MUSLIN

A fine thin kind of cotton cloth with a downy nap on the surface. The name is derived from the town Mosul, in Asia, where it was originally manufactured. The first muslin was imported from India into England in 1670; and twenty years afterwards it was manufactured in considerable quantities both in France and England. Muslins are now manufactured in immense quantities at Manchester and Glasgow, in France, Germany, and Switzerland, of a finene and durability that rival those of India, at the same time that they are considerably cheaper. The finene of some Indian muslins is such that when laid on the gra upon which a little dew has fallen, they are scarcely visible ■See Cotton. [s. 818]