November i, 1903.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



49 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



THE British rubber manufacturer has comparatively little 

 business with mining companies as far as specialties in 

 rubber goods are concerned. Valves, washers, and 

 rubber belting of the usual types are what are supplied 

 to metal mines by our manufacturers. As far as the belts for 

 Frue vanners and ore conveying are concerned, 

 metal mining our manufacturers do not seem to have entered 



AND THE . . . . , , . . „ .. .. 



rubber trade ° competition with the Americans. Yet the 

 business must be a large one when we consider 

 the number of vanners working at the present time. Perhaps 

 for the benefit of some who are unfamiliar with mining ma- 

 chinery of the newest pattern I might explain that the Frue 

 vanner is the modern equivalent of the old Cornish buddle, 

 and is naturally of more interest to the rubber trade because it 

 consists essentially of an endless rubber belt some 6 feet wide, 

 the whole vanner being very much of the same size and appear- 

 ance as an ordinary spreading machine- I am not going into 

 the details of its use, and shall merely remark that the crushed 

 ore falls on the slowly moving rubber belt, together with a 

 stream of water which washes back the gangue while the heav- 

 ier metallic bodies move along the belt to fall off when it 

 reaches the turning roller at the end of the machine. At one 

 large American mine there are 600 of these Frue vanners in 

 work, so it will be at once seen how large the demand is. I am 

 told that all those in present use in Great Britain are of Amer- 

 ican origin, and that recent improvements have caused them 

 to have a much longer life than was at first the case. Rubber 

 belts are also largely used in American mines in the hand pick- 

 ing of ores, and the improvements recently made by the Robins 

 Patent Picking Belt Co. have done a great deal to prevent the 

 erosion of the rubber by the metallic particles. It would not 

 be of sufficient general interest to give details about these pick- 

 ing belts; my main object has been merely to draw the atten- 

 tion of British manufacturers to an important branch of the 

 rubber trade which is at present practically monopolized by the 

 Americans. Whether we can attack that monopoly success- 

 fully is a matter on which I am not at all inclined to express 

 an opinion, but to those more directly concerned the issues I 

 have touched upon might possibly be studied with advantage. 

 I WAS shown the other day, a curious substance said to form 

 a deposit of large acreage in New Zealand, and also said by my 

 informant to be a valuable substitute for India rub- 

 . * 15^.. Der - I' could, he said, replace rubber in a mixing 



SUBSTITUTE. r 



without the quality of the rubber being deteriorated 

 I assured him from a cursory examination of the substance that 

 he must be the victim of illusion. All the same the body is quite 

 a new one to me, and it is conceivable that it might find appli- 

 cation in the trade in its strictly limited position as an adulter- 

 ant. However, I hope to be in a position later on to speak more 

 definitely on the subject. 



This firm has recently patented a process for impregnating 



belting with binding material, such as Gutta-percha and Balata, 



by the employment of vacuum plant. 



georoe banham & co., Th id • b thorough impregnation of 



limited. , , . , j • , 



the textile material to produce an article 



of even greater utility than the well known belting of Dick of 

 Glasgow. The firm of Banham is chiefly known to fame in 

 connection with the protracted law suits with Reddaway's. The 

 question as to whether Banham's could use the term " Camel 



hair " in connection with their belting occupied the various 



courts' up to the final tribunal of the House of Lords, and the 



verdict was finally gained by Banham's, the judgment being 



that though "Camel hair belting" referred to Reddaway's 



product, the term " Banham's camel hair belting " was quite 



permissible. This judgment has been repeatedly referred to in 



later years in the various cases where Messrs. Reddaway have 



brought actions against competitors. Banham's mills, it may be 



stated, are situated near Messrs. Reddaway's premises. 



I understand that a translation of Dr. Weber's book 



("The Chemistry of India-Rubber,") into French is being 



made by Mr. Murphy, manager for Messrs. 



technical Torri lhon e t Cie., at Clermont-Ferrand, though 

 literature. s 



whether the translation is for private purposes 



or general sale, is a point on which I have been unable to ob- 

 tain definite information. A German edition of the same work 

 is now in course of preparation by the author himself. 



Mr. Christian Gray, of the Silvertown company, is the new 



president of this important Institution, and the members will 



now be in a position to hear something authori- 



INSTITUTION OF , , . .... 



electrical tative from the chair when any topic dealing 



engineers. w ; t j, insulation comes up for discussion. 



For the second time this year my correspondence will have 



to be curtailed owing to pressure of business in England and 



Continental travel. I am posting this from 



rubber trade Madrid, in a tropical atmosphere, and I regret 

 IN SPAIN. , J r , " 



that as far as the rubber trade is concerned, I 



have nothing of interest to impart. I suppose it does some- 

 times rain in Spain, but since I have been in the country there 

 has hardly been a cloud to temper the sun, and sunshades and 

 fans have been met with to the entire exclusion of macintoshes 

 and goloshes. Madrid, of course, is situated on an arid plat- 

 eau, over 2000 feet above the sea, and I am far from wishing to 

 convey the impression that the geographical surroundings are 

 typical of the whole of the peninsula. I believe I am right in 

 saying that there is no regular rubber works in Spain, though 

 in the chief commercial town of Barcelona a good business is 

 done in waterproof piece goods. These are specially exported 

 by Manchester houses to be made up into garments at Barce- 

 lona. This form of procedure is necessitated on account of 

 the heavy import duties levied on made up goods. Consider- 

 ing the weather I have experienced, I have not ventured to 

 extol the merits of British macintoshes, but in the course of 

 some riding troubles on the slippery mountain paths of the 

 northern mining districts I took the opportunity of recom- 

 mending the use of rubber frogpads. The horses one rides are 

 exceptionally sure-footed, but it would be both in the interests 

 of humanity and to the enhancement of the riders' safety if the 

 innovation I have suggested were adopted. If this procedure 

 is adopted on town pavements, it seems all the more desirable 

 where a slip on the iron bound ground means going over a 

 precipice. I may mention that rubber flooring is largely util- 

 ized in Spanish trains; I noticed the difference at once on 

 changing trains at the frontier. To end with a generality, there 

 is plenty of evidence that since the American war, Spain, one 

 of the richest countries in the world from a metalliferous 

 standpoint, is rapidly developing her commerce and the de- 

 mand for mechanical rubber goods in connection with engi- 

 neering and mining will undoubtedly show a great increase, 



