336 ODQROGRAPHIA. 
made to cultivate laurels to take the place of those destroyed, and 
a sufficient quantity of the drug is only obtained by constant 
encroachments upon the territory of the Formosans, so destroying 
the trees still further into the interior at every new move. 
The trees are felled and the small branches chopped up ; these, 
with the chips and twigs, are alone used, the heavy wood being 
abandoned. <A long trough made from a hollow tree, and coated 
with clay, is placed over 8 or 10 hearth fires, and is half filled 
with water. Boards perforated with holes are put across the 
trough, and above each hole is a jar filled with chips of the wood, 
with earthenware pots inverted above them, the joints being made 
tight by hemp and clay. The water in the trough is heated to 
boiling, and the steam passing through the holes saturates the 
chips, causing the camphor to sublime and condense in crystals 
in the inverted pots above. The camphor thus obtained is sent 
from the interior of the island to Tasmin, the principal port, 
packed in baskets covered with cloths and large leaves. On 
arrival it is re-packed in tubs or lead-lned cases for export by 
Chinese vessels to Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Canton; the loss by 
evaporation while in transit from the place of its production being 
very large. A yellow oil exudes from the packages of this crude 
camphor, which is collected and locally known as “oil of cam- 
phor.” The Formosa camphor sometimes goes by the name of 
“Chinese Camphor” and it sometimes arrives in India in a 
semi-fluid state, owing to the addition of water before shipment. 
The Japan camphor used to be extracted by boiling the wood 
with water in an iron kettle and condensing the vapour in an 
earthenware dome closed at the top with rice-straw. The modern 
practice is to distil the wood with water in an iron retort fitted 
with a wooden dome, from which the vapours are led through a 
bamboo tube to the cooling apparatus. This consists of a wooden 
box containing seven transverse compartments, and is enclosed in 
a second box through which water is allowed to flow; the vapours 
are conducted through all the compartments in succession by 
means of holes placed alternately at either end of the dividing 
walls. 
The Japan camphor arrives dry; it is lighter in colour than 
the Formosan and somewhat pinkish. It arrives in double tubs, 
one within the other, without metal lining; hence it is some- 
times called “ tub-camphor.” 
