The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1917-10-16
AMAZON MONOPOLY
OF RUBBER BROKEN
WAS OF LITTLE USE UNTIL VUL.
CANNING PROCESS WAS
INVENTED.

The average man believes that
rubber is rubber, just as silver is
silver and ivory is ivory; but, as a
matter of fact, the different kinds of
rubber run into the hundreds. If you
were to take up one of the CONNER
cial dailies which devote their col
umns to the news of the different in
dustries you would find prices quoted
on thirty or forty different sorts of
rubber. Some are called after their
geographical location, some take
their name from the mehod of prep
aration, and others have names de-
scriptive of their form.
Originally all rubber came from
the valley of the Amazon. When it
was first discovered no one knows.
At any rate, when the first white
men, following along after Columbus,
visited South America they found the
Indians playing with balls made from
the emulation of the barb of a GER
tain tree, and these balls differed
from any the Europeans had ever
seen, for they bounded and rebound
ed and were full of life. But that
was not the only use the Indians put
this milk of the tree to. They smear
ed it on their blankets to make them
waterproof.
Still, 200 years and more went by, |
and, while many wise men believed
this elastic, cohesive, impermeable |
substance ought to be full of useful !
ness, nobody found any way to use
1t to any advantage-it was so brit |
tie in cold weather and so disposed |
to get soft in hot weather But in |
the fullness of time a Connecticut |
Yankee started to puzzle it out. 1t |
took him the better part of ten years,
but he did it, and in 1889 gave the
world his inflammation process. |
which is in use today.
Up to that time rubber was so |
cheap that ships from South Ameri-
ca sometimes used it as ballast, tax
ing their chances of selling it for
what they could get in some Ameri-
can port. With the discovery of the
vulcanizing process rubber took on
new hue and new value, and the |
tropics were searched for it every
where. 1t was found in the vines of
Africa, and putta percha, a sort of
first cousin to rubber, was found in
Borneo, and some years ago a large
volume of rubber was found in the
guayule shrubs Of Mexico.
AS rubber grew in value the chem
lists fell to work and devised ways of
recovering it from old shoes and hose
and other articles into which it en-
tered, and thus reclaimed rubber"
soon came to equal the new rubber
in volume, and all these varieties
found some legitimate use Gutta
percha makes unapproachabIe insuLa-
ton for ocean cables. BaIata, which
comes from the Guianas, is famous
for betting, and even reclaimed
rubber" taken from junk heaps,
serves perfectly well for flooring and
mats and other articles where resi-
liency is not needed.
For many years the best rubber
was that which came from the banks !
of the Amazon. The people of that |
country enjoyed a practical monopoly |
and determined to keep it. Not rub |
Der seed would they let get out of |
the country, under heavy penalties. |
But from time immemoriaT the fear
| of punishment has given way before
the lure of shining gold, and in 1875, |
i by means of generous presents here
and there, venturesome Englishman
sailed out of the Amazon with 10000
rubber seeds, and that was the start
of the great rubber plantations of
Ceylon and the Malay Peninsula.
The beginning was slow. 1t was
Twenty-Five years after these seeds
left the Amazon before the first
plantation rubber was ready for the
market, and then the total was only
145 tons. That was in 1905. But
since then the production of planta-
ton rubber has grown enormously,
until now it is about 100000 tons.
Various rubbers can be used for
various purposes. For some purposes
a lifeless rubber will answer we'll
enough, while for other purposes the
only rubber that will adequately serve
IS the one that has life and resiliency
and toughness. There are number
less rubber articles of commerce
where resiliency and wear combined
are necessary and where cheaper
grades or too large a proportion of
reclaimed rubber" is the poorest
sort If nnnrnrn..