426 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



There are more than one hundred and tliirty species of the 

 acacia in Australia, and from them exudes the purest gum 

 arabic. It is so plentiful that at particular periods several 

 pounds can be collected in some places in an hour or two. 



The Acacia Senegal or Mimosa Senegalenses, a tree rising to 

 fifteen or twenty feet high, affords the Senegal Gum of commerce. 

 In 1849 England imported of it, direct from Senegambia, 5,696 

 cwt., &c. 



In the Algerian collection at Paris, mention is made of Mesteba, 

 an indigenous gum of Northern Africa, of which little seems to be 

 known. 



Mezquite Gum. 

 Attention has been recently called in the United States to the 

 discovery in great abundance of a species of the acacia, known as 

 the Mezquite tree, which furnishes large quantities of gum nearly 

 equal to the gum arabic of Africa. The Mezquite trees cover 

 thousands of miles of surface, and always flourish most luxuri- 

 antly in elevated and dry regions. The gum is collected in July, 

 August and September— best time in latter part of August. A 

 good hand can collect from ten to twenty pounds weight in one 

 day. 



A simple, pure gum is lately obtained in Travancore, East 

 India, from the Maraca^iga hidica, which is used for taking 

 impressions of leaves, coins, medallions, &c. The exudation 

 appears to be an entirely unknown production. The medal im- 

 pressions from it are as sharp as those taken in sulphur. 



Tragacanth is a gummy exudation obtained from various species 

 of Jlstragulus verus the Gummifera creticus (Lamarck). Tra- 

 gacanth is called "Kitteret" by the Turks, who collect it in 

 large quantities in the hills about Buldur, from a low prickly 

 plant resembling a species of furze. The white flaky gum is 

 obtained by making an incision near the root and cutting through 

 the pith. A spurious Tragacanth in the east, from the sterculia 

 urens and the sterculia fatida. 



Resins. 

 It is strange that of the origin of substances at once so valua- 

 ble and so familiar to us, so little should be known. The sources 

 of the Dammer and many of the Wood Oils from Singapore and 

 the Eastern Archipelago are little known, nor are the Copals, 

 the Anime, the Myrrhs, and other valuable gums and resins from 

 Africa, Zanzibar, &c., well defined. Colophony, the ordinary 

 resin of commerce, is the residuum remaining in the still after com- 



