In Chapter IV I explained that the anilin dyes are built up upon the
benzene ring of six carbon atoms. The rubber ring consists of eight at
least and probably more. Any substance containing that peculiar carbon
chain with two double links C=C-C=C can double up--polymerize, the
chemist calls it--into a rubber-like substance. So we may have many
kinds of rubber, some of which may prove to be more useful than that
which happens to be found in nature.
With the structural formula of Harries as a clue chemists all over the
world plunged into the problem with renewed hope. The famous Bayer dye
works at Elberfeld took it up and there in August, 1909, Dr. Fritz
Hofmann worked out a process for the converting of pure isoprene into
rubber by heat. Then in 1910 Harries happened upon the same sodium
reaction as Matthews, but when he came to get it patented he found that
the Englishman had beaten him to the patent office by a few weeks.
This Anglo-German rivalry came to a dramatic climax in 1912 at the great
hall of the College of the City of New York when Dr.
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