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LAURUS CAMPHORA. 
supporting round anthers ; the inner filaments are supplied at the 
base with two round glands ; the germen is roundish ; style simple, 
about the length of the filaments, and terminated by an obtuse 
stigma ; the fruit resembles that of the cinnamon, is a red oval berry 
seated in a small yellow cup, supported in pairs on a long footstalk; 
every part of this tree is strongly impregnated with the well-known 
odour of camphor. 
It was for a considerable time supposed, that the camphor brought 
into Europe from Borneo and Sumatra, was the exclusive produce of 
the Laurus Camphora ; Mr. Colebrooke however detected this 
error, and ascertained that the camphor brought from those places, 
which was in fact the greater part of the camphor imported into 
Europe, was obtained from the Dryobalanops Camphora, (which we 
have described in the preceding article.) 
From the Laurus Camphora, camphor is obtained by distilla- 
tion ; for this purpose the roots and smaller branches are cut into 
chips, which are suspended in a net, and placed within an iron pot 
or still, the bottom of which is covered with water, and an earthen 
head fitted to it : the water being set boiling, the steam penetrates 
the contents of the net, and the camphor being thus sublimated 
rises into the capital, where it is allowed to concrete on rice straws. 
The camphor thus obtained is by no means so pure or so valuable 
as that obtained from the Dryobalanops. We are told by the Abbe 
Grosier that the laurel camphor tree grows to an immense size in 
Chi na, and he describes the process used by the Chinese for obtain- 
ing the drug as follows : " They take some branches fresh from the 
tree, chop them very small, and leave them steeping for three days 
in spring water, when they are put into a kettle and boiled for a 
certain time, during which they keep continually stirring them with 
a willow stick. This process is continued until the sap of the chips 
is found to adhere to the stick in the form of a white frost ; they 
then strain the whole, and throw away the dregs and refuse. The 
liquor thus obtained is poured gently into a new earthen basin, well 
varnished, where it is suffered to remain one night; the next 
morning the crude camphor is found coagulated in a solid mass. 
To purify this crude substance they procure some earth from an old 
earthen wall, which being reduced to a very fine powder, is put into 
the bottom of a basin made of red copper, over this layer of earth 
a layer of camphor is spread, and so on alternately for four layers ; 
the last stratum, which is of very fine earth, they cover with penny- 
royal leaves, and over the whole place another basin, luting the 
brims with a kind of red earth. The mass is then submitted to the 
