GUTTA-PERCHA. 29 



drawn to it in the Kew Reports for 1876 and 1877, which 

 resulted in the Government of the Straits Settlements 

 taking up the question, so that in 1878 Dr. Dennys, Assist- 

 ant Curator of the Raffles Museum, Singapore, drew up an 

 important report to that Government, some extracts from 

 which it may be both useful and interesting to quote. The 

 true gutta-percha from Dic/topsis Guttci is known in the 

 Straits Settlements as gutta-taban. " It does not appeal- 

 that the juice is collected at any special period. Mr. Lowe 

 states, however, that there is a very marked difference in 

 the yield of the wet and dry seasons ; at the former period 

 an average tree will yield some five catties (a catty=lj lb.), 

 while in the dry season it will only yield one. Considerable 

 difficulty, by the way, appears to exist in ascertaining the 

 actual yield per tree ; and the difficulty will, owing to native 

 habits of exaggeration, continue until some trustworthy 

 European himself watches the operation. Mr. Murton 

 states that a native gutta-percha merchant mentioned forty 

 catties as the yield of a single tree ; while he himself, from 

 other information, puts down the yield at from five to 



fifteen catties per tree, and never exceeding twenty 



In view of the enormous number of trees which must have 

 been destroyed if even ten catties be taken as an average, I 

 should be inclined to accept the higher estimate. 



"The destruction of trees involved in the process of col- 

 lection is so enormous that it seems impossible for the 

 supply to long continue. It is computed that over 7,000 trees 

 were cut clown during 1877 in the neighbourhood of Klang, 

 while 4,000 must have perished near Selangor in a single 

 month to furnish the 270 piculs (a picul = 138ilb.) returned 

 as exported. The estimated annual export from the Straits 

 Settlement and the Peninsula was given as ten millions of 

 pounds in 1875, which, at the high average of fifteen 

 pounds to a single tree, would give 600,000 trees. The 

 demand seems always to exceed the supply. 



