ON THE NATURAL HOPES USED IN THE BRAZILS. 327 



least to explain." (Pp 4S3-4S4.) It may be remarked as a bibliogra- 

 phical fact that this appendix is not u separately-published pamphlet, 

 as might be inferred from the notice in 'Nature,' but it is bound up 

 in the most recent copies of the ' Principles,' and has been sent out 

 to the subscribers. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer. 



(B^ixcids anb Abstracts. 



ON THE NATURAL EOPES USED POR PACKING COTTON 

 BALES IN THE BRAZILS. 



{From a Paper read by Charles Bailey, Esq., before the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of Manchester, Feb. 8th, ] 870.) 



Most of the cotton bales which reach this country from the Brazils 

 are corded with the long stems of climbing plants, which grow in the 

 greatest profusion in the forests bordering on the cotton districts. In 

 their fresh state these stems are exceedingly pliant and of remarkable 

 strength, so that they serve admirably for cordage purposes, but by 

 the time that the cotton i-eaches the mills of Lancashire they are dry 

 and rigid, and as no further use can be made of them, they are burmd 

 for firewood. My attention was first directed to them by a paper read 

 on the 7th December last, by Mr. Robert Holland, of Mobberley, to 

 the Manchester Scientific Students' Association, on " Some Peculiar 

 Forms of Exogenous Stems." 



One of the earliest to minutely study this class of plants was Charles 

 Gaudichaud, a botanist who visited Chili, Peru, and the Brazils in 

 1830, and who svd)sequently published a memoir entitled, ' Recherches 

 generales sur I'orgauographie, la physiologic et I'organogenie des 

 Vcgctaux' (Mem. Savans Etrangers, t. viii. Paris, 1835), in which Avill 

 be fomid a large number of engravings of many Lianas, but very little 

 descriptive matter. The most comph'tc general account of their struc- 

 ture which I have met with is that by Adrien de Jussieu, " Sur les 

 tiges de diverses Lianes, et particulieremcnt sur celles de la famille des 

 Malpighiacces" (Annates des Sciences Naturelles, t. xv., Paris, 1841) ; 

 this was afterwards reprinted, with additions, and incorporated in the 

 same author's ' Monographic di; la fauiille des Mali)ighiacces' (Areh. 

 du Mus. t. iii., Paris, 1843). Another account of their organization is 



