MUMMY-CLOTH.

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nor has he, amongst the numerous specimens we have both collected duringmany years, been able to deted a single fibre of cotton, a fad since recentlyconfirmed by others, and proving incontestably that the mummy-cloth of Egyptwas linen.

“ The filaments of cotton, when viewed through a powerful instrument, suchas the improved achromatic microscope of Ploessl, of Vienna, which, for mag-nifying power and clearness of vision, M. Bauer has found superior to everyother he has had an opportunity of using, appear to be transparent glassy tubesflattened and twisted round their own axis. A sedion of the filament resemblesin some degree a figure of 8, the tube, originally cylindrical, having collapsedmost in the middle, forming semi-tubes on each side, which give to the fibre,when viewed in certain lights, the appearance of a fiat ribbon with a hem orborder at each edge. The uniform transparency of the filament is impaired bysmall irregular figures, in all probability wrinkles or creases, arising from thedesiccation of the tube. The twisted and corkscrew form of the filament ofcotton distinguishes it from all other vegetable fibres, and is charaderistic ofthe fully ripe and mature pod, M. Bauer having ascertained that the fibres ofthe unripe seed are simple untwisted cylindrical tubes, which never twist after-wards if separated from the plant; but when the seeds ripen, even before thecapsule bursts, the cylindrical tubes collapse in the middle and assume the formalready described.

“ This form and charader the fibres retain ever after, and in that respedundergo no change through the operation of spinning, weaving, bleaching,printing, and dyeing, nor in all the subsequent domestic operations of washing,&c., till the stuff is worn to rags ; and then even the violent process of reducingthose rags to pulp for the purpose of making paper effeds no change in thestrudure of these fibres. * With Ploessl’s microscope,’ says M. Bauer, ‘ I canascertain whether cotton rags have been mixed with linen in any manufaduredpaper whatever.’

“The elementary fibres of flax (Linum usitatissimum) are also transparenttubes, cylindrical, and articulated or jointed like a cane. This latter strudureis only observable by the aid of an excellent instrument.

“ Of the produdions of the loom amongst the nations of antiquity, with theexception of those which form the subjed of this paper, we know only what isto be gathered from the few scattered notices in ancient writers. Even thegreat work of Pliny, the encyclopaedia of that day, and, with all its defeds, aninvaluable colledion of fads, affords but scanty information. Of the manu-fadures of the Egyptians and of their domestic arts our knowledge is moreample, but we are more indebted to their monuments than to their historians ;and the paintings which adorn their tombs, and which are fresh at the presentday as from the hand of the artist, have revealed to us more than all the writersof antiquity.

“ Of the produds of the Egyptian loom, however, we know scarcely more thanthe mummy-pits have disclosed to us; and it would be as unreasonable to lookthrough modern sepulchres for specimens and proofs of the state of manu-faduring art amongst ourselves as to deduce an opinion of the skill of theEgyptians from those fragments of cloth which envelope their dead, and whichhave come down, almost unchanged, to our own time. The curious or costlyfabrics which adorned the living, and were the pride of the industry and skillof Thebes, have perished ages ago. There are, however, amongst these