Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1877-10-04
n TheaPasent Omce nj

The ctuntry has narrowly escaped an
irreparabie disaster. In the destruction
ofthes Patent Oficeat Washington it
would have lost that one of the public
buildings of Washington which, per-
haps, it could least spare-a national
monument which neither time nor
money could ever replace. II the Cap
|itol should fall in ruins we might take
comfort in the disappearance of certain
specimens of modern statuary, and
console ourselves for the loss of Trum-
bulls canvas by surveying the crumb-
ling remains of Leutze's fresco. The
long colonnades of the Treasury could
easily be reproduced. The White
House has no great value apart from
its associations. But the Patent Office
is unique. 1t is one of the few Ameri-
can institutions which were not made,
but grew; and we could no more re-
build it than England could make q
new London or Italy a new Rome.
There is nothing in Washington COM
parable to that extraordinary collection
of dusty traps which reposes in its in
terminable glass cases. The visitor
may spend weeks in the vain attempt
to explore this teeming wilderness,
and he will come away Overpowered
and bewildered, confessing that no
where else in the world could such a
museum have been brought together.
Nowhere else in the world, certainly,
is there such an exhibition at once of
the progress of the useful arts, and the
steady advance of people in wealth
and civilization. From the primitive
apple-parer to The Waltham watch and
Hoes latest perfecting printing press
is tremendous march; but the success
sive seps are all illustrated in the long
series of Patent Office models. We
might trace there the development of
the country, nay, the development of
each separate State, in the chronology
of inventions, and watch the growth of
culture depicted in the change of a peO-
ple's wants, as they come to think
gradually less of stump-eradicatOrs,
and more of patent bustles. And yet
it is a peculiarity of American inven-
tive genius that it does not abandon
one art when it takes up another; it is
never tired of celebrating the tools OF
the farmer and the pioneer, even when
it is polishing the latest luxury for the
rich mans parlor or the lady's toilet.
From forty 10 fifty patents are granted
or renewed evtry day, and there is
hardly a conceivable department of
useful industry to which the skill and
ingenuity of the inventor does not lend
hourly aid. a.. -
1t is queer illustration of the Amer
ican character, also, that the inventors
are recruited in large numbers from all
classes of persons, and that the same in
ventor applies his mind to bewilder-
ing multiplicity of objects. Here is a
gentle and soft-spoken planters
daughter, who, being ruined by the
war, has made living for her family
by discovering better plan of build
ing a bedstead. Here is a learned
clergyman who has created new grid
die. A cigar.box model of an ap-
paratus to lift Mississippi steamboat
over Instructions is the work of Abra-
ham Lincoln. A school boy has a
patent for folding table, and an editor
goes down to posterity as the author of
a clothes-pin. The same intellect
which puts together the complex and
beautiful works of the mammoth
steam-engine busies itself also with
sharpening the point of a cambric-
needle, pegging a heavy boot, and
planning rat-trap, paper-knife,
pop-gun and a pair OF garters. 1t is
melancholy, perhaps, to think how
small proportion of the hundred
thousand models in this huge collection
have been of any practical value, bow
many dead hopes are buried in these
crowded cases; how much suffering,
and disappointment were
wasted in the production of useless
combinations of wood and iron, which
are slowly dropping to pieces in the
obscurity of a model room. But the
Patent Office, nevertheless, is cheer
full and exhilarating place, for it shows
us in the brightest light the evidences
of our national wealth and strength,
the promise ufonr Continued prosper
itv, and some ofsthe most hoBprable
traits of our national character. 1t
teaches that there is nothing within the
power of man that we cannot do, and
no condition of civilized life to which
we cannot instantly adapt ourselves
IN. Y. Tribune.