46 
would be very small and the work would be slow and so expensive, 
but it really does not entail so much labour as would appear, as 
the cut and fixing the cup done by two men experienced in the 
work takes a very short time. 
We found that the latex here coagulates more quickly than it 
does in the Amazons, probably on account of the greater heat dur- 
ing our late experiments, and to prevent this the man who fixes the 
cup puts a few drops of water in the bottom, which prevents its 
coagulating at once. The addition of water does not give much 
trouble in recovering the rubber even if by accident, as during a 
heavy rain storm, the* cups are filled. This occurred on one afternoon 
when during the tapping a violent shower diluted the milk to 
overflowing. The milk was strained and acidified by acetic acid, 
and though the water was in excessive proportion, on re-straining 
the liquid, it was found quite easy to recover the whole of the 
rubber. 
One attempt was made to prepare the rubber by smoking it in 
the Brazilian method, but as the apparatus was not satisfactory the 
result was not successful. In the later experiments the rubber 
was coagulated in enamelled plates with acetic acid as described 
in Mr. Arden’S paper. 
After M. BONNFXHAUX left, Mr. Machado continued experi- 
ments on a hundred trees tapping them each day, using sometimes 
the little axe, at others a chisel and mallet. The former is un- 
doubtedly the quicker instrument, but is apt to start the bark on 
either side of the cut; whether this will prove injurious to the tree 
or not remains to be seen. At the same time the axe makes a 
wound of the same size and shape each time and by getting an axe 
made of suitable size and with a cutting edge of the right form, a 
coolie can make fewer blunders in cutting, while with the mallet 
and chisel he is very apt to cut out too large a piece of bark, and 
so make a wound which takes longer to heal. 
It was observed that when the tree was beaten with the mallet 
in the vicinity of the cut but not hard enough to bruise the bark, 
the flow of latex appeared distinctly to increase. 
On March 4th, Mr. Machado commenced experimental tapping 
on 1 00 trees in a triangular plot of ground near the entrance of 
the Economic Gardens. The circumference of all the trees at four 
feet from the ground was 281 feet 7 inches. Average circumfer- 
ence per tree 2 feet 10 inches. The largest tree was 5 feet 1 inch 
in circumference, the smallest one foot 3 inches. The oldest trees 
here are about 15 years old, but many are seedlings of later date. 
At least 25 were under two feet in circumference and obviously 
young plants of 6 or 8 years. The trees are not quite ten feet apart. 
The soil is damp and low-lying and occasionally flooded. 
The trees were tapped at 6 o’clock in the mornings every day 
except Sunday, and one other day, and twice when the tapping 
was done in the afternoon. For the first five days each tree re- 
ceived one tap, i.e. a single cut, on the next four two each, and 
on two days 20 trees received ten cuts each. In the table append- 
ed it will be noticed that it took two days to call the latex, only 
