^6 Vilest American Scientist. 



fish-hooks from its spines. Caps for the head, and cloth for the 

 loins, are manufactured from the spathes of the Manicaria saccifera. 

 These, too, supply the natives with his hammock and bow-strings. 

 Various species of palms yield oil and edible fruit; from eight 

 kinds an intoxicating liquor can be distilled ; and Irom the Jara 

 assu, by burning its small nuts- he procures a substitute for salt. 

 From the spinous processes of the Patawa he makes his arrows, 

 and arms himself with lances and harpoons from the Triatea ven- 

 tricosa. The long blowpipe through which he hurls the en- 

 venomed dart at birds and animals comes from the Setigera palm; 

 from the stems of various trees he fashions the harsh, bassoon-like, 

 musical instrument employtd in his "devil-worship;" and, 

 finally, the great woody spathes of the Maximiliana regia provide 

 him with cooking-vessels. 



In Ceylon and Malabar one of the principal palms is the re 

 markable Talipot, Talipat, or Umbiella-bearing palm (Corypha 

 umbraculifera ), which frequently attains the extraordinary ele- 

 vation of ico feet; is straight as a giant's spear; five feet in cir- 

 cumference at the base, and tapering towards the summit, where 

 it terminates in a magnificent cr jwn of enormous palmate plaited 

 leaves. Each leaf, near the outer margin, is divided mto numer- 

 ous segments, and united to the trunk by spiny leaf-stalks. It 

 usually measures about eighteen feet in length, exclusive of the 

 leaf-stalk, and about fourteen feet in breadth; so that a single leaf 

 will form an excellent canopy for a score of men. ^ It is con- 

 sequently employed for many important purposes, such as roof- 

 ing houses or making tents. The Singalese noble, on state occa- 

 sions, is always followed by an attendant bearing above his head a 

 richly ornamented talipat leaf, which can be folded up, like a fan, 

 into a roll of the thickness of a man's arm, and is wonderfully 

 light. In Malabar, the leaves are used as a substitute for paper, 

 the characters being inscribed with an iron stylus, but they under- 

 go a preliminary process of boiling, drying, damping, rubbing 

 and pressing. The oil employed in coloring the writing pre- 

 serves them from insects, but changes with age, so that a Singal- 

 ese determines the date of a book by carefully smelHng at it. 



Above its crown of leaves the talipat, at the age of thirty or 

 forty years, raises an erect pyramid of flowers, of a bright creamy 

 hue, but disagreeable odor. At first they are enclosed in a hard 

 sl.eath, from which, when matured, they extrude themselves with 

 a loud noise. To this peculiarity Moore alludes in the following 

 lines: 



" Hearts where, slow but deep, the seeds 

 Of vengeance ripen into deeds, 

 Till, in some treacherous hour of calm, 

 They burst, like Zeilan's giant-palm. 

 Whose buds fly open with a sound 

 That shakes the pigmy forest round ! " 



