A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery. With a Short Explanation of Some of the Principal Natural Phenomena. For the Use of Schools and Families. Enlarged and Revised Edition.

CHAPTER V.

BOM­BAZINE, CRAPE, CAM­LET, CAM­BRIC, LACE, SILK, VEL­VET, AND MO­HAIR.

What is Bom­bazine?

A stuff com­posed of silk and wool wo­ven to­geth­er in a loom. It was first made at Mi­lan, and thence sent abroad; great quan­ti­ties are now made in Eng­land and oth­er coun­tries.

Where is Mi­lan sit­uat­ed?

In Italy, and is not­ed for its cathe­dral.

For what is Bom­bazine used?

For dress­es. Black bom­bazine is worn en­tire­ly for mourn­ing. The orig­inal bom­bazine has, how­ev­er, be­come much less used than for­mer­ly, on ac­count of the nu­mer­ous new­ly-​in­vent­ed fab­rics of fin­er or coars­er qual­ities, com­posed of the same ma­te­ri­als mixed in var­ious de­grees, as Mous­se­lines de laine, Chal­lis, &c.

What is Crape?

A light, trans­par­ent stuff, re­sem­bling gauze, made of raw silk very loose­ly wo­ven, or of wool; by raw silk is meant, silk in the state in which it is tak­en from the silk worm.

Where was Crape first made?

At Bologna, a city of Italy.

What city of France was long cel­ebrat­ed for its man­ufac­ture?

Lyons, the sec­ond city of France, where there are large silk man­ufac­to­ries. Great quan­ti­ties are al­so made in Eng­land, prin­ci­pal­ly in the city of Nor­wich, which has long been dis­tin­guished for the beau­ty of its crapes.

What is Cam­let?

A stuff made some­times of wool, some­times of silk and hair, es­pe­cial­ly that of goats. The ori­en­tal cam­let is made of the pure hair of a sort of goat, a na­tive of An­go­ra, a city of Na­to­lia, in Turkey. The Eu­ro­pean cam­lets are made of a mix­ture of woollen thread and hair.

What coun­tries are most not­ed for them?

Eng­land, France, Hol­land, and Flan­ders; the city of Brus­sels, in Bel­gium, ex­ceeds them all in the beau­ty and qual­ity of its cam­lets; those of Eng­land are the next.

What is Cam­bric?

A species of linen made of flax; it is very fine and white.

From whence did it take its name?

From Cam­bray, a large and cel­ebrat­ed city of French Flan­ders, where it was first made; it is now made at oth­er places in France; and al­so in Eng­land, Scot­land, Ire­land, the Unit­ed States, &c.

What is Lace?

A work com­posed of many threads of fine linen or silk, in­ter­wo­ven one with an­oth­er ac­cord­ing to some par­tic­ular pat­tern. Bel­gium, France, and Eng­land are the prin­ci­pal coun­tries in which this man­ufac­ture is car­ried on; vast quan­ti­ties of the finest laces were for­mer­ly made in Flan­ders.

From what is Silk pro­duced?

From the silk-​worm, an in­sect not more re­mark­able for the pre­cious mat­ter it fur­nish­es, than for the many forms it as­sumes be­fore and af­ter it en­velopes it­self in the beau­ti­ful ball, the silken threads of which form the el­egant tex­ture which is so much worn.

_Tex­ture_, a web or sub­stance wo­ven.

What are the habits of this in­sect, and on what does it feed?

Af­ter burst­ing from the egg, it be­comes a large worm or cater­pil­lar of a yel­low­ish white col­or, (which is its first state;) this cater­pil­lar feeds on the leaves of the mul­ber­ry tree, till, ar­riv­ing at ma­tu­ri­ty, it winds it­self up in a silken bag or case, called a co­coon, about the size and shape of a pi­geon's egg, and be­comes a chrysalis; in which state it lies with­out signs of life; in about ten days it eats its way out of its case, a per­fect but­ter­fly, which lays a num­ber of eggs and then dies. In the warmth of the sum­mer weath­er, these eggs are hatched, and be­come worms, as their par­ents did at first.

_Ma­tu­ri­ty_, ripeness, per­fec­tion

How much silk is each ball said to con­tain?

Each ball con­sists of a very fine, soft, bright, del­icate thread, which be­ing wound off, ex­tends in length six miles.

What is meant by Chrysalis?

The sec­ond state in­to which the in­sect pass­es be­fore it comes to be a but­ter­fly. The mag­got or worm hav­ing ceased to eat, fix­es it­self in some place till its skin sep­arates, and dis­cov­ers a horny, ob­long body, which is the chrysalis.

Where was Silk first made?

The cul­ture and man­ufac­ture of silk was orig­inal­ly con­fined to Chi­na. The Greeks, un­der Alexan­der the Great, brought home, among oth­er East­ern lux­uries, wrought silks from Per­sia, about 323, B.C. It was not long un­known to the Ro­mans, al­though it was so rare, that it was even sold weight for weight with gold. The Em­per­or Au­re­lian, who died in 275, B.C. re­fused the Em­press, his wife, a suit of silk which she so­licit­ed with much earnest­ness, mere­ly on ac­count of its dear­ness. He­li­oga­balus, the Em­per­or, who died half a cen­tu­ry be­fore Au­re­lian, was the first who wore a _holoser­icum_ or gar­ment all of silk.

Who in­tro­duced the Silk Worm it­self in­to Eu­rope?

Two monks, en­gaged as mis­sion­ar­ies in Chi­na, ob­tained a quan­ti­ty of silk worms' eggs, which they con­cealed in a hol­low cane, and con­veyed in safe­ty to Con­stantino­ple in 552; the eggs were hatched in the prop­er sea­son by the warmth of ma­nure, and the worms fed with the leaves of the wild mul­ber­ry tree. These worms in due time spun their silk, and prop­agat­ed un­der the care of the monks, who al­so in­struct­ed the Ro­mans in the whole pro­cess of man­ufac­tur­ing their pro­duc­tion. From the in­sects thus pro­duced, pro­ceed­ed all the silk worms which have since been reared in Eu­rope, and the west­ern parts of Asia. The mul­ber­ry tree was then ea­ger­ly plant­ed, and on this, their nat­ural food, they were suc­cess­ful­ly reared in Greece; and the man­ufac­ture was es­tab­lished at Thebes, Athens, and Corinth, in par­tic­ular. The Vene­tians, soon af­ter this time com­menc­ing a trade with the Greeks, sup­plied all the West­ern parts of Eu­rope with silks for many cen­turies.

Where were the cities of Thebes and Athens sit­uat­ed?

Thebes was an an­cient city of Beo­tia, in Greece, found­ed by Cad­mus, a Pheni­cian, though of Egyp­tian parent­age. Sail­ing from the coast of Pheni­cia, he ar­rived in Beo­tia, and built the city, call­ing it Thebes, from the city of that name in Egypt. To this prince is as­cribed the in­ven­tion of six­teen let­ters of the Greek Al­pha­bet. Athens was the cap­ital of At­ti­ca, found­ed by Ce­crops, an Egyp­tian. It was the seat of learn­ing and the arts, and has pro­duced some of the most cel­ebrat­ed war­riors, states­men, or­ators, po­ets, and sculp­tors in the world. Since the eman­ci­pa­tion of Greece from the cru­el bondage of its con­querors the Turks, who had op­pressed it for three cen­turies, Athens has been cho­sen as its cap­ital, and is still a con­sid­er­able town adorned with splen­did ru­ins of the beau­ti­ful build­ings it once pos­sessed. Thebes and Corinth, an­oth­er cel­ebrat­ed city, are now on­ly vil­lages.

_War­rior_, a sol­dier.

_States­men_, men versed in the arts of gov­ern­ment.

_Or­ator_, a pub­lic speak­er.

_Po­et_, one who com­pos­es po­et­ry.

_Sculp­tor_, one who cuts fig­ures in stone, mar­ble, or ivory.

Who were the Vene­tians?

In­hab­itants of Venice, a city of Italy.

Did this man­ufac­ture con­tin­ue to be con­fined to the Greeks and Vene­tians?

By no means. The rest of Italy, and Spain, by de­grees learnt the art from some man­ufac­to­ries in Sici­ly; and about the reign of Fran­cis the First, the French be­came mas­ters of it. It, how­ev­er, long re­mained a rar­ity; their King, Hen­ry the Sec­ond, is sup­posed to have worn the first pair of knit silk stock­ings. The Fourth Hen­ry en­cour­aged the plant­ing of mul­ber­ry trees; his suc­ces­sors al­so did the same, and the pro­duce of silk in France is now very con­sid­er­able.

When was the man­ufac­ture of silk in­tro­duced in­to Eng­land?

There was a com­pa­ny of silk wom­en in Eng­land as ear­ly as the year 1455; but they prob­ably were mere­ly em­ployed in needle­work of silk and thread, for Italy sup­plied Eng­land with the broad man­ufac­ture dur­ing the chief part of the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry. The great ad­van­tage this new man­ufac­ture af­ford­ed, made King James the First very de­sirous for its in­tro­duc­tion in­to Eng­land, par­tic­ular­ly in 1608, when it was rec­om­mend­ed, in very earnest terms, to plant mul­ber­ry trees for the rear­ing of silk worms; but un­hap­pi­ly with­out ef­fect. How­ev­er, to­wards the lat­ter end of this reign, the broad silk man­ufac­ture was in­tro­duced, and with great suc­cess. The re­vo­ca­tion of the Edict of Nantes con­tribut­ed great­ly to its pro­mo­tion, by the num­ber of French work­men who took refuge in Eng­land; to them the En­glish are in­debt­ed for the art of man­ufac­tur­ing many el­egant kinds of silks, satins, vel­vets, &c., which had for­mer­ly been im­port­ed from abroad up to the year 1718. The silk man­ufac­ture has al­so been suc­cess­ful­ly in­tro­duced in­to some por­tions of the Unit­ed States.

_Re­vo­ca­tion_, act of re­call­ing, re­peal.

_Im­port­ed_, brought in­to.

What was the Edict of Nantes?

A law made in fa­vor of the Protes­tants, the re­peal­ing of which drove many of their most skil­ful work­men to take refuge in Eng­land. They were kind­ly re­ceived, and set­tled in Spi­tal­fields, and many oth­er parts of Eng­land as well as Ire­land, where they car­ried on a flour­ish­ing and in­ge­nious man­ufac­ture.

Were the at­tempts to rear Silk Worms in Eng­land suc­cess­ful?

No; af­ter many tri­als, all of which failed, at­ten­tion was di­rect­ed to the es­tab­lish­ments for procur­ing both raw and wrought silks, in the set­tle­ments in In­dia be­long­ing to Britain; this was at­tend­ed with com­plete suc­cess, the cli­mate be­ing ex­treme­ly fa­vor­able, and the price of la­bor cheap. Raw silk is im­port­ed in quan­ti­ties from In­dia, Chi­na, Italy, &c.

How is the Silk tak­en from the Worm?

The peo­ple who are em­ployed in the care of these in­sects col­lect the gold­en balls from off the mul­ber­ry trees, (to the leaves of which the in­sects glue their silk) and put them in­to warm wa­ter, that the threads may un­fas­ten and wind off more eas­ily; hav­ing tak­en off the coarse wool­ly part which cov­ers the balls, they take twelve or four­teen threads at a time, and wind them off in­to skeins. In or­der to pre­pare this beau­ti­ful ma­te­ri­al for the hand of the weaver to be wrought in­to silks, stuffs, bro­cades, satins, vel­vets, rib­bons, &c., it is spun, reeled, milled, bleached, and dyed.

_Milled_, worked in a kind of mill.

_Bleached_, whitened.

What is Vel­vet?

A rich kind of stuff, all silk, cov­ered on the out­side with a close, short, fine, soft shag; the wrong side be­ing very strong and close. The prin­ci­pal num­ber, and the best vel­vets, were made in France and Italy; oth­ers in Hol­land; they are now brought to great per­fec­tion in Eng­land. An in­fe­ri­or kind is made by mix­ing cot­ton with the silk. Vel­vet has been known in Eu­rope for some cen­turies, but its man­ufac­ture was long con­fined to some of the chief cities of Italy. From that coun­try the French learned the art, and great­ly im­proved it.

Whence is the word Vel­vet de­rived?

From the Ital­ian word _vel­lu­to_, sig­ni­fy­ing vel­vet, which comes from _vel­lus_, hair or fleece.

What is Mo­hair?

The hair of a kind of goat, com­mon about An­go­ra, in Turkey. It is used in the man­ufac­ture of var­ious kinds of stuffs, shawls, &c.

Is there not an­oth­er an­imal much cel­ebrat­ed for the ma­te­ri­al it fur­nish­es in the mak­ing of shawls?

Yes; the Thi­bet goat. The wool is sent to Cash­mere, where it is spun and dyed. Cash­mere is sit­uat­ed in the north-​west ex­trem­ity of In­dia, and has long been cel­ebrat­ed for the beau­ti­ful and valu­able shawls bear­ing its name which are man­ufac­tured there. The goats are beau­ti­ful crea­tures, with long, fine, wavy hair, reach­ing near­ly to the ground, so as al­most to con­ceal their legs. The ma­te­ri­al of which the shawls are made is a fine silky down, which grows un­der the long hair, next to the skin.