278 STRENGTH OF SUNN FIBRE. 
prepared by Huddart’s Warm Register, “the proportion between 
Sunn so manufactured and the best cordage made in the 
common mode, when above six-inch, is in favour of the Sunn 
cordage, progressively as the size is increased.” Instances are 
then given of “a sixteen-inch cable made from Sunn in 1802, 
laid down as a mooring cable at Gravesend the whole winter ; 
and after various examinations, by cutting off the clinches, 
upon different ships taking it in as moorings, for five months 
in succession, it was found so fresh and good, that it went by 
the last ship that rode by it, to India, as a working cable.” 
(p.6.) It was also made into canvas and other cloth with 
success. “This has been manifested in a topsail made for one 
of the Indiamen, put on board here without any intimation of 
its difference ; and the sail is returned not worse than the other 
sails of the ship.””? (p. 7.) 
But it must be remembered that these experiments were 
made with the Sunn which had heen grown and carefully pre- 
pared under the supervision of the East India Company’s com- 
mercial agents. A specimen of one of these Sunns is still in 
the India House, marked per David Scott, 1802 ; which, though 
having the light colour and showing the appearance of ordinary 
Sunn, is from four to five feet in length, much cleaner, both 
strong and flexible, and also divisible into fine fibrils. A salvage 
of it bore 175 lb., when some Sunn sent to the Exhibition of 
1851 bore only 150 1b. There is a specimen also of the heckled 
Sunn, per Wellesley, 1802, about three feet long, a bright- 
looking fibre, but with a good deal of the cellular part still 
adhering to the fibres. Ordinary Sunn is, moreover, only about 
three feet in length, rather dirty; fibres entangled and inter- 
mixed with portions of the boon, as well as with many short 
fibres ; hence much loss is sustained in heckling, and the men 
complain of the irritating particles which are given off during 
this process. 
The want of strength is not surprising, for though three 
days is thought sufficient for the steeping, we learn that the 
natives, from the press of other work or from indolence, some- 
times allow the stems to remain in steep for fifteen days. 
(v. Wisset, p. 195.) It has already been mentioned that Dr, 
' Its weft only was Sunn, the warp Flax. 
