THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1864. 



70 ON MYROXYLON TOLtTIFERUM, jviU. 



but the difference was constantly the same as it was in the individuals 

 I had felled. The trees never make a very dense head of branches and 

 foliage ; but in the old ones, which have been much bled, it is very 

 thin. Many of the small twigs are dead, and the living ones are covered 

 with lichens. 



When a tree is about to be bled, two sloping notches are made in its 

 trunk quite through the bark, and meeting in a sharp angle at their 

 lower ends, leaving thus a point of bark between them untouched. 

 The bark and wood is hollowed out a little immediately under this 

 point, and the calabash cup is inserted under it. The process is re- 

 peated all over the trunk at close intervals, up as high as a man can 

 reach ; I have seen as many as twenty cups on a tree. The piece of 

 bark and the cups I have sent will show the process better than I can 

 describe it. "When the lower part of the trunk of a tree is too full of 

 scars and wounds for any fresh cuts to be made, a rude scaffold is 

 sometimes made round the tree, and a new series of notches made 

 higher up. 



From time to time, as may be necessary, the balsam-gatherer goes 

 round the trees with a pair of flask-shaped bags made of raw hide, slung 

 over the back of a donkey. Into these bags the contents of the cala- 

 bash cups are successively poured, and the cups are re-inserted under 

 the point of bark and left to be again filled. The balsam is sent down 

 to the ports on the river in these hide bags, where it is transferred to 

 the tins. 



I could not learn which were the best months for the flowing of 

 the balsam, — one person saying that it was in July, another in March, 

 and so on, scarcely two agreeing ; but the bleeding goes on during at 

 least eight months of the year, from July to March or April. When 

 the balsam is flowing well, I was told that " one moon " sufficed to fill 

 the cups. 



Kespecting the time of the flowering of the tree, individuals differed 

 as widely as they did about the best time for the production of the bal- 

 sam. I think I was told that it flowed in every month of the year, 

 each person asked giving a different month ; and several asserted that 

 it did not flower at all. 



I could not get any one to recognise the name " Balsamo de conco- 

 lito" I tried individuals with it at Cartagena, Barranquilla, Mompox, 

 Las Mercedes, Plato, and the Montana, but none of them knew what 

 I meant. The balsam is certainly not known by that name at any of 

 these places, but is always called Balsamo de Tola* 



I remained a couple of days in the Montana, and returned to Plato. 

 We travelled part of the way with a man going down to the port with a 



* " The balsam is not distinguished in this region [Cartliagena] by the name 

 of Tolu, but is known by the name of Balsamo de concoUto,—concolito being the 

 native name of the small calabash used for collecting it."— Letter from the late 

 Sutton Hayes to D. Hanbury, April 23, 1862. 



