March I, 1914. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



281 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO. 



No. 25 West 45th Street, New York. 

 CABLE ADDRESS: IRWORLD, NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 49. 



MARCH 1. 1914. 



No. 6 



Subscriptions: $3.00 per year, $1.75 for six months, postpaid* for the 



United States and dependencies and Mexico. To the Dominion 

 of Canada and all other countries, $3.50 (or equivalent funds) 

 per year, postpaid. 



Advertising: Rates will be made known on application. 



Remittances: Should always be made by bank draft or Postofficc or 

 Express money order on New York, payable to The India Rubber 

 Publishing Company. Remittances for foreign subscriptions should 

 be sent by International Postal Order, payable as above. 



Discontinuances; Yearly orders for subscriptions and advertising are 

 regarded as permanent, and after the first twelve months they will 

 be discontinued only at the request of the subscriber or advertiser. 

 Bills are rendered promptly at the beginning of each period, and 

 thereby our patrons have due notice of continuance. 



COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING CO. 

 Entered at the New York postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



TABLE OF contents ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



WILL IRONCLADS BECOME RUBBERCLADS? 



IT is stated by reputable English publications that 

 •*• the British Admiralty is engaged in a series of 

 tests on a new kind of plate for English Dreadnaughts, 

 to consist of rubber — at least in part — the present tests 

 being- made on plates of alternating layers of steel and 

 rubber. 



Such conmients as have been made by the writers in 

 non-technical American journals have been largely of 

 a facetious nature, the writers allowing their imagina- 

 tion considerable play in picturing the great naval 

 engagements of the future when the ironclads have 

 given way to rubberclads. According to these writers, 

 the skilled marksman of that day will not be satisfied 

 to puncture the enemy's ship, but will so direct his 

 projectile that it will carom along down the line, 

 striking one Dreadnaught after another, in an endless 

 chain of destt-uction, and he will exercise particular 

 care that his shots do not strike broadside on and re- 

 bound against himself. A great sea fight will then be- 

 come a sublimated game of billiards. 



But there is enough in this idea of rubber protection 



ujv engines of war to have engaged military and naval 

 minds long before the present time. When Louis Na- 

 poleon, at that lime Emperor of France, visited the 

 memorable Goodyear exhibit at the great Paris Exhi- 

 bition in 1854, he was particularly struck by a pile 

 of large rubber balls standing in one corner, and he 

 remarked later that while he had often thought rubber 

 might be used in warfare for defensive purposes, it 

 had never occurred to him that it was suited for the 

 manufacture of cannon halls. It was explained, dip- 

 lomatically, to the imperial luind. that these were not 

 cannon balls, but ordinary footballs. There is nothing 

 to indicate, however, that the Emperor took any active 

 steps towards putting his idea of rubber defense into 

 practice, nor has very much of a practical nature been 

 done in this direction since Napoleon's day; but there 

 is no reason why such tests as it is said the British 

 .Admiralty is n<jw engaged in should not be made. 



It is certainly quite possible that some combination 

 (if rubber and steel — in fact, it is quite thinkable that 

 rubber alone, if subjected to some toughening process 

 yet to be discovered — might be a very eiifective pro- 

 tection for the great sea-fighters. At least it en- 

 tails no great expense to prepare a series of targets 

 made of varying arrangements of steel and rubber 

 layers and to see how they act under the impact of 

 modern projectiles. And ammunition might be put to 

 very much worse uses. And if it should be found that 

 rubber could be substituted, in part or in toto, for the 

 thick steel plates that now cover the sides of the great 

 men-of-war, what a note of joy would arise from the 

 eastern planters, for no longer, then, would there 

 be an}- cause for worry as to what is to be done with 

 that 300,000 tons of plantation rubber looming up in 

 the near future. 



THE CASH VALUE OF ONE GOOD SNOW STORM. 



^Y/-^^^ ^'^^'^ spirit of pessimism which will occa- 

 ^ " sionally afflict even the best of business men 

 comes upon the dealer in rubber footwear, he is wont 

 to complain that we no longer have any good, old- 

 fashioned snow storms such as there were in his boy- 

 hood days. It is natural for a man with a large stock 

 of rubber boots and shoes on hand to get into this frame 

 cif mind when winter advances well toward spring 

 with one day of sunshine succeeding another; but, as 

 a matter of fact, the statistics of the weather bureau 

 show that, taking one year after another, there is now 

 just as much precipitation, and as much of it in the 



