222 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1906. 



THE ORIGINAL ATOMIZER. 



SINCE the doctrine of evolution burst upon the world like 

 a thunderclap, causing us all to readjust man}- ancient 

 theories and preconceived notions, men have recalled the old 

 saw that there is nothing new under the sun, and believe 

 that everything in our high civilization can be explained 

 either through researches in ancient documents and buried 

 cities, or else through some suggestion found in the animal 

 or vegetable kingdoms, adapted or paralleled for the use of 

 man. 



Working from this base, the Baltic race.s have caught hints 

 from all sides, adapting the ideas to their needs. At first 

 they imitate the original form, but gradually' slough off un- 

 necessary features, and develop the essential ones. Thus 

 the Vikings built their ships in the shape of the long worm, 

 or sea serpent. The railroad engine is still called the iron 



<copyKHjHr t9Qs. by the 



NtW YOHK HERALD CO.) 



''>^ki\.<i,Lk 



THE TOMATOMIZtR. 



horse, and tradition and fairy tales are full of allusions to 

 high speed machines made in the shape of "horses. The 

 sight of a mau on horseback led the Greek to invent the 

 Centaur, which combined the swiftne.ss and strength of the 

 horse with the intelligence and armplay of the man. Most 

 flying machines have imitated the birds more or less closely, 

 and have failed because thej" imitated the wrong features of 

 the bird instead of the most striking characteristic, which is 

 its power to soar without effort. The modern skyscraper 

 seems to be a mixture of the ideas contained in cliff dwell- 

 ings, and the giant anthills of the tropics, with the disad- 

 vantages of both. 



Innumerable other instances will occur to the reader such 

 as " bark " for boat ; house, derived from a word meaning 

 hide or skin, and so on. Rubber was long known in France 

 as " nigger-hide, " which harks back to the ancient custom of 

 using such skin for various purposes to which rubber is 

 now put, such as waterproofing, which is mentioned bj' 

 Pliny. A development of one of these suggestions was re- 

 cent! j- seen in the New York Herald ; that is, it was recent 

 from the standpoint of the evolutionist. This was a series 

 of pictures illustrating the development of the surgical 

 atomizer, syringe and blub spray from an animal called the 

 Tomatomizer, though the scientific name was not given. It 

 was, in brief, a cross between an animated tomato and an 

 atomizer, and is described as searching desert wastes for 



humans, at whom it squirted tomato ketchup. The crea- 

 ture is undoubtedly prehistoric and the druggists sundries' 

 manufacturers that own atomizer patents are not of neces- 

 sity infringing an}' ancient protected rights. 



A REPORT ON RUBBER TAPPING. 



FIRST .\NN'UA1. REPORr ON i;X niKIMI-.NT.M. TAPPING OF PARA 

 Rubber (//f'i'Cfl A'raiZ/if-wj/.vKTt Ihc Kcouoniic Gardens, Singnporc, for Ihe 

 year 1004, By H. N. Ridley. DireLlor of dardeiis. and R. Derry. Assistant 

 SuperintendeiU, in Charge of tile Experiment. Singapore: Guvcrnintnt 

 Printing Ollice. [8vo Pp. 20.J 



I IIIC legislative council of Singapore in 1904 voted $1200 to 

 -^ cover the cost of experimental tapping of the Ilevea 

 rubber trees in the local Economic Gardens. The number 

 of trees tapped was SSo, and the yield of dry rubber obtained 

 884 j-< pounds, for which S2440 was realized in London. 

 The prices, hy the waj-, were as high as any paid during 

 1905 for plantation rubber, from Ceylon or elsewhere. All 

 the rubber was prepared in the form of "biscuits," and 

 coagulated with the aid of calcium chloride In these ex- 

 periments account was taken of diflerent methods of tap- 

 ping, the time of day, tapping diftcrent groups of trees at 

 different intervals, and various other points, all with a view 

 to arriving at the best practice, rather than determining the 

 greatest possible 3Meld. All trees were carefulU' measured, 

 with the purpose of arriving at a rule for the yield to be 

 ex])ected for each inch in girth of a tree, at say 3 feet 

 from the ground. These experiments are to be continued, 

 with a comparison of the records of one year with another, 

 and the net result can hardly fail to prove of much practical 

 value. 



Apaxtle. — One of the gums which is having the great- 

 est demand, after rubber and chicle, is that one known by 

 the name of Apaxtle, which is extracted from the arbol 

 rosario (rose-colored tree), and which is used for the manu- 

 facture of rings, smoking pipes, and similar articles.— J/i?a-/- 

 can Herald. 



GOLFING ON THE LEGAL LINKS- 



