Google doodle honours inventor of the raincoat

New Delhi, December 29

Google has honoured the inventor of waterproof material, Charles Macintosh, with a doodle on Thursday to mark what would be his 250th birthday.

The Scottish chemist's invention, which led to the modern raincoat, is to be credited for making it a lot more convenient to go out in the rain.

The doodle shows Macintosh enjoying a Scottish rain shower while testing his ingenious invention.

Describing the doodle, Google wrote on its website, “It's a wonder how the weather-beaten Brits coped before Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh invented his eponymous waterproof coat. His invention, patented in 1823, came about as he experimented with coal-tar naphtha and rubber and realised they could be fused together with fabric to create a waterproof surface. These days in the UK, it's common to call any type of raincoat a “Mac”.”

Born in Glasgow, he was first employed as a clerk. But he devoted all his spare time to science, particularly chemistry, and before he was twenty resigned his clerkship to take up the manufacture of chemicals.

He also figured out a way to make blast furnaces more efficient and also invented a bleaching powder. — Agencies