June i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



301 



INDIA-RUBBER INTERESTS IN EUROPE. 



THE FIRST BELGIAN RUBBER MANUFACTURER. 



THE honor of creating the rubber industry in Belgium is 

 due, without question, to Mr. J. Coenen, Sr., of Brus- 

 sels, who in 184S established in Louvain the Siegeriest 

 factory, and, in 1850, in Brussels, that of Gustave 

 Luyck, managed later by Mr. Eugene Pavoux. In 1873 Mr. 

 Coenen founded in Cureghem a plant for the manufacturing 

 of hose made of rubber treated hemp for fire engines, and 

 in 1882 added a department for the manufacture of waterproof 

 garments. It was in 1892 when the firm of Coenen invented 

 a pneumatic tire for bicycles, which by a special process wis 

 made unpuncturable. This pneumatic tire, in the manufactur- 

 ing of which entered pure Para rubber and a linen-cloth called 

 "Calixor," with diagonally woven threads, soon acquired a 

 justified fame. We may state also that towards 184S Mr. 

 Coenen discovered, simultaneously with Goodyear in America, 

 the process of vulcanizing of India-rubber by means of steam. 

 Mr. Coenen bears his seventy one years lightly, and is still 

 very actively engaged in the management of his factory— J. 

 Coenen pete et Cie. — Le Moniteur du Caoutchouc. 

 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN ITALY. 

 A HANDSOMELY got up pamphlet entitled " Notes on the In- 

 dustry and Works of Pirelli & Co., Limited (Milan, Italy)," 

 containing illustrations of the company's factories, was issued 

 in honor of the visit to Milan of the Institute of Electrical 

 Engineers of Great Britain, in April last. In addition to the 

 Milan works, founded in 1872 and now giving employment to 

 an average of 2700 workmen, in the manufacture of every arti- 

 cle that can be made in India-rubber, Gutta-percha, and asbes- 

 tos, the company have also cable works at Spezia, Italy, at 

 which have been filled a number of important orders for sub- 

 marine telegraph cables for the governments of Italy and 

 Spain, in addition to much private work. For instance, men- 

 tion is made of a cable to be laid in the Nile for the tramway 

 company at Cairo, Egypt. Rubber insulated cables for torpedo 

 work were supplied lately to the royal navy of Greece. In 1901 

 was founded the Spanish company, Pirelli y Cia., for the estab- 

 lishment of an insulated wire plant near the city of Barcelona, 

 where already 200 workmen are employed, in buildings cover- 

 ing VA acres. The total capital employed by Pirelli & Co. 

 amounts to 5.500,000 lire in shares and 3000,000 in debentures, 

 or a total of $1,640,500, and the company now ranks as one of 

 the four or five largest rubber concerns in the world. 



A PATENT SUIT WON BY THE DUNLOP COMPANY. 

 The New Lamb Tyre Co. (Glasgow) were sued November 4, 

 1901, in the court of session of Scotland, by the Dunlop Pneu- 

 matic Tyre Co., Limited, who alleged infringement of the pat- 

 ent on tires issued to C. K. Welch (No. 14,563 of 1890) and 

 owned by the plaintiff. The defense was that the tires com- 

 plained of were made under a patent (No. 23852 of 1897) 

 granted to George Lamb, and that there had been no infringe- 

 ment of the Welch patent. In April, 1902, a decision was ren- 

 dered in favor of the Dunlop company, from which there was an 

 appeal, with the result that the decision has been affirmed. The 

 court said that the validity of the Welch patent had been suf- 

 ficiently upheld by the courts ; the court would not consider 

 the question of the later patent granted to Lamb, as the cycle 

 tires or covers complained of had not been made in accordance 

 with that patent. The edges of the Lamb tire covers were 

 made with a number of loose strands of yarn solutioned so as to 



form part of the cover itself, which strands formed a taping to 

 strengthen the edge of the canvas. The defense denied that 

 the effect of such strands was to hold the tire cover in position, 

 but that the cover was held by frictional or other forces. The 

 court, however, decided that the efficient cause of the tire being 

 kept in place was the inextensibility of the edges produced by 

 the hempen strands, which constituted an infringement of the 

 principle of the Welch patent, under which this service is per- 

 formed by the inextensibility of the wires in the edge of the tire 

 covers. The Welch patent, by the way, expires on September 

 16, 1904. 



COMPANY CHANGE AT GLASGOW, SCOTLAND. 

 The Craigpark Electric Cable Co., Limited (Glasgow), has 

 been formed, with £150,000 capital, authorized, to take over 

 the business of the The Craigpark Co., Limited, manufactur- 

 ers since 1897 of electric and telegraph wires and cables and 

 India-rubber and Gutta-percha goods. The Craigpark Co. 

 have done a profitable business from the beginning, the div- 

 idends on the ordinary shares for five years having been 4 

 per cent., 8 per cent., 10 per cent., 12^ per cent., 12^ per 

 cent. The business is transferred to the new company for 

 £37.500, cash, including £4239 for good will. Directors: J. 

 T. Tullis (chairman), W. S. Brown, W. R. Dick, Claud Hamil- 

 ton, Andrew B. Maclean (managing director). John Deas is 

 secretary. Lord Kelvin is consulting engineer. Offices: Flem- 

 ington street, Springburn, Glasgow. 



A GERMAN RUBBER SPONGE. 

 The specification of a British patent granted to the Verein- 

 igte Gummiwaaren-Fabriken, Harburg-Wien, for the manufac- 

 ture of a rubber sponge, states : " Unvulcanized India-rubber is 

 mixed with natural seeds, or with molded bodies of flour, clay, 

 gelatine, sugar compositions, or other substances, or with non 

 volatile soluable metallic salts, either by rolling, or by first dis- 

 solving the India-rubber in a hydrocarbon. The mixture is 

 vulcanized, and the added bodies are subsequently washed out 

 with water, acids, or alkalies." 



THE RUBBER FACTORIES AT HARBURG. 

 The explanation of the existence of the large rubber facto- 

 ries at Harburg a/d Elbe, in Prussia, instead of their being in 

 Hamburg, the great commercial metropolis, is to be found in 

 the fact that until 18S8 the latter city remained outside of the 

 German Zollverein (customs union). Under the old regime, 

 articles manufactured in the free town of Hamburg would have 

 been subject to an import duty on entering any other part of 

 Germany, and hence the rubber industries owned in Hamburg 

 became chiefly located within the limits of the customs union, 

 including Harburg, across the river from Hamburg. 



WHERE BRITISH RUBBER MACHINERY IS MADE. 

 A very full account appears, in a recent issue of the Edin- 

 burgh Evening Dispatch, of the extensive establishment of 

 Messrs. Bertrams, Limited, owners of St. Katherine Works, 

 Sciennes, Edinburgh, manufacturers of machinery. The pres- 

 ent business was established in 1821 by William and George 

 Bertram, respectively uncle and father of the present acting 

 director, David Bertram. This firm were the pioneer builders 

 of machines for the production of paper on the " Fourdriner" 

 system, and have equipped machines for paper mills in Great 

 Britain, continental Europe, India. China, Japan, and Austra- 

 lia, including some of the largest installations in existence 



