8 RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENTS ON FIBRES IN INDIA 
examination, was the Caloee of Sumatra, which he subsequently 
named Urtica tenacissima. He was informed by a friend 
at Canton, that the grass cloth of China was made from its 
fibres. The experiments were continued until 1811; for 
Dr. Buchanan, who was appointed to succeed Dr. Roxburgh, 
sent in that year three bales of the Caloee fibre of Sumatra to 
the India House. These the Court of Directors forwarded 
to Messrs. Sharpe, then of Mark Lane, who reported, that a 
thread spun of the fibres bore 252 1b., whereas the weight 
required to be borne by Russian hemp of the same size in her 
Majesty’s Dockyard was only 821b. The Society of Arts, in 
the year 1814, awarded a silver medal to Capt. J. Cotton, then 
a Director of the East India Company——-who had also paid 
great attention to the Sunn—for the introduction of this fibre, 
of which the reports were so favorable for strength and for 
other qualities. It has since been discovered to be abundant 
in Assam, and other parts of India. 
Among the fibres subjected to experiment by Dr. Roxburgh, 
were the Sunn of Bengal (Crotolaria juncea), the Brown Hemp 
of Bombay (Hibiscus cannabinus), and the Jute produced by 
different species of Corchorus, which, though weak, has many 
valuable properties. Considerable quantities of the different 
kinds of Sunn and of Jute were imported by the Hast India 
Company. These were at times discontinued, and again re- 
sumed; but now we may consider them as trophies of the last 
war, inasmuch as they have become permanent and considerable 
articles of export. We may therefore fairly hope, as attention 
has, in the present war, been directed towards the Hemp: of 
the Himalayas and the Rheea of Assam, that these also may 
become permanent sources of benefit to India, because they 
possess, in a superior degree, every quality required of fibres. 
Before proceeding, we may mention the quantities in which 
Jute and Sunn are now exported from India. 
Though the accounts are imperfect of the export of these, 
at that time small matters, yet we perceive by the accounts of 
the Exports of India, given in to the Committee of the House 
of Commons for the Affairs of India, in 1831, that in the 
official year 1796-97, only 591 maunds of hemp, flax, and 
twine were exported from Calcutta to the United Kingdom 
but 2883 maunds to the United States of America, ; 
