Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-05-02
A Stolen Secret.

les OF this century is the Vulc0aizi,.g
OF caontchouc-'. e., the process by
which it is rendered insensible to cold
or heat. Previous to 1843, as summer
or winter weather prevailed, India rub.
ber fabrics stiffened or melted. This
susceptibility was the great hindrance
to their use. Some half dozen invent
ors on this and the other side of the
Atlantic had been experimenting upon
this difficulty for several years. Chas.
Goodyear at last stumbled upon the
secret. Over his little stove in an attic
chamber of an Indifferent house in
New Haven, he melted the gum in a
kettle slimed with birthstone. It show
ed no change in cooling. Beyond al
teration in form, the material appeared
the same. It was elastic, dark in color,
odorous as at first, tasteless, yielding
to the touch, and unaltered in specific
gravity. Apparently, it had suffered
no alteration in single one of its
qualities. And yet it had become
another thing. Heat could not melt
nor frost stiffen the new material. 1t
was no longer irregular in elasticity.
All sickness was gone. The grand
discovery had, in fact, been made, that
caoutchouc gum raised to high tenn
perature by heat, and exposed to the
fumes of birthstone, became vulcan
lied.
Elate with success, Goodyear, first
protecting his invention in the United
States by caveats and patents, started
for England. Among the British ex-
perimenters on India rubber was
Charles Hancock. To him proceeded
our inventor. Secure in the safety of
his secret, instead of covering it by an
English patent, he endeavored to sell
it, naming his price, and leaving his
samples fearless1y in Hancock's labora-
tory, proceeded North. Scarcely was
he out of sight when furnace and blow
pipe, retort and crucible, chemicals and
gases, were put to work. The speci-
mems of the new invention defied analy-
sis. There they were, undeniably gen.
uine caoutchouc, elastic beyond the
native gum, inodorous, ofnatural color,
soft, and fictile-in every respect tho
substance upon which Hancock had
been experimenting for years, and yet
divested of the element that hindered
all practical progress. They were no
Ion ger plastic. The most intense heat
would not melt nor the severest frost
stiffen them. They would neither stick
when exposed to the heat of the blow
pipe, nor harden under exposure to the
severest artificial cold.
Foiled in his chemical efforts to solve
the mystery, and yet reluctant to pay
the price-ten thousand pounds ster1-
ing-demanded by Goodyear for his
secret, Hancock betook himself to his
study. Between him and his competi-
tor there had been letters exchanged
for years. They treated Of the subject
kindred in the interest to them both.
He now consulted these letters, COM
pared the process described, oollated
the results arrived at, noted the pro-
gress made from the beginning, and az
riviug at the point where Goodyear
and himself had been baffled, set him
self to reflection. It was the old story
of Pythagoras and the forty-fifth prob
lem of Euclid, or Archimedes and
specific gravity, or Cornelius Drebel
and the red dye of Gobelin tapestry
Hancock guessed at sulphur. The ex-
pertinent was tried. Failing once and
again, he caused his furnaces to be
brought to the highest power, when, at
the temperature of 400 Fahrenheit,
India rubber gum, submitted to the
fumes of birthstone, became vulcanized
caoutcbouc.
Long before Goodyear returned from
the North, Hancock had patented the
discovery It was for years a subject
of lawsuits. Into the question of pri-
ority the English patent laws did not
enter. Goodyear also obtained a pat
ent, but it was practically useless. For
fourteen years, renewed afterward for
seven years more, the exclusive use of
the discovery of vulcanization of India
rubber, enriching it's holder and his
associates beyond millions of pounds
sterling, remained with the common
sense thinker. 1t was really stolen
secret, but neither craft nor fraud, but
honest brains, rerpe,rated the theft. -
N. s: DODGE, in Harper's Magazine
for May.