533 
The growth and returns of rubber from the few trees, which are 
big enough to judge from, seem up to standard. The oldest trees, ten 
years old (300 in number), gave three pounds of rubber per tree. 
There are about a dozen plantations, the biggest of which 
possesses 14,000 trees from 1 to 1% years old. 
The rainfall in Surinam is given as averaging 90 inches 
distributed over the year. This corresponds very well to our rainfall 
here and we should say was suitable.— Ed. 
RUBBER IN AFRICA 
There is still a steady demand for seeds of Para rubber for 
Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and by all accounts the plants are 
thriving in those regions. There is indeed no reason at present 
apparent as to why they should not, the climate being suitable. Even 
native chiefs are taking up the cultivation. 
The native rubber, Funtumia elastica, we hear, is not coming out 
strongly as a plant of cultivation. Its returns are poor, as has been 
pointed out some time ago, and its growth by no means compares 
with that of Hevea. 
Under the title “The Dark African Rubber Prospect,” “The India 
Rubber World” gives an account from the. Directors’ reports of some 
of the African Rubber Companies on the Congo which show a great 
falling off, both in supply and quality. One Company, which had 
a profit of nearly 5 million francs, has a loss on the year’s work 
in 1908 of over fourteen thousand francs. The results of this great 
falling off in the Congo rubber trade are that the Belgian capitalists 
are transferring their investments to the East Indies. — E d. 
RUBBER TESTING MACHINES. 
We have received a pamphlet by M. Pierre Breuil of Paris 
entitled “Les Essais mechaniques du caoutchouc et des Tissus”. 
This is a reprint from the reports of the International Congress for 
testing materials, at Copenhagen. 
The author describes and illustrates by necessary figures two 
machines intended for testing crude or prepared rubbers in various 
ways. 
One of the machines is a dynamometer, by which the 
tensility of a sample may be tested and by a slight alteration the 
same instrument may be used to determine the plasticity, com- 
pressibility, and the effects produced by repeated flexions. 
The instrument is self-recording when used for tensility. Full 
descriptions of the machine and its use and a good series of figures 
are given, which unfortunately we are unable to reproduce, and the 
apparatus would appear to be a very useful one in the laboratory or 
on the estate. 
