The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

4 THE MARINE REVIEW PRESSING KAPOK IN SINGLE BALES FOR SHIPMENT. THESE BALES MADE UP INTO LIFE PRESERVERS WILL SUPPORT 250 MEN ai a fyiisd <o! little .suriaces, .on each of which the surface tension is great enough to withstand the pres- sure of the air; and the air keeps the mass afloat. Kapok will support in water twenty times its own weight; in leather or imitation leather cushions it will support this weight for three months; and, in ordinary mattress tick- long enough for a person to die of thirst. and hunger... A mattress stuffed with kapok will support a passenger until rescued, if the passen- ger does not die of thirst and hunger; and as rescue comes pretty quickly in these modern times, the kapok mat- tress looks like a valuable adjunct to the sea-going ship's equipment. Stuffing for Life Preservers As a stuffing for life preservers it cannot be excelled; it is much lighter than cork, and whilst bulky, is very compressible, so that the life preserver can be compacted into small compass for stowage. And, by proper choice of construction of the life preserver, it can be made superior to the cork belt. Kapok has been used for many years for stuffing mattresses, pillows and cushions, being known as "silk floss"; it is quite commonly in use as a stuffing for boat cushions, and some of these are guaranteed as to buoyancy by their makers. This silk floss is quite frequently adulterated with cotton, especially for cheap mat- tresses, and only a small part of all the silk floss is Java or Philippine Hapon, Sa that. all - silk floss is not kapok and not all kapok is suitable for life-saving, where- fore it becomes necessary to find a means for distinguishing between kapoks. 'This itis not easy to do. All kapoks look alike and feel the same, except some of the very low. grades, such as the dark India kapok; and when well cleaned and "fluffed up" after long travel across the ocean in bales, there is but little choice be- tween them as to appearance. But when tested as to buoyancy, the dif- ferences appear; this is the acid test for kapok, and is the one on which the Navy Department relies when pur- chasing kapok for its uses. The Navy Department is now using KAPOK HAND CLEANING. TOP OF THE November, 1914 kapok quite extensively. The Depart- ment began to experiment with it about three years ago, somewhat cau- tiously at first, but its excellent quali- ties were finally established. For sub- marines the pillow type is used ex- clusively. All hammock mattresses for sailormen are now made of kapok. That makes the sailorman's hammock his own life preserver and will even- tually result in cutting down the num- ber of life preservers on a battleship. A considerable portion of the mat- resses of the officers' bunks are now made of kapok. They are better than hair mattresses, much cheaper, are more sanitary and are very comfort- able. Sickbay mattresses are also be- ing made of kapok. Kapok mattresses have been very generally tested by the Navy Department. One of them was loaded with 200 pounds of cast iron grate bars, and the ship making the test reported that at_the end of eight hours the mattress had sunk so far that the top was just awash. Such an outfit would have saved practically all of the lives lost when the Titanic sunk. The black eye which kapok has been burdened with was sustained after the terrible General Slocum disaster; that sad affair blackened many a reputa- tion. The burning of the General Slo- cum, it will be remembered, occurred on June 16, 1904, in New York Har- bor; there were 1,388 passengers and crew on board, 745 of whom were children; and of the total number only 401 were saved. The President of the United States appointed a Commission to investigate this disaster, and this Commission found that the Slocum had not been If IS SO LIGHT AND FLUFFY THAT THE SPACE MUST BE SCREENED