THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



Ui 



STORAGE BATTERY DEVELOPMENT ON THE 

 PACIFIC SLOPE. 



Spfcial Correspondence. 



JUST :is the rapid and extensive distribution of automobiles 

 on Hk> Pacilic Coast has within a few years resulted in the 

 establishment in this section of branlch factories to supply the 

 urgent den\and for cars, and has latterly stimulated the interest 

 of enterprising tire makers in the trade possibilities of the 

 Coast, with the rcsult'*it creation of an industry here that has 

 already assumed huge proportions, so the widespread and ever- 

 increasing use of motor cars in the territory between the Rockies 

 and the v/estern boundary of the United States has proved a 

 powerful spur to the sale and production in this section of that 

 automobile essVntial— the hard, rubber-celled storage battery. 



Up to within a eomparitively recent date, all the batteries 

 used on cars west of the Rockies came from the East and Mid- 

 West ; but now, while the older companies, through about 250 

 well-equipped service and replacement stations on the Coast, are 

 holding their own very well, considerable inroads are being made 

 into the field by some ten aggressive concerns that started here 

 but a short time ago to manufacture electrical accumulators, 

 many of the latter comparing well in efficiency with the products 

 of the bigger and older factories nearer the Atlantic seaboard. 

 Not only do these "youngsters" expect to get a considerable 

 share of the Coast business, but they are also contending for a 

 fair portion of the $120,000,000 worth of battery replacements 

 which, it is estimated, will be the nation's need in 1920. 



Some idea of the opportunities for battery men on the Coast 

 may be gleaned from the fact that on December 31, 1919, there 

 were registered in California 493,463 automobiles (including 

 trucks), in Oregon 83,332, and in Washington 164,080; or a total 

 of 740,875 for the states bordering the Pacific. But as the Pacific 

 coast territory is ordinarily held to includes all the states quite 

 west of the Rockies, Idaho should be added with 42,271, Nevada 

 with 9,305, Arizona with 28,979, and Utah with 34,749; or a total 

 for those four states of 115,304, which, added to the 740,875 in 

 the first three states named, would make a grand total of 856,179 

 automobiles registered at the beginning of this year in the Pacific 

 slope states. Experts in the trade figure that there has been an 

 increase of at least 10 per cent since the date given, which would 

 bring the total number of motor cars now in use in the territory 

 named up to 941,747, as compared with an estimated present total 

 in the entire United States of fully 8,000,000, the actual registra- 

 tion on March 1, 1920, having been computed by the Automobile 

 Club of Southern California as being 7,718,020. 



It might be added that no small impetus has been given to the 

 storage battery business on the Pacific slope, as well as through- 

 out the entire country, by the decision of the makers of the most 

 popular low-priced cars in the United States to add to their 

 1920 models a complete electric lighting and starting equipment, 

 and that new laws in many of the states now insist on motorists 

 having lights that can be given efficiently only by means of storage 

 batteries. 



But storage batteries are used not only for lighting, starting, 

 and ignition on gasoline automobiles. They are needed in ever- 

 increasing quantities for propeling and lighting electric motor 

 cars, for lighting and starting airplanes, launches, and fishing 

 boats, for isolated house-lighting stations, for steam railroad 

 switchwork and signaling (two being used on every block tower), 

 for lighting steam railroad trains, for lighting street railway cars 

 and for propulsion on many lines, for lighting ocean-going ships, 

 for operating railroad and other draw-bridges, for numerous sub- 

 marine boat needs, for starting and igniting stationary gas en- 

 gines, for fire alarm service, ifor mine locoiriotives, for mine- 

 workers' headlights, for blasting, and in radio and telephone 

 ■work. So. too, are "stand-by" and "booster" storage batteries 

 largely used in electric power and lighting stations for regulating 

 the load, absorbing the surplus production of current when the 



deinand is light awt) relcasing.it iwhen tbodtfmand is extra heavy, 

 for equalizing llldraentary Ijuctuatioivs dw-to irregular running 

 of generator^, for regulating voltag«-in certain, classes of service, 

 for controlling current supply on long feeders of street railway 

 lines, and for emergency service, providing, as it were, a reser- 

 voir of energy to avert a fwmplete sjiut-down of a station in the 

 event of accident., One of the many recent minor applications of 

 a storsge battery is in connection with the' propulsion of row- 

 boats,' the small gasoline engines much used for that purpose 

 being supplanted by electric batteries. 



Not content with merely merchandising and supplying service, 

 the leading manufacturers of storage batteries on the Coast are 

 carrying on considerable research work which they believe will 

 result in increased efficiency and greater usefulness of an elec- 

 trical device that is second in importance only to the dynamo 

 itself, and that has even a much larger range of utility than the 

 electrical generator to which it is invariably linked. Having 

 made the hard rubber cells quite as light is the inclosing wooden 

 case, they are now trying to reduce the weight of the lead plates 

 and to reduce the bulk of the acid fluid or electrolyte without 

 lessening the amperage or current quantity to make the perforated 

 hard rubber separators used between the plates in certain types 

 of batteries even more "porous" without loss in rigidity, to auto- 

 matically <&i \\ overcharge and overheating; and particularly 

 are the experimenters endeavoring to overcome one of the great- 

 est drawbacks of the storage battery — the long period of charging 

 cells at stations, usually averaging from twelve to sixteen hours, 

 and which period is always in direct ratio to the swiftness with 

 which the battery has been discharged. 



LIGHT AND CALCINED MAGNESIA. 



Magnesia is an ingredient very commonly used in vulcanization, 

 where it acts as the best mineral accelerator. It comes in two 

 forms, light and calcined. These varieties in the dry state have 

 very different volumes, but their specific gravities determined in 

 paraffine oil are practically the same. The greater relative vol- 

 ume of light magnesia is not due to a finer state of pulverization 

 than that of heavy magnesia. Its greater volume and apparent 

 lighter gravity is due to its special structure which is little known 

 to rubber workers and upon which too much emphasis cannot 

 be placed, as all the qualities of the light form of magnesia are 

 dependent on this particular feature of its structure. 



To give a simple idea of the difference existing between two 

 materials of different volumes, conceive one as a sphere and the 

 other as a cylinder. A thousand spheres will occupy in any re- 

 ceptacle less space than a thousand cylinders of identically the 

 same volume. One may thus liken a molecule of heavy magnesia 

 to a sphere and a molecule of light magnesia to a cylinder. If 

 these spheres and cylinders are placed in paraffine oil they will 

 displace equal volumes. Thus, 100 grams of light magnesia oc- 

 cupies 763, cc. in a graduated flask while 100 grams of heavy 

 magnesia occupies only 141 cc. If of two graduated flasks, each 

 containing 100 cc. of parafiine oil, one adds equal weights of light 

 magnesia to one and heavy magnesia to the other, then heats 

 the flasks till all the air adhering to the particles of the mag- 

 nesia has been expelled, it will be found on cooling that in the 

 flask containing the heavy magnesia the volume occupied by the 

 oxide is 129 cc. and in that containing the light magnesia the 

 volume occupied by the oxide is 131 cc. Both voluiues are prac- 

 tically the same and the marked difference of apparent volumes 

 which exists between the two magnesias is due entirely to the 

 occluded air which is different for each one. 



The automobile business in British Malaya is largely in 

 American hands. Large stocks of parts and tires are kept and 

 one firm maintains repair shops and sales rooms in Singapore, 

 Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang. 



