THE STORY OF ARTIFICIAL SILK 
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For tens of thousands of years, the silk- 
Worms spun their little sleeping robes, and 
No one gave them a thought. Millions of 
naked savages glanced at them stupidly and 
never conceived of the glory of silken clothes, 
They looked at them as stupidly as you and 
I look at the tides, moving back and forth 
With an infinite power that we do not know 
how to harness. 
._ Then, about 4,600 years ago, there came 
Into the world a wise man and woman, who 
discovered that the silkworm was the ablest 
of all clothiers. The name of the man was 
Hwang-Tj, and the name of the woman was 
Lui-Tsu, They were Emperor and Empress 
of China, which was then the most en- 
lightened country in the world. 
The Empress Lui-Tsu was called ‘the 
goddess of the Silkworms.” She and her 
husband found a way to unroll the silk from 
the cocoons and to make beautiful fabrics. 
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These fabrics were the glory and pri 
the Chinese people. They were worn only 
by the royal family and a few very 
mandarins. 
The Chinese wrote poems about silk. They 
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