13S 
ON THE MYROSPEKMUM OF SONSONATE. 
in their place. The rags are then boiled in water in large jars, 
by which the balsam is detached, and, rising to the surface, is 
skimmed off and put into calabashes or bladders for sale. In this 
state the Indians bring it into Sonsonate. The merchants who 
purchase let it stand in barrels that the dirty water may separate, 
and afterwards strain it through a sieve to separate any pieces of 
rags, or other foreign bodies, which may be present. Usually 
a little pure water is added, and the balsam is put into jars for 
exportation at Acajutla. Sometimes it comes direct to Europe, 
at other times indirectly by Lima, Valparaiso or other parts of the 
Pacific, or by Belize or Honduras on the Atlantic side of Central 
America. The average production is about 25,000 lbs. per an- 
num. 
Mr. Wazsewiez tells me that the natives obtain this balsam 
from three species of Myrospermum, which he calls M. punctatum, 
M. pubescens, and M. myrtifolium, all of which he says grow on 
that coast, and are not distinguished by the natives. 
2. The Sonsonate or St. Salvador White Balsam. 
This substance is called, at Sonsonate, White Balsam {Balsamo 
bianco.) It is, I suspect, often confounded with the balsam of 
Tolu, for Mr. Klee, from Guatemala, by whom my sample w T as 
sent, says that he sends the white balsam as a sample of balsam of 
Tolu. Its properties, however, are entirely different to those of 
balsam of Tolu, which Ruiz calls white balsam. 
White Balsam is obtained at Sonsonate by pressure, without 
heat, from the interior of the fruit and seed. Mr. Wazsewiez, who, 
when in Central America, had assisted in procuring white balsam, 
described and showed me the method of preparing the fruit for 
the expression of the balsam. It consists in removing the wings, 
the epicarp, and the fibrous or woody portion of themesocarp. All 
these parts are readily separated by the fingers. The nucleus of 
the fruit, called at Sonsonate the pepita or seed, consisting of the 
internal portion of the mesocarp, the endocarp, and the seed, is then 
submitted to pressure. 
The expressed product, which is called white balsam, proba- 
bly consists of two distinct classes of substances, viz., the oleo-resi- 
*ious matter contained in the pericarp, and the fatty and other 
constituents of the seed. 
