GUTTA PERCH A. 191 



manner. With a small hatchet they make deep and long in- 

 cisions in the rind, from which a milky sap abundantly exudes. 

 A small wooden peg is then fixed into each aperture to prevent 

 its closing, and a cup of moist clay fastened underneath, which 

 in about four or five hours is filled with as many table-spoonfuls 

 of the juice. The produce of a number of incisions having 

 been gathered in a large earthen vessel, is then spread in thin 

 coatings upon moulds made of clay, and dried, layer after layer, 

 over a fire, until the whole has acquired a certain thickness. 

 "When perfectly dry, the clay form within is broken into small 

 fragments, and the pieces are extracted through an aperture, 

 which is always left for the purpose. 



Besides the Siphonia elastica, many other American trees, 

 belonging to the families of the Euphorbiacese and Urticese, 

 afford excellent kinds of caoutchouc ; and since it is become so 

 valuable an article of commerce, the East Indies, and Java 

 likewise, yield considerable quantities, chiefly from the Urceola 

 elastica and the Plcus elastica. 



The Icosandra Gutta, which furnishes the gutta percha of 

 commerce, is a native of the Eastern Archipelago and the 

 adjacent lands. A few years since, this substance, now so cele- 

 brated and of such wide extended use, was totally unknown in 

 Europe, for though from time immemorial the Malays employed 

 it for making the handles of their hatchets and creeses, it was- 

 only in the year 1843 that Mr. Montgomery, an English surgeon, 

 having casually become acquainted with its valuable properties, 

 sent an account of it, with samples, to the Eoyal Society, for 

 which he was most justly rewarded with its gold medal. The 

 fame of the new article spread rapidly throughout the world; 

 science and speculation seized upon it with equal eagerness ; a 

 thousand newspapers promulgated its praises ; it was imme- 

 diately analysed, studied, and tried in every possible way, so 

 that it is now as well known and as extensively used as if it had 

 been in our possession for centuries. 



The Icosandra Gutta is a large high tree, with a dense crown 

 of rather small dark green leaves, and a round smooth trunk. 

 The white blossoms change into a sweet fruit, containing an 

 oily substance fit for culinary use. The wood is soft, spongy, 

 and contains longitudinal cavities filled with brown stripes of 

 gutta percha. The original method of the Malays for collect- 



