CHEVALIER CLAUSSEN'S FLAX WORKS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 735, 18 August 1852, Page 4

CHEVALIER CLAUSSEN'S FLAX WORKS.

Chevalier Claussen's flax-works, at Stepney Green were opened a few days ago to public inspection. His invention may be classified under the following heads : — The preparation of long flax for linen manufacturer ; the conversion of flax and hemp into substances resembling cotton, wool, and silk, capable of being spun and manufactured upon existing machinery ; and bleaching vegetable fibres, yarns, and fabrics. It must be understood,' before giving a brief description of the different processes employed, that Chevalier Claussen's patent terminates with the chymical part, and that his object is to produce flax and (that is, a substance resembling cotton) in in a state fitted for the operation of existing flax, cotton, or woollen machinery. To comprehend the advantages of the invention, we must allude occasionally to the present system employed. .At present the flax-straw is .steeped in streams or pits of water. By these means it is fermented, and the woody part separated from the fibre. This process occupies from tea to twelve days, and great care is to be observed to prevent the fermentation being carried to too great a height, in which case the fibre itself would be partially destroyed. To shorten, the time, steeping in hot water has also been tried, and the separation has been effected in sixty hours, but the risk of injuring- the fibre is perhaps augmented. The straw of the flax is of course lost, anji tha operation tedious. Chevalier Claussen by bis method takes the .straw-flax as it comes from the field, but he proposes that the farmer should mechanically separate the straw from' the fibre by the use of a very simple machine, which pounds or breaks the straw and effects their separation ; this reduces the substance to one-half its bulk, and the straw may be returned to the soil, or, mixed with cake, crushed seeds, &c, be used as cattle food. Now, the stem of the flax plant consists of three parts — the shove or wood, the pure fibre, and the gum resin or* glutinous matter which causes these fibres to adhere together. The first has .been got rid of by the farmer by the process described, and it remains to remove the third constituent, namely the glutinous substances. Chevalier Claussen contends that the present system of steeping in water, either hot or cold, will-not effect this, as a large portion of them are insoluble in water, but he has recourse to chymical agents. The fibre is either boileJ in weak -caustic soda, or steeped in a, cold solution for twenty-four- hours. It is then " soured" in a bath consisting of 500 parts of water to one of sulphuric acid, washed, dried, and further cleaned, .scutched, and so on, through the' ordinary modes of manufacture. The flax obtained in this 'way, being free from all colouring matters, may be r bleached afterwards with greater ease, and as the plant need not be cut till ripe the grower has the advantage of fully ripened

a damp rigid aggregation of flax to a light expansive mass of cottony texture, increasing in size like leavening dough or an expanding sponge." It is then immersed in a second bath of carbonate of soda solution, and if only required to be used in an unbleached state, may be washed and dried. If, however, it is to be bleached, it is immersed in a fourth vat, containing a solution of hypochlorite of magnesia, and in about fifteen minutes attains the colour, as in a previous similar time it bad acquired the texture of cotton. In fact, it { goes in brown flax, and in less than one hour comes out white cotton. It is then washed, drained in baskets, dried in cakes, hanging across iron horses in stoves heated to 98 degrees^Farenheit, and is then ready to be tortured by "'devilling," , " combing," and all the other operations incidental to cotton manufacture. The time of draining and drying is not more than 12 to 15 hours, so that the whole process, from the time the flax is brought to the pounding machine to when it is converted into a cotton similar to, say, a bale just , landed from America, allowing the cold steeping H process, would not exceed 48 hours. Chevalier Claussen affirms that this " British cotton" may , be manufactured as low as 2|d. per lb., which would readily sell for 4d. to 6d. per lb.; and to ; show. the field open to flax growers, gives the following statistics of importation in his paper read before the Royal Agricultural Society. The value of flax fibre impoi ted he places at £5,000,000; , seed for crushing, £1,800,000; seed for Bowing, , £200,000; oil cake, £600,000; and hemp, , £1,500,000; making a total amount o £9,100,000. With regard to the profits of cul" tivation, Mr. Druce, on a piece of land in Oxfordshire, found it amount to £8 6s. 2d. per acre on sa. 2r. 36p. grown hi flax. Chevalier Claus- , sen, in his pamphlet on the subject, adduces a length the different advantages, and points out the superiority of bis process over any of those already used but even an enumeration of them beyond what we have said would occupy too much space, and as the further process of manufacture do not belong to his invention, we will, having brought flax into the state used by manufacturers, and, by further change, into the state of an American bale of cotton just landed on our shores, conclude our description. ,