36 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



exists on this subject, and for the reasons already given would 

 serve, very possibly, no very good purpose were the attempt made. 

 Some years ago Evan Leigh (' The Science of Modern Cotton- 

 spinning ') gave a table that exhibited in inches the minimum, 

 maximum, and mean lengths of certain flosses, as also of their corre- 

 sponding diameters. That table has been drawn upon, apparently, 

 by most subsequent writers, such as Evans (' The Cotton Plant,' &c., 

 p. 77), Burkett (' Cotton,' p. 82), &c., but without any material progress 

 being made in cotton measurements. Taking Leigh's maximum 

 measurements only (for convenience), New Orleans was 1 P 16 inch ; 

 Sea Island, 1-80 inch; Brazilian, 1*31 inch; Egyptian, 1-52 inch; 

 Indian indigenous, T02 inch ; American, grown in India, 1*21 inch ; 

 Short and an ^ Sea Island and Egyptian, grown in India, T65 inch. Leigh 



thick brought out the additional and important fact that the shortest 

 staples. 



staples had the greatest diameter Indian indigenous having a 



maximum diameter of '001040 and Sea Island -000820. Thus the 

 longest fibres have also the smallest diameter. The so-called 

 Egyptian was revealed as the most regular both in length and 

 diameter of the fibre, the greatest difference being ^f of an inch 

 a^d T6 Vir of an inch respectively. Sea Island, while possessing the 

 greatest length and fineness of fibre, exhibits, on the other hand, 

 the greatest variation, viz. -^ of an inch in length and ^VW of 

 an inch in diameter of the individual fibres. It is commonly stated 

 that, on average, Sea Island cotton is about one-third the diameter 

 and three times the length of an average Indian staple. Thus the 

 finest and coarsest staples may be spoken of as having approximately 

 the same cavity area that is to say, are capable of receiving about 

 the same amount of secondary deposits of cellulose. (Cf. Wiesner, 

 1 Die Rohstoffe, &c.' pp. 244-5). 



CHEMISTEY OF THE COTTON CELL. Many questions of adapt- 

 ability to spinning, dyeing, and other industrial purposes depend 

 largely, no doubt, on the structural and physical conditions of the 

 floss itself and on its chemical characteristics. Briefly, cotton may 

 be described as cellulose with about 3 per cent, of other substances, 

 such as colouring material, pectin, wax, and albuminous materials. 

 Most of the issues of its chemical composition lie, however, beyond 

 the scope of this work, which has been framed to deal primarily with 

 questions affecting production. One or two features of the chemical 

 investigations may, however, be briefly mentioned, since some of 

 them may be utilised in testing the results attained in cultivation. 



