631 



DEUGS, JfAECOTICS, ETC. 



The camphor of Sumatra is procured from the stem of a large 

 tree, Dryohalanops CampJiora^QoAohYOok; D. aromatica, Graertner. 

 It is secreted in crystalline masses naturally into cavities of the 

 wood. It supplies this camphor only after attaining a cousider- 

 ahle age. In its young state it yields, ho^Yever, by incision, a 

 pale yellow liquid, called the liquid camphor of Borneo and Su- 

 matra, '.vhich consists of resin and a volatile oil having a camphor- 

 ated odor. 



An account of this tree, and of the mode of procuring the pecu- 

 liar and high-priced camphor which it yields, is given by Dr. 

 Junghuhn, who has travelled lately in Sumatra, and Prof, De 

 Vriese, of Leyden, in the " Xederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief" 

 for 1851. An abstract of the memoir, translated into English by 

 Miss De Yriese, is pubhshed in "Hooker's Journal of Botany" 

 for Februar}^ and March 1852 : — 



The Dryobalanops is a gigantic tree, rising for fifty or even a hundred feet 

 above those which compose the chief mass of the forests where they grow, just 

 as the steeples of the churches appear above the roofs of the houses in a town. 

 The trunks of the full-grown trees are from 7 t3 10 feet in diameter at the very 

 base, and from o to 8 feet higher up ; they rise to the height of 100 or 130 feet, 

 and their ample crown is from 50 to 70 feet in diameter. The tree has a 

 limited range, being confined to the seaward slope of the mountains of south- 

 western Sumatra, most abundant on the lower slopes and the outlying hills of 

 the alluvial plain, and extending in latitude from Ideg. 10m. to 2deg. 20m. X., 

 and perhaps further to the north. Camphor oil occurs in all the trees, and is 

 most abundant in the younger branches and leaves. The solid camphor is found 

 only on the trunks of older trees, espec^'ally in fissures of the wood, and in 

 smaller quantity than is generally supposed. Colebrooke, and authors who have 

 copied from him, assert that camphor is found in the heart of the tree in such a 

 quantity as to fill a cavity of the thickness of a man's arm, and that a single 

 tree yields about eleven pounds. The price ot this camphor, which at Padang 

 sells for about 340 dollars per hundred weight, suffices to show that the account 

 is much exaggerated. The camphor occurs only in small fissures, from which 

 the natives, having felled the trees and split up the wood, scrape it oft" with 

 small splinters or with their nails. From the oldest and richest trees they 

 rarely collect more than two ounces. After a long siay in the woods, frequently 

 of three months, during which they may f^'ll a hundred trees, a party of thirty 

 persons rarely bring away more than 15 or 20 pounds of s- lid camphor, worth 

 from 20O to 250 dollars. The variety and price of this costly substance are 

 enhanced by a custom which has immemorially prevailed among the Battas, of 

 delaying the burial of every person who during his life had a claim to the title 

 of Eajah (of which each village has one) until some rice, sown on the day of 

 his death, has sprung up, grown and borne fruit. The corpse, till then kept 

 above ground among the living, is now, with these ears of rice, committed t 

 the earth, like the grain six months before ; and thus the hope is emblematically 

 expressed that, as a new life arises from the seed, so another life shall begin for 

 man after his death. Dui'ing this time the corpse is kept in the house, enclosed 

 in a coffin made of the hollowed trunk of a Durion, and the whole space 

 between the coffin and the body is filled with pounded camphor, for the purchase 

 of which the family of the deceased Eajah frequently impoverish themselves. 

 The camphor oil is collected by incisions at the base of the trunk, from which 

 the clear balsamic juice is very slowly discharged. 



In Sumatra the best camphor is obtained in a district called 

 Barus, and all good camphor bears that local name. It appears 

 that the tree is cut down to obtain the gum and that not in one 



