VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



CHAPTER II. 



SUBSTANCES MORE PECULIARLY APPLIED TO 

 WEAVING (continued'). 



COTTON. 



IT is impossible to assign even a proximate date to 

 the period when the produce of the cotton tree or 

 plant was first applied to the purposes of spinning 

 and weaving. Goguet* endeavours to show that 

 this material was coeval with the patriarchs. Pliny f 

 describes the cotton plant as a small shrub growing 

 in Upper Egypt, called by some xylon, and by others 

 gossypium, the seeds of which are surrounded by a 

 soft downy substance, of a dazzling whiteness, and 

 which is manufactured into a cloth, much esteemed 

 by the Egyptian priests. This clearly shows that, 

 although known, it was not in extensive use among 

 the Romans in the time of Pliny ; and the date is 

 comparatively modern when cotton stuffs became an 

 article of clothing generally adopted by European 

 nations. 



It is a curious fact, that Herodotus, who wrote 

 five centuries before Pliny, and had visited Egypt, 

 does not describe the cotton plant there, but gives 

 a vague account of it, as it was said to exist among 

 the Indians. " They possess likewise," says the 

 father of Grecian history, " a kind of plant, which 

 instead of fruit, produces wool, of a finer and better 

 quality than that of sheep; of this the natives make 

 their clothes." His name for cotton, when describing 



* L'origine des Loix, des Arts, des Sciences, et deleurprogres 

 chez les anciens Peuples.' 

 f Lib. xix. cap. 1. 



