Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1901-06-14
HALF A MILLION PATENTS.
American Inventiveness as Attested
by the Great Number of Rec
Ords Mt Washington.

"IIow the Government Promotes
ingenuity is told by Charles +.
Benjamin in the May st. Nicholas:
"The patent office is faithful
servant to those who seek to benefit
themselves and the rest of mankind
by new and useful inventions. 1t has
put the whole method of proceeding
to obtain patent into a set of print
ed rules, instructions and sugges.
tons, and sends copy, without
charge or postage, to anybody in the
United States who writes for one. In
this pamphlet is folded full-sized
sheet of specimen pen-drawings of a
machine, with a description of them,
and these many youngster with a
taste for mechanics or mechanical
drawing would prize There is
weekly gazette, containing picture
and short account of each patent
granted since the last issue, besides
much other information, and this
gazette the patent Office mails at the
rate of five dollars year, or ten
cents single copy. 1t mails for ten
cents full-sized printed and en-
graved copy of the drawings and de-
scription of any patent, new or old.
Bound volumes of these copies may
be examined in nearly every public
library in the United. Suppose that
a person is interested in that class
of machine known as typewriter,
in which there is yet much room for
improvement. He may deposit five
dollars at the patent office and re-
ceive by mail printed and engraved
copy of every new patent in that
class, at the cost of ten cents each,
so long as his deposit lasts or is re-
newed. This he may do with any of
the 1900 or more subclasses into
which inventions are divided, and
list of these subclasses will be sent
for ten cents. Lastly, for two dollars
the patent Office will send him 20
tickets, each representing ten cents,
and on each of these he can at any
time put his name and address, and
the particulars of any patent or is
sne of the weekly gazette he de-
sires, and mail it to the office, in.
stead of sending full written let.
ter with dime inside. Some of the
bright and ambitious boys and girls
of the country have already found
out the ways and uses of the patent
Office, and the rest are welcome there
as fast as they learn to come.
among the nearly half million
patents granted since 1890, there are
all sorts of devices. ranging from the
sublime to the ridiculous. If thing
is new, and has to be thought over,
and may be of some use, a patent is
granted for it. Should it prove to be
important, the country is the gamer.
If it never comes into use, nobody is
hurt but the inventor, and even to
him it may be the stepping stone to
something valuable. The first pat.
ent on barbed fencing wire would
have been a dear bargain for 500, lmt
upon that patent and two others that
quickly followed il one man made
profits of not less than $4,000, 900, and
possibly great deal more. Patents
on devices for navigating the air
have long been laughing stock, but
lately copies of them are more in de.
mand, for great scientists are expert
'nenting in ibis field.
people laugh at the nearly 2,5Ot
patents on churns, but intelligent
foreigners tell us that the American
appetite fer butter is one of the won,
ders of the modern world. This love
OF butter accounts for the attention
given by inventors to churns. There
are some 1880 patents on devices for
coupling and uncoupiing railway
cars; but what school child does not
know that the Americans are the
greatest builders and users of rail.
ways on earth? The collections of
the patent Office tell an interesting
story of the history and habits of the
people of the United States. That
story has been written by persons
! whose chief purpose was to better
, their own condition by honest and
useful exercise of their talents.
, While many have succeeded in
: that object, many more have failed;
, hut II the efforts that have ended in
, failure had never been made, the
young readers of this article would
= to-day be leading poorer lives, and
would have before them DINNER
I prospect for their futures. None I'M
derstands this better than the pros
8 porous inventor, MS he strides on to
, fortune over the failures of those
Who have fallen by the wayside."
q The "LanEuage Phone"