CHAPTER XIV.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

In the year 1735, a party of astronomers, sent by the French Government to Peru for purposes of scientific investigation, discovered a curious tree growing in that country, the like of which no European had ever seen before.  It grew to a considerable size, and yielded a peculiar sap or gum.  It was the custom of the natives to make several incisions in each tree with an ax, in the morning, and to place under each incision a cup or jar made of soft clay.  Late in the afternoon, the fluid thus obtained was collected in a large clay vessel, each incision yielding about a gill of sap per day.  This process was repeated for several days in succession, until the tree had been thoroughly drained.  This sap was simply a species of liquid gum, which, though clear and colorless in its native state, had the property of becoming hard and tough when exposed to the sun or artificial heat.  It was used by the natives for the manufacture of a few rude and simple articles, by a process similar to that by which the old-fashioned “tallow-dip” candles were made.  It was poured over a pattern of clay or a wooden mold or last covered with clay, and successive coatings were applied as fast as the former ones dried, until the article had attained the desired thickness, the whole taking the shape of the mold over which the gum was poured.  As the layers were applied, their drying was hastened by exposure to the heat and smoke of a fire, the latter giving to the gum a dark-black hue.  Dried without exposure to the smoke, or by the sun alone, the gum became white within and yellowish-brown without.  The drying process required several days, and during its progress the gum was ornamented with characters or lines made with a stick.  When it was completed, the clay mold was broken to pieces and shaken out of the opening.  The natives in this manner made a species of rough, clumsy shoe, and an equally rough bottle.  In some parts of South America, the natives make it a rule to present their guests with one of these bottles, furnished with a hollow stern, which serves as a syringe for squirting water into the mouth in order to cleanse it after eating.  The articles thus made were liable to become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather, and soft and sticky in warm.  The French astronomers, upon their return to their own country, were quick to call attention to this remarkable gum, which was afterward discovered in Cayenne by Trismau, in 1751.  At present it is found in large quantities in various parts of South America, but the chief supplies used in commerce are produced in the province of Para, which lies south of the equator, in Brazil.  It is also grown largely in the East Indies, vast and inexhaustible forests of the trees which yield it being found in Assam, beyond the Ganges, although the quality can not compare with that of the South American article.