Balata and the Balata Industry. 205 
weather it takes a week or more. The sheets are about 
a quarter of an inch thick, entire, and the size the square 
of the box. The outer side, from oxidation, is a dark 
mahogany colour, the under, of course, is raw and white. 
As it is lifted, it is thrown, the dry side in, over the hori- 
zontal bar or line which is stretched above each row of 
boxes for the purpose, to drip. Here it hangs for a few 
days till the raw side has also become dry and hard. In 
this state the balata is supple, but made into a thick 
mass it is hard and inelastic when dry. The sheets are 
all about the same thickness, but vary in weight with the 
sizes of the boxes in which they were dried. The smallest 
are about 2lbs. After the first sheet has been removed, 
the new surface exposed dries in like manner, when it is 
taken off and treated like the previous one, and the pro- 
cess is repeated till the box is empty. Drying is a slow 
and tedious operation, especially in wet weather, for the 
skin when formed on the surface is so impervious as al- 
most to prevent further evaporation. Then, if rain is 
prolonged week after week as sometimes occurs, the 
half-dried material mildews a good deal. If rain gets 
into the trays it delays the operation still more. After 
the sheets have hardened hanging over the trays 
they are removed to make room for the next lot, and 
hung up in a room or loft to finish drying. As the dry 
balata accumulates, it is kept carefully under lock and 
key, till there is enough, — three or four hundred-weight, 
to send a boat with it to the grant-holder in town ; who 
ships it to market pressed in barrels or puncheons. The 
milk is all dried now, as I have described , by evapora- 
tion under exposure to the air, but some years ago, pre- 
cipitation by spirits of wine, alum, rennet, &C, was 
