588 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August 1, 1915. 



hundred pounds was 



but turbid on the instant it is exposed t" the air 



Jt i- and families of plants, the poppy, 



milkw families, with the strap-flowered section 



g well-known examples 

 iv mi ki i \i- Beginning 

 A sh' before the award ol the gold medal t" Dr. 



erie, Mr. 11. W. Jewe'sbury, who learned ol the in- 

 thi ■ i •. substance, determined to send an 

 order to Singapon [uantitj ol gutta percha. Before 



this '•tu he chanced upon a cask containing turn 



lumps nt" 14 nt t a percha, weighing about two hundred 

 pounds. It had been sent on speculation and had lain at the 

 dock- foi manj months withoul a purchaser. It was bought 

 i (twentj cents) a pound, this being the first 

 commercial transaction in gutta percha in civilized I ! 



10th day of April, 1845. In May of the same 

 the predetermined order for fiv< 

 -i in By the next mail went 



an order fi ir ten thousand pounds and 

 next month an order for a hundred 

 G Itta percha. in 

 the slang of a few years past, had 

 n and was soon scrambling 

 toward a front seat in the car of com- 

 mercial progress \t first the experi- 

 ment ed, like the Tradescants, 

 tu ri simplj as a "plyable 

 wood" which, being heated, could be 

 mol h any shape. Then came 

 the wild determination that it should 

 take the place of India rubber, whether 

 it would or no. It was made into 

 clothing, anes, plates, boxi - 

 and a thousand other things which 

 could as well have been made of some 

 other and less expensive material. 

 Other early oi which it 

 was well adapted, were manufactures 

 ol" water-pipes, acid tank- and -urgical 

 artii ' 



Gutta percha had certain resem- 

 blanci - .ill real ami illusory, to 

 caoutchouc and it was. at the time. 

 very much cheaper. So whatever 



could In- done with rubber was undertaken with gutta percha. 

 This was attempted the mure desperately because the Good- 

 year patents -hut out all but holders under their right from 

 the use of india rubber in it- only practicable, that is. its vul- 

 canized form. Therefore they insisted that if gutta percha 

 wen 'iic and durable in air and sunlight it ought to 



be and must be. They needed the money. So they went 

 ahead with their vulcanized ami unvulcanized gutta percha. 

 making article- of commerce if not of utility, and left behind 

 them a collection of advertisements which make curious 

 reading sixtj years biter One American firm made a con- 

 siderabli success and produced goods of excellent quality. 

 using several closely kept factory secret- — the greatest of 

 which was that the material used was not gutta percha. but 

 rubber. 



But it about this time that the stone which the 



build became the corner of the temple. The 



dawn of the age of electricity was at hand and gutta percha 

 was indispensable for its most important development — that 

 by whicl an-sundered continents were brought within 



haib each i ither. 



The isco ered the electrical qualities 



i interest, but one which has not been 



answered quit i action of all inquirer-. Professor 



• who b i vast amount of time to the 



I >i<. William Montgomerii 



historj of gutta percha and who is not influenced by family 

 ociations in consideration of the problem, says flatly 

 t Encyclopedia Britannica) that the electrical qualities of gutta 

 percha were first noticed by Faraday. It has been pointed 

 out that others were undoubtedly in possession of the knowl- 

 i dgi before Faraday's publication of the fact in 1848, but it 

 has not been shown that any one else published the discovery 

 before that date or that anyone knew the properties earlier 

 than did Faraday. The claim that anybody anticipated the 

 discoverei of induction ami diamagnetism in gaining an under- 

 standing of the properties of a substance which had attracted 

 the lively scientific interest of all the world at that time, is 

 • in. ilut call- for ,i weighing of probabilities and a production 

 of proofs. Of course the name ol Faraday stands like a 

 mountain peak in the field of electric discovery and the taking 

 away of a single stone would not alter its place above the 

 skyline of history. As to who first made the discovery under 

 discussion, is not so much a question 

 ni mstice to Faraday as of justice to 

 gutta percha. 



The question is less important in 

 view of the fact that the discovery was 

 inevitable and the application within a 

 very short time. The first to make 

 practical application of gutta percha 

 for the insulation of cables was 

 Werner Siemens, a Prussian infantry 

 officer, who was later known as von 

 Siemens, having, after the German 

 fashion, been made "high and well 

 born" for his successes in the field we 

 are considering. He was a brother of 

 Sir William Siemens, a naturalized 

 British subject, an eminent scientist 

 and inventor and a close friend of 

 Faraday. It was from Sir William 

 that Werner von Siemens received a 

 sample of the original lot of gutta 

 percha sent by Montgomerie to the 

 Society of Arts. 



In 1847 von Siemens began the 

 manufacture of what was probably 

 the first gutta percha-covered sub- 

 terranean cable and also invented a 

 machine for covering wire with that substance. At that time 

 there were more than fourteen hundred miles of underground 

 cable in Germany, insulated with other materials. But the 

 in-iil. ii urn was in every case either defective or subject to 

 quick deterioration and the use of gutta percha was of far- 

 reaching importance. 



I lie submarine cable had another and separate origin. As the 

 first land-telegraph line was American, so was the first gutta 

 percha covered subaqueous line. This was made about the 

 middle of September. 1.S47. by Dr. John J. Craven, of Newark. 

 \cw Jersey, who. with the assistance of hi- wife, covered with 

 gutta percha a piece of wire about fifteen feet long and sunk it 

 beneath the waters of Bound creek, a narrow salt-water inlet 

 crossing the present roadway of the Pennsylvania Railroad be- 

 tween Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey. The ends of this little 

 er submarine were then connected with the land telegraph 

 line between New York and Philadelphia, and messages were 

 flashed under the briny waters of Bound Creek which, if not as 

 deep, wire quite as wet as those of the Atlantic Ocean. This test 

 led directly to the laying of a cable, under the Passaic River at 

 Newark by the Magneto Telegraph Co. This also was made by 

 Dr. Craven. It likewise proving a success, a more important 

 venture followed, the same company laying a cable, June 15, 1848. 

 across the North River, landing at Cortlandt street. This cable, 

 a mile long, settled the question of the commercial practicability 



