The hanks are now to be taken from the rods to the peg, disentangled, and nine or ten of them put on one cord, this cord passing through the string that tied each hank. When the whole is corded it is put into pockets of coarse strong white linen fifteen inches wide and five feet long, closed at each end and on one side; when the silk is put in, the pocket is sewed all along the other side with packthread, and fastened with a knot; four pockets will hold the whole hundred pounds. The pockets being thus ready another liquor is prepared like the first. When ready, and the boiling checked with cold water, the pockets are put in and boiled well for a quarter of an hour, checking with cold water in order to prevent its boiling over; it is necessary also to turn the bags about often with a pole, or rather let two persons have a pole each for this purpose. This operation is called boiling. In addition to the processes of boiling with soap, as above directed, _Mr. M'Kernan_ recommends that the silk should be winched through a copper of water at the heat of 160°, having two pounds of soda (barilla) dissolved in it, then winch or wash in water, and wring and dry. In the boiling of silks for common colours twenty pounds of soap will do for a hundred weight of silk; but, as in this case, the silk is not ungummed, it should boil for three hours and a half, adding water to supply the evaporation. The silks intended for the greatest degree of white, either to remain white, or for the fabrication of white stuff, are boiled twice in soap and water; those that are to be dyed of different colours are boiled but once, and with a smaller quantity of soap, because the little remaining redness is by no means prejudicial to many colours. Different quantities of soap are, however, necessary for different colours. Silk designed for blue, iron grey, brimstone, or any other colour requiring a very white ground, should be done according to the preceding process, and have thirty pounds of soap. When the silk is boiled it is taken out of the copper by two men with poles, and placed in a clean barrow; they are then taken to a long shallow trough, from which the water may run away, the pockets are opened, and the silks examined; such as have yellow or lemon colour spots remaining are boiled again for some time, till the spots are removed. After unpocketing, the whole is dressed on the pegs. Silk loses from twenty-five to twenty-eight per cent. of its weight in ungumming and whitening. The bags of silk should never be suffered to lie long together before they are emptied after being boiled, as their doing so would make the silk hard. _White_ silk, as before observed, is distinguished into five principal shades, namely, _China white_, _India white_, _thread_ or _milk white_, _silver white_, and _azure white_.