444 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [January 2, 1868. 
a height of 120 feet and a diameter at base of 4 to 
5 feet. Although to a great extent characteristic of 
British Guiana, it is found over an area extending 
from Jamaica to Venezuela and French Guiana ; but 
it is still an open question whether two species are 
not included under the term bullet (or bully) tree. 
Mr. G. S. Jenman, the Gjvernment Botanist of the 
Colony, says in a report, dated 1885: — "The ver- 
nacular name appears to be applied to two species or 
sub-species, which are united by Griseback in his Flora 
of the British West Indies. Youug plants of Mimusops 
ylobosa of Jamaica and Trinidad growing in their 
gardens, seem to be distinct from the Guiana type." 
Jenman in his report* (Demerara Royal Gazette 
Office, 1885) gives interesting and valuable particulars 
regarding the bullet forests and the collection of the 
material. In speaking of the extensive bullet-tree 
district, that extends from the Canje to the Corentine 
River, he says : — " Since the days of the first colonisation 
of Berbice, it has been occupied by woodcutters ; and 
though so much timber has been got out during the 
last century, I found the bullet-tree more plentiful 
there than perhaps anywhere else on my journey." 
The population seem to be living in a condition 
approximating to one of peaceful anarchism, Jenman 
saying : — " The centre of the district is about 70 to 80 
miles from New Amsterdam, so that the inhabitants 
have very little outside intercourse. They live almost 
entirely to themselves ; there being no magistrate or 
doctor or other official on the River. ... At 
Baraccara there is a Presbyterian Mission Station, 
with a resident schoolmaster ; this is visited three 
or four times a year by a minister. The children 
assemble on Monday at school, and remain in the 
neighbourhood with friends till Friday, when they 
return to their homes. The schoolmaster having been 
a dispenser formerly, prescribes for the ailments of 
the children; the older people depending chiefly on 
their 'bush' remedies." 
There seems to be much misunderstanding about 
the relative values of the gutta from the bullet-tree 
and that from other sources, and it is very desirable 
that certain injurious misunderstandings regarding the 
matter should be cleared up. That, as a general thing, 
the crude gutta-percha from British Guiana possesses 
a greater use-value than the average crude gutta 
from other source?, I regard as certain and established, 
and I am inclined to attribute this largely to the higher 
moral character of the people who collect it ; this 
higher moral character bringing about a corresponding 
care to deal intelligently and honestly with the 
materia], and an obviation of those adulterations which 
give the manufacturer so much trouble, and which 
often seriously injure his machine'y. It is because I 
take this view, that I quote what Jenman has written 
about the social condition of the people of the 
Baraccara district. 
Admitting the use-value of the product to be above 
the average of crude gutta, the question arises how 
it is that, excepting when sold to the actual customor, 
it has often, and perhaps generally, realised a far 
lower price than it should do on its merits. 
The reason is, as far as I can gather, that a notion 
exists that balata is a distinct material, that it is 
not gutta-percha, but a material having qualities 
between gutta-percha and India-rubber, a notion for 
which Dr. Hugo Miiller is principally responsible. In 
my Lectures on the " India-rubber and Gutta-Percha 
Industries," published in 1880 by the Society of Arts, 
I ni'-ri-ly alluded to balata by saying, " The Suuth 
Ameiican bully-tree has, of late years, afforded a 
considerable supply of an excellent quality of gutta- 
percha which passes under the name of ' balata.' " 
Previously to writing this I had quite satisfied myself 
of the rial identity of the so-called balata with the 
ordinary gutta-percha of commerce, and I thought it 
quite sufficient to merely allude to balata as "an 
excellent quality of gutta-percha." But so great is 
the vitality of the old, and as I distinctly contend, 
erroneous notion, that Jenman commeuces his report 
on the nature of balata by this statement: "Balata 
*See India- liubbar Journal, June and July 1886, 
is intermediate in character between the India-rubber 
and gutta-percha. It combines the qualities of both, 
and is said to be as good as the best combination 
of these materials that can be made. " Jenman, 
however, is probably not to blame, as he takes his 
cue from a chemist of such high repute as Dr. 
Hugo Miiller, who, in a report on balata from British 
Guiana, made at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Hooker, 
and presented to Government, says, " It seems that 
balata is treated by manufacturers simply as a supe- 
rior kind of gutta-percha, and therefore its name 
disappears when manufactured. Nevertheless, balata 
is distinctly different from gutta-percha, and this is 
especially manifest in some of its physical properties; 
for instance, it is somewhat softer at ordinary tem- 
peratures, and not so rigid in the cold. In one respect, 
balata shows a very marked and important differ- 
ence from gutta-percha, and that is in its behaviour 
under the influence of the atmosphere ; whilst gutta- 
percha, when exposed to light and air, soon becomes 
altered on the surface, and changed into a brittle 
resinous substance, into which the whole of the 
mass is converted in the course of time. Balata, on 
the other hand, is but slowly acted upon under 
these circumstances. I enclose a piece of balata tissue 
which has now been in my possession quite six 
years, and it is still supple and coherent. A similar 
piece of gutta-percha tissue would have long before 
now become entirely converted into a brittle resin." 
To begin with, Dr. Hugo Miiller is quite mistaken 
when he says that " Balata is somewhat softer 
than gutta-percha at ordinary temperatures, and 
not so rigid in the cold." In so far as any given 
sample of gutta-percha has been carefully collected 
and well preserved from the air, will it contain 
more of the plastic principle which has a composi- 
tion corresponding to the formula C10H16, and also 
more of a volatile, oily, and odorous principle which 
appears to he metameric with the plastic principle, 
and these are the circumstances which influence 
the hardness or softness, not whether the sample 
has been taken from a tree of the order Sapotacea 
in British Guiana, or from a tree of the same 
order in an island of the Malayan Archipelago. 
Gutta-percha, as imported from the Malay islands, 
often contains 20 to 25 per cent of a nearly use- 
less oxidised product (0|oH|6) 2O removable by very 
patient treatment with hot alcohol ; and such a 
gutta will certainly be much harder and less supple 
than a carefully collected sample ; but at the same 
time it will be correspondingly far on the road to 
that destruction by oxidation which all gutta tends 
towards. 
"With regard to Dr. Miiller's contention that 
balata resists oxidation better than gutta-percha, ani 
his illustration of this from the fact that a sample 
of balata tissue remained sound for six years, while 
gutta-percha would long before have become entirely 
converted into a brittle resin, I may say that this 
seems to show that Dr. Miiller is hardly aware 
of the fact that although the nature of the decay 
of gutta by oxidation is well understood, the exact 
conditions under which it oxidises are not by any 
means clear at present. A sample of gutta-percha 
may decay to the dusty stage (O10H16O,} in one 
year, or the tissue may remain sound for twelve 
years or more. To illustrate th s point, I may quota 
from my lectures, published in 1880: — 
" When submerged in water, or in any way pro- 
tected from the action of air and light, gutta-percha 
has little or no tendency to change ; while, on the 
other hand, constant exposure to light, together 
with alternating conditions of dryness and dampness, 
is most unfavourable to its well-being. The products 
formed by its oxidation are of a resinous nature, us 
in the case of caoutchouc ; one of the most notable 
of these being a body resembling Spiller's caoutchouc 
resin, and containing 27 - 9 per cent of oxygen. It 
occasionally happens that samples of gutta are met 
with which resist decay in an extraordinary manner 
Here, for example, is a sample of thread which Mr. 
Walter Hancock has had in his possession for over 
twenty years, and yos will note that it is tough 
