FIBRE OF BEXOGENS. 181 
seen in the Flax plant, the Jute, the Hibiscus and Cotton 
plant, the Sunn, and many other fibre-yielding plants. 
Or, these two layers may be composed of the several pieces of 
each, or of the sepals and petals, united together into a single 
piece, as seen in the Convolvulus, the Jessamine, and Vinca. 
The last contains tenacious fibre, is allied to the old genus 
Asclepias, which abounds in plants yielding strong fibre, as the 
Asclepias gigantea, &c. 
Some plants have only a single floral covering, which may 
be green or otherwise coloured, as may be seen in the Hemp, 
the Nettle, China grass, and other fibre-yielding plants. 
Plants belonging to this division of the Vegetable Kingdom 
are the best known on account of their fibres. Of these many 
are remarkable for their strength and useful properties. 
Having lately had occasion to report on some Indian fibres, 
I was anxious to ascertain the comparative strength of several 
of those fibres, which were, upon the whole, but little known. 
I therefore had equal weights and equal lengths of several of 
these fibres taken, their ends tied and fixed in a vice, and then 
the number of pounds ascertained with which each broke. In 
these experiments : 
Petersburgh clean Hemp . . broke with 160 Ib. 
A fibre from Travancore, called Wuckoo 2 ; 7 175 
Yercum fibre * i ‘ : ” 190 
Jubbulpore Hemp é ¥ F ; 5 190 
China grass, from China. ‘ ai 250 
Rheea fibre or China grass, from ene Fi “ i 320 
Wild Rheea, also from Assam 343 
Hemp from Kote Kangra, in the Himalayas, ere 400 lb. without breaking. 
Though we hope to be able to show convincingly, that 
many of these Indian fibres are possessed of all the good 
qualities required of such substances, I know that objections 
are made to most of them. To some, that they are coarse ; 
to others, that they are not strong enough, or that they break 
at knots; also, that they are incapable of fine subdivision on 
the hackle, or that they do not spin well, or have little twisting 
property on the spindle; but I suspect that the greatest of 
all objections is that modifications of machinery are sometimes 
required for new fibres. With regard to the alleged coarseness, 
and that they are not capable of fine subdivision; this is, 
