RESOURCES OF AMERICA, SILK, ETC. 403 



by gentle breezes, and producing fleeces of downy wool, which, 

 after being sprinkled with water, are combed off in the finest threads, 

 and woven into sericum." 



This fable, which undoubtedly served for ages to deceive the na- 

 tions, is supposed to have been the invention of the Seres them- 

 selves, that they might appear to the wondering world as a peculiar 

 people, on whom blessings were profusely showered down from 

 heaven, in which no other nation could expect to participate. 



At Rome, and so late as A. D. 280, a silk attire of purple was 

 accounted by an emperor as a luxury too expensive even for an 

 empress, and that empress his wife, Severa; its value being equal to 

 that of gold, by weight. Others there were at Rome, and enougli 

 even at that day, who were by no means thus scrupulous in regard 

 to price. But it was not till long after the seat of the Roman em- 

 pire had been transferred to Byzantium or Constantinople, that the 

 distinct and more perfect knowledge of the nature and origin of silk 

 became known, and the mystery of the long sought " golden fleece " 

 was revealed to Europe. 



In the sixth century, two monks arrived at the court of the Em- 

 peror Justinian, at Constantinople, from a missionary expedition to 

 China. They had brought with them the seeds of the mulberry, and 

 communicated to him the discovery of the mode of rearing the silk- 

 worms. And, although the exportation of the insects from China 

 was forbidden, on pain of death, yet, by the liberal promises and 

 persuasions of Justinian, they undertook a new expedition ; and at 

 length they returned through Boukharia and Persia to Constantino- 

 ple, in 555, with the eggs of the precious insect concealed in the 

 hollow of their canes, or pilgrims' staves, which they had obtained 

 in the far and still more distant country. Until this time, the exten- 

 sive manufactures of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Berytus had 

 received their whole supplies of raw silk through Persia, from China. 

 Even to the days of Justinian, according to ancient historians, no 

 person at Constantinople knew, to a certainty, that silk was the pro- 

 duction of an insect. It was generally supposed to be produced 

 from the bark or leaves of trees, or growing, like the finest hair, from 

 their branches. A new era now commenced. 



The whole value of the silks manufactured in France, in 18:35, 

 amounted, by computation, to 140,000,000 francs, and it was estima- 

 ted in Europe, that, in that year, silks to the amount of 50,000,000 

 francs were exported from that country to the United States alone. 



Yet in France, although they raise so much silk, they still import, 

 annually, to the amount of 43,000,000 francs of raw silk, or nearly 

 one third of all they consume, for the supply of their manufactures. 



In England, the climate, from its humidity or other causes, is 

 found to be unsuited to its growth ; for this reason alone, the trials 

 to raise it there have failed. Yet from 1821 to 1828, according to 

 a late and authentic work on the silk trade, they imported, of raw silk, 

 24,157,568 Ibs., worth $120,787,580. Of this amount $59,881,283 

 came from Italy alone. 



At the present day, the silks which were consumed in Great 

 Britain alone, so late as 1835, amounted to the enormous sum of 

 $28,282,582 annually, at the wholesale prices, besides the whole 

 amount of all they exported. 



The sudden and extraordinary extension of the silk manufactures, 



