GUTTAPERCHA. 151 



carbon or chloroform, it may be precipitated unaltered by al- 

 cohol. Its solution in 16 pts. of the solvent is with difficulty 

 rendered clear by filtration. See also Vogel's experiments, 

 in Chem. Gaz. vi. 237. 



The uses of guttapercha are evidently extending from the 

 beautiful picture-frames, and other articles in bold relief, to 

 more important and widely extended subjects. Its inordinate 

 degree of toughness, with slight elasticity, imperviousness to 

 water, slight alterability by ordinary chemical agents, and the 

 ease with which it may be moulded by heat into any required 

 form, and caused to adhere to itself or to other objects, con- 

 stitute an assemblage of valuable properties which gives it an 

 almost equal position Avith the most useful materials which 

 man possesses. A comparison of caoutchouc and guttapercha 

 exhibits the wonders of nature in an eminent degree. Both 

 derived in a similar manner from the concrete juices of trees 

 growing together in the same region, both having the same 

 composition, both eminently resisting chemical action in a 

 similar manner, and each dissolving or softening in similar 

 solvents ; yet one is exceedingly elastic, and extensible in 

 every direction, yielding to the slightest force but returning 

 to its primary form, the other resists extension pow^erfully, but 

 possesses a slight elasticity at right angles to its extended 

 surface ; one, when heated only to its softening point, becomes 

 very adhesive and gummy, and returns very slowly, in months 

 or years, to its original elastic character, the other, when 

 gently heated, becomes pliant and yielding like wax, and re- 

 tains with unyielding obstinacy, when cold, the impressions it 

 received while warm. We have already witnessed a vast num- 

 ber of applications of caoutchouc, devised by the ingenuity 

 and perseverance of Mackintosh, Goodyear, and others ; but 

 we have yet to discover the manifold applications of which the 

 properties of guttapercha convince us this material is sus- 

 ceptible, and we may be assured that neither of them will 

 exhibit their full sphere of utility for a lengthened period of 

 time. Its analogy with caoutchouc will doubtless hasten the 

 development of its usefulness, but the same analogy will also 



