90 CONVERSATIONS ON 



for drawing out wire. Tell him that I told 

 you to ask him, and he will show it to you. 

 You will see a flat piece of steel with holes 

 made through it in regular lines, beginning 

 with a large size, and growing smaller and 

 smaller until the last is very small indeed. 



"Now the wire is drawn through these 

 holes ; beginning at the larger ones, and pass- 

 ing every time through the next smaller one, 

 it stretches the wire out, until it becomes as 

 small as the workman wishes it to be. 



" The spider is a wire-drawer, too ; for it 

 has a contrivance to draw out its threads, and 

 make them smaller or larger, as it pleases. 

 If you will look at a very large spider, you 

 can see with your naked eye, just at the end 

 of its body, four, and sometimes six, little 

 knobs like teats, with a circle around them. 

 These are its spinners. Each one of these 

 small knobs, inside of that circle, is so full 

 of little holes or tubes, that Mr. Reaumur 

 (of whom I told you before, you will re- 

 collect) calculated that a place no larger 

 than the point of a pin had a thousand of 

 these little holes in it. These holes are 

 sometimes so very small, that another gentle- 



