EUROPEAN MANUFACTURE. 51 



to preserve the form, are packed in boxes for shipment. The 

 rubber and shoes pay a provincial duty of fifteen per cent., at 

 which time both duties are exacted, unless the certificates of 

 the payment of the city duty are produced. The rubber of 

 Para is the best known, and thus far has only been collected 

 near the coast ; but the " Seringa" abounds throughout the 

 banks of the Amazon and its numerous branches, up to the foot 

 of the Andes, as well as also the Orinoco, and other parts of 

 South America : hence the supply will ever be inexhaustible. 

 The collection is mainly confined to the dry season, from the 

 effect of the rain on the crops. 



EUROPEAN MANUFACTURE. 



With the European manufacture the author is less acquainted 

 than with the American. It is generally well known that the 

 manufacture of gum-elastic in the civilized world was first 

 commenced in Europe, and that of the India rubber cloths in 

 particular, in England. The manufacture of the raw gum into 

 threads, weaving it, &c., has been the subject of many patents 

 and much litio-ation, both in Ensland and France ; notwith- 

 standing which the manufacture has always been a successful 

 one. In those countries, however, a very different class of 

 articles was made, from those which were subsequently manu- 

 factured in the United States. The manufactures of these 

 countries consisted mostly of articles made from the raw mate- 

 rial smoked by the Indians, such as woven suspenders made of 

 braided cloth, &c., in which the gum, not being dissolved in 

 their manufacture, and also being protected by a covering of 

 thread by weaving or braiding, it was not so immediately liable 

 to decomposition and loss of its elasticity, as it was in the case 

 of the re-manufacture afterwards carried on in the United 

 States, in other articles in which a solvent was used. 



The Macintosh goods, in which a solvent was used, were less 

 liable to damage and decomposition, because the gum was pro- 

 tected by being spread between two cloths. At that period, the 



