DRYOBALANOPS CAMPHORA, Cole., the Shorea camphorifera, 1?ox1)., is a very large tree, a native of Borneo and Sumatra, where it sometimes attains 6 to 8 feet in diameter, and 120 feet high. In the cavities of the trunk there occur collections of solid camphor, and of a light fluid called camphor oil. The solid camphor is highly prized by the Chinese and Japanese, and rarely finds :its way to Europe. The tree is said to be common in Sumatra, in the country of the Battas, but not to be found to the south of the line. In Borneo it was found at first towards the north, was particularly abundant in the country of the Kyans in the interior, on the Bintulu and Rejang rivers, and has since been discovered in Sarawak. In Labuan it is common, and is one of the noblest of the trees in that fine jungle. Not one in ten trees is found to produce camphor, and the camphor collectors cut notches i Li the trees,in order,before felli ng, to ascertain whether they are likely to find camphor. The younger and smaller trees are often quite as prolific as the older and larger trees. The camphor is found in a concrete state in the crevices of the wood, so that it can only be extracted by felling the tree, which is afterwards cut into blocks and split into wedges, and the camphor, which is white and transparent, is then taken out. The essential oil, found in hollows in the wood, the natives crystallize arti ficially, but the camphor thus obtained is not so much esteemed as that found naturally crystallized.
The high price of the concrete camphor depends wholly on its scarcity, and the fancy of the Chinese and Japanese, who ascribe high medicinal virtues to it, which it probably possesses in no higher degree than the cheap article which they themselves obtain by the distillation of the wood of the Camphora officinalis, and which may be had in the same markets for about one-hundredth part of the price. After a stay in the woods, frequently of three months, during which they may fell a hundred trees, a party of 30 persons rarely bring away more than 15 or 20 pounds of solid camphor, worth from 200 to 250 dollars. The camphor of D. camphora is in white crystalline fragments ; sp. gr. 1.009. Its odour is not of so diffusable a nature, otherwise it closely resembles tbe camphor from the Camphora officinarum. The wood of this camphor tree is good timber, suited for house and ship building. The liquid camphor of the same tree appears of the nature of cam phogen. Dr. A. T. Thompson, by passing a current of oxygen gas through it, converted it into camphor.—As. Researches, xii. p. 535 ; Low's Sarawak, p. 44 ; Marsden's Sumatra, p. 150 ; Royle's Mat. Med. p. 536 ; Crawfurd's Dictionary, p. 81 ; Simmonds' Conimercial Products ; O'Sh. Bengal Disp.; Mason's Tenasserim ; 2'ondinson, p. 287 ; Indian Agriculturist.