Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-09
No Wonder Germany Quit
By BRICGS
NUMBER -TWENTY-THREE

who even heard of silk burlap"
said Colonel j. B. Kemper of the
Army Recruiting station, 1926 Mar
ket street, Harrisburg, land yet that
is n of the things that helped win
the war. The powder used to fire
big guns has always bee packed
in cloth bags for convenience in
handling. These bags in the past
have been of canvass or similar
material, but that wasn't good
enough for this war. Probably half
of the big gun firing during the
war has been at night and it was
discovered that the old fashioned
powder bags burned during the
powder explosion with quite a bright
flash and that also they left consid-
cradle ash in the barrel of the gun
which scratched the gun when it
was fired again. 1t was found that
silk burned with much less flash,
consequently making the location of
the gun harder to detect, and fur
Their it left practically no ash in
the barrel. Still another considera-
ton favored the use of silk, it's
tensile strength is very great and
the bags therefore hold their shape
better. Now if the Boche located
a gun by the flash they would
promptly shell it, killing or wound
ing the crew and destroying the gun
itself, also anything that would tend
to prevent deterioration of the bar
rel was so much saved. Thus it was
| good economy to substitute silk bags
for cheaper textiles. The different
sized guns used powder bags of diff
ferent weights so for the smaller
type guns it was not necessary to
use as heavy silk as in the larger
| guns so silk of five different grades
was used.
1.-The cocoons were brought from
the Mulberry groves of Japan, China
and India, the were bathed
in hot water and the larger threads
were unwound and sent to the
spindles with the native gum with
which the worm holds it's treasure
intact still coating the threads. Now
this gum would clog the machinery
so it was found necessary to soak
the thread in oil to prevent this
clogging. The combination of heavy
threads, gum and oil gave the So
called cartridge cloth the appear
ance of grey burlap. Most careful
tests and chemical analyses, how
ever, proved this material to be
really pure silk. Gradually during
the war the production of this ma
terial increased until it reached some
six million yards per month and the
signing of the armistice caught the
War Department with seventeen
million yards on hand. The question
promptly arose as to what could be
done with this vast amount of ma
terial. So far as anyone could see
there was nothing to do with 1t but
sell it for burlap and if this had
been done you might have bought a
sack of potatoes in a pure silk gun
ny sack and never known it, but
that seemed such an awful waste
the silk experts of the Ordnance
Department got busy and started
experimenting. They finally evolved
a cheap commercial process for re-
moving the gum and oil, dyeing the
silk burlap into any desired shade
or printing it with friezes or other
figures popular in tapestries. The
lighter grades are about the texture
of pongee or silk Palm Beach cloth
Now this seventeen million yards
are to be sold, not as burlap, but
as high quality silk, and the mex
thing you know you will be wear
ing u silk suit made u of cloth
originally woven to contain the pow
der that was to send a nice little
shell over to visit the Boche; OIL
perhaps you will buy a beautiful,
stamped tapestry for the parloi
which was woven for the same good
cause. And who knows but what
the American silk powder bags will
bring about a change in styles and
make heavy coarsely woven silks al
the rage mex year instead of the
present fine qualities. Stranger
things have happened"