16 ON THE COMMERCIAL KINDS OF INDIA-RUBBER. 
The gum obtained in this way contains water enclosed in small cavities, which 
we believe to have been formed by the celerity with which the sap hardens, 
preventing thereby the salt water, and perhaps the watery part of the sap, from 
ing an issue. . . . During our peregrinations in the jungle of Singapore, we 
have met with the identical creeper, called menungan in Borneo, but which the 
Malays here call ngerit, or ngret, and on inquiry have heard from the native 
wood-cutters that the same is found in great quantities in Johore and the neigh- 
bouring islands. . . . The process for obtaining the sap in use by the Badjows 
and the Muruts is very simple, but we should like to see an attempt made to 
branch of agriculture, for it grows fast enough to procure a supply of sap in 
less than three years, and after planting requires no further cultivation." 
Mr. James Motley, in a letter dated at Singapore, March, 1854 
(Kew Journ. Bot., vol. v. p. 285), thus describes this plant :—“ A 
very abundant creeper was the india-rubber producing Urceola; its 
fruit is about the size of an orange, and colour of an apricot, the thick 
outer skin full of milky juice, while within are about eight or ten 
seeds enveloped in a tawny pulp, tasting like well-bletted medlars. 
The natives use the juice only as birdlime." Again, while at Sumatra, 
he writes (Kew Journ. Bot., p. 167) :—'' The plant yielding the best 
india-rubber, I think an Urceola, is common here ; it is a large climber, 
as thick as a man's leg, with a dark rugged bark, it is called * Jinta- 
wan " by the Malays, but this includes three species, —menungan, se- 
rapit, and the petabo. The fruit of the serapit is the best, but all are 
much valued by the Malays, the pulp surrounding the seeds being 
very sweet, with a pleasant acid and a fine vinous flavour. To collect 
the sap, the stem is usually cut into billets a few feet long, from both 
ends of which the milky juice flows abundantly, and the plant soon 
springs up again. The gum is not collected among these islands, 
though the locality, always within the reach of the sea, is highly 
favourable, the only preparation required being to mix salt-water with 
the sap, the solid parts of which instantly coalesce.” — 
Borneo india-rubber first came to England about three years ago 
under the name of gutta-susu ; susu being the Malayan term for milk. 
This rubber, which fetches about 1s. 3d. per lb., is totally different from 
other Indian kinds ; it is white, soft, spongy, very wet, and porous. In 
