@tullyVictorianEcologicalDisaster2009
Date: {2023-03-07}
Gutta-Percha Crisis:¶
tags:: #Memex2 #Annotations
Page 560: As the need for communication over distances grew, the creation of the telegraph begun. It grew in its distance through the addition of wires. Many of these wires were laid on the sea bed and plastic was used as an insulator. The key to the success of the new system was the use of the natural plastic, gutta-percha. It was a gum like paste that when heated could be moulded easily.
Page 563: Since the telegraph required sending messages through copper wire and the current was switched on and off through a coded pattern. The system depended on reliable insulation elements and the most suitable was the 'gutta-percha' from forest in the Southeast Asia.
Page 564: nowadays, the gutta-percha tree is mostly forgotten. During the 1800s, gutta percha was used for many different things and was a household name. Nowadays, people have no idea what the word means or represents.
Page 565-566: The gum is used for many things such as shoe soles, canes, knife handles and more. Later on, they began to see its military-strategic value. Dentist used it and still use it to this day. Overall, gutta-percha became an element that the majority of East-London's factories relied on.
Page 568: There were 100s of thousands of miles laid across the ocean, and the cost of all the wire laid at the time was between 97 million to 130 million. This quickly drove the gutta-percha to shortages, as there was not enough gum to keep up to the ever-growing world.
Page 570: Electricity was a high-tech and high need in society yet it relied on a primitive source for its backbone. Without gutta-percha the submarine lines would have taken much longer to create as a way of insulating them would have to have been found.
Page 574: By the time the government realized they are running out of a gutta-percha source they tried to slow it down and prevent it. But they were too late as too much had already been taken and more was being demanded.