7s Rev. Dr Scot on the Fine Linen 



of the plant, at present forming the genus Gossipium, order Po- 

 li/andria, class Mcmadelphia. 



The manufacture of cotton has arrived at great perfection in 

 this country. Cloths have been made from it of the finest and 

 most beautiful fabric, very agreeable to wear, and most favour- 

 ble to health. 



The same excellence of manufacture has been reached long 

 ago by the natives of India. With instruments the most simple 

 they weave webs of astonishing slenderness and delicacy. These 

 they form into robes, which have been worn from the earliest 

 times. *' According to Nearchus," says Arrian in his Indian 

 History, " they use a linen dress of the lint which is from trees." 

 Nay, their knowledge of vegetable lint or wool, is as old as the 

 days of Herodotus. " The Indians likewise possess a kind of 

 plant, which, instead of fruit, produces wool of a finer and bet- 

 ter quality than that of sheep. Of this the natives make their 

 cloths."" Lib. iii. cap. 106. 



Cotton cloths are more suited to warm climates than those df 

 linen. After the finest manufacture of linen, the hardness of 

 the fibre in some sort remains, and, on that account, linen cloths 

 are very disageeable when the body is under perspiration, and 

 even favour the attacks of disease ; whereas those of cotton 

 guard the health, and in warm climates are, with great pro- 

 priety, worn next the skin. 



The Egyptians, for this or some other reason, seem to have 

 wrapped cotton cloths about the bodies of the dead, after em- 

 balming. " After washing the dead man," says Herodotus, 

 lib. ii. c. 86., " they enclose the whole body in a wrapper of 

 byssos, or cotton, with thongs of leather," &c. In the same 

 manner, Mr Greaves, who witnessed the opening of a mummy, 

 has these words, (Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 519.) " These pic- 

 tures with the gorget, were tied on with brownish lengths of 

 cotton. Under these, the whole body had a covering of fine 

 linen ; I think of cotton." 



I have been informed by some of those who were present at 

 the opening of a mummy, presented to this Society by General 

 Straton, that it was wrapped in folds of cotton, as they under- 

 stood it ; and what struck them very much, the cloth was very 

 coarse, and, in comparison of European manufacture, by no 

 means entitled to the character of fine linen ; though it is not 



