GUMS, RESINS, AND KINOS. 209 
_ form a very adhesive mucilage. It is frequently contaminated 
with pieces of the astringent barks of the trees from which it is 
obtained ; hence, its solution, unless carefully prepared, will 
frequently contain some tannic acid.” 
The allusion to solubility in the preceding quotation is only 
partly true. Very little has been done in regard to the systematic 
examination of our gums, but the writer, as the result of fairly 
close attention to them during the past few years, hardly inclines 
to the opinion that there is much commercial future before them. 
*« Best selected Turkey Gum Arabic ”’ is, of course, the most valu- 
able gum yielded by Acacias. If judging were to be by points, it 
would take the highest place as regards absence of colour, freedom 
from accidental impurities, ready solubility, and adhesiveness of its 
mucilage. The highest quality of Australian gum the author has 
ever seen falls far behind this high standard. As far as his experi- 
ments go, those samples obtained from the interior (comparable 
in its aridity to the Soudan, and other noted gum-producing coun- 
tries) are completely soluble in water, and make good mucilages, 
while those obtained east of the Dividing Range, 72., in well- 
watered districts, in which vegetation is comparatively luxuriant, 
are more or less insoluble, portions, at least, merely swelling up in 
water, like cherry gum. In other words (speaking of the eastern 
colonies), the eastern wattle-gums contain metagummic acid, while 
the western ones do not. And when it is borne in mind that the 
yield of gum in the interior is insignificant as compared with that 
of the coast country, it becomes apparent how hazardous is the 
generalization that Australian gums are readily soluble in water. 
Owing to the great cost of unskilled white labour in Australia, 
and the impossibility of utilising the services of the few aboriginals 
for the purpose of gumcollecting, Australian gum arabic will never 
find its way into the world’s markets to any very great extent. 
Taken internally, it is used by country folks in diarrhoea and 
piles, and in veterinary practice in the country, for wounds and 
raw shoulders in horses; but the uses to which it is put are very 
miscellaneous. 
The author has been shown a statement by a “ good practical 
man,” who, by the way, lives in the midst of wattle-trees, and gets his 
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