Am.  Jour,  Pbarn?.  | 
April,  1899.  / 
Editorial. 
191 
EDITORIAL. 
NATURAL  AND  ARTIFICIAL  RUBBER. 
Of  all  the  plant  constituents  there  are  none  of  such  great  economic  importance 
as  those  that  constitute  what  is  called  rubber.  This  is  the  product  contained  in 
the  milk  vessels  of  the  plants  of  a  number  of  natural  orders,  viz. :  Euphorbiaceae, 
Apocynacese,  Asclepiadaceae,  Urticacese,  Lobeliacese  and  Compositse.  These 
milk  vessels  were,  according  to  Otto  Chimani,  first  observed  by  Theophrastus  and 
M.  Lister  and  first  anatomically  studied  by  Malphigi.  A  large  number  of  species 
yield  the  commercial  rubber  and  new  sources  of  the  article  are  being  described 
from  time  to  time  in  the  Kew  Bulletin,  see  this  Journal,  April,  1876,  and 
Notizblatt  des  Kdnigl.  Bot.  Gart.  u.  Mus.  Zu  Berlin.  According  to  Consular 
Reports,  May,  1S98,  p.  72,  the  imports  of  rubber  into  the  United  States  during 
the  fiscal  year  1897,  were  :  Rubber,  free  of  duty,  35,574,449  pounds,  valued  at 
117,457,976  ;  rubber,  dutiable,  $297,953  ;  old  scrap  and  refuse  for  manufacture, 
3,653,945  pounds,  valued  at  $113,722. 
The  U.S.  Pharmacopoeia  recognizes  the  product  of  various  species  of  Hevea, 
which  is  known  as  Para  rubber.  The  State  of  Para  does  not  produce  {Ibid., 
January,  1899)  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  rubber  shipped  through  this  port,  the 
balance  coming  from  the  States  of  the  Amazon  as  well  as  from  Peru,  Bolivia, 
etc.  There  entered  the  port  of  Para  during  the  fiscal  year  1897-98,  22,257  tons 
of  rubber,  and  of  this  amount  11,422  tons  were  shipped  to  the  United  States 
and  10,796  to  Europe. 
The  principal  bearing  areas  in  the  State  of  Para  are  :  The  islands  in  the  river 
Amazon,  near  the  city  ;  the  banks  of  the  river  Tocantins  ;  the  banks  of  the 
rivers  Xingu,  Jary  and  Tapajos.  The  upper  and  lower  districts  of  the  Amazon 
produce  the  same  kind  of  rubber,  but  that  coming  from  the  upper  rivers  obtains 
a  slightly  higher  price,  being  dryer  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  port  of  shipment. 
It  appears  that  the  rubber-producing  area  in  this  Amazon  section,  recently 
discovered  and  untouched,  is  hundreds  of  times  larger  than  that  worked 
heretofore. 
Some  of  the  South  American  countries  are  seriously  giving  attention  to  the 
cultivation  of  rubber.  Ecuador  produces,  it  is  said,  every  known  species  of 
rubber  tree  in  great  abundance  from  the  Fiats  dolairia  in  the  vulgate  Ragasron 
to  the  Urceola,  the  most  beautiful  of  all ;  the  same  can  be  said  of  Columbia. 
In  these  two  countries  the  cultivation  of  rubber  is  a  new  industry.  Hitherto, 
rubber  has  been  obtained  from  wild  trees,  but  the  ruthless  destruction  of  the 
plants  by  the  greedy  rubber  seekers,  who  do  not  hesitate  to  cut  them  down  to 
obtain  a  trifle  more  gum,  has  played  havoc  with  the  trade  of  this  coast.  In  the 
remote  regions  of  Ecuador,  there  are  still  large  forests,  but  inefficient  transpor- 
tation increases  the  cost.  An  effort  is  being  made  to  obtain  from  the  Govern- 
ment an  eight-year  concession  for  the  exploitation  of  rubber  and  quinine  in  a 
territory  covermg  from  eight  to  ten  square  leagues  in  the  Province  of  Tungu- 
rahua. 
Manicoba  rubber  from  Ceara,  Rio  Grande  and  Parahyba,  States  in  Northern 
Brazil,  ranks  in  price  second  to  the  Seringueira  or  Para  rubber  and  is  preferred 
even  in  certain  classes  of  work  to  the  latter.  The  interest  in  the  growth  ot  the 
plant  yielding  this  rubber  is  steadily  increasing,  not  only  in  the  three  States 
mentioned,  but  is  also  extending  rapidly  throughout  Pernambuco,  Alagoas  and 
