148 POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



pointed out. Many passages in the Book of Genesis would 

 lead us to infer that the " coats of skins " which God made 

 for our first parents were soon exchanged for other raiment, 

 and the " dwellers in tents " appear to have been too nume- 

 rous for their dwellings to have been made of the skins of 

 animals. The first vegetable fibre expressly mentioned is — 



Flax. Linum usitaiissimum. (Nat. Ord. Linaceae.) 

 (Plate VII. fig. 33.) 



Max is thus alluded to in Genesis xli. 42 : "And Pharaoh 

 took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's 

 hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen! 3 After 

 this, the mention of linen and flax is frequent and unequi- 

 vocal. It would also appear that Egypt was the native 

 country of flax, or that at least its cultivation in that country 

 reached a degree of perfection for which it has been cele- 

 brated up to the present time. Solomon purchased linen 

 yarn in Egypt (2 Chronicles i. 16), and Herodotus men- 

 tions that Egypt was the great emporium of the flax trade. 

 In support of these assertions, the microscope has satisfac- 

 torily proved that the cere-cloth in which the ancient mum- 

 mies are rolled consists of the fibre of flax. It was even 

 used in the manufacture of armour, for Herodotus speaks 

 of a curiously- wrought linen corselet, preserved in the 



