32 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



cooked as vegetables, and made into delicious sweetmeats 

 by the confectioners. But it is the application of the 

 bamboo in the industrial arts which marks its highest im- 

 portance. Houses, boats, the yards, cordage, and sails of 

 vessels, telescopes, aqueduct-pipes, water-proof thatching 

 and clothing, water-wheels, fences, chairs, tables, book- 

 cases, boxes, hats, umbrellas, fans, cups, measures, shields, 

 pikes and spears, paper, and pipes, arc all made from this 

 protean tree, which almost rivals the palm in its usefulness. 

 The pith is used for lamp-wicks ; and excpiisite carvings, 

 inlaid with gold and silver, and far more elegant than ivory- 

 work, are cut from their hard stems. The wood, indeed, is 

 so full of silex that thin slices serve the purpose of knives. 

 By experiment, Mr. Edison has found that the carbonized 

 fibers of the bamboo furnish the best material for the in- 

 candescent electric lamp, and are now used in his system 

 of electric lighting. In some of the East Indian countries, 

 as in Burmah and Siam, whole cities are built from the 

 bamboo, houses being lashed together, and capable of being 

 taken apart like a tent. 



World of Wonders. 



THE SCHOLAR'S PLANT OF EGYPT. 



1. Oxe of the most interesting plants of the Eastern Con- 

 tinent is the papyrus, from which is derived our word pa- 

 per. It was called papu by the ancient Egyptians, whence 

 the Greek word paptiros and the English word paper come. 

 The old historian Herodotus called it bublos, and from this 

 the old Greeks derived their name for a book, biblion, 

 which word we have perpetuated in our Bible. 



2. The paper reed, or papyrus plant, belongs to the 

 family of sedges, and it is found now on the marshy banks 

 of rivers in Abyssinia, Syria, and Sicily. It is now rarely 

 found in the Nile, though it is from its Egyptian associa- 



