52 



DICKSON ON THE RESIN-BOUND FIBRES OE 



of the East India Company, the greater part of whose life was 

 spent in India. For the last three years of his life, month 

 after month, I received from him all sorts of Indian fibre for 

 testing and experimenting upon, and the result was perfectly 

 satisfactory. Among other lots, forty large bales of wild 

 Kheea fibre were prepared at my factory and sold at £35 to 

 £40 per ton, although not operated upon by the patent liquid. 

 Dr. Eoyle assured me there was no limit to the supply of the 

 same material along the banks of the Indus, the Ganges, the 

 Himalehs, and other places, and the reports of my much 

 respected townsman; Sir James Emerson Tennant, on Ceylon 

 fibres, are equally favourable as to the supplies. I also hold 

 some dozens of letters from Calcutta, Madras, Ceylon, and 

 Bombay, inquiring about my patent machines, in consequence 

 of Dr. Royle having, in his last work on India, made use of 

 my name as an inventor of machinery for preparing such fibre 

 for spinning, with success ; and the East India Company also, 

 with a vote of thanks for what I placed before them of 

 prepared fibres, recommended me to apply to the Government 

 in India for patents, when no such thing" as patents for India 

 were granted to any one; this object was not carried out, 

 owing to the English Government objecting to give such 

 power to the Indian Government. I may here observe that 

 such intermeddling policy has been one of the drawbacks to 

 the industrial resources of India being farther developed. 

 Lord Palmerston saw it, and now his successors see it, and we 

 must hope for a better. 



The first, and I consider the most important part of the 

 discovery, is that of the preserving liquid, which my friend 

 Dr. Cregeen and I have found to be peculiarly adapted to all 

 these Indian fibres, whose nature is not like that of Flax or 

 hemp-— OILY, but dry and resin-bound ; we found that after 

 we removed by the working of our breaking machine, and 

 scutching, scraping and brushing, all the gum or resinous 



