THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



lOcTOBEK 1, I'Ml). 



discovered, what indeed was generally foreseen, that they 

 would have to obtain the bulk of their rubber, raw and 

 vulcanized, from the United States. 



Rcatl the "Central Powers" instead of "European 

 Governments" and this would juiss. The other powers 

 depend upon England for their rubber. 



Speaking of Erench rubber reclaiming, the writer 



avers : 



Washing with steam is the method usually adopted, 

 which drives oflf the sulphur in fumes and melts the rubber 

 without burning it. 



"Washing with steam" is bad enough but "melting" ! 

 Melted rubber is a sticky, tarry, offensive mess that 

 always remains sticky, tarry and oflfensive. Melting 

 never has been, and never will be, a part of any rub- 

 ber maiuifacturing process. 



Continuing, he says : 



The one thing which this peculiar art of making old rub- 

 ber feci and look like new requires is to restore the elas- 

 ticity and compressibility of the original rubber, but this 

 unfortunately it fails to do. 



Compressibility? Is rubber, then compressible? Or 

 water ? We thought not. 



Solemnly he states, a line or two further along: 

 ' They are now making rubber from gelatine. 



Of course, and of course, they are emphatically not. 

 Further on he iterates : 



It is stated that the rubber which remains behind can be 

 vulcanized so successfully that the final product has all the 

 properties, elastic and compressible, of the best Para rubber. 



Compressible again after w-hat we said above ! Our 



temper is going fast. 



And as a final insult to anyone's intelligence, this 



melter and compressor of rubber, cites the old ghie 



and glycerin formula, the gas tubing cover, the tire 



filler compound. Artificial rubber? And in the "Sun" ! 



THE COST OF WET RUBBER. 



FOR the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, the United 

 States imports of plantation rubber were over 

 90,000 tons. The shrinkage on this amount may be 

 reckoned at two per cent, or 1,800 tons. The same 

 quantity of wild rubber ; figuring a 20 per cent shrink- 

 age, would lose 18,000 tons. 



Freight rates from the Far East for 1915 may be reck- 

 oned at 23^2 cents per pound, or $56 a ton. Therefore, 

 manufacturers paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 

 $100,800 on freight alone, on the water contained in 

 that plantation rubber. 



But had this been wild rubber with a shrinkage of 20 

 per cent, the contained water would have cost the import- 

 ers $1,008,000 for freight, besides an extra amount for 

 insurance, etc., not reckoned herein. 



This, however, is not all the saving. It is estimated 

 that it costs one-half cent per pound to wash and dry wild 

 rubber, or $11.20 per ton, and to wash 90,000 tons would 



cost another exactly equal amotint, nainely, $1,008,000. 

 In other words, the year's consumjjtion of plantation 

 rubber was cheaper by over $2,000,000 than would have 

 been an equal amount of wild rubber. 



This is why wild rubber, if it is to compete, should 

 come to the market clean, and with ;i greatlv limited 

 shrinkage. 



A LATIN-AMERICAN VIEWPOINT. 



A SOUTH AMERICAN iinporter was asked why he 

 always bought European-made tires and refused 

 to handle the American product. For reply he brought 

 out a circular of a well-known American-made tire and 

 pointed to the statement, "We make 5,000 tires a day." 

 He then produced a circular of a European-made tire 

 that claimed, "In our factory 500 tires are made every 

 day." Shrugging his shoulders, he said : "Five thousand 

 tires a day means haste and carelessness. Five htmdred 

 a day, care and finish. That is why." 



The Na7ional Rf.tail Dry Goods' Association i.'^ 

 advocating the passage of an "Anti-retinn Goods Law " 

 If the return of goods could be regulated equitably for 

 both buyer and seller it would be of inestimable value 

 particularly to the makers of the goods. The rubber 

 trade is a great sufiferer through unfair claims, adjust- 

 ments and returns. Why should not the alert and en- 

 terprising Rubber Club of Ainerica, Inc., force reforms 

 in this field ? 



"Keds" is the new n.ame for tennis shoes to be 

 used hereafter by all who make or handle the footwear 

 of the United States Rubber Co. As a bit of word coin- 

 age it is clever and original and will go far toward 

 killing the popular but objectionable term "Sneakers." 



A RUBBER HEEI. EXPERT ESTIMATES THAT THE AVERAGE 



man takes 8,000 -steps a day. An engineering authority 

 reckons that a 180-pound man raises his feet two inches 

 (or more) from the ground in walking, and that the im- 

 pact of his heel is 30 foot-pounds each step. Now, the 

 average rubl)er heel lasts three months. Eight thousand 

 steps a da_\- means 720,000 steps in ninety days. The me- 

 chanical engineer thus deduces that the total impact, or 

 shock of three months' walking would be 21,600,000 foot- 

 pounds. What, besides rubber, would withstand such 

 constant pounding? Wood would be battered to pieces; 

 stone reduced to impalpable powder ; iron flattened out to 

 a thin disk ; gold beaten so thin as to be almost transpar- 

 ent. Rubber outwears them all, and that is the cause of 

 its marvelously increasing use for heels the world over. 



