WHERE RUBBER COMES FROM

New Zealand Tablet, 16 September 1909, Page 1477

WHERE RUBBER COMES FROM

I wonder (says a writer in the Sacred Heart Review) if any of our boys and girls ever give a thought to the people who supply them with one of the most useful articles of comfort. If it were not for a few lazy, sleepy, South American natives we would have to wade through snow and mud without rubbers or rubber boots, there would be no rubber tyres to make driving pleasant, and millions of babies in every quarter of the globe would be crying for their teething rings, their rubber dolls, and the tubes of their feeding bottles. The rubber is made in the jungles, of Brazil, by the dusky natives of that country, who have' the trade all to themselves, /as no white man can withstand the fevers which prevail in these regions. The natives are so lazy, however, that they only work when their necessities oblige them to do so, and for this reason the supply of rubber is always far below the demand. The workers go into the jungles in bands. They cut gashes in the bark »>f the trees, and catch the milk as it runs out, in little clay dishes. This milk is really the sap of the tree, and contains millions of tiny globules of liquid caoutchouc. When sufficient fluid is collected, they take it home, where they evaporate the surplus moisture, and reduce the caoutchouc to the condition so familiar in raw India rubber. They have a wooden mould on the end of a stick, and having dipped this in the milk, they dry it in a fire of oily nuts, forming a thiu, elastic film over the mould. They keep on adding to this by repeated dipping and cooking over the fire, until a solid cake of rubber is the result.