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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Inventors, by Philip Gengembre Hubert
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Inventors
+
+Author: Philip Gengembre Hubert
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2012 [EBook #38782]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INVENTORS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Albert Laszlo, Rory OConor and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ INVENTORS
+
+
+ MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT SERIES
+
+
+ TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS. By
+ General A.W. GREELY, U.S.A.
+
+ STATESMEN. By NOAH BROOKS.
+
+ MEN OF BUSINESS. By W.O. STODDARD.
+
+ INVENTORS. By P.G. HUBERT, Jr.
+
+[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
+
+
+
+
+ MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
+
+
+
+
+ INVENTORS
+
+
+ BY
+ PHILIP G. HUBERT, JR.
+
+ NEW YORK
+ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+ 1896
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY
+ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+ Press of J.J. Little & Co.
+ Astor Place, New York
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This book, dealing with our great inventors, their origins, hopes, aims,
+principles, disappointments, trials, and triumphs, their daily life and
+personal character, presents just enough concerning their inventions to
+make the story intelligible. The history is often a painful one. When
+poor Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber, was one day asked what
+he wanted to make of his boys, he is said to have replied: "Make them
+anything but inventors; mankind has nothing but cuffs and kicks for
+those who try to do it a service."
+
+Meanwhile, the value of the work done by great inventors is widely
+acknowledged. In a remarkable sketch of the history of civilization,
+Professor Huxley remarked, in 1887, that the wonderful increase of
+industrial production by the application of machinery, the improvement
+of old technical processes and the invention of new ones, constitutes
+the most salient feature of the world's progress during the last fifty
+years. If this was true a few years ago, its truth is still more
+apparent to-day. It is safe to say that within fifty years power, light,
+and heat will cost half, perhaps one-tenth, of what they do now; and
+this virtually means that in 1943 mankind will be able to buy decent
+food, shelter, and clothing for half or one-tenth of the labor now
+required. Steam is said to have reduced the working hours of man in the
+civilized world from fourteen to ten a day. Electricity will mark the
+next giant step in advance.
+
+With the many and superb tools now at our service, of which our fathers
+knew comparatively nothing--steam, electricity, the telegraph,
+telephone, phonograph, and the camera--we and our descendants ought to
+accomplish even greater wonders than these. As invention thus rises in
+the scale of importance to humanity, the history of the pioneers and, to
+the shame of mankind be it said, the martyrs of the art, becomes of
+intense interest. In the annals of hero-worship the inventor of the
+perfecting press ought to stand before the great general, and Elias Howe
+should rank before Napoleon. Whitney, Howe, Morse, and Goodyear, to
+mention but a few of our Americans, contributed thousands of millions of
+dollars to the nation's wealth and received comparatively nothing in
+return. Their history suggests as pertinent the inquiry whether our
+patent laws do not need a radical change. The burden and cost of proving
+that an invention deserves no protection ought to fall upon whoever
+infringes a patent granted by the Government. At present it is all the
+other way.
+
+ P.G.H., JR.
+
+ NEW YORK, September, 1893.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+ I. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 9
+
+ II. ROBERT FULTON, 45
+
+ III. ELI WHITNEY, 69
+
+ IV. ELIAS HOWE, 99
+
+ V. SAMUEL F.B. MORSE, 111
+
+ VI. CHARLES GOODYEAR, 155
+
+ VII. JOHN ERICSSON, 178
+
+ VIII. CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK, 207
+
+ IX. THOMAS A. EDISON, 223
+
+ X. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, 264
+
+ XI. AMERICAN INVENTORS, PAST AND PRESENT, 270
+
+
+James M. Townsend, E.L. Drake, Alvan Clark, John Fitch, Oliver Evans,
+Amos Whittemore, Thomas Blanchard, Richard M. Hoe, Thomas W. Harvey,
+C.L. Sholes, B.B. Hotchkiss, Charles F. Brush, Rudolph Eickemeyer,
+George Westinghouse, Jr.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+FULL-PAGE
+
+ FACING
+ BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, (_Frontispiece._) PAGE
+
+ DEPARTURE OF THE CLERMONT ON HER FIRST VOYAGE, 60
+
+ CHARLES GOODYEAR, 155
+
+ JOHN ERICSSON, 178
+
+ CYRUS HALL MCCORMICK, 207
+
+ THOMAS A. EDISON, 223
+
+ EDISON IN HIS LABORATORY, 247
+
+ PROFESSOR BELL SENDING THE FIRST TELEPHONE MESSAGE FROM NEW 264
+ YORK TO CHICAGO,
+
+
+
+
+ ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
+
+ PAGE
+
+ THE FRANKLIN STOVE, 10
+
+ FRANKLIN'S BIRTHPLACE, BOSTON, 14
+
+ FRANKLIN ENTERING PHILADELPHIA, 17
+
+ THE FRANKLIN PENNY, 27
+
+ FRANKLIN'S GRAVE, 43
+
+ ROBERT FULTON, 46
+
+ BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT FULTON, 48
+
+ FULTON BLOWING UP A DANISH BRIG, 53
+
+ JOHN FITCH'S STEAMBOAT AT PHILADELPHIA, 56
+
+ FULTON'S FIRST EXPERIMENT WITH PADDLE-WHEELS, 57
+
+ THE "DEMOLOGOS," OR "FULTON THE FIRST," 65
+
+ THE CLERMONT, 68
+
+ ELI WHITNEY, 70
+
+ WHITNEY WATCHING THE COTTON-GIN, 75
+
+ THE COTTON-GIN, 78
+
+ ELIAS HOWE, 100
+
+ BIRTHPLACE OF S.F.B. MORSE, BUILT 1775, 111
+
+ S.F.B. MORSE, 113
+
+ UNDER SIDE OF A MODERN SWITCHBOARD, SHOWING 2,000 WIRES, 121
+
+ THE FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT, AS EXHIBITED IN 1837 BY 125
+ MORSE,
+
+ THE MODERN MORSE TELEGRAPH, 127
+
+ MORSE MAKING HIS OWN INSTRUMENT, 129
+
+ TRAIN TELEGRAPH--THE MESSAGE TRANSMITTED BY INDUCTION FROM 131
+ THE MOVING TRAIN TO THE SINGLE WIRE,
+
+ INTERIOR OF A CAR ON THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD, SHOWING 132
+ THE METHOD OF OPERATING THE TRAIN TELEGRAPH,
+
+ DIAGRAM SHOWING THE METHOD OF TELEGRAPHING FROM A MOVING 134
+ TRAIN BY INDUCTION,
+
+ MORSE IN HIS STUDY, 139
+
+ THE SIPHON RECORDER FOR RECEIVING CABLE MESSAGES--OFFICE OF 146
+ THE COMMERCIAL CABLE COMPANY, 1 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK,
+
+ NO. 5 WEST TWENTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK, WHERE MORSE 151
+ LIVED FOR MANY YEARS AND DIED,
+
+ CALENDERS HEATED INTERNALLY BY STEAM, FOR SPREADING INDIA 164
+ RUBBER INTO SHEETS OR UPON CLOTH, CALLED THE "CHAFFEE
+ MACHINE,"
+
+ CHARLES GOODYEAR'S EXHIBITION OF HARD INDIA-RUBBER GOODS AT 169
+ THE CRYSTAL PALACE, SYDENHAM, ENGLAND,
+
+ COUNCIL MEDAL OF THE EXHIBITION, 1851, 173
+
+ GRANDE MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR, EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE DE 1855, 176
+
+ JOHN ERICSSON'S BIRTHPLACE AND MONUMENT, 180
+
+ THE NOVELTY LOCOMOTIVE, BUILT BY ERICSSON TO COMPETE WITH 184
+ STEPHENSON'S ROCKET, 1829,
+
+ ERICSSON ON HIS ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND, AGED TWENTY-THREE, 186
+
+ MRS. JOHN ERICSSON, NEE AMELIA BYAM, 187
+
+ EXTERIOR VIEW OF ERICSSON'S HOUSE, NO. 36 BEACH STREET, NEW 189
+ YORK, 1890,
+
+ SOLAR-ENGINE ADAPTED TO THE USE OF HOT AIR, 191
+
+ SECTIONAL VIEW OF MONITOR THROUGH TURRET AND PILOT-HOUSE, 198
+
+ THE ORIGINAL MONITOR, 199
+
+ FAC-SIMILE OF A PENCIL SKETCH BY ERICSSON GIVING A 201
+ TRANSVERSE SECTION OF HIS ORIGINAL MONITOR PLAN, WITH A
+ LONGITUDINAL SECTION DRAWN OVER IT,
+
+ INTERIOR OF THE DESTROYER, LOOKING TOWARD THE BOW, 202
+
+ DEVELOPMENT OF THE MONITOR IDEA, 204
+
+ THE ROOM IN WHICH ERICSSON WORKED FOR MORE THAN TWENTY 206
+ YEARS,
+
+ FARM WHERE CYRUS H. MCCORMICK WAS BORN AND RAISED, 209
+
+ EXTERIOR OF THE BLACKSMITH SHOP WHERE THE FIRST REAPER WAS 212
+ BUILT,
+
+ INTERIOR OF THE BLACKSMITH SHOP WHERE THE FIRST REAPER WAS 215
+ BUILT,
+
+ THE FIRST REAPER, 217
+
+ EDISON'S PAPER CARBON LAMP, 224
+
+ EDISON LISTENING TO HIS PHONOGRAPH, 227
+
+ FROM EDISON'S NEWSPAPER, THE "GRAND TRUNK HERALD," 230
+
+ EDISON'S TINFOIL PHONOGRAPH--THE FIRST PRACTICAL MACHINE, 237
+
+ VOTE RECORDER--EDISON'S FIRST PATENTED INVENTION, 243
+
+ EDISON'S MENLO PARK ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE (1880), 250
+
+ THE HOME OF THOMAS A. EDISON, 257
+
+ EDISON'S LABORATORY, 258
+
+ LIBRARY AT EDISON'S LABORATORY, 262
+
+ ALVAN CLARK, 276
+
+ C.L. SHOLES, 286
+
+ B.B. HOTCHKISS, 288
+
+ CHARLES F. BRUSH, 290
+
+ RUDOLPH EICKEMEYER, 294
+
+ GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, JR., 296
+
+
+
+
+INVENTORS
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
+
+
+Benjamin Franklin's activity and resource in the field of invention
+really partook of the intellectual breadth of the man of whom Turgot
+wrote:
+
+ "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
+
+ "He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven,
+ And the sceptre from the hands of tyrants."
+
+And of which bit of verse Franklin once dryly remarked, that as to the
+thunder, he left it where he found it, and that more than a million of
+his countrymen co-operated with him in snatching the sceptre. Those
+persons who knew Franklin, the inventor, only as the genius to whom we
+owe the lightning-rod, will be amazed at the range of his activity. 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
+apparent. Nothing in nature failed to interest him. Had he lived in an
+era of patents he might have rivalled Edison in the number of his
+patentable devices, and had he chosen to make money from such devices,
+his gains would certainly have been fabulous. As a matter of fact,
+Franklin never applied for a patent, though frequently urged to do so,
+and he made no money by his inventions. One of the most popular of
+these, the Franklin stove, which device, after a half-century of disuse,
+is now again popular, he made a present to his early friend, Robert
+Grace, an iron founder, who made a business of it. The Governor of
+Pennsylvania offered to give Franklin a monopoly of the sale of these
+stoves for a number of years. "But I declined it," writes the inventor,
+"from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions,
+viz.: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others,
+we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of
+ours; and this we should do freely and generously. An ironmonger in
+London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet (describing the
+principle and working of the stove), and working it up into his own, and
+making some small change in the machine, which rather hurt its
+operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little
+fortune by it."
+
+[Illustration: The Franklin Stove.]
+
+The complete list of inventions, devices, and improvements of which
+Franklin was the originator, or a leading spirit and contributor, is so
+long a one that a dozen pages would not suffice for it. I give here a
+brief summary, as compiled by Parton in his excellent "Life of
+Franklin." "It is incredible," Franklin once wrote, "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 avocations, studies, or amusements." As a commentary upon
+this sentiment, here is a catalogue of the achievements of Benjamin
+Franklin that may fairly come under the title of inventions:
+
+He established and inspired the Junto, the most useful and pleasant
+American club of which we have knowledge.
+
+He founded the Philadelphia Library, parent of a thousand libraries, and
+which marked the beginning of an intellectual movement of endless good
+to the whole country.
+
+He first turned to great account the engine of advertising, an
+indispensable element in modern business.
+
+He published "Poor Richard," a record of homely wisdom in such shape
+that hundreds of thousands of readers were made better and stronger by
+it.
+
+He created the post-office system of America, and was the first champion
+of a reformed spelling.
+
+He invented the Franklin stove, which economized fuel, and suggested
+valuable improvements in ventilation and the building of chimneys.
+
+He robbed thunder of its terrors and lightning of some of its power to
+destroy.
+
+He founded the American Philosophical Society, the first organization in
+America of the friends of science.
+
+He suggested the use of mineral manures, introduced the basket willow,
+promoted the early culture of silk, and pointed out the advisability of
+white clothing in hot weather.
+
+He measured the temperature of the Gulf Stream, and discovered that
+northeast storms may begin in the southwest.
+
+He pointed out the advantage of building ships in water-tight
+compartments, taking the hint from the Chinese, and first urged the use
+of oil as a means of quieting dangerous seas.
+
+Besides these great achievements, accomplished largely as recreation
+from his life work as economist and statesman, 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 over. When someone
+spoke rather contemptuously in Franklin's presence of Montgolfier's
+balloon experiments, and asked of what use they were, the great American
+replied in words now historic: "Of what use is a new-born babe?"
+
+"This self-taught American," said Lord Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh
+Review_ of July, 1806, "is the most rational, perhaps, of all
+philosophers. He never loses sight of common sense in any of his
+speculations. No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a greater
+understanding, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by
+indolence, enthusiasm, or authority. Dr. Franklin received no regular
+education; and he spent the greater part of his life in a society where
+there was no relish and no encouragement for literature. On an ordinary
+mind, these circumstances would have produced their usual effects, of
+repressing all sorts of intellectual ambition or activity, and
+perpetuating a generation of incurious mechanics; but to an
+understanding like Franklin's, we cannot help considering them as
+peculiarly propitious, and imagine that we can trace back to them
+distinctly almost all the peculiarities of his intellectual character."
+
+The main outlines of Franklin's life and career are so familiar to
+everyone, that I may as well pass at once to the story of his work as an
+inventor. We all know, or ought to know, that Benjamin, the fifteenth
+child of Josiah Franklin, the Boston soap-boiler, was born in that town
+on the 17th of January, 1706, and established himself as a printer in
+Philadelphia in 1728. That he prospered and founded the _Gazette_ a few
+years later, and became Postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737; that after
+valuable services to the Colonies as their agent in England, he was
+appointed United States Minister at the Court of France upon the
+Declaration of Independence; and that in 1782 he had the supreme
+satisfaction of signing at Paris the treaty of peace with England by
+which the independence of the Colonies was assured. That he died full of
+honors at Philadelphia in April, 1790, and that Congress, as a testimony
+of the gratitude of the Thirteen States and of their sorrow for his
+loss, appointed a general mourning throughout the States for a period
+of two months.
+
+[Illustration: Franklin's Birthplace, Boston.]
+
+The great invention or discovery which entitles Benjamin Franklin to
+rank at the head of American inventors was, of course, the
+identification of lightning with electricity, and his suggestion of
+metallic conductors so arranged as to render the discharge from the
+clouds a harmless one. In order to appreciate the originality and value
+of this discovery, it is necessary to review briefly what the world knew
+of the subject at that day.
+
+For a hundred years before Franklin's time, electricity had been studied
+in Europe without much distinct progress resulting. A thousand
+experiments had been performed and described. Gunpowder had been
+exploded by the spark from a lady's finger, and children had been
+insulated by hanging them from the ceiling by silk cords. A tolerable
+machine had been devised for exciting electricity, though most
+experimenters still used a glass tube. Several volumes of electrical
+observations and experiments had appeared, and yet what had been done
+was little more than a repetition on a larger scale, and with better
+means, of the original experiment of rubbing a piece of amber on the
+sleeve of the philosopher's coat. Experimenters in 1745 could produce a
+more powerful spark and play a greater variety of tricks with it than
+Dr. Gilbert, the English experimenter of 1600, but that was about all
+the advantage they had over him.
+
+So-called experts had attempted, with more or less satisfaction to
+themselves, to answer the question addressed by the mad Lear to poor
+Tom: "Let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of thunder?"
+Pliny thought he had explained it when he called it an earthquake in the
+air. Dr. Lister announced that lightning was caused by the sudden
+ignition of immense quantities of fine floating sulphur. Jonathan
+Edwards, in his diary of 1722, records the popular impression of the day
+upon this subject: "Lightning," he says, "seem to be an almost
+infinitely fine combustible matter, that floats in the air, that takes
+fire by sudden and mighty fermentation, that is some way promoted by the
+cool and moisture, and perhaps attraction of the clouds. By this sudden
+agitation, this fine floating matter is driven forth with a mighty
+force one way or other, whichever way it is directed, by the
+circumstances and temperature of the circumjacent air; for cold and
+heat, density and rarity, moisture and dryness, have almost an
+infinitely strong influence upon the fine particles of matter. This
+fluid matter thus projected, still fermenting to the same degree,
+divides the air as it goes, and every moment receives a new impulse by
+the continued fermentation; and as its motion received its direction, at
+first, from the different temperature of the air on different sides, so
+its direction is changed, according to the temperature of the air it
+meets with, which renders the path of the lightning so crooked."
+
+Even this explanation was a daring bit of speculation in Jonathan
+Edwards, for thunder and lightning were then commonly regarded as the
+physical expression of God's wrath against the insects He had created.
+
+[Illustration: Franklin Entering Philadelphia.]
+
+Mr. Peter Collinson, the London agent of the library that Franklin had
+founded in Philadelphia in 1732, 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 time. In 1746 he sent one of the new electrical
+tubes with a paper of directions for using it. The tubes then commonly
+used were two feet and a half long, and as thick as a man could
+conveniently grasp. They were rubbed with a piece of cloth or buckskin,
+and held in contact with the object to be charged. Franklin had already
+seen one of these tubes in Boston, and had been astonished by its
+properties. No sooner, therefore, was it unpacked at the Library, than
+he repeated the experiments he had seen in Boston, as well as those
+described by Collinson. The subject completely fascinated him. He gave
+himself up to it. Procuring other tubes, he distributed them among his
+friends and set them all rubbing. "I never," he writes in 1747, "was
+before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and
+my time as this has done; for what with making experiments when I can be
+alone, and repeating to my friends and acquaintances, who, from the
+novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them; I have
+during some months past had little leisure for anything else."
+
+Franklin claimed no credit for what he achieved in electricity. During
+the winter of 1746-7 he and his friends experimented frequently, and
+observed electrical attraction and repulsion with care. That electricity
+was not created, but only collected by friction, was one of their first
+conjectures, the correctness of which they soon demonstrated by a number
+of experiments. Before having heard of the Leyden jar coated with
+tin-foil, these Philadelphia experimenters substituted granulated lead
+for the water employed by Professor Maschenbroeck. They fired spirits
+and lighted candles with the electric spark. They performed rare tricks
+with a spider made of burnt cork. Philip Syng mounted one of the tubes
+upon a crank and employed a cannon-ball as a prime conductor, thus
+obtaining the same result without much tedious rubbing of the tube.
+
+The summer of 1747 was devoted to preparing the province for defence.
+But during the following winter the Philadelphians resumed their
+experiments. The wondrous Leyden jar was the object of Franklin's
+constant observation. His method of work is well shown in his own
+account of an experiment during this winter. The jar used was
+Maschenbroeck's original device of a bottle of water with a wire running
+through the cork.
+
+"Purposing," writes Franklin, "to analyse the electrified bottle, in
+order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drew
+out the cork and wire, which for that purpose had been loosely put in.
+Then, taking the bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other
+near its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, and the shock was as
+violent as if the wire had remained in it, which showed that the force
+did not lie in the wire. Then, to find if it resided in the water, being
+crowded into and condensed in it, as confined by the glass, which had
+been our former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, and placing it
+on glass, drew out the wire and cork as before; then, taking up the
+bottle, we decanted all its water into an empty bottle, which likewise
+stood on glass; and taking up that other bottle, we expected, if the
+force resided in the water, to find a shock from it. But there was
+none. We judged then that it must either be lost in decanting or remain
+in the first bottle. The latter we found to be true; for that bottle on
+trial gave the shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh
+unelectrified water from a tea-pot. To find, then, whether glass had
+this property merely as glass, or whether the form contributed anything
+to it, we took a pane of sash glass, and laying it on the hand, placed a
+plate of lead on its upper surface; then electrified that plate, and
+bringing a finger to it, there was a spark and shock. We then took two
+plates of lead of equal dimensions, but less than the glass by two
+inches every way, and electrified the glass between them, by
+electrifying the uppermost lead; then separated the glass from the lead,
+in doing which, what little fire might be in the lead was taken out, and
+the glass being touched in the electrified parts with a finger, afforded
+only very small pricking sparks, but a great number of them might be
+taken from different places. Then dexterously placing it again between
+the leaden plates, and completing a circle between the two surfaces, a
+violent shock ensued; which demonstrated the power to reside in glass as
+glass, and that the non-electrics in contact served only, like the
+armature of a loadstone, to unite the force of the several parts, and
+bring them at once to any point desired; it being the property of a
+non-electric, that the whole body instantly receives or gives what
+electrical fire is given to, or taken from, any one of its parts.
+
+"Upon this we made what we called an electrical battery, consisting of
+eleven panes of large sash glass, armed with thin leaden plates, pasted
+on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches' distance
+on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side,
+standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications
+of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving
+side of the other; that so the whole might be charged together with the
+same labor as one single pane."
+
+In 1748 Franklin, being then forty-two years old, and in the enjoyment
+of an ample income from his business as printer and publisher, sold out
+to his foreman, David Hall, and was free to devote himself wholly to his
+beloved experiments. He had built himself a home in a retired spot on
+the outskirts of Philadelphia, and with an income which in our days
+would be equivalent to $15,000 or $20,000 a year, he was considered a
+fairly rich man. Having thus settled his business affairs in a manner
+which proved that he knew perfectly well what money was worth, he took
+up his electrical studies again and extended them from the machine to
+the part played in nature by electricity. The patience with which he
+observed the electrical phenomena of the heavens, the acuteness
+displayed by him in drawing plausible inferences from his observations,
+and the rapidity with which he arrived at all that we now know of
+thunder and lightning, still excite the astonishment of all who read
+the narratives he has left us of his proceedings. During the whole
+winter of 1748-49 and the summer following, he was feeling his way to
+his final conclusions on the subject. Early in 1749 he drew up a series
+of fifty-six observations, entitled "Observations and Suppositions
+towards forming a new Hypothesis for explaining the several Phenomena of
+Thundergusts." Nearly all that he afterward demonstrated on this subject
+is anticipated in this truly remarkable paper, which was soon followed
+by the most famous of all his electrical writings, that entitled
+"Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the
+Electrical Matter, and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc.,
+from Lightning; arising from Experiments and Observations made at
+Philadelphia, 1749."
+
+Franklin sets forth in this masterly paper the similarity of electricity
+and lightning, and the property of points to draw off electricity. It is
+this treatise which contains the two suggestions that gave to the name
+of Franklin its first celebrity. Both suggestions are contained in one
+brief passage, which follows the description of a splendid experiment,
+in which a miniature lightning-rod had conducted harmlessly away the
+electricity of an artificial thunder-storm.
+
+"If these things are so," continues the philosopher, after stating the
+results of his experiment, "may not the knowledge of this power of
+points be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc.,
+from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest
+part of those edifices upright rods of iron, made sharp as a needle and
+gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods, a wire down
+the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the
+shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would
+not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of
+a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from
+that most sudden and terrible mischief?"
+
+The second of these immortal suggestions was one that immediately
+arrested the attention of European electricians when the paper was
+published. It was in these words:
+
+"To determine the question, whether the clouds that contain lightning
+are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where
+it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple,
+place a kind of sentry-box, big enough to contain a man and an electric
+stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass,
+bending out of the door, and then upright twenty or thirty feet, pointed
+very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a
+man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be
+electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud.
+If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there
+would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then
+bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to
+the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is
+electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire and not affect him."
+
+A friend once asked Franklin how he came to hit upon such an idea. His
+reply was to quote an extract from the minutes he kept of the
+experiments he made. This extract, dated November 7, 1749, was as
+follows: "Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars:
+1. Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift
+motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7.
+Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9.
+Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable
+substances. 12. Sulphurous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by
+points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since
+they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them,
+is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be
+made."
+
+In this discovery, therefore, there was nothing of chance; it was a
+legitimate deduction from patiently accumulated facts.
+
+It was not until the spring of 1752 that Franklin thought of making his
+suggested experiment with a kite. The country around Philadelphia
+presents no high hills, and he was not aware till later that the roof of
+any dwelling-house would have answered as well as the peak of Teneriffe.
+There were no steeples in Philadelphia at that day. The vestry of Christ
+Church talked about erecting a steeple, but it was not begun until
+1753. On the 15th of June, 1752, Franklin decided to fly that immortal
+kite. Wishing to avoid the ridicule of a failure, he took no one with
+him except his son, who, by the way, was not the small boy shown in
+countless pictures of the incident, but a stalwart young man of
+twenty-two. The kite had been made of a large silk handkerchief, and
+fitted out with a piece of sharpened iron wire. Part of the string was
+of hemp, and the part to be held in the hand was of silk. At the end of
+the hempen string was tied a key, and in a convenient shed was a Leyden
+jar in which to collect some of the electricity from the clouds. When
+the first thunder-laden clouds reached the kite, there were no signs of
+electricity from Franklin's key, but just as he had begun to doubt the
+success of the experiment, he saw the fibres of the hempen string begin
+to rise. Approaching his hand to the key, he got an electric spark, and
+was then able to charge the Leyden jar and get a stronger shock. 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 man.
+
+Franklin's fame as the first to suggest the identity of lightning and
+electricity would have been safe, however, even without the famous
+kite-flying achievement. A month before that June thunderstorm his
+suggestions had been put into practice in Europe with complete success.
+Mr. Peter Collinson, to whom Franklin addressed from time to time long
+letters about his experiments and conjectures, had caused them to be
+read at the meetings of the Royal Society, of which he (Collinson) was a
+member. That learned body, however, did not deem them worthy of
+publication among its transactions, and a letter of Franklin's
+containing the substance of his conjectures respecting lightning was
+laughed at. The only news that reached Philadelphia concerning these
+letters was that Watson and other English experimenters did not agree
+with Franklin. It was only in May, 1751, that a pamphlet was finally
+published in London, entitled "New Experiments and Observations in
+Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." A copy having been
+presented to the Royal Society, Watson was requested to make an abstract
+of its contents, which he did, giving generous praise to the author.
+
+Before the year came to a close Franklin was famous. There was something
+in the drawing down, for mere experiment, of the dread electricity of
+heaven that appealed not less powerfully to the imagination of the
+ignorant than to the understanding of the learned. And the marvel was
+the greater that the bold idea should have come from so remote a place
+as Philadelphia. By a unanimous vote the Royal Society elected Franklin
+a member, and the next year bestowed upon him the Copley medal. Yale
+College and then Harvard bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Master
+of Arts.
+
+[Illustration: The Franklin Penny.]
+
+As might have been expected, there was no lack of opposition to the new
+doctrine of lightning-rods. Every new movement of radical character is
+denounced more or less fiercely. The last years of Newton's life were
+perplexed by the charge that his theory of gravitation tended to
+"materialize" religion. Insuring houses against fire was opposed as an
+interference with the prerogatives of deity. The establishment of the
+Royal Society was opposed upon the ground that the study of natural
+philosophy, grounded, as it was, upon experimental evidence, tended to
+weaken the force of evidence not so founded; and this objection was
+deemed of sufficient weight to call for serious answer. Franklin's
+daring proposal to neutralize the "artillery of heaven," of course could
+not escape, and the impiety of lightning-rods was widely discussed,
+often with acrimony. Mr. Kinnersley, one of Franklin's friends, who
+lectured for several years upon electricity, 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
+religion." Quincy relates in his "History of Harvard College," that in
+November, 1755, a shock of earthquake having been felt in New England, a
+Boston clergyman preached a sermon on the subject, in which he contended
+that the lightning-rods, by accumulating the electricity in the earth,
+had caused the earthquake. Professor Winthrop, of Harvard, thought it
+worth while to defend Franklin. "In 1770," Mr. Quincy adds, "another
+Boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods on the ground that, as the
+lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and of
+warning them from the commission of sin, it was impious to prevent its
+full execution." And to this attack also Professor Winthrop replied.
+Apparently Franklin himself thought it wise to conciliate the opposition
+of some so-called religious people of the day, for an account of the
+lightning-rod which appears in _Poor Richard's Almanac_ for 1753,
+written probably by Franklin, begins as follows: "It has pleased God in
+his Goodness to Mankind, at length to discover to them the means of
+securing their Habitations and other Buildings from Mischief by Thunder
+and Lightning."
+
+Franklin bore his honors with the most remarkable modesty. It was in
+June that he flew his first kite, but not until October that he sent to
+Mr. Collinson an account of the experiment, and even then he described
+the manner of making and flying the kite and omitted all reference to
+his own success with it. The identity of lightning with electricity
+having been established by M. Dalibard, he deemed it unnecessary to
+forward the account of an experiment which, however brilliant, he
+thought superfluous. Accordingly, we have no narrative by Franklin of
+the flying of the kite. We owe our knowledge of what occurred on that
+memorable afternoon to persons who heard Franklin tell the story.
+Franklin prefaces his description of his kite with these words: "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 buildings, it may be
+agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has
+succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy
+manner, which is as follows." And then we have the description of the
+kite, the letter ending without reference to what he himself had done
+with it.
+
+Yet he was far from hiding the pleasure his fame brought him. "The
+_Tatler_," he wrote, in 1753, to a friend, "tells us of a girl who was
+observed to grow suddenly proud, and none could guess the reason, till
+it came to be known that she had got on a pair of new silk garters. Lest
+you should be puzzled to guess the cause, when you observe anything of
+the kind in me, I think I will not hide my new garters under my
+petticoats, but take the freedom to show them to you in a paragraph of
+our friend Collinson's last letter, viz.--But I ought to mortify, and
+not indulge, this vanity; I will not transcribe the paragraph--yet I
+cannot forbear." Then he quotes the paragraph, which mentions the honors
+done him by the King of France and the Royal Society.
+
+For twenty years Franklin continued to work at electricity, devoting
+most of his leisure to his beloved study. The great practical value of
+the lightning-rod, at one time in the early part of this century
+somewhat exaggerated, as a perfect protection against harm by lightning,
+just as electricity was at one time heralded as a panacea for all bodily
+ailments, has of late years been questioned, but the consensus of
+scientific opinion still attributes much merit to the device, and the
+extent of Franklin's services to science in the matter cannot be called
+into doubt. Others have claimed his discoveries. The Abbe Nolet, of
+France, has been credited as being the first to note the similarity
+between electricity and lightning; and M. Romas, of Nerac, France, is
+said to have used a kite with a copper wire wound around the string, to
+attract electricity from clouds, some time before Franklin made his
+experiment. But posterity has ignored these claimants, and Franklin had
+the happiness of escaping bitter contentions with rivals. In fact, there
+could hardly have been a quarrel with a man who claimed nothing, who
+mentioned with honor everybody's achievements but his own, and who
+recorded his most brilliant observations in the plural, as though he
+were but one of a band of investigating Philadelphians.
+
+Passing now, to Franklin's connection with the use of oil to still
+dangerous waves, I had occasion recently to note that Lieutenant W.H.
+Beehler, of the United States Navy, in writing upon the matter, quotes
+Franklin's explanation of why oil works so beneficently as the accepted
+theory. Franklin was greatly interested, when at sea, in studying the
+matter. Any phenomenon that puzzled him was fit subject for
+investigation. Let us see how he went about the inquiry. "In 1757," he
+wrote, "being at sea in a fleet of ninety-six sail bound against
+Louisburg, I observed the wakes of two of the ships to be remarkably
+smooth, while all the others were ruffled by the wind which blew fresh.
+Being puzzled with the differing appearance, I at last pointed it out to
+our captain and asked him the meaning of it. 'The cooks,' says he,
+'have, I suppose, been just emptying their greasy water through the
+scuppers, which has greased the sides of those ships a little;' and this
+answer he gave me with an air of some little contempt, as to a person
+ignorant of what everybody else knew. In my own mind I at first slighted
+his solution, though I was not able to think of another; but
+recollecting what I had formerly read in Pliny, I resolved to make some
+experiment of the effect of oil on water, when I should have
+opportunity. Afterwards, being again at sea in 1762, I first observed
+the wonderful quietness of oil on agitated water, in the swinging glass
+lamp I made to hang up in the cabin, as described in my printed papers.
+This I was continually looking at and considering, as an appearance to
+me inexplicable. An old sea captain, then a passenger with me, thought
+little of it, supposing it an effect of the same kind with that of oil
+put on water to smooth it, which he said was a practice of the
+Bermudians when they would strike fish, which they could not see if the
+surface of the water was ruffled by the wind. The same gentleman told me
+he had heard it was a practice with the fishermen of Lisbon, when about
+to return into the river (if they saw before them too great a surf upon
+the bar, which they apprehended might fill their boats in passing) to
+empty a bottle or two of oil into the sea, which would suppress the
+breakers, and allow them to pass safely. A confirmation of this I have
+not since had an opportunity of obtaining; but discoursing of it with
+another person, who had often been in the Mediterranean, I was informed
+that the divers there, who, when under water in their business, need
+light, which the curling of the surface interrupts by the refractions of
+so many little waves, let a small quantity of oil now and then out of
+their mouths, which rising to the surface smooths it, and permits the
+light to come down to them. All these informations I at times resolved
+in my mind, and wondered to find no mention of them in our books of
+experimental philosophy.
+
+"At length being at Clapham where there is, on the common, a large pond,
+which I observed one day to be very rough with the wind, I fetched out a
+cruet of oil and dropped a little of it on the water. I saw it spread
+itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface; but the effect of
+smoothing the waves was not produced; for I had applied it first on the
+leeward side of the pond, where the waves were largest, and the wind
+drove my oil back upon the shore. I then went to the windward side,
+where they began to form; and there the oil, though not more than a
+teaspoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square,
+which spread amazingly, and extended itself gradually, till it reached
+the lee side, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre,
+as smooth as a looking glass.
+
+"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 it;
+which, probably arose from hence, that the blubber, which they sometimes
+bring loose in the hold, or the leakage of their barrels, might, afford
+some oil to mix with that water, which, from time to time, they pump out
+to keep their vessel free, and that some oil might spread over the
+surface of the water in the harbor and prevent the forming of any
+waves."
+
+Thus Franklin collected his facts, taking them far and near, and from
+anybody and everybody. By dint of observation and reflection he finally
+solved the problem, arriving at the conclusion that "the wind blowing
+over water thus covered with a film of oil, cannot easily catch upon it,
+so as to raise the first wrinkles, but slides over it, and leaves it
+smooth as it finds it."
+
+Another remarkable instance of Franklin's passion for investigation is
+afforded in the following interesting letter to Sir John Pringle: "When
+we were travelling together in Holland, you remarked that the canal boat
+in one of the stages went slower than usual, and inquired of the boatman
+what might be the reason; who answered that it had been a dry season,
+and the water in the canal was low. On being asked if it was so low that
+the boat touched the muddy bottom, he said no, not so low as that, but
+so low as to make it harder for the horse to draw the boat. We neither
+of us at first could conceive that, if there was water enough for the
+boat to swim clear of the bottom, its being deeper would make any
+difference. But as the man affirmed it seriously as a thing well known
+among them, and as the punctuality required in their stages was likely
+to make such difference, if any there were, more readily observed by
+them than by other watermen who did not pass so regularly and constantly
+backwards and forwards in the same track, I began to apprehend there
+might be something in it, and attempted to account for it from this
+consideration, that the boat in proceeding along the canal must, in
+every boat's length of her course, move out of her way a body of water
+equal in bulk to the room her bottom took up in the water; that the
+water so moved must pass on each side of her, and under her bottom, to
+get behind her; that if the passage under her bottom was straitened by
+the shallows, more of the water must pass by her sides, and with a
+swifter motion, which would retard her, as moving the contrary way; or
+that, the water becoming lower behind the boat than before, she was
+pressed back by the weight of its difference in height, and her motion
+retarded by having that weight constantly to overcome. But, as it is
+often lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain facts, I determined
+to make an experiment of this, when I should have convenient time and
+opportunity.
+
+"After our return to England, as often as I happened to be on the
+Thames, I enquired of our watermen whether they were sensible of any
+difference in rowing over shallow or deep water. I found them all
+agreeing in the fact that there was a very great difference, but they
+differed widely in expressing the quantity of the difference; some
+supposing it was equal to a mile in six, others to a mile in three. As I
+did not recollect to have met with any mention of this matter in our
+philosophical books, and conceiving that, if the difference should be
+really great, it might be an object of consideration in the many
+projects now on foot for digging new navigable canals in this island, I
+lately put my design of making the experiment in execution, in the
+following manner.
+
+"I provided a trough of planed boards fourteen feet long, six inches
+wide, and six inches deep in the clear, filled with water within half an
+inch of the edge, to represent a canal, I had a loose board of nearly
+the same length and breadth, that being put into the water, might be
+sunk to any depth, and fixed by little wedges where I would choose to
+have it stay, in order to make different depths of water, leaving the
+surface at the same height with regard to the sides of the trough. I had
+a little boat in form of a lighter or boat of burden, six inches long,
+two inches and a quarter wide, and one inch and a quarter deep. When
+swimming it drew one inch of water. To give motion to the boat, I fixed
+one end of a long silk thread to its bow, just even with the water's
+edge, the other end passed over a well-made brass pulley, of about an
+inch in diameter, turning freely upon a small axis; and a shilling was
+the weight. Then placing the boat at one end of the trough, the weight
+would draw it through the water to the other. Not having a watch that
+shows seconds, in order to measure the time taken up by the boat in
+passing from end to end of the trough, I counted as fast as I could
+count to ten repeatedly, keeping an account of the number of tens on my
+fingers. And, as much as possible to correct any little inequalities in
+my counting, I repeated the experiment a number of times at each depth
+of water, that I might take the medium."
+
+The experiment proved the truth of the boatmen's assertions. Franklin
+found that five horses would be required to draw a boat in a canal
+affording little more than enough water to float it, which four horses
+could draw in a canal of the proper depth.
+
+No circumstance, remarks Mr. Parton, was too trifling to engage him upon
+a series of experiments. At dinner, one day, a bottle of Madeira was
+opened which had been bottled in Virginia many months before. Into the
+first glass poured from it fell three drowned flies. "Having heard it
+remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by the rays of
+the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these; they were
+therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve which had been employed to
+strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours two of them began
+by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive motions of
+the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their legs, wiped
+their eyes with their forefeet, beat and brushed their wings with their
+hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding themselves in Old
+England without knowing how they came thither. The third continued
+lifeless till sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was thrown
+away." And upon this he remarks: "I wish it were possible, from this
+instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons in such a
+manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant;
+for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America
+a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death being
+immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time,
+to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country."
+
+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 curiosity. The manner in
+which he proved that black cloth was not so good a covering for the body
+in hot weather as white, shows the simplicity of his methods and his
+faculty for making small means subserve great ends: "I took a number of
+little square pieces of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern-card, of
+various colors. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green,
+purple, red, yellow, white, and other colors or shades of colors. I laid
+them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours
+the black, being warmed most by the sun, was so low as to be below the
+stroke of the sun's rays; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue
+not quite so much as the dark, the other colors less as they were
+lighter, and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not
+having entered it at all. What signifies philosophy that does not apply
+to some use? May we not learn from hence that black clothes are not so
+fit to wear in a hot, sunny climate or season as white ones?" That all
+summer hats, particularly for soldiers, should be white, and that garden
+walls intended for fruit should be black, were suggestions put forth as
+a result of this experiment.
+
+Dr. 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 wells. "The
+doctor," he records, "breathed gently through a tube into a deep glass
+mug, so as to impregnate all the air in the mug with this quality. He
+then put a lighted _bougie_ (candle) into the mug, and upon touching the
+air therein the flame was instantly extinguished; by frequently
+repeating this operation, the _bougie_ gradually preserved its light
+longer in the mug, so as in a short time to retain it to the bottom of
+it, the air having totally lost the bad quality it had contracted from
+the breath blown into it." Upon being consulted with regard to the
+better ventilation of the House of Commons, he advised that openings
+should be made near the ceiling, communicating with flues running
+parallel with the chimneys and close enough to them to be kept warm by
+their heat. These flues, he recommended, should begin in the cellar,
+where the air was cool, and the flues being warmed by the hot air of the
+chimneys, would cause an upward current of air strong enough to expel
+the vitiated air in the upper part of the house. Franklin's letters at
+this time are full of the importance of ventilation. Unquestionably, he
+was among the first who called attention to the folly of excluding fresh
+air from hospitals and sick-rooms, particularly those of fever patients.
+As Mr. Parton expresses it, he cleared the pure air of heaven from
+calumnious imputation and threw open the windows of mankind.
+
+Some inventions of Franklin's have not met with the approval of
+posterity. For instance, 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 him. He used to say that they alone spelt well who spelt
+ill, since the so-called bad speller used the letters according to their
+real value. The illiterate girl who wrote of her _bo_ was more correct,
+he thought, than the young lady who would blush to omit a superfluous
+vowel. What was the use of the final letter in muff, and why take the
+trouble to write _tough_ when _tuf_ would do as well? Had he lived to
+see Dr. Webster's Dictionary, the lexicographer would have found in him
+an ardent champion. His reformed alphabet and spelling is an interesting
+curiosity, but hardly more. Some letters of our alphabet he omitted,
+only to add new ones. He also changed their order, making _o_ the first
+letter and _m_ the last. In this connection it may be well to say that
+Franklin was perhaps the first and foremost American champion of the
+movement, now so powerful, looking to the displacement of Latin and
+Greek as the foundations of education. At the very close of his life, in
+1789, he issued his famous protest against the study of dead languages.
+He is reported to have said one evening, when talking about this matter:
+"When the custom of wearing broad cuffs with buttons first began, there
+was a reason for it; the cuffs might be brought down over the hands and
+thus guard them from wet and cold. But gloves came into use, and the
+broad cuffs were unnecessary; yet the custom was still retained. So
+likewise with cocked hats. The wide brim, when let down, afforded a
+protection from the rain and the sun. Umbrellas were introduced, yet
+fashion prevailed to keep cocked hats in vogue, although they were
+rather cumbersome than useful. Thus with the Latin language. When nearly
+all the books of Europe were written in that language, the study of it
+was essential in every system of education; but it is now scarcely
+needed, except as an accomplishment, since it has everywhere given
+place, as a vehicle of thought and knowledge, to some one of the modern
+tongues."
+
+With all his love of the practical, Franklin was not deficient in a
+rather delicate wit. 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 line. Instances of this dry humor may be found
+all through Sparks's exhaustive biography. I remember one in particular.
+The merchants of Philadelphia, being at one time desirous to establish
+an assembly for dancing, they drew up some rules, among which was one
+"that no mechanic or mechanic's wife or daughter should be admitted on
+any terms." This rule being submitted to Franklin, he remarked that "it
+excluded God Almighty, for he was the greatest mechanic in the
+universe."
+
+Benjamin Franklin's services to the cause of invention by no means ended
+with his own inventions. One of his greatest services was the part he
+took in the foundation of the American Philosophical Society, whose
+object was to bring into correspondence with a central association in
+Philadelphia all scientists, philosophers, and inventors on this
+continent and in Europe. Franklin's share in the foundation of this
+society, which has proved of such vast use, seems to have been largely
+overlooked by his biographers. Mr. Parton, having mentioned that
+Franklin founded the society in accordance with his proposal of 1743,
+adds: "The society was formed and continued in existence for some years.
+Nevertheless, its success was neither great nor permanent, 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 organization." The recent
+historian of the society, Dr. Robert M. Patterson, agrees, however, with
+Sparks in tracing the origin of the Philosophical Society, which grew
+into prominence about 1767, back to Franklin's proposal of 1743. After
+describing the Junto, or Leather Apron Society, formed among Franklin's
+acquaintance, a sort of debating club of eleven young men, Sparks says:
+"Forty years after its establishment it became the basis of the American
+Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was the first president, and
+the published transactions of which have contributed to the advancement
+of science and the diffusion of valuable knowledge in the United
+States." In his first proposal Franklin gave a list of the subjects that
+were to engage the attention of these New World philosophers. It
+included investigations in botany; in medicine; in mineralogy and
+mining; in chemistry; in mechanics; in arts, trades, and manufactures;
+in geography and topography; in agriculture; and, lest something should
+have been forgotten, he adds that the association should "give its
+attention to all philosophical experiments that let light into the
+nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter and
+multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life." The duties of the
+secretary of the society were laid down and were arduous, including much
+foreign correspondence, in addition to the correcting, abstracting, and
+methodizing of such papers as required it. This office Franklin took
+upon himself.
+
+[Illustration: Franklin's Grave.]
+
+While he lived the proceedings of the society scarcely ever failed of a
+useful end. Unlike so many original and inventive geniuses, his eminent
+common sense was as marked as his originality. In the language of his
+most recent biographer, John Bach McMaster, "whatever he has said on
+domestic economy or thrift is sound and striking. No other writer has
+left so many just and original observations on success in life. No other
+writer has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount
+of comfort out of life. What Solomon did for the spiritual man, that did
+Franklin for the earthly man. The book of Proverbs is a collection of
+receipts for laying up treasure in heaven. 'Poor Richard' is a
+collection of receipts for laying up treasure on earth."
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+ROBERT FULTON.
+
+
+[Illustration: Robert Fulton.]
+
+Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, or at least the first man
+to apply the power of the steam-engine to the propulsion of boats in a
+practical and effective manner, was born in Little Britain, Lancaster
+County, Pa., 1765, of respectable but poor parents. His father was a
+native of Kilkenny, Ireland, and his mother came of a fairly well-to-do
+Irish family, settled in Pennsylvania. He was the third of five
+children. As a child he received the rudiments of a common education.
+His vocation showed itself in his earliest years. All his hours of
+recreation were passed in shops and in drawing. At the time he was
+seventeen he had become so much of an artist as to make money by
+portrait and landscape painting in Philadelphia, where he remained until
+he was twenty-one. After this he went to Washington County and there
+purchased a little farm on which he settled his mother, his father
+having died when he was three years old. He returned to Philadelphia,
+but on his way visited the Warm Springs of Pennsylvania, where he met
+with some gentlemen who were so much pleased with his painting that they
+advised him to go to England, where they told him he would meet with
+West who had then attained great celebrity. Fulton took this advice, and
+his reception by West, always kindly toward Americans, was such as he
+had been led to expect. The distinguished painter was so well pleased
+with him that he took him into his house, where he continued to live for
+several years. For some time Fulton made painting his chief employment,
+spending two years in Devonshire, near Exeter, where he made many
+influential acquaintances, among others the Duke of Bridgewater, famous
+for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a nobleman noted for his love of
+science and his attachment to the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope,
+Fulton held a correspondence for a long time upon subjects in which they
+were interested.
+
+In 1793, Fulton was engaged in a project to improve inland navigation.
+Even at that early day it appeared that he had conceived the idea of
+propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks in his letters of its
+practicability. In 1794 he obtained from the British Government a patent
+for improvements in canal locks, and his pursuits at this time appear to
+have been in this direction. In his preface to a description of his
+Nautilus, or "plunging" boat, a species of submarine boat, he says that
+he had resided eighteen months in Birmingham where he acquired much of
+his knowledge of mechanics. In later years, when in Paris, Fulton sent a
+large collection of his manuscripts to this country. Unfortunately, the
+vessel in which they were sent was wrecked, and, while the case was
+recovered, only a few fragments of the manuscripts could be used. It is
+owing to this misfortune that we have so few records of Fulton's work at
+this time.
+
+[Illustration: Birthplace of Robert Fulton.[1]]
+
+[Footnote 1: This illustration and the four following are from Knox's
+"Life of Fulton," reproduced by permission of the publishers, G.P.
+Putnam's Sons.]
+
+We know, however, that in 1794 he submitted to the British Society for
+the Promotion of Arts and Commerce an improvement of his invention for
+sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the society and an
+honorary medal. He invented also, it is thought, about this time, a
+machine for spinning flax and another for making ropes, for both of
+which he obtained patents from the British Government. A mechanical
+contrivance for scooping out earth to form channels for canals or
+aqueducts, which is said to have been much used in England, was also
+his invention. The subject of canals appears to have chiefly engaged his
+attention during these years of the end of the century. He called
+himself a civil engineer, and under this title published his work on
+canals, and, in 1795, many essays on the same subject in one of the
+London journals. He recommended small canals and boats of little burden
+in a treatise on "Improvement of Canal Navigation," and inclined planes
+instead of locks, as a means of transporting canal boats from one level
+to another. His plans were strongly recommended by the British Board of
+Agriculture. Throughout his course as civil engineer his talent for
+drawing was of great advantage to him, and the plates annexed to his
+works are admirable examples of such work. He seems to have neglected
+his painting till a short time before his death, when he took up the
+brush again to paint some portraits of his family. During his residence
+in England he sent copies of his works to distinguished men in this
+country, setting forth the advantages to be derived from communication
+by canals.
+
+Having obtained a patent for mill improvements from the British
+Government, he went to France with the intention of introducing his
+invention there; but, not meeting with much encouragement, he devoted
+his time to other matters. Political economy had also some attraction
+for him, and he wrote a book to show that internal improvements would
+have a good effect on the happiness of a nation. He not only wished to
+see a free and speedy communication between the different parts of a
+large country, but universal free trade between all countries. He
+thought that it would take ages to establish the freedom of the seas by
+the common consent of nations, and believed in destroying ships of war,
+so as to put it out of the power of any nation to control ocean trade.
+In 1797 he became acquainted with Joel Barlow, the well-known American,
+then residing in Paris, in whose family he lived for seven years, during
+which time he learned French and something of German, and studied
+mathematics and chemistry. In the same year he made an experiment with
+Mr. 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 point. These experiments appear to have been the
+first in the line of his submarine boats, and are unquestionably the
+germ of all subsequent inventions in the direction of torpedo warfare.
+
+Want of money to carry out his designs induced him to apply to the
+French Directory, who at first gave him reason to expect their aid, but
+finally rejected his plan. Fulton, however, was not to be discouraged,
+but went on with his inventions, and having made a handsome model of his
+machine for destroying ships, a commission was appointed to examine his
+plans, but they also rejected them. He offered his idea to the British
+Government, still again without success, although a committee was
+appointed to examine his models. The French Government being changed,
+and Bonaparte having come to the head of it, Fulton presented an address
+to him. A commission was appointed, and some assistance given which
+enabled him to put some of his plans into practice. In the spring of
+1801 he went to Brest to make experiments with the plunging boat that he
+had constructed in the winter. This, as he says, had many imperfections,
+to be expected in a first machine, and had been injured by rust, as
+parts which should have been of copper or brass were made of iron.
+
+Notwithstanding these disadvantages, he engaged in a course of
+experiments which required no less courage than perseverance. From a
+report of his proceedings to the committee appointed by the French
+Government we learn that in July, 1801, he embarked with three
+companions on board of this boat, in the harbor of Brest, and descended
+to the depth of twenty-five feet, remaining below the surface an hour,
+in utter darkness, as the candles were found to consume too much of the
+vital air. He placed two men at the engine, which was intended to give
+her motion, and one at the helm, while he, with a barometer before him,
+kept her balanced between the upper and lower waters. He could turn her
+round while under the water, and found that in seven minutes he had gone
+about a third of a mile. During that summer Fulton descended under water
+with a store of air compressed into a copper globe, whereby he was
+enabled to remain under water four hours and twenty minutes. The success
+of these experiments determined him to try the effect of his invention
+on the English war-ships, then daily near the harbor of Brest--France
+and England being then at war. He made his own bombs. For experimental
+purposes a small vessel was anchored in the harbor, and with a bomb
+containing about twenty pounds of powder, he approached within about two
+hundred yards, struck the vessel, and blew her into atoms. A column of
+water and fragments were sent nearly one hundred feet into the air. This
+experiment was made in the presence of the prefect of the department and
+a multitude of spectators. During the summer of 1801 Fulton tried to use
+his bombs against some of the English vessels, but was not successful in
+getting within range. The French Government refused to give him further
+encouragement.
+
+The English had some information concerning the attempts that their
+enemies were making, and the anxiety expressed induced the British
+Minister to communicate with Fulton and try to secure to England his
+services. In this he was successful, and Fulton went to London, where he
+arrived in 1804, and met Pitt and Lord Melville. When Mr. Pitt first saw
+a drawing of a torpedo with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and
+understood what would be the effect of the explosion, he said that if it
+were introduced into practice it could not fail to annihilate all
+navies.
+
+[Illustration: Fulton Blowing Up a Danish Brig.]
+
+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 engines. Their object may have been to
+prevent these devices getting into the hands of an enemy. Several
+experiments were made, and some of them were failures, but on October
+15, 1805, he blew up a strong-built Danish brig of two hundred tons
+burden, which had been provided for the experiment and which was
+anchored near the residence of Pitt. The torpedo used on this occasion
+contained one hundred and seventy pounds of powder. In fifteen minutes
+from the time of starting the machinery the explosion took place. It
+lifted the brig almost entire and broke her completely in two; in one
+minute nothing was to be seen of her but floating fragments.
+Notwithstanding the complete success of this experiment, the British
+ministry seems to have had nothing to do with Fulton. The inventor was
+rather discouraged at this lack of appreciation and, after some further
+experiments, he sailed for New York in December, 1806.
+
+In this country Fulton devoted himself at once to his project of
+submarine warfare and steam navigation. So far from being discouraged by
+his failure to impress Europe with the importance of his torpedoes, his
+confidence was unshaken, because he saw that his failures were to be
+attributed to trivial errors that could easily be corrected. He induced
+our Government to give him the means of making further experiments, 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 made. In July, 1807, he blew up, in the
+harbor of New York, a large brig prepared for that purpose. He also
+devised at this time a number of stationary torpedoes, really casks of
+powder, with triggers that might be caught by the keel of any passing
+vessel. In March, 1810, $5,000 were granted by Congress for further
+experiments in submarine explosions. The sloop of war, Argus, was
+prepared for defence against the torpedoes after Fulton had explained
+his mode of attack. This defence was so complete that Fulton found it
+impracticable to do anything with his torpedoes. Some experiments were
+made, however, with a gun-harpoon and cable cutter, and after several
+attempts a fourteen-inch cable was cut off several feet below the
+surface of the water.
+
+Fulton was, during all these experiments, much pressed for money, and
+apparently was making no headway toward the use of his submarine engines
+in a profitable way. 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 steam. He had the valuable co-operation in his new work of
+Chancellor Livingston, of New Jersey, who, while devoting much of his
+own time and means to the advancement of science, was fond of fostering
+the discoveries of others. He had very clear conceptions of what would
+be the great advantages of steamboats on the navigable rivers of the
+United States. He had already, when in Paris, applied himself at great
+expense to constructing vessels and machinery for that kind of
+navigation. As early as 1798 he believed that he had accomplished his
+object, 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 principles; but that he was deterred from carrying it into
+effect by the uncertainty of expensive experiments, unless he could be
+assured of an exclusive advantage should it be successful. The
+Legislature in March, 1798, 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 years, upon condition that
+he should within a twelve-month build such a boat, whose progress
+should not be less than four miles an hour.
+
+[Illustration: John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia.]
+
+Livingston, as soon as the act had passed, built a boat of about thirty
+tons burden, to be propelled by steam. Soon after he entered into a
+contract with Fulton, by which it was agreed that a patent should be
+taken out in the United States in Fulton's name. Thus began the
+preparations for the first practical steamboat. All the experiments were
+paid for by Chancellor Livingston, but the work was Fulton's. In 1802,
+in Paris, he began a course of calculations upon the resistance of
+water, upon the most advantageous form of the body to be moved, and upon
+the different means of propelling vessels which had been previously
+attempted. After a variety of calculations he rejected the proposed plan
+of using paddles or oars, such as those already used by Fitch; likewise
+that of ducks' feet, which open as they are pushed out and shut as they
+are drawn in; also that of forcing water out of the stern of the vessel.
+He retained two methods as worthy of experiment, namely, endless chains
+with paddle-boards upon them, and the paddle-wheel. The latter was found
+to be the most promising, and was finally adopted after a number of
+trials with models on a little river which runs through the village of
+Plombieres, to which he had retired in the spring of 1802, to pursue his
+experiments without interruption.
+
+[Illustration: Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels.]
+
+It was now determined to build an experimental boat, which was completed
+in the spring of 1803; but when Fulton was on the point of making an
+experiment with her, an accident happened to the boat, the woodwork not
+having been framed strongly enough to bear the weight of the machinery
+and the agitation of the river. The accident did the machinery very
+little injury; but they were obliged to build the boat almost entirely
+anew. She was completed in July; her length was sixty-six feet and she
+was eight feet wide. Early in August, Fulton addressed a letter to the
+French National Institute, inviting the members to witness a trial of
+his boat, which was made before the members, and in the presence of a
+great multitude of Parisians. The experiment was entirely satisfactory
+to Fulton, though the boat did not move altogether with as much speed as
+he expected. But he imputed her moving so slowly to the extremely
+defective machinery, and to imperfections which were to be expected in
+the first experiment with so complicated a machine; the defects were
+such as might be easily remedied.
+
+Such entire confidence did he acquire from this experiment that
+immediately afterward he wrote to Messrs. Boulton & Watt, of Birmingham,
+England, ordering certain parts of a steam-engine to be made for him,
+and sent to America. He did not disclose to them for what purpose the
+engine was intended, but his directions were such as would produce the
+parts of an engine that might be put together within a compass suited
+for a boat. Mr. Livingston had written to his friends in this country,
+and through their assistance an act was passed by the Legislature of the
+State of New York, on April 5, 1803, by which the rights and exclusive
+privileges of navigating all the waters of that State, by vessels
+propelled by fire or steam, granted to Livingston by the Act of 1798, as
+already mentioned, were extended to Livingston and Fulton, for the term
+of twenty years from the date of the new act. By this law the time of
+producing proof of the practicability of propelling by steam a boat of
+twenty tons capacity, at the rate of four miles an hour, with and
+against the ordinary current of the Hudson, was extended two years, and
+by a subsequent law, the time was extended to 1807.
+
+Very soon after Fulton's arrival in New York he began building his first
+American boat. While she was constructing, he found that her cost would
+greatly exceed his calculations. He endeavored to lessen the pressure on
+his own finances by offering one-third of the rights for a proportionate
+contribution to the expense. It was generally known that he made this
+offer, but no one was then willing to afford aid to his enterprise.
+
+In the spring of 1807, Fulton's first American boat was launched from
+the shipyard of Charles Brown, on the East River. The engine from
+England was put on board, and in August she was completed, and was moved
+by her machinery from her birthplace to the Jersey shore. Livingston and
+Fulton had invited many of their friends to witness the first trial,
+among them Dr. Mitchell and Dr. M'Neven, to whom we are indebted for
+some account of what passed on this occasion. Nothing could exceed the
+surprise and admiration of all who witnessed the experiment. The minds
+of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes. Before the boat
+had gone a quarter of a mile, the greatest unbeliever must have been
+converted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive machine,
+thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money on
+such idle schemes, changed his mind as the boat moved from the wharf and
+gained speed, and his complacent expression gradually stiffened into one
+of wonder.
+
+This boat, which was called the Clermont, soon after made a trip to
+Albany. Fulton gives the following account of this voyage in a letter to
+his friend, Mr. Barlow:
+
+[Illustration: Departure of the Clermont on her First Voyage.]
+
+"My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more
+favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is
+one hundred and fifty miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down
+in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and
+coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the
+steam-engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward,
+and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of
+propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New
+York there were not, perhaps, thirty persons in the city who believed
+that the boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of the least
+utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was
+crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is
+the way in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and
+projectors. Having employed much time, money, and zeal, in accomplishing
+this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure to see it fully
+answer my expectations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the
+merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other great rivers, which
+are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen;
+and although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement
+to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense
+advantage that my country will derive from the invention."
+
+Soon after this successful voyage, the Hudson boat was advertised and
+established as a regular passage-boat between New York and Albany. She,
+however, in the course of the season, met with several accidents, from
+the hostility of those engaged in the ordinary navigation of the river,
+and from defects in her machinery, the greatest of which was having her
+water-wheel shafts of cast-iron, which was insufficient to sustain the
+great power applied to them. The wheels also were hung without any
+support for the outward end of the shaft, which is now supplied by what
+are called the wheel-guards.
+
+At the session of 1808 a law was passed to prolong the time of the
+exclusive right to thirty years; it also declared combinations to
+destroy the boat, or wilful attempts to injure her, public offences,
+punishable by fine and imprisonment. Notwithstanding her misfortunes,
+the boat continued to run as a packet, always loaded with passengers,
+for the remainder of the summer. In the course of the ensuing winter she
+was enlarged, and in the spring of 1808 she again began running as a
+packet-boat, and continued it through the season. Several other boats
+were soon built for the Hudson River, and also for steamboat companies
+formed in different parts of the United States. On February 11, 1809,
+Fulton took out a patent for his inventions in navigation by steam, and
+on February 9, 1811, he obtained a second patent for some improvements
+in his boats and machinery.
+
+About the year 1812 two steam ferry-boats were built under the direction
+of Fulton for crossing the Hudson River, and one of the same description
+for the East River. These boats were what are called twin-boats, each of
+them being two complete hulls united by a deck or bridge. They were
+sharp at both ends, and moved equally well with either end foremost, so
+that they crossed and recrossed without losing any time by turning
+about. He contrived, with great ingenuity, floating docks for the
+reception of these boats, and a means by which they were brought to them
+without a shock. These boats, were the first of a fleet which has since
+carried hundreds of millions of passengers to and from New York.
+
+From the time the first boat was put in motion till the death of Fulton,
+the art of navigating by steam advanced rapidly to that perfection of
+which he believed it capable; the boats performed each successive trip
+with increased speed, and every year improvements were made. The last
+boat built by Fulton was invariably the best, the most convenient, and
+the swiftest.
+
+At the beginning of 1814 a number of the citizens of New York, alarmed
+at the exposed situation of their harbor, had assembled with a view to
+consider whether some measures might not be taken to aid the Government
+in its protection. This assembly had some knowledge of Fulton's plans
+for submarine attack, and knew that he contemplated other means of
+defence. It deputed a number of gentlemen to act for it, and these were
+called the Coast and Harbor Committee. Fulton exhibited to this
+committee the model and plans for a vessel of war, to be propelled by
+steam, capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot
+shot, and which, he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an
+hour. The confidence of the committee in this design was confirmed by
+the opinions of many of our most distinguished naval commanders, which
+he had obtained in writing, and exhibited to the committee. They pointed
+out many advantages which a steam vessel of war would possess over those
+with sails only.
+
+The National Legislature passed a law in March, 1814, authorizing the
+President of the United States to cause to be built, equipped, and
+employed one or more floating batteries for the defence of the waters
+of the United States. A sub-committee of five gentlemen was appointed to
+superintend the building of the proposed vessel, and Fulton, whose
+spirit animated the whole enterprise, was appointed the engineer. In
+June, 1814, the keel of this novel and mighty engine was laid, and in
+October she was launched from the New York yard of Adam and Noah Brown.
+The scene exhibited on this occasion was magnificent. It happened on one
+of our bright autumnal days. Multitudes of spectators crowded the
+surrounding shores. The river and bay were filled with vessels of war,
+dressed in all their colors in compliment to the occasion. By May, 1815,
+her engine was put on board, and she was so far completed as to afford
+an opportunity of trying her machinery. On the 4th of July, in the same
+year, the steam-frigate made a passage to the ocean and back, a distance
+of fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes, by the mere
+force of steam. In September she made another passage to the sea, and
+having at this time the weight of her whole armament on board, she went
+at the rate of five and a half miles an hour, upon an average, with and
+against the tide. The superintending committee gave in their report a
+full description of the Fulton the First, the honored name this vessel
+bore.
+
+The last work in which the active and ingenious mind of Fulton was
+engaged was a project for the modification of his submarine boat. He
+presented a model of this vessel to the Government, by which it was
+approved; and under Federal authority he began building one; but before
+the hull was entirely finished his country had to lament his death, and
+the mechanics he employed were incapable of proceeding without him.
+
+[Illustration: The "Demologos," or "Fulton the First."
+
+The first steam vessel-of-war in the world.]
+
+During the whole time that Fulton had thus been devoting his talents to
+the service of his country, he had been harassed by lawsuits and
+controversies with those who were violating his patent rights, or
+intruding upon his exclusive grants. The State of New Jersey had passed
+a law which operated against Fulton, without being of much advantage to
+those interested in its passage, inasmuch as the laws of New York
+prevented any but Fulton's boats to approach the city of New York. Its
+only operation was to stop a boat owned in New York, which had been for
+several years running to New Brunswick, under a license from Messrs.
+Livingston and Fulton. 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
+Fulton. The committee reported that such repeal might be passed
+consistently with good faith, honor, and justice! This report being made
+to the House, it was prevailed upon to be less precipitate than the
+committee had been. It gave time, which the committee would not do, for
+Fulton to be sent for from New York. The Assembly and Senate in joint
+session examined witnesses, and heard him and the petitioner by counsel.
+The result was that the Legislature refused to repeal the prior law, or
+to pass any act on the subject. The Legislature of the State of New
+Jersey also repealed their law, which left Fulton in the full enjoyment
+of his rights. This enjoyment was of very short duration; for on
+returning from Trenton, after this last trial, he was exposed on the
+Hudson, which was very full of ice, for several hours. He had not a
+constitution to encounter such exposure, and upon his return found
+himself much indisposed. He had at that time great anxiety about the
+steam-frigate, and, after confining himself to the house for a few days,
+went to give his superintendence to the workmen employed about her.
+Forgetting his ill-health in the interest he took in what was doing on
+the frigate, he remained too long exposed on a bad day to the weather.
+He soon felt the effects of this imprudence. His indisposition returned
+upon him with such violence as to confine him to his bed. His illness
+increased, and on February 24, 1815, it ended his life.
+
+It was not known that Fulton's illness was dangerous till a very short
+time before his death. Means were immediately taken to testify,
+publicly, the universal regret at his loss, and respect for his memory.
+The corporation of the city of New York, the different literary
+institutions and other societies, assembled and passed resolutions
+expressing their estimation of his worth, and regret at his loss. They
+also resolved to attend his funeral, and that the members should wear
+badges of mourning for a certain time. As soon as the Legislature, which
+was then in session at Albany, heard of the death of Fulton, they
+expressed their participation in the general sentiment by resolving that
+the members of both Houses should wear mourning for some weeks.
+
+In 1806 Fulton married Harriet Livingston, a daughter of Walter
+Livingston, a relative of his associate, Chancellor Livingston. He left
+four children; one son, Robert Barlow Fulton, and three daughters.
+Fulton was in person considerably above medium height; his face showed
+great intelligence. Natural refinement and long intercourse with the
+most polished society of Europe and America had given him grace and
+elegance of manner.
+
+[Illustration: The Clermont.]
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+ELI WHITNEY.
+
+
+In 1784 an American vessel arrived at Liverpool having on board, as part
+of her cargo, eight bags of cotton, which were seized by the
+Custom-House under the conviction that they could not be the growth of
+America. The whole amount of cotton arriving at Liverpool from America
+during the two following years was less than one hundred and twenty
+bags. When Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, applied for his
+first patent in 1793, the total export of cotton from the United States
+was less than ten thousand bales. Fifty years later, the growth of this
+industry, owing almost wholly to Whitney's gin, had increased to
+millions of bales, and by 1860, the export amounted to four million
+bales.
+
+[Illustration: Eli Whitney.]
+
+According to the estimate of Judge Johnson, given in the most famous
+decision affecting the cotton-gin, the debts of the South were paid off
+by its aid, its capital was increased, and its lands trebled in value.
+This famous device, the gift of a young Northerner to the South, was
+rewarded by thirty years of ingratitude, relieved only by a few gleams
+of sunshine in the way of justice, serving to make the injustice all the
+more conspicuous. Whitney added hundreds of millions to the wealth of
+the United States. His personal reward was countless lawsuits and
+endless vexation of body and spirit. No more conspicuous example can be
+cited of steady patience and sweet-tempered perseverance.
+
+
+Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Mass., December
+8, 1765. His parents belonged to that respectable class of society who,
+by honest farming and kindred industries, 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 usefulness. The indications of
+his mechanical genius were noted at an early age. Of his passion for
+mechanics, his sister gives the following account:
+
+"Our father had a workshop and sometimes made wheels of different kinds,
+and chairs. He had a variety of tools and a lathe for turning
+chair-posts. This gave my brother an opportunity of learning the use of
+tools when very young. He lost no time, but as soon as he could handle
+tools he was always making something in the shop, and seemed to prefer
+that to work on the farm. After the death of our mother, when our father
+had been absent from home two or three days, on his return he inquired
+of the housekeeper what the boys had been doing. She told him what the
+elders had done. 'But what has Eli been doing?' said he. She replied he
+has been making a fiddle. 'Ah!' added he, despondently, 'I fear Eli will
+have to take his portion in fiddles.'"
+
+He was at this time about twelve years old. The sister adds that his
+fiddle was finished throughout like a common violin and made pretty good
+music. It was examined by many persons, and all pronounced it to be a
+model piece of work for such a boy. From this time he was always
+employed to repair violins, and did many nice jobs that were executed to
+the entire satisfaction and even to the astonishment of his customers.
+His father's watch being the greatest piece of mechanism that had yet
+presented itself to his observation, he was extremely desirous of
+examining its interior construction, but was not permitted to do so. One
+Sunday morning, observing that his father was going to church and would
+leave at home the wonderful little machine, he feigned illness as an
+apology for not going. As soon as the family were out of sight, he flew
+to the room where the watch hung and took it down. He was so delighted
+with its motion that he took it to pieces before he thought of the
+consequences of his rash deed; for his father was a stern parent, and
+punishment would have been the reward of his idle curiosity, had the
+mischief been detected. He, however, put the works so neatly together
+that his father never discovered his audacity until he himself told him
+many years afterward.
+
+When Eli was thirteen years old his father married a second time. His
+stepmother, among her articles of furniture, had a handsome set of
+table-knives that she valued very highly.
+
+One day Eli said: "I could make as good ones if I had tools, and I
+could make the tools if I had common tools to begin with;" his mother
+laughed at him. But it so happened soon afterward that one of the knives
+was broken, and he made one exactly like it in every respect, except the
+stamp of the blade. When he was fifteen or sixteen years of age, he
+suggested to his father an enterprise which clearly showed his capacity
+for important work. The time being the Revolutionary War, nails were in
+great demand and at high prices. They were made chiefly by hand. Whitney
+proposed to his father to get him a few tools and allow him to set up
+the manufacture of nails. His father consented, and the work was begun.
+By extraordinary diligence he found time to make tools for his own use
+and to put in knife-blades, repair farm machinery, and perform other
+little jobs beyond the skill of the country workman. At this occupation
+the enterprising boy worked, alone with great success and with large
+profit to his father for two winters, going on with the ordinary work of
+the farm during the summer. He devised a plan for enlarging the
+business, and managed to obtain help from a fellow-laborer whom he
+picked up when on a short journey of forty miles, 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 could.
+
+At the close of the war the business of making nails was no longer
+profitable; but the fashion prevailing among the ladies of fastening on
+their bonnets with long pins having appeared, he contrived to make
+these pins with such skill that he nearly monopolized the business,
+though he devoted to it only such leisure as he could redeem from the
+occupations of the farm. He also made excellent walking-canes. At the
+age of nineteen Whitney conceived the idea of getting a liberal
+education; and partly by the results of his mechanical industries, and
+partly by teaching the village school, he was enabled so far to surmount
+the difficulties in his way as to prepare himself for the Freshman Class
+in Yale College, which he entered in 1789. At college his mechanical
+propensity frequently showed itself. He successfully undertook, on one
+occasion, the repairing of some of the philosophical apparatus. Soon
+after taking his degree, in the autumn of 1792, he engaged with a
+Georgia family as private teacher, and through his engagement he made
+the acquaintance of a certain General Greene, of Savannah, who took a
+deep interest in him, and with whom he began the study of law. While
+living with the Greenes he noticed an embroidery-frame used by Mrs.
+Greene, and about which she complained, observing that it tore the
+delicate threads of her work. Young Whitney, eager to oblige his
+hostess, went to work and speedily produced a frame on an entirely new
+plan. The family were much delighted with it, and considered it a
+wonderful piece of ingenuity.
+
+[Illustration: Whitney Watching the Cotton-Gin.]
+
+Not long afterward the Greenes were visited by a party of gentlemen,
+chiefly officers who had served under the general in the Revolutionary
+War. The conversation turned on the state of agriculture. It was
+remarked that unfortunately there was no means of cleaning the staple of
+the green cotton-seed, which might otherwise be profitably raised on
+land unsuitable for rice. But until someone devised a machine which
+would clean the cotton, it was vain to think of raising it for market.
+Separating one pound of the clean staple from the seed was a day's work
+for a woman. The time usually devoted to the picking of cotton was the
+evening, after the labor of the field was over. Then the slaves--men,
+women, and children--were collected in circles, with one in the middle
+whose duty it was to rouse the dosing and quicken the indolent. While
+the company were engaged in this conversation, Mrs. Greene said:
+"Gentlemen, apply to my young friend here, Mr. Whitney; he can make
+anything." And she showed them the frame and several other articles he
+had made. He modestly disclaimed all pretensions to mechanical genius,
+and replied that he had never seen cotton-seed.
+
+Nevertheless, he immediately began upon the task of inventing and
+constructing the machine on which his fame depends. A Mr. Phineas
+Miller, a neighbor, to whom he communicated his design, warmly
+encouraged him, and gave him a room in his house wherein to carry on his
+operations. 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 Savannah. Mr. Miller and Mrs. Greene were the only persons who
+knew anything of his occupation. Near the close of the winter, 1793, the
+machine was so far completed as to leave no doubt of its success. The
+person who contributed most to the success of the undertaking, after the
+inventor, was his friend, Miller, a native of Connecticut and, a
+graduate of Yale. Like Whitney, he had come to Georgia as a private
+teacher, and after the death of General Greene he married the widow. He
+was a lawyer by profession, with a turn for mechanics. He had some money
+and proposed to Whitney to become his partner, he to be at the whole
+expense of manufacturing the invention until it should be patented. If
+the machine should succeed, they agreed that the profits and advantages
+should be divided between them. A legal paper covering this agreement
+and establishing the firm of Miller & Whitney, bears the date of May 27,
+1793.
+
+An invention so important to the agricultural interests of the country
+could not long remain a secret. The knowledge of it swept through the
+State, and so great was the excitement on the subject that crowds of
+persons came from all parts to see the machine; it was not deemed safe
+to gratify curiosity until the patent-right should be secured. But so
+determined were some of these people that neither law nor justice could
+restrain them; they broke into the building by night and carried off the
+machine. In this way the public became possessed of the invention, and
+before Whitney could complete his model and secure his patent, a number
+of machines, patterned after his, were in successful operation.
+
+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 here. The different parts are two cylinders of different diameters,
+mounted in a strong wooden frame, one cylinder bearing a number of
+circular saws fitted into grooves cut into the cylinder. The other
+hollow cylinder is mounted with brushes, the tips of whose bristles
+touch the saw-teeth. The cotton is put into a hopper, where it is met by
+the sharp teeth of the saws, torn from the seed, and carried to a point
+where the brushes sweep it off into a convenient receptacle. The seeds
+are too large to pass between the bars through which the saws protrude.
+This is the principle of the first machine, but many improvements have
+been made since Whitney's day. Nevertheless, by means of the cotton-gin,
+even in its earliest shape, one man, with the aid of two-horse power,
+could clean five thousand pounds of cotton in a day.
+
+[Illustration: The Cotton-Gin.
+
+(From the original model.)]
+
+As soon as the partnership of Miller & Whitney was formed, the latter
+went to Connecticut to perfect the machine, obtain the patent, and
+manufacture for Georgia as many machines as he thought would supply the
+demand. At once there began between Whitney in Connecticut and Miller in
+Georgia a correspondence relative to the cotton-gin, which gives a
+complete history of the extraordinary efforts made by the two partners
+and the disappointments that fell to their lot. The very first letter,
+written three days after Whitney left, announces that encroachments upon
+their rights had already begun. "It will be necessary," says Miller, "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 subject; for I am informed of two other
+claimants for the honor of the invention of the cotton-gin in addition
+to those we knew before." At the close of the year 1793 Whitney was to
+return to Georgia with his gins, where his partner had made arrangements
+for beginning business. The importunity of Miller's letters, written
+during this period, urging him to come on, show how eager the Georgia
+planters were to enter the new field of enterprise that the genius of
+Whitney had opened to them. Nor did they at first contemplate stealing
+the invention. 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 rights.
+One of the greatest difficulties experienced by the partners was the
+extreme scarcity of money, which embarrassed them so much as to make it
+impossible to construct machines fast enough.
+
+In April Whitney returned to Georgia. Large crops of cotton had been
+planted, the profits of which were to depend almost wholly on the
+success of the gin. A formidable competitor, the roller-gin, had also
+appeared, which destroyed the seed by means of rollers, crushing them
+between revolving cylinders instead of disengaging them by means of
+teeth. The fragments of seeds which remained in the cotton made it much
+inferior to Whitney's gin, and it was slower in operation. A still more
+dangerous rival appeared in 1795, under the name of the saw-gin. It was
+really Whitney's invention, except that the teeth were cut in circular
+rings of iron instead of being made of wire, as in the earlier forms of
+the Whitney gin. The use of such teeth had occurred to Whitney, as he
+established by legal proof. They would have been of no use except in
+connection with other parts of his machine, and it was a palpable
+attempt to invade his patent right. It was chiefly in reference to this
+device that the endless lawsuits that wore the life out of the partners
+were afterward held.
+
+In March, 1795, after two years of struggle, during which no progress
+seems to have been made, although the value of the gin was proved,
+Whitney went to New York, where he was detained three weeks by fever.
+Upon reaching New Haven he discovered that his shop, with all his
+machines and papers, had been consumed by fire. Thus he was suddenly
+reduced to bankruptcy and was in debt $4,000 without any means of
+payment. He was not, however, one to sink under such trials; Miller
+showed the same buoyant spirit, and the following extract of a letter
+of his to Whitney may be a useful lesson to young men in trouble:
+
+ "I think we ought to meet such events with equanimity. We have been
+ pursuing a valuable object by honorable means, and I trust that all
+ our measures have been such as reason and virtue must justify. It
+ has pleased Providence to postpone the attainment of this object. In
+ the midst of the reflections which your story has suggested, and
+ with feelings keenly awake to the heavy, the extensive injury we
+ have sustained, I feel a secret joy and satisfaction that you
+ possess a mind in this respect similar to my own--that you are not
+ disheartened, that you do not relinquish the pursuit, and that you
+ will persevere, and endeavor, at all events, to attain the main
+ object. This is exactly consonant to my own determinations. I will
+ devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions, and all the
+ money I can earn or borrow to encompass and complete the business we
+ have undertaken; and if fortune should, by any future disaster, deny
+ us the boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall never be
+ said that we have lost an object which a little perseverance could
+ have attained. I think, indeed, it will be very extraordinary if two
+ young men in the prime of life, with some share of ingenuity, and
+ with a little knowledge of the world, a great deal of industry, and
+ a considerable command of property, should not be able to sustain
+ such a stroke of misfortune as this, heavy as it is."
+
+Miller winds up by suggesting to Whitney that perhaps he can get help in
+New Haven by offering twelve per cent. a year for money with which to
+build a new shop, and the inventor seems to have had some success in
+reorganizing his affairs, even under such desperate conditions. 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 injured. This threatened a deathblow to their hopes. At the
+time, 1796, they already had thirty gins at different places in Georgia,
+some worked by horses and oxen and some by water. Some of these were
+still standing a few years ago. The following extract of a letter by
+Whitney will show the state of his mind and affairs:
+
+ "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 longer. It has
+ required my utmost exertions to exist without making the least
+ progress in our business. I have labored hard against the strong
+ current of disappointment which has been threatening to carry us
+ down the cataract, but I have labored with a shattered oar and
+ struggled in vain, unless some speedy relief is obtained.... Life is
+ but short at best, and six or seven years out of the midst of it is
+ to him who makes it an immense sacrifice. My most unremitted
+ attention has been devoted to our business. I have sacrificed to it
+ other objects from which, before this time, I might certainly have
+ gained $20,000 or $30,000. My whole prospects have been embarked in
+ it, with the expectation that I should before this time have
+ realized something from it."
+
+The cotton of Whitney's gin was, however, sought by merchants in
+preference to other kinds, and respectable manufacturers testified in
+his favor. Had it not been for the extensive and shameful violations of
+their patent-right, the partners might yet have succeeded; but these
+encroachments had become so extensive as almost to destroy its value.
+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 Whitney, dated May 11, 1797:
+
+ "The event of the first patent suit, after all our exertions made in
+ such a variety of ways, has gone against us. The preposterous custom
+ of trying civil causes of this intricacy and magnitude by a common
+ jury, together with the imperfection of the patent law, frustrated
+ all our views, and disappointed expectations which had become very
+ sanguine. The tide of popular opinion was running in our favor, the
+ judge was well disposed toward us, and many decided friends were
+ with us, who adhered firmly to our cause and interests. The judge
+ gave a charge to the jury pointedly in our favor; after which the
+ defendant himself told an acquaintance of his that he would give
+ two thousand dollars to be free from the verdict, and yet the jury
+ gave it against us, after a consultation of about an hour. And
+ having made the verdict general, no appeal would lie.
+
+ "On Monday morning, when the verdict was rendered, we applied for a
+ new trial, but the judge refused it to us on the ground that the
+ jury might have made up their opinion on the defect of the law,
+ which makes an aggression consist of making, devising, and using or
+ selling; whereas we could only charge the defendant with using.
+
+ "Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, fatigue, and difficulty,
+ are we again set afloat by a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our
+ hopes of success are now removed to a period still more distant than
+ before, while our expenses are realized beyond all controversy."
+
+Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a second suit in Savannah the
+following May, and a number of witnesses were collected from various
+parts of the country, all to no purpose, for the judge failed to appear,
+and in the meantime, owing to the failure of the first suit,
+encroachments on the patent-right had multiplied prodigiously.
+
+In April, 1799, nearly a year later, and two years after their first
+legal rebuff, Miller writes as follows:
+
+ "The prospect of making anything by ginning in this State is at an
+ end. Surreptitious gins are erected in every part of the country,
+ and the jurymen at Augusta have come to an understanding among
+ themselves that they will never give a cause in our favor, let the
+ merits of the case be as they may."
+
+The company would now have gladly relinquished the plan of making their
+own machines, and confined their operations to the sale of
+patent-rights; but few would buy the right to a machine which could be
+used with impunity without purchase, and those few usually gave notes
+instead of cash, which they afterward, to a great extent, avoided
+paying, either by obtaining a verdict from the juries declaring them
+void, or by contriving to postpone the collection till they were barred
+by the Statute of Limitations, a period of only four years. The agent of
+Miller & Whitney, who was despatched on a collecting tour through the
+State of Georgia, 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 expenses. It was suggested that an
+application to the Legislature of South Carolina to purchase the
+patent-right for that State would be successful. Whitney accordingly
+repaired to Columbia, and the business was brought before the
+Legislature in December, 1801. An extract from a letter by Whitney at
+this time shows the nature of the contract thus made:
+
+ "I have been at this place a little more than two weeks attending
+ the Legislature. 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 $50,000, of which sum $20,000
+ is to be paid in hand, and the remainder in three annual payments of
+ $10,000 each." He adds: "We get but a song for it in comparison with
+ the worth of the thing, but it is securing something. It will enable
+ Miller & Whitney to pay their debts and divide something between
+ them."
+
+In December, 1802, Whitney negotiated the sale of his patent-right with
+the State of North Carolina. The Legislature laid a tax of 2_s._ 6_d._
+upon every saw (some of the gins had forty saws) employed in ginning
+cotton, to be continued for five years; and after deducting the expenses
+of collection the returns were faithfully passed over to the patentee.
+This compensation was regarded by Whitney as more liberal than that
+received from any other source. About the same time Mr. Goodrich, the
+agent of the company, entered into a similar negotiation with Tennessee,
+which State had by this time begun to realize the importance of the
+invention. The Legislature passed a law laying a tax of 37-1/2 cents per
+annum on every saw used, for the period of four years. Thus far the
+prospects were growing favorable to the patentees, when the Legislature
+of South Carolina unexpectedly annulled the contract which they had
+made, suspended further payment of the balance, and sued for the
+refunding of what had been already paid. When Whitney first heard of the
+transactions of the South Carolina Legislature, he was at Raleigh,
+where he had just completed a negotiation with the Legislature of North
+Carolina. In a letter written to Miller at this time, he remarks:
+
+ "I am, for my own part, more vexed than alarmed by their
+ extraordinary proceedings. I think it behooves us to be very
+ cautious and very circumspect in our measures, and even in our
+ remarks with regard to it. Be cautious what you say or publish till
+ we meet our enemies in a court of justice, where, if they have any
+ sensibility left, we will make them very much ashamed of their
+ childish conduct."
+
+But that Whitney felt keenly the severities afterward practised against
+him is evident from the tenor of the remonstrance which he presented to
+the Legislature:
+
+ "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 faith; and he begs
+ leave to observe further, that to have industriously, laboriously,
+ 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 profits, which is
+ worth to them millions, and from which their prosperity must
+ continue to derive the most important profits, and in return to be
+ treated as a felon, a swindler, and a villain, has stung him to the
+ very soul. And when he considers that this cruel persecution is
+ inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying these great benefits,
+ and expressly for the purpose of preventing his ever deriving the
+ least advantage from his own labors, the acuteness of his feelings
+ is altogether inexpressible."
+
+Doubts, it seems, had arisen in the public mind as to the validity of
+the patent. Great exertions had been made in Georgia, where, it will be
+remembered, hostilities were first declared against him, to show that
+his title to the invention was unsound, and that "somebody" in
+Switzerland had conceived it before him; and that the improved form of
+the machine with saws, instead of wire teeth, did not come within the
+patent, having been introduced by one Hodgin Holmes. The popular voice,
+stimulated by the most sordid methods, was now raised against Whitney
+throughout all the cotton States. Tennessee followed the example of
+South Carolina, annulling the contract made with him. And the attempt
+was made in North Carolina. But a committee of the Legislature, to whom
+it was referred, reported in Whitney's favor, declaring "that the
+contract ought to be fulfilled with punctuality and good faith," which
+resolution was adopted by both Houses. There were also high-minded men
+in South Carolina who were indignant at the dishonorable measures
+adopted by their Legislature of 1803; their sentiments impressed the
+community so favorably with regard to Whitney that, at the session of
+1804, the Legislature not only rescinded what the previous one had done,
+but signified their respect for Whitney by marked commendations.
+
+Miller died on December 7, 1803. In the earlier stages of the enterprise
+he had indulged high hopes of a great fortune; perpetual disappointments
+appear to have attended him through life. Whitney was now left alone to
+contend single-handed against the difficulties which had, for a series
+of years, almost broken down the spirits of the partners. The light,
+moreover, which seemed to be breaking, proved but the twilight of
+prosperity. The favorable issue of Whitney's affairs in South Carolina,
+and the generous receipts he obtained from his contract with North
+Carolina, relieved him, however, from the embarrassments under which he
+had so long groaned, and made him, in some degree, independent. Still,
+no small portion of the funds thus collected in North and South Carolina
+was expended in carrying on trials and endless lawsuits in Georgia.
+
+Finally, in the United States Court, held in Georgia, December, 1807,
+Whitney's patent obtained a most important decision in its favor against
+a trespasser named Fort. It was on this trial that Judge Johnson gave a
+most celebrated decision in the following words:
+
+ "To support the originality of the invention, the complainants have
+ produced a variety of depositions of witnesses, examined under
+ commission, whose examinations expressly prove the origin,
+ progress, and completion of the machine of Whitney, one of the
+ copartners. 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 eye. But it is not necessary to resort to such testimony to
+ maintain this point. The jealousy of the artist to maintain that
+ reputation which his ingenuity has justly acquired, has urged him to
+ unnecessary pains on this subject. 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 witnesses. The cotton-plant furnished clothing to
+ mankind before the age of Herodotus. The green seed is a species
+ much more productive than the black, and by nature adapted to a much
+ greater variety of climate, but by reason of the strong adherence of
+ the fibre to the seed, without the aid of some more powerful machine
+ for separating it than any formerly known among us, the cultivation
+ of it would never have been made an object. The machine of which Mr.
+ 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 be. Is it, then, to be imagined that if this
+ machine had been before discovered, the use of it would ever have
+ been lost, or could have been confined to any tract or country left
+ unexplored by commercial enterprise? But it is unnecessary to remark
+ further upon this subject. A number of years have elapsed since Mr.
+ Whitney took out his patent, and no one has produced or pretended to
+ prove the existence of a machine of similar construction or use.
+
+ "With regard to the utility of this discovery the court would deem
+ it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. Is there a man who
+ hears us who has not experienced its utility? 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
+ industry, when the invention of this machine at once opened views to
+ them which set the whole country in active motion. From childhood to
+ age it has presented to us a lucrative employment. Our debts have
+ been paid off, our capitals have increased, and our lands trebled
+ themselves in value. We cannot express the weight of the obligation
+ which the country owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot
+ now be seen. Some faint presentiment may be formed from the
+ reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool, flax, silk, and
+ even furs in manufactures, and may one day profitably supply the use
+ of specie in our East India trade. Our sister States also
+ participate in the benefits of this invention, for besides affording
+ the raw material for their manufacturers, the bulkiness and quantity
+ of the article affords a valuable employment for their shipping."
+
+The influence of this decision, however, availed Whitney very little,
+for the term of his patent had nearly expired. During Miller's life more
+than sixty suits had been instituted in Georgia, and but a single
+decision on the merits of the claim was obtained. In prosecution of his
+troublesome business, Whitney had made six different journeys to
+Georgia, several of which were accomplished by land at a time when the
+difficulties of such journeys were exceedingly great. A gentleman who
+was well acquainted with Whitney's affairs in the South, and sometimes
+acted as his legal adviser, says that in all his experience in the
+thorny profession of the law he never saw a case of such perseverance
+under prosecution. He adds: "Nor do I believe that I ever knew any other
+man who would have met them with equal coolness and firmness, or who
+would finally have obtained even the partial success which he did. 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 men, who
+seemed inexhaustible in their resources of evil. Even now, after thirty
+years, my head aches to recollect his narratives of new trials, fresh
+disappointments, and accumulated wrongs."
+
+In 1798 Whitney had become deeply impressed with the uncertainty of all
+his hopes founded upon the cotton-gin, and began to think seriously of
+devoting himself to some business in which his superior ingenuity,
+seconded by uncommon industry, would conduct him by a slow but sure
+road to a competent fortune. It may be considered indicative of solid
+judgment and a well-balanced mind that he did not, as is so frequently
+the case with men of inventive genius, 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 industry. The enterprise which
+he selected in accordance with these views was the manufacture of arms
+for the United States. Through Oliver Wolcott, then Secretary of the
+Treasury, he obtained a contract for the manufacture of 10,000 stand of
+arms, 4,000 of which were to be delivered before the last of September
+of the ensuing year, 1799. Whitney purchased for his works a site called
+East Rock, near New Haven, now known as Whitneyville, and justly admired
+for the romantic beauty of its scenery. A water-fall offered the
+necessary power for the machinery.
+
+Here he began operations with great zeal. His machinery was yet to be
+built, his material collected, and even his workmen to be taught, and
+that in a business with which he was imperfectly acquainted.
+
+A severe winter retarded his operations and rendered him incompetent to
+fulfil the contract. Only 500 instead of 4,000 stands were delivered the
+first year, and eight years instead of two were found necessary for
+completing the whole. During the eight years Whitney was occupied in
+performing this work, he applied himself to business with the most
+exemplary diligence, rising every morning as soon as it was day, and at
+night setting everything in order in all parts of the establishment. His
+genius impressed itself on every part of the factory, extending even to
+the most common tools, most of which received some peculiar modification
+which improved them in accuracy or efficiency. His machines for making
+the several parts of the musket were made to operate with the greatest
+possible degree of uniformity and precision. The object at which he
+aimed, and which he fully accomplished, was to make the same parts of
+different guns, as the locks, for instance, as much like each other as
+the successive impressions of a copper-plate engraving, 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 defence. In 1812 he made a
+contract to manufacture for the United States 15,000 stand of arms, and
+in the meantime a similar contract with the State of New York. Several
+other persons made contracts with the Government at about the same time
+and attempted the manufacture of muskets. The result of their efforts
+was a complete failure, and in some instances they expended a
+considerable fortune in addition to the amount received for their work.
+In 1822 Calhoun, then Secretary of War, admitted in a conversation with
+Whitney that the Government was saving $25,000 a year at the public
+armories alone by his improvements, and it should be remembered that
+the utility of Whitney's labors during this part of his life was not
+limited to this particular business.
+
+In 1812 Whitney made application to Congress for the renewal of his
+patent for the cotton-gin. In his memorial he presented the history of
+the struggles he had been forced to make in defence of his rights,
+observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on the merits
+of his claim until thirteen years of his patent had expired. He states
+also that his invention had been a source of opulence to thousands of
+the citizens of the United States; that as a labor-saving machine it
+would enable one man to perform the work of a thousand men, and that it
+furnished to the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap rate, the most
+essential material for their clothing. Although so great advantages had
+already been experienced, and the prospect of future benefits was so
+promising, still, many of those whose interest had been most promoted
+and the value of whose property had been most enhanced by this
+invention, had obstinately persisted in refusing to make any
+compensation to the inventor. From the State in which he had first made,
+and where, he had first introduced his machine, and which had derived
+the most signal benefits--Georgia--he had received nothing; and from no
+State had he received the amount of half a cent per pound on the cotton
+cleaned with his machines in one year. Estimating the value of the labor
+of one man at twenty cents a day, 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
+States. He continues:
+
+ "It is objected that if the patentee succeeds in procuring the
+ renewal of his patent he will be too rich. There is no probability
+ that the patentee, if the term of his patent were extended for
+ twenty years, would ever obtain for his invention one-half as much
+ as many an individual will gain by the use of it. Up to the present
+ time the whole amount of what he had acquired from this source,
+ after deducting his expenses, does not exceed one-half the sum which
+ a single individual has gained by the use of the machine in one
+ year. It is true that considerable sums have been obtained from some
+ of the States where the machine is used, but no small portion of
+ these sums has been expended in prosecuting his claim in a State
+ where nothing has been obtained, and where his machine has been used
+ to the greatest advantage."
+
+Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the application was rejected by
+the courts. Some liberal-minded and enlightened men from the cotton
+districts favored the petition, but a majority of the members from that
+part of the Union were warmly opposed to granting it. In a letter to
+Robert Fulton, Whitney says:
+
+ "The difficulties with which I have to contend have originated,
+ principally, in the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice.
+ My invention was new and distinct from every other; it stood alone.
+ It was not interwoven with anything before known; and it can seldom
+ happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked and
+ can be so clearly and specifically identified; and I have always
+ believed that I should have no difficulty in causing my right to be
+ respected, if it had been less valuable, and been used only by a
+ small portion of the community. But the use of this machine being
+ immensely profitable to almost every planter in the cotton
+ districts, all were interested in trespassing upon the patent-right,
+ and each kept the other in countenance. Demagogues made themselves
+ popular by misrepresentations and unfounded clamors, both against
+ the right and against the law made for its protection. Hence there
+ arose associations and combinations to oppose both. At one time, but
+ few men in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to the most
+ simple facts within their knowledge, relative to the use of the
+ machine. In one instance I had great difficulty in proving that the
+ machine had been used in Georgia, 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 sat, and all so near that
+ the rattling of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the
+ court-house."
+
+Such perseverance, patience, and uncommon skill were not, however, to go
+wholly unrewarded. Whitney's factory of arms in New Haven made money for
+him, and the Southern States were not all guilty of ingratitude.
+Moreover, in his private life he was extremely fortunate. In January,
+1817, he married Henrietta Edwards, the youngest daughter of Judge
+Pierpont Edwards, of Connecticut. A son and three daughters contributed
+to the sunshine of the close of a somewhat stormy and eventful life. His
+last years were his happiest. He found prosperity and honor in New
+Haven, where he died on January 8, 1825, after a tedious illness.
+
+In person Whitney was of more than usual height, with much dignity of
+manner and an open, pleasant face. Among his particular friends no man
+was more esteemed. Some of the earliest of his intimate associates were
+among the latest. His sense of honor was high, and his feeling of
+resentment and indignation under injustice correspondingly strong. He
+could, however, be cool when his opponents were hot, and his strong
+sense of the injuries he had suffered did not impair the natural
+serenity of his temper. The value of his famous invention has so
+steadily grown that its money importance to this country can scarcely be
+estimated in figures. His tomb in New Haven is after a model of that of
+Scipio, at Rome, and bears the following inscription:
+
+ ELI WHITNEY,
+
+ THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON-GIN.
+
+ OF USEFUL SCIENCE AND ARTS, THE EFFICIENT PATRON
+ AND IMPROVER.
+
+ IN THE SOCIAL RELATIONS OF LIFE, A MODEL OF EXCELLENCE.
+
+ WHILE PRIVATE AFFECTION WEEPS AT HIS TOMB, HIS
+ COUNTRY HONORS HIS MEMORY.
+
+ BORN DEC. 8, 1765. DIED JAN. 8, 1825.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+ELIAS HOWE.
+
+
+[Illustration: Elias Howe.]
+
+In looking over the history of great inventions it is remarkable how
+uniformly those discoveries that helped mankind most have been derided,
+abused, and opposed by the very classes which in the end they were
+destined to bless. Nearly every great invention has had literally to be
+forced into popular acceptance. The bowmen of the Middle Ages resisted
+the introduction of the musket; the sedan-chair carriers would not allow
+hackney carriages to be used; the stagecoach lines attempted by all
+possible devices to block the advance of the railway. When, in 1707, Dr.
+Papin showed his first rude conception of a steamboat, it was seized by
+the boatmen, who feared that it would deprive them of a living. Kay was
+mobbed in Lancashire when he tried to introduce his fly-shuttle;
+Hargreaves had his spinning-frame destroyed by a Blackburn mob; Crampton
+had to hide his spinning-mule in a lumber-room for fear of a similar
+fate; Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning-frame, was denounced as
+the enemy of the working-classes and his mill destroyed; Jacquard
+narrowly escaped being thrown into the river Rhone by a crowd of furious
+weavers when his new loom was first put into operation; Cartwright had
+to abandon his power-loom for years because of the bitter animosity of
+the weavers toward it. Riots were organized in Nottingham against the
+use of the stocking-loom.
+
+It is not therefore surprising that the greatest labor-saving machine of
+domestic life, the sewing-machine, should have been received with
+anything but thanks. Howe was abused, ridiculed, and denounced as the
+enemy of man, and especially of poor sewing-women, the very class whose
+toil he has done so much to lighten. Curses instead of blessings were
+showered upon him during the first years that followed the successful
+working of his wonderful machine. Fortunately for the inventor, the age
+of persecution had almost passed, and Howe lived to receive the rewards
+he so fully deserved.
+
+Elias Howe, Jr., was born in Spencer, Mass., in 1819. His father was a
+farmer and miller, and the eight children of the family, as was common
+with all poor people of the time, were early taught to do light work of
+one kind or another. 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-cards. When older he helped his father in the mill, and
+in summer picked up a little book knowledge at the district school. As a
+boy he was frail in constitution, and he was slightly lame. When eleven
+years old he attempted farm labor for a neighbor, but, was not strong
+enough for it and returned to his father's mill, where he remained
+until he was sixteen. It was here that he first began to like machinery.
+A friend who had visited Lowell gave him such an account of that
+bustling city and its big mills that young Howe, becoming dissatisfied,
+obtained his father's consent to leave, and found employment in one of
+the Lowell cotton-mills. The financial crash of 1837 stopped the looms,
+and Howe obtained a place in a Cambridge machine-shop in which his
+cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, afterward Governor of Massachusetts, also
+worked. Howe's first job happened to be upon a new hemp-carding machine
+of Treadwell.
+
+At the age of twenty-one Howe married and moved to Boston, finding
+employment in the machine-shop of Ari Davis. He is described as being a
+capital workman, more full of resources than of plodding industry,
+however, and rather apt to spend more time in suggesting a better way of
+doing a job than in following instructions. With such a disposition, and
+inasmuch as his suggestions were not considered of value, he had rather
+a hard time of it. Three children were born to the young couple. As
+Howe's earnings were slight and his health none of the best, his wife
+tried to add to the family income, and at evening, when Howe lay
+exhausted upon the bed after his day's work, the young mother patiently
+sewed. Her toil was to some purpose. With his natural bent for
+mechanics, Howe could not be a silent witness of this incessant and
+poorly paid labor without becoming interested in affording aid.
+Moreover, 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 hand. The possibility of sewing by machinery had
+often been spoken of before that day, but the problem seemed to present
+insuperable difficulties.
+
+Elias Howe had, as we know, peculiar fitness for such work. He had seen
+much of inventors and inventions, and knew something of the dangers and
+disappointments in store for him. In the intervals between important
+jobs at the shop he nursed the idea of a sewing-machine, keeping his own
+counsel. In his first rude attempt it appeared to him, that
+machine-sewing could only be accomplished with very coarse thread or
+string; fine thread would not stand the strain. For his first machine he
+made a needle pointed at both ends, with an eye in the middle; it was
+arranged to work up and down, carrying the thread through at each
+thrust. It was only after more than a year's work upon this device that
+he decided it would not do. This first attempt was a sort of imitation
+of sewing by hand, the machine following more or less the movements of
+the hand. Finally, after repeated failures, it became plain to him that
+something radically different was needed, and that there must be another
+stitch, and perhaps another needle or half a dozen needles, in such a
+machine. He then conceived the idea of using two threads, and making the
+stitch by means of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the
+point. This was the real solution of the problem. In October, 1844, he
+made a rough model of his first sewing-machine, all of wood and wire,
+and found that it would actually sew.
+
+In one of the earliest accounts of the invention it is thus described:
+"He used a needle and a shuttle of novel construction, and combined them
+with holding surfaces, feed mechanism, and other devices as they had
+never before been brought together in one machine.... One of the
+principal features of Mr. Howe's invention is the combination of a
+grooved needle having an eye near its point, and vibrating in the
+direction of its length, with a side-pointed shuttle for effecting a
+locked stitch, and forming, with the threads, one on each side of the
+cloth, a firm and lasting seam not easily ripped."
+
+Meanwhile Howe had given up work as a machinist and had moved to his
+father's house in Cambridge, where the elder Howe had a shop for the
+cutting of palm-leaf used in the manufacture of hats. Here Elias and his
+little family lived, and in the garret the inventor put up a lathe upon
+which he made the parts of his sewing-machine. To provide for his family
+he did such odd jobs as he could find; but it was hard work to get
+bread, to say nothing of butter, and to make matters worse his father
+lost his shop by fire. Elias knew that his sewing-machine would work,
+but he had no money wherewith to buy the materials for a machine of
+steel and iron, and without such a machine he could not hope to interest
+capital in it. He needed at least $500 with which to prove the value of
+his great invention.
+
+Fortune threw in his way a coal and wood dealer of Cambridge, named
+Fisher, who had some money. Fisher liked the invention and agreed to
+board Howe and his family, to give Howe a workshop in his house, and to
+advance the $500 necessary for the construction of a first machine. In
+return he was to become a half owner in the patent should Howe succeed
+in obtaining one. In December, 1844, Howe accordingly moved into
+Fisher's house, and here the new marvel was brought into the world. All
+that winter Howe worked over his device in Fisher's garret, making many
+changes as unforeseen difficulties arose. He worked all day, and
+sometimes nearly all night, succeeding by April, 1845, in sewing a seam
+four yards long with his machine. By the middle of May the machine was
+completed, and in July Howe sewed with it the seams of two woollen
+suits, one for himself and the other for Fisher; the sewing was so well
+done that it promised to outlast the cloth. For many years this machine
+was exhibited in a shop in New York. It showed how completely, at really
+the first attempt, Howe had mastered the enormous difficulties in his
+way. Its chief features are those upon which were founded all the
+sewing-machines that followed.
+
+Late in 1845 Howe obtained his first patent and began to take means to
+introduce his sewing-machine to the public. He first offered it to the
+tailors of Boston, who admitted its usefulness, but assured him that it
+would never be adopted, as it would ruin their trade. Other efforts
+were equally unsuccessful; the more perfectly the machine did its work,
+the more obstinate and determined seemed to be the resistance to it.
+Everyone admitted and praised the ingenuity of the invention, but no one
+would invest a dollar in it. Fisher became disheartened and withdrew
+from the partnership, and Howe and his family moved back into his
+father's house.
+
+For a time the poor inventor abandoned his machine and obtained a place
+as engineer on a railway, driving a locomotive, until his health
+entirely broke down. Forced to turn again to his beloved sewing-machine
+for want of anything better to do, Howe decided to send his brother
+Amasa to England with a machine. Amasa reached London in October, 1846,
+and met a certain William Thomas, to whom he explained the invention.
+Thomas was much impressed with its possibilities and offered $1,250 for
+the machine and also to engage Elias Howe at $15 a week if he would
+enter his business of umbrella and corset maker. This was at least a
+livelihood to the latter, and he sailed for England, where for the next
+eight months he worked for Thomas, whom he found an uncommonly hard
+master. He was indeed so harshly treated that, although his wife and
+three children had arrived in London, he threw up his situation. For a
+time his condition was a piteous one. He was in a strange country,
+without friends or money. For days at a time the little family were
+without more than crusts to live upon.
+
+Believing that he could struggle along better alone, Howe sent his
+family home with the first few dollars that he could obtain from the
+other side and remained in London. There were certain things which
+caused him to hope for better times ahead. But such hopes were delusive,
+it seems, and after some months of hardship he followed his family to
+this country, pawning his model and his patent papers in order to obtain
+the necessary money for the passage. As he landed in New York with less
+than a dollar in his pocket, he received news that his wife was dying of
+consumption in Cambridge. He had no money for travelling by rail, and he
+was too feeble to attempt the journey on foot. It took him some days to
+obtain the money for his fare to Boston, but he arrived in time to be
+present at the death-bed of his wife. 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 bottom.
+
+This was poor Howe's darkest hour. Others had seen the value of the
+sewing-machine, and during his absence in England several imitations of
+it had been made and sold to great advantage by unscrupulous mechanics,
+who had paid no attention to the rights of the inventor. Such machines
+were already spoken of as wonders by the newspapers, and were beginning
+to be used in several industries. Howe's patent was so strong that it
+was not difficult to find money to defend it, once the practical value
+of the invention had been well established, and in August, 1850, he
+began several suits to make his rights clear. At the same time he moved
+to New York, where he began in a small way to manufacture machines in
+partnership with a business man named Bliss, who undertook to sell them.
+
+It was not until Howe's rights to the invention had been fully
+established, which was done by the decision of Judge Sprague, in 1854,
+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
+realized, even by Bliss, who was in the business and died in 1855, that
+Howe was enabled to buy the interest of his heirs for a small sum. It
+was during these efforts to introduce the sewing-machine that occurred
+what were known as the sewing-machine riots--disturbances of no special
+importance, however--fomented by labor leaders in the New York shops in
+which cheap clothing was manufactured. Howe's sewing-machine was
+denounced as a menace to the thousands of men and women who worked in
+these shops, 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 year. 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 machine; 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 away.
+
+The patent suits forced upon Howe by a number of infringers were costly
+drains upon the inventor, but in the end all other manufacturers were
+compelled to pay tribute to him, and in six years his royalties grew
+from $300 to more than $200,000 a year. In 1863 his royalties were
+estimated at $4,000 a day. At the Paris Exposition of 1867 he was
+awarded a gold medal and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
+
+Howe's health, never strong, was so thoroughly broken by the years of
+struggle and hardship he met with while trying to introduce his machine
+that he never completely recovered. If honors and money were any comfort
+to him, his last years must have been happy ones, for his invention made
+him famous, 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 needle; he had answered Hood's "Song of the Shirt." He
+died on October 3, 1867, at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.
+
+Those who knew Howe personally speak of him as rather a handsome man,
+with a head somewhat like Franklin's and a reserved, quiet manner. His
+bitter struggle against poverty and disease left its impress upon him
+even to the last. One trait frequently mentioned was his readiness to
+find good points in the thousand and one variations and sometimes
+improvements upon his invention. During the years 1858-67, when he died,
+there were recorded nearly three hundred patents affecting the
+sewing-machine, taken out by other inventors. Howe was always ready to
+help along such improvements by advice and often by money. He fought
+sturdily for his rights, but once those conceded he was a generous
+rival.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+SAMUEL F.B. MORSE.
+
+
+[Illustration: Birthplace of S.F.B. Morse, Built 1775.]
+
+Samuel Finley Breese Morse was the eldest son of the Rev. Jedediah
+Morse, an eminent New England divine. The Rev. Samuel Finley, D.D.,
+second president of the College of New Jersey, Princeton, was his
+maternal great-grandfather, after whom he was named. Breese was the
+maiden name of his mother. The famous inventor of the telegraph was born
+at the foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., April 27, 1791. Dr.
+Belknap, of Boston, writing to Postmaster-General Hazard, New York,
+says:
+
+"Congratulate the Monmouth judge (Mr. Breese, the grandfather) on the
+birth of a grandson. Next Sunday he is to be loaded with names, not
+quite so many as the Spanish ambassador who signed the treaty of peace
+of 1783, but only four. As to the child, I saw him asleep, so can say
+nothing of his eye, or his genius peeping through it. He may have the
+sagacity of a Jewish rabbi, or the profundity of a Calvin, or the
+sublimity of a Homer for aught I know, but time will bring forth all
+things."
+
+Jedediah Morse studied theology under the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards.
+Before he began preaching, and while teaching school in New Haven, he
+began his "American Geography," which was afterward indentified with his
+name. He began his ministry at Norwich, whence he was called back to be
+tutor in Yale. His health was inadequate to the work and he went to
+Georgia, returning to Charlestown, Mass., as pastor of the First
+Congregational Church, on the day that Washington was inaugurated as
+President in New York, April 30, 1789. Dr. Eliot, speaking of Jedediah
+Morse, said: "What an astonishing impetus that man has!" President
+Dwight said: "He is as full of resources as an egg is of meat." Daniel
+Webster spoke of him as "always thinking, always writing, always
+talking, always acting."
+
+[Illustration: S.F.B. Morse.]
+
+Morse's mother, Elizabeth Anne Breese, came of good Scotch-Irish stock.
+She was married to Jedediah Morse in 1789, and was noted as a calm,
+judicious, and thinking woman, with a will of her own. When the child,
+Samuel F.B. Morse, was four years old he was sent to school to an old
+lady within a few hundred yards of the parsonage. She was an invalid,
+unable to leave her chair, and governed her unruly flock with a long
+rattan which reached across the small room in which it was gathered. One
+of her punishments was pinning the culprit to her own dress, and Morse
+remarks that his first attempts at drawing were discouraged in this
+fashion. Perhaps the fact that he selected the old lady's face as a
+model had something to do with it. At the age of seven he was sent to
+school at Andover, where he was fitted for entering Phillips Academy,
+and prepared here for Yale, joining the class of 1807. When he was
+thirteen years old, at Andover, he wrote a sketch of Demosthenes and
+sent it to his father, by whom it was preserved as a mark of the
+learning and taste of the child. Dr. Timothy Dwight was then president
+of Yale and a warm friend of the elder Morse. Finley Morse, as he was
+then known, received therefore the deep personal interest of Dr. Dwight.
+Jeremiah Day was professor of natural philosophy in Yale College, and
+under his instruction Morse began the study of electricity, receiving
+perhaps those impressions that were destined to produce so great an
+influence upon him and, through him, upon this century. Professor Day
+was then young and ardent in the pursuit of science, kindling readily
+the enthusiasm of his students. He afterward became president of the
+college. There was at the same time in the faculty Benjamin Silliman,
+who was professor of chemistry, and near whom Morse resided for several
+years. Years afterward the testimony of Professors Day and Silliman was
+given in court, when it was important, in the defence of his claim to
+priority in the invention of the telegraph. Through them Morse was able
+to show that he was early interested in the study of chemistry and
+electricity. During this litigation Morse did not know that there were
+scores of letters, written by him as a young student to his father,
+among the papers of Dr Jedediah Morse, that would have shown
+conclusively his interest and aptitude in these studies. The papers
+were brought to light when the life of Morse by Prime came to be
+written.
+
+The first part of Morse's life was devoted to art. At a very early age
+he showed his taste in this direction, and at the age of fifteen painted
+a fairly good picture in water colors of a room in his father's house,
+with his parents, himself, and two brothers around a table. This picture
+used to hang in his home in New York by the side of his last painting.
+From that time his desire to become an artist haunted him through his
+collegiate life. In February, 1811, he painted a picture, now in the
+office of the mayor of Charlestown, Mass., depicting the landing of the
+Pilgrims at Plymouth, which, with a landscape painted at about the same
+time, decided his father, by the advice of Stuart, to permit him to
+visit Europe with Washington Allston. He bore letters to West and to
+Copley, from both of whom he received the kindest attention and
+encouragement.
+
+As a test for his fitness for a place as student in the Royal Academy,
+Morse made a drawing from a small cast of the Farnese Hercules. He took
+this to West, who examined the drawing carefully and handed it back,
+saying: "Very well, sir, very well; go on and finish it." "It is
+finished," said the expectant student. "Oh, no," said the president.
+"Look here, and here, and here," pointing out many unfinished places
+which had escaped the eye of the young artist. Morse quickly observed
+the defects, spent a week in further perfecting his drawing, and then
+took it to West, confident that it was above criticism. The venerable
+president of the Academy bestowed more praise than before and, with a
+pleasant smile, handed it back to Morse, saying: "Very well, indeed,
+sir. Go on and finish it." "Is it not finished?" inquired the almost
+discouraged student. "See," said West, "you have not marked that muscle,
+nor the articulation of the finger-joints." Three days more were spent
+upon the drawing, when it was taken back to the implacable critic. "Very
+clever, indeed," said West; "very clever. Now go on and finish it." "I
+cannot finish it," Morse replied, when the old man, patting him on the
+shoulder, said: "Well, I have tried you long enough. Now, sir, you have
+learned more by this drawing than you would have accomplished in double
+the time by a dozen half-finished beginnings. It is not many drawings,
+but the character of one which makes a thorough draughtsman. Finish one
+picture, sir, and you are a painter."
+
+Morse heeded this advice. He went to work with Allston, and encouraged
+by the veteran, Copley, he began upon a large picture for exhibition in
+the Royal Academy, choosing as his subject "The Dying Hercules." He
+modelled his figure in clay, as the best of the old painters did. It was
+his first attempt in the sculptor's art. The cast was made in plaster
+and taken to West, who was delighted with it. This model contended for
+the prize of a gold medal offered by the Society of Arts for the best
+original cast of a single figure, and won it. In the large room of the
+London Adelphi, in the presence of the British nobility, foreign
+ambassadors, and distinguished strangers, the Duke of Norfolk publicly
+presented the medal to Morse on May 13, 1813. At the same time the
+painting from this model, then on exhibition at the Royal Academy,
+received great praise from the critics, who placed "The Dying Hercules"
+among the first twelve pictures in a collection of almost two thousand.
+
+This was an extraordinary success for so young a man, and Morse
+determined to try for the highest prize offered by the Royal Academy for
+the best historical composition, the decision to be made in 1815. For
+that purpose he produced his "Judgment of Jupiter" in July of that year.
+West assured him that it would take the prize, but Morse was unable to
+comply with the rules of the Academy, which required the victor to
+receive the medal in person. His father had summoned him home. West
+urged the Academy to make an exception in his case, but it could not be
+done, and the young painter had to be contented with his assurances that
+he would certainly have won the prize (a gold medal and $250) had he
+remained.
+
+West was always kind to Americans, and Morse was a favorite with him.
+One day, when the venerable painter was at work upon his great picture,
+"Christ Rejected," after carefully examining Morse's hands and noting
+their beauty, he said: "Let me tie you with this cord and take that
+place while I paint in the hands of the Saviour." This was done, and
+when he released the young artist, he said to him: "You may now say, if
+you please, that you had a hand in this picture." A number of noted
+English artists--Turner, Northcote, Sir James Lawrence, Flaxman--and
+literary men--Coleridge, Wordsworth, Rogers, and Crabbe among them--were
+attracted by young Morse's proficiency and pleasant manners, and when in
+August, 1815, he packed his picture, "The Judgment of Jupiter," and
+sailed for home, he bore with him the good wishes of some of England's
+most distinguished men.
+
+When Morse reached Boston, although but twenty-four years old, he found
+that fame had preceded him. His prestige was such that he set up his
+easel with high hopes and fair prospects for the future, both destined
+soon to be dispelled. The taste of America had not risen to the
+appreciation of historical pictures. His original compositions and his
+excellent copies of the masterpieces of the Old World excited the
+admiration of cultured people, but no orders were given for them. He
+left Boston almost penniless after having waited for months for
+patronage, and determined to try to earn his bread by painting the
+portraits of people in the rural districts of New England, where his
+father's name was a household word. During the autumn of 1816 and the
+winter of 1816-1817 he visited several towns in New Hampshire and
+Vermont, painting portraits in Walpole, Hanover, Windsor, Portsmouth,
+and Concord. He received the modest sum of $15 for each portrait. From
+Concord, N.H., he writes to his parents: "I am still here (August 16th)
+and am passing my time very agreeably. I have painted five portraits at
+$15 each, and have two more engaged and many talked of. I think I shall
+get along well. I believe I could make an independent fortune in a few
+years if I devoted myself exclusively to portraits, so great is the
+desire for good portraits in the different country towns." He doubtless
+was candid when he wrote that he was "passing his time in Concord very
+agreeably," for it was here that he met Lucretia P. Walker, who was
+accounted the most beautiful and accomplished young lady of the town,
+whom Morse subsequently married. She was a young woman of great personal
+loveliness and rare good sense. The young artist was attracted by her
+beauty, her sweetness of temper, and high intellectual qualities. All
+the letters that she wrote to him before and after their marriage he
+carefully preserved, and these are witnesses to her intelligence,
+education, tenderness of feeling, and admirable fitness to be the wife
+of such a man. Gradually Morse's portraits became so much in demand that
+he was enabled to increase his price to $60, and as he painted four a
+week upon the average, and received a good deal of money during a tour
+in the South, he was enabled to return to New England in 1818 with
+$3,000, and to marry Miss Walker on October 6th of that year.
+
+The first years of Morse's married life were passed in Charleston, S.C.,
+after which he returned to New England, and having laid by some little
+capital, he took up again what he deemed to be his real vocation--the
+painting of great historical pictures. His first venture in this
+direction was an exhibition picture of the House of Representatives at
+Washington. As a business venture it was disastrous, and resulted in the
+loss of eighteen months of precious time. It was finally sold to an
+Englishman. Then began Morse's life in New York. Through the influence
+of Isaac Lawrence he obtained a commission from the city authorities of
+New York to paint a full-length portrait of Lafayette, who was then in
+this country. He had just completed his study from life in Washington in
+February, 1825, when he received the news of the death of his wife. A
+little more than a year afterward both his father and mother died.
+Thenceforward his children and art absorbed his affections.
+
+He was an artist, heart and soul, and his professional brethren soon had
+good reason to be grateful to him. The American Academy of Fine Arts,
+then under the presidency of Colonel John Trumbull, was in a languishing
+state and of little use to artists. The most advanced of its members
+felt the need of relief, and a few of them met at Morse's rooms to
+discuss their troubles. At that meeting Morse proposed the formation of
+a new society of artists, and at a meeting held at the New York
+Historical Society's rooms the "New York Drawing Association" was
+organized, with Morse as its president. Trumbull endeavored to compel
+the new society to profess allegiance to the academy, but Morse
+protested, and thanks to his advice, on January 18, 1826, a new art
+association was organized under the name of the "National Academy of
+Design." Morse was its first president, and for sixteen years he was
+annually elected to that office. The friends of the old academy were
+wrathful and assailed the new association. A war of words, in which
+Morse acted as the champion of the new society, was waged until victory
+was conceded to the reformers. Thus Morse inaugurated a new era in the
+history of the fine arts in this country. He wrote, talked, lectured
+incessantly for the advancement of art and the Academy of Design.
+
+[Illustration: Under Side of a Modern Switchboard, showing 2,000 Wires.]
+
+In 1829 Morse made a second visit to Europe, where he was warmly
+welcomed and honored by the Royal Academy. During three years or more
+he lived in continental cities, studying the Louvre in Paris and making
+of the famous gallery an exhibition picture which contained about fifty
+miniatures of the works in that collection. In November, 1832, he was
+back again in New York, with high hopes as to his future. Allston,
+writing to Dunlap in 1834, said: "I rejoice to hear your report of
+Morse's advance in his art. I know what is in him perhaps better than
+anyone else. If he will only bring out all that is there he will show
+parts that many now do not dream of."
+
+For several years the thoughts of the artist Morse had been busy with a
+matter wholly outside of his chosen domain. Some lectures on
+electro-magnetism by his intimate friend, Judge Freeman Dana, given at
+the Athenaeum while Morse was also lecturing there on the fine arts, had
+greatly interested him in the subject, and he learned much in
+conversation with Dana. 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-magnetism, and he saw an electro-magnet signalling instrument in
+operation. He knew that so early as 1649 a Jesuit priest had prophesied
+an electric telegraph, and that for half a century or more students had
+partially succeeded in attempts of this kind. But no practical telegraph
+had yet been invented. In 1774 Le Sage made an electro-signalling
+instrument with twenty-four wires, one for each letter of the alphabet.
+In 1825 Sturgeon invented an electro-magnet. In 1830 Professor Henry
+increased the magnetic force that Morse afterward used.
+
+On board the ship Sully, in which Morse sailed from Havre to New York,
+in the autumn of 1832, the recent discovery in France of the means of
+obtaining an electric spark from a magnet was a favorite topic of
+conversation among the passengers, and it was during the voyage that
+Morse conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic and chemical recording
+telegraph. Before he reached New York he had made drawings and
+specifications of his conception, which he exhibited to his fellow
+passengers. Few great inventions that have made their authors immortal
+were so completely grasped at inception as this. Morse was accustomed to
+keep small note-books in which to make records of his work, and scores
+of these books are still in existence. As he sat upon the deck of the
+Sully, one night after dinner, he drew from his pocket one of these
+books and began to make marks, to represent letters and figures to be
+produced by electricity at a distance. The mechanism by which the
+results were to be reached was wrought out by slow and laborious
+thought, but the vision as a whole was clear. The current of electricity
+passed instantaneously to any distance along a wire, but the current
+being interrupted, a spark appeared. This spark represented one sign;
+its absence another; the time of its absence still another. Here are
+three signs to be combined into the representation of figures or
+letters. They can be made to form an alphabet. Words may thus be
+indicated. A telegraph, an instrument to record at a distance, will
+result. Continents shall be crossed. This great and wide sea shall be no
+barrier. "If it will go ten miles without stopping," he said, "I can
+make it go around the globe."
+
+He worked incessantly all that next day and could not sleep at night in
+his berth. In a few days he submitted some rough drafts of his invention
+to William C. Rives, of Virginia, who was returning from Paris, where he
+had been minister of the United States. Mr. Rives suggested various
+difficulties, over which Morse spent several sleepless nights,
+announcing in the morning at breakfast-table the new devices by which he
+proposed to accomplish the task before him. He exhibited a drawing of
+the instrument which he said would do the work, and so completely had he
+mastered all the details that five years afterward, when a model of this
+instrument was constructed, it was instantly recognized as the one he
+had devised and drawn in his sketch-book and exhibited to his fellow
+passengers on the ship. In view of subsequent claims made by a fellow
+passenger to the honor of having suggested the telegraph, these details
+are interesting and important.
+
+[Illustration: The First Telegraphic Instrument, as Exhibited in 1837 by
+Morse.]
+
+Circumstances delayed the construction of a recording telegraph by
+Morse, but the subject slumbered in his mind. During his absence abroad
+he had been elected professor of the literature of the arts of design,
+in the University of the City of New York, and this work occupied his
+attention for some time. Three years afterward, in November, 1835, he
+completed a rude telegraph instrument--the first recording apparatus;
+but it embodied the mechanical principle now in use the world over. His
+whole plan was not completed until July, 1837, when by means of two
+instruments he was able to communicate from as well as to a distant
+point. In September hundreds of people saw the new instrument in
+operation at the university, most of whom looked upon it as a scientific
+toy constructed by an unfortunate dreamer. 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 Baltimore.
+
+Late in the long session of 1838 he appeared before that body with his
+instrument. Before leaving New York with it he had invited a few friends
+to see it work. Now began in the life of Morse a period of years during
+which his whole time was devoted to convincing the world, first, that
+his electric telegraph would really communicate messages, and, secondly,
+that if it worked at all, it was of great practical value. Strange to
+say that this required any argument at all. But that in those days it
+did may be inferred from the fact that Morse could then find no help far
+or near. His invention was regarded as interesting, but of no importance
+either scientifically or commercially. In Washington, where he first
+went, he found so little encouragement that he went to Europe with the
+hope of drawing the attention of foreign governments to the advantages,
+and of securing patents for the invention; he had filed a caveat at the
+Patent Office in this country. His mission was a failure. England
+refused him a patent, and France gave him only a useless paper which
+assured for him no special privileges. He returned home disappointed but
+not discouraged, and waited four years longer before he again attempted
+to interest Congress in his invention.
+
+[Illustration: The Modern Morse Telegraph.]
+
+This extraordinary struggle lasted twelve years, during which, with his
+mind absorbed in one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for bread upon
+his profession as an artist, it was impossible to pursue art with the
+enthusiasm and industry essential to success. His situation was forlorn
+in the extreme. The father of three little children, now motherless, his
+pecuniary means exhausted by his residence in Europe, and unable to
+pursue art without sacrificing his invention, he was at his wits' ends.
+He had visions of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that should
+bring the continents of the earth into intercourse. He was poor and knew
+that wealth as well as fame was within his reach. He had long received
+assistance from his father and brothers when his profession did not
+supply the needed means of support for himself and family; but it seemed
+like robbery to take the money of others for experiments, 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 proposed. It
+was the old story of genius contending with poverty. His brothers
+comforted, encouraged, and cheered him. In the house of his brother
+Richard he found a home and the tender care that he required. Sidney,
+the other brother, also helped him. On the corner of Nassau and Beekman
+Streets, now the site of the handsome Morse Building, his brothers
+erected a building where were the offices of the newspaper of which they
+were the editors and proprietors. In the fifth story of this building a
+room was assigned to him which was for several years his studio,
+bedroom, parlor, kitchen, and workshop. On one side of the room stood a
+little cot on which he slept in the brief hours which he allowed himself
+for repose. On the other side stood his lathe with which the inventor
+turned the brass apparatus necessary in the construction of his
+instruments. He had, with his own hands, first whittled the model; then
+he made the moulds for the castings. Here were brought to him, day by
+day, crackers and the simplest food, by which, with tea prepared by
+himself, he sustained life while he toiled incessantly to give being to
+the idea that possessed him.
+
+[Illustration: Morse Making his own Instrument.
+
+(From Prime's Life of Morse.)]
+
+Before leaving for Europe he had suffered a great disappointment as an
+artist. The government had offered to American artists, to be selected
+by a committee of Congress, commissions to paint pictures for the panels
+in the rotunda of the Capitol. Morse was anxious to be employed upon one
+or more of them. He was the president of the National Academy of Design,
+and there was an eminent fitness in calling him to this national work.
+Allston urged the appointment of Morse. John Quincy Adams, then a
+member of the House and on the committee to whom this subject was
+referred, submitted a resolution in the House that foreign artists be
+allowed to compete for these commissions, and in support alleged that
+there were no American artists competent to execute the paintings. This
+gave great and just offence to the artists and the public. A severe
+reply to Adams appeared in the New York _Evening Post_. It was written
+by James Fenimore Cooper, but it was attributed to Morse, whose pen was
+well known to be skillful, and in consequence his name was rejected by
+the committee. He never recovered fully from the effects of that blow.
+Forty years afterward he could not speak of it without emotion. He had
+consecrated years of his life to the preparation for just such work.
+
+It was well for him and for his country and the world that the artist in
+Morse was disappointed. From painter he became inventor, and from that
+time until the world acknowledged the greatness and importance of his
+invention he turned not back. His appointment as professor in the City
+University entitled him to certain rooms in the University Building
+looking out upon Washington Square, and here the first working models of
+the telegraph were brought into existence.
+
+"There," he says, "I immediately commenced, with very limited means, to
+experiment upon my invention. My first instrument was made up of an old
+picture or canvas frame fastened to a table; the wheels of an old
+wooden clock, moved by a weight to carry the paper forward; three wooden
+drums, upon one of which the paper was wound and passed over the other
+two; 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 drum; a pencil at the lower end of the pendulum, in
+contact with the paper; an electro-magnet fastened to a shelf across the
+picture or stretching frame, opposite to an armature made fast to the
+pendulum; a type rule and type for breaking the circuit, resting on an
+endless band, composed of carpet-binding, which passed over two wooden
+rollers moved by a wooden crank.
+
+[Illustration: Train Telegraph--the message transmitted by induction
+from the moving train to the single wire.]
+
+[Illustration: Interior of a Car on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, showing
+the Method of Operating the Train Telegraph.]
+
+"Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a
+form that I felt a reluctance to have it seen. 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 exhibition. I had no wish to expose to
+ridicule the representative of so many hours of laborious thought. Prior
+to the summer of 1837, at which time Mr. Alfred Vail's attention became
+attracted to my telegraph, I depended upon my pencil for subsistence.
+Indeed, so straitened were my circumstances that, in order to save time
+to carry out my invention and to economize my scanty means, I had for
+many months lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring my food in small
+quantities from some grocery and preparing it myself. To conceal from my
+friends the stinted manner in which I lived, I was in the habit of
+bringing my food to my room in the evenings, and this was my mode of
+life for many years."
+
+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 key, with which we are all
+familiar, was adopted. Meantime Morse was practically abandoning art.
+His friends among the profession had subscribed $3,000 in order to
+enable him to paint the picture he had in mind when he applied for the
+government work at Washington, "The Signing of the First Compact on
+Board the Mayflower," and he undertook the commission in 1838, only to
+give it up in 1841 and to return to the subscribers the amount paid with
+interest.
+
+[Illustration: Diagram showing the Method of Telegraphing from a Moving
+Train by Induction.]
+
+While Morse had been in Paris, in 1839, he had heard of Daguerre, who
+had discovered the method of fixing the image of the camera, which feat
+was then creating a great sensation among scientific men. Professor
+Morse was anxious to see the results of this discovery before leaving
+Paris, and the American consul, Robert Walsh, arranged an interview
+between the two inventors. 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 secured. He kept his promise, and Morse was probably
+the first recipient of the pamphlet in this country. From the drawings
+it contained he constructed the first photographic apparatus made in the
+United States, and from a back window in the University Building he
+obtained a good representation of the tower of the Church of the Messiah
+on Broadway. This possesses an historical interest as being the first
+photograph in America. It was on a plate the size of a playing-card.
+With Professor J.W. Draper, in a studio built on the roof of the
+University, he succeeded in taking likenesses of the living human face.
+His subjects were compelled to sit fifteen minutes in the bright
+sunlight, with their eyes closed, of course. Professor Draper shortened
+the process and was the first to take portraits with the eyes open.
+
+At the session of Congress of 1842-1843 Morse again appeared with his
+telegraph, and on February 21, 1843, John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, moved
+that a bill appropriating $30,000, to be expended, under the direction
+of the Secretary of the Treasury, in a series of experiments for testing
+the merits of the telegraph, should be considered. The proposal met with
+ridicule. Johnson, of Tennessee, moved, as an amendment, that one-half
+should be given to a lecturer on mesmerism, then in Washington, to try
+mesmeric experiments under the direction of the Secretary of the
+Treasury; and Mr. Houston said that Millerism ought to be included in
+the benefits of the appropriation. After the indulgence of much cheap
+wit, Mr. Mason, of Ohio, protested against such frivolity as injurious
+to the character of the House and asked the chair to rule the amendments
+out of order. The chair (John White, of Kentucky) 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 telegraphy." This wit was applauded by peals of laughter,
+but the amendment was voted down and the bill passed the House on
+February 23d by the close vote of 89 to 83. In the Senate the bill met
+with neither sneers nor opposition, but its progress was discouragingly
+slow. At twilight on the last evening of the session (March 3, 1842)
+there were one hundred and nineteen bills before it. It seemed
+impossible for it to be reached in regular course before the hour of
+adjournment should arrive, and Morse, who had anxiously watched the
+dreary course of business all day from the gallery of the Senate
+chamber, went with a sad heart to his hotel and prepared to leave for
+New York at an early hour the next morning. His cup of disappointment
+seemed to be about full. With the exception of Alfred Vail, a young
+student in the University, through whose influence some money had been
+subscribed in return for a one-fourth interest in the invention, and of
+Professor L.D. Gale, who had shown much interest in the work and was
+also a partner in the enterprise, Morse knew of no one who seemed to
+believe enough in him and his telegraph to advance another dollar.
+
+As he came down to breakfast the next morning a young lady entered and
+came forward with a smile, exclaiming, "I have come to congratulate
+you." "Upon what?" inquired the professor. "Upon the passage of your
+bill," she replied. "Impossible! Its fate was sealed last evening. You
+must be mistaken." "Not at all," answered the young lady, the daughter
+of Morse's friend, the Commissioner of Patents, H.L. Ellsworth; "father
+sent me to tell you that your bill was passed. He remained until the
+session closed, and yours was the last bill but one acted upon, and it
+was passed just five minutes before the adjournment. And I am so glad to
+be able to be the first one to tell you. Mother says you must come home
+with me to breakfast."
+
+Morse, overcome by the intelligence, promised that his young friend, the
+bearer of these good tidings, should send the first message over the
+first line of telegraph that was opened.
+
+He writes to Alfred Vail that day: "The amount of business before the
+Senate rendered it more and more doubtful, as the session drew to a
+close, whether the House bill on the telegraph would be reached, and on
+the last day, March 3, 1843, I was advised by one of my Senatorial
+friends to make up my mind for failure, as he deemed it next to
+impossible that it could be reached before the adjournment. The bill,
+however, was reached a few minutes before midnight and passed. This was
+the turning point in the history of the telegraph. My personal funds
+were reduced to the fraction of a dollar, and, had the passage of the
+bill failed from any cause, there would have been little prospect of
+another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention."
+
+The appropriation by Congress having been made, Morse went to work with
+energy and delight to construct the first line of his electric
+telegraph. It was important that it should be laid where it would
+attract the attention of the government, and this consideration decided
+the question in favor of a line between Washington and Baltimore. He had
+as assistants Professor Gale and Professor J.C. Fisher. Mr. Vail was to
+devote his attention to making the instruments and the purchase of
+materials. Morse himself was general superintendent under the
+appointment of the government and gave attention to the minutest
+details. All disbursements passed through his hands. In point of
+accuracy, the preservation of vouchers, and presentation of accounts,
+General Washington himself was not more precise, lucid, and correct.
+Ezra Cornell, afterward one of the most successful constructors of
+telegraph lines, was employed to take charge of the work under Morse.
+Much time and expense were lost in consequence of following a plan for
+laying the wires in a leaden tube, and it was only when it was decided
+to string them on posts that work began to proceed rapidly.
+
+In expectation of the meeting of the National Whig Convention, May 1,
+1844, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President, energy
+was redoubled, and by that time the wires were in working order
+twenty-two miles from Washington toward Baltimore. The day before the
+convention met, Professor Morse wrote to Vail that certain signals
+should mean the nomination of a particular candidate. The experiment was
+approaching its crisis. The convention assembled and Henry Clay was
+nominated by acclamation to the Presidency. The news was conveyed on the
+railroad to the point reached by the telegraph and thence instantly
+transmitted over the wires to Washington. An hour afterward passengers
+arriving at the capital, and supposing that they had brought the first
+intelligence, were surprised to find that the announcement had been made
+already and that they were the bearers of old news. The convention
+shortly afterward nominated Frelinghuysen as Vice-President, and the
+intelligence was sent to Washington in the same manner. Public
+astonishment was great and many persons doubted that the feat could have
+been performed. Before May had elapsed the line reached Baltimore.
+
+[Illustration: Morse in his Study.
+
+(From an old print.)]
+
+On the 24th of May, 1844, Morse was prepared to put to final test the
+great experiment on which his mind had been laboring for twelve anxious
+years. Vail, his assistant, was at the Baltimore terminus. Morse had
+invited his friends to assemble in the chamber of the United States
+Supreme Court, where he had his instrument, from which the wires
+extended to Baltimore. He had promised his young friend, Miss Ellsworth,
+that she should send the first message over the wires. Her mother
+suggested the familiar words of scripture (Numbers, xxiii. 23), "What
+hath God wrought!" The words were chosen without consultation with the
+inventor, but were singularly the expression of his own sentiment and
+his own experience in bringing his work to successful accomplishment.
+Perfectly religious in his convictions, and trained from earliest
+childhood to believe in the special superintendence of Providence in the
+minutest affairs of man, 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 thing.
+
+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 convention, then in session (May, 1844)
+in Baltimore, and his response declining it. Hendrick B. Wright, in a
+letter written to Mr. B.J. Lossing, says: "As the presiding officer of
+the body I read the despatch, 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 subject." Mr. Vail
+kept a diary in those early days of the telegraph, full of interesting
+reminiscences. It was often necessary, in order to convince incredulous
+visitors to the office that the questions and replies sent over the wire
+were not manufactured or agreed upon beforehand, to allow them to send
+their own remarks. When the committee just mentioned by Mr. Wright
+returned from Baltimore and confirmed the correctness of the report
+given by telegraph, the new invention received a splendid advertisement.
+The convention having reassembled in the morning, and the refusal of
+Wright to accept the nomination having been communicated, a conference
+was held between him and his friends through the medium of Morse's
+wires. In Washington Mr. Wright and Mr. Morse were closeted with the
+instrument; at Baltimore the committee of conference surrounded Vail
+with his instrument. Spectators and auditors were excluded. The
+committee communicated to Mr. Wright their reasons for urging his
+acceptance. In a moment he received their communication in writing and
+as quickly returned his answer. Again and again these confidential
+messages passed, and the result was finally announced to the convention
+that Mr. Wright was inflexible. Mr. Dallas then received the nomination
+and accepted it. The ticket thus nominated was successful at the
+election of that year. The original slips of paper on which some of the
+early messages were written are still preserved, among others this
+request: "As a rumor is prevalent here this morning that Mr. Eugene
+Boyle was shot at Baltimore last evening, Professor Morse will confer a
+great favor upon the family by making inquiry by means of his
+electro-magnetic telegraph if such is the fact."
+
+The telegraph was shown at first without charge. During the session of
+1844-1845 Congress made an appropriation of $8,000 to keep it in
+operation during the year, placing it under the supervision of the
+Postmaster-General, who, at the close of the session, ordered a tariff
+of charges of one cent for every four characters made through the
+telegraph. Mr. Vail was appointed operator for the Washington station
+and Mr. H.J. Rogers for Baltimore. This new order of things began April
+1, 1845, the object being to test the profitableness of the enterprise.
+The first day's income was one cent; on the fifth day twelve and a half
+cents were received; on the seventh the receipts ran up to sixty cents;
+on the eighth to one dollar and thirty-two cents; on the ninth to one
+dollar and four cents. It is worthy of remark, as Mr. Vail notes, that
+the business done after the tariff was fixed was greater than when the
+service was gratuitous.
+
+The telegraph was now a reality. Its completion was hailed with
+enthusiasm, and the newspapers lauded the inventor to the skies.
+Resolutions of thanks and applause were adopted by popular assemblies.
+It was a favorite idea with Professor Morse, from the inception of his
+enterprise, that the telegraph should belong to the government, and he
+sent a communication to Congress making a formal offer. The overture was
+not accepted, but the extension of the line from Baltimore to
+Philadelphia and then to New York was only a work of time. The aid of
+Congress was sought in vain. The appropriation of $8,000 was made, but
+further than that the government declined to go. The sum named as the
+price at which the Morse Company would sell the telegraph to the
+government was $100,000. The subject was discussed in the report of Cave
+Johnson, Postmaster-General under President Polk. He was a member of
+Congress when the bill came up before the House appropriating $30,000
+for the experimental line, and was one of those who ridiculed the whole
+subject as unworthy of the notice of sensible men. As Postmaster-General
+he said in his report, after the experiment had succeeded to the
+satisfaction of mankind, 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
+expenditures." Such an opinion, with the evidence then in the possession
+of the department, appears to be curious official blindness. But it was
+fortunate for the inventor that the telegraph was left to the private
+enterprise. Twenty-five years after the government had declined to take
+the telegraph at the price of $100,000, a project was started to
+establish lines of telegraph to be used by the government as part of the
+mail postal system. And in 1873 the Postmaster-General, Mr. Cresswell,
+said in his report that the entire first cost of all the lines in the
+country, including patents, was less than $10,000,000; but the property
+of the existing telegraph company was already well worth $50,000,000.
+
+Morse's position was far easier than it had been for many years. His old
+friends, the artists of New York, 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 Inman, who had
+been removed by death. But it came to nothing. Morse was never again to
+take the brush in hand. The first money that he received from his
+invention was the sum of $47, 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 Observatory. The use he made of the money was
+characteristic of the man. He sent it to the Rev. Dr. Sprole, then a
+pastor in Washington, requesting him to apply it for the benefit of his
+church.
+
+Early in June, 1846, the line from Baltimore to Philadelphia was in
+operation, and that from Philadelphia to New York. Abroad the system was
+working its way steadily into favor. In France an appropriation of
+nearly half a million francs was made to introduce the Morse system. But
+meantime violations of Morse's rights were beginning to crop up on every
+side, both at home and abroad. In a letter to Daniel Lord, his lawyer,
+Morse says:
+
+"The plot thickens all around me; I think a denouement not far off. I
+remember your consoling me under these attacks with bidding me think
+that I had invented something worth contending for. Alas! my dear sir,
+what encouragement is there to an inventor if, after years of toil and
+anxiety, he has only purchased for himself the pleasure of being a
+target for every vile fellow to shoot at, and in proportion as his
+invention is of public utility, so much the greater effort is to be made
+to defame that the robbery may excite the less sympathy? I know,
+however, that beyond all this there is a clear sky; but the clouds may
+not break away till I am no longer personally interested, whether it be
+foul or fair. I wish not to complain, but I have feelings, and cannot
+play the Stoic if I would."
+
+[Illustration: The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Messages--Office
+of the Commercial Cable Company, 1 Broad Street, New York.]
+
+Perhaps the most painful chapter of Morse's life is the history of the
+lawsuits in which he was involved in defence of his rights. His
+reputation as well as his property were assailed. Exceedingly sensitive
+to these attacks, the suits that followed the success of the telegraph
+cost him inexpressible distress. It is some satisfaction to be able to
+record that after years of bitter controversy the final decision was
+favorable to the inventor. Honors began to pour in upon him from even
+the uttermost parts of the earth. The Sultan of Turkey was the first
+monarch to acknowledge Morse as a public benefactor. This was in 1848.
+The kings of Prussia and Wurtemburg and the Emperor of Austria each
+gave him a gold medal, that of the first named being set in a massive
+gold snuff-box. In 1856 the Emperor of the French made him a chevalier
+of the Legion of Honor. Orders from Denmark, Spain, Italy, Portugal soon
+followed. In 1858 a special congress was called by the Emperor of the
+French to devise a suitable testimonial of the nation to Professor
+Morse. Representatives from ten sovereignties convened at Paris and by a
+unanimous vote gave, in the aggregate, $80,000 as an honorary gratuity
+to Professor Morse. The states participating in this testimonial were
+France, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Piedmont, the Holy
+See, Tuscany, and Turkey.
+
+Professor Morse was one of the first to suggest and the first to carry
+out the use of a marine cable. During the summer of 1842 he had been
+making elaborate preparations for an experiment destined to give
+wonderful development to his invention. This was no less than a
+submarine wire, to demonstrate the fact that the current of electricity
+could be conducted as well under water as through the air. Of this he
+had entertained no doubt. "If I can make it work ten miles, I can make
+it go around the globe," was a favorite expression of his in the infancy
+of his enterprise. But he wished to prove it. He insulated his wire as
+well as he could with hempen strands well covered with pitch, tar, and
+india-rubber. In the course of the autumn he was prepared to put the
+question to the test of actual experiment. The wire was only the twelfth
+of an inch in diameter. About two miles of this, wound on a reel, was
+placed in a small row-boat, and with one man at the oars and Professor
+Morse at the stern, the work of paying out the cable was begun. It was a
+beautiful moonlight night, and those who had prolonged their evening
+rambles on the Battery must have wondered, as they watched the
+proceedings in the boat, what kind of fishing the two men could be
+engaged in that required so long a line. In somewhat less than two
+hours, on that eventful evening of October 18, 1842, the first cable was
+laid. Professor Morse returned to his lodgings and waited with some
+anxiety the time when he should be able to test the experiment fully and
+fairly. The next morning the New York _Herald_ contained the following
+editorial announcement:
+
+ "MORSE'S ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
+
+ "This important invention is to be exhibited in operation at Castle
+ Garden between the hours of twelve and one o'clock to-day. One
+ telegraph will be erected on Governor's Island and one at the
+ Castle, and messages will be interchanged and orders transmitted
+ during the day. Many have been incredulous as to the powers of this
+ wonderful triumph of science and art. All such may now have an
+ opportunity of fairly testing it. It is destined to work a complete
+ revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence throughout the
+ civilized world."
+
+At daybreak the professor was on the Battery, and had just demonstrated
+his success by the transmission of three or four characters between the
+termini of the line, when the communication was suddenly interrupted,
+and it was found impossible to send any messages through the conductor.
+The cause of this was evident when he observed no less than seven
+vessels lying along the line of the submerged cable, one of which, in
+getting under way, had raised it on her anchor. The sailors, unable to
+divine its meaning, hauled in about two hundred feet of it on deck, and
+finding no end, cut off that portion and carried it away with them.
+Thus ended the first attempt at submarine telegraphing. The crowd that
+had assembled on the Battery dispersed with jeers, most of them
+believing they had been made the victims of a hoax.
+
+In a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the Treasury, in
+August, 1843, concerning electro-magnetism and its powers, he wrote:
+
+"The practical inference from this law is that a telegraphic
+communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be
+established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may now seem, I
+am confident the time will come when this project will be realized."
+
+In 1871 a statue of Professor Morse was erected in Central Park, New
+York, at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country. It was
+unveiled on June 10th with imposing ceremonies. There were delegates
+from every State in the Union, and from the British provinces. In the
+evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the
+Academy of Music, at which William Orton, president of the Western Union
+Telegraph Company, presided, assisted by scores of the leading public
+men of the country as vice-presidents. The last scene was an impressive
+one. It was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the
+audience was then in connection with every other one of the ten thousand
+instruments in America. Then Miss Cornell, a young telegraphic operator,
+sent this message from the key: "Greeting and thanks to the telegraph
+fraternity throughout the world. Glory to God in the highest, on earth
+peace, good-will to men." The venerable inventor, the personification of
+simplicity, dignity, and kindliness, was then conducted to the
+instrument, and touching the key, sent out: "S.F.B. MORSE." A storm of
+enthusiasm swept through the house as the audience rose, the ladies
+waving their handkerchiefs and the men cheering.
+
+Professor Morse last appeared in public on February 22, 1872, when he
+unveiled the statue of Franklin, erected in Printing-house Square in New
+York. He died, after a short illness, on April 2, 1872, and was buried
+in Greenwood Cemetery. On the day of the funeral, April 5th, every
+telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning.
+
+Professor Morse was twice married. His first wife died in 1825. In 1848
+he married Sarah Elizabeth Griswold, of Poughkeepsie, who still lives.
+By the first marriage there were three children, one of whom, a son,
+survives. By the second marriage there were four children, three of whom
+are alive--a daughter and two sons. Miss Leila Morse, the daughter, was
+married in 1885 to Herr Franz Rummel, the eminent pianist. The last
+years of his life were eminently peaceful and happy. In the summer he
+lived at a place called Locust Grove, on the banks of the Hudson, near
+Poughkeepsie, and in the winter in a house at No. 5 West Twenty-second
+Street, a few doors west of Fifth Avenue. In recent years a marble
+tablet has been affixed to the front of the house, suitably inscribed.
+
+[Illustration: No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where Morse
+Lived for Many Years and Died.]
+
+Morse's life in the country was very simple and quiet. His hour of
+rising was half-past six o'clock in the morning, and he was in his
+library alone until breakfast, at eight. He loved to hear the birds in
+their native songs, and he could distinguish the notes of each species,
+and would speak of the quality of their respective music. He spent most
+of the day in reading and writing, rarely taking exercise, except
+walking in his garden to visit his graperies, in which he took special
+pride, or to the stable to see if his horses were well cared for. He did
+not ride out regularly with his family, preferring the repose of his own
+grounds and the labors of his study. But when he walked or rode in the
+country, he was constantly disposed to speak of the beauty and glory
+around him, as revealing to his mind the beneficence, wisdom, and power
+of the infinite Creator, who had made all these things for the use and
+enjoyment of men.
+
+One of his daughters writes of him in these simple and tender words: "He
+loved flowers. He would take one in his hand and talk for hours about
+its beauty, its wonderful construction, and the wisdom and love of God
+in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. In
+his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope and
+purchased one of great excellence and power. For whole hours, all the
+afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, examining flowers or the
+animalculae in different fluids. 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 eye, but so clearly brought to view by the
+magnifying power of the microscope. He was very fond of animals, cats,
+and birds in particular. He tamed a little flying-squirrel, 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 pocket. To
+this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to
+Europe, where it came to an untimely end, in Paris, by running into an
+open fire."
+
+His biographer, Prime, says of him:
+
+"In person Professor Morse was tall, slender, graceful, and attractive.
+Six feet in stature, he stood erect and firm, even in old age. His blue
+eyes were expressive of genius and affection. His nature was a rare
+combination of solid intellect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful,
+sober, and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments of domestic and
+social life, indulging in sallies of humor, and readily appreciating and
+greatly enjoying the wit of others. Dignified in his intercourse with
+men, courteous and affable with the gentler sex, he was a good husband,
+a judicious father, a generous and faithful friend. He had the
+misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive him of the
+merit and the reward of his labors. But his was the common fate of great
+inventors. He lived until his rights were vindicated by every tribunal
+to which they could be referred, and acknowledged by all civilized
+nations. And he died leaving to his children a spotless and illustrious
+name, 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 world."
+
+[Illustration: Charles Goodyear.]
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+CHARLES GOODYEAR.
+
+
+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
+life. So long ago as 1735 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 vessels. This sap became hard when exposed to the
+sun, and was used by the natives, who made different articles of
+every-day use from it by dipping a clay mould again and again into the
+liquid. When the article was completed the clay mould was broken to
+pieces and shaken out. In this manner they made a kind of rough shoe and
+an equally rough bottle. In some parts of South America the natives
+presented their guests with these bottles, which served as syringes for
+squirting water. Articles thus made were liable to become stiff and
+unmanageable in cold weather and soft and sticky in warm. Upon getting
+back to France the travellers directed the attention of scientists to
+this remarkable gum, which was afterward found in various parts of South
+America, and the chief supplies of which still come from Brazil. About
+the beginning of the present century this substance, known variously as
+cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum-elastic, and india-rubber, was first
+commercially introduced into Europe. It was regarded merely as a
+curiosity, chiefly useful for erasing pencil-marks. Ships from South
+America took it over as ballast. About the year 1820 it began to be used
+in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters, india-rubber
+threads being mixed with the material used in weaving those articles.
+Some years later Mackintosh, an English manufacturer, used it in his
+famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the
+gum between two pieces of cloth.
+
+About the same time a pair of india-rubber shoes were exhibited in
+Boston, where they were regarded as a curiosity; they were covered with
+gilt-foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823 a Boston merchant,
+engaged in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs of
+these shoes, made by the natives of Para, and found no difficulty in
+selling them. In fact, this became a large business, although these
+shoes were terribly rough and clumsy and were not to be depended upon;
+in cold weather they became so hard that they could be used only after
+being thawed by the fire, and in summer they could be preserved only by
+keeping them on ice. If during the thawing process they were placed too
+near the fire, they would melt into a shapeless mass; and yet they cost
+from three to five dollars a pair.
+
+In 1830 E.M. Chaffee, of Boston, the foreman of a patent leather
+factory in that city, attempted to replace patent leather by a compound
+of india-rubber. He dissolved a pound of the gum in spirits of
+turpentine, added to the mixture enough lamp-black to produce a bright
+black color, and invented a machine for spreading this compound over
+cloth. When dried in the sun it produced a hard, smooth surface,
+flexible enough to be twisted into any shape without cracking. With the
+aid of a few capitalists, Chaffee organized, in 1833, a company called
+the Roxbury India-rubber Company, and manufactured an india-rubber cloth
+from which wagon-covers, piano-covers, caps, coats, shoes, and other
+articles were made. The product of the factory sold well, and the
+success of the Roxbury Company led to the establishment of a number of
+similar factories elsewhere. Apparently all who were engaged in the
+production of rubber goods were on the highway to wealth.
+
+A day of disaster, however, came. Most of the goods produced in the
+winter of 1833-1834 became worthless during the following summer. The
+shoes melted to a soft mass and the caps, wagon-covers, and coats became
+sticky and useless. To make matters worse they emitted an odor so
+offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground. Twenty
+thousand dollars' worth of these goods were thrown back on the hands of
+the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by the ruin
+that threatened them. It was useless to go on manufacturing goods that
+might prove worthless at any moment. India-rubber stock fell rapidly,
+and by the end of 1836 there was not a solvent rubber company in the
+Union, the stockholders losing about $2,000,000. People came to detest
+the very name of india-rubber.
+
+One day, in 1834, a Philadelphia hardware merchant, named Charles
+Goodyear, was led by curiosity to buy a rubber life-preserver. And thus
+began for this unfortunate genius nearly twenty-five years of struggle,
+misery, and disappointment. Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven,
+Conn., December 29, 1800. When a boy his father moved to Philadelphia,
+where he engaged in the hardware business, and upon becoming of age,
+Charles Goodyear joined him as a partner. In the panic of 1836-1837 the
+house went down. Goodyear's attention had been attracted for several
+years by the wonderful success of the india-rubber companies. Upon
+examining his life-preserver he discovered a defect in the inflating
+valve and made an improved one. Going to New York with this device, he
+called on the agent of the Roxbury Company and, explaining it to him,
+offered to sell it to the company. The agent was impressed with the
+improvement, but instead of buying it, told the inventor the real state
+of the india-rubber business of the country, then on the verge of a
+collapse. He urged Goodyear to exert his inventive skill in discovering
+some means of imparting durability to india-rubber goods, and assured
+him that if he could find a process to effect that end, he could sell it
+at his own price. He explained the processes then in use and their
+imperfections.
+
+Goodyear forgot all about his disappointment in failing to sell his
+valve, and went home intent upon experiments to make gum-elastic
+durable. From that time until the close of his life he devoted himself
+solely to this work. He was thirty-five years old, feeble in health, a
+bankrupt in business, and had a young family depending upon him. The
+industry in which he now engaged was one in which thousands of persons
+had found ruin. The firm of which he had been a member owed $30,000, and
+upon his return to Philadelphia he was arrested for debt and compelled
+to live within prison limits. He began his experiments at once. The
+price of the gum had fallen to five cents per pound, so that he had no
+difficulty in getting sufficient of it to begin work. By melting and
+working it thoroughly and rolling it out upon a stone table, he
+succeeded in producing sheets of india-rubber that seemed to him to
+possess new properties. A friend loaned him enough money to manufacture
+a number of shoes which at first seemed to be all that could be desired.
+Fearful, however, of coming trouble, Goodyear put his shoes away until
+the following summer, when the warm weather reduced them to a mass of so
+offensive an odor that he was glad to throw them away. His friend was so
+thoroughly disheartened by this failure as to refuse to have anything
+more to do with Goodyear's scheme. The inventor, nevertheless, kept on.
+
+It occurred to him that there must be some substance which, mixed with
+the gum, would render it durable, and he began to experiment with almost
+every substance that he could lay his hands on. All proved total
+failures with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound of
+magnesia with a pound of the gum he produced a substance whiter than the
+pure gum, which was at first as firm and flexible as leather, and out of
+which he made beautiful book-covers and piano-covers. It looked as if he
+had solved the problem; but in a month his pretty product was ruined.
+Heat caused it to soften; fermentation then set in, and finally it
+became as hard and brittle as thin glass. His stock of money was now
+exhausted. He was forced to pawn all his own valuables and even the
+trinkets of his wife. But he felt sure that he was on the road to
+success and would eventually win both fame and fortune. He removed his
+family to the country, and set out for New York, where he hoped to find
+someone willing to aid him in carrying his experiments further. Here he
+met two acquaintances, one of whom offered him the use of a room in Gold
+Street as a workshop, and the other, a druggist, agreed to let him have
+on credit such chemicals as he needed. He now boiled the gum, mixed with
+magnesia, in quicklime and water, and as a result obtained firm, smooth
+sheets that won him a medal at the fair of the American Institute in
+1835. He seemed on the point of success, and easily sold all the sheets
+he could manufacture, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a drop of
+the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple or diluted vinegar,
+would reduce his new compound to the old sticky substance that had
+baffled him so often.
+
+His first important discovery on the road to real success was the result
+of accident. He liked pretty things, and it was a constant effort with
+him to make his productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon
+one occasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied aqua
+fortis to it for the purpose of removing part of the bronze. It took
+away the bronze, but it also destroyed the cloth to such a degree that
+he supposed it ruined and threw it away. A day or two later, happening
+to pick it up, he was astonished to find that the rubber had undergone a
+remarkable change, 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 before. Aqua fortis contained sulphuric acid. Goodyear
+was thus on the threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing rubber.
+He called his new process the "curing" of india-rubber.
+
+The "cured" india-rubber was subjected to many tests and passed through
+them successfully, thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important
+uses. Goodyear readily obtained a patent for his process, and a partner
+with a large capital was found ready to aid him. He hired the old
+india-rubber works on Staten Island and opened a salesroom in Broadway.
+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 death. Just as he was recovering and preparing to
+begin the manufacture of his goods on a large scale the terrible
+commercial crisis of 1837 swept over the country, and by destroying his
+partner's fortune at one blow, reduced Goodyear to absolute beggary. His
+family had joined him in New York, and he was entirely without the means
+of supporting them. 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 provisions. At the very door of the
+pawnbroker's shop he met one of his creditors, who kindly asked if he
+could be of any further assistance to him. Weak with hunger and overcome
+by the generosity of his friend the poor man burst into tears and
+replied that, as his family was on the point of starvation, a loan of
+$15 would greatly oblige him. The money was given him on the spot and
+the necessity for visiting the pawnbroker averted for several days
+longer. Still he was a frequent visitor to that person during the year,
+and one by one the relics of his better days disappeared. Another friend
+loaned him $100, which enabled him to remove his family to Staten
+Island, in the neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works, which the
+owners gave him permission to use so far as he could. He contrived in
+this way to manufacture enough of his "cured" cloth, which sold readily,
+to enable him to keep his family from starvation. He made repeated
+efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory and see his samples
+and the process by which they were made, but no one would venture near
+him. There had been money enough lost in such experiments, these
+acquaintances said, and they were determined to risk no more.
+
+Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one man who had the
+slightest hope of accomplishing anything with india-rubber, and that one
+was Charles Goodyear. His friends regarded him as a monomaniac. He not
+only manufactured his cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it,
+wearing it for the purpose of testing its durability, as well as of
+advertising it. He was certainly an odd figure, and in his appearance
+justified the remark of one of his friends, who, upon being asked how
+Mr. Goodyear could be recognized, replied: "If you see a man with an
+india-rubber coat on, india-rubber shoes, and india-rubber cap, and in
+his pocket an india-rubber purse with not a cent in it, that is
+Goodyear."
+
+In September, 1837, a new gleam of hope lit up his pathway. A friend
+having loaned him a small sum of money he went to Roxbury, taking with
+him some of his best specimens. Although the Roxbury Company had gone
+down with a fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the first
+process of making rubber goods in this country, was still firm in his
+faith that india-rubber would at some future time justify the
+expectations of its earliest friends. He welcomed Goodyear cordially and
+allowed him to use the abandoned works of the company for his
+experiments. 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 point. Offers to purchase rights for certain portions
+of the country came in rapidly, and by the sale of them Goodyear
+realized between four and five thousand dollars. He was now able to
+bring his family to Roxbury, and for the time fortune seemed to smile
+upon him.
+
+[Illustration: Calenders Heated Internally by Steam, for Spreading India
+Rubber into Sheets or upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine."]
+
+His success was but temporary, however. He obtained an order from the
+general Government for one hundred and fifty india-rubber mail-bags,
+which he succeeded in producing, and as they came out smooth, highly
+polished, hard, well shaped, and entirely impervious to moisture, he
+was delighted and summoned his friends to inspect and admire them. All
+who saw them pronounced them a perfect success, but alas! in a single
+month they began to soften and ferment, and finally became useless. Poor
+Goodyear's hopes were dashed to the ground. It was found that the aqua
+fortis merely "cured" the surface of the material, and that only very
+thin cloth made in this way was durable. His other goods began to prove
+worthless and his promising business came to a sudden and disastrous
+end. All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, and once more he
+was reduced to poverty. His position was even worse than before, for his
+family had increased in size and his aged father also had become
+dependent upon him for support.
+
+Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all demanded that he should
+abandon his empty dreams and turn his attention to something that would
+yield a support to his family. Four years of constant failure, added to
+the unfortunate experience of those who had preceded him, ought to
+convince him, they said, that he was hoping against hope. Hitherto his
+conduct, certainly had been absurd, though they admitted that he was to
+some extent excused for it by his partial success; but to persist in it
+would be criminal. The inventor was driven to despair, and being a man
+of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family, 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 long.
+
+Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him, he
+had taken into his employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who had been
+the foreman of the old Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of
+them when Goodyear came to Roxbury, and was making a few rubber articles
+on his own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered
+sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur over the rubber cloth and
+drying it in the sun. He declared that the process had been revealed to
+him in a dream, but could give no further account of it. Goodyear was
+astonished to find that the sulphur cured the india-rubber as thoroughly
+as the aqua fortis, the principal objection being that the sulphurous
+odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process was
+really the same as that employed by Goodyear, the "curing" of the
+india-rubber being due in each case to the agency of the sulphur, the
+principal difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried
+by the sun and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hayward set so small a value
+upon his discovery that he readily sold it to his new employer.
+
+Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties. It was
+plain that sulphur was the great controller of india-rubber, for he had
+proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for
+most purposes. The problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and
+the gum in a mass, so that every part of the rubber should be subjected
+to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and months with
+the most intense eagerness, but the mystery completely baffled him. His
+friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family, but he
+could not turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he
+would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now. To the
+world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and some there were who, seeing
+the distress of his family, did not hesitate to apply still harsher
+names to him. Had it been merely wealth that he was working for,
+doubtless he would have turned back and sought some other means of
+obtaining it; but he sought more. He felt that he had a mission to
+fulfil, and that no one else could perform it.
+
+He was right. A still greater success was about to crown his labors, but
+in a manner far different from his expectations. His experiments had
+developed nothing; chance was to make the revelation. It was in the
+spring of 1839, and in the following manner: Standing before a stove in
+a store at Woburn, Mass., he was explaining to some acquaintances the
+properties of a piece of sulphur-cured india-rubber which he held in his
+hand. They listened to him good-naturedly, but with evident incredulity,
+when suddenly he dropped the rubber on the stove, which was red hot. His
+old clothes would have melted instantly from contact with such heat;
+but, to his surprise, this piece underwent no such change. In amazement
+he examined it, and found that while it had charred or shrivelled like
+leather, it had not softened at all. The bystanders attached no
+importance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a revelation. He
+renewed his experiments with enthusiasm, and in a little while
+established the facts that india-rubber, when mixed with sulphur and
+exposed to a certain degree of heat for a specified time, would not melt
+or soften at any degree of heat; that it would only char at two hundred
+and eighty degrees, and that it would not stiffen from exposure to any
+extent of cold. 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 heating.
+
+[Illustration: Charles Goodyear's Exhibition of Hard India Rubber Goods
+at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, England. (From a print published at the
+time.)]
+
+He made this discovery in his darkest days, when, in fact, he was in
+constant danger of arrest for debt, having already been a frequent
+inmate of the debtors' prison. 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
+mission. He needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat
+for his experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He used to bake his
+compound in his wife's bread-oven and steam it over the spout of her
+tea-kettle, and to press the kitchen fire into his service so far as it
+would go. When this failed, 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 over. The workmen regarded him as a lunatic,
+but were too good-natured to deny him the request. Finally he induced
+a bricklayer to make him an oven, and paid him in masons' aprons of
+india-rubber. The oven was a failure. Sometimes it would turn out pieces
+of perfectly vulcanized cloth, and again the goods would be charred and
+ruined. Goodyear was in despair.
+
+All this time he lived on the charity of his friends. His neighbors
+pretended to lend him money, but in reality gave him the means of
+keeping his family from starvation. He has declared that all the while
+he felt sure he would, before long, be able to pay them back, but they
+have declared with equal emphasis that, at that time, they never
+expected to witness his success. He was yellow and shrivelled in face,
+with a gaunt, lean figure, and his habit of wearing an india-rubber
+coat, which was charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with
+it, gave him a wild and singular appearance. People shook their heads
+solemnly when they saw him, and said that the mad-house was the proper
+place for him.
+
+The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. At the opening of the season
+Goodyear received a letter from a house in Paris, making him a handsome
+offer for the use of his process of curing india-rubber with aqua
+fortis. Here was a chance for him to rise out of his misery. A year
+before he would have closed with the offer, but since then he had
+discovered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound, and had
+passed far beyond the aqua-fortis stage. Disappointment and want had not
+warped his conscience, and he at once declined to enter into any
+arrangements with the French house, informing them that although the
+process they desired to purchase was a valuable one, it was about to be
+entirely replaced by another which he was then on the point of
+perfecting, and which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had
+completed it. His friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an
+offer; but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a process
+which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by still greater
+discoveries.
+
+A few weeks later a terrible snow-storm passed over the land, one of the
+worst that New England had ever known, 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 house. He was ill enough to be in bed himself,
+and his purse was entirely empty. It was a terrible position, made
+worse, too, by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him had
+turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to his
+fate. In his despair he bethought him of a mere acquaintance named
+Coleridge, who lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a few
+days before had spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received
+of late. This gentleman, he thought, would aid him in his distress, if
+he could but reach his house, but in such a snow the journey seemed
+hopeless to a man in his feeble health. Still the effort must be made.
+Nerved by despair, he set out and pushed his way resolutely through the
+heavy drifts. The way was long, and it seemed to him that he would
+never accomplish it. Often he fell prostrate on the snow, almost
+fainting with fatigue and hunger, and again he would sit down wearily in
+the road, feeling that he would gladly die if his discovery were but
+completed. At length, however, he reached the end of his journey, and
+fortunately found his acquaintance at home. To this gentleman he told
+the story of his discovery, his hopes, his struggles, and his present
+sufferings, and implored him to help him. Mr. Coleridge listened to him
+kindly, and after expressing the warmest sympathy for him, loaned him
+money enough to support his family during the severe weather and to
+enable him to continue his experiments.
+
+Seeing no prospect of success in Massachusetts, he now resolved to make
+a desperate effort to get to New York, feeling confident that the
+specimens he could take with him would convince someone of the
+superiority of his new method. He was beginning to understand the cause
+of his many failures, but he saw clearly that his compound could not be
+worked with certainty without expensive apparatus. It was a very
+delicate operation, requiring exactness and promptitude. The conditions
+upon which success depended were many, and the failure of one spoiled
+all. It cost him thousands of failures to learn that a little acid in
+his sulphur caused the blistering; that his compound must be heated
+almost immediately after being mixed or it would never vulcanize; that a
+portion of white lead in the compound greatly facilitated the operation
+and improved the result; and when he had learned these facts, it still
+required costly and laborious experiments to devise the best methods of
+compounding his ingredients in the best proportions, the best mode of
+heating, the proper duration of the heating, and the various useful
+effects that could be produced by varying the proportions and the degree
+of heat. He tells us that many times when, by exhausting every resource,
+he had prepared a quantity of his compound for heating, it was spoiled
+because he could not, with his inadequate apparatus, apply the heat soon
+enough.
+
+[Illustration: COUNCIL MEDAL OF THE EXHIBITION.
+
+C. GOODYEAR. CLASS XXVIII.
+
+1851.]
+
+To New York, then, he directed his thoughts. Merely to get there cost
+him a severer and a longer effort than men in general are capable of
+making. First he walked to Boston, ten miles distant, where he hoped to
+borrow from an old acquaintance $50, with which to provide for his
+family and pay his fare to New York. He not only failed in this, but he
+was arrested for debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, while his
+old father was negotiating to procure his release, he labored to
+interest men of capital in his discovery, and made proposals for
+founding a factory in Boston. Having obtained his liberty, he went to a
+hotel and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan. Saturday
+night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he had no means of
+discharging. In an agony of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and
+entreated the sum of $5 to enable him to return home. He was met with a
+point-blank refusal. In the deepest dejection, he walked the streets
+till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost beside himself, to
+Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter for
+the night. He was hospitably entertained, and the next morning walked
+wearily home, penniless and despairing. At the door of his house a
+member of his family met him with the news that his youngest child, two
+years old, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In a few hours
+he had in his house a dead child, but not the means of burying it, and
+five living dependents without a morsel of food to give them. A
+storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family, but, discouraged
+by the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he had that day
+refused to trust them further. In these terrible circumstances he
+applied to a friend, upon whose generosity he knew he could rely, one
+who never failed him. He received in reply a letter of severe and
+cutting reproach, enclosing $7, which his friend explained was given
+only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family. A stranger who
+chanced to be present when this letter arrived sent them a barrel of
+flour, a timely and blessed relief. The next day the family followed on
+foot the remains of the little child to the grave.
+
+This was about the darkest hour of poor Goodyear's life, but it was
+before the dawn. He managed to obtain $50, with which he went to New
+York, and succeeded in interesting two brothers, William and Emory
+Rider, in his discoveries. They agreed to advance to him a certain sum
+to complete his experiments. By means of this aid he was enabled to keep
+his family from want, and his experiments were pursued with greater ease
+and certainty. His brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a rich wool
+manufacturer, also came to his aid, now that success seemed in view.
+Nevertheless, the experiments of that and the following year cost nearly
+$50,000. Thanks to this timely aid, he was able in 1844, ten years after
+beginning his work, to produce perfect vulcanized india-rubber with
+economy and certainty. To the end of his life he was at work, however,
+endeavoring to improve the material and apply it to new uses. He took
+out more than sixty patents covering different processes of making
+rubber goods.
+
+[Illustration: GRANDE MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR.
+
+EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE DE 1855.
+
+Donne pour la Decouverte de la Vulcanisation et Durcissement du
+Caoutchouc.
+
+FACSIMILE GOLD.]
+
+If Goodyear had been a man of business instincts and habits, the years
+following the completion of his great work might have brought him an
+immense fortune; but everywhere he seems to have been unfortunate in
+protecting his rights. In France and England he lost his patent rights
+by technical defects. In the latter country another man, who had
+received a copy of the American patent, actually applied and obtained
+the English rights in his own name. Goodyear, however, obtained the
+great council medal at the London Exhibition of 1851, a grand medal at
+Paris, in 1855, and later the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. In this
+country he was scarcely less unfortunate. His patents were infringed
+right and left, he was cheated by business associates and plundered of
+the profits of his invention. The United States Commissioner of Patents,
+in 1858, thus spoke of his losses:
+
+"No inventor, probably, has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so
+plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the
+parlance of the world as 'pirates.' The spoliation of their incessant
+guerrilla warfare upon his defenceless rights has unquestionably
+amounted to millions."
+
+Goodyear died in New York in July, 1860, worn out with work and
+disappointment. Neither Europe nor America seemed disposed to accord him
+any reward or credit for having made one of the greatest discoveries of
+the time. Notwithstanding his invention, which has made millions for
+those engaged in working it, he died insolvent, and left his family
+heavily in debt. 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 creditors. 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 nothing.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+JOHN ERICSSON.
+
+
+Captain John Ericsson, although not by birth an American, 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 inventor. The
+inventions to which he devoted the best years of his life were made in
+this country. He loved America, he died here, and though his ashes have
+been sent back to Sweden, the world of Europe, in common with ourselves,
+probably thinks of Ericsson as an American.
+
+[Illustration: John Ericsson.]
+
+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 valley. This
+monument bears the information that two brothers, Nils Ericsson and John
+Ericsson, were born in a miner's hut at that place, respectively,
+January 31, 1802, and July 31, 1803. Nils Ericsson was a man of unusual
+distinction, who held high position in Sweden as engineer of the canals
+and railroads of the kingdom. The name of his brother is known the world
+over. These two notable Swedes were sons of Olof Ericsson, a Swedish
+miner. Poverty was one of the bits of good fortune that fell to the lot
+of the two boys, and among John's earliest recollections is that of the
+seizure of their household effects by the sheriff. The mother was a
+woman of intelligence and somewhat acquainted with the literature of her
+time. In boyhood John Ericsson worked in the iron mines of Central
+Sweden. Machinery was his first love and his last. Before he was eleven
+years old, during the winter of 1813, he had produced a miniature
+saw-mill of ingenious construction, and had planned a pumping-engine
+designed to keep the mines free from water. The frame of the saw-mill
+was of wood; the saw-blade was made from a watch-spring and was moved by
+a crank made from a broken tin spoon. A file, borrowed from a
+neighboring blacksmith, a gimlet, and a jack-knife were the only tools
+used in this work. His pumping-engine was a more ambitious affair, to be
+operated by a wind-mill.
+
+[Illustration: John Ericsson's Birthplace and Monument.]
+
+The family then lived in the wilderness, surrounded by a pine forest,
+where Ericsson's father was engaged in selecting timber for the
+lock-gates of a canal. A quill and a pencil were the boy's tools in the
+way of drawing materials. He made compasses of birch wood. A pair of
+steel tweezers were converted into a drawing-pen. Ericsson had never
+seen a wind-mill, but following as well as he could the description of
+those who had, he succeeded in constructing on paper the mechanism
+connecting the crank of a wind-mill with the pump-lever. The plan,
+conceived and executed under such circumstances by a mere boy,
+attracted the attention of Count Platen, president of the Gotha Ship
+Canal, on which Ericsson's father was employed, 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 section. Six hundred of the
+royal troops looked for directions in their daily work to this boy, one
+of his attendants being a man who followed him with a stool, upon which
+he stood to use the surveying instruments. The amusements of this boy
+engineer, even at the age of fifteen, are indicated by a portfolio of
+drawings made in his leisure moments, giving maps of the most important
+parts of the canal, three hundred miles in length, and showing all the
+machinery used in its construction. His precocity was, however, the
+normal and healthy development of a mind as fond of mechanical
+principles as Raphael was of color.
+
+It was in 1811 that Ericsson made his first scale drawing of the famous
+Sunderland Iron Bridge, and from that time on his career in Sweden was a
+brilliant one. After serving as an engineer upon the Gotha Canal he
+became an officer in the Swedish army, from which circumstance he got
+his title of captain. Most government work was then done by army
+officers, especially in field surveying. The appointments of government
+surveyors being offered soon afterward to competitive examination among
+the officers of the army, Ericsson went to Stockholm and entered the
+lists. Detailed maps of fifty square miles of Swedish territory, still
+upon file at Stockholm, show his skill. Though his work as a surveyor
+exceeded that of any of his companions, he was not satisfied. He sought
+an outlet for his superfluous activity in preparing the drawings and
+engraving sixty-four large plates for a work illustrating the Gotha
+Canal. His faculty for invention was shown here by the construction of a
+machine-engraver, with which eighteen copper-plates were completed by
+his own hand within a year.
+
+From engraving young Ericsson turned his attention to experiments with
+flame as a means of producing mechanical power, 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-engine, thousands of which are
+now in use in New York City alone for pumping water up to the tops of
+the houses. His early flame-engine, as it was called, turned out so well
+that after building one of ten horse-power, he obtained leave of absence
+to go to England to introduce the invention. He never returned to Sweden
+for any length of time, although he remained a Swede at heart, and many
+Swedish orders and decorations have been conferred upon him. In addition
+to the monument near Ericsson's birthplace, already mentioned, the
+government has erected a granite shaft, eighteen feet high, in front of
+the cottage in which he was born. This shaft, bearing the inscription,
+"John Ericsson was born here in 1803," was dedicated on September 3,
+1867, when work was suspended in the neighboring mines and iron
+furnaces, and a holiday was held in honor of Sweden's famous son. Poems
+were read, the chief engineer of the mining district delivered an
+oration, and Dr. Pallin, a savant from Philipstad, reminded his hearers
+that seven cities in Greece contended for the honor of being Homer's
+birthplace. "Certificates of baptism did not then exist," said Dr.
+Pallin, "and there is no doubt with us as to Ericsson's birthplace; yet
+to guard against all accidents we have here placed a record of baptism
+weighing eighty thousand pounds." The monument stands on an isthmus
+between two lakes surrounded by green hills.
+
+[Illustration: The Novelty Locomotive, built by Ericsson to compete with
+Stephenson's Rocket, 1829.]
+
+Ericsson's life in England began in 1826. Fortune did not smile upon his
+efforts to introduce his flame-engine, for the coal fire which had to be
+used in England was too severe for the working parts of the apparatus.
+But Ericsson possessed a capacity for hard work that recognized no
+obstacles. He undertook a new series of experiments which resulted
+finally in the completion of an engine which was patented and sold to
+John Braithwaite. 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 famous. Records of the
+London Patent Office credit him with invention after invention. Among
+these were a pumping-engine on a new principle; engines with surface
+condensers and no smoke-stack, as applied to the steamship Victory in
+1828; an apparatus for making salt from brine; for propelling boats on
+canals; a hydrostatic weighing machine, to which the Society of Arts
+awarded a prize; an instrument to be used in taking deep-sea soundings;
+a file-cutting machine. The list covers some fourteen patented
+inventions and forty machines.
+
+Perhaps his most important work at this period was a device for creating
+artificial draught in locomotives, to which aid the development of our
+railroad owes much. In 1829 the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad offered
+a prize of $2,500 for the best locomotive capable of doing certain work.
+The prize was taken by Stephenson with his famous Rocket; but his
+sharpest competitor in this contest was John Ericsson. Four locomotives
+entered the contest. The London _Times_ of October 8, 1829, speaks
+highly of the Novelty, the locomotive entered by Messrs. Braithwaite &
+Ericsson, saying: "It was the lightest and most elegant carriage on the
+road yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved surprised and
+amazed every beholder. It shot along the line at the amazing rate of
+thirty miles an hour. It seemed indeed to fly, presenting one of the
+most sublime spectacles of human ingenuity and human daring the world
+ever beheld."
+
+[Illustration: Ericsson on his Arrival in England, aged twenty-three.]
+
+[Illustration: Mrs. John Ericsson, nee Amelia Byam.
+
+(From an early daguerreotype.)]
+
+The railroad directors, at whose invitation this test was made, had
+asked for ten miles an hour; Ericsson gave them thirty. The excitement
+of the witnesses found vent in loud cheers. Within an hour the shares
+of the railroad company rose ten per cent., and the young engineer might
+well have considered his fortune made. But although he had beaten his
+rival ten miles an hour, the judges determined to make traction power,
+rather than speed, the critical test, and the prize was awarded to
+Stephenson's Rocket, which drew seventeen tons for seventy miles at the
+rate of thirteen miles an hour. Stephenson's engine weighed twice as
+much as Ericsson's. Nevertheless Ericsson's success with the Novelty was
+such as to keep him busy in this particular field. He followed it up
+with a steam fire-engine that astonished London at the burning of the
+Argyle Rooms, in 1829, when for the first time, as one of the local
+papers remarked, "fire was extinguished by the mechanical power of
+fire." Another engine, of larger power, built for the King of Prussia,
+soon after rendered excellent service in Berlin, and a third was built
+for Liverpool in 1830. 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-engine.
+
+[Illustration: Exterior View of Ericsson's House, No. 36 Beach Street,
+New York, 1890.]
+
+Disappointed in his ill success with inventions pertaining to
+locomotives, Ericsson now turned his attention to his early
+flame-engine, and the working model of a caloric engine of five-horse
+power soon attracted the attention of London. At first there seemed to
+be a great future for engines upon this principle, but after many years
+of experiments, at great expense, Ericsson found that the principle was
+useful only for purposes requiring small power. In 1851 he built a
+heat-engine for the ship Ericsson, a vessel two hundred and sixty feet
+in length, and tells the result as follows: "The ship after completion
+made a successful trip from New York to Washington and back during the
+winter season; but the average speed at sea proving insufficient for
+commercial purposes, the owners, with regret, acceded to my proposition
+to remove the costly machinery, although it had proved perfect as a
+mechanical combination. The resources of modern engineering having been
+exhausted in producing the motors of the caloric ship, the important
+question, Can heated air, as a mechanical motor, compete on a large
+scale with steam? has forever been set at rest. The commercial world is
+indebted to American enterprise for having settled a question of such
+vital importance. 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 heat."
+
+[Illustration: Solar-engine Adapted to the Use of Hot Air.
+
+(Patented as a pumping-engine, 1880.)]
+
+Before leaving this question of heat-engines and passing to the more
+important inventions by which Ericsson will be remembered, it may be as
+well to say a few words concerning the solar-engines to which he devoted
+many years' time, and one of which I saw in operation in the back yard
+of the pleasant old house in Beach Street, opposite the freight depot of
+the Hudson River Railroad. This house, by the way, which Ericsson
+occupied for nearly forty years, faced on St. John's Park, the pleasant
+square which was afterward filled up by the railroad company. Toward the
+last years of Ericsson's life the neighborhood became anything but a
+pleasant one to live in; it was dirty and noisy. Nevertheless Ericsson
+refused to move. Perhaps the unpleasantness of the surroundings made him
+the recluse he was. It is not surprising that he should have been
+attracted by the possibility of obtaining power from the heat of the
+sun. In an early pamphlet on the subject he says: "There is a rainless
+region extending from the northwestern coast of Africa to Mongolia, nine
+thousand miles in length and nearly one thousand miles wide. In the
+Western Hemisphere, Lower California, the table-lands of Guatemala, and
+the west coast of South America, for a distance of more than two
+thousand miles, suffer from a continuous radiant heat." 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-engines, of
+one hundred horse-power each, going nine hours a day. He believed that
+with the exhaustion of European coal-fields the day for the solar-engine
+would come, and that those countries which possessed unfailing sunshine,
+such as Egypt, would displace England, France, and Germany as the
+manufacturing powers of the world, for the European would have to move
+his machinery to the borders of the Nile. By concentrating the rays of
+the sun upon a small copper boiler filled with air Ericsson was enabled
+to work a little motor, and for some years he also attempted to produce
+steam by means of heat from the sun. He was not successful, however, in
+making anything of commercial value in this direction, 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 invitation.
+
+Ericsson's studies and improvements of the screw as a means of
+propelling boats began in England. A model boat, two feet long, fitted
+up with two screws, was launched in a London bath-house, and, supplied
+by steam from a boiler placed at the side of the tank, was sent around
+at a speed estimated at six miles an hour. Ericsson was so delighted
+with it that he built a boat eight feet by forty, armed with two
+propellers, in the hope that the British Admiralty might adopt the
+invention. This boat went through the water at the rate of ten miles an
+hour, or seven miles an hour towing a schooner of one hundred and forty
+tons burden. He invited the Admiralty to see the work of his screw.
+Steaming up to Somerset House with his little vessel, Ericsson took the
+Admiralty barge in tow, to the wonder of the watermen, who could make
+nothing of the novel craft with no apparent means of propulsion. The
+British Admiralty, however, was not easily convinced. These wiseacres
+said nothing, 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 practice, because the power, being applied
+to the stern, it would be absolutely impossible to make the vessel
+steer."
+
+This official blindness cost England the services of the inventor. The
+United States happened to have as consul in Liverpool at that day (1837)
+Mr. Francis B. Ogden, a pioneer in steam navigation on the Ohio River.
+Ogden saw Ericsson's invention and introduced him to Captain Robert F.
+Stockton, of the United States Navy. With Stockton, seeing was
+believing, and when he returned from a trip on Ericsson's boat, he
+exclaimed: "I do not want the opinion of your scientific men. What I
+have seen to-day satisfies me." Before the vessel had completed her
+trip, Ericsson received from Stockton an order for two boats. Upon
+Stockton's assurance that the United States would try his propeller upon
+a large scale, Ericsson closed up his affairs in England and embarked
+for the United States. Through the good offices of Stockton, but after
+considerable delay, a vessel called the Princeton was ordered and
+completed. She carried a number of radical improvements destined to make
+a revolution in naval warfare. The boilers and engines were below the
+waterline, out of the way of shot and shell. The smoke-stack was a
+telescopic affair, replacing the tall pipe that formed so conspicuous a
+target upon the old boats. Centrifugal blowers in the hold, worked by
+separate engines, secured increased draught for the furnaces. The
+Princeton was a wonder, and everyone was ready to praise the inventive
+genius of Ericsson and the daring of Captain Stockton in adopting so
+many radical novelties. An entry in the diary of John Quincy Adams,
+dated February 28, 1844, tells the sad story of the public exhibition of
+the Princeton at Washington:
+
+"I went into the chamber of the Committee of Manufactures and wrote
+there till six. Dined with Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Winthrop. While we were
+at dinner John Barney burst into the chamber, rushed up to General Scott
+and told him, with groans, that the President wished to see him; that
+the great gun on board the Princeton had burst and killed the Secretary
+of State, Upshur; the Secretary of the Navy, T.W. Gilmer; Captain
+Beverly Kennon, Virgil Maxey, a Colonel Gardiner, of New York, a colored
+servant of the President, and desperately wounded several of the crew."
+
+So tragic an introduction was not needed to direct public attention to
+the Princeton. Ericsson had placed the United States at the head of
+naval powers in the application of steam-power to warfare. He had made
+the experiment of the Princeton at a great cost to himself, and two
+years of concentrated effort had been devoted to the service of the
+Government. For his time, labor, and necessary expenditures he rendered
+a bill of $15,000, leaving the question of what, if anything, should be
+charged for his patent rights entirely to the discretion and generosity
+of the Government. The bill was refused payment by the Navy Department
+because of its limited discretion. Ericsson went to Congress with it,
+but a dozen years passed without the slightest progress toward a
+settlement. A court of claims rendered a unanimous decree in his favor,
+but Congress, to which the bill was again sent, failed to make an
+appropriation, and there the matter has remained, notwithstanding the
+brilliant services since rendered to this country by the inventor.
+
+Various nations claim the invention of the screw as applied to boats. At
+Trieste and at Vienna stand statues erected to Joseph Ressel, for whom
+the Austrians lay claim. Commodore Stevens, of New Jersey, is also said
+by Professor Thurston to have built and worked a screw-propeller on the
+Hudson in 1812. Whatever may be the final decision as to Ericsson's
+claim in this matter, there, can be no doubt as to the value of the
+services he rendered in building the Monitor. The suggestion of the
+Monitor was first made in a communication from Ericsson to Napoleon
+III., dated New York, September, 1854. This paper contained a
+description of an iron-clad vessel surmounted by a cupola substantially
+as in the Monitor as finally built. The emperor, through General Favre,
+acknowledged the communication. Favre wrote: "The emperor has himself
+examined with the greatest care the new system of naval attack which you
+have communicated to him. 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 author." For eight years Ericsson continued
+working upon his idea of a revolving cupola or turret upon an iron-clad
+raft, but found no opportunity to test the practical value of the
+device. His time finally came when, in 1861, the Navy Department
+appointed a board to examine plans for iron-clads. The board consisted
+of Commodores Joseph Smith, Hiram Paulding, and Charles H. Davis.
+Ericsson, having learned to distrust his own powers as a business agent,
+engaged the assistance of C. S. Bushnell, a Connecticut man of some
+wealth, who went to Washington and presented the designs of the Monitor
+to the board.
+
+Colonel W.C. Church, Ericsson's biographer, who has just been honored by
+Sweden for his publications upon the life of the inventor, tells an
+interesting story of the negotiations concerning the vessel which was to
+render such signal services to the country. Bushnell could make no
+headway with the board and decided that Ericsson's presence in
+Washington was necessary. But the inventor was then, as during his
+whole life, averse to any self-advertisement, and preferred his
+workshop to any place on earth. But as he possessed a sort of rude
+eloquence due to enthusiasm, Bushnell got him to Washington by
+subterfuge. 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 contract. Presenting himself before the board, what was
+his astonishment to find that he was not only an unexpected but
+apparently an unwelcome visitor. He was not long in doubt as to the
+meaning of this reception. To his indignation and astonishment he was
+informed that the plan of a vessel submitted by him had already been
+rejected. His first impulse was to withdraw at once. Mastering his
+anger, however, he inquired the reason for this decision. Commodore
+Smith explained that the vessel had not sufficient stability; in other
+words, it would be liable to upset. Captain Ericsson was too experienced
+a naval designer to have overlooked this point, and in a lucid
+explanation put his views before the board, winding up with the
+declaration: "Gentlemen, after what I have said, I consider it to be
+your duty to the country to give me an order to build the vessel before
+I leave this room."
+
+Withdrawing to a corner the board held a consultation and invited the
+inventor to call again at one o'clock. When Ericsson returned he brought
+with him a diagram illustrating more fully his reasons for considering
+his proposed vessel to be perfectly stable. Commodore, afterward
+Admiral, Paulding was convinced, and admitted that Ericsson had taught
+him much about the stability of vessels. Secretary Welles was informed
+that the board reported favorably upon Ericsson's plan, and told the
+inventor that he might return to New York and begin work, as the
+contract would follow him. When the contract came it was found to be a
+singularly one-sided affair. If the Monitor proved vulnerable--in other
+words; if it was not a success--the money paid for it by the Navy
+Department was to be refunded.
+
+[Illustration: Sectional View of Monitor through Turret and
+Pilot-house.]
+
+[Illustration: The Original Monitor.]
+
+It took one hundred days to build the Monitor. During those three months
+Ericsson scarcely slept, and even in his dreams he went over the details
+of the new-fangled war-engine he was building. He named her Monitor
+because, he said, she would warn the nations of the world that a new era
+in naval warfare had begun. The story of his untiring activity has been
+told almost as often as that of the battle between the Monitor and the
+Merrimac. He was at the ship-yard before any of the workmen, and was the
+last to leave. In the construction of so novel a craft difficulties of a
+puzzling nature came up every day. If Ericsson could not solve them on
+the spot, he studied the matter in the quiet of the night, and was ready
+with his drawings in the morning. The result of the naval battle in
+Hampton Roads, on the 9th of March, 1862, between the little Monitor and
+the big Merrimac made Ericsson the hero of the hour. Had no David
+appeared to stop the ravages of the Confederate Goliath, it is hard to
+say what might not have been the injury inflicted upon the cause of the
+Union by the terrible Merrimac. The United States Navy was virtually
+panic-stricken when the Monitor, this "Yankee cheese-box on a plank," as
+the Southerners called her, came to the rescue.
+
+Notwithstanding the tremendous service rendered the country, Ericsson
+declined to receive more compensation for the Monitor than his contract
+called for. 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 nation," Ericsson said: "All the remuneration I desire
+for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is
+all-sufficient." Our grateful nation took him at his word. But honors of
+another and less costly kind were showered upon him. Chief Engineer
+Stimers, who was on the Monitor during her battle with the Merrimac,
+wrote to Ericsson: "I congratulate you on your great success. Thousands
+have this day blessed you. I have heard whole crews cheer you. 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 was, until our arrival,
+having it all her own way with our most powerful vessels."
+
+[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Pencil Sketch by Ericsson, giving a
+Transverse Section of his Original Monitor Plan, with a Longitudinal
+Section drawn over it.]
+
+[Illustration: Interior of the Destroyer, Looking toward the Bow.]
+
+War vessels upon the plan of the Monitor speedily appeared among the
+navies of several nations. England refused at first to admit the value
+of the invention and was not converted until the double-turreted
+Miantonomoh visited her waters in 1866, when one of the London papers
+described her appearance among the British fleet as that of a wolf among
+a flock of sheep. The day of the big wooden war-vessels was over. It
+was, nevertheless, an Englishman and a naval officer, Captain Cowper
+Coles, who sought to deprive Ericsson of the honor of his invention.
+Coles declared that he had devised a ship during the Crimean War, in
+which a turret or cupola was to protect the guns. Ericsson's letter to
+Napoleon III., written in 1854, is sufficient answer to this, besides
+which Ericsson's scheme includes more than a stationary shield for the
+guns, which is all that Coles claimed. Coles succeeded, however, in
+inducing the British Admiralty to build a vessel according to his plans.
+This ill-fated craft upset off Cape Finisterre on the night of September
+6, 1870, and went to the bottom with Coles and a crew of nearly five
+hundred men.
+
+Having devised an apparatus that made wooden war-vessels useless,
+Ericsson turned his attention to the destruction of iron-clads, and
+devoted ten years of his life to the construction of his famous
+torpedo-boat, the Destroyer, upon which he spent about all the money he
+amassed by other work. According to his belief, no vessel afloat could
+escape annihilation in a battle with his Destroyer. This vessel is
+designed to run at sufficient speed to overtake any of the iron-clads.
+It offers small surface to the shot of an enemy, and besides being
+heavily armored, it can be partly submerged beneath the waves. When
+within fighting distance it fires under water, by compressed air, a
+projectile containing dynamite sufficient to raise a big war-ship out of
+the water. The explosion takes place when the projectile meets with
+resistance, such as the sides of a ship. To Ericsson's great
+disappointment, the United States Government persistently refused to
+purchase the Destroyer or to commission Ericsson to build more vessels
+of her type.
+
+[Illustration: Development of the Monitor Idea.]
+
+Of Ericsson's home life there is not much to be told. He was utterly
+wrapped up in his work. With his devoted secretary, Mr. Arthur Taylor,
+his days knew scarcely any variation. Of social recreation he had none.
+In conversation he was abrupt and somewhat peculiar, apparently
+regarding all other talk than that relating to mechanics and germane
+subjects as a waste of words. His shrewd face, with its blue eyes and
+fringe of white hair, was not an unkindly one, however, and the few
+workmen he employed in the Beach Street house were devoted to him. No
+great man was ever more intensely averse to personal notoriety. Although
+often advised to make his Destroyer better known by means of newspaper
+articles, he persistently refused to see newspaper men; and the
+professional interviewer and lion-hunter were his pet aversions. It was
+perhaps to avoid them that he left his house only after nightfall, and
+then but for a walk in the neighborhood.
+
+[Illustration: The Room in which Ericsson Worked for More than Twenty
+Years.]
+
+His time was divided according to rule. For thirty years he was called
+by his servant at seven o'clock in the morning, and took a bath of very
+cold water, ice being added to it in summer. After some gymnastic
+exercises came breakfast at nine o'clock, always of eggs, tea, and brown
+bread. His second and last meal of the day, dinner, never varied from
+chops or steak, some vegetables, and tea and brown bread again.
+Ice-water was the only luxury that he indulged in. He used tobacco in no
+form. During the daytime he was accustomed to work at his desk or
+drawing-table for about ten hours. After dinner he resumed work until
+ten, when he started out for the stroll of an hour or more, which always
+ended his day. The last desk work accomplished every day was to make a
+record in his diary, always exactly one page long. This diary is in
+Swedish and comprises more than fourteen thousand pages, thus covering a
+period of forty years, during which he omitted but twenty days, in
+1856, when he had a finger crushed by machinery. He scarcely knew what
+sickness was, and just before his death said that he had not missed a
+meal for fifteen years. He was a widower and left no children. He died
+in the Beach Street house, after a short illness, on March 8, 1889, and
+his remains were transferred to Sweden with naval honors.
+
+[Illustration: Cyrus Hall McCormick.]
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+CYRUS HALL McCORMICK.
+
+
+In the course of an argument before the Commissioner of Patents, in
+1859, the late Reverdy Johnson declared that the McCormick reaper was
+worth $55,000,000 a year to this country, an estimate that was not
+disputed. At about the same time the late William H. Seward said that
+"owing to Mr. McCormick's invention the line of civilization moves
+westward thirty miles each year." Already the London _Times_, after
+ridiculing the McCormick reaper exhibited at the London World's Fair of
+1851, as "a cross between an Astley (circus) chariot, a wheel-barrow,
+and a flying-machine," confessed, when the reaper had been tested in the
+fields, that it was "worth to the farmers of England the whole cost of
+this exhibition." Writing of this glorious success, Mr. Seward said: "So
+the reaper of 1831, as improved in 1845, achieved for its inventor a
+triumph which all then felt and acknowledged was not more a personal one
+than it was a national one. It was justly so regarded. No general or
+consul, drawn in a chariot through the streets of Rome by order of the
+Senate, 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 1851." In 1861, though
+declining to extend the patent for the reaper, the Commissioner of
+Patents, D.P. Holloway, paid the inventor this remarkable tribute:
+"Cyrus H. McCormick is an inventor whose fame, while he is yet living,
+has spread through the world. His genius has done honor to his own
+country, and has been the admiration of foreign nations, and he will
+live in the grateful recollection of mankind as long as the
+reaping-machine is employed in gathering the harvest." Nevertheless the
+extension of the patent of 1834, which act of justice would have given
+the inventor an opportunity to obtain an adequate reward for his work,
+was refused upon the extraordinary ground that "the reaper was of too
+great value to the public to be controlled by any individual." In other
+words, the benefit conferred by McCormick upon the country was too great
+to be paid for; therefore no effort should be made to pay for it.
+Finally, the French Academy of Sciences, when McCormick 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 man."
+
+[Illustration: Farm where Cyrus H. McCormick was Born and Raised.]
+
+It is thus evident that the tremendous service done to the civilized
+world by the invention of the McCormick reaper was appreciated years
+ago. Yet it is improbable that the whole value of the invention was
+fully realized. To-day the McCormick works at Chicago turn out yearly,
+and have turned out for several years, more than one hundred thousand
+reapers and mowers. At a moderate estimate every McCormick reaper, and
+every reaper founded upon it and containing its essential features,
+saves the labor of six men during the ten harvest days of the year. The
+present number of reapers in operation to-day, all of them based upon
+the McCormick patents, is estimated at about two million, so that,
+counting a man's labor at $1 a day, here is a yearly saving of more than
+$100,000,000. The reaper thus stands beside the steam-engine and the
+sewing-machine as one of the most important labor-saving inventions of
+our time, relieving millions of men from the most arduous drudgery and
+increasing the world's wealth by hundreds of millions of dollars every
+year. It is some satisfaction to know that the inventor of the reaper
+lived to enjoy the fruits of his work. A remarkable man in every
+respect, his ingenuity, perseverance, courage under injustice, and
+generosity finally won him not only the material rewards that were his
+by right, but the esteem and honor of the civilized world.
+
+Like Fulton and Morse, Cyrus Hall McCormick came of Scotch-Irish blood,
+a race marked by fixed purpose, untiring industry in carrying out that
+purpose, a strong sense of moral obligation, and an unswerving
+determination to do right by the light of conscience though the heavens
+fall. He was born on the 15th of February, 1809, at Walnut Grove, in
+Rockbridge County, Va., and was the eldest of eight children, six of
+whom lived to grow up. His father, Robert McCormick, in addition to
+farming, had workshops of considerable importance on his farm, as well
+as a saw-mill and grist-mill and smelting furnaces. In these workshops
+young Cyrus McCormick probably got his first love for mechanical
+devices. Robert McCormick was an inventor of no mean attainment. He
+devised and built a thresher, a hemp-breaker, some mill improvements,
+and in 1816 he made and tried a mechanical reaper. 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 work. A schoolmaster named Ogle is said to have built a reaper in
+1822, but, according to his own admission, it would not work. Bell, a
+Scotch minister, also contrived a reaping-machine that was tried in
+1828. In the course of the subsequent patent litigation over the reaper
+the claims of these early inventors were made the most of by McCormick's
+opponents, but the courts of last resort invariably settled the question
+in McCormick's favor.
+
+As a farmer boy, young Cyrus McCormick began his day's work in the
+fields at five o'clock. In winter he went to the Old Field School.
+During his boyhood he would watch his father's experiments and
+disappointments. His first attempt in the same direction was the
+construction, at the age of fifteen, of a harvesting-cradle by which he
+was enabled to keep up with an able-bodied workman. His first patented
+invention (1831) was a plough which threw alternate furrows on either
+side, being thus either a right-hand or left-hand plough. This was
+superseded in 1833 by an improved plough, also by McCormick, called the
+self-sharpening plough, which did excellent work. His father having
+worked long and unsuccessfully at a mechanical reaper, it was natural
+that young McCormick's mind should turn over the same problem from time
+to time, and his father's failures did not deter him, although Robert
+McCormick 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 dream. One martyr to mechanical progress
+was enough for the McCormick family. But the possibility of making a
+machine do the hard, hot work of the harvest-field had a fascination for
+the young man, and the more he studied the discarded reaping-machine
+made by his father in 1816, the more firmly he became convinced that
+while the principle of that device was wrong, the work could be done. In
+those days the development of the country really depended upon some
+better, cheaper way of harvesting. The land was fertile, and there was
+practically no end of it. But labor was scarce.
+
+[Illustration: Exterior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First Reaper
+was Built.]
+
+Cyrus McCormick's plough was a success that encouraged him to take hold
+of the more difficult problem of the reaper. He found that some device,
+such as his father's, would cut grain after a fashion, provided it was
+in perfect condition and stood up straight; the moment it became matted
+and tangled and beaten down by wind and rain the machine was useless.
+Other devices had been arranged whereby a fly-wheel armed with sickles
+slashed off the heads of the wheat, leaving the stalks; but here again
+such a machine would work only when the field was in prime condition. He
+determined that no device was of any value which would not cut grain as
+it might happen to stand, stalk and all. After months of labor in his
+father's shop, making every part of the machine himself, in both wood
+and iron, as he said, he turned out, in 1831, the first reaper that
+really cut an average field of wheat satisfactorily. Its three great
+essential features were those of the reaper of to-day--a vibrating
+cutting-blade, a reel to bring the grain within reach of the blade, a
+platform to receive the falling grain, and a divider to separate the
+grain to be cut from that to be left standing. This machine, drawn by
+horses, was tested in a field of six acres of oats, belonging to John
+Steele, within a mile of Walnut Grove. Its work astonished the
+neighboring farmers who gathered to witness the test. The problem of
+cutting standing grain by machinery had been solved.
+
+There were, however, certain defects in the reaper which caused Cyrus
+McCormick not to put the machine on the market. All the cog-wheels were
+of wood. There was no place upon it for either the driver or the raker.
+The former rode on the near horse and the latter followed on foot,
+raking the grain from it as best he could. But it cut grain fast, and
+both father and son were so impressed by its possibilities as
+foreshadowed in even this crude affair, that for the next few years they
+devoted their time, money, and thoughts to it. Robert McCormick was as
+enthusiastic as his son, and he is rightly entitled to a share of the
+honor, for his invention of 1816 turned the attention of his son to the
+problem and pointed out the radical errors to be avoided. A year after
+its first trial, with certain improvements, the reaper cut fifty acres
+of wheat in so perfect and rapid a manner as to insure its practical
+value beyond all doubt. The self-restraint shown by McCormick in
+refusing to sell machines until he was satisfied with them shows the
+man. The patent was granted in 1834, but for six years he kept at work
+experimenting, changing, improving, during the short periods of each
+harvest. In a letter to the Commissioner of Patents, on file in the
+Patent Office, Mr. McCormick said: "From the experiment of 1831 until
+the harvest of 1840 I did not sell a reaper, although during that time I
+had many exhibitions of it, for experience proved to me that it was best
+for the public as well as for myself that no sales were made, as defects
+presented themselves that would render the reaper unprofitable in other
+hands. Many improvements were found necessary, requiring a great deal of
+thought and study. I was sometimes flattered, at other times
+discouraged, and at all times deemed it best not to attempt the sale of
+machines until satisfied that the reaper would succeed."
+
+[Illustration: Interior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First Reaper
+was Built.]
+
+About 1835 the McCormicks engaged in a partnership for the smelting of
+iron ore. The reaper, as a business pursuit, was yet in the distance,
+and the new iron industry offered large profits. The panic of 1837 swept
+away these hopes. Cyrus sacrificed all he had, even the farm given him
+by his father, to settle his debts, and his scrupulous integrity in this
+matter turned disaster into blessing, for it compelled him to take up
+the reaper with renewed energy. With the aid of his father and of his
+brothers, William and Leander, he began the manufacture of the machine
+in the primitive workshop at Walnut Grove, turning out less than fifty
+machines a year, all of them made under great disadvantages. The
+sickles were made forty miles away, and as there were no railroads in
+those days, the blades, six feet long, had to be carried on horseback.
+Neither was it easy, when once the machines were made, to get them to
+market. The first consignment sent to the Western prairies, in 1844, was
+taken in wagons from Walnut Grove to Scottsville, then down the canal to
+Richmond, Va.; thence by water to New Orleans, and then up the
+Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Cincinnati.
+
+The great West, with its vast prairies, was the natural market for the
+reaper. Upon the small farms of the East hand labor might still suffice
+for the harvest; in the West, where the farms were enormous and labor
+scarce, it was out of the question. Realizing that while his reaper was
+a luxury in Virginia, it was a necessity in Ohio and Illinois, Cyrus
+McCormick went to Cincinnati in the autumn of 1844 and began
+manufacturing. At the same time he made some valuable improvements and
+obtained a second patent. The reaper had become known and the inventor
+rode on horseback through Illinois and Wisconsin, obtaining farmers'
+orders for reapers, which he offered to A.C. Brown, of Cincinnati, as
+security for payment, if he would use his workshops for manufacturing
+them. McCormick was enabled also to arrange with a firm in Brockport,
+N.Y., to make his reapers on a royalty, and this business provided the
+great wheat district of Central New York with machines. In 1847 and 1848
+he obtained still other patents for new features of the reaper.
+
+[Illustration: The First Reaper.]
+
+In 1846 he had already fixed upon Chicago as the best centre of
+operations for the reaper business, and at the close of the year he
+moved there. The next year the sale of the reapers rose to seven
+hundred, and more than doubled in 1849. Having associated his two
+brothers, William S. and Leander J., with him, Cyrus McCormick found
+time to devote himself to introducing the reaper in the Old World. The
+American exhibit at the London World's Fair of 1851 was rather a small
+one, redeemed largely by the McCormick reaper, which the London _Times_,
+as I have already said, praised as worth to the farmers of Great Britain
+more than the whole cost of the exhibition. To it was awarded the grand
+prize, known as the council medal.
+
+The reaper's advance in public favor was as steady on the other side of
+the water as here, and medals and honors were awarded McCormick at many
+important exhibitions. During the Paris Exposition of 1867 McCormick
+superintended the work of his reapers at a field trial held by the
+exposition authorities, and so conclusively defeated all competitors
+that Napoleon III., who walked after the reapers, expressed his
+determination to confer upon the inventor, then and there, the Cross of
+the Legion of Honor. At the French Exposition of 1878 the McCormick
+wire-binder won the grand prize. From 1850 the success of the reaper was
+assured. Mr. McCormick might have rested content with what had been
+achieved, but it was not his nature. He not only continued to bear upon
+his shoulders the larger share of responsibility of the rapidly growing
+business, but he labored persistently to add to the effectiveness of his
+invention.
+
+The great fire that swept Chicago in 1871 left nothing of the already
+important works established by Mr. McCormick. But, as might be expected
+from such a man, he was a tower of strength to the city in her time of
+distress, and one of those to rally first from the blow and to inspire
+hope. Within a year, assisted by his brother Leander, he had raised from
+the ashes an immense establishment, which with the growth of the last
+few years now covers forty acres of ground. More than 2,000 men are here
+employed. The statistics for last year show that more than 20,000 tons
+of special bar-iron and steel, 2,800 tons of sheet steel, and 26,000
+tons of castings were used in making the 142,000 machines sold. Ten
+million feet of lumber were used, chiefly in boxing and crating, as very
+little wood is now used in the reaper.
+
+This is a marvellous development from the little Virginia shop of 1840,
+with its output of one machine a week, and the growth means far more for
+the country at large than might be inferred from these figures; the
+farmers of the world owe more to the McCormick reaper than they can
+repay. The whir of the American reaper is heard around the world. In
+Egypt, Russia, India, Australia the machine is helping man with more
+than a giant's strength. Recent American travellers through Persia have
+described the singular effect produced upon them by seeing the McCormick
+reaper doing its steady work in the fields over which Haroun Al Raschid
+may have roamed. And this wonderful machine is followed with awe by the
+more ignorant of the natives, who look upon its achievements as little
+short of magical. They are not far wrong, however, for it is more
+amazing than any wonder described in their "Arabian Nights."
+
+The last years of Cyrus H. McCormick's life were such as have fallen to
+few of the world's benefactors, for as a rule the pioneer who shows the
+road has a hard time of it, even unto the end. Mr. McCormick had the
+satisfaction of knowing not only that by his invention he had conferred
+a blessing upon the workmen of the world, but that the world had
+acknowledged the debt. Material prosperity, however, was not considered
+any reason for luxurious idleness. To the close of his life Mr.
+McCormick continued to supervise the business of his firm and to make
+the reaper more perfect. No great exhibition abroad or in this country
+passed without some of its honors falling to the share of the McCormick
+reaper.
+
+The private life of Cyrus H. McCormick was a happy one, and to this may
+be attributed no small share of the elasticity and courage that
+recognized no defeat as final. Congress failed to do him justice; his
+business was attacked by hordes of rivals; it was interrupted by the
+fire of 1871 and afterward threatened by labor strikes incited by
+self-seeking demagogues. Hard work was the rule of his life and not the
+exception. But that his nature remained sweet and just is shown by his
+untiring work upon behalf of others. His home life, as I have just
+remarked, was unusually blessed. In 1858 he married Miss Nettie Fowler,
+a daughter of Melzar Fowler, of Jefferson County, New York. Of the seven
+children born of this marriage, five lived to grow up, his son, Cyrus H.
+McCormick, now occupying his father's place at the head of the great
+works in Chicago. One of the daughters, Anita, is the widow of Emmons
+Blaine. The inventor of the reaping-machine died on the 13th of May,
+1884. Robert H. Parkinson, of Cincinnati, speaks as follows of one of
+the last interviews he had with Mr. McCormick: "Though struggling with
+the infirmities of age, he took on a kind of majesty which belongs alone
+to that combination of great mental and moral strength, and he surprised
+me by the power with which he grappled the matters under discussion, and
+the strong personality before which obstacles went down as swiftly and
+inevitably as grain before the knife of his machine. 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
+achievements, so far-reaching in its impress, alike upon the material,
+moral, and religious progress of the country, and so thoroughly
+successful and beneficial in every department of activity and influence
+which it entered." One of his friends, speaking of Mr. McCormick, said:
+"That which gave intensity to his purpose, strength to his will, and
+nerved him with perseverance that never failed was his supreme regard
+for justice, his worshipful reverence for the true and right. The
+thoroughness of his conviction that justice must be done, that right
+must be maintained, made him insensible to reproach and impatient of
+delay. I do not wonder that his character was strong, nor that his
+purpose was invincible, nor that his plans were crowned with an ultimate
+and signal success, for where conviction of right is the motive-power
+and the attainment of justice the end in view, with faith in God there
+is no such word as fail."
+
+Cyrus H. McCormick was not only the inventor of a great labor-saving
+device, but he helped his fellow-man in other ways. Philanthropy,
+religion, education, journalism, and politics received a share of his
+attention. More than thirty years ago he was already an active power for
+good in the councils of his church. In 1859 he proposed to the General
+Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to endow with $100,000 the
+professorships of a theological seminary, to be established in Chicago.
+This was done, and during his lifetime he gave about half a million
+dollars to this institution--the Theological Seminary of the Northwest.
+The McCormick professorship of natural philosophy in the Washington and
+Lee University of Virginia, and gifts to the Union Theological Seminary
+at Hampden-Sidney, and to the college at Hastings, Neb., also attest his
+solicitude for the church in which he had been reared and of which he
+had been a member since 1834. In 1872 he came to the aid of the
+struggling organ of the Presbyterian Church in the Northwest, the
+_Interior_, and used it to foster union between the Old and the New
+Schools in the church, to aid in harmonizing the Presbyterian Church in
+the North and South, to advance the interests of the Theological
+Seminary, and to promote the welfare of the Presbyterian Church in the
+Northwest. Under his care and advice the _Interior_ grew to be a mighty
+voice, expressing the convictions, the aspirations, and hopes of a great
+church.
+
+[Illustration: Thomas A. Edison.]
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+THOMAS A. EDISON.
+
+
+[Illustration: Edison's Paper Carbon Lamp.]
+
+Thomas A. Edison is sometimes spoken of rather as a master mechanic than
+as a master inventor or discoverer, and with regard to some of his
+work--I might even say most of it--this characterization holds true.
+Edison's fame is chiefly associated in the popular mind with the
+electric light. Yet it is perfectly well known to every student of the
+matter, that in all that he has done toward making the electric light a
+useful every-day--or perhaps I should say every-night--affair, he has
+simply made practicable what other men had invented or discovered before
+him. 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 time, 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 century. As early as
+1849 Despretz, the French scientist, described a series of experiments
+with sticks of carbon sealed in a glass globe from which air had been
+exhausted. When a powerful current was passed through the carbon
+filament it became luminous and remained so for a short time. This was,
+perhaps, the first of a long line of similar experiments in which a
+number of American physicists--Farmer, Draper, Henry, Morse, and Maxim
+among them--took part. But notwithstanding the labors of a score of
+experts in Europe and this country, the incandescent electric light--the
+wire in a glass bulb exhausted of its air--remained a laboratory
+curiosity up to the time, fifteen years ago, when Edison took hold of
+it. It gave light only for a short time and was too expensive a toy for
+practical use. The carbon burned out or disintegrated, and the lamp
+failed. Edison took hold of the mechanical difficulties of the problem.
+With a patience, an ingenuity, a fertility of device in which he stands
+alone, he got to the bottom of each radical defect and remedied it. The
+lamp would not burn long because the platinum wire used gave out, partly
+because platinum was not fitted for the work, fusing at too low a
+temperature. Edison substituted carbonized strips of paper. These in
+turn failed, and he found a species of bamboo that answered. The lamp
+would not burn because air still remained in the little bulbs
+notwithstanding the most careful manipulation with Sprengel pumps to
+exhaust the air. Edison invented new pumps and devices by which the
+air, down to one millionth part, was excluded. The lamp cost too much to
+operate, because large copper wires were needed to carry the current,
+and the generators used up steam power too fast. Edison devised new
+forms of conductors and generators. All such work called more for
+mechanical ingenuity than for actual invention. No new principles were
+involved--merely the better adaptation of known methods. Given a perfect
+carbon, a globe perfectly free from air, cheap electric current, and
+cheap means of carrying it from the generating machine to the lamps, and
+the problem was solved.
+
+Edison, as a master mechanic, furnished all this, 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
+way, and destined some day to be infinitely cheaper.
+
+With regard to Edison's work upon the telegraph, telephone, electric
+railway, dynamo, the ore-extracting machines, the electric pen, 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
+generation, the labor of this remarkable genius has also been largely
+that of one who made practical and useful the dreams of others. 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 there. It is certain that before Edison we had
+no electric lights; now we have them in every important building in the
+country, and ere long shall have them everywhere.
+
+Edison dislikes intensely the term discoverer as applied to himself.
+"Discovery is not invention," he once remarked in the course of an
+interesting talk with Mr. George Parsons Lathrop, printed in _Harper's
+Magazine_. "A discovery is more or less in the nature of an accident. A
+man walks along the road intending to catch the train. On the way his
+foot kicks against something, and looking down to see what he has hit,
+he sees a gold bracelet embedded in the dust. He has discovered that,
+certainly not invented it. He did not set out to find a bracelet, yet
+the value of it is just as great to him at the moment as if, after long
+years of study, he had invented a machine for making a gold bracelet out
+of common road metal. Goodyear discovered the way to make hard rubber.
+He was at work experimenting with india-rubber, and quite by chance he
+hit upon a process which hardened it--the last result in the world that
+he wished or expected to attain. In a discovery there must be an element
+of the accidental, and an important one, too; while an invention is
+purely deductive. In my own case but few, and those the least important,
+of my inventions owed anything to accident. Most of them have been
+hammered out after long and patient labor, and are the result of
+countless experiments all directed toward attaining some well-defined
+object. All mechanical improvements may safely be said to be inventions
+and not discoveries. The sewing-machine was an invention. So were the
+steam-engine and the typewriter. Speaking of this latter, did I ever
+tell you that I made the first twelve typewriters at my old factory in
+Railroad Avenue, Newark? This was in 1869 or 1870, and I myself had
+worked at a machine of similar character, but never found time to
+develop it fully."
+
+[Illustration: Edison Listening to his Phonograph.]
+
+There is one great invention, however, for which Edison deserves credit,
+both as discoverer and practical inventor--the phonograph. Here was a
+genuine discovery. The phonograph knows no other parent than Edison, and
+he has brought it to its present condition by devotion and tireless
+skill. 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 man. There are still obstacles in the way of its
+practical success, but that the missing screw or spring--perhaps no more
+than that--will be found in the near future, is not doubted by any
+competent observer.
+
+Thomas Alva Edison was born February 11, 1847, at Milan, Erie County,
+O., an obscure canal village. When a small boy, his family, a most
+humble one (his father being a village jack-of-all-trades, living upon
+odd jobs done for neighboring farmers), moved to Port Huron, Mich.,
+where Edison's boyhood was passed. There his father was in turn tailor,
+well-digger, nursery-man, dealer in grain, lumber, and farm lands. His
+parents were of Dutch-Scotch descent and gave him the iron constitution
+that enables him to-day, at the age of forty-seven, to tire out the most
+robust of his assistants. One of his ancestors lived to the age of one
+hundred and two, and another to the age of one hundred and three, 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 dream. His mother,
+born in Massachusetts, had a good education and at one time taught
+school in Canada. Of regular schooling, young Edison had but two months
+in his life. Whatever else he knew as a boy he learned from his mother.
+There are no records showing extraordinary promise on his part. He was
+an omnivorous reader, having an intense curiosity about the world and
+its great men. At ten years of age he was reading Hume's "England,"
+Gibbon's "Rome," the Penny Encyclopaedia, and some books on chemistry.
+
+At the age of twelve he entered upon his life work as newsboy on the
+Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada and the Michigan Central, selling papers,
+books, candies, etc., to the passengers.
+
+"Were you one of the train-boys," he was once asked, "who sold figs in
+boxes with bottoms half an inch thick?"
+
+"If I recollect aright," he replied, with a merry twinkle, "the bottoms
+of my boxes were a good inch."
+
+[Illustration: From Edison's Newspaper, the "Grand Trunk Herald."]
+
+Perhaps the twelve-year-old boy learned something from the books and
+papers he sold. At all events he says that the love of chemistry, even
+at that age, led him to make the corner of the baggage-car where he
+stored his wares a small laboratory, fitted up with such retorts and
+bottles as he could pick up in the railroad workshops. He had a copy of
+Fresenius's "Qualitative Analysis," 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 head. He seems also to have had a habit
+of "hanging around" all interesting places, from a machine-shop to a
+printing-office, keeping his eyes very wide open. In one such expedition
+he received as a gift from W.F. Storey, of the _Detroit Free Press_,
+three hundred pounds of old type thrown out as useless. With an old
+hand-press he began printing a paper of his own, the _Grand Trunk
+Herald_, of which he sold several hundred copies a week, the employees
+of the road being his best customers. "My news," he says, talking of
+this time, "was purely local. But I was proud of my newspaper and looked
+upon myself as a full-fledged newspaper man. My items used to run about
+like this: 'John Robinson, baggage-master at James's Creek Station, fell
+off the platform yesterday and hurt his leg. The boys are sorry for
+John.' Or, 'No. 3 Burlington engine has gone into the shed for
+repairs.'"
+
+This was Edison's only dip into a literary occupation. He has no
+predilection in that way. He realizes the value of newspapers and books,
+but chiefly as tools, and his splendid library at the Orange laboratory,
+kept with scrupulous system, is filled with scientific books and
+periodicals only. Telegraphy was to be the field in which he was to win
+his first laurels. Some years ago he told the story as follows:
+
+"At the beginning of the civil war I was slaving late and early at
+selling papers; but, to tell the truth, I was not making a fortune. I
+worked on so small a margin that I had to be mighty careful not to
+overload myself with papers that I could not sell. On the other hand, I
+could not afford to carry so few that I should find myself sold out long
+before the end of the trip. To enable myself to hit the happy mean, I
+formed a plan which turned out admirably. I made a friend of one of the
+compositors of the _Free Press_ office, and persuaded him to show me
+every day a 'galley-proof' of the most important news article. From a
+study of its head-lines I soon learned to gauge the value of the day's
+news and its selling capacity, so that I could form a tolerably correct
+estimate of the number of papers I should need. As a rule I could
+dispose of about two hundred; but if there was any special news from the
+seat of war, the sale ran up to three hundred or over. Well, one day my
+compositor brought me a proof-slip of which nearly the whole was taken
+up with a gigantic display head. It was the first report of the battle
+of Pittsburgh Landing--afterward called Shiloh, you know--and it gave
+the number of killed and wounded as sixty thousand men.
+
+"I grasped the situation at once. Here was a chance for enormous sales,
+if only the people along the line could know what had happened! If only
+they could see the proof-slip I was then reading! Suddenly an idea
+occurred to me. I rushed off to the telegraph-operator and gravely made
+a proposition to him which he received just as gravely. He on his part
+was to wire to each of the principal stations on our route, 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
+battle, with its accompanying slaughter. This he was to do at once,
+while I, in return, agreed to supply him with current literature 'free,
+gratis, for nothing' during the next six months from that date.
+
+"This bargain struck, I began to bethink me how I was to get enough
+papers to make the grand _coup_ I intended. I had very little cash and,
+I feared, still less credit. I went to the superintendent of the
+delivery department, and preferred a modest request for one thousand
+copies of the _Free Press_ on trust. I was not much surprised when my
+request was curtly and gruffly refused. In those days, though, I was a
+pretty cheeky boy and I felt desperate, 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 doubtful. Nerving myself for a great stroke, I
+marched upstairs into the office of Wilbur F. Storey himself and asked
+to see him. A few minutes later I was shown in to him. I told who I was,
+and that I wanted fifteen hundred copies of the paper on credit. The
+tall, thin, dark-eyed, ascetic-looking man stared at me for a moment and
+then scratched a few words on a slip of paper. 'Take that downstairs,'
+said he, 'and you will get what you want.' And so I did. Then I felt
+happier than I have ever felt since.
+
+"I took my fifteen hundred papers, got three boys to help me fold them,
+and mounted the train all agog to find out whether the telegraph
+operator had kept his word. At the town where our first stop was made I
+usually sold two papers. As the train swung into that station I looked
+ahead and thought there must be a riot going on. A big crowd filled the
+platform and as the train drew up I began to realize that they wanted my
+papers. Before we left I had sold a hundred or two at five cents apiece.
+At the next station the place was fairly black with people. I raised the
+'ante' and sold three hundred papers at ten cents each. So it went on
+until Port Huron was reached. Then I transferred my remaining stock to
+the wagon which always waited for me there, hired a small boy to sit on
+the pile of papers in the back, so as to discount any pilfering, and
+sold out every paper I had at a quarter of a dollar or more per copy. I
+remember I passed a church full of worshippers, and stopped to yell out
+my news. In ten seconds there was not a soul left in meeting. All of
+them, including the parson, were clustered around me, bidding against
+each other for copies of the precious paper.
+
+"You can understand why it struck me then that the telegraph must be
+about the best thing going, for it was the telegraphic notices on the
+bulletin-boards that had done the trick. I determined at once to become
+a telegraph-operator. But if it hadn't been for Wilbur F. Storey I
+should never have fully appreciated the wonders of electrical science."
+
+Telegraphy became a hobby with the boy. From every operator along the
+road he picked up something. He strung the basement of his father's
+house at Port Huron with wires, and constructed a short line, using for
+the batteries stove-pipe wire, old bottles, nails, 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 pound. In order to save time for his experiments, he had the
+habit of leaping from a train while it was going at the rate of
+twenty-five miles an hour, landing upon a pile of sand arranged by him
+for that purpose. 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 career, for the grateful father taught him
+telegraphing in the regular way. Telegraphy was then in its infancy,
+comparatively speaking; operators were few, and good wages could be
+earned by means of much less proficiency than is now required. Still,
+Edison had so little leisure at his disposal for learning the new trade,
+that it took him several years to become an expert operator. Most of his
+studies were carried on in the corner of the baggage-car that served him
+as printing-office, laboratory, and business headquarters. With so many
+irons in the fire, mishaps were sure to occur. Once he received a
+drubbing on account of an article reflecting unpleasantly upon some
+employee of the road. One day during his absence a bottle of phosphorus
+upset and set the old railroad caboose on fire, whereupon the conductor
+threw out all the painfully acquired apparatus and thrashed its owner.
+
+Edison's first regular employment as telegraph-operator was at
+Indianapolis when he was eighteen years old. He received a small salary
+for day-work in the railroad office there, and at night he used to
+receive newspaper reports for practice. The regular operator was a man
+given to copious libations, who was glad enough to sleep off their
+effects while Edison and a young friend of his named Parmley did his
+work. "I would sit down," says Edison, "for ten minutes, and 'take' as
+much as I could from the instrument, carrying the rest in my head. Then
+while I wrote out, Parmley would serve his turn at 'taking,' and so on.
+This worked well until they put a new man on at the Cincinnati end. He
+was one of the quickest despatchers in the business, and we soon found
+it was hopeless for us to try to keep up with him. Then it was that I
+worked out my first invention, and necessity was certainly the mother of
+it.
+
+"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 end, and were transmitted to us through the other instrument
+at any desired rate of speed. They would come in on one instrument at
+the rate of forty words a minute, and would be ground out of our
+instrument at the rate of twenty-five. Then weren't we proud! Our copy
+used to be so clean and beautiful that we hung it up on exhibition; and
+our manager used to come and gaze at it silently with a puzzled
+expression. He could not understand it, neither could any of the other
+operators; for we used to hide my impromptu automatic recorder when our
+toil was over. But the crash came when there was a big night's work--a
+Presidential vote, 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 behind. The
+newspapers sent in frantic complaints, an investigation was made, and
+our little scheme was discovered. We couldn't use it any more.
+
+[Illustration: Edison's Tinfoil Phonograph--the First Practical
+Machine.]
+
+"It was that same rude automatic recorder that indirectly led me long
+afterward to invent the phonograph. I'll tell you how this came about.
+After thinking over the matter a great deal, I came to the point where,
+in 1877, 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 code, but would also repeat a message any number of times
+at any rate of speed required. I was then experimenting with the
+telephone also, and my mind was filled with theories of sound vibrations
+and their transmission by diaphragms. Naturally enough, the idea
+occurred to me: if the indentations on paper could be made to give forth
+again the click of the instrument, why could not the vibrations of a
+diaphragm be recorded and similarly reproduced? I rigged up an
+instrument hastily and pulled a strip of paper through it, at the same
+time shouting, 'Hallo'! Then the paper was pulled through again, my
+friend Batchelor and I listening breathlessly. We heard a distinct
+sound, which a strong imagination might have translated into the
+original 'Hallo.' That was enough to lead me to a further experiment.
+But Batchelor was sceptical, and bet me a barrel of apples that I
+couldn't make the thing go. I made a drawing of a model and took it to
+Mr. Kruesi, at that time engaged on piece-work for me, but now assistant
+general manager of our machine-shop at Schenectady. I told him it was a
+talking-machine. He grinned, thinking it a joke; but he set to work and
+soon had the model ready. I arranged some tinfoil on it, and spoke into
+the machine. Kruesi looked on, still grinning. But when I arranged the
+machine for transmission and we both heard a distinct sound from it, he
+nearly fell down in his fright. I was a little scared myself, I must
+admit. I won that barrel of apples from Batchelor, though, and was
+mighty glad to get it."
+
+
+To go back to earlier days, 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 operator. He was full of ideas, some of which were
+gratefully received. One day an ice-jam broke the cable between Port
+Huron, in Michigan, and Sarnia, on the Canada side, and stopped
+communication. The river is a mile and a half wide and was impassable.
+Young Edison jumped upon a locomotive and seized the valve controlling
+the whistle. He had the idea that the scream of the whistle might be
+broken into long and short notes, corresponding to the dots and dashes
+of the telegraphic code. "Hallo there, Sarnia! Do you get me? Do you
+hear what I say?" tooted the locomotive.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Do you hear what I say, Sarnia?"
+
+A third, fourth, and fifth time the message went across without
+response, but finally the idea was caught on the other side; answering
+toots came cheerfully back and the connection was recovered.
+
+Anything connected with the difficulties of telegraphy had a fascination
+for him. He lost many a place because of unpardonable blunders due to
+his passion for improvement. At Stratford, Canada, being required to
+report the word "Six" every half hour to the manager to show that he was
+awake and on duty, he rigged up a wheel to do it for him. At
+Indianapolis he kept press reports waiting while he experimented with
+new devices for receiving them. At Louisville, in procuring some
+sulphuric acid at night for his experiments, he tipped over a carboy of
+it, ruining the handsome outfit of a banking establishment below. At
+Cincinnati he abandoned the office on every pretext to hasten to the
+Mechanics' Library to pass his day in reading.
+
+An indication of his thirst for knowledge, and of a _naive_ ignoring of
+enormous difficulties, is found in a project formed by him at this time
+to read through the whole public library. There was no one to tell him
+that a summary of human knowledge may be found in a moderate number of
+volumes, nor to point out to him what they are. Each book was to him a
+part of the great domain of knowledge, none of which he meant to lose.
+He began with the solid treatises of a dusty lower shelf and actually
+read, in the accomplishment of his heroic purpose, fifteen feet along
+that shelf. He omitted no book and nothing in the book. The list
+contained Newton's "Principia," Ure's Scientific Dictionary, and
+Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy."
+
+At that time a message sent from New Orleans to New York had to be taken
+at Memphis, re-telegraphed to Louisville, taken down again by the
+operator there, and telegraphed to another centre, and so on till it
+reached New York. Time was lost and the chance of error was increased.
+Edison was the first to connect New Orleans and New York directly. It
+was just after the war. He perfected an automatic repeater which was put
+on at Memphis and did its work perfectly. The manager of the office
+there, one Johnson, had a relative who was also busy on the same
+problem, but Edison solved it ahead of him and received complimentary
+notices from the local papers. He was discharged without cause. He got a
+pass as far as Decatur on his way home, but had to walk from there to
+Nashville, a hundred and fifty miles. From there he got a pass to
+Louisville, where he arrived during a sharp snow-storm, clad in a linen
+duster.
+
+It was soon after this that Edison, already a swift and competent
+operator when he devoted himself to practical work, received promise of
+employment in the Boston office. The weather was quite cold and his
+peculiar dress, topped with a slouchy broad-brimmed hat, made something
+of a sensation. But Edison then cared as little for dress as he does
+to-day. So one raw wet day a tall man with a limp, wet duster clinging
+to his legs, stalked into the superintendent's room, and said:
+
+"Here I am."
+
+The superintendent eyed him from head to foot, and said:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Tom Edison."
+
+"And who on earth might Tom Edison be?"
+
+The young man explained that he had been ordered to report for duty at
+the Boston office, and was finally told to sit down in the
+operating-room, where his advent created much merriment. The operators
+guyed him loudly enough for him to hear. He didn't care. A few moments
+later a New York sender noted for his swiftness called up the Boston
+office. There was no one at liberty.
+
+"Well," said the office chief, "let that new fellow try him." Edison sat
+down, and for four hours and a half wrote out messages in his peculiarly
+clear round hand, stuck a date and number on them and threw them on the
+floor for the office boy to pick up. The time he took in numbering and
+dating the sheets were the only seconds he was not writing out
+transmitted words. Faster and faster ticked the instrument, and faster
+and faster went Edison's fingers, until the rapidity with which the
+messages came tumbling on the floor attracted the attention of the
+other operators, who, when their work was done, gathered around to
+witness the spectacle. At the close of the four and a half hours' work
+there flashed from New York the salutation:
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Hello yourself," ticked back Edison.
+
+"Who the devil are you?" rattled into the Boston office.
+
+"Tom Edison."
+
+"You are the first man in the country," ticked the instrument, "that
+could ever take me at my fastest, and the only one who could ever sit at
+the other end of my wire for more than two hours and a half. I'm proud
+to know you."
+
+Edison was once asked with what invention he really began his career as
+an inventor.
+
+"Well," said he, in reply, "my first appearance at the Patent Office was
+in 1868, when I was twenty-one, with an ingenious contrivance which I
+called the electrical vote recorder. I had been impressed with the
+enormous waste of time in Congress and in the State Legislatures by the
+taking of votes on any motion. More than half an hour was sometimes
+required to count the 'Ayes' and 'Noes.' So I devised a machine somewhat
+on the plan of the hotel annunciator that was invented long afterward,
+only mine was a great deal more complex. In front of each member's desk
+were to have been two buttons, one for 'Aye,' the other for 'No,' and by
+the side of the Speaker's desk a frame with two dials, one showing the
+total of 'Ayes' and the other the total of 'Noes.' When the vote was
+called for, each member could press the button he wished and the result
+would appear automatically before the Speaker, who could glance at the
+dials and announce the result. This contrivance would save several hours
+of public time every day in the session, and I thought my fortune was
+made. I interested a moneyed man in the thing and we went together to
+Washington, where we soon found the right man to get the machine
+adopted. I set forth its merits. Imagine my feelings when, in a
+horrified tone, he exclaimed:
+
+[Illustration: Vote Recorder--Edison's First Patented Invention.]
+
+"'Young man, that won't do at all. That is just what we do not want.
+Your invention would destroy the only hope the minority have of
+influencing legislation. It would deliver them over, bound hand and
+foot, to the majority. The present system gives them time, a weapon
+which is invaluable, and as the ruling majority always knows that they
+may some day become a minority, they will be as much averse to any
+change as their opponents.' I saw the force of these remarks, and the
+vote recorder got no further than the Patent Office."
+
+But he began to believe in himself. His next work was upon the
+applications of the vibratory principle in telegraphing, upon which so
+many of his subsequent inventions were founded. His first ambitious
+attempt was in the direction of a multiplex system for sending several
+messages over one wire at the same time. It was not much of a success,
+however, and Edison drifted to New York, where, after a vain attempt to
+interest the telegraph companies in his inventions, he established
+himself as an electrical expert ready for odd jobs and making a
+specialty of telegraphy. One day the Western Union Company had trouble
+with its Albany Wire. The wire wasn't broken, but wouldn't work, and
+several days of experimenting on the part of the company's electricians
+only served to puzzle them the more. As a forlorn hope they sent for
+young Edison.
+
+"How long will you give me?" he asked. "Six hours?"
+
+The manager laughed and told him he would need longer than that.
+
+Edison sat down at the instrument, established communication with Albany
+by way of Pittsburgh, told the Albany office to put their best man at
+the instrument, and began a rapid series of tests with currents of all
+intensities. He directed the tests from both ends, and after two hours
+and a half told the company's officers that the trouble existed at a
+certain point he named on the line, and he told them what it was. They
+telegraphed the office nearest this point the necessary directions, and
+an hour later the wire was working properly. This incident first
+established his value in New York as an expert, and the business became
+profitable. Moreover, it led the different telegraph companies to give
+respectful attention to what he had to offer in the way of patented
+devices.
+
+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 existence, all of which were using what was known as
+the Page sounder, a device for signalling, the sole right to which was
+claimed by the Western Union Company. Owing to the latter company's
+success in a patent suit over this sounder, there came a time when an
+injunction was obtained, silencing all sounders of that type, and
+practically putting a serious obstacle in the way of rapid work. Edison
+was called into the president's office and the situation explained. For
+a long time, according to one who was present, he stood chewing
+vigorously upon a mouthful of tobacco, looking first at the sounder in
+his hand, and then falling into a brown study. At length he picked up a
+sheet of tin used as a "back" for manifolding on thin sheets of paper,
+and began to twist and cut it into queer shapes; a group of persons
+gathered around and watched. Not a word was spoken. Finally Edison tore
+off the Page sounder on the instrument before him, and substituting his
+bit of tin, began working. It was not so good as the patented
+arrangement discarded, but it worked. In four hours a hundred such
+devices were in use over the line, and what would have been a ruinous
+interruption to business was avoided.
+
+Edison's first large sums of money came from the sale of an improvement
+in the instruments used to record stock quotations in brokers' offices,
+commonly known as "tickers." His success in this direction led him to
+take a contract to manufacture some hundreds of "tickers," and his only
+venture in this direction was carried out with considerable success at a
+shop he rented in Newark about 1875. But as he told me a few years
+later, in talking about this incident in his career, manufacturing was
+not in his line. Like Thoreau, who having succeeded in making a perfect
+lead-pencil, declared he should never make another, he hates routine. "I
+was a poor manufacturer," said he, "because I could not let well enough
+alone. My first impulse upon taking any apparatus into my hand, from an
+egg-beater to an electric-motor, is to seek a way of improving it.
+Therefore, as soon as I have finished a machine I am anxious to take it
+apart again in order to make an experiment. That is a costly mania for a
+manufacturer."
+
+[Illustration: Edison in his Laboratory.]
+
+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 light, they
+to pay the expense of the experiments and share in the inventions if
+any were made. For the sake of quiet Edison moved out to Menlo Park,
+a little station on the Pennsylvania road about twenty-five miles beyond
+Newark, and built a shop twenty-eight feet wide, one hundred feet long,
+and two stories high. It was here that I first made his acquaintance, in
+January, 1879, soon after the newspapers had announced that he had
+solved the problem of the electric light. It may be remembered that gas
+stock tumbled in price at that time, and there was a rush to sell before
+the new light should displace gas altogether. One cold day I climbed the
+hill from the station, and once past the reception-room, in which every
+new-comer was carefully scrutinized, for inventors are apt to have odds
+and ends lying about that they do not want seen by everyone, I found
+myself in a long big work-shop. To anyone accustomed to the orderly
+appearance of the ideal machine-shop, it presented a curious appearance,
+for evidently half the machines in it--forges, lathes, furnaces,
+retorts, etc.--were dismantled for the moment and useless. Half a dozen
+workmen were busy in an apparently aimless manner.
+
+Upstairs, in a room devoted to chemical experiments, I found Edison
+himself. He is to-day just what he was then. Prosperity has not changed
+him in the least, except perhaps in one particular. In those days of
+struggle the inventor was far less affable with visitors than he is
+to-day. 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 night. As I strode across the
+laboratory in the direction indicated by one of the workmen present, a
+compactly built but not tall man, with rather a boyish, clean-shaven
+face, prematurely old, was holding a vial of some liquid up to the
+light. He had on a blouse such as chemists wear, but it was hardly
+necessary, as his clothes were well stained with acids; his hands were
+covered with some oil with which his hair was liberally streaked, as he
+had a habit of wiping his fingers upon his head. "Good clothes are
+wasted upon me," he once explained to me. "I feel it is wrong to wear
+any, and I never put on a new suit when I can help it." Edison has been
+slightly deaf for a number of years, and like all persons of defective
+hearing, closely watches anyone with whom he talks. His patience with
+visitors is proverbial, and provided any intelligence is shown, he will
+plunge into long explanations. As he goes on from point to point,
+warming up to his subject, 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 Sanskrit. Then he
+laughs and goes back to simpler matters.
+
+I watched him for a few moments before presenting myself. After a long
+look at his bottle, held up against the light, he put it down again on
+the table before him, and resting his head between his hands, both
+elbows on the table, he peered down at the bottle as if he expected it
+to say something. Then, after a moment's brown study, he would seize it
+again, give it a shake, as if to shake its secret out, and hold it up to
+the light. As pantomime nothing could have been more expressive. That
+liquid contained a secret it would not give up, but if it could be made
+to give it up, Edison was the man to do it, as a terrier might worry the
+life out of a rat.
+
+[Illustration: Edison's Menlo Park Electric Locomotive (1880).]
+
+The secret of his success might well be "Persistency, more persistency,
+still more persistency." One of his foremen relates that once in Newark
+when his printing telegraph suddenly refused to work, he locked himself
+into his laboratory, declaring that he would not come out till the
+trouble was found. It took him sixty hours, during which time his only
+food consisted of crackers and cheese eaten at the bench; then he went
+to bed and slept twenty hours at a stretch. At another time, during the
+height of the first electric-light excitement, all the lamps he had
+burning in Menlo Park, about eighty in all, suddenly went out, one after
+another, without apparent cause. Everything had gone well for nearly a
+month and the great success of the experiment had been published to the
+world. If the lamps, 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 year, and Edison was stunned by the catastrophe. The trouble was
+evidently in the lamps themselves, for new lamps burned well. Then began
+the most exciting and most exhaustive series of experiments ever
+undertaken by an American physicist. For five days Edison remained day
+and night at the laboratory, sleeping only when his assistants took his
+place at whatever was going on. The difficulties in the way of
+experimenting with the incandescent lamp are enormous because the light
+only burns when in a vacuum. The instant the glass is broken, out it
+goes. Edison's eyes grew weak studying the brilliant glow of the carbon
+filament. At the end of the five days he took to his bed, worn out with
+excitement and sick with disappointment. During the last two days and
+nights he ate nothing. He could not sleep, for the moment he left the
+laboratory and closed his eyes some new test suggested itself. Neither
+was there much sleep for his faithful force. Ordinarily one of the most
+considerate of men, he seemed quite surprised when rest and refreshments
+were sometimes suggested as in order after fifteen hours' incessant
+work. The trouble was finally discovered to be one that time alone could
+have proved. The air was not sufficiently exhausted from the lamps. To
+add to the discomfiture of the inventor, 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
+itself.
+
+"I'll make a statue of that man," said Edison to me one day when he was
+still groping in the dark for the secret of his temporary defeat, "and
+I'll illuminate it brilliantly with Edison lamps and inscribe it: 'This
+is the man who said the Edison lamp would not burn.'"
+
+To go back to Edison, shaking his bottle in the sunlight, his brown
+study gave way to a pleasant smile of welcome when I had made my
+business known. "Take a look at these filings," he said, making room for
+me at the bench. "See how curiously they settle when I shake the bottle
+up. In alcohol they behave one way, but in oil in this way. Isn't that
+the most curious thing you ever saw--better than a play at one of your
+city theatres, eh?" and he chuckled to himself as he shook them up
+again.
+
+"What I want to know," he went on, more to himself than to me, "is what
+they mean by it, and I'm going to find out." To me the interesting
+spectacle was Edison tossing up his bottle and watching the filings
+settle, and not the curious behavior of the filings.
+
+When he put the bottle by, with a deep sigh, he took me over the whole
+place, pointing out with particular pride the apparatus for making the
+paper carbons for the lamps, and the new forms of Sprengel mercury pumps
+that did better work in extracting air from the lamps than any yet
+devised.
+
+Looking back to that first visit to Edison, the first of perhaps a score
+that I have had occasion to make him in the last fifteen years, what
+impressed me most was the immensity of the field in which he takes an
+interest. Ask Edison what he thinks will be the next step in the
+development of the sewing-machine, or the telescope, the microscope, the
+steam-engine, the electric-motor, the reaping-machine, or any device by
+which man accomplishes much work in little time, and invariably it will
+be found that he has some novel ideas upon the subject, perhaps fanciful
+in the extreme, but practical enough to show that he has pondered the
+matter. He shares the opinion of the gentleman who insists that whatever
+is is wrong, but only to this extent: that whatever is might be better.
+Authority means nothing to him; he must test for himself. For instance,
+it is well known that he rejects the Newtonian theory in part and holds
+that motion is an inherent property of matter; that it pushes, finding
+its way in the direction of least resistance, and is not pulled or
+attracted. "It seems to me," he said once, "that every atom is possessed
+by a certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousand
+ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements,
+forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say that they do
+this without intelligence? Atoms in harmonious and useful relation
+assume beautiful or interesting shapes and colors, or give forth a
+pleasant perfume, as if expressing their satisfaction. In sickness,
+death, decomposition, or filth the disagreement of the component atoms
+immediately makes itself felt by bad odors." It is partly due to this
+belief in the sensibility of atoms that Edison attributes his faith in
+an intelligent Creator.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is hard to say into what field of inquiry Edison has not dipped. He
+told me once that whenever he travelled he carried a note-book with him,
+in which he jotted down suggestions for experiments to be made. Railway
+journeys, at a time when Edison was a constant traveller, were
+productive of much material of this kind, for the inventor never sleeps
+when travelling, and his brain works, going over, even in a doze, the
+thousand and one aspects of his work, and evolving theories to be
+dismissed almost as soon as evolved. His mind, when at rest, reviews his
+day's work almost automatically, just as a chess player's brain will,
+after an exciting game, go over every situation in a half dream-like
+condition and evolve new solutions. He has great respect for even what
+appear to be the most inconsequential observations, provided they are
+made by a competent person, and a large force in his splendid
+laboratory at Orange is always employed in studies that appear to the
+outsider to be aimless; for instance, the action of chemicals upon
+various substances or upon each other. Strips of ivory in a certain oil
+become transparent in six weeks. A globule of mercury in water takes
+various shapes for the opposite poles of the electric-battery upon the
+addition of a little potassium. There is no present use for the
+knowledge of such facts, but it is recorded in voluminous note-books,
+and some day the connecting-link in the chain of an invaluable discovery
+may here be found.
+
+My next visit to Menlo Park was a few months later, when I found Edison
+in bed sick with disappointment. The lamps had again taken to antics for
+which no remedy or explanation could be discovered. There was an air of
+desolation over the place. The laboratory was cold and comfortless. Upon
+every side were signs of strict economy. Most of the assistants were
+young men glad to work for little or nothing. 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 feature. Expert
+glass-blowers were brought to Menlo Park, the air-pumps were made more
+perfect, new substances were tried for carbons. All this had taken time,
+during which outsiders freely predicted failure. The stock in the
+enterprise fell to such a price that it was hard to raise money for the
+maintenance of the laboratory. It was argued, and with some truth, as I
+have had occasion to remark, that Edison had really discovered nothing
+new; he had attempted to do what a dozen famous men had tried before him
+and he had failed. The quotations of New York gas stocks rose again.
+
+The next time I visited the laboratory, a few days later, Edison was up
+again and talking cheerfully. But he had grown five years older in five
+months. "I shall succeed," he said to me, "but it may take me longer
+than I at first supposed. Everything is so new that each step is in the
+dark; I have to make the dynamos, the lamps, the conductors, and attend
+to a thousand details that the world never hears of. At the same time I
+have to think about the expense of my work. That galls me. My one
+ambition is to be able to work without regard to the expense. What I
+mean is, 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 another, I can do it without having to think of
+the cost. My greatest luxury would be a laboratory more perfect than any
+we have in this country. I want a splendid collection of material--every
+chemical, every metal, every substance in fact that may be of use to me,
+and I hardly know what may not be of use. I want all this right at hand,
+within a few feet of my own house. Give me these advantages and I shall
+gladly devote fifteen hours a day to solid work. I want none of the rich
+man's usual toys, no matter how rich I may become. I want no horses or
+yachts--have no time for them. I want a perfect workshop."
+
+In the last twelve years Edison has seen his dream fulfilled. His
+electric light has not displaced gas, by any means, but it has been the
+foundation of a business large enough to make the inventor sufficiently
+rich to build the finest laboratory in the world, 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 eye. He is still a gaunt fellow, with a
+slight stoop, a clean-shaven face, and a low voice. His hands are still
+soiled with acids, his clothes are shabby, and there is always a cigar
+in his mouth.
+
+[Illustration: The Home of Thomas A. Edison.]
+
+[Illustration: Edison's Laboratory.]
+
+The Edison laboratory deserves a chapter by itself. In 1886 Edison
+bought a fine villa in Llewellyn Park at a cost of $150,000. He took the
+house as it stood, with all its luxurious fittings, rather to please his
+wife than himself; a corner of the laboratory would suit him quite as
+well. Right outside the gates of the park and within view of the house,
+he bought ten acres of land and began his laboratory. Two handsome
+structures of brick, each 60 feet wide, 100 feet long, and four stories
+high, accommodate the machine-shop, library, lecture-room, experimental
+workshops, assistants' rooms and store-rooms. The boiler-house and
+dynamo-rooms are outside the main buildings. Also, in a separate room,
+the floor of which consists of immense blocks of stone, are the delicate
+instruments of precision used in testing electric currents. The
+instruments in this one room, twenty feet square, cost $18,000 to make
+and to import from Europe. Upon first entering the main building, the
+visitor finds what is apparently a busy factory of some sort, with long
+rows of machinery, from steam-hammers to diamond-lathes. Everywhere
+workmen are busy at their tasks, and Edison has good reason to be proud
+of his laboratory force, for it consists of the picked workmen of the
+country. Whenever he finds in one of the Edison factories in Newark,
+New York, Schenectady, or elsewhere a particularly expert and
+intelligent man, he has him transferred to the Orange laboratory, where,
+at increased pay for shorter hours, the man not only finds life
+pleasanter, but has a chance of learning and becoming somebody. The
+whole place hums with the rattle of machinery and glows with electric
+light. There are eighty assistants, who have charge of the various
+departments. The most expert iron-workers, glass-blowers, wood-turners,
+metal-spinners, screw-makers, chemists, and machinists in the country
+are to be found here. A rough drawing of the most complicated model is
+all they require to work from.
+
+The store-rooms contain all the material needed. Four store-keepers are
+employed to keep the supplies, valued at $100,000, in order and ready
+for use at a moment's notice. Each article is put down in a catalogue
+which shows the shelf or bottle where it may be found. Every known
+metal, every chemical known to science, every kind of glass, stone,
+earth, wood, fibre, paper, skin, cloth, is to be found there. In making
+up the chemical collection an assistant was kept at work for weeks going
+through the three most exhaustive works on chemistry in English, French,
+and German, making a note of every substance mentioned, and this list
+constituted the order for chemicals, an order, by the way, which it
+required seven months to fill. In the glass department, for instance,
+there is every known kind of glass, from plates two inches thick to the
+finest, film, and if anything else in the way of glass is needed, the
+glass-workers are there to make it. This stupendous collection of
+material, filling one floor, is intended to guard against annoying
+delays that might occur at critical times for want of some rare
+material. In 1885, 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 nickel, an article not then to be found in any quantity in
+this country. The store-room was organized to avert such delays. The
+library is the only part of the main building that shows any attempt at
+decoration. It is a superb room, 60 feet by 40, with a height of 25
+feet. Galleries run around the second story. At one end is a monumental
+fireplace, and in the centre of the hall a fine group of palms and
+ferns. The room is finished in oiled hard wood and lighted by
+electricity. Fine rugs cover the floors. The shelves contain nothing but
+scientific works and the files of the forty-six scientific periodicals
+in English, French, and German to which Edison subscribes. They are
+indexed by a librarian as soon as received, so that Edison can see at a
+glance what they contain concerning the special fields in which he is
+interested.
+
+Nothing in this big establishment, often employing more than one hundred
+persons, is made for sale. It is wholly devoted to experimental work and
+tests. Its expenses, said to be more than $150,000 a year, are paid by
+the commercial companies in which Edison is interested, he, on his
+part, giving them the benefit of any improvements made. Thus in one room
+hundreds of incandescent electric lamps burn night and day the year
+through. Each lamp is specially marked and when it burns out more
+quickly than the average, or lasts longer, a special study is made as to
+the contributing causes. It may seem impossible that the suggestions of
+one man can keep busy a big workshop upon experiments the year round,
+but Edison says that the temptation is always to increase the force.
+When it is remembered that the list of Edison's patents reaches to seven
+hundred and forty, and that on the electric light alone he has worked
+out several hundred theories, the wonder ceases. Ten minutes' work with
+a pencil may sketch an apparatus that a dozen men cannot finish inside
+of a fortnight.
+
+When the new Orange laboratory was finished and Edison found himself
+with time and means at his disposal, his first thought was to take up
+his phonograph. The history of the great hopes built upon the phonograph
+and the bitter disappointment that followed is too familiar to need
+repetition here. As may be imagined, Edison is most keenly bent upon
+tightening the loose screw that has prevented it from doing all that its
+friends predicted for it. He still works at other problems, but chiefly
+as relaxation. He rests from inventing one thing by inventing something
+else.
+
+[Illustration: Library at Edison's Laboratory.]
+
+One day recently, when I found him less confident than usual as to the
+triumph of the phonograph in the near future, he said: "There are some
+difficulties about the problem that seem insurmountable. I go on
+smoothly until at a certain point I run my head against a stone wall; I
+cannot get under, over, or around it. After butting my head against that
+wall until it aches, I go back to the beginning again. It is absurd to
+say that because I can see no possible solution of the problem to-day,
+that I may not see one to-morrow. The very fact that this century has
+accomplished so much in the way of invention, makes it more than
+probable that the next century will do far greater things. We ought to
+be ashamed of ourselves if we are content to fold our hands and say that
+the telegraph, telephone, steam-engine, dynamo, and camera having been
+invented, the field has been exhausted. These inventions are so many
+wonderful tools with which we ought to accomplish far greater wonders.
+Unless the coming generations are particularly lazy, the world ought to
+possess in 1993 a dozen marvels of the usefulness of the steam-engine
+and dynamo. The next step in advance will perhaps be the discovery of a
+method for transforming heat directly into electricity. That will
+revolutionize modern life by making heat, power, and light almost as
+cheap as air. Inventors are already feeling their way toward this
+wonder. I have gone far enough on that road to know that there are
+several stone walls ahead. But the problem is one of the most
+fascinating in view."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL.
+
+
+[Illustration: Professor Bell Sending the First Message, by
+Long-distance Telephone, from New York to Chicago.]
+
+Sir Charles Wheatstone, the eminent English electrician, while engaged
+in perfecting his system of telegraphy discovered that wires charged
+with electricity often carried noises in a curious manner. He made and
+exhibited at the Royal Society, in 1840, a clock in which the tick of
+another clock miles away was conveyed through a wire. This experiment
+appears to have been one of the germs of the telephone. In 1844 Captain
+John Taylor, also an Englishman, invented an instrument to which he gave
+the name of the telephone, but it had nothing electrical about it. It
+was an apparatus for conveying sounds at sea by means of compressed air
+forced through trumpets. He could make his telephone heard six miles
+away. The first real suggestion of the telephone as we know it comes
+from Reis, the German professor of physics at Friedrichsdorf, who in
+1860 constructed with a coil of wire, a knitting-needle, the skin of a
+German sausage, the bung of a beer-barrel, 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 wire. The same idea
+was taken up in this country by Elisha Gray, Edison, and by Alexander
+Graham Bell, who first exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition an
+apparatus that transmitted speech by electricity in a fairly
+satisfactory manner. The American claimants to the honor of having
+invented the telephone include Daniel Drawbaugh, a backwoods genius of
+Pennsylvania, who claims to have made and used a practical telephone in
+1867-68. A large fortune has been spent in fighting Drawbaugh's claims
+against the Bell monopoly, but the courts have finally decided in favor
+of the latter. It should be recorded as a matter of justice to Mr. Gray,
+that he appears to have solved the problem of conveying speech by
+electricity at about the same time as Bell. Both these inventors filed
+their caveats upon the telephone upon the same day--February 14, 1876.
+It was Bell's good fortune to be the first to make his device
+practically effective.
+
+Alexander Graham Bell is not an American by birth. He was born in
+Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 1st of March, 1847. His father, Alexander
+Melville Bell, 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 lips. His mother was the daughter of Samuel Symonds, a surgeon in
+the British navy.
+
+In 1872 the Bells moved to Canada, and young Alexander Bell became
+widely known in Boston as an authority in the teaching of the deaf and
+dumb. 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 heard. Most of his art he acquired from
+his father, one of the most expert of teachers in this field. The elder
+Bell is still active in his work, constantly devising new methods and
+experiments. He lives in Washington with his son and is frequently heard
+in lectures in New York and Boston.
+
+In 1873 Alexander Bell began to study the transmission of musical tones
+by telegraph. It was in the line of his work with deaf and dumb people
+to make sound vibrations visible to the eye. 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 membrane. He also
+succeeded in obtaining tracings upon smoked glass of the vibrations of
+the air produced by vowel sounds. He began experimenting with an
+apparatus resembling the human ear, and upon the suggestion of Dr.
+Clarence J. Blake, the Boston aurist, he tried his work upon a prepared
+specimen of the ear itself. 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-magnet.
+
+Mr. Bell was at this time an instructor in phonetics, or the art of
+visible speech, in Monroe's School of Oratory in Boston. One of his old
+pupils describes him then as a swarthy, foreign-looking personage, more
+Italian than English in appearance, with jet-black hair and dark skin.
+His manner was earnest and full of conviction. He was an enthusiast in
+his work, and only emerged from his habitual diffidence when called upon
+to talk upon his studies and views. He was miserably poor and almost
+without friends. When he was attacked with muscular rheumatism, in 1873,
+his hospital expenses were paid by his employer, and his only visitors
+were some of the pupils at the school.
+
+Until the close of 1874, Bell's experiments seemed to promise nothing of
+practical value. But in 1875 he began to transmit vibrations between two
+armatures, one at each end of a wire. 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 one.
+
+In November, 1875, he discovered that the vibrations created in a reed
+by the voice could be transmitted so as to reproduce words and sounds.
+One day in January, 1876, 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 floor. The exhibition created a
+sensation among the pupils, but, although no attempts were made by Bell
+to conceal what he was doing, or how he did it, the noise of his
+discovery does not seem to have reached the outside world. With an old
+cigar-box, two hundred feet of wire, two magnets from a toy fish-pond,
+the first Bell telephone was brought into existence. The apparatus was,
+however, not yet the practical telephone as we know it, but it was
+sufficient of a curiosity to warrant its exhibition in an improved form
+at the Centennial Exhibition, when Sir William Thomson spoke of it as
+"perhaps the greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric
+telegraph."
+
+The next year Bell succeeded in bringing the telephone to the condition
+in which it became of immediate practical value. Strange to say, the
+public was at first slow to appreciate the great importance of the
+invention, and when Bell took it to England, in 1877, he could find no
+purchaser for half the European rights at $10,000. In this country,
+thanks to the business energy of Professor Gardiner Hubbard, of Harvard,
+Bell's father-in-law, the telephone was soon made commercially valuable,
+and there are now said to be nearly six hundred thousand telephones in
+use in the United States alone.
+
+Professor Bell, as may be imagined, is not idle. His vast fortune has
+enabled him to continue costly experiments in aiding deaf and dumb
+people, and it will probably be in this field that his next achievement
+will be made. Personally, he is a reserved and thoughtful man, wholly
+given up to his scientific work. His wife, whom he married in 1876, was
+one of his deaf and dumb pupils. 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
+direction. His home life in Washington, where he bought, in 1885, the
+superb house on Scott Circle known as "Broadhead's Folly," after the man
+who built it and ruined himself in so doing, is said to be an ideally
+peaceful and happy one, given up to study and efforts to alleviate the
+troubles of the deaf and dumb.
+
+As in the case of most inventions of such immense value as the
+telephone, a fortune has had to be spent in order to protect the patent
+rights; but in Bell's case the inventor's money reward has been ample
+and is now said to amount to more than $1,000,000 a year. Just at
+present Mr. Bell is engaged upon a modification of the phonograph, which
+may enable persons not wholly deaf to hear a phonographic reproduction
+of the human voice, even if they cannot hear the voice itself. Honors
+have poured in upon him within the last fifteen years. In 1880 the
+French Government awarded him the Volta prize of $10,000, which Mr. Bell
+devoted to founding the Volta Laboratory in Washington, an institution
+for the use of students. In 1882 he also received from France the ribbon
+of the Legion of Honor.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+AMERICAN INVENTORS, PAST AND PRESENT.
+
+
+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
+everyone. To how great a degree the world is indebted to the inventor,
+very few of us realize. The more we think of the matter, however, the
+more are we likely to believe that the inventor is mankind's great
+benefactor. Watt should stand before Napoleon in the hero-worship of the
+age, and the man who perfected the friction-match before the author of
+an epic. Some day this redistribution of the world's honors will surely
+take place, and it should be a satisfaction to us Americans that our
+country stands so high in the ranks of inventive genius. Within the last
+half century Americans have contributed, to mention only great
+achievements, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the
+sewing-machine, the reaper, and vulcanized rubber, to the world's
+wealth--a far larger contribution than that of any other nation. What
+may not the next generation produce? Some people seem to believe that so
+much has already been invented as to have exhausted the field. In this
+connection I have quoted in another place some remarks Mr. Edison once
+made to me as to what the next fifty years might bring forth. Still more
+astonishing than our past fecundity in invention would be future
+barrenness. This century has done its work and produced its marvels with
+comparatively blunt tools, or no tools at all. The next century will be
+able to work with superb instruments of which our grandfathers knew
+nothing. The school-boy to-day knows more of the forces of nature and
+their useful application than the magician of fifty years ago. It has
+been said that the fifteen blocks in the "Gem" puzzle can be arranged in
+more than a million different ways. 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 figures. The role played by
+invention in modern life is infinitely greater than during preceding
+ages. One invention, by affording a new tool, makes others possible. The
+steam-engine made possible the dynamo, the dynamo made possible the
+electric light. In its turn the electric light may lead to wonders still
+more extraordinary.
+
+The degree to which invention has contributed to civilization is far
+from suspected by the careless observer. Almost everything we have or
+use is the fruit of invention. Man might be defined as the animal that
+invents. The air we breathe and the water we drink are provided by
+Nature, but we drink water from a vessel of some kind, an invention of
+man. Even if we drink from a shell or a gourd, we shape it to serve a
+new purpose. If we want our air hotter or colder, we resort to
+invention, and a vast amount of ingenuity has been expended upon putting
+air in motion by means of fans, blowers, ventilators, etc. We take but a
+small part of our food as animals do--in the natural state. The savage
+who first crushed some kernels of wheat between two stones invented
+flour, and we are yet hard at it inventing improvements upon his
+process. The earliest inventions probably had reference to the procuring
+and preparing of food, and the ingenuity of man is still exercised upon
+these problems more eagerly than ever before. During the last fifty
+years the power of man to produce food has increased more than during
+the preceding fifteen centuries. Sixty years ago a large part of the
+wheat and other grain raised in the world was cut, a handful at a time,
+with a scythe, and a man could not reap much more than a quarter of an
+acre a day. With a McCormick reaper a man and two horses will cut from
+fifteen to twenty acres of grain a day. In the threshing of grain,
+invention has achieved almost as much. A man with a machine will thresh
+ten times as much as he formerly could with a flail.
+
+It is less than sixty years since matches have come into common use.
+Many old men remember the time in this country when a fire could be
+kindled only with the embers from another fire, as there were no such
+things as matches. Most of us who have reached the age of forty
+remember the abominable, clumsy sulphur-matches of 1860, as bulky as
+they were unpleasant. And yet the first sulphur-matches, made about
+1830, cost ten cents a hundred. To-day the safety match, certain and
+odorless, is sold at one-tenth of this price. The introduction of
+kerosene was one of the blessings of modern life. It added several hours
+a day to the useful, intelligent life of man, and who can estimate the
+influence of these evening hours upon the advance of civilization? The
+evening, after the day's work is done, has been the only hour when the
+workingman could read. Before cheap and good lights were given him,
+reading was out of the question. Gas marked a step in advance, but only
+for large towns, and now electricity bids fair soon to displace gas; and
+we hear vague suggestions of a luminous ether that will flood houses
+with a soft glow like that of sunlight.
+
+
+TOWNSEND AND DRAKE--THE INTRODUCTION OF COAL OIL.
+
+In 1850 sperm oil, then commonly used in lamps, had become high-priced,
+owing to the failure of the New Bedford whalers, and cost $2.25 a
+gallon. Oil obtained by the distillation of coal was tried, but was also
+too costly--not less than $1 a gallon. It burned well, but its odor was
+frightful. The problem of a cheap and pleasant light was solved by James
+M. Townsend and E.L. Drake, both of New Haven. In 1854 a man brought to
+Professor Silliman, of Yale, some oil from Oil Creek, Pa., to be tested.
+His report was so favorable that a company was formed, which leased all
+the land along Oil Creek upon which were traces of the new rock oil. The
+hard times of 1857 came before any headway had been made, and the
+company tried to find some way of ridding itself of the lease. At this
+time Townsend, who knew something about the property, undertook to get
+possession. Boarding in the same house in New Haven was E.L. Drake, once
+a conductor on the New York & New Haven Railroad, who had been obliged
+to give up work on account of ill-health. Townsend proposed that as
+Drake could get railroad passes as an ex-employee, he should go to
+Pennsylvania and look into the property. He did so, and reported that a
+fortune might be made by gathering the oil and bottling it for medicinal
+purposes. Drake and Townsend organized the Seneca Oil Company. The oil
+was gathered by digging trenches, and was sold at $1 a gallon. Drake
+suggested that it might be well to bore for oil. A man familiar with
+salt-well boring was brought from Syracuse, and in 1850 the first well
+was begun at Titusville under the supervision of Drake. He was commonly
+considered by the neighbors to be insane. The work was costly and slow.
+When many months and about $50,000 had been spent, the stockholders in
+the company refused to go any further--all except Townsend, who sent his
+last $500 to Drake, with instructions to use it in paying debts and his
+expenses in reaching home. On the day before the receipt of this
+money--August 29, 1859--the auger, which was down sixty-eight feet,
+struck a cavity, and up came a flow of oil that filled the well to
+within five feet of the surface. Pumping began at the rate of five
+hundred gallons a day, and a more powerful pump doubled this flow. As
+this oil was worth a dollar a gallon, fortune was within sight. But the
+very quantity of the oil proved to be the company's ruin. Their works
+were destroyed by fire in the winter of 1859-60, and before they could
+be rebuilt, scores of other wells, some of them requiring no pumping
+apparatus, had been sunk in the neighborhood. The supply was soon far in
+excess of the demand, which was limited by the small number of
+refineries, the want of good lamps in which to burn the oil, and the
+attacks by manufacturers of other oils. Such was the effect of these
+causes that the new oil fell to a dollar a barrel, a price so low that
+it did not pay for the handling. The Seneca Oil Company was so much
+discouraged that they sold out their leases and disbanded. Both Townsend
+and Drake would have died richer men had they never heard of the
+Pennsylvania rock oil.
+
+
+THE CLARKS AND THE TELESCOPE.
+
+[Illustration: Alvan Clark.]
+
+The fame of American telescopes is due to the work and inventions of the
+Clark family of Cambridgeport, Mass., the descendants of Thomas Clark,
+the mate of the Mayflower. The founder of the great--in a scientific
+sense--house of Alvan Clark & Sons, telescope-makers, was a remarkable
+man. Until after his fortieth year he devoted himself to
+portrait-painting. In 1843 his attention was accidentally turned toward
+telescope-making. One day the dinner-bell at Phillips Academy, Andover,
+Mass., happened to break. The pieces were gathered up by one of Clark's
+boys, George, who proceeded to melt them in a crucible over the kitchen
+fire, declaring that he was going to make a telescope. His mother
+laughed, but his father was deeply interested and helped the boy make a
+five-inch reflecting telescope which showed the satellites of Jupiter.
+This was the beginning of telescope-making in the Clark family, an
+industry which has given to the scientific world its most remarkable
+lenses. Alvan Clark dropped his paintbrushes, never to take them up
+again until at the age of eighty-three he made an excellent portrait of
+his little grandson. To Alvan G. Clark, the present head of the house,
+are chiefly due the scores of devices by which American ingenuity has
+surpassed the slower European methods. The delicacy required in the
+manipulation and grinding of the immense lenses made by the Clarks is
+almost incredible. The latest triumph of the firm--a forty-inch lens for
+the Spence Observatory at Los Angeles, Cal.--required two years of
+grinding and polishing after a piece of glass perfect enough had been
+obtained. 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 it. Alvan G.
+Clark is now a man sixty-one years-old. He has lived all his life at the
+home in Cambridgeport. His greatest sorrow is that there is no son of
+his to carry on the work after his death. His only son died a few years
+ago, 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
+world.
+
+
+JOHN FITCH AND OLIVER EVANS--STEAM TRANSPORTATION.
+
+In looking over the work done by American inventors, the great names are
+those to be found at the heads of the preceding chapters. But the list
+is by no means exhausted. 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 paragraph. The history of the steamboat is not
+complete without reference to John Fitch.
+
+Fulton was fortunate in making the first really successful attempt at
+propelling boats by steam, but Fitch came very near reaping the honors
+for this invention. The account of Fitch's life and experiments, written
+by himself and now in the possession of the Franklin Library of
+Philadelphia, clearly shows that this unhappy genius really deserves to
+share in Fulton's glory. Fitch was born in Connecticut, in January,
+1743, more than twenty years before Fulton. He was a farmer's boy and
+picked up knowledge as best he could. Before he was twenty he had
+learned clock-making and then button-making. It was in 1788 that he
+obtained his first patent for a steamboat. His experimental boat was an
+extraordinary affair, fully described in the _Columbian_ (Philadelphia)
+_Magazine_ for December, 1786. Its motive power consisted of a clumsy
+engine that moved horizontal bars, upon which were fastened a number of
+oars or paddles. So far as possible the machine imitated the movements
+of a man rowing. This boat made eight miles an hour in calm water.
+Finding nothing but ridicule for his project here, as his steamboat cost
+too much money to run as a commercial undertaking, Fitch went to Europe,
+and was equally unsuccessful there. There is still in existence a letter
+from him in which he predicts that steam would some day carry vessels
+across the Atlantic. He died in 1796, without having contributed more
+than a curiosity to the art of steam navigation.
+
+Another early inventor was Oliver Evans, who has been called the Watt of
+America. In 1804 Evans offered to build for the Lancaster Turnpike
+Company a steam-carriage to carry one hundred barrels of flour fifty
+miles in twenty-four hours. The offer was derided. Here is one of
+Evans's predictions written at about this time: "The time will come when
+people will travel in stages, moved by steam-engines, from one city to
+another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour.
+Passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene with such
+rapid succession, will be the most rapid, exhilarating exercise. A
+carriage (steam) will set out from Washington in the morning, the
+passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup in
+New York the same day. To accomplish this, two sets of railways will be
+laid so nearly level as not in any way to deviate more than two degrees
+from a horizontal line, made of wood, or iron, or smooth paths of
+broken stone or gravel, 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 day. Engines will drive boats ten or twelve miles per hour, and
+there will be many hundred steamboats running on the Mississippi." In
+1805 Evans built a steam-carriage propelled by a sort of paddle-wheel at
+the stern, the paddles touching the ground. This apparatus he named the
+"Oructor Amphibolis," and it is believed to have been the first
+application of steam in America to the propelling of land carriages. He
+died in 1819 without having seen his steam-carriage come to anything
+practicable. He made a fortune, however, from some patents upon
+flour-mill improvements.
+
+
+AMOS WHITTEMORE AND THOMAS BLANCHARD.
+
+In the domain of textile fabrics Amos Whittemore, the Massachusetts
+inventor of the card-machine, which did away with the old-fashioned
+method of making cards for cotton and woollen factories, must be
+mentioned. Before Whittemore's machine came into use, about 1812, such
+cards were made by hand, the laborer sticking one by one into sheets of
+leather the wire staples, which operation gave work to thousands of
+families in New England early in the century. Whittemore made a fortune
+by his invention, and devoted the last years of his life to astronomy.
+
+Another Massachusetts boy, Thomas Blanchard, invented the lathe for
+turning irregular objects, and well deserves mention. Born in 1788, he
+was noted as a boy for his efficiency in the New England accomplishment
+of whittling, making wonderful windmills and water-wheels with his
+knife. When thirteen years old he made an apple-paring machine, with
+which at the "paring bees" held in the neighborhood he could accomplish
+more than a dozen girls. Soon after this achievement he began helping
+his brother in the manufacture of tacks. The operation consisted in
+stamping them out from a thin plate of iron, after which they were taken
+up, one at a time, with the thumb and finger and caught in a tool worked
+by the foot, 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 vise. This was the only method then known, and it
+was so slow and irksome that young Blanchard often grew disgusted. As a
+daily task he was given a certain quantity of tacks to make, which
+number was ascertained by counting. Finding this much trouble, he
+constructed a counting-machine, 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 tack. From this achievement he passed to a tack
+machine, and after six years of hard work turned out an apparatus that
+made five hundred tacks a minute. He sold his patent for the trifle of
+$5,000.
+
+With part of this money he began his experiments in turning
+musket-barrels, an operation that was simple enough except at the
+breech, where the flat and oval sides had to be ground down or chipped.
+Blanchard made a lathe that turned the whole barrel satisfactorily.
+While exhibiting his new lathe at the United States Armory at
+Springfield, occurred the incident that led to Blanchard's great device
+for turning irregular forms. One of the men employed in cutting
+musket-stocks remarked that Blanchard could never spoil his job, for he
+could not turn a gun-stock. The remark struck Blanchard, who replied, "I
+am not so sure of that, but will think of it a while." The result of six
+months' study was the lathe with which such articles as gun-stocks,
+shoe-lasts, hat-blocks, tackle-blocks, axe-handles, wig-blocks, and a
+thousand other objects of irregular shape may now be turned. While at
+Washington getting his patent, Blanchard exhibited his machine at the
+War Office, where many heads of departments had assembled. Among the
+rest was a navy commissioner, who, after listening to Blanchard,
+remarked to the inventor: "Can you turn a seventy-four?"
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "if you will furnish the block." Blanchard
+afterward made many interesting experiments in steam-carriages, but his
+chief claim to fame rests upon his lathe.
+
+
+RICHARD M. HOE AND THE WEB-PRESS.
+
+From the end of the first half of this century date movements of
+extraordinary importance in the world of American invention. The
+locomotive, the steam-engine and steam-boat, the telegraph,
+reaping-machine, the printing-press, all seemed to reach an era of wide
+usefulness at about the same time. It was in 1814 that Walters first
+printed the London _Times_ by steam, the sullen pressmen standing around
+waiting for a pretext to destroy the machinery, and only prevented by
+strategy from doing so. About thirty years afterward Richard M. Hoe
+first turned his attention to the improvement of printing-presses. The
+founder of the famous house of printing-press makers, Robert Hoe, was
+born in England. His son, Richard March Hoe, was born in New York on the
+12th of September, 1812. He made his first press in 1840, when he turned
+out the machine known as "Hoe's Double-cylinder," which was capable of
+making about six thousand impressions an hour, and was the admiration of
+all the printers in the city. So long as the newspaper circulation knew
+no great increase this wonderful press was all-sufficient; but the
+greater the supply the greater grew the demand, and a printing-press
+capable of striking off papers with greater rapidity was felt to be an
+imperative need. It was often necessary to hold the forms back until
+nearly daylight for the purpose of getting the latest news, and the
+work of printing the paper had to be done in a very few hours. In 1842
+Hoe began to experiment for the purpose of getting greater speed. There
+were many difficulties in the way, however, and at the end of four years
+of experimenting he was about ready to confess that the obstacles were
+insurmountable. One night in 1846, while still in this mood, he resumed
+his experiments; the more he reviewed the problem, the more difficult it
+seemed. In despair he was about to give it up for the night, when there
+flashed across his brain a plan for securing the type on the surface of
+a cylinder. This was the solution of the problem, and within a year our
+leading newspapers had their "Lightning" presses, in which from four to
+ten cylinders were used to feed sheets of paper against the surface of
+the type as it flew around. So recently as 1870 the ten-cylinder Hoe
+press, printing twenty-five thousand sheets an hour, was considered a
+marvel.
+
+Then came the perfecting press, a far smaller machine, but capable of
+five times as much work, thanks to the substitution of rolls of paper
+for separate sheets fed in one by one. 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
+ingenuity. Stereotyping made it possible to print from a dozen presses
+at the same time without the trouble of setting up new type, and
+inventions for pasting, folding, and counting the papers still further
+increased the speed at which papers may be issued, while at the same
+time decreasing the number of men employed as pressmen. In 1865 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 hour. To-day a
+perfecting press, with the aid of four men, does four times as much
+work. It has been recently estimated that to print, paste, and fold the
+Sunday edition of one of the great newspapers with the machinery of 1865
+would require the services of five hundred persons.
+
+
+THOMAS W. HARVEY AND SCREW-MAKING.
+
+The gimlet-pointed screw patented in 1838 by Thomas W. Harvey, of
+Providence, R.I., 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 carpenter, for it was not until 1846 that Harvey
+succeeded in getting people to abandon the old blunt-ended screw that we
+now occasionally find in buildings put up before 1850. Harvey was a
+Vermont boy, born in 1795. His faculty for the invention of machinery
+for screw-making and other purposes gave him and his associates and
+successors--Angell, Sloan, and Whipple--great fortunes according to the
+estimate of that day. He died in 1856.
+
+
+C.L. SHOLES AND THE TYPEWRITER.
+
+[Illustration: C.L. Sholes.]
+
+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 needle. So long ago as 1843 some patents were taken out for
+divers forms of writing-machines, all more or less impracticable. It was
+not until C.L. Sholes, then of Wisconsin, took up the problem, in 1866,
+that the present form of a number of type-bars, arranged so that their
+ends strike upon a common centre, was devised. Sholes died in 1890,
+having also helped by many minor devices the increase in the use of
+writing-machines. From 1865 to 1873 he made thirty different working
+models of writing-machines, devoting himself to the task almost day and
+night for eight years.
+
+
+B.B. HOTCHKISS AND HIS GUNS.
+
+[Illustration: B.B. Hotchkiss.]
+
+American inventors have had, as a rule, but small success in making
+Europe see the value of their inventions before this country has proved
+it. Morse could get neither England nor France to take an interest in
+his telegraph schemes, and, at a later day, Bell's telephone was
+received in England as a curious device, but not worth investing money
+in. An exception to this rule may be found, however, in the case of B.B.
+Hotchkiss, a Connecticut inventor, who during the civil war conceived
+the idea of a breech-loading cannon. In 1869 Hotchkiss mounted one of
+his small guns in the Brooklyn Navy-yard, but found no encouragement to
+experiment further. The Franco-German war found him in Europe with a
+breech-loading gun that would throw shells. His success was such that
+there is not a civilized country where Hotchkiss guns, throwing light
+shells with a rapidity not dreamed of years ago, are not now in use.
+The inventor has made a large fortune and has had the pleasure of
+sending to this country a number of guns for our cruisers, the Atlanta,
+the Boston, the Chicago, and the Dolphin. So great is the rapidity,
+accuracy, and power of these Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns that some experts
+expect to see two-thirds of an action fought with these or similar
+pieces, 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 other. For instance, the latest piece is a
+six-pounder, which, with smokeless powder, has a range of five thousand
+yards and an effective fighting range of one thousand yards, within
+which distance a target the size of a six-inch gun can be hit nearly
+every time and five inches of wrought iron perforated. A speed in
+firing of twenty-five shots a minute has been attained.
+
+
+CHARLES F. BRUSH AND THE DYNAMO.
+
+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
+contracted. The galvanic battery resulted. 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 magnet. Out of these
+simple discoveries have arisen the telegraph, the telephone, and a host
+of inventions depending upon electricity. And to-day, with all the
+wonders accomplished in this field, we are yet upon the threshold of the
+enchanted palace that electricity is about to open to us. Through its
+aid we shall one day enjoy light, heat, and power almost as freely as we
+now enjoy air. The crops will be planted, watered, cultivated, gathered,
+and transported to the uttermost ends of the earth by electricity. The
+steam-engine is said to do the work of two hundred million men, 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 ten.
+But electricity, according to even conservative judges, will accomplish
+infinitely more. It will make possible the harnessing of vast forces of
+nature, such as the falls of Niagara, because the electric current can
+be transported from place to place at small cost and it is easily
+transformed into light or power or heat. Within a few months we shall
+see the first results of the great work at Niagara. Before many years
+the power of the tides is certain to be used along the seaboard for
+producing electricity. Here is a force equal to that of a million
+Niagaras going to waste.
+
+[Illustration: Charles F. Brush.]
+
+The late Clerk Maxwell, when asked by a distinguished scientist what was
+the greatest scientific discovery of the last half-century, replied:
+"That the Gramme machine is reversible." In other words, that power will
+not only produce electricity, but that electricity will produce power.
+By turning a big wheel at Niagara we can produce an electric current
+that will turn another wheel for us fifty, or perhaps five hundred miles
+away. The dynamo is one of the great achievements of the day to which
+Charles F. Brush, of Cleveland, O., has devoted himself with much signal
+success. Brush was born in March, 1849, in Euclid Township near
+Cleveland, and his early years were spent on his father's farm. When
+fourteen years old he went to the public school at Collamer, and later
+to the Cleveland High-school, and as early as 1862 distinguished himself
+by making magnetic machines and batteries for the high-school. During
+his senior year in the high-school, the chemical and physical apparatus
+of the laboratory of the school was placed under his charge. In this
+year he constructed an electric motor having its field magnets as well
+as its armature excited by the electric current. He also constructed a
+microscope and a telescope, making all the parts himself, down to the
+grinding of the lenses. He devised an apparatus for turning on the gas
+in the street-lamps of Cleveland, lighting it and turning it off again.
+When he was eighteen years of age he entered Michigan University at Ann
+Arbor, and, following his particular bent, was graduated as a mining
+engineer in 1869, one year ahead of his class. Returning to Cleveland he
+began work as an analytical chemist and soon became interested in the
+iron business. In 1875 Brush's attention was first called to electricity
+by George W. Stockly, who suggested that there was an immense field
+ready for a cheaper and more easily managed dynamo than the Gramme or
+Siemens, the best types then known. Stockly, who was interested in the
+Telegraph Supply Company, of Cleveland, agreed to undertake the
+manufacture of such a machine if one was devised. 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 1893. Having made a good dynamo, the next
+step was a better lamp than those in use. Six months of experimenting
+resulted in the Brush arc light. Stockly was so well satisfied with the
+commercial value of these inventions that the Telegraph Supply Company,
+a small concern then employing about twenty-five men, was reorganized in
+1879, as the Brush Electric Company. In 1880 the Brush Company put its
+first lights into New York City, and it has since extended the system
+until there is scarcely a town in the country where the light may not be
+found. Besides dynamos and lamps, the immense establishment at Cleveland
+employs its twelve hundred men in making carbons, storage-batteries, and
+electro-plating apparatus. Mr. Brush is a self-taught mechanic, able to
+do any work of his shops in a manner equal to that of an expert. He is
+intensely practical, never over-sanguine, and an excellent business man.
+If a delicate piece of work is to be done for the first time, he will
+probably do it with his own hands. He is not fond of experiment for the
+experiment's sake; he wants to see the practical utility of the aim in
+view before devoting time to its attainment. Of the scores of patents
+he has taken out, two-thirds are said to pay him a revenue. In 1881, at
+the Paris Electrical Exposition, Brush received the ribbon of the Legion
+of Honor. In personal appearance there is nothing of the
+round-shouldered, impecunious, studious inventor about him. He is six
+feet or more in height, and so fine a specimen of manhood that Gambetta,
+the French statesman, once remarked that the man impressed him quite as
+much as the inventor.
+
+
+EICKEMEYER AND HIS MOTOR.
+
+[Illustration: Rudolph Eickemeyer.]
+
+In the same field of electricity, as applied to every-day life, a
+Bavarian by birth, but an American by adoption, Rudolf Eickemeyer, of
+Yonkers, has done some valuable work in devising a useful form of
+dynamo. His machines are now used almost exclusively for elevators and
+hoisting apparatus, one large firm of elevator builders having put in no
+less than six hundred Eickemeyer motors within the last four years. As
+electricity becomes more and more useful for small powers, such as
+lathes, pumps, and elevators, an effective and simple motor becomes of
+the utmost importance. Rudolf Eickemeyer was born in October, 1831, at
+Kaiserslautern, Bavaria, where his father was employed as a forester. He
+was educated at the Darmstadt Polytechnic Institute and at once showed a
+predilection for scientific work. When still a boy he joined the
+Revolutionists under Siegel, and after the upheaval of 1848 came here
+with Siegel, Carl Schurz, and George Osterheld, the latter afterward
+becoming his partner. The young man's first work here was as an engineer
+on the Erie Railroad line, then building. In 1854 he established himself
+in Yonkers in the business of repairing the tools used in the many
+hat-shops of that already flourishing city. The next twenty years of his
+life were devoted to inventions and improvements in every branch of
+hat-making. His shaving-machines, stretchers, blockers, pressers,
+ironers, and sewing-machines substituted mechanism for laborious and
+slow methods of hand work. At the beginning of the war Eickemeyer was
+quick to see the opportunity for turning his factory to other uses, and
+vast quantities of revolvers were made there. When that industry
+declined, he took up the manufacture of mowing-machines, having invented
+a driving mechanism for such machines that met with wide favor. The
+introduction of the Bell telephone in Yonkers first turned Eickemeyer's
+attention to electricity, and for the last ten years he has devoted
+himself almost exclusively to the invention and manufacture of electric
+motors. His first successful invention in this field was a dynamo to
+furnish light for railroad trains. From this he was led to the invention
+of a dynamo capable of doing effective work at much lower speed than
+that usually employed, and this has proved to be his most valuable
+achievement. Some improvements in winding the armatures have also been
+accepted as valuable and adopted by other manufacturers. In connection
+with storage batteries Mr. Eickemeyer has also done a good deal of
+interesting work. But he is chiefly known to the electrical world as the
+inventor of a most useful dynamo for power purposes. For the last forty
+years he has been one of the men who have most aided in the growth of
+Yonkers, taking great interest in all questions pertaining to its
+government and school system. He was married in 1856 to Mary T. Tarbell,
+of Dover, Me., and his eldest son, Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr., is associated
+with him in business.
+
+
+GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, JR., AND THE AIR-BRAKE.
+
+[Illustration: George Westinghouse, Jr.]
+
+George Westinghouse, Jr., to whom is due the railroad air-brake, and who
+was also largely instrumental in revolutionizing Pittsburgh by the
+introduction of natural gas, was born at Central Bridge, in Schoharie
+County, N.Y., in 1846. His father was a builder and, later,
+superintendent of the Schenectady Agricultural Works, and it was in the
+shops of these works that the boy found his vocation. Before he was
+fifteen he had modelled and built a steam engine. The war took him away
+from work in 1864, but when that was over he returned to Schenectady
+and, although yet in his teens, he began to attempt improvements upon
+every device that presented itself. Sometimes he was successful. Among
+one of his first valuable achievements was a steel railroad frog that
+resulted in a good deal of money and some reputation. This was in 1868.
+While in Pittsburgh making his frogs, which sold well, he one day came
+across a newspaper account of the successful use of compressed air in
+piercing the Mont Cenis tunnel. His success in the field of railroad
+appliances had led him to study the question of better brakes, and the
+suggestion of compressed air came to him as a revelation. To stop a
+train by the old methods was a matter of much time and a tremendous
+expenditure of muscular energy by the brakeman, whose exertions were not
+always effective enough to prevent disaster. Westinghouse consulted one
+or two friends, 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 brakes. Fortunately, he was able to make the experiment, and the
+air-brake was speedily recognized as one of the important inventions of
+the century.
+
+When petroleum was discovered in the fields near Pittsburgh, some ten
+years ago, Mr. Westinghouse was greatly interested, and at once
+suggested that perhaps oil might be found near his own home in
+Washington County. He decided to test the matter, and planted a derrick
+on his own grounds. The drill was started in December, 1883, and at a
+depth of 1,560 feet a vein was struck, not of oil, as was anticipated,
+but--what had not been counted upon as among the contingencies--of gas.
+Gas was not what Westinghouse was after or wanted, but there it was, and
+not wishing to let it run to waste, he began to consider what use could
+be made of it. Other people who had been boring for oil also struck gas,
+which, taking fire, shot up twenty or thirty feet. If such gas could be
+made to serve foundry purposes, here was a gigantic power going to
+waste. Within three years the business grew to be an immense one. The
+company organized by Mr. Westinghouse owned or controlled fifty-six
+thousand acres, upon which were one hundred wells and a distributing
+plant of four hundred miles of pipes. Notwithstanding the failure of
+some of the wells since then, natural gas is an extraordinary boon for
+which Pittsburgh has to thank Mr. Westinghouse. Of late years this
+inventor's energies have been turned toward electric machinery for
+lighting and power, especially as applied to railroad purposes, and a
+number of useful devices have resulted. Mr. Westinghouse is still in the
+prime of life and is activity personified. He makes his home in
+Pittsburgh, and is naturally looked upon as one of its leading spirits.
+
+
+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 agent, whose real powers
+were unsuspected fifty years ago. 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 production.
+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
+people. It indicates trained habits of observation and trained powers of
+applying knowledge which has been acquired. It shows an ability to turn
+to account the forces of Nature and, train them to the service of man,
+such as has been possessed by the laborers of no other country. It
+suggests as pertinent the inquiry whether any other country is so well
+equipped for competition in production as our own; whether in any other
+country the mechanic is so efficient and his labor, therefore, so cheap
+as in our own; whether he does not exhibit the seeming paradox of
+receiving more for his labor than in any other country, and at the same
+time doing more for what he receives.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Inventors, by Philip Gengembre Hubert
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