Within a few years, this important industrial interest has assumed almost wonderful proportions, and it now towers in magnitude and importance, above all its compeers. New elements have been introduced into the manufacture of boots and shoes, and fortunes have been expended in endeavoring to introduce new methods by which to cheapen the process of manufacture, as well as the raw material. The introduction of India-rubber and Gutta-percha as articles of mechanical use, has quickened the pulses of invention, and has already produced wonderful, and important changes in all departments of the mechanic arts, and more especially in that of boots and shoes. Already have these important vegetable gums, and the thousand uses of which they are susceptible, attracted the attention of the world, and last but not least, we are indebted to the discovery and use of _Gutta-percha_ for the successful insulation of the _Atlantic Cable_, without which substance, the cable could not have been safely submerged. Establishments for the manufacture of India-rubber, and Gutta-percha, into almost every conceivable shape, have sprung up, as it were in a day. Patents for its use and application, are constantly presenting themselves. Heretofore, it has been the policy of all interested in the manufacture of India-rubber and Gutta-percha, to surround their inventions with an air of mystery. “No admittance” has been blazoned upon their laboratories, and no “open sesame” pronounced by the uninitiated, has succeeded in opening the doors to their carefully guarded treasures. In this work, we have endeavored to make clear, simple, but important facts, scientific discoveries and observations, which, from _practical experience_, we know to be of great utility. A collection of the most approved recipes for the preparation of compounds of India-rubber, and Gutta-percha, would alone, make a volume worthy of preservation. But we have endeavored to present all the important rules, practical hints, and observations, necessary to the manufacture of boots and shoes, also an important and _economical_ method of _repairing_ the same. Herein may be found a history of the discovery of India-rubber and Gutta-percha, its uses and applications, the inventions which they have called into existence, the patents that have been taken out, the “claims” set forth by different individuals, the causes of the failures of many of them, and a brief history of their pretensions. We herein introduce a process of manufacturing boots and shoes, of the _most durable character_, at about one-half the expense of the old method, by a process so simple that the humblest cordwainer in the land, no less than the wealthy and extensive manufacturer, can at once enter upon the field of competition; but time and _experiment_ will determine the real value and utility of Gutta-percha as a substitute for “pegs” and “stitches,” in the manufacture of boots and shoes.