It then began in Europe its industrial use, and much profit 
accrued to the manufactures of catheters. In 1779 the Portuguese 
Government sent to Para the physician Dr. FRANCISCO X. o' 
Oliveira, with a view to encouraging the manufacture of surgical 
instruments and to enliven this industry. 
In 1791, Grassart, applied elastic gum in the manufacture of 
tubes, and later, Nadler, in the preparation of thread, and from 
thence arose the woven or tissue industry. 
In 1850, Para still exported to the Provinces, and to foreign 
parts, shoes and syringes, these constituting one of the sources of 
trade of that Province. 
The exportation of these elastic products to Europe began in 
1825, but with them were also sent: elastic gum in its crude state. 
Its use spread and very much increased after the discovery of the 
process of its vulcanization. 
Till 1840, its exportation consisted almost entirely of shoes. 
After 1850 this indigenous industry ceased. In 1825, a lb. of pure 
rubber was worth loo Reis, and until 1840, it was purely a native 
industry, like that of the gu&rana. (1) 
Increasing gradually this exportation through the development 
of foreign industries, the extraction of gum passed from native 
hands into the keeping of civilized people and of tapuyos i.e. Bra- 
zilian savages. 
The formation of rubber extracting depots followed as a matter 
of course into which flocked the descendants of the Indians, who, 
abandoning their homes and other ties, and lured by the seductions 
of this industry, eventually found themselves delivered bodily into 
the fetters of the slaver. It should however be noted that this in- 
dustry was always in the keeping of free-men notwithstanding the 
existence of slavery in those days ; nevertheless such was the sys- 
tem then in vogue, that those engaged in it were reduced to misery 
and to the condition of slavery. 
Then appeared on the scene the travelling merchants or pedlars, 
and with them, the further degradation of existing customs, im- 
morality, and its concomitants. 
The population began to diminish and with this diminution 
languished all other industries, such as those of indigo, coffee, cot- 
ton, tobacco, and tapioca, all to make room for this foreign trade 
in rubber, which continued to flourish, killing everything before it, 
tillage, husbandry and all. 
Rubber trading depots increased in proportion, rivers were ex- 
. pi or eel, Indians took to flight and concentrated, yet, notwithstand- 
ing this agglomeration cf population, those in the villages kept 
diminishing to supplant those in the depots, who were being deci- 
mated by disease or migrated from one river to another. Thus 
declined and disappeared whole villages. 
In 1877, Ceara was in the throes of a famine fanned by a long 
drought, causing the population of that province to emigrate en masse 
to the Amazons. This gave rise to an increased production of rub- 
(1) Pauli in ia sorbilis. 
