Discovery of wild rubber
The credit of observing an application of rubber can be given to Christopher Columbus and those who accompanied him during his voyage to the Carrebian, where they observed the inhabitants playing with rubber like balls.
In his second voyage 1493- 1496, he witnessed a game played by inhabitants of Haiti (Haiti, is a country located on the island of Hispanoila to the east Cuba and south of The Bahama.) It is surprising that there is no tree or shrub that produces rubber indigenous to Haiti.
The name rubber
A major breakthrough occurred in 1770, when chemist Joseph Priestley noticed that lines drawn with a pencil can be removed using rubber. That is how the name ‘rubber’ – derived from the English verb ‘to rub out’ – came to be used.
Hevea brasiliens is a forest tree which is indigenous to the tropical rain forests of Central and South America and the only major commercial source of natural rubber is one of the highly domesticated crops in the world.
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