FATE OF AN INVENTOR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3774, 19 September 1907, Page 3

FATE OF AN INVENTOR.

A late American newspaper conveys the information that John Brislin, inventor of the massive rolling machinery by which beams of iron weighing tons are run through the rolls and through which. Andrew Carnegie made most of his millions, died at Pittsburg at the age of 72, blind and in poverty. Brislin was a boyhood chum of Carnegie, and while employed in the Homestead mills met Anton Vinnac, a Frenchman. Together they patented the modern roll tables into shape automatically. They 7 charged the Carnegie Steel Company 7 with stealing their patents, and in 1897 a decision sustaining their contention was handed down by Judge Buffington in the United States District Court. The Steel Company offered to settle for 100,000 dollars, but the inventors refused, claming that tho patent was worth 40,000,000 dollars. The Steel Company carried the case to the Federal Court of Appeal, and the decision of Judge Buffington in favour of the workmen was reversed. Brislin and Vinnac were without funds to fight the case further, and Vinnac died of grief. Brislin lost his eyesight and became morose.