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 gluti- 
nous composition much resembling, if not 
full as good—nay, better, than that excrement 
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