The Opelousas courier., 1884-02-23
INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS.
Some of tLe Quce- Happenings in the World
nf nispA very. ,.

oAh AAANLo ~
working at the unstable problem ct
perpetual motion or making a flying
machine. 1t notinfraquently happens
that, after patent has been refused to
an inventor, a subsequent application
is granted Ivy a different examine.
It sometimes happens at a patent
is granted to one man after somebody
else has failed to receive a 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 of defending
it are a large part of the capital re-
quired. Immense sums w re spent in
defending Morse's patent # r telegraph
ing, and the various patents for sew
ing machines, india rubber manufac-
ture, and of the inventions that have
revolutionized industrial processes.
But, when rights are once established
by law, the profits are enormous. 1t
was shown in a recent case before the
United States court that for royalties
alone on the manufacture of barbed
fence wire more than 81, 100000 a year
were paid.
Inventors are now chiefly busy with
electricity, and the patent office is
deluged with devices for making new
uses of the modern marvel, or for using
1t with 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. 1t is asserted bysome
that no storage battery ever gives out
as much electricity as it receives. and
that every moment decreases the
amount yielded. Edison says the best
storage battery is a ton of coal, which
can be used at any time to drive a
dynamo machine. Others, however.
still think that the storage battery
will produ e wonderful results.
Inventors have always sought to
utili ethe forces of nature for the con
s%ervation of power. A good deal of
time and money has been spent on
efforts to uti ize the force of the rise
and fall of the tide. Accord ng to
some plans the wateri, to be stored in
reservoir at high tide, and used to
turn a waterwheel when the tide falls.
Another plan is to get the power from
the rise and fall of a float. There used
to be at dial mill at Astoria and another
at Charleston, S. c. The large amount
of land required to get the requisite
1rn9 -nf uJatnr cxtrFa0 no 10 nApcsIarn1 on
~insuperable~ objection to tidal mills.
A good deal of money has been ex-
pended on solar engines. in the hope of
getting power out of the SUMS rays.
John Ericsson, the inventor Of the
Monitor and a thousand other things,
has made some beautiful solar engines,
and not long ago an inventor had a
model of a soar engine on the top Of
the Cooper Union building, and man.
age1 to get up steam in a boiler. The
trouble is, however, that the sun does
not always shine, and the solar engine,
to be of any practical use, must be ac-
companied with a storage reservoir Of
power that can be kept for a rainy day.
After all, coal is nothing but the heat
Of the sun stored in past ages for
present use.
There is no telling of what great
value the discovery of the simplest
fact may be. When bromine was dis
covered by Ballard in 1924 nothing of
Importance was expected from it. Now
it is a valuable factor in photography
and a useful remedy for nervous affec-
tions.
A good deal of money has been spent
in the effort to Introduce ice machines.
There is, however, a strong competi-
tion to be encountered, since ice may
always be had for the gathering, and
transportation is cheap.
Fire escapes are numbered by the
thousand. Hardly a day passes that
fire commissioners are not compelled
to test some new plan. A good deal
of room is taken up in the patent Of
fee with the models of these con-
trivances.
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 a workman who was
placing a 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
occurrence, and this lei to inyestiga-
ton and experiment and the discovery
that cold rolled iron is equal to steel
for shafting 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 processes. A
signal n was in the early period of
the cotton manufacture, when a good
deal of trouble was caused by the cot.
ton sticking to the bobbins. All the
workmen in the mill were delayed by
the necessity of stopping work
to clean the bobbins. At last one
workman found a way to obviate the
trouble. He, and he alone In all the
mill. had clean bobbins. For a long
time he kept his secret to himself. He
finally revealed it on the promise of a
pint of beer a day for life. His secret
was to .chalk the bobbins." That
little scraping of chalk on the bobbins
saved millions of dollars a year, and
the observing workman got not only
his 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
n3 iron alpctricitu and natroIouma 49,