Excerpt from A Practical Treatise on Weaving and Designing of Textile Fabrics: With Chapters on the Principles of Construction of the Loom, Calculations and Colour

The manufacture Of worsted is supposed by some to have preceded that of woollen, and in support of this the writer Of the article in Rees' Cyclopaedia says the long stapled wool suited to the comb seems more spontaneously the produce Of uncultivated sheep than short wool, which is to be manufactured by carding.

Some writers suppose the Argali species to be the original sheep. Prof. Archer says, The fact that the sheep has been so long domesticated, has caused it to be a matter Of uncertainty whether it has been derived from any Of the existing animals Of the genus 0712's. Many have entertained the opinion that it is the same animal as the Argali, 0722's Ammon, Linn., a native of the mountains of Central Asia, and a great weight of evidence in favour Of that supposition is obtained from the circumstance, that all the tribes Of people who have from time immemorial dwelt on the plains surrounding those mountains have always been pastoral in their habits and occupations. Still, however, there is no positive proof that our sheep was derived either from the Argali or any other known wild species, and the probability has been much lessened by the recent discoveries Of the remains Of sheep, mingled with stone weapons of a people who existed under such different conditions Of the earth's surface, that we may assume with as much probability that they were the progenitors Of the Asiatics, as that the latter were their ancestors. And Dr. Carpenter, in his Zoology, says the Argali is not the original sheep.

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