The seringueiro commences by striking the trees with the 
hatchet, whose handle is about a metre long, which permits of 
his making incisions at about from 3 to 3%4 metres from the 
ground. That operation has for its object to make the latex 
ascend from the roots; the milk that oozes out is utilized as 
“sernamby.” Two days afterwards, the regular extraction com- 
mences, a hatchet with a shorter handle being then used. 
To bring this extraction about, “seringueiro” makes the 
first incision at two metres from the ground, but those incisions 
must not pierce the cambium and the “wood and are as a general 
rule made at an inclination of 25°. At the lower part of the 
incisions made by the blows, the “‘tigelinhas” are fixed, whose 
sharp and cutting corner penetrates easily into the bark of the 
tree. The seringuerio operates thus upon all the trees of his 
road, and this work which occupies him about from 2 to 3 hours 
being completed, he takes the pail capable of holding 10 litres 
and recommences his round, gathering into that receptacle the 
milk contained in the tapping cups, which now empty are boxed 
one into the other and deposited close to the trunk of each tree. 
After that second round and‘in order that the milk shall not 
become deteriorated, commences the most delicate operation, 
that of the smoking process. 
For that’ operation, the seringueiro is supplied with a 
“boido,’ a kindof ‘earthen funnel-shaped chimney, a form 
made like a spatula or putty-knife and a kind of basin “cuia,” 
like a dry gourd, made from the half of the fruit of the 
cabaceiro (crescencia cuyeté). : 
The fire made with ‘blocks of urucury (Ataléa ‘speciosa 
Martius) or with fire-wood of massaranduba, rich in oily sub- 
stances, being kindled, the seringueiro ‘places’ the “boiao” upon 
it, the function of this latter being to canalize the smoke so that 
it escapes at the top, which is open. 
Through the loop of a cord hanging near to the “boiao” the 
form is passed and sustained by the “seringueiro” who gives 
it a gyratory movement; with the “cuya” or gourd, he pours 
the latex into the part scooped out of the spatula, which he 
carries off immediately to the smoke. The latex thickens and 
forming ’a thin skin upon the which another coating of latex is 
poured out, which is also passed to the smoke. Those successive 
and alternate operations form the skins, large balls of rubber, 
weighing from 20 to 60 kilos, which are the type exported from 
Brazil. The smoke acting as a solidifyer and at the same time 
a disinfectant by the presence of creosote, acetic acid, etc., kills 
all the bacteria that produce putrefaction and hastens by its heat 
the evaporation of the water: 
The rubber thus formed is of a superior quality, but. when, 
20 
