The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

362
A^-CIENT history of
he had an opportunity of examining, even that of embahned
birds, was cotton.
Dr. Hadley, however, who wrote a few years after Rouelle
{Phil Transactions for 1764, vol. 54.), seems to adhere to the
old opinion. He calls the cloth of the mummy, which he ex-
amined, " linen." He says, it was in fillets of diiferent breadths,
but the greater part 1^ inches broad.
" They were torn longi-
tudinally : those few that had a selvage, having it on one side
only."
But the opinion of Rouelle received a strong support from
Dr. John Reinhold Forster, to whom it appeared at first almost
incredible, although he afterwards supported it in the most
decided manner. He determined to take the first opportunity
of settling the question by the inspection of mummies, and
examined those in the British Museum, accompanied by Dr.
Solander. Both of these learned and acute inquirers were con-
vinced, that the cloth was cotton, deriving this opinion from the
inspection of all those specimens, which were sufficiently free
from gum, paint, and resins, to enable them to judge*. Larcher
informs us, that he remarked the same thing in these mummies
in 1752, when he was accompanied by Dr. Matyt. It is to be
observed, however, that neither Larcher, Rouelle, nor Forster
mentions the criterion which he employed to distinguish Uneu
from cotton. They probably formed their opinion only from its
apparent softness, its want of lusti'e, or some other quality, which
might belong to Hnen no less than to cotton, and which there-
fore could be no certain mark of distinction.
The opinion of Larcher, Rouelle, and Forster appears to have
been generally adopted. In particular we find it embraced by
Blumenbach, who in the Philosophical Transactions for 1794
speaks of the '• cotton bandages'' of two of the small mummies,
which he opened in London*. In his Beitrdge {i. e. Contri-
butions to Natural History, 2nd 'part, p. 73, Gottingen,
* Forster, De Bysso Antiquorum, London 1776, p. 70, 71.
t Ilerodote, par Larcher. Ed. 2nde, Par. 1802, livre ii. p. 357.
X On the authority of this paper the mummy-cloth is supposed to be cotton by
Heeren, Ideen, i. 1. p. 128.