360 USEFUL FIBER PLANTS OF THE WORLD. 



fifteenth century, and it is extremely doubtful if auy particular speci- 

 men can be identified as having- been made prior to the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, at m Inch time lace first appeared as a perfected fabric. 

 The country entitled to the honor of the invention of lace making is 

 unknown. It has been claimed by Italy. Belgium. France, and Ger- 

 many, with a considerable show of evidence in favor of each. 



It is remarkable that lace making should have sprung up or been 

 invented at about the same period of time by two entirely distinct proe- 

 ms without relationship or evolution between them, and that the 

 people of the countries wherein either of the inventions was made 

 were not only unknown to each other, but apparently neither had any 

 knowledge of the process of lace making invented or employed in the 

 other country. One of these processes is by the employment of the 

 needle and a single thread, wherein the work Avas perfected mesh by 

 mesh, each mesh being completed as the work progressed. The other 

 X^rocess was by the use of many threads at ouce. each one attached to 

 bobbins for the purpose only of separating them, the meshes being 

 made by twisting the threads a greater or less number of times. When 

 each mesh is only partially completed, the thread is carried on to the 

 next, and so on from side to side the entire width of the fabric. While 

 the countries in which these processes were invented are unknown, the 

 evidence points to Venice as the seat of the former and to Belgium as 

 the seat of the latter. 



By these two totally distinct processes fabrics are produced so nearly 

 alike as often to require an expert to distinguish the difference, which, 

 though many times easily determined, yet not infrequently requires 

 the aid of an expert. 



During the first two centuries of lace making it may be assumed that 

 it was always made with linen thread, but during the nineteenth cen- 

 tury the improvements in making cotton thread have been so extensive 

 that the latter fiber has been considerably employed. Practically all 

 machine-made lace is of cotton fiber. Lace making has in later days 

 been carried by the x>rincipal European nations into their colonies, and 

 lace is thus oftentimes made by peoples who are barbarous, or at best 

 not more than half civilized. The native population of many of the 

 South American states carry on lace making, which was taught them 

 in early times by pioneer missionaries, and the art has become special- 

 ized and localized, and is taught and continued from generation to gen- 

 eration, and now furnishes a staple industry. Lender the tuition of the 

 F? ench the natives of Madagascar make a fair representation of antique 

 lace which, however, unlike the South American, is not for their own 

 use. is not used by them, but is intended as a source of revenue and is 

 for sale or export. 



Regarding Xanduty (Nanduti) lace, William Eleroy Curtis writes me 

 that the material used is the pita fiber, and that it is the same used by 

 the people of Ecuador and northern Peru for the very line Panama 



