Blue gum

“ The blue gum tree, or Eucalyptus globulus (so distinguished because of the rounded form of the lid which covers its unexpanded flower bud) , has been successfully introduced into Asia,671 Africa, and Southern Europe. If, as asserted, it can only exist in a climate where the temperature is never lower than the freezing point, its domestication (save in hot-houses) is impossible in our own country. ”

“ The sour or black gum of the South has a wide range, being hardy to southern Ontario and Maine. To the New Englander this is the "pepperidge"; the Indians called it "tupelo"; but the woodsman, North and South, calls it the gum tree, as a rule. "Black gum" refers to its dark gray, rough bark, which is broken into many-sided plates. By this, it is easily distinguished from the "red gum" or liquid amber, which grows in the same situations, but is not related to it. "Sour gum" refers to the acid, blue-black berries, one to three in a cluster, ripe in October. ”

“ The Blue Book of the Cape Colony, published in 1873, states the export of gum in 1872 as 101,241 lb.
5. East India Gum—The best qualities consist of tears of various sizes, sometimes as large as an egg, internally transparent and vitreous, of a pale amber or pinkish hue, completely soluble in water. This gum is largely shipped from Bombay, but is almost wholly the produce of Africa; the imports into Bombay from the Red Sea ports, Aden and the African Coast in the year 1872-73, were 14,352 cwt. During the same year the shipments from Bombay to the United Kingdom amounted to 4,561 cwt. ”

“ It is gum of a light amber colour which has exuded from the Kauri pine (Dammara Australis) a species of Dammar growing in New Zealand. The gum is obtained by digging over spots where the trees once grew, and it is found sometimes in lumps the size of a football. Kauri gum is electric and much softer and less durable than amber. It has been suggested as a useful substitute for amber in throat troubles, asthma, hay fever and glandular swellings. It is under the celestial Taurus.
KOLOPHONITE. (See GARNET.)
KUNZITE. (See SPODUMENE.)
KYANITE. Kyanite derives its name from the Greek KUANOS, blue. ”

“ Didn’t you know you were fibbing?” asked Ned.
“I didn’t say one word that was a lie! Now you think! My tooth was hooked. I had to use that gum to keep my tooth from getting cold and aching again. The dentist told me always to keep the nerve covered when I went outdoors. He said it was an exposed nerve that made a tooth jump. So I did as he advised me, that’s all!” explained Don.
[26] Not another word was said about the gum then, as the inner door to Uncle Ben’s offices was reached and the Publishers went in where all was quiet, and such a thing as gum was never thought of! ”

“ The ink of the ancients had nothing in common with ours, but the colour and gum. Gall-nuts, copperas, and gum make up the composition of our ink; whereas soot or ivory-black was the chief ingredient in that of the ancients. [13]
Ink has been made of various colours; we find gold and silver ink, and red, green, yellow, and blue inks; but the black is considered as the best adapted to its purpose.
ANECDOTES OF EUROPEAN MANNERS.
The following circumstances probably gave rise to the tyranny of the feudal power, and are the facts on which the fictions of romance are raised. ”

“ To an ordinary observer the trunk of the spruce tree seems like any other tree trunk—no rougher, and perhaps somewhat smoother than many; but Tom now found that on every tree almost there were little round excrescences, which, on being picked at with the knife, came off readily, and proved to be gum. Vast quantities of a substance which goes by the name of spruce gum are manufactured and sold; but the pure gum is a very different article, having a rich, balsamic odor, and a delicate yet delicious flavor ”

“ The darkest qualities are very useful for strongly acid colours, and with the exception of gum senegal, are the best for strongly alkaline colours and discharges. Like the natural gums, neither light nor dark British gums penetrate into the fibre of the cloth so deeply as pure starch or flour, and are therefore unsuitable for very dark strong colours. ”

“ Starch and artificial gums always leave the cloth somewhat harsh in “feel” unless they are treated specially, and are moreover incapable of yielding the beautifully clear and perfectly even tints resulting from the use of natural gums. Very dark colours cannot well be obtained with gum senegal or gum arabic thickenings; they come away too much in washing, the um apparently preventing them from combining fully with the fibres. ”

“ The yellow gum as it is called, is strictly a resin, not being at all soluble in water; in appearance it strongly resembles gamboge, but has not the property of staining. The plant that produces it is low and small, with long grassy leaves; but the fructification of it shoots out in a singular manner from the centre of the leaves, on a single straight stem, to the height of twelve or fourteen feet. Of this stem, which is strong and light, like some of the reed class, the natives usually make their spears ”

“ CAROLINE.
Is that the gum so frequently used instead of paste or glue?
MRS. B.
It is; almost all fruit-trees yield some sort of gum, but that most commonly used in the arts is obtained from a species of acacia-tree in Arabia, and is called gum arabic; it forms the chief nourishment of the natives of those parts, who obtain it in great quantities from incisions which they make in the trees. ”

“ Governor Phillip (Despatch, May 15) in `Historical Records of New South Wales', vol. i. pt. ii. p. 128:
"What seeds could be collected are sent to Sir Joseph Banks, as likewise the red gum taken from the large gum-tree by tapping, and the yellow gum which is found on the dwarf palm-tree."
1789. Captain Watkin Tench, `Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay,' p. 119:
"The species of trees are few, and . . . the wood universally of so bad a grain, as almost to preclude the possibility of using it. . . . These trees yield a profusion of thick red gum (not unlike the Sanguis draconis) ." ”

“ Thus, on our farm and in the surrounding bush, although these are distinctly not gum-lands, there are little patches of ground, of a few acres in extent, whence we have got a ton or two of gum at times.
It is worthy of remark that the fresh resin of the living trees is not of any commercial value. Great masses of gum are often found in forks and clefts of the trees, and about the roots ”

“ Red gum, as far I can learn, is the tougnest and hardest of the whole race of eycalipti, resisting the wedge, and of little use to the joiner, from its abounding in veins of gum, which, like that of the mahogany, is red ”

“ They require a long time to set or become hard.
Resins and Gums include a great number of substances, such as resin or hard pitch, which is distilled from pine-trees; shellac, mastic, elemi, copal, kauri gum, amber, gum arabic, dextrine made from flour, the gum of the peach and cherry, and of many other trees. To these may be added frankincense and tragacanth, which is less an adhesive than a stiffener and dresser. Gums are generally rather brittle; this is remedied by combination with oily substances, volatile oils, or caoutchouc. With these gums Lehner includes asphaltum. ”

“ Eucalyptus rostrata and other species yield eucalyptus or red gum, which must be distinguished from Botany Bay kino. Red gum is very powerfully astringent and is given internally, in doses of 2 to 5 grains, in cases of diarrhoea and pharyngeal inflammation. It is prepared by the pharmacist in the form of tinctures, insufflations, syrups, lozenges, &c. Red gum is official in Great Britain. ”

“ This beautiful yellow gum was fragrant; and, as the thousands of little insects fluttered about it in the warm sunshine, they were attracted by its pleasant odor,—perhaps, too, by its taste,—and once alighted upon it, they stuck fast, and could not get away; while the great yellow drops oozing out surrounded, and at last covered, them entirely. So, too, wind-blown bits of moss, leaves, acorns, cones, and little sticks were soon securely imbedded in the fast-flowing gum; and, as time went by, it hardened and hardened more and more. And this is amber. ”

“ The Pharmacopœia directs the use of powdered gum and of boiling water, whereas gum, in its ordinary condition or coarsely broken, and cold water make a clearer solution. Cold water is directed for the solution of the gum by the Edinburgh process, and in our present formula for “Syrup of Gum Arabic;”—if appropriate for the latter, it is quite as much so for the forming of mucilage. When the gum has been ground in a mill it appears to have been a little charred and forms a somewhat turbid solution; if powdered by hand, and rather more coarsely, its solution is clearer. ”

“ The growth of red gum during the early part of its life, and up to the time it reaches a diameter of eight inches breast-high, is extremely rapid, and, like most of the intolerant species, it attains its height growth at an early period. Gum sprouts readily from the stump, and the sprouts surpass the seedlings in rate of height growth for the first few years, but they seldom form large timber trees. Those over fifty years of age seldom sprout. ”

“ In our own country not only do children bite pencils and pen-holders, but they will chew small pieces of india-rubber for hours together. The practice of gum-chewing, so common among our American cousins, evidently comes down from far-off [Pg 128] times, for the primitive Australians chew several kinds of gum, attributing to them nutrient qualities, [17] and the Patagonians are said to keep their teeth white and clean by chewing matri, a gum which exudes from the incense bush, and is carefully collected by the women and children. ”

“ The swift-growing Australian gum, which has now domesticated itself in most of the warmer parts of the world, waves its pliant tops in the breeze, more picturesque in the distance than it is close at hand. ”

“ This gum was exceedingly sweet and pleasant to the taste; but, although of the most valuable quality, there was no hand to gather it in this forsaken, although beautiful country; it either dissolved during the rainy season, or was consumed by the baboons and antelopes. The aggageers took off from their saddles the skins of tanned antelope leather that formed the only covering to the wooden seats, and with these they made bundles of gum. When we remounted, every man was well laden. ”

“ In obtaining the gum, freshly-gathered branches are cut in small pieces, and steeped in water for several days, after which they are boiled, the liquid being constantly stirred until the gum, in the form of a white jelly, begins to appear, when the whole is poured into a glazed vessel, and becomes concreted in cooling. ”

“ L. E. D.—This gum is of a strong body, and does not perfectly dissolve in water. A dram will give to a pint of water the consistence of a syrup, which a whole ounce of gum Arabic is scarce sufficient to do. Hence its use for forming troches, and the like purposes, in preference to the other gums. It is used in an officinal powder, and is an ingredient in the compound powders of ceruss and amber.—Lewis's Mat. ”

“ The white is considered the best. It was formerly used in medicine.
GUM. Syn. Gummi, L. The general term for an important class of vegetable products. Gums are more or less soluble in cold water, but insoluble in alcohol, ether, and oils. They are obtained from certain plants in amorphous masses; most of them exude spontaneously, or on puncturing the bark. The most perfect type of this class is the substance called GUM ARABIC, or GUM ACACIA. The gums are employed as demulcents in medicines, and are used as cements, and for giving stiffness and gloss to textile fabrics. ”

“ To Whiten and Beautify the Teeth.—Take gum tragacanth, one ounce; pumice stone, two drams; gum arabic, one ounce; cream of tartar, one ounce. Dissolve the gums in rose-water, and adding to it the powder, form the whole into little sticks, which are to be dried slowly in the shade, and afterwards kept for use. Use on the brush like soap.
HOW TO HAVE SOFT, WHITE AND BEAUTIFUL HANDS.
There are very few beautiful hands, but to make the hands beautiful rests, with scarcely an exception, with the possessor. ”

“ Uses.—The root bark is pounded up and applied locally in orchitis and in severe contusions with supposed fracture of the bones; native charlatans pretend to cure the latter condition by this treatment.
The trunk exudes a sort of gum, which with water forms a sort of colorless, odorless gelatin which dissolves at the boiling point. I do not know to what use this gum is applied in therapeutics, but it is often found mixed with the Senegambian gum acacia. ”

“ The next year he transported two hundred thousand pounds' worth; and, five years from that time, Australian red gum was an article of universal trade.
He saw a felled boolah-tree change in the rainy season into a transparent substance like gum arabic; and, three years afterwards, West Australia supplied nearly all the white gum in the markets of civilization.
One might conclude that the man who could set his mind so persistently at work in this energetic fashion must be thoroughly engaged, and that his rapid success must have brought with it a rare and solid satisfaction. ”

“ Procure a packet of gold powder of the hairdresser. Have ready a very weak solution of gum and water, and one of [63] the small perfume vaporizers now in use. When the hair has been dressed, sprinkle it with gum and water by means of the vaporizer and then shower on the gold powder. It may be put on thick enough to hide the color of the hair, and owing to the gum it cannot be danced off. The effect by artificial light is beautiful.
For Keeping the Hair Crimped or Curled in Summer.—A quarter of an ounce of gum tragacanth, one pint rose-water, and five drops of glycerine ”