How Rubber was Discovered.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 4 September 1914, Page 2

How Rubber was Discovered.

Monsieur de la Condamine, a French savant, was travelling in 1743, in Ecuador, South America, with an expedition sent out to measure a degree of the meridian for scientific purposes. li ■ kept a journal, and the following entry is dated July 11 : . In the forests of Quito there flows a kind of resin which is called "cahuchu." When fresh it can be moulded into any form. It is impervious to rain. He further describes how the natives used it for making- a. special kind of syringe, and in April, 1745, when he had returned from his joxsr- •' ey, he presented a sample of ''cahuchu" to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. The French word for rubber—caoutchouc —is simply a corruption of this Indian name. La Condamine treated the product, as a mere vegetable curiosity. It was Fresneau, a French engineer, who first studied and utilised the substance. Fie embarked for Gui-

ana with a model of the fruit, and a sketch of the leaf. He rowed along the rivers, offered the natives drink and music, and when he had assured himself of their frienship by these and other gifts, showed his patterns and asked them to indicate the plant. His elToHs wera finally successful, and he oiH.lined enough rubber to make a pair of boots, which he presented to Monsieur de Maurepas, who went to Court in them. The "electric milk," as it was termed, thus made its first entry into the Uoyal presence.