The algin extracted from the Pacific kelp can be used as a rubber surrogate for water-proofing cloth.  When combined with heavier alkaline bases it forms a tough and elastic substance that can be rolled into transparent sheets like celluloid or turned into buttons and knife handles.

In Australia when the war shut off the supply of tin the Government commission appointed to devise means of preserving fruits recommended the use of cardboard containers varnished with “magramite.”  This is a name the Australians coined for synthetic resin made from phenol and formaldehyde like bakelite.  Magramite dissolved in alcohol is painted on the cardboard cans and when these are stoved the coating becomes insoluble.

Tarasoff has made a series of condensation products from phenol and formaldehyde with the addition of sulfonated oils.  These are formed by the action of sulfuric acid on coconut, castor, cottonseed or mineral oils.  The products of this combination are white plastics, opaque, insoluble and infusible.

Since I am here chiefly concerned with “Creative Chemistry,” that is, with the art of making substances not found in nature, I have not spoken of shellac, asphaltum, rosin, ozocerite and the innumerable gums, resins and waxes, animal, mineral and vegetable, that are used either by themselves or in combination with the synthetics.  What particular “dope” or “mud” is used to coat a canvas or form a telephone receiver is often hard to find out.  The manufacturer finds secrecy safer than the patent office and the chemist of a rival establishment is apt to be baffled in his attempt to analyze and imitate.  But we of the outside world are not concerned with this, though we are interested in the manifold applications of these new materials.

There seems to be no limit to these compounds and every week the journals report new processes and patents.  But we must not allow the new ones to crowd out the remembrance of the oldest and most famous of the synthetic plasters, hard rubber, to which a separate chapter must be devoted.

VIII

THE RACE FOR RUBBER

There is one law that regulates all animate and inanimate things.  It is formulated in various ways, for instance: 

Running down a hill is easy.  In Latin it reads, facilis descensus Averni. Herbert Spencer calls it the dissolution of definite coherent heterogeneity into indefinite incoherent homogeneity.  Mother Goose expresses it in the fable of Humpty Dumpty, and the business man extracts the moral as, “You can’t unscramble an egg.”  The theologian calls it the dogma of natural depravity.  The physicist calls it the second law of thermodynamics.  Clausius formulates it as “The entropy of the world tends toward a maximum.”  It is easier to smash up than to build up.  Children find that this is true of their toys; the Bolsheviki have found that it is true of a civilization.  So, too, the chemist knows analysis is easier than synthesis and that creative chemistry is the highest branch of his art.