Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1896-07-31
WILL INVENTION NEVER CEASE :
Hundreds Of Inventors Ready to
Try to Meet Every Demand and
Cater to Every Fancy of Advance
Ing Civilization.

1
Try to Meet Every Demand and
Cater to Every Fancy of Advanc-
Ing civilization.
Special Correspondence of the STANDARD.
When we are told that nearly 6OO,-
GOO patents have been issued by the
United States since 1886, we wonder
what there is left uninvented. 1t
seems as though every possible field
had been thoroughly worked; yet
every year nearly fifty thousand new
applications are filed in the patent Of
flee, and half of these mature into
patents. One-half of the patents
granted by the government have been
issued within the past fifteen years,
and the Goddess of Invention still
numbers her devoted followers by the
legion.
The publication of an important
scientific discovery, the passage OF. an
act OF Congress requiring street cars
to employ Tenders, or steam cars to
use automatic brakes or safety coup.
ling devices, or sudden fad OF fash
ion, will flood the patent office with
hundreds of applications by Yankee
geniuses who are seeking sudden
wealth.
A few examples of this Juror may
be given: Some thirteen or fourteen
years ago the country was full of
rinks for roller-skating. The young
people went wild in their zeal for
this newly discovered amusement.
Kinks sprang up like mushrooms in
every city and large town in the
country. Improvements were made
in roller skates and applications for
patents poured into the office in a
deluge. The examiner who had
charge of" Games and Toys" as one
OF many classes, had to set third
OF his examining force at work on rol.
ler skates, and to get the use of an
extra room to hold the drawings and
files. After few months of activity
the craze died out and the applications
suddenly dropped off. Now all this is
ancient history and roller skating is a
"lost art"
A few years later on account of the
great number Of railroad accidents in
which the car stoves set fire to the
wrecked cars and burned to death un-
fortunate victims who might other
wise have been saved, the New York
legislature passed an act requiring all
cars, after certain date, to be pro-
vided with heating means other than
open stoves. The inventors responded
right loyalty and rushed to the Patent
Office with all conceivable sorts of
heaters, using hot air, hot water,
steam and chemicals.
Five years ago so many thousand
patents had been granted for bicycles,
that it seemed as though ingenuity
could produce no further improve
ment. Then the pneumatic tire was
introduced and new field was opened.
At the present time this is the most
active line in the whole realm of in.
vention, and the division of the Patent
Office which handles bicycles and at
tachments is almost swamped with
work, reporting each week from a
thousand to twelve hundred applica-
tions awaiting action.
Some time ago Mr.. Maxim pub
lished in one of our leading magazines
an account of the results he has OBJ.
tained in experimenting with his air
ship, and at about the same time the
daily press published glowing ac-
counts OF what Prof. Langley, of the
Smithsonian Institute had done or
could do in the same line. This was
enough to fire the imaginations of
scores of inventors, and the usual
result followed.
The most active field, after bicycles,
at present, is probably the horseless
carriage. The experimenting in
France, and the offers of magnificent
cash prizes by the leading Chicago
paper and a leading New York maga-
zine, have created very great activity
among professional inventors, and it
looks as if between the pneumatic"
and the horseless carriage, mankind
would soon give up the services OF his
former most useful ally.
The classes of typewrite RS, cash reg
listers, telephones, air brakes, and type
setting machines, have all had their
periods of special activity, but most of
the patents now granted cover moth
ing but improvements in minor de-
tails.
Past experience teaches us that it is
never safe to predict what lines of in
vention will be particularly active.
The demand creates the supply.
Forty-Eisht Mile Tunnel.
Colorado is going to have the long
est tunnel in the world" said Richard
Jones in conversation with q St. Lnnis