Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Have No
Doubt, That On Digging In French Guiana Beneath The Roots And The Old
Trunks Of The Hevea, Those Enormous Masses Of Corky Caoutchouc,* Which
I Have Just Described, Would From Time To Time Be Found.
(* Thus, at
five or six inches depth, between the roots of the Hymenea courbaril,
masses of the resin anime (erroneously called copal) are discovered,
and are sometimes mistaken for amber in inland places.
This phenomenon
seems to throw some light on the origin of those large masses of amber
which are picked up from time to time on the coast of Prussia.) As it
is observed in Europe, that at the fall of the leaf the sap is
conveyed towards the root, it would be curious to examine whether,
within the tropics, the milky juices of the urticeae, the
euphorbiaceae, and the apocyneae, descend also at certain seasons.
Notwithstanding a great equality of temperature, the trees of the
torrid zone follow a cycle of vegetation; they undergo changes
periodically returning. The existence of the dapicho is more
interesting to physiology than to vegetable chemistry. A
yellowish-white caoutchouc is now to be found in the shops, which may
be easily distinguished from the dapicho, because it is neither dry
like cork, nor friable, but extremely elastic, glossy, and soapy. I
lately saw considerable quantities of it in London. This caoutchouc,
white, and greasy to the touch, is prepared in the East Indies. It
exhales that animal and fetid smell which I have attributed in another
place to a mixture of caseum and albumen.* (* The pellicles deposited
by the milk of hevea, in contact with the atmospheric oxygen, become
brown on exposure to the sun. If the dapicho grow black as it is
softened before the fire, it is owing to a slight combustion, to a
change in the proportion of its elements. I am surprised that some
chemists consider the black caoutchouc of commerce, as being mixed
with soot, blackened by the smoke to which it has been exposed.) When
we reflect on the immense variety of plants in the equinoctial regions
that are capable of furnishing caoutchouc, it is to be regretted that
this substance, so eminently useful, is not found among us at a lower
price. Without cultivating trees with a milky sap, a sufficient
quantity of caoutchouc might be collected in the missions of the
Orinoco alone for the consumption of civilized Europe.* (* We saw in
Guiana, besides the jacio and the curvana, two other trees that yield
caoutchouc in abundance; on the banks of the Atabapo the guamaqui with
jatropha leaves, and at Maypures the cime.) In the kingdom of New
Grenada some successful attempts have been made to make boots and
shoes of this substance without a seam. Among the American nations,
the Omaguas of the Amazon best understand how to manufacture
caoutchouc.
Four days had passed, and our canoe had not yet arrived at the
landing-place of the Rio Pimichin. "You want for nothing in my
mission," said Father Cereso; "you have plantains and fish; at night
you are not stung by mosquitos; and the longer you stay, the better
chance you will have of seeing the stars of my country.
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