December 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



153 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE BALKAN 

 WAB. 



EXCEPT for the general reason that it is the main topic of 

 the moment, there is no particular reason why I should 

 refer to this subject. I believe I am correct in saying that 

 in none of the live States at war is there a rubber works in the 

 regular sense of the term ; but, of course, a considerable business 

 is done in imported rubber goods. This 

 business will naturally be hampered in 

 the same way, though to a less im- 

 portant extent, as has occurred with — for instance — cotton goods, 

 the export of which from Lancashire has for the time entirely 

 ceased. This will not affect the staple Lancashire trade to any 

 great extent, because business generally is very brisk and the 

 merchants have other and more important markets to absorb 

 their attention. In certain cases, however, I hear of mills run- 

 ning on short time, or even closing down, owing to the stoppage 

 of business in the Near East. With regard to imported rubber 

 goods, Turkey is the most important Balkan State. Goloshes 

 come mainly from America and Russia, the latter country hav- 

 ing largely increased its trade in South Eastern Europe in late 

 years, a fact due, no doubt, to a large extent, to the common 

 basis of the Slav languages. For many rubber goods, such as 

 mackintoshes, there is very little demand. Probably the rubber 

 imports which have shown the greatest expansion in quite recent 

 years, arc motor tires. Since I was in Montenegro the mail car 

 has been converted from a low-wheeled horse vehicle to a motor 

 car, which appears to tackle the 4,000 feet rise from Cattaro to 

 Cettinge without difficulty. The road, I may say, although a 

 monotonous zig-zag, is otherwise a very good one and far su- 

 perior to any to be found in northern Albania, these being mainly 

 rough tracks freely strewn with boulders. Metalled roads in 

 Montenegro are, however, by no means universal, a fact which 

 does not disconcert the natives, who tackle rocks, as their goats 

 do. The ordinary footwear is an untanned laced calfskin sandal, 

 as leather boots have a very short life on the rocks. Needless 

 to say that Montenegro offers no inducements to the establish- 

 ment of a golosh store. A largely increased (though it is to be 

 hoped ephemeral) demand is for hospital bandages, etc., as part 

 of the equipment of the various Red Cross League parties that 

 are being dispatched to the theatre of war by Great Britain, 

 Russia and other countries. 



Whether it is due to inconsiderate usage or to decline in 

 quality I am not in a position to say, but one hears general com- 

 plaints with regard to these goods. 

 Since a certain legal case of a few years 

 ago, when an action for damages was 

 brought against a chemist, as seller of a bottle that burst when 

 in use, shop keepers have been somewhat chary in giving guar- 

 antees. Nowadays some sellers will not give guarantees, while 

 others will give a twelve-month guarantee on the understanding 

 that only hot, liut not boiling, w-ater is to be put in them. A 

 good many people, I understand, have given up the use of the 

 more convenient rubber bottles in favor of the glazed stone-ware 

 article, owing to fear of the former bursting at an inopportune 

 time. With the stone bottle the water can be put in at the boil- 

 ing temperature, the heat being retained for a longer time than 

 in the rubber bottle. I heard recently of a nursing institution, 

 formerly a large user of rubber bottles, which has now entirely 

 given them up. It would, therefore, seem clear that this article, 

 like elastic thread, should be made of one quality onh' — the best 

 — and that price cutting should be sternly discountenanced by all 

 manufacturers. Exactly how this end is to be attained, I will 

 leave to others to decide. 



UnTEEAI, 

 BVBBEB. 



HOT WATER 

 BOTTLES. 



The number of different advertisements relating to mineral 

 rubber or natural asphalt as obtained in America is a pronounced 

 feature of our trade literature, and 

 those on this side to whom the subject 

 is of interest confess that they are 

 somewhat bewildered. They are wondering whether so much as 

 is claimed really depends upon the special trade mark of the 

 package, or whether there is a certain amount of bluff, owing to 

 close trade competition. Far be it from me to attempt shedding 

 light upon such a dark mystery, but I may perhaps make a few 

 general observations. These asphaltic bodies certainly seem to 

 have substantiated their claims to utility in a variety of rubber 

 mixings, and there can be little doubt that the demand will in- 

 crease. I have been asked if there is any difference between 

 these natural products and coal tar pitch, which is so largely 

 produced in Great Britain for home use and export. I cer- 

 tainly find a distinct difference not only in chemical constitution 

 — a matter not of great moment — but also in physical properties, 

 particularly in flexibility. The ordinary coal tar pitch is much 

 more brittle at any rate than the particular American products 

 I have had under test. The instrument known as a penetrometer, 

 used in America for differentiating qualities of solid mineral hy- 

 drocarbons, does not appear to be much known in England. The 

 manager of one of our largest pitch works tells me that he has 

 heard of its use in America, but knows nothing about it him- 

 self. Perhaps our editor could do something to dispel the cloud 

 of ignorance on this side by giving a sketch and brief description 

 of the instrument in use in America. The article on "Mineral 

 Rubbers" in The India Rubber World for October is very in- 

 teresting, though one regrets that the geological illustrations are 

 not explained in the text. For instance, what is the nature of 

 tlie country rock through which the elaterite vein courses. I 

 am familiar with the limestone district in Derbyshire, where the 

 mineral rubber has long been known. Here it usually occurs in 

 the lead veins at the top of the limestone, where this latter is 

 covered by the black Yoredale shales. Small quantities of min- 

 eral oil have in past days been tapped by the lead miners, and it 

 is on record that men have been killed by explosion of petroleum 

 vapor. Owing to its intermittent occurrence in the veins, elat- 

 erite has never been commercially worked in England, though 

 quite recently asphalt works have been established at places 

 where the limestone is strongly bituminous. 



This subject is being investigated by Mr. S. T. Peachey at 

 the Manchester School of Technology, and a preliminary paper 

 THE ACTION OF giving his results to date w'as given by 

 GASEOUS OXYGEN him at a meeting of the Manchester 

 ON INDIA RUBBER. Section of the Society of Chemical In- 

 dustry, on November 1. Special reference was made by the au- 

 thor to the work done recently by Herbst, who passed oxygen 

 through a solution of rubber in benzine and obtained 86.4 per 

 cent, of a body C,oH,eO in solution, and 1.7 per cent, of an in- 

 soluble yellow body CjoH.jOj. The author's experiments were 

 carried out in a different manner, a thin film of rubber being de- 

 posited from solution inside a glass flask, and this being acted 

 upon by a measured volume of oxygen at a temperature of 85 

 degs. C, until no further oxygen was absorbed, as registered by a 

 gas burette. The rubber used at first was plantation crepe, freed 

 from resin by acetone. This was found to undergo complete 

 oxidation in 35^ hours. Further experiments were made with 

 the same rubber, which had not had its resins removed, and it 

 was found that the time for complete oxidation was much pro- 

 longed, ninety-nine hours being required. The amount of resin 



