GUTTA-PERCHA. 257 



and three inches in thickness. When refined it is more 

 compact, has a darker colour, and, when rolled, a glossy 

 surface ; it is not possessed of the elasticity of caoutchouc, 

 but is flexible, and has the remarkable property of being 

 ductile and plastic when softened by warmth ; the conse- 

 quence is, it can be made to take any form, which it retains 

 with extraordinary sharpness of outline when cold. Its 

 applications are almost innumerable ; perhaps the most use- 

 ful has been the coating of the wires of the submarine tele- 

 graph, for which, from its perfect non-conducting property, 

 it is most admirably adapted. Dr. Montgomerie was the 

 first to bring Gutta-percha into notice, and the following 

 extract from his account in the ' Magazine of Sciences/ for 

 1845, has much interest. "I may not claim the actual 

 discovery of gutta-percha, for, though quite unknown to 

 Europeans, a few inhabitants of certain parts of the Malay 

 forests were acquainted with it. Many of their neighbours 

 residing in the adjacent native villages had never heard of it. 

 It was occasionally employed to make handles for parangs, 

 instead of wood or buffalo-horn. So long ago as 1822, 

 when assistant-surgeon at Singapore, I was told of gutta- 

 percha in connection with caoutchouc. There are three va- 

 rieties of this substance — Gutta Girek, Gutta Tuban, and 



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