Scientific Intelligence — MicrograpJiy. 221 



it has usually been supposed that these cloths were composed of 

 cotton ; but lately Mr James Thomson and Mr Bauer have 

 published in this country the results of their researches, which 

 go to shew that it was lint and not cotton which was employed 

 in their construction. It was by the means of the microscope, 

 and by comparing the form of the filaments of cotton and hnt, 

 that these gentlemen come to this conclusion. The filaments 

 of the former are flat and twisted upon themselves, and resemble 

 small ribbons twisted in such a way as to represent a long flat 

 plate spirally arranged ; on the contrary, the filaments of lint 

 are cylindrical throughout. Th'e form of the filaments of cotton 

 may be discovered both in the threads of cloth, and also in pa- 

 per which has been made from cotton rags. But nothing resem- 

 bhng this form has been observed in the filaments of the thread 

 which compose the cloths round the Egyptian mummies ; and, 

 on the other hand, the cylindrical form of the filaments of lint 

 is discovered. M. Dutrochet has repeated the observations of 

 Messrs Thomson and Bauer upon the enveloping wrappers of 

 the mummies contained in the Egyptian Museum at Paris ; aod 

 has likewise found that the threads of these cloths entirely re- 

 semble those of linen, and are quite different from those of cot- 

 ton. He has likewise remarked another circumstance which has 

 not been noted by the above named gentlemen. In examining 

 the woven filaments of lint taken from threads which have so 

 long been subjected to use, that the frequent washings have com- 

 pletely destroyed the natural adherence of the diff'erent filaments, 

 an adhesion which usually is not destroyed by the steeping, he 

 has noticed that these filaments are of two kinds ; the one, like 

 microscopic bamboos, are vegetable tubes composed of elongated 

 joints, and often somewhat swollen at the knots which are formed 

 by their junction ; these tubes are about the .0004 of an inch 

 in diameter. The other vegetable tubes which, with the pre- 

 ceding, constitute the textile filaments of hnt, are not composed 

 of joints, but are uniform in their appearance, and their diameter 

 is about half the size of the others. It is to be observed in ad- 

 dition then, that these two kinds of textile filaments which have 

 thus been found by M. Dutrochet in the lint of our day, have 

 been also observed in the threads which were employed in the fe- 

 brication of the cloths which surround the Egyptian mummies. 



