The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-04-21
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Scientists Serve Their Fellow.
man in a New
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A oSTON. April 20.-Big touring
I6l cars. devils of the race courses,
handy little runabouts, and the
other kinds of automobiles which have
become familiar to Americans within
the past few years. are in large meas
ure responsible for the fact that TWEEN
ty-fiye- expeditions are today in differ
ent parts of South and Central America
searching for rubber plantations 1t
hardly seems possible that the sudden
broadening of the field of usefulness of
the automobile should make any con-
siderable difference in a matter of this
kind, but the motorcar, with its tubing,
its tires. its insulation, its springs and
other parts In which rubber is used,
has not only started the exploring
parties In their journeying through
the tropics but has brought the indus
trial scientists face to face with the
probability that the available supply
OF caout-chouc will be exhausted inside
OF fifty years. Other causes have con-
tr1buted to this condition, of course.
The bicycle, for instance, has helped
deplete the worlds stock of caout-
chouc. but Ii never made demands such
as are likely to come as automobiles
multiply.
There are plenty of rubber trees left
In the world to last for a long while,
put many or them are in places which
are inaccessible. Even now, the native
South Americans must be depended
upon to gather the gum since few
white men can live in the jungles from
which IT is brought, and such are the
difficulties of transportation that II
VIII not be possible for even the ma
tives to penetrate much further into
the forests and-bring burdens back
with them.
In such a menacing crisis industry
turns to its chemists. It is their busi-
ness not alone to find a substitute for
raw material the stock of which is
being reduced by degrees to the van
lshing point, but also to find one that
will be economical, or at least one
without a prohibitive cost. Scores of
things are chemically possible, but
commercially impracticable because of
their expense. 1t is with the more
serious of these problems that the
great experimental laboratories of the
country, like that at the Massachu-
sets Institute of Technology, for ex-
ample, are engaged. On the special
Investigators in such places the COM
mercial chemist must depend for many
OF the details of the research work TO
which he has no time TO devote.
There Is curious difficulty about
finding way-of making rubber artifi-
cially. The component elements of the
substance have been determined by
analysis. They are the same and are
In the same proportion as those of tur-
pentine, but they have united in an en-
tirely different form. There is then, as
DR.. William II. Walker of the institute
points out something peculiar about the
physical processes in the formation of
caout- chouc. Scientists have deter
mined tho Phan1fnoI ole hui
have been unable to duplicate the mo-
lecuiar aggregation to which the phys
ical properties of rubber are due A
substitute has been devised which can
be used for many things, but IL lacks
elasticity-the power to contract to its
original form after being stretched;
resiliency 1t has to a certain degree.
1t is compound of sulphur and OIL
originally linseed oil, but nowadays
cotton seed or another low grade of OIL
For hard springs, like car springs, IL is
excellent; II Is used for pedal treads on
bicycles, for rubber mating, floor
strips and dozen other things COM
monty spoken of as rubber. But IL
does not wholly take the place of the
natural gum. as there must always be
some admixture of caout-chouc TO give
IL the right consistency. However, the
Industrial scientists think that they
now have in sight a solution of the
rubber difficulty, for they seem at last
to be working toward the discovery of
natures method or making the physical
combination of the chemical elements
While people who ride in automobiles
are helping to exhaust the worlds
supply OF rubber, and are thus max
ing work for the Industrial scientist
he has plenty of other tasks on hand
Just now, among his other activities,
is that of finding new ways of pro-
curing turpentine. AS the available
rubber plantations are disappearing
so the pines Of the south, from which
turpentine is drawn, are being cut
away faster than they grow. Besides,
| there Is a great waste in the turpen-
tine forests. for trees that die from
natural causes cannot be utilized in the
usual process of obtaining this i'm
portant commodity. One Of the inter-
esting pieces of special investigation
| now under way in the Industrial chem
istry laboratory at the Institute of
Technology concerns the utilization of
/ stumps and roots as well as dead
wood. The equipment used is a retort.
consisting OF steel cylinder surround
ed by a jacket into which steam SUI
perheated to an extremely high tenn
1 perature Is introduced. The cylinder
is filed with chips OF pine, the dead
wood as well as what IS called light
4 wood" In the south-'-light," not be-
cause of its weight, for It is pieces of
| stumps and roots heavy with sap, but
because it is thought fit only for kind
| ling fires.
| The tremendous heat from the steam
| jacket brings out OF the chips every
| drop of liquid. and this is drawn off
| through a pipe. When Ii is distilled
| for the turpentine it contains, there Is
| obtained. as a by-product, a heavy oil,
the nature and possible usefulness of
which are not yet known, since it does
not appear in the ordinary process of
getting turpentine. So II seems per-
/ fectly possible to obtain a commercial
| product artificially, in this case. The
| question that remains is whether suf-
ficiently high grade turpentine can be
made in this way economically enough
| TO make ii commercially worth while.
4 Perhaps the unknown oil will have
| considerable bearing on the question;
| at any rate, the experiment is being
watched with much interest.
1 In another of the rooms OF the in
stitutes industrial chemistry depart
ment an investigator is seeking some
means of improving the process of
making paper pulp from wood so as to
| do away with the Objectionable by
| products which have in some states