Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1892-12-16
RUBBER SHOES.
THE MAXIMUM SUPPLY OF
CAOUrCHOUC REACHED.
The Tree ana Its snp-How the Juice
is Collected Processes OF Dianu.
Observation-Disclosures Inven-
ton and Its Result.
'fV YES, these rubbcrs look wolf

",
but they are not going to
g last me, good as they look,
moro tnan few days. [ tell you, the
rubbcrs used to buy twelve or thirteen
years ago were rubbers that would out.
wear three or four pairs of the best you
Gun buy now,' so speaking u, he fitted
pair OF new rubber5 to his feet, the
old gentleman brought first one foot
down and then the other firmly, handed
the quiet clcr6 the dollar asked, aud
then raising his umbrella he went out
arm In arm with the Star writer.
"Iknow what | am talking about" he
added, az we went down the street.
"My father aud his father before him
were in the rubber business and have
pair OF one of the first pure and simple
rubber shoes ever made. They are u
dull rusty red aud about as brittle now
rs glass, guess, for they have stood UP,
unused, as curiosity since 1916 Now,
young man, the fact of tho existence of
a milky juice in many plants, which
hows from them when their tissues arc
injured, is n fact that has been familiarly
| known from time immcmorial. 1t is,
however, really only recent matter of
discovery that this particular milky Juice
oil the rubber tree (siphonia eastica) wa,
OF any real economic value to man. 1t
was not until the expedition OF the
| French acadcmiciaus to South America
in l735 that its utility apd nature was
made known to Europe by n memoir
published upon it by NJ. dc In Conda-
mine. This notice excited little or no
attention. Then again subjects of this
! kind were again called up in 1851. by
NJ. Fresncau and i'll 1865 by NJ. Mac.
quer It was so little thought of b,
economical man, however, that not until
1796 and 1906 did it even rot notice
IN Great Britain. Then it came there in
small pieces, dark reddish humps, which
were used for rubbing out black lead
pencil marks and TINT gave it the name
Of rubber, which it wears, though the
native name in South America, where
most of it comes from, was then and is
now 'caoutchouc.'
"By 1870 the substance was model
into waterproof boots and shoes, bat
the color OF the material WAS so dis,.
| Srccablc that no one liked to wear it un-
less literally obliged TO. But along by
1880 Charles Goodyear began to expert
mcnt at Pniladelphia on the cmploym mt
OF gum cllstic,' as we also called i,
then, so rs to lit it for general use by n
particular nitric acid process, which hc
so perfected in 1888 that he had about
solved the problem, ani by 1899 he had
settled the difficulty and succeeded in
vulcanizlng or cbonizing India rubocr by
means of sulphur. He kept improving
his processes AMI took out over sixty
United States patents before lie dicl in
1860.
"Well, the result of this work OF
Goodyear WAS to maize the rubber boots,
shoes aud coats ut once popular and
sigatly articles of wearing gear, and the
dcmand was suddenly increased and has
been steadily increasing ever since, for IL
supply of the raw material. To give
you some idea OF the jump whca it
ma lie then in 1879 only 80, 800 poun Is
of natural caoulchouc was imported into
the whole market Of Great Britaia; in
| 1Sl?, or about two years after, Good.
year had produced n Clean, shiny black
shoe, the British market called for 500, :
| COZ pounds, and to-day the an cunt has
| prodigiously increased over these figures
not only in Great Britain, but the
| Chltcd States and all the rest of the
civilized world this immense demanl
OF thousands AMI thousands Of tons uu-
nual!y for every market on the face OF
the earth. What the whole aggregate is
dare not say. This demand has SET all
the natives of India, of madagascar, OF
South America, of lava and of Central
America and the Indian archipelas 20 harI
Mt the work of tapping the rubber forests
Of their native lands.
'No. | believe that we have fully
reached the maximum limit OF raw run-
Der supply, that it will never be nny
greater and we shall be lucky il it does
not steadily grow less. But we have
not reached the full limit OF demand.
More boots and shoes will be callcl for
every year, and we shall have them sent
20 us cast thinner and thinner until the
sham will declare itself TO the dulles;
buyer. What we will do then | don't
know. Perhaps some inventive genius
will find substitute.
"a rubber cimpi in one of the South
American or Indian districts put me in
mind somewhat Of maple sugar "-ov..
| A''1 III NOiNcu III fCCulOuC OF OalO, 0alV
everything about the place is wilder,
darker and ruder. Tho natives dig oue
4 rude trench orhole ut the foot Of tin.
rubber tree, which is not large tree.
never much larger than ten to twelve
inches in diameter and fifty or sixty feet
nigga. They then make All inc.sion in
iAe trunk of this tree, which is Jus:
ibout the same cut that n pine tree cut
ter resin down in North Carolina cxhlp-
its.
"rhe caoutchouc, when in the tissue,
of the tree, is fluid like that OF the pines,
Dat it coagulates so quickly wncn it
drops down into the carthen trcnon pre-.
pared for its reception that nothing e,.
capci by filtration down into the earth,
and in this receptacle, as it runs from the
tree, it forms n solid mass similar in cx.
tcrn. character to vegetable alLumen,
Of rusty or n brownlsh or grayish
red color. 1t is dense and hard, ard it
may be by proper manipulation rolled
| nj n n u,t oA ~, a..