The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



A "SYNTHETIC RUBBER MEETING/' 



Costs of Production of Wild versus 

 Plantation Rubber. 



There is a note of pathos in the report of the 

 proceedings of the Synthetic Rubber Company, 

 Limited, which, if it cannot be said to appeal 

 to us, extorts at least our respectful sympathy. 

 We have no desire to review in detail the 

 anticipatory past of this venture— shareholders 

 have already had the story (in somewhat dis- 

 connected detachments) from the lips of their 

 Chairman, and it is certainly not our business 

 to anticipate that gentleman's inevitable con- 

 clusion. But as many of our readers are doubt- 

 less outside the charmed circle of shareholders 

 in the Synthetic Rubber Company, Limited, 

 whose third annual meeting was held at St. 

 Ermin's Hotel, Westminster, on March 24th 

 laRt, vve may be forgiven if we refer to the very 

 nicely-printed report of the proceedings thereat 

 a correspondent (who prefers to remain anony- 

 mous) has forwarded to us. The Chairman 

 (Mr Robert Wiggles worth) having congratulated 

 the shareholders upon " the patience and for- 

 bearance they had displayed during the past IS 

 months," asked for " a renewal of that 

 patience and forbearance while he endeavoured 

 briefly, but quite frankly, to put them in pos- 

 session of all that had happened " — since Sep- 

 tember, 1907. " That is to say," he continued, 

 "all that mattered, for, as they might readily 

 imagine, many things had happened which now 

 no longer mattered." Well ! It seems unkind 

 to pursue the story of yet another synthetic 

 rubber failure further than the mere announce- 

 ment that it has been a failure, but, as we are 

 included in Mr Wigglesworth's reference to 

 "rubber journals or financial papers " (we like 

 the "or," by the way) which have adversely com- 

 mented upon the proposals of any synthetic pro- 

 cess taking the place of wild or cultivated rubber 

 with the manufacturing community, in Europe 

 or elsewhere, we think that it is only right that 

 a fair summary of the chairman's remarks should 

 be placed at the disposal of our readers. 

 The Gottschalk Process. 



Mr Wigglesworth told his audience at the 

 meeting at St. Ermin s Hotel on March 24th 

 last, that eighteen months prior to the date in 

 question, trie directors had reported ou a demon- 

 stration of Dr. Gottschalk's process which had 

 been carried out at the house of Mr Russell 

 Clarke, and that a substance had been produced, 

 which, on being submitted to the chemical ex- 

 pert of the Synthetic Rubber Company, Limited, 

 was pronounced by him (Mr Bertram Blount) "to 

 have the same constituents as rubber." Mr 

 Blount, being a careful man, was not prepared 

 to accept the sample submitted to him as final, 

 although he admitted that the 'product' showed 

 under analysis 1 the same physical properties as 

 natural rubber 1 and ' was rubber.' The synthe- 

 tic Rubber Company's directors next instructed 

 Mr Blount to repeat the Gottschalk experiment 

 in his own laboratory, following the inventor's 

 instructions, and this, according to all evidence 

 he did do. ' This experiment, 1 6aid Mr Wiggles- 

 worth, in his speech on March 24th, ' had been 

 made in October, and had proved a total failure, 

 and from that clay to this not one ounce of rub- 



ber had been made by Dr. Gottschalk's method.' 

 No one in his senses would any more than the 

 Chairman and directors of the Synthetic Rubber 

 Company, Limited,have done,impute fraud to the 

 inventor or unfair dealing when the invention 

 was demonstrated at Mr Russell Clarke's house 

 — but the result of the demonstration was not 

 commercial rubber. The Synthetic Rubber 

 Company's Chairman thon proceeded to explain 

 to his hearers that Dr. Gottschalk's patents were 



BASED ON THE CONVERSION OF ONE OF THE HYDRO- 

 CARBONS INTO RUBBERBY A BACTERIOLOGICAL 

 PROCESS. 1 



The production of this hydro-carbon was one 

 part of the process; its conversion into rubber 

 another. ' In starting,' said the Chairman, 

 when explaining the process in brief ' what might 

 be termed a commercial unit of manufacture, 

 a small factory had been| taken and equipped 

 for the production of the hydro-carbon. The 

 services of Mr Mark Barr, a gentleman of high 

 reputation as an engineer and physicist, had 

 been engaged to take charge of the factory, and 

 he had been in charge of it from its inception 

 to the present timo. To investigate the subject 

 of bacteriological conversion they had secured 

 the services of Dr. Gordon, who he believed, 

 possessed a knowledge of the subject second to 

 none. As a chemist they had engaged Mr 

 Lilley, who had come to them from Oxford with 

 high credentials. These, then, were the Com- 

 pany's exports. Now the conclusion which the 

 Directors and experts had unanimously come 

 to with regard to the failure of Mr Blount's 

 experiment was that the process which Dr. 

 Gottschalk relied upon was not so simple as he 

 believed — in fact, that it was exceedingly com- 

 plex, that he hail not observed important con- 

 ditions, and that he was in entire ignorance of 

 others. This conclusion, indeed, seemed to 

 have been confirmed by subsequent investiga- 

 tions. The work done by Dr. Gordon in his en- 

 deavour to discover the lost conditions had been 

 simply colossal. He had undertaken months and 

 months of patient work ; he had had a fruitless 

 journey to America, and he had made literally 

 thousands of laboratory experiments with only 

 negative results. The Directors were greatly in- 

 debted to him for the zeal with which he had 

 tackled the problem. Although the direct results 

 of all these investigations had been negative, thoy 

 believed the indirect results — namely the know- 

 lodge gained of the whole subject — would be of 

 "considerable importance." All of which, as our 

 old friend Popys might have said, is "mighty 

 pretty" — but it is not rubber. 



SYNTHETIC RUBBER— ANOTHER WAY. 



While we do not believe that in our time (and 

 possibly that of our children) Mr Wiggles- 

 worth's idea, to the effect that "synthetic rubber 

 is bound to come," will materialise, we may 

 take leave to congratulate him and his co-direc- 

 tors on their pluck in expending a considerable 

 amount of money in investigating the Heinemann 

 process. We had occasion some little time ago 

 to deal with this particular invention in these 

 "Notes," and the conclusion we arrived at with 

 regard to it was singularly on all fours with the 

 decision the Synthetic Rubber Company, 

 Limited, and their advisers ultimately reached 

 as to its commercial value. That being so, we 



