is employed by those who deal in diamonds, and other precious stones.
It is the custom to reel off, upon an engine established in the silk
trade, a measure of four hundred ells of tram or organzine, (which are
both double threads,) and the weight of this quantity establishes the
fineness or coarseness of the silk. Four hundred ells of the finest
Italian tram will weigh eighteen deniers; and although this silk will
occasionally run so coarse as to weigh forty deniers, the qualities
mostly in use vary in weight from eighteen to thirty deniers. The China
and Bengal silk varies from thirty-five to eighty deniers in its weight.
Turkey silk, the importation of which has lately much increased, and
which is worked up in the single thread on account of the coarseness of
the texture, varies from thirty to fifty deniers; which, as the others
are weighed in the tram or double thread, will be in the proportion of
sixty to one hundred deniers.

Silk is the staple manufacture of France, and has always received the
fostering protection of the government. The raw material is the produce
of the country; and, as the growers of silk are not permitted to export
it, it is purchased by the manufacturers at a much cheaper rate than it
can be procured by us. The value of the raw silk yearly produced in
France is estimated at about three millions and a half sterling--the
produce of manufacture at about two millions and a half; so that the
silk trade of France is to be valued, on the whole, at about six
millions sterling.

This is the estimate which is made by the acknowledgment of the French
government; but there is every reason to suppose that it is much more
considerable. This is certain;--that it is of the greatest value to that
nation, and has received such protection, and, in consequence, is in
that flourishing condition, that, at present, no other country can