specimen of the art intended, as it is made of veneered and inlaid wood of different colours. The presence of glue has been observed in the joints of boxes which have been discovered in the tombs.

The small toilet-boxes which have been found in considerable numbers, are not the least interesting of the Egyptian curiosities in our Museums. They were made of wood, or of ivory, often inlaid, and always elaborately carved. Sometimes, as in some of the following specimens, they partook of the nature of

spoons, the containing part being shallow, at the end of a long solid handle; the handle was carved into the most fanciful forms, a grotesque human figure, a woman, a fox or a fish, and the spoon-part was generally covered with a lid, which turned on a pivot.

In one of those above, the spoon takes the form of a fish, the cover being carved to resemble its scales, while another, also in the form of a fish, has two cavities, the one covered, the other permanently open. Sometimes the body of a goose formed the box, either trussed for the table, or in the posture of life, or other forms were devised from the fancy of the artist. Some of these shallow boxes are supposed to have been used for holding small quantities of ointments and cosmetics upon the toilet table.

very

Allusions in the Sacred Scriptures to the linen of Egypt are very copious, indicating both the prominence of the manufacture and its excellence; and, as might be expected among a people who had just left that country after a residence there of more than two centuries, the same prevalence of the use of linen is seen among the Hebrews in the wilderness and after their settlement in the promised land. As, in every case where a manufactured article is in common use, there will be varieties in quality, indicated by distinct appellations, so we find the texture, which in every instance seems to have been truly linen, mentioned in Hebrew by no fewer than seven distinct names, bad, butz, etoon, pishteh, sadin, shesh, and mikveh, the distinctions of which it would be now impossible to determine, though the word pishteh seems properly to indicate the flax as a plant, and mikveh, the yarn before it is woven into cloth. We request the reader's attention to the following selection of the Scriptural notices of this material before we proceed to the Egyptian illustrations of them.

And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen (shesh), and put a gold chain about his neck. Gen. xli. 42.

And the flax (pishtah) and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax (pishtah) was bolled. Exod. ix. 31.

And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen (shesh), and goats' hair. Exod. xxv. 3, 4.

Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen (shesh), and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them. Exod. xxvi. 1.

And they made coats of fine linen (shesh) of woven work for Aaron, and for his sons, and a mitre of fine linen (shesh), and goodly bonnets of fine linen (shesh), and linen (bad) breeches of fine twined linen (shesh moshzar), and a girdle of fine twined linen (shesh moshzar), and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needle work; as the LORD commanded Moses. Exod. xxxix. 27-29.

He shall put on the holy linen (bad) coat, and he shall have the linen (bad) breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen (bad) girdle, and with the linen (bad) mitre shall he be attired: these are holy garments. Lev. xvi. 4.

But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax (pishteh), which she had laid in order upon the

roof. Jos. ii. 6.

And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen (bad) ephod. 1 Sam. xxii. 18.

And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn (mikveh): and the king's merchants received the linen yarn (mikveh) at a price.

And the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen (butz), of the house of Ashbea. 1 Chr. iv. 21.

And David was clothed with a robe of fine linen (butz), and all the Levites that bare the ark, and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the song with the singers: David also had upon him an ephod of linen (bad). Į Chr. xv. 27.

And he made the vail of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen (butz), and wrought cherubims thereon. 2 Chr. iii. 14.

I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen (etoon) of Egypt. Prov. vii. 16.

She maketh fine linen (sadin), and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Prov. xxxi. 24.

Moreover, they that work in fine flax (pishteh), and they that weave net-works (white-works, marg.), shall be confounded. Isa. xix. 9.

Fine linen (shesh), with broidered work from Egypt, was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail. Ezek. xxvii. 7.

They shall have linen (pishteh) bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen (pishteh) breeches upon their loins: they shall not gird themselves with anything that causeth sweat. Ezek. xliv. 18.

The words which the Greek translators, in the Septuagint version, have used for the above are, for shesh and butz βύσσος (byssus), for sadin σινδὼν (sindon), and for pishtah and bad λívov (linon). Professor Rosellini atttempts to shew, that the byssus of the ancients was not linen, but cotton, founding his reasoning principally upon a statement of Herodotus compared with the enveloping bandages around examined mummies. Having used the word linon for flax or linen, when speaking of the Colchi, and of the Poonian women, the Greek traveller uses another expression for the wrappers of embalmed bodies, byssine sindon. Professor Rosellini, on this, takes occasion to assert, that these wrappers are invariably found to be cotton. "Of all the mummies which I have seen unwrapped, either in the cities of Europe, or at Thebes, (and certainly I have seen at least two hundred, and have assisted at the opening of a majority of this number) I never saw a single one that was not wrapped in cotton cloth. This fact can be easily verified in any museum that contains a mummy."

Unfortunately for this argument, however, the supposition that mummy-cloth is invariably found to be a fabric of cotton, is entirely erroneous; for, as far as investigations have been made, they have, without an exception, shewn the contrary, that it is

linen. Under a powerful microscope, the fibres of cotton appear to be "transparent glassy tubes, flattened and twisted round their own axis. A section of the filament resembles in some degree a figure of 8; the tube originally cylindrical having collapsed most in the middle, forming semi-tubes, on each side, which give to the fibre, when viewed in certain lights, the appearance of a flat riband, with a hem or border at each edge. The uniform transparency of the filament is impaired by small irregular figures, in all probability, wrinkles or creases, arising from

a

FIBRES OF COTTON (a) and LINEN (6).

the desiccation of the tube. The twisted and corkscrew form of the filament of cotton distinguishes it from all other vegetable fibres, and is characteristic of the fully ripe and mature pod; Mr. Bauer having ascertained that the fibres of the unripe seed are simple, untwisted, cylindrical tubes, which never