Swinhoe, Robert. “Formosa camphor,” The Scientific American n.s. 10, vi (6 February 1864): 85.
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Formosa Camphor.
The manufacture of this article has for some years been
monopolized by the Taotai (or Head Mandarin) of the island, and its sale farmed
out to wealthy natives. In former years a good deal of the drug
was clandestinely produced, and smuggled across to China, where it was largely
bought up by foreign speculators and carried to Hong-Kong for shipment to
Calcutta, at which place it finds the readiest market, being used by the natives of Hindostan for lubricating the body and
other domestic purposes. But now its monopoly is so closely watched that almost
the entire trade in it falls to the lucky individual whose Chinese agents can
secure the monopoly. This bad system has occasioned the price of the article in
Hong-Kong to increase considerably in value, and to make the profits accruing
to the fortunate monopolist almost fabulous. The cost of the drug, I learn,
amounts to only six dollars at its place of manufacture. The monopolist buys it
from the Mandarin at sixteen dollars the pecul and sells it in Hong-Kong at twenty-eight
dollars. The gigantic laurel (laurus
camphora) that yields the camphor, covers the whole line of high
mountains extending north and south throughout Formosa. But as the greater part
of this range is in the hands of the aborigines, the Chinese are able to gain
access only to those parts of the mountains contiguous to their own territories
that are possessed by the more docile tribes. The trees, as they are required,
are selected for the abundance of their sap, as many are too dry to repay the labor
and trouble of the undertaking.
A present is then
made to the chief of the tribe to gain permission to cut down the selected
trees. The best part of the tree is secured for timber, and the refuse cut up
into chips. The chips are boiled in iron pots, one inverted on another, and the
sublimated vapor is the desired result. The camphor is then conveyed down in
carts of rude construction, and stowed in large vats, with escape holes at the
bottom, whence exudes an oil, known as camphor oil, used by Chinese practitioners
for its medicinal properties in rheumatic diseases. Samples of this oil have
been sent home, and it may eventually become a desideratum in Europe. From the
vats the camphor is stowed in bags to contain about a pecul each, and is thus
exported. The Chinese Government has empowered the Formosan authorities to
claim on its account all the timber produced by the island for ship-building purposes;
and it is on this plea that the Taotai appropriates the prescriptive right of
dealing in camphor. About 6,000 peculs of the drug are annually produced in the
neighborhood of Tamsuy. —Robert Swinhoe.
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