A, D. 73. 



177 



As a proper appendage to what has been faid of the commerce, pro- 

 duce, and manufaftures, of the Oriental countries, I annex a fpecimen 



in a finiftied ftate, who long enjoyed a monopoly of 

 the pretious infeft producing the filk, and who 

 even now, by pofTeffing a better kind of filk-worms, 

 or of the mulberry trees wlierewith they are fed, 

 or by better management, and the experience of 

 thoufands of years, command the market for the 

 mod brilliant iilk. 



Silk does not appear to have been known to 

 Homer, nor even to Herodotus, tliough he liim- 

 felf, and the Greeks of his age, liad much intcr- 

 courfe with the Egyptians, Phcenicians, and Per- 

 fians, opulent and luxurious nations, but who, per- 

 haps had not obtained any knowlege of it in his 

 time. Ariftotle, though the moil antient natu- 

 raliit extant, gives the bed account of the filk- 

 worm to be found in antiquity. He dtfcribes it 

 as a horned worm, which he calls bombyx, (a name 

 given by him to other infefts) and fays, that it 

 palTes through feveral transformations fn the courffe 

 of fix months, and that bombyhia is produced from 

 it. He adds, that fome women decompoftd the 

 bombyhia and le-fpun and rt-wove it, Pamphila, a 

 woman of Cos (an ifiand near the coaft of Caria) 

 being faid to have firft praftifcd that kind of weav- 

 ing. \_Hijl. anhn. L. v, c. 19.] He fays nothing 

 of the native country of the bombyx. — Pliny, 

 though he makes AfTyiia the native country of the 

 lombyx, from the ivcb of which the bumhycina was 

 made, tranfplants Pamphila, and her manufaiSure 

 of a delicate clothing for women, to Ceos, an ifland 

 on the oppofite fide of the iEgo^an fea near the coaft 

 of Attica, being apparently milled by Varro ; and 

 he immediately adds, that the bombyx was alfo ri- 

 porled to be a native of the ifland of Cos. He 

 elfevvhere fays, that the llufF (he never ufes the 

 word ferlcum) which the women of Rome undid 

 and wove anew, was made from a white woolly or 

 downy fubftance, coinbed by the Seres from the 

 leaves of trees, which were different from the 

 wool-bearing trees (cotton) of the ifland of Tylos 

 iii the Perfian gulf, and that the drapery (of that 

 kind) v.'as imported liom the Seres, along witii 

 their excellent iron, and furs or fliins. 1 have now 

 extrafted the fubftance of all that Pliny has 

 throughout his great work [L. iv, ,;. iz ; vi, 17 ; 

 xi, 22, 23 ; xii, 10; xxxiv, i^] any way con- 

 iiefted witli filk-worms or filk. — Moft of the other 

 writers afttr Ariftotle, particularly Nearchus, Ari- 

 ftobulus, Theophraftus, Virgil, (who has mifledhis 

 commentator Servius, and others) Dionyfius Perie- 

 getes, Mela, Seneca, Arrian, Rolinus, Ammianus 

 Marcellinus, Claudlan, Jerom, See. including a peri- 

 od of nine centuries, fuppofed that/JnVK/H was made 

 from fleeces growing upon trees, from the barks of 

 trees, or from flowers, and, with the confufion of 

 ideas, which is a necefTary confequence of attempt- 

 ing to defcribe what they did not know, mingling 

 I'.'hat they had heard of lllk-worms feeding on the 



Vol. I. 



leaves of trees, of cotton growing on treet, of flax, 

 and of the coir, or inner rind, of the coco-nut, in an 

 unintelligible jumble. And Ifidorus biftrop of Hif- 

 palis in Spain, though he lived a century after the 

 introdudlion of fdk-worms and the manufafture of 

 {ilk in Greece, was as ignorant as any of them, and 

 fervilely copied Pliny. [0;-4'./,. xix, a. 17,22,27.] 

 So tardy was the progrefs of information, even to 

 learned men in public ftations, in thofe ages. But, 

 what is more furprifing, Harrifon, wlio may be 

 called a modern author, has perverted the words of 

 Dionyfius Periegetes, defcribing the maiiufafturc 

 of the Seres, which, he fays was fpun finer than 

 the work of the fpider, to yarn made of the luocl 

 of Britain, a country at the oppofite extremity of 

 the earth. \_Dionys. v. 757. — Defcriplion of Bri- 

 tain prefixed to Hohri/lied's Chronicle, V. i, p. 221, 

 ed. 1586.] 



But whatever doubts or errors the autliors, who 

 wrote before filk-worms were brought to Europe, 

 might fall into, it was clearly afcertained that filk, 

 fericum, or Median drapery, was made of the flcnd- 

 er threads (fttrctl<x) fpun by worms in tlie country 

 of the Seres, by Procopitts, Gothic. L. iv, c. 17 — 

 TheophiladiSimocatta: Hiji .L.^\\\,c . g,andtheextraft 

 in Photii. Bibl.p. 93 — Theophancs in Pljulii Bibl. p. 

 79 — Suidas, "vo. Sh^e;, Sh^ocji — Zonaras, V. iii. p. 

 50, ed. Baftl. 1557 — And by all the writers of tlie 

 middle ages, who have occafion to mention filk, 

 and efpecially Otho Frifingenfis \_GeJl. Friderici I, 

 ap. Muratori Script. V. vi, col. 66S] when relating 

 the tranfportation of the filk- weavers (' opifices qui 

 fericos pannos icxcre folent') from Greece, the on- 

 ly Chriftian country where the manufsfture was 

 known, to Sicily. Suidas, in particular, fays ex- 

 prefsly, \.\\M. fericum, called by fome wf/a.va, is pro- 

 duced by a worm in the country of the Seres, and 

 therefor the ftuff made of the metaxa which was 

 formerly called Median, was afterwards called _/}/■;- 

 cum. — With fo many pofitive evidences before 

 them, it is really furprifing, that any doubt con- 

 cerning the application of thofe names fhould have 

 exifted among the learned of modern times. 



With ref[)eft to the filk reported to have been 

 produced in Cos, not Ceos, it muft have been of a 

 very bad quality, or in very minute quantities, if 

 the women, polTeffing it, would fubmit to the te- 

 dious and laborious operation of making raw ma- 

 terials out of foreign finiftied goods for their own 

 manufafture. But it feems to be a miftake to fay, 

 that there were any filk-worms, or bombyces, in 

 that ifland : and it may be prefumed, that what- 

 ever manufafture of filk-goods was cariicd on 

 there, was, Uke thofe of Tyre and Berytiis (to be 

 mentioned afterwards), fupplied with raw-filk im- 

 ported from the Eaft, which may be luppofed of a 

 quality inferior to that retained by the original pro- 

 prietors for their own mannfafture, and thence the 



different 



