March i, 1904.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



191 



THE INDIA-RUBBER TRADE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



AS the demand for motor tires depends so much upon the 

 motor building industry, no excuse need be made for 

 saying a few words upon the latter. Compared with 

 the optimism existing ayearagoamong manufacturers. 

 a great change is noticeable at the present time, on all sides 

 complaints as to the lack of business being rife. 

 the The fact that high priced motors are very difficult 



MOTORCAR .. , .. .. . , . , , ., . , 



industry may attributed largely to the general de- 



pression in business or depreciation of incomes, 

 with the consequence of there being less money to spend on 

 luxuries. That is, among the well to do people. The wealthy 

 people have bought their cars and do not wish to replace them 

 every month. I was rather amused recently to witness the 

 change in mind of a friend who a year ago told me that " the 

 horse was doomed." At the time he was a motor car owner, 

 only since then he has gone in for building cars and it is the 

 losses he has experienced which have re-opened his eyes to the 

 utility of the condemned horse. From what I can gather this 

 instance is by no means an isolated one, and I hear of cars be- 

 ing sold below cost price to enable their constructors to realize 

 some at least of their shut up capital even at a loss. Not that 

 there is any need to take too gloomy a view of the prospect, 

 because much the same depression exists in certain hunting 

 centers, residences this season being unlet owing to many men 

 having dropped hunting for the time being. The latest firm 

 to go in for the motor manufacture is Crossley Brothers, Lim- 

 ited, of gas engine fame. 



An English half penny daily of wide circulation recently gave 

 prominent notice to a process for manufacturing zinc oxide 

 from waste blende in Wales and a great resus- 

 citation of Welsh mining was confidently pre- 

 dicted. Of course there is nothing new in the idea though 

 this particular process has its novel features, but up to the 

 present none of the oxide prepared in the wet way from the ore 

 has been found equal to that obtained by the combustion of 

 metallic zinc, the source of the Vieille Montague brands. I 

 understand that the newly advertised process has recently been 

 investigated by a rubber manufacturer with results that cannot 

 be considered satisfactory. I remember that some years ago, 

 when a British works manager replaced the Belgian oxide by 

 an American product, he found himself involved in serious 

 trouble. 



I noticed that a recent French patent (No. 329,519—1903) 



deals with the use of ammonia in vulcanizing. The goods are 



to be exposed to an atmosphere of ammonia at 



vulcanizing » c j Qr , Q m j nutes anc : before taking 



IN AMMONIA. J 



out the surplus gas is to be absorbed in sulphuric 

 or hydrochloric acid. Whether the process is now being adopt- 

 ed in France or elsewhere I have no information. I am refer- 

 ring to it chiefly because of its lack of novelty. As far back as 

 1882, Mr. Thomas Rowley, of Manchester, brought out the same 

 process and obtained results showing that both the amount of 

 sulphur and the time of vulcanization could be much reduced 

 in the case of pure rubber goods, such as tobacco pouches. It 

 must be confessed that though the idea was practically tried at 

 rubber works, it does not appear to have been adopted, prob- 

 ably from the fact that ammonia is both an expensive and dis- 

 agreeable product to use on a large scale. But I do not profess 

 to be in a position to speak confidently as to the why and where- 



FRANZ CLOUTH'S 

 BOOK. 



ZINC OXIDE. 



fore of its non-adoption. I merely wished to draw attention to 

 the recent patent as being only another instance of an old idea 

 figuring in the patent lists of to-day. 



This latest addition to the library of the rubber manufac- 

 turer will doubtless be reviewed from headquarters, but per- 

 haps I may be allowed space to make a few 

 comments as the result of my own perusal of 

 it. While with his evident disinclination to 

 accept to the full all that has recently been published as to 

 the theory of vulcanization, he will number a large number of 

 sympathizers. I expect there will be a certain amount of oppo- 

 sition to some of his generalizations. For instance, he says 

 that Para rubber takes longer to vulcanize than East Indian 

 and other more soft and sticky qualities. It would be inter- 

 esting to hear how far this view coincides with the ideas of 

 other manufacturers on the point as a general statement, 

 though under certain conditions it may hold true. I note that 

 in his reference to rubber sponge (on page 130) he speaks of its 

 want of durability, and tendency to become hard and brittle. 

 This is what I have heard of it from some sources, while others 

 speak of it in terms of much greater commendation. One is 

 rather forced to the belief that the quality as found on the 

 market varies. The vacuum drying of washed rubber is dis- 

 missed in a line ; it would have been interesting if an author of 

 such wide experience had given us his candid opinion of it. 

 Apropos of this matter, I have recently heard of British manu- 

 facturers who are adopting the vacuum process on an increased 

 scale. This book, like all other descriptions of rubber manu- 

 facturing, has a description of Gerard's process of vulcanizing 

 in a bath of penta-sulphide of calcium. What would be inter- 

 esting to know, however, about it, is if it is or ever was in prac- 

 tical use. The statement that the admixture of substitute 

 with many kinds of raw rubbers tends to the preservation of the 

 latter, is interesting, and should not be overlooked by the sub- 

 stitute manufacturers as an advertisement for their wares. 

 Chemistry does not form a prominent subject of reference, 

 though there is one statement that I feel inclined to chal- 

 lenge. He says (on page 236) in reference to Balata that this 

 substance, like Caoutchouc, resists all corroding alkalies and 

 also nitric acid. This is all right as regards alkalies, but surely 

 it is an error to say that nitric acid does not attack it. Of 

 course, as there is so much oxidized rubber in Balata, the ac- 

 tion of the acid is not so violent as in the case of rubber, but 

 it is a fact and only in due accord with what one would ex- 

 pect, that nitric acid has a most decided action and I should 

 imagine that the appearance of the paragraph is due to laxity 

 of supervision of the proofs. The other references to Balata 

 are most interesting and the most complete which I have seen 

 in print, though on the moot point as to where all the Balata 

 goes to these pages are not conclusive. 



This firm of rubber machinery manufacturers, whose works 

 are at Castleton, near Manchester, have issued as a trade cata- 

 logue some articles which originally appeared in 

 David bridqe ^ e Br!tisn Colonial and International Machinery 

 & co. 



Market, and in which the wood cuts of machin- 

 ery were supplied by the firm. This brochure is distinct from 

 their larger catalogue which is the most complete of the sort I 

 have seen — that is, where India-rubber and Gutta-percha ma- 

 chinery is exclusively concerned. Compared with American 



