Note 126 — THE COCOA-NUT TREE.

There is a kind of seam along the centre, exactly under the stem of the leaf, from both sides of which long and tough fibres, about the size of a bristle, regularly diverge in an oblique direction; sometimes there appear to be two layers of fibres, which cross each other, and the whole is cemented with a still finer, fibrous, and adhesive substance. The length and evenness of the threads, or fibres, the regular manner in which they cross each other at oblique angles, the extent of surface, and the thickness of the piece, corresponding with that of coarse cotton cloth, the singular manner in which the fibres are attached to each other, cause this curious substance, woven in the loom of nature, to present to the eye a remarkable resemblance to cloth spun and woven by human ingenuity.—Ellis, vol. i. p. 53.