The inseparable duties of studying the composition of the various
animal and vegetable fabrics, as also their nature--when in contact
with the various mineral, vegetable, animal, and gaseous bodies
applied in the individual industries--should not devolve upon the
heads, chemists, or managers of firms alone. It is most important that
every intelligent workman, whom we cannot expect to acquire a very
extensive knowledge of chemistry and perfect acquaintance of the
particular nature and component parts of fabrics, should, at least, be
able to thwart the possibility of the majority of accidents brought
about in regard to the quality and aspect of materials treated by
them.
In the treatment of wool the first operations are of no mean
importance, and the whole subsequent operations and final results,
almost as a whole, depend on the manner in which the fleece washing
had been effected. In presence of suintine, as also fatty matters, as
well as the countless kinds of acids deposited on the wool through
exudation from the body, etc., the various agents and materials cannot
act and deposit as evenly as might be desired, and the complete
obliteration of the former, therefore, becomes an absolute necessity.
For vegetable fabrics a great technical and practical knowledge is
already requisite in their cultivation itself, and before any
operations are necessary at all. One of the greatest points is the
ripeness of the fibers. It is almost an impossibility to produce
delicate colors on vegetable fabrics which were gathered
inopportunely. Numerous experiments have been made on cotton
containing smaller or larger quantities of unripe fibers, and after
the necessary preceding operations, have been dyed in rose, purple,
and blue colors, and the beauty of the shades invariably differed in
proportion to the greater or lesser quantities of unripe fibers
contained in the samples, and by a careless admixture of unripe and
unseasoned fibers the most brilliant colors have been completely
spoiled in the presence of the former. These deficiencies of unripe
vegetable fibers are so serious that the utmost precautions should be
taken, not only by planters to gather the fibers in a ripe state, but
the natural aspect of ripe and unripe fibers and their respective
differences should be known to the operators of the individual
branches in the cotton industry themselves.
The newest vegetable fabrics, as _ma_ (China grass), pina, _abaca_, or
Manila hemp, _agave_, jute, and that obtained from the palm tree, must
be tended with equal care to that of cotton. The _ma_, or China grass,
is obtained from the _Boehmeria nivea_, as also from the less known
_Boehmeria puya_. The fibers of this stalk, after preparing and
bleaching, have the whiteness of snow and the brilliancy of silk. By a
special process--the description of which we must for the present
leave in abeyance--the China grass can be transformed into a material
greatly resembling the finest quality of wool. The greatest advantage
afforded in the application of China grass is, moreover, that the
tissues produced with this fiber are much more easily washed than
silks, and in this operation they lose none of their beauty or their
quality.
The _abaca_ is produced from the fibrous parts of the bark of the wild
banana tree, found in the Philippines. Its botanical denomination is
_Musa troglodytarum_. The _abaca_ fiber is not spun or wrung, but is
jointed end to end. The threads are wound and subsequently beaten for
softening, and finally bleached by plunging in lime water for
twenty-four hours, and dried in the sun.
The _pina_ is a fiber obtained from the leaf of the anana tree
(_Bromelias ananas_), and is prepared in the same way as the abaca,
but extreme care must in this case be observed in culling the fibers,
in order to sort in accordance with their degree of fineness.
The Arabs manufacture the stuff for their tents with a mixture of
camel's hair and the fibrous flocks (kind of wadding) obtained from
the stalks of the wafer palm (the _Chamærops humilis_).
The tissues used by the Arabs are coarse and colored, but the palm
fibers--when freed from gluten, which makes them adhere more
strongly--are susceptible to divide in a most astonishing manner.
The _Agave americana_ is a coarse fiber, mostly used in France for the
manufacture of Gobelin carpets and the production of ropes. Great
efforts have been made to bleach it in a satisfactory manner, as is
done with the _Phormium tenax_, but the former kind of fiber resists
the ordinary treatment with lyes, etc., and an appropriate bleaching
process has only been discovered quite recently.
Jute, which by many is confounded with _Phormium tenax_, or New
Zealand lint, is a fiber which can be divided as finely as desired,
and can be most beautifully bleached.
The jute or Indian _paat_ is generally known as a fibrous and textile
fabric, obtained chiefly from Calcutta, and is similar in nature to
the _Corchorus capsularis_, an Oriental species, known in Oriental
India by the name of _hatta jute_ and _gheenatlapaat_. This fibrous
plant has the property of dividing into the finest parallel fibers,
which can be carded without difficulty, and may be said to have the
excellent properties of linen, hemp, and cotton at once. When properly
bleached, it has an aspect which is as beautiful as that of silk. A
mixture of silk and jute can be easily worked together, and can also
be mixed with such vegetable fibers as cotton and linen. An immense
quantity of flannel and other stuffs are now manufactured and imitated
with the different mixtures containing jute.
The _suun_ is a fiber of a plant in the form of a cane (_Crotalaria
juncea_), and the paat or _suncheepaat_ is the thread of a species of
spiral (_Corchorus olitarius_), sold under the name of jute tissues.
The cotton tissues lose about twenty-five per cent. of their weight in
bleaching, five per cent. of the substances are dissolved through
alkalies, and the other twenty per cent., which are not attacked
directly through the alkalies, are removed through chlorine, acids,
and the water itself. The linen and hemp tissues contain eighteen per
cent. of substances which are soluble in alkalies, and they lose from
twenty-seven to thirty per cent. of their weight when taken through
the consecutive bleaching operations.
The substances do not alone include the substances contained in the
fabric originally, but also such as are deposited in the preliminary
treatment of the fabrics, as dirt from the hands of the operator, and
gluten soluble in warm water; as also glue or gelatine, potash or
soda, starch, albumen, and sugar, used by weavers, etc., and which are
all soluble in water; further, such as greasy matters, calcareous
soap, coppery soap, resinous or gummo-resinous matters, and the yellow
and green coloring matters contained in textile fabrics, which are
soluble in caustic soda; and finally, the earthy constituents which
are soluble in acids.
The nature and composition of silk and wool is diametrically opposed
to that of the former. The silk is more of a gummy nature, and is
susceptible to decompose into a kind of gelatinous mass if specially
treated.
The yellow coloring principle in silk was found only to be contained
in a very small proportion, and consisting of several distinct bodies.
The wool contains, first, a fatty matter which is solid at an ordinary
temperature, and perfectly liquid at 60° C.; secondly, a fatty matter
which is liquid at 15° C.; thirdly, a fibrous substance which
essentially constitutes the wool in the strict sense of the word.
The wool at least contains three important principles, as it will be
known that the fibrous substance disengages sulphur and
hydro-sulphuric acid without losing its peculiar properties; and it,
therefore, appears probable that the sulphur entered as an element in
the composition of a body which is perfectly distinct from the fibrous
substance aforementioned.
In treating wool with nitric acid, and taking all possible precautions
to determine as accurately as possible the quantity of sulphuric acid
produced by the contents of sulphur in the wool by the reaction with
chloride of barium, it will be found to contain from 1.53 to 1.87 per
cent. of sulphur.--_Wool and Textile Fabrics._
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