46 Dr. Roxburgh's Account of 
thus manufactured, is wove into a coarse kind of white cloth, of 
a seemingly loose texture, but of incredible durability, the life of 
one person being seldom sufficient to wear out a garment made 
of it ; so that the same piece descends from mother to daughter. 
" Since I last wrote to you/' says Mr. Atkinson, " I have reared 
two parcels of Palma Christi silk-worms, with a view towards 
winding off the cocoons, but all my endeavours to obtain cocoons 
that would reel off were in vain. I even brought a man from the 
country where this species of silk-worm is cultivated, and he 
laughed at my endeavours to get cocoons to reel ; asserting that 
it was impossible, and that they were always spun off into a thread 
like cotton by the women only : he attempted to show me how, 
but made a very awkward hand of it, and a very bad specimen of 
thread : the operation, too, appeared tedious, so that I do not 
think that an}' thing is to be expected from this insect, except as 
a natural curiosity/' 
Mr. John Glass, the, surgeon at Bauglipore, writes to me as 
follows on the same subject : 
" I am glad to hear you have got the worm that feeds on the 
Ricinus, but sorry to say there is no possibility of winding off the 
silk from the cones. Inclosed is a little of some I bred a few \^ears 
ago, when I sent a quantity of it to the directors, but have never 
received an answer. I at the same time sent a little to my friends 
in England, and I understand that some manufacturers, to whom 
it was shown, seemed to think that we had been deceiving them 
by our accounts of the shawls being made from the wool of a 
goat; and that this Ricinus silk, if sent home, could be made into 
fchawls equal to any manufactured in India/* 
Extract 
