The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-16 00:00:00

LOST INVENTIONS.

What becomes of all the pins is a quesoion that has long,
taxed human ingenuity. At least as curious, and pro-
bably a much more probable, subject of speculation would
be found in the inquiry, What becomes of the inventions?
Every one who gives any attention to such matters can
recall a number of striking inventions which have been
announced within the last decade, and after making a
brief stir among the savans, have sunk at once into entire
oblivion. There is the type-setting- and distributing
machine, for example, which seemed destined to
work a complete revolution in the business
of printing, and which, indeed, was a marvel
of ingenuity. What has become of it? Has
the opposition of the compositors knocked
it into " pi," or has the one little screw never been found
Which was to make it practically useful ? More wonder-
ful still, because of its startling oppostion to all known
principles, was the invention, some years since, by two
young students of the Ecole Polytechnique, at Paris, of a
lamp which would burn without air or oxygen, and which
was especially designed for the use of miners and divers.
The two young philosophers earned a prize of twenty
thousand francs by their discovery, but the fame which
we may suppose was dearer to them than gold seems
to have been denied them. Either their lamp has
ignominiously gone out, or has proved too
costly, or in some way failed to answer, expectations.
At any rate, its light for some time past has been
hid under a bushel. Then there was -Mr. Alexander
Maxwell Bell's invention of a universal alphabet, which
was certainly very ingenious, and bade fair to be propor-
tionately useful. By means of it, if we remember rightly,
Mr. Bell professed to be able to read, write, and speak
any articulate language off-hand, as it were : and not only
that, but to write any given sound so as to make it intelli-
gible to any other person conversant with his alphabet.
Language, in brief, was thus reduced to its primitive ele-
ments, and the necessity for handbooks of foreign conver-
sation done away with. It is not easy to over estimate
the possible benefits of such a discovery. The European
tour would have been robbed of half its
terrors, and Coptic and Welsh made ordinary
branches of a select boarding school educa-
tion. But all these pleasing anticipations are destroyed
by Mr. Bell's failure to fulfil his contract. The universal
language still exists for him only. Babel reigns unshaken,
and Cadmus and Mezzofanti rest tranquilly in their
philological graves. Another noteworthy invention was
called, if we mistake not, the acoustograph. It consisted
of a sensitive membrane, responding like the tympanum
of the human car to every vibration of sound, which it
was so constructed as to record be means of pencil ,and
paper attached. Every sound made a different mark,
long or short, heavy or light, straight or curved, according
to its intensity or timbre. Here, it will be seen,
was a discovery to make the hearts of the wretched scri-
veners leap for joy; to make newspaper reporting a past-
time, and authorship a pleasure. Poet or historian,
orator or musician, had but to set his acoustograph, and
then to soliloquise or compose to his heart's content,
assured of finding every word and note faithfully trans-
cribed. The only trouble was the impossibility
of deciphering the characters thus recorded.
This is a difficulty which, we infer, has not
yet been met, and so the acoustograph also
sleeps in unmerited obscurity and silence. These are but
a few of the many clever inventions that have, for one
cause or apother, fallen stillborn in the world. .Yet even
their seeming inutility may have its uses. Should they
never come to fruit, these seeds of original thought may
be the germs of great discoveries hereafter. The steam-
engine was a toy to Ptolemy's philosophers ; and Con-
fucius is said to have been familiar with the art of print-
ing. But it was left for other times and minds to adapt
these diversions of the wise to the common benefit of all
mankind. —New York Times.

Constant disturbances and Indian raids are reported
from the western l order, shewing that the savages, as well
as the border settlers, are restless. The military authori-
ties have so disposed their troops, however, that there are
hopes of any extended war being averted.

The gold market in America has been violently
disturbed and much depressed by the failure of James
Boyd, one of the leading operators in New York. He
had been carrying about 5,000,000 gold and large amounts
of railway and other shares, chiefly for Edward B.
Katcham. His liabilities are heavy, and the forced sales
consequent upon his impending failure depressed the
markets.

•
NITRO-GLYCERINE.—At Worcester, Massachusetts,
on the 23d of June, there was a nitro-glycerine explosion
The compound had been smuggled into the last car of a
goods train, and exploded from some unknown cause, kiil-
ing one man, and injuring 30 others who were near. The
railway, was torn up, cars shattered, and 12 houses in the
neighbourhood demolished.

THE ERIE RAILWAY.—The Philadelp'lia corre-
spondent of the London Times says :—Mr. Charles Burt,
who has charge of the interests of the English share-
holders of Erie in their contest with Fisk and Gould,
sailed for home this week. The suit against Fisk and
Gould does not come up in the United States courts until
autumn, and meanwhile the friends of the English share-
holders are very anxious to have the latter stand firm to
their combination and resist all the temptations to dally
with the " Erie King," or to sell their proxies, or to lend
shares for election purposes. It is the intention, I under-
stand, to pursue this contest to the end, and the English
public cannot be too strongly impressed with the necessity
of supporting the suit.
THE WOES OF SPOTTED TAlL.—There is so.ae-
thing quite touching in the death of Spotted Tail's favou-
rite wife, just before her liege's return from the scene of
his trials and triumphs. This Indian Ulysses, escaped
from the Circes of the capital—from the Scylla of Cham-
pagne and the Charybdis of cream, from manifold perils
of rail-car and steam-boat, only to find that his dusky
Penelope, to whom he would, doubtless, have rejoiced to
unfold his budget of marvels over the evening camp-fire,
had left his wigwam dark, and preceded him to
the happy hunting grounds. We can hardly
wonder that his gifts have lost their value since she can-
not admire them, or that he should have resolved to sacri-
fice them all, horses and meerschaums, rifles and blankets,
to her memory. Perhaps not many of his pale-faced
brethren would be willing to give so practical a proof of
grief and affection. But Spotted Tail's sorrow
concerns us less than his resentments. If, as is
stated, he attributes his wife's death, by some
occult Indian reasoning, to white machinations,
that estimable lady may prove to have been in
her demise a person of far greater political importance
than she ever was in her lire. The accident is certainly
inopportune, if it is to destroy Spotted Tail's newly-
fledged friendship for the whites, fostered with such in-
finite pains of courtesy, and such lavish outlay of straw-
berries, at Washington. We could probably have better
spared Thunder Skin or any of the squaws who visited
New York. At all events, it behooves our Indian Bureau
to lose no time in disabusing the outraged chief of his
error before he too digs up the hatchet. Indian wars are
too costly a luxury to be indulged in frequently.—New
York Times.

COLOURED BOYS AT WEST POINT.—Two or
three weeks ago we expressed some regret that the two
most promising coloured boys that were available had not
been selected by Senator Revels and the other Congress-
man who sent up coloured candidates to West Point. We
hear from various sources, and are requested to say so,
that one at least of the two boys was as promising as
need be desired. James W. Smith is described to us by
competent observers as being more than ordinarily intelli-
gent and well-educated. In eighteen months—fifteen of
them in an evening school in Columbia, South Carolina,
he fitted himself to pass the written examination for
admission to the Hartford High School, snaking papers
which were not excelled by those of any other candidate.
At the end of his second year in Hartford school, he made
application to finish the course in two years, and this he
accomplished, and at graduation stood in the first half of
a class of thirty. We understand him to have been re-
jected at West Point—or put on probation, if that is his
present status—because of defective eyesight, and not for
any deficiency in point of preparation. The other negro
candidate was physically but not otherwise fitted
for admission. The suspicion that with one or
the other of these instruments the examiners
will always be able somehow to keep the Academy
free from coloured cadets, we see nothing as yet to justify.
All the officers seem, so far as is known, to have been both
just and courteous to these two boys, although it is as-
serted that some of the cadets were abusive, and that stiff
politeness was the best treatment that they got from any.
This, of course, will not last very long. The young fellows
at Cambridge seem not to have suffered in mind by rea-
son of the presence of one or two coloured undergraduates
nor at seeing one of them take prizes for literary and
other distinction ; and a West Pointer does not, we be-
lieve, consider himself better than a Harvard man, and if
he does, he must either at once abase his spirit,- or expect
Mr. Logan after hisn.