The Sugar-cane, if cut across, is seen also to consist of multitudinous cells, which, however, are not hollow, but filled with the sweet liquid from which sugar is obtained by boiling. Then there are many of our common English plants, like the ordinary rush or reed, which are very slight in diameter in comparison with their length, and in which the cells are still further strengthened and lightened by the projection of their sides into a number of points which meet each other, and leave interstices between them. This modification of the cellular system is called “Stellate” (or star-like) Tissue, and two examples of it are given in the illustration, one being taken from the common rush, and the other from the seed-coat of the privet. A very good specimen of stellate tissue may be obtained by cutting a thin section of the white inner peel of the orange. NAUTICAL. CHAPTER IV. SUBSIDIARY APPLIANCES.--PART II. The Cable and its Variations.--Material of Cables.--Hempen and Iron Cables, and Elasticity of the latter.--Natural Cables.--The “Byssus” of the Pinna and the common Mussel.--The Water-snail and its Cable.--A similar Cable produced by the common White Slug.--The Principle of Elasticity.--Elastic Cable of the Garden Spider.--Tendrilous Cables of the Pea and the Bryony.--The Vallisneria, and its Development through the Elastic Cable.--Proposed Submarine Telegraph Cable.--The Anchor, Grapnel, and their Varieties.--Natural Anchors.--Spicule of Synapta.--The Grapnel, natural and artificial.--Ice-anchor and Walrus Tusks.--The Mushroom Kedge.--The Flesh-hook.--Eagle-claw.--The Grapple-plant of South Africa.--The Drag. Among the most important accessories to a ship are the Cable, by which she can be anchored to the bed of the sea, and the ropes called “warps,” by which she can be fastened to the land. Perhaps my readers may not know the old riddle--“How many ropes are there on board a man-of-war?” The non-nautical individual cannot answer, but the initiated replies that there are only three, namely, the man-rope, the tiller-rope, and the rope’s-end, all the others being “tacks,” “sheets,” “haulyards,” “stays,” “braces,” &c. Formerly cables were always made of hemp, enormously thick, and most carefully twisted by hand. Now, even in small vessels, the hempen cable has been superseded by the iron chain, and this for several reasons. In the first place, it is much smaller in bulk, and therefore does not occupy so much room. In the next place, it is even lighter than the hempen cable of corresponding strength; and, in the third, its specific gravity--_i.e._ its weight when compared with an equal bulk of water--is so great, that when submerged, it falls into a sort of arch-like form, and so attains an elasticity which takes off much of the strain on the anchor, and protects it from dragging. * * * * * WE will now look to Nature for Cables.