Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1895-03-07
INDIA RUBBER INDUSTRY.
PROGRESS OF THE GUM FROM FOR,
EST TO FACTORY.
With the Gatherers in BrazIl-The
Process of Vulcanizlng-Many Ar
tfcles Only Rubber-Clad.


tho evening to drop his
threadbare arctics into garbage box
he has an idea that their days of use
fulness are over. But there is where
he is mistaken.
The rag-pickers and rubbish-gath-
erers rescue the overshoes and gather
the arctics out of the garbage box and
sell them to the man who makes more
money buying waste material than
some do in corner lots or deals on the
Board Of Trade. This man sends the
old worn-out footgear which has india
rubber in it to the india-rubber fac
tory, and there the old shoes are
worked up into garden hose, wagon
springs, door mats, betting and hun.
dred other things turned out of india
rubber.
Simon pure rubber has its limita-
tions in the industrial arts; it is too
soft, too stretchy and has not enough
"body" and general toughness to with
stand the wear and tear to which over
shoes, door-mats and garden hose are
subjected. Then again rubber is too
costly to be put in it's shape into many
of the everyday articles which are
classed as india-rubber goods, so the
manufacturer mixes in rubber which
has seen service with the pure Para
gum, and makes it into the thousand
and one things which are regarded as
Indispensable by machinists, cleo
tricians, w0rkmen In all trades, and,
in short, every person in the civilized
world. By mixing old rubber, min.
eral earths and other substances with
the pure gum the manufacturer is able
to produce an article which he can
sell at seventeen pound or less, when
the pure gum is selling for sixty-five
cents pound or more.
The best india rubber comes from
Brazil, and the best Of that from the
upper Amazon River, and this is the
''hne Para" of commerce. It is sent
to the factories in the United States
in the shape of irregular Jumps
known as ''bisquits," and these bis.
quits are made by the "seringueiros, "
the rubber gatherers of Brazil.
Tho seringueiro starts out with his
little tomahawl1 about 8 o'clock in the
morning, for if he plunged at an ear
lier hour into the rank undergrowth
of the forest in which the rubber tree
grows the heavy dew would soak
him through in few minutes. With
his tomahawk in hand he goes from
one rubber tree to another, cutting
little gashes in the bark and fastening
under the cuts small tin or clay cups,
not much larger than teacups. He
blazes the trees until noon, when he
retraces his steps and finds that the
cups are filled with the milk-white
sap which has dripped from the
wounds he made in the bark. The
sap is poured into basin-like vessel
and taken to tho hut where the gum
is to be cured. This Is done by
smoking the gum over queer furnace
shaped like On inverted vase, under
which is burned the nuts OF the uru-
cary, a species of palm. The nuts
make dense smoke, which pours out
of the neck of the furnace. The
workman, squatting beside his fire,
dips into the rubber sap q wooden
paddle, to which clings n thin layer oi
the sticky juice. Then the gum
smeared paddle is held and turned in
the smoke until the water In the sap
evaporates, when the paddle is dipped
into the sap again. This operation is
repeated until the gum forms large
lump on the paddle about the size ol
q man's head. This is cut from the
wood, and after the "bisquit," as the
ball of gum is called, has been ex-
posed to the sun for time, to CON-
plete the drying, it is piled up with
the other BISCUITS and shipped away.
Tho india rubber manufacturer first
cleans the rubber, for bits of leaves,
pieces OF bark, earth, stones and other
foreign substances are mixed with il
in the BISCUIT, SO the BISCUIT is put in
tho "washing machine" This is CON-
posed of q pair Of toothed rollers,
over which perforated water pipe
hangs. The crude rubber is cut,
squeezed and mashed between the
rollers, and spray of water carries
off the impurities. The rubber comes
from the washing machine in irregular
strips, rough Us bark and resembling
somewhat tho old slabs of lumber
which arc piled up outside of saw
mill. Tho linking" machine, tc
which the rubber Is taken next, is NOT
unlike tho washing machine, for il
has pair Of steel roller, and owe,
them is box or hopper filled will
the compound which the rubber
maker mixes with the puro rubber
It is at this stage of tho manufactur,
that the old overshoes, arctics. garden
hose and other worn-out rubber good,
begin life again.
In the compound also is the sulphur
in one form or another, which "vul
canizes" the rubber and which give.
to manufactured rubber those preser.
vative qualities, the absence of which
prevented rubber from entering intt
the industrial art until it was dis
covered that sulphur was the sub
stance the chemists had long beer
lOokinu for fNho uoeho1 rul,har mn