232 
CoLoNrAL OFFICE to RoYAL GARDENS, Kew. 
Sir, Downing Street, August 19, 1891. 
I am directed by Lord Knutsford to enclose, for such obser- 
vations as you may have to offer, a copy of a Despatch from the 
Governor of the Straits Settlements on a new process for extracting 
Gutta Percha. 
| I am, &c. 
The Director of (Signed) В, H. MEADE. 
The Royal Gardens, Kew. 
Тһе Governor of the STRAITS SETTLEMENTS to COLONIAL OFFICE. 
Government House, Singapore, 
My Lon», July 18, 1891. 
I Have the honour to inform your Lordship that I witnessed 
yesterday a process for extracting Gutta Percha from the twies and 
leaves of the Gutta Percha tree (Jsonandra Gutta). It is difficult to 
over-estimate the importance of the invention, and this will be readily 
understood when I mention that the method hitherto and still in vogue 
for obtaining Gutta Percha is to cut down the tree and collect the juice 
as it exudes from the stem or trunk. This collecting of the juice of 
i 
proceedings, that they are reported to consider it necessary to collect 
К. 
_ 2. Monsieur Eugene Sérullas, a French savant of repute, is the dis- 
coverer of the invention to which I refer. will now describe his 
st I са i 
y 
been brought into the store in bundles are finely chopped up. It isa 
matter of no moment, apparently, whether the leaves, &c. are still fresh 
main secret of the invention) until a reddish-brown liquor is produced. 
This is put into an alembic, already supplied with a small quantity of 
one pound of it extracted from thirty pounds’ weight of the chopped up 
leaves and twigs. n the process has been perfected it is expected 
that the proportion of 2 per cent, at least of pure gutta will be obtained 
from the raw material. 
4. The demand for gutta has increased enormously since the intro- 
duction of submarine telegraph cables. It is estimated that the trade 
consumes 4,000,000 Ibs. a year. The article forms one of the principal 
exports from this Colony, as much as 76,592 pikuls (—10,212,2662 Ibs.) 
having been exported last year, the value of which is given at 
$4,946,890, or about 825,000/. The greater portion by far of this 
quantity goes to the United Kingdom, and has been i ried here 
from Dutch India. From the Protected Native States only a little is 
