After this steeping process is completed, the water is let off from below, and pure water admitted from above under pressure, until the color begins to change; the fibre is then steeped for three or four hours in a weak solution of soda-ash; the alkali is washed out by the admission of pure water alternating with steam, and, if necessary to complete the bleaching, a weak solution of chlorine is applied. All this may be effected without removing the linten from the retort. The product is then dried as in ordinary drying-rooms.
When dried, it is carried again through a set of cards, and a piece of machinery termed a railway-head, with positive draught, which can be set so as to give any length of staple, and to present the flax-cotton thus produced in any form required for spinning, either separately or mixed with cotton or wool, and thus adapted to the machinery used in the manufacture of either of these articles. The cost of this process, from the brake to the final production of the cotton, is set by the patentee, after leaving him a fair profit, at three cents per pound of cotton; and if we add this to the cost of the linten, and allow for freight and storage, the entire cost of the fibrilia is but eight cents per pound, or two-thirds of the present price of middling cotton.
The idea of modifying the filaments of flax and hemp so as to convert them into cotton is by no means a new one. As long ago as 1747 it was proposed to convert flax into cotton by boiling it in a solution of caustic potash, and subsequently washing it with soap; and in 1775 Lady Moira, aided by T.B. Bailey, actually converted some refuse flax into cotton by boiling it in alkali. The result was, that the fibres seemed to be set at liberty from each other; after which it was carded on cotton cards, spun, and woven as cotton.
The Chevalier Claussen, as recently as 1850, claimed to have discovered the process, and actually took out a patent; but his invention, which consisted in boiling the cut and crushed stems of the flax in a solution of caustic soda, turned out a failure,—the cutting, crushing, and boiling processes proving alike defective.
New discoveries are the result of repeated trials; perseverance usually prevails; and if States are to secede at pleasure and withhold their cotton, and no other good uses can be found for flax or hemp, why should not their fibres secede also,—be set at liberty and resolve themselves into a cotton state?
We might pass from the fibrous plants, and the metamorphosis of flax into cotton, to the Pinna, whose fibres grow in the sea on the coast of Italy, and anchor the huge shell-fish to the rock or the sand. These fibres are brought up by divers, and woven into beautiful fabrics. We might repeat the tale of the crab which lives with this shell-fish, and apprises his blind housekeeper of the approach of danger,—a tale confirmed by ancient and modern naturalists,—for there are strange doings in the sea as well as upon the land. We might also dilate upon China grass, which is manufactured in the East into delicate fabrics. But our limits compel us to defer these topics.
NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION.
During the year 1831, up to the twenty-third of August, the Virginia newspapers were absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied the minds of intelligent American citizens:—What General Jackson should do with the scolds, and what with the disreputables,—Should South Carolina be allowed to nullify? and would the wives of Cabinet Ministers call on Mrs. Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate, to turn over the drowsy files of the "Richmond Enquirer", until the moment when those dry and dusty pages are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner. Then the terror flares on increasing, until the remotest Southern States are found shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection,—until far-off European colonies, Antigua, Martinique, Caraccas, Tortola, recognize by some secret sympathy the same epidemic alarms,—until the very boldest words of freedom are reported as uttered in the Virginia House of Delegates with unclosed doors,—until an obscure young man named Garrison is indicted at Common Law in North Carolina, and has a price set upon his head by the Legislature of Georgia. The insurrection revived in one agonizing reminiscence all the distresses of Gabriel's Revolt, thirty years before; and its memory endures still fresh, now that thirty added years have brought the more formidable presence of General Butler. It is by no means impossible that the very children or even confederates of Nat Turner may be included at this moment among the contraband articles of Fort Monroe.
Near the southeastern border of Virginia, in Southampton County, there is a neighborhood known as "The Cross Keys". It lies fifteen miles from Jerusalem, the county-town or "court-house", seventy miles from Norfolk, and about as far from Richmond. It is some ten or fifteen miles from Murfreesboro in North Carolina, and about twenty-five from the Great Dismal Swamp. Up to Sunday, the twenty-first of August, 1831, there was nothing to distinguish it from any other rural, lethargic, slipshod Virginia neighborhood, with the due allotment of mansion-houses and log-huts, tobacco-fields and "old-fields", horses, dogs, negroes, "poor white folks", so called, and other white folks, poor without being called so. One of these last was Joseph Travis, who had recently married the widow of one Putnam Moore, and had unfortunately wedded to himself her negroes also.
In the woods on the plantation of Joseph Travis, upon the Sunday just named, six slaves met at noon for what is called in the Northern States a picnic and in the Southern a barbecue. The bill of fare was to be simple: one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting an aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be the final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in preparation. In this plot four of the men had been already initiated,—Henry, Hark or Hercules, Nelson, and Sam. Two others were novices, Will and Jack by name. The party had remained together from twelve to three o'clock, when a seventh man joined them,—a short, stout, powerfully built person, of dark mulatto complexion and strongly-marked African features, but with a face full of expression and resolution. This was Nat Turner.