January i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER V/ORLD 



121 



AN ATTEMPT TO "MAKE RUBBER" THAT FAILED. 



'"T^O THE Editor of The India Rubber World ; Dur- 



I ing the summer of 1902 I was offered an opportunity 

 to invest in the stock of a company which had been 

 organized to manufacture a process rubber or substi- 

 tute from a formula said to have been originated by one W. K. 

 Freeman. The offer came to me from gentlemen connected 

 with a company which had acquired an option on the Freeman 

 process. These gentlemen were of very high standing and of 

 unquestioned integrity. Freeman had given them many sam- 

 ples of his compound, and even conducted parts of his opera- 

 tion in their presence and had given them parts of his formula. 

 Tests of the samples which he submitted to them had been 

 made by practical rubber men, who reported in substance that 

 the material was rubber of a high grade, one expert staling 

 that it was equal to medium Pari. 



After examining the matter so far as documents were con- 

 cerned and consulting with clients, I notified the officers of the 

 company that if Mr. Freeman would perform his experiments, 

 and make in the presence of our representative a compound 

 equal in all respects to the sample which he had delivered to 

 us, my clients would take on the terms proposed all of the re- 

 maining stock of the company. I was present at an interview 

 at which this offer was submitted to Mr. Freeman. He replied 

 that he was ready to give the test, but not in the presence of a 

 chemist, lest advantage might be taken of his process, which 

 was necessarily secret. This was assented to, and I was myself 

 designated as the person in whose presence the compound was 

 to be manufactured. 



I was given a list of various materials which had entered mto 

 the composition of the last batch of the compound which had 

 been manufactured, and which had been submitted to the tests 

 above mentioned. I was informed by Mr. Freeman that 21 

 pounds of materials had been used in the manufacture of the 

 batch of compound, which when finished had weighed exactly 

 10 pounds. 1 was given the names and amounts of articles 

 which aggregated 20 pounds out of the 21 of gross material. I 

 was told by Mr. Freeman that he reserved the right to mix with 

 the 20 pounds of material which I purchased one pound or less 

 of materials which he was to purchase, the composition of 

 which was to be secret — this for the necessary protection of his 

 formula. 



Having purchased the materials which I was to supply, ar- 

 rangements were made for a test, which was to be conducted 

 at Mr. Freeman's establishment at No. 403 East Twenty-third 

 street. New York. There then ensued a considerable period of 

 • delaysand excuses for the failure to manufacture the compound. 

 I was on hand at the somewhat early hours designated by Mr. 

 Freeman, but his excuses were such as failure of the chemist to 

 send him the pound of material which he was to supply, sick- 

 ness resulting from former experiments, death of a relative, etc. 



Ultimately, however, the test was begun. Mr. Freeman used 

 the 20 pounds of material which I purchased, and had on hand 

 several little bottles containing something less than a pound 

 of material which he had himself purchased. Some of the in- 

 gredients — consisting, I believe, of cellulose, water, and caustic 

 soda — were put into a metal vessel and kept at a te.^perature of 

 about 200° F., over a slow fire from somewhere about 8 o'clock 

 in the morning until about 6 or 7 in the evening. Mr. Free- 

 man occasionally during this process examined the fibers 

 through a small magnifying glass, and talked somewhat mysti- 



cally about the slowness with which the material approached 

 the critical'point when the cotton fibers which it contained 

 should be ready to change to rubber. Some time about 6 or 

 7 o'clock, he stated that the material could not possibly be 

 ready for the test prior to 11 o'clock that night, and suggested 

 that I should go and get something to eat. I objected that, 

 although I was hungry, I feared the pot might come to the 

 boiling point while I was away. He protested in the presence 

 of three gentlemen, all of high standing here, that it was im- 

 possible that the critical time should be reached short of five 

 or six hours. These assurances were accompanied by further 

 magnifying glass examinations. I then asked what would hap- 

 pen in case he should be mistaken, and it should get ripe while 

 I was absent. He answered that all he had to do was to take 

 it from the fire and pour some bisulphide of carbon in the 

 pot and that the mixture would keep any length of time. I 

 thereupon left for my dinner, leaving two gentlemen (one a 

 prominent lawyer and the other a very prominent banker) who 

 were to watch operations until my return. 



I announced that I would be gone just an hour. As a matter 

 of fact I returned in thirty-five minutes, and then learned that 

 almost immediately after I had Jeft Mr. Freeman stated that he 

 could no longer control the "brew," and that it was going to 

 " ripen " during my absence. Protest was entered, and it was 

 pointed out, I am informed, that he had promised me that the 

 addition of some bisulphide of carbon would save the situation. 

 He had, however, changed his mind about this, and he accord- 

 ingly added some bisulphide of carbon and transferred the 

 mixture to an earthenware crock. At this time there was a 

 little difficulty, I am told, arising from the fact that the com- 

 pound took fire, oral least escaping gas was burning freely. The 

 flames were suppressed with a wet towel, and the pot was 

 stirred a bit, and then Mr. Freeman carried the vessel and con- 

 tents into a little closet which he designated asa " dark room " 

 and which had at one side of it a sliding window closed with 

 orange colored glass. He had been in the dark room only a 

 short lime when I returned. I at once went in the dark room 

 with him, and protested against his using the closet when the 

 entire floor of the factory was so dark that it might have been 

 used for a photographic developing room. I could see no pur- 

 pose in the dark room, except that it confined the gases which 

 were escaping, and which were clearly some sort of nitrous 

 fumes of an exceedingly irritating character. Mr. Freeman in- 

 sisted that it was necessary to remain in the room, and he 

 added from time to time to his mixture some of the chemicals 

 which 1 had purchased, and also some nitric acid which he had 

 purchased, and which apparently caused the fumes which 

 made the room almost uninhabitable. After perhaps five min- 

 utes, Mr. Freeman was overcome by the fumes and had to be 

 taken from the room and a doctor summoned. Owing to the 

 fact that I had been in the room a shorter time than he, and to 

 the further fact that I had stood on a bench and escaped the 

 fumes in the lower part of the room, I was less affected by the 

 gases and able to remain in the room some time after Mr. Free- 

 man left it. I found a window in the room communicating 

 with another room which had been locked, although I had re- 

 quested that it be left open. 



When Mr. Freeman was sufficiently recovered, he went back 

 into the room and examined the materials, and while there 

 dropped on the floor of the dark room the key which he had 



