3i(5 



latex was obtained, the latex was coagulated in less than five 

 minutes by adding acetic acid and stirring. The coagulated mass 

 was picked out. squeezed together by hand and thrown on to the 

 machine, and after passing through the rollers a number of times 

 it was converted into rolled and washed sheets which were dried in 

 less than three days in the open air. With a calcium chloride 

 drying chamber and using dried air they could have been dried 

 and ready to pack in 48 hours. 



But the use of a washing machine driven by an engine is not 

 by any means confined to freshly coagulated latex. In dealing 

 with scrap and dirty rubber its efficiency is very marked. The 

 scrap is cleaned, machanical impurities are ejected, dirt and mud 

 are washed away and the scrap is finally turned out in a form 

 precisely similar to that taken by the first class rubber, and in a 

 state of purity which is only a trifle inferior to it. With rubber 

 from Ficus elastica or Rambong the machine deals in a similar 

 manner, and an easy and simple method of treatment of this 

 hitherto intractable latex is made possible. Great difficulty has 

 been found in dealing with rambong up to the present because it 

 cannot be coagulated in sheets in the same way as can Para rub- 

 ber. If, how 7 ever, the thick latex be churned, beaten or violently 

 shaken, it coagulates in a great lump, and to treat this lump in the 

 old way, to dry and render it fit for export has been a matter of 

 great difficulty and of many months. The lumps however may be 

 treated at once with the washing machine and thin sheets produced, 

 which are clean and which rapidly dry without difficulty. 



The use of machinery in dealing with latex and preparing mar- 

 ketable rubber is, I am convinced, a necessity and the almost uni- 

 versal adoption of it on rubber plantation of any size is only a 

 matter of time. At present the trouble and labour involved in 

 preparing " biscuits" by hand has scarcely made itself felt simply 

 because so little rubber has been prepared. 



In the immediate future this will be changed, for each pound of 

 rubber hitherto prepared there will be fifty, and some change in the 

 system of preparation to cope with this increased output will be a 

 necessity. At present a form of rubber is prepared — the biscuit — 

 which can only be regarded as a transition type:. It must be re- 

 membered that all rubber has sooner or later to pass through 

 the washing machine, it has to be made into crepe work or washed 

 rubber. 



To pass from the latex to this washed rubber through the biscuit 

 form is taking one step down and then one and a half steps up. 

 The same result can be obtained by one single process, by the 

 use of a washing machine on the latex directly it is coagulated and 

 the labour and trouble is only half a step compared to that in- 

 volved in making fine "biscuits." 



The widespread adoption of this mechanical method of treating 

 rubber will be a very distinct step in the advance towards scientific 

 rubber growing and preparation, and the debt which the whole of 



