The industrial Revolution - Universitat per a Majors

10. RubberToday we take modern materials for granted and do notrealize that many are relatively recentdiscoveries or inventions. Rubber, forexample, is a vital component of carsand also supplies us with manydomestic items (hot waterballoons, etc.), officeerasers, etc.) and articles for(footballs, golf balls, tennisbottles, mattresses, toyproducts (rubber bands,leisure and entertainmentballs, etc.).Rubber was discovered by theSpanish invaders of SouthAmerica in the 15th – 16thcenturies, but despite this it wasnot until about 1730 that rubberwas introduced into Britain andnot until 1791 that its use for themackintosh (rubber raincoat) wasintroduced. Rubber was not widelyused as, with time, it deterioratedin air, becoming very sticky andunmanageable. This changeddramatically with the invention of“vulcanization”, in 1834.Taking latex from a rubber treeGoodyear found that cooking the material with raw sulphur stabilized itand also stiffened the products made with the substance. It came to be usedfor an increasing number of products, such as tyres, Wellington boots andimproved mackintoshes, and rubber and textile were combined to producewaterproof fabric. It took over 40 years to develop the heavy duty car tyreswe have today.As yet Brazil was the only supplier and growing demand made the pricesoar, creating rich entrepreneurs who exploited the natives that collectedthe raw latex from the rain forest. This commodity monopoly was brokenby taking young trees raised, from seeds collected in Brazil by Sir HenryWickham, in 1876, in greenhouses in London’s Kew Gardens andtransplanting them in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Malaysia in large36