The Portland daily press., 1896-05-23


pipes referred to runs along each set OF
machines. These pipes are supplied with
small taps, fixed close together, and each
tap has q glass tube, about the size of a
gas burner, at the extreme point of which
is an aperture so minute that the fila
ments passing through no fewer than ten
of them would be required to make up
the thickness of human hair. These
glass tubes are known as "glass silk
worms" and some 112, 900 of them are in
use in the factory.
The effect of the pneumatic pressure in
the cylinders referred to above is to force
the liquid matter not only along the
iron tubes. but also. when the small taps
are turned on, through each of the glass
silkworms. 1t appears there as a scarce
" peroeptible globule. This girl touch
es with her thumb, to which 1t adheres,
and she draws out an almost invisible
filament which she passes through the
guides and onto the bobbin. Then, one
by one, she takes eight, ten, or twelve
other such flaments, according to the
thickness of the thread to be made, and
passes them through the same guides and
onto the same bobbin. This done, she
presses them together with her thumb
and forefnger at certain point between
the glass silkworms and the guides. Not
only do they adhere, but thenceforward
the filaments will continue to meet and
adhere at that point, however long the
machinery may bekept running In this
way the whole frame will soon be set at
work, the threads not breaking until the
bobbin Is full, when they break auto
matically, while they are all of uniform
thickness.
The remaining processes are the same
as in the case Of ordinary silk, except in
two respects. In the first place. the arti-
fetal silk has to be denitrifed. SO as to
| render it non-infamnable after thechem-
ical processes it has undergone; and, in
| the next place, the hanks are placed on
two revolving rollers, which stretch and
also iron" them, producing that high
degree of Iustre which is one of the chief
characteristics of the artificial silk. The
new product is said to take dye much
more readily than the natural silk, and
certainly the colors md the extreme rich
ness of some specimens that have been
on view in London seemed to leave
nothing to be desired in this respect.
The chief difference in appearance be-
tween the natural and the artificial silk
| is in the greater luster Of the latter;
though it will be found also that if o
single thread of each is taken the arti-
fetal will "break" differently from the
natural, and has only about so per cent
of its strength.
The success already secured by the new
process in France is such that the intro
duotion of the industry into Lancashire
is expected TO produce something like q
revolution in the conditions of trade
there, not only bybringing into existence
u new occupation, but also by finding
I; more work for d good deal of the weav-
ing machinery that is now only partially
employed, while the weaving of "silk, ("
or what only experts will be able to dis
ringuish from silk, will be rendered pos
BILE in the case of n vast number of peo-
pie to whom the product of the silkworm
is moro or ess prohibitive luxury.
All the same, there will probably be
)Ine sentimental regret that the silk
worm itself, W. ich has played so impor-
TAM part in the clothing of the people
OF the Western World since the middle
OF the sixth century, should thus run the
danger of being supplented by liquifled
timber, though che discovery that cloth
ing can be made out of wood pllp is,
after all, no more remarkable than that
which " as made by the Persian mission
aries who visited China l, 800 years age
and learned, to their surprise, that gar.
ments could lie made from the cocoons
of caterpillar.