Oct. 1 6, 1879] 



NATURE 



575 



nearly all such goods were imported, and even now the 

 entire product of many of the American silk mills is 

 represented to the consumer as of European make. The 

 Silk Association have, however, bestirred themselves ; 

 they find that in order to obtain a standing in a market 

 where imported articles hold an established reputation 

 they are obliged to make better fabrics than their foreign 

 rivals, and, naturally enough, they now seek to secure for 

 themselves the credit of their enterprise. The Centennial 

 Exhibition startled the manufacturers both of this country 

 and of France with the extent and rapidity of their pro- 

 gress in developing this special branch of industry. The 

 railways across the Continent and the direct trade with 

 Asia across the Pacific Ocean have placed America more 

 nearly on a level with European countries as regards 

 supplies of raw silk ; improvements in the power-loom 

 and the continuance of the tariff policy of the Government 

 have done the rest. Mr. Wyckoff boldly states that had 

 that policy vacillated during the last ten or fifteen years 

 there would have been no story of improvement to tell. 



One of the main difficulties with which the American 

 manufacturer had to contend was the want of skilled 

 labour, and this was more especially felt in the production 

 of black dress goods. On account of the necessity of 

 securing perfect equality in the threads, such goods are 

 far more difficult to produce than are more highly 

 ornamented fabrics, but although the manufacture of 

 broad blacic silks on anything like a large scale has only 

 been attempted in America during the last half-dozen 

 years it is estimated that fully a third of the plain silks 

 and a much larger proportion of the brocade silks which 

 are consimned in that country are made there. Indeed 

 Mr. Wyckoff states that the advance in this branch of 

 manufacture within the last three years is greater than 

 that in any other department of American silk industry. 

 Nor is the reason for this far to seek. The American 

 manufacturers, as a class, have studiously set their faces 

 against the abominable system of "loading" which pre- 

 vails so largely on this side the Atlantic. Nearly all 

 European broad black silks are doubled, nay, sometimes 

 even trebled, in weight in the dyeing of the yarn. This 

 is how the "Black Art" is practised in France. The 

 yarn is repeatedly dipped in nitrate of iron until suffi- 

 ciently weighted, after which it is passed through a bath of 

 prussiate of potash and then treated with gambler and 

 acetate of iron. To brighten it it is next passed through 

 a logwood bath and well soaped ; if it is to be soft and 

 satin-like it is oiled and treated with soda ; if it is to be 

 stiff and rustling it is dipped in acid. No wonder after 

 this that the black silk with its load of grease and iron 

 wears shiny, and cracks in the folds. " It is asking too 

 much to demand that the few strands shall act as iron- 

 mine, soap-factory, and chemical laboratory all at once 

 and stand the wear of practical use besides. These 

 are requirements before which the English attempt 

 to make a grocery store out of a shirt pattern is a 

 simple and ordinary matter." Nothing is easier, how- 

 ever, than to discover this loading of dye-stuff. If ladies 

 would insist on being allowed to test a small sample of 

 the silk, at home, before purchasing, by the very simple 

 operation of burning it, the sophistication would speedily 

 perish. Pure silk crisps instantly on burning, and leaves 

 a small quantity of charcoal ; loaded silk smoulders 



slowly to a yellow ash. Not many years ago men's coats 

 were largely trimmed with black silk braid ; but now, as 

 a maker in the article was heard dolefully to declare, 

 "the trade in black braids is as dead as Julius Caesar," 

 for we have naturally got disgusted with the frayed and 

 brown appearance which the article generally assumes 

 after a week or two's wear, thanks to the fact that it 

 usually contains more dye-stufi" than silk. The public is 

 gradually awakening to a knowledge of these things, just 

 as surely as the patient Hindoo and the heathen Chinee 

 have had their eyes opened to that miserable compound 

 of starch, cotton, China clay, and Epsom salts which the 

 Manchester merchants have palmed off upon them as 

 genuine shirtings. 



Let the silk manufacturers take warning : to meet fall- 

 ing markets with inferior goods dressed and dodged so as 

 to simulate a better article is simply to hasten on the 

 time of trouble and disaster. Markets have reputations 

 as tender as that of Caesar's wife. If such malpractices 

 continue we shall soon be clamouring, in the interests of 

 commercial morality and of national prosperity, for an 

 extension of the Adulteration Act from our Food to our 

 Clothes. 



DARWINISM AND OTHER ESSAYS 

 Darwinism and other Essays. By John Fiske, M.A., 

 LL.B., formerly Lecturer on Philosophy, Instructor in 

 History, and Assistant- Librarian at Harvard University- 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., 1879.) 



TO readers of Nature there is nothing new and 

 little very striking in these essays, and it is only 

 Justice to Mr. Fiske to remark that the title of the first 

 which gives its^name to the volume, claims nothing of the 

 sort. The most interesting consideration in the four 

 papers upon the subject is the marvellous way in which 

 every science and line of thought, both in natural history 

 and in human history, have entirely chanj^ed their aspect 

 and started in a new direction since the publication of 

 " The Origin of Species." One fourth of the book is a 

 review of Mr. Buckle's " History of Civilisation," written 

 and published by Mr. Fiske when he was nineteen years 

 old ; the object of reprinting which now it is hard to see. 

 Yet it is interesting read in immediate juxtaposition with 

 the chapters on Darwinism, for nothing could show so 

 distinctly how high and dry the stream of knowledge has 

 left the whole theory of a work most celebrated only 

 twenty years ago. Buckle' s book, the theorem of which 

 was that there is a science of history, the laws of which 

 are as uniform and invariable as those of mechanics or 

 astronomy, if only we could discover and measure all the 

 various forces at work, was an energetic effort in the right 

 direction, and was gladly welcomed by many scientific 

 men of the day. But the key to the puzzle had not then 

 been found. Had Buckle lived in these days, when the 

 works of Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Sir H. Maine are 

 familiar, he would, no doubt, have built up a far more 

 coherent theory than he did. 



In two other papers in this volume we find development 

 working in two very different spheres, viz., in the produc- 

 tion of a nation, in the account of " The Races of the 

 Danube," and in the production of a catalogue, in his 

 description of a " Librarian's Work." Had Mr. Fiske 



