or cap at their sacrifices and festivals, but on a journey the hat with a brim was adopted. In the middle ages the bonnet or cap with a front was in use among the laity, while the ecclesiastics wore hoods, or cowls.

Pope Innocent, in the thirteenth century, allowed the cardinals the use of scarlet hats, and about the year 1440, the use of hats by persons on a journey appears to have been introduced into France, and soon after became common in that country, whence probably it spread to the other European States.

When Charles VII. of France made his triumphant entry into Rouen in 1440, he wore a felted hat.

Hatters of the present day most generously ascribe the honor of the invention of felting, and of its prospective introduction to that of hat-making, to the old renowned Monk St. Clement, who when marching at the head of his pilgrim army obtained some sheep's wool to put between the soles of his feet and the sandals that he wore, which of course became matted into a solid piece. The old gentleman, philosophizing upon this circumstance, promulgated the idea of its future usefulness, and thus it is said arose the systematic art of felting and of hat-making.

However all this may be, still the invention of felted fabrics for the use of man may have been, as some assert, very ancient and of quite uncertain origin. The simplicity of its make, as compared with that of woven cloth, shows all speculative assertions to be rather uncertain.

However obscure the origin may be, we learn that the first authentic accounts of hatters appeared in the middle ages, in Nuremburg in 1360, in France in 1380, in Bavaria in 1401, and in London in 1510.

The hatting trade of the United States of America is noticed first in the representations made by the London Board of Trade to the House of Commons in the year 1732, in which they refer to the complaints of the London hatters, regarding the extent to which their particular manufacture was being carried at that time in New York and in the New England States.

The Fashions.

A look at the fashions and mode of dressing in ancient times causes amusement. So capricious is the fancy of man that nothing is immutable, all is change, and hats have been of all conceivable shapes and colors, and dressed with the most fanciful decorations, plumes, jewels, silk-loops, rosettes, badges, gold and silver bands and loops, &c. &c.

The crowns and brims having been in all possible styles from the earliest period. It would appear that nothing is left for the present and all coming time, but the revival of what has already been, even to the fantastical peaked crown that rose half a yard above the wearer's head.

In the fifteenth century, hats in Great Britain were called vanities, and were all imported, costing twenty, thirty, and forty English shillings apiece, which were large sums of money at that early period.

The most extreme broad brims were worn about the year 1700, shortly after which the three-cornered cocked hat came in, and about this time feathers ceased to be worn, the lingering remains being left for the badge of servitude to the gentleman's attendant. Metal bands and loops were only regarded as proper for naval and military men of honor.

It is a singular historical fact that the elegant soft hat of the Spaniard has remained the same from the earliest period to the present day, while among all other civilized nations a transformation in the style of that article has taken place. Comfort in the wear seems to have given place at all times to fancy and the demands of fashion.

Queen Elizabeth's patent grant to the hatters of London is still recognized in England, and the 23d of November is the hatters' annual festival, that being St. Clement's day, the patron of the trade.

Preparation of Materials.

Previous to cutting the fur from the various skins, they must be moistened, straightened, and cleaned; the projecting long coarse hairs that are interspersed throughout the fur, removed either by pulling, clipping, or shearing; those of the rabbit, &c. being pulled, while those of the hare, &c. are clipped. To pull these superfluous hairs by the hand, the person sits with the skin laid over the knee, strapped down to the foot, and with a dull-edged knife in hand, the thumb being covered with a soft shield, the obnoxious guests are dextrously uprooted. If done by machinery, they are pulled out by being nipped between two revolving slender rollers. The skin is drawn over a sharp-edged board, which causes these hairs to project, and the rollers placed in the proper position and distance, frees the fur of its deteriorating associates with great facility, without disturbing the fur.

Furs intended for body-making undergo a process called carroting or secretage, which is an artificial method of increasing the felting quality of the fur, enabling the hatter to work at a kettle with clean pure water, dispensing with all acids and the like, and using boilers other than those of lead.

It is only of late years that carroting has been invented. It is a chemical operation or method of twisting or bending the natural straight-haired furs, and possesses also the property of raising or lifting the points of the scales which clothe the fibres of the fur, thereby facilitating the operation of felting; while the fur in its original straight state could be used with satisfaction only as an outside flowing nap upon the hat.

The method pursued to accomplish this result is, to dissolve 32 parts of quicksilver in 500 parts of common aqua-fortis, and dilute the solution with one half or two-thirds of its bulk of water according to the strength of the acid. The skin having been laid upon a table with the hair uppermost, a stout brush, slightly moistened with the mercurial solution, is passed over the smooth surface of the hairs with strong pressure. This application must be repeated several times in succession, till every part of the fur is equally touched, and till about two-thirds of the length of the hairs are moistened, or a little more should they be rigid. In order to aid this impregnation, the skins are laid together in pairs with the hairy sides in contact, and put in this state into the stove-room, and exposed to a heat in proportion to the weakness of the mercurial solution. The drying should be rapidly effected, as otherwise the concentration of the nitrate of mercury will not produce its effect in causing the retraction and curling of the hairs.

No other acid or metallic solution but the above has been found to answer the desired purpose of the hat-maker, although sulphuric acid without the quicksilver has a limited effect when the skins are treated as those above described. For other purposes, such as that of the upholsterer, hair is curled by first boiling and then baking it in an oven; or it may be spun into ropes and baked, after which it is teased asunder.

Preparatory to cutting the fur from the pelt, the skins are dampened and flattened; they are thus made smooth and ready for the operation, which is performed by hand, with knives about two inches long by four wide, having a short upright handle. The skins are held upon a cutting-board, and the pelt kept moistened with water; a sheet of tin is laid upon the skin, pressed down by the left hand, whilst the knife in the right hand, being guided by the edge of the tin, is run rapidly forward and backward across the skin, gradually sliding the tin toward the tail; by this means the fur is gathered up, and kept in one fleece.

The pelts are appropriated to the manufacture of gilder's cement, or will make excellent glue. Machines in the form of