Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1894-05-17
MANY INVENTIONS.
RHODE ISLAND HAS PRODUCED MEN
WHO HAVE DONE MUCH.

of Their Best Known Machines-How
Ara Arnold Was Cheated Out of the
ROYALTIES of His compound Motion"
During the past hundred years the in
ventors of Rhode Island have contributed
largely to the present perfection of the
machinery used in modern shops and mills.
Some of them have more than 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 Rhode
Island man, who, having made nothing
out of his universally used device, was
paid $4,000 by congress n few years before
his death because the government had
adopted the mechanism for its shops. The
inventor of the braiding machine was
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, 500 for the machine that was
invaluable to cotton manufacturers, and
enabled them to increase production to an
incalculable extent. There are Others
whose names are not familiar to the pub
ic although their inventions without ma
terial alterations have been universally
employed upward of seventy years. One
of these is Aza Arnold, 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-
pie of that name, and Isabella, daughter of
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 woolen blankets. At this
time he invented the "endless rowing" for
carding 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 l-horse water
power, carding machines that worked up
the farmers wool into these short rolls of
rowing to be spun into yarn on the farm
er's'hand spinning machine.
At this date, 1872, owing to the war with
England, it was impossible to import files.
and he invented machine for 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 compound notion" or, as
he called it, the "differential motion"
mechanism for compounding two different
motions or rates of speed to produce
third rate that should be the constant diff
ferental of the two, however much they
might change or differ.
This was, rs Zerah Colburn, the great
arithmetician, expressed it, solving by
mechanism an arithmetical 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 cotton
rowing for spinning, and patented it in
1923. Its value was quickly appreciated,
| as it enabled the manufacturer to turn off
three skeins where he formerly had two,
and the quality of the products was i'm
proved almost in the same ratio. 1t was
testified in court by prominent manu-
facturers that it was worth to them five
dollars per spindle per annum 1t was
quickly adopted, and some Rhode Island
manufacturers paid 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
nrnyinu civ l. h.
trial The objection of the opposition was
that negative expression in one part of
the specification was not repeated in an
other part, and Judge Story said to the
counsel for defense, "If that is your only
objection Mr. Arnold can surrender his
patent and have that corrected, and come
back here in two weeks ready to 20 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 for
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
lie was cut off from entering suits for in
fringements 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 solicitor of
patents in Washington he found in the
archives OF the patent office a letter from
the leading counsel 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 n 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
an internal gearwheel having a great
er number of teeth, the inner wheel
oelnS placed on an eccentric on the shaft
20 as to engage its teeth with those of the
outer gear at one side, when the shaft and
eccentric revolved, one of the gearwheels
!! oelng heid last and the motion taken from
the other The gain in power and reduc-
tlon In speed is in inverse ratio to the diff
terence In the number of teeth in the two
Among the machines invented by Mr..
Arnold Al are loom for weaving cloth on
Dlas, machines for making twill drills and
ulehulhg stockings, mariners signal COM
pass, circular loom, and machine for
Ihe me manufacture of interlocked cordage.
All OF these were practical, but his most
successful invention was a machine for
making seines and nets for fishing. These
we're built in number Of ways, and the
irse ~ 70, patents were sold to Baltimore firm
!n loOf Since the eXniration of tho nntants