120 THE USES OF THE BAMBOO. 



mortar, such as they use to pound rice in, and thus reduced into a kind 

 of ball, about the size of a child's head. This operation has the effect 

 of rendering the threads more flexible and resistant. These threads 

 having been joined together by women or children, are woven after the 

 manner of cotton, and the texture is immersed in water with a little 

 shell lime, for a day and a night. Afterwards they are cleared in fresh 

 water and left to dry. If mixed with silk or cotton, a beautiful texture 

 is produced, very fine and very valuable, and applicable to a variety of 

 purposes. 



Roping and cordage, made from abaca, is employed in the mercantile 

 marine of India, and in the navy of the United States, and is well 

 known under the name of white rope or Manila rope. 



THE USES OF THE BAMBOO. 



BY S. WELLS WILLIAMS, L.L.D. 



The bamboo (Bambusa arudinacea),* which grows everywhere within 

 the tropics, is one of the tree-like branching grasses which Varies in 

 growth and luxuriance, according to climate and situation, but occasion- 

 ally attains the height of fifty or sixty feet. It shoots up with great 

 rapidity. Most of the species of bamboo have hollow stems, which 

 often attain a diameter of many inches. Gardner mentions a large 

 species (B. Tagoara) having a stem of eighteen inches in circumference, 

 and attaining a height of fifty to 100 feet. The touch-paper of the 

 Chinese is made from a variety of bamboo, by beating the young 

 shoots flat, steeping them in a lime pit for a month, and then washing 

 and drying. A curious under-shirt made of split bamboo, very in- 

 geniously plaited, intended for wear in warm weather, was exhibited 

 in the Chinese Department of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Of it 

 are made implements for weaving, the posts and frames of the roofs 

 of huts, scaffoldings for buildings, portable stages for natives' processions, 

 raised floors for granaries, stakes for nets in rivers, rafts, masts, yards 

 oars, spars, and decks of boats. It is used for building bridges across 

 creeks, for fences, as a lever for raising water for irrigation, and as flag- 

 poles. Several agricultural implements are made of it, as are also 

 hackeries or carts, doolees or litters, and biers ; the shafts of javelins 

 or spears, bows and arrows, clubs, and fishing rods. A joint of bamboo 

 serves as a holder for pens, small instruments, and tools. It is used 

 as a case in which things of little bulk are sent to a distance ; the eggs 



_. * These have already been alluded to by Mr. Cmger, vol. ii., p. 421.— Editor. 



