Note A — TREATISE ON HAT-MAKING AND FELTING.

The most familiar instance of mutual association and combination, resulting in real utility, though not so striking on account of our familiarity with it, is the broadcloth of which our clothes are made, which when cut by the tailor will never unravel. This result is wholly the effect of its felting in the fulling mill during the operation of scouring and washing, every fibre of the wool of which the cloth is made, having clung to its immediate neighbors, both warp and weft, and with the spirit of true friendship they still remain in each other's embrace, and the cloth is transformed from a loose to a solid fabric.

Another instance of the power of combination is the mysterious Gordian knot that we read of in history, which promised the empire of the world to him who could unloose it, and which Alexander the Great is reported to have cut with his sword, because he failed in the attempt. If not a fabulous story, that compound knot the illustrious Gordius is supposed to have cunningly felted previous to hanging it up in the temple.