PRODUCTS AT THE ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 407 
you specimens (I have collected 6 tons), is fully 200 miles long. 
It is a belt which runs parallel with the coast, and is midway 
between the coast and the first range of mountains; from In- 
hambane it is nearly 100 miles to get right into it. The distance 
of the forest from Inhambane may retard its being opened up; 
but its discovery adds to the known wealth of the district, and 
a new export to the place.’ Mr. Heathcote further adds :— The 
native name of the gum is Stakate and Staka; the Zulu name 
for the gum is Inthlaka . . .. The tree domineers over all. 
The gum has a beautiful odour if pounded and burnt, also if 
boiled in a pot of water. The ordinary gum-copal tree of the 
mainland of Zanzibar and Mozambique, though, as a rule, lofty, is 
by no means of the striking stature indicated by Mr. Heathcote." 
The first thing that struck us from a superficial examination of 
the specimens sent by Mr. O'Neill was that they were entirely 
different in appearance to ordinary East-African copal, such as 
is exported from Zanzibar. They consisted in part of water-worn 
pebbles, and very much resembled the Accra copal* which is 
exported from the west coast of Africa. They are destitute 
of the characteristic goose-skin texture frequently observed in 
Zanzibar copal and, as Sir John Kirk informs me, possess an 
entirely different odour. 
That the product was not identical with Zanzibar copal was 
further established by a report with which Messrs. Robert Ingham 
Clark and Co., the well-known varnish-makers of West-Ham 
Abbey, very kindly furnished us, upon some of the specimens 
which we sent to them for examination. After pointing out the 
resemblance to Accra copal, they continue :—* They [the speci- 
mens] contain (some more than others) a considerable quantity 
of essential oil and have an average melting-point of 337? Fahr. 
This is not high, and we consider that they are a semi-fossil exu- 
dation. It is extremely difficult to give an exact commercial 
value to them; but as they now are, and mixing them together 
to represent one bulk, we should say their value would be about 
£80 to £100 a ton . . . . Certain descriptions of Animi shipped 
in a very clean and picked state from Zanzibar sell, in this market, 
as high as £400 a ton.” 
With a further despatch, dated Feb. 14, 1883, Consul O'Neill 
* An interesting paper by Dr. Welwitsch on W.-African Copals, in Journ, 
Linn. Soc. Bot. ix. pp. 287-302, may be consulted ; it does not, however, carry 
our knowledge very far. 
