NOTHING MORE TO INVENT

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 135, 21 January 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOTHING MORE TO INVENT

**. . Someone pouring over the old file, in the United States Patent Otlice n> Washington the other day. found n let ter written in 1833 that illustrates the limitations of the human imagination. It was from an old employee of the Patent Office, offering hi* rcsignat'ofi to the head of the department. Hi, reason was that a- everything invent - able had been invented the Patent Office would noon be discontinued and there would lie no further need of his services or the services of any of Ins fell e.v clerks. He, therefore, decided to leave before the blow fell. Everything invcntuble had been invented! T he writer of this letter journeyed in a stage coacii or a canal boat. He had never .seen an express train or an ocean greyhound. He read at night by candlelight, if he read at all in th? evening; more likely he went bed soon after dark and did all his reading by uayl'ght. He had never seen a house lighted by illuminating gas. The arc and incandescent electric lights we c not invented for nearly halt a century. H he had ever heard of electricity he thought of it as the mysterous ani dangerous fiuul that strikes from i .w clouds ikiring ■■. thunderstorm. Thai i* could be harnessed to do man's w ;ll hi i never occurred to him. He never heard the clicking of a telegraph sounder. The telephone would have seemed a- wonderful co mi as a voyage ro the moon. Motion p'e. t tires would bine reminded bun o l ' black art, and the idea that a machine could be invented whereby man would lly above the clouds like a bird, ascending and descending at will, wouul nave seemed to Irm merely absurd. The modern printing-press, the linotype machine, which seems almost to think: the X-ray, by means of winch surgeons diagnose disease and injury and lay out their work with seieni'hc certainty, these things were yet to be invented long a/ter he was dead. He colud not imagine the automobile, now so common that they cover the streets and road-, of all the world. He could not dream that a cannon would be made to throw a projectile mole than twenty m les, that repeating rifle*, revolvers, and machine-guns would be invented, that steel monsters oi the deep would speed invisibly under the seas with the.power to send a giant ocean liner to the bottom within a matter of moments. He lacked the imagination to .see all the thousands and tons of thousands of comparatively small invent'ons that have come into being since his day, some of them for good and Home for evil, but all telling a story of progress of one sort or anther. Probably in this he did not differ from mo-tot his fellowmen in his day. Jt i.s very I'kely most of his friends agreed with him that the limit of invention had been reached. He seems unfortunately deficient in imagination and optimism, as we read of his letter of resignation in the mi:?. ty files of the Patent Office. But let us not take too much unction to our souls. We are quite as ignorant of what the next eighty yeans may bring forth as lie was of the future of American inventors —".Scientific American." The Od Locomotive At Work. The installation of 01-burning locomotives on the mountain section ol tin Grand Trunk Pacific Railway haw now been completed. These locomotives are of the modern type, and were placed on .service for passenger traffic for the tirst time on July 30th. They are operating from Jasper to Prince Rupert, oror 7lli miles of main line. Spec al interest attaches to the installation of this class of motive-power, as it marks the first u-0 of oil-burners on an extensive scale in Canada. Huge oil storage tanks have been erected at various points along the line for .supplying the locomotives with the necessary fuel. With the operation of these engines there is a complete absence of the discomforts which sometimes arise from the use of coal with its tendency to give off dust and gr.'t. The section ot the line on which these locomotives are being used passes through some of the finest scenic territory in the Canadian Kockies and the absence of coal dust will add to the pleasures of the open car and the car platform. Two of tlie Grand Trunk Pacific steamships which operate from the Pacifiie terminal at Prince Rupert to Victoria, Vancouver and Seattle are also oil burners, and this gives the Grand Trunk Paciffi. nearly 1 .■">()() miles of rail and water route on which this form of fuel on!.' is used.