360 GOODYEAR ON GUM-ELASTIC. 



For ordinary life-preservers there is but occasional use. For 

 trunks, valises, carpet bags, and other travelling apparatus 

 which may be made available as life-preservers, there is con- 

 stant use. The importance to the public, however, of every im- 

 provement, depends upon the comparative cost of the article 

 improved. The cost of most articles of this kind of travelling 

 apparatus is not increased by the improvements suggested, ex- 

 cept in the case oi paper-boxes ; and these are so much im- 

 proved, that no comparison whatever should be made between 

 them and those that have formerly been in use. 



The expense of most of these articles is very much less than 

 that of those heretofore used for the same purposes, and for 

 some of the more expensive articles, the cost is lessened one half. 

 This is the case with the trunk, hat-box, and other travelling 

 apparatus, that are designed as substitutes for those which have 

 heretofore been made of sole leather. The adaptation of these 

 articles to use as life-preservers, does not render them any the 

 less, but rather the more, useful for the purposes of travelling. 

 Various expedients are devised for making them perfectly air- 

 tight, which are cheap, simple, and effectual. 



Some effectual means of closing the mouth of bags, for in- 

 flating air-work, and also for rendering gum-elastic trunks and 

 boxes water and air-tight, were required in order to make them 

 complete for these purposes, or at all infallible as life-pre- 

 servers. These means have been effectually provided. The 

 gum-elastic self-acting valve tube for inflating life-preservers, 

 buoys, and other air- work ; the cushioned clasp and jaws, and 

 also the slide, for securing the mouths of bags, together with 

 the groove and cushion, for rendering boxes and trunks water 

 and air-tight, have been satisfactorily tested, and found unobjec- 

 tionable for accomplishing the object. 



To perfect these, although so simple and effectual when done, 

 has caused much perplexity and great expense to the writer ; 

 and it is worthy of remark, by way of illustrating the general 

 applicability of gum-elastic to useful purposes, that this object 

 has only been attained by resorting to the vulcanized fabrics, 



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