( <5 ) 
The Obfervation I have now the Honour to prefent 
You is entirely New, and perhaps may one Day be a$ 
profitable. The Approbation You gave the bare Relation 
of the Experiments I defigned to make on this Subjedt, 
engaged me to put them in execution % and it is to Your 
Encouragement that is owing what I am going to re- 
late. 
You will be furprizd to hear, that Spiders make a 
Silk, as beautiful, ftrong and glofiy, as common Silk : 
The prejudice that is entertained againft fo common and 
difpicable an Infedt, is the reafon why the Publick has 
been hitherto ignorant of the Ufeiulnefs of it. And 
indeed who would ever have imagin’d it? When that 
of common Silk, as confiderable as it is, lay fo long a 
time unknown and negledted after its Difcovery. It 
was in the lfland of f Cons, that Pantphila , Daughter of 
PUtis, firft found out the Invention of working it. 
This Difcovery was foon alter known to the Romans, 
who brought their Silk from the Country of the * * Seres, 
where Silk- Worms naturally breed : But far from ma- 
king any advantage of fo ufeful a Difcovery, they could 
never imagine thefe Worms fhould produce fo beautiful 
and valuable a Thread, and made a Thoufand Chyme- 
rical Conjectures about if. So that their Ignorance and 
Idlenefs together, made Silk for feveral Ages fo extra- 
ordinary fcarce and valuable, that it was fold for its 
-f Ariftotelis Hi[t. Jnima.l. lib. 5. cap- 1 9. Trim a texiffc in Co inful* 
Pamphila Piatis filia dicitur. 
Tlini yHi!l. Natural, lib. 1 1. cap. 22. 
* The Seres are a People of Afian Scythia near the Mountain Imaus. 
Vide Pliny Ihft. Natural, lib. 6. cap. 1 7. et lib. 16. cap. 17. 
I fid or.. Origin urn lib • 19. cap 23. Sericum dictum , quia id Seres primi 
mifirunt, vermiculi enim ili najei perhibentur, a quibu: hac circum ar ba- 
res ftta dftethtitur. 
weight 
