September 1, 1919.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



rubber chemicals, has converted his business into a private 

 limited company, the directorate consisting of himself and his 

 two sons. The capital is £80,000. The firm has considerably 

 enlarged its business in recent years and has estabUshed 

 agencies in a number of foreign countries, the New York City 

 address being 98 Maiden Lane. 



The United Kingdom Dental Manufacturing Co., Limited, has 

 been registered with a capital of £200,000,000, the registered 

 office being at 167 Oxford street, London. This is an American 

 concern, the directors including W. L. Smith, of Pittsburgh, and 

 T. G. McCann, of Philadelphia. Although we have in England 

 the well-known firm of Claudius Ash. Sons & Co., Ltd. dental 

 supplies, a large amount of dental rubber has always come in 

 the past from America, and no doubt the present and prospective 

 trade restrictions have been instrumental in the formation of 

 this new company. We have also imported a good deal of 

 dental rubber from Germany, and when this was cut ofl: during 

 the war, there was an outcry against the high price charged by 

 British firms for goods of the same character. 



The Enfield Ediswan Cable Works, Limited, capitalized at 

 £200,000, has been formed to take over the business and assets 

 of the Enfield Electric Cable Manufacturing Co., Limited, which. 

 It turns out, was the purchaser of Connolly Brothers' cable 

 works at Blackley, Manchester. The sale of this latter concern 

 by auction was recently referred to in this correspondence. The 

 new company's works are at Brimsdow. near London, and con- 

 siderable extensions are in progress. The chairman of the new 

 company is Viscount Grimston, son of the Earl of Verulam, 

 and head of the St. Albans Rubber Co., which makes the 

 Grimston tire. Other members of the board are C. J. Ford 

 and E. E. Hunter, the chairman and managing director of the 

 Edison Swan Electric Co., Limited, this company taking up 

 50,000 shares. 



MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN NOTES. 



LONDON RUBBER AND TROPICAL PRODUCTS EXHIBITION 

 AND CONGRESS. 



A RUBBER .\ND TROPICAL PRODUCTS exhibition and congress will 

 be held in London next year. The time set is June 3 to 

 June 17, and the place will be the Royal Agricultural Hall, where 

 previous exhibitions have been held. The manager will be Mr. 

 H. Greville Montgomery ; he will be assisted by Miss D. Fulton 

 and Miss Edith A. Browne. The oflices are at present at 43 

 Essex street. Strand. W. C. 



NEW FINNISH RUBBER AND LEATHER FACTORY. 



A new Finnish firm will be established for the manufacture of 

 rubber and leather goods at Helsingfors, Finland, to be known 

 as the O. Y. Finska Treugolnik A. B., with an initial capital of 

 $965,000. This concern is closely connected with the Treugolnik 

 of Petrograd. Franz Ulthemann is managing director. 



LANCASHIRE FACTORIES BUSY. 



Business in rubber fabrics is very brisk in the Lancashire fac- 

 tories, and the garment makers are keeping busy. It is believed 

 that the French Government will remove duties on rain cloth, 

 which will help the French rubber trade at the expense of the 

 English. Cloth for motor hoods is in great demand; it is needed 

 for the imported American cars, many of which have English 

 bodies fitted to them. 



MARSEILLES CRUDE RUBBER IMPORTS RESTRICTED. 



France will give shipping preference to rubber grown in 

 French possessions or elsewhere by companies organized with 

 French capital and under French law. The quantity of rubber 

 to be imported in the year beginning October, 1918. was fixed by 

 the Allied Rubber Committee at 22,000 tons of which 15,000 are 

 to be landed at Marseilles. The imports at that port before the 



war were 800 to 900 tons a year, but in the last two years they 

 have increased to about 8,000 tons yearly. 



TIRE EQUIPMENT OF FRENCH MOTOR CARS. 



Examples of the tires now used in France are shown in a 

 circular recently received from a prominent automobile dealer 

 of Paris. A touring car has wire wheels, 820 by 120 m. m., 

 equipped with pneumatic tires, the two rear ones being non- 

 skid. A heavy truck, carrying 4,000 kilos net, has solid tires, 

 front wheels 940 by 130 m. m. with single tires; rear wheels, 

 1,000 by 130 m. m. with twin tires. A light truck, to carry 1,000 

 to 1,500 kilos net, may have wheels with either pneumatic or 

 solid tires : for the pneumatic, wheels of Michelin steel plate 

 with tires 920 by 120 m. m., single in front and twin in the rear, 

 two being non-skid. For the solid tires, wheels of wood with 

 900 by 90 m. m. tires, single in front and twin in the rear. 



GERMAN BELTING SUBSTITUTES. 



German ingenuity during the war was directed, among other 

 things, to finding substitutes for leather and rubber driving belts. 

 Belts made of tissues sewn together or one rolled inside another 

 were found to be very resistant and strong in the edges. The 

 friction was slight, and they could be mended easily. These were 

 made chiefly of spun flax, hemp or paper yarn. Cellulose 

 materials used for medium-sized machinery belts would not stand 

 much tension. Yarn belts were also woven into tube form, then 

 flattened and sewed together, the material being linen or paper; 

 these proved very useful. Substitute rubber was used for belts 

 where crude rubber or balata had been used before ; it did not 

 melt when heated by friction, but it could not stand much tension. 



ITALIAN SULPHUR. 



There has been a shortage of sulphur in Italy. The price, 

 which was 160 lire ($20.88) a ton a year or so ago, went up to 

 425 lire gold ($82.02) when the armistice was signed. The stock 

 in Sicily was nearly used up owing to the shortage in labor and 

 the demands of the Allies; now the sulphur properties are to be 

 worked to full capacity. 



At Mologna, where they managed to keep the works in full 

 operation, a plant has been laid down for making sulphuric acid 

 from the vapor that arises from vents and borings. The Monte- 

 cutini Company, which turned out 388,000 tons of the half million 

 tons of sulphuric sulphur produced by Italy in 1917, has amalga- 

 mated with the Romagna Co. They will exploit again the Boratella 

 and Montecutini mines, which were once esteemed the richest in 

 Italy, but have been long closed. The Agoria mines, at Corde- 

 vole, which were closed and partly destroyed in order that the 

 Austrians might not set them have started up again. 



DUTCH EAST INDIES RESTRICTION. 



Holland places restrictions on visitors to her East Indian colo- 

 nies. They can land only at specified ports in Java, Sumatra, 

 Borneo, Celebes, Tunis, and the smaller islands, and even there 

 must have disembarkation permits. If they think of staying for 

 any length of time they must procure admission certificates or 

 permits to settle. 



Imports of rubber goods to Victoria, Australia, in the first 

 three months of 1919 amounted to £174,633 in value, against 

 £112,203 in the same quarter of 1918. 



British dealers are troubled at the preference shown by 

 Brazil and Argentina of late for rubber goods from the United 

 States. Brazilian imports of rubber goods from England in 

 1918 amounted to 778 tons, as compared with 1,189 tons in 1913, 

 the last full year before the war. 



Samoa has been producing rubber to the v.\lue of about 

 $100,000 a year, but this is likely to fall ofif for a time owing to 

 plantation diflficulties. 



