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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. S3 American blankets. The credit of the introduction of this eminently characteristic fabric is due to the Mission Mills of California, estab lished in 1858. Nothing comparable with these blankets in weight, thickness, softness, and perfection of face had ever before been attempted, and it is impossible to conceive of a more luxurious bed- covering. The beauty of the fabric was not less a matter of surprise to our foreign visitors than the luxurious tastes of a people which could make blankets costing from thirty to fifty dollars a pair salable. The California blankets of this grade are made with a filling of Aus tralian wool, the warps being of California wool. Blankets of no less beauty and perfection were exhibited by a Minnesota mill, and these were made exclusively of wool grown in that State. Totally different in style and material, but not’less admirable, were blankets exhibited by Austria and the Netherlands. Those exhibited by a Netherlands manufacturer were especially noticeable. The wool was of a coarser quality than that used in the California blankets, and the pile of unusual length. They were woven in great variety of colors, and with tasteful designs, in the Jacquard loom, and are highly worthy of imitation by our manufacturers. An ample field for the application of color is found in the manufac ture of rail-car blankets, and especially of carriage, railway, and lap robes. All the European styles of these articles have been adopted here, besides other articles of this class, of still more extensive use, such as the admirable horse-cloths and blankets not long since ex clusively furnished by England, which find complete imitation, if not improvement, in our own manufactures. In the important class of shawls, we naturally observe those most nearly allied in material and texture to the fabrics which we have been considering. The manufacture of the all-wool plaid shawls—formerly known in this country as the Bay State Shawl, from the mill which introduced it—originated in Massachusetts about 1848. Favored by the easy application of the cassimere twill to this fabric, and the facil ity with which the design is made and varied through the alternate concurrence of the warp and woof, and still further aided by the adaptation of medium American wools to this fabric, it at once attained perfection. The.shawls of the Bay State Mills exhibited at the first International Exhibition, that of 1851, were pronounced by French experts as “quite remarkable for the lightness and soft ness of the stuff;” and shawls exhibited by the same mill at the Paris Exposition of 1867 were commended for the same qualities, as well as for their moderate price. This manufacture has now im mense production. Still, the English and Scotch shawls, made of