When dried, it is carried again through a set of cards, and a piece of machinery termed a railway-head, with positive draught, which can be set so as to give any length of staple, and to present the flax-cotton thus produced in any form required for spinning, either separately or mixed with cotton or wool, and thus adapted to the machinery used in the manufacture of either of these articles.  The cost of this process, from the brake to the final production of the cotton, is set by the patentee, after leaving him a fair profit, at three cents per pound of cotton; and if we add this to the cost of the linten, and allow for freight and storage, the entire cost of the fibrilia is but eight cents per pound, or two-thirds of the present price of middling cotton.

The idea of modifying the filaments of flax and hemp so as to convert them into cotton is by no means a new one.  As long ago as 1747 it was proposed to convert flax into cotton by boiling it in a solution of caustic potash, and subsequently washing it with soap; and in 1775 Lady Moira, aided by T.B.  Bailey, actually converted some refuse flax into cotton by boiling it in alkali.  The result was, that the fibres seemed to be set at liberty from each other; after which it was carded on cotton cards, spun, and woven as cotton.

The Chevalier Claussen, as recently as 1850, claimed to have discovered the process, and actually took out a patent; but his invention, which consisted in boiling the cut and crushed stems of the flax in a solution of caustic soda, turned out a failure,—­the cutting, crushing, and boiling processes proving alike defective.

New discoveries are the result of repeated trials; perseverance usually prevails; and if States are to secede at pleasure and withhold their cotton, and no other good uses can be found for flax or hemp, why should not their fibres secede also,—­be set at liberty and resolve themselves into a cotton state?

We might pass from the fibrous plants, and the metamorphosis of flax into cotton, to the Pinna, whose fibres grow in the sea on the coast of Italy, and anchor the huge shell-fish to the rock or the sand.  These fibres are brought up by divers, and woven into beautiful fabrics.  We might repeat the tale of the crab which lives with this shell-fish, and apprises his blind housekeeper of the approach of danger,—­a tale confirmed by ancient and modern naturalists,—­for there are strange doings in the sea as well as upon the land.  We might also dilate upon China grass, which is manufactured in the East into delicate fabrics.  But our limits compel us to defer these topics.

NAT TURNER’S INSURRECTION.