34 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



this tree, is very good to eat j but though it's 

 trunk was not thicker than a man's leg, it was 

 more than fixty feet high. The wood of this tree, 

 indeed, is only foraicd of a bundle of filaments, 

 but it's pith is fo hard, that it refifls the edge of 

 the keeneft hatchet, and Paul had not fo much as 

 a knife. The idea occurred to him, of fetting fire 

 to the palm-tree, but here again he was at a lofs; 

 he had no fieel ; and befides, in this ifland, fo 

 covered with rock, I do not believe that a fmgle 

 flint (lone is to be found. Neceffity produces in- 

 duftry, and the mod ufeful inventions are fre- 

 quently to be afcribed to the moft miferable of 

 mankind. Pmd refolved to kindle a fire in the 

 fame manner that the blacks do. With the (harp 

 point of a ftone, he bored a little hole in the 

 branch of a tree that was very dry, which he maf- 

 tered by preiTing it under his feet : he then, with 

 the edge of this ftone, made a point to another 

 branch, equally dry, but of a different fpecies of 

 wood. Afterwards, he applied this piece of pointed 

 wood to the little hole of the branch which was 

 under his feet, and fpinning it round, with great 

 rapidity, between his hands, as you trundle round 

 the mill with which chocolate is frothed up, in a 

 few moments, he faw fmoke and fparks ifTue from 

 the point of contaét. He, then, gathered toge- 

 ther fome dry herbage, and other branches of 

 trees, and applied the fire to the root of the palm- 

 tree. 



