250 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[May I, 1902. 



of expense than a well conducted smaller house is yet to be 

 elucidated. The ratio of expense to the amount of business 

 done, the advantages of buying extra large quantities of hard- 

 ware by the consolidated interest over the purchases made by 

 the legitimate hardware jobber, are slight, if any. There is 

 nothing in the pool that has any attraction for the manufact- 

 urer of hardware. To a greater or less extent each locality has 

 its own personality in regard to goods, as well as persons, and 

 the buyer who attempts to look after the wants of all sections 

 of this country, even on limited Irnes of goods, will need in 

 each jobbing center experienced and well paid help. Other 

 jobbing houses in hardware will spring into existence, compe- 

 tition will be more sharp and all the travelers that solicited 

 business for the various jobbers will be used and needed by the 

 consolidation. I am not a party to the consolidation." 



Already an unfavorable attitude to the hardware jobbers 

 combination is believed to be apparent, in the incorporation, 

 April 18, under New Jersey laws, of the Standard Metal Manu- 

 facturing Co. Some of the independent manufacturers seem 

 to fear that if they do not organize for their mutual protection 

 the purchasing agency for the jobbers' combine will be able to 

 carry prices down to rock bottom by making offers to different 

 manufacturers in the same line for their entire output, and 

 then bringing them all to terms at the lowest figures. The 

 only relief, it is urged, is the establishment of one selling 

 agency and agreement upon one price. 



AS VIEWED IN THE RUBBER TRADE. 

 [interview Vl'ITH A SALES MANAGER.] 



"The hardware consolidation will not affect the mechanical 

 rubber goods trade — the only branch of the rubber industry 

 whose products are distributed by hardware houses. The rea- 

 son is that the hardware trade is becoming relatively less im- 

 portant as a channel for distribution for rubber goods. Now- 

 adays every consumer on a large scale of rubber goods seeks 

 to avoid the middle man in placing his orders. No paper mill, 

 for instance, would think of filling its requirements in rubber 

 through a jobber, and there are single paper manufacturing 

 companies who buy more rubber goods in a year than are 

 handled in any hardware jobbing house. Jobbers do not han- 

 dle important orders for belting, hose (except garden hose), or 

 packing'-the tendency of the consumer everywhere being to 

 approach the manufacturer. 



" Garden hose is still sold largely through jobbing houses, 

 however, because the amount required by each consumer is 

 small. And the same thing is true of some other lines of rub- 

 ber — as, for instance, thresher belting, the demand for which 

 in each individual case is small. A single hardware jobbing 

 house has handled 750,000 feet of garden hose in a season. 

 But in this line of trade the combination is not likely to affect 

 existing arrangements. Such houses as the one referred to 

 have garden hose in different grades made up under their own 

 brands, and even if the orders should, as a matter of form, be 

 placed through a general buying agency, each house would 

 specify the same goods it had been handling, and the same 

 factory would get the orders." 



Akron Inventors Busy. — " You would be surprised to 

 know the number of Akron people who are working on patents 

 for use in the rubber business," said a local patent attorney, the 

 other day. " In every rubber shop here there are men who are 

 constantly trying to solve new problems in the business and to 

 find new and profitable uses for rubber. To the fact that this 

 activity does exist, I attribute much of the success of Akron 

 rubber manufactories." — Akron {Ohio) Democrat. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO TIRE HISTORY. 



''P'HE story has gone the rounds of the press lately that the 



A solid rubber wheel tire originated in New York in 1865. 

 when a man in the marble trade suggested the idea as a means 

 of preventing the heavy specie trucks used in one of the banks 

 from Injuring the marble floors. This man was Henry W. 

 Kellogg, but according to the newspaper accounts he never 

 profited from the idea, though " the mechanic who did the job 

 was sharp enough to have it patented, and died a few years ago 

 worth a million." 



Mr. Kellogg, who now resides at Battle Creek, Michigan, and 

 is connected with the Duplex Printing Press Co., of that city, 

 has favored The India Rubber World with an account of 

 his part in the matter, adding that he never heard of a patent 

 being taken out on the truck tires referred to. Mr. Kellogg 

 was putting in the marble flooring of the New York Stock Ex- 

 change building, in 1865, when he received a call from the late 

 Alexander T. Stewart, the merchant prince, who was interested 

 in the Bank of North America, and wanted to know what kind 

 of marble was least liable to crumble at the joints when a tiuck 

 with iron wheels was rolled over the floor. As Mr. Kellogg 

 writes : 



He said ; " Now what do you suggest, Mr. Kellogg ? " 



I replied ; " I suggest that you have some wheels made that will not 

 injure the marble you now have, nor eren injure a carpet." 



Mr. Stewart said : " I never heard of such wheels." 



I replied ; " Neither did I, nor did I ever see the need for them be- 

 fore, but as necessity is said to be the mother of invention, we will in- 

 vent something to supply this need. I suggest that you have some 

 wheels made with flanges, leaving a channel in the center, and that, 

 you put into this channel a thick rubber tire, say i to 1^2 inches thick, 

 and that the inner diameter of this tire be less than the outside diameter 

 of the wheel at the bottom of the channel, so that the tire will hug the 

 wheel when it is forced on." 



I then made a pencil cross section sketch of such a wheel and tire and 

 gave it to Mr. Stewart. He asked if such a thick rubber could be put 

 on over the flange and still hug the wheel at bottom of the channel. I 

 replied that if this were impossible, the wheel could be cast with only 

 one flange, and, after forcing the rubber tire onto the tread, a separate 

 flange could be put on the other side, fastening it with screws into the 

 edge of the tread or rim. 



" Well, Mr. Kellogg," said Mr. Stewart, " I think your Yankee inge- 

 nuity will help us out of our difficulty, and lose you a marble job." 



Soon after this, rubber tired hotel baggage trucks came into use all 

 over the United States, and twenty years later, while traveling in other 

 countries, I saw them in use at the different hotels and to-day'[March 24, 

 igoz] here at the Paxton Hotel, in Omaha, I examined one and found 

 the wheels in no respect different from the sketch I made for Mr. Stew- 

 art in 1865. I did not apply for a patent, nor did either of us foresee 

 the wonderful development of the rubber tire business. It was an easy 

 and natural transition from a small truck wheel to a larger one, requir- 

 ing but little if any invention. If there is any record of the use or in- 

 vention of a vehicle wheel of any sort with a rubber tire prior to July, 

 1865, I am not aware of it. 



There were earlier rubber tires, however. In 1845 a patent 

 (No. 10,990) was granted in England to Robert William Thom- 

 son for " aerial wheels," equipped with pneumatic tires con- 

 sisting of a rubber inner tube and a leather casing. In 1851 

 Thomson's name appeared in the catalogue of the Great Ex- 

 hibition of London in connection with an invalid chair, of 

 which " the wheel (in addition to an iron tire) is shod with a 

 solid rand of vulcanized India-rubber said to be as durable as 

 iron." By 1868 all the scientific journals in Europe were de- 

 scribing Thomson's solid India-rubber tires (five inches thick) 

 for steam traction engines for common roads. 



