700 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



healtli, as far as N^ew York. On reaching that city they received in- 

 telligence of her death. As Mr. Goodyear was unable to continue 

 the journey, they repaired to the Tifth Avenue Hotel, where he 

 afterward died, as the church bells were ringing, Sunday morning, 

 July 1, 1860. Of nine children, five survived him. 



Some of the published biographical sketches of the discoverer 

 convey the idea that he left an insolvent estate. From his surviving 

 son, Prof. "William H. Goodyear, we learn that the greater part of 

 the last fifteen years of his father's life was passed in comfortable 

 circumstances ; and that his estate, though his affairs were somewhat 

 complicated at the time of his death, was worth several hundred thou- 

 sand dollars, the greater part of which was ultimately invested profit- 

 ably in the well-known Goodyear shoe-sewing machine (an invention 

 improved by Charles Goodyear, fils). An effort was made to extend 

 his patent a second time for the benefit of his family. But it was not 

 very difiicult for those grown rich out of his discovery to point out 

 improvidence — particularly in his later years — and so, with the cry 

 of " Monopoly," raised in the press, the project was frustrated. The 

 whole tenor of his life shows him to have been a man of most honor- 

 able intentions. He gave cheerfully and unsparingly for benevo- 

 lence when he had the means. Further, it goes almost without say- 

 ing that he never neglected those who had assisted him, and that he 

 promoted their welfare, and that of his relatives, to the extent of his 

 ability. Palissy, the celebrated rediscoverer of white enameling, 

 knew that the process had been accomplished before. But Charles 

 Goodyear was not in the same position in regard to vulcanization, 

 and his chief merit may, therefore, be said to have been his remark- 

 able faith, in its final accomplishment, which inspired his untiring 

 pursuit of his idea under the most adverse conditions. From France, 

 in Le Caoutchouc et la Gutta Percha, by E. Chapel, comes a note of 

 worthy appreciation and a suggestion which should find echo on this 

 side of the ocean: " Sufiicient account has not been taken, in the 

 United States, of the character of this researcher; it is owing to him 

 that we have been able to take so great advantage of caoutchouc, that 

 its employment has become indispensable in medicine, in chemistry, 

 in physics, in electricity — in a word, in all the arts and sciences, in 

 which, in many cases, it permits the realization of progress of the 

 highest importance. We should consider Goodyear one of the bene- 

 factors of his race, and must regret that no statue to that end has 

 been raised to this Bernard de Palissy of the New World." 



