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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In This Forest We At Length Obtained Precise Information Respecting
The Pretended Fossil Caoutchouc, Called Dapicho By The Indians.
The
old chief Javita led us to the brink of a rivulet which runs into the
Tuamini; and showed
Us that, after digging two or three feet deep, in
a marshy soil, this substance was found between the roots of two trees
known by the name of the jacio and the curvana. The first is the hevea
of Aublet, or siphonia of the modern botanists, known to furnish the
caoutchouc of commerce in Cayenne and Grand Para; the second has
pinnate leaves, and its juice is milky, but very thin, and almost
destitute of viscosity. The dapicho appears to be the result of an
extravasation of the sap from the roots. This extravasation takes
place more especially when the trees have attained a great age, and
the interior of the trunk begins to decay. The bark and alburnum
crack; and thus is effected naturally, what the art of man performs
for the purpose of collecting the milky juices of the hevea, the
castilloa, and the caoutchouc fig-tree. Aublet relates, that the
Galibis and the Garipons of Cayenne begin by making a deep incision at
the foot of the trunk, so as to penetrate into the wood; soon after
they join with this horizontal notch others both perpendicular and
oblique, reaching from the top of the trunk nearly to the roots. All
these incisions conduct the milky juice towards one point, where the
vase of clay is placed, in which the caoutchouc is to be deposited.
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