■WZ On the Flax of J\Tew Zealand* 
of them will exceed in beauty that manufactured from 
flax. 
All the dresses which we purchased from the sa- 
vages of New Zealand were made from the fibres of 
their flax. To cords of the same substance they had 
attached different ornaments, among which were pieces 
of human bones, and which were suspended on their 
breast as a kind of trophy. They seemed to attach 
great value to them, and were very unwilling to part 
with them. 
Tlieir fishing-lines were formed of two filaments twist- 
ed together ; but their nets were made from the leaves of 
a plant separated into filaments, without any other pre- 
paration. As their nets are of prodigious extent, for 
the purpose of fishing at a great distance from the 
coast, these savages do not make them of ropes, be- 
cause this labour would require much time, and they be- 
sides find that their flax employed in this manner is suffi- 
cient. 
All the piroguas which approached us had on board 
men armed for the most part with stones, some of them 
of granite, and others of serpentine, which they had at- 
tached to their wrists with cords of the Phormium tenax ; 
but I must observe that these were only defensive wea- 
pons, for they did every thing in their power to en- 
gage our confidence, and soon consented to exchange 
these weapons for our hatchets, and for other instru- 
ments of iron, on which these w arlike people set great 
value. 
It follows from the experiments, the results of w hich 
I have here given, 1st, that the strength of the fibres of 
the aloe being equal to seven ; that of flax is represented 
by eleven and three-fourths; that of hemp by sixteen and 
one-third; that of the flax of New Zealand by twenty- 
three and five-elevenths ; and that of silk by thirty-four. 
