ay, amounting to millions of dollars annually. The usefulness
of India rubber is thus described in the _North American Review_: "Some
of our readers have been out on the picket-line during the war. They
know what it is to stand motionless in a wet and miry rifle-pit in the
chilly rain of a southern winter's night. Protected by India rubber
boots, blanket and cap, the picket-man is in comparative comfort; a duty
which, without that protection, would make him a cowering and shivering
wretch, and plant in his bones a latent rheumatism, to be the torment of
his old age. Goodyear's India rubber enables him to come in from his pit
as dry as when he went into it, and he comes in to lie down with an
India rubber blanket between him and the damp earth. If he is wounded it
is an India-rubber stretcher or an ambulance, provided with India-rubber
springs, that gives him least pain on his way to the hospital, where, if
his wound is serious, a water-bed of India rubber gives ease to his
mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an
unchanged posture. Bandages and supporters of India rubber avail him
much when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of India
rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and the noise of his
motions, and a cushion of India rubber is comfortable to his arm-pit.
The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which excludes the
drafts from doors and windows, his pocket-comb and cup and thimble are
of the same material. From jars hermetically closed with India rubber he
receives the fresh fruit that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered
mouth. The instrument case of his surgeon, and the store-room of his
matron contains many articles whose utility is increased by the use of
it, and some that could be made of nothing else. In a small rubber case
the physician carries with him and preserves his lunar caustic, which
would corrode any metallic surface. His shirts and sheets pass through
an India rubber clothes-wringer, which saves the strength of the
washer-woman and the fibre of the fabric. When the government presents
him with an artificial leg, a thick heel and elastic sole of India
rubber give him comfort every time he puts it on the ground. In the
field this material is not less strikingly useful. During the late war
armies have marched through ten days of rain and slept through as many
nights, and come out dry into the returning sunshine with their
artillery untarni