x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 245 



silkworms ; and I may mention a few facts which will 

 give you some conception of the gravity of the injury 

 which it has inflicted on France alone. 



The production of silk has been for centuries an im- 

 portant branch of industry in Southern France, and in 

 the year 1853 it had attained such a magnitude that the 

 annual produce of the French sericulture was estimated 

 to amount to a tenth of that of the whole world, and 

 represented a money- value of 117,000,000 francs, or 

 nearly five millions sterling. What may be the sum 

 which would represent the money-value of all the in- 

 dustries connected with the working up of the raw silk 

 thus produced is more than I can pretend to estimate. 

 Suffice it to say, that the city of Lyons is built upon 

 French silk as much as Manchester was upon American 

 cotton before the civil war. 



Silkworms are liable to many diseases ; and, even 

 before 1853, a peculiar epizootic, frequently accompanied 

 by the appearance of dark spots upon the skin (w^hence 

 the name of " Pebrine " which it has received), had been 

 noted for its mortality. But in the years following 1853 

 this malady broke out with such extreme violence, that, 

 in 1858, the silk-crop was reduced to a third of the 

 amount which it had reached in 1853 ; and, up till 

 within the last year or two, it has never attained half 

 the yield of 1853. This means not only that the great 

 number of people engaged in silk growing are some 

 thirty millions sterling poorer than they might have 

 been ; it means not only that high prices have had to be 

 paid for imported silkworm eggs, and that, after investing 

 his money in them, in paying for mulberry-leaves and 

 for attendance, the cultivator has constantly seen his 

 silkworms perish and himself plunged in ruin ; but it 

 means that the looms of Lyons have lacked employment, 

 and that, for years, enforced idleness and misery have been 



