June i, 1905.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



293 



from private parties the city railway and electric lighting plant, 

 and most of the debt is still outstanding. Now It is proposed 

 to lease the railway and lighting plant to other private parties 

 and devote the revenue thus derived to paying off the new 

 loan. It would be interesting to see how the street railway 

 can be utilized to help out the next succeeding loans. 



The country newspaper corresi'Ondent everywhere in 

 the West has been able of late to make an addition to his not 

 always extensive list of topics for neighborhood gossip. One 

 reads in countless local papers that " A number of our farmers 

 have purchased new rubber tired vehicles," or that " Several of 

 our young men purchased new rubber lire buggies at So and- 

 So's opening," or some other such news. Everybody appar- 

 ently who buys any sort of vehicle other than a farm wagon 

 wants rubber tires on it, and the thousands and thousands of 

 sets turned out in a year, for the trade of the prosperous Amer- 

 ican farmer, doubtless has as much to do with the high price of 

 crude rubber as the more showy automobile ecjuipment. 



One of the Ceylon tea companies mentioned on another 

 page reports, as its initial experiment in rubber culture, the 

 planting of 7888 Para rubber trees, on 39^^ acres, now from 

 four to seven years old. From the older trees— number not 

 stated — they lately gathered 1676 pounds of rubber, which was 

 sold at a profit of $2068.26, gold, on an average of S52.11 per 

 acre. This was the first yield, of only a portion of the plant- 

 ing, which rightly, it seems, has encouraged the company to 

 plant more rubber, especially as their experience has been du- 

 plicated by so many other planters. 



The success of the motor omnibus, the extensive intro- 

 duction of which in London has been recorded in these pages 

 of late, is dependent, according to the New York Times, upon 

 good street pavements, and that journal pertinently adds : 

 " Our cities need these, whether we have motor omnibuses or 

 not." Good streets are essential to the satisfactory use of rub- 

 ber tires on vehicles of any kind, and the advantages of such 

 tires are becoming so evident that the continual improvement 

 of the streets, even in American cities, must be considered as 

 assured. 



The Colorado rubber "is all right," says the able 

 Gunnison Champion, of that state, and " the process of extrac- 

 tion cheap," but " the difficulty seems to be the cottony tufts 

 at the roots of the plant. These get into the rubber." So much 

 the better. Why not make cotton rubber lined hose complete 

 from the same " rabbit weed ".^ 



INDIA-RUBBER GOODS IN COMMERCE. 



EXPORTS FROM THE UNITED STATES- 



OFFICIAL statement of values for March, 1905, and the 

 first nine months of five fiscal years, beginning July i, 

 from the treasury department at Washington : 



FREEMAN'S SYNTHETIC CAMPHOR. 



NOT long ago a Walter K. Freeman, m.e., of whom more 

 anon, appeared before the heads of the great drug house 

 of Parke, Davis & Co. (Detroit, Michigan), with a sample of 

 camphor " made synthetically." Misstatement was that after 

 long experimenting he had succeeded where all others had 

 failed. In fact, " He and God were the only intelligences in 

 existence that could make camphor." The story is that he got 

 $30,000 and was to get more, but one of the heads of the fiim, 

 Trueman H. Newberry ( lately appointed assistant United 

 States secretary of the navy), wrote to a prominent press clip- 

 ping bureau for information regarding Freeman. The reply 

 came by telephone : 



" Read an article in The India Rubber World for Janu- 

 ary, 1903, signed W. H. Stayton." 



Mr. Freeman was in the office when the clerk repeated this, 

 as he wrote it down, and went out hastily, nor has he been seen 

 since. The reason for his flight was that the article referred to 

 treated of Mr. Freeman's $2,000,000 American Crude Rubber 

 Co., and his fraudulent attempt to make money by the sale of 

 a secret for the manufacture of synthetic rubber. This ex- 

 pose by The India Rubber World put a stop to his scheme 

 — not, however, before he had secured some thousands from 

 the credulous. Mr. Freeman's next move will doubtless be the 

 manufacture of Synthetic Money. 



OBITUARY. 



COLONEL E. A. ROCKWOOD, who died at his home in Buf- 

 falo, New York, on May 14. was for a quarter century ac- 

 tive in the rubber goods trade. He was born in 1839 at Enfield, 

 Massachusetts, and early in life removed to New York. In 

 1870 he went to Buffalo and began business as a rubber goods 

 dealer, shortly afterward taking a partner, under the style of 

 Rockwood & Burr. They represented the Goodyear Rubber 

 Co. (New York). In August, 1871, the Goodyear Rubber Co. es- 

 tablished a branch house in BufTalo, with Mr. Rockwood as man- 

 ager, which position he filled for 25 years. In 1894 he suffered a 

 paralytic stroke, from the efltects of which he never recovered 

 fully, and in May, 1896, the BulTalo store was seriously dam- 

 aged by fire. Mr. Rockwood's ill health and the fire combined 

 led the company to close their BufTalo branch in the summer 

 of 1896. Mr. Rockwood was long actively identified with the 

 New York State National Guard, first as a member of the Sev- 

 enth regiment, during his residence in New York city, and 

 later as adjutant of the Seventy-fourth regiment, at Buffalo. 

 He then received an appointment on the Fourth brigade staff 

 with the rank of colonel. He was Thirty-second degree Mason, 

 and the funeral on May 16 was under the direction of Hugh de 

 Payens commandery. Mr. Rockwood is survived by his wife 

 and four sons, who are engaged in business or professional 

 work in as many cities. 



The Compafiia Alemana Transatlantica de Electricidad (the 

 German Transatlantic Electric Co.), of Buenos Aires, one of 

 the strongest companies of its kind in the world, and control- 

 ling the electric lighting and the street railways of that city 

 and its suburbs, has decided to utilize its great plant in an en- 

 deavor to supplant with electricity the 3ooocabs now employed 

 in Buenos Aires. The United States minister to Argentina 

 reports that Mauro Herlitzka, the manager of the electric com- 

 pany, is about to place an initial order for 100 electric cabs 

 and that he is convinced the demand for their services will be 

 such as to warrant an early increase in their number. 



