So far 1 have treated the subject from two points of view the 
first is the scientific if somewhat academic consideration of the 
latex itself; the second is a practical criticism of the faults inhe- 
rent in the methods of preparation now in use and suggestions 
hovv to improve them. But along these lines there cannot, I 
think, be much further progress. The samples of rubber exhi- 
bited at the Show left little or nothing to be desired; they were 
clean, dry, elegant preparations, but when one considers the labour 
of preparation, each sheet being separately made by hand, the time 
taken before the sheets are ready to pack and in general the fin- 
icking nature of the work one feels that such methods can only 
be possible on a small scale and in the early stage of an industry. 
If there were no alternative nothing more could be said but one 
would have to be content to continue as before, and multiply 
labour, space and wasted time as the estates came into fuller 
bearing. But there fortunately is a simple and effective method 
of preparing rubber which yields a product which is more valu- 
able to the manufacturer and which is easier to make than the neat 
small transparent sheets prepared at present. 
The rubber sheets as exported at present are not in a condition 
tit for the manufacturers use. The first thing that must alwafs 
be done with them is to break them between steel rollers, wash, 
tear to pieces, re-combine, and then dry them. This is effected 
by means of a rubber washing machine which in essential con- 
sists of two steel rollers revolving on one another at different 
speeds. The rubber passing through is torn to pieces, a jet of water 
playing on it all the time. The fragments rejoin and finally a 
crinkled sheet porous and in some degree resembling crepe work 
is produced. This when dry is ready for further use by the manu- 
facturer and is known technically as washed rubber. 
It was, I believe, Dr. Carl Otto Weber who first suggested 
the application of such a machine in the preparation of rubber 
direct from the latex in the case of Castilloa which is otherwise 
more troublesome to prepare than Para rubber. 
The suggestion had been made that a similar machine could be 
used tor la ra lubber and from drawings* supplied by Mr. Pears, 
an experimental machine was constructed by the Federated En- 
gineering Company under the supervision of Mr. Russell, and it 
was this machine which was to be seen at work at the Show. 
At the demonstration samples of washed rubber prepared by 
the manufacturer in England from crude imported rubber were 
shewn and rubber in similar form but of better colour was pre- 
pared by the machine from freshly coagulated latex, proving that 
the machine was capable of producing rubber in a form fit for 
direct use by the manufacturers. 
The most striking demonstration of the use of the machine was 
made on a subsequent occasion in the presence of the Resident- 
Ceneral as follows : — 
A milk can containing two or three gallons of freshly collected 
