Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-06-04
SILK FROM THE SPIDER.
The Spiders Work Best When Drunk,
and Prefer Fusel Oil.

The Spiders Work Best When Drunk,
and Prefer FuseI Oil.
From the New York Evening Sun.
NJ. Emile Gautier, French writer,
discussed in recent article the history
of spiders from the consider of the
prisoner Pellison down to the nutritive
spider in whom the geometrician La
place found the flavor of a nut.
There are also, it appears, spinning
spiders. whose web can be used to weave
serviceable stuffs, and, according to old
documents dealing with the subject, M.
Bon, president OF the court of accounts
of Montpelier, sent as early as 1909,
mittens and stockings made OF spiders
web to the Academy of Sciences.
He set to work in the following man
ner: Having collected a large number
of spiders cocoons, he beat them SO as
to expe all dust. Then he washed
them carefully in warm water, and al
lowed them to boil for three hours in a
pot containing water, soap, saltpeter
and little gum arabic. The cocoons,
after being again washed and carefully
dried. were at last carded with extreme
ly fine combs.
This was, of course, very primitive
proceeding. Nj. Eon obtained gray
thread with which he was able to make
the articles before mentioned. The
pamphlet which he published regarding
his experiment obtained considerable
success, and was translated into several
languages.
Fifty years later, in 1852, the Able
RAYMOND de Termeyer made expert
ments in America, in Spain, and
in Italy. He worked on the liv-
on a bobbin as fast as it came out.
The Able was remarkably patient and
tenacious, for he carried on this opera
ton uninterruptedly for thirty-four
years from 1852 to 1866, but apparent
" all his labor was in vain, for he only
succeeded in obtaining 673 grammes of
cobwebs as a result of his thirty-four
years work.
The question. however, seemed suf-
ficientlv interesting to the Academy of
Sciences, of Paris, to induce them to
charge the celebrated Reaumur with
the drawing up of a report Oh the inven-
ton of NJ. Bon.
Reaumur arrived at conclusions very
unfavorably to the development of
cobweb industry Stuff, he said, made
of so-called SPIDERS silk could not be
EMPLOYED in the manufacture of any
useful article, on account of its fragile
ness.
The strength of silk thread was ninety
times greater than that of the other,
and it required Is, threads of spiders
web to furnish solidity equal to that of
one silken thread. The learned en-
tomologist demonstrated further that
twice as many spiders as silk worms
were needed to produce the same guam
titv of thread. so that to provide one
pound of spider silk %, 600 spiders would
have to spin. To obtain such number
of cocoons much larger number of
spiders would have to be kept, for only
the females spin web round eggs
Then, again, the product of the spider
had less lustre than that of the silk
worm. Reaumur added, however, that
although there was no future for the
spiders of France, except to catch blue
bottles and flies, the exotic kinds might
repay the labor of study.
The idea has recently been taken up
by an Englishman named Shllbers, who
has made cloth of spiders web which
has been employed for the purposes of
surgery He only uses tropical spiders,
from whom, thanks to a scientific Gull
ture, he has obtained much greater re-
turn than was foreseen by Reaumur.
The spiders which he uses are big
ones from America and Africa. They
are placed in octagonal cases, where
sufficiency of insects is served to them
every day. In the room where the
cases are kept constant temperature of
500 (Fahrenheit) is maintained, and
liquid, composed of chloroform, ether,
and fusel oil, is allowed slowly to evapo-
rate. That is to say, spiders spin best
when they are drunk. Apparently
number of men of genius have been spi-
ders in this respect. Possibly there is
some connection between the devotion
of the American humorist to whisky,
and the dependence of the best class of
spider on fusel oil.
Mr.. Stillbers keeps 5 1000 of these cases
in room forty metres long by twenty
wide and five high. The spiders lay
eggs of various colors, covered with
cocoons. These are gathered up and
prepared by the same mechanical and
chemical operations as the cocoon of the
bombyx.
One cocoon yields 100 to $50 metres of
thread. The weaving process is kept alb
solutely secret.
The stuff obtained is of text
ure resembling ordinary silk, but
thick, stiff, and of dirty gray
color. 1t is all the more neces-
sary to bleach it because the color is
by no means uniform. It is bleached by
treatment with oxygenized water. Then
it is tanned and softened. 1t assumes a
pretty yellow tint, and becomes brilliant
and smooth.
To make a thread $3.50 kilometres in
length, $4,000 cocoons are requisite.
This is a great advance on ReaumuT's
calculations But still $4,000 cocoons
only supply a thread of 800 French
leagues in length. This stuff obtained
must be sold at very high price in
order to obtain the merest compensation
for all this trouble and expense. Pro-
prietors of mulberry trees and silk
worms need not be afraid of the COM
petition of the spider yet awhile.
Married Her for the Third Time.