XIV 
INDIA-RUBBER TREES 507 
in the Amazon valley, form a fitting close to this 
portion of Spruce's Travels : — ] 
Notes on the India-rubber Trees of the 
Rio Negro 
In the mouth of the Uaupes (on my return 
voyage) I found a rancho erected and a person 
employed in extracting india-rubber from the species 
I had discovered there [Sipkonia lutea). All the 
way down the Rio Negro the smoke was seen 
ascending from recently opened seringales, prin- 
cipally in the islands. The extraordinary price 
reached by rubber in Para in 1853 length woke 
up the people from their lethargy, and when once 
set in motion, so wide was the impulse extended 
that throughout the Amazon and its principal 
tributaries the mass of the population put itself in 
motion to search out and fabricate rubber. In the 
province of Para alone (which includes a very small 
portion of the Amazon) it was computed that 25,000 
persons were employed in that branch of industry. 
Mechanics threw aside their tools, sugar-makers 
deserted their mills, and Indians their rocas, so that 
sugar, rum, and even farinha were not produced 
in sufficient quantity for the consumption of the 
province, the two former articles having to be 
imported from Maranhao and Pernambuco, and the 
latter from the Upper Rio Negro and Uaupes. 
The species of trees from which rubber is 
extracted on the Upper Rio Negro and Lower 
Casiquiari are two, Siphonia lutea and ^. brevi- 
folia, known respectively as the long-leaved and 
