THE FLAX EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 31, 26 August 1871, Page 15

THE FLAX EXHIBITION.

It is a question of taste whether the Assembly or the Colonial Museum is at present the most interesting place of resort for visitors to Wellington. Any visit paid to the city at present, either by suburban and rural residents or by passengers from other parts of the colony, would certainly be incomplete if the contents of the Museum are not seen and studiously inspected. The exhibits which deserve and will attract most attention are those which have, with much taste and discretion in point of selection, been displayed along one side of the large room of the institution, and which are now open to the public as the result of the labors of the Royal Commission for the collection of specimens illustrative of the utilization of the flax plant of the colony. In consequence of the amount of work which has to be overtaken in the Government printing office, no catalogues of these exhibits and collected specimens have yet been published, and it is therefore not easy for the reporter to do justice to the exhibition, or to convey information as to those whose industry and skill it so fully represents. But the visitor to the Museum will, even without the catalogue, find the flax collection a very interesting attraction, and find it sufficiently described by the cards appended to each specimen to enable him to derive a large amount of information as to the progress of what is rapidly becoming one of the most important of colonial industries. The exhibition is the more interesting by the Commissioners having procured, from all parts of the world, samples of vegetable productions bearing affinity to the flax plant, and samples of the articles into which they have been converted, or the processes by which that conversion has been accomplished. There are, for instance, samples of Egyptian

flax, Italian, Russian, Bombay, Manilla, and Sisal hemp, and Aloe fibre, accompanied by descriptions of the breaking strain of the samples, of the cost of the fibre in London, and other particulars interesting in their trade relations, As subjects of comparison there are also sent from England samples showing the qualities of flax most in'demand, and samples according to the brokers’ classification of flax as sold in the London market. These, with cord, rope, sacking, and other articles into wlii°h flax is now transformed constitute the exhibition so far as it illustrates the progress of its manufacture in the hands of Europeans. But perhaps the most interesting feature of the exhibition is that by which is illustrated the extraordinary skill which the Natives have acquired in their manufacture of the plant. There are some mats, robes, and fancy articles, the texture, dye, and design of which are, indeed, astonishing when it is censidered that they are the produc tion of handwork and not of elaborate machinery or chemical applications. By way of contrast, and as illustrating what has been done by these means, so far as the mere preparation of the fibre goes, there are as many as twenty-one specimens prepared by special processes—separate, we presume, from the processes of steeping, stripping, or scutching ; and there are a few samples of fancy articles the result of chemical preparation according to European discovery and taste. One feature of the classification by the Commissioners is the division of the colony into the Northern, Central, and Southern districts, from each of which there are specimens of the fibre, as dressed by different mill-owners ; and, besides these there are living specimens of the varieties of the phormium tenax, with samples and diagrams of the growth of the plant. To render any description of the exhibition interesting, or even intelligible, we repeat that it would be necessary to make reference to the catalogue which has been prepared but not yet published, and when it is published we shall take care to utilise it so that something like a full record of what the Commissioners have done for the colony, and what the manufacturers and others have done for the Commissioners, may be made. Judging by the number of visitors to the Museum since its attractions have been enhanced by this temporary addition to its contents, there will be no lack of public interest taken in the exhibition, and that interest will, no doubt, be augmented by the receipt of other exhibits, and possibly by experiments instituted by the Commissioners, or by others to whom it cannot fail to be a source of suggestion.