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 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.