LiNBN.
The Egyptian mummy swathings also, many of which are said to remain as good as when fresh from the loom, are decided, after much controversy and mi- nute analysis, to have been of linen, and not cotton (Egypt. Antiq. in the JJb. of Entertaining Knotol. ii, 182). The ver}' difficulty of deciding, however, shows how easily even scientific obser\'ers may mistake, and, much more, how impossible it would have been for an- cient popular writers to avoid confusion. Even Greek natuiulists sometimes clearly include "cotton** under \ivov. The same appears to be true of dOutnj, dOovtov, and the whole class of words signifying white textile vegetable fiibrics. From the proper Oriental name for the article harpcu, with which either their Alexandrian or Parthian intercourse might familiarize them, the Latins borrowed carbatua, completely current in poeti- cal use in the golden and silver period of Latinity, for saib, awnings, etc. Yarro knew of tree-wool on the authority of Ctesias contemporary with Herodotus. The Greeks, through the commercial consequences of Alexander's conquests, must have known of cotton cloth, and more or less of the plant. Amasis indeed (about B.C. 540) sent as a present from Egypt a corslet ornamented With gold and " tree-wool** {Ipioioi airb CvXou, Herod, iii, 47), which Pliny says was still exist- ing in his time in a temple in Rhodes, and that the minuteness of its flbre had provoked the experiments of the curious. Cotton was manufactured and worn extensively in Egypt, but extant monuments give no proof of its growth, as in the case of flax, in that coun- try (Wilkinson, irf np, p. 116-139, and pkte No. 856) ; indeed, had it been a general product, we could scarce- ly have missed finding some trace of it in the monu- mental details of ancient Egyptian arts, trades, etc. ; but especially when Pliny (A.D. 116) asserts that cot- ton was then grown in Egypt, a statement confirmed by Julius Pollux (a century later), we can hardly re- sist the inference that, at least as a curiosity and as an experiment, some plantations existed there. This is
COTTON
636
COUCH
the more likely, since we find the cotton4rM (jChtttffi' wn arboreum, less osoal than, and distinct from, the cotton plarUy Gouj/p. herb<tc,) mentioned still hy Pliny as the onbf remarkable tree of the adjacent Ethiopia ; and since Arabia, on its other side, appears to have known cotton from time immemorial, to grow it in abundance, and in parts to be highly favorable to that product. In India, however, we have the earliest rec- ords of the nse of cotton for dress, of which, including the starching of it, some carious traces are found as early as 800 B.C., in the Institutes of Menu; also (it is said, on the authority of Prof. Wilson) in the Big-Veda^ 105, v. 8. (For these and some other curious antiqui- ties of the subject, see Royle's Culture and Commerce of Cotton m India, p. 117-122.)
Cotton is now both grown and mano&ctured in vari- ous parts of Syria and Palestine, and, owing probably to its being less conductive of heat, seems preferred for turbans and shirts to linen; but there is no proof that, till they came in contact with Persia, the Hebrews gen- erally knew of it as a distinct fabric from linen, whilst the negative proof of language and the probabilities of fact offer a strong presumption that, if they obtained it at all in commerce, they confounded it with linen under the terms shesh or buts. The greater cleanliness and durability of linen probably established its superi- ority over cotton for sepulchral purposes in the N.-T. period, by which time the latter must have been com- monly known, and thus there is no reason for assign- ing cotton as the material of the 'Minen clothes" (pG6- via) of which we read. (For the whole subject, see Tates's Textrinum Aniiquorumy pt. i, chap, vi, and app. D.>— Smith, s. v. See Botaitt.
Cotton, George Edward Lynch, Anglican bishop of Calcutta and metropolitan of the Anglican dioceses of India and Ceylon, was bom at Chester, England, Oct. 29, 1832. After studying at Westmin- ster School and Trinity College, he was appointed to a mastership in Rugby School, and shortly after was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College. About 1841 he succeeded to the mastership of the fifth form, the highest but one. In 1852 he was elected bead master of Marlborough College, which under his man- agement rose to a high position among leading public schools. In 1858 he was appointed to the metropoli- tan see of Calcutta, where he rendered himself gener- ally beloved. In 1868, with the full concurrence of the governor general, he officially sanctioned an inno- vation in the use of consecrated churches, which had often been desired, but never till then secured. Since the mutiny, several Scotch regiments have been sta- tioned in the barracks of Upper India, and in many stations they have no churches of their own. Bishop Cotton ordered that at a convenient hour on the Sun- day the Episcopal churches should be available for their worship, and that the Presbyterian clergyman should have full liberty to officiate after the rules of his own Church, to the great dissatisfaction of the High-Church party ui the Church of England. In England strong measures were suggested in order to compel him to retract. But he knew that the measure was right in itself, that the law was on his side, and that his conduct was heartily approved by the Indian government and by all right-thinking men. In the same spirit, when the Marriage Bill was brought be- fore the Legislative Council, to provide increased fa- cilities for the marriage of Presbyterians and Non- conformists, and give to Nonconformist ministers and registrars powers which they do not possess in England itself, be gave the act bis cordial approval. He was ac- cidentally drowned while disembarking from a steam- er, October 6, 1866.— ^»m. Amer, Cycl^prndia for 1866, p. 261 ; Brit, Quart. Review, Jan. 1867.