DBUOS, NAllCOTICS, ETC. 



The camphor of Sumatra is procured from the stem of a large 

 tree, Dryobalanops Camphora, Colebrook ; D. aromatica, Graertner. 

 It is secreted in crystalline masses naturally into cavities of the 

 wood. It supplies this camphor only after attaining a consider- 

 able age. In its young state it yields, however, by incision, a 

 pale yellow liquid, called the liquid camphor of Borneo and Su- 

 matra, which consists of resin and a volatile oil having a camphor- 

 ated odor. 



An account of this tree, and of the mode of procuring the pecu- 

 liar and high-priced camphor which it yields, is given by Dr. 

 Junghuhn, who has travelled lately in Sumatra, and Prof. De 

 Vriese, of Ley den, in the " Nederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief" 

 for 1851. An abstract of the memoir, translated into English by 

 Miss De Vriese, is published in "Hooker's Journal of Botany" 

 for February and March 1852 :- 



The Dryobalanops is a gigantic tree, rising for fifty or even a hundred feet 

 above those which compose the chief mass of the forests where they grow, just 

 as the steeples of the churches appear above the roofs of the houses in a town. 

 The trunks of the full-grown trees are from 7 to 10 feet in diameter at the very 

 base, ;/nd from 5 to 8 feet higher up ; tht>y rise to the height of 100 or 130 feet, 

 and their ample crown is from 50 to 70 feet in diameter. The tree has a 

 limited range, being confined to the seaward slope of the mountains of south- 

 western Sumatra, most abundant on the lower slopes and the outlying hills of 

 the alluvial plain, and extending in latitude from Ideg. 10m. to 2deg. 20m. N., 

 and perhaps further to the north. Camphor oil occurs in all the trees, and is 

 most abundant in the younger branches and leaves. The solid camphor is found 

 only on tho trunks of older trees, espec ; ally in fissures of the wood, and in 

 smaller quantity than is generally supposed. Colebrooke, and authors who have 

 copied from him, assert that camphor is found in the heart of the tree in such a 

 quantity as to fill a cavity of the thickness of a man's arm, and that a single 

 tree yields about eleven pounds. The price of this camphor, which at Padang 

 sells for about 340 dollars per hundred weight, suffices to show that the account 

 is much exaggerated. The camphor occurs only in small fissures, from which 

 the natives, having felled the trees and split up the wood, scrape it off with 

 small splinters or with their nails. From the oldest and richest trees they 

 rarely collect more than two ounces. After a long stay in the woods, frequently 

 of three months, during which they may fell a hundred trees, a party of thirty 

 persons rarely bring away more than 16 or 20 pounds of solid camphor, worth 

 from 200 to 250 dollars. The variety and price of this costly subst.i - 

 enhanced by a custom which has immeinorially prevailed among the En' 

 delaying the burial of every person who during his life had a claim to the title 

 of Rajah (of which each village has one) until some rice, sown on the day of 

 his death, Iris sprung up, grown and borne fruit. The corpse, till then kept 

 above ground among the living, is now, with these ears of rice, committed to 

 the earth, like the grain six months before; and thus the hope is emblematically 

 expressed that, as a new life arises from the seed, so another life shall begin for 

 man after his death. During this time the corpse is kept in the house, enclosed 

 in a coffin made of the hollowed trunk of a Durion, and the whole space 

 between tho coffin and the body is filled with pounded camphor, for the purchase 

 of which the family of the deceased Rajah frequently impoverish themselves. 

 The camphor oil is collected by incisions at the base of the trunk, from which 

 the clear balsamic juice is very slowly discharged. 



In Sumatra the best camphor is obtained in a district called 

 Bams, and all good camphor bears that local name. It appears 

 that the tree is cut down to obtain the gum and that not in ona 



