NGAI CAMPHOR. 



1874-. Our author quotes the prices of these sorts of camphor for 



the picul of 133J lb., thus : 



Formosa camphor 25 dollars. 



Japan camphor 30 ,, 



Ngai camphor ..." 250 



Malay camphor, first quality .... 2000 



' second quality . . . 1000 



Ngai Cam- Other references to Ngai camphor are very slight, and imply 

 that the writers had no practical acquaintance with the sub- 

 stance. Such, in fact, was my own case ; I only knew of Ngai 

 camphor by name, and I therefore drew attention to it in the 

 Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry (1871), by asking the 

 following question " What is the camphor said to be obtained 

 from a species of Artemisia ( Wormwood) called Ngai ? " This 

 brought a reply from Mr. Frederic H. Ewer, of the Imperial 

 Maritime Customs, Canton, who kindly sent me specimens 

 of Ngai camphor, together with a small branch of the plant 

 from which it is made. 



The specimens represent two forms of the camphor, the one 

 a perfectly colourless crystalline substance, in flattish pieces* 

 as much as an inch in length ; the other, which Mr. Ewer re- 

 gards as the crude state of the drug, is a crystalline powder 

 of a dirty white, mixed with some fragments of vegetable 

 tissue. The purer sample has an odour scarcely distinguishable 

 from that of ordinary camphor; but the odour of the other 

 is perceptibly contaminated with a smell like that of worm- 

 wood. Ngai camphor, like that of Dryobalanops, sinks into water. 

 The investigations of its other properties and its chemical 

 relations having been undertaken by my friend Professor Att field, 

 they will form the subject of a separate communication from his 

 pupil Mr. Sydney Plowman. 



The plant sent by Mr. Ewer is no species of Artemisia, though 



Blumeabai- a member of the same order. It proves to be Blumea balsam- 

 samiferap.C. ^^ j) Q ? a ta ^ coarse-looking, herbaceous plant of Eastern Asia, 

 an abundant weed in Assam and Burmah, and common through- 

 out the Indian islands. It is well known to emit when bruised 



