329 
with a sample of fine Para. Both samples were subjected to the 
same treatment, and as will be seen by the following figures, the re- 
sults, obtained were practically identical. 
Breaking Strain 
Name 
of Sample. Weight. Extension, 
Malayan 58 lb. gi ins. 
Fine Para 58 lb. gh ins. 
The only point in favour of Fine Para is in permanent set after 
five minutes extension and five minutes rest. The figures given re- 
present set of 7.81 and 6.25 per cent., so that in this respect there is 
1.56 per cent, advantage to Fine Para. Against , this must be put 
I y 2 lb. in the third column and V 2 lb. in the fourth column. These 
represent 7.1 and 2.8 per cent, resistance to pull in favour of Malayan 
rubber. All these differences are, however, so slight that were a 
number of tests instituted they would doubtless practically disappear. 
We may, 1 submit, conclude as the result of these most interesting 
experiments, that when Malayan plantation rubber is prepared in the 
same way as Brazilian rubber, the two substances are indistinguish- 
able in quality , and that there is the strongest probability that they 
are the product of one and the same species of Hevea. 
As people may hastily jump to the conclusion, from the above- 
stated facts, that the only way to prepare Para rubber so as to retain 
its best characteristics is the Brazilian method, I may add that at the 
same time and under the same conditions a sample of Malayan un- 
smoked sheet plantation rubber, coagulated by the acetic acid 
method, was also vulcanized and tested, and the results obtained 
were much higher than those of either of the two rubbers already 
mentioned. I cannot give the name of the producing company, nor 
the details of the tests and manufacture, until the consentof the com- 
pany has been obtained. 
The conclusion which these and other tests so generously made 
by the Continental Rubber Company of New York, during the Exhi- 
bition, forces upon me is the urgent necessity of the Mid-Eastern 
rubber planters having a properly equipped vulcanizing and testing 
laboratory of their own, wLbre the many problems connected with 
the growing and preparation of rubber could be worked out, and the 
quality of their product the by raised and standardised. I had the 
opportunity of meeting and talking to many manufacturers at the 
Exhibition, and what they all seem to require is a rubber of a definite 
character, so that before they buy, say, a hundred ton lot, they will 
know exactly how to treat it without wasting time and money in bul- 
king it and in experimental work. This points to the necessity of 
concerted action on the part of the planters. 
Elasticity and Recovery. 
Permanent set 
Pull after after 5 
Pull. 5 minutes, minutes rest. 
21 lb. 174 lb. 10 
19^ lb. 17 lb. 8 
L. Wray. 
