832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



leaves ; and above these are the Maoris of New Zealand, with their 

 cloaks of the leaves of an agave-like plant laid upon each other like 

 scales. The South-Sea Islanders have in the paper-mulberry a plant 

 which serves the same purpose to them as the fig-tree to the people of 

 Unyoro, from the bark of which they prepare the tajm by soaking 

 and beating. They illustrate another development of industry in the 

 adornment of their clothes, for which they have invented an endless 

 number of designs, many of them of considerable merit. This stage 

 of civilization is also often marked by a corresponding development of 

 the potter's art, and of skill in ornamenting vessels. From the method 

 of using the whole stuff of the bark to the art of separating its fibers 

 and spinning and weaving them into a cloth is a great step. The pro- 

 cesses of spinning and weaving are as varied as are the people who 

 carry them on, and are largely determined by the nature of the ma- 

 terial to which they have to be applied. 



Dr. David August Rosenthal, in his "Synopsis Plantarura Dia- 

 phorecarum" (1862, Erlangen), counts, among twelve hundred useful 

 plants, three hundred and sixty species which are fit for weaving, 

 spinning, basket-work, cordage, etc. — species which are distributed 

 over the whole earth, and of which nearly every country has some 

 which may be cultivated with profit. 



Dr. Grothe divides the textile fibers into seed, bark, stalk, and 

 leaf fibers. Those of the first class, the seed-fibers, are derived prin- 

 cipally from the species of cotton, concerning all of which we have as 

 yet no comprehensive treatise. Several other families of very diver- 

 sified character afford seed-fibers, for which no method of application 

 has yet been found which would permit them to be compared with 

 the cotton. The plants affording valuable bark, or bark-fibers, are far 

 more numerous. Dr. Grothe enumerates thirty-one families, of which 

 seventeen are dicotyledonous, twelve monocotyledonous, one is a gymno- 

 sperm, and one is a fern. Among the dicotyledonous plants are spe- 

 cies of flax, linden, birch, mallows, sterculiaceae (or silk-cottons), thy- 

 melaceae (Daphne, leatherwood), asclepiads, apocynaceae (dogbanes), 

 nettle-plants, leguminous ])lants, mimosae, spurge, willow, myrtle, 

 bread-fruit, compositfe, and byttneriacejE. The cultivation of the 

 flax-plant has extended to the antipodes. Near to it in importance 

 are the plants of the linden famil}', which afford numerous species 

 suitable for basket-work and for woven fabrics. At their head stands 

 the corchorus (not the so-called Corchorus japoniciis, or Japan rose 

 of the gardens, which is a spirsea), of which the species olitorius and 

 capsularis are the plants of the jute-fiber, and have recently attained 

 an extraordinary value. The cultivation of these plants, which was 

 formerly carried on only in India and the Sunda Islands, has spread 

 to the Southern United States, Brazil, Australia, New Caledonia, 

 Mauritius, Guiana, and Algeria, and the production of the fiber, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Grothe, already equals half that of cotton. Other 



