THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1, 1920. 



of flax, an excellent substitute for linen was woven from 

 it and with it nearly all American and a great number 

 of Allied airplanes flew to victory. 



The value of the Southwest long-staple crop last year 

 was over $20,000,(XX). For this year the gross returns 

 are estimated at fully $100,000,000. The industry is 

 but eight years old, and so far has not had to contend 

 with the boll-weevil, which for years has ravaged the 

 cotton plantations along the Atlantic seaboard and the 

 Gulf of Mexico. The development of this great plant- 

 ing industry is largely due to the foresight and enter- 

 prise of a niunber of the big manufacturers who 

 financed planters, erected gins and themselves planted 

 thousands of acres. If given a fair chance they would 

 do the same in Cuba, in the Philippines, for example. 



SOLVENT NAPHTHA FROM OIL SHALE 



THE United States is facing a crisis in its oil sup- 

 ply. Already we are importing petroleum. Nearly 

 40,000,000 barrels came from abroad during the fiscal 

 year ended June 30, 1919, and these importations must 

 increase year by year as we invent and build more ma- 

 chines which depend upon crude oil or its derivatives as 

 fuel. Motor vehicles continue to multiply and so do 

 ships, locomotives and factory pwwer plants burning oil 

 instead of coal. Industrial uses of gasoline, notably as 

 the principal rubber solvent, call for larger quantities 

 every year. 



Geologists, engineers and economists are agreed that if 

 a new demand for petroleum should develop, amounting 

 to 100,000,000 barrels a year, it could not be met from 

 domestic sources of supply. A permanent governmental 

 jjetroleum administration to assist and participate in the 

 commercial development of foreign and Philippine oils 

 would be necessary. Already the limited supply and in- 

 creasing demand, together with greater production costs, 

 are being reflected in a rapidly increasing price, which is 

 now more than double the pre-war average. 



The situation calls for a prompt, determined national 

 policy looking many years ahead. Either we must take 

 positive steps to secure our share of the supply from the 

 fields of the world, or else we must develop and use shale 

 oil for all purposes to which it is adaptable — probably 

 both. 



Shale naphtha is an excellent solvent of rubber, hav- 

 ing physical properties analogous to the solvent naphtha 

 obtained from coal tar, of which more might well be used 

 for spreading in America. While shale naphtha has 

 found very little application in America, it is used ex- 

 tensively in Scotland and Germany for purposes where 

 the odor does not matter, especially with asphaltum in 

 certain insulating compounds. In America its wider ap- 

 plication to various lines of rubber manufacture should 

 help to meet a national emergency. 



The time has come when the American supply of oil 

 shale must be utilized. The position of the shale indus- 



try has changed materially in recent years with the ad- 

 vance in petroleum. At present prices it is possible for 

 oil from shale to compete profitably with oil from wells. 

 Crude oil can be produced from shale at $1.85 a barrel 

 in Colorado and Utah. Crude petroleum oil is selling 

 at $3.10 a barrel in Wyoming, while Pennsylvania oil is 

 quoted at $6.10. The Scottish shale industry has been 

 profitable for many years, and its record should be bet- 

 tered in this country because of the greater richness of 

 shale strata and their more easilj- workable surface loca- 

 tion. 



President Alderson, of the Colorado School of Mines, 

 states that the American oil shale supply is practically 

 unlimited. He points to the fact that the petroleiun pro- 

 duction from wells in this country to date has been ob- 

 tained from 4,109 square miles with an estimated yield 

 of 2,280,000 barrels per square mile, and asserts that 

 one ten-foot seam of shale, yielding one barrel of oil per 

 ton, will give 15,488,000 barrels of oil, or seven times 

 the square mile output from wells. The 5,500 square 

 miles of oil shale in Colorado and Utah will produce 

 255,000,000,000 barrels. 



An oil shale refining plant can be put in successful 

 operation for an investment of $500,000 on which there 

 would be a substantial return. Some of the large and 

 progressive rubber companies are producing their own 

 crude rubber and long-staple cotton. \\'hy not their sol- 

 vents also ? 



AVOID.^NCE OF BUSINESS L.4WSUITS IN FAVOR OF 



arbitration is urged on local business men by the Chicago 

 Association of Commerce. The association has arranged 

 for commercial arbitration under the State law and has 

 designated a committee to promote it. 



Commercial arbitration combines an ideal method of 

 determining questions of fact with a standard procedure 

 for deciding points of law. It does not involve any sur- 

 render or impairment of legal rights, but provides for 

 the determination of facts before an arbitrator having 

 ample power and confidence, and if points of law arise 

 in the evidence these alone are submitted to a court. 

 That necessity seldom arises. 



Purchasing agents in buying rubber goods at 

 first are prone to outline minutely the kind and per- 

 centage of rubber, the character and quantity of com- 

 pounding ingredients, and even the time of cure. In 

 time they learn that the use of hard and fast specifica- 

 tion is the exception rather than the rule, a much safer 

 guide being found in the representations of reliable 

 rubber manufacturers. This is because compounds and 

 processes vary widely, so that a buyer's carefully de- 

 tailed specifications of today may be much out of date 

 tomorrow. Moreover, research workers and experts 

 are bringing about daily changes in the rubber industry, 

 that result not merely in increased production birt in de- 

 cided betterment in the quality of the output. 



