The harsh gummy silk that comes in from the throwing mills is boiled, wrung out, and boiled again. If it wants bleaching, there is a sort of open oven of a house; a vault in the yard where it is "sulphured." The heat, and the sensation in the throat, inform us in a moment where we have got to. When the hanks come forth from this process, every thread is separated from its neighbor, and the whole bundle is soft, dry, and glossy. Then follows the dyeing. To make the silk receive the colors, it is dipped in a mordant in some diluted acid, or solution of metal which enables the color to bite into the fibre. To make pinks of all shades, the silk is dipped in diluted tartaric acid for the mordant, and then in a decoction of safflower for the hue. To make plum-color or puce, indigo is the dye, with a cochineal. To make black, nitrate of iron first; then a washing follows; and then a dipping in logwood dye, mixed with soap and water. For a white, pure enough for ribbons, the silk has to pass through the three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. The dipping, wringing, splashing, stirring, boiling, drying, go on vigorously, from end to end of the large premises, as may be supposed, when the fact is mentioned that the daily consumption of water amounts to one hundred thousand gallons. A reservoir, in the middle of the yard, formerly supplied the water; but it proved insufficient, or uncertain; and now it is about to be filled up, and an Artesian well is opened to the depth of one hundred and ninety-five feet. The dyeing sheds are paved with pebbles or bricks, crossed with gutters, and variegated with gay puddles. Stout brick-built coppers are stationed round the place. Above each copper are cocks, which let in hot and cold water from the pipes that travel round the walls of the sheds. There are wooden troughs for the dye; and to these troughs the water is conveyed by spouts. The silk hangs down into the dye from poles, smoothly turned and uniform, which are laid across the troughs by the dozen or more at once. These staves are procured from Derby. They cost from six shillings to twenty-four shillings per dozen, and constitute an independent subsidiary manufacture. The silk hanks being suspended from those poles, two men, standing on either side the trough, take up two poles, souse, and shake, and plunge the silk, and turn that which had been uppermost under the surface of the liquor, and pass on to the next two. When done enough, the silk is wrung out and pressed, and taken to the drying-house. The heat in that large chamber is about one hundred degrees. On entering it, everybody begins to cough. The place is lofty and large. The staves, which are laid across beams, to contain the suspended silk, make little movable ceilings here and there. This chamber contains five or six hundred-weights of silk at once. Our minds glance once more towards the spinning insects on hearing this; and we ask again, how much of their