and when they had done all that unskilled labor could effect towards it, he induced a mason to complete it, and paid him in bricklayers’ aprons made of aqua-fortized India-rubber.  This first oven was a tantalizing failure.  The heat was neither uniform nor controllable.  Some of the pieces of India-rubber would come out so perfectly “cured” as to demonstrate the utility of his discovery; but others, prepared in precisely the same manner, as far as he could discern, were spoiled, either by blistering or charring.  He was puzzled and distressed beyond description; and no single voice consoled or encouraged him.  Out of the first piece of cloth which he succeeded in vulcanizing he had a coat made for himself, which was not an ornamental garment in its best estate; but, to prove to the unbelievers that it would stand fire, he brought it so often in contact with hot stoves, that at last it presented an exceedingly dingy appearance.  His coat did not impress the public favorably, and it served to confirm the opinion that he was laboring under a mania.

In the midst of his first disheartening experiments with sulphur, he had an opportunity of escaping at once from his troubles.  A house in Paris made him an advantageous offer for the use of his aquafortis process.  From the abyss of his misery the honest man promptly replied, that that process, valuable as it was, was about to be superseded by a new method, which he was then perfecting, and as soon as he had developed it sufficiently he should be glad to close with their offers.  Can we wonder that his neighbors thought him mad?

It was just after declining the French proposal that he endured his worst extremity of want and humiliation.  It was in the winter of 1839—­40.  One of those long and terrible snow-storms for which New England is noted had been raging for many hours, and he awoke one morning to find his little cottage half buried in snow, the storm still continuing, and in his house not an atom of fuel nor a morsel of food.  His children were very young, and he was himself sick and feeble.  The charity of his neighbors was exhausted, and he had not the courage to face their reproaches.  As he looked out of the window upon the dreary and tumultuous scene, “fit emblem of his condition,” he remarks, he called to mind that, a few days before, an acquaintance, a mere acquaintance, who lived some miles off, had given him upon the road a more friendly greeting than he was then accustomed to receive.  It had cheered his heart as he trudged sadly by, and it now returned vividly to his mind.  To this gentleman he determined to apply for relief, if he could reach his house.  Terrible was his struggle with the wind and the deep drifts.  Often he was ready to faint with fatigue, sickness, and hunger, and he would be obliged to sit down upon a bank of snow to rest.  He reached the house and told his story, not omitting the oft-told tale of his new discovery,—­that mine of wealth, if only he could procure the means of working it!  The eager eloquence of the inventor was seconded by the gaunt and yellow face of the man.  His generous acquaintance entertained him cordially, and lent him a sum of money, which not only carried his family through the worst of the winter, but enabled him to continue his experiments on a small scale.  O.B.  Coolidge, of Woburn, was the name of this benefactor.