212 GUTTA-PBODUC-ING TREES. 



in about half an hour, the gutta will have separated from the aqueous 

 portion of the sap, and may then be removed, by rolling a small 

 ball of it round in the cuts, to the edge of which the coagulated 

 gum adheres, and forms a disc, varying in size, according to the 

 number of scores it is rolled in. 



These discs are then boiled in water, and made into balls, and 

 sold by the collectors to the men who export it to Penang or 

 Singapore. 



The gutta is, at first, pure white, but soon changes to pink, and 

 finally to a brownish-red. The water in which the gum is boiled 

 becomes a dark red-brown, and this colouration is the most dis- 

 tinctive feature that this variety of gutta possesses, and by which 

 it may be easily recognised. 



The air seems to have on the sap an effect analogous to that of 

 rennet on milk, coagulating the gummy portions so rapidly, that 

 only a small quantity of their watery stuff runs out of the cuts, 

 all the gutta percha remaining as a soft spongy mass in the scores. 



The amount of gutta obtained from a single tree, appears to 

 have been greatly over-estimated in the accounts that have been 

 written on the subject; and exceptionally large yields from gigan- 

 tic trees have been erroneously quoted as being an average product, 

 which is clearly by no means the case. 



I had a tree felled, that was two feet in diameter (at six feet 

 from the ground) and about one hundred feet high, the age of 

 which I estimated, from its annular rings, to be over one hundred 

 years. It gave only 2 lb 5 oz. of fairly clean gutta, valued by a 

 Malay dealer at SI. 20 per catty, or 3s. 3cZ. per pound, so that the 

 product of this tree was worth only 7s. 6cL 



Some say, that if gutta trees are felled in the height of the 

 rains and when the sap is rising strongly, they then yield more 

 gutta than at other times ; but I have had no means of testing the 

 truth of this assertion. 



Gttali Tab an Sutra* Dichopsis . 



This tree is usually confused by the Malays with the preceding 

 one, but is very different to it in many respects. It grows on low 



* Sutra=silk. 



