SILK COTTONS. 315 



The pieces are then allowed to age for two or three days, when, to fix the 

 purpurate of lead on the cotton, and the purpurate of ammonia on the 

 wool, it is necessary to pass the cloth into a bath of bichloride of mercury 

 composed as follows : 



Water 100 gallons. 



Bichloride of mercury . . 6 lbs. 



Acetate of soda . . . . 12 lbs. 



Acetic acid 2 quarts. 



SILK COTTONS. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



We have received applications from time to time from brokers, importers, 

 and others, as to the identification and probable uses of various silk cottons ; 

 and it may be well to throw together, for convenient reference, the few facta 

 known with regard to them. That some of these may yet be made economi- 

 cally useful on a commercial scale is not at all improbable, seeing that of 

 many of them the material is abundant and to be had cheap. The silky sub- 

 stance found in the capsules of the silk cottons has been tried by European 

 spinners and hatters for their respective purposes, but, from wanting 

 tenacity of fibre, was found generally unfit for the manufacture of any 

 durable material. 



At a recent fair held in Liberia, on the West Coast of Africa, a pair of 

 stockings was exhibited, manufactured from the silky floss of the Bombax. 

 These stockings were the result of African skill in spinning and manufac- 

 turing. Our mechanism has never yet been capable of utilising this fibre. 



Captain Burton (Lake Region of Central Africa) tells us that in Zanzibar, 

 where the musufi or bombax abounds, its fibrous substance is a favourite 

 substitute for cotton, and costs about half the price. In Unyamwezi it 

 fetches fancy prices ; it is sold in handfuls for salt, beads, and similar 

 articles. About one inaund may be purchased for a shukkah, and from one 

 to two ounces of rough home-spun yarn for a fundo (a knot of ten strings) of 

 beads. At Ujiji the people bring it daily to the bazar, and spend their 

 waste time in spinning yarn of it with the rude implements they have at 

 their command. 



Mr Williams, of Jubbulpore, India, has succeeded in spinning and 

 weaving some of the Bombax down so as to form a very good coverlet, and 

 we have specimens of the fabric.^ The late Dr Boyle suggested that it might 

 be easily made use of for stuffing muffs, for wadding, or for conversion into 

 half-stuff for papermakers — perhaps for making gun-cotton. 



In the ' Transactions of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India,' iii., 

 p. 274, there is a report from the Society of Arts upon two pieces of cloth 

 made from it ; and it is observed that, from the shortness of the staple of the . 

 down and its elasticity, it could not be spun by cotton-spinning machinery. 



