148 



THE INDIA RUBliER WORLD 



[February i, 1906. 



of raw, boiled, chewed and stamped rubber, ami will ^et rid of 

 them without delay to the highest bidder. 



The Tyre and Sidon Company, of which Sir M. T. Gasbags is a 

 director, has agreed to buy all the rubber the Company produces, 

 and as much more as it may require, from other people at market 

 rates, with 5 per cent, discount ofT for cash, and other de<luctions, 

 commissions, brokerages, according to the customs of the trade. 

 This is a most important asset and should be carefully noted. 



Mr. Blakanwite, the eminent Dipsophilist, reports as follows : — 

 " I have walked round the forests of Siberia for years, and have 

 never been able to get into them owing to the toughness of the 

 rubber bands. The waterways are, however, clear, and, if pro]>- 

 erly diluted, are very palatable. There are many varieties of rub- 

 ber to be found in these forests if you look long enough. The fol- 

 lowing list gives the names of a few which occur to me on the spur 

 of the moment: Heelia Bootia, Inkerasa, Ooloshia Kemina, Pen- 

 silmarkia Rubouta, Chewinguma, Jawbraka. There are also forty 

 varieties which can be distinctly seen through the bottom of an or- 

 dinary tumbler, and if more tumblers are taken the number is 

 often doubled. — A. Bi,.\k.\nwiTE." 



Sir M. T. Gasbags writes :— "The population of Siberia is very 

 large. ■ If the Company will immediately plant 3,000 acres of land 

 with a thousand trees to the acre, it would have, five minutes after 

 the last tree was planted, 3,000,000 rubber trees." 



All the Directors are shareholders in the Companies that are be- 

 ing ac()uired, and will exchange their shares for cash as soon as it 

 comes in. 



Applications for shares should be made as soon as possible, to 

 enable the Directors to proceed to the allotment of their interests. 



Do not write legibly. We want your cash, not your name. 



No money will be returned, and all are invited to come in. 



No reasonable offer refused. 



THE MEXICAN "YELLOW TREE.' 



FOR the past j-ear or two reports have come from Mexico 

 of a tree lately discovered to be a rubber producer, and 

 said to occur through a considerable upland region. Some 

 small samples of gum said to have been obtained from this 

 tree were sent from time to time to The India Rubber 

 World office, but with little definite information regarding 

 its source. Recently, however, there have been received a 

 large sealed can of the latex and about 20 pounds of the co- 

 agulated gum. The latter in its physical appearance was 

 much like ordinary resin that had been treated with resin 

 oil. These samples were put into the hands of various ex- 

 perts for tests, the results of which appear below. 



The first, from a rubber manufacturer and chemist is as 

 follows : 



This rubber can be used on the same lines as Ponlianak gum. 

 There is absolutely no comparison in regard to the higher grades 

 of rubber such as Africans or even Accra flake. We have been 

 ible to obtain a very soft and elastic substance after coagulating 

 and we have found that the rubber would remain in this state 

 about 24 hours, and then become very hard and of no practical use 

 as a rubber. We have found that it will not vulcanize by itself, 

 but have found that it will vulcanize, that is to say, it will give us 

 a product mixed with other rubbers and compounds which is 

 marketable ; the same of course being true with Pontianak gum. 

 We have not been able as yet to use the product in the manufacture 

 of rubber goods as the cost of producing is so nuich more than 

 Pontianak and the results obtained but very little better. 



Another report, from one who at first believed that the 

 gum might have commercial value, is more comprehensive, 

 and the investigator tried very hard to produce something of 

 value out of the resin-like mass. This report runs : 



" PALO AMARILLO" (YElLOW TREE). 



\A Mexican tree designated as Euphovbia elastica. Now being studied as 

 a possible producer of rubber.] 



About otie year ago we received a letter from a promoter of the 

 sale of Euphorbia elastica trees in Mexico in which he stated that 

 his chemist could produce from this gum, commonly known as 

 " Potato gum,'' a rubber worth $1 per pound and promising 

 samples. The samples never materialized. 



On February 20, 1 905, I received from another source a 5 gallon 

 can of the latex Euphorbia elastica and some 20 pounds of the gum 

 with the request that I would see what could be done with it in 

 the way of making it commercially valuable. I accordingly con- 

 ducted a series of experiments covering all the ground that I could 

 regard as in the slightest degree as promising any good result from 

 a chemical point of view and having the assistance in this work of 

 a master in chemistry and an expert rubber manufacturer. 



You will appreciate the rather unusual advantage we had in 

 having the latex itself to work on. You will also appreciate the 

 persistency with which I clung to the hope of finding something 

 really good and specially useful in this gum when I state that I 

 devoted a month to the investigation and carried it through a 

 carefully considered series of submission to chemical reagents ex- 

 tending through 40 distinct experiments. 



I take pleasure in reporting, at your request, the essential re- 

 sults of the investigation, briefly as follows : 



1. Latex coagulates readily and completely by exposure to air, 

 forming a gum fairly solid but very sticky. 



2. No evidence of any tcndencv to fermentation of the latex, no 

 matter how lotig the exposure to air. I call your special attention 

 to this point of no fermentation for the reason that the latex of any 

 true rubber is so far as I am aware particularly liable to fermenta- 

 tion proceeding rapidly to putrescence. In this freedom from fer- 

 ments I find the first evidence that this gum is not a true rubber. 



3. Latex contains about 60 per cent, water ; that is, it dries down 

 in open air to 40 per cent, solid gum. 



4. The latex subjected to the solvent action of Carbon tetra 

 chloride gives a remarkable reaction by separating in a test tube 

 by gravity into five distinct strata, showing a remarkably complex 

 composition. 



