Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1880-05-01
American Inventors.

pendence was proclaimed in July. 1Il6,
the treaty by which it was acknowledged
was not signed in Paris until September,
1873, nor ratified by Congress until
January, 1874. Looking back, for less
than one hundred years, it becomes
manifest that Americans, exercising a
remarkable faculty, have, in that period,
surpassed all the rest of the world in in
ventions which economic labor and
cost, and are eminently useful, to all
civilized people, to an extent rather to
be understood than described, SO vast,
complete ahd universal is it.
Twenty-four years ago, an able and
candid writer, by no means addicted to
exaggeration, stated the matter thus:
"To sum up, therefore, the United
States, since 1716, have endowed the
world with the lightning-rod, the steam
boat, the photograph, the electric tele-
graph, the discovery of the use of in
hailed ether, the sewing machine, the
best and cheapest farm implements, the
best carpenters tools, the best locks,
fire-engines, nails, spikes, screws and
axes, the best firearms, the cheapest
clocks, the fastest steamers and sailing
vessels, the cheapest railroads, the light
est wagons, and many of the most useful
labor-saving machines in almost every
department of industry. If any nation,
during the same time, has done more,or
as much, the fact is not known" To
this general enumeration may now be
added many later inventions, among
which the most notable are the tele-
phone, the monograph, the micro
phone. the electric light (by which Paris
and London have been partially and
brilliantly illuminated for many months)
and the high-level street railways
which, within a recent period, have
literally pervaded the streets of New
York.
Cotton, the production and the man.
ufacture OF which have been the sources
of vast wealth to America and England
since the middle of the last century, was
of little use at first, from the difficulty
of separating the seeds from what is
called " the WOOL 1t had been done
by hand, at the rate of a pound day,
until 1893, when Mr.. Whitney, then a
law-student in Georgia, invented the
saw-gin, by which the process of clean
ing has been rapid and effectual.
Scarcely less important than the saw
gin was the cotton and wool cardinal
chine, invented by Amos Whittemore,
in 1897.
In the brief leisure snatched from his
public duties, Benjamin Franklin in
vented the tightening rod, and made the
electrical experimr nts which have since
been so largely utilized.
The application of steam to naviga-
ton was the dream of Robert Fulton
from 1898 to 1907, when he realized it
by steam-voyage up the Hudson, from
New York to Albany. The first ocean
steamer was the American Savannah,
which reached Liverpool from New
York, in July, 1919. The Sirius an,
the Great Western earliest accomplished
the voyage from Europe, reaching New
York in April, 1883. Even before that
date, John Ericsson, of New York, had
invented the screw-propeller, now in
general use, and in 1862, his Monitor
did good service in war
The hardened steel plate, which, as
medium for the finest engraving, has
superseded the soft copper-plate, the
steam gun, and, still more useful, the
machine for making cut nails, were In
vented by Jacob Perkins, of Massachu-
sets.
What is called eccentric turning"
much employed to ornament watch
cases, was invented by Thomas Blan-
chard, of New England.
In 1880, Thomas Godfrey, a glazier
in Philadelphia, who had taught himself
mathematics, SO rs TO understand New |
tons Principles, constructed the quad
rant, the idea of which was derived
from his casual observation of the re-
Election of the suns rays into pail of
water. He thought that if, by
reflection, he could draw the
sum dnu-n to the horizon ha