Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1901-12-27
IDEAS FROM DREAMS
INVENTIONS THAT HAD. THEIR BIRTH
: IN SUNDERLAND. a

IN SUNDERLAND. o..
The Design of the Whaleback Boat
Appeared to Its Originator In
Dream - The Shot Tower and the
f. Sewing Machine Needle.
Every one has heardf Of the whale
back type of ships, first used on the
american lakes and since adapted sue
cessfully to the transatlantic carrying
trade:
The inventor says the idea came to him
while asleep: He dreamed that be was
sailing in small boat across an un-
known and tempestuous sea when he be-
came suddenly aware of the approach of
what he at first took to be marine mon
ster. but which on closer examination
proved to be. a ship. 1t was, however, of
Il kind such as had never been seen by
mortal eyes before. 1t looked very much
like huge cigar. and the dreamer noted
that its deck curved upward toward the
center and that there were practically no
bulwarks. the result being that the water
which broke aboard did no damage, but
swirled off again almost Immediately into
The ocean whence it came.
No living creature was apparently
aboard the strange craft. but the glare
from her furnaces could be plainly seen
as she drove onward through the fast
gathering gloom. The sleeper followed
her with his eyes as long as he was able,
and when she disappeared he cried out
aloud: "Splendid! will build such a
ship as that myself some day." In the
morning he had forgotten entirely his
strange vision of the previous night, but
his wife, who had been lying awake by his
side and had overheard his ejaculation, re-
peated it to him and questioned him con-
corning it's meaning Then. like flash,
the whole scene came back to him-the
stormy sea. himself adrift in the open
boat and the queer looking craft with the
rounded deck and cigar shaped PROV.
Jumping up from the breakfast table. he
flew to his study-he was an engineers
craftsman by profession-and ere evening
dawned he had the plans drawn up for
ship designed in exact accord with the
phantom vessel which had been evolved
by disordered imagination in the dead
hours Of the night.
Before Watts, the Bristol workman,
dreamed the dream which has since be-
come historical the making Of shot was
slow, Iaborious and consequently costly
process. Watts himself was shotmak-
er. and he knew. He had first to take
great bars of lead and pound them out
into sheets of a thickness nearly equal to
thu diameter Of the shots he desired to
make. He then had to cut these sheets
into little cubes, place the cubes in re-
vo:viMg barrel and roll the barrel round
aoI round until, by the constant friction,
the edges wore off from the little cubes
end they became spheroids.
Watts had often racked his brain trying
to discover some better and less costly
scheme, but in vain. Finally, after spend
ing an evening with some boon compan"
ions at an alehouse, he went home and to
bed. He soon fell into a profound slum-
Der, but the stimulants he had imbibed
apparently disagreed with him, for his
sleep was disturbed by unwelcome
dreams. He imagined he was out again
with the "boys" and that as they were
stumbling homeward in the dark it began
to rain shot. Beautiful globules Of lead,
polished and shining. fell in a torrent and
compelled him and his bibulous compan-
ions to drag their heavy limbs to place
Of shelter.
In the morning when Watts arose he
remembered his dream. He turned it
over in his mind all day and wondered
what shape molten lead would assume in
falling through the air. These thoughts
tormented him so persistently that at last,
to set his mind at rest, he carried ladle-
full of molten lead to the top Of the tower
Of the Church of st. Mary, Radcliffe, and
dropped it into the moat below. Descend
ing, he took from the bottom Of the shall
low pool several handfuls of the most per-
feet shot he had ever seen. His fortune
| was made, for he had conceived the idea
Of the shot tower, which ever since has
been the only means employed in the
manufacture Of the little missiles so i'm
portant in sport.
Even more weirdly romantic is the
story of the invention Of the sewing ma
chine. or. rather, to be strictly exact. of
the needle which made the machine a
| working possibility. The unhappy in
ventor had practically beggared himself
before he discovered where the eye of the
| needle of sewing machine should be
[ placed. Naturally, in constructing his ex-
permental working models. he followed
the plan adopted for the orr: nary needle
and drilled the eye in the heel.
Never for an instant did it occur to him
| that it should be placed near the point,
and, although he expended thousands of
pounGs and years Of labor, he would prob
| ably have failed altogether in realizing
his ideal il be had not one evening, after
toilsome and disappointing day in his
| workshop, visited variety theater. Here
he heard song sung, very popular in it,
! day. entitled 1.-THE King of the Cannibai
| Islands," On returning to his home he
i! was haunted by the refrain His unfn-
| ished model also troubled him. Small
| wonder, therefore, that on retiring to rest
he dreamed that he was building sewing
! machine for the king of the Cannihal is
| lands: also he was perplexed about the
! position Of the needles eye, just as in his
actual waking experience. He tried and
tried, but the mact me would not sew.
At length the king got wild and gave the
inventor twenty-four hours in which to
complete his work., II the machine were
not finished by then. death was to be the
penalty.
He failed and as result was ordered
out for execution. AS he walked between
a file Of soldiers he noticed that they car
ried spears that were pierced near the
points. and instantly. like fash. came to
him the solution of the problem. While