AN IMPROVED MACHINE FOR WINDING SILK. 
561 
diameter. Then the reel is turned round, 
and the fibres drawn from the cocoons until 
a skein is made. Now, great and particular 
care must be taken by the person who su- 
perintends the cocoons in the bason of hot 
water to brush them properly with a small 
birch broom, in order to loosen the fibres, and 
keep the cocoons clear of the fluff upon them, 
which, if allowed to run into the thread, ren- 
ders it woolly and wasty (which is much the 
case in all Bengal silks), and also to take care 
that never more or less than a given quantity 
be running at the same time, otherwise the 
thread will become uneven, which uneven- 
ness is a very great fault, prejudices the silk 
in a very great degree, and essentially spoils it 
for many purposes of manufacture, as, in weav- 
ing, it will show the unevenness in the cloth. 
To sum up all in a few lines, —the valuable 
properties of silks are, that the colour be 
clear, and the thread clean, even, and 
elastic. The clear7iess of the colour is 
produced by the pureness of the atmos- 
phere in which the worm is bred, and 
the care taken to filature the cocoon in a 
proper situation, d'he clearness of the thread 
arises from the attention of the person who 
presides over the cocoons, when in the bason, 
to keep the water clean, and to brush away 
all the fluff. 'J’he evenjiess of the thread is 
owing to the regularity of the number of co- 
coons. And the elasticity is acquired by 
having pure soft water, and keeping it always 
heated to a degree somewhat beyond tepid. ’ 
Dover and Norton. 
Great Winchester S treet, London. 
The quantity of cocoons to make a thread 
are various j and in Company’s Bengal silk 
they are distinguished by letters. '1 hus, A. 
1. is 4 to 5 cocoons ; that is to say, the thread 
is formed of not less than the fibres of 4, or 
more than the fibres of 5, cocoons : A. 2. is 
1 to 8 cocoons ; B. 1, lo to l2 cocoons ; B. 
2, 12 to 14 cocoons, and so on ; making, as 
the thread gets larger, a difference of two, 
instead of one, cocoons ; as, from its size, 
such a difference will not cause any percepti- 
ble irregularity. But, in Italy, in filaturing, 
or reeling, some of their finest silks, they are 
so particular and attentive to the evenness of 
the thread, that they will commence with 
three cocoons, and, when they are run towards 
the end, they will then add another cocoon ; 
as the worm spins its fibre smaller as it draws 
to a close. 
Next, the situation of the filatures to 
reel the silk sliould be particularly attended 
to. They should be where the air is pure, 
temperate, regular, and d ry ; and in the neigh- 
bourhood of good soft water, which is of the 
utmost consequence, as none but what is soft, 
or made so by some means, would do; for 
which purpose, it would be always better, to 
have the water drawn into a large cistern, 
and stand exposed to the sun for some lime, 
in order that it may |>eneirate and soften it. 
Indeed, so delicate is the nature of silk, that a 
cloudy day will have an injurious effect upon 
it ; and the reeling should, if possible, be on 
such occasion avoided. In Bengal, where they 
have several harvests, those silks which are 
filatured in the rainy season; are always much 
inferior in the colour, more wasty, and loose 
in the thread. 
Now, after paying strict attention that the 
silk is filatured in the manner we have point- 
ed out, care must be taken to keep each 
sized thread from the other, to separate the 
yellow gum, from the white gum silk, and 
haveeach sort, both colour and size, packed 
in separate bales. There is a fault which also 
attaches to some of the Company’s inferior 
filatures, which is, that a larger reel is made 
use of than the one we have described, and (he 
long and short reels are mixed together in the 
same bale. This ought to be studiously avoided. 
The next co mmunication to which we shall 
allude, is 
ON AN IMPROVED MACHINE IN 
WINDING SILK. 
Extract fi'om a Letter from Mr. Shake- 
spear to the Board of Trade, 2d June, 1832. 
Reporting on 
the new arrant’e- 
meni of a coii- 
(liiitin or drying 
room whereby 
to improve ihe 
tneans of pro- 
tecting Raw Silk 
from (lamp and 
of getting up . 
Ihe Honnnra- 
ble CompaM)’s 
investment at the 
Gonatea Sc Ran- 
gamatee Facto- 
ries. 
Condemned in 
1828, by the Ex - 
ecuiive Officei. 
but retained at 
the sniraesiion of 
the present Ue- 
sident. 
1. When last in Calcutta, 
I met with a pamphlet of 
considerable celebrity on the 
subject of the “ Silk trade” 
in which there are some very 
apposite remarks on the 
great advantages arising 
from the public drjdng, or 
condition rooms, in Lyons, 
founded by Government in 
1805 * 
2. Fully impressed with 
an opinion that the princi- 
ple, if practically followed 
up in these factories, would 
be infinitely beneficial in 
protecting newly spun Silk 
from the sudden changes of 
weather in Bengal, and the 
extreme humidity of the at- 
mosphere acting upon so 
absorbent a fibre, especially 
during the manufacture of 
the cocoons Silk of the rainy 
bunds, (which are reeled off 
with all practicable expedi- 
tion in their green state, or 
unovened) I have not hesi- 
tated to fit up, with glass 
doors, Venetians, and shut- 
ters, a large old godown at 
Rangamattee (measuring 40 
feet by 30) as ” a condition 
or drying room,” in which 
are placed two pair of my 
pottery ghye stoves having 
• Dr. Lardner ia his Cabinet Cyclopasdia 
does not touch on this material point in the 
manufacture of silk. 
