The Monticellonian., 1917-08-30
Trade Secrets Held at Enormous Prices

III guarding valuable processes as manufac-
turers. For example, the Chinese government is
the owner of the secret of making vermillion red
which is held by many experts to be the most
beautiful shade of red in the world. No one has
ever been able to produ like vermillion.
The Turkish government. it appears possesses
similar secret process of naying precious met
ais in the hardest steel. The work is done per
fectly and defies all attic mpts at reproduction.
In 1913 ii was announced that a distinguished
chemist of the imperial technical school of Mos
COW had solved the problem of making artificial
rubber, and that he could sell the product at
about 80 cents pound. Yet the price of rubber
remains pretty much the same. if not more. The
reason may be found by examining the patent
office records. In the last decade many hundreds
of patents for artificial rubber have been taken
out. Substitutes have been made from petroleum.
from coal tar, turpentine peat from nitrnted lin
seed oil and by treating cereals with phyaHn.
The latter invention created considerable sen
saton so long ago 1906, yet judging by the
constantly increasing demand for the natural
product, it has had little effect upon the real rub
Der market.
The chemist, working in his laboratory. can
take any substance and analyze it, that is, break
1t up into its original constituents and tell you
what they and how much of each element
the substance in question is composed of; but
when it comes to building up the original sub
stance out of It's prime constituents he is at sea-
for the most part. BY dint of long and patient
experiments or perhaps by pure chance he may
succeed in reproducing some few natural products
but that is as far he can go.
Indigo blue took many years to synthetic.
German chemist accomplished it at last, but the
curious discovery was made that If blended with
the natural product made from the indigo plant
the color obtained was both durable and
brighter than that made by either dye alone So
artificial indigo has not yet ruined the indigo
planter.
Gutta Percha Becomes Scarcer.
Artificial camphor has also been produced It Is
now made from pine-tree turpentine. But the
chemist has not yet succeeded in synthetiZing
gutta percha. This commodity yearly becomes
scarcer. Enormous quantities required for va
rtous purposes. notably the covering of submarine
cables and the making of golf balls. fortune
awaits the man, who make artificial gutta
percha AT price that will permit it to compete
with the juice of the Dchopis gutta.
Cork Is another substance of everyday that
seems to defy the inventor. The only substitute
for cork is paper treated with parafn wax. But
such cork could not be used for a bottle of wine
So far nothing has been artifcially made to com
pete with the bark of the cork oak
At Delhi in India. stands ancient iron mon
ument which, though exposed to all weathers,
rusts decays Yet 1t has no protective
covering Here is n secret which would he simply
invaluable to the world which has been discovered
tunately lost. At meeting of steel and iron
men In London, the chairman said that they could
face the future with complacency if they could
rediseover the To shipewners alone It
would mean yearly saving of millions, Rust
is the great enemy of the steel ship and she has
constantly to 60 into dock to have her hull coated
with an anticorrosive Solution.