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may, ere long, be able to utilize the small quantities of caoutchouc 

 known to occur in other plants beside the well-known four or five 

 important rubber plants ; and second, that it may be possible to 

 make rubber synthetically. 



For the first point to be one of real practical importance it 

 would be necessary to find a plant which produces latex contain- 

 ing rubber which can be more easily grown and produces so much 

 latex that even the small quantity of caoutchouc it contains 

 will be sufficient for it to compete with say Hevea brasiliensis. 

 Thus, say a latex contains \ the amount of caoutchouc produced 

 by Hevea, the plant would have to produce more than 8 times the 

 amount of latex to compete, as the extraction of the rubber from 

 this thin latex would obviously cost more than from the richer 

 latex. It is hardly probable that this would be discovered now. 

 Still other latices might be utilized in a small way, such as those 

 of the Jack tree, which might possibly pay for extraction in some 

 parts of the world. But a discovery of this nature, i.e., of a method 

 of utilizing the sticky immature rubber, or viscin as it is commonly 

 called, would be of some importance to the Para-rubber planter, 

 for by it he would be able to utilize the thin sticky rubber from 

 leaves and twigs of his Para-trees and the tappings from the 

 nursery beds, so that on the whole, any such discovery, almost 

 certain to be made, would rather benefit him than injure his 

 business. 



Synthetic rubber has been the bogy of many would-be investors 

 of rubber, and no question is more often asked than, is it likely 

 that synthetic rubber will soon be invented, and the plantations 

 ruined. As Professor Dunstan writes : '' Rubber having all the 

 qualities of a good caoutchouc has been made from isoprene, 

 which has been prepared from oil of turpentine." It surely needs 

 hardly any pointing out that the slow growing expensive turpen- 

 tine trees, inhabitants of cold climates where labour is extremely 

 costly, could not for a minute compete against the rapid growing 

 Para rubber tree in a climate where labour is cheap, especially 

 when from the Hevea we get the rubber fully prepared when the 

 latex is drawn from the tree, whereas in the turpentine tree, after 

 drawing off the turpentine, it has to be made into isoprene and 

 then into rubber. Isoprene must be made far more cheaply than 

 in this way to compete with Para rubber. It is certain that we 

 shall be able to lower the cost of the production of rubber very 

 considerably in the next few years, perhaps to little more than half 

 its present cost. Can any substance be found from which isoprene 

 or any other hydrocarbon convertible into rubber can be obtained 

 and converted at a cheaper rate ? This is hardly probable. 



The vulcanization of latex at which Mr. Bamber has been working, 

 was a subject of discussion many years ago in the Straits. Its 

 commercial practicability depends on the possibility of starting 

 manufactories of rubber goods on a large scale in the rubber 

 districts. It is notorious that there are practically no large 

 manufactories in any part of the tropics. All or nearly all attempts 

 at starting anything except strictly local manufactories even in 



