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Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 by Various
page 64 of 141 (45%)
of wool imported is at least L1,214,000. 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 L1
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 L1,214,500 _minus_ L315,700, or
nearly L900,000 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.

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[Illustration: SUGGESTIONS IN DECORATIVE ART.--DESIGNS FOR IRON GATES.]

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