October, 1911.] 



293 



Saps and Exudations. 



He had an exaggerated idea of its value, 

 however. The samples are before me 

 as I write. They are plastic, brownish 

 in colour, and very dense, and show but 

 little elasticity. They look very much 

 like a low-grade gutta. 1 so wrote him, 

 and his reply is certainly optimistic. I 

 append it as it has a certain value. 



" Your letter of recent date received 

 to-day, and 1 most certainly do rot agree 

 with your deductions. Brittle balata, 

 or as it is sometimes called bastard 

 balata, is altogether different from the 

 recognized balata of commerce. Brittle 

 balata is, in my long and experienced 

 opinion, a caoutchouc, whereas the 

 balata of commerce is a gum. My sam- 

 ples are from the milk or latex of 

 caoutchouc trees which grow in enor- 

 mous numbers throughout the whole of 

 tropical and subtropical America, hence 

 the rubbers from them can be regularly 

 shipped in enormous quantities. 



" I send you five samples made from 

 caoutchoucs selected from our forest 

 trees by very experienced bleeders. 

 These five samples are the same as sent 

 to Europe, and which have been well 

 received, and have been valued at prices 

 that will, I think, satifactorily recoup us. 



"I believe we have an assured trade 

 with both England and Germany, and 

 perhaps also with Denmark, so I cannot 

 see how we should fail with America, 

 as your letter so manifestly indicates. 



" As before stated, these caoutchoucs 

 can be easily obtained from trees that 

 are enormously abundant, so that the 

 rubbers from them should naturally be 

 supplied at a lower price than the gener- 

 ality of such articles are. Therefore, 

 we can ship to America if only the prices 

 will allow us, and if only we can find 

 trustworthy people to ship to, because 

 it is we alone who are shipping, and it 

 is we alone who are to be afterwards 

 paid for articles that only the market 

 requires, therefore we wish to know 

 the present approximate market price 

 of the samples sent you. 



"Although the enclosed samples are 

 small, they are quite large enough for 

 any real expert or for any capable manu- 

 facturer to judge by. 



" As soon as our new factory is started, 

 we hope to turn out a very large supply 

 and later on we may have to establish 

 branches in Trinidad, Brazil and Vene- 

 zuela." 



Back in 1883 and again in 1885 Jenman 

 sent in a voluminous report concerning 

 the " gutta " trees in the colony. It was 

 characterised by the direct style that 

 all his communications show, and in 

 pite of the fact that it was published 



as a dignified Government utterance, is 

 fascinating reading. He briefly sketches 

 the Indians and the bush negros, and 

 an enthusiastic botanist, recognized 

 and noted hundreds of tropical trees, 

 vines and plants, as he journeyed into 

 the forest in his search for the "bully" 

 tree. Bits of tropical experience crop 

 up, as for example, the presence on the 

 Savannahs of weree-tveree fly that just 

 as soon as the perspiration starts swarm 

 over the face and creep into the eyes. 

 The engineers on the Madeira-Mamore 

 Railway know all about them, and it 

 may comfort them to know that Jenman, 

 twenty-six years ago, spoke of them only 

 as a trifling annoyance, as he did also of 

 the Cabowroo (known in Central Amer- 

 ica as the Rodador). His examination of 

 the balata bark was very thorough and 

 so understandable that it is worth quot- 

 ing verbatim. 



" If a piece of partly dry bark be 

 examined it presents (without going out 

 into the details of structure) three pri- 

 mary layers. The outer layer is dark 

 brown, hard and dry ; the next, which is 

 usually much thicker, is rather spongy in 

 tissue and lactiferous and of a reddish 

 raw beef colour ; the inner one is thin, 

 more ligneous, a brown wood colour and 

 with fewer lactiferous vessels. The outer 

 layer is subdivided into several very 

 thin layers. They are of two kinds, and 

 differ much in the density of their cells. 

 They alternate a dark brown and pale 

 gray. In young trees there are few, but 

 they increase with age. I have counted 

 as many as twelve of each kind in the 

 bark of a large tree. The second primary 

 layer is that which yields the balata 

 milk, though the inner, more ligneous 

 layer is not devoid of it. These two 

 layers are homogeneous and adherent 

 to the wood until it is dry. The longi- 

 tudinal fissures, which I have mentioned 

 as a prominent external characteristic 

 of the bark, are not absolute divisions 

 of the cortical tissue (or at least they 

 only become so eventually as the layers 

 peel off), for where they occur the outer 

 layer dips into the thick lactiferous layer 

 and so preserves its continuity. The 

 thin layers of the external primary 

 layer crack transversely in pieces an 

 inch or two long, and by lateral contrac- 

 tion eventually scale off." 



He had received a long letter from Sir 

 Everard im Thurn, who had penetrated 

 to many remote places in the colony, 

 in which it was stated that many of 

 the balata gatherers cut the tree 

 down to extract the milk. Jenman, as 

 servant of the Government, was anxious 

 to protect the property of the Crown, 

 and hunted industriously for such 



