<A MONTHLY. I>o 
XXII. 
COLOMBO, AUGUST 1st, 190: 
No. 2. 
"THE ECONOMIC RESOURCES 
OF THE STRAITS SETTLEME3NTS 
AND THE MALAY PENINSULA. 
By H. N. Eidley Esq. 
^lE Cecil Clementi Smith presided, 
on the 16th December, at an 
illustrated lecture given at the 
Imperial Institute by Mr. H. N. 
Eidley. Director of the Botanic 
Gardens, Singapore, entitled 
" The Economic Eesources of 
the Straits Settlements and the 
Malay Peninsula.' 
Probably, said Mr, Ridley, no portion of the Empire 
was so little known to the English public as the 
Straits Settlements and. the attached Federated States. 
It was, however, one of the most thriving of the 
smaller colonies, and possessed in Singapore, the most 
important port in Eastern Asia. 
Its heavy rainfall, of over 100 inches annually, was 
evenly distributed throughout the year; so, unlike 
other tropical regions, there were no season. The 
trees, which were evergreen and for the most part 
bore flowers and fruits irregularly all the year round, 
grew with great rapidity ; consequently it had been 
found more .suitable to cultivate plants whose pro- 
duce was derived from the vegetative portion rather 
than from the fructifioative. The climate, though 
hot, was neither unpleasant nor unhealthy, and cases 
of sun-stroke were almost unknown. Uoolie labour on 
the estates was supplied by Japanese and Tamils ; 
the Chinese, though very industrious and invaluable 
when working for themselves in agriculture; com- 
merce, or mining, had not been found amenable to 
European methods of discipline. 
The greater part of the Malay Peninsula, which 
consisted of hills rising to about 7,000 feet altitude 
with more or less flat country running along the 
coast-line, was or until recently had been, covered 
with dense forests ; and the characteristic view from 
almost any of the hill tops at the present day was 
one of endless trees, of which thtre were several 
thousand kinds, although to the casual observer they 
seemed veiy similar. These produced excellent 
timber, both hard and soft woods suitable for all 
kinds of purposes, while some of them, ebony 
and other ornamental woods, were suitable for cabinet 
work. 
Among the trees of special interest Mr. Ridley men* 
tioned the camphor, not the Japanese camphor tree 
from which the camphor of commerce was now ob- 
tained, but a much larger one, belonging to a dif- 
ferent natural order, and from which camphor had 
originally been obtained some hundred of years be» 
fore the discovery of the Japanese tree. This Malay 
camphor was obtained from the hollows of the trees* 
but it was very scarce and far too expensive to come 
into the London market. It was sought by the 
Malays with quaint ceremonies, and generally used in 
magic and religious ceremonials by both the Malaya 
and the Chinese, 
Wood-oil was obtained from certain of the large 
trees by cutting a hole in the trunk about a foot 
across and six inches deep and lighting a fire there- 
in. This caused the oil to flow out, which was 
caught in tins and nsed as varnish. Owing, how- 
ever, to the death of the trees the supply of the 
oil had become so scanty that it seemed nearly to 
have disappeared from commerce. The sweet-scented 
incense gum, benzoin, was also obtained from one 
of the Malay forest trees, and formed the chief 
element in the incense used in churches. 
The most important of the Malay jungle pro- 
ducts, however, was gutta percha, without which the 
submarine telegraph cables could never have developed 
to their present importance. This tree, the Isonandra 
gutta, was confind to the Malay Peninsula, Suma- 
tra, Borneo, and the islands of the immediate neigh- 
bourhood. It was discovered in 1843, first being 
noticed on account of its property of becoming soft 
and easily moulded in hot water. Its high insnlat- 
ing powers, and resistance to sea-water, were sooa 
noticed, and it very shortly was in great demtud 
for electrical work, surgical instruments, and many 
other purposes. Tne tree was of very slow growth, 
but eventually attained great size, The gutta perchu 
