ARTIFICIAL SILK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 193, 15 August 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

ARTIFICIAL SILK.

We owe the discovery of artificial silk in the first instance to John Mercer, a Lancashire calico printer. About a century ago he discovered that by passing cotton cloth, or cellulose, through a solution of caustic soda the fibre was short-

cned ancl strengthened. Forty years later it was further discovered that, if during the process the cloth was stretched and not allowed to shrink in drying, the twisted cotton threads were changed into smooth, silky cylinders. Thus the mercerised cotton industry came into existence. The mercerised cotton was dissolved with carbon disulphide into a yellow liquid, and when this solution was forced from tubes through minute holes into acidulated water, each tiny stream became solidified into a silky thread which could be spun and woven like real silk. Thus, the chemist achieved triumph in imitating the natural production of the silkworm, and thus was founded the artificial silk industry, which to-day has grown to huge proportions.