ICO THK OAK SILKWORM OF CHINA. 
through the junk ports at the head of the China Sea : none, so far as I 
can learn, have ever been brought to this port (New-Chwang) ; but as 
the light cocoons could be brought from that region with less cost, in 
proportion to their value, than cotton goods can be taken thither, it is 
plain that, in so far as the land transit is concerned, there is no reason 
why this port should not become a port of export of the silk region ; and 
if it has paid Chinese dealers for generations back to take it away south- 
ward, there would seem to be no reason why, in the present dearth of 
textiles, foreigners might not also take it away with profit. 
The southern dealers arrive at the junk ports as the navigation 
opens, about the end of March, and proceed up into the silk valleys, 
where they give advances to the silk farmers. The first crop is usually 
taken to ports, mostly to one called " Ta-koo-shan," about July ; a se- 
cond crop is shipped just before the navigation closes, i.e., about the 
beginning of November. The cocoons are taken away in large baskets. 
The price in some seasons goes down to four or five mace of silver fur 
1,500 cocoons ; in others, it rises to six or seven mace for 1,500, advances 
being in every case made to the cultivators. 
Mr. J. Major, of Shanghai states, I have first seen this kind of co- 
coon some fifteen years ago, in the Museum of the Chamber of Com- 
merce and Arts at Lyons. It had been sent there (likely 100 years ago) 
by the Roman Catholic missionaries, as the produce of a worm in the 
north of China, feeding on the leaf of the oak tree. No experiments 
had been made therewith in France, because the quantity sent had been 
too small. Since I have been in China I have received a letter from 
Lyons, asking me to look after this cocoon ; but it was only once, two 
years ago, that I succeeded in getting a few of them from Japan, which 
I then reeled off. 
The first impression on seeing these cocoons and the cloth woven 
from their produce is, that this can never come in for silk. The manu- 
facture is the rudest that can be in all respects ; the thread is as coarse 
and unequal as well can be ; the whole has no gloss whatever, although 
no cotton is mixed, both the warp and woof are made of the raw mate- 
rial as taken from the reel, without any attempt at tram or organzine, 
therefore necessarily left in the gum. I have attempted to boil off the 
half of the cloth sent to ascertain the quantity of gum the animal may 
use in spinning, which with the silkworm is twenty per cent., but I 
have not been able to reduce it in weight at all ; this can only be 
accounted for by the cocoons having undergone a degree of fermentation 
in the process of killing the grub which has been adopted. You will 
also see from the piece of cloth I return you, together with the other 
piece unboiled, that the colour has remained unboiled, that the colour 
has remained nearly the same (it would therefore, in dyeing, take no 
other colour than black), whereas, if this had been made of usual yellow 
silk, it would have turned out white from boiling. 
I have, however, boiled off half the skein of silk of my reeling from 
