4(j 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 oft' 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 any thing is to be expected from this insect, except as 

 a natural curiosity." 



Mr. John Glass, the surgeon at Baugliporc, 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 oft" the 

 silk from the cones. Inclosed is a little of some I bred a fewj^ears 

 ao-o, 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 Ave 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 

 shawls equal to any manufactured in India." 



Extract 



