PATWARI. limn. In Hindustan, a village accountant, responsible for keeping the accounts of the village, noticing changes in the list of pro prietors, and accounting between the headman or Lamberdar and the proprietors for the share of revenue paid by each. In the Dekhan and Southern India, the village accountant is the Kulkarni and Karnam, and in Gujerat the Tallati. PAUCHONTEE, or Indian gutta tree, is common in the densely-crowded tracts of Coorg, abounding at the foot of the ghats N.E. of Trevandrum, the eastern part of Wynad, Ani mallay mountains, and Cochin territories, from 30' to 10° 30' N., and at an elevation of 2500 to 3000 feet above the sea. The tree abounds in the Cochin Sircar territory, and on the cardamom table-lands of Travancore, and at the Pool on the summit of the ghats above Chocuraputtee. It appears to be common in all the forest tracts at all within the influence of the S.W. rains. It attains a height of 80 to 100 feet, and a diameter of 2 to 4 feet, and it rises up to a great height without giving off any branches. It is the Pauley tree of Wynad, and the Pauchontee of Cochin. It is the Isonandra acuminata of Lindley, and the Bassia elliptica of Dalzell. It yields a milky juice, which concretes, and is brittle at an ordinary temperature. It softens by the heat of the hand and mouth, and may be moulded between the fingers. It readily melts by the application of heat, and becomes very sticky. This stickiness is gradually destroyed
by contact with water. It forms a paste with coal-tar, naphtha, and oil of turpentine. It has excellent insulating powers, and may be used successfully for coating the wires of telegraphs. It is probable that several thousands of these trees fall annually under the axe of the wood cutter, as the Government forests in Wynad give • way to the extension of coffee-planting, and the private forests in Malabar to raggi cultivation. In 1855, General Cullen forwarded a drawing and description of it. The wood of the Pauchontee tree is in gravity not less than 55 lbs. the cubic foot ; and a bar of one inch square, with 18 inches clear of the supports at each end, broke with a long fibrous fracture, after a weight of 440 lbs. had been imposed, though not till this weight had for some minutes been suspended from the bar. This tenacity is as high if not higher than that of teak. A tree when tapped, two taps at every three feet from the base to sixty feet high, or 40 taps in all, yielded in twelve hours about eight pints or pounds of the sap. The exudation from the trunk has some resemblance to the gutta-percha of commerce. According to General Cullen, in 5 or 6 hours upwards of 12 lbs. was collected from 4 or 5 incisions in one tree.—Balfour's Report of the Madras Museum of 1856.