Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/357

 trees." In the same book (c. 47.) Herodotus says, that the thorax or cuirass sent by Amasis, king of Egypt, to Sparta, was "adorned with gold and with fleeces from trees." These substances were perhaps used in the weft to form the figures ([Greek: zôa]), which were woven into the thorax; but it appears equally probable that the gold only was thus employed, the cotton being used as an inside lining or stuffing: and in this case it is possible, that the down of the Bombax Ceiba, a tree allied to the Cotton-plant (Gossypium), may have been used, since, though not fitted for spinning or weaving, it has long been used in India for the stuffing of pillows and similar purposes, and would be included under the phrase employed by Herodotus, "wool" or "fleeces from trees." The thorax may have been made in Egypt; but the materials, used to enrich it, were probably imported: for we have no proof, that either gold or cotton of any kind was found in that country as a native product in the time of Amasis.

Ctesias, the contemporary of Herodotus, seems also to have known the fact of the use of a kind of wool, the produce of trees, for spinning and weaving among the Indians. It is evident that Ctesias referred exclusively to cotton cloths, as may be inferred from the testimony of Varro, as we find it in Servius (Comm. in Virgilii Æn. i. 649.). "Ctesias ait in Indiâ esse arbores, quæ lanam ferant."

The expedition of Alexander the Great into India contributed to make the Greeks better acquainted than before with cotton. Hence it is distinctly mentioned by Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle. He says, "The trees, from which the Indians make cloths, have a leaf like that of the Black Mulberry; but the whole plant resembles the dog-rose. They set them in the plains arranged in rows, so as to look like vines at a distance ." In a succeeding part of the same book (c. 7. p. 143, 144. ed Schneider) he notices the growth of cotton, not only in India, but in Arabia, and in the island called Tylos, which he places in the Arabian Gulf, although it was probably