190 KEW GARDENS 



materials for building purposes, strong and light fibres 

 which acquire a beautiful lustre ; and in times of great 

 drought it has supplied food for the starving inhabitants. 



Specimens of those products will be found 

 chiefly in Museum No. II., illustrating the 

 economic uses of endogenous or monocoty- 

 ledonous plants, hard words which Mr. Barlow 

 might fancifully explain as denoting the gentler 

 sex of vegetable Nature, its members, from palms 

 to grasses, being inclined to softness, slenderness 

 and grace rather than strength. But perhaps 

 Sandford and Merton might, for once, do well 

 not to listen to their much-informed preceptor, as 

 he would probably be imbued with the Linnean 

 system of classification, now set aside for a more 

 natural one. The robust timber, better supplied 

 by sturdily growing exogens, is exhibited in 

 Museum III., the original "Orangery" built 

 by Sir W. Chambers, that now makes a world- 

 fetched show of huge sections of forest giants ; 

 polished slabs of ornamental wood ; specimens of 

 native ingenuity in workmanship, from bamboo 

 toys to an appalling totem post carved upon a 

 Queen Charlotte Islands cedar. Another feature 

 here is views and plans of the Gardens at 

 different periods, the localities often hardly to 



