10 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1, 1911. 



RUBBER FROM 

 NATAL. 



a process, indicating that some firm was desirous of getting on 

 terms with a competitor. This is one of those cases where the 

 man who knows how to produce the effect, though he may be 

 only a workman at one pound a week, is of much more use than 

 the chemical expert, as no amount of laboratory investigation 

 will reveal the details of the process to which the rubber has 

 been subjected, unless it has been cold-cured, which, of course, 

 can be detected. Messrs. Glover are large users of rubber strip 

 for insulating purposes, and the invention which has emanated 

 from their works must be considered as of considerable technical 

 importance. 



The reference under the heading in the August 1 issue of Tue 

 India Rubber World is of more importance today than it would 

 have been before the extraction of rub- 

 ber from highly resinous laticos had 

 been undertaken on a commercial scale. 

 I am not aware that such procedure has yet established itself 

 as a commercial success, but that does not matter at the mo- 

 ment. Your notice says that the Tirucalli tree which abounds 

 in Northern Natal is to receive the attention of capitalists, and 

 the composition of the latex is given as 10 to 20 per cent, of 

 fine rubber with SO per cent, resin — the rest presumably being 

 water. This is probably the same latex as has been obtained 

 in a small way from a district in Pondoland, Cape Colony, 

 where the trees abound. A year or so ago samples of this 

 rubber were before me and closely resembled a good quality of 

 Pontianak ; the general composition of the substance free from 

 water being rubber 27, resins 73. As far as I know nothing was 

 done with the concession whence these samples came, but if 

 there really is a demand for tlie residual resin there seems no 

 reason why competitors to the Goebilt Works in Borneo should 

 not spring up in South Africa. 



Pi.ANTERS in the East will no doubt be much interested in 

 what the editor says in The India Rubber World for August 

 1 regarding the measures Brazil is 

 taking to maintain her threatened 

 supremacy in the rubber market. Leav- 

 ing the financial proposals on one side, I note witli interest that 

 it is proposed to wash rubber before sale and transport and to 

 export only one quality — the best. I am not sure, however, that 

 this is altogether a step in the right direction ; at any rate it is 

 a move that should not be undertaken without the expressed 

 approval of the principal manufacturers of the world. There are 

 many who hold the opinion that rubber travels all the better 

 when it contains 10 to 15 per cent, of water in its pores. Of 

 course in the present days of quick ocean transit this con- 

 sideration is of less importance than it was formerly, and in 

 addition there is the saving in freight to be considered. Still 

 the manufacturer has a great desire to see his rubber in the 

 raw state and to wash and dry it according to his own ideal. 

 This is more particularly as regards fine Para. With respect 

 to lower grades of Para, especially negrohead, I do not see any 

 objection to a partial purification before export so as to produce 

 a more standard grade. Possibly, too, the removal of the bulk 

 of the albuminous matter would tend to produce a better rubber. 

 Mr. Fowler, who has recently succeeded Mr. Baker as chair- 

 man of this concern, confessed at the annual meeting held on 

 August 30 that the directors had been 

 unduly optimistic as to the trend of 

 rubber prices last year. They had 

 been misled, he said, by experts in Mincing Lane who had pre- 

 dicted a rise instead of the steady fall in values which took place. 

 It strikes me that there are a good many experts of last year 

 who are in a position to be shot at by company chairmen seeing 

 how many companies there are which have signally failed to 

 fulfil the promises of the prospectuses. The Venture Corpora- 

 tion had to express their disappointment up to date, at least, 

 with the Madagascar Rubber Co., Limited, and the Crude Rub- 



BRAZILIAN 

 PLANS. 



LONDON VENTURE 

 CORPORATION, LTD. 



Iicr Washing Co., Limited, though nothing could be said in de- 

 tail about the latter, as its balance sheet is not yet published. 

 'J he persistent unsatisfactory results which have attended the 

 great bulk of wild rubber enterprises when financed in Europe, 

 seem to have been also the lot of the Madagascar Company, 

 where the local difficulties have as usual proved greater than 

 was expected. There is one pomt about these and other rubber 

 flotations which seems somewhat anomalous. The directors ex- 

 press themselves as having great faith in the future, so one 

 would have thought that there would have been sufficient buying 

 of the shares at the very low figures to which they have fallen, 

 to give a little life to the market and bring prices to a higher 

 level. 



MAN AND RUBBER. 



It's marvelous to contemplate 



How rubberized is modern man. 



How much the gum elastica 



Pervades his whole terrestrial span. 



In infancy it is his joy 



A rubber rattle to expound, 



And all his life a rubber ball 



Provides him happiness profound. 



With rubber coat upon his back. 



His feet encased in rubber shoes, 



He laughs the elements to scorn, 



And gives the doctors all the blues. 



The lightning with its forked tongue, 

 That flames across the vivid skies, 



With rubber gloves upon his hands, 

 Like ancient Ajax he defies. 



A rubber cord restrains his hat 



From soaring in the sportive breeze, 



While rubber heels make life's hard road 

 A dallying primrose path of ease. 



His trousers' trim ,^pollo set 

 To rubber galluses he owes, 



And rubber garters drive away 



All wrinkles from his lurid hose. 



With rubber comb his wayward locks 

 Are taught the proper way to go ; 



His molars with a rubber brush 



Grow whiter than the driven snow. 



He darts about from place to place, 

 A gay triumphant space-defier, 



Unjarred by rough and rocky roads. 

 Soft-cushioned on a rubber tire. 



And when the doctors, full of glee. 

 At last the hapless man persuade 



To have that old appendix out. 

 On rubber blankets he is laid. 



So when you come to look at man. 

 It's more than passing plain to see 



How much his fate and fortune hang 

 Upon the gummy rubber tree. 



The accepted authority on South American rubber — "The 

 Rubber County of the Amazon," by Henry C. Pearson. 



