A VALUABLE INVENTION

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 82, 11 October 1879, Page 3

A VALUABLE INVENTION

According to the papers received by the last mail, a very valuable discovery has been made at Paris, which may exercise an important influence on one of our colonial industries, which owing to one cause or another has never j r et been made sufficiently remunerative to induce the investment m it of foreign capital to any considerable amount, namely flax dressing. Whethei the discovery m question will 1 affect the phorm>ii>n tenox of New Zealand m common with other descriptions of flax remains to be seen. If so the»value of this commodity m the Home markets will be greatly enhanced. Among the items of English news which were brought by the last mail, the following appeared m the Wellington Chronicle, of Tuesday last : — " Lyons papers announce a discovery, which, if true, will have very important influence on the silk trade and on all textile industries. It is stated that the durability of silk can be communicated to fibres of flax by a certain chemical process. The flax is steeped m a bath bf dissolved silk waste, and emerges thereform m a condition which renders it undistinguishable, save by analysis, from silk itself. The inventor, who resides at Paris, offered his discovery to the association of manufacturers for £120,000, and it is alleged they agree to purchase it."' The invention or discovery is certainly worth the money asserted to have been paid for it, and may prove of great value to New Zealand m bringing our flax milling industry once more "to the front, and opening a market, when dressed, for an article which, from its very abundance, has come to be looked upon only as a nuisance^ and is now ruthlessly dug up and consigned to destruction bj fire wherever its presence impedes the march of improvement. Holders of swamp land will now be aiore chary of exterpating this much abused plant, and we may yet live to see the day, when bycareful culture, our common flax shall have become so far improved as feo bid defiance to all rivals.