88 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



thus, co. As the filament is drawn off, the cocoons have a slight oscillat- 

 ing motion in the water ; and to keep them from entangling one another, 

 the basins are provided with brass wires, of proper shape, a little above 

 the surface of the water. Nearly a foot above each basin there projects a 

 wire, about three inches long, covered with some soft woollen or other 

 substance ; and over this material each set of six filaments is drawn, the 

 effect being to cleanse them from superfluous moisture, and from any 

 impurities which may adhere to the slender thread. To perform this 

 object, the throwster (in a second stage) resorts to a special winding, the 

 thread being drawn through a groove : since, however, it is then in a dry 

 state, the slight impurities are not likely to be so easily removed from the 

 fragile fibre as when it is moist. After descending from the cleansing part, 

 the six filaments pass through a small curve made of glass, and are 

 received by the flier, and spun upon the revolving bobbins. By this 

 treatment the winding into hanks, as performed by the silk growers 

 abroad, the winding on bobbins from the hank, and also the cleaning 

 process, as heretofore performed in England by the throwster, are entirely 

 dispensed with ; a perfect thread of silk, twisted or spun, being furnished 

 at one operation ; so that, if the silk be intended for organzme or warp, it 

 only requires the further process of doubling and throwing ; but if for 

 tram silk, one process is sufficient, as thread can be easily varied in thick- 

 ness by simply increasing or decreasing the number of cocoons placed in 

 the basin. 



One young girl can easily superintend thirty troughs, and a continuous 

 thread can be produced to fill a bobbin, free from knots or piercings ; for, 

 as any single filament breaks, the new end has simply to be placed in 

 contact with the other five, and becomes one with the thread ; and, as the 

 cocoons end at different places, the whole is produced in the same number 

 of fibres. A bobbin of China silk was inspected of double the fineness 

 of any China silk imported, equal to the finest French thrown silk, and 

 calculated to be worth more by 85 or 10s per pound than the same kind of 

 silk would have been if reeled from the cocoons in China a prior 

 process of preparing cocoons for the reeling is carried on in the same 

 room. They are placed for a few minutes in a solution of soap and hot 

 water. By means of a perforated ladle they are then removed to an 

 adjoining trough of warm water ; and here, with surprising facility, the prin- 

 cipal end of the silk on each cocoon is found by the hand of t^e girl who 

 discharges that duty. The water detaches the end, and she catches it 

 from the floating surface, sometimes taking up half a dozen such ends of 

 silk at a time. A little is drawn off, and then these cocoons are placed in 

 a basin, the ends hanging over the side. The two girls who superintend 

 the reeling fetch them as they may be required, and place them in a 

 trough at the end of the reeling frame, from which they remove them to 

 the respective basins, to substitute the cocoons as they become exhausted 

 of silk. The apparatus strips the silk very perfectly in fact down to the 

 tliin covering which encloses the chrysalis. It is stated that four pounds' 



