SILK, is properly an animal fluid, hardened by the air; being an extremely soft and glossy thread, spun by the silk-worm. See SILK-worm.
As soon as the animal is arrived at the size and strength necessary for beginning his cod, he makes his web; for it is thus they call that slight tissue which is the beginning and ground of this admirable work. This is his first day's employment. On the second he forms his folliculus or ball, and covers himself almost over with silk. The third day he is quite hid; and the following days employs himself in thickening and strengthening his ball: always working from one single end, which he never breaks by his own fault; and which is so fine, and so long, that those who have examined it attentively think they speak within compass, when they affirm, that each ball contains silk enough to reach the length of six English miles.
In ten days time the ball is in its perfection, and is now to be taken down from the branches of the mulberry-tree, where the worms have hung it. But this point requires a deal of attention: for there are some worms more lazy than others; and it is very dangerous waiting till they make themselves a passage, which usually happens about the fifteenth day of the month.
The first, finest, and strongest balls are kept for the grain, the rest are carefully wound; or if it is desired to keep them all, or if there be more than can be well wound at once, they lay them for some time in an oven moderately hot, or else expose them for several days successively to the greatest heats of the sun, in order to kill the insect, which, without this precaution, would not fail to open itself a way to go and use those new wings abroad it has acquired within.
Ordinarily, they only wind the more perfect balls; those that are double, or too weak, or too coarse, are laid aside, not as altogether useless, but that, being improper for winding, they are reserved to be drawn out into skains. The balls are of different colours; the most common are yellow, orange-colour, isabella, and flesh-colour; there are some also of a sea-green, others of a sulphur colour, and others white; but there is no necessity for separating the colours and shades to wind them apart, as all the colours are to be lost in the future scouring and preparing of the silk.
To wind silks from off the balls, two machines are necessary, the one a furnace, with its copper; the other a reel, or frame, to draw the silk. The winder, then, seated near the furnace, throws into the copper of water over the furnace (first heated and boiled to a certain degree, which custom alone can teach) a handful or two of balls, which have been first well purged of all their loose furry substance. She then stirs the whole very briskly about with birchen rods, bound and cut like brushes; and when the heat and agitation have detached the ends of the silks of the pods, which are apt to catch on the rods, she draws them forth; and joining ten or twelve, or even fourteen of them together, she forms them into threads, according to the bigness required to the works they are destined for: eight ends sufficing for ribbands; and velvets, &c. requiring no less than fourteen. The ends, thus joined into two or three threads, are first passed into the holes of three iron rods in the fore-part of the reel, then upon the bobbins or pulleys, and at last are drawn out to the reel itself, and there fastened each to
an end of an arm or branch of the reel. Thus disposed, the winder, giving motion to the reel, by turning the handle, guides the threads; substitutes new ones, when any of them break, or any of the balls are wound out; strengthens them, where necessary, by adding others; and takes away the balls wound out, or that, having been pierced, are full of water.
In this manner, two persons will spin and reel three pounds of silk in a day; which is done with greater dispatch than is made by the spinning-wheel or distaff. Indeed, all silks cannot be spun and reeled after this manner; either by reason the balls have been perforated by the silk-worms themselves; or because they are double, or too weak to bear the water; or because they are coarse, &c. Of all these together, they make a particular kind of silk, called florella; which being carded, or even spun on the distaff or the wheel, in the condition it comes from the ball, makes a tolerable silk.
As to the balls, after opening them with scissars, and taking out the insects, (which are of some use for the feeding of poultry), they are steeped three or four days in troughs, the water whereof is changed every day to prevent their sinking. When they are well softened by this scouring, and cleared of that gummy matter the worm had lined the inside withal, and which renders it impenetrable to the water, and even to air itself, they boil them half an hour in a lye of ashes, very clear and well strained; and after washing them out in the river, and drying them in the sun, they card and spin them on the wheel, &c. and thus make another kind of florella, somewhat inferior to the former.
As to the spinning and reeling of raw silks off the balls, such as they are brought from Italy and the Levant, the first is chiefly performed on the spinning-wheel; and the latter, either on hand-reels, or on reels mounted on machines, which serve to reel several skains at the same time.