Cottonwood report. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1893-1901, 1898-04-08
FROM WOOD FIBER.
A NEW PROCESS OF MAKING
ARTIFICIAL SILK.
Tho Product Is by No Means an
Inferior Article - The SILK
Worms Methods Arc
Closely Copied.
HHE year 1897 will be able to
boast of an innovation otably
interesting to the feminin 9

mbuuihCbuIo into bno OHibeu Obdto6.
Wood-common or garden timber
will be the material from which the
new silk is to come, and our sisters.
aunts and cousins, our mothers, wives
and daughters, will no longer have to
depend for their best gowns upon the
health of the mulberry eating silk
worm. In point OF fact, the fashion
prophets are already limiting that the
cheapness and widespread use of the
artificial fabric may have the effect of
attiring the masculine element, the
dandies and gala is, in the silken
garments of their far-away forebears.
Artificial silk making in this country
during the year 1897 is, apparently, an
assured fact. Already in France and
England the process is being tried
with success. For years, however,
what is now an accomplished fact was
looked upon as the modern inventors
philosophers stone. Scientists by the
hundred spent fruitless years in efforts
to manufacture wood silk. At last,
where so many other and greater men
had failed, Count HillIare de Chardon.
net discovered the secret. The story
of M. de O. ardonnet's invention is al
most romance. The worthy count,
born in the lk-growing districts of
the Rhone, became graduate of the
Partisan Ecole Polytechnique, and
eventually knight of the Legion of
Honor. This accomplished, he retired
on his laurels to his native Lyonnais,
where he spent many days in philo-
sophical meditations, On certain
sultry afternoon, while sitting in his
park and carelessly munching strip
of bark from one of the trees, he
noticed the fibrous character of the
scrap of white rind. From this, q
rapid train of thought brought him to
the crude idea of the subsequent great
invention. Thereafter the count shook
off his habits of sloth, abandoned his
woodland siestas, and devoted his life
TO the procuring OF silk from wood.
Obstacles in shoals barred his way, but
the count was man of courage and
perseverance. After years of labor
be succeeded in perfecting an inven-
tion which is really mechanical and
chemical marvel.
The process by which wood is con-
verified into silk fibre is very inter-
esting one. A number of different
kinds of wood may be used, white pine
or spruce being best adapted to the
purpose, but it is also said that the
cottonwood, so common in the middle
West, will make excellent silk. The
wood is first ground to pulp in the
usual manner, and the pulp is macer-
ated in a solution of nitric and sui
phuric acid. The acids are then
squeezed out, and the pulp is i'm
mersed in yats Of water, where it is
left until thoroughly cleansed. After
the water is drawn off and the mass
has partially dried, it is put into a
huge revolving cylinder containing al
cohol and ether, and is left to the in
fiuence of these substances for some
hours. From tere it is passed through
filter, ahd comes out as sort OF
heavy gum which closely resembles
colodion.
1t is from this gum like substance
that the silk is directly produced, and
the spinning process, which comes
next, is perhaps the most interesting
of all, because in it the silk worm has
been closely copied. The gum or col
lodion is forced into pipes which run
along beside the spinning machines.
From these pipes are suspended q
number of small glass tubes, the aper-
lures In which are not more than hall
or quarter as large as that in the
tube of an ordinary house thermome
ter. The pneumatic pressure forces the
semi-liquid substance into these glass
tubes, which are the artificial substi'
tute for the silk worm. The spinner
touches her finger to the opening in
the lower end of the glass tubes, the
substance adheres to it, and she draws
out q filament as fine as that which is
spun by the silk worm. Contact with
the air hardens the filaments at once,
and they ara guided directly into the
bobbin and spun off in the same man.
ner as the natural product. 1t takes
from six to ten of the small flame nts,
according to their fneness, to make a
single strand of silk fibre. This is
done by simply guiding the necessary
number OF flaments to the same bob
bin, and then pressing them together
at point between the tubes and the
bobbin. Not only do the strands ad
here at that point, but they continue
to join there as the reel moves on. The
thread is kept of the uniform thick
ness by the openings in the glass
tubes, which are all of one size.
As the thread is reeled off from the
glass tubes it is of a light straw color
and looks exactly as silk fiber does a
this stage of its manufacture. But
there are certain peculiarities abou
this wood pulp silk which require still
further processes before it is finished
In the first place, the fiber is rendered
very infammable by the chemica
changes it has undergone and must be
denitrifed before it can be safely
handled. Then comes the final ant
important process of imparting the
luster, which IS done by ironing. The
thread is passed over revolving rollers
which stretch and iron it in much the
same way that the big machines in {
steam laundry iron your collars and
cuffs. Tho artificial silk takes on the