It now occurred to him that there must be some mineral substance which, mixed with the gum, would render it durable, and he began to experiment with almost every substance that he could lay his hands on.  All these proved total failures, with the exception of magnesia.  By mixing half a pound of magnesia with a pound of the gum, he produced a compound much whiter than the pure gum, and one which was at first as firm and flexible as leather.  He made book-covers and piano-covers out of it, and for a time it seemed that he had discovered the longed-for secret; but in a month his pretty product was ruined.  The heat caused it to soften; then fermentation set in, and, finally, it became as hard and brittle as thin glass.

His friends, who had aided him at first, now turned from him coldly, regarding him as a dreamer; and his own stock of money was exhausted.  In his extremity he was forced to pawn all his own valuables, and even some of the trinkets of his wife.  In spite of this, he felt sure that he was on the road to success, and that he would very soon be enabled to rise above his present difficulties, and win both fame and fortune.  He was obliged for the time, however, to remove his family to the country, depositing with his landlord, as security for the payment of the first quarter’s rent, some linen which had been spun by his wife, and which he was never able to redeem.  Having settled his family in the country, he set out for New York, where he hoped to find some one willing to aid him in extending his researches still further.

Arrived in the great city, he found two old acquaintances, to whom he stated his plans and his hopes.  One of them offered him the use of a room in Gold Street, as a laboratory, and the other, who was a druggist, agreed to let him have such chemicals as he needed on credit.  He now proceeded to boil the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quicklime and water, and, as the result, obtained sheets of his compound whose firmness and smoothness of surface won them a medal at the fair of the American Institute in 1835.  He seemed now on the point of success, and readily disposed of all the sheets he could manufacture.  The newspapers spoke highly of his invention, for which he obtained a patent; and he was about to endeavor to enlist some persons of means in its manufacture on a large scale, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a single drop of the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple, or diluted vinegar, would utterly destroy the influence of the lime in the compound, and reduce it to the old sticky substance that had baffled him so often.

His next step was to mix quicklime with the gum.  In order to work the compound thoroughly, he used to carry the vessel containing it, on his shoulder, to a place three miles distant from his laboratory, where he had the use of horse power.  The lime, however, utterly destroyed the gum, and nothing came of this experiment.