The story of textiles; a bird's-eye view of the history of the beginning and the growth of the industry by which mankind is clothed . f Tylos in the PersianGulf and in many other parts of the Eastern world. Pliny, the Roman naturalist ( 23-79), says thatEgyptian priests, as well as the common people, wore cottonwoven into beautiful garments from down wool spuninto thread, the wool of which was cotton growing in upperEgypt toward Arabia. The same authority asserts thatthe origin of the manufacturing of cotton cloth was in theweaving establishments founded by Semiramis on the bankof the Tigr
The story of textiles; a bird's-eye view of the history of the beginning and the growth of the industry by which mankind is clothed . f Tylos in the PersianGulf and in many other parts of the Eastern world. Pliny, the Roman naturalist ( 23-79), says thatEgyptian priests, as well as the common people, wore cottonwoven into beautiful garments from down wool spuninto thread, the wool of which was cotton growing in upperEgypt toward Arabia. The same authority asserts thatthe origin of the manufacturing of cotton cloth was in theweaving establishments founded by Semiramis on the bankof the Tigris and Euphrates. Arab traders were the first to import it in any quantityto Italy and Spain. Arrian, an Egyptian Greek of the sec-ond century , in his Circumnavigation of the Ery-thraean Sea, is the first writer to mention it as an articleof commerce. At as early a date as the first century theArab traders were bringing Indian calicoes, muslins, andother cottons to ports on the Red Sea and thence toEurope. It was said of Omar, one of the caliphs of Ma-homet, that he preached in a tattered cotton gown, tornin twelve THE COTTON PLANT (From F. H. Bowmans The Structure of the Cotton Fibre, courtesyof The Macmillan Company) The leaves, the bud, the flower, and the boll of cotton, showing the cottonripe in the boll ready for picking. THE STORY OF TEXTILES 37 The first cultivation of cotton in Europe was probablyby the Moors in Spain, in the ninth century in Valencia;and it continued to be raised and spun in different partsof Spain during the tenth century, and until the Moorswere expelled. Fustians and dimities were first wroughtin Spain, and from Spain the industry spread to Veniceand to Milan in the fourteenth century. In the latter part of the thirteenth century Marco Polospeaks of cotton as vegetable wool growing on trees, andearly engravings represent the trees with sheeps headsat the ends of the branches. He also states that cottonwas manufactured in all parts of
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