The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1872-05-30
A Stolen Secret.

One Of the most important discOv'
cries Of this century IS the vulcaniz.
ing OF caOutchOuc-i G, the process
by which it is rendered insensib.e tC
cold and heat. Previous to 1913, as
/ Summer or Winter weather prevail
ed, India-Tubber fabrics stiffened OF
melted. This susceptibility had been
the great hindrance to their use.
Some half dozen inventors on this
and the other side Of the Atlantic
had been experimenting upon this
/ difficulty for several years. Charles
/ Goodyear at last stumbled upon the
. secret Over his little stove, in au
attic chamber of an Indifferent house
/ in New Haven, he had melted the
gum in a kettle slimed with brim-
stone. Ii showed no change in cool
/ ing. Beyond alteration in form, the
material appeared the same. It was
/ elastic, dark in color, odOrOus as at
first, tasteless, yielding to the touch,
and unaltered i'm specific gravity.
Apparently, it had suffered no altera-
I ton 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 stickiness
was gone. The grand discovery had,
in fact, been made, that caOutchOuc
gum, raised to high temperature by
heat, and exposed to the fumes of
birthstone, became vuleaniZed. Ella
ted with success, Goodyear, first pro-
tecting his Invention in the United
States by caveats and patents, started
| for England.
Among the British experimenter
upon India rubber was Charles Han
cock. To him proceeded our inven-
tor. Secure in the safety Of his secret,
instead of covering it by an English
patent, he eudeavOred to sell it, nam
ed his price and leaving his samples
I fearlessly in HancOck's laboratory,
proceeded north. Scarcely was he
out of sight when furnace and blow
pipe, retOrt and crucible, chemicals
and gases, were put to work. The
specimens of the new invention de-
| fled analysis. There they were, I'M
deniably genuine caOutchOuc, elastic
beyond the native gum, inOdOrOus, of
natural color, soft and fictile-in
every respect exactly the substance
upon which Hancock had been eX-
perimenting for years, and yet dives
| ted of the element that hindered all
prictical progress. They were no
longer plastic. The most intense
heat would not melt nor the severest
! frost stiifen them. They would
neither stick when exposed to the
heat of the blow-pipe nor harden un-
der exposure to the severest artificial
cold. Poiled in his chemical efforts
to solve the mystery, and yet reluc-
tant to pay the price-el0, 900 sterling
demanded by Goodyear for his
secret, Hancock betoOk himself to
his study. Between him and his
competitor there had been letters
exehanged.for years. They treated of
the subject kindred in interest to
them both.
He now consulted these letters,
compared the process described, COL
lated the results arrived at, noted the
progress made from the beginning,
and arrived at the point where both
Goodyear and himself had been baf-
fled, and set himself to reflection. 1t
was the old story of PythagOras and the
| fOrty-ifth problem of Euclid, or
Archimedes and specific gravity, or
Cornelius Drebrel and the red dye of
Gobelin tapestry. Hancock guessed
at sulphur. The experiment was
tried. Failing once and again, he
caused his furnaces to be brought to
their highest power, when at the
temperature of 400 degrees FahreL-
heit, In1ia-rubber gum, submitted to
the fumes of birthstone, became vul-
caniZed caOutchOuc. Long before
Goodyear returned from the north,
Hancock had patented the discovery.
1t was for years a subject of lawsuits.
Into the question of priority the
English patent laws did not enter.
Goodyear also obtained a patent, but
it was practically useless. For four.
teen years, renewed afterward for
seven years more, the exclusive use
of the discovery of vu!canizltiOn OF
India-rubber, enriching its holder
and his associates beyond millions OF
pounds sterling, remained with the
common-sense thinker. 1t was real
ly stolen secret, but neither craft
nor fraud, but honest brains, perpetra-
ted the theft.