it is to collect it usually cut down a number of
trees, almost at random, before they find one that contains a sufficient
quantity to repay their labour, although always assisted in their
research by a professional conjurer, whose skill must be chiefly employed
in concealing or accounting for his own mistakes. It is said that not a
tenth part of the number felled is productive either of camphor or of
camphor-oil (meniak kapur), although the latter is less rare; and that
parties of men are sometimes engaged for two or three months together in
the forests, with very precarious success. This scarcity tends to enhance
the price. The tree when cut down is divided transversely into several
blocks, and these again are split with wedges into small pieces, from the
interstices of which the camphor, if any there be, is extracted. That
which comes away readily in large flakes, almost transparent, is esteemed
the prime sort or head; the smaller, clean pieces are considered as
belly, and the minute particles, chiefly scraped from the wood, and often
mixed with it, are called foot; according to the customary terms adopted
in the assortment of drugs. The mode of separating it from these and
other impurities is by steeping and washing it in water, and sometimes
with the aid of soap. It is then passed through sieves or screens of
different apertures in order to make the assortment, so far as that
depends upon the size of the grains; but much of the selection is also
made by hand, and particular care is taken to distinguish from the more
genuine kinds that which is produced by an artificial concretion of the
essential oil.

CAMPHOR OIL.

The inquiries I formerly made on the subject (not having been myself in
the district where the tree grows) led me to believe with confidence that
the oil and the dry crystallized resin were not procured from the same
individual tree; but in this I was first undeceived by Mr. R. Maidman,
who in June 1788 wrote to me from Tappanuli, where he was resident, to
the following effect:

I beg your acceptance of a piece of camphor-wood, the genuine quality of
which I can answer for, being cut by one of my own people, who was
employed in making charcoal, of which the best for smiths' work is made
from this wood. On cutting deep into a pretty large tree the fine oil
suddenly gushed out and was lost for want of a receiver. He felled the
tree, and, having split it, brought me three or four catties (four or
five po