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Show 4 Cartridge Cloth Clothes. I I By Frederic J. Haskin. WASHINGTON, D. C, July 2. Would you like to relieve Uncle Sam of a bit of his surplsu war material by the pur-of pur-of his surplus war material by the pur-silk, pur-silk, from which bibs and tuckers and other articles of wearing apparel may be made ? If so. the present is your hour of opportunity. op-portunity. The war department has seventeen sev-enteen million yards of this sort of cloth for sale. It is in liberal widths which runs from thirty-six to seventy-two inches. Three or four yards would be enough to make a dress, and there is. therefore, a sufficient yardage to make suits for four or five million people. The government will receive your bid tomorrow. tomor-row. This stupendous quantity of silk cloth ia known as cartridge cloth, which nomenclature nomen-clature ind icates that it is a war materia!. ma-teria!. It is cached at Firatinny arsenal in New Jersey, subject to sale. It Is not a matter of general information informa-tion that the United States used these stupendous quantities of cartridge cloth. It is probably not true that many people have no idea of v?hat cartridge cloth is. It is probably true, however, that they will know cartridge cloth within the next year, because it is prophesied that it will be the fad in dress materials for the coming: com-ing: season. Cartridge cloth, as a matter of fact, seems to have little to do with cartridges. It is, instead, a wearing apparel for smokeless powder. Every sackful of smokeless powder that went into the breach of any big gun in France during the recent un pleasantness was clad in cartridge cloth made of silk. There is a very neat scientific problem in the operation of big guns that makes it necessary that powder should be incased in-cased in silk. Smokeless powder is one of the most exactly worked-out products of Fcience. H is made of materials, chiefly cot'on and nitrate, so delicately balanced that when it is exploded every particle of the materials o which it is made is consumed. There is not even enough left to make a puff of smoke. The smoke of the old black powder was due to incomplete combustion, and was the residue left over after the explosion. Smokeless powder Is a product too refined re-fined for any euch waste. Another fact which is quite novel to the uninitiated, is the fact that this smokeless powder comes In grains that range in size from a fragment of macaroni maca-roni to a section of a broomstick. Smokeless Smoke-less powder grains are cylinders. An eight -inch gun would use a smokeless powder, the grain of which is about as big as a lead pencil and one inch long. A fourteen -inch gun would use a grain which whs as big as a broomstick and three inches long. Guns of different sixes use different grains, and tiie rapidity af the explosion of the powder depends upon the size of these grains. Big guns require re-quire a slower explosion than small ones. Hut whatever size they are. the combustion com-bustion of every particle that enters into them is complete. Now Die reason that this powder must be put in silk bags instead in-stead of cotton or linen, or bags of any ot her material, it because the silk bags wi.l be completely burned up in the explosion ex-plosion of the powder, and nothing at all will be left, while this would not be true of any ot her cloth. When we came to nuike war on a stupendous scale it was necessary that we should have great quantities of silk from which to make powder bags. lur:ng the war we asked for contracts on a larne scale from all manufacturers of silk in the United States, and. in addition, addi-tion, let extensive contracts in Japan and China. Hig mills under a number of flags were turning out si!k for this war use when peace came. The left-over silk from these sources amounted to the seventeen sev-enteen million vards which is now to be scld. When the d'rector of pales found himself him-self in possession of all this cartridge clot h nr.fl was told that It was silk, he was inclined to be skeptical. On the face of it it doc not look very much like silk. On tin- contrary, it might very readily be mistaken for a che.-in burlap, differing little lit-tle from an ordinary gunny sack. When told that it was silk, the director of s.ilt'3 stmt a sample of It to trie government gov-ernment bureau of s:ndnrds, which is the official agency whicn lakes materials apart to see of what thev are made. The bureau of standards, for instance, will take a sample of paper, reduce it into its component elements and count the threads of wood pulp or linen, and estab-l.sh estab-l.sh the proportions lie t ween the two, and. therefore, the exact amount of each golrg into the sample of paper. This scientific bureau was asked to do the same thing with re'ation to cartridge cloth. Tt reported re-ported back that this material was pure silk. An investigation revealed the fact that ill's silk was made of the first unwrap-pmgs unwrap-pmgs of the cocoon of the silk worm I wh.ii h feeds upon the mulberry tree. The silk had not had the customary refining, and was coarser and rougher than most ; cloths. It si 111 contained the oil which u-i::illy N refined out of It. I The director of sales investigated the possibility of improving the appearance ! of this cartridge cloth. It was found, j for Instance, that if it was boiled for a , day In water containing olive oil soap j that it would tighten up its weaves and lose Its gummy nature, and become a material of quite different appearance. It would then be the same sort of cloth that goes into men's suits made of that ! silk called poncce. Manv other experi- merits were tried in refining this rar-i rar-i trldce cloth, and it was learned that it I could be sue. ess fully treated to get a wide variery ()f results, that it would lend Itself to dyeing, that it could fe made a generally usable dre-s goods. So it happens hap-pens tint the government is offering the whole of its slock for sale in such a way that It may come to serve its purpose of usefulness, and In such a way that the original Investment in this cartridge cloth may not prove, a gre:i t loss, or possibly ! mav not provo to be a loss at all. ! In helling its cartridge cloth the gov-1 gov-1 eminent Ittids, however-, that it will be , advisable to dispose of it on a wholesale 1 basis only. It has not the machinery developed de-veloped to tMit a half dor.en yards here ii nd there, and retail material to its individual in-dividual citizens. The individual citizen 1 might not be able to refine the cloth in a ' sn t isfaet ory way at any rate, therefore, the government hopes to sell tills material to the big maiMilacturcrs of materials rnado of silk. There is tin question but what theve ma n nl'aet u rers will acquire great qua nt it les of cart ridge clot h, and t here U little quest Ion but wha t it Will find lis way Into those materials which will be on sale In dry goods stores t h rough on 1 the land In the near future, So It mav ha ppe n that you and I and the neighbors will bn wearing cartridge cloth clothes nevt year. The problem of the disposal of this material ma-terial Is Uplcal of those which face the war department evrry dav. The range of the left-over residue of war Is beyond I ho irna glnat Ion to conecix e. Often It would seem advisable to sell direct to Ihe people, but this would require un organization or-ganization that does not cisl. and which II does not seem advisable to call into being for the short time It might be used. To be Mire, there is two billion dollars" w ort h of this ma terial. Kvery man, wo m a n and ch lid lias an a n a-.e of $:;n (id up in these remnants on the bargain , mintcr ,.f Mara. Hut three hundred million mil-lion dollars' worth of thr:e ronds have as yet been i:.bl. There are yM big tasks li ft over fiom ihe war. |