Fibreballs

Abstract

I HAVE seen balls of vegetable fibre, such as those referred to by Mr. G. H. Darwin in his letter of March 23 (NATURE, vol. xxvii. p. 507), in great abundance on the sea-beach at Cannes; there however they are not spherical like those described by Sir A. Musgrave, but cylindrical, two or three inches in length, finely and closely matted, and all wonderfully similar in appearance. In one place they had been collected and employed, if I remember rightly, to form a kind of wall. Some balls of a similar kind, but more nearly spherical and much coarser in texture, were found, on draining a pond, by Dr. Fitton, and sent by him to Sir J. Herschel, these were three or four inches across, and looked almost like small hedgehogs rolled up.