Silk Manufacture. 275 



elegant species of the chamse and tellinse are fished up in the sea 

 about Scarborough and other places. Ireland affords great numbers 

 of muscles, and some very elegant scallop shells in great abundance 

 and the pholades are frequent on most of their shores. They have 

 also great variety of the buccina and cochleae, and some volulae ; and, 

 on the Guernsey coast, a peculiarly beautiful snail, and called thence 

 the Guernsey snail. 



The coasts of Spain and Portugal afford much the same species 

 of shells veith the East Indies, but they are of much fainter colors 

 and greatly inferior in beauty. There are, according to Tavernier 

 and others, some rivers in Bavaria in which there are found pearls 

 of a fine vs^ater. About Cadiz there are found very large pinnae 

 marinse, and some fine buccina. The isles of Majorca and Minor- 

 ca afford great variety of extremely elegant shells. The pinnae ma- 

 rinae are also very numerous there, and their silk is wrought into 

 gloves, stockings, and other things. The Baltic affords a great many 

 beautiful species, but particularly an orange-colored pecten or scal- 

 lop shell, which is not foiind in any pther part of the world. 



The fresh water shells are found much more frequently, and in 

 much greater plenty than the sea kinds ; there is scarce a pond, a 

 ditch, or a river of fresh water in any part of the world, in which 

 there are not found vast numbers of these shells whh the fish living in 

 them. Most these shells are small, and they are of very little beauty, 

 being usually of a plain grayish or brownish color. The English 

 ditches afford chams, buccina, neritag, and some pattellas ; but the 

 Nile and some other rivers furnished the ancients with a species of tel- 

 lina which was large and eatable, and so much superior to the com- 

 mon sea tellina in flavor, that it was commonly known by the name 

 of Tellina regia, the * Royal tellina.' 



CABINET CYCLOPAEDIA. 



SILK MANUFACTURE. 

 NO. IX. 



Attempts to produce silk from different animate crea- 

 tures; ' The useful properties possessed by the produce of the silk- 

 worm, and the value which it has acquired among civilized commu- 

 nities, have, at various times, led ingenious men to seek among the 

 works of nature for other substances, which, presenting appearances 

 analogous to that beautiful filament, might be made equally conducive 

 to human convenience and adornment. 



