THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



835 



ition, albeit it may not be entirely to the lil<ing of those concerned. 

 Concessions which have been made to small new business will 

 be appreciated by many in the rubber trade, and as for the large 

 old-established concerns we shall probably find that despite their 

 lamentations they will continue to present satisfactory balance 

 sheets. 



RUBBER EXPERTS IN STORES DEPARTMENTS. 

 1 ha\c boon struck with an advertisement by the London County 

 Council for an assistant in the stores department who under- 

 stands the chemistry and manufacture of rubber. Candidates are 

 to come direct from the rubber trade and their principal work 

 will be concerned with the purchase and supply of rubber goods. 

 I imagine this to be quite a new departure, the usual procedure 

 ■being that all sorts of stores are bought by one individual of no 

 technical knowledge who may or may not seek the assistance of 

 a chemist who acts in an entirely subordinate rapacity. It has 

 Jong been in my mind that stores superintendents would be well 

 advised to seek technical advice when arranging- contracts for 

 various articles, though I had not imagined the appointment of 

 a whole-time e.x-pert for one particular branch of goods. 



THE HOT WATER BOTTLE JUDGMENT AGAIN. 



In an important assize trial in which many thousands of pounds 

 were involved and which was concerned with the Sale of Goods 

 Act, the writer was interested to hear counsel quote extracts from 

 the hot-water-bottle judgment. In this case, which went to the 

 High Court a few years ago, it was held that the seller of a hot- 

 w^ater bottle gave an implied warranty that the hot water would 

 remain in the bottle and not go into the bed. The case had noth- 

 ing to do with the rubber, but it appears that the judgment in 

 the water-bottle case is quoted as an important one in its general 

 bearings. 



PNEUMATIC TIRES OF CHAR-A-BANCS. 



The impending increase in railway fares will drive more trav- 

 elers on to the road, but there can be little doubt that the monster 

 char-a-bancs in which the so-called poor man spends so much 

 time careering about the country will raise their fares in sym- 

 pathy. These huge conveyances, which take up the whole of 

 most of our narrower roads and are a constant source of annoy- 

 ance to owners of private cars, are at present limited in their 

 speed to 12 or 14 miles per hour. It is confidently anticipated. 

 however, that the solid tires at present used will be replaced be- 

 fore long by pneumatics with the result of an increased rate of 

 speed. 



MAGNESIA. 



.^n article entitled "Light and Calcined Ma.i^nesia" in The 

 Indi.x Rubber World for July, is not wholly clear. Magnesia, 

 as used in the rubber trade, is carbonate, heavy and light, and cal- 

 cined, heavy and light. The scientific explanations given are 

 right enough if read as applying to light and heavy and not to 

 light and calcined. In Britain the bulk of the carbonate of mag- 

 nesia used is the light, which, although of the same chemical 

 composition as the heavy, both being hydroxycarbonates, occupies 

 a far larger volume per unit of weight, This, as the writer of 

 the paragraph points out, has nothing to do with specific gravity, 

 but is concerned with occluded air. Where the magnesia is made 

 by the wet chemical process by precipitating a magnesium salt 

 with sodium carbonate the use of hot concentrated solutions 

 gives a precipitate of heavy magnesia, while cold dilute solutions 

 give the light variety. This being much more bulk-y requires far 

 more space for production and subsequent drying. In a general 

 way it may be taken that a certain weight of light and heavy mag- 

 nesia, either carbonate or calcined, will occupy five times as 

 much space for the light as for the heavy. The great bulk of 

 the commercial magnesia used in the British rubber trade is not 

 made by the old precipitation process but by the treatment of 

 dolomite (the double carbonate of lime and ma.gnesia) with car- 

 bonic acid gas under pressure. The magnesia goes into solution 



very 



as the bicarbonate and is obtained on evaporation in the 

 lightest form and made over quite free from sulphates. 

 UNITED RUBBER PRODUCTS CO. 

 The United Rubber Products Co., which I mentioned in my 

 last correspondence as having acquired the works of G. W. 

 Laughton & Co., Limited, of Croft street, Clayton, Manchester, to 

 work a recent process for the utilization of waste rubber, has 

 come in for some animadversions in "Truth" of July 21. Per- 

 sonally I know nothing of the recent process, so cannot form an 

 opinion as to its value, but it seems to have been too readily 

 assumed that the process is one for reclaiming rubber, which is, 

 of course, as critics have pointed out, by no means a novelty. If 

 it is merely a reclaiming process the literature of the company 

 might be revised with advantage, but it does not indicate that 

 a new reclaiming process is valueless, though most of those which 

 have reached the Patent Office files seem to die of inanition 

 shortly after. 



THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN BELGIUM. 



Special Correspondence. 



THE COLONIAL EXPOSITION AT ANTWERP. 



T c.\N BE s.MD that when M. Franck, the Belgian Minister of 

 Colonies, asked the Comite des Fetes d'Anvers, 1920, to include 

 1 its program a colonial exposition, he chose the right time. 

 "or, apart from the educational value of an exposition of the 

 ast natural res,,urces of the Cons... it has the hii;her purpose 



,\ntwerp Coloni.\l Exposition. 



of showing to the thousands of foreigners gathered together at 

 Antwerp from the four corners of the earth, that the horrors of 

 the war and four long years of enemy occupation have not 

 weakened the national spirit of enterprise. 



Some of the names connected with the promotion of this ex- 

 position will sound familiar to many American rubber men. 

 There is M. Edouard Bunge, head of the Societe Anonyme Bunge, 

 Antwerp, and the indefatigable president of the executive com- 

 mittee of the exposition. Lieutenant-Colonel Leon Osterrieth, 

 director-general of the present exhibition and director of many 

 a successful exposition in the past, it will be remembered, was 

 military attache at Washington during the war. Of the secre- 

 taries on the committee, Emile Hendrickx will be recalled as 

 having accompanied Colonel Osterrieth during his stay in 

 .\merica. 



The arrangement and appearance of tlic 40 booths are a credit 

 to all concerned. As might have been expected, rubber and rub- 

 ber men were veo' much in evidence. .Among the concerns 

 of interest to .\mericans in the rubber trade, the following 

 were represented : L'.\ssociation des Plantcurs de Caoutchouc, 



