318 rimmel's perfume vaporizer. 



of the sunne hemp, such as the natives use for making paper. A3 

 the glossy and silky, but comparatively short fibre, is difficult to spin, 

 a mixture of one-fifth of cotton was made in order to enable it to be 

 worked. A good wearing cloth, which stands washing and takes a dye, 

 was produced. It is, however, well suited for stuffing pillows or coverlets. 

 Mr Moncton calculated that its cost would be one rupee a maund. The 

 silky down of the pods is used by the natives on the Madras side in making 

 a soft, cotton-like thread." — (Dr Royle on Fibrous Plants of India.) 



Wild cotton, with a fine glossy fibre like silk, grows abundantly in the 

 valley of the Amazon, and is used at Guayaquil to stuff cushions and 

 mattresses. Some silk manufacturers in France, to whom specimens of 

 this cotton were sent by Mr Clay, the United States charge d'affaires at 

 Lima, thought that, mixed with silk, a cheap and pretty fabric might be 

 wove from it. 



The cotton which is found on the seeds of Choi-isia speciosa is used to 

 stuff bolsters and pillows in Brazil, where it is called by the inhabitants 

 ' Arvore de Paina.' It has been imported into Liverpool under the name 

 of vegetable silk. 



In the Prussian department of the London Exhibition of 1851, a 

 fibrous silky substance was shown, obtained from plants growing in Prussia 

 and several other countries. It is applied to silk buttons and fringes, and 

 available also for spinning and weaving. A curious vegetable substance, 

 the pulu fibre, or vegetable silk, obtained from the rhizomes and lower 

 portion of the stipes of several species of Cibotium, has been fully de- 

 scribed by our contributor, Mr M. C. Cooke, in the ' Pharmaceutical 

 Journal,' 2nd series, vol. i., p. 501. 



A considerable export trade in this pulu fibre, as it is termed, is now 

 carried on from the Sandwich Islands. Its only use, we believe, is for 

 stuffing mattresses ; and to this purpose it has long been applied in 

 Madeira and the Azores. 



RIMMEL'S PERFUME VAPORIZER. 



Much as has been done for the comfort, convenience, and pleasure of the 

 public of late years, much still remains to be accomplished as scientific 

 knowledge, skill, and enterprise progress. The luxury of the Turkish bath 

 is only now beginning to take general hold on the public, and even in our 

 dwellings there are many cheap conveniences and skilful appliances that 

 have scarcely yet been adopted to any extent. We are wont to reproach the 

 Chinese with having made no improvement in their manufactures for the 

 last thousand years, and yet there are some things — minor matters, it is true 

 — in which we, who boast of our constant progress, have made no advance 

 or improvement whatever. For instance, the art of perfuming the atmo- 



