September 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



New YORK 

 — O^KDEN 



567 



Gum-PtB^ 



THE 



Published on the 1st of each Month by 



INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING GO. 



No. 15 West 38th Street, New York. 

 CABLE ADDRESS: IRWORLD. NEW YORK. 



HENRY C. PEARSON, Editor 



Vol. 46. 



SEPTEMBER 1, 1912. 



No. 6 



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COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE INDIA RUBBER PUBLISHING CO. 

 Entered at the New York postoffice as mail matter of the second class. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS ON LAST PAGE OF READING. 



OUR SPECIAL EXPOSITION NUMBER. 



/^N the 23rd of the present month, the Third Inter- 

 ^~^ national Exposition of the Rubber Trade and 

 Allied Lines — and the first rubber exhibition ever held 

 in America, will open its doors in Grand Central Pal- 

 ace, New York. Vast preparations have been made for 

 this event. Practically all the governments — over 20 

 in number — whose people are in any way interested in 

 any phase of the rubber industry will be represented. 

 There will be the most comprehensive display of crude 

 rubber, both wild and plantation, ever brought together 

 in any one place. The planters of the Far East have sent 

 their products 12,000 miles for the benefit of the visit- 

 ors at this exhibition. American manufacturers have 

 taken hold of the enterprise with enthusiasm. It bids 

 fair to be a more notable achievement even than the rub- 

 ber exhibition held in London last summer. 



We think that this unusual occasion calls for a spe- 

 cial number. Accordingly our next issue, while under 

 date of October 1, will be issued on the opening day of 

 the exposition, September 23rd, and ^vill be a special ex- 



position number. In addition to the usual amount of 

 general rubber information, this number will contain 20 

 pages, probably more, devoted exclusively to the expo- 

 sition. It will tell what governments are represented, 

 give the names of their representatives, and show the 

 character of their displays. It will give a complete list 

 of all the exhibitors, describing their exhibits, and illus- 

 trating them wherever this is possible. 



It will contain a complete programme of the work to 

 be undertaken by the conference, which is to be held 

 jointly with the exhibition. The names, and official con- 

 nections, of all the rubber experts who will take part in 

 that conference will be given, together with the subjects 

 which they are to treat. It will be a valuable souvenir 

 of that exceedingly important and interesting event. 



We intend to make it the most notable contribution 

 to the periodical literature of the rubber industry that has 

 yet appeared. 



TWO OPPOSING VIEWS OF SYNTHETIC RUBBER. 



O 



N another page in this issue will be found two 

 strikingly antagonistic views of the synthetic 

 rubber situation — one full of optimism, the other dis- 

 tinctly pessimistic. The first view is taken from a 

 paper, addressed to a London publication, by Messrs. 

 Strange and Graham, two of the leading champions of 

 the new English synthetic rubber process, recently 

 made public by Professor Perkin. They demonstrate, 

 mathematically, the extremely low cost of synthetic 

 rubber by the Perkin process. The necessary raw 

 materials are all of an inexpensive character — starch 

 from maize at 2 cents a pound, common salt at one- 

 third of a cent a pound, coal at less than one-fifth of 

 a cent a pound — the entire cost of raw materials neces- 

 sary to make rubber being not over 4 cents a pound. 

 The manufacturing expense, where production is en- 

 gaged in on a large scale, would bring the total cost, 

 they estimate, of a pound of their rubber up to 8 cents, 

 or possibly 12 cents, per pound. At this price, all 

 wild rubber will immediately disappear from the mar- 

 ket, and the latex-gatherer of the Amazon with his 

 tin cup and calabash Avill become merely a reminis- 

 cence. Plantation rubber will continue as long as it is 

 desirable to have it do so, in order to maintain prices 

 at a level where the synthetic industry may enjoy 

 profits without precedent. 



That is the side of the case as it appears to the pro- 

 moters of the new process of making artificial rubber. 



