The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.

by Edward W. Byrn

Of close kin to the elevator are the fire escape, dumb waiter and grain elevator, each of which fills a more or less important function in the life of to-day.

What more ubiquitous or ingenious illustration of modern progress than the American stem winding watch! Up to the middle of the century all watches were made by hand throughout. Each watch had its own individuality as a separate creation, and only the privileged few were able to carry them. In 1848 Aaron L. Dennison, a Boston watch maker, began making watches by machinery, and the foundation of the system of interchangeable parts was laid. A small factory at Roxbury, Mass., was established in 1850, which four years later was moved to Waltham. In 1857 it passed into the hands of Appleton, Tracy & Co., and was subsequently acquired by the American Watch Co. As presenting some idea of the great elaboration involved in this art, it was estimated a few years ago that 3,746 distinct mechanical operations were required to make an ordinary machine made watch. A single pound of steel wire is sometimes converted into a couple of hundred thousand tiny screws, and another pound of fine steel wire furnishes 17,280 hair springs, worth several thousand dollars. The absolute uniformity and perfect interchangeability of parts in the American watch have been obtained by substituting the invariable and mathematical accuracy of the machine for the nervous fingers and dimming eyes of the old time watchmaker, and the American machine made watch, discredited as it was at first, stands to-day the greatest modern advance in horology.

Friction Matches.—In 1805 Thenard, of Paris, made the first attempt to utilize chemical agencies for the ordinary production of fire. In 1827 John Walker, an English druggist, made friction matches called “congreves.” In 1833 phosphorus friction matches were introduced on a commercial scale by Preschel, of Vienna. In 1845 red phosphorus matches (parlor matches) were made by Von Schrotter, of Vienna, and in 1855 safety matches, which ignited only on certain substances, were made by Lundström, of Sweden. Prior to the Nineteenth Century, and in fact until about 1833, the old flint and steel and tinder box were the clumsy and uncertain means for producing fire. To-day the friction match is turned out by automatic machinery by the million, and constitutes probably the most ubiquitous and useful of all the minor inventions.

Step into any of the great department stores and the genius of the inventor confronts you in the cash carrier whisking its little cars back and forth from the cashier’s desk to the most remote corners of the great building. The first of these mechanical carriers adapted for store service was patented by D. Brown, July 13, 1875, No. 165,473. Not until about 1882, however, was there any noticeable adoption of the system, when practical development was given in Martin’s patents, No. 255,525, March 28, 1882; No. 276,441, April 24, 1883, and No. 284,456, September 4, 1883. Go to the lunch counter, and the cash register reminds you that the millenium of absolute honesty is not yet realized. The bell punch on the street car and the burglar proof safe with its combination locks are other suggestions in the same line. The first fire proof safe is disclosed in the British patent to Richard Scott, No. 2,477, of 1801. The time lock, which prevents the safe from being opened by anyone except at a certain period of daylight, was invented by J. V. Savage, and was covered by him in United States patent No. 5,321, October 9, 1847. The practical adoption of time locks began about 1875 with the operations of Sargent, Stockwell and others, and to-day they constitute one of the most important features of bank safes and vaults, and represent a marvelously beautiful and accurate example of mechanical skill.

The Otto gas-engine, and the Ericsson air-engine are important developments in power producing motors, and the improvements in pavements and in street sweepers for cleaning them, contribute to the cleanliness, sanitation, and æsthetic values of city life. The cigarette machine, which continuously curls a ribbon of paper around a core of tobacco to form a rope, and then cuts it off into cigarettes, is an important invention in the tobacco industry, however doubtful its hygienic value to the world may be. The lightning rod has brought protection to homes and lives, and the incubator has become the hen’s wet nurse. In agriculture, the reaper has been supplemented with threshing machines, seeders, drills, cultivators, horse rakes and plows. In the farm yard appear the improved carriage and wagon, the well pump, the wind wheel, the fruit drier, the bee hive, and the cotton and cider press. In the kitchen, the washing machine, the churn, the cheese press, ironing machine, wringer, the rat trap, and fruit jar. In the house, the folding bed, tilting chair, carpet sweeper, and the piano. In heating appliances, steam and water heating systems, base burning and Latrobe stoves, hot air furnaces, gas and oil stoves. In plastics there are brick machines, pressed glass ware, enameled sheet iron ware, tiles, paper buckets, celluloid and rubber articles. In hydraulics there are rams, water closets, pumps, and turbine water wheels. In mining there are stamp mills, ore crushers, separators, concentrators, and amalgamators. In the leather and boot and shoe industry there is a great variety of machines and appliances. The paper industry, with book binding machines, and paper box machines, is a fertile field of invention. Steam boilers, metallurgical appliances, soap making, chemical fire extinguishers, fountain pens, the sand blast, bottle stoppers, and a thousand other things present themselves in miscellaneous and endless array. These are, however, only some of the things which the limitation of space precludes from individual treatment, but which are none the less important in making up the great resources of modern life, and, for the most part, represent the contributions of the Nineteenth Century not heretofore considered.

The observant and thoughtful reader finds just here occasion to inquire the meaning of this great rising tide of progress which has so distinguished the Nineteenth Century. It is largely due to the Patent Law, which justly regards the inventor as a public benefactor, and seeks to make for him some protection in the enjoyment of his rights. If a man be in the possession of a legacy by the accident of birth, the law of inheritance rules that it is rightfully his. The finding of a thing, whether by jetsam, flotsam, or the lucky accident of a first discovery, this also makes good his title, if there be no other owner. There is, however, a right of property which is higher than all others, and in which there is coupled with the possession of the thing the sacred function of its creation. The right of a mother to her child is of this nature, and like unto it is the right of the inventor to the creation of his genius. In the last two centuries of the world’s history this right has been recognized by an enlightened civilization, and provision made for its enjoyment in the grant of patents, and if there be any right more strongly entrenched than another in the eternal verities of equity and justice it is this. Our first crude patent law was enacted in 1790, but not until 1836 was the present system adopted. Our own and comparatively new country has, therefore, not yet had a hundred years of existence under our present Patent System, and yet to-day it outstrips the world both in its material resources and in its wealth of patented inventions. The accompanying diagram, [Fig. 306], illustrates in a graphic way just what relation the United States bears to the other leading countries of the world in the matter of patents granted, and when it is remembered that under our system a patent can only be granted for a new invention, while in some of the other countries it is not essential to the grant, the richness in invention of the United States, with its six hundred and fifty thousand patents, can be better appreciated. This is a greater number than has been issued by Great Britain and France put together. Connecticut is the most productive State in invention in proportion to its people, and Edison is the most prolific inventor. From 1870 to 1900 he has taken 727 United States patents, and there are from twenty-five to thirty other American inventors each of whom has taken 100 or more patents.

FIG. 306.

The year 1790 was notable in two events, the birth of our patent system and the death of Benjamin Franklin. That grand old philosopher, with a prescience of future greatness to come from the genius of the inventor, is said to have expressed the wish before he died that he might be sealed up in a cask of old Madeira and be brought to life a hundred years in the future, that he might witness the growth of the world. Who can tell what his emotions would be if he were with us to-day? It is said, when he first saw the fibres of the string diverge, and the spark pass from the cord of his kite, and the lightning was for the first time obedient to the will of man, that he uttered a deep sigh and wished that that moment were his last. To this poor knowledge of electricity he would now have added all the wonders and powers of the telegraph, the dynamo, the telephone, and the great modern electrical science; to his primitive hand press he would have contrasted the Octuple perfecting press, turning out papers at the rate of 1,600 a minute; his modest type-setting case would be replaced by a great array of linotype machines, and he would find several acres of woodland sacrificed to produce the wood-pulp paper of a single edition of a New York daily. Would he not realize indeed that truth is stranger than fiction, and fact more wonderful than fancy’s dream!