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;6 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. pushm, which is indispensable for making the shawl-yarns, is a work of great labor. The raw or unprepared pushm, it is said, costs in India about seventy-five cents per pound; but the labor of separating the kemp, at the low rate of four cents a day, is so great as to bring the cost of the pure pushm up to seven or eight dollars per pound. Well-arranged specimens of the pushm, as well as magnificent samples of the shawls fabricated from this material, were shown in the India collections. One in the Exhibition, imported by an English house, was valued at $1137. The prices of shawls, actually of Indian fabrication, descend as low as $20. The inferior shawls are made in Kerman, in Persia, as well as in India, from the material called “ koork,” proceeding from a particular kind of white goat, distinct from the Thibetian animal. Numerous flocks of these goats are kept at Kerman. They are cultivated in the same manner as the Merinos formerly were in Spain, being transhumant,—or feeding in the valleys in winter, and on the distant mountain-plateaus in summer. A large part of the Kerman koork is annually exported to Upper India, where it is manufactured into false India shawls. It is the koork, and not the pure cashmere pushm, as is commonly supposed, which forms the material of the richest of the Persian carpets, a magnificent specimen of which is in the collection of the Boston Art Museum; and an inferior one from Khorassan, now in Messrs. Sloane’s warehouse in New York, although but six feet by four in size, is valued at $275. The fabrication of cashmere shawls in Europe has been attempted only by the French. The peculiar Indian texture called “ espouline” was perfectly achieved in Paris in 1834, four thousand workmen being employed, while some four hundred goats were imported from Thibet. But it was found that the raw material, expensive as it is, formed not more than one-tenth of the cost of a shawl; that the French workman could not compete with the Indian weaver, working at less than one- fitth of his wages ; and that ladies of fashion would pay twice as much for a genuine India shawl as for a French article really superior in texture and design. The manufacture has, therefore, been abandoned. Since the monopoly of the East India Company has ceased, the French have reconciled themselves to the loss of this manufacture by making Paris the principal entrepot in Europe of the India shawl trade. The inferior pushm or koork, from which the kemp is not separated, is at present largely used by the French in the fabrication of cashmere dress fabrics. The next analogous material, in value and importance, occupying the place of wool, is mohair,—the product of the Angora goat. As this material could not be properly discussed under the head of wool,