October i, 1908.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



the German policy of fostering the domestic cable industry in- 

 stead of depending upon foreigners to build the cables wanted, 

 as is the case with the United States. Having successfully 

 established a cable service to New York, the Germans have now 

 planned another transatlantic route, this time to Brazil, in con- 

 nection with which a branch will extend to German West Africa. 

 In view of all the talk for nearly a century about forming closer 

 relations among the American republics it might have been 

 expected that the United States would precede Germany in the 

 matter of running a cable to Brazil. 



The e.aklier attempts at cotton growing in many parts of 

 the world where competition with the United States was at- 

 tempted happened before the commercial utilization of cotton 

 seed was known. To-day British and French and Belgian and 

 Portugese and German colonies in Africa — not to mention other 

 regions — are producing not only cotton fiber of good quality, 

 but considerable quantities of cotton seed, which also can be 

 exported to advantage. It is true that the seed is now utilized to 

 great advantage in the United States, instead of being regarded 

 as a nuisance, as former!)-. None the less, the fact that the 

 African cotton planter now has two commercial products from 

 the same planting instead of one is not to be overlooked in 

 prospecting the world's cotton production of five to ten years 

 hence. 



The New York state forestry department is planting 

 millions of timber trees on waste lands, with the idea that some 

 of them will stand for sixty years or more before being cut 

 down to yield a commercial product. By comparison, waiting 

 ten years or less for rubber trees to become productive seems 

 almost like getting immediate results. 



BRITISH RUBBER SUBSTITUTES. 



MERRILY the inventors of rubber substitutes and the like 

 still go around, until the patent office inventors must 

 be dazed with the problem of determining how any of the sub- 

 stitutes brought to them to-day differ from those patented in 

 former years. The few references on this page are not a 

 record of a year, but of announcements made within three weeks, 

 in a single country. From the use suggested for several of the 

 inventions — for tire fillers — it would be appropriate to term 

 the substances "air substitutes" rather than rubber substitutes. 



Lugo (British patent No. 10,008 — -1907) forms a rubber sub- 

 stitute by heating a mixture of oxidized oil and rubber to a 

 temperature at which the rubber dissolves. Potassium perman- 

 ganate is added, and the whole heated to 360-400° F. Finely 

 divided waste rubber is added, the mass being stirred and the 

 temperature maintained. To obtain a harder product sulphur 

 may be added. 



S. de Pont (British patent No. 9,379—1907) produces a non- 

 inflammable electric insulating composition, suitable also for 

 buttons, bottle stoppers and piano key^. from asbestos or vege- 

 table fiber 30 parts, plaster of Paris 5, clay 8, copal 15, cowrie or 

 lac 5, bitumen or the like 15, aniline 2, lampblack 15, mica 4, 

 and wax 3 parts. The ingredients, partly dried, are mixed 

 and dried under pressure between steam-heated rollers. 



Inrig (British patent No. 9,094 — 1907) prepares a rubber sub- 

 stitute from the gelable portions of animals. Fifty parts of such 

 imaterial are treated with 50 parts of water and from 20 to 

 60 parts of oil at a temperature of 200° F. Subsequently sodium 

 stannate and potassium bichromate are added. On heating to 

 212" F. a mass is obtained which may be set in a mold and used 

 for filling motor tires. To obtain a harder mass less oil is used. 

 and the composition is mixed with 5 to 10 per cent, of sulphur 

 and heated to 260° F. This latter form is designed for insula- 

 tion purposes. 



Frankenburg. of Salford (British patent No. 8.780 — 1907), 



fills tires w-ith a composition jjfepared by dissolving dead 

 Borneo, potato, or other rubber, balata, or gutta-percha in heated 

 or boiled oxidizable vegetable oil, with sulphur added for vul- 

 canizing. The composition is pumped into the tire or inner tube. 



Scott (British patent 9,727—1907) makes a composition for 

 sealing tire punctures of milk 50 parts, isinglass 17, fish glue or 

 gelatin 200, carnauba lO, formaldehyde 3, and gum ammoina- 

 cum I part. Introduced within the air tube it forms a lining 

 for the inner surface. 



Fagioli (British patent No. 10,017 — 1907) produces a tire, 

 the cover of which, instead of containing an inflated tube is 

 filled with a composition consisting preferably of these propor- 

 tions : I pint giant cement, i'^ pints of rubber solution, and 

 2j^ gallons granulated cork. When the, tire has been filled a, 

 canvass strip may be cemented .ovev;.,the base, and the tire 

 niDunted on a two-part rim with a detachable flange. 



A CAMPAIGN OF EDUCATION. 



NJOT so long ago rubber was simply rubber. Even after im- 

 ■^ ^ porters and manufacturers had begun to recognize hun- 

 dreds of difi'erent grades of the raw material, it was presumed 

 that all rubber looked alike to the man in the street. But now 

 the public is expected to be more discriminating as to rubber, and 

 tlie public intelligence is appealed to in up-to-date advertising, in re- 

 spect of rubber as well as of most other commodities. Take 

 for example the statement featured prominently in newspaper 

 advertisements of a certain fountain pen, that the manufactur- 

 ers use "Beni Bolivian Para Rubber" from the Madeira river, 

 "the toughest, most elastic, and costliest rubber gathered," and 

 to render the advertisement more informing pictures are given of 

 rubber gathering as well as of working rubber in the factory. 

 The idea is that this fountain pen is not the same as others in 

 the market, and that the difference begins with the quality of 

 rubber used. 



A department store advertising in the same newspaper devotes 

 some space to clothes wringers, incidentally mentioning the use of 

 "Para rubber" in the rollers and referring to the "vulcanization," 

 which would indicate that such terms are now passing into gen- 

 eral speech. 



All the above relates to America, the home of the vulcan- 

 ized rubber industry, but all the world is becoming Americanized 

 nowadays, and newspaper readers elsewhere are becoming more 

 familiar with rubber and its uses. Even China is coming to 

 have newspapers in the sense in whicji newspapers are known 

 in the Western world, and it occurs to a writer in the London 

 Daily Mail, in a resume of Chinese journalism, to mention "rub- 

 ber waterproofs" as occupying a good deal of space in their ad- 

 vertising columns. No doubt native newspaper readers in China 

 soon will be confronted, in the advertisements spread before them, 

 with the claims of rival tradesmen— each to employ better rubber 

 than the others, with arguments to support their claims. Every- 

 where the campaign of education in rubber is progressing, and 

 at a rate that ought to be encouraging to all who produce rub- 

 ber or help in any way to render it commercially valuable. 



At a special meeting of the De Mello Brazilian Rubber Co., 

 Limited, in London, the directors were authorized to borrow 

 iiSO,ooo and to release Scbastiao Francisco de Mello from a claim 

 which the company held against him. Within a year, certain 

 debts of the company being pressing, the directors had be- 

 come responsible for a large sum, secured by the issue to them 

 of provisional scrip, and in order to protect holders of the scrip 

 a receiver had been appointed. The company were then able 

 to arrange for the shipment to Manaos of i6o tons of rubber 

 but owing to the fall in prices the results were very disappoint- 

 ing. Large sums were due the company in the rubber districts, 

 and it was believed that, with the issue of £150,000 in debentures 

 the company would be able to finance their affairs successfully. 



