It is a striking characteristic of our age, and particularly as compared with the period when India-rubber was first sent to Europe, that the application of gutta percha to the arts immediately followed the discovery of the substance. In 1842, Dr. Montgomerie was observing a wood-cutter at Singapore at his ordinary labour. Looking at the man's axe he saw that the handle was not of wood, but of some material that he had not previously known. The woodman told Dr. Montgomerie that, hard as the handle was, it became quite soft in boiling water, and could be moulded into any form, when it would again become hard. It was a gum from a tree growing in various islands of the Eastern archipelago, called _pertsha_. Specimens were immediately sent to the Society of Arts; and the inquiring surgeon to the Presidency at Singapore received the Society's gold-medal. In 1842-3, Mr. Lobb, visiting these islands to collect botanical specimens, also discovered the same tree, and the gum which issues from it. In twelve years the wonderful utility of this new material has been established in very various applications. But the gum would have remained comparatively useless but for the inventive spirit which has subdued every difficulty of a new manufacture. The substance is now applied to the humblest as well as the highest purposes. It is a clothes' line defying the weather; it is a buffer for a railway carriage. It is a stopping for a hollow tooth; it is a sheathing for the wire that conveys the electric spark across the Channel. It is a cricket-ball; it is a life-boat in the Arctic seas. It is a noiseless curtain-ring; it is a sanitary water-pipe. It resists the action of many chemical substances, and is thus largely employed for vessels in bleaching and dyeing factories; it is capable of being moulded into the most beautiful forms, and thus becomes one of the most efficient materials for multiplying works of ornamental art. The collection of gutta percha has given a new stimulus to the feeble industry of the inhabitants of Java and Sumatra, and Borneo, and a new direction to the commerce of Singapore. It has brought the people of the Indian archipelago into more direct contact with European civilization. [Illustration: Elæis Guineensis, and Cocos butyracea, yielding Palm-oil.]