Natural Materials

A natural material is any product or physical matter that comes from plants, animals, or the ground. Minerals and the metals that can be extracted from them (without further modification) are also considered to belong into this category. Types include:

  • Biotic materials
    • Wood (rattan, bamboo, bark etc.)
    • Natural fibers (wool, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, kapok, kenaf, moss, etc.)
  • Inorganic material
    • Stone (flint, granite, obsidian, sandstone, sand, gems, glass, etc.)
    • Native metal (copper, bronze, iron, gold, silver, etc.)
    • Composites (clay, porcelain, plasticine, etc.)
  • Other natural materials.
    • Soil

Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or materials:

    Custom is our nature.... What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)