me. We want to know
the name, and the habitation, and the location of the man upon the face
of this globe, who invented vulcanized rubber, if it be not he, who now
sits before us.

"Well there are birds which fly in the air, seldom lighting, but often
hovering. Now I think this is a question not to be hovered over, not to
be brooded over, and not to be dealt with as an infinitesimal quantity
of small things. It is a case calling for a manly admission and a manly
defense. I ask again, if there is anybody else than Goodyear who made
this invention, who is he? Is the discovery so plain that it might have
come about by accident? It is likely to work important changes in the
arts everywhere. IT INTRODUCES QUITE A NEW MATERIAL INTO THE MANUFACTURE
OF THE ARTS, THAT MATERIAL BEING NOTHING LESS THAN ELASTIC METAL. It is
hard like metal and as elastic as pure original gum elastic. Why, that
is as great and momentous a phenomenon occurring to men in the progress
of their knowledge, as it would be for a man to show that iron and gold
could remain iron and gold and yet become elastic like India Rubber. It
would be just such another result. Now, this fact cannot be denied; it
cannot be secreted; it cannot be kept out of sight; somebody has
made this invention. That is certain. Who is he? Mr. Hancock has been
referred to. But he expressly acknowledges Goodyear to be the first
inventor. I say that there is not in the world a human being that can
stand up and say that it is his invention, except the man who is sitting
at that table."

The court found for the plaintiff, and this decision established for
all time the claim of the American, Charles Goodyear, to be the sole
inventor of vulcanized rubber.

This trial may be said to be the dramatic climax in the story of rubber.
It celebrated the hour when the science of invention turned a raw
product--which had tantalized by its promise and wrought ruin by its
treachery--into a manufacture adaptable to a thousand uses, adding
to man's ease and health and to the locomotion, construction, and
communication of modern life.

When Columbus revisited Hayti on his second voyage, he observed some
natives playing with a ball. Now, ball games are the oldest sport known.
From the beginning of his history man, like the kitten and the puppy,
has delighted to play with the round thing that rolls. The men who
came with Columbus to conquer the Indies had brought their Castilian
wind-balls to play wi