Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-04-18

appropriately adapted to the keeping of the
hlgher-priced spring vegetables Just now in fash
Ion. Sisters in the inventive craft have pro-
duced such interesting things bath tub
ana sofa combined in one piece OF furniture, a
bureau and bath tub likewise. a combined
trunk and bureau and stepladder that is an
ironing board in disguise.
Another presumably fair inventress has pat
ented an improved copy holder" though 1t is
only just to say that from the newspaper point
OF view the copy holder does not need i'm
provement so much as does the proof reader.
folding scaffold' is not designed for pur-
poses Of execution. but merely for windows.
In the same collection of valuable feminine
fancies are a life raft, an impregnable chicken
coop, an adding machine, a portable summer
house, hy traps, an improved seesaw. model
grain elevator on n new plan, device for num-
bering houses processes for initiating marble
and stained glass, q method Of preserving eggs,
improved ladders, rocking chair that fans the
person rocking. alloys to initiate silver. life
preserving garments and n vessel that is
susceptible Of being converted off-hand into a
land fort by simply taking it apart. Who says
that women never invent anything'
THE FIRST IcK CREAM FREEZER.
Only last year there died here in Washington
the woman, Mrs. Nancy Johnson who in 1913
invented the first ice cream freezer. Up to
that time the tool used to make ice cream was
a big spoon. She was ninety wears of age. The
kies of Connecticut-the state that has more
inventors in proportion to its population than
any other in the Union. Her idea for
weaving straw with silk thread. The notion of
OF syllable type was q womsn's. But only a
suggestion can be given here of the great con-
tributiOns which petticoat genius has made TO
invention in the United States. Think how
many women inventors there must have been
who preferred to remain in the background
and permit their fathers, husbands and
NJ to ~. n. H.
tons. Consider, too, how much help the
ladies, God bless them give the men in the
Development Of new thoughts. If the famous
Galvanis wife had not been sick, so that he
was obliged to make frog leg soup for her. the
frogs would not have been lying on the table
not have touched the limb of one of the
batrachlans, setting the animal off into frantic
fancy dance, and galvanism would have re-
manned for the time being undiscovered.
NO FLYING MACHINES.
Thus far the women inventors have not ex-
hibited much activity in investigating the prob
lens Of navigating the air and the water. They
have no devices of their own to set off against
those shown in the model room of the patent
office by which one gentleman proposes to fly
with folding wings like those of bird, steering
with his tail feathers. 1t was q man who con-
ceived the notion of utilizing for the same pur-
pose kite OF vast area within which sails re-
yolve, while basket containing the passenger
hangs beneath. The air tricycle., worked by
the feet for progress and with a balloon to neu-
tralize gravity, is a male design. and the same
may be said of the ship that Is propelled by a
windmill on board when there is wind and by
a treadmill on deck at calm times. Similar
products OF masculine genius are the ship that
Is made to go forward by the swinging of a
great pendulum from the mast with the move
ment OF the waves, the energy thus created
being utilized to run propeller at the stern,
and another style OF vessel that has its back
broken in the middle SO that the waves hump
1t up and down and thus produce power to
work the propeller. In these important ques-
tons OF transportation woman seems to take
little interest. AT all events she invents no
hylng machines or boats that move themselves
Neither does sine dabble in perpetual motion.
When perpetual motion inventor applies
for patent he Is always requested to supply a
working model and that settles him. The pro-
fesslonal model makers here do not consider it
thelr business to criticise the devices Of their
customers; so long as they are paid they are
entirely willing to embody In wood or metal
anything you please, no matter how absurd it
Is But their best efforts in perpetual motion
models do not so. Not day passes that people
do not apply at the patent Office for patents on
inventions long antedated on the records. The
most pathetic spectacle to be seen in Washing
ton, not even excepting the disappointed office
seeker, Is the would-be patentee who has come to
the capital with a wonderful idea and finds that
1t has been thought before.