OcTuIitR 1, 1913.. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



15 



A RUBBER EXPOSITION IN CALIFORNIA. 



EVKRVOXE who attended the Third International Rubber Ex- 

 position, held in the Grand Central Palace in New York, a 

 year ago, will remember the wonderful exhibit made by Brazil. In 

 area occupied, in completeness, in artistic arrangement, in general 

 attractiveness, in the interest it created and in the crowds that 

 visittcl it, it was altogether tlie most prominent feature of the 



entire exposition. 

 It was under the 

 charge of Dr. 

 Eugenio D a h n e, 

 who for many 

 years was Com- 

 missioner General 

 of Brazil— repre- 

 senting the De- 

 partment of Agri- 

 culture, Industry 

 and Commerce — 

 to the United 

 States and Canada. 

 It was quite 

 natural that the 

 exhibit under his 

 charge in the ex- 

 position should be 

 altogether a suc- 

 cessful one, as Dr. 

 Dahne had had 

 much previous ex- 

 perience in this 

 line. He repre- 



Dr. Eugenio D.ahse. 



sented the Brazilian government at the World's Fair in 1893, 

 and also at the later World's Fair held at St. Louis in 1904. 

 He represented the government of the state of Sao Paulo at 

 the Seattle Exposition in 1909, and two years later he was sent 

 on a special mission by the Brazilian government to report on 

 the expositions at London and Turin. So it is obvious that he 

 was as well equipped as experience and extensive observation 

 could make him for the successful management of the Brazilian 

 exhibit in the New York Exposition held last year. 



But Dr. Dahne now intends to make all this experience count 

 for a still more important project than any he has yet engaged 

 in. He is planning a comprehensive exhibition of all kinds of 

 tropical products, but particularly rubber, to be given in con- 

 nection with one of the international expositions to be held 

 in California in 1915. In order to devote all his energy to this 

 project he has left the position which he has held for so 

 many years with the Brazilian government. 



There will be two international expositions in California in 

 the year 1915, to be held in honor of the opening of the Panama 

 canal. One, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, will 

 be held in San Francisco for nine months, from the middle of 

 I'ebruaiT to the end of November, and the other, the Panama- 

 California International Exposition, will be held in San Diego, 

 beginning January 1, 1915, and continuing through the entire 

 twelve months. Both of these expositions have been duly 

 authorized by this government, and the initial work on both 

 of them is being energetically pushed. Dr. Dahne has not yet 

 decided with which exposition he will ally his exhibit, this 

 decision depending upon which one offers the best advantages. 



It is his intention to have this rubber show entirely different 

 from any of its predecessors, for in addition to the indoor 

 exhibit he expects to have a very interesting feature in the way 

 of an outdoor exhibit, including the different rubber producing 

 trees and plants — which it will be possible, owing to the mild 

 climate of Southern California, to show in actual cultivation. 

 He has outlined his general idea as follows : 



"The general plan to be followed would be, to have the visitor 

 enter first a large open court or patio, artistically arranged so 

 as to represent, on one side a jungle scene, with rubber-gatherers 

 at work tapping the trees, collecting the latex and smoking it; 

 on the other side a rubber plantation, with cooHes at work, 

 showing how plantation rubber is cultivated and treated. The 

 figures, of course, would have to be wax, but the trees and 

 plants would be real ones, brought from the Orient, Central 

 and South America, and kept growing in the soil, representing 

 the different species that produce rubber. The patio would be 

 surromuled by covered arcades where the different kinds of 

 crude and plantation rubber are shown and the various systems 

 of treatment and shipment are illu.stratcd. Here too would be 

 exhibited all the variety of tools and implements and the 

 fertilizers used on plantations.. Lecturers will be on hand to 

 explain everything and to further illustrate by moving-pictures, 

 what cannot be shown in natura. 



"The visitor, having now learned how rubber is obtained, 

 will then pass into the 'Rubber-Machincry-IIall,' where he will 

 see all kinds of machinery — wherever possible, in operation— 

 and learn how rubber is washed, dried and used in the manu- 

 facture of all kinds of goods. Here will also be the exhibits 

 of auxiliary materials — on the one side chemicals, pigments, 

 and compounding ingredients; on the other side cotton and 

 other fabrics and reclaimed rubber. 



"Finally, the visitor will reach the Manufactured Goods — or 

 Sales Department, where he will see, arranged in groups, all 

 kinds of manufactured articles showing the application of rubber 

 in the automobile industry; electric lighting and transmission, 

 etc.; surgery, dentistry and druggists' sundries; technology, 

 science and art ; roofing, flooring, paving ; household and domestic 

 articles; clothing industry, and toys, toilet and fancy articles." 

 In order to get a suitable building which shall be devoted to 

 rubber and other tropical products, the exposition management 

 requires that Dr. Dahne shall guarantee to occupy 100.000 square 

 feet of space. He hopes to occupy a good deal more, because 

 this is not a very large space considering that in addition to 

 rubber, various food products of the tropics— coffee, tea. sugar, 

 fruits, nuts, cereals, etc. — are to be duly exploited, leaving only 

 part of the space for the rubber show; and out of this Brazil is 

 expected to ask for a very sizable reservation. When one re- 

 calls that the New York Rubber Exposition occupied a floor 

 space amoimting to 160,000 square feet, it will be seen that Dr. 

 Dahne's project is not over-ambitious. Of course, the amount 

 of floor space, if applied for early enough, can be materially 

 extended, but this tropical products and rubber section \\'\\\ be 

 incorporated in the exposition if the rubber men and those 

 interested in other products will give early assurance of occupy- 

 ing, between them, the 100,000 square feet. 



Possibly the objection may be made that Southern California 

 is in rather a remote corner of the United States and that it is 

 a long journey from the Atlantic seaboard — which is true. But 

 over against that remains the fact that Southern California is 

 an all-the-year-around resort. Hundreds of thousands of 

 easterners visit it in winter to escape the cold, and a vast army 

 of people from the southwest interior visit it in summer to 

 escape the heat; so that, even without the additional attraction 

 of an exposition it has a continual crowd of visitors, and with 

 this additional attraction the number of visitors would be largely 

 increased. And such a section as Dr. Dahne has planned would 

 undoubtedly prove one of the most interesting features of the 

 general exhibition. Dr. Dahne is now visiting the principal 

 rubber men of the East, with a view to getting them interested 

 in this undertaking. With his wide acquaintance among the 

 prominent rubber people of the United States, \vith his recognized 

 position in the official circles of South America, with his long 

 experience in exposition matters and his exceptional personal 

 energy, this undertaking ought certainly to be most successful. 

 If Dr. Dahne carries through his plan, there will be three 



