ATLAS, in Commerce, a silk-satin, manufactured in the East Indies. There are some plain, some striped, and some flowered, the flowers of which are either gold or only silk. There are atlases of all colours, but most of them false, especially the red and the crimson. The manufacture of them is admirable; the gold and silk being worked together after such a manner as no workman in Europe can imitate; yet they are very far from having that fine gloss and lustre which the French know how to give to their silk stuffs. In the Chinese manufactures of this sort, they gild paper on one side with leaf-gold; then cut it in long slips, and weave it into their silks; which makes them with very little cost, look very rich and fine. The same long slips are twisted or turned about silk threads, so artificially, as to look finer than gold thread, though it be of no greater value.