Between the 17 years 1858-59 and 1874-75, the exports from all China ranged between 31,618 and 83,644 bales.
Fabrics.—in China the manufactures consist of pongee, handkerchiefs, crape shawls, scarfs, sarsenct, senshaw, levantines, satins, ribbons, sewing thread, and organzine or thrown silk. The raw silk sorts usually known in the Canton market are tsa-tle, taysatun, and Canton raw silk. The Chinese silk looin is worked by two hands, one of whom sits on the top of the frame, where he pulls the treadles, and assists in changing the arious parts of the machine. The workmen imitate almost any pattern, excelling particularly in crapes and flowered satins and damasks for official dresses. The common people wear pongee and senshaw, which they frequently dye in gambier to a dust or black colour ; these fabrics constitute durable summer garments, and the pongee becomes softer by repeated washing. Many of the delicate silk tissues known in Europe are not manufactured by the Chinese, most of their fabrics being heavy. The lo or law is a, beautiful article, used for summer robes, mosquito curtains, festoons, and other purposes, but is seldom sent abroad. The English words satin, senshaw, and silk are pro bably derived from the Chinese terms sz'tiin, sensha, and sze, intermediately through other lan guages.
Japan has been largely a silk-producing country, luit since the middle of the 19th century, their losses have been great from the parasite uji (tnaggot), as the Japanese call it, which has preyed upon the silk-worm, and in some years killed from 30 to 81 per cent. of the worms. The fly seems to pierce the silk-worm and deposit its egg under neath the skin, where it is hatched into tho uji or larva, which, feeding upon the body of the silk worm during its changes, gradually increases until it is nearly as large as the chrysalis itself, and in the end forces its way out of the cocoon, which thereupon becomes useless. The uji then shrinks considerably in tbe course of four or five days into a small chrysalis of its own, which on dis section discloses the ercbryo of a fly. Tho birth
of the fly is supposed to occur about the thne of the hatching of the first crop of silk-worms in the following spring, when it deposits its eggs, and the existence of the next annual generation begins. This supposition is grounded chiefly on the fact that in the second crop of the worms the summer hatching is comparatively free from the uji. The Japanese authorities have evinced the utmost desire to foster silk culture and the foreign trade. They ,have established filatures, and in 1878 the production of silk was 2,650,000 kilos. Between 1860-61 and 186849 the exports of silk-worms' eggr from Japan to France and Italy ranged up to 20,712 pikuls, value 9,493,400 dollara, or 12,412,905. The value of the dollar ranged from 4s. .5icl. to 58. 2d.
Corca.—According to aChinese author, theart of silk-reeling was introduced into Corea in the 12th century before Christ, and spread rapidly through out the whole region ; the narrative of an embassy front China to the Corea in the years 1119-1120 n.c., describes the nobles and the chief officers of the court, with their wives, as dressed in the same kinds of silk fabrics as are still to be found in this extreme eastern peninsula. Corea produces mulberry silk, chiefly white, from bivoltine co coons.
Annam, Sia ni.—Iater, the industry spread south ward, and it reached the Annamite kingdoms. M. de Rosny dates its introduction there frotn the third century B.C. In Tonquin and Cochin-China the manufacture of silk took considerable hold, and in the 17th century A.D. there appears to have been a large export of silk from these countries. At the present day the silk is most used for home consumption ; and it is said to be markedly in ferior to that of China. The Siamese appear to have learned the art in the beginning of the 7th century me., but the manufacture made no great progress till the 18th century A.D., when the opening of more frequent communication with China gave a certain stimulus to the traffic in silk. Early in the 19th century, according to Crawfurd, the industg had again fallen into dis favour.