was feasible.
He devoted his time to this work, and by 1880 had pushed his
investigations as far as was possible in a country where silk reeling
was not commercially carried on. He then went to France, where he has
since been incessantly engaged in the heart of the silk-reeling
district in perfecting, reducing to practice, and applying his
improvements and inventions. The success obtained was such that Mr.
Serrell has been enabled to interest many of the principal silk
producers of the Continent in his work, and a revolution in silk
reeling is being gradually brought about, for, strangely enough, he
found that the work which he had undertaken solely for America was of
equal importance for all silk-producing countries.

We have described the processes by which cocoons are ordinarily cooked
and brushed, these being the first processes of the filature. Instead
of first softening the gum of the cocoons and then attacking the floss
with the points of a brush, Mr. Serrell places the cocoons in a
receptacle full of boiling water, in which by various means violent
reciprocating or vortex currents are produced. The result is that by
the action of the water itself and the rubbing of the cocoons one
against the other the floss is removed, carrying with it the end of
the continuous filament without unduly softening the cocoon or
exposing any of the more delicate filament to the rough action of the
brush, as has hitherto been the case. The advantages of this process
will be readily understood. In brushing after the ordinary manner, the
point of the brush is almost sure to come into contact with and to
break some of the filament forming the body of the cocoon. When this
occurs, and the cocoon is sent to be reeled, it naturally becomes
detached when the unwinding reaches the point at which the break
exists. It then has to be sent back, and the end of the filament
detached by brushing over again, when several layers of filament are
inevitably caught by the brush and wasted, and very probably some
other part of the filament is cut. This accounts for the enormous
waste which occurs in silk reeling, and to which we have referred. Its
importance will be appreciated when it is remembered that every pound
of fiber thus dragged off by the brush represents a net loss of about
19s. at the present low prices.

The mechanical details by which Mr. Serrell carries out this process
vary somewhat according to the nature of the different cocoons to