The weekly Arizona miner., 1868-11-21
Odd Inventions and Discoveries.

The p0ndcrOuS mind Ot the Miidlc Ages | succeeding to tho light and graceful taste of the classic times which in their turn followed | the massive Babylonian and Egyptian period | and were heavy only in walls, aqueducts and | causeways. Its coaches, its type and print | ing presses, its arqucbuses and its canon, all new things were of the most colossal propor- tions and overpowering weight. One has only | to glance at the drawings and pictures of such objects dating back few centuries, in order to be taken aback by the expenditure | of material visible in their construction. | The first subsequent note of improvement was to tighten as wei as 10 simplify, and age | by age, and year by year, as we have pro- | gressed the chief aim of the inventor has been 1 to combine moderate weight and delicacy with strength. Thus, our cotton gins and steam engines are much lighter to-day than some boards and clothes presses were in the | fifteenth century.
 | As the taste of our ancestors ran towards bulky and ponderous articles. SO did it take to heavy uses as the objects of invention, and the more graceful and delicate points were omitted.
 At the present day the rule is completely reversed. We still are able 10 put together huge structures of every kind on both land and water, and the Grert Edstern steamship and the Palace of the Universal Exposition are striking proofs Of that fact, but even they
 are not so vastly constructed as they would
 have been for the same purposes at an earlier
 day. Yet our forte is in the multiplicity and
 variety of the delicate discoveries to facilitate
 and better every minor operation of life. The
 minute work of the spinning jenny and the
 steam-loom, whose iron fingers work with the
 rapidity of lightning and the precision of
 e.Hlt sN t1.
 ready reckoner, and the wonderful transposi-
 tions ofelectrotyping and photography
 among scores that We might name, are the di-
 rectiOns taken ey the inventive genius of our
 time.
 This we find to be an important feature of
 our civilization, since it shows that we have
 reached stage where every little want of
 our earthly existence claims to be recognized, and finds somebody to give 1t hearing f Thus, progress and the emancipation of man : from so,did labor and thousand minor draw backs that embtter his lot, are secured in a f seDse of completeness that omits nothing to
 make the ultimate attainment perfect
 It may sound like little thing when we arc told that a method has been invented by which honey can be separated from the honey comb so deftly, that the cells are left almost
 uninjured, and can be reoccupied by the bees,
 but when we come to sum up the immense , industry directly affected by this saving, the 2 matter grows vastly in importance.
 2 When paper collars and cuffs were first in- vented they excited only general meuiment, f but emerging from the Ordeals of trial Ito l see what they were like" they have become merchandise in which millions of dollars fl are invested and realized. Now, still odder Q substitute for tdiness is suggested to be 1T manufactured from the wooden strips exactly
 similar to those with which walls are lined
 instead of the old-fashioned paper.
 White candles from bitumen; exquisite ', colors and even delicious champagne from pc :, troleum India rubber pavements; ivory from - chemically treated turnips; absorbent stuccC 4 work from potatoes and melon rinds; artif cisl sponges from prepared bread crumbs art s no less curious than useful things, and they :, and the long line of endcayor that they repre- . sent, indicate a constant effort to alleviat, l. the expense and annoyance of all the little a,
 well as the heavier operations of life whose
 convenience was overlooked in earlier days.
 And, as we look around, are we not amazed - at the tardiness with which this line of in l, vention has been taken up. We now sec ', positively wonderful array of applications Y but what are they compared with the want d to meet them2 Our streets still roar anC r. reek with the barbarous noise and filth O 70 horse power; our homes are made pestiferou D. with wretched drains and sewers our eye 70 are destroyed by fiickering and inadeqna. !. light after sundown; our systems are disor n ganized and infected by ill-prepared food IS On all sides cleanliness, quiet digestion, shel
 ter and locomotion are calling for still fresl
 devices to relieve us from thronging danger a. and discomforts. Therefore let us have stil
 more things in the way of invention, no mat n- ter how "outlandish" they may seem at tn
 start, if they but discharge the office. Tn
 more the merrier. All great hits that hay ie been made in the world were "queer things
 to the hang-backs of mankind, and, generally
 the queerer they seemed when first announce d the greater the benefaction proved to strue
 gling mortals. --Ne0 York Mercantile yoHraa