February i, 1910.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



161 



price of the best rubber at Para was 10 pence a pound. 

 And the tariff has nothing to do with crude rubber. 



Another item of statistics of interest relates to the 

 output of plantation rubber. The exports from Ceylon 

 and the Malaysian ports have increased from 397,347 

 pounds in 1905 to 8,165,082 pounds as shown by our 

 latest advices for 1909, which do not include the total 

 shipments for the month of December. We may safely 

 estimate the plantation rubber from British Asia at 

 8,700,000 pounds for 1909 or nearly 380 tons per month. 

 This may be referred to as the most interesting fact in 

 the development of modern rubber interests, particularly 

 as it points to an even larger production when the newer 

 plantations "come into bearing." It must be noted also 

 that much other plantation rubber is being marketed — 

 from Africa, the Dutch East Indies, Mexico, and so on 

 — the statistics of which are as yet less thoroughly 

 organized. 



The appearance on the market of this new class of 

 rubber has not tended . to lower price levels, which is 

 evidence that the demand for rubber goods is constantly 

 on the increase. At the same time, it is to be considered 

 that, with the exception of the Amazon region, no 

 natural source of rubber is maintaining its output. The 

 Congo region produced 20 per cent, less rubber last year 

 than in the year of the largest production, and various 

 other colonies in Africa and elsewhere can be pointed 

 to as yielding less rubber, so that the new plantation 

 product is not a net addition to the world's supply. 



THE NAMING OF THE RUBBERS. 



THAT this a world of change is nowhere better illus- 

 trated than in the india-rubber interest. When this 

 journal was founded not even the best informed mem- 

 bers of the trade knew, except in a casual way, where 

 the raw material used in their factories came from. It 

 is safe to assert that not ten rubber goods manufacturers 

 in the world knew one botanical name in connection with 

 rubber. The rest of the business world knew less. 



To-day, when every man, woman, and child buys 

 rubber goods, there is none who has not an opportunity 

 to know, through newspaper advertisements and other- 

 wise, the difference between "Para" and other qualities 

 of rubber, and in North America, at least, the fullest ad- 

 vantage is taken of this knowledge. Who, that buys or 

 uses automobiles, for example, does not know the source 

 of the best rubber available for tires ? And in other 

 countries what investor in advertised securities, or what 

 reader of financial market reports, does not know the 

 merits of Hevea as compared with other species of rubber 

 yielding plants? 



The introduction to the market just now of a new 

 grade of rubber connects it with a botanical name which 

 was applied to the tree producing it long before that 

 tree was known to contain rubber. And this point to the 

 suggestion that utimately all the commercial grades of 



rubber may be known by designations conferred by our 

 friends the botanists. 



For example, "Para rubber" no longer comes from 

 Para alone, or even from the Amazon valley alone ; it 

 comes also from Colombo and Singapore and Penang 

 and Port Swettenham. It arrives already from the 

 Dutch East Indies and no doubt will be derived later 

 from Mexico and the Congo. "Para," therefore, ceases 

 to serve as the natural or the best designation of rubber 

 of this type. What is more reasonable or proper than the 

 name "Hevea" rubber for the product of the genus 

 Hevea, as these trees are listed by the botanists ? 



Similarly there may be mentioned "Castilloa" rubber, 

 which appears in the market to an important extent, 

 "Manihot" rubber, also to an important extent, and so 

 on. The world is using to-day large quantities of 

 "Landolphia," "Funtumia" and "Ficus" rubbers. It is 

 true that a recent important rubber product of Mexico 

 has become known commercially as "Guayule" — a local 

 common name — but this may be taken as an exception. 

 Why not, then, introduce a new important rubber as the 

 "Dyera," a name based upon a botanical designation of 

 long recognized standing? 



THE GOOD THAT RUBBER SHOES DO. 



THE overshoe is doing an enormous amount of good, espe- 

 *■ daily among children, in protecting the body against the 

 chilling that results in colds, sore throats, chronic catarrhs and 

 the like. 



It is not the mere getting the feet wet that is harmful, it is 

 the prolonged evaporation of water from shoes and stockings 

 that does the mischief. The evaporation reduces the temperature 

 about the soles of the feet many degrees blow the temperature 

 of the surrounding air, just as a wet bulb thermometer register! 

 lower than a dry one. 



In fact, the warmer and drier the air by which the body it 

 surrounded the more rapid the evaporation and the lower the 

 temperature. Also, the thicker the soles of the shoes the more 

 water is taken up and the longer the evaporation goes on, so 

 that thick soles do not take the place of a covering of gum 

 which keeps the water away completely. 



This evaporation and consequent continued lower temperature 

 goes on, especially in the house, when the rest of the body is in 

 comparative comfort and the nervous system relaxed. Wet shoes 

 indoors are worse than wet .shoes out of doors. Some people 

 can stand this prolonged unbalancing of environment, but it takes 

 a pretty vigorous make-up to do so. 



It might be added that the wearing of overshoes that cover 

 a large portion of the foot when one is indoors is not a good 

 thing. — Dictic and Hygienic Gazette. 



The high prices of crude rubber have not been without their 

 disadvantage to some interests in Ceylon. Dealers in tires in 

 Colombo have received cable advices from Europe to advance 

 the price of their goods 25 per cent, on account of the increased 

 cost of raw material. 



It is stated by Mr. A. F. Firestone, of the Firestone Tire and 

 Rubber Co., (Akron, Ohio), that since May 8, 1847 — the date 

 of the American patent for Thomson's "aerial wheel" — there 

 have been issued in the United States alone 1,641 patents in the 

 pneumatic tire field. 



