.NuVEMBKR 1, 1915. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



59 



Rubber in the Service of Life Saving. 



MOST of us have heard so much about the ordinary cork-lilled 

 life-preserver that we have generally come to look upon 

 this material as the best thing for the service. This is a mis- 

 take. There i.s no denying the virtues of this buoyant bark, but it 

 lias its drawbacks. A cork-packed life-belt is bulky, and because of 

 this fact a number of them require a good deal of space. There- 

 fiire. in most instances, we lind these protective articles stored 

 away in more or less inaccessible places. To get them out of 

 the vTay they are put just where panic-stricken passen.ners will 

 lind it hardest to get them when the moment of peril arrives. 

 Because of these circumstances, inventive cunning lias been busy 

 for years in seeking other 

 forms of life-preservers, 

 turning to different mate- 

 rials to solve the problem 

 of compactness and buoy- 

 ancy, together with greater 

 accessibility in time oi 



It is an interesting fact 

 that the first and also tlie 

 last work in which Charles 

 ("loodyear interested him- 

 self had to do with life- 

 lireservers. In the winter 

 of 1834, after an unfortu- 

 nate career in the hard- 

 ware business, Goodyear, 

 who was then a young 

 man a trifle over 30 years 

 of age, visited New York 

 on a business errand and 

 li:il)pened to pass the New 

 \ Ork store of the Ro.xbury 

 Rubber Co. He had read 

 quite a little about the 

 wonderful success of the 

 new rubber industry which 

 had recently sprung into 

 existence, and he went in- 

 to the store to examine 

 some of the rubber prod- 

 ucts manufactured by that 

 company. His attention was 

 attracted to a life-preserv- 

 er. He examined it carefully and, with his quickness of perception 

 lie discovered that it was susceptible of considerable improvement. 

 Me went home and thought the matter over, and his ingenious 

 mind soon su.i.'gested how the apparatus could be improved. He 

 returned to the store hoping to sell his idea to the company. 



The agent in charge of the New York business of the com- 

 pany was struck at once with Goodyear's ingenuity and 

 hoped, as he had been able to make one valuable suggestion, 

 that he might make another of infinitely greater value, so he 

 look him into his confidence at once, and told him that they 

 <lid not care to buy his improvement on the life-preserver, for 

 the simple fact that the whole rubber business was on the 

 verge of collapse, as the company had made up a great quanti- 

 ty of goods during the cool months of the preceding year 

 and had distributed them quite widely, only to discover when 

 the warm weather of summer came on that all these rubber 

 goods — shoes, coats, life-preservers and all the rest — had a 

 fatal tendency to melt. If Goodyear could discover some 

 remedy for this difficulty, the storekeeper told him that his 

 fortune would be made. 



Thirty years later, after Goodyear's wonderful achieve- 

 ments, and after the great honors that the English and French 

 governments had bestowed upon him, he was in London 

 when he encountered the statement in some publication that 

 twenty human beings were drowned every hour of the day. 

 It made a deep impression on him, and he immediately fell 

 into one of those moods of abstraction to which he was given 

 when he was trying to solve some new rubber problem. He 

 brooded on the matter so much that he was unable to sleep, 

 and his wife, fearing the results of the continued strain, asked 

 him to get his mind on some other subject and try to sleep. 

 "Sleep," he replied ; "how 

 can I sleep while twenty 

 human beings are drown- 

 very hour, and I am 

 nan who can save 



^r- ma 



It w as Goodyear's hope 

 tn in\cnt something that 

 would effectually stop this 

 ureal loss of human life 

 1>\ drowning. He sought 

 tci discover some way of 

 Converting into a life- 

 preserver some customary 

 article of apparel, like the 

 hat, or coat; and he even 

 sought to devise some sort 

 of necktie that could be 

 inflated and thus keep a 

 person afloat. He thought 

 that every detachable ar- 

 ticle on shipboard — every 

 i.ible, every chair and stool 

 -ought to be so construct- 

 ed as to serve as a life- 

 preserver. Though he died 

 l>Lfore carrying this work 

 In a thoroughly successful 

 I ..mpletion, many of his 

 ideas were later embodied 

 ill sundry life-preserving 



■* .About forty-live years 



ago, a few years after 

 Goodyear's death, an inventor constructed an all-india-rubber suit, 

 which should not only serve to keep the wearer afloat but should 

 provide sustenance for some time. For this purpose it had a 

 receptacle sufficient to store a little supply <if drinking water 

 and another receptacle to hold food enough for several days. 



Furthermore, the suit was so contrived that the wearer could 

 fix himself upright in the water or recline on one side or the 

 other, or on his back. With each suit was a paddle. The price 

 was moderate. The practicability of the suit and its good 

 wearing qualities under long and hard usage were demon- 

 strated by the late Paul Royton before the naval boards of 

 all nations and under ngnrously conducted tests made to 

 interest the principal foreign and domestic steamship com- 

 panies. 



In an endurance test in Russia, Koyton. in his india-rubber 

 suit with the receptacles for food and drinking water, remained 

 forty-eight hours in the water, when the atmosphere as recorded 

 by a Fahrenheit thermometer was 20 to 30 degrees below zero. 

 The tests were carried out under the direction of Admiral Popoff 

 and staff, and were highly successful. In the following winter. 



