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. The discovery which followed was the result of accident, and brought him on the very threshold of success, yet did not entirely conquer his difficulties. He was an ardent lover of the beautiful, and it was a constant effort with him to render his productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon one occasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing the bronze from a certain part. It took away the bronze as he had designed, but it also discolored the cloth to such a degree that he supposed it ruined, and threw it away. A day or two later, he chanced to remember that he had not examined very closely into the effect of the aqua fortis upon the rubber, and thereupon instituted a search for it. He was fortunate enough to find it, and was overjoyed to discover that the rubber had undergone a remarkable change, and that the effect of the acid was to harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree of heat which would have melted it before. When the reader remembers that aqua fortis is a compound two-fifths of which is sulphuric acid, he will understand that Mr. Goodyear had almost mastered the secret of vulcanizing rubber. He does not appear, however, to have known the true nature of aqua fortis, and called his process the "curing" of India-rubber by the use of that acid.