M. Bon's collection of spiders continued to thrive; and, in due season, he found that the greater number of them had completed their cocoons or bags. He then dislodged the bags from the paper boxes; threw them into warm water, and kept washing them until they were quite free from dirt of any kind. The next process was to make a preparation of soap, saltpetre, and gum-arabic dissolved in water. Into this preparation the bags were thrown, and set to boil over a gentle fire for the space of three hours. When they were taken out and the soap had been rinsed from them, they appeared to be composed of fine, strong, ash-colored silk. Before being carded on fine cards, they were set out for some days to dry thoroughly. The carding, according to M. Bon, was an easy matter: and he affirmed that the threads of the silk he obtained were stronger and finer than those of the silk-worm. M. Reaumur, however, who was dispatched to the scene of M. Bon's investigations by the Royal Academy of Paris, gave a different version of the matter. He found, that whereas the thread of the spider's bag will sustain only thirty-six grains, that of the silkworm will support a weight of two drachms and a half--or four times the weight sustained by the spider-thread. Though M. Bon was certainly an enthusiast on behalf of spiders, M. Reaumur as undoubtedly had a strong predilection in favor of the bombyx; and the result of these contending prejudices was, that M. Bon's investigations were overrated by a few, and utterly disregarded by the majority of his countrymen. He injured himself by rash assertions. He endeavored to make out that spiders were more prolific, and yielded a proportionably larger quantity of silk than silkworms. These assertions were disproved, but in no kindly spirit, by M. Reaumur. To do away with the impression that spiders and their webs were venomous, M. Bon not only asserted, with truth, that their bite was harmless, but he even went so far as to subject his favorite insect to a chemical analysis, and he succeeded in extracting from it a volatile salt which he christened Montpelier drops, and recommended strongly as an efficacious medicine in lethargic states.