220 TlMEHRI. 
occupy, in the course of time, their places. Carry this 
on for a few generations, cutting trees of all ages, and 
nature will keep pace for the extermination, if it be 
carried on long enough, of the particular species. 
Under adulteration, I mentioned that the milk of other 
plants than the bullet-tree was sometimes collected and 
mixed with the balata milk. About three of those plants 
I gathered some information. They are Touckpong,* the 
discovery of which as a valuable rubber tree I recorded 
in my last Hevea report ; Bartaballi ; and a Bushropc, 
for which the collectors were unable to give me any spe- 
cific name. 
Two varieties of the Touckpong I find generally and 
rather plentifully distributed throughout the region 
which I traversed on this journey. From one side of 
the colony to the other these seem to be very uniformly 
* With regard to the spelling of this word I subjoin the following 
interesting note extracted from a letter from Mr. im Thurn on the sub- 
ject : — " As regards spelling touckpong, I do not understand in what 
special place you have just seen the word written tepong by me ; but 
will admit that there is a considerable difficulty about the spellfng of the 
word. The facts of the case as far as I am concerned are these. — I have 
very often now heard the Indians pronounce the word ; and I am myself 
satisfied that the first syllable is one of the innumerable cases in the 
Guiana languages of what is called an ' explosive.' That is to say there 
is a T sound brought out uttered with considerable and marked explo- 
sion, and this constitutes the whole syllable. The best way to write 
it is probably this — t'pong. I may add, that I made Jeffrey [the Indian 
from whom I got the same] repeat the word many times for me. As an 
example of a similar word, take Scapi ( = Essequebo) ; this is really 
E'sscapi : and I believe that our word Essequibo was simply the first 
explorer's attempt at the Indian word. Their hearing of the word being 
»mewhat affected by the knowledge of the then well-known (Spanish) 
name in the West Indies, Essequibit." 
" Of course, the above only represents my impressions ; and I am far 
from sure that I am right." 
