Jan. 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



ON THE COTTON PLANT. 241 



Cyclopean times, ages, incomprehensible ages ago — that the thoughtful 

 observer first saw and plucked that fair and fleecy treasure from the 

 tree — the " wool-tree," from which he might clothe himself without 

 bloodshed, and which stood before him, as if planted by the hand of the 

 Creator for the comfort of His creatures. Did he dream that those silver 

 threads — and who shall view them through the optician's achromatic 

 glass and say that they belie the designation ? — did he dream that the sil- 

 very fibres of the pretty cotton pod would be changed into gold by the 

 magic of time, to the golden fleece half worshipped by a busy world? 

 Perhaps it was a woman. It must have been. I see her now — the lithe 

 Asiatic form, glowing in deep sun tints and instinct with life and beauty. 

 She seems lost in admiration of some object before her. It is a little 

 shrub of rare beauty ; she plucks the fair blossom, cinque spotted 

 purple in its golden chalice, and weaves it in her crisped hair ; then the 

 ripe fruit pod, with its white and downy flocks of spotless purity. Now 

 she plays with it — she pulls it from hand to hand, and while lost in 

 thought unconsciously twists it into a thread — the first thread ever twined 

 by human fingers. 



Certain it is that the Hindoo women two thousand years ago pro- 

 duced threads and wove muslins only very lately surpassed by the power- 

 loom and mule-jenny. Spinning Jenny ! still female. 



The thread of my story has led me to the East. Let us follow the 

 clue. To the well-preserved literature of ancient India we owe the fact 

 that cotton was well known and manufactured eight hundred years 

 before the Christian era. In the book of the Institutes of Menu, per- 

 haps the oldest law books in existence, occurs the following passage : 

 "Let a weaver who has received ten palas of cotton wool give them back 

 increased to eleven by the rice water and the like used in weaving ; he 

 who does otherwise shall pay a fine of twelve panas." So that sizing, and 

 the abuse of it, is nothing new. Arrian mentions cotton as an article of 

 import into Rome, from India, and describes the means of transit, the 

 principal marts, and the commerce in general. But it appears to have 

 been costly, and only used sparingly by the higher classes, who stuck to 

 the toga, and it is on record that Horace's father had no pocket hand- 

 chief, cotton or otherwise.* The Greeks were as perfectly acquainted 

 with the Dacca muslins as we are. 



Nearchus describes the Indians as having garments of "tree-wool" 

 which reached to the middle of the leg, a sheet folded about the shoulders, 

 and a turban round the head. One would think it was but yesterday, 

 the description is so perfectly that of the modern Mussulman in his 

 outer man. Long before this, Herodotus, a young Greek nobleman, 

 travelling in India for pleasure and information, speaks thus, in his own 

 grand language, " to. 5e 8ev8pa ra aypia avToOi <ptpei naprou tipia KaWovi) re 

 vpoQepovTa Ktu aptri) TccvoiceV Kai (aBriTt oi IvSoi awo tovtqwtcvv Sev8pt<ai> xp* UVTCU -" 



* Quctics villi patrem tuum digito se annngcntcm. 



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