The India-rubber manufacture, since his death, has increased
greatly in extent, but not much in other respects, and some of the
ideas which he valued most remain undeveloped. He died, for example,
in the conviction that sails of India-rubber cloth would finally
supersede all others. He spent six months and five thousand dollars in
producing one or two specimens, which were tried and answered their
purpose well; but he was unable to bring his sail-making process to an
available perfection. The sole difficulty was to make his sails as
light as those of cloth. He felt certain of being able to accomplish
this; but in the multiplicity of his objects and the pressure of his
embarrassments, he was compelled to defer the completion of his plans
to a day that never came.
The catalogue of his successful efforts is long and striking. The
second volume of his book is wholly occupied with that catalogue. He
lived to see his material applied to nearly five hundred uses, to give
employment in England, France, Germany, and the United States to sixty
thousand persons, who annually produced merchandise of the value of
eight millions of dollars.
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