OCTOHER I, I903-] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



11 



infrequently breaks through from exterior causes. The main 

 cause of destruction however is from within. The pulsations 



of the air as the pressure 

 is on and off the imple- 

 ment has an effect upon 

 the vulcanized bond be- 

 tween the inner tube 

 and the duck layers. 

 The inner tube sooner 

 or later — according to 

 the quality of the manu- 

 facture — gradually loos- 

 ens from the duck and 

 when it once becomes 

 loose is apt to fold upon 

 itself and choke the 

 hose. Such a condition 

 is practically beyond 

 a good type of pneumatic punch. remedy. This action of 

 compressed air upon hose is more destructive than the action 

 of water, even when the latter is at a higher pressure. 



The manufacture of pneumatic tools has attained very large 

 proportions, being carried on, in the United States particu- 

 larly, in a number of extensive plants. Recently the more im- 

 portant of these have been brought under the control of one 

 large corporation— The Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co. — organ- 

 ized under the laws of New Jersey with $7,500,000 capital. 

 The president of this company is J. W. Duntley, who is one of 

 three members of an executive committee, the other two being 

 Charles M. Schwab, late president of the United States Steel 

 Corporation, and C. H. Matthiesson, the president of the Corn 

 Products Co., some further reference to which, by the way, ap- 

 pears on another page of this issue. Close relations exist be- 

 tween this combination and the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool 

 Co., Limited, of London, on the board of which Mr. Duntley 

 has a seat. These two important organizations control the 

 greater part of the business of supplying pneumatic tools to 

 the world. Great mining enterprises call for large outfits of 

 pneumatic tools, and most of the shipyards now in operation 

 have pneumatic equipment. In addition to these large enter- 

 prises, opportunities are offered in almost every form of indus- 

 try, except those devoted to the production of goods by ma- 

 chinery, for the use of pneumatic tools in some form or other, 

 all of which tends to maintain a very important demand for 

 rubber hose which, a few years ago, did not exist. 



"NOMENCLATURE OF RUBBER." 



TO the Editor of The India Rubber World : In the 

 September issue of your Journal your British corre- 

 spondent refers to an address I delivered at the recent Con- 

 gress for Applied Chemistry at Berlin. According to your 

 correspondent I, in the above mentioned address, " indulged in 

 a tirade " against the terms India-rubber, Gum, and Caout- 

 chouc, describing them respectively as childish, ignorant, or 

 barbarous, and he represents me as having proposed the term 

 polyprene in their place generally. Your correspondent's no- 

 tions regarding the meaning of the term " tirade " must con- 

 siderably differ from the accepted meaning of this term, as my 

 " tirade " was delivered in the form of an appeal to the workers 

 in the chemical domain of the India-rubber field to agree upon 

 a term for India-rubber lending itself to the purpose of rational 

 chemical nomenclature. The words actually used by me, in as 

 near as possible literal translation, are as follows : 

 Turning now to the chemical problems of India-rubber, I desire to 



appeal to all coworkers on the question of nomenclature. We cannot 

 seriously propose to introduce into chemical nomenclature the barbar- 

 ous term of Caoutchouc. The childish English designation of India- 

 rubber, or the ignorant German term of Gummi (gum) are not even 

 thinkable in this relation. I myself have proposed and used the term 

 of Polyprene which for the purpose in question appears permanently ac- 

 ceptable, all members of the India-rubber group being interpretable as 

 polymers of isoprene, the constitution of which is known with absolute 

 certainty, but I should be pleased to accept any better designation 

 which might be proposed. 



From this it will be seen that the term polyprene was pro- 

 posed " for the purpose in question " — i.e., the purpose of chem- 

 ical nomenclature. The hare-brained idea of this term having 

 been suggested for every day use in manufacture and com- 

 merce is purely the product of your correspondent's imagina- 

 tion, and his facetious remarks anent this proposal can refer to 

 himself only. 



That the word Caoutchouc is " barbarous " is for everybody 

 sufficiently demonstrated by its origin, and the childishness of 

 the term India-rubber must strike everyone on considering 

 the industry it is applied to. There is. however, no doubt that 

 the term Gummi (gum) is the most objectionable of the three, 

 as it classes the material in question together with the gums, 

 or gum resins. If such enoneous classification, which is im- 

 plied in that term, is not " ignorant " I should like to know 

 what it is. The attempt of using any of the above terms as 

 part of our chemical nomenclature simply leads to grotesque 

 results. 



Your correspondent, in his own way, is quite right that the 

 want of a rational designation for India-rubber will not bar in 

 the least the progress of the chemical investigation of this sub- 

 stance, but it will in time lead to a great deal of inconvenience 

 and confusion in the matter of terminology. If your corre- 

 spondent were aware of the herculean labor encountered, now 

 some time ago, by the " Geneva Convention " in the attempt to 

 purge and systematize chemical nomenclature, or if he could 

 remember the confusing changes which became necessary with 

 the expansion and development in recent years of the chem- 

 istry of the sugars, and of the so-called heterocyclical com- 

 pounds — two very large and important classes — he might well 

 come to the conclusion that he would with advantage have 

 tempered his somewhat misplaced irony with a little wisdom. 



I remain, Yours very truly. CARL OTTO weber. 



Manchester. England, September 14, 1903. 



ROOT RUBBER FROM NIGERIA." 



MR. JOHN HOLT, of John Holt & Co. (Liverpool), Lim- 

 ited, writes to The India Rubber World : " I enclose 

 a bit of bark taken from a root that has been sent me from the 

 Niger. It is a vine growing about 8 feet high. The vine pro- 

 duces no latex, but as you will observe, there is plenty of rub- 

 ber in the bark of the root. I have not yet been able to ascer- 

 tain what scientific name this plant bears." 



This note reminds us of the fact that the forestry regulations 

 of Southern Nigeria prohibit the extraction of rubber from the 

 roots of plants, but this step doubtless was taken in ignorance 

 of the existence there of plants containing rubber only in the 

 roots. There is no evidence, however, that any of the Niger 

 rubber yet evported is the product of the plant mentioned by 

 Mr. Holt. 



The government plans extensive rubber planting in Southern 

 Nigeria. The colonial report for 1901 (lately printed) mentions 

 the creation of extensive rubber nurseries and the collection of 

 3,000,000 rubber seeds to take the place of the existing seed- 

 lings when transplanted. 



