Chemistry Magic 151 



planes, automobiles, houses, food, machines, clothing, cos- 

 metics and thousands of other every day articles." 



Precious Synthetic Rubber 



The dozens of products now being made by our huge syn- 

 thetic-rubber industry should perhaps be called "soft plastics," 

 according to Gerald Wendt, science editor of Time maga- 

 zine. Natural rubber, he adds, is but one of the soft plastics, 

 as natural rosin and amber belong among the hard plastics. 

 "Whether natural rubber will occupy a larger place among 

 them than amber and rosin do among the miraculous, tailor- 

 made, hard plastics will appear within the next decade," he 

 concluded. 



In June, 1943, Rubber Director William M. JefTers prom- 

 ised that synthetic-rubber plants would produce 250,000 to 

 275,000 tons of rubber in 1943. He added that by the first 

 quarter of 1944 production at an estimated rate of 850,000 

 tons a year, far in excess of imports of crude rubber, will be 

 reached. The crude-rubber production of the world amounted 

 to a million tons yearly, but our chemists will produce almost 

 that much in less than two years. 



Chemists will get more rubber from 40 acres of factory 



space than rubber growers could get from 50,000 acres of 



plantation. One synthetic-rubber plant with a rated capacity 



of 90,000 long tons of rubber a year will match the output of 



a 270,000 acre plantation. Such a plantation would have more 



than 24,000,000 trees and need at least 90,000 workers. It 



would cost about $80,000,000 to bring such a plantation into 



production. The one synthetic-rubber plant used in this 



example cost $56,000,000 and is operated by only 1,250 men. 



The general-purpose synthetic Buna S was selected for the 



greater part of the nation's synthetic-rubber program. "It isn't 



rubber," said H. B. Pushee, chief chemist of General Tire & 



