i ' ober ;. 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



23 



A NEW TYPE OF VACUUM DRYER. 



A \ improved vacuum drying apparatus recently designed is 



herewith shown. It lias been customary in the past, with 



dryers as large as this one, to use a circular boiler plate shell, 



witl rectangular heating shelves, which required a large floor 



i> and caused much waste space between the shelves, and 

 1I1. shell had to be evacuated each time the dryer was put in 

 operation. On the smaller size dryers it lias been the custom 

 tn make the chambers rectangular, of cast iron, built up in sec- 

 tions. This necessitates many joints which have to lie main- 

 tained, each joint causing additional danger to the maintenance 

 of a high vacuum, and that a high vacuum is necessary is 

 ^lii iw 11 by the fact that the higher vacuum obtained on the 



A New Vacuum Dryer. 

 apparatus the quicker the drying can be accomplished. The 

 vacuum chambers on the dryers here shown are cast in one 

 piece. The chambers are made of "air furnace iron," which 

 is an exceedingly dense, homogeneous metal, having a tensile 

 strength of approximately 36,000 pounds per square inch. As 

 will be remembered, ordinary cupola iron rarely exceeds 23,000 

 pounds per square inch. Because of the great density of air 

 furnace iron, manufacturers of ammonia and high pressure cylin- 

 ders are using it on account of being able to maintain a higher 

 pressure in cylinders, due to the fact that the air cannot get 

 through the molecules of the metal. It will therefore be seen 

 that a higher vacuum can be obtained in the drying chamber 

 if casings are made from this iron. This vacuum dryer is made 

 by the Buffalo Foundry and Machine Co., of Buffalo. New York. 



FIRE FIGHTING IN NEW YORK. 



THE chief of the fire department of New York, Edward F. 

 1 Croker, a member of the service for 25 years, in a recent 

 interview in the New York Herald, expressed the highest appre- 

 ciation of the high pressure system now in vogue in New York. 

 ind the use of water towers. 



"Have fire-fighting methods improved much since you first 

 came to the department?'' the interviewer asked. 



" I he development of methods of fighting fires." said Chief 

 Croker, "has reached a point where, for a time, I do not expect 

 them to go much further. More attention should now be given 

 to fire prevention. 



Asked if he favored limitation in the height of "skyscrapers," 

 Mr. Croker said: 



"Yes, I do. Fires cannot be surely controlled at any higher 

 than 75 feet. No building should be allowed that goes any higher 

 than seven stories,. or they are liable to be dangerous." 



At the same time the fire chief pointed out the advantage which 

 Ni w York possesses in the matter of water supply, and the 

 liberal provision of apparatus, enabling 200 engines to be concen- 

 trated on any point within an hour. 



The matter of fire hose was not mentioned in the full-page 

 article from which these quotations are made, but it would appear 

 from the tone of his interview that the best hose yet made by the 

 rubber manufacturers will not. in the opinion of Mr. Croker, 

 together with the best apparatus yet designed for use in con- 

 nection with it, insure a reasonable degree of safety for buildings 

 above a certain height. And yet buildings several times 75 feet 

 tall are being erected every year. The hope of the future, then, 

 as he says, is fire prevention. 



GOOD RUBBER FROM MEXICO. 



I ' 1 1 E production of rubber has begun on the plantation 

 "Dona Maria," of Tapachula Rubber Co., at Escuintla. 

 Chiapas, Mexico. A recent report was that they had ready 

 for shipment over 3 tons of rubber, coagulated in thin sheets 

 and pressed into blocks of 25 kilograms, and branded "Dona 

 Maria." A specimen sent to The India Rubber World is 

 clean and otherwise very desirable rubber. The American 

 domicile of the company is at San Francisco. 



HEALTH IN THE RUBBER COUNTRIES. 



I X a lecture on "The Panama Canal," at the West India Com- 

 * mittee Rooms in London, on March 25, before a meeting 

 presided over by the Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, Vaughan 

 Cornish, F. R. G. s... an engineer of note who had devoted much 

 study to the Canal Zone, said : 



Whatever may be thought of the engineering principles involved in the 

 present plan of the Panama canal, there can be no doubt whatever that 

 the sanitation work of the United States has been a magnificent success, 

 and that it has most important bearings on the future of the white race 

 in tropical lands. 



This assertion is commended to whoever may be interested in 

 the development of the rubber interest in the South American 

 tropics on a more extensive scale and more economically than in 

 the past. The present Panama canal enterprise is by no means the 

 first attempted in the same region, but the former efforts resulted 

 in failure as much, as for any other reason, on account of the 

 ravages of disease which sanitary science is now able to combat. 

 To recur to the rubber areas, the work "Album do Estado do 

 Para" [see The India Rubber World, July 1, 1909 — page 349] 

 contains some facts of note regarding the improvements which 

 have been made from a standpoint of health in the regions of 

 which Para is the capital. It says: "Even yellow fever, whose 

 name has done so much to cast discredit on our country, has 

 nearly completely disappeared from Santos and Rio de Janeiro. 

 If there are occasionally a few sporadic cases in the north of 

 Brazil, they are now few and far betvveeen, owing to the progress 

 made by hygiene which enables us to counteract the deadly effect 

 of all diseases, whether they occur in Europe, in America, in 

 high or low latitudes." 



The Para publication continues : "The plain truth is that man 

 lives just as well in Brazil as in Europe," and statistics are given 

 to indicate that the death rate of Para is lower than in St. Peters- 

 burg, Madrid, Venice. Marseilles, or Rome, and not much higher 

 than in New York or Paris. This favorable condition for Para, 

 however, represents a great improvement over what existed when 

 rubber was first obtained from that port, and hut points to the 

 possibilities of making the whole Amazon valley habitable by 

 white men. who. by the way, in the last half century have found 

 the Mi iissippi valley in the United States immensely more de- 

 sirable for home than in the earlier years of the American 

 republic 



Panama Rubber, Fruit and Lumber Co.. September <>. 

 capital. $2,500,000. To grow fruits and for general farming. 

 H. L. (rani, president; H. P. Sweetser, treasurer: Portland. 

 Maine 



