54. 



tivation, and the increased price for raw rubber, the pros- 

 pect of plantation rubber received serious general atten- 

 tion, and at the present time it is estimated that — in these 

 two countries alone — there is an area approaching 360,000 

 acres under cultivation, or approximately 60,000,000 plants 

 raised from the original stock brought by Wickham and 

 Cross, and indeed all plantations of Para rubber in the 

 Netherlands, Borneo, Samoa, Burmah, Africa and the West 

 Indies, are the progeny of plants supplied from the Botanic 

 gardens of Ceylon and Singapore. 



The price of the best Para rubber had advanced from 

 2/ in 1861 to 4/10 in the year of 1882, and fell again to 

 2/2 three years later. Since then, although there have 

 been fluctuations, the price has graduallv advanced, and 

 in 1899 had reached 4/8. About this time— 1880-1890— 

 Brazilian collectors discovered that their country was 

 richer in indigenous trees than had been anticipated, 

 all the main tributaries of the Amazon, as far as Bolivia 

 and Peru, offered better collecting ground than the 

 mouths of the Amazon (Island rubber) and the port of 

 Para was superseded by the port of Manaos, the capital 

 town of the state of the Amazonas — about 1000 miles up 

 the Amazon and navigable for Ocean going steamers — which 

 became, and is still, the largest port for rubber in the world. 

 From Manaos 374 tons of raw rubbers were exported in 

 1880, and 19,924 tons in 1907. Despite this large increase 

 of output the demand for raw rubber has steadily advanced. 



This increased demand is entirely due to the develop- 

 ment by manufacturers and chemists during the last few 

 years in the treatment of raw material, and a more extended 

 knowledge of compounding, which has brought on the mar- 

 ket many cheap goods. Writing on the "Treatment of 

 Rubber" Dr. Torrey says of fillers and compounding, "Sub- 

 ' ' stances which made vulcanisation take place more prompt- 

 ly and definitely. Some of them increase the strength and 

 "resilience very notably," and again, "Compounding is 

 "not only defensible, but essential to an intelligent and 

 "legitimate application of rubber in the arts." 



The rubber produced by the different species of Hevea 

 in Brazil is classified — according to the districts where pre- 

 pared — as Fina, Extra-fina, Grossa, and Sernamby, and 

 all of this is coagulated with the aid of smoke. The latex 

 of Hevea is alkaline to litmus and the smoke contains the 

 necessary acid re-action, and it is by this process that the 

 best rubber on the market is obtained. It is frequently in- 

 sisted that the superior quality of "fine hard Para" is due 



