The separation of the material into shreds or narrow strips is a very pretty operation, exhibiting much nicety of manipulation. A continuous strip may be cut from a bottle or any other curved mass of the India-rubber. The bottom of the bottle is cut off, and is pressed into a round and tolerably flat form. The cake thus fashioned is fixed to the end of the horizontal shaft, or lathe-axis, and is made to revolve with great rapidity; and while so rotating, a circular knife, rotating at high speed, cuts through the substance, and advances steadily towards the centre of the disc; thereby separating the disc or cake into one continuous spiral thread. This thread can be easily drawn out straightly, and can even be separated into two or more finer threads, by drawing it through a hole where one or more sharp-cutting edges encounter it. If a bottle or any other hollow piece of India-rubber can be drawn over a cylinder of uniform diameter, it may be cut into a continuous thread, by a modification of the same machine; the cylinder being made to revolve, a steel cutter is placed against it, and as the cylinder has a slow longitudinal motion given it, the gum is cut spirally from end to end—just on the same principle as a worm or thread is cut on a bit of iron by the screw-cutting machine. Machines of this kind were invented in France more than twenty years ago; but the machines used in our own country are of English invention and of later date. INDIA-RUBBER LIQUID. When once it was discovered that India-rubber may be dissolved in petroleum, in naptha, or in oil of turpentine, it was speedily seen that a new and extensive sphere of utility was given to it. The coarsest pieces, as imported, the waste from the kneading operations, and the parings and cuttings from other manufacturing operations, are placed in a close iron vessel, to which the liquid solvent is added. A brisk agitation is kept up, and the heat thereby generated in the elastic gum warms the liquid and increases its solvent power, until at length the whole of the gum is dissolved. This operation is conducted on a somewhat extensive scale; for the iron vessel is large enough to contain more than half a ton of India-rubber, which requires three days of constant agitation for complete solution. The liquid thus produced has a consistency which fits it to be used as a varnish, or as a water-proofing medium, or as a cement, or for many other purposes which the sagacity and self-interest of manufacturers have enabled them to discover. INDIA-RUBBER BRAIDS AND WEBS.