254 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[May I, 1906. 



these pages, and I need say no more than that these coal tar 

 bases were used to bring the rubber into solution. I am not 

 aware as to how far commercial success has been obtained, 

 but the application in a large scale would, I should think, 

 soon use up the limited quantities of this solvent which are 

 produced. Pyridine, it maj' be mentioned in conclusion, is 

 sometimes met with in coal tar naphtha which has been im- 

 perfectly purified and a very small quantity communicates 

 its disagreeable odor to the general atmosphere of the spread- 

 ing room. 



Now that the reconstruction proposals have been carried 



by the shareholders there seems every reason to suppose that 



the scheme for writing down the capital will 



THE DUN. OP through ; at any rate there seems no good 



COMPANY. " b < J o 



purpose to be served by any objection at Som- 

 erset House. I may mention that the spirit of economy and 

 change has had a serious significance to others than the 

 shareholders. I refer to the staff at the Birmingham works, 

 rather abrupt notice having been given in more than one 

 case to otEcials. Not that there is an3'thing very novel in 

 these changes for the history of these works back to the days 

 when the Byrnes were the ruling spirits is replete with 

 changes in personnel. 



The decline in importance of the proofing branch in late 

 years has seen a great fall in the prices for solvent naphtha 

 which ruled a decade ago. A year or two 

 NAPHTHA ''»" proofers found themselves unable to get 

 through their reduced contracts and the tar 

 distillers were much put to it to get rid of their output. A 

 year ago contracts were made at about 7 pence per gallon. 

 At the present time, however, similar naphtha is being con- 

 tracted for at over i shilling per gallon and there has been 

 some speculation as to the cause of the rise, the proofing 

 manufacturers maintaining that it cannot be due to any 

 greatly increased demand from their trade. Probablj- the 

 explanation will be found in an arrangement among the tar 

 distillers. 



Thk recent notification in The India Rubber World by 

 the Para Recovery Co. (Bayonne, New Jersey) that thej' have 

 made arrangements with Mr. Heyl-Dia to 

 SYNTHETIC manufacture all his synthetic and crude rub- 

 ber products has excited a certain amount of 

 interest in England. What people want to know, however, 

 is how far the name of sj-nthetic rubber is justified. Mr. 

 Heyl-Dia, of course, as a scientific man, would hardh' be 

 likelj- to use the term S3'nthetic rubber for what is merely a 

 substitute. Is it then a fact that by his secret process rub- 

 ber is manufactured from its elements, carbon and hydrogen 

 — or at any rate from combinations of these, which are quite 

 distinct from rubber ? Of course what Tilden has done in 

 this way has been known for some years, but he never put 

 it forward as a commercial product, on account of the price ; 

 it has remained merely as a chemical curiosit3' the result of 

 scientific research. If Mr. Heyl-Dia really has produced 

 rubber by chemical means out of non-rubber substances, it 

 is a very interesting fact ; but then it is difficult to see how 

 it can be made at a price to pay, seeing that Para rubber is 

 now being produced in plantations at a cost of about i shill- 

 ing per pound. E.xpressions of opinion, however, are cur- 

 rent that Mr. Heyl-Dia's rubber will turn out to be an arti- 

 ficial rubber in the same way that Gentsch Gutta-percha is 

 not Gutta-percha, but a substitute for it. If this is so the 



COLO'IADO 

 RUBBER. 



expression synthetic rubber is altogether a misnomer which 

 may be permissible in trade circles, but will not add to the 

 scientific reputation of those who use it. The foregoing of 

 cour.se has no reference to the commercial value of the pro- 

 duct, which for all I know may be superior to Para rubber. 

 Quite possibly some admixture or combination of organic 

 bodies might be produced to yield the advantages of rubber 

 without its tendency to oxidation and decay. I believe that 

 Gentsch 's artificial product has proved its superiority to 

 natural Gutta-percha as regards tendency to oxidation, but 

 I never heard of it being called " synthetic gutta. " 



Undick the title of a "Wonderful Rubber Romance" a 

 paragraph is circulating in the British daily press referring 

 to the ram and rabbit weed incident which 

 has so frequently been humorously men- 

 tioned in these pages b}- our Editor, l-'roni 

 what I understood before I thought that the rubber sub- 

 stance existed in the weed ready formed, but by the British 

 account it appears that the rubber is produced from other 

 vegetable matter by the somewhat complex processes of sali- 

 vation and digestion. It was by putting the weed through 

 processes approximating as closely as possible to nature's 

 laboratory operations that the men of Durango (so I read) 

 have been successful in producing rubber from it. It is 

 stated that the results are eminently satisfactory and that 

 rubber goods manufactured from this source have been ex- 

 hibited at Washington. Probably most of those on this 

 side who have read this paragraph will put it down as 

 another tall story from America, but facts so explicitly 

 stated should have a substratum of truth. If they have not 

 and the storj- is an invention in order to impose upon the 

 credulous, perhaps our Editor, casting aside the spirit of 

 levity, will give us the facts up-to-date. 



[The Editor of The India Rubber World has never been 

 able to find any evidence that there is rubber in Colorado, 

 and it is his belief that in passing a certain bill which 

 seems to give the government's endorsement to the " rabbit 

 weed " enterprise, the legislators at Washington were im- 

 posed upon.] 



CoNTR.^RY to what is generally supposed, it is not the 

 golfer who grumbles at the rubber cored golf ball — that is, 

 I mean, at the price — so much as the sporting 

 °?TtM\*'"'" outfitter. The latter states that the new ball 

 has deprived him of a good deal of business in 

 the way of repairs to clubs. It appears that the solid gutta 

 belli did a good deal more damage to clubs than the modern 

 ball does, and that the profitable repairing business has 

 fallen off accordingly. One of the latest balls of Scotch 

 origin has a liquid core; it is retailed at 2 shillings but I do 

 not hear that it has any very special merits. The Haskell ap- 

 peal case did not e.xcite much interest as its failure was very 

 generally assumed. So the business of Hutchison Main & 

 Co. of Cowlairs, Glasgow, with their is. ^d. "Hawk '' ball 

 will not be interfered with. At the same time there are 

 plenty of golfers who perfer the more expensive Haskell 

 ball and the British makers thereof are not likely to be 

 snuffed out. 



A deed for the issue of ^10,000 debentures has recenth' 

 been registered by the Irwell and Eastern Rubber Co., 

 Limited, to provide additional necessary capital. This is in 

 addition to ^20,000 ordinary capital recently taken up by 

 the shareholders. 



