Productions of Boutan and Thibet. 
107 
AS Lac is the produce of, and a Aaple article of commerce in 
Aflam, a country bordering on and much connected with Thi- 
bet, fome account of it may not be an improper fupplement. 
to the above remarks. 
Lac is, ftriCtly fpeaking, neither a gummy nor reiinous fub« 
fiance, though it has fome properties in common to both. 
Gums are foluble in water, and refins in fpirits ; lac admits of 
a very difficult union with either, without the mediation of 
fome other agent. * , : 
Lac is known in Europe by the different appellations of 
ftick lac, feed lac, and ffiell lac. The firft is the lac in pretty 
confiderable lumps, with much of the woody parts of the 
branches on which it is formed adhering to it. Seed lac is only 
the flick lac broke into fmall pieces, garbled, and appearing in a 
granulated form. Shell lac is the purified lac, by a very Ample 
procefs to be mentioned afterward. 
Many vague and unauthenticated reports concerning lac have 
reached the public ; and though amongft the multiplicity of ac- 
counts the true hiftory of this fubftance has been nearly hit on, 
little credit is given in Europe to any defcription of it hitherto 
publiflied. My obfervations, as far as they go, are the refult of 
what I have feen, from the lac on the tree, the progrefs of the in- 
fe<A now in my cuftody, and the information of a gentleman re- 
dding at Goalpara on the borders of Affam, who is perfectly 
verfant in the method of breeding the in left, inviting it to the 
tree, collecting the lac from the branches, and forming it into 
Iheli lac, in which ftate much of it is received from Aflam, 
and exported to Europe for various great and ufeful purpofes. 
The tree on which this fly moft commonly generates is known 
in Bengal by the name of the Biher tree, and is a fpecies of 
P 2 die 
