has to assume a progressive motion towards the root, render the spinning of wool, and making it into cloth, difficult operations. In order to spin wool, and afterwards convert it into cloth, its fibres must be covered with a coating of oil, which, filling the cavities, renders the aperities less sensible; in the same way as oil renders the surface of a very fine file less rough, when rubbed over it. When the piece of cloth is finished, it must be cleansed from this oil; which would cause it to soil whatever it came in contact with, besides giving it a disagreeable smell, and prevent its taking the colour which is intended to be given to it by the dyer. To deprive it of the oil, it is carried to the fulling-mill, where it is beat with hammers in a trough full of water, in which some clay has been mixed; the clay combines with the oil, which it separates from the cloth, and both together are washed away by the fresh water which is brought to it by the machine; thus, after a certain time, the oil is entirely washed out of the cloth.

But the scouring of the cloth is not the only object in fulling it; the alternate pressure given by the mallets to the piece of cloth, occasions, especially when the scouring is pretty far advanced, an effect analogous to that which is produced upon hats by the hands of the hatter; the fibres of wool which compose one of the threads, whether of the warp or the woof, assume a progressive movement, introduce themselves among those of the threads nearest to them, then into those which follow; and thus, by degrees, all the threads, both of the warp and the woof, become felted together. The cloth, after having, by the above means, become shortened in all its dimensions, partakes both of the nature of cloth and of that of felt; it may be cut without being subject to ravel, and, on that account, we are not obliged to hem the edges of the pieces of which clothes are made. Lastly, as the threads of the warp and those of the woof are no longer so distinct and separated from each other, the cloth, which has acquired a greater degree of thickness, forms a warmer clothing. Knit worsted also is, by fulling, rendered less apt to run, in case a stitch should happen to drop in it.

The fulling of cloths and other stuffs is performed by a kind of water-mill, thence called a fulling or scouring mill.

These mills, excepting in what relates to the mill-stones and hopper, are much the same with corn-mills: and there are even some which serve indifferently for either use: corn being ground, and cloths fulled, by the motion of the same wheel. Whence, in some places, particularly in France, the fullers are called millers; as grinding corn and milling stuffs at the same time.

The principal parts of the fulling-mill are, The wheel, with its trundle; which gives motion to the tree or spindle, whose teeth communicate it to the pestles or tampers, which are hereby raised and made to fall alternately according as its teeth catch on or quit a kind of latch in the middle of each pestle. The pestles and troughs are of wood; each trough having at least two, sometimes three pestles, at the discretion of the master, or according to the force of the stream of water. In those troughs are laid the cloths, stuffs, &c. intended to be fulled: then, letting the current of water fall on the wheel, the pestles are successively let fall thereon, and by their weight and velocity stamp and press the stuffs very strongly, which by this means become thickened and condensed. In the course of the operation, they sometimes make use of urine, sometimes of fuller's earth, and sometimes of soap. To prepare the stuffs to receive the first impressions of the pestle, they are usually laid in urine; then in fuller's earth and water; and, lastly, in soap dissolved in hot water. Soap alone would do very well; but this is expensive: though fuller's earth, in the way of our dressing, is scarce inferior thereto; but then it must be well cleared of all stones and grittiness, which are apt to make holes in the stuff. As to urine, it is certainly prejudicial, and ought to be entirely discarded; not to much on account of its ill smell, as of its sharpness and saltiness, which qualities are apt to render the stuffs dry and harsh.

The true method of fulling with soap is delivered by Monf. Colinet, in an authentic memoir on that subject, supported by experiments made by order of the marquis de Louvois, then superintendent of the arts and manufactories of France; the substance of which we shall here subjoin.

Method of FULLING Cloths and Woollen Stuff with Soap.—A coloured cloth, of about 45 ells, is to be laid in the usual manner in the trough of a fulling-mill; without first soaking it in water, as is commonly practised in many places. To fill this trough of cloth, 15 pounds of soap are required; one-half of which is to be melted in two pails of river or spring water, made as hot as the hand can well bear it. This solution is to be poured by little and little upon the cloth, in proportion as it is laid in the trough: and thus it is to be fulled for at least two hours; after which it is to be taken out and stretched. This done, the cloth is immediately returned into the same trough, without any new soap, and there fulled two hours more. Then taking it out, they wring it well, to express all the grease and filth. After the second fulling, the remainder of the soap is dissolved as in the former, and cast four different times on the cloth; remembering to take out the cloth every two hours, to stretch it, and undo the plaits and wrinkles it has acquired in the trough. When they perceive it sufficiently fulled, and brought to the quality and thickness required, they scour it for good in hot water, keeping it in the trough till it be quite clean. As to white cloths; in regard these full more easy and in less time than coloured ones, a third part of the soap may be spared.

FULLING of Stockings, Caps, &c. should be performed somewhat differently; viz. either with the feet or the hands; or a kind of rack, or wooden machine, either armed with teeth of the same matter, or else horses or bullocks teeth. The ingredients made use of herein are, urine, green soap, white soap, and fuller's earth. But the urine also is reckoned prejudicial here. Woven flockings, &c. should be fulled with soap alone; for those that are knit, earth may be used with the soap. Indeed it is frequent to full these kinds of works with the mill, after the usual manner of cloth, &c. But that is too coarse and violent a manner, and apt to damage the work unless it be very strong.