Wool studies II : the frequency distribution of Merino wool fibre thickness measurements

Abstract

The logarithmic nature of distributions in wool fibre thickness measurements has been suggested by the constancy of the coefficient of variability in previous work. The distribution of a variable, the logarithm of which normally distributed, is discussed. The application of what is in the text called the logarithmic function to 18 different samples is given and the "fit" compared with that of the normal distribution. Two further samples, which were also measured by an antilogarithmic scale, are included and show that the logarithms of fibre thicknesses are normally distributed. The logarithmic nature of the distributions of fibre thickness measurements and the normality of the logarithms of such measurements are illustrated by Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. It is suggested that the logarithms of fibre thickness measurements be used for statistical analysis. This would mean that the arithmetical mean is to be replaced by the geometrical mean to represent average fibre thickness.