GUTTA-PEECHA, 



257 



and three inches in thickness. When refined it is more 

 compact^ has a darker colour, and^ when rolled, a glossy 

 surface ; it is not possessed of the elasticity of caoutchouc, 

 but is flexible, and has the remarkable property of being 

 ductile and plastic when softened by warmth ; the conse- 

 quence is, it can be made to take any form, which it retains 

 with extraordinary sharpness of outline when cold. Its 

 applications are almost innumerable ; perhaps the most use- 

 ful has been the coating of the wires of the submarine tele- 

 graph, for which, from its perfect non-conducting property, 

 it is most admirably adapted. Dr. Montgomerie was the 

 first to bring Gutta-percha into notice, and the following 

 extract from his account in the ^ Magazine of Sciences,^ fbr 

 1845, has much interest. ^^I may not claim the actual 

 discovery of gutta-percha, for, though quite unknown to 

 Europeans, a few inhabitants of certain parts of the Malay 

 forests were acquainted with it. Many of their neighbours 

 residing in the adjacent native villages had never heard of it. ^ 

 It was occasionally employed to make handles for parangs, 

 instead of wood or buffalo-horn. So long ago as 1822, 

 when assistant-surgeon at Singapore, I was told of gutta- 

 percha in connection with caoutchouc. There are three va- 

 rieties of this substance — GuUa Gireh^ Gutta Ttthan, and 



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