96 REPORT 1851. 



rated, and to which comparatively little attention has yet been paid. In the 

 limits of a report like the present, we can only indicate in a cursory manner 

 the names of the more important and best known trees of this class. We 

 may especially allude to the different species of Bassia, Stillingia sebifera 

 (tallow-tree of China), Valeria Indica, which, from the high melting-point 

 of their oils or fats, have a peculiar importance from their use in the manu- 

 facture of candles, and from their being capable of replacing animal fats for 

 other purposes. Of those trees which yield fluid oils, Calophyllum inophyl- 

 lum, Aleurites triloba, and Pongamia glabra, may be particularly mentioned 

 (though various others possessed of equally valuable properties would pro- 

 bably be discovered by a more careful examination of those forests). The 

 demand for oils in European commerce has been steadily on the increase 

 for some years past, and the quantities consumed are now so large that these 

 and the other oleaginous products of tropical climates must sooner or later 

 acquire considerable commercial importance, and render the preservation of 

 the plants which yield them deserving the attention of Government, not so 

 much from their present importance, as from the value which they are likely 

 soon to acquire. 



We have alluded to gutta-percha ; its brief but remarkable history was 

 lately detailed in an overland journal. The history oi gutta-percha ox gutta- 

 taban, is brief but not uneventful. Previously to 184'4 the very name of 

 gutta-percha was unknown to European commerce. In that year two cwts. 

 of it were shipped experimentally from Singapore. The exportation of 

 gutta-percha from that port rose in IS^S to 169 piculs (the picul is 133^lbs.), 

 in 1846 to ISS^, in 184.7 to 9296, in the first seven months of 1848 to 6768 

 piculs. In the first four and a half years of the trade 21,598 piculs of gutta- 

 percha, valued at 274,190 dollars, were shipped at Singapore, tiie whole of 

 which was sent to England, with the exception of 15 piculs to Mauritius, 470 

 to the Continent of Europe, and 922 to the United States. 



But this rapid growth of the new trade conveys only a faint idea of the 

 commotion it created among the native inhabitants of the Indian Archi- 

 pelago. The jungles of Johore were the scene of the earliest gatherings, and 

 they were soon ransacked in every direction by parties of Malays and Chi- 

 nese, while the indigenous population gave themselves up to the search with 

 unanimity and zeal. The Tamungong, with the usual policy of Oriental 

 governors, declared the precious gum a government monopoly. He appro- 

 priated the greater part of the profits, and still left the Malays enough to 

 stimulate them to pursue the quest, and to gain from 100 to 400 per cent, 

 for themselves on what they procured from the aborigines. The Tamun- 

 gong, not satisfied with buying at his own price all that was collected by 

 private enterprise, sent out numerous parties of from 10 to 100 persons, and 

 employed whole tribes of hereditary serfs in the quest of gutta-percha. 



This organized body of guni-hunters spread itself like a cloud of locusts 

 over the whole of Johore. peninsular and insular. They crossed the frontier 

 into Linga, but there the Sultan was not long in discovering the new value 

 that had been conferred upon his jungles. He confiscated the greater part 

 of what had been collected by the interlopers, and in emulation of the 

 Tamungong, declared giitta-jiercha or giitta-taban a royalty. The knowledge 

 of the article, stirring the avidity of gatherers, gradually spread from Singa- 

 pore noi'thward as far as Penang, southward along the east coast of Sumatra, 

 to Java, eastward to Borneo, where it was found at Brune, Sarawak and 

 Potianak on the west coast, at Keti and Passir on the east. The imports of 

 gutta-percha into Singapore from the 1st of January to the 12th of July 

 1848, according to their geographical distribution, were from the Malay 



