The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-05-25
Curious Patents.

Curious Patents.
Some investigating person has fur
nished the New York Times with brief
list of patents on small things-such as
any man or boy have thought of, but
didn't, and which in many instances
have proved mines of wealth to the
lucky discover. For. inasmuch as so
many minds might have hit upon these
things, they ought properly to be called
discoveries rather than inventions, and
are the outcome of luck or chance, or
| whatever one may choose to call that ar
rangement of circumstances which is not
the result of much forethought or logical
process. The steam engine, the steam
ship, the locomotive, the telegraph, the
reaping machine, the power-loom, the
sewing machine, the telephone, the cot
ton gin, the telescope and scores of SINH
| lar machines or instruments are truly in
ventions. They require logical and
philosophical combination of laws and
principles. But there are hundreds Of
smaller things, chiefly pretty convent
ences and contrivances for domestic use,
/ or amusing and entertaining toys, which
are more in the nature of discoveries.
These last have been only found-the
others were found out.
Among those trifles is the favorite toy
| the s'return balr'-a wooden ball with
an elastic string attached, selling for the
sum of tencents each, but yielding to its
patentee an income equal to fair returns
on a capital OF 100000. The rubber tip
on the end of lead pencils affords the
owner of the royalty an independent
fortune. The nventor.of the gummed
newspaper wrapper is also rich man.
The gimlet-pointed screw has evolved
more wealth than most silver mines, and
the man. who first thought of putting cop
per tips to children's shoes is as well off
as If his father had left him $4,000, 900
in United States bonds. Although roller
skates are not so much used in countries
where ice is abundant, in South Ameri-
ca, especially in Brazil, they are very
highly esteemed and have yielded over
/ 81, 000,000 to their inventor. But he
had to spend $125, 900 in England alone
| fighting mfringements. The dancing
Jim Crow" a top, provides an annual
income of $780, to its inventor, and
the common needle threader is worth
SIC, 900 ayear to the man who thought of
it. The s'drive well' was an idea of
Mr.. Colonel Green, whose troops, during
the war, were in want of water. He
conceived the notion of driving two
inch tube into the ground until water
was reached and then attaching pump.
This simple continuance was patented
after the war, and the tens Of thousands
of farmers who have adopted it, have
| oh To Il; Nv
moderate estimate of which is placed at
| $4,000, 600. The spring window shade
yields an income equal to an investment
of 81. 900, 900; the stylographic pen, with
which this article is written, also 81, 000,-
900; the marking pen for shading in diff
| ferent colors, 800, 900; rubber stamps,
the same. A large fortune has been
reaped by a Western miner who, ten
years since, invented a metal rivet or
| eyelet at each end of the mouth of
breaches and coat pockets to resist the
strain. caused by the carriage of pieces
i of ore and heavy tools. Fortunes have
been made out of the dead as well of
| the living. The torpedo grave, which
4 will explode when body -snatchers med
die with it, is one bonanza; another odd,
q but probably not lucrative one, is an
open tube, running from the top of the
Iground to the cofin-lid, just over the
| face of the corpse. If the person is in a
4 trance and has been buried alive, he
draws himself up through the whole and
4 returns to 1.-THE surface by means Of a rope
| ladder in the tube. If he prefers, how
ever, to send for assistance, he pulls a
| cord which rings a bell near the top OF
| the tube. After lying there long enough
to assure his friends that he has no in
tention of coming back the tube is pulled
| up. drawing as it comes glass-plate
over the face of the inmate of the coffin.
il Every time woman pricks the shell
| OF an egg preparatory to boiling it she
violates a patent right, this having been
3 secured by some genius who discovered
i that it would prevent their breaking
! during the process Of boiling It having
been said that chickens hatched by artii.
!, hcial heat do not thrive as well as others
because they miss the maternal affection
expressed in the ''cluck, clucks of the
, natural hen, an inventor has taken out a
patent which initiates that sound, sooth-
ling and charming the tender-hearted
! but bereaved offspring with its artificial
, Groom and consoling the young orphan
: with its mechanical solicitude. This is
based evidently upon another patent for
babies of machine operated by clock
work and producing q low and melan-
S choly murmur which no child. however
wakeful, can successfully resist, but to
s which it.succumbs in profound slumber.
81 There is also the false bottQmed nest
q which deludes the hen into the belief