392 SUPPLEMENT 
which is manufactured in certain places, stuffs remarkable 
for their suppleness and warmth. 'The fishermen, to procure 
these pinnz, make use of a large kind of iron rake, called a 
cramp, the teeth of which are a foot long, and the handle pro- 
portioned to the depth of the water, where the shell-fish are 
found. By dragging the rake strongly along, either by force of 
arm, or with the assistance of the motion of the bark, which 
carries the fishers, the pinna is tom away, the filaments of the 
byssus breaking in some point of their length, nothing then 
remains but to cut at their origin such as are long enough, 
and to spin them when they have been dried, to form tissues 
of different kinds, such as gloves, stockings, caps, and even 
larger clothing. The filaments of this byssus being extremely 
fine, of a perfect equality of diameter through their whole 
extent, of very great strength, and of a very brilliant and un- 
alterable reddish brown colour, they produce a stuff extremely 
supple, smooth, warm, and solid, the colour of which never 
changes. The ancients were acquainted with this sort of 
stuff, and it is still made in certain parts of Calabria and 
Sicily ; but its great dearness, resulting from the number of 
pinne marine which are necessary to make even a pair of 
‘gloves for example, has caused it to be scarcely any thing 
more than an object of curiosity, and the number of families 
that devote themselves to this sort of industry is diminishing 
every day. Were it an object to continue this manufacture, 
the best mode, perhaps, (and it has been proposed) would 
be to form depots for the pinne, as has been done both for 
oysters and mussels. By placing them in favourable cir- 
cumstances, they might be made to multiply prodigiously, 
and they might be gathered when they had attained the 
requisite size. 
The pinne are found in all the seas of warm climates, and 
in the Mediterranean ; one alone has been found in the British 
Channel. 
— eC 
