836 >VOMAN IN SCIENCE 



woman one can affirm what Solomon, in his Book of 

 Proverbs, said of the virtuous woman of his day : 



"She seeketh wool and flax and worketh diligently with her 



hands ; 



She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the 

 distaff." 



She was also the first one to weave cotton and silk. It 

 was Mama Oclo, the wife of Manco Capac, as the Inca 

 historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, tells us, who taught the 

 women of ancient Peru ' ' to sew and weave cotton and wool 

 and to make clothes for themselves, their husbands and 

 children." 



And it was a woman, Se-ling-she, the wife of the em- 

 peror, Hwang-te, who lived nearly three thousand years 

 before Christ, to whom the most ancient Chinese writers 

 assign the discovery of silk. Her name is perpetuated in 

 the name China, the goddess of silkworms, and under this 

 appellation she still receives divine honors. 



The preparation and weaving of silk were introduced 

 into Japan by four Chinese girls, and the new industry 

 soon became there, as in China, one of the chief sources, 

 as it is to-day, of the country's wealth. To perpetuate the 

 memory of these four pioneer silk weavers the grateful 

 Japanese erected a temple in their honor in the province 

 of Setsu. 



According to tradition, the eggs of the silk moth and the 

 seed of the mulberry tree were conveyed to India, con- 

 cealed in the lining of her headdress, by a Chinese princess. 

 She was thus instrumental in establishing in the region 

 watered by the Indus and the Ganges the same industry 

 which her countrywomen had introduced into the Land 

 of the Kising Sun. 



Cashmere shawls and attar of roses, the costliest of per- 

 fumes, are attributed to an Indian empress, Nur Mahal, 

 whom her husband, in view of her achievements, as well as 



