The dammers of the northern and eastern districts are from the sal tree, Shorea robusta, and other species. Shorea robusta is a native of Morung, the Palghat mountains, and Northern Circars. The sal tree of Northern India and its resins is called Guggilarn in Telugu, and Tala-gotso in Uriya. It is the Rale, Doona, and Gugulam of Indian commerce, and occurs in brittle, stalactitic pieces. Shorea robusta yields abundance of dammer, the superior kinds of which are efficient substitutes for the pine resin of the European pharmacopoeia. It occurs perfectly transparent and colourless, but in the bazars the colour ranges from pale amber to (lark brown. It is devoid\of taste and smell. Sp. gr. 1'097 to 1'123, easily fnkible, partially soluble in alcohol (83'1 per 1000), alftkost entirely in ether, perfectly in oil of turpentine arld the fixed oils ; sul phuric acid dissolves and givee. it a red colour. Two parts of colourless dammer and 2i parts of oil of turpentine, make the best varnish for litho graphic drawings. This occurs in sticks much resembling in shape the black darnmer, but differ ing widely in colour and consistency. In colour it varies from a light yellow to a dark brown, the two colours being frequently blended in the same lump, and giving it the appearance of having a regular grain.' It is friable, and differs from the white dammer of the western coast in its inferior hard ness, its opacity, and its peculiar form, and from the black !Jammer in its colour. There are exten sive tracts of shorea forest in the Gumsur and Cuttack provinces. The Khond and Uriya races living in and near these jungles, wound trees in several places ; the resin issues, and is collected when sufficiently solid. The dammer collected from the decayed parts of the tree is of a dark colour. The Khond and Uriya races make the leaves into plates, from which they eat their food, and also rill up tobacco in them to smoke like a cheroot. In time of famine, the above tribes live on a soup made from the fruit of this tree.
S7torea tumbuggaia grows on the western coast, but does not appear to produce much, if indeed any, of the resin collected for sale.
Poon,-yet and Pwai-ngyet dammer of Burma is found on several different trees, sometimes also in a hollow among rocks, sometimes in the ground, and occa sionally even in the hollow post of an old house, amongst them the Dipterocarpus lmvis and Hopea odorata. The Rev. (J. S. Parish says it is a com bination of various gums and resins,. probably also of oils gathered by the Trigona lmviceps bee, and built up and moulded very much as wax is moulded, except that the wax formed by the honey bee is in cells of perfect and uniform symmetry, while the cells of Pwai-ngyet ha.ve no regular form. 1Vhen it builds its nest in the hollow of a tree, the aper ture is lined with Pwai-ngyet, and its rim is some times prolonged to a somewhat flattened trumpet mouth shape, of a perpendicular diameter a foot or so, and 3 or 4 inches of transverse diameter. From 19 lbs. to 38 lbs. are obtained from one nest.
Some of it is very like the dammer of the Hopea odorata. For caulking it is mixed with earth-oil or petroleum. One kind which this bee collects is very like the resin of Bursera acurninata, a tree of Canara.
Canarium Bengalense is a native of Sylhet and the adjacent mountainous countries, also Malabar, Tinnevelly, and Courtallum, It flowers in May and June, yields a large quantity of very pure, clear, amber-coloured resin, which soon becomes hazd and brittle, and is not unlike copal. In the Calcutta bazar it sells at 2 to 3 rupees per maund of 86 lbs. C. nigrum, Boxb., of the Amboyna and Molucca islands, yields a reddish, soft, viscid sub stance from wounds in its bark. C. strictum, .Roxb., of the alpine forest of Courtallum and Tinnevelly, is regularly rented for its clammer. When adhering to the tree it has a bright shining black appearance. From this the tree is called the black dammer tree, to disting-uish it from the white dammer tree, Vateria Indica. The Canarium strictum is the Carpoo coongilium of Ainslie, the Dammara nigra legitima of Rumphius, and the Canari of the Malays. Its resin occurs in large stelae titic-shaped masses, of a bright shining black colour when adhering to the tree and viewed from a distance, but translucent and of a deep reddish brown when held in thin laminm between the eye and the light. It is perfectly homogeneous, and has a vitreous fracture. Its shape appears to be due to the fact of the balsam having exuded in a very fluid state, and trickled down the trunk of the tree, where it gradually hardens by exposure to the sun, the fresh resin continuing to flow over that already hardened, gives rise to tbe stalactitic appearance of the huge lumps of resin, the outside of which much resembles the guttering of wax caused by placing a lighted candle in a draught. It is insoluble in cold, but partially soluble in boiling alcohol on the addition of camphor ; when powdered it is readily soluble in oil of turpentine. Powdered and burnt on the fire, it emits a more resinous smell, and burns with more smoke, than white damrner. Tbe size of the lumps of this resin, together with its colour and, the peculiarity of shape already mentioned, suffice to distinguish it from other Indian resins. Mr. Brown of Trevan drum says the black dammer of Canarium strictum seems to be a great favourite of several species of insects, especially of one resembling a bee, called by tho hill-men KaMade, which lives in holea in the ground.
Under the names of elemi, also E. Indian demi and Manilla elemi, concrete resinous exudation im im ported into Great Britain from Manilla. It is said to be from the Canarium commune, but this is doubtful. It is of a yellowish white colour.
Others of the dimmers aro obtained from the Ifopea micruntha, yielding the Demur meta knelling and Damar hatu of the Malays, and odoreta, yield ing the Thengan-tsi of the Burmese, the last named greatly resembling the E. I. dammer from Dam mam orientalis.