72 GOODYEAR ON GUM-ELASTIC. 



brought to the notice of the pubhc — carpeting and globes — 

 were among the first that the inventor attempted to make. 

 This accumulation of inventions is the result of years of labor 

 and constant application to the subject. 



Fortunately, the substance is one with which, in experiment- 

 ing, fingers are better than any other mechanical power, of 

 the same force, when the dissolving process is used, which was, 

 before the substitution of steam and pressure, the only one in 

 use. Fingers were the only mechanical power of which the 

 writer had command during the first two years of his experi- 

 ments, and that by which he mixed and worked many hundred 

 pounds of gum, afterwards spreading it upon a marble slab 

 with a rolling-pin. Thus, owing very much to the plastic 

 nature of the substance, in extreme poverty, he was able to 

 persevere in his course, against all obstacles, and having 

 endured alone the reproaches which were heaped upon him 

 without measure, the recognition of merit is now the more 

 grateful. Whatever of misfortune may hereafter befall him, 

 he will have the satisfaction of knowing that his efforts have 

 been successful, and of witnessing on every side, and in every 

 civilized country, the growing importance of the numerous 

 branches of manufacture already established, and which may in 

 his life-time be established, under these inventions and im- 

 provements. 



Before dismissing the subject of the writer's claims to im- 

 portant inventions in the treatment of caoutchouc and its com- 

 pounds, in justice to himself and in anticipation of the future 

 as relates to a mode of treatment in the manufacture which, 

 though lightly esteemed and little thought of now, he believes 

 will be extensively practiced hereafter, especially in the treat- 

 ment in the kind of caoutchouc called gutta percha, he feels 

 bound to make a strong though qualified claim to the process 

 of solarization. This process consists in exposing caoutchouc, 

 when combined with sulphur, to the sun's rays. The powerful 

 influence of the sun's rays has been known, as relates to its 



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