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 with in idle hours.

But at once they found that the balls of Hayti were incomparably superior toys; they bounced better.
These high bouncing balls were made, so they learned, from a milky fluid of the consistency of honey which the natives procured by tapping certain trees and then cured over the smoke of palm nuts.

A discovery which improved the delights of ball games was noteworthy.
The old Spanish historian, Herrera, gravely transcribed in his pages all that the governors of Hayti reported about the bouncing balls.