214 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1908. 



He had placed i each on 36 trees; 2 on 103 trees; 3 on uS trees; 

 4 on 70 trees ; and 5 on 8 trees. Mr. Dunleavy measured the 

 trees as the tapping progressed, showing them to average 16 

 inches in diameter. At 10 o'clock the tapper returned to the 

 starting point, and went over the route again with a balde (empty 

 pail) to collect the latex, which weighed, when brought into 

 camp, 19 pounds. The latex was rapidly cured on a wooden 

 paddle in the smoke of chiri palm wo'od, forming one bolacha of 

 rubber which weighed, immediately after the curing was com- 

 pleted, just 19 pounds — the same as the latex. Si.xteen hours 



later the bolacha 

 had lost 5J4 

 pounds in weight, 

 and twenty days 

 later 3Y2 pounds 

 more, leaving 10 

 pounds of dry rub- 

 ber. Mr. Dunleavy 

 remarks: "This 

 would illustrate to 

 my mind that rapid 

 coagulation is a 

 mistake, and that 

 each coating of 

 latex added to the 

 coagulated bolacha 

 of rubber should 

 be properly brown- 

 ed with the smoke, 

 instead of making 

 it only sufficiently 

 solid to prevent 

 dripping from the 

 paddle. This ex- 

 tra smoking would 

 improve the keeping qualities of the rubber and increase the price 

 of the same." 



A STORY OF BOLIVIAN TRAVEL. 



Mr. Quincy Tucker, sometime of the rubber trade in New 

 York and Boston, is the author of a series of articles now 

 running in the Boot and Shoe Recorder on "Seeking Rubber in 

 Bolivia, and Other Elastic Experiences." Mr. Tucker visited 

 the Bolivian rubber fields with a party who based their hopes for 

 success there upon indications supplied by a gentleman calling 

 himself Baron ?Ienri Arnous de Riviere. The fact that these 

 hopes were not realized does not make Mr. Tucker's narratives 

 any the less intcri-;tinsr. Tliis, hv the wa>-. was not Baron dc 



F. J. DUNLE.\VY. 



[Manager Boston and Boliva Rubber Co 

 Bolivia.] 



Sorata. 



Riviere's first personally conducted expedition from North 

 .\merica to Bolivia. It is now 15 years since the Beni Gum Co. 

 was formed in New York through his activity, and in an at- 

 tempt to develop which the late Joseph P. Earle, then an im- 

 portant factor in the crude rubber trade, made a journey to the 

 Beni region, to which he was not wont thereafter to refer with 

 much satisfaction. 



RUBBER GATHERING IN PERU. 



The rubber industry in the regions of Peru drained by the upper 

 Amazon is treated in some detail in an official report by the 

 United States consul at Iquitos, Mr. Charles C. Eberhardt, who 

 states that he has recently visited one of the rubber regions and 

 assisted a body of rubber gatherers in their work. He mentions 

 the tapping of trees from about 6 inches in diameter to 24 inches, 

 carrying respectively from 3 to g tin cups. An cstrada of about 

 150 trees was tapped early one day and visited later by a man 

 carrying a can of about ly'i gallons' capacity, into which the 

 cups were emptied, some of them containing less than a table- 

 spoonful of latex. The result of the day's work was about 2 gal 

 Ions of latex, which, when smoked over a round stick, formed 

 a hard white substance (which later turned black) of about 

 4}4 pounds of the best grade of rubber — "jebe fino." The consul 

 mentions that a new series of wounds is commenced every month 

 at a point as high as the workman can conveniently reach, each 

 subsequent wound being made a little below and in the same vein, 

 till the bottom of the tree is reached at the end of the month. 

 When a tree has been overworked and the milk does not flow 

 freely, a scaffolding is constructed about the tree, which the 

 worker mounts and inflicts the wounds farther up along the 

 trunk. This practice, however, is very injurious to the tree, if 

 not absolutely fatal in the end, and is forbidden on the tracts 

 which the consul visited. Mr. Eberhardt insists that, despite all 

 reports to the contrary, the number of productive rubber trees 

 in the regions which he has visited is steadily growing less. 



The annual inspection of plantation "Capoacan," of the Ohio 

 Rubber Culture Co. (Canton, Ohio), was made this year by Mr. 

 Charles S. Eddy, connected with The B. F. Goodrich Co. The 

 inspection seems to have been careful and painstaking, and 

 goes into detail in regard to the extent of the planting of rub- 

 ber to date and the condition of the trees planted in each year, 

 beginning with 1905. On the whole, the report is likely to prove 

 satisfactory and encouraging to the investors in the property. 



View of Sor.ma, Bolivi.\. 

 ( Ilendquarters of tile Boston and Bolivia Rubber Co. i 



View of Mollendo, on the P.\cific. 



I .\ Peruvian port through which the Rubber sent from Sorata. Bolivia, finds 

 its way to market.] 



