MALVACE^.. 69 



The fl<nvers and the bursting pods are showy and very beautiful, and must 

 always have heen objects oC admiration. Cotton was unknown to the ancient 

 Egyptians, as no cotton clothes or wrappings have Ijeen found in the mummy 

 pits. The seeds of tree-cotton were found by Kosellini in an Egyjjtian tomb. 

 Herodotus speaks of a plant in India which produced a finer and better (puility 

 of wool than that of sheep, of wliich the mitives made their clothing. Five 

 centuries after Herodotus, Pliny describes the cotton-plant, and states that it 

 was under cultivation in Egypt! and that the Hber was used to make the fabrics 

 worn by the priests. Arabian travellers who visited China during the ninth 

 century state that the Chinese did not at that time use cotton fabrics, such 

 as were used in Southern Euroi)e, Northern Africa, and the countries of the 

 Levant, but instead used silk. It is believed that Alexander the (ireat, about 

 325 B.C., carried the cotton-seed to the Levant from India, where he found it 

 growing' in the country between the forks of the Indus. Another account 

 Sives the Arabs credit for its introduction into Egypt, whence it spread into 

 Asia Minor and the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean. 



The raw material did not become an article of commerce until many years 

 after the occupation of India by the British; but manufactured ctton g.xnls 

 were imported into Great Britain as early as 1666 from Bombay and other 

 ports of Hindustan. The Dutch, English, and Portuguese merchants all dealt 

 largely in cotton fabrics made in Southern Asia. The first iniportati<.n of 

 raw cotton into England from the East Indies occurred in 1798. The profit 

 on cotton when it first entered into commerce was five hundred i)er cent. 

 Napoleon I. during his reign cut off all trade with neighboring nations, antl 

 one of the results was an attempt to bring cotton under cultivation in Italy, 

 Southern France, and the island of Corsica. 



It has been claimed that a cotton-plant has l)een found in Mexic(. entirely 

 different from the Asiatic varieties, growing without cultivation, and that the 

 Mexicans and the Peruvians wore cotton clothing when compiered by the 

 Spaniards, soon after the discovery of the new world. The plant grown now 

 in America was introduced in early colonial times, but did not reach any com- 

 mercial importance till the beginning of tiie i)resent century, when about two 

 tliousand pounds were shii)ped to England; from that time the tiuantity rap- 

 idly increased until the outbreak of the Civil War. 



in the year 1860, 2,160,000,000 pounds were exported. The (piality of the 

 American production is so far supericn- to all others that it brings in tho^open 

 market a much higher price than the cotton of India. Next to the United 

 States, India takes the greatest quantity to Great Britain. 



Before the power loom and spinners were brought into use, China and India 

 made the cotton fabrics and i)rints of the world ; but now England exchanges 

 tlie woven fabrics with those countries for the raw material. 



/"V. — The wool or fiber of the cottou-jdant is now wrought into every 

 sort of fabric that enters into the clothing of civilized peojdes of tropical and 

 subtropical countries, and that constitutes the under garments of people of 

 higlier latitudes, and it forms a large ])art of the attire of females throughout 

 the civilized worM. (iun-cotton, a highly explosive substance, is ]>roduced by 

 soaking cotton in nitric and sulphuric acids. Gun-cotton treated witli sulphuric 

 ether gives collodion. 



Of the seeds an oil is made which rivals the best olive oil for culinary pur- 

 poses. The seeds, ground and ]>ressed into ma.-<ses, are sold under the nante 

 of oil-cake, and used to feed poultry and cattle, for which purpd.^e they are 

 highly valued. 



