FLASHES

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 2

FLASHES

Several of the cars in the luxury class which arc being exhibited at the Auckland Motor Olympia, are fitted with, electric cigar lighters^ A remarkable characteristic of the city is shown in tho number of disconnections and reconnections of consumers’ premises, resulting from the vacating and reoccnpying of houses, states the annual report of the Christchurch municipal electricity department (says the ‘Lvtfolten Times’). The average per month throughout tho year exceeds 200. A hydro-electric scheme_ to he put forward in South Carolina, United States of America, the estimated cost of which is £4,000,000, is the building of a dam over B,oooft long and 188 ft high, altogether 11,000,000 cubic yards (reports an exchange!. The reservoir is to be so constructed that, even after a drought of twenty-five consecutive weeks, there will he available 500 horse-power for each of forty mills for sixty-hour weeks for the whole period of the drought. The machinery to he installed will develop over 200,000 horse-power, and the annual generation of energy is expected to he over 300,000,000 k Wh. What has artificial silk to do with electricity? the visitor to the exhibition at the Holland Park Hall, London, might well ask. Quite probably he would answer- Nothing at all unless it be a little bit for insulation purposes. However, there is another answer, and a very good one. It is not the fact that by using a lew spotlights and other “stunts” a Is lid silk may he made to look like a 9s lld one. It concerns the history of artificial silk. It appears that the electrical industry is entirely responsible for the discovery of artificial silk, and it came about in this way, according to Mr Arnold H. Hard, of Manchester, who has given ■ months of study to the origin of the industry. Joseph Wilson Swan, in his experimental work in finding a suitable filament for carbon lamps, adopted the squirting and denitrating processes of dealing with cellulose. By this means he found out that he could make an artificial silk, and was so far successful as to be in a position publicly to exhibit it at a leading European exhibition in 1885. Swan did not pursue the subject from an artificial silk standpoint, but his confreres did, with the results which are known to-day. It is an interesting story, and well worth remembering, because one day the history of tho artificial silk industry will be as important work that el any ptfier induakx.