in commerce, a soft downy substance found on the gossypium, or cotton-tree. See GOSSEYPIUM.

Cotton is separated from the seeds of the plant by a mill, and then spun and prepared for all sorts of fine works, as stockings, waistcoats, quilts, tapestry, curtains, &c. With it they likewise make muslin; and sometimes it is mixed with wool, sometimes with silk; and even with gold itself.

The finest sort comes from Bengal and the coast of Coromandel.

Cotton makes a very considerable article in commerce, and is distinguished into cotton-wool and cotton-thread. The first is brought mostly from Cyprus, St John d'Acre, and Smyrna: the most esteemed is white, long, and soft. Those who buy it in bales should see that it has not been wet, moisture being very prejudicial to it. The price of the finest is usually from five to seven pence the quintal of 44 ocos.

Of cotton-thread, that of Damas, called cotton d'orner, and that of Jerusalem, called bazas, are the most esteemed; as also that of the Antilles islands. It is to be chosen white, fine, very dry, and evenly spun. The other cotton-threads are the half bazas, the rames, the beledin, and gondzeel; the payas and montafiri, the geneguins, the boquins, the joffellaffars, of which there are two sorts. Those of India, known by the name of Tuncorin, Java, Bengal, and Surat, are of four or five sorts, distinguished by the letters A, B, C, &c. They are sold in bags, with a deduction of one pound and a half on each of those of Tuncorin, which are the dearest, and two pounds on each bag of the other sorts. For those of Ficlebas, Smyrna, Aleppo, and Jerusalem, the deduction at Amsterdam is eight in the hundred for the tare; and two in the hundred for weight, and on the value one per cent. for prompt payment.

Cotton of Siam, is a kind of silky cotton in the Antilles, so called because the grain was brought from Siam. It is of an extraordinary fineness, even surpassing silk in softness. They make hole of it there preferable to silk ones, for their lustre and beauty. They sell from 10 to 12 and 15 crowns a pair, but there are very few made unless for curiosity.

The manner of Packing Cotton as practised in the Antilles. The bags are made of coarse cloth, of which they take three cells and a half each; the breadth is one ell three inches. When the bag has been well soaked in water, they hang it up, extending the mouth of it to cross pieces of timber nailed to pots fixed in the ground seven or eight feet high. He who packs it goes into the bag, which is fix feet nine inches deep, or thereabouts, and presses down the cotton, which another holds him, with hands and feet; observing to tread it equally everywhere, and putting in but little at a time. The best time of packing is in rainy moist weather, provided the cotton be under cover. The bag should contain from 300 to 320 pounds. The rate abated in the Antilles is three in the hundred. Cotton being a production applicable to a great variety of manufactures, it cannot be too much cultivated in our own plantations that will admit of it.

Cotton-wool, not of the British plantations, pays, on importation, 2½ d. the pound, and draws back on exportation 6½ d. Cotton-yarn the pound, not of the East Indies, pays 2½ d. and draws back 2½ d.

Cotton-yarn the pound of the East Indies pays 4½ d. and draws back 4½ d.

Lavender Cotton. See Santolina.

Philosophic Cotton, a name given to the flowers of zinc, on account of their white colour, and resemblance to cotton.

Flax made to resemble Cotton. See Flax.

Silk Cotton. See Bombyx.

Cotton-Weed. See Gynaphalium.

Cotton (Sir Robert), a most eminent English antiquarian, descended from an ancient family, was born in 1570. In his 81st year he began to collect ancient records, charters, and other MSS. Camden, Selden, and Speed, acknowledged their obligations to him in their respective works. He was highly distinguished by queen Elizabeth, and by James I., who created him a baronet. He wrote many things himself; but our principal obligations to him are for his valuable library of MSS., which was secured to the public by two acts of parliament, and now makes part of the British museum.

Cotton (Charles), a burlesque poet, was descended of a good family, and lived in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. His most celebrated piece is Scarronides, or Travels of the first and fourth books of the Æneid. But though, from the title, one would be apt to imagine it an imitation of Scarron's famous Travels of the same author, yet, upon examination, it would be found greatly to excel not only that, but every other attempt of the same kind that hath been hitherto hitherto made in any language. He has also translated several of Lucian's dialogues, in the same manner, under the title of the Scoffer Scoff'd; and written another poem of a more serious kind, entitled the Wonders of the Peak. The exact period of either Mr Cotton's birth or his death, is nowhere recorded; but it is probable the latter happened about the time of the revolution. Neither is it better known what his circumstances were with respect to fortune; they appear, however, to have been easy, if one may judge from the turn of his writings, which is such as seems scarcely possible for any one to indulge whose mind was not perfectly at ease. Yet there is one anecdote told of him, which seems to show that his vein of humour could not restrain itself on any consideration, viz. that in consequence of a single couplet in his Virgil Tragoele, wherein he has made mention of a peculiar kind of ruff worn by a grandmother of his who lived in the Peak, he lost an estate of L. 400 per annum; the old lady, whose humour and telly disposition he could by no means have been a stranger to, being never able to forgive the liberty he had taken with her; and having her fortune wholly at her disposal, although she had before made him her sole heir, altered her will, and gave it away to an absolute stranger.