PREFACE. 
Havine a few years since paid attention to the subject 
of Fibres, and anticipating that the troubled state of Europe 
would cause a demand for those of India, I resumed the 
subject in the autumn of the year 1853. 
In the following spring the distinguished senator, of 
whom the Indian Medical Service has reason to be proud, 
and whose loss the public has now to lament, Joseph 
Hume, Esq., M.P., having suggested Indian Fibres as a sub- 
ject for inquiry to the Council of the Society of Arts, they did 
me the honour to ask whether I could prepare a paper on the 
subject. My time was then fully occupied with a general 
work on the ‘ Commercial Products of India,’ several sheets 
of which were then, as they still are, in type, and the 
period for my Course of Lectures at King’s College was 
‘approaching. I therefore found it impossible to devote 
sufficient time to the elaboration of a suitable paper, but 
offered to give a Lecture, which might be reported if 
thought desirable. ‘This I did on the 11th of April, and, 
with the permission of the Honorable the Court of Directors, 
illustrated it with specimens of Fibre, Canvas, and.Cordage, 
the property of the East India Company. ‘The Report of 
it was published in the ‘ Journal of the Society of Arts,’ on 
the 14th of April, 1854. 
