THE ECONOMIC PRODUCTS OF THE PALMYRA PALM. 281 



cember, he says, after the tree has shed its leaves, they cut off the 

 branches about three feet in length, and tie them in bundles. They 

 are then boiled in a lye of ashes in a covered kettle, till the bark is so 

 shrank that half an inch of the wood may be seen projecting at either 

 end of the branch. When they have become cool, the bark is stripped 

 and soaked in water three or four times, until it is soft, when the fine 

 black skin is scraped off with a knife. The coarse bark is then sepa- 

 rated from the fine ; that from the young branches make the finest 

 paper. The bark is boiled again in fresh ley, continually stirred with a 

 stick, and fiesh water from time to time added. It is then put in a sieve 

 and taken to a brook, and here the bark is incessantly stirred till it 

 becomes a pure pulp. It is now thrown into water and separates in 

 the form of meal. This is put into a small vessel with a decoction 

 of rice and a species of Hibiseus, and stirred until it has attained a tole- 

 rable consistence. It is then poured into a large vessel from whence it 

 is taken out and put in the form of sheets on mats or layers of grass 

 straw ; these sheets are laid one upon another with straw between, 

 and pressed to force the water out. After this they are spread upon 

 boards in the sun, dried, cut, and gathered into bundles for sale. This 

 paper will better endure folding and last longer than ours. 



THE ECONOMIC PRODUCTS OF THE PALMYRA PALM. 



BY WILLIAM FERGUSON. 



The Borassus flabelliformis is one of those palms enjoying the widest 

 geographical distribution. A glance at one of the maps in Berghaus's 

 or Johnston's Physical Atlas, showing the range of the most remarkable 

 plants, will help to illustrate this fact. 



The number of uses for which the Palmyra is employed may be 

 said to be almost infinite ; indeed one of the Eastern languages, the 

 Tamil spoken in a portion of the region which the tree acknowledges 

 as its native country, possesses a poem entitled " Tala Vilasam," 

 enumerating no fewer than 800 different purposes to which the Palmyra 

 may be applied, and this poem by no means exhausts the catalogue. 



Fruit. — The spadix bearing the fruits is generally simple, and 

 covered with a single sheath or spathe as in the Areca Catechu and cocoa- 

 nut palms, but it is sometimes compound and bearing two bunches of 

 fruit in a compound spathe. The fruits are with beautiful regularity, 

 arranged round the spadix in three rows, and whichever way examined, 

 are found in nearly opposite pairs. Each spadix bears from ten to 

 twenty fruits, and one of these spadices, with the fruits ripe, would be 

 nearly as much as a man could carry. Each palm bears seven or eight of 



