17 June: Mackintoshes

On this date in 1823, Charles Macintosh patented the waterproof cloth he was to use in making raincoats. 10 things you might not know about the man and his raincoats.

1. Before Charles Macintosh came along, waterproofing fabrics usually meant using oil, which made materials heavy and smelly.
2. Charles Macintosh was born December 29, 1766, in Glasgow and was the son of George Macintosh, a merchant, and Mary Moore. When he left school, he went to work as a merchant's clerk for a while, but his first love was chemistry, and he soon left his clerical job to concentrate on that.
3. Although his father was a merchant, he also had a background in dye making. The ingredients he used included Lichen and ammonia. The ammonia he got from a quite disgusting source - he would buy pee from people. Poor families would save up their urine to sell to him.
4. Possibly inspired by his father's use of urine, Macintosh was keen to find uses for waste products, such as naptha, the tar sludge produced by gas lamps, which was a health hazard. In 1819, Glasgow Gas Works was only too happy to sell him all the waste it produced.
5. Macintosh found that mixing naptha with India rubber, found in trees, produced a paste which repelled Water. If he sandwiched this paste between two layers of cloth, it made a waterproof fabric. He patented the idea in 1823. It was later claimed, however, that he'd copied the method from James Syme, a Scottish surgeon, who had produced a similar substance, using naptha and rubber in 1818.
6. At first, tailors weren't interested in the waterproof fabrics. Stitching the fabric to make a garment undermined the waterproofing as water could get in through the stitch holes, and the material could get stiff in hot weather. Macintosh set up his own company, which in due course merged with that of Thomas Hancock, who made improvements to the production process.
7. Arctic explorer John Franklin and his crew were outfitted with the material during their exploration of the Arctic in 1824.
8. A true mackintosh coat is made from rubberised cotton with the seams glued rather than sewn, so that it is completely watertight.
9. It is not known why the mackintosh is spelled with the addition of the letter K.
10. Charles Macintosh invented other things besides raincoats. He also invented a bleaching powder and figured out a way to make blast furnaces more efficient.

The Raiders Trilogy

Book One

Book Three

Book Two

   

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.