NEW FIBRES FROM BRAZIL. 85 
resembling the Asta bark in Dr. Royle’s collection of vegetable fibres ; 
it is evidently, I think, the fibrous portion of the bark of some tree, pro- 
| bably an Acacia. This material was also sent from Bahia, and its ap- 
P plication as a substitute for oakum was suggested; neither of these 
Fe articles has yet met with purchasers. I send specimens of each for 
the Museum at Kew.—T. C. ARCHER.” 
In offering a few remarks upon the two fibres above mentioned, and 
kindly sent to us by our friend Mr. Archer, we must take the oppor- 
tunity of alluding to the importance, in a mercantile and commercial 
point of view, of the establishment of Museums like that which is alluded 
to in the last paragraph, and like the commercial one now forming at 
Liverpool under Mr. Archer's care. Without the Museum at Kew, the 
origin of these fibres, and the uses to which they are applied in their native 
locality, might still and for centuries have remained unknown. But let it 
be observed, it is not merely as a deposit for the useful products of the 
vegetable kingdom that this has become of national importance ; but to 
the eneouragement that has hereby been given to educated travellers and 
scientific botanists, to direct attention to those subjects during their 
arduous voyages and journeys: and we would appeal to the good sense 
and judgment of the * merchant princes "' of this country, whether it 
would not be pecuniarily well worth their while to contribute to the 
outfit and maintenance of competent persons, who now are engaged, or 
may yet be so, in exploring countries where a better knowledge of the 
produets might lead to a discovery of new kinds, and a more intimate 
and correct acquaintance with the properties of all. Many parts of 
China, and even Japan, abounding in vegetable riches, known and un- 
known to science and the arts, are at length open to the enterprising 
traveller: and we know that Sir John Bowring, the talented Governor 
of Hongkong (through whose exertions the famous Rice-paper plant is 
clearly ascertained and introduced alive to Europe), will do everything 
in his power to facilitate the researches of a competent person. The 
gums, and resins, and drugs of Persia, and Arabia, and Abyssinia, have, = 
in very few instances, been traced to the plants which yield them: and 
in the first of these countries we have a British minister at the Court, 
the Honourable Charles Augustus Murray, who is equally disposed ü 
further the views of any enlightened traveller. There is at this time such 
a dearth of fibres for textile materials, and for paper in particular, as — 
to have created a kind of textile panic in the country ; and without any 
kind of knowledge of the natural properties of plants, all sorts of people, 
