St. Peter’s in Rome possessed a great pair of silver curtains, which hung at the entrance to the church, given by Pope Stephen IV. in the eighth century.

Vitruvius tells how to preserve the gold in old embroidery, or in worn-out textiles where the metal has been extensively used.  He says:  “When gold is embroidered on a garment which is worn out, and no longer fit for use, the cloth is burnt over the fire in earthen pots.  The ashes are thrown into water, and quicksilver added to them.  This collects all particles of gold, and unites with them.  The water is then poured off, and the residuum placed in a cloth, which, when squeezed with the hands suffers the liquid quicksilver to pass through the pores of the cloth, but retains the gold in a mass within it.”

An early allusion to asbestos woven as a cloth is made by Marco Polo, showing that fire-proof fabrics were known in his time.  In the province of Chinchintalas, “there is a mountain wherein are mines of steel... and also, as was reported, salamanders, of the wool of which cloth was made, which if cast into the fire, cannot burn.  But that cloth is in reality made of stone in this manner, as one of my companions a Turk, named Curifar, a man endued with singular industry, informed me, who had charge of the minerals in that province.  A certain mineral is found in that mountain which yields threads not unlike wool; and these being dried in the sun, are bruised in a brazen mortar, and afterwards washed, and whatsoever earthy substance sticks to them is taken away.  Lastly, these threads are spun like ordinary wool, and woven into cloth.  And when they would whiten those cloths, they cast them into the fire for an hour, and then take them out unhurt whiter than snow.  After the same manner they cleanse them when they have taken any spots, for no other washing is used to them, besides the fire.”

In the Middle Ages it would have been possible, as Lady Alford suggests, to play the game “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral” with textiles only!  Between silk, hemp, cotton, gold, silver, wool, flax, camel’s hair, and asbestos, surely the three elements all played their parts.

Since the first record of Eve having “sewn fig leaves together to make aprons,” women have used the needle in some form.  In England, it is said that the first needles were made by an Indian, in 1545, before which time they were imported.  The old play, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss.  There is a curious old story about a needle, which was supposed to possess magic powers.  This needle is reported to have worked at night while its owner was resting, saving her all personal responsibility about her mending.  When the old lady finally died, another owner claimed this charmed needle, and began at once to test its powers.  But, do what she would, she was unable to force a thread through its obstinate eye.  At last, after trying all possible means to thread the needle, she took a magnifying glass to examine and see what the impediment was, and, lo! the eye of the needle was filled with a great tear,—­it was weeping for the loss of its old mistress, and no one was ever able to thread it again!