Under the head Silk-Worm, will be found an account of the first introduction of the insect, and the commencement of the manufacture in the western empire. From thence it spread into Sicily and Italy; and during the time that the French occupied Milan (1521), artisans were conveyed by Francis I. to Lyons, and under his protection the manufacture of silk made great progress.
When the Duke of Parma took and plundered the city of Antwerp in 1585, a great proportion of the merchants and artisans took refuge in England; these introduced the silk manufacture into this country, which was fostered and encouraged by the English government. Before this period the produce of the silk-worm had been little seen in England.
The climate of England has not been found favourable for the rearing of silk-worms: repeated attempts have been made to cultivate the breed with profit, but they have always failed. It was supposed that the British settlements in America would prove more favourable for this purpose, and in several of them the experiment was made; but though a large quantity of excellent silk was produced, the business of planting mulberry-trees and rearing worms in the northern United States having been made the basis of a monstrous stock exchange speculation, and consequent ruin to many, the whole effort has become nearly abortive, for the present at least.
The manufacture of silk goods has been the object of solicitous care to the British government, and various enactments were made by successive monarchs, with the view of encouraging it in this country. It received a great stimulus in 1685, when the revocation of the edict of Nantes banished from France multitudes of her most industrious and skilful artificers, which greatly benefited the countries that sheltered the injured emigrants. About 70,000 took refuge in England and Ireland, and transplanted various branches of the useful arts to different districts of this country. A large body of silk-weavers settled in Spitalfields, where descendants of many of them may still be found.
Table of Imports and Exports of Silk to and from the United Kingdom in 1856, 1857, and 1858.
| Imports—Year ending 31st Dec., as per landing accounts. | Within these years respectively. | Being of real value computed. | |----------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------|-------------------------------| | Silk, Raw— | | | | From China | 1856 | 1857 | | | 1858 | | | | Lb. | Lb. | | | 3,729,693 | 6,664,632 | | | 2,011,186 | 3,198,190 | | | 5,671,149 | 1,672,128 | | | 3,124,778 | 6,678,415 | | | 3,652,617 | 2,625,611 | | | 4,800,554 | 3,324,269 | | | 533,201 | 734,984 | | | 613,773 | 571,385 | | | 1,170,633 | 794,819 | | Total | 7,882,672 | 12,077,531 | | | 6,277,576 | 6,295,186 | | | 11,602,336 | 5,791,216 | | Silk, Waste—Knubs & Husks | | | | | Lb. | Lb. | | | 2,012,211 | 2,916,160 | | | 1,877,280 | | | | Lb. | Lb. | | | 331,048 | 280,800 | | | 124,129 | 541,454 | | | 594,498 | 207,031 | | | 425,533 | 392,494 | | | 185,990 | 330,150 | | | 287,777 | 170,246 | | | 95,444 | 85,642 | | | 48,150 | 167,397 | | | 188,000 | 80,489 | | Total | 854,015 | 640,936 | | | 338,269 | 1,039,541 | | | 1,069,985 | 467,866 | | Silk Manufactured Goods— | | | | Of Europe— | | | | Broad Stuff, Silks or Satins | Lb. | Lb. | | | 220,568 | 204,297 | | | 277,163 | 229,288 | | | 197,550 | 270,914 | | Broad Stuff, Gauze, Crapé, Velvet, etc. | Lb. | Lb. | | | 39,529 | 27,598 | | | 32,762 | 38,294 | | | 26,982 | 31,681 | | | 463,750 | 375,890 | | | 383,619 | 441,421 | | | 393,159 | 378,562 | | Ribbons, all kinds | Lb. | Lb. | | | 170,936 | 118,368 | | | 134,106 | 170,818 | | | 118,717 | 133,738 | | Total | 904,813 | 736,154 | | | 827,650 | 879,821 | | | 705,708 | 812,890 | | Of India— | | | | Bandannas, Corahs, Choppas, Tunics, Roms, etc., Tassels | Pieces. | Pieces. | | | 601,461 | 370,295 | | | 207,081 | 106,193 | | | 93,014 | 83,012 |
The silk in 1856 paid in customs duties, £270,596.
England was, however, entirely dependent on foreigners for organzine silk thread, till Mr. Lombe of Derby, in the year 1718, having gone to Italy in the disguise of a common workman, took drawings of the silk-throwing machinery in Piedmont, and, on his return, erected a large mill on the river Derwent at Derby. The extensive and powerful machinery of this mill contained 26,586 wheels, and 97,746 movements, which worked 73,726 yards of organzine silk thread, by every revolution of the water-wheel, which revolved three times in the minute, and thus produced 318,504,960 yards of organzine per day. The same amount of motive-power employed upon the beautiful, compact, and simplified throwing machinery now at work at Derby and elsewhere, would bring out far greater results both in quantity and quality.
The silk manufacture continued to increase in England, though the workmen were constantly clamouring against the importation of foreign goods. With a view to encourage the manufacture, an act was passed (3 Geo. I. cap. 15) for granting bounties on the exportation of silk fabrics; this was, however, no more than a drawback of part of the duties paid on the importation of the raw silk. In 1741, permission was given to the Russian Company to import the raw silk of Persia at the same rate of duty as from the Levant; and, in 1749, the same reduction was made on the duties on raw silk imported by the East India Company from China. In 1764, the fashion of the times running in favour of French silks, and the wages of the English weavers being low, and work scarce, the operatives assembled in great multitudes, and in a tumultuous manner presented petitions to Parliament, praying for the total prohibition of foreign wrought silks. By the representation which the operatives made of their sufferings, Parliament was induced to reduce the duties on raw and thrown silk, and entirely to prohibit the importation of certain articles of manufactured silk goods. The operative weavers did not, however, derive those benefits from the prohibitions against importation which they expected, and they had frequently recourse to combinations to force their masters to raise their wages. These disputes between the masters and workmen having led to violence and riot, an act was passed in 1773, and confirmed by two subsequent acts, empowering the aldermen of London, and the magistrates of Middlesex, to fix the wages of the Spitalfields weavers. But it is unnecessary to recapitulate the applications of the operatives and manufactures for protection against foreign competition, and the attempts of the legislature to encourage the manufacture by restrictive and prohibitory enactments from 1773 to 1824; the silk trade in England, from the futile attempts to bolster it up, was kept in an artificial and languishing state. The manufacturer, depending upon the protection of parliamentary restrictions on foreign competition, rather than on his own skill and exertions, was not anxious to discover and introduce improvements into the manufacture. Since the change of system, the imports of the raw material, and the exports of the manufactured article have rapidly increased. In 1825 there were at most 24,000 English silk looms employed. In 1855 at least 110,000; using 5,400,000 lb. of thrown silk, and producing goods valued at L8,800,000, besides spun-silk and mixed goods of uncertain amount. The English consumed in 1855 of her own silk goods, L7,200,000; and imported L4,000,000. In 1856 the probable returns of the English silk manufactures were L11,000,000. In 1857 L19,000,000. In 1858 (a year of panic) L10,000,000. 1859 will be about L14,000,000.
Nothing more fully demonstrates the folly of attempting to encourage manufacturers by prohibiting importation than the history of the silk trade. The greatest importation of raw and thrown silk which took place in any one year, previous to the repeal of the prohibitory system, was in 1833, when the quantity imported was 2,332,286 lb.; while, by the foregoing table, it appears that 11,266,820 lb. were imported, on an average of the years 1856, 1857, 1858, at the same time that the official value of our silk manufactures exported during the same period was L1,140,520 during 1823, and L1,622,270 on the three years average, together with L1,027,220, the average annual value in 1856, 1857, 1858, of English thrown silk and spun-silk exported. The larger proportion of both classes was to France. Total of silk manufactured goods exported from England in 1844, L736,455; in 1858, L2,391,506.
It is an inquiry of great interest, what may be considered a fair approximation to the amount of silk produced in various countries of the world, and from which English manufacturers must seek their supplies. We shall endeavour to give reliable figures, so far as enabled to collect them, confining ourselves to weights rather than the excessively fluctuating values. The inferences which must be drawn by a due comparison and estimate of them, are exceedingly important in regard to the future extent and profitable employment of labour and capital in European silk business, especially that of the United Kingdom.
There are few of the four hundred millions of its population, except the lowest classes in China, but what are clad in silk garments. The weight or value of the silk thus produced for home consumption is unknown. The exportation to England from 1795 to 1810, averaged in sixteen years 85,810 lb. per annum; from 1810 to 1822 inclusive, twelve years, 164,166 lb.; 1830 to 1841, eleven years, average was 808,000 lb. The export from China in 1858 was 78,154 bales, equal to about 9,376,000 lb. weight of silk. The average of English imports of China silk for 1856, 1857, 1858, was 4,133,100 lb. No doubt, inasmuch as in all China proper, except the northernmost districts, silk is grown, its power of extended export is indefinite. The price has as yet gradually increased with the surprisingly enlarged demand. The China silk production and reeling is almost entirely a peasant one.
The production of "flature" silk under the management of the East India Company, was from 15,723 reeling basins, in 12 principal silk factories; the cocoons being produced by "ryots" (peasants), and paid for at prices fixed by the company's agents. Private traders at length were permitted to enter into this business. At present it is altogether an ordinary commercial operation, except that the company lay a double tax on land used for the growth of mulberries. In 1750 England imported 80,000 lb. Bengal raw silk; 1755 to 1809, an average of 401,600 lb. a year; 1810 to 1820, 814,600 lb. The average import of the years 1856, 1857, 1858, from Bengal (including a small amount from Egypt) into England was 3,818,666 lb., of the annual value of L3,603,000. How the intrinsic value per lb. might be raised is shown elsewhere in this article. The supply might certainly be made an unlimited one with great advantage both to India and England.
How much raw silk of commerce is consumed in India is not known, probably not much. Tussah and other wild silks are used immensely. In Cochin-China and Siam, there is a considerable production of silk. Of the amount we have no reliable statement. The like may be said of Japan; from which country, however, at the time of writing, we learn that a shipment of 1000 bales of strong coarse silk is on its way to this country. It is said, on fair authority, that the price amongst natives of these countries is from 5s. to 6s. English per pound weight. In the Island of Madagascar silk-worms of great size are fed in open fields on pigeon-pea (ambiravatry) and give very large cocoons.
Persia grows silk for home use largely, and exports considerably. The imports into England from 1830 to 1840, was, on average, 126,000 lb. a year. This amount is now increased. The quality is low, being ill reeled and irregular. From Asia-Minor a silk is exported to England and France in large quantity, because of its rapidly improved manipulation of the cocoons (which are of unsurpassed excellence, and largely importing now into France), in reeling into skeins of small instead of large circumference. Of Brutia "old long reel" we imported 251,850 lb.; and of "new short reel," 319,000 lb.; making a total of 570,850 lb. annually, on an average of ten years ending 1840. The actual production is about 1,200,000 lb. per annum, of which England uses 500,000 lb. It is computed that in 1836 Syria produced 856,800 lbs. and Asia 132,000 lbs.; Cyprus and Crete about 50,000 lb. Tripoli produced in 1842 45,000 oques, or 126,000 lb. English of silk, worth 20s. per oque. Of the produce of Turkey in Europe no exact account can be given. The government levies 20 per cent. or more on silk exported, and prohibits export of
### Table of Exports and Imports of Silk—continued.
| Year ending 31st Dec. | 1856 | 1857 | 1858 | |----------------------|------|------|------| | **Silk** | | | | | Raw | 1,428,598 | 1,706,625 | 2,314,519 | | Waste Knubs, Husks | 62,944 | 105,108 | 272,948 | | Thrown (foreign) | 282,705 | 228,529 | 364,680 | | **Silk Manufactures**| | | | | Europe | 21,956 | 21,659 | 18,692 | | Pieces | 396,316 | 324,554 | 227,159 | | India | | | | | **Silk Manufactures, English**| | | | | Stuff, Handkerchiefs and Ribbons | 665,218 | 621,834 | 489,709 | | Other articles, Silk only (entered at value) | ... | ... | 557,802 | | Do. mixed with Silk | ... | ... | 427,906 | | **Total** | 1,758,657 | 1,803,210 | 1,304,945 | | **Silk** | | | | | Thrown (English) | 841,553 | 641,204 | 551,281 | | Twist and Yarn (do.) | 602,850 | 577,116 | 442,641 | | **Total** | 1,444,412 | 1,218,320 | 993,922 |
All silks are now imported free of duty.
Manufactures of silk pay on average of 15 per cent. duty on importation. cocoon. The Morea produced, in 1824, 71,000 coques, or 200,000 lb. English of silk, inferior in quality. The average amount of silk raised in Hungary was lately estimated at more than 200,000 lb. yearly, produced in 40 localities, and from a million and a half of mulberry-trees. In Poland, and even in Russia, silk is produced, but at present in small quantities. Spain produced in 1842 about 2,000,000 lb. weight of silk, three-fifths of which was obtained in Valencia, and one-fifth each in Murcia and Granada. The Catalonians used 400,000 lbs., and there were exported 1,400,000 lbs. The cocoons are excellent, and may be exported free. Peasant reeling is very irregular; and raw silk resulting from it, not of even and clean quality. The growth of silk might be greatly extended; for the otherwise barren soil of many tracts in Spain could be made, with little trouble and expense, to grow mulberry-trees, and to vast advantage. As the Valencia silks, where reeled skilfully, are of magnificent quality, and the stuffs manufactured from them command high prices and ready sale, there only needs capital and internal tranquillity to make Spain a far greater silk-producing country than at present.
The Milanese has long been a large field for the cultivation of silk. In 1825, we took an account of the basins reeling silk (averaging 1½ lbs. per day, for about 100 days, included in the reeling season, if by proprietors of filatures, and 1 lb. by smaller producers), and were enabled to enumerate 20,395 basins, which, in that year, gave 2,652,000 lb. raw-silk, value L2,387,000; probably, 4000 or 5000 basins were not seen. In 1800, 1,800,000 lb. of raw silk was said to have been collected. But, in 1858, the quantity was believed, by Italian silk dealers, to have been increased threefold at least—say 5,400,000 lbs.; and the money value certainly would be fivefold in amount to that paid for this article to the Lombard growers in 1800. Nearly all was exported in 1825; 2400 looms only being at work in Milanese. At present, a larger proportion is consumed in the territory where grown. In 1825, Piedmont produced 1,440,000 lbs., of a superior quality, all things considered, to any other silk, except that of the Cévennes, France. The greater part is thrown now, as then, and exported to Germany, France, and England. The present weight of Piedmontese silk grown is not known to us. A very large amount is of white colour (Nero), and a larger worm is bred, and produces cocoons so large as only to require 100 to 120 to the pound. Tuscany, the Romagna, Naples, and Calabria, produced, in 1825, 1,500,000 lb. of raw silk, from very excellent cocoons; but reeled with various degrees of care and success. Amongst them, Fossombrone is a celebrated quality. The Royal Neapolitan Filature produces superior silk. Calabrian stands low in the scale of quality. The "Annuario Statistico Italiano" of 1858, estimates the total Italian production to be of the annual value of L8,000,000 sterling to L10,000,000 sterling. But this must be much below the real amount. The selling price of all raw silk has been for several years 50 per cent higher than in 1825, when, undoubtedly, the value of the Italian production was at least L6,000,000 sterling. The increased quantity grown in Lombardy alone would therefore raise the total annual value of Italian silk beyond L10,000,000 sterling. From an official source we learn, that, in 1851, the Austrian dominions produced L4,340,000 sterling, in raw silk, and L2,840,000 sterling, in manufactured silks, making a total of L7,200,000 sterling. This total had been raised, in 1855, to L12,000,000.
The increase must have included a large proportion of Milanese raw silk. This advance in quantity is to be attributed to the great excellence attained by reelers in the north of Italy. Prussian silk manufacture has rapidly increased. In 1831, the number of looms was 8956; in 1837, 14,111; in 1855, there were nearly 25,000.
It may here be stated, that, in the Swiss cantons, Basle and Zurich, the looms, chiefly alimented with silk from Northern Italy and Bengal, and which, in 1851, were under 30,000, had increased, in 1855, to 40,000, and produced about L4,000,000 sterling of manufactured goods; importing the raw materials, and exporting nearly all the stuffs produced (which are amongst the best in the world), without intervention, or protection, premiums, or custom-houses. The Zollverein exports ribbons and broad silks largely to France. In 1854, in those states, 1,600,000 lb. weight of raw silk, worth L1,760,000 sterling, was worked up, on 40,000 looms, into L3,055,000 sterling of articles of silk entirely, and 1,050,000 lb. weight of mixed materials. The silk business of France is one of its most important sources of agricultural wealth, in the growth of the mulberry, of domestic employment in tending the caterpillars, and of factory capital, skill, and labour, in breeding worms, on the larger scale; as also in reeling and throwing raw silk. Subsequent processes in weaving, dyeing, &c., are alike extensive and valuable.
The report of French jury, in 1855, makes the following remarks:—"Every day shows more and more the advantage to the health of silk-worms, of breaking up the large establishments for breeding silk-worms (Magnaneries); i.e., returning to peasant or small 'recuits'; and, on the other hand, of improving the reeling of cocoons and throwing of silk, by increasing the size of establishments for those purposes. It is now incontestible, that small separate growths of cocoons produce more cocoons, and of superior quality, while the excellence of the silk from them is greatly promoted by cessation of domestic reeling. In both these respects, Piedmont and France are making great progress, followed very closely by Lombardy. In each, the growth of the mulberry, species of worms and their management, together with the arts and mechanism for reeling and throwing silk, are receiving successful attention." In 1789, France produced 1,000,000 lbs. of raw silk. In 1812, 590,750 lbs. raw, and 342,000 lbs. organzine; total, 932,750 lbs., worth L1,000,000 sterling; and imported 900,000 lbs., valued at L1,350,000; in 1823, 1,600,000 lbs., worth L1,750,000. From henceforth, about half was produced by peasants. The French consumed, this year, L3,000,000 lbs. Looms, which had been in seven of the principal towns, 27,432 (in Lyons, 10,720) in 1812, had become in Lyons alone, in 1824, 24,000. These increased, so as that, in 1839, Lyons employed 40,000 looms, and 80,000 workmen. The whole of France, 84,648 looms, and 169,280 workmen, and the same number of assistants. The produce was a return that year of L4,000,000 sterling at Lyons; that of the whole of France being L9,260,000 sterling. Of this sum the silk cost L5,600,000 sterling, and wages and profits were L3,650,000 sterling. The value of the silk grown in France, in 1850, was L6,000,000 sterling. Silk goods were produced there that year of L15,000,000 sterling value; of which about L5,000,000 sterling was for home consumption, and L10,000,000 sterling for export. The home consumption of France had increased in 1855, 47 per cent., the home consumption 33 per cent.; so that the whole production of French goods, pure and mixed, in 1855, was about L21,300,000 sterling. This consisted of materials two-thirds, and one-third labour and profit; i.e., of imported silk 5,000,000 lbs. costing L5,300,000 sterling; French raw silk, 6,100,000 lbs., costing L7,500,000 sterling. Other materials, as cotton, wool, linen, silver, &c., of the value of L1,300,000 sterling. Total materials, L14,200,000; workmanship and profits, L7,100,000 sterling. Entire home consumption of silk goods of French origin L7,000,000, and exported L14,000,000 sterling. The annual production of a French silk-loom is rather below L100 sterling. The number of looms was, in 1855, about 220,000. The importation of raw and thrown silk into France rose from L3,346,000 sterling, in 1851, to L5,280,000 sterling, in 1855. The exports rose from L654,360 sterling, in There were about 500,000 people employed; which is about one in eighty of the entire population. The excellence of materials used, solidity of workmanship, unsurpassed taste in colour and design, and plan pursued by best manufacturers only to work to order, render the continued increase of the silk production and manufacture of France certain. It is but justice to French public spirit and enterprise to state, that in all the eight principal silk growing departments, as well as, particularly, in Lyons and Paris, unexampled efforts are putting forth, in regard to the great and vital questions—breeding and cross-breeding of silk-worms, causes of epidemics which have been sweeping over silk growing countries of late years, and the true economy in management, in all other respects, both of trees, worms, and their produce. Results have been arrived at by experiments on a small scale, which, if verified by a lengthened experience, will certainly tend to considerable decrease of cost, and, of course, increase in demand both at home and abroad. The annexed table shows that the average weight of raw and thrown silks imported into England in 1856, 1857, and 1858, was 11,265,918 lbs., and we have already seen that the English silk trade returns this year about L14,000,000 sterling. To this sum being added for France, L21,300,000 sterling; Zollverein, L4,105,000 sterling; Switzerland, L4,000,000 sterling; Austrian States, L7,200,000 sterling; and L5,000,000 sterling for Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, &c., the total of silk manufactures produced in Europe would amount to L55,605,000 per annum.
Silk Manufacture. The processes of silk manufacture fall under two great divisions. The one, comprehending all those operations undergone by the silk in its preparation for textile or other purposes; and the other, those by which the prepared silk is formed into the various beautiful creations of the loom. The operations comprehended in the first division being for the most part peculiar to this manufacture, are those which will here occupy our attention; while those of the second division, being common to the various textile substances, will be found described under the general head Weaving.
In other textile substances, the manufacturer operates upon bundles of short fibres, which, by drawing out and twisting together, he forms into continuous threads; but in the case of silk, a very different treatment is for the most part required. Here the silk-worm is the spinner, and art is called in, not to join short filaments, but so to strengthen the delicate threads of the worm by combination as to fit them to endure the manipulations to which they are afterwards subjected. We have said for the most part, for this reason, that, from the manner in which the worm labours, there arises a necessity for two modes of operating, one of the nature already described, the other analogous to that of the cotton-spinner; and that the reader may be prepared to understand the reason for this, and many other peculiarities arising from the same cause, we shall here present him with a sketch of the manner in which the worm produces the material to be operated upon; and this sketch needs to be but brief, as in the article Silk-Worm, immediately sequent, the fullest information will be found. When the silk-worm has arrived at that stage of its existence at which it begins to spin, it ceases to feed, grows restless, and moves about, seeking a place wherein to commence its labours. When it has found a corner or hollow fit for its purpose (bunches of dried heather are most properly placed for this purpose), it attaches a long thread from side to side, to form a support for its work; this it does not dispose in any regular manner, but crosses and recrosses it in such a way as to make its work as strong as the situation will admit of. In plying its labours, the little creature by degrees narrows its sphere, and when it has enclosed a space of about the size of a pigeon's egg, its work assumes a more regular character, and shortly presents the appearance of a loose silken silk ball of an oval shape, with the worm labouring inside of it. In a little while, the increasing compactness of the ball renders the labours of the worm no longer evident to the eye, and that it continues to work can only be known by the noise within. When all sound has ceased, the formation of silk has also ceased. Although from the compactness of the ball, the worm labours unseen, we can yet tell by after dissection, and by the unwinding of the thread, that it does not lay its thread regularly round the inside of the ball, but to and fro from one spot to another, for many times, gradually shifting its position, until it has gone over the whole surface, and so gradually, that a great many yards of thread may be unwound without once turning the ball. The thread of the silk-worm is secreted by the animal in the form of a fine yellow transparent substance, and exuded by two minute orifices beneath its jaw; hence the thread is a twin one, formed of two threads proceeding from these orifices, cemented together by a gummy varnish, and when the worm has finished its labour of spinning, it smears over the whole interior surface of its work with the same gum and albumen, doubtless for the purpose of protecting it in its chrysalis state from rain. If we examine the finished work of the worm, we shall find it to consist first of a filament used as that irregularly placed support, and next of a ball of a loose texture and irregularly constructed, serving as an envelope for another ball, compact in its nature, and regular in its formation, within which the worm lies enshrouded. This compact ball is called a cocoon, and its soft envelope floss silk. The thread of the cocoon, from the continuity of its deposition, can be unwound to the end, and the operations to which it is afterwards subjected are those of doubling, twisting, twining, and their accessories, classed under the name of silk throwing. The floss silk, with the additions afterwards to be noticed, is not unwound, but, under the name of waste, has its filaments hackled, combed, and reduced to short lengths, and then carded and spun in a manner analogous to those of cotton.
When the spinning of the cocoons is accomplished, a selection of those that are to be kept for breeding is made, and the remainder are assorted according to their qualities. These are generally reckoned nine, and are as follows:
1st, Good cocoons; these are strong, firm, and nearly equally round at both ends, not very large, but free from spots.
2nd, Calcined cocoons, in which the worm has died, and been reduced to powder by a disease which sometimes attacks them after having completed their work.
3rd, Cocalons, larger and less compact than the good cocoons.
4th, Choquettes, cocoons in which the worm had died before it had finished spinning; the silk is fine, but apt to furze in winding.
5th, Dupion, or double cocoons, containing two or more larvae; these are difficult to unwind, and are often kept for seed by ignorant breeders, but the best formed by single worms are selected by experienced growers of silk.
6th, Souflon, cocoons of so loose and soft a texture as to be almost transparent; these cannot be unwound.
7th, Pointed cocoons. In these one end rises in a point, which breaks off after a little silk has been unwound, and so spoils the thread.
8th, Perforated cocoons, from which the moth has made its way out.
9th, Bad choquettes, in which the silk is spotted, rotten, and blackish in colour.
The first operation to be performed, preparatory to the unwinding of the silk from the cocoon, is to destroy the vitality of the contained worm. The means used for this is heat, either natural or artificial; sometimes simple exposure Silk Manu- to the solar rays will effect this object; but in climates where these have not power, some artificial heat must be employed, such as the heat of steam or of an oven, but more generally that of the latter, though steam-baths are greatly to be preferred. The heat should not be greater than what is used in the oven after the bread has been withdrawn. Long shallow baskets are taken and filled nearly to their tops with cocoons, and are covered over, first with paper, and then with cloth. In these baskets, the cocoons are exposed to the heat of the oven for nearly an hour, and on being withdrawn, several cocoons are chosen from the part of the basket least exposed to the heat, and the chrysalides in them stripped and pricked with a needle. If upon being pricked, they give no sign of animation, it may be fairly presumed that the destruction of the creatures has been accomplished. Before the silk of the cocoons can be reeled off, it is necessary to separate them from the floss in which they are enveloped; this is effected by opening the floss covering at one end, and protruding the cocoon. It is of the greatest importance in the reeling process, that all the cocoons reeled together be of one class.
The apparatus for reeling is sketched in fig. 1, and to avoid confusion, the working parts only are shown: \(a\) is a bath or vessel of water, which, when of the best construction, is heated by steam. Into this the cocoons are put, that the gum which retains the thread in its place may be so much softened as to permit the thread to be unwound; the bath is usually divided by three partitions into four divisions, each of which may contain about five cocoons; \(b\) are wires with eyelets at their ends, through which the filaments from the cocoons are put. In their upward progress towards the reel, the groups of filaments are twisted round each other, before their final combination at the last eyelet, and by the friction thus produced, they are freed from an adhering portion of the gum; \(c\) is the reel driven by a belt from the pulley \(d\), which is itself driven by the prime mover, whatever that may be; \(f\) is a tumbler, whose end carries a pulley, which presses on the belt that drives the reel; by lifting up the long end of the tumbler, the belt is slackened, and the reel stops. The filaments when combined at the upper eyelet, pass along the guide \(e\), and through eyelets at its ends; this guide has a pin projecting from its under side, working in a spiral groove cut round the barrel \(h\); by this it receives a reciprocating motion, and so spreads the filaments equally over the reel.
The filaments, in their passage from the bath to the reel, must necessarily traverse a considerable space, to allow their softened gum to be again hardened by the air, that they may not afterwards adhere together. In China a fire is placed mid-way between the reel and the basin with some advantage.
In the place where the reeling of silk is performed, many of these machines are arranged along the building, and driven by the moving power through a shaft extending the whole length, carrying on it pulleys, at the proper intervals. In working the apparatus, the reeler, who is generally a woman, sits at the bath, and having taken a number of cocoons, immerses them in the water. When their gum is sufficiently softened to permit the thread to come off, the reeler takes a whisk formed of fine twigs bound together, and cut off evenly at the ends at about six inches long, and with it she gently presses and stirs the cocoons, and entangles their loose threads on its points; she then raises her whisk with the thread of each attached to it, disengages them from it, and draws their ends through her fingers, to remove the outside floss or impurity; this process is called battue. Having thus freed the ends of such a number of the filaments as she means to use, she passes them through the various eyelets in the manner previously mentioned, and attaches them to the reel; when this is accomplished, the reel is put in motion by dropping the end of the tumbler, and the filaments are drawn from the cocoons. It is the province of the reeler so to regulate the motion of the reel, and the heat of the water, that the silk may come off the cocoons regularly, not in lumps, which shows that the water is too hot; nor in such a manner as that the cocoon shall be tossed out of the bath, which shows that the silk is yielded with difficulty, from the water being too cold sufficiently to soften the gum.
From the threads of the cocoons being finer near their termination than at their commencement, it becomes necessary for the reeler to add other cocoons before the first set is quite exhausted; and it is her care to do so in such a manner as that the requisite thickness of the compound thread may be kept up throughout. It is generally considered that the filaments of three fresh cocoons added to two half-wound ones, make a thread equal to that from four fresh cocoons.
The cocoons may not entirely wind off, but the husk, or boiré, in which the worm lies, if left, is used along with the floss silk, under the name of waste.
Ordinarily, in China and throughout Europe, 11 or 12 lb. of cocoons yield 1 lb. of reeled silk; and as it takes from 240 to 250 cocoons to weigh 1 lb., the number of cocoons necessary to produce 1 lb. of silk may be reckoned to be 2800; cocoons may yield about 600 yards of silk, consequently the pound of silk filament, as produced by the worm, would, if stretched out, reach the amazing length of 500 to 1000 miles.
When a sufficient quantity of silk is reeled off, it is folded into a hank for use or sale; and it is in this state that it generally comes to be operated upon by our manufacturers,—the hanks by the silk throwster, the waste by the silk spinner.
It is of the utmost importance in the succeeding manufacture, that this reeling process should be well performed. Sometimes from the temperature of the water used to soften the gum being too high during the reeling, the parts of the hank of silk that lie on the spokes of the reel become very hard, and occasion the breaking of the thread in the after processes. Sometimes, too, when in the reeling process the threads happen to break, the ends are again only laid upon one another, and not connected by tying; the threads consequently come off the hanks in short lengths, and much trouble and loss of time is experienced in searching for the other end; and sometimes the reelers, either from inattention or design, reel off the whole of the thread of the cocoons without a regular supply of fresh ones, by which an exceedingly foul silk is produced. Thus coarse and fine silks are reeled together in the same hank; and, what is of common occurrence, the hanks when reeled are twisted up so tight, that the untwisting of them greatly damages the silk. But the greatest injury to the manufacturer arises from dishonesty on the part of those who produce the reeled silk; and this remark applies especially to the coarser descriptions. To get rid of their waste, some producers of raw silk roll up the refuse of the cocoon into what are here technically called dollies, and insert these into the hanks in such a manner that they cannot be discerned by the purchaser; they also have a method of mixing their waste with the good silk while it is being reeled, and as it cannot again be separated from it without great injury, this mode of vitiating the silk is more It may be wound, cleaned, and thrown, and is then silk Manu-
called thrown singles, and used for ribbons and common silks.
If wound, cleaned, doubled, and thrown, which twists it
into one direction, it is called tram, and is used for the
woof or shute of Gros de Naples, velvets, and flowered silks.
If wound, cleaned, spun, doubled, and then thrown, so as
to be of the nature of twine, or the strand of a rope, it is cal-
led organzine, which, from its strength, is used for warp.
any of these states, before being subjected to
the operation of scouring, is termed hard, but after it is by
scouring deprived of its stiffening-gum, it is called soft.
The operations of the throwster are generally carried on
in a building which admits of an apartment being allotted
to each description of machines, and these apartments are
generally in stories. All the machines used in the pro-
cesses are each made up of a repetition of the same parts,
each part being a distinct and separate apparatus, capable
of performing its work independent of its fellows; and
these are arranged in juxtaposition in the machine, in
order that the moving power may be conveniently applied
to a long series of them. The length of the machines is
regulated by the extent of the building, and the manner of
their arrangement. A manner of arranging them is here
sketched (fig. 2.) The apartment is supposed to be about
thirty-eight feet wide, and
the machines are placed
athwart the room, so as to
afford a passage four feet
in width along the centre,
and at such a distance
lengthways, as to give
room for the workers to
attend to their charge. Two
shafts traverse each apart-
ment in the direction of
the dotted lines, and carry
on them pulleys, or toothed
wheels, opposite to each machine; a belt from each pulley
is carried over a corresponding pulley on the end of the
main shaft of each machine, or the toothed wheels are con-
nected by proper gearing with the shafts of the machines,
and so motion is given to the whole.
The rooms are generally heated by steam, and the tem-
perature of the apartments, when above the minimum of 50°,
is regulated more by a regard to the health of the workers,
than from any necessity for a particular temperature in the
operations; but these cannot be performed with advantage
when the temperature is allowed to fall below 50°.
The first machine or apparatus used is the winding-ma-
chine, or that by which the reeled hanks are wound on
bobbins, to prepare them for the subsequent processes. A
perspective sketch of this machine is shewn in fig. 3. Along
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3. Silk Manufactory.
Each side of the machine, at \(a\), directly under the line of bobbins \(b\), run two shafts, called frame shafts, or frame friction-shafts; on these shafts at each bobbin are fixed two friction pulleys, of about 4½ inches diameter; and on the axis of each bobbin are fixed two corresponding pulleys, about 1½ inch diameter. The friction-pulleys of the bobbins rest upon those of the shaft, and receive motion from them. Opposite to each bobbin is a wire, with an eyelet at its end, fixed to a bar of wood \(c\), called the traverse bar. This bar, with the eyelets attached, has an alternating motion, right and left, through a space equal to the length of that part of a bobbin on which the silk is to be wound. In front of these eyelets are fixed the guide-rods, or friction rods, \(d\) \(d\) \(d\), over which the threads glide in their passage from the reel to the bobbins, and which are formed of polished iron, and in front of these the reels \(e\) \(e\) \(e\) \(e\) are placed on their bearers \(f\).
At every seventh bobbin so is placed a main frame, like \(g\) \(g\), and between these stretch bars of wood, for the support of the bobbin and reel bearers. Motion is given to the bobbins, we have said, by the lying shafts bearing friction-pulleys, and the threads being passed from the reels, over the friction-bars \(d\) \(d\), through the eyelets, and attached to the bobbins, are, by the motion of the latter, wound up, and drag round the reel on which the hank is fixed. The bobbins are, with their friction-pulleys, represented in figs. 4, 5, and 6. Fig. 4, a section; fig. 5, a front view, and fig. 6, a plan; \(a\) is the lying-shaft, with one of its friction-pulleys \(b\) \(b\), and on this rests the friction-pulley \(c\), of one of the bobbins \(d\); the axis of the bobbin is confined laterally by working in the groove \(e\) of the bearer, but has perfect freedom of motion up and down, so that its friction-pulley may remain in contact with that of the shaft. If, during the process, a thread happens to break, the bobbin is lifted out of its working-groove and placed in the higher groove \(f\), by which its friction-pulley is kept from touching the friction-pulley of the shaft, and it consequently remains at rest; but when, after the damage has been repaired, it is lifted into its former position, its motion is immediately resumed. In front of the bobbin is seen the traverse bar \(g\), carrying the wire \(h\), with its eyelet for the thread; this traverse bar is moved by an eccentric in such a manner, as not to spread the thread equally over the bobbins, but to heap it up more in the middle than at the ends.
The reels are called swifts, and are formed of twelve light spokes, about 16½ inches long, inserted into a wooden nave in pairs, so as to form a six-sided reel; the nave has an iron axle, which turns freely on its bearings. The hanks not being all of one size, makes it necessary to have a reel, the diameter of which may be varied. Various means of adapting the reel to the size of the hank have been and still are used. Amongst others, one deserves notice; it is, where each spoke of the reel is made in two parts, the one fixed to the nave, formed of tube containing a spiral spring, the other formed of a light rod, nicely fitting the tube, the opposite pairs of rods being joined together by a cross bar, forming the periphery of the reel. When it is wished to put a hank on a reel of this kind, one of the pairs of spokes is pushed into the tubes, and the hank slipped on; the spiral springs now exert their force, and throw out the pressed-in spokes with such a force, as to keep the reel in a proper state of tension. But the method generally adopted, if not so elegant, is more simple. The spokes in this case are formed of lance-wood, and the outer extremity of each pair are rather farther asunder than the ends which are inserted into the nave, and are connected together by a band of small cord passed several times round them; on these bands the hank or skin of silk rests, and, by slipping the bands along the spokes nearer to or further from the centre, the diameter of the reel can be adapted to the size of the hank; and when the hank is stretched the bands can be moved in any way, so as to balance the hank, which, as will be afterwards seen, is a matter of considerable importance. Each pair of spokes, it has been mentioned, slightly diverge as they proceed from the nave; and, as they are again slightly drawn towards each other by the bands, the tendency to return to their natural position effectually retains the band in any place to which it may be slipped. It has been said, that the reels turn freely on their supports, but it is necessary to create such a friction as will prevent them giving off the silk faster than it can be taken up by the bobbins; this is sometimes done by a spring being made to press upon the nave of the reel, but more commonly by hanging on its centre a wooden ring, to which weights may be hung, so as to create such a degree of friction on the reel, and, consequently, of tension upon the thread, between the reel and the bobbin, as may be desired. The subjoined sketch (figs. 7 and 8) shows the reel as it has been described; \(a\) is the nave, \(b\) \(b\) the lance-wood spokes, \(c\) \(c\) the bands of cords forming the periphery of the reel, \(d\) the friction-ring, with the weight hanging on it.
Referring again to fig. 3, it will be seen, that in front of the swifts are bars of wood, extending along both sides of the machine; their use is to support the bars which carry the swifts, and to prevent the persons of those who work the machines from coming in contact with the reels; from this last use they are termed knee-rails.
Previous to the hanks being put upon the swifts, they are washed in a solution of soap and water, which cleans the silk without depriving it of its gum. In putting the hanks on the reel care is taken to balance them, as, were one side heavier than another, it would be apt to fall suddenly, after having passed the highest point, in turning, and thereby injure the thread.
The winding-machines, under the general superintendence of a man called a steward, are tended by girls, who are termed denters and winders; the denters put the hanks on the reel, and the winders, or piecers as they are also called, tie the ends of the threads and exchange the bobbins. When the bobbins are filled with thread they are conveyed from the winding-machine room to the warehouse, to be assorted or separated into finer or coarser qualities, which are kept apart throughout the remaining processes. To carry the bobbins, a board, called a doffing-board, is made use of; this consists of a piece of deal, about a foot wide, and rather more than two feet long, having a number of wires corresponding to the number of bobbins in one side of a frame, and about four inches long, inserted into its surface; on these wires the bobbins are put. When the separation of the qualities has been made, The cleaning, drawing, or picking-machine, as it is variously called, is represented in fig. 9. In this, as in the last machine, motion is communicated to the bobbins by a friction shaft. The bobbins, \(a\), from the winding-frame are fixed on plain spindles, and placed in a horizontal position between their supports. The threads are carried from the bobbins over the iron or glass rod, \(b\), and each thread is passed through an adjustable opening, between the two iron blades of an instrument called the cleaner, \(c\), which is fixed to a bar of wood running along the machine, immediately behind the friction-rods. The cleaner is here represented on a larger scale, (figs. 10, 11); \(a\) is the bar of wood to which the instrument is fastened; \(b, b\) are the blades, which are held together at the bottom by the screw \(c\); \(d\) is the opening through which the thread Fig. 10. Fig. 11. is made to pass, the width of this opening being adjusted by means of a screw \(e\), the key of which is kept by the steward of the room. The tops of the blades are curved outwards, so as readily to guide the thread into the slit. The threads, after having been passed through the opening of the cleaner, are put through the eyelet \(d\), of the traverse bar, which is, in every respect, like that of the former machine, and then attached to the bobbins \(e\). When the machine is put in motion, the bobbins \(e\) drag the thread from the bobbins through the cleaner; and, as the cleaner is adjusted to a certain size, all impurities and irregularities are removed, and the thread thus rendered equal.
The process which succeeds that of cleaning is called spinning, although, as we have already observed, it is only twisting. The spinning-machine is represented in fig. 12. This, like the two former machines, consists of a series of frames placed at wide intervals, and connected by bars of wood, which serve as supports for the different parts of the machinery. The spinning machine contains sometimes two but generally three tiers of working apparatus in height. The bobbins on which the twisted silk is to be wound, are seen in the figure at \(a, a, a\), placed horizontally along the machine; in this case they are not driven by friction-rollers, but by toothed wheels, fixed on the extremity of the axis of each bobbin, and corresponding ones on the shafts \(b, b, b\). The bobbins are, as before, suspended by their axes in little grooves; each bobbin-bearer contains two such grooves, one higher than the other, so that, on the bobbin being lifted from the lower to the higher groove, its toothed wheel is thrown out of gear with the wheel of the shaft \(b, b\), and it remains at rest. Under each bobbin is seen the twisting-apparatus. This consists of a bobbin \(c\), fixed on an upright spindle \(d\), to which motion is communicated by a belt from the drum \(f\), fixed on a horizontal shaft \(g\), passing over a pulley on the bobbin spindle. The silk threads from these vertical bobbins are wound three or four times round a bent wire \(h\), fixed to a bar, extending along the machine, passed through an eye in the end of each of these wires, carried through the eyes of the traverse-guides, and attached to the horizontal bobbins. On motion being given to the machinery, the vertical bobbins are made to revolve with a greater or less velocity, and the horizontal ones with a velocity so proportioned to the others, that they may only draw away the thread as it is twisted in the due degree. In figs. 13 and 14, we have represented, on a larger scale, a section and front view of these working parts: \(a, a\) is the bobbin from the cleaning-machine, \(b\) the fixed wire-guide round which the thread is carried, \(c\) the traverse-guide for spreading the thread over the bobbin, \(d\) the bobbin for receiving the twisted thread.
Motion is communicated to the different parts thus: On one end of the drum-shaft \(g\), (fig. 12), is fixed a fast and loose pulley, not seen in the drawing, driven by a belt from the main shaft which traverses the apartment; belts from the drum on the drum-shaft pass over the pulleys of the vertical spindles \(d\), and so give motion to the bobbins \(c\); on the hither end of the drum-shaft is fixed the pinion \(g\), which, through the intermediate wheel \(e\), drives the spur-wheel \(k\); on the axis of this last wheel is fixed the bevel-wheel \(m\), giving motion to the
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1 The doffing board is an adoption from the cotton manufacture, and its use, as described above, is, we believe, peculiar to Scotland. Its chief advantage is, the check it affords against pilfering. When carried to the machine-room, the wires of the empty board are filled with empty bobbins, and, as the bobbins of the machine become charged with silk, they are exchanged for the empty ones of the board, which is again carried to the warehouse, that the bobbins may be assorted according to the quality of the silk. The filled bobbins are exchanged for empty ones, to be carried on the board to the winding machine-room, and the same system is followed out in all the different stages of the operation. Silk Manu-bevel-wheel n, and thereby to the shaft o, which crosses the end of the machine; each end of this shaft carries a bevel-wheel p, which drives a bevel-wheel h, fixed on the end of the shaft, on which the little spur-wheels that drive the spur-wheels of the bobbins are fixed. On this last shaft is also fixed a pinion, to work the traverse guide- bar; this it effects by giving motion to a small wheel, round which another pinion revolves, in the manner of the sun and planet-wheels, and, being connected by a short rod with the traverse-bar, the latter is consequently moved through a space equal to the added diameters of the wheels. In the usual mode of constructing this machine, there is a want of a mean of lessening the velocity of the drawing- bobbin, as its diameter increases by the accumulation of silk. In consequence of this want, the thread is very un- equally twisted; for although at the commencement of the process the drawing or upper bobbin may, by appropriate toothed-wheels, be made to turn with the velocity requisite to allow of the thread receiving, say twelve twists in the inch, yet, after a very short time, the silk will have accu- mulated on it, and increased its diameter so much, that for every revolution which it now makes, it will take up and draw away a much greater length of thread from the revolving bobbin, whose speed remains constant, so that the number of twists are constantly on the decrease, and, at the end of the operation, may be no more than eight in the inch. A very ingenious mode of equalizing the draw of the bobbin has been put in practice: In place of driving the drawing-bobbins by toothed-wheels, they are here driven by friction-rollers; the part of the bobbin on which the silk is wound rests on the roller, and receives motion from it; and, as the diameter of this part increases by the accu- mulation of silk, its velocity, of course, diminishes in pre- cisely the same ratio; thus, the surface on which the silk is wound has a uniform rate of motion from the beginning to the end of the process, insuring, what has ever been a desideratum, perfect equality in the twist of the thread.
Doubling. The next operation is doubling. Fig.15 is an end view of the doubling-machine. In this machine the bobbins a a a, containing the spun silk, are arranged along the lower platform b, in little brackets capable of each con- taining three bobbins; from these the threads are car- ried over the guide-rods d, of which there are two on each side of the machine, and, after being passed through the eyes of an apparatus called the falling-wires, and the tra- verse-guides e e, are then attached to the bobbins f f, to which motion is given by friction-pulleys, as in the first machines, and on them the threads are thus wound up in combination.
In all former- ly described ma- chines the break- ing of the thread causes no in- jury, but, in the doubling process, were one of the three threads to break, and the upper bobbin to continue to re- volve, the other two threads would be wound up separately, and so spoil the work; to pre- vent this is the use of the falling-wires described above, which, on the breaking of the thread, stop the bobbin until the damage is repaired. The subjoined sketch (figs. 16, 17), shews a side view and plan of this apparatus: a a are the two guide-rods, with the threads passing over them; between the rods are seen the eyelets of three bent wires, Silk Manu- whose other extremi- ties are hinged to a piece of brass at c. The threads are pass- ed through these eye- lets, and support the wires in the horizontal position shown in the sketch. Hinged to the same supports as the wires is a brass lever, bent at right angles horizontally under the wires; the straight end or tail of the lever is a little hea- vier than the bent end, and it consequently lies in the oblique position of our drawing. On the end of the bob- bin is fixed a little ratchet-wheel, moving as indicated by the arrow. Now, when one of the threads sustaining the bent wires happens to break, the wire falls down on the bent part of the lever, which, by this additional weight, is depressed, and its opposite end consequently rises into the position shown by the dotted line, and acts as a pull to the ratchet-wheel, effectually stopping the bobbin until the attendant has leisure to lift it out of its working-groove, repair the damaged thread, and again set it in motion.
When the lighter kinds of silk have to be doubled, they would be injured by being made to drag round the heavy bobbins; therefore, for such kinds a modification of the apparatus is required. In place of the bobbins being placed horizontally in bearers, they are placed vertically on spindles, as shown in figs. 12, 13, 14; the spindles project be- yond the upper end of the bobbins, and carry a little wheel of hard wood, which is made to turn freely; this wheel has two flyers with eyelets at their extremities; the thread being put through these, and drawn by the upper bobbins, causes the light flyers to revolve round the vertical bobbin, and unwind the thread without straining it.
The next is the throwing machine. As this machine closely resembles the spinning-machine shown in fig. 12, we here only sketch such a portion of it as will shew wherein they do not agree. Fig. 18 is an end view, and fig. 19 is a side view of one of the working parts:
aa is a vertical bob- bin with its loose flyer bb; the bobbin being driven by a band acting on the spindle pulley as in the spinning-ma- chines; c is a traverse guide wire, through the eye of which the thread is passed; d is a reel on which, in this case, the thread is wound into hanks as it is twisted by the revolution of the vertical bobbins. The traverse guide bars have, in this machine, a very short range of lateral motion, so as to confine each hank within a very narrow limit on the reel's surface. The motion of the reel can be so regulated in relation to that of the twist- ing bobbin, as in any way to modify the amount of twisting received by the thread.
In the case of the heavier silk threads used for sewing, fringing, and the like, the doubling and throwing pro- cesses are both performed by one machine, called a throstle frame, which is similar to the machine of the same name used in the cotton and linen thread manufacture. The Silk.
Manu-throstle, however, does not contain apparatus for reeling the silk, so, for this purpose, a subsidiary reel has to be used. This machine is automatic, in respect of stopping when a predetermined quantity of silk has been wound. One end of the axis of the reel is supported by a lever, whose fulcrum is at the centre of the machine; the other end of the axis has a fixed bearing. Motion is given to the reels by a pinion fixed on the end of its axis, being driven by a spur wheel on the main shaft; by raising the lever, which carries one end of the axis, the pinion would be withdrawn from the spur wheel, and the reel would necessarily cease to revolve. The machine is rendered automatic from the raising of the lever being effected by proper machinery at the very instant that the reel shall have wound up the length of silk predetermined, and by a device locking it out of gear until the attendant shall have time to shift the apparatus which guides the silk to a new space on the reel.
We are sorry that we cannot present our readers with a more minute description of this machine, from the number of drawings which would be required to illustrate it.
Whether the hanks of silk have been reeled in the throwing-machine or on the automatic reel, they are afterwards treated in precisely the same manner. When the reels are filled with hanks, they are placed in a steam box, and subjected for a time to the action of the steam, to give the twisting of the thread a set, as it is termed; each skein or hank is then tied up separately in two places while yet on the reel, which is then carried to the proper apartment, and the hanks removed from it and bundled up.
The silk may be used without being deprived of its gum, and is termed 'hard', or it may be acted on by soap and water to deprive it of its gum, and reduce it to the 'soft' state. In either of these states it may be put into the hands of the dyer, whose operations succeed those we have described. When the hanks come from the dyer they are again transferred to bobbins; the hard silk by a winding machine, similar to the one already described, the soft silk by the machine represented in fig. 20.1 In this machine, in place of the swifts are substituted the small reels A A, the upper one fixed in position but turning freely on its axis, the lower one also turning freely on its axis, which is attached to a lever b, whose short end carries an adjustable weight, by means of which the hank of silk can be kept between the reels with the degree of tension suited to the strength of the thread. The operation of this machine will be understood from the winding machine already described, the only difference being, that the traverse guide has an equal and not an eccentric motion, so as to lay the silk regularly from end to end of the bobbin, and not heaped up in the centre as before. The transferring the silk to the bobbins finishes the operation of the silk thrower, from whose hands the silk passes into those of the warper, to prepare it for weaving.
The drawings of the machinery, by which we have illustrated our description of the throwing process, were, for the most part, made from machines constructed by Mr. Joseph Lomas of Glasgow, an engineer who has devoted much of his attention to the machinery used in this particular branch Silk Manufacture.
Having thus traced the silk of the cocoons from its development to the perfection of the filature, and its adaptation for the loom, we will briefly describe the means used for preparing the waste silk for the weaver, in so far as they are peculiar to the silk manufacture.
Silk Spinning.
Under this term are included those operations by which floss silk, and the refuse of the throwing process, are, under the name of waste, worked into yarns for coarser uses, such as the manufacture of shawls, Bandana handkerchiefs, and similar textures.
When received by the silk spinner, the waste is in the form of small balls of entangled filaments. These, as a preparatory step, he assembles in parcels according to their quality, and these different qualities are of course kept separate throughout the processes; after being assorted, the waste is hackled on a hand hackle, to disentangle the filaments, the instrument and manner of operating being the same as in flax-dressing. When, by the hackling process, the filaments of a quantity of the waste have, to a certain extent, been disentangled, they are ready for the filling engine, which is a kind of hackling machine, whose effect is, in a greater degree, to disentangle the filaments, and in some measure to lay them parallel.
The essential parts of this machine are sketched in fig. 21: a a is a feeding board, over the surface of which a travelling belt moves in the direction of the arrows, and carries forward to the feeding rollers b b, the hackled waste, which is laid on it. These rollers are fluted and move very slowly; between them the filaments from the feeding board enter, and are held fast, and at the same time drawn forward into the machine. As the ends of the filaments come to the other side of the rollers, they are acted upon by a series of iron teeth c c, fixed to an endless belt which revolves with a very quick motion in the direction of the arrows, and the teeth are consequently made to pass many times through the same portion of the filaments, clearing and disentangling them as they are slowly yielded by the feeding rollers; and as the ends of the successive portions of filaments cease to be held by the rollers, they are caught up by the teeth and carried round with them. Beneath the combs, as the travelling teeth are termed, a board d is fixed, having at intervals, along its surface, sets of teeth similar to the combs. When the filaments carried round by the travelling combs happen to fall off, they are caught on the fixed combs of the boards, and the regularity of their arrangement is not disturbed. When the combs, by repeated gleanings from the rollers, have become filled, the workman, with a pair of boards called clutches, removes from them, and from the teeth of the horizontal boards, their accumulation of filaments; these he carries to the next machine, called the dressing frame, which, like the filling engine, operates on the principle of combing. In this, however, the filaments are not gradually brought for-
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1 In England, throwsters rarely if ever wind the soft silk; this duty devolving upon the manufacturer; but in Scotland, manufacturers being seldom provided with the requisite machinery, soft-silk winding is usually a part of the business of the throwster. Silk Manu-ward by rollers and yielded to the comb, but they are held firmly in their place by one end, while the combs travel over their surface, dragging away all impurities and all fibres which are shorter than the average length of the mass. Fig. 22 is a side view of the machine: \(a\) is a fixed framing, at each end of the frame is a roller \(b\); over these rollers the endless web \(c\) moves. Motion is communicated to the roller \(b\) by the spur wheel \(d\), on its axle being driven by a pinion on the axle of the pulley \(e\), to which motion is given by a belt from a pulley of the main power shaft. The distance between the rollers \(b\) can be increased or diminished by a screw connected with \(b\), so as to tighten or relax the endless web which travels round them. The endless web carries the combs \(f\), which, in this machine, are composed of a great number of short inclined teeth. Immediately below the top bar of the machine is seen the side of an iron frame \(g\), in which the silk to be operated on is fastened.
Along the frame is seen the ends of a series of boards, whose lower edges are hinged together; between these boards, when opened like a book, the ends of the silk filaments from the filling engine are inserted, and the boards closed and put into their place in the iron frame, and between every pair of these boards is put a piece of solid wood. The pinching screws \(h\), at the ends of the iron frames, are now turned, and the silk is thus held tightly between the boards. The iron frame, it will be seen, rests upon two supports \(j\), which, by means of a rack and pinion worked by the wheel \(k\), can be moved up or down, and thus the frame can be raised or lowered; when lowered to its utmost extent it rests on the wheeled carriage \(l\), which runs on the floor on a railroad placed at right angles to the machine. The operation of the machine is as follows: The frame which contains the silk is lowered until it rests on the carriage, which is then drawn out at the side of the machine. The boards containing the silk are then put into their places and firmly compressed by the pinching screws; the carriage is now returned to its place under the combs, and by means of the wheel, the frame is adjusted so that the combs may act on the silk. The machine is then put in motion, and the combs, by repeatedly passing over the silk, disentangle and lay parallel the filaments and remove impurities. When the combing of one side of the filaments has been effected, the frame is again lowered, and the carriage withdrawn. The workman with a skewer turns over the silk so as to expose the uncombed side, wheels round the frame on its centre pivot \(m\), and again runs the carriage into its place; again he raises the frame until within the scope of the combs, which constantly move in the same direction; and thus both sides of the material come to be thoroughly operated upon. The gleanings of the silk gathered by the combs, when accumulated, are screwed between the boards, and again subjected to the action of the machine; what is carried away by the combs in this operation is unfit for spinning, and is used, like the refuse of flax, for stuffing cushions and similar purposes.
When the filaments are by the dressing machine cleaned and laid parallel to each other, they are cut into lengths of about an inch and a quarter by the cutting engine, which operates upon the principle of chopping, and resembles the agricultural chaff machine. It is then operated upon by the scutching, which is a modification of a similar machine used in the cotton manufacture. When it leaves the scutcher it resembles fine down, and is put into bags of a convenient size, and boiled for an hour and a half or so in soap and water, to deprive it of its gum; it is afterwards washed in pure soft water and again boiled, but not now for so long a period, this boiling being merely for the purpose of getting rid of impurities. It is then subjected to the action of a Bramah press, and when taken from the press, dried by means of a stove, after which it is cooled, and a second time passed through the scutching machine to fit it for carding. The carding is followed, as in the cotton manufacture, by the drawing and fly frames, to produce a rove, and these, by the spinning mill and the throttle, after which reeling and bundling complete the operations and fit the thread for the market.
The art of silk-waste-spinning, we may observe, is still in its infancy, but is advancing rapidly to greater maturity. In 1814, the quantity of waste imported by Great Britain amounted to 28,906 lb., and in 1836 it had reached to the amount of 1,509,334 lb. In the years 1856, 1857, 1858, it averaged 2,069,684 lb.
Silk-Worm. Although the article now known to ourselves under the name of silk is "familiar as household words," yet its nature and origin were but obscurely, if at all ascertained in ancient times. Pliny, whose judgment and discrimination as a compiler are not greatly to be relied upon, reports that the bombyx (or silk-worm) is a native of Kos, an island of the Mediterranean archipelago. It is known that silk was manufactured there at a very early period, but Aristotle had previously explained that bombyx, or the stuff produced from the bombyx, was spun and rewoven by the women of that island. The inventress of this process was Pamphilia. "She unwove the precious material to recompose it in her loom into fabrics of a more extended texture; thus converting the substantial silks of the Seres into thin transparent gauzes, obtaining in measure what was lost in substance. Attempts have been made to rob the inventress of all the merit belonging to this process, by identifying the bombyx with the raw material, which it is said Pamphilia and her nymphs procured from Seres, and spun or wove into sericum or silk. But the fact of the re-weaving rests upon too good authority to be doubted."
Had Pliny been right in supposing that silk was a natural product of the island in question, it is by no means probable that so laborious a process as that of converting foreign wrought articles into threads for rewearing, would have been resorted to. Indeed, the Byzantine historians inform us, that prior to silk-worms being imported into Constantinople in the sixth century, no one in that capital knew that silk was the produce of a caterpillar. Although Aristotle gives an account of the silk-worm, which he describes as a horned caterpillar, he does not indicate its native country. Assyria is named by Pliny as the original region of the bombyx, and he adds the extraordinary statement, that the stuff which the women of Rome unraveled and wove anew, was made from a woollen substance combed by the Seres from the leaves of trees, and that draperies formed from it were imported from the country of the Seres. These ancient people, we need scarcely remark, are generally believed to be the same with those we now name Chinese. Silk, in their language, is called se or ser, the latter term corresponding with that used by the Greeks, who, we cannot doubt, derived both the material itself, and the name by which it was designated, from the Chinese nation. According to Latreille, the city of Turfan, in Little Bucharia, was for a long time the rendezvous of the western caravans, and the chief entrepôt of the Chinese silks. It was the metropolis of the Seres of Upper Asia, or of the Serica of Ptolemy, situate, according to that au-
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1 Cabinet Cyclopaedia, xxii. 5. The growth of silk has been considered by the Chinese for 4000 years next in extent and importance to that of rice; and the annual initiatory processes of the hatching eggs of silk-worms, and gathering mulberry-leaves, by the empress, as of the emperor's holding the plough for preparation of the ground in the cultivation of rice, are ordered in the book of rites, printed by Chinese authority, and composed by Confucius 2300 years ago, giving religious ceremonial authority to them. One of their kings was deified because he encouraged the cultivation of the mulberry, and one of their queens on account of her improvements in the art of weaving silks. It is not generally known to European silk-growers, that works have been composed, many ages ago, by the Chinese, describing minutely (and with many particulars not noticed by any one of the nearly fifty French and Italian writers on the subject usually consulted) each process, from sowing the mulberry-seed and hatching the silk-worm's eggs, to the winding of the silk from the cocoon, the doubling and dyeing the filaments, weaving these materials into their truly gorgeous stuffs, and fashioning the latter into garments. Such a volume is now lying before us, published at an astonishingly low price, and illustrated by wood-cuts facing every page.
Fig. 24
is an ancient Chinese reel. M. Julien published, about twenty-five years ago, a translation, made by himself, of a valuable work found by him in the Imperial Library at Paris, accurately describing the Chinese method of managing their annual silk-worms, and in producing their best raw silk. This treatise insists much upon the necessity of pure air and wholesome food for the worm, and suggests many important points for improvement on the part Silk-worm, of European unprejudiced silk-growers.1 Nevertheless, while the strength and colour of China silks are in the main still unrivalled, the unevenness arising from the defects in their reeling is no small deterioration of their value, in comparison with the best silks of France and Italy. It is probable that, for a long time to come, we shall have to resort to China, for fresh supplies of silk-worms' eggs, when, from epidemic disease, those hatched from acclimated worms cannot be depended upon. About fifty years ago, the eggs of the Chinese white species were successfully introduced into the department du Gard, France, and from them silk of double value in the market has been ever since obtained.
This substance was but slightly known in Europe before the time of Augustus, and in the days of Aurelian was valued at its weight in gold. This was probably owing to the mode in which it was procured by the merchants of Alexandria, who had no direct intercourse with China, the chief country in which the silk-worm was then reared. Though so highly lauded both by Greek and Roman writers, it was in frequent use for many centuries before any certain knowledge was obtained either of the country from which the material was derived, or of the means by which it was produced. By some it was supposed to be a fine down adhering to the leaves of trees and flowers; by others it was regarded as a delicate kind of wool or cotton; and even those who had some idea of its insect origin, were incorrectly informed of the mode of its formation.3 The court of the Greek emperors, which surpassed even that of the Asiatic sovereigns in splendour and magnificence, became profuse in its display of this lustrous ornament; but as the Persians, from the advantages which their local situation gave them over the merchants from the Arabian Gulf, were enabled to supplant them in all those mart's of India, to which silk was brought by sea from the East, and had it in their power to cut off the caravans which travelled over land to China through their northern provinces, Constantinople thus became dependent on a rival power for an article now deemed essential to the enjoyment of civilized life. The Persians, with the rapacity inseparable from the power of monopolists, exorbitantly raised its price. Procopius says the price per ounce for silk of common colours was equal to L.2, 12s., and of royal purple, L.9, 8s. English money; and many attempts were made by Justinian to free his subjects from their exactions. An accidental circumstance is said to have accomplished what the wisdom of the great legislator was unable to achieve. Two Persian monks, who had been employed as missionaries in one of the Christian churches established in India, had penetrated to the country of the Seres, that is, to China, where they observed the operations of the silk-worm, and acquired a knowledge of the art of working up its produce into so many rich and costly fabrics. The love of lucre, mingled, it is said, with a feeling of indignation that so valuable a branch of commerce should be enjoyed by unbelieving nations, induced them to repair to Constantinople, where they explained to the emperor the true origin of silk, and the various modes by which it was prepared and manufactured. Encouraged by the most liberal promises, they undertook to transport a sufficient supply of these extraordinary worms to Constantinople, which they effected by conveying the eggs of the parent moth in the interior of a hollow cane. They were hatched, it is alleged, by the heat of a dunghill, and the larvae were fed with the leaves of wild mulberry. They worked, underwent their accustomed metamorphoses, multiplied their kind,
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1 See also translation, recently published at Shanghai, and reprinted at Madras in 1858, of a Dissertation on the Silk Manufacture, and Cultivation of the Mulberry, by Tseu-kwang-K'he, a Chinese minister of state, in which are historical references to silk-growing ranging in Chinese annals from B.C. 2356 to A.D. 900, with many interesting details of the cultivation of the trees, care of worms, and manufacture of silks generally.
2 See Robertson's Historical Description concerning Ancient India.
3 Edin. Cabinet Library, viii. 162. Silk-worms, and in the course of time have become almost universally cultivated throughout the southern countries of Europe, thus effecting an important change in the commercial relations which had so long existed between our continent and the east.
The cultivation of the silk-worm spread, at the period of the first crusades, from the Morea into Sicily, the kingdom of Naples, and several centuries afterwards, more especially under the administration of Sully, into France, to which kingdom it is now a source of great wealth. It is indeed curious to consider how the breeding of a few millions of small caterpillars should occasion such a disparity in the circumstances, or at least in the outward show, of different tribes of the human race. When the wife and empress of Aurelian was refused a garment of silk on account of its extreme costliness, the most ordinary classes of the Chinese were, we doubt not, clad in that material from top to toe; and although, among ourselves, weekday and holiday, we see the great mass of our female population clothed externally in silk attire, yet our James the Sixth was forced to borrow a pair of silken hose from the Earl of Mar, that his state and bearing might be more effective in the presence of the ambassador of England, "for ye would not," said the uncoth pedant, "that your king should appear as a scrub before strangers." Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of her reign (1560), was highly gratified by receiving from her silk-woman, Mrs Montague, a pair of knit black-silk stockings, with which she is said to have been so delighted as never afterwards to have worn those of cloth. Even Henry the Eighth, notwithstanding his expensive magnificence, could not indulge himself as did his daughter, but wore cloth hose, except on gala days, for which he sometimes contrived to obtain a pair or two of silken ones from Spain.
It was long supposed that the cultivation of the white mulberry required a high temperature, but the contrary is proved by the fact of its thriving well in so many northern provinces of Germany. Even in Russia it is reared with considerable success. In France, however, it is not raised in large quantities with a view to the feeding of silk-worms, except in the central and southern provinces, as far north as the environs of Lyons. It might be easily grown throughout France, as also silk produced. A double crop might be obtained in the south, as in Naples. The white mulberry is by no means nice in regard to the constituent character of its soil, and it is known to flourish in a great variety of situations. At the same time, the nature both of soil and situation seems to exercise considerable influence over the produce of the caterpillars which feed upon its leaves; the silk being cleaner, ampler, and more resistant, in proportion as the plant is successfully cultivated in a dry and rather elevated position. In the south of France it is customary to cut off all the medium-sized branches every year, with a view to facilitate the production of a greater number of young shoots, these bearing the largest and most numerous leaves. The leaves of the black mulberry (*Morus nigra*), and in general those of all the other species of the genus, are adapted to the nourishment of the silk-worm cultivated in Europe, which is the same as that which produces the greater proportion of the Chinese manufacture. But in Bengal and other parts of India, and to a very large amount in China, valuable silk is procured from the cocoons of other species of moth. The first of these is described by Dr Roxburgh under the title of *Phalena papilio*, and occurs in such abundance over many parts of Bengal, and the adjoining provinces, as to have afforded to the natives, from time immemorial, an abundant supply of a very durable and dark-coloured silk, called *Tussah*, much silk-worm used by the Brahmins and other sects of Hindoos. The thread is too fine to be reeled off; the cocoon is softened, carded, and spun. Fig. 25 represents Tussah worms and cocoons. This species, however, cannot be domesticated; so the hill people go into the jungles, and when they perceive the dung of the caterpillars under a tree, they immediately search for them among the branches, and carry off what they require. These they distribute on the Assean trees (*Terminalia alata glabra* of Roxb.), and as long as they continue in the caterpillar state, the Parials guard them from birds by day and from bats by night. The natural food of this species is the *Bayer* tree of the Hindoos, called *Rhamnus jujuba* by botanists. The Jaroo cocoons are produced from a rare variety of the kind just mentioned. The tussah silk-worm moth appears to be synonymous with *Bombyx mylitta* of Fabricius, and is figured by Drury. The curious silk band, hard as leather, by which this worm secures its cocoon on the tree, is seen in fig. 26. Fig. 25, 2, is the Arrindy worm and cocoon. The Arrindy silk-worms, however, belong to an entirely different species, *Phalena cynthia* of the last named author. It seems to be peculiar to two districts in the interior of Bengal, viz., Runpore and Dinagepore, where it is reared in a domestic state. The food of this kind of silk-worm consists entirely of the leaves of the common *Ricinus*, or Palma Christi, which the natives call *Arrindy*, and hence the name by which the insect is itself distinguished. The cocoons in general are about a couple of inches in length, three inches in circumference, and pointed at both ends. They are of a white or yellowish colour, and their texture is extremely soft and delicate. The filament, indeed, is so extremely
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1 See Procopius, *De Bello Gothico*; Gibbon's *Decline and Fall* (Reign of Justinian); Edin. Cabinet Library, already cited; and this Encyclopaedia, art. Entomology, ix. 2 Illustrations of Natural History, ii., tab. 5. 3 Ibid., tab. 6. Silk-worms fine, that the silk cannot be wound off, but must be spun like cotton. The yarn is wove into a kind of coarse white cloth, of a seemingly loose texture, but of such extreme durability, that the life of one person seldom suffices to wear out a garment of it, so that the same piece frequently descends from parent to child. It must always be washed in cold water. Fig. 27 shows the four principal wild silk moths of India: 1. Tusseh; 2. Arrindy male; 3. Female; 4. Religiosa; 5. Moogha. All these are so easily reared in India, and at so low a cost, as to be used there in immense quantities, and might be imported into Europe with great advantage. The Chinese have wild worms, feeding on the oak, the ash, the pepper tree, and probably other kinds; one produces cocoons monthly, others three-monthly, others one crop a-year.
The silk-worm represented in fig. 28 is found at the roots of trees in Australia. These caterpillars often become (as those received are) entirely lignified, and from the mouth of each proceeds a root (apparently) of 6 or 8 inches in length.
The practice of rearing silk-worms in this country is usually followed rather as an amusing occupation than for purposes of gain. Abroad, it is pursued with skill and energy as one of the most profitable businesses of life. The female moth is induced to lay her eggs, about 300 in number, upon sheets of paper, to which they adhere by a natural viscosity. The period of hatching may be hastened or retarded by a higher or lower temperature, and the chief point for the breeder to bear in mind is, that the worms should not make their appearance till an abundance of natural food is near at hand. The eggs are at first of a very pale hue, but such as are to produce worms speedily become of a bluish grey colour; the unproductive ones continuing of a pale yellow. As there are tricks in all trades, the foreign dealers often favour their old useless eggs with a wash in dark-coloured muddy wine, which gives them for a time a deceptive healthy aspect. A store-room, or other apartment, with a temperature of 64° will suffice for the hatching of eggs, and the heat may afterwards be raised with advantage a few degrees every other day, for about ten days, but not so as to exceed about 80°. They will, however, thrive well enough in summer in any comfortably kept apartment, though a continuous warmth by night as well as by day is of great advantage. Whatever parts of a brood are hatched at the same period should be kept together; and those of the same age, or which shed their skins at sametime, ought to be kept and fed together, so that they may pass through the changes of their course with proper care and safety.
The best and simplest apparatus for keeping silk-worms is that used in France and Italy. It consists of small tables to be used from hatching to the time when, by reason of increasing size of the worm, more extensive accommodation is necessary. To meet this, wooden stages about 6 feet wide, and the length which will allow of passing round them, are placed, the lowest one, 3 feet from the ground, then another and another, &c., above it at intervals of 12 or 15 inches. The insects are gradually spread over these till their full size is attained, when, for each ounce of eggs hatched, 300 square feet of boarding superficies must be allowed. When cleansed, it is by turning up the leaves and sweeping off the offal. The worms having six claw-feet and eight that stick by pressure, will not easily fall off the boards. The worms, 1; its head, 2; feet, 3 3; and silk-bugs, 4 4, are shown in fig. 29.
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1 See "Account of the Tusseh and Arrindy Silk-worms of Bengal," by William Roxburgh, M.D., Linn. Trans., viii. 33; and "British India" (in Edin. Club Library), iii. 154. Also an elaborate and interesting paper in part ii. pp. 237-270, of Proceedings of Zoological Society, London, 1859, being "Synopsis of Asiatic Silk-producing Moths," by F. Moore, assistant, Museum, India House, comprising 30 species, minutely described, of wild silk moths, their caterpillars, and food. Silk-worms ought to be fed with regularity at least four times a day; additional or intermediate meals being given when their extraordinary appetite is manifested. The duration of the lives of these animals depends, to a certain extent, upon temperature and locality; warmth, well kept quarters, and abundance of food, being found to hasten the spinning process. All these things should be very sedulously attended to by those who rear silk-worms in large quantities with a view to profit, time being so important an element in all commercial undertakings.
In the south of France 40 days is the average time elapsing from hatching to beginning to spin the cocoon. Dan-dolo got the time reduced in his experiments to 30 days; Bronski to 22, 23, and 24 days. The Chinese get to the commencement of cocoon spinning in 24 days. In the United States the best kind of cocoons feed 20 days, the worst 50 days. In England worms hatched from foreign eggs were 56 days before spinning. Others have been 45 days in one case, 70 days in another. Experience can alone decide how far food and warmth may be safely supplied so as to lessen the time.
When the silk-worm makes its first appearance, it is of a dark colour, and measures only one or two lines in length; after the lapse of eight days, it is attacked by a lethargic sickness. The creature is about to cast its skin, and for about three days it remains motionless, refusing food. On the termination of this period the old skin opens at the anterior end, the fore-legs are disengaged, and the new and delicately attired worm escapes forth, to enjoy itself once more on pastures green. It had previously exuded a peculiar fluid, and hail also, by means of its silken string (how provident is benign nature!) fastened down its old and useless coat, that it might not be dragged after it when the hour of delivery has arrived. This coating is so complete, that even the skin which covers the eyes, and the teeth are thrown away. Immediately after this renewal, the body of the worm appears grey and somewhat wrinkled, the new coat being made full size to admit of future growth; but the latter attribute speedily disappears. It feeds freely for five additional days, during which it grows to about half an inch in length, and is then seized by its second sickness, and again casts its skin. Then succeed other five days of feasting, in the course of which it increases to three quarters of an inch, when it sickens a third time, and acquires in a similar manner a third suit. Again five days of feeding; again a removal of the outer garment, or a fourth casting of the skin. The caterpillar now measures from an inch and a half to two inches long, and for a continuous period of about ten days it eats voraciously, and increases greatly both in length and thickness. On the expiry of this last-mentioned period, it has attained the full size of a silk-worm, being from two and a half to three inches long. Its desire for food abates, it nibbles and wastes its leaves, then ceases to eat, and becomes restless and uneasy, moving circularly from side to side, owing to some instinctive feeling of desire to secure a quiet haven in which to spin its silken shroud. Its colour is now of a palish-green, with a mingling of a deeper hue. In the course of about twenty-four hours from the time of its having ceased to feed, the silky fluid becomes abundantly supplied to its interior reservoirs; the green colour disappears; the body becomes of a soft yellow, and somewhat transparent towards the neck. Previous to spinning, the general dimensions rather decrease than otherwise, but greater firmness of substance is acquired.
When the desire to spin is thus unequivocally manifested, art must come in aid of nature. In China, netting is extended on frames. In India, paper tubes are placed into these caterpillars will creep and weave their golden woof incessantly till the work is done. Those who rear extensively in Europe, supply their caterpillars with small twigs or branches of broom, heath, or any other brushwood, which happens to unite suppleness and tenacity. These are placed carefully so as to form arches across the tables, leaving in the arcades room for the worms to adjust themselves comfortably to spin (fig. 30).
Great attention must now be paid in regard to keeping up a moderately warm temperature. The observations of a writer in the fifth volume of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, amply illustrate this important point. He had successfully reared 30,000 silk-worms, when in the beginning of July, just as they were about to spin, there came a chilly north-east wind, and many assumed the chrysalis state, without making any attempt to form a protecting covering. On examining these individuals, it was apparent that their silken reservoirs had been congealed by cold, so that the insects were unable to draw out the filaments in their usual slender state, their own capacity of movement and exertion being no doubt at the same time chilled. Even when they have commenced to spin, or have made some progress in their labours, they will cease if exposed to damp and cold, and if the surrounding web is still of sufficient transparency, they may be seen lying idle and inactive in the interior of their cocoons. But if the temperature is raised, they will immediately resume their work. A heat from 65° to 70° is thought advisable at this time. The opposite extreme of oppressive heat or close temperature must be equally avoided.
These beautiful silken coverings, or cocoons as they are called, are generally completed in three or four days. They are commenced by the formation of a loose decomposed structure of an oval form, made of what is denominated floss silk. Within this, in the course of the ensuing days, the firmer cocoons are completed. These are rounded somewhat oval balls, varying in tint, but some species give cocoons of a golden hue, some others of a straw-colour, and some white. Those of a bright yellow yield the greater weight of reeled silk, but as the finer colouring substance is contained chiefly in the gum which is boiled out before weaving, less advantage is reaped by the grower. Raw silk, of a pale colour, is moreover preferred, on account of its better reception of certain dyes. Whether the insect sleeps or not during spinning, it rests. Its daily work may, by cutting the cocoon lengthwise, be separated, and the different layers found indicate the rests, and are also distinguished by great difference in the proportions of gum, albumen, and colouring matter found in each. The included worm, having finished its labour, casts its skin once more, but never appears again as a caterpillar, as it now assumes that rounded shapeless form termed chrysalis. The cocoons may be selected for reeling in about a week, and then comes the ungrateful and ungracious task of destroying the peaceful tenants of the tomb. This is variously accomplished, either by exposure (in sunny climates) for some hours to unclouded solar light and heat; by Silk-worm, steam; or by placing the cocoons in a temperature corresponding to that of an oven from which loaves have just been withdrawn after being baked.
If not killed, the chrysalis remains in its natural dormant state for a longer or shorter time, in accordance with the climate in which it has had its birth. In eastern countries this is not more than eleven days; in the most southern parts of Europe from eighteen to twenty; in France about three weeks; in England, if unaided by artificial means, about a month. After these respective periods, according to climate, whether natural or acquired, the perfect moth emerges, and the reason for destroying the chrysalis is this, that, in emerging, the moth makes an opening by softening the gum and putting aside the silk thread, and so by letting in the water prevents the cocoon being reeled. A few, however, are of course spared for the sake of a future progeny, sound cocoons being selected, and in equal numbers as to sex. The worms break out of the egg in due season, go up to spin, and eventually emerge from the cocoon, for the most part, from two to three hours after the morning light reaches them.
Such as have been killed for reeling are, before the commencement of that process, placed in warm water, so that their gummy nature may be partly softened, but not dissolved. The length of silken thread which may be unwound from a single cocoon, is in truth astonishing. Count Dandolo found it occasionally to exceed 600 yards. The French commissioners, examining Count Bronski's cocoons, saw one reeled which they certify to have been 982 metres in length. The length must, to some extent, be indicated by the weight of the cocoon, an Indian one of 1½ grains, and an American one of 8 grains, may well be supposed to differ greatly in length of thread; more facts are needed to decide on any true average. The only English filature of any magnitude for reeling silk was put into operation at Tiverton in 1825, by J. Heathcoat, Esq., who caused 35,000 lbs. of Florentine cocoons to be reeled there. The quality and quantity of raw silk (about 3300 lb.) were satisfactory, and this produce was wrought into lace. There was no profit over silk grown abroad.
The following statements are intended to explain those points which are necessary to the production of the raw silk of commerce of the best quality, and at the least cost. The silk-worm cultivated on the continent of Europe is of the same family as that which produces the white silk we import from China. So far as is at present known, the Chinese cultivate the production of that domesticated annual worm, which gives the pure white silk only, when they wish to use the raw silk reeled from them in the manufacture of their woven, plain, or flowered broad fabrics, crepes, &c. They have, however, other species, some monthly, or rather reproducing eight times; and some three-monthly, or producing four successive hatchings and four crops of cocoons, in the year. Like those of India (with which they are probably identical in origin), these cocoons are all inferior in weight, and, from the greater fineness of filament, much more difficult to reel in an even size of thread; therefore are much less valuable in commerce. These silks, as also those from their wild silk-worms (of which an immense quantity are gathered every year), are spun and woven into the heavy silk cloths with which the Chinese cover themselves in cold weather, and are cheap enough for every common purpose. Those which were brought into Europe originally produce chiefly yellow silk; but about one-tenth of the worms in each yellow hatching give cocoons of a spurious, inferior white colour. This domesticated silk-worm of China, Bengal, or Europe, is the larva of the Bombyx mori, a pale coloured moth, with two or three obscure and transverse streaks, and a lunate spot on the superior wings. This caterpillar feeds on the leaves of the mulberry; and before assuming the chrysalis form, it spins a protective covering. This cocoon is oval silk-worm, in shape, if by a female; but if by a male, the cocoon is round at each end, but of less circumference in the middle part. The engraving (fig. 31) shows two species, 1, 2, of Fig. 31.
Italian worm; the moth, 3; the cocoon of a male, 4; that of a female, 5; and the chrysalis 6, with the last skin of the worm, e in the latter. On the cocoon of the male is shown, a a, the zig-zag mode in which the thread of silk is laid in patches by the worm when forming its temporary abode. The finest of each sex in size, weight, colour, and compactness of make, are carefully selected and secured for next year's eggs; any discoloured, or ill-made, are reeled off without killing the chrysalis; the remaining good ones are, in China, killed by being placed in hot dung; in India, under the heat of the sun, or dung, or by baking; in Europe, by baking (or which is best), by placing the cocoons in a steam bath.
Domesticated silk-worms will live, and even a small portion of a hatching may spin cocoons, if fed upon lettuce; but their existence is a weak and languid, because an unnatural one. A healthy, full-grown worm shows, along each ring on its back, from tail to head, an expansion and contraction, indicating pulsation of 40 to 45 beats in a minute. If fed on lettuce, this is reduced to 20 or 25, and often lessens till the insect ceases to live. The mulberry-leaf, therefore, furnishes its only natural aliment. This in Italy and France is for the most part the produce of the Silk-worm. white variety (Morus alba). The wild leaf, 1; grafted, 2; black, 3; and large Multicaulis, 4, are shown in fig. 32. The worm is always most safely and easily fed upon the white kind until it has completed its last sloughing of the skin; by that time the black mulberry (Morus nigra) will usually have come into leaf; and will, if the silk to be produced be of the yellow colour, furnish superior brilliancy in dyeing the darker hues. For white silks, and the lighter shades of dyed colours, no doubt the white, or rose variety of mulberry, should furnish exclusively food for the worms. Valentia silk is, to a large extent, produced by worms fed on black mulberry-leaves. An experiment, by the hatching of about 10,000 worms at Nottingham, in 1839, showed a loss of seven-eighths of the worms which were partly fed on lettuce. Of those fed (by necessity in this case, from the absence of any white mulberry-trees) upon the leaves of the black mulberry, the loss, before spinning of the worms hatched, was between 30 and 40 per cent. The loss in Europe, under peasant management (which includes half the production of ordinary years), is generally 40 to 60 per cent., fed upon white mulberry. Larger proprietors suffer less loss from ordinary diseases, often rearing 70 per cent. of the worms hatched. Epidemics are, however, very fatal, when large numbers of worms are bred together.
The mulberry-tree is well described, from its important uses, by a French writer, Olivier des Serrès, as "full of the blessing of God." It is found growing in most temperate climates in the Old World, and several varieties in the New. Long before the times of Justinian it had been brought from China or India into Persia and Asia Minor; and, at length, was spread around the Bosphorus, and throughout Greece, probably giving the name Morea to the Peloponnesus. In 1130, Roger King of Sicily transported the tree, together with silk-worms, and persons used to their cultivation, into his own country. It became well known in Naples; from whence, in 1493, certain nobles, who had followed Charles VIII. to Italy, on their return from that unfortunate expedition, brought the mulberry, and planted it at Montelimi; where, a few years since, these trees, the source of silk-worms so rich a branch of commercial industry to France, were still the objects of almost religious veneration. Our James I., desirous of emulating the successful efforts put forth on the continent to establish the growth of silk, caused black mulberry-trees to be planted in nearly every parish in England, where thousands of them are still flourishing in a fruitful old age. Experiments have frequently been made for raising silk-worms in this country. The few in which French or Italian eggs, and the black mulberry, have been employed, proved successful. Bertezon thus took the medal of the Society of Arts seventy years ago, by producing good cocoons and raw silk, no doubt hatching French eggs, and using the black mulberry-leaf. The attempt, before mentioned, made at Nottingham, was perfectly successful. Specimens of the cocoons are placed in the Adelphi, London, and in museums in Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, &c. Three hundred of these cocoons weighed a pound. In France and Italy two hundred and fifty are usually required. The time from hatching to spinning was prolonged about fourteen days by the humidity of our climate. Cocoons spun by the common English silk-worm average, when dry, each 1 to 1½ grains (fig. 33); Bengal rainy crop (November), 1½ to 2 grains (fig. 34); Italian vary from 3 to 6 grains (fig. 35); Nottingham experiments from foreign eggs, 2½ to 5 grains (fig. 36). In New Jersey, U.S., by two hatchings a-year, cocoons have been obtained from one kind of silk-worm averaging about 5 grains (fig. 37); and from another, an annual worm (Mammoth), weighing, when dry, 6 to 8 grains (fig. 38). Though silk of good quality may be produced in England, yet its cost, as compared with that of drier climates, would render it unprofitable.
The mulberry-tree and the silk-worm thrive best in a pure, dry air, in the neighbourhood of mountains, and inilly districts, upon a dry soil. The tree should be trained production of 12 oz. weight of raw silk. The following short particulars of a certain French "recolte" (crop) will show consumption of food, and results.—The manager hatched 11 oz. of eggs; i.e., about 33,000 per oz., or 363,000, reduced gradually before spinning to 241,000. He supplied, during 32 days, up to 30th May, and before last change of skin, 10,600 lb. weight of leaves. On 31st May, 1000 lb.; June 1, 1500 lb.; 2d, 2500 lb.; 3d, 2500 lb.; 4th, 2500 lb.; 5th, 2000 lb.; 6th, 500 lb.; i.e., during these seven days of their great appetite, and filling silk bags for future cocoons, these insects ate 12,500 lb. weight of leaves; in all, they consumed 23,100 lb. weight of leaves.
1050 lb. weight of cocoons were spun, from which 87½ lb. of raw silk was reeled. To the peasant breeder, the cost of this process is the labour of his family and himself, in planting, pruning, hatching, gathering leaves, and feeding; and the silk-worm proceeds paid to him for his cocoons in hard cash is usually entirely additional to his ordinary income. The average of many years' cost and prices, computed by a French grower of high character, is, that the proprietor of large crops gains 12½ per cent.; and the purchaser and reeler of cocoons for the market makes about 12½ per cent. upon his outlay in capital, risk, and skill. A rough calculation is thus made in France.—An ounce of eggs requires 20 quintals of leaves, and will bring 1 quintal of cocoons, to be reeled into 120 ounces of silk. The temperature of the air in which silk-worms are bred should be at hatching about 85 deg. Fahr., and gradually lowered to 75 during great appetite, and 65 at spinning, and with adequate means provided for its frequent change. As the insect progresses in age and size, the air without renewal soon becomes vitiated. Cleanliness is imperatively necessary to its health; therefore vegetable refuse and excrementitious matter must be withdrawn; at first weekly, then half-weekly, daily, and during the great appetite, constantly. The leaves must be given to it free from moisture, not heated, or even damp, however wet when gathered. If there have been diseases amongst the worms in the previous year, the walls, boards, and tools for cutting off branches, and spreading out leaves, must be most carefully scraped, washed, and purified. We have known disease continue in a building, the wood-work and even walls becoming leprous, and necessitating destruction, or disuse for this purpose, of the place altogether. Late experience for several years of the loss of half or two-thirds of the crop in Europe, by epidemics amongst silk-worms, renders this a most interesting and important point in management. Foreign writers have enumerated as the diseases of silk-worms "Calcines" and "Lusettes," "Gra" and "Tripes," and "Muscadine;"—the two former produced by electrical and atmospherical causes; the next two by improper state or quality of food; the last as an ineradicable plague or leprosy—the cause unknown. Each of the first-named four diseases, if it invades a breed of worms within the last ten days of their eating course, or when going up the twigs for the purpose of spinning their cocoons, is dangerous and difficult to remedy. Lessened supplies of very carefully selected leaves, and plenty of fresh air, into which are introduced the fumes of burned aromatics acting as stimulants, have been, in China and Europe, found most useful. A hatching has been saved, when supposed to be beyond restoration to vigour, and thrown out upon a straw-yard, by the clear cold air of night, and almost every worm has formed its sound cocoon, the crop being, four days after, gathered from the straw. Increased dry temperature, together with vinegar burned in large quantities for an hour or two, has sent up to spin nearly every worm which had, from the first effort to mount, fallen, in consequence of a sudden north-east cold blast, or of a violent storm, and discharges of electricity. We have observed two diseases not described in works on this subject (fig. 40). One (1), probably the effect of lightning, rendering the head and two front rings of a coal-black colour, and showing a tight ligature beyond; the other (2) swelling out the four middle rings with tight ligatures at each end of these rings. Both were fatal and incurable, as far as could be ascertained. This whole subject of disease amongst silk-worms deserves more minute Silk-worm inquiry throughout their whole course on the part of scientific observers. This will necessitate a close analysis of the proportions of fibre, resin, albumen, saccharine, and colouring matter and water, which enter into the composition of the most healthy leaves, and from which the insect obtains nutriment, and ultimately eliminates the silky materials for its cocoon in largest abundance. All these silk-spinning caterpillars can throw out, on the approach of danger, their silk thread from the opening of the tube under their mouth, attaching it at once to anything near; and this they do at any time from the moment of hatching, even before having eaten. The thread is double, supplied from long silk bags, which open into the tube or duct where they are brought together, and are there covered with gum and other matters, which varnish hardens immediately on exposure to the air. This filament of the cocoon is continuous through its whole length; its size is according to the species of caterpillar, and also depends on the health and strength of each worm. It decreases gradually as drawn out within the cocoon, till it becomes at the last end only about two-thirds the size it was at the outside commencement. The eventual thread of raw silk is rendered of even size by its being composed in reeling of two-thirds of the filament drawn from those cocoons which are partially reeled off, and one-third from those newly begun to be drawn off. Though the form of this silk ball is somewhat rounded or oval, yet the insect does not lay its thread in rings round its circumference, but in zig-zag patches here and there; which, nevertheless, when the cocoons are wound off in warm, or even cold water, if the produce of healthy worms, will draw out in a perfectly straight line; and the whole covering of the chrysalis within will be wound off, from end to end (in length usually of 600 to 1000 yards) frequently without breaking. But if the insects have been weak or unhealthy; and if therefore ill supplied with the varnishing, adhesive substances which should make all parts of the entire length of the thread equally compact as laid in the cocoon, and thus equally softened by the warmth of the water, then one or more of these zig-zag patches will often separate in a mass from the remainder of cocoon, and come off, passing towards the reel in a "burr" or "knott." This is not all the mischief, which the following explanation shows:—As the raw silk threads are winding off, they bring with them 25 or 30 per cent. of their entire weight in gum. To bind the four, six, or more filaments from as many cocoons together in one thread, a certain proportion of this gum must be left with the thread; the remainder is forced out. To accomplish this with ease and exactitude, the silk-worm silk is generally wound from the basin (fig. 41, at 1) from two sets of cocoons into two separate skeins on the reel; but the thread of one skein is carried ten, fifteen, or twenty turns round the other (at 2), and then again separately carried forwards. This torsion forces out, according to the size of the thread, and number of turns round each other, the surplus quantity of gum. But if one of the burrs, above spoken of, arrives at this entwining junction, it inevitably breaks one of the threads, and then the whole of both pass together, in one thread, upon the skein, which there becomes, for so many scores of yards as the reel may draw off before its exceedingly swift revolutions can be stopped, a thread of double size—twelve cocoons instead of (say) the intended six cocoon silk ("un marriage"). This, however careful the reeling, reduces the value of raw silk ten to fifty per cent., and must result where there is an unhealthy state of the worms. The best cocoons may be, from want of skill or carelessness, reeled into uneven silk. Brutia silk sold in 1825 at 10s. per lb.; care and skill have raised its value to 30s., and even 40s. per lb. in recent years. The pure white three-cocoon silk of the Cévennes is worth 60s. to 70s. per lb., this price being paid chiefly on account of the perfect evenness of so fine a thread. To avoid the evils and loss resulting from double threads in reeling, the thread of each skein may, when the other is broken, be cut by sharp blades (fig. 42), or it may receive the necessary torsion round itself (fig. 43, 1), then the burr breaks it, and no more goes on the reel till tied up afresh. Raw silks may be reeled into threads of heavy weights, say 20 or 40 cocoons each, by a system of division into small numbers, say of four or five cocoons each, at the basin, so as to admit of constant accuracy in keeping up supply to replace broken filaments, and then giving the whole a subsequent union before torsion (croissée) (fig. 43, 2; and fig. 44). The result will be perfect evenness of thread; and for most useful purposes a saving of all the expense of labour and waste in winding from the fine raw, and doubling to make the thread heavy enough for the loom. This method (discovered by us, and patented in France and Italy in 1825) has become almost universal where the raw silk is used, unboiled, or where heavy "trames" are desired of an even, good quality. Raw silk may be reeled, and receive an actual twist, at the same time, while passing upon the bobbin (fig. 45). This also was the subject of a patent in 1825-26; but in practice nothing is gained by it in time or labour, and certain inconveniences appear to be an unavoidable result.—For peasants to reel their own cocoons is an unwise system; their cocoons, wound off by professed silk-reelers, always produce a much more valuable result in quantity and price. The peasant reeled raw silk of China, India, and every other silk-growing country, mixing, as it more or less does, with "filature" (factory reeled) raw silk, tends to depreciate the character of really first-class productions. Peasant reeling is rapidly going out of use in France and Italy.
It follows, from what has been stated, that, in order to obtain good raw silk, there must be good, well-made cocoons, reeled with care and skill. In order to get such cocoons there must be healthy worms; and to secure these, pure air, dry, wholesome food, and vigilant superintendence, and this not in low and marshy, but in hilly parts, where the mulberry-leaf will, instead of gross watery substance and large size and weight (which may suit the planter but kill the worm), possess a warm and somewhat exciting flavour and scent. The more worms spin out of a given number hatched, the more silk will be reeled from their cocoons, and the more valuable the product in sale and use.
The silk-worm does not eat a quantity of food proportionate to the size and weight of its cocoon, as compared with others. The worm acclimated in England eats as much as the French, yet the cocoon of the former yields only one-fifth of the weight of silk. The growth of the Bengal silk of commerce supplies a most important example of neglecting this fact. This Indian silk is produced partly by a worm relatching four times a-year, viz., two three-monthly, fine weather "bunds" (crops), and two rainy "bunds," and partly by one annual worm; both kinds are fed on mulberry, the Morus Indicus. Three thousand cocoons produce, from French or Italian worms, 16 oz. of rawsilk. It requires 14,000 of Indian annual crop, and often 20,000 to 22,000 cocoons of three-monthly crop, to reel into the like weight, and that of far inferior quality and value. The thread of the Bengal silk-worm is so attenuated, that a very large proportion of the cocoons breaks off in reeling, and there may be twenty to thirty required to obtain the required size—a number which any one accustomed to silk-reeling will know cannot be counted. Six or ten are therefore supplied at silk-worm once, which render an even thread, and consequent average value in the market, impossible. The remedy at once seems to suggest itself. Resort to China, to America, or to the continent of Europe, for other and better eggs. This was proposed to the East India Directors in 1832. The memorial was forwarded to the council in Bengal, and by Lord W. Bentinck to every filature. A few pounds sterling would have secured eggs for the supply of every silk-growing district in the peninsula; but they were not obtained, and things remained much as before—a fivefold prime cost, and an article of two-thirds the value. The lamented death of the late Dr Royle has alone prevented the special points insisted upon in this paper (as in the memorial referred to) from again reaching India, and strengthened by his scientific researches, so as to give them effect in improving this truly important and wide-spread product of Indian labour. It is a fact not so well known as it ought to be, that there are more people on the face of the globe clad in silk fabrics than in any other textile material whatever. To what extent India might, by this substitution of superior breed of worms, with other improvements, supply Europe and the world with silk, it is difficult to say. The real cost of the silk supplied in 1800 was but 10s. per lb.; all the testimony of experienced civilians, together with that of the Company itself, say it need only cost 7s. per lb. In 1827 it had risen to 13s. per lb., all expenses paid on board. If the annual worm of China or Europe were taken to the hitherto useless millions of mulberry-trees now growing amongst the lower ranges of the Himalayas, the annual crop of cocoons would doubtless surpass in valuable results, by this three months' labour only, all the five crops added together at present obtained, and leave the peasants nine months for other profitable employment. Mr Bashford, of Surdah, East Indies, an eminent silk-grower of long experience, in a paper read to the Society of Arts, February 1857, states that, having imported French and Chinese eggs, he proceeded, through very careful and well-arranged experiments, to obtain cocoons equal to those of either country. But his main object was to improve the native breeds of worms by crossing them with the Chinese and French, and so continue a three-monthly crop. There is no instance known where any other than an annual crop yields good silk. This plan did not succeed. Under the circumstances of excessive heat, and mulberry-trees growing in marshes, deep in water, hatching-houses filthy and without ventilation, and obstructive attendants, the best foreign worms would, and did slowly, but effectually, become extinct. The facts given by Mr Bashford confirm the principle that an annual silk crop should be first obtained of cocoons from foreign eggs; and that the whole system, and even the localities for carrying it on, should be, if needful, changed. The initiatory proceedings and expenses, which need be, for all really useful purposes, of very moderate amount, should be by public authority and at the public charge. Judging from the spirit and talent evidenced in his paper, no man would be more suitable for carrying them out with firmness, skill, and prudence, than Mr Bashford himself.
An effort was made, 1840–1845, to grow mulberry-trees, and produce raw silk, in Jamaica. The hilly parts of the island were found sufficiently temperate for both trees and worms. American eggs were hatched under the care of an experienced grower from the United States, and several small annual crops of excellent cocoons were the result. Silk, of good quality, reeled from them, together with letters from Lord Metcalfe, the then public-spirited governor, under whose auspices this attempt was originated, and others, which give details of management, are now lying under our eye. But the affair was in the hands of a public company, who laid out at once too much capital, incurred heavy, yet needless, expenses, and, growing impatient of slow returns, the spe-