304 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June i, 1904. 



PACKING 

 PAPER. 



through the material to impregnate it. I am unable to speak 

 as to the result of this process at the moment, but hope to 

 be in a position to do so before long. 



I don't know to what extent the rubber waterproof packing 

 paper has been adopted since its invention, a year or two ago. 

 At any rate it has not done much in replacing 

 waterproof the material prepared with a face of pitch, this 

 being very largely used by the Manchester pack- 

 ers of textile goods for ocean transit. With re- 

 gard to this paper, however, serious trouble has been frequently 

 caused by white goods turning a pink color; it seems difficult 

 to assign the cause of the trouble to the pitch, yet no other 

 solution has been arrived at, and there have been several cases 

 in which damages have been paid by the packers as being re- 

 sponsible for the use of defective paper. Though it is difficult 

 on purely chemical grounds to account for the coloration, yet 

 1 believe it is a fact that competition has led to the use of in- 

 ferior pitch. The pitch originally used was what is known as 

 stearin pitch, a body worth to-day about ^10 per ton, and it is 

 said that the discoloration of goods has been caused by the 

 substitution of ordinary coal tar pitch for the better product. 

 An influential colonist from British Guiana has recently 

 been interviewed in London at the offices of the Mining Jour- 

 nal, and what he says about Balata seems to 

 balata in mer it repetition. The present governor he de- 



BRITISH GUIANA. . r , . , , , 



scribes as an undeniably clever man, but too 

 apt to apply legislative theories not adaptable to every new 

 country. Thus the Balata bleeders are only allowed to cut a 

 ring half way round the tree, and they have to leave the other 

 half untouched to allow the sap to rise, and so prevent the 

 tree from being destroyed. The consequence is they only get 

 5 pounds of Balata from a tree, the same tree not being bled 

 again for five years. The complaint is made that it is not worth 

 while going on an expedition 300 miles into the interior to get 

 merely 5 pounds from each tree. Reference is made to the 

 fact that in adjacent countries the trees are cut down and yield 

 30 pounds of Balata each. This probably accounts for the ex- 

 port from Venezuela and Dutch Guiana greatly exceeding that 

 from British Guiana, but at any rate there is the comforting 

 assurance that when the destructive methods followed in the 

 former countries have given their inevitable consequence, 

 British Guiana will have reserves of material to fall back on. 

 Certainly, in face of the stationary demand for Balata and the 

 plenitude of its occurrence, there does not seem much need for 

 prohibitive measures, and there is therefore some basis for 

 grumbling on the part of colonists in British Guiana that they 

 are put at a disadvantage with their neighbors in the prosecu- 

 tion of this trade. 



Great variations in the quality of this brand as sent to the 



English market are noticeable, and especially in the figures 



relative to loss on washing is it difficult to speak 



cameta generally. Weber, in his book, puts the loss at 25 



RUBBER. s ' ' . J 



to 30 per cent., while Clouth has it down as 37 to 

 42 per cent., a considerable difference being thus shown. Both 

 these authors, of course, speak from their own experience, and 

 English practice supports the one as the other. One firm rarely 

 finds less than 35 to 40 per cent, and considers this quite natu- 

 ral, while another testifies to 33 per cent, as the most found, 

 this being considered rather out of the ordinary. This varia- 

 tion in the water content naturally makes the purchase of this 

 rubber a somewhat speculative business, and it is a safe as- 

 sumption that the purchaser sometimes comes badly out of the 

 deal. This variation in the amount of the impurities means, 

 of course, that in some cases the rubber requires more washing 

 than in others, and this extra washing will have a tendency to 



soften it and alter its behavior under vulcanization. At least 

 this seems a very plausible theory to account for the variations 

 in certain properties of vulcanized goods made largely of 

 Cameta rubber. The general opinion is that Cameta ranks a 

 good second to fine Para, being more reliable than Negro- 

 heads, and especially since Columbian proved so difficult to 

 obtain, has its use as a second class Pard been on the increase. 

 As a rule the only specific reference made by rubber tire 

 manufacturers to the composition of their goods is to the finest 

 Paid rubber that can be bought. It is of inter- 

 and'rubb'e'r est therefore, to note that the Continental com- 

 pany, of Hanover, in a trade circular refer to 

 the rise in price of camphor owing to the war in the Far 

 East. This iise in price, however, it is said, will not be felt by 

 purchasers of tires, as the company have decided to bear the 

 extra burden themselves. In Mr. Pearson's book camphor is 

 referred to as having been used as a solvent for waste rubber, 

 though I imagine only to a very limited extent. About 20 years 

 ago the late Henry Gerner, of New York, came to this coun- 

 try to dispose of his patents for using camphor and Kauri gum 

 in connection with rubber. A considerable sum of money was 

 spent by at least one of our rubber firms in experimenting in 

 his lines, but with a negative result. Camphor is neither cheap 

 nor easy to manipulate and for general purposes it seems to 

 offer no advantages. With regard to the particular use of it by 

 the Continental company I am not in a position to make any 

 comments. 



ANOTHER COLORADO RUBBER COMPANY. 



THE Continental Crude Rubber and Exploiting Co. was in- 

 corporated May 7, 1904, under the laws of Colorado, to 

 extract rubber from wild plants growing in that region, with 

 $[,000,000 capital. The officers are :. Dr. Sol. Ringolsky, presi- 

 dent ; John Beck, vice president and general manager; E. T. 

 Wells, secretary and treasurer ; Henry A. Weicher, mechanical 

 engineer; Antoine Jacob, scientist. The directorate is com- 

 posed of the above, and O. J. Kennedy and George C. Parkin- 

 son. The president of the new company, writing May 10 under 

 a printed letter heading: "Office of Dr. Sol. Ringolsky, dis- 

 pensing chemist, 1901 Curtis street, Denver, Colorado," says : 



" Our company is capitalized for $1,000,000 — par value $1 per 

 share. We have placed 100,000 shares on the market at 25 

 cents, the proceeds to be used for the maintenance of an horti- 

 cultural department. We shall leave nothing unturned in our 

 effort to cultivate the plant, thereby perpetuating the source of 

 supply for our factories. We have three different plants which 

 we have so far discovered and when the season opens up we 

 shall scour the hills for others which we believe exist." 



This company is not to be confused with the American 

 Crude Rubber Co., also incorporated at Denver some months 

 ago, with $1,000,000 capital. They are rival concerns, having 

 different promoters, different processes and mechanical de- 

 vices, and even employing different botanical names for the 

 shrubs under treatment. At least, the older company is ex- 

 ploiting Picradenia floribunda utilis, while the new company is 

 " booming " Actinella Richardsonii. The new company control 

 a machine invented by H. A. Weicher, for masticating the rub- 

 ber yielding shrub, no chemicals being employed in the process. 

 The experimental machine that has been used is said to have 

 a hopper sufficient to hold 1000 pounds of the shrub, which is 

 ground up in 6 hours, producing from 100 to 200 pounds of 

 rubber, "which comes out in chunks resembling bologna 

 sausage ; the fiber is cast aside and thrown away." Water is 

 introduced into the machine to facilitate cleaning the rubber. 



