Throwing of silk was an important branch of manufacture in this country, until the duties were reduced in 1826.  Since that period it has declined.  The manufacture of thrown silk is chiefly carried on at Macclesfield, Congleton, and in the West of England.  As silk can be thrown more cheaply in foreign countries than it can be in England, there has been a difference between the throwsters and the weavers of Coventry and Spitalfields, the latter having requested the protecting duty against foreign thrown silk to be reduced, to the manifest injury of the former.

It may be as well to explain to the reader the weights which are used in the silk trade.  The weight of silk is estimated by deniers, an old Italian weight, of which twenty-four are equal to an ounce, used only in the silk trade, in the same manner as the weight called a carat 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 compete with it.—­Metropolitan.

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RECENT VISIT TO THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.