Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0242Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of tropical trees with a focus on a rubber tree. Above the image "T246 (Star)" is printed, below the image, 20857 Rubber Tree, Showing Scars from Cutting and Other Tropical Vegetation, Panama." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
247-(20857)
RUBBER TREE, PANAMA CAnAL ZONE
Lat. 9(Degrees) N.; Long. 80(Degrees) W.
The rubber tree is the small one in the center of the view. It is full of gashes where it has been tapped. For rubber is made from the "milk" of rubber trees; and this milk is got by gashing the tree. Below the gashes are fastened coconut shells or little tines to catch the milk. The milk is not the sap of th tree, for it runs in channels different from the sap.
The trees are usually gashed of a morning and the milk gathered of an evening. A little of the milk is then poured on a stick which is held in the smoke of a palm-nut fire. When this milk has "curdled" on the stick, more is poured on. And son on, the heating and pouring goes till a large ball of rubber is made. This is the raw rubber bought in Mexico, and Central and South Americas.
Different peoples have different ways of gahtering rubber. And there are different kinds of rubber trees. The kind you see here is a small variety. In Brazil, where most of our rubber is got, the trees are very large.
The Indians knew about rubber when the first white men came to tropical America. They played ball with rubber balls long before Columbus dreamed of corssing the Atlantic. Some tribes had shoes and bottles of rubber. In 1770 an Englishman found thea the gum of this tree would rase pencil makrs by rubbing. He there-fore called it "rubber."
In 1873 Charles Goodyear discovered how to vulcanize rubber by mixing it with sulphur and then heating it. The sulphur makes the rubber pliable, and when the article so made was heated it would keep its shape yet be flexible.
Rubber trees grow from seed. They are not tapped till they are 8 years old; but they can be tapped for 50 years. Para, Brazil, is the greatest rubber port in the world. Locate it.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection