The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-23

Boston. April 22, 19O5.-Big touring oars devils" of the race courses, handy little runabouts. and other kinds of automobiles which nave pe- come familiar to Americans within the past few years, are in large measure responsible for the fact that twenty five expeditions are today in different parts of South and Central America searching for rubber plantations II hardly seems possible that the sudden broadening of the field of usefulness of the automobile should make any considerable difference in matter or this kind, but the motorcar, with US tubing, its tires. it's insulatlon' US springs and other parts in which rub her is used. has not only started the exnloring parties in their JourneylnS through the tropics but has brought the industrial scientists face to race with the probability that the avalla- ble supply of caout- -chouc will be eX- hausted inside of fifty years. other causes have contributed to this condl- ton. of course. The bicycle, for in stance, has helped deplete the world 5 stock of caout-chouc but 1t 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, but many of them are in places which are inaccessible. Even now the native South Americans must be de- pended 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 it will not be possible for the natives to penetrate much further into the forests and bring burdens back with them.
 In such a menancing crisis industry turns to it's chemists. It IS their busi- ness not alone to find a substitute for a raw material the stock of which Is being reduced by degrees to the van ishIng 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. It is with the more serious of these problems that the great experimental laboratories of the country, like that at the Massachu- setts 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 a curious difficulty about finding a way of making rubber arti ficiaIly. The component elements of
 
 by analysis. They are the same and are in the same proportion az those ot turpentine. but they have united in an entirely different form. There is then. as pr. William II. Walker of the In- stitute points out. something peculiar about the physical processes in -he formation of caout-chouc. Scientists have determined the chemical ele- ments. but they have been unable to duplicate the molecular aggregation to which the physical properties of rub ber are due A substitute has been devised which can be used for many things, but it lacks elasticity-the power to contract to it's original form utter being stretched; resiliency 1t has to a certain degree. It is a compound of sulphur and oil-originally linseed oil. bat nowadays cottonseed or anoth- CT low grade of oil. For hard springs. like car springs. It is excellent; 1t IS used for pedal treads on bicycles. for rubber mating. floor strips. and dozen other things commonly spoken of as rubber But it does not wholly take the place of the natural gum. as there must always be some admiXture of caout-c chouc to give 1t the rizat consistency. However. the industrial scientists think that they now have in sight solution of the rubber diff culty, for they seem at last to be working toward the discovery of nat tres method of making the physical combination of the chemical elements.
 While people who ride in autpTn1- piles are helping to exhaust the worlds supply of rubber, and are thus making work for tho industrial S-i- enlist. he has plenty of other tasks on hand. Just now. among his other ac- tivities, is that of finding new ways of procuring turpentine. As the available rubber plantations are dis appearing so the pines of the South. from which turpentine is drawn. ore being cut away faster than they grow. Besides there Is d great waste in the turpentiEc forests. for trees that die from natural causes cannot be utilized in the usual process of obtaining this important commodity. One of the in- teresting pieces of special investiga- tion now under way in the industrial chemistry laboratory at the Institute of Technology concerns the utilization of stumps and roots as well as dead wood. The equipment used is a re-