GUTTA-PROTHTCING TREES. 219 



white flakes, and by stirring, collected into a mass, which was easily 

 removed from the flask, aud purified by reboiling in clean water. 

 By this method, the sample of wet bark yielded 5.3 per cent, of 

 clean white gutta. 



Another weighed sample of bark, was cub up and dried in the 

 sun, and then put into chloroform, and after standing some hours, 

 with frequent shakings, the liquid was poured off, and allowed to 

 evaporate; fresh chloroform being added to the bark to extract any 

 gutta which remained in it. The total product thus obtained was 

 5.7 per cent, of the weight of wet bark used in the experiment. 



I next took a weighed sample of wet bark and cut it up into 

 small chips, and dried it thoroughly, and found as the result of 

 several experiments, that it lost 50 per cent, of its weight in the 

 process. 



The following deductions may be made from these results : — Firstly, 

 that the wet bark, which is now allowed to rot in the jungle, con- 

 tains fully 5.7 per cent, of its weight of Grutta Percha, or when 

 dried 11.4 per cent.; and secondly, that by simply pounding or 

 rasping, and boiling the bark, nearly all the gutta which it contains 

 may be extracted. 



After the tree was felled, I made careful measurements of it, 

 and weighed portions of the bark, so that I could calculate the 

 total weight on the trunk of the tree, up to the first branch, which 

 I found to be 5301bs. when in the wet state. 



Now if we take 5.3 per cent of this, as being the amount of 

 gutta, that may be extracted by the process of pounding and boil- 

 ing, already specified, we find that it would yield 2Sft. over and 

 above the 12oz. which were obtained by the ordinary Malay method ; 

 or, to put it in another way, that for every pound of gutta collected 

 at present, 37ft. are wasted ! 



In the Kew Report for 1881, I find it stated, that in the year 

 1875, the export of gutta from the Straits Settlements and Penin- 

 sula, was estimated at ten millions of pounds weight. 



I have no means of ascertaining the accuracy of that estimate, 

 but accepting it as being tolerably correct, we must, from my expe- 

 riments, come to the conclusion, that even if we take the amount of 

 gutta wasted, at only thirty times the weight of that collected, 



