Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1875 — Gum-Copal. [ARTICLE]

Gum-Copal.

Capt. Elton, English Consul at Zanzibar, gives an account of a forest of gnmcopal trees standing a little back from the coast and away from the town. The name given to these trees by the natives is MH Sandarusi , but they are probably a species of Hymencea, of natural order Segumenaza (to which the peas and lo-cust-trees belong). The trees are of gigantic size, on the average measuring sixty feet in height after the upper branches were lopped off; four feet three inches in circumference at the base and two feet ten inches at the lowest branch, twenty-one feet from the ground. Hie gum is found in a liquid state, deposited between the bark and the wood. Wherever the tree happens to be injured there the gum collects in considerable quantities. It w(s also seen by Capt. Elton, in several instances, OB the tipper tide of the brands. Jr} qn» £fi*e a deposit TM

found at the foot of a tree where a de’ cayed branch had fallen. From this it seemed probable th\t where the trees have fallen to pieces from old age lam quantities of the gun may he found /Rosts of insects feed upon the MU Bandarusi. In one branch a family of ants had established a large nest behind a wall of the gum and were rapidly eating to the heart of the wood, while legions of wood-lice had found their way within the bark to the resinous deposit. Capt. Elton came to the conclusion that the ravages of these swarms of insects lead to the slow but sure destruction of the trees. When a tree has fallen a few years suffice to bury it under the shifting sands which cover the sienna-colored subsoil. The slaves accompanying Capt Elton stated that one could travel two days toward the interior before leaving the copal trees; hut, at the rate at which the clearing progresses, it will not be long ere the entire forest will be cat down. Gum-copal trees are found in Mexico, Brazil, Madagascar and India. The resin is said to have been originally brought from Mexico.