242 [ASSEMBEY 



GUTTA PERCHA. 



By S. T. ARMSTRONG. 



T. B. Wakeman, Esq., 



Secretary of the American Institute. 



Sir — Your favor of the 29th ultimo, requesting some facts rela- 

 tive to Gutta Percha, v^as duly received, and I will state to you 

 such facts as have come to my knowledge from sources to be relied 

 on, and from my own experience in the manufacture. First, I will 

 give you the discoverer, and his acts relative to it. Second, its first 

 introduction into London. Third, the first manufacturers and patent- 

 ees in England, its progress, &c., in that country. Fourthly, itsjirst 

 introduction into the United States in the raw state for manufac- 

 turing purposes, the first manufacturer of Gutta Percha in the United 

 States, &c. 



The history of the discovery and introduction of this remarkable 

 body cannot be more satisfactorily given than in the words of Doct. 

 W. Montgomerie, through whom the Gutta Percha was first brought 

 to the notice of the British public, and to whom the gold medal of 

 the Society of Arts was justly awarded for the introduction of it. 

 (Awarded in April, 1845.) 



As far back as 1822, says Doct. Montgomerie, when I was on 

 duty at Singapore, as assistant surgeon to the residency, I had ob- 

 tained the name of it, while making inquiries relative to caoutchouc, 

 of which there are several varieties, and some very fine specimens 

 were brought me, and was told that there was another variety called 

 Gutta Percha, and sometimes Gutta Tuban, which they said was 

 harder than the specimens shown me, but none of it was brought 

 to me at that time, and I lost sight of it, having returned to the 

 Bengal Presidency. 



But being again sent on duty to the Strait's Settlements, and 

 while at Singapore in 1842, I on one occasion observed in the hands 

 of a Malayan woodsman the handle of a parang, made of a substance 



