This is another product of Art, A piece of the finest Lawn I was able to
get, so curious that the threads were scarce discernable by the naked eye,
and yet through an ordinary _Microscope_ you may perceive[4] what a goodly
piece of _coarse Matting_ it is; what proportionable cords each of its
threads are, being not unlike, both in shape and size, the bigger and
coarser kind of _single Rope-yarn_, wherewith they usually make _Cables_.
That which makes the Lawn so transparent, is by the _Microscope_, nay by
the naked eye, if attentively viewed, plainly enough evidenced to be the
multitude of square holes which are left between the threads, appearing to
have much more hole in respect of the intercurrent parts then is for the
most part left in a _lattice-window_, which it does a little resemble,
onely the crossing parts are round and not flat.
These threads that compose this fine contexture, though they are as small
as those that constitute the finer sorts of Silks, have notwithstanding
nothing of their glossie, pleasant, and lively reflection. Nay, I have been
informed both by the Inventor himself, and several other eye-witnesses,
that though the flax, out of which it is made, has been (by a singular art,
of that excellent Person, and Noble Virtuoso, M. _Charls Howard_, brother
to the _Duke of Norfolk_) so curiously dress’d and prepar’d, as to appear
both to the eye and the touch, full as _fine_ and as _glossie_, and to
receive all kinds of colours, as well as Sleave-Silk; yet when this Silken
Flax is twisted into threads, it quite loseth its former luster, and
becomes as plain and base a thread to look on, as one of the same bigness,
made of common Flax.
The reason of which odd _Phenomenon_ seems no other then this; that though
the curiously drest Flax has its parts so exceedingly small, as to
equallize, if not to be much smaller then the clew of the Silk-worm,
especially in thinness, yet the differences between the figures of the
constituting filaments are so great, and their substances so various, that
whereas those of the _Silk_ are _small_, _round_, _hard_, _transparent_,
and to their bigness proportionably _stiff_, so as each filament preserves
its proper _Figure_, and consequently its vivid _reflection_ intire, though
twisted into a thread, if not too hard; those of Flax are _flat_, _limber_,
_softer_, and _less transparent_, and in twisting into a thread they joyn,
and lie so close together, as to lose their own, and destroy each others
particular reflections. There seems therefore three Particulars very
requisite to make the so drest Flax appear Silk also when spun into
threads. First, that the substance of it should be made more _clear_ and
_transparent_, Flax retaining in it a kind of opacating brown, or yellow;
and the parts of the whitest kind I have yet observ’d with the _Microscope_
appearing white, like flaw’d Horn or Glass, rather then clear, like clear
Horn or Glass. Next that, the filaments should each of them be _rounded_,
if that could be done, which yet is not so very necessary, if the first be
perform’d, and this third, which is, that each of the small filaments be
_stifned_; for though they be square, or flat, provided they be
_transparent_ and stiff, much the same appearances must necessarily follow.
Now, though I have not yet made trial, yet I doubt not, but that both these
proprieties may be also induc’d upon the Flax, and perhaps too by one and
the same Expedient, which some trials may quickly inform any ingenious
attempter of, who from the use and profit of such an Invention, may find
sufficient argument to be prompted to such Inquiries. As for the _tenacity_
of the substance of Flax, out of which the thread is made, it seems much
inferiour to that of Silk, the one being a _vegetable_, the other an
_animal_ substance. And whether it proceed from the better concoction, or
the more homogeneous constitution of _animal_ substances above those of
_vegetables_, I do not here determine; yet since I generally find, that
_vegetable_ substances do not equalize the _tenacity_ of _animal_, nor
these the _tenacity_ of some purified _mineral_ substances; I am very apt
to think, that the _tenacity_ of bodies does not proceed from the _hamous_,
or _hooked_ particles, as the _Epicureans_ and some modern _Philosophers_
have imagin’d; but from the more exact _congruity_ of the constituent
parts, which are contiguous to each other, and so bulky, as not to be
easily separated, or shatter’d, by any small pulls or concussion of heat.
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