and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricullxiral Society. 



503 



SYNTHETIC RUBBERS I HAVE MET. 



(By Henry C. Pearson, Editor, "India 



Rubber World," New York). 

 [ Published by permission of Mr. A. Staines 

 Manders, Manager of the International Rubher 

 and Allied Trades Exhibition, London. The 

 article is copyright and will appear in the 

 Rocords of the Conference, to be published 

 shortly at 5s. 6d., which will contain over thirty 

 papers road at the Conference.] 



A great many years ago, the whole scientific 

 world which was neither very large nor very 

 scientific, spent a whole lot of time searching 

 for the philosopher's stone, which, if I re- 

 member rightly if properly approached would 

 turn most anything into gold . We laugh at such 

 childish folly today, and spend our time hunt- 

 ing for a philosopher's stone which shall turn 

 everything into Rubber. The transmutation of 

 caloids is the dream of the chemist as well as 

 the Experimentor. The only trouble is they 

 don't transmute. 



If he were correctly quoted — 



PROFESSOR WYNDHAM DUNSTAN 



in 1906 went on record before the British Asso- 

 ciation that Synthetic Rubber would be an 

 accomplished fact within the year. Exactly 

 where it would break out he did not indicate, 

 nor whether it would be characterised by mild 

 or virulent symptons. 1 should like to say 

 personally that my acquaintance with synthetic 

 Rubbers of certain sorts dates back to many 

 years. 



It goes without saying that when a man really 

 discovers synthetic Rubber, he is more or less 

 secretive about the materials of which the 

 artificial gum is made ; indeed that constantly 

 growing class of discoverers whom newspapers 

 introduce to us from time to time are the most 

 secretive men I have ever met. It was nearly 

 •25 years ago that I was first brought into con- 

 tact with a gentleman who was apparently an 

 honest blunt hard-working experimenter, who 

 in a private room behind locked doors showed 

 me a small sample of what appeared to bo dry 

 fine Para Rubber. It gave out a faint odour 

 of winter green, which he explained was added 

 to it to destroy an odour that might lead some 

 imitator to a knowledge of ingredients used 

 in its manufacture. He assured me earnestly, 

 calling upon the Creator of real Rubber to be 

 his witness, that it was wholly an artificial pro- 

 duct, and contained no atom of Caoutchouc ; 

 further than that, in a burst of confidence he 

 agreed to let me see some of the materials from 

 which the product was made. With much 

 secrecy we crossed the city, let ourselves into 

 the basement of his house, which was part 

 workshop and laboratory, where I was shown 

 a gum, which I partially identified as Kauri 

 and a grease which looked like cocoa-butter. 

 There was a faint smell of bisulphide of carbon 

 in the air, and he acknowledged that he used 

 this solvent at a certain stage of the process 

 and upon heating and the addition of a secret 

 material, rubber appeared floating upon the 

 liquid. 



While we were talking, an eminent and some- 

 what grasping capitalist appeared, claimed; he 

 was there by appointment, which I did not 

 believe then, but do now, and at once went into 

 executive sessions with the inventor, leaving 

 me on the outside. It was a bitter blow to 

 thus have 



MILLIONS TORN SO RUDELY FROM MY GRASP, 



particularly as I had mentally already squan- 

 dered several hundred thousand pounds. How- 

 ever, I was out and had to make the best of 

 it. As for the gentleman who was in, just 

 to complete the story, it might be well to add 

 that he erected a specious factory in which were 

 strange machinery secret rooms, glass floors and 

 other unusual and expensive paraphernalia; and 

 for a number of years paid, while the inventor 

 toiled, until one day the building was closed 

 and has remained so up to the present time. 



From that day to this neither the Capitalist 

 nor the Inventor could be induced to say a 

 word about their experiments or why they 

 failed. I fancy the reason the Capitalist would 

 not talk is because he lost a great deal of money 

 through the venture ; and the only reason the 

 Inventor doesn't talk is because he is dead. In 

 the bottle marked A. is a sample of this type of 

 synthetic rubber. 



One of the Presidents of the United States 

 had a relative who had a little money and was 

 anxious to make more. He therefore intrusted 

 some £8,000 of it into the hands of a cultured, 

 gentlemanly, persuasive chemist, who had 

 brought to him some twenty pounds of what 

 appeared to be high grade rubber, which the 

 chemist, by the use of many technical terms 

 wholly incomprehensible to the ordinary busi- 

 ness man, assured him was an entirely synthetic 

 production. The eight thousand pounds went 

 for the equipment of a little factory near New 

 York City ; the erection of a secret room from 

 which clay light was excluded and only a certain 

 shade of red light allowed to illumine and in- 

 cidentally some very excellent champagne sup- 

 pers at New York's most expensive hosteleries. 

 It was just about as the initial investment was 

 about exhausted that the matter was brought to 

 my attention, and in this way. With great 

 secrecy 



A 10, 20 OR 50 MILLION DOLLAR COMPANY 



was projected and all the machinery for 

 selling much stock was secretly set in mo- 

 tion. One of the wealthy men approached, had 

 a lawyer who knew something about rubber and 

 was very much of an investigator, ho came to 

 me first to size up the probabilities and to out- 

 line a method of investigation. The first move 

 was to insist that the rubber be made in his 

 presence. This was agreed to, but the Inventor 

 stipulated that no Chemist be present. The 

 Lawyer was then given a list of ingredients 

 which he was to purchase and carry to the fac- 

 tory. These amounted to about twenty pounds 

 There is at the present time in the United 

 States a factory in a prosperous town, with a 

 high fence round it, with guards in evidence 

 night and day, where a little old man is at work, 

 trying to do on a commercial scale what he 

 alleges to have done in the laboratory, and that 

 is to produce synthetic rubber from certain oils. 



