Occasional Notes. 149 
poses, have been received by almost every merchant in 
the colony, one having even received a single order 
for 300 tons to be delivered within a year. In conse- 
quence of this demand it is no uncommon thing for men 
thrown out of other employment, especially overseers, 
to run away into the bush in the hope of making, at 
least, a livelihood and perhaps, a fortune by collecting 
this much desired article. It may, therefore, be as well 
to say, that the gum exists only in very limited quan- 
tities and in scattered districts ; that it is extremely im- 
probable that 300, or even 30 tons have been, or could 
have been collected from the day when for the first time 
this gum was sold in Guiana ; and that as the com- 
paratively small quantity which is now being found is 
certainly the product of an indefinitely long period when 
its value was unknown, and its growth must be extremely 
slow, it is certain that the small supply will soon be ex- 
hausted. Therefore we offer advice : to collectors here, 
that they should not build many or large castles of locust 
gum in the «*air ; and to buyers outside the colony, that 
they should hope neither for any considerable increase in 
the quantity above that now obtainable, nor should they 
expect even this limited supply to be of long duration. 
Latirite, a new Sugar. — The following account of 
this substance is taken from the official Report for 1881, 
of Mr. E. E. H. FRANCIS, F.C.S., our Government Ana- 
lytical Chemist : — 
" A complete investigation is also being- made into the nature and pro- 
perties of a new sugar or saccharoid yielded by the avocado-pear tree, 
isomeric with mannite, and discovered by me a short time before leaving 
Trinidad for this colony. This substance, which I have provisionally 
named Laurite, has the same composition as mannite, the sugar of 
