490 
DAMARS. 
The following article on local Damars will be read with interest. 
These resins are produced by a number of the large Dipterocarpous 
trees, natives of the Malay peninsula. They are usually collected by 
natives searching in the forests for spots where old trees have 
decayed or where masses of the resin are to be found lying in the soil, 
having drbpped from the trees. Locally the substance is chiefly used 
for da mar torches, caulking boats, etc. In the home trade they find 
their way into varnishes. 
The most valuable are the transparent resins such as those from 
the Balanocarpi , known as Penak or Chengei and the Mata Kuching 
Damar from Hopeas. The resins from Shoreas are usually opaque, 
yellowish or brownish, and rather chalky. The black resins often in 
long pipes often met with in the forests are usually the produce of 
some species of Canarium ( Burseraceae). They are apparently not 
much valued on account of their dark colour. Some years ago an 
attempt was made to start a Damar industry near Raub by tapping 
Balanocarpus maximus but we have not heard more of this movement. 
Bulletin VI. 138), and Mr. Moorhouse published an account of Damar 
tapping in Bulletin IV., p. 124 (See also Damars and wood oils by H. 
N. Ridley, Journ. Roy. As. Soc No. 34, p. 89J. 
Manila Copal or Almaciga is obtained from the coniferous tree 
Agathis alba or Damar a alba ■ Some account of this is given by Mr. 
Foxworthy in the Philippine Journal of Science, May 1910 p. 173. 
The resin found in hard lumps in the forks of trees or in masses 
in the ground at the base, is collected by the Tagbuanas of 
Palawan. The tree also occurs it appears, in Borneo, on Mt. Poe, 
Sarawak, where Beccari found the resin at the foot of the tree. 
It is collected by the Dyaks, and Beccari gives the name of Dammar 
Daghin (Damar Daging) to it. This name, however, is usually 
applied to the resin of one of the Shoreas. Mr. Foxworthy found 
the Land Dyaks collecting it there under the name of Damar 
Bindang. They ascended the tree by a ladder of pegs driven into it 
and tying saplings thereto and by this means collected the resin on 
the branches. Warburg (Monsuni a i 182-185) gives the Damara of 
the Malay Peninsula as a different species under the^ name of 
Dhomboiaalis. It is abundant and of large size on the Taiping hills 
and on Penang hill and produces much turpentine, but this does not 
seem to set into the clear hard blocks which are obtained from Manila. 
I have seen a stream of the turpentine flowing across the path up the 
Taiping hills where a root had been cut. The Malays call it Damar 
minyak, oil damar which rather impies, that it does not set hard. 
Manila Copal is much valued and it would be worth while investigat- 
ing our Damara trees to see if a similar product not be obtained. 
