THINK PROFITABLY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4908, 27 November 1925, Page 4

THINK PROFITABLY.

INVENTIONS- WANTED. A FEW SUGGESTIONS TO WORK ONAlthough there is another side to the picture, the surest way to wealth is to think out and patent some simple invention, such as the “screw" bottle stopper. If it is novel, and will save time, money, labour, or worry, the inventor will usually get his reward. The adequacy of the latter depends on whether he can exploit his own invention or has to sell it to others. Excluding those who re-invent the already invented, many misapply their faculties by treading a path, if it can be put that way, that is already well worn. The patent pipe is an example. Yet all .the while certain inventions are being demanded.

A fortune awaits the man or woman —women are far more prolific in inventions than men —who can invent somehing tha will prevent fountain pens from flooding, and thus writing too thickly, just before their ink supply is exhausted. The trouble is caused by the increased air pressure in the barrel.

Great improvements have been made, but there remains to be invented a stove that will throw all jts heat into' the room, and lose none up the chimney.

Yet another invention that would bring a fortune to the man who could think it out is a method which would so bind and stitch the ordinary magazine that it could be opened out flat like a book. , A device, however excellent, would be without commercial value if it were expensive to apply. As you know, the lengths of railway metals do not meet. Space hasto be allowed for expansion of the steel. The “clank-clank” of trains is due to the wheels bumping over these openings. The railway companies would scramble fpr an invention that would abolish the clanking, or do away with the necessity of leaving the openings.

Hundreds of patents have been taken out for new types of railway carriage door handles. A perfectly safe and fool-proof handle has yet to be invented. ' The idea of locking all doors by a contraption operated from the guard’s van is useless. The result, in the event of an accident, might be imprisonment and possible burning ,tp death of passengers. A clever device was the sliding “wiper” .that motorists fit to their wind screens to wipe away rain spots. But what is wanted is a method of treating glass in such a way that neither smoke, fog, nor fain will obscure it.

A teapot whose spout will not drip is still needed ; so also is; a bootlace of which the tag will never come off; while a device that would make watches and clocks show, in some way, whether they were fast ,or slow would find an instant purchaser. Today our only test of a timepiece being wrong is to compare it witlh another—which may also be wrong! In clothing .the scope for useful inventions, is enormous. Invent a device—thin whalebones have been tried without success—to make men’s trousers refrain from bagging, and A fortune will be yours. Bnvent a stiff collar with soft buttonholes, imperviouf to starch, and manufacturers would rush to buy the patent. It is obviously better .to supply what is being asked for than to invent something fpr which a demand may have to be created.