If we glance among the stores of the India-rubber manufacturers and retailers at the present day, we find the braids and cords, webs and bands, form no inconsiderable portion of the wares exposed for sale. These, in most cases, require that the India-rubber should be first made into blocks or cakes, next cut into sheets, and then separated into threads, or cords, or narrow strips. Supposing these preliminary cuttings to be effected, the making of braids and webs is exceedingly curious, for it involves a combination of the India-rubber with other materials. Let us briefly trace the processes. In the first place, the narrow cords are stretched by a kind of wheel, and kept extended till nearly deprived of their elasticity, and till they form a thread of the desired thickness. The thread is then put into a braiding machine which is a complicated and very ingenious apparatus, whereby a sheathing of cotton, silk, flax, or worsted, is wound round the India-rubber thread. In such a machine several threads are twisted round each other, from three to nearly thirty in number; each thread has its own bobbin, and all the bobbins revolve round a common centre, giving out their threads in the proportions and order required. Generally speaking, the braiding machine is employed in making stay-laces, braid, upholsterers’ cord, &c.; but it is also applicable to making the numerous elastic cords and webs which owe their elasticity to India-rubber. When an envelope of cotton, silk, flax, or worsted, has been given to the thread of India-rubber by the braiding machine, the threads are laid as warp in a loom, and woven into the required kind of web, whatever it may be. Then comes a curious development of the properties of the material; in the preliminary stretching, the India-rubber was made somewhat stiff and unyielding; but by now exposing it to the action of a hot smoothing iron upon a table, the elasticity is restored, the riband or web contracts in length, and the sheathing or envelope corrugates or wrinkles up on the surface. The web thus produced is very soft and elastic. The warp threads may be alternated with others of non-elastic character; and the weft-threads may be either elastic or non-elastic, so that any desired degree of elasticity may be obtained. INDIA-RUBBER VULCANIZED. Why a piece of India-rubber, when it has been somewhat modified by heat and chemical action, should be deemed vulcanized, it is for the inventor to say. Let us take the name simply as an expression of a fact, that fire or heat has been brought to bear upon this substance as a means of affecting its qualities. The method was invented by Mr. Hancock seven or eight years ago, and it has been the means of giving a wide extension to the use of India-rubber.