Handbook of the collection illustrative of the wild silks of India : in the Indian section of the South Kensington Museum, with a catalogue of the collection and numerous illustrations / by Thomas Wardle.

  • Wardle, Thomas, Sir, 1831-1909.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of the collection illustrative of the wild silks of India : in the Indian section of the South Kensington Museum, with a catalogue of the collection and numerous illustrations / by Thomas Wardle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    India. It lias been acclimatised in Europe, and, crossed with Bombyx attacus Pernyi, is successfully reared in France, the eggs hatching at almost freezing point. The silk is much cultivated and used in Japan. Its fibre is oval, and 950th of an inch thick. Saturnia pyretorum, from South China.—The worm feeds upon the Liquidamber formosccna in Canton, Amoy, whore the silk is stated to be woven into a coarse fabric. Pfeoris shadulla (Moore).—Yarkund. Theophila mandarina (Moore).—N. China. CHAPTER II. History of Silk. It may be useful to give a brief history of the silk of commerce in introducing to the reader the wild silks of India. The Chinese appear to be the first people who applied themselves to sericulture. The words “ Seres,” used by Theophanes, and (e Serinda,” by Procopius, were in all probability so used to indicate that part of the East, which was no doubt China, where the silk industry existed at a very remote period. Hr. Birdwood states* that Ptolemy was the first to use the word Serice for China, or rather, the northern part of it, known later as Cathay ; and that the word is derived from the Chinese name of the silkworm, see, in Corean sir, whence the Greek 2%, the silkworm ; S%c, the people furnishing silk ; and ipiKov, serikon, silk. The Latin sericum had been traced direct to the Mongol sirkeh; and the serikoth of Isaiah, xix. 9, has been supposed to be silk. Of the same root as the Latin sericum is the French sole, the German seiden, the Russian sheolk, the Anglo-Saxon seolc, the Icelandic silke, and the English silk. In Persian, silk is ab-resham ; in Hindustani reshm; in Arabic khuz ; in M alay sutra ; in Tamil pattu. We are informed by Hawae-nan-tze, in a Chinese work called the “ Silkworm Classic,” that Te-ling-she, the principal queen of ITwang-te, B.C. 2640, was the first to * See “ Discussion ” printed with the Author’s lecture on the Wild Silks of India before the Society of Arts, London, May 9, 1879.