登陆注册
15401500000041

第41章

It vulcanized instantly.This was an accident which only Goodyear could have interpreted.And it was the last.The strange substance from the jungles of the tropics had been mastered.It remained, however, to perfect the process, to ascertain the accurate formula and the exact degree of heat.The Goodyears were so poor during these years that they received at any time a barrel of flour from a neighbor thankfully.There is a tradition that on one occasion, when Goodyear desired to cross between Staten Island and New York, he had to give his umbrella to the ferry master as security for his fare, and that the name of the ferry master was Cornelius Vanderbilt, "a man who made much money because he took few chances." The incident may easily have occurred, though the ferry master could hardly have been Vanderbilt himself, unless it had been at an earlier date.

Another tradition says that one of Goodyear's neighbors described him to an inquisitive stranger thus: "You will know him when you see him; he has on an India rubber cap, stock, coat, vest, and shoes, and an India rubber purse WITHOUT A CENT IN IT!"Goodyear's trials were only beginning.He had the secret at last, but nobody would believe him.He had worn out even the most sanguine of his friends."That such indifference to this discovery, and many incidents attending it, could have existed in an intelligent and benevolent community," wrote Goodyear later, "can only be accounted for by existing circumstances in that community The great losses that had been sustained in the manufacture of gum-elastic: the length of time the inventor had spent in what appeared to them to be entirely fruitless efforts to accomplish anything with it; added to his recent misfortunes and disappointments, all conspired, with his utter destitution, to produce a state of things as unfavorable to the promulgation of the discovery as can well be imagined.He, however, felt in duty bound to beg in earnest, if need be, sooner than that the discovery should be lost to the world and to himself....How he subsisted at this period charity alone can tell, for it is as well to call things by their right names; and it is little else than charity when the lender looks upon what he parts with as a gift.The pawning or selling some relic of better days or some article of necessity was a frequent expedient.His library had long since disappeared, but shortly after the discovery of this process, he collected and sold at auction the schoolbooks of his children, which brought him the trifling sum of five dollars;small as the amount was, it enabled him to proceed.At this step he did not hesitate.The occasion, and the certainty of success, warranted the measure which, in other circumstances, would have been sacrilege."His itinerary during those years is eloquent.Wherever there was a man, who had either a grain of faith in rubber or a little charity for a frail and penniless monomaniac, thither Goodyear made his way.The goal might be an attic room or shed to live in rent free, or a few dollars for a barrel of flour for the family and a barrel of rubber for himself, or permission to use a factory's ovens after hours and to hang his rubber over the steam valves while work went on.From Woburn in 1839, the year of his great discovery, he went to Lynn, from Lynn back to the deserted factory at Roxbury.Again to Woburn, to Boston, to Northampton, to Springfield, to Naugatuck; in five years as many removes.When he lacked boat or railway fare, and he generally did, he walked through winds and rains and drifting snow, begging shelter at some cottage or farm where a window lamp gleamed kindly.

Goodyear took out his patent in 1844.The process he invented has been changed little, if at all, from that day to this.He also invented the perfect India rubber cloth by mixing fiber with the gum a discovery he considered rightly as secondary in importance only to vulcanization.When he died in 1860 he had taken out sixty patents on rubber manufactures.He had seen his invention applied to several hundred uses, giving employment to sixty thousand persons, producing annually eight million dollars' worth of merchandise--numbers which would form but a fraction of the rubber statistics of today.

Everybody, the whole civilized world round, uses rubber in one form or another.And rubber makes a belt around the world in its natural as well as in its manufactured form.The rubber-bearing zone winds north and south of the equator through both hemispheres.In South America rubber is the latex of certain trees, in Africa of trees and vines.The best "wild" rubber still comes from Para in Brazil.It is gathered and prepared for shipment there today by the same methods the natives used four hundred years ago.The natives in their canoes follow the watercourses into the jungles.They cut V-shaped or spiral incisions in the trunks of the trees that grow sheer to sixty feet before spreading their shade.At the base of the incisions they affix small clay cups, like swallows' nests.Over the route they return later with large gourds in which they collect the fluid from the clay cups.The filled gourds they carry to their village of grass huts and there they build their smoky fires of oily palm nuts.Dipping paddles into the fluid gum they turn and harden it, a coating at a time, in the smoke.The rubber "biscuit" is cut from the paddle with a wet knife when the desired thickness has been attained.

Goodyear lived for sixteen years after his discovery of the vulcanization process.During the last six he was unable to walk without crutches.He was indifferent to money.To make his discoveries of still greater service to mankind was his whole aim.It was others who made fortunes out of his inventions.

Goodyear died a poor man.

In his book, a copy of which was printed on gumelastic sheets and bound in hard rubber carved, he summed up his philosophy in this statement: "The writer is not disposed to repine and say that he has planted and others have gathered the fruits.The advantages of a career in life should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents, as it is too often done.Man has just cause for regret when he sows and no one reaps."

同类推荐
  • 通鉴问疑

    通鉴问疑

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Joan of Naples

    Joan of Naples

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 僧羯磨

    僧羯磨

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Lesser Hippias

    Lesser Hippias

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 金钟传正明集

    金钟传正明集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 催眠大师异界行

    催眠大师异界行

    穿越了,真的穿越了!怎么就无缘无故的穿越了呢?穿越就穿越吧,你给我个该死的位面垃圾中转站干毛?什么?有奖励!早说吗?什么?玩不成任务,还有残酷的惩罚?了了个去吧,这都是什么鸟事请?神秘空间作弊器,诡异功法做后盾,龙飞这个催眠专家开始了风骚无比的异世之旅!
  • The Story of the Glittering Plain

    The Story of the Glittering Plain

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 王府有对小冤家:悠闲王妃

    王府有对小冤家:悠闲王妃

    (轻松文,已完结。)别人嫁人她嫁人,嫁了大半年,别说新婚燕尔,连狗屁王爷长得是高是矮是圆是扁都不知道。他为了不见她,居然还将好端端的王府分成了两半?是不是想老死不相往来??!哎哟喂,他唱的是那门子的戏?而且出一个门,还要经过他同意?那把他的令牌偷过来……
  • 校草大人住隔壁,乖乖束手就擒

    校草大人住隔壁,乖乖束手就擒

    入住校草家,错把校草当小贼,从此她在追草道路上一去不复返,“校草大人求摸摸哒~”,“丑拒”,“校草大人求抱抱~”,“丑拒”,在他说了无数次丑拒后,他的心已然给她,可是,她却不再稀罕,“丑拒,滚远点”,他将她扑倒,她气结,“啊喂,我是让你滚远点,不是让你抱着我滚……唔”【男女主身心健康,搞笑宠文1V1】
  • 少城轶事

    少城轶事

    本书介绍了成都的历史文化遗存和底蕴:街道、桥梁、河流、公馆、饭店、寺院、商铺、吊脚楼。甚至是一段老城墙。
  • 索魂门BOSS:死神的眷恋

    索魂门BOSS:死神的眷恋

    爱是什么?她懂,却害怕接触爱,他不懂,却深陷爱中无法自拔。他,年仅十二岁却已是令黑白两道闻风丧胆的索魂门的领导者,他不懂爱,更不知如何去爱,只能在漫漫痛苦的海洋里沉溺,他说,你是我唯一的光,却不愿意点亮我。她,已年介二十却仍是天真浪漫,可爱娇柔,但那天真背后却又为何会时不时出现那无奈的痛苦神情?她是真无知还是骗尽世人?她说,其实真真假假又能如何?
  • 颠覆大清之强人穿越(完)

    颠覆大清之强人穿越(完)

    喜欢清穿,但看来看去都是穿得很悲的,一时手痒,写篇喜剧,颠覆历史,不喜慎入.此坑是我开,此文是我掰.如有从此过,留下脚印来!主角:韩洛芙 ┃ 配角:康熙众阿哥 ┃ 其它:颠覆
  • 致青春中深爱的那三个男孩

    致青春中深爱的那三个男孩

    有人说,专情不是只爱一个人,而是爱一个人的时候专心地爱一个人。在青春懵懂的时候,你有没有陷入某种困境,我究竟更喜欢谁。年轻时我们不懂的,时间用痛来教我们认识。本书分为三个大部分讲述了女主在对三个男主的爱恋中的逐步成长与蜕变。从一个无忧无虑的女学霸到一个“忧伤的诗人”,她只说,我不后悔我回来了。
  • 守护甜心之我叫千舞菲

    守护甜心之我叫千舞菲

    她,原来的日奈森亚梦,因为不信任和背叛,而成了首富的女儿千舞菲。
  • 大棍天下

    大棍天下

    武王伐纣,神仙大战,恩怨自此生。阐截二教争斗无休,神仙本清静,尊圣各避身,神洲从此少仙迹,无神护佑遭人欺。近百余年来,中华少有神仙护佑,西教欺我尤甚!今有杨祟,诚心拜祖,感动阐教二郎显圣真君,遂传神仙秘法。阐教门徒,今即归来!