e surface and dried it in the sun. Mr.
Goodyear was surprised to observe that this process seemed to produce
the same effect as the application of aquafortis. It does not appear
to have occurred to him that Hayward's process and his own were
essentially the same. A chemical dictionary would have informed him
that sulphuric acid enters largely into the composition of aquafortis,
from which he might have inferred that the only difference between the
two methods was, that Hayward employed the sun, and Goodyear nitric
acid, to give the sulphur effect. Hayward's goods, however, were
liable to a serious objection: the smell of the sulphur, in warm
weather, was intolerable. Hayward, it appears, was a very illiterate
man; and the only account he could give of his invention was, that it
was revealed to him in a dream. His process was of so little use to
him, that Goodyear bought his patent for a small sum, and gave him
employment at monthly wages until the mail-bag disaster deprived him
of the means of doing so.

In combining sulphur with India-rubber, Goodyear had approached so
near his final success that one step more brought him to it. He was
certain that he was very close to the secret. He saw that sulphur had
a mysterious power over India-rubber when a union could be effected
between the two substances. True, there was an infinitesimal quantity
of sulphur in his mail-bags, and they had melted in the shade; but the
surface of his cloth, powdered with the sulphur and dried in the sun,
bore the sun's heat. Here was a mystery. The problem was, how to
produce in a _mass_ of India-rubber the change effected on the surface
by sulphur and sun? He made numberless experiments. He mixed with the
gum large quantities of sulphur, and small quantities. He exposed his
compound to the sun, and held it near a fire. He felt that he had the
secret in his hands; but for many weary months it eluded him.

And, after all, it was an accident that revealed it; but an accident
that no man in the world but Charles Goodyear could have interpreted,
nor he, but for his five years' previous investigation. At Woburn one
day, in the spring of 1839, he was standing with his brother and
several other persons near a very hot stove. He held in his hand a
mass of his compound of sulphur and gum, upon which he was expatiating
in his usual vehement manner,--the company exhibiting the indifference
to which he was accustomed. In the crisis of his argument he made