The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-27
SOME LATE INVENTIONS.

To one who will study the subject 1t can only be matter of wonder that the human inventive faculty was so long in developing itself, for most of the important and useful discoveries and inventions now in common use are of modern date. Some of the ancients especially the Greeks and Romans were highly developed in hand and brain. Many of their works have been the admiration of all ages, and are yet regarded among the wonders of the world. They show that the people of Greece and Rome. possessed both ar- tistic and mechanical skill of the high est type, yet inventiveness. as moderns regard the term. was lacking. The same may be said of some of the other old nations whose works yet remain to show the high order of intelligence possessed by the people along certain lines.
 The art of printing is less than five centuries old. and gunpowder is not much older. yet books were made and people and game were killed by man almost from the beginning. These may be called somewhat ancient inventions. but not so with some of those which are now, looked on as among the neces- saries of life. No doubt the inhabit- ants of earth had watched the escape of steam from the time the first vessel was used for boiling water. yet no one seems to have thought of utilizing its force until time almost within the memory of those now living. Fulton's little steamboat. the Clermont. made it's trial trip up the Hudson river in 1907. only century ago. Experiments along the same line had been made in Europe some years earlier, but century really marks the life of steamboating.
 Neither history nor legend can tell us when men first used boats of some kind. yet throughout all these long ages no one seemed to think that steam could be used to take the place of wind or human energy. The wise philoso- phers of thousands of years ago saw water boiling in covered vessels and noted that the escaping steam had some kind of power and energy, bu: none ot them thought Of harnessing and using that power. The same may be Eajd of railroads. which are really not more than a century old. even in thei: most primitive stages. It is tru, that some rude railways had been used something mere than a century ago, but it is fact that a period of eighty years will cover the life of actual railroading as we now know 1t.
 The use of electricity is another case in point. The wise scientists. philoso- phers and other observers witnessed the effects of lightning from the begin ming of time. yet none of them seemed competent to make use of the power displayed before them in every thun- dercloud. It remained for the Ameri- can philosopher. Franklin, to show that lightning. or electricity. could be con trolIed. yet his demonstration was made but little more than q century and a half ago. And yet, strange to say. almost a century efapasd before any real use was made of his discov- cry. so far as our own country is con- cerned, for the first electric telegraph line constructed in the United States was from Washington to Baltimore. and was put in operation in 1s44.
 While we are wondering that the an- cients and the moderns failed to dis cover some way to make use of cleo tricity we wonder still more that ninety years passed after Franklins demonstration before his countrymen put his discovery to real use. Now when we see electricity in daily use everywhere and for almost everything we have ceased to wonder at any new development of It's power and utility We only wonder why human beings were so long finding 1t out. Strange, is it not, that steam and electricity two of the most mighty agents used by man, are yet in their youth? So we might refer to other important matters. but have mentioned enough to show that mans inventive powers were very