MANUFACTURE OF LACQUERED-WARE.

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dried and rubbed. The surface of the wood is also hardened by rubbing coarse clay upon it, and afterwards scraping it off when dry. Two coatings of lampblack and wood oil, or in the finer articles, of lampblack and varnish, are laid upon the prepared wood, and after drying, the clear varnish is brushed on, one coating after another, with the utmost care, in close and darkened rooms, allowing it to dry well between the several coats. The articles are then laid by to be painted and gilded according to the fancy of customers, after which a last coating is given them. The varnish is brought to market in brownish cakes, and reduced to its proper fluidity by boiling; it is applied to many purposes of both a varnish and paint, when it is commonly mixed with a red or brown color. A beautiful fabric of lacquered-ware is made by inlaying the nacre of fresh and saltwater shells in a rough mosaic of flowers, animals, &c., into the composition, and then varnishing it. Another kind, highly prized by the Chinese, is made by covering the wood with a coating of red varnish three or four lines in thickness, and then carving figures upon it in relief. The great labor necessary to produce this ware renders it expensive.

A common substitute for the true varnish is the oil of the Dryandra, Jatropha, Croton, and other members of the Euphorbiaceous family, expressed from their seeds by a variety of simple machines, consisting for the most part of different applications of power to cylinders and pestles by which the seeds are pressed or pounded. The oil, after pressing, according to De Guignes, is boiled with Spanish white in the proportion of one ounce to half a pound of oil; as i begins to thicken, it is taken off and poured into close vessels. It dissolves in turpentine, and is used as a varnish, either clear or mixed with different colors; it defends woodwork from injury for a long time, and forms a good painter's oil. Boiled with iron rust, it forms a reddish brown varnish. In order to prevent its penetrating into the wood when used clear, and to increase the lustre, a priming of lime and hog's blood simmered together into a paste is previously laid on.

The manufacture of silk is original among the Chinese as well as those of porcelain and lacquered-ware, and in neither of them have foreigners yet succeeded in fully equalling the native products. The notices of the cultivation of the mulberry and the rearing of silkworms found in Chinese works have been industri

ously collected and published by M. Julien by order of the French government. From his work it appears that credible notices of the culture of the tree and manufacture of silk are found as far back as B. c. 780; and in referring its invention to the empress Síling, or Yuenfí, wife of the emperor Hwangtí, B. c. 2602, the Chinese have shown their belief of its still higher antiquity. The Shí King contains this distich:

The legitimate wife of Hwangtí, named Siling shi, began to rear silk

worms:

At this period Hwangtí invented the art of making clothing.

ror.

The Book of Rites contains a notice of the festival held in honor of this art, which corresponds to that of ploughing by the empe"In the last month of spring, the young empress purified herself and offered a sacrifice to the goddess of silkworms. She went into the eastern fields and collected mulberry leaves. She forbade noble dames and the ladies of statesmen adorning themselves, and excused her attendants from their sewing and embroidery, in order that they might give all their care to the rearing of silkworms." The Chinese, as De Guignes observes, agree with other ancient nations in attributing the invention of spinning to females, and worshipping them as goddesses; thus the Egyptian Isis, Lydian Arachne, and Grecian Minerva, like the Chinese Yuenfi, handled the distaff. The attention of the government to this important branch of industry has been unremitted, and at this day it supplies perhaps half of all the garments worn by the people. In the paraphrase to the fourth maxim of the Shing Yu, it is remarked, "In ancient times emperors ploughed the lands, and empresses cultivated the mulberry. Though the most honorable, they did not disdain to toil and labor, as examples to the whole empire, in order to induce all the people to seek these essential supports." One half of the Illustrations of Agriculture and Weaving is devoted to delineating the various processes attending the manufacture of silk; and Julien quotes more than twenty works and authors on this subject. The best silk is found in the provinces of Sz'chuen, Hupeh, Chehkiang, and Kiangnan, but every province south of 35° N. produces it of different degrees of fineness. Probably the kind called tsatle, brought from Hupeh, is the finest silk found in the world.

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While the worms are growing, care is taken to keep them undisturbed, and they are often changed from one hurdle to another that they may have roomy and cleanly places; the utmost attention is paid to the condition and feeding of the worms and noting the right time for preparing them for spinning cocoons. Three days are required for them to spin, and in six it is time to stifle the larvæ and reel the silk from the cocoons; but this being usually done by other workmen, those who rear the worms inclose the cocoons in a jar buried in the ground and lined with mats and leaves, interlaying them with salt, which kills the pupæ and keeps the silk supple, strong, and lustrous; preserved in this manner, they can be transported to any distance, or the reeling of the silk can be delayed till convenient. Another mode of destroying the cocoons, is to spread them on trays, and expose them by twos to the steam of boiling water, putting the upper in the place of the lower one according to the degree of heat they are in, taking care that the chrysalides are killed, and the silk not injured. After exposure to steam, the silk can be reeled off immediately, but if placed in the jars, they must be put into warm water to dissolve the glue, before it can be unwound.

The raw silk is an article of sale; the sorts usually known in the Canton market are tsatle, taysaam, and Canton raw silk. The loom is worked by two hands, one of whom sits on the top of the frame, where he pulls the treddles, and assists in changing the various parts of the machine. The workmen imitate almost any pattern, excelling particularly in crapes, and flowered satins and damasks, for official dresses. The common people wear pongee and senshaw, which they frequently dye in gambier to a dust or black color; these fabrics constitute most durable summer garments, and the pongee becomes softer by repeated washing. Many of the delicate silk tissues known in Europe are not manufactured by the Chinese, most of their fabrics being heavy. The lo or law is a beautiful article, used for summer robes, musqueto curtains, festoons, and other purposes, but is seldom sent abroad. The English words satin, senshaw, and silk, are probably derived from the Chinese terms sz'tün, sínsha, and sz', interme diately through other languages.

The skill of the Chinese in embroidery is well known, and the demand for such work to adorn the dresses of officers and ladies of every rank, for embellishing purses, shoes, caps, fans, and other

appendages of the dress of both sexes, and in working shawls, table covers, &c., for exportation, furnishes employment to myriads of men and women. The frame is placed on pivots, and the pattern is marked out upon the plain surface. All the work is done by the needle without any aid from machinery; there are many styles of work, with thread, braid, or floss, and in one of the most elegant, the design appears the same on both sides, the ends of the threads being neatly concealed. This mode of embroidery seems also to have been known among the Hebrews, from the expression in Deborah's song (Judges v. 30), "Of divers colors of needlework on both sides," which Sisera's mother vainly looked for him to bring home as spoil. Books are prepared for the use of embroiderers, containing patterns for them to imitate. The silk used in this art is of the finest kind and colors; gold and silver thread is occasionally added to impart a lustre to the figures on caps, purses, and ladies' shoes. A branch of the embroiderer's art consists in the formation of tassels and twisted cords for sedans, lanterns, &c.; and in the knobs or corded buttons worn on the winter caps, made of cord intertwisted into the shape of a ball. Spangles are made from brass leaves by cutting out a small ring, by means of a double edged stamp, which at one drive detaches from the sheet a wheel-shaped circle; these are flattened by a single stroke of the hammer upon an anvil, leaving a minute hole in the centre. Another way of making them is to bend a copper wire into a circle and flatten it. The needles are very slender, but of good metal; in sewing, the tailor holds it between the forefinger and thumb, pressing against the thimble on the thumb, to push it into the cloth.

The durable cotton cloth made in the central provinces, called Nankeen by foreigners, is the chief produce of Chinese looms in this material, the aerial muslins so highly admired by the Hindus not being woven. The nankeen is generally exported without dyeing, but the people usually color it blue before making it into garments. The import of raw and manufactured cotton constitutes a large item in the foreign trade, but forms a small part of the native consumption. In preparing the cotton for spinning, it is cleaned and freed from knots by placing the string of a bow under the heap, and striking it with a beater; the recoil separates it into flocks without injuring the staple. The looms used in weaving cotton vary from twelve to sixteen inches in width; they

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are much simpler in their construction than the silk looms, as no figures are woven in cotton fabrics, nor have the Chinese learned to print them as chintz or calico. Foreign linen is sparingly used, for the Chinese have a good substitute in their beautiful grasscloth. It is made from the fibres of two or three plants, by a comparatively toilsome process, the thread being made ready for the loom by hand on a board.

Leather is sparingly used for protecting the felt soles of shoes, and making saddles, bridles, quivers, harness, &c., but the entire consumption is small, and the leather porous and tender. Furs and skins of every kind are dressed very soft for garments. Buffalo and horse-hides are tanned for sole leather, and calf-skin for upper leather. Foreigners at Canton consume and export a large amount of cheap shoes. Alum, saltpetre, gambier, and urine, are the tanning materials employed, and the rapid manner in which the process is completed renders the leather too porous to protect the feet in wet weather. Morocco, buckskin, and chamois leather, are unknown, and the thousand applications of leather among ourselves, have yet to be introduced among the Chinese.

Cobblers go about the streets plying their trade, provided with a few bits of nankeen, silk, and yellowish sole leather, with which they patch their customers' shoes. It is no small convenience to a man, as he passes along the street, to give his old shoe to a