203 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[March i, 1903. 



MANAOS HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS. 



TO THE Editor of The India Rubber World: The 

 Manaos Harbour Co., Limited, consisting of the Baron 

 de Rienkewicz; Booth & Co., of Liverpool, Mandos and Para; 

 The Amazon Steam Navigation Co., Limited ; Priisse, Dusend- 

 schQn & Co., of Manios; Heilbut, Symons & Co., of London 

 and Liverpool, and one or two smaller shareholders, have a 

 contract with the Brazilian government, by which they are 

 bound to carry out certain improvements in the port of Man- 

 gos, construct a custom house, etc., receiving in return the free- 

 hold of all the land that may be reclaimed, and the right to 

 levy tolls for sixty years. The Amazonas state government has 

 leased the pier " 15 de Novembro "to The Manios Harbour Co., 

 Limited, for £40000 cash, thereby giving the latter a monopoly 

 of loading and unloading steamers at Mandos. The company 

 began work in October, 1902, and have already constructed a 

 timber platform, resting on 2200 piles, with an area of 8750 

 square meters, for temporary use. All the lumber, by the way, 

 is imported from the United States. They are also construct- 

 ing, for the immediate needs of the trade, five warehouses of 

 corrugated iron, one no X 20 meters and the others 45 )< 20 

 meters. 



To obviate the difficulty due to the annual rise and fall of 

 the rio Negro— a difference of 15 meters— the company have 

 obtained from England a pontoon landing stage, 110X20 me- 

 ters, supported on 32 hollow steel cylinders B}4 feet in diame- 

 ter. On the pontoon they mean to erect three steel towers, 

 each 75 feet high, and three other towers ashore, to be con- 

 nected by Lidgerwood double Y cableways. The pontoon tow- 

 ers will be equipped with swivel booms, by which cargo will be 

 lifted directly out of the ship's hold and swung into the Lidger- 

 wood cableway. To counteract the thrust of the back legs of 

 the towers, the company's managing engineer, Mr. A. Lavan- 

 deyne, has devised an ingenious scheme of arrangement of the 

 pontoons underneath. The company have their own power 

 house and lighting plant and intend to drive all machinery by 

 electricity. 



The permanent works will include a quay wall the whole 

 length of the city's water front, 22 meters high, and with an earth 

 backing. This earth backing will be the reclaimed land, and 

 will have an area of 325,000 square meters. Some 475.000 

 cubic meters of earth will be necessary. On this reclaimed land 

 the company intend to erect eight warehouses, 75x20 meters. 

 The company have now one building, 50X20 meters. The per- 

 manent pontoon landing stage, an imitation of Prince's landing 

 stage in Liverpool, will be 330 meters long and accessible for 

 carts and carriages. 



No charge whatever will be levied on passengers and their 

 baggage. By the terms of the Federal contract the Harbour 

 company may levy tolls as follows : 



850 reis per day per meter, on ships using the company's landing stage. 

 3 reis per kilogram on all cargo loaded or unloaded. 

 An aJ valorem tax of i or ij-g per cent, on goods stored in the com- 

 pany's warehouses. 



Mr. Lavandeyne hopes to have the provisional work finished 

 by the end of April, and the permanent work within four years' 

 time. The company intend also to erect a packing-box factory 

 and rubber-cutting machinery, to facilitate the service. 



At present, a steamer coming in from upriver casts anchor in 

 midstream, and the rubber or other freight is sent to shore in 

 barges. Arrived on the beach, it is loaded into carts and taken 

 to the consignee's warehouse, where it is weighed, etc., and 

 carted to the buyer's warehouse, boxed, and carted to " 15 de 

 Novembro" pier, to be loaded into barges to go aboard the 

 ocean steamer. 



Packing-boxes for rubber cost 9 milreis apiece. A kilogram 

 of rubber pays nearly 200 reis in cartage and barge fees, 10 reis 

 cutting and sorting fees, and another 5 or 6 reis for packing, in 

 addition to the export tax of 25 per cent, ad valorem. Under 

 the new system the rubber will be lifted out of hold and placed 

 in the Harbour company's warehouse direct, where the cutting 

 and boxing machinery will receive it, and from whence it will 

 be transferred direct to the ocean steamer. L. G. 



Manaos, Brazil, January 2S, 1903. 



EUROPEAN RUBBER NOTES. 



RUBBER RECLAIMING FACTORY IN DENMARK. 



UNDER the name Dansk Afvulkaniserungs Aktieselskab 

 a company has been formedat Copenhagen, with a capital 

 of 400,000 crowns [==$107,200], for recovering rubber under pa- 

 tents granted to Albert Theilgaard, a Danish chemist, who will 

 be the technical manager of the enterprise. A factory plant is 

 being erected, but several months are expected to elapse before 

 operations are begun. The board of the new company em- 

 braces the director and two professors of the Copenhagen 

 technical high school, a bank director, the director of an im- 

 portant chemical works, and a supreme court attorney. The 

 Copenhagen factory is the first independent rubber reclaiming 

 plant to be established on the continent of Europe. Mr. Theil- 

 gaard's patents in the United States and Canada are controlled 

 and are in use by a leading rubber manufacturing company of 

 New York. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



The St. Helen's Cable Co., Limited (Warrington), are meet- 

 ing with success in their recently added rubber goods depart- 

 ment. Lately the Admiralty gave notice of acceptance of part 

 of their tender. 



==Tires made by the Diamond Rubber Co. (Akron, Ohio) were 

 exhibited at the first Stanley Automobile Show, Earl's court, 

 London, in January. 



= The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Limited, have been 

 registered under the British public companies acts, with A. C. 

 Hillis managing director, and registered offices at 5, Singer 

 street. Tabernacle street, London, E. C. 



= The second annual dinner of the employes of the European 

 dep&t of the United States Rubber Co. occurred on the even- 

 ing of January 3. at the Holborn restaurant, London. Major 

 John W. Knott, the company's European manager, spoke en- 

 couragingly of their business thus far, and hopefully of the 

 future. 



GERMANY. 



The capital of the Rheinische Gummi- und Celluloidfabrik, 

 Actiengesellschaft, at Manheim, will be increased from 2,000,- 

 000 to 2,500,000 marks. The company was founded in 1873 

 with a capital of 900,000 marks, which was increased in 1892 to 

 1,500.000 and in 1898 to 2,000,000 marks. A dividend of 25 per 

 cent, was earned during the last business year. 



= The Continental Caoutchouc- und Guttapercha-Compag- 

 nie (Hanover) have declared a 50 per cent, dividend for the 

 business year ended December 31, 1902, against 45 per cent, for 

 the preceding year. Their cycle and motor tire trade has been 

 exceptionally good. 



= The Hannoversche Gummikamm-Compagnie, A.-G. (Han- 

 over) have declared a 20 per cent, dividend for the business 

 year ended December 31, 1902, against 12 per cent, for the pre- 

 ceding year. 



=The Siiddeutsche Kabel-Werke Aktiengesellschaft (Man- 

 heim) have reduced their capital from 3,000,000 to 2,400,000 

 marks. 



