THE FIELD OF INVENTION.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3191, 12 May 1879, Page 4

THE FIELD OF INVENTION.

Professor Millsj, of Syracuse, in a recent addfesj jnChicago^said :— Botany Jells us there are some two hundred thousand plants known, nearly all of which to-day are, reckoned weeds, potton, flax, the wheat plant, and a few others, have been read and translated to us. "Arkwright and Whitney," says Emerson, "were the demwgoods of cotton ; they taught it.to man. But what of- the rest of the two hundred thousand plants now reckoned weeds P They, too, wait the genius that shall interpret them and unlock their untold values. for the race. So, too, the minerals; they', large part of them, sleep in the earth waiting for their hour to strike, for the alchemist to be born.

We have machines for mowing and reaping; the machines for gathering root crops and fruit are yet to come. Only a day or two suite I saw a machine for baling hay. The stoves leak the poisonous gases, as sieves water; who will make an iron impervious to the subtle j fatal agents.? Our chimneys breathe forth smoke, which is unconsumed fuel. Like a dark cloud of night it overhangs every large town, soiling and corrupting its ..atmosphere. AY ho will wipe this smoke from the sky, and utilize it for fuel ? Our sewers and drains exhale poisont, filling the houses with disease, and bringing in untold number untimely deaths. Who will stop this slaughter of the innocents that is constantly going forward? s r - The explosives which long ago were constrained to throw hurtful missiles for miles wait almost wholly yet to be unharnessed for useful work. The gunpowder pile-driver ia the first fruit aDdj the prophecy oft long series of explosive mptbrs yet to coaiei; Steam is a very expensive agent. It is employ«d univejfially* for the lack of t better! motor, or harness some- old one, that, at the expense of a few cents only, can transport a hundred^ pounds of freiflit across the continent or over the globe P The ravages wrought by insects and worms in the United Slates alone is estimated at $15O,OOO,(H3p : annually. Is there not room for some genius to devise the method of escape.' .';: . '.' "; : Nature is full of forces, waiting to be disenchanted, that shall change war, change industry, change life in every kind, making man an omnipotent genie, making the earth and all things therein new. ''.The tgreat inventors and discoverers, among mankind,", says Theodore Parser,!" have ploughed in corners of the field of possibility." It is in the mediocre and common place that there is surplus glut in the market. Rise higher and the world is all open before you.