Fiber

“ So delicate is the fiber that the ingredients employed must be most carefully considered. The character of the water used is often an element which affects the fiber throughout its manipulation. Chemical science has done much to aid the manufacturer in this branch of his work. Invention has also provided steeping machines, to drive off the acid contained in the fibers, and dissolve the hard, dirty substances, without removing the yolk, which is valuable as a detergent. A preliminary machine is Fig. 7.—Ladies Carding, Spinning, and Weaving. ”

“ Reject and do not count all other fibers. c. Count bundles of fibers as one fiber unless individual fibers can be identified by observing both ends of a fiber. d. Count enough graticule fields to yield 100 fibers. Count a minimum of 20 fields. Stop at 100 graticule fields regardless of count. 19.
Start counting from the tip of the filter wedge and progress along a radial line to the outer edge. Shift up or down on the filter, and continue in the reverse direction. Select graticule fields randomly by looking away from the eyepiece briefly while advancing the mechanical stage. ”

“ This propensity of each individual fiber does not cease when the paper is made, but persists forever. A cellulose fiber will absorb moisture from the air in proportion to the relative humidity, just as the hair in a barometer is continually shrinking or expanding as the weather changes. ”

“ Both continuous and staple fibers can be made from basalt. Continuous fibers are produced using standard glass fiber production equipment. After the feedstock is fused in an electric furnace, the melt is fed to electrically heated platinum.rhodium bushings containing 200-300 perforations. As shown in figure 4.7 (Subramanian et al., 1975) , a drum winding pulls the fibers from the platinum.rhodium bushing perforations. Fiber diameter is a function of melt temperature and drum or centrifugal nozzle speed. ”

“ Fibers from these cells extend down through the brain and cord to the muscles, the fibers being collected into well-recognized bundles and the whole known as the motor tract. There may be one long fiber from a cell in the brain down through most of the cord or there may be a succession of shorter fibers that are not actually connected but are in close contact with each other. ”

“ That a single fiber of wool, when manipulated by itself in a lubricant of soap, has no fulling property, but rather a tendency to lengthen the fiber; 2. That a number of fibers placed side by side, just as they grew on the sheep, and with simply tension enough to take out the kinks, when manipulated with a lubricant of soap, have no felting property, 3. That fibers similarly treated, but with the roots and tips alternating, have no fulling or felting property, and no power of adhesion ”

“ As the water is pressed out, each fiber contracts to some extent, and, from a consistency like gruel, the formed sheet passes to a more stable state, wherein it can be gently handled without disintegrating. ”

“ The bundle of nerve fibers which pass out together constitute a nerve, or, to speak more correctly, a nerve root. So far as yet observed no exception occurs; therefore we may safely assert that every nerve cell of the brain or spinal cord produces one nerve fiber and only one, and this fiber grows out from the nervous system into the tissues of the body. The fiber is single at its origin, but since we always find the peripheral fibers branching, we may add that the fiber is multiple at its termination. ”

“ The microscope is the only sure test for telling cotton and linen fibers. One can sometimes discover shoddy mixed with the all-wool fiber because of the color. Shoddy is sometimes made of old colored woolen rags. ”

“ In a general way, the nerve fibers resemble an electric cable wire with its central rod of copper, and its outer non-conducting layer of silk or gutta percha. Like the copper rod, the axis cylinder along which the nerve impulse travels is the essential part of a nerve fiber. ”

“ When it is required to place into an instrument a fiber of any particular size, all that has to be done is to hold the frame of fibers toward a bright and distant light, and look at them through a low-angled prism. ”

“ When very long strips of fiber are used, two men will work together. One holds the end of the loop, while the other twists each half of the strip in the same direction. Then placing them together on his thigh, he turns them, under pressure, in the opposite direction, thus making a cord. ”

“ A few moments’ consideration of the changes which the fibers undergo from their condition of isolation as they exist mixed in the vat, to their status as components of a sheet of paper, will help to make clear much that seems obscure about the behavior of a sheet of finished paper, as well as to explain the reason for the different processes executed on the paper-machine.
The fiber is a hollow, collapsed tube, the ends bruised and frayed by the treatment in the beating and refining engines. Absorptive in nature to a marked degree, it swells with the water it takes up and is limp and flaccid. ”

“ However, the opportunities afforded in felt making for uniform packing and arranging of the fibers (the whole process of making a felt, is one of gradual packing of fibers into a relatively small volume) are such as to assure a greater degree of success than is the case in paper making. ”

“ Development of Nerve Fibers.—The nerve fibers, no less than the cells, must go through a process of development. It has already been shown that the fibers are the result of a branching of cells. At birth many of the cells have not yet thrown out branches, and hence the fibers are lacking; while many of those which are already grown out are not sufficiently developed to transmit impulses accurately. ”

“ There is no upper limit on the fiber diameter in the counting rules. Note that fiber width is measured at the widest compact section of the object. 1 fiber Although long fine fibrils may extend from the body of a fiber, these fibrils are considered part of the fiber if they seem to have originally been part of the bundle. Do not count If the object is ≤ 5 μm long, it is not counted. 1 fiber A fiber partially obscured by a particle is counted as one fiber. ”

“ Fibers.—Like hairs, the various types of natural and artificial fibers can be distinguished from each other under the microscope. Like hairs too, individual fibers are not unique, but the expert usually can distinguish fibers from different fabrics. A major identifying characteristic of most fibers is color, and under the microscope many different shades of each color can be differentiated—for example, 50-100 shades of green or blue, and 25-30 shades of black. The microscopic appearance of three types of fibers—cotton, wool, and viscose—is illustrated in Commission Exhibit No. ”

“ The second group—fibers of simple cellular structure—comprises surface fibers, including the down or hairs surrounding exogenous seeds or their envelopes; the hairlike growth found on stems, leaves, and buds; fibrous material produced in the form of epidermal strips from the leaves of palms, etc.; and false fibrous material—mosses and leaves used for packing, and certain fungous growths. It is the consideration of these useful native fibers that makes it possible to enumerate a thousand species of fibrous plants, while the world's commercial fibers would hardly reach a total of fifty species. ”

“ The fibers are much interlaced in all directions, and are of all sizes up to the size of coarse twine and small cords. The larger fibers unite to form bundles extending from the inner surface radially. ”

“ What these fibers are, and how they proceed and flow in the brain, the eye cannot at all perceive; for innumerable fibers are there so interwoven that taken together they appear like a soft continuous mass ”

“ Closely allied to the areolar is the fibrous tissue, in which the white fibers lie close together and run for the most part in one direction only. This is found in ligaments, joints and tendons, as also in such fibrous protective membranes as the periosteum, dura mater, the fasciæ of muscles, etc. Fibrous tissue is silvery white in appearance and is very strong and tough, yet pliant. ”

“ The fibre is decidedly inferior to flax and hemp in strength and tenacity; and, owing to a peculiarity in its microscopic structure, by which the walls of the separate cells composing the fibre vary much in thickness at different points, the single strands of fibre are of unequal strength. Recently prepared fibre is always stronger, more lustrous, softer and whiter than such as has been stored for some time—age and exposure rendering it brown in colour and harsh and brittle in quality. ”

“ The object of the paper-maker in treating any one particular fibre is to carry the action of the dissolving and bleaching agents just so far as to obtain the fibre as free from impurities and as white in colour as is desired. The usefulness of a plant for a good white paper depends upon the strength and elasticity of its fibres, upon the proportion of cellular tissue contained in them, and upon the ease with which this can be freed from the encrusting and intercellular matters. ”

“ Each fibre has a broad lumen and is very similar to hemp fibre. Examination of all these fibres, by the way, is best made in water as described under cotton.
Hemp is another bast fibre and as we have remarked it resembles the short fibres of flax; there is a broad lumen with an indistinct margin. ”

“ A description of each of the principal fibres is given, with the normal dimensions of the unbeaten fibres and the coloration given by the solutions specified. For general examination the lower powers of the microscope will be found most useful, the higher magnifications being employed for studying the markings and other characteristics of the fibres. The dimensions given of cotton, linen, and hemp fibres will not be met with in papers made from those materials, as in beating the lengths are shortened, and frequently the fibres are split longitudinally. ”

“ The matured fibres always collapse in the middle as described, and undergo no change in this respect when passing through all the various operations to which cotton is subject, from spinning to its conversion into pulp for paper-making.
Linen, or Flax Fibre, under the microscope, appears as hollow tubes, open at both ends, the fibres being smooth, and the inner tube very narrow, and joints, or septa, [10] appear at intervals, but are not furnished with hairy appendages as is the case with hemp. ”

“ This appearance is due, as the observations of Miss Alcock show, to alternate layers of connective tissue fibres arranged at right angles to each other, each fibre running a straight course and possessing its own nucleus. Although the fibres in each layer are packed close together, they are sufficiently apart to form with the fibres of the alternate layers a meshwork rather than a homogeneous structure, and thus the surface view of this layer shows a regular network of very fine spaces through which nerve-fibres and fluid pass. ”

“ All animal fibres are effectively dissolved by 10% solution of caustic potash or soda. The fabric or material is boiled in this solution for 10 minutes and exhaustively washed. Any residue will be vegetable or cellulose fibre. It must not be forgotten that the chemical properties of the fibre substances are modified more or less by association in combination with colouring matters and mordants. These may, in many cases, be removed by treatments which do not seriously modify the fibre substances. ”

“ Now, if it is a remarkable fact that in a fully differentiated nervous network the constituent fibres are not improbably capable of vicarious action to almost any extent, much more remarkable does this fact become when we find that no two of these constituent nerve-fibres are histologically continuous with one another. Indeed, it seems to me that we have here a fact as startling as it is novel. There can scarcely be any doubt that some influence is communicated from a stimulated fibre a to the adjacent fibre b at the point where these fibres come into close apposition. ”

“ Thus the life of each fibre is insulated by this layer, which, like that of the whole organ, forms around it a kind of atmosphere, destined to defend and protect it, but which can, however, like the general layer, and even more than that, because the parts are nearer to each other, be the means of the communication of diseases from one fibre to another. ”

“ If we examine under the microscope a pure unproofed fur fibre, its characteristic structure is quite visible. Examination of an unproofed fibre dyed with logwood black shows again the same characteristic structure with the dye inside the fibre, colouring it a beautiful bluish-grey tint, the inner cellular markings being black. A proofed fur fibre, on the other hand, when examined under the microscope, is seen to be covered with a [Pg 65] kind of translucent glaze, which completely envelops it, and prevents the beautiful markings showing the scaly structure of the fibre from being seen. ”

“ To remove the cellular matter from the true fibre or cellulose, without degrading or sacrificing a portion of the latter, is by no means easy of accomplishment when practised on an extensive scale, and many processes which present apparent advantages in one direction are often found to exhibit contrary results in another. The field, however, is still an open one, and human ingenuity may yet discover methods of separating wood fibre from its surrounding tissues in a still more perfect manner than hitherto. ”