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CHAPTER XXII 

 RUBBER 



RUBBER (Hevea brasiliensis) . We read that when Columbus 

 was in Hayti he observed that the balls with which the children 

 played bounced better than the windballs of the Spanish 

 children at home, and it was found on inquiry that these West 

 Indian balls were made of a substance which exuded from 

 certain trees. They were in fact made of ' rubber ', as ours 

 are to-day, but rubber at that time had never been heard of 

 in Europe, and the Spanish children had to be content with 

 a very poor bounce to their balls. 



In 1735, the distinguished French traveller, La Condamine, 

 made a voyage to the Equator for the purpose of determining 

 the dimensions of the earth. On his return he published an 

 account of his ten years' journey, and among other marvels 

 he described the rubber tree and its wonderful juice. The 

 tree he called He've, and the solidified juice Cahuchu. These 

 were both South American names. We called the solidified 

 juice rubber, because it rubbed out pencil marks. Dr. Priestly 

 discovered this in 1770, and one-inch cubes of rubber sold for 

 Is. 6d. each. 



Gradually rubber was found to possess many other valuable 

 qualities ; for instance, that it was impermeable to water, and 

 in 1823 Charles Macintosh made his famous waterproof 

 cloaks of it. The material of which these ' macintoshes ' 

 were made was obtained by uniting two layers of cloth with 

 a layer of rubber between them. As time went on other 

 waterproof articles were made of it, and high hopes were 

 entertained of its increasing usefulness. 



There were, however, certain drawbacks. Things made of 

 rubber were found to get soft and sticky in hot weather, and 

 to become hard and brittle in cold weather. 



Then followed other wonderful discoveries : it was found 

 that Rubber mixed with a small quantity of Sulphur, and 



