THE POSSIBILITIES OF MARINE FIBRE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1710, 10 May 1917, Page 4

THE POSSIBILITIES OF MARINE FIBRE.

“Marine Fibre” is the title of Bulletin No. 4 of the Department, of Chemistry of South Australia. It is prepared by Mr D. C. Winter-bottom, a chemist in the department, who was for about three years manager of one of the companies engaged in obtaining marine tibre from deposits of Pojjt Broughton. It is obtained from a plant named Posidonia, a, kind of sea grass —not a seaweed or alga —growing abundantly in South Australian waters. The base of the stem is covered with the fibrous remains of old leaf stalks, and the plant has grown continuously in such areas, so that as much as seven to fourteen feet of a deposit of this fibre, mixed with sand and shells, covers the bottom. Two companies which have liquidated, and two others following on their steps, have spout between them £220,000 in experimental machinery. The mixed sand and fibre is raised by various dredges. One part of the fibre is obtained from .ISO parts by weight of sand, and every cubic yard of material raised has to he washed, at a cost of about a penny per ton or cubic yard. The bulletin gives detailed descriptions of the methods and machinery that have been used up to the present. The fibre is of short staple, two to eight indies in length, somewhat weak and brittle, brownish in colour, but has the power of taking wool dies easily. In a mixture with wool it has been made into cloth of different kinds and into tweeds, and worn as sails. Its most successful use is as an Insulating material, and several cool storages and refrigerating installations have used it with advantage, as it gives better results than cow hair. It has also been in use for insulating steam-pipes carrying steam heated to 540 deg. F. It has been successfully used for upholstering and mat-tress-making.

If it can be demonstrated that it has special properties which would give it a market value of about £2.1 per lon in Europe, (he known deposits in South Australia would have a potential value of over £105,000,000, which is more than the total value of the metals produced from (he Broken Hill mines. South Australia lias no undeveloped natural resource possessing greater apparent possibilities, and it is suggested that further research should be undertaken. The bulletin shows the great difficulty that exists in establishing a new industry, and hints at the reason why efforts to at once capture trade which formerly belonged to (he Germans are not more readily or more speedily undertaken.