OCR Text |
Show LUCK OF INVENTORS. Trivial Incidents Suggested Noted Mechanical Devices. (Chicaso Chronicle.) In the course of his life the average man stumbles across many inventions. Unfortunately he has seldom the wit to realize what he has done. One man in perhaps 1,000,000 can appreciate the value of his discovery. He becomes an Edison or a Marconi and the world wonders. The other members of the 1,000,000 well, the writer is one. Are you another? Many years ago a kitchen kitch-en maid at Stanley farm, near Burslem, was boiling up some salt and water for curing pork. The vessel used was of unglazed earthenware, and during. her absence, 'from 'the kitchen the brins boiled over and there was trouble. Sub sequently the brine refused to be scraped off the clay, but stuck to the outside- of the vessel in a shiny waterproof water-proof coat. The story of that accident came to the ears of a Burslem potter. To him it signified something more than the "wicked waste of brine" of the kitchen maid. He pirated the unconscious discovery, dis-covery, "invented" the system of glazing glaz-ing by common salt and simultaneously simultaneous-ly gave the Staffordshire potteries one of the greatest boons they have ever experienced. In the latter half of the eighteenth century one of the members of a little scientific society in Liverpool . laid a curious wager. He bet a brother scientist scien-tist that he would ' read a newspaper by the light of a farthing dip at a distance dis-tance of thirty feet. The brother scientist scien-tist finding the feat difficult at even a sixth, of the distance cheerfully accepted ac-cepted the wager. The layer merely coated the inside of a shallow wooden box with sloping pieces of looking glass, so as to form a concave lens, placed behind his farthing dip and reaauy deciphered the small print at the stipulated distance. The experiment was witnessed by a Liverpool dockmaster. He was a thinking think-ing man and saw great possibilities in this learned jest. He straightway-adapted straightway-adapted the principle to lighthouse requirements, re-quirements, and forthwith the modern reflected light, with its miles of effective effect-ive range and untold life-saving powers, pow-ers, sprang into being. A Staffordshire potter named Astbury once stopped at Dunstable on his way to London in order or-der to obtain advice as to his horse's weak vision. The hostler at his inn burned some flints and pulverized them into a fine powder, which he blew into the animal's eyes. Astbury was astoundednot as-toundednot at the nature of the operation, op-eration, but at the fact that the erstwhile erst-while black flint became white with the heat. Surely, thought he, if this powdered pow-dered flint were added to the ordinary pipe clay.it would on being fired produce pro-duce a far harder and more serviceable white ware than ordinary clay. He tried the experiment, and flint ware was added to the list qf British manufactures. manu-factures. Lundyfoot, the well known snuff-maker snuff-maker of our grandfathers' days, was once drying some snuff preparatory to presenting it for sale. By accident it was baked too long and burned beyond repair, but Lundyfoot was not cast down, Most men would have thrown away the entire stock. He decided upon a bolder course. Making a virtue of necessity, he advertised his charred stock as the new "high dried" snuff, and started to push it for all he was worth. It had a pungent flavor all its own, and, greatly to his surprise, it "caught on." He made a large fortune out of his "invention." Many present-day inventions have had equally unlikely beginnings. Saccharine Sac-charine is the most valuable substitute for sugar we know. It can be taken with impunity by diabetic patients, to whom ordinary sugar is death, and it is many times sveeter than that commodity. com-modity. Nevertheless, it has only been known to science since 1887. In that year Dr. Fahlberg was employed upon the all-important subject of coal tar derivatives at the Johns Hopkins university. uni-versity. United States of America. Sitting Sit-ting one evening at tea, he was surprised sur-prised to find how sweet his bread and butter tasted. He traced the sweetness to his fingers, thence to his coat sleeves, and finally to one of the bowls of derivatives de-rivatives in his laboratory. Experiments Experi-ments upon himself and animals proved alike the harmlessness of the compound com-pound and its extreme sweetness. He had "discovered" saccharine. Edi6on was one day walking on the seacoast, when he came across a patch of black sand. Curious to know what it contained, he filled his pockets with it, and subsequently turned it out on a bench in his laboratory. Just then a passing workman stumbled against the table and dropped the big magnet he was carrying across the sand. When lie piuivcu ji. u yj agotu it w a.a unriru with tiny black grains, proving the sand to consist largely of metallic particles. par-ticles. Most men would have sworn and passed on. To Edison, however, this action suggested the modern process proc-ess of metal extraction from low-grade ores. In this the ore is first crushed to powder and then passed between powerful magnets, while the dross passes on. The end, alas! is not always so satisfactory. satis-factory. Sixty years ago, when Da-guerre, Da-guerre, Talbot and their brother scientists sci-entists were working night and day to "fix" the fleeting photographs which Daguerre had just introduced, an unknown un-known lad humbled the entire French ; academy. A ;oor, pinched little fellow, whose shabby clothes and half-starved appearance accorded but ill with the brain that must have been his, walked one evening into the shop of Chevalier, the optician, of the Quai de l'Horloge. Before he left he had shown a plate to M. Chevalier which proved beyond a doubt that he had mastered the much-pondered much-pondered problem. He would not divulge di-vulge his secret at least, "not until tomorrow." But that tomorrow did not come, for the poor lad was never seen again. Whether the long toil had unr seated his. reason, whether he had perished per-ished miserably in the dark-running Seine or the casualty ward of a Paris I hospital must remain a matter of con- jecture. So, too. must the name of the i original fixer of the . modern photo-I photo-I graph. |