ON SILK MANUFACTURE IN THE EXHIBITION. 225 



and other sorts, naked and soft-shelled, called Aberanes, Matterones, and 

 Molures, sold ordinarily in the shell ; Princess almonds, consumed in 

 France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Russia ; Ladies' almonds, sent 

 chiefly to the United States ; and wavy almonds (Amandi flot), employed 

 principally in confectionery, as burnt almonds^ and for fine pastry. The 

 last kind is obtained especially from Lower Provence, and the best comes 

 from the territory of Aix, and are all consumed in Paris, where they 

 realise double the price of the ordinary varieties of almond. They are 

 also those which keep the best. 



The imports of almonds into France were, in 1860, 714,256 kilo- 

 grammes, and the exports 2,379,839 kilogrammes. The imports into 

 England for the same year were 7,361 cwts. of bitter almonds, and 19,638 

 cwt. of sweet almonds. 



SILK MANUFACTURE IN THE EXHIBITION. 



BY THOMAS WINKWORTH. 



The silk manufacture in Europe is of considerable antiquity, its 

 introduction dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. 

 Depending so much on mild and uniform temperature, the difficulties of 

 acclimatising the worm and the source of its food — the mulberry-tree — 

 have often been insuperable. When, however, these have been sur- 

 mounted, as more especially in Italy and France, the profit has rarely 

 failed to reward the adventurers. But it is an industry of slow growth, 

 requiring great care, and involving much dead capital. 



The manufactured article is susceptible of important adaptations, as 

 well for the splendid garments of the luxurious and the wealthy as for 

 the economic decoration of the humbler classes. From the Queen ou 

 the throne, resplendent in all the magnificence of damask and many- 

 coloured brocade, to the factory-girl who can afford to purchase a dress 

 of plain or checked Gros de Naples, silk is the material which, beyond 

 all otbers, may be made to suit the tastes and pecuniary means of nearly 

 all grades of civilised society. 



A glance in the International Exhibition at the many forms manu- 

 factured silks assume, and at the many textures into which it is more or 

 less incorporated, demonstrates the fact that modern discoveries and 

 inventions have opened up channels for its use, of which, but for this 

 extraordinary opportunity of seeing for ourselves, we could scarcely have 

 formed a conception. The demand, therefore, for the raw material, has 

 been rapidly increasing, while, like its rival necessity, cotton, but from 

 a very different cause, the supply of late has been comparatively scanty. 

 In the one case, a most disastrous and unnatural war has closed the channels 

 vol. in. u 



