TEE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 129 



ble product the employment of which for various uses 

 has been wonderfully extended in our days the In- 

 dia-rubber or caoutchouc. 



This gum can be obtained from a great number 

 of trees ; those which produce it in greatest abundance 

 being Hevea-guy 'anensis, the SipJionia cahuchu and 

 the Jatropha elastica. In the Antilles it is extract- 

 ed from the purple Euphorbia and the elastic Urceale, 

 the product of which is esteemed by some superior to 

 that of the Hevea. In spite of this great number of 

 caoutchouc-plants one would almost fear that the im- 

 mense quantities of caoutchouc brought into all the 

 markets of the world, would soon transform the for- 

 ests in which they grow into wastes of dead trees, as 

 has happened in North Carolina, where the larches 

 and pines, which have been tapped for their turpen- 

 tine, covers vast territories with dead wood, looking 

 like forests of bare masts. 



The infinitely multiplied uses to which caoutchouc 

 is applied in these days are truly remarkable. In 

 England and America it is used to an enormous ex- 

 tent. In 1820, 52,000 pounds were imported into 

 Great Britain; in 1833, 1T8,676 pounds; and at the 

 present day a much larger quantity is imported. The 

 United States consumes more than twice this quantity. 



This increase is of course much more noticeable 

 since the invention of vulcanite or vulcanized caout- 

 chouc. The vulcanization is a chemical process, the 

 effect of which is to remove entirely the elasticity of 

 the material and to give it the various qualities pos- 

 sessed by wood, tortoise-shell, ivory or whalebone, and 

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