286 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June i, 1908. 



The Editor's Book Table. 



INDIA-RUBBER AND ITS MANUFACTURE. WITH CHAPTERS ON 

 GUTTA-PERCHA AND BALATA. By Hubert L. Terry, f. i. c. New 

 York: D. Van Nostrand Co. 1907. [Cloth. Svo. Pp. ix + 284. 

 Price, $2.] 



TE India Rubber World is glad to add to its library another 

 book on india-rubber, this time by no less a writer than 

 Hubert L. Terry. The book is well printed, substantially 

 bound, and exceedingly well written. The illustrations are not 

 many, but are good. An excellent index, something that every 

 book on rubber should have, is a valuable part of the volume. 

 As far as the subject matter goes the book certainly lives up to 

 its preface. In that two page explanation the author expressly 

 denies writing a "working guide or liand book" for the rubber 

 manufacturer. It is for the general reader or the technologist 

 in other lines who desires a brief statement of the rubber busi- 

 ness as a whole. As long as the rubber 

 business is so specialized, however, there are 

 few manufacturers who will not find much 

 of value in its pages, particularly in being 

 able to grasp the general procedure in lines 

 other than their own. 



The twenty-four chapters into which the 

 treatise is divided are really two score and 

 four very excellent essays. In the first, which 

 is historical, the author gives England, justly 

 too, the credit for the first beginnings in the 

 manufacture of rubber goods, the Hancock 

 date of 1819 and the Macintosh date of 

 1820 certainly antedating anything in that 

 line elsewhere. That was, however, before 

 the discovery of vulcanization, and if one 

 were to be really just to the industry its "es- 

 tablishment" should be taken as coincident 

 with the first production of cured goods. 



The chapter on crude rubber is excellent 

 and considers all of the sorts that are on 

 the market to-day, including guayule. 



In the chapter on the chemical and physi- 

 cal properties of rubber Mr. Terry is very 

 much at home, and as it were lets himself 

 out a bit, as he does in the chapter follow- 

 ing, on vulcanization. 



Of all the chapters in the volume the one most interesting to 

 the manufacturer will be that on substitutes, partly because Eng- 

 land and the continent knew the so-called rubber substitute long 

 before America did — and were able to do more with it. But 

 when it comes to discussing reclaimed rubber, which Europe 

 is only beginning to appreciate, he reflects the state of the art 

 in his part of the world but not as it relates to the United States, 

 for example. This is not in the way of criticism, but a state- 

 ment of a difference due to view point. 



On the use of rubber solvents and their recovery, the author 

 shines. Here are no trade secrets to be carefully guarded, and 

 the subject is of prime importance. It is dealt with most fully, 

 and should be read by every mixer of solutions, and every pro- 

 ducer of spreader work. 



As for the other chapters, they cover proofing, druggists' sun- 

 dries, tires, mechanical rubber goods, insulated wire, vulcanite, 

 cut sheet, general compounding, gutta-percha, and balata, with 

 some excellent suggestions as to the testing of vulcanized rubber 

 goods. 



Coming back to the author, Mr. Terry has a clear, concise, 

 scholarly style, and knows much about rubber. For many years 

 he has been a consulting expert, having done work for some of 



Hubert L. Terry, f. i. c. 



[.\uthor of "India-Rubb-r and Its Manu 

 facture."! 



the largest of the English manufacturers, and his conclusions are 

 uniformly sound. His book is a good one and the trade will 

 welcome it. 



MEXICO AND HER PEOPLE OF TO-DAY. An account of the Cus- 

 toms, Characteristics, Amusements, History and Advancement of the 

 Mexicans, and the Development and Resources of Their Country. By 

 Nevin O. Winter. Boston: L. C. Page & Co. 1907. [Cloth. Svo. 

 Pp. VII -h 405 + plates. Price, $7.] 



While Mexico and her people have always been subjects of 

 interest to the intelligent classes elsewhere, the recent growth of 

 business relations between that republic and the United States 

 render a knowledge of the southern country now of real im- 

 portance to its northern neighbors. The book which Mr. Winter 

 has written is not the work of a fleeting tourist, but is that of 

 a man who has prepared himself by years of residence and travel 

 in the country, in connection with the read- 

 ing of what has been written by his prede- 

 cessors in that field. An authority on the 

 subject asserts that this is "the very best 

 book about Mexico that has been published 

 in English for perhaps two generations." Be 

 that as it may, the present reviewer has seen 

 nothing comparable with it, and it can hardly 

 fail to be read with interest whether the 

 reader has business relations with Mexico or 

 not. Besides being entertaining reading in 

 general, this book may be recommended par- 

 ticularly on account of the help which it 

 lends to the non Mexican in understanding 

 the differences between the two civilizations 

 north and south of the Rio Grande. Though 

 changes are taking place in Mexico, the 

 country is still conservative, and where cus- 

 toms have been established for centuries 

 without change it is not strange that an- 

 tiquity alone should be a sufficient reason 

 in the minds of the people for not welcoming 

 new ideas from the outside. Mexico, it must 

 be remembered, had the printing press a full 

 century before the United States, and there 

 are many other matters connected with civili- 

 zation in which the Mexicans can claim 

 priority over any other people in North America. The readers 

 of Mr. Winter's book will be better prepared, in case of dealing 

 with Mexico, to understand any reluctance which the people 

 there may have to adopting as a matter of course whatever ideas 

 or customs the newcomer may seek to introduce in order to make 

 himself "feel at home." The numerous pictures in this book 

 have been superbly reproduced from excellent photographs taken 

 by the author and a traveling companion. 



The director in chief of the New York botanical gardens, Dr. 

 N. L. Britton, while on a recent visit to the experimental station 

 maintained in Jamaica by this institution, obtained a good speci- 

 men of rubber from the vine Forsteronia floribunda, a plant 

 referred to in this journal in the issue for June I, 1907 (page 

 274). Dr. Britton informs The India Rubber World: "Rubber 

 is extracted from this vine by the negroes in small quantities, 

 but what they jet seems to be of great elasticity. The vine is 

 native in rocky limestone woods and thickets, growing one in a 

 place, so that the total amount of it cannot be anything very 

 great; cultural experiments by the Jamaica botanists have not 

 been very promising, but it is possible that some results might 

 be had out of it." 



