LEPIDOPTEKA. 217 



ordered that the inhabitants of the country should plant two feet 

 in every acre with mulberry trees.* The first Emperor of the 

 dynasty of Song (who began to reign about the year 960) pub- 

 lished a decree forbidding his subjects to cut down the mulberry 

 trees. f 



By all these means, according to the testimony of M. Stanislas 

 Julien, the business of the fabrication of silk became general in 

 China. This great empire could soon furnish to its neighbours 

 this precious textile material, and create for its own profit a very 

 important branch of commerce. 



It was forbidden, under pain of death, to export from China the 

 silkworm's eggs, or to furnish the necessary information in the 

 art of obtaining the textile material. The manufactured article 

 only could be sold out of the empire. It was thus that the Asiatic 

 nations very soon understood silk ; and that in many of their cities 

 they applied themselves to weaving stuffs of this precious substance. 

 The carpets and dyed stuffs of Babylon, mixed with gold and 

 silk, enjoyed in ancient times an unparalleled renown. China 

 was not, however, the only country that then furnished silk 

 to the towns of Asia Minor. At a very distant period, India 

 sent by her caravans very considerable quantities of it. M. Emile 

 Blanchard (of the Institute) remarks, however, that the tissues 

 of India must be made of a different silk from that of China, 

 that is to say, of a silk of some of those Bomhyces of which 

 the public has been told so much of late years, and of which we 

 shall have soon to speak. 



Silk commanded for centuries a prodigiously high price. In 

 the time of Alexander its value in Greece was exactly its own 

 weight in gold, and so it was very parsimoniously employed in 

 silk tissues. These were so transparent that women who wore 

 them were scarcely covered. 



Silk was unknown to the Romans before Julius Caesar. It was 

 to him that Rome owed its acquaintance with this new material. 

 He introduced it, moreover, in a singularly magnificent manner. 

 One day, at afete given in the Colosseum a combat of animals 

 and gladiators the people saw the coarse tent of cloth, intended 

 to keep off the rays of the sun, replaced by a magnificent covering 

 * " Annales de la dynastie des Thang." f " Histoire de la dynastie des Song." 



