her spindle a rude stick, on which she wound and twisted the yarn as her fingers laboriously pulled and shaped it from the flax wrapped around the trunk. From this distaff of nature it was but a step to the manufactured distaff of history. This distaff was a staff about three feet long; the lower end was held between the left arm and the side; the upper end was wrapped with the material to be spun. The thread was passed through, and guided by, the fingers of the left hand, and was drawn and twisted by those of the right, and wound on the suspended spindle, made so as to be revolved like a top, which completed the twist by its own impetus and weight. The illustration shows a distaff of the fifteenth century supported by a rude stand, leaving the left arm free to hold the spindle. In this slow and simple fashion the clothing of all the world was spun before the fifteenth century, and still is spun to-day in many lands. The spinning-wheel simply took the distaff as it was, and attached a wheel and treadle to revolve the spindle; and the vast machines of modern industry merely elaborate and multiply into many spindles this simple device of previous ages. The principle remains absolutely the same, so much so that we may say that from tree-trunk to modern factory the methods of preparing and spinning flax have changed the least of all the industries, the sculptures of ancient Egypt depicting processes which are easily recognizable as those practised to-day not only in Egypt, but also by the modern Finn, Lapp, Norwegian, and Belgian flax-grower. The paintings in the grotto of El Kab show the pulling, stocking, tying, and rippling of flax just as it is done in Egypt now; and our own colonists of a hundred years ago followed precisely the same methods as the Egyptian, who preceded him in the world’s history by sixty-five hundred years. Pliny’s description of Egyptian flax-culture and preparation reads like an account of the labors of our own foremothers; and the walls of ancient tombs are covered with pictures of the old familiar process. Egyptian flax went to all parts of the world and occupied a foremost place as an article of commerce, for linen was the staple fabric for clothing of all the ancient peoples. Pieces of linen are still found clinging to skeletons in the tombs of the Chaldeans, and it was the national dress of the Babylonians and Persians. All who are familiar with the Bible know the importance accorded to flax and the flax-spinner among the Hebrews. Joseph did not need to go to Pharaoh to be clothed “in vestures of fine linen,” if the women of his time were as deft at spinning as those women of a later day who brought their offerings to the furnishing of the tabernacle in the wilderness. “All the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun