92 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



fire of Urucury nuts creates a dense smoke containing 

 a large percentage of carbonic acid gas, and this, passing 

 through the tin funnel, reaches the paddle or stick 

 turned slowly by hand, and constantly basted with coat- 

 ings of latex from the receiving basin. This process 

 continues until the balls of rubber accumulate to the 

 required size, and it is then begun afresh. If balls 

 (pelles) are to be made a stick is used; for knapsack 

 the paddle is employed. Lump and scrap are thrown 

 down on the mud floor in the corner of the hut without 

 the slightest attempt to prevent the admixture of dirt 

 or a rapid putrefaction. 



Amidst these squalid surroundings, and in an atmo- 

 sphere dense with smoke and impregnated with carbonic 

 acid gas, the collector passes two to three hours every 

 afternoon. It is often sundown before the day's yield 

 of latex is coagulated, and this means that the man has 

 been at work since 4 a.m., with the exception of the 

 noontide rest of some two hours or so. In a climate 

 such as that prevailing in the Amazon Valley, the tax on 

 health and strength from these conditions is unusually 

 severe, and it is no matter for wonder that the number 

 of men constantly incapacitated for work is abnormally 

 high. 



No effort is made to clean the latex by straining 

 before coagulation, and this accounts for a large pro- 

 portion of the impurities so frequently apparent in the 

 rubber. The statements sometimes put forward, that 

 foreign substances are mixed deliberately with the latex 

 during the process of smoking, have very slight founda- 

 tion in fact ; when they are found in the finished prod- 

 uct, they are due as a rule to excessive carelessness 



