98 THE SUPPLY OF RESIN. 
varieties, known in commerce as the black, yellow, and white. The 
two first are commonly used in the manufacture of soaps, and for 
glazing a soft earthenware made in these Provinces. The last i3 used 
more in ceremonials and for fumigating apartments, as it has the odour 
■of incense, much esteemed by the natives. 
The price varies from %\d. to 7d. per lb., according to its colour and 
purity. 
The whole country is an inexhaustible variety of trees producing 
these resinous gums, as well as of oils ; but labour is expensive and 
difficult to be obtained, and the greater value of other wild products 
have and will prevent the increase of the supply of resin in this 
district until its price should equal the remuneration from other pro- 
ducts. 
This would seem impossible, as the same labour is required to 
extract an arroba of resin, whose highest price is 7 milreis, as an arroba 
of rubber, worth 28 milreis. 
Under this state of things, I am unable to furnish any reliable sug- 
gestion for the increase of its production. 
Untold riches are thus buried in vast forests, from the great value of 
the rubber crop, and will so remain until a more general supply of this 
article releases the small amount of labour for the pursuit of other pro- 
ducts. Kesinous extracts would then be produced in immense quanti- 
ties in these districts. 
Panama. — A small quantity of resin is actually extracted from 
some of the woods on the Isthmus, but not in sufficient quantity to form 
an article of exportation, or in fact for the local consumption, resin being 
imported to supply the deficiency. 
Egypt. — Mr. Acting Consul Ayrton writes from Cairo : — 
No resin is produced in Egypt. 
Of analogous substances (taking resin as of the class of hydro- 
carbons) petroleum is found at a place called Gebel Zeit (Oil Mountain), 
near the entrance of the Gulf of Suez, on the Egyptian shore. The 
late M. Barbaroux, a French subject, to whom his late Highness Said 
Pasha had conceded the privilege of working the springs whence the 
petroleum issues, informed me that the yield was so small as scarcely to 
defray the expense of obtaining it. It is, however, possible that a 
larger supply might be procurable with larger and better appliances 
than those available to M. Barbaroux. 
About Hodeida (the seat of government, and great coffee port of 
Yemen) a vegetable tar is produced. I only know it as used for mark- 
ing the coffee bales. But were a demand raised for it, the quantity pro- 
curable might be found larger than at present. 
France. — Report by Consul-General Churchill, Algeria. — The pro- 
vince of Algiers, of the three that constitute this important colony, is 
the only one in which the pine tree grows abundantly. There are 
upwards of 160,000 acres of land in this province covered with the pine 
