February, 1913. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



45 



In one important technical paper we 

 read to our surprise: "Naturally produced 

 rubber, containing as it does the greatest 

 elasticity with the greatest strength, 

 will ever hold the market "—a statement 

 which may be characterised as simply 

 untrue. Another "practical man" writes : 

 "I observe that twenty- five thousand 

 pounds of the subscribed money is to be 

 devoted to experimenting with the object 

 of producing a rubber substitute. How- 

 does that appeal to your readers as a 

 business project ? " 



"It is not explained how or at what 

 rate the proposed money is to be ex- 

 pended, unless it was thought wise to 

 leave to the public's imagination the 

 rapidity with which laboratories can 

 dissolve gold." The gentleman is, appar- 

 ently, supremely unconscious that on the 

 basis of research work alone vast chemi- 

 cal firms have in Germany come into 

 existence which pay dividends of between 

 twenty and thirty per cent., and that 

 research work in industrial chemistry is probably 

 the most paying investment that it is possible to 

 make. On research alone some of the large German 

 firms spend thousands upon thousands of pounds 

 annually — one dye factory alone maintaining a 

 huge scientific library and no less than three 

 hundred university-trained chemists — and as a result 

 they dominate the world's markets! 



However, the following luminous extract, gravely 

 printed in a financial journal, fairly reaches the 

 limit : — 



" Is it not entirely a question of trying to make bricks with- 

 out straw, to try and make rubber out of rubbish ? 



" People have tried to make gold and diamonds, and in these 



Fennel 

 Synthet 



Figure 44. 



Mr. Harold Davies, Assistant to Professor W. H. Perkin, distilling 

 isoprene for making synthetic rubber. 



Figure 45. 



tation Vats now being erected at Rainham, Essex, by the 

 ic Products Company for the production of fusel oil on the 

 commercial scale. 



cases the reward of anyone successful would be enormous. 

 Are they more likely to be able to make rubber, the real thing 

 I mean, with all the live properties in it ? As well try to make 

 an egg which will hatch out." 



However absurd this letter appears to the trained 

 scientific man, it fairly accurately voices the opinions 

 of a great many people connected with the rubber 

 trade — as many personal conversations have con- 

 vinced me. 



It is quite a common opinion that rubber is "alive " 

 in a way, with a special "nerve," and, therefore, like 

 other living matter, cannot be synthesised. 



As a matter of fact, however, rubber is simply a 

 colloidal chemical compound or mixture of chemical 

 compounds, and all its properties, both 



F chemical and physical, are all explicable 

 by ordinary chemical or physical explan- 

 ations without having resort to "vital 

 forces " or anything of a like nature. 

 It is only bare justice to these practical 

 men to say that I have not yet heard 

 any one of them assert that rubber has 

 a " soul " as well as " vital " properties. 



Many other " practical " men consider 

 that synthetic rubber must necessarily 

 prove inferior to " natural " rubber 

 because " natural " things are always 

 better than "artificial" and that 

 " Nature " is " perfect." These indi- 

 viduals have evidently some character- 

 istics in common with the " back-to- 

 nature " cranks, who wish us to live in 

 trees and do without baths merely 

 because our simian ancestors had the 

 misfortune to be compelled to undergo 

 these hardships. 



At the back of the minds of this 

 variety of "practical" men lies, no doubt, 



