Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/719

Rh years, I should have given up in despair if I had not read a sketch of your father's life."

In 1853 he published, for friends and private circulation, and made entirely of rubber. Gum Elastic and its Varieties, with a Detailed Account of its Application and Uses, and of the Discovery of Vulcanization, copies of which, we are informed, are still in existence. With better instincts for business and willingness to stop and gather the fruits of his labors, as friends often urged, Goodyear might have realized an immense fortune. But almost everywhere he was unfortunate in protecting his rights. Hancock had to admit that he saw the first sample of vulcanized rubber in the hands of Goodyear's agent; yet, both in England and France (where Hancock's process had been introduced), rights were lost through technical difficulties, He spent thirty thousand dollars on his beautiful exhibit at the London Exposition in 1851, and obtained a medal. In 1852 he went with his family to Europe to establish his patents and improve and introduce articles manufactured under them. His wife died in a foreign land, and in 1854 he married Fanny Wardell, of London. Foreseeing the importance of hard rubber, he was the more easily induced to make a lavish display at the Paris Exposition in 1855, where, at an expense of fifty thousand dollars, he exhibited inlaid rubber furniture, jewelry, ornaments, carved caskets, painted panels, etc., obtaining a grand medal, and later a ribbon of the Legion of Honor.

The exposition and his agents' mismanagement abroad and dishonesty at home drew him into greater financial difficulties, and he was imprisoned in Paris for debt. Lack of experienced workmen and necessary heavy machinery in Vienna, the reversal of a favorable decision by a French court, failures in the United States affecting European houses, and a decline in rubber manufacture, all contributing to embarrass his condition, he was obliged to renew his loans on ruinous terms. From April, 1856, to May, 1858, he resided at Bath, worried by debts, a prey, even then, of the pawnbroker, tormented by the gout, yet still experimenting with life-saving appliances. He would have been extremely poor had not his patent been extended for seven years soon after. By the winter of 1859, besides his home in New Haven, he had a residence in Washington fitted with a large bath for trying the life-saving boats and apparatus upon whose perfection he was so intent. Thus, when he might at last have rested, he could not, as his mind was constantly dwelling on the needs and perils of mankind. It is curious that he should have been last employed with a life-preserver, the subject which had engaged his attention at the outset. With a friend he started for Connecticut to see his dying daughter, going by steamer, on account of his delicate