October i, 1904.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER NVORLD 



Africa. I suppose the white man has not yet acquired what 1 

 shall call in French the lour de main. 



Brussels, Auyusl 27. 1904. 



♦ • * 



THE " BOSANGA " PLANT. COAGULATION OF •" ROOT RUBBER. " 

 The above paper may appropriately be supplemented by 

 some e.xtracts from a new work by MM. De Wildman and 

 Gentil (" Lianes Caoutchoutifrrs de I'l^lat Independant du 

 Congo.'" Brussels : 1904), a translation of which follows : 



"The acid sap which the natives use for coagulating the 

 rubber is furnished by a native plant, very common throughout 

 the whole Congo territory, under the name of ' Bosanga," ' Bo- 

 sasanga,' or ' Bokako ' ; this sap possesses the acidity of sorrel. 

 The' Bosanga ' is a plant attaining a maximum height of i^ to 

 2 meters; its leaves are not attached to the stem opposite one 

 another, but they run spirally around it. The fruit does not 

 grow at the foot of the plant, as is still quite often stated, but 

 at the crown ; it is not long and red, but lleshy globular and 

 greenish in color, and ripens from flowers which are always 

 placed at the tip of the branches and which are of a beautiful 

 pinkish white hue. This plant, the scientific name of which is 

 Costus Lucanustanus* must not be confounded with another 

 plant to which it bears some resemblance, which belongs to the 

 genus Amontuin, which does not have a sap possessing the 

 quality of inducing coagulation. 



" The natives use the following method for coagulating India- 

 rubber with the 'Bosanga': While one man cuts off the 

 Bisanga" stalks, from which he removes the leaves, another 

 holds a number of blades taken from the leaves of the banana 

 tree over the tire, which makes them remarkably flexible. 

 Then a small excavation is dug in the soil. In this the banana 

 leaf is placed, and the latex poured into it. Three or four 

 stalks of Cos/us are held together and twisted over the hole 

 containing the latex, which, under the action of the acid sap, 

 immediately coagulates. The native now, with his hands, 

 molds the coagulated mass into a ball and then presses it firm- 

 ly, this operation being repeated until all the watery content 

 of the/(j/^.r has been forced out. 



•This is not thesamedesigiiation as K'veii by M. van den Kerrkhove, whogives 

 the name Costus afer to the plant he lias sketched for The India RuiutHR 

 WoKLD, as illustrated on this page. There are, however, many different species 

 of Costus in tropical .\frica, and doubtless the juice of more than one of them is 

 used in coagulatins: rubber — The Editoe. 



" In order to obtain the sap from the Costus, the native 

 sometimes use a different process ; he splits the stalk open and 

 passes it between one of his fingers and the blade of his knife, 

 allowing the sap of the plant to run into a receptacle, where it 

 only needs to be slightly purified before it may be used for the 

 coagulation of a correspondingly great quantity of latex. 



" As we have stated above, the sap of the Costus Lucanustanus 

 does not in any way act upon the latex of the Clitatidra 



A mo III tana [a 

 "root rubber" 

 plantj. The na- 

 tives use two dif- 

 ferent methods for 

 coagulating the 

 latter: 



" I. By boiling 

 the latex. 



" 2. By pouring 

 the latex into boil- 

 ing water. 



" In using the 

 first named pro- 

 cess, the natives 

 simply boil the 

 latex, whereupon 

 it begins to coagu- 

 late as soon as 

 ebullition takes 

 place; this meth- 

 od, however, is 

 generally unadvis- 

 able, as the coagu- 

 lated mass retains 

 in its meshes a 

 quantity of serum 

 which is often 

 considerable in quantity, the albuminous parts of which may 

 after a time make the rubber pitchy or sticky. 



" In using the second of these methods, the Congo natives 

 boil water and pour the latex which they have gathered into 

 It, and it instantaneously coagulates. The first process gives 

 an inferior quality of latex, sometime sticky; the second fur- 



nishes that beautiful black gum 



so much appreciated in com- 

 merce. 



" After having obtained the 

 coagulated mass by the second 

 method, the natives cool the 

 rubber by plunging it into cold 

 water, afterwards strongly press- 

 ing the balls with their hands or 

 ct between two leaves, in order 

 I remove together with the 

 Aater and the excess of serum, 

 that portion of the latex which 

 may not have coagulated." 



»1k-4 



iXL, X-M 



<t^W<* 



FOREST OF LANDOLPHIA" VINES. 



. RUBBER TO MARKET. 



The Pennsylvania Rubber Co. 

 (Jeannette, Pa.) have been 

 awarded the contract for floor- 

 ing the main rooms of the new 

 Car.negie Library, at Pittsburgh, 

 with their interlocking rubber 

 tiling, of which 105,000 square 

 feet will be required. 



