Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-12-12
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHING.
An Interesting Article Upon Wearing
Apparel, Etc.

Apparel, Etc.
La Ret7e des Deuc Nondes publishes the
following interesting article concerning the
facility with which various kinds of goods
are traversed by heat:
The lightest veil is something of vest
ment, as it serves to moderate the loss by
radiation from naked body. 1t is in the
same way that a cloudy sky protects the
earth from being too much cooled; the dew
will only fall when the clouds are absent.
In putting on numerous coverings we sue
coed in diminishing the radiation from our
bodies, as if by a series of stopping off
places or relays. Our linen underclothes
and our cloaks make up numerous artificial
epiderms. The heat that is given off by
the skin goes to warm the superimposed
clothing; the worse the conductor the
slower the heat will pass through; when
it arrives at the surface it passes off, but
without our perceiving it, as in direct con-
tact of the air we should, since it is not we,
but the clothes, that get cold. What rem
ders our clothing protection to us is their
being wadded with a layer of warm air, the
temperature of which is maintained at be-
tween 200 and 800. Each of us thus has his
own little atmosphere that follows him
everywhere and renews itself without get
ting cold. An animal, in its fur. has its
couch of air in the interstices, that increases
the protecting power. Furs, soft stuffs and
feathers owe their warmth TO the air which
they contain.
1t is evidently question of great inter
est to determine by experiments the facil
ity with which the various stuffs used as
clothing are traversed by the heat. The
celebrated Count Lumford was the first
who particularly studied these expert
ments. He used glass ball with diam
eter of 0.04 m, surmounted by a tube
through which he introduced into ball a
thermometer surrounded by the substance
to be examined. The ball was first put into
boiling water and then into cooling mix
ture, and he noted the time it took the
thermometer to descend from 20 degrees R.
TO 10 degrees r., to loose 60 degrees r. (75
degrees C). When the thermometer was
bare it cooled in 90 minutes. When it
was covered with linen it took 10 minutes.
Covered with other kinds of stuffS it took
periods of time longer and longer to cool
fax or cotton thread, Ii to 10 minutes
silk or wooden thread, Is to l6 minutes
flax. lint, cotton wadding. II minutes
sleeps wool, 1S4 minutes; raw silk, p
minutes elder down, hare's fur, % min
utes. These experiments were made in
1898. The most recent experiments were
made by DR.. Kreiger. With the coverings
of flax, cotton, flannel, silk, NJ. Krieger
noted the absorption of heat in the pro-
portions as shown by the following num-
bers o. 100 102, los. The influence of
color was much greater for cotton stufiS
differently tinted, he found the following
numbers: white, 1907 straw color 1902;
yellow, 40; light green, 155 dark green,
16S; Turkish red, 165; light blue, 1888 !;
black, 208.
To have an idea of the part played by the
conductibility of tissue, NJ Krieger ascer-
tanned in what measure the loss of caloric
was diminished by doubling the various
stufis placed around the iron cylinder. He
found that satin, cotton stufls and fine
linen only diminished the loss from three
to six per cent. For buckskin flannel and
rather thick cloth, the loss was lessened
from ten to thirty per cent. The clearest
results of these experiments is that the re-
sistance offered by these various stuffS does
not depend so much on the conductibility
ofthe textile fibers that form their substance
as on their thickness, volume and texture
A coat that is wadded is much warmer
when new than it is after the wadding has
been flattened by its use, as it is thus rem
dered better conductor. If the doubling
of the coverings of the cylinder has little
influence when they are wrapped tightly
around, it is very different when a space of
one-half of one centimeter has been left
between the two layers. We find, in de-
Quoting for the conductibility of the two
layers, a retardation of the cooling amount
ing to 80 or 50 per cent, that is caused by
the interposed layer of air, as it is indie
pendent of the nature of the covering
From this it follows that, in certain cases,
a garment will keep us warmer il tits large
than if it were tight; We know that tight
gloves or shoes protect us badly against the
cold. But in this seasoning we suppose
that the layer of the air is immoyable, q
large, flowing garment is really cooler, be-
ing favorable to the circulation of the air.
The most serious obstacle that the propa-
CATION of heat can encounter in a body is
the discontinuity of its elements. In the
manufacture of the various tissues destined
to clothe us, these principles are proited
by, more or less, unknowingly. Very
warm clothes are obtained from stuffS that
are light spongy and loose, because they
can contain large volume of air in the in
terstices between the fibers. | said contain,
but it would be more correct to have said
allow to pass. Indeed, the warm air that
surrounds our bodies is not immovable; it
is renewed by filtering through the cover
ings that we think are destined to isolate
US from the surrounding medium. A con-
dition that is essential for a good garment
is that it allows of ventilation. The
warmest stuffs allow the air to pass through
them more freely than those that are con-
sidered the coolest. NJ. Pettenkofier has
demonstrated the proof of this in measur-
ing the volumes of air that passed through
a series of tubes, closed with different
kinds of stuffs. the same pressure and time
being allowed for each kind of stuff The
following numbers will give an idea of
their relative permeability: Flannel, 100;
linen, So; silk, 40; heavy cloth, IS; buck
skin, 81; glazed skin, l. Flannel is one
hundred times more permeabie than a
glazed glove, yet we know that it is infin-
itely warmer In using double layers the
volumes of air were only slightly modified.
Thus we see that our clothes are continu-
ally aired, and the activity of the exchange
depends on the exterior temperature, the
agitation of the atmosphere, and on the
porosity of the tissues. What is essential
is that the exchange should be made so
slowly as TO be imperceptible.
The warmest garment is fur pelisse;
but it is not only the skin, it is above all,
the hair that keeps the heat; even if its
mass should be comparatively insignificant,
the heating efficacy of this kind of apparel
is due, above all, 10 the interposed air NJ.
Krieger has an interesting experiment on
the subject. He noted the loss of heat by
his calorimeter first, when surrounded by
fur in its natural state; then with the skin
shaved, and lastly, the same skin was
coated with a varnish of linseed OIL then
with one of gum arabic; the loss in these
four cases is shown in the following figures:
100, 100, 25S, 296 The cleansed skin lost
twice as much heat as when it had the hair
on, and the loss was tripled by the varnish
that closed the pores. Dogs and rabbits
have been killed by being shaved and then
vanished, death being caused not so much
by the suppressed respiration as by the loss
of heat. NJ. Krieger found that when he
shaved a rabbit and wrapped ii in wet
linen, and left il in room at temperature
of 19o c., the temperature of the animal
fell in five hours from 70 50 c. to - 80 in
the same time the frequency of the respira-
ton from lG0 70 30 inspirations q minute.
On putting the rabbit in a cage heated 10
500, il quickly revived
Alright garments are in general I'M