Scientific Travellers. 441 



fear, be found valuable as timber, but its produce, the wood oil, has 

 yet to be better appreciated than at present. This substance is pro- 

 duced by cutting a hole into the body of the tree* and kindling a 

 fire in it ; the flat floor, as it were, of the hole has a groove cut in 

 it, which receives the oil as it exudes from the wound, and whence a 

 split bamboo conducts it to the pots placed for its reception ; the 

 quantity thus yielded from a large tree is surprisingly great. In 

 felling the above-mentioned individual the oil ran in a stream from 

 it, and it must have contained even tons. The strict propriety of 

 designating it an oil may be doubted. It has always seemed to me 

 more like a varnish ; it speedily forms a highly polished surface on 

 wood work, and has a fine aromatic scent, not unlike that of cedar ; 

 mixed with reeds and dried, it makes a brilliant and fragrant torch. 

 The colour of the wood is a dull pink. 



In the course of clearing these summits for observations connected 

 with the survey, many other trees were felled exhibiting characters 

 apparently valuable as timber. Among the natives there were dif- 

 ferences of opinion about their names, and waving even this obstacle 

 to any description of them, the remark already made, of the difficulty 

 opposed to their being brought down, renders such attempt unneces- 

 sary. The oil-trees would be found most valuable as a source of 

 supply for that material, and perhaps many of their neighbours also 

 would be found more useful living than dead by the produce they 

 may be found to yield. One of these, of large size, and with a bark 

 similar to cork, was found to produce caoutchouc in great abundance. 

 On cutting through the outer rough coat, a soft inner one, nearly 

 an inch thick, is found closely attached to the more solid wood ; on 

 wounding this, the caoutchouc exudes freely, of a consistency and 

 colour like thick milk. The tree was much avoided by the natives 

 on account of the noxious quality of this milk, which, if by accident 

 entering the eye, on the tree being struck, so as to wound it, was 

 said to produce certain blindness. 



Another tree of very large leaf but moderate size was also much 

 avoided, and great care taken in felling it to prevent its juice from 

 touching the skin, which it was said to blister and poison. The 

 adhesive quality of this substance was therefore more taken for 

 granted than proved. 



A plant, with the appearance of a Cactus, but growing to the 

 height and size of a tree, and known perhaps generally under the 

 name of Sisso (not the timber tree of that name), yielded the caout- 

 chouc in the greatest abundance. On severing a leaf, it ran forth 

 in a small stream like milk. Many of the creepers also contained it 

 in large quantities, and in one spot of the jungle of the Krae-rone 

 Circle, I found the Caoutchouc tree of South America, affording 

 prospect, that, as European intelligence and enterprize became more 

 attracted towards the products of India, that continent may some 

 day find its exclusive trade in this every day increasing valuable ar- 

 ticle formidably disputed. The wild cotton tree grows to a great 

 size, and at the time seen was covered with a mass of its beautiful 

 * See Dr. Spry I Visit to Arracan, No. 110. 



