876 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 54.5. 



lowing words: "The novel proposition was 

 presented to the court, of a patent for not 

 doing something, namely, for not permit- 

 ting 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 suc- 

 cessful nickel plating, and that a process 

 involving this condition was just as patent- 

 able as a process involving any other special 

 condition necessary for successful execu- 

 tion, and the patent was sustained."* 



In passing I may mention the name of 

 Joseph Wharton (1826- ), whose experi- 

 ments 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 perma- 

 nent green ink which he invented in 1859 

 and which is used in the printing of our 

 national bank notes and from the appear- 

 ance 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 metal- 

 lurgist, 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 ridi- 

 cule. Indeed, he was called an india rub- 

 ber 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 



* Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, 

 XIX., 1900, p. Gil. 



articles from the plastic material and cur- 

 ing or vulcanizing the mixture by exposure 

 to the temperature of 265-270° F.* 



Of almost equal importance was the in- 

 vention 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 ob- 

 tained by heating a mixture of rubber, 

 sulphur, magnesia, etc., but this never be- 

 came an article of commerce. In 1858 

 Austin Goodyear Day (1824^89) patented 

 a mixture of two parts of rubber and one 

 of sulphur, which, when heated to 275- 

 300° F., yielded the flexible and elastic 

 product now generally known as hard 

 rubber, t 



Dr. Leander Bishop has said: 'In the 

 art of modifying the curious native proper- 

 ties of cautchouc and gutta percha, and of 

 molding their plastic elements into a thou- 

 sand 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 refiner in the 

 U. S. Mint. In 1836 he established a labo- 

 ratory in Philadelphia 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 Mor- 

 fit, all of whom have achieved eminence as 

 chemists. It was said of him, 'that Mr. 



* His life has been published by Bradford K. 

 Peirce with the title, ' Trials of the Inventor,' 

 New York, 1860. 



f American Chemist, II., 1872, p. 330. 



X ' A History of American Manufactures,' by J. 

 Leander Bishop (Philadelphia, 1860). 



