chines was turned at the rate of 160 revolutions a minute about 
twenty minutes each day for three days, and thus 4107 feet were 
reeled from a single spider. This was all that cotdd be obtained 
in this particular instance ; on killing the spider, however, plenty 
of the viscid fluid was found in the sacs, the conclusion being 
that it requires some degree of preparation after it is secreted be¬ 
fore it is lit for use as silk. 
Experiments were also made on the strength of the silk. It 
was estimated that a bar of spider’s silk one inch in diameter 
would sustain a weight of seventy tons, while a similar bar of 
steel wire will sustain a weight of only fifty-six tons. 
Hut I have already kept you too long. I thank you for your 
attention, and if I have given you but a small part of the enter¬ 
tainment in hearing my lecture that I have enjoyed in preparing 
it, as a rest from care and labor in another direction, I shall be 
glad that I delivered it. 
As I have been writing it, I have compared spiders with human 
kind and have been struck with a difference and a resemblance. 
The difference is that all spiders are industrious. They are all 
willing to work, and do work hard for a living. They have an 
aim in life. Among the whole tribe there is not, to my knowledge, 
a “Charity Organization Society,” and I doubt, should there be 
one, whether any spider of my acquaintance would apply for aid. 
Another comparison may be made which is more favorable to 
the human race. The reeling of silk from the spider is not un¬ 
like the way in which force and vitality are drawn from over¬ 
worked literary, professional, and business men. The pupils 
draw on the teacher; the demands of business on the business 
men ; the omnivorous publishers on the literary author; the good 
people and the bad on the minister ; the client on the lawyer. 
Given a fair education, and much of the work the live American 
does must be spun out of himself. If he be a useful and popular 
spider, the insatiable public, like Oliver Twist, cries for “ more.” 
Hut the reservoir at last runs dry ; the vital force fails ; the mate¬ 
rial for the silken web of thought is no longer secreted ; there is 
paralysis, or cerebral lapse, or old age ; and like his eight-legged . 
Charleston friend, he says u thus far and no farther,” grasps the 
line, snaps it, and is seen and heard no more. 
