,Rubber-covered Streets.
Page 2
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Will the next ten years witness any wide use of rubber as a sheathing for city streets? The suggestion raises one's hopes that a stream of silent traffic is no Utopian dream, and the prospect is by no means an idle one for brief mention here. The production of rubber has replaced goldmining in the eyes of many investors, and a very large number of companies have, apart from more recent incorporations, been engaged upon cultivation with a view to the future. Demand, pending the due arrival of supplies from these potential sources, has not slackened, yet the forests of the Amazon, of West Africa, of the Dutch East ladies, and other long-drained areas, have neither failed nor given real indication of failure. Experts, who have personal knowledge of the untapped, rubber-tree forests of South America, assure us that untold tons of the precious gum are there, ready to be collected by those who know how to obtain the concessions, and who care to risk the climate. Be that as it may, we, in Great Britain, have every proof that supply will keep pace with demand, and that there will be commercial openings for the application of rubber for purposes other than those which are of common acceptance to-day in the engineering world, and in motor circles more particularly, and that very soon.
The use of rubber for the coating of road surfaces has been strictly limited in extent heretofore. We know of its