Explaining the Science of Flax and Hemp for Kids Story Book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre.
chapter 16 of the storybook of science this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by linda bell west the storybook of science by john henry fabra translated by florence bricknell chapter 16 flax and hemp
while listening to what jacques was saying about wool emil examined his handkerchief attentively he turned it over and over felt it then looked through it jacques foresaw the question emil was getting ready to ask him and he said hint creeps and ninens are not woolen certain plants cotton hemp flax and not sheep furnish them for you see i don't know much about those things myself i have heard tell of the cotton plant but have never seen it and besides i am afraid talking to you will make me cut the sheep's skin in the evening at jules request they took up the history of the materials with which we clothe ourselves and uncle paul explained their nature the outside of hemp and flax is composed of long threads very fine supple and tenacious from which we manufacture our fabrics we clothe ourselves with the spoils of the sheep we make ourselves fine with the bark of the plant the fabrics of luxury cambric tulle gauze point lace meshlin lace are made from flax the stronger ones even to coarse sacking are of hemp the cotton plant gives us fabrics made of cotton flex is a slender plant with little delicate blue flowers and is sewn and harvested every year it is much cultivated in northern france belgium and holland it is the first plant used by men for woven fabrics mummies of egypt the old land of moses and the patriarchs mummies which have lain buried four thousand years and more are swathed in bands of linen mummies did you say interposed jewels i don't know what they are i will tell you my dear child respect for the dead is found among all people and in all ages man regards as sacred what was the seat of a soul made in the image of god he honors the dead but the honors render differ according to time place customs we enter the debt and put over the burial place a tombstone with an inscription or at least a humble cross divine emblem of life eternal the ancients burn them on a funeral pile they piercely gathered the bones bleached by the fire and enclosed them in priceless vases in egypt to preserve the cherished remains for the family they embalmed the dead that is to say they impregnated them with aromatics and swathed them in linen to prevent decomposition these piece duties were so delicately performed that after centuries and centuries we find intact in their chests of sweet-smelling wood but dried and blackened by years contemporaries of the ancient kings of egypt or the pharaohs these are what are called mummies hemp has been cultivated all over europe for many centuries it is an annual of a strong nauseous odor with little green dull looking flowers whose stem of the thickness of a quill pen rises to about two meters it is cultivated like flax both for its bark and for its grain called hemp seed that is the grain i think said emil we give the goldfinch which it cracks with its beak when it breaks the shell to get out the little kernel yes hemp seed is the feast of little birds the bark of the hemp has not the fineness of flex the fibers of this leather plant are so fine that 25 grams of toe spun on the spinning wheel furnishes a thread almost a league long the spider's web alone can rival and delicacy certain linen fabrics when hemp and flax reach maturity they are harvested and the seeds are separated by thrashing the next operation reading then takes place its purpose being to render the filaments of the bark or the fibers as they are called easily separable from the wood these fibers in fact are pasted to the stem and stuck together by a gummy substance that is very resistant and prevents...