Part III.] Puran Singh : Note on Manufr. of N gai Camphor. ^69 
is rather enthusiastic and over-sanguine in his forecast of the prospects 
of organising a camphor industry in Burma, for his statement, quoted in 
the opening paragraph of the last chapter, that Burma could supply 
from this particular source {Blumea halsamifera) half the world 
with camphor, appears to me to be unwarranted by the conditions 
under which a camphor manufactory would have to be run at the 
present day. No doubt the plant is very common in certain parts of 
Burma, but a factory requiring regular supplies of a few tons of this 
weed a month could not be kept working the whole year around, for a 
regular exploitation of the areas where it grows even very abundantly 
would exhaust the supply of the plant in a short time. A constant and 
regular supply of the raw material could not be maintained, unless we 
succeed in artificial cultivation of the plant ; but this question of the 
artificial growth of Blumea halsamifera D.C., though of considerable 
interest and importance, has not, up to the present, received much atten- 
tion. Thus a factory, as well as I can judge from enquiries made during 
my recent tour in Burma, depending upon the natural supply of the 
weed alone, could only be kept w’orking from three to four months a year. 
But this fact notwithstanding, it is possible to make camphor distillation 
in Burma a profitable concern by judicious and intelligent action on the 
part of the Forest Department, even before we have successfully 
attacked the problem of the artificial eultivatioTi of the camphor-yielding 
plant. 
Up to this time nowhere in Burma, as erroneously mentioned by 
some of the writers quoted in the last chapter, has ngai camphor been 
manufactured on any scale from Blumea halsamifera. So far 
as I have been able to gather during my recent tour in Burma, it seems 
that the only use that the Burmans and the Shans make of the plant 
is as a medicine by making a decoction of it with boiling-hot water. 
This decoction is administered by the Burman physicians for female 
complaints, and for colds and headache. As already stated, the Chinese, 
it is believed, jealously guard as secrets the name of the camphor-yield- 
ing plant and some details of their distillation process ; and the fact 
that Mr. Gilman was deceived by the Chinese as to the plant from which 
they extracted the camphor \vould appear to support this belief {vide 
Dr. A. Henry to Royal Gardens, Kew, loc. cit., and also page 267 above). 
It is, therefore, most probable that although most of the information 
regarding the ngai camphor and its preparation, which has been collected 
from the Chinese and other sources, is definite and correct, there yet 
remain to be brought to light some minor but essential details which 
