Ductility

the quality which permits a substance to be drawn into a fine wire or thread. Heat increases ductility. Glass at a white heat may be drawn into oval-shaped threads like silk. Of the metals platinum is the most ductile. Then follow gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, tin, lead, and nickel. Gold has been drawn into wires with a diameter of 4,000 to the inch. It is asserted that platinum wires, 30,000 to the inch, have been drawn. This is as fine as the thread of a spider. Silk, as it leaves the cocoon, runs about 5,000 to the inch. In comparison human hair is coarse. The finest hair is the six-hundredth part of an inch in diameter. Fibers of wool run from 600 to 1,500 to the inch. See Wire; Nails