14 RUBBER 



of these trees. Out oozes a thickish white substance, 

 some of which drops on to your fingers. Without a 

 moment's thought or hesitation, it comes natural to 

 you to rub thumb against sticky fingers, whereupon 

 the substance gradually solidifies, and at last breaks 

 loose in the form of a tiny pellet. In a similarly simple 

 way the mere savage discovered rubber hundreds of 

 years ago ; only he used a flint axehead, or maybe a 

 sharp tooth of some animal, instead of a penknife. 



With regard to the method of collecting rubber by 

 scraping a hole in the earth, and leaving the sap which 

 trickled down into it to be dried by the natural heat of 

 the earth and the air, I can only assure you that the 

 white man found the aborigines " making " raw rubber 

 in this way, so they must have invented the plan them- 

 selves. 



To defend my choice of Brazil as the scene of my 

 story, I must now justify my statement that the dis- 

 covery of rubber in this country has been of more im- 

 portance than similar discoveries in the forests of other 

 lands. 



The native rubber-tree of Brazil, botanically known 

 as Hevea hrasiliensis, yields the finest quality rubber. 

 This specially good material is called " Para rubber," 

 after the port of Para, at the mouth of the Amazon, 

 which was the first centre of distribution. 



The whole flourishing rubber industry of to-day 

 owes its origin to the trade which sprang up in Para 

 rubber, following on the colonization of the Amazon 

 Valley by the Portuguese. During the first half of the 

 eighteenth century Lisbon began to import rubber 

 goods, such as hats, boots, bags, and capes, from Brazil, 

 and in 1759 the Government of Para sent a suit of 



