Part 21

Uncle Fritz obeyed the rabble rout, as he is apt to do. He retired for a minute to put on heavier shoes, and, when he reappeared, he took the seat of honor in the leading omnibus. And a very merry expedition they had to the summit, where, as the accurate Fergus told them, they were six hundred feet above the level of the sea. There was but little wood, and they were able to lie and sit in a large group on the ground just on the lee side of the hill, where they could look off on the endless sea.

"Whom should you have told us about, had it rained?" said Mabel Fordyce.

"Oh! you were to have had your choice. There are still left many inventors. I had looked at Mr. Parton's Life of Goodyear, and the very curious brief prepared for the court about his patents. Half of you would not be here to-day but for that ingenious and long-suffering man."

"Should not I have come?" said Gertrude, incredulously.

"Surely not," said Uncle Fritz, laughing. "I saw your water-proof in your shawl-strap. I know your mamma well enough to know that you would never have been permitted to come so far from home without that ægis, or without those trig, pretty overshoes. You owe waterproof and overshoes both to the steady perseverance of Goodyear and to the loyal help of his wife and daughters. Some day you must read Mr. Webster's eulogy on him and them. Indeed, he is the American Palissy. You hear a good deal of woman's rights; but, really, modern women had no rights worth speaking of till Mr. Goodyear enabled them to go out-doors in all weathers.

"I meant we should have an afternoon with the Goodyears. Then I meant that you should know, Gertrude, where that slice of bread came from."

"Well," said she, "I do not know much, but I do know that. It came out of the bread-box."

"Very good," said the Colonel, laughing. "But somebody put it into the bread-box. And it is quite as well that you should know who put it in. American girls and American boys ought to know that men's prayer for 'Daily Bread' is answered more and more largely every year. They ought to know why. Well, the great reason is that reaping and binding after the reapers, nay, that sowing the corn, and every process between sowing and harvest, has been wellnigh perfected by the American inventors. So I had wanted to give a day or two to reapers and binders, and the other machinery of harvesting. Indeed, if our winter had been as long as poor Captain Greely's was, and if you had met me every week, we should have had a new invention for each one. Here are the telephone and the telegraph. Here is the use of the electric light. Here is the sewing-machine, with all its nice details, like the button-hole maker. Nay, every button is made by its own machinery. Here are carpets one quarter cheaper than they were only four years ago; cotton cloths made more by machinery and less by hand labor; nay, they tell us that the cotton is to be picked by a machine before long.

"But these are things you must work up for yourselves. You are on a good track now, and have learned some of the principles of such study.

"Go to the originals whenever you can. Read what you understand, and fall back on what you did not understand at first, so as to try it again."

"Do you not think that all the great things have been invented, Uncle Fritz?"

This was John Angier's rather melancholy question.

"Not a bit of it, my boy. Certainly not for as keen eyes as yours and as handy hands. Let me tell you what I heard President Dawson say. He is President of McGill University, and is counted one of the first physical philosophers in America.

"He said this in substance: 'What will future times say of us, the men of the end of the nineteenth century? They will say, "What was the ban on those men, what numbed them or held them still, as if in fear? Why did they not apply in daily life their own great discoveries of the central laws of Nature? They were able to work out principles. Why could they not embody them in useful inventions? They discovered the Ocean of Truth, but they stood frightened on its shore. They found the great principles of science, and for their application they seem to have been satisfied when they had built the steam-engine, had devised the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, and when they had set the electric light a blazing."'

"You see, John, that he thinks there is enough more for you and the rest to invent and to discover."

Then Uncle Fritz took from his ulster pocket Mr. Parton's volume of biographical sketches.

"It is all very fine for you, Miss Alice," he said, "to lie there on your waterproof, and to be sure that even mamma will not scold when you go home. But take the book, and read, and see who has wept and who has starved that you might lie there."

And Alice read the passages he had marked for her.

The difficulty of all this may be inferred when we state that at the present time it takes an intelligent man a year to learn how to conduct the process with certainty, though he is provided, from the start, with the best implements and appliances which twenty years' experience has suggested. And poor Goodyear had now reduced himself, not merely to poverty, but to isolation. No friend of his could conceal his impatience when he heard him pronounce the word "India-rubber." Business-men recoiled from the name of it. He tells us that two entire years passed, after he had made his discovery, before he had convinced one human being of its value. Now, too, his experiments could no longer be carried on with a few pounds of India-rubber, a quart of turpentine, a phial of aquafortis, and a little lampblack. He wanted the means of producing a high, uniform, and controllable degree of heat,--a matter of much greater difficulty than he anticipated. We catch brief glimpses of him at this time in the volumes of testimony. We see him waiting for his wife to draw the loaves from her oven, that he might put into it a batch of India-rubber to bake, and watching it all the evening, far into the night, to see what effect was produced by one hour's, two hours', three hours', six hours' baking. We see him boiling it in his wife's saucepans, suspending it before the nose of her teakettle, and hanging it from the handle of that vessel to within an inch of the boiling water. We see him roasting it in the ashes and in hot sand, toasting it before a slow fire and before a quick fire, cooking it for one hour and for twenty-four hours, changing the proportions of his compound and mixing them in different ways. No success rewarded him while he employed only domestic utensils. Occasionally, it is true, he produced a small piece of perfectly vulcanized India-rubber; but upon subjecting other pieces to precisely the same process, they would blister or char.

Then we see him resorting to the shops and factories in the neighborhood of Woburn, asking the privilege of using an oven after working hours, or of hanging a piece of India-rubber in the "man-hole" of the boiler. The foremen testify that he was a great plague to them, and smeared their works with his sticky compound; but though they regarded him as little better than a troublesome lunatic, they all appear to have helped him very willingly. He frankly confesses that he lived at this time on charity; for although _he_ felt confident of being able to repay the small sums which pity for his family enabled him to borrow, his neighbors who lent him the money were as far as possible from expecting payment. Pretending to lend, they meant to give. One would pay his butcher's bill or his milk-bill; another would send in a barrel of flour; another would take in payment some articles of the old stock of India-rubber; and some of the farmers allowed his children to gather sticks in their fields to heat his hillocks of sand containing masses of sulphurized India-rubber. If the people of New England were not the most "neighborly" people in the world, his family must have starved, or he must have given up his experiments. But, with all the generosity of his neighbors, his children were often sick, hungry, and cold, without medicine, food, or fuel. One witness testifies: "I found, in 1839, that they had not fuel to burn nor food to eat, and did not know where to get a morsel of food from one day to another, unless it was sent in to them." We can neither justify nor condemn their father. Imagine Columbus within sight of the new world, and his obstinate crew declaring it was only a mirage, and refusing to row him ashore. Never was mortal man surer that he had a fortune in his hand, than Charles Goodyear was when he would take a piece of scorched and dingy India-rubber from his pocket and expound its marvellous properties to a group of incredulous villagers. Sure also was he that he was just upon the point of a practicable success. Give him but an oven and would he not turn you out fire-proof and cold-proof India-rubber, as fast as a baker can produce loaves of bread? Nor was it merely the hope of deliverance from his pecuniary straits that urged him on. In all the records of his career, we perceive traces of something nobler than this. His health being always infirm, he was haunted with the dread of dying before he had reached a point in his discoveries where other men, influenced by ordinary motives, could render them available.

By the time that he had exhausted the patience of the foremen of the works near Woburn, he had come to the conclusion that an oven was the proper means of applying heat to his compound. An oven he forthwith determined to build. Having obtained the use of a corner of a factory yard, his aged father, two of his brothers, his little son, and himself sallied forth, with pickaxe and shovels, to begin the work; and when they had done all that unskilled labor could effect towards it, he induced a mason to complete it, and paid him in brick-layers' aprons made of aquafortized 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 snowstorms 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.

On another occasion, when he was in the most urgent need of materials, he looked about his house to see if there was left one relic of better days upon which a little money could be borrowed. There was nothing but his children's school-books,--the last things from which a New Englander is willing to part. There was no other resource. He gathered them up, and sold them for five dollars, with which he laid in a fresh stock of gum and sulphur, and kept on experimenting.

Alice and Hester looked over the rest of the story while the others packed up the wrecks of the picnic and prepared to go down the hill. Then they joined Uncle Fritz in the advance, and thanked him very seriously for what he had shown them.

"Such a story as that," said Hester, "is worth more than anything about cut-offs or valves."

"I think so too," said he.

"I should like," said the girl, "to write to those children of his a letter to thank them for what they have done, and what he did for me, and a million girls like me."

"It would be a good thing to do," said he, "and I think I can put you in the way."

"And I do hope," said Alice, eagerly, "that if we are ever tested in that way we shall bear the test."

"Dear Uncle Fritz, if we cannot invent a flying-machine, and have not learned how to close up rivets this winter, we have learned at least how to bear each other's burdens."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These are the quinqueremes, fastened together, of the other account.

[2] The estimates of a talent vary somewhat, but ten talents made about seven hundred pounds.

[3] Quoted in Fabricius's Greek fragments.

[4] Encyclopædia Americana: art. "Roger Bacon."

[5] See "Stories of Adventure."

[6] As St. James says, "The wisdom from above is _first_ pure."

[7] Joseph Droz, born in 1773. His essay was published in 1806, and had come to its fourth edition in 1825.

[8] The first-steam-engines were devised in order to supply some motor for the pumps which were necessary, all over England, to keep the mines free from water. The locomotive engine, as will be seen later, owes its birth to the efforts of colliery engineers to find some means of drawing coal better than the horse-power generally in use.

[9] John Robison, at this time a student at Glasgow College, and afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh. He was at one time Master of the Marine Cadet Academy at Cronstadt.

[10] The principal men of Glasgow were the importers of tobacco from Virginia.

[11] Earl Stanhope, among other projects, had conceived "the hope of being able to apply the steam-engine to navigation by the aid of a peculiar apparatus modelled after the foot of an aquatic fowl." Fulton, on being consulted by the Earl, doubted the feasibility, and suggested the very means which he afterward made successful upon the Hudson.

[12] Symington was an engineer who had been carrying out some experiments of Miller of Dalswinton in regard to the practicability of steam navigation.

[13] Who subsequently made charge that Fulton, having seen his steamboat and made copious notes thereon, had thus been able to make his boat upon the Hudson.

[14] This was in the course of the War of 1812.

[15] Fulton died Feb. 24, 1815; he was born in 1765.

[16] Killingworth is a town some seven or eight miles north of Newcastle, in Northumberland. George Stephenson was at this time the engine-wright of the colliery. It may be said here that the principal use for which the early locomotive engines and railroads were designed was to convey coal from the pit to a market. It was not till the success of the mining and quarrying railways led to the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Road, between two great cities, that the value of the railroad for the transfer of passengers was recognized.

[17] It had been generally the opinion that cog-wheels must be used which should fit into cogs in the rail. Otherwise it was imagined the wheels would revolve without proceeding.

[18] "The private risk is the public benefit."

[19] It had a sort of resemblance to a grasshopper, caused by the angle at which the piston and cylinder were placed.

[20] Mr. Henry Booth, secretary to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, suggested to Mr. Stephenson the idea of a multitubular boiler.

[21] This letter is dated Nov. 24, 1793.

[22] This was in 1812, twenty years after the invention of the gin. The saving in 1885 is enormously greater.

[23] Napoleon III., under whose protection Bessemer had been experimenting in projectiles when his attention was turned to the manufacture of iron.

[24] In Grüner's text-book on steel, he says: "In its properties, as well as in its manufacture, steel is comprised between the limits of cast and wrought iron. It cannot even be said where steel begins or ends. It is a series which begins with the most impure black pig iron, and ends with the softest and purest wrought iron. [Karsten stated this in these words in 1823.] Cast-iron passes into hard steel in becoming malleable (natural steel for wire-mills, the 'Wildstahl' of the Germans); and steel, properly so called, passes into iron, giving in succession mild steel, steel of the nature of iron, steely iron, and granular iron."

[25] A small cannon cast by Sir Henry, the description of which we have omitted.

[26] Immediately after his first successful experiment at St. Pancras, described above.

INDEX.

Abel, Professor, 275, 278

Althorp, Lord, 268

Anderson, 246

Archimedes, 18, 20

Bacon, Roger, 37

Barlow, Joel, 179

Baxter House, 277

Beccaria, 114

Bell, I. L., 280

Benvenuto Cellini, 58

Bernard Palissy, 82

Berthier, 281

Berzelius, 281

Bessemer, Andrew, 262

Bessemer, Sir Henry, 259

Bessemer and Catherwood, 263

Black, Dr., 165

Blue Hills, Mass., 284

Bossuet, 183

Boulton, Matthew, 171, 181

Bourbon, Constable, 63

Braithwaite and Ericsson, 212

Brandreth, 212

Bridgewater Foundry, 249, 255

Brunel, Isambert, 178

Bungy, Friar, 41

Burstall, 212, 216

Carriage, Sailing, 141

Car of Neptune, 189

Caslon, Henry, 263

Cellini, Benvenuto, 58

Chaise, One-wheeled, 144

Charles IX. of France, 96

Cheltenham, 281

Church, Benjamin, 174

Circle, The Square of, 22

Clement VII., 62

Condensation, 159

Conductors of Electricity, 105

Constable Bourbon, shot, 63

Coolidge, O. B., 292

Court of Chancery, N. Y., 189

Dalibard, 108

Darwin, Dr., 135

Dawson, President, 286

De Foe, Daniel, 99

Devonport, 252

Didot, Finnin, 263

Dixon, John, 205

Droz, François Xavier Joseph, 102

Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 119

Edison's Laboratory, 51

Electricity, 103

Elkingtons, 263

Engines, Early Steam, 149

Euclid, 20

Evans, Oliver, 175

Experiment, The Great, 111

Field, Joshua, 249

Fitch, John, 177, 190

"Firework," The, 155

Francis I., 71

Franklin, Benjamin, 97, 177, 237

Fulton, Robert, 173

Gig, One-wheeled, 145

Glasses, Musical, 115-117

Gold Paint, 270

Goodyear, Charles, 285

Greene, Mrs. General, 227, 229

Grüner, 279

Gun Factories, 275

Hackworth, Timothy, 212

Hammerfield, 257

Harmonica, 113

Hart's Recollections, 161

Hartop, Annie (Mrs. Bessemer), 250

Helton Railway, 203

Hiero, 21

Hitchin, 264

Hooke, Dr. Robert, 137

Hulls, Jonathan, 176

Jack the Darter, 142

Jay, John, 220

Jefferson, Thomas, 233

Jouffroy, Marquis de, 176

Karsten, 281

Keramics, 82

Killingworth Colliery, 195

Latent Heat, 157

Lightning, 107

Livingston, Chancellor, 178

Mackintosh, James, 173

Maclaughlan, Robert, 246

Manchester, 249

Marcellus attacks Syracuse, 26

Massachusetts, Derivation of Name, 284

Maudsley, Henry, 247

Middleton Colliery Railway, 203

Miller, Phineas, 231

Minie, Commander, 273

Musical Glasses, 115

Napoleon I., 175

Napoleon III., 274

Nasmyth, James, 238

Newcomen Engine, 150, 167, 169

Nuremburg, 271

Palissy the Potter, 82

Papin, Denis, 176

Patricroft, 256

Périer, 176

Persley, Sir Charles, 266

Plombières, 180

Pope Clement VII., 62

Potter, Humphrey, 152

Practical Magazine, 282

Quincy, 194

Rastrick and Walker, 217

Ravensworth, Lord, 195

Renard and Krebs, 174

Resolution Book, 101

Rinman, 281

Robespierre, Max, 261

Robison, 154, 165

Roebuck, Dr., 171

Roger Bacon, 37

Roosevelt, Nicholas, 178

Royal Academy, 265

Royal Gun Factories, 275

Rumsey, James, 177

St. Pancras, 274

St. Petersburg, 192, 253

Savery, 176

Scottish Society of Arts, 246

Sharp Conductors, 105

Somerset House, 265

Sounds and Signals, 139

Stanhope, Earl, 179

Stamp Office, English, 266

Steam-Engines, Early, 149

Stephenson, George, 193

Stephenson, Robert, 208

Stevens, John, 178

Stevens, Robert L., 192

Sweden, 254

Symington, 180, 182

Syracuse, Siege of, 25

Telegraph, Edgeworth's, 124

Telegraph, English, 133

Telegraph, Irish, 127

Telegraph, Home, 139

Telegraphs, 125, 126

Tellograph, 137

Thirteen Virtues, 100

Travelling Engine, 195

Ugolini, Giorgio, 65

Virgil, 53

Walker and Rastrick, 217

Walking-machine, 140

Watt, James, 146

Whistler, Major G. W., 254

Whitney, Eli, 219

Wilmot, Col. Eardley, 275

Wood, Nicholas, 213

Woolwich Arsenal, 275

Wylam and Killingworth Railway, 203

Zonara, 32

University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

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