Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/462

 446 COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF ally measure three feet wide. The substance of the shell is several inches thick, perfectly white, and takes a fine polish. They are sent to China as articles of trade. Ambergris is found in several parts of the seas of the Archipelago, and constitutes an article of the return cargos to China. As the commodity has no name but the Arabian one Anhar, we may plausibly conjecture that the Arabs first instructed the natives in the use of it as a perfume. The last marine production I shall mention is Agar-agar^ a kind of Fucus, which is soluble in water, and in which it forms a gelatinous matter. The Chinese use it in this form with sugar, as a sweetmeat, and apply it in the arts as an excellent paste. It is probable it might be used in the same manner by us, and might prove a cheap and useful substitute for the expensive gums we now import. It forms a portion of the cargos of all the junks. The price on the spot where it is collected is very low, seldom exceeding one and a half or two Spa- nish dollars a picul, or from 5s. 8d. to 7s. Old. per cwt. It need hardly be insisted upon that, in the event of the European race colonizing in the countries of the Archipelago, and their entei'prise being permitted to take its natural range, the rich variety of marine production which I have now enumerated would, with the interminable demands