86 DICTIONARY OF POPULAR NAMES CAOUTCHOUC 



taming three seeds. It is found throughout the lower regions 

 of the Amazon, and is abundant on many islands of that great 

 river. During the wet season these islands are flooded, but as 

 soon as the water subsides they are tenanted by numerous 

 Indians and their families, whose occupation is the collecting 

 of Caoutchouc. The milky juice is obtained by making deep 

 vertical and slanting incisions in the bark of the trees ; flowing 

 from the wounds, it follows their downward course, and is 

 caught m vessels at the lower end of the vertical incisions. 

 By exposure to the air it thickens and becomes like a creamy 

 paste ; a coating of it is then laid on clay moulds, which are 

 suspended over slow flres. When the first coat is dry a second 

 is added, and so on, coat after coat, till the required thickness is 

 attained. When the drying is completed the mass is removed 

 from the mould, and is the raw India-rubber of commerce, its 

 blackness being partly owing to the smoke it absorbs while 

 drying, and partly to exposure to the air. In Nicaragua and 

 other parts it is made into flat cakes, and hung up to dry 

 without artificial heat. 



The original use of tliis substance by the Indians was to 

 make water -vessels for domestic use, and for that purpose it 

 was dried on clay moulds in the form of bottles, in which form 

 it was first brought and still comes occasionally to this country. 

 Our earliest knowledge of this important article dates from the 

 discovery of America. We learn from history that the natives 

 of St. Domingo were seen by Columbus playing games with 

 elastic balls, and that the Mexicans had shoes and clothes made 

 of an elastic substance. The first accurate information of this 

 substance was from M. Condamine, a French naturalist and 

 traveller, in 1735. About 1750, specimens of it appear to have 

 been received in Paris, and in 1772 it is recorded as having been 

 sold in London. It is described by Dr. Priestly as an excellent 

 article for rubbing out pencil- lines from paper, and coming 

 from the " Indies," it became familiarly known as " India-rubber." 

 For fifty years from the above date it was scarcely used for any 

 other purpose. ExperimentaKsts were, however, not idle, and 



