The tapping of a rubber tree is a seemingly simple operation, and yet it requires considerable skill to so tap a tree as to produce the maximum of sap, and inflict the minimum of injury to the tree. A tree properly treated will stand continual tapping for twenty years, while a tree abused might die after two or three seasons. Hence it is to the interest of all to preserve the life of the tree. The tapper first affixes a small cup to the tree, and then with a wedge-shaped axe makes a gash in the bark, being careful not to penetrate the wood. This operation is repeated at intervals of a foot in a line around the tree. Into these cups the milk flows slowly. The next day a row of incisions is made just below the first, and so on until the ground is reached. A good tree will yield up to a height of at least twenty feet. An expert can tap a hundred trees a day, provided that they are close together. The sap, which is collected once each day, is then brought to the camp. Heat is then applied and the crude rubber is made into roughly-shaped balls of different sizes. The buyers usually cut these in two in order to see that no extraneous substance has been placed inside to give weight. Stones have frequently been found moulded in with the rubber, and stones are easier to gather even along the Amazon than rubber. Many plantations of rubber trees, principally of the Maniçoba species, which will grow on higher and drier lands of the interior, have been set out in Brazil, but their production is very small when compared with that of the dense Amazonian forests. Of the other valuable trees of the Amazon basin Agassiz says: “The importance of the basin of the Amazons to Brazil, from an industrial point of view, can hardly be over-estimated. Its woods alone have an almost priceless value. Nowhere in the world is there finer timber, either for solid construction or for work of ornament, and yet it is scarcely used even for the local buildings, and makes no part whatever of the exports. The rivers which flow past these magnificent forests seem meant to serve, first as a waterpower for the sawmills, which ought to be established along their borders, and then as a means of transportation for the material so provided. Setting aside the woods as timber, what shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, colouring matters and textile fabrics which they yield?” These words of this great naturalist, although written years ago, are just as true to-day. At least one hundred and fifty varieties of valuable hardwood timbers have been found in these forests. As mahogany and other better known woods become scarcer, these woods will certainly find a market. [Illustration: A NEW SETTLER IN THE JUNGLE.]