132 EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914. 



The Bureau of Education at Manila, P. I., furnished in exchange 

 a series of five grades of knotted abaca fiber and implements for 

 spinning and reeling the same and cotton. Each grade is nested in a 

 basket and weighted down with gravel to prevent tangling while 

 being reeled. After careful gi^ading, the fibers are tied end to end, 

 using a small, hard knot, following which the resultant continuous 

 fiber is treated like a spun yarn. There is a very large trade in 

 knotted abaca for both home consumption and export; it is woven 

 into fabrics and hat braids. A tire filet bedspread and bolster made 

 by expert needlewomen in Porto Rico, a beautiful example of the 

 handicraft work of these people, prepared as a wedding gift for a 

 prominent American girl, was purchased. 



Besides textiles and textile materials, this division was the recip- 

 ient of several important additions of other animal and vegetable 

 products. The Bureau of Fisheries furnished a series of specimens 

 of the species of fresh-water pearl shells from the Mississippi Valley 

 which are used for the manufacture of buttons. It contains ex- 

 amples of the large shells, furnishing as many as 60 buttons each, 

 which were common 20 years or more ago, as well as of the very 

 young shells, from which only a single button can be cut, and which 

 are now being utilized. The Hawkeye Pearl Button Co., of Musca- 

 tine, Iowa, presented a collection showing the different steps in the 

 manufacture of pearl buttons, accompanied by a series of finished 

 and carded buttons, and a model of the type of boat and drag used 

 in collecting the shells in the fresh-water streams. The manufacture 

 of pearl and vegetable ivory buttons is illustrated in a contribution 

 from Messrs. Rothschild Bros. & Co., of New York, which relates 

 principally to the utilization of marine forms furnishing mother- 

 of-pearl, and includes specimens of raw and polished shells be- 

 longing to the genera Margaritifera, Trochus, Turbo, Haliotis, 

 and Unio, besides seeds of a species of ivory nut palm of the 

 genus Phytelephas. The making of buttons from vegetable ivory, 

 furnished by seeds of Phytelephas, is also brought out in a gift from 

 the Rochester Button Co., of Rochester, N. Y., which represents each 

 stage in the process and contains samples of the waste produced in 

 the sawing and turning of the raw material. The importation of 

 these seeds or nuts for button making is rapidly increasing, the 

 amount brought into this country in 1913 having reached 29,000,000 

 pounds. 



A Mexican bridle of the old-fashioned type, made of finely cut 

 and plaited rawhide and of perfect workmanship, was the only speci- 

 men of leather received. It was obtained, through exchange, from 

 Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, of Greenwich, Conn. A set of 18 Dutch 

 standard sugar samples, a standard which, after being in use for 40 

 years in grading raw sugars for revenue purposes, was abolished 



