LUCKY INVENTORS.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 November 1922, Page 10

LUCKY INVENTORS.

ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES. “I wonder,” said the kindly friend, “wiiy you have never tried to invent anything!” Well, very few successful inventions have resulted from “trying to invent.” The “best sellers,” other than complicated machinery, which is generally developed rather than intented, have, as a rule, been discovered by chance. An idea strikes a man, he sees something in it, patents it, and finds a manufacturer willing to produce, on terms. Sometimes the man gets rich, sometimes the manufacturer. It all depends on the lawyers who draw up the agreement. Blotting paper is an instance of a lucky invention. In a “making” of ordinary white paper a careless workman forgot the size. The spoiled sheets stood stacked, waiting to be destroyed. A gust of wind blew a newly-written letter on to the stack, and a discovery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds was mlide. Waterproof cloth is another instance. Material dyed a wrong color was washed with alum in a vain endeavor to rectify the error. After it was dry someone else tried with plain water, but could not even wet the cloth. A servant girl fell asleep while watching a pot of boiling brine. At that time no one knew how to glaze pottery. When she awoke she found the pot was glazed where the brine had run down the side. She told her master, and he grew rich. There is a story that Edison discovered that a magnet would separate iron filingci from a brass refuse. The story is untrue; a Nottingham brassfounder in a small way of business found it out and told all his friends. He remained in a small way of business. The soft glue used for inking printers’ rollers was discovered by accident, as also was lithography, and, in all probability, the addition of bread to sausages. The man who invented the electric arc lamp worked all his life at it and died in the garret; Ericson worked -for years on the screw propeller; McCormick. spent years on working out details of his famous reaper, and earned his living meanwhile by working in a mill.