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Alexander’s officer Nearchus reported that when they got there, they found its locals clad in a “vegetable wool”, later identified as cotton wool.

And yet both Africa and America made cotton cloth from the vegetable wool long before we knew of it otherwise than as a traveller's wonder.

This was the vegetable wool of the ancients, which many learned authorities have identified with the byssus, in bandages of cloth made from which the old Egyptians wrapped their mummies.

This was because of the 'vested interests' in wool and silk, which combined to keep out the vegetable wool from general use.

The best operatives of Lancashire were attracted sooner or later to assist the triumphs of art over the vegetable wool.