Silk Manufacture. 43 



CABINET CYCLOPAEDIA. 

 SILK MANUFACTURE. 



NO. II. 



' Silk, and the many textures wrought from this beautiful 

 materia], are so universally and familiarly known, that the 

 peculiar manner of its production cannot fail to be a subject 

 of interesting investigation. 



' It is a wonderful fact, that the thick velvet and the stiff 

 brocade, the thin gauze and the delicate blonde, should all be 

 formed from the product of the labors of a little worm ; and 

 we are irresistibly prompted to inquire how such results are 

 accomplished. 



' To trace from their origin, the progressive steps by which 

 man has adapted to his use the various productions of nature, 

 is rarely possible. All that can be collected concerning seve- 

 ral of the important arts of life is, that they have flowed to us 

 from the East, and that many among them have issued from 

 China in a state of comparative perfectness. 



' It is impossible to fix the period when man first divested 

 the chrysalis of its dwelling, and discovered that the little yel- 

 low ball, which adhered to the leaf of the mulberry tree, could 

 be evolved into a slender filament, and thence be made to 

 form tissues of endless beauty and variety. From a certain 

 point, we can trace the progressive improvements of the silk 

 manufacture, but seek in vain for authentic information re- 

 specting its earliest origin ; and, while compelled to assign 

 the merit of this to the Chinese, we cannot account for the 

 degree of excellence which the art had attained previous 

 to the time when even the existence of the material be- 

 came known in the West. This proficiency alone, however, 

 affords sufficient proof that the manufacture was of no re- 

 cent origin. The manual arts arrive at perfection by very 

 slow degrees. Improvements resulting from invention, as 

 distinguished from imitation, are seldom rapid; and if this 

 position hold good as a general principle, it is more especially 

 applicable to labors unassisted by any save the rudest ma- 

 chinery, and practised by a people who, so far at least as 

 we are informed, could derive little aid from science. 



' Notwithstanding these disadvantages, the Chinese, in the 

 remotest ages, produced sugar, silk and many other manufac- 

 tures, with a degree of excellence which even now is scarce- 



