The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1909-04-23

Rubber is one of the great essentials
of modern industrial life. With iron
or steel, with copper, and with glass
it may be compared in the diversity
of its use; it has the advantage over
these, and may be compared in this
latter respect to corn, wheat, and the
necessary foods, in that it is capable
of eternal reproduction if mankind will
but apply to its cultivation his ex-
perience and scientific knowledge.
There is scarcely a device of daily
commerce into which rubber does not
enter as a necessity, and yet in the
annual statistical publication of the
department of commerce and labor
Commerce and Navigation of the
United States-the student will look
in vain for the word rubber" and
not until he examines the word or the
phrase "indiarubber." India rubber"
or "India-rubber" will he be able to
see how vast and important is the sub
ject before him. This conservatism
if the term may be here applied--is
traceabe throughout all the literature
OF all the libraries of the English
speaking world. The aboriginal native
word describing the substance first
discovered by the early Europeans was
cahuchu, probably pronounced but
surely corrupted into caoutchouc. This
latter word has spread into the Ian
guages of Europe. In French ii is the
same word; in German the only modi-
fication is to substitute a for the c.,
and in Russian nearly the same change
takes place. To be sure the Spanish
uses frequently the word gonna, equiv
alent to our gum, and this is made
more specific by adding the adjective
elastica, and the Portuguese has the
word borracha, but caucho is COM
mercially well understood, as might be
supposed from the first association
with the source of supply. Rubber, or
india rubber, however, is undoubtedly
the term which will continue to be en-
ployed in English TO distinguish this
indispensable product of the tropics.
Caoutchouc directly explains the
descent of the gum and it's adoption
into arts, but india rubber embraces
not only this history but conceals one
of the romances of the industries.
Travelers-and IL is said Columbus
himself was one of them-noticed that
the Indian inhabitants of America,
thought then to be an unkonwn por-
ton of the Indies, played ball with a
curious substance grown in the print
tive forests and prepared according
to native ways. This substance was
also made into shoes; il formed a
protective coating for garments, and
from 1t were made bottles which could
be squeezed together SO as to eject the
liquid contents. This substance was
called caucho in some parts of Amer
lea, and the gatherers were caucheros:
in other parts the gatherers were called
because of the shape of the bottles and
the uses to which the Portuguese saw
them put, seringeiros, syringe-men.
From this origin the india prefix OF
the word is derived. At first the gum.
gonna elastica. according to the Span.
ish, was merely curiosity; Il was
imported into Europe and studied
chemically with great interest; II
was made into tubes and put to prac.
tical use in the laboratory. But in 1870
the English chemist Priestley recon-
mended the use of the gum for effac
ing the marks OF the lead pencil. II
rubbed out these marks and was
therefore, a rubber. II became more
widely known as experiment showed its
value. ard in 1923 Macintosh discov.
cred TIE method Of interpreting gar