436 Rev. Dr. Scott on the Fine Linen 



the earliest times; and whether the cotton-plant was brought 

 originally from India toiSgypt, or vice versa, it can grow in 

 all warm climates. 



We agree with Dr. Vincent* in thinking, that cotton has 

 had its name from a kind of iruit growing in Crete, called 

 Cotonean by Pliny, though, in the first instance, it may have 

 come into our language through the French. 



Pliny tells us, lib. xiii. cap. 14, that " ^Ethiopia produces 

 some remarkable trees which bear wool, the nature of which 

 has been mentioned in the description of Arabia and India;" 

 and again, lib. xii. cap. 10, the passage referred to by Dr. 

 Vincent, " They bear pods as large as the cotonean apples, 

 which burst as soon as ripe, and disclose balls of wool, which 

 are made into linen cloths of great value;" and still more 

 -expressly, lib. xix. cap. 1, " The upper part of Egypt, lying 

 towards Arabia, produces a shrub, which some call Gossipium, 

 many Xylon, and its wool Xylina." 



By this account, we see that Pliny confounds cotton with 

 linen, for want, no doubt, of a proper term to express it ; and 

 Ammiar.us Marcellinus, lib. 23, confounds it with silk, as some 

 think Virgil does in these two lines of the second Georgic, 



Quid nemora ^Ethiopum niolli canentia lana? 

 Velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres? 



though, in general, his natural history is wonderfully correct. 



We may therefore, indeed, lay it down as an established 

 fact, that the Greeks and Romans, as well as the later Jews, 

 often call cotton, linen, silk, or wool, as well from imperfect 

 knowledge, as from careless expression ; though ofterv they 

 add some circumstance by which it can be distinguished from 

 each of these substances. 



The natural colour of cotton is white, and with this white- 

 ness every one is struck as soon as he beholds it. On this 

 ground, several learned men have thought that shesh, trans- 

 lated fine linen in the English Bible, comes from a Hebrew 

 verb, which signifies to be white. 



This whiteness, derived from nature, and not art, cannot be 

 overlooked in any good description of this substance. Thus, 

 Revelations, xix. and 14, " The armies of Heaven followed 

 him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, (the original term 

 is bvssos,) white and clean." Thus, in Isidore's Origines, 

 lib. 22, " White robes of byss, made of a kind of coarser 

 lint ;" and again, lib. 27, " Byss is a material excessively 

 white and soft, which the Greeks call Papas." 



It cannot be denied, however, that, by bleaching, linen can 

 lie made whiter even than cotton ; and from comparing Exn- 



* Perip. Nearch. Prelim. Disq. 



