Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/409



in one part like a riband from the one-thousandth to the twelve-hundredth part of an inch broad, and in another like a sharp edge or narrow line. They have a pearly translucency in the middle space, with a dark narrow border at each side, like a hem. When broken across, the fracture is fibrous or pointed. Mummy cloth, tried by these criteria in the microscope, appears to be composed both in its warp and woof-yarns of flax, and not of cotton. A great variety of the swathing fillets have been examined with an excellent achromatic microscope, and they have all evinced the absence of cotton filaments.

Mr. Wilkinson considers the observations of Dr. Ure, and Mr. Bauer as decisive of the question.

With regard to the evidence from mummies it should be further remarked, that, as they are partly wrapped in old linen (shirts, napkins, and other articles of clothing and domestic furniture being found with the long fillets and the entire webs), they prove the general application of linen in Egypt to all the purposes of ordinary life.

Even to the present day flax continues to be a most important article of cultivation and trade in Egypt. The climate and soil are so favorable, that it there grows to a height, which it never reaches in Europe. It must no doubt, become coarser in proportion to its size, and this circumstance may account for the use of it in ancient times for all those purposes, for which we employ hemp, as for making nets, ropes, and sail-cloth. The fine linen of the ancient Egyptians must have been made from flax of lower growth and with thinner stems; and the mummies testify, that they made cloth of the finest as well as of the coarsest texture.

The following remark of Hasselquist respecting the soft and loose texture of the linen made in Egypt in his time agrees remarkably with the appearance of that found in mummies. "The Egyptian linen is not so thick," says he, "as the European, being softer and of a looser texture; for which reason it lasts longer and does not wear out so soon as ours, which frequently wears out the faster on account of its stiffness." He also observes, "The common people in Egypt are clothed in