March i, ipog.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



205 



The British as Pioneers in Rubber. 



(At the latest regular dinner of the X'ictorian Club, the Icadint^ 

 British club of New England, given on the evening of I'ehruary it, 

 at the house of the City Club, Roston. the guest of honor was Mr. 

 Henry C. Pearson, the luiitor «f The India Ki'buer \V<iRLn, who deliv- 

 ered an illustrated lecture on "The liriton in India-rubber, as Planter 

 and Manufacturer." The i)aragra]d)s which follow formed the intnv 

 duction to the further remarks which the speaker made, descriptive <if 

 the views shown, mainly of rubber plantation scenes in Ceylon and 

 l!ritisl) .Malaya.J 



WH.'\TEVER may bo the claims of olhcr iiatiniis, it is an 

 liistoric fact that the beginnings of india-rnbber niaiiii- 

 facture were Brilish, and they arc not so far back bnt 

 wliat they may be easily discovered and valued. 



One hundred years ago the industrial world possessed steel, 

 copper, lead, the precious metals, cotton, silk, and wool — in fact, 

 all of the great staples in use to-day with the exception of india- 

 rubber. Nor at that time was there the slightest fore-knowledge 

 that a new product combining most of their valuable qualities, 

 with added and unthought of values of its own, was one day to 

 be discovered. Indeed, the imagination of chemist, pliysicist or 

 luanuf.ictnrer could hardly forecast a semi-metal of vegetable 

 origin, organic and yet inorganic, that could be made as hard as 

 iron or soft as the surface of an infant's cheek, plastic, resilient, 

 waterproof, unaffected by acids or alkalies, a product indifferent 

 to cold or heat, able to take on any color, shape or texture, and 

 in the end to become an integral part of every great industry, 

 an adjunct to every profession, and a necessity to almost every 

 individual in the civilized world. One hundred years ago this 

 was not even a dream. 



To be sure Priestly, a worthy Briton, had shown saiuples of 

 a curious gum that came from tropical trees. Soiue enterprising 

 stationer had .«oKl small cubes of it for erasing pencil luarks, 

 which Englishmen naiued "indian rubbers." Later tlie material 

 came to be called "india-rubber," a name that the whole world 

 has adopted and than which there is none better. 



Prior to this, inventive genius had in a misty 'way sought to 

 make use of the gum. Indeed, as far back as 1627 appears in 

 old-fashioned English a patent by John Wolfen for wateri)roof- 

 iiig skins and fabrics by a secret process. 



It was not until about 1819, however, that the real beginning 

 was made. .A.t that time there lived in England a distinguislicd 

 chemist, Charles Macintosh, F. K. s., who had been wonderfully 

 successful in adding to the wealth of his native land by practical 

 discoveries in connection with every day industries. The list 

 of his accomplishments in connection with iron and steel, colors, 

 and particularly the treatment of textiles, is indeed a long one. 



Just one item luay be permitted here as- showing bow great 

 was his success. Me produced a process for the bleaching of 

 cotton and linen which was revolutionary and which his biog- 

 rapher, writing in 1846. estimated had saved to Britisli manu- 

 facturers more than £400,000,000 sterling, or $j,ooo,coo.oco. 



His particular faculty seeiued to lie a thrifty desire to utilize 

 waste products. He therefore seized upon the waste from the 

 gas works, produced coal tar naphtlia, and suggested its use as 

 a solvent for india-rubber. Further than this, in 1822 he pat- 

 ented a process for manufacturing a waterproof material con- 

 sisting of two fabrics with a layer of rubber between them. 

 The result is now known as macintosh (or mackinto.sh ) coats, 

 and are used by the million the world over to-day. A Scotch- 

 man by birth, he established himself in Glasgow, but later asso- 

 ciating himself with the Birleys, a wealthy .ind progressive 

 family in Manchester, laid the foundations for the great house 

 of Charles Macintosh & Co., Limited, the pioneers of the world 

 in rubber manufacture, and to-day one of the great and suc- 

 cessful companies. 



.\t the same time tliere entered into the field Thomas Han- 

 cock, pioneer of the lype of practical experimenter by whom the 

 great problems of the rubber business have been solved, rather 

 than by trained chemist. He, to be sure, began his experi- 

 ments in 1819, but it was not until 1820 that he took out his 

 first patent, and it was sometime before he really produced 

 merchantable articles. Just as Macintosh discovered a basic 

 process for making double textured goods, so he discovered 

 processes and invented machines for the treatment of the gum 

 on a large scale, and in time he and Macintosh came together 

 in an arrangement for joint mamifacture. 



In spite of the fact that vulcanization was not dreamed of then, 

 and that india-rubber stiffened and cracked under cold and often 

 got very sticky in hot weather, a really large business was built 

 up. Waterproof clothing, life preservers, pontoons and elastic 

 goods, cloth covered, were produced and the business was most 

 profitable. 



It was not until 1842, however, that vulcanization suggested 

 itself. A Mr. Brockedon, who got Hancock to make rubber 

 stoppers for him, was continually complaining that extreme 

 cold rendered them as hard as stone, and the inventor was try- 

 ing in every way to overcome this. With this in mind you can 

 imagine with what interest he received a small piece of india- 

 rubber from the hands of an American promoter who had a 

 secret process to sell of which he would say very little. In his 

 examination of this sample, Hancock detected the odor of 

 sulphur. He at once began experimenting with that substance 

 in connection with india-rubber, and after a time, by luelting 

 sulpher and immersing rubber in it until it had absorbed a certain 

 amount of that metal, and then baking it, he eifected what he 

 called a "change." At this juncture Brockedon came forward 

 and called this process "vulcanization" — another name that the 

 world has accepted. 



To take our eyes from Great Britain a moment and look over 

 the state of the art in the rest of the world is most informing. 

 Charles Goodyear, in the United States, an experimenter like 

 Hancock, had after innumerable trials, and taking advantage of 

 Hayward's suggestion for the use of sulphur, found that india- 

 rubber and sulphur baked, or vulcanized, formed a wonderful 

 and U(jw material. Van Guens, in Holland, and Liidersdorf, in 

 (iermaiiy, also experimenters, were apparently very near the 

 same .sort of discoveries; France had trained chemists at work. 

 In other words, the thought of individuals dealing with india- 

 rubber in various parts of the world had reached nearly the same 

 point, and had any three of the gentlemen failed, it is probable 

 that a fourth would have succeeded. 



1 would not for a moment minimize the value of suggestion. 

 The fact that Goodyear saw in Hayward's idea something that 

 lie, with a I)roader experience and more intimate knowledge of 

 rubber could amplify and make more successful, does not in 

 I lie slightest dim his glory as the American inventor of the 

 process of vulcanization. Nor does the frank statement of 

 Thomas Hancock that the sulphur suggestion came to him froiu 

 an unknown -American in any way ininimize the value of his 

 work. 



No one accomplishes anything or gets anywhere without a 

 great following of suggesters who have contributed nothing but 

 misty ideas which they alone value, and because of which they 

 try to share the glory of those who really do the work. It may 

 be heterodox, but I have always believed that the primal sin 

 of Satan was that he laid claim to the creation of the material 

 universe through suggestion. 



With sulphur vulcanization an accoinplished fact, and a won- 

 derful elastic semi-metal in the place of a valuable yet rather dis- 



