CHAPTER VIII 

 VEGETABLE AND IMITATION IVORY 



The beauties of genuine ivory are such, and they are now 

 so highly and generally appreciated, that even articles made 

 of imitation ivory are sold in great quantities. This is 

 known under various trade names, as "Parisian ivory," 

 "French ivory," "Egyptian ivory," and "ivorloid." A 

 favourite modern use is for clocks, some of which are pro- 

 vided with an electric flashlight, the apparatus being so 

 disposed in a funnel slanting toward the clock face that 

 when a button is pressed the dial is brightly illuminated, 

 enabling any one to see immediately the time when in an 

 entirely dark room. 



The tagua palm, as the natives of Ecuador call the 

 Phytelephas macrocarpa, was first brought to popular notice 

 about fifty years ago by some rubber gatherers, who, in 

 carrying on their work in the forests of northern Ecuador, 

 had come across an unfamiliar species of palm, having as 

 fruit a nut in whose shape they saw a grotesque resemblance 

 to a negro's head, and hence called the nuts negritos. Hav- 

 ing picked up, dried out, and broken open some of them, 

 they noted that the kernels bore a close resemblance to 

 ivory, and the idea quickly suggested itself that they might 

 be used as a cheap substitute for the costly, genuine ma- 

 terial. To test the value of the nuts some were shipped to 

 Europe; and although at first they were not received with 

 much favour, their excellent qualities soon became ap- 



279 



