"Of all the applications of rubber, that of packing for the steam engine and connecting machinery appears to have been the most important, as it has been an essential condition of the development and extended use of steam as a motive power."
Even as you read this, rubber may be in the act of performing some new magic, some fresh service to mankind. And who knows which one of us will, in the years to come, write a chapter in the story of rubber more thrilling than we are able to imagine to-day!
A REVIEW AND QUESTIONS
1. Who was the first white man to see rubber?
2 What use were the natives making of it?
3. Who was the first white man to go up the Amazon?
4. Of what nationality were the explorers who were sent to find out about rubber?
5. Who was the first European monarch to use rubber?
6. How did rubber get its name?