Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/417

 intended to ascertain the meaning of one of the botanical terms employed in the Scriptures. The learned and accurate Swede gives on good authority an emendation of the text of Pollux, which entirely destroys the argument founded upon it by Forster and those who agree with him. According to this reading Pollux only asserts that [Greek: Byssos] is a kind of flax, without adding that it grew among the Indians. In a separate Appendix (E.), will be examined distinctly and fully the critical evidence for the correct state of the passages of Pollux, which it may be found necessary to cite. Pollux, in asserting that Byssus was a kind of flax, coincides with all the other witnesses who have been produced.

Forster is also exceedingly incorrect in his mode of reasoning upon the passage of Pollux, supposing it to be accurate and genuine. He argues, that Pollux must have meant cotton by "a kind of flax among the Indians," because real flax does not grow in India at all; "In Indiâ verò linum non erat, nec quidem nostrâ ætate linum reperitur in Indiâ, quod jam Osbeckius in Itinerario ostendit, p. 383. vol. i. edit. Anglicæ." The "English edition" of Osbeck's Voyage is a translation from the German by Forster himself. In the page referred to we find the following passage relative to flax, and no other:—"Flax is so rare a commodity in the East, that many have judged with great probability that the fine linen of the rich man, Luke xvi. 19, was no more than our common linen." This sentence implies that flax grew in the East, though rarely. Whether it grew in India, Osbeck does not inform us. Dr. Wallich, who travelled in India, states that flax grows in India, and that he remembered having seen there a whole field blue with its flowers. It is cultivated principally for its seed, from which oil is extracted, the stalks being thrown aside as useless.

With respect to the passage from Philostratus, it is admitted, that he uses [Greek: Byssos] to denote cotton. Besides its proper and original sense, this word was occasionally used, as [Greek: linon], [Greek: othonê], Sindon, Carbasus, and many others were, in a looser and more