wholly his own. The science of
Glasgow was diligently questioned by him upon the defects of the old
engine, but it gave him no hint of the remedy. It was James Watt,
mathematical-instrument maker, earning fourteen shillings a week, who
brooded over his little model until the conception of the condenser
burst upon him, as he was taking his Sunday afternoon stroll on
Glasgow Green. Goodyear had a similar experience. Philadelphia has
always been noted for its chemists and its chemical works, and that
city still supplies the greater part of the country with manufactured
drugs and chemists' materials. Nevertheless, though Goodyear explained
his difficulties to professors, physicians, and chemists, none of them
could give him valuable information; none suggested an experiment that
produced a useful result. We know not, indeed, whether science has
ever explained his final success.

Satisfied that nothing could be done with India-rubber pure and
simple, he concluded that a compound of some substance with
India-rubber could alone render the gum available. He was correct in
this conjecture, but it remained to be discovered whether there was
such a substance in nature. He tried everything he could think of. For
a short time he was elated with the result of his experiments with
magnesia, mixing half a pound of magnesia with a pound of gum. This
compound had the advantage of being whiter than the pure sap. It was
so firm that he used it as leather in the binding of a book. In a few
weeks, however, he had the mortification of seeing his elegant white
book-covers fermenting and softening. Afterwards, they grew as hard
and brittle as shell, and so they remain to this day.

By this time, the patience of his friends and his own little fund of
money were both exhausted; and, one by one, the relics of his former
prosperity, even to his wife's trinkets, found their way to the
pawnbroker. He was a sanguine man, as inventors need to be, always
feeling that he was on the point of succeeding. The very confidence
with which he announced a new conception served at length to close all
ears to his solicitations. In the second year of his investigation he
removed his family to the country, and went to New York, in quest of
some one who had still a little faith in India-rubber. His credit was
then at so low an ebb that he was obliged to deposit with the landlord
a quantity of linen, spun by his excellent wife. It was never
redeemed. It was sold at