The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1890-07-11
INVENTIONS oFsRookLyN MEN.
New Type-Setting Machine aud an Elec-
trical Smokers Smelling Nose.

i met a Brooklyn man here in New
York the other day who has invented
a clever arrangement for setting type,
which, he thinks, will revolutionize the
whole business, says a writer in the
Brooklyn Eagle. It's very simple
looking little machine, something like
a typewriter, or at least the keyboard
is the same. When the compositor
strikes lettered key it throws up into
line matrix which remains in place,
the next key struck places the next
along side, and when line of type is
formed melted type is thus cast and set
up mt the same moment. This is re-
moved and the second line formed and
so on. the work requiring about one
half the ordinary time consumed in
such matters, and the result being that
the type is always fresh and can not be
pied, as each line is solid block. As
soon as the stereotype is made the type
goes back into the melting pot and is
ready for use again. The N. Y. Irib-
sIne and the London Times have for
year or more been employing type-set-
ting machines with great deal of sue
cess, but the machine is a laborious
and clumsy affair." and the Brooklyn
man thinks he has improved on it as
much as the second order of sewing
machines improved on the old "corn-
shelters" that Howe first put upon the
market when it was first invented to
save woman stitches, but which re-
quired about two-horse power to work.
The inventor claims he can make these
machines and sell them for $500, and
that they will do the work of three
men. He is as enthusiastic as most
of these inventors are, and thinks his
machine will create dismay in the
typographical unions. After while
there will be nothing more for men to
do; machinery will do it all.
There is another Brooklyn man who
spends the great part of his days in
New York, who is also an inventor.
He is rich and belongs to well-known
society people, but likes to dabble in
electrical matters for his own amuse-
ment. His latest device is an electro
cal nose, which, when it smells smoke,
rings bell, and if it smells a very
great deal of smoke turns in fire
alarm. That sounds like joke, but it
is an actual electrical fact. The dia-
gram of the machine is so treated that
the action of smoke upon it causes it to
move and set an alarm-bell ringing,
and this effect, increased, connects
with fire alarm. 1t is curious to see
the model which is set up here in the
owners office, when the inventor puffs
a nouthful of smoke from his cigar
upon it. The bell rings wildly, and if
he continues to blow the smoke in it
makes prompt connection with fire
alarm. In inventing this nose the
Brooklynite stumbled upon what is
probably one of the most remarkable
discoveries since the discovery of cleo
tricity itself. This new discovery has
not yet been sufficiently tested for the
disc0verer to be willing to inform the
world of its nature, but it is likely to
create great revolution in the manu-
facture of all fabrics of every descrip-
ton when he has made sufficient ex-
pertinent to be sure of his ground.
These inventions stumble so closely
upon each others heels that the faculty
of wonder loses its sensibility, but
where means of suspending great
natural law is reached one finds it i'm
possible to grasp with the imagination
the possibility of mans future control
over the inanimate world.