The Republican journal., 1907-08-08
exceptional ability, not only as trans
lator but as an executive. The bureau
chief married her.
THE STORY OF RUBBER.
Demand Has Increased Wonderfully But
Supply Has Not.


Demand Has Increased Wonderfully But
Supply Has Not.
The modern world has CAPPED with
wonder at the fabulous prices which
are paid for an almost invisible speck of
radium. In other days the world won
dered just as much when the hunters
for strange things paid guinea an
ounce for little ball of pure elastic
gum to put in their cabinets.
And now that this gum, or rubber, has
become one of the necessities of life
(more than 125, 900, 900 pounds of it are
used in the world each year, the high
est grade, free of impurities, still costs
the manufacturer s1.50 pound, one of
the highest prices paid for any of the
great staple commodities.
Our English name for the substance
is due to the English chemist Priestly.
In ITO, says the Review of Reviews, he
discovered that the material was good
for rubbing out pencil marks, and called
it to the attention of the English for
that purpose and ever since then it has
been known in English as india rubber.
From 1901 to 1915 number of English
chemists tried to use rubber solution
for the purpose of making water
proof cloth, but quite unsuccessfully.
Charles Macintosh, whose name has
now become as closely identified with
the industry as that of Goodyear, sue
ceeded in 1928 in dissolving rubber in
benzine, which was the beginning of the
industry of waterproof clothing
in 1882 the house of Cbaffee & Hask-
ins of New York founded the Rcxbury
India Rubber Company for the purpose
of doing business of the sort which
Macintosh was doing on the other side.
They, however, did not succeed, but
they had in their employ one Charles
Goodyear, who devoted his life and his
fortune to the discovery Of what turned
out to be the most practical of all meth
DDS of overcoming the adhesiveness or
sickness which initiated against the
commercial uses of the gum.
Haywood was the first to discover that
sulphur lessened the sticky quality of
the raw material, but it was left for
Goodyear to demonstrate, in 1889, that
phur in proper quantities and under
proper temperature the product would
not break at low tempera sure and
would not become sticky at high one.
This was the solution of the problem,
and it is this combination of rubber and
sulphur under the action of different
temperatures resulting in product of
different hardness and elasticity which
is known as inflammation.
His discovery places Goodyear among
the greatest of American inventors.
Prior to his time practically no rubber
was used in the United States. Today
we are using quite one-half of the
worlds product, and rubber may now
be regarded as a prime necessary of
life.
The production of rubber is peculiar
in this, that it cannot be compared
with any of the great agricultural
crops-cotton, wheat, corn or rice. If
in any year the price of these advances
materially the result is an invitation to
larger planting. with succeeding
larger crop and the consequent re-es-
Enlistment of the balance of price.
AS the consuming demand increases
the planting increases.
Such however, is not the case with
the rubber crop. Cultivated rubber as
yet plays no real part in the worlds
markets, not more than 100 tons having
yet come into consumption in any one
year.
Now, as to the uncultivated plants,
the great trees and vines which yield
the bulk of the product are not avail
able until they are at least fifteen years
of age, and then in the case of the
Hevea may yield for twenty years. In
taking the latex from the Castilloa,
f,.oyS AL
phia, the custom has been to kill the
plant.
1t will be readily seen, therefore,
that the industry of the rubber gatherer
is still of the crudest and most primi-
tive kind. 1t might be compared with
that of the huckleberry picker here
The result is that the crop cannot be
varied from a large crop to a small
crop in any year, as in the case of
wheat and cotton. The problem is not
one of cultivation, but one almost ex-
clusively of labor on the one hand, and
of pushing farther and farther into the
forests on the other.
The average annual increase of the
Para crop during the last twenty years
has been s per cent, and during the
last five years about 4 per cent. The
largest increase in any single year was
II per cent. The Congo crop has re-
manned practically the same for the
last seven years and has tendency to
decrease rather than increase.
1t was early found that rubber was
impervious to moth and rust. In its
manufactured form, in combination
with sulphur, it was found after a
while to lose its elasticity and the
fabric of which it was part to under
60 disintegration, but not decom-
position.
The rubber remained. 1t was not of
the same value either for elasticity or
for tensile strength, but it was still of
great value, and how to recover it be-
came the question. This led to series
of experiments in the devulcanization
of rubber, begun by Helmholtz which
is now conducted on large scale by
two processes, one an acid and the
other an alkaline process, concerning
the respective merits of which there is
great controversy. As yet, however,
most of the reclaimed rubber, so called,
is produced by the acid process.
Many will be surprised to learn that
the annual product of the reclaimed
material amounts in the United States
alone to nearly 100000 pounds, and
this must be added to the annual rub
Der crop as a large factor in determin-
inc nrjca IT. is usad in varvjnu pro