Inventors Part 6

In a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the Treasury, in August, 1843, concerning electro-magnetism and its powers, he wrote:

"The practical inference from this law is that a telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may now seem, I am confident the time will come when this project will be realized."

In 1871 a statue of Professor Morse was erected in Central Park, New York, at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country. It was unveiled on June 10th with imposing ceremonies. There were delegates from every State in the Union, and from the British provinces. In the evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the Academy of Music, at which William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, presided, a.s.sisted by scores of the leading public men of the country as vice-presidents. The last scene was an impressive one. It was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the audience was then in connection with every other one of the ten thousand instruments in America. Then Miss Cornell, a young telegraphic operator, sent this message from the key: "Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the world. Glory to G.o.d in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men." The venerable inventor, the personification of simplicity, dignity, and kindliness, was then conducted to the instrument, and touching the key, sent out: "S.F.B. MORSE." A storm of enthusiasm swept through the house as the audience rose, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs and the men cheering.

Professor Morse last appeared in public on February 22, 1872, when he unveiled the statue of Franklin, erected in Printing-house Square in New York. He died, after a short illness, on April 2, 1872, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. On the day of the funeral, April 5th, every telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning.

Professor Morse was twice married. His first wife died in 1825. In 1848 he married Sarah Elizabeth Griswold, of Poughkeepsie, who still lives.

By the first marriage there were three children, one of whom, a son, survives. By the second marriage there were four children, three of whom are alive--a daughter and two sons. Miss Leila Morse, the daughter, was married in 1885 to Herr Franz Rummel, the eminent pianist. The last years of his life were eminently peaceful and happy. In the summer he lived at a place called Locust Grove, on the banks of the Hudson, near Poughkeepsie, and in the winter in a house at No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, a few doors west of Fifth Avenue. In recent years a marble tablet has been affixed to the front of the house, suitably inscribed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where Morse Lived for Many Years and Died.]

Morse's life in the country was very simple and quiet. His hour of rising was half-past six o'clock in the morning, and he was in his library alone until breakfast, at eight. He loved to hear the birds in their native songs, and he could distinguish the notes of each species, and would speak of the quality of their respective music. He spent most of the day in reading and writing, rarely taking exercise, except walking in his garden to visit his graperies, in which he took special pride, or to the stable to see if his horses were well cared for. He did not ride out regularly with his family, preferring the repose of his own grounds and the labors of his study. But when he walked or rode in the country, he was constantly disposed to speak of the beauty and glory around him, as revealing to his mind the beneficence, wisdom, and power of the infinite Creator, who had made all these things for the use and enjoyment of men.

One of his daughters writes of him in these simple and tender words: "He loved flowers. He would take one in his hand and talk for hours about its beauty, its wonderful construction, and the wisdom and love of G.o.d in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. In his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope and purchased one of great excellence and power. For whole hours, all the afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, examining flowers or the animalculae in different fluids. Then he would gather his children about him and give us a sort of extempore lecture on the wonders of creation invisible to the naked eye, but so clearly brought to view by the magnifying power of the microscope. He was very fond of animals, cats, and birds in particular. He tamed a little flying-squirrel, and it became so fond of him that it would sit on his shoulder while he was at his studies and would eat out of his hand and sleep in his pocket. To this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to Europe, where it came to an untimely end, in Paris, by running into an open fire."

His biographer, Prime, says of him:

"In person Professor Morse was tall, slender, graceful, and attractive.

Six feet in stature, he stood erect and firm, even in old age. His blue eyes were expressive of genius and affection. His nature was a rare combination of solid intellect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful, sober, and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments of domestic and social life, indulging in sallies of humor, and readily appreciating and greatly enjoying the wit of others. Dignified in his intercourse with men, courteous and affable with the gentler s.e.x, he was a good husband, a judicious father, a generous and faithful friend. He had the misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive him of the merit and the reward of his labors. But his was the common fate of great inventors. He lived until his rights were vindicated by every tribunal to which they could be referred, and acknowledged by all civilized nations. And he died leaving to his children a spotless and ill.u.s.trious name, and to his country the honor of having given birth to the only electro-magnetic recording telegraph whose line has gone out through all the earth and its words to the end of the world."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles Goodyear.]

VI.

CHARLES GOODYEAR.

India-rubber had been known for more than a hundred years when Charles Goodyear undertook to make of it thousands of articles useful in common life. So long ago as 1735 a party of French astronomers discovered in Peru a curious tree that yielded the natives a peculiar gum or sap which they collected in clay vessels. This sap became hard when exposed to the sun, and was used by the natives, who made different articles of every-day use from it by dipping a clay mould again and again into the liquid. When the article was completed the clay mould was broken to pieces and shaken out. In this manner they made a kind of rough shoe and an equally rough bottle. In some parts of South America the natives presented their guests with these bottles, which served as syringes for squirting water. Articles thus made were liable to become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather and soft and sticky in warm. Upon getting back to France the travellers directed the attention of scientists to this remarkable gum, which was afterward found in various parts of South America, and the chief supplies of which still come from Brazil. About the beginning of the present century this substance, known variously as cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum-elastic, and india-rubber, was first commercially introduced into Europe. It was regarded merely as a curiosity, chiefly useful for erasing pencil-marks. s.h.i.+ps from South America took it over as ballast. About the year 1820 it began to be used in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters, india-rubber threads being mixed with the material used in weaving those articles.

Some years later Mackintosh, an English manufacturer, used it in his famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the gum between two pieces of cloth.

About the same time a pair of india-rubber shoes were exhibited in Boston, where they were regarded as a curiosity; they were covered with gilt-foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823 a Boston merchant, engaged in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs of these shoes, made by the natives of Para, and found no difficulty in selling them. In fact, this became a large business, although these shoes were terribly rough and clumsy and were not to be depended upon; in cold weather they became so hard that they could be used only after being thawed by the fire, and in summer they could be preserved only by keeping them on ice. If during the thawing process they were placed too near the fire, they would melt into a shapeless ma.s.s; and yet they cost from three to five dollars a pair.

In 1830 E.M. Chaffee, of Boston, the foreman of a patent leather factory in that city, attempted to replace patent leather by a compound of india-rubber. He dissolved a pound of the gum in spirits of turpentine, added to the mixture enough lamp-black to produce a bright black color, and invented a machine for spreading this compound over cloth. When dried in the sun it produced a hard, smooth surface, flexible enough to be twisted into any shape without cracking. With the aid of a few capitalists, Chaffee organized, in 1833, a company called the Roxbury India-rubber Company, and manufactured an india-rubber cloth from which wagon-covers, piano-covers, caps, coats, shoes, and other articles were made. The product of the factory sold well, and the success of the Roxbury Company led to the establishment of a number of similar factories elsewhere. Apparently all who were engaged in the production of rubber goods were on the highway to wealth.

A day of disaster, however, came. Most of the goods produced in the winter of 1833-1834 became worthless during the following summer. The shoes melted to a soft ma.s.s and the caps, wagon-covers, and coats became sticky and useless. To make matters worse they emitted an odor so offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of these goods were thrown back on the hands of the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by the ruin that threatened them. It was useless to go on manufacturing goods that might prove worthless at any moment. India-rubber stock fell rapidly, and by the end of 1836 there was not a solvent rubber company in the Union, the stockholders losing about $2,000,000. People came to detest the very name of india-rubber.

One day, in 1834, a Philadelphia hardware merchant, named Charles Goodyear, was led by curiosity to buy a rubber life-preserver. And thus began for this unfortunate genius nearly twenty-five years of struggle, misery, and disappointment. Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven, Conn., December 29, 1800. When a boy his father moved to Philadelphia, where he engaged in the hardware business, and upon becoming of age, Charles Goodyear joined him as a partner. In the panic of 1836-1837 the house went down. Goodyear's attention had been attracted for several years by the wonderful success of the india-rubber companies. Upon examining his life-preserver he discovered a defect in the inflating valve and made an improved one. Going to New York with this device, he called on the agent of the Roxbury Company and, explaining it to him, offered to sell it to the company. The agent was impressed with the improvement, but instead of buying it, told the inventor the real state of the india-rubber business of the country, then on the verge of a collapse. He urged Goodyear to exert his inventive skill in discovering some means of imparting durability to india-rubber goods, and a.s.sured him that if he could find a process to effect that end, he could sell it at his own price. He explained the processes then in use and their imperfections.

Goodyear forgot all about his disappointment in failing to sell his valve, and went home intent upon experiments to make gum-elastic durable. From that time until the close of his life he devoted himself solely to this work. He was thirty-five years old, feeble in health, a bankrupt in business, and had a young family depending upon him. The industry in which he now engaged was one in which thousands of persons had found ruin. The firm of which he had been a member owed $30,000, and upon his return to Philadelphia he was arrested for debt and compelled to live within prison limits. He began his experiments at once. The price of the gum had fallen to five cents per pound, so that he had no difficulty in getting sufficient of it to begin work. By melting and working it thoroughly and rolling it out upon a stone table, he succeeded in producing sheets of india-rubber that seemed to him to possess new properties. A friend loaned him enough money to manufacture a number of shoes which at first seemed to be all that could be desired.

Fearful, however, of coming trouble, Goodyear put his shoes away until the following summer, when the warm weather reduced them to a ma.s.s of so offensive an odor that he was glad to throw them away. His friend was so thoroughly disheartened by this failure as to refuse to have anything more to do with Goodyear's scheme. The inventor, nevertheless, kept on.

It occurred to him that there must be some substance which, mixed with the gum, would render it durable, and he began to experiment with almost every substance that he could lay his hands on. All proved total failures with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound of magnesia with a pound of the gum he produced a substance whiter than the pure gum, which was at first as firm and flexible as leather, and out of which he made beautiful book-covers and piano-covers. It looked as if he had solved the problem; but in a month his pretty product was ruined.

Heat caused it to soften; fermentation then set in, and finally it became as hard and brittle as thin gla.s.s. His stock of money was now exhausted. He was forced to p.a.w.n all his own valuables and even the trinkets of his wife. But he felt sure that he was on the road to success and would eventually win both fame and fortune. He removed his family to the country, and set out for New York, where he hoped to find someone willing to aid him in carrying his experiments further. Here he met two acquaintances, one of whom offered him the use of a room in Gold Street as a workshop, and the other, a druggist, agreed to let him have on credit such chemicals as he needed. He now boiled the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quicklime and water, and as a result obtained firm, smooth sheets that won him a medal at the fair of the American Inst.i.tute in 1835. He seemed on the point of success, and easily sold all the sheets he could manufacture, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a drop of the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple or diluted vinegar, would reduce his new compound to the old sticky substance that had baffled him so often.

His first important discovery on the road to real success was the result of accident. He liked pretty things, and it was a constant effort with him to make his productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon one occasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing part of the bronze. It took away the bronze, but it also destroyed the cloth to such a degree that he supposed it ruined and threw it away. A day or two later, happening to pick it up, he was astonished to find that the rubber had undergone a remarkable change, and that the effect of the acid had been to harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree of heat which would have melted it before. Aqua fortis contained sulphuric acid. Goodyear was thus on the threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing rubber.

He called his new process the "curing" of india-rubber.

The "cured" india-rubber was subjected to many tests and pa.s.sed through them successfully, thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important uses. Goodyear readily obtained a patent for his process, and a partner with a large capital was found ready to aid him. He hired the old india-rubber works on Staten Island and opened a salesroom in Broadway.

He was thrown back for six weeks at this important time by an accident which happened to him while experimenting with his fabrics and which came near causing his death. Just as he was recovering and preparing to begin the manufacture of his goods on a large scale the terrible commercial crisis of 1837 swept over the country, and by destroying his partner's fortune at one blow, reduced Goodyear to absolute beggary. His family had joined him in New York, and he was entirely without the means of supporting them. As the only resource at hand he decided to p.a.w.n an article of value--one of the few which he possessed--in order to raise money to procure one day's supply of provisions. At the very door of the p.a.w.nbroker's shop he met one of his creditors, who kindly asked if he could be of any further a.s.sistance to him. Weak with hunger and overcome by the generosity of his friend the poor man burst into tears and replied that, as his family was on the point of starvation, a loan of $15 would greatly oblige him. The money was given him on the spot and the necessity for visiting the p.a.w.nbroker averted for several days longer. Still he was a frequent visitor to that person during the year, and one by one the relics of his better days disappeared. Another friend loaned him $100, which enabled him to remove his family to Staten Island, in the neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works, which the owners gave him permission to use so far as he could. He contrived in this way to manufacture enough of his "cured" cloth, which sold readily, to enable him to keep his family from starvation. He made repeated efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory and see his samples and the process by which they were made, but no one would venture near him. There had been money enough lost in such experiments, these acquaintances said, and they were determined to risk no more.

Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one man who had the slightest hope of accomplis.h.i.+ng anything with india-rubber, and that one was Charles Goodyear. His friends regarded him as a monomaniac. He not only manufactured his cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it, wearing it for the purpose of testing its durability, as well as of advertising it. He was certainly an odd figure, and in his appearance justified the remark of one of his friends, who, upon being asked how Mr. Goodyear could be recognized, replied: "If you see a man with an india-rubber coat on, india-rubber shoes, and india-rubber cap, and in his pocket an india-rubber purse with not a cent in it, that is Goodyear."

In September, 1837, a new gleam of hope lit up his pathway. A friend having loaned him a small sum of money he went to Roxbury, taking with him some of his best specimens. Although the Roxbury Company had gone down with a fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the first process of making rubber goods in this country, was still firm in his faith that india-rubber would at some future time justify the expectations of its earliest friends. He welcomed Goodyear cordially and allowed him to use the abandoned works of the company for his experiments. The result was that Goodyear succeeded in making shoes and cloths of india-rubber of a quality so much better than any that had yet been seen in America that the hopes of the friends of india-rubber were raised to a high point. Offers to purchase rights for certain portions of the country came in rapidly, and by the sale of them Goodyear realized between four and five thousand dollars. He was now able to bring his family to Roxbury, and for the time fortune seemed to smile upon him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Calenders Heated Internally by Steam, for Spreading India Rubber into Sheets or upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine."]

His success was but temporary, however. He obtained an order from the general Government for one hundred and fifty india-rubber mail-bags, which he succeeded in producing, and as they came out smooth, highly polished, hard, well shaped, and entirely impervious to moisture, he was delighted and summoned his friends to inspect and admire them. All who saw them p.r.o.nounced them a perfect success, but alas! in a single month they began to soften and ferment, and finally became useless. Poor Goodyear's hopes were dashed to the ground. It was found that the aqua fortis merely "cured" the surface of the material, and that only very thin cloth made in this way was durable. His other goods began to prove worthless and his promising business came to a sudden and disastrous end. All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, and once more he was reduced to poverty. His position was even worse than before, for his family had increased in size and his aged father also had become dependent upon him for support.

Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all demanded that he should abandon his empty dreams and turn his attention to something that would yield a support to his family. Four years of constant failure, added to the unfortunate experience of those who had preceded him, ought to convince him, they said, that he was hoping against hope. Hitherto his conduct, certainly had been absurd, though they admitted that he was to some extent excused for it by his partial success; but to persist in it would be criminal. The inventor was driven to despair, and being a man of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family, might have yielded to them had he not felt that he was nearer than ever to the discovery of the secret that had eluded him so long.

Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him, he had taken into his employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who had been the foreman of the old Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of them when Goodyear came to Roxbury, and was making a few rubber articles on his own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur over the rubber cloth and drying it in the sun. He declared that the process had been revealed to him in a dream, but could give no further account of it. Goodyear was astonished to find that the sulphur cured the india-rubber as thoroughly as the aqua fortis, the princ.i.p.al objection being that the sulphurous odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process was really the same as that employed by Goodyear, the "curing" of the india-rubber being due in each case to the agency of the sulphur, the princ.i.p.al difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried by the sun and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hayward set so small a value upon his discovery that he readily sold it to his new employer.

Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties. It was plain that sulphur was the great controller of india-rubber, for he had proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for most purposes. The problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and the gum in a ma.s.s, so that every part of the rubber should be subjected to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and months with the most intense eagerness, but the mystery completely baffled him. His friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family, but he could not turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now. To the world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and some there were who, seeing the distress of his family, did not hesitate to apply still harsher names to him. Had it been merely wealth that he was working for, doubtless he would have turned back and sought some other means of obtaining it; but he sought more. He felt that he had a mission to fulfil, and that no one else could perform it.

He was right. A still greater success was about to crown his labors, but in a manner far different from his expectations. His experiments had developed nothing; chance was to make the revelation. It was in the spring of 1839, and in the following manner: Standing before a stove in a store at Woburn, Ma.s.s., he was explaining to some acquaintances the properties of a piece of sulphur-cured india-rubber which he held in his hand. They listened to him good-naturedly, but with evident incredulity, when suddenly he dropped the rubber on the stove, which was red hot. His old clothes would have melted instantly from contact with such heat; but, to his surprise, this piece underwent no such change. In amazement he examined it, and found that while it had charred or shrivelled like leather, it had not softened at all. The bystanders attached no importance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a revelation. He renewed his experiments with enthusiasm, and in a little while established the facts that india-rubber, when mixed with sulphur and exposed to a certain degree of heat for a specified time, would not melt or soften at any degree of heat; that it would only char at two hundred and eighty degrees, and that it would not stiffen from exposure to any extent of cold. The difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact degree of heat necessary for the perfecting of the rubber and the exact length of time required for the heating.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles Goodyear's Exhibition of Hard India Rubber Goods at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, England. (From a print published at the time.)]

He made this discovery in his darkest days, when, in fact, he was in constant danger of arrest for debt, having already been a frequent inmate of the debtors' prison. He was in the depths of bitter poverty and in such feeble health that he was constantly haunted by the fear of dying before he had perfected his discovery--before he had fulfilled his mission. He needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat for his experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He used to bake his compound in his wife's bread-oven and steam it over the spout of her tea-kettle, and to press the kitchen fire into his service so far as it would go. When this failed, he would go down to the shops in the vicinity of Woburn and beg to be allowed to use the ovens and boilers after working hours were over. The workmen regarded him as a lunatic, but were too good-natured to deny him the request. Finally he induced a bricklayer to make him an oven, and paid him in masons' ap.r.o.ns of india-rubber. The oven was a failure. Sometimes it would turn out pieces of perfectly vulcanized cloth, and again the goods would be charred and ruined. Goodyear was in despair.

All this time he lived on the charity of his friends. His neighbors pretended to lend him money, but in reality gave him the means of keeping his family from starvation. He has declared that all the while he felt sure he would, before long, be able to pay them back, but they have declared with equal emphasis that, at that time, they never expected to witness his success. He was yellow and shrivelled in face, with a gaunt, lean figure, and his habit of wearing an india-rubber coat, which was charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with it, gave him a wild and singular appearance. People shook their heads solemnly when they saw him, and said that the mad-house was the proper place for him.

The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. At the opening of the season Goodyear received a letter from a house in Paris, making him a handsome offer for the use of his process of curing india-rubber with aqua fortis. Here was a chance for him to rise out of his misery. A year before he would have closed with the offer, but since then he had discovered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound, and had pa.s.sed far beyond the aqua-fortis stage. Disappointment and want had not warped his conscience, and he at once declined to enter into any arrangements with the French house, informing them that although the process they desired to purchase was a valuable one, it was about to be entirely replaced by another which he was then on the point of perfecting, and which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had completed it. His friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an offer; but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a process which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by still greater discoveries.

A few weeks later a terrible snow-storm pa.s.sed over the land, one of the worst that New England had ever known, and in the midst of it Goodyear made the appalling discovery that he had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food in the house. He was ill enough to be in bed himself, and his purse was entirely empty. It was a terrible position, made worse, too, by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to his fate. In his despair he bethought him of a mere acquaintance named Coleridge, who lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a few days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received of late. This gentleman, he thought, would aid him in his distress, if he could but reach his house, but in such a snow the journey seemed hopeless to a man in his feeble health. Still the effort must be made.

Nerved by despair, he set out and pushed his way resolutely through the heavy drifts. The way was long, and it seemed to him that he would never accomplish it. Often he fell prostrate on the snow, almost fainting with fatigue and hunger, and again he would sit down wearily in the road, feeling that he would gladly die if his discovery were but completed. At length, however, he reached the end of his journey, and fortunately found his acquaintance at home. To this gentleman he told the story of his discovery, his hopes, his struggles, and his present sufferings, and implored him to help him. Mr. Coleridge listened to him kindly, and after expressing the warmest sympathy for him, loaned him money enough to support his family during the severe weather and to enable him to continue his experiments.

Seeing no prospect of success in Ma.s.sachusetts, he now resolved to make a desperate effort to get to New York, feeling confident that the specimens he could take with him would convince someone of the superiority of his new method. He was beginning to understand the cause of his many failures, but he saw clearly that his compound could not be worked with certainty without expensive apparatus. It was a very delicate operation, requiring exactness and prompt.i.tude. The conditions upon which success depended were many, and the failure of one spoiled all. It cost him thousands of failures to learn that a little acid in his sulphur caused the blistering; that his compound must be heated almost immediately after being mixed or it would never vulcanize; that a portion of white lead in the compound greatly facilitated the operation and improved the result; and when he had learned these facts, it still required costly and laborious experiments to devise the best methods of compounding his ingredients in the best proportions, the best mode of heating, the proper duration of the heating, and the various useful effects that could be produced by varying the proportions and the degree of heat. He tells us that many times when, by exhausting every resource, he had prepared a quant.i.ty of his compound for heating, it was spoiled because he could not, with his inadequate apparatus, apply the heat soon enough.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COUNCIL MEDAL OF THE EXHIBITION.

C. GOODYEAR. CLa.s.s XXVIII.

1851.]

To New York, then, he directed his thoughts. Merely to get there cost him a severer and a longer effort than men in general are capable of making. First he walked to Boston, ten miles distant, where he hoped to borrow from an old acquaintance $50, with which to provide for his family and pay his fare to New York. He not only failed in this, but he was arrested for debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, while his old father was negotiating to procure his release, he labored to interest men of capital in his discovery, and made proposals for founding a factory in Boston. Having obtained his liberty, he went to a hotel and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan. Sat.u.r.day night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he had no means of discharging. In an agony of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and entreated the sum of $5 to enable him to return home. He was met with a point-blank refusal. In the deepest dejection, he walked the streets till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost beside himself, to Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter for the night. He was hospitably entertained, and the next morning walked wearily home, penniless and despairing. At the door of his house a member of his family met him with the news that his youngest child, two years old, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In a few hours he had in his house a dead child, but not the means of burying it, and five living dependents without a morsel of food to give them. A storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family, but, discouraged by the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he had that day refused to trust them further. In these terrible circ.u.mstances he applied to a friend, upon whose generosity he knew he could rely, one who never failed him. He received in reply a letter of severe and cutting reproach, enclosing $7, which his friend explained was given only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family. A stranger who chanced to be present when this letter arrived sent them a barrel of flour, a timely and blessed relief. The next day the family followed on foot the remains of the little child to the grave.

This was about the darkest hour of poor Goodyear's life, but it was before the dawn. He managed to obtain $50, with which he went to New York, and succeeded in interesting two brothers, William and Emory Rider, in his discoveries. They agreed to advance to him a certain sum to complete his experiments. By means of this aid he was enabled to keep his family from want, and his experiments were pursued with greater ease and certainty. His brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a rich wool manufacturer, also came to his aid, now that success seemed in view.

Nevertheless, the experiments of that and the following year cost nearly $50,000. Thanks to this timely aid, he was able in 1844, ten years after beginning his work, to produce perfect vulcanized india-rubber with economy and certainty. To the end of his life he was at work, however, endeavoring to improve the material and apply it to new uses. He took out more than sixty patents covering different processes of making rubber goods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANDE MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR.

EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE DE 1855.

Donne pour la Decouverte de la Vulcanisation et Durciss.e.m.e.nt du Caoutchouc.