but the surface of his cloth, powdered with the sulphur and dried in the sun, bore the sun’s heat.  Here was a mystery.  The problem was, how to produce in a mass of India-rubber the change effected on the surface by sulphur and sun?  He made numberless experiments.  He mixed with the gum large quantities of sulphur, and small quantities.  He exposed his compound to the sun, and held it near a fire.  He felt that he had the secret in his hands; but for many weary months it eluded him.

And, after all, it was an accident that revealed it; but an accident that no man in the world but Charles Goodyear could have interpreted, nor he, but for his five years’ previous investigation.  At Woburn one day, in the spring of 1839, he was standing with his brother and several other persons near a very hot stove.  He held in his hand a mass of his compound of sulphur and gum, upon which he was expatiating in his usual vehement manner,—­the company exhibiting the indifference to which he was accustomed.  In the crisis of his argument he made a violent gesture, which brought the mass in contact with the stove, which was hot enough to melt India-rubber instantly; upon looking at it a moment after, he perceived that his compound had not melted in the least degree!  It had charred as leather chars, but no part of the surface had dissolved.  There was not a sticky place upon it.  To say that he was astonished at this would but faintly express his ecstasy of amazement.  The result was absolutely new to all experience, —­India-rubber not melting in contact with red-hot iron!  A man must have been five years absorbed in the pursuit of an object to comprehend his emotions.  He felt as Columbus felt when he saw the land-bird alighting upon his ship, and the driftwood floating by.  But, like Columbus, he was surrounded with an unbelieving crew.  Eagerly he showed his charred India-rubber to his brother, and to the other bystanders, and dwelt upon the novelty and marvellousness of his fact.  They regarded it with complete indifference.  The good man had worn them all out.  Fifty times before, he had run to them, exulting in some new discovery, and they supposed, of course, that this was another of his chimeras.

He followed the new clew with an enthusiasm which his friends would have been justified in calling frenzy, if success had not finally vindicated him.  He soon discovered that his compound would not melt at any degree of heat.  It next occurred to him to ascertain at how low a temperature it would char, and whether it was not possible to arrest the combustion at a point that would leave the India-rubber elastic, but deprived of its adhesiveness.  A single experiment proved that this was possible.  After toasting a piece of his compound before an open fire, he found that, while part of it was charred, a rim of India-rubber round the charred portion was elastic still, and even more elastic than pure gum.  In a few days he had established three facts;—­first,