century would stop every one of these establishments. The same may likewise be said of the textile industry, the manufactures of leather, of lumber, chemicals, etc., and the railway system in its entirety, from the rail to the top of the smokestack, and from the pilot to the rear train light or signal, is an aggregation of American inventions. Without attempting to touch upon the industries which have been revolutionized or expanded by patents, the summaries which follow aim to show the growth of patents which have generally sprung from industries. The closing decades of the nineteenth century have witnessed the most extraordinary development of manufactures and commerce known in our history. Industrial demand and invention go hand in hand. They act and react, being interdependent. Any change in industrial conditions creating a new demand is at once met by the invention of the means for supplying it, and through new inventions new industrial demands are every year being created. Thus through the process of evolution the industrial field is steadily expanding, and a study of the inventions for any decade will point out the lines of industrial growth for the succeeding decade. The following figures give an idea of the development of American inventions during the past fifty-four years: Number of Live NUMBER OF PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS ISSUED DURING EACH CALENDAR YEAR, AND NUMBER OF LIVE PATENTS AT THE BEGINNING Year. Number OF EACH CALENDAR YEAR. of Patents Issued Dur Number of Live Patents. Year. Year. this character is emphasized by the fact that the inventor is required to pay for the clerical and expert labor required to put his invention into shape for issuing. His patent fees are designed to cover this expense, and do so, with a considerable margin to spare. Thus the people of the United States are perpetually being enriched by the work of inventors, at absolutely no cost to themselves. The inventor does not work for love nor for glory alone, but in the hopes of a return for his labor. Glory, and love of his species, are elements actuating his work, and in many cases he invents because he cannot help himself, because his genius is a hard task mas ter and keeps him at work. But none the less, the great incitement to invention is the hope of obtaining a valuable patent, and without this inducement inventions would be few and far between, and America would, without the patent system, be far in arrears of the rest of the world, instead of leading it, as it does to-day. The few pregnant sentences of the patent statutes, sentences the force of whose every word has been laboriously adjudicated by our highest tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States, are responsible for America's most characteristic element of prosperity, the work of her inventors, to whom belongs the credit. DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN INVENTORS. Benjamin Franklin; b. Boston, 1706; d. 1790; at 12, printer's apprentice, fond of useful reading; 27 to 40, teaches himself Latin, etc., makes various useful improvements; at 40, studies electricity; 1752, brings electricity from clouds by kite, and invents the lightning rod. Eli Whitney, inventor of the cottongin; b. Westborough, Mass., 1765; d. 1825; went to Georgia 1792 as teacher; 1793, invents the cotton-gin, prior to which a full day's work of one person was to clean by hand one pound of cotton; one machine performs the labor of five thousand persons; 1800, founds Whitneyville, makes firearms, by the interchangeable system for the parts. Robert Fulton; b. Little Britain, Pa., 1765; d. 1825; artist painter; invents steamboat 1793; invents submarine torpedoes 1797 to 1801; builds steamboat in France 1803; launches passenger boat Clermont at N. Y. 1807, and steams to Albany; 1812, builds steam ferryboats; 1814, builds first steam war vessel, Jethro Wood, inventor of the modern cast-iron plough; b. White Creek, N. Y., 1774; d. 1834; patented the plough 1814; previously the plough was a stick of wood plated with iron; lawsuits against infringers consumed his means; Secretary Seward said: "No man has benefited the country pecuniarily more than Jethro Wood, and no man has been as inadequately rewarded." Thomas Blanchard; b. 1788, Sutton, Mass.; d. 1864; invented tack machine 1806; builds successful steam carriage 1825; builds the stern-wheel boat for shallow waters, now in common use on Western rivers; 1843, patents the lathe for turning irregular forms, now in common use all over the world for turning lasts, spokes, axe-handles, gun-stocks, hat-blocks, tackle-blocks, etc. Ross Winans, of Baltimore; b. 1798, N. J.; author of many inventions relating to railways; first patent, 1828; he designed and patented the pivoted, double truck, long passenger cars now in common use. His genius also assisted the development of railways in Russia. Cyrus H. McCormick. inventor of harvesting machines; b. Walnut Grove, Va., 1809; in 1851 he exhibited his invention at the World's Fair, London, with practical success. The mowing of one acre was one man's day's work; a boy with a mowing machine now cuts 10 acres a day. Mr. McCormick's patents made him a millionaire. Charles Goodyear, inventor and patentee of the simple mixture of rubber and sulphur, the basis of the present great rubber industries throughout the world; b. New Haven, Conn., 1800; in 1839, by the accidental mixture of a bit of rubber and sulphur on a red-hot stove, he discovered the process of vulcanization. The Goodyear patents proved immensely profitable. Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor and patentee of electric telegraph; b. Charlestown, Mass., 1791; d. 1872; artist painter; exhibited first drawings of telegraph 1832; half-mile wire in operation 1835; caveat 1837; Congress appropriated $30,000 and in 1844 first telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore was opened; after long con tests the courts sustained his patents and he realized from them a large fortune. Elias Howe, inventor of the modern sewing machine; b. Spencer, Mass., 1819; d. 1867; machinist; sewing machine patented 1846; from that time to 1854 his priority was contested and he suffered from poverty, when a decision of the courts in his favor brought him large royalties, and he realized several millions from his patent. James B. Eads; b. 1820; author and constructor of the great steel bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis, 1867, and the jetties below New Orleans, 1876. His remarkable energy was shown in 1861 when he built and delivered complete to the Government, all within sixty-five days, seven iron-plated steamers, 600 tons each; subsequently other steamers. Some of the most brilliant successes of the Union arms were due to his extraordinary rapidity in constructing these vessels. Prof. Joseph Henry; b. Albany, N. Y., 1799; d. 1878; in 1828 invented the present form of the electro-magnet which laid the foundation for practically the entire electrical art and is probably the most important single contribution thereto. In 1831 he demonstrated the practicability of the electric current to effect mechanical movements and operate signals at a distant point, which was the beginning of the electro-magnetic telegraph; he devised a system of circuits and batteries, which contained the principle of the relay and local circuit, and also invented one of the earliest electro-magnetic engines. He made many scientific researches in electricity and general physics and left many valuable papers thereon. In 1826 he was a professor in the Albany Academy; was Professor of Natural Philosophy at the College of New Jersey in 1832, and in 1846 was chosen secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, where he remained until his death. Prof. Henry was probably the greatest of American physicists. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone; b. 1847 at Edinburgh, Scotland, moved to Canada 1872 and afterward to Boston; here he became widely known as an instructor in phonetics and as an authority in teaching the deaf and dumb; in 1873 he began the study of the transmission of musical tones by telegraph; in 1876 he invented and patented the speaking telephone, which has become one of the marvels of the nineteenth century and one of the greatest commercial enterprises of the world; in 1880 the French Government awarded him the Volta prize of $10,000 and he has subsequently received the ribbon of the Legion of Honor from France and many honorary degrees, both at home and abroad; Dr. Bell still continues his scientific work at his home in Washington and has made valuable contributions to the phonograph and aerial navigation. [Prof. Bell is now generally known as Dr. Bell, out of respect for his honorary degree.] Thomas A. Edison; b. 1847, at Milan, Ohio; from a poor boy in a country village, with a limited education, he has become the most fertile inventor the world has ever known; his most important inventions are the phonograph in 1877, the incandescent electric lamp, 1878; the quadruplex telegraph, 1874-1878; the electric pen, 1876; magnetic ore separator, 1880, and the three-wire electric circuit, 1883; his first patent was an electric vote-recording machine, taken in 1869, since which time more than 700 patents have been granted him; early in life Edison started to run a newspaper, but his genius lay in the field of electricity, where as an expert telegrapher he began his great reputation; his numerous inventions have brought him great wealth; a fine villa in Llewellyn Park, at Orange, N. J., is his home, and his extensive laboratory near by is still the scene of his constant work; he is the world's most persevering inventor. Captain John Ericsson; b. 1803 in Sweden; d. in New York, 1889; at 10 years of age, designed a sawmill and a pumping engine; made and patented many inventions in England in early life; in 1829 entered a locomotive in competition with Stephenson's Rocket; in 1836 patented in England his double-screw propeller and shortly after came to the United States and incorporated it in a steamer; in 1861, built for the United States Government the turret ironclad Monitor; was the inventor of the hot-air engine which bears his name; also a torpedo boat which was designed to discharge a torpedo by means of compressed air beneath the water; he was an indefatigable worker and made many other inventions; his diary, kept daily for 40 years, comprehended 14,000 pages. Charles F. Brush; b. near Cleveland, Ohio, 1849; prominently identified with the development of the dynamo, the arc light and the storage battery, in which fields he made many important inventions; in 1880 the Brush Company put its electric lights into New York City and has since extended its installations into most of the cities and towns of the United States; in 1881, at the Paris Electrical Exposition, he received the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. George Westinghouse, Jr.; b. at Central Bridge, N. Y., 1846; while still a boy he modeled and built a steam engine; his first profitable invention was a railroad frog; his most notable inventions, however, were in railroad airbrakes, the first patents for which were taken out in 1872; the system now known by his name has grown to almost universal adoption and constitutes a great labor saving and life saving adjunct to railroad transportation; Mr. Westinghouse, whose home is at Pittsburg. was one of the earliest to develop and use natural gas from deep wells; in late years he has made and patented many inventions in electrical machinery for the development of power and light, and has commercially developed the same on a large scale. Ottmar Mergenthaler; b. 1854, at Würtemberg, Germany; d. 1899; in PROGRESS OF Below is given in chronological order a list of important inventions beginning with the 16th century, with ventor of the linotype machine; his early training as a watch and clock maker well fitted him for the painstaking and complicated work of his life, which was to make a machine which would mold the type and set it up in one operation; in 1872 Mergenthaler came to Baltimore and entered a machine shop, in which he subsequently became a partner; the first linotype machine was built in 1886 and put to use in the composing room of the New York Tribune; to-day all large newspaper and publishing houses are equipped with great batteries of these machines, costing over $3,000 each, and each performing the work of five compositors. The first recorded patent granted by the United States Government bears date July 31, 1790, issued to Samuel Hopkins, for making pot and pearl ashes. Two other patents were granted in that year. In the following year, 1791, thirty-three patents were granted. Among them were six patents to James Rumsay and one to John Fitch for inventions relating to steam engines and steam vessels. For the single year of 1876 the number of patents and caveats applied for was almost 20,000. INVENTIONS. the title of the invention, the year it was made, the name of the inventor and his nativity: |