GFTTA CULTIVATION. 43 



made that if the bark was dried aud sent to England for 

 treatment the gutta extracted from it was of very inferior 

 quality. In fact that it was in consistency much like gutta 

 percha which had been exposed to atmospheric action for some 

 considerable time and then worked up again. This is a result 

 which is to be looked for when it is considered that it exists in 

 the bark as a dried emulsion. The air, therefore, has an immense 

 surface to act on, and the gutta oxidises and passes into the 

 resinous state to a much greater extent than it would if sent 

 home in balls in the ordinary way. In the saj) the globules of 

 gutta are so exceedingly small— rather less than one ten- 

 thousandth of an inch in diameter — that if the merest film on 

 their surfaces becomes resinised a marked and serious deterio- 

 ration of the quality of the gum would be apparent when it 

 came to be extracted and worked into a mass. 



The following correspondence on this subject appeared at 

 page 237 of the " Kew Bulletin " of 1891. 



{The India Rubber, Gutta Percha & Telegraph Works 

 Company, Limited, to Royal Gardens, Kew. ) 



106 Cannon Street, London, E.G., 



5th August, 1886. 

 SlR,- 



Referring to your letter of the 11th June, which was acknowledged 

 on the 16th of the same month, I beg to send you enclosed a report from 

 our Analytical Chemist on experiments carried out by him with the gutta 

 percha bark which you forwarded to us. You will notice tliat we obtained 

 13"6 per cent of gutta and resin, which agrees fairly well with the analysis 

 of Mr. Wray, who gives the proportion as 11 "4 per cent. 



There is no doubt that there is a considei-able cpiantifcy of resin in the 

 sample which I enclose. The presence of this resin diminishes the com- 

 mercr'al value of the gum to such an extent that there is, so far as we see, 

 no profitable outlet for it. 1 would also draw your attention to the 

 Chemist's report where he says: — "It is very improbable whether its 

 recovery by means of solvents would be remunerative as the necessary 

 loss in treating such large quantities of accompanying useless matter 

 would be very great." Our decision is therefore that the material is prac- 

 tically useless. 



Regretting we cannot give a more favourable report. 



Yours, etc., 



(Signed) Robert Kaye Gray, 



Engineer in Chief. 

 W T. Thiselton -Dyer, Esq., c.m.g., f.r.s.. 



Royal Gardens, Kew. 



