126 



juice or latex of the rubber tree. This appears to be a quite new 

 paper-makin<;- material and skives a paper without fiber with a very 

 satisfactory surface finish. It would be interestino- to know some- 

 thing of the durability of this paper, since one of the most im- 

 portant problems in connection with the publication of scientific 

 periodicals is to secure a paper with a surface capable of taking 

 half-tone iihistrations satisfactoril}', and which at the same time 

 will have a dur.ability expressible in terms of centuries. Investi- 

 gators are now consulting in our technical libraries printed books 

 three and four hundred years old. If the paper on which these 

 books are printed had been manufactured according to most of 

 our modern paper, the books would not have remained usable 

 over these centuries. It is discouraging to think that so much 

 of our modern scientific publication is on sulphite wood pulp 

 paper. Many publications printed on this stock are beginning 

 already, after a lapse of not more than twenty-five years, to show 

 signs of disintegration. The Botanic Garden library is indebted to 

 the Conservator of Forests for three of the pamphlets above men- 

 tioned — one on Gutta Percha, one on Rattan, and one on Damar 

 and Copal (two of the most important groups of resins obtained 

 in the Federated Malav States), 



