THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF PHILIPPINE COIR AND 

 COIR CORDAGE COMPARED WITH ABACA (MANILA HEMP).^ 



By Albert E. W. King 



(Fro7n the Lahoratoi-y of General, Inorganic, and Physical Chemistry, 

 Bureau of Science, Manila) 



FOUR TEXT FIGURES 



The information on coconut fiber found in current literature 

 and in reference books and handbooks is characterized by a 

 paucity of precise numerical data. Most of the articles are 

 limited to generalities which dismiss the subject of coir with 

 the statement that the fiber is very resilient, elastic, or tena- 

 cious. Usually no quantitative results are given, and many 

 authors have in certain respects misinterpreted the meager or 

 incomplete data at hand. Our present knowledge of the strength 

 and durability of coir cordage is mostly obtainable from the 

 work of Royle.- The investigations of the Marine Board at 

 Calcuttaj^* of Roxburgh,* of Wight,^ and of others who have 

 studied the subject are not available in the original. 



The work of Roxburgh on the comparative strength of twenty- 

 one fiber cords, one of which is coir, before and after macera- 

 tion in water for one hundred sixteen days is also cited by 

 Prudhomme," Lecomte," and Copeland,^ but these writers quote 

 Roxburgh's experiments in markedly different ways. 



' Received for publication August 4, 1918. 



■ Royle, J. Forbes, Fibrous Plants of India Fitted for Cordage, Clothing, 

 and Paper. Smith, Elder, and Co., London; Smith, Taylor, and Co., 

 Bombay (1855), 116, 269, 310, 331-332. 



' Through Royle, op. cit., 331-332. 



* 'Observations of the late Dr. William Roxburgh, Botanical Superin- 

 tendent of the Honourable East India Company's Garden at Calcutta, on 

 the various Specimens of Fibrous Vegetables, the produce of India, which 

 may prove valuable Substitutes for Hemp and Flax, on some future day, 

 in Europe.' Edited by a Friend, and published at the expense of the 

 East India Company, for the information of the Residents, and the benefit 

 that may arise therefrom throughout the Settlements in India. London: 

 1815. [Cited by Royle, page 6. Roxburgh, first director of the botanical 

 garden at Calcutta, was born in 1759 and died in 1815.] 



° Through Royle, op. cit., pp. 116, 310. Wight, dii-ector of the botanical 

 garden at Madras, was born in 1796 and died in 1872. None of the writers 

 who quote Wight give references. 



° Prudhomme, E., Le Cocotier. Augustin Challamel, fiditeur, Paris 

 (1906), 355-356. 



' I^ecomte, M., quoted by Prudhomme, p. 356. 



'Copeland, E. B., The Coco-nut. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London (1914), 

 183. 



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