290 Science and Human Welfare
lubricants that flow, that lubricate thoroughly at all times.
Chemicals of the sulphonate type are blended with the oil
or grease at the refinery. Such lubricants permit oil to reach
moving parts instantly, and gear lubricants are always ef-
ficient even under the most severe conditions. These ma-
terials, the real composition of which is kept secret, permit
the oils to have only a small change in viscosity with enor-
mous changes of temperature. The lack of such a product
may well be one of the contributing reasons why Germany’s
power is much weaker in the severe winter cold of Russia.
War has created new and unforeseen shortages that must
and will be met. Diplomatic and military defeats have cre-
ated a drastic shortage of rubber. Few people can realize the
immensity of the task that faces the rubber industry in
changing over from the use of natural rubber to synthetic
raw materials. Entirely new manufacturing and compound-
ing techniques are required. For not only is there a funda-
mental difference in the various synthetic raw materials, but
in their processing characteristics and in the properties of
the finished goods as well.
Most people think of synthetic rubber in terms of tires,
tubes, and similar finished products. But to the rubber goods
manufacturer it is simply a new raw material out of which he
must fashion such products. For the various chemical com-
pounds we call synthetic rubber are very different from the
stuff that comes from the trees. In fact, they have very little
in common with natural rubber except resilience and elas-
ticity—the ability to stretch and bounce. This, of course,
does not mean that they are inferior. On the contrary, some
are decidedly superior in many respects. But it does mean
that the manufacturer must develop new compounding ma-
terials and new processing techniques. The manufacture of
synthetic rubber can be as temperamental as the compound