Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/460

 APPENDIX C.

ON FELT.

MANUFACTURE AND USE OF FELTING BY THE ANCIENTS.

Felting more ancient than weaving—Felt used in the East—Use of it by the Tartars—Felt made of goats'-hair by the Circassians—Use of felt in Italy and Greece—Cap worn by the Cynics, Fishermen, Mariners, Artificers, &c.—Cleanthes compares the moon to a skull-cap—Desultores—Vulcan—Ulysses—Phrygian bonnet—Cap worn by the Asiatics—Phrygian felt of Camels'-hair—Its great stiffness—Scarlet and purple felt used by Babylonish decorators—Mode of manufacturing Felt—Northern nations of Europe—Cap of liberty—Petasus—Statue of Endymion—Petasus in works of ancient art—Hats of Thessaly and Macedonia—Laconian or Arcadian hats—The Greeks manufacture Felt 900 B. C.—Mercury with the pileus and petasus—Miscellaneous uses of Felt.

There seems no reason to question the correctness of Professor Beckmann's observation, that the making of felt was invented before weaving. The middle and northern regions of Asia are occupied by Tartars and other populous nations, whose manners and customs appear to have continued unchanged from the most remote antiquity, and to whose simple and uniform mode of existence this article seems to be as necessary as food. Felt is the principal substance both of their clothing and of their habitations. Carpini, who in the year 1246 went as ambassador to the great Khan of the Moguls, Mongals, or Tartars, says, "Their houses are round, and artificially made like tents, of rods and twigs interwoven, having a round hole in the middle of the roof for the admission of light and the passage of smoke, the whole being covered with felt, of which