Many useful and artistic articles were made under this first patented process, including maps, surgical bandages, etc., and were brought by Mr. Goodyear to the notice of President Jackson, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, from whom he received very encouraging letters. His efforts, however, to introduce his process commercially were not attended with success. Capitalists and manufacturers had been rendered so conservative by the large loss of money in the Roxbury Company, that they were disinclined to have anything further to do with it. Practically alone he was obliged to continue his work. By the kindness of Mr. Chaffee and Mr. Haskins he was allowed the use of the valuable machinery standing idle in their factory at Roxbury, and he made shoes, piano covers, table cloths and carriage covers of superior quality, and from the sale of these, and of licenses to manufacture, he for the first time was able to support his family in comfort. Mr. Goodyear had not yet discovered, however, the process of vulcanization, upon which the rubber industry is founded. In 1838 Mr. Nathaniel Hayward, of Woburn, Mass., who had been employed in the bankrupt rubber company, discovered that the stickiness of the rubber could be prevented by spreading a small quantity of sulphur on it. The same result had also been noticed by a German chemist. On Feb. 24, 1839, Mr. Hayward procured the patent, No. 1,090, on his process, and assigned it to Mr. Goodyear. The patent covered a process of dissolving sulphur in oil of turpentine and mixing it with the gum, and also included the incorporation of the dry flowers of sulphur with the gum, the product afterwards being treated by Mr. Goodyear’s metallic salt process. This was the starting point of vulcanization, for vulcanization consists simply in admixing sulphur with the rubber, and then subjecting it for six to eight hours to a temperature of about 300°. Its effect is to so change the nature of the gum to prevent it from melting or becoming sticky under the influence of heat, or of hardening and becoming stiff under the influence of cold, the vulcanized gum remaining elastic, impervious, and unchangeable under all ordinary conditions. This great discovery of the influence of heat on the sulphur treated gum was quite accidental and wholly unexpected. Heat above all things was the agency which in all previous observations was most to be feared, for it was this more than anything else that melted down, decomposed and destroyed all of his manufactured articles. While sitting near a hot stove engaged in an animated discussion concerning his experiments, a piece of the gum treated with sulphur, which he held in his hand, was, by a rapid gesture, thrown upon the stove. To his astonishment, he found that this relatively high heat did not melt it, as heretofore, and while it charred slightly, it was not made at all sticky. He nailed the piece of gum outside the kitchen door