WIRE, a piece of metal drawn through the hole of an iron into a thread of a fineness answerable to the hole it passed through.
Wires are frequently drawn so fine as to be wrought along with other threads of silk, wool, flax, &c.
The metals most commonly drawn into wire are gold, silver, copper, and iron. Gold-wire is made of cylindrical ingots of silver, covered over with a skin of gold, and thus drawn successively through a vast number of holes, each smaller and smaller, till at last it is brought to a fineness exceeding that of a hair. That admirable ductility which makes one of the distinguishing characters of gold, is nowhere more conspicuous than in this gilt wire. A cylinder of 48 ounces of silver, covered with a coat of gold, only weighing one ounce, as Dr Halley informs us, is usually drawn into a wire, two yards of which weigh no more than one grain; whence 98 yards of the wire weigh no more than 49 grains, and one single grain of gold covers the 98 yards; so that the ten-thousandth part of a grain is above one-eighth of an inch long.
In 1784, Mr Roswag of Strasbourg presented to the board of trade some gauze made of iron wire, for which he received a reward; and the loom he invented for making it was lodged in the collection of machines at Vaucaison. In 1799 Mr Rochon made others, and coated them with a transparent glue, to be substituted instead of horn for ship lanterns, to be used between decks, and in engagements by night. He has since conceived, that with a thin coating of plaster they
might be employed to preserve ships from fire, and buildings on shore still more easily; or at least that they might render the ravages of fire less frequent, and less terrible. These gauzes might be very useful too for theatrical decorations, which would not be liable to take fire. Their only inconvenience is their being so little flexible; but Mr Rochon does not despair of means being found by chemistry to remedy this imperfection, and it was with a view of calling attention to this subject, that he read a paper on it to the class.