220 ON NATURAL HISTORY. 
where the Chinese pay for it per pound the price they sell 
their own camphor per quintal. 
For this reason I do not think the least quantity has ever 
been exported to France. Does the high price attached to it 
come from its purity as compared with crude camphor ? If this 
could be supposed, the Chinese would better appreciate our 
refined camphors, which have a much finer appearance but 
which they refuse to purchase when offered to them. Have 
the Chinese doctors, as has been vulgarly said, discovered cer- 
tain medicinal properties in the Malay camphor which does not 
exist in that produced by the laurus camphora ? It is hardly 
probable. The capur-barus does not seem to differ sensibly 
from ordinary camphor. It is more compact, it is true, perhaps 
of greater specific gravity and less volatility ; but all its char- 
acters connected with molecular arrangement are insufficient 
to attribute to it special properties. However, it has appeared 
worth while to the Minister Plenipotentiary in China to select 
some of our countrymen to prove, by direct analytic experiment, 
the difference that may exist between this camphor and the 
camphor employed in Europe, for which purpose we have pro- 
vided ourselves with a number of specimens of this substance. 
From what I have seen, the Chinese and Malays of Singapore 
and Malacca employ the capur-barus for frictions upon the 
eyelids, by passing over these parts a piece with as large a sur- 
face as possible, which explains why this camphor sells pro- 
portionally dear as its fragments are large or small. These 
frictions procure a momentary coolness, extremely agreeable ; 
and when the eye is fatigued with too much light, or prolonged 
exercise, it has the immediate effect of restoring its precision 
and clearness. The refined camphor of Europe employed in 
the same case, if my personal experience is to be relied on, has 
not this calnr ng property. A. D. 
