The little-known tree that revolutionised global communication

This is the YT generated text.

Transcript
0:03 Look at this map. This is the area controlled by Britain in 1850.
0:09 All 22 million square kilometers of it.
0:13 And for the Victorians, this was an issue.
0:17 The world was just too big.
0:21 If there was an uprising in India or a drought in Brisbane,
0:26 it could take months for the news to reach London via ship.
0:29 And the recently invented telegraph was doing a fine job
0:33 of keeping cities and regions connected.
0:36 But sabotage, accidental damage and bad weather meant flows of information
0:41 over the vast area of the Empire were patchy at best.
0:49 One idea was to lay the telegraph lines
0:52 across the ocean floor out of harm’s way.
0:55 But how to protect the copper cables from the sea?
0:59 After all, water and electricity aren’t a good mix.
1:05 Early attempts to lay a cable under the Hudson River to New York,
1:09 using wires coated with wax, cotton and hemp left a soggy mess.
1:14 But an unlikely solution was to be found on the other side of the world.
1:21 A surgeon with the East India Company
1:23 called William Montgomery is shown a strange latex by his Malay gardener.
1:29 It was called Gutta Percha after the tree that it came from:
1:34 ‘Getah perca’. This material when placed in hot water
1:39 could be molded into any shape you wanted and on cooling,
1:43 wood set solid. You could do this again and again,
1:46 and it would happily mold into any shape you liked.
1:49 Unlike rubber, it didn’t crumble in saltwater
1:53 and stayed firm on setting rather than remaining, well, rubbery.
1:59 Montgomery saw the potential of gutta percha in surgery,
2:03 but it turned out to be useful for much more than just that.
2:07 It blew Victorian minds and within a decade they were casting the latex
2:13 into ear trumpets, shoe soles, golf balls and truncheons.
2:19 It was the demand for truncheons that led to the first spike in prices.
2:23 In 1848, the Metropolitan Police ordered 10,000 truncheons to put down peaceful protests.
2:31 It also turned out that gutta percha was a great insulator for undersea cables.
2:37 The problem of submarine telegraphy was solved. By 1875,
2:42 Britain’s empire was unified in a system known as the All Red Line.
2:47 Red, because that’s how Britain like to colour its territory on maps.
2:53 Signals in Morse code were firing back to London from all over the Empire,
2:58 helping the government to keep a watchful eye on the Colonies
3:02 and keeping British merchants ahead of the competition.
3:06 A note written in Cairo could be checked in London
3:10 before being sent on to Delhi in a matter of hours instead of months.
3:15 The world had shrunk and it would never be the same again.
3:19 Job done. Well, sort of.
3:24 Nobody was noticing how the tree was fairing.
3:28 This Victorian tech may have been cutting edge,
3:31 but it was harvested in the most shortsighted way.
3:35 A ten ton tree, once it was cut down, only yielded 300 grams of latex.
3:42 That’s like knocking down a house to use a brick.
3:47 This wasn’t an issue when the indigenous Malays felled a few trees
3:50 in the forest every now and then. But the British went mad for the stuff.
3:56 Over 300000 kilometres of undersea cable were laid between 1850 and 1902.
4:04 Add to its other uses. And it’s estimated
4:07 that around 100 million trees were destroyed during this period.
4:13 By 1900, the tree had disappeared almost entirely from the map.
4:19 So why didn’t they try to cultivate gutta percha?
4:23 Well, they did, but only after the tree had virtually gone extinct in the wild.
4:30 While the latex kept flowing from the jungles of Southeast Asia,
4:34 the cable manufacturers were happy to turn a blind eye to how it was sourced.
4:39 And with the tree taking 30 years to mature, the industry was happy
4:43 to keep plundering away until the new plantations were ready.
4:48 Eventually, by the 1930s,
4:51 Gutta Percha was superseded by the development of synthetic polymers.
4:57 Today, the tree has slowly recovered in the wild,
5:00 but its population is now threatened by deforestation.
5:04 With the arrival of the new plastics, gutta percha rapidly fell out of use.
5:10 And in just a few generations the word has gone
5:13 from a household name to a historical curiosity.
5:18 Except among dentists.
5:22 The salt water and acid resistant properties that made gutta percha
5:25 so important to undersea cabling also make it ideal in root canal surgery.
5:33 Although you may never have heard of it, you might unwittingly be carrying
5:36 a little piece of gutta percha in your jaw.
5:40 A curious fate for a tree that shrunk the world.

41 posted on 08/04/2022 10:24:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: Jamestown1630

Since it’s about the mouth, there’s some inuendo involved...

42 posted on 08/04/2022 10:25:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

You tempt me; but I like you, so I’ll refrain...

43 posted on 08/04/2022 10:29:48 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")

To: Jamestown1630

And if it were external, outuendo...

;^)

44 posted on 08/04/2022 10:31:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: Deplorable American1776

I think hold music has always been around, but were never available or noticed until these large telecom grids were built...

45 posted on 08/04/2022 10:33:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: Robert DeLong

46 posted on 08/04/2022 10:34:39 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: woodbutcher1963

The first one didn’t work for long, so, probably not.

47 posted on 08/04/2022 10:36:23 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: CatHerd; ProtectOurFreedom; Governor Dinwiddie; All

My pleasure.

And thanks to all for contributions to the topic, I never know what's going to catch. For example, look up my topics on the antiquity of bison in Illinois...

48 posted on 08/04/2022 10:38:09 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

Wait, what? Some people are on a 'Pre-ping bump'?

49 posted on 08/04/2022 10:44:02 AM PDT by GOPJ (Every large city run by democrats is a hellhhole.. Don't let democrats 'hellhole' the country. VOTE.)

To: GOPJ; SunkenCiv

Huh?

A pre ping bump?

Wtf?

Okay, sunkenciv has some splaining to do.

5.56mm

50 posted on 08/04/2022 10:47:40 AM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho got to go.)

To: M Kehoe; SunkenCiv; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; ...

Huh? A pre ping bump? Wtf? Okay, sunkenciv has some splaining to do

Damn straight...

51 posted on 08/04/2022 10:59:08 AM PDT by GOPJ (Every large city run by democrats is a hellhhole.. Don't let democrats 'hellhole' the country. VOTE.)

"A Thread Across the Ocean" is an outstanding book! I was amazed at how quickly the developers went from crossing rivers to proposing crossing the oceans, the high number of failures of cables often within hours of commissioning them, and the relentless pursuit of success. It demonstrates how the financiers knew the ROI on a successful cable would be tremendous and justify all the failed attempts. The transoceanic cables led to all sorts of new information coding schemes, new materials invented, new ship technologies to lay cables and ships to find, raise and repair cables from the ocean floor (with no deep-sea submersible vehicles available!), new materials. Like all big successful projects, it spawned lots of new technologies and societal changes.

52 posted on 08/04/2022 11:35:36 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“May your neighbors respect you, trouble neglect you, angels protect you and heaven accept you”)

53 posted on 08/04/2022 4:42:33 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: M Kehoe; GOPJ

I didn’t have the list where I was, but wanted to give a sneak peek to three FReepers who might have posted a duplicate topic.

54 posted on 08/04/2022 5:10:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

To: SunkenCiv; GOPJ

Cool.

So that means I'm special.

Of course I don't speak for GOPJ.

5.56mm

55 posted on 08/04/2022 5:14:56 PM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho got to go.)

OK, you’re cool...

56 posted on 08/04/2022 7:29:11 PM PDT by GOPJ (Every large city run by democrats is a hellhhole.. Don't let democrats 'hellhole' the country. VOTE.)

ANd both of you are unique, just like everybody else. ;^)

57 posted on 08/04/2022 8:13:30 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

“Plant to Produce Rubber” Grown in Arid Zones - Guayule Development of a new source of natural rubber
Indycar/Bridgestone/Firestone | Unknown/08/07/2022 | Bridgestone Rubber Company
Posted on 8/8/2022, 3:21:51 AM by mabarker1
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4083894/posts

58 posted on 08/11/2022 7:30:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794

Transcript
0:03	Look at this map. This is the area controlled by Britain in 1850.
0:09	All 22 million square kilometers of it.
0:13	And for the Victorians, this was an issue.
0:17	The world was just too big.
0:21	If there was an uprising in India or a drought in Brisbane,
0:26	it could take months for the news to reach London via ship.
0:29	And the recently invented telegraph was doing a fine job
0:33	of keeping cities and regions connected.
0:36	But sabotage, accidental damage and bad weather meant flows of information
0:41	over the vast area of the Empire were patchy at best.
0:49	One idea was to lay the telegraph lines
0:52	across the ocean floor out of harm’s way.
0:55	But how to protect the copper cables from the sea?
0:59	After all, water and electricity aren’t a good mix.
1:05	Early attempts to lay a cable under the Hudson River to New York,
1:09	using wires coated with wax, cotton and hemp left a soggy mess.
1:14	But an unlikely solution was to be found on the other side of the world.
1:21	A surgeon with the East India Company
1:23	called William Montgomery is shown a strange latex by his Malay gardener.
1:29	It was called Gutta Percha after the tree that it came from:
1:34	‘Getah perca’. This material when placed in hot water
1:39	could be molded into any shape you wanted and on cooling,
1:43	wood set solid. You could do this again and again,
1:46	and it would happily mold into any shape you liked.
1:49	Unlike rubber, it didn’t crumble in saltwater
1:53	and stayed firm on setting rather than remaining, well, rubbery.
1:59	Montgomery saw the potential of gutta percha in surgery,
2:03	but it turned out to be useful for much more than just that.
2:07	It blew Victorian minds and within a decade they were casting the latex
2:13	into ear trumpets, shoe soles, golf balls and truncheons.
2:19	It was the demand for truncheons that led to the first spike in prices.
2:23	In 1848, the Metropolitan Police ordered 10,000 truncheons to put down peaceful protests.
2:31	It also turned out that gutta percha was a great insulator for undersea cables.
2:37	The problem of submarine telegraphy was solved. By 1875,
2:42	Britain’s empire was unified in a system known as the All Red Line.
2:47	Red, because that’s how Britain like to colour its territory on maps.
2:53	Signals in Morse code were firing back to London from all over the Empire,
2:58	helping the government to keep a watchful eye on the Colonies
3:02	and keeping British merchants ahead of the competition.
3:06	A note written in Cairo could be checked in London
3:10	before being sent on to Delhi in a matter of hours instead of months.
3:15	The world had shrunk and it would never be the same again.
3:19	Job done. Well, sort of.
3:24	Nobody was noticing how the tree was fairing.
3:28	This Victorian tech may have been cutting edge,
3:31	but it was harvested in the most shortsighted way.
3:35	A ten ton tree, once it was cut down, only yielded 300 grams of latex.
3:42	That’s like knocking down a house to use a brick.
3:47	This wasn’t an issue when the indigenous Malays felled a few trees
3:50	in the forest every now and then. But the British went mad for the stuff.
3:56	Over 300000 kilometres of undersea cable were laid between 1850 and 1902.
4:04	Add to its other uses. And it’s estimated
4:07	that around 100 million trees were destroyed during this period.
4:13	By 1900, the tree had disappeared almost entirely from the map.
4:19	So why didn’t they try to cultivate gutta percha?
4:23	Well, they did, but only after the tree had virtually gone extinct in the wild.
4:30	While the latex kept flowing from the jungles of Southeast Asia,
4:34	the cable manufacturers were happy to turn a blind eye to how it was sourced.
4:39	And with the tree taking 30 years to mature, the industry was happy
4:43	to keep plundering away until the new plantations were ready.
4:48	Eventually, by the 1930s,
4:51	Gutta Percha was superseded by the development of synthetic polymers.
4:57	Today, the tree has slowly recovered in the wild,
5:00	but its population is now threatened by deforestation.
5:04	With the arrival of the new plastics, gutta percha rapidly fell out of use.
5:10	And in just a few generations the word has gone
5:13	from a household name to a historical curiosity.
5:18	Except among dentists.
5:22	The salt water and acid resistant properties that made gutta percha
5:25	so important to undersea cabling also make it ideal in root canal surgery.
5:33	Although you may never have heard of it, you might unwittingly be carrying
5:36	a little piece of gutta percha in your jaw.
5:40	A curious fate for a tree that shrunk the world.