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

["John L. Allen" <jlallen@snet.net>]

Ho the list,


To try to answer a number of questions that have been posted in the last day
or so:

The Mystic Seaport museum is located in Mystic, Connecticut. They have a web
site but I don't know what its address is. A search will locate it.

Gutta percha is the sap of the gutta-percha tree (isonadra gutta) which is
native to Indonesia. It is a milky white substance very much like latex
which comes from the rubber tree (hevea brasiliensis),  native to Brazil but
grown widely in Southeast Asia in plantations. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, both gutta percha and latex from rubber trees were
used for the same purposes, often related to maritime or naval stores
(sailcloth, waterproofing, etc.). There is little to distinguish between
products in which gutta percha was used from those in which rubber latex was
used and both products were widely in use by the 1700s. The reason we hear
more about rubber and less about gutta percha is that the hevea (rubber)
tree was more adaptable to plantation growth and became the primary supplier
of latex by 1800.

Oakum is, as has been noted, hemp. Normally it is produced by pulling apart
rope made from hemp (as opposed to ropes made from flax). If the rope is
untreated (not tarred), the resulting substance is referred to as "white
oakum". "Regular" oakum is darker-colored, tarry, because it comes from
treated or tarred ropes.

I have seen brass grommets in use on late 18th century sails and sailcloth.
I assume, therefore, that they were used in tarps in the 19th century as
well.

There are many interesting connections beween the products of the maritime
trade (fishing, whaling, merchant marine) and those of the Rocky Mountain
fur trade era.

John L. Allen

-----Original Message-----
From: Dale Nelson <dnelson@wizzards.net>
To: hist_text@lists.xmission.com <hist_text@lists.xmission.com>
Date: Saturday, October 31, 1998 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: MtMan-List: Re: Mt man-List: rubber ponchos


>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
>