GIGANTIC TREES ELASTIC GUM. 225 



to be seen, and the padre informed the travellers 

 that it sometimes rained without intermission for 

 four or five months. The water that fell in five 

 hours on the 1st of May, Humboldt found to be 21 

 lines in height, and on the 3d of 'May he collected 

 14 lines in three hours ; whereas at Paris there fall 

 only 28 or 30 lines in as many weeks. The tem- 

 perature is lower than at Maypures, but higher than 

 on the Rio Negro ; the thermometer standing at 80° 

 or 80-6° by day, and at 69*8° by night. 



The Indians of the mission amounted only to 160. 

 Some of them were employed in the construction 

 of boats, which are formed of the trunks of a species 

 of laurel (Ocotea cymbarum), hollowed by means of 

 fire and the axe. These trees attain a height of 

 more than a hundred feet, and have a yellow resin- 

 ous wood, which emits an agreeable odour. The 

 forest between Javita and Pimichin affords an im- 

 mense quantity of gigantic timber, as tall occasion- 

 ally as 116 or 117 feet; but as the trees give out 

 branches only towards the summit, the travellers 

 were disappointed, amid so great a profusion of un- 

 known species, in not being able to procure the 

 leaves and flowers. Besides, as it rained incessantly 

 so long a time, M. Bonpland lost the greater part of 

 his dried specimens. Although no pines or firs oc- 

 cur in these woods, balsams, resins, and aromatic 

 gums are abundantly furnished by many other trees, 

 and are collected as objects of trade by the people 

 of Javita. 



At the mission of San Baltasar they had seen the 

 natives preparing a kind of elastic gum, which they 

 said was found under ground; and in the forests 

 at Javita, the old Indian who accompanied them 

 showed that it was obtained by digging several feet 

 deep among the roots of two particular trees, the 

 Hevea of Aublet and one with pinnate leaves. This 

 substance, which bears the name of dapicho, is white, 

 corky, and brittle, with a laminated structure and 



