Interesting facts about rubber.

There is a misconception that Europeans owe the invention of rubber to Columbus. In fact, the navigator only left a description of how the natives of the islands of Haiti played with a ball made of thickened milky juice that flowed from cuts on the bark of the Brazilian hevea. When the sap dripped from the tree, it seemed to the Indians that it was crying. Therefore, they began to call this plant a "crying tree– - from the Indian words kau ("tree") and uchu ("cry").

Much later, Europeans who visited America got to know rubber better and even learned, like the locals, to soak their raincoats with the juice of a rubber-bearing tree. But rubber came to the Old World only in 1751. A little frozen juice was brought by mathematician Charles La Condamine. He watched his "trophy" for a long time, but could not figure out what benefit rubber could bring to him personally and to humanity as a whole. Interesting facts about rubber Elasticity syndrome rubber had no other properties. Therefore, the mathematician called the American gum gum and forgot about it. And only almost 20 years later, the frozen juice was used.

The English priest and chemist Joseph Priestley (Joseph Priestley) in 1770 accidentally discovered that raw natural rubber is able to erase traces of graphite (pencil) better than the particles of bread, which were used at that time for the same purpose. This advantage of rubber is due to the fact that its friction on the paper causes an electrostatic voltage, which allows the rubber particles to attract graphite particles. Priestley called this substance "Indian rubber" (from the English Indian rubber — "Indian rubber"). The place of origin of rubber was America, but at that time all American things were called Indian, and it is this inaccurate name that has survived to this day.

However, experiments with rubber continued. In France, they invented comfortable suspenders and garters made of rubber threads woven with cotton. And after 1823, when the Scotsman Ch.Macintosh came up with the idea of laying a thin layer of rubber between two pieces of fabric, a real "rubber boom" began. So the rubberized raincoat was born, named after its inventor Macintosh. However, the "Scottish raincoat" did not immediately win universal recognition. The fact is that natural rubber lost its elasticity when it got cold, and in the heat it softened, became sticky and began to smell bad.

Not yet knowing about this property of the material, the English shoemaker Rilly began to produce rubber shoes. They say that his goods initially aroused great interest, but when the summer sun was hot, boots and galoshes literally melted on the shelves of the shop. Despite the failure that befell Rielly, his work was continued by the American Charles Goodyear. He was a poor man, but having set himself the goal of "taming" rubber, he stubbornly sought to achieve it. They say that an industrialist, interested in the experiments of a self-taught inventor, decided to find him. He asked the neighbors how to find Mr. Goodir. He was told that "if you meet a man in a rubber hat, trousers, coat, cape, shoes and with a rubber purse without a single cent in it, then it will be a Goodir." In fact, the inventor has made a revolution in the technology of manufacturing rubber products. He discovered the principle of vulcanization of rubber, that is, a special treatment of rubber, in which the latter combines with sulfur and, as a result, acquires the ability not to react to temperature changes. In 1843, he patented this process.

It is not surprising that Brazil, which was the largest importer of rubber, protected the source of its wealth. The export of hevea seeds was prohibited under penalty of death. However, in 1876, the British spy Henry Wickham secretly exported 70,000 hevea seeds in the holds of the English ship Amazonas. The first rubber-bearing plantations were established in the British colonies of Southeast Asia. Natural English rubber, cheaper than Brazilian, has appeared on the world market.