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FOPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
sular fruit, it becomes twisted; thus acquiring the appearance at 
first described, of two cords twisted together. 
This twisting is undoubtedly the great fact that makes the 
cotton-hair of value to man. There are many hairs, such as 
those of the Cotton-grass and of the Bornbax, which are as long, 
and, apparently, as strong as those of the Gossypium ; but which, 
failing in this irregularity of their surface, are utterly incapable 
of being twisted into a thread or yarn. The twisting then gives 
the capacity to the cotton-hair of uniting with its fellows, and 
forming together a cord strong enough to be woven. If we place a 
portion of cotton thread under a microscope, we shall see that the 
projections of one portion of the hair are received into the 
depressions of the other, and thus they are held together by 
the natural inequality which has been produced on the cotton- 
hair by its peculiar method of growth. It is, perhaps, not 
unworthy of a moment's reflection, that the staple manufacture 
of one of the greatest countries in the world, and the principal 
produce of another, should depend upon the apparently acci- 
dental irregularity on the surface of a hair. But this is not 
accidental ; the form of the cotton-hair depends upon the same 
forces, and is determined by the operation of laws as grand as 
those which arrest our attention in the movements of the phy- 
sical universe. The observation of such phenomena as those of 
the structure of the hair of a plant, and its connection vvitlt the 
social and commercial conditions of two great countries hke 
England and America, should lead to the reflection that it 
is to a considerable extent upon the minute and accurate study 
of the laws and properties of the objects in the world in which 
man is placed, that God has caused liis material happiness and 
advancement to depend. 
The manufacturer values cotton according’ to its length, strength, 
and silhiness, andthe longest, strongest, and softest cotton fetches 
the highest price. These qualities are easily judged ofbythe hand 
and eye. At the same time it has always appeared to me, that as 
at least the qualities of strength and silkiness must depend on 
properties that can be easily observed by the microscope, this 
instrument might be of important use in ascertaining those 
qualities which render cotton of value to the manufacturer. I 
have been supplied with a series of commercial cottons by Mr. 
W. Chambres, of Liverpool, and having placed them under the 
microscope, I find considerable difference in the appearances 
which they present. The long Sea-Island cotton is a flatter and 
less twisted hair than any of the cottons of inferior price. I 
have not been able to pursue the subject so as to arrive at any 
positive results; and rather refer to the subject here to 
induce some of the readers of the Popular Science Review 
to undertake the subject, with the view of detecting the dif- 
