334 ODOROGRAPHTA. 
This tree is also described by Macdonald in the fourth volume of 
the ‘ Asiatic Researches.’ He says it is found growing in a rich 
red loam, tending to a blackish clay mixed with a crumbling 
stone of the colour of marl, and that it grows principally on the 
West side of Sumatra, from the Equator to nearly 3 degrees North. 
The tree is straight, extraordinarily tall, and has a gigantic 
crown which often overtops the other forest trees by many feet. 
The trunks of these immense trees are sometimes seven feet 
in diameter, rising straight up to a height of 100 feet without 
a single branch. 
This camphor can only be obtained by the destruction of the 
entire tree. The trees do not all contain camphor. Many of 
them contain an oil which is supposed to be the first stage of the 
formation of the drug, and this would develop into camphor 
were the tree left unmolested. Both oil and camphor, when 
found, occur in the heart of the tree, not occupying the whole 
length of the pith-cavity, but often in spaces of a foot or a foot 
and a half in length at intervals. The method of extracting the 
oil is simply by making a deep incision with a Malay axe about 
14 or 18 feet from the ground till near the heart of the tree, 
when a narrower and deeper incision is made, and the oil, if any 
in the tree, gushes out and is received in bamboos or other 
utensils. In this manner a party proceeds through the woods, 
wounding the camphor trees till they attain their object. From 
a tree containing both oil and camphor, two gallons of the former 
and three pounds of the latter may sometimes be obtained, but 
hundreds of trees may be mutilated before camphor is discovered, 
as the natives have no certain means of ascertaining which trees 
contain it either in the solid or the liquid state. When camphor 
is found the tree is felled and cut into junks a few feet long ; 
these are then split and the camphor is removed from the heart 
of the tree, where it sometimes occupies a space of the thickness 
ofa man’s arm. The quantity varies considerably, from a few 
ounces up to 15 Ibs., and rarely as much as 20l|bs. are obtained. 
Some trees when felled are not found to contain any at all. The 
rarity of this description of camphor commands for it a very high 
price—from 35 to 70 shillings a pound, according to quality. It 
very rarely arrives on the London market at all, but has some- 
times been received under the name of Native Camphor. In 
Sumatra it is used to some extent as incense and for embalming 
