Antonio López de Santa Anna,a former president of Mexico,was living in New York in the late 1860s. While he was there,he met with Thomas Adams,an inventor. Santa Anna shared with Adams his idea for an invention—a new process,really,for making rubber(橡胶) products such as tires(轮胎).
▲Santa Anna thought it would be possible to blend the rubber with chicle(糖胶树胶),the milky juice of a tropical(热带的) tree. That would make rubber products much cheaper to produce. Adams told Santa Anna that he was willing to try. Later,Santa Anna prepared one ton of chicle to be shipped to Adams from Mexico.
Adams worked for about a year,trying different blends of rubber and chicle. None of them were successful. The inventor still had lots of chicle left over and wondered what to do with it. Then he remembered Santa Anna's stories of people chewing chicle in Mexico. So Adams made a small number of chewing gum(口香糖),packaged it,and sold it in local stores. The gum was much tastier than other American gum,which was made from wax(蜡) or tree sap(汁).
Although Adams's original idea was a failure, chewing gum was a success. In 1871,he invented a machine to produce gum so he wouldn't have to make it by hand. Adams enjoyed success for the rest of his life,and people have enjoyed all kinds of tasty gum for years.