SPREAD OF COCOA-NUT TREES. USES OF PALMS. 547 



kind provision of a beneficent Creator, is especially the case in 

 regard to those which are most capable of being made useful to 

 him. The Cocoa-nut, for example, is found in almost all the 

 islands of the Polynesian Archipelago ; even in those as yet 

 untenanted by Man, which have been upraised by the agency of 

 minute coral-building polypes, from the depths of the sea. This 

 is easily accounted for, when it is considered that the Cocoa-nut 

 may float a long time in the sea, without the seed receiving any 

 injury, in consequence of its protection by the fibrous husk and 

 dense shell ; but when cast up by currents of the ocean on the 

 low shores of these islands, the husk gradually separates, under 

 the combined influence of the sun, air, and occasional moisture, 

 and allows the seed to be acted on by those influences which will 

 excite it to germination. The Cocoa-nut, like other species 

 which are capable of living in a variety of conditions, has a great 

 tendency to run into subordinate varieties ; and as many as thirty 

 of these are sometimes known to the natives of a single island, 

 whose attention is called to them by the important benefits they 

 derive from them, and who distinguish them by different names. 

 The same is the case, in a less degree, with the Date-Palra, and 

 with other species. 



725. It would be impossible here to enumerate all the uses 

 to which the various parts of these important trees, and their 

 products, are applied by the inhabitants of the countries where 

 they abound ; since these include almost every one, for which all 

 other tribes of the Vegetable Kingdom are employed, by those 

 that respectively possess them. Wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, 

 salt, says the celebrated traveller Humboldt, are the produce of 

 this tribe ; whilst their own fabric affords the materials of the 

 habitations, vessels, weapons, and clothing, of many nations. A 

 few, only, of the more remarkable of these uses can here be 

 adverted to. The exterior of the stems, of most species, affords 

 a wood which is extremely valuable for its hardness, sometimes 

 even taking a very high polish ; in many countries, this is the 

 only kind of timber which the inhabitants possess ; and it must 

 therefore serve all the purposes for which wood is required. Of 

 the hardest parts, weapons are usually manufactured ; and these 



