EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



61 



TALK ABOUT TREES. 



Theee is no wood that does not contain a 

 variety of trees which, however they vary in 

 character, belong, according to naturalists, 

 to two great families, known as endogens and 

 exogens. To the former belong those graceful 

 and gigantic denizens of the tropics which we 

 are more familiar with in paintings than in 

 person; where the bamboo and fan-palm 

 rear their polished stems and broad-leaved 

 foliage to the skies. These trees are not con- 

 sidered to possess a true bark, but in some 

 kinds the cuticle, or outer covering, is com- 

 posed to a great extent of silex, or flint, so 

 much so in some kinds of cane as to emit 

 sparks, if struck with steel, and forming a 

 beautiful object under the microscope. En- 

 dogens are hollow in the middle, or, as in 

 the case of sugar-cane, made up of a suc- 

 cession of tubes ; but, nevertheless, although 

 not capable of being used for the ordinary 

 purposes of wood or timber, they are emi- 

 nently adapted for purposes which are con- 

 ducive to the comfort and convenience of 

 the inhabitants of those regions where they 

 are found. It is only necessary to take a 

 glimpse at the mechanical products of the 

 Indian Archipelago, to illustrate this. "We 

 have only to remember the beautiful baskets 

 and fans which are formed, not only of the 

 bodies and branches of these trees, but of their 

 leaves, which are tougher and less perish- 

 able than those of our own country. Nay, 

 we may go further, and refer to the houses 

 which are built entirely of bamboo, and in 

 South America are very much like immense 

 bird-cages. These species of trees are com- 

 posed of filaments, readily divisible, but the 

 surface as awhole,longitudinally,is extremely 

 hard and polished. The palm best known to 

 us is the cocoa-palm, which grows to a vast 

 height without a single branch, and has a 

 head of leaves, amidst which the cocoa-nut, 

 so familiar to us, grows. This, whilst it is 



green, and might be injured, is defended by 

 a shell of great thickness, composed of fila- 

 ments of somewhat the same character as 

 the wood itself, or rather the cuticle. Of 

 late years a most important article has been 

 introduced into this country in the shape of 

 matting made from this fibre, and twisted 

 into ropes ; it is durable and cleanly, inas- 

 much as its rough surface readily allows of 

 being cleansed from dust, etc. Those who 

 have visited the bamboo forests of India 

 have seen a beautiful, if not a sublime sight. 

 Imagine a forest of polished columns of Na- 

 ture's own making, branching out at obtuse 

 angles upward in every direction, and ter- 

 minating in silken tufts of foliage, glancing 

 to the sxin with every zephyr that blows. As 

 one universal link is kept up in all Nature, 

 these wondrous natural structures are but 

 vast examples of the silken grass stems that 

 are crushed beneath our feet as we wander 

 in the summer meadows : erect these (in 

 thought) into a thousand times the size, and 

 diminish yourself to a fly's bulk, and you 

 have the Indian scene before you. Among 

 the endogens we have some of those spe- 

 cimens ofendurabUity which seem almost in- 

 destructible by time and the rigour of cli- 

 mate. Thus, the Draccsna draco, found in 

 Teneriffe, was but a few years since, if it be 

 not now, alive, being computed to have been 

 in existence in the fourteenth century — this 

 is really a splendid species. The mode in 

 which endogenous trees grow may be 

 illustrated by supposing that a bundle of 

 straight fibres were placed side by side 

 around a circular pole, that they were 

 tied in at the lower end, the pole then with- 

 drawn, and that they retained their po- 

 sition, they would appear as in the ac- 

 companying figure. And thus in reality 

 they grow, concentring at the root, and 

 often terminating at the apex, in the 



