auction to pay the first quarter's rent; and
his furniture also would have been seized, but that he had taken the
precaution to sell it himself in Philadelphia, and had placed in his
cottage articles of too little value to tempt the hardest creditor.

In New York,--the first resort of the enterprising and the last refuge
of the unfortunate,--he found two old friends; one of whom lent him a
room in Gold Street for a laboratory, and the other, a druggist,
supplied him with materials on credit. Again his hopes were flattered
by an apparent success. By boiling his compound of gum and magnesia in
quicklime and water, an article was produced which seemed to be all
that he could desire. Some sheets of India-rubber made by this process
drew a medal at the fair of the American Institute in 1835, and were
much commended in the newspapers. Nothing could exceed the smoothness
and firmness of the surface of these sheets; nor have they to this day
been surpassed in these particulars. He obtained a patent for the
process, manufactured a considerable quantity, sold his product
readily, and thought his difficulties were at an end. In a few weeks
his hopes were dashed to the ground. He found that a drop of weak
acid, such as apple-juice or vinegar and water, instantly annihilated
the effect of the lime, and made the beautiful surface of his cloth
sticky.

Undaunted, he next tried the experiment of mixing quicklime with pure
gum. He tells us that, at this time, he used to prepare a gallon jug
of quicklime at his room in Gold Street, and carry it on his shoulder
to Greenwich Village, distant three miles, where he had access to
horse-power for working his compound. This experiment, too, was a
failure. The lime in a short time appeared to consume the gum with
which it was mixed, leaving a substance that crumbled to pieces.

Accident suggested his next process, which, though he knew it not, was
a step toward his final success. Except his almost unparalleled
perseverance, the most marked trait in the character of this singular
man was his love for beautiful forms and colors. An incongruous
garment or decoration upon a member of his family, or anything tawdry
or ill-arranged in a room, gave him positive distress. Accordingly, we
always find him endeavoring to decorate his India-rubber fabrics. It
was in bronzing the surface of some India-rubber drapery that the
accident happened to which we have referred. Desiring to remove the
bronze from a