Linuin gqrandiflorun, 
S / HEN Pharaoh trembled to behold 
the plague of hail, “and fire 
mingled with the hail, very 
erievous,” he repented, and be- 
sought Moses to “intreat the 
Lord ;” and Moses spread abroad 
his hands, “and the thunders and 
hail ceased.”? Then it was found 
“that the flax and the barley was 
smitten: for the barley was in 
the ear, and the flax was bolled.” 
This passage establishes the cul- 
tivation of flax in Egypt 1,500 
years before the Christian era, 
and over 500 years before the 
time of Homer, who speaks of 
it as representing an important 
domestic industry. Herodotus 
describes the Egyptian priests 
as wearing linen garments, as in after-times was the 
custom of the priests of Israel, as ordained in Exodus 
xxvil. The common annual flax bearing blue flowers 
was, in all probability, the plant grown for fibre from 
the earliest times in all parts of the Old World. 
P 
