(38.) _Invention of Weaving._--Weaving is not absolutely necessary for the manufacture of cloth, since wool will felt, though far from evenly, without the preliminary process of being laid in threads, so that cloth may have been almost coeval with mankind without our being required to assign much mechanical ingenuity to its inventors. But we have tolerably clear evidence in the inspired writings, that weaving was known in the earliest ages, and that it was trusted principally to the women:--Thus Delilah wove Samson's hair when he slept in her lap; and a short time after, it is written, that the mother of Samuel "made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year." At a later period, Solomon thus describes a good wife:--"She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands."[5] That garments were in those early ages made of several pieces, joined by needle work, is evident on a perusal of Genesis, xxxvii. 3; Judges, v. 30; and 2 Samuel, xiii. 13; and this plan is allowed to be even more ancient than the weaving of flax. Job, who flourished, or is supposed to have flourished, before the Israelites left Egypt, shows clearly by his words that flannel clothing was then in vogue: "Let me be condemned if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;" and that the cloth was woven, and not produced by beating, is evident from his saying, when complaining of his sad estate, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." [5] The art of weaving was first practised at Arach in Babylonia, and spread thence to neighbouring cities, and in process of time to the most remote parts of the world.--_Bryant's Ancient Mythology_, Vol. v. p. 173.