,,inventors ,,men ,,of ,,achievement ,,series ,,travellers ,,and ,,explorers4 ,by ,general ,a4,w4 ,,greely1 ,u4,s4,a4 ,,statesmen4 ,by ,,noah ,,brooks4 ,,men ,,of ,,business4 ,by ,w4,o4 ,,stoddard4 ,,inventors4 ,by ,p4,g4 ,,hubert1 ,jr4 ,illustration3 ,,benjamin ,,franklin4 ,,men ,,of ,,achievement ,,inventors ,,by ,,philip ,g4 ,,hubert1 ,,jr4 ,,new ,,york ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons #ahif ,,copyright1 #ahic1 ,,by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,press of ,j4,j4 ,little ,co4 ,astor ,place1 ,new ,york ,,preface ,this book1 dealing with our great inventors1 their origins1 hopes1 aims1 principles1 disappointments1 trials1 and triumphs1 their daily life and personal character1 presents just enough concerning their inventions to make the story intelligible4 ,the history is often a painful one4 ,when poor ,goodyear1 the inventor of vulcanized rubber1 was one day asked what he wanted to make of his boys1 he is said to have replied3 ,make them anything but inventors2 mankind has nothing but cuffs and kicks for those who try to do it a service4 ,meanwhile1 the value of the work done by great inventors is widely acknowledged4 ,in a remarkable sketch of the history of civilization1 ,professor ,huxley remarked1 in #ahhg1 that the wonderful increase of industrial production by the application of machinery1 the improvement of old technical processes and the invention of new ones1 constitutes the most salient feature of the world's progress during the last fifty years4 ,if this was true a few years ago1 its truth is still more apparent to-day4 ,it is safe to say that within fifty years power1 light1 and heat will cost half1 perhaps one-tenth1 of what they do now2 and this virtually means that in #aidc mankind will be able to buy decent food1 shelter1 and clothing for half or one-tenth of the labor now required4 ,steam is said to have reduced the working hours of man in the civilized world from fourteen to ten a day4 ,electricity will mark the next giant step in advance4 ,with the many and superb tools now at our service1 of which our fathers knew comparatively nothing--steam1 electricity1 the telegraph1 telephone1 phonograph1 and the camera--we and our descendants ought to accomplish even greater wonders than these4 ,as invention thus rises in the scale of importance to humanity1 the history of the pioneers and1 to the shame of mankind be it said1 the martyrs of the art1 becomes of intense interest4 ,in the annals of hero-worship the inventor of the perfecting press ought to stand before the great general1 and ,elias ,howe should rank before ,napoleon4 ,whitney1 ,howe1 ,morse1 and ,goodyear1 to mention but a few of our ,americans1 contributed thousands of millions of dollars to the nation's wealth and received comparatively nothing in return4 ,their history suggests as pertinent the inquiry whether our patent laws do not need a radical change4 ,the burden and cost of proving that an invention deserves no protection ought to fall upon whoever infringes a patent granted by the ,government4 ,at present it is all the other way4 ,p4,g4,h41 ,,jr4 ,,new ,,york1 ,september1 #ahic4 ,,contents ,,page ,i4 ,,benjamin ,,franklin1 #i ,,ii4 ,,robert ,,fulton1 #de ,,iii4 ,,eli ,,whitney1 #fi ,,iv4 ,,elias ,,howe1 #ii ,v4 ,,samuel ,f4,b4 ,,morse1 #aaa ,,vi4 ,,charles ,,goodyear1 #aee ,,vii4 ,,john ,,ericsson1 #agh ,,viii4 ,,cyrus ,,hall ,,mccormick1 #bjg ,,ix4 ,,thomas ,a4 ,,edison1 #bbc ,x4 ,,alexander ,,graham ,,bell1 #bfd ,,xi4 ,,american ,,inventors1 ,,past ,,and ,,present1 #bgj ,james ,m4 ,townsend1 ,e4,l4 ,drake1 ,alvan ,clark1 ,john ,fitch1 ,oliver ,evans1 ,amos ,whittemore1 ,thomas ,blanchard1 ,richard ,m4 ,hoe1 ,thomas ,w4 ,harvey1 ,c4,l4 ,sholes1 ,b4,b4 ,hotchkiss1 ,charles ,f4 ,brush1 ,rudolph ,eickemeyer1 ,george ,westinghouse1 ,jr4 ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,,full-,,page ,,facing ,,benjamin ,,franklin1 7,frontispiece47 ,,page ,,departure ,,of ,,the ,,clermont ,,on ,,her ,,first ,,voyage1 #fj ,,charles ,,goodyear1 #aee ,,john ,,ericsson1 #agh ,,cyrus ,,hall ,,mccormick1 #bjg ,,thomas ,a4 ,,edison1 #bbc ,,edison ,,in ,,his ,,laboratory1 #bdg ,,professor ,,bell ,,sending ,,the ,,first ,,telephone ,,message ,,from ,,new #bfd ,,york ,,to ,,chicago1 ,,illustrations ,,in ,,the ,,text ,,page ,,the ,,franklin ,,stove1 #aj ,,franklin',s ,,birthplace1 ,,boston1 #ad ,,franklin ,,entering ,,philadelphia1 #ag ,,the ,,franklin ,,penny1 #bg ,,franklin',s ,,grave1 #dc ,,robert ,,fulton1 #df ,,birthplace ,,of ,,robert ,,fulton1 #dh ,,fulton ,,blowing ,,up ,a ,,danish ,,brig1 #ec ,,john ,,fitch',s ,,steamboat ,,at ,,philadelphia1 #ef ,,fulton',s ,,first ,,experiment ,,with ,,paddle-,,wheels1 #eg ,,the ,,demologos1 ,,or ,,fulton ,,the ,,first1 #fe ,,the ,,clermont1 #fh ,,eli ,,whitney1 #gj ,,whitney ,,watching ,,the ,,cotton-,,gin1 #ge ,,the ,,cotton-,,gin1 #gh ,,elias ,,howe1 #ajj ,,birthplace ,,of ,s4,f4,b4 ,,morse1 ,,built #agge1 #aaa ,s4,f4,b4 ,,morse1 #aac ,,under ,,side ,,of ,a ,,modern ,,switchboard1 ,,showing #b1jjj ,,wires1 #aba ,,the ,,first ,,telegraph ,,instrument1 ,,as ,,exhibited ,,in #ahcg ,,by #abe ,,morse1 ,,the ,,modern ,,morse ,,telegraph1 #abg ,,morse ,,making ,,his ,,own ,,instrument1 #abi ,,train ,,telegraph--,,the ,,message ,,transmitted ,,by ,,induction ,,from #aca ,,the ,,moving ,,train ,,to ,,the ,,single ,,wire1 ,,interior ,,of ,a ,,car ,,on ,,the ,,lehigh ,,valley ,,railroad1 ,,showing #acb ,,the ,,method ,,of ,,operating ,,the ,,train ,,telegraph1 ,,diagram ,,showing ,,the ,,method ,,of ,,telegraphing ,,from ,a ,,moving #acd ,,train ,,by ,,induction1 ,,morse ,,in ,,his ,,study1 #aci ,,the ,,siphon ,,recorder ,,for ,,receiving ,,cable ,,messages--,,office ,,of #adf ,,the ,,commercial ,,cable ,,company1 #a ,,broad ,,street1 ,,new ,,york1 ,,no4 #e ,,west ,,twenty-,,second ,,street1 ,,new ,,york1 ,,where ,,morse #aea ,,lived ,,for ,,many ,,years ,,and ,,died1 ,,calenders ,,heated ,,internally ,,by ,,steam1 ,,for ,,spreading ,,india #afd ,,rubber ,,into ,,sheets ,,or ,,upon ,,cloth1 ,,called ,,the ,,chaffee ,,machine1 ,,charles ,,goodyear',s ,,exhibition ,,of ,,hard ,,india-,,rubber ,,goods ,,at #afi ,,the ,,crystal ,,palace1 ,,sydenham1 ,,england1 ,,council ,,medal ,,of ,,the ,,exhibition1 #ahea1 #agc ,,grande ,,medaille ,d',,honneur1 ,,exposition ,,universelle ,,de #ahee1 #agf ,,john ,,ericsson',s ,,birthplace ,,and ,,monument1 #ahj ,,the ,,novelty ,,locomotive1 ,,built ,,by ,,ericsson ,,to ,,compete ,,with #ahd ,,stephenson',s ,,rocket1 #ahbi1 ,,ericsson ,,on ,,his ,,arrival ,,in ,,england1 ,,aged ,,twenty-,,three1 #ahf ,,mrs4 ,,john ,,ericsson1 ,n,e ,,amelia ,,byam1 #ahg ,,exterior ,,view ,,of ,,ericsson',s ,,house1 ,,no4 #cf ,,beach ,,street1 ,,new #ahi ,,york1 #ahij1 ,,solar-,,engine ,,adapted ,,to ,,the ,,use ,,of ,,hot ,,air1 #aia ,,sectional ,,view ,,of ,,monitor ,,through ,,turret ,,and ,,pilot-,,house1 #aih ,,the ,,original ,,monitor1 #aii ,,fac-,,simile ,,of ,a ,,pencil ,,sketch ,,by ,,ericsson ,,giving ,a #bja ,,transverse ,,section ,,of ,,his ,,original ,,monitor ,,plan1 ,,with ,a ,,longitudinal ,,section ,,drawn ,,over ,,it1 ,,interior ,,of ,,the ,,destroyer1 ,,looking ,,toward ,,the ,,bow1 #bjb ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,monitor ,,idea1 #bjd ,,the ,,room ,,in ,,which ,,ericsson ,,worked ,,for ,,more ,,than ,,twenty #bjf ,,years1 ,,farm ,,where ,,cyrus ,h4 ,,mccormick ,,was ,,born ,,and ,,raised1 #bji ,,exterior ,,of ,,the ,,blacksmith ,,shop ,,where ,,the ,,first ,,reaper ,,was #bab ,,built1 ,,interior ,,of ,,the ,,blacksmith ,,shop ,,where ,,the ,,first ,,reaper ,,was #bae ,,built1 ,,the ,,first ,,reaper1 #bag ,,edison',s ,,paper ,,carbon ,,lamp1 #bbd ,,edison ,,listening ,,to ,,his ,,phonograph1 #bbg ,,from ,,edison',s ,,newspaper1 ,,the ,,grand ,,trunk ,,herald1 #bcj ,,edison',s ,,tinfoil ,,phonograph--,,the ,,first ,,practical ,,machine1 #bcg ,,vote ,,recorder--,,edison',s ,,first ,,patented ,,invention1 #bdc ,,edison',s ,,menlo ,,park ,,electric ,,locomotive 7#ahhj71 #bej ,,the ,,home ,,of ,,thomas ,a4 ,,edison1 #beg ,,edison',s ,,laboratory1 #beh ,,library ,,at ,,edison',s ,,laboratory1 #bfb ,,alvan ,,clark1 #bgf ,c4,l4 ,,sholes1 #bhf ,b4,b4 ,,hotchkiss1 #bhh ,,charles ,f4 ,,brush1 #bij ,,rudolph ,,eickemeyer1 #bid ,,george ,,westinghouse1 ,,jr41 #bif ,,inventors ,i4 ,,benjamin ,,franklin4 ,benjamin ,franklin's activity and resource in the field of invention really partook of the intellectual breadth of the man of whom ,turgot wrote3 ,eripuit coelo fulmen1 sceptrumque tyrannis4 ,he snatched the thunderbolt from heaven1 ,and the sceptre from the hands of tyrants4 ,and of which bit of verse ,franklin once dryly remarked1 that as to the thunder1 he left it where he found it1 and that more than a million of his countrymen co-operated with him in snatching the sceptre4 ,those persons who knew ,franklin1 the inventor1 only as the genius to whom we owe the lightning-rod1 will be amazed at the range of his activity4 ,for half a century his mind seems to have been on the alert concerning the why and wherefore of every phenomenon for which the explanation was not apparent4 ,nothing in nature failed to interest him4 ,had he lived in an era of patents he might have rivalled ,edison in the number of his patentable devices1 and had he chosen to make money from such devices1 his gains would certainly have been fabulous4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,franklin never applied for a patent1 though frequently urged to do so1 and he made no money by his inventions4 ,one of the most popular of these1 the ,franklin stove1 which device1 after a half-century of disuse1 is now again popular1 he made a present to his early friend1 ,robert ,grace1 an iron founder1 who made a business of it4 ,the ,governor of ,pennsylvania offered to give ,franklin a monopoly of the sale of these stoves for a number of years4 ,but ,i declined it1 writes the inventor1 from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions1 viz43 ,that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others1 we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours2 and this we should do freely and generously4 ,an ironmonger in ,london1 however1 assuming a good deal of my pamphlet 7describing the principle and working of the stove71 and working it up into his own1 and making some small change in the machine1 which rather hurt its operation1 got a patent for it there1 and made1 as ,i was told1 a little fortune by it4 ,illustration3 ,the ,franklin ,stove4 ,the complete list of inventions1 devices1 and improvements of which ,franklin was the originator1 or a leading spirit and contributor1 is so long a one that a dozen pages would not suffice for it4 ,i give here a brief summary1 as compiled by ,parton in his excellent ,life of ,franklin4 ,it is incredible1 ,franklin once wrote1 the quantity of good that may be done in a country by a single man who will make a business of it and not suffer himself to be diverted from that purpose by different avocations1 studies1 or amusements4 ,as a commentary upon this sentiment1 here is a catalogue of the achievements of ,benjamin ,franklin that may fairly come under the title of inventions3 ,he established and inspired the ,junto1 the most useful and pleasant ,american club of which we have knowledge4 ,he founded the ,philadelphia ,library1 parent of a thousand libraries1 and which marked the beginning of an intellectual movement of endless good to the whole country4 ,he first turned to great account the engine of advertising1 an indispensable element in modern business4 ,he published ,poor ,richard1 a record of homely wisdom in such shape that hundreds of thousands of readers were made better and stronger by it4 ,he created the post-office system of ,america1 and was the first champion of a reformed spelling4 ,he invented the ,franklin stove1 which economized fuel1 and suggested valuable improvements in ventilation and the building of chimneys4 ,he robbed thunder of its terrors and lightning of some of its power to destroy4 ,he founded the ,american ,philosophical ,society1 the first organization in ,america of the friends of science4 ,he suggested the use of mineral manures1 introduced the basket willow1 promoted the early culture of silk1 and pointed out the advisability of white clothing in hot weather4 ,he measured the temperature of the ,gulf ,stream1 and discovered that northeast storms may begin in the southwest4 ,he pointed out the advantage of building ships in water-tight compartments1 taking the hint from the ,chinese1 and first urged the use of oil as a means of quieting dangerous seas4 ,besides these great achievements1 accomplished largely as recreation from his life work as economist and statesman1 ,benjamin ,franklin helped the whole race of inventors by a remark that has been of incalculable value and comfort to theorists and dreamers the world over4 ,when someone spoke rather contemptuously in ,franklin's presence of ,montgolfier's balloon experiments1 and asked of what use they were1 the great ,american replied in words now historic3 ,of what use is a new-born babe8 ,this self-taught ,american1 said ,lord ,jeffrey1 in the ,edinburgh ,review of ,july1 #ahjf1 is the most rational1 perhaps1 of all philosophers4 ,he never loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations4 ,no individual1 perhaps1 ever possessed a greater understanding1 or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence1 enthusiasm1 or authority4 ,dr4 ,franklin received no regular education2 and he spent the greater part of his life in a society where there was no relish and no encouragement for literature4 ,on an ordinary mind1 these circumstances would have produced their usual effects1 of repressing all sorts of intellectual ambition or activity1 and perpetuating a generation of incurious mechanics2 but to an understanding like ,franklin's1 we cannot help considering them as peculiarly propitious1 and imagine that we can trace back to them distinctly almost all the peculiarities of his intellectual character4 ,the main outlines of ,franklin's life and career are so familiar to everyone1 that ,i may as well pass at once to the story of his work as an inventor4 ,we all know1 or ought to know1 that ,benjamin1 the fifteenth child of ,josiah ,franklin1 the ,boston soap-boiler1 was born in that town on the #agth of ,january1 #agjf1 and established himself as a printer in ,philadelphia in #agbh4 ,that he prospered and founded the ,gazette a few years later1 and became ,postmaster of ,philadelphia in #agcg2 that after valuable services to the ,colonies as their agent in ,england1 he was appointed ,united ,states ,minister at the ,court of ,france upon the ,declaration of ,independence2 and that in #aghb he had the supreme satisfaction of signing at ,paris the treaty of peace with ,england by which the independence of the ,colonies was assured4 ,that he died full of honors at ,philadelphia in ,april1 #agij1 and that ,congress1 as a testimony of the gratitude of the ,thirteen ,states and of their sorrow for his loss1 appointed a general mourning throughout the ,states for a period of two months4 ,illustration3 ,franklin's ,birthplace1 ,boston4 ,the great invention or discovery which entitles ,benjamin ,franklin to rank at the head of ,american inventors was1 of course1 the identification of lightning with electricity1 and his suggestion of metallic conductors so arranged as to render the discharge from the clouds a harmless one4 ,in order to appreciate the originality and value of this discovery1 it is necessary to review briefly what the world knew of the subject at that day4 ,for a hundred years before ,franklin's time1 electricity had been studied in ,europe without much distinct progress resulting4 ,a thousand experiments had been performed and described4 ,gunpowder had been exploded by the spark from a lady's finger1 and children had been insulated by hanging them from the ceiling by silk cords4 ,a tolerable machine had been devised for exciting electricity1 though most experimenters still used a glass tube4 ,several volumes of electrical observations and experiments had appeared1 and yet what had been done was little more than a repetition on a larger scale1 and with better means1 of the original experiment of rubbing a piece of amber on the sleeve of the philosopher's coat4 ,experimenters in #agde could produce a more powerful spark and play a greater variety of tricks with it than ,dr4 ,gilbert1 the ,english experimenter of #afjj1 but that was about all the advantage they had over him4 ,so-called experts had attempted1 with more or less satisfaction to themselves1 to answer the question addressed by the mad ,lear to poor ,tom3 ,let me talk with this philosopher4 ,what is the cause of thunder8 ,pliny thought he had explained it when he called it an earthquake in the air4 ,dr4 ,lister announced that lightning was caused by the sudden ignition of immense quantities of fine floating sulphur4 ,jonathan ,edwards1 in his diary of #agbb1 records the popular impression of the day upon this subject3 ,lightning1 he says1 seem to be an almost infinitely fine combustible matter1 that floats in the air1 that takes fire by sudden and mighty fermentation1 that is some way promoted by the cool and moisture1 and perhaps attraction of the clouds4 ,by this sudden agitation1 this fine floating matter is driven forth with a mighty force one way or other1 whichever way it is directed1 by the circumstances and temperature of the circumjacent air2 for cold and heat1 density and rarity1 moisture and dryness1 have almost an infinitely strong influence upon the fine particles of matter4 ,this fluid matter thus projected1 still fermenting to the same degree1 divides the air as it goes1 and every moment receives a new impulse by the continued fermentation2 and as its motion received its direction1 at first1 from the different temperature of the air on different sides1 so its direction is changed1 according to the temperature of the air it meets with1 which renders the path of the lightning so crooked4 ,even this explanation was a daring bit of speculation in ,jonathan ,edwards1 for thunder and lightning were then commonly regarded as the physical expression of ,god's wrath against the insects ,he had created4 ,illustration3 ,franklin ,entering ,philadelphia4 ,mr4 ,peter ,collinson1 the ,london agent of the library that ,franklin had founded in ,philadelphia in #agcb1 was accustomed to send over with the annual parcel of books any work or curious object that chanced to be in vogue in ,london at the time4 ,in #agdf he sent one of the new electrical tubes with a paper of directions for using it4 ,the tubes then commonly used were two feet and a half long1 and as thick as a man could conveniently grasp4 ,they were rubbed with a piece of cloth or buckskin1 and held in contact with the object to be charged4 ,franklin had already seen one of these tubes in ,boston1 and had been astonished by its properties4 ,no sooner1 therefore1 was it unpacked at the ,library1 than he repeated the experiments he had seen in ,boston1 as well as those described by ,collinson4 ,the subject completely fascinated him4 ,he gave himself up to it4 ,procuring other tubes1 he distributed them among his friends and set them all rubbing4 ,i never1 he writes in #agdg1 was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has done2 for what with making experiments when ,i can be alone1 and repeating to my friends and acquaintances1 who1 from the novelty of the thing1 come continually in crowds to see them2 ,i have during some months past had little leisure for anything else4 ,franklin claimed no credit for what he achieved in electricity4 ,during the winter of #agdf-g he and his friends experimented frequently1 and observed electrical attraction and repulsion with care4 ,that electricity was not created1 but only collected by friction1 was one of their first conjectures1 the correctness of which they soon demonstrated by a number of experiments4 ,before having heard of the ,leyden jar coated with tin-foil1 these ,philadelphia experimenters substituted granulated lead for the water employed by ,professor ,maschenbroeck4 ,they fired spirits and lighted candles with the electric spark4 ,they performed rare tricks with a spider made of burnt cork4 ,philip ,syng mounted one of the tubes upon a crank and employed a cannon-ball as a prime conductor1 thus obtaining the same result without much tedious rubbing of the tube4 ,the summer of #agdg was devoted to preparing the province for defence4 ,but during the following winter the ,philadelphians resumed their experiments4 ,the wondrous ,leyden jar was the object of ,franklin's constant observation4 ,his method of work is well shown in his own account of an experiment during this winter4 ,the jar used was ,maschenbroeck's original device of a bottle of water with a wire running through the cork4 ,purposing1 writes ,franklin1 to analyse the electrified bottle1 in order to find wherein its strength lay1 we placed it on glass1 and drew out the cork and wire1 which for that purpose had been loosely put in4 ,then1 taking the bottle in one hand1 and bringing a finger of the other near its mouth1 a strong spark came from the water1 and the shock was as violent as if the wire had remained in it1 which showed that the force did not lie in the wire4 ,then1 to find if it resided in the water1 being crowded into and condensed in it1 as confined by the glass1 which had been our former opinion1 we electrified the bottle again1 and placing it on glass1 drew out the wire and cork as before2 then1 taking up the bottle1 we decanted all its water into an empty bottle1 which likewise stood on glass2 and taking up that other bottle1 we expected1 if the force resided in the water1 to find a shock from it4 ,but there was none4 ,we judged then that it must either be lost in decanting or remain in the first bottle4 ,the latter we found to be true2 for that bottle on trial gave the shock1 though filled up as it stood with fresh unelectrified water from a tea-pot4 ,to find1 then1 whether glass had this property merely as glass1 or whether the form contributed anything to it1 we took a pane of sash glass1 and laying it on the hand1 placed a plate of lead on its upper surface2 then electrified that plate1 and bringing a finger to it1 there was a spark and shock4 ,we then took two plates of lead of equal dimensions1 but less than the glass by two inches every way1 and electrified the glass between them1 by electrifying the uppermost lead2 then separated the glass from the lead1 in doing which1 what little fire might be in the lead was taken out1 and the glass being touched in the electrified parts with a finger1 afforded only very small pricking sparks1 but a great number of them might be taken from different places4 ,then dexterously placing it again between the leaden plates1 and completing a circle between the two surfaces1 a violent shock ensued2 which demonstrated the power to reside in glass as glass1 and that the non-electrics in contact served only1 like the armature of a loadstone1 to unite the force of the several parts1 and bring them at once to any point desired2 it being the property of a non-electric1 that the whole body instantly receives or gives what electrical fire is given to1 or taken from1 any one of its parts4 ,upon this we made what we called an electrical battery1 consisting of eleven panes of large sash glass1 armed with thin leaden plates1 pasted on each side1 placed vertically1 and supported at two inches' distance on silk cords1 with thick hooks of leaden wire1 one from each side1 standing upright1 distant from each other1 and convenient communications of wire and chain1 from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the other2 that so the whole might be charged together with the same labor as one single pane4 ,in #agdh ,franklin1 being then forty-two years old1 and in the enjoyment of an ample income from his business as printer and publisher1 sold out to his foreman1 ,david ,hall1 and was free to devote himself wholly to his beloved experiments4 ,he had built himself a home in a retired spot on the outskirts of ,philadelphia1 and with an income which in our days would be equivalent to #ae1jjj or #bj1jjj a year1 he was considered a fairly rich man4 ,having thus settled his business affairs in a manner which proved that he knew perfectly well what money was worth1 he took up his electrical studies again and extended them from the machine to the part played in nature by electricity4 ,the patience with which he observed the electrical phenomena of the heavens1 the acuteness displayed by him in drawing plausible inferences from his observations1 and the rapidity with which he arrived at all that we now know of thunder and lightning1 still excite the astonishment of all who read the narratives he has left us of his proceedings4 ,during the whole winter of #agdh-di and the summer following1 he was feeling his way to his final conclusions on the subject4 ,early in #agdi he drew up a series of fifty-six observations1 entitled ,observations and ,suppositions towards forming a new ,hypothesis for explaining the several ,phenomena of ,thundergusts4 ,nearly all that he afterward demonstrated on this subject is anticipated in this truly remarkable paper1 which was soon followed by the most famous of all his electrical writings1 that entitled ,opinions and ,conjectures concerning the ,properties and ,effects of the ,electrical ,matter1 and the ,means of preserving ,buildings1 ,ships1 etc41 from ,lightning2 arising from ,experiments and ,observations made at ,philadelphia1 #agdi4 ,franklin sets forth in this masterly paper the similarity of electricity and lightning1 and the property of points to draw off electricity4 ,it is this treatise which contains the two suggestions that gave to the name of ,franklin its first celebrity4 ,both suggestions are contained in one brief passage1 which follows the description of a splendid experiment1 in which a miniature lightning-rod had conducted harmlessly away the electricity of an artificial thunder-storm4 ,if these things are so1 continues the philosopher1 after stating the results of his experiment1 may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind in preserving houses1 churches1 ships1 etc41 from the stroke of lightning1 by directing us to fix on the highest part of those edifices upright rods of iron1 made sharp as a needle and gilt to prevent rusting1 and from the foot of those rods1 a wire down the outside of the building into the ground1 or down round one of the shrouds of a ship1 and down her side till it reaches the water8 ,would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike1 and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief8 ,the second of these immortal suggestions was one that immediately arrested the attention of ,european electricians when the paper was published4 ,it was in these words3 ,to determine the question1 whether the clouds that contain lightning are electrified or not1 ,i would propose an experiment to be tried where it may be done conveniently4 ,on the top of some high tower or steeple1 place a kind of sentry-box1 big enough to contain a man and an electric stand4 ,from the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass1 bending out of the door1 and then upright twenty or thirty feet1 pointed very sharp at the end4 ,if the electrical stand be kept clean and dry1 a man standing on it1 when such clouds are passing low1 might be electrified and afford sparks1 the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud4 ,if any danger to the man should be apprehended 7though ,i think there would be none71 let him stand on the floor of his box1 and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads1 he holding it by a wax handle2 so the sparks1 if the rod is electrified1 will strike from the rod to the wire and not affect him4 ,a friend once asked ,franklin how he came to hit upon such an idea4 ,his reply was to quote an extract from the minutes he kept of the experiments he made4 ,this extract1 dated ,november #g1 #agdi1 was as follows3 ,electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars3 #a4 ,giving light4 #b4 ,color of the light4 #c4 ,crooked direction4 #d4 ,swift motion4 #e4 ,being conducted by metals4 #f4 ,crack or noise in exploding4 #g4 ,subsisting in water or ice4 #h4 ,rending bodies it passes through4 #i4 ,destroying animals4 #aj4 ,melting metals4 #aa4 ,firing inflammable substances4 #ab4 ,sulphurous smell4 ,the electric fluid is attracted by points4 ,we do not know whether this property is in lightning4 ,but since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them1 is it not probable they agree likewise in this8 ,let the experiment be made4 ,in this discovery1 therefore1 there was nothing of chance2 it was a legitimate deduction from patiently accumulated facts4 ,it was not until the spring of #ageb that ,franklin thought of making his suggested experiment with a kite4 ,the country around ,philadelphia presents no high hills1 and he was not aware till later that the roof of any dwelling-house would have answered as well as the peak of ,teneriffe4 ,there were no steeples in ,philadelphia at that day4 ,the vestry of ,christ ,church talked about erecting a steeple1 but it was not begun until #agec4 ,on the #aeth of ,june1 #ageb1 ,franklin decided to fly that immortal kite4 ,wishing to avoid the ridicule of a failure1 he took no one with him except his son1 who1 by the way1 was not the small boy shown in countless pictures of the incident1 but a stalwart young man of twenty-two4 ,the kite had been made of a large silk handkerchief1 and fitted out with a piece of sharpened iron wire4 ,part of the string was of hemp1 and the part to be held in the hand was of silk4 ,at the end of the hempen string was tied a key1 and in a convenient shed was a ,leyden jar in which to collect some of the electricity from the clouds4 ,when the first thunder-laden clouds reached the kite1 there were no signs of electricity from ,franklin's key1 but just as he had begun to doubt the success of the experiment1 he saw the fibres of the hempen string begin to rise4 ,approaching his hand to the key1 he got an electric spark1 and was then able to charge the ,leyden jar and get a stronger shock4 ,then the happy philosopher drew in his wet kite and went home to write his modest account of one of the most notable experiments made by man4 ,franklin's fame as the first to suggest the identity of lightning and electricity would have been safe1 however1 even without the famous kite-flying achievement4 ,a month before that ,june thunderstorm his suggestions had been put into practice in ,europe with complete success4 ,mr4 ,peter ,collinson1 to whom ,franklin addressed from time to time long letters about his experiments and conjectures1 had caused them to be read at the meetings of the ,royal ,society1 of which he 7,collinson7 was a member4 ,that learned body1 however1 did not deem them worthy of publication among its transactions1 and a letter of ,franklin's containing the substance of his conjectures respecting lightning was laughed at4 ,the only news that reached ,philadelphia concerning these letters was that ,watson and other ,english experimenters did not agree with ,franklin4 ,it was only in ,may1 #agea1 that a pamphlet was finally published in ,london1 entitled ,new ,experiments and ,observations in ,electricity1 made at ,philadelphia1 in ,america4 ,a copy having been presented to the ,royal ,society1 ,watson was requested to make an abstract of its contents1 which he did1 giving generous praise to the author4 ,before the year came to a close ,franklin was famous4 ,there was something in the drawing down1 for mere experiment1 of the dread electricity of heaven that appealed not less powerfully to the imagination of the ignorant than to the understanding of the learned4 ,and the marvel was the greater that the bold idea should have come from so remote a place as ,philadelphia4 ,by a unanimous vote the ,royal ,society elected ,franklin a member1 and the next year bestowed upon him the ,copley medal4 ,yale ,college and then ,harvard bestowed upon him the honorary degree of ,master of ,arts4 ,illustration3 ,the ,franklin ,penny4 ,as might have been expected1 there was no lack of opposition to the new doctrine of lightning-rods4 ,every new movement of radical character is denounced more or less fiercely4 ,the last years of ,newton's life were perplexed by the charge that his theory of gravitation tended to materialize religion4 ,insuring houses against fire was opposed as an interference with the prerogatives of deity4 ,the establishment of the ,royal ,society was opposed upon the ground that the study of natural philosophy1 grounded1 as it was1 upon experimental evidence1 tended to weaken the force of evidence not so founded2 and this objection was deemed of sufficient weight to call for serious answer4 ,franklin's daring proposal to neutralize the artillery of heaven1 of course could not escape1 and the impiety of lightning-rods was widely discussed1 often with acrimony4 ,mr4 ,kinnersley1 one of ,franklin's friends1 who lectured for several years upon electricity1 when advertising the outline of his subject always announced his intention to show that the erection of lightning-rods was not chargeable with presumption nor inconsistent with any of the principles either of natural or revealed religion4 ,quincy relates in his ,history of ,harvard ,college1 that in ,november1 #agee1 a shock of earthquake having been felt in ,new ,england1 a ,boston clergyman preached a sermon on the subject1 in which he contended that the lightning-rods1 by accumulating the electricity in the earth1 had caused the earthquake4 ,professor ,winthrop1 of ,harvard1 thought it worth while to defend ,franklin4 ,in #aggj1 ,mr4 ,quincy adds1 another ,boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods on the ground that1 as the lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind1 and of warning them from the commission of sin1 it was impious to prevent its full execution4 ,and to this attack also ,professor ,winthrop replied4 ,apparently ,franklin himself thought it wise to conciliate the opposition of some so-called religious people of the day1 for an account of the lightning-rod which appears in ,poor ,richard's ,almanac for #agec1 written probably by ,franklin1 begins as follows3 ,it has pleased ,god in his ,goodness to ,mankind1 at length to discover to them the means of securing their ,habitations and other ,buildings from ,mischief by ,thunder and ,lightning4 ,franklin bore his honors with the most remarkable modesty4 ,it was in ,june that he flew his first kite1 but not until ,october that he sent to ,mr4 ,collinson an account of the experiment1 and even then he described the manner of making and flying the kite and omitted all reference to his own success with it4 ,the identity of lightning with electricity having been established by ,m4 ,dalibard1 he deemed it unnecessary to forward the account of an experiment which1 however brilliant1 he thought superfluous4 ,accordingly1 we have no narrative by ,franklin of the flying of the kite4 ,we owe our knowledge of what occurred on that memorable afternoon to persons who heard ,franklin tell the story4 ,franklin prefaces his description of his kite with these words3 ,as frequent mention is made in public papers from ,europe of the success of the ,philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings1 it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in ,philadelphia1 though made in a different and more easy manner1 which is as follows4 ,and then we have the description of the kite1 the letter ending without reference to what he himself had done with it4 ,yet he was far from hiding the pleasure his fame brought him4 ,the ,tatler1 he wrote1 in #agec1 to a friend1 tells us of a girl who was observed to grow suddenly proud1 and none could guess the reason1 till it came to be known that she had got on a pair of new silk garters4 ,lest you should be puzzled to guess the cause1 when you observe anything of the kind in me1 ,i think ,i will not hide my new garters under my petticoats1 but take the freedom to show them to you in a paragraph of our friend ,collinson's last letter1 viz4--,but ,i ought to mortify1 and not indulge1 this vanity2 ,i will not transcribe the paragraph--yet ,i cannot forbear4 ,then he quotes the paragraph1 which mentions the honors done him by the ,king of ,france and the ,royal ,society4 ,for twenty years ,franklin continued to work at electricity1 devoting most of his leisure to his beloved study4 ,the great practical value of the lightning-rod1 at one time in the early part of this century somewhat exaggerated1 as a perfect protection against harm by lightning1 just as electricity was at one time heralded as a panacea for all bodily ailments1 has of late years been questioned1 but the consensus of scientific opinion still attributes much merit to the device1 and the extent of ,franklin's services to science in the matter cannot be called into doubt4 ,others have claimed his discoveries4 ,the ,abb ,nolet1 of ,france1 has been credited as being the first to note the similarity between electricity and lightning2 and ,m4 ,romas1 of ,nerac1 ,france1 is said to have used a kite with a copper wire wound around the string1 to attract electricity from clouds1 some time before ,franklin made his experiment4 ,but posterity has ignored these claimants1 and ,franklin had the happiness of escaping bitter contentions with rivals4 ,in fact1 there could hardly have been a quarrel with a man who claimed nothing1 who mentioned with honor everybody's achievements but his own1 and who recorded his most brilliant observations in the plural1 as though he were but one of a band of investigating ,philadelphians4 ,passing now1 to ,franklin's connection with the use of oil to still dangerous waves1 ,i had occasion recently to note that ,lieutenant ,w4,h4 ,beehler1 of the ,united ,states ,navy1 in writing upon the matter1 quotes ,franklin's explanation of why oil works so beneficently as the accepted theory4 ,franklin was greatly interested1 when at sea1 in studying the matter4 ,any phenomenon that puzzled him was fit subject for investigation4 ,let us see how he went about the inquiry4 ,in #ageg1 he wrote1 being at sea in a fleet of ninety-six sail bound against ,louisburg1 ,i observed the wakes of two of the ships to be remarkably smooth1 while all the others were ruffled by the wind which blew fresh4 ,being puzzled with the differing appearance1 ,i at last pointed it out to our captain and asked him the meaning of it4 ',the cooks1' says he1 'have1 ,i suppose1 been just emptying their greasy water through the scuppers1 which has greased the sides of those ships a little2' and this answer he gave me with an air of some little contempt1 as to a person ignorant of what everybody else knew4 ,in my own mind ,i at first slighted his solution1 though ,i was not able to think of another2 but recollecting what ,i had formerly read in ,pliny1 ,i resolved to make some experiment of the effect of oil on water1 when ,i should have opportunity4 ,afterwards1 being again at sea in #agfb1 ,i first observed the wonderful quietness of oil on agitated water1 in the swinging glass lamp ,i made to hang up in the cabin1 as described in my printed papers4 ,this ,i was continually looking at and considering1 as an appearance to me inexplicable4 ,an old sea captain1 then a passenger with me1 thought little of it1 supposing it an effect of the same kind with that of oil put on water to smooth it1 which he said was a practice of the ,bermudians when they would strike fish1 which they could not see if the surface of the water was ruffled by the wind4 ,the same gentleman told me he had heard it was a practice with the fishermen of ,lisbon1 when about to return into the river 7if they saw before them too great a surf upon the bar1 which they apprehended might fill their boats in passing7 to empty a bottle or two of oil into the sea1 which would suppress the breakers1 and allow them to pass safely4 ,a confirmation of this ,i have not since had an opportunity of obtaining2 but discoursing of it with another person1 who had often been in the ,mediterranean1 ,i was informed that the divers there1 who1 when under water in their business1 need light1 which the curling of the surface interrupts by the refractions of so many little waves1 let a small quantity of oil now and then out of their mouths1 which rising to the surface smooths it1 and permits the light to come down to them4 ,all these informations ,i at times resolved in my mind1 and wondered to find no mention of them in our books of experimental philosophy4 ,at length being at ,clapham where there is1 on the common1 a large pond1 which ,i observed one day to be very rough with the wind1 ,i fetched out a cruet of oil and dropped a little of it on the water4 ,i saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface2 but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced2 for ,i had applied it first on the leeward side of the pond1 where the waves were largest1 and the wind drove my oil back upon the shore4 ,i then went to the windward side1 where they began to form2 and there the oil1 though not more than a teaspoonful1 produced an instant calm over a space several yards square1 which spread amazingly1 and extended itself gradually1 till it reached the lee side1 making all that quarter of the pond1 perhaps half an acre1 as smooth as a looking glass4 ,a gentleman from ,rhode ,island told me it had been remarked that the harbor of ,newport was ever smooth while any whaling vessels were in it2 which1 probably arose from hence1 that the blubber1 which they sometimes bring loose in the hold1 or the leakage of their barrels1 might1 afford some oil to mix with that water1 which1 from time to time1 they pump out to keep their vessel free1 and that some oil might spread over the surface of the water in the harbor and prevent the forming of any waves4 ,thus ,franklin collected his facts1 taking them far and near1 and from anybody and everybody4 ,by dint of observation and reflection he finally solved the problem1 arriving at the conclusion that the wind blowing over water thus covered with a film of oil1 cannot easily catch upon it1 so as to raise the first wrinkles1 but slides over it1 and leaves it smooth as it finds it4 ,another remarkable instance of ,franklin's passion for investigation is afforded in the following interesting letter to ,sir ,john ,pringle3 ,when we were travelling together in ,holland1 you remarked that the canal boat in one of the stages went slower than usual1 and inquired of the boatman what might be the reason2 who answered that it had been a dry season1 and the water in the canal was low4 ,on being asked if it was so low that the boat touched the muddy bottom1 he said no1 not so low as that1 but so low as to make it harder for the horse to draw the boat4 ,we neither of us at first could conceive that1 if there was water enough for the boat to swim clear of the bottom1 its being deeper would make any difference4 ,but as the man affirmed it seriously as a thing well known among them1 and as the punctuality required in their stages was likely to make such difference1 if any there were1 more readily observed by them than by other watermen who did not pass so regularly and constantly backwards and forwards in the same track1 ,i began to apprehend there might be something in it1 and attempted to account for it from this consideration1 that the boat in proceeding along the canal must1 in every boat's length of her course1 move out of her way a body of water equal in bulk to the room her bottom took up in the water2 that the water so moved must pass on each side of her1 and under her bottom1 to get behind her2 that if the passage under her bottom was straitened by the shallows1 more of the water must pass by her sides1 and with a swifter motion1 which would retard her1 as moving the contrary way2 or that1 the water becoming lower behind the boat than before1 she was pressed back by the weight of its difference in height1 and her motion retarded by having that weight constantly to overcome4 ,but1 as it is often lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain facts1 ,i determined to make an experiment of this1 when ,i should have convenient time and opportunity4 ,after our return to ,england1 as often as ,i happened to be on the ,thames1 ,i enquired of our watermen whether they were sensible of any difference in rowing over shallow or deep water4 ,i found them all agreeing in the fact that there was a very great difference1 but they differed widely in expressing the quantity of the difference2 some supposing it was equal to a mile in six1 others to a mile in three4 ,as ,i did not recollect to have met with any mention of this matter in our philosophical books1 and conceiving that1 if the difference should be really great1 it might be an object of consideration in the many projects now on foot for digging new navigable canals in this island1 ,i lately put my design of making the experiment in execution1 in the following manner4 ,i provided a trough of planed boards fourteen feet long1 six inches wide1 and six inches deep in the clear1 filled with water within half an inch of the edge1 to represent a canal1 ,i had a loose board of nearly the same length and breadth1 that being put into the water1 might be sunk to any depth1 and fixed by little wedges where ,i would choose to have it stay1 in order to make different depths of water1 leaving the surface at the same height with regard to the sides of the trough4 ,i had a little boat in form of a lighter or boat of burden1 six inches long1 two inches and a quarter wide1 and one inch and a quarter deep4 ,when swimming it drew one inch of water4 ,to give motion to the boat1 ,i fixed one end of a long silk thread to its bow1 just even with the water's edge1 the other end passed over a well-made brass pulley1 of about an inch in diameter1 turning freely upon a small axis2 and a shilling was the weight4 ,then placing the boat at one end of the trough1 the weight would draw it through the water to the other4 ,not having a watch that shows seconds1 in order to measure the time taken up by the boat in passing from end to end of the trough1 ,i counted as fast as ,i could count to ten repeatedly1 keeping an account of the number of tens on my fingers4 ,and1 as much as possible to correct any little inequalities in my counting1 ,i repeated the experiment a number of times at each depth of water1 that ,i might take the medium4 ,the experiment proved the truth of the boatmen's assertions4 ,franklin found that five horses would be required to draw a boat in a canal affording little more than enough water to float it1 which four horses could draw in a canal of the proper depth4 ,no circumstance1 remarks ,mr4 ,parton1 was too trifling to engage him upon a series of experiments4 ,at dinner1 one day1 a bottle of ,madeira was opened which had been bottled in ,virginia many months before4 ,into the first glass poured from it fell three drowned flies4 ,having heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of the sun1 ,i proposed making the experiment upon these2 they were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve which had been employed to strain them out of the wine4 ,in less than three hours two of them began by degrees to recover life4 ,they commenced by some convulsive motions of the thighs1 and at length they raised themselves upon their legs1 wiped their eyes with their forefeet1 beat and brushed their wings with their hind feet1 and soon after began to fly1 finding themselves in ,old ,england without knowing how they came thither4 ,the third continued lifeless till sunset1 when1 losing all hopes of him1 he was thrown away4 ,and upon this he remarks3 ,i wish it were possible1 from this instance1 to invent a method of embalming drowned persons in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period1 however distant2 for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of ,america a hundred years hence1 ,i should prefer to any ordinary death being immersed in a cask of ,madeira wine1 with a few friends1 till that time1 to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country4 ,among the studies in natural philosophy of which but little is known to the general public may be mentioned ,franklin's experiments with heat at a time when a thermometer was a scientific curiosity4 ,the manner in which he proved that black cloth was not so good a covering for the body in hot weather as white1 shows the simplicity of his methods and his faculty for making small means subserve great ends3 ,i took a number of little square pieces of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern-card1 of various colors4 ,there were black1 deep blue1 lighter blue1 green1 purple1 red1 yellow1 white1 and other colors or shades of colors4 ,i laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning4 ,in a few hours the black1 being warmed most by the sun1 was so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays2 the dark blue almost as low1 the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark1 the other colors less as they were lighter1 and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow1 not having entered it at all4 ,what signifies philosophy that does not apply to some use8 ,may we not learn from hence that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot1 sunny climate or season as white ones8 ,that all summer hats1 particularly for soldiers1 should be white1 and that garden walls intended for fruit should be black1 were suggestions put forth as a result of this experiment4 ,dr4 ,small assigns to ,franklin the credit of having discovered that repeated respiration imparts to air a poisonous quality similar to that which extinguishes candles and destroys life in mines and wells4 ,the doctor1 he records1 breathed gently through a tube into a deep glass mug1 so as to impregnate all the air in the mug with this quality4 ,he then put a lighted bougie 7candle7 into the mug1 and upon touching the air therein the flame was instantly extinguished2 by frequently repeating this operation1 the bougie gradually preserved its light longer in the mug1 so as in a short time to retain it to the bottom of it1 the air having totally lost the bad quality it had contracted from the breath blown into it4 ,upon being consulted with regard to the better ventilation of the ,house of ,commons1 he advised that openings should be made near the ceiling1 communicating with flues running parallel with the chimneys and close enough to them to be kept warm by their heat4 ,these flues1 he recommended1 should begin in the cellar1 where the air was cool1 and the flues being warmed by the hot air of the chimneys1 would cause an upward current of air strong enough to expel the vitiated air in the upper part of the house4 ,franklin's letters at this time are full of the importance of ventilation4 ,unquestionably1 he was among the first who called attention to the folly of excluding fresh air from hospitals and sick-rooms1 particularly those of fever patients4 ,as ,mr4 ,parton expresses it1 he cleared the pure air of heaven from calumnious imputation and threw open the windows of mankind4 ,some inventions of ,franklin's have not met with the approval of posterity4 ,for instance1 he seems to have had no more success with a reformed spelling of his own devising than laborers in the same field who came after him4 ,he used to say that they alone spelt well who spelt ill1 since the so-called bad speller used the letters according to their real value4 ,the illiterate girl who wrote of her bo was more correct1 he thought1 than the young lady who would blush to omit a superfluous vowel4 ,what was the use of the final letter in muff1 and why take the trouble to write tough when tuf would do as well8 ,had he lived to see ,dr4 ,webster's ,dictionary1 the lexicographer would have found in him an ardent champion4 ,his reformed alphabet and spelling is an interesting curiosity1 but hardly more4 ,some letters of our alphabet he omitted1 only to add new ones4 ,he also changed their order1 making o the first letter and m the last4 ,in this connection it may be well to say that ,franklin was perhaps the first and foremost ,american champion of the movement1 now so powerful1 looking to the displacement of ,latin and ,greek as the foundations of education4 ,at the very close of his life1 in #aghi1 he issued his famous protest against the study of dead languages4 ,he is reported to have said one evening1 when talking about this matter3 ,when the custom of wearing broad cuffs with buttons first began1 there was a reason for it2 the cuffs might be brought down over the hands and thus guard them from wet and cold4 ,but gloves came into use1 and the broad cuffs were unnecessary2 yet the custom was still retained4 ,so likewise with cocked hats4 ,the wide brim1 when let down1 afforded a protection from the rain and the sun4 ,umbrellas were introduced1 yet fashion prevailed to keep cocked hats in vogue1 although they were rather cumbersome than useful4 ,thus with the ,latin language4 ,when nearly all the books of ,europe were written in that language1 the study of it was essential in every system of education2 but it is now scarcely needed1 except as an accomplishment1 since it has everywhere given place1 as a vehicle of thought and knowledge1 to some one of the modern tongues4 ,with all his love of the practical1 ,franklin was not deficient in a rather delicate wit4 ,i have already had occasion to quote at the beginning of this paper his disclaimer of the honors conferred upon him by ,turgot's famous ,latin line4 ,instances of this dry humor may be found all through ,sparks's exhaustive biography4 ,i remember one in particular4 ,the merchants of ,philadelphia1 being at one time desirous to establish an assembly for dancing1 they drew up some rules1 among which was one that no mechanic or mechanic's wife or daughter should be admitted on any terms4 ,this rule being submitted to ,franklin1 he remarked that it excluded ,god ,almighty1 for he was the greatest mechanic in the universe4 ,benjamin ,franklin's services to the cause of invention by no means ended with his own inventions4 ,one of his greatest services was the part he took in the foundation of the ,american ,philosophical ,society1 whose object was to bring into correspondence with a central association in ,philadelphia all scientists1 philosophers1 and inventors on this continent and in ,europe4 ,franklin's share in the foundation of this society1 which has proved of such vast use1 seems to have been largely overlooked by his biographers4 ,mr4 ,parton1 having mentioned that ,franklin founded the society in accordance with his proposal of #agdc1 adds3 ,the society was formed and continued in existence for some years4 ,nevertheless1 its success was neither great nor permanent1 for at that day the circle of men capable of taking much interest in science was too limited for the proper support of such an organization4 ,the recent historian of the society1 ,dr4 ,robert ,m4 ,patterson1 agrees1 however1 with ,sparks in tracing the origin of the ,philosophical ,society1 which grew into prominence about #agfg1 back to ,franklin's proposal of #agdc4 ,after describing the ,junto1 or ,leather ,apron ,society1 formed among ,franklin's acquaintance1 a sort of debating club of eleven young men1 ,sparks says3 ,forty years after its establishment it became the basis of the ,american ,philosophical ,society1 of which ,franklin was the first president1 and the published transactions of which have contributed to the advancement of science and the diffusion of valuable knowledge in the ,united ,states4 ,in his first proposal ,franklin gave a list of the subjects that were to engage the attention of these ,new ,world philosophers4 ,it included investigations in botany2 in medicine2 in mineralogy and mining2 in chemistry2 in mechanics2 in arts1 trades1 and manufactures2 in geography and topography2 in agriculture2 and1 lest something should have been forgotten1 he adds that the association should give its attention to all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things1 tend to increase the power of man over matter and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life4 ,the duties of the secretary of the society were laid down and were arduous1 including much foreign correspondence1 in addition to the correcting1 abstracting1 and methodizing of such papers as required it4 ,this office ,franklin took upon himself4 ,illustration3 ,franklin's ,grave4 ,while he lived the proceedings of the society scarcely ever failed of a useful end4 ,unlike so many original and inventive geniuses1 his eminent common sense was as marked as his originality4 ,in the language of his most recent biographer1 ,john ,bach ,mc,master1 whatever he has said on domestic economy or thrift is sound and striking4 ,no other writer has left so many just and original observations on success in life4 ,no other writer has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount of comfort out of life4 ,what ,solomon did for the spiritual man1 that did ,franklin for the earthly man4 ,the book of ,proverbs is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure in heaven4 ',poor ,richard' is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure on earth4 ,,ii4 ,,robert ,,fulton4 ,illustration3 ,robert ,fulton4 ,robert ,fulton1 the inventor of the steamboat1 or at least the first man to apply the power of the steam-engine to the propulsion of boats in a practical and effective manner1 was born in ,little ,britain1 ,lancaster ,county1 ,pa41 #agfe1 of respectable but poor parents4 ,his father was a native of ,kilkenny1 ,ireland1 and his mother came of a fairly well-to-do ,irish family1 settled in ,pennsylvania4 ,he was the third of five children4 ,as a child he received the rudiments of a common education4 ,his vocation showed itself in his earliest years4 ,all his hours of recreation were passed in shops and in drawing4 ,at the time he was seventeen he had become so much of an artist as to make money by portrait and landscape painting in ,philadelphia1 where he remained until he was twenty-one4 ,after this he went to ,washington ,county and there purchased a little farm on which he settled his mother1 his father having died when he was three years old4 ,he returned to ,philadelphia1 but on his way visited the ,warm ,springs of ,pennsylvania1 where he met with some gentlemen who were so much pleased with his painting that they advised him to go to ,england1 where they told him he would meet with ,west who had then attained great celebrity4 ,fulton took this advice1 and his reception by ,west1 always kindly toward ,americans1 was such as he had been led to expect4 ,the distinguished painter was so well pleased with him that he took him into his house1 where he continued to live for several years4 ,for some time ,fulton made painting his chief employment1 spending two years in ,devonshire1 near ,exeter1 where he made many influential acquaintances1 among others the ,duke of ,bridgewater1 famous for his canals1 and ,lord ,stanhope1 a nobleman noted for his love of science and his attachment to the mechanic arts4 ,with ,lord ,stanhope1 ,fulton held a correspondence for a long time upon subjects in which they were interested4 ,in #agic1 ,fulton was engaged in a project to improve inland navigation4 ,even at that early day it appeared that he had conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam1 and he speaks in his letters of its practicability4 ,in #agid he obtained from the ,british ,government a patent for improvements in canal locks1 and his pursuits at this time appear to have been in this direction4 ,in his preface to a description of his ,nautilus1 or plunging boat1 a species of submarine boat1 he says that he had resided eighteen months in ,birmingham where he acquired much of his knowledge of mechanics4 ,in later years1 when in ,paris1 ,fulton sent a large collection of his manuscripts to this country4 ,unfortunately1 the vessel in which they were sent was wrecked1 and1 while the case was recovered1 only a few fragments of the manuscripts could be used4 ,it is owing to this misfortune that we have so few records of ,fulton's work at this time4 ,illustration3 ,birthplace of ,robert ,fulton4#a ,footnote #a3 ,this illustration and the four following are from ,knox's ,life of ,fulton1 reproduced by permission of the publishers1 ,g4,p4 ,putnam's ,sons4 ,we know1 however1 that in #agid he submitted to the ,british ,society for the ,promotion of ,arts and ,commerce an improvement of his invention for sawing marble1 for which he received the thanks of the society and an honorary medal4 ,he invented also1 it is thought1 about this time1 a machine for spinning flax and another for making ropes1 for both of which he obtained patents from the ,british ,government4 ,a mechanical contrivance for scooping out earth to form channels for canals or aqueducts1 which is said to have been much used in ,england1 was also his invention4 ,the subject of canals appears to have chiefly engaged his attention during these years of the end of the century4 ,he called himself a civil engineer1 and under this title published his work on canals1 and1 in #agie1 many essays on the same subject in one of the ,london journals4 ,he recommended small canals and boats of little burden in a treatise on ,improvement of ,canal ,navigation1 and inclined planes instead of locks1 as a means of transporting canal boats from one level to another4 ,his plans were strongly recommended by the ,british ,board of ,agriculture4 ,throughout his course as civil engineer his talent for drawing was of great advantage to him1 and the plates annexed to his works are admirable examples of such work4 ,he seems to have neglected his painting till a short time before his death1 when he took up the brush again to paint some portraits of his family4 ,during his residence in ,england he sent copies of his works to distinguished men in this country1 setting forth the advantages to be derived from communication by canals4 ,having obtained a patent for mill improvements from the ,british ,government1 he went to ,france with the intention of introducing his invention there2 but1 not meeting with much encouragement1 he devoted his time to other matters4 ,political economy had also some attraction for him1 and he wrote a book to show that internal improvements would have a good effect on the happiness of a nation4 ,he not only wished to see a free and speedy communication between the different parts of a large country1 but universal free trade between all countries4 ,he thought that it would take ages to establish the freedom of the seas by the common consent of nations1 and believed in destroying ships of war1 so as to put it out of the power of any nation to control ocean trade4 ,in #agig he became acquainted with ,joel ,barlow1 the well-known ,american1 then residing in ,paris1 in whose family he lived for seven years1 during which time he learned ,french and something of ,german1 and studied mathematics and chemistry4 ,in the same year he made an experiment with ,mr4 ,barlow on the ,seine with a machine he had constructed to give packages of gunpowder a progressive motion under water and then to explode at a given point4 ,these experiments appear to have been the first in the line of his submarine boats1 and are unquestionably the germ of all subsequent inventions in the direction of torpedo warfare4 ,want of money to carry out his designs induced him to apply to the ,french ,directory1 who at first gave him reason to expect their aid1 but finally rejected his plan4 ,fulton1 however1 was not to be discouraged1 but went on with his inventions1 and having made a handsome model of his machine for destroying ships1 a commission was appointed to examine his plans1 but they also rejected them4 ,he offered his idea to the ,british ,government1 still again without success1 although a committee was appointed to examine his models4 ,the ,french ,government being changed1 and ,bonaparte having come to the head of it1 ,fulton presented an address to him4 ,a commission was appointed1 and some assistance given which enabled him to put some of his plans into practice4 ,in the spring of #ahja he went to ,brest to make experiments with the plunging boat that he had constructed in the winter4 ,this1 as he says1 had many imperfections1 to be expected in a first machine1 and had been injured by rust1 as parts which should have been of copper or brass were made of iron4 ,notwithstanding these disadvantages1 he engaged in a course of experiments which required no less courage than perseverance4 ,from a report of his proceedings to the committee appointed by the ,french ,government we learn that in ,july1 #ahja1 he embarked with three companions on board of this boat1 in the harbor of ,brest1 and descended to the depth of twenty-five feet1 remaining below the surface an hour1 in utter darkness1 as the candles were found to consume too much of the vital air4 ,he placed two men at the engine1 which was intended to give her motion1 and one at the helm1 while he1 with a barometer before him1 kept her balanced between the upper and lower waters4 ,he could turn her round while under the water1 and found that in seven minutes he had gone about a third of a mile4 ,during that summer ,fulton descended under water with a store of air compressed into a copper globe1 whereby he was enabled to remain under water four hours and twenty minutes4 ,the success of these experiments determined him to try the effect of his invention on the ,english war-ships1 then daily near the harbor of ,brest--,france and ,england being then at war4 ,he made his own bombs4 ,for experimental purposes a small vessel was anchored in the harbor1 and with a bomb containing about twenty pounds of powder1 he approached within about two hundred yards1 struck the vessel1 and blew her into atoms4 ,a column of water and fragments were sent nearly one hundred feet into the air4 ,this experiment was made in the presence of the prefect of the department and a multitude of spectators4 ,during the summer of #ahja ,fulton tried to use his bombs against some of the ,english vessels1 but was not successful in getting within range4 ,the ,french ,government refused to give him further encouragement4 ,the ,english had some information concerning the attempts that their enemies were making1 and the anxiety expressed induced the ,british ,minister to communicate with ,fulton and try to secure to ,england his services4 ,in this he was successful1 and ,fulton went to ,london1 where he arrived in #ahjd1 and met ,pitt and ,lord ,melville4 ,when ,mr4 ,pitt first saw a drawing of a torpedo with a sketch of the mode of applying it1 and understood what would be the effect of the explosion1 he said that if it were introduced into practice it could not fail to annihilate all navies4 ,illustration3 ,fulton ,blowing ,up a ,danish ,brig4 ,but from the subsequent conduct of the ,british ministry it is supposed that they never really intended to give ,fulton a fair opportunity to try the effect of his submarine engines4 ,their object may have been to prevent these devices getting into the hands of an enemy4 ,several experiments were made1 and some of them were failures1 but on ,october #ae1 #ahje1 he blew up a strong-built ,danish brig of two hundred tons burden1 which had been provided for the experiment and which was anchored near the residence of ,pitt4 ,the torpedo used on this occasion contained one hundred and seventy pounds of powder4 ,in fifteen minutes from the time of starting the machinery the explosion took place4 ,it lifted the brig almost entire and broke her completely in two2 in one minute nothing was to be seen of her but floating fragments4 ,notwithstanding the complete success of this experiment1 the ,british ministry seems to have had nothing to do with ,fulton4 ,the inventor was rather discouraged at this lack of appreciation and1 after some further experiments1 he sailed for ,new ,york in ,december1 #ahjf4 ,in this country ,fulton devoted himself at once to his project of submarine warfare and steam navigation4 ,so far from being discouraged by his failure to impress ,europe with the importance of his torpedoes1 his confidence was unshaken1 because he saw that his failures were to be attributed to trivial errors that could easily be corrected4 ,he induced our ,government to give him the means of making further experiments1 and invited the magistracy of ,new ,york and a number of citizens to ,governor's ,island where were the torpedoes and the machinery with which his experiments were to be made4 ,in ,july1 #ahjg1 he blew up1 in the harbor of ,new ,york1 a large brig prepared for that purpose4 ,he also devised at this time a number of stationary torpedoes1 really casks of powder1 with triggers that might be caught by the keel of any passing vessel4 ,in ,march1 #ahaj1 #e1jjj were granted by ,congress for further experiments in submarine explosions4 ,the sloop of war1 ,argus1 was prepared for defence against the torpedoes after ,fulton had explained his mode of attack4 ,this defence was so complete that ,fulton found it impracticable to do anything with his torpedoes4 ,some experiments were made1 however1 with a gun-harpoon and cable cutter1 and after several attempts a fourteen-inch cable was cut off several feet below the surface of the water4 ,fulton was1 during all these experiments1 much pressed for money1 and apparently was making no headway toward the use of his submarine engines in a profitable way4 ,it was in despair of getting our ,government to make an investment in this direction that he finally turned to the problem of navigation by steam4 ,he had the valuable co-operation in his new work of ,chancellor ,livingston1 of ,new ,jersey1 who1 while devoting much of his own time and means to the advancement of science1 was fond of fostering the discoveries of others4 ,he had very clear conceptions of what would be the great advantages of steamboats on the navigable rivers of the ,united ,states4 ,he had already1 when in ,paris1 applied himself at great expense to constructing vessels and machinery for that kind of navigation4 ,as early as #agih he believed that he had accomplished his object1 and represented to the ,legislature of ,new ,york that he was possessed of a mode of applying the steam-engine to a boat on new and advantageous principles2 but that he was deterred from carrying it into effect by the uncertainty of expensive experiments1 unless he could be assured of an exclusive advantage should it be successful4 ,the ,legislature in ,march1 #agih1 passed an act vesting him with the exclusive right and privilege of navigating all kinds of boats which might be propelled by the force of fire or steam on all the waters within the territory of ,new ,york for the term of twenty years1 upon condition that he should within a twelve-month build such a boat1 whose progress should not be less than four miles an hour4 ,illustration3 ,john ,fitch's ,steamboat at ,philadelphia4 ,livingston1 as soon as the act had passed1 built a boat of about thirty tons burden1 to be propelled by steam4 ,soon after he entered into a contract with ,fulton1 by which it was agreed that a patent should be taken out in the ,united ,states in ,fulton's name4 ,thus began the preparations for the first practical steamboat4 ,all the experiments were paid for by ,chancellor ,livingston1 but the work was ,fulton's4 ,in #ahjb1 in ,paris1 he began a course of calculations upon the resistance of water1 upon the most advantageous form of the body to be moved1 and upon the different means of propelling vessels which had been previously attempted4 ,after a variety of calculations he rejected the proposed plan of using paddles or oars1 such as those already used by ,fitch2 likewise that of ducks' feet1 which open as they are pushed out and shut as they are drawn in2 also that of forcing water out of the stern of the vessel4 ,he retained two methods as worthy of experiment1 namely1 endless chains with paddle-boards upon them1 and the paddle-wheel4 ,the latter was found to be the most promising1 and was finally adopted after a number of trials with models on a little river which runs through the village of ,plombires1 to which he had retired in the spring of #ahjb1 to pursue his experiments without interruption4 ,illustration3 ,fulton's ,first ,experiment with ,paddle-wheels4 ,it was now determined to build an experimental boat1 which was completed in the spring of #ahjc2 but when ,fulton was on the point of making an experiment with her1 an accident happened to the boat1 the woodwork not having been framed strongly enough to bear the weight of the machinery and the agitation of the river4 ,the accident did the machinery very little injury2 but they were obliged to build the boat almost entirely anew4 ,she was completed in ,july2 her length was sixty-six feet and she was eight feet wide4 ,early in ,august1 ,fulton addressed a letter to the ,french ,national ,institute1 inviting the members to witness a trial of his boat1 which was made before the members1 and in the presence of a great multitude of ,parisians4 ,the experiment was entirely satisfactory to ,fulton1 though the boat did not move altogether with as much speed as he expected4 ,but he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely defective machinery1 and to imperfections which were to be expected in the first experiment with so complicated a machine2 the defects were such as might be easily remedied4 ,such entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment that immediately afterward he wrote to ,messrs4 ,boulton ,watt1 of ,birmingham1 ,england1 ordering certain parts of a steam-engine to be made for him1 and sent to ,america4 ,he did not disclose to them for what purpose the engine was intended1 but his directions were such as would produce the parts of an engine that might be put together within a compass suited for a boat4 ,mr4 ,livingston had written to his friends in this country1 and through their assistance an act was passed by the ,legislature of the ,state of ,new ,york1 on ,april #e1 #ahjc1 by which the rights and exclusive privileges of navigating all the waters of that ,state1 by vessels propelled by fire or steam1 granted to ,livingston by the ,act of #agih1 as already mentioned1 were extended to ,livingston and ,fulton1 for the term of twenty years from the date of the new act4 ,by this law the time of producing proof of the practicability of propelling by steam a boat of twenty tons capacity1 at the rate of four miles an hour1 with and against the ordinary current of the ,hudson1 was extended two years1 and by a subsequent law1 the time was extended to #ahjg4 ,very soon after ,fulton's arrival in ,new ,york he began building his first ,american boat4 ,while she was constructing1 he found that her cost would greatly exceed his calculations4 ,he endeavored to lessen the pressure on his own finances by offering one-third of the rights for a proportionate contribution to the expense4 ,it was generally known that he made this offer1 but no one was then willing to afford aid to his enterprise4 ,in the spring of #ahjg1 ,fulton's first ,american boat was launched from the shipyard of ,charles ,brown1 on the ,east ,river4 ,the engine from ,england was put on board1 and in ,august she was completed1 and was moved by her machinery from her birthplace to the ,jersey shore4 ,livingston and ,fulton had invited many of their friends to witness the first trial1 among them ,dr4 ,mitchell and ,dr4 ,m',neven1 to whom we are indebted for some account of what passed on this occasion4 ,nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who witnessed the experiment4 ,the minds of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes4 ,before the boat had gone a quarter of a mile1 the greatest unbeliever must have been converted4 ,the man who1 while he looked on the expensive machine1 thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money on such idle schemes1 changed his mind as the boat moved from the wharf and gained speed1 and his complacent expression gradually stiffened into one of wonder4 ,this boat1 which was called the ,clermont1 soon after made a trip to ,albany4 ,fulton gives the following account of this voyage in a letter to his friend1 ,mr4 ,barlow3 ,illustration3 ,departure of the ,clermont on her ,first ,voyage4 ,my steamboat voyage to ,albany and back1 has turned out rather more favorable than ,i had calculated4 ,the distance from ,new ,york to ,albany is one hundred and fifty miles2 ,i ran it up in thirty-two hours1 and down in thirty4 ,i had a light breeze against me the whole way1 both going and coming1 and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam-engine4 ,i overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward1 and parted with them as if they had been at anchor4 ,the power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved4 ,the morning ,i left ,new ,york there were not1 perhaps1 thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would even move one mile an hour1 or be of the least utility2 and while we were putting off from the wharf1 which was crowded with spectators1 ,i heard a number of sarcastic remarks4 ,this is the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors4 ,having employed much time1 money1 and zeal1 in accomplishing this work1 it gives me1 as it will you1 great pleasure to see it fully answer my expectations4 ,it will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the merchandise on the ,mississippi1 ,missouri1 and other great rivers1 which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen2 and although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me1 yet ,i feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantage that my country will derive from the invention4 ,soon after this successful voyage1 the ,hudson boat was advertised and established as a regular passage-boat between ,new ,york and ,albany4 ,she1 however1 in the course of the season1 met with several accidents1 from the hostility of those engaged in the ordinary navigation of the river1 and from defects in her machinery1 the greatest of which was having her water-wheel shafts of cast-iron1 which was insufficient to sustain the great power applied to them4 ,the wheels also were hung without any support for the outward end of the shaft1 which is now supplied by what are called the wheel-guards4 ,at the session of #ahjh a law was passed to prolong the time of the exclusive right to thirty years2 it also declared combinations to destroy the boat1 or wilful attempts to injure her1 public offences1 punishable by fine and imprisonment4 ,notwithstanding her misfortunes1 the boat continued to run as a packet1 always loaded with passengers1 for the remainder of the summer4 ,in the course of the ensuing winter she was enlarged1 and in the spring of #ahjh she again began running as a packet-boat1 and continued it through the season4 ,several other boats were soon built for the ,hudson ,river1 and also for steamboat companies formed in different parts of the ,united ,states4 ,on ,february #aa1 #ahji1 ,fulton took out a patent for his inventions in navigation by steam1 and on ,february #i1 #ahaa1 he obtained a second patent for some improvements in his boats and machinery4 ,about the year #ahab two steam ferry-boats were built under the direction of ,fulton for crossing the ,hudson ,river1 and one of the same description for the ,east ,river4 ,these boats were what are called twin-boats1 each of them being two complete hulls united by a deck or bridge4 ,they were sharp at both ends1 and moved equally well with either end foremost1 so that they crossed and recrossed without losing any time by turning about4 ,he contrived1 with great ingenuity1 floating docks for the reception of these boats1 and a means by which they were brought to them without a shock4 ,these boats1 were the first of a fleet which has since carried hundreds of millions of passengers to and from ,new ,york4 ,from the time the first boat was put in motion till the death of ,fulton1 the art of navigating by steam advanced rapidly to that perfection of which he believed it capable2 the boats performed each successive trip with increased speed1 and every year improvements were made4 ,the last boat built by ,fulton was invariably the best1 the most convenient1 and the swiftest4 ,at the beginning of #ahad a number of the citizens of ,new ,york1 alarmed at the exposed situation of their harbor1 had assembled with a view to consider whether some measures might not be taken to aid the ,government in its protection4 ,this assembly had some knowledge of ,fulton's plans for submarine attack1 and knew that he contemplated other means of defence4 ,it deputed a number of gentlemen to act for it1 and these were called the ,coast and ,harbor ,committee4 ,fulton exhibited to this committee the model and plans for a vessel of war1 to be propelled by steam1 capable of carrying a strong battery1 with furnaces for red-hot shot1 and which1 he represented1 would move at the rate of four miles an hour4 ,the confidence of the committee in this design was confirmed by the opinions of many of our most distinguished naval commanders1 which he had obtained in writing1 and exhibited to the committee4 ,they pointed out many advantages which a steam vessel of war would possess over those with sails only4 ,the ,national ,legislature passed a law in ,march1 #ahad1 authorizing the ,president of the ,united ,states to cause to be built1 equipped1 and employed one or more floating batteries for the defence of the waters of the ,united ,states4 ,a sub-committee of five gentlemen was appointed to superintend the building of the proposed vessel1 and ,fulton1 whose spirit animated the whole enterprise1 was appointed the engineer4 ,in ,june1 #ahad1 the keel of this novel and mighty engine was laid1 and in ,october she was launched from the ,new ,york yard of ,adam and ,noah ,brown4 ,the scene exhibited on this occasion was magnificent4 ,it happened on one of our bright autumnal days4 ,multitudes of spectators crowded the surrounding shores4 ,the river and bay were filled with vessels of war1 dressed in all their colors in compliment to the occasion4 ,by ,may1 #ahae1 her engine was put on board1 and she was so far completed as to afford an opportunity of trying her machinery4 ,on the #dth of ,july1 in the same year1 the steam-frigate made a passage to the ocean and back1 a distance of fifty-three miles1 in eight hours and twenty minutes1 by the mere force of steam4 ,in ,september she made another passage to the sea1 and having at this time the weight of her whole armament on board1 she went at the rate of five and a half miles an hour1 upon an average1 with and against the tide4 ,the superintending committee gave in their report a full description of the ,fulton the ,first1 the honored name this vessel bore4 ,the last work in which the active and ingenious mind of ,fulton was engaged was a project for the modification of his submarine boat4 ,he presented a model of this vessel to the ,government1 by which it was approved2 and under ,federal authority he began building one2 but before the hull was entirely finished his country had to lament his death1 and the mechanics he employed were incapable of proceeding without him4 ,illustration3 ,the ,demologos1 or ,fulton the ,first4 ,the first steam vessel-of-war in the world4 ,during the whole time that ,fulton had thus been devoting his talents to the service of his country1 he had been harassed by lawsuits and controversies with those who were violating his patent rights1 or intruding upon his exclusive grants4 ,the ,state of ,new ,jersey had passed a law which operated against ,fulton1 without being of much advantage to those interested in its passage1 inasmuch as the laws of ,new ,york prevented any but ,fulton's boats to approach the city of ,new ,york4 ,its only operation was to stop a boat owned in ,new ,york1 which had been for several years running to ,new ,brunswick1 under a license from ,messrs4 ,livingston and ,fulton4 ,a bold attempt was therefore made to induce the ,legislature of the ,state of ,new ,york to repeal the laws which they had passed for the protection of their exclusive grant to ,livingston and ,fulton4 ,the committee reported that such repeal might be passed consistently with good faith1 honor1 and justice6 ,this report being made to the ,house1 it was prevailed upon to be less precipitate than the committee had been4 ,it gave time1 which the committee would not do1 for ,fulton to be sent for from ,new ,york4 ,the ,assembly and ,senate in joint session examined witnesses1 and heard him and the petitioner by counsel4 ,the result was that the ,legislature refused to repeal the prior law1 or to pass any act on the subject4 ,the ,legislature of the ,state of ,new ,jersey also repealed their law1 which left ,fulton in the full enjoyment of his rights4 ,this enjoyment was of very short duration2 for on returning from ,trenton1 after this last trial1 he was exposed on the ,hudson1 which was very full of ice1 for several hours4 ,he had not a constitution to encounter such exposure1 and upon his return found himself much indisposed4 ,he had at that time great anxiety about the steam-frigate1 and1 after confining himself to the house for a few days1 went to give his superintendence to the workmen employed about her4 ,forgetting his ill-health in the interest he took in what was doing on the frigate1 he remained too long exposed on a bad day to the weather4 ,he soon felt the effects of this imprudence4 ,his indisposition returned upon him with such violence as to confine him to his bed4 ,his illness increased1 and on ,february #bd1 #ahae1 it ended his life4 ,it was not known that ,fulton's illness was dangerous till a very short time before his death4 ,means were immediately taken to testify1 publicly1 the universal regret at his loss1 and respect for his memory4 ,the corporation of the city of ,new ,york1 the different literary institutions and other societies1 assembled and passed resolutions expressing their estimation of his worth1 and regret at his loss4 ,they also resolved to attend his funeral1 and that the members should wear badges of mourning for a certain time4 ,as soon as the ,legislature1 which was then in session at ,albany1 heard of the death of ,fulton1 they expressed their participation in the general sentiment by resolving that the members of both ,houses should wear mourning for some weeks4 ,in #ahjf ,fulton married ,harriet ,livingston1 a daughter of ,walter ,livingston1 a relative of his associate1 ,chancellor ,livingston4 ,he left four children2 one son1 ,robert ,barlow ,fulton1 and three daughters4 ,fulton was in person considerably above medium height2 his face showed great intelligence4 ,natural refinement and long intercourse with the most polished society of ,europe and ,america had given him grace and elegance of manner4 ,illustration3 ,the ,clermont4 ,,iii4 ,,eli ,,whitney4 ,in #aghd an ,american vessel arrived at ,liverpool having on board1 as part of her cargo1 eight bags of cotton1 which were seized by the ,custom-,house under the conviction that they could not be the growth of ,america4 ,the whole amount of cotton arriving at ,liverpool from ,america during the two following years was less than one hundred and twenty bags4 ,when ,eli ,whitney1 the inventor of the cotton-gin1 applied for his first patent in #agic1 the total export of cotton from the ,united ,states was less than ten thousand bales4 ,fifty years later1 the growth of this industry1 owing almost wholly to ,whitney's gin1 had increased to millions of bales1 and by #ahfj1 the export amounted to four million bales4 ,illustration3 ,eli ,whitney4 ,according to the estimate of ,judge ,johnson1 given in the most famous decision affecting the cotton-gin1 the debts of the ,south were paid off by its aid1 its capital was increased1 and its lands trebled in value4 ,this famous device1 the gift of a young ,northerner to the ,south1 was rewarded by thirty years of ingratitude1 relieved only by a few gleams of sunshine in the way of justice1 serving to make the injustice all the more conspicuous4 ,whitney added hundreds of millions to the wealth of the ,united ,states4 ,his personal reward was countless lawsuits and endless vexation of body and spirit4 ,no more conspicuous example can be cited of steady patience and sweet-tempered perseverance4 ,eli ,whitney was born in ,westborough1 ,worcester ,county1 ,mass41 ,december #h1 #agfe4 ,his parents belonged to that respectable class of society who1 by honest farming and kindred industries1 managed to provide well for the rising family--the class from whom have arisen most of those who in ,new ,england have attained to eminence and usefulness4 ,the indications of his mechanical genius were noted at an early age4 ,of his passion for mechanics1 his sister gives the following account3 ,our father had a workshop and sometimes made wheels of different kinds1 and chairs4 ,he had a variety of tools and a lathe for turning chair-posts4 ,this gave my brother an opportunity of learning the use of tools when very young4 ,he lost no time1 but as soon as he could handle tools he was always making something in the shop1 and seemed to prefer that to work on the farm4 ,after the death of our mother1 when our father had been absent from home two or three days1 on his return he inquired of the housekeeper what the boys had been doing4 ,she told him what the elders had done4 ',but what has ,eli been doing8' said he4 ,she replied he has been making a fiddle4 ',ah6' added he1 despondently1 ',i fear ,eli will have to take his portion in fiddles4' ,he was at this time about twelve years old4 ,the sister adds that his fiddle was finished throughout like a common violin and made pretty good music4 ,it was examined by many persons1 and all pronounced it to be a model piece of work for such a boy4 ,from this time he was always employed to repair violins1 and did many nice jobs that were executed to the entire satisfaction and even to the astonishment of his customers4 ,his father's watch being the greatest piece of mechanism that had yet presented itself to his observation1 he was extremely desirous of examining its interior construction1 but was not permitted to do so4 ,one ,sunday morning1 observing that his father was going to church and would leave at home the wonderful little machine1 he feigned illness as an apology for not going4 ,as soon as the family were out of sight1 he flew to the room where the watch hung and took it down4 ,he was so delighted with its motion that he took it to pieces before he thought of the consequences of his rash deed2 for his father was a stern parent1 and punishment would have been the reward of his idle curiosity1 had the mischief been detected4 ,he1 however1 put the works so neatly together that his father never discovered his audacity until he himself told him many years afterward4 ,when ,eli was thirteen years old his father married a second time4 ,his stepmother1 among her articles of furniture1 had a handsome set of table-knives that she valued very highly4 ,one day ,eli said3 ,i could make as good ones if ,i had tools1 and ,i could make the tools if ,i had common tools to begin with2 his mother laughed at him4 ,but it so happened soon afterward that one of the knives was broken1 and he made one exactly like it in every respect1 except the stamp of the blade4 ,when he was fifteen or sixteen years of age1 he suggested to his father an enterprise which clearly showed his capacity for important work4 ,the time being the ,revolutionary ,war1 nails were in great demand and at high prices4 ,they were made chiefly by hand4 ,whitney proposed to his father to get him a few tools and allow him to set up the manufacture of nails4 ,his father consented1 and the work was begun4 ,by extraordinary diligence he found time to make tools for his own use and to put in knife-blades1 repair farm machinery1 and perform other little jobs beyond the skill of the country workman4 ,at this occupation the enterprising boy worked1 alone with great success and with large profit to his father for two winters1 going on with the ordinary work of the farm during the summer4 ,he devised a plan for enlarging the business1 and managed to obtain help from a fellow-laborer whom he picked up when on a short journey of forty miles1 in the course of which he tells us that he called at every workshop on the way and gleaned all the information as to tools and methods that he could4 ,at the close of the war the business of making nails was no longer profitable2 but the fashion prevailing among the ladies of fastening on their bonnets with long pins having appeared1 he contrived to make these pins with such skill that he nearly monopolized the business1 though he devoted to it only such leisure as he could redeem from the occupations of the farm4 ,he also made excellent walking-canes4 ,at the age of nineteen ,whitney conceived the idea of getting a liberal education2 and partly by the results of his mechanical industries1 and partly by teaching the village school1 he was enabled so far to surmount the difficulties in his way as to prepare himself for the ,freshman ,class in ,yale ,college1 which he entered in #aghi4 ,at college his mechanical propensity frequently showed itself4 ,he successfully undertook1 on one occasion1 the repairing of some of the philosophical apparatus4 ,soon after taking his degree1 in the autumn of #agib1 he engaged with a ,georgia family as private teacher1 and through his engagement he made the acquaintance of a certain ,general ,greene1 of ,savannah1 who took a deep interest in him1 and with whom he began the study of law4 ,while living with the ,greenes he noticed an embroidery-frame used by ,mrs4 ,greene1 and about which she complained1 observing that it tore the delicate threads of her work4 ,young ,whitney1 eager to oblige his hostess1 went to work and speedily produced a frame on an entirely new plan4 ,the family were much delighted with it1 and considered it a wonderful piece of ingenuity4 ,illustration3 ,whitney ,watching the ,cotton-,gin4 ,not long afterward the ,greenes were visited by a party of gentlemen1 chiefly officers who had served under the general in the ,revolutionary ,war4 ,the conversation turned on the state of agriculture4 ,it was remarked that unfortunately there was no means of cleaning the staple of the green cotton-seed1 which might otherwise be profitably raised on land unsuitable for rice4 ,but until someone devised a machine which would clean the cotton1 it was vain to think of raising it for market4 ,separating one pound of the clean staple from the seed was a day's work for a woman4 ,the time usually devoted to the picking of cotton was the evening1 after the labor of the field was over4 ,then the slaves--men1 women1 and children--were collected in circles1 with one in the middle whose duty it was to rouse the dosing and quicken the indolent4 ,while the company were engaged in this conversation1 ,mrs4 ,greene said3 ,gentlemen1 apply to my young friend here1 ,mr4 ,whitney2 he can make anything4 ,and she showed them the frame and several other articles he had made4 ,he modestly disclaimed all pretensions to mechanical genius1 and replied that he had never seen cotton-seed4 ,nevertheless1 he immediately began upon the task of inventing and constructing the machine on which his fame depends4 ,a ,mr4 ,phineas ,miller1 a neighbor1 to whom he communicated his design1 warmly encouraged him1 and gave him a room in his house wherein to carry on his operations4 ,here he began work with the disadvantage of being obliged to manufacture his own tools and draw his own wire--an article not to be found in ,savannah4 ,mr4 ,miller and ,mrs4 ,greene were the only persons who knew anything of his occupation4 ,near the close of the winter1 #agic1 the machine was so far completed as to leave no doubt of its success4 ,the person who contributed most to the success of the undertaking1 after the inventor1 was his friend1 ,miller1 a native of ,connecticut and1 a graduate of ,yale4 ,like ,whitney1 he had come to ,georgia as a private teacher1 and after the death of ,general ,greene he married the widow4 ,he was a lawyer by profession1 with a turn for mechanics4 ,he had some money and proposed to ,whitney to become his partner1 he to be at the whole expense of manufacturing the invention until it should be patented4 ,if the machine should succeed1 they agreed that the profits and advantages should be divided between them4 ,a legal paper covering this agreement and establishing the firm of ,miller ,whitney1 bears the date of ,may #bg1 #agic4 ,an invention so important to the agricultural interests of the country could not long remain a secret4 ,the knowledge of it swept through the ,state1 and so great was the excitement on the subject that crowds of persons came from all parts to see the machine2 it was not deemed safe to gratify curiosity until the patent-right should be secured4 ,but so determined were some of these people that neither law nor justice could restrain them2 they broke into the building by night and carried off the machine4 ,in this way the public became possessed of the invention1 and before ,whitney could complete his model and secure his patent1 a number of machines1 patterned after his1 were in successful operation4 ,the principle of the ,whitney cotton-gin and all other gins following its features is so well known as to make it scarcely worth while to describe it here4 ,the different parts are two cylinders of different diameters1 mounted in a strong wooden frame1 one cylinder bearing a number of circular saws fitted into grooves cut into the cylinder4 ,the other hollow cylinder is mounted with brushes1 the tips of whose bristles touch the saw-teeth4 ,the cotton is put into a hopper1 where it is met by the sharp teeth of the saws1 torn from the seed1 and carried to a point where the brushes sweep it off into a convenient receptacle4 ,the seeds are too large to pass between the bars through which the saws protrude4 ,this is the principle of the first machine1 but many improvements have been made since ,whitney's day4 ,nevertheless1 by means of the cotton-gin1 even in its earliest shape1 one man1 with the aid of two-horse power1 could clean five thousand pounds of cotton in a day4 ,illustration3 ,the ,cotton-,gin4 7,from the original model47 ,as soon as the partnership of ,miller ,whitney was formed1 the latter went to ,connecticut to perfect the machine1 obtain the patent1 and manufacture for ,georgia as many machines as he thought would supply the demand4 ,at once there began between ,whitney in ,connecticut and ,miller in ,georgia a correspondence relative to the cotton-gin1 which gives a complete history of the extraordinary efforts made by the two partners and the disappointments that fell to their lot4 ,the very first letter1 written three days after ,whitney left1 announces that encroachments upon their rights had already begun4 ,it will be necessary1 says ,miller1 to have a considerable number of gins in readiness to send out as soon as the patent is obtained in order to satisfy the absolute demands and make people's heads easy on the subject2 for ,i am informed of two other claimants for the honor of the invention of the cotton-gin in addition to those we knew before4 ,at the close of the year #agic ,whitney was to return to ,georgia with his gins1 where his partner had made arrangements for beginning business4 ,the importunity of ,miller's letters1 written during this period1 urging him to come on1 show how eager the ,georgia planters were to enter the new field of enterprise that the genius of ,whitney had opened to them4 ,nor did they at first contemplate stealing the invention4 ,but the minds of even the more honorable among the planters were afterward deluded by various artifices set on foot by designing rivals of ,whitney with a view to robbing him of his rights4 ,one of the greatest difficulties experienced by the partners was the extreme scarcity of money1 which embarrassed them so much as to make it impossible to construct machines fast enough4 ,in ,april ,whitney returned to ,georgia4 ,large crops of cotton had been planted1 the profits of which were to depend almost wholly on the success of the gin4 ,a formidable competitor1 the roller-gin1 had also appeared1 which destroyed the seed by means of rollers1 crushing them between revolving cylinders instead of disengaging them by means of teeth4 ,the fragments of seeds which remained in the cotton made it much inferior to ,whitney's gin1 and it was slower in operation4 ,a still more dangerous rival appeared in #agie1 under the name of the saw-gin4 ,it was really ,whitney's invention1 except that the teeth were cut in circular rings of iron instead of being made of wire1 as in the earlier forms of the ,whitney gin4 ,the use of such teeth had occurred to ,whitney1 as he established by legal proof4 ,they would have been of no use except in connection with other parts of his machine1 and it was a palpable attempt to invade his patent right4 ,it was chiefly in reference to this device that the endless lawsuits that wore the life out of the partners were afterward held4 ,in ,march1 #agie1 after two years of struggle1 during which no progress seems to have been made1 although the value of the gin was proved1 ,whitney went to ,new ,york1 where he was detained three weeks by fever4 ,upon reaching ,new ,haven he discovered that his shop1 with all his machines and papers1 had been consumed by fire4 ,thus he was suddenly reduced to bankruptcy and was in debt #d1jjj without any means of payment4 ,he was not1 however1 one to sink under such trials2 ,miller showed the same buoyant spirit1 and the following extract of a letter of his to ,whitney may be a useful lesson to young men in trouble3 ,i think we ought to meet such events with equanimity4 ,we have been pursuing a valuable object by honorable means1 and ,i trust that all our measures have been such as reason and virtue must justify4 ,it has pleased ,providence to postpone the attainment of this object4 ,in the midst of the reflections which your story has suggested1 and with feelings keenly awake to the heavy1 the extensive injury we have sustained1 ,i feel a secret joy and satisfaction that you possess a mind in this respect similar to my own--that you are not disheartened1 that you do not relinquish the pursuit1 and that you will persevere1 and endeavor1 at all events1 to attain the main object4 ,this is exactly consonant to my own determinations4 ,i will devote all my time1 all my thoughts1 all my exertions1 and all the money ,i can earn or borrow to encompass and complete the business we have undertaken2 and if fortune should1 by any future disaster1 deny us the boon we ask1 we will at least deserve it4 ,it shall never be said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance could have attained4 ,i think1 indeed1 it will be very extraordinary if two young men in the prime of life1 with some share of ingenuity1 and with a little knowledge of the world1 a great deal of industry1 and a considerable command of property1 should not be able to sustain such a stroke of misfortune as this1 heavy as it is4 ,miller winds up by suggesting to ,whitney that perhaps he can get help in ,new ,haven by offering twelve per cent4 a year for money with which to build a new shop1 and the inventor seems to have had some success in reorganizing his affairs1 even under such desperate conditions4 ,word came at the same time from ,england that manufacturers had condemned the cotton cleaned by their machines on the ground that the staple was greatly injured4 ,this threatened a deathblow to their hopes4 ,at the time1 #agif1 they already had thirty gins at different places in ,georgia1 some worked by horses and oxen and some by water4 ,some of these were still standing a few years ago4 ,the following extract of a letter by ,whitney will show the state of his mind and affairs3 ,the extreme embarrassments which have been for a long time accumulating upon me are now become so great that it will be impossible for me to struggle against them many days longer4 ,it has required my utmost exertions to exist without making the least progress in our business4 ,i have labored hard against the strong current of disappointment which has been threatening to carry us down the cataract1 but ,i have labored with a shattered oar and struggled in vain1 unless some speedy relief is obtained4444 ,life is but short at best1 and six or seven years out of the midst of it is to him who makes it an immense sacrifice4 ,my most unremitted attention has been devoted to our business4 ,i have sacrificed to it other objects from which1 before this time1 ,i might certainly have gained #bj1jjj or #cj1jjj4 ,my whole prospects have been embarked in it1 with the expectation that ,i should before this time have realized something from it4 ,the cotton of ,whitney's gin was1 however1 sought by merchants in preference to other kinds1 and respectable manufacturers testified in his favor4 ,had it not been for the extensive and shameful violations of their patent-right1 the partners might yet have succeeded2 but these encroachments had become so extensive as almost to destroy its value4 ,the issue of the first important trial that they were able to obtain on the merits of the gin is announced in the following letter from ,miller to ,whitney1 dated ,may #aa1 #agig3 ,the event of the first patent suit1 after all our exertions made in such a variety of ways1 has gone against us4 ,the preposterous custom of trying civil causes of this intricacy and magnitude by a common jury1 together with the imperfection of the patent law1 frustrated all our views1 and disappointed expectations which had become very sanguine4 ,the tide of popular opinion was running in our favor1 the judge was well disposed toward us1 and many decided friends were with us1 who adhered firmly to our cause and interests4 ,the judge gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor2 after which the defendant himself told an acquaintance of his that he would give two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict1 and yet the jury gave it against us1 after a consultation of about an hour4 ,and having made the verdict general1 no appeal would lie4 ,on ,monday morning1 when the verdict was rendered1 we applied for a new trial1 but the judge refused it to us on the ground that the jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law1 which makes an aggression consist of making1 devising1 and using or selling2 whereas we could only charge the defendant with using4 ,thus1 after four years of assiduous labor1 fatigue1 and difficulty1 are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle4 ,our hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than before1 while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy4 ,great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit in ,savannah the following ,may1 and a number of witnesses were collected from various parts of the country1 all to no purpose1 for the judge failed to appear1 and in the meantime1 owing to the failure of the first suit1 encroachments on the patent-right had multiplied prodigiously4 ,in ,april1 #agii1 nearly a year later1 and two years after their first legal rebuff1 ,miller writes as follows3 ,the prospect of making anything by ginning in this ,state is at an end4 ,surreptitious gins are erected in every part of the country1 and the jurymen at ,augusta have come to an understanding among themselves that they will never give a cause in our favor1 let the merits of the case be as they may4 ,the company would now have gladly relinquished the plan of making their own machines1 and confined their operations to the sale of patent-rights2 but few would buy the right to a machine which could be used with impunity without purchase1 and those few usually gave notes instead of cash1 which they afterward1 to a great extent1 avoided paying1 either by obtaining a verdict from the juries declaring them void1 or by contriving to postpone the collection till they were barred by the ,statute of ,limitations1 a period of only four years4 ,the agent of ,miller ,whitney1 who was despatched on a collecting tour through the ,state of ,georgia1 informed his employers that such obstacles were thrown in his way by one or the other of these causes that he was unable to collect money enough to pay his expenses4 ,it was suggested that an application to the ,legislature of ,south ,carolina to purchase the patent-right for that ,state would be successful4 ,whitney accordingly repaired to ,columbia1 and the business was brought before the ,legislature in ,december1 #ahja4 ,an extract from a letter by ,whitney at this time shows the nature of the contract thus made3 ,i have been at this place a little more than two weeks attending the ,legislature4 ,a few hours previous to their adjournment they voted to purchase for the ,state of ,south ,carolina my patent-right to the machine for cleaning cotton at #ej1jjj1 of which sum #bj1jjj is to be paid in hand1 and the remainder in three annual payments of #aj1jjj each4 ,he adds3 ,we get but a song for it in comparison with the worth of the thing1 but it is securing something4 ,it will enable ,miller ,whitney to pay their debts and divide something between them4 ,in ,december1 #ahjb1 ,whitney negotiated the sale of his patent-right with the ,state of ,north ,carolina4 ,the ,legislature laid a tax of #bs4 #f;d4 upon every saw 7some of the gins had forty saws7 employed in ginning cotton1 to be continued for five years2 and after deducting the expenses of collection the returns were faithfully passed over to the patentee4 ,this compensation was regarded by ,whitney as more liberal than that received from any other source4 ,about the same time ,mr4 ,goodrich1 the agent of the company1 entered into a similar negotiation with ,tennessee1 which ,state had by this time begun to realize the importance of the invention4 ,the ,legislature passed a law laying a tax of #cg-a_/b cents per annum on every saw used1 for the period of four years4 ,thus far the prospects were growing favorable to the patentees1 when the ,legislature of ,south ,carolina unexpectedly annulled the contract which they had made1 suspended further payment of the balance1 and sued for the refunding of what had been already paid4 ,when ,whitney first heard of the transactions of the ,south ,carolina ,legislature1 he was at ,raleigh1 where he had just completed a negotiation with the ,legislature of ,north ,carolina4 ,in a letter written to ,miller at this time1 he remarks3 ,i am1 for my own part1 more vexed than alarmed by their extraordinary proceedings4 ,i think it behooves us to be very cautious and very circumspect in our measures1 and even in our remarks with regard to it4 ,be cautious what you say or publish till we meet our enemies in a court of justice1 where1 if they have any sensibility left1 we will make them very much ashamed of their childish conduct4 ,but that ,whitney felt keenly the severities afterward practised against him is evident from the tenor of the remonstrance which he presented to the ,legislature3 ,the subscriber avers that he has manifested no other than a disposition to fulfil all the stipulations entered into with the ,state of ,south ,carolina with punctuality and good faith2 and he begs leave to observe further1 that to have industriously1 laboriously1 and exclusively devoted many years of the prime of his life to the invention and the improvement of a machine from which the citizens of ,south ,carolina have already realized immense profits1 which is worth to them millions1 and from which their prosperity must continue to derive the most important profits1 and in return to be treated as a felon1 a swindler1 and a villain1 has stung him to the very soul4 ,and when he considers that this cruel persecution is inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these great benefits1 and expressly for the purpose of preventing his ever deriving the least advantage from his own labors1 the acuteness of his feelings is altogether inexpressible4 ,doubts1 it seems1 had arisen in the public mind as to the validity of the patent4 ,great exertions had been made in ,georgia1 where1 it will be remembered1 hostilities were first declared against him1 to show that his title to the invention was unsound1 and that somebody in ,switzerland had conceived it before him2 and that the improved form of the machine with saws1 instead of wire teeth1 did not come within the patent1 having been introduced by one ,hodgin ,holmes4 ,the popular voice1 stimulated by the most sordid methods1 was now raised against ,whitney throughout all the cotton ,states4 ,tennessee followed the example of ,south ,carolina1 annulling the contract made with him4 ,and the attempt was made in ,north ,carolina4 ,but a committee of the ,legislature1 to whom it was referred1 reported in ,whitney's favor1 declaring that the contract ought to be fulfilled with punctuality and good faith1 which resolution was adopted by both ,houses4 ,there were also high-minded men in ,south ,carolina who were indignant at the dishonorable measures adopted by their ,legislature of #ahjc2 their sentiments impressed the community so favorably with regard to ,whitney that1 at the session of #ahjd1 the ,legislature not only rescinded what the previous one had done1 but signified their respect for ,whitney by marked commendations4 ,miller died on ,december #g1 #ahjc4 ,in the earlier stages of the enterprise he had indulged high hopes of a great fortune2 perpetual disappointments appear to have attended him through life4 ,whitney was now left alone to contend single-handed against the difficulties which had1 for a series of years1 almost broken down the spirits of the partners4 ,the light1 moreover1 which seemed to be breaking1 proved but the twilight of prosperity4 ,the favorable issue of ,whitney's affairs in ,south ,carolina1 and the generous receipts he obtained from his contract with ,north ,carolina1 relieved him1 however1 from the embarrassments under which he had so long groaned1 and made him1 in some degree1 independent4 ,still1 no small portion of the funds thus collected in ,north and ,south ,carolina was expended in carrying on trials and endless lawsuits in ,georgia4 ,finally1 in the ,united ,states ,court1 held in ,georgia1 ,december1 #ahjg1 ,whitney's patent obtained a most important decision in its favor against a trespasser named ,fort4 ,it was on this trial that ,judge ,johnson gave a most celebrated decision in the following words3 ,to support the originality of the invention1 the complainants have produced a variety of depositions of witnesses1 examined under commission1 whose examinations expressly prove the origin1 progress1 and completion of the machine of ,whitney1 one of the copartners4 ,persons who were made privy to his first discovery testify to the several experiments which he made in their presence before he ventured to expose his invention to the scrutiny of the public eye4 ,but it is not necessary to resort to such testimony to maintain this point4 ,the jealousy of the artist to maintain that reputation which his ingenuity has justly acquired1 has urged him to unnecessary pains on this subject4 ,there are circumstances in the knowledge of all mankind which prove the originality of this invention more satisfactorily to the mind than the direct testimony of a host of witnesses4 ,the cotton-plant furnished clothing to mankind before the age of ,herodotus4 ,the green seed is a species much more productive than the black1 and by nature adapted to a much greater variety of climate1 but by reason of the strong adherence of the fibre to the seed1 without the aid of some more powerful machine for separating it than any formerly known among us1 the cultivation of it would never have been made an object4 ,the machine of which ,mr4 ,whitney claims the invention so facilitates the preparation of this species for use that the cultivation of it has suddenly become an object of infinitely greater national importance than that of the other species ever can be4 ,is it1 then1 to be imagined that if this machine had been before discovered1 the use of it would ever have been lost1 or could have been confined to any tract or country left unexplored by commercial enterprise8 ,but it is unnecessary to remark further upon this subject4 ,a number of years have elapsed since ,mr4 ,whitney took out his patent1 and no one has produced or pretended to prove the existence of a machine of similar construction or use4 ,with regard to the utility of this discovery the court would deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic4 ,is there a man who hears us who has not experienced its utility8 ,the whole interior of the ,southern ,states was languishing and its inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry1 when the invention of this machine at once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion4 ,from childhood to age it has presented to us a lucrative employment4 ,our debts have been paid off1 our capitals have increased1 and our lands trebled themselves in value4 ,we cannot express the weight of the obligation which the country owes to this invention4 ,the extent of it cannot now be seen4 ,some faint presentiment may be formed from the reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool1 flax1 silk1 and even furs in manufactures1 and may one day profitably supply the use of specie in our ,east ,india trade4 ,our sister ,states also participate in the benefits of this invention1 for besides affording the raw material for their manufacturers1 the bulkiness and quantity of the article affords a valuable employment for their shipping4 ,the influence of this decision1 however1 availed ,whitney very little1 for the term of his patent had nearly expired4 ,during ,miller's life more than sixty suits had been instituted in ,georgia1 and but a single decision on the merits of the claim was obtained4 ,in prosecution of his troublesome business1 ,whitney had made six different journeys to ,georgia1 several of which were accomplished by land at a time when the difficulties of such journeys were exceedingly great4 ,a gentleman who was well acquainted with ,whitney's affairs in the ,south1 and sometimes acted as his legal adviser1 says that in all his experience in the thorny profession of the law he never saw a case of such perseverance under prosecution4 ,he adds3 ,nor do ,i believe that ,i ever knew any other man who would have met them with equal coolness and firmness1 or who would finally have obtained even the partial success which he did4 ,he always called on me in ,new ,york on his way ,south when going to attend his endless trials and to meet the mischievous contrivances of men1 who seemed inexhaustible in their resources of evil4 ,even now1 after thirty years1 my head aches to recollect his narratives of new trials1 fresh disappointments1 and accumulated wrongs4 ,in #agih ,whitney had become deeply impressed with the uncertainty of all his hopes founded upon the cotton-gin1 and began to think seriously of devoting himself to some business in which his superior ingenuity1 seconded by uncommon industry1 would conduct him by a slow but sure road to a competent fortune4 ,it may be considered indicative of solid judgment and a well-balanced mind that he did not1 as is so frequently the case with men of inventive genius1 become so poisoned with the hopes of vast wealth as to be disqualified for making a reasonable provision for life by the sober earnings of private industry4 ,the enterprise which he selected in accordance with these views was the manufacture of arms for the ,united ,states4 ,through ,oliver ,wolcott1 then ,secretary of the ,treasury1 he obtained a contract for the manufacture of #aj1jjj stand of arms1 #d1jjj of which were to be delivered before the last of ,september of the ensuing year1 #agii4 ,whitney purchased for his works a site called ,east ,rock1 near ,new ,haven1 now known as ,whitneyville1 and justly admired for the romantic beauty of its scenery4 ,a water-fall offered the necessary power for the machinery4 ,here he began operations with great zeal4 ,his machinery was yet to be built1 his material collected1 and even his workmen to be taught1 and that in a business with which he was imperfectly acquainted4 ,a severe winter retarded his operations and rendered him incompetent to fulfil the contract4 ,only #ejj instead of #d1jjj stands were delivered the first year1 and eight years instead of two were found necessary for completing the whole4 ,during the eight years ,whitney was occupied in performing this work1 he applied himself to business with the most exemplary diligence1 rising every morning as soon as it was day1 and at night setting everything in order in all parts of the establishment4 ,his genius impressed itself on every part of the factory1 extending even to the most common tools1 most of which received some peculiar modification which improved them in accuracy or efficiency4 ,his machines for making the several parts of the musket were made to operate with the greatest possible degree of uniformity and precision4 ,the object at which he aimed1 and which he fully accomplished1 was to make the same parts of different guns1 as the locks1 for instance1 as much like each other as the successive impressions of a copper-plate engraving1 and it has generally been considered that ,whitney greatly improved the way of manufacturing arms and laid his country under permanent obligations by augmenting our facilities for national defence4 ,in #ahab he made a contract to manufacture for the ,united ,states #ae1jjj stand of arms1 and in the meantime a similar contract with the ,state of ,new ,york4 ,several other persons made contracts with the ,government at about the same time and attempted the manufacture of muskets4 ,the result of their efforts was a complete failure1 and in some instances they expended a considerable fortune in addition to the amount received for their work4 ,in #ahbb ,calhoun1 then ,secretary of ,war1 admitted in a conversation with ,whitney that the ,government was saving #be1jjj a year at the public armories alone by his improvements1 and it should be remembered that the utility of ,whitney's labors during this part of his life was not limited to this particular business4 ,in #ahab ,whitney made application to ,congress for the renewal of his patent for the cotton-gin4 ,in his memorial he presented the history of the struggles he had been forced to make in defence of his rights1 observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim until thirteen years of his patent had expired4 ,he states also that his invention had been a source of opulence to thousands of the citizens of the ,united ,states2 that as a labor-saving machine it would enable one man to perform the work of a thousand men1 and that it furnished to the whole family of mankind1 at a very cheap rate1 the most essential material for their clothing4 ,although so great advantages had already been experienced1 and the prospect of future benefits was so promising1 still1 many of those whose interest had been most promoted and the value of whose property had been most enhanced by this invention1 had obstinately persisted in refusing to make any compensation to the inventor4 ,from the ,state in which he had first made1 and where1 he had first introduced his machine1 and which had derived the most signal benefits--,georgia--he had received nothing2 and from no ,state had he received the amount of half a cent per pound on the cotton cleaned with his machines in one year4 ,estimating the value of the labor of one man at twenty cents a day1 the whole amount which had been received by him for his invention was not equal to the value of the labor saved in one hour by his machines then in use in the ,united ,states4 ,he continues3 ,it is objected that if the patentee succeeds in procuring the renewal of his patent he will be too rich4 ,there is no probability that the patentee1 if the term of his patent were extended for twenty years1 would ever obtain for his invention one-half as much as many an individual will gain by the use of it4 ,up to the present time the whole amount of what he had acquired from this source1 after deducting his expenses1 does not exceed one-half the sum which a single individual has gained by the use of the machine in one year4 ,it is true that considerable sums have been obtained from some of the ,states where the machine is used1 but no small portion of these sums has been expended in prosecuting his claim in a ,state where nothing has been obtained1 and where his machine has been used to the greatest advantage4 ,notwithstanding these cogent arguments1 the application was rejected by the courts4 ,some liberal-minded and enlightened men from the cotton districts favored the petition1 but a majority of the members from that part of the ,union were warmly opposed to granting it4 ,in a letter to ,robert ,fulton1 ,whitney says3 ,the difficulties with which ,i have to contend have originated1 principally1 in the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice4 ,my invention was new and distinct from every other2 it stood alone4 ,it was not interwoven with anything before known2 and it can seldom happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked and can be so clearly and specifically identified2 and ,i have always believed that ,i should have no difficulty in causing my right to be respected1 if it had been less valuable1 and been used only by a small portion of the community4 ,but the use of this machine being immensely profitable to almost every planter in the cotton districts1 all were interested in trespassing upon the patent-right1 and each kept the other in countenance4 ,demagogues made themselves popular by misrepresentations and unfounded clamors1 both against the right and against the law made for its protection4 ,hence there arose associations and combinations to oppose both4 ,at one time1 but few men in ,georgia dared to come into court and testify to the most simple facts within their knowledge1 relative to the use of the machine4 ,in one instance ,i had great difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in ,georgia1 although at the same moment there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat1 and all so near that the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the court-house4 ,such perseverance1 patience1 and uncommon skill were not1 however1 to go wholly unrewarded4 ,whitney's factory of arms in ,new ,haven made money for him1 and the ,southern ,states were not all guilty of ingratitude4 ,moreover1 in his private life he was extremely fortunate4 ,in ,january1 #ahag1 he married ,henrietta ,edwards1 the youngest daughter of ,judge ,pierpont ,edwards1 of ,connecticut4 ,a son and three daughters contributed to the sunshine of the close of a somewhat stormy and eventful life4 ,his last years were his happiest4 ,he found prosperity and honor in ,new ,haven1 where he died on ,january #h1 #ahbe1 after a tedious illness4 ,in person ,whitney was of more than usual height1 with much dignity of manner and an open1 pleasant face4 ,among his particular friends no man was more esteemed4 ,some of the earliest of his intimate associates were among the latest4 ,his sense of honor was high1 and his feeling of resentment and indignation under injustice correspondingly strong4 ,he could1 however1 be cool when his opponents were hot1 and his strong sense of the injuries he had suffered did not impair the natural serenity of his temper4 ,the value of his famous invention has so steadily grown that its money importance to this country can scarcely be estimated in figures4 ,his tomb in ,new ,haven is after a model of that of ,scipio1 at ,rome1 and bears the following inscription3 ,,eli ,,whitney1 ,,the ,,inventor ,,of ,,the ,,cotton-,,gin4 ,,of ,,useful ,,science ,,and ,,arts1 ,,the ,,efficient ,,patron ,,and ,,improver4 ,,in ,,the ,,social ,,relations ,,of ,,life1 ,a ,,model ,,of ,,excellence4 ,,while ,,private ,,affection ,,weeps ,,at ,,his ,,tomb1 ,,his ,,country ,,honors ,,his ,,memory4 ,,born ,,dec4 #h1 #agfe4 ,,died ,,jan4 #h1 #ahbe4 ,,iv ,,elias ,,howe4 ,illustration3 ,elias ,howe4 ,in looking over the history of great inventions it is remarkable how uniformly those discoveries that helped mankind most have been derided1 abused1 and opposed by the very classes which in the end they were destined to bless4 ,nearly every great invention has had literally to be forced into popular acceptance4 ,the bowmen of the ,middle ,ages resisted the introduction of the musket2 the sedan-chair carriers would not allow hackney carriages to be used2 the stagecoach lines attempted by all possible devices to block the advance of the railway4 ,when1 in #agjg1 ,dr4 ,papin showed his first rude conception of a steamboat1 it was seized by the boatmen1 who feared that it would deprive them of a living4 ,kay was mobbed in ,lancashire when he tried to introduce his fly-shuttle2 ,hargreaves had his spinning-frame destroyed by a ,blackburn mob2 ,crampton had to hide his spinning-mule in a lumber-room for fear of a similar fate2 ,arkwright1 the inventor of the spinning-frame1 was denounced as the enemy of the working-classes and his mill destroyed2 ,jacquard narrowly escaped being thrown into the river ,rhone by a crowd of furious weavers when his new loom was first put into operation2 ,cartwright had to abandon his power-loom for years because of the bitter animosity of the weavers toward it4 ,riots were organized in ,nottingham against the use of the stocking-loom4 ,it is not therefore surprising that the greatest labor-saving machine of domestic life1 the sewing-machine1 should have been received with anything but thanks4 ,howe was abused1 ridiculed1 and denounced as the enemy of man1 and especially of poor sewing-women1 the very class whose toil he has done so much to lighten4 ,curses instead of blessings were showered upon him during the first years that followed the successful working of his wonderful machine4 ,fortunately for the inventor1 the age of persecution had almost passed1 and ,howe lived to receive the rewards he so fully deserved4 ,elias ,howe1 ,jr41 was born in ,spencer1 ,mass41 in #ahai4 ,his father was a farmer and miller1 and the eight children of the family1 as was common with all poor people of the time1 were early taught to do light work of one kind or another4 ,when ,elias was six years old he was set with his brothers and sisters at sticking wire teeth through the leather straps used for cotton-cards4 ,when older he helped his father in the mill1 and in summer picked up a little book knowledge at the district school4 ,as a boy he was frail in constitution1 and he was slightly lame4 ,when eleven years old he attempted farm labor for a neighbor1 but1 was not strong enough for it and returned to his father's mill1 where he remained until he was sixteen4 ,it was here that he first began to like machinery4 ,a friend who had visited ,lowell gave him such an account of that bustling city and its big mills that young ,howe1 becoming dissatisfied1 obtained his father's consent to leave1 and found employment in one of the ,lowell cotton-mills4 ,the financial crash of #ahcg stopped the looms1 and ,howe obtained a place in a ,cambridge machine-shop in which his cousin1 ,nathaniel ,p4 ,banks1 afterward ,governor of ,massachusetts1 also worked4 ,howe's first job happened to be upon a new hemp-carding machine of ,treadwell4 ,at the age of twenty-one ,howe married and moved to ,boston1 finding employment in the machine-shop of ,ari ,davis4 ,he is described as being a capital workman1 more full of resources than of plodding industry1 however1 and rather apt to spend more time in suggesting a better way of doing a job than in following instructions4 ,with such a disposition1 and inasmuch as his suggestions were not considered of value1 he had rather a hard time of it4 ,three children were born to the young couple4 ,as ,howe's earnings were slight and his health none of the best1 his wife tried to add to the family income1 and at evening1 when ,howe lay exhausted upon the bed after his day's work1 the young mother patiently sewed4 ,her toil was to some purpose4 ,with his natural bent for mechanics1 ,howe could not be a silent witness of this incessant and poorly paid labor without becoming interested in affording aid4 ,moreover1 he was constantly employed upon new spinning and weaving machines for doing work that for thousands of years had been done painfully and slowly by hand4 ,the possibility of sewing by machinery had often been spoken of before that day1 but the problem seemed to present insuperable difficulties4 ,elias ,howe had1 as we know1 peculiar fitness for such work4 ,he had seen much of inventors and inventions1 and knew something of the dangers and disappointments in store for him4 ,in the intervals between important jobs at the shop he nursed the idea of a sewing-machine1 keeping his own counsel4 ,in his first rude attempt it appeared to him1 that machine-sewing could only be accomplished with very coarse thread or string2 fine thread would not stand the strain4 ,for his first machine he made a needle pointed at both ends1 with an eye in the middle2 it was arranged to work up and down1 carrying the thread through at each thrust4 ,it was only after more than a year's work upon this device that he decided it would not do4 ,this first attempt was a sort of imitation of sewing by hand1 the machine following more or less the movements of the hand4 ,finally1 after repeated failures1 it became plain to him that something radically different was needed1 and that there must be another stitch1 and perhaps another needle or half a dozen needles1 in such a machine4 ,he then conceived the idea of using two threads1 and making the stitch by means of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point4 ,this was the real solution of the problem4 ,in ,october1 #ahdd1 he made a rough model of his first sewing-machine1 all of wood and wire1 and found that it would actually sew4 ,in one of the earliest accounts of the invention it is thus described3 ,he used a needle and a shuttle of novel construction1 and combined them with holding surfaces1 feed mechanism1 and other devices as they had never before been brought together in one machine4444 ,one of the principal features of ,mr4 ,howe's invention is the combination of a grooved needle having an eye near its point1 and vibrating in the direction of its length1 with a side-pointed shuttle for effecting a locked stitch1 and forming1 with the threads1 one on each side of the cloth1 a firm and lasting seam not easily ripped4 ,meanwhile ,howe had given up work as a machinist and had moved to his father's house in ,cambridge1 where the elder ,howe had a shop for the cutting of palm-leaf used in the manufacture of hats4 ,here ,elias and his little family lived1 and in the garret the inventor put up a lathe upon which he made the parts of his sewing-machine4 ,to provide for his family he did such odd jobs as he could find2 but it was hard work to get bread1 to say nothing of butter1 and to make matters worse his father lost his shop by fire4 ,elias knew that his sewing-machine would work1 but he had no money wherewith to buy the materials for a machine of steel and iron1 and without such a machine he could not hope to interest capital in it4 ,he needed at least #ejj with which to prove the value of his great invention4 ,fortune threw in his way a coal and wood dealer of ,cambridge1 named ,fisher1 who had some money4 ,fisher liked the invention and agreed to board ,howe and his family1 to give ,howe a workshop in his house1 and to advance the #ejj necessary for the construction of a first machine4 ,in return he was to become a half owner in the patent should ,howe succeed in obtaining one4 ,in ,december1 #ahdd1 ,howe accordingly moved into ,fisher's house1 and here the new marvel was brought into the world4 ,all that winter ,howe worked over his device in ,fisher's garret1 making many changes as unforeseen difficulties arose4 ,he worked all day1 and sometimes nearly all night1 succeeding by ,april1 #ahde1 in sewing a seam four yards long with his machine4 ,by the middle of ,may the machine was completed1 and in ,july ,howe sewed with it the seams of two woollen suits1 one for himself and the other for ,fisher2 the sewing was so well done that it promised to outlast the cloth4 ,for many years this machine was exhibited in a shop in ,new ,york4 ,it showed how completely1 at really the first attempt1 ,howe had mastered the enormous difficulties in his way4 ,its chief features are those upon which were founded all the sewing-machines that followed4 ,late in #ahde ,howe obtained his first patent and began to take means to introduce his sewing-machine to the public4 ,he first offered it to the tailors of ,boston1 who admitted its usefulness1 but assured him that it would never be adopted1 as it would ruin their trade4 ,other efforts were equally unsuccessful2 the more perfectly the machine did its work1 the more obstinate and determined seemed to be the resistance to it4 ,everyone admitted and praised the ingenuity of the invention1 but no one would invest a dollar in it4 ,fisher became disheartened and withdrew from the partnership1 and ,howe and his family moved back into his father's house4 ,for a time the poor inventor abandoned his machine and obtained a place as engineer on a railway1 driving a locomotive1 until his health entirely broke down4 ,forced to turn again to his beloved sewing-machine for want of anything better to do1 ,howe decided to send his brother ,amasa to ,england with a machine4 ,amasa reached ,london in ,october1 #ahdf1 and met a certain ,william ,thomas1 to whom he explained the invention4 ,thomas was much impressed with its possibilities and offered #a1bej for the machine and also to engage ,elias ,howe at #ae a week if he would enter his business of umbrella and corset maker4 ,this was at least a livelihood to the latter1 and he sailed for ,england1 where for the next eight months he worked for ,thomas1 whom he found an uncommonly hard master4 ,he was indeed so harshly treated that1 although his wife and three children had arrived in ,london1 he threw up his situation4 ,for a time his condition was a piteous one4 ,he was in a strange country1 without friends or money4 ,for days at a time the little family were without more than crusts to live upon4 ,believing that he could struggle along better alone1 ,howe sent his family home with the first few dollars that he could obtain from the other side and remained in ,london4 ,there were certain things which caused him to hope for better times ahead4 ,but such hopes were delusive1 it seems1 and after some months of hardship he followed his family to this country1 pawning his model and his patent papers in order to obtain the necessary money for the passage4 ,as he landed in ,new ,york with less than a dollar in his pocket1 he received news that his wife was dying of consumption in ,cambridge4 ,he had no money for travelling by rail1 and he was too feeble to attempt the journey on foot4 ,it took him some days to obtain the money for his fare to ,boston1 but he arrived in time to be present at the death-bed of his wife4 ,before he could recover from this blow he had news that the ship by which he had sent home the few household goods still remaining to him had gone to the bottom4 ,this was poor ,howe's darkest hour4 ,others had seen the value of the sewing-machine1 and during his absence in ,england several imitations of it had been made and sold to great advantage by unscrupulous mechanics1 who had paid no attention to the rights of the inventor4 ,such machines were already spoken of as wonders by the newspapers1 and were beginning to be used in several industries4 ,howe's patent was so strong that it was not difficult to find money to defend it1 once the practical value of the invention had been well established1 and in ,august1 #ahej1 he began several suits to make his rights clear4 ,at the same time he moved to ,new ,york1 where he began in a small way to manufacture machines in partnership with a business man named ,bliss1 who undertook to sell them4 ,it was not until ,howe's rights to the invention had been fully established1 which was done by the decision of ,judge ,sprague1 in #ahed1 that the real value of the sewing-machine as a money-making venture began to be apparent and even then its great importance was so little realized1 even by ,bliss1 who was in the business and died in #ahee1 that ,howe was enabled to buy the interest of his heirs for a small sum4 ,it was during these efforts to introduce the sewing-machine that occurred what were known as the sewing-machine riots--disturbances of no special importance1 however--fomented by labor leaders in the ,new ,york shops in which cheap clothing was manufactured4 ,howe's sewing-machine was denounced as a menace to the thousands of men and women who worked in these shops1 and in several establishments the first ,howe machines introduced were so injured by mischievous persons as to retard the success of the experiment for nearly a year4 ,failing to stop their introduction by such means a public demonstration against them was organized and for a time threatened such serious trouble that some of the large shops gave up the use of the machine2 but in small establishments employing but a few workmen they continued to be used and were soon found to be so indispensable that all opposition faded away4 ,the patent suits forced upon ,howe by a number of infringers were costly drains upon the inventor1 but in the end all other manufacturers were compelled to pay tribute to him1 and in six years his royalties grew from #cjj to more than #bjj1jjj a year4 ,in #ahfc his royalties were estimated at #d1jjj a day4 ,at the ,paris ,exposition of #ahfg he was awarded a gold medal and the ribbon of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,howe's health1 never strong1 was so thoroughly broken by the years of struggle and hardship he met with while trying to introduce his machine that he never completely recovered4 ,if honors and money were any comfort to him1 his last years must have been happy ones1 for his invention made him famous1 and he had been enough of a workingman to recognize the blessing he had conferred upon millions of women released from the slavery of the needle2 he had answered ,hood's ,song of the ,shirt4 ,he died on ,october #c1 #ahfg1 at his home in ,brooklyn1 ,n4,y4 ,those who knew ,howe personally speak of him as rather a handsome man1 with a head somewhat like ,franklin's and a reserved1 quiet manner4 ,his bitter struggle against poverty and disease left its impress upon him even to the last4 ,one trait frequently mentioned was his readiness to find good points in the thousand and one variations and sometimes improvements upon his invention4 ,during the years #aheh-fg1 when he died1 there were recorded nearly three hundred patents affecting the sewing-machine1 taken out by other inventors4 ,howe was always ready to help along such improvements by advice and often by money4 ,he fought sturdily for his rights1 but once those conceded he was a generous rival4 ,v4 ,,samuel ,f4,b4 ,,morse4 ,illustration3 ,birthplace of ,s4,f4,b4 ,morse1 ,built #agge4 ,samuel ,finley ,breese ,morse was the eldest son of the ,rev4 ,jedediah ,morse1 an eminent ,new ,england divine4 ,the ,rev4 ,samuel ,finley1 ,d4,d41 second president of the ,college of ,new ,jersey1 ,princeton1 was his maternal great-grandfather1 after whom he was named4 ,breese was the maiden name of his mother4 ,the famous inventor of the telegraph was born at the foot of ,breed's ,hill1 ,charlestown1 ,mass41 ,april #bg1 #agia4 ,dr4 ,belknap1 of ,boston1 writing to ,postmaster-,general ,hazard1 ,new ,york1 says3 ,congratulate the ,monmouth judge 7,mr4 ,breese1 the grandfather7 on the birth of a grandson4 ,next ,sunday he is to be loaded with names1 not quite so many as the ,spanish ambassador who signed the treaty of peace of #aghc1 but only four4 ,as to the child1 ,i saw him asleep1 so can say nothing of his eye1 or his genius peeping through it4 ,he may have the sagacity of a ,jewish rabbi1 or the profundity of a ,calvin1 or the sublimity of a ,homer for aught ,i know1 but time will bring forth all things4 ,jedediah ,morse studied theology under the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,jonathan ,edwards4 ,before he began preaching1 and while teaching school in ,new ,haven1 he began his ,american ,geography1 which was afterward indentified with his name4 ,he began his ministry at ,norwich1 whence he was called back to be tutor in ,yale4 ,his health was inadequate to the work and he went to ,georgia1 returning to ,charlestown1 ,mass41 as pastor of the ,first ,congregational ,church1 on the day that ,washington was inaugurated as ,president in ,new ,york1 ,april #cj1 #aghi4 ,dr4 ,eliot1 speaking of ,jedediah ,morse1 said3 ,what an astonishing impetus that man has6 ,president ,dwight said3 ,he is as full of resources as an egg is of meat4 ,daniel ,webster spoke of him as always thinking1 always writing1 always talking1 always acting4 ,illustration3 ,s4,f4,b4 ,morse4 ,morse's mother1 ,elizabeth ,anne ,breese1 came of good ,scotch-,irish stock4 ,she was married to ,jedediah ,morse in #aghi1 and was noted as a calm1 judicious1 and thinking woman1 with a will of her own4 ,when the child1 ,samuel ,f4,b4 ,morse1 was four years old he was sent to school to an old lady within a few hundred yards of the parsonage4 ,she was an invalid1 unable to leave her chair1 and governed her unruly flock with a long rattan which reached across the small room in which it was gathered4 ,one of her punishments was pinning the culprit to her own dress1 and ,morse remarks that his first attempts at drawing were discouraged in this fashion4 ,perhaps the fact that he selected the old lady's face as a model had something to do with it4 ,at the age of seven he was sent to school at ,andover1 where he was fitted for entering ,phillips ,academy1 and prepared here for ,yale1 joining the class of #ahjg4 ,when he was thirteen years old1 at ,andover1 he wrote a sketch of ,demosthenes and sent it to his father1 by whom it was preserved as a mark of the learning and taste of the child4 ,dr4 ,timothy ,dwight was then president of ,yale and a warm friend of the elder ,morse4 ,finley ,morse1 as he was then known1 received therefore the deep personal interest of ,dr4 ,dwight4 ,jeremiah ,day was professor of natural philosophy in ,yale ,college1 and under his instruction ,morse began the study of electricity1 receiving perhaps those impressions that were destined to produce so great an influence upon him and1 through him1 upon this century4 ,professor ,day was then young and ardent in the pursuit of science1 kindling readily the enthusiasm of his students4 ,he afterward became president of the college4 ,there was at the same time in the faculty ,benjamin ,silliman1 who was professor of chemistry1 and near whom ,morse resided for several years4 ,years afterward the testimony of ,professors ,day and ,silliman was given in court1 when it was important1 in the defence of his claim to priority in the invention of the telegraph4 ,through them ,morse was able to show that he was early interested in the study of chemistry and electricity4 ,during this litigation ,morse did not know that there were scores of letters1 written by him as a young student to his father1 among the papers of ,dr ,jedediah ,morse1 that would have shown conclusively his interest and aptitude in these studies4 ,the papers were brought to light when the life of ,morse by ,prime came to be written4 ,the first part of ,morse's life was devoted to art4 ,at a very early age he showed his taste in this direction1 and at the age of fifteen painted a fairly good picture in water colors of a room in his father's house1 with his parents1 himself1 and two brothers around a table4 ,this picture used to hang in his home in ,new ,york by the side of his last painting4 ,from that time his desire to become an artist haunted him through his collegiate life4 ,in ,february1 #ahaa1 he painted a picture1 now in the office of the mayor of ,charlestown1 ,mass41 depicting the landing of the ,pilgrims at ,plymouth1 which1 with a landscape painted at about the same time1 decided his father1 by the advice of ,stuart1 to permit him to visit ,europe with ,washington ,allston4 ,he bore letters to ,west and to ,copley1 from both of whom he received the kindest attention and encouragement4 ,as a test for his fitness for a place as student in the ,royal ,academy1 ,morse made a drawing from a small cast of the ,farnese ,hercules4 ,he took this to ,west1 who examined the drawing carefully and handed it back1 saying3 ,very well1 sir1 very well2 go on and finish it4 ,it is finished1 said the expectant student4 ,oh1 no1 said the president4 ,look here1 and here1 and here1 pointing out many unfinished places which had escaped the eye of the young artist4 ,morse quickly observed the defects1 spent a week in further perfecting his drawing1 and then took it to ,west1 confident that it was above criticism4 ,the venerable president of the ,academy bestowed more praise than before and1 with a pleasant smile1 handed it back to ,morse1 saying3 ,very well1 indeed1 sir4 ,go on and finish it4 ,is it not finished8 inquired the almost discouraged student4 ,see1 said ,west1 you have not marked that muscle1 nor the articulation of the finger-joints4 ,three days more were spent upon the drawing1 when it was taken back to the implacable critic4 ,very clever1 indeed1 said ,west2 very clever4 ,now go on and finish it4 ,i cannot finish it1 ,morse replied1 when the old man1 patting him on the shoulder1 said3 ,well1 ,i have tried you long enough4 ,now1 sir1 you have learned more by this drawing than you would have accomplished in double the time by a dozen half-finished beginnings4 ,it is not many drawings1 but the character of one which makes a thorough draughtsman4 ,finish one picture1 sir1 and you are a painter4 ,morse heeded this advice4 ,he went to work with ,allston1 and encouraged by the veteran1 ,copley1 he began upon a large picture for exhibition in the ,royal ,academy1 choosing as his subject ,the ,dying ,hercules4 ,he modelled his figure in clay1 as the best of the old painters did4 ,it was his first attempt in the sculptor's art4 ,the cast was made in plaster and taken to ,west1 who was delighted with it4 ,this model contended for the prize of a gold medal offered by the ,society of ,arts for the best original cast of a single figure1 and won it4 ,in the large room of the ,london ,adelphi1 in the presence of the ,british nobility1 foreign ambassadors1 and distinguished strangers1 the ,duke of ,norfolk publicly presented the medal to ,morse on ,may #ac1 #ahac4 ,at the same time the painting from this model1 then on exhibition at the ,royal ,academy1 received great praise from the critics1 who placed ,the ,dying ,hercules among the first twelve pictures in a collection of almost two thousand4 ,this was an extraordinary success for so young a man1 and ,morse determined to try for the highest prize offered by the ,royal ,academy for the best historical composition1 the decision to be made in #ahae4 ,for that purpose he produced his ,judgment of ,jupiter in ,july of that year4 ,west assured him that it would take the prize1 but ,morse was unable to comply with the rules of the ,academy1 which required the victor to receive the medal in person4 ,his father had summoned him home4 ,west urged the ,academy to make an exception in his case1 but it could not be done1 and the young painter had to be contented with his assurances that he would certainly have won the prize 7a gold medal and #bej7 had he remained4 ,west was always kind to ,americans1 and ,morse was a favorite with him4 ,one day1 when the venerable painter was at work upon his great picture1 ,christ ,rejected1 after carefully examining ,morse's hands and noting their beauty1 he said3 ,let me tie you with this cord and take that place while ,i paint in the hands of the ,saviour4 ,this was done1 and when he released the young artist1 he said to him3 ,you may now say1 if you please1 that you had a hand in this picture4 ,a number of noted ,english artists--,turner1 ,northcote1 ,sir ,james ,lawrence1 ,flaxman--and literary men--,coleridge1 ,wordsworth1 ,rogers1 and ,crabbe among them--were attracted by young ,morse's proficiency and pleasant manners1 and when in ,august1 #ahae1 he packed his picture1 ,the ,judgment of ,jupiter1 and sailed for home1 he bore with him the good wishes of some of ,england's most distinguished men4 ,when ,morse reached ,boston1 although but twenty-four years old1 he found that fame had preceded him4 ,his prestige was such that he set up his easel with high hopes and fair prospects for the future1 both destined soon to be dispelled4 ,the taste of ,america had not risen to the appreciation of historical pictures4 ,his original compositions and his excellent copies of the masterpieces of the ,old ,world excited the admiration of cultured people1 but no orders were given for them4 ,he left ,boston almost penniless after having waited for months for patronage1 and determined to try to earn his bread by painting the portraits of people in the rural districts of ,new ,england1 where his father's name was a household word4 ,during the autumn of #ahaf and the winter of #ahaf-ahag he visited several towns in ,new ,hampshire and ,vermont1 painting portraits in ,walpole1 ,hanover1 ,windsor1 ,portsmouth1 and ,concord4 ,he received the modest sum of #ae for each portrait4 ,from ,concord1 ,n4,h41 he writes to his parents3 ,i am still here 7,august #afth7 and am passing my time very agreeably4 ,i have painted five portraits at #ae each1 and have two more engaged and many talked of4 ,i think ,i shall get along well4 ,i believe ,i could make an independent fortune in a few years if ,i devoted myself exclusively to portraits1 so great is the desire for good portraits in the different country towns4 ,he doubtless was candid when he wrote that he was passing his time in ,concord very agreeably1 for it was here that he met ,lucretia ,p4 ,walker1 who was accounted the most beautiful and accomplished young lady of the town1 whom ,morse subsequently married4 ,she was a young woman of great personal loveliness and rare good sense4 ,the young artist was attracted by her beauty1 her sweetness of temper1 and high intellectual qualities4 ,all the letters that she wrote to him before and after their marriage he carefully preserved1 and these are witnesses to her intelligence1 education1 tenderness of feeling1 and admirable fitness to be the wife of such a man4 ,gradually ,morse's portraits became so much in demand that he was enabled to increase his price to #fj1 and as he painted four a week upon the average1 and received a good deal of money during a tour in the ,south1 he was enabled to return to ,new ,england in #ahah with #c1jjj1 and to marry ,miss ,walker on ,october #fth of that year4 ,the first years of ,morse's married life were passed in ,charleston1 ,s4,c41 after which he returned to ,new ,england1 and having laid by some little capital1 he took up again what he deemed to be his real vocation--the painting of great historical pictures4 ,his first venture in this direction was an exhibition picture of the ,house of ,representatives at ,washington4 ,as a business venture it was disastrous1 and resulted in the loss of eighteen months of precious time4 ,it was finally sold to an ,englishman4 ,then began ,morse's life in ,new ,york4 ,through the influence of ,isaac ,lawrence he obtained a commission from the city authorities of ,new ,york to paint a full-length portrait of ,lafayette1 who was then in this country4 ,he had just completed his study from life in ,washington in ,february1 #ahbe1 when he received the news of the death of his wife4 ,a little more than a year afterward both his father and mother died4 ,thenceforward his children and art absorbed his affections4 ,he was an artist1 heart and soul1 and his professional brethren soon had good reason to be grateful to him4 ,the ,american ,academy of ,fine ,arts1 then under the presidency of ,colonel ,john ,trumbull1 was in a languishing state and of little use to artists4 ,the most advanced of its members felt the need of relief1 and a few of them met at ,morse's rooms to discuss their troubles4 ,at that meeting ,morse proposed the formation of a new society of artists1 and at a meeting held at the ,new ,york ,historical ,society's rooms the ,new ,york ,drawing ,association was organized1 with ,morse as its president4 ,trumbull endeavored to compel the new society to profess allegiance to the academy1 but ,morse protested1 and thanks to his advice1 on ,january #ah1 #ahbf1 a new art association was organized under the name of the ,national ,academy of ,design4 ,morse was its first president1 and for sixteen years he was annually elected to that office4 ,the friends of the old academy were wrathful and assailed the new association4 ,a war of words1 in which ,morse acted as the champion of the new society1 was waged until victory was conceded to the reformers4 ,thus ,morse inaugurated a new era in the history of the fine arts in this country4 ,he wrote1 talked1 lectured incessantly for the advancement of art and the ,academy of ,design4 ,illustration3 ,under ,side of a ,modern ,switchboard1 showing #b1jjj ,wires4 ,in #ahbi ,morse made a second visit to ,europe1 where he was warmly welcomed and honored by the ,royal ,academy4 ,during three years or more he lived in continental cities1 studying the ,louvre in ,paris and making of the famous gallery an exhibition picture which contained about fifty miniatures of the works in that collection4 ,in ,november1 #ahcb1 he was back again in ,new ,york1 with high hopes as to his future4 ,allston1 writing to ,dunlap in #ahcd1 said3 ,i rejoice to hear your report of ,morse's advance in his art4 ,i know what is in him perhaps better than anyone else4 ,if he will only bring out all that is there he will show parts that many now do not dream of4 ,for several years the thoughts of the artist ,morse had been busy with a matter wholly outside of his chosen domain4 ,some lectures on electro-magnetism by his intimate friend1 ,judge ,freeman ,dana1 given at the ,athenum while ,morse was also lecturing there on the fine arts1 had greatly interested him in the subject1 and he learned much in conversation with ,dana4 ,while on his second visit to ,europe ,morse made himself acquainted with the labors of scientific men in their endeavors to communicate intelligence between far-distant places by means of electro-magnetism1 and he saw an electro-magnet signalling instrument in operation4 ,he knew that so early as #afdi a ,jesuit priest had prophesied an electric telegraph1 and that for half a century or more students had partially succeeded in attempts of this kind4 ,but no practical telegraph had yet been invented4 ,in #aggd ,le ,sage made an electro-signalling instrument with twenty-four wires1 one for each letter of the alphabet4 ,in #ahbe ,sturgeon invented an electro-magnet4 ,in #ahcj ,professor ,henry increased the magnetic force that ,morse afterward used4 ,on board the ship ,sully1 in which ,morse sailed from ,havre to ,new ,york1 in the autumn of #ahcb1 the recent discovery in ,france of the means of obtaining an electric spark from a magnet was a favorite topic of conversation among the passengers1 and it was during the voyage that ,morse conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic and chemical recording telegraph4 ,before he reached ,new ,york he had made drawings and specifications of his conception1 which he exhibited to his fellow passengers4 ,few great inventions that have made their authors immortal were so completely grasped at inception as this4 ,morse was accustomed to keep small note-books in which to make records of his work1 and scores of these books are still in existence4 ,as he sat upon the deck of the ,sully1 one night after dinner1 he drew from his pocket one of these books and began to make marks1 to represent letters and figures to be produced by electricity at a distance4 ,the mechanism by which the results were to be reached was wrought out by slow and laborious thought1 but the vision as a whole was clear4 ,the current of electricity passed instantaneously to any distance along a wire1 but the current being interrupted1 a spark appeared4 ,this spark represented one sign2 its absence another2 the time of its absence still another4 ,here are three signs to be combined into the representation of figures or letters4 ,they can be made to form an alphabet4 ,words may thus be indicated4 ,a telegraph1 an instrument to record at a distance1 will result4 ,continents shall be crossed4 ,this great and wide sea shall be no barrier4 ,if it will go ten miles without stopping1 he said1 ,i can make it go around the globe4 ,he worked incessantly all that next day and could not sleep at night in his berth4 ,in a few days he submitted some rough drafts of his invention to ,william ,c4 ,rives1 of ,virginia1 who was returning from ,paris1 where he had been minister of the ,united ,states4 ,mr4 ,rives suggested various difficulties1 over which ,morse spent several sleepless nights1 announcing in the morning at breakfast-table the new devices by which he proposed to accomplish the task before him4 ,he exhibited a drawing of the instrument which he said would do the work1 and so completely had he mastered all the details that five years afterward1 when a model of this instrument was constructed1 it was instantly recognized as the one he had devised and drawn in his sketch-book and exhibited to his fellow passengers on the ship4 ,in view of subsequent claims made by a fellow passenger to the honor of having suggested the telegraph1 these details are interesting and important4 ,illustration3 ,the ,first ,telegraphic ,instrument1 as ,exhibited in #ahcg by ,morse4 ,circumstances delayed the construction of a recording telegraph by ,morse1 but the subject slumbered in his mind4 ,during his absence abroad he had been elected professor of the literature of the arts of design1 in the ,university of the ,city of ,new ,york1 and this work occupied his attention for some time4 ,three years afterward1 in ,november1 #ahce1 he completed a rude telegraph instrument--the first recording apparatus2 but it embodied the mechanical principle now in use the world over4 ,his whole plan was not completed until ,july1 #ahcg1 when by means of two instruments he was able to communicate from as well as to a distant point4 ,in ,september hundreds of people saw the new instrument in operation at the university1 most of whom looked upon it as a scientific toy constructed by an unfortunate dreamer4 ,the following year the invention was sufficiently perfected to enable ,morse to direct the attention of ,congress to it and ask its aid in the construction of an experimental line between ,washington and ,baltimore4 ,late in the long session of #ahch he appeared before that body with his instrument4 ,before leaving ,new ,york with it he had invited a few friends to see it work4 ,now began in the life of ,morse a period of years during which his whole time was devoted to convincing the world1 first1 that his electric telegraph would really communicate messages1 and1 secondly1 that if it worked at all1 it was of great practical value4 ,strange to say that this required any argument at all4 ,but that in those days it did may be inferred from the fact that ,morse could then find no help far or near4 ,his invention was regarded as interesting1 but of no importance either scientifically or commercially4 ,in ,washington1 where he first went1 he found so little encouragement that he went to ,europe with the hope of drawing the attention of foreign governments to the advantages1 and of securing patents for the invention2 he had filed a caveat at the ,patent ,office in this country4 ,his mission was a failure4 ,england refused him a patent1 and ,france gave him only a useless paper which assured for him no special privileges4 ,he returned home disappointed but not discouraged1 and waited four years longer before he again attempted to interest ,congress in his invention4 ,illustration3 ,the ,modern ,morse ,telegraph4 ,this extraordinary struggle lasted twelve years1 during which1 with his mind absorbed in one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for bread upon his profession as an artist1 it was impossible to pursue art with the enthusiasm and industry essential to success4 ,his situation was forlorn in the extreme4 ,the father of three little children1 now motherless1 his pecuniary means exhausted by his residence in ,europe1 and unable to pursue art without sacrificing his invention1 he was at his wits' ends4 ,he had visions of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that should bring the continents of the earth into intercourse4 ,he was poor and knew that wealth as well as fame was within his reach4 ,he had long received assistance from his father and brothers when his profession did not supply the needed means of support for himself and family2 but it seemed like robbery to take the money of others for experiments1 the success of which he could not expect them to believe in until he could give practical evidence that the instrument would do the work proposed4 ,it was the old story of genius contending with poverty4 ,his brothers comforted1 encouraged1 and cheered him4 ,in the house of his brother ,richard he found a home and the tender care that he required4 ,sidney1 the other brother1 also helped him4 ,on the corner of ,nassau and ,beekman ,streets1 now the site of the handsome ,morse ,building1 his brothers erected a building where were the offices of the newspaper of which they were the editors and proprietors4 ,in the fifth story of this building a room was assigned to him which was for several years his studio1 bedroom1 parlor1 kitchen1 and workshop4 ,on one side of the room stood a little cot on which he slept in the brief hours which he allowed himself for repose4 ,on the other side stood his lathe with which the inventor turned the brass apparatus necessary in the construction of his instruments4 ,he had1 with his own hands1 first whittled the model2 then he made the moulds for the castings4 ,here were brought to him1 day by day1 crackers and the simplest food1 by which1 with tea prepared by himself1 he sustained life while he toiled incessantly to give being to the idea that possessed him4 ,illustration3 ,morse ,making his own ,instrument4 7,from ,prime's ,life of ,morse47 ,before leaving for ,europe he had suffered a great disappointment as an artist4 ,the government had offered to ,american artists1 to be selected by a committee of ,congress1 commissions to paint pictures for the panels in the rotunda of the ,capitol4 ,morse was anxious to be employed upon one or more of them4 ,he was the president of the ,national ,academy of ,design1 and there was an eminent fitness in calling him to this national work4 ,allston urged the appointment of ,morse4 ,john ,quincy ,adams1 then a member of the ,house and on the committee to whom this subject was referred1 submitted a resolution in the ,house that foreign artists be allowed to compete for these commissions1 and in support alleged that there were no ,american artists competent to execute the paintings4 ,this gave great and just offence to the artists and the public4 ,a severe reply to ,adams appeared in the ,new ,york ,evening ,post4 ,it was written by ,james ,fenimore ,cooper1 but it was attributed to ,morse1 whose pen was well known to be skillful1 and in consequence his name was rejected by the committee4 ,he never recovered fully from the effects of that blow4 ,forty years afterward he could not speak of it without emotion4 ,he had consecrated years of his life to the preparation for just such work4 ,it was well for him and for his country and the world that the artist in ,morse was disappointed4 ,from painter he became inventor1 and from that time until the world acknowledged the greatness and importance of his invention he turned not back4 ,his appointment as professor in the ,city ,university entitled him to certain rooms in the ,university ,building looking out upon ,washington ,square1 and here the first working models of the telegraph were brought into existence4 ,there1 he says1 ,i immediately commenced1 with very limited means1 to experiment upon my invention4 ,my first instrument was made up of an old picture or canvas frame fastened to a table2 the wheels of an old wooden clock1 moved by a weight to carry the paper forward2 three wooden drums1 upon one of which the paper was wound and passed over the other two2 a wooden pendulum suspended to the top piece of the picture or stretching frame and vibrating across the paper as it passes over the centre wooden drum2 a pencil at the lower end of the pendulum1 in contact with the paper2 an electro-magnet fastened to a shelf across the picture or stretching frame1 opposite to an armature made fast to the pendulum2 a type rule and type for breaking the circuit1 resting on an endless band1 composed of carpet-binding1 which passed over two wooden rollers moved by a wooden crank4 ,illustration3 ,train ,telegraph--the message transmitted by induction from the moving train to the single wire4 ,illustration3 ,interior of a ,car on the ,lehigh ,valley ,railroad1 showing the ,method of ,operating the ,train ,telegraph4 ,up to the autumn of #ahcg my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a form that ,i felt a reluctance to have it seen4 ,my means were very limited--so limited as to preclude the possibility of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical finish as to warrant my success in venturing upon its public exhibition4 ,i had no wish to expose to ridicule the representative of so many hours of laborious thought4 ,prior to the summer of #ahcg1 at which time ,mr4 ,alfred ,vail's attention became attracted to my telegraph1 ,i depended upon my pencil for subsistence4 ,indeed1 so straitened were my circumstances that1 in order to save time to carry out my invention and to economize my scanty means1 ,i had for many months lodged and eaten in my studio1 procuring my food in small quantities from some grocery and preparing it myself4 ,to conceal from my friends the stinted manner in which ,i lived1 ,i was in the habit of bringing my food to my room in the evenings1 and this was my mode of life for many years4 ,before the telegraph was actually tried and practised the cumbersome piano-key board devised by ,morse in his first experiments was done away with and the simple device of a single key1 with which we are all familiar1 was adopted4 ,meantime ,morse was practically abandoning art4 ,his friends among the profession had subscribed #c1jjj in order to enable him to paint the picture he had in mind when he applied for the government work at ,washington1 ,the ,signing of the ,first ,compact on ,board the ,mayflower1 and he undertook the commission in #ahch1 only to give it up in #ahda and to return to the subscribers the amount paid with interest4 ,illustration3 ,diagram showing the ,method of ,telegraphing from a ,moving ,train by ,induction4 ,while ,morse had been in ,paris1 in #ahci1 he had heard of ,daguerre1 who had discovered the method of fixing the image of the camera1 which feat was then creating a great sensation among scientific men4 ,professor ,morse was anxious to see the results of this discovery before leaving ,paris1 and the ,american consul1 ,robert ,walsh1 arranged an interview between the two inventors4 ,daguerre promised to send to ,morse a copy of the descriptive publication which he intended to make so soon as a pension he expected from the ,french ,government for the disclosure of his discovery should be secured4 ,he kept his promise1 and ,morse was probably the first recipient of the pamphlet in this country4 ,from the drawings it contained he constructed the first photographic apparatus made in the ,united ,states1 and from a back window in the ,university ,building he obtained a good representation of the tower of the ,church of the ,messiah on ,broadway4 ,this possesses an historical interest as being the first photograph in ,america4 ,it was on a plate the size of a playing-card4 ,with ,professor ,j4,w4 ,draper1 in a studio built on the roof of the ,university1 he succeeded in taking likenesses of the living human face4 ,his subjects were compelled to sit fifteen minutes in the bright sunlight1 with their eyes closed1 of course4 ,professor ,draper shortened the process and was the first to take portraits with the eyes open4 ,at the session of ,congress of #ahdb-ahdc ,morse again appeared with his telegraph1 and on ,february #ba1 #ahdc1 ,john ,p4 ,kennedy1 of ,maryland1 moved that a bill appropriating #cj1jjj1 to be expended1 under the direction of the ,secretary of the ,treasury1 in a series of experiments for testing the merits of the telegraph1 should be considered4 ,the proposal met with ridicule4 ,johnson1 of ,tennessee1 moved1 as an amendment1 that one-half should be given to a lecturer on mesmerism1 then in ,washington1 to try mesmeric experiments under the direction of the ,secretary of the ,treasury2 and ,mr4 ,houston said that ,millerism ought to be included in the benefits of the appropriation4 ,after the indulgence of much cheap wit1 ,mr4 ,mason1 of ,ohio1 protested against such frivolity as injurious to the character of the ,house and asked the chair to rule the amendments out of order4 ,the chair 7,john ,white1 of ,kentucky7 ruled the amendments in order because it would require a scientific analysis to determine how far the magnetism of the mesmerism was analogous to that to be employed in telegraphy4 ,this wit was applauded by peals of laughter1 but the amendment was voted down and the bill passed the ,house on ,february #bc;d by the close vote of #hi to #hc4 ,in the ,senate the bill met with neither sneers nor opposition1 but its progress was discouragingly slow4 ,at twilight on the last evening of the session 7,march #c1 #ahdb7 there were one hundred and nineteen bills before it4 ,it seemed impossible for it to be reached in regular course before the hour of adjournment should arrive1 and ,morse1 who had anxiously watched the dreary course of business all day from the gallery of the ,senate chamber1 went with a sad heart to his hotel and prepared to leave for ,new ,york at an early hour the next morning4 ,his cup of disappointment seemed to be about full4 ,with the exception of ,alfred ,vail1 a young student in the ,university1 through whose influence some money had been subscribed in return for a one-fourth interest in the invention1 and of ,professor ,l4,d4 ,gale1 who had shown much interest in the work and was also a partner in the enterprise1 ,morse knew of no one who seemed to believe enough in him and his telegraph to advance another dollar4 ,as he came down to breakfast the next morning a young lady entered and came forward with a smile1 exclaiming1 ,i have come to congratulate you4 ,upon what8 inquired the professor4 ,upon the passage of your bill1 she replied4 ,impossible6 ,its fate was sealed last evening4 ,you must be mistaken4 ,not at all1 answered the young lady1 the daughter of ,morse's friend1 the ,commissioner of ,patents1 ,h4,l4 ,ellsworth2 father sent me to tell you that your bill was passed4 ,he remained until the session closed1 and yours was the last bill but one acted upon1 and it was passed just five minutes before the adjournment4 ,and ,i am so glad to be able to be the first one to tell you4 ,mother says you must come home with me to breakfast4 ,morse1 overcome by the intelligence1 promised that his young friend1 the bearer of these good tidings1 should send the first message over the first line of telegraph that was opened4 ,he writes to ,alfred ,vail that day3 ,the amount of business before the ,senate rendered it more and more doubtful1 as the session drew to a close1 whether the ,house bill on the telegraph would be reached1 and on the last day1 ,march #c1 #ahdc1 ,i was advised by one of my ,senatorial friends to make up my mind for failure1 as he deemed it next to impossible that it could be reached before the adjournment4 ,the bill1 however1 was reached a few minutes before midnight and passed4 ,this was the turning point in the history of the telegraph4 ,my personal funds were reduced to the fraction of a dollar1 and1 had the passage of the bill failed from any cause1 there would have been little prospect of another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention4 ,the appropriation by ,congress having been made1 ,morse went to work with energy and delight to construct the first line of his electric telegraph4 ,it was important that it should be laid where it would attract the attention of the government1 and this consideration decided the question in favor of a line between ,washington and ,baltimore4 ,he had as assistants ,professor ,gale and ,professor ,j4,c4 ,fisher4 ,mr4 ,vail was to devote his attention to making the instruments and the purchase of materials4 ,morse himself was general superintendent under the appointment of the government and gave attention to the minutest details4 ,all disbursements passed through his hands4 ,in point of accuracy1 the preservation of vouchers1 and presentation of accounts1 ,general ,washington himself was not more precise1 lucid1 and correct4 ,ezra ,cornell1 afterward one of the most successful constructors of telegraph lines1 was employed to take charge of the work under ,morse4 ,much time and expense were lost in consequence of following a plan for laying the wires in a leaden tube1 and it was only when it was decided to string them on posts that work began to proceed rapidly4 ,in expectation of the meeting of the ,national ,whig ,convention1 ,may #a1 #ahdd1 to nominate candidates for ,president and ,vice-,president1 energy was redoubled1 and by that time the wires were in working order twenty-two miles from ,washington toward ,baltimore4 ,the day before the convention met1 ,professor ,morse wrote to ,vail that certain signals should mean the nomination of a particular candidate4 ,the experiment was approaching its crisis4 ,the convention assembled and ,henry ,clay was nominated by acclamation to the ,presidency4 ,the news was conveyed on the railroad to the point reached by the telegraph and thence instantly transmitted over the wires to ,washington4 ,an hour afterward passengers arriving at the capital1 and supposing that they had brought the first intelligence1 were surprised to find that the announcement had been made already and that they were the bearers of old news4 ,the convention shortly afterward nominated ,frelinghuysen as ,vice-,president1 and the intelligence was sent to ,washington in the same manner4 ,public astonishment was great and many persons doubted that the feat could have been performed4 ,before ,may had elapsed the line reached ,baltimore4 ,illustration3 ,morse in his ,study4 7,from an old print47 ,on the #bdth of ,may1 #ahdd1 ,morse was prepared to put to final test the great experiment on which his mind had been laboring for twelve anxious years4 ,vail1 his assistant1 was at the ,baltimore terminus4 ,morse had invited his friends to assemble in the chamber of the ,united ,states ,supreme ,court1 where he had his instrument1 from which the wires extended to ,baltimore4 ,he had promised his young friend1 ,miss ,ellsworth1 that she should send the first message over the wires4 ,her mother suggested the familiar words of scripture 7,numbers1 xxiii4 #bc71 ,what hath ,god wrought6 ,the words were chosen without consultation with the inventor1 but were singularly the expression of his own sentiment and his own experience in bringing his work to successful accomplishment4 ,perfectly religious in his convictions1 and trained from earliest childhood to believe in the special superintendence of ,providence in the minutest affairs of man1 he had acted throughout the whole of his struggles under the firm persuasion that ,god was working in him to do ,his own pleasure in this thing4 ,the first public messages sent were a notice to ,silas ,wright in ,washington of his nomination to the office of ,vice-,president of the ,united ,states by the ,democratic convention1 then in session 7,may1 #ahdd7 in ,baltimore1 and his response declining it4 ,hendrick ,b4 ,wright1 in a letter written to ,mr4 ,b4,j4 ,lossing1 says3 ,as the presiding officer of the body ,i read the despatch1 but so incredulous were the members as to the authority of the evidence before them that the convention adjourned over to the following day to await the report of the committee sent over to ,washington to get reliable information on the subject4 ,mr4 ,vail kept a diary in those early days of the telegraph1 full of interesting reminiscences4 ,it was often necessary1 in order to convince incredulous visitors to the office that the questions and replies sent over the wire were not manufactured or agreed upon beforehand1 to allow them to send their own remarks4 ,when the committee just mentioned by ,mr4 ,wright returned from ,baltimore and confirmed the correctness of the report given by telegraph1 the new invention received a splendid advertisement4 ,the convention having reassembled in the morning1 and the refusal of ,wright to accept the nomination having been communicated1 a conference was held between him and his friends through the medium of ,morse's wires4 ,in ,washington ,mr4 ,wright and ,mr4 ,morse were closeted with the instrument2 at ,baltimore the committee of conference surrounded ,vail with his instrument4 ,spectators and auditors were excluded4 ,the committee communicated to ,mr4 ,wright their reasons for urging his acceptance4 ,in a moment he received their communication in writing and as quickly returned his answer4 ,again and again these confidential messages passed1 and the result was finally announced to the convention that ,mr4 ,wright was inflexible4 ,mr4 ,dallas then received the nomination and accepted it4 ,the ticket thus nominated was successful at the election of that year4 ,the original slips of paper on which some of the early messages were written are still preserved1 among others this request3 ,as a rumor is prevalent here this morning that ,mr4 ,eugene ,boyle was shot at ,baltimore last evening1 ,professor ,morse will confer a great favor upon the family by making inquiry by means of his electro-magnetic telegraph if such is the fact4 ,the telegraph was shown at first without charge4 ,during the session of #ahdd-ahde ,congress made an appropriation of #h1jjj to keep it in operation during the year1 placing it under the supervision of the ,postmaster-,general1 who1 at the close of the session1 ordered a tariff of charges of one cent for every four characters made through the telegraph4 ,mr4 ,vail was appointed operator for the ,washington station and ,mr4 ,h4,j4 ,rogers for ,baltimore4 ,this new order of things began ,april #a1 #ahde1 the object being to test the profitableness of the enterprise4 ,the first day's income was one cent2 on the fifth day twelve and a half cents were received2 on the seventh the receipts ran up to sixty cents2 on the eighth to one dollar and thirty-two cents2 on the ninth to one dollar and four cents4 ,it is worthy of remark1 as ,mr4 ,vail notes1 that the business done after the tariff was fixed was greater than when the service was gratuitous4 ,the telegraph was now a reality4 ,its completion was hailed with enthusiasm1 and the newspapers lauded the inventor to the skies4 ,resolutions of thanks and applause were adopted by popular assemblies4 ,it was a favorite idea with ,professor ,morse1 from the inception of his enterprise1 that the telegraph should belong to the government1 and he sent a communication to ,congress making a formal offer4 ,the overture was not accepted1 but the extension of the line from ,baltimore to ,philadelphia and then to ,new ,york was only a work of time4 ,the aid of ,congress was sought in vain4 ,the appropriation of #h1jjj was made1 but further than that the government declined to go4 ,the sum named as the price at which the ,morse ,company would sell the telegraph to the government was #ajj1jjj4 ,the subject was discussed in the report of ,cave ,johnson1 ,postmaster-,general under ,president ,polk4 ,he was a member of ,congress when the bill came up before the ,house appropriating #cj1jjj for the experimental line1 and was one of those who ridiculed the whole subject as unworthy of the notice of sensible men4 ,as ,postmaster-,general he said in his report1 after the experiment had succeeded to the satisfaction of mankind1 that the operation of a telegraph between ,washington and ,baltimore had not satisfied him that under any rate of postage that could be adopted its revenues could be made equal to its expenditures4 ,such an opinion1 with the evidence then in the possession of the department1 appears to be curious official blindness4 ,but it was fortunate for the inventor that the telegraph was left to the private enterprise4 ,twenty-five years after the government had declined to take the telegraph at the price of #ajj1jjj1 a project was started to establish lines of telegraph to be used by the government as part of the mail postal system4 ,and in #ahgc the ,postmaster-,general1 ,mr4 ,cresswell1 said in his report that the entire first cost of all the lines in the country1 including patents1 was less than #aj1jjj1jjj2 but the property of the existing telegraph company was already well worth #ej1jjj1jjj4 ,morse's position was far easier than it had been for many years4 ,his old friends1 the artists of ,new ,york1 rallied in force and laid before ,congress a petition that the professor be employed to execute the painting to fill the panel at the ,capitol assigned to ,inman1 who had been removed by death4 ,but it came to nothing4 ,morse was never again to take the brush in hand4 ,the first money that he received from his invention was the sum of #dg1 being his share of the amount paid for the right to use his patent on a short line from the ,washington ,post-office to the ,national ,observatory4 ,the use he made of the money was characteristic of the man4 ,he sent it to the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,sprole1 then a pastor in ,washington1 requesting him to apply it for the benefit of his church4 ,early in ,june1 #ahdf1 the line from ,baltimore to ,philadelphia was in operation1 and that from ,philadelphia to ,new ,york4 ,abroad the system was working its way steadily into favor4 ,in ,france an appropriation of nearly half a million francs was made to introduce the ,morse system4 ,but meantime violations of ,morse's rights were beginning to crop up on every side1 both at home and abroad4 ,in a letter to ,daniel ,lord1 his lawyer1 ,morse says3 ,the plot thickens all around me2 ,i think a dnouement not far off4 ,i remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think that ,i had invented something worth contending for4 ,alas6 my dear sir1 what encouragement is there to an inventor if1 after years of toil and anxiety1 he has only purchased for himself the pleasure of being a target for every vile fellow to shoot at1 and in proportion as his invention is of public utility1 so much the greater effort is to be made to defame that the robbery may excite the less sympathy8 ,i know1 however1 that beyond all this there is a clear sky2 but the clouds may not break away till ,i am no longer personally interested1 whether it be foul or fair4 ,i wish not to complain1 but ,i have feelings1 and cannot play the ,stoic if ,i would4 ,illustration3 ,the ,siphon ,recorder for ,receiving ,cable ,messages--,office of the ,commercial ,cable ,company1 #a ,broad ,street1 ,new ,york4 ,perhaps the most painful chapter of ,morse's life is the history of the lawsuits in which he was involved in defence of his rights4 ,his reputation as well as his property were assailed4 ,exceedingly sensitive to these attacks1 the suits that followed the success of the telegraph cost him inexpressible distress4 ,it is some satisfaction to be able to record that after years of bitter controversy the final decision was favorable to the inventor4 ,honors began to pour in upon him from even the uttermost parts of the earth4 ,the ,sultan of ,turkey was the first monarch to acknowledge ,morse as a public benefactor4 ,this was in #ahdh4 ,the kings of ,prussia and ,wurtemburg and the ,emperor of ,austria each gave him a gold medal1 that of the first named being set in a massive gold snuff-box4 ,in #ahef the ,emperor of the ,french made him a chevalier of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,orders from ,denmark1 ,spain1 ,italy1 ,portugal soon followed4 ,in #aheh a special congress was called by the ,emperor of the ,french to devise a suitable testimonial of the nation to ,professor ,morse4 ,representatives from ten sovereignties convened at ,paris and by a unanimous vote gave1 in the aggregate1 #hj1jjj as an honorary gratuity to ,professor ,morse4 ,the states participating in this testimonial were ,france1 ,austria1 ,russia1 ,belgium1 ,holland1 ,sweden1 ,piedmont1 the ,holy ,see1 ,tuscany1 and ,turkey4 ,professor ,morse was one of the first to suggest and the first to carry out the use of a marine cable4 ,during the summer of #ahdb he had been making elaborate preparations for an experiment destined to give wonderful development to his invention4 ,this was no less than a submarine wire1 to demonstrate the fact that the current of electricity could be conducted as well under water as through the air4 ,of this he had entertained no doubt4 ,if ,i can make it work ten miles1 ,i can make it go around the globe1 was a favorite expression of his in the infancy of his enterprise4 ,but he wished to prove it4 ,he insulated his wire as well as he could with hempen strands well covered with pitch1 tar1 and india-rubber4 ,in the course of the autumn he was prepared to put the question to the test of actual experiment4 ,the wire was only the twelfth of an inch in diameter4 ,about two miles of this1 wound on a reel1 was placed in a small row-boat1 and with one man at the oars and ,professor ,morse at the stern1 the work of paying out the cable was begun4 ,it was a beautiful moonlight night1 and those who had prolonged their evening rambles on the ,battery must have wondered1 as they watched the proceedings in the boat1 what kind of fishing the two men could be engaged in that required so long a line4 ,in somewhat less than two hours1 on that eventful evening of ,october #ah1 #ahdb1 the first cable was laid4 ,professor ,morse returned to his lodgings and waited with some anxiety the time when he should be able to test the experiment fully and fairly4 ,the next morning the ,new ,york ,herald contained the following editorial announcement3 ,,morse',s ,,electro-,,magnetic ,,telegraph4 ,this important invention is to be exhibited in operation at ,castle ,garden between the hours of twelve and one o'clock to-day4 ,one telegraph will be erected on ,governor's ,island and one at the ,castle1 and messages will be interchanged and orders transmitted during the day4 ,many have been incredulous as to the powers of this wonderful triumph of science and art4 ,all such may now have an opportunity of fairly testing it4 ,it is destined to work a complete revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence throughout the civilized world4 ,at daybreak the professor was on the ,battery1 and had just demonstrated his success by the transmission of three or four characters between the termini of the line1 when the communication was suddenly interrupted1 and it was found impossible to send any messages through the conductor4 ,the cause of this was evident when he observed no less than seven vessels lying along the line of the submerged cable1 one of which1 in getting under way1 had raised it on her anchor4 ,the sailors1 unable to divine its meaning1 hauled in about two hundred feet of it on deck1 and finding no end1 cut off that portion and carried it away with them4 ,thus ended the first attempt at submarine telegraphing4 ,the crowd that had assembled on the ,battery dispersed with jeers1 most of them believing they had been made the victims of a hoax4 ,in a letter to ,john ,c4 ,spencer1 then ,secretary of the ,treasury1 in ,august1 #ahdc1 concerning electro-magnetism and its powers1 he wrote3 ,the practical inference from this law is that a telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be established across the ,atlantic ,ocean4 ,startling as this may now seem1 ,i am confident the time will come when this project will be realized4 ,in #ahga a statue of ,professor ,morse was erected in ,central ,park1 ,new ,york1 at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country4 ,it was unveiled on ,june #ajth with imposing ceremonies4 ,there were delegates from every ,state in the ,union1 and from the ,british provinces4 ,in the evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the ,academy of ,music1 at which ,william ,orton1 president of the ,western ,union ,telegraph ,company1 presided1 assisted by scores of the leading public men of the country as vice-presidents4 ,the last scene was an impressive one4 ,it was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the audience was then in connection with every other one of the ten thousand instruments in ,america4 ,then ,miss ,cornell1 a young telegraphic operator1 sent this message from the key3 ,greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the world4 ,glory to ,god in the highest1 on earth peace1 good-will to men4 ,the venerable inventor1 the personification of simplicity1 dignity1 and kindliness1 was then conducted to the instrument1 and touching the key1 sent out3 ,s4,f4,b4 ,,morse4 ,a storm of enthusiasm swept through the house as the audience rose1 the ladies waving their handkerchiefs and the men cheering4 ,professor ,morse last appeared in public on ,february #bb1 #ahgb1 when he unveiled the statue of ,franklin1 erected in ,printing-house ,square in ,new ,york4 ,he died1 after a short illness1 on ,april #b1 #ahgb1 and was buried in ,greenwood ,cemetery4 ,on the day of the funeral1 ,april #eth1 every telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning4 ,professor ,morse was twice married4 ,his first wife died in #ahbe4 ,in #ahdh he married ,sarah ,elizabeth ,griswold1 of ,poughkeepsie1 who still lives4 ,by the first marriage there were three children1 one of whom1 a son1 survives4 ,by the second marriage there were four children1 three of whom are alive--a daughter and two sons4 ,miss ,leila ,morse1 the daughter1 was married in #ahhe to ,herr ,franz ,rummel1 the eminent pianist4 ,the last years of his life were eminently peaceful and happy4 ,in the summer he lived at a place called ,locust ,grove1 on the banks of the ,hudson1 near ,poughkeepsie1 and in the winter in a house at ,no4 #e ,west ,twenty-second ,street1 a few doors west of ,fifth ,avenue4 ,in recent years a marble tablet has been affixed to the front of the house1 suitably inscribed4 ,illustration3 ,no4 #e ,west ,twenty-second ,street1 ,new ,york1 where ,morse ,lived for ,many ,years and ,died4 ,morse's life in the country was very simple and quiet4 ,his hour of rising was half-past six o'clock in the morning1 and he was in his library alone until breakfast1 at eight4 ,he loved to hear the birds in their native songs1 and he could distinguish the notes of each species1 and would speak of the quality of their respective music4 ,he spent most of the day in reading and writing1 rarely taking exercise1 except walking in his garden to visit his graperies1 in which he took special pride1 or to the stable to see if his horses were well cared for4 ,he did not ride out regularly with his family1 preferring the repose of his own grounds and the labors of his study4 ,but when he walked or rode in the country1 he was constantly disposed to speak of the beauty and glory around him1 as revealing to his mind the beneficence1 wisdom1 and power of the infinite ,creator1 who had made all these things for the use and enjoyment of men4 ,one of his daughters writes of him in these simple and tender words3 ,he loved flowers4 ,he would take one in his hand and talk for hours about its beauty1 its wonderful construction1 and the wisdom and love of ,god in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes4 ,in his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope and purchased one of great excellence and power4 ,for whole hours1 all the afternoon or evening1 he would sit over it1 examining flowers or the animalcul in different fluids4 ,then he would gather his children about him and give us a sort of extempore lecture on the wonders of creation invisible to the naked eye1 but so clearly brought to view by the magnifying power of the microscope4 ,he was very fond of animals1 cats1 and birds in particular4 ,he tamed a little flying-squirrel1 and it became so fond of him that it would sit on his shoulder while he was at his studies and would eat out of his hand and sleep in his pocket4 ,to this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to ,europe1 where it came to an untimely end1 in ,paris1 by running into an open fire4 ,his biographer1 ,prime1 says of him3 ,in person ,professor ,morse was tall1 slender1 graceful1 and attractive4 ,six feet in stature1 he stood erect and firm1 even in old age4 ,his blue eyes were expressive of genius and affection4 ,his nature was a rare combination of solid intellect and delicate sensibility4 ,thoughtful1 sober1 and quiet1 he readily entered into the enjoyments of domestic and social life1 indulging in sallies of humor1 and readily appreciating and greatly enjoying the wit of others4 ,dignified in his intercourse with men1 courteous and affable with the gentler sex1 he was a good husband1 a judicious father1 a generous and faithful friend4 ,he had the misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive him of the merit and the reward of his labors4 ,but his was the common fate of great inventors4 ,he lived until his rights were vindicated by every tribunal to which they could be referred1 and acknowledged by all civilized nations4 ,and he died leaving to his children a spotless and illustrious name1 and to his country the honor of having given birth to the only electro-magnetic recording telegraph whose line has gone out through all the earth and its words to the end of the world4 ,illustration3 ,charles ,goodyear4 ,,vi4 ,,charles ,,goodyear4 ,india-rubber had been known for more than a hundred years when ,charles ,goodyear undertook to make of it thousands of articles useful in common life4 ,so long ago as #agce a party of ,french astronomers discovered in ,peru a curious tree that yielded the natives a peculiar gum or sap which they collected in clay vessels4 ,this sap became hard when exposed to the sun1 and was used by the natives1 who made different articles of every-day use from it by dipping a clay mould again and again into the liquid4 ,when the article was completed the clay mould was broken to pieces and shaken out4 ,in this manner they made a kind of rough shoe and an equally rough bottle4 ,in some parts of ,south ,america the natives presented their guests with these bottles1 which served as syringes for squirting water4 ,articles thus made were liable to become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather and soft and sticky in warm4 ,upon getting back to ,france the travellers directed the attention of scientists to this remarkable gum1 which was afterward found in various parts of ,south ,america1 and the chief supplies of which still come from ,brazil4 ,about the beginning of the present century this substance1 known variously as cachuchu1 caoutchouc1 gum-elastic1 and india-rubber1 was first commercially introduced into ,europe4 ,it was regarded merely as a curiosity1 chiefly useful for erasing pencil-marks4 ,ships from ,south ,america took it over as ballast4 ,about the year #ahbj it began to be used in ,france in the manufacture of suspenders and garters1 india-rubber threads being mixed with the material used in weaving those articles4 ,some years later ,mackintosh1 an ,english manufacturer1 used it in his famous water-proof coats1 which were made by spreading a layer of the gum between two pieces of cloth4 ,about the same time a pair of india-rubber shoes were exhibited in ,boston1 where they were regarded as a curiosity2 they were covered with gilt-foil to hide their natural ugliness4 ,in #ahbc a ,boston merchant1 engaged in the ,south ,american trade1 imported five hundred pairs of these shoes1 made by the natives of ,para1 and found no difficulty in selling them4 ,in fact1 this became a large business1 although these shoes were terribly rough and clumsy and were not to be depended upon2 in cold weather they became so hard that they could be used only after being thawed by the fire1 and in summer they could be preserved only by keeping them on ice4 ,if during the thawing process they were placed too near the fire1 they would melt into a shapeless mass2 and yet they cost from three to five dollars a pair4 ,in #ahcj ,e4,m4 ,chaffee1 of ,boston1 the foreman of a patent leather factory in that city1 attempted to replace patent leather by a compound of india-rubber4 ,he dissolved a pound of the gum in spirits of turpentine1 added to the mixture enough lamp-black to produce a bright black color1 and invented a machine for spreading this compound over cloth4 ,when dried in the sun it produced a hard1 smooth surface1 flexible enough to be twisted into any shape without cracking4 ,with the aid of a few capitalists1 ,chaffee organized1 in #ahcc1 a company called the ,roxbury ,india-rubber ,company1 and manufactured an india-rubber cloth from which wagon-covers1 piano-covers1 caps1 coats1 shoes1 and other articles were made4 ,the product of the factory sold well1 and the success of the ,roxbury ,company led to the establishment of a number of similar factories elsewhere4 ,apparently all who were engaged in the production of rubber goods were on the highway to wealth4 ,a day of disaster1 however1 came4 ,most of the goods produced in the winter of #ahcc-ahcd became worthless during the following summer4 ,the shoes melted to a soft mass and the caps1 wagon-covers1 and coats became sticky and useless4 ,to make matters worse they emitted an odor so offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground4 ,twenty thousand dollars' worth of these goods were thrown back on the hands of the ,roxbury ,company alone1 and the directors were appalled by the ruin that threatened them4 ,it was useless to go on manufacturing goods that might prove worthless at any moment4 ,india-rubber stock fell rapidly1 and by the end of #ahcf there was not a solvent rubber company in the ,union1 the stockholders losing about #b1jjj1jjj4 ,people came to detest the very name of india-rubber4 ,one day1 in #ahcd1 a ,philadelphia hardware merchant1 named ,charles ,goodyear1 was led by curiosity to buy a rubber life-preserver4 ,and thus began for this unfortunate genius nearly twenty-five years of struggle1 misery1 and disappointment4 ,charles ,goodyear was born in ,new ,haven1 ,conn41 ,december #bi1 #ahjj4 ,when a boy his father moved to ,philadelphia1 where he engaged in the hardware business1 and upon becoming of age1 ,charles ,goodyear joined him as a partner4 ,in the panic of #ahcf-ahcg the house went down4 ,goodyear's attention had been attracted for several years by the wonderful success of the india-rubber companies4 ,upon examining his life-preserver he discovered a defect in the inflating valve and made an improved one4 ,going to ,new ,york with this device1 he called on the agent of the ,roxbury ,company and1 explaining it to him1 offered to sell it to the company4 ,the agent was impressed with the improvement1 but instead of buying it1 told the inventor the real state of the india-rubber business of the country1 then on the verge of a collapse4 ,he urged ,goodyear to exert his inventive skill in discovering some means of imparting durability to india-rubber goods1 and assured him that if he could find a process to effect that end1 he could sell it at his own price4 ,he explained the processes then in use and their imperfections4 ,goodyear forgot all about his disappointment in failing to sell his valve1 and went home intent upon experiments to make gum-elastic durable4 ,from that time until the close of his life he devoted himself solely to this work4 ,he was thirty-five years old1 feeble in health1 a bankrupt in business1 and had a young family depending upon him4 ,the industry in which he now engaged was one in which thousands of persons had found ruin4 ,the firm of which he had been a member owed #cj1jjj1 and upon his return to ,philadelphia he was arrested for debt and compelled to live within prison limits4 ,he began his experiments at once4 ,the price of the gum had fallen to five cents per pound1 so that he had no difficulty in getting sufficient of it to begin work4 ,by melting and working it thoroughly and rolling it out upon a stone table1 he succeeded in producing sheets of india-rubber that seemed to him to possess new properties4 ,a friend loaned him enough money to manufacture a number of shoes which at first seemed to be all that could be desired4 ,fearful1 however1 of coming trouble1 ,goodyear put his shoes away until the following summer1 when the warm weather reduced them to a mass of so offensive an odor that he was glad to throw them away4 ,his friend was so thoroughly disheartened by this failure as to refuse to have anything more to do with ,goodyear's scheme4 ,the inventor1 nevertheless1 kept on4 ,it occurred to him that there must be some substance which1 mixed with the gum1 would render it durable1 and he began to experiment with almost every substance that he could lay his hands on4 ,all proved total failures with the exception of magnesia4 ,by mixing half a pound of magnesia with a pound of the gum he produced a substance whiter than the pure gum1 which was at first as firm and flexible as leather1 and out of which he made beautiful book-covers and piano-covers4 ,it looked as if he had solved the problem2 but in a month his pretty product was ruined4 ,heat caused it to soften2 fermentation then set in1 and finally it became as hard and brittle as thin glass4 ,his stock of money was now exhausted4 ,he was forced to pawn all his own valuables and even the trinkets of his wife4 ,but he felt sure that he was on the road to success and would eventually win both fame and fortune4 ,he removed his family to the country1 and set out for ,new ,york1 where he hoped to find someone willing to aid him in carrying his experiments further4 ,here he met two acquaintances1 one of whom offered him the use of a room in ,gold ,street as a workshop1 and the other1 a druggist1 agreed to let him have on credit such chemicals as he needed4 ,he now boiled the gum1 mixed with magnesia1 in quicklime and water1 and as a result obtained firm1 smooth sheets that won him a medal at the fair of the ,american ,institute in #ahce4 ,he seemed on the point of success1 and easily sold all the sheets he could manufacture1 when1 to his dismay1 he discovered that a drop of the weakest acid1 such as the juice of an apple or diluted vinegar1 would reduce his new compound to the old sticky substance that had baffled him so often4 ,his first important discovery on the road to real success was the result of accident4 ,he liked pretty things1 and it was a constant effort with him to make his productions as attractive to the eye as possible4 ,upon one occasion1 while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth1 he applied aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing part of the bronze4 ,it took away the bronze1 but it also destroyed the cloth to such a degree that he supposed it ruined and threw it away4 ,a day or two later1 happening to pick it up1 he was astonished to find that the rubber had undergone a remarkable change1 and that the effect of the acid had been to harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree of heat which would have melted it before4 ,aqua fortis contained sulphuric acid4 ,goodyear was thus on the threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing rubber4 ,he called his new process the curing of india-rubber4 ,the cured india-rubber was subjected to many tests and passed through them successfully1 thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important uses4 ,goodyear readily obtained a patent for his process1 and a partner with a large capital was found ready to aid him4 ,he hired the old india-rubber works on ,staten ,island and opened a salesroom in ,broadway4 ,he was thrown back for six weeks at this important time by an accident which happened to him while experimenting with his fabrics and which came near causing his death4 ,just as he was recovering and preparing to begin the manufacture of his goods on a large scale the terrible commercial crisis of #ahcg swept over the country1 and by destroying his partner's fortune at one blow1 reduced ,goodyear to absolute beggary4 ,his family had joined him in ,new ,york1 and he was entirely without the means of supporting them4 ,as the only resource at hand he decided to pawn an article of value--one of the few which he possessed--in order to raise money to procure one day's supply of provisions4 ,at the very door of the pawnbroker's shop he met one of his creditors1 who kindly asked if he could be of any further assistance to him4 ,weak with hunger and overcome by the generosity of his friend the poor man burst into tears and replied that1 as his family was on the point of starvation1 a loan of #ae would greatly oblige him4 ,the money was given him on the spot and the necessity for visiting the pawnbroker averted for several days longer4 ,still he was a frequent visitor to that person during the year1 and one by one the relics of his better days disappeared4 ,another friend loaned him #ajj1 which enabled him to remove his family to ,staten ,island1 in the neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works1 which the owners gave him permission to use so far as he could4 ,he contrived in this way to manufacture enough of his cured cloth1 which sold readily1 to enable him to keep his family from starvation4 ,he made repeated efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory and see his samples and the process by which they were made1 but no one would venture near him4 ,there had been money enough lost in such experiments1 these acquaintances said1 and they were determined to risk no more4 ,indeed1 in all the broad land there was but one man who had the slightest hope of accomplishing anything with india-rubber1 and that one was ,charles ,goodyear4 ,his friends regarded him as a monomaniac4 ,he not only manufactured his cloth1 but even dressed in clothes made of it1 wearing it for the purpose of testing its durability1 as well as of advertising it4 ,he was certainly an odd figure1 and in his appearance justified the remark of one of his friends1 who1 upon being asked how ,mr4 ,goodyear could be recognized1 replied3 ,if you see a man with an india-rubber coat on1 india-rubber shoes1 and india-rubber cap1 and in his pocket an india-rubber purse with not a cent in it1 that is ,goodyear4 ,in ,september1 #ahcg1 a new gleam of hope lit up his pathway4 ,a friend having loaned him a small sum of money he went to ,roxbury1 taking with him some of his best specimens4 ,although the ,roxbury ,company had gone down with a fearful crash1 ,mr4 ,chaffee1 the inventor of the first process of making rubber goods in this country1 was still firm in his faith that india-rubber would at some future time justify the expectations of its earliest friends4 ,he welcomed ,goodyear cordially and allowed him to use the abandoned works of the company for his experiments4 ,the result was that ,goodyear succeeded in making shoes and cloths of india-rubber of a quality so much better than any that had yet been seen in ,america that the hopes of the friends of india-rubber were raised to a high point4 ,offers to purchase rights for certain portions of the country came in rapidly1 and by the sale of them ,goodyear realized between four and five thousand dollars4 ,he was now able to bring his family to ,roxbury1 and for the time fortune seemed to smile upon him4 ,illustration3 ,calenders ,heated ,internally by ,steam1 for ,spreading ,india ,rubber into ,sheets or upon ,cloth1 called the ,chaffee ,machine4 ,his success was but temporary1 however4 ,he obtained an order from the general ,government for one hundred and fifty india-rubber mail-bags1 which he succeeded in producing1 and as they came out smooth1 highly polished1 hard1 well shaped1 and entirely impervious to moisture1 he was delighted and summoned his friends to inspect and admire them4 ,all who saw them pronounced them a perfect success1 but alas6 in a single month they began to soften and ferment1 and finally became useless4 ,poor ,goodyear's hopes were dashed to the ground4 ,it was found that the aqua fortis merely cured the surface of the material1 and that only very thin cloth made in this way was durable4 ,his other goods began to prove worthless and his promising business came to a sudden and disastrous end4 ,all his possessions were seized and sold for debt1 and once more he was reduced to poverty4 ,his position was even worse than before1 for his family had increased in size and his aged father also had become dependent upon him for support4 ,friends1 relatives1 and even his wife1 all demanded that he should abandon his empty dreams and turn his attention to something that would yield a support to his family4 ,four years of constant failure1 added to the unfortunate experience of those who had preceded him1 ought to convince him1 they said1 that he was hoping against hope4 ,hitherto his conduct1 certainly had been absurd1 though they admitted that he was to some extent excused for it by his partial success2 but to persist in it would be criminal4 ,the inventor was driven to despair1 and being a man of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family1 might have yielded to them had he not felt that he was nearer than ever to the discovery of the secret that had eluded him so long4 ,just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him1 he had taken into his employ a man named ,nathaniel ,hayward1 who had been the foreman of the old ,roxbury works1 and who was still in charge of them when ,goodyear came to ,roxbury1 and was making a few rubber articles on his own account4 ,he hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered sulphur with the gum1 or by sprinkling sulphur over the rubber cloth and drying it in the sun4 ,he declared that the process had been revealed to him in a dream1 but could give no further account of it4 ,goodyear was astonished to find that the sulphur cured the india-rubber as thoroughly as the aqua fortis1 the principal objection being that the sulphurous odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather4 ,hayward's process was really the same as that employed by ,goodyear1 the curing of the india-rubber being due in each case to the agency of the sulphur1 the principal difference between them being that ,hayward's goods were dried by the sun and ,goodyear's with nitric acid4 ,hayward set so small a value upon his discovery that he readily sold it to his new employer4 ,goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties4 ,it was plain that sulphur was the great controller of india-rubber1 for he had proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for most purposes4 ,the problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and the gum in a mass1 so that every part of the rubber should be subjected to the agency of the sulphur4 ,he experimented for weeks and months with the most intense eagerness1 but the mystery completely baffled him4 ,his friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family1 but he could not turn back4 ,the goal was almost in sight1 and he felt that he would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now4 ,to the world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer1 and some there were who1 seeing the distress of his family1 did not hesitate to apply still harsher names to him4 ,had it been merely wealth that he was working for1 doubtless he would have turned back and sought some other means of obtaining it2 but he sought more4 ,he felt that he had a mission to fulfil1 and that no one else could perform it4 ,he was right4 ,a still greater success was about to crown his labors1 but in a manner far different from his expectations4 ,his experiments had developed nothing2 chance was to make the revelation4 ,it was in the spring of #ahci1 and in the following manner3 ,standing before a stove in a store at ,woburn1 ,mass41 he was explaining to some acquaintances the properties of a piece of sulphur-cured india-rubber which he held in his hand4 ,they listened to him good-naturedly1 but with evident incredulity1 when suddenly he dropped the rubber on the stove1 which was red hot4 ,his old clothes would have melted instantly from contact with such heat2 but1 to his surprise1 this piece underwent no such change4 ,in amazement he examined it1 and found that while it had charred or shrivelled like leather1 it had not softened at all4 ,the bystanders attached no importance to this phenomenon1 but to him it was a revelation4 ,he renewed his experiments with enthusiasm1 and in a little while established the facts that india-rubber1 when mixed with sulphur and exposed to a certain degree of heat for a specified time1 would not melt or soften at any degree of heat2 that it would only char at two hundred and eighty degrees1 and that it would not stiffen from exposure to any extent of cold4 ,the difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact degree of heat necessary for the perfecting of the rubber and the exact length of time required for the heating4 ,illustration3 ,charles ,goodyear's ,exhibition of ,hard ,india ,rubber ,goods at the ,crystal ,palace1 ,sydenham1 ,england4 7,from a print published at the time47 ,he made this discovery in his darkest days1 when1 in fact1 he was in constant danger of arrest for debt1 having already been a frequent inmate of the debtors' prison4 ,he was in the depths of bitter poverty and in such feeble health that he was constantly haunted by the fear of dying before he had perfected his discovery--before he had fulfilled his mission4 ,he needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat for his experiments1 and he was unable to obtain it4 ,he used to bake his compound in his wife's bread-oven and steam it over the spout of her tea-kettle1 and to press the kitchen fire into his service so far as it would go4 ,when this failed1 he would go down to the shops in the vicinity of ,woburn and beg to be allowed to use the ovens and boilers after working hours were over4 ,the workmen regarded him as a lunatic1 but were too good-natured to deny him the request4 ,finally he induced a bricklayer to make him an oven1 and paid him in masons' aprons of india-rubber4 ,the oven was a failure4 ,sometimes it would turn out pieces of perfectly vulcanized cloth1 and again the goods would be charred and ruined4 ,goodyear was in despair4 ,all this time he lived on the charity of his friends4 ,his neighbors pretended to lend him money1 but in reality gave him the means of keeping his family from starvation4 ,he has declared that all the while he felt sure he would1 before long1 be able to pay them back1 but they have declared with equal emphasis that1 at that time1 they never expected to witness his success4 ,he was yellow and shrivelled in face1 with a gaunt1 lean figure1 and his habit of wearing an india-rubber coat1 which was charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with it1 gave him a wild and singular appearance4 ,people shook their heads solemnly when they saw him1 and said that the mad-house was the proper place for him4 ,the winter of #ahci-dj was long and severe4 ,at the opening of the season ,goodyear received a letter from a house in ,paris1 making him a handsome offer for the use of his process of curing india-rubber with aqua fortis4 ,here was a chance for him to rise out of his misery4 ,a year before he would have closed with the offer1 but since then he had discovered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound1 and had passed far beyond the aqua-fortis stage4 ,disappointment and want had not warped his conscience1 and he at once declined to enter into any arrangements with the ,french house1 informing them that although the process they desired to purchase was a valuable one1 it was about to be entirely replaced by another which he was then on the point of perfecting1 and which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had completed it4 ,his friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an offer2 but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a process which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by still greater discoveries4 ,a few weeks later a terrible snow-storm passed over the land1 one of the worst that ,new ,england had ever known1 and in the midst of it ,goodyear made the appalling discovery that he had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food in the house4 ,he was ill enough to be in bed himself1 and his purse was entirely empty4 ,it was a terrible position1 made worse1 too1 by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had turned from him1 vexed with his pertinacity1 and abandoned him to his fate4 ,in his despair he bethought him of a mere acquaintance named ,coleridge1 who lived several miles from his cottage1 and who but a few days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received of late4 ,this gentleman1 he thought1 would aid him in his distress1 if he could but reach his house1 but in such a snow the journey seemed hopeless to a man in his feeble health4 ,still the effort must be made4 ,nerved by despair1 he set out and pushed his way resolutely through the heavy drifts4 ,the way was long1 and it seemed to him that he would never accomplish it4 ,often he fell prostrate on the snow1 almost fainting with fatigue and hunger1 and again he would sit down wearily in the road1 feeling that he would gladly die if his discovery were but completed4 ,at length1 however1 he reached the end of his journey1 and fortunately found his acquaintance at home4 ,to this gentleman he told the story of his discovery1 his hopes1 his struggles1 and his present sufferings1 and implored him to help him4 ,mr4 ,coleridge listened to him kindly1 and after expressing the warmest sympathy for him1 loaned him money enough to support his family during the severe weather and to enable him to continue his experiments4 ,seeing no prospect of success in ,massachusetts1 he now resolved to make a desperate effort to get to ,new ,york1 feeling confident that the specimens he could take with him would convince someone of the superiority of his new method4 ,he was beginning to understand the cause of his many failures1 but he saw clearly that his compound could not be worked with certainty without expensive apparatus4 ,it was a very delicate operation1 requiring exactness and promptitude4 ,the conditions upon which success depended were many1 and the failure of one spoiled all4 ,it cost him thousands of failures to learn that a little acid in his sulphur caused the blistering2 that his compound must be heated almost immediately after being mixed or it would never vulcanize2 that a portion of white lead in the compound greatly facilitated the operation and improved the result2 and when he had learned these facts1 it still required costly and laborious experiments to devise the best methods of compounding his ingredients in the best proportions1 the best mode of heating1 the proper duration of the heating1 and the various useful effects that could be produced by varying the proportions and the degree of heat4 ,he tells us that many times when1 by exhausting every resource1 he had prepared a quantity of his compound for heating1 it was spoiled because he could not1 with his inadequate apparatus1 apply the heat soon enough4 ,illustration3 ,,council ,,medal ,,of ,,the ,,exhibition4 ,c4 ,,goodyear4 ,,class ,,xxviii4 #ahea4 ,to ,new ,york1 then1 he directed his thoughts4 ,merely to get there cost him a severer and a longer effort than men in general are capable of making4 ,first he walked to ,boston1 ten miles distant1 where he hoped to borrow from an old acquaintance #ej1 with which to provide for his family and pay his fare to ,new ,york4 ,he not only failed in this1 but he was arrested for debt and thrown into prison4 ,even in prison1 while his old father was negotiating to procure his release1 he labored to interest men of capital in his discovery1 and made proposals for founding a factory in ,boston4 ,having obtained his liberty1 he went to a hotel and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan4 ,saturday night came1 and with it his hotel bill1 which he had no means of discharging4 ,in an agony of shame and anxiety1 he went to a friend and entreated the sum of #e to enable him to return home4 ,he was met with a point-blank refusal4 ,in the deepest dejection1 he walked the streets till late in the night1 and strayed at length1 almost beside himself1 to ,cambridge1 where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter for the night4 ,he was hospitably entertained1 and the next morning walked wearily home1 penniless and despairing4 ,at the door of his house a member of his family met him with the news that his youngest child1 two years old1 whom he had left in perfect health1 was dying4 ,in a few hours he had in his house a dead child1 but not the means of burying it1 and five living dependents without a morsel of food to give them4 ,a storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family1 but1 discouraged by the unforeseen length of the father's absence1 he had that day refused to trust them further4 ,in these terrible circumstances he applied to a friend1 upon whose generosity he knew he could rely1 one who never failed him4 ,he received in reply a letter of severe and cutting reproach1 enclosing #g1 which his friend explained was given only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family4 ,a stranger who chanced to be present when this letter arrived sent them a barrel of flour1 a timely and blessed relief4 ,the next day the family followed on foot the remains of the little child to the grave4 ,this was about the darkest hour of poor ,goodyear's life1 but it was before the dawn4 ,he managed to obtain #ej1 with which he went to ,new ,york1 and succeeded in interesting two brothers1 ,william and ,emory ,rider1 in his discoveries4 ,they agreed to advance to him a certain sum to complete his experiments4 ,by means of this aid he was enabled to keep his family from want1 and his experiments were pursued with greater ease and certainty4 ,his brother-in-law1 ,william ,de ,forrest1 a rich wool manufacturer1 also came to his aid1 now that success seemed in view4 ,nevertheless1 the experiments of that and the following year cost nearly #ej1jjj4 ,thanks to this timely aid1 he was able in #ahdd1 ten years after beginning his work1 to produce perfect vulcanized india-rubber with economy and certainty4 ,to the end of his life he was at work1 however1 endeavoring to improve the material and apply it to new uses4 ,he took out more than sixty patents covering different processes of making rubber goods4 ,illustration3 ,,grande ,,medaille ,d',,honneur4 ,,exposition ,,universelle ,,de #ahee4 ,donne pour la ,decouverte de la ,vulcanisation et ,durcissement du ,caoutchouc4 ,,facsimile ,,gold4 ,if ,goodyear had been a man of business instincts and habits1 the years following the completion of his great work might have brought him an immense fortune2 but everywhere he seems to have been unfortunate in protecting his rights4 ,in ,france and ,england he lost his patent rights by technical defects4 ,in the latter country another man1 who had received a copy of the ,american patent1 actually applied and obtained the ,english rights in his own name4 ,goodyear1 however1 obtained the great council medal at the ,london ,exhibition of #ahea1 a grand medal at ,paris1 in #ahee1 and later the ribbon of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,in this country he was scarcely less unfortunate4 ,his patents were infringed right and left1 he was cheated by business associates and plundered of the profits of his invention4 ,the ,united ,states ,commissioner of ,patents1 in #aheh1 thus spoke of his losses3 ,no inventor1 probably1 has ever been so harassed1 so trampled upon1 so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world as 'pirates4' ,the spoliation of their incessant guerrilla warfare upon his defenceless rights has unquestionably amounted to millions4 ,goodyear died in ,new ,york in ,july1 #ahfj1 worn out with work and disappointment4 ,neither ,europe nor ,america seemed disposed to accord him any reward or credit for having made one of the greatest discoveries of the time4 ,notwithstanding his invention1 which has made millions for those engaged in working it1 he died insolvent1 and left his family heavily in debt4 ,a few years after his death an effort was made to procure from ,congress an extension of his patent for the benefit of his family and creditors4 ,the opposition of the men who had grown rich and powerful by successfully infringing his rights prevented that august body from doing justice in the matter and the effort came to nothing4 ,,vii4 ,,john ,,ericsson4 ,captain ,john ,ericsson1 although not by birth an ,american1 rendered such signal services to this country and lived here for so many years that we may fairly consider him in the light of an ,american inventor4 ,the inventions to which he devoted the best years of his life were made in this country4 ,he loved ,america1 he died here1 and though his ashes have been sent back to ,sweden1 the world of ,europe1 in common with ourselves1 probably thinks of ,ericsson as an ,american4 ,illustration3 ,john ,ericsson4 ,by the roadside near a mountain hamlet of ,central ,sweden stands a pyramid of iron cast from ore dug from the adjacent mines and set upon a base of granite quarried from the hills which overlook the valley4 ,this monument bears the information that two brothers1 ,nils ,ericsson and ,john ,ericsson1 were born in a miner's hut at that place1 respectively1 ,january #ca1 #ahjb1 and ,july #ca1 #ahjc4 ,nils ,ericsson was a man of unusual distinction1 who held high position in ,sweden as engineer of the canals and railroads of the kingdom4 ,the name of his brother is known the world over4 ,these two notable ,swedes were sons of ,olof ,ericsson1 a ,swedish miner4 ,poverty was one of the bits of good fortune that fell to the lot of the two boys1 and among ,john's earliest recollections is that of the seizure of their household effects by the sheriff4 ,the mother was a woman of intelligence and somewhat acquainted with the literature of her time4 ,in boyhood ,john ,ericsson worked in the iron mines of ,central ,sweden4 ,machinery was his first love and his last4 ,before he was eleven years old1 during the winter of #ahac1 he had produced a miniature saw-mill of ingenious construction1 and had planned a pumping-engine designed to keep the mines free from water4 ,the frame of the saw-mill was of wood2 the saw-blade was made from a watch-spring and was moved by a crank made from a broken tin spoon4 ,a file1 borrowed from a neighboring blacksmith1 a gimlet1 and a jack-knife were the only tools used in this work4 ,his pumping-engine was a more ambitious affair1 to be operated by a wind-mill4 ,illustration3 ,john ,ericsson's ,birthplace and ,monument4 ,the family then lived in the wilderness1 surrounded by a pine forest1 where ,ericsson's father was engaged in selecting timber for the lock-gates of a canal4 ,a quill and a pencil were the boy's tools in the way of drawing materials4 ,he made compasses of birch wood4 ,a pair of steel tweezers were converted into a drawing-pen4 ,ericsson had never seen a wind-mill1 but following as well as he could the description of those who had1 he succeeded in constructing on paper the mechanism connecting the crank of a wind-mill with the pump-lever4 ,the plan1 conceived and executed under such circumstances by a mere boy1 attracted the attention of ,count ,platen1 president of the ,gotha ,ship ,canal1 on which ,ericsson's father was employed1 and when ,ericsson was twelve years old he was made a member of the surveying party carrying out the canal work and put in charge of a section4 ,six hundred of the royal troops looked for directions in their daily work to this boy1 one of his attendants being a man who followed him with a stool1 upon which he stood to use the surveying instruments4 ,the amusements of this boy engineer1 even at the age of fifteen1 are indicated by a portfolio of drawings made in his leisure moments1 giving maps of the most important parts of the canal1 three hundred miles in length1 and showing all the machinery used in its construction4 ,his precocity was1 however1 the normal and healthy development of a mind as fond of mechanical principles as ,raphael was of color4 ,it was in #ahaa that ,ericsson made his first scale drawing of the famous ,sunderland ,iron ,bridge1 and from that time on his career in ,sweden was a brilliant one4 ,after serving as an engineer upon the ,gotha ,canal he became an officer in the ,swedish army1 from which circumstance he got his title of captain4 ,most government work was then done by army officers1 especially in field surveying4 ,the appointments of government surveyors being offered soon afterward to competitive examination among the officers of the army1 ,ericsson went to ,stockholm and entered the lists4 ,detailed maps of fifty square miles of ,swedish territory1 still upon file at ,stockholm1 show his skill4 ,though his work as a surveyor exceeded that of any of his companions1 he was not satisfied4 ,he sought an outlet for his superfluous activity in preparing the drawings and engraving sixty-four large plates for a work illustrating the ,gotha ,canal4 ,his faculty for invention was shown here by the construction of a machine-engraver1 with which eighteen copper-plates were completed by his own hand within a year4 ,from engraving young ,ericsson turned his attention to experiments with flame as a means of producing mechanical power1 and it is interesting to note that forty years afterward a large part of his income in this country was derived from his gas-or flame-engine1 thousands of which are now in use in ,new ,york ,city alone for pumping water up to the tops of the houses4 ,his early flame-engine1 as it was called1 turned out so well that after building one of ten horse-power1 he obtained leave of absence to go to ,england to introduce the invention4 ,he never returned to ,sweden for any length of time1 although he remained a ,swede at heart1 and many ,swedish orders and decorations have been conferred upon him4 ,in addition to the monument near ,ericsson's birthplace1 already mentioned1 the government has erected a granite shaft1 eighteen feet high1 in front of the cottage in which he was born4 ,this shaft1 bearing the inscription1 ,john ,ericsson was born here in #ahjc1 was dedicated on ,september #c1 #ahfg1 when work was suspended in the neighboring mines and iron furnaces1 and a holiday was held in honor of ,sweden's famous son4 ,poems were read1 the chief engineer of the mining district delivered an oration1 and ,dr4 ,pallin1 a savant from ,philipstad1 reminded his hearers that seven cities in ,greece contended for the honor of being ,homer's birthplace4 ,certificates of baptism did not then exist1 said ,dr4 ,pallin1 and there is no doubt with us as to ,ericsson's birthplace2 yet to guard against all accidents we have here placed a record of baptism weighing eighty thousand pounds4 ,the monument stands on an isthmus between two lakes surrounded by green hills4 ,illustration3 ,the ,novelty ,locomotive1 built by ,ericsson to compete with ,stephenson's ,rocket1 #ahbi4 ,ericsson's life in ,england began in #ahbf4 ,fortune did not smile upon his efforts to introduce his flame-engine1 for the coal fire which had to be used in ,england was too severe for the working parts of the apparatus4 ,but ,ericsson possessed a capacity for hard work that recognized no obstacles4 ,he undertook a new series of experiments which resulted finally in the completion of an engine which was patented and sold to ,john ,braithwaite4 ,young ,ericsson's capacity for work and for keeping half a dozen experiments in view at the same time seems to have been as remarkable in those early days as when he became famous4 ,records of the ,london ,patent ,office credit him with invention after invention4 ,among these were a pumping-engine on a new principle2 engines with surface condensers and no smoke-stack1 as applied to the steamship ,victory in #ahbh2 an apparatus for making salt from brine2 for propelling boats on canals2 a hydrostatic weighing machine1 to which the ,society of ,arts awarded a prize2 an instrument to be used in taking deep-sea soundings2 a file-cutting machine4 ,the list covers some fourteen patented inventions and forty machines4 ,perhaps his most important work at this period was a device for creating artificial draught in locomotives1 to which aid the development of our railroad owes much4 ,in #ahbi the ,liverpool ,manchester ,railroad offered a prize of #b1ejj for the best locomotive capable of doing certain work4 ,the prize was taken by ,stephenson with his famous ,rocket2 but his sharpest competitor in this contest was ,john ,ericsson4 ,four locomotives entered the contest4 ,the ,london ,times of ,october #h1 #ahbi1 speaks highly of the ,novelty1 the locomotive entered by ,messrs4 ,braithwaite ,ericsson1 saying3 ,it was the lightest and most elegant carriage on the road yesterday1 and the velocity with which it moved surprised and amazed every beholder4 ,it shot along the line at the amazing rate of thirty miles an hour4 ,it seemed indeed to fly1 presenting one of the most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and human daring the world ever beheld4 ,illustration3 ,ericsson on his ,arrival in ,england1 aged twenty-three4 ,illustration3 ,mrs4 ,john ,ericsson1 ne ,amelia ,byam4 7,from an early daguerreotype47 ,the railroad directors1 at whose invitation this test was made1 had asked for ten miles an hour2 ,ericsson gave them thirty4 ,the excitement of the witnesses found vent in loud cheers4 ,within an hour the shares of the railroad company rose ten per cent41 and the young engineer might well have considered his fortune made4 ,but although he had beaten his rival ten miles an hour1 the judges determined to make traction power1 rather than speed1 the critical test1 and the prize was awarded to ,stephenson's ,rocket1 which drew seventeen tons for seventy miles at the rate of thirteen miles an hour4 ,stephenson's engine weighed twice as much as ,ericsson's4 ,nevertheless ,ericsson's success with the ,novelty was such as to keep him busy in this particular field4 ,he followed it up with a steam fire-engine that astonished ,london at the burning of the ,argyle ,rooms1 in #ahbi1 when for the first time1 as one of the local papers remarked1 fire was extinguished by the mechanical power of fire4 ,another engine1 of larger power1 built for the ,king of ,prussia1 soon after rendered excellent service in ,berlin1 and a third was built for ,liverpool in #ahcj4 ,ten years afterward the ,mechanics' ,institute of ,new ,york awarded a gold medal to ,ericsson as a prize for the best plan of a steam-engine4 ,illustration3 ,exterior ,view of ,ericsson's ,house1 ,no4 #cf ,beach ,street1 ,new ,york1 #ahij4 ,disappointed in his ill success with inventions pertaining to locomotives1 ,ericsson now turned his attention to his early flame-engine1 and the working model of a caloric engine of five-horse power soon attracted the attention of ,london4 ,at first there seemed to be a great future for engines upon this principle1 but after many years of experiments1 at great expense1 ,ericsson found that the principle was useful only for purposes requiring small power4 ,in #ahea he built a heat-engine for the ship ,ericsson1 a vessel two hundred and sixty feet in length1 and tells the result as follows3 ,the ship after completion made a successful trip from ,new ,york to ,washington and back during the winter season2 but the average speed at sea proving insufficient for commercial purposes1 the owners1 with regret1 acceded to my proposition to remove the costly machinery1 although it had proved perfect as a mechanical combination4 ,the resources of modern engineering having been exhausted in producing the motors of the caloric ship1 the important question1 ,can heated air1 as a mechanical motor1 compete on a large scale with steam8 has forever been set at rest4 ,the commercial world is indebted to ,american enterprise for having settled a question of such vital importance4 ,the marine engineer has thus been encouraged to renew his efforts to perfect the steam-engine without fear of rivalry from a motor depending on the dilation of atmospheric air by heat4 ,illustration3 ,solar-engine ,adapted to the ,use of ,hot ,air4 7,patented as a pumping-engine1 #ahhj47 ,before leaving this question of heat-engines and passing to the more important inventions by which ,ericsson will be remembered1 it may be as well to say a few words concerning the solar-engines to which he devoted many years' time1 and one of which ,i saw in operation in the back yard of the pleasant old house in ,beach ,street1 opposite the freight depot of the ,hudson ,river ,railroad4 ,this house1 by the way1 which ,ericsson occupied for nearly forty years1 faced on ,st4 ,john's ,park1 the pleasant square which was afterward filled up by the railroad company4 ,toward the last years of ,ericsson's life the neighborhood became anything but a pleasant one to live in2 it was dirty and noisy4 ,nevertheless ,ericsson refused to move4 ,perhaps the unpleasantness of the surroundings made him the recluse he was4 ,it is not surprising that he should have been attracted by the possibility of obtaining power from the heat of the sun4 ,in an early pamphlet on the subject he says3 ,there is a rainless region extending from the northwestern coast of ,africa to ,mongolia1 nine thousand miles in length and nearly one thousand miles wide4 ,in the ,western ,hemisphere1 ,lower ,california1 the table-lands of ,guatemala1 and the west coast of ,south ,america1 for a distance of more than two thousand miles1 suffer from a continuous radiant heat4 ,ericsson estimated that the mechanical power that would result from utilizing the solar heat on a strip of land a single mile wide and eight thousand miles long would suffice to keep twenty-two million solar-engines1 of one hundred horse-power each1 going nine hours a day4 ,he believed that with the exhaustion of ,european coal-fields the day for the solar-engine would come1 and that those countries which possessed unfailing sunshine1 such as ,egypt1 would displace ,england1 ,france1 and ,germany as the manufacturing powers of the world1 for the ,european would have to move his machinery to the borders of the ,nile4 ,by concentrating the rays of the sun upon a small copper boiler filled with air ,ericsson was enabled to work a little motor1 and for some years he also attempted to produce steam by means of heat from the sun4 ,he was not successful1 however1 in making anything of commercial value in this direction1 and so far as ,i have been able to learn none of the tropical countries invited by him to take up the problem for its own benefit responded to the invitation4 ,ericsson's studies and improvements of the screw as a means of propelling boats began in ,england4 ,a model boat1 two feet long1 fitted up with two screws1 was launched in a ,london bath-house1 and1 supplied by steam from a boiler placed at the side of the tank1 was sent around at a speed estimated at six miles an hour4 ,ericsson was so delighted with it that he built a boat eight feet by forty1 armed with two propellers1 in the hope that the ,british ,admiralty might adopt the invention4 ,this boat went through the water at the rate of ten miles an hour1 or seven miles an hour towing a schooner of one hundred and forty tons burden4 ,he invited the ,admiralty to see the work of his screw4 ,steaming up to ,somerset ,house with his little vessel1 ,ericsson took the ,admiralty barge in tow1 to the wonder of the watermen1 who could make nothing of the novel craft with no apparent means of propulsion4 ,the ,british ,admiralty1 however1 was not easily convinced4 ,these wiseacres said nothing1 but ,ericsson professed to have heard that their verdict was against him because one of the authorities of the board decided that even if the propeller had the power of propelling a vessel it would be found altogether useless in practice1 because the power1 being applied to the stern1 it would be absolutely impossible to make the vessel steer4 ,this official blindness cost ,england the services of the inventor4 ,the ,united ,states happened to have as consul in ,liverpool at that day 7#ahcg7 ,mr4 ,francis ,b4 ,ogden1 a pioneer in steam navigation on the ,ohio ,river4 ,ogden saw ,ericsson's invention and introduced him to ,captain ,robert ,f4 ,stockton1 of the ,united ,states ,navy4 ,with ,stockton1 seeing was believing1 and when he returned from a trip on ,ericsson's boat1 he exclaimed3 ,i do not want the opinion of your scientific men4 ,what ,i have seen to-day satisfies me4 ,before the vessel had completed her trip1 ,ericsson received from ,stockton an order for two boats4 ,upon ,stockton's assurance that the ,united ,states would try his propeller upon a large scale1 ,ericsson closed up his affairs in ,england and embarked for the ,united ,states4 ,through the good offices of ,stockton1 but after considerable delay1 a vessel called the ,princeton was ordered and completed4 ,she carried a number of radical improvements destined to make a revolution in naval warfare4 ,the boilers and engines were below the waterline1 out of the way of shot and shell4 ,the smoke-stack was a telescopic affair1 replacing the tall pipe that formed so conspicuous a target upon the old boats4 ,centrifugal blowers in the hold1 worked by separate engines1 secured increased draught for the furnaces4 ,the ,princeton was a wonder1 and everyone was ready to praise the inventive genius of ,ericsson and the daring of ,captain ,stockton in adopting so many radical novelties4 ,an entry in the diary of ,john ,quincy ,adams1 dated ,february #bh1 #ahdd1 tells the sad story of the public exhibition of the ,princeton at ,washington3 ,i went into the chamber of the ,committee of ,manufactures and wrote there till six4 ,dined with ,mr4 ,grinnell and ,mr4 ,winthrop4 ,while we were at dinner ,john ,barney burst into the chamber1 rushed up to ,general ,scott and told him1 with groans1 that the ,president wished to see him2 that the great gun on board the ,princeton had burst and killed the ,secretary of ,state1 ,upshur2 the ,secretary of the ,navy1 ,t4,w4 ,gilmer2 ,captain ,beverly ,kennon1 ,virgil ,maxey1 a ,colonel ,gardiner1 of ,new ,york1 a colored servant of the ,president1 and desperately wounded several of the crew4 ,so tragic an introduction was not needed to direct public attention to the ,princeton4 ,ericsson had placed the ,united ,states at the head of naval powers in the application of steam-power to warfare4 ,he had made the experiment of the ,princeton at a great cost to himself1 and two years of concentrated effort had been devoted to the service of the ,government4 ,for his time1 labor1 and necessary expenditures he rendered a bill of #ae1jjj1 leaving the question of what1 if anything1 should be charged for his patent rights entirely to the discretion and generosity of the ,government4 ,the bill was refused payment by the ,navy ,department because of its limited discretion4 ,ericsson went to ,congress with it1 but a dozen years passed without the slightest progress toward a settlement4 ,a court of claims rendered a unanimous decree in his favor1 but ,congress1 to which the bill was again sent1 failed to make an appropriation1 and there the matter has remained1 notwithstanding the brilliant services since rendered to this country by the inventor4 ,various nations claim the invention of the screw as applied to boats4 ,at ,trieste and at ,vienna stand statues erected to ,joseph ,ressel1 for whom the ,austrians lay claim4 ,commodore ,stevens1 of ,new ,jersey1 is also said by ,professor ,thurston to have built and worked a screw-propeller on the ,hudson in #ahab4 ,whatever may be the final decision as to ,ericsson's claim in this matter1 there1 can be no doubt as to the value of the services he rendered in building the ,monitor4 ,the suggestion of the ,monitor was first made in a communication from ,ericsson to ,napoleon ,,iii41 dated ,new ,york1 ,september1 #ahed4 ,this paper contained a description of an iron-clad vessel surmounted by a cupola substantially as in the ,monitor as finally built4 ,the emperor1 through ,general ,favre1 acknowledged the communication4 ,favre wrote3 ,the emperor has himself examined with the greatest care the new system of naval attack which you have communicated to him4 ,his ,majesty charges me with the honor of informing you that he has found your ideas very ingenious and worthy of the celebrated name of their author4 ,for eight years ,ericsson continued working upon his idea of a revolving cupola or turret upon an iron-clad raft1 but found no opportunity to test the practical value of the device4 ,his time finally came when1 in #ahfa1 the ,navy ,department appointed a board to examine plans for iron-clads4 ,the board consisted of ,commodores ,joseph ,smith1 ,hiram ,paulding1 and ,charles ,h4 ,davis4 ,ericsson1 having learned to distrust his own powers as a business agent1 engaged the assistance of ,c4 ,s4 ,bushnell1 a ,connecticut man of some wealth1 who went to ,washington and presented the designs of the ,monitor to the board4 ,colonel ,w4,c4 ,church1 ,ericsson's biographer1 who has just been honored by ,sweden for his publications upon the life of the inventor1 tells an interesting story of the negotiations concerning the vessel which was to render such signal services to the country4 ,bushnell could make no headway with the board and decided that ,ericsson's presence in ,washington was necessary4 ,but the inventor was then1 as during his whole life1 averse to any self-advertisement1 and preferred his workshop to any place on earth4 ,but as he possessed a sort of rude eloquence due to enthusiasm1 ,bushnell got him to ,washington by subterfuge4 ,he was told that the board approved his plans for an iron-clad and that it would be necessary for him to go to the capital and complete the contract4 ,presenting himself before the board1 what was his astonishment to find that he was not only an unexpected but apparently an unwelcome visitor4 ,he was not long in doubt as to the meaning of this reception4 ,to his indignation and astonishment he was informed that the plan of a vessel submitted by him had already been rejected4 ,his first impulse was to withdraw at once4 ,mastering his anger1 however1 he inquired the reason for this decision4 ,commodore ,smith explained that the vessel had not sufficient stability2 in other words1 it would be liable to upset4 ,captain ,ericsson was too experienced a naval designer to have overlooked this point1 and in a lucid explanation put his views before the board1 winding up with the declaration3 ,gentlemen1 after what ,i have said1 ,i consider it to be your duty to the country to give me an order to build the vessel before ,i leave this room4 ,withdrawing to a corner the board held a consultation and invited the inventor to call again at one o'clock4 ,when ,ericsson returned he brought with him a diagram illustrating more fully his reasons for considering his proposed vessel to be perfectly stable4 ,commodore1 afterward ,admiral1 ,paulding was convinced1 and admitted that ,ericsson had taught him much about the stability of vessels4 ,secretary ,welles was informed that the board reported favorably upon ,ericsson's plan1 and told the inventor that he might return to ,new ,york and begin work1 as the contract would follow him4 ,when the contract came it was found to be a singularly one-sided affair4 ,if the ,monitor proved vulnerable--in other words2 if it was not a success--the money paid for it by the ,navy ,department was to be refunded4 ,illustration3 ,sectional ,view of ,monitor through ,turret and ,pilot-house4 ,illustration3 ,the ,original ,monitor4 ,it took one hundred days to build the ,monitor4 ,during those three months ,ericsson scarcely slept1 and even in his dreams he went over the details of the new-fangled war-engine he was building4 ,he named her ,monitor because1 he said1 she would warn the nations of the world that a new era in naval warfare had begun4 ,the story of his untiring activity has been told almost as often as that of the battle between the ,monitor and the ,merrimac4 ,he was at the ship-yard before any of the workmen1 and was the last to leave4 ,in the construction of so novel a craft difficulties of a puzzling nature came up every day4 ,if ,ericsson could not solve them on the spot1 he studied the matter in the quiet of the night1 and was ready with his drawings in the morning4 ,the result of the naval battle in ,hampton ,roads1 on the #ith of ,march1 #ahfb1 between the little ,monitor and the big ,merrimac made ,ericsson the hero of the hour4 ,had no ,david appeared to stop the ravages of the ,confederate ,goliath1 it is hard to say what might not have been the injury inflicted upon the cause of the ,union by the terrible ,merrimac4 ,the ,united ,states ,navy was virtually panic-stricken when the ,monitor1 this ,yankee cheese-box on a plank1 as the ,southerners called her1 came to the rescue4 ,notwithstanding the tremendous service rendered the country1 ,ericsson declined to receive more compensation for the ,monitor than his contract called for4 ,in reply to a resolution of the ,new ,york ,chamber of ,commerce calling for a suitable return for his services as will evince the gratitude of the nation1 ,ericsson said3 ,all the remuneration ,i desire for the ,monitor ,i get out of the construction of it4 ,it is all-sufficient4 ,our grateful nation took him at his word4 ,but honors of another and less costly kind were showered upon him4 ,chief ,engineer ,stimers1 who was on the ,monitor during her battle with the ,merrimac1 wrote to ,ericsson3 ,i congratulate you on your great success4 ,thousands have this day blessed you4 ,i have heard whole crews cheer you4 ,every man feels that you have saved this place to the nation by furnishing us with the means to whip an iron-clad frigate that was1 until our arrival1 having it all her own way with our most powerful vessels4 ,illustration3 ,fac-simile of a ,pencil ,sketch by ,ericsson1 giving a ,transverse ,section of his ,original ,monitor ,plan1 with a ,longitudinal ,section drawn over it4 ,illustration3 ,interior of the ,destroyer1 ,looking toward the ,bow4 ,war vessels upon the plan of the ,monitor speedily appeared among the navies of several nations4 ,england refused at first to admit the value of the invention and was not converted until the double-turreted ,miantonomoh visited her waters in #ahff1 when one of the ,london papers described her appearance among the ,british fleet as that of a wolf among a flock of sheep4 ,the day of the big wooden war-vessels was over4 ,it was1 nevertheless1 an ,englishman and a naval officer1 ,captain ,cowper ,coles1 who sought to deprive ,ericsson of the honor of his invention4 ,coles declared that he had devised a ship during the ,crimean ,war1 in which a turret or cupola was to protect the guns4 ,ericsson's letter to ,napoleon ,,iii41 written in #ahed1 is sufficient answer to this1 besides which ,ericsson's scheme includes more than a stationary shield for the guns1 which is all that ,coles claimed4 ,coles succeeded1 however1 in inducing the ,british ,admiralty to build a vessel according to his plans4 ,this ill-fated craft upset off ,cape ,finisterre on the night of ,september #f1 #ahgj1 and went to the bottom with ,coles and a crew of nearly five hundred men4 ,having devised an apparatus that made wooden war-vessels useless1 ,ericsson turned his attention to the destruction of iron-clads1 and devoted ten years of his life to the construction of his famous torpedo-boat1 the ,destroyer1 upon which he spent about all the money he amassed by other work4 ,according to his belief1 no vessel afloat could escape annihilation in a battle with his ,destroyer4 ,this vessel is designed to run at sufficient speed to overtake any of the iron-clads4 ,it offers small surface to the shot of an enemy1 and besides being heavily armored1 it can be partly submerged beneath the waves4 ,when within fighting distance it fires under water1 by compressed air1 a projectile containing dynamite sufficient to raise a big war-ship out of the water4 ,the explosion takes place when the projectile meets with resistance1 such as the sides of a ship4 ,to ,ericsson's great disappointment1 the ,united ,states ,government persistently refused to purchase the ,destroyer or to commission ,ericsson to build more vessels of her type4 ,illustration3 ,development of the ,monitor ,idea4 ,of ,ericsson's home life there is not much to be told4 ,he was utterly wrapped up in his work4 ,with his devoted secretary1 ,mr4 ,arthur ,taylor1 his days knew scarcely any variation4 ,of social recreation he had none4 ,in conversation he was abrupt and somewhat peculiar1 apparently regarding all other talk than that relating to mechanics and germane subjects as a waste of words4 ,his shrewd face1 with its blue eyes and fringe of white hair1 was not an unkindly one1 however1 and the few workmen he employed in the ,beach ,street house were devoted to him4 ,no great man was ever more intensely averse to personal notoriety4 ,although often advised to make his ,destroyer better known by means of newspaper articles1 he persistently refused to see newspaper men2 and the professional interviewer and lion-hunter were his pet aversions4 ,it was perhaps to avoid them that he left his house only after nightfall1 and then but for a walk in the neighborhood4 ,illustration3 ,the ,room in which ,ericsson ,worked for ,more than ,twenty ,years4 ,his time was divided according to rule4 ,for thirty years he was called by his servant at seven o'clock in the morning1 and took a bath of very cold water1 ice being added to it in summer4 ,after some gymnastic exercises came breakfast at nine o'clock1 always of eggs1 tea1 and brown bread4 ,his second and last meal of the day1 dinner1 never varied from chops or steak1 some vegetables1 and tea and brown bread again4 ,ice-water was the only luxury that he indulged in4 ,he used tobacco in no form4 ,during the daytime he was accustomed to work at his desk or drawing-table for about ten hours4 ,after dinner he resumed work until ten1 when he started out for the stroll of an hour or more1 which always ended his day4 ,the last desk work accomplished every day was to make a record in his diary1 always exactly one page long4 ,this diary is in ,swedish and comprises more than fourteen thousand pages1 thus covering a period of forty years1 during which he omitted but twenty days1 in #ahef1 when he had a finger crushed by machinery4 ,he scarcely knew what sickness was1 and just before his death said that he had not missed a meal for fifteen years4 ,he was a widower and left no children4 ,he died in the ,beach ,street house1 after a short illness1 on ,march #h1 #ahhi1 and his remains were transferred to ,sweden with naval honors4 ,illustration3 ,cyrus ,hall ,mc,cormick4 ,,viii4 ,,cyrus ,,hall ,mc,c,o,r,m,i,c,k4 ,in the course of an argument before the ,commissioner of ,patents1 in #ahei1 the late ,reverdy ,johnson declared that the ,mc,cormick reaper was worth #ee1jjj1jjj a year to this country1 an estimate that was not disputed4 ,at about the same time the late ,william ,h4 ,seward said that owing to ,mr4 ,mc,cormick's invention the line of civilization moves westward thirty miles each year4 ,already the ,london ,times1 after ridiculing the ,mc,cormick reaper exhibited at the ,london ,world's ,fair of #ahea1 as a cross between an ,astley 7circus7 chariot1 a wheel-barrow1 and a flying-machine1 confessed1 when the reaper had been tested in the fields1 that it was worth to the farmers of ,england the whole cost of this exhibition4 ,writing of this glorious success1 ,mr4 ,seward said3 ,so the reaper of #ahca1 as improved in #ahde1 achieved for its inventor a triumph which all then felt and acknowledged was not more a personal one than it was a national one4 ,it was justly so regarded4 ,no general or consul1 drawn in a chariot through the streets of ,rome by order of the ,senate1 ever conferred upon mankind benefits so great as he who thus vindicated the genius of our country at the ,world's ,exhibition of ,art in the metropolis of the ,british empire in #ahea4 ,in #ahfa1 though declining to extend the patent for the reaper1 the ,commissioner of ,patents1 ,d4,p4 ,holloway1 paid the inventor this remarkable tribute3 ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick is an inventor whose fame1 while he is yet living1 has spread through the world4 ,his genius has done honor to his own country1 and has been the admiration of foreign nations1 and he will live in the grateful recollection of mankind as long as the reaping-machine is employed in gathering the harvest4 ,nevertheless the extension of the patent of #ahcd1 which act of justice would have given the inventor an opportunity to obtain an adequate reward for his work1 was refused upon the extraordinary ground that the reaper was of too great value to the public to be controlled by any individual4 ,in other words1 the benefit conferred by ,mc,cormick upon the country was too great to be paid for2 therefore no effort should be made to pay for it4 ,finally1 the ,french ,academy of ,sciences1 when ,mc,cormick was elected to the ,institute of ,france--an honor paid but to few ,americans--mentioned the election as due to his having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man4 ,illustration3 ,farm where ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick was ,born and ,raised4 ,it is thus evident that the tremendous service done to the civilized world by the invention of the ,mc,cormick reaper was appreciated years ago4 ,yet it is improbable that the whole value of the invention was fully realized4 ,to-day the ,mc,cormick works at ,chicago turn out yearly1 and have turned out for several years1 more than one hundred thousand reapers and mowers4 ,at a moderate estimate every ,mc,cormick reaper1 and every reaper founded upon it and containing its essential features1 saves the labor of six men during the ten harvest days of the year4 ,the present number of reapers in operation to-day1 all of them based upon the ,mc,cormick patents1 is estimated at about two million1 so that1 counting a man's labor at #a a day1 here is a yearly saving of more than #ajj1jjj1jjj4 ,the reaper thus stands beside the steam-engine and the sewing-machine as one of the most important labor-saving inventions of our time1 relieving millions of men from the most arduous drudgery and increasing the world's wealth by hundreds of millions of dollars every year4 ,it is some satisfaction to know that the inventor of the reaper lived to enjoy the fruits of his work4 ,a remarkable man in every respect1 his ingenuity1 perseverance1 courage under injustice1 and generosity finally won him not only the material rewards that were his by right1 but the esteem and honor of the civilized world4 ,like ,fulton and ,morse1 ,cyrus ,hall ,mc,cormick came of ,scotch-,irish blood1 a race marked by fixed purpose1 untiring industry in carrying out that purpose1 a strong sense of moral obligation1 and an unswerving determination to do right by the light of conscience though the heavens fall4 ,he was born on the #aeth of ,february1 #ahji1 at ,walnut ,grove1 in ,rockbridge ,county1 ,va41 and was the eldest of eight children1 six of whom lived to grow up4 ,his father1 ,robert ,mc,cormick1 in addition to farming1 had workshops of considerable importance on his farm1 as well as a saw-mill and grist-mill and smelting furnaces4 ,in these workshops young ,cyrus ,mc,cormick probably got his first love for mechanical devices4 ,robert ,mc,cormick was an inventor of no mean attainment4 ,he devised and built a thresher1 a hemp-breaker1 some mill improvements1 and in #ahaf he made and tried a mechanical reaper4 ,in those days so much of the farmer's hard labor was expended in swinging the scythe that it seems strange we have no record of more attempts to make a machine do the work4 ,a schoolmaster named ,ogle is said to have built a reaper in #ahbb1 but1 according to his own admission1 it would not work4 ,bell1 a ,scotch minister1 also contrived a reaping-machine that was tried in #ahbh4 ,in the course of the subsequent patent litigation over the reaper the claims of these early inventors were made the most of by ,mc,cormick's opponents1 but the courts of last resort invariably settled the question in ,mc,cormick's favor4 ,as a farmer boy1 young ,cyrus ,mc,cormick began his day's work in the fields at five o'clock4 ,in winter he went to the ,old ,field ,school4 ,during his boyhood he would watch his father's experiments and disappointments4 ,his first attempt in the same direction was the construction1 at the age of fifteen1 of a harvesting-cradle by which he was enabled to keep up with an able-bodied workman4 ,his first patented invention 7#ahca7 was a plough which threw alternate furrows on either side1 being thus either a right-hand or left-hand plough4 ,this was superseded in #ahcc by an improved plough1 also by ,mc,cormick1 called the self-sharpening plough1 which did excellent work4 ,his father having worked long and unsuccessfully at a mechanical reaper1 it was natural that young ,mc,cormick's mind should turn over the same problem from time to time1 and his father's failures did not deter him1 although ,robert ,mc,cormick had suffered so much in mind and pocket through the impracticability of his reaper that he warned his son against wasting more time and money upon the dream4 ,one martyr to mechanical progress was enough for the ,mc,cormick family4 ,but the possibility of making a machine do the hard1 hot work of the harvest-field had a fascination for the young man1 and the more he studied the discarded reaping-machine made by his father in #ahaf1 the more firmly he became convinced that while the principle of that device was wrong1 the work could be done4 ,in those days the development of the country really depended upon some better1 cheaper way of harvesting4 ,the land was fertile1 and there was practically no end of it4 ,but labor was scarce4 ,illustration3 ,exterior of the ,blacksmith ,shop where the ,first ,reaper was ,built4 ,cyrus ,mc,cormick's plough was a success that encouraged him to take hold of the more difficult problem of the reaper4 ,he found that some device1 such as his father's1 would cut grain after a fashion1 provided it was in perfect condition and stood up straight2 the moment it became matted and tangled and beaten down by wind and rain the machine was useless4 ,other devices had been arranged whereby a fly-wheel armed with sickles slashed off the heads of the wheat1 leaving the stalks2 but here again such a machine would work only when the field was in prime condition4 ,he determined that no device was of any value which would not cut grain as it might happen to stand1 stalk and all4 ,after months of labor in his father's shop1 making every part of the machine himself1 in both wood and iron1 as he said1 he turned out1 in #ahca1 the first reaper that really cut an average field of wheat satisfactorily4 ,its three great essential features were those of the reaper of to-day--a vibrating cutting-blade1 a reel to bring the grain within reach of the blade1 a platform to receive the falling grain1 and a divider to separate the grain to be cut from that to be left standing4 ,this machine1 drawn by horses1 was tested in a field of six acres of oats1 belonging to ,john ,steele1 within a mile of ,walnut ,grove4 ,its work astonished the neighboring farmers who gathered to witness the test4 ,the problem of cutting standing grain by machinery had been solved4 ,there were1 however1 certain defects in the reaper which caused ,cyrus ,mc,cormick not to put the machine on the market4 ,all the cog-wheels were of wood4 ,there was no place upon it for either the driver or the raker4 ,the former rode on the near horse and the latter followed on foot1 raking the grain from it as best he could4 ,but it cut grain fast1 and both father and son were so impressed by its possibilities as foreshadowed in even this crude affair1 that for the next few years they devoted their time1 money1 and thoughts to it4 ,robert ,mc,cormick was as enthusiastic as his son1 and he is rightly entitled to a share of the honor1 for his invention of #ahaf turned the attention of his son to the problem and pointed out the radical errors to be avoided4 ,a year after its first trial1 with certain improvements1 the reaper cut fifty acres of wheat in so perfect and rapid a manner as to insure its practical value beyond all doubt4 ,the self-restraint shown by ,mc,cormick in refusing to sell machines until he was satisfied with them shows the man4 ,the patent was granted in #ahcd1 but for six years he kept at work experimenting1 changing1 improving1 during the short periods of each harvest4 ,in a letter to the ,commissioner of ,patents1 on file in the ,patent ,office1 ,mr4 ,mc,cormick said3 ,from the experiment of #ahca until the harvest of #ahdj ,i did not sell a reaper1 although during that time ,i had many exhibitions of it1 for experience proved to me that it was best for the public as well as for myself that no sales were made1 as defects presented themselves that would render the reaper unprofitable in other hands4 ,many improvements were found necessary1 requiring a great deal of thought and study4 ,i was sometimes flattered1 at other times discouraged1 and at all times deemed it best not to attempt the sale of machines until satisfied that the reaper would succeed4 ,illustration3 ,interior of the ,blacksmith ,shop where the ,first ,reaper was ,built4 ,about #ahce the ,mc,cormicks engaged in a partnership for the smelting of iron ore4 ,the reaper1 as a business pursuit1 was yet in the distance1 and the new iron industry offered large profits4 ,the panic of #ahcg swept away these hopes4 ,cyrus sacrificed all he had1 even the farm given him by his father1 to settle his debts1 and his scrupulous integrity in this matter turned disaster into blessing1 for it compelled him to take up the reaper with renewed energy4 ,with the aid of his father and of his brothers1 ,william and ,leander1 he began the manufacture of the machine in the primitive workshop at ,walnut ,grove1 turning out less than fifty machines a year1 all of them made under great disadvantages4 ,the sickles were made forty miles away1 and as there were no railroads in those days1 the blades1 six feet long1 had to be carried on horseback4 ,neither was it easy1 when once the machines were made1 to get them to market4 ,the first consignment sent to the ,western prairies1 in #ahdd1 was taken in wagons from ,walnut ,grove to ,scottsville1 then down the canal to ,richmond1 ,va42 thence by water to ,new ,orleans1 and then up the ,mississippi and ,ohio ,rivers to ,cincinnati4 ,the great ,west1 with its vast prairies1 was the natural market for the reaper4 ,upon the small farms of the ,east hand labor might still suffice for the harvest2 in the ,west1 where the farms were enormous and labor scarce1 it was out of the question4 ,realizing that while his reaper was a luxury in ,virginia1 it was a necessity in ,ohio and ,illinois1 ,cyrus ,mc,cormick went to ,cincinnati in the autumn of #ahdd and began manufacturing4 ,at the same time he made some valuable improvements and obtained a second patent4 ,the reaper had become known and the inventor rode on horseback through ,illinois and ,wisconsin1 obtaining farmers' orders for reapers1 which he offered to ,a4,c4 ,brown1 of ,cincinnati1 as security for payment1 if he would use his workshops for manufacturing them4 ,mc,cormick was enabled also to arrange with a firm in ,brockport1 ,n4,y41 to make his reapers on a royalty1 and this business provided the great wheat district of ,central ,new ,york with machines4 ,in #ahdg and #ahdh he obtained still other patents for new features of the reaper4 ,illustration3 ,the ,first ,reaper4 ,in #ahdf he had already fixed upon ,chicago as the best centre of operations for the reaper business1 and at the close of the year he moved there4 ,the next year the sale of the reapers rose to seven hundred1 and more than doubled in #ahdi4 ,having associated his two brothers1 ,william ,s4 and ,leander ,j41 with him1 ,cyrus ,mc,cormick found time to devote himself to introducing the reaper in the ,old ,world4 ,the ,american exhibit at the ,london ,world's ,fair of #ahea was rather a small one1 redeemed largely by the ,mc,cormick reaper1 which the ,london ,times1 as ,i have already said1 praised as worth to the farmers of ,great ,britain more than the whole cost of the exhibition4 ,to it was awarded the grand prize1 known as the council medal4 ,the reaper's advance in public favor was as steady on the other side of the water as here1 and medals and honors were awarded ,mc,cormick at many important exhibitions4 ,during the ,paris ,exposition of #ahfg ,mc,cormick superintended the work of his reapers at a field trial held by the exposition authorities1 and so conclusively defeated all competitors that ,napoleon ,,iii41 who walked after the reapers1 expressed his determination to confer upon the inventor1 then and there1 the ,cross of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,at the ,french ,exposition of #ahgh the ,mc,cormick wire-binder won the grand prize4 ,from #ahej the success of the reaper was assured4 ,mr4 ,mc,cormick might have rested content with what had been achieved1 but it was not his nature4 ,he not only continued to bear upon his shoulders the larger share of responsibility of the rapidly growing business1 but he labored persistently to add to the effectiveness of his invention4 ,the great fire that swept ,chicago in #ahga left nothing of the already important works established by ,mr4 ,mc,cormick4 ,but1 as might be expected from such a man1 he was a tower of strength to the city in her time of distress1 and one of those to rally first from the blow and to inspire hope4 ,within a year1 assisted by his brother ,leander1 he had raised from the ashes an immense establishment1 which with the growth of the last few years now covers forty acres of ground4 ,more than #b1jjj men are here employed4 ,the statistics for last year show that more than #bj1jjj tons of special bar-iron and steel1 #b1hjj tons of sheet steel1 and #bf1jjj tons of castings were used in making the #adb1jjj machines sold4 ,ten million feet of lumber were used1 chiefly in boxing and crating1 as very little wood is now used in the reaper4 ,this is a marvellous development from the little ,virginia shop of #ahdj1 with its output of one machine a week1 and the growth means far more for the country at large than might be inferred from these figures2 the farmers of the world owe more to the ,mc,cormick reaper than they can repay4 ,the whir of the ,american reaper is heard around the world4 ,in ,egypt1 ,russia1 ,india1 ,australia the machine is helping man with more than a giant's strength4 ,recent ,american travellers through ,persia have described the singular effect produced upon them by seeing the ,mc,cormick reaper doing its steady work in the fields over which ,haroun ,al ,raschid may have roamed4 ,and this wonderful machine is followed with awe by the more ignorant of the natives1 who look upon its achievements as little short of magical4 ,they are not far wrong1 however1 for it is more amazing than any wonder described in their ,arabian ,nights4 ,the last years of ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick's life were such as have fallen to few of the world's benefactors1 for as a rule the pioneer who shows the road has a hard time of it1 even unto the end4 ,mr4 ,mc,cormick had the satisfaction of knowing not only that by his invention he had conferred a blessing upon the workmen of the world1 but that the world had acknowledged the debt4 ,material prosperity1 however1 was not considered any reason for luxurious idleness4 ,to the close of his life ,mr4 ,mc,cormick continued to supervise the business of his firm and to make the reaper more perfect4 ,no great exhibition abroad or in this country passed without some of its honors falling to the share of the ,mc,cormick reaper4 ,the private life of ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick was a happy one1 and to this may be attributed no small share of the elasticity and courage that recognized no defeat as final4 ,congress failed to do him justice2 his business was attacked by hordes of rivals2 it was interrupted by the fire of #ahga and afterward threatened by labor strikes incited by self-seeking demagogues4 ,hard work was the rule of his life and not the exception4 ,but that his nature remained sweet and just is shown by his untiring work upon behalf of others4 ,his home life1 as ,i have just remarked1 was unusually blessed4 ,in #aheh he married ,miss ,nettie ,fowler1 a daughter of ,melzar ,fowler1 of ,jefferson ,county1 ,new ,york4 ,of the seven children born of this marriage1 five lived to grow up1 his son1 ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick1 now occupying his father's place at the head of the great works in ,chicago4 ,one of the daughters1 ,anita1 is the widow of ,emmons ,blaine4 ,the inventor of the reaping-machine died on the #acth of ,may1 #ahhd4 ,robert ,h4 ,parkinson1 of ,cincinnati1 speaks as follows of one of the last interviews he had with ,mr4 ,mc,cormick3 ,though struggling with the infirmities of age1 he took on a kind of majesty which belongs alone to that combination of great mental and moral strength1 and he surprised me by the power with which he grappled the matters under discussion1 and the strong personality before which obstacles went down as swiftly and inevitably as grain before the knife of his machine4 ,i think myself fortunate in having had this glimpse of him and in being able to remember with so much personal association a life so complete in its achievements1 so far-reaching in its impress1 alike upon the material1 moral1 and religious progress of the country1 and so thoroughly successful and beneficial in every department of activity and influence which it entered4 ,one of his friends1 speaking of ,mr4 ,mc,cormick1 said3 ,that which gave intensity to his purpose1 strength to his will1 and nerved him with perseverance that never failed was his supreme regard for justice1 his worshipful reverence for the true and right4 ,the thoroughness of his conviction that justice must be done1 that right must be maintained1 made him insensible to reproach and impatient of delay4 ,i do not wonder that his character was strong1 nor that his purpose was invincible1 nor that his plans were crowned with an ultimate and signal success1 for where conviction of right is the motive-power and the attainment of justice the end in view1 with faith in ,god there is no such word as fail4 ,cyrus ,h4 ,mc,cormick was not only the inventor of a great labor-saving device1 but he helped his fellow-man in other ways4 ,philanthropy1 religion1 education1 journalism1 and politics received a share of his attention4 ,more than thirty years ago he was already an active power for good in the councils of his church4 ,in #ahei he proposed to the ,general ,assembly of the ,presbyterian ,church to endow with #ajj1jjj the professorships of a theological seminary1 to be established in ,chicago4 ,this was done1 and during his lifetime he gave about half a million dollars to this institution--the ,theological ,seminary of the ,northwest4 ,the ,mc,cormick professorship of natural philosophy in the ,washington and ,lee ,university of ,virginia1 and gifts to the ,union ,theological ,seminary at ,hampden-,sidney1 and to the college at ,hastings1 ,neb41 also attest his solicitude for the church in which he had been reared and of which he had been a member since #ahcd4 ,in #ahgb he came to the aid of the struggling organ of the ,presbyterian ,church in the ,northwest1 the ,interior1 and used it to foster union between the ,old and the ,new ,schools in the church1 to aid in harmonizing the ,presbyterian ,church in the ,north and ,south1 to advance the interests of the ,theological ,seminary1 and to promote the welfare of the ,presbyterian ,church in the ,northwest4 ,under his care and advice the ,interior grew to be a mighty voice1 expressing the convictions1 the aspirations1 and hopes of a great church4 ,illustration3 ,thomas ,a4 ,edison4 ,,ix4 ,,thomas ,a4 ,,edison4 ,illustration3 ,edison's ,paper ,carbon ,lamp4 ,thomas ,a4 ,edison is sometimes spoken of rather as a master mechanic than as a master inventor or discoverer1 and with regard to some of his work--,i might even say most of it--this characterization holds true4 ,edison's fame is chiefly associated in the popular mind with the electric light4 ,yet it is perfectly well known to every student of the matter1 that in all that he has done toward making the electric light a useful every-day--or perhaps ,i should say every-night--affair1 he has simply made practicable what other men had invented or discovered before him4 ,the fundamental discovery upon which the incandescent electric lamp is founded--that a wire of metal or other substance if heated to incandescence in a glass bulb from which the air has been exhausted will give light for a longer or shorter time1 according to the character of the apparatus and the degree to which a perfect vacuum has been effected in the bulb--this dates from the first half of the century4 ,as early as #ahdi ,despretz1 the ,french scientist1 described a series of experiments with sticks of carbon sealed in a glass globe from which air had been exhausted4 ,when a powerful current was passed through the carbon filament it became luminous and remained so for a short time4 ,this was1 perhaps1 the first of a long line of similar experiments in which a number of ,american physicists--,farmer1 ,draper1 ,henry1 ,morse1 and ,maxim among them--took part4 ,but notwithstanding the labors of a score of experts in ,europe and this country1 the incandescent electric light--the wire in a glass bulb exhausted of its air--remained a laboratory curiosity up to the time1 fifteen years ago1 when ,edison took hold of it4 ,it gave light only for a short time and was too expensive a toy for practical use4 ,the carbon burned out or disintegrated1 and the lamp failed4 ,edison took hold of the mechanical difficulties of the problem4 ,with a patience1 an ingenuity1 a fertility of device in which he stands alone1 he got to the bottom of each radical defect and remedied it4 ,the lamp would not burn long because the platinum wire used gave out1 partly because platinum was not fitted for the work1 fusing at too low a temperature4 ,edison substituted carbonized strips of paper4 ,these in turn failed1 and he found a species of bamboo that answered4 ,the lamp would not burn because air still remained in the little bulbs notwithstanding the most careful manipulation with ,sprengel pumps to exhaust the air4 ,edison invented new pumps and devices by which the air1 down to one millionth part1 was excluded4 ,the lamp cost too much to operate1 because large copper wires were needed to carry the current1 and the generators used up steam power too fast4 ,edison devised new forms of conductors and generators4 ,all such work called more for mechanical ingenuity than for actual invention4 ,no new principles were involved--merely the better adaptation of known methods4 ,given a perfect carbon1 a globe perfectly free from air1 cheap electric current1 and cheap means of carrying it from the generating machine to the lamps1 and the problem was solved4 ,edison1 as a master mechanic1 furnished all this1 or at least so nearly solved the problem as to entitle him to claim credit for having given the electric light to the world--a better illuminant than gas in every way1 and destined some day to be infinitely cheaper4 ,with regard to ,edison's work upon the telegraph1 telephone1 electric railway1 dynamo1 the ore-extracting machines1 the electric pen1 and a score of other inventions which have made him the most profitable customer of the ,united ,states ,patent ,office in this or any other generation1 the labor of this remarkable genius has also been largely that of one who made practical and useful the dreams of others4 ,and ,i am by no means sure that the man who does this is not entitled to more credit than he who simply suggests that such and such a wonder might be accomplished and stops there4 ,it is certain that before ,edison we had no electric lights2 now we have them in every important building in the country1 and ere long shall have them everywhere4 ,edison dislikes intensely the term discoverer as applied to himself4 ,discovery is not invention1 he once remarked in the course of an interesting talk with ,mr4 ,george ,parsons ,lathrop1 printed in ,harper's ,magazine4 ,a discovery is more or less in the nature of an accident4 ,a man walks along the road intending to catch the train4 ,on the way his foot kicks against something1 and looking down to see what he has hit1 he sees a gold bracelet embedded in the dust4 ,he has discovered that1 certainly not invented it4 ,he did not set out to find a bracelet1 yet the value of it is just as great to him at the moment as if1 after long years of study1 he had invented a machine for making a gold bracelet out of common road metal4 ,goodyear discovered the way to make hard rubber4 ,he was at work experimenting with india-rubber1 and quite by chance he hit upon a process which hardened it--the last result in the world that he wished or expected to attain4 ,in a discovery there must be an element of the accidental1 and an important one1 too2 while an invention is purely deductive4 ,in my own case but few1 and those the least important1 of my inventions owed anything to accident4 ,most of them have been hammered out after long and patient labor1 and are the result of countless experiments all directed toward attaining some well-defined object4 ,all mechanical improvements may safely be said to be inventions and not discoveries4 ,the sewing-machine was an invention4 ,so were the steam-engine and the typewriter4 ,speaking of this latter1 did ,i ever tell you that ,i made the first twelve typewriters at my old factory in ,railroad ,avenue1 ,newark8 ,this was in #ahfi or #ahgj1 and ,i myself had worked at a machine of similar character1 but never found time to develop it fully4 ,illustration3 ,edison ,listening to his ,phonograph4 ,there is one great invention1 however1 for which ,edison deserves credit1 both as discoverer and practical inventor--the phonograph4 ,here was a genuine discovery4 ,the phonograph knows no other parent than ,edison1 and he has brought it to its present condition by devotion and tireless skill4 ,i have always believed in the phonograph as an instrument destined to play some day an important part among the blessings that ingenuity has given to man4 ,there are still obstacles in the way of its practical success1 but that the missing screw or spring--perhaps no more than that--will be found in the near future1 is not doubted by any competent observer4 ,thomas ,alva ,edison was born ,february #aa1 #ahdg1 at ,milan1 ,erie ,county1 ,o41 an obscure canal village4 ,when a small boy1 his family1 a most humble one 7his father being a village jack-of-all-trades1 living upon odd jobs done for neighboring farmers71 moved to ,port ,huron1 ,mich41 where ,edison's boyhood was passed4 ,there his father was in turn tailor1 well-digger1 nursery-man1 dealer in grain1 lumber1 and farm lands4 ,his parents were of ,dutch-,scotch descent and gave him the iron constitution that enables him to-day1 at the age of forty-seven1 to tire out the most robust of his assistants4 ,one of his ancestors lived to the age of one hundred and two1 and another to the age of one hundred and three1 so that we may reasonably expect the famous inventor to open the door for us to still other wonders of which we do not yet even dream4 ,his mother1 born in ,massachusetts1 had a good education and at one time taught school in ,canada4 ,of regular schooling1 young ,edison had but two months in his life4 ,whatever else he knew as a boy he learned from his mother4 ,there are no records showing extraordinary promise on his part4 ,he was an omnivorous reader1 having an intense curiosity about the world and its great men4 ,at ten years of age he was reading ,hume's ,england1 ,gibbon's ,rome1 the ,penny ,encyclopdia1 and some books on chemistry4 ,at the age of twelve he entered upon his life work as newsboy on the ,grand ,trunk ,railroad of ,canada and the ,michigan ,central1 selling papers1 books1 candies1 etc41 to the passengers4 ,were you one of the train-boys1 he was once asked1 who sold figs in boxes with bottoms half an inch thick8 ,if ,i recollect aright1 he replied1 with a merry twinkle1 the bottoms of my boxes were a good inch4 ,illustration3 ,from ,edison's ,newspaper1 the ,grand ,trunk ,herald4 ,perhaps the twelve-year-old boy learned something from the books and papers he sold4 ,at all events he says that the love of chemistry1 even at that age1 led him to make the corner of the baggage-car where he stored his wares a small laboratory1 fitted up with such retorts and bottles as he could pick up in the railroad workshops4 ,he had a copy of ,fresenius's ,qualitative ,analysis1 into which he plunged with the ardor a small boy usually shows for nothing literary unless it has a yellow cover decorated with an ,indian's head4 ,he seems also to have had a habit of hanging around all interesting places1 from a machine-shop to a printing-office1 keeping his eyes very wide open4 ,in one such expedition he received as a gift from ,w4,f4 ,storey1 of the ,detroit ,free ,press1 three hundred pounds of old type thrown out as useless4 ,with an old hand-press he began printing a paper of his own1 the ,grand ,trunk ,herald1 of which he sold several hundred copies a week1 the employees of the road being his best customers4 ,my news1 he says1 talking of this time1 was purely local4 ,but ,i was proud of my newspaper and looked upon myself as a full-fledged newspaper man4 ,my items used to run about like this3 ',john ,robinson1 baggage-master at ,james's ,creek ,station1 fell off the platform yesterday and hurt his leg4 ,the boys are sorry for ,john4' ,or1 ',no4 #c ,burlington engine has gone into the shed for repairs4' ,this was ,edison's only dip into a literary occupation4 ,he has no predilection in that way4 ,he realizes the value of newspapers and books1 but chiefly as tools1 and his splendid library at the ,orange laboratory1 kept with scrupulous system1 is filled with scientific books and periodicals only4 ,telegraphy was to be the field in which he was to win his first laurels4 ,some years ago he told the story as follows3 ,at the beginning of the civil war ,i was slaving late and early at selling papers2 but1 to tell the truth1 ,i was not making a fortune4 ,i worked on so small a margin that ,i had to be mighty careful not to overload myself with papers that ,i could not sell4 ,on the other hand1 ,i could not afford to carry so few that ,i should find myself sold out long before the end of the trip4 ,to enable myself to hit the happy mean1 ,i formed a plan which turned out admirably4 ,i made a friend of one of the compositors of the ,free ,press office1 and persuaded him to show me every day a 'galley-proof' of the most important news article4 ,from a study of its head-lines ,i soon learned to gauge the value of the day's news and its selling capacity1 so that ,i could form a tolerably correct estimate of the number of papers ,i should need4 ,as a rule ,i could dispose of about two hundred2 but if there was any special news from the seat of war1 the sale ran up to three hundred or over4 ,well1 one day my compositor brought me a proof-slip of which nearly the whole was taken up with a gigantic display head4 ,it was the first report of the battle of ,pittsburgh ,landing--afterward called ,shiloh1 you know--and it gave the number of killed and wounded as sixty thousand men4 ,i grasped the situation at once4 ,here was a chance for enormous sales1 if only the people along the line could know what had happened6 ,if only they could see the proof-slip ,i was then reading6 ,suddenly an idea occurred to me4 ,i rushed off to the telegraph-operator and gravely made a proposition to him which he received just as gravely4 ,he on his part was to wire to each of the principal stations on our route1 asking the station-master to chalk up on the bulletin-board--used for announcing the time of arrival and departure of trains--the news of the great battle1 with its accompanying slaughter4 ,this he was to do at once1 while ,i1 in return1 agreed to supply him with current literature 'free1 gratis1 for nothing' during the next six months from that date4 ,this bargain struck1 ,i began to bethink me how ,i was to get enough papers to make the grand coup ,i intended4 ,i had very little cash and1 ,i feared1 still less credit4 ,i went to the superintendent of the delivery department1 and preferred a modest request for one thousand copies of the ,free ,press on trust4 ,i was not much surprised when my request was curtly and gruffly refused4 ,in those days1 though1 ,i was a pretty cheeky boy and ,i felt desperate1 for ,i saw a small fortune in prospect if my telegraph operator had kept his word--a point on which ,i was still a trifle doubtful4 ,nerving myself for a great stroke1 ,i marched upstairs into the office of ,wilbur ,f4 ,storey himself and asked to see him4 ,a few minutes later ,i was shown in to him4 ,i told who ,i was1 and that ,i wanted fifteen hundred copies of the paper on credit4 ,the tall1 thin1 dark-eyed1 ascetic-looking man stared at me for a moment and then scratched a few words on a slip of paper4 ',take that downstairs1' said he1 'and you will get what you want4' ,and so ,i did4 ,then ,i felt happier than ,i have ever felt since4 ,i took my fifteen hundred papers1 got three boys to help me fold them1 and mounted the train all agog to find out whether the telegraph operator had kept his word4 ,at the town where our first stop was made ,i usually sold two papers4 ,as the train swung into that station ,i looked ahead and thought there must be a riot going on4 ,a big crowd filled the platform and as the train drew up ,i began to realize that they wanted my papers4 ,before we left ,i had sold a hundred or two at five cents apiece4 ,at the next station the place was fairly black with people4 ,i raised the 'ante' and sold three hundred papers at ten cents each4 ,so it went on until ,port ,huron was reached4 ,then ,i transferred my remaining stock to the wagon which always waited for me there1 hired a small boy to sit on the pile of papers in the back1 so as to discount any pilfering1 and sold out every paper ,i had at a quarter of a dollar or more per copy4 ,i remember ,i passed a church full of worshippers1 and stopped to yell out my news4 ,in ten seconds there was not a soul left in meeting4 ,all of them1 including the parson1 were clustered around me1 bidding against each other for copies of the precious paper4 ,you can understand why it struck me then that the telegraph must be about the best thing going1 for it was the telegraphic notices on the bulletin-boards that had done the trick4 ,i determined at once to become a telegraph-operator4 ,but if it hadn't been for ,wilbur ,f4 ,storey ,i should never have fully appreciated the wonders of electrical science4 ,telegraphy became a hobby with the boy4 ,from every operator along the road he picked up something4 ,he strung the basement of his father's house at ,port ,huron with wires1 and constructed a short line1 using for the batteries stove-pipe wire1 old bottles1 nails1 and zinc which urchins of the neighborhood were induced to cut out from under the stoves of their unsuspecting mothers and bring to young ,edison at three cents a pound4 ,in order to save time for his experiments1 he had the habit of leaping from a train while it was going at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour1 landing upon a pile of sand arranged by him for that purpose4 ,an act of personal courage--the saving of the station-master's child at ,port ,clements from an advancing train--was a turning-point in his career1 for the grateful father taught him telegraphing in the regular way4 ,telegraphy was then in its infancy1 comparatively speaking2 operators were few1 and good wages could be earned by means of much less proficiency than is now required4 ,still1 ,edison had so little leisure at his disposal for learning the new trade1 that it took him several years to become an expert operator4 ,most of his studies were carried on in the corner of the baggage-car that served him as printing-office1 laboratory1 and business headquarters4 ,with so many irons in the fire1 mishaps were sure to occur4 ,once he received a drubbing on account of an article reflecting unpleasantly upon some employee of the road4 ,one day during his absence a bottle of phosphorus upset and set the old railroad caboose on fire1 whereupon the conductor threw out all the painfully acquired apparatus and thrashed its owner4 ,edison's first regular employment as telegraph-operator was at ,indianapolis when he was eighteen years old4 ,he received a small salary for day-work in the railroad office there1 and at night he used to receive newspaper reports for practice4 ,the regular operator was a man given to copious libations1 who was glad enough to sleep off their effects while ,edison and a young friend of his named ,parmley did his work4 ,i would sit down1 says ,edison1 for ten minutes1 and 'take' as much as ,i could from the instrument1 carrying the rest in my head4 ,then while ,i wrote out1 ,parmley would serve his turn at 'taking1' and so on4 ,this worked well until they put a new man on at the ,cincinnati end4 ,he was one of the quickest despatchers in the business1 and we soon found it was hopeless for us to try to keep up with him4 ,then it was that ,i worked out my first invention1 and necessity was certainly the mother of it4 ,i got two old ,morse registers and arranged them in such a way that by running a strip of paper through them the dots and dashes were recorded on it by the first instrument as fast as they were delivered from the ,cincinnati end1 and were transmitted to us through the other instrument at any desired rate of speed4 ,they would come in on one instrument at the rate of forty words a minute1 and would be ground out of our instrument at the rate of twenty-five4 ,then weren't we proud6 ,our copy used to be so clean and beautiful that we hung it up on exhibition2 and our manager used to come and gaze at it silently with a puzzled expression4 ,he could not understand it1 neither could any of the other operators2 for we used to hide my impromptu automatic recorder when our toil was over4 ,but the crash came when there was a big night's work--a ,presidential vote1 ,i think it was--and copy kept pouring in at the top rate of speed until we fell an hour and a half or two hours behind4 ,the newspapers sent in frantic complaints1 an investigation was made1 and our little scheme was discovered4 ,we couldn't use it any more4 ,illustration3 ,edison's ,tinfoil ,phonograph--the ,first ,practical ,machine4 ,it was that same rude automatic recorder that indirectly led me long afterward to invent the phonograph4 ,i'll tell you how this came about4 ,after thinking over the matter a great deal1 ,i came to the point where1 in #ahgg1 ,i had worked out satisfactorily an instrument that would not only record telegrams by indenting a strip of paper with dots and dashes of the ,morse code1 but would also repeat a message any number of times at any rate of speed required4 ,i was then experimenting with the telephone also1 and my mind was filled with theories of sound vibrations and their transmission by diaphragms4 ,naturally enough1 the idea occurred to me3 if the indentations on paper could be made to give forth again the click of the instrument1 why could not the vibrations of a diaphragm be recorded and similarly reproduced8 ,i rigged up an instrument hastily and pulled a strip of paper through it1 at the same time shouting1 ',hallo'6 ,then the paper was pulled through again1 my friend ,batchelor and ,i listening breathlessly4 ,we heard a distinct sound1 which a strong imagination might have translated into the original ',hallo4' ,that was enough to lead me to a further experiment4 ,but ,batchelor was sceptical1 and bet me a barrel of apples that ,i couldn't make the thing go4 ,i made a drawing of a model and took it to ,mr4 ,kruesi1 at that time engaged on piece-work for me1 but now assistant general manager of our machine-shop at ,schenectady4 ,i told him it was a talking-machine4 ,he grinned1 thinking it a joke2 but he set to work and soon had the model ready4 ,i arranged some tinfoil on it1 and spoke into the machine4 ,kruesi looked on1 still grinning4 ,but when ,i arranged the machine for transmission and we both heard a distinct sound from it1 he nearly fell down in his fright4 ,i was a little scared myself1 ,i must admit4 ,i won that barrel of apples from ,batchelor1 though1 and was mighty glad to get it4 ,to go back to earlier days1 the story of ,edison's first years as a full-fledged operator shows that from the beginning he was more of an inventor than an operator4 ,he was full of ideas1 some of which were gratefully received4 ,one day an ice-jam broke the cable between ,port ,huron1 in ,michigan1 and ,sarnia1 on the ,canada side1 and stopped communication4 ,the river is a mile and a half wide and was impassable4 ,young ,edison jumped upon a locomotive and seized the valve controlling the whistle4 ,he had the idea that the scream of the whistle might be broken into long and short notes1 corresponding to the dots and dashes of the telegraphic code4 ,hallo there1 ,sarnia6 ,do you get me8 ,do you hear what ,i say8 tooted the locomotive4 ,no answer4 ,do you hear what ,i say1 ,sarnia8 ,a third1 fourth1 and fifth time the message went across without response1 but finally the idea was caught on the other side2 answering toots came cheerfully back and the connection was recovered4 ,anything connected with the difficulties of telegraphy had a fascination for him4 ,he lost many a place because of unpardonable blunders due to his passion for improvement4 ,at ,stratford1 ,canada1 being required to report the word ,six every half hour to the manager to show that he was awake and on duty1 he rigged up a wheel to do it for him4 ,at ,indianapolis he kept press reports waiting while he experimented with new devices for receiving them4 ,at ,louisville1 in procuring some sulphuric acid at night for his experiments1 he tipped over a carboy of it1 ruining the handsome outfit of a banking establishment below4 ,at ,cincinnati he abandoned the office on every pretext to hasten to the ,mechanics' ,library to pass his day in reading4 ,an indication of his thirst for knowledge1 and of a nave ignoring of enormous difficulties1 is found in a project formed by him at this time to read through the whole public library4 ,there was no one to tell him that a summary of human knowledge may be found in a moderate number of volumes1 nor to point out to him what they are4 ,each book was to him a part of the great domain of knowledge1 none of which he meant to lose4 ,he began with the solid treatises of a dusty lower shelf and actually read1 in the accomplishment of his heroic purpose1 fifteen feet along that shelf4 ,he omitted no book and nothing in the book4 ,the list contained ,newton's ,principia1 ,ure's ,scientific ,dictionary1 and ,burton's ,anatomy of ,melancholy4 ,at that time a message sent from ,new ,orleans to ,new ,york had to be taken at ,memphis1 re-telegraphed to ,louisville1 taken down again by the operator there1 and telegraphed to another centre1 and so on till it reached ,new ,york4 ,time was lost and the chance of error was increased4 ,edison was the first to connect ,new ,orleans and ,new ,york directly4 ,it was just after the war4 ,he perfected an automatic repeater which was put on at ,memphis and did its work perfectly4 ,the manager of the office there1 one ,johnson1 had a relative who was also busy on the same problem1 but ,edison solved it ahead of him and received complimentary notices from the local papers4 ,he was discharged without cause4 ,he got a pass as far as ,decatur on his way home1 but had to walk from there to ,nashville1 a hundred and fifty miles4 ,from there he got a pass to ,louisville1 where he arrived during a sharp snow-storm1 clad in a linen duster4 ,it was soon after this that ,edison1 already a swift and competent operator when he devoted himself to practical work1 received promise of employment in the ,boston office4 ,the weather was quite cold and his peculiar dress1 topped with a slouchy broad-brimmed hat1 made something of a sensation4 ,but ,edison then cared as little for dress as he does to-day4 ,so one raw wet day a tall man with a limp1 wet duster clinging to his legs1 stalked into the superintendent's room1 and said3 ,here ,i am4 ,the superintendent eyed him from head to foot1 and said3 ,who are you8 ,tom ,edison4 ,and who on earth might ,tom ,edison be8 ,the young man explained that he had been ordered to report for duty at the ,boston office1 and was finally told to sit down in the operating-room1 where his advent created much merriment4 ,the operators guyed him loudly enough for him to hear4 ,he didn't care4 ,a few moments later a ,new ,york sender noted for his swiftness called up the ,boston office4 ,there was no one at liberty4 ,well1 said the office chief1 let that new fellow try him4 ,edison sat down1 and for four hours and a half wrote out messages in his peculiarly clear round hand1 stuck a date and number on them and threw them on the floor for the office boy to pick up4 ,the time he took in numbering and dating the sheets were the only seconds he was not writing out transmitted words4 ,faster and faster ticked the instrument1 and faster and faster went ,edison's fingers1 until the rapidity with which the messages came tumbling on the floor attracted the attention of the other operators1 who1 when their work was done1 gathered around to witness the spectacle4 ,at the close of the four and a half hours' work there flashed from ,new ,york the salutation3 ,hello6 ,hello yourself1 ticked back ,edison4 ,who the devil are you8 rattled into the ,boston office4 ,tom ,edison4 ,you are the first man in the country1 ticked the instrument1 that could ever take me at my fastest1 and the only one who could ever sit at the other end of my wire for more than two hours and a half4 ,i'm proud to know you4 ,edison was once asked with what invention he really began his career as an inventor4 ,well1 said he1 in reply1 my first appearance at the ,patent ,office was in #ahfh1 when ,i was twenty-one1 with an ingenious contrivance which ,i called the electrical vote recorder4 ,i had been impressed with the enormous waste of time in ,congress and in the ,state ,legislatures by the taking of votes on any motion4 ,more than half an hour was sometimes required to count the ',ayes' and ',noes4' ,so ,i devised a machine somewhat on the plan of the hotel annunciator that was invented long afterward1 only mine was a great deal more complex4 ,in front of each member's desk were to have been two buttons1 one for ',aye1' the other for ',no1' and by the side of the ,speaker's desk a frame with two dials1 one showing the total of ',ayes' and the other the total of ',noes4' ,when the vote was called for1 each member could press the button he wished and the result would appear automatically before the ,speaker1 who could glance at the dials and announce the result4 ,this contrivance would save several hours of public time every day in the session1 and ,i thought my fortune was made4 ,i interested a moneyed man in the thing and we went together to ,washington1 where we soon found the right man to get the machine adopted4 ,i set forth its merits4 ,imagine my feelings when1 in a horrified tone1 he exclaimed3 ,illustration3 ,vote ,recorder--,edison's ,first ,patented ,invention4 ',young man1 that won't do at all4 ,that is just what we do not want4 ,your invention would destroy the only hope the minority have of influencing legislation4 ,it would deliver them over1 bound hand and foot1 to the majority4 ,the present system gives them time1 a weapon which is invaluable1 and as the ruling majority always knows that they may some day become a minority1 they will be as much averse to any change as their opponents4' ,i saw the force of these remarks1 and the vote recorder got no further than the ,patent ,office4 ,but he began to believe in himself4 ,his next work was upon the applications of the vibratory principle in telegraphing1 upon which so many of his subsequent inventions were founded4 ,his first ambitious attempt was in the direction of a multiplex system for sending several messages over one wire at the same time4 ,it was not much of a success1 however1 and ,edison drifted to ,new ,york1 where1 after a vain attempt to interest the telegraph companies in his inventions1 he established himself as an electrical expert ready for odd jobs and making a specialty of telegraphy4 ,one day the ,western ,union ,company had trouble with its ,albany ,wire4 ,the wire wasn't broken1 but wouldn't work1 and several days of experimenting on the part of the company's electricians only served to puzzle them the more4 ,as a forlorn hope they sent for young ,edison4 ,how long will you give me8 he asked4 ,six hours8 ,the manager laughed and told him he would need longer than that4 ,edison sat down at the instrument1 established communication with ,albany by way of ,pittsburgh1 told the ,albany office to put their best man at the instrument1 and began a rapid series of tests with currents of all intensities4 ,he directed the tests from both ends1 and after two hours and a half told the company's officers that the trouble existed at a certain point he named on the line1 and he told them what it was4 ,they telegraphed the office nearest this point the necessary directions1 and an hour later the wire was working properly4 ,this incident first established his value in ,new ,york as an expert1 and the business became profitable4 ,moreover1 it led the different telegraph companies to give respectful attention to what he had to offer in the way of patented devices4 ,edison's mechanical skill soon became so noted that he was made superintendent of the repair shop of one of the smaller telegraph companies then in existence1 all of which were using what was known as the ,page sounder1 a device for signalling1 the sole right to which was claimed by the ,western ,union ,company4 ,owing to the latter company's success in a patent suit over this sounder1 there came a time when an injunction was obtained1 silencing all sounders of that type1 and practically putting a serious obstacle in the way of rapid work4 ,edison was called into the president's office and the situation explained4 ,for a long time1 according to one who was present1 he stood chewing vigorously upon a mouthful of tobacco1 looking first at the sounder in his hand1 and then falling into a brown study4 ,at length he picked up a sheet of tin used as a back for manifolding on thin sheets of paper1 and began to twist and cut it into queer shapes2 a group of persons gathered around and watched4 ,not a word was spoken4 ,finally ,edison tore off the ,page sounder on the instrument before him1 and substituting his bit of tin1 began working4 ,it was not so good as the patented arrangement discarded1 but it worked4 ,in four hours a hundred such devices were in use over the line1 and what would have been a ruinous interruption to business was avoided4 ,edison's first large sums of money came from the sale of an improvement in the instruments used to record stock quotations in brokers' offices1 commonly known as tickers4 ,his success in this direction led him to take a contract to manufacture some hundreds of tickers1 and his only venture in this direction was carried out with considerable success at a shop he rented in ,newark about #ahge4 ,but as he told me a few years later1 in talking about this incident in his career1 manufacturing was not in his line4 ,like ,thoreau1 who having succeeded in making a perfect lead-pencil1 declared he should never make another1 he hates routine4 ,i was a poor manufacturer1 said he1 because ,i could not let well enough alone4 ,my first impulse upon taking any apparatus into my hand1 from an egg-beater to an electric-motor1 is to seek a way of improving it4 ,therefore1 as soon as ,i have finished a machine ,i am anxious to take it apart again in order to make an experiment4 ,that is a costly mania for a manufacturer4 ,illustration3 ,edison in his ,laboratory4 ,it was his success with a device for printing stock quotations upon paper tape that finally induced several ,new ,york capitalists to accept ,edison's offer to experiment with the incandescent electric light1 they to pay the expense of the experiments and share in the inventions if any were made4 ,for the sake of quiet ,edison moved out to ,menlo ,park1 a little station on the ,pennsylvania road about twenty-five miles beyond ,newark1 and built a shop twenty-eight feet wide1 one hundred feet long1 and two stories high4 ,it was here that ,i first made his acquaintance1 in ,january1 #ahgi1 soon after the newspapers had announced that he had solved the problem of the electric light4 ,it may be remembered that gas stock tumbled in price at that time1 and there was a rush to sell before the new light should displace gas altogether4 ,one cold day ,i climbed the hill from the station1 and once past the reception-room1 in which every new-comer was carefully scrutinized1 for inventors are apt to have odds and ends lying about that they do not want seen by everyone1 ,i found myself in a long big work-shop4 ,to anyone accustomed to the orderly appearance of the ideal machine-shop1 it presented a curious appearance1 for evidently half the machines in it--forges1 lathes1 furnaces1 retorts1 etc4--were dismantled for the moment and useless4 ,half a dozen workmen were busy in an apparently aimless manner4 ,upstairs1 in a room devoted to chemical experiments1 ,i found ,edison himself4 ,he is to-day just what he was then4 ,prosperity has not changed him in the least1 except perhaps in one particular4 ,in those days of struggle the inventor was far less affable with visitors than he is to-day4 ,one felt instinctively that he was a man struggling to accomplish some serious task to which he was devoting every waking thought and probably dreaming about it at night4 ,as ,i strode across the laboratory in the direction indicated by one of the workmen present1 a compactly built but not tall man1 with rather a boyish1 clean-shaven face1 prematurely old1 was holding a vial of some liquid up to the light4 ,he had on a blouse such as chemists wear1 but it was hardly necessary1 as his clothes were well stained with acids2 his hands were covered with some oil with which his hair was liberally streaked1 as he had a habit of wiping his fingers upon his head4 ,good clothes are wasted upon me1 he once explained to me4 ,i feel it is wrong to wear any1 and ,i never put on a new suit when ,i can help it4 ,edison has been slightly deaf for a number of years1 and like all persons of defective hearing1 closely watches anyone with whom he talks4 ,his patience with visitors is proverbial1 and provided any intelligence is shown1 he will plunge into long explanations4 ,as he goes on from point to point1 warming up to his subject1 he is sometimes quite oblivious to the fact that it is all lost upon his visitor until brought back by some question or comment which shows that he might as well talk ,sanskrit4 ,then he laughs and goes back to simpler matters4 ,i watched him for a few moments before presenting myself4 ,after a long look at his bottle1 held up against the light1 he put it down again on the table before him1 and resting his head between his hands1 both elbows on the table1 he peered down at the bottle as if he expected it to say something4 ,then1 after a moment's brown study1 he would seize it again1 give it a shake1 as if to shake its secret out1 and hold it up to the light4 ,as pantomime nothing could have been more expressive4 ,that liquid contained a secret it would not give up1 but if it could be made to give it up1 ,edison was the man to do it1 as a terrier might worry the life out of a rat4 ,illustration3 ,edison's ,menlo ,park ,electric ,locomotive 7#ahhj74 ,the secret of his success might well be ,persistency1 more persistency1 still more persistency4 ,one of his foremen relates that once in ,newark when his printing telegraph suddenly refused to work1 he locked himself into his laboratory1 declaring that he would not come out till the trouble was found4 ,it took him sixty hours1 during which time his only food consisted of crackers and cheese eaten at the bench2 then he went to bed and slept twenty hours at a stretch4 ,at another time1 during the height of the first electric-light excitement1 all the lamps he had burning in ,menlo ,park1 about eighty in all1 suddenly went out1 one after another1 without apparent cause4 ,everything had gone well for nearly a month and the great success of the experiment had been published to the world4 ,if the lamps1 with their carbon filaments of charred paper would burn for a month there seemed to be no reason why they should not burn for a year1 and ,edison was stunned by the catastrophe4 ,the trouble was evidently in the lamps themselves1 for new lamps burned well4 ,then began the most exciting and most exhaustive series of experiments ever undertaken by an ,american physicist4 ,for five days ,edison remained day and night at the laboratory1 sleeping only when his assistants took his place at whatever was going on4 ,the difficulties in the way of experimenting with the incandescent lamp are enormous because the light only burns when in a vacuum4 ,the instant the glass is broken1 out it goes4 ,edison's eyes grew weak studying the brilliant glow of the carbon filament4 ,at the end of the five days he took to his bed1 worn out with excitement and sick with disappointment4 ,during the last two days and nights he ate nothing4 ,he could not sleep1 for the moment he left the laboratory and closed his eyes some new test suggested itself4 ,neither was there much sleep for his faithful force4 ,ordinarily one of the most considerate of men1 he seemed quite surprised when rest and refreshments were sometimes suggested as in order after fifteen hours' incessant work4 ,the trouble was finally discovered to be one that time alone could have proved4 ,the air was not sufficiently exhausted from the lamps4 ,to add to the discomfiture of the inventor1 a professor of physics in one of the well-known colleges declared in a newspaper article widely circulated that the ,edison lamp would never last long enough to pay for itself4 ,i'll make a statue of that man1 said ,edison to me one day when he was still groping in the dark for the secret of his temporary defeat1 and ,i'll illuminate it brilliantly with ,edison lamps and inscribe it3 ',this is the man who said the ,edison lamp would not burn4' ,to go back to ,edison1 shaking his bottle in the sunlight1 his brown study gave way to a pleasant smile of welcome when ,i had made my business known4 ,take a look at these filings1 he said1 making room for me at the bench4 ,see how curiously they settle when ,i shake the bottle up4 ,in alcohol they behave one way1 but in oil in this way4 ,isn't that the most curious thing you ever saw--better than a play at one of your city theatres1 eh8 and he chuckled to himself as he shook them up again4 ,what ,i want to know1 he went on1 more to himself than to me1 is what they mean by it1 and ,i'm going to find out4 ,to me the interesting spectacle was ,edison tossing up his bottle and watching the filings settle1 and not the curious behavior of the filings4 ,when he put the bottle by1 with a deep sigh1 he took me over the whole place1 pointing out with particular pride the apparatus for making the paper carbons for the lamps1 and the new forms of ,sprengel mercury pumps that did better work in extracting air from the lamps than any yet devised4 ,looking back to that first visit to ,edison1 the first of perhaps a score that ,i have had occasion to make him in the last fifteen years1 what impressed me most was the immensity of the field in which he takes an interest4 ,ask ,edison what he thinks will be the next step in the development of the sewing-machine1 or the telescope1 the microscope1 the steam-engine1 the electric-motor1 the reaping-machine1 or any device by which man accomplishes much work in little time1 and invariably it will be found that he has some novel ideas upon the subject1 perhaps fanciful in the extreme1 but practical enough to show that he has pondered the matter4 ,he shares the opinion of the gentleman who insists that whatever is is wrong1 but only to this extent3 that whatever is might be better4 ,authority means nothing to him2 he must test for himself4 ,for instance1 it is well known that he rejects the ,newtonian theory in part and holds that motion is an inherent property of matter2 that it pushes1 finding its way in the direction of least resistance1 and is not pulled or attracted4 ,it seems to me1 he said once1 that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence4 ,look at the thousand ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements1 forming the most diverse substances4 ,do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence8 ,atoms in harmonious and useful relation assume beautiful or interesting shapes and colors1 or give forth a pleasant perfume1 as if expressing their satisfaction4 ,in sickness1 death1 decomposition1 or filth the disagreement of the component atoms immediately makes itself felt by bad odors4 ,it is partly due to this belief in the sensibility of atoms that ,edison attributes his faith in an intelligent ,creator4 ,illustration ,it is hard to say into what field of inquiry ,edison has not dipped4 ,he told me once that whenever he travelled he carried a note-book with him1 in which he jotted down suggestions for experiments to be made4 ,railway journeys1 at a time when ,edison was a constant traveller1 were productive of much material of this kind1 for the inventor never sleeps when travelling1 and his brain works1 going over1 even in a doze1 the thousand and one aspects of his work1 and evolving theories to be dismissed almost as soon as evolved4 ,his mind1 when at rest1 reviews his day's work almost automatically1 just as a chess player's brain will1 after an exciting game1 go over every situation in a half dream-like condition and evolve new solutions4 ,he has great respect for even what appear to be the most inconsequential observations1 provided they are made by a competent person1 and a large force in his splendid laboratory at ,orange is always employed in studies that appear to the outsider to be aimless2 for instance1 the action of chemicals upon various substances or upon each other4 ,strips of ivory in a certain oil become transparent in six weeks4 ,a globule of mercury in water takes various shapes for the opposite poles of the electric-battery upon the addition of a little potassium4 ,there is no present use for the knowledge of such facts1 but it is recorded in voluminous note-books1 and some day the connecting-link in the chain of an invaluable discovery may here be found4 ,my next visit to ,menlo ,park was a few months later1 when ,i found ,edison in bed sick with disappointment4 ,the lamps had again taken to antics for which no remedy or explanation could be discovered4 ,there was an air of desolation over the place4 ,the laboratory was cold and comfortless4 ,upon every side were signs of strict economy4 ,most of the assistants were young men glad to work for little or nothing4 ,for the last month ,edison had been working in the direction of a general improvement of all parts of the lamp instead of devoting himself to one feature4 ,expert glass-blowers were brought to ,menlo ,park1 the air-pumps were made more perfect1 new substances were tried for carbons4 ,all this had taken time1 during which outsiders freely predicted failure4 ,the stock in the enterprise fell to such a price that it was hard to raise money for the maintenance of the laboratory4 ,it was argued1 and with some truth1 as ,i have had occasion to remark1 that ,edison had really discovered nothing new2 he had attempted to do what a dozen famous men had tried before him and he had failed4 ,the quotations of ,new ,york gas stocks rose again4 ,the next time ,i visited the laboratory1 a few days later1 ,edison was up again and talking cheerfully4 ,but he had grown five years older in five months4 ,i shall succeed1 he said to me1 but it may take me longer than ,i at first supposed4 ,everything is so new that each step is in the dark2 ,i have to make the dynamos1 the lamps1 the conductors1 and attend to a thousand details that the world never hears of4 ,at the same time ,i have to think about the expense of my work4 ,that galls me4 ,my one ambition is to be able to work without regard to the expense4 ,what ,i mean is1 that if ,i want to give up a whole month of my time and that of my whole establishment to finding out why one form of a carbon filament is slightly better than another1 ,i can do it without having to think of the cost4 ,my greatest luxury would be a laboratory more perfect than any we have in this country4 ,i want a splendid collection of material--every chemical1 every metal1 every substance in fact that may be of use to me1 and ,i hardly know what may not be of use4 ,i want all this right at hand1 within a few feet of my own house4 ,give me these advantages and ,i shall gladly devote fifteen hours a day to solid work4 ,i want none of the rich man's usual toys1 no matter how rich ,i may become4 ,i want no horses or yachts--have no time for them4 ,i want a perfect workshop4 ,in the last twelve years ,edison has seen his dream fulfilled4 ,his electric light has not displaced gas1 by any means1 but it has been the foundation of a business large enough to make the inventor sufficiently rich to build the finest laboratory in the world1 in the most curious room of which are to be found the three hundred models of machinery and apparatus of various kinds devised by ,edison in the last twenty years and made by himself or under his eye4 ,he is still a gaunt fellow1 with a slight stoop1 a clean-shaven face1 and a low voice4 ,his hands are still soiled with acids1 his clothes are shabby1 and there is always a cigar in his mouth4 ,illustration3 ,the ,home of ,thomas ,a4 ,edison4 ,illustration3 ,edison's ,laboratory4 ,the ,edison laboratory deserves a chapter by itself4 ,in #ahhf ,edison bought a fine villa in ,llewellyn ,park at a cost of #aej1jjj4 ,he took the house as it stood1 with all its luxurious fittings1 rather to please his wife than himself2 a corner of the laboratory would suit him quite as well4 ,right outside the gates of the park and within view of the house1 he bought ten acres of land and began his laboratory4 ,two handsome structures of brick1 each #fj feet wide1 #ajj feet long1 and four stories high1 accommodate the machine-shop1 library1 lecture-room1 experimental workshops1 assistants' rooms and store-rooms4 ,the boiler-house and dynamo-rooms are outside the main buildings4 ,also1 in a separate room1 the floor of which consists of immense blocks of stone1 are the delicate instruments of precision used in testing electric currents4 ,the instruments in this one room1 twenty feet square1 cost #ah1jjj to make and to import from ,europe4 ,upon first entering the main building1 the visitor finds what is apparently a busy factory of some sort1 with long rows of machinery1 from steam-hammers to diamond-lathes4 ,everywhere workmen are busy at their tasks1 and ,edison has good reason to be proud of his laboratory force1 for it consists of the picked workmen of the country4 ,whenever he finds in one of the ,edison factories in ,newark1 ,new ,york1 ,schenectady1 or elsewhere a particularly expert and intelligent man1 he has him transferred to the ,orange laboratory1 where1 at increased pay for shorter hours1 the man not only finds life pleasanter1 but has a chance of learning and becoming somebody4 ,the whole place hums with the rattle of machinery and glows with electric light4 ,there are eighty assistants1 who have charge of the various departments4 ,the most expert iron-workers1 glass-blowers1 wood-turners1 metal-spinners1 screw-makers1 chemists1 and machinists in the country are to be found here4 ,a rough drawing of the most complicated model is all they require to work from4 ,the store-rooms contain all the material needed4 ,four store-keepers are employed to keep the supplies1 valued at #ajj1jjj1 in order and ready for use at a moment's notice4 ,each article is put down in a catalogue which shows the shelf or bottle where it may be found4 ,every known metal1 every chemical known to science1 every kind of glass1 stone1 earth1 wood1 fibre1 paper1 skin1 cloth1 is to be found there4 ,in making up the chemical collection an assistant was kept at work for weeks going through the three most exhaustive works on chemistry in ,english1 ,french1 and ,german1 making a note of every substance mentioned1 and this list constituted the order for chemicals1 an order1 by the way1 which it required seven months to fill4 ,in the glass department1 for instance1 there is every known kind of glass1 from plates two inches thick to the finest1 film1 and if anything else in the way of glass is needed1 the glass-workers are there to make it4 ,this stupendous collection of material1 filling one floor1 is intended to guard against annoying delays that might occur at critical times for want of some rare material4 ,in #ahhe1 when working upon an apparatus for getting a current of electricity directly from heat--the thermo-electric generator--,edison's work was brought to a standstill for want of a few pounds of nickel1 an article not then to be found in any quantity in this country4 ,the store-room was organized to avert such delays4 ,the library is the only part of the main building that shows any attempt at decoration4 ,it is a superb room1 #fj feet by #dj1 with a height of #be feet4 ,galleries run around the second story4 ,at one end is a monumental fireplace1 and in the centre of the hall a fine group of palms and ferns4 ,the room is finished in oiled hard wood and lighted by electricity4 ,fine rugs cover the floors4 ,the shelves contain nothing but scientific works and the files of the forty-six scientific periodicals in ,english1 ,french1 and ,german to which ,edison subscribes4 ,they are indexed by a librarian as soon as received1 so that ,edison can see at a glance what they contain concerning the special fields in which he is interested4 ,nothing in this big establishment1 often employing more than one hundred persons1 is made for sale4 ,it is wholly devoted to experimental work and tests4 ,its expenses1 said to be more than #aej1jjj a year1 are paid by the commercial companies in which ,edison is interested1 he1 on his part1 giving them the benefit of any improvements made4 ,thus in one room hundreds of incandescent electric lamps burn night and day the year through4 ,each lamp is specially marked and when it burns out more quickly than the average1 or lasts longer1 a special study is made as to the contributing causes4 ,it may seem impossible that the suggestions of one man can keep busy a big workshop upon experiments the year round1 but ,edison says that the temptation is always to increase the force4 ,when it is remembered that the list of ,edison's patents reaches to seven hundred and forty1 and that on the electric light alone he has worked out several hundred theories1 the wonder ceases4 ,ten minutes' work with a pencil may sketch an apparatus that a dozen men cannot finish inside of a fortnight4 ,when the new ,orange laboratory was finished and ,edison found himself with time and means at his disposal1 his first thought was to take up his phonograph4 ,the history of the great hopes built upon the phonograph and the bitter disappointment that followed is too familiar to need repetition here4 ,as may be imagined1 ,edison is most keenly bent upon tightening the loose screw that has prevented it from doing all that its friends predicted for it4 ,he still works at other problems1 but chiefly as relaxation4 ,he rests from inventing one thing by inventing something else4 ,illustration3 ,library at ,edison's ,laboratory4 ,one day recently1 when ,i found him less confident than usual as to the triumph of the phonograph in the near future1 he said3 ,there are some difficulties about the problem that seem insurmountable4 ,i go on smoothly until at a certain point ,i run my head against a stone wall2 ,i cannot get under1 over1 or around it4 ,after butting my head against that wall until it aches1 ,i go back to the beginning again4 ,it is absurd to say that because ,i can see no possible solution of the problem to-day1 that ,i may not see one to-morrow4 ,the very fact that this century has accomplished so much in the way of invention1 makes it more than probable that the next century will do far greater things4 ,we ought to be ashamed of ourselves if we are content to fold our hands and say that the telegraph1 telephone1 steam-engine1 dynamo1 and camera having been invented1 the field has been exhausted4 ,these inventions are so many wonderful tools with which we ought to accomplish far greater wonders4 ,unless the coming generations are particularly lazy1 the world ought to possess in #aiic a dozen marvels of the usefulness of the steam-engine and dynamo4 ,the next step in advance will perhaps be the discovery of a method for transforming heat directly into electricity4 ,that will revolutionize modern life by making heat1 power1 and light almost as cheap as air4 ,inventors are already feeling their way toward this wonder4 ,i have gone far enough on that road to know that there are several stone walls ahead4 ,but the problem is one of the most fascinating in view4 ,x4 ,,alexander ,,graham ,,bell4 ,illustration3 ,professor ,bell ,sending the ,first ,message1 by ,long-distance ,telephone1 from ,new ,york to ,chicago4 ,sir ,charles ,wheatstone1 the eminent ,english electrician1 while engaged in perfecting his system of telegraphy discovered that wires charged with electricity often carried noises in a curious manner4 ,he made and exhibited at the ,royal ,society1 in #ahdj1 a clock in which the tick of another clock miles away was conveyed through a wire4 ,this experiment appears to have been one of the germs of the telephone4 ,in #ahdd ,captain ,john ,taylor1 also an ,englishman1 invented an instrument to which he gave the name of the telephone1 but it had nothing electrical about it4 ,it was an apparatus for conveying sounds at sea by means of compressed air forced through trumpets4 ,he could make his telephone heard six miles away4 ,the first real suggestion of the telephone as we know it comes from ,reis1 the ,german professor of physics at ,friedrichsdorf1 who in #ahfj constructed with a coil of wire1 a knitting-needle1 the skin of a ,german sausage1 the bung of a beer-barrel1 and a strip of platinum an instrument which reproduced the sound of the voice by the vibration of the membrane and sent a series of clicks along an electric wire to an electro-magnetic receiver at the other end of the wire4 ,the same idea was taken up in this country by ,elisha ,gray1 ,edison1 and by ,alexander ,graham ,bell1 who first exhibited at the ,centennial ,exhibition an apparatus that transmitted speech by electricity in a fairly satisfactory manner4 ,the ,american claimants to the honor of having invented the telephone include ,daniel ,drawbaugh1 a backwoods genius of ,pennsylvania1 who claims to have made and used a practical telephone in #ahfg-fh4 ,a large fortune has been spent in fighting ,drawbaugh's claims against the ,bell monopoly1 but the courts have finally decided in favor of the latter4 ,it should be recorded as a matter of justice to ,mr4 ,gray1 that he appears to have solved the problem of conveying speech by electricity at about the same time as ,bell4 ,both these inventors filed their caveats upon the telephone upon the same day--,february #ad1 #ahgf4 ,it was ,bell's good fortune to be the first to make his device practically effective4 ,alexander ,graham ,bell is not an ,american by birth4 ,he was born in ,edinburgh1 ,scotland1 on the #ast of ,march1 #ahdg4 ,his father1 ,alexander ,melville ,bell1 was the inventor of the system by which deaf people are enabled to read speech more or less correctly by observing the motion of the lips4 ,his mother was the daughter of ,samuel ,symonds1 a surgeon in the ,british navy4 ,in #ahgb the ,bells moved to ,canada1 and young ,alexander ,bell became widely known in ,boston as an authority in the teaching of the deaf and dumb4 ,he first carried to great perfection in this country the art of enabling the deaf and dumb to enunciate intelligible words and sounds that they themselves have never heard4 ,most of his art he acquired from his father1 one of the most expert of teachers in this field4 ,the elder ,bell is still active in his work1 constantly devising new methods and experiments4 ,he lives in ,washington with his son and is frequently heard in lectures in ,new ,york and ,boston4 ,in #ahgc ,alexander ,bell began to study the transmission of musical tones by telegraph4 ,it was in the line of his work with deaf and dumb people to make sound vibrations visible to the eye4 ,with the phonautograph he could obtain tracings of such vibrations upon blackened paper by means of a pencil or stylus attached to a vibrating cord or membrane4 ,he also succeeded in obtaining tracings upon smoked glass of the vibrations of the air produced by vowel sounds4 ,he began experimenting with an apparatus resembling the human ear1 and upon the suggestion of ,dr4 ,clarence ,j4 ,blake1 the ,boston aurist1 he tried his work upon a prepared specimen of the ear itself4 ,observation upon the vibrations of the various bones within the ear led him to conceive the idea of vibrating a piece of iron in front of an electro-magnet4 ,mr4 ,bell was at this time an instructor in phonetics1 or the art of visible speech1 in ,monroe's ,school of ,oratory in ,boston4 ,one of his old pupils describes him then as a swarthy1 foreign-looking personage1 more ,italian than ,english in appearance1 with jet-black hair and dark skin4 ,his manner was earnest and full of conviction4 ,he was an enthusiast in his work1 and only emerged from his habitual diffidence when called upon to talk upon his studies and views4 ,he was miserably poor and almost without friends4 ,when he was attacked with muscular rheumatism1 in #ahgc1 his hospital expenses were paid by his employer1 and his only visitors were some of the pupils at the school4 ,until the close of #ahgd1 ,bell's experiments seemed to promise nothing of practical value4 ,but in #ahge he began to transmit vibrations between two armatures1 one at each end of a wire4 ,he was much interested at the time in multiple telegraphy and fancied that something might come of some such arrangement of many magnetic armatures responding to the vibrations set up in one4 ,in ,november1 #ahge1 he discovered that the vibrations created in a reed by the voice could be transmitted so as to reproduce words and sounds4 ,one day in ,january1 #ahgf1 he called a dozen of the pupils at ,monroe's school into his room and exhibited an apparatus by which singing was more or less satisfactorily transmitted by wire from the cellar of the building to a room on the fourth floor4 ,the exhibition created a sensation among the pupils1 but1 although no attempts were made by ,bell to conceal what he was doing1 or how he did it1 the noise of his discovery does not seem to have reached the outside world4 ,with an old cigar-box1 two hundred feet of wire1 two magnets from a toy fish-pond1 the first ,bell telephone was brought into existence4 ,the apparatus was1 however1 not yet the practical telephone as we know it1 but it was sufficient of a curiosity to warrant its exhibition in an improved form at the ,centennial ,exhibition1 when ,sir ,william ,thomson spoke of it as perhaps the greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric telegraph4 ,the next year ,bell succeeded in bringing the telephone to the condition in which it became of immediate practical value4 ,strange to say1 the public was at first slow to appreciate the great importance of the invention1 and when ,bell took it to ,england1 in #ahgg1 he could find no purchaser for half the ,european rights at #aj1jjj4 ,in this country1 thanks to the business energy of ,professor ,gardiner ,hubbard1 of ,harvard1 ,bell's father-in-law1 the telephone was soon made commercially valuable1 and there are now said to be nearly six hundred thousand telephones in use in the ,united ,states alone4 ,professor ,bell1 as may be imagined1 is not idle4 ,his vast fortune has enabled him to continue costly experiments in aiding deaf and dumb people1 and it will probably be in this field that his next achievement will be made4 ,personally1 he is a reserved and thoughtful man1 wholly given up to his scientific work4 ,his wife1 whom he married in #ahgf1 was one of his deaf and dumb pupils4 ,it is often said that it was largely due to his intense desire to soften her misfortune that his experiments were so exhaustive and finally became so productive in another direction4 ,his home life in ,washington1 where he bought1 in #ahhe1 the superb house on ,scott ,circle known as ,broadhead's ,folly1 after the man who built it and ruined himself in so doing1 is said to be an ideally peaceful and happy one1 given up to study and efforts to alleviate the troubles of the deaf and dumb4 ,as in the case of most inventions of such immense value as the telephone1 a fortune has had to be spent in order to protect the patent rights2 but in ,bell's case the inventor's money reward has been ample and is now said to amount to more than #a1jjj1jjj a year4 ,just at present ,mr4 ,bell is engaged upon a modification of the phonograph1 which may enable persons not wholly deaf to hear a phonographic reproduction of the human voice1 even if they cannot hear the voice itself4 ,honors have poured in upon him within the last fifteen years4 ,in #ahhj the ,french ,government awarded him the ,volta prize of #aj1jjj1 which ,mr4 ,bell devoted to founding the ,volta ,laboratory in ,washington1 an institution for the use of students4 ,in #ahhb he also received from ,france the ribbon of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,,xi4 ,,american ,,inventors1 ,,past ,,and ,,present4 ,there are now in force in this country nearly three hundred thousand patents for inventions and devices of more or less importance and aid to everyone4 ,to how great a degree the world is indebted to the inventor1 very few of us realize4 ,the more we think of the matter1 however1 the more are we likely to believe that the inventor is mankind's great benefactor4 ,watt should stand before ,napoleon in the hero-worship of the age1 and the man who perfected the friction-match before the author of an epic4 ,some day this redistribution of the world's honors will surely take place1 and it should be a satisfaction to us ,americans that our country stands so high in the ranks of inventive genius4 ,within the last half century ,americans have contributed1 to mention only great achievements1 the telegraph1 the telephone1 the electric light1 the sewing-machine1 the reaper1 and vulcanized rubber1 to the world's wealth--a far larger contribution than that of any other nation4 ,what may not the next generation produce8 ,some people seem to believe that so much has already been invented as to have exhausted the field4 ,in this connection ,i have quoted in another place some remarks ,mr4 ,edison once made to me as to what the next fifty years might bring forth4 ,still more astonishing than our past fecundity in invention would be future barrenness4 ,this century has done its work and produced its marvels with comparatively blunt tools1 or no tools at all4 ,the next century will be able to work with superb instruments of which our grandfathers knew nothing4 ,the school-boy to-day knows more of the forces of nature and their useful application than the magician of fifty years ago4 ,it has been said that the fifteen blocks in the ,gem puzzle can be arranged in more than a million different ways4 ,the material in the game at which man daily plays is so infinitely more complex that the number of combinations cannot be written out in figures4 ,the rle played by invention in modern life is infinitely greater than during preceding ages4 ,one invention1 by affording a new tool1 makes others possible4 ,the steam-engine made possible the dynamo1 the dynamo made possible the electric light4 ,in its turn the electric light may lead to wonders still more extraordinary4 ,the degree to which invention has contributed to civilization is far from suspected by the careless observer4 ,almost everything we have or use is the fruit of invention4 ,man might be defined as the animal that invents4 ,the air we breathe and the water we drink are provided by ,nature1 but we drink water from a vessel of some kind1 an invention of man4 ,even if we drink from a shell or a gourd1 we shape it to serve a new purpose4 ,if we want our air hotter or colder1 we resort to invention1 and a vast amount of ingenuity has been expended upon putting air in motion by means of fans1 blowers1 ventilators1 etc4 ,we take but a small part of our food as animals do--in the natural state4 ,the savage who first crushed some kernels of wheat between two stones invented flour1 and we are yet hard at it inventing improvements upon his process4 ,the earliest inventions probably had reference to the procuring and preparing of food1 and the ingenuity of man is still exercised upon these problems more eagerly than ever before4 ,during the last fifty years the power of man to produce food has increased more than during the preceding fifteen centuries4 ,sixty years ago a large part of the wheat and other grain raised in the world was cut1 a handful at a time1 with a scythe1 and a man could not reap much more than a quarter of an acre a day4 ,with a ,mc,cormick reaper a man and two horses will cut from fifteen to twenty acres of grain a day4 ,in the threshing of grain1 invention has achieved almost as much4 ,a man with a machine will thresh ten times as much as he formerly could with a flail4 ,it is less than sixty years since matches have come into common use4 ,many old men remember the time in this country when a fire could be kindled only with the embers from another fire1 as there were no such things as matches4 ,most of us who have reached the age of forty remember the abominable1 clumsy sulphur-matches of #ahfj1 as bulky as they were unpleasant4 ,and yet the first sulphur-matches1 made about #ahcj1 cost ten cents a hundred4 ,to-day the safety match1 certain and odorless1 is sold at one-tenth of this price4 ,the introduction of kerosene was one of the blessings of modern life4 ,it added several hours a day to the useful1 intelligent life of man1 and who can estimate the influence of these evening hours upon the advance of civilization8 ,the evening1 after the day's work is done1 has been the only hour when the workingman could read4 ,before cheap and good lights were given him1 reading was out of the question4 ,gas marked a step in advance1 but only for large towns1 and now electricity bids fair soon to displace gas2 and we hear vague suggestions of a luminous ether that will flood houses with a soft glow like that of sunlight4 ,,townsend ,,and ,,drake--,,the ,,introduction ,,of ,,coal ,,oil4 ,in #ahej sperm oil1 then commonly used in lamps1 had become high-priced1 owing to the failure of the ,new ,bedford whalers1 and cost #b4be a gallon4 ,oil obtained by the distillation of coal was tried1 but was also too costly--not less than #a a gallon4 ,it burned well1 but its odor was frightful4 ,the problem of a cheap and pleasant light was solved by ,james ,m4 ,townsend and ,e4,l4 ,drake1 both of ,new ,haven4 ,in #ahed a man brought to ,professor ,silliman1 of ,yale1 some oil from ,oil ,creek1 ,pa41 to be tested4 ,his report was so favorable that a company was formed1 which leased all the land along ,oil ,creek upon which were traces of the new rock oil4 ,the hard times of #aheg came before any headway had been made1 and the company tried to find some way of ridding itself of the lease4 ,at this time ,townsend1 who knew something about the property1 undertook to get possession4 ,boarding in the same house in ,new ,haven was ,e4,l4 ,drake1 once a conductor on the ,new ,york ,new ,haven ,railroad1 who had been obliged to give up work on account of ill-health4 ,townsend proposed that as ,drake could get railroad passes as an ex-employee1 he should go to ,pennsylvania and look into the property4 ,he did so1 and reported that a fortune might be made by gathering the oil and bottling it for medicinal purposes4 ,drake and ,townsend organized the ,seneca ,oil ,company4 ,the oil was gathered by digging trenches1 and was sold at #a a gallon4 ,drake suggested that it might be well to bore for oil4 ,a man familiar with salt-well boring was brought from ,syracuse1 and in #ahej the first well was begun at ,titusville under the supervision of ,drake4 ,he was commonly considered by the neighbors to be insane4 ,the work was costly and slow4 ,when many months and about #ej1jjj had been spent1 the stockholders in the company refused to go any further--all except ,townsend1 who sent his last #ejj to ,drake1 with instructions to use it in paying debts and his expenses in reaching home4 ,on the day before the receipt of this money--,august #bi1 #ahei--the auger1 which was down sixty-eight feet1 struck a cavity1 and up came a flow of oil that filled the well to within five feet of the surface4 ,pumping began at the rate of five hundred gallons a day1 and a more powerful pump doubled this flow4 ,as this oil was worth a dollar a gallon1 fortune was within sight4 ,but the very quantity of the oil proved to be the company's ruin4 ,their works were destroyed by fire in the winter of #ahei-fj1 and before they could be rebuilt1 scores of other wells1 some of them requiring no pumping apparatus1 had been sunk in the neighborhood4 ,the supply was soon far in excess of the demand1 which was limited by the small number of refineries1 the want of good lamps in which to burn the oil1 and the attacks by manufacturers of other oils4 ,such was the effect of these causes that the new oil fell to a dollar a barrel1 a price so low that it did not pay for the handling4 ,the ,seneca ,oil ,company was so much discouraged that they sold out their leases and disbanded4 ,both ,townsend and ,drake would have died richer men had they never heard of the ,pennsylvania rock oil4 ,,the ,,clarks ,,and ,,the ,,telescope4 ,illustration3 ,alvan ,clark4 ,the fame of ,american telescopes is due to the work and inventions of the ,clark family of ,cambridgeport1 ,mass41 the descendants of ,thomas ,clark1 the mate of the ,mayflower4 ,the founder of the great--in a scientific sense--house of ,alvan ,clark ,sons1 telescope-makers1 was a remarkable man4 ,until after his fortieth year he devoted himself to portrait-painting4 ,in #ahdc his attention was accidentally turned toward telescope-making4 ,one day the dinner-bell at ,phillips ,academy1 ,andover1 ,mass41 happened to break4 ,the pieces were gathered up by one of ,clark's boys1 ,george1 who proceeded to melt them in a crucible over the kitchen fire1 declaring that he was going to make a telescope4 ,his mother laughed1 but his father was deeply interested and helped the boy make a five-inch reflecting telescope which showed the satellites of ,jupiter4 ,this was the beginning of telescope-making in the ,clark family1 an industry which has given to the scientific world its most remarkable lenses4 ,alvan ,clark dropped his paintbrushes1 never to take them up again until at the age of eighty-three he made an excellent portrait of his little grandson4 ,to ,alvan ,g4 ,clark1 the present head of the house1 are chiefly due the scores of devices by which ,american ingenuity has surpassed the slower ,european methods4 ,the delicacy required in the manipulation and grinding of the immense lenses made by the ,clarks is almost incredible4 ,the latest triumph of the firm--a forty-inch lens for the ,spence ,observatory at ,los ,angeles1 ,cal4--required two years of grinding and polishing after a piece of glass perfect enough had been obtained4 ,so delicately finished is it that half a dozen sharp rubs with the soft part of a man's thumb would be sufficient to ruin it4 ,alvan ,g4 ,clark is now a man sixty-one years-old4 ,he has lived all his life at the home in ,cambridgeport4 ,his greatest sorrow is that there is no son of his to carry on the work after his death4 ,his only son died a few years ago1 just as he was beginning to show wonderful aptitude in the art which has made the family famous in all the great observatories of the world4 ,,john ,,fitch ,,and ,,oliver ,,evans--,,steam ,,transportation4 ,in looking over the work done by ,american inventors1 the great names are those to be found at the heads of the preceding chapters4 ,but the list is by no means exhausted4 ,among the early men of achievement in the field of invention ,i have had to omit at least a dozen whose work deserves more than a paragraph4 ,the history of the steamboat is not complete without reference to ,john ,fitch4 ,fulton was fortunate in making the first really successful attempt at propelling boats by steam1 but ,fitch came very near reaping the honors for this invention4 ,the account of ,fitch's life and experiments1 written by himself and now in the possession of the ,franklin ,library of ,philadelphia1 clearly shows that this unhappy genius really deserves to share in ,fulton's glory4 ,fitch was born in ,connecticut1 in ,january1 #agdc1 more than twenty years before ,fulton4 ,he was a farmer's boy and picked up knowledge as best he could4 ,before he was twenty he had learned clock-making and then button-making4 ,it was in #aghh that he obtained his first patent for a steamboat4 ,his experimental boat was an extraordinary affair1 fully described in the ,columbian 7,philadelphia7 ,magazine for ,december1 #aghf4 ,its motive power consisted of a clumsy engine that moved horizontal bars1 upon which were fastened a number of oars or paddles4 ,so far as possible the machine imitated the movements of a man rowing4 ,this boat made eight miles an hour in calm water4 ,finding nothing but ridicule for his project here1 as his steamboat cost too much money to run as a commercial undertaking1 ,fitch went to ,europe1 and was equally unsuccessful there4 ,there is still in existence a letter from him in which he predicts that steam would some day carry vessels across the ,atlantic4 ,he died in #agif1 without having contributed more than a curiosity to the art of steam navigation4 ,another early inventor was ,oliver ,evans1 who has been called the ,watt of ,america4 ,in #ahjd ,evans offered to build for the ,lancaster ,turnpike ,company a steam-carriage to carry one hundred barrels of flour fifty miles in twenty-four hours4 ,the offer was derided4 ,here is one of ,evans's predictions written at about this time3 ,the time will come when people will travel in stages1 moved by steam-engines1 from one city to another1 almost as fast as birds fly1 fifteen or twenty miles an hour4 ,passing through the air with such velocity1 changing the scene with such rapid succession1 will be the most rapid1 exhilarating exercise4 ,a carriage 7steam7 will set out from ,washington in the morning1 the passengers will breakfast at ,baltimore1 dine at ,philadelphia1 and sup in ,new ,york the same day4 ,to accomplish this1 two sets of railways will be laid so nearly level as not in any way to deviate more than two degrees from a horizontal line1 made of wood1 or iron1 or smooth paths of broken stone or gravel1 with a rail to guide the carriages so that they may pass each other in different directions and travel by night as well as by day4 ,engines will drive boats ten or twelve miles per hour1 and there will be many hundred steamboats running on the ,mississippi4 ,in #ahje ,evans built a steam-carriage propelled by a sort of paddle-wheel at the stern1 the paddles touching the ground4 ,this apparatus he named the ,oructor ,amphibolis1 and it is believed to have been the first application of steam in ,america to the propelling of land carriages4 ,he died in #ahai without having seen his steam-carriage come to anything practicable4 ,he made a fortune1 however1 from some patents upon flour-mill improvements4 ,,amos ,,whittemore ,,and ,,thomas ,,blanchard4 ,in the domain of textile fabrics ,amos ,whittemore1 the ,massachusetts inventor of the card-machine1 which did away with the old-fashioned method of making cards for cotton and woollen factories1 must be mentioned4 ,before ,whittemore's machine came into use1 about #ahab1 such cards were made by hand1 the laborer sticking one by one into sheets of leather the wire staples1 which operation gave work to thousands of families in ,new ,england early in the century4 ,whittemore made a fortune by his invention1 and devoted the last years of his life to astronomy4 ,another ,massachusetts boy1 ,thomas ,blanchard1 invented the lathe for turning irregular objects1 and well deserves mention4 ,born in #aghh1 he was noted as a boy for his efficiency in the ,new ,england accomplishment of whittling1 making wonderful windmills and water-wheels with his knife4 ,when thirteen years old he made an apple-paring machine1 with which at the paring bees held in the neighborhood he could accomplish more than a dozen girls4 ,soon after this achievement he began helping his brother in the manufacture of tacks4 ,the operation consisted in stamping them out from a thin plate of iron1 after which they were taken up1 one at a time1 with the thumb and finger and caught in a tool worked by the foot1 while a blow given simultaneously with a hammer held in the right hand made a flat head of the large end of the tack projecting above the face of the vise4 ,this was the only method then known1 and it was so slow and irksome that young ,blanchard often grew disgusted4 ,as a daily task he was given a certain quantity of tacks to make1 which number was ascertained by counting4 ,finding this much trouble1 he constructed a counting-machine1 consisting of a ratchet-wheel which moved one tooth every time the jaws of the heading tool or vise moved in the process of making a tack4 ,from this achievement he passed to a tack machine1 and after six years of hard work turned out an apparatus that made five hundred tacks a minute4 ,he sold his patent for the trifle of #e1jjj4 ,with part of this money he began his experiments in turning musket-barrels1 an operation that was simple enough except at the breech1 where the flat and oval sides had to be ground down or chipped4 ,blanchard made a lathe that turned the whole barrel satisfactorily4 ,while exhibiting his new lathe at the ,united ,states ,armory at ,springfield1 occurred the incident that led to ,blanchard's great device for turning irregular forms4 ,one of the men employed in cutting musket-stocks remarked that ,blanchard could never spoil his job1 for he could not turn a gun-stock4 ,the remark struck ,blanchard1 who replied1 ,i am not so sure of that1 but will think of it a while4 ,the result of six months' study was the lathe with which such articles as gun-stocks1 shoe-lasts1 hat-blocks1 tackle-blocks1 axe-handles1 wig-blocks1 and a thousand other objects of irregular shape may now be turned4 ,while at ,washington getting his patent1 ,blanchard exhibited his machine at the ,war ,office1 where many heads of departments had assembled4 ,among the rest was a navy commissioner1 who1 after listening to ,blanchard1 remarked to the inventor3 ,can you turn a seventy-four8 ,yes1 was the reply1 if you will furnish the block4 ,blanchard afterward made many interesting experiments in steam-carriages1 but his chief claim to fame rests upon his lathe4 ,,richard ,m4 ,,hoe ,,and ,,the ,,web-,,press4 ,from the end of the first half of this century date movements of extraordinary importance in the world of ,american invention4 ,the locomotive1 the steam-engine and steam-boat1 the telegraph1 reaping-machine1 the printing-press1 all seemed to reach an era of wide usefulness at about the same time4 ,it was in #ahad that ,walters first printed the ,london ,times by steam1 the sullen pressmen standing around waiting for a pretext to destroy the machinery1 and only prevented by strategy from doing so4 ,about thirty years afterward ,richard ,m4 ,hoe first turned his attention to the improvement of printing-presses4 ,the founder of the famous house of printing-press makers1 ,robert ,hoe1 was born in ,england4 ,his son1 ,richard ,march ,hoe1 was born in ,new ,york on the #abth of ,september1 #ahab4 ,he made his first press in #ahdj1 when he turned out the machine known as ,hoe's ,double-cylinder1 which was capable of making about six thousand impressions an hour1 and was the admiration of all the printers in the city4 ,so long as the newspaper circulation knew no great increase this wonderful press was all-sufficient2 but the greater the supply the greater grew the demand1 and a printing-press capable of striking off papers with greater rapidity was felt to be an imperative need4 ,it was often necessary to hold the forms back until nearly daylight for the purpose of getting the latest news1 and the work of printing the paper had to be done in a very few hours4 ,in #ahdb ,hoe began to experiment for the purpose of getting greater speed4 ,there were many difficulties in the way1 however1 and at the end of four years of experimenting he was about ready to confess that the obstacles were insurmountable4 ,one night in #ahdf1 while still in this mood1 he resumed his experiments2 the more he reviewed the problem1 the more difficult it seemed4 ,in despair he was about to give it up for the night1 when there flashed across his brain a plan for securing the type on the surface of a cylinder4 ,this was the solution of the problem1 and within a year our leading newspapers had their ,lightning presses1 in which from four to ten cylinders were used to feed sheets of paper against the surface of the type as it flew around4 ,so recently as #ahgj the ten-cylinder ,hoe press1 printing twenty-five thousand sheets an hour1 was considered a marvel4 ,then came the perfecting press1 a far smaller machine1 but capable of five times as much work1 thanks to the substitution of rolls of paper for separate sheets fed in one by one4 ,the device by which the web of paper after being printed on one side is turned over and printed on the other side in the same machine was another triumph of ,american ingenuity4 ,stereotyping made it possible to print from a dozen presses at the same time without the trouble of setting up new type1 and inventions for pasting1 folding1 and counting the papers still further increased the speed at which papers may be issued1 while at the same time decreasing the number of men employed as pressmen4 ,in #ahfe it required the services of twenty-six men and boys to print and fold twenty-five thousand copies of an eight-page paper in an hour4 ,to-day a perfecting press1 with the aid of four men1 does four times as much work4 ,it has been recently estimated that to print1 paste1 and fold the ,sunday edition of one of the great newspapers with the machinery of #ahfe would require the services of five hundred persons4 ,,thomas ,w4 ,,harvey ,,and ,,screw-,,making4 ,the gimlet-pointed screw patented in #ahch by ,thomas ,w4 ,harvey1 of ,providence1 ,r4,i41 is a marked instance of an improvement so useful that we can scarcely realize that less than fifty years ago such screws were unknown to the carpenter1 for it was not until #ahdf that ,harvey succeeded in getting people to abandon the old blunt-ended screw that we now occasionally find in buildings put up before #ahej4 ,harvey was a ,vermont boy1 born in #agie4 ,his faculty for the invention of machinery for screw-making and other purposes gave him and his associates and successors--,angell1 ,sloan1 and ,whipple--great fortunes according to the estimate of that day4 ,he died in #ahef4 ,c4,l4 ,,sholes ,,and ,,the ,,typewriter4 ,illustration3 ,c4,l4 ,sholes4 ,a great many men contributed to make the typewriter what it is to-day--as much of an improvement upon the pen as the sewing-machine is upon the needle4 ,so long ago as #ahdc some patents were taken out for divers forms of writing-machines1 all more or less impracticable4 ,it was not until ,c4,l4 ,sholes1 then of ,wisconsin1 took up the problem1 in #ahff1 that the present form of a number of type-bars1 arranged so that their ends strike upon a common centre1 was devised4 ,sholes died in #ahij1 having also helped by many minor devices the increase in the use of writing-machines4 ,from #ahfe to #ahgc he made thirty different working models of writing-machines1 devoting himself to the task almost day and night for eight years4 ,b4,b4 ,,hotchkiss ,,and ,,his ,,guns4 ,illustration3 ,b4,b4 ,hotchkiss4 ,american inventors have had1 as a rule1 but small success in making ,europe see the value of their inventions before this country has proved it4 ,morse could get neither ,england nor ,france to take an interest in his telegraph schemes1 and1 at a later day1 ,bell's telephone was received in ,england as a curious device1 but not worth investing money in4 ,an exception to this rule may be found1 however1 in the case of ,b4,b4 ,hotchkiss1 a ,connecticut inventor1 who during the civil war conceived the idea of a breech-loading cannon4 ,in #ahfi ,hotchkiss mounted one of his small guns in the ,brooklyn ,navy-yard1 but found no encouragement to experiment further4 ,the ,franco-,german war found him in ,europe with a breech-loading gun that would throw shells4 ,his success was such that there is not a civilized country where ,hotchkiss guns1 throwing light shells with a rapidity not dreamed of years ago1 are not now in use4 ,the inventor has made a large fortune and has had the pleasure of sending to this country a number of guns for our cruisers1 the ,atlanta1 the ,boston1 the ,chicago1 and the ,dolphin4 ,so great is the rapidity1 accuracy1 and power of these ,hotchkiss rapid-fire guns that some experts expect to see two-thirds of an action fought with these or similar pieces1 which they think will silence and put out of action all the heavy guns in a few minutes after the enemies come within fifteen hundred yards of each other4 ,for instance1 the latest piece is a six-pounder1 which1 with smokeless powder1 has a range of five thousand yards and an effective fighting range of one thousand yards1 within which distance a target the size of a six-inch gun can be hit nearly every time and five inches of wrought iron perforated4 ,a speed in firing of twenty-five shots a minute has been attained4 ,,charles ,f4 ,,brush ,,and ,,the ,,dynamo4 ,a trifling incident revealed to an ,italian savant the fact that when two metals and the leg of a frog came into contact the muscles of the leg contracted4 ,the galvanic battery resulted4 ,years later another observer discovered that if a wire carrying a current of electricity was wound around a piece of soft iron the latter became a magnet4 ,out of these simple discoveries have arisen the telegraph1 the telephone1 and a host of inventions depending upon electricity4 ,and to-day1 with all the wonders accomplished in this field1 we are yet upon the threshold of the enchanted palace that electricity is about to open to us4 ,through its aid we shall one day enjoy light1 heat1 and power almost as freely as we now enjoy air4 ,the crops will be planted1 watered1 cultivated1 gathered1 and transported to the uttermost ends of the earth by electricity4 ,the steam-engine is said to do the work of two hundred million men1 and to have been the chief agent in reducing the average working hours of men in the civilized world in this century from fourteen hours a day to ten4 ,but electricity1 according to even conservative judges1 will accomplish infinitely more4 ,it will make possible the harnessing of vast forces of nature1 such as the falls of ,niagara1 because the electric current can be transported from place to place at small cost and it is easily transformed into light or power or heat4 ,within a few months we shall see the first results of the great work at ,niagara4 ,before many years the power of the tides is certain to be used along the seaboard for producing electricity4 ,here is a force equal to that of a million ,niagaras going to waste4 ,illustration3 ,charles ,f4 ,brush4 ,the late ,clerk ,maxwell1 when asked by a distinguished scientist what was the greatest scientific discovery of the last half-century1 replied3 ,that the ,gramme machine is reversible4 ,in other words1 that power will not only produce electricity1 but that electricity will produce power4 ,by turning a big wheel at ,niagara we can produce an electric current that will turn another wheel for us fifty1 or perhaps five hundred miles away4 ,the dynamo is one of the great achievements of the day to which ,charles ,f4 ,brush1 of ,cleveland1 ,o41 has devoted himself with much signal success4 ,brush was born in ,march1 #ahdi1 in ,euclid ,township near ,cleveland1 and his early years were spent on his father's farm4 ,when fourteen years old he went to the public school at ,collamer1 and later to the ,cleveland ,high-school1 and as early as #ahfb distinguished himself by making magnetic machines and batteries for the high-school4 ,during his senior year in the high-school1 the chemical and physical apparatus of the laboratory of the school was placed under his charge4 ,in this year he constructed an electric motor having its field magnets as well as its armature excited by the electric current4 ,he also constructed a microscope and a telescope1 making all the parts himself1 down to the grinding of the lenses4 ,he devised an apparatus for turning on the gas in the street-lamps of ,cleveland1 lighting it and turning it off again4 ,when he was eighteen years of age he entered ,michigan ,university at ,ann ,arbor1 and1 following his particular bent1 was graduated as a mining engineer in #ahfi1 one year ahead of his class4 ,returning to ,cleveland he began work as an analytical chemist and soon became interested in the iron business4 ,in #ahge ,brush's attention was first called to electricity by ,george ,w4 ,stockly1 who suggested that there was an immense field ready for a cheaper and more easily managed dynamo than the ,gramme or ,siemens1 the best types then known4 ,stockly1 who was interested in the ,telegraph ,supply ,company1 of ,cleveland1 agreed to undertake the manufacture of such a machine if one was devised4 ,in two months ,brush made a dynamo so perfect in every way that it was running until it was taken to the ,world's ,fair in #ahic4 ,having made a good dynamo1 the next step was a better lamp than those in use4 ,six months of experimenting resulted in the ,brush arc light4 ,stockly was so well satisfied with the commercial value of these inventions that the ,telegraph ,supply ,company1 a small concern then employing about twenty-five men1 was reorganized in #ahgi1 as the ,brush ,electric ,company4 ,in #ahhj the ,brush ,company put its first lights into ,new ,york ,city1 and it has since extended the system until there is scarcely a town in the country where the light may not be found4 ,besides dynamos and lamps1 the immense establishment at ,cleveland employs its twelve hundred men in making carbons1 storage-batteries1 and electro-plating apparatus4 ,mr4 ,brush is a self-taught mechanic1 able to do any work of his shops in a manner equal to that of an expert4 ,he is intensely practical1 never over-sanguine1 and an excellent business man4 ,if a delicate piece of work is to be done for the first time1 he will probably do it with his own hands4 ,he is not fond of experiment for the experiment's sake2 he wants to see the practical utility of the aim in view before devoting time to its attainment4 ,of the scores of patents he has taken out1 two-thirds are said to pay him a revenue4 ,in #ahha1 at the ,paris ,electrical ,exposition1 ,brush received the ribbon of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,in personal appearance there is nothing of the round-shouldered1 impecunious1 studious inventor about him4 ,he is six feet or more in height1 and so fine a specimen of manhood that ,gambetta1 the ,french statesman1 once remarked that the man impressed him quite as much as the inventor4 ,,eickemeyer ,,and ,,his ,,motor4 ,illustration3 ,rudolph ,eickemeyer4 ,in the same field of electricity1 as applied to every-day life1 a ,bavarian by birth1 but an ,american by adoption1 ,rudolf ,eickemeyer1 of ,yonkers1 has done some valuable work in devising a useful form of dynamo4 ,his machines are now used almost exclusively for elevators and hoisting apparatus1 one large firm of elevator builders having put in no less than six hundred ,eickemeyer motors within the last four years4 ,as electricity becomes more and more useful for small powers1 such as lathes1 pumps1 and elevators1 an effective and simple motor becomes of the utmost importance4 ,rudolf ,eickemeyer was born in ,october1 #ahca1 at ,kaiserslautern1 ,bavaria1 where his father was employed as a forester4 ,he was educated at the ,darmstadt ,polytechnic ,institute and at once showed a predilection for scientific work4 ,when still a boy he joined the ,revolutionists under ,siegel1 and after the upheaval of #ahdh came here with ,siegel1 ,carl ,schurz1 and ,george ,osterheld1 the latter afterward becoming his partner4 ,the young man's first work here was as an engineer on the ,erie ,railroad line1 then building4 ,in #ahed he established himself in ,yonkers in the business of repairing the tools used in the many hat-shops of that already flourishing city4 ,the next twenty years of his life were devoted to inventions and improvements in every branch of hat-making4 ,his shaving-machines1 stretchers1 blockers1 pressers1 ironers1 and sewing-machines substituted mechanism for laborious and slow methods of hand work4 ,at the beginning of the war ,eickemeyer was quick to see the opportunity for turning his factory to other uses1 and vast quantities of revolvers were made there4 ,when that industry declined1 he took up the manufacture of mowing-machines1 having invented a driving mechanism for such machines that met with wide favor4 ,the introduction of the ,bell telephone in ,yonkers first turned ,eickemeyer's attention to electricity1 and for the last ten years he has devoted himself almost exclusively to the invention and manufacture of electric motors4 ,his first successful invention in this field was a dynamo to furnish light for railroad trains4 ,from this he was led to the invention of a dynamo capable of doing effective work at much lower speed than that usually employed1 and this has proved to be his most valuable achievement4 ,some improvements in winding the armatures have also been accepted as valuable and adopted by other manufacturers4 ,in connection with storage batteries ,mr4 ,eickemeyer has also done a good deal of interesting work4 ,but he is chiefly known to the electrical world as the inventor of a most useful dynamo for power purposes4 ,for the last forty years he has been one of the men who have most aided in the growth of ,yonkers1 taking great interest in all questions pertaining to its government and school system4 ,he was married in #ahef to ,mary ,t4 ,tarbell1 of ,dover1 ,me41 and his eldest son1 ,rudolf ,eickemeyer1 ,jr41 is associated with him in business4 ,,george ,,westinghouse1 ,,jr41 ,,and ,,the ,,air-,,brake4 ,illustration3 ,george ,westinghouse1 ,jr4 ,george ,westinghouse1 ,jr41 to whom is due the railroad air-brake1 and who was also largely instrumental in revolutionizing ,pittsburgh by the introduction of natural gas1 was born at ,central ,bridge1 in ,schoharie ,county1 ,n4,y41 in #ahdf4 ,his father was a builder and1 later1 superintendent of the ,schenectady ,agricultural ,works1 and it was in the shops of these works that the boy found his vocation4 ,before he was fifteen he had modelled and built a steam engine4 ,the war took him away from work in #ahfd1 but when that was over he returned to ,schenectady and1 although yet in his teens1 he began to attempt improvements upon every device that presented itself4 ,sometimes he was successful4 ,among one of his first valuable achievements was a steel railroad frog that resulted in a good deal of money and some reputation4 ,this was in #ahfh4 ,while in ,pittsburgh making his frogs1 which sold well1 he one day came across a newspaper account of the successful use of compressed air in piercing the ,mont ,cenis tunnel4 ,his success in the field of railroad appliances had led him to study the question of better brakes1 and the suggestion of compressed air came to him as a revelation4 ,to stop a train by the old methods was a matter of much time and a tremendous expenditure of muscular energy by the brakeman1 whose exertions were not always effective enough to prevent disaster4 ,westinghouse consulted one or two friends1 who were inclined to ridicule the idea that a rubber tube strung along under the cars could do better work than the men at the brakes4 ,fortunately1 he was able to make the experiment1 and the air-brake was speedily recognized as one of the important inventions of the century4 ,when petroleum was discovered in the fields near ,pittsburgh1 some ten years ago1 ,mr4 ,westinghouse was greatly interested1 and at once suggested that perhaps oil might be found near his own home in ,washington ,county4 ,he decided to test the matter1 and planted a derrick on his own grounds4 ,the drill was started in ,december1 #ahhc1 and at a depth of #a1efj feet a vein was struck1 not of oil1 as was anticipated1 but--what had not been counted upon as among the contingencies--of gas4 ,gas was not what ,westinghouse was after or wanted1 but there it was1 and not wishing to let it run to waste1 he began to consider what use could be made of it4 ,other people who had been boring for oil also struck gas1 which1 taking fire1 shot up twenty or thirty feet4 ,if such gas could be made to serve foundry purposes1 here was a gigantic power going to waste4 ,within three years the business grew to be an immense one4 ,the company organized by ,mr4 ,westinghouse owned or controlled fifty-six thousand acres1 upon which were one hundred wells and a distributing plant of four hundred miles of pipes4 ,notwithstanding the failure of some of the wells since then1 natural gas is an extraordinary boon for which ,pittsburgh has to thank ,mr4 ,westinghouse4 ,of late years this inventor's energies have been turned toward electric machinery for lighting and power1 especially as applied to railroad purposes1 and a number of useful devices have resulted4 ,mr4 ,westinghouse is still in the prime of life and is activity personified4 ,he makes his home in ,pittsburgh1 and is naturally looked upon as one of its leading spirits4 ,the field of electric invention is so vast and so actively worked that one cannot take up a newspaper without finding reference to some new achievement made possible by this wonderful agent1 whose real powers were unsuspected fifty years ago4 ,aside from the direct value of these inventions in promoting the comfort and increasing the wealth of the country there is another factor to be considered having the most vital relation to the industries of the country and its powers of production4 ,the large number of inventions made in these ,united ,states implies a high degree of intelligence and mental activity in the great body of the people4 ,it indicates trained habits of observation and trained powers of applying knowledge which has been acquired4 ,it shows an ability to turn to account the forces of ,nature and1 train them to the service of man1 such as has been possessed by the laborers of no other country4 ,it suggests as pertinent the inquiry whether any other country is so well equipped for competition in production as our own2 whether in any other country the mechanic is so efficient and his labor1 therefore1 so cheap as in our own2 whether he does not exhibit the seeming paradox of receiving more for his labor than in any other country1 and at the same time doing more for what he receives4 ,,the ,,end4