In this planking or sizing of the hat, sometimes with half a dozen under hands at the same time, the enveloping cloth is soon thrown aside as the hat grows in solidity. The hands of the hatter are defended from the scalding water by thick leather shields upon the palms, and as the hat approaches its proper size, it is scalded and belabored with determined importunity, coiled, rolled, pressed, and pinned, backward and forward till the size of the hat is reduced to nearly half of its original dimensions, and the tension of the several fibres becomes so great that the hat will felt no farther. At this stage it is impossible for it to be torn asunder, and is still in its original form of a hollow cone. Such is the making department of the trade, the felting process, where a firm piece of cloth (for such is the body of a hat) is manufactured from loose wool or fur, independent of either spinning or weaving. We have now explained the making of the bare body, as it is called, of a plain hat, in as concise a manner as the subject will permit. There are yet a variety of qualities and kinds of hats requiring a variation more or less in the manipulation of the article, so as to suit a fanciful and fastidious people. For instance, the quantity and quality of fur, or an entire change of materials, produce quite a different appearance both in the look, the wear, and the price of the hat, while the form of the cone must be changed to admit of a high or low crown, or of a broad or narrow brim, &c. &c. All FELT hats, of whatever texture, nature, or name, must have undergone the above described operations, and many have to go back a second time to the plank kettle, and there undergo an additional teasing and ducking in the scalding water. For instance, all those destined to receive a coat of fur upon the outside finer than that of which the body is made, and constituting the flowing nap of the hat, which is merely a kind of veneering or outside plating, which will shortly be described. A very good hat is made having a flowing nap that is raised directly from the body itself. Thus when the body of such a hat as has been described is about half wrought up at the kettle, it undergoes in another department the operation of shaving, by which means the projecting coarse hairs are all cut off, after which, on being returned to the kettle, the hatter, with his stiff brush, card, and comb, raises a nap upon the half solidified body, which is constantly improved as he continues to manipulate with the brush. The hat is, at the same time, reduced in its dimensions by the operation of felting until at the conclusion when it appears of the desired size, fully felted, and adorned on the outside with its rough and flowing nap, which otherwise would have been smooth and cloth-like. This is called the brush hat. Shaving.