166, 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Sept. 1, 1900. 
MICA AND ITS USES. 
Bengal is the cliiet seat ot mica i™gj;n the 
world Calcutta exports more mio'^. than all ^he 
other ports o£ the world put together. Its biok».rs 
Ce haiTdled and sold more mica than the brokers 
S any other city. Its scientific men have personal 
acquaintance with the mines and mmmg men. Its 
™hant3 o-,vn the mines, and from constant deal- 
Sg with the material know the J^est markets and 
the mei-cantile value o£ any sample that could be 
s bmU ed o them. Yet we find the Reporter on Eco- 
Products ignore the valuable opmion available 
S at home in order to obtain a -Port wh.cj^> 
is erroneous, misleading, and likely ^^^^ J'^^^ 
Professor Windham E Dunstan says: "ica 
experts report that the samples are quite worthless 
theii chief defect being that they are striated or 
cross-grained and much .cracked. ^'^If 
i-i onlu adnpted for eUctncal purposes [The UaUcs 
are nS Cracked, striated, and cross-grained 
mica is wholly unsuited for electrical purposes. Any 
e ectr cal e„^i^ieer wonld ha-ve ^olAJ^ote^^orTian^- 
tanlhisand I'c.nnot conceive where cou d have |ot 
this whoUv incorrect information. On the stiengtn 
S tli^ report, coming from ^^f -°^^'^t''tn,Z. 
ners new to thebusiness, may send home cracked cioss- 
Sed striated mica, for electrical puiposes, and 
find they bave been "sold" since such mica 
fs utterly worthless for dynamos. For elec r.cal 
purposes 'the mica must be Perfect ly even p ates 
free from buckling or corrugation. It ^^^^ not be 
perforated or crocked in any way. I« ^"O^^^f^ P^^'* 
nf this report Professor Dunstan says . -Lney 
( the plates of mica) should be roughly trimmed square 
or oblong no piece to have more than five sides. 
This is incorrect Hengal mica is seldom, or never 
cut square or oblong. It is roughly sickle-dressed 
to anv shape the plate will give, round, zigzag 
orpolygonS. Again: '•Care should also be exercised 
not ?o pack in the same case plates of mica vary.n? 
more than one inch, in either length or breadth. 
Mica =h pped from Calcutta varies far more than this 
?^Specia «^' are packed in the same case, and there 
mav be anything from 36 square inches to 100 
rqulre'in'cKs. Number. 1 are plates from 24 square 
inches to 86 square inches, and all of these 
go in the same case. " There is .practically no 
sale for plates for less than 5 inches m. 'H'lfZf/^ A 
reference to any electrical mica dealers price-list will 
- ehow that high prices are asked for • steeps 1* inch 
wide and 6 inches lor^g.— Indian Agnmlturist. 

PRODUCE AND PLANTING. 
T^RV CHiw.-Aceording to the latest report of the 
British Oonsul-General for Chili there should be a 
Market for the increased supply of Indian and Gey Ion 
teas iu that Eepublic. The consumption of tea, the 
Consul-General says, appears to be on the increase if 
one may iudge from the graat number of brands ad- 
vertiTed'^on all sides. Most of the tea sold is of poor 
nualitv notwithstanding that the public are charged 
exorbitant prices. The import duty is one dollar per 
kilo, or about Sd per lb. Ceylon teas of good to fine 
qua ity, he adds, are unobtainable, and there should 
be good and increasing market for them, it once 
introduced. During 1838, which was a year m which 
all imoorts were much restricted, 639 tons of tea were 
imported, and although the figures for 1899 are no 
vet wholly procurable, they show that the imports of 
tV, h ive largely increased. The value of the increase 
ani'.niil : t./lWJOO, In 1898 the British liimpire sent 
to I'l.ili 161 tons of tea, China coming next with 
120 lona. 
Kiiuiiisu AiioUT Tka A correspondent ca Is our 
attention to an article on tea recently prrblished in 
a paper, presumably circulating in the household, m 
which statements are made about tea, cu led from 
variouB sources, which are really funny. We do not 
know whether they are intunded to read as fact or 
fiction, but there is certainly nothing humorous m 
the stylo of the writer. After aeaU"S W9st %^i\W^^7 
with tea and the tea trade generally, a warning is 
given against excessive tea-drinking, and then the old 
story about the increase of idiocy and lunacy due to 
tea-drinking, especially in Ireland, is trotted out. But 
the gem of the collection is in the simple statement 
that " not long ago the papers contained an account of 
a woman who had died, so it was supposed from 
the effects of excessive tea-drinking after turning a 
dark green colour." Aether the poor woman turned 
green with envy, or tea, before or after death, or 
whether she drank black tea or green by the cup 
or by the pailful, or how long since this awful thing 
happened, who the coroner was, and which news- 
papers reported it, we offer as conundrums to those 
interested. The idea that tea will, if indulged in 
too freely, change our colour at some stage of our 
earthly p'ilgrimage is distinctly embarrassing, and if 
such stories were freely circulated and believed they 
might have some effect on the consumption.— Z/ome 
and Colonial Mail, Aug. 3. 
BRITISH NORTH BORNEO. 
RAILWAY PROGRESS AND DEVELOP- 
MENT ■ 
200,000 ACRES OF LAND AVAILABLE FOR TOBACCO- 
The .35tli half-yearly meeting was held yesterday 
at the. Cannon-street Hotel. Mr. Richard B. Martin, 
M.P., presided. Hestated :— The tobacco industry 
was flonrishiagin four districts— Kudat, Sandakan, 
Laliad-Datn, and Tawao. These districts produced 
estate tobacco— that was tobacco grown nuder 
European supervision for export to the markets of 
Europe ; but from Province Keppel, there was a 
considerable trade in nati ve tobacco. The actual 
length of railway under construction was about 110 
miles, and the whole of the vails were on the .spot. 
Starting from two points on the west coast— namely 
Weston and Jesselton— the line ran for about 20 
miles in a north-easterly direction and 58 miles in a 
south-westerly direction, meeting at Beaufort, on 
the Padas River. From Beaufort it ran almost due 
south-east, skirting the Pad.-is River and thePenotal 
Gorge till it reached Ttnom, in the interior. With- 
in two years it was hoped that the railway would 
liave opened up the company's territory to a point 
from which the interior trade could be developed 
and the people controlled. The sections now under 
construction would form the k>=y to the vast in- 
terior of North Borneo. The line would traverse 
and open up some of the richest country in the 
territory, and with the facilities which the railway 
would afford a great development in the general 
trade of the country might be expected. By 
laying portable rails up the many valleys between 
Beaufort and Tenom, numerous artificial feeders 
to the main line could be formed, and timber 
cutters would be enabled to handle large trees and 
transport them both expeditiously and cheaply, 
without breaking bulk, to the fine iiarbour of Gaya, 
where it could be shipped from the jetty which 
was being built there. To the east, north and 
south of Tenom, the interior terminus of the rail- 
way, there was a very extensive country, where all 
tropical and many sub-tropical products could be 
grown. The whole trade of the hitherto inacces- 
sible interior would be exclusively cari ied by the 
railway. Apart altogether from the indirect bene- 
fits which the line would confer upon the Govern- 
ment and the country generally, there was a fair 
prospect in the near future of the railway becoming 
in itself a profitable undertaking. The sales of 
land not only along the route but at the different 
termini would undoubtedly be considerable. In 
his ' Forest of the Far East,' published nearly 50 
years ago, Sir Spencer St, vtolija jJrew attentioij to 
