87 



I have recently succeeded, however, in preparing pure rubber by a 

 physical process, and so demonstrated that chemical methods are not 

 necessarv. This is effected bv centrifugalising the latex in a special 

 form of separating machine, when the rubber particles, which have 

 a -mailer specific gravity than the medium in which they are 

 suspended, are thrown out of the bowl in an almost dry state. They 

 may then be converted into a solid mass by slight pressure, or by drain- 

 ing off the small quantity of water which remains with a porous tile. 

 So prepared, the rubber forms a translucent mass, free from its usual 

 smell and from all danger of decomposition. 



The merits and demerits of this mode of preparation must rest en- 

 tirely with me, but 1 cannot be responsible for any statements uride in 

 Trinidad, where a copy of my experimental machine was recently exhi* 

 biied without my consent or knowledge. 



:o: 



GINSENG. 



Aralia GiN'SEya, Baill. and Aralia quinquefolia, Decne. and Planch. 



As correspondents frequently send quotations of the market price 

 of Ginseng, and ask for information about it, — what it is, whether it will 

 grow in Jamaica, etc., the following notes are set down on the subject, 



Mrs. Bishop's description in her recent work on Korea may 

 first be taken : — 



" Panax Ginseng or quiDquefolium, is, as its name imports, a pana- 

 cea. No one can be in the Far East for many days without hearing of 

 this root and its virtues. No drug in the British Pharmacopoeia rivals 

 with us the estimation in which this is held by the Chinese. It is a 

 tonic, a febrifuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of life, taken spasmodi- 

 cally or regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese who can afford it. 

 It is one of the most valuable articles which Korea exports, and one 

 great source of its revenue. In the steamer in which I left Chemulpo, 

 there was a consignment of it worth $140,000. But valuable as the 

 cultivated root is, it is nothing to the value of the wild, which grows in 

 northern Korea, a single specimen of which has been sold for £40. It 

 is chiefly found in the Kang-ge Mountains : but it is rare, and the 

 search so often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with 

 magical properties, and believe that only men of pure lives can find it. 



" The Ginseng season was at its height. People talked, thought 

 and dreamed Ginseng, for the risks of its b* or 7 years' growth were 

 over, and the root was actually in the factorv. J went to several Gin- 

 seng farms and also saw the different stages of the manufacturing pro- 

 cess and received the same impression as in Siberia, that if industry 

 were lucrative, and the Korean were sure of his wages, ha would be an 

 industrious and even a thrifty person. 



" All round Song-do are carefully fenced farms on which Ginseng 

 is grown with great care and exquisite neatness on beds 18 inches wide. 



