of the Sacred Writings. 435 



Now, if fine linen be the true translation, we are directly 

 led to suppose, that it was a manufacture from the fibres of 

 flax, but much superior to that of common linen. In Lower 

 Egypt, flax has grown as far back as history reaches ; and the 

 art of making 1 linen of the fibres of flax has been cultivated by 

 the Egyptians from time immemorial. Their eminence in 

 this respect has long been acknowledged, though some think 

 that it has been praised beyond its deserts. 



As the art of manufacturing linen, whatever may have been 

 its quality, has always been a national pursuit among the 

 Egyptians, there are many, even to this hour, whether they 

 be grave divines, or learned grammarians, who contend, that 

 fine linen is truly and strictly what has that name, in the 

 Sacred Writings. 



Convinced, however, that fine linen was not the right ren- 

 dering of the original term, Calvin, Junius, Tremellius, and 

 others, have rendered it by a term denoting silk ; but this 

 rendering must be erroneous, if the product of the vermes 

 hombycina be meant, of which the Chinese, from the remotest 

 antiquity, have formed a delicate and valuable cloth. 



When these interpreters, however, come to explain their 

 meaning, we find that it is something resembling silk, grow- 

 ing on trees, soft to the touch, and of which rich and beauti- 

 ful garments can be made, such as were worn by the Egyptian 

 priests, and those of high rank or in great favour. For in- 

 stance, we read in Genesis, that one of the Pharoahs clothed 

 the patriarch Joseph in a dress of this kind. 



Now, what can this silk be but cotton, which is a downy 

 substance, contained in the pod of a plant, the species of 

 which grow in America, in all the iles of the Archipelago, in 

 Palestine, in Syria, and especially about Thebes in Upper 

 Egypt, through the whole district lying on the east side of the 

 Nile, and west shore of the Red Sea. 



Those which produce cotton, are, the Gossipium arboreum, 

 Gossipium herbaceum, and Bombax ceiba. The Gossipium 

 arboreum, in all probability, was the shrub from which the 

 cotton of Egypt was first procured , — about the time of the 

 Ptolemies, it seems to have been gathered from the Gossipium 

 herbaceum. The Bombax ceiba was rather cultivated in 

 Palestine. The cotton of the Gossipium arboreum was of a 

 bright and dazzling whiteness. That of the Gossipium her- 

 baceum was nothing inferior. What the Bombax ceiba yield- 

 ed, was yellowish; but if the cloth was not so attractive, it 

 must have been owing to the spinner or dyer. 



Saltnasius, in his Plinian Exercitatio-ns, shews that the 

 cotton-plant is abundant in India; and perhaps those are mis- 

 taken who think it indigenous in Egypt. Certainly there 

 was a commercial intercourse betwixt Egypt and India from 



