Excerpt from Silk Throwing, Vol. 3: Giving the Most Complete Data Ever Published on the Various Processes Raw Silk Is Subjected to When Converting It Into Yarn Raw silk denotes silk in skeins, as reeled from the cocoon or rereeled. Raw silk is the finest, most elastic, and most durable of all textile fibres, being especially prized for its lustre. It is the most costly fibre used by the textile industry, because of the great amount of time and care involved in raising the worm and reeling the silk. The main silk-producing countries are Japan, China, and Italy, followed by Turkey, Russia, France, Austria-Hungary, Persia, India, Greece, Spain, IndoChina, and the Balkan States. Silk originated in China and for over 3,000 years the Chinese monopolized not only its production but its manufacture. In the export of raw silk China maintained its supremacy until within the last decade, and when Japan assumed first place. Silk is the product of the silk worm or caterpillar, of which there are many varieties. The one that produces the bulk of the world's silk, as well as the best, is the Bombyx mori which has been domesticated for centuries. Tussah silks, used in the production of goods of rough appearance, are produced by "wild" (i.e., undomesticated) silk worms. Domesticated silkworms are hatched out by subjecting the stored eggs to artificial heat. In Japan about 60 per cent of the crop is usually produced in the spring, about 10 per cent in the summer, and about 30 per cent in the autumn. The voracious worm is fed on leaves stripped from mulberry trees and grows so rapidly that four times within a feeding period of a little over a month it sheds its skin and grows a new one. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the outstanding public event of the Victorian era. Housed in Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, it presented a vast array of objects, technologies and works of art from around the world. The sources in this edition provide a depth of context for study into the Exhibition.

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Reproduction of the original: Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume III by Herbert Spencer