The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-01-08
sILK-MAKiNG In SWITZERLAND.
Peasants Who Do Exceedingly Fine and In
tricate Work for Very Small Pay.

'Tndeed, we must be very careful with this.
Even the place on which we lay it must be
smooth. You see how carefully It is packed.
This strong outer box is made of inch boards
think they must be some sort of Alpine pine.
This zinc lining the inside is used in hermet-
ically sealing the casks"
Mr.. A. II. Nordyks, of the mill manufacturing
frm-the Nordyke 6 Marmon Company-said
this to a reporter of the Journal, while the two
stood beside case of boiling cloth. which had
just arrived from Zurich. Switzerland.
This cloth is the finest silk made" Mr.. Nor
dyke, proceeded with his explanation. Each
contains fifty pieces of forty yards each, the
value of the case ranging from 81, 900 to $4,000.
We get the Swiss goods because it is the best
manufacture of thar silk-it is hand made-ex-
ceeds my comprehension. The cloth is even
and smooth and the stitch is regular. while be-
ing very com licated. It is woven by the peas
ants of Switzerland in houses of uniform con-
struction. On the side of hill, with his little
garden above and the grandest scenery in the
his homo and workshop Inc latter is a stone
cellar or basement with one small door for en-
trance and a tiny window, uniformly
on the south aide. The atmosphere is
while the wife is busy with her babies
and household duties on the stories above. she
weaver sits in that cold cellar weaving this
cloth by hand. The thread is reeled on bobbins
by the spinners, who also make the reeds for
the weaver. These reeds remarkable little
instruments. They are two small parallel rods,
between which are blades of steel ranging from
so to 200 to the lineal inch. The ordinary fine
grades made on reeds of about $50 bars to
the lineal inch. You can get an idea of the
fineness of the texture by computing the num-
Der of meshes to square inch of the cloth.
When woven from reeds of 200 blades to the
inch the number of meshes would be the square
of the number of blades to the lineal inch, or
zoo times 200. which is 40,000 Each of these
meshes is uniform in size, and the thread is so
fine that each mesh Is distinct even with the
naked eye. The cloth is used in boiling or sieving
-four. / do not know how much a m an can
can weave in day, but the quantity M ust be
small The wages are about 80 cents day to
weavers while they are in their prime, period
lasting about five years. After man has
woven that long his eyes begin to fail him, aud
he is put on a coarser cloth. These changes
continue to be made with HIM Until he is finally
weaving material coarse as mosquito netting.
''There is manufacturer of boiling cloth in
this country, and consequently the goods are
admitted free of tariff. France tries to COM
pete with the Zurich manufacturers, but her
stock is machinery-woven and not 80 good.
Besides the superior workmanship of it there is
something about the Swiss silk that makes it
better than any other for our The cocoone
of Piedmont and Verona produce thread the
elasticity OF which is so great that 1t can be
stretched 20 per cent length before it breaks.
Silk isl fine. bright massive fluid which flows
out by two openings under the worms mouth
and hardens Immediately on being exposed to
the air. The spinner's put it on the bobbins in
thread as fine as that which comes from the
month of the worm. They draw it taut to
duce tho elasticity, and in its original color of
a bright orange it goes to the weavers- In
making the cloth the moisture of the cellars is
. essential point because the threads would
break if they became dry and hard. In France.
where the weaving is almost wholly by ma
chnery, the moisture is supplied artifcially A
wonderful feature of the Swiss work is the char
acter of the atitCh. each thread being
locked in it's place by the plotting of the
parallel threads which run the length of the
piece The French cloth is like
ordinary CLOTH the threads being single both
ways and alternating over one another. By the
Swiss process it is not possible for mesh to
slip and become enlarged so that the texture of
the flour would be impaired. Each of the 80, 900
or 40. 900 meshes to the square inch remains in
it's place, and the quality of the -four is conse-
quentiy uniform.
"Ths calculation will also give some idea of
the size of particle of -four roller mills make
il. Each mesh is the size of a thread, and
around each mesh are the halves OF four threads
or whole threads. Then. there being two
VIII ole threads to each mesh, the meshes would
form only one-third of the space in an inch and
that one third being 40 000 the whole number of
particles in inch would be 100, 900. single
particle would be invisible to the naked eye.
'I do not think boiling cloth would make
dress goods. because the necessity for meshes
makes it too thin open. though there is
silk woven on which so much care is taken or of
which the expense is great. We get it in a
pale or milk color, the cloth having been
bleached after leaving the weavers hands. It
costs S24 freight to get case of cloth here from
Zurich"