On the Economical Uses of some species of Testacea. 1 
of any value, or in any quantity, that could then be obtained, was 
procured from it, and it was only gradually that it gave way before 
the cheaper and more beautiful fabric. ‘The animals inhabiting the 
Pinne have the power of fixing themselves to any substance, by 
throwing out an extensile member, and discharging from its tip a 
drop of gluten, which, by the retraction-of the same organ, is formed 
into a silky filament, and by frequently repeating this operation a 
thick tuft is formed, by which the shell is fastened in any situation 
the animal chooses.* It is of these silky filaments, which are of a 
rich gold color, that cloth was made; and of such value was it, that 
for a long time none but monarchs and persons of high rank wore it, 
as their robes of state. 
There have been endless disputes among commentators, what ma- 
terial was meant among the Greeks and Romans by the word Byssus, 
and they have not unfrequently confounded the Byssinum, the Bom- 
bicina, and the Sericum of the ancients altogether as one. Some 
have supposed the Byssinum to be a cotton, some make it the same 
with the Sertcum, and others, very fine linen. The fact. however 
seems to be, that the word was frequently appied indiscriminately 
to any texture finer than woolen; but on speaking appropriately, it 
was used solely for the stuff caaalaieiiel from the produce of 
Pinna.t It was in use during the earliest periods, as we find David,} 
B.C. 1043, clothed with a robe of it, and we can trace it as an arti- 
cle of commerce until near the end of the fourteenth century. The 
Hebrew word is Butz, but is in general erroneously translated, and 
in our version of the Bible is confounded with real linen and cot~ 
ton, under the name of “fine linen.” It does not appear in the text 
of Moses; and the only books in which it occurs are Chronicles, 
Ezekiel$ and Esther.|| In Chronicles we see David with a manile 
of Butz, with the singers and the Levites. Solomon used it in the 
veils of the temple and sanctuary. Ahasuerus’ tents were upheld 
by cords of it; and Mordecai was clothed with a mantle of purple 
and Butz, when king Ahasuerus honored him with the first employ- 
ment in his kingdom, about B. C. 509. It was among the mer- 
chandize imported into Tyre from Syria, enumerated by Ezekiel, 
* Dillwyn, III. 24. 
t ‘ ‘As de ivan “opbospvovros “ex Bicdou "sv cog “oppwded's xo CopBopw- 
deow 3” and Duval in explanation = “ex bysso, id est, villo, sive lana illa pin- 
nali,”—Aristotle, Oper. omnia. Par S, MDCXXIX; tom. II. p. 844 
+ 1 Chron. xv. 27. $ Ezek. xxvii. 16. tl Esther, i. 6. vii. 15, 
4 2Chron, ii. 14. 
