obliged now to pay double the current prices for new rubber. This is
the reclaiming of rubber from worn-out goods, in a condition fit for
use again in almost every class of products of the rubber factory.

Soon after the vulcanization of rubber became fully established,
attempts began to be made to "devulcanize" the scrap and cuttings of
rubber which accumulated in the factories. So extensive were these
accumulations that one company are reported to have built a road with
rubber scrap through a swamp adjacent to their factory, while most
other manufacturers were unable to find even so profitable a use for
their wastes. As time advanced there came to be large stocks, also, of
worn-out rubber goods, such as car springs and the like, all of which
appealed to a practical mind here and there as being of possible
value, since the price of new rubber kept climbing up all the while.

No fewer than nineteen patents were granted in the United States for
"improvements in devulcanizing India rubber," or "restoring waste
vulcanized rubber," beginning in 1855, or eleven years after the date
of Goodyear's patent for the vulcanization process. In that year
Francis Baschnagel obtained a patent for restoring vulcanized rubber
to a soft, plastic, workable state, by treating it with alcohol
absolutus and carbon bisulphuratum, in a closed vessel, without the
application of heat. Later he obtained a patent for accomplishing the
same result by "boiling waste rubber in water, after it has been
reduced to a finely divided state;" and still later, one for treating
the waste to the direct action of steam.

Patents were granted in 1858 to Hiram L. Hall, for the treatment of
waste rubber by boiling in water; also, by subjecting it to steam; and
again, by combining various resinous and other substances with it. The