CLEVER INVENTIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 January 1926, Page 8

CLEVER INVENTIONS.

NO NEED FOR OVERCOATS. ARE UMBRELLAS DOOMED? BUTTER BOXES FROM TUSSOCKS. London, Nov. 6. Something of a revolution in clothing will be brought about by the use of a secret process that has been discovered and developed by Mr. C. J. Moreton, of Dunedin. Mr. Moreton was formerly with Messrs. Kempt home, Prosser and Company, and he has always taken an interest in experimental research. For a long time he has worked to obtain a substance that would make fabrics water-tight, and at last has succeeded. For several years he has been perfecting his work in England, and negotiating with financial firms, and he is now about to give the public the benefit of his discovery with satisfactory profit to himself. The process, of course, is secret, and there is nothing visible to the naked eye to indicate that a piece of fabric has been treated with the solution, but the efficacy of the treatment is wonderfully apparent. I have before me a piece of artificial silk through which one can breathe and even see, yet if held in the shape of a bag a cup of water may be poured into it without an j” liquid passing through the fabric. W'hat is more, the treatment makes the artificial silk resilient.

i A piece of cheap khaki similarly treated is perfectly watertight. It needs little imagination to realise what it would have meant to the comfort of the troops during the war if the process had then been known. THE POOR MAN’S BLESSING. Again, there are strips of clean cloth which are not remarkable in appearance, but when water is poured on them it glides away just as does the water from a duck’s back. As the cheap and shoddy cloth used for making suits of clothes is generally spoiled by the first shower of rain it is easy to see what a wonderful boon the new process will be to those who can afford only cheap clothing. Waterlogged clothes sag and get bulgy and out of shape, but the water-proofing will prevent this happening. Mr. Moreton has had a sheet of canvas, treated with his solution, filled with water for twelve months, and such decrease in the amount of water as there has been has been caused from evaporation an'd not from leakage. Again, loosely-woven socks or stockings may be partly filled with water and the water will not escape. The advantage of the process when applied to women’s silk or artificial silk stockings is that mud and water does not go into the fibre, and any mud that adheres—and moreover has usually left a stain—can be brushed off when dry without leaving a mark. The golfer will never have damp legs if his woollen stockings are subjected to the process. When people have the use of this process there will be no need to bother about overcoats in warm weather, and in the cold weather a cloth overcoat will act more efficiently than a macintosh. One has only to think for a moment and it

is easy to see in what a number of ways I the new process can be used, and in what a number of directions life will be made -ier, especially in a country subject to dden and violent downpours. Summer ■ ?ss fabrics can be rendered immune ••:rn wet, and what will appeal to the •onomieaily-minded is the fact that lighti'Ted fabrics can be washed easily and *■:!’ not require to go a second time •ugh the waterproofing process. And ; iirery details may be also water- ’ p-Lofcd. Mr. Moreton is establishing, a factory at i Wimbledon and has purchased machines I from America. In a week or two he will | have these in operation. With one machine a girl will bo able to treat 360 pairs of stockings in an hour and fold and pack them. Then there will be machines for treating rolls of cloth and other madeup material. The company formed is called the British Waterproof and Freproof Company, and has well-known people in its constitution. .NEW TYPE OF BUTTER BOX. Another interesting substance Mr. Morefon has perfected is a sheet made from New Zealand tussocks. Straw boards of tussocks are superimposed so as to make a board a quarter of an inch in thickness. This he considers will be the solution for the difficulty of obtaining butter boxes in the future. The straw board is three times as strong as the white pine now used, and it has no smell or taint. It is suggested that the box made from the tussocks should be lined with white waterproof paper, and the butter could then be tipped out of the box when required. Still another secret process developed by Mr. Moreton is the treatment of fabrics with a solution which makes them fireproof. Fabric thus treated may be charred by a flame, but it will not burn or smoulder. Of these three ingenious devices the public are likely to hear a good deal in the course of the next few years.