681 



APPENDIX A. 



PxVRT II. 



FIRE BY FllICTIOX (Page 103). 



ANOTHER method of ohtaininp; fire from bamboos is thus doscribed by Capt. T. 

 H. Lcwiii, as ])rai.-tiscd in the Chittagong Hills. "The Tipperahs make use 

 of an ingenious deviee to obtain fire ; they take a piece of dry bamboo, about a foot 

 long, split it in half, and on its outer round surface cut a nick or notch, about an 

 ciglith of an inch broad, circling round the semi-circumference of the bamboo, 

 shallow towards the edges, but deepening in the centre until a minute slit of about 

 a line in breadth, pierces the inner surface of the bamboo fire-stick. Then a flexible 

 strip of bamboo is taken, about li feet long and an eighth of an inch in breadth, 

 to tit the circling notch or groove in the fire-stick. This slip or band is rubbed -with 

 fine dry sand, and then passed round the fire-stick, on -n-hich the operator stands, 

 a foot on cither end. Then the .slip, grasped firmly, an end in each hand, is pulled 

 steadily back and forth, increasing gradually in pressure and velocity as the smoke 

 comes. liy the time the fire-band snaps with the friction, there ought to appear 

 through the slit in the fire-stick some incandescent dust, and this placed, smouklering 

 as it is, in a nest of dry bamboo shavings, can be gently blown into a flamo." — 

 Hill Tracts of Chittiujong and the Dwellers therein, Calcutta, 18G9, p. 83. 



COCOS N'UCIFER.\. (Page 143). 



The native plan of soaking, crushing, and carding the strongly cohering fibre of 

 the cocos husk (coir), which now occupies weeks and months, and entails severe 

 manual labour to carry out, will, it can scarcely be doubted, be entirely replaced 

 in future, or so soon as Europeans devote themselves to its manufacture by the 

 Ekman (Patent) process or some similar one. A late experiment on this material 

 is thus described by Mr. Christy :' — 



" At the reijuest of ilr. Hindc some husks were put in the cylinder by 5[r. 

 Ekman, and they yielded in one hour a fibre that could be removed with the hand, 

 the soft pithy waste disa])pcaring. The fibre when dry was strong and had a good 

 colour. It is quite a mistake to suppose that the fibre can be simply extracted by 

 boiling in water." With this result of the ' Ekman ' process before us, who can 

 doubt the enormous supply of cordage and textile fibres that Burma is capable of 

 yielding, as numbers of other palms, rattans, and other vegetable i)roducts, which 

 may be had for the cost of gatlun-iug, treated as the above ' husks ' were, would 

 yield similar and even superior products ? The Forest Department would do wisely 

 to purchase the right of using this process in experimenting on Burmese forest- 

 products and similar materials. 



' Xcw Commercial Plants aud Drugs, Xo. 6, p. -yl. 



