286 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[March 1, 1914. 



wherever inferior sorts of hose are used disintegrated par- 

 ticles of the inferior substance get into the working parts 

 of the rock drills and pneumatic tools and thereby reduce 

 their efficiency. In almost all instances, where buyers of 

 rock drills and pneumatic tools have found fault with the 

 machines, the inspectors for the makers have found the 



of a railway. The purchases of rubber goods of domestic 

 make for these mines constitute a big annual sum. The 

 mines support a town of 20,000 inhabitants. The buyers for 

 the mines buy in rubber goods a great deal in addition to 

 hose, belting and packing, notably in rubber boots and all 

 kinds of goods used in families. The writer hereof in asking 

 Phelps, Dodge & Co., large miners of copper and coal and 

 operators of mineral and other railroads in the southwest 

 and Mexico, how many kinds of rubber goods they buy 

 regularly, was turned over to the buyer's department, in 

 .Vew York, where it was learned that the house has a depart- 

 ment store at its principal mines where as many as 500 

 clerks have been employed, and the purchases in rubber 

 include every article that can be found on sale in a local 

 department store. 



There are several thousand mining corporations in the 

 Three Americas which maintain general stores for the con- 

 venience of employes and their families. These stores are 

 carried on by the same men who buy the supplies for the 

 engineering departments of the mines. The usual practice 

 at these stores is to keep several men in charge of the rub- 

 ber and textile goods, ranging from stocks of belting and 

 hose to rubber dolls and rubber tips for crutches. Within 

 the Wall street district there are over a hundred buying 



TuRNT.\Bi,E Drill W.vgox .\t Ch.\mpl..\in B.\kc;e C.x.nal. 



fault to be that of the makers of the inferior rubber hose 

 that had been fitted to the machines. With high grade hose 

 the machines always work up to the tables of efficiency 

 calculated by the makers. 



The work of the Catskill watershed for New York City's 

 water supply is really a mining undertaking, and nearly all 

 the engineers and mechanics have had experience in domes- 

 tic and foreign mining. On this job there are almost 1,000 

 rock drills made by the Ingersoll-Rand Co., and each drill 

 averages the use of 100 feet of rubber hose. The New York 

 Barge Canal work is quite like a mining project for the 

 most of its length, as a great deal of working in rock is 

 being done by miners. The amount of hose, packing and 

 belting of india rubber in use on this undertaking is esti- 

 mated at $197,000. It was estimated two years ago that the 

 subway and tunnel work planned for New York during a 

 period of five years would call for the purchase of india 

 rubber and gutta percha manufactures to the amount of 

 $750,000. 



Four of the larger American machinery making corpora- 

 tions have recently been at w-ork on contracts for the 

 developing of coal mines in East India. The rubber goods 

 specifications connected with these contracts came to about 

 $75,000, and were filled by domestic manufacturers. A num- 

 ber of great mining developments are going on in Peru, 

 Chili and Brazil by New Y'ork capitalists. So far, the expen- 

 ditures for machinery and supplies for one of these mines in 

 Peru have reached $45,000,000 — including the construction 



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agencies for all kinds of supplies for domestic and foreign 

 mines. Orders for rubber goods come to these offices from 

 near and distant mines every day, and the volume of busi- 

 ness is very large. 



Mining in regions remote from supplies of fuel has been 

 greatly advanced in recent years by the use of hydro-electric 

 power. This has brought about a great increase in the use of 



