The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-04-13
BIG FORTUNES WON BY
LUCKY IDEA ORIGIkAT0RS
Interesting Facts Cleaned From the
MuSty Records of the National
Patent Office.

N'RNNie1iiS oOHle nlIlc luiiS b1aN @i4S
body might have made, you will always
hear the remark: why couldn't l
nave thought OF that2'' Fortunes are
made from even the most trivial con-
triVanCes. a man walked from Phila-
deiphia to Washington to patent the
gimlet-pointed screw, and the simple
idea eventually earned him more than
million dollars. The rubber tip on
the end of lead pencils made its inven-
tor rich. The metal point on the end
of your shOestring earned fortune for
the woman who thought of it. and the
copper cap that so long adorned the
toes of children's shoes earned $4,000
600 for the lucky person who patented
Ii.
Many valuable inventions were hit
upon in a most accidental way. The
art of making sugar white was discOv-
cred by a harmless old speckled hen.
This feathered matron one day went
for walk through a field of clay and
later without taking the precautiOn to
wipe her feet walked through sugar
mill on the same plantation, scattering
clay over the loose mounds of sugar
as she passed. Afterwards it was dis
covered that wherever her tracks had
fallen on the moist sugar the clay had
whitened ii. Scientists took up the
matter and from this incident intro
duced the method of bleaching sugar
by the clay process.
4 dog gave us the art of dyeing
cloth. One afternoon so many years
ago that the date is of small cOnse-
qUence, a noted man and his sweet
heart went for a walk along the sands
of the seashOTe in a far-off country. A
little dog trained along at their heels
and, becoming weary of much love-
making, finally ran ahead and went
fishing among the rocks. One particu-
lar shell fish which he captured and
devOuTed exuded a fluid which dyed the
hair about his mouth a pretty purple.
Investigation of this incident founded
the science of dyeing cloth.
n man from Michigan was told by
the doctors to take his wife south for
her health. He purchased big Wag-
on and team for the trip, and thought
to make some profit by carrying a
stock of feather busters to sell along
the way. One day he went to a fac
tory where his busters were being made
and while standing in the yard talking
to one of the employees picked up from
the ground one of the "strutters'' or
tail feathers from a turkey-the refuse
from the ducter factory. He began idly
twisting a thread back and forth
through its broken edges, and the idea
of the feather-bone came to him. The
feather-bone is the successor of whale
bone. and is indispensable to the attire
of the modern woman. He patented
the idea and received so much money
from it that he will never have to trav-
el overland in a wagon again unless
he wants TO.
A man standing in front of the post
office in Washington bent a small
piece of tin in his fingers until it took
the shape of a s. This would make a
good paper fastener" he remarked to
the man with whom he was talking
and he straightway had the idea pat
ented. Another man made money from
the device of an imbedded string in the
end of an envelope to cut the paper as
it is drawn out. Still another man
added to this idea by tying a knot in
the end of the string to keep it from
being drawn through.
1t is interesting to note how man
has borrowed many of his ideas from
the animal world. Wasps made paper
from wood long before man did. The
folding scissors and folding pocket
compass are only copies of the folding
lower jaw of the dragon fly. The fly
ing squid, a species of cuttlefish, has a
way of projecting itself as high as
twelve feet above the surface of the
water by forcibly expell1ng water from
its body. Man saw this and invented
the sky rocket. The rope-making ma
chine used in the United States navy
yards follows almost the precise lines
that spider does when making his
own frail cable.
Women have been prominent in the
field of invention and there are more
than $500 different devices credited TO
IL cir ingenuity. Of the list of things
invented by women about 80 per cent
are devoted 20 the home, the kitchen
and TO dress. The first patent given a
woman in the nineteenth century was
granted to Mary Kier i'm 1909 for STRAW
weaving with silk or thread"-the
probable fOrSrunner of American mat
ting. One of the most recent inven-
tions by women is a shoe string that
won't come united.
The records of the patent office show
how some people have invaded the
field of invention with most eccentric
ideas. An invention called the anti
snoring device" is something similar to
a telephone. No sooner does the sleep
er begin to snore than the sound is
transmitted to his own ear, causing
him to awake at once. Another ambi-
tious inventor has brought out a ma
chine which will automatically tip
mans hat when he passes woman ac-
quaintance on the street.