Inventions due to Boys

New Zealand Tablet, 26 July 1906, Page 15

Inventions due to Boys

Captain Cody, the inventor of the Aeroplane kite who recently gave an exhibition at the Crystal Palace or his new man-lifting air machines, was considerably astonished when, on the morning of the trial, a couple of models of his invention came fluttering gaily over the grounds from outside. ' Subsequent investigation (says ' Pearson's Weekly ') proved that the tiny duplicates had been built to scale by a couple of precocious Penge youths, who had made mental notes of the principles v, on which Mr Cody's originals were constructed while on a visit to the Palace some days previously. in J h w°r S a 3 spent the whole o£ their P° cke * money X* w* ♦' h H occu ? led thei * spare time in putting the kites together and had utilised the spacious coalyard attached to the Penge railway station for the conduct of their preliminary experiments. Sir John Brown, who made the first rolled armor P' a p teS i or m ?? er^ battleships, was but a lad of sixteen when the sight of a -carriage worked by a spiral spring at a village fair -suggested to him the conical spring SS* ?V al S ay tr . UCkS ' out tf-w* 1 "*, after a long struggle, he ultimately made a fortune. S Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton sin, cot the S£,°if hl \ g + reat ide , a from seei *£. through* th! inter! thP frJSi a hU LL tt ' J an ? ld nesro work a hand-saw among the freshly picked cotton stored within p n<s iTv c n eeth - ?f,? f , the , saw tore ~ the lint from the seed ?h!> L a t qU + lf kly + ' al \ d younj? Whitne ? ( he was barely thirteen at the time , realised at once that a machine r^utfo^S"* ?♦ Simll , ar SaWS si^^aneously wS revolutionise the cotton industry inz^oS* nOtl !i nS lo . an >' b f> d y. »>ut set to work building models and experimenting. His difficulties wpr P enormous, for he not only had to mike Ws own wheds cogs, etc, but he had also first to forge his own toos' and oven to manufacture the paint wherewith to color his many plans a nd drawings. ° At Atterciiue, near Sheffield, in 1760 there HvpH * Xe^eXTa^d W"" 1 ' Vh ° Se temper er had V ?fte^ SS in use y deieci »c q^lity of the watch springs creSrt f^* 11 * 1 ™*"?. and at la§.tI a§ .t succeeded. The supply steel casting wlth W hfm he A ok the secret of these were as mlv Si.i and With J n half a dozen weeks new procls 7 mjlI -° wner s 1,1 Sheffield working the

cunnT^KKS 6 Sf*i4 oTteiru^rhS^nu^ —" «-& A' h ? late Sir Is aac Holden's inventions in connppttr.r, Sm ?h * industry ha?e almost TbseurS from the public s remembrance the fact that he was also the originator of the lucifer match This happened while filling the position of leetnrpr nr, chemistry at the Castle street Academy, 0 Reading used to rise at four in the morning in order to nurs^e his studies, and found the old-fashioned flint and sS extremely inconvenient. 'So one day he made a LteS phosphorous and other substances, Jtuckit m the e£& of a silver of wood, and found it would ignite on beiSS rubbed against any rough substance g Holden himself d.d not realise the imnortanco of hi e discovery. Not so, however, a pupil o l hS ?to whl showed it This" youngster, 'who" ZncUHl be Tl°%on of a London manufacturing chemist, at once wrote ta w^re'-ffiSd^Ve 1 Urtd^ lawM \iyZ%£J Jg, 1curious construction near the office where he woSed and the man who owned it explained its mechanism ; tA I? hTf Htn !-?-' H »f also «P*atoed to Wm an^idea he had for utilizing the power of falling water in order to lift the great weights. a HHi f ' W , ? tie L Words set voun e Armstrong thinkin e sl.lt of 6 it Ti he + c , xx P eri^ e «ting. And the rt c^rse o^^^^ S rfhe hh m S oder b e i?il d P e°r SSible -""o^Sffi , La^t, and most wenderfui of all, comes the case of Srin * * " a lan lad f Gu^ liemo Marconi who through seeing a conjurer perform certain- tricks of electrical agency, w as enabled not so very long ago to astonish the world with wireless telegraphy astomsn cn SS rr m eX fnd im v tSWerecamed oni nafield on his b°o n ?h ° o off f wilh a crud ' t?ansmft^ This was in 1886, when he was in his fourteenth year ; and he was barely 21, a shy modest heS-SKs? stnphn X when he was in London exKnfng to tK ?he at c?itury ntlStS the 6 rea^st d^fcovery of