The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1861-06-22
KING eOTToN DETHRoNED.

one idea, that cotton is king, and that it
rules the world. In particular have they
imagined that France and Great Britain
could not do without it, and that this me-
cessity would compel them, sooner or later,
to recognize the Southern Confederacy.-
They have hooted at the idea of any hostile
competition in the production of this article
elsewhere in sufficient quantity and of ad-
equate quality to supersede their own. But
we imagine they are about to be undeceived,
and that, too, in most unexpected manner.
We have seer at the Chamber of Com
MERGE the most beautiful specimens of fax
cotton we have ever examined, which is
actually the product of our Northwestern
States, and where it grows in boundless ex-
tent, indigenous, cheap. and to be had al
most for the taking. We have seen it in
the rough we have seen it after the first
process, one of few minutes time; after
the second, when it was carded; in the
third, after 1t was spun and in the fourth,
when it assumed the form of cloth of the
most beautiful texture, woven into the fab
RIGS now usually manufactured of the South
ern cotton. After the third process it can
not be distinguished in its appearance from
the finest cotton.
1t has long been suspected that there were
other vegetable 6bers which might be made
as valuable as those of the cotton plant, and
many are i'll use in various parts of the
world, such as the vegetable silk or arvors
de palma of South America, resembling
cotton wool, but not having roughness
enough in the fiber to permit its being
woven; the pulu or vegetable silk of Owhy-
hee; the sunnee of India, or brown hemp
the Jetee from Madras the borassus fiber
from the palm tree countries the jute from
Bengal. now rival of fax and hemp, but
limited in its use because it will not stand
being wet; various kinds of hemp and fax
fibers - those of Manila. the aloe, coir,
pine apple, China grass, Para grass. bast,
ETC., etc.
ALI these have their uses and their value,
but the woolly covering of the seeds of the
gossyPium. or cotton plant, has supplanted
them all in quantity. quality, and general
adaptability to the wants and comforts of
the human race.
None of the fbers of the other vegetable
substances above mentioned, with the ex-
ception of flax. have ever been turned so
easily and cheiply to use. This. which the
botanists call Hnum Wsitdtissimuna. has been
the chief competitor of cotton but its pre-
paratlon and manufacture are effected by a
process SO tedious and operose that very
great efforts have been made to shorten and
simplify it.
As long ago as 1928, patent was grant
ed by act of Parliament TO a Mr.. Lee for a
| method of separating the fiber in two or three
hours. In 1898 Mr.. Schenk invented
method for preparing the fiber in sixty
hours; and the Chevalier Claussen intro
duced, still later, process by which the
hber, soaked in solution of the carbonate
of soda. and afterward dipped in weak
acid solution, came out broken up into its
minutest divisions, and in the form of flax
cotton. and when manufactured proved to
have stronger and finer texture than the
best cotton. For some reason unknown the
discovery was not proceeded with cotton
still remained king; but we believe its
downfall is at hand.
On our great Western prairies, and in a
large part of Western Canada, there is a
species of wild fax, unknown to botsnists
formerly. which is Indigenous, perennial,
herbaceous, and inexhaustible in quantity.
1t was put to no use by the early settlers,
except to make straw of it for litter. Re-
Gently the seed has been considerably col
lected for the manufacture of oil. but still
later its fiber has been found 10 be very
valuable, and now it has assumed a momen-
tous Importance through the means Of a very
simple invention.
The stalks are placed in a cylinder and
subjected 10 an enormous pressure of high
steam-250 pounds to the inch. In less
than six minutes the contents are blown out
or exploded. and the fax comes forth with
the fiber divided up, and the husk or cover
| ing shattered into infnitesimal parts. It
then resembles codilla, or tow. 1t is next
passed through cylinders armed with teeth,
which hackle it and smooth out the fbers.
1t is then washed with nitric acid, and
comes out as white as snow. It is then
carded, drawn out into yarn, and is spun
into thread precisely like cotton, and is
ready for the loom. Thus the old, tedious,
and unhealthy process of water rotting is
done away with, and so is that of bleach
ing, to perfect which chemistry has ex-
hausted itself, and large fields of lawn have
been indispensable.
This article. when ready for spinning,
can be afforded at uniform price of ten
cents per pound, and enough of it can be
gathered wild-though it will be much i'm
proved by culture-from our own prairies.
to eloths the teOrld sOith a fabric Of the finest
and most durable quality. The expert
menus dIEeaCy LudOe1 ANU the Hills dlISauy
constructed to manufacture it, have fur
nished the most conclusive evidence of the
truth of this magnificent discovery.
Samples of the article, in all it's process
es, have been forwarded to Manchester,
and parties are ready to furnish as many
bales Of it as all tie mills in England may
dem0nd.
Thus Providence seems to step in at a
critical moment, to destroy the value of the
staple on which Secession has placed its
greatest reliance for its means of support.
and for the attainment of foreign alliances.
Let cotton be superseded by this better and
cheaper article, and the Confederate States
which grow this material will lose wealth,
power, and permanence, and be reduced to
the greatest extremities. And, even if they
should draw back from their present I'M
justi6able and untenable position, in all hu-
man probability their repentance will come
| too late.
/ A volunteer in Boston, on being asked by
the inspecting surgeon if he thought he
could stand the hardships in the service,
replied ''I should think that fellow who