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124 GOODYEAR ON GUM -ELASTIC. 



That such indifference to this discovery, and many incidents 

 attending it, could have existed in an inteUigent and benevolent 

 community, can only be accounted for by existing circumstances 

 in that community. The great losses that had been sustained in 

 the manufacture of gum-elastic ; the length of time the inventor 

 had spent in what appeared to them to be entirely fruitless 

 efforts to accomplish any thing with it ; added to his recent mis- 

 fortunes and disappointments, all conspired, with his utter desti- 

 tution, to produce a state of things as unfavorable to the promul- 

 gation of the discovery as can well be imagined. 



He, however, felt in duty bound to beg in earnest, if need be, 

 sooner than that the discovery should be lost to the world and to 

 himself. That there was real danger of such loss, subsequent 

 events abundantly prove. In the event of the writer's death, 

 it could hardly be expected that his theory, which he afterwards 

 found it so difficult to establish, could survive him. The inven- 

 tion was fully appreciated by him at that time, and was considered 

 as valuable as it now proves to be. His inability to convince 

 others of the truth of his assertions, or to bring them to compre- 

 hend the importance of the subject, caused intense anxiety as to 

 the results, and produced a state of mind such as could have 

 been ill endured, but for the excitement caused by efforts to sur- 

 mount the obstacles he met with. 



Want of sympathy, want of means to go forward with experi- 

 ments, or even to provide sustenance from day to day for those 

 dependent upon him, only increased the solicitude consequent 

 upon the state of suspense as to the result of those efforts. 



How he subsisted at this period, charity alone can tell, for it 

 is as well to call things by their right names, and it is little else 

 than charity, when the lender looks upon what he parts with as 

 a gift. The pawning or selling some relic of better days, or 

 some article of necessity, was a frequent expedient. His library 

 had long since disappeared, but shortly after the discovery of 

 this process, he collected and sold at auction the school books 

 of his children, which brought him the trifling sum of five dol- 

 lars ; small as the amount was, it enabled him to proceed. At 



