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how one is to avoid the use of a very large number of collecting 
tins, but there is no difficulty about the coagulating plates. 
Writers do not seem to have understood that these plates and the 
resultant form of biscuits have only been used because they could 
be easily got at the nearest shop, and it would be just as easy to 
use plates of any size or shape. It is a mere matter of getting 
the enamel plates made to suit requirements. 
Pozelina and Seringuina are two inventions of rubber 
explorers in South America. They are chemical preparations 
tor retarding the coagulation of latex so that it may be brought 
in a liquid state to the factory. Formaline, as all planters know, 
does this work yell enough, and is about as cheap as Pozelina. 
Neither of the two new preparations have, as far as I know, been 
introduced to this Country }'et. 
COAGULATING RAMBONG. 
To The Editor, 
The “ Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits Settlements and 
Federated Malay States.” 
Coagulation of the Latex of Ficus Elastica. 
Sir, 
I noticed in an article on the above subject in your 
estimable Journal of January last, that Mr. P. J. Burgess makes 
a statement that Ficus Elastica latex refuses to coagulate, and 
that he has devised a method of churning it up with a 2 p.c. 
solution of tannic acid in the proportion 5 parts of solution to 95 
latex. He also states that the Ficus Elastica yields an abundant 
.atex which can be easily collected and which is quite liquid and, 
remains so an indefinite time. 
It may, perhaps, interest your readers to know the experience 
of one who has tapped and watched the tapping of Ficus Elastica 
trees for the last three years in the Government Plantations of 
Charduar and Kulsi in Assam, where the latex of Ficus Elastica 
by no means remains liquid for long. The cuts are made by a 
V -shaped chisel or gouge devised by Mr. D. P. Copeland, 
Deputy Conservator of Forests, they are made at right angles 
more or less to the line of growth of the stem, aerial root, or 
branch, at one and a half feet apart, half round the trunk, 
aerial root, or branch, that may be tapped. Cuts made vertically 
to the line of growth do not yield so much rubber for a similar 
length of cut as those made horizontally. Endeavours are made 
