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Thursday, November 21st, 2024
the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Silk
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a fibrous substance produced by many insects, principally in the form of a cocoon or covering within which the creatures are enclosed and protected during the period of their principal transformations. The webs and nests, &c., formed by spiders are also of silk. But the fibres used for manufacturing purposes are exclusively produced by the mulberry silk-moth of China, Bombyx mori, and a few other moths closely allied to that insect. Among the Chinese the name of the silkworm is " si, " Korean " soi "; to the ancient Greeks it became known as Q?p, the nation whence it came was to them ?r?pE S and the fibre itself o ptKc v, whence the Latin sericum, the French soie, the German Seide and the English silk. History. - The silk industry originated in China; and according to native records it has existed there from a very remote period. The empress, known as the lady of Si-ling, wife of a famous emperor, Huang-ti (2640 B.C.), encouraged the cultivation of the mulberry tree, the rearing of the worms and the reeling of silk. This empress is said to have devoted herself personally to the care of silkworms, and she is by the Chinese credited with the invention of the loom. A voluminous ancient literature testifies not only to the antiquity but also to the importance of Chinese sericulture, and to the care and attention bestowed on it by royal and noble families. The Chinese guarded the secrets of their valuable art with vigilant jealousy; and there is no doubt that many centuries passed before the culture spread beyond the country of its origin. Through Korea a knowledge of the silkworm and its produce reached Japan, but not before the early part of the 3rd century. One of the most ancient books of Japanese history, the Nihongi, states that towards A.D. 300 some Koreans were sent from Japan to China to engage competent people to teach the arts of weaving and preparing silk goods. They brought with them four Chinese girls, who instructed the court and the people in the art of plain and figured weaving; and to the honour of these pioneer silk weavers a temple was erected in the province of Settsu. Great efforts were made to encourage the industry, which from that period grew into one of national importance. At a period probably little later a knowledge of the working of silk travelled westward, and the cultivation of the silkworm was established in India. According to a tradition the eggs of the insect and the seed of the mulberry tree were carried to India by a Chinese princess concealed in the lining of her head dress. The fact that sericulture was in India first estalished in the valley of the Brahmaputra and in the tract lying between that river and the Ganges renders it probable that it was introduced overland from the Chinese empire. From the Ganges valley the silkworm was slowly carried westward and spread in Khotan, Persia and the states of Central Asia.
Most critics recognize in the obscure word d'meseq or d'mesheq, Amos iii. 12, a name of silk corresponding to the Arabic dimaks, late Greek µ raEa, English damask, and also follow the ancients in understanding meshi, Ezek. xvi. 10, 13, of " silken gauze." But the first notice of the silkworm in Western literature occurs in Aristotle, Hist. anim. v. 59 (17), 11 (6), where he speaks of " a great worm which has horns and so differs from others. At its first metamorphosis it produces a caterpillar, then a bombylius and lastly a chrysalis - all these changes taking place within six months. From this animal women separate and reel off the cocoons and afterwards spin them. It is said that this was first spun in the island of Cos by Pamphile, daughter of Plates." Aristotle's vague knowledge of the worm may have been derived from information acquired by the Greeks with Alexander the Great; but long before this time raw silk must have begun to be imported at Cos, where it was woven into a gauzy tissue, the famous Coa vestis, which revealed rather than clothed the form.
Towards the beginning of the Christian era raw silk began to form an important and costly item among the prized products of the East which came to Rome. Allusions to silk and its source became common in classical literature; but, although these references show familiarity with the material, they are singularly vague and inaccurate as to its source; even Pliny knew nothing more about the silkworm than could be learned from Aristotle's description. The silken textures which at first found their way to Rome were necessarily of enormous cost, and their use by men was deemed a piece of effeminate luxury. From an anecdote of Aurelian, who neither used silk himself nor would allow his wife to possess a single silken garment, we learn that silk was worth its weight in gold.
Notwithstanding its price and the restraints otherwise put on the use of silk the trade grew. Under Justinian a monopoly of the trade and manufacture was reserved to the emperor, and looms, worked by women, were set up within the imperial palace at Constantinople. Justinian also endeavoured, through the Christian prince of Abyssinia, to divert the trade from the Persian route along which silk was then brought into the east of Europe. In this he failed, but two Persian monks who had long resided in China, and there learned the whole art and mystery of silkworm rearing, arrived at Constantinople and imparted their knowledge to the emperor. By him they were induced to return to China and attempt to bring to Europe the material necessary for the cultivation of silk, which they effected by concealing the eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane. From the precious contents of that bamboo tube, brought to Constantinople about the year 550, were produced all the races and varieties of silkworm which stocked and supplied the Western world for more than twelve hundred years.
Under the care of the Greeks the silkworm took kindly to its Western home and flourished, and the silken textures of Byzantium became famous. At a later period the conquering Saracens obtained a mastery over the trade, and by them it was spread both east and west - the textures becoming meantime impressed with the patterns and colours peculiar to that people. They established the trade in the thriving towns of Asia Minor, and they planted it as far west as Sicily, as Sicilian silks of the 12th century with Saracenic patterns still testify. Ordericus Vitalis, who died in the first half of the 12th century, mentions that the bishop of St Evroul, in Normandy, brought with him from Apulia in southern Italy several large pieces of silk, out of the finest of which four copes were made for his cathedral chanters. The cultivation and manufacture spread northwards to Florence, Milan, Genoa and Venice - all towns which became famous for silken textures in medieval times. In 1480 silk weaving was begun under Louis XI. at Tours, and in 1520 Francis I. brought from Milan silkworm eggs, which were reared in the Rhone valley. About the beginning of the 17th century Olivier de Serres and Laffemas, somewhat against the will of Sully, obtained royal edicts favouring the growth of mulberry plantations and the cultivation of silk; but it cannot be said that these industries were firmly established till Colbert encouraged the planting of the mulberry by premiums, and otherwise stimulated local efforts.
Into England silk manufacture was introduced during the reign of Henry VI.; but the first serious impulse to manufactures of that class was due to the immigration in 1585 of a large body of skilled Flemish weavers who fled from the Low Countries in consequence of the struggle with Spain then devastating their land. Precisely one hundred years later religious troubles gave the most effective impetus to the silk-trade of England, when the revocation of the edict of Nantes sent simultaneously to Switzerland, Germany and England a vast body of the most skilled artisans of France, who planted in these countries silkweaving colonies which are to this day the principal rivals of the French manufacturers. The bulk of the French Protestant weavers settled at Spitalfields, London - an incorporation of silk workers having been there formed in 5629. James I. used many efforts to encourage the planting of the mulberry and the rearing of silkworms both at home and in the colonies. Up to the year 1718 England depended on the thrown silks of Europe for manufacturing purposes. But in that year Lombe of Derby, disguised as a common workman, and obtaining entrance as such into one of the Italian throwing mills, made drawings of the machinery used for this process. On his return, subsidized by the government, he built and worked, on the banks of the Derwent, the first English throwing mill. In 1825 a public company was formed and incorporated under the name of the British, Irish and Colonial Silk Company, with a capital of 1,000,000, principally with the view of introducing sericulture into Ireland, but it was a complete failure, and the rearing of the silkworm cannot be said ever to have become a branch of British industry.
In 1522 Cortes appointed officials to introduce sericulture into New Spain (Mexico), and mulberry trees were then planted and eggs were brought from Spain. The Mexican adventure is mentioned by Acosta, but all trace of the culture had died out before the end of the century. In 1609 James I. attempted to reinstate the silkworm on the American continent, but his first effort failed through shipwreck. An effort made in 1619 obtained greater success, and, the materials being present, the Virginian settlers were strongly urged to devote attention to the profitable industry of silk cultivation. Sericulture was enjoined under penalties by statute; it was encouraged by bounties and rewards; and its prosecution was stimulated by learned essays and rhapsodical rhymes, of which this is a sample: " Where Wormes and Food doe naturally abound A gallant Silken Trade must there be found.
Virginia excels the World in both Envie nor malice can gaine say this troth!" In the prospectus of Law's great Compagnie des Indes Occidentales the cultivation of silk occupies a place among the glowing attractions which allured so many to disaster. Onward till the period of the War of Independence bounties and other rewards for the rearing of worms and silk filature continued to be offered; and just when the war broke out Benjamin Franklin and others were engaged in nursing a filature into healthy life at Philadelphia. With the resumption of peaceful enterprise, the stimulus of bounties was again applied - first by Connecticut in 1783; and such efforts have been continued sporadically down almost to the present day. Bounties were last offered by the state of California in 1865-1866, but the state law was soon repealed, and an attempt to obtain state encouragement again in 1872 was defeated. About 1838 a speculative mania for the cultivation of silk developed itself with remarkable severity in the United States. It was caused principally through the representations of Samuel Whitmarsh as to the capabilities of the South Sea Islands mulberry (Mores multicaulis) for feeding silkworms; and so intense was the excitement that plants and crops of all kinds were displaced to make room for plantations of M. multicaulis. In Pennsylvania as much as $300,000 changed hands for plants in one week, and frequently the young trees were sold two and three times over within a few days at ever-advancing prices. Plants of a single year's growth reached the ridiculous price of $1 each at the height of the fever, which, however, did not last long, for in 1839 the speculation collapsed; the famous M. multicaulis was found to be no golden tree, and the costly plantations were uprooted.
The most singular feature in connexion with the history of silk is the persistent efforts which have been made by monarchs and other potentates to stimulate sericulture within their dominions, efforts which continue to this day in British colonies, India and America. These endeavours to stimulate by artificial means have in scarcely any instance resulted in permanent success. In truth, raw silk can only be profitably brought to the market where there is abundant and very cheap labour - the fact that China, Japan, Bengal, Piedmont and the Levant are the principal producing localities making that plain.
The Silkworm. The mulberry-feeding moth, Bombyx mori, which is the principal source of silk, belongs to the Bombycidae, a family of Lepidoptera in which are embraced some of the largest and most handsome moths. B. mori is itself an inconspicuous moth (figs. 1 and 2), of an ashy white colour, with a body in the case of the male not 2 in. in length, the female being a little longer and stouter. Its wings are short and weak; the fore pair are falcate, and the hind pair do not reach to the end of the body. The larva (fig. 3) is hairless, of an ashy grey or cream colour, attains to a length of from 3 to 32 in., and is slender in comparison with many of its allies. The second thoracic ring is humped, and there is a spine-like horn or protuberance at the tail. The common silkworm produces as a rule only one generation during the year; but there are races in cultivation which are bivoltine, or twogenerationed, and some are multivoltine. Its natural food is the leaves of mulberry trees. The silk glands or vessels consist of two long thick-walled sacs running along the sides of the body, which open by a common orifice - the spinneret or seripositor - on the under lip of the larva. Fig. 4 represents the head (a) and feet (b, b) of the common silkworm, while c is a diagrammatic view of the silk glands. As the larva approaches maturity these vessels become gorged with a clear viscous fluid, which, upon being exposed to the air immediately hardens to a solid mass. Advantage is taken of this peculiarity to prepare from fully developed larvae silkworm gut used for casting lines in rodfishing, and for numerous other purposes where lightness, tenacity, flexibility and strength are essential. The larvae are killed and hardened by steeping some hours in strong acetic acid; the silk glands are then separated from the bodies, and the vis cous fluid drawn out to the condition of a fine uniform line, which is stretched between pins at the extremity of a board. The board is then exposed to the sunlight till the lines dry and harden into the condition of gut. The preparation of gut is, however, merely an unimportant collateral manufacture. When the larva is fully mature, and ready to change into the pupa condition, it proceeds to spin its cocoon, in which operation it ejects from both glands simultaneously a continuous and reelable thread of 800 FIG. 4.
to 1200 yds. in length, moving its head round in regular order continuously for three days or thereabouts. The thread so ejected forms the silk of commerce, which as wound in the cocoon consists of filaments seriposited from two separate glands (discovered by an Italian naturalist named Filippi) containing a glutinous or resinous secretion which serves a double purpose, viz. that of helping the thin viscous threads through their final outlets, and the adhesion of the two filaments when brought into contact with the atmosphere.
Under the microscope cocoon silk presents the appearance (fig. 5) of a somewhat flattened combination of two filaments placed side by side, being on an average nlua part of an inch in thickness (see also Fibres, Plate I.). The cocoons are white or yellow in colour, oviform in shape, with often a constriction in the middle (fig. 6). According to race, &c., they vary considerably in size and weight, but on an average they measure from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and from half an inch to an inch in diameter. They form FIG. 1. - Bombyx mori (male).
FIG. 2. - Bombyx mori (female).: _; FIG. 3. - Larva of Bombyx mori. hard, firm and compact shells with some straggling flossy filaments on the exterior, and the interior layers are so closely and densely agglutinated as to constitute a parchment-like mass which resists all attempts at unwinding. The whole cocoon with its enclosed pupa weighs from 15 grains for the smaller races to about 50 grains for FIG. 5. - Microscopic appearance FIG. 6. - Cocoon of Silk of Bombyx mori. of Bombyx mori. the breeds which spin large cocoons. From two to three weeks after the completion of the cocoon the enclosed insect is ready to escape; it moistens one end of its self-made prison, thereby enabling itself to push aside the fibres and make an opening by which the perfect moth comes forth. The sexes almost immediately couple; the female in from four to six days lays her eggs, numbering 500 and upwards; and, with that the life cycle of the moth being complete, both sexes soon die.
Laurent de l'Arbousset showed in 1905 that 1 oz. cf seed of 30 grammes producing 30,000 to 35,000 silkworms (30,000 may be depended upon to reach the cocoon stage) will give a harvest of 130 to 140 lb fresh cocoons and an ultimate yield of about 12 lb raw silk properly reeled. The amount of nourishment required for this rearing is as follows: hatching to first moult, about 9 lb of leaves of tender growth, equal to 40 to 45 lb ripe leaves; first to second moult, 24 lb, representing roc) lb ripe leaves; second to third moult, 80 lb, representing 240 lb ripe leaves; third to fourth moult, 236 lb, representing 472 lb ripe leaves; fourth moult to mounting, 1430 lb, representing 1540 lb ripe leaves, totalling to about one ton of ripe leaves for a complete rearing. The growth of the worms during their larval stage is thus stated by Count Dandolo: - When the caterpillars are mature and ready to undergo their transformation into the pupa condition, they cease eating for some time and then begin to ascend the brushwood branches or echelletes provided for them, in which they set about the spinning of their cocoons. Crowding of positions must now be guarded against, to prevent the spinning of double cocoons (doupions) by two worms spinning together and so interlacing their threads that they can only be reeled for a coarser and inferior thread. The insects complete their cocoons in from three to four days, and in two or three days thereafter the cocoons are collected, and the pupa killed to prevent its further progress and the bursting of the shell by the fully developed moth. Such cocoons as are selected for the production of graine, on the other hand, are collected, freed from the external floss, and preserved at a temperature of from 66° to 72° F., and after a lapse of from eleven to fifteen days the moths begin to make their appearance. The coupling which immediately takes place demands careful attention; the males are afterwards thrown away, and the impregnated females placed in a darkened apartment till they deposit their eggs.
Diseases
That the silkworm is subject to many serious diseases is only to be expected of a creature which for upwards of 4000 years has been propagated under purely artificial conditions, and these most frequently of a very insanitary nature, and where, not the healthy life of the insect, but the amount of silk it could be made to yield, was the object of the cultivator. Among the most fatal and disastrous of these diseases with which the cultivator had long to grapple was " muscardine," a malady due to the development of a fungus, Botrytis bassiana, in the body of the caterpillar. The disease is peculiarly contagious and infectious, owing to the development of the fungus through the skin, whence spores are freed, which, coming in contact with healthy caterpillars, fasten on them and germinate inwards, giving off corpuscles within the body of the insect. Muscardine, however, has not been epidemic for many years. But about the year 1853 anxious attention began to be given in France to the ravages of a disease among silkworms, which from its alarming progress threatened to issue in national disaster. This disease, which at a later period became known as " pebrine " - a name given to it by de Quatrefages, one of its many investigators - had first been noticed in France at Cavaillon in the valley of the Durance near Avignon. Pebrine manifests itself by dark spots in the skin of the larvae; the eggs do not hatch out, or hatch imperfectly; the worms are weak, stunted and unequal in growth, languid in movement, fastidious in feeding; many perish before coming to maturity; if they spin a cocoon it is soft and loose, and moths when developed are feeble and inactive. When sufficient vitality remains to produce a second generation it shows in increased intensity the feebleness of the preceding. The disease is thus hereditary, but in addition it is virulently infectious and contagious.
From 1850 onwards French cultivators were compelled, in order to keep up their silk supply, to import graine from uninfected districts. The area of infection increased rapidly, and with that the demand for healthy graine correspondingly expanded, while the supply had to be drawn from increasingly remote and contracted regions. Partly supported by imported eggs, the production of silk in France was maintained, and in 1853 reached its maximum of 26,000,000 kilos of cocoons, valued at 117,000,000 francs. From that period, notwithstanding the importation at great cost of foreign graine, reaching in some years to 60,000 kilos, the production of silk fell off with startling rapidity: in 1856 it was not more than 7,500,000 kilos of cocoons; in 1861 and 1862 it fell as low as 5,800,000 kilos; and in 1865 it touched its lowest weight of about 4,000,000 kilos. In 1867 de Quatrefages estimated the loss suffered by France in the 13 years following 1853, from decreased production of silk and price paid to foreign cultivators for graine, to be not less than one milliard of francs. In the case of Italy, where the disease showed itself later but even more disastrously, affecting a much more extended industry, the loss in io years de Quatrefages stated at two milliards. A loss of £120,000,000 sterling within 13 years, falling on a limited area, and on one class within these two countries, constituted indeed a calamity on a national scale, calling for national effort to contend with its devastating action. The malady, moreover, spread eastward with alarming rapidity, and, although it was found to be less disastrous and fatal in Oriental countries than in Europe, the sources of healthy graine became fewer and fewer, till only Japan was left as an uninfected source of European graine supply.
A scourge which so seriously menaced the very existence of the silkworm in the world necessarily attracted a great amount of attention. So early as 1849 Guerin Meneville observed in the blood of diseased silkworms certain vibratory corpuscles, but neither did he nor the Italian Filippi, who studied them later, connect them distinctly with the disease. The corpuscles were first accurately described by Cornalia, whence they are spoken of as the corpuscles of Cornalia. The French Academy charged de Quatrefages, Decaisne and Peligot with the study of the disease, and they issued two elaborate reports - Etudes sur les maladies actuelles des vers soie (18J9) and Nouvelles Recherches sur les maladies actuelles des vers a soie (1860); but the suggestions they were able to offer had not the effect of stopping the march of the disease. In 1865 Pasteur undertook a Government commission for the investigation of the malady. Attention had been previously directed to the corpuscles of Cornalia, and it had been found, not only that they occurred in the blood, but that they gorged the whole tissues of the insect, and their presence in the eggs themselves could be microscopically demonstrated. Pasteur established (I) that the corpuscles are the special characteristic of the disease, and that these invariably manifest themselves, if not in earlier stages, then in the mature moths; (2) that the corpuscles are parasites, and not only the sign but the cause of the disease; and (3) that the disease manifests itself by heredity, by contagion with diseased worms, and by the eating of leaves on which corpuscles are spread. In this connexion he established the very important practical conclusion that worms which contract the disease during their own life-cycle retain sufficient vitality to feed, develop and spin their cocoon, although the next generation is invariably infected and shows the disease in its most virulent and fatal form. But this fact enabled the cultivator to know with assurance whether the worms on which he bestowed his labour would yield him a harvest of silk. He had only to examine the bodies of the moths yielding his graine: if they were free from disease then a crop was sure; if they were infected the education would assuredly fail. Pasteur brought out the fact that the malady had existed from remote periods and in many unsuspected localities. He found corpuscles in Japanese cocoons and in many specimens which had been preserved for lengthened periods in public collections. Thus he came to the conclusion that the malady had been inherent in many successive generations of the silkworm, and that the epidemic condition was only an exaggeration of a normal state brought about by the method of cultivation and production of graine pursued. The cure proposed by Pasteur was simply to take care that the stock whence graine was obtained should be healthy, and the offspring would then be healthy also. Small educations reared apart from the ordinary magnanerie, for the production of graine alone, were recommended. At intervals of five days after spinning their cocoons specimens were to be opened and the chrysalides examined microscopically for corpuscles. Should none. have appeared till towards the period of transformation and escape of the moths, the eggs subsequently hatched out might be depended on to yield a fair crop of silk; should the moths prove perfectly free from corpuscles after depositing their eggs the next generation would certainly live well through the larval stage. For special treatment towards the regeneration of an infected race, the most robust worms were to be selected, and the moths issuing from the cocoons were to be coupled in numbered cells, where the female was to be confined till she deposited her eggs. The bodies of both male and female were to be examined for corpuscles, and the eggs of those found absolutely free from taint were preserved for similar " cellular " treatment in the following year. By this laborious and painstaking method it has been found possible to re-establish a healthy stock of valuable races from previously highly-infected breeds. The rearing of worms in small educations under special supervision has been found to be a most effective means of combating pebrine. In the same way the rearing of worms for graine in the open air, and under as far as possible natural conditions, has proved equally valuable towards the development of a hardy, vigorous and untainted stock. The open-air education was originally proposed by Chavannes of Lausanne, and largely carried out in the canton of Vaud by Roland, who reared his worms on mulberry trees enclosed within " manchons " or cages of wire gauze and canvas. The insects appeared quickly to revert to natural conditions; the moths brought out in open air were strongly marked, lively and active, and eggs left on the trees stood the severity of the winter well, and hatched out successfully in the following season. Roland's experience demonstrated that not cold but heat is the agent which saps the constitution of the silkworm and makes it a ready prey to disease.
Grasserie is another form of disease incidental to the silkworm. It often appears before or after the first moult, but it is only after the fourth that it appears in a more developed form. The worm attacked presents the following symptoms: the skin is distended as if swollen, is rather thin and shiny, and the body of the worm seems to have increased, that is, it suffers from fatness, or is engraisse, hence its name. The disease is characterized by the decomposition of the blood; in fact it is really a form of dropsy. The blood loses its transparency and becomes milky, its volume increases so that the skin cannot hold it, and it escapes through the pores. This disease is more accidental than contagious and rarely takes very dangerous proportions. If the attack comes on a short time before maturity, the worms are able to spin a cocoon of a feeble character, but worms with this disease never change into chrysalides, but always die in the cocoon before transformation can take place. The causes which produce it are not well known, but it is generally attributable to currents of cold and damp air, to the use of wet leaves in feeding, and to sudden changes of temperature.
Another cause of serious loss to the rearers is occasioned by Flacherie, a disease well known from the earliest times. Pasteur showed that the origin of the disease proceeded from microscopic organisms called ferments and vitrios. One has only to ferment a certain quantity of mulberry leaves, chop them up and squeeze them, and so obtain a liquid, to find in it millions of ferments and vitrios. It invariably happens during the most active period of feeding, three or four days after the fourth moult up to the rising, and generally appears after a meal of coarse leaves, obtained from mulberries pruned the same year and growing in damp soil. Flacherie is an intestinal disease of the cholera species and therefore contagious. The definite course is not occasioned so much from the ferments which exist in the leaves themselves, but from an arrest of the digestive process which allows the rapid multiplication of the former in the intestines. Good ventilation is indispensable to allow the worm to give out by transpiration the great quantity of water that it absorbs with the leaf. If this exhalation is stopped or lessened the digestion in its turn is also stopped, the leaf remains longer than usual in the intestines, the microbes multiply, invading the whole body, and this brings about the sudden death which surprises the rearers. The true remedies consist in the avoidance of the fermentation of the leaves by careless gathering, transport or packing, in proper hygienic care in ventilation and in maintaining a proper degree of dryness in the atmosphere in rainy weather, and in the use of quicklime placed in different parts of the nursery to facilitate the transpiration of the silk-worms.
Wild Silks
The ravages of pebrine and other diseases had the effect of attracting prominent attention to the numerous other insects, allies of the mulberry silkworm, which spin serviceable cocoons. It had been previously pointed out by Captain Hutton. who devoted great attention to the silk question as it affects the East Indies, that at least six species of Bombyx, differing from B. mori, but also mulberry-feeding, are more or less domesticated in India. These include B. textor, the boropooloo of Bengal, a large species having one generation FIG. 7. - Chinese Tussur Moth, yearly and producing a soft flossy cocoon; the Chinese monthly worm, B. sinensis, having several generations, and making a small cocoon; and the Madrasi worm of Bengal croesi), the Dassee or Desi worm of Bengal (B. fortunatus) and arracanensis, the Burmese worm - all of which yield several Antheraea pernyi (male).
generations in the year and form reelable cocoons. Besides these there are many other mulberry-feeding Bombycidae in the East, principally belonging to the genera Theophila and Ocinara, the cocoons of which have not attracted cultivators. The moths yielding wild silks which have obtained most attention belong to the extensive and handsome family Saturnidee. The most important of the species at the present time is the Chinese tussur or tasar worm, Antheraea pernyi (figs. 7, 8), an oakfeeding species, native of Mongolia, from which is derived the greater part of the so-called tussur silk now imported intoEurope. Closely allied to this is the Indian tussur moth (fig. 9) Antheraea mylitta, found throughout the whole of India feeding on the bher tree, Zizyphus jujuba, and on many other plants. It yields a large compact cocoon (fig. so) of a silvery grey colour, which Sir Thomas Wardle of Leek, who devoted a great amount of attention to the wild-silk question, succeeded in reeling. Next in promising qualities is the muga or moonga worm of Assam, Antheraea assaina, a species to some extent domesticated in its native country. The FIG. Antheraea mylitta (female). yama-mai worm of Japan, Antheraea (Sarnia) yama-mai, an oak-feeder, is a race of considerable importance in Japan, where it was said to be jealously guarded against foreigners. Its eggs were first sent to Europe by Duchene du Bellecourt, French consulgeneral in Japan in 1861; but early in March following they hatched out, when no leaves on which the larvae would feed were to be found. In April a single worm got oak-buds, on which it throve, and ultimately spun a cocoon whence a female moth issued, from which Guerin Meneville named and described the species. A further supply of eggs was secretly obtained by a Dutch physician Pompe van Meedervoort in 1863, and, as it was now known that the worm was an oak-feeder, and would thrive on the leaves of European oaks, great results were anticipated from the cultivation of the yama-mai. These expectations, however, for various reasons, have been disappointed. The moths hatch out at a period when oak leaves are not ready for their feeding, and the silk is by no means of a quality to compare with that of the common mulberry worm. The mezankoorie moth of the Assamese, Antheraea mezankooria, yields a valuable cocoon, as does also the Atlas moth, Attacus atlas, which has an omnivorous larva found throughout India, Ceylon, Burmah, China and Java. The Cynthia moth, Attacus cynthia, is domesticated as a source of silk in certain provinces of China, where it feeds on the Ailanthus glandulosa. The eria or arrindi moth of Bengal and Assam, Attacus ricini, which feeds on the castor-oil plant, yields seven generations yearly, forming loose flossy orange-red and sometimes white cocoons. The ailanthus silkworm of Europe is a hybrid between A. cynthia and A. ricini, first obtained by Guerin Meneville, and now spread through many silk-growing regions. These are only a few of the moths from which silks of various usefulness can be produced; but none of these presents qualities, saving perhaps cheapness alone, which can put them in competition with common silk.
Physical and Chemical Relations of Silk. Common cocoons enclosing chrysalides weigh each from 16 to 50 grains, or say from 300 to 600 of small breeds and from 270 to 300 of large breeds to the lb. About one-sixth of this weight is pure cocoon, and of that one-half is obtainable as reeled silk, the remainder consisting of surface floss or blaze and of hard gummy husk. As the outer flossy threads and the inner vests are not reelable, it is difficult to estimate the total length of thread produced by the silkworm, but the portion reeled varies in length and thickness, according to the condition and robustness of the cocoon, in some breeds giving a result as low as Soo metres, and in others 900 to 1200 metres. Under favourable conditions it is estimated that i r kilogrammes of fresh cocoons give 1 kilogramme of raw silk for commerce, and about the same quantity for waste spinning purposes. Sir Thomas Wardle of Leek, in his handbook on silk published in 1887, showed by a series of measurements that the diameter of a single cocoon thread or bave varied from o oth to -nth part of an inch in diameter in the various species of Bombycides, whilst those of the Saturnides or wild species varied from - 0 oth to 3-0 0 th part of an inch. As this estimation presents some difficulties and divergences, the size of the thread is generally defined commercially by deniers or decigrammes, those of the Anthereas (wild silks) being said to range from 5 to 8 deniers or decigrammes, results confirmed by actual experience with the reeled thread. The silk of the various species of Antheraea and Attacus is also thicker and stronger at the centre of the reeled portion than towards its extremities; but the diameter is much greater than that of common silk, and the filaments under the microscope (fig. 11) present the appearance of flat bands, the exudation from the two spinnerets being joined at their flat edges. On this account the fibres of tussur or tussore silk tend to split up into fine fibrillae under the various preparatory processes in manufacturing, and its riband structure is the cause of the glassy lustre peculiar to the woven and finished fibres.
Silk fibre (see Fibres) consists essentially of a centre or core of fibroin, with a covering of sericin or silk albumen, and a little waxy and colouring matter. Fibroin, which is analogous to horn, hair and like dermal products, constitutes about 75 to 82% of the entire mass, and has a composition represented by the formula C15H23506. It has the characteristic appearance of pure silk - a brilliant soft white body with a pearly lustre - insoluble in water, alcohol and ether, but it dissolves freely in concentrated alkaline solutions, mineral acids, strong acetic acid and in ammoniacal solution of oxide of copper. Sericin, which constitutes the gummy covering (Fr. gres) of the fibre, is a gelatinous body which dissolves readily in warm soapy solutions, and in hot water, in which on cooling it forms a jelly with even as little as 1% of the substance. It is precipitated from hot solutions by alcohol, falling as a white powder. Its formula is C15H25N508. According to P. Bolley, the glands of the silkworm contain semi-liquid fibroin alone, and it is on exposure to the air that FIG. 8. - Cocoon of Antheraea pernyi. FIG. Io. - Cocoon of Antheraea mylitta. FIG. II. - Microscopic appearance of Silk of Chinese Tussur.
the surface is acted on by oxygen, transforming the external pellicle into the more soluble form of sericin. Silk is highly hygroscopic. If desiccated at 250° F. it will be found to lose from 10 to 15% of moisture according to the condition of the silk. It is a most perfect non-conductor of electricity, and in its dry state the fibres frequently get so electrically excited as to seriously interfere with their working, so that it becomes necessary to moisten them with glycerin or soapy solutions. Silk is readily distinguished from wool and other animal fibres by the action of an alkaline solution of oxide of lead, which darkens wool, &c., owing to the sulphur they contain, but does not affect silk, which is free from that body. Again, silk dissolves freely in common nitric acid, which is not the case with wool. From vegetable fibres silk is readily distinguished by the bright yellow colour it takes from a solution of picric acid, which does not adhere to vegetable substances. The rod-like appearance of silk and its absence of markings under the microscope are also easily recognizable features of the fibre.
Silk Manufacture. Here we must distinguish between the reeled silk and the spun or waste silk manufactures. The former embraces a range of operations peculiar to silk, dealing as they do with continuous fibres of great length, whereas in the spun silk industry the raw materials are treated by methods analogous to those followed in the treatment of other fibres (see Weaving). It is only floss, injured and unreelable cocoons, the husks of reeled cocoons, and other waste from reeling, with certain wild silks, which are treated by the spun silk process, and the silk thereby produced loses much of the beauty, strength and brilliance which are characteristic of the manufactures from reeled silk.
Silk Weighting
Into the dyeing of silk it is not here necessary to enter, except in so far as concerns a nefarious practice, carried on in dye-houses, which has exercised a most detrimental influence on the silk trade. Silk, we have seen, loses about one-fourth of its weight in scouring. To obviate that loss it has long been the practice to dye some dark silks " in the gum," the dye combining in these cases with the gum or gelatinous coating, and such silks are known as " souples. Both in the gum and in the boiled-off state silk has the peculiar property of imbibing certain metallic salts largely and combining very firmly with them, the fibre remaining to external appearance undiminished in strength and lustre, but much added to in size and weight. Silk in the gum, it is found, absorbs these salts more freely than boiled-off; so to use it for weighting there are these great inducements - a saving of the costly and tedious boiling-off, a saving of the 25% weight which would have disappeared in boiling and a surface on which much greater sophistication can be practised than on scoured silk. In dyeing a silk black a certain amount of weight must be added; and the common practice in former times was to make up on the silk what was lost in the scouring. Up to 1857 the utmost the dyer could add was " weight for weight," but an accidental discovery that year put dyers into the way of using tin salts in weighting with the result that they were enabled to add 40 oz. to scoured silk, 120 oz. to souples and as much as 150 oz. to spun silks. This excessive adulteration quickly worked its own cure by a decreased consumption, and the weighting in practice in 1910 is confined to moderate and safer limits. The use of tin salts, especially stannic chloride, SnC1 4, enables dyers to weight all colours the same as black. In his " Report on English Silk Industry " to the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (1885) Sir Thomas Wardle of Leek says: " Colours and white of all possible shades can very easily be imparted to this compound of silk and tin, and this method is becoming extensively used in Lyons. Thus weighting, which was until recently thought to apply only to black silks, and from which coloured silks were comparatively free, is now cheapening and deteriorating the latter in pretty much the same ratio as the former. Thus the protoand per-salts of iron, as well as the protoand per-salts of tin, including also a large variety of tannin, sumac, divi-divi, chestnut, valonia, the acacias (Areca Catechu and Acacia Catechu from India), from which are obtained cutch and gambier, &c., are no longer used solely as mordants or tinctorial matters, but mainly to serve the object of converting the silk into a greatly-expanded fibre, consisting of a conglomeration of more or less of these substances." Sugar also is employed to weight silk. On this adulterant Sir Thomas Wardle remarks " With a solution of sugar, silk can have its weight augmented from I oz. to 3 oz. per lb. I am not quite sure that this method of weighting was not first used by the throwsters, as sugar is known to have been used for adulterating and loading gum silk for a very long time, and then the idea was afterwards applied to silk after the dyeing operations. It is much resorted to for weighting coloured silks by dyers on the continent, and, though a very clumsy method, no substitute has been found so cheap and easy of application. Bichloride of tin, having chemical affinity for silk fibre, bids fair to extinguish the use of sugar, which, from its hygrometric qualities, has a tendency to ruin the silk to which it is applied, if great care be not taken to regulate the quantity. There is not the slightest use or excuse for the application of sugar, except to cheapen the silk by about 15 to 20 Wild Silk Dyeing. - Among the disadvantages under which the silks of the wild moths long laboured one of the most serious was the natural colour of the silks, and the extreme difficulty with which they took on dyes, specially the light and brilliant colours. For success in coping with this difficulty, as well as in dealing with the whole question of the cultivation and employment of wild silks, the unwearying patience and great skill of Sir Thomas Wardle of Leek deserve special mention here. The natural colour of tussur silk is a greyish fawn, and that shade it was found impossible to discharge by any of the ordinary bleaching agents, so as to obtain a basis for light and delicate dyes. Moreover, the chemical character of the tussur silk differs from that of the mulberry silk, and the fibre has much less affinity for tinctorial substances, which it takes up unevenly, requiring a large amount of dye-stuffs. After protracted experimenting Sir Thomas Wardle was able in 1873 to show a series of tussurs well dyed in all the darker shades of colour, but the lighter and bright blues, pinks, scarlets, &c., he could not produce, Subsequently Tessie du Motay found that the fawn colour of natural tussur could be discharged by solution of permanganate of potash, but the oxidizing action was so rapid and violent that it destroyed the fibre itself. Gentler means of oxidation have since been found for bleaching tussur to a fairly pale ground. The silk of the eria or castor-oil worm (Attacus ricini) presents the same difficulties in dyeing as the common tussur. A portion of the eria cocoons are white, while the others are of a lively brown colour, and for the dyeing of light colours the latter require to undergo a bleaching process. The silk takes up colour with difficulty from a strong vat, and is consequently costly to dye. Moonga silk from Antheraea assama has generally a rather darkbrown colour, but that appears to be much influenced by the leaves on which the worm feeds, the cocoons obtained on the champaca tree (Michelia champaca) giving a fine white fibre much valued in Assam. The dark colours are very difficult to bleach, but the silk itself takes dye-colours much more freely and evenly than either tussur or eria silk. (F. W. *) Trade and Commerce. About the beginning of the 19th century the chief silk-producing regions of the world were the Levant (including Broussa, Syria and Persia), India, Italy and France, the two first named sending the low-priced silk, the other two the fine qualities.
Between 1840 and 1850, after the opening of trade with China, large quantities of silk were sent from the northern port of Shanghai, and afterwards also from the southern port of "Canton. The export became important just at the time when disease in Europe had lessened the production on the continent. This increased production of medium silk, and the growing demand for fine sorts, induced many of the cocoon-growers in the Levant to sell their cocoons to Europeans, who reeled them in Italian fashion under the name of " Patent Brutia," thus producing a very fine valuable silk. In 1857 commenced the exportation of Japan silk, which became so fierce a competitor with Bengal silk as gradually to displace it in favour; and the native silk reeled in Bengal has almost ceased to be made, only the best European filatures, produced under the supervision of skilled Europeans, now coming forward.
China and Japan, both of which contribute so largely to the supplies that appear in European and American statistics, only export their excess growth, silk-weaving being carried on and native silk worn to an enormous extent in both countries. The other Asiatic exporting countries also maintain native silk manufactures which absorb no inconsiderable proportion of their raw material. Since about 1880 the silk production of the world (including only exports from the East) has more than doubled, the variations owing to partial failures from some countries being more than compensated by increase from others. The supplies available for European and American consumption have been carefully tabulated by the Lyons Chamber of Commerce, as shown by the table.
While the tables indicate the fluctuations of supply they show generally that Asiatic countries, in addition to supplying the necessities for their home trade, export to Europe and America about threefifths of the whole of the silk consumed in Western manufactures.
Up to the year 1860 the bulk of the silks from the East was shipped to London, but subsequently, owing to the importance of continental demands, a large portion of the supplies has been unshipped at Genoa and Marseilles (especially the finer reeled silks from Japan and Canton), which are sold in the Milan and Lyons markets. Those for American consumption are sent direct by the Pacific route via San Francisco. Table II. shows the official annual returns of silk imports into Great Britain from 1880 to 1908.
[[Table Ii]].-Imports of Silk into Great Britain. The power loom, owing to the improvement in its mechanism, has gained a distinct precedence and materially increased its producing power. In the development of silk manufacture the hand loom has taken a very secondary position. In order to form a relative idea of the importance of the various countries engaged in silk manufacture, a tabulation of the number of looms employed in each country would prove an inadequate guide, owing to the variations from time to time of the fabrics woven, as also to the difficulty in obtaining trustworthy statistics of the number in active operation. The production and consumption of raw material shown in Table III. was prepared by Messrs Chabrieres, Morel & Co. of Lyons, Marseilles and Milan, and issued in 1905.
America takes a premier position in consumption of the raw material. The development and expansion of silk manufacture, owing to the importance and extent of the home market, coupled with high protective tariffs, has been enormous. In 1867 the import of raw material amounted to 491,983 lb. In 1905 a record was reached of 17,812,133 lb. During the decade of 1898 to 1908 the consumption has gone on steadily from about 10 million lb in the first five years to an average of 15 million lb in the second half of the decade. France comes a good second in importance with a consumption of 9 to 10 million lb annually. Lyons is the headquarters of the trade, principally in the production of dress fabrics, plain and figured, and other light and heavier fabrics. St Etienne and St Chamond are important centres for the ribbon trade. There TABLE III.-Production and Consumption of Raw Material. N.B.-The difference in the totals is owing to the figures being based on the production in seasons, and that of consumption upon calendar years.
are also important manufactures of silk at Calais, Paris, Nimes, Tours, Avignon and Roubaix. Germany follows France with a consumption for the various fabrics of over six million lb annually. The principal seat of the trade in that country is at Crefeld, nearly one-half of the production of the empire being manufactured there. Velvet is the special feature of the industry, about one-half of the looms being devoted to this textile, the remainder being devoted to union satins, pure broad silk goods and ribbons. Other principal centres of the silk trade in Rhenish Prussia are Viersen, Barmen, Elberfeld and Muhlheim. The province of Saxony has also important manufactures of lace and glove fabrics. Third on the list of continental producers is Switzerland; Zurich takes the lead with broad goods (failles, armures, satins, serges, &c.), and Basel rivals St Etienne in the ribbon trade. Russia, by a prohibitive tariff on manufactured silks of other countries, has since 1890 developed and fostered a trade which consumes annually about 3 million lb of raw material for its home industry. This has also stimulated silk culture in the Caucasus, from which province it draws about one-third of its supplies. A special feature of its manufactures consists of gold and silver tissues and brocades for sacerdotal use. Moscow is one of the principal seats for the weaving of these fabrics. Italy, the early home of the silk trade in Europe, the land of the gorgeous velvets of Genoa and the damasks and brocades of medieval Sicily, Venice and Florence, now takes only a sixth place, the centre of greatest activity being at Como; but Genoa still makes velvets, and the brocades of Venice are not a thing of the past. Austria and England follow on the list of important silk manufactures. The former has found its principal development in Vienna and the immediate neighbourhood.
By special grants from the Hungarian government silk-reeling has been fostered and encouraged. In 1885 the production of raw silk was about 300,000 111, while in 1905 it reached 750,000 lb, an annual production which is still maintained.
In the United Kingdom all the silk industries (those depending on spun silk alone excepted) have been declining since the French Treaty of 1860 came into operation. This cannot be gauged by the xxv. 4 a decrease in imports of raw material from the fact before mentioned that formerly London was the centre of distribution for Eastern silk, which is now disembarked at other European ports for continental consumption. The shrinkage is the more noticeable in the throwing branch of the industry. Many of the mills formerly in operation in Derby, Nottingham, Congleton and Macclesfield have been closed owing to the importation of foreign thrown silks from Italy and France, where a lower rate of wages is paid to the operatives employed in this branch. In like manner the manufacture of silk fabrics in the districts of Manchester, Middleton, Macclesfield, London (Spitalfields) and Nottingham (for silk lace) has decreased proportionately. Against this we must set off a decided increase in the manufacture of mixed goods, carried on principally in Scotland, Yorkshire and Lancashire.
The remarkable development of the comparatively new trade in spun silk goes far to compensate for the loss of the older trade of net silk, and has enabled the exports of silk manufactures from Great Britain to be at least maintained and to show some signs of expansion. Silk spinning has chiefly developed in the Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire textiles centres. Its expansion and importance may be seen from the fact that the imports of waste, knubs, &c., which in 1860 was 1506 cwts., reached in 1905 a record of 72,055 cwts. But it is highly significant that while the exports of British silk manufactures have not decreased, the imports in the meantime have shown a marked expansion. Although the use of silk goods has unquestionably increased since the middle of the 19th century, the expansion of native productions has not kept pace with that growth. (R. Sri.) The Spinning of " Silk Waste." The term silk waste includes all kinds of raw silk which may be unwindable, and therefore unsuited to the throwing process. Before the introduction of machinery applicable to the spinning of silk waste, the refuse from cocoon reeling, and also from silk winding, which is now used in producing spun silk fabrics, hosiery, &c., was nearly all destroyed as being useless, with the exception of that which could be hand-combed and spun by means of the distaff and spinning wheel, a method which is still practised by some of the peasantry in India and other Eastern countries.
The supply of waste silk is drawn from the following sources: (I) The silkworm, when commencing to spin, emits a dull, lustreless and uneven thread with which it suspends itself to the twigs and leaves of the tree upon which it has been feeding, or to the straws provided for it by attendants in the worm-rearing establishments: this first thread is unreelable, and, moreover, is often mixed with straw, leaves and twigs. (2) The outside layers of the true cocoon are too coarse and uneven for reeling; and as the worm completes its task of spinning, the thread becomes finer and weaker, so both the extreme outside and inside layers are put aside as waste. (3) Pierced cocoons-i.e. those from which the moth of the silkworm has emerged-and damaged cocoons. (4) During the process of reeling from the cocoon the silk often breaks; and both in finding a true and [[Table Iv]].-Silk Goods exported from the United Kingdom. reelable thread, and in joining the ends, there is unavoidable waste. (5) Raw silk skeins are often re-reeled; and in this process part has to be discarded: this being known to the trade as gum-waste. The same term - gum-waste--is applied to " waste " made in the various processes of silk throwing; but manufacturers using threads known technically as organzines and trams call the surplus " manufacturer's waste." Finally we have the uncultivated varieties of silks known as " wild silks," the chief of which is tussur. The different qualities of " waste," of which there are many, vary in colour from a rich yellow to a creamy white; the chief producing countries being China, Japan, India, Italy, France and the countries in the Near East; and the best-known qualities are: steam wastes, from Canton; knubs, from China and from Italy and other Western countries; frisons, from various sources; wadding and blaze, Shanghai; china, Hangchow; and Nankin buttons; Indian and Szechuen wastes; punjum, the most lustrous of wastes; China curlies; Japan wastes, known by such terms as kikai, ostue, &c.; French, Swiss, Italian, China, Piedmont, Milan, &c. There are yellow wastes from Italy, and many more far too numerous to mention.
A silk " throwster " receives his silk in skein form, the thread of which consists of a number of silk fibres wound together to make a certain diameter or size, the separate fibre having actually been spun by the worm, and this fibre may measure anything from Soo to woo yds. in length. The silk-waste spinner receives his silk in quite a different form: merely the raw material, packed in bales of various sizes and weights, the contents being a much-tangled mass of all lengths of fibre mixed with much foreign matter, such as ends of straws, twigs, leaves, worms and chrysalis. It is the spinner's business to straighten out these fibres, with the aid of machinery, and then to so join them that they become a thread, which is known as spun silk.
There are two distinct kinds of spun silk - one called "schappe " and the other " spun silk " or " discharged spun silk." All silk produced by the worm is composed of two substancesfibroin, the true thread, and sericin, which is a hard, gummy coating of the " fibroin." Before the silk can be manipulated by machinery to any advantage, the gum coating must be removed, really dissolved and washed away - and according to the method used in achieving this operation the result is either a " schappe " or a " discharged yarn." The former, " schapping," is the French, Italian and Swiss method, from which the silk when finished is neither so bright nor so good in colour as the " discharged silk "; but it is very clean and level, and for some purposes absolutely essential, as, for instance, in velvet manufacture.
