these characteristics throughout a cycle of transformations
such as permit of their being brought into a soluble plastic form,
in which condition they may be drawn into filaments in continuous
length. The artificial silks or lustra-celluloses are
produced in this way, and have already taken an established
position as staple textiles. For a more detailed account of these
products see Cellulose.
The animal fibres are composed of nitrogenous colloids of which the typical representatives are the albumens, fibrines and gelatines. They are of highly complex constitution and their characteristics have only been generally investigated. The vegetable fibre substances are celluloses and derivatives of celluloses, also typically colloidal bodies. The broad distinction between the two groups is chiefly evident in their relationship to alkalis. The former group are attacked, resolved and finally dissolved, under conditions of action by no means severe. The celluloses, on the other hand, and therefore the vegetable fibres, are extraordinarily resistant to the action of alkalis.
The animal fibres are relatively few in number but of great industrial importance. They occur as detached units and are of varying dimensions; sheep’s wool having lengths up to 36 in., the fleeces being shorn for textile uses at lengths of 2 to 16 in.; horse hair is used in lengths of 4 to 24 in., whereas the silks may be considered as being produced in continuous length, “reeled silks” having lengths measured in hundreds of yards, but “spun silks” are composed of silk fibres purposely broken up into short lengths.
The vegetable fibres are extremely numerous and of very diversified characteristics. They are individualized units only in the case of seed hairs, of which cotton is by far the most important; with this exception they are elaborated as more or less complex aggregates. The bast tissues of dicotyledonous annuals furnish such staple materials as flax, hemp, rhea or ramie and jute. The bast occurs in a peripheral zone, external to the wood and beneath the cortex, and is mechanically separated from the stem, usually after steeping, followed by drying.
The commercial forms of these fibres are elongated filaments composed of the elementary bast cells (ultimate fibres) aggregated into bundles. The number of these as any part of the filament may vary from 3 to 20 (see figs.). In the processes of refinement preparatory to the spinning (hackling, scutching) and in the spinning process itself, the fibre-bundles are more or less subdivided, and the divisibility of the bundles is an element in the textile value of the raw material. But the value of the material is rather determined by the length of the ultimate fibres (for, although not the spinning unit, the tensile strength of the yarn is ultimately limited by the cohesion of these fibres), qualified by the important factor of uniformity.
Thus, the ultimate fibre of flax has a length of 25 to 35 mm.; jute, on the other hand, 2 to 3 mm.; and this disparity is an essential condition of the difference of values of these fibres. Rhea or ramie, to cite another typical instance, has an ultimate fibre of extraordinary length, but of equally conspicuous variability, viz. from 50 to 200 mm. The variability is a serious impediment in the preparation of the material for spinning and this defect, together with low drawing or spinning quality, limits the applications of this fibre to the lower counts or grades of yarn.
The monocotyledons yield still more complex fibre aggregates, which are the fibro-vascular bundles of leaves and stems. These complex structures as a class do not yield to the mechanical treatment by which the bast fibres are subdivided, nor is there any true spinning quality such as is conditioned by bringing the ultimate fibres into play under the drawing process, which immediately precedes the twisting into yarn. Such materials are therefore only used for the coarsest textiles, such as string or rope. An exception to be noted in passing is to be found in the pine apple (Ananassa Sativa) the fibres of which are worked into yarns and cloth of the finest quality. The more important fibres of this class are manila, sisal, phormium. A heterogeneous mass of still more complex fibre aggregates, in many cases the entire stem (cereal straws, esparto), in addition to being used in plaited form, e.g. in hats, chairs, mats, constitute the staple raw material for paper manufacturers, requiring a severe chemical treatment for the separation of the ultimate fibres.
In this class we must include the woods which furnish wood pulps of various classes and grades. Chemical processes of two types, (a) acid and (b) alkaline, are also employed in resolving the wood, and the resolution not only effects a complete isolation of the wood cells, but, by attacking the hydrolysable constituents of the wood substance (lignocellulose), the cells are obtained in the form of cellulose. These cellulose pulps are known in commerce as “sulphite pulps” and “soda pulps” respectively. In addition to these raw materials or “half stuffs” the paper-maker employs the rejecta of the vegetable and textile industries, scutching, spinning and cloth wastes of all kinds, which are treated by chemical (boiling) and mechanical means (beating) to separate the ultimate fibres and reduce them to the suitable dimensions (0.5-2.0 mm.). These papermaking fibres have also to be reckoned with as textile raw materials, in view of a new and growing industry in “pulp yarns” (Papierstoffgarn), a coarse textile obtained by treating paper as delivered in narrow strips from the paper machine; the strips are reeled, dried to retain 30-40% moisture, and in this condition subjected to the twisting operation, which confers the cylindrical form and adds considerably to the strength of the fibrous strip. The following are the essential characteristics of the economically important fibres.
Animal.—A. Silk. (a) The true silks are produced by the Bombyx Mori, the worm feeding on the leaves of the mulberry. The fibre is extruded as a viscous liquid from the glands of the worm, and solidifies to a cylindrical thread. The cohesion of these threads in pairs gives to raw silk the form of a dual cylinder (Plate I. fig. 2). For textile purposes the thread is reeled from the cocoon, and several units, five and upwards, are brought together and suitably twisted. (b) The “Wild” silks are produced by a large variety of insects, of which the most important are the various species of Antherea, which yield the Tussore silks. These silks differ in form and composition from the true silks. While they consist of a “dual” thread, each unit of these is complex, being made up of a number of fibrillae. This unit thread is quadrangular in section, and of larger diameter than the true silk, the mean breadth being 0.052 mm., as compared with 0.018, the mean diameter of the true silks. The variations in structure as well as in dimensions are, however, very considerable.
B. Epidermal hairs. Of these (a) wool, the epidermal protective covering of sheep, is the most important. The varying species of the animal produce wools of characteristic qualities, varying considerably in fineness, in length of staple, in composition and in spinning quality. Hence the classing of the fleeces or raw wool followed by the elaborate processes of selection, i.e. “sorting” and preparation, which precede the actual spinning or twisting of the yarn. These consist in entirely freeing the fibres and sorting them mechanically (combing, &c.), thereafter forming them into continuous lengths of parallelized units. This is followed by the spinning process which consists in a simultaneous drawing and twisting, and a continuous production of the yarn with the structural characteristics of worsted yarns. The shorter staple—from 5 to 25% of average fleeces—is prepared by the “carding” process for the spinning operation, in which drawing and twisting are simultaneous, the length spun being then wound up, and the process being consequently intermittent. This section of the industry is known as “woollen spinning” in contrast to the former or “worsted spinning.”
(b) An important group of raw material closely allied to the wools are the epidermal hairs of the Angora goat (mohair), the llama, alpaca. Owing to their form and the nature of the substance of which they are composed, they possess more lustre than the wools. They present structural differences from sheep wools which influence the processes by which they are prepared or spun, and the character of the yarns; but the differences are only of subordinate moment.
