Lithograph after Robert Dudley from 'The Atlantic Telegraph', a book by W H Russell with 26 illustrations by Dudley, published in 1866. This plate shows the reels of gutta-percha-covered conducting ...

In the 1800s, a fashionable European gentleman would wear a top hat and carry a walking stick that served both as a decorative dress accessory and as a self-defence item against street crime. Although ...

Few materials are as misunderstood, or misidentified as often, as gutta-percha. Pick up a union case in any antiques shop, and odds are good the tag will say "gutta-percha." Wrong. Most likely the ...

It took more than money and man-power to lay the transatlantic cable. Gutta-percha, a natural plastic extracted from trees in Southeast Asia, sparked a craze in Victorian England, leading to its use ...