The following description of the India-Rubber tree and its fruit is given by Chevalier D. Claussen, inventor of the flax cotton. He says that in the course of his travels in South America, he had occasion to notice the different trees which produce the India-rubber, and of which the _Hancornia speciosa_ is one. It grows on the high plateaux of South America, between the tenth and twentieth degrees of latitude south, at a height of from three to five thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is of the family of the _Sapotacæ_, the same to which belongs the tree which produces gutta-percha. It bears a fruit, in form, not unlike a bergamot pear, and full of a milky juice, which is liquid India-rubber. To be eatable, the fruit must be kept two or three weeks after being gathered, in which time all the India-rubber disappears, or is converted into sugar, and is then in taste one of the most delicious fruits known, and regarded by the Brazilians (who call it Mangava) as superior to all other fruits of their country. The change of India-rubber into sugar, led him to suppose that gutta-percha, India-rubber, and similar compounds contained starch. He therefore tried to mix it with resinous or oily substances, in combination with tannin, and succeeded in making compounds which can be mixed in all proportions with gutta-percha or India-rubber without altering their characters. By the foregoing it will be understood that a great number of compounds of the gutta-percha and India-rubber class may be formed by mixing starch, gluten, or flour with tannin and resinous or oily substances. By mixing some of these compounds with gutta-percha or India-rubber, he can so increase its hardness that it will be like horn, and may be used as shields to protect the soldiers from the effect of the Minie balls, and some of these compounds in combination with iron, may be useful in floating batteries and many other purposes, such as covering the electric telegraph wires, imitation of wood, ship-building, &c. A description of the various uses to which India-rubber is applied, will be found exceedingly interesting and instructive. The English have thus far succeeded more perfectly, or rather more generally in their application of it, than we, although since 1856, rapid strides have been made in perfecting the manufacture of the various fabrics in which it is used in our country, especially New England. It must not be forgotten that to an American is due the discovery of the process of sulphurization, which discovery immediately gave a new value, and a new impulse to the application of this wonderful product of the forests of South America. The following account of the various uses to which India-rubber is applied, is taken principally from English sources, and refers to the manufactures of that country. INDIA-RUBBER CLEANING PROCESSES.