Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/369

 Martianus Capella (l. ii. § 4. p. 99. ed. Goetz.) makes distinct reference to a tunic and shawl white as milk, and made either of cotton or fine linen.

Theophilus Presbyter, who wrote probably about A. D. 800, describes the use of cotton-paper for making gold-leaf. He calls it Greek parchment, made of tree-wool, Pergamena, or Parcamena Græca, quæ fit ex lanâ ligni.

From the travels of the two Arabians who visited China in the ninth century, we learn that at that time the ordinary dress of their countrymen was cotton: for they remark, that "the Chinese dressed, not in cotton, as the Arabians did, but in silk ." Probably the use of imported cotton might by this time have become not uncommon in Egypt, Syria, and other oriental countries; but we apprehend, that it was never generally employed in Europe either for clothing, or for any other purpose, until very lately.

It is unnecessary to further discuss the question as to whether cotton was or was not cultivated in Egypt in ancient times. This vexed question having been lately set at rest, by a discovery which reduces a great deal of the learning that has been expended upon it to the character of old lumber. The difficulty of ascertaining whether the mummy-cloths (of which the specimens are exceedingly numerous) were made of linen or cotton, has at length been overcome; and though no chemical test could be found out to settle the question, it has been decided by that important aid to scientific scrutiny, the microscope. (See Chapters I. and II. Part IV.)

The following observations of Dr. Robertson in his "Historical Disquisition concerning the knowledge which the Ancients had of India ," appear very just and important.

If the use of the cotton manufactures of India had been common among the Romans, the various kinds of them would have been enumerated in the Law De Publicanis et Vectigalibus, in the same manner as the different kinds of spices and