The female cocoon is oval and the male cocoon is peanut shaped. The silk itself consists of two parts: fibroin (the silk fibre) and sericin (the gum). The thread is made up of two strands of fibre held together by the gum, and the length of thread in a single cocoon varies from three hundred to fourteen hundred yards. The cocoons are white, yellowish, or greenish, but after the boiling process the color of the Bombyx mori silk is pure white.
Japanese Cocoon Market
Tussah and Wild Silk
The preceding description is concerned more particularly with the latter type, from which the largest proportion of the world’s silk supply is derived, but in a general way it applies to the other types also. The most important of these are the Tussah silk of India and China and the Japanese wild silk. The products are coarser and harsher than those of the Bombyx mori, and the natural color is brown.
A Japanese Filature
CHAPTER II
REELING
1. History of the Filature
Early Reeling and Twisting