SILK MANUFACTURE« This subject naturally divides itself into four parts :—The rearing of the insect which yields the silk ; the extrication of the filament in a state fitted for the manufacturer; the spinning and weaving into textile fabrics; and the commercial arrangements arising out of the manufacture. Such portions of the subject will be treated here as have not yet been noticed in the Cycloptedia ; for the rest, cross-references will suffice.
Rearing allk-worms.—Silk is produced by a small insect, in the manner described in BOXISYCID.E, NAT. HIST. Dec. China was midolibtedly the country in which men first availed themselves of the labours of the silk-worm. Serica (the country of the Sores) was a name by which the Macedonian Greeks designated the country which produced the silk that aunts overland from the north of China. The author of the l'eriplus of the Erythraian Sea' speaks of silk in Malabar as an article imported from countries farther to the teat ; from which it may be inferred that the culture of the silk-worm and the manufacture of silk had not been introduced even into India four hundred years after silk was known in Europe. In speaking of the country of the Thin.-e, the same author observes that both the raw material and manufactured article were obtained there. The "Median robes," spoken of by the Greek writers of the period of the Persian empire, and extolled for their lustrous beauty and brilliancy, were no doubt silken vestments ; as Procopius long afterwards, when silk had been introduced into Europe, states that " the robes which were formerly called Median by the Greeks are now called silken." Aristotle is the first Greek author who mentions the silk-worm (' Nat. v. ID). He states that silk was first spun in the island of Cos, but that the raw material was still an oriental product ; and Pliny (xi. 22), in commenting on this passage, states that the Bilk came from Assyria, and was worked up by the Greek women. It may be remarked that Assyria 1r3.9, like Media, frequently used in an indefinite sense by ancient writers. The probability is that silk
was need in Western Asia before it was known to the Greeks ; and that it was in use among the Greeks long before they knew whence the substance came or hew it was produced.
]'ausanias is perhaps the first who gives precise information respect ing the substance from which the Sores formed their cloths. " They have," he says, "a spinning insect, which is kept in buildings, and produces a finespun thread, which is wrapped about its feet" (vi. 26). It was not until the sixth century that the obscurity which enveloped this subject was cleared up. At this time silk was an article of general use among the Roinane, and was manufactured for them by the inhabitant; of Tyre and Ilerytus in Phrenicia. The Persians monopolised the supply of the raw material, and guarded their trade with so much jealousy, both by land and sea, that travellers from or to China were not allowed to traverse the Persian dominions; and In the time of Justinian, in consequence of some intorference with the trade, they had entirely stopped the importation of silk. The trade in silk was in this unsatisfactory state, when two Nestorian monks of Persia, who had travelled to China, acquainted Justinian with the mode of producing silk, and undertook to return and bring back with them some of the eggs of the silk-worm. They were perfectly successful in their expedition ; for a quantity of eggs, secured in a hollow cane, were brought in safety to Constantinople, hatched by the heat of a dunghill, and fed with mulberry.leaves. The monks also taught the subjects of Justinian the art of manufacturing silk.
The breeding of silk-worms in Europe was far six centuries con fined to the Greeks of the Lower Empire. In the 12th century the art was transferred to Sicily; in the 13th century the rearing of silk-worms and the manufacture of silk were introduced into Italy, and from thence mucceseively introduced into Spain and France.