Ersatz Kapok

A prayer and a life jacket are just about all there is to rely on when a torpedoed seaman takes the big jump from his sinking ship. Kapok--the silky, white, feather-soft down from the pods of the kapok tree--is the buoyant filling of most life jackets, many life rafts and lifeboat airtight compartments. It can support up to 35 times its own weight. In peacetime, kapok's biggest use was in mattresses, upholstery padding and the like. Most (and the best) kapok came from Java. The Japs put a stop to that. Now, as demand soars, rigidly controlled kapok inventories are running low.

Kapok's old rivals--cork and balsa wood--are no help. They are just as scarce. But ersatz kapoks are coming from field and factory and, as often happens, may win permanent victories over their prototype. Some of the more promising:

> The ubiquitous swamp cattails. Just before they burst into full-blown feather, the brown seed clumps can be milled into lightweight, water-resistant fluff suitable for stuffing and padding--and expected to work satisfactorily in life jackets. The discovery of this homely substitute is credited to Dr. Charles Frederick Burgess, thinker-tinker president of Burgess Battery Co., 1942 winner of the Acheson Medal, electrochemistry's highest award.

> Milkweed floss, strikingly similar to kapok. Next year it will be a cultivated crop and is already being ginned for the Navy in a Michigan factory. Like kapok in almost all respects, the floss has never been developed--picking it here at 40-c- an hour made cost too high to compete with kapok produced by East Indian labor at 10-c- a day.

> Bubblfil, a new and really modern substitute. A Du Pont invention, it is a continuous string of small air bubbles wrapped in Cellophane, looks like so many tiny sausages. Bubblfil fills the bill on all the war jobs where kapok is now used, is easy to ship and use, not readily inflammable.

> Pittsburgh-Coming's versatile Foamglas (TIME, Oct. 26). Although excellent in buoyancy, its uses are more limited because of its hardness and rigidity.

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