Sept. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE MODE OF PROCURING THE BALSAM OF TOLU. 69 



my own donkey was hung a bundle of paper and boards for drying 

 specimens, and on the other my '* est6ra " (mat for sleeping on), 

 blankets, mosquito net, and a change of clothes ; that of the guide car- 

 ried some provisions for the journey and his own things. I started on 

 foot, feeling almost ashamed to mount an animal not much bigger than 

 myself, which seemed to be already well loaded ; but, before the day's 

 journey was done, I had been glad to take occasional lifts on the poor 

 donkey. We made about eighteen miles before we halted for the night, 

 and my guide, a man twice my weight, rode every foot of the way. 

 What with the burning sun, the thermometer at 89° in the shade, and 

 the heavy lead, I did not much envy his poor " burro." 



We passed some balsam-trees in the afternoon, each with a lot of 

 calabashes stuck on its trunk to catch the drug which trickled from the 

 wounds in its bark. I picked up a few of the fruit under one of these 

 trees, and on asking him what they were, he said they were " ojos de 

 algo palo de la Montana." He did not know them, although he told me 

 he had been accustomed to gather balsam since his boyhood. 



Our second clay's journey was not so long as the first, — I think not 

 more than about twelve miles. The balsam-trees occurred occasionally 

 during the whole way. We stopped at a hut in the forest surrounded 

 by a small clearing, the owner of which, like all the inhabitants of the 

 Montana, makes part of his living by gathering balsam. The trees were 

 very plentiful here, and generally of a large size. Their average height 

 is about seventy feet, and the trunk is sometimes upwards of two feet in 

 diameter a yard from the ground, and generally rises to a height of forty 

 feet without branching, so that it is impossible to get at either foliage 

 or fruit without cutting down the tree. On the day after our arrival, I 

 got the man's permission to have a tree felled ; he did not charge me 

 anything for the tree, but stipulated that I should pay two of his sons a 

 dollar each for felling it. I selected an old tree, nearly two feet in dia- 

 meter. There was a sprinkling of pods upon it, but it was not by any 

 means loaded. The pods are so loosely attached to the branches and so 

 brittle in themselves, that nearly all of them were shaken from the tree 

 and many broken to pieces by the shock of the fall. I found them to 

 be approaching maturity, the seeds being fully developed, but, I am 

 afraid, not ripe enough to grow. I had another smaller and more vigo- 

 rous tree cut ; the foliage of this was much larger than that of the older 

 tree, and also a little different in form, but it bore no fruit. The speci- 

 mens I send will sufficiently show the difference in the foliage of the 

 two trees, and it is also sufficiently explained by the greater luxuriance 

 of the younger. 



As I have already said, it is impossible to reach the foliage of any of 

 the trees unless by felling them ; but I examined the leaflets of many 

 trees from specimens picked up from the ground, but saw nothing to 

 induce me to believe that the balsam is produced here by more than one 

 species. The young trees have always larger foliage than the old ones ; 



