62 GOODYEAR ON GUM -ELASTIC. 



quality. All these kinds remained complete drugs in the market, 

 until they were re-shipped to England or elsewhere, or gradually 

 found their way into varnishes, boot-blacking, &c., at very low 

 prices. Were the merchants of India to try the experiment of 

 shipping the India gum free from bark, and those of Valparaiso, 

 South America, to send it in the same way they formerly 

 did, but cleaner if possible, they would no doubt receive a very 

 different account of sales. Fresh cargoes of India gum are at 

 this time arriving, which meet a ready market, but they con- 

 tinue as yet to be mixed with the bark of the tree. 



As gum-elastic is a production of most, if not of all tropical 

 regions on the globe, and as the supply is, beyond question, in- 

 exhaustible and abundant for all its various uses, when the 

 numerous facts become generally known with regard to its 

 importance as an article of commerce, it may be hoped 

 that as new channels of supply are opened, the best modes will 

 be adopted of collecting it ; and that the Indian tribes of 

 Para will become reconciled to relinquish the manufacture to 

 their more civilized competitors, and find a more profitable em- 

 ployment by sending them the native gum in its unmanufactured 

 and pure state. 



The certainty that there will in future be a very great con- 

 sumption of the various kinds of India rubber and water-proof 

 gums, has caused a good deal of apprehension with many as to 

 the supply, and it is asked, Where is it to come from ? — will 

 there not be a scarcity ? It is true that, owing to the sudden 

 and rapid extension of the manufacture, together with some 

 commercial speculation in the article, the price has for the 

 present year, 1851, been unusually high ; but this is a state of 

 things which will not continue. The supply is literally inex- 

 haustible. There is a belt of forest trees, extending ten degrees 

 each side the equator around the globe, which yield these gums 

 of various kinds ; and, as has been the case with turpentine 

 and resin, the greater the demand, the cheaper in all probability 

 these substances will be, when once the attention of mankind is 

 turned to the subject, and (that which is already being done) 



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