236 
The reat deductions may be made from these results, firstly, that 
the wet bark which is now allowed to rot in the jungle contains fully 
5:7 per cent. of its weight of Gutta Percha, or when dried 11:4 per 
cent, ; and secondly, that by simply pounding or таер, ды boiling 
the bark, nearly all the Gutta which it contains may be e ted. 
After the tree was felled I made careful fec est p it, and 
weighed portions of the bark, so het I could calculate the total weight 
on the trunk of the tree up to the first branch, which I found to be 
530 lbs. when in the wet state. Now, if we take 5°3 per cent. of this 
as being the amount cf Gutta that may be ы by the process of 
pounding and boiling, already specified, we find that it would yield 
28 Ibs. over and above the 12 ozs. which was obtained by the ordinary 
Malay method, or to put it in КУЛДА way, that for every Ib. of Gutta 
gate at present, 37 lbs. are waste 
In the Kew Report for 1881 I find i stated that in the year 1875 
the export of Gutta from the Straits Settlements and Peninsula was 
ьа at 10 millions of pounds weight. І һауе no means of ascer- 
taining the accuracy of that estimate, but accepting it as being tolerably 
correct, we must, from my experiments, come to the conclusion that 
that collected, there were during that one year no less than 300 millions 
of lbs., or, putting the price at only 2s. 6d. per Ib., 37,500,000/. sterling 
worth of Gutta Percha thrown away, and utterly lost 
To fully realise the importance of this subject, it must be borne 
in mind that this vast destruction of these valuable trees (which are of 
such very slow growth) and of this material, on which the communica- 
tion of the world may be said in a measure to depend, is going on every 
year, without any cessation whatever. It will be noticed that I have 
left out of my calculations all the bark on the upper part of the trunk, 
and on the branches, which, pk is just as rich in Gutta as the 
lower portion of the trunk. Even the leaves contain a notable pro- 
portion ! I have tested also re varieties of these trees, and have 
obtained almost у ЫРАҢ results, therefore I need not enter into further 
details. ‘The question naturally eps can ve bark be taken from the 
trees and dealt with in the country, or can it be dried and sent to 
eid the object of having this point so Y tested, I have gnus a 
some bark, and am sending it to the Roy al Gardens at Kew, wi 
request to have it sent to one of the la ane manufacturers, so tars a 
report may be obtained from them on the subject. The labour involved 
in stripping the pad carrying out the wet bark from the jungles 
(where no roads no n paths exist), A in. it, carrying it to a port 
and thence to Ы. are items of e which must not be over- 
looked! At the same time, it must De ж лабига: that some other 
igle нн, quiet as рак, and not so лава are yet Pe 
