1885.] THE LATE PROFESSOR ARCHER. 95 



candles as well as for lubricating, goes nearly back to the time — 

 fully fifty years ago — when Chevreul completed his researches on the 

 nature of fixed oils and fats, is yielding in importance for two, but more 

 especially for one, of these purposes, to the products of our native 

 oil shales and the oil wells of North America. Candles can now be 

 made more cheaply from paraffin than from palm-oil, and the former 

 has also the advantage in price for some lubricating purposes. Oil from 

 the seed of the cotton plant, which was little more than a curiosity 

 a quarter of a century ago, has become a material of much connnercial 

 importance. 



Gutta-percha, which has now been known in Europe for forty 

 years, and which was at one time on its trial as a material for 

 numerous ornamental purposes, and for a still greater number of 

 articles of domestic use, from curtain rings to whole ceilings, from 

 drinking mugs to water pails, from coating of wires to drain pipes, 

 and from sailors' hats to boats of serviceable size, — has turned out, 

 from its tendency to rot, to be a substance of comparatively limited 

 application. India-rubber, on the other hand, has become so exten- 

 sively employed in the arts, that some anxiety exists as to the keep- 

 ing up of the supply. The imports of this material in the year 1883 

 amounted in value to the enormous sum of £3,650,000. 



One of the minor vegetable products turned to useful account is 

 the nut of the vegetable ivory palm, Phytelcphas macrocarpa, which 

 grows in the low valleys of the Peruvian Andes. This material 

 has a considerable resemblance to ivory, and, when Mr. Archer 

 wrote his book, it was to some extent turned or carved into small 

 trinkets in England. It is still used for this purpose, but of late 

 years vegetable ivory has almost completely displaced all other 

 substances for the buttons of tweed clothing ; so that these are 

 now made in enormous numbers in Birmingham. They are, of 

 course, stained or dyed to suit the fabric. 



"With respect to textile materials, cotton still stands far at the 

 head of all others in importance. Flax and hemp maintain their 

 place as staple fibres. The strong and beautiful China grass or 

 Eheea fibre, from Bmhmcria nivea, bade fair at the time of the first 

 Great Exhibition to figure soon as a conspicuous article of commerce, 

 but, in spite of handsome rewards more than once offered by the 

 Indian Government for a means of preparing it economically, the 

 problem has not yet been solved, so that it is still far from being 

 extensively used. The imports of jute, on the other hand, have 

 in the same period of time risen to gigantic proportions. 



The so-called New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax, is another 

 plant whose fibre, it was at one time supposed, would come largely 

 into use for ropes, cordage, and some kinds of cloth ; but though 



