"The portion of skein which Mr. Wilkins gave to me weighed 34-3/10 grains: its length was 5 yards 7 inches, and it consisted of 196 threads. Consequently, its whole length was 1018 yards and 7 inches. This, with a small allowance for fractions, gives 29 yards to a grain, 203,000 to a pound avoirdupoise of 7000 grains; that is, 115 miles, 2 furlongs, and 60 yards."
Cotton yarn has been spun in England, making three hundred and fifty hanks to the lb. weight, each hank measuring 840 yards, and the whole forming a thread of 167 miles in length[1]. This, however, must be regarded merely as showing how fine the cotton can possibly be spun by machinery, since no such yarn is or could be used in the making of muslins, or for any other purpose. The extreme of fineness to which yarns for muslins are ever spun in Great Britain is 250 hanks to the lb., which would form a thread measuring 119-1/3 miles; but it is very rarely indeed that finer yarn is used than 220 hanks to the lb., which is less fine than the specimen of Dacca muslin above mentioned. The Indian hand-spun yarn is softer than mule-yarn, and the muslins made of the former are much more durable than those made of the latter. In point of appearance, however, the book-muslin of Glasgow is very superior to the Indian muslin, not only because it is better bleached, but because it is more evenly woven, and from yarn of uniform thickness, whereas the threads in the Indian fabric vary considerably.
It is probable that the specimens brought by Wilkins, though the finest then made at the city of Dacca, is not equal to the most delicate muslins made in that neighborhood in former times, or even in the present. The place called by the Rev. Mr. Ward Sonar-ga, and, by Mr. Walter Hamilton, Sooner-gong, a decayed city near Dacca, has been said to be unrivalled in its muslins. Mr. Ward's testimony has been quoted above.
- ↑ Pliny, in speaking of linen yarn, gives us an account (L. xix. cap. 2.) of the cuirass of the Egyptian king Amasis, which is preserved in the temple of Minerva in Rhodes. "Each thread," says he, "is shown to consist of 365 fibres, which fact Mucianus, being a third time Consul, lately asserted at Rome."—Mucianus was Consul the third time A. D. 75.
