704 TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY 



namely, for not permitting nitrates to find their way into the nickel solutions 

 employed in nickel-plating, and the court held that the exclusion of nitrates 

 was an essential condition of successful nickel-plating, and that a process in- 

 volving this condition was just as patentable as a process involving any other 

 special condition necessary for successful execution, and the patent was sus- 

 tained." l 



In passing I may mention the name of Joseph Wharton (1826- ), whose 

 experiments in producing nickel in a pure and malleable condition so that it 

 could be worked like iron, culminated in the first production, in 1865, of malleable 

 nickel. 



Chemistry owes a great debt of gratitude to the genius of Thomas Sterry Hunt 

 (1826-1892), and one of his most notable contributions to technology is the per- 

 manent green ink which he invented in 1859 and which is used in the printing of 

 our national bank-notes and from the appearance of which the well-known term 

 of " greenback " was derived. The Hunt and Douglas process for the precipitation 

 of copper by iron, for a time so extensively used for the extraction of copper from 

 low-grade ores, is an invention the credit of which he shares with the well-known 

 metallurgist, James Douglas. 



The vulcanization of India rubber by sulphur is the invention of Charles Good- 

 year (1800-60), who was so persistent in his efforts as to become an object of 

 ridicule. Indeed, he was called an India rubber maniac and was described as a 

 " man with an India rubber coat on, India rubber shoes, and in his pocket an India 

 rubber purse, and not a cent in it." His invention consisted in mixing with the 

 rubber a small quantity of sulphur, fashioning the articles from the plastic 

 material, and curing or vulcanizing the mixture by exposure to the temperature of 

 265-270 F. 2 



Of almost equal importance was the invention of hard rubber or vulcanite, 

 for which Nelson Goodyear (1811-57), a brother of Charles Goodyear, obtained 

 a patent in 1851, claiming that the hard, stiff, inflexible compound could be best 

 obtained by heating a mixture of rubber, sulphur, magnesia, etc., but this never 

 became an article of commerce. In 1858 Austin Goodyear Day (1824-89) patented 

 a mixture of two parts of rubber and one of sulphur, w r hich, when heated to 275- 

 300 F., yielded the flexible and elastic product now generally known as hard 

 rubber. 3 



Dr. Leander Bishop has said: "In the art of modifying the curious native 

 properties of caoutchouc and gutta-percha, and of molding their plastic elements 

 into a thousand forms of beauty and utility, whether hard or soft, smooth or 

 corrugated, rigid or elastic, American ingenuity and patient experiment have 

 never been excelled." 



Exceedingly valuable to the industries of this country was the influence of 

 James Curtis Booth (1810-88), who from 1849 till his death was melter and re- 

 finer in the United States Mint. In 1836 he established a laboratory in Philadel- 

 phia for instruction in chemical analysis and chemistry applied to the arts, and in 

 the course of a few years gathered around him nearly forty students, among whom 

 were Martin H. Boye, John F. Frazer, Thomas H. Garrett, Richard C. McCulloh and 

 Campbell and Clarence Morfit, all of whom have achieved eminence as chemists. It 

 was said of him " that Mr. Booth had few, if any, superiors as a teacher of practical 

 chemistry." From 1836 till 1845 he held the chair of chemistry applied to the arts 



1 Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, vol. xix, p. 611, 1900. 



2 His life has been published by Bradford K. Peirce with the title, Trials of the 

 Inventor, New York, 1860. 



3 American Chemist, vol. n, p. 330, 1872. 



4 A History of American Manufactures, by J. Lcandcr Bishop (Philadelphia, 

 1860). 



