367. Asbestos Pockets.—A profitable pocket of asbestos was found a few years ago on Long Island not far from Brooklyn. Present supplies come from Sal Mountain, Georgia, and from Wyoming. It is believed that the serpentine rocks in Western North Carolina, as well as similar rocks in California and Oregon, contain rich deposits of this mineral.
368. Prospects in Platinum.—This is a metal of very great importance. It has not thus far been found in large quantities in the United States. The most promising field is the North Pacific Slope, following the line of the coast mountains. Some day, it is thought, that rich platinum mines may be discovered there equal to those in Russia, and, of course, the early prospectors will reap large fortunes.
369. Petroleum Wells.—“Petroleum,” says a leading article in the Electrical World, “is the coming fuel.” It is believed by many that the excitement over the discovery of oil fields in Pennsylvania in 1865 will be repeated on a much larger scale in oil regions yet to be discovered in the far West. At present, the mountains of Wyoming appear to be the most promising field. To sink an oil well costs $500 on the average. On Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, a few wells have been struck which yielded 3,000 barrels a day. One of the quickest ways to accumulate a fortune is to prospect for oil, and when a rich vein is struck to buy as much land as you can. A young man named Johnny Steel once owned nearly all the land where the Pennsylvania oil wells were discovered. His income was over $1,000,000 a year, $30,000 a day, or about $2 a minute. But, verifying the adage that “a fool and his money are soon parted,” he not only spent all this enormous income, but also squandered the entire principal, and came at last to work as the driver of an oil wagon on the very oil farm he had once owned.
370. Gold Discoveries.—Draw a line from Colorado Springs, Colorado, north to Laramie City, Wyoming. From these two points draw straight lines one thousand miles to the west and inclose the parallelogram. You have inclosed what is known as the great gold belt of the United States. Nearly all the gold has been discovered within these comparatively narrow limits. Cripple Creek produced $8,000,000 in four years. A man who walked into that place three years ago to save his stage fare is now taking out $100,000 a year from his mines. Dawson City, way up in the frozen British possessions, promises to do as well as any gold discovery in the United States. Two men, the Thorpe brothers, cleaned up with their pans $13,000 in eight weeks. This was but a very small part of the immense amount of gold found in an insignificant creek, but there are at least five hundred creeks on the branches of the Yukon River, many of them no doubt as rich as the one that gave Dawson City its fame.
371. Prospecting for Mines.—“How many undeveloped mines are there west of the Mississippi, which, if developed, would be valuable properties? There may be ten thousand. It is far more likely that there are a million.” Extract from “Mines and Mining Industries in the United States.” The same authority also says that a prospector who has spent a year in locating a mine should receive $10,000 from a capitalist as his share. Mark this, you who think mining has no prospects, except for men of wealth.
CHAPTER XV.
MONEY IN PATENT RIGHTS.
Nearly 100 Patents Issued Every Day—The Easiest Way to Get Rich—Crystallize Your Idea Into a Coin—Six Billion Dollars of Capital Based on Patents—Great Returns for American Genius—What a Patent is Worth—A Million Dollar Patent Discovered by Accident—A Fortune in a Needle’s Eye—The Man who Invented the “Donkey,” and What He Made by It—What “Pigs in Clover” Netted the Lucky Inventor—How to Get a Patent—What to Invent for Profit.
Probably no enterprise has yielded so great profits with so little capital as the work of the inventor. The small outlay, resulting in mammoth fortunes, has often consisted in little more than the set of stools and the cost of the patent. Of course, there must be brains and hard thinking. The sale of articles protected by patent rights is a stimulus to invent them, and has been the source of fortunes for more people in the United States than in any other country in the world. The United States Patent Office issues every year about 25,000 patents, and the number is constantly increasing. Nor are the patentees in all, or even in a majority of cases, men of genius, or persons who have been learned in the occupations in which they have achieved distinction. The greater part of them have been issued to persons in humble walks of life, who made their lucky discovery either by accident or by close application of thought.
In every department of human industry there are possibilities of improvement. He who can find a cheaper, quicker, or better, way of doing anything will get rich. Cyrus H. McCormick thought out a better way of cutting grain than with the old scythe. The result was the McCormick harvester, known all over the world. His patents made him a millionaire. Charles Goodyear accidentally mixed a bit of rubber and sulphur on a red hot stove. The result set him to thinking. He discovered the process of vulcanization, which is the basis of the great rubber industry throughout the world. His patents made him enormously rich. Elias Howe wondered if there could not be some better way of sewing than by the bone and muscle of weary woman’s hand. He tried and tried in vain. At last he had a dream in which he saw a needle with the eye at the point instead of at the head. He awoke exclaiming, “I have it!” The result was the sewing machine. Mr. Howe received every year more than $100,000 royalties on his patent needle. Eli Whitney, watching some slaves cleaning cotton, set to work to find a better way. He invented the cotton-gin by which one machine performs the labor of five thousand persons. This invention reaped for him untold wealth.
These were men of genius, but there are inventions which, being simple, lie apparently within the reach of all men. Mr. Parker, whose invention of the tobacco box fastening, is nothing but a “bulge and a dent,” and which it would seem any child might have thought out, made an immense fortune. Another inventor obtained a patent for a washing machine, and sold it in about fifteen months for $50,000. A man obtained a patent for a windmill, took a model through the Western States, and in eight months returned with $40,000 in cash. Probably the simplest device of all which has afforded amusement for millions is the game of the “Donkey Party,” which is nothing more than the picture of a tailless donkey placed upon the wall. The game costs less than one cent, but millions are annually sold. A copyright costing $5 insured this windfall to the inventor. The “Parlor Target and Dot” patent brought $35,000. The chief examiner of the Patent Office says: “A patent, if it is worth anything, when properly managed, is worth and can easily be sold for from $10,000 to $50,000.”