173 



COTTOX. 



COTTUS. 



171 



toughness when an attempt is made to break it. In short, cotton is 

 a development of cellular tissue. Linen is a form of vascular tissue. 

 Hence it is easy to distinguish with certainty linen from cotton 

 manufactured articles, in cases of doubt ; and hence also the well- 

 known superiority of linen to cotton in strength : the latter is manu- 

 factured from the most delicate part of plants, the former from the 

 toughest. [TISSUES, VEGETABLE.] 



Cotton is produced by many different species and varieties of the 

 genus Gossypium, which consists of herbaceous or nearly herbaceous 

 plants, varying in height from 3 or 4 to 15 or 20 feet, according to 

 the sort. Sometimes the branches become woody, but they always 

 partake very much of the herbaceous character. The leaves are 

 downy and more or less lobed, being sometimes however near the 

 top of the stem undivided ; at their base is seated a pair of awl- 

 shaped stipules. The flowers are either yellow or dull purple, and 

 have the ordinary structure of the Malvaceous Family ; each is sur- 

 rounded by three heart-shaped bracts, which are more or less lacerated. 

 The calyx is a bluntly 5-toothed cup. The seed-vessel is a capsule 

 opening into from 3 to 5 lobes, and then exposing many seeds 

 enveloped in cotton, which sometimes adheres to them so firmly that 

 it is separated with difficulty ; sometimes it parts freely from them ; 

 in come sorts it is long and in others comparatively short, giving rise 

 to the commercial names of Long Staple and Short Staple. 



The qualities of these hairs most valued by the manufacturer are 

 length of staple, strength, and silkiness. In these respects cotton 

 differs very much, and it is when these three properties are combined 

 in the highest degree that the cotton obtains the highest prices in the 

 markets. 



Cotton-plants are found wild in both the Old and New World. 

 Herodotus and Arrian speak of the cotton-plant as indigenous in 

 India, and the cloth found in Peruvian tombs sufficiently attests its 

 having existed in that country long before it could possibly have been 

 carried to America by eastern intercourse. In fact the wild American 

 cotton-plants are specifically different from those of the Old World ; 

 but at the present day the cotton of the West is cultivated in Asia 

 and Africa, while that of the East has long since been introduced to 

 the American plantations. 



The situations in which cotton-plants have been advantageously 

 cultivated are included between Egypt and the Cape of Good Hope 

 in the eastern, and between the southern banks of the Chesapeake 

 Bay and the south of Brazil, in the western hemisphere. It has not 

 been found to succeed beyond the parallels that limit those countries. 

 In the equinoctial parts of America Humbol.lt found it at 9000 feet 

 elevation above the sea ; in Mexico as high as 5500 feet ; and Professor 

 Royle saw it at the elevation of 4000 feet on the Himalayas. It seems 

 generally to prefer the vicinity of the sea in dry countries, and the 

 interior districts of naturally damp climates. Thus, while the best 

 cotton is procured in India from the coist of Coromandel, or other 

 maritime districts, and in the southern states of the American Union 

 from certain coast-islands, the coast cotton of Peruambuco is inferior 

 to what is produced in the interior of that country. These facts 

 lead to the inference that it is not merely temperature by which the 

 quality of cotton is affected, but a peculiar combination of heat, light, 

 and moisture ; the most favourable instance of which may be assumed 

 to be the coast of Georgia and the Carolina*, and the worst to be Java 

 and the coast of Brazil. 



That this should be so would, in the absence of positive evidence, 

 be probable, considering the nature of cotton. We have seen that it 

 is a hairy development of the surface of the seed ; and nothing in the 

 organisation of plants is more affected by the situation they live in 

 than their hairs : thus many water-plants which have scarcely any 

 hairs, when transferred to a dry exposed station are closely covered 

 with such organs, and vice vena. The quantity of hair is also affected 

 in an extraordinary degree by local circumstances. The Venetian 

 sumach-plant, when in flower, has its flower-stalks nearly naked ; a 

 large proportion of the flower stalks has no fruit, and becomes covered 

 with very copious long hairs, whence the French call this plant Arbre 

 a Perruque ; but those flower-stalks which do bear fruit remain 

 hairless. In this case the local cause is probably the abundant food 

 thrown by the system of the sumach-plant into the flower-stalks for 

 the nourishment of the fruit ; and the fruit not forming, the food 

 intended for it is expended in the formation of hairs upon the surface 

 of the flower-stalk. This is only an accident, but local circumstances 

 conducive to the formation of cotton in excess may be permanent, 

 and derived from the situations in which the plants grow. In a damp 

 <ly climate the food procured from the soil may not be concen- 

 trated upon the surface of the seed, but may be expended in the 

 production of excessive quantities of leaves, and of proportionally few 

 flowers ; or it may pass off into the atmosphere in the form of a mere 

 exhalation, a small proportion only being consolidated ; or in a dry 

 climate the soil may not be able to furnish food enough to the plant 

 out of which to form more cotton than it is absolutely its specific 

 I>r|ir.rty to produce under any circumstances. Or, lastly, there may 

 where the powers of vegetation are called into their utmost 

 activity by warmth and abundant food, and where, nevertheless, the 

 i" of the atmosphere and the brightness of the sun, constantly 

 art ing upon the surface of the cotton pods (seed-vessels), may drive 

 back the juices from tho surface of the latter to that of the seeds, and 



;hus augment the quantity and improve the quality of the cotton 

 tself : this may explain the action of climate upon this substance. 



The question is however rather more complicated ; the different 

 specific qualities of different varieties of the cotton-plant must be also 

 ;aken into account. A considerable number of varieties of cotton is 

 certainly cultivated, although little is correctly known about them, 

 [n some of them the cotton is long, in others it is short ; this has it 

 white, that nankeen-coloured : one may be cultivated advantageously 

 where the mean winter temperature does not exceed 46 or 48, and 

 another may require the climate of the tropics. This is just what 

 iappens with all cultivated plants. Some vines will produce only 

 sweet wine, others only hard dry wine, and some are suited only to 

 the table ; some potatoes are destroyed by a temperature of 32, while 

 others will bear an average English winter ; only one kind of wheat 

 produces the straw from which the fine Leghorn plait for bonnets is 

 prepared. But to multiply such instances is unnecessary. There can 

 then be no doubt that the quantity and quality of cotton will depend 

 partly upon climate and partly upon the specific properties of parti- 

 cular varieties. 



The Cotton-Plant, or Gossypium. must not be confounded with the 

 Cotton-Tree, JBombax, or Eriodendron. The latter has also cottony 

 seeds, but they cannot be manufactured. 



For further information see COTTOU MANUFACTURE, in ARTS AND 

 Sc. Div. 



' ( Koyle, Illustrations of the Botany and other Branches of the 

 Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of 

 Cachmere, article * Malvaceje.') 



CO'TTUS (Linnaeus), a genus of Fishes belonging to the section 

 Acanthopterygii and family Loricati (Jenyns). The species have the 

 following characters : Head large, depressed, furnished more or less 

 with spines or tubercles ; teeth in front of the vomer and in both 

 jaws, none on the palatines ; two dorsal fins ; ventral fin small ; body 

 without scales ; branchiostegous rays six. 



C. gobio, (Linn.), the River Bull-Head. Miller's Thumb, or Tommy- 

 Logge, affords an example of this genus. This little fish, which is 

 found in almost all the fresh-water streams throughout Europe, is 

 from 3 to 4 inches in length, and of a browish colour above, more or 

 less mottled and spotted, and whitish beneath. The head is very 

 large in proportion to the body, and without spines ; the pre-oper- 

 culum has a single curved spine on the posterior part : the eyes are 

 small, and directed upwards. The number of fin-rays are anterior 

 dorsal 6 to 9, posterior 17 or 18 ; pectoral 15 ; ventral 3 ; anal 13 ; 

 caudal 11. The name Bull-Head is given these fishes on account of 

 the large size of their heads. These fish more particularly frequent 

 those streams in which pebbles abound. They feed upon aquatic 

 insects, Ac. It is found in the brooks and streams of Great Britain. 



The remaining British species of this genus inhabit the salt water, 

 and together with others of the same habits, are distinguished from the 

 fresh-water species by having the head armed with numerous spines. 



C. icorpiiu (Bloch), the Sea-Scorpion, or Short-Spined Cottus, is very 

 common on our coasts, and is found very frequently under stones or 

 sea-weeds, hi the little pools left by the retiring tide. It is thus 

 described by Mr. Yarrell. "The head large, more elevated than 

 that of the River Bull-Head ; upper jaw rather the longer ; teeth 

 small and sharp ; eyes large, situated about half-way between the 

 point of the nose and the occiput ; irides yellow, pupils bluish-black ; 

 one pair of spines above the nostrils, with an elevated ridge between 

 them ; the inner edges of the orbits elevated, with a hollow depression 

 above, but no occipital spines ; pre-operculum with three spines ; the 

 upper one the longest ; operculum with two spines, the upper one 

 also the longest, the lower one pointing downwards ; there is besides 

 a scapular and a clavicular spjne on each side ; gill-openings large ; 

 the body tapers off rapidly, and is mottled over with dark purple- 

 brown, occasionally varied with a rich red-brown ; the belly white ; 

 the first dorsal fin slightly connected with the second by an extension 

 of the membrane ; lateral line smooth ; the ventral fins attached 

 posteriorly by a membrane to the belly." Length rarely exceeding 

 8 or 9 inches. 



This fish feeds upon small Crustacea and the fry of other fishes. 

 C. 64o/w(Euphrasen), the Father-Lasher, or Long-Spined Cottus, is 

 about the same size, and resembles the last both in appearance and 

 habits; the two species however are seldom found in the same imme- 

 diate neighbourhood. This species is distinguished from the last by 

 its more perfectly armed head, the spines of which are longer in pro- 

 portion, the space between the eyes is less, the crest above the eyes is 

 more elevated, and the ventral fins are destitute of the connecting 

 membrane observed in the Short-Spined Cottus. Both these and the 

 last species are remarkable for the length of time they will live out of 

 the water. Hence Mr. Yarrell concludes that it is not a large gill- 

 aperture, as has been supposed, which hastens the death of certain 

 kinds of fish, as these have very large heads and gill-apertures. 



C. quadricomit (Linn.), the Four-Horned Father- Lasher, or Cottus, 

 another species also found off the British coast, though less abund- 

 antly than either of the foregoing maritime species, may be distin- 

 guisned, as its name implies, by the four tubercles which are situated 

 on the top of the head, two on the nape, and two near the eyes ; the 

 pre-operculum is furnished with three spines, and the operculum with 

 one ; length from 10 to 12 inches. 



