The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1917-01-23
Story of Rubber.

The average man believes that rub
Dor is rubber, Just as silver Is silver
end ivory is ivory; but, as a matter of
9hct, the different kinds of rubber run
into the hundreds. II you were to take
up one Of the commercial dailies which
Devote their columns to the news Of the
different industries you would find
prices quoted ON thirty or forty differ
ene sorts Of rubber. Some are called
eftsr their geographical location, some
take their name from the method OF
preparation, and others have names de.
scr1pttve Of their form.
Originally all rubber came from the
valley of the Amazon. When It was
0rst discovered no one knows. At any
rata. when the first white men, follow
ing along after Columbus, visited South
America they found the Indians play
ing with balls made from the exuda-
ton Of the bark Of q certain tree,
and these balls differed from any the
Europeans had ever seen, for they
bounded and rebounded and were full
Of life. But that was not the only use
the Indians put this milk of the tree to.
They smeared 1t on their blankets to
make them waterproof.
6t1fl. 200 years and more went by,
and, while many wise men believed
this elastic, cohesive. impermeable sub
stance ought to be full of usefulness,
nobody found any way to use 1t to any
advantage-it was 30 brittle in cold
weather and 30 disposed to get soft IN
hot weather. But In the fullness Of
time a Connecticut Yankee started to
puzzle IL out. 1t took him the better
part Of ten years, but he did it, and In
1889 gave the world his vulcanization
process, which is In use today.
Up to that time rubber was so cheap
that ships from South America some
times used it as ballast, taking their
chances Of selling 1t for what they
could get In some American port.
With the discovery of the vulcanizing
process rubber took on a new hue and
q new value, and the tropics were
searched for it everywhere. 1t was
found IN the vines Of Africa, and gutta
percha, sort of first cousin to rubber,
was found In Borneo, and some years
ago q large volume of rubber was
found I'm the guayule shrubs Of Mex
ico.
As rubber grew in value the chem
ists fell to work and devised ways Of
recovering 1t from old shoes and hose
and other articles into which 1t 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 unapproachable insulation for
ocean cables. Balata, which comes
from the Guianas, is famous for belt
ine, and even reclaimed rubber
taken from junk heaps, serves perfect
" well for flooring and mats and other
articles where resiliency 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 de-
texmtned to keep 1t. Not a rubber seed
would they let get out of the country,
under heavy penalties. But from time
tEamemorial the fear of punishment
hes given way before the lure Of shin
ing gold, and in 1870, by means OF gen
eeous presents here and there, ven
turesome 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 mine years after these seeds left
TIE Amaxon before the first plantat ton
rubber was ready for the market, and
than the total was only 145 tons That
was In 1905. But since then the pro-
dpetion OF plantation rubber has grown
eQormously, until now 1t is about 10O-
900 tons.
Various rubbers can be used for vari-
Gus purposes. For some purposes a
H1eless rubber win answer well enough.
while for other purposes the only rub
Der that viii adequately serve ia the
onA that has life and resilency and
Aoughness. There are numberless rub
Der articles Of commerce where resili-
ency and wear combined are necessary
and where cheaper grades or too large
. proportion Of reclaimed rubber is
ne poorest sort Of economy.-Hartford
Tfmaa