454 TRANSACTIONS OF TH£ 



The art cf making cloth is very ancient, and doubtless before 

 the flood spuming and weaving of some sort Avere known. The 

 first covering which our own original parents used was formed of 

 the leaves of the fig-tree. Next men used the skins of animals; 

 then they learned to manufacture the long hair of beasts into a 

 rude kind of cloth, and then brought the discovery to greater de- 

 grees of perfection by the use of wool, cotton, and flax, the spin- 

 ning of which became the province of Avomen almost exclusively, 

 as is fully revealed in the Proverbs. 



In the time of Abraham the art seems to have been well un- 

 derstood. Flax, as a material of linen stuffs, was produced in 

 Egypt, (Isaiah, xix, 9,) and was an article of extensive com- 

 merce. In Genesis, xli, 42, we find Pharaoh clothed Joseph in 

 vestures of fine linen, so that the art of preparing the fibrous 

 stalk of the flax plant is easily traceable to the time of Joseph, a 

 period of three thousand five hundred and seventy years. 



For some time the preparation of flaxen thread was confined to 

 Egypt. Solomon obtained this material from that country, and 

 linen cloths were made with it for the Jews, even as far down as 

 the time of Heroditus, (484 B. C.,) we are told by him that in his 

 time linen was obtained by the Greeks from Egypt. 



In every country Avhere flax has been cultivated, it has been 

 applied to this manufacture, except in Hindus, where it is only 

 valuable for the oil derived from its seed, the stalk not being 

 used. 



The raising of flax, now grown in every quarter of the globe, 

 was but sparsely cultivated in Europe in the time of Pliny, and 

 was not introduced into England until after the Roman invasion, 

 and introduced then principally for the purpose of making nets. 



Thus having seen this article in use for a period reaching to the 

 remotest periods of civilization, we are forced with the reflection, 

 how did these ancient peojole of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Bri- 

 tain prepare these fibres from which to weave these fabrics 1 



The nature of the plant is such that iu order to get the fibre, it 

 is necessary to free the bark from the woody part to which it is 

 held by a glutinous substance. It requires something capable of 

 dissolving this gluten. In the first use of flax warm water was 

 used; then came the steeping in rivers and ditches. In no part 

 of the preparation of flax is more care needed than the steeping, 

 as both the color and the strength may be utterly ruined in it. 



The usual method seems to have been to encase the stalks in 

 an open square frame, and then to imbed the frame in the muddy 



