The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1892-11-09
Sadsrspa gntslligsHtsr,
Many Inventions.


machinery used in modern shops and
mills. Some of them have more than q
state or a national reputation, and tho
value of their inventions has been recog-
nized wherever power has been applied
to machinery, both at home and abroad.
The inventor of the slide lathe, Daniel
wilkinson, was a Rhode Island man,
who, having made nothing out Of hin
universally used device, MAS paid $4,000
by Congress few years before his death
because the government had adopted tho
mechanism for its shops. The inventor
of the braiding machine was native Of
this State, and like Wilkinson he lived
to see others accumulats fortunes by
manufacturing tie machine Of his ipvsn'
tion.
The builder Of the first successful pow
or loom introduced into Rhode Island
mills was paid $1,000 for the machine
that was Invaluable to cotton msnutac-
turera, and enabled them to increase pro.
duction to an incalcuable extent. There
are others whose names are not familiar
to the public, although their inventions
without material alterations have been
universally employed upward Of seventy
years. One of these is Aza Arnold, a
pioneer manufacturer of Rhode Island
and an inventor whoue name was perhaps
more prominent than that of any other
man interested in cotton mills fifty years
ago.
Aza Arnold was the son Of Benjamin
Arnold, one of the Providence County
people of that name, and Isabella, daugh-
ter of Paul Greene, of Potowomut Neck.
He was born at Pawtuoket in 1889, and
learned the carpenters trade with john
Smith, of Wexford, but afterward pas q
machinest, and in 1872 operated the But"
teray factory in company with George
Smith, who was his uncle by marriage.
Their business was making WOODEN blan-'
kets. At this time he invented the lend.
less rowing" for carding machines. Pre-
vious to this all rowing was made by the
carding machines in short rolls; which
had to be pieced together in spinning.
Fifty or sixty years ago there were scat.
tered over the country, wherever there
was a 1.horse water power, carding. MAJ
chimes that worked up the farmers wool
into these short rolls of rowing to be spun
into yarn on the farmers band spinning
machines.
At this date, 1872, owing to the mar
with England, it was impossible to I'M
port files, and he invented machine tor
cutting them, upon which files were made
for their own use and for sale; but it
was dropped at the close OF the war,
when it became possible to import them
again. In 1918 he invented the "com.
pound notion" or. as he called 1t, tho
"diffsrenual motion" mechanism for
compouuding two different motions or
rates of speed to produce third rate
that should be the constant differential Of
the two, how6ver much they might
change or differ.
This was, as Zerah Colburn, the great
arithmsticiau, expressed it, solving By
mechanism an arithmeticsl problem that
could not be solved by figures, because OF
their running into series of circulating
decimals. This motion he applied to the
speeder, machine used to prepare cot
ton rowing for spinning, and patented it
ir 1928. It's value was quickly appre-
ciated, as it enabled the manufacturer to
turn off three skeins where he formerly
had two, and the quality of the products
was improved almost irl the same ratio.
Ii Was testified in court by prominent
manufacturers that it WIS worth to them
five dollars per annum. It was quickly
adopted, and some Rhode Island manu-
fscturers paid q royalty, but the Lowell
and the Fall River companies refused,
and suits were brought against them.
After years of delay to send agents abroad
to find if the invention WAS not previous
ly known there the casos came to trial.
The objection of the opposition was that
a negative expression i'm one part Of the
specification was not repeated In another
part, and Judge Story said to the counsel
for defenss, "If that iu your only objee-
tion Mr.. Arnold can surrender his patent
and have that corrected, and come back
here in two weeks ready to 90 on with
the trial."
Accordingly he surrendered his patent,
but instead of receiving it back In two
weeks it was held in the patent Office tor
months, and in the meantime the whole
code of patent laws known as the code OF
1898 was repealed, and the new code OF
1886 was passed, so that when his patent
was returned it was under the new law,
and having no patent under the old law,
he was cut off from entering suits for In
Engagements under that law. He did not
know the cause of this fatal detention of
his patent in the Office until the latter
part of his life. When he wa solicitor
of patents in Washington he found in
the archieves of the patent office letter
from the leading counsel for the defense
in his Gaze to the commissioner Of patents
saying, "Hold on to that patent till you
hear from me," referring to bis surron-
dered patent. This, which he had never
suspected, fully explained to him how he
had been defeated In his s.it by the
chicanery Of the lawyers.
Benjamin Arnold, Of East Greenwich,
one of the sons of Mr.. Az. Arnold, Is
one of the best known Of living Rhode