Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/405

 1811) he says, he is more firmly convinced than ever, that the cloth is universally cotton. He assigns also his reasons in the following terms. "I ground this my conviction far less on my own views than on the assurance of such persons as I have questioned on the subject, and whose judgment in this matter I deem incomparably superior to my own or to that of any other scholar, namely, of ladies, dealers in cotton and linen cloth, weavers and the like." He also refers to the cultivation of cotton in Egypt, which he assumes probably on the authority of Forster; and to the fable of Isis enveloping in "cotton" cloth the collected limbs of her husband Osiris, who had been torn in pieces by Typhon. The latter arguments are founded on the supposition, that the ancient term Byssus meant cotton, and not linen. But the question as to its meaning must in part be decided, as we shall see hereafter, by previously settling the present question as to the materials of the mummy cloth. The opinion of ladies, tradesmen, and manufacturers, though it may be better than that of the most learned man, if derived from mere touch and inspection, is quite insufficient to decide the question. If those whom Blumenbach consulted thought that the cloth was always cotton, many others of equal experience and discernment have given an opposite judgment; and the fact is, that linen cloth, which has been long worn and often washed, as is the case with a great proportion of the mummy cloth, and which is either ragged or loose in its texture, cannot be distinguished from cotton by the unassisted use of the external senses.

Relying, however, on the same evidence of ocular inspection, another distinguished author, who travelled in Egypt and published his remarks about the same time, says, "As to the circumstance of cotton cloths having been exclusively used in the above process, an inspection of the mummies is sufficient evidence of the fact ."

M. Jomard, one of the authors of the great French work on Egypt, published about 1811, paid great attention to this subject. He concluded, that both linen and cotton were employed