As nature gave a hollow, proper place,
Descended down, and formed a glittering mass.”
Nor is this merely a poetic fiction: it is sustained by the testimony of many ancient historians, who speak of silver and other metals being melted out of the earth, during the burning of the woods on the lofty Alps and Pyrenees. A similar circumstance is said to have happened at Croatia, not two centuries ago. A large mass of mixed metal, composed of copper, iron, tin, and silver, was fluxed during the conflagration of a wood which was accidentally set on fire.
The structure and use of the bellows may be traced to a very remote period. Rosellini exhibits it, as it was employed in ancient Thebes. Men appear heating a vessel over a charcoal fire, to each side of which is applied a pair of bellows worked by the feet, each operator standing upon and pressing them alternately, while he pulls up the exhausted skin by a string which he holds in his hand. In one representation, the man has left the bellows, which are raised as if full of air, and imply a knowledge of the valve. The common bellows, made of two boards joined together by a piece of leather, was known very early to the Greeks. How serviceable this machine would be in the practice of the arts will be at once perceptible.
Wool, in its native whiteness, was peculiarly suited for clothing to the circumstances of the Israelites, whose economy required so many sprinklings and cleansings. This substance was used for garments, both by those of humbler and of higher grade, until accompanied or superseded by other fabrics.
Among the wild flowers of our rural districts, the eye is sometimes attracted—for example—by the blue flowers of the flax-plant. This vegetable product is so little affected by soil and climate, that one species, with all its characteristics unaltered, flourishes in the cold as well as the temperate regions of the globe. There is scarcely a plant, not even excepting the corn-plants, which can be regarded as of more service to mankind than the flax. Its free use in ancient Egypt is abundantly proved, while many representations are extant of the various processes through which it passed. One of these is found in a very ancient tomb at Beni Hassan, in Middle Egypt. On the right is seen a boiler, an irregularly-shaped vessel. The hieroglyphic inscription means, “The boiling of the knot, bundle of flax.” The three men who complete the picture are beating the flax-stalks, thus prepared, with wooden mallets, in order to deprive it of its outer skin. The hieroglyphic inscription above reads, “Pickling, or hackling the thread of the knot of flax.”
In some of the ancient statues, Minerva is represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught our progenitors the art of spinning. The Egyptians ascribe this gift to Isis; and the Mohammedans to a son of Japhet. In all countries, from the earliest times, the distaff was accompanied by the spindle. The material employed—being duly prepared—was rolled into a ball, loose enough for the fibres to be easily drawn out by the hands of the spinner. Into the ball the upper part of the distaff was thrust, while the lower was held in the left hand under the left arm, so as to be most convenient for the process. The fibres were drawn out, and at the same time spirally twisted, chiefly by the fore-finger and thumb of the right hand, and the thread so produced was wound on the spindle. The spindle was a stick ten or twelve inches long, having at the top a slit or catch in which to fix the thread, so that the weight of the spindle might continually carry down the thread as it was formed. Its lower extremity was inserted into a small wheel of wood, stone, or metal, the use of which was to keep the spindle more steady, and to promote its rotation: for the spinner, who was commonly a female, every now and then twirled round the spindle with her right hand, so as to twist the thread still more completely; and, whenever—by its continual prolongation—it let down the spindle to the ground, she took it out of the slit, wound it upon the spindle, and having replaced the thread in the slit, drew out and twisted another length. The Arab women twirl the spindle in the same manner to this day. A still simpler process is passed through by the women of the Tartar tribes. They use a reel, which is connected with some silk, cotton, or wool, fastened at the girdle. This reel is spun round and let fall, and as it goes toward the ground it spins out the thread; when it approaches the ground it is taken up, the thread is wound around the reel, which is then set spinning again, and so on, till it has acquired as much thread as it can carry. This may seem very slow work, but habit gives a dexterity of manipulation which renders it less so than would be ordinarily supposed.
In ancient Egypt great skill must have been obtained in spinning. The threads used for nets, for instance, were remarkable for their fineness. Pliny says, so delicate were some of them that a net could pass through a ring, and a single person could carry a sufficient number of nets to surround a whole wood. He tells us that one of the governors of Egypt had some of these nets, each string of which contained 150 threads; and that the Rhodians preserved to his day, in the Temple of Minerva, the remains of a linen corslet, presented to them by Amasis, king of Egypt, the threads of which were individually composed of 365 fibres.
The tomb at Beni Hassan, already referred to, supplies a representation of ancient weaving. The warp is strained vertically on a frame, which seems to be attached by wooden tenons to the wall or roof of the dwelling. Beneath, the roller appears on which the web is wound. Two females, crouching in a posture not uncommon in the East, are at work upon it. The alternate threads of the warp are stretched apart by means of two smooth sticks, one end of which is held by each worker. The woof was then passed by the hand from one to the other. The shuttle does not appear to have been known at that time. The beam was introduced between the threads, perhaps fixed at one end by a slight metal catch; and, when thus fastened, the leverage would enable another woman to press the woof home with considerable force. The beam must have been withdrawn and re-inserted at every turn of the woof. Exceedingly clumsy as this instrument was, yet an extremely beautiful cloth was produced by it.
The Hebrew loom was most probably the counterpart of those still observed by our Eastern travelers. One of them noticed its use in Jerusalem, where the worsted was not worked in, but woven into the piece, and the pattern of the weaving changed, so that the color of the thread was completely thrown out, forming a triple fringe, through which the weft could not be seen. “In two of our specimens,” says Mr. Wilde, “we find twelve thick threads crossing the piece, and the tassels tied exactly as they are at the end of a piece of modern Irish linen. But the slipping of the weft is prevented by a curious process, performed by tying the threads of the warp together, so that each is secured to the thread at each side of it. This process forms a slight ridge at the end of the piece, and is rather ornamental. This fringe appears to be alluded to in that passage of Scripture, where the Israelites were directed to make fringes in the borders of their garments, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue. I have seen a species of mummy-cloth in Egypt corresponding to this description precisely. Such was, probably, ‘the hem of the garment.’”[[1]]