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»S5H 
 
 PATEyVT 
 
 CE/VTENMAh 
 
 CEbEBRATION 
 
Smitbsonian llnstttutton. 
 
 S. p. Lanqlev, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Washington, D. C, January 17, 1893. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 A number of copies of the Memorial Volume of the 
 Patent Centennial Celebration, held at Washington, in April, 
 1 89 1, having been deposited with the Smithsonian Institu- 
 tion for distribution, I have taken pleasure in directing 
 that a copy be forwarded to you, for the...3J..kJ,<^l^jJC!i....^.. 
 
 It is hoped that the volume will prove a not unwel- 
 come addition to the Library. 
 
 Very respectfully yours 
 
 SECRETARV. 
 
 do aJUj^. iLaJjAt:. 
 
 cvyV/^^tx.'vs, 
 
 -^(Ti-nrjJil AAy\\A/\^ ji/'^^ ^^^ . 
 
Proceedings and Addresses 
 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 • ■ BEGINNING • • 
 
 • • • OF THE • • • 
 SECOND CENTURY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Amencan Patent System 
 
 AT 
 
 Washington City, D. C. 
 
 April 8, 9, 10, 189 1. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 
 Pkess of Gedney & Roberts Co. 
 
 ■iSgia;. 
 
 
Copyright, 1892, by the E)xecutive Committee of the Patent Centennial Celebration, 
 Geo. C. Mavnard, Acting Chairman, J. Elfreth Watkins, Secretary. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Proceedings and Addresses, 
 
 Patent Centennial Celebration. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 History op Movement 3 
 
 Organization, List op Committees, etc ii 
 
 Proceedings at the Meetings, Reception at the Patent 
 
 Ofpice, and Excursion to Mount Vernon 21 
 
 Address by Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the 
 
 United States, opening the Congress 23 
 
 Formation of the Nationai, Association of Inventors and 
 
 Manufacturers 37 
 
 Banquets op the Board of Trade and of the Washington 
 
 Civil Engineers 39 
 
 Addresses Delivered at the Congress 43 
 
 Resolutions passed by the Executive Committee upon the death of 
 
 Hon. John IvYNCh, Chairman of that Committee 485 
 
 Subscribers to the Guarantee Fund 487 
 
 ivisT OF Members of the Congress 488 
 
 Newspaper Comment upon the Celebration 499 
 
 Index 523 
 
 Addresses Delivered at the Congress- 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. Charles Eliot Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents. — "Birth 
 
 and Growth of the American Patent System " 43 
 
 Hon. O. H. Platt, U. S. Senator. — "Invention and Advancement," 57 
 
 Hon. Carroll D- Wright, Commissioner of Labor. — " The Rela- 
 tion of Invention to Labor" 77 
 
 Hon. Samuel Blatchpord, Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 
 United States.— " A Century of Patent Law" ill 
 
 Hon. Robert S. Taylor.— "The Epoch Making Inventions of 
 
 America" 121 
 
 Hon. JohnW. Daniel, U. S. Senator.— "The New South as an 
 
 Outgrowth of Invention and the American Patent Law " 129 
 
 Hon. A. R. SpoPPOrd, Librarian U. S. Congress.— "The Copyright 
 
 System of the United States : its Origin and its Growth " 145 
 
 Octave ChanuTE, President of the American Society of Civil En- 
 gineers. "The Effect of Invention upon the Railroad and 
 
 other means of Inter-Communication" 161 
 
IV 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Thomas Gray, Professor of Dynamic Engineering Rose Polytechnic 
 Institute, Terra Haute.-" The Inventors of the Telegraph and 
 Telephone" ^^^ 
 
 Col. F. A. SBEI.Y, Principal Examiner U. S. Patent Office.-" Inter- 
 
 national Protection of Industrial Property i99 
 
 Edward Atkinson, of Massachusetts.-" Invention in its Eflfects 
 
 upon Household Economy" ' 
 
 S. P. IvANGl<EY, Secretary Smithsonian Institution, Presiding at Ses- 
 sion afternoon of April 9, 1891 35 
 
 WiLWAM P. Trowbridge, Professor of Engineering School of Mines, 
 Columbia College.-"The Effect of Technological Schools 
 upon the Progress of Invention" 239 
 
 Robert H. Thurston, Director and Professor of Mechanical Engi- 
 neering, Sibley College, Cornell University.— "The Invention 
 of the Steam Engine" 251 
 
 Cyrus F. BrackeTT, Henry Professor of Physics, College of New 
 Jersey, Princeton. — " The Effect of Invention upon the Progress 
 of Electrical Science " 287 
 
 Major Clarence E. DuTTON, Ordnance Department, U. S. A.-^"The 
 Influence of Invention upon the Implements and Munitions of 
 Modern Warfare" 293 
 
 F. W. Clarke, Chief Chemist U. S. Geological Survey.— "The 
 Relations of Abstract Scientific Research to Practical In- 
 vention " 303 
 
 J. M. Toner, M. D., of Washington, at Mount Vernon.— "Washing- 
 ton as an Inventor and Promoter of the Useful Arts" 313 
 
 Hon. Benjamin ButterworTh, of Ohio, U. S. House of Represent- 
 atives. — "The Effect of our Patent System on the Material 
 Development of the United States " 381 
 
 Hon. Wm. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education. — "The Relation 
 of Invention to the Communication of Intelligence by News- 
 paper and Book" 393 
 
 Otis T. Mason, Curator in the U. S. National Museum. — "The 
 
 Birth of Invention" 403 
 
 Dr. John S. Billings, Curator, U. S. Army Medical Museum. — 
 ' ' American Invention and Discoveries in Medicine, Surgery, 
 and Practical Sanitation" 413 
 
 Addresses at the Banquet of the Board of Trade, 
 Washincton, D. C, 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. M. M. Parker, President Board of Trade.— Address of Wel- 
 come 423 
 
 Hon. John M. Harlan, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States.— "The Supreme Court of the United States as Related 
 to the American Patent System 425 
 
 Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior.— " The Future of 
 
 the American Patent System " 426 
 
 Hon. Charles Poster, Secretary of the Treasury.— " American 
 
 Patents from a Financial Standpoint" 432 
 
 Hon. W. H. H. Miller, Attorney General.—" Relation of Patents 
 
 to the Law " (letter) 433 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. v 
 
 Gen. LBWis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War. — " American 
 
 Patents in the Army " 434 
 
 Hon. J. R. SoivEY, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. — "American 
 
 Patents in the Navy " 439 
 
 Hon. S. A. WhiTFiei^d, Assistant Postmaster General. — " American 
 
 Patents in the Postal Service" 441 
 
 Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, Secretary World's Columbian Ex- 
 position. — "American Patents at the World's Exposition" 444 
 
 Hon. Richard Pope, Commissioner of Patents Dominion of Canada. 
 
 "The Canadian Patent Office " 450 
 
 Papers upon U. S. Patent Office Topics. 
 
 Robert W. Fenwick, of Washington, D. C— "The Old and the 
 
 New Patent Office" 453 
 
 W. C. Dodge, of Washington, D. C. — "The Origin, Nature and 
 
 Effect of Patents" 473 
 
 James I/. Ewen, of Washington, D. C. — "The Minor Inventions of 
 
 the Century" 481 
 
Proceedings of the Congress 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 The celebration of the beginning of the Second Century of 
 the American Patent System was the outgrowth of a spon- 
 taneous desire to recognize publicly the benefits which that 
 system has conferred upon our Nation and upon the world. 
 
 This movement took practical shape when, at the last of 
 several meetings, duly advertised in the papers, held at the 
 Arlington Hotel, November ii, 1890, of which Mr. Robt. W. 
 Fenwick was Chairman and Mr. James T. Dubois was Secre- 
 tary, the Chairman was ' ' empowered to appoint a committee 
 of seven to make arrangements for the celebration, ' ' having 
 in view the successful accomplishment of two purposes, to wit: 
 
 ist. The celebration in an appropriate manner of the begin- 
 ning of the Second Century of the American Patent System by 
 the reading of scientific and historical papers by eminent citi- 
 zens of the United States, and other exercises. 
 
 2d. The formation of a National Association of Inventors 
 and Manufacturers of Patented Articles. 
 
 The following gentlemen were then chosen members of the 
 Central Committee : 
 
 JOHN W. BABSON, Chief of Issue and Gazette Div., U. S. 
 
 Pat. Office. 
 BRAINARD H. WARNER, President, Columbia National 
 
 Bank. 
 Prof. OTIS T. MASON, Curator, U. S. National Museum. 
 MYRON M. PARKER, President, Washington Board of 
 
 Trade. 
 Hon. JOHN LYNCH, President, Potomac Terra Cotta Co. 
 MARVIN C. STONE, Manufacturer of Novelties. 
 J. EIvFRETH WATKINS, Curator, U. S. National Museum. 
 
 To which were added the Chairman (Robt. W. Fenwick), 
 and Secretary (James T. Dubois), of the public meetings. 
 
 Extracts from the newspapers relating to the movement 
 will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 At the first meeting of the Central Committee, held Decem- 
 ber ist, 1891, John W. Babson was chosen Chairman, and 
 J. Elfreth Watkins, Secretary. 
 
4 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 It having been decided to issue an address to the public 
 which should embody the objects and aims of the Celebration, 
 the following, -'Circular No. i," was prepared and given to 
 the press for publication. Several thousand copies were sub- 
 sequently printed and distributed throughout the country. . 
 
 To THE Inventors of America and the Manufacturers 
 OF Inventions. 
 
 The completion of the First Century of the American Patent 
 System marks so important an epoch in the history of the 
 Nation that it is eminently proper that the beginning of the 
 second shall not pass unnoticed. 
 
 The centennial anniversaries of other important national 
 events have been celebrated in a manner worthy of a people 
 proud of their country and its growth. Surely the system 
 that has aided the agriculturist in the field, the mechanic in 
 the shop, and the toiler in the mine ; that has stimulated in- 
 vention and helped every branch of modern industry, has 
 played no small part in a history so full of the triumphs of 
 human achievement. 
 
 Believing that the American inventor and manufacturer of 
 inventions will regard it a privilege as well as a duty to co- 
 operate in making due recognition of these facts, it is proposed 
 to hold a celebration at the National Capital in April, 1891, 
 which shall in a fitting manner commemorate the important 
 event and place on record the Nation's appreciation of the 
 labors of those whose ingenuity, patience and tireless effort 
 have exercised such a potent influence in accelerating the 
 prosperous growth of the Nation, and in aiding the progress 
 of our civilization. 
 
 The necessity for a National Association of Inventors organ- 
 ized for mutual benefit has been frequently discussed in the 
 technical and other journals. No time could be more oppor- 
 tune for the formation of such an association than when men 
 from every part of the country meet to celebrate so important 
 an anniversary. Surely the occasion is most inspiring. 
 
 All inventors and manufacturers and others interested are 
 requested to cooperate with this Committee in the purpose 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 5 
 
 above set forth. Correspondence appertaining thereto should 
 be addressed to 
 
 J. ElfreTH Watkins, Secretary, 
 U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. 
 
 This circular elicited many favorable comments from the 
 public press, and inventors and manufacturers of patented 
 articles expressed by letter their desire to cooperate in the 
 movement. 
 
 On the i6th of February the following circular was mailed 
 to such persons who it was thought would be interested in the 
 formation of a National Association of Inventors and Manu- 
 facturers: 
 
 Office of the Executive Committee 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 CELEBRATION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND 
 
 CENTURY OF THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM 
 
 BY INVENTORS AND MANUFACTURERS OF 
 
 PATENTED INVENTIONS. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE : 
 
 Hon. John I,yNCH, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 J. Ei-FRETH Watkins, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 J. W. Babson, 
 
 Geo. C. Maynard, 
 
 Marvin C. Stone. 
 
 Sii G Street N. W., 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 February i6th, 1891. 
 
 Dear Sir : Your attention is invited to the accompanying 
 circulars relating to the Patent Celebration to be held in 
 Washington on the 8th, 9th and loth of April next, which it 
 is hoped you will attend. 
 
 It is proposed on that occasion to organize a permanent 
 National Association of Inventors and Manufacturers of Pat- 
 ented Articles for the purpose of securing cooperation in all 
 proper matters tending to the improvement of the American 
 Patent System. 
 
 At this time, when social and economic questions of the 
 gravest importance fill the public mind, the influence of judi- 
 cious organized efibrt can be beneficially exerted to remedy 
 existing defects and to provide against danger in the future. 
 
6 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 You are earnestly requested to unite in the formation of this 
 Association, and to contribute your personal assistance and 
 cooperation to that end. 
 
 The annual report of the Commissioner of Patents to Con- 
 gress, bearing date January ist, 1891, again calls attention to 
 the well-known need for more office room, lack of sufficient 
 examining force and inadequate pay of every Patent Office 
 official. The Commissioner remarks that " the pace kept up 
 in the Patent Office now, as in all recent years, is inconsistent 
 with that high degree of care which the patent system calls 
 for," and that "a patent should evidence such painstaking 
 care in examination that upon its face it should warrant a pre- 
 liminary injunction, and there can be little doubt that the con- 
 tinuance of the 'American ' examination system depends upon 
 so conducting examinations into the novelty of alleged inven- 
 tions as to make the seal of the Patent Office create a powerful, 
 if not a conclusive, presumption that the patent is valid." 
 
 The Commissioner further reports that during the past year 
 the Patent Office has earned a surplus over every expense of 
 the Office of $241,074.92, and that the total balance now in the 
 Treasury of the United States is $3,872,745.24, and adds that 
 the statement that the inventors of the country cannot under- 
 stand why the government takes their money and then fails 
 to provide necessary facilities. The prime reason of this state 
 of affairs is that the inventors of the country have never 
 brought concerted effort to bear upon their representatives in 
 Congress to the end that proper laws should be enacted, nor 
 have they properly supported the government officials in their 
 attempts to secure adequate office space and means to facilitate 
 the carrying out of present regulations. 
 
 Many of the most prominent Inventors and Manufacturers in 
 the country have expressed decided opinions to the effect that 
 concerted effort at this time, on the part of those most inter- 
 ested, may be the means of effecting such improvements in 
 the patent system as shall secure to every owner and user of a 
 patented invention the just and speedy enforcement of his 
 rights. 
 
 The Executive Committee of the Patent Celebration, de- 
 siring to cooperate with persons interested in the organization 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 7 
 
 of the proposed Association, have provided a suitable place for 
 its deliberations, and will arrange the program to accommodate 
 those who desire to take part both in the Celebration exercises 
 and in the business meetings of the Association. 
 
 An expression of your views upon the subject is requested. 
 If you find yourself unable to attend the meetings, you are in- 
 vited to bring such matters as you desire before the Association 
 by letter. Correspondence may be addressed to 
 
 J. E. Wateins, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 N. B. — If you desire to address the Association upon any 
 subject, please furnish the committee with an abstract of ad- 
 dress, and state length of time to be consumed in delivery, in 
 order that the preliminary organization may have information 
 to govern them in arranging the program for meetings. 
 
 The President Accepts the Invitation to Preside. 
 
 The following letter addressed to the President of the United 
 States, inviting him to preside at the first meeting of the Con- 
 gress on April 8th, elicited a favorable reply : 
 
 Washington, yawwarj/ 24, i8gi. 
 
 The President: On the eighth, ninth, and tenth of April next 
 there will take place in this city a National Celebration of the 
 Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent 
 System. This is being organized by the Inventors and Manu- 
 facturers of the whole country, and it is expected that thou- 
 sands of representative men of these classes, from every part of 
 the United States, will attend the meetings. 
 
 A number of prominent men have promised to deliver 
 addresses upon this occasion, and the topics to be discussed, 
 as you will see by the enclosed provisional list, relate to the 
 history of the Patent System, its effect upon the progress of 
 invention and its relations to industrial and social progress in 
 every direction. 
 
 It is deemed eminently fitting that the President of the 
 United States should be asked to be present at the opening 
 of this Celebration, which is a tribute from the citizens of 
 the United States to the long-continued efiiciency of one of 
 the branches of the general government. As Chairman of the 
 
8 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 Executive Committee, in behalf of all interested in the success 
 of the movement, I have the honor to invite you to take the 
 chair at the first meeting, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the 
 eighth of April. Respectfully, 
 
 John I^ynch, 
 Chairman of Executive Committee. 
 
 Invitations were also extended through the Executive Com- 
 mittee to the officials of the various foreign patent bureaus to 
 attend the celebration. 
 
 The following is the form of invitation : 
 
 Celebration of the Beginning of the Second Century 
 OF THE American Patent System at Washington, 
 U. S. A., April 8, 9, 10, 1891. 
 
 Sir : I have the honor to inform you that arrangements have 
 been made to celebrate, in an appropriate manner, the begin- 
 ning of the second century of the American Patent System, in 
 the city of Washington on the 8th, gth and loth of April next. 
 
 This celebration is being organized by American Inventors 
 and Manufacturers, and it is expected that thousands of repre- 
 sentative men of these classes from every part of the United 
 States will attend the meetings. 
 
 Prominent statesmen, jurists, engineers and political econo- 
 mists will deliver addresses upon topics relating to the history 
 of our patent system, its effects upon the progress of invention, 
 and its relations to industrial and social progress in every 
 direction. 
 
 You are requested to unite with these citizens of the United 
 States in this celebration, which is their tribute to the long 
 continued efficiency of one of the branches of the general 
 Government. 
 
 In behalf of all interested in the success of the movement, I 
 have the honor to invite you and such citizens as you may de- 
 sire to accompany you to take part in this celebration. 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 (Signed) John I^ynch, 
 Chairman of the Executive Committee. 
 (Signed) J. E. Watkins, 
 
 Secretary of the Executive Committee. 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 9 
 
 A number of the replies to the invitations are published 
 below. 
 
 The following is the form of the invitation that was sent to 
 inventors and others whose presence at the Celebration seemed 
 desirable. 
 
 Celebration of the Beginning op the Second Century 
 OF THE American Patent System by Inventors 
 and Manufacturers of Patented Inventions, in 
 THE City of Washington, April 8, 9, 10, 1891. 
 
 Dear Sir : You are cordially invited to become a member 
 of the Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Inventions, 
 to be held in the City of Washington, April 8, 9, 10, 1891, to 
 celebrate the beginning of the Second Century of the American 
 Patent System, which marks so important an epoch in the 
 history of the Nation. 
 
 The centennial anniversaries of other important National 
 events have been celebrated in a manner worthy of a people 
 proud of their country and its growth. 
 
 Not less worthy of commendation is the system which has 
 aided the agriculturist in the field, the mechanic in the shop, 
 and the toiler in the mine ; and has stimulated invention in 
 every department of modern industry. 
 
 In the belief that American Inventors and Manufacturers 
 will regard it a privilege as well as a duty to cooperate in the 
 movement, definite steps have been taken to hold this celebra- 
 tion, which shall in a fitting manner commemorate the import- 
 ant event and place on record the Nation's appreciation of the 
 labors of those whose ingenuity, patience and tireless effort 
 have exercised such a potent influence in accelerating the 
 prosperous growth of the Nation, and in aiding the progress of 
 our civilization. 
 
 It is expected that one of the outgrowths of this Congress 
 will be a National Association of Inventors and Manufacturers 
 of Inventions, the necessity for which Association has fre- 
 quently been discussed. No time could be more opportune 
 for the organization of such a society. 
 
lo HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 It is earnestly hoped that you will take part in this celebra- 
 tion. 
 
 If you desire to accept this invitation, you are requested to 
 sign your name to the enclosed blank, and to forward it, accom- 
 panied by a fee of five dollars, to Col. A. T. Britton, President 
 American Security and Trust Co. , and Treasurer Patent Cele-^ 
 bration Fund, 1419 G street n. w. 
 
 This action will constitute you a member of the Patent Cen- 
 tennial Congress and will entitle you to attend the public 
 meetings (admission to which will be by ticket), as well as the 
 proposed excursion to Mount Vernon on the anniversary of 
 the signing of the first American Patent Law by Washington. 
 
 Each member will receive all the publications of the Con- 
 gress, which are expected to consist of two or more hand- 
 somely printed volumes which shall contain the addresses 
 delivered at the celebration by the eminent statesmen and 
 political economists whose names appear upon the programme, 
 together with a series of biographies of the great American 
 inventors. These volumes will contain the most valuable 
 contributions to the history of invention and the American 
 Patent System ever published. 
 
 In behalf of the Executive Committee. 
 
 J. E. Watkins, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 To.. 
 
 Regulations governing the preliminary arrangements for 
 the Celebration were adopted by the Central Committee and 
 published early in February, substantially as follows : 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. II 
 
 ORGANIZATION, I,IST OF COMMITTEES, 
 DUTIES, Etc. 
 
 The Advisory Committee. 
 A first act was to secure the earnest cooperation of men 
 prominent in official positions, high in literary and scientific 
 attainments, and actively interested in the welfare and growth 
 of our country, to give support to this undertaking. The 
 letters placed on file from the gentlemen named below, selected 
 as an Advisory Committee, were of the most inspiring character 
 and express the warmest sympathy with the movement : 
 
 Hon. H. M. TEIvLER, Chairman, Committee on Patents, U. S. 
 Senate. 
 
 Hon. O. H. PI,ATT and Hon. GEORGE GRAY, Members of 
 Committee on Patents, U. S. Senate. 
 
 Hon. benjamin BUTTERWORTH, Chairman, Committee 
 on Patents, House of Representatives. 
 
 Hon. H. E; PAINE, Ex-Commissioner of Patents. 
 
 Hon. ELLIS SPEAR, Ex-Commissioner of Patents. 
 
 Hon. E. M. MARBLE, Ex-Commissioner of Patents. 
 
 Hon. M. V. MONTGOMERY, Ex-Commissioner of Patents. 
 
 Coi,. F. A. SEELY, Principal Examiner, U. S. Patent OiSce. 
 
 J. B. MARVIN, Chief of Draughtsman's Division, U. S. Patent 
 Office. 
 
 Prof. A. GRAHAM BELL. 
 
 Prof. S. P. LANGLEY, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. 
 
 Dr. G. brown GOODE, Assistant Secretary in Charge, U. S. 
 National Museum. 
 
 MA.J0R JOHN W. POWELL, Director, U. S. Geological Survey. 
 
 Prof. T. C. MENDENHALL, Superintendent, U. S. Coast and 
 Geodetic Survey. 
 
 Hon. a. R. SPOEFORD, Librarian of Congress. 
 
 Hon. EDWARD WILLITS, Assistant Secretary of Agrculture. 
 
 Coil. A. T. BRIXTON, President, American Security and 
 Trust Co. 
 
 Dr. J. C. WELLING, President, Columbian University. 
 
 REV. J. HAVENS RICHARDS, President, Georgetown Uni 
 versity. 
 
 T. E. WAGGAMAN, Trustee, Catholic University of America. 
 
 REV. J. E. RANKIN, President, Howard University. 
 
 REV. BYRON SUNDERLAND. 
 
 Hon. THOMAS WILSON, Smithsonian Institution. 
 
 Hon. JAMES BUCHANAN and Hon. GEORGE D. TILL- 
 MAN, Members of Committee on Patents, House of Rep- 
 resentatives. 
 
12 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 Hon. CHARLES ELIOT MITCHELL, Commissioner of 
 Patents. 
 
 Hon. ROBERT J. FISHER, Assistant Commissioner of 
 Patents. 
 
 Coi,. MARSHALL McDONALD, Commissioner of Fish and 
 Fisheries. 
 
 Hon. CARROLL D. WRIGHT, Commissioner of Labor. 
 
 Gen. a. W. GREELY, Chief Signal Officer, U. S. A. 
 
 GEN. M. C. MEIGS, U. S. A.* 
 
 Commodore WM. M. FOLGER, U. S. A. 
 
 Surgeon JOHN S. BILLINGS, Army Medical Museum. 
 
 Captain R. W. MEADE, U. S. N. 
 
 Generai, W. S. ROSECRANS, Register, U. S. Treasury. 
 
 Dr. F. O. ST. CLAIR, Chief of Consular Bureau, Depart- 
 ment of State. 
 
 Hon. J. W. DOUGLASS, Commissioner, District of Columbia. 
 
 Hon. J. W. ROSS, Commissioner, District of Columbia. 
 
 CoL. H. M. ROBERT, Commissioner, District of Columbia. 
 
 Hon. M. G. emery. President, Second National Bank. 
 
 J. M. TONER, M. D. 
 
 GEORGE C. MAYNARD. 
 
 Hon. SIMON WOLF. 
 
 A. L. BARBER, President, Barber Asphalt Co. 
 
 CROSBY S. NOYBS, Editor, Evening Star. 
 
 Hon. BERIAH WILKINS, Daily Post. 
 
 Gen. H. V. BOYNTON. 
 
 CHAS. A. ELLIOT. 
 
 A. D. ANDERSON, Secretary, Board of Trade-. 
 
 Coi,. WM. M. MEREDITH, Chief, Bureau Engraving and 
 Printing. ' 
 
 The Executive Committee. 
 
 By resolution of the Central Committee the Executive Com- 
 mittee is charged ' ' with the duty of arranging the program 
 for the celebration ' ' ; and all other committees are directed to 
 " report to and receive their instructions from the Executive 
 Committee"; " no indebtedness shall be incurred, except by 
 the authority of the Executive Committee, and no expendi- 
 tures shall be made from the funds collected for the purposes 
 of the celebration except upon vouchers approved by said 
 committee." 
 
 * Gen. M. C. Meigs was elected chairman of this committee at its first meeting, and 
 served in that capacity at each subsequent meeting. 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 13 
 
 The chairman of each sub-committee will be ex-ofiRcio a 
 member of the Executive Committee when matters pertaining 
 exclusively to his committee are under consideration. 
 
 The Executive Committee will determine the time and place 
 or places for holding the public meetings, and the character 
 of the literary exercises and entertainments afforded the mem- 
 bers of the convention ; and also have the general oversight 
 and arrangement of all affairs pertaining to the celebration. 
 
 It will prepare and issue to the public and distribute to in- 
 dividuals, in the best possible way, such circulars, letters and 
 invitations as will secure a full attendance of those persons 
 whose cooperation is desired. 
 
 It will cause to be printed and bound the volumes of the 
 papers read at the literary sessions of the Congress, together 
 with such portions of the proceedings of the business sessions 
 as may be determined upon, and will forward to each member 
 of the convention, who has paid a membership fee of five dol- 
 lars, one copy tiiereof. 
 
 It will provide tickets of admission to the literary and busi- 
 ness sessions of the convention, and to all entertainments and 
 receptions, and determine the regulations under which they 
 shall be distributed. 
 
 All sub-committees will report to the Executive Committee 
 at least once a week (on Tuesday evening), and oftener if 
 necessary, at the rooms at No. 811 G street, which will be 
 open daily from 9 A. m. to 5 p. m. until the close of the con- 
 vention. 
 
 Sub-committees can hold their meetings in these rooms by 
 giving notice to the Secretary. 
 
 Hon. JOHN LYNCH, Chairman. 
 J. ELFRBTH WATKINS, Secretary. MARVIN C. STONE. 
 JOHN W. BABSON. GEORGE C. MAYNARD. 
 
14 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 Thb Committee on Literature. 
 
 The Committee on I^iterature will designate what subjects 
 shall be discussed at the public exercises and will provide the 
 persons to deliver the addresses, and will receive, examine and 
 prepare for publication, or other proper disposition, such addi- 
 tional addresses or papers as may be oflFered. 
 
 Dr. G. brown GOODB, Chairman. 
 
 Hon. AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD. I^LEWELLYN DEANE. 
 
 The Finance Committee. 
 
 The Finance Committee will be charged with the duty of ob- 
 taining the necessary funds for the expenses of the celebration, 
 giving suitable acknowledgment to all persons contributing. 
 All funds when collected will be paid over to Col. A. T. Brit- 
 ton, Treasurer. 
 
 The character and value of the papers to be read before the 
 Congress by the eminent gentlemen who have volunteered to 
 prepare them being such that their preservation is desired, it 
 has been determined to publish them in book form, together 
 with such portions of the proceedings of the Association as 
 may be determined upon. These will make one or more 
 volumes of 400 pages. Each subscriber will be entitled to a 
 copy, together with a ticket of admission to all public meet- 
 ings of the Congress, and to all excursions, entertainments and 
 receptions, upon the payment of a fee of five dollars. 
 
 From these fees it is expected that a large revenue will be 
 derived, and that the first receipts will be available suflSciently 
 early to so far provide for current expenses that twenty per 
 cent, only of the subscriptions will be called for before 
 March 31st. 
 
 Subsequent calls will be determined by the receipts of fees. 
 No more calls will be made than are necessary to meet exi- 
 gencies. Whatever funds accumulating from membership fees 
 remain on hand after the expenses of the convention are paid 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 15 
 
 will be returned to the subscribers to tlie guarantee fund, and 
 pro rata to the amount paid in. 
 
 JOSEPH K. McCAMMON, Chairman, 1420 F street. 
 
 Hon. W. W. DUDLEY, Pacific Building. 
 
 REGINALD PENDALIv, 344 D street. 
 
 H. v. PARSEIvL, 458 Pennsylvania avenue. 
 
 JAMES T. DUBOIS, 715 Eleventh street. 
 
 GEO. C. MAYNARD, 1409 Ne* York avenue. 
 
 JOHN C. POOR, 4H Tenth street. 
 
 CHAS. E. FOSTER, 931 P street. 
 
 JAMES H. GRIDLEY, Pacific Building. 
 
 Hon. WM. McMICHAEL, Mills Building, N. Y. 
 
 CHARLES C. LISTER, Drexel Building, Phila. 
 
 Hon. J. W. WHELPLEY, 300 East Capitol street. 
 
 WHARTON Mcknight, 44 Penn. avenue, Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 M. I. WELLER, 326 Pennsylvania avenue, S. E. 
 
 MUNN & CO., New York, N. Y. 
 
 CapT. GEO. E. LEMON, 615 Fifteenth street N. W. 
 
 COMMITTBE ON PUBI<IC COMFORT. 
 
 This committee will negotiate for quarters, either at hotels 
 or private houses, for persons desiring them, and will invite 
 and obtain the names, addresses and rates of such householders 
 as will furnish accommodations for visitors. They will keep 
 a list of obtainable accommodations at headquarters, 811 G 
 street northwest, from which information can be given to 
 those who apply in person or by letter, and will take such 
 other steps as will, in their opinion, insure the comfort of the 
 guests. 
 
 W. C. DODGE, Chairman. 
 W. G. HENDERSON, F. E. TASKER, 
 
 J. H. whitaker, henry CALVER, 
 
 W. H. FINCKEL, NELSON J. DITTO, 
 
 E. T. FENWICK, A. M. SMITH, 
 
 L. W. SINSABAUGH, R. S. LACEY, 
 
 T. J. JOHNSON, JAMES A. ASHLEY, 
 
 BENJAMIN POOLE, HENRY H. BLISS, 
 
 J. L. EWIN, JAMES F. DUHAMEL, 
 
 A. H. EVANS, G. H. HOWARD, 
 
 C. J. GOOCH, M. E. GREGG. 
 
i6 
 
 HISTORY OF 7HE MOVEMENT. 
 
 The Reception Committee. 
 
 Upon the Reception Committee will devolve the duty of 
 receiving and extending proper courtesies to distinguished 
 guests during their stay, and the providing of sub-committees 
 to be in attendance at receptions and entertainments, and, as 
 may be necessary, at the sessions of the Convention. 
 
 WM. CRANCH McINTIRE, Chairman. 
 DbWITT C. LAWRENCE, Vice-Chairman. 
 
 A. A. WII^SON, 
 
 MARCEI/LUS BAILEY, 
 
 M. W. GALT, 
 
 L. P. WRIGHT, 
 
 Hon. THOMAS WILSON, 
 JAMES P. WILLETT, 
 
 Dr. WM. B. FRENCH, 
 
 O. C. GREEN, 
 
 Dr. G. W. HARRIS, 
 
 ROBERT BOYD, 
 JOHN KEYWORTH, 
 
 L. J. DAVIS, 
 J. J. HALSTED, 
 R. G. Du BOIS, 
 M. W. BEVERIDGE, 
 JNO. A. BAKER, 
 GEORGE E. LEMON, 
 R. G. DYRENFORTH, 
 G. T. HOWARD, 
 H. SEMKEN, 
 GEO. W. COCHRAN, 
 W. H. COLLINS, 
 W. B. COOLEY, 
 HENRY SHERWOOD, 
 FRANK R. WILLIAMS, 
 H. S. EVERETT, 
 H. L. CRANFORD, 
 T. M. GALE, 
 T. H. ALEXANDER, 
 CLEM. W. HOWARD, 
 H. O. TOWLES, 
 Dr. D. S. LAMB, 
 GEO. B. WILLIAMS, 
 J. J. HARROVER, 
 H. A. SEYMOUR, 
 JNO. F. WAGGAMAN, 
 PHILIP T. DODGE, 
 WM. F. MATTINGLY, 
 JAMES F. BARBOUR, 
 
 FRANK HUME, 
 CHARLES EARLY, 
 GEO. M. LOCKWOOD, 
 JNO. PAUL JONES, 
 R. H. VOORHEES, 
 E. E. ELLIS, 
 EUGENE PETERS, 
 OCTAVIUS KNIGHT, 
 R. D. S. TYLER, 
 
 C. A. SNOW, 
 LLOYD B. WIGHT, 
 W. T. FITZGERALD, 
 W. D. CABELL, 
 
 E. G. DAVIS, 
 B. LEWIS BLACKFORD, 
 GEO. W. CASILEAR, 
 EDWIN LAMASURE, 
 
 D. P. LIEBHARDT, 
 
 E. M. DAWSON, 
 FRED. BRACKETT, 
 JOHN TWEEDALE, 
 Prof. HARRY KING, 
 W. V. COX, 
 
 A. HOWARD CLARK, 
 WALTER HOUGH, 
 Dr. THOMAS TAYLOR, 
 PHILIP WALKER, 
 MAGNUS S. THOMPSON, 
 N. S. FAWCETTE, 
 HENRY W. RAYMOND, 
 Coi,. F. G. BUTTERFIELD, 
 MARTIN B. BAILEY, 
 E. A. DICK, 
 THOS. S. HOPKINS, 
 JAS. W. WHITE, 
 J. LOWRIE BELL, 
 ARNOLD B. JOHNSON, 
 W. J. HOFFMAN, 
 JAMES A. RUTHERFORD, 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 17 
 
 CoMMiTTBE ON Transportation. 
 
 This committee will by interviews and correspondence en- 
 deavor to secure reduced railroad and steamboat rates from all 
 points in the United States to this city, for the members of the 
 Congress and their friends who accompany them. They will 
 also be charged with the duty of making the necessary arrange- 
 ments for the excursion to Mount Vernon. 
 
 Coi,. W. B. THOMPSON, Chairman. 
 
 JAMES L. TAYLOR, 
 
 GEORGE W. BOYD, 
 
 W. P. CAMPBELL, 
 
 C. C. DUNCANSON, 
 
 S. M. BRYAN, 
 
 LiBDT. CHAS C. ALLIBONE, 
 
 C. C. SCULL, 
 CHARLES R. BISHOP, 
 Capt. W. T. ROESSLE, 
 Capt. a. a. THOMAS, 
 MORRELL MAREAN, 
 Coi,. JOS.'C. McKIBBEN. 
 
 The Committee on Hali^s. 
 
 This committee will be charged with the duty of obtaining 
 a hall for the principal place of meeting for the convention, 
 and such other halls as may be needed for special or overflow 
 meetings, and seeing that they are properly arranged and sup- 
 plied with the requisite attendants and conveniences. 
 M. D. HELM, Chairman. 
 
 E. W. PRATT, 
 W. H. RAPLEY, 
 W. X. STEVENS, 
 B. R. CATLIN, 
 
 T. J. W. ROBERTSON, 
 W. H. SINGLETON, 
 HERVEY S. KNIGHT, 
 
 F. A. LEHMANN, 
 WM. E. BOULTER, 
 
 F. C. SOMES, 
 WARREN H. ORCUTT, 
 AUGUST PETERSON, 
 GEO. S. PRINDLE, 
 EUGENE W. JOHNSON, 
 H. H. DOUBLEDAY, 
 W. P. KENNEDY, 
 J. NOTA McGILL, 
 H. N. LOW. 
 
 The Committee on Badges and Medals. 
 
 This committee shall cause designs for badges and medals 
 and the cost thereof to be submitted to the Executive Com- 
 mittee for approval, and, when authorized, secure and deliver 
 
i8 
 
 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 the same to the chairman of the several committees or officers 
 for appropriate distribution. 
 
 SCHUYLER DURYEE, Chairman. 
 
 V. D. STOCKBRIDGE, 
 
 W. A. BARTLETT, 
 
 ALEX. S. STEWART, 
 
 P. G. RUSSELL, 
 
 G. P. WHITTLESEY, 
 
 J. R. LITTELL, 
 
 C. H. FOWLER, 
 
 W. H. DOOLITTLE, 
 F. L. BROWNE, 
 LLOYD B. WIGHT, 
 A. S. BROWNE, 
 WALLACE GREENE. 
 P. MAURO, 
 Dr. F. W. RITTER, 
 
 C. L. STURTEVANT. 
 
 Committee on Press. 
 
 The Committee on Press will make arrangements for the 
 collection and dissemination of news, and for the accommoda- 
 tion of the Press, extending to them all necessary facilities. 
 S. H. KAUFFMANN, Chairman, Evening Star. 
 F. A. RICHARDSON, 
 
 Baltimore Sun. 
 RICHARD NIXON, 
 
 N. O. Times. 
 H. W. SPOFFORD, 
 
 Scranton Republican. 
 W. B. STEVENS, 
 
 St. Louis Globe-Detnocrat. 
 F. A. G. HANDY, 
 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 O. O. STEALEY, 
 
 Louisville Courier-Journal. 
 M. G. SECKENDORF, 
 N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 JULES GUTHRIDGE, 
 N. Y. Herald. 
 
 PAUL WOLFF, 
 
 Staals-Zeitung. 
 W. G. STERRETT, 
 Galveston News. 
 RICHARD WEIGHTMAN, 
 
 Age-Herald, Birmingham, Ala. 
 O. P. AUSTIN, 
 
 Press News Association. 
 E. B. WIGHT, 
 
 Boston Journal. 
 E. C. ROWLAND, 
 
 Philadelphia Press. 
 LOUIS J. LANG, 
 
 N. Y. Press. 
 C. FOX. 
 
 FRANK HATTON, 
 Post. 
 
 D. R. McKEE, 
 
 Associated Press. 
 H. V. BOYNTON, 
 
 Com,mercial Gazette. 
 
 JEROME J. WILBER, 
 Associated Press. 
 
 J. H. SOUL:fe, 
 
 Sunday Herald. 
 EDWARD W. BRADY, 
 
 Critic. 
 JOHN M. CARSON, 
 
 Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 JOHN Mcelroy, 
 
 National Tribune. 
 
 W. L. CROUNSE, 
 
 N. Y. World. 
 W. E. CURTIS, 
 
 Chicago News. 
 P. V. DsGRAW, 
 
 United Press. 
 
 E. G. DUNNELL, 
 
 N. Y. Times. 
 J. J. NOAH, 
 
 Kansas City Times. 
 LUTHER B. LITTLE, 
 
 St. Paul Pioneer Press. 
 DeB. RANDOLPH KEIM, 
 
 Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 WILLIAM 
 
HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 19 
 
 Committee on Music. 
 
 The Committee on Music will be charged with the duty of 
 providing such instrumental and vocal music as may be deter- 
 mined upon for the sessions of the convention, excursions, 
 receptions and parades, subject to the approval of the Execu- 
 tive Committee. 
 
 W. R. LAPHAM, Chairman. 
 W. D. McPARLAND, W. R. B. ATKINSON, 
 
 H. O. SIMONS, J. C. PENNIE, 
 
 J. R. EDSON, J. R. NOTTINGHAM, 
 
 GEORGE R. BYINGTON, F. D. JOHNS, 
 
 L. S. BACON, FRANK L. MIDDLBTON. 
 
 P. H. HOUGH, WIIvL E. DYRE, 
 
 FRANK L. DYER, H. J. ENNIS. 
 
 Committee on Carriages. 
 
 The Committee on Carriages will make arrangements with 
 the livery stables to provide sufficient and suitable carriages 
 for the use of the members of the convention while in the city 
 at reasonable and uniform rates, to be furnished upon tele- 
 phonic call of the committee or a request by its authority. 
 
 A representative of the committee will be on duty at head- 
 quarters, 811 G street, during the time of the convention. 
 
 O. E. DUFFY, Chairman. 
 
 A. E. H. JOHNSON, AIvLEN S. PATTISON, 
 
 HENRY ORTH, HERBERT E. PECK, 
 
 CHAS. S. JONES, W. E. AUGHINBAUGH, 
 
 W. N. MOORE, GEORGE W. STOKES, 
 
 HARRY F. SLOCUM, FREDERICK A. HOLTON, 
 
 SHIPLEY BRASHEARS, WALTER ALLEN, 
 
 CHAS. J. STOCKMAN, JAMES L. SKIDMORE- 
 EDSON S. DENSMORE, 
 
 Committee on Parade and Military Organizations. 
 
 Returning from the excursion to Mount Vernon on Friday, 
 April loth, by invitation of the Secretary of the Navy the boat 
 will land at the Navy Yard, and an opportunity will be given 
 the inventors and their friends to inspect the ordnance shops, 
 after which a military parade from that point through the city 
 is contemplated. The Secretary of War has already given 
 
20 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 favorable consideration to the matter, and it is expected that 
 the Regular Army and the District National Guard and the 
 High School Cadets will participate. The arrangements are 
 under the charge of the following committee : 
 
 Gen. ALBERT ORDWAY, Chairman. 
 GEN. CECIL CLAY, Maj. W. C. McINTIRE, 
 
 Coi,. W. G. MOORE, Maj. T. M. GALE, 
 
 F. N. LANE. 
 
 Committee on Banquet. 
 
 If it be determined to hold a banquet during or at the close 
 of the Convention, the arrangements therefor will be placed in 
 the hands of the following committee, who will make due 
 announcement of the time, place, etc. : 
 
 LAWRENCE GARDNER, Chairman. 
 
 A. B. BROWNE, RHESA G. DoBOIS, 
 
 WALTER JOHNSON, FRED. W. PRATT, 
 
 JOHN JOY EDSON, H. L. BISCOE, 
 
 JOHN W. BOTELER, WM. J. STEPHENSON, 
 
 JOHN C. EDWARDS, R. G. MONROE, 
 
 WM. R. SINGLETON, E. W. ANDERSON, 
 
 C. S. WHITMAN, A. A. CONNOLLY. 
 
 Special Committee for the Reception of Foreign 
 Officials and Guests. 
 
 As it is desirable to pay special attention to official and 
 other foreign guests who may be present in response to invita- 
 tions sent to the Patent Offices, Societies, and distinguished 
 citizens of other countries, that duty has been devolved upon 
 a special committee, consisting of 
 
 Gen. CYRUS BUSSEY, Chairman. 
 Hon. ROBERT P. PORTER, EUGENE M. JOHNSON, 
 A. S. SOLOMONS, ANTHONY POLLOCK, 
 
 Hon. THOMAS WILSON, HENRY ORTH, 
 
 Hon. N. L. FROTHINGHAM, LOUIS BAGGER, 
 EDWIN B. HAY, GUSTAV BISSING, 
 
 ALVA S. TABOR, FRANCIS R. FAVER, Jr. 
 
 Gen. L. T. MICHENOR, JOSE M. YZNAGA, 
 
 M. L. morris, WILLIAM H. BECK, 
 
 JOSE; J. RODRIGUEZ. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 FIRST MEETING. 
 
 The Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Inventions to 
 celebrate the Beginning of the Second Century of the American 
 Patent System convened at the Academy of Music (formerly 
 Lincoln Music Hall) in Washington, D. C, Wednesday, April 
 8, 1891, at 2:30 p. m. The first meeting was presided over by 
 the President of the United States, and among other distin- 
 guished guests upon the stage were Hon. John W. Noble, 
 Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. John Wanamaker, Postmaster- 
 General ; Prof. S. P. Ivangley, Secretary of the Smithsonian 
 Institution ; General Cyrus Bussey, Assistant Secretary of the 
 Interior ; Hon. Edwin Willits, Assistant Secretarj'- of Agri- 
 culture ; Senators O. H. Piatt and J. W. Daniel ; Hon. John 
 H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, Canada ; Mr. Wm. J. 
 I^ynch, Cashier, and Mr. J. McCabe, Chief Examiner of the 
 Patent Office, Ottawa, Canada ; Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, 
 Commissioner of Patents ; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commis- 
 sioner of Labor ; Mr. E. W. Halford, and the Commissioners 
 of the District of Columbia. 
 
 The boxes were occupied by Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, 
 the inventor of the telephone, Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, and 
 their families. Mrs. Amanda Vail, the widow of Alfred Vail, 
 who designed and constructed the first complete magneto- 
 electric telegraph instrument, and who was associated with 
 Prof. Morse in the invention of the electric telegraph, was an 
 honored guest upon the stage. In the audience were seated 
 many distinguished inventors, among them being Dr. Gat- 
 ling, General Berdan, George W. Maynard (son of Dr. Edward 
 Maynard), inventor of guns, rifles and ammunition ; Frederick 
 E. Sickles, inventor of the Sickles engine cut-ofiF and the steam 
 steering apparatus ; E. Berliner, of telephone and phonograph 
 fame ; D. G. Weems, inventor of the fast-speed electrical loco- 
 motive and railway ; Colonel Price, of Scranton, Pa., inventor 
 
22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of appliances to utilize coal dust ; Thomas Shaw, of Phila- 
 delphia, inventor of apparatus to purify and regulate the 
 ventilation of coal mines ; John Y. Smith, of Doylestown, Pa., 
 whose patented air-brakes are in use on many European rail- 
 ways. There were also many other distinguished men present 
 who have aided in the world's progress by their inventive 
 genius. 
 
 After an overture by the orchestra, Hon. John I,ynch, Chair- 
 man of the Executive Committee of the Patent Celebration, 
 announced the following officers of the " Congress of Inventors 
 and Manufacturers of the United States assembled to celebrate 
 the Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent 
 System " — 
 
 President — The President of the United States. 
 
 Vice-Presidents — Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the In- 
 terior ; Hon. Frederick Fraley, President National Board of 
 Trade ; Prof. Samuel P. lyangley. Secretary of the Smithsonian 
 Institution, and Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, Washington, 
 D. C. 
 
 Honorary Vice-Presidents — General Russell A. Alger, De- 
 troit, Mich.; Prof. W. A. Anthony, Manchester, Conn., Presi- 
 dent of the Institute of Electrical Engineers ; John Birkinbine, 
 Philadelphia, President of the Institute of Mining Engineers ; 
 Mr. Justice Bradley, United States Supreme Court ; Hon. 
 B. K. Bruce, Washington, D. C. ; Charles F. Brush, Cleveland, 
 Ohio ; General Thomas I,. Casey, Chief of Engineers, U. S. A. ; 
 Octave Chanute, Chicago, President of the American Society 
 of Civil Engineers ; George W. Childs, editor and publisher, 
 Philadelphia ; Thomas A. Edison, Mealo Park, N. J.; Norvin 
 Green, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, 
 New York ; Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, New York ; Hon. 
 Gardiner G. Hubbard, President National Geographical So- 
 ciety, Washington, D. C; Hon. John Jay, President of the 
 American Historical Association ; Charles F. Mayer, President 
 of the. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Baltimore ; 
 Prof. T. C. Mendenhall, Washington, D. C; Oberlin Smith, 
 President of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, Bridgeton, 
 N. J. ; Elihu Thomson, I,ynn, Mass.; Frank Thomson, Esq., 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 23 
 
 Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Philadelphia, and Joseph M. 
 Wilson, Philadelphia, President of the Franklin Institute. 
 
 The President being introduced by Chairman I^ynch, ad- 
 dressed the Congress, as follows : 
 
 Opening Address by the President of the 
 United States. 
 
 My fellow-citizens, members of this first convention of In- 
 ventors and Manufacturers, assembled to observe the Centennial 
 of the Patent System of the United States : My connection 
 with this meeting must necessarily be very brief, and may 
 seem to be quite-formal. Other engagements will prevent the 
 enjoyment by me of the treat that is in store for you in the ad- 
 dresses which will be delivered by the distinguished men whose 
 names are upon the programme. I can only by my presence 
 here, and these few introductory words, opening and constitut- 
 ing this Congress, express my appreciation of the importance 
 of this occasion, and my hope that your gathering may be pro- 
 motive of those branches of science and art in which you are 
 respectively interested. 
 
 It distinctly marked, I think, a great step in the progress of 
 civilization when the law took notice of property in the fruit 
 of the mind. (Applause.) 
 
 Ownership in the clumsy device which savage hands fash- 
 ioned from wood and stone, was obvious to the savage mind ; 
 but it required a long period to bring the public to a realization 
 of the fact that it was quite as essential that invention, taking 
 shapes useful to men, should be recognized and secured as 
 property. That is the work of the patent system as it has 
 been established in this country. It cannot be doubted by 
 any, I think, that the security of property in inventions has 
 been highly promotive of the advance our country has made 
 in the arts and sciences. (Applause.) Nothing more stimu- 
 lates effort than security in the results of effort. (Applause.) 
 
 Rev. Byron Sunderland, Pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church, then invoked the divine blessing upon the delibera- 
 tions of the Congress, and gave thanks to the Supreme Being 
 
24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 for the benefits which have accrued to the world "through the 
 genius of men, inspired from on high." 
 
 After the invocation the President placed the Congress in 
 charge of the first Vice-President, Hon. John W. Noble, Secre- 
 tary of the Interior, who introduced Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, 
 U. S. Commissioner of Patents, to address the Congress on 
 "The Birth and Growth of the American Patent System."* 
 
 This address was followed by Senator O. H. Piatt, of Con- 
 necticut, whose theme was "Invention and Advancement," a 
 scholarly production, which was received with applause. 
 
 "The Relation of Invention to I^abor," was discussed by 
 Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of I,abor. During 
 this address the Justices of the Supreme Court, headed by 
 Chief Justice Fuller, entered in a body amid applause and 
 were shown to seats upon the stage. This courtesy to their 
 distinguished colleague, Hon. Samuel Blatchford, who was the 
 next speaker, was a most pleasing incident of the celebration. 
 The Executive and I^egislative branches of the government 
 had already paid their tribute to the long continued efficiency 
 of the American Patent System, and this action by the repre- 
 sentatives of the highest judicial branch was only needed to 
 render the recognition complete. 
 
 Justice Blatchford, who enjoys a high reputation as a jurist 
 versed in patent law, then addressed the Congress on ' 'A Cen- 
 tury of Patent I^aw." 
 
 The last address of the afternoon was delivered by Hon. 
 Robert S. Taylor, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, upon "The Epoch- 
 Making Inventions of America," and upon its conclusion the 
 meeting was adjourned until 7:30 p. M. 
 
 SECOND MEETING. 
 
 The second meeting was called to order at 7:30 p. m., Wed- 
 nesday, April 8, 1891, by Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of 
 the Interior, who delivered a timely address, wherein he 
 
 *The addresses are published in full, and, as far as practicable, in the 
 order in which they were delivered. See index. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 25 
 
 referred to the growth of the Interior Department, the import- 
 ance of the Patent Office, the necessity for increasing its facil- 
 ities, and spoke enthusiastically of its future usefulness as a 
 factor of civilization. 
 
 Secretary Noble then presented Hon. John W. Daniel, U. S. 
 Senator from Virginia, who spoke of " The New South as an 
 Outgrowth of Invention and the American Patent I^aw, ' ' his 
 remarks being received with applause. 
 
 The programme concluded with a paper from Hon. Edwin 
 Willits, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, on ' ' The Relation 
 of Invention to Agriculture." 
 
 The Rbception at thb Patent Office. 
 
 After adjournment, the members of the Congress and the 
 ladies accompanying them repaired to the Patent Office to 
 attend the reception tendered in their honor by the Secretary 
 of the Interior and the Commissioner of Patents. The invita- 
 tion, which was accepted by several thousand persons, read as 
 follows : 
 
 " Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Patented Inven- 
 tions for the Celebration of the beginning of the Second 
 Century of the American Patent System. 
 
 ' ' The Executive Committee requests the presence of your- 
 self and ladies at a reception by the Secretary of the Interior 
 and Commissioner of Patents in honor of inventors and manu- 
 facturers, at the Patent Office Building, Washington, Wednes- 
 day, April 8th, 1891, at 9:30 p. m. 
 
 "John Lynch, George C. Maynard, 
 
 "J. W. Babson, Marvin C. Stone, 
 
 "J. E. Watkins. 
 
 " Present this card at the Seventh-street entrance." 
 
 The scene in the interior of the Patent Office was a brilliant 
 one. The walls of the broad corridor on the F street side of 
 the building were hung with flags, among which were intro- 
 
26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 duced countless electric lights. The rotunda in which the 
 receiving party stood was ablaze with light and color. At the 
 opposite end of the corridor, the large space behind the 
 columns was furnished with rugs and divans as a resting place 
 for those who did not desire to participate in the promenade. 
 Mr. Wm. Cranch Mclntire made the introductions to Secretary- 
 Noble, who in 'turn presented each guest to Mrs. Noble and 
 the receiving party, consisting of Commissioner and Mrs. 
 Mitchell, Mrs. Frothingham, wife of the Assistant Commis- 
 sioner of Patents ; Mrs. layman, wife of the Civil Service Com- 
 missioner ; the Misses Halstead, the Misses Mclntire, Mrs. 
 Woodruff, of New York ; Mrs. George Bartlett and Mrs. T. S. 
 Bishop, of New Britain, Conn., and others. 
 
 Among the guests present were Assistant Commissioner 
 Frothingham, Mr. Robert Mitchell, Mrs. Coston, Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph Keim, Miss Sarah C. Deen, of Reading ; Prof, and Mrs. 
 A. Graham Bell, Dr. Teunis S. Hamlin, Dr. and Mrs. G. Brown 
 Goode, Senator Manderson, Postmaster-General Wanamaker, 
 Gen. Berdan, Gen. Butterfield, Hon. Robert P. Porter, Super- 
 intendent of the Census ; Maj . J. W. Powell, Hon. John H. 
 Oberly, Mr. William C. Fox, Mr. E. H. Fox, Prof. W. D. 
 Cabell, with a number of young ladies ; Prof, and Mrs. Wood- 
 ward, Mr. and Mrs. William Lapham, Dr. Luce, Mrs. Kuehling, 
 Mrs. H. I^. King, Mr. and Mrs. Byrne, Dr. Gatling, Mr. Mat- 
 thew G. Emery, Mr. H. E. Ogden, Dr. J. B. Hamilton, Surgeon 
 General, Marine Hospital Service ; Col. E. B. Hay, Rev. Dr. 
 Corey, Senator Daniel, Commissioner layman, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Powell, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Mr. O. L. Pruden, Mr. 
 Sevellon A. Brown, Mr. F. W. Smith, Mr. F. W. Flowers, 
 Maj. Benjamin F. Pike, Mr. Thomas S. Chappell, Mr. J. G. 
 Howland, Mr. W. D. Swan, Mr. O. B. Brown, Maj. J. P. 
 Sanger, Mr. J. N. Morrison, Capt. W. S. Patten, Mr. A. C. 
 Towner, Mr. William R. lyapham, Mr. William R. Ryan, Mr. 
 James J. McDonald, Mr. Henry G. Potter, Mr. Edmond Mallet, 
 Mr. Manning M. Rose, Mr. H. H. Bates, Mr. Roger Welles, 
 Mr. William Burke, Mr. W. G. Perry, Miss C. M. Richter, Mr. 
 R. M. Layden, Mrs. D. W. Lewis, Mr. Charles P. Lincoln, 
 Mr. W. W. Barker, Dr. M. F. Gallaher, Mr. Frank H. Allen, 
 Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Clark, Mr. Geo. C. Maynard, Mr. and Mrs. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 27 
 
 Marvin C. Stone, Hon. John I^ynch, Prof, and Mrs. J. Elfreth 
 Watkins and Miss Ruth Hannah, Mr. William B. Shaw, Mr. 
 John W. Babson, Mr. E. R. Ts^er, Mr. J. W. Jayne, Mr. 
 George M. Hoitzman, Mr. Frank R. Williams, Mr. John 
 Hyde, Mr. Wiliam C. Hunt, and nearly every official connected 
 with the Interior and the other Departments of the government. 
 
 THIRD PUBLIC MEETING. 
 
 Hon. Frederick Fraley, President of the National Board of 
 Trade and of the American Philosophical Society, who was 
 expected to preside over the third public meeting, held at 2 
 p. M., Thursday, April 9th, 1891, was deterred from this duty 
 by illness. His place was filled by Mr. Oberlin Smith, Past 
 President of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Honor- 
 ary Vice-President of the Congress. 
 
 Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, who was announced to address 
 the Congress on "The Effect of Our Patent System on the 
 Material Development of the United States, ' ' was unavoidably 
 delayed in Chicago, rendering a change in the programme 
 necessary. 
 
 Hon. A. R. Spofford, lyibrarian of Congress, who has ad- 
 ministered the affairs of our great national library for twenty- 
 seven years, then read the first paper of the session, entitled 
 ' ' The Copyright System of the United States : its Origin and 
 its Growth." 
 
 Owing to the illness of Prof Octave Chanute, President of 
 the American Society of Civil Engineers, his paper, next in 
 order upon the programme, ' ' The Effect of Invention upon the 
 Railroad and Other Means of Intercommunication," was read 
 by Prof J. Howard Gore, of the Columbian University, Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 ' ' The Inventors of the Telegraph and the Telephone ' ' was 
 the title of an address delivered by Prof. Thomas Gray, of 
 Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Indiana. This ad- 
 dress attracted additional attention from the fact that Professor 
 Gray is the author of the articles on the "Telegraph" and 
 
28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 "Telephone" in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica. A further coincidence in connection with this address was 
 the presence in the audience of Mrs. Alfred Vail, widow of one 
 of the inventors of the telegraph ; Prof. Alexander Graham 
 Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and Mr. Emilie Berliner, 
 of telephone fame. 
 
 Col. F. A. Seely, a Principal Examiner in the Patent Office, 
 contributed a paper on " International Protection of Industrial 
 Property." The fact that Colonel Seely had only recently 
 been called upon to represent the United States in a conference 
 relating to International Patent Laws at Madrid, Spain, made 
 it possible for him to utilize the results of these deliberations 
 in his discussion of this important subject. 
 
 The last paper of the afternoon session, " Invention in its 
 Effect upon Household Economy," prepared by Dr. Edward 
 Atkinson, of Boston, Massachusetts, who was unable to be 
 present, was read by Prof. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States 
 Geological Survey. The theory of this address was, that we 
 pay many penalties for the progress of invention, but these 
 penalties are being gradually removed by further improve- 
 ments in the same line. 
 
 The meeting then adjourned until 7:30 p. m., April 9th, 1891. 
 
 FOURTH PUBUC MEETING. 
 
 Prof. S. P. I,angley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- 
 tution, presided over the fourth public meeting, which was 
 called to order at 7:30 p. m., April 9th. He delivered a short 
 address, and called attention to the fact that the Smithsonian 
 Institution in its early days was the inheritor of many of the 
 treasures of the Patent Office. 
 
 The presiding officer then introduced Prof. William P. 
 Trowbridge, of the School of Mines, Columbia College, New 
 York, who spoke of the " Effect of Technological Schools upon 
 the Progress of Invention," his remarks being frequently ap- 
 plauded. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 29 
 
 Dr. Robert H. Thurston, Director of Sibley College, Cornell 
 University, New York, followed Professor Trowbridge with an 
 able address on " The Invention of the Steam Engine," replete 
 with interesting facts and conclusions regarding steam. 
 
 The third paper of the evening, ' ' The Effect of Invention 
 upon the Progress of Electrical Science," was read by Prof. 
 Cyras F. Brackett, of Princeton College. The fact that Pro- 
 fessor Brackett occupies the chair founded to commemorate the 
 life work of Professor Henry, the great discoverer of the laws 
 of electro-magnetism, rendered his selection to speak upon this 
 subject peculiarlj' appropriate. 
 
 Maj. Clarence E. Dutton, of the Ordnance Department, 
 U. S. A., who .was to address the Congress on "The Influence 
 of Invention upon the Implements and Munitions of Modern 
 Warfare," being unavoidably absent in Mexico, his paper was 
 read by Capt. Rogers Birnie, U. S. A. 
 
 The last address of the evening was delivered b}"- Prof. 
 F. W. Clarke, Chief Chemist of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
 on ' ' The Relations of Abstract Scientific Research to Practical 
 Invention, with Special Reference to Chemistry and Physics." 
 
 The meeting then adjourned. 
 
30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ANNIVERSARY DAY. 
 
 EXCURSION TO MOUNT VBRNON. 
 
 One hundred and one years ago — upon April lo, 1791, the 
 first American Patent lyaw, "An Act to Promote the Progress 
 of the Useful Arts," was signed by George Washington. It 
 was therefore especially appropriate that this annversary 
 should be celebrated by an excursion to Washington's tomb, 
 at Mount Vernon. At 11 A. m. the steamer Excelsior left her 
 wharf, carrying six hundred people. The Naval Band from 
 Annapolis accompanied the excursionists by permission of the 
 Secretary of the Navy, a courtesy which was greatly appre- 
 ciated. On arriving at Mount Vernon the Annapolis Band 
 headed the procession, and a solemn march was made up the 
 hill to the tomb, where, with uncovered heads, the visitors 
 viewed the crypt containing the marble sarcophagus of Wash- 
 ington. The excursionists then proceeded to the lawn in front 
 of the mansion, where the large group was photographed ; the 
 mansion house and its interesting historical relics were then 
 visited and examined, after which Dr. J. M. Toner, the orator 
 of the day, was introduced by Mr. Watkins, Secretary of the 
 Executive Committee, who said : 
 
 ' ' It seems eminently proper that upon this important anni- 
 versary you should be addressed by one, a large portion of 
 whose long life has been devoted to preserving the history of 
 the Father of our Country. As a son of Virginia, standing 
 upon this historic ground, it is indeed an honor to be per- 
 mitted to introduce the orator of the day, Dr. Toner, of Wash- 
 ington, j' 
 
 Dr. Toner then delivered an address upon ' ' Washington as 
 an Inventor and Promoter of Useful Arts." 
 
 Upon the conclusion of the exercises the party proceeded to 
 the steamboat, where a felicitous address was delivered on the 
 return trip by ex- Commissioner of Patents Hon. Benjamin 
 Butterworth, upon ' ' The Influence of the Patent System on 
 the Prosperity of the Country." At the close of Mr. Butter- 
 worth's stirring address, the Canadian Commissioner of Patents 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 31 
 
 Spoke briefly, congratulating the government and the various 
 committees on the success of the celebration, and the inventors 
 of the United States upon their patent system and individual 
 achievements. He further stated that Canada was trying to 
 model her patent system after that of the United States, this 
 remark being received with gratifying applause. 
 
 The excursionists reached Washington at 4 p. m., and imme- 
 diately repaired to the Executive Mansion to witness the mili- 
 tary parade in the White I,ot, and to attend the reception 
 tendered them by the President. 
 
 The Mii,itary Parade and Reception at the 
 White House. 
 
 A special and impressive feature of the Centennial Celebra- 
 tion was the military review and parade in honor of the visitors. 
 This imposing spectacle occurred in the White I<ot, south of 
 the Executive Mansion, where the military was reviewed by the 
 President, all the U. S. troops from the Arsenal and Fort Myer, 
 the militia of the District of Columbia, and the High School 
 Cadets being in line. The Third Artillery Band, the National 
 Guard Band and the Naval Academy Band and Drum Corps 
 furnished the music. After being reviewed by the President, 
 the companies continued their march along Pennsylvania 
 Avenue to the Capitol. The battalion of six companies of the 
 High School Cadets was one of the most interesting parts of 
 the parade, their precision in marching being especially com- 
 mended by the visitors. 
 
 The military display was pronounced by competent judges 
 to be perfect in every detail, the discipline manifested being 
 worthy of special mention. 
 
 With the President upon the reviewing stand were a number 
 of prominent inventors, army and navy officers and government 
 officials. After the review the members of the Congress pro- 
 ceeded in a body to the White House, where they were formally 
 presented to the President by Hon. John I^ynch, Chairman of 
 the Executive Committee. This was a most pleasant feature 
 in the programme of entertainment, and the courtesy was 
 greatly appreciated by the visitors. 
 
32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 FIFTH PUBIvIC MEETING. 
 
 In opening the fifth and last public meeting of the Congress, 
 Friday, April loth, at 8 p. M., Hon. John I^ynch, the Chairman 
 of the Executive Committee, introduced the presiding officer 
 in the following words : 
 
 ' ' I have the pleasure of introducing as President of this 
 concluding session of the Congress a man of world-wide fame, 
 whose name is at this moment literally ringing throughout the 
 civilized world, Professor Alexander Graham Bell." 
 
 Professor Bell, upon taking the chair, delivered a thoughtful 
 and interesting address. 
 
 The first regular address of the evening was delivered by 
 Hon. William T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, on "The 
 Relation of Invention to the Communication of Intelligence 
 and the Difiusion of Knowledge by Newspaper and Book." 
 
 This was followed by a paper on ' ' The Birth of Invention, ' ' by 
 Prof. Otis T. Mason, Curator of the Department of Ethnology, 
 U. S. National Museum, showing the growth of inventive ideas. 
 
 "American Inventions and Discoveries in Medicine, Surgery 
 and Practical Sanitation" was the title of the last paper, which 
 was read by Dr. J. S. Billings, Curator, U. S. Army Medical 
 Museum. 
 
 Secretary J. Elfreth Watkins then read a number of tele- 
 grams and communications from the officials of European 
 Patent Offices and several scientific societies. Among them 
 were the following : 
 
 Obtice of the President of the 
 Imperial German Patent Office, 
 
 Berlin, March 23, 1891. 
 Honored Sir : I have the honor to herewith respectfully 
 acknowledge the receipt of your valued communication of the 
 2d instant. It is with great interest that I see from it the 
 worthy manner in which the citizens of the United States of 
 America intend to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of 
 the day on which the patent system was established. Allow 
 me to express to you my congratulations upon this resolution, 
 no less, however, upon the manner in which you hope to carry 
 it out. 
 
 It is with great propriety that you and those seconding your 
 efforts in the arrangement of the celebration point to the im- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 33 
 
 portant part which the patent system has had in the growth, 
 development and prosperity of your home industries. Did 
 nothing else speak for the high value of the patent law, the 
 one circumstance would be of sufficient proof that the American 
 people, as a whole, are bringing to the celebration the heartiest 
 sympathy, and that you will have the honor and the pleasure 
 to greet as participants men of science as well as those of 
 practical experience, whose names are held in high honor far 
 beyond the boundaries of your own land. 
 
 I join with you in recognizing in the protection of inven- 
 tion a practical means of increasing the prosperity of the 
 people, and praise with you the deed which was performed one 
 hundred years ago, and rejoice with you at the fruits which 
 have obtained to your citizens, and with them the cultured 
 nations of the earth, to the nurturing of inventive genius in 
 America. 
 
 With these sentiments I beg you to consider me, though not 
 present, as with you on the 8th of April and the following days, 
 and look upon me as a participant in the celebration. I greatly 
 regret that circumstances will prevent my leaving Berlin at 
 this time, where official matters require my attention, and 
 further, the conclusion of arrangements necessary for a journey 
 at this time would be impossible, even if the time necessary for 
 them was shorter than it is. 
 
 I beg you to accept these lines as an expression of my most 
 hearty thanks for your remembrance of me and to excuse my 
 absence. With the assurance of my most respectful considera- 
 tion, I have the honor to remain 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 BOJANOWSKI, 
 
 Hon. John IvYnch, etc. President. 
 
 FrankforT-on-Main, 
 
 Germany, April 10, 1891. 
 
 Secretary of the Patent Centenary Celebration, Washington, D. C. : 
 
 The undersigned beg to congratulate the United States 
 upon the beginning of the second century of the American 
 patent system which has contributed so much to the develop- 
 ment and promotion of electrical science and art. 
 
 Ei,ECTRO Technical Society, 
 
 Frankfort-on-Main . 
 
34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 25, Southampton Buildings, 
 
 Chancery I^ane, 
 
 L,ONDON, W. C, 19th March, 1891. 
 
 Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 letter of the 2d inst., and in reply to ask you to be good 
 enough to convey to the chairman of the Executive Committee 
 my best thanks for the courteous invitation to attend the cele- 
 bration of the beginning of the second century of the American 
 patent system, and at the same time to express to him my re- 
 gret that it will not be possible for me to be absent from 
 England at the date fixed for holding the celebration. 
 
 I have the honor to be, sir, 
 
 Your obedident servant, 
 
 H. Reader I<ack, 
 J. EivFRETH WaTkins, Esqre. Comptroller-General. 
 
 Bureau Fe;de;rai, 
 
 DE LA PrOPRI^Te; InTELIvECTUELIvE, 
 
 Berne, le 18 May, 1891. 
 
 To the Hon. John Lynch, Chairman of the Executive Comm-ittee 
 of the Celebration of the Beginning of the Second Century of 
 the American Patent System, Washington, U. S. 
 
 Dear Sir : In expressing to you our thanks for the invita- 
 tion with which you have honored us, we are compelled to de- 
 cline it on account of the distance from Washington. 
 
 With our best wishes for the full success of the celebration 
 of the beginning of the second century of the American patent 
 system, we have the honor to be, my dear sir, with assurances 
 of high regard. 
 
 Bureau Fi;D;§;RAi.DE la PROPRi:feTE; Intellectuelle 
 
 LE DiRECTEUR, HALLER. 
 
 Den Kongelige Norske Regerings, 
 Departement for det Indre, 
 departement-schefen. 
 Christiania, den 18 April, 1891. 
 Sir : While having the honor to offer my thanks for the in- 
 vitation received. to take part in the celebration in Washington 
 on the 8th, 9th and loth inst., of the beginning of the second 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 35 
 
 century of the American patent system, I regret very much 
 to be prevented by circumstances from uniting in this cele- 
 bration. 
 
 I am, sir, respectfully yours, 
 
 W. KONOW. 
 
 To Hon. John Lynch, 
 
 Washington. 
 
 The Swedish Commissioner of Patents sent the following 
 cablegram from Stockholm : 
 
 " On your Centennial the Royal Patent Office sends cordial 
 greetings, with best wishes for continued success." 
 
 The French Commissioner of Patents recognized the import- 
 ance of the occasion, and sent cordial greetings. 
 
 The reading of these communications having been com- 
 pleted the following resolution was offered by H. T. Simons, 
 of Ohio : 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this Congress of Inventors and 
 Manufacturers of Patented Inventions here assembled be ex- 
 tended to the President of the United States, the members of 
 the Cabinet and the Judges of the United States Supreme 
 Court for their honored presence at our meetings ; to the 
 learned and distinguished gentlemen who presided over and 
 addressed the Congress of Inventors at the several public 
 meetings ; to the Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the In- 
 terior ; Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents, 
 and the ladies assisting them in the brilliant reception tendered 
 this Congress at the Patent Office ; to the Washington Centen- 
 nial Committee for the enjoyable excursion to Mount Vernon 
 and the magnificent military review ; to Hon. John Lynch and 
 Professor J. E. Watkins, for their arduous labors in behalf of 
 the Congress of Inventors and Centennial Celebration ; to the 
 Executive Committee, the several sub-committees, and the 
 citizens of Washington for their kind and courteous efforts for 
 our comfort and entertainment, and finally to the several news- 
 papers and reporters for their fair and honorable reports of the 
 proceedings of our meetings. 
 
 The resolution was unanimously adopted amid applause, 
 and Professor Bell then declared the Congress adjourned for 
 one hundred years. 
 
36 PATENT CENTENNIAL BADGES. 
 
 Badges worn by Committbes, Members and Guests 
 DURING THE Patent Centennial Celebration. 
 
 The following badges were worn by committees, members 
 and guests during the celebration : 
 
 badges. 
 
 COMMITTEES. Bows. Ribbons. 
 
 1. Central Purple Gold Gold 
 
 2. Advisory Gold Purple Purple 
 
 3. Executive Red Red Red 
 
 4. Literature Blue White White 
 
 5. Finance ■ White Red Red 
 
 6. Public Comfort Red White White 
 
 7. Reception White White White 
 
 8. Transportation Blue Blue Blue 
 
 9. Halls Red Blue Blue 
 
 10. Badges and Medals Blue Red Red 
 
 11. Press Gold White White 
 
 12. Music White Blue Blue 
 
 13. Carriages Purple White White 
 
 14. Parade and Military Organizations, Purple Purple Purple 
 
 15. Banquet -- White Purple Purple 
 
 16. Members (Button) Blue Red White 
 
 17. Guests " White Red Blue 
 
 18. Foreign Reception " Gold Gold Gold 
 
 19. National Committee " U.S. flag Red White 
 
 20. Auxiliary State Committee ' ' Red White White 
 
 A handsome medal of pure aluminum bearing the seal of the 
 patent of&ce and the inscription " Patent Centennial Celebra- 
 tion, Washington, April 10, 1891," was one of the souvenirs 
 of the celebration. 
 
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INVENTORS. 37 
 
 The Nationai, Association op Inventors and Manu- 
 facturers. 
 
 The expectation that one of the outcomes of the celebration 
 would be the establishment of an association of inventors and 
 manufacturers of patented inventions was realized. 
 
 The first meeting of the National Committee from the 
 difierent States, and representing various industries, met 
 according to call in Parlor lo of Willards Hotel at lo A. m. 
 on Wednesday, April 8. 
 
 Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, of Washington, was chosen 
 Chairman and J. Klfreth Watkins, Secretary. 
 
 A. sub-committee was appointed, to whom was referred the 
 question of the advisability of establishing an association. 
 This committee was requested to examine all of the corre- 
 spondence relating to the formation of an association which had 
 been received by the Executive Committee of the Patent 
 Celebration, with directions to report at a general meeting to 
 be held at lo A. M. the following day. 
 
 At the meeting on Thursday morning this sub-committee 
 made a brief report. 
 
 The questions as to the advisability of forming an associa- 
 tion at once, or of leaving the matter in the hands of a com- 
 mittee to get into touch with inventors and manufacturers 
 throughout the country before definite steps were taken, were 
 earnestly and thoroughly discussed. 
 
 As those who favored the former course were in the ma- 
 jority, the committee was requested to submit a form of con- 
 stitution and by-laws to the meeting which was to be held on 
 Friday, on the steamboat en route for Mount Vernon. 
 
 As the committee to whom the matter was referred was 
 unable to complete its deliberations in time, no meeting was 
 held until 6 p. M. on Friday, April lo, at I<incoln Hall, when 
 a constitution and by-laws were adopted. 
 
38 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INVENTORS. 
 
 Officers. 
 
 At the meeting of the members of the American Association 
 of Inventors and Manufacturers held after the adjournment of 
 the Congress at Lincoln Hall, at lo p. M. on Friday, April 
 loth, 1891, the following officers were elected for the ensuing 
 year : 
 
 President— V)^. R. J. GATLING, of Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 First Vice-President— GABS>1N'EK O. HUBBARD, of Washington, D.C. 
 
 Second Vice-President— THOMAS SHAW, of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Third Vice-President— VViOV. W. A. ANTHONY, of Manchester, Conn. 
 
 Fourth Vice-President— BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH, of Cincinnati,©. 
 
 Secretary— J. ELFRETH WATKINS, of Washington, D. C. 
 
 Treasurer— MAKVIN C. STONE, of Washington, D. C. 
 
 The following Board of Directors "were separately voted 
 for " and unanimously elected to serve during the periods 
 prescribed by the Constitution : 
 
 CHAS. F. BRUSH, Cleveland, Ohio. 
 OTIS T. MASON, Washington, D. C. 
 R. B. MUNGER, Birmingham, Ala. 
 F. E. SICKI^ES, Kansas City, Mo. 
 JOHN Y. SMITH, Doylestown, Pa. 
 OBERLIN SMITH, Bridgeton, N. J. 
 D. M. SMYTH, Northwood, N. H. 
 ROBERT H. THURSTON, Ithaca, N. Y. 
 DAVID G. WEEMS, Baltimore, Md. 
 
BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. 39 
 
 The Banquet of the Washington Board op Trade. 
 
 The closing feature of the Congress, and one which will be 
 remembered with pleasure by the participants, was the banquet 
 given on Friday evening, April loth, by the Washington Board 
 of Trade at the Arlington Hotel, to celebrate at one and the 
 same time the centenary of the American Patent System and 
 that of 'the District of Columbia. The company numbered 
 over two hundred guests, comprising members of the Cabinet 
 and other distinguished government ofGicials, noted men who 
 attended the Patent Centennial celebration, besides many 
 prominent and representative citizens of the District. The 
 spacious dining-hall was tastefully decorated and the table was 
 artistically arranged with flowers. In the menu, decorations, 
 and general appointments the banquet was a memorable one, 
 even in Washington, where the art of giving dinners has grown 
 to be a science. At each plate was placed a menu card artistic 
 in design, bearing a representation of the genius of invention 
 and containing the seal of the Patent Of&ce in gold. 
 
 Menu. 
 
 Blue Points 
 
 Clear Turtle Soup 
 
 Anchovies Olives Radishes 
 
 Striped Bass, a la Chambord 
 Cucumbers Bermuda Potatoes 
 
 Chicken Croquettes 
 Green Peas 
 
 Filet of Beef, with Mushrooms 
 Asparagus 
 
 Ivobster, a la Newbourg 
 
 Punch, Italia Rookh 
 
 Grouse, Roasted 
 lettuce and Tomato Salad Currant Jelly 
 
 Ice Cream Napolitaine 
 
 Fancy Cakes. 
 
 Coffee Cigars. 
 
 Wines : 
 
 Haut Sauterne Sherry Claret 
 
 G. H. Mumm's Extra Dry 
 
40 BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. 
 
 The banquet will be long remembered on account of the 
 distinguished men present, every department of the govern- 
 ment being represented, and for the character of the speeches 
 delivered. The beauties of the city of Washington and the 
 great benefits of the patent system were exploited in eloquent 
 words by those who responded to the toasts. 
 
 Mr. Myron M. Parker, President of the Board of Trade, 
 presided. By his side was Justice Harlan of the Supreme 
 Court, and near him were Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of 
 the Treasury ; Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior ; 
 Hon. I^ewis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War ; Hon. 
 J. R. Soley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; Hon. S. A. Whit- 
 field, First Assistant Postmaster-General ; Hon. C. E. Mitchell, 
 Commissioner of Patents; Hon. Benj. Butterworth, ex-Com- 
 missioner, and Mr. E- D. Anderson, Secretary Board of Trade. 
 
 At the close of the dinner President Parker delivered an 
 address of welcome, which, with such of the responses to the 
 following toasts as have direct reference to the American patent 
 system, will be found in the subsequent pages. 
 
 I. Address of Welcome, Mr. M. M. Parker, President 
 Board of Trade. 2. The President of the United States. 
 3. The Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Justice Har- 
 lan. 4. The Future of the American Patent System, Hon. John 
 W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior. 5. American Patents from 
 the Financial Standpoint, Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of the 
 Treasury. 6. The Relation of Patents to the I<aw, Hon. W. 
 H. H. Miller, Attorney-General. 7. The Centenary of Wash- 
 ington City, T. W. Noyes, Esq., editor Evening Star 8. The 
 District of Columbia, Hon. John W. Douglass, President Board 
 of District Commissioners. 9. American Patents from an In- 
 ternational Standpoint, Hon. F. O. St. Clair, Department of 
 State. ID. The Capital of the Foremost Republic, Hon. J. I^. 
 M. Curry. 11. American Patents in the Army, General I,ewis 
 A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War. 12. Washington, 
 the Educational Centre of America, Rt. Rev. Bishop Keane. 
 13. American Patents in the Navy, Hon. J. R. Soley, 
 Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 14. The First Century of the 
 American Patent System, Hon. C. E. Mitchell, Commissioner of 
 Patents. 15. American Patents in the Postal Service, Hon. S. 
 A. Whitfield, First Assistant Postmaster-General. 16. Ameri- 
 
BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. 41 
 
 can Patents in Agriculture, Hon. Edwin Willits, Assistant 
 Secretary of Agriculture. 17. American Patents at the 
 World's Exposition, Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, Secretary 
 World's Columbian Exposition. 
 
 The Guests. 
 
 The following is a partial list of those present at the ban- 
 quet : 
 
 Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury ; Hon. John 
 W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. Lewis A. Grant, 
 Assistant Secretary of War ; Hon. James R. Soley, Assistant 
 Secretary of the Navy ; Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, Commis- 
 sioner of Patents ; Bishop Keane, Hon. J. L. M. Curry, Arch- 
 bishop Ireland, Dr. Gatling, Hon. A. M. Soteldo, Prof. Harry 
 King, M. D. lyeggett, Hon Richard Pope, Commissioner of 
 Patents Dominion of Canada ; Hon. W. J. Lynch, Cashier 
 Commissioner, and Hon. Thos. McCabe, Chief Examiner of 
 the Canadian Patent Ofi&ce ; District Commissioners Douglass, 
 Ross and Robert, Ethan Allen, Prof Henry Morton, H. E. 
 Parsons, Henry W. Smith, W. H. Bagley, C. P. Z. Caracristi, 
 E. W. Halford, C. C. Chase, Marshal D. M. Ransdell, Con- 
 troller of the Currency E. S. Lacey, H. B. F. Macfarland, C. 
 M. Hendley, W. E. Aughinbaugh, D. B. Ainger, E. M. Daw- 
 son, J. G, Beckham, M. B. Harlow, E. E. Downham, Hon. 
 W. H. Arnoux and Capt. P. H. McLaughlin, Prof Alexander 
 Graham Bell, Dr. J. M. Toner, Dr. John S. Billings, Prof 
 Cyrus W. Brackett, ex-Representative Butterworth, Prof. F. 
 W. Clarke, Maj . C. E. Dutton, Prof Thomas Gray, Col. F. A. 
 Seely, Hon. Robert S. Taylor, Prof R. H. Thurston, Prof W. 
 P. Trowbridge, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of 
 Labor, and Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education. 
 
 Of the Central Committee: Messrs. J. W. Babson, B. H. 
 Warner, O. T. Mason, George C. Maynard, M. C. Stone, 
 J. E. Watkins, John Lynch, J. T. Dubois and R. W. Fenwick. 
 
 Of the National Committee : John H. Bartlett, Mendes 
 Cohen, T. N. Ely, G. G. Hubbard, R. J. Howard, W. J. John- 
 son, J. A. Price, Oberlin Smith, George F. Simonds, D. M. 
 Smyth, D. J. Weems, Eli Whitney and George Westinghouse. 
 
 Chairmen of the local committees : Schuyler Duryee, Hon. 
 Cyrus Bussey, Lawrence Gardner, W. C. Mclntire, W. B. 
 
42 ENGINEERS' BANQUET. 
 
 Thompson, J. K. McCammon, M. D. Helm, W. R. I,apham, 
 O. E. Duffey and S. H. Kauffmann. 
 
 Of the Advisory Committee : Hon George Gray, H. E. 
 Paine, Ellis Spear, Prof. J.W. Powell, Col. Marshall McDonald, 
 Dr. J. C. Welling, Rev. J. E. Rankin, N. L. Frothingham, 
 Dr. G. Brown Goode, M. V. Montgomery and Thomas Wilson. 
 
 In addition to the above about two hundred and fifty mem- 
 bers of the Board of Trade participated in the banquet. 
 
 The Engineers' Banquet. 
 
 On Thursday evening, April gth, the Washington and Balti- 
 more members of the American Society of Civil Engineers 
 gave a banquet at Welcker's Hotel. It was originally intended 
 as a compliment to Prof. Octave Chanute, the President of the 
 Society of Civil Engineers, who was unfortunately prevented 
 by illness from delivering his address at the patent celebration. 
 The members of the Society attending the banquet were : 
 
 Horatio G. Wright, Mendes Cohen, William S. Rosecrans, 
 Henry T. Douglas, Francis H. Hambleton, Andrew Rose- 
 water, John A. Partridge, Channing M. Bolton, Bernard R. 
 Green, Alonzo T. Mosman, Henry E- Marindin, David E. Mc- 
 Comb, Mordecai T. Endicott, Frederick H. Smith, Herbert M. 
 Wilson, James E. Lusk, Julien A. Hall, George B. Hazlehurst, 
 Conway B. Hunt, Francis R. Fava, Jr., Charles B. Ball, 
 J. Elfreth Watkins, Owen E. Ingalls and David S. Carll. 
 
 As invited gueSts there were present Oberlin Smith, Past 
 President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
 and Prof. R. H. Thurston, of Cornell University. 
 
 A permanent organization for the purpose of occasional 
 social meetings was effected by the election of Bernard R. 
 Green, of Washington, D. C, as President, and Charles B. Ball 
 as Secretary, for one year. 
 
 The Eoan Exhibition. 
 In connection with the regular programme of the Congress a 
 loan collection was installed in the lecture hall of the National 
 Museum, where machines of antique design, models, early in- 
 ventions and patents were inspected and studied by many 
 visitors, drawn to Washington by their interest in the Patent 
 Centennial. A description of this collection in detail will be 
 found in the Appendix. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 43 
 
 BIRTH AND GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN 
 PATENT SYSTEM. 
 
 By Hon. Charles Eliot Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents. 
 
 The patent system had its birth in a statute against monop- 
 olies. That statute was enacted by a British parliament to 
 restrain the British throne. From the earliest times the right 
 to grant exclusive privileges had been asserted as a royal 
 prerogative. Sometimes the power had been exercised benefi- 
 cently. With vastly more frequency it was employed to bring 
 in revenue to the royal coffers. More and more, as the sov- 
 ereign struggled to govern without the aid of parliament, the 
 power was abused and perverted until, in the days of Elizabeth, 
 monopolies were conferred upon favorites of the court, extend- 
 ing to the most ordinary articles of commerce and consumption. 
 In aid of these illegal monopolies arbitrary powers of search 
 were granted, and heavy penalties were inflicted upon English 
 merchants for engaging in occupations which had been of 
 common right for centuries. Of course such tyranny could 
 not continue, and in the year 1623 the famous statute of James 
 was enacted, destroying all illegal monopolies by a single 
 stroke, and declaring that in future all patents should be 
 to inventors of new manufactures, and to them only for a 
 limited time. It is to this statute that legal writers ascribe 
 the modern patent system. 
 
 It is true that the statute of James was declaratory of the 
 common law, as it was understood by the judges ; it is true 
 that after its enactment the king's pleasure was still, in theory, 
 the source whence the grant proceeded ; it is true that subse- 
 quent monarchs chafed under its restrictions, and at times even 
 trampled them under foot ; but, nevertheless, in a large way 
 and in a very vital sense, the patent system had its birth in the 
 remedial statute of 1623. In an hour of moral and political 
 exaltation England had declared that odious monopolies 
 
44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 should cease, and that patents for inventions should be 
 granted. That declaration has been law to the present hour. 
 And it should never be forgotten by the friends of industrial 
 progress that the same great statute which restored the free- 
 dom of established industries to monopoly-ridden England, 
 created also the modern patent system and placed it upon an 
 enduring basis in justice and public policy. 
 
 But although the patent system is ascribed to the statute of 
 1623, its administration was long pervaded by a spirit hostile 
 to inventors. The benefactor of the public had to crawl before 
 the king as a suppliant for favor. If his cringing was suc- 
 cessful his patent was granted, but he was dismissed with the 
 poor privilege of proving the novelty of his invention as best 
 he could. The patent was not even prima fade evidence 
 that the patentee had made an invention. When it came into 
 court it was construed in a technical spirit, a spirit which 
 assumed everything in favor of the crown and nothing in 
 favor of the subject, and it is hardly too much to say that 
 some of the earlier decisions in patent causes betray a temper 
 that would have better befitted a permit to sell gunpowder in 
 the streets of London. 
 
 It is Coryton, the law-writer, who tells us that to the 
 patentee alone "no margin was conceded for possible error. 
 An unapt title to his invention, an ill-judged word in his 
 description, an incautious experiment, the least disclosure of 
 his secret before letters were sealed, and his privileges are at 
 an end." 
 
 In view of this judicial hostility, which robbed the law of its 
 beneficence and transformed the statute into an ambuscade, it 
 is no wonder that for one hundred and fifty years scarcely more 
 than one thousand patents were granted. It could make but 
 little difference whether patents were denied, or having been 
 granted were denied protection. 
 
 But a more enlightened sentiment developed. Watt had 
 harnessed machinery to steam and Arkwright had harnessed 
 spinning to machinery. The patent to Watt, granted in 1769, 
 had been extended by an act of Parliament in 1775 and had 
 run unscathed the gauntlet of the judges. Patents were 
 granted with increasing frequency, and the useful arts received 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 45 
 
 a mighty impetus. Powerful infringers sought to trample 
 upon the rights of patentees, and law-suits followed that were 
 fierce as battlefields. Judges began to regard inventors not as 
 mere recipients of royal favor, but as public benefactors worthy 
 of the world's great prizes. Then came those days, memorable 
 in judicial annals, when jurists who were in touch with human 
 progress discussed anew the relationship of the inventor to the 
 public, and, as if they had foregleams of the new industrial 
 era, laid down those broader and more generous principles 
 which have become the foundation and framework of the patent 
 law. The statute of James followed the Mayflower across 
 the ocean. In the year 1641 the General Court of Massachu- 
 setts Bay granted a patent to Samuel Winslow for a method of 
 making salt, and prohibited others ' ' from making this article 
 except in a manner different from his." In 1646 a patent was 
 granted to Joseph Jenks for ' ' an engine for the more speedy 
 cutting of grass," the invention substituting for the short and 
 clumsy English scythe a long slender blade supported by a rib 
 along its back, a construction easily recognized as that of the 
 modern scythe. The invention seems also to have extended to 
 machinery for scythe-making. 
 
 The name of Joseph Jenks — how inconsiderable the place 
 which it occupies in colonial history ! The antiquarian stum- 
 bles upon it and makes a memorandum in his note-book, while 
 the student of events that thrill and startle passes it without a 
 thought or utterance. Nevertheless, a deep human interest 
 invests it, and more and more it shall attract attention. Nor 
 do we honor him the less because the mowing machine and the 
 reaper have eclipsed in brilliancy his humble achievement, as 
 there in the early wilderness he appeals to the General Court 
 for protection, so that, as he quaintly says, "his study and 
 cost may not be in vayne or lost. ' ' 
 
 The colony of Connecticut was far-sighted and liberal in 
 encouraging inventors. Between 1663 and 1785 many acts 
 were passed granting exclusive privileges in inventions relat- 
 ing to nearly all branches of industry practiced in the colony. 
 Indeed, Connecticut passed a general law, which appeared 
 in the revision of 1672, declaring that "there shall be no 
 monopoly granted or allowed amongst us of but such inven- 
 
46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 tions as shall be adjudged profitable to the country, and for 
 such time as the General Court shall deem meet." This 
 statute, by implication, held out inducements to inventors, and 
 it is reasonable to associate with its enactment, a hundred years 
 before the Revolutionary War, the fact that the people of Con- 
 necticut have taken out more patents per capita from year to 
 year, down to the present time, than those of any other State. 
 
 In 1785 Maryland granted protection to James Rumsey for 
 making and selling " new invented boats" on a model made 
 by him ; also, in 1787 to Oliver Evans for making and selling 
 ' ' two machines for the use of merchant mills, ' ' and ' ' one other 
 machine, denominated a steam carriage, ' ' the right of recovery 
 against infringers being upon condition that the grantee should 
 not ' ' be proven not to be the original inventor. ' ' It will be 
 noticed that this proviso reversed the burden of proof, as it 
 stood under the English law, making the grant evidence of 
 liovelty. unless the contrary should be shown as matter of 
 defense. 
 
 In 1787 New York granted to John Fitch "the sole right 
 and advantage of making and employing for a limited time the 
 steamboat by him lately invented." During the next year 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware granted to the same 
 John Fitch the exclusive privilege ' ' to navigate their waters 
 with vessels propelled by steam." 
 
 I have thus alluded to some of the patents granted before 
 the adoption of the Federal Constitution, because they show 
 how deep-seated was the understanding, wherever the law of 
 England had been inherited, that it was a just and beneficent 
 exercise of the power of governments to protect inventions by 
 patents for limited periods. I have done so, too, because the 
 spectacle of John Fitch and James Rumsey and Oliver Evans 
 applying to the several States for the limited protection which 
 they could furnish will prepare us to expect that the constitu- 
 tional convention will not overlook the subject in the midst of 
 its important duties. We shall also expect to find that when a 
 patent system common to all the States has been developed it 
 will follow in the line of American precedent, and to a corre- 
 sponding extent depart from the English system, by causing 
 an examination before the patent is granted, in analogy to the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 47 
 
 legislative methods practiced by the colonial and State 
 assemblies. 
 
 The constitutional convention in Philadelphia had been in 
 session nearly three months before its attention was directed to 
 patents and copyrights. On the i6th of August, 1787, Madison 
 submitted for the consideration of the Committee on Detail two 
 propositions for powers to be exercised by Congress, one of 
 them ' ' to secure to literary authors their copyrights for a 
 limited time ; ' ' the other ' ' to encourage by premiums and pro- 
 visions the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries." 
 On the same day similar provisions were submitted by Charles 
 Pinckney, one of them "to grant patents for useful inven- 
 tions, ' ' another, ' ' to secure to authors exclusive rights for a 
 certain time." On the 31st of August such propositions as had 
 not been acted upon were referred to a committee composed 
 of one member from each State, and on the 5th of September 
 this committee recommended that Congress have the power 
 ' ' to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by 
 securing for limited times to authors and inventors the ex- 
 clusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." 
 In the final revision this clause became paragraph 8 of section 
 8 of Article I of the Federal Constitution. 
 
 Wise and illustrious men were they, those Constitution 
 framers, but they had no conception of the importance of what 
 they did, when, just before the curtain fell upon their labors, 
 they decreed that the exclusive rights of inventors should be 
 secured. They thought they were applying finishing strokes 
 and touches to an edifice which was otherwise complete, when 
 they were really at work upon its broad foundations. For 
 who is bold enough to say that the Constitution could 
 have overspread a continent if the growth of invention and of 
 inventive achievement had not kept pace with territorial ex- 
 pansion. It is invention which has brought the Pacific Ocean 
 to the Alleghanies. It is invention which, fostered by a single 
 sentence of their immortal work, has made it possible for the 
 flag of one republic to carry more than forty symbolic stars. 
 
 On the 23d of June, soon after the first Congress assembled 
 in New York, Benjamin Huntington, of Connecticut, reported 
 a bill to carry into effect the constitutional powers for promot- 
 
48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ing the progress of science and the useful arts. In this bill, 
 for the first time in history, appeared the idea of a general law 
 providing afl5rniatively for the granting of letters patent. For 
 some reason, which does not appear, its consideration was 
 postponed until the next session. On the 4th day of January, 
 1790, Congress having again assembled, a committee was ap- 
 pointed to report upon unfinished business brought over from 
 the previous session. Before this committee could report. 
 President Washington, clad in a broadcloth suit, made by Col. 
 Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Hartford, addressed for the first time 
 the assembled Houses of Congress. In that address he said : 
 ' ' I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving 
 effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new 
 and useful inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill 
 and genius at home." Three days later the committee which 
 had been appointed made a report, in which they said : " It 
 also appears that there was postponed for further consideration 
 until this session a bill to promote science and the useful arts." 
 This bill was thereupon referred to a committee consisting of 
 Edward Burke, of South Carolina ; Benjamin Huntington, of 
 Connecticut, and Lambert Cadwallader, of New Jersey, who 
 made a report on the i6th day of February, 1790. The bill 
 thus reported, after discussion and amendment, was duly 
 passed, and receiving the signature of the President, April 10, 
 became the celebrated statute of 1790. The enactment of that 
 statute this audience, unprecedented in its character in all 
 history, now joyfully celebrates. 
 
 The law of 1790 was brief and simple. The applicant was 
 required to describe his invention, but no claim or oath was 
 called for. No discrimination was made between citizen 
 and alien. A drawing was to be furnished and, in certain 
 cases, a model also. In two respects the statute embodied a 
 radical departure from English methods. It required an ex- 
 amination, and it made the patent prima fade evidence that 
 the invention was truly described and the patentee the first 
 inventor. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and 
 the Attorney-General were to determine in each case whether 
 a patent should be granted. From April to July they awaited 
 a successful applicant. He comes at last, and three Cabinet 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 49 
 
 officers — Jefferson, Knox and Randolph — sitting in solemn 
 dignity, determine that Samuel Hopkins is entitled to a patent 
 for his new method of making pot and pearl ashes. 
 
 Does any one say that the office then discharged was un- 
 worthy of such a tribunal ? Let him then remember that that 
 patent of July 31, 1790, was the first of four hundred and fifty 
 thousand patents. Let him ask himself what adequate reason 
 exists for the wizzard-like transformations of a century, except- 
 ing the stimulus afforded by patent legislation. I<et him com- 
 pare the saddle and the pillion with the parlor car, the tallow- 
 dip with the electric light, the post-boy with the lightning 
 mail, the telegraph and the speaking telephone. Let him 
 make a corresponding comparison in every department of life, 
 along every line of development, and he will see in the signing 
 of that patent to Samuel Hopkins an act of historic grandeur. 
 
 Fifty-seven patents in all were granted under the statute of 
 1790, one of them being to our old friend John Fitch, whom 
 we have met in the State assemblies. On October 24, 1791, we 
 find James Rumsey presenting a petition to Congress that the 
 act of 1790 might be amended and rendered more effective. A 
 year later, November 7, 1792, he presented another petition, 
 this time praying for the revision of the act. 
 
 It is familiar to all that a new act was passed on the 21st of 
 February, 1793 ; but it is a fact not usually known that Mr. 
 Williamson, of North Carolina, chairman of the committee 
 having the measure in charge, in advocating the principles of 
 the bill said that it was ' ' an imitation of the patent system 
 of Great Britain, and that its provisions were such as would 
 circumscribe the duties of the presiding officer within very 
 narrow limits." An, oath was required to the application, and 
 the patent was still to be prima facie evidence ; the fees were 
 increased to thirty dollars, aliens were cut off from receiving 
 patents, provision was made for determining the rights of com- 
 peting applicants by arbitration, the assignability of inventions 
 was recognized and provided for, and the duty of granting 
 patents was conferred upon the Secretary of State alone. 
 
 It would give me pleasure to speak with some detail of the 
 history of the patent office between 1793 and 1836. But the 
 patent system, and not the patent office, is my subject, and I 
 
50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 must pass on to consider the great act of 1836, remarking, 
 meanwhile, that in 1800 the right of obtaining patents was 
 partially restored to foreigners, and in 18 19 power was con- 
 ferred upon the circuit courts to prevent the violation of the 
 rights of authors and inventors by granting injunctions accord- 
 ing to the principles and practice of courts of equity. 
 
 The act of 1836 created an epoch. An eminent statesman 
 has pronounced it the most important event from the Constitu- 
 tion to the civil war. I,ess than 10,000 patents preceded it ; 
 more than 450,000 have followed in its train. Under it the 
 Patent Office was established ; under it the first Commissioner 
 of Patents was appointed, and hardly had the approving sig- 
 nature of Andrew Jackson been affixed before the walls of 
 yonder Doric temple, already completed in design, began to 
 rise. 
 
 The most important change brought about by the act of 
 1836 was the restoration of the examination system and the 
 establishment of an examining corps of experts. The English 
 system, developed on executive lines, relegated all investiga- 
 tion to the courts ; the American plan, developed on legislative 
 lines, made the investigation precede the grant. The law of 
 1790 followed the American trend developed in the colonies, 
 and Jefferson and his associates formed an examining board. 
 Then came the act of 1793, which avowedly imitated the 
 English system, and permitted a patent to be issued to any 
 one who sho\:ld allege that he had made an invention and 
 should make oath that he believed himself to be the true in- 
 ventor. Its workings are described in 1837 ^y M!r. Ellsworth, 
 the first Commissioner under the new act. ' ' The Patent 
 Office, ' ' said he, ' ' only examined names and dates, and 
 granted all applications presented in proper form. Of course 
 duplicates and triplicates were issued for the same invention. 
 The rights of parties were referred to legal tribunals, and in 
 the meantime spurious claims were selling throughout the 
 United States." 
 
 The act of 1836 restored the American system. The Patent 
 Office was vested with quasi-judicial as well as with executive 
 functions, the patent being adjudicated upon in advance, and 
 possessing, as soon as it was granted, the attributes of a patent 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 51 
 
 which under the old system had been tested by expensive liti- 
 gation. The importance to inventors of the system of prelim- 
 inary examination has been declared to be inestimable. It 
 places at the service of the humblest inventors the services of 
 trained experts in law and mechanics. It makes the patent 
 something more than an assertion of right, something more 
 than a challenge to the world to show that the patentee was 
 not the true inventor. It bears testimony that it has been 
 compared with prior patents and publications, domestic and 
 foreign, and with all that has been done in the United States, 
 so far as known, and that the device or process claimed is what 
 it professes to be — a new departure in the arts. Thus the 
 patent acquires an immediate commercial value — a value which 
 is enhanced just in proportion as means are supplied by the 
 government for making an inquiry as complete and exhaustive 
 as it is in human power to make it. 
 
 Another important feature of the act of 1836 was the distinc- 
 tion drawn between the description of the invention and the 
 claim. It would be a mistake, however, to ascribe the first 
 appearance of the claim to the act of 1836. Its history shows 
 that it was evolved in practice before it emerged in law. The 
 first American patent which contained anything like a claim, 
 so far as the restored records of the Patent Ofiice indicate, was 
 that of Isaiah Jennings, November 20, 1807, for manufacturing 
 thimbles for sails of ships. In the Franklin Journal for 1828 
 appears an article prepared by Dr. Jones, then Superintendent 
 of the Patent Office, which contains the suggestion that, 
 although it is perfectly proper to describe an entire machine, 
 ' ' after doing this the applicant should distinctly set forth what 
 he claims as new, and this is best done in a paragraph at the 
 end of the specification." 
 
 The requirement of a claim added greatly to the value of 
 patents. It set definite walls and fences about the rights of the 
 patentee, which were not less efiective because they were in- 
 corporeal. A fruitful source of contention was done away 
 with, and the chances lessened of being obliged to resort to the 
 courts of law. 
 
 Time will not allow me to dwell upon the other changes 
 wrought by the act of 1836, but I must introduce its author 
 
52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and champion, that "unaccredited hero," John Ruggles, Sen- 
 ator from Maine. Elected to the Senate in 1835, he signalized 
 the beginning of his senatorial career by his conspicuous serv- 
 ice as chairman of the committee in charge of the new measure, 
 which he seems to have largely originated as well as cham- 
 pioned. He received substantial aid from Henry L. Ellsworth, 
 afterward the first Commissioner of Patents ; and, if tradition is 
 to be relied upon, Charles M. Keller, afterward a renowned 
 advocate in patent causes, rendered invaluable assistance. 
 
 Subsequent laws, passed in 1837 and 1839, provided that 
 where the patentee had made his claims too broad, through 
 inadvertence, accident or mistake, he might file a disclaimer of 
 the excess of claim, to become in effect a part of the original 
 specification, and also prevented the forfeiture of the right to a 
 patent by any use or sale of the newly-invented article prior to 
 application, unless such prior use or sale covered a period of 
 more than two years. The latter provision gave the inventor 
 an opportunity to actually use his invention for a suflacient 
 period to demonstrate its practicability and usefulness before 
 applying for a patent. In 1842 the patenting of ornamental 
 designs was authorized. In 1861 the term of a patent was 
 extended from fourteen years to seventeen, and the right to 
 obtain an extension, which had been conferred by an act of 
 1838, was abolished. In 1870 the patent law was revised, but 
 the revision was in the nature of a consolidation of the statutes 
 then in force. When the laws of the United States were gen- 
 erally revised in 1875 the act of 1870 was re-enacted without 
 substantial change. 
 
 All the statutes since the law of 1836 have been in substan- 
 tial accord with the policy inaugurated by that act, and have 
 had for their object to carry that policy into effect, with such 
 modifications as experience has shown to be necessary. 
 
 In 1790 three patents were granted ; in 1890 the number was 
 twenty-six thousand two hundred and ninety-two. In 1790 
 the receipts were about $15 ; in 1890 they were $1,340,372.60, 
 an excess over all expenses of $241,094.72. In 1790 the work 
 could only have required the infrequent services of a single 
 clerk ; in 1890 the number of employes, including the examin- 
 ing, clerical and laboring force, was five hundred and ninety 
 men and women. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 53 
 
 In order to distribute and dispatch the work the office is 
 divided into thirty examining divisions, and inventions are 
 divided according to subject-matter into two hundred classes 
 and four thousand two hundred and ninety-five sub-classes. 
 All applications as they are received are assigned to the assist- 
 ant who has in charge the proper sub-class of invention. It 
 is only by careful classification and division of labor that it is 
 possible to conduct successfully the enormous amount of work 
 which now, at the close of the century, is devolved upon the 
 Patent Office. 
 
 The growth of the patent system has been brovight about by 
 the friendly laws which I have mentioned exercising their 
 influence for the most part in four difierent channels : 
 
 1. The patent system has stimulated inventive thought. 
 Benjamin Franklin, a man of science, stood by the side of the 
 old hand lever printing press for a generation, and left it where 
 it was left three centuries before by Guttenberg. It remained 
 for Hoe and other inventors, who worked under the stimulus 
 of the patent laws and patented their inventions, to produce 
 that marvelous machine for disseminating knowledge that has 
 made the world a university. A century ago the apprentice 
 learned the skill and secrets of his craft and jogged along con- 
 tented with his acquirements. To-day no workman expects to 
 leave his craft or calling without lifting it to a higher plane 
 and providing it with better instrumentalities. A new power 
 of achievement has come into human thinking. Men of all 
 callings seem to have acquired the faculty, and no explanation 
 of the change is plausible which ignores the stimulating influ- 
 ence of a century of patent law. 
 
 2. The patent system has stimulated men to transform their 
 thinking into things. It is a long and toilsome road from the 
 first fugitive suggestion, through failure and discouragement 
 and temporary defeat, to an invention in a form perfected. If 
 men were not induced by the rewards of a patent system to 
 cling to their new ideas through all the vicissitudes of an in- 
 ventor's experience their hands would drop in discouragement. 
 The story of the lost arts has never been told, even by Wendell 
 Phillips, and decades and centuries of possible progress have 
 been wrapped up in inventions which have dawned upon the 
 human consciousness only to disappear and be forgotten. 
 
54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 3. The patent system encourages men to disclose their in- 
 ventions. The duty of men to disclose their discoveries is one 
 which, if it exists at all, has never been recognized. It is not 
 so, however, when patent laws prevail, and for a hundred years 
 men have hastened to share with the public their newly ac- 
 quired ideas because of the invitation contained in the patent 
 system, and the phenomenon of rediscovery is now a very rare 
 experience. 
 
 4. The patent system enables inventors to make their efforts 
 fruitful, and saves them from the folly of misdirected labor. 
 The Official Gazette of the Patent Office publishes to the world 
 the claims and one or more drawings of each patent. Each 
 number of the Gazette may be likened to a series of maps, 
 exhibiting that borderland adjacent to the illimitable unknown 
 upon which the sun of human invention has shed its radiance, 
 while clocks and watches have registered a week of time. In- 
 ventors need not and do not, as formerly, delve in exhausted 
 mines. 
 
 It is a gratifying feature of this centennial era that the 
 patent system is now at peace with all the world. Voices are 
 heard in favor of amendatory statutes, opinions differ as to 
 methods of administration, but no audible utterance, the wide- 
 world over, challenges the policy of patent laws. In 1868 
 Count Bismarck in Germany and Lord Stanley in England 
 declared, the former that patent laws should be abolished, the 
 latter that he was ready to vote against them. But the Cen- 
 tennial Exposition at Philadelphia, that second declaration of 
 independence, startled the nation with its splendid demonstra- 
 tion of the results of a liberal policy toward inventors. Sir 
 William Thompson, in reporting upon the Centennial Expo- 
 sition, said: "If England does not amend its patent laws 
 America will speedily become the nursery of useful inventions 
 for the world." Mr. Hulse, the English judge of textiles at 
 the Exposition, in reporting to Parliament, said : " The extra- 
 ordinary extent of ingenuity and invention existing in the 
 United States, and manifested throughout the Exposition, I 
 attribute to the natural aptitude of the people, fostered and 
 stimulated by an admirable patent law system." Similar 
 reports were made by the representatives of other nations. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 55 
 
 The effect of these reports was speedily manifest. England, 
 which had been discussing seriously whether or not the patent 
 system should be abolished, passed a new act in 1883 upon a 
 basis more liberal and popular in its character. Germany 
 revised its law in 1877, and in a further and more radical 
 revision, to take effect in October, 1891, European traditions 
 have been largely disregarded, and to a considerable extent 
 the American system has been imitated ; and Switzerland, 
 long cited as a state prospering without a patent system, in 
 1887 threw aside all its ancient traditions and enacted a wise 
 and generous patent law. It is true that in our country con- 
 gressional indifference has thwarted every forward movement 
 in recent years, but nowhere in the popular mind does there 
 seem to b,e a spirit hostile to the inventor's recompense. The 
 demonstrations everywhere of the usefulness and importance 
 of patent laws have been so overwhelming, and upon such a 
 conspicuous scale, that upon no other subject relating to the 
 internal policy of nations is there such profound repose. 
 
 I/Ct us hope that the United States, whose place in the van- 
 guard of progress is so largely due to its great inventors, may 
 not now, through indifference to its patent system, fall back in 
 the procession of the nations. l>t us hope that an aroused 
 public sentiment, set in motion by this celebration of the 
 achievements of a century, may demand for the patent system, 
 and for the ofiSce which administers its functions, just recog- 
 nition of its mighty influence and of its rights and needs as it 
 enters upon the second century of its usefulness. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 57 
 
 INVENTION AND ADVANCEMENT. 
 By Hon. O. H. Pi,att, LL.D., of Connbcticut, U. S. Sbnator. 
 
 Neither the genius of Irving nor the exquisite acting of Jeffer- 
 son was required to give the legend of Sleepy Hollow a lasting 
 hold upon the popular heart. It was not wholly the miracu- 
 lous flavor in the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus that 
 preserved that early Christian myth. In all such tales the 
 mutual astonishment of the awakened sleeper and the wonder- 
 ing beholders is largely due to the fact that the changes which 
 have occurred during the lethargic sleep are suddenly and 
 sharply forced upon the attention. But in all of them it is the 
 domestic, the political, or the social revolution that is thus 
 outlined. 
 
 The legend in which the awaking dazed sleeper and the 
 bewildered witnesses shall realize and feel the material, intel- 
 lectual, and humanitarian development of the last century has 
 yet to be given shape and skillful touch. The marvel is tran- 
 scendent, but the story will never be wrought. Genius cannot 
 describe nor the public mind appreciate what of human prog- 
 ress has occurred, what of human development has taken place 
 in the United States during the last hundred years. I know 
 of no place where it may be more fitly illustrated or more 
 sharply forced on the attention than in this city of Washing- 
 ton. Imagine, if you can, an individual who witnessed the 
 laying of the corner-stone of the Capitol, now nearly one hun- 
 dred years ago, to have been suddenly withdrawn from the 
 associations of men, and with the scenes of that day vivid in 
 his mind permitted to stand again upon the spot graced by 
 the completed building, but which to him had been a rural 
 waste. We would appear to him like the inhabitants of a new 
 world, while he would seem as strange a being to us as a visitor 
 
58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 from some other planet. The Potomac flowing as before, the 
 outline of the hills, the dip of the valley, the sun and the 
 sky above would be the only features of what to him was 
 the scene of yesterday. The city, with its noble avenues, 
 its architectural structures, and the residences of its people, 
 would have grown as if by magic in a night. These things 
 he might with wonder dimly comprehend. But the steam- 
 boat on the river would startle him as the ships of 
 Columbus startled the natives whom they approached. 
 The wavy lines of black smoke and white vapor escaping 
 from chimneys and steam-pipes would be as incomprehensible 
 and awesome as the aurora borealis. The incoming and 
 outgoing locomotives with their trains ; street railroads and 
 vehicles moving thereon apparently without propulsive force ; 
 the tick of the telegraph, transmitting thought from the ends 
 of the earth ; the voice of man sounding through half the 
 continent in his ears, would be as truly miraculous to him as 
 the raising of I,azarus from the dead. The light that illumines 
 our nightly darkness to him would be as truly a miracle 
 as was to Moses that bush which burned with fire and was not 
 consumed. He would find the people engaged in occupations 
 and pursuits of which he had no knowledge. Machinery 
 would have no meaning to him ; the thought of his fellow- 
 men and their language in large part would be incomprehen- 
 sible. Doubtless he would regard us all as crazy, and would 
 probably repeat to himself the old familiar nursery rhyme, as 
 true now as in his childhood : 
 
 There was a mad man. 
 
 And he had a mad wife. 
 
 And the children were mad beside ; 
 
 So on a mad horse, 
 
 They all of them got. 
 
 And madly away did ride. 
 
 As the miraculous change began to dawn upon his mind, 
 and he began by degrees to understand that it was real — that 
 he had returned after an absence of a hundred years, and that 
 during the century a thousand years of growth and develop- 
 ment and increase of human knowledge and comfort and 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 59 
 
 happiness had occurred — his first question of the bystanders 
 would be : " What has done all this ? Is this enchantment ? 
 What magician has transformed nature and changed man- 
 kind ? What force, what power has been at work ? ' ' And the 
 answer, if truly given, would be, "The spirit of invention 
 has accomplished this ; the creative faculty in man hath 
 wrought these wonders." 
 
 How little we have realized the progress of the century; 
 how silent its footsteps have been, and how little we have 
 stopped to analyze or appreciate its cause. How barren of 
 suggestion are the standard works on political economy and 
 sociology as to the real underlying cause of the great trans- 
 formation. Change, improvement, advancement have come 
 to be so large a part of our history that we should the 
 rather wonder if they ceased to go forward with accelerated 
 motion. We are satisfied with nothing else. The world would 
 be slow and dull and intolerable to us if in every decade we 
 did not outstrip the performance of a century. We seem to 
 care as little about the cause of it all as we do about sunlight 
 and air, and health and strength. We enjoy it as our right. 
 We write and speak of the incidents of progress, the new 
 phases of our existence, of visible results, and magnify them 
 in our minds above the invisible force which has produced the 
 results. Away out in the busy world, if my thought shall 
 ever reach it, men will receive my statement, that invention is 
 to be accredited with this great progress, with a sceptical 
 sneer. But you who are workers in the field, who are planning 
 and devising methods by which still greater progress is to be 
 achieved, will understand me. 
 
 Books without number have been written, showing how man 
 emerged from savagery to barbarism, from barbarism to civili- 
 zation. The whole world has been explored for relics by which 
 to measure the progress of man on the long and toilsome way 
 from his prehistoric condition to the period of civilization. 
 Audiences gather to hear it explained, and go away satisfied 
 that the weapon,the tool,or the implement dug up from its buried 
 resting place unerringly proves how much progress mankind 
 had made at the time it was used. Science divides the periods 
 of human progress into ages, and calls them the stone age, the 
 
6o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 iron age, the bronze age, but has failed to comprehend that 
 there is another age, the age in which we are living — ^the 
 machine age. The first tool that man invented that he might 
 more easily satisfy his wants does not more truly mark his ad- 
 vancement than does the invention of the marvelous devices 
 and contrivances by which his comfort and happiness are a 
 thousand.fold multiplied in the present time. Savagery, barba- 
 rism, civilization — have we reached the end of human growth 
 and development ? Shall we not the rather understand that a 
 new name must be given to the condition of human society 
 upon which we are about to enter, if we have not already 
 entered it ; that we are reaching or have reached in our 
 progress the age of spirituality. I do not use the word in its 
 religious sense, but as meaning that, in the future of human 
 achievement, mind is to triumph over matter, brain over 
 muscle ; that man is entering that period in which he is to 
 subjugate all forces of nature and make them his servants. 
 
 Time will not permit me to paint the picture of our progress 
 in detail ; a few striking outlines must suflSce. I must leave 
 realistic touches to others. Nor can I closely analyze causes ; 
 I can merely suggest and generalize. 
 
 The establishment of constitutional liberty, the granting 
 of patents for inventions, and the introduction and use of 
 Webster's Spelling Book were practically coincident with the 
 opening of the century, the closing of which we celebrate. 
 Freedom, invention, popular intelligence were thus inaugu- 
 rated. Who can fail to appreciate their intimate relation? 
 During the century and a-half that preceded the year 1791 
 we had only succeeded in obtaining a permanent lodgment on 
 the continent. We occupied only what has been called the 
 selvedge of a great country. Our growth and progress had 
 been slow. When the patent system was established we were 
 less than four millions of people, differing little in character, 
 ability, and pursuits from the men who settled at Jamestown 
 and Plymouth. To-day we are more than sixty-three millions, 
 so different in character and civilization that the traces of the 
 Cavalier and Puritan are scarcely discernible. Then our 
 westernmost States were Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, 
 and Georgia ; now the line of Commonwealths is unbroken 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 6i 
 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Then the Mississippi River 
 marked the western boundary of our possessions, and we had 
 just passed an ordinance for the government of the unoccupied 
 territory northwest of the Ohio River ; now we are asking the 
 nations of the world to join us in the Columbian Exposition on 
 the shores of I^ake Michigan. Our coal mines, with a present 
 out-put of more than one hundred and thirty million tons per 
 annum, were then practically unknown ; our iron mines, with 
 a present annual production of fourteen million tons of ore, 
 were mainly unworked. The railroad was undreamed of; 
 now our railroad trackage would encompass the earth six and 
 one-half times. The steamboat was but an expectation ; now 
 we are using six thousand with an aggregate carrying capacity 
 of two million tons. The telegraph then lay in the realm of 
 the miraculous ; to-day our telegraphic wires would reach 
 from the earth to the moon, return to earth and again to the 
 moon, with enough spare wire to girdle the earth three times. 
 We had in those days about nineteen hundred miles of post- 
 routes, over which the mail was carried at intervals and 
 deposited in about seventy-five offices ; now our post-routes 
 cover more than four hundred and twenty-five thousand miles, 
 ^nd our post-ofiSces number more than sixty thousand. The 
 mail matter carried during the past year weighed more than 
 one hundred and eighty-two thousand tons, and the persons 
 engaged in carrying it (not including "free-delivery " carriers) 
 traveled three hundred and twenty-seven million miles. Then 
 we had a depreciated and really worthless currency, little of 
 private wealth, and no public credit. Our sound currency 
 now exceeds two billions of dollars ; our national credit stands 
 highest among the nations of the earth; and the aggregate 
 wealth of our people is estimated to be more than sixty billions 
 of dollars. Then a few weekly, semi-weekly or tri-weekly 
 newspapers, scarcely larger than a sheet of foolscap, supplied 
 and satisfied the popular demand for news. There were no 
 reporters or editors then. These words are new, as are the 
 professions they signify. It was the "printer" whom the 
 public knew in connection with the newspapers of those days. 
 The entire newspaper publication of 1791 is now surpassed in 
 the weakest of our Territories ; and a single newspaper of our 
 
62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 day, The New York World, has circulated nearly six hundred 
 thousand copies in a single day, requiring for their printing 
 ninety-four tons of paper. 
 
 Manufactures, except in the household, were practically 
 unknown. There were no "mechanics" in the meaning of 
 the word as now used. Men knew how to sow and plow, 
 hoe and chop, reap and mow and cradle, break flax and hackle 
 it, thrash with the flail, winnow with the blanket or fan, and 
 to shell corn by hand ; the women knew how to spin, card, 
 weave, and knit. Mechanical knowledge was monopolized by 
 the blacksmith, the carpenter, the millwright, and the village 
 tinker. Production was a toilsome, weary matter, limited by 
 the capacity for muscular endurance. In the absence of reli- 
 able statistics we only know that in 1790 the value of our 
 manufactures was but a few millions of dollars, the larger part of 
 which consisted of linen and woolen cloth made in households. 
 The value of our manufactured products in 1880 was between 
 five and six billions. Statistics for 1890 are not at hand, but 
 the sum total of our manufactured products within the census 
 year can hardly be less than eight billions. But I must for- 
 bear; our material advancement surpasses the wildest dream 
 of the most vivid imagination. Neither philosopher nor mad 
 man could have predicted it. It is incomprehensible; the 
 mind does not and cannot grasp it. We know that it is great; 
 we try to realize it as in our feeble way we try to comprehend 
 the infinite. 
 
 If you would in a measure form a conception of how large a 
 factor invention has been in this progress, try to imagine what 
 our social, financial, educational, and commercial condition 
 would be with an absolute ignorance of how steam and elec- 
 tricity can be used in the daily production of things for our sus- 
 tenance and comfort; with an absolute ignorance of the steam- 
 boat, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the modem 
 printing press, and the machinery in common daily use. Men 
 who acknowledge that the development of invention and na- 
 tional progress have kept even pace in all that makes the 
 people great and happy are yet slow to comprehend that in- 
 vention has contributed in any large degree to such progress. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 63 
 
 To satisfy the doubts of such, a little careful thought is 
 needed. We may well inquire what it is that marks the 
 superiority of our people. And to answer this we need to read 
 the lesson which history teaches — that the people which has 
 known most of the laws of nature, and has had with that 
 knowledge the greatest capacity to apply natural forces in 
 economic production, has always attained the highest point in 
 human development. Human superiority consists in superior 
 capacity to know and superior ability to do. If I understand 
 how it is that invention has promoted the progress of our 
 people, it is because it has enabled them to know more, and 
 has given them the power to do more than any other people. 
 
 Invention needs a new definition ; it has outgrown that 
 given in the dictionary; we must inquire what it really is. To 
 say that it is merely the act of "finding out," the "hitting 
 upon," the "coming upon" something new, feebly expresses 
 the meaning of the word. A recent law writer* more happily 
 conveys to our mind its real force. He says: "Invention 
 means the finding out, the contriving, the creating of some- 
 thing which did not exist, and which can be made useful and 
 advantageous in the pursuits of life, or which can add to the 
 enjoyment of mankind. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Justice Matthews felicitously expressed the same idea 
 when he said it was ' ' that intuitive faculty of the mind put 
 forth in the search for new results or new methods, creating 
 what had not before existed, or bringing to light what had 
 lain hidden from vision." 
 
 We must understand that to invent is to create, and that the 
 thing created must be beneficial to mankind. We are wont to 
 say that we live in an environment of invention — that every- 
 thing we touch, taste, handle, or see, is the result of an inven- 
 tion. We might more properly say that we live in a new crea- 
 tion, lyiterally, the old things have passed away and all things 
 have become new. Human society is full of creators. . For- 
 merly we ascribed creative faculty or force to the Divine Being 
 alone ; our commonest thought of God was that He was the 
 Infinite Creator. We said as we gazed on the forms, animate 
 
 *Prof. W. C. Robinson. 
 
64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and inanimate, which surrounded us and which we believed 
 contributed to our happiness, " Behold the expressed thought 
 of the Creator — God! " and we were lost in wonder, love, and 
 praise. Now, when we look upon the wondrous contrivances 
 and inventions everywhere contributing to our life wants and 
 adding to our life enjoyments, we are forced to exclaim: "Be- 
 hold the expressed thought of the creator — man! " Inventions 
 have given us a new and higher idea of the capacity of man. 
 We begin to see how nearly he is related to Divinity ; we have 
 found a new meaning in the phrase, ' ' So God created man in 
 His own image." Shakespeare's words — the highest and 
 noblest uninspired estimate of man seem real to us at last — 
 ' ' How infinite in faculty * * * * in apprehension, how 
 like a god." 
 
 I^et me illustrate. Men have often wondered and adored 
 the Infinite Creator as they have dwelt upon the words — "And 
 God said, ' I^et there be light,' and there was light." But the 
 hours are not all light ; there is the night and darkness as well 
 as the day and light. Now, if you will think as you come to 
 this place this evening how the thought of man has trans- 
 formed black coal and viewless electricity into the agents 
 which light your pathway, you will feel it scarcely irreverent 
 to exclaim : "And man said, ' I<et there be light,' and there 
 was light." 
 
 If you will let your mind dwell steadily on the development 
 during the century of the creative faculty in man, you will 
 discover one prominent reason for. the advancement of man- 
 kind. You will see that the creative faculty is no longer 
 limited to a few great souls, but that it is possessed by the 
 many. You will see that the gap between the scientific dis- 
 coverer and the practical workman is slowly but surely being 
 closed. When we survey the field of invention our eyes rest 
 inevitably on the figure of Watt. He stands out before us as 
 the great leader in the inventive world. We give him highest 
 place among those who have wrought for mankind. We put 
 him above Alexander and Napoleon. They were destroyers ; 
 he was a creator; they devoured; he developed the world's 
 capacity to produce. But do we realize that many greater 
 than Watt are here ? There are thousands of men in our 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 65 
 
 midst whose praises are never sung, who pursue their intense 
 work quietly and unnoticed, for whom the world erects no 
 pedestal of fame, but each of whom knows more of the nature 
 and power and adaptation of steam than Watt ever dreamed of. 
 We sing the praises of Morse ; we write him down among our 
 greatest ; we give him a conspicuous niche in our temple of 
 fame ; the world pays tribute to his greatness, to his creative 
 skill; he will go down in history as the first man who by his 
 invention made it possible to crowd into a day's time transac- 
 tions which would otherwise require a month's time for their 
 accomplishment; who enabled every man who can buy a 
 penny paper to behold as in a moving panorama the events 
 transpiring throughout the whole world. But many greater 
 than Morse are with us. There are thousands of girls in our 
 country who know more of the laws of electricity, and better 
 how to apply their knowledge of these laws in the transmis- 
 sion of human thought, than ever Morse imagined. Such men, 
 such inventors, famous by right in the world's history, were 
 after all but prospectors, locating the rich mine of human in- 
 vention. They thought out, or by accident discovered, a 
 limited possibility in the application of new forces to the sup- 
 ply of human wants. Then the world's thought became focused 
 like a great burning lense on that possibility, and other men 
 wrought the possible into the actual. 
 
 Thus it is with every invention. Watt, in a crude way, 
 was the first to use that force which we call steam to move 
 engines and machines, and for that he will ever stand in the 
 first rank of inventors. But will you tell me who first used 
 that greater force which we call electricity, and which some 
 day will supersede steam as a motor power and add to the 
 number of the marvels of our civilization ? For aught I 
 know he may sit before me, but to me he is unknown. In 
 that he first made application of that more subtle and potential 
 force of nature in the working out of productive results bene- 
 ficial to mankind, he is doubtless a greater inventor than 
 Watt ; but the world has no crown for him. And why ? 
 Possibly, because man has so advanced in capacity to know and 
 do that the achievement of to-day must outrank the achieve- 
 ments of the past in order to confer great distinction on the 
 
66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 doer; possibly, because there are now so many capable ones 
 seeking the same result that the discovery of the germinal 
 idea is no longer the work of one man. 
 
 So we see that each invention, great or small, by its own 
 inherent force and power wonderfully stimulates and increases 
 the inventive or creative faculty of man. Reduction to prac- 
 tice requires knowledge and skill equal to that of the man who 
 conceives the idea, and the use of the invention necessitates 
 knowledge akin to that of the inventor. The woman who 
 uses the sewing machine must have knowledge in kind, at 
 least, if not in degree, equal to that of Howe. The field 
 laborer who uses the harvester must know as much of the 
 operation, if not of the principle, of the machine as McCor- 
 mick. What an advancement in average human knowledge 
 this signifies in the country where we live and move and hUve 
 our being among inventions ! And if, as Bacon said, knowl- 
 edge is power, how greatly have we advanced in power! 
 
 Another thought in this line. Our library shelves are filled 
 with books, written to prove the ennobling influence of the 
 fine arts upon mankind. Painting, sculpture, and music are 
 lauded because they educate and refine society, because they 
 improve and elevate men and women, and advance them in the 
 scale of being. But, is the contemplation of a painting more 
 inspiring than the intelligent study of an engine ? Is a statue 
 more beautiful than a machine ? The one copies nature, the 
 other compels nature ; in the one there is repose and in- 
 action, the other is instinct with life and energy. Are the 
 waves of song more rythmic than the undulations which fall 
 on the ear from the movement of myriad inventions ? The 
 one touches sentiment, the other sings to us of human peace 
 and plenty. 
 
 Again. There are books without number which tell us how 
 man grows by the contemplation of nature, of the subtle 
 influence exercised upon the character of man by the scenes 
 in which he dwells, by mountain and forest, by brook and 
 river and ocean, by clear sky and fleecy clouds, by the rare 
 tints of sunset and dawn, by breaking billow and roarino- 
 blasts. All this has been portrayed since books were first 
 written — by poet, philosopher, and moralist alike. But who 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 67 
 
 has written, who shall write, of that greater and subtler 
 molding influence exercised upon the character of man by his 
 stibjection of the forces of nature to become his ministering 
 spirits ? Compare the man who muses on nature, who drinks 
 in the influence of the mountain from afar, with the man who 
 pierces that mountain to make a highway for' the distribution 
 of the world's products, or digs out from their dungeon the 
 imprisoned metals, to be wrought into implements for his use, 
 and tell me which man grows most or best. Which is the 
 more a man, he who gazes with awe on the dark storm-cloud 
 and sees in the lightning only the manifestation of the wrath 
 of an angry God, or he who subdues the lightning and makes 
 it his servant, and sends it to and fro on missions of mercy and 
 sympathy to his fellow-man ? 
 
 Thus far I have spoken of the indirect influence of inven- 
 tion on the progress of mankind, on human advancement. 
 I,et me for a moment be more specific and direct. Man is 
 ever wanting something. He may be said to be the creature 
 who wants ; and the greater his attainment the more numer- 
 ous his wants. The man who wants least in the world is of 
 the least use to the world. Sometimes we call this craving, 
 unceasing want of man, aspiration. Our fathers called it the 
 pursuit of happiness, and declared it an "inalienable right." 
 Whatever we may call it, this is true : The more numerous 
 and complex the wants of man (provided they are not born of 
 vicious desire) and the more easily they are satisfied, the 
 better, abler, happier, and nobler mankind becomes. Every 
 human want involves production ; something must be pro- 
 duced to satisfy it, and production is useless and objectless 
 except to satisfy human wants. Man's first want is to 
 appease hunger and quench thirst; his next, to be protected 
 from the extremes of cold and heat. If these are all, we call 
 him a savage, and production stands at its minimum. With 
 every step of advancement toward civilization and spirituality 
 his wants multiply, and production must increase. His com- 
 fort and happiness, his present and future, depend upon the 
 ease with which he can obtain wherewith to satisfy and gratify 
 these wants. 
 
68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Now, the true problem of invention — ^its only purpose and 
 object, indeed — is, first, to enable man to satisfy his present 
 wants with less of effort and cost tjian before ; and, second, to 
 create in him the new wants incident to his higher plane of 
 existence, and the means of supplying those wants, so that as 
 the years go on man can have more of comfort with less of per- 
 sonal effort than ever before. If this does not constitute 
 human advancement, I do not know what does. 
 
 Is it true that invention does this? It is the test by which 
 the patentability of every invention is tried. It is the test 
 applied by the inventor, the Patent Office, the courts, to deter- 
 mine whether the machine, or process, or product is really an 
 invention. The machine or process must be ' ' new and use- 
 ful," (what pregnant words) ; that is, it must produce things 
 adapted to the existence and comfort of man, cheaper and bet- 
 ter than they can be produced by any known process. If the 
 invention be of a new product, the same law defines and limits 
 it. The new product must be "useful;" it must be one that 
 man can use, and, from its use, be benefited. If the inventor 
 does not believe this capability resides in his invention, he 
 abandons his effort. If the Commissioner of Patents cannot 
 find this quality in the supposed invention, he rejects it. If 
 courts cannot discover this essential characteristic, they say it 
 is not entitled to be called property. That man must be blind 
 and deaf and dull to the degree of stupidity who does not see 
 that in this country during the last century inventions have 
 laid their magic fingers upon every means and source of pro- 
 duction, have improved and cheapened ever}^ product, have 
 multiplied new products until now our entire population has 
 more of comfort and less of want, more of happiness and less 
 of misery, more of pleasure and less of pain, than &n.y 
 people that now exists or has ever existed — and all these with 
 less of weary, wearing toil, with less of anxiety and less of 
 hardship. 
 
 When and why we began to count the world's life by cen- 
 turies, as men count human life by years, we hardly know. 
 There are years in almost every individual life during which a 
 man's character, habits, and effort undergo radical change — 
 some forceful cause makes him a new man. So in a short 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 69 
 
 hundred years the spirit of invention has changed the current 
 of human thought and purpose and enterprise in our country — 
 it has made a new world. The America of to-day is radically 
 dififerent from the America of 1791. We call our improvement 
 the development of Christian civilization ; and I would not for 
 a moment forget nor disparage the great influence of Christian- 
 ity in molding our institutions and directing our pursuits. But 
 what kind of a Christian civilization would it be with the 
 spirit of invention still dormant ? Improved printing presses, 
 telegraphs, and the means of rapid communication have given 
 us a different Christianity, and taught us the lessons of the 
 Master more correctly. The religious polemics of a former 
 century interest men no longer. Reasoning 
 
 Of providence, fore-knowledge, will and fate, 
 Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, 
 
 is as obsolete now as the argument to prove witchcraft a 
 reality and of Satanic origin. Men no longer wander in the 
 mazes of abstract speculation ; they seek for practical truths 
 and practical results. The clergyman who should preach the 
 sermon of a hundred years ago would speak to empty pews. 
 The present religion is one that seeks to better man's physical 
 and social condition. We care less for doctrine, and more for 
 human improvement ; and we have come at last to dwell with 
 intense satisfaction upon the thought that our Saviour went 
 about "doing good." 
 
 Thus we see how the inventive spirit of the age has been 
 working this change ; how the very essence of an invention is 
 to do good to man, to minister to the comfort, the happiness, 
 and the higher intelligence of the people; how it works hand in 
 hand with the spirit of a true religion. For the first time in the 
 history of the world we seem to be making real headway against 
 superstition and bigotry. We no longer count the mysterious 
 as miraculous. What seemed miraculous has in our day too 
 often come to be commonplace to let us sit down in wonder 
 before it. For the first time we have come to learn that true 
 rivalry in manly achievement is the struggle to accomplish 
 most for the benefit of mankind, and that the only real hap- 
 piness consists in enabling others to become happy. 
 
70 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Nor is the change in the method and system of our educa- 
 tion less radical than that in religioiis thought and effort. The 
 college president of a hundred years ago would bring financial 
 ruin to any college in a twelve-month. We more and more 
 demand that our children shall study the present, and that 
 their expansive powers shall not be imprisoned in the dun- 
 geons of a dead past. Roman and Grecian manners, customs, 
 literature and art are no longer the only models upon which 
 we seek to develop the character of our sons. They must be 
 fitted to explore the storehouse of nature and to bring out 
 therefrom unseen treasures for a true enrichment of their 
 fellows. Nothing more strikingly illustrates this change than 
 the public demand for scientific, industrial, and manual training 
 schools. Consider for a moment how impossible such schools 
 would have been when our Constitution was framed, and how 
 their felt necessity is now changing all our educational methods. 
 No education is complete to-day that does not fit the student to 
 deal with the great problems of applied science, the solution of 
 which is still more to enrich and bless mankind. Education is 
 not finished now in the college or professional school; it goes 
 on in the workshop, in the laboratory, by the lathe, in the field, 
 in the mine, in the forest, wherever and so long as man is called 
 upon to wrestle with these great problems. And how intense 
 life has become in consequence ! Slow and toilsome processes 
 of thought are now no longer possible by the side of the 
 swiftly-moving machine ; thought has been wedded to intui- 
 tion. Evidence is not wanting that invention and discovery 
 have resulted in lengthening the average of human life. But 
 whether this be so or not, if we count life by its action and 
 experience and what we gain in it and by it, our term of life 
 has been wonderfully lengthened. 
 
 The change in human enterprise may be illustrated by con- 
 trasting what were once the Seven Wonders of the world with 
 the seven wonders of American invention. The old wonders 
 of the world were : The Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of 
 Babylon, the Phidian Statue of Jupiter, the Mausoleum, the 
 Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the 
 Pharos of Alexandria. Two were tombs of kings, one was the 
 playground of a petted queen ; one was the habitat of the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 71 
 
 world's darkest superstition ; one the shrine of a heathen god ; 
 another was a crude attempt to produce a work of art solely to 
 excite wonder, and one only, the light-house at Alexandria, 
 was of the slightest benefit to mankind. They were erected 
 mainly by tyrants ; most of them by the unrequited toil of 
 degraded and enslaved laborers. In them was neither im- 
 provement nor advancement for the people. 
 
 L,et me enumerate the seven wonders of American inven- 
 tion : The cotton-gin ; the adaptation of steam to methods of 
 transportation ; the application of electricity in business pur- 
 suits ; the harvester ; the modern printing press ; the ocean 
 cable, and the sewing machine. How wonderful in concep- 
 tion, in construction, in purpose, these great inventions ; how 
 they dwarf the Pyramids and all the wonders of antiquity ; 
 what a train of blessings each brought with its entrance into 
 social life; how wide, direct, and far-reaching their benefits! 
 Each was the herald of a social revoluion ; each was a human 
 benefactor ; each was a new Goddess of I<iberty ; each was a 
 great emancipator of man from the bondage of labor ; each 
 was a new teacher come upon earth ; each was a moral force. 
 
 I should not do justice to this subject if I omitted to speak 
 of one thing, which, however, it will hardly be thought 
 necessary in this gathering to urge as a defence of the patent 
 system. Our patent system needs no defence. When our 
 fathers asserted constitutional authority for Congress to pro- 
 mote the useful arts, by granting to inventors for a limited 
 time the exclusive control of their inventions, they builded 
 better than they knew. But it may be said that without the 
 stimulus afforded by the prospective reward of the inventor 
 this development of invention would never have occurred— 
 that the inventor is spurred and lured on by the expectation 
 of a fortune. I do not deny that every inventor expects and 
 hopes for pecuniary gain to be derived from his invention, and 
 that if there were no gain the spirit of invention might be 
 checked. It is right that the man who benefits mankind 
 should be rewarded. Our instinct of justice revolts at the 
 short-sighted policy which has ever sought to stifle inventions, 
 and we rejoice at the liberal policy founded upon the good 
 judgment of mankind which has sought to eucourage them. 
 
72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The world has uothing but contempt for the Emperor Tibe- 
 rius who, when approached by a skillful workman who had 
 discovered the secret of making glass malleable, inquired of him 
 whether he alone possessed the secret, and upon being assured 
 that he was the only one, ordered his head to be struck off 
 immediately, lest his invention should prove injurious to the 
 workers in gold, silver, and other metals. I deny, however, 
 that the hope of pecuniary gain is the only motive of inven- 
 tion, or indeed the most powerful motive. Two others, at 
 least, are more potent : The insatiable desire of man to see the 
 invisible, to touch the intangible, to know the unknown, to 
 conquer the unconquered, is one ; to benefit the human race is 
 the other. The prospect of money reward aldhe would never 
 absorb and concentrate and intensify the faculties of the 
 inventor. He is an enthusiast. I^ike prophet and poet, he 
 seems possessed by a semi-madness. A passion to accomplish 
 and achieve what seems impossible takes hold of him. He is 
 a philanthropist, too ; the desire to furnish his fellow-men 
 with something new and useful absorbs him. There are men 
 sitting before me, no doubt, whose waking and sleeping hours 
 are given to the exploration of new fields, that they may 
 discover, control, and apply new forces ; who are striving to 
 bring forth inventions more wonderful and beneficial than the 
 world has yet known. Ask them, and see if they do not tell 
 you that I am right, and if they do not scout the idea that the 
 pecuniary profit which they may derive from their invention 
 is the only, or indeed the principal, motive that impels them. 
 If they can but discover the germs of new inventions which 
 are to cheapen production, which are to minister to the present 
 and prospective wants of mankind, they will be satisfied with 
 their life-work and feel that they are entitled to a place among 
 the world's great doers, though others shall enter in and reap 
 more abundantly the money reward. There never yet was a 
 true invention from which the public did not reap infinitely 
 greater pecuniary reward than the inventor. However selfish 
 his purpose may be, it is an inevitable law of invention that it 
 holds greater benefits in store for the masses than for the 
 inventor. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 73 
 
 I must not fail to notice at this point a more or less preva- 
 lent idea that the result of invention is to enrich the few at the 
 expense of the many — that capital is assisted while labor is 
 injured. I have little patience with this belief. It is the wail 
 of the pessimist rather than the opinion of the intelligent. 
 Men who give utterance to it forget that in social economy 
 man always builds on the ruins of the past. The first effect of 
 every useful invention is to destroy capital. In the inventive 
 realm the fittest only survives. No invention answers its pur- 
 pose that does not either supersede the old methods of produc- 
 tion or bring forth a new product. If some new motive power 
 should be discovered which would enable us to produce those 
 things which men must have for their sustenance and happiness 
 better and more cheaply than water power, air power, steam 
 power, and electrical power, the capital thus invested would be 
 gradually but surely destroyed ; whereas all experience teaches 
 us that there would be no injury to labor — there would simply 
 be a readjustment of labor and an increased demand for it. 
 There would be a demand for more intelligent labor, more 
 skillful labor, more brain labor, as well as a greater demand 
 in new fields for what we term muscular labor. 
 
 An illustration or two conclusively proves this. In the 
 beginning of the century there were no railroads ; all trans- 
 portation was by wagons, carts, horses, and oxen. The rail- 
 roads of the country last year, in railroad parlance, moved 
 sixty-eight billion tons of freight one mile. To have accom- 
 plished the same work would have required more horses than 
 there are in the United States, and two-thirds of the able- 
 bodied men of the country to drive them. But all the horses 
 in the country were needed for other work — work which, 
 except for the railroads, would not have been done. With 
 the introduction of the railroad the men who had driven 
 horses found that their services were in demand at prices 
 which teamsters never expected to receive. There would be 
 no such carrying trade as we now have if it had not been 
 developed by the railroads. People who think that invention 
 lessens the demand for labor should remember that millions 
 of people find profitable employment in localities where 
 Indians would now be hunting the buffalo were it not 
 
74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 for the inventions which go to make up that vast system 
 of railroads, which is itself one great conglomerate ma- 
 chine acting with the precision of mechanical law. They 
 should remember, too, that to operate the railroads of 
 this country nearly a million persons are employed to fill 
 places that have been created by the railroad, in which 
 intelligence and skill of a high order are required. They 
 should take account, too, of the men who have worked in 
 mines and forests, who have built furnaces and mills, who 
 have produced the rails for one hundred and sixty thousand 
 miles of railroad track, and the necessary equipment of loco- 
 motives and cars ; of the men who have leveled and graded the 
 roads — who have pierced the mountains and filled up the 
 valleys ; of the men who have found employment in supplying 
 all these laborers and artisans with food and comforts and 
 luxuries. That man is sadly deficient in the intelligence of 
 the age who cannot see that every true invention greatly 
 increases the demand for labor, improves the quality of labor, 
 and thereby enhances its price. 
 
 About thirty-five years ago men discovered a natural pro- 
 duct unknown before ; they called it petroleum. Invention 
 seized upon it and began to work it into useful forms for the 
 production of useful results and to supply unquestioned needs. 
 It was a timely discovery. Without it, we can hardly conceive 
 how it would be possible to light the homes of our people. 
 In every stage of its treatment invention has been called into 
 use. By the aid of those inventions the crude article has been 
 resolved into more than one hundred and fifty separate 
 products, each one of which has its commercial designation, 
 its beneficial use — many of them supplying wants unfelt and 
 unknown before. All this has created an army of workmen 
 engaged in employments unheard and unthought of but for 
 the discovery, and for the inventions which have so multifari- 
 ously utilized the product. What labor has been displaced or 
 injured thereby ? So with every invention since the creation 
 of man. Not one of them but has made life more to be 
 desired by the toiler ; not one but has made his station more 
 honorable, his environment more agreeable. I count it one of 
 the chief benefits of our unrivaled inventions that labor in 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 75 
 
 the United States has become more intelligent, more skillful, 
 and therefore commands the highest price. I count the 
 advancement of our laborers as the chief wealth of our 
 people. A people may have gold and not be rich, may have 
 lands and be indigent ; but a people with intelligence and skill 
 and energy is truly rich and truly great. It is brain power 
 that constitutes real wealth. The old poet of the sixteenth 
 century who sang, "My mind to me a kingdom is," had a 
 better conception of the true nature of wealth than the man 
 who counts only the millionaire as the wealthy man. 
 
 One other thought I commend to the pessimist. If, as he 
 believes, invention has augmented and concentrated capital 
 and clothed it with power which is used to the public detri- 
 ment, it has also made possible the organization and associa- 
 tion of labor. Without the railroad, the telegraph, and the 
 press, associated labor could not exist ; without these children 
 of invention, no labor combination or organization would ex- 
 tend beyond the city or town in which it was organized. By 
 adding to the intelligence of the masses, by the opportunity 
 which it gives for association, invention has wonderfully 
 increased the power of the masses. The laborer is no longer 
 an isolated toiler. Invention has clothed him with strength as 
 a garment. God grant that he may use it wisely. 
 
 We stand in the doorway of a new century. What of the 
 future ? Has invention reached its zenith ; has man attained his 
 highest development ; has he already reached the goal of 
 human progress ; can he advance no farther ? I ask these 
 questions because I firmly believe that the limit of human 
 invention is also the limit of human advancement; that he 
 who writes the history of invention will write the history of 
 mankind; that if invention has already done its perfect work, 
 man is all he can ever hope to be in this life. 
 
 For one, I cannot entertain the gloomy thought that we have 
 come to that century in the world's life in which new and 
 grander achievements are impossible. For one, I am persuaded 
 that we have but just entered the era of improvement ; that at 
 no period in his existence has man been so well equipped, so 
 well fitted by his ability, knowledge, and high resolve, to 
 grapple with the problems of life and to make new conquests 
 
76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 in the field of invention. Invention is a prolific mother ; every 
 inventive triumph stimulates new effort. Man never is and 
 never will be content with success, and the great secrets of 
 nature are as yet largely undiscovered. Though we seem to 
 have accomplished much, we really know but little. Who 
 knows what electricity is ? Who understands the properties 
 of any material substance ? Who has solved the mysteries of 
 the atom and the germ ? Who knows what forces men have 
 passed by in their search for motive power ? Who has even 
 catalogued the forces of nature ? What wondrous possibilities 
 are yet locked in her storehouse ? But, after all, the real wonder 
 of the earth is man ; never so wonderful as when he boldly 
 challenges nature to unlock her doors and reveal her mys- 
 teries that he may use them for the improvement and advance- 
 ment of his kind. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 77 
 
 THK REIvATlON OF INVKNTION TO I,ABOR. 
 
 By Hon. Carroli, D. Wright, of Massachusetts, 
 commissionbr. of i/abor. 
 
 The lines of industrial history are dimly drawn. The 
 writers of civil history have been too thoroughly engrossed 
 with "political events and with wars to give much attention to 
 the development of the industries of different peoples. Here 
 and there a paragraph or a page may give some hint of the 
 state of the industrial arts during diflFerent' periods and in 
 different countries ; but the necessity of giving connected and 
 extended accounts of industrial progress has not yet seemed to 
 possess them. The beginning of the history is, of course, as 
 nebulous as the beginning of all history. It runs back into 
 the ages, beyond tradition, even, for we cannot conceive of 
 the first step in civilization having been taken without the 
 assistance of the industrial arts. When the Greek could find 
 no trace of his own origin, it is unreasonable to suppose that 
 the historian can give the origin of those arts which have been 
 potent in developing civilization. The history of the develop- 
 ment of the mechanic arts must be largely the history of 
 civilization ; at least each reflects the history of the other, 
 for it is true that as advancing civilization has begotten higher 
 and finer types of production, the higher type of artisan has 
 been the productive element in social progress. It is im- 
 possible, with this condition of things historically, to treat of 
 the relation of invention to labor, or, more broadly, of the influ- 
 ence which invention has had upon labor during the earlier 
 historical stages. 
 
 The civil historian finds it convenient to make three great 
 divisions of history — ancient, medieval, and modern. The 
 historian of the industrial arts can make use of but the first 
 and the last of these periods, the two great divisions, ancient 
 and modern — the ancient extending almost to our own time, the 
 
78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 modern finding its birth in that wonderful period of invention 
 practically beginning with the year 1760. We are, then, actu- 
 ally living in the early generations of the modern history of 
 manufactures, for the whole ancient period saw but little 
 change and but little invention, beyond the few contrivances 
 by which people met their simple wants. Certainly invention 
 had not been prolific in processes of production. The period 
 of ancient history, as defined, has not even ceased for a great 
 proportion of the inhabitants of the world. 
 
 The grand divisions which the archaeologist finds essential 
 are far more applicable to manufactures than those of the civil 
 historian. He takes three great ages — the stone age, the 
 bronze age, and the iron age — and these divisions more accu- 
 rately mark the progress of manufactures, for in them we find 
 the peculiar changes which mark the growth of the inventive 
 genius of the world. The limits of these ages, however, are 
 not found to be contemporaneous, so far as beginning and end- 
 ing are concerned, for while the stone age may have ended 
 in one country and the bronze age been evolved from it, the 
 stone age may have lingered for centuries longer in another 
 country, or the bronze age may have continued far beyond the 
 birth of the iron age among an adjacent people, or it may have 
 been omitted because of the conquest of a people still living in 
 the stone age by a people who had reached the iron age. 
 These great distinctions of ages, which the archaeologist finds 
 so convenient, are not continuous steps in the development of 
 natural history, except in a philosophical sense. I^ogically 
 they are true divisions, and so far as nearly all the peoples of 
 the world are concerned they are true divisions chronologically. 
 The history of civilization is not that of successive steps, ex- 
 cept as we view great cycles of time ; so the various industrial 
 systems which have prevailed in the world — the slave system, 
 the feudal system, and the wage system — are not successive 
 universally, but only successive in individual nations. Even 
 in the case of special nations, one or the other of these systems 
 may have been omitted through the circumstances growing 
 out of conquest, or, it may be, treaty, though in the growth or 
 evolution of industrial events the steps are quite regular. The 
 natural division of industrial history really involves two great 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 79 
 
 features — ^hand-production and machine-production. Hand- 
 production prevailed until the last half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and, as already remarked, inventive genius had not been 
 applied in this direction, except in the simplest way. During 
 the last half of the eighteenth century the history of machine- 
 production, or of the age of mechanical invention, really 
 began ; it is with this age that I have to deal, for it is only 
 since invention has been applied to productive processes that 
 it has had any specific influence upon the labor of man, either 
 in an econqpiic or an ethical sense. 
 
 The age of invention found its birth in the development of 
 spinning and weaving, and as these two arts lay at the very 
 foundation of the industrial arts of the ancients, so they are 
 the basic arts of the modern system of industry. Until the 
 decade of years beginning with 1760, the machines in use for 
 weaving, as well as for spinning, were nearly as simple as 
 those in use among the ancients. The principles adopted by 
 the ancients, of course, are those still in force. The processes 
 of spinning and weaving were generally performed under the 
 same roof, the weaver continually pressing upon the spinner 
 for a supply of weft or warp ; but the weaver's own family 
 could not respond with a sufficient quantity, and he had much 
 difficulty in collecting it from neighboring spinsters. The 
 first influence of invention, paradoxical as it may seem, aggra- 
 vated this difficulty by a device for facilitating the progress of 
 weaving. This occurred by the use of the fly -shuttle, invented 
 in 1738, by one John Kay, by which device one man alone 
 was enabled to weave the widest cloth, while prior to Kay's 
 invention two persons were required. One can readily see how 
 this increased the difiiculty of obtaining a supply of yarn ; for 
 the one-thread wheel, though turning from morning till night 
 in thousands of cottages, could not keep pace either with the 
 weaver's shuttle or with Ihe demand of the merchant. In the 
 same year, 1738, John Wyatt invented an elementary me- 
 chanical contrivance whereby he expected that a single pair of 
 hands could spin twenty, a hundred, or, on a perfected me- 
 chanical construction, even one thousand threads. This inven- 
 vention of Wyatt' s, patented by royal letters-patent in 1738, in 
 the name of lycwis Paul, really embodied the method of spin- 
 
8o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ning by rollers, for Wyatt's specification describes the very 
 principle of spinning by rollers which distinguished the spin- 
 ning machine brought into use thirty years later by Sir 
 Richard Arkwright, and which was universally adopted, and 
 of which Sir Richard is generally supposed, even at the present 
 day, to have been the inventor. Wyatt did not succeed, either 
 iu making his fortune, or in introducing his machine into use. 
 He lacked the pecuniary means, and could not hold out long 
 enough to realize the success his genius merited ; but, more 
 than all, as often happens with many advanced inventions — 
 inventions made in advance of the times — he lacked the time 
 and attendant circumstances, with all their subtle influences, 
 which accompanied the train of inventions relating to spinning 
 and weaving which came into use a generation or so after 
 Wyatt's time. His invention slumbered for thirty years, until 
 it was rediscovered, or, what is just as probable, until its prin- 
 ciples came accidentally to the knowledge of Arkwright, who, 
 previous to 1769, had been a barber at Preston. These primi- 
 tive efforts — that of John Kay, in the invention of the fly- 
 shuttle, and that of John Wyatt, in the invention of spinning 
 machines where rollers were used — ^formed the germs from 
 which sprang that great line of inventions which has revolu- 
 tionized industry, and whose influence upon labor has been so 
 widely marked in every direction. 
 
 The invention of the spinning jenny came just in time to 
 have its usefulness adopted. One day while a spinner of Eng- 
 land was at work with his single wheel, in what poetry has 
 called a ' ' cottage, ' ' but what history denominates a ' ' hut, ' ' sur- 
 rounded by his children, they accidentally overturned the wheel, 
 and while it lay on the earthen floor in a horizontal position, 
 the wheel, which was revolving at the time it was overturned, 
 continued to revolve, and of course the spindle revolved through 
 the power conveyed to it. This little accident suggested to the 
 intelligence of James Hargreaves the idea that a spindle could 
 be run in a position perpendicular to the motive-power, as well 
 as horizontal, and that the same power might be carried to 
 two or more spindles. He therefore set himself to work and 
 constructed, between 1764 and 1767, a crude machine, subse- 
 quently called a spinning jenny, which had several spindles 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 8i 
 
 driven by cords or belts from the same wheel. He was thus en- 
 abled to multiply his production of yarn. This result brought 
 him increased wages, and made him the envy of his neighbors, 
 who, fearing that the machine would ultimately affect them 
 injuriously, became excited, broke into Hargreave's house, and 
 destroyed not only the machine but nearly all of his furniture. 
 The inventor was so severely persecuted that he left his native 
 county and went to Nottingham, at which place he was fur- 
 nished with means and was enabled to perfect his invention, 
 taking out royal letters-patent in 1770. But the year previous, 
 1769, Richard Arkwright, of whom I have spoken, took out a 
 patent for his invention of spinning by rollers. These two 
 men, therefore, can be called contemporaneous inventors, and, 
 so far as practical results are concerned, the original inventors 
 who gave to the world the birth of the age of invention. 
 
 The mule-spinning machine, which Samuel Crompton in- 
 vented in 1776, was a combination of the principles of the 
 jenny and the water-frame of Arkwright, and entirely super- 
 ceded the use of the jenny ; but the machines of Hargreaves 
 and Arkwright broke down the barrier which had so long 
 obstructed the advance of the cotton manufacture, and the 
 breaking down of this barrier inaugurated the factory system, 
 which really dates from their period. 
 
 In 1785 Dr. Edward Cartwright invented the first power- 
 loom. This was improved upon by various inventors till 1806, 
 when power-looms began to be used in factories. Prior to 
 this invention all the yarn spun by power-machines had been 
 woven into cotton by hand-loom weavers, and of course the 
 introduction of the power-loom caused a repetition of the scenes 
 of riot which followed the introduction of the spinning machine. 
 The power-loom closed the catalogue of inventions necessary to 
 the inaugtiration of the era of mechanical supremacy. 
 
 To give in detail an account of the invention of the great 
 processes in all departments which have affected civilization or 
 which have constituted, or marked, practical epochs in indus- 
 trial evolution, is not my province. Others who speak to you 
 will give you this information. But the influence upon the 
 labor of man, of the age which was born when the spinning 
 and weaving machinery of England was perfected, constitutes 
 
82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 a theme to which I am called upon to address myself. This 
 influence has been great, and has been felt along two principal 
 lines or directions, those of economics and of ethics. Eco- 
 nomically speaking, the influence has been felt in two directions 
 also, but in diametrically opposite ways. These ways are what 
 are called, in popular speech, ' ' the displacement of labor ' ' and 
 "the expansion of labor." By the displacement of labor is 
 meant what would be expressed more specifically by another 
 term, the contraction of labor ; that is, where a machine has 
 been invented by which one man can do the work, with the 
 aid of the machine, of several men working without its aid ; 
 and by the expansion of labor is meant where, through inven- 
 tion, more men are called into remunerative employment 
 than would have been employed had not such invention been 
 made. In considering these economic bearings or influences of 
 inventions, we must deal with labor abstractly, while under 
 the ethical influence we not only deal with labor abstractly, 
 but with man as a social and a political factor. This, of course, 
 leads at once to the remark that the ethical influence, or the 
 ethics of the question, becomes the most prominent feature of 
 any treatment of the relation of invention to labor. Before 
 touching this, however, I desire to call your attention to some 
 of the more marked economic disturbances which have taken 
 place. 
 
 The Dispi<acement or Contraction of I,abor. 
 
 The facts relative to the so-called displacement of muscular 
 labor by machinery have been drawn from the First Annual 
 Report of the U. S. Commissioner of I^abor. 
 
 That labor-saving machinery, so-called, but which more 
 properly should be called labor-making or labor-assisting 
 machinery, often displaces labor so far as men, individually, 
 are concerned, and temporarily, cannot successfully be denied. 
 All men of sound minds admit the permanent good effects of 
 inventions ; but the permanent good efiects do not prevent the 
 temporary displacement, which displacement, so far as the 
 labor displaced is concerned, assists in crippling the consuming 
 power of the community in which it takes place. It is, of 
 course, exceedingly difficult to secure positive information 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 83 
 
 illustrating a point so thoroughly apparent ; yet from the 
 source I have named a sufficient amount of information can be 
 drawn to show clearly and positively the influence of inven- 
 tions in bringing about what is called displacement. 
 
 In the manufacture of agricultural implements new machin- 
 ery, during the past fifteen or twenty years, has, in the 
 opinion of some of the best manufacturers of such implements, 
 displaced fully fifty per cent, of the muscular labor formerly 
 employed, as, for instance, hammers and dies have done away 
 with the most particular labor on a plow. In one of the most 
 extensive establishments engaged in the manufacture of 
 agricultural implements in one of the Western States it is 
 found that 600 men, with the use of machinery, are now doing 
 the work that would require 2,145 men, without the aid of 
 machinery, to perform ; that is to say, there has been in this 
 particular establishment a loss of labor to 1,545 nien, the 
 proportion of loss being as 3.57 to i. In the manufacture of 
 small arms, where one man, by manual labor, was formerly 
 able to "turn" and "fit" one stock for a musket in one day 
 of ten hours, three men now, by a division of labor and the 
 use of power machinery, will turn out and fit from 125 to 150 
 stocks in ten hours. By this statement it is seen that one man 
 individually turns out and fits the equivalent of 42 to 50 
 stocks in 10 hours, as against one stock in the same length of 
 time under former conditions. In this particular calling, 
 then, there is a displacement of 44 to 49 men in one operation. 
 
 Ivooking to a cruder industry, that . of brick -making, 
 improved devices have displaced 10 per cent, of labor, while 
 in making fire-brick 40 per cent, of the labor formerly em- 
 ployed is now dispensed with, and yet in many brick-making 
 concerns no displacement whatever has taken place. 
 
 The manufacture of boots and shoes offers some very 
 wonderful facts in this connection. In one large and long- 
 established manufactory in one of the Eastern States the 
 proprietors testify that it would require 500 persons, working 
 by hand processes and in the old way in the shops by the 
 roadside, to make as many women's boots and shoes as 100 
 persons now make with the aid of machinery and by congre- 
 gated labor, a contraction of 80 per cent, in this particular 
 
84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 case. In another division of the same industry the number of 
 men required to produce a given quantity of boots and shoes 
 has been reduced one-half, while, in still another locality, and 
 on another quality of boots, being entirely for women's wear, 
 where formerly a first-class workman could turn out six pairs in 
 one week, he will now turn out eighteen pairs. A well-known 
 firm in the West engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes 
 finds that it would take 120 persons, working by hand, to 
 produce the amount of work done in its factory by 60 
 employes, and that the hand-work would not compare in 
 workmanship and appearance by 50 per cent. By the use of 
 Goodyears' sewing machine for turned shoes one man will sew 
 250 pairs in one day. It would require eight men, working by 
 hand, to sew the same number in the same time. By the use 
 of a heel-shaver or trimmer one man will trim 300 pairs of 
 shoes a day, while formerly three men would have been required 
 to do the same work ; and with the McKay machine one 
 operator will handle 300 pairs of shoes in one day, while 
 without the machine he could handle but five pairs in the same 
 time. So, in nailing on heels, one man, with the aid of 
 machinery, can heel 300 pairs of shoes per day, while five men 
 would have to work all day to accomplish this by hand. A 
 large Philadelphia house, which makes boys and children's 
 shoes entirely, has learned that the introduction of new 
 machinery within the past thirty years has displaced about 
 six times the amount of hand-labor formerly required, and 
 that the cost of the product has been reduced one-half. 
 
 The broom industry, which would not seem to offer a large 
 field for speculation in reference to displacement, has felt the 
 influence of invention, for the broom sewing machine facilitates 
 the work to such an extent that each machine displaces three 
 men. A large broom-manufacturing concern which a few 
 years ago employed seventeen skilled men to manufacture 
 500 dozen brooms per week, now, with nine men, aided 
 by invention, turns out 1,200 dozen brooms weekly ; so in this 
 case, while the force is reduced nearly one-half, the quantity 
 of product is more than doubled. 
 
 To look at a carriage or a wagon, one would not suppose 
 that in its manufacture machinery could perform very much of 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 85 
 
 an office, and yet a foreman of fifty years' experience has in- 
 formed me that the length of time it took a given number of 
 skilled workmen, working entirely by hand, to produce a 
 carriage of a certain style and quality was equal to thirty-five 
 days of one man's labor, while now one man produces sub- 
 stantially the same style of carriage in twelve days. Machin- 
 ery has been employed in making the parts necessary to the 
 construction of a carriage or a wagon, and thus has simplified 
 the work and reduced the time essential for the production of 
 the completed product. 
 
 In the manufacture of carpets there has been a displacement, 
 taking all the processes together, of from ten to twenty times 
 the number of persons now necessary. In the spinning of 
 carpet material alone it would take, by the old methods, from 
 seventy-five to one hundred times the number of operatives 
 now employed to turn out the same amount of work, while in 
 weaving there would be required at least ten times the present 
 number. A carpet-measuring machine has been invented, 
 which brushes and measures the product at the same time, 
 and by its use one operator will accomplish what formerly 
 required fifteen men. 
 
 Very many people would say that in the manufacture of 
 clothing there has been no improvement, except so far as the 
 use of the sewing machine has facilitated the manufacture ; 
 yet in the ready-made clothing trade, where cutting was for- 
 merly done by hand, much of it is now done by the use of dies, 
 many thicknesses of the same size and style being cut at one 
 operation. So in cutting out hats and caps with improved 
 cutters, one man is enabled to cut out a great many thicknesses 
 at the same time, and he does six times the amount of work 
 with such devices as could formerly be done by one man in the 
 old way. 
 
 While the age of machinery began with improvements for 
 the manufacture of textiles, so the manufacture of textiles, and 
 especially cotton goods, ofiers perhaps as striking an illustra- 
 tion as any of the apparent displacement of labor. With a 
 hand-loom a weaver used to weave from sixty to eighty picks 
 per minute in weaving a cloth of good quality, with twenty 
 threads of twist to each one-quarter square inch. With a 
 
86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 power loom he now weaves one hundred and eighty picks per 
 minute of the same kind of cloth. Even in power machinery, 
 a weaver formerly tended but one loom. Now one weaver 
 minds all the way from two to ten looms, according to the 
 grade of goods. In a large establishment in New Hampshire, 
 improved machinery, even within ten years, has reduced mus- 
 cular labor 50 per cent, in the production of the same quality 
 of goods. This, of course, is true in other localities given to 
 the manufacture of cotton goods. In another line labor has 
 been displaced to such an extent that one-third the number of 
 operatives formerly required is now in employment. In the 
 days of the single-spindle hand-wheel, one spinner, working 
 fifty-six hours continuously, could spin five hanks of number 
 thirty-two twist. At the present time, with one pair of self- 
 acting mule-spinning machines, having. 2, 124 spindles, one 
 spinner, with the assistance of two small boys, can produce 
 55,098 hanks of number thirty-two twist in the same time. It 
 is quite generally agfreed that there has been a displacement, 
 taking all processes of cotton manufacture into consideration, 
 in the proportion of three to one. The average number of 
 spindles per operative in the cotton mills of this country in 
 1831 was 25.2 ; it is now over 72, an increase of more than 185 
 per cent.; and along with this increase of the number of spin- 
 dles per operative there has been an increase of product per 
 operative of over 145 per cent., so far as spinning alone is con- 
 cerned. In weaving in the olden time, in this country, a fair 
 adult hand-loom weaver wove from forty-two to forty-eight 
 yards of common shirting per week. Now a weaver, tending 
 six power-looms in a cotton factory, will produce 1,500 yards 
 in a single week. 
 
 Marvelous as these facts appear, when we examine the 
 influence of invention as applied in the newspaper publishing 
 business we perceive the magic of inventive genius. One of 
 the latest quadruple-stereotype perfecting presses manufactured 
 by R. Hoe & Co., of New York, has an aggregate running 
 capacity of 48,000 eight-page papers per hour ; that is to say, 
 one of these perfected presses, run by one pressman and four 
 skilled laborers, will print, cut at the top, fold, paste and 
 count (with supplement inserted if desired) 48,000 eight-page 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 87 
 
 papers in one hour. To do the press-work alone for this 
 number of papers would take, on the old plan, a man and a 
 boy working ten hours per day one hundred days. A paper 
 now published in the morning, printed, folded, cut and pasted 
 before breakfast, would, before the edition was completed under 
 the old system, become a quarterly. 
 
 And so illustrations might be • accumulated in very many 
 directions — in the manufacture of furniture, in the glass 
 industry, in leather-making, in sawing lumber, in the manu- 
 facture of machines and machinery, in the production of metals 
 and metallic goods of all kinds, or of woodenware, in the 
 manufacture of musical instruments, in mining, in the oil 
 industry, in the manufacture of paper, in pottery, in the 
 production of railroad supplies, in the manufacture of rubber 
 boots, of saws, of silk goods, of soap, of tobacco, of trunks, 
 in building vessels, in making wine, and in the production of 
 woolen goods. 
 
 It is impossible to arrive at an accurate statement as to the 
 number of persons it would require under the old system to 
 produce the goods made by the present industrial system with 
 the aid of invention and power-machinery. Any computation 
 would be a rough estimate. In some branches of work such 
 a rough estimate would indicate that each employe at the 
 present represents, on an average, fifty employes under the old 
 system. In many other branches the estimate would involve 
 the employment of one now where three were employed. 
 I^ooking at this question without any desire to be mathematic- 
 ally accurate, it is fair to say, perhaps, that it would require 
 from 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 persons in this country, work- 
 ing under the old system, to produce the goods made and do the 
 work performed by the workers of to-day with the aid of 
 machinery. This computation may, of course, be very wide 
 of the truth, but any computation is equally startling, and 
 when it is considered that in spinning alone 1,100 threads are 
 easily spun now at one time where one was spun under the 
 old system, no estimate can be successfully disputed. 
 
 All these facts and illustrations simply show that there has 
 been, economically speaking, a great displacement of labor by 
 the use of inventions; power machinery has come in as a 
 
88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 magical assistant to the power of muscle and mind, and it is 
 this side of the question that usually causes alarm. As in the 
 early day, when Hargreaves and Arkwright were struggling 
 to supply the weaver with a sufficient quantity of yarn, and 
 the spinners looked only to the immediate effect upon them- 
 selves, so now, no good answer can be made to the man who 
 finds his labor a superfluity in a market overstocked with 
 labor. Enlightenment has taught the wage-receiver some of 
 the advantages of the introduction of inventions as his 
 assistants, but he is not yet fully instructed as to their influ- 
 ence in all directions. He does see the displacement ; he does 
 see the difficulty of turning his hand to other employment or 
 of finding employment in the same direction. These are 
 tangible influences which present themselves squarely in the 
 face of the man involved, and to him no philosophical, eco- 
 nomic or ethical answer is sufficient. It is therefore impossible 
 to treat of the influence of inventions, so far as the displace- 
 ment of labor is concerned, as one of the leading influences, 
 on the individual basis. We must take labor, as I have said, 
 abstractly. So, having shown the powerful influence of the 
 use of ingenious devices in the displacement or contraction of 
 labor, as such, it is proper to show how such devices have 
 influenced the expansion of labor or created employments and 
 opportunities for employment which did not exist before their 
 inception and application. 
 
 The Expansion of IvAbor. 
 
 As incredible as the facts I have given might appear to one 
 who has not studied them, the ability to crystalize in individual 
 cases and show the fairly exact displacement of labor exists. 
 An examination of the opposite influence of inventions, that 
 of the expansion or creation of employments not before exist- 
 ing, reveals a more encouraging state or condition of things, 
 but one in which the statistician can make but very little head- 
 way. The influences under the expansion of labor have vari- 
 ous ramifications. The people at large, and especially those 
 who work for wages, have experienced these influences in 
 several directions, and contemporaneous with the introduction 
 and use of inventions, the chief economic influence being in 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 89 
 
 the direction of expansion, the other influences being more 
 thoroughly ethical, and these should be considered under that 
 broad title. The science of statistics helps us in some respects 
 in studying the expansive power of inventions, and especially 
 in the direction of great staples used as raw material in manu- 
 facturing processes and in the increase of the number of people 
 employed relative to the number of the population. If there 
 has been a great increase in the consumption per capita of 
 great staples for manufacturing purposes, there must have been 
 a corresponding expansion of labor necessary for the produc- 
 tion of goods in like directions. Taking up some of the lead- 
 ing staples, the facts show that the per capita consumption of 
 cotton in this country in 1830 was 5.9 pounds; in 1880, 13.91 
 pounds, while in 1890 the per capita consuinption had increased 
 to nearly 19 pounds. These figures are for cotton consumed 
 in our own country, and clearly and positively indicate that 
 the labor necessary for such consumption has been kept up to 
 the standard, if not beyond the standard, of the olden time — I 
 mean as to the number of people employed. In iron the in- 
 crease has been as great proportionately. In 1870 the per 
 capita consumption of iron in the United States was 105.64 
 pounds, in 1880 it had arisen to 204.99 pounds, and in 1890 to 
 283.38. While processes in manufacturing iron have been im- 
 proved, and labor displaced to a certain extent by such pro- 
 cesses, this great increase in the consumption of iron is a most 
 encouraging fact, and proves that there has been an offset 
 to the displacement. The consumption of steel shows like 
 results. In 1880 it was 46 pounds per capita, and in 1890, 
 144 pounds. The application of iron and steel in all direc- 
 tions, in the building trades, as well as in the mechanic arts, 
 in great engineering undertakings, and in a multitude of 
 directions, only indicates that labor must be actively em- 
 ployed, or such extensions could not take place. But a more 
 conclusive offset to the displacement of labor, considered 
 abstractly, is shown by the statistics of persons engaged in all 
 occupations. From i860 to 1880, a period of twenty years, 
 and the most prolific period in this country of inventions, and 
 therefore of the most intensified influence in all directions of 
 their introduction, the population increased 59.51 per cent.. 
 
go PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 while during the same period the number of persons employed 
 in all occupations — manufacturing, agriculture, domestic serv- 
 ice, everything^ — increased 109.87 per cent. In the decade of 
 years, 1870 to 1880, the population increased 30.08 per cent., 
 while the number of persons in all occupations increased 39 
 per cent. An analysis of these statements shows that the in- 
 crease of the number of those engaged in manufacturing, 
 mechanical, and mining industries, those in which the influ- 
 ence of inventions is most keenly felt, for the period from 
 i860 to 1880, was 92.28 per cent., as against 59.51 per cent, 
 increase in the total population. If statistics could be as 
 forcibly applied to show the new occupations brought into 
 existence by inventions, I believe the result would be still 
 more emphatic. If we could examine scientifically the num- 
 ber of created occupations, the claim that inventions have 
 displaced labor on the whole would be conclusively and 
 emphatically refuted. Taking some of the great industries 
 that now exist, and which did not exist prior to the inventions 
 which made them, we must acknowledge the power of the 
 answer. In telegraphy thousands and thousands of people 
 are employed where no one has ever been displaced. The 
 construction of the lines, the manufacture of the instruments, 
 the operation of the lines — all these divisions and sub-divisions 
 of a great industry have brought thousands of intelligent men 
 and women into remunerative employment where no one had 
 ever been employed before. The telephone has only added to 
 this accumulation and expansion, and the whole field of 
 electricity, in providing for the employment of many thousands 
 of skilled workers, has not trenched upon the privileges of 
 the past. Electro-plating, a modern device, has not only 
 added wonderfully to the employed list by its direct influence, 
 but indirectly by the introduction of a class of goods which 
 can be secured by all persons. Silverware is no longer the 
 luxury of the rich. Through the invention of electro-plating, 
 excellent ware, with most artistic design, can be found in 
 almost every habitation in America. The application of 
 electro-plating to nickel furnished a subsidiary industry to 
 that of electro-plating generally, and nickel-plating had not 
 been known half a dozen years before more than thirty 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 91 
 
 thousand people were employed in the industry, where no 
 one had ever been employed prior to the invention. 
 
 The railroads offer another grand illustration of the expan- 
 sion of labor. It now requires three-quarters of a million of 
 people to operate our railroads, and this means a population of 
 nearly four millions, or one-sixteenth of the whole population 
 of the country. The displacement of the stage-coach and the 
 stage-driver was nothing compared to the expansion of labor 
 which the railroad systems of the country have created. The 
 construction of the road-bed and its equipment constantly 
 involve the employment of thousands and thousands of 
 mechanics, while the operation of the roads themselves, as I 
 have said, secures employment to more than three-quarters of 
 a million of people. All this work of the railroads has not, 
 in all probability, displaced a single coachman ; on the other 
 hand, it has created the demand for drivers and workers with 
 horses and wagons through the great expansion of the express 
 business, of cab-driving, of connecting lines and in other 
 directions, which could not have taken place under the old 
 stage-coach regime. 
 
 "When the sewing machine was invented it was thought that 
 the sewing girl's day was over. So it was in a certain respect. 
 She can now earn more money with less physical exhaustion 
 than under the old system. Abominably poor as are the 
 results of her efforts now, they are far better than they would 
 have been without this invention. But as a means of the 
 expansion of labor the sewing machine is a striking illustration. 
 It has displaced no one ; it has increased demand, and it has 
 been the means of establishing great workshops to supply the 
 thousands of machines that are sold throughout the world. 
 
 The inventions of Goodyear, whereby rubber gum could be 
 so treated as to be made into articles of wearing apparel, have 
 resulted in the establishment of great industries as new 
 creations. We need not in this place consider the great 
 benefits through the use of water-proof clothing. The mere 
 fact that great industries have arisen where none existed 
 before is sufficient for oiir purpose. I might take up much 
 time in simply accumulating illustrations showing the ex- 
 pansive force of inventions in the direction of creating new 
 
92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Opportunities for remunerative employment. The facts I have 
 given show conclusively that displacement has been more than 
 offset by expansion. Yet, if the question be asked, Has the 
 wage-earner received his just and equitable share of the eco- 
 nomic benefits derived from the introduction of machinery? 
 the answer must be. No. I mean by this his relative share, 
 compared with that going to capital. In the struggle for 
 supremacy, in the great countries devoted to mechanical 
 production it probably has been impossible for him to share 
 equitably in such benefits. Notwithstanding this, his share 
 has been enormous, and the gain to him such as to change his 
 whole relation to society and the state, such changes affecting 
 his moral position. 
 
 It is certainly true — and the statement is simply cumulative 
 evidence of the truth of the view that expansion of labor 
 through inventions has been equal or superior to any displace- 
 ment that has taken place — that in those countries given to 
 the development and use of machinery there is found the 
 greatest proportion of employed persons, and that in those 
 countries where machinery has been developed to little or no 
 purpose poverty reigns, ignorance is the prevailing condition, 
 and civilization consequently far in the rear. 
 
 The Ethicai, Influence of Inventions. 
 
 According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, ethics comprehends the 
 laws of right living ; and that, beyond the conduct commonly 
 approved or reprobated as right or wrong, it includes all con- 
 duct which furthers or hinders, in direct or in indirect ways, 
 the welfare of self or others ; that justice, which formulates 
 the range of conduct and limitations to conduct hence arising, 
 is at once the most important division of ethics ; that it has to 
 define the equitable relations among individuals who limit one 
 another's spheres of action by co-existing, and who achieve 
 their ends by cooperation ; and that, beyond justice between 
 man and man, justice between each man and the aggregate of 
 men has to be dealt with by it. 
 
 This constitutes a very broad definition of ethics, and the 
 propositions laid down by Mr. Spencer, taken by themselves, 
 are such as no moral philosopher can for a moment reject, nor 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 93 
 
 should they be rejected by economists, for a moment's reflec- 
 tion upon their bearing shows conclusively that material pros- 
 perity is best subserved by their incorporation as chapters in 
 the laws of trade, commerce, and production. So the relation 
 of the wage receiver to his fellow-man and to society becomes 
 ethical, purely so ; but it is certainly ethico-economical, and 
 his wages, the standard of his living ; his working time, the cost 
 of his living ; his education, his interest in religious and liter- 
 ary matters, in art, and in all that adorns life, are features 
 surrounding him which must be contemplated from the ethical 
 point of view. This thought is all the more emphatic when it 
 is considered that invention has brought with it a new school 
 of ethics. It is the type and representative of the civilization 
 of this period, because it embodies, so far as physics and eco- 
 nomics are concerned, the concentrated, clearly wrought-out 
 thought of the age. Books may represent thought ; machinery 
 or invention is the embodiment of thought. From an intel- 
 lectual point of view, then, it becomes perfectly legitimate to 
 speak of the ethical influence of inventions, and no considera- 
 tion of the relation of inventions to labor would be complete 
 without showing in a more deeply philosophical sense the 
 ethical influence upon the individual laborer. 
 
 We are living at the beginning of the age of mind, as illus- 
 trated by the results of inventive genius. It is the age of 
 intellect, of brain — for brain is king, and machinery is the king's 
 prime minister. Wealth of mind and wealth of purse may 
 struggle for the mastery, but the former usually wins, and 
 gives the crown to the Huxleys, Darwins, Tyndalls, Proctors, 
 Woolseys, and Drapers, rather than to the men who accumu- 
 late great fortunes. It is natural and logical that under such 
 a sovereignty inventions should not only typify the progress of 
 the race, but that they should also have a clearly marked influ- 
 ence upon the morals of peoples, a mixed influence, to be sure, 
 as men are what we call good or evil, but on the whole with 
 the good vastly predominant. 
 
 The philosopher of the pessimistic school usually finds in 
 the economic influence of inventions a great displacement of 
 labor or back-work, and he calls the attention of the thinkers 
 of the present day to the supposed glories of the past. He 
 
94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 calls up for consideration what he designates the peaceful and 
 happy days of labor under the domestic system ; he sees in the 
 growing importance of inventions what he is pleased to call 
 the destruction of the individuality of men and their retrogres- 
 sion to mere puppets, without the intelligence of the machinery 
 he deplores ; he sees in the division of labor what is to him a 
 sure corollary of invention, the degradation of labor, the dwarf- 
 ing and narrowing of the mind, and the complete subjugation 
 of all manly qualities ; he fails to comprehend work as any- 
 thing more than mere manual labor, the expenditure of muscle, 
 and never realizes that work means employment — occupation — 
 the means by which all sane people secure happiness for them- 
 selves and for those whom they love, and that whatever is done 
 in the name of service to mankind is work, and that the work 
 which calls out the highest faculties of the worker, whether of 
 endeavor or aspiration, is for him the highest employment. 
 He also fails to comprehend, or, at least, he overlooks the fact, 
 that under the domestic system of labor displaced by invention 
 the most demoralizing conditions prevailed. He finds some- 
 thing exceedingly poetic in the idea of the weaver of old Eng- 
 land, before the spinning machinery was invented, working at 
 his loom in his cottage, with his family about him, some card- 
 ing, others spinning the wool or the cotton for the weaver, and 
 so falls into the idyllic sentiment that the domestic system 
 surpassed the present. This idyllic sentiment has done much 
 to create false impressions as to the results or influence of 
 inventions. Goldsmith's Auburn and Crabbe's Village do not 
 reflect the truest picture of their country's home life under the 
 domestic system of labor, for the domestic laborer's home, 
 instead of being the poetic one, was very far from the character 
 poetry has given it. Huddled together in his hut, not a cot- 
 tage, the weaver's family lived and worked, without comfort, 
 convenience, good air, good food, and without much intelli- 
 gence. Drunkenness and theft made each home the scene of 
 crime and want and disorder. Superstition ruled, and envy 
 swayed the workers. If the members of a family, endowed 
 with more virtue and intelligence than the common herd, tried 
 to so conduct themselves as to secure at least self-respect, they 
 were either abused or ostracized by their neighbors. The 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 95 
 
 ignorance under the old system added to the squalor of the 
 homes under it, and what all these elements failed to produce 
 in making the hut an actual den was faithfully performed, in 
 too many instances, by the swine of the family. The reports 
 of the Poor I<aws Commissioners of England are truer expo- 
 nents of conditions than poetry, and show more faithfully the 
 demoralizing agency of pauperism and of all the other evils 
 which were so prolific under the hand-system of work. 
 
 The influence of invention at this particular time in the 
 history of mankind is usually overlooked by the philosopher 
 with a pessimistic turn of mind, and he also overlooks the 
 fact that if there is any one thing in individuals that this age 
 insists upon more than any preceding age, it is work — employ- 
 ment of some kind. Once it was enough to be good ; now one 
 must prove himself valuable or he becomes, if not an actual, 
 a social and a moral tramp. St. Paul said: "To him that 
 worketh, reward is reckoned not of grace, but of debt. ' ' Yet 
 when a man is employed to the extent of the support of him- 
 self and his own, the reward must be reckoned of grace ; and he 
 is capable of a better and purer religion, for a poverty-stricken 
 people cannot well be a religious people. Ethics and pure 
 religion most assuredly have much to do with everything that 
 affects the conduct of life ; they constitute the art of living 
 well, not merely of dying well, and they are the science of 
 being and of doing. The aim of the modern Christ would be 
 to raise the whole platform of society, says an ethical writer * 
 of our day. The modern Christ would not try to make the 
 poor contented with a lot in which they cannot be much better 
 than savages or brutes, and he would not content himself with 
 denouncing sin as merely spiritual evil. On the other hand, 
 he would go into the economic causes of sin and destroy the 
 flower by cutting at the very roots, which are poverty and 
 ignorance; and the lowest, the most harmful and the most 
 expensive ignorance of to-day is ignorance of work — the want 
 of some technical knowledge which enables a man to earn his 
 own living outside of penal institutions. Poverty and pure 
 religion cannot exist among the same people, for such a 
 religion cannot prevail unless the people are engaged in that 
 
 * Dr. C. C. Everett. 
 
96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 class of employment which tends to broaden all their faculties, 
 to awaken not only their sense of duty to their kind, but also 
 to develop their love of beauty, of art, and of all that adorns 
 and ennobles life ; and such employment cannot be maintained 
 without the vitalizing use of inventions as the enduring, 
 working and perfect embodiment of human ingenuity. We 
 are hardly aware of the silent working influence of machinery 
 upon the morals of the world ; it is recognized in this thought 
 I have outlined, that poverty and religion are not now,, as 
 once, twin virtues. Christianity only prevails in industrious 
 communities. The people of America, with all their faults and 
 foibles, are more religious in the truest sense than any other 
 people ; and this, I am sure, is because amongst a democratic 
 people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works 
 to earn a living, or has worked, or is the son of parents who 
 have worked, the notion of labor therefore being presented to 
 the mind on every side as the necessary, natural and honest 
 condition of human existence. A wealthy man even thinks he 
 owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of 
 industrial or commercial pursuit, or to public business. He 
 would think himself in bad repute if he employed his life 
 solely in living {a). This idea of life or of active living is 
 stimulated by all the elements which make up the essential 
 characteristics of our period. 
 
 Professor Everett, of the Harvard Divinity School, in an 
 admirable paper entitled "The new Ethics," gives an excel- 
 lent illustration of this truth. "The time has been," he says, 
 "when poverty was felt to be to some extent a mark of 
 sanctity. Your tramp would lack little of being regarded, if 
 not as a saint, at least as a very good representative of one. 
 Poverty was regarded as, in a double sense, a means of grace. 
 The poor themselves were not far from the Kingdom of 
 Heaven ; at the same time they furnished one of the readiest 
 means of salvation to their rich neighbors. It was the poor 
 who carried the souls of the rich to heaven. Thus poverty 
 was to be comforted and solaced. It was to be in some way 
 ameliorated. The poor were at any event to be kept alive. 
 But the idea of doing away with poverty would have been 
 
 a. Democracy in America, by De Tocqueville. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 97 
 
 considered if not sacrilegious, at least hardly desirable. This 
 life of poverty was, indeed, the ideal life." This ideal life of 
 poverty continued to be the leading thought so long as the 
 domestic system of labor prevailed. The age of machinery, of 
 invention, of active mental competition, as set over against 
 purely muscular competition, has changed this whole state of 
 things ; for now it is considered that poverty is not the 
 blessing, but the curse of society, and the whole social effort is 
 not so much to ameliorate as to abolish it. Charity, instead of 
 being regarded as the ideal virtue, is, at least under its old' 
 form, regarded as a weakness, if not as a vice. To help men, we 
 must now help them to help themselves. We must give work — 
 employment, mental or muscular occupation, and in it find not 
 the cure-all, not the panacea for all of the evils that threaten 
 society, but a great uplifting influence, which in time will 
 become a panacea for some of the evils ; but in order to have 
 this great influence induce the very best conditions for the 
 reception and growth and home of a high state of morals, the 
 prerequisite of religious advancement, the employment or work 
 should be of the very highest grade. If the lowest grade of 
 employment leads to self-respect, and the dignity and repose 
 even, which come of self-support (a proposition which cannot 
 be denied), how ennobling must be that employment which 
 not only stimulates the highest faculties, but also excites 
 admiration for the perfect and love for the beautiful ! A man 
 cannot superintend the movements of a complicated piece of 
 machinery and not feel this silent working influence, and, 
 maybe, become the better for his experience. His mind intui- 
 tively takes on the harmony of action and finds itself running 
 in tune to something which represents embodied thought. Any 
 man witnessing the operations of the wonderful mechanism of 
 the needle machine feels a continued influence from his ob- 
 servations. There is something peculiarly educational in the 
 very presence of the working of mechanical powers. The 
 witnessing of the automatic movements of a machine stimu- 
 lates thought, and, coupled with necessity or desire, makes the 
 beholder not only the inventor of other movements, but also 
 brings him to a higher respect for the inventions of the world 
 and creates in him a mental activity which places him on a 
 
98 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 higher standard than that on which he lived prior to his 
 invention. In the first steam engines a boy was constantly- 
 employed to open and shut alternately the communication 
 between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the pistons 
 either ascended or descended. One of these boys, who, like 
 most boys, loved to play with his companions, observed that 
 by tying a string from the handle of a valve which opened this 
 communication to another part of the machine, the valve 
 would open and shut without his assistance and leave him at 
 liberty to divert himself with his fellows. Probably there was 
 a displacement of labor, for one of the greatest improvements 
 that has been made upon the steam engine since it was first 
 invented was the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own 
 labor. And so it has been that very many of the machines 
 made use of in manufactures have been invented by workmen 
 who, being employed in some simple operation, have turned 
 their thoughts toward finding out easier and readier methods 
 of performing it {ti). 
 
 These things stimulate industry, and, as I have said, indus- 
 try and poverty are not hand-maidens ; and so as poverty is 
 lessened, good morals thrive. If labor — employment of the 
 mind — is an essential to good morals, then the highest kind of 
 employment — that requiring the most application, the best 
 intellectual effort — means the best religion and the best morals. 
 If it were not so, then the continued employment at the 
 crudest muscular labor would be the best for mankind. But 
 the condition I have named, I take courage to assert, is super- 
 induced eventually by the employment of so-called labor-saving 
 machinery and the division of labor, and the reverse of this 
 condition is superinduced by the continued and exhausting 
 application of much muscle and the use of little intellect. 
 
 In the early history of political economy we find that prog- 
 ress was supposed to be the result of the division of labor ; 
 to-day it is very often the bete noir of a class of philosophers 
 who do not look beyond the apparent displacement of muscular 
 labor by the use of improved machinery. These philosophers 
 make out a most excellent prima facie case, as I have shown 
 by the facts cited relative to the displacement or contraction of 
 
 b. Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 99 
 
 labor. The error lies in taking the prima facie case for the 
 conclusive evidence, which is found in joining the facts per- 
 taining to the expansion of labor. Now the optimist sees in 
 the division of labor what may well be called the emancipation 
 of labor, and instead of the dwarfing of minds, the undue stim- 
 ulation of industrial enterprises and moral retrogression, he 
 sees the fuller development, in every direction, of minds, of 
 industries, of moral relations ; and he sees in the clouds created 
 by the modern philosophers the warm showers which will 
 sprout the germs of the solution of some of the vexed questions 
 of labor. Communism, which means the destruction of labor, 
 cannot co-exist with machinery. It must be true that without 
 machinery the world would retrograde to superstition and con- 
 sequent irreligion, and that without machinery the ingenuity 
 of man must assume its old place among the unused faculties 
 of the mind. 
 
 These truths, or what to my mind are truths, are easily and 
 conclusively illustrated by many every-day observations. In 
 some of the Spanish localities of New Mexico the plow of to- 
 day is the bent stick of the Egyptians ; but as the railroad cuts 
 through the land and through the ignorance of New Mexico, 
 it straightens out the plows as it straightens out the streets of 
 that country — by the sheer influence of parallel lines. When 
 a railroad is run through a straggling town, with houses 
 thrown together as a child leaves its toys upon the floor, the 
 first thing is to set it to streets running parallel with and at 
 right angles to the railroad. The whistle of the locomotive 
 has shrieked out a vast amount of civilization during the past 
 fifty or sixty years, for with its shriek and as its cinders fell to 
 the ground, the spelling-book and the New Testament have 
 been lodged as fixtures in the new country. 
 
 All such illustrations are common-place, indeed, but they 
 are necessary in a discussion of the influence of inventions upon 
 labor. 
 
 The division of labor has grown finer and finer as machinery 
 has grown more and more essential to the production of goods. 
 The consequence is that trades are hardly essential now, and 
 the mechanic of a generation ago feels grieved because the 
 artisan of to-day is not obliged to spend from three to seven 
 
lOO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 years in learning a trade, and thereby be robbed to a great 
 extent of the results of his labor. The apprentice boy, if 
 bright, could learn his trade in less than the time required, but 
 he could not become a journeyman until he had been pro- 
 nounced such by the time spent at learning a trade ; and after 
 he had become skillful his wages were exploited to the extent 
 of his skill, and he was obliged to contribute more in the way 
 of actual earnings than he received. But this was not the 
 worst. Finding that he was robbed by the system, he finally 
 undertook to earn no more than he was paid, and so acquired 
 habits of unthrift which would follow him through life. The 
 apprentice boy has disappeared from the industrial world, but 
 the old-school workman, instead of glorying in the fact that he 
 has disappeared and that the time has come, or is coming, when 
 the years spent in learning a trade are considered as partially 
 lost time, feels the absence of the apprentice as a menace. But 
 the intelligent workman, I am happy to know, has changed 
 his views in this respect, and finds that through manual train- 
 ing and the results of the trade school, a boy can utilize his 
 whole time, and as soon as accomplished or equipped in his 
 trade, can command the wages legitimately his due ; and the 
 boy who has had the experience of good training schools has 
 the advantage over the old apprentice, for he discovers that 
 instead of one trade at which he can secure a living, he may 
 seek remunerative employment through his handy skill in 
 other trades when the chosen one does not furnish sufficient 
 employment. This enables the world to go on in the diversity 
 of employment or development, or the versatility of talent, 
 which is the secret of that future distribution of labor so much 
 to be desired before the full results of the readjustment of 
 industrial forces from the domestic system to the age of 
 machinery shall be complete. 
 
 "With this diversity of employment will come still shorter 
 hours of labor and, consequently, increased opportunities for 
 mental and moral improvement. This age has already brought 
 greatly increased wages, a greatly reduced working time and 
 a largely reduced cost of the principal articles of consumption. 
 
 I cannot analyze in the space and time allotted me the 
 deductions of statistics which emphatically prove these things ; 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. loi 
 
 nor is it essential. Such statistics exist. Wages have been 
 increased, and one illustration must suffice, and I will draw 
 this illustration from the cotton industry of this country, the 
 first to feel the effects of invention. The ratio of wages for 
 1828 and 1880, in producing common cotton cloth, was as 
 2.62 in the former year to 4.84 in the latter year, while in the 
 cost of production the ratio was reversed, it being as 6.77 in 
 1828 to 3.31 in 1880. The hours of labor have been reduced 
 from twelve or thirteen per day in the same industry to nine 
 and one-half in England and ten generally in this country. 
 An examination of statistical tables will convince anyone that 
 for most divisions of labor in cotton factories wages have very 
 nearly doubled during the past sixty years, not only in Great 
 Britain but in this country, and an examination of the wage 
 statistics of very many industries shows the same results with, 
 however, a varying percentage of increase. 
 
 As to production, the facts given in the earlier part of this 
 address must suffice. There can be no question in regard to 
 this feature of the influence of inventions. 
 
 With inventions there came the discussions and agitations 
 of England for the amelioration of the condition of operatives, 
 resulting in less hours of labor, machinery guarded against 
 accident and all the beneficent laws for the elevation of the 
 British factory workers to the plane of men and women. This 
 work is still incomplete, but is progressive. 
 
 The inevitable result of machinery to enable man to secure a 
 livelihood in less time than of old is grand in itself if none other 
 had been secured. But this is not so much the effect of legislation 
 as of changed conditions brought about by the use of inventions. 
 It must be considered that as the time required to earn a living 
 grows shorter civilization grows up, and that that system which 
 demands of a man all his time, or a great portion of it, for the 
 earning of mere subsistence is demoralizing in all respects. 
 
 It cannot be successfully denied that the direct influence of 
 inventions has been felt in these three ways I have just 
 outlined — the increase in wages (and I mean by this the 
 increase in actual earnings in a given time), the reduction of 
 working time, and the decreased cost of articles of consump- 
 tion, whereby wages are made more efficient. 
 
I02 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Another exceedingly important influence which has grown 
 from the division of labor by the use of machinery in produc- 
 tion relates to the length of life and to the means of comfort- 
 able living. We are told that in the good old times so many 
 sick or feeble people were not seen as now. This is true, 
 because they died. The feeble could not live under the old 
 conditions ; only the most robust and sturdiest physical 
 natures could survive, and none others were seen. To-day 
 the presence of feeble men and women of advancing years 
 does not show degeneracy of the race ; they must be looked 
 upon as a living glory of our civilization, which enables them 
 to exist. It shows elevation of the race, and that now, under 
 the conditions of life, the result of all the various inventions 
 which look to the comfortable existence of people, the com- 
 paratively feeble cannot only live, but can, if they choose, 
 support themselves in a great measure, for feeble and dainty • 
 hands can perform work to which, in the good old time, only 
 a giant would have been assigned. I need not specify the 
 lines on which invention has perfected or established these 
 conditions. They are too familiar to every one. In warm and 
 comfortable clothing, in water-proof material, in heating and 
 lighting, in a thousand ways, invention has carried with it 
 comfortable conditions, increased health and an increased 
 longevity ; for now the average life is at least ten per cent, 
 higher than in the olden time. 
 
 The beauty, the art, the enthusiasm, which belong to good 
 morals can only grow to the wage receiver with a high order 
 of employment and the division of labor, and with a high 
 order of employment not only for profit, but for recreation — 
 for art even. The age of inventions, or periods given to the 
 development and practical adaptation of natural laws, raises 
 all people coming under their influence to a higher intellectual 
 level, to a more comprehensive understanding of the world's 
 great march of progress. 
 
 I,ow grades of labor are constantly giving place to educated 
 labor. The man who used to do the most detestable form of 
 work is being displaced by the professional who superintends 
 some device brought into use by invention, and the constant 
 promotion of luxuries to the grade of necessaries of life also 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 103 
 
 marks the forward steps of civilization and positively demands 
 the fullest play of the ingenuity of man to place them within 
 reach. By invention, what were luxuries to one class are 
 now the necessaries of life to a class that might be considered 
 below the first. The manufacturer often finds that he is 
 obliged to sell for old metal the grand mechanical construction 
 of a decade ago. Old successes are constantly giving place 
 to the new, which make old mechanical perfections bungling 
 in our present sight, and they must be destroyed to give place 
 to the new. An examination carried on in any direction 
 demonstrates the proposition that all progress, every step in 
 advance, is over apparent destruction, and, like every pioneer 
 who has ever startled the world with his discoveries and by 
 them benefitted his kind, is over the graves of men individu- 
 ally or over their aspirations. Ignorance in men, as well as 
 the men of ignorance, is in the way of progress, and must 
 give way to intelligence. 
 
 As space and time have been overcome, inordinate differences 
 in values have been overcome ; the markets of the world have 
 been equalized, sectional resources have become cosmopolitan 
 in their character, as peoples of all the world have become 
 acquainted. All these influences have disarranged trade, up- 
 set old principles ; and we of the present time are living in a 
 transition period of readjustment, or rather adjustment, that is 
 like the early days of convalescence from fever — painful from 
 lingering weakness, but joyous in the full knowledge of prog- 
 ress. In this adjustment individuals go down. The divine 
 plan to perfect all the creations which make up the universe 
 takes no notice of individuals, and is apparently profligate of 
 human life ; but goes on with the work, crushing if need be, 
 killing if it must, but always polishing, always purifying, 
 always perfecting. 
 
 The wheel of progress rolls on, destroying the old as it rolls, 
 crushing out ignorance ; but it rolls all the time, and man is 
 often obliged to give way before it, as the old machine is 
 thrown aside for the new. Educated labor, as the pioneer, 
 must step over human graves, over buried ambitions and lost 
 opportunities ; the law is infallible, even if in our short-sight- 
 edness we call it cruel. 
 
I04 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 All the benefits of the division of labor and the application 
 of invention, like the reduction of working time, corresponding 
 increase of wages, the decreased cost of production, etc., are 
 benefits particularly marked during the past century, and they 
 have given to man a wonderfully enhanced power to command 
 what rulers a century ago, with all the appointments of war 
 and the adjuncts of unlimited exchequers, could not command. 
 The individual profits, as well as his kind, which claims the 
 reward of improved conditions. We can hardly realize that 
 there should have ever been a time when a linen sheet was 
 worth thirty-two days of common labor, and when a gridiron 
 cost from four to twelve days labor. Nor can we fully com- 
 prehend the moral influence which has come in other directions. 
 It is hard to understand that even within the memory of men 
 now living the first change in the way of speed in transporta- 
 tion or in the interchange of intelligence came to the world. 
 Prior to the generation which precedes the present the fastest 
 time that could be made was through the speed of man, or of 
 horses, or of sailing vessels, except, perhaps, in the occasional 
 transmission of intelligence by signals. So, as oddly as the 
 purely economic changes seem to us, they strike with much 
 less marvel then the reflection that Cyrus, when he had turned 
 the river Euphrates from its channel and captured the city of 
 Babylon, could inform his associates at home of his feat as 
 quickly as could Washington the American Congress of the 
 defeat of Cornwallis ; or that Alexander after the battle at 
 Arbela could send the news of his great victory for civilization 
 to his capital in the same time it took Jackson to inform the 
 Government of the United States that the British army had 
 surrendered to him at New Orleans, and so won the already 
 granted peace for this country. 
 
 It has been reserved for the age of machinery, and for ma- 
 chinery itself, to cure the difficulties in the way of national 
 and grand movements which beset the governments existing 
 back of this epoch, and now the great engineering enterprises 
 of the day are being developed, and are thus solving the prob- 
 lem of how to relieve congested cities and of how to give to the 
 wage-worker, who must save time as between his lodging and 
 his work, the benefits of healthful surroundings in the country. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 105 
 
 Rapid transit, through the application of electricity to street 
 cars in the city of Boston within a few months, has added one- 
 half hour of the day to the workingman's available time. This 
 is the influence of invention, and a moral influence, for it 
 betters his condition, helps him to a higher plane, facilitates 
 social intercourse, and in every way gives him better oppor- 
 tunities for enjoying all that belongs to his environment. 
 
 These grand movements are the movements of great com- 
 munities, but by inventive skill, by the application of ingenuity, 
 the gain to the individual has been exceedingly marked, and 
 perhaps in a more specific way than to communities at large. 
 
 To create is the province of the Omnipotent. The second 
 great attribute, through the agencies established by Omnipo- 
 tence, is to develop, and this allies man to his Creator. Can 
 such a thought be illustrated by figures ? Most surely ; for 
 educated labor, with applied natural forces, has developed a 
 pound of cotton costing 13 cents into muslin which sells for 80 
 cents ; into chintz which sells for $4. It has developed 75 
 cents' worth of common iron ore into $5 worth of bar iron, $10 
 worth of horse shoes, $180 worth of table knives, $6, 800 worth 
 of fine needles, $29,480 worth of shirt buttons, $200,000 worth 
 of watch springs, $400,000 worth of hair springs, and $2,500,000 
 worth of pallet arbors {c). Intelligent, skilled labor, with its 
 product of mind has accomplished this, and the individual, as 
 well as the state, has profited by the development. Under 
 such development a common man can ride to his work or upon 
 his travels in palaces that would have been the envy of kings, 
 and he can send the word of his arrival with a flash. He has 
 learned that the wants of a free people increase as fast as there 
 are means of supply, and that "contentment with one's lot is 
 "the virtue of the subjects of a despotically governed and 
 ' ' non-progressive state, and self-denial the virtue of a poor 
 ' ' and unprosperous people ; ' ' and he has learned, too, that 
 the ranks of the skilled and intelligent workmen are not thinned 
 by the workhouse and the penitentiary, but that the ranks of 
 ignorant labor are prolific in stocking such institutions. He 
 will learn in the future that diversity of employment, and the 
 consequent practical versatility of his talents, will enable him 
 
 (c) Technical Education. By Geo. Woods, LL.D., Pittsburg, 1874. 
 
I06 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 to secure the essentials of life in a few hours, and that he can 
 swell his income by artistic employment upon articles which 
 may now be denied him. 
 
 The inevitable result, it seems to me to be, is, that while we 
 shall always have the unfortunate with us, made so from a 
 variety of causes, all this will be palliated to a large degree by 
 the capacity to use inventions to not only employ one's time, 
 when enfeebled, upon profitable work, but also to bring with 
 such employment corresponding joy. 
 
 The common man has learned furthermore, or he will learn, 
 that the sacredness of private property lies in the fundamental 
 principle or interest of self-preservation — in fact, that private 
 property finds its institution in this instinct ; for property is 
 the means by which not only is self preserved, but by which 
 species may be perpetuated. His experience with inventions 
 teaches him this, and that from a rude instrument of toil he 
 has become an intelligent exponent of hidden laws ; that he is 
 not simply an animal, wanting an animal's contentment, but 
 that he is something more, and wants the contentment which 
 belongs to the best environments. To accomplish these things 
 it is desirable to increase Sis ability to consume, and this is 
 done by improving his physical and moral conditions. So the 
 nearer we get to the point where a man shall have control of 
 mechanical powers, thereby simplifying muscular motions, the 
 quicker will his physical condition be improved — not his mere 
 muscular strength developed, but his sound physical condi- 
 tion — for the higher will be the efficiency of his mere muscular 
 labor, and it is certainly true that the higher physical condition 
 begets the better moral condition. 
 
 Every machine that is invented marks some progress in a 
 useful art ; it accomplishes some useful end not before attained, 
 or it does some old work better and cheaper. It makes more 
 valuable the day's work of an operative. ' ' The man who rides 
 the mowing machine all day should get more than the man 
 who swings the scythe, and the weaver in the cotton mill 
 should get more than a weaver at a hand loom, partly because 
 labor is a unit as well as capital, partly because some machinery 
 must be very skillfully, and all of it very carefully, used, and 
 partly because so much more grass is cut and so much more 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 107 
 
 cloth is made. The advantage of machinery should not belong 
 exclusively to capital," and civilization must see to it that the 
 advantages of inventions are equitably adjusted. 
 
 The argument that the use of machinery brings into indus- 
 trial work an ignorant class of workers is often made by men 
 who see in machinery the arch enemy of the mechanic. The 
 argument is entirely baseless. There is no more ignorance in 
 the world on account of inventions, but by their perfections an 
 ignorant class can often do perfectly what an intelligent class 
 used to bungle over, and at the same time the intelligence of 
 the ignorant is raised. The ignorant laborer of to-day is, in 
 all that makes up condition, more than the peer of the skilled 
 workman of a few generations ago ; and the fact that as the 
 country increases in wealth, the numbers employed in miscel- 
 laneous industries and what Mr. Wells calls incorporeal func- 
 tions ; that is, artists, teachers, and others who minister to 
 taste and comfort in a way that can hardly be called material, 
 increase disproportionately to those engaged in the production 
 of the great staples, answers the idea that inventions foster 
 ignorance in production. Inventions have, indeed, superin- 
 duced the congregation of ignorant laborers, and thereby given 
 the appearance of creating ignorant labor. 
 
 Phillips Bevan, of England, writing in 1877 of the industrial 
 classes of his country, remarked that ' ' few people are aware 
 of the immense development of the last twenty-five years found 
 in the condition for the better of Knglish operatives especially, 
 whether in a monetary, social, educational, sanitary or legisla- 
 tive light. It is very doubtful whether the bulk of workingmen 
 themselves take heed of the strides they have made, or of how 
 little they have to lament that the ' good old times ' are past 
 and gone ; " and Mr. Bevan might have added that in most of 
 the directions named by him invention had been the cause, for 
 it was not until the factory system was thoroughly fixed as the 
 industrial system of England that the Parliament of England 
 began to make changes looking to the education of the masses. 
 
 What a commentary is this hardly won development upon 
 the fantastical and pernicious sentiment with which the pessi- 
 mistic philosopher calls up ages and conditions from which it is 
 the greatest of blessings that we have been wholly delivered. 
 
lo8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 In art directions the development has been as great as in the 
 purely mechanical field, for, by the aid of mechanical powers, 
 the work of our artisans is rapidly making the taste of the 
 people artistic, for trained and inventive skill, as exhibited in 
 machinery, puts art into wood and metal, showing ' ' the high- 
 est discipline of the mental faculties, the direction and the 
 subordination of all its manifestations for some clearly-defined 
 purpose." Every step marks some progress in industrial art. 
 The stove manufacturer, in order to meet the demands of the 
 common people, in the production of his goods must secure 
 the services of an artist, that the design of the kitchen or the 
 parlor stove shall not ofiend the artistic eye. 
 
 The ethical influence of the more modern system has been 
 marked indeed, and especially in our own country, for the 
 American workman demands, as a necessity, the culture to be 
 gained by reading, music, and the lyceum, and from his moral 
 and educational standpoint he participates in the government, 
 and has raised from his ranks some of our very best and most 
 revered Chief Magistrates, State and National ; and he will 
 demand in the future general admission to the ranks of the 
 aristocracy of mind, where his name even now occupies so 
 bright a place. 
 
 The development resulting from the influence of inventions 
 has reached the economic side of industry, and this economic 
 side, as it is better understood by our workingmen, will bring 
 about truer and happier industrial relations. At present the 
 manufacturing world is often disturbed by a succession of 
 strikes and labor controversies. Do not, I beg you, make the 
 mistake of assigning the cause of such strikes and contro- 
 versies to retrogression, or to supposed increasing antagonism, 
 or to any anarchistic desire to destroy or in any way abridge 
 the grand results of the past developments. On the other 
 hand, think for a moment that the man who works for wages 
 has been taught to realize the conditions of a higher civiliza- 
 tion ; has been taught to appreciate, understand and desire 
 still greater mental, moral and social progress. He has been 
 taught, and through invention enabled, to enjoy art and 
 music and literature, to understand that he is one of the 
 sovereigns of the land, that he is a political and a moral factor ; 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. log 
 
 and with all this he finds he still keeps the position of a wage 
 receiver in enterprises in which his skill, as well as his hand, 
 is a necessity. The honest and the intelligent workman, so 
 far as he is engaged in the controversies of the day, is the 
 conservator of all the required forces of industry, but he seeks 
 in this conversation to become more closely allied to the factor 
 of capital, which without him is dead material. He begins to 
 see that while he has outgrown, through the aid of inventions, 
 the purely physiological relation which labor bears to produc- 
 tion ; that is, the position of the animal, he now furnishes the 
 developed mental qualities of the man, and, seeing this, he 
 sees that he vitalizes the material side of production, which is 
 capital. He therefore asks that he may become more closely 
 associated with capital in the great productive enterprises of 
 the day, and also secure a more just share of the benefits 
 arising from the use of machinery than now falls to him. 
 How a new system shall be established, with perfect justice to 
 capital and to labor, recognizing the moral forces at work 
 contemporaneously with the industrial, is the problem of the 
 age. I feel so sure that this problem will be solved on the 
 broadest business basis through the practical application of 
 the moral principles of cooperative work that I have little 
 anxiety for the industrial future of the country. I know no 
 one element can come in as a panacea for ills, but I feel 
 morally certain that a combination of elements can be so 
 applied, and will be so applied, as to relieve industry of the 
 present apparent warfare. Progress has been so rapid that we 
 fail to see the intelligence underlying the industrial contro- 
 versies. Ignorance, selfishness and, maybe, dishonesty are 
 all interwoven with intelligence, and sometimes so closely that 
 it seems as if the unhappy conditions subordinated those of 
 intelligence, and this leads many to think that mechanical 
 development has reached such a point that it is safe, and they 
 have the courage to declare that we have arrived at the end of 
 the regime of machinery ; so, indeed, we have, but it is the 
 first end, and not the end they would have it, which to them 
 means retrogression. The development must go on. The 
 future of the achievements of inventive genius in the mechani- 
 cal, chemical, and other sciences is bright indeed, and holds 
 
no PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 out to humanity its best boons and most munificent endow- 
 ments, not only in moral and industrial directions, but in a 
 better, and a greater, and a more equal diflFusion of wealth, 
 and all that wealth means. Machinery is young ; in fact, is 
 only the forerunner of great undiscovered wonders which will 
 make the inventions of the past seem like toys thrown away 
 as childhood steps into manliness through growth, through 
 strength, and through perfection, which in itself is weakness 
 as compared with the perfection of the invisible power, the 
 manifestation of whose presence constantly reminds us that 
 the future holds the golden age, and not the past. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. in 
 
 A CENTURY OP PATENT LAW. 
 
 By Hon. Samuel Blatchford, Associate Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 I have been requested by the committee which has charge 
 of the ceremonies of this celebration of the beginning of the 
 second century of the American patent system, to address you 
 on the subject of "A Century of Patent I<aw." 
 
 As we derive the- principles of our statutory and administra- 
 tive patent law from England, it seems proper to regard the 
 subject as covering English patent law, to a certain extent. 
 
 Prior to the English statute of 21 James I, chapter 3, passed 
 in 1623, entitled "An act concerning monopolies and dispensa- 
 tions with penal laws and the forfeiture thereof, ' ' commonly 
 called "the Statute of Monopolies," it was customary for the 
 King, by virtue of his prerogative, to grant exclusive privi- 
 leges or monopolies to individuals according to his pleasure, 
 and not because of any invention or discovery which the indi- 
 vidual had made, or had been the first to introduce into the 
 kingdom. To such an extent was this carried, that Edward 
 III granted to two persons a patent of privilege for the sole 
 making of "the Philosopher's Stone;" and, by subsequent 
 sovereigns, patents were granted for the sole manufacture of 
 playing cards, and for an exclusive right to sell various 
 necessaries of life. 
 
 By the Statute of Monopolies, all monopolies were abolished 
 as contrary to law, excepting grants to the first inventor of 
 any manner of new manufacture, of the sole privilege of work- 
 ing or making the same. The statute did not bring such 
 grants into existence, but excepted them out of the grants of 
 monopolies, and left them to depend upon the common law for 
 their legality. 
 
 James I, in 1610, had made a public declaration that all 
 grants of monopolies and of the benefit of any penal laws, or 
 
112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of power to dispense with the law, or to compound for the for- 
 feiture, were contrary to the laws of the kingdom, and had 
 commanded that no suitor should presume to move the King 
 for matters of that nature. 
 
 Section i of the Statute of Monopolies declared that all 
 monopolies theretofore granted, or thereafter to be granted, 
 for the sole making or using of anything should be void. Sec- 
 tion 6 of the act provided that the inhibition should not extend 
 to a patent of privilege ' ' of the sole working or making of any 
 manner of new manufactures within this realm to the true and 
 first inventor" thereof, which others at the time of making 
 the grant ' ' shall not use, so as also they be not contrary to 
 the law, nor mischievous to the State, by raising prices of 
 commodities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally incon- 
 venient, ' ' their duration to be for twenty-one years from their 
 date, in respect to patents theretofore granted for more than 
 twenty-one years, and to be for fourteen years or under in 
 respect to patents thereafter to be granted. 
 
 For many years after the passing of this statute, the arts and 
 manufactures continued in a low state in England, and few of 
 the inventions patented were of any value. Until the reign 
 of George III, the law reports are almost entirely silent re- 
 specting patent privileges ; and almost the only case reported 
 during that period is that of Edgeberry and Stephens (2 Salkeld, 
 447), where it was held, construing the statute of 21 James I, 
 that ' ' if the invention be new in England a patent may be 
 granted, though the thing was practiced beyond the sea before ; 
 for the statute speaks of new manufactures within this realm, 
 so that if they be new here it is within the statute ; for the act 
 intended to encourage new devices useful to the kingdom, and 
 whether learned by travel or by study it is the same thing. ' ' 
 
 Since that decision it has been the uniform practice in Eng- 
 land to grant letters patent to a person who introduces an 
 invention not used before within the kingdom ; and Parlia- 
 ment has repeatedly recognized the principle, by granting 
 exclusive privileges to such introducers. 
 
 The first case of importance respecting a patent was an 
 action of scire facias brought against Sir Richard Arkwright 
 {The King v. Arkwright, i Webster, 60) to repeal his patent 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 113 
 
 for an invention of a machine for preparing material for spin- 
 ning, which action was tried in June, 1785. 
 
 About ten years afterwards the important cases of Boulion 
 and Watt v. Bull (2 Hen. Black, 463) and Homblower v. 
 Boulton and Watt (8 Term R. , 95) in regard to the great in- 
 vention of James Watt in steam engines were tried, in which 
 the patent law was much discussed and many of its difficulties 
 and obscurities were cleared away. In the second of the 
 above cases the patent granted to Watt in 1769 was held by 
 the Court of King's Bench to be valid. Since that time, the 
 issue of patents for inventions has increased steadily, the inter- 
 ests involved in them have assumed immeasurable importance 
 and magnitude, and the principles of law applicable to them 
 have been developed and applied by judicial decisions of the 
 highest value. 
 
 A few words may be added in regard to the invention of 
 James Watt, which substantially created the steam engine and 
 gave to it that usefulness and efficiency, the further develop- 
 ment of which has revolutionized the trade and manufactures 
 of the world. Watt was a Scotchman. He was born in 1736 
 and died in 181 9. He learned the business of a philosophical 
 instrument maker in I,ondon, and at the age of twenty-one 
 became mathematical instrument maker to the University of 
 Glasgow. At that time the most advanced type of steam 
 engine was that of Newcomen, which was applied only to the 
 pumping of water for draining mines; but it was so clumsy 
 and wasteful of fuel that it was very little used. In 1764, 
 Watt's attention was particularly directed to it. In New- 
 comen' s engine the cylinder had a vertical position under one 
 end of the beam, and was open at the top. Steam at a pressure 
 scarcely greater than that of the atmosphere was admitted at 
 the lower end of the cylinder, under the piston, and the piston 
 was pulled up by a counterpoise at the other end of the beam. 
 Communication with the boiler was then shut off, and the 
 steam in the cylinder was condensed by injecting a jet of cold 
 water. The pressure of the air on top of the piston then forced 
 it down, and the counterpoise was raised ; and the injection 
 water and condensed steam were drawn out of the cylinder by 
 a pipe. 
 
114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The observation of Watt was, that the alternate heating and 
 cooling of the cylinder caused the engine to work slowly and 
 with an excessive consumption of steam. The metal having 
 been chilled by contact with the condensed steam and the cold 
 injection water, it required the use of a large quantity of steam 
 to heat the chilled surfaces before the cylinder could be filled 
 and the piston rise again. As in almost all efficient mechanical 
 operations, there had to be a reconciliation of antagonisms ; 
 and, as in almost all important inventions, the genius was 
 invested in first recognizing the existence of the antagonisms, 
 and in then devising a method of reconciliation. Watt saw 
 that the temperature of the condensed steam ought to be as low 
 as possible, or the vacuum would not be good, and, to use his 
 own words, " that the cylinder should be always as hot as the 
 steam which entered it." In 1765 the idea occurred to him 
 that if the steam were to be condensed in a vessel distinct from 
 the cylinder, it would be practicable to obtain a low tempera- 
 ture of condensation, and still keep up the temperature of 
 the cylinder. For that purpose, he provided a separate vessel 
 into which the steam from the cylinder entered, which vessel 
 was to be kept cold either by injecting cold water into it or 
 by letting cold water fall over the outside of it, and so a 
 vacuum could be maintained in a separate vessel. Thus 
 the steam which passed over from the cylinder would be con- 
 densed, the pressure in the cylinder would be as low as the 
 pressure in the condenser, and the temperature of the metal of 
 the cylinder and piston would be kept up, since no cold injec- 
 tion water would come in contact with them. On putting the 
 apparatus to a test, it operated as was expected ; and, to main- 
 tain the vacuum in the separate condenser. Watt added an 
 air-pump to remove the condensed steam and injection water, 
 with any air that might gather in the condenser. 
 
 He added several subsidiary inventions, such as more tightly 
 packing the piston ; closing the upper end of the cylinder ; 
 enclosing the piston with a steam-tight stuffing-box on top of 
 the cylinder ; causing steam instead of air to press on top of 
 the piston ; casing the cylinder in a non-conducting material ; 
 and introducing a steam-jacket between the cylinder and an 
 outer shell. All these features were specified in his first 
 patent, which was obtained in January, 1769. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 115 
 
 By an act of Parliament, passed in 1775, that patent was 
 continued for twenty-five years, and Watt, in connection with 
 Matthew Boulton, who owned some engineering works at Bir- 
 mingham, entered upon the manufacture of steam engines. At 
 first the only application of the engine was to pumping water 
 from mines, but Watt soon made other inventions to fit the 
 engine for other uses, and took out further patents in 1781, 
 1782 and 1784. These inventions covered the method of con- 
 verting the reciprocating motion of the piston into a rotary 
 motion, so that ordinary machinery could be driven ; making 
 the engine double-acting by putting both ends of the cylinder 
 in communication, alternately, with the boiler and the con- 
 denser instead of only one end ; introducing the system of 
 the expansive working of the steam, instead of admitting it 
 through the whole stroke of the piston ; and the well-known 
 parallel motion. 
 
 Watt's principal patent was sustained by the courts of Eng- 
 land, and he enjoyed the fruits of it until it expired in the year 
 1800. To his great invention we owe the development of the 
 steam engine as used now for traf&c and transportation by 
 water and land ; for, without it, there could be no practical or 
 efficient steam engine. 
 
 The statutes which now regulate the granting of patents in 
 England are those of August 25, 1883, (46 & 47 Vict. ch. 57), 
 and December 24, 1888, (51 & 52 Vict. ch. 50). It is not 
 necessary that a person should be a British subject to apply 
 for a patent. The application must state that the applicant is 
 in possession of an invention, of which he claims to be the true 
 and first inventor. The word "inventor" in these statutes 
 covers an introducer. It is declared by the act of 1883 that 
 the word "invention" means "any manner of new manu- 
 facture, the subject of letters-patent and grant of privilege," 
 within section 6 of the act of 21 James I, chapter 3, and 
 includes an alleged invention. There must be either a pro- 
 visional or a complete specification. If there is only a p];o- 
 visional specification, there must be a complete specification 
 within nine months after the application. There is a limited 
 examination, which extends only to an inquiry whether the 
 nature of the invention has been fairly described, and whether 
 
Ii6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 the application, specification, and drawings, if any, are in due 
 form, and whether the title sufficiently indicates the subject- 
 matter of the invention. The acceptance of the complete 
 specification is to be advertised, and any person may, within 
 two months thereafter, give notice at the Patent Office that he 
 opposes the grant of the patent on the ground that the appli- 
 cant obtained the invention from him or from a person of 
 whom he is the legal representative, or on the ground that the 
 invention was patented in England on an application of prior 
 date, or on the ground that the complete specification describes 
 or claims an invention other than that described in the pro- 
 visional specification, and that such other invention forms the 
 subject of an application made by the opponent in the interval 
 between the making of the two specifications. The patent is 
 to be granted for fourteen years, but is to cease if certain fees 
 are not paid within specified times. Disclaimers and amend- 
 ments of specifications are provided for, but no amendment is 
 allowable which would make the specification, as amended, 
 claim an invention substantially larger than, or substantially 
 different from, the invention claimed by the specification as it 
 stood before amendment. At least six months before the time 
 limited for the expiration of the patent, the patentee may apply 
 for an extension, which may be granted on a favorable report 
 from the judicial committee of the Privy Council, for a further 
 term not exceeding seven, or, in exceptional cases, fourteen 
 years ; and a patent may be vacated by a court on certain 
 specified grounds. 
 
 L,et us pass now to the patent statutes of the United States. 
 
 The Constitution, in article i, section 8, declares that the 
 Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science 
 and useful arts by securing, for limited times, to inventors the 
 exclusive right to their discoveries. 
 
 The first act of Congress on the subject was that of April 
 ID, 1790, entitled "An act to promote the progress of useful 
 arts." This provided for the granting of a patent to the 
 inventor or discoverer of any ' ' useful art, manufacture, engine, 
 machine, or device, or any improvement therein, not before 
 known or used." A written specification, with drawings, and, 
 if admissible, a model, was required. No examination as to 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 117 
 
 the novelty of the invention was provided for. On an appli- 
 cation made to a judge of a District Court within one year 
 after the grant of a patent, if it was obtained surreptitiously or 
 upon false suggestion, or if it should appear that the patentee 
 was not the first or true inventor or discoverer, the judge 
 might repeal the patent. 
 
 Further acts in regard to patents were passed in 1793, 1794, 
 1800, and 1832. 
 
 On July 4, 1836, an act was passed reorganizing the patent 
 system and repealing all prior acts. By that act patents 
 were to be granted for fourteen years, with the privilege of an 
 extension by the Commissioner, in a proper case, for seven 
 years more. It was required that the applicant should have 
 discovered or invented a new and useful art, machine, manufac- 
 ture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improve- 
 ment thereon, not known or used by others before his discovery 
 or invention, aud not, at the time of the application, in public 
 use or on sale, with his consent or allowance, as the inventor 
 or discoverer. He was required to deliver a written descrip- 
 tion of his invention or discovery, and of the manner and 
 process of making, constructing, using, and compounding the 
 same, in such full, clear, and exact terms, avoiding unnecessary 
 prolixity, as to enable any person skilled in the art or science 
 to which it appertained, or with which it was most nearly 
 connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same ; 
 and, in case of a machine, to explain fully the principle and 
 the several modes in which he had contemplated the applica- 
 tion of that principle or character by which it might be 
 distinguished from other inventions ; and particularly to 
 specify and point out the part, improvement, or combination, 
 which he claimed as his own invention or discovery. Drawings 
 were provided for, and specimens of ingredients of a composi- 
 tion of matter, and a model of machinery, where admissible. 
 A system of examination was instituted, and the patent was 
 to issue if it should not appear to the Commissioner that the 
 alleged invention or discovery had been invented or discovered 
 by any other person in this country, prior to the alleged inven- 
 tion or discovery by the applicant, or that it had been patented, 
 or described in any printed publication, in this or any foreign 
 
Ii8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 countly, or had been in public use or on sale with the appli- 
 cant's consent or allowance, prior to the application, and if the 
 Commissioner should deem it to be sufi&ciently useful and 
 important. On the refusal of a patent, an appeal was provided 
 for to a board of three examiners. An interference with another 
 pending application, or with an unexpired patent, could be 
 declared with an appeal to a like board. In case a patent 
 should be inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or 
 insufficient description or specification, or by reason of the 
 patentee claiming in the specification as his own invention 
 more than he should have a right to claim as new, if the error 
 arose by inadvertency, accident or mistake, and without any 
 fraudulent or deceptive intention, the Commissioner, on the 
 surrender of the patent, could cause a new patent to be issued 
 to the inventor for the same invention, for the residue of the 
 period then unexpired for which the original patent was 
 granted, in accordance with the patentee's corrected descrip- 
 tion and specification. This was called "a reissue." Pro- 
 vision was made for special defenses in actions for damages for 
 infringement, and for giving to the plaintiflF thirty days' notice 
 before the trial, of the defense of prior use ; also for a remedy 
 by bill in equity in the case of two interfering patents, or of 
 the refusal to grant a patent on the ground of its interference 
 with a previous unexpired patent. Equity jurisdiction by the 
 Circuit Courts of the United States was created, with the 
 power of granting injunctions against infringement. An ex- 
 tension of a patent for seven years was provided for, on its 
 appearing that the patentee, without neglect or fault on his 
 part, had failed to obtain reasonable remuneration. 
 
 The foregoing features of the patent system were sub- 
 stantially reenacted in the act of July 8, 1870, the provisions 
 of which are embodied in the Revised Statutes ; but by statute 
 a patent is now granted for only seventeen years, and no pro- 
 vision is made for an extension. 
 
 In the administration of the patent laws by the courts of the 
 United States, the proper rights of inventors have been firmly 
 maintained, while the abuses which crept in, in consequence of 
 improper reissues of patents, have been corrected. Patents 
 for important and meritorious inventions have been sustained 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 119 
 
 notably in the case of Morse's telegraph, which was held valid 
 in the case of O'Reilly v. Morse, (15 Howard, 62), the opinion 
 being delivered by Chief Justice Taney. 
 
 Samuel F. B. Morse was a historical painter, and had gone 
 to Europe in 1829 to perfect himself in his art. In October, 
 1832, on board the packet-ship "Sully," on her passage from 
 Havre, in France, to New York, he conceived the invention 
 which he afterward patented. Before he landed in the United 
 States he sketched the form of an instrument for an electro- 
 magnetic telegraph, and arranged and noted down a system of 
 signs, composed of a combination of dots and spaces to repre- 
 sent figures, which were to indicate words to be found in a 
 telegraphic dictionary, where each word was to have its 
 number. He also conceived and drew out the mode of apply- 
 ing the electric or galvanic current so as to mark signs by the 
 chemical effects. He persevered in his invention, and by the 
 forepart of the year 1836 he had constructed an instrument 
 which marked down intelligibly telegraphic signs, and demon- 
 strated by actual operation its capacity to accomplish his 
 purpose. Further experiments were made, and in the latter 
 part of September, 1837, ^ caveat was drawn up and in the fol- 
 lowing month was filed in the Patent Office. In February, 
 1838, a new instrument was exhibited by Professor Morse in 
 the Franklin Institute at Philadelphia, where it operated with 
 success through a circuit of ten miles of wire ; and a committee 
 of the Institute made a report of its success. It was then re- 
 moved to the city of Washington, and publicly exhibited in 
 the hall of the House of Representatives. On the 3d of March, 
 1843, Congress appropriated $30,000 to test the capacity and 
 usefulness of the telegraph by constructing a line, under the 
 superintendence of Professor Morse, between the cities of 
 Washington and Baltimore, which was done in the year 1844. 
 The United States patent having been granted to him on June 
 20, 1840, it was reissued in January, 1846, and came before 
 the Supreme Court of the United States at its December term, 
 1853. It was sustained after a vigorous opposition. 
 
 The principle on which the patent laws are based is to give 
 an inventor an exclusive right, for a limited time, in considera- 
 tion of his fully disclosing his invention, so that it may be 
 
I20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 made and used by the public after the limited term shall have 
 expired. Under this stimulus there has come into existence 
 the briliant succession of inventions which have contributed so 
 greatly to the progress of science and the arts, and to the 
 material welfare of nations and individuals. In this career our 
 own country has played no small part, and it is quite certain 
 that in the future American inventors will do their full share 
 toward illustrating the beneficent operation of the patent laws, 
 and that when, a hundred years hence, there shall be another 
 centennial celebration like the one through which we are now 
 passing, there will have occurred no diminution of the im- 
 portance and value of American inventions. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 121 
 
 THE EPOCH-MAKING INVENTIONS OF AMERICA. 
 By Hon. Robert S. Tayi,or, of Indiana. 
 
 The real and enduring wealth of the world is its thoughts. 
 It is the capacity to originate, communicate and preserve 
 thoughts that makes civilization possible. 
 
 Some great thoughts are like jewels — precious for their 
 beauty ; some are like seeds — precious for their fruits ; some 
 are like mines — yielding treasures of wealth to the world long 
 after their discovery. 
 
 It is with the thoughts of the inventor that we have to do 
 to-day, and with those productions of his thought which are of 
 such scope and character that they can fitly be called epoch- 
 making inventions. That phrase was itself a happy invention 
 on the part of the committee — vividly descriptive of those 
 creations of the inventor's brain which enter so widely and 
 intimately into the lives of men and the course of events that 
 they divide history into epochs. 
 
 It would matter little to the world that one man went bare- 
 foot all the year. But if all the world had been going barefoot 
 and one tender-footed man should invent shoes, and all other 
 men, seeing how comfortable they were, should take to wearing 
 them, the race would enter upon a new epoch in its history, for 
 which it would owe thanks to the inventive thought of one man. 
 
 The sum of human happiness is made up of little things af- 
 fecting the life of individuals. All existence is an adjustment 
 of forces. It requires only a slight readjustment to produce a 
 new existence. It is estimated that a fall of eighteen degrees 
 in the average temperature upon the earth's surface would 
 bring on a glacial period. The addition of one daily comfort, 
 the taking away of one item of daily drudgery, is enough to 
 give a new complexion to life. To do that for all men in one 
 particular is to make an epoch. 
 
122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 It wants now just a year of a century since there flashed 
 across the mind of a young Georgia school teacher the thought 
 that a machine could be made which would separate the cotton 
 fibre from the seed by the action of saw teeth. I do not know 
 that the circumstances which attended the birth of this idea in 
 the brain of Eli Whitney have been preserved. It would be 
 of dramatic interest to know, if we could, in what wakeful 
 hour of night, or receptive mood of day, there came into the 
 mind of one man the revelation of a thought so simple in 
 itself, and yet so big with blessing to the world. If he could 
 have foreseen at that moment in one prophetic glance all the 
 consequences that would flow from it, he would have fallen 
 down and turned his face away from the brightness of his own 
 invention, as Moses turned his face from the glory of the I^ord 
 in the holy mountain. It was the beginning of the epoch of 
 cheap cotton cloth. It was a distinct step in the evolution of 
 the race. It marked an advance in industry, trade, comfort, 
 health and morals. It touched the whole world like a new 
 element in sunshine. 
 
 Forty-six years later Elias Howe patented his sewing 
 machine. It would be foreign to my topic to discuss the 
 claims of rival inventors, and I take Mr. Howe as the repre- 
 sentative of the group of inventors, who, in quick succession, 
 brought out the various inventions which have emancipated 
 human fingers from the most monotonous, wearisome and 
 slavish of all forms of labor. It is too soon yet to estimate 
 the full efiect of the sewing machine upon human life and 
 destiny. It ushered in an epoch of cheap clothes, which 
 means better clothes for the masses — more warmth, more 
 cleanliness, more comfort. It is entirely true to say that the 
 cotton gin and the sewing machine together have given the 
 human body an improved skin. But the indirect conse- 
 quences of the invention of the sewing machine reach furthest 
 beyond our ken — time was when half the human race were 
 occupied chiefly iu making clothes. When the machines took 
 that avocation away from them they turned to other employ- 
 ments. The invasion of all occupations by women, and the 
 sweeping changes which have taken place in their relations to 
 the law, and society, and business, can be ascribed in large 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 123 
 
 measure to the sewing machine. Where the end will be needs 
 a bold man to say. 
 
 Robert Fulton once said that the three men who had con- 
 ferred the greatest good upon their fellows were Arkwright, 
 Watt and Whitney. Speaking for the time when he lived I 
 should be disposed to name him as the fourth. For what one 
 other cause has so metamorphosed life in all of its interests — its 
 business, its pleasures, its peace, its war, its society, its traffic — 
 as the application of steam to transportation and travel ? It 
 has made the world so small that a man can go round it at his 
 leisure four times a year. At the same time, measured by 
 what we can see of it, and find on it and get from it, steam 
 travel has made it ten times as large as it was to our fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 Whither the great journey onward and upward which the 
 race has begun on its steamboats and steamers will take us, 
 is beyond conjecture. The epoch of travel has only begun. 
 It means not merely the running to and fro of men, and inter- 
 change of commodities, but the opening of a training school 
 wherein all mankind are pupils. To-day the armies of men 
 who are making and managing the steam machinery used for 
 transportation are the brainiest, widest-awake great body of 
 men in the world. To that large extent to which the business 
 makes the man, this business makes the best men. 
 
 Of course, the invention of Fulton was the barest beginning 
 of this great epoch. But it is quite true that as the Clermont 
 awkwardly steamed her way up the Hudson on her trial trip 
 the border of a new age came into view, as the border of the 
 new continent greeted the vision of Columbus three hundred 
 years before. The discovery was made. To enumerate the 
 inventors who have developed and perfected it would be as 
 impossible as to enumerate the navigators and pioneers who 
 completed the conquest of the New World. 
 
 Nor am I unmindful of the fact that the railroad and its 
 locomotive are not conceded to the American inventor. But 
 these are only an evolution from their aquatic congener. All 
 life begins in the sea. And very like the evolution of birds 
 from fishes was the evolution of the Chicago lyimited from a 
 paddle-wheel steamboat. 
 
124 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 To recognize adequately in this connection the individual 
 merits of inventors in this great field is impossible. But every 
 one who has crossed the sea ought to pay tribute to the 
 memory of Ericsson, and those of us who are here from distant 
 homes, remembering how comfortably and safely we came, can 
 afiFord a word of thanks to Pullman and Westinghouse. 
 
 It was entirely natural that in the progress of man's con- 
 quest over the forces of nature he should attack last the 
 most mysterious, powerful and uncontrollable of them all — 
 electricity. And it must ever be a source of pride to Ameri- 
 cans that since Franklin drew the first submissive spark from 
 heaven his countrymen have been foremost in this great field 
 of discovery. 
 
 Electricity had had the faculty of speech in a thundering 
 and unintelligible way long enough before Professor Morse's 
 day. But to him was reserved the ta.sk of teaching it to write. 
 With the invention of the telegraph the world entered upon a 
 novel epoch. In the nature of things human progress is for 
 the most part a course of improvement in known processes. 
 But here was a new process. In this respect there was noth- 
 ing preceding to be compared with it except the invention 
 of the steam engine. To the breath of fire and muscles of iron 
 which that gave the world, this added the nerves of the body 
 politic, which to-day radiate from their ganglionic centers in 
 the great cities to every part of the world. By these organs 
 of sensation society feels the shock of a massacre at New 
 Orleans as instantly as a man feels a burn on his hand, and by 
 the same channels an impulsive government calls home its 
 minister as a man strikes at an insect which has stung him. 
 Next day the same messengers convey to the world the digni- 
 fied utterances of a government so great and strong that it can 
 afibrd not to get angry. 
 
 The revolutions in commerce, which the telegraph intro- 
 duced, were of themselves sufficient to mark an epoch in 
 history. But there is a deeper significance in the universality 
 of information and action which it makes possible. Supple- 
 mented by the daily newspapers, the telegraph advises the 
 whole world every morning of all that happened on the planet 
 the day before. All public men and public bodies discharge 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 125 
 
 their duties in the concentrated light of universal observation. 
 Every notable event is followed immediately by criticism and 
 discussion, and by some judgment of the general intelligence 
 upon the merits of the case. And there is thus developed a 
 force in society — a governing force — which knows neither 
 form of government or lines of jurisdiction, but which power- 
 fully affects the affairs of men. It is the force of enlightened, 
 unified, world-wide public opinion. 
 
 In the production of the electric light the genius of man has 
 come nearer to creation than in any other achievement. When 
 the Almighty said " I^et there be light " and there was light, 
 it was, as I believe, electric light. I have no doubt that the 
 light of the sun and all the self-luminous stars is produced by 
 electricity transformed by processes substantially identical with 
 those that produce lightning in our clouds and arc light upon 
 our streets. 
 
 This epoch of artificial sunlight distributed in fragments 
 has so recently burst upon us that we have hardly yet recov- 
 ered from its first dazzling effects. But we may be sure that it 
 is the beginning of an age of increasing enjoyment for man- 
 kind. It is one of the revolutions that will not go backwards. 
 The human eye once charmed by a better light is never con- 
 tent to return to a poorer. 
 
 The electric light was the result of the work of a great many 
 students and inventors through a long period of time. I know 
 of no other invention to which so many persons have con- 
 tributed. But we are justly proud of the fact that in the 
 successful practical solution of the problem, our countrymen, 
 Charles F. Brush and Thomas A. Edison, were clearly the 
 pioneers — one in the field of arc lighting and the other in the 
 incandescent light. It is incredible to think that it is little 
 more than a decade .since their inventions came into public 
 use, so universal have they become. 
 
 When the Master said to those who stood about Him, 
 "Which of you by taking thought can add a cubit to his 
 stature?" no one held up his hand. But Professor Bell by 
 taking thought has added, not a cubit, but miles to the length 
 of our tongues and our ears. I think this is the most gratify- 
 ing of all inventions. I can make no personal use of the 
 
126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 telegraph. I go about a dynamo filled with wonder and 
 admiration, but mindful not to become too familiar with it. 
 But to have in my house an instrument which is ears and 
 mouth for everybody, and which enables me to hold conversa- 
 tion with all my neighbors from my own back hall, gives me a 
 sense of personal triumph over the impediments of matter and 
 space every time I use it. 
 
 Time fails me to speak of the epoch of news which was 
 made possible by Hoe's cylinder press, or the epoch of vertical 
 growth in American cities which began with the Otis elevator, 
 or the epoch of farming by machinery which began, I may say, 
 with McCormick's reaper, and which opens the era of cheap 
 and abundant food. 
 
 One more invention, recent, bright and beautiful, shall close 
 this category. It is the typewriter — the sewing machine of 
 thought — ^which takes up with nimble fingers the drudgery 
 of writing as that of sewing, and clothes our ideas as that 
 clothes our bodies. It introduces the epoch of legible manu- 
 script, with all the saving of time, labor and profanity which 
 that implies. 
 
 All that I have said points to one final thought. We look 
 backward over a century of unparalleled progress. To this so 
 many causes have contributed that it is impossible to measure 
 exactly the efiect of each. It is natural that we should think 
 most of those that spring firom political freedom, which, in- 
 deed, it is not easy to over-rate. But the essentials of human 
 happiness are not found in mere form of government. Per- 
 sonal liberty, a fair chance in the race of life, under the pro- 
 tection of equal laws, are all that is fundamental. The wants 
 of man — the animal, to be fed, clothed and housed ; the higher 
 wants of the man — homo, to learn, read, think, travel, com- 
 municate and receive — it is in the amplest supply of these to 
 the largest number of individuals that the greatest sum total 
 of human happiness is to be found. And in these this age 
 and this country surpass all others. 
 
 We do not often stop to think how or whence our blessings 
 come. We accept them with a dim sense of gratitude to some- 
 body or something as a flower smiles its thanks to the sun- 
 shine. But in the light of the reflections which this occasion 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 127 
 
 suggests we can realize faintly how vast is the obligation 
 which we owe to the inventors of America. Not a garment 
 that we wear, not a meal that we eat, not a paper that we read, 
 not a tool that we use, not a journey that we take but makes 
 us debtor to some American inventor's thought. Measured 
 by what we can leam, see, do and enjoy in a lifetime, we live 
 longer than Methuselah, we are wiser than Solomon, richer 
 than Croesus, and greater than Alexander. Archimides has 
 found his fulcrum ; it is the brain of the inventor. 
 
 We can realize too, to-day, how wise the fathers were be- 
 yond anything they could have known in providing in the 
 Constitution for the encouragement and reward of invention. 
 On twenty-two words — only twenty-two words — in that great 
 Charter the American patent system rests. "What other 
 twenty-two words ever spoken or penned have borne such 
 fruit of blessing for mankind ? 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 129 
 
 THE NEW SOUTH AS AN OUTGROWTH OF INVEN- 
 TION AND THE AMERICAN PATENT LAW. 
 
 By Hon. John W. Daniei,, L.L.D., of Virginia, U. S. Sbnator. 
 
 I deem it great honor to stand in this presence and to 
 unite in paying tribute to the inventive genius of our country- 
 men. You, Mr. Secretary, are to be congratulated upon the 
 admirable exhibit of the Bureau of Patents — under your 
 charge. It fulfills our democratic-republican conceptions of 
 good government in every aspect. It records great achieve- 
 ments of mind ; it indicates our wonderful progress ; it is utili- 
 tarian in a high degree, and it is more than self-supporting. 
 But the reach of its usefulness far transcends the lines of its 
 economic administration, and its dignity is not to be measured 
 by figures. 
 
 The Romans of old assigned the highest place in the Elysian 
 fields to him who had improved human life by the invention of 
 arts, and surely our own race — the most inventive of men, and 
 our own country the most inventive of nations — will not refuse 
 the highest honors to those creative minds which have con- 
 tributed so much to make it the foremost of mankind. 
 
 "The West Indies," says Lord Bacon, "had never been 
 discovered without the discovery of the mariner's needle." All 
 America is therefore an evolution of invention, and the in- 
 ventor must be hailed as one who cried in the wilderness before 
 the coming of the Great Columbus. 
 
 The inventive faculties are stimulated by mechanical pur- 
 suits. The North was early impelled to such pursuits by its 
 hard climate and rugged soil. The development of its inven- 
 tive faculties was instantaneous and progressive — greater than 
 the like development in the South, which by favoring condi- 
 tions of soil and climate was attracted to agriculture and the 
 proprietorship of land. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Penn- 
 
I30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 sylvania, New York, Rhode Island — these were the States that 
 led, and won first honors. 
 
 If you ask me the cause of the Northern victory in the 
 Civil War, I would look beyond the smoke of battle and point 
 to its inventors, mechanics and manufacturers. For through 
 them it accumulated its preponderating wealth, numbers and 
 material forces. 
 
 The Southern people, however, have taken deep interest in 
 the promotion of arts and sciences. They have applauded the 
 achievements of Northern mechanical genius ; they are not 
 themselves deficient in inventive gifts, and many Southern 
 names are companions in the list of inventors. Amongst them 
 are Sibley, ofI<ouisiana, and his conical tent ; Gatling, of North 
 Carolina, and his terrific gun ; McCormick, of Virginia, and his 
 reaper and mower ; Gibbs, of Virginia, and his sewing machine ; 
 Janney, of Virginia, and his car coupler ; Gorrie, of I^ouisiana, 
 and his ice machine ; McComb, of Louisiana, with his " arrow " 
 cotton tie ; Gaynor, of Kentucky, and his fire telegraph ; Stone, 
 of Missouri, and his grain roller-mill ; Remberts, of Texas, 
 with his roller cotton compress ; Clarke, of the same State, 
 with his envelope machine, and Campbell, with his cotton 
 picker ; Bonsack, of Virginia, with his cigarette machine ; 
 Coffee, of Virginia, with his tobacco stemmer ; Stevens, of 
 Florida, with his fruit wrapper ; I<aw, of Georgia, with his 
 cotton planter ; Avery, of Kentucky, with his plow sulky. 
 Watt & Starke, of Virginia, with their plows — these are some 
 of the names that greet us in our history ; Rumsey with 
 his steamboat ; Maury with his map of the sea, which has 
 made his name the synonym of benefactor to the navigator and 
 to commerce ; McDonald, of our own day, with his fish ladders 
 and hatcheries filling our streams with fish. These, from scores 
 of Southern names, should remind us that the South has not 
 been an idler in the vineyard. And when we read in the 
 annals of the Patent OfiBce that some three thousand patents 
 were issued in 1890 to Southern inventors, we must realize 
 that the South vies in generous rivalry in every branch of 
 intellectual achievement. 
 
 Worthy it is of mention that the first native bom American 
 woman to get a patent was Agdalena S. Goodman, of Florida, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 131 
 
 for improvement in broom brushes. Were I to follow this 
 suggestive fact a speech might be made on the inventions of 
 women. They are varied — varying from straw hats to horse- 
 shoes, and from deep-sea telescopes to sewing machine attach- 
 ments. Woman's intuitions are proverbial ; when she turns 
 them to mechanical invention the possibilities of achievement 
 surpass the scope of prophecy. 
 
 Many notable events of progress have occurred on Southern 
 soil. 
 
 James Rumsey, a native of Maryland and a Virginian by 
 adoption, exhibited to Washington here on the Potomac in 
 1784 the model of a boat for navigating rivers against the 
 current by the force of the stream acting on setting poles, and 
 in 1789, the same year that Fitch made his experimental trip 
 on the Delaware, Rumsey exhibited his steamer here on the 
 Potomac, propelled by an engine and mechanism of his own 
 invention. 
 
 Both Fitch and Rumsey received patents for their inven- 
 tions. The conception of the steamboat seems to have oc- 
 curred to them simultaneously, but Fitch's experiment was a 
 little prior in time. Rumsey 's patents were allowed by New 
 York, Missouri and Virginia, and also by Fngland, France and 
 Holland. Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Rumsey 
 Society, of Philadelphia, formed to aid him in his inventions. 
 In 1792 he made a successful trip in England on the Thames, 
 and in 1839 Congress voted to his son, James Rumsey, a 
 gold medal, "commemorative of his father's services and 
 high agency in giving to the world the benefit of the steam- 
 boat." 
 
 The first great American canal was proposed by Washington. 
 It was begun in 1785 and was finished to Westham in 1789, 
 and afterwards carried as far as I,exington and Buchanan at 
 immense cost. Finally, in recent years it was superseded by a 
 railroad. 
 
 The first telegraph line in the United States was established 
 between Baltimore and Washington in 1844, and about the 
 same time and place appeared the first electric locomotive. 
 
 The South was in the front rank of railroad projection and 
 construction. Amongst the earliest experiments with a steam 
 
132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 locomotive on a railroad in this country were those made by 
 Peter Cooper on the Baltimore and Ohio in 1829 and 1830, 
 contemporaneous with Stevenson's work on the Liverpool and 
 Manchester, in England. About the same time at Honesdale, 
 Penn., the "Stourbridge Lion," a locomotive engine imported 
 from England, was making a trial trip on a mine railroad con- 
 structed of strap iron. This event occurred August 8, 1829, 
 and was probably the first of its kind in the "Western Hemis- 
 phere. Horatio Allen, who superintended the experiment, was 
 living in 1888, and gave an account of it in a letter which appears 
 in the proceedings of the National Museum for that year. 
 But the South Carolina Railroad, from Charleston to Hamburg, 
 was the first road commenced in this country with a view to 
 the use of steam. It was chartered in 1825, begun in 1830, 
 completed in 1833. For it was constructed the first loco- 
 motive ; it was the first steam road that carried the United 
 States mail, and when completed, in October, 1833, it was the 
 longest railroad in the world. 
 
 The South Carolina Colony, as early as 169 1, passed an act to 
 encourage the making of engines for propagating " the staples 
 of this Province," and in 171 7 an act "for encouraging the 
 making of potash and saltpeter." And in 1784 it passed a 
 regular patent law for the encouragement of the arts and sci- 
 ences giving inventors exclusive benefit of their labors for 
 fourteen years. 
 
 The early settlers of the South — and they were the pioneers 
 of our race in the United States — brought with them some 
 knowledge of the useful arts and manufactures from the mother 
 country, and while they were building block houses to defend 
 against the savages, their rude establishments of industry were 
 rising in the wilderness. 
 
 With Captain Newport there came to the Colony of Virginia 
 in 1608, twelve years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth 
 Rock, a number of citizens to make glass, and others to make 
 tar, pitch and soap-ashes. A mile from Jamestown was estab- 
 lished the first manufactory in the United States — a factory for 
 making glass bottles. A saw-mill, driven by water and used 
 for cutting wainscoating and boards, soon followed this 
 infant industry. Ere long boat-building began, salt works 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 133 
 
 were established, and skillful vine-growers planted a vineyard 
 in 1620. In 1623 the Virginia I<egislature required settlers to 
 plant mulberry trees, in order to raise silk-worms and produce 
 silk ; and, as the story goes, Charles II wore at his coronation 
 in 1651 a robe and hose of Virginia silk, the art of weaving 
 having been introduced into England in 1620. 
 
 In 1 62 1 "the first cultivation of cotton in the United States 
 deserves commemoration. This year the seeds were planted as 
 an experiment, and their plentiful coming up was at that early 
 day a subject of interest in America and England." So writes 
 George Bancroft, the historian. 
 
 Not less notable is the fact that the first works for smelting in 
 America were set up in 16 19 on Falling creek, a tributary of the 
 James river, which enters it some seven miles below Richmond. 
 Here the brown ore was found lying on the surface, and good 
 progress was made toward completing the works under Mr. 
 John Berkley, who was in charge of them. But before the 
 consummation Berkley and all his workmen were slain and the 
 works destroyed in the Indian massacre of March 22, 1622. It 
 is curious to note that "about the same time that the Indians 
 were scalping the pioneer iron-makers in Virginia an ignorant 
 mob in England destroyed the works of I<ord Edward Dudley, 
 for smelting ore with pit coal by a new process of his in- 
 vention. Savagery and ignorance go together. 
 
 McMasters, in his history of the people of the United States, 
 ascribes to Thomas Jefierson the glory of the American 
 patent system, and declares that he inspired it and took so 
 deep an interest in its workings that he is entitled to be called 
 its founder. This view consists with the traditions of the 
 Patent Ofi&ce. Certain it is that the subject was congenial to 
 the practical scientific mind of Mr. Jefferson, and certain it is 
 that he took deep interest in the development of the system 
 and in all that concerns the useful arts and scientific methods. 
 
 Amongst the powers conferred upon Congress by the Federal 
 Constitution is the power ' ' to promote the progress of science 
 and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and 
 inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and 
 discoveries." In this provision was compromised the con- 
 tention on the one hand that authors and inventors had a 
 
134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 property right in all copies of their works, and the adverse 
 contention that they had no rights whatever entitled to legal 
 protection in such copies. Jefferson thoroughly expounded 
 this subject in his correspondence, showing that authors and 
 inventors have an equity to protection for a reasonable time, 
 but that inventions are not property. " It would be curious," 
 he said, " if an idea — the fugitive fermentation of an individual 
 brain — could of natural right be deemed an exclusive and 
 stable property." " Nature," he said, " made ideas like fire, 
 expansible over all space without lessening their density at 
 any one point ; and like the air in which we breathe, move 
 and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or ex- 
 clusive appropriation. ' ' Again, ' ' He who receives an idea 
 from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine ; 
 as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without dark- 
 ening me. ' ' On such clear perceptions rests our Constitution 
 and our patent system, and they have universal respect because 
 of the equity and justice that underlies them in granting " ex- 
 clusive rights for limited times." 
 
 In the Federal Convention which framed the Constitution, 
 James Madison of Virginia and Charles Pinckney of South 
 Carolina suggested the provisions as to copyright and patent- 
 right which resulted in the formulation of the constitutional 
 clause which I have quoted. The author of the identical 
 language is not known, but it emanated from the Committee 
 on Style, of which Dr. Johnson was chairman. The first act 
 of Congress on the subject was reported by Mr. Burke of South 
 Carolina on the loth of April, 1790, from a committee of which 
 he, Mr. Huntingdon of Connecticut, and Mr. Cadwalader of 
 New Jersey were members. The first American patent was 
 issued on July 31, 1790, and bears the signatures of George 
 Washington, the President of the United States ; Thomas 
 Jefferson, the Secretary of State, and Edmund Randolph, the 
 Attorney-General. The reorganization of the Patent Ofiice 
 occurred in 1836, under the administration of Andrew Jack- 
 son, a Southern President. What mighty strides have been 
 made within the century past is attested by the records. Only 
 three patents were issued in 1790, thirty -three in r79i, and 
 eleven in 1792, that is forty -seven in three years; and only 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 135 
 
 twelve within the first fifty years. Now more than these are 
 issued in one year; and in the year 1890 over 26,000 were 
 issued for every variety of invention and improvement. And 
 within a single century the United States, surpassing all the 
 older nations, has taken the foremost rank and risen to "the 
 highest heaven of invention." 
 
 It is from the soil that all men gain their sustenance, and as 
 a people who long made its tillage their chief vocation, the 
 South is first indebted to those who have ameliorated the 
 methods of its cultivation. The ancients plowed with a 
 crooked stick — the crotch of a tree. The plows of the 
 colonists in America were made wholly of wood, and it was 
 only in the last century that they were tipped with iron. 
 Farmers were slow to welcome improvements, and even con- 
 tended that cast-iron plows poisoned the ground, produced 
 weeds and spoiled the crops. The first cast-iron plow seen 
 in this country was after the War of the Revolution. It was 
 imported from Holland, and was the invention of James Small 
 of Berwickshire. Again Thomas Jefferson comes to the front. 
 He was the first American to study and improve the plow, 
 inventing a new form of mould-board and fixing its curvature 
 to avoid friction. His son-in-law, Colonel Randolph, invented 
 a hill-side plow. Soon the field was entered by many in- 
 ventors ; and in 1816 eleven patents had been issued to 
 citizens of New York, eight to Maryland, three to Connecti- 
 cut, two to Virginia, one to Kentucky, and one to New Jersey. 
 There are now over 2,000 establishments in the United States 
 for manufacturing agricultural implements. They employ 
 over 40,000 hands, their product is worth over $68,000,000 ; 
 there are 200,000,000 acres of ground plowed, requiring the 
 service of over 2,000,000 teams for eighty days during the 
 year. Harrows, rakes, cultivators, diggers, reapers and mow- 
 ers in bewildering array arise before us, and farming has 
 become a fine art, requiring as much brain and method for 
 success as any of the learned professions, and our agricultural 
 machinery is sent all over the world, its superiority being 
 acknowledged. 
 
 To all the great inventors the South is as much indebted as 
 is any other portion of the civilized globe for the blessings 
 
136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and comforts which they have conferred on mankind. To 
 Watt and the steam engine, to George Stephenson and his 
 locomotive, to Morse and the electric telegraph, to Edison, 
 the wizard, and all of his electrical and other inventions, to 
 Bell and his telephone, to Howe, to Singer, Willcox and 
 Gibbs, and Weed and their sewing machines, to Hoe and his 
 printing press, to Fulton and Fitch and Rumsey and their 
 steamboat, to Davy and the safety lamp, to Westinghouse and 
 his air-brake, and Pullman and his sleeper — each and all of 
 these should be remembered as benefactors of the world. But 
 if I were asked to designate the two inventors to whom the 
 South is perhaps more peculiarly indebted than to others, I 
 would answer with the names of Eli Whitney, the inventor 
 of the cotton-gin, and Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the 
 modern process for making steel. 
 
 The invention of Henry Bessemer consists in the process of 
 eliminating carbon and silicon from iron by passing a stream 
 of oxygen through the melted mass. This converts it into 
 steel. He also constructed the machinery for accomplish- 
 ing this result of exquisite adaptation to its purposes. A 
 Bessemer converter, weighing with its contents twenty or 
 thirty tons, is moved on its axis by the touch of a hand and 
 receives thereby a blast so powerful that every particle of the 
 metallic mass within is heated to the highest temperature, and 
 by the infusion of oxygen is turned into ingots of steel. 
 
 Twenty -two Bessemer works had been established in this 
 country in 1884. Rolling mills at Chicago produced the first 
 Steel rails by this process in 1865. Now great steel works are 
 starting up in many directions. Since 1880 Rhode Island and 
 Vermont have abandoned steel-making, and three Southern 
 States have begun it ; that is, Alabama, Virginia and West 
 Virginia. The trend is southward. It is this cheap steel that 
 is upsetting the values of the great land-holdings of the British 
 nobility, and is pouring into the lap of commerce the crops of 
 the South and West. The "Age of Steel" dates from the 
 success of Bessemer. 
 
 A Southern iron master — William Kelly, of Eddyville, 
 Kentucky — preceded Bessemer in the discovery of the pneu- 
 matic principle of the Bessemer process, and successfully 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 137 
 
 antagonized him in claiming priorty of invention in a contest 
 in the Patent Office. But Bessemer, with the aid of Robert 
 Mushet, was more successful in the application of his principle 
 to the production of steel, and the machinery was successful 
 from the first in its operations. 
 
 In 1793 Kli Whitney, a young school teacher from Massa- 
 chusetts, located in Georgia, and was the guest of Mrs. Greene, 
 widow of General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary fame. 
 She got into trouble about her tambour frame. He fixed it. 
 Conversation one day turned on the separation of cotton from 
 the seed. "Send for Mr. Whitney," she said, "he can make 
 anything." Whitney studied the subject, and the cotton-gin 
 was the result. This instrument could be worked by a man or 
 woman, and could clean more cotton in a single day than could 
 be done by a person in several months by hand. It had an 
 enormous effect upon the development of cotton planting in the 
 South and of cotton manufactures in the North. Five English 
 inventors — Kay, who invented the fly shuttle ; Hargreaves, 
 who, watching his wife at the spinning-wheel in his cottage, 
 took the hint from her nimble fingers and invented a machine 
 to which he gave her name, the "Spinning Jenny " ; Richard 
 Arkwright, the inventor of the water frame ; Samuel Cromp- 
 ton, of the spinning mule, and Edmund Cartwright, of the 
 power loom — these five inventors had laid the foundation of 
 cotton manufacture as one of the greatest of the world's in- 
 dustries. "For this industry has," as Towle writes, "in a 
 century created the English Manchester out of a straggling 
 rural hamlet and I^iverpool out of an obscure fishing village, 
 and has transformed the English County of lyancaster from a 
 dreary and barren waste into a noisy network of dense busy 
 towns and crowded factories. ' ' Now came Eli Whitney, giving 
 to Southern agriculture the one machine needed to give cotton 
 its imperial position amongst the great products of the world, 
 and feeding New England with the staple of manufacture out 
 of which arose splendid prosperity. 
 
 In 1787 the first American cotton mills were erected (in 
 Massachusetts), but so slow was progress that in 1807 only 
 fifteen mills (chiefly in Rhode Island) were in operation, with 
 about S.ooo spindles, producing some 300,000 pounds of cotton 
 
138 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 yarn a year. In 1807 came the embargo and non-importation 
 act, under the second administration of Jefferson. Within less 
 than two years nearly $4,000,000 were invested in cotton mills, 
 4,000 persons employed, the number of spindles doubled, and 
 arrangements made for increasing them from 8,000 to 80,000. 
 An impetus was given to New Bngland's manufactures which 
 has known " no retiring ebb." 
 
 The vast importance of these and kindred inventions to the 
 South cannot be estimated until we remember what a wonderful 
 land it is, and how richly nature has endowed it with the ele- 
 ments of wealth. We call it the South, but its southernmost 
 point is 1,700 miles north of the Equator. It is a part of our 
 northern continent. It lies wholly in the temperate zone, and 
 while its suns are warm enough to stimulate the fruits of 
 nature and the energies of man, they are not so hot as to 
 parch the one or to enervate the other. 
 
 It is washed for over 2,000 miles by the Atlantic ocean. 
 It is intersected by the Father of Waters and by many rivers. 
 It produces all the cereals and grasses to perfection, and an 
 infinite variety of fruits, from the apple to the banana, and 
 from the peach and apricot to the orange and lemon. It is a 
 land of com and oil and wine, and milk and honey ; it is 
 a land of rice and sugar and cotton and tobacco ; it is a land 
 of coal and iron, and of green pastures and virgin forests. 
 
 The value of the raw cotton that we sent abroad in 1890 was 
 $250,000,000 ; a hundred million more than the value of all 
 the breadstuffs we export ; a hundred millions more than all 
 the manufactured products we export ; a hundred millions 
 more than all the meat and dairy products we export ; eight 
 times more than all the cattle, sheep and hogs we export. 
 It is the chief item of our foreign trade. It secures to us the 
 balance in our favor. It is the under-pinning of our financial 
 system, that keeps our gold with us and sustains the value of 
 our investments. There is not a nation on the earth that does 
 not clothe itself with cotton. There is no nation that can vie 
 with us in its production, and the South is the only part of our 
 country that produces it. 
 
 The inventor has given a new value (estimated at $2.50 per 
 acre) to the cotton field. For seventy years the seed were 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 139 
 
 thrown away ; now they are turned into oil and oil-cakes, and 
 are the basis of an industry valued at $50,000,000. Cotton 
 seed mills are operating in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, 
 Illinois, l/ouisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Two Virginians, 
 Digges of Albemarle as far back as 1820, and Glowes of 
 Hamilton in 1825, invented oil presses, and seemed to discern 
 the future use- of cotton seed. Now there are inventions by 
 the score 'of presses and processes for their utilization. 
 
 Cotton, iron, wool, wood and the various clays are the most 
 important raw materials of manufacture. In all these the 
 South abounds. It is a mass of coal and iron. The great 
 Appalachian range, stretching 700 miles and penetrating the 
 very heart of the South, contains every variety of bituminous, 
 block, splint and cannel coals. Here is forty times as much in 
 sight as is accessible to economic production in Great Britain. 
 The coal field is covered with virgin forests of white, black, 
 Spanish chestnut and best oak, yellow poplar, yellow pine and 
 walnut. It is stored also with iron ore and limestone. 
 
 Bdward Atkinson has expressed the opinion that you can 
 stand on the summit of the Great Smoky mountain in this 
 range and behold the situs of the future iron-center of the world. 
 
 Iron is the king metal as cotton is the king vegetable fiber. 
 Solon was right. When Croesus boasted of his golden treas- 
 ures, he said : "If another comes that hath better iron than 
 you he will be master of all this gold." 
 
 The epochs of the world have been marked by the weapons 
 and utensils of its inhabitants. First, the stone age, when 
 they were of stone and flint or wood or bone. Then the 
 bronze age, when they were of a metal composed of copper 
 and tin. Then came the iron age, and now, since the Bes- 
 semer process has been inaugurated, the age of steel. Myriad 
 are its uses : baby toys and ironclad navies, cannon balls and 
 knitting needles, railroad tracks and surgical instruments, 
 bridges and houses and fortifications, locks and keys and 
 buttons, the steam engine and the delicate watch, the nail, 
 the axe, the saw, the plow, the pen, the sword. 
 
 The United States is the greatest consumer of iron and steel 
 in the world. We make 35 and use 40 per cent, of the world's 
 
HO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 product. In eleven years Great Britain's product decreased 
 from 45 to 33 per cent., while ours increased from 16 to over 
 30 per cent. 
 
 There are vast bodies of Bessemer ore at the South out of 
 which Bessemer pig can be made at ten dollars per ton. 
 
 Carroll D. Wright, Esq., the Commissioner of Labor, com- 
 pared the cost of making iron from the ore at twenty-five 
 Northern furnaces and at twenty-five Southern furnaces. The 
 highest cost at the Northern furnaces was $15.78 per ton, the 
 lowest $12.42, the average $13.97 At the South the highest 
 cost was $12.91, the lowest $8.55, the average $10.75, an 
 average difference of $3.22 per ton. 
 
 The last decade of Southern progress has indeed been a 
 revelation and a revolution. Northern brains and capital 
 have freely mingled with our own, and every season empha- 
 sizes the truth of Judge Kelly's prophecy that the South is the 
 coming El Dorado of American adventure. There are southern 
 cities to-day with ten, twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, 
 which a few years ago were scarce a local habitation or a name. 
 Witness Anniston, with 1,000 in 1880 and 10,000 in 1890; 
 Birmingham, with 3,000 in 1880 and 26,000 in 1890. Chatta- 
 nooga sprang from a village to a city of 30,000, and Roanoke 
 from a way station to a city of near 20,000. 
 
 It is estimated that within the decade $800,000,000 has been 
 expended on southern railroads. Its railway mileage has 
 increased from 20,000 to 40,000 miles, and it is now construct- 
 ing more mileage than all the rest of the country. 
 
 Its coal output within the same period has increased from 
 6,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons, and its product of pig iron from 
 390,000 to nearly 2,000,000 tons. Its cotton mills have in- 
 creased from 160, with 660,000 spindles, to 355 with over 
 2,000,000 spindles. Its live stock has increased in value from 
 $390,000,000 to near $600,000,000, and its agricultural pro- 
 ducts from $600,000,000 to nearly $1,000,000,000. 
 
 We are sending coal and pig iron to Pennsylvania, making 
 cars for New England railroads, making woolen goods for 
 Northern markets, shipping cotton goods to New England, 
 and producing a variety of manufactures which it would take 
 a dictionary to catalogue, but they range from egg-crates to 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 141 
 
 iron bridges, from a tooth-pick to a locomotive, from paper 
 bags to the armor of ironclad battle-ships. 
 
 The Superintendent of the Census, R. P. Porter, Esq., has 
 kindly furnished me with these advance figures of the coal 
 product : 
 
 Comparative Statement op Product of Coai, for the 
 Southern States, Tenth and Ei,eventh Census. 
 
 Tenth Census. Eleventh Census. 
 (Short Tons.) (Short Tons.) 
 
 Alabama 323,972 3>572,983 
 
 Arkansas 14.778 279,584 
 
 Georgia 154,644 226, 156 
 
 Kentucky 946,288 i,933>643 
 
 Maryland 2,228,917 2,939,715 
 
 Missouri 556,304 2.557.823 
 
 North Carolina 350 
 
 Tennessee 495,131 1,925,689 
 
 Virginia ; 45,896 865,786 
 
 West Virginia 1,839,845 6,180,757 
 
 Total 6, 606, 125 20, 482, 136 
 
 Not less eloquent are the figures from the same source that 
 show comparatively the product of the mineral industries of 
 the whole United States in 1870, and those of the Central 
 Southern States in 1890. 
 
 Minerai. Industries. 
 
 Production of the Production of the 
 United States in Central Southern 
 1870. States in i8go. 
 
 Tons. Tons. 
 
 Bituminous coal 15,000,000 17,772,945 
 
 Iron ore 3> 163.839 2,917,529 
 
 Pig iron 2,052,821 1,780,909 
 
 Thus we are now nearly up to the mark of the entire pro- 
 duction of iron in the United States in 1870 ; and in coal are 
 now nearly 3,000,000 of tons ahead of its entire product then. 
 
142 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 This item of the foreign trade of the United States is scarce 
 less instructive. From July i, 1890, to January i, 1891, there 
 was an increase in our foreign exports of $7,000,000, but from 
 the South of $8,000,000 — that is, a decrease of $1,000,000 from 
 the whole country but for the Southern increase. The most 
 striking item was the increase at Newport News, Va., of 
 $4,736,000 as compared with $2,387,209 for the corresponding 
 period of the previous year, a gain of nearly 100 per cent. 
 
 In such facts as these the stars of empire gleam. In 1893 
 the navies of the world will assemble in Hampton Roads, off 
 Norfolk, Newport News and Fortress Monroe, preparatory to 
 the grand review at New York inaugurating the Exposition 
 at Chicago. They will there behold the seat of a coming 
 commerce and industrial movement that will tell a tale of 
 progress in the next census as wonderful as any page in the 
 history of the New South. 
 
 The commanding position of Great Britain amongst modern 
 nations is vastly due to the fact that it has drawn the raw 
 materials of its factories from all quarters of the globe, giving 
 employment to skilled artisans at home, and at once sustaining 
 its commerce and enriching its merchants and manufacturers. 
 
 When it had lost the brightest of its crown jewels by the 
 obstinacy of George III, and Burgoyne and Cornwallis had 
 surrendered America, British inventors and mechanics were 
 developing machines which restored the prestige lost by arms 
 at Saratoga and Yorktown. 
 
 The Northern and Eastern States have copied upon the 
 English models, and the raw materials produced by the South 
 have vastly aided them — being first carried North to their 
 factories, and then returned South in manufactured articles. 
 
 The secret of the great economic change that has come over 
 the South lies in a nutshell — it possesses the richest and most 
 diversified supply of the staple raw materials — it has begun on 
 a vast scale to manufacture them where they can be manu- 
 factured cheapest — ^that is, at the mine and in the field and 
 forest that produces them. It will henceforth give employ- 
 ment to millions of skilled artisans. It will henceforth employ 
 only the most improved methods of production. Its industries 
 will be more diversified than those of any other people. Under 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 143 
 
 its genial skies, on the banks of its many rivers, beside its 
 wide-stretched cotton and grain fields and orchards and pas- 
 tures, in its noble forests, and at the mouths of mines that 
 pour forth inexhaustible treasures will rise teeming cities, and 
 in its broad ports the merchantmen of the world will assemble 
 its fleets of commerce. 
 
 In the great work of renovation and advancement the 
 inventor will lead. The inventor of an idea is the discoverer 
 of a special providence, and he who knows how to use it 
 "hitches his wagon to a star." The world has grown wise 
 enough to know that with every invention that saves labor 
 luxury is laid at the feet of the toiler, and skillful hands and 
 brains are released from menial tasks for others more exalted. 
 Ignorant mobs will no longer break the shuttles of a Kay, or 
 drive the smelters from the coal pits of a Dudley. 
 
 The inventor has redeemed us from the curse of poverty, 
 dissipated the mysteries of humbug, and destroyed the 
 monopoly of knowledge. He has torn down the idol in the 
 temple and driven the false god from the grove and the moun- 
 tain. He has tamed the spirit of the savage with his power, 
 and inspired the spirit of Christ with his benefactions. He 
 has compelled peace by making war too terrible to tamper 
 with. 
 
 He has instituted fraternity by bringing distant ones in con- 
 verse and in contact. He has established the union of mankind 
 by disclosing the unity of the universe. The oceans which he 
 has mapped, the waves which he has bestridden, the lands 
 which he has woven and banded together with steel, the winds 
 whose coming and going he has foretold, and whose whispers 
 he has interpreted ; the very stars whose secrets he has read, 
 and the lightnings which he has made to utter speech, to 
 illumine darkness, and to bear burdens — all these proclaim 
 him as earth's true conqueror and man's best friend. 
 
 Ere long I trust a great National Hall of Sciences will rise 
 here at the Capital to display the mechanical achievements of 
 American genius, and I would that Washington might teem 
 with the statues of inventors. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 145 
 
 THE COPYRIGHT SYSTEM OF THE UNITED 
 STATES— ITS ORIGIN AND ITS GROWTH. 
 
 By Hon. Ainsworth R. Spofford, LL.D., Librarian U.S. Congress. 
 
 "The chief glory of every people," says Dr. Samuel John- 
 son, "arises from its authors." The history and present 
 condition of the law of literary property in the United States 
 possesses both for writers and readers a commanding interest. 
 Amid all uncertainties which have beset the proper protection 
 of the rights of authors, and the sometimes conflicting decis- 
 ions of the courts thereupon, the fact that this protection has 
 always been recognized as due stands prominently out. And 
 its foundation appears to be broader and deeper in this country 
 than in any other, since it is distinctly laid in the Constitution 
 of the government itself. That instrument declares that " the 
 Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science 
 and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and 
 inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and 
 discoveries. ' ' 
 
 Upon this broad and salutary provision are founded all the 
 statutes regulating copyright in books, from the earliest act 
 signed by George Washington, in 1790, to the most recent 
 legislation of the last Congress enacting international copy- 
 right. 
 
 To James Madison belongs the honor of having first offered, 
 on the i8th of August, 1787, in the Federal Convention which 
 framed the Constitution, a provision for this, among other 
 powers, as "proper to be added to those of the general legis- 
 lature," namely: "to secure to literary authors their copy- 
 rights for a limited time." Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina 
 submitted other proposed grants of power to Congress, among 
 which was this : "To secure to authors exclusive rights for a 
 certain time." These were coupled, in each case, with an 
 independent proposition empowering Congress to grant patents 
 
146 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 for useful inventions. All the propositions were referred to 
 the ' ' committee of detail, ' ' who formulated the desired pro- 
 visions into the clause ultimately adopted in the Constitution, 
 and previously cited. This ultimate provision amalgamated 
 what were two independent propositions, as drawn by their 
 authors, into one, doubtless for the sake of greater economy of 
 words, in an instrument remarkable for its condensed style 
 and plain, perspicuous language. 
 
 It is a very notable fact that the United States of America 
 was the first nation that ever embodied the principle of pro- 
 tection to the rights of authors in its fundamental law. Thus 
 anchored in the Constitution itself, this principle has been 
 further recognized by repeated acts of Congress, aimed in all 
 cases at giving it full practical effect. No right is ever com- 
 plete without a remedy ; and our National Legislature has 
 very properly guarded the conceded rights of authors by pro- 
 visions of law, designed to secure to them an exclusive privi- 
 lege in the benefits to be derived during the term prescribed, 
 and enforcing these rights by ample penalties. 
 
 The first copyright act was passed early in the first Con- 
 gress, and received the presidential approval of Washington 
 on the 31st of May, 1790. By its provisions the term of dura- 
 tion of each copyright was limited to fourteen years, with a 
 further right of renewal for fourteen years longer, provided 
 the author were living at the expiration of the first term. If 
 it is asked why the authors of the Constitution gave to Con- 
 gress no plenary power, which might have authorized a grant 
 of copyright in perpetuity, the answer is, that in this, as in 
 many other provisions of the Constitution, British precedent 
 had a great, if not a controlling influence. Copyright in 
 England, by virtue of the statute of Anne, passed in 17 10 (the 
 first British copyright act), was limited to fourteen years, with 
 right of renewal, by a living author, of only fourteen years 
 more ; and this was in full force in 1787, when our Constitu- 
 tion was framed. Prior to the British statute of 1710, authors 
 had only what is called a common law right to their writings ; 
 and however good such a right might be, so long as they held 
 them in manuscript, the protection to printed books was 
 extremely uncertain and precarious. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 147 
 
 It has been held, indeed, that all copyright laws, so far 
 from maintaining an exclusive property right to authors, do in 
 effect deny it (at least in the sense of a natural right), by 
 explicitly limiting the term of exclusive ownership, which 
 might otherwise be held (as in other property) to be perpetual, 
 or during the lifetime of the owner. But there is a radical 
 distinction between the products of the brain, when put in the 
 concrete form of books and multiplied by the art of printing, 
 and the land or other property which is held by common law 
 tenure. Society views the absolute or exclusive property in 
 books or inventions as a monopoly. While a monopoly may 
 be justified for a reasonable number of years, on the obvious 
 ground of securing to their originators the pecuniary benefit 
 of their own ideas, a perpetual monopoly is generally regarded 
 as odious and unjust. Hence society says to the author or 
 inventor : ' ' Put your ideas into material form, and we will 
 guarantee you the exclusive right to multiply and sell your 
 books or your machines for a term long enough to secure a 
 fair reward to you and to your children ; after that period we 
 want your monopoly, with its individual benefits, to cease in 
 favor of the greatest good of all. ' ' If this appears unfair to 
 authors, who contribute so greatly to the instruction and the 
 advancement of mankind, it is to be considered that a per- 
 petual copyright would (i) largely enhance the cost of books, 
 which should be most widely diffused for the public benefit, 
 prolonging the enhanced cost indefinitely beyond the author's 
 lifetime ; (2) it would benefit by a special privilege, pro- 
 longed without limit, a class of book manufacturers or pub- 
 lishers who act as middle-men between the author and the 
 public, and who own, in most cases, the entire property in the 
 works of authors deceased, and which they did not originate ; 
 (3) it would amount in a few centuries to so vast a sum, taxed 
 upon the community who buy books, that the publishers of 
 Shakespeare's works, for example, who under perpetual copy- 
 right could alone print the poet's writings, would have reaped 
 colossal fortunes unequaled by any private wealth yet amassed 
 in the world. 
 
 If it is said that copyright, thus limited, is a purely arbi- 
 trary right, it may be answered that all legal provisions are 
 
148 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 arbitrary. That which is an absolute or natural right, so long 
 as held in idea or in manuscript, becomes, when given to the 
 world in multiplied copies, the creature of law. The most 
 that authors can fairly claim is a sufficiently prolonged exclu- 
 sive right to guarantee them for a lifetime the just reward of 
 their labors, with, perhaps, a reversion for their immediate 
 heirs. That such exclusive rights should run to their remotest 
 posterity, or, a fortiori, to mere merchants or artificers who 
 had no hand whatever in the creation of the intellectual work 
 thus protected, would be manifestly unjust. The judicial 
 tribunals, both in England and America, have held that copy- 
 right laws do not affirm an existing right, but create a right, 
 with special privileges not before existing, and also with 
 special limitations. 
 
 To return to the provisions of the earliest copyright enact- 
 ment of 1790 — ^granting the exclusive privilege of printing 
 his work to the author or his assigns for 14-I-14, or twenty- 
 eight years in all : it prohibited all others from printing, pub- 
 lishing or selling the same work, under penalty of forfeiture of 
 every copy to the author or proprietor, and the further penalty 
 of fifty cents for every printed sheet foimd in possession of the 
 offender or exposed to sale. This latter pecuniary penalty was 
 found in practice to entail the payment of damages to such 
 heavy amounts that they could not be enforced in many cases, 
 and the law was changed to provide for the awarding of such 
 damages, for violation of copyright, as may be recovered on 
 trial of the case. 
 
 The act further required (i) entry of the title, before publica- 
 tion, in the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court 
 in the State where the author or proprietor resided ; (2) an entry 
 fee of sixty cents for recording, and sixty cents for a copy of 
 the record, or $1.20 in all ; (3) an advertisement of the copy of 
 record of each title, by author or proprietor, in some news- 
 paper for the space of four weeks ; (4) the deposit of a copy of 
 each publication in the office of the Secretary of State at 
 Washington within six months from date of issue. 
 
 This remained the law, with slight amendment, until 1831, 
 when a new copyright act extended the duration of copyright 
 from fourteen to twenty-eight years for the original, or first 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 149 
 
 term, with right of renewal to the author (now first extended 
 to his widow or children, in case of his decease) for fourteen 
 additional years, making forty-two years in all. 
 
 By the same act the privilege of copyright was extended to 
 cover musical compositions, as it had been earlier extended 
 (in 1802) to include designs, engravings, and etchings. Copy- 
 right was further extended in 1856 to dramatic compositions, 
 and in 1865 to photographs and negatives thereof. In 1870 a 
 new copyright code, to take the place of all existing and 
 scattered statutes, was enacted, and there were added to the 
 lawful subjects of copyright, paintings, drawings, chromos, 
 statues, statuary, and models or designs intended to be per- 
 fected as works of the fine arts. And finally, by act of 
 March 3, 1891, the benefits of copyright were extended so as 
 to embrace foreign authors, coupled with securing to American 
 authors full copyright in such foreign countries as may extend 
 copyright privileges to Americans. 
 
 The law of copyright, as codified by act of July 8, 1870, 
 made an epoch in the copyright system of the United States. 
 It transferred the entire registry of books and other publica- 
 tions, under copyright law, to the city of Washington, and 
 made the I<ibrarian of Congress sole register of copyrights, 
 instead of the clerks of the District Courts of the United 
 States. Manifold reasons existed for this radical change, and 
 those which were most influential with Congress in making it 
 were the following : 
 
 I. The transfer of the copyright records to Washington it 
 was foreseen would concentrate and simplify the business, and 
 this was a cardinal point. Prior to 1870 there were between 
 forty and fifty separate and distinct authorities for issuing 
 copyrights. The American people were annually put to much 
 trouble and expense to find out where to apply, in the compli- 
 cated system of District Courts, several of them frequently in 
 a single State, to enter titles for publication. They were 
 required to make entry in the district where the applicant 
 resided, and this was frequently a matter of doubt, involving 
 special inquiry. Moreover, they were required to go to the 
 expense and trouble of transmitting a copy of the work, after 
 publication, to the District clerk, and another copy to the 
 
I50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 I/ibrary of Congress. If both copies were mailed to "Washing- 
 ton at once, this double duty would be diminished by half. 
 Next, the books would be received at Washington while fresh 
 from the press, instead of, as formerly, several months after 
 issue, or not at all. Then the copyright records would be con- 
 stantly at hand, where the publications to which they relate 
 were deposited. This would simplify and facilitate reference 
 to the greatest possible degree. In the then existing compli- 
 cated system, a person seeking to establish the validity of a 
 copyright must sometimes go to two or three widely separated 
 localities to verify the various points of evidence, and would 
 perhaps fail at last from the very imperfect manner in which 
 the law regarding copyright entries and deposits was executed. 
 
 How much less is the time and trouble required to transact 
 the business through the mails, instead of dispatching a special 
 messenger with each title for entry and each book for deposit, 
 it needs but a moment's consideration to perceive. Out of the 
 many thousands of authors and proprietors of copyrights in 
 the United States, it is probable that less than two hundred 
 resided in the immediate vicinity of a District clerk's office. 
 The unnecessary delays and expenses, therefore, in the regis- 
 try and deposit of copyright publications, were clearly much 
 greater under the once existing system than under a uniform 
 system of registry at Washington, as in the parallel case of 
 patents, which have been registered in one central office at the 
 seat of government from the beginning. 
 
 2. The advantage of securing to our national library a com- 
 plete collection of all American copyright publications can 
 scarcely be over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 
 1870 had been enforced since the beginning of the government, 
 we should now have in the Library of Congress a complete 
 representation of the product of the American mind in every 
 department of science and literature. Many publications 
 which are printed in small editions, or which become " out of 
 print ' ' from the many accidents which continually destroy 
 books, would owe to such a library their sole chance of preser- 
 vation. We ought to have one comprehensive library in the 
 country, and that belonging to the nation, whose aim it should 
 be to preserve the books which other libraries have not the 
 room nor the means to procure. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 151 
 
 3. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is 
 remembered that the I^ibrary of Congress is freely open to the 
 public throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great 
 reference library of the country, resorted to not only by Con- 
 gress and the residents of Washington, but by students and 
 writers from all parts of the Union, in search of references and 
 authorities not elsewhere to be found. Its complete catalogue 
 system lends an additional value to its stores. The advantage 
 of having all American publications thoroughly catalogued 
 and accessible upon inquiry is one which it may require some 
 reflection fully to appreciate, but which would be an invaluable 
 aid to thousands. Its effect would be to build up at Washing- 
 ton a truly national library, approximately complete and freely 
 open to all the people. 
 
 4. It was urged with reason that the proposed reform of 
 the unsatisfactory methods of recording and perfecting copy- 
 rights would take away the objections so freely brought 
 against the law. It was complained of by authors and pub- 
 lishers (and upon valid grounds) that they were put to much 
 trouble and some expense to secure a privilege of uncertain 
 value. There were so many points required to be complied 
 with to perfect a copyright title, and these points were so 
 subject to the mistakes and omissions of many oflBcials con- 
 cerned, as well as to those of the author or proprietor, that it 
 might be said of most copyrights taken out that they rested 
 under a cloud, which an ingenious or unscrupulous person 
 might take advantage of to invalidate them. In the first place, 
 the deposit of a copy of the publication in the ofSce of the 
 clerk of the District Court was frequently neglected, and this 
 omission invalidated the copyright. Secondly, the records of 
 the District clerk's office were often so imperfectly kept as to 
 show no deposit of the publication even when made, and this 
 might invalidate the copyright. Thirdly, the transmission of 
 a second copy to the I^ibrary of Congress was very frequently 
 neglected, as is shown in the fact that more than one thousand 
 requisitions for publications, whose proprietors had not com- 
 plied with the law, had been issued in a single year ; and in 
 each of these instances the copyright was void until the law 
 was complied with. And what motive had the publishers to 
 
152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 use more zeal in complying with the law and transmitting 
 copies of their publications through the District clerks to the 
 Patent Office, when they saw that the books were thenceforth 
 lost and buried, so that not even their authors, or the owners 
 of the copyrights could find them again ? 
 
 5. The proposed change, it was urged, would be a great 
 economy for the government. It saved the Patent Office the 
 trouble, expense and room of providing for a great library of 
 material which it could not use and did not want. It left its 
 officers and its space free to be concentrated upon the great 
 and rapidly-growing inventive art of the country. A copy- 
 right is not an invention or a patent ; it is a contribution to 
 literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has no 
 natural relation to a department which is charged with the 
 care of the mechanic arts ; and it belongs rather to a national 
 library system than to any other department of the civil 
 service. The responsibility of caring for it would be an 
 incident to the similar labors already devolved upon the 
 Librarian of Congress ; and the receipts from copyright cer- 
 tificates would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving 
 the treasury the gainer by the change. 
 
 These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the 
 amendment in copyright registration referred to. The Com- 
 missioner of Patents, then Hon. Samuel S. Fisher, gave his 
 hearty cooperation to the measure, and the Hon. Thomas A. 
 Jenckes of Rhode Island, chairman of the Committee on 
 Patents, which had charge of the whole matter, lent the 
 resources of his active and vigilant mind to formulating the 
 law, to answering objections, and to carrying the measure 
 through Congress. 
 
 By the enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the 
 methods of registration and deposit of copies were obviated. 
 The original records of copyright in all the States were trans- 
 ferred to Washington, and all records of copyright entry were 
 thenceforward kept in the office of the I<ibrarian of Congress. 
 All questions as to literary property, involving a search of 
 records to determine points of validity, such as priority 
 of entry, names of actual owners, transfers or assignments, 
 timely deposit of the required copies, etc. , could be determined 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 153 
 
 Upon inquir}' at a single office of record. These inquiries are 
 extremely numerous, and obviously very important, involving 
 frequently large interests in valuable publications in which 
 litigation to establish the rights of authors, publishers or 
 infringers has been commenced or threatened. By the full 
 records of copyright entries thus preserved, moreover, the 
 Ivibrary of Congress (which is the property of the nation) has 
 been enabled to secure what was before unattainable, namely, 
 an approximately complete collection of all American books, 
 etc., protected by copyright, since the legislation referred to 
 went into effect. The system has been found in practice to 
 give general satisfaction ; the manner of securing copyright 
 has been made plain and easy to all, the office of record being 
 now a matter of public notoriety ; and the test of experience 
 during twenty years has established the system so thoroughly 
 that none would be found to favor a return to the former 
 methods. 
 
 The Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection 
 of copyright books and other publications from the over- 
 crowded Patent Office to the I^ibrary of Congress. These 
 publications were the accumulations of about eighty 3'ears, 
 received from the United States District Clerks' offices by the 
 Department of State and at the Patent Office, under the old 
 law. By request of the Commissioner of Patents all the law 
 books and a large number of technical works were reserved at 
 the Department of the Interior. The residue, when removed 
 to the Capitol, were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much 
 smaller number than had been anticipated, in view of the 
 length of time during which the copy tax had been in opera- 
 tion. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of 
 copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States 
 District Courts had been very defective (no penalty being pro- 
 vided for non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office 
 had failed to receive from the offices of original deposit large 
 numbers of publications which should have been sent to Wash- 
 ington. From one of the oldest States in the Union not a 
 single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The 
 books, however, which were added to the Congressional 
 I^ibrary, although consisting largely of school books and the 
 
154 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 minor literature of the last half century, comprised many 
 valuable additions to the collection of American books, which 
 it should be the aim of a National I^ibrary to render complete. 
 Among them were the earliest editions of the works of many 
 well-known writers, now out of print and scarce. 
 
 The first book ever entered for copyright privileges under 
 the laws of the United States was ' ' The Philadelphia Spelling 
 Book, ' ' which was registered in the Clerk's Office of the District 
 of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1790, by John Barry as author. The 
 spelling book was a fit introduction to the long series of books 
 since produced to further the difiusion of knowledge among 
 men. The second book entered was ' ' The American Geogra- 
 phy, ' ' by Jedediah Morse, entered in the District of Massachu- 
 setts on July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the 
 Library of Congress. The earliest book entered in the State 
 of New York was on the 30th of April, 1791, and it was 
 entitled "The Young Gentleman's and Lady's Assistant, by 
 Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster. ' ' 
 
 It should not be inferred, from the foregoing recital, that no 
 copyrights were granted in America prior to the act put in 
 operation by the general government in 1790 ; on the contrary, 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut had both, through their legis- 
 latures, granted copyrights to authors for a term running to 
 twenty-one years. This was in 1783 ; and in the same year 
 Mr. Madison offered a resolution in the Congress of the Con- 
 federation (which had no legislative powers) recommending to 
 the several States to pass acts securing copyrights to authors 
 for the term of fourteen years. In 1785 Virginia, acting in 
 accordance with this recommendation, passed a copyright law, 
 and New York and New Jersey, in 1786, followed with 
 statutory provisions securing a fourteen years' copyright to 
 authors. 
 
 But none of these various copyright enactments could operate 
 to secure any protection to authors beyond the limits of the 
 State in which they lived. It was necessarily reserved to a 
 government embracing all the States within its paramount 
 constitutional functions to give such protection to authors as 
 should avail them throughout the United States. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. I55 
 
 Objection has occasionally, though rarely, been made to what 
 is known as the copy-tax, by which two copies of each publica- 
 tion must be deposited in the National Library. This require- 
 ment rests upon two valid grounds: (i) The preservation of 
 copies of everything protected by copyright is necessary in the 
 interest of authors and publishers, in evidence of copyright, and 
 in aid of identification in connection with the record of title ; (2) 
 the library of the government (which is that of the whole people) 
 should possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of 
 the products of the American press, so far as secured by copy- 
 right. The government makes no unreasonable exaction in say- 
 ing to authors and publishers : " The nation gives you exclusive 
 right to make and sell your publication, without limit of quantity, 
 for forty-two years ; give the nation in return two copies, one for 
 the use and reference of Congress and the public in the National 
 Library, the other for preservation in the copyright archives, in 
 perpetual evidence of your right." 
 
 In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public, does 
 not the government in effect give far more than a quid pro quo 
 for the copy -tax ? Of course it would not be equitable to exact 
 even one copy of publications not secured by copyright (the daily 
 newspapers, for example), in which case the government gives 
 nothing and gets nothing ; but the exaction of actually protected 
 publications, while it is unfelt by publishers, is so clearly in the 
 interest of the public intelligence, as well as of authors and pub- 
 lishers themselves, that no valid objection to it appears to exist. 
 In Great Britain five copies of every book protected by copyright 
 are required for five different libraries, which appears somewhat 
 unreasonable. 
 
 Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a 
 significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively few instances, 
 compared with the whole body of publications. Multitudes of 
 books are published which not only never reach a second edition, 
 but the sale of which does not exhaust more than a small part of 
 the copies printed of the first. In these cases the right of renewal 
 is waived and suffered to lapse, from defect of commercial value 
 in the work protected. In many other cases the right of renewal 
 expires before the author or his assigns bethink them of the privi- 
 lege secured to them under the law. It results that more than 
 
156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 nine-tenths, probably, of all books published are free to any one 
 to print, without reward or royalty to their authors, after a very 
 few years have elapsed. On the other hand, the exclusive right 
 in some publications of considerable commercial value is kept 
 alive far beyond the forty-two years included in the original and 
 the renewal term, by entry of new editions of the work, and 
 securing copyright on the same. While this method may not 
 protect any of the original work from republication by others, 
 it enables the publishers of the copyright edition to advertise such 
 unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and without the author's or 
 editor's latest revision or additions. 
 
 The whole number of entries of copyright in the United States 
 since we became a nation considerably exceeds three-quarters of 
 a million. This is no place for detailed statistics of the extensive 
 and steadily growing copyright business of the country. It may, 
 however, be of interest to give the aggregate number of titles 
 of publications entered for copyright in each year since the trans- 
 fer of the entire records to Washington in 1870 : 
 
 1870 5,600 1877 15.758 1884 26,893 
 
 1871 12,688 1878 15,798 1885 28,410 
 
 1872 14,164 1879 18,125 1886 31,241 
 
 1873 15.352 1880 20,686 1887 35.083 
 
 1874 16,283 1881 21,075 1888 38,225 
 
 1875 14.364 1882 22,918 1889 40,777 
 
 1876 14,882 1883 25,273 1890 42.758 
 
 Total 476.353 
 
 The reduced number of copyrights registered in 1875 and years 
 immediately following was due to the transfer to the Patent Office, 
 by Act of June 18, 1874, of the registration of all labels and prints 
 illustrative of articles of manufacture. These had been, from the 
 beginning of the government, entered eis copyrights, thus en- 
 cumbering the records with a great mass of so-called publications 
 which have no relation whatever to literary copyright, but belong 
 to the mechanic arts. The number of these entries was about 
 5,000 annually, and, notwithstanding their withdrawal, the increase 
 in the aggregate of other publications has been so large as to 
 exhibit the greatly advanced progress in the publishing activities 
 of the country above recorded. 
 
PRQCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 157 
 
 It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights 
 (now about twice as large as the annual average registry of 
 patents) does not represent books alone. Many thousands of 
 entries are periodicals claiming copyright protection, in which 
 case they are required by law to make entry of every separate 
 issue. These include a multitude of weekly journals, literary, 
 scientific, religious, pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, 
 sporting, dramatic, etc., among which are a number in foreign 
 languages. The entries of periodicals also embrace nearly all the 
 leading monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many 
 devoted to specialties — as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology, 
 art, finance, education, and the arts and sciences generally. An- 
 other large class of copyright entries (and the largest next to 
 books and periodicals) is musical compositions, numbering re- 
 cently some 8,000 publications yearly. Much of this property is 
 valuable, and it is nearly all protected by entry of copyright, 
 coming from all parts of the Union. There is also a large and 
 constantly increasing number of works of graphic art, comprising 
 engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos, lithographs, 
 etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright is entered. 
 The steady accumulation of hundreds of thousands of these vari- 
 ous pictorial illustrations will enable the government at no distant 
 day, without a dollar of expense, to make an exhibit of the prog- 
 ress of the arts of design in America, which will be interesting 
 and instructive in a high degree. An art gallery of ample dimen- 
 sions for this purpose is provided for in the new National Library 
 building, now rapidly rising on Capitol Hill. 
 
 It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice of 
 what is known as international copyright. 
 
 Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the pro- 
 ductions of the intellect which is not good for its extension to all 
 countries. The basis of copyright is that all useful labor is worthy 
 of a recompense; but since all human thought when put into 
 material or merchantable form becomes, in a certain sense, 
 public property, the laws of all countries recognize and 
 protect the original owners, or their assigns to whom they 
 may convey the right, in an exclusive privilege for limited 
 terms only. Literary property therefore is not a natural right, 
 but a conventional one. The author's right to his manuscript is, 
 
158 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 indeed, absolute, and the law will protect him in it as fully as it 
 will guard any other property. But when once put in type and 
 multiplied through the printing-press, his claim to an exclusive 
 right has to be guarded by a special statute, otherwise it is held 
 to be abandoned (like the articles in any newspaper) to the 
 public. This special protection is furnished in all civilized 
 countries by copyright law. 
 
 What we call " copyright " is an exclusive right to multiply 
 copies of any publication for sale. Domestic copyright, which is 
 all we have hitherto had in this country, is limited to the United 
 States. International copyright, which has now been enacted, 
 extends the right of American authors to foreign countries, and 
 recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in our own. There 
 is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains Congress 
 from granting copyright to other than American citizens. Patent 
 right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution, has been 
 extended to foreigners. Out of about 20,000 patents annually 
 issued, about 1,000 (or 5 per cent.) are issued to foreigners, 
 while American patents are similarly protected abroad. If we 
 have international patent right, why not international copyright? 
 The grant of power is the same ; both patent right and copyright 
 are for a limited time ; both rights during this time are exclusive ; 
 and both rest upon the broad ground of the promotion of science 
 and the useful arts. If copyright is justifiable at all, if authors 
 are to be secured a reward for their labors, they claim that all 
 who use them should contribute equally to this result. The 
 principle of copyright once admitted, it cannot logically be con- 
 fined to State lines or national boundaries. There appears to be 
 no middle ground between the doctrine of common property in 
 all productions of the intellect — which leads us to communism by 
 the shortest road — and the admission that copyright is due, 
 while its limited term lasts, from all who use the works of an 
 author, wherever found. 
 
 Accordingly, international copyright has become the poUcy of 
 nearly all civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in 
 most countries than in the United States, ranging from the life of 
 the author and seven years beyond, in England, to a life term 
 and fifty years additional in France and Spain. Copyright is 
 thus made a life tenure and something more in all countries except 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 159 
 
 our own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years. This may 
 perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned 
 from the age of intellectual maturity. There have not been want- 
 ing advocates for a perpetual copyright, to run to the author and 
 his heirs and assigns forever. This was urged before the British 
 Copyright Commission in 1878 by leading British publishers, but 
 the term of copyright is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law. 
 
 Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and 
 in some respects most important) advance step which has 
 been taken in copyright legislation in the United States. This 
 act of Congress, providing for international copyright on pre- 
 scribed conditions, was signed by the President on the 3d of 
 March, 1891, and is aimed at securing reciprocal protection to 
 American and foreign authors in the respective countries which 
 may comply with its provisions. There is here no room to 
 sketch the hitherto vain attempts to secure to authors, here and 
 abroad, an international protection to their writings. Suffice it to 
 say that a union of interests was at last effected, whereby 
 authors, pubhshers and manufacturers are supposed to have 
 secured some measure of protection, not before enjoyed, to their 
 varied interests. The measure is largely experimental, and the 
 satisfaction felt over its passage into law is tempered by doubt in 
 various quarters as to the justice, or liberality, or actual benefit to 
 authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a statute which 
 was denounced by some Senators as a long step backward 
 toward barbarism, and hailed by others as a great landmark in 
 the progress of civilization ? 
 
 The main features added to the existing law of copyright by 
 this act, taking effect July i, 1891, are these : 
 
 1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens and 
 residents of the United States is repealed. 
 
 2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of $1 for 
 record or fi.50 for certificate of copyright, instead of 50 cents for 
 record or $1 for certificate. 
 
 3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs 
 entered here for copyright is prohibited, except two copies of any 
 book for use and not for sale. 
 
 4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or litho- 
 graphs deposited with the Librarian of Congress must be printed 
 
i6o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 from type set, or plates, etc., made in the United States. It fol- 
 lows that all foreign works protected by American copyright must 
 be wholly manufactured in this country. 
 
 5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or subjects 
 of nations permitting the benefit of copyright to Americans on 
 substantially the same terms as their own citizens, or of nations 
 who have international agreements providing for reciprocity in the 
 grant of copyright, to which the United States may at its pleasure 
 become a party. 
 
 6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not to take 
 effect as to any foreigner until the actual existence of either of the 
 conditions just recited, in the case of the nation to which he 
 belongs, shall have been made known by a proclamation of the 
 President of the United States. 
 
 There are some doubtful questions involved in the interpreta- 
 tion of the act, which is not free from ambiguity, and which must 
 wait for their solution upon the construction placed upon it by 
 the judicial tribunals. Meanwhile, authors and publishers should 
 await the results of such measure of international copyright as has 
 been achieved, doing what they may to guard their interests, 
 while the experiment is being fairly tried, A measure which 
 was regarded as worth so many years effort to secure should be 
 worth a litde patience on the part of those who have secured it. 
 
 In conclusion, the writers of America, with the steady and 
 rapid growth of the art of making books, have come more and 
 more to appreciate the value of their preservation, in complete 
 and unbroken series, in the library of the government, the appro- 
 priate conservator of the nation's literature. Inclusive and not 
 exclusive, as this library is wisely made by law, so far as copy- 
 right works are concerned, it preserves with impartial care the 
 illustrious and the obscure. In its archives all sciences and all 
 schools of opinion meet and mingle. In the beautiful and ample 
 repository, now being erected and dedicated to literature and art 
 through the liberality of Congress, the intellectual wealth of the 
 past and the present age will be handed down to the ages that 
 are to follow. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. i6l 
 
 THE KFPECT OF INVENTION UPON THE RAII,- 
 ROAD AND OTHER MEANS OF INTERCOM- 
 MUNICATION. 
 
 By Octave Chanute, oif Ii,i,inois, President of the American 
 Society of Civii, Engineers. 
 
 A century ago, Washington being then President of the 
 United States, the art of transportation, both by land and by 
 water, was practically still in the same stage of development, 
 as measured by speed of transit as well as by cost, which had 
 prevailed for the preceding eighteen hundred years, or since 
 the establishment of the Roman Empire. 
 
 Upon the sea there had been, it is true, considerable increase 
 in the size of vessels, and some changes in the mode of their 
 rigging, especially since the length of the voyages had been 
 increased by the discovery of America ; but the sail was still 
 the sole means of propelling ships, and the speeds attained 
 were little, if any, greater than those in antiquity. An average 
 progress of one hundred miles per day, under varying con- 
 ditions of wind, was considered satisfactory, and the quickest 
 passages between New York and Liverpool were performed in 
 twenty days, or at the rate of 176 miles per day. 
 
 Upon the land there had been, since the days of the Roman 
 Empire, many fashions in carriages, but the common road was 
 still the principal way traveled, and the horse was the power 
 chiefly used in transporting passengers and freight. There 
 were canals, it is true, but the average speeds were only two to 
 three miles per hour, and the charges were from six to ten 
 cents per ton per mile. Upon the turnpikes the maximum 
 speed for mail coaches was from eight to ten miles per hour, 
 and a fair day's travel at that period of time may be stated as 
 averaging about 100 miles in twenty-four hours. 
 
 Extraordinary performances might attain to twice that 
 speed. Thus, upon his disastrous return from Moscow the first 
 Napoleon, anxious to reach his capital in the shortest possible 
 time, rode in his traveling and sleeping carriage from Smorgoni 
 to Paris, a distance of 1,000 miles, between the 5th and loth of 
 
1 62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 December, 1812, and this speed of say 200 miles a day may 
 be considered as tbe utmost that man, with unlimited resources 
 at his command, could then accomplish on a thousand miles 
 journey. 
 
 Freight rates by wagon were twenty-seven cents a ton a mile 
 between London and I<eeds, and thirty cents a ton a mile be- 
 tween Iviverpool and Manchester. 
 
 All this has been changed by one mighty invention, bringing 
 in its train a multitude of other inventions. Steam came into 
 the world to transform into mechanical energy and speed the 
 light and heat of past ages, stored in the coal during the car- 
 boniferous period ; and applications to various means of trans- 
 port soon followed, so that to-day a fair day's journey for a 
 steamship may be stated at 400 miles, and runs of 500 miles in 
 twenty-four hours are not uncommon, while the distance of 
 1,000 miles, traveled by Napoleon in five days, can now be 
 done by rail in twenty-four hours without the necessity of 
 becoming an emperor to accomplish the feat. 
 
 Indeed, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the 
 improvements which have occurred in methods of transporta- 
 tion within a century is the fact, that they have chiefly bene- 
 fited the mass of the people. So that the man in moderate 
 circumstances now travels as rapidly and as cheaply as the 
 wealthy, and that enormous economies have been accomplished 
 in the transportation of freight and in the exchange of com- 
 modities. 
 
 All this, clearly, has been entirely the eflfect of invention. 
 Improvement has followed upon improvement, because inven- 
 tion has been more active and successful than at any period in 
 the world's history. 
 
 It would take much too long to pass in review, even in the 
 most cursory manner, the various steps through which this era 
 of invention has passed ; but now, practically, one hundred 
 years after the commercial acceptance of the steam engine by 
 the industrial world, it seems a good time to inquire, in a gen- 
 eral way, what has thus far been accomplished and what the 
 future may have in store for us. 
 
 It will be remembered that Fulton built the first commer- 
 cially successful steamboat in 1807, and that the "Savannah " 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 163 
 
 was the first steamship to cross the ocean in 18 19. In those 
 days, and for many years thereafter, the speeds of steam 
 vessels were srpall, and the consumption of fuel was great, say 
 four to ten pounds per horse-power per hour. Invention has 
 since been busy with the marine engine, and advancing step 
 by step it has now reduced the coal consumption to one and 
 three-quarter pounds per horse-power per hour, while the 
 speed has been increased 50 per cent. As stated by W. C. 
 Church, the biographer of Kricsson, it is now possible to carry 
 across the Atlantic 2,200 tons of freight with 800 tons of coal, 
 where it was in 1870 only possible to carry 800 tons of freight 
 with 2,200 tons of coal. 
 
 This is the result, it need scarcely be said, of the substitu- 
 tion of the screw-propeller for the paddle-wheel, of surface 
 condensation, of high steam pressures, and double, triple and 
 now quadruple expansion ; each of them a successive step 
 resulting in such growth, that steamers now plow every sea, 
 and their aggregate tonnage is nearly as large as that of the 
 sailing vessels. 
 
 The following table, compiled from data published in con- 
 nection with the large model of the globe at the Paris Exposi- 
 tion of 1889, exhibits the estimated number of sailing vessels 
 and steamships now belonging to the various nations of the 
 world : 
 
 Marine of Principal Nations. 
 
 COUNTRY. SAIWNG 
 
 No. 
 
 England 14.030 
 
 United States.— 5,900 
 
 France 2,050 
 
 Norway 3,660 
 
 Sweden 1,910 
 
 Germany 2,190 
 
 Italy 2,700 
 
 Spain 1,410 
 
 Russia 2, 1 50 
 
 Holland 910 
 
 Greece 1,380 
 
 Austria 
 
 Denmark 910 
 
 Other countries.. 3,040 
 
 VESSEI.S. 
 
 STEAMSHIPS. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 No. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 4,510,000 
 
 4,870 
 
 6,592,000 
 
 1,975,000 
 
 400 
 
 532.000 
 
 363,000 
 
 430 
 
 722,000 
 
 1,345.000 
 
 270 
 
 150.000 
 
 390,000 
 
 370 
 
 149,000 
 
 796,000 
 
 540 
 
 628,000 
 
 782,000 
 
 180 
 
 243,000 
 
 262,000 
 
 340 
 
 388,000 
 
 464,000 
 
 220 
 
 159,000 
 
 261,000 
 
 160 
 
 198,000 
 
 279,000 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 143,000 
 125,000 
 
 261,000 
 
 170 
 
 740,000 
 
 650 
 
 597,000 
 
1 64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 It is a source of regret that the United States has not main- 
 tained upon the sea the rank which it occupied earlier in the 
 century. It is now the second in sailing vessels and the fourth 
 as to steamships among the nations of the earth. Many reasons 
 have been assigned for this state of affairs, chief among which 
 are probably our navigation laws and the higher scale of 
 wages which prevails in this country, while vessels engaged in 
 the ocean trade have to compete with all nations. 
 
 It is just possible that some labor-saving inventions, ap- 
 plicable to steamship service, may diminish the relative im- 
 portance of the wages upon the aggregate cost, and eventually 
 enable us to occupy upon the sea the same position in the 
 world's advance, that the railway has given us upon the land. 
 
 The Railway. 
 
 In discussing the effect of invention upon the railroad, it may 
 be interesting to allude to its early history, which is now being 
 forgotten. 
 
 It seems to be popularly supposed that the railway dates no 
 further back than the I,iverpool and Manchester Railway in 
 1829. This, to be sure, was the first great success and com- 
 mercial recognition, but railways, like most human inventions, 
 had previously gone through a process of experiment, evolu- 
 tion and improvement, which prepared the way for the final 
 result. 
 
 Tramways had been used in operating coal mines in Eng- 
 land for many years. They were crude structures, generally 
 laid with cast-iron plates or rails about three feet long, and 
 worked by horse-power. 
 
 Trevithic built a fairly good locomotive in 1804, but the 
 road was not strong enough to carry it, and it was speedily 
 abandoned. Stephenson built his first locomotive in 18 14, and 
 he gradually improved upon its construction in subsequent 
 ■ locomotives placed upon the coal tramway with which he was 
 connected, until an opportunity was offered of embodying his 
 skill and experience in the three locomotives furnished to the 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway, of which he became the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 165 
 
 This was practically the first line built for public use and 
 intended to convey freight and passengers. It was twelve 
 miles long, and its opening, September 27, 1825, marks the 
 beginning of the present railway era. 
 
 Although it was a great advance upon what had been done 
 before, its construction was still crude and left plenty of room 
 for subsequent invention. About half of the track was laid 
 with cast-iron rails, and the remainder with wrought-iron rails, 
 weighing twenty-eight pounds to the yard. These were of the 
 " fish-bellied " pattern, being two inches in depth at the joints, 
 where they rested upon chairs, and three and one-quarter 
 inches deep in the middle or bellied part ; the top of the rail 
 being two and one-quarter inches broad, with the flange three- 
 quarters of an inch thick. 
 
 I remember seeing rails of this pattern still in use on a side 
 track at Bast Albany in 185 1, it having been the impression at 
 an early day among engineers that the best results were to 
 be obtained with rails, by following the practice which pre- 
 vailed for cast-iron girders. 
 
 For some years the Stockton and Darlington Railroad was 
 worked in a mixed sort of way, by both horses and locomo- 
 tives. The latter ran at speeds of four to six miles per hour, 
 although occasional performances of twelve to fourteen miles 
 per hour are recorded, and it was not till 1829, when at the 
 public competition of locomotives for the I,iverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway, the ' ' Rocket, ' ' built by Stephenson, attained 
 a speed of twenty-nine miles per hour, and the ' ' Novelty, ' ' by 
 Bricsson, ran at twenty-eight miles per hour, that the merits 
 of steam for railway propulsion became fully recognized, and 
 that the active nations of the world began commercially the 
 construction and operation of railways. 
 
 This commercial movement at once enormously stimulated 
 invention, and a host of ingenious men took up the various 
 problems connected with the railways. Experiment and im- 
 provement rapidly followed each other, and a large number of 
 inventions and devices were introduced in all departments, 
 including the track, the motive power, the rolling stock, and 
 the organization. 
 
 Indeed, these devices and inventions were so numerous, that 
 many which were fairly good have since been eliminated. 
 
1 66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Thus Messrs. Zerah Colburn and Alexander L. Holley, in 
 their report upon the " Permanent Way of European Rail- 
 ways," in 1858, described and figured no less than sixteen 
 systems of English track as the principal types of what had 
 been tried, and of these but three have survived. 
 
 For the sleepers or ties, stone blocks were used and found 
 too rigid ; timber was laid, both as longitudinal stringers and 
 as cross-ties, and many forms of cast-iron sleepers had been 
 experimented with before any cross-tie system, whether of 
 wood or of metal, became universally accepted. 
 
 For rails, after the "fish-bellied," came the strap rail and 
 its attendant snake heads. Then followed the edge rail, 
 whether double-headed or with a flat foot, the inverted " U " 
 rail, the "saddle-backed" rail bearing directly upon the 
 ballast, and a whole host of compound rails in several pieces, 
 together with an almost endless variety of joints, from the 
 cast-iron chair to the fish-plate, until the present time, when 
 the double-headed rail still obtains favor in Europe, while the 
 foot rail is uniformly used in this country ; there being in all 
 countries considerably less diversity of practice than there was 
 in 1858. 
 
 In locomotives almost numberless experiments have been 
 tried, and yet the improvement has been rather one of degree 
 than of kind. Stephenson's ' ' Rocket ' ' owed its superiority 
 over all predecessors to the simultaneous introduction in its 
 construction of the multitubular boiler, and of the steam 
 exhaust up the chimney to create draft over the fire ; and 
 these are still the distinctive features of modern locomotives. 
 
 These engines are, to be sure, much heavier, more simple, 
 and especially much more economical than their original pro- 
 totype, but the speeds are not considerably greater than were 
 obtained within the first few years of the railway era. 
 
 In rolling stock, a long series of successive inventions has 
 largely added to the comfort of passengers, and to the useful 
 freight load in proportion to the weight of the car ; while in 
 the organization, improvements in the methods of handling 
 business, among which may be mentioned signals and the 
 application of the telegraph, have very largely increased the 
 efficiency and diminished the cost. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 167 
 
 And since the telegraph has been mentioned, further refer- 
 ence may be made to the marvelous development of electrical 
 science and its applications within the railroad era. A century 
 ago Franklin had shown the dependence of certain phenomena 
 upon electricity, but it was still a scientific toy confined to 
 laboratory experiments. As soon, however, as Morse, Henry, 
 Vail and Wheatstone harnessed it to conveying thought, in 
 1845, it became the adjunct and indispensable companion of 
 the railway, and the telegraph line found its home upon the 
 railroad right of way. 
 
 I^ater on came the telephone and the domestic uses of elec- 
 trictity about our homes, in which it has proved such a nimble 
 and efiective servant, until these latter days when it has been 
 pressed into service to convey power as w§ll as intelligence, 
 and is now applied to the running of motors for hundreds of 
 purposes, and to the supplying of light and heat. 
 
 Probably the most remarkable growth among these purposes 
 has been for street railroads, of which nearly 3,000 miles have 
 been opened in the United States during the last five years, 
 which are operated by electric motors. These have been found 
 so much more rapid, economical and capable of overcoming 
 gradients than those operated by animal power, that the day 
 seems not very distant when the horse will be superseded on 
 the street railway line, just as he has been on the general 
 traffic railway. 
 
 . Allusion may also briefly be made to the effect of the rail- 
 road upon the art of bridge building. A century ago such 
 structures were comparatively few in number, and a span of 
 one hundred feet was considered a long one. Masonry was the 
 recognized material with which to build, but the necessities of 
 the railroad brought about an evolution, first with wood and 
 then with iron construction, which resulted last year in the 
 opening of the Forth Bridge, the greatest present achievement 
 in this art, with two channel spans each 1,710 feet in the clear, 
 and a clear headway of 150 feet under the bridge. 
 
 Whether these tremendous spans are to remain the limit, or 
 whether man will spin an iron web across still greater dis- 
 tances, will mainly depend upon the railroad necessities of the 
 future, for it is only the concentrated traffic of the railway 
 which will warrant such very expensive structures. 
 
1 68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Now, let us inquire as to what extent the various nations of 
 the earth have availed of the railway. 
 
 Progress in civilization may fairly be said to be dependent 
 upon the facilities for men to get about, upon their opportunity 
 for intercourse with other men and nations, not only in order 
 to supply their mutual needs cheaply, but to learn from each 
 other their wants, their discoveries and their inventions. 
 
 Prior to the invention of the steamer and of the railway such 
 opportunities were but few, so that there have been ages in the 
 world, that of the crusades for instance, where war itself was 
 not a wholly unmixed evil, in consequence of the beneficial 
 new ideas which it introduced among men. 
 
 In order to arrive at the railway mileage of the world I have 
 started from a table published in the last issue of "Poor's 
 Railroad Manual," which furnishes the statistics up to the 
 close of the year 1888. These are the latest data available, 
 and they have been compared with a similar statement pub- 
 lished in "Archiv fur Eisenbahmweser " covering the same 
 date, which shows 804 miles more than Poor's table. 
 
 From these tables, knowing the annual rate of recent in- 
 crease, which was 63,941 miles for the four years from 1884 to 
 1888 (say 16,000 miles a year), and allowing for decreasing 
 or increasing activity in the various countries, as chronicled 
 in the daily and the technical press, I think it is possible to 
 make an estimate which shall approximate closely to the 
 actual facts on the ist of January, 1891. Such a statement, 
 believed to be pretty nearly correct, will be found in the sub- 
 joined table. 
 
 Estimated Railroad Mileage, January, 1891. 
 
 r„„„t„. End 1888 Increase Estimated ^H™ated tiou'iDer 
 
 Country. ^^^^^_ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^ tiv5°" ^°P"'^"°°' mile rf 
 
 railway 
 
 United States 155,801 10,724 166,525 33,200 62,600,000 376 
 
 Canada 12.764 1,236 14,000 2,660 5,300,000 378 
 
 Mexico 4,168 632 4,800 770 11,000,000 2,292 
 
 Central America... 1,900 200 2,100 420 8,100,000 3,857 
 
 North America 174.633 12,792 187,425 37,050 87,000,000 464 
 
 South America 13,850 2,150 16,000 2,880 32,000,000 2,000 
 
 Europe 132.836 8,164 141.000 64,860 347,000,000 :.!,46i 
 
 Asia 17.618 2,382 20,000 4200 789,000,000 39,450 
 
 Africa 5,152 848 6,000 960 197,000,000 32,833 
 
 Australia 10,409 2,591 13,000 2,340 38,000,000 2,933 
 
 Totals 354.498 28,927 383,425 112,290 1,490,000,000 3,886 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 169 
 
 From this it seems to appear that there are at the present 
 time 383,425 miles of railroad in the world, operated by 
 112,290 locomotives, without including street lines in cities, at 
 mines or in .connection with various industrial enterprises. Of 
 these, 187,425 miles, or nearly one-half, are in North America, 
 and the latter, if placed end to end, would reach around the 
 earth seven and one-half times, without counting the double, 
 triple or quadruple tracks, or the sidings. The total mileage 
 of the globe would encompass it fifteen and one-half times, 
 and would reach more than one and a-half times to the moon 
 (237,840 miles), if there were only supporting ground to lay 
 the track upon. 
 
 It is estimated that there are 112,290 locomotives, and as a 
 fair average will give them about 500 horse-power each, they 
 are seen to be equivalent to no less than 56,145,000 horses. 
 
 It will be noticed how tardy some of the oldest nations have 
 been in availing of this improved means of inter-communica- 
 tion. The 789,000,000 inhabitants of Asia, for instance, 
 have but 20,000 miles of railway, this being chiefly in British 
 India. If the whole world were as well provided for in this 
 respect as North America, where there are 2,154 miles of rail- 
 road for each million inhabitants, there would be on this earth 
 more than 3,000,000 miles in the aggregate, or eight times the 
 present mileage. 
 
 There is therefore still a good deal for the railway builders 
 and organizers to do, and foreign fields may yet be opened to 
 the energy of Europeans and North Americans, should some 
 of the Asiatic nations, like China, for instance, enter upon 
 an epoch of railroad construction, or have the good fortune, 
 like India, to fall into strong hands. 
 
 Perhaps the latter country exhibits more than any other the 
 beneficial effects of railway construction. Before the British 
 conquest it was very poor, torn by internal strifes and subject 
 to periodical famines. Now it is successfully exporting wheat 
 in competition with the United States and Russia, and it is 
 also supplanting China in the production of tea, a fact as yet 
 but little appreciated ; while in the meantime, wages, though 
 still low, have more than doubled within the century. 
 
lyo PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 In Africa there are 6,000 miles. We have all been following 
 with deep interest the various journeys of Mr. Stanley across 
 this continent. Each of them occupied nearly three years of 
 tremendous effort, and the thought that the actual distance 
 traversed from coast to coast could have been gone over by rail- 
 road in three or four days, may cause us to realize the economy 
 of labor and of time which has been brought into the world by 
 the effects of invention on the railroad. 
 
 It is almost impossible to estimate in money, even approxi- 
 mately, what has been the economical effect upon the world. 
 There have been so many concurrent causes in the increase of 
 wealth that it seems impracticable to isolate any one of them. 
 We may, however, gain some idea by estimating what the 
 present volume of traffic would cost at prices prevailing a cen- 
 tury or less ago, and for this purpose we may select the United 
 States. 
 
 It has been said that the cost of freight hauling was 27 and 
 30 cents a ton a mile in England. In this country it used to 
 be 20 cents a ton a mile between New York and Buffalo before 
 the opening of the canal, and within thirty-five years it was 
 29 cents a ton a mile across the plains from the Missouri River 
 to Denver. In order to avoid all possible cavil as to the cost 
 being diminished by increased volume of traffic, we will assume 
 a freight rate of 16 cents a ton a mile, which corresponds to the 
 hauling of a ton of goods on a turnpike twenty-five miles per 
 day at an average cost of $4.00. 
 
 For passenger rates we will assume that a century ago they 
 were 10 cents per mile. Now, the freight traffic of the railroads 
 of the United States in 1889 was equal to 68,604,012,396 tons 
 miles, and the passenger business was 11,965,726,015 passen- 
 gers one mile. If we carry these out at the assumed prices, 
 and deduct from the account (in which the miscellaneous earn- 
 ings are included at the same figure on both sides to make it 
 complete) the actual amounts collected by the railroads from 
 the people in 1889, we have the following balance sheet : 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 171 
 
 National Balance Sheet with Railroads, 1889. 
 
 68,604,012,396 ton miles of freight, @ i6c $10,976,641,983 
 
 111965,726,015 passenger miles, @ loc 1,196,572,601 
 
 Miscellaneous earnings 66,685,396 
 
 Total earnings at prices of 1791 $12,239,899,980 
 
 I^ess freight earnings, 1889 $666,530,653 
 
 I<ess passenger earnings, 1889... 259,640,807 
 
 I<ess miscellaneous earn'gs, 1889. 66,685,396 992,856,856 
 
 Estimated national saving $11,247,043,124 
 
 Which is more for one year than the entire cost of our rail- 
 roads, as represented by their stock, bonded debts, liabilities 
 and current amounts, which in 1889 aggregated a sum of 
 $9,931,453, 146. So that the annual saving to the nation, over 
 the prices prevailing in 1791, seems to be greater than the 
 whole capital invested in railroads, if we assume the possi- 
 bility of the volume of traffic having been the same. 
 
 This assumption is, of course, a fallacy, because the prices 
 prevailing a century ago would have been largely prohibitory, 
 and the volume of traffic would be much smaller, yet this 
 estimated national saving may bring some comfort to the 
 citizens who think that the rapidly-vanishing railroad rates do 
 not go down fast enough, and who say that these corporations 
 are impoverishing the people. 
 
 We may also gain some idea as to how greatly the improved 
 means of inter-communication have benefited other countries 
 which have availed of them, by considering the vastly-increased 
 scale of national expenditures which prevail among them, as 
 compared with their national expenses a century ago. Some of 
 them, indeed, are now enabled to keep a considerable portion 
 of their working population in idleness, in their standing 
 armies, and yet the comfort and prosperity of the remainder is 
 far greater than that of their people a hundred years ago, while 
 among those nations in Asia and Africa which have failed to 
 avail of the new methods of transportation, wages are still very 
 low, and occasional famines still prevail. 
 
 But man is still unsatisfied with what has been accomplished, 
 and all over the civilized world invention is still trying to im- 
 
172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 prove means of transport. The sea, the land, the air, are being- 
 experimented upon to gain higher speeds or more economical 
 modes of transit. 
 
 It may be perhaps doubted whether greater cheapness will 
 be attained than with the steamer or the railroad, but it is 
 believed that greater speeds are possible in the near future. 
 
 On the sea the great transatlantic steamers have attained 
 within the past two years speeds of twenty and twenty-one 
 knots per hour ; while various experimenters hope to get, with, 
 novel means of propulsion, the fabulous speed of thirty to forty 
 miles per hour. 
 
 Upon the laad inventors calmly talk of superseding the 
 present maximum railroad speed of 70 miles an hour with 
 velocities of 120 to 150 miles per hour. Recent developments 
 in electrical science have given good hopes for this, and 
 both European and American inventors are experimenting. 
 Among the latter may bfe mentioned the " Weems Electric" 
 system, by which speeds of 115 miles per hour have already 
 been attained on a most imperfect track ; the ' ' Williams Porte- 
 Electric ' ' system, of attracting forward at high velocities, a rail- 
 road car forming a magnetic core, through a series of helices or 
 coils charged with an electric current, and the ' ' Chemin de 
 Fer Glissant ' ' system or water borne railroad cars which was 
 exhibited at the Paris Exposition of i88g. 
 
 Allusion may be made to the ' ' bicycle locomotive, ' ' with 
 which it is claimed that far greater speed can be obtained than 
 with the engines in general use ; the principal object of in- 
 ventors in every case seeming to be to gain highet velocities 
 than those which have hitherto been found practicable. 
 
 In the air, man gazes at the birds and longs to imitate them. 
 I know personally of eight or ten perfectly sane men in the 
 United States, in England, in France, in Australia, and in 
 Egypt, who are experimenting with flying machines — not 
 dirigible balloons, with which a measure of success has already 
 been accomplished, although only low velocities are to be 
 expected from them, but real flying machines, depending like 
 the birds upon the reactions of the air for their support. 
 
 Of these experimenters, probably the best equipped is Mr. 
 Maxim, the inventor of an electric light and of the automatic 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. iTh 
 
 i 
 
 machine gun, who made the remarkable statement last No- 
 vember, in a letter to the New York Times, that his experi- 
 ments-show that as much as 133 pounds may be sustained in 
 the air by the expenditure of one horse-power ; that he has 
 succeeded in making a motor which will develop one horse- 
 power for every six pounds of weight, and that a speed of 100 
 miles per hour would seem to be attainable. 
 
 If his experiments, which are now being carried on in Eng- 
 land on a large and skillful scale, succeed as he hopes, or if 
 some other of the many inventors who are working on the 
 problem hits upon the right combination, there seems to be no 
 reason why man may not emulate eventually the flight of the 
 swallow, whose speed is computed at 150 miles per hour, or 
 that of the swifter martin, which is said to flash through the 
 air at the rate of 200 miles per hour. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 175 
 
 THE INVENTORS OF THK TEIyEGRAPH AND 
 TEI.EPHONE. 
 
 By Thomas Gray, C. E., F. R. S. E., Professor op Dynamic En- 
 gineering, Rose Poi,ytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Ind. 
 
 The word telegraph was iutroduced about one hundred years 
 ago as a name for a means of conveying intelligence to a dis- 
 tance by means of signs. The signs were produced in a variety 
 of ways, as for example, by the shapes or positions of bodies 
 placed on high poles, or by letters or words of sufficient magni- 
 tude similarly exposed. The meaning of the word telegraph, 
 interpreted by its original use, would thus be to write or make 
 signs at one place in such a way that they could be read or 
 interpreted at a distant place. It appears, therefore, that so 
 long as we confine our attention to early methods of telegraph- 
 ing, the signs or signals were made at the sending station and 
 read from the receiving station. Modern usage gives a slightly 
 different meaning to the word, namely, a means of producing 
 visible, audible or written signs at a distance. That is to say, 
 the signs are to be produced at the receiving station. This 
 was first accomplished on an extensive scale and at great 
 distances by means of electricity. Methods of transmitting 
 sounds, or even speech, to moderate distances by means of tubes 
 and by means of what we now call string or mechanical tele- 
 phones have, however, been known for several centuries. 
 
 Methods of conveying intelligence to a distance have been 
 known and used from very early times. Fires seem to have 
 been the earliest means employed for giving signals, and we 
 find such signs referred to in the writings of the Prophet Jere- 
 miah, of Eschylus, of Polynius and others. Schottus, in his 
 " Technica Curiosa," proposes the application of the telescope 
 to view posts erected on an eminence at a distant station, and 
 on which signs were to be placed. The Marquis of Worcester, 
 in his " Century of Inventions," enumerates a day and a night 
 telegraph ; and Kessler, in his " Concealed Arts," proposes to 
 
176 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 cut out letters in boards and make them visible at a distance 
 by placing them over the end of a cask in which a light is 
 burning, the letters or other characters being exposed in 
 proper succession any message can be transmitted. 
 
 One of the earliest telegraphs of which we have now a direct 
 representative was the iiag signals introduced about the middle 
 of the seventeenth century by the Duke of York (afterwards 
 James II of England), who was at that time admiral of the 
 English fleet. This was the beginning of the flag telegraph still 
 used for communicating between ships at sea ; originally intro- 
 duced for the purpose of directing the manoeuvres of the fleet. 
 In 1684 Dr. Robert Hook communicated to the Royal Society of 
 I,ondon a proposal for a telegraph. In this method the signs 
 were to consist of bodies of difierent shapes placed on high 
 poles in an exposed position. Some years afterwards a similar 
 method was proposed to the Academy of Sciences by M. Amon- 
 tons, a French natural philosopher. In 1767 Mr. R. 'L,. Edge- 
 worth proposed to telegraph by means of the arms of a wind- 
 mill, the positions of the arms of the mill to be used to indicate 
 the signals. In 1784 the same author proposes to make the 
 signals indicate numbers, and to interpret bj' means of vocabu- 
 laries of numbered words. In 1794 the semaphore telegraph 
 of M. Chappe was adopted by the French government. This 
 telegraph consisted of a high post and two bars of timber, the 
 middle of one pivoted to one end of the other, and the free end 
 of this second bar pivoted to the top of the post, so that the 
 whole of the motions could take place in a vertical plane. The 
 positions, relative to the vertical or horizontal, of the two arms 
 indicated the signal. These and other modifications of the 
 semaphore have been at various times used, and are still used 
 on railwaj's for train signals. 
 
 The chief interest of these early telegraphs, a great many 
 forms of which might be enumerated, is in illustrating the 
 fact that some means of conveying intelligence to a distance 
 quickly and without a messenger has, from the earliest times, 
 been recognized as of great importance. It is well also to keep 
 before us the things that have been done in earlier times when 
 we attempt to j udge of the advances which have been made by 
 modern invention. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 177 
 
 The telegraph of to-day is almost entirely electrical, and in 
 its present form it is of comparatively recent growth. It may 
 be -well, however, in this branch also to glance briefly at the 
 early history of the subject. To begin with what we may 
 call the fable period, we find in the year 1617 an allusion in 
 one of Strada's " Prolusiones Academicse " to the belief that 
 there existed a sympathy between needles which had been 
 touched by a species of loadstone, which caused them always 
 to set parallel to each other if they were free to take up such 
 positions. Two such needles it was said, could be used to 
 convey intelligence to any distance, because if they were 
 pivoted on cards marked with letters or words and the card 
 properly placed, so that corresponding letters occupied similar 
 positions, when one needle was made to point to any letter or 
 mark the other needle would immediately point to the corre- 
 sponding mark on its card. The same belief is referred to by 
 Galileo in one of his dialogues in 1632, and again by the Abbe 
 Barthelemy in a work entitled ' ' Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, ' ' 
 published in 1788. So far this may be said to be mere fable, 
 but it gives an idea of what were then looked upon as possibili- 
 ties in magnetism, and we can hardly help comparing with 
 these ideas some almost equally extraordinary ones which are 
 occasionally expressed at the present day with respect to 
 electricity. 
 
 The discovery of Stephen Gray, in 1729, that the electrical 
 influence could be conveyed to a distance by means of an insu- 
 lated wire, is probably the first of direct influence in connec- 
 tion with telegraphy. As a result of this discovery, and the 
 investigations which followed it, we find a considerable number 
 of proposals to use electrical forces for the transmission of 
 intelligence. The first of these of which there is any record 
 was made by Charles Morrison, of Renfrew, Scotland, in a letter 
 to Scot's Magazine, written in 1753, and signed " C. M." As 
 many insulated wires as there were characters to be signaled 
 were to be erected between the two stations. At the receiving 
 station the ends of the diSerent wires were to be connected to 
 a series of balls, underneath which the characters, printed on 
 light pieces of paper, were to be placed. If any one of the 
 wires became electrified by the distant end being put in contact 
 
178 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 with the source of electricity, the character under the ball on 
 the end of it would be attracted and thus indicate the signal. 
 An interesting modification was suggested in the same letter, 
 namely, to replace the balls by a series of bells of different 
 pitch, arranged in such a way that when the wires became 
 electrified they would discharge into the bells and cause them 
 to sound: .... "the electric spark, breaking on bells of 
 different size, will inform his correspondent by the sound what 
 wires have been touched ; and thus, by some practice they may 
 come to understand the language of the chimes in whole words 
 without being put to the trouble of noting down every letter. ' ' 
 A similar telegraph was invented in 1767 by Joseph Bozolus, a 
 Jesuit and a lecturer on natural philosophy in Rome. (See a I^atin 
 poem, entitled ' ' Mariani Parthenii Electrocorum, " in VI I^ibros, 
 Roma, 1767, p. 34). In 1774 a telegraph on the same principle 
 was established by I,e Sage. In this system each wire term- 
 inated in a pith-ball electroscope, and the signals were read in 
 accordance with the indications of these electroscopes, of 
 which twenty-four were used. This telegi-aph was improved 
 upon by Lomond in 1787, one wire only being used, and a 
 code of signals forming the means of interpretation. A 
 similar proposal was made by Betancourt in the same year 
 and again by Cavallo in 1795. The latter proposed to use 
 combinations of sparks as a code of signals. In 1794 Reizen 
 proposed to cut letters out of tinfoil, leaving a series of short 
 interruptions of the tinfoil at short distances apart, so that a 
 discharge of electricity around the tinfoil would illuminate the 
 letter by a series of sparks. This method of producing illumin- 
 ated patterns is still a common class-room experiment in phj'si- 
 cal lectures. The next to propose the use of static electricity 
 for telegraphic purposes seems to have been Ronalds, of Ham- 
 mersmith, in 18 16. In this telegraph the letters were printed 
 on a disk which was mounted on the seconds arbor of a clock. 
 One of the clocks was placed at the sending and the receiving 
 stations, and arranged to bring corresponding letters simul- 
 taneously opposite a small window in the dial of the clock. 
 When the proper letter was exposed a signal was sent by 
 means of a pith-ball telegraph. This telegraph was more com- 
 plicated than several which have been mentioned above, and 
 required two clocks going synchronously. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 179 
 
 In the year 1767 an important observation was made by 
 Sulzer. He found that when two plates of different metals 
 were placed one above and the other below the tongue, a 
 peculiar sensation and taste was felt when the metals touched 
 each other outside the tongue. Sulzer failed to find the expla- 
 nation of this phenomenon, and no further advance was made 
 until the well-known frog experiments of Galvani gave fresh 
 impetus to the subject. The discoveries of Volta and the 
 invention of the voltaic pile shortly followed. In the same 
 year (1800) an attempt to close the circuit of a voltaic battery 
 by means of a drop of water led Nicholson and Carlisle to the 
 discovery that water is decomposed by the galvanic current. 
 
 This gave rise to the galvanic or electrolysis telegraphs of 
 Sommering, Coxe and Sharpe, and is the basis of all the 
 chemical printing and copying telegraphs which have in more 
 recent times been produced. Sommering' s telegraph was in- 
 vented in 1809, and was similar in principle to that of Morrison, 
 except that the decomposition of water and consequent accumu- 
 lation of gas in a series of tubes gave the necessary indications. 
 To call attention, it was proposed in connection with the tele- 
 graph to liberate an alarm by means of an accumulation of gas. 
 Professor Coxe, of Pennsylvania, described a similar telegraph 
 in 18 ID, and proposed to use either the decomposition of water 
 or of metallic salts. Mr. J. R. Sharpe proposed a voltaic 
 telegraph in 1813, and exhibited it before the Lords of the 
 Admiralty, "who spoke approvingly of it, but added, that as 
 war was over and money scarce, they could not carry it into 
 effect." (See Repertory of Arts, Second Series, Vol. XXIX, 
 P- 23). 
 
 Perhaps the most important electrical discovery in its influ- 
 ence on telegraphy was made by Romagn^si, of Trente, in 1805, 
 but received little attention and no development until it was 
 rediscovered by Oersted in 1819. This was the discovery that 
 a wire conveying an electric current is capable of deflecting a 
 magnetic needle. In the following year Schweigger discovered 
 that the deflecting force was increased when he wound the wire 
 several times round the needle. These two discoveries formed 
 the foundation for the construction of the galvanoscopes and 
 galvanometers since so much used in connection with electrical 
 
l8o PROCEEDINGS Oh THE CONGRESS. 
 
 appliances and measurements. One of the most extensive 
 applications has been to telegraphy. 
 
 Galvanoscopic, or, as they have been more common!)'- called, 
 needle telegraphs resulted very shortly from these discoveries. 
 In this field of invention we find, prominent among the early 
 workers, the distinguished names of Ampere, Gauss and 
 Weber. Ampere proposed a multiple wire telegraph with 
 galvanoscope indicators in 1820. A modification of Ampere's 
 telegraph was carried out by Ritchie, and afterwards exhibited 
 in Edinburgh by Alexander. In this telegraph thirty wires 
 were used, twenty-six for the letters of the alphabet, three for 
 signs of punctuation and one for the end of a v/ord. The gal- 
 vanoscope needles each carried a small screen which in its 
 normal position covered the. letter, but which, on the passage 
 of a current through the wire, vras drawn aside exposing the 
 letter to view. The transmitting keys were arranged like the 
 keys of a piano-forte. With the exception of the use of gal- 
 vanic instead of static electricity this telegraph was not much 
 in advance of the proposal of Morrison. A single circuit tele- 
 graph was invented in the 5'ear 1828 by Tribaoillet, who also 
 used a galvanoscope as the indicator. 
 
 In 1832 a five-needle telegraph was invented by Schilling, 
 who also used a single needle and single circuit telegraph, 
 using reverse currents and combinations of signals for an alpha- 
 bet. Models of this telegraph were made and exhibited before 
 the Emperor Alexander and others, but Schilling unfortunately 
 died before any practical result was attained. In 1833 Schill- 
 ing's telegraph was developed to some extent bj' Gauss and 
 Weber, who used it for experimental purposes. The chief 
 modification introduced by these experimenters was the sub- 
 stitution of induced currents, produced by the motion of a coil 
 of wire surrounding a bar magnet, for the galvanic currents 
 used by Schilling. The following translation of a part of a 
 report of the magnetic observations of these physicists given 
 in Poggandorf 's Annalen, 32, p. 568, is quoted from " Sabine's 
 Electric Telegraph," "There is, in connection with these 
 arrangements, a great and until now in its way novel project, 
 for which we are indebted to Professor Weber. This gentle- 
 man erected during the past year a double-wire line over the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. i8i 
 
 houses of the town (Gottingen) from the Physical Cabinet to 
 the Observatorj'-, and lately a continuation from the latter 
 building to the Magnetic Observatory ; thus an immense gal- 
 vanic chain (line) is formed, in which the galvanic current, 
 the two multipliers at the ends being included, has to travel a 
 distance of nearly 9,000 (Prussian) feet. The line wire is 
 mostly of copper, of that known in commerce as 'No. 3,' of 
 "which one metre weighs eight grammes. The wire of the 
 multipliers in the Magnetic Observatory of copper, 'No. 14,' 
 silvered, and of which one gramme measures 2.6 metres. 
 This arrangement promises to offer opportunities for a number 
 of interesting experiments. We regard, not without admira- 
 tion, how a single pair of plates, brought into contact at the 
 further end, instantaneously communicates a movement to the 
 magnetic bar, which is deflected at once for over a thousand 
 ■divisions of the scale." And further on in the same report : 
 ' ' The ease and certainty with which the manipulator has the 
 ■direction of the current, and therefore the movement of the 
 magnetic needle, in his command, by means of the communi- 
 'Cator, had a year ago suggested experiments of an application 
 to telegraphic signaling, which, with whole words and even 
 short sentences, completely succeeded. There is no doubt 
 that it would be possible to arrange an uninterrupted telegraph 
 communication in the same way between two places at a con- 
 siderable number of miles distance from each other. ' ' 
 
 The method of producing the currents in Gauss and Weber's 
 experiments was an application of the important discoveries of 
 Faraday and Henry in the induction of currents by currents 
 and by magnets, which have since borne so very important 
 fruit in the field of dynamo-electric machinery. 
 
 On the recommendation of Gauss this telegraph was taken 
 up by Steinheil, who following their example also used induced 
 currents. The important contributions of Steinheil were the 
 discovery of the earth circuit, made while attempting to use 
 the rails of a railway as telegraphic conductors ; the invention 
 of a telegraphic alphabet and a recording telegraph. Of these 
 the discovery of the earth circuit, made in 1837, has proved of 
 great value. An interesting description of Steinheil' s tele- 
 ^aph, together with illustrations of the magneto-electric and 
 
1 82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 recording apparatus used on the line erected in 1837, between 
 Munich and Bogenhausen, will be found in Sturgeon's "Annals- 
 of Electricity," (Vol. III). This account, written by Steinheil 
 himself, shows that he had at that time an excellent apprecia- 
 tion both of the mechanical and electrical properties which a 
 good practical electric telegraph should have, and also that he 
 was well versed in the knowledge then existing of electrical 
 science. The relative merits of scopic, acoustic and recording 
 telegraphs are discussed, and the advantages, which experience- 
 has since brought into prominence, of the acoustic telegraph is 
 pointed out. A very good discussion of the most economical 
 method of arranging signals for a telegraphic alphabet will also 
 be found in this paper. 
 
 Schilling's telegraph, which we have just seen, was the model 
 on which Gauss and Weber's and, therefore, also Steinheil's. 
 telegraphs were based, was, as we shall see presently, also the 
 basis of Cooke's, and of Cooke and Wheatstone's needle tele- 
 graphs. 
 
 Previous to the date which we have now reached (1837) an- 
 other epoch-making discovery had been made, which has had 
 great influence on telegraphy. This was the discovery of the 
 magnetizing influence of the current. The discovery of Oersted 
 was followed up by Ampere in a long series of researches, in 
 which, among other things, he established the mutual attrac- 
 tions and repulsions of wires carrying currents, the fact that the 
 voltaic element itself acts on a magnet like any other part of 
 the circuit, and that a spiral of wire forming part of a circuit 
 would magnetize steel needles. In the same year M. Arago 
 found that a wire conveying an electric current attracted iron 
 filings, and in 1824 the law of the variation of magnetic force 
 with varying distance from the wire was investigated by Bar- 
 low. In 1825, Sturgeon found that a bar of soft iron was ren- 
 dered temporarily magnetic if surrounded by a helix of -nire 
 through which an electric current was passing. In the year 
 1827, Ohm propounded his celebrated law of the conduction of 
 currents. In 1831, Faraday in England, and Henry in America, 
 discovered the induction of currents by currents and by mag- 
 nets. We see from these leading facts that in the twelve years 
 succeeding Oersted's discovery the knowledge of electricity and 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 183 
 
 of magnetism in the directions important for telegraphic appli- 
 cation was very great, and we shall see that it quickly bore 
 fruit. 
 
 Schilling's telegraph was exhibited at a meeting of German 
 naturalists held at Bonn in 1835, and was there seen by Prof. 
 Muncke, of Heidelberg, who, after his return to Heidelberg, 
 made models of the telegraph and exhibited them in his class- 
 room. These models were seen by Cooke in the early part of 
 1836, and gave him the idea of introducing the electric tele- 
 graph in England. Cooke immediately set to work to construct 
 a telegraph on a similar plan, and worked out a three-needle 
 system of signals, which has been to some extent confounded 
 with the five-needle telegraph afterwards patented and intro- 
 duced by him in conjunction with Wheatstone. While arrang- 
 ing for experiments on the lyondon and Manchester Railway, 
 Cooke was introduced to Wheatstone, and afterwards consulted 
 him as to difficulties he had met with in his experiments. A 
 partnership soon followed, which led Wheatstone to devote 
 considerable attention to the subject. The result has been the 
 production of a considerable variety of telegraphic apparatus 
 of great value and ingenuity. 
 
 Steinheil was anticipated in the idea of making the electric 
 telegraph self-recording by Morse, of New York, who, accord- 
 ing to a considerable amount of evidence brought forward by 
 Morse himself, thought out some arrangement as early as 1832. 
 Exactly what Morse's first ideas were seems somewhat doubtful, 
 and he did nothing till 1835, when he made a rough model of 
 an electro-magnetic recording telegraph. This telegraph con- 
 sisted essentially of a pendulum, which carried a marking 
 pencil on its lower end, and which could be deflected by an 
 electro-magnet. The deflections of the pendulum were re- 
 corded on a band of paper, which was moved forward by clock- 
 work under the pendulum, and simple combinations of deflec- 
 tions were to represent numbers. The interpretation of the 
 message was to be made by means of a telegraphic dictionary, 
 in which the words, phrases or sentences were to be numbered. 
 There was no hint at this time of the alphabet with which we 
 are now so familiar as the "Morse Code" or the "Morse 
 Alphabet." This alphabet now almost universally used and 
 
1 84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 which has probably done more than anything else towards 
 perpetuating the name of Morse, being that which perpetuates 
 the name " Morse System," was not invented by Morse but by 
 Vail, who was associated with him in the development of the tele- 
 graph. The dictionary- of numbered words proposed by Morse 
 was proposed by Edgeworth in 1794 in connection with his 
 semaphore telegraph. The model made in 1835 shows little 
 mechanical ingenuity. The method of transmitting the signals, 
 which was by means of type moved through a contact-making 
 device, was somewhat crude and much less convenient than 
 the simple make-and-break circuit devices of several previous 
 workers, and the electro-magnet used to deflect the pendulum 
 showed almost complete ignorance of the principles then known 
 of electro-magnetism. The chief points of interest in connec- 
 tion with the early history of the Morse telegraph lie in the 
 proposal to use electro-magnetism as the motive force to move 
 the recording pendulum and the idea of making the telegraph 
 self-recording. Morse made positive claims to have been the 
 first to do both of these, and it seems proper that his claim 
 should be examined. 
 
 After the discovery of Sturgeon in electro-magnetism became 
 known among scientific men the subject was taken up by Pro- 
 fessor Henry, who was then teaching phj-sics in Albany 
 Academy. An account of part of Henry's experiments was 
 published in " Silliman's American Journal of Science" for 
 January, April and July, 1831. 
 
 The following, among other things, were subjects of investi- 
 gation in these experiments : The laws which govern the mag- 
 netizing effect of a helix under varying conditions as to num- 
 ber of turns in the helix, nature or arrangement of the battery, 
 and length of the external circuit. The carrying power of 
 magnets having different kinds of winding and different 
 lengths of wire in the coils. The construction of an electro- 
 magnetic engine. The transmission of power to a distance by 
 means of his electro-magnetic engine. Among the applica- 
 tions were the closing of a distant electric circuit by means of 
 the armature of an electro magnet, the coils of which were in- 
 cluded in another circuit passing through an operating or 
 transmitting station, and the transmission of signals to a dis- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 185 
 
 tance by causing the armature of an electro-magnet to strike a 
 bell each time a current was sent through the coils of the mag- 
 net from the transmitting station. The latter of these applica- 
 tions was illustrated by means of a model apparatus included 
 in a long circuit of wire taken several times round one of the 
 rooms in Albany Academ5'. The following claims made in 
 this connection by Professor Henry are well founded, and de- 
 serve quotation : 
 
 " I. Previous to my investigations the means of developing 
 magnetism in soft iron were imperfectly understood, and the 
 electro-magnet which then existed was inapplicable to the 
 transmission of power to a distance. ' ' 
 
 "2. I was the first to prove, by actual experiment, that in 
 order to develop magnetic power at a distance a galvanic bat- 
 tery of ' intensity ' must be employed to project the current 
 through the long conductor, and that a magnet surrounded by 
 manj^ turns of one long wire must be used to receive this cur- 
 rent. ' ' 
 
 "3. I was the first to actually magnetize a piece of soft iron 
 at a distance, and to call attention to the fact of the applica- 
 "bility of my experiments to the telegraph." 
 
 "4. I was the first to actually sound a bell at a distance by 
 means of the electro-magnet." 
 
 "5. The principles I had developed were applied by Dr. 
 Gale to render Morse's machine effective at a distance." 
 
 It is to Henry, undoubtedly, that is due the credit not only 
 of first pointing out the application of electro-magnetism to^ 
 telegraphy, but also of supplying the requisite knowledge of 
 how to make magnets suitable for the transmission of signals 
 through long distances, which rendered the practical applica- 
 tion possible at that time. Besides this, we see that Henry 
 actually constructed an experimental line and made the first 
 electro-magnetic sounder, which consisted of a receiving mag- 
 net with a polarized armature, one end of which was attracted 
 bj' the magnet and the other end made to sound a bell. Again,, 
 in the method of closing one circuit by means of a magnet in 
 another circuit, we have the electro-magnetic relay, afterwards, 
 reinvented by Morse and others, and now very widely used on 
 long telegraph circuits both for closing "local circuits" and 
 for "translation." 
 
l86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The credit of inventing the electro-magnetic telegraph was 
 claimed by and has usually been, popularly at least, given to 
 Morse. There has been some dispute as to who first suggested 
 the idea, it having arisen out of a conversation among the 
 passengers on board the ship Sully during a passage from 
 France to New York in 1832. Dr. Jackson, of Boston, claimed 
 to have been the originator of the idea, and it seems not un- 
 likely that information which he is said to have given with 
 reference to the early experimental telegraphs then being 
 worked on and exhibited in various parts of Europe did orig- 
 inate the idea. It is not clear, however, that the use of the 
 electro-magnet was suggested by Jackson, and there is sufficient 
 evidence to show that Morse had had opportunities of seeing a 
 copy of Sturgeon's magnet in Professor Dana's laboratory in 
 New York. The magnet made by Morse was itself almost an 
 exact copy of this, and it was only after failure with it that he 
 appealed to Dr. Gale for assistance. Dr. Gale gave the necessary 
 information and supplied the materials for making the change, 
 afterwards informing Morse that he had learned how to ar- 
 range such an apparatus from the writings of Professor Henry. 
 Probably the idea of using an electro-magnet was original with 
 Morse. He didn't know of Henry's work or, indeed, anything 
 about the subject beyond the few experiments in which he had 
 seen Sturgeon's magnet used, and would naturally turn to that 
 means of obtaining motive force. It is not necessary, however, 
 when giving Morse due credit for his originality to ignore the 
 fact that, although unknown to him, the scientific part of the 
 invention had already been worked out by Henry, and besides 
 that, through Dr. Gale, Morse actually made use of Henry's 
 discoveries before he succeeded in making his scheme practica- 
 ble. Morse afterwards objected to Henry's claims, which were 
 brought before the public by enforced testimony in the law 
 courts, and not by any individual motion on Henry's part. 
 The public have lauded Morse and have paid him liberally for 
 -the little he actually did, while it was with great difficulty that 
 Congress could be persuaded to make a petty allowance to 
 Henry's family, although he had been for many years a public 
 servant, and besides had probably added more than any other 
 man to the scientific reputation of the United States. Many 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 187 
 
 people think that scientific men ought not to patent their dis- 
 coveries. Which is the better known name, Henry or Morse ? 
 Would not Henry have gained both in popularit}'' and in scien- 
 tific reputation if he had patented and made the public pay 
 liberally for his discoveries ? 
 
 From the brief sketch just given it will be seen that in look- 
 ing over the history of the early endeavors to produce a 
 telegraph many ideas have been brought forward as to codes 
 of signals, alphabets, telegraphic dictionaries, methods of calling 
 attention by alarm apparatus, methods of arranging and oper- 
 ating the circuits, and so on, that only required an efficient 
 motive force to render them practical and reliable systems. In 
 looking over the subject, therefore, we are forced to the conclu- 
 sion that the telegraph was not the invention of any man, but 
 the result of a gradual growth towards which many minds, 
 some of them the ablest the scientific world has known, have 
 contributed. 
 
 We have now reached a stage in the history of this subject 
 when inventors may be said to have had the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of the subject, as it now stands, before them and we 
 have simply to look for developments. These developments 
 have been great and of a very varied character. It is impossible 
 in this address to do more than sketch a few of their leading 
 features. 
 
 As already stated the telegraph of Schilling, through a 
 model exhibited by Professor Muncke, of Heidelberg, gave the 
 idea of an electric telegraph to Cooke in the year 1836. It 
 appears, also, that Wheatstone was aware of these early ex- 
 periments, and had himself paid some attention to the subject. 
 His experiments on the velocity of electricity, made in 1834, 
 are sufficient to show that he was at that time aware that sig- 
 nals could be produced at the end of long circuits of wire by 
 electrical means. The joint work of Cooke and Wheatstone 
 led, within a few years, to considerable improvements in the 
 needle telegraphs. The various forms of needle telegraph 
 used by them, resulting in the final adoption of the single- 
 needle system, for a long time extensively used in England, 
 were passed over in a few years. Various modifications of 
 the needle telegraph were, somewhat later, patented by the 
 
1 88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 brothers H. and B. Highton, including an interesting form 
 in which the current was passed through a strip of gold leaf 
 placed in front of the pole of a magnet. Each time the current 
 passed the gold leaf was deflected, and thus served in place of 
 an index needle. 
 
 A patent was granted to Wheatstone and Cooke in 1840 for 
 improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms at distant 
 places by means of electric currents. In this patent the first 
 form of the Ifetter showing, dial or A, B, C telegraph, as it has 
 been variously called, is described. Improvements were sub- 
 sequently made in this apparatus by Wheatstone, and several 
 modifications have been made by other inventors, of which the 
 best known are Brequet's, Froment's, Siemens' Chester's, 
 Kramer's, Siemens and Halske's, and Hamblet's. The first 
 apparatus devised by Wheatstone was actuated by voltaic 
 electricity, but in the later forms magneto-electricity was 
 applied. One or other of these methods have been used in 
 the other forms of apparatus for the same purpose. Wheat- 
 stone also worked on a type-printing telegraph, which was a 
 modification of his A, B, C instrument, but it never came into 
 practical use. Probably the greatest achievement of Wheat- 
 stone, judged at least by its practical results, was his auto- 
 matic recording telegraph, which is so largely used for press 
 and other long despatches in England, and which has attained 
 to marvelous speeds for a mechanical recorder. 
 
 Morse's telegraph first came before the Patent OfiBce in the 
 form of a caveat filed by him on the third of October, 1837. The 
 following inventions were specified : First, a system of signs by 
 which numbers, and consequently words and sentences, are 
 signified ; second, a set of type, adapted to regulate and com- 
 municate the signs, with rules in which to set up the type ; 
 third, an apparatus called the port rule, for regulating the 
 movement of the type rules, which rules, by means of the 
 t3^e, regulate the times and the intervals of the passage of 
 electricity ; fourth, a register, which records the signs perma- 
 nently ; fifth, a dictionary, or vocabulary of w'ords, numbered 
 and adapted to this system of telegraph ; sixth, modes of laying 
 conductors to preserve them from injury. 
 
PJiOCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 189 
 
 This caveat gives a good idea of the invention by Morse of 
 the recording telegraph previous to his partnership with Vail. 
 The partnership was agreed upon in September, 1837, and 
 according to it Mr. Vail undertook to construct at his own ex- 
 pense and exhibit before a committee of Congress one of the 
 telegraphs "of the plan and invention of Morse;" that he 
 should give his time and personal services to the work, and 
 assume the expense of exhibiting the apparatus and of procur- 
 ing patents in the United States. In consideration, Vail was to 
 receive one-fourth of all the rights in the invention in the United 
 States. Provision was also made for securing to Vail an interest 
 in any foreign patents which he might furnish the means to 
 obtain.* A large amount of documentary evidence bearing on 
 the development of the telegraph exists in the possession of Mr. 
 Vail's family, and in the National Museum at Washington. 
 From this evidence there seems no doubt but that Morse 
 assumed and has been accorded very much more than his 
 share of the credit of the invention of the telegraph as it is 
 now known. The patents taken out in Morse's name included 
 many important improvements which were entirely due to 
 Vail, and for which Morse promised to give him credit, a 
 promise which was never publicly redeemed. The alphabet 
 now used was, as I have already said, worked out by Vail, 
 who, it appears, first began its formation by an attempt to 
 ■classify the letters of the alphabet according to frequency of 
 occurrence, with the view of giving to these letters the simplest 
 signs. After working on this for some time, it occurred to him 
 that valuable information might be obtained in a printing 
 office, and a visit to an adjacent newspaper office showed him 
 the whole problem solved in the printers' type tray. The 
 alphabet which he afterwards formed is still used in this 
 country and also, with some simplifications, as the European 
 and international code. The modification of the recording 
 apparatus from the vertical pendulum and recording pencil to 
 the compact instrument with a horizontal lever and metallic 
 ■stylus, marking by indentation, used on the first telegraphic 
 line between Washington and Baltimore, was also due to Vail. 
 
 *See P. I/. Pope in the Century Magazine, Vol. XXXV, p. 924 et seq. 
 
I90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Many other things might be mentioned to show that in the 
 early stages of this invention, which has marked so wide a step 
 in our modern civilization, the name of Vail deserves a promi- 
 nent place. It is very unfortunate that his own modesty, 
 together with his confidence in Morse's promises to do him 
 justice, prevented the matter from being publicly ventilated 
 during the lifetime of the inventors. 
 
 After several unsuccessful attempts to induce Congress to 
 assume the expense of building a line of sufficient length to 
 practically test the proposals of Morse, an appropriation of 
 $30,000 was made in March, 1843, for the purpose of building a 
 line from Washington to Baltimore. This line was completed 
 and successfully opened on the 24th of May, 1844. The system 
 practically introduced with the opening of this line, modified in 
 some of its mechanical details, has continued to be the principal 
 one used, and is the basis of most of the recording telegraphs in 
 all countries. One important modification should, however, be 
 mentioned, that is the wide use of the click of the armature for 
 reading the message in preference to the recorder. This is a 
 return to the electro-magnetic acoustic telegraph of Henry. It 
 gives one of the simplest possible receiving instruments, and, as 
 was long ago pointed out by Steinheil, possesses the great ad- 
 vantage that it leaves the eyes of the operator disengaged. 
 
 Of other forms of telegraphic apparatus, the most important 
 are the type-printing telegraph. Among the early inventors of 
 these we find Vail, who invented a type-printing telegraph as 
 early as 1837, and Wheatstone ; but the first instrument practi- 
 cally used was invented in 1846 by Royal B. House, of Ver- 
 mont. This instrument was used for some time in the United 
 States, and was brought to a considerable degree of perfection. 
 It worked on the step-by-step principle and was patented in 
 1846. Another type-printing telegraph of great ingenuity was 
 invented by D. E. Hughes, of Kentucky. This apparatus 
 embodies many of the features of the apparatus used at present 
 in this country, which is a modification of Hughes's instrument 
 due to Mr. Phelps. The Hughes instrument is still largely 
 used in France and to some extent in other European countries. 
 The Hughes patents in this country were purchased in 1856 by 
 the' American Telegraph Company, and the apparatus has 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 191 
 
 undergone successive modification at the hands of Mr. Phelps, 
 tending towards simplification, accuracy of working, and in- 
 creased speed. One of the latest modifications is known as the 
 Phelps's Electro-Motor Telegraph, in which the mechanism is 
 driven by means of an electro-motor which, running at a high 
 speed, allows the trains of clock-work to be short and light. The 
 principle ' here used is the synchronous movement of a trans- 
 mitting shaft on the transmitter and the type-wheel of the 
 receiver. Synchronism is obtained by a governor, and con- 
 tinuous rapid motion is kept up. The letter printed is regu- 
 lated by the position of the transmitting shaft when the circuit 
 is closed, this position being under the control of the operator. 
 Phelps is also the inventor of stock telegraphs and private 
 line printing telegraphs, and, besides his, similar instruments 
 liave been invented by I,aws, Calahan, Gray and others. These 
 instruments work on the step-by-step principle and all of them 
 are beautiful specimens of mechanism and scientific ingenuity. 
 Another system of recording telegraph messages requires 
 notice — that is the chemical method.- We have seen that very 
 early in telegraphic history the decomposition of liquids and 
 of solutions of salts were made the basis of telegraphs. It was 
 soon found that a ribbon of paper or cloth saturated with cer- 
 tain chemicals could be very readily marked by the passage 
 through them of the electric current. One of Morse's first 
 plans appears to have been a chemical telegraph, but that, I 
 believe, was never worked out. The first patent for such a 
 telegraph was given in England to Edward Davy in 1838, but 
 the system never came into practical use. It was complicated • 
 in construction and required four line wires. One interesting 
 feature was the use of an electro-magnetic escapement for mov- 
 ing the paper, an idea which had occurred to Cooke and to 
 Wheatstone some years earlier. The first successful chemical 
 telegraph was due to Bain of Edinburgh, and was patented in 
 1846. In this system it was proposed to transmit the message 
 by an automatic transmitter, using a punched slip of paper to 
 regulate the contacts. Some difiiculties with the mechanical 
 operation of preparing the necessary stencil slips prevented this 
 being very successfully used, but the chemical record was used 
 for "some years both in England and America. With the 
 
192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 apparatus now available for transmission, very high speeds cait 
 be attained by this method of recording the signals. 
 
 The chemical method of recording has been mostly used for 
 copying or autographic telegraphs, and of these a considerable 
 number have been devised. The automatic method of trans- 
 mission has been brought to a high state of perfection. Among 
 others who have worked at the subject are Wheatstone, Sie- 
 mens and Halske, Gamier, Humaston, I,ittle, Edison, Park, 
 Thomson. 
 
 The next important step in telegraphy was the employment 
 of one line-wire to convey more than one message at the same 
 time. A solution of the problem of sending two messages, one 
 in each direction, was attempted by Gintl of Vienna, in 1853,. 
 and in the following year by Frischen and by Siemens and 
 Halske. These methods were not very successful, but they 
 were mechanically sufficient for the purpose. They, however, 
 left an important item out of the account, namely, the elec- 
 trostatic capacity of the line. The proper solution of the 
 difficulty was given by J. B. Steams of Boston, in 1871, 
 who solved the problem completely, so far at least as land lines 
 were concerned. The same principle is sufficient for all pur- 
 poses, but some important modifications in detail are necessary 
 for submarine cables. These modifications were successfiilly 
 made by Muirhead of London, and at the present time duplex 
 working is an ordinary accomplishment. The chief workers 
 in this field were Frischen, Siemens and Halske, Stark, Fd- 
 lund, Gintl, Nystroin Preece, Fur Nedden, Farmer, Maron, 
 Winter, Steams and Muirhead. 
 
 Next the problem of sending two messages in each direction: 
 was worked out. This involves the additional problem of the 
 simultaneous sending of two messages in the same direction. 
 The solution of this problem was attempted by J. B. Stark, of 
 Vienna, in 1855, ^-^d during the following ten years it was 
 worked at by Bosscha, Kramer, Maron, Schaak, Schreder, 
 Wartman, and others. The first to obtain success was Edison, 
 in 1874 ; and his method, with some modifications, is still used. 
 Systems of quadruplex were also invented by Gerrit Smith of 
 the Western Union Company, in 1875 and 1876, and a modifi- 
 cation of Edison's method was made by Prescott and Smith. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 193 
 
 Smith's 1876 method is known as the Western Union Company's 
 Standard Quadruplex. 
 
 A system of multiple transmission was devised by M. G. 
 Farmer, of Salem, in 1852, in which, by a commutation ar- 
 rangement, the line- wire was put successively in contact with a 
 number of local circuits. A similar system was exhibited by 
 Meyer at the Vienna Exposition in 1873, and an improved 
 form was introduced a few years ago by Delany, which is in 
 use in several countries. These systems are of use if the line- 
 wire is capable of doing more work than any one of the stations 
 is capable of supplying, and may be likened to one of the main 
 wires from the central to a district telephone exchange, with 
 this exception — that all the correspondence goes on simul- 
 taneously, and there need be no difficulty as to precedence. 
 Distinctive from these is the harmonic telegraphs of Elisha 
 Gray, Edison, and Bell. In this system, which has been most 
 completely worked out by Gray, any number of messages may 
 be sent simultaneously, without reference to speed of trans- 
 mission. In principle, the method consists in causing each of 
 a number of vibrating reeds at one end to produce pulsations 
 of the current flowing through the line, which have the same 
 period as the vibrations of the reed. A corresponding set of 
 reeds at the receiving end of the line are arranged so as to be 
 acted on electro-magnetically by the current. Each of these 
 receiving reeds will, providing the periods of the different reeds 
 forming any one set are incommensurable, respond only to the 
 pulsations of its own natural period, and hence only to the 
 vibrations of the corresponding reed at the sending end. The 
 continuity of these vibrations may be broken up by means of 
 a sending key, and thus a message transmitted in the ordinary , 
 "Morse" alphabet. 
 
 The autographic or writing telegraphic apparatus, which has 
 been developed of recent years, is of great interest, both from 
 the fact that the handwriting of the sender is reproduced in 
 fac-simile, and from the great ingenuity of the apparatus em- 
 ployed. The writing telegraph of Cowper and the telautograph 
 of Elisha Gray are good examples of this mode of transmitting 
 messages. 
 
194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 In CoAwper's system two rectangular components of the 
 motion of the pen are made to vary the resistance, and con- 
 sequently the current, in two line wires. These currents act 
 on two electro-magnets at the receiving station, and the arma- 
 tures of the electro-magnets are arranged to produce two rect- 
 angular components of the motion of the receiving pen. 
 Bands of paper are kept moving at approximately the same 
 rate under each of these pens, and hence the characters traced 
 by the motions of the transmitting pen are reproduced with 
 considerable accuracy by the receiving pen in consequence of 
 the varying positions of the armatures of the receiving magnets, 
 caused by the variations of the current. In Gray's apparatus 
 two rectangular components of the motion of the transmitting 
 pen send pulsatory currents into the line-wire. These pulsatory 
 currents cause corresponding movements of the armatures of 
 two receiving magnets, which are made to move the receiving 
 pen in the direction, in corresponding directions, and through 
 proportionate distances. Separate electro-magnetic arrange- 
 ments lift the pen off the paper between the words and at the 
 end of the lines, and allow the receiving pen to be moved back- 
 wards or forwards without marking the paper. Still another 
 electro-magnetic arrangement is used to move the paper forward 
 between the lines. Anything that can be made with a pen — 
 such as a sketch or drawing — can be telegraphed in this way. 
 The whole apparatus is exceedingly ingenious, but much too 
 extensive and complicated to admit of clear description here. 
 
 Although the mere extension of telegraphs from land to sub- 
 marine lines can hardly be called an invention, yet very many 
 new problems presented themselves for solution in this exten- 
 sion. Many of these problems were of a more purely scientific 
 character than those presented in the developments which had 
 been in progress, and consequently tested the knowledge then 
 existing of the laws of electricity much more severely. It was 
 very soon discovered, for example, that the rate at which signals 
 could be transmitted, and the battery power or other electro- 
 motive force necessary to effect the transmission, did not, as in 
 land lines, depend almost entirely on the size and length of the 
 conductors used. The electrostatic capacity of the line imme- 
 diately began to play an important part, and signals were found 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 195 
 
 not to be transmitted so instantaneously as they were on exist- 
 ing land lines. Again, there was no opportunity of using 
 relays, so as to effectively shorten the longer lines, and the in- 
 vestigations of Thomson led him to point out that the rate of 
 signaling would be inversely as the square of the length. 
 
 Such difficulties as these, combined with the very evident dif- 
 £culties involved in manufacturing and submerging a cable in 
 deep water, were, to say the least, discouraging. Experiments 
 ■on short lengths in the English Channel and elsewhere proving 
 successful, faith in the possibility of longer cables grew, and 
 very soon, through the enterprise of a few American and Eng- 
 lish business and scientific men, an attempt was made to lay a 
 cable across the Atlantic. The history of that undertaking 
 and its various failures are almost common knowledge, but 
 f)erseverance conquered all the difficulties, and to-day no one 
 thinks of the probability of failure when a long cable is pro- 
 posed. 
 
 The laying of long cables brought out the fact that, as had 
 been anticipated, existing telegraphic apparatus was not of 
 great enough sensibility to render moderately rapid signaling 
 possible. This difficulty was almost immediately met by the 
 mirror galvanoscopic receiver of Thomson, followed some 
 years later by his siphon recorder, which is undoubtedly by far 
 the most sensitive recording telegraph known. Improved 
 methods of working cables soon followed, among which, in the 
 early days, probably the most notable is the introduction of 
 condensers between the ends of the cable and the earth by 
 Varley. The successful duplexing of cables by Muirhead has 
 already been referred to, but it is somewhat curious to note that 
 although the electricians interested in cable working were 
 familiar, as early as 1856 and perhaps earlier, with the difficulty 
 which had prevented success on land lines, no one seems to 
 have thought of applying the remedy. As early as 1858 a 
 patent was taken ont by Thomson, in which he proposed to 
 overcome the difficulty of duplexing a cable by a mechanical 
 arrangement for varying the compensating currents at the same 
 rate that the signaling current varies. He has since said that 
 he did not propose the use of condensers, because a means of 
 producing a sufficiently good model cable was not then known. 
 
1 96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Such a model cable was not available for nearly twenty years 
 after the above date, and was finally produced by making prac- 
 tically a copy of the actual cable, using tinfoil strips for the 
 conductor insulated from an earth plate by means of thin paraf- 
 fined paper, so as to give electrostatic capacity. 
 
 The invention of the telephone constitutes one of the greatest 
 advances that have been made in telegraphic communication.. 
 This is an acoustic telegraph, which has the very important 
 merit that the audible signals are spoken words, and hence the 
 instruments can be used by any one who can hear and speak, 
 and who understands the language in which the message is 
 transmitted. 
 
 It is well known that sound is transmitted through the air 
 from the source to the hearer by waves of condensation and 
 rarefaction, which affect the drum of the ear. Wheatstone, as- 
 early as 1831, showed that these waves could be transmitted 
 from one place to another, at a moderate distance, through 
 wooden rods and afterward conveyed to the ear by the vibra- 
 tions given to the air by the end of the rod. Similarly, vibrations 
 given to one diaphragm can be conveyed to another, at a con- 
 siderable distance, by connecting the two diaphragms together 
 by a stretched cord or wire. This appears to have been known 
 for several centuries in the central districts of India, and a 
 similar apparatus was described by Hook in 1667. A similar 
 apparatus is now used and known as the mechanical telephone. 
 
 To cause the vibrations of one diaphragm to produce corre- 
 sponding vibrations in another diaphragm, at a distance, through 
 the agency of an electric current, was the problem of the electric 
 telephone. The first to propose this seems to have been Charles 
 Bourseul, who, in 1854, suggested the use of two plates — one 
 at the transmitting station, which, by the varying pressure of 
 the air due to the sound waves, would open and close an electric 
 circuit ; while the other was to be acted on at the receiving 
 station by an electro-magnet, through which the coils of the 
 electric current passed. The varying strength of the electro- 
 magnet, due to the rapid succession of currents, was thus to be 
 taken advantage of to give the proper succession of impulses 
 to the receiving diaphragm. In 1861 Philip Reis, of Fried- 
 richsdorf, proposed, in a lecture delivered before the Physical 
 Society of Frankfort, to use an instrument, which he called a 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 197 
 
 telephone, for the reproduction at a distance of music and 
 human speech. The apparatus consisted of a stretched mem- 
 brane forming part of one side of a box, into which, by means 
 of a mouthpiece, the sounds could be directed. This mem- 
 brane was made to open and close an electric circuit at each 
 vibration. At the receiving end an electro-magnet, consisting 
 of a thin rod of iron surrounded by a coil, was placed. The 
 successive interruptions and closings of this electric current 
 was, in accordance with a discovery made by Dr. Page, of 
 Salem, Mass., in 1837, to produce sounds of the same pitch as 
 those of the sound directed into the box of the transmitter. 
 This method failed for speech, for the simple reason that speech 
 has more characteristics than pitch ; and it was only partially 
 successful for musical sounds, from its inability to producei. 
 with any approach to accuracy, the necessary variations of 
 loudness and quality. 
 
 To produce not only the frequency of vibration, but also the 
 loudness and quality of the sounds evidently required a trans- 
 mitter and a receiver which did not depend for its action on 
 simple interruption of the current, but which varied it in an 
 undulating manner, similar to the variations of pressure to- 
 which the diaphragm receiving the sound vibrations was sub- 
 jected due to the sound waves. Such an apparatus of a very 
 perfect type was produced by Graham Bell in 1876, who, in the 
 descriptions of his apparatus given in his patent specifications 
 and elsewhere, shows that he thoroughly understood what had 
 to be done. "We all know from actual experience that the in- 
 strument which he produced did it. Since the publication of 
 Bell's" invention a great many modifications have been pro- 
 duced. Most of them have, however, been held to embody the 
 same essential principle as that of Bell, the variation being 
 simply one of mechanical arrangement. One field of investiga- 
 tion has, however, been fruitful of improvement. In the 
 original patent of Bell, and also in a caveat filed almost simul- 
 taneously by Elisha Gray, it is pointed out that the variations 
 of the current may be produced by causing the vibrations of 
 the diaphragm to vary the resistance of the circuit. This idea 
 has proved of great value in increasing the loudness of the 
 sounds given out by the Bell telephone when used as a receiver. 
 A great many forms of these " microphone " transmitters have 
 
198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 been invented. Among those who have made important con- 
 tributions we may mention Berliner, Blake, Edison, Gower, 
 Gray, Hughes and Runnings. 
 
 Another form of telephone has been proposed by Professor 
 Dolbear. In this telephone system one diaphragm of the 
 receiver is made to form one plate of an electric condenser, and 
 the varying electric force on this plate, due to the fluctuations 
 of the charge, causes it to vibrate in response to the varying 
 electro-motive force produced by the transmitter. This con- 
 denser telephone can evidently be used either as a transmitter 
 or as a receiver, and, as Dolbear has pointed out, may be ren- 
 dered sensitive by keeping one plate of the condenser at a high 
 potential. 
 
 Another interesting discovery in this subject should be 
 xnentioned, namely, the transmission of speech from one place 
 to another by means of beams of light or radiant heat. This 
 was based originally on the discovery by May and Smith of 
 the variation of the electric resistance of selenium when ex- 
 posed to light or radiant heat. Many other substances have 
 since been found to have the same property in a greater or less 
 degree. The experiments of Bell and Sumner Tainter have 
 shown that if a beam of light be reflected from a thin mirror, 
 and, by means of lenses or otherwise, made to pass as a 
 parallel beam from the transmitter to the receiving station, and 
 there received on a bar or series of bars, or a coil of a sub- 
 stance having the properties of selenium, the resistance of this 
 substance will be afiected by vibration of the mirror. If, then, 
 the mirror be used as a transmitting diaphragm, like that of a 
 telephone transmitter, words spoken to the mirror will be 
 repeated by a telephone, in the circuit of which the selenium 
 is placed and through which an electric current is kept flowing. 
 
 In this address an attempt has been made to sketch very 
 briefly the development of the application of electricity to the 
 transmission of intelligence. Many important applications 
 (as, for example, fire-alarms and railway signal systems, etc.) 
 have not been referred to, and a host of important contributors 
 have, as a matter of necessity, been entirely ignored. To go 
 into detail, and do justice to every one who has contributed 
 to the present state of the electric telegraph was an impossi- 
 bility and has not been attempted. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 199 
 
 INTERNATIONAI^ PROTECTION OF INDUSTRIAL. 
 
 PROPERTY. 
 
 By F. a. 6eei,y, a. M., op Pennsyi<vania, Principai, Examines. 
 U. S. Patent Office. 
 
 The convenient phrase Industrial Property, recently natu- 
 ralized into our language, comes to us from the French, who- 
 are more apt than we in finding terms to express generic ideas.. 
 It does not include all property employed in industry, but only 
 incorporeal property related to production and trade, and has its. 
 analogue in the phrase Literary and Artistic Property. The 
 latter includes the property of the author and artist in the pro- 
 ductions of their labor and genius ; such, in fact, as we usually 
 define by the term copyright. Industrial property includes a 
 wide field of incorporeal rights, such as are embraced in 
 mechanical and design patents and trade-marks, including 
 many for which the English language scarcely has names. 
 The phrase Good-Will is made with us to cover a number of 
 rights constituting a sort of property, for which the French 
 have specific names and a place in their jurisprudence. 
 
 For an occasion like this I shall not attempt to traverse so 
 wide a field as implied by the title assigned to me. The 
 general acquiescence of the commercial world in the sentiment 
 that the name and trade-mark of a manufacturer are his prop- 
 erty under the law of nations, long proclaimed in Europe, 
 makes their international protection comparatively easy. It 
 has been accomplished by treaty stipulations in many in- 
 stances, in others it has been conceded without question as a 
 common law right. In few cases, except where shameless 
 piracy of trade-marks is countenanced by a corrupt trade 
 morality, is there serious difficulty in securing their protection. 
 There are some differences in definition yet to be adjusted, 
 some minor obstacles to be removed, but commerce is wielding 
 its mighty influence to bring the nations of the world into 
 constantly closer relationships, and to throw down the barriers. 
 
200 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 that civilization and Christianity have found hitherto insupera- 
 Tale. Everything leads to the belief that before long the inter- 
 national character of this kind of property will be completely 
 jrecognized and full protection accorded to it in all commercial 
 nations. Dismissing, therefore, this branch of the subject, I 
 shall consider briefly the history of International Protection for 
 Mechanical Inventions and its present aspect from an American 
 standpoint. 
 
 The world was very slow in coming to the notion of Indus- 
 trial Property. No trace of it exists in ancient laws or customs. 
 Athens could reward with a laurel crown the originator of a 
 new idea in art, but could not conceive that he possessed any 
 rights in its exercise. In Sparta industry was scorned as the 
 lot of the slave, whose rights were systematically crushed. In 
 Rome the laborer had neither rights nor property, and in the 
 systems of law derived from Rome there is no recognition of 
 the rights of inventors or artisans. During the dark period of 
 the Middle Ages many industries flourished, but under the 
 restrictions of the feudal system, and the more oppressive 
 tyranny of trade corporations, the personal rights of the arti- 
 san were lost sight of. When even the right to work was a 
 privilege, accorded by favor and hampered by arbitrary and 
 cruel regulations, the notion of a property-right in an inven- 
 tion, or an improvement in the arts, or a trade-mark, was 
 inconceivable. 
 
 Under the fixed rule of the Guilds the introduction of a new 
 improvement was next to impossible, and the marks af&xed to 
 merchandise to indicate its origin were property in about the 
 same sense that the brand and chains of a convict are his. 
 They served to point out the producer of merchandise in order 
 that if it failed to come up to the required standard the harsh 
 and irrational penalties which the times permitted might be 
 visited upon the proper victim. 
 
 It is not till the darkness of the Middle Ages has passed, 
 and the more reasonable ideas of modern times are gleaming 
 in the horizon, that the notion is evolved of remuneration to 
 the inventor of a new and useful art. Under the Tudors in 
 England, among other privileges that flowed from royal favor, 
 the exclusive right was sometimes accorded to exercise within 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 201 
 
 the realm the entire industry in which the beneficiary had 
 made a useful improvement. Such privileges, going by grace 
 rather than as of right, were allied to the mass of other privi- 
 leges and monopolies which were slowly crushing the life from 
 English industry. 
 
 Two years after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth 
 Rock the first step in the history of the world was taken to- 
 wards the recognition of Industrial Property by the enactment 
 of the law of monopolies of James I, which abolished privileges 
 while reserving to the Crown the right to grant patents to the 
 authors of new and useful inventions. It would be a mistake 
 to assume that the sentiment expressed in this law recognized 
 a right of property in an invention. The patents granted under 
 it still flowed from royal favor. They were less arbitrary than 
 the privileges which preceded them, since they were granted 
 for limited times, and the monopolies they created were re- 
 stricted to the enjoyment of the new invention of which they 
 were the object. For this reason they ceased to be an obstacle 
 to industry, but became the reward of the inventor, and laid the 
 foundation for the vast industrial supremacy Great Britain has 
 so long enjoyed. 
 
 A hundred and forty years later, by a decree of I,ouis XV, 
 December 24, 1762, a similar step was taken in France. The 
 preamble to this decree recites that the privileges conferred for 
 the purpose of compensating inventors had failed of their ob- 
 ject, because, being accorded for unlimited time, they had be- 
 come rather an hereditary patrimony than a personal reward to 
 the inventor. Their term was therefore fixed at fifteen years. 
 This legislation, like all before it, recognized no rights of the 
 inventor, but left the concession to the caprice of power, and 
 its exercise subject to the malicious opposition of the corpora- 
 tions. The first step toward the acknowledgment of the rights 
 ■of inventors in France was in an edict of the same king, March 
 12, 1776, of which the philosophic Turgot was the author, and 
 which recognized these rights as natural and common. ' ' God, ' ' 
 said this edict, ' ' in giving to man needs, and in making neces- 
 sary to him the recourse of labor, has made the right to labor 
 the property of every man ; and this property is the first, the 
 most sacred, and the most imprescriptible of all rights." This 
 
202 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 concession of the rights of labor was a wonderful one for the 
 old regime in France ; but feudalism still reared its.head, and 
 the conditions growing out of its arrogant claims, and the arbi- 
 trary power of the trade corporations, were an insuperable ob- 
 stacle to the complete enfranchisement of industry. 
 
 Not many years were to elapse, but a new light was to flask 
 over Europe from a source scarcely conceivable at that time. 
 We may confidently claim that the Constitution of the United 
 States, in giving to Congress the power to secure to authors and 
 inventors for a limited time the exclusive right to their respect- 
 ive writings and discoveries, was the first practical and effective 
 step in the history of the world for the recognition of property 
 in inventions. 
 
 The act of April lo, 1790, quickly followed, enforcing the 
 provision of the Constitution and establishing for the United 
 States the rights of the inventor. It is conceivable that this 
 feature of the Constitution may have been suggested in part by 
 the French edict of 1776 ; but it is certain that France was 
 prompt to welcome back the principle ; and in the law of Jan- 
 uary 7, 1 79 1, the National Assembly provided for the protec- 
 tion of new inventions. The preamble of this law is a noble 
 statement of what is true in principle and wise in policy. It 
 runs thus : 
 
 ' ' The National Assembly, considering that every new idea, 
 whose manifestation or development may become useful to so- 
 ciety, belongs to him who has conceived it, and that not to re- 
 gard an industrial invention as the property of its author would 
 be to attack the essential rights of man ; considering at the 
 same time how much the lack of a positive and authentic dec- 
 laration of this truth may have contributed till now to discour- 
 age French industry by occasioning the emigration of numerous 
 distinguished artists, and by causing to pass out of the country 
 a great number of new inventions from which this Empire ought 
 to have drawn the first advantages ; considering finally that all 
 the principles of justice, of public order, and of national inter- 
 est, imperatively command that it determine for the future the 
 opinion of French citizens with regard to this class of property 
 by a law which consecrates and protects it, decrees — ' ' 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 203 
 
 The law which followed, firmly establishing the principle of 
 property in inventions, survived in France through all her po- 
 litical changes for the next half century, being superseded by 
 a new law in 1844. Meanwhile nearly all the countries of Con- 
 tinental Kurope had enacted patent laws ; and the principle, 
 originating in the mutterings of discontent that led to the Rev- 
 olution in Kngland, carried to its full extent as the logical se- 
 quence of American independence, and finding its foothold in 
 Continental Kurope during the feverish intellectual and politi- 
 cal conditions of the French Revolution, has become the com- 
 mon heritage of the civilized world. 
 
 Those who declaim against patent rights as grinding monop- 
 olies for the oppression of the artisan may possibly learn from 
 this history that in the economics of modem life the patent sys- 
 tem is the first fruit of the protest of labor against enthroned 
 and ancient privilege. It is the ofispring of revolution and the 
 very reverse of monopoly. It was created on the demand of the 
 common people simultaneously with the overthrow of monopo- 
 lies and with the establishment of civil and religious freedom. 
 It is a perpetual token of the concession made to the rights of 
 labor by power and privilege. In its last analysis the right in- 
 volved in a patent is the right to work and to the legitimate 
 rewards of intelligent industry ; and we wonder why the world 
 so long refused it recognition, or that, as its nature has been 
 better understood, opposition to it should have been maintained. 
 But nothing dies harder than error and prejudice, and indus- 
 trial freedom was only to be secured at the cost of such revolu- 
 tions on both continents as have established other human rights 
 by the overthrow of thrones and the dismemberment of empires. 
 
 There is always room for dispute about the efficacy of dif- 
 ferent systems for the protection of the inventor and for the 
 encouragement of industry, but the truth of the declaration 
 solemnly made in France a century ago grows ever clearer, 
 until it is hard to find an intelligent person to dispute it, that 
 ' ' not to regard an industrial invention as the property of its 
 author is to attack the essential rights of man." 
 
 The establishment among European nations of the idea of 
 property in inventions, and of its protection by law, was at last 
 achieved. It was a step magnificent in what it embodied, and 
 
204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 its results upon industry, commerce and social life have passed 
 all computation. But the new conditions which it created 
 quickly proved that the limited protection accorded by national 
 laws failed to a great degree of its purpose. The swift and con- 
 stant intercommunication of ideas, to which national frontiers 
 were no barrier, carried the improvements in the arts made in 
 any nation to the confines of the civilized world, and for these 
 improvements, beyond the limits of his own nation, the inventor 
 had no rights that other nations would respect. An invention 
 patented in one country was denied protection in others, and 
 thus, while it contributed to promote the industries of all, pro- 
 tection was accorded to its inventor in only one, and was, 
 therefore, disproportionate to the benefits the world derived 
 from it. 
 
 Such a state of things is repugnant to human sense of justice. 
 The same conception of the rights of the inventor that had 
 found expression in the constitutions of the United States and 
 of the French republic forced thinking men to the conclusion 
 that the rights in question could not be bounded by geographic 
 lines, but that the protection of the inventor should be co- 
 extensive with the benefits he has conferred upon mankind. 
 Hence the idea of international protection. 
 
 How far the earlier patent laws fell short of recognizing the 
 rights of alien inventors may be seen by a brief inspection of 
 the successive statutes of the United States. 
 
 The act of 1790 grants patents without restriction to "any 
 person ;" but this thoughtless liberality was restricted by the 
 act of 1793, by which patents were granted only to "any 
 person being a citizen of the United States," thus cutting off 
 the alien from the privilege. The pendulum had swung too 
 far, for it could not but be seen that in a new country inviting 
 immigration the prospective citizen ought to enjoy the same 
 rights as the citizen in this respect ; and in the first section of 
 the act of 1800 all rights respecting patents were given to 
 aliens who had resided two years in the country, conditioned 
 upon an oath that the invention had not been known or used 
 in this or in any foreign country. In this act the pendulum 
 appears to have swung too far the other way, since under it 
 two years residence in the country, without intention to remain 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 205 
 
 or to become a citizen, gave the alien inventor all the rights of 
 the citizen. But this continued the law until 1832, when it was 
 further amended so as to give the privilege of a patent to the 
 alien who at the time of petitioning was a resident of the United 
 States, and had declared his intention to become a citizen, a 
 condition which practically survives in the existing law for 
 caveats. This act guarded against abuse by providing that the 
 patent should be forfeited if the inventor failed to become a 
 citizen within the earliest period possible for him. 
 
 It is noticeable that as yet there is no indication of protecting 
 foreign inventors, only those of citizens of the United States 
 and alien residents, and the inventions of the rest of the world 
 are left free to appropriation by all who chose to employ them, 
 while a prior foreign patent is made a bar to a patent in this 
 country. 
 
 In 1836 the barriers to granting patents to aliens were thrown 
 down. Any person might now receive a patent, as under the 
 act of 1790, but with the remarkable provision that, while the 
 fee in an application to be paid by a citizen or resident alien 
 was but thirty dollars, the fee to "be paid by foreigners generally 
 was fixed at three hundred dollars, and that to be paid by Brit- 
 ish subjects was five hundred dollars. This was reciprocity 
 with a vengeance ; but these invidious distinctions remained in 
 the law until they were completely wiped out by the act of 186 1. 
 
 Under the act of 1836 a prior patent or printed publication 
 in a foreign country constituted a bar to the grant of a patent 
 in the United States, but this bar was removed by the sixth 
 section of the act of 1839. Since that act, and since the re- 
 moval in 1 86 1 of discriminating fees, the benefits of the patent 
 law of the United States have been freely open to all the world. 
 Our law gives to all men of all nations the same privileges, and 
 recognizes to the fullest extent the international character of 
 property in inventions. In this respect, as in the original com- 
 plete recognition of the rights of the inventor, the United States 
 may claim to have led the world and to be leading it still. 
 
 Had the nations of Europe in the development of their patent 
 systems been led to adopt similar wise and liberal principles, 
 the diflSculties that now environ international protection could 
 never have been experienced. The features of these systems 
 
206 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 which stand in the way of complete reciprocity are now to be 
 considered. 
 
 The patent systems of European nations have not been framed 
 upon the same model, but their clearly defined purpose is to 
 promote the useful arts by rewarding the inventor of a new im- 
 provement, in securing to him the exclusive enjoyment of his 
 invention for a limited term. Agreeing in this general prin- 
 ciple, they differ widely in details of procedure and in their 
 exactions of the inventor and patentee. Among the most im- 
 portant differences are those between systems which require and 
 those which dispense with preliminary examinations into nov- 
 elty, between those which grant the patent to the first appli- 
 cant on the assumption that he is the inventor, and those which 
 require of the applicant evidence that he in good faith be- 
 lieves himself to be the first inventor, and between those which 
 publish as incidental to the application, and those in which 
 publication is only incidental to the grant. Since in theory 
 the patent under all laws goes to the inventor, little diflftculty 
 would arise in affording international protection if the practice 
 were made to conform to the theory of law, and no patent 
 granted except on showing by his own oath, or otherwise, that 
 the person filing the application was the true inventor of that 
 for which he seeks protection. It is out of this defect in prac- 
 tice, and the provision in the laws of many nations that the 
 grant of a patent for an invention already published is void, 
 that the difficulty in securing international protection arises, 
 since it results that an inventor, having first patented his in- 
 vention at home, is excluded by virtue of official publication in 
 his own country from securing protection abroad, while any 
 other person may anticipate the true inventor by depositing an 
 application in another country, and so secure to himself the 
 protection not justly his. Systems like these fail of their 
 avowed object, and stimulate industry by the encouragement of 
 piracy. They date from a period when no nation cared for the 
 rights of the alien, when the recognized standard of trade mo- 
 rality sanctioned the refusal in one country of protection to the 
 incorporeal rights of the citizens of another, and when the in- 
 ternational protection of industrial property was not dreamed 
 of. And now, when broader views prevail of the rights of aliens. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 207 
 
 the narrow ideas embodied in laws long outgrown form the 
 obstacle to the accomplishment of the object desired. These 
 laws are sustained by the same spirit of conservatism in which, 
 in all ages, every ancient evil has intrenched itself. 
 
 The laws of the leading patent-granting nations of Europe — 
 England, France and Germany — may be taken as the type of 
 all. In the two latter the patent is refused or void if a prior 
 publication has been made of the invention anywhere. In 
 England, if prior publication has occurred within the realm. 
 Considered with relation to the United States these conditions 
 are practically identical, and cut off the American inventor 
 from protection after the grant of his patent at home. Neither 
 nation requires an oath of invention, and the American inventor 
 is, therefore, helpless against the unscrupulous person who, 
 having acquired knowledge of his invention, may, during the 
 pendency of his application at home, take steps to secure a 
 patent abroad. 
 
 This is the American aspect of the conditions which, in these 
 and other countries, bear so hard upon the alien, and which the 
 ingenuity of inventors and the craft of statesmanship have 
 sought for many years to remove. 
 
 The question how to protect the true inventor simultaneously 
 in all countries has baiHed those who could not see clearly that 
 the only difficulty arises from narrow and ungenerous laws, the 
 repeal of which by common consent would resolve the whole 
 problem. In this state of things it has been necessary to con- 
 sider how the result may be accomplished under existing laws. 
 Protection has been secured by the difficult and often hazardous 
 process of depositing applications on the same day in all the 
 States in which protection is desired, whereby the legal bar of 
 antecedent publication is avoided in all. The United States 
 patentee modifies this arrangement by filing his application in 
 the countries of Europe on the same day upon which his 
 patent is granted at home. This serves two purposes, it avoids 
 vitiating his foreign patent by reason of a prior publication 
 here, and it avoids the consequences of an unfortunate feature 
 of our law, which abridges his domestic patent by reason of a 
 prior patent abroad. This system, though ingenious, is costly 
 
2o8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and liable to failure through a variety of accidents, but it is the 
 best hitherto devised under present conditions. 
 
 It seems possible to find some way acceptable to all commer- 
 cial nations, and harmonious with all patent systems, by which 
 a plain and easy road could be opened to the international 
 protection of the inventor without resort to tricks, and not 
 subject to accident or unreasonable expense. It may be that 
 the statesmanship of the Old World has by some defect of 
 vision failed to see the way out of the difficulty which lies 
 directly under its eyes. It is at least remarkable that with the 
 consensus of Europe that publication of an invention must be a 
 bar to the grant of a subsequent patent in another country, or 
 vitiate one if obtained, it has not occurred to their wisdom that 
 absolute relief would be afforded if (by a slight modification of 
 their laws) they would provide that such publication shall not 
 be a bar to the true inventor if made in pursuance of the laws of 
 his own country, and incidental to protection there. Without 
 entering into details it would seem that, if there is an honest 
 purpose to protect the inventor, so much of a concession should 
 be made to him, with such limitations as to time and otherwise 
 as might seem just, but on the whole relieving him of the hard 
 conditions under which he forfeits his rights abroad by virtue 
 of obedience to the law at home. Such action by the various 
 nations would lay the foundation for true reciprocity. If it 
 would be an assimilation to the law of the United States it is 
 because that law, far in advance of those of Europe, already 
 recognizes the international principle. If to this amendment 
 were added another, to the effect that patents granted in the 
 different countries should be independent of each other in 
 respect to their duration, a point in which our own law is still 
 at fault, international protection would be practically accom- 
 plished. The features of some patent laws, involving the pay- 
 ment of dues and the working of the invention to keep the 
 patent in force, may be disregarded so long as they subject the 
 alien to no unequal burden beyond what comes from his re- 
 moteness, a dif&culty that neither laws nor treaties can remedy. 
 
 To the average American intellect such a proposition appears 
 equitable, logical, straightforward, and adapted to its end. But 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 209 
 
 it has not so appeared to those who have heretofore attempted 
 to solve the question by international compacts. 
 
 The outcome of efforts hitherto made in this direction in 
 America and Europe is to be found in two notable schemes, 
 recently brought to the attention of the people of the United 
 States. The first of these is the International Convention for 
 the Protection of Industrial Property, framed in Paris in 1880, 
 and signed by plenipotentiaries of many American and Euro- 
 pean powers in 1883. This Convention forms the basis for the 
 International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, 
 of which the United States became a member in 1887. 
 
 Having been drafted by a committee appointed by the French 
 Government, it necessarily embodies French ideas. It was 
 earnestly discussed by delegates from various powers ; but, the 
 United States being represented by one of our Ministers at a 
 foreign court, who had no particular knowledge of the subject, 
 the peculiar features of our law were not brought to the atten- 
 tion of the conference. The treaty was adopted with slight 
 modifications of the original draft. Its vital point is the provis- 
 ion of a limited period (called a period of priority) within which 
 an inventor, having first filed an application for a patent at home, 
 may secure protection in other countries without having his 
 rights vitiated by reason of the publication of the invention in 
 his own country, or even by the grant of a patent for the same 
 invention to a third party during the period. This is a long 
 step toward international protection, but signally defective 'in 
 principle, and from our aspect of it a practical failure. It is 
 not the deposit of an application in one country that vitiates 
 a subsequent patent in another, but the publication conse- 
 quent on such deposit. And it would seem to have been the 
 practical course to make the period of priority run from the 
 publication, which follows deposit at a greater or less interval, 
 but is always the act fatal to the subsequent patent abroad, 
 rather than from the deposit, which has no such fatal character. 
 
 In respect to countries where the interval is short between de- 
 posit and publication the arrangement is effective ; but where, 
 as here, the two events are unrelated in time, and months or 
 years may elapse between them, this period of priority, well 
 conceived as it is, is practically without value. It is too late 
 
2IO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 now to determine whether the provisions of the fourth article 
 of the Convention of Paris might not have been modified if the 
 features of American law had been brought to the attention of 
 the conference of 1880. Unfortunately this was not attempted. 
 
 The Convention of Paris in providing that a person who has 
 filed an application for patent in one of the contracting States 
 is entitled, by virtue of such deposit, to priority of right in any 
 other State, provided he file his application there within the 
 prescribed interval, assumes that the grant of a patent neces- 
 sarily follows the deposit of the application. It ignores the 
 examination into novelty required by our law, and for that 
 reason is incompatible with it. 
 
 Therefore, without scrutiny of the details of that Convention, 
 many of which are wise and free from objection, and according 
 to it its fuU meed of praise for the exalted purpose it embodies, 
 it must be said of it that it fails of its purpose through its 
 omission to recognize the wide diflferences in patent systems. 
 
 Further than this, by its establishment of a period of priority 
 dating from deposit rather than from publication, it has created 
 a source of danger to patents for the first six months of their 
 existence. The British patentee cannot know until seven 
 months of the life of his patent have passed, but that some 
 American inventor may file in the British Patent Office an 
 application for the same invention, and, by virtue of an earlier 
 application in the United States, cause the existing British 
 patent to be annulled. This is no imaginary source of danger, 
 as is shown by the history of a case published in the Illustrated 
 Official Journal oi the British Patent Office, January 22, 1890. 
 It appears that Main, an American, having filed an application 
 in the United States April 18, 1887, made an application in 
 Great Britain, November 18, 1887, the very last day of the 
 period of priority. The grant of a patent to him was opposed 
 on the ground of a prior patent, to wit, No. 8262, of June 8, 
 1887, already five months in existence. Under the provisions 
 of the Convention of Paris, and of section 103 of the Patent 
 Act made in pursuance thereof, Main demanded to have his 
 application dated back to April i8th, the date of his application 
 in the United States. This was allowed by the Comptroller, 
 who was sustained on appeal by Sir Richard Webster, Attorney 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 211 
 
 General, the prior British patent being thereby rendered void. 
 An ambuscade of this character would be impossible if the 
 period of priority, whether long or short, were made to run 
 from the ofi&cial publication. 
 
 The proposition of the United States to amend the Conven- 
 tion in this respedt was earnestly contended for by our dele- 
 gates in the Madrid Conference of 1890. Objections to it were 
 not so much to the principle it embodied, as on account of the 
 difficulty of changing existing laws, which in several countries 
 had already been modified to accord with the terms of the 
 Convention. The United States delegates were not prepared 
 with an answer to this objection, and they could only hope by 
 an intelligent presentation of their proposition, and by bring- 
 ing it to the attention of the governments and peoples of the 
 other States, that through its equity and logical consistency 
 and practical character it might, in course of time, be more 
 favorably entertained. 
 
 The second projedl for the international protedlion of inven- 
 tions is contained in the draft of a treaty agreed upon in the 
 International American Conference, held in this city last year. 
 This draft was reported to the Conference on March 3, 1890, and 
 adopted without discussion. It is unfortunate that, in a Con- 
 gress assembled at this capital to consider a subjedt like this, 
 pains should not have been taken to become acquainted with 
 the United States patent law before formulating the terms of a 
 treaty. Had this been done, it might have been possible to 
 frame a series of articles consistent with our law, and at the 
 same time acceptable to the other American nations. 
 
 The report presented by the Committee on Copyright, Trade- 
 Marks and Patents is full of exalted sentiment respecting the 
 rights represented by these terms, and their just claim to inter- 
 national protedlion. The treaties recommended for adoption 
 concerning these three subjects were the same that had been 
 agreed upon in an International Congress at Montevideo, in 
 which all the South American States but three took part. 
 They are presumajily acceptable to most of the South American 
 nations ; but that upon patents, with which alone we are now 
 concerned, is very far from agreement with the laws of this 
 country, and must be wholly unacceptable to our people. 
 
212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The first article provides that any person having a patent in 
 one of the contracting States shall enjoy in all the others all 
 the rights of inventor, provided he shall, within a year, cause 
 his patent to be registered in such States. When it is con- 
 sidered that, with scarcely an exception, the governments 
 of South America grant patents without inquiry into novelty ; 
 and further, that in the United States the registration of a 
 patent granted abroad is an unknown thing, it will be seen 
 how widely at variance this proposition is with our system. 
 
 The third article provides that questions regarding priority 
 of invention shall be settled according to the date of applica- 
 tion for the respective patents in the countries where they were 
 granted. This ignores the principle at the foundation of the 
 United States patent system, that patents shall be granted to 
 the first inventor, and the elaborate system of interference pro- 
 cedure, by which contests for priority are determined. 
 
 The fourth article prohibits the grant of patents for inven- 
 tions or discoveries already made public, either in any of the 
 contracting States or elsewhere. This is as widely at variance 
 with the United States law as are the first and third articles, 
 since under our law a printed publication at home or abroad 
 is no bar to a patent to the inventor who is able to show that 
 he made the invention before the date of the publication, and 
 has not abandoned it. 
 
 Those who look for a complete realization of the idea of in- 
 ternational protection for inventions must deeply regret the 
 failure of the American nations to profit by the magnificent 
 opportunity afforded them by the International American Con- 
 gress at Washington. It can be no exaggeration to say that a 
 week's work of the United States Patent Office is more than 
 a year's work of the patent offices of all the other American 
 republics combined, and that a system, the evolution of a 
 century of experience, and the most potent factor in the un- 
 rivaled industrial progress of this country, was entitled at least 
 to be recognized in a congress of that character convened at its 
 capital. But with this regret comes the Jiope that as the 
 American nations draw closer together in the bonds of com- 
 mercial intercourse to which sentiment invites, and which wise 
 statesmanship fosters, the opportunities may not be far distant 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 213 
 
 when this subject shall be renewed with clearer light, and with 
 better assurance of results advantageous to all the nations con- 
 cerned. 
 
 What has been practically accomplished aside from these 
 two projects may not be overlooked. Complete international 
 protection exists between us and our nearest neighbor, the 
 Dominion of Canada, by virtue of no treaty or concession, but 
 by the enactment of laws in that country as liberal towards the 
 alien as they need to be, and in some respects more judicious 
 than ours. Any person, citizen or alien, may secure a patent 
 in Canada, provided the invention has not been in public use 
 or on sale in the country, with the consent of its author, for 
 more than one year prior to the application. A prior foreign 
 patent is no bar if the application is filed in the Dominion 
 within one year from its grant, a wise restriction which we 
 might profitably adopt, since our law as it stands creates 
 conditions sometimes prejudicial to vested rights of our own 
 citizens. The Canadian statute differs from ours in many par- 
 ticulars, but the two are so nearly assimilated in respect to the 
 .rights of aliens that through them the ideal of international 
 protection has been nearly, accomplished. Our liberal and 
 progressive sister republic, Venezuela, permits the true inventor 
 to secure a patent after having first obtained protection in his 
 own country, and permits public use of the invention in the 
 country for two years before application for patent. The little 
 realm of Hawaii has bodily adopted our law ; and so we have 
 the nucleus for an International Union of four self-legislating 
 governments, created by no formal convention, but called into 
 existence by the recognition in each of the rights of the 
 inventor, and the refusal to limit those rights on account of acts 
 done in order to secure protection under the laws of another 
 country, provided he avail himself of his privileges within a 
 reasonable time. To this list should be added Sweden, whose 
 law, imitating our own in many respects, gives a foreign in- 
 ventor a limited time after the grant of his home patent during 
 which he may file his application in the kingdom. 
 
 Nor is this all. A year ago, when the Conference at Madrid 
 refused the American proposition, the delegates from this 
 country did not believe that the last word had been said. 
 
214 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Their demand was so fair and logical that it could not fail to 
 impress itself on thoughtful minds. And now comes the news 
 that the most powerful empire of Europe, which up to this time 
 has refused to accede to the International Convention because ■ 
 not in harmony with her laws, is contemplating an amendment 
 to them that will amount on her part to an acceptance of that 
 proposition. A commission of the Reichstag has reported in 
 favor of an amendment, which will give to inventors belonging 
 to nations which give corresponding privileges to German sub- 
 jects the right to file applications for patent in the empire within 
 three months from the date of the official publication of the 
 description of the invention in the country of origin, without 
 fear of having their German patents invalidated by reason of 
 such publication.* Since we already grant that privilege to 
 German subjects, we are prepared to step in and reap the ad- 
 vantage of the proposed legislation the moment it is in force. 
 
 This step on the part of Germany is not dictated by senti- 
 ment, but by rigid policj'. It carries further the principle em- 
 bodied years ago in her treaty with Austria-Hungary, which 
 was for the mutual advantage of the people of both empires. ♦ 
 It projBFers to the other nations of Europe a privilege hereto- 
 fore denied them, provided they can grant the reciprocal privi- 
 lege; and will almost compel these nations to concede to 
 Germany what they could so easily refuse to us. It puts 
 Germany in line with the United States in the demand we 
 made upon Europe in the Madrid Conference, but in a better 
 position, since Germany has something to give in return which 
 we had not. The adoption of this amendment to the German 
 law will put a new face on the whole subject of international 
 protection of inventions: and it is not unreasonable to expect 
 that when delegates from the United States shall renew ovir 
 proposition at Brussels in 1893, it will meet with more favor 
 than at Madrid ; and at no distant day the truth may repeat 
 itself, that the stone refused by the builders has become the 
 head of the corner. 
 
 In considering the prospects of international protection for 
 patent rights in harmony with American ideas, the thought 
 constantly intrudes whether our liberality to the alien has not 
 
 * This law went into effect in Germany, October i, 1891. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 215 
 
 been excessive. Those who have sought in conference with 
 the representatives of other nations to secure some concession 
 advantageous to American inventors have been met by the 
 demand, ' ' What can you give in return ? ' ' We have nothing 
 to give, since for many years we have lavished everything on 
 the alien, in placing him on precisely the same footing as the 
 citizen in the Patent Office and in the courts. But diplomatic 
 agreements are seldom anything but bargains. They are 
 affairs of barter, in which each party strives to secure the best 
 for himself. In this market those fare best who are able to 
 give real value in exchange for what they desire. Those who 
 have nothing to give are apt to get nothing in return. Our 
 liberal legislation, in throwing wide open our doors to the in- 
 ventors of every nation, had its origin in the doctrine embodied 
 in the Constitution that the useful arts are encouraged by the 
 protection of inventors, and in the belief that the just reward 
 of the inventor should not be withheld from him, though he 
 chance to be an alien. This theory of our law is the only sound 
 theory of international protection. But many a noble theory 
 has worked badly in practice ; and so, while we have been 
 promoting industrial progress at home by beneficent laws, 
 protecting alike the citizen and the alien, we have been un- 
 able to secure for our own citizens in foreign lands the rights 
 we have so freely conceded. The golden rule, admirable and 
 exquisite in its simplicity, fails by its very simplicity of appli- 
 cation to the complex affairs of diplomacy. The first duty of 
 a government is to its own citizens, and while we act with all 
 beneficence toward the people of other States, our own people 
 have the right to demand that this beneficence shall not be 
 exercised to their injury. 
 
 International protection is not to be attained, it is rather 
 hindered, by unlimited concession on the part of a single gov- 
 ernment. If ever reached it must be through mutual conces- 
 sions from all. In the progress of the world toward this result 
 the United States, with our present liberal legislation, can be 
 little else than a spectator. We may proudly point to the 
 results of our system, and invite the world to imitate it, but 
 we cannot purchase concession, because we have no longer any 
 thing to give in return. We can scarcely take steps backward. 
 
2l6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 though it is plain we should stand better if we could recover 
 some of our squandered privileges. 
 
 But in our attitude of watchful spectator we can take careful 
 note of the timid steps by which the nations of the world by 
 slow degrees are drawing nearer to our position. Such mutual 
 concessions as other governments may make towards the pro- 
 tection of the true inventor, by amelioration of the hard laws 
 which haye robbed him of his rights, are all steps leading 
 them nearer to the principles of the American system. As 
 such steps are taken it must be the part of American diplomacy 
 to secure to American inventors the benefits they may confer. 
 
 From our vantage point, far in advance of the other nations 
 of the world, we may watch their rivalries, their contentions, 
 their reciprocal demands and profiers ; may note the mutual 
 concessions, each bringing them nearer to us, by which sooner 
 or later they attain to harmonious and profitable relations, 
 until universal comity shall have been reached ; in which, and 
 in every advantage realized in the course of its achievement, 
 we shall be prepared to share. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 217 
 
 INVENTION IN ITS EFFECTS UPON HOUSEHOI^D 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 By Edward Atkinson, Ph.D., LL.D., of Massachusetts. 
 
 THE HOUSE ITSELF. 
 
 Upon first putting pen to paper in order to describe the effect 
 of invention upon the household I have at once become aware 
 that what can be said within the limit of time permitted, must 
 be a mere brief which might well be extended into a volume. 
 
 When that volume had been completed it would be more of a 
 record of what we have not accomplished than of what has yet 
 been done to render the art of living simple and sincere, to the 
 end that true life may be developed in the dwelling place and 
 that the bodies of which life makes use for a few years may be 
 fitly housed. There are now, perhaps, proportionately more 
 houses in which people dwell in greater or less numbers — 
 tenement houses for instance — than there formerly were. How 
 many homes are there, relatively to our numbers, as compared 
 to former days ? I,et us not boast overmuch. 
 
 In dealing with this subject I must perforce be governed by 
 my own environment, therefore my observations must be 
 limited by what I have seen and what I know of New England. 
 
 From what better standpoint, one may ask, could observations 
 have been made ? Has not the Yankee always been striving to 
 invent an easier, if not a better method of doing everything 
 under the sun ? 
 
 In what respect has progress been made in establishing 
 homes in the land during the century of patents ? 
 
 Let us first consider the mere aspect of the house. 
 
 Until a very recent period the century has been one of decad- 
 ence, and we have but just now entered upon a period of true 
 renaissance. This decadence may be almost wholly attributed 
 to the progress of invention ; yet invention must be justified 
 because it had made it easier to build a house than it was 
 formerly. It has also made it easier for many people to become 
 
2l8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 householders. But has not invention for a long period almost 
 destroyed the beautj-- of the house itself? 
 
 What could have been more simple and sincere, and more 
 consistent with all the surroundings than the old farm house, 
 which took the place of the log cabin and may have been 
 developed from it. 
 
 The house was well placed, facing the south, under the shel- 
 ter of great trees ; it was framed in solid oak ; low studded ; 
 the timbers showing everj'where in their true places; it was 
 ventilated by way of the great chimneys, in which cheerful 
 fires gave warmth and light to the very life itself. 
 
 Again, witness the pleasant aspect of the village dwelling, 
 with its gable end upon the street, the doorway opening upon a 
 pleasant yard, the gambrel roof well framed and solid, holding 
 living rooms within, and not mere attics, the whole house of 
 solid frame work, closed walls, well filled. 
 
 Each of these dwellings was a true development, in a section 
 where timber was abundant, where solid wooden walls are 
 warmer and dryer than brick or stone ; and where true archi- 
 tects would have been bom, by whom a school of architecture 
 might have been established which should have been wholly 
 consistent with the climate, the soil and the building material 
 of the country, except for progress in invention. 
 
 Again, bring into view the houses, aye, the homes of the 
 gentry of old time. The old Colonial type was an example of 
 true architecture in the highest sense, although hardly any one 
 then claimed the title of architect. There were builders and 
 craftsmen in those days who knew their trade, and although 
 they assumed not to be artists, yet the artists of the present day 
 are copying their designs, and in this period of renaissance are 
 giving the eye a restful sense of almost unconscious relief from 
 the crazy roof of mustard and pepper-pot design, set off by jig- 
 saw decorations, with which sham houses have in later days 
 been covered ; roofs made of open boarding full of leaky valleys, 
 sheathed with slates which may keep out water, but surely let 
 in all the heat of the summer sun. 
 
 To whom can this period of decadence in household art and 
 architecture be attributed, if not to the pestilent inventor of the 
 buzz-saw ? 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 219 
 
 Who made it so easy to destroy good, solid timber and to 
 erect hollow shams of basket-like structure, of bad form, 
 badly roofed, badly worked in what is miscalled decoration, 
 in which fire and vermin may go anywhere at their own free 
 will ! "Who but the innumerable inventors of wood-working 
 machinery ? To whom it is nevertheless due that many of us 
 can get a house to live in of any kind ; for they have made 
 shelter less costly and have given a sort of home to multitudes 
 who might have had none except single rooms covered in with 
 mud or logs. Yet for these inventions have we not paid for a 
 century a fearful price ? 
 
 A word of warning here to the people of the great South- 
 land. You have the world's supply of hard wood timber upon 
 your mountains — the country's supply of hard pine, yellow 
 pine and ash upon your plains. Why copy, as you are doing 
 in many places, all the faults of northern types of house from 
 which we are just emerging by way of what I have called a re- 
 naissance in domestic architecture. 
 
 The climate and conditions of the Northern States require 
 compact houses, chimneys enclosed within, powerful heating 
 furnaces as distinguished from the warming apparatus required 
 in the more moderate winters of the South. Why not develop 
 the Southern type of open construction, the true Southern 
 dwelling with open ways between the living rooms, the sleep- 
 ing rooms, and the dining room, the kitchen and laundry ? Wh 
 not develop the Spanish and Moorish type of quadrangle en- 
 closing the patio or courtyard ? Why not adopt the thick, 
 solid, flat roof, which is almost universal in the hot countries of 
 Europe ? Cover it, if you please, with a pent house or second- 
 ary roof of picturesque form, to keep the heat from the true 
 roof, thus making it a pleasant, shady resort in Summer. This 
 secondary roof is not closed in at the ends, and merely attached 
 to the frame of the house proper. This whole roof space on 
 the true flat roof and under the pent house may be clear, for 
 the very reason that the Southern chimney should not be en- 
 closed within the house. What better play space for children 
 in hot or wet weather ? 
 
 One may well envy the upbuilders of the new town and cities 
 of the great Southland, because they can, if they will, avoid all 
 the blunders which we have made in our hap-hazard growth 
 
220 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 in the North and our hasty growth in the West ; our Southern 
 friends may now find men who will make use of all the varied 
 contour lines of hill and valley in laying out the town. They 
 can now find architects capable of inventing houses which may 
 be built of timber in such a way as to make them seem to have 
 grown where they are. 
 
 They can find men who can also combine clay tiles and steel 
 in solid and incombustible structures in the more crowded 
 towns or cities, as the Moors built with cohesive tiles in Spain 
 many centuries ago. In this mode of construction, structural 
 steel may now be combined so as to bind tiles and steel together 
 in simple forms. Far better thus, than to copy the brick, stone 
 and iron shams of our great Northern and Western cities, 
 which serve only as screens for the products of the buzz-saw 
 which are put together within in cellular form, plastered over 
 with lime putty worked up in such a way as to hide but not to 
 conceal the sham. The apparent motive being to secure com- 
 plete destruction by fire from the smallest cause. 
 
 When the next centenary of invention is celebrated, the 
 greater part of the inventions in house building which have 
 been applied in the past hundred years will have ceased to en- 
 cumber the face of the land. Their places will have been taken 
 by the products of many inventions, which are just beginning 
 to be applied. I may venture to name a few of them : 
 
 Cohesive tiles of fire clay. 
 
 Terra cotta lumber. 
 
 Structural steel in combination with light and porous con- 
 cretes in the construction of floors. 
 
 Plaster board. 
 
 Adamant and other kinds of adhesive plastering. 
 
 Inside walls finished with lime plastering laid on metallic 
 lathing without concealed spaces behind. 
 
 Vulcanized timber. 
 
 Incombustible paints and varnishes. 
 
 Wood pulp mouldings and covering for roofs. 
 
 Vitrified brick — moulded brick and various kinds of marble 
 work for inside walls, stairways and the like. 
 
 It may well be remembered that if skill and intelligence be 
 applied to the framing and disposal of heavy timber and plank, 
 a better house can be built from these materials where wood 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 221 
 
 is abundant at less cost than the common basket-work of joists 
 combined with thin boards on walls and roof. 
 
 Wood is the best of all non-conductors of heat which can be 
 used for building. A house made of three-inch plank laid on 
 suitable timbers and posts set wide apart, roof as well as wall, 
 will be cooler in summer, warmer in winter, and dryer all the 
 time than any house that can be built of stone, brick, or iron^ 
 except at an excessive cost for double or vaulted walls. Such 
 a house is but an evolution of the log cabin of the mountain 
 section of the lyand of the Sky ; its further evolution offers a 
 wide field for the inventions of the architect, the builder, and 
 the artist. 
 
 This is but a transition period in house building. From the 
 age of mud walls, tents of skin, and cobbled walls of stone,, 
 we have passed, or are passing, through the age of light wood 
 and plaster and shams of stone, perhaps through a temporary 
 stage of iron, of which some of the worst and most hazardous 
 forms have been devised, to the age of clay ; for the present the 
 clay may be combined with structural steel ; perhaps this 
 period may end in the use of clay only, either baked into 
 bricks, tiles, or porous blocks, or clay converted into the 
 lightest kind of metal — alluminum. So much for the house 
 itself. 
 
 HOUSE FITTINGS. 
 
 To the matter of fixtures not much time or space can be 
 given. The application of modern tools and machinery has 
 not been inconsistent with the greatest progress in effectiveness 
 and in artistic design. Locks, hinges, door handles, window 
 fastenings, and all other fittings, both low-priced and high- 
 priced as well, are, in their best forms, most conspicuous exam- 
 ples of true improvement, in which the inventors and manufac- 
 turers of this country have taken the leading and most conspic- 
 uous part. 
 
 WATER SUPPLY AND DRAINAGE. 
 
 During the century the change from the ' ' Old oaken (bac- 
 terial) bucket that hangs by the (contaminated) well has given 
 place to various methods of supplying water by the use of ves- 
 sels or pipes that will not decay, from sources of supply that 
 may not become contaminated. But the progress in drainage 
 
222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and in the removal of sewage lias not keep pace with this more 
 abundant supply of water ; hence there is hardly a more import- 
 ant field for future invention than in these directions. The 
 drainage of the cellar and of the soil about the house may now 
 be readily accomplished through the invention of tile drains 
 and of cheap and durable earthen tiles for their construction. 
 
 In the matter of sewage more remains to be accomplished 
 than has yet been done. The two sources of danger are 
 kitchen grease and foecal matter. It is probable that the re- 
 moval of foecal matter by the application of heat will take the 
 place of wet methods of carrying it ofif mixed with water in a 
 manner most liable to contaminate the surroundings of the 
 house. Already methods of reducing foecal matter to innocu- 
 ous ashes have been invented by Fuller, Warren & Co. and 
 others, which are being applied in many factories and school- 
 houses in suitable places outside the main buildings and with 
 complete success. The washing of greasy pots, pans, and dishes 
 may perhaps be made much safer by substituting some of the 
 antiseptic products of petroleum for soap in the process of 
 scouring as well as by doing away v/ith a great part of the 
 waste of grease by a complete revolution in the whole practice 
 of domestic cooking. 
 
 LIGHTING. 
 
 In nothing has there been greater progress than in the trans- 
 mission of the light of day from without, or in the production 
 of artificial light within the house. 
 
 Ivimiting the consideration of this subject to the isolated 
 dwellings which are out of reach of illuminating gas or elec- 
 tric lights, in which category will be found by far the greater 
 number of houses. 
 
 Therefore, taking no note of the marvels of invention in re- 
 spect to gas and electricity, a few words may be given to matches, 
 glass and lamps. 
 
 Nothing remains to be done in the direction of reducing the 
 cost of ^^ striking a light' '' although there is yet a wide field 
 for making the process safer than it now is. 
 
 No branch of industry has been more fully promoted by in- 
 vention than the making of glass, and there is no occupation 
 which presents a more complete example of the rule, that in all 
 arts to which invention and improved processes are applied the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 223 
 
 cost of labor is diminished while the rate of wages rises and the 
 price of the product is reduced. 
 
 Thus, although the progress of the glass manufacture has 
 been obstructed by high duties on many of the materials which 
 are used, as well as upon the finished products of like kind im- 
 ported from foreign countries, yet such are our many advant- 
 ages in the quality of the sand which is converted into glass, 
 and in the abundance of food from which the large amount of 
 physical force or potential energy that is called for in this pur- 
 suit is derived, that we have accomplished much in the im- 
 provement in quality as well as in the reduction in cost. 
 
 In that monumental volume, No. XX of the census of 1880 
 upon wages and prices, compiled by Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, it 
 appears that in one of the principal glass works of Pennsyl- 
 vania the following changes had occurred, the wages of every 
 class of operatives had advanced between i860 and 1880, yet 
 more as compared with 1851. The average earnings of all 
 classes in 1861 were $1.23 per day, in 1880 they were $1.62. 
 The absolute cost of labor per amount of product had been di- 
 minished although the percentum of labor in the product had 
 increased. But, through economy of fuel and other applica- 
 tions of invention, it had become possible to reduce the prices 
 of given sets of glass bowls, goblets, wine glasses and tumblers 
 from $18 in i860 to $3.50 in 1880. (See pages 87, 88, Vol. XX, 
 Census 1880.) 
 
 The changes have not been as great or as conspicuous in the 
 matter of window glass, but since 1866, the year of conspicuous 
 paper money inflation, the cost of labor per box of fifty feet has 
 been diminished from $1.75 in paper to $1.10 in gold, while the 
 price to consumers of the same quantity has been reduced from 
 $5.50 to $2.75. 
 
 This extraordinary volume, containing the results of able 
 and scientific research, is full of most instructive examples and 
 proofs of the rule that I have presented, to wit : In propor- 
 tion to the application of science and invention to the arts of pro- 
 duction the price of labor is augmented, the rates of wages rise, 
 the cost of labor is diminished, and the price of the product is 
 reduced. This volume also gives the most conclusive proof of 
 the inherent power of an intelligent people to keep on in their 
 material progress, in spite of civil war, of the debasement of 
 
224 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 tlie currency, and of the obstruction of bad methods of taxation 
 by which free commerce with the world is restricted, and by 
 which labor is diverted from its most profitable course : the 
 liome market for the surplus products of the field, the forest, 
 the factory, and the mine being by the same obstructive policy 
 prevented from expanding. 
 
 In the matter of artificial light it may be held that while the 
 introduction of illuminating gas and electric linghting have 
 increased the quantity and greatly facilitated the distribution 
 of light, neither invention has to any extent reduced the cost, 
 but on the contrary, by increasing the demand for light every- 
 where these inventions have doubtless increased the general 
 expenditure. 
 
 On the other hand the discovery of petroleum, the applica- 
 tion of invention to its preparation and distribution and the 
 invention of innumerable varieties of lamps, have reduced the 
 cost of household lighting both absolutely and relatively, to 
 the end that there is now nothing so cheap in the household as 
 an abundance of light. Yet there are inventions hardly yet 
 known which remove almost the last vestige of hazard from 
 the kerosene oil lamp burning a reasonably high standard oil, 
 doing away also under ordinary care with smoke and smell, 
 while another invention promises to remove all the odor from 
 kerosene oil and to raise the flashing point to 500 or 600° F. 
 
 FURNISHING. 
 
 Strong and durable as the furniture of the house was a 
 century ago, not much can be said for its comfort. Time will 
 not suffice to deal with the application of invention to the art 
 of furnishing, in which the artist and the skilled mechanic have 
 ■done so much. Suffice it that the Centennial Exhibition of 
 1876 gave a greater impetus in this direction than in almost 
 any other, and it is from that event our greatest progress may 
 be dated.* 
 
 * Note. —I may venture at this point to render the credit to Professor 
 John D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is 
 his due. He had the sagacity to discover in the Russian method of 
 manual instruction the germ of the system of manual training which is 
 now becoming an integral part of common school instruction all over our 
 land. He applied and developed it in the manual workshops of the 
 Institute of Technology in Boston, and from that first object lesson the 
 -conception has spread everywhere. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 225 
 
 HEATING AND COOKING. 
 
 We now come to the two most important processes of house- 
 hold economy, in which it may almost be affirmed that the 
 progress of invention has been backward. 
 
 In the matter of the combustion of fuel we may measure our 
 ignorance by the height of our chimneys and the strength of 
 our drafts. 
 
 It would be out of place to deal with the crude methods of 
 combustion in the conversion of coal into power. The ten- 
 dency toward gaseous fuel is very marked and may ultimately 
 lead to much greater economy. 
 
 In dealing with the household art of applying heat to the 
 conversion of crude food material into nutritious food, the posi- 
 tion may now be taken that any method of combustion that 
 requires the draft of a chimney and any stove that requires a 
 chimney flue is almost unfit to be used. In the art of nutrition 
 we have given our attention almost wholly to the nutrition of 
 the soil, the plant, and of the beast ; but until within a very 
 few years we have wholly overlooked or neglected the nutrition 
 of man. 
 
 Taking advantage of this neglect by the true scientist, the venal 
 masters of scientific perversion have exhausted the art of decep- 
 tion in compounding quack medicines for the cure of ailments 
 which are sometimes imaginary, but which when they exist are 
 mainly due to ignorance and incapacity in the art of cooking. 
 
 The brick oven and the open fire of a century ago required 
 time and close attention, but the results of the work under the 
 direction of a good housewife were wholesome, nutritious, and 
 appetizing. 
 
 The introduction of iron stoves and ranges and of anthracite 
 coal have taken the life out of the house, out of the air, and out 
 of the food as well. 
 
 It is only within a very few years that any attention has been 
 given even to chemical physiology ; as yet hardly any progress 
 has been made in bringing the lessons derived from science ap- 
 plied to nutrition into the form of an art which may be easily 
 mastered. 
 
 I have been led to the study of this matter through.the de- 
 velopment of the fact by the compilation of statistics, that even 
 
226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 in this land of abundance one-lialf or more of the income of 
 about 90 per cent, of the population is expended in the mere 
 purchase of food material. 
 
 Add to this the time, the attention, the discomfort, and the 
 waste of energy which are spent in the conversion of good ma- 
 terial into food of which the average quality is bad and we 
 begin to have some comprehension of a field which is almost 
 unoccupied, and in which science and invention have yet to 
 work most beneficent results. 
 
 Had I undertaken to deal with this branch of invention in 
 the household arts for mere purposes of personal profit, it would 
 be unsuitable to treat this matter at this time. But since my 
 purpose and my present practice is to devote the income that I 
 may derive from my own crude inventions to the further devel- 
 opment of the science of nutrition, I may devote the remainder 
 of this treatise to this branch of the subject. 
 
 Without the aid of Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, of the Massa- 
 chusetts Institute of Technology, and of Prof. Wm. O. Atwater, 
 of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, I should 
 have been unable to deal with this branch of the subject in the 
 way in which I shall present it. I may also quote from the 
 standard authorities. Sir Henry Thompson, Sir I^yon Playfair, 
 Prof. Voit, Dr. Pavey, and others, without again referring to 
 them by name. 
 
 The sole condition on which the application of heat to the 
 conversion of food material into cooked food without constant 
 watching is that a measured heat shall be under complete con- 
 trol. 
 
 The two rules for cooking are as follows : 
 
 I. Take some heat of the top of a lamp and put it into a box. 
 
 II. Take one part of gumption and one part of food, mix to- 
 gether, put them into the box with the heat ; the heat will do 
 the work. 
 
 These rules cannot be applied in the use of any iron stove or 
 oven heated by the combustion of coal under a strong draft 
 Cooking on such stoves calls for constant attention, and for the 
 discomfort due to close proximity to the stove. 
 
 If meats are subjected to a high heat in the effort to cook 
 them quickly in an oven, or by any process except broiling, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 227 
 
 which requires great skill, the fats are dissociated or ' ' cracked, ' ' 
 as it is termed, the volatile portion is diffused, bearing away 
 the finest flavor, and the remainder of the fat is left in an undi- 
 gestible condition, in which it fails to be assimilated. 
 
 In fact the process of cooking is ,a fine process of chemical 
 conversion and when we put appliances which are not suitable 
 to the process into the hands of incapable persons who are en- 
 tirely ignorant of the theory, we have no right to expect to get 
 any better results than those with which we are all too familiar. 
 
 It would be unsuitable both to the occasion and for myself 
 to describe the processes which I propose to substitute for those 
 which are commonly practiced. I will only give the objective 
 point of my researches and a statement of what has already 
 been accomplished ; much more remains to be done. 
 
 The proportions of the nutrients which are necessary to the 
 effectual support of a man at moderate work, according to the 
 American standard, are as follows : 
 
 Protein or nitrogenous material 125 grains. 
 
 Fats 125 " 
 
 Carbo-hydrates or starchy material 450 " 
 
 700 
 
 Disregarding fractions a little over one pound (adv.) of 
 starchy food and a little over a quarter of a pound each of fat 
 and of protein. 
 
 Professor Atwater has converted these nutrients into calories 
 or units of heat. These chemical elements of nutrition, with 
 the mineral elements which will be found on almost all varieties 
 of food, must supply the working man who is engaged in mod- 
 erate work with 3,520 units of heat per day: a less supply 
 suffices for women. The variations which may be made for 
 hard work or for sedentary work, or for sex, are few in number 
 and may be readily defined by percents of variation. 
 
 If we add for unavoidable waste about 10 per cent., the unit 
 of nutrition for a man at moderate work is 4,000 calories per 
 day. This potential energy will be yielded from the nutrients 
 which are contained therein by certain measurable quantities 
 of vegetable and animal food consumed in about the usual pro- 
 portions. The proportions of animal and vegetable food may 
 vary according to the special appetite and digestive powers of 
 
228 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 each, person, but dealing in a broad and general way, such is 
 the standard or unit of daily nutrition. 
 
 In the purchase of food material at the retail prices in cities 
 and towns, grain, flour and vegetables may be considered as 
 constants in price each season or year according to the crop, the 
 prices of animal food as variable according to kind and quality. 
 
 Lists of prices having been prepared, the following course is 
 now within the power of any intelligent person to adopt. 
 
 If a dietary be made up for thirty days, for the consumption 
 of the tougher and cheaper parts of meat and of the cheaper 
 kinds of fish, with the right proportion of bread, grain vegeta- 
 bles and sugar the cost of food per thousand calories in Boston 
 at the present time will not exceed three and a-half cents. A 
 man requiring 4,000 calories may therefore purchase a day's 
 full supply for 14 cents, or at the rate of 98 cents per week. 
 A woman occupied in sewing, teaching, or in attendance in a 
 shop may purchase 3,400 calories, which is in excess of ordinary 
 need, at 12 cents per day or at 84 cents per week. > 
 
 These tough portions of meat may be made as tender as the 
 choicest cuts by the application of moderate heat for a sufficient 
 length of time, and are in every respect as nutritious. 
 
 If the consumer wishes to purchase the medium cuts of meat 
 and to enjoy a greater variety, the expenditure may be in- 
 creased to 5 cents per thousand calories or 20 cents a day — 
 $1.40 per week for men : lyj^ cents a day, $1.23 per week for 
 women, the addition being spent on meat and fish. 
 
 If the consumer wishes to purchase the choicer cuts of meat, 
 the best quality of poultry and fish, together with a more 
 ample supply of milk, butter and sugar, the price per thousand 
 calories may be advanced to seven cents. 
 
 At this standard the cost per day for men will be 28 cents or 
 f 1.96 per week ; for women, 24^^ cents per day or $1.72 per 
 week. Any expenditure beyond this last standard of seven 
 cents per thousand calories will be either an absolute waste or 
 for absolute luxury. 
 
 This daily unit of nutrition for one person can now be 
 cooked in the best manner in the crockery vessels in which it 
 may be served, in a cooking pail of my invention, with the 
 heat derived from any common kerosene hand lamp or firom 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 229 
 
 any common gas burner over which the pail may be suspended, 
 and while the housewife sleepeth the lamp will do its work.. 
 
 Multiples of this ration may be cooked in a portable oven of 
 my invention, either by baking, roasting, simmering, stewing 
 and braising, or in imitation of broiling and frying, at the rate 
 of forty to fifty pounds per day in a series of four charges to the 
 oven, with the heat that may be taken from the top of the 
 chimney of a common kerosene oil lamp with a circular wick 
 of one and a-half inches in diameter, consuming one quart of 
 oil in the eight hours required for work. 
 
 The work may be done anywhere. Therefore the kitchen 
 and its chimney, the iron stove or range, and the miscellaneous 
 collection of iron pots and pans may, so far as the process of 
 cooking is concerned, be wholly displaced. The room can then 
 be put to a better use if the heating of the room itself and the 
 water for circulation about the house be relegated to the heat- 
 ing furnace in the cellar in winter and to a small special water 
 heater in summer. 
 
 I venture to conclude this treatise with the suggestion that 
 the agricultural experiment stations of the United States which 
 are now being so well developed under the general supervision 
 of the Secretary of Agriculture, and under the special super- 
 vision of Prof. W. O. Atwater, should not be limited wholly 
 to the nutrition of the soil, the plant, and of the beast. 
 
 They will not be complete until a Cooking lyaboratory is 
 attached to each, in which the science of the nutrition of man 
 may be developed, to the end that it may become a part of the 
 common knowledge of the whole people, and that the simple 
 rules, of which I have given some examples, may be incorpo- 
 rated in the arithmetics used in the common schools in place 
 of some of the logical puzzles which perplex our children 
 without educating them. 
 
 At present I can claim for these computations only theoretic 
 accuracy. Arrangements have been made by myself for the 
 beginning of laboratory practice from which a more definite 
 direction may be given in this almost unoccupied field of ap- 
 plied science. 
 
 A few words more upon the general topic. The progress of 
 society and the progress in household economy, like progress 
 
230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 in the mechanism of the factory, appear to follow one and the 
 same rule; each beginning in the arduous simplicity of earlier 
 days, each evolving new ways and means of combination by 
 way of new inventions and discoveries, leading up to the ut- 
 most complexity, accompanied, however, by greater abundance. 
 Yet this complexity is but a prophecy of more effective sim- 
 plicity in the fullness of time. Both in society and in the 
 household we seem now to be in the transition period of ex- 
 treme complexity. 
 
 "We are compelled to think more of living and less of life. 
 We possess more comfort, but do not enjoy it, because it in- 
 volves more care. We have many more servants and much 
 less help. We can spare more time, but we get less leisure. 
 We pay for more amusement and are less amused. We may 
 read more books but we do less thinking. We strive to be 
 independent, while we become more and more dependent. We 
 condemn legislators, yet we constantly appeal for more legis- 
 lation. We admit that the progress of humanity can only 
 come in the development of the individual character. Then 
 we take up all sorts of fanciful fads, which would sink the 
 individual in the collective mass. We boast of our power to 
 manage our own affairs, yet we appeal to Congress to force us 
 to take up unprofitable occupations at the cost of our neigh- 
 bors. The laborer is proud of his liberty, yet calls upon the 
 Legislature to restrict the use or his time. . We ask not to be 
 led into temptation, then we pass laws which convert that 
 which is not criminal in itself into a legal crime. We try to 
 earn all the money of the best kind that we can get, and we 
 call upon the Government to coin a poor kind, and to pass a 
 law to enable us to force our creditors to take it. On Sundays 
 we praise the lyord who has made of one blood all the nations 
 of the earth, and on the week days we ask Congress to forbid 
 us to exchange services with our brothers in blood of other 
 races. We preach the gospel of peace, good will and plenty 
 among the nations, while each nation builds iron, steel and 
 nickel-clad vessels of war for the next inventor to render use- 
 less and innocuous. 
 
 To whom do we owe all this complexity ? Again to the pes- 
 tilent inventor. Who but the inventor of the turbine wheel 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 23 1 
 
 brought masses of people into the narrow valley of the river 
 below the fall ? Who but the inventor of the steam engine and 
 of illuminating gas made it so necessary for the workman to 
 live near his work that we have generated the slums out of 
 that crowded condition promoted by these very inventions? 
 Who but the inventor of the vertical railway, which we call an 
 elevator, placed household over household in disregard of the 
 separate home ? All this is but transition. 
 
 Next appears the inventor who sends speech and light and 
 power over wide areas ; the inventor who, like the one who 
 devised the multiplex telegraph, sends the rapid car at higher 
 speed above the slow-moving carriages on the street below. 
 But now comes his peer, who, adopting the Irishman's receipt 
 for making a cannon, takes a round hole and puts an under- 
 ground tunnel of iron and concrete outside of it, and who, bor- 
 ing through sand and clay and rock, will carry the multitude 
 from the crowded streets of the city to the wide area of the 
 suburbs. 
 
 Again comes the inventor who, converting hydrogen, oxygen, 
 and carbon into fuel gas, will presently furnish heat at little 
 cost wherever small pipes can be laid, in which this kind of gas 
 can be forced under high pressure over long distances. In 
 every direction we make progress by invention which destroys 
 great volumes of capital previously accumulated at great cost, 
 thus diminishing the relative share in every service which the 
 capitalist may take over to himself, while increasing both abso- 
 lutely and relatively that which may rightly fall to the indus- 
 trious and intelligent workman. 
 
 There is nothing constant but change, and throughout all 
 these changes we witness progress toward that objective point 
 when the family will again become the unit of society ; when 
 a good subsistence and a suitable shelter will be so readily at- 
 tained by men of common intelligence, rectitude, and industry 
 that it will no longer pay to become rich, and leisure will be 
 found in the diligent and intelligent use of time. 
 
 I venture again to call attention to the sequence of events. 
 The collective or factory system of industry was practically 
 unknown until the development of the modem water-wheel, 
 the application of steam to power and illuminating gas to 
 
232 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 lightning. These inventions brought about a change from 
 separate household industry to this collective method, accom- 
 panied by an extreme subdivision of labor. It was a step in 
 moral as well as in material progress, although in its earlier 
 stages it was subject to many abuses. It may have reached its 
 highest point in its application to the pursuits of this country, 
 yet, if we analyze the occupations of the people as given in 
 the census of 1880, we shall find that if we put into the cate- 
 gory of the operatives in our great factories all who are occu- 
 pied in the textile arts, the iron and steel works and machine 
 shops, the clothing, boot and shoe factories, and all other mis- 
 cellaneous occupations, which can be conducted in the best 
 way by great subdivision of labor, and by bringing great 
 masses of people into single buildings, we barely reach ten per 
 cent of all who are occupied for gain. There are, of course, 
 great masses occupied luider analogous conditions, but in col- 
 lective pursuits like the railway service, the building trades and 
 others individual aptitude and intelligence count for as much 
 or more as the mere manual or mechanical aptitude which is 
 so necessary in a factory. Great factories are conspicuous by 
 their very mass. They appeal to the imagination and may 
 sometimes mislead. 
 
 Again, the construction of the railways into undeveloped 
 territory has scattered the population occupied in agriculture 
 under conditions, which, in some respects, are as adverse to the 
 development of men as the massing of crowds in cities. These 
 are the penalties which we pay for invention, and they have 
 occupied a century in their development. May it not be prob- 
 able that in the progress of invention other new forces, to which 
 I have referred — power, light, speech and heat, carried over 
 wide areas and placed at the control of the household on the 
 tap of a button, may bring about a return to household indus- 
 try of the highest type under the least arduous conditions of 
 life perhaps wholly free from the monotony of the great fac- 
 tory ; distributing the urban population and doing away with 
 the causes of the slums, so far as those causes may be found in 
 external influences rather than in the individual character or 
 want of character in those who rest contented in the slums. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 233 
 
 Again, the intensive system of fanning, the adoption of the 
 silo, the application of improved methods in dealing with all 
 the products of the field, are leading to the treatment of land 
 as a laboratory rather than as a mine ; thus bringing together 
 into neighborhoods that part of the population which has been 
 too widely scattered, also closer to the factory population which 
 has been too much concentrated. 
 
 If such may be the prophecy to him whose vision leads him 
 to visionary and optimistic views, then we may call upon the 
 inventor of the future and of the present to continue on his way 
 undoing the work of his predecessors by doing it better. 
 
 "We may bid God-speed especially to the inventors of warlike 
 implements of destruction, perhaps the only method of over- 
 coming the ignorance and stupidity of mankind. That igno- 
 rance and stupidity finds its most extreme expression in the 
 construction of great vessels of war, especially by European 
 countries such as Italy and Germany, where the weight of tax- 
 ation is already depriving great masses of the population even 
 of the measure of food which is absolutely necessary to the 
 maintenance of life. The long list of the iron and steel-clad 
 vessels of war belonging to these nations may be taken as the 
 tokens of the barbarism of that system which forbids mutual 
 service among the States which comprise what are called the 
 civilized sections of the globe. 
 
 In that provision of the Constitution of the United States 
 which assures the utmost liberty in mutual service among the 
 States of this Union we have found the closest bond. Since 
 slavery destroyed itself by aggressive warfare we have ceased 
 to require an army except for police services, and when the in- 
 ventor of the most efiective gun shall render approach to any 
 of our harbors by armed vessels as impossible as the fear of such 
 approach would be ridiculous, if also we are then as free to ex- 
 change services and products with other nations as we are 
 among our own States, the true century of good will, peace, 
 and plenty will have been fairly entered upon. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 235 
 
 ADDRESS OF S. P. I,ANGI.EY, .I.I,.D., 
 secretary op the smithsonian institution, 
 
 Vice-Presidbnt op the Congress, Presiding at the Session on 
 THE Afternoon op Aprii, gth, 1891. 
 
 If this Centennial is a memorable occasion in the history of 
 discovery it is so also in that of science, which time out of 
 mind has been so intimately related to it. It is possibly to this 
 that I owe the honor of being here to assure you of the especial 
 interest which is felt in this gathering by the scientific men of 
 Washington, who form perhaps a greater body of professional 
 discoverers than there is in any other city of the country. 
 
 Nearly a half a century ago Congress transferred from the 
 shelves of the Patent Office to the Smithsonian, the very few 
 objects of curiosity the government then possessed, and these 
 have since grown into great groups of illustrations of the 
 history of man's thought, as displayed in discovery and inven- 
 tion — groups which are among the most interesting of the 
 collections of the National Museum. 
 
 I hope all here will find opportunity to see them, but I 
 allude to these in connection with this centennial occasion, 
 only to notice a suggestion they give of general application to 
 the history of discovery, for so long as man is a tool-using 
 animal, nearly every inventor is still engaged in making a tool 
 or machine of some sort, and the history of the very first tool 
 that was made, may have a bearing on the present of inven- 
 tion, and even throw some light on its future. 
 
 We have all seen an Indian axe-head which has been made of 
 stone, by rubbing one piece on another, and looked on it per- 
 haps as the most primitive of tools. This, however, was not 
 the first tool, but an improvement on something still ruder, for 
 you may see in these Smithsonian collections, roughly-broken 
 stones which were made by primitive man before the art of 
 rubbing one on another was invented, and which antedate this 
 comparatively modem form by perhaps hundreds of thousands 
 
236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of years. The thing to note in this connection is, that it took 
 man probably over a hundred thousand years to make this, his 
 first invention — if we can call it one — and that possibly millions 
 of years, but probably a period longer at any rate than the whole 
 progress of world-wide discovery since, was spent by the inven- 
 tive minds of all united mankind in evolving the one idea, that 
 by rubbing one stone on another you can get a cutting edge. 
 It seems incredible that invention could ever have worked as 
 slowly as that ; yet it did so, and only after myriads of years 
 brought about the polished stone age. 
 
 Now, we observe, not so much how inventions grow, as how 
 the rate of discovery grows ; when we find that the next great 
 improvement was evolved in a time short, compared with the 
 first ; for instead of myriads of years, inventive thought had so 
 gained in quickness that it took " only " a few thousand years 
 to make the next invention, which was that of a tool of bronze. 
 
 But the third stage, the development of the tool of iron, 
 shows a yet further quickening of the rate of thought, for this 
 stage began only a few centuries ago, and yet has been thought 
 out, with its immensely greater developments, in a fraction of 
 the former time ; in centuries, that is, instead of thousands of 
 years, and not, we must observe, merely because there are 
 more inventors, but because the inventive mind itself is be- 
 coming of finer and prompter quality. 
 
 If this short history — this philosophy teaching by ex- 
 amples — means anything, we can now, I think, predict that 
 whether the fourth stage on which we are entering, is to be 
 the age of aluminum, or whatever else ; that the requisite in- 
 ventions will be made, the problems worked out, and perhaps 
 the material face of the civilized world altered, largely in our 
 own lifetimes. 
 
 It has been said that even less than a hundred years ago, if 
 the most powerful and enlightened potentate on earth wished 
 to travel faster on the land or sea, or to send a message quicker 
 than was done in the days of the patriarchs, he could not do 
 it ; for if Abraham had mounted his messenger on his best 
 steed, the united wealth, and power, and knowledge of the 
 World, toward the end of the last century, could have only 
 furnished a possibly swifter horse than his, and could have done 
 no more. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 237 
 
 Of the important conquests over time and space, which have 
 heen made in the past six thousand years, most have come, then, 
 in the life-time of living men. I have myself long personally 
 known the man who competed with Stevenson for the prize for 
 the first locomotive, and am privileged to count among my 
 friends, in the inventor of the telephone, one still a young man. 
 With this incessant achievement, and this increasing rate of 
 progress on the inventor's part, what can we deny to the pos- 
 sibilities of even the coming decade ? 
 
 It would be rash to predict what these all may be, but I de- 
 sire to express my personal conviction that one at least, which 
 has been the mere dream of enthusiasts in the past, is soon to 
 become a reality, and to venture the statement that the air may 
 probably be made to support engine-driven flying machines, 
 heavier than the air itself, before the expiration of the present 
 century. 
 
 I will detain you no longer from listening to the distinguished 
 speakers who are to address you, but only say that in view of 
 this fabulously increasing rate and value of reproduction, you, 
 as inventors, are certainly taxable with no overestimate of your 
 true importance, if you believe yourselves becoming each day, 
 more and more the real creators of the changes which make 
 this nation materially great, and entitle you of right to the 
 place of honored guests, and to the welcome all extend to you 
 in its Capital. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 239 
 
 THE EFFECT OF TECHNOI.OGICAI, SCHOOI^ UPON 
 THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION. 
 
 By W. p. Trowbridgb, Ph.D., LL.D., op Nbw York, Profbssor 
 OP Engineering Schooi, op Mines, Columbia Coi,i,ege. 
 
 The place now occupied by technical schools in the general 
 system of higher education may be regarded as a direct result 
 of the advance of knowledge, in the natural sciences, which 
 has so signally marked the successive years of the century 
 which now draws to a close. 
 
 Living in the midst of the grand developments in material 
 progress at the present day, we can fully appreciate the extent 
 to which these developments are due to the applications of 
 scientific discoveries only by contrasting the state of knowl- 
 edge at the beginning of the century with that of our own 
 times : and by tracing the changes which have brought about 
 the rise and growth of the new fields of education represented 
 by technical schools, and the reciprocal effects of these institu- 
 tions in promoting scientific research and the applications of 
 science to useful purposes. 
 
 One hundred years ago natural science was in a condition of 
 the greatest speculative crudity. During the century preced- 
 ing — Newton, Ivcibnitz, Bernoulli, DesCartes, d'Alembert and 
 others had formulated most of the fundamental propositions in 
 the mathematical and mechanical sciences, very much as they 
 are understood and accepted at the present time, but the appli- 
 cation of dynamical laws and general theorems to practical 
 purposes, in the arts and manufactures, had hardly yet been 
 systematically attempted. Teachers of chemistry in the Uni- 
 versities accepted the old Phlogistic theory as late as 1780 and 
 1790, when Priestly, Watt, Boulton, Smeaton, and others were 
 accustomed to meet together in Birmingham as members of the 
 ' ' Lunar Society ' ' to discuss matters relating to the progress of 
 the natural sciences and their useful applications. 
 
240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The lyunar Society may be said to have represented more 
 truly, during its twenty-five years of existence, the state of 
 those natural sciences which have a special bearing on material 
 and useful applications, and the extent to which such applica- 
 tions had been carried, than any association then in existence. 
 Among its members were to be found distinguished inventors, 
 manufacturers, iron-masters, engineers, chemists, physicians, 
 and philosophers, all of whom seemed as much interested in 
 improvements in the arts and industries as in purely scientific 
 discovery. 
 
 The Society held monthly meetings in Birmingham at the 
 time of full moon, these times being selected in order that the 
 members might have the benefit of moonlight in returning to 
 their homes. The discussions, which were preceded by a gen- 
 erous dinner, extended informally far into the night, and al- 
 though no records of the discussions were kept, yet from letters 
 of the members, which have been preserved, this Society seemed 
 to have been a true exponent of the condition of knowledge, at 
 that time, as far as it related to material developments. 
 
 Priestly had but recently made his remarkable discoveries of 
 oxygen, hydrogen, carbonic acid and other gases, but explained 
 these discoveries to the members of the Society on the old 
 theory which had been held for one hundred years, and main- 
 tained that the gases which he had found were different kinds 
 of air fi-om which an imponderable substance — Phlogiston — 
 had been eliminated or evolved. Neither he nor his greatly- 
 interested associates in the Society had at the time any true con- 
 ception of the nature of chemical combinations, and although 
 the discoveries of Priestly led to the otherthrow, by Lavoiser 
 and others, of the Phlogistic theory and the establishment of 
 the true nature of chemical action before the end of the century, 
 yet Priestly himself remained until his death, in Pennsylvania 
 in the year 1804, a firm believer in this absurd theory, which 
 had been so long taught and accepted, and which if now main- 
 tained would be received, not with incredulity, but derision. 
 
 Not less remarkable, as it now appears to us, is the fact that 
 another member of the I^unar Society, the distinguished in- 
 ventor of the steam engine, then engaged near Birmingham 
 with his partner, Boulton, in the construction of engines, could 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 241 
 
 be furnished by men of science with no other theoretical basis 
 for the explanation of the action of steam than that heat, the 
 source of the power which his engines were transforming into 
 useful work, was a material substance ; a belief maintained by 
 the great mathematician of that age, I,a Place, up to the time 
 of his death, in the year 1827. 
 
 The true theory of this important branch of physics was not 
 finally established and universally accepted until about the year 
 1845, after Joule had definitely demonstrated that heat is a form 
 of kinetic energy, by determining the exact and invaxiable 
 dynamical relations which govern the reciprocal transmuta- 
 tions between this physical agent and ordinary forms of work 
 or energy. 
 
 The new science of Thermodynamics, based upon these dis- 
 coveries, soon became reduced to mathematical analysis, revolu- 
 tionizing all the physical sciences and leading directly to the 
 establishment of the important principles of the correlation of 
 forces, or the conservation of energy, and finally in more recent 
 times to the recognition of the fact that electricity is also a form 
 of energy subject to exact dynamical laws which, like those of 
 heat, have become developed into a mathematical science. 
 
 The otherthrow of the Phlogistic theory about the beginning 
 of the century, attended by the introduction of the true science 
 of chemistry, and the definite foundation of the new science of 
 heat, with its far-reaching consequences, are the two great 
 events which mark the last one hundred years of scientific 
 progress. 
 
 Previous to the introduction of the steam engine by Watt 
 mills were dependent upon water or wind power, and were 
 necessarily few in number. Hand labor in the fabrication of 
 implements and the preparation of useful material was the main 
 resource. Ocean and river commerce were dependent upon the 
 winds, and a knowledge of masonry, carpentry and' hydraulics 
 were the chief acquirements of the engineer. 
 
 In the Universities, although science was taught, yet its 
 domain was limited, and the instruction given was merely an 
 incident in the education leading to degrees in the professions 
 of law, medicine and theology. 
 
242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 A spirit of experimental inquiry had, however, been 
 awakened, which was destined to spread and continue with 
 increasing activity, and which under the later impetus given to 
 scientific thought by the discoveries of the laws of heat and the 
 science of energy, led to the establishment of new sciences, new 
 professions and new fields of labor and invention. 
 
 Scientific discoveries were quickly taken up and brought to 
 useful purposes, and in colleges and universities it became 
 recognized, though reluctantly, and not without much contro- 
 versy that the broad domain of scientific progress was not only 
 giving rise to new learned professions, but that special bodies 
 of teachers, special departments, and even special institutions 
 of learning, with independent faculties, were required to meet 
 the demands of a new education. 
 
 Thus originated, in this country at least, the technical schools, 
 which in one form or another are now found connected with 
 most of our great educational institutions, and often exist as 
 true and independent seats of learning, having the full power 
 of conferring technical degrees. 
 
 A new principle or motive has thus been introduced in higher 
 education, which recognizes professions that demand not only 
 profound learning in the mathematical and natural sciences, 
 but knowledge and skill in their useful applications. 
 
 Academic, as well as popular honors, are now considered to 
 be due to him who makes a scientific discovery useful as well 
 as to him who makes a useful scientific discovery. 
 
 The technical schools are thus not only departments of re- 
 search in science, but, in their teachings, the exponents of 
 material progress. 
 
 They are sought by a large number of young men who 
 finally enter upon vocations intimately connected with engi- 
 neering and industrial enterprises, and who contribute directly, 
 in many ways, to the diffusion of scientific knowledge among 
 the people. 
 
 These are the conditions now existing, under which we have 
 to consider more particularly the effect which technical schools 
 have upon material progress or the progress of invention. 
 
 One important feature of these institutions is, that the in- 
 struction given aims not only to acquaint the student with the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 243 
 
 fundamental laws of science by systematic demonstrations and 
 explanations, but also with the methods and the limits of the 
 applications of those laws to useful purposes. 
 
 Teaching is illustrated by examples drawn from practice, or 
 by the examination and discussion of hypothetical problems, 
 chosen with special reference to practical applications. 
 
 The student is constantly reminded of the fact, that v/hile 
 no successful device or combination, of whatever character, 
 can violate the fundamental laws of science and of nature, yet 
 there is a vast difference between a theoretical conception and 
 its practical and useful realization ; that the circumstances and 
 conditions of use are of no less importance than fundamental 
 . principles. 
 
 The training of the drawing-roojji and the exercises in the 
 mechanical, chemical, physical and electric laboratories are de- 
 signed to give not only a mastery of the principles of drawing, 
 of mechanism, and of chemistry and physics, and thus furnish a 
 broad foundation in scientific learning, but also to cultivate 
 discrimination and judgment, by which errors in practice are to 
 be avoided and time and money saved, which might otherwise 
 be expended in costly or fruitless experiments or constructions. 
 
 Technical schools exert a primary and important influence 
 also in developing and enlarging the fields of applied science, 
 not only by investigation and research, but by stimulating and 
 encouraging the applications of new discoveries to the arts 
 and manufactures ; by reducing such applications to laws and 
 general principles, and by contributing to the maintenance of 
 scientific scocieties and scientific publications devoted to the dif- 
 fusion of the knowledge gained by practice and experience. 
 
 One hundred years ago important inventions like those of 
 Watt were submitted to a few learned men only, who alone could 
 understand or appreciate their significance. To-day the sci- 
 entific press scatters far and near, in language easily compre- 
 hended, a knowledge of all new discoveries and new devices ; 
 and critics are found in the work-shop, on the farm, and in the 
 household, who are able intelligently to discuss the subjects 
 thus brought before them ; and if an invention successfully 
 passes the ordeal of such discussions, it may be said to be fairly 
 entitled to favorable attention. 
 
244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The age in which, we live is thus intensely practical and ex- 
 cites the inventive spirit ; and they who are deceived by what 
 is false in pretended applications of science, are generally mis- 
 led on account of inexcusable ignorance and a failure to in- 
 form themselves through ordinary and accessible channels of 
 knowledge. To technical schools is to be credited in no small 
 degree this diffusion of exact scientific knowledge in its appli- 
 cations to the arts and industries, and in promoting and quick- 
 ening popular comprehension of the principles which form the 
 basis of all progress. 
 
 The cultivation of certain arts of manipulation and of experi- 
 mental research, which is carried to the highest degree in 
 technical schools, deserves mention, inasmuch as these arts are 
 often not only essential requisites to successful inventions, but 
 furnish the only means for their perfect illustration and expla- 
 nation. Among these arts are instrumental drawing, methods 
 of chemical analysis, and the use of testing instruments and ap- 
 paratus in engineering physical and electrical investigations ; 
 all of which not only contribute to the formation of habits of 
 exactness in professional work, but suggest ideas which might 
 not otherwise have presented themselves. 
 
 Few persons understand, for example, the value of the art 
 of instrumental drawing. A correct drawing is generally re- 
 garded as a kind of language which conveys definite ideas from 
 one person to another ; but it is not so universally understood 
 that the drawing-board, to the designer or inventor, is more 
 than a tablet for the presentation or record of his ideas by a 
 peculiar sign language ; that it is a most efficient instructor, 
 assisting the imagination and furnishing new ideas, or new 
 proportions, as the work of designing progresses. As a ready 
 and complete vocabulary in written or spoken language not 
 only furnishes a great variety of shades of expression, but sug- 
 gests appropriate illustrations and even new thoughts, so does 
 the drawing-board in the hands of a skillful designer prompt 
 new combinations, new proportions, and often different modes 
 of treatment of a practical problem. 
 
 A complete knowledge of the methods of making proper 
 measurements and tests, by which is to be investigated the 
 practicability or usefulness of a supposed discovery, or process, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 245 
 
 in any of the branches of applied Physics, Mechanics or Chem- 
 istry, is best obtained by practice and experience in the labo- 
 ratories of the technical schools. These laboratories are in 
 fact the only resource of the inventor in cases where private 
 laboratories are not available, or where tests and experiments 
 require apparatus and appliances which are found only in the 
 equipments devoted to research and investigation furnished by 
 educational institutions. 
 
 Graduates of technical schools in this country in large and 
 increasing numbers go out to the various communities, carry- 
 ing with them the broad and thorough acquirements in theo- 
 retical and practical knowledge which they have gained, and 
 the facilities in drawing, analysis, testing and measurement 
 attained in their laboratory practice, and become teachers in 
 their professions, diffusing sound principles of science in its 
 applications to every art, manufacture and industry. 
 
 "While it is impossible, except in a very general way, to esti- 
 mate the important influences of technical schools in all these 
 respects, yet these influences are universally recognized as 
 familiarizing the public mind with the true agencies of material 
 progress, and as furnishing to inventors, continually, new 
 points of departure for future improvements. 
 
 The knowledge thus acquired and difiiised tends also to 
 cultivate definite and true distinctions between what is old, or 
 unpatentable, and what is new ; and also a discriminating 
 judgment in regard to what is practicable and useful. 
 
 That the Patent Office of the government recognizes the 
 value of this new education is evident from the fact, that of the 
 one hundred and fifty-seven assistant examiners one-third are 
 graduates of technical schools. These are employed to a great 
 extent in the divisions which cover the largest industries, such 
 as steam engineering, chemical applications and manufactures, 
 metallurgy, and the manufacture of textile fabrics ; where in 
 each a wide range of knowledge in the applied sciences is re- 
 quired. 
 
 Another important field of usefulness for technical training, 
 in connection with inventions, is in the drawing up of specifica- 
 tions and claims to accompany applications for patents, and also 
 in legal practice connected with patent cases. The inventor 
 
246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 needs both legal and teclinical advice in preparing his claims 
 and specifications, and his rights are apt to be endangered or 
 sacrificed if such advice is not well founded. It is here that 
 questions of " equivalent devices," of "novelty," and of "use- 
 fulness" should be profoundly considered. Although such 
 questions, in case of litigation, must be finally decided by the 
 Courts, yet vast expenditures in the aggregate, both of time and 
 money, depend on a correct analysis of an invention and a 
 proper statement of the specifications and claims of the inventor. 
 This involves the competence and technical acquirements of the 
 solicitor or agent ; and there is no doubt that this branch of pro- 
 fessional practice has been placed upon a more certain and se- 
 cure basis of late years through the influence and teachings of 
 our technical schools. 
 
 In cases of patent litigation, expert testimony has become a 
 necessity. Questions of fact involved are not, as in other cases 
 which come before the courts and juries, matters of observation 
 merely, but depend often upon a proper interpretation of ob- 
 served phenomena in a realm of knowledge which often lies 
 beyond the comprehension of unskilled or ordinary witnesses. 
 On account of the great extent of the various fields of art and 
 industry which offer opportunities for new and useful discover- 
 ies or inventions, the Courts are obliged to avail themselves of 
 the knowledge of special witnesses, who from their education 
 and training are presumed to be competent to make explana- 
 tions, to give sound advice, or to express opinions based upon 
 the infallible laws of science and nature. Expert witnesses 
 often take a partisan view of their positions it is true, and con- 
 sider themselves in duty bound to try to win the cases on which 
 they are engaged. While this is an evil, the tendency of which 
 is to bring all such expert testimony into contempt, yet the 
 discrimination of the Courts is a corrective influence through 
 which the truth is finally established. 
 
 Among the important influences arising from the more gen- 
 eral dissemination of exact knowledge in the applied sciences 
 through technical schools, is to be considered also the ability 
 of the public to detect and reject what, for an invention, is 
 falsely claimed or pretended. The utility of an invention is a 
 question of practical demonstration ; and while many valuable 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 247 
 
 discoveries or devices undoubtedly fail to be brought into use 
 for want of means to procure thorough and exhaustive tests, 
 yet many on the other hand absorb large sums of money in 
 fruitless trials, when a simple scientific investigation would at 
 a comparatively small cost have demonstrated their commercial 
 or industrial inutility. 
 
 If the history of the scrap-heaps of our machine shops could 
 be written there would be a startling exhibit of money wasted in 
 such unnecessary experiments. It is true that without trials of 
 some sort there could be no progress, but there is a vast differ- 
 ence between experiments based upon sound principles and 
 reasonable probabilities of success, and those undertaken upon 
 scientific fallacies. It is precisely here in the distinction of 
 what is possible and probable in the use of an invention, and 
 what is impossible or extremely improbable, that exact tech- 
 nical knowledge lends its powerful aid, saving money on the 
 one hand or promoting what is useful on the other. 
 
 When those who have superabundant means are induced to 
 aid in costly experimental trials of an invention, success or 
 failure is to them a matter of small moment, but to those who 
 are persuaded to risk their small savings in the success of a 
 patent the matter is more serious, and their greatest safety lies 
 in the increase and diffuson of popular scientific knowledge. 
 
 Perhaps at no time during the progress of invention has the 
 necessity of safe-guards against unsound projects been greater 
 than at present. The marvelous successes, financially, of a few 
 patents during late years, while stimulating the inventive spirit, 
 have also tended to create widespread desire among certain 
 classes in all communities to invest, in what, in a certain sense, 
 may be called the "patent lottery." An announcement of a 
 discovery of a new source of power, or of methods by which 
 known sources of power may be economized to a degree beyond 
 all present belief or expectation, and the arts of progress thus 
 practically revolutionized, is one which is sure to command the 
 attention and to enlist the aid of persons, here and there, who 
 know j ust enough of the laws of energy to make them easy 
 victims, but who with a little better knowledge might have 
 saved themselves and others from serious pecuniary loss. At 
 one time it is the bi-sulphide of carbon engine, which is to save 
 
248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 two-thirds of the coal now used by the steam engine. An 
 inventor imagines that the vapor of stdphide of carbon if inter- 
 posed as a working fluid between the steam boiler and the con- 
 denser will in some undefined way increase enormously the 
 power derived from the combustion of a given amount of coal 
 in the boiler. He induces a few friends to aid him in an ex- 
 perimental trial, which is apparently highly satisfactory ; a 
 company is formed with an immense capital, the stock, under 
 an inflated scheme, sells at high prices ; a few make money by 
 the sale of the stock, but the many stockholders suffer the loss 
 of their investments. 
 
 At another time it is discovered by some genius that naptha 
 mixed with steam at the nozzle of a steam pipe and directed 
 upon incandescent fuel furnishes a brilliant combustion and a 
 high temperature, and the discoverer becomes possessed with the 
 idea that the steam is burned — that he has found a process for 
 burning water. A cheap apparatus for showing the phenomena 
 is exhibited ; extravagant possibilities are claimed for the inven- 
 tion and the inventor proceeds to sell "territories," realizing a 
 handsome fortune. And although he may possibly honestly 
 believe in his invention, through ignorance, yet, like the other, 
 it fails to produce the enormous results claimed for it. 
 
 A complete revolution in the propulsion of vessels in naviga- 
 tion is another prolific theme. An inventor imagines that the 
 great secret of economy and speed lies in jet propulsion. A 
 new idea is propounded, that a very small jet of water driven 
 by pressure at a high velocity from the stern of a vessel is the 
 long looked-for, but hitherto unrecognized, secret of obtaining 
 at the same time great velocity and economy. The " ocean 
 greyhounds ' ' are to be sent across the Atlantic in thirty hours, 
 being propelled by a jet of water a few inches in diameter, 
 forced at a high velocity from the sterns of the ships. 
 
 These are not ideal cases, but are unfortunately taken 
 from real life — from actual occurrences during the last decade. 
 The money lost and the time lost in costly attempts to demon- 
 strate what could have been proved to have been fallacious 
 might have been saved to those who were misled, if they had 
 been willing to listen to a few plain, simple explanations of 
 the laws of applied science in the first instance. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 249 
 
 The new science of energy, to which reference has been 
 made, has not only furnished clear and definite ideas of the 
 relations to each other of the various sources of power in 
 nature, but has defined the limits, respectively, of their useful 
 and economical applications, and the most elementary scientific 
 discussion of such cases as are above given, illustrative of 
 efforts to find new and extraordinary sources of power or 
 methods hitherto unknown of applying to useful work those 
 sources of power which are known, would have been sufiicient 
 to have shown the fallacies under which the attempts were 
 conceived and executed. 
 
 Important inventions leading to widespread improvements in 
 the arts or to new industries do not come<by chance, or as sud- 
 den inspirations, but are in almost every instance the result of 
 long and exhaustive researches by men whose thorough famil- 
 iarity with their subjects enables them to see clearly the way to 
 improvements. Almost all important and successful inventions 
 which have found their way into general use and acceptance 
 have been the products of well-balanced and thoughtful minds, 
 capable of patient, laborious investigation, and have been 
 prompted mainly by the hope or sentiment of giving something 
 useful to mankind. 
 
 This sentiment has characterized the labors of the men in this 
 country whose names make up a long roll of illustrious inven- 
 tors, and whose works have not only contributed largely to the 
 national prosperity, but have exalted the national reputation. 
 
 These are not the men who proclaim in advance the great 
 value of their devices, and endeavor to reap rich profits before 
 the utility of their discoveries has been demonstrated ; but on 
 the contrary, among the names composing the long list of pub- 
 lic benefactors, whose inventions have given substantial benefits 
 to millions, are found those of men who have received little re- 
 ward for their personal sacrifices, when a grateful people would 
 have been glad to have showered upon them both pecuniary 
 benefits and public honors. 
 
 So rapid is the progress at the present day of both practical 
 and scientific discovery that there is a universal consciousness 
 of the existence of a sort of intellectual vis viva in practical and 
 theoretical science, which, reversing the la'w of material or 
 
250 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 kinetic energy, seems to increase in proportion to the resistances 
 ■which have been overcome. Theory and practice have become 
 thoroughly united, the deductions of the former being instantly 
 brought into use by the latter, while both contemplate for the 
 future greater achievements based upon the strong foundations 
 of the past and present. 
 
 Electrical, Physical, and Chemical lyaboratories were never 
 more active in leading the way for the Engineer, the Metallur- 
 gist, and the Manufacturer to follow in the tide of industrial 
 and manufacturing progress ; and never before has there been 
 a time when so many young men, splendidly equipped for the 
 work before them, have been added yearly to the ranks of sci- 
 entific workers. 
 
 The field of invention thus grows larger and its aims higher. 
 As one branch of practical knowledge becomes in a degree ex- 
 hausted to the inventor another springs up to take its place. 
 
 In this great and continued movement every man is a bene- 
 factor who contributes to that kind of useful knowledge, whether 
 it be theoretical or practical, which increases the conveniences 
 and comforts of living for the great masses of the human race, 
 and through the influences which he thus helps to create, lifts 
 them up to higher planes of intellectual and social life. 
 
 With all such workers Technical Schools are,in fall sympathy 
 and active alliance. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 251 
 
 THE INVENTION OF THE STEAM ENGINE- 
 
 By Robert H. Thurston, A. M., I^L. D., Dr. Eng'gof NbwYork, 
 Director and Professor oe Mechanicai, Engineering, Sib- 
 i,EY Coi<i,ege, Cornei,i, University. 
 
 There can be, as it seems to me, no more fruitful and inter- 
 esting subject of investigation and study, in the history of the 
 race, than that which notes the influence of the earlier and the 
 later methods in philosophy upon the material progress of 
 the world, and which observes the result of the introduction of 
 great inventions into the midst of a societj', on the one hand, 
 absolutely without sympathy for that inclination which stimu- 
 lates the contriver, and without ambition to avail itself of the 
 advantages offered by his inventions, or, on the other hand, 
 among people hungry for them, and for the advantages which 
 they promise. 
 
 Of this difference between the older and younger civiliza- 
 tions, between Greek and Roman and modern Anglo-Saxon, 
 no better illustration can be found than in the History of the 
 Growth of the Steam Engine. Known two thousand years or 
 more ago, it was made a toy by the speculative and unutili- 
 tarian Greek ; tendered by Watt to a modern world, it is made 
 the foundation of all material and even intellectual progress. 
 Greece and Rome, like their predecessors Babylon, Nineveh, 
 Thebes, and Kamak, reaching a certain point in their civiliza- 
 tion, stood comparatively at rest, and presently only changed 
 to retrograde, while handing on their civilization to later rep- 
 resentatives of human advancement. 
 
 The world of the nineteenth century moves on with a mighty 
 and accelerated velocity ; gaining more in a century than all 
 mankind had advanced in its whole previous history. 
 
 It is to Science, pure and applied, that the world owes all 
 these wonderful advances that we are witnessing now, even 
 more than in the immediate past. It is to the truth-loving 
 quality of Science that we owe the recent rapid growth of the 
 arts. Only the exact truth is sought, and everything yields to 
 
252 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 fact. ' ' For her the volume of inspiration is the book of 
 Nature, of which the scroll is ever spread before the eyes of 
 every man. Confronting all, it needs no societies for its dis- 
 semination. Infinite in extent, eternal in duration, human 
 ambition and human fanaticism have never been able to tamper 
 with it. On the earth it is illustrated by all that is magnifi- 
 cent and beautiful ; on the heavens its letters are suns and 
 worlds. ' ' The study of science, directed, as it usually seems 
 to be, to the improvements of the physical condition and the 
 surroundings of Man, actually leads, very directly and 
 promptly, to the improvement of his moral and intellectual 
 character. It gives him the means of performing all necessary 
 work in a shorter time than formerly, and thus sets free the 
 intellect and the soul to carry on their highest work. The ap- 
 plications of science to the useful arts not only give us better 
 and cheaper clothing, a greater variety of wholesome food, and 
 means of rapid and easy transportation, but permit man to 
 think out, in' more and more frequent leisure moments, occa- 
 sional leisure hours, the problems of life, to adjust himself bet- 
 ter to his environment, to consider the needs of his fellows, 
 to find opportunity for exercise of his sympathies, to improve 
 his intellectual powers, to acquire knowledge on which to ex- 
 ercise them, to think out the great moral problems of life and 
 of death, and to thus ascend into a higher and better atmos- 
 phere, a nobler sphere in a boundless universe of mind. 
 
 No one has summarized the work of science in this century 
 better than Macaulay : "It has lengthened life ; it has miti- 
 gated pain ; has extinguished diseases ; has increased the fer- 
 tility of the soil ; given new security to the mariner ; furnished 
 new arms to the warrior ; spanned great rivers and estuaries 
 with bridges of form unknown to our fathers ; it has guided 
 the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth ; it has 
 lighted up the night with splendor of the day ; it has extended 
 the range of human vision ; it has multiplied the power of the 
 human muscles ; it has accelerated motion ; it has annihilated 
 distance ; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all 
 friendly ofiices, all dispatch of business ; it has enabled man to 
 descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to pene- 
 trate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth ; to 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 253 
 
 traverse the land in cars whicli whirl along without horses; 
 to cross the ocean in ships which run many knots an hour 
 against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its 
 first fruits, for it is a philosophy which never rests, which is 
 never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday 
 was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting point 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The intellectual, and largely the moral, progress of mankind 
 depends, in a very great degree, upon the material progress of 
 the race ; but this in turn is the product of the labors of the 
 inventor and the laboring classes. The gain of wealth, on 
 which we must inevitably and always depend for any real and 
 permanent advance in whatever field, must inevitably and 
 always in turn depend upon two principal results of the work 
 of the engineer's, the inventor's, the mechanic's brain : (i) the 
 reduction of the cost, in money or in labor as the best gauge, of 
 those necessaries of life and of progress which are in their use 
 subject to destruction, such as food, clothing, protection from 
 the weather ; (2) the rapid and permanent accumulation of the 
 permanent forms of wealth, such as constitute the real measure 
 of prosperity and give to a nation the comforts and luxuries 
 which are either essential or conducive to leisure and thought, 
 to intellectual development and moral growth. Poverty and 
 enforced asceticism give unquestionably large opportunity for 
 the development of certain phases of the strongest characters, 
 but only leisure and voluntary asceticism can produce the 
 highest development of character and mental growth combined. 
 
 It is to the producer of every facility for the cheap supply of 
 perishable and destructible necessaries that we must mainly 
 look for aid in the laying of a foundation for continual progress 
 in higher fields. It is to the inventor and mechanic that we 
 must appeal mainly for the means of easily sustaining life while 
 seeking time and opportunity to give to the race the means and 
 the opportunity to advance to a higher plane in civilization and 
 mental existence. It is the wonderful result of the work of the 
 inventor in the past century, largely stimulated by modem 
 scientific knowledge, and perhaps even more by modern 
 methods of legal encouragement of the inventor, and of assur- 
 ing to him the full possession of the fruits of his brain, that we 
 
254 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 owe the marvelous gain of a century. Watt would have accom- 
 plished little had he not at the very start hit upon the scien- 
 tific principles of the steam engine. He would probably have 
 accomplished little except for the patent system. He would 
 hardly have had the heart to attempt much, even then, nor 
 probably would his financial partner and backer, Matthew 
 Boulton, have felt it safe to invest his capital, no less essential 
 than the invention itself, in such an enterprise had not the 
 new patent system furnished him .security for the investment 
 required — in shops, tools and financial operations attendant 
 upon the introduction of the new machine. Machinery and the 
 patent system are the basis of the world's prosperity to-day. 
 Watt made inventions and the capitalist furnished the means 
 of their construction and use, while the patent system gave 
 security to both inventor and capitalist, and assured them of 
 fair return of their investments of time, thought and money. 
 
 As has been often suggested, a new invention is simply the 
 materialization of a new idea of scientific character and useful 
 purpose ; an idea capable of supplying to mankind new com- 
 forts, new conveniences, new safeguards against want, pain, 
 disease and death. Kvery new advance, even in pure science, 
 is sure of ultimately finding use in the advancement of the race 
 materially and, indirectly, intellectually and morally. The 
 perfection of a science is the means of perfection of an art, and 
 the improvement of the arts is the direct means of promoting 
 the highest as well as the lower interests of mankind. It is 
 thus that it has come to pass that ' ' Machinery, actuated by the 
 forces of nature, now performs with ease and certainty work 
 that was formerly the drudgery of thousands. Every natural 
 agent has been pressed into man's service — the winds, the 
 waters, fire, gravity, electricity, light itself!" On the shelves 
 of my library stand, side by side, as I observed a few days 
 ago — so placed by some curious accident — a copy of the tales of 
 the ' ' One Thousand and One Nights ' ' and two or three little 
 volumes of stories of inventors and their inventions, and of 
 modern discoveries. Comparing these two sets of fruits of the 
 human intellect, I find the results of the ' ' scientific use of the 
 imagination ' ' on the whole far more impressive and, in many 
 respects, far more marvelous — not to say, to the unfamiliar 
 mind, more incredible — than those of the romancist. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 255 
 
 The military art has always been the sustainer, as it was 
 originally the parent, of the mathematical and physical sciences. 
 The Greek camp and Alexander's army were the progenitors 
 of the great school of Alexandria. Alexander the Great was 
 the progenitor of the intellectual offspring of Archimedes and 
 of Euclid, as of the the theories of Newton, and ancient Greece 
 lias been the source of inspiration of all modern life. The 
 polytechnic schools of Alexandria substituted for the specula- 
 tive methods of Plato the logical philosophy of Aristotle ; they 
 employed the reason in place of the imagination in all physical 
 and scientific departments of knowledge. The home of Eratos- 
 thenes and of Hipparchus and of Ctesibus, the instructor of 
 Hero, was the successor of the camp of the Grecian con- 
 queror, and, conquests being ended, real knowledge became 
 the object of ambition. Speculation gave way to investigation, 
 and the triflings and aimless disputations of the older schools 
 were succeeded by the serious labor of research and of the 
 accumulation of real knowledge. This serious and fruitful 
 labor gave an impulse that was never wholly lost, though 
 often seemingly almost extinguished by the combined forces of 
 the political and the military spirit of later times. A thousand 
 years of trifling, the whole period of the dark ages, could not 
 wholly destroy it. 
 
 In the history of the world there have been two distinct pe- 
 riods of marked advance ; the one mainly philosophical, the 
 other mainly material. These are the times of the Greek 
 philosophers, and notably of the growth and prosperity of the 
 Alexandrian school, and the times which have brought us a 
 modem civilization — the three centuries just closing. The 
 earlier period ' ' died with Hypatia ' ' of Alexandria, and the 
 later began with Newton, and is still in full career. Both these 
 periods have been distinguished by a singular freedom of intel- 
 lectual opinion and growth. In the days of Aristotle, of Soph- 
 ocles, of Plato, as of Archimedes, of Hero, of the Ptolomies, 
 whatever may be said of the political status of the citizen, his 
 opinions were his own, and his intellectual freedom was abso- 
 lute ; the conflicting sects and philosophies of that time were 
 simply the free growth of mind unrestrained by social or eccle- 
 siastical bonds. In these later days we are just regaining a 
 
256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 somewliat similar freedom of intellect, through the all-pervad- 
 ing influence of modern scientific methods and principles. That 
 political freedom which has just begun to come to the citizen 
 of even the monarchies of Europe ; that social freedom which 
 has its best illustrations, as well as its most grotesque monstros- 
 ities, in the United States ; that intellectual freedom which 
 stimulates, as well as permits, advance in every department of 
 modern life, in science, religion, invention, in all the arts : all 
 these forms of freedom are but phases of one mighty develop- 
 ment of human progress distinguishing our own time. It is 
 all precisel3' the same universal unrestraint, coming of a com- 
 mon cause, taking its effect primarily in political changes, so 
 far as visible, and marking simply that impulse which is exhib- 
 ited in any direction in which great forces have been long re- 
 sisted and restrained, finally to be given vent, and thus allowed 
 to expend the long-stored energy in a mighty, and often unan- 
 ticipated, outburst. The improvement of the steam engine has 
 been one of the consequences of the same train of events which 
 gave England her Magna Charta, and the United States a re- 
 publican form of government ; which produced a science of 
 chemistry, and established modern views in astronomy and 
 geology. 
 
 The middle ages were periods of repression ; the later days 
 have seen the resultant expansion. During their whole extent 
 the transfer of learning from Alexandria to Bagdad, to Gra- 
 nada ; the distribution of Saracen colleges throughout Western 
 Europe ; the slumbering of intellect in the countries dominated 
 by the church during those centuries ; all were simply the 
 transfer and the storage of energies, the aggregation of the 
 forces of progress, preparatory to their grander action in the days 
 following the martyrdom of Bruno and of Galileo, the events 
 marking the dawning of a new era. 
 
 In those older days, when Greek and Roman founded a lit- 
 erature and a philosophy that has been a guide and an inspira- 
 tion throughout all subsequent times, the inventor and the 
 builder was at a disadvantage ; his brain was trammelled by the 
 difficulty of getting his ideas crystalized in metal and in wood. 
 To-day he can make whatever he can devise ; then he could 
 devise a thousand new instruments, processes or machines, and 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 257 
 
 not one of the thousand might be practically possible. To-day, 
 our progress is only limited by the rate of accomplishment of 
 the brain and its production of representative ideas. 
 
 When a stone falls to the ground, from a lofty height, it 
 starts from rest with an imperceptible motion, gradually in- 
 creases its speed by a regular acceleration, and, falling faster 
 and faster, finally reaches the ground with an acquired velocity 
 that can only be compared to that of a cannon-shot. The 
 alpine avalanche, slowly sliding along the smooth surfaces of 
 rocks and soil at the mountain top, exerting a power that a 
 child might successfully oppose, gathers energy as it moves, 
 increasing its speed, storing more and more power as it slides 
 over the declivity, affects larger and larger masses, and, at last, 
 descends into thfe valley below with the roar of a tempest and 
 the destructive effect of a thousand torrents, moving downward 
 with the velocity of a lightning-flash. To one who reads the 
 history of the development of civilization among mankind, 
 from the earliest days of the oriental empires to the present, 
 this same universal law of accelerated progress seems to come 
 in play in the origination and perfection of the sciences, the 
 literatures, and the arts. The dawning of civilization among 
 the ancients was but recording in a scanty literature the 
 wanderings, the speculations, the imaginations of adult chil- 
 dren, interspersed with the gossip and tradition of verbal his- 
 tory. Science had no place in their pantology ; the arts had 
 only made the most simple beginnings in the provision of the 
 merest necessaries of a most simple life. Progress was hardly 
 perceptible, century by century ; the people of one age lived 
 much the same as did those of the preceding ; ' ' what was 
 good enough for grandparents was considered good enough for 
 grandchildren," and invention and discovery were words of 
 little import. Homer probably knew no other literature than 
 the epic ; the builders of the pyramids were unacquainted 
 with any other mechanism than the simplest devices called by 
 us, today, the mechanical powers. Hero and the Greeks were 
 familiar with the expansive force of steam, but they had no 
 way of using it in the arts, and their only steam engine was 
 the aeolipile, a whirling globe, impelled by the reaction of steam 
 jets. The first principles of scientific method and the simplest 
 
258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 facts of science were unrecognized by the people of the time 
 of Christ and the Romans. Menelaus and Achilles took their 
 armies to the coast of Troy in boats impelled by sails and oars; 
 and their troops fought with arrows and spears ; Alexander 
 conquered the world of his time ignorant of gunpowder ; Caesar 
 conquered Gaul and wrote his commentaries unaware of the 
 potentialities of artillery and of the printing press ; and the 
 dark ages that intervened, to the times of Galileo and Newton, 
 were unenlightened by even the intelligent anticipation of gas 
 or the electric light. 
 
 Our own ancestors of a century or two ago knew absolutely 
 nothing of any one of the most useful inventions or discoveries 
 that seem to us to-day to be so essential to our comfort, except 
 the one art of printing. The perfection of the steam engine 
 has been the work of this century ; the introduction of the 
 telegraph, the railroad, the steamboat, of the telephone and of 
 the power press, are all the work of mechanics and men of 
 science with whom our own parents and grandparents were 
 acquainted, or who are our own contemporaries. The lever, 
 the wedge, and the screw Were the great inventions of the 
 ancients. The mariner's compass, and the art of printing, the 
 the introduction of firearms and artillery were the gauges of 
 the progress of the world in the middle ages, whUe our own 
 times have seen an innumerable list of inventions contributing 
 to the comfort of humanity and its better life. 
 
 To one who has read of the rude beginnings of science, and 
 of the arts in the times of the Greeks and Romans, of the 
 Oriental civilizations, of the Egyptians and of the Saracens, 
 and who has noted the slow progress of the world through the 
 middle ages and who has observed the culmination, possibly, of 
 this acceleration in the productive century in which we live ; 
 to one who has studied the growth of the steam engine from 
 the toy of Hero of Alexandria, two thousand years ago, through 
 the various rude and ineffective devices of the intermediate 
 centuries, to the time of Worcester, of Savery, and of Newcomen 
 and the wonderful outcome of the work of James Watt ; who 
 has seen the steamboat grow from the little craft of the time of 
 Fulton and Stevens to the shape of the floating palaces on I<ong 
 Island Sound and the great steamer of 10,000 tons burden. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 259 
 
 carrying a thousand passengers across the Atlantic at the speed 
 of a railway train, and the mighty iron-clad, almost impene- 
 trable by the heaviest ordnance, and itself throwing tons of 
 steel shot at a broadside miles through the air, starting with a 
 velocity double that of sound itself ; to one who has witnessed 
 the development of the railroad from an insignificant beginning 
 only a little more than a half century ago, two generations at 
 most, to its present state, with its forty, fifty, and one hundred- 
 ton locomotives, its thousand tons of train, conveying food 
 and comforts across a continent at a cost of less than a cent per 
 ton per mile, bringing to the laboring man on the Atlantic 
 coast a barrel of flour a year for each member of his family, 
 from Minnesota, nearly fifteen hundred miles away, for less 
 than a dollar ; with its magnificent train of palace and sleeping 
 cars rushing from New York to Chicago, a thousand miles in 
 twenty-four hours, or swinging in tremendous power across the 
 continent to San Francisco in four days ; to one who has 
 wondered at the beautiful applications of electric science to the 
 pturposes of life and business, as illustrated in the the telegraph, 
 transmitting its message* in the lightning-flash from continent 
 to continent and around the world, or in the telephone, bring- 
 ing friends, miles apart, titeatite, or in the electric light, turning 
 night into day and driving crime into its remotest dens, while 
 giving all the industries the power of doubling their productive- 
 ness; and to one who has seen the modern power-press printing 
 newspapers by the mile, cutting and trimming them to size, 
 folding and wrapping them for transmission to distant readers- 
 by a system of mail distribution which equally well illustrates 
 the progress of the age in methods and organization and indus- 
 tries : to one who has perceived all this, the thought must 
 inevitably come that there must be a limit to such speed of 
 advance as we are now witnessing, and the law of acceleration 
 must sometime cease to operate ; and the question must suggest 
 itself — ^Where is the limit ? What is coming in the future of 
 the race ? What are the possibilities ? What wonders may we. 
 expect that Science may still discover ? What may probably 
 be their effect on the life of the world? What are likely 
 to be the characteristics of the "Coming Race," of its social 
 life and of its moral, its intellectual, its physical conditions ? 
 
26o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Bulwer drew upon the imagination of a romancer for his ideal 
 of the future. What may the imagination of a man of science 
 perceive, guided by his more rational view of the past, of the 
 present, and of the general course of progress in invention and 
 discovery ? 
 
 In all of the great operations of Nature the course and the 
 rate of movement are determined by the well-known principle 
 of the ' ' persistence of energy ' ' and by that of the Law of 
 Newton, asserting that she invariably endeavors to preserve the 
 existing condition of motion, and that all motions tend to con- 
 tinue uniformly to follow a right line, resisting invariably every 
 tendency to effect a deviation from the existing course, with a 
 power which is proportional to the rate at which such deviation 
 from the motion of the moment is forced. Nature never turns 
 a sharp corner, and we may probably as well judge the future 
 of the great intellectual and social movements by the laws of 
 «nergy as anticipate physical motions. 
 
 In writing the history of the ' ' Growth of the Steam Engine ' ' 
 years ago, I divided it into three periods, that of speculation, 
 that of development and application ; that of refinement or 
 improvement in detail. The first period is that of Hero and 
 the 'Greek speculative philosophy, the second that of Watt and 
 his predecessors in the invention of the machine, that of the 
 opening of the modern epoch ; and the third is that comprising 
 the whole of the present century, with all its wonders; it is 
 the outcome of the last, the fruit of a minute seed planted in 
 the first of these eras. The men to whom the world is to-day 
 indebted mainly for all that it enjoys of material advantage, and 
 for the opportunity to improve it by the intellectual advances 
 which have accompanied the production of modern comforts 
 and luxuries, are, more than any other, Hero of Alexandria, 
 and his contemporary, possibly, Archimedes ; Papin, the Mar- 
 quis of Worcester, Captain Savery and Newcomen, and most 
 of all, James Watt. Let us inquire who were these men and 
 what their surroundings, and how they brought about the 
 marvelous changes that the octogenarian of to-day has become 
 familiar with as the outcome of their combined efforts. 
 
 Hero was born amid the Greeks at perhaps the most interest- 
 ing period of their history, philosophically considered. The 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 261 
 
 "biography of Alexander, the history of the wars of the Greeks, 
 have little importance or interest in comparison with the life of 
 the earliest engineer, permanently recording the invention of 
 the steam engine, and the history of the intellectual awaken- 
 ing that marked his time. Hero's " Pneumatica" is the first 
 record of invention. It only gives us a definite idea of the 
 extent to which the people of that day were familiar with the 
 possible application of the forces of nature to the uses and 
 purposes of mankind. The account is as simple and ingenuous 
 as the devices themselves are simple and undeveloped. It is 
 the description of toys to which interest attaches only because 
 of their revelation of the condition of ancient useful arts and of 
 the fact that they constitute the germ of mighty inventions of 
 of later date. But Hero lived at a time when great inventions 
 were not appreciated, were not even thought of as having pos- 
 sible value in application to the ameloriation of the condition 
 of humanity, and were quite impossible of construction, if ever 
 so much desired, because of the fact that no machinery for their 
 construction could then be had. So it happened that the toy 
 steam engine, curiously enough a very perfect type of steam 
 engine scientifically considered, lay unused, a germ only, like 
 the grain of wheat in the hand of the mummy, for two thousand 
 years, finally to take a new life of wonderful works. 
 
 Now and then one of the old philosophers hit, by some happy 
 accident in the course of his speculations, upon some notion of 
 the nature of heat and energy which was not far from what we 
 now know to be true. But we also have seen that then it was 
 the fact, as Democritus remarked to the old philosopher : 
 "Nothing is true; or, if so, is certain." Knowledge had in 
 ancient times no stability ; and science, in the modern sense of 
 the term, had no existence. But it was otherwise in the do- 
 main of application, and the work of the ancient artisan and 
 the development of the mechanic arts among the old Greeks 
 and Romans and their predecessors of India, Persia and Egypt 
 command our respect and admiration. When the lack of facil- 
 ities possessed by the older nations is considered, their success 
 in the construction of their temples, in the erection of the pyra- 
 mids, in their naval architecture, is to the modern engineer 
 almost as impressive as would many of our grandest achieve- 
 
262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ments be to them could they return to earth and study the 
 progress made since their own times. No more beautiful edi- 
 fices are built to-day than existed in the times of ancient civ- 
 ilizations ; no modern workman can excel in the perfection of 
 his joints and surfaces those observed, still hardly defaced by 
 the centuries, in the great pyramid and its neighbors ; the lines 
 of the ancient war galleys, and of the Scandinavian craft, even 
 of the earlier periods, were as fine as those of the finest yachts 
 of our own day. The ancestors of the ancient philosophers 
 honored the artisan, and their gods were the idolized hero- 
 mechanics of earlier times. I,abor was rewarded by the great- 
 est honors that the nation could confer. It was not surprising, 
 therefore, that some advances were made, in even those ruder 
 times, in the mechanic arts. 
 
 The reasoning of the old philosopher. Hero, in regard to the 
 physical phenomena involved in the operation of his machines 
 is interesting, as illustrating the state of the science in his time. 
 He introduces the description of the apparatus which has been 
 described by a treatise on the nature of air and the character of 
 the vacuum. He shows that vessels which seem empty are in 
 reality full of air, and proves his assertion by the following 
 considerations and crucial test : ' ' I^et the vessel which seems 
 to be empty be inverted into the water. It will be seen that it 
 will not admit the water, although it may appear perfectly 
 vacuous. If a hole be bored in the reversed bottom of the ves- 
 sel air will issue, and the water will then enter. " " Hence it 
 must be assumed that the air is matter. ' ' Further : " If a light 
 vessel with a narrow mouth be applied to the lips, and the air 
 be sucked out and discharged, the vessel will be suspended 
 from the lips, the vacuum drawing the flesh toward it that the 
 exhausted space may be filled. It is manifest from this that 
 there was a continuous vacuum in the vessel." Cupping 
 glasses, which were then already known and in common use, 
 were cited as illustrations of a similar operation, the fire placed 
 in them rarifying the air, and the vacuum being thus produced. 
 ' ' Winds are produced by excessive exhalation, whereby the 
 air is disturbed and rarified, and sets in motion the air in im- 
 mediate contact with it." "It may therefore be affirmed that 
 every body is composed of minute particles, between which are 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 263 
 
 empty spaces less than the particles of the body (so that we 
 erroneously say that there is no vacuum except by the appli- 
 cation of force, and that every place is full of ether, air, or 
 water, or some other substance), and in proportion as any one 
 of these particles recedes, some other follows it and fill the va- 
 cant space ; so that there is no continuous vacuum except 
 on the application of some force ; and again the absolute vacuum 
 is never found, but is produced artificially." "These things 
 being clearly explained," the author goes on to consider the 
 methods devised for the application of these principles to his 
 purposes. 
 
 The fact that none of these contrivances were, so far as the 
 records show, applied to the promotion of the useful arts in 
 the sense in which that application has taken place in modem 
 times and has thus so wonderfully accelerated the advance of 
 civilization, is probably an indication that the non-utilitarian 
 spirit of the Platonic philosophy, and of the whole learned 
 Greek world, indeed, pervaded the ranks of the people too 
 thoroughly to permit them to profit to any great extent by the 
 inventions of their great mechanicians ; who, indeed, seem to 
 have been inclined much more to the gymnastic than to the 
 useful employment of their talents. 
 
 This inclination to the display of ingenuity rather than 
 promotion of useful arts was transmitted to the Romans also, 
 and the only account extant of such illustrations of the in- 
 ventive power of that nation are those relating to contrivances 
 of machinery of war and such curious applications of the genius 
 of the inventor as may have attracted the attention of the 
 classes of leisure and those engaged in scholarly pursuits. 
 Perhaps the only well-known example of such ingenious per- 
 version of what might have been useful powers is the follow- 
 ing, given us by Gibbon in his " Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire" — 
 
 " In a trifling dispute between Anthemius, the architect of 
 Justinian, and Zeno, the orator, relative to the wells or windows 
 of their contiguous houses, Anthemius had been vanquished 
 by the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno ; but the orator was de- 
 feated in his turn by the master of mechanics. In a lower room, 
 Anthemius ranged several vessels or caldrons of water, each 
 
264 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of them covered by the wide bottom of a flexible tube, which 
 rose to a narrow top, and was artificiallly conveyed among the 
 joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A fire was kindled 
 beneath the caldrons ; the steam of the boiling water ascended 
 through the tubes ; the house was shaken by the effect of the 
 imprisoned air, and its trembling inhabitants might well wonder 
 that the city was unconscious of an earthquake that they had 
 felt ; and the orator declared, in tragic style, to the Senate, 
 that a mere mortal must yield to the power of an antagonist 
 who shook the earth with the trident of Neptune." 
 
 What has been referred to comprises nearly all that is known, 
 and probably about all that the ancients themselves knew, of 
 the work of their greatest engineers and philosophers in the 
 field here explored. Centuries of strife and hardly-ever ceas- 
 ing wars followed the fall of the Roman empire, and the arts 
 of peace suffered retardation, rather than advanced. There 
 was, however, an undertow of movement among the more 
 scholarly and the more industrious peoples ; and the transfer of 
 the learning of the ancients to the modem times through the 
 Saracen dominion and the progress made by the pagans of the 
 middle ages, were the means of preserving the seed of that 
 later and wonderfully grand outgrowth which has distinguished 
 the three centuries now coming to a close. During this period, 
 also, the Church which was always the anchor of scholarship, 
 though often the direst foe to science, of real knowledge of the 
 Creator through his works, not only organized its own ma- 
 teriel and personnel into a most effective working apparatus 
 for the promulgation of its tenets, but also provided a sys- 
 tem of education, and a working educational organization, 
 that, once it was permitted, by that freedom of personal 
 thought which came of the Reformation, to seek knowledge 
 in every field and to accept the logical results of every investi- 
 gation in science and in morals, became the most effective pos- 
 sible means of promoting true learning. While therefore, the 
 middle ages seemed to be a period of intermitted growth in all 
 but the sience and art of war, it was realy a time of readjust- 
 ment, of rearrangement, of the various classes of Europe, and 
 was preparatory to such a movement of the great underlying 
 forces as should finally give opportunity for the most rapid 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 265 
 
 progress, once that progress should begin on the new lines and 
 in the new ways that distinguished the later period of onward 
 motion of the great current. 
 
 A more complete idea of the extent to which the inventive 
 talent of the ancients was fruitful of result in practically use- 
 ful directions may be gained by studying, in addition to the 
 accounts of Hero and others of such curious devices as have 
 just been described, those of other authors telling of the 
 various apparatus of war, and for naval purposes, which were 
 invented by the engineers of the Greek and Roman armies 
 and navies. Works on Greek and Roman antiquities describe 
 the rams used for battering down the gates and walls of be- 
 leaguered cities, some of them a hundred and twenty feet 
 long, and weighing thousands of pounds, many tons ; in fact, 
 so large that it required three hundred pairs of horses or mules 
 to draw them, and fifteen hundred men to operate them when 
 mounted ready for the attack. They were great beams of 
 wood, sheathed with iron, and, often, covered by an arrow, 
 and perhaps bomb-proof house which protected the soldiers 
 while working the ram. Their engineers constructed towers, 
 called sometimes, helepoleis, or city-takers, which, according to 
 Vitruvius, were ninety feet high, in ten stories, and twenty-five 
 feet square at the base, as a minimum ; while the largest were 
 a hundred and eighty feet high, in twenty stories, and thirty- 
 four feet square at the bottom. They were mounted on 
 wheels, and from them, when advanced to the spot from which 
 the enemy was to be attacked, engines contrived for the pur- 
 pose threw stones and other missiles into the city and upon its 
 walls. Machines for throwing arrows and stones were fre- 
 quently emploj'ed, and were often of enormous size and power. 
 Similar engines were built to mount upon their ships ; while 
 the vessel itself was converted into an engine of tremendous 
 power by arming its bow with a beak, or " ram," and using 
 the craft precisely as the iron-clad ' ' ram ' ' is employed in 
 modern naval combats. Indeed, the submerged ram now 
 universally adopted for such vessels was the invention of 
 Aristo, the Corinthian, and was itself an improvement upon 
 other forms of ram-bow, long before in use. 
 
266 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The ancients were evidently not deficient in ingenuity, in a 
 talent which is the distinguishing characteristic of our time 
 and people; but in mechanics, as in philosophy, their tendency 
 was always toward the consideration of the ideal and the 
 imaginative, rather than toward the useful and directly help- 
 ful in practical directions. Philosophers and mechanicians, 
 scholars and artisans, alike, admired the ingenious and specu- 
 lative, rather than the productive and the practical. They 
 had departed from the primitive ideas of their progenitors to 
 whom they owed their theology and who had named their 
 gods. They had come to a period in the development of their 
 society which must necessarily result in a cessation of ad- 
 vancement, and a stationary era in their civilization. 
 
 The age of the dreamer is the period of rest preliminary to 
 stagnation or even retrogression. The ancient civilization, so 
 called, was the culmination of an earlier movement of which 
 history only exhibits to us the later stages, and which was the 
 prelude to a relaxation, in turn the preliminary to another 
 advance. So it happens that the mechanic arts and their 
 grandest achievments, as illustrated by the engineer of to-day, 
 of the man who, combining intelligence with learning, scien- 
 tific attainments with the power of practical accomplishment, 
 meets every demand of the age, whether for a railroad or a 
 steamship, a telegraph line or an electric-lighting establish- 
 ment, could no more have been the outcome of ancient ideas 
 and of ancient methods than could the old philosophers have 
 given rise to modern science. The profession of engineering, 
 like that of the physicist or of the chemist, is thus essentially a 
 product of recent phases of civilization. They are all as much 
 the product of the inductive methods as are the sciences them- 
 selves. The systematic collection of knowledge, the system- 
 atic arrangement of the phenomena and facts of nature into 
 sciences, the systematic promotion and dissemination of learn- 
 ing, modem systematic education, have set the world in 
 motion and with an accelerating velocity, and the modem 
 methods of thought, in all departments of knowledge, of 
 research in all branches of learning, of education, general and 
 liberal, technical and professional, have produced a new heaven 
 and a new earth for mankind. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 267 
 
 Thus as remarked by Prof. Youmans* : " In the history of 
 human affairs there is a growing conception of the action of gen- 
 eral causes in the production of events, and a corresponding 
 conviction that the part played by individuals has been much 
 exaggerated, and is far less controlling and permanent than has 
 been hitherto supposed. So, also, in the history of science it 
 is now acknowledged that the progress of discovery is much 
 more independent of the labors of particular persons than has 
 been formerly admitted. Great discoveries belong not so much 
 to individuals as to humanity ; they are less inspirations of 
 genius than births of eras. As there has been a definite intel- 
 lectual progress, thought has necessarily been limited to the 
 subjects successively reached. Many minds have been thus 
 occupied at the same time with similar ideas, and hence the 
 simultaneous discoveries of independent inquirers, of which 
 the history of science is so full." 
 
 Writing of the extraordinary importance of the discoveries 
 and researches which, in the nineteenth century, closed this 
 wonderful progress, Dr. Youmans says : 
 
 "An eminent authority has remarked that ' these discoveries 
 open a region which promises possessions richer than any 
 hitherto granted to the intellect of man. ' Involving, as they 
 do, a revolution of fundamental ideas, their consequences must 
 be as comprehensive as the range of human thought. A 
 principle has been developed of all-pervading application, 
 which brings the diverse and distant branches of knowledge 
 into more intimate and harmonious alliance, and affords a 
 profounder insight into the universal order." 
 
 But the consequences of the establishment of the identity 
 of heat and motion, and of the fact that the various forms of 
 energy produced by the various methods of motion of matter, 
 were, if possible, even more important than were the facts just 
 outlined. Once it was perceived that heat and light were 
 forms of motion and energy, it became promptly seen that 
 electricity was also a similar phenomenon, and the question 
 arose whether the vital forces, and all other observed phe- 
 nomena distinctive of the production of movement and the 
 performance of work, in whatever department of nature, might 
 
 * Correlation of Forces ; N. Y.: D. Appleton & Co. 
 
268 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 not be also similarly related, each to all the others. The 
 doctrines of the Correlation and of the Conservation or Persist- 
 ence of Forces and of Energies, as these principles have come 
 to be called, were soon seen to be the foundation of all natural 
 science, and to bind all the sciences into one common and 
 closely related system of laws, into a science called by Rankine, 
 "Energetics." 
 
 Papin, Worcester, Savery were the authors of the period of 
 application of the power of steam to useful work in our later 
 days. The world was, in their time, just waking into a new 
 life under the stimulus of a new freedom that, from the time of 
 Shakespeare, of Newton, and of Gilbert, the physicist, has 
 steadily become wider, higher, and more fruitful year by year. 
 All the modern sciences and all the modem arts had their re- 
 awakening with the seventeenth century. Every aspect of free- 
 dom for humanity came into view in those days of a new birth. 
 Both the possibility of the introduction of new sciences and of 
 new arts and the power of utilizing all new intellectual and 
 physical forces came together. The steam engine could not 
 earlier have taken form ; and, taking form, it could not have 
 promoted the advance of civilization in the earlier centuries. 
 The invention becoming possible of development and applica- 
 tion, the promotion of the arts and of all forms of human activ- 
 ity became a possible consequence of its finally successful intro- 
 duction into the rude arts that it was to so effectively promote 
 and improve. 
 
 But the work of these inventors was in itself but little more 
 important than that of the Greek inventor of the steam aeolipile, 
 for each brought forward a machine which was, from a business 
 point of view, utterly impractable, and which, in each case, 
 only served to show that a better device might prove useful and 
 to lead the way to its introduction. The merit of the inventors of 
 the eighteenth century was that they were able to lead the way, 
 to point out the path to success, to furnish evidence of the value 
 of the coming, crowning invention. The ' ' fire engines, ' ' as 
 they were then called, of these now famous men, were merely 
 contrivances by the use of which the pressure of confined 
 steam of high tension could be brought to act on the surface 
 of a mass of confined water, forcing it downward into pipes 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 269 
 
 through which it was led off and upward to a higher level ; and 
 thus a mine could be drained, ineffectively and expensively, to 
 be sure, but vastly more satisfactorily than by the animal power 
 of the time. The machine of Savery was the best of all ; but 
 that was only a somewhat improved and manageable rearrange- 
 ment of the engines of Papin and Worcester. And, after all, 
 Papin, the greatest man of science, perhaps, of his time, died in 
 poverty ; Worcester languished in prison, and his whole life and 
 the later efforts of his widow brought nothing by way of a re- 
 turn for his invention ; nor did either they or their succes;;or, 
 Morland, make the introduction of the engine either general or 
 remunerative. Savery, coming on the stage at more nearly the 
 right time to seize upon the opportunity, gained more than 
 either of his predecessors ; but we have no evidence that he 
 ever acquired any large compensation or met with any remark- 
 able business success in the introduction of the rude engine 
 which bore his name, nor did Desaguliers, the great philos- 
 opher, or even Smeaton, the great engineer of the later years 
 of that century, make any great success of it. It was reserved 
 for Watt to reap the harvest. But, though he so effectively 
 reaped where his predecessors had sown, Watt is not the 
 greatest of the inventors of the steam engine, if we rate his 
 standing by the magnitude of the improvement which marked 
 his reconstruction of the engine. It was Newcomen who made 
 the modern steam engine. 
 
 When Newcomen came forward the labors of Worcester, in 
 Great Britain, had sufficed to attract the attention of all intel- 
 ligent men to the character of the problem to be solved and to 
 convince them of its importance and promise. The work of 
 Savery had shown the practicability of the solution of the 
 problem, both in mechanics and finance. He succeeded, 
 though under great disadvantages and comparatively inef- 
 ficiently. Once the task had been performed, though ever so 
 rudely, the rest came easily and promptly. The defects of the 
 Savery system were at once recognized ; its great wastes of 
 heat and of steam were noted, and the fact that they were 
 inherent in the system itself was perceived. A complete 
 change of type of machine was obviously requisite. It was 
 this which constituted the greatest invention in the whole 
 
270 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 history of the steam engine, from Hero's time to our own ; and 
 to Newcomen we owe more than to any other man who ever 
 lived, the value of the invention itself being considered and 
 the importance of the services of its introducer being left out 
 of consideration. No such complete and vital improvement 
 and modification of the machine has ever been effected by any 
 other man, Watt and Corliss not excepted. Newcomen and 
 his comrade, Galley — we do not know how the honors should 
 be divided — produced the modern steam engine. Its prede- 
 cessor, the Savery engine, had been a mere steam "squirt;" 
 Newcomen constructed an engine. Savery built a simple com- 
 bination of cylindrical or ellipsoidal vessels which wastefully 
 and at once performed all the several ofiSces of engine, pump, 
 condenser and boiler. Newcomen divided these several ele- 
 ments among as many parts, each especially adapted to the 
 performance of its task in the most effective manner, the con- 
 denser excepted, for that was Watt's principal invention, and 
 thus produced the first steam engine in the modern sense of 
 that term. It was Newcomen, not Watt, who gave us the 
 train of mechanism that we now call the steam engine. It is 
 to Newcomen, rather than Watt, that we owe the highest 
 honors as an inventor in this series of the most important of all 
 the products of the inventive genius of mankind. Newcomen 
 brought into existence a new, the modern, type of engine, and 
 effected the greatest revolution that has been recorded in the 
 history of the arts. Without Newcomen there might have 
 been no Watt ; without Watt there very possibly may not even 
 yet have been brought into existence that giant of our time, 
 whose mighty powers are employed more effectively than ever 
 those of AUadin's genii in building palaces, in transporting 
 men and material, in doing the work of the whole world ; 
 promoting the welfare of the race in a single century more 
 than had all the forces of matter and mind together in the 
 whole previous history of the world. Newcomen laid down a 
 foundation beneath our whole economic system, out of sight 
 almost, but the essential base nevertheless on which Watt and 
 his successors have carried up the great superstructure which 
 seems to us to-day so imposing, which is so tremendous in 
 magnitude, importance and result. If to any one man could 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRES^. 271 
 
 be assigned the credit, it is Newcomen who is to be considered 
 the inventor of the steam engine. 
 
 James Watt, indisputably the great inventor that he was, 
 found the steam engine ready to his hand ; applied himself to 
 its improvement, and made it substantially what it is to-day. 
 His most important work, the most unique service performed 
 by him was, however, that of its adaptation and introduction 
 to do the work of the world. James Watt was the inaugurator 
 of the era of refinement of the machine, already invented, and 
 the greatest of its builders and distributors. His inventions 
 were all directed to the improvement of its details, and his 
 labors to its introduction and its application to the myriad 
 tasks awaiting it. By the hands of Watt it was made to pump 
 water, to spin, to weave, to drive every mill ; and he it was 
 who gave it the form demanded by Stephenson, by Fulton, by 
 the whole industrial world, for use on railway and steamboat, 
 and in mill and factory throughout the civilized countries of 
 the globe. It was this great mechanic who showed how it 
 might be made to do its work with least expense, with highest 
 efficiency, with greatest regularity, with utmost concentration 
 of power. 
 
 The grand secret of his success was historical and economic 
 as much as scientific and mechanical. He brought out his in- 
 ventions just when the world was economically and historically 
 ready for them. The age of authority was past ; that of free- 
 dom was come ; the period of political and ecclesiastical tyranny 
 was gone by, and that of the spontaneous development of man 
 was arrived. The great invention was offered to a world ready 
 and needing it, and, more than all, competent, for the first time 
 in history, to make and use it. 
 
 James Watt was himself a product of the modern scientific 
 spirit. He was a man so constituted, mentally, that he could 
 apply scientific methods to problems which his logical and 
 clairvoyant mind could readily and exactly formulate the in- 
 stant he was led to their consideration in the natural course of 
 his progress. He was the ideal great inventor and mechanic. 
 With inventive genius he combined strong common sense — ^not 
 always a quality distinguishing the inventor — clear perception, 
 breadth of view, and scientific method and spirit in the treat- 
 
272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ment of every question. His natural talent was reinforced by 
 an experience and an environment which led him to develop 
 these ways and this mental habit. His trade was that of an 
 instrument-maker ; his position was that of custodian and re- 
 pairer of the apparatus of Glasgow University. He had for 
 his daily companions and stimulus the great men and ozonized 
 atmosphere of that famous institution. He kept pace with 
 advancing science, and was imbued, both naturally and through 
 contact with its promoters, with that ambition and those aspi- 
 rations which are the life-element of all progress, whether sci- 
 entific or other. He was aware of the nature of the problems 
 seeking solution at the time, and familiar with the state of his 
 own art and that of the great mechanicians about him. Every- 
 thing was favorable to his progress, so soon as he should be 
 given an opportunity to take a step in advance and to come 
 into sight at the front. The man and the time were both ready, 
 and all conditions, internal and external, social and personal, 
 were favorable to his development. 
 
 The invention upon which Watt was to improve was at his 
 hand. A word in regard to its status at the moment will 
 throw some light upon that of Watt and his creation. New- 
 comen had, as we have seen, produced the modem type of 
 steam engine as an original and wholly novel invention. But 
 this machine, marvelous as an advance upon pre-existing forms 
 of the steam engine, was still, as seen in the light of recent 
 knowledge and experience, exceedingly defective. The pur- 
 pose of a steam engine is to convert into usefully applicable 
 power the hidden energy of fuel, stored ages ago in the earth 
 by transformation through the action of vegetation from the 
 original form, the heat of the sun, into an available form for re- 
 conversion through thermodynamic operations. In this pro- 
 cess of reconversion, whatever the nature of the machine used 
 in the operation, there are invariably wastes, both of heat re- 
 quired for conversion into power and of the power thus pro- 
 duced. That machine which effects the most complete trans- 
 formation of the heat supplied it into mechanical power, which 
 wastes the least amount of heat supplied and of power pro- 
 duced, is the best engine, and constitutes an advance over every 
 other. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 273 
 
 It was this reduction of wastes that made the Newcomen en- 
 gine so much superior to that of Savery. The latter was by- 
 far the simpler and less costly construction ; but its enormous 
 losses, both of heat and power, mainly the former, however, 
 made it an extravagant expenditure of money to buy and use 
 it. The Newcomen engine, costly and cumbrous, compara- 
 tively, nevertheless wasted so much less heat and steam end 
 fuel that no one could afford to buy the cheaper machine. 
 Before considering what Watt accomplished we may find it 
 profitable to examine into the nature of the wastes which char- 
 acterized this later and better machine on which he effected his 
 improvements. 
 
 The Newcomen engine consisted of a steam boiler, a steam 
 cylinder, a beam, and a set of pumps. By making the boiler 
 do its work separately, the engine acting independently, and 
 the pumps as a detached portion of the mechanism, this inven- 
 tor had reduced to an enormous extent those wastes of heat 
 and of steam and of fuel, which were unavoidable in the older 
 machines in which all these parts were represented by a single 
 vessel, or by two at most, in each element. In the Savery en- 
 gine, the steam entering first heated up the interior of the 
 working vessel to its own temperature, and held it at that 
 temperature in spite of the cooling influence of the water pres- 
 ent. This consumed large quantities of heat. It then was 
 compelled to surrender probably much greater quantities still 
 to the water itself, coming into direct contact, as it did, with 
 its surface. If the water was agitated, either by the currents 
 produced during its ingress or by the impact of the steam enter- 
 ing the vessel, this heating action penetrated to considerable 
 depths, and perhaps even warmed the whole mass very far 
 above its initial temperature. This constituted another and a 
 very serious loss. Then, again, as the water was gradually 
 driven out of the containing vessel by the steam pressing on its 
 surface, new portions of the vessel and new masses of water 
 were continually brought in contact with the hot steam, taking 
 its full temperature, and thus often probably finally heating 
 the whole mass of the forcing vessel, and a large proportion of 
 the water as well, up to the temperature, approximately, at least, 
 of the steam itself. Thus in many instances, if not always, 
 
274 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 vastly more heat and steam were wasted in this undesirable 
 heating of water and forcing vessel than were usefully em- 
 ployed in the legitimate work of raising the water to a higher 
 level. In fact, in some cases in which these quantities were 
 measured, the wastes were one hundred times as much as the 
 work done. One per cent, of the heat supplied did the work, 
 while ninety-nine per cent, was thrown away. One dollar or 
 one shilling expended for fuel to do the work was accompanied 
 by an expenditure of ninety-nine dollars or shillings thrown 
 away, because of the imperfections of the system and machine. 
 The whole history of the development of the steam engine has 
 been one of gradual reduction of these wastes, until to-day our 
 best engines only compel us to spend five dollars for wastes to 
 each dollar paid out for useful work. A business man would 
 think that amply extravagant, however, and the man of science 
 is continually seeking methods of evading these losses, a large 
 proportion of which are now apparently unavoidable in heat 
 engines, by finding some new system of heat and energy trans- 
 formation. 
 
 Watt was the instrument maker and repairer at Glasgow 
 University in the year 1763. His companions were, among 
 others, the professors of natural philosophy and of mathe- 
 matics in the University. Their conversation and their fre- 
 quent .presentation of practical and scientific questions and 
 problems stimulated his naturally inquiring and inventive mind 
 to the pursuit of a thousand interesting and promising schemes 
 for the improvement of existing methods and machinery. Dr. 
 Robinson, then a student, suggested the invention of a steam- 
 carriage for use on common roads, and the young mechanician 
 at once began experiments that, resulting in nothing at the 
 time, were nevertheless continued in one or another form until 
 all modern applications of steam came into view. Dr. Black 
 taught Watt chemistry, then a newly -constructed science, and 
 led him on to the discovery finally made by them independently 
 of the fact and the magnitude of the latent heat of steam, the 
 discovery coming of a series of scientifically planned and accu- 
 rately conducted investigations, such as the man of science of 
 to-day would deem creditable. The treatises of Deaguliers and 
 others on physics gave Watt a knowledge of that domain of 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 275 
 
 natural phenomena which stood him in good stead later, when 
 he attempted to apply its principles to the reduction of the 
 wastes of the steam engine. 
 
 It was while at Glasgow University, working under such 
 influences and in such an atmosphere of intellectual activity, 
 that the accident of the Newcomen model engine needing 
 repair brought to the mind of Watt the opportunity which, 
 availed of at once, made him famous and gave the world its 
 greatest aid, its most powerful servant. The observing mind 
 of the great mechanic immediately noted its defects, sought 
 their causes, found their remedy. He discovered at once that 
 the quantity of steam entering the cylinder of the little engine 
 was four times the volume of the cylinder receiving it ; in other 
 words, three-fourths of that steam must be condensed immedi- 
 ately on entrance. This meant, evidently, that only one-fourth 
 of the steam supplied was utilized, and even then inefficiently, 
 in doing its work. The reason of this was as easily seen, 
 immediately the fact was revealed. As Watt, himself expressed 
 it, the causes of this loss, causes which would obviously be 
 exaggerated in a small engine, were : "First , the dissipation of 
 heat by the cylinder itself, which was of brass, and both a good 
 conductor and a good radiator. Secondly, the loss of heat 
 consequent upon the necessity of cooling down the cylinder at 
 every stroke in producing the vacuum. Thirdly, the loss of 
 power due to the pressure of vapor beneath the piston, which 
 was a consequence of the imperfect method of condensation. ' ' 
 This much determined, the next step looked toward the con- 
 firmation of his conclusions and the remedy of the defects. 
 
 To meet the first difficulty he made a cylinder of wood, 
 soaked in oil and baked, a non-conducting and non-radiating 
 material. Then he was able to determine with some accuracy 
 the quantities of steam and injection water used in the engine, 
 and a comparison with the original cylinder, and its operation 
 showed that not only four times the quantity of steam, but also 
 four times the amount of injection water was used as was neces- 
 sary, assuming wastes checked. Further scientific research on 
 the part of Watt gave him measures of specific heats of the 
 metals and of wood, the specific volumes of steam at various 
 working pressures, the evaporative efficiency of boilers, the 
 
275 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 pressures and temperatures of steam in the boiler under speci- 
 fied conditions, the quantities of steam and of water required for 
 the operation of his little condensing engine. 
 
 Then came his enunciation of the grand principle of econ- 
 omy in the construction and operation of the steam engine : 
 ' 'Keep the cylinder as hot as the steam which enters it, ' ' as 
 he expressed it. This was Watt's guiding principle, as it has 
 been that of all his successors in the improvement of economic 
 performance of the steam-engine and of all other heat-engines. 
 The great source of waste is the dispersion of heat, uselessly, 
 which should be applied to the production of work by its 
 transformation, thermodynamically, into the latter form of 
 energy. The second form of waste is that of power thus pro- 
 duced in the unprofitable work of moving the parts of the 
 engine itself, and the third is that of heat by transfer, without 
 transformation, by conduction and radiation to surrounding 
 bodies. In modern engines, the latter is but three or five per 
 cent., in the best. cases; the second waste constitutes perhaps 
 ten per cent.; while the first of these losses amounts very 
 usually to seventy per cent. ; of which last one-third or one- 
 fourth is of the kind discovered by Watt, the rest being the 
 thermodynamic waste incident to all known methods of opera- 
 tion of heat-engines, and apparently unavoidable. In our very- 
 best and largest engines, the wa->te found by Watt to consti- 
 tute three-fourths of all heat supplied has been brought down 
 to ten per cent., a fact which well exemplifies the advances 
 made since his time of apprenticeship by himself and his suc- 
 cessors of this nineteenth century. The steam engine of to-day, 
 in its most successful operation, gives us twenty-five times as 
 much power from a pound of coal as did the engine that the 
 great inventor sought to improve. This is the magnificent 
 fruit of that one discovery of James Watt, and of application 
 of the simple principle which he so concisely and clearly 
 stated. 
 
 The method adopted by Watt to secure a remedy, so far as 
 practicable, of this defect of the older machine was as simple 
 and as perfect as the principle which it embodied. He first re- 
 moved from the cylinder the prime source of its wastec ; pro- 
 viding a separate condenser, and thus avoiding the repeated 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 277 
 
 chilling of its surfaces by the cold water used in condensing 
 the steam at exhaust, and also permitting its strokes to be 
 made with far greater frequency, thus giving less time for 
 cooling by the influence of the remaining vapors after con- 
 densation. He next went still further and provided the cylin- 
 der with a closed top, keeping out the air, and a "jacket" 
 of hot boiler-steam to keep it as hot as the steam which entered 
 it. These were the two great improvements which converted 
 the first real steam-engine into an economical form of heat- 
 engine and essentially finished the work so grandly begun by 
 Newcomen and Galley. These changes gave us the modern 
 steam-engine; and these are Watt's first and greatest, but by 
 no means only, contributions to the production of the modern 
 world with all its comforts, it luxuries, and its opportunities 
 for material, intellectual, and moral advancement of individual 
 and of race. His work was to this extent complete in 1765. 
 
 But Watt did not stop here. There still remained for him 
 the no less important, and the in some sense still more impos- 
 ing, work of finding employment for the new servant of man- 
 kind and of setting it at its work of giving the human arm a 
 thousand times greater strength, to the mind of man uncounted 
 opportunities to promote the advancement of knowledge, of 
 civilization, of every good of the race. His was still the task 
 of adapting the new machine to all the purposes of modern in- 
 dustry. It had been hitherto confined to the task of raising 
 water from the depths of the mine ; it was now to be harnessed 
 to the railway train ; to be made to drive the machinery of the 
 mill, to apply its marvelous power to the impulsion of the river 
 boat and ocean steamer ; to furnish energy, through endless 
 systems of transfer and use, to every kind of work that man 
 could devise and should invent. All this meant the giving of 
 the machine forms as various as the purposes to which it was 
 to be devoted. It had previously only raised and depressed a 
 rod ; it mu.st now turn a shaft. It had then only operated a 
 pump ; it must now turn a mill, grind out grain, spin our 
 threads, weave our cloths, drive our shops and factories, supply 
 the powerful blast of the iron-furnace. It must be made to 
 move with the utmost conceivable regularity, and must, with 
 all this, do its work in the development of the hidden energy 
 
278 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of the fuel, with the greatest possible economy, through the 
 expansion of its steam. All this was achieved by James Watt. 
 
 The invention of the double-acting engine, in which the im- 
 pulsion of the steam is felt both in driving the piston forward 
 and in forcing it backward, both upward and downward, the 
 application of its force through crank and fly-wheel, the crea- 
 tion of an automatic system of governing its speed, and the 
 discovery of the economy due to its complete expansion, were 
 all improvements of the first magnitude and of the greatest 
 practical importance ; and all these were in rapid succession 
 brought into existence by the creative mind that had appa- 
 rently been brought into the world for the express purpose of 
 giving to the hand of man this mighty agent, to perfect the 
 mightiest power that mind of man has yet conceived. 
 
 But to do the rest required more than inventive genius and 
 mechanical skill. It demanded capital and the stored energy 
 of labor and genius in other fields, directed by the mind of 
 a great "captain of industry." This came to Watt through 
 Matthew Boulton, a manufacturer of Birmingham, whose father 
 and ancestors had gradually and toilsomely, as always, accu- 
 mulated the property needed for the prosecution of a great 
 business. The combination of genius and capital is always an 
 essential to success in such cases, and the good fortune — a 
 providence, we may well say — brought together the genius and 
 the capitalist to do their work, hand-in-hand, of providing the 
 world with the steam-engine. Hand-in-hand they worked, and 
 all the world to-day, and the race throughout its future life, 
 must testify gratitude for the inexpressible obligations under 
 which these two men have placed them, doing the work of the 
 world. 
 
 Boulton & Watt, the capitalist with the inventor, gave the 
 world the steam-engine, finally, in such form and in such num- 
 bers that its permanent establishment as the servant of man 
 was insured. The capitalist was as essential an element of 
 success as was the inventor, and in this instance, as in a 
 thousand others, the race is indebted to that much-abused 
 friend of the race, the capitalist, for much that it enjoys of all 
 that it desires. The industry and patience, the skill and the 
 wisdom required for the accumulation of this energy stored for 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 279 
 
 future use in great enterprises is as important, as essential, as 
 inventive power or any other form of genius. Talent and 
 genius must always aid each other. This firm was established 
 in 1764, and its main resources, aside from the bank account, 
 were Watt's patent, about expiring, and Watt's genius, and 
 Boulton's talent as a man of business. The patent was ex- 
 tended for twenty-four years, the new inventions of Watt, now 
 beginning to pour from his prolific brain in a wonderful stream, 
 were also patented, and the whole works were soon employed 
 upon the construction of engines for which numerous orders 
 had begun to pour in upon the now prosperous builders. The 
 patent law established Boulton & Watt, and the firm paid 
 .paid back the nation with handsome usury, giving it unim- 
 aginable profits indirectly through its control of the work of 
 the world, and large profits, indirectly, through the business 
 brought them from all parts of the then civilized globe. There 
 has never, in the history of the world, been a more impressive 
 illustration of the value to a nation of that generous public 
 policy, that simply just legislation, which gives to the man of 
 brain control of the products of his mind. For a hundred years 
 Great Britain has, largely through her encouragement of the 
 inventor and her protection of his mental property, by securing 
 the fruits of his labors, in fair portion, to him, gained the power 
 of dictating to the world, and has gained an advance that can- 
 not be measured. Watt and Arkwright and Stephenson and 
 Crompton and their ilk, protected by their government and its 
 patent laws, made their country the peaceful conquerors of the 
 world. The story of the work of the inventor is a poem of 
 mighty meaning and of wonderful deeds. The inventor proved 
 himself a mightier magician than ever the world had seen. 
 
 "A creature he called to wait on his will, 
 Half iron, half vapor — a dread to behold ; 
 Which evermore panted, and evermore rolled. 
 And uttered his words a millionfold. " 
 
 Such was the outcome of this grand modern "trust," a com- 
 bination of the wisest legislation, the most brilliant invention, 
 and the most wisely applied capital. There are "trusts" of 
 which the outcome is most beneficent. 
 
28o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Since the days of Watt, the improvement of the steam en- 
 gine and the work of inventors has been confined to matters 
 of detail. All the fundamental principles were developed by 
 Watt and his predecessors and contemporaries and it was only 
 left to his successors to find the best ways of carrying them into 
 efiect. But these matters of detail have been found to involve 
 opportunities to make enormous strides in the direction of 
 securing improved eflSciency of the machine. The further ap- 
 plication of the principle which led Watt to his greatest in- 
 ventions, of the principle : keep the cylinder as hot as the 
 steam which enters it, of that which he enunciated relative 
 to the advantage of expanding steam, and of that affecting 
 the regulation of the machine, have reduced the costs of steam 
 and of fuel to a small fraction of their earlier magnitude. One 
 ton of engine to-day does the work of eight or ten in the time 
 of Watt ; one pound of fuel or of steam g^ves to-day ten times 
 the power then obtained from it. A steamship now crosses 
 the Atlantic in one-eighth the time required by the famous 
 ' ' liner ' ' of the ' 'Black Ball Line. ' ' The wastes of the engine 
 have been brought down from above eighty per cent, to eight ; 
 and a half ounce of fuel on board ship will now transport a 
 ton of cargo over a mile of ocean. 
 
 Frederick E. Sickels gave us the first practicable form of 
 expansion-gear is 1841; George H. Corliss gave a new type of 
 engine of marvelous perfection and economy in 1849; Noble 
 T. Green, Wm. Wright and many less weU-known but no less 
 meritorious inventors have since done their part in the trans- 
 formation of the old engine of Watt into the modem wonder of 
 concentrated and economical power, and marvel of accurate 
 and beautiful design and workmanship. The " trip cut-off, " 
 with reduced clearness, increased boiler-pressures, higher rates 
 of expansion, accelerated speeds of engine, better construction 
 in all respects, as well as improved design, have enabled us to 
 avail ourselves to the utmost of the principles of Watt, and 
 our mills, our railways, our steamers and our fields, even, have 
 gained almost as extraordinarily by these advances, since the 
 days of the great inventor, as through his immediate labors. 
 
 With the introduction of the new form of older energy, 
 electricity, with the reduction of the lightning into thraldom. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 281 
 
 has now come a new impulse aflecting all the industries. 
 Through its mysterious, its still mysterious action, steam now 
 reaches out far from its own place, driving the electric car along 
 miles of rail ; giving light throughout all the country about it, 
 turning night into day, and repressing crime while encouraging 
 legitimate labor ; reaching into distant chambers and every 
 little workshop, to offer its powerful aid in all the distributed 
 work of cities. Without the steam-engine there would be lit- 
 tle work available for electricity, but the appearance of this, 
 the latest and most useful handmaid of steam, has given the 
 engine work to do in an uncounted number of new fields, has 
 called in the inventor once more to adapt steam to its new work. 
 The "high-speed engine" is the latest form of the universal 
 helper. And such has been the readiness and the intelligence 
 of the contempoary inventor that we now have engines capable 
 of turning their shafts three hundred rotations a minute and 
 without a perceptible variation of velocity, whatever the 
 change of load or the suddenness with which it is varied. In 
 the days of Watt a fluctuation of five per cent, in speed was 
 thought wonderfully small ; in those of Corliss, the variation 
 was restricted to two per cent., and we wondered at this unan- 
 ticipated success. To-day, thanks to Porter and Allen, to 
 Hartnell, to Hoadly, to Sims, to Thomson, to Sweet, and to 
 Ide and to Ball, we have seen the speed fluctuation restricted 
 to even less than one per cent, of its normal average. 
 
 The inventors of the steam engine are, through their repre- 
 sentatives of to-day, according to the statisticians, doing the 
 equivalent of twelve times the work of a horse for every man, 
 woman and child on the globe. We have not less, probably, 
 than a half million of miles of railway, transporting something 
 over 150,000,000,000 of tons a mile a year. A horse is reckoned 
 to haul a ton weight about six and a-half miles, day by da}', by 
 the year together. In the United States it is reckoned that 
 the steam engine on the railways alone hauls a thousand tons 
 one mile for every inhabitant of the country every year ; or, if 
 it is preferred to so state it, a ton a thousand miles. This is 
 the way in which the East and the West are, by the inventors 
 of the steam engine, enabled to help each other. This costs 
 about $10 each individual ; it would require some twenty -five 
 
282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 millions of horses to do this work, and would cost about $i,ooo 
 a family, which is more than twice the average family earnings. 
 
 Dr. Strong, in that remarkable book, " Our Country," says : 
 ' ' One man, by the aid of steam, is able to do the work which re- 
 quired 250 men at the beginning of the century. The machinery 
 of Massachusetts alone represents the labor of more than 100,- 
 000,000 men, as if one-half of all the workmen of the globe had 
 engaged in her service." And again : "Some thirty years ago 
 the power of machinery in the mills of Great Britain was esti- 
 mated to be equal to 600,000,000 men, or more than all the 
 adults, male and female, of all mankind. ' ' Mr. Gladstone esti- 
 mated that the aggregation of wealth on the globe during the 
 whole period from the birth of Christ to that of Watt was 
 equalled by the production in twenty years at the middle of 
 this century, with the aid of machinery driven by the fruit of 
 the brain of the inventors of the steam engine. We may prob- 
 ably now safely estimate the former quantity as rivalled in less 
 than five years, while since the birth of Watt and his engine 
 and the production of the spinning-mule, the power-loom, the 
 cotton-gin and our own patent system and its marvelous mechan- 
 ism, all events of a century ago, we may estimate that they have 
 together accomplished more in this period which we now cele- 
 brate than could have been done in a millenium of milleniums 
 without these now subjected genii. But the power behind all 
 these curious inventions and their work is that of steam. The 
 steam engine even supplies power to the telegraph, and trans- 
 ports words and thought as well as cotton-bales and coal. 
 
 And now what has this combination of legislation for private 
 protection and public good, of a genius producing great inven- 
 tions and of the accumulated capital of earlier years, brought 
 about ? 
 
 It has given us the best fruits of science in permanent pos- 
 session. The study of science invariably aids in a thousand 
 ways the progress of mankind. It gives us new conceptions 
 of nature and of the possibilities of art ; it promotes right ways 
 of work and of study ; it teaches the inventor and the discoverer 
 how most surely and promptly to gain their several ends ; it 
 gives the world the results of all acquired knowledge in con- 
 crete form. This one instance which we are now especially 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 283 
 
 interested in contemplating has performed more wonderful 
 miracles than ever Aladdin's genii attempted. One man, with 
 a steam engine at his hand, turns the wheels of a great mill, 
 drives forty thousand spindles, applies a thousand horse-power 
 to daily work in the spinning of threads, the weaving of cloth, 
 the impulsion of a steamboat, or the drawing of great masses 
 of hot iron into finest wire. This puny creature, his mind in 
 his finger-tips, exerts the power of ten thousand men working 
 with muscle alone, and aided by a handful of women, boys and 
 girls, clothes a city. A half-dozen men in the engine room of 
 an ocean steamer, with a hundred strong laborers in the boiler 
 room and on deck, transports colonies and makes new nations, 
 brings separated peoples together, unites countries on opposite 
 sides of the globe, brings about easy exchanges between pole 
 and equator. One man on the footboard of the locomotive, one 
 man shoveling into the furnaces the black powder that encloses 
 the energy stored in early geological ages, a half-dozen men 
 mounted on the long train of following vehicles, combine to 
 bring to the mill girl in Massachusetts, the miner in Pennsyl- 
 vania, the sewing woman and the wealthy merchant, her neigh- 
 bor, in New York, the flour made in Minnesota from the grain 
 harvested a few weeks earlier in Dakota. All the world is 
 served faithfully and efficiently by this unimaginable power, 
 this product of the brain of the inventor, protected by the law, 
 stimulated and aided by the capital that it has itself almost 
 alone produced. 
 
 And thus have the inventors of the steam engine set in 
 motion and placed at the disposal of mankind for every form 
 of useful work, all the great forces of nature. Thus, Hero 
 of Alexandria touched the then concealed spring which called 
 all the genii of earth, fire, water and air to do the bidding of 
 the race. Thus Papin, Worcester, Newcomen, Watt and Cor- 
 liss and others of our own contemporaries, have applied the 
 genii to their task of leveling mountains, traversing seas, 
 continents, and the depths of the earth, building ships, loco- 
 motives, hamlets and cities, cottages and palaces, turning the 
 spindle, operating the loom, and setting in motion and giving 
 energy to every machine ; doing the work of thousands of 
 millions of men, converting barbarism into civilization, giving 
 
284 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 necessaries of life in profusion, comforts in plenty, and luxuries 
 in superabundance. 
 
 Aiding and working hand-in-hand with those other genii of 
 progress, the inventors of the printing-press and of the tele- 
 graph, the telephone, and the electric railway, of the modem 
 system of textile manufactures, of iron and steel-making, of the 
 mowing-machine and the harvester, they have compressed into 
 two centuries the progress of a millenium, destitute of their aid. 
 Every step taken under their stimulus and with their help is a 
 step toward a higher life for all, intellectually and morally as 
 well as physically ; every advance in the improvement of their 
 work is a gain to every man, woman and child ; every improve- 
 ment of the steam engine is a help to the whole world. This 
 progress makes the day of the extinction of the system now 
 grinding the populations of the earth into the ground, the day of 
 the abolition of armies and the restoration to the people of that 
 freedom which characterized the times of the patriarchs, and of 
 the restoration of the rights of the citizen to his own time and 
 strength and producing power perceptibly nearer. 
 
 When this final revolution shall have been accomplished, 
 and when all the world has settled down to the steady and 
 undisturbed work of production by daily and regular labor, 
 aided by the genii of steam, of electricity, of all nature com- 
 bined for good, the results of the intellectual activity of the in- 
 ventors of the steam engine will be fully seen. Then no monu- 
 ment will be required to keep green the memory of Watt, 
 Corliss, or any other of these great men ; but it will be said of 
 them as of Sir Christopher Wren in the epitaph in St. Paul's : 
 ' ' Seek you a monument ? lyook about you. ' ' Every wreath 
 of steam rising to the heavens from factory, mill, or workshop 
 will be a reminder of Hero of Alexandria ; every mine will 
 possess a memorial to Papin, Worcester, and Savery ; every 
 steamship will bring into grateful memory Fitch, and Stevens, 
 and Bell, and Fulton ; thousands of locomotives crossing the 
 continents will perpetuate the thought of the Stephensons and 
 their colleagues in the introduction of the railway ; the hum of 
 millions of spindles and the music of the electric wire will tell 
 of the work of Corliss and his contemporaries and successors 
 who made these things possible ; and all kingdoms and races, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 285 
 
 all nations will revere the name of James Watt, the genius to 
 whom the world is most indebted for the beginnings of all this 
 later and grander civilization which has converted the slow 
 progress of earlier centuries into the meteor-like advance of to- 
 day toward a future as grand, and as mighty, and as noble as 
 humanity shall choose to make it. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 287 
 
 THE EFFECT OF INVENTION UPON THE PRO- 
 GRESS OF El.ECTRICAIy SCIENCE. 
 
 By Cyrus F. Brackett, M. D., LL.D., op New Jersey, Henry 
 Professor oe Physics, Coi,i,ege of New Jersey, Princeton. 
 
 Electrical science really begins with the labors of Dr. Gilbert. 
 These he published in 1600. For almost exactly two hundred 
 years from this date investigation was confined to that domain 
 which is still sometimes called static electricity. A new era, 
 however, dawned in 1800, when Volta gave to the world an 
 invention whose importance can scarcely be exaggerated — the 
 voltaic battery. 
 
 The simplicity of the device and the wonderful effects which 
 it could produce at once excited the most lively interest, and 
 men of science made haste to investigate it. By means of it 
 Carlisle and Nicholson soon succeeded in decomposing water, 
 and Ritter had a similar success with copper sulphate. Thus 
 commenced a long line of research in electrolysis which was pur- 
 sued with great success by Davy and others, and which finally 
 led Faraday to the grand generalization known as Faraday's 
 laws of electrolysis. 
 
 Meantime, Ritter had noticed that the two plates of the same 
 metal which have just served to convey the current to and 
 from a liquid while undergoing electrolytic decomposition 
 can, themselves, furnish a current, and he was thus led to the 
 invention of the "storage battery." It was Volta, however, 
 who gave the correct explanation of its action. 
 
 Ritter, Pfaff and others observed that the conducting wires 
 of the battery are wanned by the passage of the current, and 
 Curtet, on closing the circuit with a piece of charcoal, produced 
 a brilliant light. Davy systematically investigated these heat- 
 ing effects of the current, employing various metals as con- 
 ductors, thus incidentally testing their resistances, and finally 
 in 18 1 2, on making the current pass between two pieces of char- 
 coal, he produced the well-known electric arc. 
 
288 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Thus in little more than a decade from the date of Volta's 
 invention, more real progress was made than in any century 
 previous. But the true progress of electrical science is not to 
 be measured solely, or even mainly, by the number nor by the 
 splendor of the physical results which attend it, but rather by 
 the insight into the operations of nature which we gain. 
 Viewed in this light Volta's invention was itself the embodi- 
 ment of a g^eat advance which he had made into an entirely 
 new region. It was not the mere outcome of happy accident, 
 but the result of severely logical reasoning upon facts which he 
 had observed while he was investigating the so-called ' ' animal 
 electricity ' ' of Galvani. 
 
 Volta's fundamental research respecting the electrical dis- 
 turbances produced by contact of dissimilar substances afforded 
 him a basis for a rational theory of the action of the battery, 
 and this theory has had a far-reaching influence not only upon 
 the progress of electrical science, but on physical science in 
 general. 
 
 The voltaic battery rendered possible an observation out of 
 which grew the next great invention, which we will consider. 
 In 1820 Oersted noticed that a magnetic needle was deflected 
 from its normal position by voltaic current which was flowing 
 in a conductor near it. He determined the relation of the cur- 
 rent to the deflection as respects direction, and sent a brief 
 memoir concerning the matter to well known scientists. 
 
 Arago immediately found that iron filings were attracted by 
 a wire conveying a voltaic current. In order to strengthen the 
 magnetic action of the current Schweigger invented the mag- 
 netizing helix or spiral. By means of this Arago was able to 
 magnetize steel permanently and iron temporarily. The con- 
 ception of this helix was the first act of invention which was to 
 produce the electro-magnet. Yet it was not until 1825 that 
 Sturgeon wound a conducting wire about a core of iron to pro- 
 duce the electro-magnet proper. The magnet as it left the 
 hand of Sturgeon was a crude device, which the genius of 
 Henry finally perfected between the years 1828 and 1831. 
 Henry constructed several magnets some of which were wound 
 with long, thin insulated wires, while others were wound with 
 shorter and thicker wires in parallel. These could be joined 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 289 
 
 either in series or in parallel. He thus had the means of 
 studying the effects which a given battery can produce when 
 made to actuate magnets having different windings. He also 
 investigated the effects which are produced by the use of bat- 
 teries having different electro-motive forces. He thus discov- 
 ered the principles which must be observed in order to secure 
 the best results from the electro-magnet under any given con- 
 ditions. Indeed, a careful examination of Henry's work will 
 convince one that he disclosed the same result by the light of 
 skillful experiment, as is set forth in Ohm's now well-known 
 formula. Moreover, he clearly perceived that the magnet as 
 he had perfected it offered the solution of the problem of the 
 telegraph, and he made proof of his prevision by actually in- 
 stalling one. 
 
 In the hands of Ampere the conducting helix was raade, 
 under one form or another, a means of investigation which he 
 pushed with wonderful energy and skill until he unfolded the 
 laws of interaction between magnets and electrical currents as 
 well as those which govern the mutual actions of the currents 
 themselves. In short, it may be said that as the result of his 
 inquiries Ampere was brought to a comprehensive theory of 
 magnetic action which was startling alike for its simplicity and 
 its boldness. It deserves to rank with Newton's theory of uni- 
 versal attraction. 
 
 The skillful labors of Faraday and Henry brought to light 
 by the same means the laws of induced currents, and so sup- 
 plied the elements which practical inventors have since com- 
 bined so as to do our bidding, whether it be to illumine our 
 streets and dwellings, push our cars or delve in the mountain 
 for hidden treasure. 
 
 The electromagnetic phenomena educed by the voltaic cur- 
 rent as it flows through a helix constitutes the basis of a most 
 admirable system of measurement for electrical quantities, 
 while the helix itself contains in germ the whole family of 
 measuring instruments by means of which such measurements 
 are made. Moreover, these phenomena led the sagacious mind 
 of Faraday to a wholly new way of regarding electrical action 
 in general. He clearly perceived that the old doctrine of the 
 " imponderables " was untenable, and he looked for some com- 
 
290 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 mon nexus between all physical actions. He was disposed to 
 refer the interactions which bodies exhibit in consequence of 
 their electrical states to the medium intervening between them. 
 As light is believed to be transmitted by a universal medium, 
 he sought to find, by experiment, some connection between 
 light and electromagnetic action. On passing a beam of plane 
 polarized light through a block of glass within a magnetizing 
 helix he found that the beam was twisted when the current 
 was made to flow through the helix. 
 
 Maxwell undertook the very important work of subjecting 
 the results reached by previous workers, and generally set 
 forth in Faraday's "Experimental Researches," to mathe- 
 matical discussion, which must be considered the final test of 
 truth. Not to mention others, one very important result was 
 his ' ' electromagnetic theory of light. ' ' But experiments were 
 wanting, save the single one of Faraday just mentioned, to 
 confirm his deduction. It was reserved for Hertz to supply 
 the necessary evidence in support of Maxwell's theory, which 
 he had lately done by making skilful use of the oscillating dis- 
 charge of charged conductors, earlier demonstrated by Henry. 
 
 Thus it appears that the two great germinal inventions 
 which have most influenced the progress of electrical science 
 during our century are the voltaic battery and the magnetizing 
 helix. The one gave us first the means of evoking electrical 
 energy continuously, while the other gave us the means of 
 applying it as we may have occasion. Both contributed 
 powerfully in a direct way to the progress of electrical science 
 by reason of the various and startling phenomena which they 
 revealed. 
 
 But it seldom happens that progress continues long in any 
 department of physical science unaffected by the practical ap- 
 plication of its results in the arts, and, conversely, such appli- 
 cations almost invariably react to stimulate scientific inquiry. 
 Two principal reasons for this effect may be noticed. When 
 the apparatus and the operations of the laboratory give place 
 to those which are suited to commercial uses, new conditions 
 arise which frequently bring into prominence phenomena be- 
 fore unobserved or inconspicuous. These then become sub- 
 jects for new investigations, and in due time scientific progress 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 291 
 
 is the result. Thus, telegraphy brought its knotty problems 
 as well as its successes, especially when its lines were stretched 
 under the sea, and when one wire was required to do the duty 
 of several, and nothing less than the highest skill and the 
 most severe analysis has sufficed to effect their solution. So, 
 too, telephony was early beset with peculiar difficulties, not- 
 withstanding the simplicity of the means which it employs — 
 thanks to the genius of Professor Bell — but they were such as 
 electrical science has profited from. Speaking generally, it 
 may be said that almost every one of the devices which are in 
 daily use for the transformation of mechanical work into elec- 
 trical energy, and the converse, has compelled its inventors, in 
 the course of its evolution, to contribute something to the 
 common stock of scientific truth. 
 
 It was regretted by Franklin that the results of electrical 
 research had not been turned more to the use of man in prac- 
 tical affairs. Faraday did not doubt that the time would come 
 when that reproach would be removed, but he felt it a duty on 
 his own part to push on the work of discovery, and to leave 
 industrial inventions to others. Such applications are now 
 everywhere about us and are rapidly extending. Of course 
 they involve the investment of millions of capital, and this 
 renders it impossible that the great public shall be indifferent 
 to the science upon which they depend. Hence it is that all 
 our schools of technology and most of our colleges have 
 already made provision for training in it. 
 
 Every consideration leads us to expect that future progress 
 in electrical science will be more rapid than it has ever been in 
 the past ; the present offers to the student the accumulated 
 treasures of knowledge and the hope of scientific distinction 
 as well as that of pecuniary reward. It can hardly be that 
 among the scores of young men to whom these advantages 
 come as inspirations there will not be found some who shall 
 prove to be worthy successors of the great men into whose 
 labors they so easily enter. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 293 
 
 THE INFlvUENCE OF INVENTION UPON THE IM- 
 
 PIvEMENTS AND MUNITIONS OP MODERN 
 
 WARFARE. 
 
 By Major Ci^arence E. Dutton, Ordnance Department, U. S. A. 
 
 That remarkable progress which has characterized the vari- 
 ous arts during the present century, and especially during its 
 second half, is well exemplified in the great increase of effici- 
 ency in war material and weapons of war. From the time of 
 the invention of gun powder to the close of the last century 
 there was progress in the improvement of arms, but it now 
 seems to us very slow. In no other department of invention 
 were the kings and nobility so much interested. No inventor 
 was so much valued or so richly rewarded as the one who had 
 devised a more deadly weapon or an implement which would 
 increase the efficiency of a soldier. It is a significant com- 
 mentary on the early part of the 17th century that the discov- 
 ery of the telescope was at first regarded as having little or no 
 other utility than as an aid to the eye of the commander of 
 troops in the field, and an effort was made by the Prince in 
 whose dominon it was invented to keep it secret, and to mo- 
 nopolize its military advantages. But with all the patronage 
 of Kings and Princes, progress in the mechanics of warfare was 
 not materially greater than in other mechanic arts. And yet 
 there was progress. But it was at such a rate that it required 
 half a century at least and sometimes a whole century of im- 
 provement to clearly establish by comparison the fact that 
 the methods and materials of warfare had notably changed. 
 Indeed if we compare the cannon used at the beginning of the 
 15th century with those used by the first Napoleon in his first 
 Italian campaign at the close of the i8th we shall find only 
 a very moderate difference, and such as may be recognized will 
 be chiefly in the method of mounting and transporting the 
 piece, while the structure and efiectiveness of the cannon 
 
294 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. - 
 
 itself apart from its mounting will appear to have undergone 
 no radical change. In small arms the progress was somewhat 
 greater. Yet it may sound like satire to say that from the 
 time of the first arquebuss to the beginning of the present 
 century the most important improvement of the foot soldiers 
 fire-arm was the addition of the flint-lock for discharging it. 
 
 In the first half of the present century progress was some- 
 what more rapid. This progress, however, was not so much 
 in the line of increased power and efiiciency of weapons nor 
 in respect to important changes in their functions or structure 
 as in the machinery and methods of fabricating them and im- 
 proving the workmanship and materials. Prior to 1800 all 
 parts of a musket were made wholly by handicraft, and the 
 founding of cannon was a primitive and laborous operation. 
 But soon after the opening of the present century the introduc- 
 tion of machinery in the armories became a pronounced fea- 
 ture. And in this respect the United States took the lead of 
 all nations. It is more characteristic of our people than of any 
 other to seek to replace the labor of men with the labor of 
 machines. The rolling of gun-barrels upon a mandrel, the ex- 
 tensive use of milling machines for shaping the irregular parts, 
 the systematic use of the drop and die, and above all the 
 practice of finishing the parts of a gun with such precision 
 that a thousand guns could be assembled by taking the dis- 
 tributed parts at random and putting them together without 
 any additional fitting were first adopted and carried into suc- 
 cessful practice in our own factories. There were improve- 
 ments also in artillery, but chiefly in the direction of better 
 workmanship, more efiective projectiles, increased mobility of 
 field artillery, better mountings and more powerful guns for 
 fixed armaments. Yet none of these changes were of revolu- 
 tionary importance. 
 
 Between 1850 and i860 began that wonderfully rapid de- 
 velopment which has led to the modern high power artillery, 
 the magazine rifle for infantry, and the rapid-fire machine guns 
 which have developed a radically new function in modem 
 armaments. I propose to allude briefly to the fundamental 
 improvements which distinguish modem arms from those which 
 preceded them, and which exhibit the principles rather than 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 295 
 
 the details. One of the most surprising things about these 
 improvements is the fact that they consist very largely in 
 modifications, which seem to the inexpert comparatively trifling. 
 On comparing a modern gun with such as were in f^or 
 fifty or a hundred years ago, the popular mind would doubtless 
 be impressed with the idea that the essential difference lies in 
 the fact that the new gun is a breech-loading rifle, while the 
 old gun was a muzzle-loading smooth-bore. But breech-loading 
 is one of the oldest inventions in gunnery, was revived from 
 time to time, experimented with and rejected as inferior to 
 muzzle-loading, and if the artillerists of a century or more ago 
 could have been furnished with the best breech-closing devices 
 of the present day, they would very properly and logically 
 have been rejected just the same. Breech-loading is not a 
 novel and fundamental improvement in itself; it is, rather, 
 a logical consequence and secondary result made necessary by 
 other improvements which are more fundamental, and which 
 were unknown to our ancestors. 
 
 The use of rifling and of the elongated projectile offers 
 similar considerations. Rifling has been known for more than 
 four centuries, and the effect of the resistance of air upon 
 elongated projectiles of various forms was learnedly discussed 
 by Sir Isaac Newton, and a few years later by Benjamin 
 Robbins, one of Newton's disciples. The relations of length 
 and calibre were well understood, and with this knowledge in 
 their possession it might seem at first inexplicable that breech- 
 loading rifles were never used in military service until the last 
 three or four decades. A brief examination, however, will 
 show, I think, that the knowledge and resources of our prede- 
 cessors prior to 1800, and possibly prior to 1850, were insufficient 
 to construct a rifled-cannon which would be notably superior 
 to a smooth-bore of equal weight. They did not know how 
 to increase the energy of the projectile without imposing 
 stresses upon the gun beyond the limit of safety. Neither did 
 they know how to make stronger guns than those which they 
 used. The knowledge which they lacked, and which was 
 essential to a great increase of ballistic power, has been gained 
 within the last forty years. 
 
296 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The fundamental improvements which characterizes modern 
 ordnance may be classified in three groups : 
 
 1. The regulation and control of the action of gunpowder 
 in such manner as to exert less strain upon the gun, and to 
 impart more energy to the projectile. 
 
 2. To so construct the gun as to transfer a portion of the 
 strain from the interior parts of the walls, which had borne too 
 much of it, to the exterior parts which had borne too little, 
 thus more nearly equalizing the strain throughout the entire 
 thickness of the walls. 
 
 3. To provide a metal which should be at once stronger 
 and safer than any which had been used before. 
 
 The regulation and control of the action of gunpowder was 
 attempted more than a century and a half ago and something 
 was accomplished. We owe to the French artillerists some 
 important discoveries in this direction and in 1850 it was well 
 established that strong and mild powders could be produced at 
 will by the manufacturer. But the investigations and experi- 
 ments of Rodman carried the power of control over the action 
 of powder to an extent so far exceeding anything of the kind 
 which had been attained before that his results were of revolu- 
 tionary importance. It can hardly be claimed that the prin- 
 ciples involved in Rodman's gunpowder experiments were 
 novel. But the extent to which he carried them into practice 
 was such as to make it equivalent to a new discovery. The 
 improvement was one of degree rather than of kind, but such 
 as it was its consequences were great. It rendered possible an 
 increase in the weight of both powder and projectile without 
 increasing the strain upon the gun. A second step leading in 
 the same direction and also of revolutionary importance was an 
 increase in the size of the powder chamber, so as to allow vacant 
 space in it unfilled by the powder. Strange as it may seem to 
 the uninitiated, this, too, was an invention of revolutionary im- 
 portance. It was first adopted in the Krupp guns. It permits 
 a still further increase in the amount of powder without adding 
 to the strain upon the gun. How a device so simple, so 
 obvious and so necessary could have been overlooked so long is 
 one of those mysteries of invention which it seems now impos- 
 sible to explain, except upon the assumption that those who 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 297 
 
 had thought of it (and many had done so) dismissed it as worse 
 than useless. The discussion of the form and proportions of 
 the powder chamber had been worn threadbare a hundred 
 years ago, and the effect of a chamber of larger diameter than 
 the bore had not been overlooked. But the idea of partially 
 filling such a chamber with powder and leaving a considerable 
 amount of vacant space seems to have attracted no attention. 
 Yet this device so simple that an old-time artillerist of the 
 greatest learning and widest experience in his art would have 
 sneered at it contained the precious secret that he would have 
 been almost willing to lay down his life to discover. May we 
 not say that the reason why it was not sooner discovered was 
 its too transparent simplicity ? 
 
 The second group of discoveries consists of devices for con- 
 structing guns with initial strains, the metal near the bore 
 being compressed, while the exterior metal is stretched. In a 
 gun without initial strains the restraining effect of the metal 
 decreases rapidly from the surface of the bore outwards, so that 
 the external portions add very little to its strength. With the 
 firing of heavy charges the inner portions are strained to the 
 limit of safety or beyond, while the outer portions are taxed but 
 little. But if the inner parts before firing are highly compressed 
 while the outer parts are stretched, the full stress of firing 
 brings all parts into action with a restraining effect much more 
 nearly equal or much less unequal. This greatly increases the 
 strength of the gun. The first one to put this conception into 
 practice and prove its reality by experiment was Rodman. He 
 applied it to cast-iron guns by the method of cooling them 
 from the interior. This result did not, indeed, fully realize the 
 principle involved, but it did so partially, and to an important 
 extent, and was a long stride in the right direction. His results 
 fully established the value of it and made it a fundamental 
 principle in modem constructions. 
 
 The possibility of using steel for guns has from the beginning 
 been merely a metallurgical question. Gun steel, however, 
 constitutes a special department of steel manufacture and its 
 development has proceeded to a considerable extent upon lines 
 of its own. The machinery required for it is the most gigantic 
 and powerful of any, and the furnace practice is the most 
 exacting. The treatment of the steel by oil tempering has 
 
298 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. ' 
 
 until recently been peculiar to gun metal and is needful in 
 order to secure the desired physical qualities. In this field the 
 Krupps have been the pioneers and have kept abreast of all 
 improvements. The magnificent process of Whitworth for 
 making ingots by liquid compression is no doubt the most 
 impressive achievement of the art of steel-making, yielding a 
 piece of metal of such supreme excellence that we are almost 
 tempted to believe that in this respect the ultimate goal of 
 progress has been reached and that nothing is left for future 
 inventors to attain. 
 
 The fundamental improvements, then, which constitute the 
 modem as distinguished from the older ordnance are : (i) the 
 control of the combustion of gunpowder ; (2) the enlarged 
 powder chamber ; (3) the initial tensions, and (4) the employ- 
 ment of steel. All other characteristics are merely logical 
 sequences of these four primary conditions or antecedents. The 
 adoption of breech-loading in place of muzzle-loading, the 
 great increase in the length of the gun, the building up of the 
 gun by shrinking successive cylinders one over the other are 
 all consequences of the four principal improvements. The 
 results of these improvements are that (weight for weight of 
 metal in the gun) the energy of projectiles has been increased 
 four to five-fold, the effective range has been more than doubled, 
 the accuracy of fire has been immensely improved, and the 
 penetrating and destructive power correspondingly increased. 
 
 The discovery of gun-cotton by I^enk, and later of nitro- 
 glycerin by Nobel, followed by the discovery of many other 
 nitro compounds, placed before the world a series of agents far 
 more forcible than gunpowder. Their treacherous and deto- 
 nating characters for a long time rendered them objects of 
 dread and real danger, and gave little promise of utility for 
 ballistic purposes, though for mines and torpedoes they seemed 
 to offer great advantages if they could be deprived of their 
 treacherous nature. In due time methods were discovered of 
 producing high explosives, which were reasonably safe if great 
 precautions were exercised, thus placing them among the most 
 important and useful agents for industrial purposes. The use 
 of them in torpedoes also became practicable, thus placing in 
 the hands of military men a powerful agent of destruction. If 
 it were practicable to direct this terrible destroyer (the torpedo) 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 299 
 
 to its mark with as much accuracy as a projectile from a gun 
 it would be incomparably the most efficient for destruction of 
 any engine of war. But the uncertainty of all existing methods 
 of bringing them in contact with the ships they are designed 
 to destroy deprives them at present of a great portion of their 
 terrors. But the chances of a deadly stroke are still sufficient 
 to render them very formidable weapons. Torpedoes, how- 
 ever, are so new as regularly adopted agents of warfare that 
 they may be regarded as the possible forerunners of a far more 
 terrible class of destroyers. In this connection the pneumatic 
 dynamite gun of Captain Zalinski presents itself as offering 
 great possibilities. It is now in the experimental stage, and 
 on its first trial has shown itself capable of very destructive 
 work. It is an entire novelty and a very bold conception, 
 wrought up with a profound knowledge of mechanical and 
 ballastic principles. Its ultimate development cannot now be 
 foreseen, but it holds out the hope of such great possibilities 
 that every effort to realize them should be made. 
 
 The use of high explosives not only as the bursting charges 
 of projectiles but as the impelling force of the projectile itself 
 in the gun is receiving attention. Not only is this problem 
 a rational one but it is a very hopeful one. If we can succeed 
 in controlling its terrible powers and taming its ferocious 
 nature and can provide a variety of it which will keep without 
 deteriorating the problem will be solved ; for we are already 
 in possession of the means and science which will enable us to 
 utilize its superior energy. Verily, it begins to look as if the 
 age of gunpowder were passing away and were soon to be fol- 
 lowed by the age of high explosives. 
 
 In the department of small arms the great improvements 
 belong to the last forty or fifty years. The improvements 
 sought, while partly the same as in the field of heavy guns, 
 were much more in the line of increased rapidity of fire. At 
 the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion all the armies of the 
 world were using the muzzle-loading rifled musket. Many 
 breech-loading rifles had been invented, however, and were 
 competing for favor as military weapons and were slow to find 
 it. Much surprise has been expressed at the tardiness and 
 reluctance of military men to adopt breech-loaders and they 
 were often reproached and derided as too conservative, pre- 
 
300 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 judiced and behind the age in the development of their ma- 
 terial, when they ought to be progressive and in the lead. The 
 answer to these criticisms is that while there were numerous 
 good breech-loading small arms offered during the war there 
 were no good breech-loading cartridges, and no machinerj' for 
 making them. Among the inexpert the musket and its 
 mechanism is all in all, while the cartridge is looked upon as a 
 minor incident. In the eye of the ordnance officer the gun is 
 only the casket and setting while the cartridge is the jewel. 
 During the war the attention of officers was concentrated in 
 the creation of a good cartridge, while the problem of a gun 
 presented no real difficulty ; none, in fact, except that of choos- 
 ing from among a considerable number any one of which 
 would have sufficed. The cartridge problem was one of serious 
 difficulty, for there were few designs to choose from and aU of 
 them more or less bad. It was recognized at the outset that a 
 serviceable and satisfactory cartridge must fulfill the following 
 conditions : ist. It must comprise bullet, powder and prim- 
 ing united in a metallic case or shell ; 2d. It must be center- 
 primed ; 3d. It must not be liable to deterioration ; 4th. It 
 must not be liable to split in firing nor to stick fast after dis- 
 charge nor to have its head torn off during extraction ; 5th. 
 Its case must be easily made, primed and loaded by machiner>'. 
 While the inventors at large throughout the country were 
 chiefly occupied in improving the breech mechanism of the 
 gun the government work shops were most deeply concerned 
 about the cartridge. It was not until 1865 at the close of the 
 war that a cartridge fulfilling all of the required conditions 
 was attained ; and no sooner was it attained than the machin- 
 ery for making it became the standing problem . It was neces- 
 sary to invent this machinery almost de novo. It was suc- 
 cessfully accomplished in about a j'ear and a half, and it seems 
 necessar>' here to pay tribute to the eminent skill and inventive 
 talent of Mr. J. G. GiU, the master mechanic at Frankford 
 Arsenal, Philadelphia. He devised a series of machines, some 
 of which must rank among the highest triumphs of American 
 invention. In a few years all the great powers of the world 
 had adopted them. 
 
 The achievement of a good cartridge was quickly followed 
 by the choice of a gun. The choice fell upon the Springfield 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 301 
 
 breech-loader. It has had many competitors of admirable 
 design, some of which certainly excel it in specific points. 
 But in the full and general test of serviceableness it has kept 
 the field against all rivals. Competing arms have been re- 
 peatedly placed in the hands of troops on the frontier for trial, 
 but the preference of line officers for the Springfield pattern 
 officially expressed has been so overwhelming that their ver- 
 dict could not be set aside without undue presumption. Its 
 excellence consists in its reliability : nothing except extraor- 
 dinary violence ever deranges its ready action. 
 
 The day of the single breech-loader is about over, and it 
 must very shortly give place to the magazine gun. Arms of 
 this class have long been before the world, but have not until very 
 recently been adopted in any military service. The reason 
 has been that the earlier types of this class of arms sacrificed 
 the size and therefore the power of the cartridge in order to 
 get the largest possible number of them into the magazine, and 
 to enable the infantry soldier to carry a larger supply of them 
 without increase of bulk or weight. The logical solution of 
 the magazine problem, however, should be a diminished weight 
 and size of cartridge without decrease of power. The gun 
 itself is no longer a problem. It has been solved for several 
 years. There are many excellent magazine guns, though 
 some may be better than others. The cartridge problem is 
 also narrowed down to a single issue. If we are to diminish 
 the weight without loss of power we must have a more ener- 
 getic and compact explosive in place of common gunpowder. 
 The projectile has already been reduced in calibre and in- 
 creased in length ; but we are not sure yet of the high ex- 
 plosive. We want one which is safe against accidental ex- 
 plosion andw hich will not deteriorate with keeping. When we 
 have obtained it, as we doubtless shall, the solution will be 
 complete. 
 
 Machine guns constitute an innovation among the weapons 
 of war, and are characteristically American in their mechanism 
 and nature. They made their first appearance during the war 
 of the rebellion and were unknown and unthought of by pre- 
 ceding generations. The first successful weapon of this class 
 was the Gatling gun. It was rapidly developed, but did not 
 reach a practical stage of construction and operation until after 
 
302 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 the close of the war. It has since received many improve- 
 ments, and as a mitrailleur still holds its supremacy, though it 
 has had some ingenious and formidable rivals. Kqually im- 
 portant has been the development of a rapid-firing system of 
 artillery. The weapons of this class have a very limited field 
 of utility, but within that field their potency is formidable. 
 They exhibit well the tendency towards special tools for special 
 purposes, which is characteristic of all modern mechanical or 
 industrial progress. 
 
 As the Nineteenth Century nears its end we find the arma- 
 ments of the world as much more formidable than those of the 
 first Napoleon, as his were then those of the Greeks and 
 Romans. Nearly all of this great advance is the result of the 
 last forty years -of invention. The part which has been borne 
 in this development by American investigators and inventors 
 will not only compare favorably with the achievements of other 
 nations, but will, I believe, be accorded a preeminent position. 
 No discovery or improvement can be the secret or peculiar 
 property of any nation in these days, and every department of 
 mechanical or industrial art contributes to the world's store of 
 knowledge all Ihat it discovers and draws from the common 
 stock whatsoever it finds in it suited to its uses. Upon a fair 
 review of this branch of development as a whole it may be 
 said that the United States have contributed as much to that 
 stock as any other country in the world, and the only question 
 is whether it has not contributed more of real importance than 
 any other. 
 
 During the period from 1872 to 1885 there was a relaxation 
 of interest on the part of Congress in military matters and the 
 War and Navy Departmtnt were without the means of prose- 
 cuting the costly experiments, without which the progress of 
 invention in this field must be retarded. But the revival of 
 the Navy, and afterwards of projects for sea-coast defense, 
 quickly disclosed the fact that the inventive genius and pro- 
 gressive spirit of the country had been merely resting a little 
 and gathering strength for the opportunity which at last came. 
 With a continuance of support it is believed that in a very few 
 years our military armaments, both afloat and ashore, will 
 surpass those of any country in the world. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 303 
 
 THE REI.ATIONS OF ABSTRACT SCIENTIFIC RE- 
 SEARCH TO PRACTICAL INVENTION, WITH 
 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CHEMISTRY AND 
 PHYSICS. 
 
 By Professor F. W. Ci,arke, S. B., of Ohio, Chief Chemist, 
 U. S. Geological Survey. 
 
 A hundred years ago, just after the first American patent 
 was issued, two other events, fitly to be mentioned here, be- 
 came a part of history. In 1791 Galvani published his famous 
 book on animal electricity, and at about the same time the 
 Royal Society gave its highest honor, the award of the Copley 
 Medal, to Volta. Between these events and the passage of our 
 first Patent law, no connection was then apparent, nor for many 
 years afterward did any relation become obvious. The patent 
 system dealt with aflfairs of practical utility, while Galvani and 
 Volta were mere visionaries, prying into matters of only specu- 
 lative interest, and of no real value or importance to anybody. 
 Indeed, Galvani was ridiculed throughout Europe as the 
 " Frog's dancing master," so remote from all material con- 
 siderations, so useless to all outward seeming, were his investi- 
 gations. 
 
 In spite of ridicule and indifference, however, the unpractical 
 researches went on, from step to step, from discovery to dis- 
 covery, until at last they ripened into invention. Galvani and 
 Volta had worthy successors — Oersted, Ampere, Ohm, Para- 
 day, Henry and others, all devoted to knowledge for its own 
 sake, and caring little for any reward other than the conscious- 
 ness of achievement. The voltaic pile, the galvanic battery, 
 and the electro-magnet were added to the resources of science ; 
 facts, principles, and laws came into recognition, and suddenly 
 a relation of the work done to the work the great world was 
 doing became manifest. Nearly half of a century was passed 
 in these preliminaries, and then came the inventions of 
 
304 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 electro-metallurgy, of the telegraph, and of all the hurrying 
 swarm of wonders that mark this "age of electricity." 
 Suddenly the Patent Office became a centre of interest in what 
 at the date of its foundation, had been apparently remote from 
 its purposes, and to-day, g^own from the germs of a century 
 ago, we see one of the chief objects of its activity. All now 
 know the merit of Galvani's work, and j'et its lesson of history 
 is far too seldom realized. Every true investigator in the 
 domain of pure science is met with monotonously recurrent 
 •questions as to the practical purport of his studies, and rarely 
 can he find an answer expressible in terms of commerce. If 
 lutility is not immediately in sight he is pitied as a dreamer or 
 blamed for a spendthrift of time ; for the questioning man of 
 affairs can recognize onl3' affairs, and to him speculations not 
 convertible into coin of the realm must naturally seem profit- 
 less. High aims count for little or nothing : results, and tangible 
 results at that, are wanted. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply instances in illustration of my 
 meaning-. For example, iodine, discovered in 1 8 1 2 by Courtois, 
 was for many years a chemical curiosity. Why should any one 
 waste his time in the stud3' of so useless a body ? To-day in- 
 dustries unknown to Courtois, bom since his day, find in 
 iodine one of their most necessary appliances. Photography, 
 one of the arts in which iodine is useful, itself grew out of 
 researches which were seemingly useless when made ; and the 
 camera, its most essential implement, was once only a philoso- 
 pher's plaything. Investigations which had only the pursuit 
 -of truth for its own sake as a justification, brought rainbows 
 of color out of coal ; and coal-tar, not thirty years ago a 
 nuisance to be thrown away, is now a source of profit and 
 prodigal of beauty. From the same hopeless material, through 
 researches still unaimed at profit, have come the latest and best 
 additions to our materia medica ; and so again the methods of 
 science, as applied by her highest votaries, are vindicated by 
 the fruits they bear. In short, every department of invention, 
 •every advance in civilization, owes much to the student ; no 
 industry is independent of the results won by purely abstract 
 research. Even the most trivial details of modem life are 
 affected by the work of the scientific investigator ; luxuries and 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. TfiS 
 
 necessities are alike influenced, and so obtrusively evident is 
 this truth to most of us, that, taking it for granted, we daily 
 ask — ' ' what next ? ' ' Indeed, our gratitude to science is often 
 manifested in that cynical form which has been wittingly de- 
 fined as " a lively sense of favors yet to be received." We 
 expect more in the future than we have realized in the past, 
 and as the marvels of the last century become commonplace, 
 we look for new wonders which shall be even greater. The 
 magic of the Ancients is already outdone, and still the tide of 
 discovery has not reached its flood. To preserve what we have 
 gained and to ensure the promise of the years to come, is the 
 problem before us. Speaking in the interest of future inven- 
 tion we may fairly ask, how best shall the work of investiga- 
 tion be furthered ? 
 
 It is an old saying, and one partly true, that what has been, 
 shall be. We may therefore consider through what agencies 
 science has heretofore grown, and so recognize the foundations 
 upon which building is possible. These agencies, briefly sum- 
 marized, are as follows : First, individual enterprise ; second, 
 schools and universities ; third, learned societies and endow- 
 ments ; fourth, government aid. Like nearly all classifiica- 
 tions this list is imperfect ; for it represents only one phase of 
 the truth, and the several items, far from being distinct, shade 
 into one another through many gradations of circumstance. 
 Among them all, individual enterprise comes properly first, 
 for without that, without the influence of guiding spirits, the 
 other agencies must fail. No great work was ever accom- 
 plished without the personal initiative force of a leader, no 
 "mute inglorious Milton," but an active, earnest, striving 
 man. In a restricted sense, however, except perhaps as re- 
 gards the beginnings of science, individual enterprise is the 
 weakest force of all. To the modem investigator leisure and 
 opportunities are necessary ; in chemistry and physics, at least, 
 apparatus and laboratories are indispensable ; and few men 
 working alone can command either the needful time or the 
 bare material resoiu-ces. During this century nine-tenths of 
 the great discoveries have been made by men with institutions 
 back of them ; through the aid of which the work was 
 rendered possible. Wealth, scholarship, ability and the spirit 
 
3o6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 of research too seldom go together ; and happy is the man in 
 whom all these conditions are fortunately united. Under our 
 second heading, in the shelter of schools and universities, the 
 science of to-day has chiefly been developed. 
 
 The truth of my last statement may be verified by a refer- 
 ence to the files of standard scientific journals in which 
 original researches are recorded, or by scrutinizing in detail 
 the history of any great discovery. In either case, whether 
 we consider this country or Europe, the university work will 
 be found to predominate overwhelmingly, and for obvious rea- 
 sons. Every true university is something more than a dis- 
 tributor of knowledge, it is a producer of knowledge also ; 
 and in Germany, where the university system is most 
 fully developed, the two functions are equally recognized. 
 A German student aspiring to academic honors must do 
 original work, and the professors' chairs are always filled 
 fi-om among the men who have most distinguished themselves 
 as investigators. A chemist who had done nothing for 
 pure science could hardly be recognized in Germany ; not 
 one of the higher professional positions would be within his 
 reach ; erudition alone, unsustained by evidence of creative 
 ability, would do little for his advancement. In consequence 
 of this policy, Germany now leads the scientific world ; and 
 in consequence of that leadership, a certain industrial su- 
 premacy is fast becoming hers. One example will serve to 
 illustrate the tendency to which I refer. The aniline dyes 
 were discovered by Perkin, in England, almost thirty-five years 
 ago, and in that country the manufacture began. To-day, 
 through the researches of the German universities, Germany is 
 the centre of the coal-tar industry, and England has only a 
 subordinate rank. Until recently the English universities have 
 slighted experimental science, and English manufacturers are 
 paying for the neglect. One German firm alone, producers of 
 coal-tar colors, employs over fourteen hundred workmen ; 
 but with them there are about fifty scientific chemists, every 
 one a man trained in pure research, the product of the uni- 
 versity system. These men are employed to make investiga- 
 tions; to improve processes, to discover new compounds of value; 
 and in short, to use the most vigorous methods of science for 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 307 
 
 the upbuilding of industry. The German manufacturer does 
 not employ a chemist who has only learned by rote the wisdom 
 gained by others ; he does not ask to be told that which he 
 already knows ; he seeks rather to push forward into new fields ; 
 to excel his competitors more by intelligence than by brute 
 force ; and to gain a growing supremacy in preference to a 
 mere victory for the moment. This practical policy, the out- 
 gfrowth of intellectual culture, has made Germany a dangerous 
 rival to all other countries in those departments of industry 
 which rest upon scientific foundations. Applied science can 
 not exist until there is the science to apply ; and where the 
 latter is most favored, the industrial development is sure to be 
 most perfect. This lesson is one which the United States 
 must learn more thoroughly than heretofore, if it hopes to hold 
 its own in the front rank of manufacturing nations. In a few of 
 our universities the truth is already realized ; but in too many 
 American schools the so-called ' ' practical ' ' view prevails. 
 Under the latter, teaching becomes routine, and the student, 
 while learning elaborately that which is known, is not 
 taught how to discover. He has little or no training in the 
 art of solving unsolved problems, and that art is the main- 
 spring of modem industrial growth. A teacher of science 
 ought also to be an investigator, were it only for the inspira- 
 tion that his example might give to the pupils in his charge. 
 To impart knowledge is a good thing, but to reveal the 
 sources of knowledge is better, and in that relevation is found 
 the educational value of research regarded as a part of the 
 teacher's essential duty. 
 
 The third agency for the advancement of investigation, the 
 organization of scientific societies, shades imperceptibly into 
 the other three. Private workers and university teachers here 
 come together for purposes of cooperation ; and in many coun- 
 tries the associations formed are aided by the State. As a rule 
 the great European academies are directly or indirectly patron- 
 ized by the government, and occasionally endowments are be- 
 queathed to them by private individuals for the foundation of 
 prizes or medals, or for the assistance of research. In our own 
 country the societies and academies are sustained by private 
 enterprises, but some of them hold endowments of considerable 
 
3o8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 value. Partly through the latter, partly through the stimulus 
 to effort given by awards of honor, and more largely as pub- 
 lishers of results they do their greatest good, and render to 
 science services of unmistakable value. A large proportion of 
 the leading scientific journals are published by organized socie- 
 ties, and without these discovery would oftentimes be dumb. 
 
 Of government aid, the fourth great means of furthering re- 
 search, little need here be said. Ostensibly, such aid is given 
 for selfish motives, since every modern government demands 
 the help of science in return. Nowadays no government could 
 long exist were it deprived of all the resources for defense and 
 intercommunication which science has invented. The relation 
 between science and the State, therefore, is a mutual relation, 
 and each needs the assistance of the other. In Washington 
 this fact is manifest ; it is recognized in the organization of 
 nearly every administrative department, and nowhere is it more 
 apparent than under the Commissioner of Patents. From sci- 
 ence the government is daily receiving benefits ; to science, 
 therefore, it is rightly a liberal giver ; and through its patron- 
 age many investigations become possible which, because of 
 their magnitude, would be beyond the reach of private under- 
 taking. Doubtless the time will come when the scientific re- 
 sources of the National Capital will be concentrated more than 
 they are now, and so made more efficient ; and sooner or later 
 they should be crowned by the establishment of a National 
 University in which the highest and most productive scholar- 
 ship may find a fitting home. 
 
 So far my statements have been tinged with rose color. The 
 great achievements of science command our admiration, and 
 admirable also are the agencies by which it has been advanced. 
 Still, much remains to be done, and many are the gaps in our 
 knowledge. Take any important series of physical data, or 
 any well-defined group of chemical compounds, bring the facts 
 together in systematic form, and the strangest deficiencies 
 will become manifest. Take for example those physical proper- 
 ties of the chemical elements which are capable of quantitative 
 measurement, and not for one of them are the attainable data 
 even approximately complete ; even iron, copper, gold, silver, 
 and mercury are but imperfectly known. Were it not for theory, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 309 
 
 that apprehension of natural law through which science can 
 prophesy, reaching out from the seen to the unseen, a great 
 part of our knowledge would be little more than bare empiri- 
 cism, and research itself would lack its keenest implement. It 
 is common among ignorant men — themselves wildly speculat- 
 ive — to affect a contempt for theory, and yet without theory 
 science could not exist. All great discoveries begin with 
 theory and lead up to wider generalizations, upon which new 
 researches find a secure foothold. The history of science 
 teaches no more certain lesson than this. 
 
 It is easy to find a reason for the incompleteness of our 
 knowledge. Apart from the vastness of the field to be ex- 
 plored, itself a sufiicient excuse for ignorance, the more ob- 
 vious deficiences are due to excessive individualism in research. 
 Thousands of earnest men are working independently, with 
 insufiicieut reference to one another, each attacking that comer 
 of the unknown which most attracts his fancy. All are am- 
 bitious to accomplish great results, each one hopes to make 
 some discovery of signal importance ; and so the drier and 
 less attractive details of investigation are oftentimes neglected. 
 The field is cut up in many fields, between which the ground 
 is uncultivated, and there no harvest is gathered. To sys- 
 tematize research ; to bring about cooperation ; to erect a State 
 out of a scattered people ; to put the art of discovery itself 
 more truly upon a scientific basis, is a problem for the future. 
 In the final solution of this problem the practical inventor may 
 help. The wealth created by invention should serve as the 
 organizer. The law of mechanics, that action and reaction are 
 equal and opposite, applies to human affairs as well as to the 
 physical forces. Hence, since scientific discovery makes inven- 
 tion possible, it is clear that the inventor owes to science a 
 return. That some of the harvest should go back to its source 
 as seed is not an unreasonable expectation. Indeed, it is justi- 
 fied by history ; and if we trace back to their origin the endow- 
 ments of our universities we shall find that the successful 
 inventors have done their fair share. What more is needed, 
 and on what new lines ? 
 
 In the science of astronomy this question is partly answered 
 already. Every endowed observatory is an institution for 
 
3IO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 research, and outside of that the observers have little else to 
 do. They are employed primarily to gather and discuss data, 
 the raw material of science, and all other duties are secondary. 
 In the solution of large problems several observatories may co- 
 operate, each taking a definite and prescribed portion of the 
 field, and so the science grows symmetrically, with fewer gaps 
 than exist in other departments of knowledge. Perfection of 
 work, completeness in the absolute sense of the term, is, of 
 course, unattainable, but to that ideal, within the limits of its 
 province, astronomy approaches most nearly. By its example 
 the other sciences may profit. 
 
 Now for chemistry and physics, institutions should be or- 
 ganized resembling in policy the astronomical observatories. 
 I mean, of course, endowed laboratories for research in which 
 the greater problems could be eflfectively handled, and im- 
 portant data determined with the highest accuracy. The more 
 precise, and at the same time the most difiicultly measurable 
 physical constants are of direct value to industrial science, and 
 their determination should not be left to the caprice or con- 
 venience of individuals. They represent routine work of the 
 most tedious kind ; their measurement involves the highest 
 degree of skill and the most elaborate resources, and they are 
 the foundation stones of exact theory. They are needed by 
 pure and applied science alike ; and yet, under existing con- 
 ditions, their determination is but scantily encouraged. They 
 yield to the investigator results more solid than brilliant ; they 
 do not give quick returns of fame ; and so, other researches, 
 more showy or more profitable, are in greater favor. With 
 most men of science, unfortunately, research is a matter sec- 
 ondary to other duties ; the professor must teach, the com- 
 mercial chemist must analyze, and only the time left over, the 
 occasional leisure hour, is available for higher studies. Many 
 an able man, willing and enthusiastic, who might otherwise 
 benefit mankind by investigation, is crowded out of the field 
 by sheer necessity. He is loaded with labors which leave no 
 time for research, and his capacities are exhausted in mere 
 routine. For such men, opportunities should not be altogether 
 wanting. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 311 
 
 Sometimes the kind of work here indicated has been carried 
 on at public expense ; for example, the classical researches of 
 Regnault upon gases and vapors were maintained by the 
 French Government : but all such assistance has been sporadic ; 
 while the investigations needed should be continuous and 
 systematic. In a laboratory endowed, equipped and manned 
 for research only, a rich harvest of results would be sure, far 
 exceeding in value the cost of the undertaking. No such 
 laboratory, I believe, now exists in the civilized world, and 
 the United States might well have the glory of being the first 
 organizer. In its Patent Office it has led all other nations, and 
 in the science which underlies invention it might lead also. 
 To the manufacturers and inventors of America I offer these 
 suggestions in the hope that they may be speedily realized. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 313 
 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON AS AN INVENTOR AND 
 PROMOTER OF THE USEFUL ARTS. 
 
 An Address deiiversd at Mount Vernon, Aprii, 10, 1891, by J. 
 M. Toner, M. D., on the occasion of the Visit of the 
 Officers and Members of the Patent Centennial Cele- 
 bration. 
 
 It is fitting that on an occasion like the present, which re- 
 ■views a past and forecasts a coming century, the friends of the 
 great American Patent System should visit the tomb of Wash- 
 ington. For where rest the ashes, hovers, methinks, something 
 of the spirit of the man whose genius and valor led the thirteen 
 dependent American colonies' to independence; and whose influ- 
 ence, a century ago, formed them into one united Federal Gov- 
 ernment under a written constitution of exceeding wisdom, of 
 which he was one of the principal authors, and under which 
 our country, our patent system and our mechanical inventions 
 have made such marvelous progress. 
 
 If it cannot be claimed that Washington originated the idea 
 of recognizing property in inventions, he was, without doubt, 
 the chief exponent of the views and sentiments which brought 
 together the convention of delegates from the several States to 
 consider their future well-being and to form a more perfect 
 Union.' 
 
 1 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. 
 
 2 Washington, from his position at the head of the army throughout 
 the war for independence, and his frequent correspondence with the 
 Governors of the States as well as with many of the more influential 
 citizens of the several States, in the interest of the army and to secure 
 supplies for the soldiers, was led to a more intimate knowledge of the 
 feeling of the people, and to see the weakness of the confederacy more 
 clearly than any other man of his day. Its want of cohesive as well as want 
 of coercive power had, to his mind, demonstrated its defects for national 
 purposes. After peace was restored its want of power to regulate 
 commerce — foreign and domestic ; to make treaties, and to provide for 
 
314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 By a unanimous desire of the convention General Washing- 
 ton was called upon to preside over the meeting. Through 
 the protracted and careful deliberations of this equal-rights and 
 liberty-loving conclave of statesmen was evolved our written 
 Constitution which has welded the United States into a nation, 
 and which has so admirably served us for a century. 3 This, 
 
 the payment of debts contracted by the coufederacy, was notorious and 
 created great discontent. It was becoming evident to thinking men that 
 an alarming crisis was near unless some effectual remedy could be 
 devised. Washington's sentiments were often freely and strongly ex- 
 pressed upon the subject. "That we have it in our power," said he, "to 
 become one of the most respectable nations upon earth, admits, in my 
 humble opinion, of no doubt, if we would but pursue a wise, just and 
 liberal policy towards one another, and keep good faith with the rest of 
 the world. That our resources are ample and increasing, none can deny ; 
 but while they are grudgingly applied, or not applied at all, we give a 
 vital stab to public faith, and shall sink, in the eyes of Europe, into con- 
 tempt. It has long been a speculative question among philosophers and 
 wise men whether foreign commerce is of real advantage to any country ; 
 that is, whether the luxury, effeminacy and corruptions which are in- 
 troduced along with it are counterbalanced by the conveniences and 
 wealth which it brings. But the decision of this question is of very little 
 importance to us. We have abundant reason to be convinced that the 
 spirit of trade which pervades these states is not to be restrained. It be- 
 hooves us, then, to establish just principles, and this cannot, any more 
 than other matters of national concern, be done by thirteen heads differ- 
 ently constructed and organized. The necessity, therefore, of a control- 
 ing power is obvious, and why it should be withheld is beyond my com- 
 prehension." 
 
 The union, as at first organized, was fast losing respect, as it did not 
 meet the exigencies or fulfill its purposes ; and chaos was inevitable, unless 
 reform was speedily effected. The mode of doing this engaged Wash- 
 ington's attention, and to him more than to any other man are we indebted 
 for the Constitution which has united the States as one great union. 
 
 3 Sparks, in commenting upon this period of Washington's life and his 
 part in the evolution of the Constitution, says : " He did not go to the 
 convention unprepared for the great work there to be undertaken. His 
 knowledge of the institutions of his own country and of its political 
 forms, both in their general character and minute and affiliated relations, 
 gained by inquiry and long experience, was probably as complete as that 
 of any other man. But he was not satisfied with this alone. He read 
 the history and examined the principles of the ancient and modern con- 
 federacies. There is a paper in his handwriting which contains an ab- 
 stract of each, and in which are noted, in a methodical order, their 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 315 
 
 our magna charta, may be claimed as one of the most original 
 and beneficent inventions in tbe art of government ever devised 
 to secure to a people liberty, regulated by law, with equal jus- 
 tice to all.* ' 
 
 chief characteristics, the kinds of authority they possessed, their modes 
 of operation and their defects. The confederacies analyzed in this paper 
 are the Lycian, Amphictyonic, Achaean, Helvetic, Belgic and Germanic. 
 He also read the standard works on general politics and the science of 
 government, abridging parts of them, according to his usual practice, 
 that he might impress the essential points more deeply on his mind. He 
 was apprehensive that the delegates might come together fettered with 
 instructions which would embarrass and retard, if not defeat the salutary 
 end proposed. ' My wish is, ' said he, ' that the convention may adopt 
 no temporizing expedients, but probe the defects of the constitution to 
 the bottom and provide a radical cure, whether they are agreed to or not. 
 A conduct of this kind will stamp wisdom and dignity on their pro- 
 ceedings, and hold up a light which sooner or later will have its influ- 
 ence. ' Such were the preparations and such the sentiments with which 
 Washington went to the convention." (Sparks' Washington, vol. I, 
 P- 434-) 
 
 4 The attention which the Continental Congress, in the Declaration of 
 Independence and the notable occurrences of the Revolution, merited 
 and received from historians, biographers and painters, has been so 
 absorbing as in a measure to obscure or cause to be overlooked the his- 
 tory and personnel of the equally important convention of 1787, which 
 drafted the Constitution of the United States. The claims of these states- 
 men to the grateful remembrance of posterity, if judged from a proper 
 estimate of the happy Constitution they formulated, rest on a broad, 
 just and honorable basis. The beneficent results flowing from their 
 judicious labors have proved of the highest importance to America and the 
 science of government everywhere. Indeed, it required the constitutional 
 and indissoluble union of the States, devised by this convention, to ren- 
 der the Declaration of Independence of practical value by the creation of 
 a National Government, preserving at the same time the autonomy of 
 the States. And yet, strange as it may seem, the names of the seventy- 
 three delegates appointed to the convention, or even the thirty-nine 
 members who signed this precious document, are to a great extent un- 
 familiar to the public. Properly enough the names and the portraits of 
 the signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to nearly every 
 person, because they have been treated in a popular manner by artists 
 and historians, and placed before an admiring public. The same and even 
 greater respect is due to the framers of the Constitution. The neglect of 
 Hie personnel of the constitutional convention, as I apprehend, is acci- 
 dental rather than intentional ; and is, at least, undeserved, I am confident 
 all will admit. This work has stood the test of a century and has proved 
 
31 6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 It is not certain who introduced the proposition regarding 
 Patents and Copyrights; but, corxsiA&ring t\i& personnel oi the 
 convention, it might have originated with either Washingfton 
 or Franklin, and was certain of an earnest support from both. 
 
 This was the first assembly of law-makers in the history of 
 the world to reduce this conception to a practical formula, or 
 make it a fundamental principle that inventors and authors 
 have rights in their inventions which should be recognized and 
 protected, for a limited time at least, by law. This conclusion 
 they embodied in the Constitution of the United States.s 
 
 The rise and development of the American Patent System 
 and the immense influence that it and the Patent Office, as a 
 repository of official records and inventions, have had in pro- 
 moting improvements, not only in our own country but also 
 throughout the world, you have heard from other and abler 
 
 to be so nearly perfect as a charter of human rights as to create in the 
 minds of some the belief that it has many of the qualities of an inspired 
 instrument. It is to be hoped that some capable writer will produce a 
 good, popular, illustrated history and summary of the principles of the 
 Federal Constitution as crystalized by its authors, with the portraits and 
 biographies of each of the members, so as to make them as familiar as 
 household words to the people of the United States. An acceptable pic- 
 ture of the convention in session might, with great propriety, be exten- 
 sively used to the same end as an object lesson by the Government of the 
 United States on its legal documents, coins, medals, greenbacks, letter- 
 ■faeads, etc. This highly interesting historical convention sat in the 
 ■council chamber in the State House in Philadelphia, the same from 
 which emanated the immortal Declaration of Independence. George 
 Washington filled the chair and directed the deliberations of the body. 
 His seat was placed beneath the carved coat of arms of the State of Penn- 
 sylvania which ornamented a high panel in the rear. The venerable Dr. 
 Franklin, then in his 83d year and an invalid, but with vigorous intellect, 
 was carried to and from the convention in his Sedan chair which he 
 brought with him from Europe. His arm-chair was placed on the left of 
 the President near the bar. Judge James Wilson sat near the bar on 
 his left. The other members disposed of themselves as they found it con- 
 -venient. . 
 
 5 The following is the clause in the Constitution of the United 
 States which secures the rights of inventors and authors : " To promote 
 the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to 
 Authors and Inventors exclusive Right to their respective Writings and 
 XHscoveries." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 317 
 
 ■speakers. Here, at Mount Vernon, the duty has been 
 assigned to me, near the close of this brilliant and, I trust, 
 profitable Patent Centennial, to speak to you of the great Wash- 
 ington as an inventor and promoter of improvements in the arts. 
 
 In compliance with this complimentary assignment, I shall 
 venture to claim your attention for only a brief period ; not 
 but that much could be said confirmatory of the fact that 
 General Washington, who owned these broad acres, enjoyed 
 this magnificent prospect, and for half a century dispensed a 
 most bountiful hospitality in this revered mansion, was ever 
 on the alert for bettering man's condition in life through 
 •education, and by improvements in all kinds of productive 
 machinery and labor-saving devices. 
 
 While it may not be claimed that George Washington is 
 ■descended from a line of inventors, sages or heroes, history 
 confirms the fact that he sprung from an intelligent, enterpris- 
 ing, courageous, self-reliant, truth-and-labor-loving, God- 
 fearing stock, who were in their day and generation leading 
 <sitizens in the community in which they lived. The instances 
 in which Washington gave encouragement to new inventions 
 are numerous, and the fact is beyond question that he invariably 
 provided the best machinery for his mills and farms, and every- 
 thing considered, for all the industries under his control, as is 
 testified in many letters.^ He also had a kind word of encour- 
 
 6 The following letter to a correspondent, to which Sparks adds a note, in 
 the following words, vol. x, p. 68 : " The Baron de Poellnitz had a farm in 
 the neighborhood of New York, where he tried experiments in agriculture 
 He also wrote a pamphlet on the subject, and was the inventor of various 
 agricultural machines and implements, particularly a threshing machine 
 and the horse-hoe." j^^^ York, 29 Dec, 1789. 
 
 Sir : I have received your letter of the 26t?> and given such attention 
 to the manuscript which accompanied it, as my obligations to public 
 duties would permit. I shall always be happy to see experiments in 
 agricultural machines, which can be brought into general use. Of those 
 in your possession I was not able to form a decided judgment, except in 
 the instance of the horse-hoe. Of the utility of that instrument I was 
 fully convinced. I propose to take some farther occasion of seeing the 
 manner in which the threshing machine operates, when you shall let me 
 know it is in readiness for the purpose ; and in the meantime, 
 I am with due consideration, etc., 
 
 Go Washington 
 
3i8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 agement for those working to the end of devising new methods 
 and improved implements in any of the arts. This spirit, along 
 with his official duty to see proper laws enacted by Congress 
 under the authority of the Constitution which he had assisted 
 in drafting, led him in his first annual message to commend 
 measures to foster new and useful inventions and? doubtless 
 gave him special pleasure in signing the first patent law enacted 
 under the government of the United States,* as well as in attach- 
 ing his name to the first patent issued shortly after^ under an 
 act of Congress. 
 
 Just one century ago, George Washington, then President of 
 the United States, was for a week at Mount Vernon. He was 
 then setting out on a tour through the Southern States, having 
 made a similar semi-official one of the Eastern States in 
 October and November, 1789. His Diary for this date, a 
 century ago, is as follows : 
 
 " Thursday, jth April, 1791. — Recommenced my journey 
 with Horses apparently much refreshed and in good spirits. 
 
 ' ' In attempting to cross the ferry at Colchester with the four 
 Horses hitched to the Chariot by the neglect of the person 
 
 He made many enquiries by letters to his correspondents relative to 
 the practical ef&cacy of threshing machines, which had been experi- 
 mented with both in Europe and America. In a letter to Governor Henry 
 Ivce of Virginia, October 16, 1793, he speaks hopefully of a threshing 
 machine devised by Col. Taliaferro, but which he had not seen, but had 
 heard good reports of its performance. He insists the machine must be 
 simple in construction. "The model," he says, "brought over by the 
 English farmers may also be a good one, but the utility of it among care- 
 less negroes and ignorant overseers will depend absolutely upon the 
 simplicity of the construction, for if there is anything complex in the 
 machinery it will be no longer in use than a mushroom is in existence." 
 
 7 "The advancement of Agriculture, Commerce and manufacture by 
 all proper means will not, I trust, need recommendation ; but I cannot 
 forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encourage- 
 ment as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad 
 as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home, and 
 of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our Country 
 by a due attention to the Post-Office and Post- Road." — Washington's 
 first annual message, January 8, ifgo. 
 
 8 April 10, 1790. 
 
 9 July 30, 1790. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 319 
 
 who stood before them, one of the leaders got overboard 
 when the boat was in swimming water and 50 yards from the 
 shore — with much difi&culty he escaped drowning before he 
 could be disengaged — His struggling frightened the others in 
 such a manner that one after another and in quick succession 
 they all got overboard harnessed & fastened as they were and 
 with the utmost difficulty they were saved & the Carriage 
 escaped been dragged after them, as the whole of it happened 
 in swimming water & at a distance from the shore — Provi- 
 dentially — indeed miraculously — ^by the exertions of people 
 who went off in Boats & jumped into the River as soon as the 
 Batteau was forced into wading water — no damage was sus- 
 tained by the horses. Carriage or harness. 
 
 " Proceeded to Dumfries where I dined — after which I 
 visited & drank Tea with my Niece, Myf Tho? Lee. 
 
 ''Friday, 8th. — Set out about 6 o'clock — breakfasted at 
 Stafford Court House — and dined and lodged at my Sister 
 Lewis's in Fredericksburgh. 
 
 ' ' Saturday, gth. — Dined at an entertainment given by the 
 Citizens of the town. Received and answered an address 
 from the Corporation [of Fredericksburgh]. 
 
 ' ' Was informed by M^ Jn? Lewis, who had not long since 
 been in Richmond, that MT Patrick Henry had avowed his 
 interest in the Yazoo Company ; and made him a tender of 
 admission into it wh^ he declined — but asking, if the Company 
 did not expect the Settlement of the lands would be disagree- 
 able to the Indians was answered by MT Henry that the C? 
 intended to apply to Congress for protection — which if not 
 granted they would have recourse to their own means to pro- 
 tect the settlement — ^That General Scott had a certain quantity 
 of Land (I think 40,000 acres) in the Company's grant & 
 was to have the command of the force which was to make the 
 establishment — and moreover — that General Muhlenburg had 
 offered ;^iooo for a certain part of the grant — the quantity I 
 do not recollect if it was mentioned to me. 
 
 ' ' Sunday, loth. — Left Fredericksburgh about 6 o'clock — my- 
 self, Maj^ Jackson and one Servant breakfasted at General Spots- 
 woods — the rest of my Servants continued on to Todd's Ordinary 
 where they also breakfasted. Dined at the Bowling Green — 
 and lodged at Kenner's Tavern 14 miles farther — in all 35 m. 
 
320 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Before entering upon the main subject of this discourse, I 
 shall first endeavor to recall a few of the more notable traits 
 of character in the boyhood and early manhood of him whose 
 life and achievements make these ancestral possessions on the 
 Potomac, the most noted and dearly loved homestead in the 
 world.'" A consensus of the most careful studies of the life 
 of George Washington from his childhood, represents him as 
 mentally and physically precocious — attaining almost his fuU 
 stature in his igth year, but throughout his youth, difBdent 
 almost to bashfulness — yet men of experience, marveled at the 
 maturity of his judgment and his knowledge of the details of 
 business in general and public affairs. He seems to have had 
 
 , ""The original patent for the land embraced in the Mount Vernon tract 
 was granted March ist, 1674, by Thomas (I,ord) Culpeper to Col. Nicholas 
 Spencer and Lieut. -Col. John Washington for 5,000 Acres, located at the 
 mouth of Little Hunting creek on the Potomac. They made an equal 
 division, and the part falling to John Washington descended by bequest 
 without subdivision until it was devised in parcels by Gen'l Washington 
 to his heirs. Mount Vernon has never known other owners than Wash- 
 ingtons until 200 acres of it, including the tomb and mansion, came into 
 the possession of the "Mount Vernon Ladies' Association," which has 
 secured the tomb and home of Washington for all time for the people — 
 as a memento of the founder of the American Republic. 
 
 Text of the Original Patent. 
 To all to whome these pTsents shall Come the Owners and propryet*]^ of all that 
 tract and Terrytory of land in Virginia in America mentioned in his Ma^f® 
 letters Pattent under the Broad Scale of England bearing date the Eighth day of 
 May in the Nine and twentieth yeare of his . Ma*'^® Raigne send Greet- 
 
 ing in our Lord God Everiasting KNOWE Yee that by Virtue thereof and for and in 
 Consideration of the yearely Rent and Agreem^ hereafter Expressed and Reserved 
 Wee have Bargained Sold Released and Confirmed and doe by these pfsents under 
 our Co"^ mon Seal Bargaine Sell Release and Confirme unto Coll : Nicholas Spencer 
 and Le: Coll : John Washington of Virginia in America f&ve thousand Acres of 
 Land Scituate Lying and being within the said Terrytory in the County of Stafford 
 in the ffreshes of Pottomeeke River and neere oppositt to Piscatoway Indian Towne 
 in Mariland and neere the Land of Cap^ : Giles Brown on the North side, and neere 
 the Land Surveyd for M^ W™ Grein Mf W™ Dudley and others on the South side, 
 being a necke of Land bounded betwixt two Creeks and the Maine River, on the 
 East side & to by the said Maine River of Pottomeeke, on the North & to by a Creeke 
 Called by the English Little Hunting Creeke and the maine Branch thereof on the 
 south & to by a Creeke named and Called by the Indians Epsewasson Creeke and 
 the maine Branch thereof which Creeke devides this Land of Grein and Dudley 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 321 
 
 no frivolous or idle boy-life. When a lad he was noted for his 
 punctual attendance at school, for his application to study, and 
 his ability to master mathematical problems. He was strong 
 and agile in play, and a leader in all the more difficult feats 
 and sports of climbing, leaping, pitching, throwing, etc., in- 
 dulged in by his plaj'^mates. A sense of exact justice was 
 
 and others on the west side by a right I^yne drawne from the Branches of the afore, 
 said Hpsewasson and Little Hunting Creete including the aforesaid Quantity, 
 togeather with all Trees profitts Comodityes Eniolum*^ and Additions 
 
 whatsoever therein belqpg^ng All manner of Mines of Gold, Silver and Copper 
 therein only excepted and foreprised To Have and to Hold all and singular the 
 p^mises (except before excepted) to the said Coll : Nicholas Spencer and L. : Coll : 
 John Washington their heires and Assignes forever Yieldinge and paying therefore 
 yearely and every yeare the Rent of ffoure shillings of Lawful! money of England 
 for every Hnndred Acres and see proportionably for a Bigger or Lesser Quantity to 
 the said propriet^f our heires and Assignes forever upon the ffirst day of November 
 Com'? only Called the ffeast of all s*f : att the Court house of the County where the 
 said Lands are scituate, or such other place within our said Terrytory as wee or 
 any one or either of us shall derect and appoynt from tym.e to tyme The first pay- 
 m* thereof to bee made on the first day of November now next ensuing Provided 
 allwayes that if the said Coll : Nicholas Spencer and L^ Coll : John Washington their 
 heires and Assignes doe yearely and every yeare betweene the feast day of st. 
 Michaell the Archangel! and the said ffirst day of November pay or Cause to bee 
 paid unto us the said Proprieto^^^ our heires and Assignes forever the yearely Rent 
 of two shillings sterling in specie for every Hundred Acres and soe p portionably 
 for a Bigger or Lesser Quantity that it shal bee taken and accepted by us the said 
 proprieto^f our heires and Assignes m ffull satisfaccon of the ffoure shillings above 
 mentioned Provided alsoe that if the said Coll : Nicholas Spencer and l' Coll : John 
 Washington their heires and Assignes shall not Plant or Seate the said Lands or 
 Cause the same to bee planted or Seated within the terme of three yeares next 
 ensuing the date hereof; that then this Grant & everything herein Contayned 
 shall bee void and Null to all Intents & purposes whatsoever as if the same had 
 never beene made And lastly it is Agreed that this Grant bee Registred in due 
 forme in Virginia aforesaid by the said Coll: Spencer and L^ Coll: John Wash- 
 ington or their Assignes before the f&pst day of November now next ensuing In 
 Witnesse whereof wee y^ S^ Proprietor® have here onto fixed our Com'^'on seale 
 and Caused the same to bee Countersigned by one or more of us in the Naime of 
 the Rest this ffirst day of March In the 27*^ yeare of the Raigne of our Soveraigue 
 
 Lord King Charles yf second & Anno Dom 1674. 
 
 Tho Culpbpbr 
 
 It is probable that the first purchase of real estate made by George 
 Washington was that of a tract of unseated land embracing 550 acres, 
 which he selected on the Bullskin early in his visits to the Shenandoah 
 Valley. He received a deed for this land in Frederick County, Va., from 
 Lord Fairfax, the original proprietor, which bears date October 25th, 1750. 
 
322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 developed in him in Ws childhood which was recognized by 
 his school-fellows, who, by common consent, on occasions of 
 dispute, selected him to act as umpire, and unreservedly acqui- 
 esced in his decisions. This trait of weighing evidences and 
 reaching justice he had, to an eminent degree, through life. 
 
 Among the early notable performances of Washington, which 
 have come down to us, is his formula of maxims or ' ' Rules of 
 Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, ' ' 
 the ground-work of which was probably derived, through Haw- 
 kins's translation, from the original French. The maxims, as 
 recast, he recorded in his copy-book in 1745, which, with 
 other school exercises, is preserved in the Department of State 
 at "Washington. These rules do honor alike to the head and 
 heart of him who had the genius to adopt and improve them ; 
 and though Washington entered no claim to originality, they 
 would to-day entitle him to a copyright which has actually been 
 granted to two aspiring editors" who have recently published 
 editions of them. 
 
 The consummate control which Washington habitually 
 maintained over his feelings, so that judgment might be his 
 guide, his never-flagging industry and strict attention to duty, 
 together with his most inflexible principles of justice, enabled 
 him as nothing else could to deport himself with undeviating 
 propriety and dignity on every occasion, and made him the 
 great leader he was. 
 
 An example which illustrates the early tastes and accom- 
 plishments of Washington is found in a few plots of stirveys 
 and topographical sketches made of the Potomac River and 
 Little Hunting Creek, here at Mount Vernon, as exercises in 
 surveying while visiting his half-brother. Major I,awrence 
 Washington, in 1747, which have happily escaped the de- 
 structive hand of time, and may be found in the Department 
 of State. 
 
 The practical acquirements, the disciplined habits, the ener- 
 getic and intelligent application to business affairs, secured for 
 George Washington the patronage of lyord Fairfax, the pro- 
 prietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia, who had met him 
 
 II The Rev. Moncure D. Conway and Dr. J. M. Toner. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 323 
 
 repeatedly at ' ' Belvoir ' ' and Mount Vernon, and who, seeing 
 from his work that he was a youth of unusual ability, engaged 
 him as a surveyor and factor in his land oflSce, which was then 
 at "Belvoir." 
 
 Washington set out from ' ' Belvoir ' ' upon this, his first re- 
 munerated employment, when he was just one month over six- 
 teen years of age, to associate with practical men of business in 
 a business way and to discharge important and responsible 
 duties. He kept a diary of this "journey over the moun- 
 tains," as he termed it, and of the surveys he then made, 
 which is full of interest and which is at present in course of 
 publication. In this business, he acquitted himself to the entire 
 satisfaction of I/ord Fairfax, who found it to his interest to 
 secure young Washington's services on a more permanent and 
 extended scale in connection with the surveying and settlement 
 of his lands in the Valley of Virginia, then in much demand 
 by actual settlers. This congenial and profitable employment 
 was, however, terminated in the fall of 1751 by the failure of 
 Major Lawrence Washington's health, and the necessity of his 
 seeking a milder climate in the island of Barbadoes, on the 
 voyage to which place his brother George was induced to ac- 
 company him. The attachment of these brothers to each other 
 had been especially strong from childhood, so that George did 
 not hesitate, for a moment, to sacrifice a lucrative position to 
 discharge a fraternal duty. This was the only occasion on 
 which George Washington was ever bej'ond the territory of his 
 own country. During this journey, as was his custom, he kept 
 a diary which is replete with statesmanlike observations. 
 This journal is also in the hands of a publisher. 
 
 During the summer of 1751, Major Lawrence Washington 
 resigned the ofiSce of Adjutant Inspector of the Militia of Vir- 
 ginia with the rank of major, to which position he had his 
 brother George appointed, with the pay of one hundred and 
 fifty pounds a year. This was George Washington's first 
 military commission. With his usual assiduity, he at once set 
 to work to inform himself of his official duties, and to acquire, 
 by study and drill, the knowledge necessary for their proper 
 discharge. To this end he employed a practical drill-master 
 
324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and teacher of the sword exercise, and speedily mastered both 
 manuals. 
 
 When, in 1753, the Governor of Virginia wanted a man of 
 address, courage and perseverance to execute the difficult and 
 hazardous task of penetrating for several hundred miles into a 
 wilderness which sheltered many hostile savages and the 
 armed forces of an unfriendly foreign nation, all voices coun- 
 seled the appointment of Major George Washington to this 
 embassy. I refer, of course, to the occasion of Governor 
 Dinwiddie's serving a notice upon the Commandant of the 
 French forces at Fort La Bceuf that they were trespassing 
 upon the territory of His Majesty, the King of Great Britain, 
 and warning them to depart." Washington accepted the 
 mission and set out to execute it the same day, October 
 31st, 1753. It should be borne in mind that, at that time, the 
 whole region about the head-waters of the Ohio, and, indeed, 
 nearly all the territory west of the Blue Ridge in Virginia and 
 Pennsylvania was nearly an unbroken forest, the happy hxint- 
 ing grounds of hostile Indians. The French, it is true, had 
 made a few but no very considerable settlements in the great 
 Mississippi Valley, and claimed the territory by right of dis- 
 covery. This mission, considering the time at which it was 
 undertaken and the difficulties that had to be overcome, must 
 be placed in the category of heroic enterprises, while the 
 political effects flowing therefrom are among the most import- 
 ant in the history of our country. Major Washington per- 
 formed this duty with such promptness and good judgment, as 
 to receive the thanks of the Governor of Virginia and his 
 
 12 The estimation in which Major George Washington was held by 
 Governor Dinwiddie then and for some time previous, may be shown by 
 his letter to the Lords of Trade, written November 17th, 1753, in which 
 the Governor said : "I have sent out a gentleman of distinction to the 
 French Camp on the Ohio with my letter to the Commanding Officer, 
 to know the reasons and by what authority he invades His Majesty of 
 Great Britain's territory in the time of a solid peace subsisting between 
 the two Crowns." 
 
 And in another despatch of the same date the Governor of Virginia 
 writes ; " I have commissioned Mr. Washington, a Major and one 
 of the Adjutants of the Militia of this Dominion, to proceed to the 
 French camp, etc." (Colonial Office Records of Virginia, 1750 — 1780). 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 325 
 
 Council. He kept notes of his journey from tlie time he left 
 Williamsburg until he returned, with which, when referred" to 
 by Washington to refresh his memory, the Governor was so 
 much pleased that he requested their author to write them out 
 as a Report, which he did in one day, and they were immedi- 
 ately printed by public authority. The modesty of Washing- 
 ton throughout this jovirnal is as conspicuous and character- 
 istic of the man and his heroism as his diplomacy with the 
 Indians and the French officers was admirable. The pre- 
 tensions of the French, as set forth by the statements of their 
 own officers and recorded in this journal, brought Major 
 Washington's name into prominence in all the discussions in 
 Great Britain, France and the several American Provinces 
 relative to this trans- Alleghany territory. His reputation for 
 sagacity, courage and diplomatic ability had thus acquired 
 international celebrity. Henceforth he was a factor in the 
 politics and policy of the nations which were engaged in 
 maintaining colonial settlements in North America. 
 
 Washington declined the chief command of the armed 
 expedition immediately set on foot by Governor Dinwiddle to 
 build a fort or forts at the forks of the Ohio, as recommended 
 in his journal or report to the Governor, but accepted the 
 position of second to the Commander-in-Chief. In this 
 service, as I/ieutenant-Colonel, he won the distinction of 
 having led the first body of armed American troops across the 
 Alleghany mountains to reclaim the great West from the forest, 
 the savage and the French. The death of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, Col. Joshua Fry, occurred at what is now Cumberland, 
 Md., May 31st, 1754, while he was en route to assume active 
 command, whereupon the whole conduct of the expedition 
 devolved upon Col. Washington, who was, at the time, at the 
 head of a detachment of the Virginia Regiment on the west 
 side of the Alleghany mountains. As is known to those ac- 
 quainted with the early history of our country, the battle of 
 the Great Meadows and the capitulation of Fort Necessity 
 terminated this campaign to the discomfort of Virginia, the 
 mortification of Washington, and the great disappointment of 
 Governor Dinwiddle. Washington resigned from the service 
 in the fall of 1754, on account of an army regulation which 
 
326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 denied rank to Colonial officers when serving in commands 
 along with British officers, the latter holding their commissions 
 from the King. '3 
 
 The failure of the Virginia troops to establish forts west of 
 the Alleghany mountains, led the British Ministry to send Gen- 
 eral Braddock to America in 1755, with two regiments of 
 regulars, which were largely reinforced by colonial troops, but 
 with no colonial officer of higher rank than a captain, to drive 
 
 13 Military rank in the Colonies at that time was not founded on 
 either justice or sound policy, and was, therefore, at times the occasion 
 of great irritation between Colonial and British o66cers. Fort Cumber- 
 land, for a considerable period the most advanced military post to the 
 westward, while on the border of Virginia, was actually in Maryland, 
 and, after Braddock's defeat, was garrisoned by thirty men under Capt. 
 Dagworthy. under a commission from the Governor of Maryland. The 
 captain had served in the Braddock Expedition, under a commission from 
 the King, and, whenever opportunity offered, would claim this old com- 
 mission to entitle him to rank any officer holding a commission from 
 one of the Colonial Governors. When Washington had occasion to be 
 at Fort Cumberland, this doughty captain would place himself upon this 
 former commission and pay no attention to the orders of Col. Washington. 
 
 This was not only exasperating, but subversive of discipline and 
 efficiency in the service, which Washington was determined to correct or 
 to retire from the service. He accordinglj', with the approval of all the 
 officers of the Virginia forces, got the consent of Governor Dinwiddle to 
 refer the whole matter of rank, as it affected the service in America, to 
 Gen. Shirley, at the time Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's armies 
 in the American Colonies. By request of the Virginia officers, the 
 petition was to be presented to Gen. Shirley by Col. Washington in person. 
 
 Accordingly, Washington with his aide-de-camp, Capt. George Mercer 
 set out from Williamsburg for Boston February 4th, 1756, to present 
 their petition on the question of rank. Washington was well received by 
 Gen. Shirley, who examined into the matter on its merits, and responded 
 by giving a pointed order that Capt. Dagworthy should be subject to 
 Col. Washington's orders. 
 
 But this, while it corrected the immediate controversy, did not solve 
 the real difficulty which existed in the army regulations, the amendment 
 of which required the action of the Ministry. The subject, therefore, 
 continued to be discussed, and petitions continued to be sent by other 
 Colonial officers to the Home Government, representing the injustice of 
 the rule as applied to the military service in America. William Pitt, 
 while Secretary of State, in 1758, in a spirit of conciliation towards the 
 Colonies, procured a modification of the regulations concerning the rank 
 of British and Colonial officers on duty in the same service, putting them 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 327 
 
 the French from Fort Duquesne, and hold that position at the 
 head of the Ohio.''' The eminently valuable service which 
 Col. Washington performed while a volunteer aide in this ex- 
 pedition (for he held no command) in extricating Braddock's 
 shattered forces after the engagement and their defeat on the 
 Monongahela, July 9th, 1755, is a part of the history of our 
 
 in a position much nearer equality, but without fully reaching it. While 
 this allayed somewhat the complaint of the Provincials, it served, never- 
 theless, to annoy the regulars. 
 
 The army regulations were specific, and in the language following : 
 "That all such as were commissioned by the King, or by his general 
 Commander-in-Chief in North America, should take rank of all officers 
 commissioned by the Governors of the re.'spective Provinces. And 
 further, that the general and field officers of the Provincial troops should 
 have no rank when serving with the generals and field officers com- 
 missioned by the Crown : but that all captains and other inferior officers 
 of the Royal troops shall take rank over Provincial officers of the same 
 grade having older commissions." 
 
 It is almost inconceivable, but it is nevertheless true, that up to the 
 campaign which drove the French out of their North American possessions 
 not a Provincial colonel had ever been asked by any British officer to 
 join in a council of war. The Provincial officers, therefore, even to 
 colonels, knew no more than a sergeant what was to be done before their 
 orders came. In the nature of things, the Colonial officers were much 
 better acquainted with the topographical features of the country and the 
 difficulties to be overcome, than any British officer, or a stranger, could 
 possibly be, as well as with the methods of warfare peculiar to the 
 Indians. Yet, these and other potent reasons, and the further fact that 
 the Colonial officers were fighting on their own soil and for their own 
 firesides, were totally disregarded. It was, therefore, not to be wondered 
 at that Col. Washington's sense of justice rebelled at such a regulation. 
 
 '4 E. D. Neill, quoting from Peyton's Reminiscences of General Brad- 
 dock while at Williamsburg, Va., 1755, gives the following extract from 
 a letter written to the General about this time, as follows ; 
 
 ' ' Is Mr. Washington among your acquaintances ? If not, I must recommend you to 
 ■embrace the first opportunity to form his friendship. He is about twenty-three years 
 of age, with a countenance both mild and pleasant, promising both wit and judgment. 
 He is of a comely and dignified demeanor, and at the same time displays much self- 
 reliance and decision. He strikes me as bein.^ a young man of an extraordinary and 
 exalted character, and is destined, I am of opinion, to make no inconsiderable figure 
 in our count^s^" 
 
 Mr. Neill says that Washington was at a dinner given to Gen. Braddock 
 at Williamsburg, March 1755, by Gen. John St. Clair, his Quartermaster, 
 just after his arrival in Virginia. — [ Washington Adapted /or a Crisis — 
 j/>. 7, by Edward D. Neill, D. /?.] 
 
328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 country. His conduct and bravery in the emergency met un- 
 qualified praise alike from British and Colonial officers and 
 men. This disaster left the frontier of Virginia, Maryland 
 and Pennsylvania, for a time, without any organized or ade- 
 quate military protection, but speedily the praise bestowed 
 upon Col. Washington for his generalship in the late engage- 
 ment assumed the nature of a universal, popular demand to- 
 Gov. Dinwiddle for his appointment to a command of the 
 Virginia troops for the protection of the frontier settlements. 
 It was known to the Assembly, the Governor and his Council, 
 that Washington had retired from the service solely on account 
 of the military regulations discriminating in rank against 
 Colonial officers. It was also known he would not again 
 accept command unless his rank should be respected. 's As 
 the corps about to be organized was to consist wholly of 
 
 '5 Washiugton bore with dignity the slight the Governor perpetrated 
 in reducing his command, which he knew at the time, would cause the 
 Colonel to resign his commission. He had made great personal sacrifices- 
 to serve his country in the military line, but never received proper 
 encouragement from Gov. Dinwiddie. The following extract from a 
 letter to his brother Augustine, written August 2d, 1755, shortly after 
 Gen. Braddock's defeat, shows both his courage and his sense of justice ; 
 he says : "I can nevertheless assure you, and others ' whom it may con- 
 cern ' (to borrow a phrase from Goverour Innes) that I am so little dis- 
 pirited at what has happened, I am always ready, and always willing, to 
 render my Country any Services that I am capable of but never upon the 
 Terms I have done ; — having suffered much in my private Fortune, besides 
 impairing one of the best of constitutions. — 
 
 " I was employed to go a Journey in the Winter (when I believe, few 
 or none would have undertaken it), — and what did I get by it? — My 
 expences borne ! — I then was appointed, with trifling Pay, to conduct a 
 hand-full of Men to the Ohio : —What did I get by that? Why, after put- 
 ting myself to a considerable expence, in equipping and providing neces- 
 saries for the Campaign, I went out — was soundly beaten — lost them all ! 
 — came in and had my Commission taken from me, or, in other words, 
 my command reduced, vcaARr pretence of an Order from Home ! — I then 
 went out a Volunteer with Gen. Braddock, and lost all my Horses and 
 many other things. But being a voluntary act, I ought not to have men- 
 tioned this ; nor should I have done it was it not to shew that I have 
 been upon the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now 
 nearly two years. So that I think I cannot be blamed should I, if I leave 
 my family again, endeavor to do it upon such terms as to prevent my 
 suffering — to gain by it being the least of my expectations." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 329 
 
 Virginia Provincial forces, no controversy, it was thought, 
 could arise as to rank ; and with this understanding and an 
 earnest desire on Washington's part to serve his country, he 
 accepted the appointment. The Assembly promptly voted 
 ;^4o,ooo to raise and equip troops. This was the largest sum 
 Virginia had ever appropriated for this service. 
 
 Washington was commissioned by the Governor, August 
 14th, 1755, Colonel of the Virginia forces, to be immediately 
 raised to build forts and protect the people on the frontier 
 against the incursions of the Indians.'* He accepted the 
 appointment and continued at the head of the Virginia forces 
 until the French were, by the Forbes Expedition, in which 
 Washington took a conspicuous and honorable part, obliged 
 to abandon Fort Duquesne in the Fall of 1758. I have dwelt 
 somewhat in detail upon this early period of Washington's life 
 because these were the years in which he was acquiring mili- 
 tary experience and ripening, by study and reflection, into the 
 grandest military character and philosophic statesman the 
 world has ever produced. 
 
 In July, 1758, while with his regiment in the field, he was 
 elected from Frederick county to a seat in the House of Bur- 
 gesses of Virginia. His favorite project, the driving of the 
 French from Fort Duquesne, having now been accomplished, 
 he felt at liberty to resign his command in the army ; which he 
 did in December of this year. 
 
 Farly in January, 1759, he was married, and in April, 
 shortly after^ the adjournment of the Assembly, he brought 
 
 16 Washington's letter to his mother, at the time, on this subject fully 
 represents his position, and is here given in full : 
 
 " To M^^ Washington, 
 
 Near Fredericksburgh, 
 How^ Madam — 
 
 " If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall ; but if the command 
 is pressed upon me, by the general voice of the country, — and oflFered upon such terms 
 as cannot be objected against, — it would reflect dishonour upon me to refuse it; and 
 that I am sure must or ought to give you greater uneasiness, than my going in an 
 honorable command ; for upon no other terms "will I accept it — ^At present I have no 
 proposals made to me, nor have I any advice of such an intention, except from present 
 bands. 
 
 I am, D'' Madam, &c., 
 Mount Vernon, 
 
 August 14th, 1755." 
 
 From draft and transcript in the Department of State. 
 
330 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 his wife to Mount Vernon.''' It was not until after his retire- 
 ment from the army and his marriage that Washington was 
 able to give much personal attention to the management of his 
 estate. His brother, John Augustine, in his absence, had 
 looked after his servants and his plantations to the best of his 
 ability.'' 
 
 17 The following account of the personal appearance of Col. George 
 Washington is given in a letter by Capt. George Mercer to a friend in 
 England in 1760. This copy was taken by the writer, from a copy in the 
 possession of Col. Lewis W. Washington, of "Bell-air,"' near Hall Town, 
 Jefferson county. West Virginia, 1855 : 
 
 ' ' Although distrustiugr niy ability to give an adequate account of the personal apear- 
 ance of Col. George Washington, late Commander of the Virginia Provincial troops, 
 I shall, as you request, attempt the portraiture. He may be described as being as 
 straight as an Indian, measuring six feet two inches in his stockings, and weighing 
 17s pounds when he took his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1759. His frame is 
 padded with well-developed muscles, indicating great strength. His bones and joints 
 are large, as are his feet and hands. He is wide shouldered, but has not a deep or 
 round chest ; is neat waisted, but is broad across the hips, and has rather long legs and 
 arms. His head is well shaped though not large, but is gracefully poised on a superb 
 neck. A large and straight rather than a prominent nose ; blue-gray penetrating eyes, 
 which were widely separated and overhung by a heavy brow. His face is long rather 
 than broad, with high round cheek bones, and terminates in a good firm chin. He 
 has a clear though rather colorless pale skin, which burns with the sun. A pleasing, 
 benevolent, though a commanding countenance, dark brown hair, -which he wears in a 
 cue. His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time dis- 
 closes some defective teeth. His features are regular and placid, with all the muscles 
 of his face under perfect control, though flexible and expressive of deep feeling when 
 moved by emotions. In conversation he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, defer" 
 ential and engaging. His voice is agreeable rather than strong. His demeanor at all 
 times composed and dignified. His movements and gestures are graceful, his walk 
 majestic, and he is a splendid horseman." 
 
 'SThe estate of Mount Vernon, or about 4,000 acres of it, was 
 bequeathed by General Washington to his nephew. Judge Bushrod 
 Washington, sou of his brother, John Augustine, in the following 
 language: "Partly in consideration of an intimation to his deceased 
 father, while we were both bachelors, and he had kindly undertaken to 
 superintend my estate during my military services in the former war 
 between Great Britain and France, that if I should fall therein Mount 
 Vernon, then less extensive in domain than at present, should become 
 his property." On Justice Washington's decease, without children, he 
 left it to his nephew, John Augustine, who, by will, left it to his widow, 
 who conveyed it to her son John Augustine, who sold two hundred acres 
 including the mansion and the tomb to " The Ladies' Mount Vernon 
 Association of the Union." To them the country owes a debt of grati- 
 tude for the excellent condition in which everything relating to the 
 home of Washington is kept. Perhaps it is not too much to say ladies 
 only could manage Mount Vernon so as to keep it free from politics, 
 faction and peculation. Under their care it is annually growing in 
 the affections of a grateful and patriotic people. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 331 
 
 From his youth, Washington was in the habit of taking 
 notes and making memorandums in pocket note-books of 
 whatever interested him, especially when engaged in expedi- 
 tions or when making experiments. These memorandums 
 assumed in time, but perhaps unconsciously to their author, 
 the character of diaries. Of those which have escaped destruc- 
 tion, some are preserved in the Department of State, others in 
 private and public libraries, and all are held as highly-prized 
 relics. Copies of all the Washington Diaries and Journals, 
 known to exist, have been transcribed with literal exactness 
 for the writer and are now in his possession. 
 
 In his Diary for 1760, Washington notes, very briefly, the 
 events occurring at Mount Vernon, and especially matters 
 relating to the management of his plantations. These memo- 
 randvuns, brief as they are, show that he was giving close 
 attention to the improvement of his estates. His personal 
 supervision was only interrupted by occasional visits to 
 Williamsburg to attend the meetings of the Assembly. The 
 following extract from his Diary, at this period, gives a good 
 example, not only of his love of agriculture, but in especial 
 manner shows his ingenuity and fertility of invention and 
 desire to improve the implements of husbandry. 
 
 "Thursday, Mar. 6'.''' lySo — Fitted a two-eyed plow instead 
 of a duck-bill plow, and with much diflSculty made my chariot 
 wheel-horse plow." 
 
 "Wednesday, Mar. i^!' — * * * Peter (my smith) and 
 I after several efforts to make a plow after a new model, partly 
 of my own contriving, was feign to give it out, at least for the 
 present. ' ' 
 
 March 21*.' Washington records the fact that he had this day 
 grafted 41 cherry-tree grafts, 12 magnum bonum plums and 
 planted 4 nuts of the Mediterranean pine : — " The cherrys and 
 plumb came from Col. Mason's, the nuts from M^ Green's." 
 
 To the close of the month of March, the diary shows that he 
 was daily grafting and planting fruit trees to the number of 
 several hundred. For many years his diaries show that in the 
 months of February and March he was much occupied in set- 
 ting out and grafting choice fruit. 
 
 "Monday, Mar. 24.'!' * * * In digging earth for the 
 purpose of repairing my mill-dam, great quantities of marie 
 
332 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 or Fuller's earth appeared. In the evening, in a bed that had 
 been prepared with a mixture of dung on Saturday last, I 
 sowed choice Lucerne and Rye grass seeds, in the garden, to 
 try their goodness, doing it in the following order. At the end 
 next the comer were two rows of clover-seed ; in the 3^' 4*'*' 
 5**" and 6'^ rye grass ; the last row thinnest. Sowed 7'? and 
 S'** barley (to see if it would come up,) the last also thinnest 
 sown; 9*^ lo'?' 11*?' I2*^' Lucerne, the next thicker and so 
 on to the last, w"^** was very thick." 
 
 ' ' Wednesday, Mar. 26'!' * * * Spent the greater part 
 of the day in making a new plow of my own invention." 
 
 " Thursday, Mar. 27'*' ij6o. * * * Set my plow to 
 work and found she answered very well in the lower pasture, 
 w'^'' I this day began plowing with the large bay mare and 
 Rankin. * * * Agreed to give Mr- W? Triplet ;^i8 to 
 build me two houses in the front of my house (plastering them 
 also) and running walls for palisades to them from the great 
 house and from the great house to the wash-house and kitchen 
 also. '9 
 
 19 The Mansion House, during I,awrence Washington's life, stood by 
 itself. When George became its possessor but little improvement in 
 buildings was made until after his marriage, then a number of out- 
 houses were added and the grounds and gardens brought under the 
 supervision of the Colonel's aesthetical eye. For the purpose of syste- 
 matic management, the Mount Vernon estate was divided into the 
 Mansion House Farm, of 450 acres and large bounds of woodland ; the 
 River Farm, of 1,800 acres ; the Union Farm, of 841 acres ; the Dogue 
 Run Farm, of 1,076 acres, and the Muddy Hole Farm of 886 acres — a 
 domain of nearly 4,500 acres. 
 
 "^ The following memorandum, in General Washington's handwriting, 
 is preserved among his miscellaneous papers in the Department of State, 
 and gives the size and names of all of the detached buildings existing at 
 Mount Vernon in 1799. The enumeration of windows and panes of 
 ^lass in each of the houses would seem to have some relation to a tax 
 levy : 
 
 **I,ist of Houses at Mount Vernon, as taken by M^ Dulan (one of the Assessors), 
 the 9*^ instant on the Premises : 
 
 Dwelling House 96 feet by 32, of Wood ; 2 Stories high. 
 
 No. of Windows. 
 
 No. 
 
 of Paynes in each. 
 
 Total 
 
 6 
 
 
 . .18. . 
 
 . . .108 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 ... 12 
 
 
 • 7» 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 . . 12 
 
 
 36 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 .15 
 
 
 120 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 .62 
 
 
 . ... 62 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 . . .16 
 
 
 • 32 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 .18 
 
 
 Io8 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 . X2 
 
 
 108 
 
 T 
 
 
 
 . . 10 
 
 
 . . 10 
 
 2 
 
 . . 
 
 
 .18 
 
 
 . . 36 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 . 12 
 
 
 36 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 333 
 
 "Saturday, April 5. * * * Made another plow, the same 
 as my former, except that it has two eyes and the other one. ' ' 
 
 ''Monday, April i^"t- Fine warm day, wind so'ly, and clear till 
 the even'g, when it clouded ; no fish were to be catched to-day 
 neither. Mixed my composts in a box with ten apartments in 
 the following manner, viz. in N?- i is three pecks of earth 
 brought from below the hill out of the 46 acre field without any 
 mixture. In N?- 2 is two pecks of sand earth and one of marie 
 taken out of the said field, which marie seem'd a little inclined 
 to sand. 3 has 2 pecks of s^ earth and i of river side sand. 
 
 4 has a peck of Horse Dung. 
 
 5 has mud taken out of the creek. 
 
 6 has cow dung. 
 
 7 marie from the Gulleys on the hill side, w'^'' seem'd to be 
 purer than the other. 
 
 8 sheep dung. 
 
 9 Black mould taken out of the Pocoson on the creek side. 
 
 10 Clay got just below the garden. 
 
 All mixed with the same quantity and sort of earth in the 
 most eflFective manner by reducing the whole to a tolerable 
 degree of fineness and rubbing them well together on a cloth. In 
 ■each of these divisions were planted three grains of wheat, 3 of 
 oats, and as many of barley, all of equal distances in Rows and 
 of equal depth done by a machine made for the purpose. The 
 wheat rows are next the numbered side, the oats in the middle, 
 and the barley on the side next the upper part of the garden. 
 Two or three hours after sowing in this manner, and about an 
 hour before sunset I watered them all equally alike with water 
 
 " Kitchen 
 
 
 
 i /4oby2o 
 
 . . ^ I40 — 20 
 
 Servants Hall . 
 
 
 
 Gardners house . . 
 
 
 
 . 26-16 
 
 Store house . . 
 
 
 
 . 26—16 
 
 Smoke house 
 
 
 
 . . *i6— i6 
 
 Wash house . 
 
 
 
 20—16 
 
 Coach house . . 
 
 
 
 20 — 16 
 
 stable 
 
 
 
 ... 84 — 36 
 
 Salt house . . 
 
 
 
 . 16-16 
 
 Spinninir house . 
 
 
 
 . . . 38-18 
 
 Negro Quarters 1 ■ 
 Green house / 
 
 
 170—18 
 
 Ice house .... 
 
 
 within arch 
 
 ... 12 — 12 
 
 G9 Washington. 
 
 MoDNT Vernon, 
 
 
 
 
 /J March, 1799. 
 
 
 
 
 + Measured since M^ Dulan took the account. 
 * This building is added to the Assessors Report." 
 
334 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 that had been standing in a tub ab' two hours exposed to the 
 sun. * * * Got a new Harrow made of smaller and closer 
 teethings for harrowing in grain — the other being more proper 
 for preparing the ground for sowing." 
 
 May i!* Washington records that he inspected the grain 
 planted in the ten boxes, each containing a different compost, 
 as a test. These experiments show how close an observer he 
 was, but they are too extended to be given in full here. He 
 concludes, all things considered, that boxes 8 and 9 promised 
 the most satisfactory results. 
 
 His ever watchful attention to the matter of labor-saving 
 machinery in the interest of the poorly-paid and over-worked 
 farmer is apparent throughout the life and writings of Wash- 
 ington. He made it a duty to read the standard works and 
 annual publications on agriculture to obtain useful hints which 
 might be of service on the Mount Vernon plantations.^" 
 
 Each one of the five plantations under the general super- 
 vision of the Mount Vernon estates, had its own overseer and 
 its independent outfit or plant, with all the working people, 
 stock and farm implements essential to its independent, 
 economical management. A debit and credit account was 
 kept by each overseer of the operations on his plantation — the 
 
 2oThe following letter, the draft of which is preserved in the Depart- 
 ment of State, is in point. The letter is here given in full, as it is only 
 in part published by Sparks and by Ford : 
 
 To— Robert Cary Esq^ & C° 
 
 Merch*.® IvOndon 
 Gent" 
 
 The Inclosed is a Copy of my last of the 22? UU°. We have been curiously en- 
 tertained of late with y^ description of an Engine lately constructed (I believe in Swit- 
 zerland, and undergone some Improvements since in England) for taking up Trees by 
 the Roots. — ^Amoug other things it is related that Trees of considerable Diameter are 
 forced up by this Engine — that Six hands in working one of them will raise two or 
 three hundred Trees in the space of a day — and that an Acre of Ground may be eased 
 of the Trees and laid fit for Plowing in the same time. — How far these assertions have 
 been amply realy reallized by repeated experiment it is impossible for me at this dis- 
 tance to determine but if the Accounts are not greatly exaggerated such powerful 
 assistance must be of vast utility in many parts of this wooden country where it is 
 impossible for our Force (and labourers are not to be hired here) between the finishing 
 of one Crop and preparations for another to clear Ground fast enough to afford the 
 proper changes either in the planting or Farming business— The chief purport of this 
 Letter therefore is to beg the favour of you Gentlemen to make minute enquiries into 
 the Tryals that have been made by Order of the Society and if they have proved satis- 
 factory to send me one of these Engines by the first Ship to this (Potomack) River. — If 
 they are made of different sizes, I shoud prefer one of a middle size, capable of raising 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 335 
 
 work done, the crops produced, their market value, imple- 
 ments bought, stock increased, sold or on hand, general 
 improvements made to buildings, ditching, clearing up of new 
 land, etc. At the end of the year a balance was struck for 
 each, and the difference set down to profit and loss. 
 
 At this period, nearly all the trades essential to serve the 
 wants of an independent community, were represented and 
 carried on at Mount Vernon ; such as milling, distilling, 
 tanning, blacksmithing, wagon-making, shoe-making, tailor- 
 ing, spinning, weaving, knitting, carpentering, coopering, 
 harness-making, brick-making and laying, stone-masons, etc. 
 To a limited extent the facilities of these departments of labor 
 were extended to his neighbors. There were also gunners to 
 supply game, and men whose business it was to daily supply 
 fresh fish, from the Potomac, for the table ; while all surplus of 
 perishable articles brought to the home house was promptly 
 sent to the overseers of the several quarters. The gangs of 
 skilled workmen and farm-hands composing the different 
 departments of laborers on the Mount Vernon Estate consisted 
 in part of slaves owned by General Washington ; — dower 
 negroes — slaves owned by Mrs. Washington ; slaves hired 
 from their masters by the year ;^' transported convicts serving 
 
 a tree of 15 or 18 Inches Biameter. — The Costs I am pretty much a stranger to — 15 — 20 & 
 25 Guineas have been spoke of but the Price (were it d'ble that) I shoud totally dis- 
 regard provided the Kngine is capable of performing what is related of it, and not of 
 that complicated nature to be easily disordered, and rendered unfit for use, but con- 
 structed upon so plain, simple, and durable a Plan that the common Artificers of this 
 Country may be able to set them to rights if any accidents shou'd happen to them. If 
 you should send one be so good as to let me have with it the most ample directions for 
 the effectual using of it, together with a model of its manner of operating. 
 
 Mrs. Washington woud take it as a favour, if you woud direct M^^ Shelby to send 
 her a fashionable Summer Cloak & Hatt, a black Silk apron, i p^ of penny & i p^ of 
 two penny Ribbon (white) and a pair of French bead ;^arings and Necklace — and I 
 should be obliged to you for sending me a dozen and an half of Water Plates (Pewter 
 with my Crest engraved) I am Gent^ 
 
 Y^ Most Obed' H'^e Serv* 
 Mount Vernon 1 G? Washington 
 
 13th February J 1764 
 
 By Capt°. Dawson— for London. 
 
 21 The following letter of Mrs. Corbin to Colonel Washington, found 
 among the latter's papers, is illustrative of the business methods of the 
 times and given in full — along with a receipt from Mr. Turberville. 
 
 Essex, Mch 31st, 1766. 
 Sir: — I am now favored with an opportunity of writing to you, to let you know that 
 I shall be glad to be informed whether you will want the Bricklayer any longer. If you 
 
336 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 out their sentences f^ persons voluntarily indenturing them- 
 selves for a sufficient timers to pay costs of transportation to 
 
 do, you may keep him on the same Terms ; (but if not) shall be obliged if you will send 
 him down as soon as his Year is up, because I have lately had an offer for him. As the 
 distance is so great & good opportunities scarce, shall take it as a favor if you will send 
 the Cash down by Mr, George Turberville who is the bearer of this fie am Sir 
 
 Your most obt. Servl. 
 
 (Signed) Lettice Corbin. 
 N. B. I have a good Gardener to hire ; if you want, may have him on the usual Terms 
 for such L. C. 
 
 To Col° George Washington of Mount VerTWn, Va. 
 
 Received from Geo ; Washington for the use of Mrs. Lettice Corbin, Twenty five 
 
 pounds Virga Curr'y for the hire of the Negro Bricklayer George one year. 
 
 (Signed) Geo. Turberville. 
 April 9, 1766. 
 
 22 The following, found among Washington's papers, is a copy of a 
 certificate and transfer in the case of a convict whose term of service 
 was assigned to George Washington : 
 
 In Pursuance, and by virtue of Acts of Parliament made and provided for the 
 more speedy and effectual Transportation of Felons and convicted Persons out of 
 Great Britain, irA.o'tAs Majesty's Plantations in America, We do hereby assign unto 
 George Washington Bsq^ for Value received one Man-Servant named Thomas 
 Wight being a Transport and within the said Statutes for the Term of Seven Years, 
 the Time to commence from the Arrival of the Brig, Swift Captain George Straker in 
 the Province of Maryland, it being the Twenty Sixth Day of February 1774 As 
 witness our Hands this Twelfth day of March 1774. 
 
 WlI,I,M Ltjx & B0WI<Y. 
 
 23 Copy of an Indenture for service as a mason for a term of years and 
 a transfer to George Washington, in accordance with the law in force, at 
 that period, in Virginia. Taken from among many manuscript indentures 
 preserved among Washington's papers ; 
 
 THIS INDENTURE Made the Thirty-first Day of January in the Fourteenth 
 Year of the Reign of our Sovereign I^rd George the third King of Great Britain, &c. 
 And in the Year of our I.ord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-four between 
 Isaac Webb— Mason— of the City of Bristol of the one Part, and John Moorfield of the 
 City of Bristol of the other Part, WITNESSETH, That the said Isaac Webb for the 
 Consideration herein after-mentioned, hath, and by these Presents doth Covenant, 
 Grant, and Agree to, and with the said John Moorfield his Executors and Assigns, 
 That he the said Isaac Webb shall and will, as a faithful Covenant Servant, well and 
 truly serve the said John Moorfield his Executors or Assigns, in the Plantation of 
 Maryland beyond the Seas, for the space of four years, next ensuing his arrival in the 
 said Plantation, in the Employment of a Mason And the said Isaac Webb doth hereby 
 Covenant and Declare himself, now to be of the Age of Twenty-foure Years and no Cov- 
 enant or Contracted Servant to any other Person or Persons, And the said John 
 Moorfield for himself his Executors or Assigns, in Consideration thereof do hereby 
 Covenant, Promise and Agree to and with the said Isaac Webb Executors and Assigns, 
 that he the said John Moorfield his Executors or Assigns, shall and will at his or their 
 proper Costs and Charges, with what convenient Speed they may, carry, convey or 
 cause to be carried and conveyed over into the said Plantation, the said Isaac Webb 
 and from henceforth and during the said Voyage, and also during the said Term, 
 shall and will at the like Ccf t and Charges, provide for and allow the said Isaac-Webb 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 337 
 
 America ; others whose services for a stipulated period were sold 
 by the shipping-masters to the highest bidder;^'' and mechanics, 
 white and colored, engaged by the month or year, and gen- 
 erally upon a written contract. Washington's exactness in 
 charging to each enterprise its just expense, is illustrated in 
 his noting the number of days' labor it required of his carpen- 
 ters and others in building his schooner at Mount Vernon, 
 which we transfer in his own language from his diary. 
 
 ' ' Sep^. 13, 1765 — To this day my carpenters had in all 
 worked 82 days on my schooner. 
 
 all necessary Cloaths, Meat, Drink, Washing, and I,odging, fit and convenient for him 
 as Covenant Servants in Such Cases are usually provided for and allowed. 
 
 And for the true Performance of the Premises, the said Parties to these Presents, 
 bind themselves, their Executors and Administrators, the either to the other, in the 
 Penal Sum of Ten Pounds Sterling, firmly by these Presents. In witness whereof, they 
 have hereunto interchangeably set their Hands and Seals, the Day and Year above 
 written. 
 
 John Moorfield [seal] 
 
 bis 
 Isaac X Webb [seal] 
 mark 
 Sealed and Delivered 
 in the Presence of 
 John Evans 
 
 I hereby Assign unto Col9 George Washington all my Right & title to the within 
 Named Isaac Webb his time to begin from the Arrival of the Restoration Cap^ 
 Thomas into the Province of Maryland it being the 22^ Day of March 1774 as witness 
 my hand this 26*^ Day of March 1774. 
 
 John Moorfield." 
 
 24 The original of this indenture is preserved among the Washington 
 papers in the Department of State, and is illustrative of old English law; 
 
 THIS INDENTURE Made the Eighth Day of July in the Year of our Lord God 
 One Thousand Seven Hundred & Seventy two Between Andrew Judge of the one Party, 
 and AlexT Coldclough Merch' of the other Party, WITNESSETH, That the said Andrew 
 Judge doth hereby Covenant, Promise and Grant to and with the said Alex^ Coldclough 
 his Executors, Administrators and Assigns, from the Day of the Date hereof until the 
 first and next Arrival at Baltimore or any port in America and after, for and during the 
 Term of Four Years, to serve in such Service and Employment as the said Alex^ Coldclough 
 or his Assigns shall there employ him according to the Custom of that Country in the like 
 Kind. IN CONSIDERA TION whereof the said Alex^ Coldclough doth hereby Cove- 
 nant and Grant to and with the said Andrew Judge to pay for his Passage, and to find and 
 allow Meat, Drink, Apparel and Lodging, with other Necessaries during the said Term. 
 And at the End of the said Term, to pay unto him the usual Allowance according to the Cus- 
 tom of the Country in the like Kind. IN WITNESS whereof the Parties abovementioned 
 to these INDENTURES have interchangeably set their Hands and Seals, the Day and 
 Year first above written. 
 
 his 
 Andrew X Judge [seal] 
 Mark 
 Signed, Sealed and Delivered, 
 inPresenclof j^^^^^ 
 Jn9 M?Dermott 1 
 
338 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 ' ' 22^ This week they worked 22 days upon her. 
 
 ' ' 28^'^ This week my carpenters worked 22 days upon my 
 schooner — and John Askew 3 days upon her. 
 
 "Oct. 5'* This week my carpenters worked 24 days upon 
 my schooner — and John Askew 4 days. 
 
 "z2'* This week my carpenters worked 22 days upon my 
 schooner — and John Askew 3 days. 
 
 "jp'* This week y? carpenters worked 18 days, which 
 make in all 190 days & 10 of John Askew." 
 
 Washington was noted for owning fine horses, he also 
 enjoyed, on proper occasions, extending their use to visiting 
 friends for a dash after a fox and hounds over the Mount 
 Vernon plains.^s a sport of which he was fond and frequently 
 indulged in himself In the chase, on his fine horse, he was 
 usually the foremost hunter. 
 
 He was a rapid rider in his ordinary business journeys, and 
 his Diaries record the fact that on various occasions he rode as 
 much as 60 miles a day. 
 
 The possession of the Mississippi valley by the British and 
 its settlement by Virginia had engaged the attention of George 
 Washington from his youth. His brothers, lyawrence and 
 Augustine, were among the original members of the Ohio 
 Company, organized in 1748 to settle lands on the Ohio river 
 and trade with the Indians. He was, therefore, reared in an 
 atmosphere of admiration for and conviction of the future great- 
 ness of this western territory. His Diary for July i^? 1763, con- 
 tains the following entry : ' ' Went over to Stafford Court- House 
 to attend a meeting of the Mississippi adventure, and lodged 
 there." From the year 1754, the House of Burgesses, of 
 
 25 The following observations on Washington's horsemanship are 
 taken from de Chastellux, page 69 : 
 
 " The weather being fair, on the 26th, I got on horseback, after breakfasting with the 
 general — He was so attentive as to give me the horse he rode, the day of my arrival, 
 which I had greatly commended — I found him as good as he is handsome ; but above all, 
 perfectly well broke, and well trained, having a good mouth, easy in hand, and stopping 
 short in a gallop without bearing the bit — I mention these minute particulars, because it is 
 the general himself who breaks all his own horses ; and he is a very excellent and bold 
 horseman, leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quick, without standing upon 
 his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild, — circumstances which 
 our young men look upon as so essential a part of English horsemanship, that they would 
 rather break a leg or an arm than renounce them." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 339 
 
 Virginia, inspired by the report of Major George Washington 
 in 1753, had annually before it, until the Revolution, some 
 measure or report of committee to encourage and protect 
 settlers on the waters of the Mississippi held to belong to 
 Virginia. \Journal of House of Burgesses.'\ His cash book 
 shows he was a generous contributor to measures to encourage 
 settlement and take up land in the valleys of the Ohio and 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Notwithstanding Washington's many engagements, he was 
 not neglectful or unappreciative of the amenities of social 
 intercourse. His home, even at this period, was scarcely a 
 day without visitors of note from some of the Colonies, 
 foreign travelers, his relatives, or gentlemen on business. He 
 occasionally accompanied Mrs. Washington and the children 
 to return calls and pay his respects to his neighbors. The 
 following extract from his Diary is in point : 
 
 "May 31'! 176 p.— -^ * * * * Set off with M-; 
 Washington and' Patcy, MT W[arner] Washington and wife, 
 Mr^ Bushrod and Miss Washington, and MY Magowen for 
 'Towlston,' in order to stand for MT B. Fairfax's third son, 
 which I did together with my wife, M^ Warner Washington 
 and his lady. ' ' 
 
 In seasons of harvesting and seeding, or when any other 
 important work was going on which required special attention, 
 it was .Washington's habit to visit several of his plantations, or 
 all of them, to confer with his overseers before he ate his 
 breakfast. When the full round of the plantations was made, 
 the ride amoimted to about ten miles. This ought to have given 
 him, as it doubtless did, a good appetite. On his return to 
 the mansion-house, he would immediately refresh himself with 
 a wash, while the servant would place upon the table in the 
 dining-room a fresh, warm breakfast. This meal usually con- 
 sisted of fresh fish, breakfast bacon or ham, eggs, corn-cakes, 
 fresh butter, honey and coffee or tea. Mrs. Washington, with 
 her good taste and characteristic tact, even though the Gen- 
 eral was a little late, managed to join and cheer him at 
 table. 
 
340 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The regular hour for dining at Mount Vernon was three, 
 although the working-people dined at twelve o' clock. ^^ It 
 was the General's habit to make a toilet immediately before 
 sitting down to table, whether he had been out riding or had 
 remained in or about the house, was alone or had company. 
 The opportunity was also afforded to all guests to refresh 
 themselves before going into the dining-room. 
 
 The intense earnestness of Washington in the prosecution 
 of his farming interests extended, in a degree, to all the em- 
 ployes on his estates. His people knew that he was just 
 and considerate and that they and their work were constantly 
 under his supervision. They also knew that he desired to 
 have all his work done in the best possible manner. The 
 versatility and never-flagging application which Washing- 
 ton exhibited in all his business affairs, must always excite 
 admiration. His power of endurance and celerity of move- 
 ment from place to place were marvelous. He had, too, that 
 self-command which enabled him to pass from one occupation 
 to another, or from the exciting sport of the chase immediately 
 to the discharge of intricate business transactions, such as the 
 drafting of a lease or deed and other papers requiring legal or 
 expert knowledge, or the plotting of a survey, without the 
 least flurry or confusion. It was a rule with him to be prompt 
 in attending business engagements. The following extract 
 from his Diary is fairly illustrative of this : 
 
 26 Washington was an early riser, out before the sun was up or engaged 
 in his study writing. The breakfast hour at Mount Vernon, in summer, 
 was seven o'clock and in winter, eight. During Colonial times dinner 
 was served in the mansion house usually at two o'clock. After the Revo- 
 lution the time for that meal was three o'clock the year round. His 
 usual beverage was small beer, cider, and Madeira wine. Tea was served 
 in the dining-room — or if the company was very large, handed round — 
 between seven and eight o'clock. The hospitality at Mount Vernon was 
 so generous as almost to amount to an open house. Washington was a 
 most liberal provider and himself a hearty eater, but neither in his letters 
 or diaries does he complain of the tables at which he ate in traveling nor 
 record what he had upon his own. But on several occasions he states that 
 he lived plainly. To a friend he wrote, ' ' My manner of living is plain, and 
 I do not mean to be put out by it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are 
 always ready, and such as will be content to partake of them are always 
 welcome. Those who expect more will be disappointed." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 341 
 
 ''March 5, iy6g — Went up to Alexandria after Fielding 
 I^ewis and brought him down to dinner, where I found Mr 
 Warner Washington, who returned after dinner. 
 
 " 6 '> Set out with Fielding Lewis for Fredericksburg, which 
 we reached after dining at Peytons at Aquia, i. e. reached my 
 mother's. ^7 
 
 27 Although this was a ride of about 45 miles, he rode over the same 
 ground in less time on receiving a message of the dangerous illness of 
 his mother and sister. His diary of April 27th, 1787, says : " About sun- 
 rise I commenced my journey as intended. Bated at Dumfries and 
 reached Fredericksburg before two o'clock and found both my mother and 
 sister better." Washington, from his childhood, had a most reverential 
 love and respect for his mother, which continued unabated to the close 
 of her life. The prevalence of ceremony in Colonial days led him 
 to address his mother, in at least some of his communications to her, 
 as "Honored Madam," and at the close subscribe himself "Your 
 most dutiful son." Mary Washington, like her son, was in the conduct 
 of life eminently practical and chose to manage and maintain her inde_ 
 pendent estate according to her own notions, having sufficient for her 
 needs. She removed from her farm to the town of Fredericksburg in 1775 
 and resided in a comfortable house owned by her son George. It was within 
 ahundred yards of "Kenmore" mansion, the residence of her daughter, 
 Betty Lewis. As age advanced her children and grandchildren made 
 her frequent visits and saw to it that she wanted for nothing that could 
 add to her comfort. The General had repeatedly urged his mother to 
 make Mount Vernon her home, which she declined. Her daughter, Mrs. 
 Fielding Lewis, had also begged her to reside with her in "Kenmore," 
 but she persisted in her determination to maintain her own independent 
 establishment. Her son, John Augustine, had also often and earnestly 
 entreated her to give up the cares of a house and live with him. Febru- 
 ary 15th, 1787, Washington wrote his mother a long and earnest letter on 
 family affairs and in her special interest, looking to her comfort in her 
 declining years. In this letter he urgedher to make her home with one of 
 her children, to rent her farm and take with her her horses and carriages 
 and such servants as she desired ; but this, like all former advice, of the 
 kind was declined. Washington's account book from 1754 shows that 
 he advanced considerable sums to his mother. In his letter of Septem- 
 ber 13th, 1789, to his sister, after their mother's demise, he says "I 
 want no restitution of these sums." And on his ledger beneath 
 the account of over ;^5oo-o-o against his mother, he writes ' ' Settled. ' ' 
 His cash book under date of March nth, 1789, has the following; 
 "By my expenses on a visit to my mother at Fredericksburg, 
 ;^i-8-o. By Mrs. Mary Washington advanced her 6 Guineas." His 
 mother died August 25th, 1789, five months after this interview. It 
 
342 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 " 7 '^ Went to Fredericksburg & remained there all day — 
 din? at Col? I,ewis's. 
 
 "8. Still there. Dined at the same place, spending y? even- 
 ing at Weedons at yf club. 
 
 "9. Set off for Rob* Ashby's, and after dining by the way, 
 reached it a little after dark. 
 
 "10. Went out to run out the bounds of the land I bo* of 
 Carters Estate, but y? weather being very cold & windy was 
 obliged to return. 
 
 "11. Went out again on the same business & returned at 
 night to Capt? Ashbys. 
 
 "12. At Capt? Ashbys all day — ^in the afternoon Capt? 
 Marshal came & spent y? evening. 
 
 "13. Out a surveying till Night with sevl attending. 
 
 "14. Out in like manner. 
 
 "16. Out again with many People attending. 
 
 "16. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. 
 
 is presumed that this was the last visit and interview the General had 
 with his aged mother and supplied the incident for the pathetic parting 
 as described by Lossing in ' ' Recollections and Memoirs of Washington, ' ' 
 by G. W. Park Custis, p. 145, and repeated in "Mary and Martha Wash- 
 ington, " p. 66. He assigns the date of this visit as the 14th of April, 1789, 
 when the President is said to address his mother in the following words : 
 "The people, madam, have been pleased with the most flattering unan- 
 imity to elect me to the Chief Magistracy of these United States, but before 
 I can assume the functions of my office, I have come to bid you an efifection- 
 ate farewell. So soon as the weight of public business, which must neces- 
 sarily attend the outset of a new government can be disposed of, I shall 
 hasten to Virginia and " — here the matron interrupted with — "and you 
 will see me no more ; my great age, and the disease which is fast ap- 
 proaching my vitals warn me that I shall not be long in this world ; I 
 trust in God that I may be somewhat prepared for a better. But go, 
 George, fulfill the high destinies which Heaven appears to have intended 
 you for ; go, my son, and may that Heaven's and a mother's blessing be 
 with you always." In a letter to his sister, on learning of his mother's 
 death, he says : " Awful and afflicting as the death of a parent is, there is 
 consolation in knowing that Heaven has spared ours to an age beyond 
 which few attain, and favored her with the full enjoyment of her mental 
 faculties and as much bodily strength as usually falls to the lot of four 
 score. Under these circumstances, and the hope that she is translated to 
 a happier place, it is the duty of her relations to yield due submission to 
 the decree of the Creator." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 343 
 
 "17. Executing leases to those who had taken I^otts — being 
 at Capt? Ashby's. 
 
 "18. Went up to Green way Court where I dined and stayed 
 all Night — met Col? I^ewis here. 
 
 ''Mar. 19. Went with Col? Lewis to his Plantations where 
 I stayd all day & Night. 
 
 ' ' 20. Executing in the forenoon Deeds and settling with 
 those who had purch? Carters I,and upon Opeckon — in the 
 afternoon rid to Valentine Crawf ? 
 
 "21. Went and laid of 4 I^ots at the head of Bullskin for 
 several tenants. 
 
 "22. Filling up leases for them at Val Crawfords all day. 
 
 "23. Set of homewards — Breakfasted at MT Ariss's — din'd 
 at y^ Ridge & lodged at West's. 
 
 ' ' 24. Reached home before dinner — found Col? Bassett, I,ady 
 & 2 Child? Betcy & Nancy here also M^ WT Washington & 
 Jacky Custis. 
 
 " 25. Went Fox hunting with Col? Bassett & M^ Bryan Fair- 
 fax who also came here last night — started and run a fox into a 
 hole after an hours chase — M^ Fairfax went home after dinner. ' ' 
 
 The intelligent supervision Washington gave to his planta- 
 tions between 1760 and 1770, brought them into as fine condi- 
 tion as any land in the Mount Vernon region was susceptible 
 of. He stopped the washes in the fields, drained the wet lands 
 by proper ditching, made new clearings, refenced the fields, 
 made roads, erected comfortable houses, barns and quarters for 
 his people, rested the old fields in fallow, sowed clover, timothy 
 and other grasses for hay pasture and for enriching the soil, and 
 rotated his crops in the most judicious and practical manner. 
 He was a good judge of the quality of land and knew as well 
 as any man that the soil of his Mount Vernon estate was thin 
 and capable of yielding but moderate crops. However, he 
 seems never to have complained or expressed an inclination to 
 remove to better land. He owned large tracts of first-class 
 limestone land on the Bullskin in Frederick county, Virginia, 
 which he cultivated with profit. ^^ The facts are beyond ques- 
 ts Received from George Washington the i8th. day of Aug. 1764 The 
 Sum of two pounds three shillings for bringing down two Hhds of Tobo. 
 in Joseph Thompson's Waggon from Frederick) his 
 
 John # Bbnnet 
 Mark 
 
344 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 tion that he was deeply attached to his home on the Potomac, 
 and found his greatest enjoyment of life in the peaceful shades 
 of Mount Vernon and in the cultivation of its soil. ^5 From 
 1770 to the beginning of the Revolution he was gradually 
 drawn to reflect upon public affairs, and especially upon the 
 questions, then discussed, as to the rights of the Colonies under 
 the Crown. His Diaries covering this period show the frequent 
 visits to Mount Vernon of men of the first character in America 
 who were interested in the politics of the Colonies. 
 
 In 1770 he visited the Ohio river bottoms to select land for 
 the ofiicers and men who were entitled to them under Gov- 
 ernor Dinwiddle's proclamation of 1754, granting lands to those 
 who volunteered and served that year in the expedition to the 
 Ohio. Washington was among the first to call attention to the 
 desirableness and, he hoped, the practicability of having a con- 
 tinuous water navigation by canal, or otherwise, to near the 
 head of the Potomac and of the western rivers to the head of 
 some branch of the Ohio river on the west which would leave 
 but a short portage between. On the 20th of May, 1754, 
 while in command of the expedition to build forts at the head 
 of the Ohio, Washington, in a canoe, examined the Yougheny 
 river for about fifteen or twenty miles above " Turkey Foot" 
 and three below with a view of transporting his munitions of 
 war down that river in boats. Although Washington did not 
 find this stream in a condition to navigate boats that would 
 serve his purpose, the possible improvement of the navigation 
 so that craft of sufficient size to carry freight might eventually 
 be used well up into the Alleghany mountains, remained a 
 favorite project with him. His long military service on the 
 Virginia frontier led him to converse much with traders, 
 hunters and others familiar with the character of all the streams 
 
 29 Washington wrote December 12th, 1793, to Arthur Young in the fol- 
 lowing words of Mount Vernon : "No estate in united America is more 
 pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high dry and healthy country ; 
 in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, on one of the finest 
 rivers in the world, a river well stocked with shad, herring, bass, carp 
 and sturgeon. The borders of the Estate are washed by more than ten 
 miles of tide water." 
 
 At this time the Estate embraced in one compact body nearly 10,000 
 acres of land. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 345 
 
 draining to the Ohio and Mississippi and all the passes in the 
 mountains between the head springs of the streams draining to 
 the Potomac and the James rivers, and to consider the question 
 of a practical highway by some one of them. Although the 
 difficulties seemed almost insurmountable, he nevertheless 
 looked hopefully to such improvements in the art of naviga- 
 tion as to greatly assist in establishing a waterway for traffic 
 with an easy portage between the East and what he saw would 
 be the great and populous West in the near future. Washing- 
 ton had called such public attention to the subject that the 
 House of Burgesses of Virginia, December 5th, 1769, took the 
 following action, as their journal shows : 
 
 ' ' Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a bill for clearing 
 and making navigable the river Potomack, from the Great 
 Falls of the said river up to Fort Cumberland ; and that M^ 
 Richard Henry I<ee and MT Washington do prepare and bring 
 in the same." 
 
 In 1770, and again in 1784, Washington made something of 
 of a personal inspection of a possible portage between the waters 
 of the Monongahela and the Potomac during his return trip 
 from inspecting the Ohio bottom lands, and records his obser- 
 vations in his diary. In 1784 he wrote a strong letter to the 
 Governor of Virginia on the subject.3° His interest in canal 
 
 30 In a communication from Mount Vernon October loth, 1784, to Gov. 
 Harrison of Va., after discussing the question of the practicability on the 
 score of policy, Washington uses the following language : " I need not re- 
 mark to you, sir, that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed 
 by other powers and formidable ones, too ; nor how necessary it is to apply 
 the cement of interest to build all parts of the Union together by indissolu- 
 ble bonds, especially that part of it, which lies immediately west of us, 
 with the middle States. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon 
 these people ? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and 
 what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and 
 Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their 
 way, as they now do, should hold out lures for other trade and alliance ? 
 What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than most people 
 conceive (from the emigration of foreigners, who will have no particular 
 predilection towards us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens) 
 will be the consequence of them having formed close connexions with 
 both or either of those powers, in a commercial way? It needs not, in 
 my opinion, the gift of prophecy to foretell. 
 
346 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 navigation was well known, and when James Rumsey was, in 
 1786, experimenting at Sheplierdstown on the Potomac with a 
 boat to be propelled against a stream by machinery. Wash- 
 ington was invited to witness the performance of his boat, so 
 widely was it understood that he was an influential promoter 
 of new inventions. — {See his letter to Rumsey in Sparks.) 
 
 In 1774, when the discontent among the American Colonies 
 became so great that a conference of representatives from the 
 Provinces was resolved upon to secure unity of action, Wash- 
 ington was selected, with great unanimity, as one of the 
 delegates sent by Virginia to the meeting at Philadelphia in 
 September. He attended this one and also a second Congress, 
 which assembled there the following year. 
 
 Washington's great and priceless services to America in the 
 clash of arms which shortly after ensued between the Mother 
 Country and the Colonies are, I am fain to believe, known to 
 every American capable of enjoying civil liberty. For this 
 reason the period of the Revolution is thus summarily passed 
 over. It is also known that throughout that memorable 
 struggle it was Washington's personal, magnetic patriotism, and 
 the faith his soldiers had that he would devise means3' to over- 
 
 "The Western States (I speak now from my own observation) stand as 
 it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. 
 They have looked down the Mississippi, until the Spaniards, very im- 
 politically I think for themselves, threw difficulties in their waj' ; and 
 they looked that way for no other reason than because they could glide 
 gently down the stream ; without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of 
 the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in, and be- 
 cause they have no other means of coming to us but by long land trans- 
 portations and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked 
 the industry of the present settlers ; for except the demand for provisions 
 occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the 
 necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitement 
 to labor. But smooth the road, and make easy the way for them, and 
 then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us ; how amazing 
 your exports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be 
 compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to efiect it." 
 
 31 Pen-pictures of Washington by capable hands at different periods of 
 his life, possess an especial interest. The following description of the 
 General's personal appearance in 1778 is taken from Dr. James Thatcher's 
 "Military Journal of the Revolution," page 150 : 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 347 
 
 come the apparently insurmountable diflSculty of keeping 
 him to his forces in the field against the enemy, in spite 
 of an empty exchequer, a depleted commissary and a lack of 
 
 "The personal appearance of our Commander-in-Chief is that of the perfect gentle- 
 man and accomplished -warrior. He is remarkably tall, full six feet, erect and well 
 proportioned. The strength and proportion of his joints and muscles appear to be 
 commensurate with the preeminent power of his mind. The serenity of his counte- 
 nance and majestic gracefulness of his deportment, impart a strong impression of that 
 dignity and grandeur, which are his peculiar characteristics, and no one can stand in 
 his presence without feeling the ascendancy of his mind and associating with his 
 countenance the idea of wisdom, philanthropy, magnanimity and patriotism. There 
 is a fine symmetry in the features of his face indicative of a benign and dignified 
 spirit. His nose is straight, and his eyes inclined to blue. He wears his hair in a 
 becoming cue, and from his forehead it is turned back and powdered in a manner 
 which adds to the military air of his appearance. He displays a native gravity, but 
 devoid of all appearance of ostentation. His uniform dress is a blue coat with two 
 brilliant epaulets, buff colored underclothes, and a three-cornered hat with a black 
 cockade. He is constantly equipped with an elegant small sword, boots and spurs, in 
 readiness to mount his noble charger." 
 
 The following appears as a note in the first volume of Sparks, page no, 
 relative to the stature of General Washington : "From an order, which 
 he sent to a tailor in Ivondon, we learn the size of his person. He de- 
 scribes himself as ' six feet high and proportionably made ; if anything 
 rather slender for a person of that heighth, ' and adds that his limbs were 
 long. At this time he was thirty-one years old. In exact measure, his 
 heighth was six feet, three inches." 
 
 An admirable delineation of General Washington's personal ap- 
 pearance the year before the Yorktown surrender was published in the 
 London Chronicle in the following language ; " General Washington is 
 now in the forty-seventh year of his age. He is a tall, well-made man, 
 rather large-boned, and has a genteel address. His features are manly 
 and bold ; his eyes are a bluish cast and very lively ; his hair is a deep 
 brown, his face rather long, and marked with the smallpox, his com- 
 plexion sunburnt and without much color. His countenance sensible, 
 composed and thoughtful. There is a remarkable air of dignity about 
 him, with a striking degree of gracefulness. He has an excellent under- 
 standing, without much quickness ; is strictly just, vigilant, and generous ; 
 an affectionate husband, a faithful friend, a father to the deserving soldier, 
 gentle in his manners, in temper, reserved ; a total stranger to religious 
 prejudices ; in morals, irreproachable, and never known to exceed the 
 bounds of the most rigid temperance. In a word, all his friends and 
 acquaintances allow that no man ever united in his own person a more 
 perfect alliance of the virtues of a philosopher with the talents of a 
 general. Candor, sincerity, affability, and simplicity seem to be the 
 striking features of his character ; and when occasion offers, the power 
 of displaying the most determined bravery and independence of spirit." 
 
348 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 clotliing.3^ This was a period of extreme hardships and the 
 deficiencies in necessary supplies put to a supreme test the 
 greatness of Washington as a leader and a patriot; and 
 required a fortitude and an inventive genius of the highest 
 order to keep his army together. His virtues and rectitude 
 from the beginning and his conduct at every stage of the 
 contest determined the end and crowned the work. Washing- 
 ton was referred to by I<ord Byron as the great Cincinnatus of 
 the West, who, like his classic prototype, was called from his 
 favorite pursuit, that of agriculture, to command the armies of 
 his country, in defence of its liberty, against a formidable 
 enemy. Having brought the struggle to a successful issue, 
 Washington, like Cincinnatus, was tempted with a crown, and 
 like him unconditionally laid down supreme power to become 
 once more the private citizen ; and returned, like Cincinnatus, 
 to his plow and to peaceful pursuits. 
 
 Washington possessed, to an eminent degree, those special 
 qualities which are characteristic of the most astute inventors, 
 and had not his time been so fully taken up in the important 
 affairs of his country, he would, in all probability, have given 
 
 32 The following extract from the "Travels of the Marquis de Chas- 
 tellux in North America in the years i78o-'8i-'82," forcibly illustrates 
 this point : 
 
 " Four or five miles from Fishkill, I saw some felled trees, and an opening in the 
 woods, which on coming nearer I discovered to be a camp, or rather huts inhabited by 
 some hundred invalid soldiers. These invalids were all in very good health ; but it is 
 necessary to observe, that in the American armies, every soldier is called an invalid, who 
 is unfit for service ; now these had been sent here because their clothes were truly in- 
 valids. These honest fellows, for I will not say creatures, (they know too well how to 
 suffer, and are suflEering in too noble a cause) were not covered, even with rags ; but their 
 steady countenance, and their good arms in good order, seemed to supply the defect of 
 clothes, and to display nothing but their courage and their patience." 
 
 Washington in writing Gov. Trumbull on the condition] and needs of 
 the army December 29th, 1777, says ; "I assure you sir, it is not easy to 
 give you a just and accurate idea of the sufferings of the army at large, 
 of the loss of men on this account [want of clothing]. Were they to be 
 minutely detailed your feelings would be wounded, and the relation would 
 probably be received with a degree of doubt and discredit. We had in 
 camp, on the 23d inst., by a field return then taken, not less than 2,898 
 men unfit for duty, by reason of their being barefoot and otherwise naked. 
 Besides this number, sufficiently distressing of itself, there are many others 
 detained in hospitals and crowded in farmers' houses for the same causes. " 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 349 
 
 much attention to improvements in agriculture and the 
 machinery and implements used in the domestic arts, which 
 are so essential to the comforts of civilized life. Washington 
 had made for him the first pump used in the town of Alex- 
 andria, and another at Mount Vernon, at a time when but 
 few had been put in competition with ' ' the old oaken bucket, ' ' 
 the rope and windlass, or the balance lift, so common in wells 
 throughout the South in early days. He had the genius to see 
 things as they were and to appreciate their true relation. He 
 eliminated accidental causes or other circumstances, whether as 
 to time, men or things ; make original observations and reflect 
 upon what he saw. He could make combinations, or divide 
 forces, and had a just sense of the bearing and influence of one 
 thing upon another. 
 
 About the period of his return to Mount Vernon, after the 
 war, he was in the enjoyment of his highest physical 
 vigor and mental activity. 33 At this time circumstances had 
 
 33 1 am confident I will be excused in asking space, in a note, for this 
 exquisite, though but little known, pen portrait of General Washington, 
 drawn by the capable and appreciative hand of the Marquis de Chastellux, 
 near the close of the Revolution : 
 
 " Here would be the proper place to give the portrait of General Washington, but 
 what can my testimony add to the idea already formed of him ? The continent of 
 North America, from Boston to Charleston, is a great volume, every page of which 
 presents his eulogium. I know, that having had the opportunity of a near inspection , 
 and of closely observing him, some more particular details may be expected from me ; 
 but the strongest characteristic of this respectable man is the perfect union which 
 reigns between the physical and moral qualities which compose the individual ; one 
 alone will enable you to judge of all the rest. If you are presented with medals of 
 Ceesar, of Trojan, or Alexander, on examining their features, you will still be led to 
 ask what was their stature, and the form of their persons ; but if you discover, in a heap 
 of ruins, the head or the limb of an antique Apollo^ be not curious about the other 
 parts, but rest assured that they all were conformable to those of a god. Let not this 
 comparison be attributed to enthusiasm ! It is not my intention to exaggerate, I wish 
 only to express the impression General Washington has left on my mind ; the idea of 
 a perfect whole, that cannot be the product of enthusiasm, which rather would reject 
 it, since the effect of proportion is to diminish the idea of greatness. Brave without 
 temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without 
 pride, virtuous without severity ; he seems always to have confined himself within those 
 limits, where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively, but more changeable 
 and doubtful colours, may be mistaken for faults. This is the seventh year that he has 
 commanded the army, and that he has obeyed the Congress ; more need not be said, 
 especially in America, where they know how to appreciate all the merits contained in 
 this simple fact. I<et it be repeated that Cond^ was intrepid, Turenne pfudeut, Eugene 
 adroit, Catinat disinterested. It is not thus that Washington will be characterized. 
 It will be said of hinr, at the end of a long civil war, he had nothing with 
 WHICH he could reproach HIMSELF. If any thing can be more marvellous than 
 
350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 forced upon him a very heavy correspondence, foreign and 
 domestic, on a multitude of subjects. His social duties, too, 
 had become exacting, in receiving and entertaining, at his own 
 house, great numbers of visitors of note from the several States, 
 and also from abroad. In this oflSce he was ably assisted by 
 Mrs. Washington.3+ He now planned extensive improvements 
 to the Mount Vernon Mansion-house and its grounds. While 
 he was strongly imbued with progressive ideas, he was by no 
 means an iconoclast. He therefore endeavored to preserve 
 whatever was serviceable in the old Mansion-house, which he 
 did by extending it to the north and south, and raising the 
 whole structure to two full stories with a finished attic, crowned 
 with a cupola. He also erected a wide, open piazzass the fuU 
 
 such a character, it is the unanimity of the public suffrages in his favour. Soldier, 
 magistrate, people, all love and admire him ; all speak of him in terms of tenderness 
 and veneration. Does there then exist a virtue capable of restraining the injustice of 
 mankind ; or are glory and happiness too recently established in America, for envy to 
 have deigned to pass the seas ? 
 
 "In speaking of this perfect whole of which General Washington furnishes the 
 idea, I have not excluded exterior form. His stature is noble and lofty, he is well 
 made, and exactly proportioned ; his physiognomy mild and agreeable, but such as to 
 render it impossible to speak particularly of any of his features, so that in quitting 
 him, you have only the recollection of a fine face. He has neither a grave nor a 
 familiar air, his brow is sometimes marked with thought, but never with inquietude ; 
 in inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, and his smile is always the smile of 
 benevolence." [Pages 71-72.] 
 
 3+ Although relieved from public office, Washington was not freed from 
 care and the obligations that follow those who have filled important posi- 
 tions. The rest craved by the General and Mrs. Washington was not 
 granted to them. Indeed, it may be doubted if they found any considerable 
 retirement in their loved Mount Vernon home. Writing to General Knox, 
 Washington said : "It is not the letters from my friends which give me 
 trouble, or add aught to my perplexity. It is references to old matters, with 
 which I have nothing to do ; applications which oftentimes cannot be com- 
 plied with ; inquiries which would require the pen of an historian to satisfy; 
 letters of compliment, as unmeaning perhaps as they are troublesome, 
 but which must be attended to, and the commonplace business which 
 employs my pen and my time, often disagreeably. Indeed these, with 
 company, deprive me of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be 
 productive of disagreeable consequences." 
 
 35 The piazza is from end to end 96 feet long by 12 feet 8 inches wide 
 with the border, and two stories high, supported on eight graceful 
 square columns, the effect of the whole, whether viewed from the lawn or 
 from the deck of a steamer on the river, is light and pleasing. The 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 351 
 
 height and length of the mansion on the river front ; and while 
 exercising proper economy, he did all the work of alteration in 
 the most substantial manner after his own designs and 
 drawings. 
 
 Washington's love of agriculture and a life in the open coun- 
 try led him to see beauty, to an unusual degree, in the forms 
 and colorings of nature ; so that in riding through the woods, 
 he was frequently delighted with the grace and symmetry of 
 some tree, a specimen of which he would instantly resolve to 
 have on his lawn and note the fact in his diary, describing it 
 by name and where it was to be found, af also where he de- 
 sired it to be planted. 36 The following extracts from his diary 
 illustrate his admiration for our forest trees : 
 
 ' ' Tuesday, Febry. 22^ 178^ ***** Removed two 
 pretty large & full-grown lilacs to the N? Garden gate — one on 
 
 enlarged and renovated "cottage" or "villa," as Washington occasion- 
 ally called liis old mansion, was nearly completed iu 1785. Although both 
 the General and his wife earnestly desired a quiet, peaceful home, the man 
 who had laid the foundation of the republic was too great a personage to 
 be left alone or in seclusion. The enlargement of his "villa " was prac- 
 tically forced upon him to enable him to give a respectable reception to 
 the many visits he was daily receiving from his countrymen, strangers, 
 soldiers, and civilians, who by a sort of intuition and sense of reverence, 
 began pilgrimages to " Mount Vernon, " which have never been inter- 
 rupted, but are yearly on the increase. This broad piazza, during the 
 General's lifetime, was a sort of trysting place in summer evenings where 
 the family, guests and neighbors in their informal calls assembled for an 
 hour's chat at the close of day. In the appraiser's list of household 
 effects at Mount Vernon after the General's death, thirty Windsor chairs 
 were enumerated as furniture on the piazza. 
 
 36 The ornamental lawn on the west front of the mansion, containing 
 about 20 acres, with serpentine carriage drive along each side, was laid 
 out by the General himself, the drawing of which, in his own hand, is still 
 preserved. Directly in front of the center door of the house is a large circle 
 with a sun dial in the center, it is an exact reproduction of the one placed 
 there by the General. Along each side of the serpentine roadway, Washing- 
 ton planted a great variety of our most beautiful native forest trees for orna- 
 ment and shade. A number of the trees planted by the General still 
 flourish on this lawn. Extensive gardens border on these grounds. The 
 flower garden on the north and the vegetable garden on the south, are both 
 enclosed by massive brick walls. The flower garden and green house is 
 maintained in nearly its original form and contains many of the same 
 kinds of plants cultivated there by General Washington. 
 
352 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 eacli side, taking up as much dirt with the roots as c? be well 
 obtained. * * * I also removed from the woods and old 
 fields, several young trees of the sassafras, Dogwood & Red- 
 bud, to the Shrubbery on the N° side the grass plot. 
 
 " Wednesday, 23^ * * * =f: Brought down a number 
 of young Aspen trees from one of Sam'. Jenkins's near the old 
 Court House to transplant into the serpentine Avenues to the 
 door. 
 
 " Monday, 28'.'' ***** Planted all the Mulberry 
 trees. Maple trees, & Black gums in my Serpentine walks — 
 and the Poplars on the right walk. * * * Also planted 4 
 trees from M. Hole, the name unknown but of a brittle wood 
 which has the smell of Mulberry. 
 
 " Tuesday, March i'.' 1785 * * * * Planted the re- 
 mainder of the Poplars and part of the Ash Trees — also a circle 
 of Dogwood with a red bud ih the Middle close to the old 
 cherry tree near the south garden H? 
 
 " Wednesday, 2^ * * * * Planted the remainder of 
 the Ash Trees — in the Serpentine Walks — the remainder of 
 the fringe trees in the Shrubberies — all the black haws — all 
 the large berried thorns — with a small berried one in the 
 middle of each clump — 6 small berried thorns with a large one 
 in the middle of each clump — all the swamp red berry bushes 
 & one clump of locust trees. 
 
 ' ' Thursday, jf * * * * Planted the remainder of the 
 I^ocusts — Sassafras — small berried thorns & yellow Willow in 
 the Shrubberies as also the red buds — a honey Locust and Service 
 berry tree by the south garden House — ^likewise took up the 
 clump of Lilacs that stood at the corner of the south grass plot 
 & transported them to the Shrubberies & standards at the 
 South garden gate — the Althea trees were also planted." 
 
 Washington records in his ' ' Journal of my Journey Over 
 the Mountains, ' ' page 20 : 
 
 " Sunday, March ij'!' 174.7-8 — Rode to his Lordship's Quar- 
 ters ; about 4 Miles higher up y'^ River we went through Most 
 beautiful Groves of Sugar trees & spent y^ best part of y^ Day 
 in admiring y^ trees & richness of y^ land." 
 
 It would seem from his Diary, while at Mount Vernon, from 
 1783 to 1789, that he was endeavoring to have good represen- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 353 
 
 tative specimens of all or most of our beautiful forest trees 
 which would thrive in this climate transplanted to his grounds. 
 He continued to give close, personal attention to this matter 
 until he was called to assume the duties of President of the 
 United States.s? Even then he did not intermit his interest, as 
 his letters of instruction to his overseers, and his shipments of 
 
 37 The 4tii of Marcli, 1789, had been fixed for the meeting of the First 
 Congress under the Constitution of the United States, and an election for 
 President directed to be held in February, 1789. It had been announced 
 that the people of nine of the thirteen States had approved and adopted 
 the Constitution submitted through the I<egislatures to them. Two, 
 Rhode Island and North Carolina, had not come to a decisive action, but 
 did within two years provided for. The absence of a quorum prevented 
 the organization of Congress until the 6th of April. The votes of the 
 electors were then opened and counted, and George Washington's elec- 
 tion to the Presidency of the United States, which was duly declared, and 
 a special messenger, Charles Thomson, dispatched to Mount Vernon with 
 an official letter from the President of the Senate to General Washington 
 notifying him of the fact and requesting his attendance. Washington 
 was deeply sensible of the responsibility attached to the office, as the fol- 
 lowing extract from his diary written the day of his departure for New 
 York, April 16, 1789, Mrs. Washington following him, leaving Mount 
 Vernon 19th May : "About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, 
 to private life, and to domestie felicity, and with a mind oppressed with 
 more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out 
 for New York in company with Mr. Thomson and Colonel Humphreys, 
 with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to 
 its calls, but with less hope of answering its expectations." In a letter 
 to General Knox April ist, 1789, he wrote : "I feel for those members of 
 the new Congress, who hitherto have given an unwavering attendance at 
 the theater of action. For myself, the delay may be compared to a re- 
 prieve ; for in confidence I tell j/om, (with the world it would obtain little 
 credit) that my movements to the chair of government will be accompa- 
 nied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of 
 his execution. So unwilling am I in the evening of life, nearly consumed 
 in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties, with- 
 out that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which 
 are necessary to manage the helm. I am sensible that I am embarking 
 the voice of the people and a good name of my own, on this voyage, but 
 what returns can be made of them. Heaven alone can foretell. Integrity 
 and firmness are all I can promise. These, be the voyage long or short, 
 shall never forsake me ; although I may be deserted by all men ; for of 
 the consolations which are to be derived from them, under any circum- 
 stances, the world cannot deprive me." 
 
354 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 shrubbery to Mount Vernon testify. A bill from Bartram's 
 Nursery at PhiladelpWa, as late as 1792, of choice shrubbery 
 to make good failures of plants in a former order, is preserved 
 in the Department of State. The first has also been preserved, 
 but is without date. They illustrate so well his taste and fond- 
 ness for beautiful trees and shrubbery and his attention to the 
 embellishment of his Mount Vernon grounds, that the latter 
 order is given in full in a note.s^ 
 
 38 The writer some years since gave a copy of this list of trees and 
 shrubs, the original of which is preserved among the Washington papers 
 in the Department of State, to cue of the vice-regents of Mount Vernon, 
 who, it is understood, is making an eflFort to have restored to the lawns 
 and gardens as many specimens of the trees and shrubs, known to have 
 been planted there by Washington, as is practicable. It is also reported 
 that this lady submitted the list to one of the leading florists of our 
 country and has already made progress in having specimens called for in 
 this list, planted at Mount Vernon. 
 
 List of Trees Shrubs &ca had of Ju? Bartram to supply the place of 
 those of his catalogue of M; 92 which failed. 
 
 Novr 7tli 1792. 
 N9 2.d Ulex europeus E grows frm 3 to 4 feet high. Embellished with 
 
 sweet scented flowers of a fine yellow colour, 
 a. 3. Hyperieum kalmeanum 3 to 4 ft. Profusely garnished with fine 
 
 gold coloured blossoms — 2 plants. 
 4. Hyperie: Angustifolium 3 to 6 ft. Evergreen, adorned with fine 
 
 yellow flowers. 
 e. 5. Taxus procumbens 3 to 6 ft. Evergreen — of a splendid full green 
 
 throughout the year — red berries. 
 
 6. Buscus aureus E 3 to 10 ft. Elegant, called gilded box. 
 
 7. Daphne mezerium E. i to 3 ft. An early flowering sweet scented 
 
 little Shrub. 
 7. Calycanthus floridus 4 to 8 ft. Odoriferous, its blossoms scented like 
 
 the Pine apple. 
 E. 10. .i^sculus hippocastanum 20, 40, to 50 ft. A magnificent flowering 
 
 and shady tree. 
 II. Evonimus atrapurpurius 6 to 8 ft. Its fruit of a bright crimson in 
 
 the autumn {burning bush) 3 plants. 
 13. Franklinia 3, 15 to 2oft. Flowers large, white and fragrant. Native 
 
 of Georgia. 
 16. Kalmia angustifolia i to 2 ft. Evergreen garnished with crimson 
 
 speckled flowers, 4 plants. 
 
 24. Halesia tetraptera 4, 10, to 15 ft. Flowers abundant, white, of the 
 
 shape of little bells. 
 
 25. Viburnum opulifolium 3 to 7 ft. Of singular beauty in flower & fruit. 
 27. Virburnum alnifolium 3 to 6 ft. Handsome flowering shrub. 
 
 29. Sorbus Sativa E 10, 15 to 30 ft. It's fruit pear and apple shaped, as 
 
 large and well tasted when mellow. 
 31. Sorbus aucuparia 8, 15 to 30 ft. Foliage elegant ; embellished with 
 
 umbells of coral red berries. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 355 
 
 Washington was strongly inclined to engage in experimental 
 tests and demonstrations, and on a wide range of subjects, as 
 the following extracts from his Diary will evince : 
 
 ''December i, 1785. ****** in order to try 
 the difference between burning Spermaciti and tallow candles 
 — I took one of each 
 
 "The i!' weighing 3 oz 10 p 6 gr 
 " 2^ Ditto 5 " 2 p 
 and lighted them at the same instant — the first burnt 8 hours 
 and 21 minutes ; when of the latter there remained 14 penny- 
 weights which continued to burn one hour and a quarter 
 longer, making in all 9 hours and 30 minutes. — By which it 
 appears (as both burnt without flairing) that, estimating 
 spermaciti Candles at 3 / per lb & Tallow candles at i / pT lb 
 the former is dearer than the latter as 30 is to nearly 13. In 
 other words more than 2% dearer." 
 
 e. 36. Stewartea malachodendron 5 to 8 ft. Floriferous, the flowers large 
 and white, embellished with a large tuft of black or purple 
 threads in their centre. 
 
 38. Styrax grandifolium 3 to 10 ft. A most charming flowering shrub, 
 
 blossoms snow white, & of the most grateful scent (call'd 
 Snow-drop tree.) 
 
 39. Philadelphus coronarius B 4, 6, 10 ft. A sweet flowering shrub (called 
 
 mock orange). 
 
 40. Philadelphus inodorus 5, 7, 10 ft. His robe a silver flowered mantle. 
 e4i. Pinus Strobus 50, 80, 100 ft. Magnificent! he presides in the ever- 
 green Groves (White Pine), ^plants. 
 
 *f42. Pinus communis E 20, 40, 60 ft. A stately tree, foliage of a Sea 
 green colour, and exhibits a good appearance whilst young. 
 [Scotch, Fir.) 
 
 *43. Pinus L,arix E 40 to 60 ft. Elegant figure & foliage. 
 
 45. Robinia villosa i, 2, 3, 5, 6 ft. A gay shrub enrobed with plum'd 
 leaves and roseat flowers, j plants. 
 
 52. Prunus chicasa 6, 8, 10 ft. Early flowers, very fruitful ; the fruit 
 nearly round, cleft, red, purple, yellow of an inticing look, 
 most agreeable taste & wholesome, (chicasaw Plum.) 
 
 57. .^sculus alba i, 4, 6 ft. The branches terminate with long erect 
 spikes of sweet white flowers. 
 
 E 58. Juniperus sabina i to 5. Evergreen. 
 
 + 54. .^sculus pavia 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 ft. It's light and airy foliage crim- 
 son and variegated flowers, present a gay & mirthful appear- 
 ance ; continually, whilst in bloom, visited by the brilliant 
 thundering Huming-bird. The root of this tree is esteemed 
 preferable to Soap, for scouring & cleansing woolen clothes. 
 {2 plants). 
 
 c. 63. Myrica gale 2 to 4 ft. Possesses an highly aromatic, and very agree- 
 able scent. {3 plants). 
 
 69. Mespilus pubescens 2, 3, 4 ft. An early flowering shrub of great ele- 
 gance, produces very pleasant fruit. (2 plants). 
 
356 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, perhaps, that in a new country, 
 sparsely settled, and with but few skilled mechanics, early 
 colonial farmers as a general rule continued to use the imple- 
 ments they found in use, and gave but little thought to their 
 efficiency or made any effort to improve them. The use of fer- 
 tilizers, too, was grudgingly and slowly resorted to bj' Ameri- 
 can farmers, who affected to have the most unbounded faith in 
 the strength and endurance of the virgin soil of the country. 
 The better farmers, however, gradually began to study the best 
 methods of keeping up the tilth of their lands, and to experi- 
 ment with different fertilizers and test the relative values of 
 them for the various crops. The following extract from Wash- 
 
 E. f- 72. Colutia arboroscens 3, 6, 10 ft. Exhibits a good appearance ; 
 foliage pinnated, of a soft pleasant green colour, interspers'd 
 with large yellow papillionacious flowers in succession. 
 
 77. Prunus Divaricata 6, 8 ft Diciduons, flowers white in raumes, stems 
 
 diverging & branches pendulous. 
 
 78. Hydrangia arborescens 3, 5, to 6 ft. Ornamental in shruberies — 
 
 flowers white in large corymbes. 
 
 79. Andromeda exilaris i to 3 ft Evergreen. 
 
 80. Acer pumilum, s, montanum 4 to 8 ft. Handsome shrub for coppices 
 
 foliage singular, younger shoots red. 
 84 Rubus odoratus 3 to 7 ft. Foliage beautiful ; flowers of the figure, 
 
 colour & fragrance of the Rose. 
 E. 92. Laurus nobilis 10, 20, 30 ft. Sweet Bay, a celebrated evergreen — 
 
 leaves odoriferous. 
 
 c. lor. Arundo donax 5, 6, 8 ft Maiden Cane. 
 In addition to the above, — 
 
 N9 I. Mespilus pyracantha. Evergreen Thorn, a very beautiful flower- 
 ing shrub ; in flowers & fruit, evergreen in moderate climates, 
 and not to be exceeded in usefulness, for hedge Fences &ca 
 
 October 30O1 1792. 
 The following Letters in the margin serve to explain the natural soil 
 & situation of the Trees, Shrubs &ca 
 
 a. rich, moist, loose or loamy soil, in shade of other trees. 
 
 b. rich deep soil. 
 
 0. wet moorish soil. 
 
 d. Dry indifferent soil. 
 
 e. A good loamy moist soil in any situation. 
 
 f. Any soil and situation. 
 E. Exoticks. — 
 
 [The following in General Washington's handwriting is written on 
 the same sheet] 
 
 Birections for disposing of the Trees, Shrubs &ca mentioned in the 
 aforegoing list. — The intention of giving the heights to which they may 
 grow, is, that except in the centre of the Six Ovals in the west Lawn ; — 
 and at each end of the two- large Ovals ; none of the tall, or lofty grow- 
 ing trees (evergreens) are to be planted.— But this I would have done in 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 357 
 
 ington's Diary shows that he was also engaged in this class of 
 experiments : — 
 
 In his notes and observations on agriculture, under date of 
 April 7th, 1786, he records these experiments : " Cut two or 
 three rows of wheat (cape wheat within six inches of the 
 ground), it being near eighteen inches high, that which was 
 first sown, and the blades of the whole singed with the frost." 
 
 "Monday, Jany 30'!" 1786 * ********* 
 :it * * **************** 
 
 On sixteen square rod of ground in my lower pasture, I put 
 140 Bushels of what we call Marie viz on 4 of these, N° W' 
 corner were placed 50 bushels — on 4 others S° W comer 30 
 bushels — on 4 others S° E' comer 40 bushels — and on the re- 
 maining 4= 20 bushels. This Marl was spread on the sod in 
 these preportions — to try first whether what we have denomi- 
 nated to be Marl possesses any virtue as a manure — and 
 secondly — if it does, the quantity proper for an acre." 
 
 In a letter to General I^incoln, dated Mount Vernon, 6th Feb. , 
 1786, General Washington uses the following language in 
 relation to a supposed important discovery : 
 
 "The discovery of extracting fresh water from salt, by a 
 simple process and without the aid of fire, will be of amazing 
 importance to the sons of Neptune, if it is not vitiated or ren- 
 dered nauseous by the operation, and can be made to answer 
 all the valuable purposes of other fresh water at sea. Every 
 
 all of them whether any thing occupies these particular spots, or not : — 
 removing them if they do, to some other parts of the aforesaid Ovals. — 
 At each end of the 4 Smaller Ovals, trees of middling growth (for in- 
 stance those which Rise to 15, 20, or even to thirty feet) may be planted. — 
 My meaning is, that in the Centre of every Oval (if it is not already 
 there) one of the lofty growing trees should be planted ; and the same 
 done at each end of the two large Ovals ; — and at the ends of the 4 
 Smaller ones, trees of lesser size to be planted. — ^The other parts of all of 
 them to receive the Shrubs — ^putting the tallest, always, nearest the Mid- 
 dle, letting them decline more into dwarfs towards the outer parts. — This 
 was my intention when they were planted in the Ovals last Spring— but 
 I either did not express myself clearly — or the directions were not at- 
 tended to. — I now hope they will be understood, and attended to, both. — 
 The two trees marked thus (*) in the Margin, I would have planted by 
 the Garden gates opposite to the Spruce Pines. — I believe common pine 
 are now in the places where I intended these, but they may be removed, 
 being placed there merely to fill up the space. — If any of these tall grow- 
 ing trees are now in any other part of the Ovals, except those here men- 
 tioned (and that you may be enabled better to ascertain this, I send you 
 
358 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 maritime power in the world in this case ought, in my opinion, 
 to offer some acknowledgment to the inventor." {Spark's 
 Washington) . 
 
 '' Feby. 6-- 1786. ****** Planting pines in the 
 wilderness on the left of the lawn and spading the ground there. 
 
 " Friday 10 Feby ****** Making up the banks 
 round y? Serpentine walks to the front gate. 
 
 ''Saturday ii'!" ****** Brought a Goose & 
 Gander of the Chinese breed of Geese, from the Reverand 
 M^ Griffiths— and also two of the large white (or Portugal) 
 Peach Trees ; — and 2 Scions from a tree growing in his garden 
 to which he could give no name — ^The last for my Shrubberies. 
 
 " Tuesday Feby 1^9 * * * * Employed all the women 
 and weak hands (who on account of the snow) could not work 
 out, in picking the wild onions from the Eastern Shore Oat for 
 seed. 
 
 " Monday March 6'?^ ************ 
 * * Returned to the erection of my deer Paddock, which 
 the bad weather had impeaded, brought carts from the Planta- 
 tion to assist in drawing in the materials for the work. 
 
 "Monday March ij*!^ ****** Began to raise 
 the Mound of Earth on the right of the Gate coming in. 
 
 " Thursday March j(5« ********** * 
 Finished the Mound on the right and planted the largest 
 
 a list of what went from Bartrams Garden last Spring) I would have them 
 removed, so as to conform to these directions ; — and if there be more 
 with what are now sent, than are sufficient to comply with these direc- 
 tions, there may be one on each side of the two large Ovals, making five 
 in each. — You will observe that these Pinus Strobus (or white Pines) are 
 the loftiest of all the Tall trees which now are, or have been sent ; and 
 that it is these which are to form your centre trees — and the end trees of 
 the two large Ovals. — 
 
 I must request also that except the large trees for the Centre & sides 
 no regularity may be observed in planting the other in the Ovals. — This 
 I particularly desired last Spring, but found when I got home it was not 
 attended to. — 
 
 When you have disposed of all the trees & Shrubs agreeably to these 
 directions return this Paper, and the general list which accompanies it, 
 back again to me ; as I may have occasion for them in procuring plants 
 in future. 
 
 Note — If there are now growing in the Ovals, as many as 4 of the Hemlock Spruce 
 (sent last Spring) let them be taken up when the ground is hard & deep frozen in 
 the winter, & placed on the sides of the two large Ovals instead of the white 
 Pines, w*^. you might have put there in consequence of the aforegoing directions. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 359 
 
 weeping Willow in my nursery in the center of it — ground too 
 wet to do anything to the other Mound on the left. 
 
 " Saturday, March iS'!' ****** Got the Mound 
 on the left so far compleated as to plant the next largest of my 
 weeping willows thereon. 
 
 " Tuesday, March 28'!' * * * Replaced the following 
 trees in my Shrubberies which were dead or supposed to be so 
 viz ID Swamp Magnolia 4 Red Buds — 5 Black Haws — 3 
 Locusts I swamp Red Berry. 
 
 ' ' Tuesday, April 4^!' ij86 * * Planted 6 of the pride of 
 China brought from M^ Lyons by G. A. Washington in my 
 Shrubberies in front of the House — 3 on each side the Right & 
 left Walks between the Houses & garden gates — and also the 
 two young trees sent me some time ago by M^ Grifi&th to which 
 no name had been given — these latter were planted, one on 
 each side the right & left walks, — near the garden gates on the 
 hither or E' side. 
 
 ' ' Thursday (J^* ***** * Transplanted 46 of the 
 large Magnolia of S? Carolina from the box brought by G. A. 
 Washington last year — viz 6 at the head of each of the Ser- 
 pentine Walks next the circle — 26 in the Shrubbery or grove 
 at the south end of the house & 8 in that at the N? end — the 
 ground was so wet, more could not at this time be planted 
 there." 
 
 The following extracts from Washington's Diary give the 
 details of his experiments in making what he called a ' ' Barrel 
 Plow," to be attached to a harrow in such a manner as to 
 deposit seed in the ground when in motion : 
 
 "Friday April f I' 1786 ***** Rid to Muddy hole 
 Plantation and finding the ground which had been twice plowed 
 to make my experiments in was middling dry in some places, 
 though wet in others, I tried my drill or Barrel Plow, which 
 requiring some alterations in the harrow, obliged me to bring it 
 to the Smith' s-Shop — this suspended my further operation with 
 it to-day. 
 
 ' 'April <?'* Sowed oats to-day in drills at Muddy Hole with 
 my barrel plough ********** 
 
 "■Apfil zz'* Sowed twenty -six rows of barley in the same 
 field at Muddy Hole in the same manner with the drill Plough, 
 
36o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and with precisely the same workings ( culture) the Oats had — 
 adjoining thereto — ^This was done with 12 q*^ of S?." 
 
 During the spring, summer and fall of this year he con- 
 tinues experiments with his barrel plough and says: "Will 
 try the experiment of sowing with a six foot barrel and with 
 grain dropped six inches square apart." 
 
 ' ' Saturday ^M ***** * Rid a little after sun rise 
 to Muddy hole to try my drill plow again which with the 
 alteration of the harrow yesterday I find will fully answer my 
 expectation — and that it drops the grains thicker, or thinner in 
 proportion to the quantity of seed in the Barrel — the less there 
 is in it the faster it issues from the holes — the weight of a 
 quantity in the barrel, occasions I (presume) a pressure on the 
 holes that do not admit of a free discharge of the seed through 
 them — whereas a small quantity (suflBcient at all times to cover 
 the bottom of the barrel) is in a manner sifted through them 
 by the revolution of the barrel. 
 
 " I sowed with the barrel to-day in drills about 3 pints of a 
 white well looking oat brought from Carolina last year by 
 G. A. Washington in 7 rows running from the path leading 
 from the Overseers H? to the Quarter to the west fence of the 
 field where the ground was in the best order. — Afterwards I 
 sowed in such other parts of the adjoining ground as could at 
 any rate be worked, the common oat of the Eastern shore (after 
 picking out the wild onion) but in truth nothing but the late 
 season could warrent sowing in ground so wet. 
 
 ' 'Monday laPj- Began my brick work to-day — first taking the 
 foundations of the Garden Houses as they were first placed, 
 and repairing the damages in the walls occasioned by the re- 
 moval — and also began to put my pallisads on the wall. — 
 
 ' ' Compleated sowing with 20 quarts the drilled oats in the 
 ground intended for experiments at Muddy hole ; which 
 amounted to 38 Rows ten feet apart (including the parts of 
 Rows sowed on Saturday last) — in the afternoon I began to 
 sow Barley, but finding there were too many Seeds discharged 
 from the barrel notwithstanding I stopped every other hole, I 
 discontinued the sowing until another Barrel with smaller holes 
 c"i be prepared. — The ground in which these oats have been 
 sowed — and in which the Barley seeding had commenced — has 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 361 
 
 been plowed, listed (as it is called, that is 3 furrow ridges) and 
 twice harrowed in with the manure afterw''? 
 
 ' ' Began also to sow the Siberian Wheat which I had obtained 
 from Baltimore by means of Col Tilghman, at the Ferry 
 Plantation in the ground laid apart there for experiments. — 
 This was done upon ground which, some time ago, had been 
 marked off by furrows 8 feet apart in which a second furrow 
 had been run to deepen them. — 4 furrows were then plowed to 
 these which made the whole 5 furrow Ridges. — ^These being 
 done some time ago, and by frequent rains prevented sowing at 
 the time intended, — had got hard, — I therefore before the seed 
 was sowed, split these Ridges again, by running twice in the 
 same furrow, after w'!^ I harrowed the ridges, and where the 
 ground was lumpy, run my spiked Roler with the harrow at 
 the tale over it, — ^w^'' I found very efficacious in breaking the 
 clods & pulverizing the earth ; and would have done it per- 
 fectly if there had not been too much moisture remaining of 
 the late rains. 
 
 "After this harrowing & rolling where necessary, I sowed 
 the wheat with my drill plow on the reduced ridges in rows 8 
 feet apart — but I should have observed that after the ridges 
 were split by the furrow in the middle, and before the furrows 
 were closed again by the harrow — I sprinkled a little manure 
 in them. — Finding the barrel discharged the wheat too fast, 
 I did, after sowing 9 of the shortest (for We began at the 
 farthest corner of the field) rows, I stopped every other hole in 
 the barrel, and in this manner sowed 5 rows more, & still 
 thinking the seed too liberally bestowed, I stopped 2 & left one 
 hole open alternately, by which 4 out of 12 holes only, dis- 
 charged seed, and this, as I had taken the strap of leather off 
 seemed to give seed enough (though not so regular as were to 
 be wished) — to the ground. 
 
 " TuesdcLv 11^^ * * * ********** 
 ***** Sowing the Siberian Wheat to-day, as yester- 
 day at the Ferry. 
 
 " And sowed 26 rows of Barley (except a little at each end 
 w'?^ was too wet for the ground to be worked) at Muddy hole 
 below & adjoining the oats — This was done with 12 quarts of 
 
362 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 seed and in the manner, and in ground prepared as mentioned 
 yesterday. 
 
 " Wednesday j^^a ************** 
 
 ' ' Rid to the fishing landing, Ferry, Dogue Run, and Muddy 
 hole plantations. — Finished at the first sowing the ground 
 intended for experiments with Siberian Wheat — this spot con- 
 tained i6f I? 24? including the fodder H° &9 which would 
 reduce the cultivated land to 10 acres at most. 
 
 ' ' At Muddy hole, I sowed two rows of the Albany Peas in 
 Drills ID feet assunder (the same as the Oats and Barley) but 
 conceiving they could not for want of support be prevented 
 from falling when they sh? come near their growth I did not 
 incline to sow any more in this way but to put all the ground 
 between these two rows and the fence along the road in broad 
 Cast. — The ground in which these Peas were sowed was man- 
 aged exactly as that had been in which the Barley & Oats (at 
 this place) was — 
 
 " Monday May 8^!" 1786 ***** 
 
 **** * **** 
 
 Sent a Carpenter to put a new axle and do some other Repairs 
 to the Barrel Plow at Dogue Run. 39 
 
 39 Washington in the following letter to his friend Theodoric Bland, 
 Esq., to whom he sends one of his barrel plouws for a trial, in his letter 
 gives a good description of the drill ; 
 
 Mount Vernon, 28^^ Decemb\< 1786. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I am now about to fulfill my promise with respect to the drill plow and 
 timothy seed. Both accompany this letter to Norfolk, to the care of M^ Newton. The 
 latter I presume is good, as I had it from a gentleman on whom I can depend. The 
 former it is scarcely necessary to inform you, will not work to good effect in land that 
 is very full either of stumps, stones, or large clods ; but where the ground is tolerably 
 free from these and in good tilth, and particularly in light land, I am certain you will 
 find it equal to your most sanguine expectation, for Indian corn, wheat barley, pease, 
 or any other tolerably round grain, that you may wish to sow, or plant in this manner. 
 I have sown oats very well with it, which is among the most inconvenient and unfit 
 grains for this machine. 
 
 To give you a just idea of the use and management of it, I must observe, that the 
 barrel at present has only one set of holes, and these adapted for the planting of 
 Indian corn, only eight inches apart in the row ; but by corking these, the same barrel 
 may receive others, of a size fitted for any other grain. To make the holes, observe 
 this rule ; begin small and increase the size till they admit the number of grains, or 
 thereabouts you would choose to deposit in place. They should be burnt, and done by 
 a guage, that all may be of a size, and made widest on the outside, to prevent the 
 seeds choking them. You may, in a degree, emit more or less through the same holes, 
 by increasing or lessening the quanUty of seed in the barrel. The less there is in it, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 3^3 
 
 " Tuesday 9'^ ******* 
 
 ** ******** 
 
 Found the Flax in the Neck had come up and full thick ; — 
 and that the grass seeds (rather Millet) obt°.^ from Col? Gary 
 had come up ; but none of the Saintfoin, Burnet or Rib grass 
 appeared to be springing, — finished planting, with the Barrel 
 Plow, the early Corn in the farthest cut in the field for experi- 
 ments in the Neck. — and not having enough to compleat 
 another cut in the same field I ordered all the remaining part 
 of it to be drilled with common corn — accordingly about Noon 
 the intermediate rows in the middle cut which had been left 
 for the early corn were begun to be planted with the other. 
 
 ' 'Sahirday 13*!^ * * * * 
 
 "Finished (yesterday evening) planting Corn with the 
 Barrel Plow, in the cut intended for experiments at Dogue 
 Run. 
 
 " Tuesday iS'!" * * * * * At Muddy hole they 
 finished planting Corn about 10 Oclock — At this place I tried 
 a 3 hoed harrow which I had just made, with a single horse. 
 — Upon the whole it answered very well — The draft seemed 
 
 the faster it issues. The compressure is increased by the quantity, and the discharge 
 is retarded thereby. The use of the band is to prevent the seeds issuing out of more 
 holes than one at a time. It may be slackened or braced according to the influence 
 the atmosphere has on the leather. The tighter it is provided the wheel revolves 
 easily, the better. By decreasing or multiplying the holes in the barrel, you may plant 
 at any distance you please. The circumpherance of the wheels being six feet or 
 seventy-two inches, divide the latter by the number of inches you intend your plants 
 shall be assunder, and it gives the number of holes required in the barrel. 
 
 By the sparse situation of the teeth in the harrow, it is designed that the ground 
 may be raked without the harrow being clogged if the ground should be cloddy or 
 grassy. The string when this happens to be the case, will raise and clean it with 
 great ease, and is of service in turning at the ends of rows ; at which time the wheels, 
 by means of the handles, are raised off the ground as well as the harrow, to prevent 
 the waste of seed. A small bag containing about a peck of the seed you are sowing is 
 hung to the nails in the right handle, and with a small tin cup the barrel is replen- 
 ished with convenience, whenever it is necessary without loss of time or waiting to 
 come up with the seed-bag at the end of the row. I had almost forgot to tell you that if 
 the hole in the leather band, through which the seed is to pass when it comes in contact 
 with the hole in the barrel should incline to gape, or the lips of it turn out, so as to 
 admit the seed between the band and barrel, it must be remedied by riveting a piece 
 of sheet tin, copper, or brass the width of the band and about four inches long, with a 
 hole through it, the size of the one in the leather. I found this effectual. 
 
 1 am dear sir & 
 
 G? Washington 
 To Theodoric Bland Bsq 
 
364 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 rather hard for one horse but the late rains had made the 
 ground heavier than usual. 
 
 " Monday May 22^. * * Began to take up the pavement 
 of the Piaza. 
 
 ' ' Tuesday May 2j? * * * 
 
 *********** 
 Replanting the common com which had been drilled at Muddy 
 hole— finished planting peas with the Barrel in the Neck on 
 Saturday last. — And listing the corn ground at the same place 
 this day, for planting in the common way. 
 
 tAf «i^ lAm «X* *1^ vl^ «i^ "i^ '^ ^l' ^ 
 
 ^ ^V Jj^ ^^ J]^ ^^ ^^ >^ ^^ 'f* 'l^ 
 
 '*And this day began to lay the Flags in my Piaza*° — 
 Cornelius and Tom Davis assisting. 
 
 40 The following letter is given in a note by Sparks ; 
 
 General Washington presents his compliments to M^ Rumney— would esteem it as 
 a particular favor if M^ Rumney would make the following enquiries as soon as con- 
 venient, after his arrival in Kngland ; and communicate the result of them by the 
 Packet, or any other safe and expeditious conveyence to this country. First. The terms 
 upon which the best kind of Whitehaven Flag stone — Black and White in equal quan- 
 tities—could be delivered at the port of Alexandria by the superficial foot, workman- 
 ship, freight and every other incidental charge included. — The stone to be n% inches, 
 or thereabouts, thick, and exactly a foot square — each kind. To have a rich polished 
 face, and good joints so as that a neat floor may be made therewith, 
 
 2^*^ Upon what terms the common Irish Marble (black & white if to be had)— same 
 dimentions, could be delivered as above. 
 
 3— As the General has been informed of a very cheap kind of Marble, good in 
 quality, at or in the neighborhood of Ostend, he would thank M^ Rumney, if it should 
 fall in his way, to institute an inquiry into this also. On the Report of M^ Rumney, 
 the General will take his ultimate determination ; for which reason he prays him to 
 be precise and exact. The Piazza or Colonade for which this is wanted as a floor is 
 ninety two feet eight inches, by twelve feet eight inches within the margin, or border 
 that surrounds it. Over and above the quantity here mentioned, if the above flags are 
 cheap— or a cheaper kind of hard Stone could be had he would get as much as would 
 lay floors in the Circular Colonades, or covered ways at the wings of the House — each 
 of which at the outer curve is 38 feet in length by 7 feet 2 inches in width within the 
 margin or border as aforesaid. 
 
 The General being in want of a house Joiner & Bricklayer who understand their 
 respective trades perfectly, would thank M^ Rumney for inquiring into the terms upon 
 which such workmen might be engaged for two or three years ; (the thne of service to 
 commence upou the ship's arrival at Alexandria) a shorter term than two years would 
 not answer, because foreigners generally have a seasoning ; which vdth other interup- 
 tions too frequently waste the greater part of the first year— more to the disadvantage 
 of the employer than the employed.— Bed board & tools to be found by the former, 
 clothing by the latter. 
 
 If two men of the above trades and of orderly and quiet deportment could be ob- 
 tained for twenty five or even thirty pounds sterling per annum each (estimating dol- 
 lars at 4/ 6) the General, rather than sustain the loss of time necessary for communica. 
 tion would be obliged to mT Rumney for entering into proper obligatory articles of 
 agreement on his behalf with them by the first vessel bound to this Port. 
 
 G? Washtngton 
 Mount Vernon, July 5 i-^Si 
 
 To W^ Rttmney of Alexandria Va 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 3^5 
 
 "Saturday 27?* Finished laying 28 courses of the pave- 
 ment in the Piaza — Weather very unfavorable for it. 
 
 Mr. Dodge, the efficient superintendent of Mount Vernon, has fur- 
 nished me with a copy of the following unpublished letter of General 
 Washington to John Rumney relative to the flagging used in paving the 
 piazza : 
 
 MouHT Vernon, 'Vs.. June 21^ ,17^3* 
 
 Sir 
 
 I stand indebted to you for two letters, one of the 8'* of Sep., the other of the 9 f° 
 of Feby The first should not have remained so long unacknowledged but for the ex- 
 pectation I had of the second. The second lead me to expect a third ; upon the re- 
 ceipt of which I had laid my account to have given you but one trouble, by replying to 
 them all at the same time. 
 
 Permit me to thank you Sir for your attention to my commissions. The Joiner 
 arrived safe, and I believe will fully answer your description & expectation of him. 
 He gives great satisfaction ; and seems well satisfied himself The expense of his 
 passage, & your advance to him, has been paid to M^ Sanderson. I delayed mak- 
 ing choice of either of the samples of Flagstones until I had seen the Irish marble ; 
 and was made acquainted with the cost of it ; but as it did not come in your last ship, 
 and I like the whitest & cheapest of the three kinds which you sent me by Capt. 
 Atkinson ; I request the favor of you to forward by the first opportunity (with some to 
 spare in case of breakage, or other accident) as much of this sort, as will floor the 
 Gallery in front of my house which, within the margin, or border that surrounds it, 
 (and which is already laid with a hard stone of the country) is 92 feet ^% inches, by 12 
 feet 95^ inches. 
 
 Having given the exact dimension of the floor, or space which is to be laid with 
 flag-stone, I shall leave it to the workman to form them of such a size, not less than 
 a foot square, and of the same dimensions as he thinks will answer best, and accord 
 most with the taste of the times. 
 
 I take it for granted that T/i or Sd is the price of the white stone in the prepared 
 state in which it was sent ; and that the shipping charges, & freight only, are to be 
 added to the cost. If a rough estimate of the latter had been mentioned, it would 
 have been more pleasing ; as I then could have prepared accordingly. I am at a loss 
 to determine in what manner these dressed flags can be brought without incurring 
 much expense, or being liable to great damage. To put them in cases will involve the 
 first, and to stow them loose, the other may be sustained ; unless great care is used in 
 the storage, which is rarely to be met' with among Sailors,-even in Masters of vessels. 
 
 If the fiags are well dressed, a little matter will chip the edges, and break the 
 corners, which, by disfiguring the work would be hurtful to the eye. 
 
 I will give no direction therefore on this head, your own judgment on the spot, 
 must dictate ; at the same time, I have but little doubt, if they are placed in the Hold 
 of the Ship, with Hay and Straw to keep them from rubbing, of their coming without 
 damage. 
 
 I will soon follow this letter with a remittance from hence, or a draught on London 
 for a sum to enable you to discharge the undertaker. 
 
 In the meanwhile, let me pray you to hasten the execution, and the shipping of 
 
 them as my Gallery needs a floor very much. 
 
 With great esteem & regard 
 
 I am. Sir. 
 
 Your mostobt H*"?* SerY^ 
 
 [Signed.] G? Washington. 
 
 mT J»? Rumnet. 
 
 * This letter, it is apprehended, has either a false date or place where it was written. 
 It is surmised 1785 is the proper year. 
 
366 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 " Tuesday June 27"i 1786 * * * Finding the hoe Har- 
 row did not do good work in the drilled Com I ordered it to 
 desist and the Bar Share plow to be used, till the common com 
 was all crossed after which to use it when the ground was 
 worked the other way. 
 
 "Wednesday July 26*!' 1786 ***** 
 
 *********** 
 
 ' ' Having fixed a Roller to the tale of my drill plow, and a 
 brush harrow between it & the barrel, I sent it by G. A. Wash- 
 ington to Muddy hole and had the intervals between the com 
 which had been left for the purpose sowed with Turnips in 
 drills and with which it was done very well."*^ 
 
 41 Throughout this summer, Washington had paid special attention to 
 all the operations on his various plantations and to improving the imple- 
 ments of husbandry in use by his people. He, also, in a letter August 6O1 
 
 1786, to Arthur Young, his Bnglish correspondent on improvements in 
 agriculture, avails himself of the proffer of his services to fill an order for 
 some seeds and two plows in the following words : "I will give you the 
 trouble, Sir, of providing and sending to the care of Wakelin Welch, of 
 London, merchant, the following articles. Two of the simplest and best 
 constructed ploughs for land which is neither very heavy nor sandy ; to 
 be drawn by two horses ; to have spare shares and coulters ; and a mould, 
 on which to form new irons, when the old ones are worn out, or will re- 
 quire repairing. I will take the liberty to observe, that some years ago, 
 from a description or recommendation thereof, which I had somewhere 
 met with, I sent to England for what was then called the Rotherham or 
 patent plough ; and, till it began to wear and was ruined by a bungling 
 country smith, that no plough could have done better work, or appeared 
 to have gone easier with two horses ; but for want of a mould, which I 
 neglected to order with the plough, it became useless, after the irons, 
 which came with it were much worn." 
 
 In another letter to Mr. Young from Mount Vernon, November 1st, 
 
 1787, Washington says : "The grain Grass seeds, ploughs, &9. arrived at 
 the same time agreeably to the list, but some of the former were injured, 
 as will always be the case, by being put into the hold of the vessel ; 
 however upon the whole, they were in much better order than these 
 things are generally found to be, when brought across the Atlantic. 
 *****»*♦»»*«***»« * 
 
 "I have tried the ploughs which yon sent me, and find that they 
 answer the description which you gave of them ; this is contrary to the 
 opinion of almost every one who saw them before they were used ; for it 
 was thought their great weight would be an insuperable objection to their 
 being drawn by two horses." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 367 
 
 The Mount Vernon plantations were now all in good tilth, 
 and Washington was picturing to himself the pleasure and 
 comfort which he had long hoped to enjoy in their manage- 
 ment, with time for studying the more scientific method of 
 agriculture. 
 
 The question is often asked, " What is th'e elevation of the 
 Mount Vernon Mansion-house above the level of the Potomac ' 
 river ? " I felicitate myself on being able to answer this inquiry 
 from data ascertained by an actual leveling from the edge of 
 the piazza opposite the centre door to high-water mark 
 near the wharf, distant 660 feet, made by General Washington 
 himself in 1786. The actual elevation of the pavement of the 
 piazza above high-water mark, as ascertained by this survey, 
 is 124 feet 10 J^ inches.*' 
 
 The home-life of Washington at Mount Vernon and his 
 efforts to embellish it, which are told with such ingenuousness in 
 his Diaries, almost compel further quotations : 
 
 "Monday May 2p'* ij86 — About 9 o'clock MT Tobias Lear, 
 who had been previously engaged on a salary of 200 dollars, to 
 live with me as a private secretary, and preceptor for Washing- 
 ton Custis, a year, came here from New Hampshire, at which 
 place his friends residc-ts 
 
 "Friday, June 16^'i 1^86. Began about 10 o'clock to put up 
 the book-press in my study." 
 
 Washington's Diaries show numerous instances of his kind- 
 ness to and consideration for his servants ; visiting them when 
 sick and, if seriously ill, bringing them to the home house to be 
 nursed. Frequently he denominates them, as in the follow- 
 ing extract, "my people," in giving them a day to visit the 
 Races, one-third each day ; at suitable seasons giving them a 
 
 « The following receipt signed W?i Shaw, the clerk who preceded Mr. 
 Lear in service at Mount Vernon, in the handwriting of General Wash- 
 ington, is presprved among his papers in the possession of Lawrence 
 Washington : 
 
 " Mount Vernon, A ugusi i^, ij86 Received from G. Washington the sum of Fifty- 
 six pounds two shilling, Virg^ Curry equal to f,t^. i6 sterling in full for services rendered 
 him as secretary &c from the 26*** day of July 1785 when I came into the family, until the 
 arrival of Mr Lear on the 29*'' day of May in the present year. 
 
 W^ Shaw 
 
368 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 42 The following record, in Washington's handwriting, of the line of 
 survey, with the several benches used in leveling from the centre door of 
 the Mansion House at Mount Vernon to near the present steamboat 
 wharf is preserved among the Washington papers in the Department of 
 State, and of which the following is a literal transcript : 
 
 Fall, from the level of the Piazza to high water mark in a Rectangular course trom the 
 
 centre door. — 
 
 
 
 Fall. 
 
 
 Total Fall. 
 
 
 
 Length 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .° 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 
 I,evel. 
 
 Ft. 
 
 In. 
 
 V> 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 J4 
 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 Beginning on the pavement of the Piazza, 
 
 2 
 
 do. 
 
 
 9 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 at the edge thereof, next the Grass. 
 
 3 
 
 do. 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 4 
 
 do. 
 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 5 
 
 do. 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 
 6 
 
 do. 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 II 
 
 5 
 
 
 7 
 
 do. 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 
 8 
 
 do. 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 9 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 
 lo 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 12 
 
 do. 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 20 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 13 
 
 do. 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 26 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 To the level, at the foot of the lowT step 
 
 14 
 
 do. 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 31 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 at Gate which is 156 feet from the pave- 
 
 15 
 
 do. 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 ment of the Piazza. 
 
 16 
 
 do. 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 do. 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 l3 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 48 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 To Post & Rail Fence — 216 feet from the 
 
 19 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 52 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 Piazza. 
 
 20 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 54 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 
 21 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 57 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 
 22 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 23 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 62 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 To a small locust— 276 feet &om the 
 
 24 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 64 
 
 7 
 
 
 Piazza. 
 
 25 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 66 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 
 26 
 
 do. 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 67 
 
 
 
 To a Bank— 312 feet from the Piazza. 
 
 27 
 
 do. 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 71 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 28 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 73 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 To the level of the Spring — at the Dairy — 
 which is about 50 feet above high water 
 
 29 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 75 
 
 10 
 
 
 30 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 78 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 mark- 
 
 31 
 
 do. 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 79 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 
 32 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 82 
 
 I 
 
 7 
 
 
 33 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 
 83 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 To the edge of the above Bank — 396 feet 
 
 34 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 86 
 
 II 
 
 2 
 
 from the Piazza. 
 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 88 
 
 II 
 
 5 
 
 
 36 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 92 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 37 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 
 38 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 98 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 
 ■39 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 IOC 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 
 40 
 
 do. 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 102 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 
 41 
 
 do. 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 104 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 To a parcel of Briers — ^492 feet from the 
 
 42 
 
 do. 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 Piazza. 
 
 43 
 
 do. 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 106 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 
 44 
 
 do. 
 
 I^V 
 
 el. 
 
 
 106 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 
 45 
 
 do. 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 107 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 
 46 
 
 do. 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 109 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 47 
 
 do. 
 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 III 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 
 48 
 
 do. 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 III 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 
 49 
 
 do. 
 
 
 9 
 
 '6 
 
 112 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 do. 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 "3 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 To a path up the Riverside— 600 feet from 
 
 51 
 
 do. 
 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 113 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 the Piazza— 
 
 52 
 
 do. 
 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 114 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 
 53 
 
 do. 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 115' 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 do. 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 116 
 
 7 
 
 
 To the edge of the River Bank— 648 ft 
 
 55 
 
 do. 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 120 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 from the Piazza— 
 
 High 
 
 Water. 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 
 124 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 To hlghwaterMark— 660 fl.fromthe Piazza 
 
 J^=^he distance in a rectang^ular line from the level of the pavement of the Piazza, to 
 high water mark, is 660 feet— or 220 yards — and the elevation of it above the water 
 is 124 t^, 1.0% Inches. — 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 369 
 
 day's sport and lending them his seine to haul for fish, to do 
 with their catch as they pleased, to sell or to keep. '•4 
 
 ' ' Monday October p{* i'/86 **** * ** * * 
 Allowed all my People to go to the Races in Alexandria on 
 one of three days as best comported with their respective 
 businesses — leaving careful persons on the plantations." 
 
 Washington had faith in the progress of the human race 
 and believed in making earnest efibrts to improve not only 
 man's surroundings and conditions, but also his methods of 
 securing a livelihood, as well as the institutions and govern- 
 ment under which they lived. To him is awarded the credit 
 of the introducing into the United States the best breeds of 
 that very useful animal, the mule. He also gave much atten- 
 tion to improving the breeds of sheep, hogs, horses, cattle and 
 dogs.ts The following extracts from his Journal relate to his 
 importation of improved breeds of some domestic animals for 
 his plantations. 
 
 44 Washington, at the time of his death, had on his several estates 317 
 negroes, a list of which, with the names, ages, and sex, he had made a 
 short time before. A literal copy of this memoranda has been deposited 
 in the "Toner Collection" in the I/ibrary of Congress. He owned of 
 these, in his own right, 124, and had 40 others leased from Mrs. French ; 
 while 153 were dower negroes, that is, were the property of Mrs. Wash- 
 ington in her own right and that of her children and their heirs. Wash- 
 ington in his will, after providing for the payment of his debts and for 
 his wife, and before disposing of any of his property, directs in the 
 following language the emancipation of his negroes ; " Item Upon the 
 decease of my wife, it is my will and desire, that all the slaves which I 
 hold in my own right shall receive their freedom." — Then follows ex- 
 press provisions for the care of the old who were past work and the chil- 
 dren unable to make a living, but as the will has been frequently printed, 
 it can be consulted by all desiring to do so. 
 
 45 Washington was but little given to collecting about him a museum 
 of things which were simply curious and without the merit of some use. 
 He did, however, have some fancy fowls and unprofitable animals which 
 were in the nature of the decorative and to entertain visitors. His deer 
 Paddock and hounds he doubtless justified on the principle of entertain- 
 ment and home amusements. His cash book for 1785, under date of 
 March 17th, has the following : "by freight of a swan and 4 Geese from 
 Nom'y 18/." And his cash book for 1788, December 13th, has this 
 entry: "By Cap* Baine p'^ him the freight of two Chinese pigs & 2 
 Geese from Norfolk to this place 7/4." 
 
370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 " Thursday Novr 16'!' 1786 * ******** 
 
 * * On my return home, found Mons Campoint sent by tlie 
 Marq! de la Fayette with the Jacks and two she Asses which 
 he had procured for me in the Island of Malta, and which had 
 arrived at Baltimore with the Chinese Pheasants &c had with 
 my Overseer &c got there before me — these Asses are in good 
 order and appear to be very fine — The Jack is two years old 
 and the She Asses one three & the other two. — The Pheasants 
 and Partridges will come round by Water. 
 
 ' * H^otidnv s*?^!^ Nov'' ********* * * 
 Received my Chinese Pheasants &c from Baltimore by the 
 Packet viz.— A Cock & Hen of the Golden Pheas^ A Cock & 
 Hen of the silver Pheas* A Cock & two hens of the French 
 Pheas^ and a French Partridge the other French Partridge 
 died coming round from Baltim? ' ' 
 
 The expedient adopted by Washington in sowing clover, 
 timothy and other small seeds broadcast to insure an even 
 distribution of the seed over the ground, was to mix them with 
 dry sand or ashes, so that greater bulk might be taken in the 
 hand for each cast. The following entry appears under date of 
 
 ' ' Mo7tday, Febr^. 5^* ^787. At the Ferry the OvM-seer had 
 beg^n to sow timothy seed mixed with sand in the Rye field 
 on the snow, — but the sand being too wet and Clamy to do 
 it regular I ordered him to desist until the sand could be 
 dried. — Three gallons of Timothy seed mixed with ashes was 
 sown on Rye in the Neck on Saturday. 
 
 "April z-f' 1787 ***** * In j-j^g evening one 
 Young who lives on Col? Ball's place — a fanner, came here to 
 see, he says my drill plow & staid all night. 4* 
 
 46 The Mount Vernon "Store Room Book" of this date shows the 
 following entries bearing upon the making of Drill Plows : 
 
 ' 'April 6th 1787 Gave out 200 4^ & 100 8^ brads to Matthew for making a drill Plow. 
 
 "April 13, 1787, " Gave out a piece of Copper Sheating to Bradkin for the Drill plow- 
 also 50 4'^ nails to Bradkin 50 tacks and 100 4° brass Do for Drill Plow.' ' 
 
 Tradition credits Washington with having invented and patented a 
 plow. I have not, however, found any testimony to sustain the claim. 
 But I do find the following entry in one of the " Store Books of issue " at 
 Mount Vernon under date of Sept 28th 1787. "A packing box for a plow 
 model one hundred and fifty nails used in making box." Query : Was 
 the model here referred to one of Washington's own invention and being 
 shipped to a manufacturer or to officials granting patents? 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 371 
 
 " Saturday 7^'' ******* In my Botanical gar- 
 den in the section immediately adjoining to & west of the Salt 
 House I sowed first 3 rows of the Kentucke clover 15 inches 
 apart — and next to these 9 rows of the Guinea grass in rows of 
 the same distance apart. 
 
 ''April 20^!^ ****** In the Neck the gr? being 
 rather hard and in places rough — two harrows could not pre- 
 pare it sufficiently to keep the drill plow constantly at work. 
 I therefore ordered the plowman who attended it to make good 
 the work of covering the corn which the little harrow at the 
 tail of it might leave unfinished and this he is well able to do, 
 because where the ground is difficult to prepare he can outgo 
 the harrows, and here it is assistance is wanted when the 
 ground is light and the harrows prepare it sufficiently there is 
 no occasion of the hoe to follow — this supercedes the necessity 
 of the special hand ordered for this service on Wednesday 
 last. — Where the gr? is naturally light, or well pulverized the 
 drill plow plants with great dispatch regularity and to good 
 effect where it is rough and hard manual labour as in the 
 common mode must be applied." 
 
 The spirit of enquiry and desire for exact knowledge remained 
 an active element in Washington's character to the close of his 
 life, +7 but it is nevertheless wonderful that as late as 1788 he 
 
 47 while George Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses, 
 a petition of Mr. Aaron Miller addressed to the Governor and Council 
 was referred to the House, "setting forth that he had at great trouble and 
 expense invented a new compass and protractor, by which an angle may 
 be measured both in surveying and platting with greater Accuracy than 
 by any other instrument hitherto discovered and praying such Bounty as 
 the Legislature may think he deserves and the said petition was read. 
 Ordered that the said Petition be referred to the consideration of Mr. 
 Richard Bland, Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Wythe, Mr. Carey and Mr. 
 Mercer ; that they examine into the allegations thereof, and report the 
 same with their opinion thereon, to the House." {^Journal House of 
 Burgesses, Decb^, (5^*, 1764) " Mr. Richard Heni-y Lee from the Committee 
 to whom was referred the Petition of Aaron Miller, reported that 
 they had examined the Instruments mentioned in the said petition 
 and were of opinion that surveys of Land may be made and plotted with 
 them with greater accuracy than any instruments of the kind they had 
 ever seen or heard of ***** * Resolved, that the said Aaron 
 Miller ought to be allowed the sum of ^30. as a consideration for his 
 useful invention." {Journal House of Burgesses, December JStK 1J64.') 
 
372 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 should take the pains to count the actual number of peas and 
 beans there were in a pint measure of six varieties of them, 
 that he might know the quantity of ground to prepare and the 
 number of hills a bushel of each would plant, as will be noticed 
 from the following taken from his Diaries : — 
 
 "Monday May 12'!^ 1788 * * At home all day. — Counted 
 the number of the following articles which are contained in a 
 pint — viz. — of The small & round pease cofeimonly called Gen- 
 tlemans Pease 3, 144. Those bro* from York RivT by Maj! G. 
 Washington 2,268. Those bro* by D? from M^ Dangerfields 
 1.375- Those given by Hez? Fairfax 1,330. I^arge and early 
 black eye Pease 1,186. Bunch hominy Beans 1,473. Accord- 
 ingly — a bushel of the above, allowing 5 to a hill will plant 
 the number of hills w"^? follow. — viz 
 
 " i!' kind - - - 40243 
 
 2 Ditto 29030 
 
 3 — Ditto - 17200 
 
 4 — Ditto - - 17024 
 
 5. Ditto - - 15180 
 
 6. Ditto 18854 " 
 
 Another inventor was rewarded by Virginia while Washington was a 
 member of the Assembly for an improvement in the threshing machine. 
 John Hobday of Gloucester county, Va., in 1774 by petition brought to 
 the attention of the House the fact that "he had invented a Machine for 
 getting Wheat out of the Ear clean and neat and with more expedition 
 than could be done by thrashing, or treading with cattle, and that with- 
 out loss of the chaff, or detriment to the straw ; and submitting it to the 
 Liberality and Wisdom of the House to reward his endeavors to serve 
 the community, in such manner as they may think proper. Resolved 
 that the said Petition be referred to the consideration of the Committee 
 of Trade ; and that they do examine the matter thereof and report the 
 same, with their opinion thereupon to the House. ' ' {Journal of House 
 of Burgesses, May igtK 1774.) May 2otli, 1774, Mr. [Benjamin] Harrison 
 reported from the Committee of Trade, to whom the petition of John 
 Hobday, praying to be allowed a reward for inventing a machine whereby 
 wheat is got out neat and clean, &c. ******** 
 
 " Resolved that it is the Opinion of this Committee that the petition is reasonable and 
 that the said John Hobday ought to be allowed by the Public the sum of three hundred 
 pounds as a reward for inventing the said Machine, and communicating to the Public the 
 manner of erecting it." 
 
 The resolution was amended by inserting one hundred instead of three 
 hundred, and it passed in the aflSrmative. Washington was a competent 
 judge of the utility of both these inventions. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 373 
 
 He also counted the number of clover, timothy and Saint 
 Foin seed there was in a pint that he might estimate the quan- 
 tity to sow upon an acre. 
 
 During the session of the Convention that drafted the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, Washington kept a brief journal 
 of events, but records nothing regarding the questions discussed 
 in the sessions; thus evincing scrupulous adherence to his pledge 
 of secrecy. The entries show, however, that he visited numer- 
 ous institutions of learning, Bartram's botanical gardens, and 
 the most noted farms in the vicinity of Philadelphia. His most 
 lengthy notes, however, relate to agriculture, in which he never 
 lost interest.*^ However, on Monday, 3d of September, 1787, 
 his Diary has the following entry relating to a new machine: — 
 ' ' Visited a Machine at Doct^ Franklins (called a Mangle) for 
 pressing, in place of Ironing, clothes from the wash — ^Which 
 Machine from the facility with which it dispatches business is 
 well calculated for Table cloths & such articles as have not 
 pleats & irregular foldings and would be very useful in all large 
 families." 
 
 It is probable that the activities of Washington's inventive 
 genius found its favorite employment in the direction of labor- 
 saving implements which ensured increased domestic comforts 
 to the people. Yet his great catholic heart and enlightened 
 humane sympathies led him to welcome and encourage every 
 
 48 Washington in a letter to Landon Carter, "of Cleve," written at 
 Mount Vernon 17 October, 1796, uses the following language : 
 
 " It is true (as you have heard) that to be a cultivator of I>nd has been my favorite 
 amusement ;— but it is equally true that I have made very little proficiency in acquir- 
 ing knowledge either in the principals or practice of Husbandry. My employments 
 through life, have been so diversified— my absences from home have been so frequent, 
 and so long at a time, as to have prevented me from bestowing the attention, and from 
 making the experiments which are necessary to establish facts in the Science of Agri- 
 culture.— And now, though 1 mav amuse myself in that way for the short time I may 
 remain on this theatre, it is too late in the day for me to commence a scientific course 
 of experiments. Your thoughts on the mode of cultivating Indian corn, appear tome_ 
 to be founded in reason,— and a judicious management of the Soil for different pur- 
 poses, is as highly interesting too, as it has been neglected by the People of this 
 country. ***** 
 
 " I shall always feel myself obliged by your communicating any useful discovery in 
 Agriculture ; and for the favorable Sentiments you have been pleased to express for 
 me I pray you to accept the thanks of 
 
 " sir 
 "Your most obedt and very H°^^ servn 
 " G? Washington." 
 
374 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 measure which gave promise of lessening the heavy load resting 
 upon the shoulders of the poor and the overworked and poorly- 
 paid tillers of the soil. Intimately blended with his genius 
 for leadership and for improving man's condition, was his 
 taste and respect for the esthetics to be observed in every-day 
 life which he believed not only improved habits but elevated 
 character. This at times may have led some to consider him 
 as reserved and overfond of ceremony. This was not the fact. 
 But to a mind like his, attuned to exact justice, individual rights 
 and the orderly observance of the proprieties of social life were 
 sacred. 
 
 To President Washington we are indebted for the graceful 
 and convenient device of the dinner wine coaster. The history 
 of its invention and first introduction may be found in a foot- 
 note. +9 The harvest horse-rake for gleaning meadows and also 
 
 49 Mr. Lossing in his admirable book on " Mount Vernon and its Asso- 
 ciations," page 263, gives in substance the following history of this inven- 
 tion. The President on the removal of Congress from New York to 
 Philadelphia furnished his residence in a manner to make it comfortable 
 to the close of his term of office, and to do this added much new furni- 
 ture and household belongings. In his efforts in this direction he ordered 
 a bill of goods through Gouverneur Morris, who was then in Paris. In 
 this order was some silver-plated wine coolers, an article that he had 
 never used at Mount Vernon. The invoice had reached him in Virginia. 
 In a letter to his secretary, Mr. Lear, Washington wrote, I quote from 
 Mr. l/ossing: 
 
 " Enclosed I send you a letter from Mr. Gouverneur Morris, with a bill of the cost of 
 the articles he was to send me. The prices of the plated ware exceed — far exceed — the 
 utmost bounds of my calculation ; but as 1 am persuaded he has done what he conceived 
 right, I am satisfied, and request you to make immediate payment to Mr. Constable if you 
 can raise the means. As the coolers are designed for warm weather, and will be, I pre- 
 sume, useless in cold, or in that in which the liquors do not require cooling, querie, would 
 not a stand like that for castors, with four apertures for so many different kinds of liquors, 
 each aperture just suificient to hold one of the cut decanters sent by Mr. Morris, be more 
 convenient for passing the bottles from one to another, than the handing each bottle seper- 
 ately, by which it often happens that one bottle moves, another stops, and all are in con- 
 fusion ? Two of them — one for each end of the table, with a fiat bottom, with or without 
 feet, open at the sides, but with a raised rim, as caster-stands have, and an upright, by 
 way of handle, in the middle — could not cost a great deal, even if made wholly of silver. 
 Talk to a silversmith, and ascertain the cost, and whether they could be immediately 
 made if required, in a handsome fashion. 
 
 " Perhaps tlie coolers sent by Mr. Morris may afford ideas of taste ; perhaps, too (if they 
 prove not too heavy, when examined) they may supersede the necessity of such as I have 
 described, by answering the purpose themselves. Four double flint bottles (such as I sus- 
 pect Mr. Morris has sent), will weigh, I conjecture, four pounds ; the wine in them when 
 they are filled will be eight pounds more, which, added to the weight of the coolers, will 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 375 
 
 grain fields after the grain had been cut and gathered came into 
 use about the time General Washington was President. He 
 ordered two for his Mount Vernon farms. (See letter to C. 
 Biddle.) And in 1797 he had a thrashing-machine erected at 
 Mount Vernon. {See cash book.) 
 
 Under date of August 2d, 1788, we find the following: — " Vis- 
 ited all the Plantations — At the Ferry — six plows were turning 
 in B [uck] Wheat Three of them from Frenches — Tried the 
 Patent Plow sent me by Major Snowden whch run easy and did 
 good work." 
 
 It would seem from this that there were plows patented and 
 in use in Virginia before the assembling of the First Congress 
 under the Constitution of the United States. This paragraph 
 bears testimony also to the fact that Washington was known 
 to merchants and progressive farmers as being ready and 
 anxious to test new and improved implements of husbandry ; 
 hence, no diplomacy was necessary to bring to his attention a 
 new patent plow.s° 
 
 ' ' Sunday November 2^ iy88. M^ George Mason came here 
 to dinner and returned in the Evening — After dinner word was 
 bro^ from Alexandria that the Minister of France was arrived 
 there and intended down here to dinner — Accordingly, a little 
 before Sun setting, he (the Count de Moustiers) his Sister the 
 
 I fear, make these latter too unwieldy to pass, especially by ladies which induces me to 
 
 think of the frame in the form of casters." 
 
 After quoting the President's letter descriptive of the device, Mr. Los- 
 sing adds the following ; 
 
 " Mr. Lear was pleased with Washington's suggestions and ordered a silversmith to 
 make two of the caster-like frames of solid silver, and these were used upon the President's 
 table on the occasion of the first dinner which he gave to the officers of the government 
 and their families, foreign ministers and their families and other distinguished guests. 
 Their lightness and convenience commended them, and from that time they became fash- 
 ionable, under the appropriate title of coasters. Thenceforth the wine-cooler was left 
 upon the sideboard and the coaster alone was used for sending the wine around the table. 
 For more than a quarter of a century afterward the coaster might be seen upon the table 
 of every fashionable family in Philadelphia. Few persons, however, are aware that 
 Washington was the inventor of it. A roller was placed under the center of each basket 
 by which the coaster is more easily sent around the table." 
 
 An engraving showing a specimen of each of the wine coolers and the 
 coaster may be seen in the work of Lossing referred to. 
 
 50 Prior to the Federal union under the Constitution, patents were 
 granted by the Assemblies of the several Colonies, as well as by Par- 
 liament. 
 
376 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Marchioness de Breton'' — the Marquis her Son and MT du 
 Ponts came in. 
 
 '' Monday j"^ Thermometer at 50 in the Morning — 70 at 
 Noon — and 70 at Night. — A thick fog until 8 or 9 o'clock — 
 Clear, Calm & exceedingly pleasant afterwards. — 
 
 "Remained at home all day. — Col? Fitzgerald & Doctt 
 Craik came down to dinner — & with the copy of an address 
 (which the Citizens of Alexandria meant to present to the 
 Minister) waited on him to know when he would receive it. 
 
 ' ' Mr. I^ear went to Alexandria to invite some of the Gentle- 
 men and Ladies of the Town to dine with the Count & 
 Marchioness here tomorrow. 
 
 " Tuesday— the— fourth. Thermometer at 58 in the Morn- 
 ing — 75 at Noon — and 72 at Night. — Morning clear, calm and 
 very pleasant. — as the weather continued to be thro' the day. 
 
 " MT Herbert & his Lady, M^ Potts & his Lady, M^ Lud- 
 well Lee & his Lady, and Miss Nancy Craik came here to 
 dinner and returned afterwards. 
 
 " Wednesday s'f^ Thermometer 63 in the morning — 75 at 
 Noon and 73 at Night, very clear, calm, warm and pleasant all 
 day. 
 
 ' ' The Minister & Madam de Bretan expressing a desire to 
 walk to the new Barn — we accordingly did so — and from thence 
 through Frenches Plantation to my Mill and from thence home 
 compleating a tour of at least seven miles. — Previous to this, 
 in the morning before breakfast I rid to the Ferry, Frenches 
 D[ogue] Run and Muddy hole Plantations. 
 
 ' ' At the Ferry some of the People were clearing up the Rye 
 which had been tread out the day before, others were digging 
 Potatoes — ^the Plows were at work in No. 5. — 
 
 51 Marchioness de Brienne was an enthusiastic admirer of America, a 
 writer of spirit and an amateur artist of considerable skill. While at 
 Mount Vernon she painted a miniature of the General from life which she 
 presented to Mrs. Washington, making a duplicate for herself. {Sec 
 Portraits of Washington by Miss E. B. Johnston.^ The General in his 
 Diary of October 3d. 1790, says : " Walked in the afternoon and sat about 
 two Oclock for Madam Brehan [Brienne] to complete a miniature profile 
 of me which she had begun from memory and which she had made ex- 
 ceedingly like the original." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 377 
 
 "At Frenclies the People were preparing the yard to tread 
 out Oats which had remained in Shocks at the yard. — At 
 Dogue Run — some hands were Clearing up Rye, and prepar- 
 ing to lay down a bed of Wh* — and others digging Cellar to 
 store Irish Potatoes in. — The Plows yesterday & this day being 
 stopped to tread out grain. — At Dogue Run — The people were 
 Raising Mud for Manure — the Rye would be all in and 
 covered to day — 
 
 " Thursday 6"^ Thermometer 63 in the morning — 73 at Noon 
 and 72 at Night. Clear calm, warm, and exceedingly pleasant. 
 
 ' ' About Nine Oclock the Minister of France, the Marchion- 
 ess de Bretan and their suit left this on their return for New 
 York. I accompanied them as far as Alexandria & returned 
 home to dinner, — the minister proceeded to Georgetown after 
 having received an Address from the Citizens of the Corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 ' ' In the afternoon Mr Ferdinand Fairfax came in and stayed 
 all Night." 
 
 In his Diary January 22d, 1790, will be found the following 
 entry : ' ' Called in my ride on the Baron de Poelnitz to see the 
 operation of his (Winlow's) thrashing machine. The effect 
 was the heads of the wheat being seperated from the straw, as 
 much of the first was run through the mill in 15 minutes as 
 made half a bushel of clean wheat. Allowing working hours 
 in the 24, this would yield 16 bushels per day. Two boys are 
 sufiicient to turn the wheel, feed feed the mill and remove the 
 thrashed grain after it has passed through it. Two men were 
 unable by winnowing, to clear the wheat as it passed through 
 the mill, but a common Dutch fan, with the usual attendance 
 would be more than sufficient to do it. The grain passed 
 through without bruising and is well seperated from the chaff. 
 Women and boys of 12 and 14 years of age are fully adaquate 
 to the management of the mill or thrashing machine." 
 
 From intimations in letters and other parts of the journal it 
 is almost certain the President sent one of these thrashers to 
 his Mount Vernon Plantations. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply examples of General Wash- 
 ington's hospitality to distinguished visitors as well as experi- 
 ments to promote agriculture and to devise better methods and 
 
378 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 implements tlian were then in use in agriculture and the domes- 
 tic arts, but I have exhausted the time at my disposal and, I fear, 
 your patience ; besides which I think enough evidence has been 
 adduced to make it apparent that the mind of Washington was 
 pre-eminently efladent in devising expedients and all the 
 essential machinery to accomplish in the shortest time and in 
 the best manner, his purposes whether in the management of a 
 farm, the command of an army, or the inauguration of a new 
 form of Government and the administration of the affairs of a 
 nation. 
 
 The parentage, the disciplined mind, the associations and 
 the pursuits of Washington, from his cradle to his grave, were 
 all so admirable as to fully satisfy the most exacting require- 
 ments of the highest standard of excellence in human 
 character ; and each gives assurance that he was pre-eminently 
 deserving of the admiration of mankind above that of any 
 mortal who has ever lived.s^ Each act of his eventful life, 
 the purer grows as studied, freed from the passions of the times 
 in which he lived. Is it not lamentable, then, and to be deeply 
 regretted that the name of George Washington, the central 
 figure in all history, is not held as too sacred to be mentioned 
 except with reverential praise ? He should, at least, be exempt 
 from coarse and inconsiderate gibes and pert, unsavory 
 inuendoes having no foundation except in the depraved 
 imagination of the vulgar, incapable of appreciating the 
 virtues they profane. 53 
 
 52 A delicate and appreciative mark of respect to the memory of Wash- 
 ington is " the tolling of the bell " by all vessels passing Mount Vernon. 
 This special manifestation of regard, I learn, originated with a French 
 merchant vessel passing just after General Washington's death and before 
 the interment of his remains. The barque placed its colors at half-mast 
 and tolled its bell while passing the home of Washington, then a house of 
 mourning. This unique but impressive testimony of respect seemed to 
 all sea-faring men so appropriate that it was at once taken up by crafts 
 of every character on the Potomac, and has been continued, without 
 abatement, to this day. 
 
 53 The Hon. George Bancroft, our most eminent student of American his- 
 tory, has left us a comprehensive and just analysis of the character of the 
 Father of our Republic, based upon a study of his life and times, such as 
 but few writers are capable of giving to the subject. He says : 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 379 
 
 Mount Vernon must ever have a peculiar fascination to the 
 lovers of civil liberty, to all who admire genius and have faith 
 in human progress. To climb its hills, traverse its walks and 
 pass the portals which sheltered the man who amplified and 
 fashioned this Mansion, planned its gardens, fields and lawns 
 and embellished all with choicest trees and flowering shrubs, 
 seems now and ever will in some mysterious way to bring the 
 appreciative visitor near the great Washington. For it was here 
 the youthful surveyor, the courageous explorer, the commander 
 of armies, the presiding officer of conventions and the first 
 President of the United States, pursued his favorite employ- 
 ment of cultivating the soil. Heire, the purest patriot of 
 all the ages occupied his splendid talents and kept his heart 
 in sympathy with the latest improvements in everything which 
 tended to advance the happiness of the people and his country. 
 Here lived and labored the most felicitous letter-writer in 
 history, the greatest exponent of liberty guided by law, the 
 defender of the inalienable rights of man, the possessor of all 
 the virtues. The vitality of the Pater Patriez seems sentient 
 and perpetual here — the patriot's Mecca — once the home, now 
 the tomb of the Immortal Washington! 
 
 "The character of Washington's greatness may be described, in its unity, as the 
 highest wisdom of common sense ; that is to say, the largest endowment of the power 
 that constitutes the highest part of the nature of man ; or, it may be described as in 
 action the perfection of reflective judgment. That common sense or reflective judg- 
 ment, was combined with creative and executive capacity. If he spoke, or if he wrote, 
 he came directly to the point on which the matter in discussion depended ; and pro- 
 nounced his thoughts in clear, strong and concise "words ; if he was to act he suited his 
 means, be they scanty or sufficient in the best way to bis end. When America assem- 
 bled its best men in a first Congress, Patrick Henry said : ' For sound judgment 
 Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on the floor.''* 
 
 The following appreciative estimate of Washington's character is from 
 the pen of that astute French statesman, Talleyrand : 
 
 " History affords few examples of such renown. Great from the outset of his career, 
 patri otic before his country became a nation, despite the passions and political resent- 
 ments that desired to check his career, his fame remained imperishable. His public 
 actions, and unassuming grandeur in private life were living examples of courage, 
 wisdom and usefulness." 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 381 
 
 THE EFFECT OF OUR PATENT SYSTEM ON THE 
 MATERIAI, DEVElvOPMENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 By Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, op Ohio, U. S. House of 
 Representatives. 
 
 In defining the powers conferred upon Congress, Section 
 Eight of Article One of the Constitution contains, among 
 others, the following Clause ' ' To promote the progress of 
 science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors 
 and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings 
 and discoveries." 
 
 In the execution of the power conferred, Congress devised 
 our present Patent System, not in a single Act, but by such 
 legislation from time to time as experience suggested. The 
 law is a growth, and our present laws are the result of pro- 
 gressive development. Has the action of our fathers in mak- 
 ing provision in the Constitution for encouraging inventors and 
 authors been approved by results deducible therefrom ? Has 
 the influence of our Patent System upon the prosperity of the 
 nation justified its adoption ? I answer these questions in the 
 afi&rmative, and call attention to the evidence that no other 
 answer can properly be given. 
 
 Our fathers builded even better than they knew. I do not 
 know what they hoped for or anticipated as possible under the 
 System, the foundation of which they laid in the Constitution, 
 but this we may believe, that neither the most profound thinker 
 nor the wildest dreamer could have anticipated such marvelous 
 changes and improvements as have been wrought out under 
 our Patent System. 
 
 Mr Chairman, if some member of the immortal Convention 
 that framed our Constitution, endowed with the gift of prophecy, 
 had arisen in his place, and in plain speech disclosed what 
 their children would behold at the close of the first century as 
 a result of the power conferred upon Congress in the clause I 
 
382 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 have read, his associates would at once have felt an anxious 
 concern in regard to his mental health, or else have suspected 
 that the spirit of Baron Miinchausen was upon him. And if 
 in candor he had persisted in his predictions, his seemingly 
 obvious mental halucinations would have invalidated any will 
 he might have written while his intellect continued thus dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 If Benjamin Franklin, sage and philosopher as he was, were 
 to come back to the garth with only such scientific knowledge 
 as he possessed on the date of his death, he would not be able 
 to pass a civil service examination for appointment as a Fourth 
 Assistant Examiner in the electrical division of the Patent 
 Office. 
 
 I need not go to those who walked the earth an hundred 
 years ago to find unbelievers touching the possibilities that 
 waited upon the progressive and aggressive spirit of the last 
 fifty years of the nineteenth century, as it finds expression in 
 the development of the industrial arts and applied sciences. 
 The wise men in Congress fifty years ago found pleasure in 
 ridiculing and laughing at the "crank," Morse, who hung 
 about the lobby of the House, insisting that he could use the 
 lightning to transmit messages. And to-day, ninety per cent, 
 of the people of the United States would not credit the truth 
 of • a plain recital of actual facts concerning the progress we 
 have made in the field of human activity I have mentioned. 
 Even the individual who has struggled to keep posted, at least 
 as to the rate of progress made, would be startled at the exhibit 
 of what has been accomplished along the line of evoltition 
 during the last five decades. 
 
 Until recently, the Patent Office was regarded by the mass 
 of people as a clearing house for cranks. Inventors and auth- 
 ors, especially poets, were looked upon as a class of long- 
 haired, dreamy-eyed persons suffering in a greater or less de- 
 gree fi-om some mental obliquity, and the Patent Office was 
 supposed to contain the materialized evidence of mental con- 
 tortion. How little the world realized that to these cranks it 
 is in large measure indebted for its progress. They were the 
 avant couriers of a higher and better civilization. As the result 
 of their labor, old things have passed away and all things be- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 383 
 
 come new. We have a new earth, or at least it can be truly said 
 that the old earth has put on new conditions, such as to create 
 wonder even among the most learned. 
 
 The wisdom of giving to authors and inventors the exclusive 
 right for a limited time to their writings and discoveries has been 
 frequently questioned by able men, and even as late as during 
 the last Congress one of its oldest and wisest members 
 asserted that our present unequalled and unexampled pros- 
 perity in the arts and sciences would not have been lessened 
 by the absence of the Patent System, asserting also that such 
 encouragement to authors and inventors is wholly unnecessary 
 and cannot be justified. 
 
 It is urged also, that the influence of the System has been 
 to build up monopolies and to impose needless burdens upon 
 the people. I desire to take a few moments of your time to 
 answer these criticisms, and in doing so, to call the attention 
 of this Congress to what has been accomplished under the in- 
 spiration and encouragement afforded by our Patent System. 
 
 Our fathers af&rmed, and all experience confirms the cor- 
 rectness of their conclusion, that no individual would devote 
 weeks, months and years, and possibly decades, to patient 
 study, investigation and experiment for the mere purpose of 
 lightening his own labor or securing better results merely fi-om 
 his individual efforts. Obviously not even a crank, mad with the 
 love of invention, would struggle through the years to invent 
 a steam engine, a sewing machine, a telegraph, a telephone, 
 or a reaper and mower, solely for his personal use. It was 
 essential that there be reserved to the inventor or author for a 
 time such exclusive ownership in the thing invented, discov- 
 ered or written, as would enable him to derive pecuniary profit 
 from its manufacture, use, publication and sale. 
 
 It would seem clear that there would be no inducement to in- 
 vent or construct a harvester or mower merely to reap one's own 
 field. No one would invent a sewing machine for the purpose 
 of doing the family sewing. And it is equally clear that there 
 would be very few inventions if others have the equal right, 
 Without the permission of the inventor and discoverer, to man- 
 ufacture, use and sell the thing invented or discovered. Few 
 books would be written unless there was in the author for 
 
384 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 some period an exclusive ownership of the work. In every 
 walk and avenue of life there must be the hope of gain or other 
 positive advantage to induce men to labor. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution, therefore, wisely conferred 
 upon Congress the power to secure to authors and inventors 
 for a limited period, an exclusive right to their respective 
 writings and discoveries, the compensation in each case being 
 contingent upon the advantage or pleasure the public derived 
 in substituting the new device or machine for the old, or in 
 perusing the works from the pen or inspiration of the author. 
 The consideration to the public is found in the advantage, 
 pleasure or profit derived by the community from the discovery 
 or writing. The steam engine, the cotton gin, the printing 
 press, the machinery for spinning, each paid to the world ten 
 thousand-fold, yes a million-fold, more than the inventors re- 
 ceived as a reward for their labor. The community have no 
 right to take the result of my labor without compensation. 
 Whitney's cotton gin contributed more for the convenience 
 and comfort of mankind than was derived from the aggregated 
 labor of every workman in his State in five years. The idea 
 that this work of Whitney's should be confiscated to the use 
 of the public without suitable reward to him, smacks of grand 
 larceny. 
 
 The difference between civilization and barbarism is not more 
 marked in anything than in the means of communicating 
 thought, and in the character of the instrumentalities and 
 agencies provided for utilizing the forces of nature and adapt- 
 ing material resources to the necessities and wants of man. 
 
 This inventive genius I regard as one of the godlike quali- 
 ties given to man, with which to solve the problem of his ex- 
 istence. Nor does the influence exerted by this divine attribute 
 have relation merely to the physical conditions about us, but to 
 our moral, social and political condition and surroundings. 
 Place a philosopher in the midst of poverty and squalor, and 
 he will gravitate towards corruption and beastiality. The men 
 who are compelled to endure an unceasing round of drudgery 
 in order to subsist or exist become, ultimately, little better than 
 mere beasts of burden. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 385 
 
 I do not intend to intimate by this that labor is in itself de- 
 grading. Far from it. I do not speak of labor in its proper 
 sense, but of toilsome, wearing drudgery, sometimes called 
 labor. Labor itself is ennobling, dignifying and refining, even 
 as idleness has a tendency to the reverse. 
 
 It would be well for us to look for a moment still further into 
 the causes which led to the insertion of the clause in the Con- 
 stitution which is the foundation of our Patent System. We 
 must study cause and effect together, and to do so, we must 
 look a little farther back through the pages of time than that 
 gathering of the fathers which framed our Constitution. 
 
 States have been carved out upon the battlefield or created in 
 the counsel chamber, or have grown up in the process of time 
 without feeling that necessity for a power, welded into the 
 fundamental law, to remunerate inventors and authors as public 
 benefactors. But a century ago the world was just entering 
 upon its inventive period. Scientists and philosophers were 
 groping after the natural laws, dragging them one by one from 
 their obscurity and revealing them to the wondering eyes of 
 the people. Invention, that is the utilization of the powers 
 and principles of nature, was in its infancy, being without en- 
 couragement or hope of reward. 
 
 In the Constitutional Convention sat Benjamin Franklin, 
 aged and near his end, but fresh from his intercourse with the 
 brilliant band of philosophers and scientists at Paris whose 
 audacious theories and researches were the fit harbinger of the 
 awful regime about to be ushered in. The world was ripe for 
 wondrous changes, some silent and scarcely felt, others resound- 
 ing through the world with their momentous and dread import. 
 We cannot pause to measure the relative importance of these 
 different changes. Sufiice it that all of them hurled themselves 
 against the inertia of the past, that all of them proclaimed in 
 the ears of the startled world " The order changeth, give place 
 to new." 
 
 Liberty was awake and was stretching her pinions for an 
 awful flight. Invention was but half awake and beholding in 
 dreamy visions the children that were soon to be born of her. 
 Her flight was at first more gradual, but increased in speed so 
 
386 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 wondrously that of late it had been beyond tlie power of mortal 
 man to accurately mark her course. 
 
 The Patent System was the offspring of the inventive genius 
 of the age. Invention in turn was fostered and vindicated 
 the Patent System. This has gone on until the two have 
 become entwined with one another and inseparable. 
 
 But for the Patent System only an infinitesimal part of the 
 triumphs of inventive genius, which crowd about us in such 
 numbers that we are wholly unable to appreciate their extent 
 and magnificence, would have been accomplished, and if we 
 would cut the ground from beneath the material prosperity of 
 the age, there is no way in which it could be so effectively done 
 as by a repeal of our patent laws. 
 
 Now, what has been the effect of the system upon the con- 
 dition of our country ? Does it levy unjust and onerous tribute 
 upon the people ? Do we realize that of all the patents issued 
 not ten per cent, pay the inventor or his assigns the actual cost of 
 perfecting the invention and obtaining letters patent therefor? 
 Nor must it be inferred from this that these several inventions 
 are worthless to the community. Far from it. Each marks a 
 step in the line of progressive development and is of value as 
 such, and for every cent paid to inventors, more than one 
 thousand are realized by the general public in the use of in- 
 ventions with or without paying proper compensation therefor. 
 
 It is true that fortunes are made out of single inventions and 
 the price charged for the right to use the device or machine 
 may appear, and often is, extravagant. But, do we stop to 
 reflect that we need not use it ? We have still at our command 
 the old way, and it would seem obvious that the new device 
 would not be used unless, notwithstanding the tax, it were 
 better and cheaper, for after all the advantage or disadvantage 
 to the user is what controls. 
 
 We stick to the old way unless we see a positive advantage 
 in substituting the new. So the profit is shared in by the 
 many. It is susceptible of demonstration that if the inventors 
 of the past century could have a just balance struck between 
 what they have contributed to the pecuniary advantage and 
 general prosperity of the community and the pecuniary profit 
 which they have received themselves, there would be found 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 387 
 
 due the inventors a sum in excess of the national debts of 
 England and the United States 
 
 I will briefly call attention to what the inventive genius of 
 man, prompted and encouraged by our Patent System, has 
 accomplished in comparatively few years. In the history of 
 nations centuries are brief periods. And here I may stop to 
 say that if I should draw a sharp contrast between the possi- 
 bilities under the old order of things prior to the adoption of 
 our Constitution, and that which is not only possible, but 
 commonplace to-day, I should be deemed even in the presence 
 of known facts as having great powers of imagination, and 
 taking too much liberty with truth. 
 
 But for this influence boot and shoemakers would still toil 
 fifteen hours a day instead of ten, and by reason of the in- 
 creased demand shoes might now be a luxury beyond the 
 reach of many. 
 
 The great famines of history have become no longer possible 
 on account of the improved means of transit and transportation. 
 All the people of the United States in 1840, with all the means 
 then at their command, could not have harvested one of our 
 present annual corn or wheat crops, and had they succeeded 
 in doing so it would have rotted in the barns for lack of means 
 of transportation to spots where at the same moment famine 
 was reigning. 
 
 I have often called attention to the fact that one day's wages 
 of a Boston mechanic would pay the cost of transporting the 
 year's supply for his family from Chicago, the great Western 
 market, to Boston. Fifty years ago one month's salary would 
 not have been sufficient for that purpose. 
 
 The Hon. David A. Wells, in his most admirable book 
 entitled " Recent Economic Changes," tells us that five acres 
 of wheat can be brought from Chicago to I^iverpool for less 
 than the cost of manuring one acre in England. And that 
 Indian com, which has been extensively raised in Italy, can 
 be brought from the Mississippi Valley and sold in Italy at 
 less than the home product, although the Italian laborer 
 receives but one-third of the wages of the American. A few 
 years ago five million people perished in one district in China 
 
388 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 from starvation because the bountiful harvests of other districts 
 could not be conveyed to their relief. 
 
 Without the perfected railroad and telegraph systems, as Mr. 
 Wells justly observes, the war for the maintenance of the 
 Federal Union under the existing Constitution, could not prob- 
 ably have been prosecuted to a successful conclusion, and even 
 if no domestic strife had intervened, it is more than doubtful 
 whether a federation of numerous States, sovereign in many 
 particulars, flowing down the stream of time like an elongated 
 series of separate rafts linked together, could have been 
 indefinitely perpetuated when the time necessary to overcome 
 the distance between its extremities and the mere transmission 
 of intelligence amounted to from twenty to thirty days. So 
 much for improvements and transportation. 
 
 Nearly, and probably fully, one-half of all those who now 
 earn their living in industrial pursuits do so in occupations 
 which not only had no existence, but which had not even been 
 conceived of one hundred years ago. When Arkwright 
 invented his cotton spinning machinery in 1760, there were in 
 England about eight thousand persons engaged in the produc- 
 tion of cotton textiles. The introduction of his invention was 
 opposed on the ground that it threatened the ruin of these 
 working people. This was equally true of many labor-saving 
 machines, and is an argument that is still used in spite of the 
 facts. Results, however, vindicated the claim that the labor- 
 saving machine is a most beneficent friend of labor. Note 
 what followed the invention of Arkwright. I quote largely 
 from the work of Mr. Wells : ' ' Twenty -seven years subse- 
 quent to the invention the Parliamentary inquiry showed that 
 the number of persons actually engaged in the spinning 
 and weaving of cotton had arisen from seven thousand nine 
 hundred (7,900) to three hundred and twenty thousand (320,- 
 000), an increase of four thousand four hundred (4,400) per 
 cent., and now, including those engaged in subsidiary indus- 
 tries, such as calico printing, the number is two million five 
 hundred thousand (2,500,000)." 
 
 Mr. Wells remarks upon the singular anomaly that while 
 the increasing cost of labor is the greatest stimulant to inven- 
 tion, the laborer who finds employment in connection with the 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 389 
 
 new inventions generally commands higher wages than was 
 possible under the previous conditions, and, what is quite as 
 important to the laborer, each invention creates a new indus- 
 try, in which the higher and nobler faculties of the mind are 
 employed. 
 
 In the manufacture of certain kinds of tinware seventy-five 
 pieces are now produced at the cost of producing one fifty 
 years ago, and in every department of the tin manufacture the 
 cost of production has been greatly cheapened, prices to con- 
 sumers reduced, consumption more than quadrupled, and yet 
 the number of men employed in the factories has constantly 
 multiplied and their wages constantly advanced. 
 
 Again, I am indebted to Mr. Wells for the information that 
 since 1870 the price of articles of glassware, such as goblets, 
 tumblers, wine-glasses, etc. , has been reduced seventy or eighty 
 per cent, in consequence of methods which encourage labor 
 and improvement in quality of the manufacture. At the 
 same time the wages of the workmen have advanced seventy 
 to one hundred per cent., with a considerable reduction in the 
 hours of labor. On the Illinois Central Railroad the cost per 
 mile run for locomotive service has fallen from 26.52 cents in 
 1857 to 13.93 i^ 1886, and in the same period the wages of 
 engineers and firemen have arisen from 4.51 cents to 5.52 cents 
 per mile run. In other words, the engineers and firemen who 
 received in 1857 seventeen per cent, of the entire cost of loco- 
 motive service received in 1886 forty per cent. , the reduction 
 in the cost per mile run being wholly effected by invention and 
 improvements in machinery. 
 
 The truth is really more startling than fiction. If the stories 
 of the writers who have regaled us by descriptions of the deeds 
 v/rought by the supernatural powers of the mythological period 
 of the world were true, they would still be eclipsed by the 
 actual possibilities of to-day. I^et me see whether I am correct 
 in this. We read of what the heroes and demigods accom- 
 plished at the siege of Troy and in the battles in which the 
 upper powers were said to have taken part. Would Agam- 
 emnon and Archiles, leading the armies of Greece, with Mars 
 and Pallas fighting by their side, have been able to sustain a 
 seizure against Helen of Troy and her hand-maids, if the 
 
390 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 latter had stood upon Trojan battlements supplied with the 
 modern implements of war, the Greeks fighting with the wea- 
 pons of their day ? It will be obvious to this convention that 
 the fickle Helen, aided only by her maids, could have destroyed 
 the armies of Greece and driven the Grecian fleets from the 
 Trojan Coast, or sunk them in the sea. 
 
 It is truly said that time and space have been annihilated, 
 but what are the illustrations ? Could the fleet Mercury, with 
 his winged sandals, keep pace with the messenger of Morse ? 
 Could Jupiter hurl thunderbolts as terribly destructive as our 
 1 6-inch cannon or our 20-inch mortars? Could Neptune hold 
 his own on the Sea against such navies as now ride the deep, 
 supplemented by our system of torpedoes and submarine mines ? 
 There is not a skillful blacksmith in the United States who 
 would consent to use the crude appliances of Vulcan's fabled 
 shop. Every youth familiar with mythology has wondered at 
 the malvelous feats performed by the gods and demigods. The 
 inventor has taught us how to surpass everything they did, 
 whether in the arts of peace or war. 
 
 The twelve labors of Hercules would be undertaken by any 
 contractor in the United States in good standing, and he would 
 give bond with approved security to complete the work within 
 half the time required by the son of Jupiter. This statement may 
 sound startling and exaggerated, but it is indeed the truth. 
 The powers we exert now are not of mythological origin, but 
 from the inspiration of the living God. 
 
 Those who censure the Patent System too often assume that 
 the inventor puts forth no effort, and that the wonderful pro- 
 ductions of authors and inventors involve little thought, slight 
 study and reflection, and next to no labor. Nothing could be 
 farther from the fact. I^et it be borne in mind that those whose 
 names appear upon the records in the United States and other 
 countries as patentees do not comprise the list of inventors, 
 even approximately. Neither would this list of inventors, 
 could it be accurately compiled, disclose the entire number of 
 those who are busy in the various fields of study, investigation 
 and experiment, endeavoring to solve some important problem 
 in art or science, to benefit mankind. The patentees are those 
 who reached the goal first, but a mighty army was moving to 
 occupy the ground, and each one of the host may have con- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 391 
 
 tributed by thought or act to the ultimate success attained, no 
 matter to whom the first honor may have been awarded. Each 
 hoped to be the first, and, encouraged by the provisions of our 
 Patent I,aws, he labored on to the end. 
 
 A greater number of men gave time, labor and money to the 
 task of inventing and perfecting the reaper and mower as we 
 see it to-day in the harvest fields than were employed in con- 
 structing the several Pacific railroads. 
 
 Caesar conquered Gaul with a force numerically less than 
 was employed in inventihg and perfecting the parts of the sew- 
 ing machines that are used in the homes of our country to-day. 
 Sewing machines are more than two centuries old. 
 
 The roll of all those who have given earnest study and labor 
 to the invention and perfection of the printing press and the 
 steam engine would be longer than that which contains the 
 names of all the soldiers who fought the battles of the Revo- 
 lution. In short, the war to subdue the forces of nature, to 
 make them submissive and obedient to the human will requires 
 a more numerous and better trained army than was mustered 
 to conquer the warlike tribes of men. 
 
 A revolution in the industrial arts and applied sciences proves 
 of greater advantage and is more permanent and farther reach- 
 ing in its infiuence for good than the most successful political 
 and social revolutions. The revolution in the arts is silent 
 though potent. It goes forward with constantly accelerated 
 speed and yet so noiselessly that we are unconscious of it ex- 
 cept as we witness results. 
 
 The influence of the revolution wrought by the author and 
 inventor, through the inspiration and encouragement of the 
 Patent and Copyright System, is about us on every hand. It 
 is constantly before our eyes and palpable in fact to all our 
 senses. Of this we are sometimes, in fact generally, forgetful. 
 In conclusion, I submit that there is not a home, not a shop, 
 mill or factory, not a highway of travel nor an artery of com- 
 merce, not a field, river, lake or ocean which does not bear 
 irrefutable testimony of the great value of this system, and 
 abundantly attest the foresight of our fathers in planting in the 
 Constitution the seed of this fruitful harvest of rich blessing 
 for their children. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 393 
 
 THE RELATION OF INVENTION TO THE COM- 
 MUNICATION OF INTELLIGENCE AND THE DIF- 
 FUSION OF KNOWLEDGE BY NEWSPAPER AND 
 BOOK. 
 
 By Hon. Wilwam T. Harris, Commissionbr of Education. 
 
 By reason of his physical nature man is hampered by three 
 wants — ^he needs food, clothing and shelter. In his first aiid 
 lowest stage of civilization man lives in a state of enthrall ment 
 to nature. He dreads and worships the cruel forces of matter. 
 But by the aid of science, and invention which flows from 
 science, man attains domination or control over things and forces 
 and directs them into the service of humanity for use or for 
 beauty. The soul conquers nature by science and machinery, 
 and then next it desires to see this conquest over nature 
 reflected in works of art. Hence it creates architecture, sculp- 
 ture, painting, music, and poetry — all of these fine arts por- 
 traying man's victory over wants and necessities. 
 
 If the spectacle of pauperism and crime — the savagery that 
 still lingers in the slums of our cities sternly reminds us of the 
 yet feeble hold which our civilization has obtained even in 
 cities — if the census of mankind proves that three-fourths are 
 yet counted as below the line that separates the half-civilized 
 from the civilized — yet we are wont to console ourselves by the 
 promise and potency which we can all discern in productive 
 industry aided by the might of science and invention. This 
 view is always hopeful. We see that there is a sort of 
 geometric progress in the contest over things and forces. The 
 ability of man to create wealth continually accelerates. The 
 more he obtains the more he can obtain. The more each 
 one gets the more his neighbor also can get. Even the weak- 
 lings of society — the paupers or beggars, the insane, and the 
 criminals all fare better in the centres of wealth than they do at 
 a distance from them where there is no wealth to beg or steal, 
 
494 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 and no asylums created and sustained by wealth to shelter 
 and heal their diseased bodies. 
 
 Wealth in the modern sense of the word, far more than in 
 its ancient sense, is self-productive. It is capital, and capital 
 is wealth that generates wealth. Capital represents conquered 
 forces and things — conquered for the supply of human wants. 
 Capital consists of natural forces yoked and set to work for 
 food, clothing, shelter and the facilities of human culture. 
 The three physical wants (food, clothing and shelter) are pro- 
 duced by Nature — ^they are the chains and fetters whereby 
 Nature asserts her right to enslave humanity — to keep man in a 
 state of thraldom. 
 
 But the Promethean cunning of man, realized first in science 
 and next in useful machines, has succeeded in subduing the 
 powers of nature and imposing on them the task of supplying 
 and gratifying the very needs which nature creates in us. 
 Nature has chained man to the task of daily toil for food, 
 clothing and shelter. But man turns back upon nature and 
 compels her to take the place of human drudgery and pro- 
 duce an abundance of these needed supplies and bring them 
 wherever they are needed for consumption. This is accom- 
 plished by mechanical combinations that secure the service of 
 steam, electricity, and various forms of earth, air, fire and 
 water. 
 
 This self-generating wealth that exists in the shape of capi- 
 tal is so much on the increase that it fills all classes of our 
 population with hopes, or if not with hopes, at least with dis- 
 contents — and discontent is certainly the product of hope 
 struggling up from the depths of the soul. Without the vivid 
 preception of a higher ideal and without the feeling that it is 
 attainable, there would not be any such thing as discontent. 
 The average production of each man, woman and child in the 
 United States increased, in the thirty years between 1850 and 
 1880, from about 25 cents per day to 40 cents — an increase of 
 60 per cent. This means the production of far more substan- 
 tial improvements for human comfort. Much more wealth is 
 created that possesses an enduring character and may be 
 handed down to the next generation. Finer dwellings, better 
 roads and streets, fences for lands, drainings, levelings, and 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 395 
 
 the processes necessary to bring wild land under cultivation, 
 artificial supplies of water and gas, the warehouses and eleva- 
 tors and the appliances of commerce — and finally the buildings 
 and furnishings of culture, including churches, schools, libra- 
 ries, museums, asylums, and all manner of public buildings. 
 
 If science progresses and its concomitant, useful invention, 
 progresses as fast for the next hundred years as it has done 
 for the past forty years, the vision of Edward Bellamy of 
 comfort for all will be realized without the necessity of any 
 form of socialism. There will be comfort and even luxury for 
 all who will labor a moderate amount of time. 
 
 Science inventories nature and discovers properties and pos- 
 sible combinations. Invention uses these combinations to meet 
 mechanical problems. Can any one doubt who looks into the 
 state of science and its continually improving methods that the 
 conquest of nature will be more rapid in the coming century 
 than it has been in the past century ? 
 
 But we are challenged by the question, What is the good of 
 annihilating the necessity for bodily toil ? Will not man de- 
 generate spiritually as he comes to possess luxury at cheaper 
 and cheaper rates ? These material advantages gained by use- 
 ful invention which create a steady and permanent supply of 
 food, clothing and shelter, are they not mere sumptuary pro- 
 visions and do they imply real progress in civilization ? 
 
 To this challenge we reply by pointing out the " Relation of 
 Invention to the Communication of Intelligence and the Dif- 
 fusion of Knowledge by Newspaper and Book. ' ' 
 
 In the first place it is obvious that the three classes of em- 
 ployments devoted chiefly to the supply of the physical wants, 
 namely, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are under- 
 going change by aid of mechanic invention in such a manner 
 as to bring the laborer everywhere more and more into relation 
 with his fellow men. In other words, commerce increases more 
 and more, and becomes a part of all employments. In ex- 
 changing goods each gets something that he needed more than 
 what he parted with. But the best result of the exchange is 
 the acquaintance formed between the buyer and seller. Each 
 has learned something of the other's ideas, and modes of looking 
 
396 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 at the world, and habits of action. Each one's life is enriched 
 by the knowledge of the life of another. 
 
 Man as a spiritual being has for his problem the exploration 
 of the two worlds — the worlds of nature and of man. The prob- 
 lem is too great for the individual and he must avail himself of 
 the work of others. Each man may inventory a small portion 
 of nature different from all others. Each one may live a life 
 different from another's. But the individual gets a very small 
 glimpse of nature by the aid of his own senses, and he gets a 
 very small arc of the total of human life in his survey of his 
 own biography. 
 
 But by intercommunication each one may extend and supple- 
 ment his own observations of nature and of the experience of 
 life by aid of the sense perceptions of others and still more by 
 aid of the thoughts and reflections of others. 
 
 We see at once that man is man because he possesses and 
 uses this means of re-enforcing his individual observations and 
 reflections by those of the race. Man as individual is endowed 
 with the power of absorbing the results of the race. We have 
 with this a definition of civilization and a standard of measure- 
 ment by which we may determine the rate of progress. 
 
 Advancement implies that there are improved means realized 
 by which each individual can give to the rest of mankind the 
 results of his living and doing and thinking, and at the same 
 time share in the lives, thoughts, and deeds of all others. 
 
 Looked at in the light of this definition, we shall be able to 
 see something more hopeful in the material progress promised 
 us in the coming century than a cheap supply of bodily com- 
 forts. We see a progressive increase of intercommunication 
 which will enable each individual to command the results of the 
 rational intelligence of all mankind. 
 
 Man is first a speaking animal and next a writing animal. 
 Each word that he uses expresses a general meaning. Each 
 word therefore stores up an indefinite amount of experience. 
 All men may pour into it their experience and by it recognize the 
 experience of others. The art of writing at once increases in- 
 finitely the possibility of intercommunication, because it pre- 
 serves the experience recorded for persons widely separated in 
 space and far removed in time. It renders every where in some 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 397 
 
 sense a here and every when a now. But mechanic invention 
 comes to the aid of speech and the elementary arts of writing 
 by printing with moveable types. Printing and gunpowder are 
 two great elementary arts both attributed to the Germanic race — 
 the two wheels of modern civilization, so to speak. But the 
 Anglo-Saxon has added the steam-engine and the telegraph. 
 The one makes locomotion possible to an increasing degree, and 
 the other makes instantaneous intercommunication with all 
 places possible. 
 
 Armed with these instrumentalities, our modern civilization 
 lives on a sort of spiritual borderland. It looks across its fron- 
 tier and is in a constant process of interaction with all other 
 nations. The great instrument of this process is the daily 
 newspaper. People are becoming from year to year a traveled 
 people — in a short time the per cent, of the population that has 
 crossed the ocean has doubled. The per cent, that has visited 
 the Western borderland has quadrupled. But the per cent, of 
 people who live in constant daily inter-relation with all man- 
 kind by aid of the daily newspaper has increased a hundred- 
 fold within a single generation. 
 
 This single fact is the most significant one in all modern 
 history. By a glance into its meaning we see to what an 
 extent our civilization has become a constant miracle. 
 
 There go to the making up of the newspaper of to-day a 
 vast congeries of mechanical and intellectual appliances. It is 
 so complete in its instrumentalities that it realizes many of the 
 conceptions cherished in the childhood of the race as mytho- 
 logical fancies. Odin's ravens, the wishing-cap of Portu- 
 natus ; the cloak of invisibility, the " seven-league boots," the 
 winged feet of Mercury — in short, all appliances whereby a 
 then becomes a now and whereby a there becomes a here, are 
 well-nigh realized in the modem daily newspaper, so far 
 as the presentation to each man of the spectacle of the activity 
 of his entire race is concerned. The consequences of this fact 
 are momentous. It is obvious that there is an immense 
 shrinkage in the importance of near events, of events that 
 concern small transactions. The consequent enlargement of 
 the views of ordinary men, who form the masses of mankind, 
 follows as a result. 
 
398 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 It follows also that urban life — the life of the inhabitant of 
 the city, with its social advantages — penetrates the country 
 wherever the railroad and telegraph make possible the daily 
 newspaper. It follows, moreover, that the mind of the average 
 citizen becomes habituated to thinking of the great individ- 
 ualities of the world, such as corporations, states, vocations, 
 social organizations, institutions, commercial enterprises, 
 national undertakings ; to seeing, in short, the activity of his 
 fellow-men under the form of vast processes, instead of that 
 former narrow view of mere individual exploits of mere com- 
 monplace people. 
 
 Another consequence of this is the gradual elimination of 
 mere local peculiarities, the limitations of caste and narrow 
 self-interest, and the consequent approach of the ideas of each 
 and every people — that participates in civilization and supports 
 its daily newspapers — towards a common ideal standard of 
 humanity. This is not a reduction of all to one insipid 
 standard on a lower level ; it is the elevation of the members 
 of the human race to the higher level of its ideal. 
 
 The daily glimpse of the spectacle of the human race, which 
 our generation is becoming accustomed to, combines in one 
 all the educative virtues of the means and appliances hereto- 
 fore employed by the four forms of education furnished by the 
 institutions of civilization, namely : the family, civil society, 
 the state, and the church. 
 
 In proportion as the spectacle of the whole world of human- 
 ity becomes an adequate one, and its presentation a complete 
 one, it becomes wholesome and moral. 
 
 The growth of prose fiction in modern times is a marvelous 
 phenomenon that is not to be explained apart from the fact of 
 the newspaper and periodical which has furnished the vehicle 
 for its transmission to the public that reads it. 
 
 Not only does the well-equipped daily newspaper represent 
 on its editorial staff the topics of commerce and transportation, 
 the courts, the local gossip, the telegraph news, the political 
 movements, the new discoveries in science and the useful arts, 
 and the new productions in the fine arts, but it gives its de- 
 partment of fiction, in which the manners and morals of 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 399 
 
 society are reflected, the virtues and vices and their conse- 
 quences, and especially the habits of polite society. 
 
 If we but consider it, even the so-called ' ' trashy novel' ' 
 has a side of usefulness. It is condemned because of its 
 description of empty trifles, the ceremonies and civilities of 
 polite society ; it expends much space in giving the outermost 
 appearance of things, and its characters are mere ' ' dummies ' ' 
 like those which the clothier and the milliner use to support and 
 display their costumes. But even these empty externalities 
 are interesting and valuable to the youth who is trying to rise 
 from a low condition into polished society by industry and the 
 acquirements of wealth. The boorishness of manner which 
 hinders him in his progress of ascent is in process of removal 
 through familiarity with the ways of society which he finds 
 described in his ' ' trashy ' ' novel. 
 
 Whatever may be the causes of crime, whatever may be its 
 prevention or cure, there is force in the argument that the 
 tendency of stories of crime is to become more true to the 
 realities, and to present the career of the criminal in its native 
 hideousness. All literary art progresses toward completeness 
 of representation, and even the depraved taste soon tires of 
 stories which always describe the criminal as successful against 
 the law ; and the moment that the history of the criminal is 
 given with truth, and his deed is shown to involve its own 
 dreadful consequences, then even the criminal novel becomes 
 moral in its tone. 
 
 There is an element of revolt against what is rational in every 
 one of us, as unregenerate or as merely natural beings, i. e., as 
 animals. It is only as we gradually learn to recognize in the 
 law a correct statement of our essential being that we become 
 reconciled to it, and take sides against the violator of justice 
 and right. Until then we are prone to feel interest in the out- 
 law, as in one who raises the banner of individual freedom. 
 Liberty is confounded with license. 
 
 It is here that we approach the question of punishment as it 
 is involved in the newspaper. For not only is the newspaper 
 infinitely great as an instrumentality for education and the 
 widening of intelligence, but in its function of punisher of sin 
 and crime, it is the most terrible engine yet invented. 
 
400 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The urban or city civilization is a newspaper civilization, if 
 we characterize it by the most important instrument that it has 
 invented. Into the daily newspaper as into a magic mirror 
 the modem citizen looks and sees the spectacle of the doings of 
 the entire world. The movements of commerce ; the transac- 
 tions of the various nations in so far as these are outside of 
 routine ; extraordinary crimes and retributions ; the events of 
 society ; the doings in science, art, literature, the drama, and 
 an indefinite domain of personal gossip — all these are presented 
 to the citizen, and he regularly adjusts himself each morning 
 to his world environment. 
 
 Formerly, before the railroad and telegraph had rendered 
 possible the daily newspaper, each person adjusted himself to 
 his narrow environment through village gossip which he heard 
 at the neighboring inn or at the clubs. Now, instead of village 
 gossip, he reads world gossip without leaving his fireside or 
 breakfast-table. 
 
 In the past civilization each section grew more sectional, ex- 
 cept in times of great wars that mingled the soldiery of different 
 localities. In the modern civilization the daily newspapers of 
 all lands have substantially the same presentation of the world, 
 and reflect more nearly the same views. The newspaper is 
 therefore a sort of world court, in which passing events are 
 brought up daily for judgment. 
 
 Under these circumstances there arises into power the majestic 
 presence of public opinion, a might which controls the actions 
 of kings, the deliberations of parliaments, and the ballots of 
 electors. Public opinion is become the educator of nations. 
 Formerly, through ignorance of the effect that overt acts might 
 have, nations were often precipitated into war. Now it is easy 
 for statesmanship to feel the pulse of nations in advance, and 
 by prudent diplomacy avoid extreme issues. 
 
 The newspaper is the organ of public opinion, and in this 
 capacity it tries and judges criminals, and it punishes all man- 
 ner of sin that escapes the whip of the law. It rewards good 
 deeds, and sounds the trumpet of fame before the favorites of 
 public opinion. The newspaper popularizes science and litera- 
 ture. It has a page of fiction, in which the modem literary 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 401 
 
 artist paints the ideals of society with halos of glory or with 
 satire and caricature. 
 
 When each human being beholds the same spactacle beheld 
 by all others, and assists all in forming the high court of public 
 opinion, there is realized at once the most powerful educational 
 means ever invented for uniting men in thought and sentiment. 
 Even the old-fashioned village gossip was a powerful means in 
 its way to eliminate from the individual his whimsicalities and 
 idiosyncrasies. The modern public opinion is based on world 
 gossip, and is far more potent for good. Mrs. Grundy's opinion 
 becomes dignified and oracular when it voices the verdict of 
 nations. 
 
 One consequence of this new realization of the magic mirror 
 in which all humanity is reflected is the rise of the true cosmo- 
 politan spirit — a mutual toleration of all peoples. A profounder 
 habit of considering one's fellow-men enables us to see the 
 same humanity under strange disguises of costume and diverse 
 language. 
 
 By the printed page, now universally diffused and the possi- 
 ble possession of every member of society, the humblest indi- 
 vidual has access at his own pleasure and convenience wherever 
 time and place find him, to the wisest and most gifted of his 
 race. He may penetrate by his industry during his leisure 
 hours their deep solutions of the problem of life, and become 
 himself wise like them. 
 
 Not only the printed book affords this access, but the printed 
 page of the newspaper comes more and more to serve up each 
 morning for the people of every urban population i. e., every 
 city and town and every village on the railroad, a spiritual 
 breakfast, with many courses ; a few thoughts of the wise, a 
 poem or two, some popular statements of the recent results of 
 science, some pieces of biography and history and, chiefly, a 
 complete picture of the movement of the world of humanity 
 far and near — so complete a picture that from day to day the 
 events seem to march forward firom inception to denouement, 
 before our eyes, with the consequence and necessity that we see 
 in the dramas of ^schylus and Sophocles. Through the prose 
 reality of everyday life as seen in the newspaper column there 
 shines the great purpose of history. 
 
402 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 We find the printed page in its myriad fonns the most potent 
 agency for the realization of the high spiritual being of man in 
 the image of God, and the most perfect means for the emanci- 
 pation of man from slavery to his own ignorance and passions, 
 and from his dependence on others for guidance and direction. 
 He becomes less dependent on a fellow-man for master — one 
 brain to govern two pair of hands — and more independent 
 and self-directive, more rational, and more participative in the 
 wisdom and goodness of the human race. 
 
 This participation has been rendered possible by the inven- 
 tions which have brought the art of printing to what it is and 
 by the other inventions that have facilitated transportation and 
 rapid communication. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 403 
 
 THE BIRTH OF INVENTION. 
 
 By Professor Otis T. Mason, Ph. D., of Virginia, Curator 
 
 U. S. Nationai, Museum. 
 
 ' ' What a plastic little creature man is ! so shifty, so adaptive ! his 
 body a chest of tools, and he making himself comfortable in every 
 climate, in every condition." — Emerson. 
 
 la this apotheosis of invention and inventors, to me has 
 been assigned the pleasing task of leading you back for a few 
 moments to the cradle of humanity. Those are happy hours 
 to most of us when we recall the days of childhood. To 
 trace the lives of celebrated men and women to the springs 
 of. their moral and intellectual power brings never-fading 
 delight. To study the rise and progress of a nation or any 
 social unit is worthy of exalted minds. But the most profitable 
 inquiry of all is the search for the origin of epoch-making 
 ideas in order to comprehend the history of civilization, to 
 conjure up those race memories in which each people trans- 
 mits to itself and to posterity its former experiences. 
 
 Every invention of any importance is the nursery of future 
 inventions, the cradle of a sleeping Hercules. But my task is 
 to speak of primitive man and his efforts. 
 
 It will aid us in prosecuting our journey backward to orient 
 ourselves with reference to the present. For two days we have 
 listened to the eloquent papers of my predecessors, written to 
 glorify the nineteenth century. Through this faculty of inven- 
 tion the whole earth is man's. There is not a lone island fit 
 for his abode whereon some Alexander Selkirk has not made 
 a home. Every mineral, plant and animal is so far known 
 that a place has been found for it in his Systema Nature. 
 Every creature is subject to man ; the winds, the seas, the 
 sunshine, the lightning do his bidding. Projecting his vision 
 beyond his tiny planet, this inventing animal has catalogued 
 and traced the motion of every star. 
 
 But his crowning glory (which always fills me with admira- 
 tion) is his ever-increasing comprehensiveness. After cen- 
 
404 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 turies of cultivating acquaintance with the discrete phe- 
 nomena around him, he has now striven to coordinate them, 
 to make them organic, to read system into them. He has 
 learned by degrees to comprehend all things as parts of a single 
 mechanism. Sir Isaac Newton and Kepler conceived all objects 
 and all worlds to be held by universal gravitation. And thus, 
 in our century, von Baer and Humboldt taught that the 
 world, in all its forces and materials, is an integrated cosmos. 
 Any one who is the least familiar with the progress of philos- 
 ophy will recall that since the dawn of written history the 
 thoughts of men were tending to this unification. Shortly 
 after this first effort at comprehensive unity Mayer, Rumford 
 and Joule invented the methods of demonstrating the oneness 
 of physical forces, the conservation of energy. Wollaston, 
 Kirchoff and Bunsen devised the delicate apparatus to prove 
 the chemical identity of all worlds. Ivamarck, Geofflroy St. 
 Hilaire and Darwin taught the consanguinity of all living 
 beings. Helmholtz and Meyer coordinated nervous excitation 
 with mental activity. Comte and Spencer grasped the unity 
 of all sensible phenomena. Newton, I,eibnitz and Hamilton 
 projected their minds beyond phenomena and invented mathe- 
 matics of four or more dimensions, conceiving of worlds and 
 systems that under the present order of nature can have no 
 objective reality. Over all this, into many great souls, have 
 come the notions of infinite space and time and causation. 
 The idea of limitation to thought or achievement no longer 
 enters the imagination. The depth of the sea, the distances 
 of the stars, the concealment of the earth's treasures, the 
 minuteness of the springs of life and sense, the multiplicity 
 and complicity of phenomena are only so many incitements to 
 greater achievements. The daring souls of this decade are 
 determined at any risk to answer the inquiry of Pontius 
 Pilate, What is truth ? With sympathetic enthusiasm we wave 
 them on, bidding them god-speed. 
 
 But, I ask you now to forget all this and go with me to that 
 early day when the first being, worthy to be called man, stood 
 upon this earth. How economical has been his endowment. 
 There is no hair on his body to keep him warm, his jaws are 
 the feeblest in the world, his arm is not equal to that of a go- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 405 
 
 rilla, he cannot fly like the eagle, he cannot see into the night 
 like the owl, even the hare is fleeter than he. He has no cloth- 
 ing, no shelter. ' ' Foxes had holes, and the birds of the air 
 had nests, but this man had not where to lay his head. ' ' He 
 had no tools or industries or experience, no society or lan- 
 guage or arts of pleasure, he had yet no theory of life and 
 poorer conceptions of the life beyond. 
 
 All nature laughed at him. The sun said, I will blister his 
 skin. The storm said, I will spit upon him. The sea said, I 
 will drown him. The noxious malaria said, I will parch him 
 with fevers. The lion, the wolf, the tiger said, I will 
 devour him. The mountain sheep withheld her fleece and 
 lambs. The wild ass and the wild horse fled away in scorn. 
 The silly fish said, I know you not, and the birds skimmed 
 the air around him in mockery. There were no waving grain 
 fields, tior golden cornfields, nor tempting vineyards, nor 
 fragrant orchards. 
 
 "Poor naked wretches, on the edge of time, 
 That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 
 How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides defend you 
 From seasons such as these ? " 
 
 ' King Lear J iii^ i. 
 
 Whatever we may say of our own golden age, surely his 
 was not around him nor above him. If he had one at all it was 
 within him. 
 
 "Heaven flowed upon the soul in many dreams of high desire." 
 
 — Tennyson, "The Poet." 
 
 The road from that condition to our own lies next to the in- 
 finite. The one endowment that this creature possessed hav- 
 ing in it the promise and potency of all future achievements, 
 was the creative spark called invention. The superabundant 
 brain over and above all the amount required for mere animal 
 existence, held in trust the possibilities of the future, and 
 stamped upon man the divine likeness. This naked ignoramus 
 is the father of the clothed philosopher, looking out into infin- 
 ite space and time and causation. It may give you pleasure 
 to know something about the connections between these two 
 and the witnesses to these connections. 
 
4o6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 There are five guides whose services we have to engage on 
 our interesting journey. The first is History, who does not 
 know the way very far back — not over three thousand years — 
 with much certainty. The second is Philosophy, the study of 
 which in our own century has enabled us to find the cradle- 
 land of many peoples. The third is Folk-I/jre, the survival of 
 belief and custom among the uneducated. The fourth is Arch- 
 aeology, history written in things. The fifth is Ethnology, 
 which informs us that in describing this arc of civilization some 
 races have only marked time, while others have moved with 
 radii of varying lengths. The result of this is that we now 
 have on the earth types of every sort of culture it has ever 
 known. At the present moment, within hailing distance of yon- 
 der most beautiful dome in the world dwell all these witnesses 
 — the relics of the stone age, the Indian village of Nacochtank 
 or Anacostia, the folk-lore of both continents, and the litera- 
 tures of the world. While you are listening to the encomiums 
 of our decade, palaeolithic man sends in the testimony of his 
 handicraft, the Smithsonian Institution treasures the inventions 
 of the most primitive races, and the Bureau of Ethnology un- 
 ravels the mysteries of savage tongues. 
 
 As the fragment of a speech or song, a waking or a sleeping 
 vision, the dream of a vanished hand, a draught of water from 
 a familiar spring, the almost perished fragrance of a pressed 
 flower, call back the singer, the loved and lost, the loved and 
 won, the home of childhood, or the parting hour, so in the 
 same manner there linger in this crowning decade of the crown- 
 ing century bits of ancient ingenuity which recall to a whole 
 people the fragrance and beauty of its past. 
 
 From the testimony of these five witnesses we learn that 
 there never was a time when man was not an inventor — never 
 a time when he had not some sort of patent on his invention. 
 They affirm that every art of living and all the arts of pleasure 
 were born in the stone age ; that graphic art, sculpture, archi- 
 tecture, painting, music and the drama, had their childish pro- 
 totypes in that early day ; that language is one of the very 
 earliest of inventions, the vehicle of savage oratory, philosophy 
 and science. They affirm that society has been a series of in- 
 ventions from the first ; that legislation, justice, government. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 4°? 
 
 property, exchange, commerce, have not sprung out of the 
 ground but within our definition are inventions. And even the 
 creeds and cults of mankind, whatever view you may take of 
 the divine element underneath them, have been thought out 
 and wrought out with infinite pains from time to time by earn- 
 est souls. But they had their origin in the cradle-land and in 
 the infancy of our race. What we enjoy is only the full-blown 
 flower, the perfected fruit of which they possessed the germ. 
 lyCt me enforce this idea, as we glorify the material prosperity 
 of the nineteenth century, that many centuries ago men sat 
 down and with great pains and sorrow invented the language, 
 the art, the industries, the social order which made our machines 
 feasible and desirable. 
 
 There is no conflict between the testimony of these witnesses 
 and the doctrine commonly taught that men do not invent 
 customs and languages, but fall into them. Reflect a moment 
 upon your own daily life and you will recognize two sets of 
 activity, those which you originate and those in which you 
 follow suit. Animals can learn to follow suit, and to a very 
 limited extent can originate. But it is the divine spark of 
 originality which underlies every thought or device in this 
 world. As one man invents a machine and others by thousands 
 fall into the use of it, as the musician composes a song and 
 millions sing it, so was it in the cradle-land of humanity, the 
 inventor, touched with fire from the divine altar, set new 
 examples to be followed. If we were to interrogate our five 
 witnesses particularly with reference to the ancestry, the 
 family tree of the notable inventions of the nineteenth century, 
 their answer would be somewhat as follows. We ought to 
 remember, however, that an invention is not always a thing ; 
 but that it may be any series of actions conducing toward some 
 new end. Keep in mind, also, that all our activities involve 
 tools, processes and products, and that invention may take 
 place in any or all of these. 
 
 The ancestor of the steam plow is the digging-stick of 
 savagery, a branch of a tree sharpened at the end by fire ; the 
 progenitors of the steam harvester and thresher were the stone 
 sickle, the roasting-tray, or, later on, the trlbulum. 
 
408 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The cotton gin and power loom are among the wonders of 
 our age. Yet in that day of which we are speaking human 
 fingers wrought the textile from first to last. They gathered 
 the bark or wool, colored them to suit the primitive taste, spun 
 and wove them with simple apparatus and left upon the fabric 
 patterns that are the despair of all modern machine-makers — 
 patterns that are a pleasure to the eye by their infinite variety, 
 replaced in modern fabrics by a dreary monotony that awakens 
 pain instead of pleasure. 
 
 The first sewing-machine was a needle or bodkin of bone, 
 with dainty sinew thread from the leg of the antelope, and for 
 thimble a little leather cap over the ends of the fingers. 
 Coarse, indeed, the apparatus, but the hand was deft, the eye 
 was true, the sense of beauty was there, and so that needle- 
 woman of long ago wrought in fur from the mammals, feathers 
 from the birds, grasses from the fields, shells from the sea, 
 wings from the beetle and skins of snakes, with tasteful geometric 
 figures. You do err who think those ancient needlewomen 
 had no taste. It would be hard to invent a pattern now that 
 was unfamiliar to them. 
 
 The first engine was run by man power, then man subdued 
 the horse, the ass, the camel and invented engines for those to 
 propel. He next domesticated the winds, the waters, the 
 steam, the lightning, but the first common carriers and machine 
 power were men and women. The first burden train was 
 women's backs ; the first passenger car was a papoose frame. 
 And even now, while I am speaking to you, more heavy loads 
 are resting on human shoulders than upon all the pack animals 
 in the world. Hence our nursery rhyme — 
 
 Rock a by baby on a tree top, 
 When the wind blows 
 The cradle will rock. 
 When the bough bends, 
 The cradle will fall. 
 Down will come cradle, 
 And baby and all. 
 
 The poetry of to-day is the fact of yesterday, the dream of 
 yesterday is the fact of to-day. When the savage woman a 
 century or two ago, upon this very spot, strapped her dusky 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 409 
 
 offspring to a rude frame, hung it upon the nearest sapling for 
 the winds to rock, or lifted the unfortunate suckling from the 
 ground to which it had been hurled by the bending of an unsafe 
 bough, that was a fact, a stage in the history of invention. In 
 our now-a-days couches of down, swung from gilded hinges, 
 we have got far ahead of the papoose cradle, the memory of 
 which we perpetuate in nursery rhymes sung to children, who 
 wonder why babies should be hung in the tops of trees and 
 think, doubtless, that the falling cradle was a just retribution 
 on the silly parents. 
 
 What is more beautiful than an ocean steamer, with skin of 
 steel drawn over ribs of steel and closed above against the in- 
 trusion of the waves. Have you never seen the picture of the 
 Kskimo, still in the stone age, who, over a framework of drift 
 wood or whale's rib, stretches a covering of sealskin and learned 
 therein to defy the waves hundreds of years ago ? 
 
 Only now and then the angry sky was lighted for the primi- 
 tive man by electricity, and even then it filled him with terror. 
 But it was he that invented the apparatus for conjuring from 
 dried wood, by a rude sort of dynamo, the Promethean spark. 
 It was our Aryan ancestors that paid their devotions to the 
 rising sun by kindling fresh fire every morning as the orb of 
 day flashed his first beam across the earth. 
 
 Who has not read with almost breaking heart the story of 
 Palissy, the Huguenot potter. But what have our witnesses 
 to say of that long line of humble creatures that conjured out 
 of prophetic clay, without wheel or furnace, forms and decora- 
 tions of imperishable beauty, which are now being copied in 
 glorified material in the best factories of the world ? In ceramic 
 as well as in textile art the first inventors were women. They 
 quarried the clay, manipulated it, constructed and decorated 
 the ware, burned it in a rude furnace and wore it out in a 
 hundred uses. 
 
 He had no printing press, but he could tie knots in a 
 marvelous fashion and write letters on bark or on bits of raw hide 
 and leave memorials of himself in the book of stone. He 
 made words and sentences, invented language, developed 
 artistic forms of speech handed down to us in the eloquent 
 
41 o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 harangues of his sages. He breathed his thoughts in poetry, 
 a kind of childish rhythm. 
 
 In the time of which we now are speaking the telegraph was a 
 series of signal fires and a marvelous code of signs, which a 
 distinguished scholar of our city has just unraveled. 
 
 Primitive man developed the art of war, means of offense 
 and defense ; weapons of percussion, for cutting and thrusting ; 
 projectiles, armor, fortification, strategy. 
 
 Nowhere has man pressed his hand so effectively upon nature 
 as in the domestication of animals. It is almost incredible that 
 ravening wolves and merciless felines should become faithful 
 dogs and purring cats ; that the wild sheep and goat should 
 descend from their inaccessible fastnesses, and yield their fleece 
 and flesh and milk ; that horses, asses, camels, elephants, 
 should be induced to lend their backs and limbs to lighten the 
 loads of the first common carrier. This process of impressing 
 his own qualities on wild creatures began very early in history 
 and has continued uninterruptedly from first to last. 
 
 In the uncertainty of the marriage relation and of paternity, 
 he provided every woman with support and every child with a 
 home, through his ingenious gentile system. 
 
 His affairs of state were managed through his patent sys- 
 tem. The great inventors were made the rulers of the people, 
 and his highest title to nobility was a most puissant and inge- 
 nious one. 
 
 He had courts of justice, heard witnesses, executed his laws. 
 It is true that the methods were summary, when a chancery 
 suit was settled by an execution on the same day as the death 
 of the devisor. But out of his struggles came our methods, 
 and the greatest drawback to securing justice now is the survi- 
 val of his antiquated customs into our new practices. 
 
 He invented philosophies and sciences, explained the tmi- 
 verse and himself to himself. This seems puerile now, but it 
 was the beginning of all our own speculations, necessary to us 
 at present, but which will to-morrow become folk-lore. Over 
 and over again, those who preceded me on this platform have 
 pointed to James Watt as the true deliverer of mankind. Far be 
 it from me to take one leaf from his laurel crown ; but the in- 
 ventor of the alphabet, of the decimal system of notation, of 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 411 
 
 representative government, of the golden rule in morality, were 
 greater than he. 
 
 For the dream in stone and carving and decoration called a 
 cathedral, 
 
 "Where, through long-drawn aisle and fretted vault. 
 The pealing anthem swells the notes of praise," 
 
 that early day has only to offer wild shouts in unison under the 
 starlit dome, touched by the first childish aspirations after the 
 divine or hopes of immortality. 
 
 While you look with admiration upon these panoramas of 
 progress you cannot have failed to observe on the canvas that 
 the art, the process of inventing itself, has undergone the very 
 same development and improvement as the things invented. 
 There is in this a marvelous similarity to the life processes of 
 animals and plants. The homogeneous yolk of the egg during 
 incubation becomes wonderfully complex and heterogeneous ; 
 but all of these diverse parts come together into a higher unity, 
 in which each organ ministers to the good of all. The earliest 
 invention was a single homogeneous act, an original suggestion, 
 a happy thought. The patent on this was an immediate and 
 individual benefit. A sharper knife of flint, a better scraper, 
 a longer spear, a stouter thread wrought better, and the reward 
 was more execution. Now, the man who made the best weapons 
 killed the most game, from that game he got better food, that food 
 made him stronger, that strength made him chief, that chief- 
 taincy gave him more wives, more children, more cohorts to sup- 
 port his throne. The best woman to cook or sew or carry loads 
 got the best husband; that was her patent. Prom these simple 
 methods of inventing and rewarding invention we come on to the 
 Olympic games, the monopolies, the patent system. And now, 
 in the inventor's laboratory of Graham Bell or Edison the climax 
 is reached, where one machine is the cooperative result of any 
 number of trained minds, and the reward is meted out to each by 
 the manufacturer; or, in this Patent Congress itself, we may have 
 a still more highly organized unit, wherein the inventors of 
 America become a body social, and together shake hands under 
 the sea with the Emperor of Germany, who sends his congratu- 
 lations to-day on the occasion of our meeting. 
 
412 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 We are assembled to glorify the first century of American 
 patents. A few months ago the disciples of Daguerre met 
 in our city and set up in the National Museum a monument to 
 the inventor of photography. I do not know that there is 
 another memorial in America to an inventor. There is no 
 better way to insure for posterity the recollection of this day 
 than by stimulating among the great industries the desire to 
 continue this good work of memorializing their founders. Per- 
 haps you may not build your monument of stone or bronze, 
 you may set up a library, you may solicit a corner in the 
 National Museum or Congressional I^ibrary, or you may secure 
 a better Patent building. 
 
 In our public places we set up statues of the destroyers of 
 mankind and erect monuments in our national cemeteries to 
 the anonymous dead. When we go to hang garlands upon 
 the eulogium-bearing tombs, we do not forget to scatter flowers 
 upon the mausoleum of the unknown. 
 
 We cannot gather from the four corners of the world the 
 bones of all the great inventors and honor them with a costly 
 burial. Even their names have perished from the records of 
 mankind, but their works endure. What better can we do 
 than to gather these and guard them in our great museums, 
 mute witnesses of antiquated arts. I can imagine these anony- 
 mous inventors looking upon us to-day and glad of this tardy 
 recognition of their vicarious sufferings. 
 
 With loving recollection of your labors I pluck a flower 
 from my heart and strew its petals over your neglected graves : 
 
 "Infreta dumfluvii current, dum montibus umbrae 
 lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet, 
 semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt, 
 quae me cumque vocant terrae." Aneid i, 607. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 413 
 
 AMERICAN INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 
 MEDICINE, SURGERY AND PRACTICAI, SANITA- 
 TION. 
 
 By John S. Bii<i,i]srGS, M. D., Surgeon U. S. A., Curator, United 
 States Army Medicai, Museum. 
 
 In connection with this celebration of a century's work of 
 the American Patent System, I have been requested by the 
 Advisory Committee to prepare a brief paper upon inventions 
 and discoveries in medicine, surgery and practical sanitation, 
 with special reference to the progress that has been made in 
 this country in these branches of science and art. 
 
 It would be impossible to present on this occasion such a 
 summary as would be of any special interest or use, of the pro- 
 gress which has been made in medicine and sanitation during 
 the century, either by the world at large or by American 
 physicians and sanitarians in particular ; and I shall therefore 
 confine, my remarks mainly to the progress which has been 
 made in these branches in connection with mechanical inven- 
 tions and new chemical combinations devised by American 
 inventors — which will require much less time. 
 
 The application of the patent system to medicine in this 
 country has had its advantages for certain people, has given 
 employment to a considerable amount of capital in production 
 (and to a much larger amount in advertising), has contributed 
 materially to the revenues of the government, and has made a 
 great deal of work for the medical profession. 
 
 So far as I know, but one complete system of medicine has 
 been patented in this country, and that was the steam, Cayenne 
 pepper and lobelia system — commonly known as Thomsonian- 
 ism — to which a patent was granted in 1836. The right to 
 practice this system, with a book describing the methods, was 
 sold by the patentee for twenty dollars, and perhaps some of 
 you may have some reminiscences of it connected with your 
 
414 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 boyisli days. I am certain I shall never forget the effects of 
 "Composition Powder," or of "Number Six," which, was 
 essentially a concentrated tincture of Cayenne pepper, and 
 one dose of which was enough to make a boy willing to go to 
 school for a month. 
 
 From a report made by the Commissioner of Patents in 1849, 
 it appears that eighty-six patents for medicines had been 
 granted up to that date ; but the specificatons of most of those 
 issued before 1836 had been lost by fire. The greater number 
 of patents for medicines were issued between 1850 and i860. 
 The total number of patents granted for medicines during the 
 last decade (i 880-1 890) is 540.' 
 
 This, however, applies only to ' ' patent medicines, ' ' properly 
 so-called, the claims for which are, for the most part, presented 
 by simple-minded men who know very little of the ways of the 
 world. A patent requires a full and unreserved disclosure of 
 the recipe, and the mode of compounding the same, for the 
 public benefit when the term of the patent shall have expired ; 
 and the Commissioner of Patents may, if he chooses, require 
 the applicant to furnish specimens of the composition and of its 
 ingredients, sufficient in quantity for the purpose of experiment. 
 The law, however, does not require the applicant to furnish 
 patients to be experimented on, and this may be the reason 
 why the Commissioner has never demanded samples of the 
 ingredients. By far the greater number of the owners of pana- 
 ceas and nostrums are too shrewd to thus publish their secrets, 
 for they can attain their purpose much better under the law 
 for registering trade-marks and labels, designs for bottles and 
 packages, and copyrights of printed matter, which are less 
 costly, and do not reveal the arcanum. 
 
 These proprietary medicines constitute the great bulk of 
 what the public call ' ' patent medicines. ' ' 
 
 The trade in patent and secret remedies has been, and still is, 
 an important one. We are a bitters-and-pill-taking people ; in 
 the fried pork and salaeratus biscuit regions the demand for 
 such medicines is unfailing, but evei-ywhere they are found. I 
 
 I For these figures, and other data used in this paper I am indebted to 
 my friend Mr. H. H. Bates, Chief Examiner in the Patent Office. 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 415 
 
 suppose the chief consumption of them is by women and chil- 
 dren — -with a fair allowance of clergymen, if we may judge 
 from the printed testimonials. I sampled a good many of them 
 myself when I was a boy. Of course, these remarks do not 
 apply to bitters. One of the latest patents is for a device to 
 wash pills rapidly down the throat. 
 
 According to the Census of 1880 there were in the United 
 States 592 establishments devoted to the manufacture of drugs 
 and chemicals, the capital invested being $28,598,458, and the 
 annual value of the product $38,173,658, while there were 563 
 establishments devoted to the manufacture of patent medicines 
 and compounds, the capital invested being $10,620,880, and 
 the value of the product $14,682,494.^ 
 
 A patent automatic doctor, on the principle of ' ' put a quar- 
 ter in the slot and take out the pill which suits your case, ' ' 
 has been proposed, but this patent is said to be of Dutch and 
 not of American origin. The idea of this may have come 
 from Japan, for an old medicine case from that country which 
 I possess, has four compartments filled with pills, and the 
 label says that those in the first compartment are good for all 
 diseases of the head, those in the second for all diseases of the 
 body, those in the third for all diseases of the limbs, and those 
 in the fourth are a sure vermifuge. 
 
 From the commercial and industrial point of view the great 
 importance of patent and proprietary medicines is connected 
 with advertising. The problem is to induce people to pay 
 twenty-five cents for the liver-encouraging, silent-perambulat- 
 ing, family pills, which cost three cents. Some day I hope that 
 the modern professional expert in advertising will favor us with 
 his views as to the nature and character of those people who 
 were induced to buy Jones's liver pills or Slow's specific by 
 means of a huge display of these names on the sides and roofs of 
 barns and outbuildings, which display forms such a prominent 
 feature in many of our American landscapes, as seen by the 
 traveler on the railway. I suppose there must be such peo- 
 ple, for I have a high estimate of the business shrewdness of 
 the men who pay for these abominations. I should also like 
 
 2 See the Lancet, October 5, 1889, p. 683. 
 
41 6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 to know how mucli a farmer gets for allowing his buildings to 
 be thus defaced. He must be hard-up ; indeed such a display 
 indicates that the place is probably mortgaged and that the 
 poor man is heavily in debt. 
 
 Even the soap advertisers are not as guilty as the nostrum- 
 makers in this particular style of nuisance, although they far 
 exceed the latter in viciousness when it comes to applying art 
 to ignoble purposes. The connection between progress in 
 medicine and soap advertisements may not be clear to you, 
 but it exists nevertheless, for many of these soaps make work 
 for the doctors by producing skin troubles. 
 
 Upon the whole, I should think that the number of people 
 who would take some trouble to avoid purchasing an article 
 which is thus advertised must be rapidly increasing, so that 
 such displays will soon be no longer profitable. The great 
 importance of advertising does not relate to the placard or 
 chromo business, but to its relations to periodical literature — 
 to the daily and weekly press and the monthly magazines and 
 journals. 
 
 To the establishment and support of some of our news- 
 papers and journals, medical as well as others, these pro- 
 prietary and secret medicines, cosmetics, food preparations, 
 etc. , have no doubt contributed largely. 
 
 I am sorry to say that I have been unable to obtain definite 
 information as to the direct benefits which inventions of this 
 kind have conferred on the public in the way of the cure of 
 disease or preventing death. Among the questions which 
 were not put in the schedules of the last census were the follow- 
 ing, namely : Did you ever take any patent or proprietary 
 medicine? If so, what and how much, and what was the 
 result ? Some very remarkable statistics would no doubt have 
 been obtained had this inquiry been made. I can only say 
 that I know of but four secret remedies which have been really 
 valuable additions to the resources of practical medicine, and 
 the composition of all these is now known. These four are 
 all powerful and dangerous, and should only be used on the 
 advice of a skilled physician. Most of such remedies have 
 little value as curative agents, and some of them are prepared 
 
PROCEEblNGS OF THE CONGRESS. 417 
 
 and purchased almost exclusively for immoral or criminal 
 purposes. 
 
 In France the sale of secret and patent medicines is not 
 allowed unless they have been examined and approved by the 
 National Academy of Medicine, and the same general rule 
 holds good in Italy and Spain. 
 
 The Japanese have followed the French method, and their 
 experience is interesting. The Central Sanitary Bureau estab- 
 lished a public laboratory for the analysis of chemicals as a 
 medicine. The proprietors of each of such medicines were 
 bound to present samples, and the names and proportions of the 
 ingredients, directions for its use and explanations of its sup- 
 posed efiBcacy. According to a report in the British Medical 
 Journal, during the first year there were 11,904 applicants for 
 license to prepare and sell 148,091 patent and secret medicines. 
 Permission for the preparation and sale of 58,638 different 
 kinds were granted, 8,592 were prohibited, 9,918 were ordered 
 to be discountenanced, and 70,943 remained to be reported on. 
 The great majority of those which were authorized were of no 
 efficacy, but few being remedial agents ; but their sale was not 
 prohibited, as they were not found to be dangerous to the 
 health of the people. 3 t do not vouch for these figures, which 
 throw our records entirely in the shade. 
 
 In 1849 a special committee of the House of Representatives 
 reported to the House a bill to prevent the patenting of medi- 
 cines, accompanied by a report. This bill provided that after 
 the passage of the act letters-patent shall not be granted for 
 any article whatever as a medicine, provided that this shall not 
 apply to machines, instruments or apparatus. When the matter 
 came before the House for consideration the bill was laid on 
 the table.* 
 
 You are all aware that the great majority of the medical 
 profession consider it to be improper and discreditable for a 
 physician to patent a remedy. The Medical Code of Ethics 
 declares that it is derogatory to professional character " for a 
 physician to hold a patent for any surgical instrument or medi- 
 
 3 British Medical Journal, July 3, 1880, vol. ii, p. 24. 
 
 4 Congressional Globe, March 3, 1849, p. 697. 
 
4i8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 cine ; or to dispense a secret nostrum whether it be the com- 
 position or exclusive property of himself or others. For if 
 such nostrum be of real efficacy, any concealment regarding it 
 is inconsistent with beneficence and professional liberality ; and 
 if mystery alone give it value and importance, such craft im- 
 plies either disgraceful ignorance or fraudulent avarice. It is 
 also reprehensible for physicians to give certificates attesting 
 the efficacy of patent or secret medicines, or in any way to pro- 
 mote the use of them. ' ' Like all legislation, this is a formal 
 declaration of the customs of the profession, which customs 
 are of great antiquity. The principle upon which it is founded 
 is thus expressed by I<ord Bacon : "I hold every man a debtor 
 to his profession ; from the which, as men of course do seek to 
 receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to 
 endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help and 
 ornament thereunto. ' ' 
 
 The rule, however, is not always adhered to by physicians, 
 the most notable exception having been, perhaps, the use of 
 Koch's lymph before its composition was revealed. As regards 
 the patenting of surgical instruments and apparatus, the opinion 
 of the great majority of physicians is in accordance with the 
 rule just stated, but there are some who question its propriety, 
 although they obey it — and there are few who would not use 
 a patented instrument in a case to which they thought it was 
 applicable. 
 
 The total number of surgical instruments and appliances 
 patented during the past decade has been about 1,200, the 
 patents having been in almost all cases taken out by manufac- 
 turers. With these may be classed dentists' tools and appa- 
 ratus, of which about 500 have been patented during the last 
 ten years, and in this field of invention the United States leads 
 the world. The same may be said with regard to artificial 
 limbs, of which our great war gave rise to many varieties. 
 
 As you know, the law prescribes that a patent may be given 
 for a " new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composi- 
 tion of matter." I used to think that the word "useful" in 
 this law had its ordinary meaning, and, therefore, wondered 
 exceedingly as to why the Patent Office examiners allowed 
 patents to certain things which came under my notice. One 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 419 
 
 day, however, I received an article from the Patent Office, with 
 the request for a report as to whether it was useful in the sense 
 in which that word was used by the Office, namely, ' ' not per- 
 nicious or prejudicial to public interests — capable of being 
 used "^and then for the first time !■ understood one of the first 
 principles of the patent law of the United States, that is, that 
 it does not take into consideration the degree of utility in the 
 device, or, in other words, that "useful" means "harmless." 
 
 If a patent is granted to a medicine, it must be as a composi- 
 tion of matter as a special article of manufacture. The prac- 
 tice of the Patent Office in these matters is not generally under- 
 stood. It does not now consider that medical prescriptions are 
 inventions within the meaning of the law, or that a mere aggre- 
 gation of well-known remedies to obtain a cumulative effect is 
 a patentable composition of matter. A certain number of claims 
 for Government protection in the form of patents or trade-marks 
 are made for medical compounds or for apparatus, under false 
 pretences; that is to say, the claim is for a new remedy for rheu- 
 matism or dyspepsia or displacement, with a warning against 
 their use under certain conditions, the real design being that 
 they are to be used under precisely these conditions in order to 
 procure abortion, etc. These are sometimes difficult cases for 
 the Patent Office to treat properly, for the law does not allow 
 a large discretion for refusal on mere suspicion, and where there 
 is ostensible and possible utility (in the Patent Office sense) it 
 can hardly reject the claim on the ground that the invention 
 might be used for immoral purposes. 
 
 I said in the beginning that I cannot on this occasion give 
 any sufficient account of the progress of invention and discovery 
 in medicine and sanitation during the century just gone. The 
 great step forward which has been made, has been the estab- 
 lishment of a true scientific foundation for the art upon the dis- 
 coveries made in physics, chemistry, and biology. One hun- 
 dred years ago the practice of medicine, and measures to pre- 
 serve health, so far as these were really efficacious, were in the 
 main empirical — that is, certain effects were known to usually 
 follow the giving of certain drugs, or the application of certain 
 measures, but why or how these effects were produced was un- 
 
420 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 known. They sailed then by dead-reckoning, in several senses 
 of this phrase. 
 
 Since then not only have great advances been made by a con. 
 tinuance of these empirical measures in treatment, but we have 
 learned much as to the mechanism and functions of different 
 parts of the body, and as to the nature of the causes of some of 
 the most prevalent and fatal forms of disease ; and, as a conse- 
 quence, can apply means of prevention or treatment in a much 
 more direct and definite way than was formerly the case. For 
 example, a hundred years ago nothing was known of the 
 difference between typhus and typhoid fevers. We have now 
 discovered that the first is a disease propagated largely by 
 aerial contagion and induced or aggravated by over-crowding, 
 the preventive means being isolation, light and fresh air ; 
 while the second is due to a minute vegetable organism, a 
 bacillus, and is propagated mainly by contaminated water, 
 milk, food and clothing ; and that the treatment of the two 
 diseases should be very different. 
 
 The most important improvements in practical medicine 
 made in the United States have been chiefly in surgery, in its 
 various branches. We have led the way in the ligation of 
 some of the larger arteries, in the removal of abdominal tumors, 
 in the treatment of diseases and injuries peculiar to women, in 
 the treatment of spinal affections and of deformities of various 
 kinds. Above all, we were the first to show the uses of anaes- 
 thetics — the most important advance in medicine made during 
 the century. In our late war we taught Europe how to build, 
 organize and manage military hospitals ; and we formed the 
 best museum in existence illustrating modern military medicine 
 and surgery. Our contributions to medical literature have 
 been many and valuable ; and our government possesses the 
 largest and best working medical library in the world. We 
 have more doctors and more medical schools, in proportion to 
 the population, than any other country, and while this is not 
 good evidence of progress, I am glad to be able to say that the 
 standard of acquirements in medical education has been, and 
 is now rising, and our leading medical schools are now being 
 equipped with buildings, with apparatus, with laboratories, 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 421 
 
 and most important of all, with brains, which enable them to 
 give means of practical instruction equal to any to be found 
 elsewhere. 
 
 As regards preventive public medicine and sanitation, we 
 have not made so many valuable contributions to the world's 
 stock of knowledge — chiefly because, until quite recently, we 
 have not had the stimulus to persistent effort which comes 
 from density of population and its complicated relation to 
 sewage disposal and water supplies ; nor have we had the in- 
 formation relative to localized causes of disease and death, 
 which is the essential foundation of public hygiene, and which 
 can only be obtained by a proper system of vital statistics. 
 We can, however, show enough and to spare of inventions in 
 the way of sanitary appliances, fixtures and systems for house 
 drainage, sewerage, etc. ; for the ingenuity of inventors has 
 kept pace with the increasing demands for protection from the 
 effects of the decomposition of waste matters, as increase of 
 knowledge has made these known to us. The total number of 
 patents granted for sanitary appliances during the last decade 
 (1880-1890) is about 1,175. If good fixtures necessarily in- 
 volve good plumbing work, we could easily make our houses 
 safe so far as drainage is concerned ; but a leaky joint or a 
 tilted trap makes the best appliance worthless. The im- 
 pulse to improvements in this direction has come mainly from 
 England, where most of the principles of good work of this 
 kind have been developed ; but we have devised some details 
 better adapted to our climate and modes of construction, and 
 while many of the patent traps and sewer-gas excluders are 
 only useful in the patent law sense, and some not even in that, 
 it is nevertheless true that the safety, accessibility and good 
 appearance of plumber's work has been largely increased 
 during the last few years by patented inventions. Much the 
 same may be said with regard to heating appliances, including 
 ventilating stoves and fireplaces, radiators, etc., but I am 
 unable to express any enthusiasm with regard to what are 
 commonly called patent ventilators. 
 
 No doubt the greatest progress in medical science during the 
 next few years will be in the direction of prevention, and to 
 
422 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 this end mechanical and chemical invention and discovery 
 must go hand in hand with increase in biological and medical 
 knowledge. Neither can afford to neglect or despise the 
 other, and both are working for the common good. If the 
 American patent system has not given rise to any specially 
 valuable inventions in practical medicine or in theology, it 
 must be due to the nature of the subjects, and not to any fault 
 of the system. 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 423 
 
 ADDRKSSES AT THE BANQUET OF THE BOARD 
 
 OF TRADE OF WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 Aprii< 10, 1891. 
 
 The honorable M. M. Parker, President of the Washington 
 Board of Trade, made the following address of welcome to the 
 guests assembled in the banquet hall at the Arlington Hotel on 
 the evening of April 10, 1891 : 
 
 ADDRESS OP WELCOME. 
 
 The Washington Board of Trade appreciate the compliment 
 of being able to contribute to the entertainment of those repre- 
 senting the inventive genius of progressive Americanism. 
 
 Rarely ever has our city been permitted to entertain a more 
 distinguished gathering than that which has been in attendance 
 upon the ceremonies incident to the beginning of the second 
 century of the American patent system. When I say this, I 
 pay you no idle or empty compliment, since it must be remem- 
 bered that during the past five years national and international 
 conventions have been held here. 
 
 I do not think it possible to overestimate the importance of 
 the congress just held. Its benefits will be far-reaching, and it 
 will mark an important epoch in our country's progress. It is 
 hoped that one of the results will be the erection in Washing- 
 ton of a magnificent building in which can be displayed our 
 working models. In the Treasury to-day are nearly $4,000,000 
 covered in by the inventors of the country through the Patent 
 Office. Congress could well afford to appropriate this money 
 for the erection of this building. [Great applause.] I want 
 to say that if our influence is needed, I will pledge you the 
 support of the Washington Board of Trade in the accomplish- 
 ment of this purpose. [Great applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, the world moves as a result of your lives.. Elec- 
 tricity lights up the universe and is fast becoming the motor 
 power. Edison, in Melno Park, jogged the world a hundred 
 
424 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 years. You whisper in your telephone and you sympathize 
 with your friend in Chicago, or you buy stocks in Wall street. 
 You drop a nickel in the slot and you listen to the voices of 
 loved ones that have long since gone over the river. [Applause. J 
 Alexander Graham Bell has annihilated space and cuddled the 
 cities of the Republic around a single fireside. I refer to the 
 application of these great inventions, not for the purpose of 
 discriminating against the celebrated universal clothes-wringer 
 [laughter] or the barbed wire combination safety mouse-trap 
 and a thousand other inventions. 
 
 We recognize with pleasure the presence of the honorable 
 Commissioners of the District — gentlemen of the highest 
 integrity, gentlemen whose administration meets with the 
 approval of the people of our city. 
 
 We cannot forget, nor would you have us, that to-night we 
 celebrate the centenary of the Capital of our country, our 
 home, your home, the nation's home. When we shall have 
 listened to one of our esteemed citizens address himself to this 
 question at the proper time, I know you will raise your glasses 
 and join with me in such enthusiasm as is proper to an 
 American. 
 
 We also feel greatly honored by the presence of the Cabinet 
 Ministers, the advisers of the President in the administration 
 of good government, and I want to say to you that so long as 
 you are our guests you will not be importuned for office. [Ap- 
 plause.] I want to say further that so far as I know not one 
 single member of the Washington Board of Trade holds a pub- 
 lic office, nor do I think he would accept one, save as a com- 
 pliment to the administration. [Great applause.] 
 
 It is for this organization, representing not only hundreds 
 of millions of dollars, but the most generous people and beau- 
 tiful city on earth, that I have the distinguished honor of wel- 
 coming you to our hearts, our homes and to our hospitable 
 board. [Great applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, the first regular toast of the evening, which is 
 always drunk standing, and which every American drinks 
 with enthusiasm, is to the President of the United States. 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 425 
 
 The third* regular toast, "The Supreme Court of the United 
 States, as Related to the American Patent System," will be 
 responded to by Mr. Justice Harlan. 
 
 RESPONSE BY MR. JUSTICE HARI^AN. 
 
 Mr. President, looking over this programme, I observe that 
 every possible phase of the patent system, the establishment of 
 which has been celebrated in this city during the present week, 
 has been covered. The distinguished gentlemen who have 
 consented to address you will say all that occasion requires. 
 Surely then, sirs, nothing more is expected of me than that I 
 shall acknowledge, as I do most cordially, the courtesy shown 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 Congress, invested by the Constitution with power to promote 
 the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for lim- 
 ited times to inventors and authors the exclusive right to their 
 discoveries and writings, exerted that power shortly after the 
 organization of the government by appropriate legislation, and 
 the courts have given effect to that legislation. 
 
 The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States 
 bear testimony to the fidelity with which that tribunal has 
 endeavored to carry into effect the provisions of the Constitu- 
 tion and the enactments of Congress. I take leave, sir, to say 
 this much, nothwithstanding those whose patents which have 
 not been sustained quite naturally believe that the court has 
 not always decided correctly. [Laughter.] It is the misfor- 
 tune of the courts that they cannot please everybody. All 
 that they can do is to decide rightly as they see it, regardless 
 of the consequences to individuals. 
 
 I cannot take my seat, Mr. President, without congratulating 
 the army of inventors who have come to the National Capital 
 to celebrate the inauguration of a system which has done so 
 much for our own people, and, indeed, for all mankind. I 
 must congratulate the Washington Board of Trade upon the 
 interest which this royal banquet has added to the occasion. 
 You, sir, and your associates of that board, are worthy repre- 
 
 * The addresses at the banquet which were upon topics not related to 
 the American patent system are omitted. 
 
426 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 sentatives of the business, the trade and the prosperity of 
 Washington. We all, and indeed the whole country, owe a 
 debt of gratitude for what you and they have done towards 
 accomplishing the task, which is near to the hearts of every 
 American, of making this beautiful city the most attractive 
 spot in all the world. [Great applause.] 
 
 The Chairman. The fourth regular toast, ' ' The Future of 
 the American Patent System," will be responded to by Secre- 
 tary Noble. 
 
 RESPONSE BY HON., JOHN W. NOBI,E, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. 
 
 Mr. President and gentlemen, my first duty and my great 
 pleasure is to acknowledge to you, and the Board of Trade you 
 represent, and to those distinguished gentlemen who are your 
 guests, the very high compliment of calling upon me so early 
 to respond to a sentiment so full of significance and hope as 
 "The Future of the American Patent System." 
 
 We stand at the opening of a new century, both for the in- 
 ventive genius of our land and for the Capital of our country. 
 It is an occasion worthy of the deepest patriotism and of the 
 freest expression of approbation as to the past and hope for the 
 future. 
 
 That I should have been particularly called upon is, I feel, 
 and I have felt during the past week, a little out of place. I 
 am not after all so very familiar with patents, although the 
 Secretary, officially, of the Department of the Interior. In 
 fact, a gentleman, an old soldier friend of mine, came in the 
 other day in deep indignation after he had been through the 
 different bureaus of my department, and among the rest had 
 seen the Commissioner of Patents, with his vast array of clerks 
 and the great business which he was performing with that sig- 
 nal ability that marks the present incumbent of that office. 
 [Applause.] And he said; " General, it is a shame; it is a 
 shame, that you should be the Secretary to all these Commis- 
 sioners around here." "You ought to be a Commissioner 
 yourself; confound it, you have earned it." [I^aughter.J 
 Well, I have earned it, there is no doubt about that. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I wish to say another thing before I enter 
 upon the future of the patent system, and that is that there is 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 427 
 
 a man I believe already existing thafhas discovered the great- 
 est patent, yet unknown to fame, that history has recounted. 
 I was in Russia a few years ago (I used to travel some before I 
 became Secretary ; but then it stopped), and while there I 
 heard of a man, who in early days had emigrated from Moscow 
 to St. Petersburg ; he had wended his way over bog and hill 
 until he arrived at the place where he could make a substantial 
 living. After he had grown in years there came a railroad laid 
 down by the rule, without regard to commerce or anything else 
 except the necessities of the military — straight as a line could 
 be drawn between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The old man 
 heard that prices were cheap and the time was short in which 
 he could go to his old home, and he determined one day to go. 
 And packing up a great valise, thinking that possibly he might 
 be longer than he expected, he got on the train and started for 
 his old home. The train coming from Moscow met that from 
 St. Petersburg about half way. They have a drink there— I 
 do not think that we have anything here to-night quite as 
 strong as it is. It is called Vodka, and it is a little stronger 
 than alcohol. [Laughter.] When the old man got oil the 
 train he met an old friend from Moscow who saluted him and 
 they went into a restaurant and sat down, and as is the custom 
 among these people, they had a glass or two of Vodka. "When 
 he came out his train had gone on to Moscow. He got on the 
 train on which his friend was traveling, sat down and had a 
 good old time. As the train went on towards St. Petersburg, 
 from whence he had just come, he began to notice certain 
 familiar objects on the way, and at last he awoke to a realization 
 of the situation. ' ' Now, ' ' he says, ' ' is not this a wonderful 
 age ? " " They cannot only invent railroads, but they have got 
 a train here that is carrying you to St. Petersburg, while I am 
 going to Moscow, at the same time." [Great laughter.] So, 
 we have got something left to attend to yet, gentlemen. 
 
 I have been listening over here at the Music Hall to a num- 
 ber of very able papers, and I will say, without exaggeration, 
 that I heard the most eloquent and at the same time instructive 
 papers (although I have been conversant with men who talk 
 and with conventions throughout this country) that I have 
 
428 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 ever listened to, and I think the most conducive to the pros- 
 perity of this country. [Great applause.] 
 
 After I had listened a few hours and understood that I had 
 to deliver a toast, as they call it — it means a speech — I thought 
 I would go and get some books because I needed them, and I 
 sent a note to the librarian of the Patent Office to send me 
 some books about this patent business, and he said : They are 
 all out ; these men who are in the convention have consumed 
 them all ; and, Mr. Secretary, we cannot send you a volume. 
 [Great applause.] 
 
 Thereupon I addressed myself to my own consciousness and 
 tried to evolve and invent a speech. Now, gentlemen, in order 
 to measure that great and glowing future of this noble land of 
 freemen, let us for a moment turn our glance backward and 
 see from whence has come this mighty progress ; this great 
 enlightenment ; this great enlightenment beneath the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. There was a time beyond this 
 century that has just been finished when institutions that man 
 had created were such that they subjugated man, both body 
 and soul, within their confines. There was no such thing as 
 personal liberty. There was no such hope as human aspira- 
 tion had a right to expect. The time grew on until at the 
 beginning of the century now just closed the agitation of the 
 people, and the aspirations of the souls of the land of other 
 nations and of our own were such that the shackles were 
 broken, the thorns that existed before were cast in the dust, 
 and the spirit of man, in all its nobility and possibilities, stood 
 upon the surface of this earth with no confines beyond those 
 of the utmost liberty, and no controller but the Almighty who 
 made him. When that time came, invention, the power to 
 conceive and bring into action formed, along with all other 
 intellectual faculties that have made historj- illustrious, and 
 from that day it arose as from a virgin soil, and sought, even 
 in distant lands, as our country then was, the opportunity upon 
 a new field to make new efforts in behalf of humanity. It 
 was then and not before that the inventive genius of our race, 
 strong in its physical power, with the gray matter in its brain 
 greater than that of any other people, found an opportunity to 
 do and to imagine what it were well to do and to accomplish 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 429 
 
 it. If you take the history of the Patent OiEce you will find 
 that when it was initiated there was no great rush of patents. 
 In 1790, the anniversary of which you celebrate on this loth 
 day of April, in the whole year there were but three patents 
 granted. Was the mind of man awake to the opportunity ? 
 Had the spirit of this land been cultivated so that it could 
 understand a patent ? No ; the truth is, and you men, I think, 
 will bear me out in the statement, it takes almost as great in- 
 telligence in a people, for whom a patent is intended, to under- 
 stand it, as it does in the man who makes it to invent it. 
 
 If you go to China you can have imitation perfected. If you 
 ask a Chinese to make a retort that is broken on the neck, he 
 will bring you back a dozen in exact imitation, even to the 
 break. While they aspire to the claim of being the inventors 
 of gunpowder, it was not until a member of the Jesuit order 
 had introduced it that they understood the use of a cannon. 
 If you take the telescope to them as a people who claim to 
 know the mysteries of the stars and the secrets of astronomy, 
 they place it, as an ornament, to be admired as a toy. It is in 
 vain, my friends, to look for success to the inventor except he 
 be, with his free thought and his far-striking intelligence, 
 among a race equal to him and capable of making the applica- 
 tion of his invention when it comes to daily use. [Great ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 Let me say another thing, among the very few things that I 
 shall address you upon. I have heard it discussed how far 
 the love of gold is the incentive of the inventor. Its pros and 
 cons have been presented on yonder stage with ability. Now 
 for myself let me say that for honest effort and labor and all 
 that wins gold, nobody will advocate a reward more generously 
 or more emphatically than myself. The man that has earned 
 it ought to be able to enjoy it. But when you come to tell me 
 that the genius which presides in the human soul, born of the 
 spirit of the age, which age is the age of liberty, is stimulated 
 by the spirit of avarice, I deny it, and I say that that earth-born 
 spirit never inspired a noble thought or created a single inven- 
 tion. Go to Benvenuto Cellini, who cast the statue of Per- 
 seus, and who while in its clay in the furnace, was stricken 
 down with a fever. He arose debilitated, and threw the imple- 
 
43° BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 ments of his household into that furnace to make the flux 
 which eventually evolved that sublime work of genius, and 
 then tell me that he was stimulated by the love of gold, and I 
 deny it, in the spirit of genius and art. Tell me that Pallissy, 
 when he was attempting to discover the enamel for pottery, 
 and in the last extremity, when the furnace was about to cool 
 and his compound yet had not received the glaze necessary 
 he seized the furniture of his house and cast it into the 
 furnace, was stimulated by the love money, and I deny it, in 
 the name of trade and commerce. [Applause. J If you tell me 
 that Goodyear, when he, at the last extremity was still seeking 
 to vulcanize the rubber that had become a new element in the 
 productive arts and a new article in commerce, sold the school 
 books of his children that he might carry his experiment to its 
 conclusion, did it in the spirit of avarice, and I deny it, in the 
 name of the intelligence of the race to which I belong. 
 [Applause.] If you tell me that Benjamin Franklin, when he 
 stood day by day questioning the clouds, while his soul was 
 filled with patriotism and the love of liberty and man, was 
 seeking a pecuniary fortune, I deny it, in the sentence that has 
 become immortal, that " He seized from the clouds the light- 
 ning and from the King and tyrant his sceptre." [Applause.] 
 
 Let us not, inventors and gentlemen, in this age, when pre- 
 sumption has grown gigantic, but when, thank God, intellect 
 in congresses like this have proved the Ulysses that can master 
 the giant with one arm — ap he always is — let us not introduce 
 the golden calf into the temple of the Almighty God. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 "What more shall I say ? From this spirit of the past, the 
 increasing, all generalizing spirit of the age of freedom, of lib- 
 erty and constitutional government, what may we not expect 
 for the future ? He would be a vain man who in a presence 
 like this were to attempt in detail to announce what he sup- 
 posed the inventions of the future might be. If he could do 
 it, he should immediately resign from the ofi&ce that I hold and 
 go upon the field of invention and make his fortune. That 
 thing is impossible. But gathering from the thoughts that I 
 have thus inefficiently and poorly expressed, may we not say 
 this for our land, for our home, for our people and its leaders 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 431 
 
 in thought, that its institutions are broad enough, that its in- 
 tellect is strong enough, and that the hidden forces of nature 
 and the opportunities of art have enough yet undeveloped 
 within them for that spirit under such institutions to develop 
 yet more and more as the years roll by, until this nation, as it 
 has been distinguished in the past for liberty and invention, 
 will become more and more marked among the nations of the 
 earth for the labors of those who, while they may pursue an 
 individual ambition, like their country and their country's 
 laws, seek more the great good of all humanity than any indi- 
 vidual attainment. May we not hope that here, in the great 
 city of Washington, whose possibility as a capital has been 
 made by your inventions that have shrunk the globe and made 
 the center and the circumference the same, both those from the 
 inland and from the far distant coasts, may yet come to view, 
 either in the Department of the Interior, or something that 
 shall relieve that heavily burdened officer from a part of his 
 care and yet be as distinguished as anything that he has ever 
 presided over — a Department devoted alike to the benefit 
 of the people, and, as it has been, to the support of the Gov- 
 ernment, in which shall be exemplified, in all its different 
 aspects, the inventive genius of our people, and have within it 
 such an abundance of room that those who labor to give to the 
 patentee his title to the creation of the brain, shall not be 
 smothered in small compartments and crowded rooms. May we 
 not hope that the legislators of this land, who seek their sup- 
 port from their constituencies and the emoluments and bene- 
 factions they may bestow upon them, shall yet find them so 
 enlightened by the intelligence conveyed by the inventor by 
 rail and telegraph, by press and lightning, that they shall 
 say to him : "Do you cease to look to your district, and 
 begin to look to the Nation." [Applause.] "Do you cease 
 to erect within the small district that does not need it a vast 
 building costing millions, and do you expand the organization 
 of the Constitution and government, so that its functions shall 
 not onl}' be easily but freely performed that the Nation may 
 receive the full benefit of the laws and of the intelligence of 
 the land." Let the sectional spirit die out. [Applause.] Let 
 sublime intelligence that comes like the sunlight from heaven 
 
432 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 over all our broad land, warm the hearts of the South and of 
 the North until they meet in one common aspiration for the 
 good of the Nation. [Applause.] Let the genius of the land 
 inspire the creative heart of both sections to rivalry and let 
 arms reside in the background, and if used at all be used 
 against our foreign foes. I,et this bond of union, growing 
 from the soil and inspired by the genius of the land find in this 
 beautiful city at the capital of our common country, that home, 
 that beautiful home, where all that it has created shall be 
 exhibited, which is in the spirit of the present, because the 
 .spirit of the present has in it all the past has developed, as it 
 has also in it all the opportunities of the future ; and let that 
 hall rise in beautiful proportions and make in the beginning 
 of the next century that temple, in which love of country, 
 with genius, shall preside beneath the solemn form of justice 
 and guarantees of constitutional liberty. 
 
 The Chairman. The fifth regular toast, ' 'American Patents 
 from a Financial Standpoint," will be responded to by Hon. 
 Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 RESPONSE BY HON. CHARLES FOSTER. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I, too, have my acknowl- 
 edgments to make to the Chairman and the Board of Trade, 
 for two reasons ; first, because I thought the toast was one of 
 pretty large proportions, but he relieved me of that fear by 
 preparing the speech himself ; and, secondly, for what he said 
 here to-night, which is certainly a very great relief, that the 
 Board of Trade will not importune me for an ofi&ce. 
 
 I hardly know, gentlemen, how to undertake to respond to 
 this toast: "American Patents from a Financial Standpoint." 
 I think we all agree, and I do not wish to touch upon the 
 domain of politics, I think we all agree that the protective 
 principle was never yet applied to an American manufacturer 
 without a reduction in price. We Republicans all claim that, 
 and I do not think it is disputed by any one. How much the 
 inventive genius of this people have to do with it no one can 
 determine. I apprehend that this great reduction in prices, 
 when American genius takes hold of a thing, is due to the 
 patent system, to the inventions of our people. If I were to 
 undertake to measure in dollars and cents the benefits to the 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 433 
 
 people and to mankind that have resulted from inventions, I 
 am afraid that I could not furnish the figures to sustain it. But 
 I have been asked to-night, I suppose, to make a speech upon 
 a single point, and that is from a Treasury standpoint, to state 
 the receipts and disbursements of the Government from this 
 source. Your Chairman very kindly furnished me a memor- 
 andum this morning, but being a little bit suspicious of boards 
 of trade, I thought I would verify it myself from the Treasury 
 figures. It is but just to say to the Chairman of the Board of 
 Trade that his figures were substantially correct, and I find the 
 facts to be about as follows : 
 
 The first patent law was passed in 1790. It seemed to have 
 been unsatisfactory, and the receipts were very small, the total for 
 forty -six years up to 1836 being only about $300,000. We 
 have no means now of ascertaining the expenses during that 
 period. The first favorable patent law was passed in 1836, and 
 the receipts in 1836 were $15,000 ; expenses, $8,000. From 
 1836 each year shows a large increase of receipts and expendi- 
 tures, until 1890, when the receipts were $1,347,000 and the 
 expenses about $1,000,000, the annual profit about $350,000 ; 
 the total net profits up to date about $4,000,000. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the Secretary of the Interior has eloquently 
 portrayed the necessity of a building in this city that shall be 
 fit in all respects to accommodate the inventors of the country. 
 I answer for the Treasury, and say, if you can get our intelli- 
 gent Congress [laughter] to make the appropriation I will see 
 that the Treasury foots the bill. [I/aughter.] 
 
 The Chairman. The sixth regular toast, ' ' Relations of 
 Patents to the lyaw," was to have been responded to by the 
 Hon. W. H. H. Miller, Attorney General. In his absence the 
 Secretary of the Board of Trade will read his response. 
 
 LETTBR FROM HON. W. H. H. MILLER. 
 
 The Secretary of the Board of Trade read the letter as follows: 
 
 Department of Justice, 
 Washington, D. C, April 10, i8gi. 
 
 Mr. Myron M. Parker, President Washington Board oj Trade. 
 My Dear Sir: I regret that it is impossible for me to be with 
 you to-night at the Patent Centennial banquet. 
 
434 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 ' ' The relation of patents to law ' ' is quite the reverse of their 
 relations to almost everything else. In the arts, manufactures, 
 agriculture, mechanics, trade, and, in short, in almost every- 
 thing, patents give benefits. From the law they ony receive 
 benefits. The old saying that ' ' Necessity is the mother of 
 invention ' ' is much less a general truth than formerly. 
 
 The law is the creator of patents. In the laboratory of the 
 law, thought, ideas, inventions are crystalized into value and 
 become property, and thereby invention is stimulated and the 
 results are the amazing discoveries and stupendous progress of 
 the nineteenth century. The Patent Office is a sort of a free 
 coinage mint, where every man's ideas are coined into property, 
 labeled and returned to him for use at whatever the world will 
 give for them. Why not have the Government "fiat" a value 
 for each patent, so that a seventy -cent idea will go for a dollar ? 
 
 The effect of patents on the law is slight. Its fundamental 
 principles as to property rights, ' ' Thou shalt not steal, " " Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness, " "So use thine own as not to injure 
 that of another, ' ' were about as well understood by Moses and 
 Solomon as by Mansfield and Marshall, or the jurists of West- 
 minster and Washington to-day. 
 
 The applications of the law, resultant firom inventions and 
 progress, are infinitely multiplied, but the principles are un- 
 changing and unchangeable. Property in patents is safe- 
 guarded upon exactly the same principles, and for the same 
 reasons as property in potatoes, viz : Natural ownership of the 
 results of individual labor,' whether of the hand or head. 
 
 But there is no property in the law. No man can make a 
 discovery and get a patent on any part of it. No monopoly, 
 no corner, no trust, has any exclusive, peculiar, or superior right 
 in or claim on the law. It is the inestimable heritage of all 
 citizens, as equal tenants in common, the expressed conscience 
 of the whole people, growing with their growth, developing 
 with their development, sensitive and vigilant, or dull and in- 
 efficient, according to the condition of public morals. 
 
 In the law is the patent of the rights and liberties of all. To 
 the law all are amenable for their conduct. And for the law 
 all are responsible as its makers. Very truly yours, 
 
 W. H. H. Mii,i,ER. 
 
 The eleventh regular toast, "American Patents in the 
 Army," was responded to by General I,ewis A. Grant, 
 Assistant Secretary of War. 
 
 RESPONSE BY GENERAL LEWIS A. GRANT. 
 
 The War Department of the Government does not deal in 
 patents, and, as a rule, does not use patented articles. 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 435 
 
 Many of the most important inventions within the Depart- 
 ment are not patented, because they are not for general use. 
 They are the implements of war and destruction, and the 
 inventor generally has blood in his eye, and people generally 
 do not care to speculate in these inventions. The main effort 
 of the Department is not to secure patents and the right to 
 use them, but to secure exclusive use, as against foreign 
 nations ; and in that, secresy is sometimes necessary. And 
 yet the Department receives great benefit from the stimulation 
 to American genius developed by our system of patent laws. 
 Perhaps no part of the Government has felt their influence 
 more potently. 
 
 In all that pertains to our Government, there has not been 
 more striking and remarkable improvements within the last 
 one hundred years, or even in the last quarter of a century, 
 than in the arts and implements of war. While the navies of 
 the world have been active in constructing armor (to resist the 
 force of shots and projectiles), the Army has kept along in its 
 construction of guns and projectiles capable of penetrating or 
 shattering the heaviest and strongest armor made. 
 
 The inventive genius of General Rodman, of the Army, 
 aided in improvement and development by Professor Tredwell, 
 has given to American guns the quality of strength, resistance 
 and force of propulsion heretofore unknown. General Rod- 
 man secured a patent, but the principle has been wrought 
 upon and improved, probably far beyond his expectations. 
 The strength of texture and the resisting power which has 
 been attained is simply marvelous ; and by improved projec- 
 tiles and explosives a power of propulsion and a distance of 
 range and accuracy of aim have been reached not generally 
 known. 
 
 Before 1849 our most powerful gun was a lo-inch cast-iron 
 smooth bore, which, with a charge of fourteen pounds of 
 powder, would drop a one hundred pound ball considerably 
 within the well-known marine league. Now the same size of 
 bore, the lo-inch rifled gun, uses 250 pounds of powder, and 
 hurls a projectile of 575 pounds with about fifteen times the 
 force of the smooth bore of forty -two years ago. This, indeed, 
 is efiective, but its power is small compared to the 16-inch 
 
436 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 steel gun, which explodes one thousand pounds of powder, 
 and hurls a projectile of a ton's weight with an initial velocity 
 of lifting 60,000 tons one foot, and of penetrating, at five 
 miles distance, the heaviest and strongest armor afloat. 
 
 Very important indeed, in connection with these heavy and 
 long-range guns, is the more recent invention of one of our 
 Army ofiScers, of what is known as the "range-finder." By 
 means of this invention the distance of the range, the pro- 
 pulsive force of the gun, the weight and shape of the projectile, 
 the resistance and movement of the air, and the velocity of the 
 vessel or moving target, are all taken into account and 
 accurately adjusted, so that the destructive projectile is hurled 
 against and into the fated target at a distance of five or more 
 miles with almost as much precision as was formerly attained 
 by our smooth bore muskets at a distance of five rods. 
 
 The interrupted screw breech mechanism, so largely used in 
 this gun and generally called French, was developed and per- 
 fected in this country, and was in many essential features 
 covered by Chamber's patent in 1849. 
 
 The steel wire wound gun, the inception of which dates 
 from 1856, now an active competitor for public favor, is the 
 invention of an American, Dr. W. E. Woodbridge. 
 
 The recent improvement in powder, the distinguishing fea- 
 ture of which is its slow burning property, has much to do with 
 the great force of propulsion obtained in the use of modem 
 guns. One improvement serves to increase the strength of the 
 gun ; and the other to reduce and control the strain upon it, 
 and both are largely due to American invention. This prop- 
 erty in the powder was fully appreciated and successfuly pro- 
 duced by the studious investigations of Mordecai and Rodman, 
 both officers of the Ordnance Department. 
 
 One of the latest improvements is the so-called smokeless 
 powder, which has already been adopted in some degree by 
 other countries. But our inventors have not been slow in 
 entering this field, and we already have several smokeless pow- 
 ders invented by Americans, among whom are Maxim and 
 Houghton, promising great results. The revolving cannon is 
 the result of the invention of Hotchkiss. The Catling gun, 
 that terrific repeater, is known by all, and the inventor whose 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 437 
 
 name it takes is probably known to many of you. The 
 Galling gun is a revolver while the Maxim will deliver hun- 
 dreds of shots per minute from a single bore. 
 
 But it is not upon the large guns alone that we rely for 
 military operations of aggression and defense. These require 
 heavy and intricate machinery for handling, and their use, and 
 firing is necessarily slow ; while the smaller guns can be 
 handled with more ease and fired with greater rapidity, and 
 the result is more destructive than that of the larger guns, 
 although not at so great a distance. The condition and effi- 
 ciency of American arms, and the machinery and skill used in 
 handling them, may well invite an assailant to closer quarters. 
 
 Within the last few days, much has been said about the pow- 
 erful navy and the heavy guns of a European nation, and fear 
 has been expressed that such heavy armament might enter the 
 harbor of some of our larger cities. So far as the Army is 
 concerned, we would gladly let them come. I,et them come in 
 if they want to ; they would go no more out forever. 
 
 So perfectly and effectively has the work of destruction been 
 planned and carried out, that within a surprisingly short time 
 there can be placed beneath the waters' surface an indefinite 
 number of destructive explosives ; and those can be so arranged 
 that vessels passing over them will cause explosion and their 
 own ruin. Or they may be so arranged that vessels may pass 
 over them unharmed, and arrange themselves in line of battle 
 ready for attack ; and then by a simple touch on the shore — 
 it may be from the hand of a small child — there will come 
 instantaneous explosions all along the line, sufficient to destroy 
 in an instant of time the largest fleet finding room in one of 
 our harbors. 
 
 There is also ready and waiting for any foreign invader the 
 pneumatic dynamite torpedo gun, wholly an American inven- 
 tion, largely due to Mr. Mefford, but Captain Zalinski is 
 entitled to much credit in its development. " It is a veritable 
 innovation, in that compressed air is used in place of gun 
 powder to propel the projectile, charged with high explosives. ' ' 
 It is capable of hurling a tremendous mass of dynamite through 
 the air and against a vessel, causing its complete destruction. 
 
 Again, if the work of destruction is not already complete, we 
 will plant on shore in safe positions groups of mortars, sixteen 
 
438 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 forming a group, from which the most destructive explosives 
 can be at once hurled high in the air ; and so nicely is the 
 propulsive force, distance of range, and other considerations 
 taken into calculation, that they may be made to drop with 
 wonderful accuracy upon the offending vessel. It will do more 
 than pierce the joints of the vessel's armor ; these huge and 
 destructive missiles will drop upon the upper deck, penetrate 
 the ship, explode and destroy it. 
 
 These things are not mere theories in the minds of American 
 inventors ; nor do they exist simply in the models in the Patent 
 Office, but they exist in terrible reality, and any nation beliger- 
 ently inclined is respectfully invited to test them. 
 
 The improvement in small arms and all the paraphernalia of 
 war has not been less marked, and the American inventors hold 
 a conspicuovis place. Our machinery for manufacturing is of 
 the latest and most improved kind. ' ' We were early in the field 
 to substitute machinery for hand-work, and the first to perfect 
 the machinery for making any number of parts of different arms 
 to be assembled at will. ' ' 
 
 The superiority of our small-arms cartridge manufacturing 
 has been equally well marked, and the machinery for this, 
 which was devised at the Frankfort Arsenal in 1886 by J. G. 
 Gill, the master mechanic, is a model of excellence. 
 
 The present service rifle is the Springfield single breech- 
 loader, a weapon which has proved most valuable in our frontier 
 service, and one which it will be difficult to replace. But the 
 small bore magazine rifle is attracting great attention, and 
 repeated and successful experiments are now being made with it. 
 
 But it is not in guns and arms and munitions of war alone in 
 which we excel, or upon which we depend. Almost every 
 invention within the range of human skill is utilized in some 
 way for the purposes of the Army. The horse and the mule 
 and the army wagon are used in their place for purposes of 
 transportation, but the best and fastest steamboats, and all the 
 constructions and appliances of railroads are used in the trans- 
 portation of troops and supplies, and in the concentration of 
 forces. The telegraph and the telephone are used in the trans- 
 mission of orders and information. Signals and balloons, and 
 all the devices of aerial navigation are utilized to obtain bird's 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 439 
 
 eye views of the enemy's camp, and in watching his move- 
 ments. And by means of the photographer's art the exact 
 condition of the enemy and his defenses are caught by the rays 
 of the shining sun, transmitted to paper, and laid before the 
 Commander of an Army for his information and inspection. 
 
 With the best of guns and small arms, and all the equip- 
 ments of war, with all the appliances and inventions for moving 
 troops, and so concentrating armies with an effective force of 
 more than three millions of stalwart men, ready for the field, 
 sustained and supported by more than sixty million of loyal 
 hearts — among whom are the mothers and daughters of the 
 nation — our Army is invincible to any force that can be brought 
 against it. The American standard is full high advanced, and 
 forcibly sustained. With the increasing strength of our Navy 
 and maritime commerce, our flag shall not only proudly wave 
 over all our land, but it shall spread its ample folds in every 
 commercial port of the globe. 
 
 The thirteenth regular toast, "American Patents in the 
 Navy," was responded to by Hon. J. R. Soley, Assistant Sec- 
 retary of the Navy. 
 
 respons:b by honorable j. r. soley. 
 
 It is no small satisfaction in rising before an assemblage that 
 represents the advance guard of technical science in America, 
 to speak in behalf of an establishment whose highest aim and 
 most earnest effort are to keep^in the forefront of scientific and 
 mechanical progress. Nine years ago the Navy of the United 
 States was composed of a collection of rapidly decaying wooden 
 ships, propelled by antiquated engines, and armed with 
 smooth-bore guns. So far from advancing, its condition since 
 the war had been one of steady deterioration. Its vessels and 
 its guns were a subject of derision at home and of contempt 
 abroad. To-day the Department is engaged in the building 
 of twenty-five modern steel ships, three of them battle -ships 
 of 10,000 tons displacement, and two more will shortly be 
 added to the list. In these vessels every device has been 
 put that the inventive ingenuity of the age could suggest. 
 The triple-expansion engine, the dynamo, the sub-divided 
 structure and double-bottom, the modern pneumatic and hy- 
 
440 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 draulic appliances, the multitude of contrivances for propulsion, 
 for distillation, for steering, for ventilation, for hoisting, for 
 defense against projectiles, for excluding the dangerous inrush 
 of water, for increasing the eflSciency of the armament, have 
 made the modem war-ship, with her machinery, and her main 
 and secondary batteries, a structure so complex and so diversi- 
 fied in its innumerable details as to call for the application 
 of inventive skill in nearly every department of mechanical 
 science. 
 
 Back of all this lies the vast advance which recent years 
 have shown in the materials of construction, in the steel 
 itself by means of improved tools, improved processes of 
 manufacture, improved combination of elements, in frames 
 and plates, in castings, in armor, in gun forgings. When 
 the high and exacting requirements of the Navy Department 
 in the quality of steel which it called for were first made 
 known, it was doubtful if the manufacturers could furnish it ; 
 but the mechanical skill of the country showed itself equal 
 to the demand, and the result has been a product which has 
 no superior in the world. The progress less marked in materials 
 and in mechanical devices, stupendous as it has been during 
 the last few years, seems to be without bounds or limits that 
 man can fix. Truly it may be said that in the field of the 
 inventor or working with the applications of naval science, 
 there are no horizons. 
 
 It is in this vast field of mechanical, enterprise that the 
 bureaus of the Navy Department are now at work ; and such 
 has been their success that we have to-day a fleet, built or 
 building, which though small numerically, is unsurpassed in 
 the types of which it is composed, ship for ship, by any navy 
 in the world ; and it is a fleet constructed of American material, 
 built by American labor, and embodying in its design the 
 genius of American invention. 
 
 I cannot help quoting here, although public notice has already 
 been taken of them, the remarks of Mr. J. H. Biles, the emi- 
 nent Knglish naval architect, in his paper read four weeks ago 
 before the Institute of Naval Architects, where he says of our 
 new battle-ships : ' ' They are distinctly superior in most re- 
 spects to any European vessels of the same displacement, and 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 441 
 
 for the purpose of protecting the American coast-line they seem 
 to be quite a match for any ships afloat." 
 
 From the time when David Bushnell devised, and Robert 
 Fulton developed the torpedo ; when Fulton again applied the 
 steam-engine to navigation ; when Fricsson, a fellow-citizen by 
 adoption, went a step further, and invented the screw pro- 
 peller ; when the same Ericsson, following in the footsteps of 
 Timby, applied the movable turret to armored ship construc- 
 tion — down to the time of Dahlgren, Parrett, Hotchkiss, and 
 others of equal or greater eminence who are present here to- 
 night — naval architecture has been under a heavy debt to the 
 inventor of this country. The patent laws give security to the 
 property of the inventor ; but it is a problem above and be- 
 yond law to give security to the wealth and prosperity, indi- 
 vidual and national, with which the community has been 
 endowed by the inventive skill of its citizens. 
 
 The nation that grows rich and prosperous excites the envy 
 of its rivals. It must provide for its defense. It is for this 
 purpose that the Navy exists, and it is this work that its offi- 
 cers, if we will only give them the right weapons and plenty 
 of them, stand ready to accomplish. The country which, by 
 the hands of its inventors, has thus cast its bread upon the 
 waters will then find it returning after many days ; and the 
 debt which the navy is under to the mechanical skill of 
 America, it will repay four-fold by the security and protection 
 it affords to the fruits of American labor. 
 
 The fifteenth regular toast, " American Patents in the Postal 
 Service," was responded to by the Hon. S. A. Whitfield, First 
 Assistant Postmaster-General. 
 
 RESPONSE BY HONORABLE S. A. WHITFIELD. 
 
 Swift once defined invention as being the talent of youth and 
 the judgment of age. If this definition is accepted as correct 
 it will be conceded, I think, that the talent of this country is 
 in that particular precocious to a degree absolutely unprece- 
 dented, or else it has attained the judgment of age at a period 
 when, according to comparative chronology, it should be barely 
 on the threshold of early manhood. We have here, perhaps, 
 the best illustration of the maxim that ' ' Those who are least 
 
442 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 governed are best governed;" and, in fact, the touch of the 
 government is so light that in most localities the only tangible, 
 visible evidence of its existence is found in the various ramifi- 
 cations of the postal service. I do not, therefore, draw 
 invidious distinctions between departments when I claim that 
 the one I have the honor to represent here to-night is the most 
 notable beneficiary of American inventive genius. It is because 
 this service has come home to every nook and comer of our 
 land, that we are able to say that in a domain of practical 
 human achievements we have benefited most because we have 
 presented most opportunities and most direct association. 
 
 In one great branch of the department, the Contract Office, 
 we occupy a position perhaps unique in the history of 
 mechanical appliances. We not only invite competition by 
 public advertisement, but for the protection of the Govern- 
 ment we reject articles not actually patented. In fact, so 
 numerous have become the patented articles in use in the 
 postal service that a separate clause is inserted in all contracts 
 requiring parties supplying the various equipment to furnish a 
 bond protecting the Government from possibility of damages 
 growing out of infringement. No better object lesson could 
 be offered the student of mechanical invention than would be 
 afforded by a study of the splendid rotary registry lock in 
 use to-day in securing packages filled with valuable matter or 
 passing between our great commercial centres, and the one in 
 use even at a period as late as 1880. I^osses under the former, 
 though inconsiderable, reached a respectable percentage, 
 while under the latter they have grown so small as to be almost 
 incapable of mathematical calculation. In fact, the unfor- 
 tunate thief is now reduced to the necessity of stealing the 
 whole pouch. It is a physical impossibility for him to get 
 into it and conceal the evidence of his crime. A short time 
 ago the Department found that it had in its possession more 
 than 250,000 mail locks, for which it was offered the magnifi- 
 cent sum of twenty cents a hundred pounds. These locks had 
 cost the Government fifty-seven cents each. They could not 
 be used at this time without a change of keys and combina- 
 tions. As usual in this country, the occasion produced 
 demand ; and with a single blow of the die, and at a cost of 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 443 
 
 about five cents each, every one of these 250,000 will be made 
 available for service, and a most excellent lock restored to use. 
 
 I could more easily and quickly enumerate what would be 
 left in the service were the fruit of American ingenuity with- 
 drawn, than I could give ^^ou a list of useful patents now in 
 use. We begin with locks of all descriptions and run the gamut 
 through the long scale of mail pouches and fastenings of all 
 descriptions, bag racks, mail-bag catches, stamping pads, lock 
 boxes, and keys, and soon down to the latest and perhaps most 
 notable invention of stamping-machines for cancellation of 
 stamps and back stamping of letters. Three samples of these 
 machines are now in use at the Washington ofBce, and would 
 well repaj' a visit of inspection. One of them recently can- 
 celled, under the supervision of the board of our own officers 
 convened in the city of New York, 14,615 pieces of unassorted 
 miscellaneous mail matter in thirty minutes, and others have 
 attained a speed of from seven thousand to nine thousand in 
 the same time. Thus, while each machine relieves for other 
 useful work from four to six men previously employed in 
 stamping letters by hand, it performs the still more important 
 function of shortening radically the time that elapses between 
 the receipt of the letter at the central office and its delivery to 
 the addressee. 
 
 The high rate of speed attained by the trains on our main 
 trunk roads leaves little room for shortening the time actually 
 consumed in the transportation of mails between our great 
 cities. The latest and most troublesome problem is to over- 
 come the difficulties attendant upon the distances between 
 the central offices and outlying stations, consequent upon 
 the thronged condition of the streets in all our business 
 centers. The attention of the Postmaster-General has been 
 especially directed to the loss of time experienced there, and 
 at an early date we design to avail ourselves of the agency of 
 pneumatic tubes, at least experimentally in this work. If this 
 shall prove a success, it is believed that the difficulties imposed 
 by time and space are as nearly overcome as it is possible for 
 mere human agencies to accomplish. Recent advances in 
 telegraphy and improved methods in all branches of this great 
 system have led the Department to desire to avail itself of them 
 
444 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 to an extent not possible under the limitations of the existing 
 contract. 
 
 As a brief and final illustration of the prolific genius of our 
 inventors, it may be interesting to know that under a recent 
 advertisement issued by the Postmaster-General for private 
 letter boxes to be used by individuals and firms, 577 models 
 and designs were presented to the Board convened in Wash- 
 ington City, to which may be added about 200 communications 
 containing suggestions more or less valuable. There are to-day 
 in the Post-Office Department, awaiting the action of a Com- 
 mission soon to be appointed, more than a hundred designs for 
 improving the mode of closing the present leather mail pouch 
 now in use. It is no longer a question of finding something 
 suitable for the wants of the Government, but rather one of 
 deciding, among so many excellent designs, which is the most 
 excellent. 
 
 The seventeenth regular toast, ' ' American Patents at the 
 World's Exposition," was responded to by Hon. Benjamin 
 Butterworth, secretary of the World's Columbian Exposition. 
 
 RESPONSE BY HON. BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : It is now after two o'clock in the morning, 
 and if I were the sworn enemy of each one of you, I do not 
 think I could have the heart to detain you here to make a 
 speech. Even if I were disposed to make one, you would not 
 be disposed to listen to it. What I had contemplated saying I 
 will use in response to another toast at another centennial on 
 some other occasion. If I draw these papers on you, I trust 
 you will not feel disturbed. It is only for the purpose of 
 stating what I desire to omit, not what I propose to say. 
 
 You have swept the whole horizon in respect to patents, both 
 those which are utilized in peace and those which are available 
 in war. I am asked to say something with regard to American 
 patents at the centennial. The truth is, I might as well try to 
 give you an account of all creation, and there will not be any- 
 thing there that has not some relation to our American patent 
 system. 
 
 If you will hear me for one single moment, I desire before 
 I refer to that to show what the opportunities there are, and 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 445 
 
 what they will be for exhibiting everything that pertains to the 
 American patent system, and all other things of interest. We 
 may well take pride in this great enterprise. We may well 
 take pride in that aggressive spirit of the great West which has 
 contributed more to the enterprise than any city or State or 
 nation has ever heretofore contributed. It is true, my own 
 desire was that this great enterprise should be held at Wash- 
 ington City, and it was fit and proper that it should be so held. 
 Other persons desired that it should be held in New York. 
 But our people are becoming a little anxious as the course of 
 empire takes its way westward, that those beyond the AUe- 
 ghanies, those in the interior, should have a chance. The 
 people of the country desire to turn the Federal cow around. 
 She has had her head on the other side of the Alleghanies, but 
 her udders have been stripped on this side. It was determined 
 to turn the animal around, so that she can now be fed east of 
 the Alleghanies and the lacteal food will be poured out upon 
 the West. 
 
 It has been decided that this great exposition shall be held 
 at Chicago. It has met with the most generous, warm-hearted 
 support from every quarter of Europe. I desire to call your 
 attention for but a moment to the opportunities for exhibition 
 that will present themselves there. Chicago is a city of over 
 eleven hundred thousand inhabitants, inhabited by the most 
 enterprising people in the world. From the boot-black to the 
 mayor, each one believes that Chicago was foreordained from 
 the foundation of the world to be the metropolitan city of the 
 continent, and in this belief they work according to their faith, 
 and their works have justified their faith. 
 
 There can be no more conclusive fact that they intend to 
 make the exposition the event of the nineteenth century, than 
 that they have pledged to this enterprise fiy, 000,000, 
 $12,000,000 of which they have already raised. The great 
 State of Illinois, one of the youngest of the sisterhood of States, 
 carved out of this great Northwestern territory, will add 
 $1,000,000. Some twenty States of the Union have already 
 appropriated $1,500,000 and the other twenty odd States will 
 follow that with more than $2,000,000 ; in addition the Gen- 
 eral Government has appropriated $1,500,000 making in all 
 
446 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 $25,000,000 appropriated to offer conveniences for the taking 
 account of the stock of our civilization and to ascertain what 
 we have done during the last century that shall go down 
 through all the centuries. 
 
 I have been in Chicago a little while, long enough to take on 
 that natural reticence and difiBdence which is characteristic of 
 that people in speaking about what they are about to accom- 
 plish. [I,aughter.] Now as to the site selected. It lies front- 
 ing the waters of Lake Michigan, and embracing as handsome 
 parks as can be found on either continent. The number of 
 acres to be covered by the main buildings to be constructed for 
 the purposes of the exposition will be double that of any ever 
 held. The greatest floor space provided by any previous ex- 
 position was at Paris in 1889, which contained a trifle over 
 seventy-five acres. The floor space that will be covered by the 
 main buildings at Chicago will be over 150 acres. The area 
 devoted to the exposition will contain a thousand acres, with 
 five or six acres adjacent for overflow. Those who have ex- 
 amined the plans for the buildings, and who are experts, assert 
 that they have never been surpassed in architectural beauty 
 and in adaptability to the purposes intended. Every single foot 
 of this space will be utilized to show what the genius of man 
 has planned during the last few centuries and that which will 
 be worthiest of use, and about which you will linger longest, 
 which has done most for our civilization, most to bring us 
 peace and make it permanent will be that which is due to the 
 ingenious inventors of the last fifty years ! [Applause.] 
 
 I am asked what will be seen there ? Now the patent sys- 
 tem is related to the fair. How is the patent system related 
 to civilization ? The civilization of my country would not have 
 passed the Indian line up to this, 1891, but for the inventive 
 genius of my countrymen, and the American patent system, 
 which was the first really formulated and made practicable 
 by a nation. 
 
 As I said to-day, nations have been carved out upon the 
 field of battle and planned in the council chamber ; but never 
 until the founding of a free government in this country did it 
 occur to man to encourage inventors and authors as public 
 benefactors. 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 447 
 
 How will the American patent system show itself there, or 
 in other words, how will invention find expression there ? 
 What is invention in its broadest and best sense ? It is the ap- 
 plication of ideas to the needs of man, no matter whether the 
 idea find expression in a spoon or an engine or a sewing ma- 
 chine, in the telegraph or in the ten thousand inventions less 
 consequential in their separate significance. The author is an 
 inventor, although he may deal with a different class of sub- 
 jects than those which find expression in material things. 
 
 So far as the material world is concerned, there is not a lab- 
 oratory in the world that has produced anything worthy of use 
 that will not be seen in Chicago. There is not a shop which 
 has produced a contrivance or device so interesting or so useful 
 as to attract and deserve the consideration of men that will not 
 be seen at Chicago. 
 
 In other words, all the classes of industrial wealth will con- 
 tribute. The arts will be represented there by their best pro- 
 ductions. The applied and occult sciences will contribute their 
 share to the exhibition. But there has been organized in con- 
 nection with this great enterprise, that which in my judgment 
 is of equal, if not higher consequence than things material. 
 Things material may fall, but words, principles, ideas which 
 find expression in books and records will last and go down 
 through the centuries and outlive possibly this crumbling 
 republic. 
 
 We have provided in the exposition for a world's congress 
 to deal with ideas. In other words, in order that we may have 
 the benefit of ripened thoughts gathered from the 40 centuries, 
 there will be gathered together the wisdom and wise men of 
 our times from all the nations of the earth to deal with all sub- 
 jects ; to deal with economic questions, and those principles 
 that require an early solution. We cannot be blinded to the 
 fact that there are great questions — social, economic and politi- 
 cal — which must be settled in the arena of investigation and 
 free discussion, or at an early day they may refer themselves 
 to the dread arbitrament of battle. It is in order that the great 
 minds of the world, the great thinkers and the great writers 
 may meet there that we have provided for this world's con- 
 gress. 
 
448 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 My honored friend upon my right has spoken to me about 
 the absolute failure upon this continent, if not throughout the 
 world, of municipal government. They are a complete, abject 
 pitiable failure, but that we are a generous people, and stand 
 bleeding freely, we would have rebelled against them long ago. 
 The men who have given this subject the most attention will 
 be heard in Chicago. 
 
 There is a question as to whether the time has not come 
 when we may put aside the munitions of war and refer the 
 disputes between nations not to the arbitrament of battle, but 
 to arbitration. The men who have given this subject careful 
 consideration will also be in Chicago. 
 
 There are questions touching the coinage ; questions touch- 
 ing our economic system of supply and demand, and the rela- 
 tion between the methods of getting supplies from points of 
 production to points of consumption. All these questions 
 will be considered in these several congresses. My honored 
 friend upon my left, Archbishop Ireland, is entirely in charge 
 of one of these departments. I would like to hear from him 
 for a few moments touching the possibilities that await us there. 
 We have already had responses from England, firom France, 
 from Belgium, from Austria, from Russia and from Brazil. 
 The great thinkers in each one of these countries have signi- 
 fied their willingness and their desire to meet the thinkers and 
 writers of this country. They realize that a time is rapidly 
 approaching when drums will be muffled and battle-flags furled 
 in that parliament of human confederation. 
 
 All the nations of the world will be there. There is not 
 to-day a race of people where the agents of the World's Colum- 
 bian Exposition are not visiting. England will be there, re- 
 joicing in the great prosperity that has waited upon the children 
 of her loins. The Fatherland will be there, delighted with the 
 prosperity that has waited upon her children. France will be 
 there, our old ally, and Italy will be there — yes, Italy will be 
 there. If she comes in a belligerent spirit, we will read to 
 her the address of Secretary Grant and let her know that it 
 will not do for her to come within our border with such a spirit. 
 Italy will be there, and she will find that in the integrity of our 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 449 
 
 people her Sicilians will be as safe in the streets of Chicago as 
 they are under the shadow of the dome of St. Peter's in Rome. 
 
 But above all, the possibilities of our own country will be 
 represented there. Emerson said, " The United States " is but 
 another name for opportunities. It will be realized there fully. 
 In the intermingling of one nation with another the United 
 States is nearer to Austria to-day than the State of New York 
 was to Ohio a century ago ; so that after all we are neighbors. 
 
 I am not putting it too strongly when I say it is not at all im- 
 probable that by the time the exposition is under way, we can 
 go from Chicago down to the exposition through the air. You 
 say that is strong, but it is not. It is now within sight, and I 
 will promise you that you will go the seven miles in six minutes 
 with perfect comfort. I know our European friends imagine 
 that when they pass 200 miles west of New York they are in 
 danger of being scalped with tomahawks by the Indians, but 
 we can assure our brothers that when they go to Chicago from 
 Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York they can be carried in 
 palaces upon wheels and be as comfortable as they would be in 
 their own parlors, and there see a city the people of which are 
 unsurpassed for pluck and energy, and a city which is itself 
 worth a trip across two oceans to visit. 
 
 What there is worth seeing there will be due in a large 
 measure to the benefits derived from the patent system, which 
 simply says that every man who contributes to the well-being 
 of society shall have this reward. 
 
 My honored friend, Mr. Noble, said that it was not love of 
 gold that prompts the inventive genius. Well, "maybe it 
 aint," but my experience and observation alike are that the 
 inventor keeps an eye partially and singly to glory, but it is 
 largely centered on his pocket, and I would not respect him if 
 it were not so. 
 
 As my honored friend, Mr. Mitchell, has said, a man who 
 saves to you a dollar is entitled to a percentage for saving it. 
 A man who reaps for you a harvest at $50 that cost $100 ten 
 years ago, or would now cost you $100 without his invention, 
 is entitled to a fraction for saving it. The man who blesses 
 the community and saves it millions of dollars is entitled to 
 dividends for his effort, and what has made the young republic 
 
450 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 the first nation in the world is the fact that every worthy noble 
 action has its reward. 
 
 We do not patent anything that is worthless. The measure 
 of patentability is that it shall involve the exercise of that god- 
 like attribute of genius and invention ; next, that it shall be 
 useful ; and third, that it shall be novel. Where these three 
 elements contribute to the welfare and convenience of men, we 
 have provided, or our fathers provided before us — and they 
 builded better than they knew — that the men who thus con- 
 tributed to the well-being of society should have his reward, 
 and the amount of that reward should be the excellence of the 
 invention and the amount which he contributed to the well- 
 being of those who seek to use that which he has given them. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I want to congratulate you upon the suc- 
 cess of this convention. I wish our people knew how much 
 they owe to the patent system, to the thinkers, writers and 
 inventors of this country. A great many people think it is an 
 easy thing and that there is no trouble in an invention. They 
 think it is easy to think. As I said before, very few of those 
 who talk that way ever tried to think or ever made a success 
 of it if they did. There is nothing harder in the world than 
 earnest thinking, and as the result of that earnest thinking 
 the blessings to which I have referred have come to us. 
 
 I will say, in conclusion, that if you will come to Chicago, 
 you will realize what has been accomplished during the last 
 few decades, what is now being accomplished in all the nations 
 of the earth, and how much is being contributed from every 
 locality to add to the comfort and convenience of mankind. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Parker. Before we adjourn I desire to call attention 
 to the fact that we have with us to-night Hon. Richard Pope, 
 Commissioner of Patents for the Dominion of Canada, and we 
 would like to hear a word from him. 
 
 Mr. Pope. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen : It is too late, or, 
 I should rather say, too early in the morning for me to make 
 a speech, and I think it would be undesirable upon my part 
 that I should inflict another one upon you. I doubt very much, 
 also, whether you would allow me to do so even if I desired. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I feel that I must express to you my sin- 
 cere thanks on behalf of the Canadian Patent Office, which I 
 
BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 451 
 
 have the honor to represent. I feel that you have conferred 
 upon us an honor in the invitation which has been extended 
 to us, which has only been equalled by our participation in 
 the magnificent celebration of the Centennial of the Patent 
 System of the United States. 
 
 The design here has been to pay homage to human inven- 
 tion and progress in the arts and sciences useful to man and 
 essential to modern material prosperity and wealth. 
 
 I feel, gentlemen, that the inventor, filled with a desire to 
 put into practical eflfect the evolution of his inventive brain, 
 little knows, or perhaps stops to think of, the benefit his inven- 
 tion may confer upon future generations. So I feel that you, 
 gentlemen, who have promoted this centennial celebration 
 cannot foretell the advantages that may accrue not only to 
 your own country, but to every intelligent country on the face 
 of the earth by arresting public attention and diverting it to 
 serious thought and consideration of the wisdom of the patent 
 law and of legislative enactments tending to encourage and 
 promote industry and the inventive genius, and in assembling 
 together those that have conferred upon the world in general 
 such great benefits. I say that the benefits are inestimable, in 
 view of the great and mighty inventions which the world has 
 recently been put in possession of, among which may be 
 enumerated that which has enabled the human voice to anni- 
 hilate space and travel with lightning rapidity on an electric 
 wire, which must conduce to future invention, and which will 
 extend further benefits to the world at large and to future gen- 
 erations, when time and distance shall be no more. 
 
 Gentlemen, it would be undesirable to occupy your time any 
 further upon this great question of the advantages of inven- 
 tive genius to mankind. In view of the many eloquent, able, 
 and exhaustive speeches which we have heard upon that sub- 
 ject in the last few days, which have been supplemented again 
 to-day in the most extraordinary manner, it would be unwise 
 and unnecessary for me to proceed further. But, gentlemen, I 
 cannot sit down without again thanking you most sincerely for 
 the honor you have conferred upon the Canadian Patent Office 
 and those gentlemen who have accompanied me. I thank you 
 for the respect, attention, kindness and consideration which we 
 
452 BANQUET, WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 
 
 have received, not only from the Centennial Committee but 
 also from every one with whom we have had the honor of com- 
 ing in contact, since our advent into your city, which we will 
 always look upon as one of the most pleasant reminiscences of 
 our lives, and which will make us feel the approaching advent 
 of our departure from you to be a source of sincere regret and 
 sorrow. [Applause.] 
 
 Professor Watkins : I want to make an announcement. I 
 wish to state that the American Association of Inventors and 
 Manufacturers have completed their organization. It gives me 
 great pleasure to say to you that Dr. R. J. Gatling, of Con- 
 necticut, has been chosen president of that organization and 
 that he is present. 
 
 Dr. Gatling : Gentlemen, it is too late to make a speech, 
 and I will merely say that I have been greatly interested in what 
 has been said here in the last few days. I have never listened 
 to addresses that have pleased me more, or addresses that I 
 think will do more in the future for promoting the happiness 
 of mankind. It is too late to make any address. I have been 
 of my feet without food all day, for I have worked to get the 
 organization of inventors perfected. I never dreamed that the 
 honor of being elected president would be conferred upon me. 
 One or two individuals spoke to me yesterday upon the subject 
 casually, and asked me whether I would serve in that capacity, 
 but I told them that I did not desire it and wished they would 
 not put my name in nomination at all. They voted by ballot, 
 took around the hat. I voted for Mr. Hubbard, and thought he 
 was the man, and he ought to have been the man ; but it seems 
 they voted for me and insisted that I should accept it. I can 
 be in Washington only occasionally, but I will do all I can to 
 further the purposes of the organization. Mr. Hubbard has 
 been elected first vice-president and we have got a good com- 
 mittee and a good organization, as far as was possible in the 
 time we had. 
 
 I have enjoyed myself very much in Washington. I have 
 been here a great many times, and when I first came here it 
 was all a commons. Now I think it is the most beautiful city 
 in the world. You ought all to be proud of it as American 
 citizens. [Applause.] 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW PATENT OFFICE. 
 By Robbrt W. Fenwick, Washington City, D. C. 
 
 After the seat of Government was removed from Philadel- 
 phia to the City of Washington, which took place in 1800, the 
 entire business of the Patent Office continued to be carried on 
 by a single clerk in the Department of State. 
 
 In 1801, Dr. William Thornton, a very accomplished and 
 thoroughly Americanized English gentleman, at one period 
 one of the early Commissioners of the Federal city, was ap- 
 pointed by the Secretary of State to take charge of the issuing 
 of patents for inventions. The business continuing to increase, 
 a clerk and messenger were appointed to assist in the duties of 
 the office, which had been removed to Cocken's two-story 
 house on Eighth street, between E and F streets N. W. 
 (which house was afterwards occupied by Mrs. Blanchard). 
 
 In 18 II the large three-story brick and stone building 
 erected by Mr. Samuel Blodgett, previously, for a hotel at the 
 southwest comer of the square on which the new general post 
 office now stands, having been purchased by the Government 
 and fitted up for the General Post Office and Patent Office, 
 the business of the latter was removed from its location to the 
 second floor of this building, where it remained under the 
 superintendance of Dr. Thornton* till his death, which took 
 place on the 27th of March, 1828. 
 
 In 18 16 William Elliot, mathematician and astronomer, 
 and formerly surveyor of Washington City, was appointed by 
 the Secretary of State, Mr. Monroe, as assistant to Dr. Thorn- 
 ton, in which office he remained till 1829, when he resigned. 
 
 *A fine portrait of Dr. Thornton is now on exhibition at the New 
 Patent Office. 
 
454 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 William Parker Elliot,* the architect of the present Patent 
 Office building, and a son of the William Elliot* above referred 
 to, was acting as draughtsman of the old Patent Office during 
 part of the time his father was in office. 
 
 William Elliot was born in England in 1773. Had one 
 daughter, Emily, and three sons, Seth Alfred, John Bowman 
 and William Parker Elliot. He died at Washington, D. C, 
 December 31, 1838. The National Intelligencer of January i, 
 1838, speaking of his death, said : "Suddenly on the forenoon 
 ' ' of Saturday last Mr. William Elliot, surveyor of the city of 
 " Washington, aged 64. Mr. E., though a native of England, 
 " was an old resident of this city. Was the founder of the 
 " Washington City Gazette in 18 13, and possessing considerable 
 ' ' scientific attainments, was a useful as well as a kind hearted 
 " citizen. He was one of the earliest and most zealous mem- 
 " bars of the Columbian Institute, and his remains were 
 " attended to the grave by that Society." 
 
 Prior and up to the administration of General Jackson the 
 entire business of this office was carried on by four persons, 
 viz: Dr. William Thornton, William Elliot, William P. 
 Elliot and Benjamin Fenwick ; and in 1836-37 by seven per- 
 sons, including messenger, machinist and assistant clerks. 
 The number of persons now (1891) employed at the new 
 Patent Office is fully six hundred. 
 
 It is an interesting fact to relate that in these early days a 
 single pony was kept by the Government for the use of the 
 Patent Office, and that the messenger or clerk rode this pony 
 when he went to the State Department to have the patents 
 signed by the Secretary of State and other officials. 
 
 In 1832 the General Post Office building on E street was 
 extended eastward to Seventh street, and the following year 
 the Patent Office was removed to the new portion of the build- 
 ing, where it remained till the 15th of December, 1836, when 
 the whole structure with its contents (excepting some of the 
 books of the General Post Office) was destroyed by fire. 
 
 During the construction of the main central portion of the 
 present Patent Office building in accordance with the architec- 
 
 *Portraits of both of the Elliots are on exhibition at the new Patent 
 Office. 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 455 
 
 tural plans designed by William P. Elliot, which was adopted 
 on July 4th, 1836, by Congress and approved by the President, 
 General Jackson (an interval of four years), the business of the 
 Patent Ofiice, which was resumed on July 7, 1837, was carried 
 on in the " City Hall," from whence in 1840 it was transferred 
 to the new Patent Office building. 
 
 In connection with the history of the old Patent Office, it 
 should never be forgotten that by the patriotism and scientific 
 devotion of Dr. William Thornton the germ of our grand 
 patent system was saved from destruction by the British 
 soldiery. It was related to the writer by Mr. Seth A. Elliot, 
 another son of William Elliot, that as the British command- 
 ing officer was about to have the torch applied to the Patent 
 Office building. Dr. Thornton appeared on the portico and 
 earnestly cried out, ' ' This is the emporium of the Arts and 
 Sciences of America ; don't burn it." To the credit of this 
 officer, be it remembered, he listened to the appeal, and gave 
 orders to his soldiers to pass on without burning the building. 
 
 THE NEW PATENT OFFICE BUILDING. 
 
 This magnificent building, occupying two whole squares, 
 bounded by Seventh and Ninth and F and G streets northwest, 
 is of quadrangular shape, 413 by 280 feet with an open coiirt 
 of 270 by 112 feet, giving light and air, and with slight expense 
 might be made to present to the eye of the overtasked wearied 
 officials beautiful grass plats, growing plants, flowers and flow- 
 ing fountains. This building as originally designed was to 
 contain a large room for patented models, 270 by 65 feet ; and 
 two smaller ones for the same purpose, each 85 by 65 feet, com- 
 municating with the larger room, thus making a room of 400 by 
 65 feet on the principal floor ; with thirty six commodius rooms 
 for office purposes ; and the same number of rooms on the 
 basement floor, not for clerks, but for useful storing purposes. 
 There was also to be a continuous gallery above the principal 
 floor of HOG by 65 feet, intended as a receptacle for patented 
 models, and the manufacturers' national exhibition gallery. 
 The business part of the structure was to be divided by wide 
 passages of 16 feet, running longitudinally through the center 
 of the same with openings at each end for light and air, by 
 
456 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 which arrangement, and the open court and the streets on all 
 of its sides, the rooms were to be well ventilated and lighted. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE BUILDING. 
 
 The building was to be two stories high, resting upon an ele- 
 vated basement. The order of architecture adopted for the ex- 
 terior was the Grecian Doric of the age of Pericles, when the 
 fine arts in Greece, particularly architecture and sculpture, had 
 reached the highest points of excellence. The details are 
 modeled after the celebrated Parthenon, erected on the Acrop- 
 olis at Athens, one of the finest specimens of Athenian architec- 
 ture, and which was in 1 827-' 28, in part still standing, although 
 more than 2,000 years had passed since its erection ; and be- 
 fore it, in his early manhood, the architect of the Patent Office 
 stood, and by it had his genius so kindled into a living 
 flame, that he was enabled, on his return to his native land, 
 to reproduce some of its most striking parts in his design 
 for our noble Patent Office structure. At that date the mar- 
 ble of the ancient building had indurated to such a degree 
 from its long exposure to atmospheric influences, as to resist 
 the action of a chisel. The principal front of the Patent Office 
 on F street is graced with a portico of sixteen columns, octa- 
 style arrangement, the columns, and entablature, and pediment 
 being of the size and proportion of the Parthenon, each column 
 being 18 feet in circumference at the base. The tympanum and 
 metopes are left blank. In the Parthenon these parts were 
 enriched with very fine sculptures in basso relievo and alto relievo 
 of such extraordinary excellence that modern artists may well 
 despair of equalling them. The monotony of this extended 
 front is still farther broken up and the boldness of the outline 
 increased by projections of 13 feet next to west and east sides. 
 The whole building is surrounded with bold anta or pilasters 
 let into the external walls, which produce nearly as rich an 
 efiect as the isolated frustrum of cone columns, and are much 
 stronger and serve also as buttresses to resist the thrust of the 
 arches. The entablature is continuous and surrounded by a 
 blocking course, which finishes the superstructure. The win- 
 dows are arranged between pilasters. The north front on G 
 street is the same as the south front on F street, except that 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 457 
 
 the inner columns of the portico are omitted. The east front 
 on Seventh street is graced with a portico of six columns which 
 tends to break the too great monotony of the extended facade. 
 The west front is relieved by a similar portico. This portico, 
 owing to the position of the ground on the west, rests upon a 
 vaulted terrace from which it is approached. The cellar story 
 under this side of the building has, owing to the low grade of 
 Ninth street, a greater height. A horizontal terrace or pave- 
 ment surrounds the whole structure from the curb line. A 
 handsome ornamental railing with gates encloses almost the 
 entire building. The aforegoing is a description of the build- 
 ing as given by the architect himself, and it is in accordance 
 with the original design adopted by Congress, July 4, 1836. 
 
 ERECTION OF THE BUII,DING. 
 
 In the erection of the building the original architectural de- 
 sign was substantially adhered to, except in a few minor points, 
 which departure, in the opinion of the designer or architect, 
 were not beneficial nor an improvement. These changes were 
 made by the constructing and superintending architect, Mr. 
 Mills, who had nothing to do with the production of the orig- 
 inal plan adopted by Congress. 
 
 ITS ORIGINAL, PURPOSE. 
 
 The original intention of this building was that it should be 
 exclusively used for the interests of inventors and manufac- 
 turers of patented inventions, and it was to supply the want 
 caused by the destruction of the Patent Office by fire December 
 15, 1836, at which time there was a total loss of the models, 
 drawings, records, and indeed papers of every kind, and the 
 officials of the Patent Office were obliged to obtain accommo- 
 dations in the City Hall, Henry L. Ellsworth, Esq. , being then 
 the Commissioner of Patents, and having only five or six other 
 employes as his assistants. In the mind of this Commissioner 
 the rights of inventors were sacred ; his burning words to Con- 
 gress on this subject are as follows : ' ' Interest, sympathy and 
 " patriotism will unite in the effort to repair the loss. Justice 
 ' ' demands all the reparation that can be made. Government 
 "has received from industry and ingenuity their choicest trib- 
 
458 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 ' ' ute. She confided the valuable repository to a place of little 
 ' ' security. I have mourned in common with others at the ruin, 
 ' ' but candor compels me to say that without much help I can 
 ' ' do nothing to repair the loss. I leave, therefore, with the 
 ' ' National I<egislature the importunities of those I am com- 
 ' ' pelled to hear, but which I have not the power to relieve. ' ' 
 A like zeal and interest for inventors actuated Hon. John Rug- 
 gles, chairman of the Senate committee, to whom the matter 
 of providing for the erection of the new Patent Of&ce was con- 
 fided ; and to him, and the members of the House committee, 
 the inventors of the country owe a deep and lasting debt of 
 gratitude. In his report submitted January 9, 1837, to the 
 24th Congress, second session, is found the following : "In ex- 
 ' amining the subject referred to them, the committee have 
 ' been deeply impressed with the loss the country has sustained 
 ' in the destruction by fire, on the fifteenth of December, 1836, 
 ' of the records, original drawings, models, etc. , belonging to 
 ' the Patent office. They not only embrace the whole his- 
 ' tory of American invention for nearly half a century, but 
 ' were the muniments of property of vast amounts, secured by 
 ' law to a great number of individuals, both citizens and for- 
 ' eigners, the protection and security of which must now be- 
 ' come seriously difficult and precarious. Everything belong- 
 ' ing to the office was destroyed, nothing was saved. There 
 ' were 168 large folio volumes of records and twenty-six large 
 ' portfolios containing nine thousand drawings, many of which 
 ' were beautifully executed and very valuable ; there were 
 ' also all the original descriptions and specifications of inven- 
 ' tions, in all about ten thousand, besides caveats, and many 
 ' other valuable documents and papers. The Patent Office 
 ' also contained the largest and most interesting collection of 
 ' models in the world, there being about seven thousand. The 
 ' American inventions pertaining to the spinning of cotton and 
 ' wool, and the manufacture of fabrics, in many respects ex- 
 ' ceed those of any other nation, and reduce so much the ex- 
 ' pense of manufacture, that the British manufacturers were 
 ' reluctantly obliged, at the expense of a little national pride, 
 ' to lay aside their own machinery and adopt our improve- 
 ' ments, to prevent our underselling them even in their home 
 ' market. 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 459 
 
 " In this department were the inventions of Brown, Thorpe, 
 ' Danforth, Couillaird, and Calvert. The beautiful operative 
 ' model of Wilkinson's machine for manufacturing weavers' 
 ' reeds by one operation, was considered one of the most in- 
 ' genious mechanical combinations ever invented. Of this 
 ' character was also Whittemore's celebrated machine for mak- 
 ' ing wool cards. There were several models of valuable im- 
 ' provements in shearing and napping cloth, patented to Swift, 
 ' Stowell, Dewey, Parsons, Daniels and others. ' ' Continuing 
 'his report, he referred to the patents of "Griggs, Perkins, 
 ' Reed, Odiorne, and specially to the patent of Pulton for the 
 ' application of steam power for propelling boats, ' ' and says, 
 ' the name of Fulton is associated with one of the noblest 
 ' efforts of genius and science." 
 
 He further says in his report : "The sentiment is not an un- 
 ' common one, that the tax upon patents is both unwise in 
 ' policy and unjust in principle. * * * Inventors are 
 ' public benefactors, contributing to the promotion and im- 
 ' provement of all branches of national industry, and in most 
 ' instances without any adequate remuneration. ' ' And he en- 
 ' quired : " Who has done more to enrich the South, nay, in- 
 ' directly, the whole country, than Whitney, and what was his 
 ' reward ? Let the South answer. Evans and Fulton, with 
 ' genius and talents, never while they lived appreciated to 
 ' their worth, died overwhelmed by embarrassments." 
 
 And he also remarked, having reference to the destruction 
 by fire, that "It, the Patent OflSce, was an object of just pride 
 ' ' to every American able to appreciate its value as an item in 
 ' ' the estimate of American character or the advantages and 
 ' ' benefits derivable from high improvements in the useful arts. ' ' 
 
 THE ARCHITECT OF THE PATENT OFFICE BUILDING. 
 
 To William Parker Elliot, Esq., of Washington, D. C, son 
 of Mr. William Elliot, mechanical draughtsman in the first 
 Patent Office during the superintendency of the celebrated 
 William Thornton, or up to the year 1829, when he resigned, 
 belongs this high honor. The young architect is introduced 
 to us in the following letter, found among his private papers : 
 
460 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 "Mayor's Office, 
 " Washington, April 16, 1827. 
 " Having just learned that Mr. William P. Elliot, a young 
 ' ' gentleman of this city, is about to leave Washington for 
 ' ' London to pursue his studies as an architect, it affords me 
 ' ' pleasure to state that I have known him for several years, 
 ' ' and that he is a young gentleman of exemplary habits and 
 " promising talents. 
 
 "R. C. Weightman." 
 
 Mr. Roger C. Weightman was Mayor of Washington at the 
 date he wrote the letter. 
 
 He is next introduced by the following report of the Con- 
 gressional Committee on Public Buildings : 
 
 ' ' The Committee on Public Buildings having approved of 
 ' ' the plan submitted, amongst others, to their consideration by 
 ' ' William P. Elliot for a fire-proof building for the Treasury 
 ' ' Department, etc. , and having framed the bill making the 
 ' ' appropriation toward erecting the same upon the estimates 
 ' ' and details furnished by Mr. Elliot, do therefore recom- 
 ' ' mend his plan for adoption by the President of the United 
 "States. 
 
 ' ' I,Evi Lincoln, 
 "Michael W. Ash, 
 ' ' Andrew T. Jijdson, 
 "E. Pettigrew, 
 "A. Ward. 
 " Washington, July ^, 1836." 
 
 ' ' The Committee on the Patent Office having approved of 
 
 "the plans submitted, amongst others, by WiUiam P. Elliot 
 
 "and Ithiel Town, for a fire-proof building for the Patent 
 
 ' ' Office, and having framed the bill making the appropriation 
 
 ' ' for the erection of the same upon the estimates and details 
 
 ' ' furnished by them, do therefore recommend their plan for 
 
 ' ' adoption by the President of the United States. 
 
 " GoRHAM Parks, 
 
 "James Harper, 
 
 "Samuel F. Vinton, 
 
 " Committee of H. R. 
 " Washington, July 4., 1836." 
 
PAPERS UPON U. 5. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 461 
 
 ' ' The Committee of the Senate on the Patent Office accorded 
 ' ' in opinion with the Committee of the House, as above. The 
 ' ' undersigned being the only member of that Committee now 
 " in Washington, adds his individual recommendation of the 
 " plan of Messrs. Elliot and Town. 
 
 "Jno. Ruggles. 
 
 ''July4,i836r 
 
 PRESIDENT JACKSON'S APPROVAL OF THE PLAN. 
 
 ' ' Under the act of Congress authorizing the President of the 
 " United states to cause a Treasury Building and Patent Office 
 " to be erected, I hereby designate the Commissioner of Public 
 ' ' Buildings to superintend generally the detailed modifications 
 ' ' of plans for them : The advertising and forming of con- 
 ' ' tracts and the whole disbursements thereon ; and to enable 
 ' ' him to keep the accounts, make the payments, etc. , prepare 
 ' ' vouchers for settlements and conduct the other correspond- 
 ' ' ence relating thereto, I authorize him to employ a clerk at 
 " not over nine hundred dollars a year, to be paid equally out 
 ' ' of the appropriations for said objects. I further appoint 
 " Robert Mills as architect to aid in forming the plans, making 
 ' ' proper changes therein from time to time, and seeing to the 
 ' ' erection of said buildings in substantial conformity to the plans 
 "■hereby adopted, which are, in their general outlines, to be, as to 
 ' ' the Treasury building, that plan annexed by said Mills ; and, 
 "as to the Patent Office, that annexed by Mr. Elliot : The 
 ' ' former building to be erected on the old site, and the latter 
 " one on the square north of the Post Office. 
 
 "Andrew Jackson. 
 
 " Washington City, 6 th of July, 1836." 
 
 The aforegoing reports of the Committees, and order of the 
 President of the United States would appear to be conclusive 
 proof as to the authorship of the design of the Patent Office 
 by William P. Elliot, associated with his partner, Ithiel Town. 
 
 From an examination of all the private (original) papers of Mr. 
 Elliot, and letters from Mr. Town, the proof is conclusive that 
 while Mr. Town was associated with Mr. Elliot as a partner in 
 the profession on account of his practical mechanical and 
 scientific experience in the construction of public buildings, 
 William P. Elliot's classical culture, genius and taste were 
 
462 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 relied upon as to the original conceptions of the designs and 
 styles of architecture introduced into our present Patent Ofl&ce. 
 If Mr. KUiot was now living he would place every credit upon 
 Mr. Town that belongs to him for the part he took in connec- 
 tion with his great achievement. 
 
 At different periods subsequent to the adoption of Mr. 
 Elliot's plan, misunderstandings have arisen as to the author- 
 ship of the Patent Office building, growing out of the fact 
 that Mr. Robert Mills was employed as the constructing 
 architect to carry out Mr. Elliot's plans, and to settle this 
 question the following letter was written by Senator Ruggles : 
 
 " Washington, February 27, 184.1. 
 ' 'Dear Sir: 
 
 ' ' Your note is before me, desiring me to state my recoUec- 
 ' tion of the authorship of the plan of the new Patent Office 
 ' building now nearly completed. 
 
 "I was chairman of the select committee of the Senate in 
 ' 1836 that reported the bill for reorganizing the Patent Office, 
 ' and a bill providing for the erection of a new edifice for its 
 ' accommodation. The plan furnished by you, on being called 
 ' on for that purpose, was laid before the committee and met 
 ' their full approbation. The estimates on which an appro- 
 ' priation was made, were based upon it ; and your plan was 
 ' thus adopted by the committee, and by the Senate in ratify- 
 ' ing the doings of the committee, and, indeed, by both Houses 
 ' of Congress. That plan has been followed substantially in 
 ' the construction of the building. There has been a slight 
 ' departure from it in two or three instances, the most material 
 ' of which is, the segment of a circle under the north pedi- 
 ' ment. Whether any liberty taken with the original plan, be 
 ' an improvement in the archithcture, may be very question- 
 ' able. 
 
 ' ' I remember to have signed a recommendation to the Presi- 
 'dent. Gen. Jackson, in favor of your being appointed the 
 ' architect to superintend the erection of the building, as well 
 ' on account of your competency and skill in such matters, as 
 ' because you were the author of the plan, and it was but just 
 ' that you should have the superintendence of its construction. 
 ' But for some cause, supposed then to be party or personal 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 463 
 
 ' ' favor, another person was selected. The plan was spoken of 
 ' ' by the most competent judges as displaying a high degree of 
 "architectural science and taste, and since the erection of the 
 ' ' edifice, incomplete as it is, it has attracted much attention 
 ' ' and admiration as doing great credit to the cultivated taste 
 "of its projector. When the residue of the building as de- 
 " signed and projected on the original plan shall have been 
 " erected it will, as is believed, surpass in grandeur and beau- 
 ' ' ty any public edifice in this country. 
 
 ' ' I am, dear sir, very respectfully, 
 " Your Ob'tSvt., 
 
 "John Ruggles. 
 "William P. Elliot, Esq., Washington, D. C." 
 
 [The original of this letter is among the papers of Mr. Wil- 
 liam P. Elliot.] 
 
 In connection with the aforegoing letter of Mr. Ruggles, the 
 following letter from Commissioner of Patents, Hon. H. ly. 
 Ellsworth, found among the papers of Mr. Elliot, is important : 
 
 Patent Office, December 14., 18^0. 
 Sir : 
 
 Yours of the 14th inst. is received — I hasten to say that I 
 am surprised that any one should presume to rob you of the 
 merit of the beautiful and very convenient design of the new 
 Patent Office. Some few alterations may have been suggested 
 in carrying out the plans, but in all essential particulars the 
 credit of the architecture belongs to yourself. Should any 
 doubts arise I refer you to the gentlemen who composed the 
 joint committee of Congjress who met at the old Patent Office 
 previous to the fire, and then selected and approved your plan 
 as the best. The wants of the office I freely communicated to 
 you, and I am happy to asi5ure you that I find the arrangement 
 you proposed not only adequate to our present wants, but sus- 
 ceptible of such addition as will accommodate this bureau for 
 half a century to come. 
 
 I cannot believe that others will seriously claim what is 
 
 justly your due. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 H. Ii. Ellsworth. 
 
 Mr. William P. Elliot, Washington City. 
 
464 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 In conclusion of the subject as to who was the true architect 
 of the Patent Office, the following extracts found among Mr. 
 Klliot's papers, and endorsed " from the private journal of Wil- 
 liam P. Elliot, ' ' are very interesting : 
 
 NOTES FROM W. P. ELLIOT'S DIARY. 
 
 " 1836, March i. Submitted my plan for a new Patent Office 
 ' to the Committee on Patents, who met at the room of the 
 ' Superintendent of the Patent Office, in the old General Post- 
 ' Office building — John Ruggles of the Senate, chairman. 
 
 ' ' Understood from Mr. Ellsworth that several plans were 
 ' before the committee, and that mine was preferred as being 
 ' the best adapted for the wants of the office. Committee ad- 
 ' journed to meet at the Capitol this day week in order to have 
 ' a more full meeting for final action on the subject of a plan." 
 
 " March 8. Again submitted my plan for New Patent Office 
 ' to Committee on Patents at the room in the Capitol. Under- 
 ' stood that Mr. Mills submitted another plan. M3' plan re- 
 ' ceived unanimous approval of the committee, and was finally 
 ' adopted at this meeting, and I was requested to furnish an 
 ' estimate of the cost of erecting about two hundred and seventy 
 ' feet of the south side or front of the block. ' ' 
 
 ''March 10. Called on Mr. Ellsworth with estimates for 
 ' new Patent Office — then on Mr. Ruggles, who thought it 
 ' too high, and requested me to reduce it if possible." 
 
 ' ' March 11. Called to see Mr. Ruggles — left estimate for 
 'Patent Office." 
 
 "July 2. Heard that the bill appropriating one hundred 
 ' and eight thousand dollars toward erecting a new Patent 
 ' Office on my plan had been passed by the two Houses of 
 ' Congress. And one hundred thousand dollars toward erect- 
 ' ing a new Treasury building, also on my plan as submitted 
 ' and adopted by the Committee on Public Buildings, of which 
 ' Leonard Jarvis is chairman. ' ' 
 
 "July 3- Waited on Senator Ruggles, Levi Lincoln, G. 
 ' Parks, Gen. A. Ward, Samuel F. Vinton, and other members 
 ' of the Committee on the Patent Office and the Public Build- 
 ' ings, and Mr. Ellsworth, Superintendent of the Patent Office, 
 ' to advise with them on the course to be pursued in order to 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 465 
 
 " obtain the superintendence of the execution of my plans for 
 ' ' the Patent Office and Treasury building. 
 
 ''July 4.. The Committee on the Patent Office gave me cer- 
 ' ' tificates in writing that they had adopted my plan for a new 
 ' ' Patent Office, and recommended the same to the President 
 " for his adoption. 
 
 ' ' Signed by — 
 
 ' ' GoRHAM Parks, M. C. 
 
 ' ' Samuel F. Vinton, M. C. 
 
 "James Harper, M. C. 
 
 "John Ruggles, S. U.S." 
 
 ' ' The Committee on the Public Buildings gave a similar cer- 
 ' ' tificate respecting the Treasury building, signed by — 
 
 ' ' Levi Lincoln, 
 ' ' Michael W. Ash, 
 ' ' Andrew T. Judson, 
 ' ' E. Pettigrew, 
 "A. Ward." 
 
 "July 5. Wrote to the President soliciting the office of arch- 
 ' ' itect and enclosing the above mentioned certificates of the 
 " committees of Congress and other testimonials. The plans 
 ' ' of the public buildings submitted by the several architects 
 " were brought from the Capitol to the President's house. The 
 "subject of the adoption of a plan for a Patent Office and 
 ' ' Treasury building was brought before the Cabinet by the 
 "President. Major Noland, the Commissioner of Public 
 ' ' Buildings had invited Mr. Robert Mills, architect (who had 
 ' ' been recently employed by General Jackson to make draw- 
 " ings for the Hermitage), to be in readiness in the room of Mr. 
 "Earl, opposite the President's office. No plan was adopted 
 ' ' this day. I understood it was the supposition that my plan 
 " for the Treasury building would be rejected because I had 
 " made no provision for the accommodation of the General 
 ' ' Post Office under the same roof with the Treasury, as desired 
 "by Amos Kendall, a member of the Cabinet, and that Mr. 
 " Mills had been invited to draw a plan according to the view 
 "of Mr. Kendall, which would bring the two departments 
 1' under the same rooj and on the President's square. Although 
 
466 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 my plans had been pronounced the best by the Committees of 
 Congress, by the Superintendent of the Patent Office and by 
 the public, yet I was not even invited by General Jackson or 
 his Cabinet to modify them to meet their views ; or to have 
 anything to do in the business. ' ' 
 
 ''July 6. Saw Mr. Noland, who informed me that the Cab- 
 inet had again met on the subject of the Public Buildings — 
 that he was present at their deliberations — that Mills had 
 submitted another plan, drawn in conformity to Mr. Kendall's 
 wishes, embracing the General Post Office in the same range 
 with the Treasury, and which was adopted ; that my plan 
 for the Patent Office was preferred over all the others as the 
 best, and adopted ; that Robert Mills was appointed architect 
 to attend to the execution of them." 
 
 ''July y. Called on the President to learn what action had 
 been taken on the subject of the public buildings. He 
 informed me that my plan for the Patent Office had been 
 adopted, and that Mr. Mills' plan for the Treasury building 
 had been selected. That he had appointed Mr. M. architect 
 because he had come well recommended as an experienced 
 builder of fire-proof buildings — that he considered me too 
 young and inexperienced, but that I should be well paid for 
 my design. I observed that I thought it strange that the 
 selection of the Committee on Public Buildings, after two 
 sessions of mature deliberation, should be set aside and 
 another plan made at so short a notice, without competition, 
 should be adopted. The President replied that the law left 
 the selection of these plans to him and that my plan made 
 no provision for the Post Office. I observed that the General 
 Post Office should not be in the same block with the Treasury 
 Department, and that none of these public buildings ought 
 to be on the President's square. He replied, 'that is a 
 ' matter of opinion.' I then remarked, as to my youth 
 and inexperience disqualifying me for the superintendency of 
 these works, that if I was competent to design them, I cer- 
 tainly could execute them, and that at least I ought to be 
 allowed to superintend the execution of my own plan — and 
 that if his rule always prevailed, I should never have that 
 experience which he had required, but that I had had experi- 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 4^7 
 
 ' ' ence ; I could refer him to works I had completed with 
 " satisfaction to my employer." 
 
 '^ July 8. Was surprised to learu from Major Noland that 
 ' ' the President had ordered the Patent Office to be built on the 
 "southeast corner of reservation No. 8, instead of the centre 
 ' ' of the south side, because he did not wish to disturb the 
 ' ' log cabin of an old squatter on the public land. I 
 ' ' observed that the plan covered the whole square, and that if 
 ' ' his order was carried into effect it would destroy the plan. 
 ' ' That rather than this should take place, I would give the 
 ' ' old woman a residence as long as she lived. He said his 
 "order must be obeyed. The conversation as to the conse- 
 ' ' quences of his order became rather angry. I left him in that 
 ' ' mood, and myself disappointed. I then waited on his par- 
 " ticular friends. Governor Dickerson, Governor Cass, William 
 "B. Ivcwis, Colonel Bomford, Mr. Ellsworth, and explained 
 ' ' to them the nature of the difficulty, and begged them 
 ' ' to see the President and persuade him to leave the placing of 
 ' ' the building to the Commissioners of Public Buildings and 
 "Patents." 
 
 '''' July g. Saw the Commissioner of Public Buildings and 
 " Commissioner of Patents respecting plan of Patent Office." 
 
 "July 10. I^earned that the President had left Washington 
 " for the Hermitage." 
 
 "July II. Received an order from the Commissioner of 
 " Public Buildings to lay down upon the ground the lines of 
 ' ' the Patent Office according to my plan, as the whole subject of 
 ' ' the proper placing of it had been left by the President to his 
 "judgment and the Commissioner of Patents." 
 
 " July 12. Ivaid down and marked with pegs the lines of 
 ' ' the Patent Office. Present Messrs. Brown, Wood and several 
 ' ' citizens. 
 
 " July 13. Called on the Commissioner of Patents and 
 ' ' found Mills with him endeavoring to persuade him to have 
 ' ' the proportions of the plan of the Patent Office considerably 
 ' ' reduced in order to cheapen it, and be able to erect it for 
 ' \ the sum appropriated — portico to be reduced from 100 to 75 
 "feet in width. I remonstrated against it and finally pre- 
 " vailed." 
 
468 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 "July 14.' Called at the new Patent Office and found Mr. 
 ' ' Brown laying out the trenches for the foundation walls only 
 ' ' four feet wide and two feet deep which I considered quite 
 " insufficient, and so stated at the time." 
 
 "July 21. Found Major Noland with Mr. Ellsworth per- 
 " suading him to alter plan of the Patent Office. He, however, 
 " did not succeed." 
 
 The following letter from Mr. Noland, the gentleman 
 referred to in Mr. Elliot's private iournal, is of importance in 
 this connection : 
 
 ' ' Office of Commissioner of Public Buildings, 
 
 "Dec'm. sgtk, 18^0. 
 "William P. Elliot, Esq. 
 
 ' ' Dear Sir : In compliance with your request, I with pleas- 
 " ure state that I was present at the President's mansion in July, 
 ' ' 1 836, when ex-President Jackson adopted the plan presented 
 ' ' by you for the new Patent Office building and gave written 
 " orders to that effect. I am respectfully, 
 
 ' ' Your obt. servant, 
 
 "W. Noland, 
 " C. P. B." 
 
 THE CONSTRUCTION COMMENCED. 
 
 The rebuilding of the Patent Office in accordance with the 
 plan of William Parker Elliot's design adopted by Congress on 
 July 4, 1836, was begun July 12, 1836, and four years were 
 occupied in the completion of the main or south front portion, 
 which did not in 1840 have the wings east and west completed, 
 nor were they commenced at that date. In 1840 the business 
 of the Patent Office was transferred from the City Hall to this 
 new structure. Robert Mills was the superintending or con- 
 struction architect to carry out the plan of Mr. Elliot, and the 
 well-known late John P. Pepper was superintendent under him. 
 The new building was designed especially for the use of the 
 Patent Office in conformity to the new code of patent laws. 
 Among the private papers of Mr. William P. Elliot is found 
 the very first drawing for the foundation, made in pencil lines, 
 doubtless by the hand of the architect, and also other sketches 
 of earlier date than the sketch for the foundation, as well 
 
PAPERS UPON U. 5. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 469 
 
 as estimates of costs, etc., all of which point to him as the origi- 
 nating architect of the entire structure in its general design as 
 it now stands in its grandeur and beauty, and excellent adapta- 
 tion for the purposes it was designed to subserve. 
 
 William Parker Elliot, the architect of the Patent Office, 
 was born at Washington, D. C, January 19, 1807 — died in the 
 same city November 3, 1854. Had seven children, of whom 
 Miss Mary K. EUiot, Annie S. I^ancaster and Charles A. Elliot 
 survive him. His widow, now critically ill, was Mary Ann 
 Maher, of Philadelphia, Pa.* 
 
 Mr. William P. Elliot was paid a small sum — about $500 — 
 for his design of the Patent Office, as the public records show. 
 If you would know him, look around you and behold him 
 in his works. 
 
 A description of the finished building, with its wings, was 
 given in one of the papers of this city in 1867, as follows : 
 
 ' ' The entire completion of the Patent Office building is now 
 ' ' near at hand. Yesterday the portico on the North front was 
 ' ' finished, and now there remains but the granite steps on the 
 ' ' North front and the pavement on G street to be done, and this 
 "building, claimed to be the most handsome in the world, so 
 " far as architectural proportions are concerned, will be, when 
 ' ' completed, a standing monument to the architectural talent 
 "and mechanical ability of the country. In 1849 Thomas 
 ' ' Berry and Frank Mohun entered into contract with the 
 ' ' Government for the building of the East and West fronts, 
 ' ' including the granite and marble. Subsequently Messrs. 
 " Berry & Higgins contracted for the building of the North 
 ' ' front on G street, and this is the portion that is now nearly 
 " completed. All the marble used for the extension of the 
 ' ' building was obtained in Baltimore county, Maryland. The 
 " granite came from Rockland, Maine, Cape Ann, Mass., Con- 
 ' ' necticut and Maryland. The columns used in the porticos 
 ' ' are from a quarry in Baltimore county, Maryland, and are 
 " pronounced very handsome." 
 
 .*Mrs. Elliot died shortly after this paper was prepared, and the 
 writer served as one of the honorary pall-bearers at her funeral. 
 
470 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 WRONGFUI, USE BY OTHBR BUREAUS. 
 
 At this date the Patent OflSce building was used by the Secre- 
 tary of the Interior for the various bureaus that came under the 
 charge of his department ; these included the Agricultural, 
 Indian, L,and, Pension, Patent and other bureaus. 
 
 In order to thus wrongfully use this building, nece,ssitated 
 the cutting up of its interior arrangement to such an extent 
 that, instead of having seventy-two large and well ventilated 
 rooms, there are at the present time two hundred and fifty-two 
 rooms in the Patent Office building, ninety-nine of which are 
 occupied by the Patent Office proper and the remainder {one 
 hundred and fifty -three^ by the Secretary of the Interior, the 
 assistant Attorney General, and the General I^and Office. The 
 result of this misuse of the Patent Office has crowded the 
 officials of the Patent Office into an insufficient space for per- 
 forming their duties, and besides this, many of the rooms oc- 
 cupied by them are so unhealthy and illy ventilated that after 
 a few years of service many of these valuable and usefiil men 
 die off rapidly. This should not be so, as the Patent Office 
 was designed to be a benefit to inventors and not a detriment 
 to their interests, nor a death-trap to the faithful servants of 
 the Government. It should be set apart as a monument to the 
 men of genius who have paid more, above the expenses for carry- 
 ing it on, than enough for its erection, as the surplus Patent fund 
 in the Treasury of the United States shows. Justice also de- 
 mands that it should be devoted to the interest of inventors and 
 the comfort of those in charge of the administration of the rights 
 of inventors ; and that well lighted and ventilated and healthy 
 accommodations should be provided for the six hundred or 
 more officers employed in the administration of the present 
 business relating to patents for new inventions and discoveries; 
 and to this end every other branch of the Government should 
 be removed from the Patent Office building, arid, if the Govern- 
 ment is too poor to pay the cost of a new building, let one 
 be erected with the surplus Patent fund now in the United 
 States Treasury, amounting to about four million dollars. 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 471 
 INCREASED CORPS OF EXAMINERS NEEDED. 
 
 Furthermore, the force of the Patent OiEce corps should be 
 increased to at least fifty principal examiners, and as many as- 
 sistants and clerks as such increased force will require. This 
 done and the government fees somewhat reduced, a step in the 
 right direction in regard to the rights of inventors, will have 
 been taken, and applications for patents could be examined and 
 passed upon more speedily, and inventors thus no longer be 
 kept, by long and vexatious delays, out of their rights, by 
 being deprived of the speedy grant of letters-patent therefor. 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 473 
 
 THE ORIGIN, NATURE AND EFFECT OF PATENTS. 
 By W. C. Dodge, of Washington City, D. C. 
 
 It is not an uncommon thing for even intelligent persons to 
 think and speak of patents as monopolies, and to class them 
 with the ' ' odious monopolies ' ' of formed times. 
 
 A brief statement of their origin and nature will show that 
 such is not the fact. 
 
 True, our modern system of patents grew out of the ancient 
 system of monopolies, but they are entirely different in their 
 nature and effect. 
 
 A monopoly, which formerly meant ' ' the exclusive right to 
 sell, " is a franchise created by the Government, vesting in an 
 individual or corporation the exclusive privilege of practising 
 a certain art, or making, using or selling a certain article, 
 which, but for such monopoly, the public at large would have 
 the right to exercise. 
 
 This idea of granting these exclusive privileges originated 
 in the infancy of European commerce, when commercial ven- 
 tures were attended with great risks both to life and capital, 
 the seas in those days swarming with pirates and the land with 
 robbers. 
 
 In those days these exclusive grants were conferred by 
 monarchs upon individuals, companies or particular cities, to 
 induce them to embark in these hazardous undertakings. 
 
 As trade increased other monopolies were granted to these 
 same companies or cities for service rendered or money fur- 
 nished to the State, and in that way they acquired a monopoly 
 of nearly all branches of trade. 
 
 The most famous of these was the ' ' Hanseatic I<eague, ' ' 
 composed of eighty-five cities of North Germany, and 
 organized about the middle of the thirteenth century, their 
 object being the protection of their commerce from the depre- 
 dations of pirates and the petty princes, whose theory was that 
 " might makes right." 
 
 This league, commencing with a few of the leading cities, 
 soon became very powerful, and by its efforts suppressed piracy 
 and opened new channels of trade in various parts of Europe. 
 
47 4 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 From 1250 to 1278 it established factories and depots in 
 England, Belgium, Norway and Russia, and also had treaties 
 with the commercial cities of Holland, France, Spain and 
 Italy. It established a system of finance and administration 
 that was of great benefit to commerce and trade, in considera- 
 tion of which it obtained special grants from the leading 
 monarchs of Europe, so that it soon became the dominant 
 commercial power of the world, and monopolized nearly all 
 the trade of Europe. It became so powerful that in 1348 it 
 fought and defeated the Kings of Sweden, Norway and 
 Denmark. It deposed Magnus, King of Sweden, and gave his 
 crown to his nephew, Albert, Duke of Mecklenburg. In 1428 
 it declared war against Denmark and equipped a fleet of 248 
 ships with 12,000 soldiers. 
 
 Its growing power and wealth excited the jealousy of the 
 monarchs who had conferred upon it the exclusive privileges 
 by which it had grown so great, and as the naval power of Hol- 
 land and England had greatly increased, in 1597 its special 
 privileges were withdrawn by England, and gradually by other 
 powers ; so that it lost its power and control of trade, and was 
 disbanded about 1630 — the monopolies which it had enjoyed 
 being conferred upon subjects of these various countries, espe- 
 cially in England. 
 
 At a very early day England manifested her solicitude for 
 trade, and early in the tenth century a law was passed con- 
 ferring upon every merchant who had made three voyages 
 beyond the sea the dignity of " Thane " ; and from the time 
 of William Rufus special privileges were granted for the 
 development of domestu trade ; and it was under these grants 
 that the powerful trade and merchant ' ' guilds ' ' grew up and 
 flourished until they monopolized and controlled nearly every 
 branch of business. 
 
 Up to the middle of the sixteenth century the foreign com- 
 merce of England was almost entirely in the hands of 
 foreigners. From that time their privileges were withdrawn 
 and conferred on British subjects. 
 
 In the days of the Saxon and Norman kings it was a maxim 
 of the common law, that the King had the right to grant any 
 part of the common property of the nation to one or more 
 individuals of the nation, provided such grant would inure to 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S, PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 475 
 
 the public benefit ; and under that law grants were frequently 
 made to individuals of the commons or waste lands, on the 
 theory that it was for the public good that such lands should 
 be improved — some of the rights continuing to the present 
 day. The idea was similar to that of our "homestead law," 
 under which a quarter section of the public lands was given to 
 any person who would settle upon and improve the same. 
 
 Acting upon this idea of promoting the public interests, and 
 more especially to build up the manufacturing and commercial 
 interests of England, the British monarchs began granting 
 monopolies for limited periods to individuals for any trade or 
 manufacture, not before known or worked in the realm, it being 
 thought that that was the best means for securing the intro- 
 duction of new branches of manufacture and commerce, 
 experience having demonstrated that without some such induce- 
 ment parties would not be at the trouble, expense and risk of 
 introducing new and untried branches of manufacture. 
 
 In the course of time this, like all arbitrary power, over- 
 stepped its proper bounds, and these monarchs began to grant 
 for money, to their favorites, exclusive monopolies of business 
 already established in the kingdom — business in which people 
 generally had a right to engage — thus taking from the public 
 at large rights which belonged to it, and conferring them upon 
 particular individuals at the pleasure of the monarch, and that, 
 too, without any reference to the public good. 
 
 This was especially true of the Norman kings, and it was 
 this arbitrary exercise of kingly power in many directions, 
 which in 12 15 eventuated in wresting from King John that 
 great charter of English liberties — Magna Charta. 
 
 In Magna Charta it was provided among other things as 
 
 follows : 
 
 "All merchants, if they were not openly prohibited 
 
 before, shall have their safe conduct to depart out of 
 
 England, to come into England, to tarry in and go in 
 
 and through England, as well by land as by water, to 
 
 buy and sell without any manner of evil tolls by the 
 
 old and rightful customs, except in time of war." 
 
 The words, ' ' If they were not openly prohibited before, ' ' 
 
 were alwaj's understood and held to mean, "if the trade were 
 
 not prohibited by a monopoly or grant before it was commenced 
 
476 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 in Kngland," and up to the time of King John this had been 
 held to be the only legal ground on which such monopolies 
 could be granted. 
 
 Five statutes in the reign of Edward III, and one of Richard 
 II, reiterate the substance of this clause of Magna Charta. 
 
 Notwithstanding these repeated enactments, the monarchs of 
 England continued to grant monopolies in violation of the law. 
 Queen Elizabeth was a notorious offender in this respect. She 
 granted to one of her favorites the exclusive right to sell salt in 
 the kingdom, to another the sole right to sell steel, and so on 
 with many articles in common use, and by which the cost of 
 these articles to the public was increased many fold, salt alone 
 being increased in price from sixteen pence to fifteen shillings — 
 over eleven hundred per cent! 
 
 So intolerable did these abuses become that upon the acces- 
 sion of James I, in 1602, Parliament made a declaration that the 
 King had no right to grant a monopoly for any trade or busi- 
 ness already established in the kingdom, to which the King 
 gave his assent. But like his predecessors, he continued to 
 violate the law by granting monopolies to his favorites for 
 money, until finally, in 1623, Parliament passed the famous 
 Statute of Monopolies. 
 
 This statute provided that all licenses or privileges for the 
 sole buying, selling or working of anything, etc., should be 
 void, with the exception only that patents not exceeding four- 
 teen years might be granted to the authors of neiv inventions. 
 By the decision of the English courts anything not already 
 known in the kingdom was held to be a new invention, and 
 therefore patentable. In the celebrated case of monopolies, 
 Darcy vs. Allen, decided in the time of Elizabeth, it was held 
 that: 
 
 ' ' Where any man, by his own charge or industry, 
 or by his own wit or invention, doth bring any new 
 trade into the realm, or any engine tending to the 
 furtherance of a trade that was never used before, and 
 that for the good of the realm, in such cases the King 
 may grant to him a monopoly patent for some reason- 
 able time, until the subjects may learn the same, in 
 consideration of the good that he doth bring the com- 
 monwealth ; otherwise not." 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 477 
 
 The word " invention " was then held to have a meaning in 
 accordance with its primary derivation from in venire ' 'to come 
 in", and hence an inventor was one by whom a new trade or 
 discovery came into the kingdom, whether it was by importa- 
 tion, intuition, or by his own careful working out. 
 
 By this statute of Monopolies, the grant of a patent was 
 limited to new inventions ; and the exception in their favor, it 
 will be observed, was based solely upon the ground of the 
 benefits conferred thereby upon the nation. 
 
 This exception in the Statute of Monopolies is the founda- 
 tion of the modem system of patents, which has since been 
 adapted in various forms by nearly every civilized nation of 
 the globe, and which it is safe to say, has been the prime 
 mover in the marvelous progress and development of the past 
 century. 
 
 Our patent system is based upon the same idea of benefit to 
 the public, and that idea is clearly expressed in the clause of 
 the constitution which confers upon Congress the power, 
 
 "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, 
 by securing for limited times, to authors and invent- 
 ors, the exclusive right of their respective writings 
 and discoveries. ' ' 
 
 It was not primarily to benefit the individual, but iopromote 
 the progress of science and useful arts that this power was con- 
 ferred, in order that the whole nation might have the benefit 
 of this progress — the benefit to the individual being merely an 
 inducement to him to devote his time, labor, thought and 
 means to aid in the accomplishment of this desired result or 
 progress, by making new inventions. 
 
 There is, however, a marked difference between our patent 
 system as embodied in our statutes and that of England ; for 
 whereas, the English system gave a patent to the importer as 
 well as to the inventor, our law gives it to the ' 'first and origi- 
 nal inventor" alone. 
 
 In order for a person to secure a patent here, the invention 
 must not have been ' ' patented or described in any printed 
 publication in this or any foreign country before his invention 
 or discovery thereof ' ' , and must not have been in public use 
 for more than two years. In other words, it must be something 
 
478 PAPERS UPON U. S. PA TENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 that is actually new as against all the world — something added to 
 the world' s knowledge and possessions. And even then, the 
 grant is made only upon the condition that the inventor shall 
 give such a description and illustration of his invention as will 
 enable a person skilled in the art to which it belongs, to make 
 and use the same, so that when his patent expires the public 
 shall be put in full possession of the invention. 
 
 A patent is therefore simply a contract between the Govern- 
 ment and the inventor, by which the Government agrees that 
 if a party will make an invention, and so describe it that the 
 public can make and use it, it will protect him for a limited 
 time (now 17 years) in the exclusive right to make, use and 
 sell the same, a right which I am sorry to say, has not of late 
 years been protected as it ought to be. 
 
 From this brief statement it will readily be seen that there 
 is no similarity between a U. S. patent and the ' ' odious monop- 
 olies ' ' of former times. Under the old system of monopolies, 
 rights of which the public were already in full possession, were 
 arbitrarily taken from the public and conferred upon an individ- 
 ual, to the great injury of the public at large. On the contrary, 
 under our patent system, the inventor gives to the public some- 
 thing which it never had, something which it wants, and which 
 but for his efforts and genius it might never have had, or if 
 ever, not for a long time to come, not until some other inventor 
 following on the same line, and spurred on by the same incen- 
 tive, perchance might produce. 
 
 It is difficult to understand why a person who creates or 
 produces a new thing or art, is not naturally entitled to the 
 possession of it, as much as he who builds a house or raises a 
 crop ; and many able writers have so contended. An inven- 
 tion however, differs from other property, in that it is more 
 intangible, and far more difficult to protect. As was well said 
 by Commissioner Holt : 
 
 ' ' The citizen can take his stand on the threshold 
 of his home, and with his own right arm beat back 
 those who would invade it ; but the rights of the in- 
 ventor are co-extensive with the limits of the Repub- 
 lic, and may be assailed at a thousand points at the 
 same instant of time. The eyes of Argus would not 
 suffice to discover, nor the arms of Briareus suffice to 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 479 
 
 resist the assaults of so omnipresent a foe as it is his 
 lot to encounter. The insolence and unscrupulous- 
 ness of capital, subsidizing and leading on its mer- 
 cenary minions in the work of pirating some valuable 
 invention held by powerless hands, can scarcely be 
 conceived of by those not familiar with the subject." 
 For these among other reasons, all civilized nations have 
 adopted the present system of giving to the inventor who 
 complies with the statutory conditions, a patent for a brief 
 period only. 
 
 Said I<ord Bacon : 
 
 ' ' The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be 
 the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of 
 new inventions may extend to all mankind universally; 
 while the good of political achievements can respect 
 but some particular cantons of men ; these latter do 
 not endure above a few ages, the former forever. 
 Inventions make all men happy, without injury to 
 any one single person. Futhermore, they are, as it 
 were, new creations and imitations of God's own 
 works. ' ' 
 As was well said by Hon. W. H. Seward : 
 
 ' " The exercise of the inventive faculty is the near- 
 est akin to that of the Creator of any faculty possessed 
 by the human mind ; for, while it does not create in 
 the sense that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest 
 approach to it of anything known to man." 1 
 
 ' ' Invention, ' ' says Mr. Ray, ' ' is the only power on earth 
 that can be said to create. It enters as an essential element 
 into the process of the increase of national wealth, because that 
 process is a creation and not a mere acquisition. Hence the 
 most frequent cause of the increase of the national wealth is 
 the increase of the skill, dexterity and judgment, and the me- 
 chanical inventions by which national labor is applied." 
 
 No better evidence of the truth of this statement can be 
 
 required than the growth and prosperity of the United States 
 
 as compared with that of other nations during the past century. 
 
 Under the stimulus of our patent system, American inventors 
 
 have given to the world the cotton gin, the planing machine 
 
48o PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 and wood and metal-working machines of all kinds, the sewing 
 machine, the lathe for turning irregular forms, the perfected 
 steam engine and locomotive, the air brake and automatic 
 couplers, the palace and sleeping car, the street car, the steam- 
 boat, the modern plow, the harvester and automatic binder, the 
 elevator, the typewriter, the friction match, the perfected print- 
 ing press, vulcanized rubber in its myriad applications, boot 
 and shoe machinery, the revolver, the machine gun, the Moni- 
 tor with its revolving turret, the telegraph, the telephone, the 
 electric light, the electric motor, the insulation of electric con- 
 ductors, without which the ocean cable were an impossibility, 
 and innumerable other inventions by which machinery is made 
 to do the work of human hands, and contribute to the comfort 
 and happiness of humanity. 
 
 In the words of Commissioner Holt : 
 
 ' ' The class of men who have given to their native 
 land and to the world these grand inventions whose 
 beneficent influences tell with measureless power upon 
 ever}' pulsation of our domestic, social, and com- 
 mercial life, are indeed public benefactors, and may 
 well be pardoned for believing that their w^ants should 
 not be treated with entire indifference by that body 
 which represents alike the intellect and heart, as it 
 does the material interests of the great country of 
 which they are citizens. ' ' 
 Well did Commissioner Fisher say : 
 
 " No class of our citizens have done more for the 
 
 glory and prosperity of the nation than the inventors 
 
 and mechanics of the United States, and they have 
 
 never been favored children. ' ' 
 
 What is now needed is the perfection of the system, better 
 
 and more complete means for carrying it on, and more effectual 
 
 means for protecting the inventor. 
 
 Surely, no person who has studied the subject, and has any 
 just conception of what the system has done and is doing for 
 the growth and prosperity of the country and the world, can 
 for a moment question its beneficence, or ever again class it 
 with the ' ' odious monopolies ' ' of former times. 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 481 
 
 THE MINOR INVENTIONS OF THE CENTURY. 
 By James L. Ewin, Washington, D. C. 
 
 It is well understood that the recent centennial celebration 
 was intended to celebrate our Patent System and its fruits in 
 general, rather than specific inventions. Many individual 
 inventions were, however, necessarily referred to as types and by 
 way of illustration. Some of those which I did not hear men- 
 tioned appear to me sufficiently striking and characteristic of 
 the century to render some recognition of them essential to a 
 just and complete review. 
 
 Those which have suggested themselves as of this class 
 include the following, viz : 
 
 1. The Phonograph and the Graphophone, as among the 
 most amazing inventions of the past century, rendering it 
 possible to transmit sounds of every description, including 
 human speech and song, farther than the telephone is yet able 
 to transmit them, and to preserve them from generation to 
 generation, indefinitely, so as to be reproduced at will. 
 
 2. The myriad Coin- Actuated Machines, or " Nickel-in-the- 
 slot ' ' Machines, as they are familiarly termed, illustrating the 
 boundless fertility of that class of inventors who need a seed- 
 thought from some one else to begin with, but given this pro- 
 duce wonders. 
 
 3. The Fare- Register, in its various forms, which Colonel 
 F. A. Seelyhas termed " A mechanical conscience for street -car 
 conductors." Qf the numerous types of these machines, two 
 are marvels of perfect construction and adaptation. I refer (a) 
 to the "bell-punch," which, in connection with the noted 
 ' ' trip-slips ' ' of the newspaper paragraphs, provides for 
 registering any variety of fares, transfers and passes, by one 
 and the same simple device carried on the conductor's person, 
 and (b) to what is distinctively known as the ' ' permanent ' ' fare- 
 register or passenger-register, which in one make at least is so 
 guarded against fraudulent manipulation that the conductor is 
 provided with means for wiping out the record against him on 
 
482 PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 
 
 the face of the machine, by resetting the trip-register or 
 primary counting device to zero at will, without any danger 
 that he can thus prevent the machine from keeping a correct 
 and unmistakable tally of every fare he has ' ' rung up. ' ' Very 
 ingenious recorders have also been patented and reduced to 
 practical use, whereby the record of each trip of a street-car 
 or like vehicle is obtained on paper in a permanent form. 
 
 4. The cheap time-pieces which the century has produced, 
 enabling the poorest boy, if so disposed, to carrj' a real watch 
 that will keep fairly good time, a good office clock, with alarm 
 and calendar attachments, to be obtained for two or three dol- 
 lars, and a split-second "stop-watch" suitable for timing 
 horses or machinery, to be obtained for as little as six dollars. 
 
 5. The wonderful improvements in weighing scales, dynamo- 
 meters, testing machines, and the like, which have distin- 
 guished the century. One of the members of the recent Con- 
 gress was Mr. Albert H. Emery, whose inventions in this line 
 deserve recognition, if no others. (See Plate XI^IX in Knight's 
 New Mechanical Dictionary, and the accompanying letter- 
 press.) 
 
 6. Cycles — the various forms of " The Wheel," now ridden 
 by ladies as well as gentlemen, and by old men and children 
 as well as the young and athletic. 
 
 7. Cash registers and cash-railways or store-service appa- 
 ratus, as conspicuous contributions to mercantile ''machinery." 
 
 8. Some of the wonderful achievements in textile machinery, 
 other than the sewing-machine and the power-loom, whose in- 
 ventors received due recognition. A member of the Congress 
 communicated to me the very interesting history of the intro- 
 duction of the manufacture of a French fabric into this countr}', 
 and the multiplication of the population of a New England 
 neighborhood by fifty within a few years, as the results of an 
 almost microscopic invention, developed for another purpose. 
 
 g. Photolithography, and the various other arts whereby the 
 unerring sun is made to do the work of countless artistic fingers 
 with a degree of perfection which could not possibly be reached 
 by human skill. 
 
 I was not able to attend all the public sessions, nor to remain 
 throughout all I did attend ; and omissions were made to save 
 
PAPERS UPON U. S. PATENT OFFICE TOPICS. 483 
 
 time in reading some of the papers. It is, therefore, quite 
 possible that some of the above inventions may have been in- 
 cluded by some of the able essayists. It is not probable, how- 
 ever, that all the countless ' ' minor inventions of the century, ' ' 
 as they may be termed, were even suggested to the average in- 
 ventor or manufacturer, and some, if not all, of those here 
 mentioned may have been omitted. Others will doubtless sug- 
 gest themselves to every intelligent reader who knows anything 
 of what has been accomplished in his individual sphere by that 
 wonderful human endowment known as Inventive Genius. 
 
Died at Portland, Maine, 
 
 July 2ist, 1892, 
 HONORABI^E JOHN LYNCH, 
 
 Chairman of the Executive Committee^ 
 
 Patent Cenxenniai, Cei,Ebration. 
 
 Intelligence of the death of Mr. I^ynch having been received 
 by the Committee while it was in session, the following resolu- 
 tion was placed on its records and ordered printed in the 
 Memorial Volume : 
 
 Resolved, That the members of the Executive Committee of the 
 Patent Centennial Celebration deplore the loss of their associate, whose 
 sagacious counsel and efficient co-operation has proven of the greatest 
 value, not only to the Committee, bat to all interests related to the 
 American Patent System. 
 
SUBSCRIBERS 
 
 TO THE GUARANTEE FUND 
 
 Patent Centennial Celebration. 
 
 Washington, D. C- — Albright & Barker, W. L. Aughinbaugh, J. W. 
 Eabson, Baldwin, Davidson & Wight, A. L. Barber, C. J. Bell, Alex- 
 ander Graham Bell, Gustav Bissing, W. H. Blodgett, Britton & Gray 
 Wm. Burke, J. U. Eurket & Company, B. F. Butterworth, Henry 
 Calver, Benj. R. Catlin, Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company, 
 Church & Church, H. N. Copp, Corson & McCartney, L. Deane, Devine 
 & Keenan, W. C. Dodge & Sons, P. T. Dodge, W. H. Doolittle, H. H. 
 Doubleday, Dubois & Dubois, O. E. Duffy, Wm.W . Dudley, Schuyler 
 Duryee, R. G. Dyrenforth, Jno. Joy Edson, M. G. Emery, Evening Star 
 Newspaper Company, Jas. L. Ewin, Fava, Nseff & Company, R. W_ 
 Fenwick, W. F. Fitzgerald, Foster & Freeman, Chas. H. Fowler, Oscar 
 C. Fox, N. L. Frothingham, I/awrence Gardner, Gedney & Roberts, 
 Gibson Bros, J. H. Gridley, Gurley & Stevens, Jno. J. Halsted, Charles 
 W. Handy, M. D. Helm, W. G. Henderson, Herman Hollerith, George H. 
 Howard, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Frank D. Johns, Lewis Johnson & 
 Company, Walter Johnson, Johnson & Johnson, Johnston, Reinohl & 
 Dyre, George W. Knox, R. S. & A. P. Lacey, James B. Lambie, W. R. 
 Dapham, F. A. Lehman, George E. Lemon, J. R. Littell, T. W. Lord, 
 Marble, Mason & Canfield, E. M. Marble, J. B. Marvin, Louis W. 
 Maxson, George C. Maynard, Joseph K. McCammon, W. C. Mclntire 
 Charles E. Mitchell, National Bank of the Republic, Norris Peters 
 Company, Henry Orth, Paine & Ladd, M. M. Parker, Henry V. Parsell, 
 Potomac Terra Cotta Company, Prindle & Russell, W. E. Prall, Eugene 
 Peters, Riggs & fompany, T. E. Roeselle, Royce & Marean, George 
 Ryneal, Jr., H. P. Sanders, F. A. Seely, G. D. Seely, W. H. Selden, W. 
 H. Singleton, Wm. R. Singleton, A. M. Smith, C. A. Snow & Company, 
 F. C. Somes, EUis Spear, A. R. SpoflFord, O. G. Staples, E. J. Stell- 
 wagen, W. Stevens, V. D. Stockbridge, Stoddart & Company, M. C. 
 Stone, J. C. & F. E. Tasker, A. A. Thomas, John W. Thompson, W. W. 
 Townsend, John T. Trego, Edward R. Tyler, B. H. Warner & Company, 
 B. H. Warder, J. Elfreth Watkins, Washington & Georgetown Railroad 
 Company, Welcker's Hotel, Roger Welles, M. I. Weller, Whitman & 
 Wilkinson, John B. Wight, Thomas Wilson, Whitaker & Prevost, 
 Woodward & Lothrop, E. W. Woodruff, Oscar Woodward, Wormley's 
 Hotel, E. F. Woodbury, L. B. Wynne. 
 
488 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 New York OV^.— Empire City Electric Company, E. S. Greeley & 
 Company, Wm. McMichael, Muun & Company, M. B. Phillipp, L. W. 
 Serrell, Wyckoif, Seamans & Benedict. 
 
 Philadelphia. — Howson & Howson, Philadelphia Typewriter Com- 
 pany. 
 
 Boston. — American Bell Telephone Company, G. W. Gregory. 
 Bethlehem, Pa.— The Bethlehem Iron Company. 
 Fort Wayne, Ind. — Chas. S. Bradley. 
 
 Members of the Congress 
 
 OP 
 
 Inventors and Manufacturers 
 
 Assembled at Washington City, U. S. A. 
 
 April 8, 9, lo, iSpi, 
 
 To Celebrate tlie Begiqnirig of tl\e Secoi\d Cer\tury of 
 ttie firtiericai^ Pateqt Systerq. 
 
 Alabama. 
 Dudley, Chas. J., Mobile. Munger, R. S., Birmingham. 
 
 Cawfornia. 
 Beach, Jas. E., Routiers. Hallidie, A. S., San Francisco. 
 
 Dow, Geo. E., San Francisco. Spiers, James, San Francisco. 
 
 Colorado. 
 Luckenbach, F. A., Denver. 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Andrews, Albert F., Avon. 
 Anthony, W. A. Manchester. 
 Ayres, Edw. F., New Canaan. 
 Bartlett, John P., New Britain. 
 Beach, John K., New Haven. 
 Becker, E- B., Westville. 
 Billings, C. E., Hartford. 
 Bishop, T. S., New Britain. 
 Brent, Richard A., Bridgeport. 
 Carpenter, D. H., New Haven. 
 
 Crane, Walter E., Hartford. 
 Conwell, John P., Kensington. 
 Cowles, R. P., New Haven. 
 Emery, A. H., Stamford. 
 Gatling, R. J., Hartford. 
 Hart, W. H., New Britain. 
 Higginbottom, Chas. T., Thomaston. 
 Howard, Jas. I/., Hartford. 
 Hoyt, L,. H., Danbury. 
 Jones, Horace K., Hartford. 
 
MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 489 
 
 Connecticut — continued. 
 
 Loomis, Burdett, Hartford. 
 Merrow, J. M., Hartford. 
 Peck, Charles, New Britain 
 Piatt, O. H., Meriden. 
 Pratt, F. A., Hartford. 
 Richards, F. H., Hartford. 
 
 Allen, Walter 
 
 Ashley, J. A. 
 
 Aughinbaugh, W. L. 
 
 Automatic Machine Company. 
 
 Avery, Robert Stanton 
 
 Babson, J. W. 
 
 Baker, Henry E. 
 
 Baldwin, Davidson & Wight. 
 
 Barbour, James P. 
 
 Bailey, M. B. 
 
 Bartlett, W. A. 
 
 Becker, Joseph 
 
 Bell, Alexander Graham 
 
 Bell, C. J. 
 
 Berdan, H. 
 
 Berliner, E. 
 
 Billings, John S. 
 
 Birnie, Rogers 
 
 Bissing, Gustav 
 
 Blatchford Samuel 
 
 Blodgett, W. H. 
 
 Booth, Edw. H. 
 
 Bowen, Chas. H. 
 
 Bowles, John 
 
 Britton, A. T. 
 
 Brock, Chas. E. 
 
 Brown, Austin P. 
 
 Browne, A. B. 
 
 Browne, F. L. 
 
 Browne, Hugh M. 
 
 Buckelew, J. R. 
 
 Burke, W. M. 
 
 Burket, J. U. & Co. 
 
 Butterworth, W. 
 
 Bym, E. W. 
 
 Shepard, Jas., New Britain. 
 Stiles, N. C, Middletown. 
 Toof, Edwin J., New Haven. 
 Trant, Justus A., New Britain. 
 Upson, L. A., Thompsonville. 
 Wiley, Wm. H. Hartford. 
 Delaware. 
 Hope, S. W., Dover. 
 District of Columbia. 
 
 (Washiugton City.) 
 
 Byrnes, E. A. 
 Cabell, W. D. 
 Calver, Henry 
 Calver, Wm.j 
 Catlin, Benj. R. 
 Chander, F. E. & Co. 
 Chatard, Thos. M. 
 Choate, Columbus D. 
 Chogwill, F. M. 
 Church & Church. 
 Cole, F. L. 
 Cook, Geo. W. 
 Cox, W. Van Zandt 
 Cranford, H. L. 
 Critic Record, The 
 Davis, Lewis J. 
 Deane, L. 
 De Grain, R. F. 
 de Schweinitz, E. A. 
 Dewey, Frederic P. 
 Dietrick, P. G. 
 Dodge, P. T. 
 Dodge, W. C. 
 Dodge, W. W. 
 Doolittle, W. H. 
 Doubleday, H. H. 
 Dowling, Thos. Jr. 
 Du Bois, J. T. 
 Du Bois, R. G. 
 Duffy, O. E. 
 Dyer, Frank L. 
 Edson, Jos. R. 
 Elliott, W. St. Jean 
 Ellis, E. Everett 
 Ely, G. S. 
 
490 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 District of Coi,tiMBiA— continued. 
 
 Emery, M. G. 
 Evans, A. H. 
 Evans, Geo. W. 
 Everett, H. S. 
 Ewin, Jas. I,. 
 Fava, Francis R., Jr. 
 Fenwick, R. W. 
 Finckel, Wm. H. 
 Fisher, Robert J. 
 Fisher, S. F. 
 Fitzgerald, W. T. 
 Foote, Allen R. 
 Foster & Freeman. 
 Forney, E. O. 
 Fowler, Chas. H. 
 Fowler, Francis 
 Fox, Oscar C. 
 Fraser, Daniel 
 French, Wm. B. 
 Frothingham, N. I/. 
 Fryer, Robert M. 
 Fuller, M. M. 
 Gallaudet, E. M. 
 Gait, M. W. 
 Gardner, L. 
 Garrett, H. 
 Georges, J. J. 
 Gill, Theo. N. 
 Goode, G. Brown 
 Gould, C. G. 
 Graves, D. H. 
 Greene, Wallace 
 Gregg, M. E. 
 Gridley, James H. 
 Hains, Robt. P. 
 Halsted, John J. 
 Harding, Miss 
 Harrover, John J. 
 Hart, A. W. 
 Hayden, John J. 
 Helm, M. D. 
 Henderson, W. G. 
 Herman, Robt. 
 Hill, Chas. J. 
 Hoge, Thos. 
 
 Hollerith, Herman 
 
 Hopkins, Thos. S. 
 
 Howard, Geo. H. 
 
 Howard, H. J. M. 
 
 Hough, Walter 
 
 Hubbard, Gardiner Greene 
 
 Hnbbel, Wm. Wheeler 
 
 Hudson, T. J. 
 
 Hume, Frank 
 
 Hyer, John D. 
 
 Ingram, Thos. D. 
 
 Jones, Chas. S. 
 
 Johns, Frank D. 
 
 Johnson, Ec Kurtz 
 
 Johnson, E. W. 
 
 Johnson & Johnson. 
 
 Johnston, T. J. 
 
 Johnston, Reinohl & Dyre. 
 
 Johnson, Walter 
 
 Joyce, Maurice 
 
 Kaufiman, S. H. 
 
 Kelly, D. J. 
 
 Kemp, J. R. 
 
 Kenaday, A. M. 
 
 King, Harry 
 
 Kinnan, A. F. 
 
 Knight, Wm. E. 
 
 Lake, Wilmot 
 
 Lane, C. H. 
 
 Langley, S. P. 
 
 Lamb, D. S. 
 
 Lehmann, P. A. 
 
 Lemon, Geo. E. 
 
 Lord, T. W. 
 
 Loring, G. B. 
 
 Lowrey, W. 
 
 Lyman, Chas. 
 
 Lynch, John 
 
 Lyons, Jos. 
 
 Marrill, J. H. 
 
 Marvin, J. B. 
 
 Masius, Alfred G. 
 
 Mason, Otis T. 
 
 Maynard, Geo. C. 
 
 Maynard, Edward 
 
MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 491 
 
 District of Coi,umbia — continued. 
 
 Maxson, Louis W. 
 
 McCammon, Jos. K. 
 
 McDonald, Marshall 
 
 Mclntire, Wm. C. 
 
 McLean, Nichol & Dorsey. 
 
 Meade, R. W. 
 
 Meigs, M. C. 
 
 Mertz, Edward P. 
 
 Moore, M. J. 
 
 Morgan, T. J. 
 
 Morris, Ballard N. 
 
 Morrison, R. A. 
 
 Mullin, Rafael 
 
 Mussey, R. D. 
 
 Nevius, Burnet L., Jr. 
 
 Nixon, G. A. 
 
 Norton, W. T. 
 
 Nott, Wilford E. 
 
 Nottingham, J. R, 
 
 Ordway, N. G. 
 
 Ormsby, D. G. 
 
 Orrick, W. W. 
 
 Orth, Henry 
 
 Paine, H. E. 
 
 Parker, M. M. 
 
 Parsell, Henry V. 
 
 Parsell, N. V. 
 
 Peck, M. D. 
 
 Peck, S. & E. 
 
 Pennie & Goldsborough. 
 
 Peters, Eugene 
 
 Pierce, P. B. 
 
 Pilling, J. W. 
 
 Pole, B. C. 
 
 Poor, John C. 
 
 Prindle & Russell. 
 
 Rafter, G. S. 
 
 Reeves, E. H. 
 
 Reynolds, Lucius E. 
 
 Rice, Jas. Q. 
 
 Richards & Company. 
 
 Richardson, Charles H. 
 
 Riley, Saml. 
 
 Ritter, F. W., Jr. 
 
 Rivers, Jose R. de Rivas Y. 
 
 Roane, L. B. 
 Robert, Henry M. 
 Euebsam, John E. 
 Ryan, Matthew 
 Saavedra, Rodrigo 
 Sanders, H. P. 
 Seaton, Malcolm 
 Scott, Alex. 
 Seely, F. A. 
 Seely, Geo. D. 
 Seymour, H. A. 
 Shellabarger, Samuel 
 Sherwood, Henry 
 Siggers, E. G. 
 Simpson, G. R». 
 Skidmore, Jas. L. 
 Skinner, F. C. 
 Slocura, H. F. 
 Smillie, Thos. W. 
 Smith, Arthur St. A. 
 Somes, F. C. 
 Spear, Ellis 
 Spofford, A. R. 
 Springer, Ruter W. 
 St. Clair, F. O. 
 Stevens, W. X. 
 Steward, Thos. G. 
 Stockbridge, V. D. 
 Stoddart & Co. 
 Stone, M. C. 
 Sturtevant, Chas. L. 
 Sunderland, Byron 
 Tainter, Chas. S. 
 Tasker, Fred E. 
 Taylor, Thomas 
 Thompson, W. B. 
 Toner, J. M. 
 Towusend, W. W. 
 Tryon, F. M. 
 Turpin, P. B. 
 Tweedale, John 
 Tyler, Amilia 
 Tyler, E. R. 
 Tyler, R. D. S. 
 Van Dorsten, A. W. 
 
492 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 District of Columbia — continued. 
 
 Voorhees, John H. 
 Walcott, Chas. D. 
 Warner, B. H. 
 Watkins, J. Elfreth 
 Welles, Roger] 
 Wight, Lloyd B. 
 Wilkinson, A. G. 
 Wilkinson, Ernst 
 Willitts, Edwin 
 Wilson, A. A. 
 Wilson, Davies 
 Wilson, Thomas 
 Wires, M. D. 
 
 Wirth, Joseph 
 Whitaker, E. W. 
 Whitaker & Prevost. 
 White, H. K. 
 White, John H. 
 Whitman, Chas. E. 
 Whittlesey, Geo. P. 
 Wolf, S. & Company. 
 Woodward, Oscar 
 Woodward, R. S. 
 Wright, Carroll D. 
 Wynne, Lewis B. 
 Zeigler, W. R. 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 Emme, Michael, Atlanta. Nunn, R. J., Savannah. 
 
 Stallings, W. H., Augusta. 
 
 ILLINOIS. 
 Alston, W. H., Adrian. Gray, Elisha, Highland Park. 
 
 Anderson, J. C, Highland Park. McMahon, P. J., Chicago. 
 Beach, F. G., Evauston. Shipman, M. D., De Kalb. 
 
 Blunt, Jno. E., Chicago. Smith, Lyman, Chicago. 
 
 Emerson, Talcott & Co., Rockford. Towle, H. S., Chicago. 
 Farm Implement News, Chicago. Willetts, Ward W., Chicago. 
 Goodrich, Harry C, Chicago. Willing, H. J., Chicago. 
 
 Gormully, R. Philip, Chicago. Zimmerman, Wm., Chicago. 
 
 Bradford, Chester, Indianapolis. 
 Bradley, Chas. S., Fort Wayne. 
 Dodds, E., Indianapolis. 
 Dodge, W. H., Mishawaka. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, Terre Haute. 
 Pine, Leighton, South Bend. 
 Ridpath, John Clark, Greencastle. 
 Smith, R. D. O., Mishawaka. 
 
 IOWA. 
 
 Oilman, Chas. Carroll, Eldora. Novatory, Jno. West Cedar Rapids. 
 
 Moseley, C. S., Dubuque. White, Wm. K., Davenport. 
 
 KANSAS. 
 
 Brunning, Chas. E., Concordia. Fouquet, Leon C, Andale. 
 
 KENTUCKY. 
 
 Maret, James, Mount Vernon. 
 
 MAINE. 
 
 Davis, M. F., Portland. Keefe, Francis, Eliot. 
 
 Farmer, Moses G., Eliot. Perrin, N. G. M., Portland. 
 
MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 493 
 
 MARYI,AND. 
 
 Griscom, F. R., Annapolis. 
 Baron, Bernhard, Baltimore. 
 Boyden, G. A., Baltimore. 
 Brosius, S. G., Baltimore. 
 Cassard, Harry L., Baltimore. 
 Clotworthy, W. P., Baltimore. 
 Hoen, Ernest, Baltimore. 
 Lansburg, Max., Baltimore. 
 Mackey, Saml. W., Baltimore. 
 Mann, Chas. B., Baltimore. 
 
 Newitt, Edward, Baltimore. 
 Owens, Benj. B., Baltimore. 
 Parker, John H., Baltimore. 
 Patten, John, Baltimore. 
 Porter, F. E., Baltimore. 
 Price, Benj., Baltimore. 
 Ries, Elias E., Baltimore. 
 Steuart, Arthur, Baltimore. 
 Stevens, Francis P., Baltimore. 
 Weeras, David G., Baltimore. 
 
 Blodgett, G. R., Boston. 
 Bray, Millin, Boston. 
 Brown, C. F., Boston. 
 Burton, Geo. D., Boston. 
 Clark & Raymond, Boston. 
 Dolbear, A. E., Boston. 
 Easte, Charles H., Arlington. 
 Edwards, John C, Boston. 
 Graton, H. C, Worcester. 
 Gregory, Geo. W., Boston. 
 GrifEn, Eugene. Boston. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Johnson, Iver, Worcester. 
 Knight, Geo. H., Northampton. 
 Lefavour, Woodbury P., Beverley, 
 Lockwood, Thos. D., Boston. 
 Lombard, Nathan C, Boston. 
 Mellen, E. D., Cambridgeport. 
 Naramore, Henry L., Sharon. 
 Plimpton, Henry R., Boston. 
 Plimpton, James ly., Boston. 
 Rotch, A. Lawrence, Boston. 
 Simonds, Geo. F., Fitchburgh. 
 
 Hathaway, Thos. H., New Bedford. Sweet, Henry N., Boston. 
 
 Hays, H. V., Boston. 
 Howard, Wm. H., Lowell. 
 Howe, Elmer P., Boston. 
 Hudson, John E., Boston. 
 Hyslop, John, Jr., Abington. 
 Jackson, Wm., Boston. 
 
 Taple}' Machine Co., Boston. 
 Thomson, Elihu, Swampscott. 
 Trask, Chas. H., Lynn. 
 Wheelock, Jerome, Worcester. 
 Whitcomb, G. Henry, Worcester. 
 
 MICHIGAN. 
 
 Church, Melvin B., Grand Rapids. Leggett, Wells W. , Detroit. 
 
 Fritz, Theo. H., Cass City. Smith, Jesse M., Detroit. 
 
 Kirby, Frank E., Detroit. Temple, A. F., Muskegon. 
 Land, C. H., Detroit. 
 
 MINNESOTA. 
 
 Beaupre, B., St. Paul. 
 
 MISSISSIPPI. 
 Mulvihill, M. J., Vicksburg. 
 
 Higdon, John C, St. Louis. 
 Medart, Philip, St. Louis. 
 
 MISSOURI. 
 
 Moody, C. D., St. Louis. 
 Sickels, F. E., Kansas City. 
 
494 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 NEBRASKA. 
 
 Chase, Champion S., Omaha. Rosewater, Andrew, Omaha. 
 
 Way, D. C, Ord. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Smyth, David M., Northwood. 
 NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Battin, Lambert B., Elizabeth. 
 Benners, Edwin H., Elizabeth. 
 Burgdorff, Theo. P., Newark. 
 Cory, A. M., New Providence. 
 Cuntz, Johannes H., Hoboken. 
 Diehl, Philip, Elizabeth. 
 Edison, Thos. A., Orange. 
 Fearey, Fredk. I., Newark. 
 Hanes, John, Woodstown. 
 Hay ward, H. S., Jersey City. 
 Hoffecker, W. I/., Elizabeth. 
 Keasbey, A. Q., Newark. 
 
 Leslie, Edward, Paterson. 
 Marsh, Riverius, New Brunswick. 
 Mclntire, C. H., Newark. 
 Moore, D. G., Elizabeth. 
 Mnmford, E. H., Elizabeth. 
 Nishwity, F., Millington. 
 Rice, John V., Edgewater Park. 
 Roemer, Wm., Newark. 
 Searles, Anson, Newark. 
 Smith, Oberlin, Bridgeton. 
 Stockly, Geo. W., Lakewood. 
 Van Hovenberg, Alfred A., Paterson 
 
 New York. 
 
 Allen, John F., New York City. 
 Allison, O. W., Rochester. 
 Almond, Thos. R., Brooklyn. 
 Baird, John, New York City. 
 Barber, A. L., New York City. 
 Barnes, Lucien, Syracuse. 
 Barry, Wm., Syracuse. 
 Beekman, Gerard, New York City. 
 Betts, Frederic H., New York City. 
 Bleakley, Wm. M., Verplanck. 
 Bowen, J. E. M., New York City. 
 Brady, James, Brooklyn. 
 
 Cochran, F. B., New York City. 
 Cogswell, W. B., Syracuse. 
 Crook, Abel, New York City. 
 Crosby, G. S., Buffalo. 
 Crowell, Luther C, Brooklyn. 
 Davids, Charles H., Brooklyn. 
 Delano, Thos. H., New York City. 
 Durgin, Henry J., Rochester. 
 Eagle Pencil Co., New York City. 
 Ecaubert, F., New York City. 
 Edmonds, Walter D., New York 
 City. 
 
 Bramwell, G. W., New York City. Elting, Irving, Poughkeepsie. 
 Brandon, James, New York City. Ewing, Thomas, Jr., New York City. 
 Brooks, Byron A., Brooklyn. Fasoldt, Ernest C, Albany. 
 
 Brooks, J. A., Clifton Springs. Feilbogen, Moriss, New York City. 
 
 Brown, Chichester, New York City.Felbel, Jacob, New York City. 
 Butler, J. Lawrence, New York City. Field, C. J., New York City. 
 Butler, William H., New York City. Forbes, Francis, New York Citj'. 
 Burden, Jas. A., Troy. Gill, Chas. C, New York City. 
 
 Butterick, Ebenezer, Brooklyn. Gorton, Robt., New York City. 
 Cameron, Frederick W., Albany. Granger, James B., Franklin. 
 Cauda, F. E., New York City. Greeley, E. S., New York City. 
 
 Carrington, Jas. H., New York City.Hagen, Arthur T., Rochester. 
 Christensen, Jno., Mount Vernon. Haire, R. J., New York City. 
 Church, Fred F., Rochester. Hall, Wm. P., New York City. 
 
MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 495 
 
 New York — continued. 
 
 Hallock, Wm., Middletown. Quimby, Edw. B., New York City. 
 
 Harmon, O. S., Brooklyn. Raymond, Wm. C, {Syracuse. 
 
 Harris, John F., Port Edward. Roberts, Milton Josiah, New York 
 
 Hastings, A. Horace, New York City. City. 
 
 Haupt, S. B., New York City. Rowland, Geo., New York City. 
 
 Herzog, P. B. New York City. Rogers, Archibald, Hyde Park on 
 
 Higgins, Chas. M. Brooklyn. Hudson. 
 
 Hitchcock, L. R., Pour Mile. Selden, Geo. B., Rochester. 
 
 Johnson, E. T., New York City. Serrell, Lemuel W., New York City. 
 Johnston, W. J. New York City. Sheehy, R. J., New York City. 
 Jones, J. Thos., Utica. Sherman, Geo. W., Pearsalls. 
 
 Kenyoii, Robt. Nelson, New York Skilton, James A., New York City. 
 
 City. Smith, Chas. P., Brooklyn. 
 
 Kenyon, W. H., New York City. Smith, Harold B., Ithaca. 
 Kilmer Mfg. Co., Newburgh. Stearns, James S., New York City. 
 
 Lamborn, Robt. H., New York City. Stetson, Thomas D., New York City. 
 Laugerfeld, A., New York City. Thompson, Edw. P., New York City. 
 Linindoll, C. C, Port Edward, Todd, A. J., New York City. 
 
 Locke, Sylvanus D., Hoosick Palls. Townsend, Henry C, New York City. 
 Logan, Walters., New York City. Vander Weyde, P. H., Brooklyn. 
 Lowrey, Benno, New York City. Wait, Wesley, Newburg. 
 Lowrey, G. P., New York City. Waterman, L. E., New York City. 
 Malm, Alexander, New York City. Welling, Wm. M., New York City. 
 McElroy, J. P., Albany. Wheeler, Predk. Merian, New York 
 
 Milliken, J. A., New York City. City. 
 
 Munson, H. T., New York City. Whitaker, W. W., Gloversville. 
 Parmelee, Dubois D,, New York White, Wm. A., Staatsburg. 
 
 City. Wilhelm, Edward, BuflFalo. 
 
 Phelps, Geo. M., New York City. Williams, John T., Mount Vernon. 
 Planten, H. &Son, New York City. Wilson, Wm., Middletown. 
 Prentiss, P. H., New York City. Worthem, W. E., New York City. 
 
 North Carowna. 
 Lipps, Henry, Jr., Greensboro. 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 Clawson, L. P., Hamilton. Palmer, C. H., Akron. 
 
 Eversman, Ernst A., Toledo. Palmer, C. O., Cleveland. 
 
 Pisher, Wm. Hubbell, Cincinnati. Roberts, Edward P., Cleveland. 
 
 Fleetwood, C. V., Cincinnati. See, J. W., Hamilton. 
 
 Gould, Aaron P., Canton. Simons, Howard T., Cambridge. 
 
 Kaufman, C. H.,- Bridgeport. Toulmin, H. A., Springfield. 
 
 Marsh, James A., Cleveland. White, W. J., Cleveland. 
 
 McClellan, Felix G., Carrothers. Whitely, W. N., Springfield. 
 
 Oluey, Chas. P., Cleveland. Whitter, E. E., Milford Centre. 
 
496 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 Allen, Geo., Franklin. Koskul, Frederick, Philadelphia. 
 
 Alsen Pinius, Philadelphia. Lewis, Wilfred, Philadelphia. 
 
 Automatic French Spring Company, Longsbieth, Edw., Philadelphia. 
 
 Pittsburg. I/orimer, John H., Philadelphia. 
 
 Babendlier, A. I., Philadelphia. Macbeth, Geo. A., Pittsburg. 
 Barnaby, Chas. W., Meadville. Mann, Harry F., Allegheny. 
 
 Berg, Walter S., Philadelphia. Marquis, C. F., Beaver Falls. 
 
 Bethlehem Iron Company, South Midgley, Thos., Beaver Falls. 
 
 Bethlehem. Millhauser, B., Scranton. 
 
 Boies, H. M., Scranton. Moxham, A. J., Johnstown. 
 
 Bonwill, W. G. A., Philadelphia. Myers, H. M., Beaver Falls. 
 Boyd, John T., Erie. Newell, A. W., Bradford. 
 
 Bumham, Geo., Philadelphia. Pettit, Horace, Philadelphia. 
 
 Carkhnff, R., I^ewisburgh. Phillips, C. C, Philadelphia. 
 
 Carty, Jerome, Philadelphia. Price, J. A., Scranton. 
 
 Cox, Eckley B., Drifton. Price, James M., Philadelphia. 
 
 Douglass, J. Walter, Philadelphia. Ripple, Ezra H., Scranton. 
 Dudley, Chas. B., Altoona. Schoen, Chas. T., Allegheny City. 
 
 Elder, J. T., Philadelphia. Sellers, Coleman, Philadelphia. 
 
 Ely, Theo. N., Altoona. Sellers, Wm., Philadelphia. 
 
 Emerson, J. E., Beaver Falls. Shaw, Thos., Philadelphia. 
 
 Emmens, Stephen H., Youngwood. Smith, E. D., Pittsburg. 
 Eschner, I^juis, Philadelphia. Smith, John Y., Doylestown. 
 
 Fraley, Frederick, Philadelphia. Stanley, Edward, Bridgeport. 
 Goodwin, John M., Sharpsville. Stewart, W. G., Reading. 
 Hall, Augustus R., Philadelphia. Sulzberger, D., Philadelphia. 
 Hickman, Louis C, Philadelphia. Travis, W. H., Philadelphia. 
 Hill, B. B., Philadelphia. Vogt, A. S., Altoona. 
 
 How, W. Storer, Philadelphia. Westinghouse, Geo., Jr., Pittsburg. 
 
 Howson, Henry, Philadelphia. Wiedersheim, John A., Philadelphia. 
 
 Jaques, W. H., South Bethlehem. S. S. White Dental Mfg. Co., Phila- 
 Kingsley, John F., Athens. delphia. 
 
 Kneass, Strickland L., Philadelphia. Wood, W. D., McKeesport. 
 
 Rhode Island. 
 Corliss, Wm., Providence. Miller, Joseph R., Providence. 
 
 Cottrell, C. B., Westerly. Reynolds, Edwin, Providence. 
 
 Gammell, A. M., Providence. Smith, Chas. R., Providence. 
 
 Howard, Henry, Providence. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 Alanken, C. H., Charleston. Emanuel, Philip Albert, Aiken. 
 
 Brotherhood, F., Beaufort. Martin, James N., Newberry. 
 
 Due, Henry A., Jr., Charleston. 
 
 Tennessee. 
 Green, M. M., Lynchburg. 
 
MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS. 497 
 
 UTAH. 
 
 Silver, Wm. J., Salt I<ake City. 
 
 Vbrmont. 
 
 Butterfield, F. G., Derby Line. Cooper, Geo., Bennington. 
 
 Williams, N. G., Billings Falls. 
 
 Virginia. 
 Barlow, W. H., Charlottesville. Bartlett, John H., Roanoke. 
 
 Sears, W. G., Lynchburgh. 
 
 Washington. 
 
 Duryee, Schuyler, Everett. 
 
 WEST Virginia. 
 
 Creigh, Alfred E., Ronceverte. 
 
 Wisconsin. 
 Oliver, Garritt H., Kaukauna. 
 Brazil. 
 Chermont, A. L., Para. 
 Addresses Incomplete. 
 John S. Boneville. Shoemaker Co. 
 
 John A. Brill. John Truesdale. 
 
 J. W. Hyatt. M. A. White. 
 
 W. H. Miller. E. O. Young. 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 499 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENT UPON THE CELEBRATION. 
 
 [From the Scientific American 
 
 March 12, 1887.] 
 
 CEIEBKATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF 
 
 THE ENACTMENT OF THE PATENT 
 
 LAWS. 
 
 To the Editor of the Scientific American: 
 
 The first patent law was enacted in 
 the United States of America on the 
 loth of April, 1790. I would suggest 
 that inventors meet in 1890 at some 
 place for centennial celebration for the 
 purpose of showing the great progress 
 made by the American genius under 
 the protection of the law. I would 
 like to hear from others. 
 
 F. M. Shiei,ds. 
 Coopwood, Miss. 
 
 [As the locality for such a conven- 
 tion we would suggest this city. The 
 patent law was passed by the first 
 United States Congress, whose first two 
 sessions met in New York, the first 
 session lasting from March 4 to Sep- 
 tember 29, 1789, and the second from 
 January 4 to August 12, 1790. An ex- 
 hibition of inventions of early produc- 
 tions of the pioneers of the arts might 
 be organized in connection therewith, 
 and a really memorable centennial 
 might be celebrated. We echo the 
 sentiment of the last sentence of our 
 correspondent's letter. Others should 
 be heard from.] 
 
 [From the Scientific American, 
 January 24, 1891.] 
 CELEBRATION OF THE BEGINNING OF 
 THE SECOND CENTURY OF THE 
 AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM. 
 
 The first century of existence of the 
 American patent system has now been 
 completed. In the history of the 
 country there are to be found few more 
 important epochs or more worthy of 
 being adequately signalized. The in- 
 auguration of the patent laws marks 
 the beginning of a career of unprece- 
 dented prosperity among nations. It 
 indicates the fostering by the federal 
 power of the most distinctive feature 
 of the national character. The many 
 
 inventions, now nearly half a million 
 in number, set forth in the records of 
 the United States Patent OiBce are a 
 history of mechanical genius and 
 progress of which our country and the 
 world at large should be proud. 
 
 It is hard to believe that those who 
 composed and accepted the constitu- 
 tion of the United States, and those 
 who subsequently amended it, could 
 have foreseen the influence which 
 each paragraph would have on the 
 fortunes of so many millions of peo- 
 ple. It is definitely certain that the 
 clauses relating to the patents could 
 never have been supposed to embody 
 the foundations of the edifice that has 
 been based upon them. In the first 
 days of the republic there was but 
 little interest in the subject of inven- 
 tion. The people were largely agri- 
 cultural in their pursuits, and carried 
 on their work with primitive appli- 
 ances. Gradually a few patents were 
 taken out, but up to the year 1825, in- 
 cluding the first thirty-five years of 
 operation, only 4,183 patents had been 
 issued. The annual number of patents 
 granted gradually increased from ten 
 or twenty per annum to 299 in the 
 year 1825. In 1854 the first great in- 
 crease is observed, when the number 
 rose from 846 for 1853 to 1,759 fo"^ 1854. 
 Since that period they have increased 
 until now over 20,000 are issued an- 
 nually. 
 
 It is not in the mere granting of 
 letters patent that the fostering arm 
 of the government appears most 
 prominent. Entitled by statute to 
 federal protection by the judiciary 
 the rights of patentees have formed 
 one of the great subjects of defense 
 by the highest courts of the land. 
 The district and circuit judges are the 
 first appealed to, but from them case 
 is brought before the United States 
 Sujnreme Court at Washington. No 
 subject of personal or even interna- 
 tional right can find a higher tribunal 
 for adjudication of its claims than is 
 afforded to the right of the inventor. 
 
500 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 The highest judges in the land, and 
 those who have obtained the highest 
 reputation as expounders of the law 
 and as interpreters of the intentions 
 of the legislative bodies, have pro- 
 nounced strongly and unhesitatingly 
 in favor of the inventor. No class of 
 citizens has been the subject of higher 
 encomium from the bench. Those 
 judges who have been most outspoken 
 in their appreciation of the poorly re- 
 warded efforts of mechanical genius 
 have been those who have attained 
 the highest reputation. Numerous 
 attacks have been made upon the 
 system in Congress, but all have met 
 with the same fate, and have failed at 
 an early stage. To-day the nation at 
 large may be thankful in seeing the 
 statutes undisturbed and intact. It is 
 a guarantee of the future progress of 
 the country. The maintenance of 
 laws so fruitful in good in the past 
 promises well for the future, and is the 
 best insurance of the continuance of 
 inventors' efforts. The more enlight- 
 ened of our legislators have uniformly 
 opposed on the floor of the houses of 
 Congress any impairing of the force 
 and scope of these statutes. 
 
 Fortunately we can be said to be 
 entering on this second century under 
 good auspices. The rights of inventors 
 are sustained in the courts and by the 
 houses of Congress. A century of 
 unprecedented work by the inventor 
 now begins. To fittingly celebrate the 
 present epoch, the beginning of the 
 second century of the American patent 
 system, a central executive and ad- 
 visory committees have been organ- 
 ized at Washington. The personnel 
 of the committees includes a long list 
 of names prominent in business and 
 . ofl&cial circles. The Patent Office, 
 United States Senate and House of 
 Representatives, the Smithsonian In- 
 stitution, the National Museum, United 
 States Geological Survey, the United 
 States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and 
 many other federal bureaus and insti- 
 tutions are represented by their chiefs 
 or other officials. 
 
 The centennial of the patent system 
 has passed, because the first patent 
 was granted in 1790. The idea of 
 holding the proposed convention has 
 come a year beyond the proper date 
 for a centennial. It is therefore termed 
 a celebration of the beginning of the 
 
 second century of the American patent 
 system. The inventor and manufac- 
 turer of inventions are appealed to by 
 the committee to hold a fitting cele- 
 bration in the national capital, to com- 
 memorate the entry into the second 
 century of mechanical and scientific 
 progress. They are invited to assist 
 in putting on record the nation's ap- 
 preciation of the labors of those whose 
 work in the realm of invention has 
 done so much to elevate their country. 
 It is also suggested that the occasion 
 is a fitting one for organizinga National 
 Association of Inventors, a society for 
 mutual benefit, which it is obvious 
 might accrue in many ways to the 
 members. The committee invite all 
 interested to communicate with their 
 secretary, Mr. J. Elfreth Watkins, 
 U. S. National Museum, Washington, 
 D. C. 
 
 [From The Forum, March, 1891.] 
 OUE BAKGAIN WITH THE INVENTOK. 
 
 A United States patent is a contract. 
 The parties to it are the inventor on 
 the one hand and the people of the 
 United States on the other. The in- 
 ventor, by a public record, informs the 
 people concerning a useful discovery 
 which he has made, which must be 
 original with him and new in the 
 United States. In return the people, 
 by their letters-patent, secure to him 
 the exclusive right to make, to use, 
 and to sell his invention for a Umited 
 number of years. At the end of that 
 period the contract terminates, and the 
 discovery belongs to all the people for- 
 ever. A patent, therefore, does not flow 
 from the bounty of the community, as 
 might a pension or a subsidy, or a 
 medal. It belongs to the inventor by 
 right. It comes into existence in con- 
 sequence of the legal estabUshment of 
 a certain state of facts, namely, that 
 the invention is new, useful, and orig- 
 inal with claimant. This disclosure is 
 the consideration on the part of the 
 inventor, who, therefore, gives to the 
 community something of value which 
 it did not before possess. The com- 
 munity gives to the inventor, n ot some- 
 thing of value which it already had, as 
 where a part of the public domain is 
 patented to a settler, but simply pro- 
 tection. If the invention is valuable 
 so is the protection ; if the invention 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 501 
 
 is worthless the protection is without 
 benefit; thus the contract is reciprocal 
 and evenly balanced. The validity of 
 a patent depends upon the mainte- 
 nance of the facts established. To de- 
 termine issues of validity is a function 
 of the United States courts. To de- 
 termine whether the consideration 
 probably exists, and to make the con- 
 tract itself is the function of the United 
 States Patent Office. "He who re- 
 ceives an idea from me," wrote 
 Thomas Jefferson, "receives instruc- 
 tion himself without lessening mine ; 
 as he who lights his taper at mine re- 
 ceives light without darkening mine. " 
 An idea once made known is subject to 
 human control only when incorporate, 
 and therefore it can become the sub- 
 ject of patent only when it is tangible 
 and existent. In the beginning it may 
 be regarded as a marvel ; in time it 
 becomes a necessity of life, a manufac- 
 ture, perhaps the basis of a great in- 
 dustry. In a certain sense the invention 
 then detaches itself from the inventor, 
 for the patent no longer protects only 
 one man in his right, but through him 
 many men in their rights. The patent 
 system of the United States has now 
 completed its one hundredth year. 
 The experience of the century shows 
 that the advantages incident to the 
 patent contract constitute a sufficient 
 incentive, not merely to lead people to 
 publish their inventions, but to make 
 them invent. The number of patents 
 granted yearly has steadily augmented; 
 it is now more than 26,000, and is in- 
 creasing. Under the fostering protec- 
 tion of patents we have developed, and 
 are developing, inventors as a distinc- 
 tive national product. 
 
 [From the Washington Post, 
 
 March 22, 1S91.] 
 
 THE COMING PATENT CENTENNIAL. 
 
 The coming Patent Centennial, the 
 celebration of which will be held in 
 Washington, beginning the 8th of 
 April next, will be one of the most 
 notable and most interesting of such 
 gatherings that has yet been witnessed 
 in America; of its own kind, it will be 
 the most important ever held. 
 
 It is the intent of this centennial to 
 celebrate a century of patents in Amer- 
 ica, a century of progress in mechani- 
 cal and industrial arts — a century of 
 
 the most marvelous advancement the 
 world has ever known. 
 
 It will be in a peculiar and marked 
 degree a gathering characteristically 
 and representatively American. It 
 will testify, as perhaps no other gath- 
 ering could testify, to the positive 
 progress, the actual and eminent con- 
 tributions which America has made to 
 the stock of the mechanical posses- 
 sions of man. 
 
 "To promote the progress of useful 
 arts" was the suggestive title of the 
 act over which Washington, as Presi- 
 dent, wrote his signature on the 8th of 
 April, 1791. It is difficult at this time 
 to measure or compute the wonderful 
 development which has been made in 
 the hundred years following this en- 
 actment, in this most important field 
 of human eflbrt. 
 
 When the Congress of the United 
 States decreed to the inventor absolute 
 rights to the products of his ingenuity 
 and skill, the discovery of Benjamin 
 Franklin was not understood, the in- 
 vention of -Watts was all but unused, 
 the innovations of Hargrave and Ark- 
 wright were met by angry mobs ; the 
 field of centuries was laid bare by the 
 primitive scythe and its wealth won 
 from the chaff by the flail. 
 
 Such was the mechanical advance- 
 ment of mankind in 6, 000 years of re- 
 corded life. 
 
 As in the flash of a single century, 
 such has been the wonderful activity 
 of the age. Scarce is there a known 
 occupation which has not undergone 
 revolutions startling and complete. 
 The means and manner of locomotion 
 and communication, alike on land 
 and sea ; of heating and lighting, of 
 production and distribution, the pro- 
 cesses of agriculture, manufactures, 
 printing — all have undergone within 
 this narrow span a change so swift, 
 so sweeping that the material world 
 of to-day bears as little resemblance 
 to the material world of Franklin and 
 Washington as the conceptions of 
 Copernicus to the conceptions of the 
 ancient Ptolemy. 
 
 To compress history into a sentence, 
 the achievements of the nineteenth 
 century in the field of mechanics com- 
 pose those of all the centuries of civil- 
 ization preceding. The history of the 
 century is an Arabian tale, whose 
 most gorgeous fancy and most vivid 
 
502 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 imagination are surpassed by simple 
 fact. 
 
 In this unparalleled activity the 
 achievements of the United States 
 represent the most important, if not 
 the major, part. From this country 
 have come all the greater inventions 
 for which the century will in future 
 times be famous. No other national- 
 ity has contributed either in like meas- 
 ure or like value. It is indeed ques- 
 tionable if the inventions of the United 
 States alone, numbering now over 
 300,000, do not surpaSB in importance 
 and worth the inventions of all other 
 nations combined. 
 
 To review this marvelous work, to 
 consider its value, to note its effect, to 
 look somewhat to the future — ^this is 
 the province of the coming centennial. 
 It will bring together many brilliant 
 minds. It will mark a great era. 
 
 IFrom the Scientific Ambrican, 
 April 4, 1891.I 
 
 THE PATENT CENTENNIAL. 
 The Congress of Inventors and 
 Manufacturers of Inventions, to be 
 held in Washington on the 8th, 9th 
 and loth of this month, is certain to 
 be a most enthusiastic and numerously 
 attended assemblage, in every way 
 worthy of such an occasion as the 
 celebration of the beginning of the 
 second century of the American patent 
 system. We have been living in a 
 period which has been distinguished 
 by many noble centennial celebra- 
 tions, from the great world's exposi- 
 tion in 1876, to celebrate the one hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the Declaration 
 of Independence, down to the great 
 assembling in New York to mark the 
 corresponding anniversary of the 
 adoption of the Constitution, but it is 
 believed that none of these events 
 have been more memorable, or have 
 been more clearly significant of Amer- 
 ican progress than will be the celebra- 
 tion to be held in Washington next 
 week. There will be no disinterested 
 onlookers, but in the large attendance, 
 drawn from the remotest quarters of 
 the country as well as from near-by 
 places, and from workers in every 
 industry and every department of 
 science, there will be a keen apprecia- 
 tion of the dignity and the importance 
 of the occasion. 
 
 Besides engaging the largest public 
 hall in Washington for the regular 
 meetings, provision has been made 
 for overflow meetings, and it is ex- 
 pected that a far greater variety of 
 subjects will be presented illustrative 
 of the progress of American invention 
 than the projectors had at first antici- 
 pated. The programme arranged by 
 the literature committee has been 
 most favorably regarded by all firiends 
 of the movement, and the responses 
 from inventors, specialists and promi- 
 nent men in different sections indicate 
 that the literary entertainment pro- 
 vided will be a most attractive one. 
 
 In the accompanying illustrations 
 we present portraits of a limited num- 
 ber of the imposing array of lawyers, 
 judges, administrators, legislators and 
 patent specialists taking part in this 
 centennial celebration, our space being 
 all too small to attempt anything like 
 so full a record as we should like to 
 give. 
 
 In such a list we necessarily include 
 the Hon. Samuel Blatchford, a Justice 
 of the United States Supreme Court, 
 who is to deliver an address on "A 
 Century of Patent I,aw." His deci- 
 sions in memorable patent cases in the 
 United States Circuit Court, and in 
 other important causes, having during 
 many years always commanded the 
 close attention of all members of the 
 bar, and his promotion to the Supreme 
 Court was generally looked upon as a 
 thoroughly well-earned advancement. 
 
 The Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary 
 of the Interior in President Harrison's 
 Cabinet, and thus the direct official 
 head of all our patent business at pres- 
 ent, has taken an active part in assist- 
 ing to make the celebration a thor- 
 oughly imposing and representative 
 one. He will personally preside at 
 some of the meetings, and, with other 
 prominent officials, hold receptions 
 especially for inventors and manufac- 
 turers and tlieir representatives. 
 
 The Commissioner of Patents, Hon. 
 Charles E. Mitchell, of Connecticut, 
 around whose office is centered the 
 great interest of the occasion, is a man 
 of the highest ability, wide influence 
 and exalted character. He is distin- 
 guished by his clear judgment, and 
 has previously been a most successful 
 patent lawyer. He has proved himself 
 well qualified for the arduous duties of 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 503 
 
 his office. He is a graduate of Brown 
 University, about fifty-five years of 
 age. 
 
 The Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, of 
 Ohio, vrho is to deliver an address on 
 "The Effect of Our Patent System on 
 the Material Development of the 
 United States," has been so promi- 
 nently before the public for many 
 years, Commissioner of Patents and as 
 a member of Congress, and a public 
 speaker of great power and influence, 
 that his participation in the celebration 
 will be an important factor. He has 
 been the chairman of the House Com- 
 mittee on Patents, and through many 
 years has worked with energy and dis- 
 crimination for the protection of the 
 interests of inventors. 
 
 Dr. R. H. Thurston, director of Sib- 
 ley Collegia, Cornell University, who 
 is to speak on "The Inventors of the 
 Steam Engine," has a subject to the 
 elucidation of which he brings a great 
 store of knowledge. His treatment of 
 the matter will be sure to be most in- 
 structive and interesting. 
 
 The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Com- 
 missioner of Labor, who is to speak on 
 the ' ' Relation of Labor to Invention, ' ' 
 has made a practical study of all phases 
 of the labor question from an economic 
 standpoint, and speaks on such ques- 
 tions with an authority everywhere 
 acknowledged. He first made a science 
 of this department of investigation as 
 the organizer of the Massachusetts 
 Bureau of Labor Statistics, and has 
 brought to his present wider field a 
 method and system heretofore un- 
 known. 
 
 Dr. John S. Billings, who is to.speak 
 on inventions and discoveries in medi- 
 cine, surgery and practical sanitation, 
 is a United States arm5- surgeon, in 
 charge of the Army Medical Museum. 
 He has an international reputation as 
 a sanitarian, and his recent work on 
 medical bibliography is to-day the 
 leading authority on the subject. 
 
 Hon. John W. Daniel, U. S. Senator 
 from Virginia, very appropriately 
 speaks on the New South as an out- 
 growth of invention and the American 
 patent law. He was born in Lynch- 
 burg, Va., in 1842, served in the Con- 
 federate service during the war, rising 
 from the ranks to a colonelcy, and 
 since the war has become distinguished 
 as a lawyer and orator. 
 
 Dr. Cyrus P. Brackett, Henry Pro- 
 fessor of Physics in Princeton College, 
 who is to speak on invention as related 
 to the progress of electrical science, is 
 a widely known authority in this field, 
 and, in conjunction with Professor 
 Anthony, has published a recent book 
 on physics with which many of our 
 readers are probably familiar. 
 
 Thomas Gray, of Indiana, who is to 
 speak on telegraph and telephone in- 
 ventions, is a civil engineer and pro- 
 fessor of dynamic engineering in an 
 institute at Terre Haute. 
 
 Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, of the 
 advisory committee, is the efficient 
 and accomplished Librarian of Con- 
 gress, and is from New Hampshire, 
 where he was born in 1825. He be- 
 came the principal Librarian in 1865, 
 having previously served a term as 
 assistant. Mr. Spofford has seen the 
 library grow from about seventy-five 
 thousand to more than half a million 
 volumes, and he has had great influ- 
 ence with successive Congresses in se- 
 curing legislative action for a proper 
 building for the rapidly accumulating 
 store of books, adequate provision for 
 which has only recently been made, 
 while the plans are but tardily being 
 carried out. He is recognized as a 
 bibliographer of great attainments, 
 and peculiarly fitted for his responsi- 
 ble position. 
 
 Mr. J. W. Babson, of the Patent 
 Office, is from Maine, and entered the 
 Interior Department in 1866 as Chief 
 of the Finance Division and Deputy 
 Commissioner of Pensions. He was 
 assigned to the charge of the Official 
 Gazette in 1878, and in 1880 was ap- 
 pointed chief of the Issue and Gazette 
 Division, which position he now holds. 
 Of the 54 volumes of the Official Ga- 
 zette, 41 have been published under 
 his direction, and of the 448,000 pat- 
 ents granted by the Patent Office, more 
 than half have been prepared and 
 issued under his charge. 
 
 Llewellyn Deane, of Washington, 
 D. C, a member of the Literature Com- 
 mittee, is a native of Maine, and de- 
 scended from Pilgrim stock. He is a 
 graduate of Bowdoin College, and a 
 lawyer by profession, and makes the 
 patent business a specialty. He was 
 a principal examiner in the United 
 States Patent Office for several years. 
 In earlier years he had considerable 
 
504 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 legislative experience in Maine. He 
 is actively connected with local scien- 
 tific societies. 
 
 John Ivynch, the chairman of the 
 Executive Committee, is a native ot 
 Portland, Me., and is engaged in com- 
 mercial business and interested in 
 manufacturing and railroad enter- 
 prises. He was elected in 1864 firom 
 the first Maine district (now repre- 
 sented by Speaker Reed) to the Thirty- 
 ninth Congress, and re-elected to the 
 four succeeding Congresses, retiring 
 in 1873. As chairman of committee 
 on "The Causes of the Decline of 
 American Shipping, ' ' he submitted a 
 report with bills for the revival of 
 American navigation interests which 
 attracted attention not only in this 
 country but in Europe. He was also 
 the author of bills passed January 27, 
 1873, extending the life-saving service 
 (then confined to the coasts of Massa- 
 chusetts and New Jersey) along the 
 whole Atlantic, Pacific, and lake coasts 
 of the United States, and connecting 
 same by telegraph with signal service 
 and light-houses. This is the founda- 
 tion of the present life-saving service 
 of the United States. Owning a large 
 tract of land near Washington, upon 
 which are beds of terra cotta clay, he 
 established the Potomac Terra Cotta 
 Works, and in connection with this 
 manufacture has made several inven- 
 tions which have been patented in this 
 country and Europe. 
 
 Marvin C. Stone, of the Central Com- 
 mittee, was graduated from Oberlin 
 College, Ohio, in 1872, and began life 
 as a Washington correspondent, repre- 
 senting the New Orleans Picayune, 
 the Cleveland Leader, and various 
 other journals. Mr. Stone drifted into 
 the manufacturing business, and to- 
 day employs over four hundred opera- 
 tives, and paying out considerably over 
 one hundred thousand dollars annu- 
 ally in wages alone. He confines him- 
 self to the manufacture of novelties 01 
 his own invention. He has taken out 
 a large number of patents on the vari- 
 ous articles which he manufactures, 
 but he bases his claim as an inventor 
 especially upon the fountain pen with 
 capillary feed. 
 
 Robert W. Penwick, a patent at- 
 torney and a member of the Central 
 Committee, was born in Washington 
 in 1832. His uncle, Benjamin Fen- 
 
 wick, was one of the three who 
 composed the Patent Office corps in 
 1812-16. Mr. Fenwick studied archi- 
 tecture, civil engineering, and me- 
 chanical drawing, and was for seven 
 years employed in the patent depart- 
 ment of the Scientific American at 
 New York, being afterward similarly 
 employed in charge of our branch office 
 in Washington. Since 1861 Mr. Fen- 
 wick has followed business as a patent 
 attorney in Washington. He was 
 called to preside as chairman of the 
 meeting at which it was determined 
 that a celebration of the second cen- 
 tury of our patent system should be 
 celebrated in 1891. He was authorized 
 by this meeting to appoint a commit- 
 tee to arrange the programme for the 
 celebration. 
 
 George Brown Goode, of the Ad- 
 visory Committee, was born in New 
 Albany, Ind., 13th February, 1851. 
 He was graduated at Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity, in 1870, pursued a short post- 
 graduate course at Cambridge, and in 
 1871 took charge of the organization 
 of the college museum at Middletown. 
 In 1873 received an appointment on 
 the staff of the Smithsonian Institu- 
 tion, and on the organization of the 
 National Museum became its assistant 
 director, and in 1887 assistant secretary 
 of the Smithsonian Institution. The 
 natural history division of the United 
 States Government at the Philadelphia 
 exhibition in 1876 was under his super- 
 vision. He was United States com- 
 missioner in charge of the American 
 sections at International Fisheries ex- 
 hibitions in Berlin in 1880 and iu Lon- 
 don in 1883,^ and was also member of 
 the Government executive board for 
 the New Orleans, Cincinnati, and 
 Ivouisville expositions in 1884, and of 
 the board of management and control 
 of the World's Columbian Exposition 
 of 1893. From 1872 until 1887 he was 
 intimately associated, as a volunteer, 
 with the work of the United States Fish 
 Commission. In 1887 he was employed 
 by the Department of State as statis- 
 tical expert in connection with the 
 Halifax fisheries commission, and iu 
 1879-80 was in charge of the fisheries 
 division of the Tenth Census, and in 
 1887 was appointed United States Com- 
 missioner of Fisheries, resigning the 
 position early in 1888. He has traveled 
 through Europe for the purpose of 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 505 
 
 studying the methods of administra- 
 tion of the public museums, and has 
 made extensive natural history explo- 
 rations in the Bermudas and Florida. 
 His published papers are numerous, 
 and include, besides several books, 
 about 200 minor titles on topics in 
 ichthyology, museum administration, 
 and fishery economy and American 
 history. 
 
 Franklin A. Seely, of Pennsylvania, 
 of the Advisory Committee, was born 
 in 1834, graduated at Yale College in 
 1855, served in the Federal army dur- 
 ing war of the rebellion as assistant 
 quartermaster of volunteers, and was 
 discharged in 1867 with the brevet rank 
 of lieutenant colonel. He was ap- 
 pointed assistant examiner in the Pat- 
 ent Office in November, 1875, and chief 
 clerk of that office in April, 1877. He 
 held the latter office until June, 1880, 
 when he was appointed principal ex- 
 aminer, and put in charge of the classes 
 of invention which had heretofore 
 formed the philosophical division, ex- 
 cept electricity, which was made to 
 constitute a separate division. To the 
 new division was added trade marks, 
 which had heretofore constituted a 
 division by itself. Colonel Seely's di- 
 vision has remained substantially the 
 same ever since. When the United 
 States became a member of the Inter- 
 national Union for the Protection of 
 Industrial Property, the work of re- 
 viewing the Convention of Paris of 
 1883 was assigned to Examiner Seely, 
 and his interpretations of that instru- 
 ment have been accepted here and 
 abroad as correct. Since then he has 
 had charge in the Patent Office of all 
 questions arising under the conven- 
 tion, and growing out of international 
 relations, and a year ago was a dele- 
 gate from the United States to the 
 International Conference at Madrid. 
 Colonel Seely was for many years sec- 
 retary of the Anthropological Society 
 of Washington, and is at present one 
 of the editing committee of its quar- 
 terly publication, the American An- 
 thropologist. He has given much time 
 to the study of the philosophy of in- 
 vention, on which he has published 
 several papers. 
 
 George C. Maynard, of the Advisory 
 Committee, is a native of Ann Arbor, 
 Michigan. He was educated in the 
 public schools of that State and studied 
 
 physics with the late Professor James 
 C. Watson, director of the Michigan 
 Observatory. Commenced telegraph- 
 ing at the age of fifteen and has been 
 engaged in electrical work ever since. 
 During the war he entered the Mili- 
 tary Telegraph Corps, and after the 
 close of the war was chief operator in 
 the Western Union Telegraph office for 
 several years. He organized the tele- 
 graph system of the Weather Bureau, 
 and, after two years' service in the 
 signal office, resigned to engage in pri- 
 vate business as an electrical engineer, 
 in which he has continued until this 
 time. He has been an extensive 
 builder of telegraph lines, organized, 
 and, for five years, managed the tele- 
 phone business in Washington, and 
 has been connected with many elec- 
 trical enterprises. He is a member of 
 the American and English Institutes 
 of Electrical Engineers, president of 
 the " Old Timers' " telegraph society 
 and the Washington editor of the Elec- 
 trical Review. 
 
 Hon. Joseph K. McCammpn, chair- 
 man of the Finance Committee, was 
 born in Philadelphia, October 13, 1845. 
 He graduated in 1865 from the Col- 
 lege of New Jersey, at Princeton. In 
 1S68 he was admitted to the bar in 
 Philadelphia ; in 1870 appointed reg- 
 ister in bankruptcy, and in 1871 special 
 counsel for the United States before 
 the Court of Claims, having special 
 charge of suits in which the Pacific 
 and other railroads were engaged in 
 litigation with the Government. In 
 1880 he was appointed Assistant At- 
 torney General, and assigned to the 
 Interior Department. In 1881 he was 
 appointed, by President Arthur, Com- 
 missioner of Railroads, holding this 
 position with the Assistant Attorney- 
 Generalship. In May, 1885, he re- 
 signed from public service, since which 
 time he has been practicing his pro- 
 fession in the city of Washington. He 
 has been president of the Cosmos Club 
 of Washington, and is a. member of 
 several learned societies and social 
 organizations. 
 
 Alexander T. Britton, of the Ad- 
 visory Committee, was born in New 
 York City in 1835. He studied law in 
 the office of James T. Brady, and sub- 
 sequently went to college and gradu- 
 ated at Brown University. He has 
 built up a large law business in Wash- 
 
5o6 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 ington under the firm name of Britton 
 & Gray, and in the department of rail- 
 road and corporation law has acquired 
 an extended reputation. He was ap- 
 pointed by President Hayes a member 
 of the Public Land Commission, and 
 in that capacity revised and codified 
 the public land laws. Mr. Britton is 
 president of the American Security 
 and Trust Company, and vice-president 
 of the Columbian National Bank. 
 
 James T. Du Bois was born at Hall- 
 stead,Peunsylvania,in 1851. Hegradu- 
 ated at the Ithaca Academy in 1871. 
 President Hayes appointed him consul 
 to Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, in 1877. 
 He was transferred to the consulate at 
 Callao, Peru, in 1883, and to the con- 
 sulate at lyeipsic during the same year. 
 In 1889 Mr. Du Bois established the 
 Inventive Age at Washington, D. C. 
 He has been an earnest promoter of 
 the patent centennial celebration. 
 
 J. Elfreth Watkins, of the United 
 States National Museum, Washing- 
 ton, has been the efficient secretary of 
 the organization committee, and taken 
 upon himself a large amount of the 
 necessary detail work. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Toner, of Washington, a 
 member of the advisory committee, 
 has also been an active and efficient 
 promoter of the movement for this 
 celebration. 
 
 fFrom The Inventive Age, Wash- 
 ington, April 7, iSgi.] 
 
 WORDS OF WELCOME. 
 
 With pardonable pride, and in per 
 feet accordance with "the eternal fit- 
 ness of things," The Inventive Age 
 extends most cordial greeting to the 
 inventors and all others who have 
 come to Washington to attend the 
 centennial of invention — the inaugu- 
 ration of the second century of inven- 
 tion under the stimulating protection 
 of the American Patent System. This 
 journal is both proud and glad that the 
 success of the celebration is assured. 
 The fitness of a welcoming address in 
 these columns resides in the fact that, 
 but for this journal, for its original 
 suggestion of this centennial and its 
 incessant efibrts to promote it, no such 
 gathering would have occurred. Of 
 all the centennials that have been cele- 
 brated in the United States since 1876 
 
 none have been worthier of the world's 
 notice, none more replete with great 
 suggestions, none has noted more re- 
 markable achievements than this will 
 celebrate. The dawn of our national 
 prosperity began with the inaugura- 
 tion of the patent system. Until the 
 laws recognized property in ideas, in 
 new discoveries, in all genuine pro- 
 ducts of inventive toil, there was no 
 other inducement than philanthropy 
 for men to devote their time or means 
 to invention. Philanthropy does not 
 support families. The consciousness 
 of doing good will not take the place 
 of food, raiment or shelter. It was 
 necessary to guarantee opportunities 
 for acquiring wealth in order to develop 
 the inventive talent of the nation. The 
 patent system gave that guaranty, and 
 then the nation started on such a 
 career as has no parallel in all the 
 ages. The recorded facts of our na- 
 tional life show that our increase in 
 wealth and progress in the arts and 
 sciences has been in exact ratio with 
 the progress of invention. 
 
 It was never the privilege of any as- 
 semblage of citizens in this or any 
 other land to contemplate such results 
 of their own labors as are now before 
 the inventors of the United States. 
 "Their fame is gone out into all the 
 earth and their words to the end of the 
 world." There is not a being in any 
 civilized land on the globe who is not 
 the beneficiary of the American inven- 
 tors. There is not a life lived that is 
 not happier, not a home that is not 
 brighter, not a day or an hour or a 
 place where the beneficent influence 
 of the American inventors is not felt 
 Toil has been stripped of its brutality, 
 the gap between the brutal and the 
 human has been widened, the good 
 things of this world have been cheap- 
 ened so that the poor can enjoy them ; 
 life has been exalted and refined ; all 
 arts, all industries, in the field of agri- 
 culture, commerce, manufactures, min- 
 ing and other occupations have been 
 beneficently revolutionized by our in- 
 ventions. Education, religion, the 
 press — art, science, literature — all 
 human interests worth preserving, are 
 the debtors of the inventor. Why 
 should not he and his friends rejoice 
 and be exceeding glad on such an 
 occasion as this centennial ? 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 507 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
 
 Hon. John I,ynch, Chairman. 
 
 Hon. John Lynch, chairman of the 
 Executive Committee, was born at 
 Portland, Maine. He was for many- 
 years successfully engaged in foreign 
 commerce with the West Indies and 
 South American States, and was also 
 largely interested in manufacturing 
 and in railroads. In 1861 he was 
 elected a member of the State legisla- 
 ture and represented the first Maine 
 district at Washington in the 39th, 40th 
 and 41st Congresses. This is the dis- 
 trict now represented by ex-Speaker 
 Reed. During his congressional career 
 he served on many important commit- 
 tees, such as Banking and Currency, 
 Commerce, Pacific Railroads, Post- 
 Ofi&ces and Post Roads, Bankrupt Law. 
 He was chairman of the Committee on 
 Expenditures in the Treasury Depart- 
 ment, and chairman of a special Com- 
 mittee on Decline of American Navi- 
 gation Interests. This committee made 
 a famous report with bills for the re- 
 vival of shipping interests, and Presi- 
 dent Grant sent a special message to 
 Congress strongly endorsing the same 
 and urged a favorable action on the 
 bills of the committee. Mr. Lynch 
 was instrumental in securing an ex- 
 tension of our life-saving service, mak- 
 ing it the most efficient in the world. 
 Mr. Lynch is a successful inventor and 
 manufacturer. He is president of the 
 well-known Potomac Terra Cotta Com- 
 pany, and his work as chairman of the 
 Executive Committee of the Patent 
 Centennial Celebration has been very 
 valuable. 
 
 Coi.. J. W. Babson. 
 
 Colonel Babson was one of the early 
 active promoters of the Celebration 
 and was unanimously elected chair- 
 man of the Central Committee and 
 was also chosen member of the Execu- 
 tive Committee. In the work of both 
 of these committees he has been untir- 
 ing in his efforts to make the celebra- 
 tion worthy of the important event it 
 commemorates. He was born at 
 Brooksville, Maine, became a student 
 and subsequently a tutor at the Maine 
 Wesleyan Seminary and Female Col- 
 lege, and was for a time postmaster at 
 Brooksville. He came to Washington 
 with Vice-President Hamlin in 1861 
 
 and was an official of the United States 
 Senate until 1866 when he resigned to 
 enter the Interior Department, where 
 he became chief of the Finance Di- 
 vision, Deputy Commissioner of Pen- 
 sions. He was assigned to the charge 
 of the Official Gazette, the most im- 
 portant patent journal in the world, 
 and upon the absorption of the Issue 
 Division by the Gazette Division he 
 was appointed Chief of the Issue and 
 Gazette Division, which responsible 
 position he still holds with great credit 
 to himself and the Patent Office. Of 
 the 448,000 patents granted by the 
 United States Patent Office more than 
 half have been prepared and issued 
 under his charge. 
 
 Colonel Babson has been active in 
 promoting the interests of Washing- 
 ton, as a member of the Citizens' Com- 
 mittee of One Hundred, and was Chair- 
 man of its Committee on the World's 
 Fair celebration, making an elaborate 
 report in favor of the National Capital 
 as the site. 
 
 Secrbtary J. E. Watkins. 
 
 During the past three months Pro- 
 fessor Watkins has been by far the 
 busiest man at the National Capital'. 
 The work he has accomplished as gen- 
 eral secretary of the Patent Centennial 
 Celebration has been astonishing. His 
 capacity to organize and execute have 
 been tested and proven equal to the 
 task. But very few people know of 
 the difficulties which he and his faith- 
 ful colleagues on the Executive Com- 
 mittee encountered and conquered in 
 their gallant battle to make the most 
 important event of this century a re- 
 markable success. To Professor Wat- 
 kins the inventors, manufacturers and 
 all interested in the magnificent indus- 
 trial development of the country owe 
 a large measure of gratitude for the 
 public spirit and devotion which he 
 has shown in organizing and perfecting 
 the details of the celebration. 
 
 J. Elfreth Watkins, C. E., was born 
 in Goochland County, Virginia, in 
 1852. He graduated at La Fayette Col- 
 lege in 1871. In the year 1872 he be- 
 came mining engineer for the Dela- 
 ware and Hudson Canal, and in 1873 
 was appointed assistant engineer of 
 construction for the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road, and was for a time examiner and 
 
5o8 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 chief clerk of the Amboy Division. 
 For a number of years he was actively 
 and successfully engaged in journal- 
 ism, and in 1886 he was appointed En 
 gineer and Curator of Transportation 
 and Engineering in the United States 
 National Museum, Smithsonian Insti- 
 tution, which position he now occu- 
 pies, having made that department 
 one of the most successful and interest 
 ing connected with that great institu- 
 tion. Professor Watkins is the author 
 of a number of valuable works, among 
 which are : ' ' Semi-Centennial History 
 of the Pennsylvania Railroad, " " Elec 
 trical Train I/ighting in England," 
 " Evolution of the American Passenger 
 Car." Aside from these works he has 
 written a number of valuable papers 
 on scientific and historical subjects. 
 Professor Watkins is a member of the 
 Philosophical Society of Washington, 
 also of the Franklin Institute, and the 
 American Society of Civil Engineers. 
 
 George C. Maynard. 
 
 George C. Maynard, an active and 
 energetic member of the Executive 
 Committee, has been a resident of this 
 city for nearly thirty years. He came 
 from his native place, Ann Arbor, 
 Michigan, during the war, and joined 
 the Military Telegraph Corps, in which 
 he served until it was disbanded at the 
 close of the war. He was chief operator 
 in the Western Union Telegraph Office 
 until 1872, when he was selected by 
 Gen. Albert J. Myer to organize the 
 telegraph system of the Weather 
 Bureau. After two years service in 
 the Signal Office he resigned to engage 
 in private business as an electrical en- 
 gineer. He assisted Professor Bell in 
 some of his early experiments, was one 
 of the pioneers in the telephone busi- 
 ness, and organized and, for five years, 
 managed the telephone exchange in 
 this city. He has been connected with 
 various telegraph, electric light and 
 kindred enterprises. He was a prac- 
 tical telegraph operator before he was 
 fifteen years old, and is now the presi- 
 dent of the " Old-Timers " Telegraph 
 Society, also a member of the National 
 Electric Light Association, the Ameri 
 can and English Institutes of Elec- 
 trical Engineers and other scientific 
 societies, and is the Washington editor 
 of the Electrical Review. 
 
 Marvin C. Stone. 
 '" Marvin C. Stone was graduated from 
 Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1872, and 
 began life as a Washington corre- 
 spondent, representing the New Or- 
 leans Picayune, the Cleveland Leader, 
 and various other journals. He finally 
 drifted into the manufacturing busi- 
 ness, and is to-day the largest manu- 
 facturer at the National Capital, em- 
 ploying over four hundred operatives, 
 and paying out considerably over one 
 hundred thousand dollars annually in 
 wages alone. 
 
 Mr. Stone has taken out a good 
 many patents, all of which have be- 
 come financially successful ; but he 
 bases his claim as an inventor, especi- 
 ally upon the fact that he has given to 
 the world an approved writing instru- 
 ment, viz : the fountain pen as it is 
 found in the market to-day. In a re- 
 centjudicial decision in New York in 
 which the court sustained Mr. Stone's 
 patent and granted an injunction and 
 an accounting with costs. Judge Hoyt 
 H. Wheeler, who presided, said : 
 "Stone invented and patented the ca- 
 pillary feed. He invented 'not merely 
 an improvement on the part but the 
 part itself. ' ' ' 
 
 Mr. Stone invented a pencil sharp- 
 ener, which is now manufactured in 
 London, England, and has a phenomi- 
 nal sale, not only on the continent but 
 at home. He also invented the steel 
 spring for coat collars, and manufac- 
 tures millions of straws for lemonade 
 drinking. But perhaps the most suc- 
 cessful of all Mr. Stone's inventions is 
 his mouth piece for cigarettes, of which 
 he turns out the enormous quantity of 
 two and one-half millions daily. 
 
 THE COIOMITTEE ON LITERATURE. 
 
 When it was known that Professor 
 George Brown Goode, the Hon. A. R. 
 Spoffisrd and Llewellen Deane, Esq., 
 had consented to take charge of the 
 literary program, all were convinced 
 that the literary side of the celebration 
 would be a grand success. It would 
 have been difficult for the Central 
 Committee to have found three other 
 gentlemen better qualified for the diffi- 
 cult and important task. 
 
 The chairman. Professor George 
 Brown Goode, was bom in New Al- 
 bany, Ind., 13th of February, 1851. 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 509 
 
 He was graduated at Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity in 1870, pursued a postgraduate 
 course at Cambridge, and in 1871 took 
 charge of the organization of the Col- 
 lege museum at Middletown. In 1873 
 he received an appointment on the 
 staff of the Smithsonian Institution, 
 and on the organization of the Na- 
 tional Museum became its assistant 
 director, and in 1887 assistant secre- 
 tary of the Smithsonian Institution. 
 The natural history division of the 
 United States Government at the 
 Philadelphia exhibition in 1876 was 
 under his supervision. He was United 
 States Commissioner in charge of the 
 American sections at the International 
 Fisheries Exhibitions in Berlin in 1880, 
 and in London in 1883, and was also a 
 member of the executive board for the 
 New Orleans, Cincinnati, and lyouis- 
 ville Expositions in 1884, and is of the 
 Board of Management and Control of 
 the World's Columbian Exposition of 
 1893. From 1872 until 1887 he was 
 intimately associated as a volunteer 
 with the work of the United States 
 Fish Commission. In 1877 he was 
 employed by the Department of State 
 as statistical expert in connection with 
 the Halifax Fisheries Commission, and 
 in i879-'8o was in charge of the fish- 
 eries division of the Tenth Census, and 
 in 1887 was appointed United States 
 Commissioner of Fisheries, resigning 
 the position early in 1888. He has 
 traveled through Europe for the pur- 
 pose of studying the methods of ad- 
 ministration of public museums, and 
 has made extensive natural history 
 explorations in the Bermudas, and 
 Florida. His published papers are 
 numerous, and include beside several 
 books about 200 minor titles on topics 
 in ichthyology, museum administra- 
 tion, the fishery economy and Ameri- 
 can History. 
 
 the committee on finance. 
 Hon. Joseph K. McCammon. 
 
 Judge McCammon became chair- 
 man of the Finance Committee early 
 in February, and selecting an able 
 committee of public-spirited men, he 
 secured for the guarantee fund in less 
 than six days a sum amounting to 
 nearly ten thousand dollars, and cheer- 
 fully asked the committee if they de- 
 sired any more. 
 
 Hon. Joseph K. McCammon was 
 born in Philadelphia, October 13, 1845. 
 He graduated in 1865 from the College 
 of New Jersey, at Princeton. In 1868 
 he was admitted to the bar in Phila- 
 delphia ; was a candidate for the Penn- 
 sylvania Legislature in 1869. In 1877 
 he presided over a board to investigate 
 the condition of the Bureau of Indian 
 Affairs. In April, 1880, he was ap- 
 pointed by President Hayes Assistant 
 Attorney General, and assigned to the 
 Interior Department. In 1881 he was 
 designated by President Garfield to 
 negotiate with the Indians on the Fort 
 Hall Reservation, Idaho — the Shos- 
 hones and Bannocks — and in 1882 with 
 the Flatheads and other Indians in 
 northwestern Montana. In October, 
 1881, he was appointed by President 
 Arthur Commissioner of Railroads, 
 holding this position with the Assist- 
 ant Attorney-Generalship. In May, 
 1885, he resigned from public service, 
 since which time he has been prac- 
 ticing his profession in the city of 
 Washington. He was chairman of the 
 Reception Committee of President 
 Harrison's Inauguration. He has been 
 President of the Cosmos Club, of 
 Washington, and is a member of sev- 
 eral learned societies and social organ- 
 izations. 
 
 Coi,. A. T. BriTTOn. 
 
 Col. Britton, the President of the 
 American Security and Trust Com- 
 pany, is the Treasurer of the Patent 
 Centennial Celebration fund, and he 
 has lent valuable assistance in securing 
 the guarantee fund. The excellent 
 work done by Messrs. John C. Poor, 
 Jas. H. Gridley, Reginald Fendall, 
 George C. Maynard and J. W. Whelp- 
 ley of the Finance Committee, soon 
 placed in the hands of Treasurer Brit- 
 ton the handsome sum of $10,000, and 
 he then asked Judge McCammon, 
 chairman of the committee, if he de- 
 sired any more funds. When the enter- 
 prising men of the National Capital 
 say a thing must go, it glides along to 
 its destination without any interrup- 
 tion of travel worth mentioning. 
 
 ROBBRT W. Fenwick 
 
 Mr. Robert W. Fenwick was the 
 
 fortunate man who had the public 
 
 spirit to accept the chairmanship of 
 
 the Arlington meeting after a number 
 
5IO 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 of prominent men had declined. All 
 beginnings are difficult, but now that 
 the difficult beginning has developed 
 into a magnificently proportioned na- 
 tional movement and a splendid suc- 
 cess, there is not a man in Washington 
 but what would have felt honored had 
 he been selected to preside over that 
 Arlington meeting from which the 
 organization for the celebration actu- 
 ally sprang. Mr. Fenwick was born 
 in Washington in 1832. His uncle, 
 Benjamin Fenwick, was one of the 
 three persons who composed the entire 
 corps in charge of the United States 
 Patent Office in 1816, and his father, 
 Mr. Robert W. Fenwick, was one of 
 the six persons who constituted the 
 entire force of the office in i835-'36. 
 Mr. Fenwick was educated in tne pub- 
 lic schools of this city, and in 1848 
 entered the office of Mr. William P. 
 Elliot, the architect of the Patent 
 Office. Subsequently he was engaged 
 by Munn and Company, and for a 
 time had charge of their branch office 
 in this city. Mr. Fenwick was at one 
 time one of the aldermen of Washing- 
 ton, and has been president of the 
 Washington Free Kindergarten. 
 
 BRA.1NARD H. Warner. 
 
 Mr. Brainard H. Warner, who from 
 the first agitation of the subject of the 
 celebration took a deep interest in the 
 movement, is a member of the Central 
 Committee. For twenty years Mr. 
 Warner has identified himself with 
 the progress and best interests of the 
 National Capital. He is at the head 
 of one of the most important real- 
 estate firms in the city of Washington, 
 President of the Columbia National 
 Bank, President of the Washington 
 Loan and Trust Company, a director 
 in a number of other well-known com- 
 mercial and philanthropic institutions 
 and is one of the busiest and most suc- 
 cessful men at the Capital of the 
 Nation. 
 
 Myron M. Parker. 
 
 Mr. Parker, during many years, has 
 been prominently identified with the 
 business interests of Washington, and 
 was the first president elected to pre- 
 side over the Board of Trade of this 
 city. He is recognized as one of the 
 eading spirits in the progressive Na- 
 ional Capital, and has been influ- 
 
 ential in promoting its welfare. Mr. 
 Parker is a member of the Central 
 Committee. 
 
 W. C. MclNTIRB. 
 
 Mr. W. C. Mclntire, the chairman 
 of the Reception Committee, offered 
 the resolution at the Arlington meet- 
 ing which suggested the appointment 
 of a Central Committee of seven, whose 
 duty should be to look after the de- 
 tails of the arrangements of the cele- 
 bration. It was very natural there- 
 fore that he should have been chosen 
 as chairman of one of the most im- 
 portant committees, and that the selec- 
 tion was wise is evidenced by the fact 
 that all through the preliminary ar- 
 rangements for the celebration he has 
 shown much tact and energy, and has 
 secured a committee composed of some 
 of the most prominent and public- 
 spirited gentlemen at the National 
 Capital. The invited guests will find 
 in the members of the Reception Com- 
 mittee a courteous, polite and atten- 
 tive body of men, who will make their 
 sojourn in our beautiful city an event 
 in their lives that will long be remem- 
 bered. 
 
 Alexander D. Anderson. 
 
 The National Capital has many good 
 friends. A few of them are pre-emi- 
 nently useful friends, and Alexander 
 D. Anderson ranks among the very 
 first of these. For years Mr. Ander- 
 son has been devoting much of his 
 very active life to the progress and de- 
 velopment of Washington City, which 
 he calls the " Gem city of the world." 
 He it was who long before any other 
 person gave it thought, brought to the 
 attention of the country the propriety 
 of celebrating the quadrennial anni- 
 versary of the discovery of the New 
 World, and he named and fought gal- 
 lantly and long for the National Capital 
 as the most fitting place for the great 
 celebration, and although he lost the 
 battle after a heroic struggle, the Di- 
 rectors of the IVorld's Fair have had 
 the eminently good sense to put him 
 in charge of their Eastern Depart- 
 ment, and thus secure the services of 
 the best man in the country for the 
 place. In the earliest eflforts of the 
 Inventive Age to get the public to 
 favor a celebration of the Beginning 
 of the Second Century of the Ameri- 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 511 
 
 can Patent System, Mr. Anderson 
 came forward and took an active and 
 influential part, and to him the citi- 
 zens ofWashington, and the inventors 
 and manufacturers of the country owe 
 a debt of gratitude for the early and 
 valuable assistance which he promptly 
 gave to the cause. 
 
 W. C. DoDGB. 
 W. C. Dodge is a native of New Eng- 
 land. He went West in 1849 and en- 
 gaged in journalism. In 1851 he was 
 admitted to the bar, and taking an 
 interest in Minnesota politics was sent 
 as delegate to a number of State con- 
 ventions and was nominated State 
 senator. In the winter of i860 he was 
 appointed Assistant Doorkeeper of the 
 House of Representatives, and in 1861 
 the Secretary of the Interior, the Efon. 
 Caleb B. Smith, appointed him Ex- 
 aminer in the United States Patent 
 Office, which position he filled with 
 ability until 1864, when he resigned it 
 and established himself in business at 
 the National Capital. He is an in- 
 ventor, and has taken out twenty 
 United States patents and several for- 
 eign patents. He was presented with 
 a medal by the King of Italy and the 
 King of Spain with a decoration for 
 his inventions in fire-arms and cart- 
 ridge-loading machine. He was active 
 in trying to secure the adoption by the 
 Government of breech-loading guns, 
 and published an able pamphlet on 
 "Breech-Loaders vs. Muzzle-Loaders," 
 in recognition of which the breech- 
 loading gun manufacturers of the coun- 
 try presented him with numerous me- 
 mentoes. Mr. Dodge has been a persist- 
 ent and active champion of the patent 
 system, and has often appeared before 
 Congressional committees to protest 
 against obnoxious bills which if passed 
 would have been very injurious to the 
 patent system. 
 
 SCHUYI,ER DuRYEE, 
 
 Chairman of Committee on Medals 
 and Badges, chief clerk United States 
 Patent Office, born at Pamrapo, N. J., 
 January 13, 1847. Educated in the 
 public schools in New York City, and 
 then followed mercantile pursuits until 
 1871, when he was appointed in the 
 Adjutant-General's OfEce of the War 
 Department. In August, 1872, was 
 
 transferred to the office of the Chief of 
 Engineers, and on November i, 1872, 
 was placed in charge of the General 
 Record Division in said office. Re- 
 mained in that position until January 
 5, 1887, when he was appointed by 
 Hon. E. M. Marble, Commissioner of 
 Patents, as Chief of the Assignment 
 and Copying Division in the United 
 States Patent Office, where he served 
 until he was appointed Chief Clerk of 
 the Office on May 5, 1883. He served 
 as Chief Clerk to Commissioners 
 Marble, Butterworth, Montgomery 
 and Hall, and resigned July 20, 1887, 
 to enter the patent practice. He was 
 reappointed Chief Clerk by Hon. C. E. 
 Mitchell May 2, 1889. 
 
 Joseph B. Marvin. 
 
 Joseph B. Marvin, of Massachusetts, 
 was appointed Chief of the Draughts- 
 man's Division of the Patent Office to 
 succeed Marcellus Gardner, who died 
 in October, 1888. Mr. Marvin had 
 previously been in charge, for a few 
 months, of the Issue and Gazette Di- 
 vision, but, upon Mr. Gardner's death, 
 Commissioner Benton J. Hall selected 
 Mr. Marvin as his successor. 
 
 The duties of the position are varied, 
 and require chiefly executive ability. 
 
 It was especially in view of Mr. Mar- 
 vin's experience in the Issue and Ga- 
 zette Division that he was selected for 
 his present position. 
 
 The Draughtsman's Division has the 
 custody of all printed copies of pat- 
 ents, of which some 600,000 are sold 
 annually, and nearly as many more 
 are selected for use by Examiners, and 
 for foreign exchange and the Execu- 
 tive Departments. 
 
 This Division has the custody of 
 original drawings ; accepts or rejects 
 the drawings filed with applications 
 for patents ; and, when desired, makes 
 and corrects drawings for applicants. 
 Among the other manifold duties of 
 the Division are the examination of all 
 photo-lithographs of drawings, and the 
 keeping of the record of all such photo- 
 lithography. 
 
 Any one visiting this important di- 
 vision and noticing the cramped and 
 crowded condition of the rooms, and 
 the meagre facilities afforded the chief 
 and his large corps of intelligent assist- 
 ants for the proper discharge of their 
 
512 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 duties, must wonder how it is possible 
 that the work of this great division of 
 the Patent Office is done so well under 
 the manifold difficulties in which they 
 are performed. Mr. Marvin is a mem- 
 ber of the Advisory Committee. 
 
 [From the 'Washington EvENDtG Star, 
 April 8, l8gl.] 
 
 Only the civic framers and the mili- 
 tary saviors of a great free state deserve 
 more' of the commonwealth than do 
 the inventors as a class. Down at the 
 bottom of things is the original in- 
 ventor, the man who, by the friction 
 of two pieces of wood, first ascertained 
 that there was fire elsewhere than in 
 the heart of man and the physical cen- 
 ter of the universe. Then came the 
 early agriculturists with their plow- 
 thongs made of hardened timber tick- 
 ling the hard surface of the earth in 
 such wise as to cause the laughing soil 
 to give forth of its resources an abund- 
 ance of provision for primeval man. 
 It was not until cities were formed as 
 nuclei for embryo states that inven- 
 tive art in its true sense was devel- 
 oped, as other things are developed, 
 out of the necessities and wants of man. 
 Consider the stride from the primitive 
 plow of the akkadians to the McCor- 
 mick reaper, firom the burnt-brick libra- 
 ries of Babylon and Nineveh to the 
 superb treasures in movable types and 
 sumptuous bindings that stand, piled 
 tier on tier, in the British Museum and 
 the Library of Congress. Looking at 
 civilization in this way and reflecting 
 how impressive even commonplace 
 facts are when lifted into a philosophic 
 system as indices of progress, the pri- 
 macy of the fi-amers of constitutions 
 that set patterns of civic grandeur for 
 ages and of patriot soldiers may even 
 seem dubious. Hence, when the chief 
 promoters of American inventive art — 
 the inventors and designers and those 
 who put their inventions and designs 
 into every-day use — come to Washing- 
 ton to celebrate the centennary of the 
 patent system of the United States, it 
 is everywhere regarded as a most sig- 
 nal event. This is a practical people — 
 this an age of grand material results. 
 Here, at the political center of the 
 hemisphere, at the capital of the great 
 republic, distinguished for its indus- 
 trial advancement as well as its intel- 
 
 lectual power and the freedom of its 
 institutions, is the true seat of Ameri- 
 can art, .science and learning, 
 
 Lafayette in 1824 was the distin- 
 guished guest of the republic in the 
 hour of its morning enthusiasm. Pa- 
 triotism, now as then, mingles ^with 
 gratitude in our tender of hospitality. 
 The noble Frenchman aided Washing- 
 ton in freeing America from political 
 thralls. These native Lafayettes of 
 industry have aided our later leaders 
 and statesmen in breaking America's 
 bonds of commercial dependence. 
 
 [From the Washington Evening Star, 
 April 10, 1891 J 
 
 The United States have, as an indus- 
 trial people, considering their youth, 
 eclipsed all history. But the whole 
 Union has not advanced at equal pace 
 and the friction of the delay has re- 
 1 tarded the general movement. The 
 great evil of slavery was the fault of 
 the world — the curse chiefly of the 
 States practicing it. The inventive 
 genius of the old slave States has, how- 
 ever, produced three thousand patents 
 during the last twelve months. The 
 mines and manufactures of these com- 
 munities are no longer tojs or experi- 
 ments. Invention, business ^s-isdom 
 and pluck are planting the banners of 
 progress in the western arid plains as 
 well as on the wasted fields of the 
 south. The present assemblage here 
 of the inventors and manufacturers of 
 patented articles marks the highest 
 point of advantage yet gained in the 
 whole nation's material progress ; but 
 this eminence merely permits us a 
 glimpse of the brilliant prospects of 
 future America in this line of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 [From the Washington Post, April id, 1891.] 
 
 A NOTABLE CENTENNIAL. 
 
 To-day is the hundreth anniversary 
 of the signing by the first President of 
 the Republic of the law which, accord- 
 ing to its title, was designed to pro- 
 mote the sciences and useful arts by 
 securing to authors and inventors, for 
 a certain period, the exclusive right of 
 property in their works and inven- 
 tions, and the occasion is being appro- 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 513 
 
 priately celebrated by the convention 
 of prominent inventors from all parts 
 of the country now in session in this 
 city. 
 
 The wisdom of the patent law has 
 been amply justified by the results 
 which have followed its enactment 
 through a century of industrial de- 
 velopment. From a small beginning 
 the patent system has grown to im- 
 mense proportions, until to-day it em- 
 braces very many of the most impor- 
 tant interests of the civilized world. 
 At first its progress was slow, in 1791 
 but thirty-three patents being issued, 
 and in the subsequent year only eleven. 
 Even in 1836, when the new law was 
 passed which organized the Patent 
 Office substantially in its present form, 
 the number of patents issued was only 
 109. But as science progressed and 
 as the needs and imperfections of in- 
 dustrial processes came to be under- 
 stood, their issue greatly increased, 
 keeping pace steadily with the pros- 
 perity and marvelous development of 
 the country, until last year the issue 
 amounted to 26, 292. The greatness of 
 this growth may be estimated from the 
 fact that the Patent Office, which, from 
 1802 to 1828, consisted of a superin- 
 tendent and two clerks, to-day has 
 thirty-six divisions and 600 employes. 
 
 The eSect of our patent system, as 
 established by law, and administered 
 as an agency of the Government, has 
 been to make our country the natural 
 home of the inventor, and it is more 
 than probable that many of the achieve- 
 ments which mark the progress of the 
 century would not have been made 
 but for the stimulation affisrded by it 
 to inventive genius, in the prospect of 
 large and secure pecuniary rewards. 
 That such rewards have frequently fol- 
 lowed as the result of inventions is 
 shown in many conspicuous instances, 
 but the excellence of the system is 
 made apparent by the fact that, where 
 immense fortunes have been made in 
 supplying some ingenious contrivance 
 in universal demand, an incalculable 
 benefit has been at the same time con- 
 ferred upon the great body of the 
 people. 
 
 It were needless to observe that all 
 the great mechanical discoveries and 
 the most valuable applications of scien- 
 tific principles to the useful arts in 
 
 modern times have had the closest 
 relationship to the operation of the 
 patent laws. To them may be directly 
 attributed the application of steam to 
 navigation, the world-girdling tele- 
 graph, the various methods by which 
 electricity is made to produce light and 
 motion and to store and convey sound, 
 the multitudes of inventions which in 
 the home, the workshop, the field, the 
 mine, and the furnace have revolu- 
 tionzed so many branches of industry 
 and have proved so generally beneficial 
 to mankind — in a word, all those 
 means of material achievement which 
 make our time richer and fuller, more 
 prosperous and more hopeful of pro- 
 gress than all preceding ages. 
 
 [From the Washington Evening Star, 
 April II, 1891.] 
 
 The banquet given last night by the 
 Board of Trade, commemorative of the 
 centenary of the American patent sys- 
 tem and of the laying of the corner- 
 stone of the District, was a notable 
 success. The board of trade takes the 
 place of the common councils of the 
 ordinary city in tendering municipal 
 hospitality to distinguished guests, and 
 Washington has reason to be proud of 
 the hospitable welcome which was last 
 night given in her name to her guests, 
 the inventors of the country. 
 
 [From the Washington Post, April 11, 1891.] 
 
 A BRILLIANT BANQUET. 
 
 The patent celebration which has 
 been in progress in this city during the 
 week came to a brilliant close at the 
 Arlington Hotel last night with a ban- 
 quet given by the Board of Trade in 
 commemoration of the Patent Cen- 
 tennial and of the centennial of the 
 founding of the District of Columbia. 
 The occasion was notable not only for 
 the elaborate plan on which it had 
 been projected, but also because every 
 Department of the Government was 
 represented by a Cabinet officer or his 
 chief assistant, and the Supreme Court 
 was present in the person of Associate 
 Justice Harlan. At the head of the 
 table sat as distinguished a gathering 
 of men as are to be met with in many 
 a day's travel, while around the hand- 
 somely decorated board were the rep- 
 
514 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 resentative merchants of the Capital 
 City. In the menu, decorations, and 
 general appointments the dinner was 
 a memorable one, even in the city 
 where the art of^ving dinners has 
 grown to be a science. The responses 
 to the toasts, which concluded the en- 
 tertainment, were in keeping with the 
 high character of the event. Mr. 
 Myron M. Parker, as the President of 
 the Board of Trade, presided. By his 
 side was the commanding form of Jus- 
 tice Harlan, and near him were Secre- 
 taries Foster and Noble, Assistant 
 Secretary of War Grant, Assistant Sec- 
 retary of the Navy Soley, and Assist- 
 ant Postmaster General Whitfield. 
 
 When the guests had been escorted 
 into the dining-hall they found the 
 tables set for over 200, and the spark- 
 ling glass and decorated china, with 
 generous bunches of rare roses in 
 terra-cotta jars, made up a picture 
 worthy of an artist's brush. At each 
 plate was an extremely artistic menu 
 card, bearing a representation of the 
 genius of invention, while the seal of 
 the Patent Ofi&ce, fastened with blue 
 ribbon in true legal style, formed a 
 unique and striking feature of its orna- 
 mentation. It took two hours to dis- 
 cuss the enjoyable feast which had 
 been provided. 
 
 [From the Washington Post, April 11, 1891.] 
 
 THE MILITARY PARADE. 
 
 Excellent Display Causes Applause AU 
 Along the I^lne of March. 
 
 The Avenue was lined during the 
 afternoon with the usual crowd of ad- 
 mirers of the boys in blue, who made 
 a most creditable showing on parade. 
 All the District militia, the troops from 
 Fort Myer and the Arsenal, and the 
 High School Cadets were in line. The 
 soldiers marched in excellent order, 
 and their various evolutions were 
 accomplished with a precision that 
 brought forth applause all along the 
 line. The orders were obeyed with 
 accuracy and skill. 
 
 The companies assembled in the 
 White Lot, where they were reviewed 
 by the President, and continued their 
 march along Pennsylvania Avenue. 
 The Third Artillery band, the National 
 Guard band and drum corps, and the 
 band from the Naval Academy, which 
 
 preceded the High School Cadets, fur- 
 nished the music. 
 
 The battalion of six companies of 
 High School Cadets was one of the 
 most interesting parts of the parade, 
 and it was greeted all along the line of 
 march by well-merited applause from 
 the spectators. Marching in double 
 rank formation, with good broad fronts 
 to the companies, the dress being per- 
 fect in both ranks, the boys looked 
 soldierly in every particular. Their 
 discipline and the perfection of their 
 drill reflect credit alike upon them- 
 selves and their able instructor, Capt. 
 Burton R. Ross, who has been tireless 
 in his eflforts to bring this organization 
 up to the highest standard. 
 
 [From The Electrical World, 
 April 18, 1S91.I 
 
 CENTENNIAI. CELEBRATION OF THE 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF TEE AMERICAN 
 PATENT SYSTEM. 
 
 The Congress of Inventors and Manu- 
 facturers of Patented Inventions, con- 
 vened to celebrate the beginning of the 
 second century of the American patent 
 system, met in Washington on Wed- 
 nesday, Thursday and Friday of last 
 week, as already announced in these 
 columns, and was in every respect a 
 most brilliant success. The gentlemen 
 who worked so energetically and so 
 conscientiously to perfect the numer- 
 ous arrangements for the celebration 
 may well feel proud of the result. 
 
 The weather during the meeting was 
 spring-like and delightful, the papers 
 read and the addresses delivered were 
 by some of our most prominent 
 thinners and public speakers, and were 
 in keeping with the importance of the 
 occasion. The President of the United 
 States, members of the Cabinet, Jus- 
 tices of the Supreme Court, members 
 of both Houses of Congress, officers of 
 the different engineering societies — 
 electrical, mechanical, civil and min- 
 ing — distin guished educators and many 
 other staunch friends of the patent sys- 
 tem, testified by their presence their 
 interest in its preservation and develop- 
 ment. Many of the best known in- 
 ventors of the country were in attend- 
 ance, including several whose names 
 have become household words among 
 electricians. 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 515 
 
 In addition to the interest shown in 
 the proceedings of the congress, an 
 important outgrowth of the celebra- 
 tion was the establishment of a perma- 
 nent organization of inventors and 
 manufacturers of patented inventions, 
 mentioned more at length in another 
 article in this issue, and from which 
 there is every reason to expect results 
 of a most beneficial character in the 
 years to come. 
 
 The first public meeting of the in- 
 ventors took place on Wednesday 
 afternoon, at 2:30, at the Lincoln 
 Music Hall. President Harrison pre- 
 sided. Beside him on the platform 
 were Secretary of the Interior Noble, 
 Postmaster-General Wanamaker, Chief 
 Justice Fuller and Justices Blatchford 
 and Harlan of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States ; Hon. John Lynch, 
 chairman ; Prof. J. Elfreth Watkins, 
 secretary; Marvin C. Stone and George 
 C. Maynard, of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Centennial Celebration ; 
 Hon. Charles Elliott Mitchell, Com- 
 missioner of Patents ; Senator O. H. 
 Piatt, of Connecticut, Chairman of the 
 Senate Committee on Patents, and 
 Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commis- 
 sioner of Labor. Among the ladies on 
 the platform was Mrs. Alfred Vail, 
 whose husband (uncle of Mr. Theodore 
 N. Vail of the American Bell Tele- 
 phone Company) was associated with 
 Professor Morse in the practical de- 
 velopment of the telegraph. Prof. A. 
 Graham Bell, inventor of the tele- 
 phone, with his father, A. Melville 
 Bell, and his father-in-law, Gardiner 
 G. Hubbard, occupied a private box. 
 
 Chairman Lynch announced the 
 organization of the congress as com- 
 pleted. The President of the United 
 States had been chosen president of 
 the celebration ; Professor Bell repre- 
 sented the electrical industry in the 
 list of vice-presidents, and among the 
 honorary vice-presidents were the fol- 
 lowing electricians : Prof. William A. 
 Anthony, Charles F. Brush, Thomas 
 A. Edison, Dr. Norvin Green, Gardiner 
 G. Hubbard, Prof. T. C. Mendenhall 
 and Prof. Elihu Thomson. 
 
 Professor Watkins, Hon. John Lynch 
 and the other members of the execu- 
 tive committee deserve the highest 
 praise for their unremitting efforts in 
 organizing and carrying out the great 
 
 work. The residents of Washington, 
 as a whole, particularly the President, 
 the members of the Cabinet, the Board 
 of Trade, whose banquet on Friday 
 night to the members of the principal 
 committees was one of the most note- 
 worthy Washington has ever seen, the 
 various patent ofl&cials and patent at- 
 torneys, as well as the business men 
 generally, have earned the warmest 
 gratitude of the inventors of the coun- 
 try for the princely manner in which 
 they treated those who attended the 
 congress. The delightful visit to 
 Mount Vernon, the reception by the 
 President and the review of the troops 
 from the White Lot, the reception by 
 Secretary Noble and Commissioner of 
 Patents Mitchell at the Patent Office, 
 and the many other honors showered 
 upon the inventors, make the occasion 
 one that none of those present will 
 ever be likely to forget. 
 
 [From The Inventive Age, Washington, 
 April 21, 1891.] 
 
 IT WAS A GREAT SUCCESS. 
 
 Since the one hundredth anniver- 
 sary of our national independence was 
 fittingly commemorated in Philadel- 
 phia fifteen years ago, many centennial 
 celebrations have occurred in various 
 parts of the country. The Federal 
 Government, the governments of 
 States and cities and numerous vener- 
 able organizations of citizens have 
 united in celebrating centennial anni- 
 versaries of great events. The wealth, 
 the learning, the patriotism and enter- 
 prise of grateful millions have cheer- 
 fully contributed to make these 
 obervances so memorable that they 
 will stand as historic monuments. But 
 no centennial in all the long and 
 splendid list was more successful than 
 that which occurred in this city on the 
 8th, 9th and loth insts. True, it did 
 not bring together great masses of 
 people from all parts of the country, 
 nor was such a gathering hoped for, 
 but it did assemble hundreds of great 
 thinkers, hundreds of men whose 
 achievements are immortal, whose dis- 
 coveries have been essential factors in 
 the progress of our age. 
 
 All tilings considered, it is safe to 
 say that so distinguished a gathering 
 as that which met in Lincoln Hall to 
 
5i6 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 inaugurate the second century of the 
 American Patent System was never 
 before seen in this country. We have 
 had great conventions of scholars, of 
 politicians, of jurists, of professional 
 men, of benevolent associations and 
 of various industrial and social inter- 
 ests. Such meetings have occupied 
 larger space in the daily papers than 
 was accorded this convention, and 
 they have often been wonderfully sue 
 cessful in advancing worthy aims. But 
 that gathering of less than one thou- 
 sand persons was such an assemblage 
 that the President of the United States 
 might well have felt honored in being 
 called to address it. He and other 
 prominent officials showed a just 
 appreciation of the importance of the 
 event. Statesmen who are worthy of 
 the name recognize the part applied 
 science bears in the development of 
 material re-sources and in the social, 
 intellectual and moral progress of a 
 people. It is only the narrow-gauge 
 politician — a creature whom not even 
 death can transform into a statesman 
 — that sneers at invention. 
 
 The one great feature of the success 
 of this centennial, a feature in which 
 it was incomparably superior to any 
 other celebration in this country or 
 Europe, was its literature. The ad- 
 dresses delivered covered a broader 
 field than was ever before entered 
 upon by any single organization, and 
 there was no shallow plowing. There 
 is no man or woman so high or so low 
 that his or her interests are not em- 
 braced in some or all of the papers 
 presented. Taken together these pa- 
 pers constitute not merely a monument 
 to the fame of the inventors of the 
 United States, but a great magazine of 
 facts, clothed in elegant verbal dra- 
 pery and calculated to exert a lasting 
 influence. When the report of the 
 meetings, including all the addresses, 
 is published, it will be one of the 
 great books of the century, and there 
 is no citizen so wise that he will not 
 be able to draw instruction from it, no 
 worker in any field of honorable 
 effort but will find encouragement and 
 help in its pages. The speakers in- 
 cluded men who have long been recog- 
 nized for profundity of thought and 
 felicity of expression, and they brought 
 the best of their mental stores to this 
 centennial. 
 
 Invention — protected invention — in- 
 vention stimulated and protected by 
 an admirable patent system— has en- 
 tered upon its second century on a 
 higher plane than it has ever before 
 occupied. As a direct result of this 
 celebration thousands now understand 
 the relations of invention to society, 
 for every ten who, a few weeks ago, 
 knew, or cared to know, anything 
 about the subject. Good seed has 
 been sown over a vast area of fertile 
 soil, and there will be a rapid growth 
 of just appreciation. Hereafter Con- 
 gressmen will have a popular senti- 
 ment behind them pressing for justice 
 to the inventors, and the old, old 
 story of neglect will cease to be re- 
 peated. The millions collected from 
 inventors will be expended in promot- 
 ing the objects for which the patent 
 system was created. Every year of 
 the new century will witness fresh 
 triumphs. The men who celebrate 
 the next centennial in 1991 will look 
 back upon another century as wonder- 
 ful as that which we review. The 
 good results of the convention of this 
 year will be a theme of discourse for 
 many a decade. As for the Inventive 
 Age, which originated this celebration 
 and worked indefatigably to insure its 
 success, it is enjoying that satisfaction 
 which comes of well doing. 
 
 AT WASHINGTON'S TOMB. 
 
 The large steamer Excelsior moved 
 away from the Seventh street dock at 
 11 o'clock Friday morning, April loth, 
 with about one thousand of the hap- 
 piest, brightest, and brainiest persons 
 that ever sailed over the placid bosom 
 of the broad Potomac. The great 
 saloon running the whole length of 
 the vessel was well filled with cheer- 
 ful, happy mortals, among whom were 
 Dr. Gatling, the inventor of the Gat- 
 ling gun ; Iv. E. Waterman, the inven- 
 tor of the Ideal fountain pen; Mr. 
 Plimpton, the inventor of the roller- 
 skate; George Westinghouse, the inven- 
 tor of the air-brake; the Canadian Com- 
 missioner of Patents ; the U. S. Com- 
 missioner of Patents ; Congressman 
 Butterworth, J.Thomas Jones, of Utica, 
 N. Y. ; W. J. Johnston, of the Electrical 
 World; F. E. Sickles ; Col. J. A. Price ; 
 John A. Milliken, of New York ; E. D. 
 Smith, of Pittsburg ; J. F. Harris, of 
 Fort Edward ; C. C. Linindoll, of Fort 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 517 
 
 Edward, N. Y., and a large number of 
 well-known inventors and manufac- 
 turers. 
 
 On the bow of the vessel was the 
 famous naval band of Annapolis, while 
 in the stern was Mr. Pistori's band, 
 and both were kept busy all day long. 
 
 On arriving at Mount Vernon the 
 Annapolis band headed the procession 
 and a solemn march was made to the 
 sacred resting-place of Washington, 
 where, with uncovered heads, the vis- 
 itors viewed the crypt containing the 
 marble sarcophagus of Washington 
 and his wife. The procession then 
 moved on to the beautiful lawn in front 
 of the mansion, where a large photo- 
 graph was taken. After this the man- 
 sion was visited and the relics de- 
 scribed. A half hour was given to this 
 part of the program, during which the 
 band played "The Star Spangled Ban- 
 ner"and "'MyCountry, "tisofThee." 
 Dr. Toner then delivered an able and 
 very original address from the west 
 piazza of the mansion, to which all of 
 the excursionists paid the closest 
 attention. This address will appear in 
 the Memorial volumes. At the close 
 of Dr. Toner's address a very interest- 
 ing incident occurred. Col. J.W. Bab- 
 son, the Chairman of the Central Com- 
 mittee of the Patent Centennial Cele- 
 bration, presented two bouquets of 
 white and red roses respectively to the 
 Canadian Commissioner of Patents and 
 the United States Commissioner of 
 Patents, who were sitting together 
 upon the piazza overlooking the beau- 
 tiful lawn to the west of the mansion. 
 These roses had been cut from the 
 greenhouse built by the Father of his 
 Country, and the Canadian Commis- 
 sioner so appreciated the compliment 
 that when he arrived in Washington 
 he had the flowers carefully preserved 
 and expressed to his Canadian home 
 as a souvenir of his visit to the Cen- 
 tennial Celebration, which he pro- 
 nounced as the most agreeable and 
 interesting affair that he had ever 
 attended. After the speech of Dr. 
 Toner the Excelsior gave a deep bass 
 warning that it was time to depart in 
 order to reach Washington in time for 
 the reception at the White House and 
 the military review by the President 
 in the White Lot. 
 
 On the return Congressman Butter- 
 
 worth distinguished himself and de- 
 lighted the visitors by delivering one 
 of the wittiest and most charming 
 speeches of his life. He spoke in the 
 bow portion of the broad saloon of the 
 vessel, and the excursionists gathered 
 and packed themselves about him so 
 closely that he had hardly room for 
 his gestures. He was in the best of 
 humor, and in two minutes everybody 
 caught the genial spirit that charac- 
 terized the speaker, and Mr. Butter- 
 worth soon found himself in the midst 
 of an audience that was in close touch 
 with every word he uttered. He spoke 
 as by inspiration. Every sentence 
 fairly reveled in wit. Benjamin But- 
 terworth was at his best. A roar went 
 up when he said that " Ben Franklin, 
 if alive to-day, could not pass a civil- 
 service examination for fourth-class 
 examiner in the electrical division of 
 the Patent Office. ' ' They laughed more 
 heartily when he said he used to be- 
 lieve that every inventor was a sort of 
 long-haired genius and the Patent 
 Office a clearing-house for cranks, and 
 he did not know that he was very far 
 from wrong. Then they fairly roared 
 when he added, naively, that there 
 were, of course, no cranks present. 
 
 Mr. Butterworth grew more serious 
 as he said that last session he had sev- 
 eral wrestles with members of Con- 
 gress who thought that inventors had 
 no rights which the public were bound 
 to respect, and he hinted that there 
 might be a struggle in the future if the 
 products of a man's brains were to be 
 preserved against communistic theq- 
 ries. He grew eloquent as he insisted 
 that that which a man used he could 
 afford to pay for, and that if a manu- 
 facturer saved so many dollars a day 
 by the use of an invention he ought to 
 be made to share with the inventor 
 some portion of his gains. At this 
 sentiment there was, of course, loud 
 applause. 
 
 Then Mr. Butterworth took quite an 
 original view of the progress of inven- 
 tion. He said when a boy he had 
 often pondered with awe on the won- 
 ders which the mythological gods 
 were said to have performed. ' ' And 
 yet," he said, "everything which had 
 been attributed by fable to these gods 
 was now an every-day affair. The 
 thunderbolts of Jupiter were play- 
 
5i8 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 things compared to the mighty mis- 
 siles thrown by a twenty-inch gun ; 
 Neptune never rode the sea with such 
 an armament as that commanded by 
 Farragut ; not a blacksmith of to-day 
 would use the tools which Vulcan had; 
 there is not a contractor who would not 
 undertake to accomplish the twelve 
 labors of Hercules and give bond to 
 complete them in half the time the son 
 of Jupiter occupied ; and the winged 
 god Mercury could not pack his 
 satchel and start on his errand before 
 Morse would have the message deliv- 
 ered. The fickle Helen, standing on 
 the walls of Troy, could, with a few 
 modern guns, have by the touch of 
 her dainty fingers destroyed all the 
 armies and the fleets of the mighty 
 Greeks." 
 
 At the close of Mr. Butterworth's 
 stirring address the Canadian Com- 
 missioner of Patents spoke briefly, con- 
 gratulating the Government and the 
 committees on the success of the cele- 
 bration, and the inventors of the United 
 States on their splendid patent system, 
 and also upon their individual achieve- 
 ments. When he said that Canada 
 was trying to model her patent system 
 after our own, the enthusiasm of the 
 auditors was unbounded. 
 
 The boat reached the wharf at 4 
 o'clock, and the excursionists hurriedly 
 took the cable-car for the White House, 
 to attend the reception tendered them 
 by the President. 
 
 The success of the Mount Vernon 
 trip was largely due to Col. W. B. 
 Thompson, the chairman of the com- 
 mittee on transportation, who per- 
 sonally superintended the arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 RARE COI,I,ECTIONS OF ANCIENT DE- 
 VICES AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
 
 The two first talking machines ever 
 made are on exhibition in the lecture 
 hall of the National Museum. There 
 were a great many other curious things 
 gathered in that apartment, put there 
 for the edification and instruction of 
 those who were interested in the Pat- 
 ent Centennial. There was a case full 
 of talking machines, and subscribers 
 who are continually tangling them- 
 selves with "central" might have dis- 
 covered in the interior of one of the 
 instruments the causes of their trouble. 
 
 The first talking machine is a small 
 walnut cone divided. The apex is the 
 receiver ; the truncated portion the 
 transmitter. Those who ought to 
 know say it talks well, but no com- 
 pany could collect a rental of ^90 per 
 annum upon any such looking thing 
 as it is. Bell's liquid transmitter is in 
 the case, and so is the first form of 
 hand telephone. This must have made 
 even the inventor tired, for it is enor- 
 mously large, and affords a striking 
 contrast to the ear trumpet of the in- 
 struments now so common. The first 
 experimental forms of the Blake trans- 
 mitter were shown, and alongside of 
 them are the component parts of a 
 long-distance telephone. How far this 
 latter will work no one knows. This 
 valuable collection belongs mostly to 
 Professor Bell. 
 
 Mr. H. V. Hayes, who arranged the 
 exhibit, talked with his family in 
 their home in Cambridge, Mass., a 
 mere matter of 500 miles. Edison's 
 motorphone was shown in the tele- 
 phone case. 
 
 An antique electrical railway, dating 
 back to 1837, was also one of the inter- 
 esting curios of the collection, attract- 
 ing as much general attention, 
 perhaps, as the original telegraph in- 
 strument used at the Baltimore end of 
 the line which made S. F. B. Morse 
 and Stephen Vail famous. 
 
 A good many people clustered 
 around a big case in the center of the 
 room. The growth of photographic 
 mechanism was there shown. The 
 first camera ever made in the United 
 States — a plain, clumsy, wooden box 
 bearing the date 1839 — stood along- 
 side two portable tripod cameras of 
 1890, and looked much more awk- 
 ward. In the corner was the contract 
 of partnership between Niepce and 
 Daguerre. 
 
 On the upper shelf in the same case 
 a brass cylinder fully two feet in 
 height stood alongside a little scrap of 
 rnechanism that could be put in a 
 little boy's vest and unwieldy by con- 
 trast. Just below the camera was the 
 gem of the collection— an original 
 daguerreotype of Daguerre. It is in 
 first-class condition and is a better 
 picture than many so-called photog- 
 raphers can produce even now. The 
 big cylinder, which is six inches in 
 
NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 519 
 
 diameter, is a "rapid" lens, made in 
 1846 ; the other is also a rapid lens, 
 but it was made this year and is only 
 an inch long and an inch in diameter. 
 Both lenses are for the same size plate, 
 viz., 10 by 12 inches. 
 
 A hand camera of 1884, for a 5 by 7- 
 inch plate, was big as a full grown 
 valise. Near the specimen in the 
 case is a hand camera of 1890, and it 
 is comparatively a baby in point of 
 size. 
 
 The instantaneous "Shutter" that 
 was regarded as perfect in 1858, is 
 nothing but a brass slide with two 
 holes in it for exposures. It is a crude 
 looking affair when compared with the 
 beautiful piece of mechanism along- 
 side it — the instantaneous shutter of 
 to-day, in which the movement of the 
 iris of the eye is precisely imitated and 
 by which as short an exposure as the 
 150th part of a second is possible. 
 
 The development of the signal ser- 
 vice weather maps was made plain on 
 a large board, but there is no evidence 
 to show that the weather has im- 
 proved with the maps. A row of 
 mutilated poker chips was immedi- 
 ately beneath the specimens of ancient 
 and modem meteorological prophecy. 
 
 Side by side were the original Joseph 
 Francis life-car and an improved ver- 
 sion of the same great invention. 
 
 The Ben Franklin hand-press was 
 under glass in the center of the room, 
 and so is a collection of time indi- 
 cators — sun-dials, clepsydra, hour- 
 glasses and watches. With these latter 
 is a chronoscope, an instrument that 
 can cut a second into 500 parts. 
 
 The Steinert collection of musical 
 instruments was another center of 
 attraction, from the earliest key in- 
 strument — the clavichord of Mozart 
 and Beethoven's time — ^through the 
 intermediary harpsichords and pianos 
 down to the modern upright. 
 
 A collection of typewriters assem- 
 bled — not female operators, but the 
 writing machine. Someof them were 
 very clumsy and have an extremely 
 antique appearanee, although none of 
 them are very old. 
 
 Guns, revolvers and knives were 
 there in choice variety. The history 
 of electric lighting was made plain, 
 and a good many other lines of en- 
 deavor are clearly traced. The collec- 
 
 tion was one of the most valuable and 
 interesting ever gotten up by the mu- 
 seum authorities. New features were 
 hourly being added. Chief Clerk Cox 
 and Prof Otis T. Mason being busily 
 engaged in the work of direction. 
 
 The collection prepared and ar- 
 ranged by Professor Wilson, curator 
 of the Smithsonian Institution, of an- 
 cient devices of various kinds was ex- 
 tremely interesting. 
 
 [From the Official Programme, published 
 during the celebration by Mr. Edward H. 
 Allen of Washington.] 
 
 In 1790 only three patents were 
 issued by the United States Govern- 
 ment. During 18902 7,000 were issued. 
 The conditions of life in 1890 are no 
 more like those of 1790 than the hand 
 loom is like the great cotton factory. 
 What the world owes to the inventor 
 can not be estimated. The credit of 
 much that the world possesses of liter- 
 ature, science and art is due to him. 
 To his credit also stands the greater 
 part of what has been achieved in 
 agriculture, mining and commerce. 
 To him the world owes the difference 
 between what it is and what it would 
 have been if invention had not supple- 
 mented the work of nature. It was 
 only fifty years ago that many of the 
 people in this country were clothed 
 from the products of the domestic 
 spinning wheel and hand loom. The 
 itinerant shoemaker went from house 
 to house, setting up his bench and 
 plying his vocation in the farmer's 
 kitchen. There were no planing mills, 
 no shops for the manufacture of doors, 
 sash and blinds. All the work of the 
 builder, including the carpenter's and 
 joiner's work, was done by hand. The 
 railroad and telegraph had not added 
 their powers to the forces of civiliza- 
 tion. Books were scarce, newspapers 
 few and of little value, and the home 
 was destitute of a thousand things that 
 now seem indispensable to a comfort- 
 able existence. In fifty years the 
 inventive genius of our land has made 
 a change in all this, more wonderful 
 than some of the stories which are 
 told in the Arabian Nights. The best 
 friend of labor is the inventor. He has 
 given to the hands of the toiling 
 millions thousands of avenues to com- 
 
520 
 
 NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 
 
 fort, luxury and wealth. He has 
 opened a continent for the laborer to 
 enter and occupy. He is still taxing 
 his mind and body to devise new ways 
 of benefiting universal humanity. 
 There are hundreds of thousands of 
 well-to-do families in the United 
 States to-day who owe their good 
 fortune to invention, and there are 
 none under our flag who have been 
 compelled to sacrifice anything for 
 invention unless the good of the com- 
 munity in general demanded such a 
 sacrifice. These are all under pro- 
 found obligations to the inventor. * * 
 With this able and enthusiastic 
 organization the Executive Committee 
 entered upon its work. Earnest ap- 
 proval and support was met with on 
 every hand. The newspapers of the 
 
 country and technical journals gave 
 the undertaking their indorsement 
 from the beginning, and by intelligent 
 discussion of the subject rendered in- 
 valuable aid in its advancement. 
 
 Since the adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution and the organization of 
 the new system of Government therein 
 provided for, no event in time of peace 
 has occurred in the history of the Re- 
 public of greater importance than the 
 establishment of the Patent Office one 
 hundred years ago. The most import- 
 ant of the many good results to be 
 brought about by the celebration will 
 be the quickening of thought that 
 must be produced by contact of bright 
 minds engaged in a common efifort to 
 make new discoveries. 
 
INDEX. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Acropolis at Athens 456 
 
 Adamant plastering 220 
 
 Addresses at Board of Trade 
 
 banquet 423 
 
 Advisory Committee, members of., ii 
 
 Africa, railroad statistics of 1 70 
 
 Agricultural Bureau in Patent 
 
 Office Building 470 
 
 Agricultural implements, labor 
 
 saved in making 83 
 
 Agricultural implements, statistics 
 
 of manufacture of. 135 
 
 Agricultural implements, Wash- 
 ington's interest in 317 
 
 Agriculture, American patents in.. 41 
 
 Ainger, D. B 41 
 
 Air brake and automatic couplers.. 480 
 
 Air ships, experiments with 172 
 
 Alabama, coal product of. 141 
 
 Albert, Duke of Mecklenburg 474 
 
 Albright & Barker 487 
 
 Alexander, needle telegraph 180 
 
 Alexander, T. H 16 
 
 Alger, Gen. Russell A 22 
 
 Allen, Ethan 41 
 
 Allen, Frank H 26 
 
 Allen, George 496 
 
 Allen, Horatio, experiments with 
 
 locomotive 132 
 
 Allen, John F 494 
 
 Allen, Walter 19, 489 
 
 AUibone, Lieut. Charles C 17 
 
 Allison, O. W 494 
 
 Almond, Thomas R 494 
 
 Alsen, Pinius 496 
 
 Alston, W. H 492 
 
 Amendments to specifications 116 
 
 American Bell Telephone Com- 
 pany 488 
 
 PAGE 
 
 American Historical Association ... 22 
 American Patent System, and the 
 Supreme Court of the United 
 
 States 425 
 
 American patent system, birth and 
 
 growth of. 24,43 
 
 American patent system, future 
 
 of 40, 426 
 
 American patents at Columbian 
 
 Exposition 41 
 
 American patents from a financial 
 
 standpoint 40, 432 
 
 American patents in the Army ..40, 434 
 
 Navy 40 
 
 American Society of Civil Engi- 
 neers 22, 42 
 
 American Telegraph Company 190 
 
 Amontons, M., telegraph 176 
 
 Ampere 303 
 
 conducting helix 289 
 
 multiple- wire telegraph 1 80 
 
 Anderson, A. D r. 12 
 
 Anderson, E. D 40 
 
 Anderson, E. W 20 
 
 Anderson, J. C 492 
 
 Andrews, Albert F 488 
 
 Aniline dyes discovered by Perkin 306 
 
 Anniversary day, exercises on 30 
 
 Anthemius, architect of Justinian.. 263 
 
 Anthony, Prof. W. A 22, 38, 488 
 
 Arago, steel magnetized by 288 
 
 Archaeologist, historical divisions 
 
 by 78 
 
 Archaeology 406 
 
 Architecture 406 
 
 Arkansas, coal product of. 141 
 
 Arkwright, Sir Richard 388 
 
 spinning machine 80, 113 
 
 water frame 137 
 
524 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Armament, improved 440 
 
 American Association of Inventors 
 
 and Manufacturers 452 
 
 American patents at World's Ex- 
 position 444 
 
 American patents in the Navy 439 
 
 in the Postal Service 441 
 
 Arbitration, benefits of. 448 
 
 Armor, improvements in naval 435 
 
 Army, American patents in the.. 40, 434 
 Army transportation, improve- 
 ments in 438 
 
 Amoux, Hon. W. H 41 
 
 Artillery, improvements in 294 
 
 Arts in England, low state of. 112 
 
 Arquebuss 294 
 
 Ash, Michael W 460, 465 
 
 Ashley, James A 15, 489 
 
 Askew, John 338 
 
 Astronomy, Chinese knowledge of 429 
 
 Astronomy, utility of. 310 
 
 Atkinson, Dr. Edward 28 
 
 on invention in its effects 
 upon household economy 217 
 
 on iron industry 139 
 
 Atkinson, W. R. B 19 
 
 Atwater, Prof. W. 226, 229 
 
 Aughinbaugh, W. E 19, 41, 487, 489 
 
 Austin, O. P 18 
 
 Australia, railroad statistics of. 168 
 
 Austria, marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Autographic telegraph 193 
 
 Automatic French Spring Com- 
 pany 496 
 
 Automatic Machine Company 489 
 
 Avery, plow sulky 130 
 
 Avery, Robert Stanton 489 
 
 Ayres, Edward F 488 
 
 Babendlier, A. 1 496 
 
 Babson, John W 3, 5, 13, 25, 27, 41, 
 
 487, 489 
 
 Bacon, Lord, on inventions 479 
 
 Bacon, L. S 19 
 
 Badges worn by committees 36 
 
 Baer, Von, teachings of. 404 
 
 Bagger, Louis 20 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bagley, W. H 41 
 
 Bailey, Martin B 16, 489 
 
 Bain, chemical telegraph 191 
 
 Baird, John 494 
 
 Baker, Henry E 489 
 
 Baker, John A 16 
 
 Baldwin, Davidson & Wight. ..487, 489 
 
 Ball, Charles B 42 
 
 Balloons, army use of. 438 
 
 Bancroft, Hon. George 378 
 
 Banquet of American Society of 
 
 Civil Engineers 42 
 
 Banquet of Washington Board of 
 
 Trade 39, 423 
 
 Barber, A. L 12, 487, 494 
 
 Barbour, James F 16, 489 
 
 Barker, W. W 26 
 
 Barlow, W. H 497 
 
 Barnaby, Charles W 495 
 
 Barnes, Lucien 494 
 
 Baron, Bernhard 493 
 
 Barry, John, first copjrright 154 
 
 Barry, William 494 
 
 Barthelemy,Abbe,magneticneedle 177 
 
 Bartlett, Mrs. George 26 
 
 Bartlett, John H 41, 497 
 
 Bartlett, John P.. 488 
 
 Bartlett, W. A 18, 489 
 
 Bassett, Colonel 343 
 
 Bates, H. H 26, 414 
 
 Battering rams, description of 265 
 
 Battin, Lambert B 494 
 
 Battle ships of United States Navy 439 
 
 Beach, F. G 492 
 
 Beach, James E 488 
 
 Beach, John K 4S8 
 
 Beaupre, B 493 
 
 Beckham, J. G 41 
 
 Beck, William H 20 
 
 Becker, E. B 488 
 
 Becker, Joseph 489 
 
 Beekman, Gerard 494 
 
 Belgium, Hauseatic League in 474 
 
 Bell, harmonic telegraph 193 
 
 Bell, Prof. Alexander Graham. ..11, 21, 
 
 22, 26, 32, 41, 411, 487, 489 
 
 the telephone..28, 125, 136, 197, 424 
 
INDEX. 
 
 525 
 
 Bell, C. J 487, 489 
 
 Bell, J. Lowrie 16 
 
 Bell-punch and trip-slips 481 
 
 Benners, Edwin H 494 
 
 Berdan, General 21, 26 
 
 Berdan, H 489 
 
 Berg, Walters 496 
 
 Berkley, John, smelting works 133 
 
 Berliner, Etnilie, telephone and 
 
 phonograph 21, 489 
 
 Berliner, Emilie, the telephone..28, 198 
 
 Berry, Thomas 469 
 
 Bessemer, Henry, steel making. .. . 136 
 Betan court, system of telegraph 
 
 in 1787 178 
 
 Bethlehem Iron Company 488, 496 
 
 Betts, Frederic H 494 
 
 Bevan, Phillips, quoted 107 
 
 Beveridge, M. W 16 
 
 Bicycle locomotive 172 
 
 Biles, J. H., on American battle 
 
 ships 440 
 
 Billings, C. E 488 
 
 Billings, Dr. John S 12, 32, 41, 489 
 
 on American inventions and 
 discoveries in medicine, 
 surgery and practical sani- 
 tation 413 
 
 Biology, discoveries in 419 
 
 Birkinbine, John 22 
 
 Bimie, Capt. Rogers 29, 489 
 
 Birth andgrowth of American pat- 
 ent system 43 
 
 Birth of invention, Prof. Mason on.. 403 
 
 Biscoe, H. L 20 
 
 Bishop, Charles R 17 
 
 Bishop, Mrs. T. S 26, 488 
 
 Bismarck, Count, opposes patent 
 
 laws 54 
 
 Bissing, Gustav 20, 487,489 
 
 Bi-sulphide of carbon engine 247 
 
 Blackford, B. Lewis 16 
 
 Blake, telephone 198 
 
 Bland, Richard 371 
 
 Bland, Theodoric, letter from 
 
 Washington to '. 362 
 
 Blanken, C. H 496 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Blatchford, Hon. Samuel 24, 489 
 
 on patent law Ill 
 
 Bleakley, William M 494 
 
 Bliss,Henry H ' 15 
 
 Blodgett, G. R 493 
 
 Blodgett, Samuel 453 
 
 Blodgett, W. H 487, 489 
 
 Blunt, John E 492 
 
 Board of Trade of Washington, 
 
 banquet by 423 
 
 Boies, H. M 496 
 
 Bojanowski, President German 
 
 Patent OfSce 33 
 
 Bolton, Channing M 42 
 
 Bomford, Colonel 467 
 
 Boneville, John S 497 
 
 Bonsack, cigarette machine 130 
 
 Bonwill, W. G. A 496 
 
 Boot and shoe manufacture, labor 
 
 saving in 83 
 
 Booth, Edw. H 489 
 
 Bosscha, quadruples telegraph 192 
 
 Boteler, John W 20 
 
 Boulter, William E 17 
 
 Boulton, Matthew 254 
 
 steam engines 115, 240 
 
 Boulton & Watt, steam engines... 279 
 Boursel, Charles, electric tele- 
 phone 196 
 
 Bowen, Charles H 489 
 
 Bowen, J. E. M 494 
 
 Bowles, John 489 
 
 Boyd, George W 17 
 
 Boyd, John T 496 
 
 Boyd, Robert 16 
 
 Boyden, G. A 493 
 
 Boynton, Gen. H. V 12, 18 
 
 Bozolus, Joseph, system of tele- 
 graph in 1767 178 
 
 Brackett, Fred 16 
 
 Brackett, Prof. Cyrus P 29 
 
 on the effect of invention 
 upon the progress of elec- 
 trical science 287 
 
 Brackett, Prof. Cyrus W 41 
 
 Braddock Expedition 326 
 
 Bradford, Chester 492 
 
526 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bradley, Charles S 488,492 
 
 Bradley, Justice 22 
 
 Brady, Edward W 18 
 
 Brady, James 494 
 
 Bramwell, G. W 494 
 
 Brandon, James 494 
 
 Brashears, Shipley 19 
 
 Bray, Millin 493 
 
 Breech-loader rifle, Springfield 438 
 
 Breech-loaders, adoption of 299 
 
 Breech-loading rifle 295 
 
 Brent, Richard A 488 
 
 Brequet, telegraphic apparatus 188 
 
 Bretan, Madam de 376 
 
 Brick-making machines, labor 
 
 saved by 83 
 
 Bridge building, efiect of railroad 
 
 on 167 
 
 Brienne, Marchioness de 376 
 
 Brill,JohnA 497 
 
 Britton, Col. A. T 10, 11, 14, 489 
 
 Britton & Gray 487 
 
 Brock, Charles E 489 
 
 Bronze age 78, 139 
 
 Brooks, Byron A 494 
 
 Brooks, J. A 494 
 
 Broom industry, labor-saving ma- 
 chines in 84 
 
 Brosius, S. G 493 
 
 Brotherhood, F 496 
 
 Brown, Austin P 489 
 
 Brown, C. F 493 
 
 Brown, Chichester 494 
 
 Brown, Capt. Giles 320 
 
 Brown, inventions of. 459 
 
 Brown, O. B 26 
 
 Brown, Sevellon A 26 
 
 Browne, A. B 20, 489 
 
 Browne, A. S 18 
 
 Browne, F. L 18, 489 
 
 Browne, Hugh M 489 
 
 Bruce, Hon. B. K 22 
 
 Brunning, Charles E 492 
 
 Brush, Charles F 22, 38 
 
 electric light 125 
 
 Bryan, S. M 17 
 
 Buchanan, Hon, James 11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Buckelew, J. R 489 
 
 Bunsen 404 
 
 Burden, James A 494 
 
 Bureau F^d^ralde la Propridt6 In- 
 
 tellectuelle 34 
 
 Bureau of Ethnology 406 
 
 Burgdorfif, Theo. F 494 
 
 Burke, Edward, of South Caro- 
 lina 48, 134 
 
 Burke, William 26, 487 
 
 Burke, W.M 489 
 
 Burket, J. U., & Co 487, 489 
 
 Burnham, George 496 
 
 Burton, George D 493 
 
 Bushnell, David, devised the tor- 
 pedo 441 
 
 Bussey, Gen. Cyrus 20, 21, 41 
 
 Butler, J. Lawrence 494 
 
 Butler, William H 494 
 
 Butterfield, Col. F. G 16, 497 
 
 Butterfield, General 26 
 
 Butterick, Ebenezer 494 
 
 Butterworth, Hon. Benjamin.... 11, 27, 
 30, 38, 40, 41 
 on American patents at 
 
 World's Exposition 41, 444 
 
 on the effect of our patent 
 system on the material de- 
 velopment of the United 
 
 States 381 
 
 Butterworth, B. F 487 
 
 Butterworth, W 489 
 
 Byington, George R 19 
 
 Byrn, E. W 489 
 
 Byrne, Mrs 26 
 
 Byrnes, E. A 489 
 
 Cabell, W. D 16, 26, 4S9 
 
 Cable, submarine telegraph 195 
 
 Cadwalader, Mr., of New Jersey... 134 
 Cadwallader, Lambert, on com- 
 mittee in First Congtess to con- 
 sider patents 48 
 
 Calahan, printing telegraph 191 
 
 Galley, steam engine 270 
 
 Calver, Henry 15, 487, 489 
 
 Calver, William 489 
 
INDEX. 
 
 527 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Calvert, inventions of. 459 
 
 Cameron, Frederick W 494 
 
 Campbell, cotton picker 130 
 
 Campbell, W. P 17 
 
 Canada, Commissioner of Patents 
 
 for 450 
 
 Canada, international patent pro- 
 tection with 213 
 
 Canada, railroad statistics of. 168 
 
 Canadian Patent Office 451 
 
 Canadian patent system 31 
 
 Canal proposed by General Wash- 
 ton 131 
 
 Cancellation machines, mail 443 
 
 Canda, F. E 494 
 
 Cannon, Hotchkiss revolving 436 
 
 improvements in four cen- 
 turies 293 
 
 introduced into China by 
 
 Jesuits 429 
 
 rifled 295 
 
 Capital, definition of. 394 
 
 Caracristi, C. F. Z 41 
 
 Car coupler, Janney 130 
 
 Carkhufif, R 496 
 
 Carlisle, water decomposed by gal- 
 vanic current 179 
 
 Carlisle, water decomposed by Vol- 
 taic battery 287 
 
 Carll, David S 42 
 
 Carpenter, D. H 488 
 
 Carpet manufacture, labor saved 
 
 in 85 
 
 Carrington, James H 494 
 
 Carson, John M 18 
 
 Carter, Ivandon, letter from Wash- 
 ington to 373 
 
 Cartridge manufacturing machin- 
 ery 438 
 
 Cartridges, proper construction of.. 300 
 Cartwright, Dr. Edward, power- 
 loom 81, 137 
 
 Carty, Jerome 496 
 
 Cary, Robert & Co., letter from 
 
 George Washington to 334 
 
 Casey, General Thomas L 22 
 
 Cash registers 482 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Casilear, George W i6 
 
 Cass, Governor 467 
 
 Cassard, Harry 1/ 493 
 
 Catlin, B. R 17, 487, 489 
 
 Cavallo, system of telegraph in 
 
 1795 178 
 
 Cayenne pepper and lobelia sys- 
 tem 413 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto 430 
 
 Centenary of Washington City 424 
 
 Central America, railroad statis- 
 tics of 168 
 
 Century of patent law iii 
 
 Ceramic art, women first invent- 
 ors in 409 
 
 Chamber's patent for breech mech- 
 anism 436 
 
 Chandler, F. E., & Co 489 
 
 Chanute, Prof. Octave 22, 27, 42 
 
 on effect of invention upon 
 the railroad and other 
 means of intercommuni- 
 cation 161 
 
 Chappe, M., semaphore telegraph. 176 
 
 Chappell, Mr. Thomas S 26 
 
 Chase, C. C 41 
 
 Chase, Champion S 494 
 
 Chastellux, Marquis de 349 
 
 Chatard, Thomas M 489 
 
 Chattanooga, growth of. 140 
 
 Chemical analysis, methods of. 244 
 
 Chemin de Fer Glissant at Paris 
 
 Exposition 172 
 
 Chemistry and physics 303 
 
 Chemistry, discoveries in 419 
 
 Chermont, A. L 497 
 
 Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone 
 
 Company 487 
 
 Chester, telegraphic apparatus 188 
 
 Chicago for Columbian Exposi- 
 tion 445 
 
 Childs, George W 22 
 
 Chinese, imitative power of. 429 
 
 inventors of gunpowder 429 
 
 Choate, Columbus D 489 
 
 Chogwill, F. M 489 
 
 Christensen, John 494 
 
528 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christianity improved by inven- 
 tion 69 
 
 Christianity in industrious com- 
 
 nmnities 96 
 
 Church, Fred F 494 
 
 Church, Melvin B 493 
 
 Church, W. C 163 
 
 Church & Church 487, 489 
 
 Cigarette machine, Bonsack's .... 130 
 
 Circular No. i, text of. 4 
 
 Circular of executive committee ... 7 
 Claims for patent, manner of stat- 
 ing 51 
 
 Clark, A. Howard 16, 26 
 
 C^ark & Raymond 493 
 
 Clarke, Prof. F. W 29, 41 
 
 on chemistry and physics... 303 
 
 Classification of patents 53 
 
 Clawson, I/. P 495 
 
 Clay, Gren. Cecil 20 
 
 Clermont, steamboat, first trip of. 124 
 
 Clocks and watches, improved 482 
 
 Clothing manufacture, labor saved 
 
 in 85 
 
 Clotworthy, W. P 493 
 
 Coal, abundant in South 139 
 
 anthracite, household use of 226 
 Coal industry, statistics of South- 
 em 140 
 
 Coal mines, output ol 61 
 
 Coal tar, uses of. 304 
 
 Cochran, F. B 494 
 
 Cochran, George W 16 
 
 Coffee's tobacco stemmer 130 
 
 Cogswell, W. B 494 
 
 Cohen, Mendes 41,42 
 
 Coinage, congress on 448 
 
 Coin-actuated machines 481 
 
 Colburn, Zerah 166 
 
 Cole, F. L 489 
 
 Collins, W. H 16 
 
 Columbian Exposition, Ameri- 
 can patents at 41, 445 
 
 Columbian Exposition, finances 
 
 of 445 
 
 Comments of the press 499 
 
 Commerce, as an invention 406 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Committee, advisory, members of 11 
 
 central, members of. 3 
 
 executive, members of. 12 
 
 finance 14 
 
 on badges and medals 17 
 
 on banquet 20 
 
 on carriages 19 
 
 on halls 17 
 
 on literature 14 
 
 on music 19 
 
 on parade and military or- 
 ganization 19 
 
 on press 18 
 
 on pubHc comfort 15 
 
 on transportation 17 
 
 on reception 16 
 
 on reception of foreign offi- 
 cials 20 
 
 Committees, list of. 36 
 
 Composition powder 414 
 
 Compressed air for propelling pro- 
 jectiles 437 
 
 Comte, inventor 404 
 
 Congress, first grants letters pat- 
 ent 48 
 
 Congress, power of, as to patents.. 425 
 
 World's, at Chicago 447 
 
 Congressional library, copyright 
 
 books in 153 
 
 Connecticut, early copyright laws 
 
 in 154 
 
 Connecticut, early patents in 45 
 
 Connolly, A. A 20 
 
 Constitutional convention 313 
 
 Constitutional liberty established. 60 
 Constitutional privileges to in- 
 ventors 47 
 
 Contract office, postal service 442 
 
 Conway, Rev. Moncure D 322 
 
 Conwell, John P 48S 
 
 Cook, George W 489 
 
 Cooke, electric telegraph.. 183, 187, 188 
 
 electro - magnetic escape- 
 ment 191 
 
 Cooking, improved methods of.... 227 
 
 rules for 226 
 
 Cooley, W. B 16 
 
INDEX. 
 
 529 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cooper, George 497 
 
 Cooper, Peter, railroad locomotive 131 
 
 Copp, H. N 487 
 
 Copyright, constitutional provi- 
 sion for 316 
 
 Copyright, duration of. 146, 148 
 
 international 149, 159 
 
 in United States in 1787 47 
 
 laws, early, in colonies 154 
 
 provided for by constitution 146 
 
 reasons for granting 383 
 
 statistics, 1870-1890 156 
 
 system of United States 27 
 
 system, origin and growth 
 
 of 145 
 
 Corbin, Mrs. Lettice 336 
 
 Corey, Rev. Dr. George H 26 
 
 Corliss, George H., improved 
 
 steam engine 270, 280 
 
 Corliss, Wm 496 
 
 Corson & McCartney 487 
 
 Cory, A. M 494 
 
 Cory ton, on early patent law 44 
 
 Coston, Mrs 26 
 
 Cotton, exports of, in 1890 138 
 
 first cultivated in America 
 
 in 1621 133 
 
 increase in consumption of. 89 
 
 Cotton gin 384, 408, 479 
 
 invention of. 122 
 
 one of the seven wonders... 71 
 
 origin of 137 
 
 Whitney's 136 
 
 Cotton industry, development of.. 137 
 
 increase of wages in lor 
 
 Cotton mills, first in America in 
 
 1787 137 
 
 Cotton oil industry, development 
 
 of 139 
 
 Cotton picker, Campbell's 130 
 
 Cotton tie, McComb 130 
 
 Cottrell, C. B 496 
 
 Couillaird, inventions of 459 
 
 Courtois, discovered iodine 304 
 
 Cowles, R. P 488 
 
 Cowper, autographic telegraph 193, 194 
 Cox, EckleyB 496 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cox, W. V 16, 489 
 
 Coxe, electrolysis telegraph 179 
 
 Craik, Nancy 376 
 
 Crane, Walter E 488 
 
 Cranford, H. L 16, 489 
 
 Crawford, Valentine 343 
 
 Creative faculty, development of. 64 
 
 Creigh, Alfred E 497 
 
 Critic Record, The 489 
 
 Crompton, Samuel, mule-spinning 
 
 machine 81 
 
 Compton, Samuel, spinning mule 137 
 
 Crook, Abel 494 
 
 Crosby, G. S 494 
 
 Crounse, W. 1/ 18 
 
 Crowell, Luther C 494 
 
 Culpeper, Thomas (Lord) 320 
 
 Cuntz, Johannes H 494 
 
 Currency, present condition of. ... 61 
 
 Curry, Hon. J. L. M 40, 41 
 
 Curtet, electric light 287 
 
 Curtis, W. E 18 
 
 Custis, G. W. Park 342 
 
 Cycles, various forms of. 482 
 
 Dagworthy, Captain 326 
 
 Dahlgreen 441 
 
 Danforth, inventions of. 459 
 
 Daniel, Senator J. W 21, 25, 26 
 
 on the New South 129 
 
 Daniel's machine for shearing 
 
 cloth 459 
 
 Darwin 404 
 
 Davids, Charles H 494 
 
 Davis, E. G 16 
 
 Davis, Lewis J 16, 489 
 
 Davis, M. F. 492 
 
 Davy, Edward, chemical telegraph 191 
 
 electric arc 287 
 
 Davy's safety lamp 136 
 
 Dawson, E. M 16, 41 
 
 Deane, Llewellyn 14, 487, 489 
 
 Deen, Miss Sarah C ^.. 26 
 
 De Grain, R. F 489 
 
 DeGraw, P. V 18 
 
 Delano, Thomas H 494 
 
 Delany, multiplex telegraph 193 
 
530 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Denmark, Hanseatic League in.... 474 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Densmore, Edson S : 19 
 
 Department of State, Patent Office 
 
 under 453 
 
 De Schweinitz, E. A 489 
 
 Devine & Keenan 487 
 
 Dewey, Frederic P 489 
 
 Dewey's machine for shearing 
 
 cloth 459 
 
 Dick, E. A 16 
 
 Dickerson, Governor 467 
 
 Diehl, Philip 494 
 
 Dietrick, F. G 489 
 
 Digges, cotton oil press 139 
 
 Dlnwiddie, Governor 324 
 
 Displacement of labor by inven- 
 tions 82 
 
 Ditto, Nelson J 15 
 
 Dodds, E 492 
 
 Dodge, Philip T 16, 487, 489 
 
 Dodge, W. C 15, 489 
 
 on the origin, nature and 
 
 efifect of patents 473 
 
 Dodge, W. C, &Sons 487 
 
 Dodge, W.H 492 
 
 Dodge, W. W 489 
 
 Dolbear, telephone 198 
 
 Dolbear, A. E 493 
 
 Doolittle, W. H 14, 487, 489 
 
 Doubleday, H. H 17, 487, 489 
 
 Douglas, Henry T 42 
 
 Douglass, Hon. J. W 12, 40 
 
 Douglass, J. Walter 496 
 
 Dow, George E 488 
 
 Dowling, Thomas, Jr 489 
 
 Downham, E- E 41 
 
 Drainage, improved methods of... 221 
 
 Drama, origin of 406 
 
 Drugs and chemicals, manufac- 
 turers of. 415 
 
 Du Bois, James T 3, 15, 41, 489 
 
 Du Bois, R. G 16, 20, 489 
 
 Dubois & Dubois 487 
 
 Due, Henry A., Jr 496 
 
 Dudley, Charles B 496 
 
 Dudley, Charles J 488 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dudley, Lord Edward, iron works 
 
 of 133 
 
 Dudley, William 320 
 
 Dudley, Hon. W. W 15, 487 
 
 Du%, O. E 19, 42, 48?) 489 
 
 Duhamel, James F 15 
 
 Duncanson, C. C 17 
 
 Dunnell, E. G 18 
 
 Durgin, Henry J 494 
 
 Duryee, Schuyler 18, 41, 487, 497 
 
 Dutton, Major Clarence E 29, 41 
 
 on influence of invention on 
 
 modem warfare 293 
 
 Dwelling house, construction of... 219 
 
 Dyer, Frank I, 19, 489 
 
 Dynamite gun, Zalinski 299 
 
 Dynamite torpedo gun 437 
 
 Dynamometers 482 
 
 Dyre, Will E 19 
 
 Dyrenforth, R. G. 16, 487 
 
 Eagle Pencil Company 494 
 
 Earl, Mr 465 
 
 Early, Charles .'.... 16 
 
 Easte, Charles H 493 
 
 Ecaubert, F 494 
 
 Economic influence of inventions. . 93 
 
 Edgeworth, R. L., telegraph 176 
 
 semaphore telegraph 184 
 
 Edison,Thomas A..22, 136, 411, 423, 494 
 
 copying telegraph 192 
 
 electric light 125 
 
 harmonic telegraph 193 
 
 telephone 19S 
 
 Edlund, duplex telegraph 192 
 
 Edmonds, Walter D ^ 494 
 
 Edson, John Joy 20, 487 
 
 Edson, J. R 19, 4S9 
 
 Education, present systems of. 70 
 
 Edward IH of England, statutes 
 
 against monopolies 476 
 
 Edwards, John C 20, 493 
 
 Elder, J. T 496 
 
 Electrical Engineers, Institute of.. 22 
 Electrical science, effect of inven- 
 tion upon progress of 287 
 
 Electricity, animal 303 
 
INDEX. 
 
 531 
 
 Electricity, application of, one of 
 
 seven wonders 71 
 
 Electricity, static 287 
 
 Electric light, introduction of 125 
 
 Electric lighting 224 
 
 Electric locomotive, about 1844... 131 
 Electric railway, high speed on... 172 
 
 Weem's system 172 
 
 Electrolysis, researches in 287 
 
 Electrolysis telegraph, origin of... 179 
 
 Electro-magnet 303 
 
 Electro-magnetic telegraph, in- 
 ventors of. 186 
 
 Electroplating, a new industry 90 
 
 Electro Technical Society, Ger- 
 many 33 
 
 Elevator, Otis 126 
 
 Elliot, Charles A 12, 469 
 
 Elliot, Emily 454 
 
 Elliot, John Bowman 454 
 
 Elliot, Miss Mary E 469 
 
 Elliot, Seth Alfred 454 
 
 Elliot, William 453, 459 
 
 biography of. 454 
 
 Elliot, William Parker. .. .459, 460, 468 
 architect of Patent Office... 454 
 
 biography of 469 
 
 extracts from diary of. 464 
 
 letter from Ellsworth to 463 
 
 letter from Ruggles to 462 
 
 Elliott, W. St Jean 489 
 
 Ellis, E. Everett 16, 489 
 
 Ellsworth, Henry I,...52, 462, 467, 468 
 first Commissioner of Pat- 
 ents o 
 
 on needs of Patent Office... 457 
 
 Elting, Irving 494 
 
 Ely, G. S 489 
 
 Ely, Theo. N 41. 49^ 
 
 Emanuel, Philip Albert 496 
 
 Emerson, J. E..... 49^ 
 
 Emerson, Talcott & Co 492 
 
 Emery, Albert H 482, 488 
 
 Emery, Matthew G 12, 26, 487, 489 
 
 Emme, Michael 492 
 
 Emmens, Stephen H 496 
 
 Empire City Electric Company.... 488 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Endicott, Mordecai T 42 
 
 Engines, bisulphide of carbon 247 
 
 improved, for navy 439 
 
 steam..ii3, 114, 251, 275, 281, 480 
 
 Engineers' banquet 42 
 
 England at the World's Exposition 448 
 
 England, early patent laws in 112 
 
 foreign commerce of. 474 
 
 Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 history of monopolies in 476 
 
 law of monopolies in 201 
 
 letter of congratulation from 34 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 revision of patent laws in . . . 55 
 
 patent system of. 116, 477 
 
 English operatives, improved con- 
 dition of 107 
 
 English system of patents 50 
 
 Ennis, H. J 19 
 
 Envelope machine, Clarke's 130 
 
 Epoch - making inventions of 
 
 America 121 
 
 Ericsson 163 
 
 improved steamboats 124 
 
 locomotive novelty 165 
 
 movable turret 441 
 
 screw propeller 441 
 
 Eschner, l/ouis 496 
 
 Eskimo, seal-skin boat of. 409 
 
 Ethical influence of inventions.... 92 
 
 Ethnology 406 
 
 Evans, inventions of 459 
 
 Evans, A. H 15, 490 
 
 Evans, George W 490 
 
 Evans, Oliver, steam carriage in 
 
 1787 46 
 
 Evening Star Newspaper Co 487 
 
 Everett, Dr. C. C, quoted 95 
 
 Everett, H. S 16, 490 
 
 Eversman, Ernst A 495 
 
 Ewin, James I, 15, 487, 490 
 
 on the minor inventions of 
 
 the century 481 
 
 Ewing, Thomas, Jr 494 
 
 Exchange, as an invention 406 
 
 Executive committee, circulars of.. 7, 8 
 
 duties of 12 
 
532 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Expansion of labor by invention.. 88 
 
 Extension of patents 52, 118 
 
 Fairfax, Bryan 343 
 
 Fairfax, Lord, deed to "Washing- 
 ton from 321 
 
 Faraday 303 
 
 induction of electric cur- 
 rents 181, 182 
 
 laws of electrolysis of 387 
 
 Fare, register 481 
 
 Farm Implement News 492 
 
 Farmer, M. G 492 
 
 duplex telegraph 192 
 
 multiplex telegraph 193 
 
 Fasoldt, Ernest C 494 
 
 Fava, Naef&Co 487 
 
 Fava, Francis R., Jr 20, 42, 490 
 
 Fawcette, N. S 16 
 
 Fearey, Frederick I, 494 
 
 Feilbogen, Moriss 494 
 
 Felben, Jacob 494 
 
 Fendall, Reginald 15 
 
 Fenwick, Benjamin 454 
 
 Penwick, E. T IS 
 
 Fenwick, Robert W 3, 41, 487, 490 
 
 on the old and new Patent 
 
 office 453 
 
 Feudal system 78 
 
 Field, C.J 494 
 
 Finance Committee, members of.. 14 
 Financial importance of American 
 
 patents 432 
 
 Financial importance of patent 
 
 system 423 
 
 Finckel, W. H 15, 490 
 
 Fine arts, ennobling influence of. 66 
 
 Fisher, Commissioner 480 
 
 Fisher, Hon. Robert J 12, 490 
 
 Fisher, S. F 490 
 
 Fisher, Hon. SamuelS 152 
 
 Fisher, William Hubbell 495 
 
 Fish ladders and hatcheries, Mc- 
 Donald's 130 
 
 Fitch, John, patent to, in 1790 49 
 
 steamboat in 1787 46, 133 
 
 Fitzgerald, Colonel 376 
 
 Fitzgerald, W. F 487 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fitzgerald, W. T. 16, 490 
 
 Fleetwood, C. V 495 
 
 Florida, inventors from 130 
 
 Flowers, M. F. W 26 
 
 Flying machines 172 
 
 Fly-shuttle, invented in 1738 79, 80 
 
 Kay's 137 
 
 Folger, Commodore William M... 12 
 
 Folk-lore 406 
 
 Food, cost of daily ration of. 227 
 
 nutritive value of. 227 
 
 rules for cooking 226 
 
 Foote, Allen R 490 
 
 Forbes, Francis 494 
 
 Forney, E. 490 
 
 Fort Duquesne 329 
 
 Forth bridge, dimensions of 167 
 
 Foster, Hon. Charles 41 
 
 on American patents from 
 the financial standpoint. 40, 432 
 
 Foster, Charles E 15 
 
 Foster & Freeman 487, 490 
 
 Fouquet, Leon C 492 
 
 Fowler, C. H 18, 487, 490 
 
 Fowler, Francis 490 
 
 Fox, E. H 26 
 
 Fox, Oscar C 487, 490 
 
 Fox, William C 18, 26 
 
 Fraley, Hon. Frederick 22, 27, 496 
 
 France, Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 law of monopolies in 201 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 patent medicines in 417 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin.. 291, 316, 373, 382, 
 
 385, 430 
 Franklin, Benjamin, printing press 53 
 
 Franklin Institute 23 
 
 Eraser, Daniel 490 
 
 Eraser, Donald 154 
 
 Freight rates in England 162 
 
 French Commissioner of Patents, 
 
 greetings from 35 
 
 French, Dr. William B 16, 490 
 
 Prischen, duplex telegraph 192 
 
 Fritz, Theo. H 493 
 
 Prothingham, N. L 490 
 
 Fruit wrapper, Stevens 130 
 
INDEX. 
 
 533 
 
 Proment, telegraphic apparatus... i88 
 Frothingham, Hon. N. L....20, 26, 42, 
 
 487 
 
 Fry, Col. Joshua 325 
 
 Fryer, RobertM 490 
 
 Puller, M.M 490 
 
 Puller, Warren & Co 222 
 
 Fulton, Robert, developed the tor- 
 pedo 441 
 
 Fulton, Robert, steamboat.... 123, 136, 
 
 459 
 Fulton, Robert, steam navigation. 441 
 Future of the American Patent 
 system 426 
 
 Gale, Dr., work on Morse tele- 
 graph 185, 186 
 
 Gale, Major T. M 16, 20 
 
 Galileo, reference to magnetic 
 
 needle 177 
 
 Gallaher, Dr. M. F 26 
 
 Gallaudet, E. M 490 
 
 Gait, M. W 16, 490 
 
 Galvani, experiments of. 179 
 
 on animal electricity 303 
 
 Galvanic telegraph, origin of. 179 
 
 Galvanometer, origin of. 179 
 
 Galvanoscope, origin of. 179 
 
 Gammell, A. M 496 
 
 Gardner, Lawrence 20, 41, 487, 490 
 
 Gamier, copying telegraph 192 
 
 Garrett, H 49° 
 
 Gatling, Dr. R.J 21, 26, 38, 41, 488 
 
 address by 452 
 
 Gatling gun 130, 301, 436 
 
 Gauss, needle telegraph 180 
 
 Gaynor, fire telegraph 130 
 
 Gedney & Roberts 487 
 
 Genius, power of. 57 
 
 Georges, J. J 49° 
 
 Georgia, coal product of. 141 
 
 inventors of 130 
 
 German Patent Office, letter from.. 32 
 Germany, at World's Exposition.. 448 
 
 coal-tar industry of. 306 
 
 Hanseatic League of. 473 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Germany, patent laws of. 214 
 
 revision of patent laws in... 55 
 Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the 
 
 Roman Empire" quoted 263 
 
 Gibbs, sewing-machine 130, 136 
 
 Gibson Brothers 487 
 
 Gilbert, Dr 287 
 
 Gilbert, Prof G. K 28 
 
 Gill, Charles C 494 
 
 Gill, J. G., cartridge-machine..30o, 438 
 
 Gill, Theo. N 490 
 
 Gilman, Charles Carroll 492 
 
 Gintl, telegraphic apparatus 192 
 
 Glass, malleable, invention of. 72 
 
 Glass industry, cost of production 
 
 in 223 
 
 Glassware, cost of production 389 
 
 Glowes, cotton-oil press 139 
 
 Gooch, C.J 15 
 
 Goode, Dr. G. Brown.. 11, 14, 26, 42, 490 
 Goodman, Agdalena S., broom 
 
 brushes 131 
 
 Goodrich, Harry C 492 
 
 Goodwin, John M 496 
 
 Goodyear, industries established 
 
 by 91 
 
 Goodyear, vulcanized rubber 430 
 
 Gore, Prof. J. Howard 27 
 
 Gormully, R.Philip 492 
 
 Gorrie, ice machine 130 
 
 Gorton, Robert 494 
 
 Gould, Aaron P 495 
 
 Gould, C. G 490 
 
 Government as an invention 406 
 
 Gower, telephone 198 
 
 Granger, James B 494 
 
 Grant, Hon. Lewis A 40, 41, 448 
 
 on American patents in the 
 
 Army 40, 434 
 
 Grants by kings in early days 474 
 
 Graphic art 406 
 
 Graphophone, importance of. 481 
 
 Graton, H. C 493 
 
 Graves, D. H 49O 
 
 Gray, Elisha 492 
 
 harmonic telegraph 193 
 
 telautograph 193 
 
534 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gray, Elisha, telephone 197 
 
 Gray, Hon. George 11, 42 
 
 Gray, Stephen, conveyance of elec- 
 trical influence by wire 177 
 
 Gray, Prof. Thomas 41, 492 
 
 on inventors of telegraph 
 
 and telephone 27, 175 
 
 Greece, marine statistics of 163 
 
 Greeley, E. S 494 
 
 Greeley, E. S., & Co 488 
 
 Greeley, Gen. A. W ._ 12 
 
 Green, Bernard R 42 
 
 Green, M. M 496 
 
 Green, Noble T 280 
 
 Green, Norvin 22 
 
 Green, O. C 16 
 
 Green, William 320 
 
 Greene, Wallace 18, 490 
 
 Gregg, M. E 15, 49° 
 
 Gregory, G. W 488, 493 
 
 Gridley, James H 15, 487, 490 
 
 Griffin, Eugene 493 
 
 Griggs, patents to 459 
 
 Griscom, F. R 493 
 
 Guarantee fund, list of subscribers 
 
 to 487 
 
 Guilds, merchant, origin of. 474 
 
 Gun, dynamite torpedo 437 
 
 Gatling 436 
 
 Gun, magazine 301 
 
 steel wire wound 436 
 
 Guns, compressed air 437 
 
 improvements in steel 436 
 
 increased range of. 435 
 
 propulsion of. 436 
 
 rapid fire 294 
 
 range-finder for 436 
 
 screw breech mechanism 
 
 for 436 
 
 Gun-barrels, manufacture of. 294 
 
 Gun-cotton, discovery of. 298 
 
 Gunpowder, Chinese the invent- 
 ors of. 429 
 
 Gunpowder, control of action of... 296 
 
 slow-burning 436 
 
 smokeless 436 
 
 Gun steel, manufacture of. 297 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gurley & Stevens 487 
 
 Guthridge, Jules 18 
 
 Guttenberg, printing press 53 
 
 Hagen, Arthur T 494 
 
 Hains, Robert? 490 
 
 Haire, R.J 494 
 
 Halford, E. W 21, 41 
 
 Hall, Augustus R 496 
 
 Hall, Julien A 42 
 
 Hall, William P 494 
 
 Hallidie, A. S 488 
 
 Hallock, William 495 
 
 Halshe, copying telegraph 192 
 
 telegraphic apparatus 188 
 
 Halsted, John J 16, 487, 490 
 
 Hamblet, telegraphic apparatus... 188 
 
 Hambleton, Francis H 42 
 
 Hamilton 404 
 
 Hamilton, Dr. J. B 26 
 
 Hamlin, Dr. Tennis S 26 
 
 Hampton Roads, international 
 
 naval assembly in 142 
 
 Hand-production, age of. 79 
 
 Handy, Charles W 487 
 
 Handy, F. A. G 18 
 
 Hanes, John „. 494 
 
 Hannah, Miss Ruth. 27 
 
 Hanseatic League, powers of. 473 
 
 Harding, Miss 490 
 
 Hargreaves, James, spinning 
 
 jenny 80 
 
 Harlan, Mr. Justice 40 
 
 on Supreme Court of United 
 States as related to Amer- 
 ican Patent System 425 
 
 Harlow, M. B 41 
 
 Harmon, O. S 495 
 
 Harper, James 460 
 
 Harris, John F 495 
 
 Harris, Hon. William T 32, 41 
 
 on relation of invention to 
 the newspaper and book.. 393 
 
 Harriss, Dr. G. W i6 
 
 Harrison, Governor 345 
 
 Harrison, President 7, 23, 35 
 
 Harrover, J. J 16, 490 
 
INDEX. 
 
 535 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hart, A. W 49° 
 
 Hart, W. H 488 
 
 Harvester 480 
 
 one of seven wonders 71 
 
 steam 407 
 
 Hastings, A. Horace 495 
 
 Hathaway, Thomas H 493 
 
 Hatton, Prank 18 
 
 Hawaii, patent laws of. 213 
 
 Hay, Col. E. B 20, 26 
 
 Hayden, John J 490 
 
 Hays, H. V 493 
 
 Hayward, H. S 494 
 
 Hazlehurst, George B 42 
 
 Heating and cooking, improve- 
 
 mentsin 224 
 
 Helm, M. D 17, 42, 487, 490 
 
 Helmholtz 404 
 
 Henderson, W. G 15, 487, 490 
 
 Hendley, C. M 41 
 
 Henry, Professor Joseph 303 
 
 electro-magnetic telegraph. 190 
 experiments in electro-mag- 
 netism 184 
 
 experiments with magnets.. 288 
 induction of electric cur- 
 rents 181, 182 
 
 telegraph 167 
 
 Henry, Patrick 319, 379 
 
 Herman, Robert 490 
 
 Hero's "Pneumatica" cited 261 
 
 Hertz, electrical science 290 
 
 Herzog, F. B 495 
 
 Hewitt, Hon. Abram S 22 
 
 Hickman, l/ouis C 496 
 
 Higdon, John C 493 
 
 Higginbottom, Charles T 488 
 
 Higgins, Charles M 495 
 
 Highton, H. and E., needle tele- 
 graph 188 
 
 Hill, B. B 496 
 
 Hill, Charles J 49° 
 
 History of the celebration 3 
 
 Hitchcock, I,. R 495 
 
 Hobday, John, threshing machine 372 
 
 Hoe, printing press 53, 86, 136 
 
 Hoe's cylinder press 126 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hoen, Ernest 493 
 
 Hoffecker, W. "L, 494 
 
 Hoffman, W.J 16 
 
 Hoge, Thomas 490 
 
 Hoisting appliances on naval ves- 
 sels 440 
 
 Holland, Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Hollerith, Herman 487, 490 
 
 HoUey, Alexander L 166 
 
 Holt, Commissioner 478, 480 
 
 Holton, Frederick A 19 
 
 Holtzman, George M 27 
 
 Homestead laws 475 
 
 Hook, Dr. Robert, proposal for a 
 
 telegraph 176 
 
 Hook, mechanical telephone in 
 
 1667 196 
 
 Hope, S. W 489 
 
 Hopkins, Samuel, first United 
 
 States patent granted to 49 
 
 Hopkins, Thomas S 16, 490 
 
 Hotchkiss, mention of. 441 
 
 revolving cannon 436 
 
 Hough, F. H 19 
 
 Hough, Walter 16, 490 
 
 Houghton, smokeless powder 436 
 
 Hours of labor, reduction in 101 
 
 House, effect of invention upon 
 
 the 217 
 
 House fittings, invention in 221 
 
 Housefurnishing,improvements in 224 
 
 How, W. Storer 496 
 
 Howard, Clem W 16 
 
 Howard, George H 15, 487, 490 
 
 Howard, G. T 16 
 
 Howard, Henry 496 
 
 Howard, H. J. M 490 
 
 Howard, James L 488 
 
 Howard, R.J 41 
 
 Howard, William H 493 
 
 Howe, Elias, sewing machine..66, 122, 
 
 136 
 
 Howe, Elmer P 493 
 
 Howland, E. C 18 
 
 Howland, J. G 26 
 
 Howson, Henry 496 
 
536 
 
 INDM}{. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Howson & Howson 488 
 
 Hoyt, Iv. H 488 
 
 Hubbard, Hon. Gardiner G..21, 22, 37, 
 38, 41, 452, 487, 490 
 
 Hubbel, William Wheeler 490 
 
 Hudson, John E 493 
 
 Hudson, T.J ; 49° 
 
 Hughes, D. E., type-printing tele- 
 graph 190 
 
 Hughes, telephone 198 
 
 Hulse, M. , judge of textiles 54 
 
 Humaston, copying telegraph 192 
 
 Humboldt, teachings of. 404 
 
 Hume, Frank 16, 490 
 
 Hunt, Conway B 42 
 
 Hunt, William C 27 
 
 Huntington, Benjamin, introduced 
 bill in first Congress granting 
 
 letters patent 47 
 
 Huntingdon, Mr., of Connecticut.. 134 
 
 Hunnings, telephone 198 
 
 Hyatt, J. W 497 
 
 Hyde, John 27 
 
 Hyer, John D 490 
 
 Hyslop, John, Jr 493 
 
 Ice machine, Gorrie 130 
 
 Illinois, contributions of, to World's 
 
 Exposition 445 
 
 Indenture for service as mason 336 
 
 Indian axe, method of making 235 
 
 Indian Bureau in Patent Office 
 
 Building 470 
 
 Industrial art, development in 108 
 
 Industrial arts, history of 77 
 
 Industrial history, divisions of..... 78 
 Industrial property, international 
 
 protection of. 199 
 
 Ingalls, Owen L... 42 
 
 Ingram, Thomas D 490 
 
 Institute of Electrical Engineers.. 22 
 
 Institute of Naval Architects 440 
 
 Instrumental drawing, value of.... 244 
 Interior Department in the Patent 
 
 Office building 470 
 
 International American Confer- 
 ence 211 
 
 PAGE 
 
 International convention for pro- 
 tection of industrial property... 209 
 
 International copyright 159 
 
 International patent rights 214 
 
 International protection of indus- 
 trial property 28, 199, 209 
 
 Invention and Advancement, Sen- 
 ator Piatt on 24, 57 
 
 Invention and modern welfare 293 
 
 birth of. 403. 428 
 
 definition of. 63, 441 
 
 effect of, on the railroad, etc. 161 
 effect of, upon the progress 
 
 of electrical science 287 
 
 Invention, expansion of labor by.. 88 
 
 former meaning of term 477 
 
 improves Christianity 69 
 
 in its effects upon household 
 
 economy 217 
 
 Invention, labor benefited by 73 
 
 motive of. 72 
 
 object of 68 
 
 of the steam engine 251 
 
 relation of, to agriculture... 25 
 
 relation of, to labor 24, 77 
 
 relation of, to newspaper 
 
 and book 393 
 
 Invention, the New South as an 
 
 outgrowth of. 129 
 
 Invention, the spirit of. 59 
 
 Inventions, benefit of new 479 
 
 economic influence of. 93 
 
 epoch-making 121 
 
 epoch-making, of America.. 24 
 
 ethical influence of. 92 
 
 financial importance of..423, 432 
 in medicine, surgery, and 
 
 sanitation 413 
 
 Inventions in Southarn States 130 
 
 international protection of. . 200 
 
 minor, of the century 481 
 
 occupations created by 90 
 
 property in 203, 313 
 
 Inventive age 93 
 
 birth of. 79 
 
 Inventor, rights of 478 
 
 Inventors, need of encouraging. .. . 383 
 
INDEX. 
 
 537 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Invitation to attend celebration, 
 
 form of 8 
 
 Iodine discovered by Courtois 304 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop 41, 448 
 
 Iron, abundant in tbe South 139 
 
 Iron age 78 
 
 Iron, increased consumption of.... 89 
 Iron industry in Virginia in 1619.. 133 
 
 statistics of. 140 
 
 Iron mines, output of. 61 
 
 Iron stoves and ranges, introduc- 
 tion of. 225 
 
 Italy, at World's Exposition 448 
 
 Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Jackson, President Andrew.... 444, 455, 
 
 461 
 Jackson, Andrew, Patent Office 
 
 begun under 50 
 
 Jackson, Dr., electro-magnetic tel- 
 egraph 186 
 
 Jackson, Major 319 
 
 Jackson, William 493 
 
 James I of England, monopolies 
 
 under 476 
 
 Jamestown, Va., manufacturers at 
 
 in 1608 132 
 
 Janney, car coupler 130 
 
 Jaques, W.H 496 
 
 Jay,Hon. John 22 
 
 Jayne, J. W 27 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, author of the 
 
 American patent system 133 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, signed first 
 
 American patent 134 
 
 Jenckes, Hon. Thomas A 152 
 
 Jenks, Joseph, improved scythe in 
 
 1646 45 
 
 Jennings, Isaiah, thimbles for 
 
 sails 51 
 
 Jesuits introduced cannon into 
 
 China 429 
 
 Johns, Prank D 19, 487, 490 
 
 Johnson, A. E. H 19 
 
 Johnson, Arnolds 16 
 
 Johnson, E. Kurtz 490 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Johnson, E.T 495 
 
 Johnson, Eugene W 17, 20, 490 
 
 Johnson, Iver 493 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, quoted 145 
 
 Johnson, Lewis & Co 487 
 
 Johnson, T.J 15 ' 
 
 Johnson, Walter 20, 487, 490 
 
 Johnson, W. J 41 
 
 Johnson & Johnson 487, 490 
 
 Johnston, Miss E. B 376 
 
 Johnston, Reinohl & Dyre 487, 490 
 
 Johnston, T. J 490 
 
 Johnston, W. J 495 
 
 Jones, Charles S 19, 490 
 
 Jones, Dr., superintendent of Pat- 
 ent Office 51 
 
 Jones, Horace K 488 
 
 Jones, John Paul 16 
 
 Jones, J. Thomas 495 
 
 Joule, inventions of. 404 
 
 Joyce, Maurice 490 
 
 Judson, AndrewT 460 
 
 Justice, as an invention 406 
 
 ICaufmann, C. H 495 
 
 Kaufiinann, S. H 18, 42, 490 
 
 Kay, John, fly shuttle 79, 80, 137 
 
 Keane, Rt. Rev. Bishop 40, 41 
 
 Keasbey, A. Q 494 
 
 Keefe, Francis 492 
 
 Keim, De B. Randolph 18 
 
 Keller, Charles M., advocate in 
 
 patent causes 52 
 
 Kelly, D.J 490 
 
 Kelly, William, steel making 136 
 
 Kemp, J. R 490 
 
 Kenaday, A. M 49° 
 
 Kendall, Amos 465 
 
 Kennedy, W. P 17 
 
 Kentucky, coal product of. 141 
 
 inventors from 130 
 
 Kenyon, Robert Nelson 495 
 
 Kenyon, W. H 495 
 
 Kepler, gravitation 404 
 
 Kessler, concealed arts, cited 175 
 
 Keyworth, John 16 
 
 Kilmer Manufacturing Company.. 495 
 
538 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 King, Mrs. H. L 26 
 
 King, Prof. Harry 16, 41, 490 
 
 Kingjohn of England 476 
 
 Kingsley, John F 496 
 
 Kinnan, A. F 49° 
 
 Kirch.ofiF', chemical identity of all 
 
 worlds 404 
 
 Kirby, Frank E 493 
 
 Kneass, Strickland 496 
 
 Knight, George H 493 
 
 Knight, HerveyS 17 
 
 Knight, Octavius 16 
 
 Knight, William E 49° 
 
 Knox, General, letter from Wash- 
 ington to 350 
 
 Knox, George W 487 
 
 Koch's lymph '. 418 
 
 Konow, W., letter from 35 
 
 Koskul, Frederick 496 
 
 Kramer, telegraphic apparatus 188 
 
 Krupp guns 296 
 
 Kuehling, Mrs 26 
 
 Labels, copyrighted 156 
 
 Labor, associated benefit-of. 75 
 
 benefited by invention 73 
 
 decreased cost of. 223 
 
 displacement of, by inven- 
 tions 82 
 
 effect of division of. 99 
 
 power of educated 102, 105 
 
 relation of invention to 77 
 
 Labor-saving inventions 83, 84 
 
 Lacey, A. P 487 
 
 Lacey, E. S 41 
 
 Lacey, R. S 15, 487 
 
 Lack, H. Reader, letter from 34 
 
 Lake, WilmoL 490 
 
 Lamarck 404 
 
 Lamasure, Edwin 16 
 
 Lamb, Dr. D. S 16, 490 
 
 Lambie, James B 487 
 
 Lambom, Robert H 495 
 
 Lancaster, Annie S 469 
 
 Land, C. H 493 
 
 Land grants, early 475 
 
 Land Office in Patent Office Build- 
 ing 470 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lane, C. H 49° 
 
 Lane, F. N 20 
 
 Lang, Louis J 18 
 
 Langerfeld, A 495 
 
 Langley, Prof. Samuel P ir, 21, 22, 
 
 28, 490 
 
 address as presiding officer.. 235 
 
 Lansburg, Max 493 
 
 Laundry machine 373 
 
 Lapham, William 26 
 
 Lapham, William R 19, 26, 42, 487 
 
 La Place, mathematician 241 
 
 Law, early English, relating to 
 
 patents 44 
 
 Law, granting patents in 1790, 1793 49 
 
 patent, a century of iii 
 
 relations of patents and the.. 433 
 Laws, patent, changes in 52 
 
 patent, in Europe 202, 203 
 
 Law's cotton planter 130 
 
 Laws, Mr 191 
 
 Lawrence, DeWitt C 16 
 
 Layden, R. M 26 
 
 Lear, Tobias 367 
 
 Lee, Gov. Henry 318 
 
 Lee, Mrs. Thomas 319 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry 371 
 
 Lefavour, Woodbury P 493 
 
 Leggett, M. D 41 
 
 Leggett, Wells W 493 
 
 Legislation as an invention 406 
 
 Lehmann, F. A 17, 487, 490 
 
 Leibnitz 404 
 
 Lemon, Capt. George E..15, 16, 487, 490 
 
 Lenk, gun-cotton 298 
 
 Le Sage, system of telegraph in 
 
 1774 178 
 
 Leslie, Edward 494 
 
 Letterboxes, private i\\/\ 
 
 Letters of congratulation from for- 
 eign countries 32 
 
 Lewis, Betty, sister of George 
 
 Washington 341 
 
 Lewis, Mrs. D. W 26 
 
 Lewis, Fielding 341 
 
 Lewis, John 319 
 
 Lewis, Wilfred 496 
 
INDEX. 
 
 539 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lewis, Wilhatn B 467 
 
 Ivibrary of Congress, copyright 
 
 books in 150 
 
 Iviebhardt, D. P 16 
 
 I,ighting, improved methods of.... 222 
 
 Lincoln, Charles P 26 
 
 Lincoln, Levi 460, 464, 465 
 
 LinindoU, C. C 495 
 
 Lipps, Henry, Jr 495 
 
 Lister, Charles C 15 
 
 Littell, J. R 18, 487 
 
 Little, copying telegraph 192 
 
 Little, Luther B 18 
 
 Loan exhibition at National Mu- 
 seum 42 
 
 Lobelia system 413 
 
 Locke, Sylvanus D 495 
 
 Locks, rotary registry 442 
 
 Lockwood, George M i6 
 
 Lockwood, Thomas D 493 
 
 Locomotive, bicycle 172 
 
 Ericsson's 165 
 
 Stephenson's 164, 166 
 
 Trevithic's 164 
 
 Locomotives, statistics of. 169 
 
 Logan, Walter S 495 
 
 Lombard, Nathan C 493 
 
 Lomond, system of telegraph in 
 
 1787 178 
 
 Longsbieth, Edward 496 
 
 Loom, power 81, 86, 482 
 
 Cartwright's 137 
 
 Lomis, Burdett 489 
 
 Lord, T. W 487, 490 
 
 Lorimer, John H 496 
 
 Loring, G. B 490 
 
 Louisiana, inventors from 130 
 
 Low, H. N 17 
 
 Lowrey, Benno 495 
 
 Lowrey, G. P 495 
 
 Lowrey, W 490 
 
 Luce, Dr 26 
 
 Lumber, abundant in the South... 139 
 
 Lunar Society of Birmingham 239 
 
 Lusk, James L 42 
 
 Lyman, Charles 490 
 
 Lyman, Commissioner 26 
 
 Lyman, Mrs 26 
 
 Lynch, Hon. John....3, 5, 8, 13, 22, 25, 
 
 27. 31, 32, 41. 490 
 
 resolutions on death of. 485 
 
 Lynch, Hon. W.J 21, 41 
 
 Lyons, Jos 490 
 
 McCabe, J 21 
 
 McCabe, Hon. Thomas 41 
 
 McCammon, Joseph K.. 15, 42, 487, 491 
 
 McClellan, Felix G 495 
 
 McComb, cotton tie 130 
 
 McComb, David E 42 
 
 McCormick reaper 66, 126, 130 
 
 McDonald, James J 26 
 
 McDonald, Col. Marshall. ..12, 42, 491 
 McDonald, fish-ladders and hatch- 
 eries 130 
 
 McElroy, John 18 
 
 McElroy, J. P 495 
 
 McFarland, W. D 19 
 
 McGill, J. Nota 17 
 
 Mclntire, C. H 494 
 
 Mclntire, W. C..16, 20, 26, 41, 487, 491 
 
 McKay, shoe machine 84 
 
 McKee, D. R 18 
 
 McKibben, Col. Joseph C 17 
 
 McKnight, Wharton 15 
 
 McLaughlin, Capt. P. H 41 
 
 McLean, Nichol & Dorsey 491 
 
 McMahon, P. J 492 
 
 McMichael, Hon. William 15, 488 
 
 Macaulay, quoted 252 
 
 Macbeth, George A 496 
 
 Macfarland, H. B. F 41 
 
 Machine guns, rapid fire 294 
 
 Machine production, age of. 79 
 
 Mackey, Samuel W 493 
 
 Madison, James, copyright system, 134 
 
 145 
 Madison, on copyrights in 1787 ... 47 
 Madrid conference on patent 
 
 rights 213 
 
 Magazine gun 301 
 
 ;na Charta, origin of. 475 
 
 provisions of. 475 
 
540 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Magnetic needle, early knowledge 
 
 of. 177 
 
 Magnus, King of Sweden 474 
 
 Magowen, Mr 339 
 
 Maher, Mary Ann 469 
 
 Mail locks, registry 442 
 
 Mail transportation, rapid 443 
 
 Main, patent case of. 210 
 
 Mallet, Edmond : 26 
 
 Malm, Alexander 495 
 
 Man, early history of. 404, 405 
 
 primitive 410 
 
 Manderson, Senator 26 
 
 Mann, Charles B 493 
 
 Mann, Harry F 496 
 
 Manufactures, a century's prog- 
 ress in 62 
 
 Manufactures, in Virginia, 1608- 
 1651 133 
 
 Manufactures, low state of in Eng- 
 land 112 
 
 Marble, Hon. E. M 11, 487 
 
 Marble, Mason & Caniield 487 
 
 Marean, Morrell 17 
 
 Maret, James 492 
 
 Marindin, Henry L 42 
 
 Marine of principal nations, sta- 
 tistics of 163 
 
 Marine telegraphy 195 
 
 Maron, duplex«telegraph 192 
 
 Marquis, C. F 496 
 
 Marquis of Worcester, cited 175 
 
 Marrill, J. H 490 
 
 Marsh, James A 495 
 
 Marsh, Riverius 494 
 
 Martin, JamesN 496 
 
 Marvin, J. B 11, 487, 490 
 
 Maryland, coal product of. 141 
 
 early patents in 46 
 
 Masius, Alfredo 490 
 
 Mason, George 375 
 
 Mason, Prof. Otis T...3, 32, 38, 41, 490 
 
 on the birth of invention 403 
 
 Massachusetts, early copyright 
 
 laws in 154 
 
 patent granted in 1641 in.... 45 
 Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology 224 
 
 Matthews, Mr. Justice, defines in- 
 vention 63 
 
 Mattingly, William F 16 
 
 Mauro, P 18 
 
 Maury's map of the sea 130 
 
 Maxim, Mr., experiments iu air 
 
 transportation 172 
 
 Maxim, rapid-firing gun 437 
 
 smokeless powder. 436 
 
 Maxson, Louis W 487,491 
 
 Maxwell's electromagnetic theory 
 of light 290 
 
 Mayer, Charles F 22 
 
 Mayer, inventions of 404 
 
 Maynard, Dr. Edward 21, 490 
 
 Maynard, George C 5, 12, 13, 15, 25, 
 
 26, 41, 487, 490 
 
 Maynard, George W 21 
 
 Meade, Capt. R. W 12, 491 
 
 Mechanical inventions, inter- 
 national protection of. 200 
 
 Mechanical telephone 196 
 
 Medart, Philip 493 
 
 Medical literature 420 
 
 schools . 
 
 420 
 
 science, progress in 421 
 
 Medicine, American inventions 
 
 and discoveries in 413 
 
 Medicine, capital iu manufacture 
 
 of. 
 
 415 
 
 Medicine, patent 414 
 
 Mefiford's dynamite gun 437 
 
 Meigs, Gen. M. C 12, 491 
 
 Mellen, E. D 453 
 
 Mendenhall, Prof. T. C 11, 22 
 
 Mercer, Capt. George 326, 330 
 
 Meredith, Col. William M 12 
 
 Merrow, J. M 4S9 
 
 Mertz, Edward P. 
 
 491 
 
 Mexico, railroad statistics of. 16S 
 
 Meyer, multiplex telegraph 193 
 
 Meyer, on nervous excitation 404 
 
 Michenor, Gen. L. T 20 
 
 Microphone transmitters 197 
 
 Middleton, Frank L 19 
 
 Midgley, Thos 435 
 
 Military hospitals, improvements 
 
 i" 420 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S4X 
 
 Military parade and reception 31 
 
 Miller, Aaron 371 
 
 Miller, Joseph R 496 
 
 Miller, W. H 497 
 
 Miller, Hon. W. H. H., on relation 
 
 of patents to the law 40, 433 
 
 Millhauser, B 496 
 
 Milliken, J. A 495 
 
 Mills, Robert 464, 465, 466, 468 
 
 architect of Patent Office..457, 461 
 Mining industries, employes in- 
 creased in 90 
 
 Mining industry, progress in 61 
 
 Mining resources of the South 139 
 
 Minor inventions of the century... 481 
 
 Missouri, coal product of. 141 
 
 Mitchell, Hon. Charles Eliot.. ..12, 21, 
 
 24, 35, 40, 41, 449. 487 
 Mitchell, Hon. Charles Eliot, on 
 birth and growth of American 
 
 patent system 43 
 
 Mitchell, Hon. C. E., on the first 
 century of the American patent 
 
 system 40 
 
 Mitchell, Robert 26 
 
 Models destroyed by fire in 1836... 458 
 
 Models of inventions 116 
 
 Models of patents, museum of 423 
 
 Mohun, Frank 469 
 
 Monitor and revolving turret 480 
 
 Monopolies, abolishment of in 
 
 1623 Ill 
 
 Monopolies, early statute against....43, 
 HI, 201, 476 
 
 Monopolies, history of. 473 
 
 no claim on the law 434 
 
 Monopoly, definition of. 473 
 
 Monroe, R. G 20 
 
 Montgomery, Hon. M. V 11, 42 
 
 Moody, C. D 493 
 
 Moore, D. G 494 
 
 Moore, M. J 491 
 
 Moore, Col. W. G 20 
 
 Moore, W. N 19 
 
 Mordecai, improved powder 436 
 
 Morgan, T.J 491 
 
 Morris, Ballard N 491 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur 374 
 
 Morris, M. L 20 
 
 Morrison, Charles, signaling hy 
 
 electric wires in 1753 177 
 
 lytorrison, J. N 26 
 
 Morrison, R. A 491 
 
 Morse alphabet, author of. 189 
 
 Morse, Jedediah, American Geog- 
 raphy 154 
 
 Morse, Samuel F. B., history of 
 
 invention by 119, 188 
 
 Morse, Professor, discoveries of... 183 
 
 electric telegraph. ..21, 124, 136, 
 
 382 
 
 praise given to 65 
 
 patent sustained 119 
 
 Mortar batteries, power of. 438 
 
 Morton, Prof. Henry 41 
 
 Moseley, C. S 492 
 
 Mosman, Alonzo T 42 
 
 Mount Vernon, Dr. Toner's ad- 
 dress at 313 
 
 Mount Vernon, estate at, divisions 
 
 of 33? 
 
 excursion to 30 
 
 improvements by Washing- 
 ton to 350 
 
 Ladies' Association of. 320 
 
 list of trees at 354 
 
 original grant of, in 1674.... 320 
 purchased by Ladies' Asso- 
 ciation 330 
 
 Moustiers, Count de 375 
 
 Moxham, A.J 496 
 
 Muirhead, duplex telegra,ph 192 
 
 Mule-spinning machine, invented 
 
 in 1776 81 
 
 MuUin, Rafael 491 
 
 Mulvihill, M.J 493 
 
 Mumford, E. H 494 
 
 Muncke, Professor 183 
 
 Munger, R. S 488 
 
 Municipal government, failure of. 448 
 
 Munn & Co 15, 488 
 
 Munson, H. T 495 
 
 Museum of working models pro- 
 posed 423 
 
542 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PVGE 
 
 Music, when originated 406 
 
 Muskets, formerly made by hand 294 
 
 Mussey, R. D 491 
 
 Muzzle-loading rifljE 295 
 
 Myers, H. M 49^ 
 
 Napping cloth, machine for 459 
 
 Naramore, Henry 1/ 493 
 
 National Academy of Medicine. ... 417 
 National Association of Inventors.. 4 
 National Association of Inventors 
 
 and Manufacturers 3, 5, 37 
 
 National Bank of the Republic 487 
 
 National Hall of Sciences at Wash- 
 ington 143 
 
 National Museum, formation of... 235 
 
 loan exhibition at 42 
 
 Naval armor, improvements in 435 
 
 Naval assembly in Hampton 
 
 Roads 142 
 
 Navy, American patents in the..40, 439 
 
 improved condition of 439 
 
 power of European 437 
 
 Navy Department, requirements 
 
 of for steel 440 
 
 Nedden, Fur, duplex telegraph. ... 192 
 
 Neill, Dr. Edward D., quoted 327 
 
 Nevins, Burnet I/., Jr 491 
 
 Newcomen, steam engine 113, 269 
 
 Newell, A. W 496 
 
 Newitt, Edward 493 
 
 New Jersey, early copyright laws 
 
 in 154 
 
 New Jersey, early patents in 46 
 
 Newport, Captain, in Virginia in 
 
 1608 132 
 
 Newport News, Va., foreign trade 
 
 of 142 
 
 Newspaper, a century's progress 
 
 in the 61 
 
 Newspaper, definition of the 400 
 
 publishing, labor saved in... 85 
 relation of invention to the.. 395 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac 295 
 
 gravitation 404 
 
 New York, early copyright laws in 154 
 early patents in 46 
 
 New York City for Columbian Ex- 
 position 445 
 
 New York World, circulation of... 62 
 Nicholson, decompose^ water by 
 
 voltaic battery 287 
 
 Nicholson, decomposition of water 
 
 by galvanic current 179 
 
 Nickel-in-the-slot machine 481 
 
 Nishwity, P 494 
 
 Nitro-glycerin, discovery of. 298 
 
 Nixon, G. A 491 
 
 Nixon, Richard 18 
 
 Noah, J. J 18 
 
 Nobel, nitro-glycerin 298 
 
 Noble, Hon. John W 21, 22, 24, 25, 
 
 35. 41, 449 
 on future of American pat- 
 ent system 40, 426 
 
 Noland, Major 465, 466, 467, 468 
 
 Norman kings, monopolies granted 
 
 by 475 
 
 Norris Peters Company 487 
 
 North Carolina, coal product of... 141 
 
 inventor from 130 
 
 Norton, W. T 491 
 
 Novatory, Jno 492 
 
 Norway, Hanseatic League 474 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Nott, WilfordE 491 
 
 Nottingham, J. R 19, 491 
 
 Novelty, Ericsson's locomotive 165 
 
 Noyes, Crosby S 12 
 
 Noyes, T. W., on centenary of 
 
 Washington City 40 
 
 Nunn, R.J 492 
 
 Oberly, Hon. John H 26 
 
 Ocean cable, one of seven won- 
 ders 71 
 
 Odiorne, patents to 459 
 
 Oersted, deflection of magnetic 
 
 needle 288 
 
 Oersted, electric current 182 
 
 love of science 303 
 
 Official Gazette of Patent Office... 54 
 Ogden, H. E 26 
 
INDEX. 
 
 543 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ohio Company, Washington's in- 
 terest in 338 
 
 Ohio, military lands in 344 
 
 Ohm 303 
 
 Ohm's formula 289 
 
 Oliver, Garrett H 497 
 
 Olney, Charles P 495 
 
 Operatives, factory, manner of 
 
 living 232 
 
 Orcutt, Warren H 17 
 
 Ordway, Gen. Albert 20 
 
 Ordway, N. G .'. 491 
 
 Origin, Nature, and Effect of 
 
 Patents 473 
 
 Ormsby, D. G 491 
 
 Orrick, W. W 491 
 
 Orth, Henry 19, 20, 487, 491 
 
 Otis elevator 126 
 
 Ovens, improved portable 229 
 
 Owens, Benjamin B 493 
 
 Page, Dr., discovery by 197 
 
 Paine, Hon. H. E 11, 42, 491 
 
 Paine & I/add..., 487 
 
 Painting 406 
 
 Paints, incombustible 220 
 
 Palissy 409, 430 
 
 Palmer, C. H 495 
 
 Palmer, C. 495 
 
 Papin's fire engine 269 
 
 Park, copying telegraph 192 
 
 Parker, John H 493 
 
 Parker, Myron M 3, 40, 487, 491 
 
 address of welcome by 423 
 
 presides at Board of Trade 
 
 banquet 423 
 
 Parks, Gorham 460, 464, 465 
 
 Parmelee, Dubois D 495 
 
 Parrett 441 
 
 Parsell, Henry V 15, 487, 491 
 
 Parsell, N. V 491 
 
 Parsons, H. E. 41 
 
 Parsons' machine for shearing 
 
 cloth 459 
 
 Parthenon, model for Patent Ofl&ce 
 
 Building 456 
 
 Partridge, John A 42 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Patent, difference between descrip- 
 tion and claim 51 
 
 Patent, first American 134 
 
 first United States 49 
 
 Patents and the Law, relations of.. 433 
 
 classification of 53 
 
 compared with monopolies.. 480 
 comparison of English and 
 American systems 50 
 
 Patents, Constitutional provision 
 for 316 
 
 Patents, definition of. 473 
 
 early English 476 
 
 early, in Connecticut 45 
 
 early, in Massachusetts 45 
 
 early, issued by Secretary of 
 State 453 
 
 Patents, early system of 48 
 
 extension of 52, 118 
 
 in the army. Gen. I,. A. 
 
 Grant on 434 
 
 limitation of term of. 477 
 
 models destroyed by fire in 
 
 1836 457, 458 
 
 number granted 50 
 
 origin, nature and effect of. 473 
 postal service protected by.. 442 
 property in, guarded by law 434 
 
 receipts from 423 
 
 restrictions in granting 477 
 
 term of. 117 
 
 Patent law, a century of 24, 1 1 1 
 
 Patent laws, Canadian 213 
 
 Patent medicines 414 
 
 Patent Office, clerical force of.. .52, 454 
 collections transferred to 
 
 National Museum 235 
 
 divisions of. 53 
 
 early history of. 49 
 
 finances of 6, 52, 433 
 
 history of 429 
 
 importance of. 25 
 
 OfiScial Gazette of 54 
 
 papers on 453 
 
 reception at 25 
 
 reorganized in 1836 134 
 
 the old and the new 453 
 
544 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Patent Office, under Department 
 of State 453 
 
 Patent Office Building, architect 
 of. 454. 459 
 
 Patent Office Building, architec- 
 ture and construction of. 456 
 
 Patent Office Building, construc- 
 tion of in 1836 468 
 
 Patent Office Building, destroyed 
 by fire in 1836 457, 458 
 
 Patent Office Building, descrip- 
 tion of in 1867 469 
 
 Patent Office Building, dimensions 
 of 455 
 
 Patent Office Building, need of.. ...431, 
 
 433 
 
 Patent rights in France 201, 202 
 
 Patent statutes of United States, 
 
 review of. 116 
 
 Patent system, effect of on devel- 
 opment of United States 381 
 
 Patent system, English 116, 477 
 
 European 207 
 
 inventive thought stimu- 
 lated by 53 
 
 Jefferson the author of. 133 
 
 origin of 43, 381 
 
 Patten, John 493 
 
 Patten, Capt. W. S 26 
 
 Pattison, Allen S 19 
 
 Paul, Lewis, spinning by rollers .. 79 
 
 Pavey, Dr., cited 226 
 
 Peck, Charles 489 
 
 Peck, Herberts 19 
 
 Peck, M. D 491 
 
 Peck, S. & E 491 
 
 Pennie, J. C 19 
 
 Pennie & Goldsborough 491 
 
 Pennsylvania, early patents in 46 
 
 Pension office in Patent Office 
 
 Building 470 
 
 Pepper, John P 468 
 
 Periodicals copyrighted 157 
 
 Perkin, discovered aniline dyes.... 306 
 
 Perkins, patents to 459 
 
 Perrin, N. G. M 492 
 
 Perry, W. G 26 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Peters, Eugene 16, 487, 914 
 
 Peterson, August 17 
 
 Petroleum, products of 74 
 
 results from discovery of..... 74 
 
 Pettigrew, E 460, 465 
 
 Pettit, Horace 496 
 
 Peyton's reminiscences of Brad- 
 dock 327 
 
 Phelps, George M 495 
 
 Phelps electro-motor telegraph 191 
 
 Philadelphia, seat of national gov- 
 ernment 453 
 
 Philadelphia Spelling Book, first 
 
 book copyrighted 154 
 
 Philadelphia Typewriter Company 488 
 
 Phillipp, M. B 488 
 
 Phillips, C. C 496 
 
 Phillips, Wendell 53 
 
 Philosopher's stone, patent for 
 
 making iii 
 
 Phlogistic theory 239 
 
 Phonograph, importance of. ...424, 481 
 Photographers' art used in warfare 439 
 
 Photolithography 482 
 
 Physics, discoveries in 419 
 
 Pierce, P. B 491 
 
 Pike, Major Benjamin F 26 
 
 Pilling, J. W 491 
 
 Pinckney, Charles, copyright and 
 
 patent right 47, 134, 145 
 
 Pine, Leighton 492 
 
 Piscatoway, Indian towne 320 
 
 Planing machine 479 
 
 Planten, H. & Son 495 
 
 Piatt, Senator O. H 11, 21, 24, 489 
 
 on invention and advance- 
 ment 57 
 
 Playfair, Sir Lyon 226 
 
 Plimpton, Henry R 493 
 
 Plimpton, James L 493 
 
 Plow, barrel, Washington's ex- 
 periments with 359 
 
 iron, first in America 135 
 
 steam 407 
 
 sulky, Avery's 130 
 
 two-eyed and duck-bill 331 
 
 Pneumatic dynamite torpedo gun.. 437 
 
INDEX. 
 
 545 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pole, B. C 491 
 
 Pollock, Anthony 20 
 
 Poole, Benjamin 15 
 
 Poor, John C 15, 491 
 
 Pope, F. L., cited 189 
 
 Pope, Hon. John H 21 
 
 Pope, Hon. Richard 41 
 
 address by 450 
 
 Porter, F. E 493 
 
 Porter, Hon. Robert P 20, 26, 141 
 
 Postal service, American patents 
 
 in the 40, 441 
 
 Postoffice building, extension of... 454 
 
 Post routes, extension of. 51 
 
 Post system, growth of 61 
 
 Potomac Terra-cotta Company 487 
 
 Potomac River, early name for 320 
 
 Potter, Henry G 26 
 
 Pottery, discovery of enamel for... 430 
 Powder, improvements in..296, 429, 436 
 
 Powell, Major J. W 11, 26, 42 
 
 Power-loom 482 
 
 Power-loom, Cartwright's 137 
 
 invented in 1785 81 
 
 laborsaved by 86 
 
 Prall, W. E 487 
 
 Pratt, F. A 489 
 
 Pratt, P. W 17, 20 
 
 Preece, Nystorin,duplex telegraph 192 
 
 Prentiss, F. H 495 
 
 Prescott, quadruplex telegraph 192 
 
 President of the United States, ac- 
 cepts invitation to preside 7 
 
 President of the United States, ad- 
 dress by 23 
 
 President of the United States, re- 
 ception by 31 
 
 President of the United States, 
 
 thanks to 35 
 
 Price, Benjamin 493 
 
 Price, Colonel, utilization of coal 
 
 dust 22 
 
 Price, J. A 41, 496 
 
 Price, James M 496 
 
 Prices, comparative 389 
 
 Prices, reduction in, on result of 
 protection 432 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Priestly, chemical discoveries by.. 240 
 
 Prindle, George S 17 
 
 Prindle & Russell 487, 491 
 
 Printing press 384 
 
 Printing press. Hoe's 126 
 
 improved, labor saved by... 85 
 
 one of seven wonders 71 
 
 Proceedings of meetings of the 
 
 Congress 21 
 
 Property in patents guarded by 
 
 law 434 
 
 Protection of mechanical inven- 
 tions 200 
 
 Protective principle and reduction 
 
 in prices 432 
 
 Pruden, Mr. O. L 26 
 
 Publications copyrighted 1870- 
 
 1890 155 
 
 Pullman, sleeping cars 136 
 
 Pullman, thanks due to 124 
 
 Quadruplex telegraph 192 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and monopolies.. 476 
 Quimby, EdwardE 495 
 
 Rafter, G. S 491 
 
 Railroad, first in America 132 
 
 freight, cost of transporta- 
 tion 170 
 
 locomotive, early experi- 
 ments with 132 
 
 mileageof the world in 1891 168 
 
 water-borne system of. 172 
 
 Railroads, as an expansion of labor 91 
 
 civilizing influence of. 99 
 
 earnings in 1889 171 
 
 efifectof invention upon. ..27, 73, 
 161 
 
 extension of Southern 140 
 
 growth of. 61 
 
 number of employes on 91 
 
 statistics of 73, 168 
 
 street, development of 167 
 
 Rails, early patterns of. 165, 166 
 
 Railway, effect of invention on 164 
 
 Railways, improvements in rolling 
 stock 166 
 
546 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rake, harvest horse 374 
 
 Randolph, Colonel, hill-side plow 135 
 Randolph, Edmund, signed first 
 
 American patent 134 
 
 Range-finder, for long-range guns. 436 
 
 Rankin, Rev. J. E 11, 42 
 
 Ransdell, Marshal D. M 41 
 
 Rapley, W. H 17 
 
 Ray, Mr., on inventions 479 
 
 Raymond, Henry W 16 
 
 Raymond, William C 495 
 
 Reaper, McCormick 126 
 
 Reception at the Executive Man- 
 sion 31 
 
 Reception at the Patent Office 25 
 
 Reception Committee 16 
 
 Recording telegraph, systems of... 191 
 
 Reed, patents to 459 
 
 Reeves, E. H 491 
 
 Registry locks, rotary 442 
 
 Regnault, researches on gases and 
 
 vapors 311 
 
 Reis, Philip, telephone 197 
 
 Reizen, system of telegraph in 
 
 1794 178 
 
 Relation of invention to labor 77 
 
 Relation of patents to the law..40, 433 
 Remberts, roller cotton compress.. 130 
 
 Resolution of thanks 35 
 
 Revolving cannon, Hotchkiss 436 
 
 Reynolds, Edwin 496 
 
 Reynolds, Lucius E 491 
 
 Rice, James Q 491 
 
 Rice, John V 494 
 
 Richard II of England, statutes 
 
 against monopolies 476 
 
 Richards, Mrs. Ellen H 226 
 
 Richards, F. H 489 
 
 Richards, Rev. J. Havens , 11 
 
 Richards & Company 491 
 
 Richardson, Charles H 491 
 
 Richardson, F. A 18 
 
 Richter, Miss C. M 26 
 
 Ridpath, John Clark 492 
 
 Ries, Elias E 493 
 
 Rifle, breech-loading 295 
 
 Springfield breech-loader... 438 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Riggs & Co.. 487 
 
 Riley, Samuel 491 
 
 Ripple, Ezra H 496 
 
 Ritchie, needle telegraph 180 
 
 Ritter, decomposed water with 
 
 copper sulphate 287 
 
 Ritter, Dr. F. W 18 
 
 Ritter, F. W., Jr 491 
 
 Rivers, Jose R. de Rivas Y 491 
 
 Roane, L. B 491 
 
 Roanoke, growth of 140 
 
 Robert, Henry M 491 
 
 Robbins, Benjamin 295 
 
 Robert, Col. H. M 12 
 
 Robert, District Commissioner 41 
 
 Roberts, Edward P 495 
 
 Roberts, Milton Josiah 495 
 
 Robertson, T. J. W 17 
 
 Robinson, Prof. W. C, quoted 63 
 
 Rocket, locomotive 165 
 
 Rodman, General, improved guns 435 
 
 improved powder 296, 436 
 
 Rodriguez, Josd J 20 
 
 Roemer, William 494 
 
 Roessle, T. E 487 
 
 Rogers, Archibald 495 
 
 Romagn^si, deflection of mag- 
 netic needle by electricity 179 
 
 Ronalds, system of telegraph in 
 
 1816 178 
 
 Rooting engine 334 
 
 Rose, Manning M 26 
 
 Rosecrans, General W. S 12, 42 
 
 Roselle, Capt. W. T 17 
 
 Rosewater, Andrew 42, 494 
 
 Ross, Hon. J. W 12, 44 
 
 Rotch, A. Lawrence 493 
 
 Rowland, George 495 
 
 Royce & Marean 487 
 
 Euebsam, John E 491 
 
 Ruggles, Hon. John, improve- 
 ments in patent system 52 
 
 Ruggles, Hon. John, letter from 
 
 Ellsworth to 463 
 
 Ruggles, Hon. John, on architect 
 
 of Patent Office 462 
 
 Ruggles, Hon. John, on needs of 
 Patent Office 458 
 
INDEX. 
 
 547 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rwmford, inventions of. 404 
 
 Rnmney, William, letter from 
 
 Washington to 364 
 
 Rumsey, James, new invented boat 
 
 in 1785 46 
 
 Rumsey, James, steamboat 130, 131 
 
 Rumsey Society of Philadelphia.. 131 
 
 Runkle, Prof. John D 224 
 
 Russell, P. G 18 
 
 Russia, Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 marine statistics of. 163 
 
 railway incident in 427 
 
 Rutherford, James A 16 
 
 Ryan, Matthew 491 
 
 Ryan, William R 26 
 
 Ryneal, George, Jr 487 
 
 Saavedra, Roderigo 491 
 
 Sabine's "Electric Telegraph," 
 
 quoted 180 
 
 St. Clair, Dr. F. 14, 491 
 
 St. Clair, Dr. F. O., on American 
 patents from an international 
 
 standpoint 40 
 
 St. Hilaire, Geoffrey 404 
 
 Safety lamp, Davy's 136 
 
 Salt, early patent for making 45 
 
 Salt monopolies in England 476 
 
 Sanders, H. P 487, 491 
 
 Sanger, Major J. P .■ 26 
 
 Sanitation, American inventions 
 
 in 413 
 
 Sanitation, improved methods of. 421 
 
 Savannah, steamboat, named 163 
 
 Savery's engine 269 
 
 Saxon and ISforman kings, grants 
 
 by : 474 
 
 Schilling, five-needle telegraph ... 180 
 
 telegraph 182, 187 
 
 Schoen, Charles T 496 
 
 Schools, medical 420 
 
 Schools, manual training... 70 
 Scholtus, "Technica Curiosa," 
 
 cited 175 
 
 Schreder, quadruplex telegraph... 192 
 Schweigger, magnetic helix 288 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Schweigger, magnet wound with 
 
 wire 179 
 
 Science, applied, utility of 307 
 
 Scientific societies, work of 307 
 
 Scott, Alexander 491 
 
 Scott, General, and the Yazoo 
 
 Company 319 
 
 Screw breech mechanisms for guns 436 
 
 Scull, C. C 17 
 
 Sculpture 406 
 
 Scythe, improved, patented in 
 
 1646 45 
 
 Searles, Anson 494 
 
 Sears, W. G 497 
 
 Seaton, Malcolm 491 
 
 Seckendorf, M. G 18 
 
 Secretary of State, issued patents 
 
 in 1801 453 
 
 See, J. W 495 
 
 Seely, Col. P. A.. ..11, 28, 41, 481, 487, 
 
 491 
 Seely, P. A., on international pro- 
 tection of industrial property.... 199 
 
 Seely, G. D 487, 491 
 
 Selden, George B 495 
 
 Selden, W. H 487 
 
 Sellers, Coleman 496 
 
 Sellers, William 496 
 
 Semaphore telegraph 184 
 
 Semken, H 16 
 
 Sen-ell, L. W 488, 495 
 
 Seven wonders of American inven- 
 tion 71 
 
 Sewage, improved methods of. 222 
 
 Seward, Hon. W. H., on the in- 
 ventive faculty 479 
 
 Sewing machine 480 
 
 benefits by 136 
 
 invention of. 122 
 
 labor expanded by 91 
 
 one of seven wonders 71 
 
 the original 408 
 
 Seymour, H. A 16, 491 
 
 Sharpe, J. R., voltaic telegraph... 179 
 
 Shaw, Thomas 38, 496 
 
 ventilation of coal mines.... 22 
 Shaw, 'W^illiam 367 
 
548 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Shaw, William B 27 
 
 Shearing cloth, machine for 459 
 
 Sheehy, R.J 495 
 
 Shellabarger, Samuel 491 
 
 Shepard, James 489 
 
 Sherman, George W 495 
 
 Sherwood, Henry 16, 491 
 
 Shipman, M. D 492 
 
 Shirley, General 326 
 
 Shoemaker Company 497 
 
 Sibley, conical tent 130 
 
 Sicily at World's Exposition 449 
 
 Sickels, F. E 38, 493 
 
 Sickels, Frederick E., expansion 
 
 gear 280 
 
 Sickels, Frederick E., steam-steer- 
 ing apparatus 21 
 
 Siemens, telegraphic apparatus ... 192 
 
 Siggers, E. G 491 
 
 Signalling, early methods of. 175 
 
 Signals, army, improved 438 
 
 Silk indvistry in Virginia in 1623 .. 133 
 
 Silver, William J 497 
 
 Simens, telegraphic apparatus 188 
 
 Simonds, George F 41, 493 
 
 Simons, H. 19 
 
 Simons, Howard T 495 
 
 Simpson, G. R 491 
 
 Singer sewing machine 136 
 
 Singleton, W. H 17, 487 
 
 Singleton, W. R 20, 487 
 
 Sinsabaugh, I/. W 15 
 
 Skidmore, James 1/ 19, 491 
 
 Skilton, James A 495 
 
 Skinner, F. C 491 
 
 Slave system 78 
 
 Slocum, Harry P 19, 491 
 
 Small arms, improvement in.. .299, 438 
 Small arms, labor saved in mak- 
 ing 83 
 
 Small, James, iron plow 135 
 
 Smelting works, first in America.. 133 
 
 Smillie, Thos. W 491 
 
 Smith, Adam, quoted 98 
 
 Smith, A. M 15, 487 
 
 Smith, Arthur St. A 491 
 
 Smith, Charles F 495 
 
 Smith, Charles R 496 
 
 Smith, E. D 496 
 
 Smith, Frederick H 42 
 
 Smith, F. W 26 
 
 Smith, Gerrit, quadruplex tele- 
 graph 192 
 
 Smith, Harold B 495 
 
 Smith, Henry W 41 
 
 Smith, Jesse M 493 
 
 Smith, John Y 38, 496 
 
 Smith, John Y., airbrakes 22 
 
 Smith, I/yman 492 
 
 Smith, Oberlin...22, 27, 38, 41, 42, 494 
 
 Smith, R. D. 492 
 
 Smokeless powder 436 
 
 Smithsonian Institution 406 
 
 Patent Office collection 
 
 transferred to 235 
 
 Smyth, D. M 38, 41, 494 
 
 Snow, C. A 16 
 
 Snow, C. A. & Co 487 
 
 Society of Mechanical Engineers.. 22 
 
 Soley, Hon. J. R 40, 41 
 
 on American patents in the 
 
 Navy 40,439 
 
 Solomons, A. S 20 
 
 Somes, F. C 17, 487, 491 
 
 Sommering, electrolysis telegraph 179 
 
 Soteldo, Hon. A. M 41 
 
 Soul€, J. H 18 
 
 South, Carolina, fearly patent laws 
 
 in 132 
 
 South Carolina Railroad, first 
 
 steam road in America 132 
 
 South, the New, Senator Daniel on 129 
 
 Spain, Hanseatic League in 474 
 
 marine statistics of 163 
 
 Sparks, quoted , 314 
 
 Spear, Hon. Ellis 11, 42, 487, 491 
 
 Specification of patent, English 
 
 form 115 
 
 Specifications, amendments to 116 
 
 Spencer 404 
 
 Spencer, Col. Nicholas 320 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on ethics 92 
 
 Spiers, James 488 
 
 Spinning, improvements in 79 
 
INDEX. 
 
 549 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Spinning industry, labor saved in.. 86 
 
 Spinning jenney, Hargreave's 137 
 
 patented in 1770 81 
 
 Spinning mule, Crompton's 137 
 
 Spofford, Hon. A. R..11, 14, 27, 487, 491 
 
 on copyright system 145 
 
 Spofford, H. W 18 
 
 Spotswood, General 319 
 
 Springer, Ruter W 491 
 
 Springfield breech-loader rifle..30i, 438 
 
 Stallings, W. H 492 
 
 Stamping-machines, mail 443 
 
 Stanley, Edward 496 
 
 Stanley, Lord, opposes patent laws 54 
 
 Staples, O. G 487 
 
 Stark, J. B., quadruples telegraph 192 
 
 Statutes of monopolies 476 
 
 Stealey, O. 18 
 
 Steamboat, invention of 123 
 
 Steamboat, patent for, in 1787 46 
 
 Steamboat Savannah, 1819 163 
 
 Steamboats, growth of 61 
 
 Steam engine 480 
 
 ancient knowledge of. 251 
 
 construction of Watt's 275 
 
 early types of 113 
 
 invention of. 251 
 
 Watt studies principle of... 114 
 Steam engines, speed fluctuation 
 
 of 281 
 
 Steam engines, work accomplished 
 
 by 281 
 
 Steamships, speed of ocean 280 
 
 statistics of. 163 
 
 Steam transportation, cost of. 163 
 
 one of seven wonders 71 
 
 Stearns, J. B., multiple telegraph.. 192 
 
 Stearns, James S 495 
 
 Steel, age of. 139 
 
 gun 297 
 
 high quality of, for Navy... 440 
 
 increased consumption of... 90 
 
 structural 220 
 
 uses of 139 
 
 Steel industry, statistics of 139 
 
 making, Bessemer process 
 
 of 136 
 
 Steel industry, monopolies in Eng- 
 land 476 
 
 wire wound gun 436 
 
 rails, first manufacture of... 136 
 
 Steering apparatus 440 
 
 Steinheil, discovery of earth cir- 
 cuit 181 
 
 Steinheil, electric telegraph 183 
 
 Stellwagen, E.J 487 
 
 Stephenson, George, locomotive... 136 
 
 Stephenson, William J 20 
 
 Stephenson's locomotive 164 
 
 Sterrett, W. G ig 
 
 Stetson, Thomas D 495 
 
 Steuart, Arthur 493 
 
 Stevens, fruit wrapper 130 
 
 Stevens, Francis P 493 
 
 Stevens, W 487 
 
 Stevens, W. B 18 
 
 Stevens, W. X 17, 491 
 
 Steward, Thos. G 491 
 
 Stewart, Alex. S 18 
 
 Stewart, W. G 496 
 
 Stiles, N. C 489 
 
 Stockbridge, V. D 18, 487, 491 
 
 Stockley, George W 494 
 
 Stockman, CharlesJ 19 
 
 Stockton and Darlington Railroad 165 
 
 Stoddart & Co 487, 491 
 
 Stokes, George W 19 
 
 Stone age 78, 139, 406 
 
 Stone, grain-roller mill 130 
 
 Stone, Marvin C 3, 5, 13, 25, 27, 38 
 
 Stonebridge I/ion, locomotive, 
 
 trial trip of 132 
 
 Street railroads, development of... 167 
 
 Sturgeon, electro-magnet 288 
 
 Sturgeon's "Annals of Electric- 
 ity," quoted 182 
 
 Sturtevant, C. 1/ 18, 491 
 
 Submarine explosives 437 
 
 Submarine telegraphy, difficulties 
 
 of 195 
 
 Sulzberger, D 496 
 
 Sunderland, Rev. Byron 11, 23, 491 
 
 Supreme Court, thanks to judges 
 of- 35 
 
550 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Supreme Court of United States 
 as related to American Patent 
 
 System 425 
 
 Surgery, American inventions in.. 413 
 Surgical instruments, patents for.. 417 
 
 Swan, W. D 26 
 
 Sweden, letter of congratulation 
 
 from 35 
 
 Sweden, marine statistics of. 163 
 
 Sweet, Henry N 493 
 
 Swift's definition of invention 441 
 
 Swift's machine for shearing and 
 
 napping cloth 459 
 
 Switzerland, letter of congratula- 
 tion from 34 
 
 Tabor, Alva S 20 
 
 Tainter, Charles S 491 
 
 Tainter, Sumner, speech transmit- 
 ted by beams of light 198 
 
 Taliaferro, Colonel 318 
 
 Talleyrand's opinion of Washing- 
 ton 379 
 
 Taney, Chief Justice, Morse tele- 
 graph patent iig 
 
 Tapley Machine Company 493 
 
 Tasker, F. E 15, 487, 491 
 
 Tasker, J. C. & F. E 487 
 
 Taylor, Dr. Thomas 16, 491 
 
 Taylor, Hon. Roberts 24, 41 
 
 on epoch-making inven- 
 tions of America 121 
 
 Taylor, James L 17 
 
 Technological schools, effect of, 
 
 upon progress of invention 239 
 
 Telautograph 193 
 
 Telegraph 410 
 
 Telegraph and telephone ... 486 
 
 inventors of. 27, 175 
 
 Telegraph, army use of. 438 
 
 autographic 193 
 
 between Washington and 
 
 Baltimore in 1843 119 
 
 Bozolus system in 1767 178 
 
 day and night 175 
 
 discovery of earth circuit ... 181 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Telegraph, early discoveries per- 
 taining to 177 
 
 early systems of. 176 
 
 first use of the word 175 
 
 flag 176 
 
 galvanic, origin of. 17c) 
 
 galvanoscopic 180 
 
 Gaynor's fire 130 
 
 growth of. 6r 
 
 harmonic 193 
 
 I/e Sage system in 1774 178 
 
 Ivomond system in 1787 178 
 
 Morrison system of, in 1753.. 178 
 
 Morse, history of. 119 
 
 multiple transmission. ..192, 193 
 
 patent for 119 
 
 quadruplex 192 
 
 recording, chemical method 191 
 
 Ronalds' system 178 
 
 semaphore 176 
 
 type-printing 190 
 
 Telegraphy, employes in.... 90 
 
 Telephone 167 
 
 a new occupation go 
 
 army use of. 438 
 
 electric ig6 
 
 invention of. 196 
 
 inventors of the 175 
 
 mechanical 196 
 
 wonders accomplished by . . . 424 
 Telescope, Chinese ignorance of... 429 
 
 early uses of 293 
 
 use of, for signaling 175 
 
 Teller, Hon. H. M 11 
 
 Temple, A. P 493 
 
 Tennessee, coal product of. 141 
 
 Term of patents 52, 117 
 
 Terra-cotta lumber 220 
 
 Texas, inventors from 130 
 
 Textile art, women first inventors 
 
 in 409 
 
 Textile industry, labor-saving ma- 
 
 chinerv in 85 
 
 Textile industry, statistics of. 388 
 
 Textile machinery, improvements 
 
 in 482 
 
 Thane, early English title 474 
 
INDEX. 
 
 551 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thatcher, Dr. James 346 
 
 Thomas, Capt. A. A 17, 487 
 
 Thompsonianism 413 
 
 Thompson, Edward P 495 
 
 Thompson, Sir Henry 226 
 
 Thompson, John W 487 
 
 Thompson, Magnus S 16 
 
 Thompson, Sir William 54 
 
 Thompson, W. B 17, 42, 491 
 
 Thomson, Charles 353 
 
 Thomson, cop3ang telegraph 192 
 
 Thomson, Elihu 22, 493 
 
 Thomson, Frank 22 
 
 Thomson, submarine telegraphy.. 195 
 Thornton, William 454, 459 
 
 in charge of issue of patents 453 
 
 Thorpe, inventions of. 459 
 
 Thresher, steam 407 
 
 Threshing machine.... 372 
 
 Winslow's 377 
 
 in Washington's day 318 
 
 Thurston, Prof. R. H 29, 38, 41, 42 
 
 on invention of the steam 
 
 engine 251 
 
 Tiles, cohesive 220 
 
 Tillman, Hon. George D 11 
 
 Tinware, cost of production 389 
 
 Toasts at Board of Trade banquet.. 424 
 
 Tobacco stemmer. Coffee's 130 
 
 Todd, A.J 495 
 
 Toner, Dr. J. M 12, 30, 41, 491 
 
 on General Washington as ' 
 an inventor and promoter 
 
 of useful arts 313 
 
 Toof, EdwinJ 489 
 
 Torpedo gun, dynamite 437 
 
 Torpedoes, use of, in warfare 298 
 
 Toulmin, H. A 495 
 
 Towle, H. S 492 
 
 Towles, H.0 16 
 
 Town, Ithiel 461 
 
 Towner, A. C 26 
 
 Townsend, Henry P 495 
 
 Townsend, W. W 487, 49i 
 
 Tramways, early use of 164 
 
 Transportation, army, improve- 
 ments in 438 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Transportation, steam, beginning 
 
 of 123 
 
 Transportation, condition of in 
 
 1790 161 
 
 Transportation, improvements in 
 
 methods of 73 
 
 Transportation, of freight, cost of.. 163 
 of mails, improvements in... 443 
 
 rapid 449 
 
 Trant, Justus A 489 
 
 Trask, Charles H 493 
 
 Travis, W. H 496 
 
 Treasury Building, architect of..... 461 
 Tredwell, Professor, improved 
 
 guns 435 
 
 Trego, John T 487 
 
 Trevithic's locomotive, 1804 164 
 
 Tribaoillet, single circuit telegraph 180 
 
 Trip-slips and bell-punch 481 
 
 Trowbridge, Prof. William P 28, 41 
 
 on the effect of technolog- 
 ical schools upon the pro- 
 gress of in vention 239 
 
 Truesdale, John 497 
 
 Trumbull, Governor, letter from 
 
 Washington to 348 
 
 Trusts, no claim on the law 434 
 
 Tryon, F. M 491 
 
 Turberville, George 336 
 
 Turbine wheel, changes caused by. 231 
 
 Turpin, P. B 491 
 
 Tweedale, John 16, 491 
 
 Tyler, Amelia 491 
 
 Tyler, Edward R 27, 487, 491 
 
 Tyler, R. D. S 16, 491 
 
 Type-printing telegraph 190 
 
 Typewriter 480 
 
 an epoch-making invention. 126 
 
 Typhoid fever, nature of. 420 
 
 Typhus fever, nature of. 420 
 
 Upson, L. A 489 
 
 Vail, Alfred, magneto-electric tele- 
 graph 21 
 
 Vail, Alfred, recording telegraph.. 184, 
 
 189 
 
552 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Vail, Alfred, telegraph 167 
 
 type-printing telegraph 190 
 
 Vail, Mrs. Alfred 21, 28 
 
 Vander Weyde, P. H 495 
 
 Van Dorsten, A. W 491 
 
 Van Hovenberg, Alfred A 494 
 
 Venezuela, patent laws of. 213 
 
 Ventilation of naval vessels 440 
 
 Vinton, Samuel F 460, 464, 465 
 
 Virginia, coal product of. 141 
 
 early copyright laws in 154 
 
 inventors from 130 
 
 Vitrified brick 220 
 
 Vodka, Russian drink 427 
 
 Vogt, A. S 496 
 
 Voit, Professor 226 
 
 Volta, discoveries of. 179 
 
 medal of Royal Society to... 303 
 Voltaic battery, invention of.. .179, 287 
 
 Voorhees, John H 492 
 
 Voorhees, R. H 16 
 
 Vulcanized rubber discovered by 
 
 Goodyear 430 
 
 Vulcanized timber 220 
 
 Wadsworth, Col. Jeremiah 48 
 
 Wages, increase of. 100 
 
 Wages and prices, Weeks on 223 
 
 Wage system 78 
 
 Waggaman, John F 16 
 
 Waggaman, T. E 11 
 
 Wagon, army 438 
 
 Wagon-making, labor saved in 85 
 
 Wait, Wesley 495 
 
 Walcott, Charles D 492 
 
 Walker, Philip 16 
 
 Wanamaker, Postmaster Gen- 
 eral 21, 26 
 
 Ward, Gen. A 460, 464, 465 
 
 Warder, B. H 487 
 
 Warfare, modem, influenced by 
 
 invention 293 
 
 Warfare, patents for implements 
 
 of 435 
 
 Warner, Brainard H 3, 41, 487, 492 
 
 Warner, B. H., & Co 487 
 
 Wartman, quadruplex telegraph. 192 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Washington, Augustine 328, 33S 
 
 Washington Board of Txade, 
 
 banquet of. 39 
 
 Washington City, centenary of .40, 424 
 for Columbian Exposition... 445 
 seat of Government moved 
 
 to 453 
 
 Washington, Judge Bushrod 330 
 
 Washington, G. A 359 
 
 Washington, General, as Presi- 
 dent, advocates encouragement 
 
 to invention 48 
 
 Washington, General, boyhood of. 320 
 
 diary of. 318 
 
 interested in agricultural 
 
 improvements 318 
 
 invented wine coaster 375 
 
 inventor and promoter of 
 
 useful arts 313 
 
 personal appearance of..330, 347, 
 
 , . .349 
 
 proposed first Amencan 
 
 canal 131 
 
 rules of civility, etc., by 322 
 
 signed first American pat- 
 ent 134 
 
 Washington, Lieut. Col. John 320 
 
 Washington, John Augustine..330, 341 
 Washington, Major I/awrence..322, 338 
 
 Washington, Col. Lewis W 330 
 
 Washington, Mary, mother of 
 
 George 341 
 
 ■^^ashington, Warner 343 
 
 Washington & Georgetown Rail- 
 road Co 487 
 
 Watches and clocks, improved 482 
 
 Water frame, Arkwright's 137 
 
 Waterman, L. E 495 
 
 Water supply, improvements in... 221 
 Watkins, J. Elfreth..3, 5, 13, 25, 27, 30. 
 32, 35, 37. 38, 41, 42, 487, 492 
 Watkins, J. Elfreth, announces for- 
 mation of American Association 
 of Inventors and Manufacturers. 452 
 
 Watt, James 410 
 
 biography of. 113 
 
 leader in the inventive 
 world 64 
 
INDEX. 
 
 553 
 
 Watt, James, patent for steam en- 
 
 gineini769. 113 
 
 patent to, in 1769. 44 
 
 steam engine...i36, 254, 285, 271 
 
 Watt & Starke, plows 130 
 
 Wealth, power of. 394 
 
 Weavers' reeds, machine for mak^ 
 
 ing 459 
 
 Weaving, improvements in 79 
 
 Weaving industry, labor-saving 
 
 machinery in 86 
 
 Weaving, introduced into England 
 
 in 1620 133 
 
 Weber, needle telegraph 180 
 
 Webster, Sir Richard, decision as 
 
 to Main patent 210 
 
 Webster's spelling book intro- 
 duced 60 
 
 Weed, sewing machine 136 
 
 Weeks, Joseph D., on wages and 
 
 prices 223 
 
 Weems, David G 38, 493 
 
 electrical locomotive 21 
 
 Weems, D. J 41 
 
 Weems electric system of rail- 
 ways 172 
 
 Weighing scales 482 
 
 Weightman, Richard 18 
 
 Weightman, Roger C 460 
 
 Welcker's Hotel 487 
 
 Weller, M. 1 15, 487 
 
 Welles, Roger 26, 487, 492 
 
 Welling, Dr. J. C 11, 42 
 
 Welling, Wm. M 495 
 
 Wells, Hon. David A., cited 387 
 
 Westinghouse, George 41, 496 
 
 air-brakes 136 
 
 Westinghouse, thanks due to 124 
 
 West Virginia, coal product of..... 141 
 Wheatstone, copying telegraph... 192 
 electro - magnetic escape- 
 ment 191 
 
 telegraph 167, 183, 187, 188 
 
 transmission of sound 196 
 
 Wheeler, Frederick Merian 495 
 
 Wheelock, Jerome 493 
 
 Whelpley, Hon. J. W 15 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Whitaker, J. H 15 
 
 Whitaker, W. W 495 
 
 Whitaker & Prevost 487, 492 
 
 Whitcomb, G. Henry 493 
 
 White, H. K 492 
 
 White, James W 16 
 
 White, John H 492 
 
 White, M. A 497 
 
 White, William A 495 
 
 White, W.J 495 
 
 White, William K 492 
 
 White Dental Manufacturing Co... 496 
 
 Whitely, W.N 495 
 
 Whitfield, Hon. S. A 40 
 
 on American patents in the 
 
 Postal Service 40, 441 
 
 Whitman, Charles E 492 
 
 Whitman, C. S 20 
 
 Whitman & Wilkinson 487 
 
 Whitney, Eli 41 
 
 cotton gin 122, 136, 137, 459 
 
 Whittemore's machine for making 
 
 wool cards 459 
 
 Whittlesey, GeorgeP 18, 492 
 
 Wiedersheim, John A 496 
 
 Wight, E. B 18 
 
 Wight, John B 487 
 
 Wight, Lloyd B i6, 18, 492 
 
 Wilber, Jerome J 18 
 
 Wiley, William H 489 
 
 Wilhelm, Edward 495 
 
 Wilkins, Hon. Beriah 12 
 
 Wilkinson, A. G 492 
 
 Wilkinson, Ernest 492 
 
 Wilkinson's machine for weavers' 
 
 reeds 459 
 
 William Rufus 474 
 
 Willcox sewing machines 136 
 
 Willett, James P 16 
 
 Willetts, H.J 492 
 
 Williams, Frank R 16, 27 
 
 Williams, George B 16 
 
 Williams, JohnT 495 
 
 Williams, N. G .' 497 
 
 Williams, Porte, electric railway . 172 
 Williamson, Mr., advocates new 
 
 patent law in 1793 49 
 
554 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Willits, Hon. Edwin ii, 21, 25, 492 
 
 on American patents in ag- 
 riculture •. 41 
 
 Wilson, A. A 16, 492 
 
 Wilson, Davies 492 
 
 Wilson, Herbert M 42 
 
 Wilson, Judge James 316 
 
 Wilson, Joseph M 23 
 
 Wilson, Thomas 11, 16, 20, 42, 487, 
 
 492 
 
 Wilson, William 495 
 
 Wine coaster, dinner, invention of 374 
 Winslow, Samuel, method of mak- 
 
 ingsalt 45 
 
 Winslow's thrashing machine 377 
 
 Winter, duplex telegraph 192 
 
 Wires, M. D 492 
 
 Wirth, Joseph 492 
 
 Witter, E. E 495 
 
 Wolf, Paul 18 
 
 Wolf, Hon. Simon 12 
 
 Wolf, S. &Co 492 
 
 Wollaston 404 
 
 Women, first inventors in ceramic 
 
 art 409 
 
 Women, patents granted to 130 
 
 Wood, W. D 496 
 
 Woodbridge, Dr. W. E., steel 
 
 wire wound gun 436 
 
 Woodbury, E. E 487 
 
 Wood pulp mouldings 220 
 
 Woodruff, E. W 487 
 
 Woodruff, Mrs 26 
 
 Woods, George, quoted 105 
 
 Woodward, Oscar 487, 492 
 
 Woodward, Prof. R. S 26, 492 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Woodward & Lothrop 487 
 
 Wool cards, machine for making.. 459 
 
 Worcester's fire engine 269 
 
 Workingmen, improved condition 
 
 of 108 
 
 World's Columbian Exposition ... 142 
 World's Exposition, American 
 
 patents at 444 
 
 World's Exposition, buildings for 446 
 
 countries represented at 448 
 
 finances of. 445 
 
 Wormley's Hotel 487 
 
 Worthen, W. E 495 
 
 Wright, Carroll D. ...12, 21, 24, 26, 41, 
 
 140, 492 
 Wright, Hon. Carroll D., on the 
 relation of invention to labor.... 77 
 
 Wright, Horatio G 42 
 
 Wright, L. P 16 
 
 Wright, William 280 
 
 Wyatt, John, spinning by rollers... 79, 
 
 80 
 Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict.... 488 
 
 Wynne, Lewis B 487, 492 
 
 Yazoo Company, Patrick Henry's 
 
 interest in 319 
 
 Youmans, Professor, quoted 267 
 
 Young, Arthtir, letter from Wash- 
 ington to 344 
 
 Young, E. 497 
 
 Yznaga, Jos6M 20 
 
 Zalinski, Captain, dynamite gun.. 299, 
 
 437 
 
 Zeigler, W. R 492 
 
 Zimmerman, William 492