WOMEN AS INVENTORS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20312, 21 January 1928, Page 13

WOMEN AS INVENTORS.

ONE SOLVES AN “IMPOSSIBLE” PROBLEM. Hundreds of men and women endeavoured during the past year to invent domestic and electrical devices that will save labour in the home or add to the general progression of the age. Many of the hours spent in concentration and careful calculation have resulted in inventions which, although they may not be termed epoch-making, are a boon to the housewife and the general public. Captain Drury Coleman, general sceretar« to the Institute of Patentees, when interviewed on the subject, said to » Daily Express representative: “This has been a record year for inventions. Although we patent as many as 300 or 400 a week, there are still hundreds more which ' are exceedingly clever waiting to be patented. “ Women particularly are showmg themselves in a new light_ and proving themselves to be as ingenious as men, and some of the most skilfully contrived inventions, that are also good commercial propositions, are to the credit of women inventors. The inventions range from kinema seat indicators and a new type of opera glass lens to novel salt cellars and coat hangers.’’ One of the most important inventions is the kinema seating indicator. One London kinema is already being fitted with this ingenious device, and no doubt within two or three years every kinema will boast a similar device. The automatic indicator will record on a switchboard all the vacant seats in the auditorium by means of electric light. One woman has invented a pleating iron, which is waiting to be patented, and which will no doubt find its way into most homes. Pleating at home is one of the few things that every modern woman would like to be able to do, and which until now has been impossible. The usually flat surface of an electric iron is grooved to correspond with the grooved surface of an ironing table that is part of the invention. Then there is a salt cellar that regulates the flow of salt; and a coathanger for travellers, which is made of rubber and inflated by a small hand pump when the destination has been reached.