The Worthington advance., 1900-04-06
MERcER1zED COTTON.

MERCERIZED COTTON.
Discovery Of the Process Which Cen.
verts the Cheap Material late
Fine 'Silk.
"A boy sat before the fire and
watched his mothers kettle boil. The
lid quivered, rose little, and tho
boy gave steam power to the world.
John Mercer, An English dyer, fl
tered caustic soda through square
of cotton cloth. Thence O new verb
to mercerize-in the language, new
fabric on the market, and new busi-
ness, engaging millions of capital. to
cheer the unemployed.
The story of the boy, John Watt, is
old, but Mercer's story is new and in.
teresting. Mercerized cotton, either
cotton yarn or cotton cloth, resem-
bles silk absolutely. It has the luster
of silk; it will take on, like silk, the
richest and most brilliant dyes, and it
has the unmistakable soft-harsh,
nesting feel which nothing but silk
ever had, says the Brooklyn Eagle.
Also cotton, under this process,
does not weaken, as might have been
feared, but it acquires strength. A
skein of cotton yarn in the natural
state that will carry 13 ounces with
out breaking will carry, after mer-
cerizing, 19 ounces. And if you take
three coats and line the first with q
plain cotton lining, the second with
mercerized cotton and the third with
silk, the cotton and the silk will wear
out, about together, but the mercer
ized lining will outlast them two or
three times over.
Mercerized cotton is used in Innings,
in underwear, in spindle banding, in
stockings. in dress goods, in negligee
shirts. There is a profit in merceriz-
ing of from 100 to 200 per cent. In
the last year or two many public dy-
ers have added mercerizing machines
to their plants, and good number
of mercerizing mills have been estab-
hshed.
But there is room for more. Here
is the proof of the demand for mer-
cerized goods: Bradford, the ingeni,
Gus and alert manufacturing town of
England, ran night and day making
cloths for us in the time of the low
tariff. Bradford is still running night
and day, but she is making for us
now only mercerized things.
Mercerizing began as far back as
1886 in the English town of Accring-
ton, where John Mercer, manager for
the firm of Hargreaves, filtered caustic
soda through cotton cloth. Mercer,
| by accident, kept this cloth by him.
happened to test it's strength, hap.
pened to splash it with dye. He
found that it was about twice as
strong and about twice rs susceptible
to dye liquor as it had been before
Slight savings, in connection with
big outputs, come in the long run to
astonishing totals. Here was say.
ing by no means slight. Here, just
by running cotton thread through a
liquid as cheap as water, it would
come to do the work of two threads
and in being dyed it would save hall
the quantity of the dye stuff.
Mercer rejoiced. He refused for his
secret an offer of 100000 from q
French firm. He had the idea of a1
immense syndicate, with himself al
the head, rolling up millions of profits
per annum.
| Then it was found that cotton
shrunk in the mercerizing. A yard
of cloth would save in dyestuffs and
In raw stock, say five cents to its
manufacturers, but it would come out
of the mercerizing bath only three
quarters of a yard of cloth. Against
the profit of five cents loss through
shrinkage of about ten cents would
have to be set. This is why Mercer
never formed his syndicate, why mer
cerizing was of no commercial impor
tance until latterly.
For the remaining 20 years of hi
life the man toiled Intellectually on, ant
he died disheartened. But his name
lives. That is because. somewher,
around 1890, Horace Lowe, in England
and Thomas and Provost. in Germany
|
be possible to mercerize cotto1
thread and to prevent the thread from
shrinking in the process They NOR,
than succeeded.
Mercer had taken his cotton, steepet
1t for about three hours in causti,
soda, then washed it. That is mer
cerizing in it's simplest terms. o'th'
Englishman. Lowe, and the Germans
Thomas and Provost, came simulta
neously the idea of keeping the cot
ton stretched while sleeping it in tn,
caustic soda bath. They tied the end
of their cotton threads to sticks an,
then mercerized them. The sticks di,
not break, the thread did not eve1
show signs of shrinkage. So easy wa
it to do what Mercer had been failin,
| at for years and years.
But, more than this, they found tha
cotton mercerizct> vnder tension cam
out glossy, soft and rustling. T.
their amazement they found that the
had transformed cotton into silk. An
ever since the Englishmen and Gel
mans have been fighting over the pat
ents on this wonderful discovery.
The explanation of the luster tha
cotton, being mercerized, takes on,
simple. The soda and the tension tc
gether change the nature of the cot
ton fiber. The natural fiber is fla1
shriveled; the mercerized fiber fill
out, becomes round and smooth. An
just as a fat, dried raisin has n
luster, whereas the full ripe crap
catches and throws back the light, S
there is no luster to the fat fiber g
| the natural cotton hu& on tho narco,