TEGETABLE FIBRES OF THE BAHAMAS. 239 



fibrous texture from which, is there obtained by immersion in running 

 streams of water, and subsequent manipulation. 



The botany and natural history of the Bahamas, as you are probably 

 well aware, is principally to be met with in a valuable work with plates, 

 which retaia nearly their pristine brilliancy of tint, published in 1771, 

 entitled ' The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama 

 Islands/ by Mark Catesby, F.E.S.; a work deserving to be republished 

 in a portable size. 



Catesby describes four kinds of Pine which grow in Carolina, and 

 are there distinguished by the names of ' Pitch Pine,' ' Eich Land Pine,' 

 'Short-leaved Pine,' and 'Swamp Pine.* He does not describe any of 

 the Pine tribe in the Bahamas, and he was probably unaware of their 

 existence ; and as they are limited very much on New Providence to 

 the interior, they were probably inaccessible, for want of roads, when 

 Catesby visited this colony. 



You refer to the timber of our Pine-tree, as being probably especially 

 valuable ; and you refer to the wood of the Southern Pine, of the United 

 States, to which you think it possibly analogous, as being preferred to 

 all other Pines in naval architecture, 



I am informed that the wood of our Pine-tree at Abaco resembles 

 the wood of the Southern Pine of the United States, even more than 

 that grown on New Providence. There are very fine schooners, of a 

 beautiful model, and fast sailers, annually built at Abaco, the beams 

 and keels for which vessels are obtained from the Pine-trees grown 

 there. The planking is generally American Yellow Pine : the latter, 

 I have reason to believe, is simply preferred from being more cheaply 

 obtained, it being sawed up in the States by steam machinery, with 

 which mere manual labour cannot compete, I fear, however, that un- 

 less the introduction of steam machinery, for the purpose of sawing 

 the Pine-trees of the Bahamas into plank, be introduced, there is little 

 probability of private enterprise undertaking it. If so undertaken, the 

 operations suggested by you for obtaining pitch, tar, and turpentine 

 from the Pine-trees might be accomplished. These products might be 



summer 



when " the sap is down ;" and the trees, by being thus relieved, would 

 probably yield more readily to the saw, and the timber be more durable, 

 than if cut when " the sap is up" in the spring and summer. 



Generally the expense of fuel is an important item in connection with 



