Re: MtMan-List: Re: Mt man-List: rubber ponchos

[Dale Nelson <dnelson@wizzards.net>]

John C Funk wrote:
> 

>  What was "India rubber"?

	Narcissa says, "Our table is the ground, our tablecloth is an Indian
rubber cloth used when it rains as a cloak."  This is in a letter
written June 4th, 1836 on the Platte and which I got from "Rocky
Mountain Rendezous" by Fred Gowans.  Some place she also mentions
gutta-percha cloth.  My 1911 Websters Dictionary says gutta-percha is "a
reddish-brown horn-like substance; the inspissated juice of the
gutta-percha tree (Isonandra gutta) of the Malay Archipelago."  I looked
up inspissated, which is,  "To thicken by boiling or evaporation."
	Is this what we would call a rubber tree?  Is gutta-percha cloth and
Indian rubber cloth the same thing? or is it two different types of
water proof cloth?  They also had oil cloth which is canvass treated
with linseed oil? except when I was a kid -- born 100 years after 1836,
at least my family called oil cloth a rubber coated cloth that was
spread on the ground when we went on a picnic?  
	John Kramer was did a post on grommets.  Canvass was used for the
engines of ships before Christ was born.  Sail makers whip stiched
grommets in sails for centuries, and I'd bet that when metal grommets
were first used some sailor was trying to figure a way to make a sail
last longer.  I'd also bet that the first use of India rubber cloth was
at sea, and perhaps a good place to start research on this type of thing
would be the Mystic Seaport museum in New England.  Sorry, I don't
remember the state or town where it's located, but someone out there
should know.  
	One last thing on grommets.  I met a guy that located a site of a ferry
and store that was pre civil war/gold rush era.  This doesn't prove a
thing, but it's something to think about.  I amongst the artifacts that
he found using his metal detector was a pattern of brass grommets that
suggested that a canvass tarp had laid on the ground and rotted away. 
Somebody could have camped there years later, and left the tarp, but
it's something to think about.
				DN