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the synthetic dye. The writer’s intimate and long connection with 
the industry and thorough knowledge of all the practical details of 
working a factory will, he trusts, give some assurance that the data 
on which this statement is made have been carefully collected and 
considered.” 
Indian Planters Gazette, March 12, 1910. 
Synthetic camphor is another product which has been said to 
interfere with the production of the natural article. It is made from 
pinene. a carbon compound of essential oil of turpentine. This which 
is the only source of real artificial rubber is of limited supply and 
fluctuating price. The artificial camphor however is not the same 
as the real article as it gives an unpleasant musty smell to clothes 
when used for keeping off moths. None of these synthetics are in fact 
the same thing as the natural products and cannot be used for all the 
purposes for which the natural substance is required though for 
certain purposes they can be used as a substitute. Both indigo and 
camphor are used practically for one object only the first as a dye, 
the second as the manufacture of celluloid and pegamoid (a subs- 
titute for leather). Rubber is used for many purposes and it is not 
probable any synthetic rubber would do tor all while the price at which 
rubber can be made to pay, practically precludes most of the suggested 
synthetics which could not be reduced in price so as to be cheaper. —E d. 
POSITION OF THE RUBBER MARKET. 
“The bulk of British capital invested has gone to the Middle 
East. Last year eighty-nine new companies were formed, with a 
total capital of ten millions sterling, of which six and half millions 
was offered for subscription ; but already this year forty-four new 
companies have been floated, with a capital of 54,780,001, of which 
4,283,5001. has been issued, and at the time of writing they are being 
floated at the rate of a dozen a week in order to catch the boom. 
With planting on so gigantic a scale the present phenomenal high 
prices for raw rubber are bound to decline at some time, but nobody 
can say when. The intrinsic merit of the rubber position at the 
moment is that consumption is close up to production, hence the 
present record prices, for manufacturers do not as a rule lay in heavy 
stocks of a material thlft does not improve with keeping. How 
narrow the margin is between production and consumption may be 
gleSmed trom the fact that (according to a well known rubber-broker’s 
annua) report) the world’s out-put last year was about 69,000 tons, 
against 65,000 tons in 1908 and 69,000 tons in 1907; while the 
consumption was estimated at about 68,000 tons in 1909, 65,000 tons 
in 1908, 60,000 tons in 1907, and 65,000 tons in 1906. The world’s 
visible supply at the beginning of February 1910 was 5,059 tons 
