THE STORY OF ARTIFICIAL SILK 
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The lustre can be increased or decreased by 
the treatment of the threads. Also, the 
lustre can now be accurately measured by 
an optical instrument—the Goerz Glarimeter. 
There is at present a great deal of waste 
in an Artificial Silk mill—probably from 20 
to 25 per cent. This is caused by defective 
valves, bursting of glass pipes, splitting of 
rubber tubes, breaking of filaments, etc. 
There is also the waste of stoppages. The 
actual working time of the machines is not 
nearly as long as it might be, because of the 
many difficulties of a new process and a large 
number of makeshift machines. A process 
has just been discovered whereby the waste 
varn can be re-spun. 
A mill with 500 employees can now produce 
775 bs. of Artificial Silk a day, with 150 h.p., 
says Mr. J. Foltzer, a German expert. And 
the factory would require about go.ooo feet 
of floor space. 
The world output of Artificial Silk in 1927 
was as follows :— 
Viscose . 
Acetate . . 
Cuprammonium. 
Nitro-Cellulose . 
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