Every thing that encourages our woolen manufactures is of the greatest importance. Everything that increases our home consumption of wool is of national importance. In this changeable and rigorous climate in winter, if all were to wear flannel next their skin, particularly narrow chested and delicate females, it would be of the greatest benefit to their health, and save them many a fit of sick

ness.

If this flannel is manufactured, as it ought to be, in the United States, it will not only increase our woolen manufactures, but create a large home market for our wool, and such wool as cannot be sold abroad. When we consider how cheap the English sell their Welsh flannel, it ought to stimulate our manufacturers. I must however say that I never purchased any flannel made in the United States equal to the real Welch flannel, or that did not shrink, or that wore near so long as the English flannel. The English flannel has a nap on both sides, which renders it warm and soft, and it washes soft to the last. The domestic flannel that I have purchased, washes harsh, and the wear is not near so agreeable as real Welch flannel; but surely our people can overcome all these difficulties, and they can make as good flannel as the best Welch.

Considering the great national benefit it would be in point of health if all would wear flannel next to their skin. I propose to repeat Dr. Black's observations, because I think they cannot be mended, and if generally known may induce their adoption.

"It is well known that woolen clothes, such as flannels, worn next the skin, promote insensible perspiration; may not this arise principally from the strong attraction which subsists between wool and the watery vapor which is continually issuing from the human body? That it does not depend entirely upon the warmth of that covering is clear, for the same degree of warmth, produced by wearing more clothes of a different kind, does not produce the same effect. The perspiration of the human body being absorbed by a covering of flannel, it is immediately distributed through the whole thickness of that substance, and by that means exposed by a very large surface to be carried off by the atmosphere, and the loss of the watery vapor which the flannel sustains on the one side, by evaporation, being immediately restored to the other, in consequence of the strong attraction

between the flannel and the vapor. The pores of the skin are disencumbered, and they are continually surrounded with a dry and salubrious atmosphere. It is astonishing that the custom of wearing flannel next the skin should not have prevailed more universally; it is certain it would prevent a number of diseases, and there certainly is no greater luxury than the comfortable sensation which arises from wearing it after one is a little accustomed to it. It is a mistaken notion that it is too warm a clothing for summer; it may be worn in the hotest climates, at all seasons of the year, without the least inconvenience arising from wearing it. It is the warm bath of a perspiration confined by a linen shirt wet with sweat, which renders the summer heats of a southern climate so insupportable. But flannel promotes perspiration and favors its evaporation, and evaporation as it is well known, produces positive cold."

I can vouch for the truth of every word of this. I wear the same kind of flannel waistcoats in summer as I do in winter, with sleeves. When I take exercise, and perspire, and my body and flesh are always cool, and in part, to wearing flannel next my skin, I owe the fact of never having had the fever and ague in this western country, which is full of it.

All this may appear trivial, and salutary rules are not regarded, but it is of the utmost importance. Say that 15,000,000 of our people wear flannel; three flannel waistcoats to each: 45,000,000 of waistcoats at only two yards each, (not enough with sleeves,) 90,000,000 of yards would be required for flannel waistcoats. Only old people, delicate women and children, above all, consumptive people, ought to wear flannel drawers as well as flannel waistcoats, next their skin. Men who drink spirituous liquors to increase the animal warmth, should wear flannel instead, and "keep the body warm and the head cool."

(PAPER C.)

It would be of great utility if experiments could be made for the sole purpose of discovering what is the kind of food and treatment that will increase wool on each sheep individually, whether it is nitrogen, gluten, or what is it? The experiments must be made regardIsss of all expense or trouble; the thing is to discover the substance that will increase the quantity of wool. Should it be too expensive

as a common food, chemistry is so far advanced that we may then find a substitute.

The following experiments, if correctly made and accurately noted down, will no doubt throw a light on this important subject, perhaps bring to light the proper food to produce an increase of wool:

Let twelve gentlemen, rich enough to think nothing of any expense or trouble in carrying it out, (I wish I had the means, I should consider it the greatest pleasure to try for the discovery,) let each gentleman take twelve sheep, that is twelve lots of twelve sheep each, and feed them scientifically with the sole view of finding out what food and treatment will increase the quantity of wool. The only preliminary precautions to be taken are, that no sheep must be selected whose individual amount of wool clipped last year from each sheep is not accurately known. There is no difficulty in this; there are sufficient enlightened flockmasters who keep an accurate account of their clips, and who no doubt would lend their sheep for experiment. The next point is, after these gentlemen are ready, and have made up their minds as to their general food, they must state it to the Institute, (twelve months is the time the experiment ought to last,) that if two or more men should hit upon the same treatment, they may be requested by the Institute to vary it so that each lot may be fed with different food. It is quite superfluous to give any direc tions to such scientific gentlemen as may undertake this, to make the discovery will be a great honor. It is to be hoped that Mr. Pell will take one lot. With the necessary quantity of food that a sheep requires to keep up the animal heat comfortably without effort, then he is at his ease, and thrives and heats the oxygen he consumes, it is the excess of food beyond this point that creates wool, fat, muscle, &c. This ought never to be forgotten. If one lot could be conveniently kept in a dry deep cellar in winter, in demi-obscurity, with equal temperature, it ought to be tried. Mules are steek and fat in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, seven hundred feet below the surface. I wish to impress strongly on the minds of gentlemen trying these experiments not to be deterred from giving any kind of food because it is not the custom to give such things to sheep; food the most bizzare and extraordinary should be tried. In these experiments the point is to go out of the beaten track of prejudice, and try everything

Still-slop has been found to increase the wool one pound per head, and pay all expenses of purchase and carting. Sheep have the organ of taste in a very extraordinary degree, having the papillæ very large and long, they can distinguish flavors with infinite accuracy, and Malphigie's description of the papillæ, copied by almost all of the anatomists, was taken from the tongues of sheep. One lot ought to be covered over with an open kind of holland from the neck to the tail. Some people may laugh, but this is not new, but very old.

Varro, the learned Roman, in his "De Re Rustica," says, sheep were covered over with a leather covering to improve the wool, and the wool growers of Podolia and the Ukraine, particularly in the province of Astrachan, have a peculiar method of turning wool into fur. The lamb after a fortnight's growth is taken from the ewe, nourished with milk and best herbage, and wrapped up as tight as possible in a linen covering, which is daily moistened with warm water, and is occasionally enlarged as the animal increases in size. In this manner the wool becomes soft and curly, and is by degrees changed into shining and beautiful locks. It is called Astrachan.

Twenty-five years ago this was the most fashionable lining and trimmings for cloaks a dandy could wear, who took it for fur. One lot should certainly, during the winter be fed on cooked food. One lot should have a daily ration of rye in meal and grain, with and without salt. This grain has been said to develop more than any other grain the growth of wool, though neither rye, barley or oats, possess any gluten. Yankee beans ought to be tried on one lot. Shearing twice on one lot. Consider that even six ounces increase of wool per head, on 30,000,000 of sheep, is immense. We have much to learn, and if twelve men will undertake each a lot, keep accurate daily accounts, and report to the Institute, I have little doubt something important will be discovered, at all events that another year's experiment will succeed.

LECTURES.

LECTURE ON THE STEAM ENGINE.

By Professor JAMES RENWICK, of Columbia College, N. Y.

It is hardly necessary to say that I felt highly complimented by the invitation of the American Institute, to deliver a course of lectures. The invitation was therefore cheerfully accepted, and the hope was at first entertained that leisure might be found to prepare and present to this audience, something novel in the way of science, or capable of being considered popular by brilliancy of illustration. These hopes have not been fulfilled. Engagements, at all times paramount, have interposed, and I am compelled to appear before you with what is to me, and I fear may seem to you, a hacknied subject.

Twenty years since, at the opening of the lectures of the Athenæum, I performed my share of one of the winter's duties, by a series of lectures upon the steam engine. A few years subsequent, and in connection with the duties of a professor in Columbia College, a more full and extended course was undertaken. In these a full discussion of all the physical and chemical principles involved in the operation of the steam engine, was attempted. At this epoch, even elementary works on this subject were rare, practical treatises were wholly wanting; no lecturer had yet travelled through the Union dispersing popular information, and whether in the more popular form of the first series, or the more scientific plan of the latter, the lecturer had the advantage of touching at every step upon principles understood by few, and facts unknown to the greater portion of his audience.

If the publication of numerous works in the interval have blunted curiosity, and lessened the general interest in the novelty of the subject, I have personally a still greater difficulty to contend with, for [Assembly, No. 244.]

M