July 



1911 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



345 



latex coagulates on the tree forming a very high-grade scrap. 

 The department had some of the rubber valued some three 

 years ago and the price put upon it was $1.06 per pound, when 

 Para rubber was quoted at $1.07 and plantation at $1.16. The 

 Imperial Institute analyzed the samples and they contained 93.7 

 per cent, ot" rubber with a resin content of only 1.8 per cent. 

 In 1909-10 the colony shipped 6,369 pounds of rubber, most of 

 which was in scrap form and doubtless Sapium rubber. It was 

 not all carefully collected, however, and it brought about $3,250. 



Jenman it was, who back in '83, first really brought the rub- 

 ber to the attention of the world. He journeyed far into the 

 forest, found the trees which at first he thought belonged to 

 the Ficus family. What he wrote of it is most interesting. In 

 part it is as follows : 



"The trees were- large individuals, four or fi\c feet in diam- 



turned black, but that in those recently made was nearly milk- 

 white. The Indian boys, who are perhaps accustomed to play 

 with the balls, as I noticed from several which they brought 



\V.\LL.\B.\ Forest. 



eter of trunk, and 120 or more feet high. Their trunks were 

 long, straight and unbranched for 60 or 70 feet from the ground. 

 The lowest six feet of one had been scarred, and from the 

 scars the milk had run and was dried in tears or strings sev- 

 eral inches long on the bark. Most of the congealed rubber was, 

 however, contained in the fissures made by the cutlass cuts, 

 from which places it was rather hard to extract it because of 

 the tenacity with which it held to the inner bark from which it 

 had oozed. I gathered and made a ball, following the Indian 

 plan of winding it up like twine, of what was on the trunk. 

 They score the trunk and then leave it, the milk oozes from 

 the wounds, trickles down the bark and coagulates and be- 

 comes dry in a few days. My guide said it took three days to 

 dry, but I should have supposed a shorter time might accom- 

 plish the change, the little rivulets are so very thin. That which 

 was in the old cuts — cuts probably a year or more old — had 



GE0L0GIC.^L St.'Vtign, Purlni River. 



me, never make them large, they strip the dry strings very 

 dexterously from the bark, taking good care to extract the 

 larger portion to whicli I have alluded as partly concealed in the 

 incisions, and stretching it with a good deal of tension, wind 

 it up. These balls have wonderful elasticity and bound with very 

 little impulsion several feet off the ground. The rubber, too, 

 seems exceedingly tenacious and strong. . . . This method of 

 gathering is very economical of time, for it saves the tedious 

 operation of catching the milk in a vessel as it issues from the 

 wound, which is the most bothersome of all the operations. The 

 principal objection to it is, that the rubber becomes soiled by 

 the dirt adhering to the bark, a little of which it retains, and no 

 doubt this would deteriorate its market value; but this deprecia- 



TeNT Bo.\T O.N Ma/./\RUNI. 



tion might be reduced to a minimum by carefully brushing the 

 surface down prior to commencing collecting operations. Rub- 

 ber which has foreign matter incorporated with it is classed 



