TRAGEDY OF A INVENTION

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 15 July 1912, Page 3

TRAGEDY OF A INVENTION

Science has its romances and its tragedies, and sometimes it claims martyrs of its own. The manager of the biivertown Rubber Company xold a tragic story recently to a sJyctney reporter who was making enquiries into the question of synthetic rubber. Some moivtiis before, an old man had presented himself to the manager, and stated that he had succeeded in producing an artificial substitute for rubber, uu invention which scientists have been aiming at for years. He then gave the manager a specimen and ottered him sole rights of his discovery. The manager, on subjecting the specimen to alt the known tests, satisiied himself that it was in all essential qualities equal to the natural product. The only observable difference was the odor when burnt. The old man demanded £5000 down and a third of the profits, which arrangement, after some bargaining, was agreed to, and it was settled that a company should be immediately formed to exploit the discovery. Another rubber expert to whom the manager took the specimen quoted the current market price of the best rubber for it, and was amazed when the manager told him that he had an offer of unlimited supplies at one-eighteenth that price. The exact secret the old man had refused to disclose until the money was paid over, but he had revealed this much, that the new compound consisted of three ingredients only, one of which was •? Hussian importation. The manufacture of the stuff, so the inventor stated, was rendered rather dangerous by the poisonous exhalations given forth by the materials. For this reason he refused to comply with the manager's demand for half a ton of it, and would only make about 71b or 81b singlehanded. Satisfied with these results and the testimony of experts, the manager set to work organising the company, but when at last he found himself ready to come to terms with the old man, the latter had disappeared. After numerous enquiries it was discovered that he had fallen ill through inhaling the fumes of his chemica.ls and had been taken to .a hospital. He was eventually traced to the Prince Alfred Hospital, where it was found he had died through the effects of his own experiments. The secret that he had refused to impart, and had jealously guarded in his own b-ain, had died with him. i