Novemukr 1, 1915 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



The Storv of Gutta Percha — IV. 



IN the whole world there is no other article ahout which 

 there is so much of lying, thieving and fraud as crude 

 gutta percha. Cheating each other, cheating the ultimate 

 consumer, is the chief vocation, the production of real gutta 

 percha being quite incidental. As it arrives it is worthless for 

 manufacture, and it is only after a prolonged series of 

 cleansings that the free gifts of the simple forest people have 

 been eliminated and the gum rendered lit for use. 



The gatherer does not consider that he is cheating when 

 he puts stones into the product he sells to the dealer, who 

 cheats him in price and weight. It is only a trade custom. 

 The Chinaman also has his trade customs and an amazing 

 knowledge of the chemistry, physics and economics of adul- 

 teration and cheating. As the supply grows less, the mixture 

 of water, dirt and inferior gums grows larger. There is a 

 great variety 

 of sorts of 

 gutta percha in 

 the eastern 

 markets. a 1 1 

 know n I) y 

 Chinese or na- 

 tive n a m e s 

 and dififering 

 from each 

 other chiefly in 

 the manner of 

 their adultera- 

 tions. Dr 

 Sherman took 

 a specimen of 

 the pure gum 

 to a Chinese 

 dealer and ask- 

 ed him what 

 kind it was. 

 The latter said 

 that it was a 

 new kind to 

 him and that 

 he guessed no 

 Chinaman ha 



made it — which ."^lAKriNi, \ hitx I im ii \ i.s^ 



was a good 



guess. These traders pay tlie native gatherers ol tlie more 

 remote districts about three cents a pound for tlieir product. 

 giving in payment "traders' goods" of quite as honest ([uality 

 as the gutta percha which comes from their adulteration 

 studios. The problem of their regulation or suppression is 

 one which imperatively confronts all the governments having 

 lands with gutta percha forests. 



E.XPLORIXG 1-OK GUTT.\. 

 The lirst supplies of gutta percha naturally came from tlie 

 Malay Peninsula, but with- the increasing demand, Sumatra, 

 just across the strait, soon began sending its gum. Inirther 

 and further away the traders reached. In a few years all the 

 great trees in readily accessible districts had been hacked 

 down and supplies were coming from far atield. .\s the 

 young trees grew to inaturity. they fell under the a.\e and, 

 for all practical purposes, the gutta percha tree ceased to 

 exist in the localities where it was earlier known. From 

 further .ind further away the supplies came, for, as the gather- 

 ers were forced to go furtlicr into the interior, the natives 



iif ll-.e oilier periphery were roused to begin the destruction 

 of the trees of their own forests. So the stream steadily 

 flowed into and from the shipping ports and fatuity declared 

 that this was sure proof that the forests were inexhaustible 

 and the supply would always keep pace with the demand. 

 Borneo was soon drawn upon — the last of the great reser- 

 voirs was tapped. But in the early eighties the insistence of 

 men who declared that destruction without renewal could not 

 forever go on aroused the French, British and Dutch govern- 

 ments to try to learn something about this mysterious reser- 

 voir of gutta percha, from which for forty years the world's 

 supply had been ceaselessly drawn. 



France was first in the field in the person of M. Seligmann- 

 Lui. who. ill 1881, was sent by his government to explore the 

 gutta jiercha country for trees and then look for more of the 

 same kind in the neighboring F'rench possession of Cambodia 



and French 

 Cochin - China. 

 This expedi- 

 tion proved 

 that gutta per- 

 cha trees can- 

 not lie had by 

 w i s h i n g for 

 m . and 

 ich Indo- 



oughly explored the Malay Pcninsuh 

 portanl botanical material in the poss 

 ment at Kew and in the Indias, but 

 information as to the wasteful manner 

 was made and the amount of guiu left to d 



gutta percha 

 forests. B u t 

 M. Seligniann- 

 Lui gained 

 much valuable 

 i n f o r ni a - 

 tion about the 

 habitat and 

 c h a r a c te r - 

 i s t i c s of the 

 gutta percha- 

 l>roducing trees. 

 The expedi- 

 tion of Mr. 

 Leonard Wray, 

 Jr.. who thor- 

 iiot only placed im- 

 ision of the establish- 

 ontained illuminating 

 II which the collection 

 y in the fallen 



The last of the historic expeditions was perhaps the most 

 important of all— that of Dr. \V. Burek. of the Dutch Colonial 

 Service, who, at the time he starte<l, late in 1883, did not 

 know of the expeditions of M. Seligmann-Lui and Mr. VVraj'. 

 He was a thorough botanist and his painstaking studies were 

 embodied in a monograph on the Safotarrac of the East Indies. 

 He pointed out that the genus known as I)i(ltot>sis, having been 

 separated from Isonandra. was identical with the genus described, 

 as Palaqiiium by Father Blanco in his "Flora of the Philipjiines. ' 

 His researches and conclusions have come to be regarded as the 

 final word as to the botanical characteristics and distribution 

 of the giitta percha trees. 



Ill \l\l. llerr Kiidolph Schlecter. of the (lermau colonial com- 



