FEDERAL TERRITORY OF ACRE [Illustration: SERINGUEIRO SMOKING RUBBER AT ALTO ACRE.] THE ACRE THE FLUVIAL REGION THAT IS RICHEST IN RUBBER As far as the wealth of rubber obtained from natural sources is concerned, Brazil ranks first among all the world’s rubber producing countries. While the East Indian section, with its plantation grown product, has already outstripped her in the quantity of its annual plantation output, the superior excellence of genuine Pará rubber has not been attained. The “fine rubber” that comes from the inundated region of the lower river country is best known. In the upper districts of various southern affluents, fine rubber trees grow, but no longer in the lowlands that have long been subject to inundation, they occur rather in forests that are overflowed seldom, if at all, that even extend over the hilly districts. The method of collection and the entire operation of rubber production varies in many respects from the more familiar methods of the inundated districts. This applies particularly to Acre, with its characteristic and peculiar river section. To explore this section, from economic and scientific points of view, I undertook a journey last year, 1911, at the instance of the Associação Commercial. The results of this journey will be embodied in a detail report, it is at present proposed to make only a brief summary to supplement the pictures shown in the exhibition. Our better knowledge of Acre dates back barely a quarter of a century. At that period uncertainty prevailed as to which of the countries adjoining Acre, Brazil, Bolivia and Perú, were the owners of the territory. In more recent times these conditions have been adjusted, the greater part having been awarded to Brazil, while Bolivia received a portion of the left bank of the upper Acre. The boundary between Bolivia and Perú is as yet undecided. The latter country includes the uppermost left bank of the source section which contains but few fine rubber trees. [Illustration: DR. CARLOS DE CERQUEIRA PINTO, Inventor of a Smokeless Process for Curing Rubber.] [Illustration: LANDSCAPE ON THE BANKS OF THE ALTO ACRE.] The Acre is a right affluent of the larger tributaries of the Purús, entering above the mouth of the Rio Negro and coming from the Southwest, and flows, like these, through the boundless forest tracts of the Amazon River country. It rises in elevated ground, East of the Andes, in a still partly explored territory, very difficult of access, at about the eleventh degree of southern latitude and 70½ longitude and flows at first eastward, to the Bolivian boundary at 69°. From this point, the Acre flows first Northeast, with a constantly increasing northerly inclination, until it enters the Central Purús at 8⅔ South latitude and 67½ longitude. The small steamers run from this point to the junction with the Amazon and on to Manáos in six to eight days.