THE HISTORY OF RUBBER 11 



By the way, they called the material " cahuciiV When 

 an English scientist, by name Priestley, discovered in 

 the latter part of the eighteenth century that cahucu 

 would rub out pencil marks, this wonderful product 

 was named india-rubber, in plain English. In nearly 

 every other country it is now spoken of as caoutchouc. 



Now, to come back to that story I told you "out of 

 my head." As regards the time in which the events 

 occurred I have already proved to you that rubber 

 was discovered before Columbus discovered America ; 

 and as there is no authority which permits me to be 

 more definite on this point, I think you will agree with 

 me that I was bound to give the period of my narrative 

 as Once Upon a Time. The scene of that story is, I 

 now frankly admit, laid in Brazil — to be more exact, 

 in the Valley of the River Amazon. 



Here, you will surely ask what explanation I have 

 to offer for selecting Brazil as the home of the great 

 discovery — why not Haiti, since the first mention of 

 rubber in history is connected with this island ? Or 

 why not Mexico, since the natives of this country are 

 also credited by history with being amongst the earliest 

 folk to make themselves acquainted with the uses of 

 rubber ? 



I am quite ready to reply to such very natural ques- 

 tions. Just as no one can deny that the discovery of 

 rubber has brought about a great revolution in the 

 industrial world, so no one who knows the whole his- 

 tory of that revolution can dispute the fact that it 

 was the discovery of Brazilian rubber which has been 

 far and away the most powerful, agent in effecting it. 

 And although history does not give me a cut-and-dried 

 date to support my belief that the aborigines of Brazil 



