Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-11-18
MANY INVENTIONS.
RHODE ISLAND HAS PRODUCED MEN
WHO HAVE DONE MUCH,

Aza Arnold Was Cheated Out of tho
Royalties of His compound Notion"
During the past hundred years the in
ventors of Rhode Island have contributed
largely to tho present perfection of the
machinery used in modern shops and mills.
Some of them have more thar a state or a
national reputation, and the value of their
inventions has been recognized 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 his universally used device, was
paid $4,000 by congress a few years before
his death because the government had
adopted he mechanism for it's shops. The
inventor of the braiding machine was a
native of this state, and like Wilkinson
he lived to see others accumulate fortunes
by manufacturing the machine of his in
vention.
The builder of the first successful power
loom introduced into Rhode Island mills
was paid 81 SEQ for the machine that was
Invaluable to cotton manufacturers, and
enabled them to increase production to an
~lncalculable extent. There are others
whose names are not familiar to the pub
lie, although their inventions without ma
terial alterations AVE been universally
employed upward of seventy years. One
Of these is Aza Arnold, a pioneer manufac-
turer Of Rhode Island and an inventor
whose 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 peo-
r1., ~ chat 49, ,.,1 I..l.11.
Paul Greene, of Potowomut Neck. He was
born at Pawtucket in 1889, and learned the
carpenters trade with John Smith, of
Wexford, but afterward was a machinist,
and in 1912 operated the Butterfly factory
in company with George Smith, who was
his uncle by marriage. Their business
Was making wooden blankets. At this
time he invented the "endless rowing" for
csrding machines. Previous to this all
rowing was made by the carding machines
in short rolls, which had to be pieced to-
gether in spinning. Fifty or sixty years
ago there were scattered over the coun-
try. wherever there was a 1-horse water
power, carding machines that worked up
the farmers wool into these short rolls of
rowing to be spun into a yarn on the farm
er's hand spinning machine.
at this date, 1912, owing to the wal with
England, it was impossible to import files,
and he invented a machine for cutting
them, upon which files were made for their
own use and for sale; but it was dropped
at the close of Cne war, when it became
possible to import them again. In 1918 he
Invented the compound notion" or, as
he called it, the "differential motion"
mechanism for compromising w different
lnooious or rates of speed to produce a
third rate that should be the constant diff
letential of the two, however much they
might change or differ.
This was, us Zerah Colburn, the great
arlthmctician, expressed it, solving by
mechanism an arithmctical problem that
cou.i rot be solved by figures, because of
their running into series of circulating
Geciraals. This motion he applied to the
sfccacr, a machine used to prepare cotton
rowing for spinning, and patented it in
1e.1. Its value was quickly appreciated.
as it. enabled the manufacturer to turn of
three sileins where he formerly had two,
aca the quality of the products was I'M
r1c@c| almost in the same ratio. 1t was
tc~t..ied in court by prominent manu-
fs.tursrs that it was worth to them five
du.lars per spindle per annum. 1t was
quickly adopted, and some Rhode Island
manufacturers paid a royalty, but the
lowell and the Fall River companies re-
fused. and suits were brought against
them. After years of delay to send agents
abroad to find if the invention was not
previously known thsSc the cases came to
t:iAI. The objection of the opposition was
Tat q negative expression in one part of
The specification was not repeated in an
oih~: part, and Judge Story said to the
counsel for defense, II that is your only
objection Mr.. Arnold can surrender his
pu'-ot and have that corrected, and come
bISs here in two weeks ready TO go on
With the trial"
Accordingly he surrendered his patent.
bit instead of receiving it back in two
weeks it was held in the patent office for
months, and in the meantime the whole
code of patent laws known as the code of
1893 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 was a solicitor Of
patents in Washington he found in the
VI NV PoCC4O liz q lCUCCI lIOLU
the leading ounsel for the defense in his
case to the commissioner of patents say
ing, Hold on to that patent till you hear
from me-" referring to his surrendered
patent. This. which he had never sus-
pected, fully explained to him how he had
been defeated in his suit by the %chicanery
of the lawyers.
Benjamin Arnold, of East Greenwich,
one of the sons of Mr.. Aza Arnold, is one of
the best known of living Rhode Island in
ventors.
Among his many inventions is a new
system Of gearing-which is in extensive
use in many different forms-for gaining
power at the expense of speed. This con-
sists of an external %gearwheel having
IN internal gearwheel having a great
err number of teeth, the inner wheel
being placed on an eccentric on the shaft
SO as to engage its teeth with those of the
outer gear at one side, when the shaft and
eccentric revolved, one of the gearwheels
being held fast and the motion taken from
the other. The gain in power and reduc-
tion in speed is in inverse ratio to the diff
ference in the number of teeth in the two
wheels
Among the machines invented by Mr..
A rnO1d ara a l0om for WEAVING cIotb IN a