persons who could not quite give up India-rubber.  Mr. Chaffee, the originator of the manufacture in America, welcomed warmly a brother experimenter, admired his specimens, encouraged him to persevere, procured him friends, and, what was more important, gave him the use of the enormous machinery standing idle in the factory.  A brief, delusive prosperity again relieved the monotony of misfortune.  By his new process, he made shoes, piano-covers, and carriage-cloths, so superior to any previously produced in the United States as to cause a temporary revival of the business, which enabled him to sell rights to manufacture under his patents.  His profits in a single year amounted to four or five thousand dollars.  Again he had his family around him, and felt a boundless confidence in the future.

An event upon which he had depended for the completeness of his triumph plunged him again into ruin.  He received an order from the government for a hundred and fifty India-rubber mail-bags.  Having perfect confidence in his ability to execute this order, he gave the greatest possible publicity to it.  All the world should now see that Goodyear’s India-rubber was all that Goodyear had represented it.  The bags were finished; and beautiful bags they were,—­smooth, firm, highly polished, well-shaped, and indubitably water-proof.  He had them hung up all round the factory, and invited every one to come and inspect them.  They were universally admired, and the maker was congratulated upon his success.  It was in the summer that these fatal bags were finished.  Having occasion to be absent for a month, he left them hanging in the factory.  Judge of his consternation when, on his return, he found them softening, fermenting, and dropping off their handles.  The aquafortis did indeed “cure” the surface of his India-rubber, but only the surface.  Very thin cloth made by this process was a useful and somewhat durable article; but for any other purpose, it was valueless.  The public and signal failure of the mail-bags, together with the imperfection of all his products except his thinnest cloth, suddenly and totally destroyed his rising business.  Everything he possessed that was salable was sold at auction to pay his debts.  He was again penniless and destitute, with an increased family and an aged father dependent upon him.

His friends, his brothers, and his wife now joined in dissuading him from further experiments.  Were not four years of such vicissitude enough?  Who had ever touched India-rubber without loss?  Could he hope to succeed, when so many able and enterprising men had failed?  Had he a right to keep his family in a condition so humiliating and painful?  He had succeeded in the hardware business; why not return to it?  There were those who would join him in any rational under-taking; but how could he expect that any one would be willing to throw more money into a bottomless pit that had already ingulfed millions without result?  These arguments he could not