. History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain : with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe : a description of the great mechanical inventions, which have caused its unexampled extension in Britain, and a view of the present state of the manufacture and the condition of the classes engaged in its several departments. material bears somuch resemblance to the earlier-known article of sheepswool, that among the ancients it was called the woolof trees ; by the Germans it is called baumwolle, ortree-wool; and iu our own language it bears the nameof co
. History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain : with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe : a description of the great mechanical inventions, which have caused its unexampled extension in Britain, and a view of the present state of the manufacture and the condition of the classes engaged in its several departments. material bears somuch resemblance to the earlier-known article of sheepswool, that among the ancients it was called the woolof trees ; by the Germans it is called baumwolle, ortree-wool; and iu our own language it bears the nameof cotton-wool; though the properties of this vegetablesubstance differ greatly from those of the animal is a white substance, and in some of its varietiescream-coloured, or of a yellow hue ; it possesses downysoftness and warmth, and its delicate fibres are suffi-ciently long, flexible, and tenacious, to admit of beingspun into an extremely fine thread. It grows upon theplant enclosed within pods, which protect it from injuryby dust or weather, until it is ripe and fit to be gathered,when the heat of the sun causes it to expand, and burstopen the pod. The following is a drawing of the cotton pod andflower belonging to the Annual Herbaceous CottonPlant, (Gossypium Herbaceum)— * Cuvicrs Animal Kingdom, vol. iv. p. 312. THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 13. The fibres of cotton are shewn, by the microscope,to be somewhat flat, and two-edged or triangular, andto be not straight bat contorted;—a construction whichcauses the fibres to adhere to each other, and whichgives warmth to cotton clothing. The fibres of flax, onthe other hand, are straight tubes, with a smoothsurface. Cotton is produced both from annual plants and fromtrees, of which there are many varieties; and, underproper cultivation, it is raised in such abundance as tobe the cheapest of all the materials of clothing.* * The natural history of the cotton plant will be given in a subsequent chapter. 14 THE HISTORY OF
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