THE STORY OF ARTIFICIAL SILK 
il 
he wrote on the “germ theory’ before 
Pasteur and Koch. 
He was a great admirer of Cobden, who 
was for a time one of Mercer's commercial 
travellers. He was a deeply religious man, 
highly esteemed by the many who knew 
him. 
In 1866 he died. He was planning a new 
kind of reservoir for a dye-house. His foot 
slipped and he fell in the reservoir. The 
wetting brought on a severe cold, which in a 
few weeks proved fatal. He was 76. He lies 
in the little graveyard at Great Harwood. 
He was a rugged, strong-featured man, with 
long hair even in old age. He had heavy 
eyebrows, a strong nose and square chin. He 
did not live long enough to know what he 
had done. He never dreamed-of Artificial 
Silk, but his inventions prepared the way for 
it. Other inventors came after him and used 
his work as a stepping-stone. The Artificial 
Silk men should never forget what they owe 
to John Mercer. 
The man who first used the phrase ‘ Arti- 
ficial Silk ”” was a Swiss of Lausanne—George 
Audemars, in 1855; but the first man who 
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