silks of all the colors that can
be imagined. After the silk is woven, it is polished on lustering
machines, singed to destroy all bits of free fibers or lint, freed of
all threads that may project, and scoured if it is of a light color;
then sold.

[Illustration: _Courtesy Cheney Bros._

HOW SPUN SILK IS MADE

Every manufacturer saves everything he can, and even the waste silk
which cannot be wound on reels is turned into a salable product]

The moth whose cocoon provides most of our silk is called the "bombyx
mori." There are others, however, and from some of these tussah silk,
Yamamai, and Shantung pongee are woven. These wild moths produce a
stronger thread, but it is much less smooth than that of the bombyx.

There is also a great amount of "wood silk," or artificial silk, on
the market. To make this, wood pulp is dissolved in ether and squirted
through fine jets into water. It is soon hard enough to be twisted
into threads and woven. It makes an imitation of silk, bright and
lustrous, but not wearing so well as the silk of the silkworm.
Nevertheless, for many purposes it is used as a substitute for silk,
and many braids and passementeries are made of it. Then, too, there
are the "mercerized" goods, which often closely resemble real silk,
although there is not a thread of silk in them. It was discovered many
years ago that if a piece of cotton cloth was boiled in caustic soda,
it would become soft and thick and better able to receive delicate
dyes. Unfortunately, it also shrank badly. At length it occurred to
some one that the cloth might be kept from shrinking by being
stretched out during the boiling in soda. He was delighted to find
that this process made it more brilliant than many silks.

The threads that fasten the cocoon to the bush and those in the heart
of the cocoon are often used, together with the fiber from any cocoons
through which the worms have made their way out. This is real silk, of
course, but it is made of short fibers which cannot be wound. It is
carded and spun and made into fabric called "spun silk," which is used
extensively for the heavier classes of goods. Then, too, silks are
often "weighted"; that is, just before they are dyed, salts of iron or
tin are added. One pound of silk will absorb two or three pounds of
these chemicals, and will apparently be a heavy silk, while it is
really thin and poor. Moreover, this metallic weighting rubs against
the silk fiber and mysterious holes