38

V.

THE GOLD OF LIMONG.

By Mr. MACDONALD, with a Specimen of Gold.

["Asiatic Researches," vol. i. (Calcutta, 1788), p. 336 ff.]

THE Country of Limong,' on the island of Sumatra, immediately contiguous to the Presidency of Fort Marlbrough, and between seventy and eighty miles inland, produces the finest gold and golddust on that island. The Limong gold merchants repair annually to Marlbrough for the purchase of opium and such other articles as they may be in want of, in exchange for which they give gold of so pure a nature as to contain little or no alloy. The gold is found sometimes in dust, and often lodged in a very hard stone. It is of a whitish colour, and resembles that in which the veins run in the gold mines of Tiltil in Chili. The gold is extracted by beating the compound mass in order to disengage it from the stone, which flies off in splinters and leaves the gold cleared of it. This is the mode used by a rude people, by which a part of the gold must be lost in the splinters of the stone, which fly off in beating the mass. They are totally ignorant of the advantage of grinding it to a gross powder, mixing it with quicksilver, and separating the earthen and stony particles from those of the gold by the action of a stream of water on this paste, carrying off the former and leaving the latter precipitated to the bottom by their greater weight. They are almost entirely ignorant of the principles of assaying and amalgamation, but are extremely expert in separating particles of foreign metals from gold-dust by a very superior acuteness of vision, no doubt arising from experience, and not a peculiar gift. They have people among them who are gold-cleaners by occupation. The gold is found in a species of earth composed of a clayish-red loam. On digging the earth it is found to consist of strata (under the loam of the surface commonly called soil) of irregular-shaped stones of a mouldering nature, mixed with a red clay, and hard pebbles mixed with a pale red clay of a more dense consistency than that of the first stratum. The first stratum extends to a depth of three feet and a half, and the second to somewhat less. The consistency under these strata is formed of either hard rock or of gravel nearly approaching to The gold is found mixed with a stone of a hard nature and

it.

1 [More correctly, Limun.]

capable of sustaining a polish. It is found near the surface, and generally in a soil freest from solid rock.

The merchants who bring the gold for sale are not themselves the finders or gatherers of it, but receive it for merchandize from the Malays inhabiting the interior parts of the country. native indolence of the Malay disposition prevents them from collecting more than is sufficient to supply the few and simple wants of a race of men as yet unenlightened by civilization and science, and ignorant of the full extent of the advantages of the country inhabited by them. We have not to this hour explored a country which, we have reason to suppose, produces more or as much gold as either Peru or Mexico. This may be attributed partly to the difficulties incident to the undertaking, and partly to a want of curiosity that, indulged, might have been productive of great national and private advantages. The roads leading to this golden country are almost impervious, affording only a scanty path to a single traveller, where whole nights must be passed in the open air, exposed to the malignant influence of a hostile climate, in a country infested by the most ferocious wild beasts. These are circumstances that have hitherto checked curiosity, but perseverance and contrived precaution will surmount the obstacles they furnish, and such discoveries might be made as would amply compensate for the difficulties leading to them. The goldmerchants who come from the neighbouring and less rich countries give us such accounts of the facility of procuring gold as border nearly on the marvellous, and would be altogether incredible if great quantities of that metal produced by them did not in a great measure evince the certainty of their accounts. I have seen an imperfect chart of a part of the interior country, made by an intelligent native on the scale of the rate of his walking, and from the respective situations of the sun in regard to his position. It contained a chain of what he called gold mines, extending in latitude, nearly, not much less than three degrees. This chart is in the possession of Mr. Miller, of the Council of Fort Marlbrough, who did me the favour of explaining it. After making allowances for the licence of a traveller, some credit may be given to this chart, more especially as we are well assured that that part of Sumatra produces large quantities of fine gold. The result of the whole is, that it would be a very laudable object to explore those rich countries, and to establish the working of gold mines in them, as it could be done under a certain prospect of advantage. The expense arising from clearing the country-procuring intelligence, making roads, establishing and forming posts of communication, and of employing professional men-would, undoubtedly, be at first very considerable, but the resulting advantages would defray these, and render it a matter of surprise that a measure attended with such obvious utility had not been adopted at an earlier period.

It is more than probable that Sumatra must have been the Ophir of Solomon's time. This conjecture derives no small force from the word Ophir's being really a Malay substantive of a compound sense, signifying a mountain containing gold. The natives have no oral or written tradition on the subject, excepting that the island has in former times afforded gold for exportation; whether to the eastward or westward remains an uncertainty. We have certain accounts that the vessels that imported this article were long detained, or did not return in much less than a year. It is therefore probable that they wintered, during the violence of the southwest monsoon, either at Ceylon or on the north-east coast, and completed their voyages during the moderate part of the other monsoon.1

VI.

ON THREE NATURAL PRODUCTIONS

OF SUMATRA.

By JOHN MACDONALD, Esq.

["Asiatic Researches," vol. iv. pp. 19-33.]

I. ON THE CAMPHOR OF SUMATRA.

In answer to some questions put to me by the President of the Asiatic Society, respecting camphor oil, I have the pleasure of giving the solution contained in the following short account. Camphor oil, one of the essential oils, is actually camphor before the operations of Nature on it have reduced it to the concrete form in which it is found in the tree. When Mr. Marsden composed his justly admired History of Sumatra, the prevalent opinion on this subject was, that the oil and the concreted camphor were never found in the same tree. I have the authority of a gentleman (Lieutenant Lewis), well informed on this subject from a residence of many years in the country producing the camphor, to differ from that generally accurate author, by saying that he has seen a tree, three-quarters of a mile from the sea, near Tappanooly, from which three catties (above three pounds) of camphor, and at the same time near two gallons of oil, had been

[See "Jaarboek van het mijnwezen in Nederlandsch Oost-Indië,” vol. i. of 1881, p. 91; "Midden-Sumatra," I. ii. p. 183 ff.; II. p. 151 ff.]

procured. If a tree be old and yield oil plentifully, the natives esteem these two circumstances sure indications of its containing a considerable quantity of camphor. Mr. Macquer, in his Chemical Dictionary, has remarked that the nitrous acid dissolves camphor without commotion, that the solution is clear and limpid, and that it is called camphor oil. This affords a proof that the formed camphor is produced from the oil by a natural operation of composition, the decomposition by means of the above solvent reducing the substance to its primary state previous to concretion. The Achinese are reckoned the best judges of camphor, and the oil they collect undergoes a process by distillation, leaving a residuum of inferior camphor. Trees of a certain age only yield camphor. It would seem that a certain time is requisite for maturing the oil to that state when its contained camphor becomes fit for being concreted by the heat of the sun acting on the tree and soil. The camphor-tree is one of the Enneandria monogynia of Linnæus,' and differs in a small variation in the form of the leaf from the Arbor Camphorifera Faponica, foliis laurinis, fructu parvo, calyce brevissimo. The tree very much resembles the bay in leaves. The trunk is thick, the bark of a brownish appearance, and the ramification strong, close, and extended. It is fond of a rich red loam tending to a blackish clay, mixed with a crumbling stone of the colour of marle. It grows principally on the N.W. side of Sumatra, from the line 3° N. nearly. The wood is useful for domestic purposes, being soft and easily worked. It is by many imagined that camphor is produced by a chemical process. This is a mistaken idea, farther than regards the inferior kind arising from the distillation of the oil. I shall give a brief account of the mode of obtaining and preparing it, as practised by the natives of Sumatra, from the time of the establishment of the English on the island. The Sumatrans, previous to their setting out in quest of camphor, assemble on the confines of the country they intend exploring, and discharge a variety of religious duties and ceremonies, calculated, in their opinion, to promote the future success of their undertaking. They enter the woods, and, from experience, soon distinguish such trees as contain camphor. They pierce them, and if they yield oil plentifully, it is presumed they contain concreted camphor, which is found in small whitish flakes, situated perpendicularly in regular veins in and near the centres of the trees. The tree is cut down, divided into junks, and carefully divested of its camphor. When the oil has been drawn off from young trees, the camphor which they afterwards afford is of a less valuable nature, and is termed belly or foot camphor, in proportion to the degree of affinity it bears to head, or the best sort. 1 [Dryobalanops Camphora Colebr. Filet, No. 7513, gives the indigenous name Simar bantaiyan. Others have Marabantayan, Simarabantayan.]

When brought for sale, it is repeatedly soaked and washed in soapy water, to separate from it all heterogeneous and sandy particles that may have adhered to it. When clean, it will sink in water, and be of a white, glossy, smooth appearance, tending to transparency. After it has been washed, it is passed through three sieves of differing textures, so as to be divided into head, belly, and foot camphor; certain proportions of each compose the chests made up for the China market, where they are sold for £350 sterling nearly. The capoor (a word of Arabic origin) *(a matee, or dead camphor, is carefully separated from the three divisions, by an acuteness of distinction acquired by the eye and hand from habit and attention, and being mixed with the imperfect kind mentioned above, is pounded in a mortar and distributed among proportional quantities of foot camphor. capoor-matee is sometimes procured by boiling down the thickest part of the oil, or by taking the sediment of the best oil after it has settled at least twenty-four hours. Camphor oil is found to be a sovereign remedy for strains, bruises, and other external pains, from its penetrating quality in entering the pores, and gently agitating the affected parts, so as to quicken the stagnated circulation. The internal (anodyne and diaphoretic) and the external (antispasmodic and sedative) virtues of camphor are well known. The oil is found to possess these in a certain degree, and to be useful in removing the painful spasms of the nerves and tendons by dissipating the surrounding acrid humours. When the oil is used, it must be formed into a liniment, as it would alone occasion pain, from its strength. The oil, applied to sores on horses, has been found very beneficial. In this case it ought to be mixed with the juice of tobacco. Sumatra affords annually from fifteen to twenty peculs (133 pounds each) of camphor, and more oil than there is at present a demand for. The Chinese purchase it; and it is not clearly ascertained whether they use it all in China, or make a factitious species of it, by admixture of Japanese camphor, for the Europe market: the latter is generally supposed. It is highly probable that the price of camphor will in process of time rise to an enormous degree, as one tree in three hundred is not found to contain camphor, and when found is immediately cut down; in consequence of which the plant must soon become scarce, and the produce proportionably dear. It is to be hoped that the oil will, in this event, be found by the faculty to possess all the useful qualities of this valuable medicine. I have the satisfaction of accompanying this paper with a specimen, though a small one, of the camphor-wood with a small quantity of the substance in it, the rest having evaporated from length of time. If this account should afford any information to

* Cáfúr in Arabic, and carpúr in Sanscrit.