CHAPTER I 



THE HISTORY OF THE USE AND CULTIVATION OF 



RUBBER 



Early Uses. 



PROBABLY no raw material of vegetable origin has 

 been put to such multifarious uses as indiarubber. No 

 other vegetable product has risen with equal rapidity 

 from a position of comparative insignificance to one of 

 the highest commercial prominence. 



Although the use of rubber by natives of the Western 

 Hemisphere is historically chronicled upwards of 400 

 years ago, indiarubber was first used in England in the 

 eighteenth century, and then only in the first instance 

 for removing the marks of black lead pencils. The first 

 patent for the employment of rubber for waterproofing 

 purposes was not taken out until 1791. The further 

 development of this use is closely associated with the 

 name of Thomas Hancock, of the firm of Charles 

 Macintosh and Co. ; but the modern extensions of 

 indiarubber manufacture only became possible after the 

 discovery by Nelson Goodyear in 1839 of the process 

 of combining rubber with sulphur, which is known as 

 vulcanisation. Goodyear took out a further patent in 



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