RUBBER IN ITS INFANCY 



Before the discovery of America the natives 

 played ball with elastic globes made from the 

 gum of the rubber tree, which they called 

 hule, but it was not until 1770 that the product 

 was put to practical purposes in a civilized 

 country. 



One of the earliest notices of rubber as a 

 useful commercial article was by Dr. Joseph 

 Priestley. He found it for sale in half-inch 

 cubes and recommended it as a good eraser of 

 lead pencil marks, and it is from this early use 

 of the gum that it obtained the name it still 

 bears. 



In 1823 a Boston sea captain brought to 

 our country a thick, clumsy pair of rubber 

 shoes, which excited much interest. They 

 were made by the natives along the Amazon, 

 and two years later were followed by 500 pair, 

 which sold readily at $3.00 and $5.00 a pair. 

 During the next fifteen years probably over 

 1,000,000 pair were brought to this country and 

 sold at the same price. Up to this time, the 

 specimens of gum elastic, as it was then called, 

 brought here by sea captains, had been looked 

 upon simply as a strange product of a distant 

 land. 



