460 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



LXVII. — Repoet on an Investigation of the Chaeactee and 

 Chemical Constitution op the Fibee op the Flax Plant. By 

 F. Hodges, FeUow Inst. C.F.C.S. (Berlin), Zurich. With Plates 

 XIY. and XV. 



[Read, May 9, 1881.] 



ExRWAN, SO early as 1789, laid the results of some experiments "which 

 he had made with the alkaline substances used in bleaching, before 

 the Members of the Boyal Irish Academy, prefacing his Eeport with 

 the statement "that, however well the Irish bleachers might excel in 

 that art, when well provided with the instruments they employ, they 

 were but little acquainted with the general agency of the instruments 

 themselves and their respective powers, or even with the most advan- 

 tageous and economical method of employing them ; " and Kolb in his 

 elaborate Beport to the Members of the Industrial Society of Mulhau- 

 sen, 79 years later (1868), gave it as his opinion that the art of bleach- 

 ing was no further advanced, so far as chemistry is concerned, than at 

 the time of the introduction of chlorine by Berthollet. "With the state- 

 ment of Kirwan, few who know anything of Irish bleachers even now 

 will be inclined to disagree ; but with that of Kolb it is somewhat 

 different, as it cannot be forgotten that on many occasions, long and 

 laborious investigations into the constitution of textile fabrics, and the 

 nature of the various chemicals employed as bleaching agents, have 

 been made by eminent chemists ; and if practical men have failed to 

 turn to advantage the results obtained from these investigations — 

 which results have been published from time to time — the chemists 

 who undertook the work should at least be acquitted of the charge of 

 being idle in the interests of bleachers. 



Kolb, in the Eeport above mentioned, published the results of many 

 experiments, which, if they had been carried out with Irish flax, 

 instead of with Bussian yarn spun from dew retted flax, would not 

 only have possessed scientific interest, but have been of practical value 

 to the Irish bleacher. It has, therefore, been considered advisable to 

 repeat part of his investigation, with Irish flax, as well as to endeavour 

 if possible to add to the very scanty information which we have of the 

 nature of the wax and other bodies which exist in flax. We owe to 

 Sir Bobert Kane the first attempt to direct scientific attention to the 

 composition of the stem of the flax plant. In a Beport drawn up 

 by Professor Hodges, at the request of the chemical section of the 

 British Association of Science, and communicated to the Meeting 

 held in Belfast, the agricultural and technical history of the plant was 

 fully discussed, and the results of an extensive series of investigations 

 on its composition given. This Beport was the first in which an 

 analysis of the proximate composition of the stem was published, and 



