86 GOODYEAR ON G U M - E L A S T I C . 



subscribe my name, in the presence of the witnesses whose 

 names are hereto subscribed, on the 6th day of December, Anno 

 Domini, 1841. 



On the sixth day of December, 1841, before the subscriber, a 

 Justice of the Peace, in and for the county of New Haven, State 

 of Connecticut, and authorized by law to administer oaths, per- 

 sonally appeared Charles Goodyear, and made oath that he 

 verily believed that he is the first and original inventor of the 

 improvement above-mentioned and described in the specifica- 

 tion by him subscribed, and that he does not know that the 

 same was ever before known or used, and that he is a citizen of 

 the United States. 



Dennis Kimberly, 



Justice of the Peace. 



The foregoing document was legally prepared at the period 

 of its date by a distinguished counselor of New Haven, whose 

 signature it bears. It was deposited in the Patent Office of the 

 United States as a caveat or claim of the invention, instead of 

 application being made under it for a patent, as was first in- 

 tended. Some of the reasons why application was not made 

 for a patent until 1843, have been before mentioned; they are 

 more explicitly stated as follows, viz. : 



1st. The pecuniary embarrassments of the inventor at that 

 time were such, that he was unable to manufacture articles to 

 demonstrate the utility of the invention, and the state of the 

 public mind was such, owing to the losses which had been sus- 

 tained by those who had attempted the manufacture of caout- 

 chouc in the United States, that no one was willing to co-operate 

 with him for this purpose ; consequently the discovery was not 

 then appreciated by others as it is now. 



2d. It was also important to ascertain, previous to the appli- 

 cation for a patent, whether there might not be found some 

 substitute for sulphur, which was then considered objectionable 

 in the vulcanizing process. 



3d. Under the circumstances above stated, there was danger 



i^- 



