ARTIFICIAL RUBBER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 26, 29 January 1913, Page 4

ARTIFICIAL RUBBER.

Though there was much talk a few months ago regarding the production of synthetic rubber, no great progress appears to have been made so lar as, the practical production of this important article of commerce is concerned. It is worthy of note also that the rubber market which for three or four months past has been depressed and falling, has again taken an upward turn. But German and British chemists are still busily engaged in making research in connection with artificial rubber, though Dr. Perkin has admitted that there seems no immediate prospect of the laboratory rubber taking the place entirely of the natural product. When the exact process is found out and starch and sawdust are used for the purposes of manufacture the synthetic rubber, he tells us, should not cost more than Is a pound, a & compared with the present price of about 4s a pound, but it was “one thing to produce a pure product in the laboratory and quite a different thing to manufacture it in bulk.” The difficulties which had boon encountered were being removed, however, by the study of the processes of fermentation. Dr. Perkin also said that while it was quite possible that the rubber plantation and the rubber factory would be able to exist side by side, the planters would be well advised to remember the fate of the growers ol madder and indigo. In concluding his remarks, Dr. Perkin said that he thought the complete triumph of artificial rubber in a commercial sense cannot '->e very long in coming.