268 
Indian Forest Records. 
[VoL. I. 
(Cbuiese territory), where the average annual output is between four to 
five thousand vis. The trees also grow in Keng Heng State (Mong 
Nyen district), but the method of extraction is imperfectly known. 
An attempt is being made to get a few men from Mong liai to teach the 
villagers of Mong Nyen. 
“In Mong Hai the leaves of the trees are placed in a bamboo woven 
cylinder supported by bamboo batons a few inches from the bottom. 
The cylinder is placed in a cauldron filled with water which is kept boiling. 
On the top of the cylinder rests a similar cauldron filled with cold water, 
which is baled out frequently and replenished so as to keep the tem- 
perature as low as possible. The steam rising through the leaves con- 
denses in the cold cauldron and leaves the camphor crystals on the 
bottom of the same. The deposits are removed three or four times a 
day and the article of commerce exported through Keng Heng to 
Burma.” (See Plate II.) 
Review of the above and a proposal to manufacture Ngai 
j Camphor in Burma. 
It will be seen that the descriptions by different writers given in the 
last chapter of the Chinese method of manufacturing the ngai camphor 
are almost identical, as regards the principle and the details of the process. 
It appears that the camphor industry in Hainan does not rest on anv 
scientific and organised basis, and to manufacture the small quantity of 
the camphor (40 — 50 lbs. a day), which Hainan produces, the people have 
to go through an amount of trouble and labour quite disproportionate 
to the value of the meagre quantity produced. This is one among many 
illustrations of the fact that the Asiatic is of an intensely conservative 
cast of mind, for, w'ere it not the case and were the people enterprising, a 
single individual with the aid of a capacious efficient still could turn out 
in a single day the quantity of the camphor which the whole of Hainan 
produces in the same time. It is thus clear that an attempt to investigate 
the subject of camphor distillation with a view to improve the method 
of manufacture is of vast industrial importance. 
There exists no doubt now as to the identity of the plant from which 
the Chinese mamifacturer extracts the ngai camphor. This plant, known 
to the botanist as Blumea halsamifcra, has been known to grow more 
abundantly in Burma than elsewhere, and if the Chinese can manufac- 
ture camphor from it, there appears no reason why its abundance in 
Burma should not be utilized and an organised camphor industry started 
throughout the province. It should be mentioned here that Dr. Mason 
