Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/717

Rh became distressing: potatoes gathered before they were grown, school books sold to keep the wolf from the door. Goodyear feared to die before finishing his task. So he struggled on to determine the conditions for best results, boiling his mixtures in saucepans, suspending them from the teakettle, often working far into the night. His yellowed, haggard look and worn rubber coat gave him a wild look. It seemed as if his important secret was to perish with him. A thousand failures were to discover defects. The operation required exactness and promptitude; one condition a failure, all was spoiled; and often he could not apply the heat soon enough. So he saw the necessity of reliable apparatus. Rattier and Guibal, of Paris, made him an offer for his "acid-gas" process, which would have immediately relieved his pressing wants; yet he refused, saying he was perfecting another which would render it worthless. The incident accords with the character of the man. When gloom hung low above the Goodyear cottage, a ray of sunlight came in means for the inventor to reach New York, where William Rider advanced a certain amount for experiments. His family was freed from want, and better conditions for success were obtained.

Before the new firm was well under way Rider failed, and it lost its capital. Goodyear was also manufacturing, at Springfield, Massachusetts, sheets of vulcanized rubber and shirred goods for suspenders and elastics. These were having a large sale. Now that success was attained, his brother-in-law advanced capital to continue the business.

About to continue his enterprise in 1841, he has his last experience with the debtors' prison in the United States. Yielding to remonstrances, he took the bankrupt law; but, when fortune favored him, one of the first things he did was to pay off thirty-five thousand dollars' worth of old claims. He was in no hurry to seek a patent, considering his invention safe, and was more intent on its perfection for the good of humanity than regardful of his personal interests. So Hancock, in England, scraping Goodyear's samples and smelling the sulphur, persevered until he rediscovered the process, and first obtained a patent, November 21, 1843. He and Brockedon (who secured the samples) named the operation "vulcanization." It was ten years after beginning his experiments before Goodyear felt able to produce perfectly vulcanized rubber with economy and certainty. Then, apprised by his agent (Newton, who hastily took patents in his own name in France, January 8, and in England, January 30, 1844) of what Hancock had done, he took out an American patent, June 15, 1844. The same summer he introduced his "steam process" for dissolving without solvents. It cost several years of trials to get rid of the liability of fabrics to peel off, but he succeeded at last by