THE CAMPHOR-TREE OF BORNEO. 201 
accomplished daughter of that gentleman, Mademoiselle De Vriese, for 
this Journal: see p.33 of our present volume,) any further notice 
might seem superfluous; but, while the memoir now alluded to was 
printing for this Journal, we had the great satisfaction of receiving 
from James Motley, Esq., of Borneo, specimens of the rare plant itself 
(though only in fruit), and a noble sample of the trunk, laid open, 
with the crystals in situ, together with the camphor and oil in different 
states, and some notes on the locality and commercial value of the 
camphor. This valuable series of preparations is deposited in the 
Museum of Economic Botany of the Royal Gardens of Kew, and I am 
desirous now of laying some of the particulars communicated by Mr. 
Motley before the public in the pages of our Miscellany, as a little 
supplement to the very full memoir above alluded to. 
“I have the pleasure of sending you," writes Mr. Motley from La- 
buan, May 13, 1851, * what I hope will be a novelty for your museum, 
a specimen of the ‘ Kassur Baras’ or Camphor of the Dryobalanops 
in the wood. The specimen is part of a tree cut down here the other 
day, in clearing the ground for some of my colliery operations; it ex- 
hibits well the way in which the camphor is deposited from the so- 
called camphor-oil, which filled the hollow of the tree. We saved about 
five gallons of it and much was lost. I enclose a bottle of it in the 
same case, also a small phial of the white resin, yielded by the wounded 
bark of the living tree in small quantities only; unlike the Shoreas Nd  — 
other allied trees, which are, when old, frequently covered for some feet 
from the ground with a erust of resin. The little packet of seeds of 
an Abrus, or something of the sort, is always used by the natives to 
preserve the camphor, a few being placed in every packet; their sup- 
posed influence is of a magical nature, preventing, as it is said, the 
spirit of the camphor from flying away ; it is usually packed in quanti- 
ties of about a quarter of a pound in the leaf of some flabelliform palm, 
which I have not yet seen growing, and of which I cannot at the 
moment procure a sample. The specimen sent is valuable only from 
its being im situ, for as the drug is principally procured on the high 
mountains in the interior of Borneo, I have been unable to obtain such 
a sample of the fine white crystals, which are the most valuable in com- 
' merce, being just now, when cleaned and picked, worth about thirty 
dollars per catty, or about £4 155. per Ib, The present sample would be 
of much less value. It is sent only to China, where it is much valued, 
VOL. Iv. 2D 
