July 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



Silk trade of beyrout. 549 



to the mountains in order to prevent their being hatched too soon, the 

 climate of the mountainous parts of the country being colder. The 

 stored bags thus remain at a comparatively low temperature until the 

 month of April in the following year, when the owners cause them to 

 be sent back to Beyrout. Care is now taken to subject the eggs to a 

 temperature considerably higher than that in which they have passed 

 the winter ; and, as it is desired that the hatching should not take place 

 until the young leaves of the mulberry-trees have appeared, artificial 

 heat is so regulated in its application as to produce the silkworms 

 immediately after the food so necessary for their support has presented 

 itself. The period of time regarded as the hatching season varies from 

 five days to fifteen. As soon as the newly-hatched silkworms are able 

 to adhere to the mulberry-leaves, they are plentifully supplied with 

 them, and placed on broad stone trays for the space of twenty days. 

 After a period of ten days has elapsed the silkworms cease to feed, and 

 a marked pause ensues, and is followed by another ten days' feeding 

 and a second pause. The worms having now " twice fasted," as it is 

 called, the trays are removed to the open air, and placed on shelves one 

 above another ; here they remain twenty-five days, and at the expira- 

 tion of this term the worms begin to make the cocoon or oval ball of 

 silk, the completion of which occupies some fifteen days more. When 

 the cocoons are completed, it is usual to select such insects as are 

 intended for stock, and destroy the remainder by smoke without delay, 

 lest the worm, or rather chrysalis, should, as would be the case in a 

 further space of five or six days, become a moth and proceed to lay 

 eggs, in which case the cocoons would be comparatively valueless. 



Leaving aside those preserved as stock — a comparatively small pro- 

 portion — let us now return to the silkworms that are sacrificed by being 

 smoked to death for the sake of the cocoon. The cocoon, once the house 

 now the coffin of the silkworm, becomes, after its tenant has been 

 smothered, a marketable article, and is sold by the poorer rearers 

 to their richer neighbours. The price varies from 4s. to 6s. per oke 

 (= 2f lbs.), according to the quality of the silk. To produce an oke of 

 fine silk, some 10 or 11 okes of cocoons will be required, and its value 

 will be from 350 to 400 piastres (a piastre = 2d.). Coarse silk is not 

 worth more than from 170 to 2L0 piastres. 



Having now conducted the reader through the mazes of hatching, 

 feeding, and cocoon-making, as well as the sale of the raw material, we 

 must now repair to one of the reeling-sheds, of which there are so 

 many in the vicinity of Beyrout. The creaking sound of rudely-con- 

 structed wooden machinery, of great size, at once attracts the notice of 

 visitors, and on entering the hut from whence the sound proceeds a 

 huge, lumbering wooden wheel may be seen in motion. This wheel is 

 fed by a man or woman from a mass of silk of a light straw-colour, 

 the thread passing from the feeder's hand to the wheel being scarcely 

 thicker than one fibre of the silk. The vicinity of the reeling-sheds is 



