126 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January i, 1909. 



The oldest rubber factory in Holland is situated in the ancient 

 city of Haarlem. It is, indeed, one of the old rubber factories of 

 the world, and dates back to 1828, when Jan Van Geuns, an apo- 

 thecary, erected a small brick building to manufacture rubber 

 catheters and other surgical specialties in soft rubber, which he 

 had made in a small way for some time. As he had no steam 

 engine or windmill he built a treadmill which was operated by 

 donkeys, or as Mr. Mcrens expressed it: "The mill was run by 



Original Factory of Merens Brothers. 



[Built by Jan Van Geuns.] 



Rubber Factory of Merens Brothers. 



Barker & Zoon, 1879. 



! I 







Rubber Factory of Pompe & Co. 



asses" — not an impossible happening in any country or any time. 



Van Geuns must have been something of a chemist and very 

 much of a genius. There are those who believe he discovered sul- 

 phur vulcanization at just about the time that Goodyear and Han- 

 cock made the discovery. Certain it is that in 1842 he sold hose 

 made of rubber that he guaranteed would not grow hard in the 

 winter nor soft in the summer. The circulars describing this hose 

 are still in existence, and point very strongly to a knowledge of 

 sulphur vulcanization. Van Geuns died somewhere in the '70's 

 and the business was purchased by Merens Brothers in 1876. 

 They kept the original solidly built two story brick factory that the 

 creator of the business has erected, but grouped around it modern 

 factory buildings. 



Knowing much of this history it was with more than usual in- 

 terest that I descended from the train early one morning, sought a 

 cab driver and said to him "Caoutchouc Fabriek Gebroders Mer- 

 ens" and rattled away over the cobble paved streets behind a 

 heavy Belgian horse toward the manufacturing end of the city. 

 These Dutch cabmen are apparently very stolid but they are cer- 

 tainly good drivers. This one proved it, when on a narrow street, 

 one side of which was a broad canal with not even a two inch 

 curb between the roadway and the water, he discovered he had 

 taken the wrong road and calmly turned around, the wheels seem- 

 ingly coming within an inch of the edge, while he acted as if he 

 had room to spare. 



Arriving at the factory, we were most cordially received by the 



Rubber Factory or Bakker & Zuon, 1908. 



Royal Cement Works at Rotterdam. 



