Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/233

 *ceæ are all remarkable for the abundance of strong and beautiful fibres in their bark.

But of the European species there is none superior in the fineness, the strength, the whiteness, and lustre of its fibres, to the Common Mallow, the Malva Silvestris. We have seen that the ancients were familiarly acquainted with this plant; that it was commonly cultivated in their gardens; and that they gathered it, when growing wild, to be taken as food or medicine. In these circumstances they could scarcely fail to observe the aptitude of its bark for being spun into thread. More especially in places where they had no other native supply of fibrous materials; in Attica, for example, which probably produced neither hemp nor flax, it seems in the highest degree probable, that the fitness of the mallow to supply materials for weaving would not be overlooked.

In producing the evidence, which establishes this as a positive fact, we shall begin with the latest testimonies and proceed in a reverse order upward to the most ancient. According to this plan, the first authority is that of Papias, who wrote his Vocabulary about the year 1050. He gives the following explanations:

Malbella vestis quæ ex malvarum stamine conficitur, quam alii molocinam vocant.

Molocina vestis quæ albo stamine sit: quam alii malbellam vocant.

These passages clearly describe a kind of cloth made of the white fibres of the common mallow. Malbella, the same with Malvella, is a Latin adjective, in the form of a diminutive, from Malva: Molocina, the same with [Greek: Molochinê], is a Greek adjective from [Greek: Molochê], and signifies made of mallow.

Papias, who seems in compiling his dictionary to have made great use of Isidore, perhaps derived these explanations in part from the following passage of the latter author: