BAMBERG, in Bavaria, has many points of interest as a commercial town. Among the numerous incorporations in this town is that of the gardeners, which consists of 508 masters, 70 apprentices, and upwards of 256 workmen. The highest prize which it gives —and it is given hut once in three years—is for the cultivation of officinal plants, particu larly the liquorice root, of which above 50,000 lbs. are annually exported. Very considerable quantities of vegetable seeds are raised and exported by the Bamberg growers. There are sixty brewers here, whose beer is in much demand in some of the German states. The other manufactures consist of tobacco, porce lain, musical instruments, marble wares,starch, sealing-wax, gold and silver plate, gloves, &re. Two annual fairs give life to the trade of the town, the situation of which enables it to share largely in the traffic of central Germany. BAMBOO, or BAMBUSA. This very useful genus of grass is distinguished by its stems, which are hard externally and coated with flint ; in the inside they are hollow, except at the nodes, when strong partitions stretch across the inside, and cut off the interior into a number of closed up cylinders.
The purposes 'to which different species of bamboo are applied are so numerous, that it would be difficult to point out an object in which strength and elasticity are requisite, and for which lightness is no objection, to which the stems are not adapted in the countries *here they grow. The young shoots of some species are cut when tender, and eaten like asparagus. The full grown stems, while green, form elegant cases, exhaling a perpetual moisture,and capable of transporting fresh flowers for hundreds of miles : when ripe and bard, they are converted into bows, arrows, and quivers, lance-shafts, the masts of vessels, bed-posts, walking-sticks, the poles of palanquins, the floors and of rustic bridges, and a variety of similar pur poses. In a growing state the spiny Ends are formed into stockades, which are impene trable to any but regular infantry, aided by artillery. By notching their sides, the Malays make wonderfully light scaling-ladders which can be conveyed with facility where heavier machines could not be transported. Bruised
and crushed in water, the leaves and stems form Chinese paper, the finer qualities of which are improved by a mixture of raw cot ton and by more careful pounding. The leaves of a small species are the material used by the Chinese for the lining of their tea chests. Cut into lengths and the partitions lumcked out, they form durable water-pipes, or, by a little contrivance, are made into excel. lent cases for holding rolls of papers. Slit into strips, they afford a most durable mate rial for weaving into mats, baskets, window blinds, and even the sails of boats. Finally, the larger and thicker truncheons are exqui sitely carved by the Chinese into beautiful ornaments. It is however more especially for building purposes that the bamboo is impor tant. In Sumatra the frame-work of the houses of the natives is chiefly composed of this mate rial. In the floorings, whole stems, four or five inches in diameter, are laid close to each other, and across these laths of split bamboo about an inch wide, are fastened down with filaments of the rattan-cane. The sides of the houses are closed in with the bamboo opened and rendered flat by splitting or notch ing the circular joints on the outside, away the corresponding divisions within, and laying it in the sun to dry, pressed down with weights. Whole bamboos often form the up upright timbers, and the house is generally roofed in with a thatch of narrow split bam boos, six feet long, placed in regular layers, each reaching within two feet of the extremity of that beneath it, by which a treble covering is formed. Another and most ingenious roof is also formed by cutting large straight bam- ' boos of sufficient length to reach from the ridge to the eaves, then splitting them exactly in two, knocking out the partitions, and ar ranging them in close order with the hollow or inner sides uppermost ; after which a second layer, with the outer or convex sides up, is placed upon the other in such a manner that each of the convex falls into the two conti guous concave pieces, covering their edges ; the latter serving as gutters to carry off the rain that falls upon the upper or convex layer.