606 Philippine Journal of Science 1919 
ovoid, about 3 centimeters long, four- or five-valved; widely 
scattered in the settled areas of the Philippines at low altitudes. 
The strips of Thespesia lampas bast composing this sample 
of rope are streaky cream, and average 0.51 millimeter thick, 
5 millimeters wide, and 1,203 millimeters long. Each strand 
averages sixteen strips thick. Due to the large amount of woody 
material the strips of crude bast are stiff and hard. After 
exposure to the laboratory air for a day or so during the rainy 
season the fiber was covered with a growth of gray mold. 
Nearly all of the crude basts are susceptible to molds, but 
Thespesia lampas is apparently more readily infested than are 
the others. Retted fibers, like Sida acuta and Abroma fastuosa, 
are attacked little, if at all, when properly cleaned. 
Rope made of this bast when dry is very low in tensile 
strength and in breaking length. The wetted specimens were 
about 8 per cent more tenacious than the dry test pieces. Both 
gave erratic results, the maximum differences from the mean 
tensile strength being 24 and 21 per cent, respectively. Two 
of the five dry, and four of the five wet, specimens ruptured 
in the unspliced sections of the test pieces, the remaining ones 
breaking in eye-splices. The minimum values in both the dry 
and the wet series were obtained from specimens that failed out- 
side of eye-splices, whereas the maximum values in the re- 
spective series were given by test pieces ruptured in eye-splices. 
A summary of the tests of this species made in the Bureau 
of Science is given in Table XXI. 
TABLE XXI.—Physical tests of rope made from the bast of Thespesia 
lampas. 
[Rope made at Langiden, Abra Province.] 
Mean diameter: 
Millimeters 9.6 
Inches 0.38 
Mean perimeter, or girth: 
Millimeters 30 
Inches 1.18 
True mean sectional area: 
Square millimeters 57.8 
Square inches : 0.09 
Ultimate tensile strength (dry): 
Mean in kilograms 155 
Maximum in kilograms 192 
Minimum in kilograms 121 
Mean in pounds 341 
Maximum in pounds 424 
Minimum in pounds 267 
