Few persons will ever see his book, of
which only a small number of copies were printed for private
circulation. Still fewer will be at the pains to pick out the material
facts from the confused mass of matter in which they are hidden.
Happily for our purpose, no one now has an interest to call his merits
in question. He rests from his labors, and the patent, which was the
glory and misery of his life, has expired.
Our great-grandfathers knew India-rubber only as a curiosity, and our
grandfathers only as a means of erasing pencil-marks. The first
specimens were brought to Europe in 1730; and as late as 1770 it was
still so scarce an article, that in London it was only to be found in
one shop, where a piece containing half a cubic inch was sold for
three shillings. Dr. Priestley, in his work on perspective, published
in 1770, speaks of it as a new article, and recommends its use to
draughtsmen. This substance, however, being one of those of which
nature has provided an inexhaustible supply, greater quantities found
their way into the commerce of the world; until, in 1820, it was a
drug in all markets, and was frequently brought as ballast merely.
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