268 



New Grenada some successful attempts have 

 been made, to fabricate boots and shoes of this 

 substance without a seam* Among the Ameri- 

 can nations the Omaguas of the Amazon best 

 understand how to manufacture caoutchouc. 



Four days had passed, and our canoe had 

 not yet arrived at the landing place of Rio 

 Pimichin. " You want for nothing in my mis- 

 sion," said father Cereso, " you have plantains 

 and fish ; at night you are not stung by mos- 

 chettoes ; and the longer you stay, the better 

 chance you will have of seeing the stars of my 

 country. If your boat be destroyed in the 

 portage, we will give you another ; and I shall 

 have had the satisfaction of passing some weeks 4 



Philadelphia a great deal of caoutchouc from the smilax 

 caduca. (Phil. Mag. vol. xl, p. 66.) This fact appears very 

 extraordinary, if we recollect the properties of the other 

 smilaceae. It would be the first instance of caoutchouc in a 

 monocotyledonous plant. After so many researches as have 

 been made latterly by botanical travellers, it were much to 

 be wished, that our chemical treatises were less inaccurate 

 in the indication of plants, that furnish resins, gums, balsams^ 

 and colouring matter. We find constantly under the article 

 caoutchouc the hevea and the jatropha elastica mentioned 

 as two different trees. Such of this elastic substance as is 

 found in the shops is the produce of the hevea, or the sipho- 

 nia cahuchu of Guyana and Brazil, of the lobelia caoutchouc 

 Popayan, of the castilloa elastica of Mexico, of the ficus 

 and the urceola elastica (a genus of Roxburgh nearly ap- 

 proaching the vahea) of India, and of the commiphora of 

 Madagascar, 



