38 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[November i, 1906. 



AMERICANS IN CONGO RUBBER. 



THE management of the Continental Rubber Co. (New- 

 York) have been reticent about giving any informa- 

 tion regarding negotiations currentU- reported for some 

 weeks past to have been pending between American inter- 

 ests affiliated with that company, and the government of 

 the Congo Free State, for the admission of the Americans 

 to a share in the Congo rubber trade. The following state- 

 ment, which appeared in the New York Herald of October 

 20, 1906, is believed to have been derived from a well in- 

 formed source : 



News received by cable from London yesterday announced the 

 sailing of Tlionies F. Ryan by the Celtic, of the White Star line, 

 and a successful terniiuatiou of an important trade agreement 

 with the king of Belgium concerning the Congo. This agreement 

 has been under negotiation for two months, and several distorted 

 stories about il have been printed in this country. 



Little is known in America, except among Mr. Ryan's intimate 

 associates, as to the nature of these negotiations, and these men 

 have persistently refused to discuss the subject. One of them yes- 

 terday admitted, however, that Mr. Rj'an had obtained a firm foot- 

 hold in the Congo Free State for American enterprise, and on 

 broader lines than had been suggested in any of the brief cable 

 despatches announcing the progress of the negotiations in lirus- 

 sels. The agreement, he let it be understood, secured, among 

 other things, to Americans the exclusive right to gather riiljlier 

 over a vast and easily accessible forest area. 



This tract conceded to Mr. Ryan and his associates is to be im- 

 mediately developed on a scale never before attempted in any field. 

 It was said yesterdaj^ that the Continental Rubber Co., of which 

 Mr. Ryan is a director, has no corporate connection of any kind 

 with what is known as the Rubber Trust, beyond that the trust, in 

 common with other great users of crude rubber, purchases mate- 

 rial from il. The concession assures to the inliabitants of wide 

 and easily accessible areas light and profitable employment under 

 humane American administration. 



There is a disinclination on the part of Mr. Ryan's associates to 

 give any definite information as to the concessions he has obtained 

 pending his arrival in this country within ten days. 



The American Congo Co. filed articles of incorporation on 

 October 22, 1906, under the laws of New York state, with a 

 capitalization of $510,000. The incorporators were S. Davis, 

 A. F. Gerbe, and W. II. Thompson. At the offices of the 

 Continental Rubber Co. no statement was forthcoming in 

 relation to the new compan}-, which is regarded by many in 

 the trade as having been planned to cover the operations of 

 the American interest in tlie Congo rubber region. 



ACRE DISTRICT RUBBER AFFAIRS. 



ONE of the leading rubber traders from the Acre district 

 was chatting recently with the Editor of The India 

 Rl'BisER World, and said ; "It probably is not appreciated 

 that the rubber gatherers and handlers in our part of South 

 America are waking up more rapidly to the need for im- 

 proved methods and definite knowledge of our business than 

 are any other gatherers of wild rubber in thew-orld. We have 

 in the past suffered so from the fluctuations of Brazilian ex- 

 change that the original owners of rubber concessions have 

 practically passed out of being, the present owners being 

 the active, energetic creditors who are the pioneers and en- 

 gineers of our country. They have long had their eyes on 

 the Far East, and are already experimenting with coagula- 



ting machines and methods that shall do away with the 

 present wasteful and slow smoking process. It is not gener- 

 ally known, but it is through the smoking of the rubber 

 that the laborer gets most of his fever. This happens be- 

 cause he is obliged to sit near an e.xceedinglj' hot fire for an 

 hour or more, and at the end of that time, no matter what 

 his employer may say, will ])lunge into the nearest stream 

 and cool off too rapidlj' and thus get fever. The rubber 

 liandlers of the Acre are also planning to ship their rubber 

 direct through to New York. This will be a definite saving 

 as the export duty on the rubber is only 12 per cent, as 

 against 23 per cent, assessed in Para or Manaos. Further 

 than this they are at the present time fixing the value of 

 rubber at the beginning of the crop season for the year, so 

 that a man knows exactly what duty he must pay instead of 

 having to depend upon market fluctuation. For this year 

 the duty to be assessed is 3 bolivianos 40 centimes for fine, 

 2.55 bolivianos for coarse, and 2.10 bolivianos for Caucho. 

 As Bolivian money is very much more stable than Brazilian, 

 it will be seen that the rubber trader is very much better 

 placed than if he were taking his rubber either to Parii or 

 Manaos. " 



ALUMINUM FLAKE IN RUBBER COMPOUNDS. 



A VERY curious natural product, which has been de- 

 -^^^ scribed as " an extraordinary geological occurrence, " 

 is what is known as aluminum flake. It is a light powder, 

 absolutely free from grit, with agravity of 2.58 and contains 

 so large a proportion of aluminum that 48 per cent, of metal- 

 lic aluminum has been separated from it successfully. It is 

 a remarkable heat resistant and at the same time highly 

 plastic. It is used to-day by a number of rubber manufac- 

 turers as a substute for zinc oxide, in whole or in part, in 

 nearly all kinds of work where that is used. 



Rubber manufacturers, who have been questioned about 

 its use, claim that in a tire, for example, it gives greater 

 carrying capacity and doesn't chip at all, it is absolutely 

 inert, it les.sens the gravity of the rubber, and at the same 

 time toughens and gives it life. Aluminum flake was intro- 

 duced to the trade by Mr. Frank Reifsnider, of Akron, Ohio, 

 who is a well known and expert rubber manufacturer, and 

 who is to be congratulated on his success in giving a new 

 and valuable compounding ingredient to the trade. 



The Anglo-American Rubber Co., mentioned in The 

 India Ribrer World last month as having established a 

 depot at 58, Holborn viaduct, London, for the sale of Ameri- 

 can mechanical rubber goods, are the sole European repre- 

 sentatives of the Peerless Rubber Manufacturing Co. (New 

 York). This is also the European depot of Morgan & Wright 

 (Detroit), the New York Belting and Packing Co., Limited, 

 and Hartford Rubber Works Co. 



Threlfall Carr Rubber .Syndicate, Limited, has been 

 registered in London, with ^{'5000 capital, to acquire from 

 W. T. Carr provisional protection No. 13,513 (1906) for all 

 the British and foreign rights held by him, and to carry on 

 the business of manufacturing materials used as substitutes 

 for India-rubber and Guttapercha. This is the patent for 

 utilizing cereals as a material for substitutes, referred to in 

 The India Rubber World, October i, 1906 (page 24). 



