A NEW RESIN-KAURI GUM.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 166, 7 September 1877, Page 7

A NEW RESIN-KAURI GUM.

We (< Scientific American ') have recently met with a new vegetable product of peculiar origin and properties, the classification of which for some time was vory puzzling until we made the acquaintance of a gentium. m who was quite conversant with its "tinnearance and sources. Hn at once pronounced it to be kauri gum, which is exported in some quantity from New Zealand. The physical properties of the gum were so different from those of nao-t resins that \vn were led to try some experiments with .it, which, though not entirely encouraging, may be here given to serve as a guide for thoso who choose to essay further trials of its usefulness from a photographic point of view. In appearance it is most like amber, which, also, in many other respects, it resembles. It is very similar to it in color, or one may say colors ; it is found in all the hues of amber, from the pale straw to light brown, and mingled also with cloudylooking masses like clouded amber. It breaks with a lustrous fracture in the same manner as amber, but it is not so tough, and is .consequently more fragile. Like amber, also, it is in a manner allied to fossil products ; for instead of being* collected from growing trees, it is dug' out of the ground on the site of old forests long laid low, and almost even with the ground — almost, but not quite, even ; for to the little inequality on the surface of the broad, oppn ground, where the giant trees have fallen, does the gum huntei* owe the power to find the hidden treasures of kauri gum. It is supposed that, possibly many centuries ago, conflagrations of the ti-tvee. scrub had destroyed the gum-bearing trees, which fell where they stood, half incrusted with the hardened sap, and according* to their condition yieldingsmall flakes or huge masses of sap, as the heated ground around them caused every particle of the lesin to come to the surface. To find the gum, the heaps or mounds alluded to— which are covered with long* grass and often scarcely discernible — are pierced by a steel-tipped spear which is carried for the purpose. A little practice soon en-' ables the gum digg-er to discover if he has struck, hot " ile," but gum. The experienced man then soon bares the spot, and finds pieces of the amber-look-ing: material in blocks of various sizes, from a few ounces to half a hundredweight. This digging, which affords a means of livelihood to a large number of natives and colonists, known as " gum diggers," is alsoundertaken by the sheep breeder in his leisure moments, and to the smallholder often, if luck favors him, forms a not unwelcome increase »of income. It is collected and sent to market for shipment, and in England it appears to find purchasers who use it for the purpose df dressing calicoes with, for which object it is possibly dissolved by the aid of alkalies: