Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1917 — Trade Secrets Held at Enormous Prices [ARTICLE]

Trade Secrets Held at Enormous Prices

The Oxford Press syndicate values its formula for milking the very thin, tough paper used in .the Bibles and encyclopedias at more than $1,000,'OOO. To perfect the process required 25 years of hard work and the expenditure of $1,000,000 in cash. A secret of even greater value is the formula for making the paper employed for the Bank of England notes. This is a family possession of the Portals of Lavenstroke. to whom already in two generations it has brought an enormous fortune. The brilliant red cloth of the cardinals’ robes worn at the Vatican has been manufactured for many generations by the same firm of merchants at Burstcheid. near Aix-la-Chapelle.. The - secret process of distilling the dye is given by father to son, with every precaution to prevent any outsider from gaining possession of the recipe, according to a writer in the Los Angeles Times. In this connection it is rather curious to note that this family of cloth merchants is of Huguenot descent and i s Protestant today. Recipe for Green Chartreuse. When the monks of La Grlmde Chartreuse were expelled from France, the senior abbot carried the recipe for the famous liqueur in a casket of tempered steel, anddhis was never for a moment out of his possession. In the open market afterward formulae for the twin liqueurs, the proon chartreuse and the yellow, were sold for $1,600,000. At the time this liqueur .was first made the recipe was written on a single fragment of parchment, six inches by nine. One by one additional ingredients were introduced. It has been stated that at the present time the fhixture contains 137 different substances. And every addition to the drink required an addition to the recipe. a - The result was a volume of more than 100 pages. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most valuable book in the world. This becomes rather amusing when we remember Thatthe mendicant friar who first concocted the liqueur regarded his Invention with considerable disfavor. He was as shortsighted as Giovahni Farina, who was the originator of eau de cologne. He offered the recipe for sale at $3,500. A conservative estimate of the total value of its sales’ profits since that is $25,000,000. Famous Maraschino Cordial. The Namis of Zara, in Dalmatia, were wiser. They possessed as one of their heirlooms a family recipe for a drink distiUed from the marasco, or wild cherry. When they finally consented to part with their secret they received thereforta large sum in cash and land to the extent of several thousand acres. This is the cordial popular the world over as Maraschino. secrets have been lost beyond recovery. For instance, the best watch oil, it appears, cannot be obtained today because the secret process of mixing perished with the inventor. It is said that |h<> last quart of this famous liquid was sold for S2OO, and that was 35 yeans ago. Since then every effort has been made to analyze the product in an attempt to repreditce. the oil, but without success. The man whq made it alone knew its composition died, and, it further appears, not even his name or the place of his burial is fcnown. He never revealed to anyone the details of his process and it was not until after his death that the real value of the oil was appreciated. Business firms are not the only possessors of trade secrets. Governments are just as zealous

in guarding valuable processes as are manufacturers. For example, the Chinese government is the owner of the secret of making vermillion red, which is held by many experts to be the most beautiful shade of red in the world. No one has ever been able to produce a like vermillion. The Turkish government, it appears, possesses a similar secret process of inlaying precious metals in the hardest steel. The work is done perfectly and defies all attempts at reproduction. In 1913 it was announced that a distinguished chemist of the imperial- technical school of Moscow had solved the problem of making artificial rubber, and that he could sell the new product at about 30 cents a pound. Yet the price of rubber remains pretty much the same, if not’more. Thd reason may be found by examining the patent office records. In the last decade many hundreds of patents for artificial rubber have been taken out. Substitutes have been made from petroleum, from coal tar, turpentine, peat, from nitrated linseed oil and by treating cereals with phyalin. The latter invention created a considerable sensation so long ago as 1900, yet, judging by the constantly increasing demand for the natural product, it has had little effect upon the real rubber market. The chemist, working in his laboratory, can take any substance and analyze it, that is, break it up into" its original constituents, and telt you what they are and how much of each element the substance in when it comes to building up the original substance out of its prime constituents he is at sea, for the most part. By dint of long and patient <‘xperinumts_ or perhaps by pure chance he may succeed in reproducing some few natural products, but that is as far as he can go. Indigo -blue took ‘many years to synthetize. A German chemist accomplished it at last, but the curious discovery was made that if blended with the natural product made from the indigo plant the color obtained Was both more durable and brighter than that made by either dye alone. So artificial indigo has not yet ruined the indigo planter. '' < Gutta Percha Becomes Scarcer. Artificial camphor has also been produced. It is now made from pine-tree turpentine. But the chemist has not yet succeeded in synthetizing gutta percha. This commodity yearly becomes scarcer. Enormous quantities are required for various purposes, notably the covering of submarine cables and the making of golf balls. A. fortune awaits the man who can make artificial gutta percha at a price that will permit it to compete with the juice of the Dlchopis gutta. Cork is another substance of everyday use that seems to defy the inventor. The only substitute for cork Is paper treated with paraffin wax. But such a cork could not be used for a bottle of wine. So far nothing has bden artificially made to compete with the bark of the cork oak. At Delhi, in India, stands an ancient iron monument which, though exposed to all weathers, never rusts or decays. Yet it has no protective covering. Here is a secret which would be simply .invaluable to the wor.ld. which has been discovered by some Indian artificer of old and most unfortunately lost. At a meeting of steel and iron men in London, the chairman said that they could face the future with complacency if they coujd rediscover the secret. To shipowners alone It would mean a yearly saving of millions. Rust is the .great enemy of the steel ship and she has eonstafitly to go into dock to have her hull coated with an anticorrosive solution. w