PERMANENT FIREPEOOFING OF COTTON GOODS 397 



THE PERMANENT FIREPROOFING OF COTTON GOODS 1 



By Professor WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 



UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER 



WHEN I had the honor of being asked to deliver one of the gen- 

 eral lectures, I had no choice but to accept and yet it was at 

 once evident to me that I should experience very great difficulty in 

 finding a subject suitable to this occasion and interesting to the bril- 

 liant and distinguished audience which I see before me this afternoon. 



This difficulty is due to the fact that, while I have always taken an 

 interest in industrial questions and have repeatedly investigated in- 

 dustrial problems from the scientific point of view, my researches have, 

 for the most part, lain in the path of pure science, and any practical 

 application of my researches to the chemical and allied industries, I 

 have had to leave to others. 



Among the problems of technical interest which I have worked at 

 during many years are the manufacture of artificial camphor, of 

 " synthetic " rubber and more particularly the permanent fireproofing 

 of cotton goods and other inflammable materials. In considering these 

 subjects, I concluded that the problem of the manufacture of artificial 

 camphor was too technical to be generally interesting and my friend — 

 Professor Duisberg — wishes to introduce the subject of " synthetic " 

 rubber into his general lecture so there remained the subject of perma- 

 nent fireproofing which in many respects is perhaps as interesting and 

 important and as difficult of accomplishment as the other problems I 

 have mentioned. The problem of the prevention of fire has always been 

 one of the most pressing and at the same time one of the most difficult 

 and perplexing with which mankind has had to deal. In very early 

 times wooden houses caught fire and were burnt down and it is said that 

 the Romans attempted to render wood fireproof by dipping it in a bath 

 made of vinegar and powdered clay. 



This treatment, so strongly reminiscent of processes employed many 

 years afterwards, would no doubt be effective in rendering the wood less 

 liable to inflame, but it can hardly have had wide application because 

 vinegar, in those days, was not easily obtained in quantity and was con- 

 sequently an expensive substance. I have made a search in a number 

 of old books with the object of discovering some other of the actual 

 methods used in early times in connection with fireproofing and the 

 first pamphlet on the subject which I have been able to find dates from 



1 A general lecture before the Eighth International Congress of Applied 

 Chemistry on September 10, 1912. 



