The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1896-09-02
A New Indian Industry.

remarkable development of the Rhea
fiber throws for the moment ali tariff
differences between Bombay and
Manchester into the shade. The In.
dian government has long bee.
aware that in this widely spread va
riety of the nett'e family its pro
vinces possess a source Of unused
wealth. IT. 1869 It offered reward
of $4,000 for the invention Of a ma
chine CIR process which should sepa,
rate the delicate fiber from the bark
at cost consistent with The require
ments of commerce An offer OF
Rs $4,000 was renewed in 1871,
Various machines were submitted
under these inducements, but they
failed in regard to- the essential ele-
ment of cheapness, and after many
trials the offers were withdrawn.
They efectually attracted, however,
the attention of experts in Great
Britain, Europe and America. Rhea
became recognized as one of the
most valuable fbers known to the
ancient or modern world. It's use in
Egypt, India and China dates from
before the dawn Of history Rhea
cloth is unrolled from the mummles
of the Nile and unearthed in the
burial mounds of Assam. The nets
and lines spun from it had, for
strength. fneness and durability, no
rivals among the 6snermen Of Bengal
and the Malay Archipelago. AS
China grass It won its way about
the beginning Of this century into
European commerce.
THE difficulty is to separate the
strong silky 6bers of the bark from
the outer cuticle and the tenacious
gums in which they lie embedded.
In the past, when labor was of little
account, the wives or daughters Of
the husbandmen and fishing commu
mites scraped and washed small
quantities Of the bark till, by the
persistent toll of many days, each
family produced few handfuils of
the much PRICED fiber But the cost
Of this manual process proved an IN
superable difficulty in the adoption OF
Rhea for modern textile manufactures
DR.. Royle, as industrial adviser to
the Indian Office, showed that iEN
Rhea fbers 'are exceeded by none in
fineness, excell all others in strength,
and may be fifty compared to the
trunk of an elephant, which can pick
up a needle OF root up tree. tie
declared that, if the difficulty Of
separating the fiber can be overcome
.the benefits to India and the world
will be incalculable.' It is this prob
lem that the chemists and machinlsts
of Europe and America have during
the past thirty years been endeavor-
ing to solve. France and Germany
at once entered the field with facto-
ries for the extraction of the fiber
They worked it up into many forms,
from ropes and sail canvas to pushes
and dress-pieces resembling silk
goods in appearance They failed,
however, to produce flasse, or
clean fiber, which should be at once
cheap and serviceable No machine
or merely mechanical operation
eliminated the resins with perfec-
tion which yielded fine yarns, except
at cost prohibitive of their general
use,
"The chemists seemed for time
to be more successful. They pro
duced by means of various reagents
flasse which was at once cheap
and apparently sound Beautiful
fabrics we're woven OH the continent,
and the inventors laid oct largo
capital, in the belief that they had
solved the problem But by the time
fabrics came into the hands OF the
consumers, indeed often before they
passed from the shops Of tue retail