January I, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



113 



is also being superseded by the use of machinery for turning it 

 out in the form of cr'epe or in other ways, and the biscuits, sheet 

 or crepe are very often compressed into block rubber, which 

 suffers less from oxidation. 



As an indication of how rapidly the new industry is growing, 

 the figures of export from Ceylon may be quoted : 



1901 66 cwt. 



1902 189 ' 



1903 389 ' 



1904 676 ' 



1905 1.401 " 



1906 3,/OS ' 



1907 7,093 ' 



To turn now to other countries in the east, the one which has 

 shown itself to be on the whole the most favorable of all is the 

 Federated Malay States, a British protectorate lying north of 

 Singapore. The growth of rubber there has been decidedly better 

 than in Ceylon and at the same time coffee, the only other plant- 

 ing industry of importance, has been lately in a very unprosperous 

 condition. The country, unlike Ceylon or Java, has vast areas 

 of undeveloped forest land, which is of all others the best suited 

 for rubber. Under these favoring circumstances the industry has 

 progressed very rapidly and the Malay States are by far the 

 largest exporting country. Not only so, but capital has been 

 more readily forthcoming for rubber planting enterprises. 



Java is handicapped like Ceylon by very large existing indus- 

 tries which take up most of the available land, but on the other 

 hand has a great advantage in unlimited and very cheap labor, 

 while the trees grow very well indeed, and there are not wanting 

 indications that Java will some day be an important producer ol 

 rubber. 



Sumatra and Borneo are also being taken up as rubber coun- 

 tries, especially the former, and other far eastern islands will 

 probably be employed sooner or later. 



To turn to India, experiments with Hevea in the north have 

 failed, but a considerable area is now planted with this tree in 

 the southern part of the Madras presidency. Growth is ap- 

 parently slower than in Ceylon, but there are great advantages in 

 regard to plentiful and cheap labor. 



At the time of this writing, it is probable that about 400,000 

 acres in tropical Asia are planted with Hevea Brasiliensis. This 

 means in the course of the next seven or eight years a produc- 

 tion of about 40,000 to 50,000 tons of clean rubber, or a good deal 

 more than half of the world's present total production. Add to 

 this the fact that during the present boom rubber companies are 

 being floated almost daily, that tropical America and Africa have 

 a fair amount of rubber planted, that it is improbable that the 

 wild rubber of South America will be driven off the market for a 

 long time to come, and that there are also considerable areas 

 planted in other kinds of rubber, and it is evident that it will not 

 be very many years before rubber is cheap and new uses for it 

 may begin to arise freely. 



A word of mention in conclusion in regard to other rubbers. 

 Castilloa elastica, so largely planted in Mexico, has been given 

 up in tropical Asia on account of its uncertainty. It is by no 

 means easy to persuade the tree to grow well all the time. It 

 may begin well and then fall off, or vice versa. The amount of 

 rubber given by tapping is very variable, and there is no wound 

 response. 



Manihot Glaziovii, the Ceara rubber, grows like a weed all 

 over the East, but has never given a large enough yield to be 

 much taken up. In quality this rubber, when made into biscuit 

 or sheet, is decidedly superior to the best plantation Hevea. 

 Recently Ule has discovered three new rubber-yielding species 

 of Manihot in Brazil — M. heptaphylla, M. dichotoma. and M. 

 Pianuhycnsis. These are said to give much larger yields than the 

 old Ceara rubber tree, and already have been largely planted in 



Ceylon, where Manihot is found to do better than Hevea at high 



elevations or in the drier parts of the island*. 



[Editorial Note. — Further details of interest on this subject, by the 

 same writer, will be found in his recently published "Agriculture in the 

 Tropics." reviewed on another page of this journal.] 



THREE TIMES TWENTY YEARS AT WORK. 



' I "O the Editor of The India Rubber Would: In your request 

 ■*■ for a contribution to your twentieth birthday number you 

 refer to this lapse of years as "a little while." It is a little 

 past three score years since I took up telegraphy, the only com- 

 mercial enterprise at that time depending upon electricity for its 

 success, and itself, commercially, then only five years old. 



There was very little call for high insulation at that time. The 

 wires were kept in the air as much as possible, and the leading-in 

 wires were insulated by cotton wound on and saturated with 

 beeswax and shellac. About 1847, Austin G. Day had covered 

 wire with rubber, and Stephen T. Armstrong with gutta-percha, 

 in this country, for subaqueous use. In that year the German 

 government laid 1,380 miles of underground telegraph wires, in- 

 sulated with gutta-percha and protected by a lead covering. The 

 German cable had but a short life, as its makers, thinking that, 

 like india-rubber, it should be vulcanized, mixed sulphur in the 

 compound, and learned the dear lesson that gutta-percha did not 

 believe in amalgamation. 



Rubber submarines were used only experimentally at first. 

 Gutta-percha at that time being cheap and more easily applied, 

 and being free from sulphur, which caused the rubber compound 

 to oxidize the wires, for some time had the preference in deep 

 sea cables, notwithstanding its high cost. 



Submarine cables were not at first a success, as no means de- 

 veloped for protecting them from anchors until 1851, when the 

 first cable protected with iron armor, was laid acros the English 

 channel. The first armored cable that I know of in the United 

 States was laid across the Hudson river, just above Cold Spring, 

 New York, in 1853. 



The wires of the New York, Albany afld Buffalo Co. were run 

 to Troy, and there crossed the river on a bridge, then down on 

 the west side of the river to Albany. The wires south from New 

 York city crossed the river on high masts, from Washington 

 Heights to the Palisades, and, at the Highlands above Peekskill, 

 until the. middle "fifties." 



Although the telegraph and telephone companies had used 



gutta-percha and "kerite," and for a few years, "okonite" cables, 



before the birth of The India Rubber World, it was not until 



about that time that a large demand for rubber in insulation 



was caused by the rapid development of the electric light and 



electric power industry. henry a. reed. 



TPresident Bishop Gutta Percha Co.] 

 New York, December 8, 1909. 



THE BALATA INTEREST. 



OALATA belting, to which considerable attention has been 

 "-* given in The India Rubber World lately, is now manufac- 

 tured by Liverpool Rubber Co., Limited, who refer to this line 

 of goods as being suitable for all ordinary modern belt driving 

 except in situations of too high temperature, such as would have 

 the effect of melting the balata. They mention their "Constella- 

 tion" brand as having a tensile strength, in 4 plies, of over 1,800 

 pounds per inch of width. Other brands have over 1,300 pounds 

 of tensile strength per inch of width. The tensile strength of 

 the best double leather belting is stated by this firm at 1,300 

 pounds per inch of width. 



* * * 



The India Rubber World is assured by an important firm that 

 within the present year they will have in operation in the United 

 States the largest factory for balata belting in the world, though 

 they are not at present prepared to make details public. 



