192 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



quality, the very quality which was absent in 

 plantation rubber. If they wanted uniformity 

 they must try the smoke cure. 



Mr Tudhope— advocated the collecting of the 

 latex at central factories, as was done with re- 

 gard to milk in Denmark. They would have to 

 place in charge of these factories highly-qualified 

 men. They would then produce rubber in tons 

 where at present they were producing it in 

 hundredweights, and the trouble as to uniform 

 quality would be at an end. 



The Chairman — said that on the question of 

 uniformity the proposal of Mr Tudhope pre- 

 sented many difficulties which were prevented 

 from being carried out. So far as he could 

 judge, what was likely to happen was that they 

 would have the estate marks for the production 

 of the estates, and the estate managers them- 

 selves would be the best judges of what grade 

 they should make their different kinds of rubber. 

 The testing of milk was a very different thing to 

 the testing of latex. 



Mr Kelway Bambek — in replying on the dis- 

 cussion, further illustrated his new method of 

 tapping, and said he believed it would prove 

 a success. With regard to uniform quality, he 

 believed it was only a question of time and that 

 the present difficulties would be overcome. — H. 

 & C. Mail, July 14. 



THE WOOD-ALCOHL INDUSTRY IN 

 GERMANY. 



The wood-alcohol industry in Germany made 

 slow progress until 1880, when the law providing 

 for the denaturation of alcohol was passed, but 

 about the same time the importation of wood 

 alcohol and pyrolignite of lime from the United 

 States began, and a number of the wood distil- 

 ling firms merely bought up these imported raw 

 products and manufactured them into acetic 

 acid, methyl alcohol, and denatured wood 

 alcohol. The largest concerns, however, soon 

 established their own distilling plants in the 

 thickly- wooded surrounding countries of Galicia, 

 Hungary, and Russia, and imported their raw 

 products to their refining plants in Germany. 

 Exact figures of the production of wood alcohol 

 and pyrolignite of lime are not published, 

 but according to a reliable estimate there were 

 produced in a recent year, in Austria-Hungary, 

 and Germany, about 6,500 metric tons of the 

 former and 27,000 to 28,000 metric tons of the 

 latter. The industry has also suffered somewhat 

 of late years on account of the competition with 

 the great volume of denatured potato and grain 

 alcohol produced in Germany. The fact that 

 deciduous varieties of wood are comparatively 

 scarce in Germany is another reason why tfie 

 wood alcohol industry is not so far advanced. 

 Chemists and distillers state that wood from 

 coniferous trees produces only about one-half 

 the wood alcohol and pyroligneous acid pro- 

 duced by wood from deciduous varieties, and 

 that the profitable distillation in the former 

 case depends upon the quality and quantity of 

 the pine oil and tar obtained. On account of the 

 costliness and general application of these 

 woods the stumps of coniferous trees are practi- 

 cally all that are distilled. The distillation of 



sawdust and wood refuse has not proved profit- 

 able, because practically all these products in 

 Germany come from coniferous woods, which 

 not only produce little alcohol and pyroligneous 

 acid, but very little tar and pine oil. The char- 

 coal obtained in the distillation of sawdust, 

 which is the only other product of possible com- 

 mercial worth, is comparatively valueless, be- 

 cause it is in powder form, and efforts to obtain 

 it in briquette form have as yet proved unsuc- 

 cessful. — Royal Society of Arts Journal for July. 



SYNTHETIC RUBBER. 



And the Test Committee. 

 The challenge by Mr Stanes Manders, the 

 organising manager of the Rubber Exhibition, 

 to the Caoutchouc Syndicate to manufacture 

 synthetic rubber under test conditions was, as 

 stated in our issue of Monday, accepted by the 

 syndicate. 



The demonstration will take place today. The 

 committee officially suggested to ascertain 

 whether the claims made by the syndicate are 

 capable of satisfactory proof includes Dr Henry 

 P Stevens, m.a., f.i.c, Dr. Philip Schidrowitz, 

 f.c.s., and the Chemical Expert of the Finan- 

 cier, Mr Hermann C T Gardner, f.c.s., m.p.s. 

 The operations connected with the manufacture 

 of the substitute will commence this (Wednes- 

 day) afternoon at 4 o'clock. A strict watch over 

 the substance will be kept day and night until 

 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon, when the substitute 

 for natural rubber will be on view and tested in 

 all ways by experts, the tests including the one 

 of vulcanisation. 



Our readers may care to hear that the experi- 

 ment of making ' synthetic ' rubber by the for- 

 mula of tho Caoutchouc Syndicate, Limited, to 

 which reference has been made in our news 

 columns as prospective, is now under way. On 

 Wednesday a quantity of the syndicate's is- 

 oprene— and something else; what, we do not 

 know— was placed, in the presence of commit- 

 tees oE experts and journalists, in an autoclave 

 and there it will remain sealed at the necessary 

 temperature until Saturday afternoon at four 

 o'clock. The receptacle then will be opened in 

 the presence of the committees (having been 

 kept under strict observation by both parties to 

 the experiment to prevent interference by either 

 side), and the resultant mass will be handed 

 over to the inventor of the process for treat- 

 ment. This it will undergo under the observa- 

 tion of the committee of experts, and at seven 

 o'clock on the same evening it is to be divided 

 up, one portion going to the Silvertown rubber 

 works for vulcanisation and the others beiog 

 handed over to the investigating experts for 

 testing purposes. As a member of the journa- 

 listic committee we cannot indulge in any ex- 

 pression of opinion at the present juncture, but 

 we might just point out that we endorse Sir 

 Henry Blake's remarks prior to the initiation of 

 the experiment that the production of some 

 substance resembling rubber leaves the com- 

 mercial aspects of the invention still to be con- 

 sidered, and that the real crux of any test lies 

 not in starting oft with the isoprene as pre- 

 pared but in the making of the isoprene. — Fi- 

 nancier, July 5. 



