RIDICULED INVENTIONS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 51, 19 May 1910, Page 3

RIDICULED INVENTIONS.

HOW GREAT IDEAS HAVE BEEN

SCOUTED.

In our day the enlightened public mind, accustomed to the swift strides of scientific achievement, contrasts very vividly with the incredulity commonly exhibited towards inventions less than a generation ago.

M. Camille Flammarion, in his interesting work, "The Unknown,’’ adduces some striking instances of the relentless hostility displayed by learned men towards epoch-making discoveries.

REFUSED TO BE TRICKED.” The famous French astronomer says : ”1 was present one day at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences. It was a day to be remembered, for its. proceedings were absurd. Du Moncel introduced Edison’s phonograph to the learned assembly. When the presentation had been made, the proper person began quietly to recite the usual formula as he registered it upoo his roll. Then a middleaged Academician, whose mind was stored —nay, saturated —with traditions drawn from his culture in the classics, rose, and, nobly indignant at the audacity of the inventor, rushed towards the man who represented Edison, and seized him by the collar, crying, K Wretch ! We are not to be made dupes of by a ventriloquist !’ "The most curious thing about it. was that six months later, on September 30th, before a similar assembly. the same man considered himself bound in honour to declare that after a close examination he could find nothing in the invention but ventriloquism, and ‘ that it was impossible t.o admit that mere metal could perform the work of human phonation.’ The phonograph, according to his idea of it. was nothing but. an acoustic illusion.” Another amusing story, of Flammarion’s has to do with the invention of the steamboat and the opposition It evoked over a century ago. "i knew in Turin," says Flammarion. "a very Indigent descendant of the Marquis de Jouffroy, who, like myself, was a native of the Haute Marne. The Marquis invented steamboats in 177 G. It Is known that he spent all bis own, and much of his friends’ money in attempts to demonstrate the possibility of applying' steam to the service of navigation. His first boat was launched on the Douhs, at Uaurrie-les-IVtr.es, in 1776. Another, at Lyon?, sailed up the Saono as far as tie liar bo iv 1785. Jouffroy wanted to get up a company to carry out his scheme but for this he required an official permit—a ‘privilege.’

“The Government submitted the question of granting it to the Academy of Sciences, which, under the influence of Perier (who made the first fire-engine at Chaillot), gave an unfavourable opinion. Besides this, everybody overwhelmed the poor Marquis with jokes about his attempt ‘to 1 combine the services of fire and water,’ and he received the nickname of ‘ Jouffroy-le-Pompe.’ The hapless Inventor at length became discouraged. He emigrated during the Revolution, but returned to France during the Consulate, when he discovered that Fulton had had no better success with the First Consul than he had had with the old monarchy. Subsequently Fulton failed to convince the English Government, in 1804, and it was not until 1807 that his first steamboat was launched successfully on the Hudson River.”

We also learn that when railways were first mooted, many able engineers predicted that they could never become practicable ; and that the wheels of the locomotives would simply whirl round and round without moving forward. In the French Chamber of Deputies, 1838, Arago, hoping to throw cold water on the ardour of the partisans of the new invention, spoke of the inertia of matter, of the tenacity of metals, and of the resistance of the air. "The speed of steam-engines," he said, "may be great—very great ; but it would not equal what has been predicted. Let us not put faith in mere words. They tell us it will bring an increase of travel, tn 1836 the whole amount nf money paid for travelling and transportation in France was 2,805,000 francs. If all the projected lines are built, if all transits were by means of railroads and locomotives, this 2,805,000 francs would be reduced to 1,052,000. This would mean a diminution of 1,753000 francs per annum. The country would thus lose about twothirds of the money now paid for transportation by carriages. Let us mistrust imagination. Imagination is the misleading fairy ot our homes. Two parallel lines of iron will not give a new race to the Landes of Gascony."

What would Asago have said had he lived to our day 7 GAS LIGHTING REJECTED.

Then there was the case ot another ingenious Frenchman, Philippe Lebon, who discovered how to use gas for lighting purposes, in 1797. He died in 1804, on the day ot the Emperor’s coronation (murdered, it was thought, in the Champs-Elysees),, without having seeD his brilliant idea made practical use of in his own land at all. The principal objection raised to it fn France—which for twenty years stood out against its adoption—was that a lamp without a wick could not possibly burn. Gas was first used in England for street lighting in Birmingham in 1905. It was adopted in London in 1813, and not until 1818 was it introduced into Paris, the capital of the native country of the man to whom the world really owed Its discovery.

And yet the Frenchmen have always prided themselves oh their .foresight* ednesa I