404 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[Septemrer I, 1908. 



sought in Cincinnati, where he had been connected with an im- 

 portant business firm, and Rose was looked for in Owensboro, 

 Kentucky, where he occupied a costlj' home. The company's office 

 in Chicago for the reception of funds was opened until the date 

 of the indictments referred to. 



This is the third case in which promoters of rubber planting 

 companies in the United States have been brought to the atten- 

 tion of the courts. In 1903 Frank D. Bittinger, president of the 

 Nicaragua Co., incorporated in New Jersey with $1,000,000 capital 

 authorized, and having an office in Chicago for the sale of lands 

 in Nicaragua and the promotion of a rubber plantation there, 

 •was arrested on February 13, indicted on November 5 for the 

 fraudulent use of the mails, and on December 18 was sentenced 

 to one year and one day in prison and to pay a fine of $1,000. 

 A more recent development was the indictment in the Massa- 

 chusetts courts, in 1905, of the officers of the Consolidated Ubero 

 Rubber Plantations Co. for grand larceny, one of whom, Ferdi- 

 nand E. Borges, is now serving a ten year sentence in the 

 state prison. 



RUBBER IN THE CONGO FREE STATE. 



'T'HE planting of rubber in the Congo Free State by legal 



■*• requirement by the concessionaire trading companies 



has been referred to frequently in these pages. This interest 



is a subject of a late report by the United States consul 



ShIPI'Kmj Kl UlitK UN IHE Cu.NCjU. 



[Steamer Belgique, at Citas.] 



general at Eoma. Mr. James A. Smith. He states that it is 

 estimated that fully 13,000,000 plants have been set out, which 

 should be capable of producing within a few years at least 

 650 tons of rubber annually. Mr. Smith states that it has 

 been proved by experiments that the tree known as 

 I'uiitumio cUutica thrives better under cultivation and gives 

 much quicker results than various species of creepers known 

 as Landolpliia. The quality of the tree rubber is excellent 

 and a profitable product is available after 7 years, while 

 ordinarily double this time is required before the vines yield 

 in sufficient quantity to be profitable. 



Mr. Smith says that while the annual exportation from the 

 Congo has shown no diminution during the past several years, 

 there is no question but that in many sections of the state the 

 supply of wild rubber has rapidly diminished, and in a large 

 section of territory is practicaly exhausted. Independent .of 

 the planting required of the trading companies, Mr. Smith 

 learned that the Congo Free State has established three 

 great centers of rubber cultivation each of 250,000 acres 

 (i) in the Mayumbe district, near Banza; (2) in the Oubanghi 

 district, near Duma; and (3) in the Lualaba-Kasai region, the 

 idea being that one-third of the area will be planted within 

 the next 6 years. 



Further details regarding these new planting areas have 

 not been available, but the consul general for the Congo 

 Free State in the United States advises The India Rubber 

 World: "Such plantations would be quite in line with the 

 ideas of the king, who has consistently encouraged new plan- 

 tations as well as the ordinary planting to replace exhausted 

 vines and trees." It is known that the Congo trading com- 

 panies for which Americans have obtained concessions are 

 expected by the authorities to plant rubber to an important 

 extent, and Mr. James Gustavus Whiteley, the Congo consul 

 general referred to, states that one of these companies, the 

 Societe Forestiere et Miniere, has acquired 800,000 hectares 

 [^1,976,800 acres] for the purpose of starting new rubber 

 plantations on the Congo, though in this case it would seem 

 probable that the terms planting and exploiting had been 

 confused. 



"tabbyite" is the latest. 



■"PHERE are people in Utah who are indulging in dreams of 

 ■'• wealth from the development of what they have been pleased 

 to term Tabbyite — a material mined in the neighborhood of long 

 known deposits of Elaterite, and having the characteristics some- 

 what of the latter, only more so. The new asphaltum product 

 gets its name from an old Indian chief, Tabby, of the Uintah tribe, 

 who discovered it on their reservation about 1895. He said noth- 



Shipping Rubber on the Congo. 



[Steamer Dolisie, at Citas.] 



ing publicly about his find, and it was only after his death that 

 the devolpment of the tabbyite business began. The land on 

 which it was first found is now the property of the Pittsburg- 

 Salt Lake Oil Co., who have begun the manufacture of water- 

 proof paints from tabbyite, and who intimate that before the 

 end of the year they will be installing plant for turning out the 

 new material in shape for its use as a rubber filler. 



The first number of The India Rubber World ever printed 

 referred to newspaper reports then current about the discovery 

 of india-rubber mines in Utah, and the resultant "excitement over 

 the prospective fabulous wealth" to flow from it. The material 

 then newly discovered was elaterite, concerning which reports 

 have continued to come to hand from time to time. Once it was 

 stated that the late Joseph Banigan. of rubber manufacturing 

 fame, had become a large investor in elaterite deposits in the 

 Uintah country, but he continued to the end of his life to put 

 natural forest rubber in his footwear products. Whether the 

 "new substitute for rubber" with the catlike name is to come 

 nearer setting the rubber world on fire we shall report in the 

 regular course of events. 



The raw asbestos trade is active and higher prices are looked 

 for in the near future. 



