the art of cleansing, scouring, and pressing cloths, stuffs, and stockings, to render them stronger, closer, and firmer. It is otherwise called milling. Pliny (vii.56) relates 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.

The asperities upon the surface of wool render the spinning of it and the 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 asperities less sensible; in the same way that oil rubbed on the surface of a very fine file renders it less rough. When the piece of cloth is finished, it is carried to the fulling-mill, where it is beaten with heavy stampers in a trough full of water in which some fuller's earth has been mixed, for the purpose of cleansing it from the oil. The clay combines with the oil, which it separates from the cloth, and both are washed away together by the fresh water which is brought to it by the machine.

But the scouring of the cloth is not the only object in view in fulling it. The alternate pressure given by the stampers to the piece of cloth occasions (especially when the scouring is pretty far advanced), an effect analogous to that which is produced upon felt by the hands of the batter. 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 this means become shortened in all its dimensions, partakes both of the nature of cloth and of that of felt, and may be cut without being subject to ravel. Lastly, the cloth has acquired a greater degree of thickness, and forms a warmer clothing.

Knit worsted also may thus be rendered less apt to run in case a stitch happen to drop.

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 both purposes. 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 stampers, which are thereby raised and made to fall alternately, as its teeth catch or quit a kind of latch in the middle of each stamper. The stampers and troughs are commonly of wood; but sometimes the stampers are made of polished iron, and the cloth is exposed during the process to the action of steam; by which means the appearance of the cloth, when finished, is said to be greatly improved. These improvements formed the subject of a patent in 1825. In the course of the operation the fuller sometimes makes use of urine, sometimes of fuller's earth, and sometimes of soap. To prepare the stuffs to receive the first impressions of the stamper, 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 it is expensive, and fuller's earth is scarcely inferior to it; but then it must be well cleared of all gritty particles, else it is apt to make holes in the stuff.

Method of fulling cloths and woollen stuffs 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 degrees upon the cloth, as it is laid in the trough; and thus it is to be filled 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 fullled two hours more. It is then taken out and well wrung, to express all the grease and dirt. After the second fulling, the remainder of the soap is dissolved as in the former, and cast four different times on the cloth, which is taken out every two hours to stretch it, and undo the plaits and wrinkles it has acquired in the trough. When it is perceived to be sufficiently fullled, it is well scoured in hot water. With regard to white cloths, these full more easily and in less time than coloured ones, and thus require only a third part of the soap.