409 [Hayes. 



imported from Thibet, as many as four hundred being inti-oduced by one man- 

 ufacturer, Baron Ternaux, and much enthusiasm was excited in their cultm-e. 

 Experience, however, proved that these goats yielded but very little milk, and 

 that the raw wool or down produced from an individual never exceeded one 

 hundred and eighty grammes, usually much lesn, which it was very difficult to 

 separate from the coarse hairs, "yarre," and yielded not more than twenty-five 

 per cent, of material which could be woven. The manufacturers also discov- 

 ered, although they had overcome all the mechanical difficulties of fabrication, 

 that the raw material, expensive as it was, formed not more than one-tenth of 

 the cost of a shawl ; that the Indian weaver worked for one-fifth the wages of a 

 French workman, and that the ladies of fashion would pay double price for au 

 Indian shawl, inferior in color, design and texture to the French fabric. The 

 manufacture, which employed four thousand workmen iu 1834, began to decline 

 in 1840; and, although an occasional fabric maj' still be made, the manufacture 

 has now ceased as a regular industry. The demand for the wool ceasing, the 

 Cashmere goats became absorbed in the common race; and there is at present 

 but a single flock of pure blood in Europe, the one preserved in the remarkable 

 collection of domestic animals possessed by the King of Wurtemburg. There 

 is reason to believe that the culture of the Cashmere goat will never be revived 

 in Europe as a matter of profit, since a perfect substitute for the Cashmere 

 down is found in the silky fleece of the new Mauchamps sheep, which is de- 

 clared to be fully as brilliant and fully as soft as the product of the Cashmere 

 goat, while it costs less as a raw material, and requires less manipulation to be 

 transformed into yarn. (Sacc, sur les ch^vres. Bulletin supr. cit., T. iv., p. 48. 

 Industrie des chales. Travaux de la Commission Fran^ais, p. 10. Benieville 

 Industrie des laines Peign^es, p. 161.) 



The so-called goat of the Rocky Mountains is removed by Professor 

 Baird from the genus Capra, where it was formerly placed by him 

 under the designation of Capra Americana, mountain goat. He says 

 in the description of Aplocerus montanus, contained in his Report 

 of the Zoology of the Pacific Railroad routes, "The figures and de- 

 scription of the skull and other bones of this species by Dr. Richard- 

 son, show very clearly that the affinities are much more with the ante- 

 lojjes than with the goats or sheep. In fact, none of the more modern 

 systematic writers place it in the genus Capra, or, indeed, in the 

 ovine group. The mere general resemblance, externally, to a goat is 

 a matter of little consequence; indeed, its body is much more like 

 that of a merino sheep. The soft, silvery, under hairs are very differ- 

 ent from those of a goat, as well as the jet black horns, which are 

 without any ridges, and smooth and highly polished at the extremi- 

 ties."* 



The more recent investigations have shown that the animals re- 

 ferred to, and figured by G. Cuvier and F. Cuvier as types of the 

 Capra cegragus or Paseng, and said to occur both in Persia and on 

 the Alps, were domestic goats which had become wild. Later re- 

 searches have determined the true characteristics of C. cegragus, a 



* Vol. vn., p. 072. 



