370 Report of the London Society of Arts, <££.' [June, 



close boxes, are often more or less injured by worms ; wbich injury 

 he conceives -would be greatly diminished by substituting- clean spring 

 water for that of the tanks. The sample before the Committee is 

 fair and clean, and suitable for the market, and is worth about £ 7 

 a cwt. 



The finest safflower of all comes from China, but is not an article 

 of regular appearance in the market. The comparative value of it is 

 as high as £ 30 per cwt. 



Mr. Emley, drug-broker, and a Member of the Committee, considers 

 the sample to be of good fair merchantable quality, and in value as 

 stated by Messrs. Johnson and Renney. 



V. Two skeins of fibre made from the leaves of the wild pine- 

 apple, and two net bags made of the same material, sent from Gowa- 

 hatty in Assam, by Captain Jenkins. 



The sample is not sufficient for any fair comparative trial of its 

 tenacity. 



The Society are already in possession of fibre from the leaves of the 

 black Antigua pine and from the Penguin pine of Jamaica, which latter 

 is occasionally made into ropes in the West Indies, but is not the 

 object of any regular manufacture, the expense of labour in those 

 colonies rendering it more advantageous to import from England 

 cordage ready made. It appears likewise (from Burnett's "Wander- 

 ings in New South Wales, &c. vol. ii. p. 207), that at Singapore the 

 Chinese settlers obtain fibre from the leaves of the wild pine-apple, 

 which fibres are exported to China, where they are employed as a 

 material for linen. Also in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal, for January, 1832, is a paper by Lieut. -Col. Watson on 

 Chirra Punji, the sanatory station recently occupied by the East 

 India Company, in which it is stated, p. 27, that the pine-apple plant 

 flourishes in great abundance in the adjacent valleys, 4,200 feet above 

 the level of the sea, and that the leaves are gathered by the natives 

 for the purpose of obtaining from them, by a veiy simple process, a 

 strong fibre, which they employ as the material of the net pouches or 

 bags in common use among them. 



From these indications it would perhaps be worth while for the 

 Court of Directors to have a quantity of the fibre imported, sufficient 

 for a fair comparative trial with hemp and flax. 



IV. Sample of the wood of the Nipal Privet, Ligustrum Nipalense, 

 from Mr. Hodgson. 



A specimen of this wood was found among those sent to England 

 by Dr. Wallich, and of which a catalogue is published in the 48th 

 vol of the Society's Transactions. It appearing to Mr. Aikin, the 



