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William Alexander Spinks, Jr. (1865–1933) was an American professional player of carom billiards in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was known professionally as William A. Spinks or (in the initialing practice common in his era) W. A. Spinks, and occasionally also referred to as Billy Spinks.〔 In addition to being amateur Pacific Coast Billiards Champion several times,〔〔〔 a world champion contender in more than one cue sports discipline,〔 and an exhibition player in Europe,〔 he became the co-inventor (with William Hoskins) in 1897 of modern billiard cue chalk.〔〔 He was originally (and again in retirement from the billiards circuit) a Californian, but spent much of his professional career in Chicago, Illinois.〔〔 At his peak, his was a household name in U.S. billiards;〔 the ''New York Times'' ranked Spinks as one of "the most brilliant players among the veterans of the game",〔 and he still holds the world record for points scored in a row (1,010) using a particular shot type.〔〔 Aside from his billiards playing career, he founded a lucrative sporting goods manufacturing business. He was both an oil company investor and director, and a flower and fruit farm operator and horticulturist, originator of the eponymous Spinks cultivar of avocado. ==As an inventor (1892–97)== While Spinks was a world-class player, his lasting contributions to cue sports were the innovations he brought to the game and the industry resulting from his fascination with the abrasives used by players on the leather of their cue sticks. (used since at least 1807) helps the tip better grip the (very briefly) on a and prevents , as well as permitting the player to impart a great deal more to the ball, vital for and for spin-intensive shots, such as . In the 1800s, true chalk (generally calcium carbonate〔 lumps, suspended from strings), and even plaster〔 was often used, but players experimented with other powdery, abrasive substances,〔〔 since true chalk had a deleterious effect on the game equipment,〔 not only discoloring the billiard cloth but also allegedly damaging the fabric.〔 In 1892, Spinks was particularly impressed by a piece of natural chalk-like substance obtained in France, and presented it to chemist and electrical engineer William Hoskins (1862–1934)〔 of Chicago for analysis. He determined it was porous volcanic rock (pumice) originally probably from Mount Etna, Sicily. Using the rock as a starting place, the two experimented together with different formulations of various materials to achieve the cue ball "" that Spinks sought.〔 They eventually narrowed their search to a mixture of Illinois-sourced〔 silica and the abrasive substance corundum or aloxite〔 (a form of aluminum oxide, Al2O3),〔〔〔 founding William A. Spinks & Company with a factory〔 in Chicago〔 after securing a patent on March 9, 1897.〔 Spinks later left the company as an active party, but it retained his name and was subsequently run by Hoskins, and later by Hoskins's cousin〔 Edmund F. Hoskin,〔 after Hoskins moved on to other projects. While regular calcium carbonate chalk had been packaged and marketed on a local scale by various parties (English player Jack Carr's "Twisting Powder" of the 1820s being the earliest recorded example, although considered dubious by some billiards researchers),〔 the Spinks Company product (which is still emulated by modern manufacturers with differing, proprietary compounds)〔 effectively revolutionized billiards.〔 The modern product provided a cue tip friction enhancer that allowed the tip to better grip the cue ball briefly〔 and impart a previously unattainable amount of spin on the ball, which consequently allowed more precise and extreme , made miscueing less likely, made and ' shots more plausible, and ultimately spawned the new cue sport of artistic billiards. Even the basic and shots of pool games (such as eight-ball and nine-ball) depend heavily on the effects and properties of modern billiard "chalk". Spinks made a "fortune"〔〔〔 from his co-invention and the company that sold it to the world. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「William A. Spinks」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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