Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1883-09-21
INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS.


The number Of successful inventors
is always large, but the number Of I'M
IN. cessful ones is very much larger.
Only the other day 1900 models of
rejected inventions were sold for old
iunK. There is always somebody
working at the unstable problem of
perpetual motion or making q flying
machine. Itnot intrequently happens
that. after patent has been refused to
an inventor, a subsequent application
i granted by different examiner.
1t sometimes happens tat a patent
is granted to one man after somebody
else has failed to receive q patent for
the same invention. This is fruitful
source Of litigation Indeed, litigation
about patent rig Is is SO common that
in the introduction Of any valuable
patent the legal expenses # defending
il are a large part Of the capital re-
CURED. Immense sums W re spent in
defending Morse's patent for telegraph
inc. and the various patents for sew
ing machines. india rubber manufae-
ture, and of the inventions that have
reyoutionzed industrial processes.
But when rights are once established
by law. the profits are enormous. 1t
was shown in recent case before the
[ nited States court that for royalties
alone on the manufacture of barbed
fence wire more than 100000 a year
were paid.
Inventors are now chiefly busy with
electricity, and the patent office is
deuged with devices for making new
uses of the modern marvel, or for using
itwth new appliances. Many of these
inventions run in the direction of
motors The opinion has gained some
ground lately that storage batteries of
electricity are not as successful as was
at first expected. tits asserted by some
that no storage battery ever gives out
as much electricity as it receives, and
that every moment deereaes the
amount yielded. Edison says the best
storage hattery is a ton Of coal, which
can be used at any time to drive a
dynamo machine. Others, however,
stu think that the storage battery
will produ wonderful results.
Inventors have always sought to
Utii e the forces Of nature for the con
Sc walton Of power. A good deal of
time and money has been spent on
Efforts to uti lie the force of the rise
and fall Of the tide According to
some plans the water is to be stored in
a reservoir at high tide, and used tG
turn a waterWheel when the tide falls.
Another plan is to get the power from
the rise and fall of float There used
to be a t dalmill at Astoria and another
at fharleston, S. G. The large amount
OF land required to get the requisite
area Of water surface is considered an
insaperable objection to tidal mills.
\ good deal of money has been ex-
pended on solar engines, in the hope of
getting power out Of the suns rays,
lohn Ericsson, the inventor of the
Monitor and thousand other things,
has made some beautiful solar engines,
and not long ago an inventor had a
model of a solar engine on the top of
thu Cooper Union building, and man
are to get up steam in a boiler The
trouble is however, that the sun does
n always rhine. and the solar engine,
to be of any practical use, must be ac
campanied with a storage reservoir of
power that can b. kept for rainy day.
After al, coal is nothing but the heat
tof TIL sun stored in past ages for
present use.
4 lneie is no telling of what great
IyaIue the discovery of the simplest
Afact may be. When br01nine was dis
covered by Ballard in 1924 nothing of
Iimpo1 lance was expected from it. Now
tt is a valuable fa tor in photography
and a useful remedy for nervous atfec-
tons.
A good deal Of money has been spent
in the effort to introduce ice machines
There is, however, a strong COMPETE
ten to be encounte cd. since ice may
always he had for the gathering, anJ
ansportation is cheap.
Fire escapes are numbered by the
thousand. Hardly day passes that
tr3 commissioners are not compelled
10 test some new plan. A good deal
Of room is taken up in the patent of
fle with the models of these con-
tdyances.
Accidental discoveries have supplied
some of the most valuable processes of
the industrial arts. 1t is said that the
rolling of cold iron was first suggested
by the fact that workman who was
placing piece OF hot iron in the rolls
carelessly permitted his tongs to be
drawn in. He noticed that they were
rolled and not broken. He called the
attention of the superintendent to the
0 currence, and this lei to inyeStiga-
ton and experiment and the discovery
that cold rolled iron is equal to steel
for Skating purposes The process of
rolling iron cold was not long after
patented, and millions of dollars have
been made out Of the patent.
There are many similar instances
where observing workmen have called
attention to valuable proccsse. A
signal one was in the early period of
tie cotton manufacture, when a good
deal of trouble was caused by the cot
ton sticking to the bobbins. All the
workmen in the mill We're delayed by
the necessity of stopping work
t. clean the hobbins. At last one
workman found a way to .obyiate the
trouble. He, and he alone in all the
mill, had clean bobbins. For long
time lie kept his secret to himself. lie
flally revealed it on the promise of
pint of beer q day for life. Ills secret
was to "chalk the bebbins. That
little scraping Of chalk on the bobbins
saved millions Of dollars year, and
the observing workman got not only
hi, beer but a competence.
Each extension of modern enter
prise and skill brings with it a train Of
inventions. The railway, the tele
graph. the steamboat, the development
81 IRON. electricity and petroleum, have
each produced a long line Of inventions
more or less successful. SO that each
Of these industries might have cred