698 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing fiber witli tlie gum. He considered tliis invention only second to 

 vulcanization. "Wlien lie had brought the fabrication of shoes to 

 sufficient perfection, he disposed of his rights for one half cent a pair. 

 Thus, when he should have been in condition to enjoy the fruits of 

 his discoveries, he was harassed by financial cares to the end of his 

 days. An idea of the business he opened up to others may be formed 

 from the fact that the companies holding the shoe rights paid Daniel 

 "Webster a fee of twenty-five thousand dollars for his triumphant 

 defense in 1852. It was the last legal argument Webster made, and 

 has been considered a fitting close to his brilliant professional career 

 (The Green Bag, vol. vii). Webster's story will serve to keep in 

 mind the effects of cold on unvulcanized rubber: receiving a present 

 of a cloak and hat, he one day stood the stiffened cloak on the ve- 

 randa, the hat on top. Several worthy citizens, passing afterward, 

 respectfully saluted the strange figure, thinking it was the sage 

 himself. 



After vulcanization was an established fact and patented in 

 Europe and the United States, Goodyear worked on for sixteen years 

 in the effort to apply rubber to new and especially humanitarian uses 

 — life-saving appliances on water, sails, water beds, etc. In personal 

 expenditures reasonable, he was very prodigal in his experiments — 

 often from the desire to save time or to test his ideas upon a suf- 

 ficiently large scale. It was his habit to have light and writing 

 material at hand at night, and thus many things were recorded by 

 his own hand, or by dictation, that would otherwise have been lost. 

 A prey to dyspepsia, liable to attacks of gout, and delicate as he 

 was, his achievement is the more remarkable. He received over sixty 

 patents, yet his chief benefit, relatively, may be said to have been the 

 consciousness of working for mankind. His rights were infringed; 

 litigation and experiments consumed large sums. " ISTo inventor, 

 probably," says the commissioner, granting an extension of patent in 

 1858, " has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by 

 that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance 

 of the world as ' pirates.' The spoliation of their incessant guerrilla 

 warfare upon his defenseless rights has unquestionably amounted to 

 millions." He spent much time and money upon rubber sails, which, 

 from greater impermeability, were to be smaller, from nonliability 

 to mildew, more durable; and, being nonfreezing, to prove a great 

 relief to sailors on northern coasts; and he died in the conviction 

 that they would supersede all others. Captain Popham, on whose 

 ship they were tried, accorded them high praise. Goodyear's experi- 

 ments also laid the basis for hard-rubber manufacture. Gail Borden, 

 famous for his condensed-milk process, once said to one of Mr. 

 Goodyear's sons : " After experimenting unsuccessfully so many 



