As usual this worthy man, who had won the right to the title he received, was not the only discoverer or inventor of the thing credited to his name. Long before his time a description of a similar loom had been presented to the Royal Society of London, but he had no knowledge of it. He spent between £30,000 and £40,000 bringing his invention to a successful stage, but failed to make it profitable to himself. A small return was made to him later, at the suggestion of the principal mill-owners of the country, when he received from the government the sum of £10,000. His work has been much improved in detail since, but it has never been altered in its main principles. But with all our arts and marvelous machines the most beautifully fine cotton fabric is yet the Dacca muslin. It is called "woven wind," and when spread out upon the grass it is said to resemble gossamer. It used to be made for the Indian princes before the days when the British took possession of the country. It was made only in a strip of territory about forty miles long and three miles in width. With the change in rulers the weavers largely dropped the work which they and their ancestors had done for centuries, handing down their art from father to son; they took to the business of raising indigo, as their soil and climate were well adapted to its production and the demand was good. Yet there are some of them weaving at this day, though not in sufficient numbers to produce the muslin as a regular article of commerce. A bamboo bow strung with catgut, like a fiddle string, is used to separate the fiber from the seed. It is carded with a big fishbone. The distaff is held in the hand and the loom is a very old-fashioned affair, home-made of bamboo reeds, so simple that a few shillings will purchase one, though a lifetime will not make one able to use it.