TEXTILE INDUSTRY. 383 



Between silk culture, which properly ends with the delivery of 

 the dead cocoons at the reeling establishment (when the cultivator 

 does not himself manage the reeling), and the manufacture, is the 

 silk spinner. He works up the silk waste into flurt or floss silk, 

 which is of great importance in the manufacture of velvet, and the 

 grege or reeled silk into organsin and trame, warp and woof threads. 

 In this the doubling and twisting machines are used, which the 

 French call niotilins and therefore designate often the entire pre- 

 paration of reeled silk for its several purposes, moulmage, by which 

 the thread acquires the necessary evenness, strength and dura- 

 bility. 



In reeling off the thread of the cocoons, from 3 to 15 (in Japan 

 usually 8 to 13) threads are spun together in a grege thread according 

 to the size (the titre) of the Ki-ito or raw silk that may be desired. 

 To make the strong Yama-mai thread from 5 to 6 cocoons are 

 generally taken in reeling. Usually the organsine threads, for which 

 the best reeled silk is used, have a double twisting, and are therefore 

 dull compared with the woof threads, as in all smooth lustrous fabrics. 

 With crape it is just the reverse. Here the warp, Jap. Tate, is smooth 

 and less twisted and the cross threads, Jap. Yoko-ito, or woof 

 threads, Jap. Naki-ito on the other hand are doubly twisted and 

 dull. In weaving smooth, even or twilled fabrics like Shusu (satin), 

 Nanako (taffeta), Sha and R6 (varieties of floss silk), Tsumugi 

 (waste material), the old handlooms or Hata are used in Japan and 

 the simbolt loom in making figured silks or Mon-ginu. This latter 

 has essentially the same arrangement as was universal in Europe 

 before the introduction of the Jacquard looms in damask weaving. 

 The double facing or the interchange (raising and dropping) of the 

 groups of warp threads known as bobbins, is managed by a draw- 

 boy sitting overhead on a board. Many sorts of figures are 

 wrought with this variety of the common handloom. Bavier gives 

 a very good representation of it in Plate IV. fig. 2 of his book, but 

 it is especially adapted to the manufacture of figured satin, crape 

 and brocade. 



It remains still to discuss more minutely those products of 

 Japanese silk industry which differ essentially from the European, 

 or are distinguished by remarkable beauty and quality. 



Habutaye (pronounced Habutai) or Kabe-habutai, a peculiar 

 ribbed white silk fabric is one of the most magnificent plain silks 

 that Japan can show. It is wavy in texture, a medium between 

 crape and reps. Both warp and woof are much thicker than in 

 smooth and twilled stuffs, and the woof threads are loose and 

 peculiarly twisted. One thin thread of two strands winds in long 

 spirals about a thicker thread consisting of 6 raw-silk strands. This 

 produces not only the peculiar wavy ribbing of the silk, but also 

 its greater fulness and pliancy. In its thickness and softness 

 Habutai resembles velvet, from which it is entirely different in 

 other respects. 



