SOME BADLY-NEEDED INVENTIONS.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 9, 2 July 1906, Page 242

SOME BADLY-NEEDED INVENTIONS.

Accord-ing to the authority of the grave-digger in Hamlet, an act has three branches — to act, to do, to perform ; and the same may be said of inventing — financially successful inventing;, that is. It has three branches. The first is the idea conceived ; the second is the idea achieved ; and the third, and most important, the idea received — that is, selling on the market. And it is this last-mentioned branch which is usually the difficulty. Many people can, and often do, invent. The' bulk of these can possibly make their models or get them made ; but it is only a proportion of these two classes combined which can put the resulting invention upon the market. Mostly the reason for this is that the inventors are not hugely circumspect in their inventions and

save the carelessness of man. One or two things they lack, however. They need something which will effectually protect the parts under water from barnacles and other fouling pests of the sea, and that for an indefinite period. They need an invention which will warn a ship in a fog of the proximity of other ships, say within a distance of two miles. Not only that, but the warning must be in such a form that each ship will know the exact course that the other ship is steering, so that she can lay out her own accordingly In the matter of town improvements, too, there is the much-felt need of a really good permanent roadway. Asphalt is good, when either wet or dry, but a sprinkling of rain makes it as greasy and slippery as ice. Wood blocks have the same objection and wear into holes too quickly. The best roads for horses are, doubtless, the macadamised variety, but unless they are relaid eveiy other day or so the city roads, where there is much traffic,

patent ideas or invent articles which appeal to so limited a proportion of the public that no manufacturer would risk a halfpenny over them. We might almost say, therefore, that invention has four branches, the extra branch being knowing what to invent, and it is proposed here to deal more particularly with the fourth branch. The general idea that inventions m a small way are exhausted is erroneous, as is likewise the popular impression that inventions of the greater kind need technical knowledge. A man may make a fortune out of a useful penny article or out of an accidental discovery, and that without technical knowledge. No special knowledge of any kind was needed to invent the bent wire safety pin, the inventor of which is supposed to have made a fabulous fortune, nor could it be said that the invention of the anchor with flukes hinged at the middle required either genius or technical knowledge. The idea was the invention, the actual carrying out of it was practically nothing, and both ideas could as easily have occurred to a ploughboy as to an Edison. The mud on our streets, which is removed in hundreds of tons weekly, should be put to profitable use, and once the idea is formulated and is practicable and profitable, it would mean an immense fortune to the inventor. An article which is wasted hugely is wood. The present method cf sawing lumber produces a large quantity of sawdust, only a very little of which is used. Every saw-cut wastes a plank the thickness of the saw and length and breadth of the log whether resulting planks be thick or thin ; and the surface so left has in most cases to be planed, which wastes about half as much again as is wasted m sawdust. Now, an invention is badly needed which will obviate this waste. The wood must be cut, not rasped through, so as to leave a clean surface and waste nothing m dust or shavings. Electricians badly need a perfect insulator. It must stand heat, cold, water, air, and all atmospheiic conditions and be quite flexible, have great strength and electrical resistance, and above all, must be cheap. Rubber at present fulfils the bulk of these conditions, but it is worth some 15s. per pound. But then, en the other hand, worn-out rubber is an almost valueless commodity, as it cannot be made up again. This is due to the sulphur used in manufactuung the raw material. An inventor is wanted who can devise a cheap process of extracting the sulphur from the old worn out rubber and rendering it as serviceable as new. Probably an accident will show the method of doing this, and when it does it will be rash to invest in rubber companies. Ships, nowadays, are built so as to defy almost everything,

would soon be as bad travelling as frozen ploughed fields. What is wanted, therefore, is a road with the holding advantages of macadam, and the permanency of asphalt, and the silence of wood It must be as cheap as any of them, and will therefore be made from the refuse of some manufacture or other, which is practically worthless. We suggested above that worn-out rubber is useless, and that the mud from our streets is useless. Could they be combined in some way so as to make a useful road ? The lighting of our roads, too, needs much improvement. The arc lamp at present used is inefficient on account of its flickering — m fact, for many purposes arc lighting cannot be used, because of this fault, although it would be the very best light were it perfect. Therefore invent a perfect arc lamp — oh ye geniuses ' Much as it is needed there is no good preservative for iron and woodwork which is exposed to the atmosphere. Paint is but a makeshift, and a poor one

strontium would accomplish this, but they are too expensive at present. There is, therefore, another alternative, and that is to devise a way of obtaining the strontium salts more cheaply ; and to make assurance double sure, houses should be built w'th a perfectly fireproof briek — a brick' which can have a fierce fire built upon it and have its under surface quite cool, although only about an inch m thickness. Such a brick has been an existing fact — is now, but its inventor is dead, and he, and only he, knew what the ingredients of that buck were.

at that, having to be constantly renewed, and the same may be said oi all other preserv atives save one — cement. We have seen pieces of iron which had been embedded in cement for centuries, dug out of the same, without the least suspicion of rust, and still retaining the bluish colour of the forge. What is wanted is the application of this knowledge to air-exposed ironwork. Another kind of paint is needed for inside woodwork. It is one which will render the article to which it is applied uninflammable. Some of the salts ot