22 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Atrii i, 1903. 



lh.it. ,iny particularly brilliant future is before those who go to 

 the number of consultants offering their services to a dif- 

 fident public. 



The Marconi business does not, of course (as some have sup- 

 posed), threaten the existence of the rubber insulated cable 

 maker, nor can it be said that the fibrous cable has ousted the 

 rubber cable to any increased extent of late. The rubbei cable 

 in connection with lighting and traction still finds considerable 

 application, especially in workshop lighting, switch board con- 

 nections, and in fact in all cases where there is much jointing 

 to be done, it being difficult to avoid the intrusion of damp in 

 the case of the cellulose insulation. The use of electricity in 

 collieries is increasing, not only for lighting the works, but also 

 foi pumping and for working electric coal cutting machines. 

 Where several collieries belonging to one company are situated 

 at some distance from one another, a good deal of cable is re- 

 quired to distribute the current from a single dynamo house. 

 There can be no doubt that we are on the eve of a considerable 

 increase of the applications of electricity to mining, and those 

 electric firms who arc first in the field should obtain some good 

 contracts. 



rms reorganized company reports plenty of work in hand. 

 They are making a special bid for the lawn tennis ball business, 

 which is confined to very few works in Great 

 yde rubber co., r} r j ta j nj the troublous times which the Eccles 

 company have passed through of late having 

 weakened their position as the principal opponents of Messrs. 

 Charles Macintosh & Co. This branch has been subject to 

 much severe cutting in prices that there has been little in- 

 ducement to go in for it. It is to be hoped that realization in 

 the case of the Hyde company will come up to anticipation. 



I had an idea that Volenite had died a natural death, fiom 

 the cold way in which its vaunted pretensions to rank as a rub- 

 ber substitute had been met by the public. It 



VOLENITE. , , , ... 



seems, however, that I w*as somewhat previous in 

 my conclusions. The chairman of the Fish Oil and Guano 

 Co., at the recent meeting, announced that they were, he be- 

 lieved, nearer a development of a most gigantic character in 

 favor of Volenite than they had ever been. He further re- 

 marked on another point that they would know on March 31 

 what the rubber men of New York had to say with regard to 

 the Rhea company. With regard to Volenite, the optimistic 

 language used is delightfully vague; it is possible to be nearer 

 a success than before but still to be a very great distance from 

 it. One calls to mind in this connection the asymptote curve 

 known to students of conic sections, and which though continu- 

 ally getting nearer to the fixed point does rrot meet it until in- 

 finity. 



In' a communication to a contemporary Dr. Weber has re- 

 cently made a pronouncement on the use of the vacuum pro- 

 cess which should be no'.ed, because he has ap- 

 parently, after longer experience, had reason 

 to change his former opinions. At the meet- 

 ing of the Mtichester section of the Society of Chemical In- 

 dustry, in March, 1910. he spoke very favorably of the use of 

 the vacuum chamber, because of the decreased liability there 

 was of the oxidation of the rubber. He stated that he had 

 f >tind in ,1 washed sheet of Para rubber, dried in the ordinary 

 hit-air stove 59 per cent, of oxygen, while part of the same 

 sheet dried in a vacuum pan showed only 1.7 per cent, of oxy- 

 gen. Now, however, for various technical reasons which I can- 

 not enter into here, but which I fully endorse, he has expressed 

 hin-ielf against the vacuum process, the advantages of wdiich 

 hive not proved to counterbalance its disadvantages. This 

 will come as cause for congratulation to those firms wrho from 



DRYINQ OF 

 WASHED RUBBER. 



the beginning were dubious as to the advantage of the extra 

 capital outlay involved. 



This is the new title of the London Rubber Manufacturing 

 Co., which was established about three years ago by Dr. Schu- 

 macher at Croft street, Deptford, London. 

 the india-rubber Dr. Schumacher, I may remark, was formerly 

 assistant chemist at tire Harberg-Vienna Kub- 



MANUFACTURINQ 

 CO., LIMITED 



ber Works, at Harburg, from whence he went 

 for a year or two to Messrs. Charles Macintosh & Co., Manches- 

 ter. His associates in his present enterprise are, to judge by 

 their names, all of his own nationality, and vulcanite goods form 

 a prominent part of the output of the firm. 



This appendage to the spreading machine has been referred 

 to before in these columns, and to judge by some correspond- 

 ence I have seen it seems to be attracting interest 



COULTER'S , , 



revo.vinq over the water; the (act that one of our prrnci- 



spaEADiNO pal factories has fitted ten spreading machines 



machine w j t [, certamt y tends to show that the advant- 



Qaqe. , . , ' , , . 



ages claimed for it are not the outcome of mental 



illusion in the case of the patentee. 



Under this title a paper by Messrs. II. Grimshaw, W. Tong_ 

 and R. Barnes was read at the March meeting of the Manches- 

 ter section of the Society of Chemical Industry. 



Mr. Grimshaw, who read the paper, gave an illus- 

 INDIA-RUBBE1. . r r •& 



tration of an analysis of a sample of compound 



rub jer as performed in the old days before the present analyti- 

 cal methods had been published, and in which the various or- 

 ganic matters were lumped together, scrupulous care being 

 taken in the determination of small quantities of inorganic 

 matters of no importance and only present as impurities in the 

 filling materials. The rest of the paper consisted of a state- 

 ment of the methods of analysis already worked out by Hen- 

 riqrres, Weber, and others, the solvents recommended being 

 acetone and nitrobenzene. He gave several analyses of re- 

 claimed rubber made by his procedure stating incidentally that 

 as a rule the American products contained more mineral mat- 

 ter than did the English. In the determination ol bituminous 

 matter he said that errors might creep in owing to the tendency 

 of vulcanization or overheating to produce bituminous matters 

 from the rubber itself. In the discussion Mr. Terry rather crit- 

 icized the paper on the score of want of novelty. He held no 

 brief, he said, for Dr. Weber, but still he thought that his publi- 

 cations on rubber analysis should have had more pointed refer- 

 ence by the authors than had been the case that evening. 



I am informed with regard to the naphtha recovering ma- 

 chine recently referred to in these notes, as the joint patent of 



C. O. Weber and Messrs. Isidor Frankenburg. 



Limited, that the patent is now the sole property 



RECOVERY. ' r r i 



of Messrs. Frankenburg. 



The United Rubber Co. is the name of a new concern in 



which Mr. Thomas Rowley is interested. The works are at 



Clayton, Manchester, and it is the intention to 



manufacture certain classes of mechanicals and 



solid cab tires. Mr. Higham, late works manager at the St. 



Helen's Cable Co.. is connected with the venture. 



NEW WORKS. 



The Fiji Islands have lately come to be something more 

 than a dot placed at random on the map of the Pacific ocean. 

 They are reached by a link in the British- Pacific cable; statis- 

 tics of imports and exports are kept — aggregating about 

 $4,500,000 last year; and regulations exist there by which 

 foreign trade marks and patents may be registered. In one 

 year recently the imports of India-rubber ^oods were valued 

 at ^305, and presumably the amount will be shown by more 

 recent reports to have increased. 



