140 The West American Scientist. 



Artificial Silk. — An eminent French chemist, M. Char- 

 donnet, has succeeded in producing a new textile fabric which 

 bears the same relation to silk that celluloid does to ivory, — in 

 short, an artificial silk. The production from celluloid of photo- 

 graphic films for the Eastman dry -plate process is one of the 

 latest triumps in that line of manufactures, but this new material 

 seems yet more wonderful. It is prepared from cellulose (cotton, 

 or other available substance of that nature), which, after being 

 treated with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids in equal 

 proportions, as for the making of gun-cotton, is dissolved in a 

 mixture of alcohol and ether, to which is added some perchloride 

 of iron or protochloride of tin and tannic acid. The solution 

 thus obtained is placed in a vertical vessel terminating in a small 

 tube, or in a diaphragm pierced with fine holes, so that it can 

 run out into a vessel full of water slightly acidulated with nitric 

 acid. A fine fluid filament comes out from this, which immedi- 

 ately takes on a solid consistency and forms a thread which can 

 be wound on a spool. The thread thus obtained resembles silk 

 very closely, and has the same tenacious, elastic qualities. 

 Water, cold or warm, has no effect on it, nor have acids and 

 alkalies moderately concentrated. Any desired shade of color 

 may be obtained by introducing coloring materials into the solu- 

 tion. One objection to this artificial silk is that it is extremely 

 inflammable. Possibly this objection may be overcome by re- 

 placing the nitric acid with some other which will render it less 

 combustible. When this is accomplished the new fabric will be- 

 come useful. 



Flowers in Ice. — At expositions where medals of honor and 

 prizes have been given for artificial ice, flowers may have been 

 seen. in ice. The exhibitor has had the children of the sun frozen 

 in the ice to show how beautifully clear and transparent it was. 

 But there are flowers that grow in the ice and unfold their 

 blossoms there. To see such a wonder one must climb high in 

 the Alps, to those regions where the glaciers are formed of the 

 snow which becomes ice. The Alpine guides call the half-form- 

 ed ice, firn. Coming in August to the edge of a firn-field, if 

 fortune favors us we shall be surprised by a rare sight. Out of 

 the snow fresh blooming flowers lift their heads, often in such 

 quantities that ten or twenty flowers may be seen in the space of 

 a square yard. One of these flowers especially attracts us, — the 

 blue blossom of the soldanel. Its evergreen leaves grew on the 

 earth beneath the sheet of firn; the stalks have been already pre- 

 pared the year before, and have attained a scarcely perceptible 

 height at a zero temperature. But when the summer sun again 

 begins to melt the firn, and little rills o± water flow under its 

 covering, at a temperature never exceeding the point at which 

 ice melts, the plant awakens to new life. The flower-stalks 

 begin to grow buds, the warmth generated by the breathing of 

 the plant melts the granular ice in the firn-field, and the soldanel 



