SILK. 
altogether useless, but that, being improper for winding, 
they are reserved to he drawn out into skeins. The balls 
are of different colours; the most common are yellow, 
orange-colour, isabella, or flesh-colour. There are some 
also of a sea-green, others of a sulphur colour, and others 
white; but there is no necessity for separating the colours 
and shades, to wind them apart, as all these colours are to 
be lost in the future scouring and preparing of the silk. 
SILK, Manufacture of. In England, where silk is 
not produced in any quantities to be employed by the manu¬ 
facturer, he must commence his operations upon the raw silk, 
with no other preparation than that of being wound off into 
skeins or hanks from the balls, or cocoons, which the silk* 
worms form. 
In this state the silk is imported from those countries 
where it is produced, as Italy, Flanders, Spain, Portugal, 
Turkey, the East Indies and China. A thread of this 
raw silk, drawn from the skein, is found to be composed 
of an assemblage of several of the fine fibres or threads 
produced by the worms; the fibres being united together 
by a natural gum, which is in the silk, and which is soluble 
in the hot water in which the cocoons are immersed when 
the silk is wound off. 
To prepare this raw silk for use, it is wound from 
the skeins upon bobbins; the compound thread is then 
twisted, to unite the constituent fibres more firmly than 
they can be by the gum alone; and afterwards, being 
wound again upon fresh bobbins, two or three threads 
are twisted together to produce a stronger thread, fit for 
the weaver, who warps and finally weaves the silk into 
various articles of ornaments or utility, by processes very 
similar to the weaving of cotton or linen, but more delicately 
conducted. 
In the countries where the silk is produced, the manu¬ 
facture may be more properly said to commence with the 
operation of winding or reeling off the threads into skeins 
from the cocoons, or balls, in which the worms envelope 
themselves. These balls become an article of trade, as soon 
as the insect within them is killed by exposing them to heat, 
either of the sun, or in an oven, or by the steam of boiling 
water; and, in general, the breeders of silk-worms sell them, 
in this state, to persons who make a business of the opera¬ 
tion of winding. In Piedmont, where capital silk is pro¬ 
duced, it is conducted, as follows, by the aid of the silk 
reel represented in Plate .Silk Manufacture , fig. 1. 
The balls are thrown into hot water, contained in a copper 
basin or boiler, A, which is about eighteen inches in length 
and six deep, set in brick-work, so as to admit a small char¬ 
coal fire beneath it; or if a fire of wood is intended to be 
made, the fire-place must have a small flue or chimney of 
iron plate to carry off the smoke. At the side of the boiler 
is placed the reel, which is very simple. B B marks the 
wood-framing which sustains its parts: these are, the reel D, 
upon which the silk is wound; the layer a, which directs the 
thread upon it; and the wheel-work b c, which gives motion 
to the layer. The reel, D, is nothing more than a wooden 
spindle, turned by a handle at the end; and within the frame, 
at each end, it has four arms mortised into it, to support 
the four battens or rails on which the silk is wound. The 
rails are parallel to the axis, and at such a distance, that 
they will form a proper-sized skein by the winding of the 
silk upon them, (it is usually a yard for each revolution.) 
One of each of the four arms is made to fold in the middle 
of its length with hinges, so as to cause the rail, which these 
two arms support, to fall in or approach the centre, and 
thus diminish the size of the reel, and admit the skeins of 
silk to be taken off at the end of the reel when the winding 
is finished. 
Upon the end of the wooden spindle of the reel, and 
within the frame B, is a wheel of twenty-two teeth, to give 
motion to another wheel, c, which has about twice the num¬ 
ber of teeth, and is fixed upon the end of an inclined axis, 
c b ; this, at the opposite end, carries a wheel, b, of twenty- 
two teeth, which gives motion to an horizontal cog-wheel 
of thirty-five teeth. This wheel turns upon a pivot fixed 
211 
in the frame, and has a pin fixed in it, at a distance from 
the centre, to form an excentric pin or crank, and give a 
backward and forward motion to the slight wooden rail or 
layer a, which guides the threads upon the reel: for this 
purpose, the threads are passed through wire-loops or eyes, 
a, fixed into the layer, and the end thereof opposite the 
wheel and crank, b, is supported in a mortise or opening 
made in the frame, B, so that the revolution of the crank 
will cause the layer to move, and carry the threads alter¬ 
nately towards the right or left. There is likewise an iron 
bar, e fixed over the centre of the boiler at e, and pierced 
with two holes, through which the threads pass to guide 
them. 
To describe the operation of reeling, it should be under¬ 
stood, that if the thread of each ball or cocoon was reeled 
separately, it would be totally unfit for the purposes of 
the manufacturer; in the reeling, therefore, the ends or 
threads of several cocoons are joined, and reeled together 
out of warm water, which softens their natural gum, and 
makes the fibres stick together, so as to form one strong 
smooth thread; and as often as the thread of any single 
cocoon breaks or comes to an end, its place is supplied by 
a new one, so that by continually keeping up fire same 
number, the united thread may be wound to any length. 
The single threads of the newly added cocoons are not 
joined by any tie, but simply laid on the compound thread, 
to which they will adhere by their gum; and their ends are 
so fine, as not to occasion the least perceptible unevenness 
in the place on which they are laid. 
The woman who conducts the reeling is seated before the 
basin A, and employs a boy or girl to turn the handle of 
the reel: a fire is lighted beneath the basin A; and when 
the water becomes nearly boiling hot, she throws into the 
basin two or three handsful of cocoons, and leaves them 
some minutes, to soften that natural gum with which the silk 
is impregnated; then she stirs up or brushes the cocoons with 
a wisk of birch or of rice-straw, about six inches long, cut 
stumpy, like a -worn-out broom; the loose threads of the co¬ 
coons stick to the wisk, and are drawn out: she then disen¬ 
gages these threads from the wisk, and by drawing the ends 
through her fingers, cleans them from that loose silk which 
always surrounds the cocoon, till they come off entirely 
clean: this operation is called la battue: and when the threads 
are quite clean, she passes four or more of them, if she in¬ 
tends to wind fine silk, through each of the holes in the thin 
iron bar e, which is placed horizontally over the centre of 
the basin A; afterwards she twists the two compound threads 
(which consist of four cocoons each) twenty or twenty-five 
times round each other, that the four ends in each thread 
may the better join together by crossing each other, and that 
the thread of the silk may be round, which otherwise would 
be flat. 
The threads, after passing through the holes in the iron 
bar e, and being twisted together, are passed through the 
eyes of the loops, a, of the layer, and thence being conducted 
to the reel, are made fast to one of its rails. The child who 
turns the reel, gives it the most rapid movement possible, and 
thus draws off the threads from the cocoons in the basin A. 
The slow traversing motion of the layer prevents the threads 
lying over each other upon the reel, until it has made so many 
revolutions in the air as to dry the gum of the silk so far, 
that the threads will not adhere together. After the reel is 
covered for about the breadth of three inches, by the gradual 
progression of the layer, it returns and directs a second 
course of threads over the first laid, and so on until the re¬ 
quired length for the skeins is obtained. The machine winds 
two skeins at one time. As it is essential to the production of 
good silk, that the thread should have lost part of its heat and 
gumminess before it touches the bars of the reel, the Pied¬ 
montese are by law obliged to have a distance of thirty-eight 
French inches between the guides a, and the centre of the 
reel: and the layer must also, under a penalty, be moved 
by cog-wheels instead of an endless cord, which is sometimes 
used in Italy, and which, if suffered to grow slack, will cause 
the layer to stop and not lay the threads distinctly, and that 
