August i, 1901.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER \VORLJ: 



335 



MANY RUBBER SPECIES IN BOLIVIA. 



SIR MARTIN CONWAY, inhis latest work, " In the Bolivian 

 Andes," ascribed the rubber of southwestern Bolivia — 

 known commercially as Mollendo rubber — to the tree Htvea 

 lutea. Sir Martin having previously stated, in a lecture before 

 the Society of Arts in London, his impression that the rubber 

 tree of this region was the Hevea Brasilietisis, some interest 

 has been felt as to the cause of the change in his conclusion. 

 On this point he has written to us as follows : 



To THE Eduor 01 The India Ruiiher World : Hevea lutea is, 1 be- 

 lieve, the chief form of tlevea on the eastern slope of the Andes. My 

 authority is the collection in the Kew herbarium, which has specimens 

 of Hevea lutea from that district, but none of //. Brasiliensis except 

 from regions further east and lower down. My own specimens were 

 only leaves, and insufficient to determiue the species. 



My information is to the effect that rubber is extracted, along the 

 eastern slope and foothills of the Cordillera Real, in Bolivia, from some 

 twelve difTerent kinds of trees. What are they? No one linows. I 

 have just sent a properly equipped botanist to spend a year investigat- 

 ing the matter from a purely scientific point of view, and I shall present 

 a complete set of his collected specimens to the New York herbarium. 

 We shall then know something definite. 



I have received specimens of yet another kind of Hevea from the 

 southeast of Bolivia, but the specimens are not good enough for com- 

 plete description. There doubtless exist heaps of kinds of rubbers in 

 the Amazon basin about which we know nothing, martin conway. 



Red House, Hornton Street, London, W., July 3, igoi. 



The exploration work begun by Sir Martin Conway in Bo- 

 livia, referred to already in The India Rubber World, is to 

 be continued by a party organized and equipped by this gen- 

 leman, and which left London on June 26, to be absent a year. 

 At New York the party were joined by the botanist mentioned 

 in Sir Martin's letter, Mr. Robert S. Williams, one of the senior 

 aids of the New York Botanical Garden. It is to this institu- 

 tion, by the way, that the specimens collected are to be sent. 

 The New York Botanical Garden of late has developed into an 

 establishment of much importance, and its herbarium bids fair 

 soon to rank with those at Kew and Berlin. There is now be- 

 ing arranged a collection of over 3000 fine specimens obtained 

 for the garden in Colombia, and which is described as one of 

 the most important collections of herbarium material that ever 

 came out of tropical America. The scientific directors are 

 much interested in whatever pertains to a fuller knowledge of 

 rubber producing species. By the way, there is now at the 

 garden a rubber plant grown from a seed of an undetermined 

 species obtained from Colombia in the collection mentioned 

 above. 



Sir Martin Conway — born 1856 at Rochester, England, the 

 son of Canon Conway — though most widely known for his 

 mountain climbing exploits in various countries, and his books 

 in relation to them, has devoted his more serious work to the 

 history of art. He has written several books in this field, and 

 is chairman of the Society of Authors in England. He is Slade 

 professor of tine art in King's college, Cambridge University, 

 and professor of art in University college, Liverpool. He 

 married, we believe, an American lady. 



The rate of increase in the exports of Bolivian rubber via 

 Mollendo, on the Pacific coast, recorded from time to time 

 in The India Rubber World, seems not to have maintained 

 latterly. Our last return published was for the fiscal year 

 1898-99 — 1,037,127 pounds, of which 793,418 pounds appear to 

 have been shipped in the first half of the period. There is now 

 at hand a return for the calendar year 1900, as follows : Shipped 

 to Liverpool, 314,162 pounds; to London, 22,752 ; to Hamburg, 



240,033; to Havre, 37,816; to New York, 1751 ; total, 616,514 

 pounds. 



CHICAGO-BOLIVIAN RUBBER CO. 

 At a recent meeting of the stockholders of this company, of 

 which frequent mention has been made in the India Rubber 

 World, the following officers were elected : J. Jackson Todd, 

 president ; Arthur W. Stedman (of George A. Alden tt Co.), 

 vice president and general manager ; A. L. Dewar, secretary 

 and treasurer. These, together with the following, constitute 

 the board of directors: Robert D. Evans (late president of the 

 United States Rubber Co.), Albert M. Crane, Charles E. Yerkes, 

 W. J. Hylands, and George E. West. The company have ac- 

 quired title to about 2,500.000 acres of land in Bolivia, compris- 

 ing three haciendas on which rubber has been successfully 

 worked, and on which there is now a force of rubber gatherers. 

 The general location is on the rivers Kaka and upper Beni, 

 on the headwaters of the Amazon. In the past some trouble 

 has been experienced because the natives were indifTerent and 

 hard to control. The company, however, imported a few Ital- 

 ians, and the natives were soon awakened to the fact that their 

 opportunity to work might be taken away entirely, and since 

 then they have behaved well. The rubber gathering is under 

 the general charge of George Merrit, who is superintendent and 

 who has headquarters at Issappuri. Mr. Merrit, by the way, 

 is a most competent man lor such business, both naturally and 

 through his ten years residence in this part of Bolivia, during a 

 good part of which time he was manager of the " Tres Amigos " 

 rubber estate. He has excellent assistants in Messrs. SkifTord, 

 assistant manager, Messrs. Newton, Stokel, and Fuller. With- 

 in a short time Mr. Arthur L. Jackson, who has had an excel- 

 lent rubber education in Par;i and Manaos, will start for Bo- 

 livia to make his headquarters at La Paz, where he will work 

 in the interests of the com pany . The rubber from these estates, 

 by the way, has in the past come by way of the falls of Madeira 

 and down the Amazon. It will, however, now be carried over 

 the mountains and shipped from Mollendo, on the Pacific 

 coast. The rubber, by the way, is a very fine high grade of 

 Para rubber, known as ' knapsack biscuit," and the company 

 hope within another year to ship 1,000,000 pounds annually. It 

 is interesting to note that the company have secured exclusive 

 rights of the waterway from the estate to the foot of the moun- 

 tain, which greatly enhances the value of their proposition. 

 Speaking of the proposition as a whole, the stock issued consisted 

 of $250,000 in 7 per cent, preferred stock and $1,250,000 com- 

 mon stock, all of which has been taken up, with the exception 

 of $125,000 which is to remain in the treasury. 



Vulcanite Mouthpieces. — A tobacconist talking with a 

 New York Sun reporter, said: "Vulcanite makes a good 

 mouthpiece, but not American vulcanite. In England a fine 

 quality of vulcanite is made especially for pipe use. It is par- 

 ticularly hard and takes a beautiful polish. Then the vulcanite 

 mouthpieces over there are all hand turned, and here most of 

 them are machine made. Of course, there are exceptions. 

 I'm speaking of generalities. By the way, while we are talking 

 of mouthpieces, the kind used on a pipe should depend upon 

 the individual. A man with soft or tender teeth has no busi- 

 ness using vulcanite or amber. He needs a horn mouthpiece. 

 It is softer, and the pipe will wear away instead of the teeth. 

 Using a pipe does wear away the teeth, you know."==-An In- 

 dia Rubber World representative found a hard rubber con- 

 cern doing a considerable business in vulcanite pipe goods, and 

 was assured that they were exporting such goods to England. 

 As for the Sun's article, it should have mentioned Scotland, 

 since vulcanite is not produced in England, 



