National Geographic : 1944 Jan
The National Geographic Magazine Deft Female Fingers Split and Sort Wa Using sharp knives, these girls separate the miner slash off stained and broken portions. Before them mica selection. Prices vary with size; inch-square exported (page 48). "the tree of life." It flourishes in the arid areas of northeast Brazil, where drought con ditions are chronic and, to the inhabitants, sometimes tragic. In periods of extreme dryness, when other plants die in the blazing sun, the people often extract starch from the hearts of young palms to gain sufficient food. To the tree, as in its commercial uses, the wax serves as a protective covering. During dry periods it forms a coating over the sur faces of the leaves to check the evaporation of moisture. Wax gatherers cut the leaves, let them dry, and then beat off this thin layer, which breaks into powdery particles. To get a pound of wax, anywhere from 60 to more than 115 leaves must be handled. Imagine the work in volved in securing the more than 16 million pounds which the United States took in a year just before the war began! "Go West," Says President Vargas Many of the people who have fought the battle of drought and famine here in north east Brazil are now being recruited to fight the battle of the Ama zon.* For years there has been considerable mi gration from the States of Ceari, Piaui, and surrounding districts, as drought often has made "Okies" of un counted thousands of the inhabitants. Presi dent Vargas has long advocated a "move to the West." Now it is under way at accelerated pace, forced by the urgent need for war rubber. r-needed Mica Today thousands of these workers are on al into thin sheets and the move. You see are size charts used in sheets are the smallest them waiting with their bundles at Fortaleza, at Sobral, and at Belem -w aiting to be moved into the Amazon. Others are at transit camps in Manaus, wait ing for transport farther into the interior. Leaders of the rubber program contracted to move many thousands of the laborers this year. To move large numbers of persons into almost virgin territory is a stupendous under taking. The men need transport ships, river barges, homes, food. Health problems have to be handled. In camps at assembly or transit points all work ers must be inoculated against typhoid, small * See "Exploring the Valley of the Amazon in a Hydroplane," by Capt. Albert W. Stevens, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, April, 1926, and "How Latin America Looks from the Air," by Maj. Herbert A. Dargue, October, 1927.