130 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



to render it capable of enduring unharmed a high de- 

 gree of heat as well as of cold, and of resisting moist- 

 ure as well as the contact with acids. This effect is 

 obtained by combining it with sulphur either directly 

 or by means of bisulphide of carbon. Every one 

 knows the quantity and the diversity of objects that 

 are made from this light and yet hard vulcanite, from ar- 

 ticles of jewelry and ornament to scientific instruments 

 and the tools used in general industry. In fact In- 

 dia-rubber and its more recent brother gutta-percha, 

 assumes a greater number of transformations than the 

 magic w r and of the most potent fairy ever brought 

 about in Arabian tales. They run through the entire 

 list of useful and ornamental articles, from the breastpin 

 tipped with gold to the life-boat in the surges of the 

 ocean. 



It was in 1736 that Condamine sent the first relia- 

 ble account of the new substance to the French Acad- 

 emy, describing it as the inspissated juice of a tree 

 called by the natives Hevee. In 1757 Fremeau found 

 the same tree in Cayenne, and it is now known to be 

 the produce of many trees growing in South America 

 and the East Indies. The most important of these is 

 one of the spurge tribe, the Siphonia elastica, found 

 in the dense forests on the banks of the Amazon, and 

 yielding the caoutchouc of Para; the Pemambuco 

 caoutchouc is furnished by the Hancomia speciosa, 

 found about Pernambuco and Bahia ; the Ticus elasti- 

 ca, or snake-tree, with a wood so light and porous as to 

 be fit only for fuel or charcoal, produces an abundant 

 supply of milk, which the natives use for lining the 



