CHAPTER II

HOW ARTIFICIAL SILK WAS
INVENTED AND MARKETED

VERYTHING begins with a Thinker,
E Every commodity in the world of trade
was once no more than a thought.
First comes the Thinker, then the Inventor,
then the Business Man, who creates the
technique and routine of making and
marketing.

In the case of Artificial Silk, the Thinker
was Robert Hooke, an English physicist who
lived 250 years ago.

He wrote a book, called ““ MICROGRAPHIA.”
It has long since been forgotten, but there
was one sentence in this book which has been
remembered. It was as follows :—

“ There might be a way found out,” said
Robert Hooke, “ to make an artificial glutinous
 composition much resembling, if not
full as good—nay, better, than that excrement

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