Various

“ Will he learn anything of hides, leather, or the production of these necessary articles? Will he know whether the word textile applies to anything but a spider's web or the wing of a butterfly? Whether the United States make, import, or grow cotton, wool, silk, flax, and hemp?
Will he know anything of commerce, railroads, telegraphs, printing, and the great number of clerk labors in the larger towns? Will he have learned a single thing which will assist him in his work of life? ”

“ As long as humanity is so constituted, over-production, in a general and enlarged sense, is impossible. It is this impossible thing with which the reformers would deal who propose to work fewer hours each day, or fewer hours in the week. The trouble they deplore does not exist; the remedy they propose defeats itself. A man cannot get rid of his load by shifting it from his right hand to his left hand. Production will not be stopped by making men their own employers certain hours in the day or certain days in the week, instead of allowing them to pursue their usual avocations. ”

“ Forms as evanescent almost as those of sunset clouds, and far more beautiful in everything but color, are shifting before us, and here and there we see, or think we see, in the sweep of their curves beyond, evidences of mighty whirlwinds (greater by far than the largest terrestrial cyclone) at work. While we are looking, and trying to make the most of every moment, our atmosphere grows tremulous again, the shapes get confused, there is nothing left distinct but such coarser features as our engraving shows, and the wonderful sight is over. ”

“ Every miner that drops his pick and takes up a hoe, every idle man that turns himself into an earner of wages, every person that picks up some loose thread of employment, every capitalist that takes advantage of stagnating industry and cheap material to build a house or beautify or improve a country seat, or set on foot some new process of manufacture, does something toward working out the problem which is puzzling the economists. In good time the surplus iron and coal will be sold; new populations will want new railroads ”

“ Perhaps the best idea of what is so hard to describe, because so unlike anything on earth, is got by supposing ourselves to look through successive vails of white lace, filled with flower-like patterns, at some great body of white flame beyond, while between the spires of the flame and separating it from the border are depths of shade passing into blackness. With all this, there is something crystalline about the appearance, which it is hard to render an idea of—frost-figures on a window pane may help us as an image, though imperfect. ”

“ THE TELEPHONE AS A PROMOTER OF SCIENCE.
Every new thing, whether it be in the realm of mind or matter, has an influence on whatever existed before, of a similar kind, to modify, develop, and improve it, or to doom it to oblivion. Whatever is new necessitates a better knowledge of the old, so that the world gains not only by the acquirement of the new thing, but also by a better understanding of things already known. ”

“ But these words, conquest and subjugation, have a more significant meaning than the spoiling of one people by another; they are the actual price of possession. He who, toiling, subjugates the soil, is undoubted owner of its production, by virtue of the highest blessing on record—"By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou obtain bread." ”

“ The child knows nothing of when or by whom the compass was discovered, the printing press, the use of powder, electricity, of steam, or of any one of the thousand mechanical operations now controlling every department of life. Does any school boy know how many kingdoms there are in the natural world, or whether an animal, a vegetable and a mineral all belong to the same or to different ones? ”

“ A discovery, published, sets a thousand minds at work, and immediately there is a host of experimentalists who, in their desire to make and try the new thing for themselves, begin without a knowledge of the science or art to which the discovery pertains, and inevitably fail. ”

“ It is not becoming to the Congress of a great nation to spend its time in legislating worthless patents out of existence. All such will die a natural death. And if there is sufficient worth in any patent to claim your consideration, the inventor is entitled to its price, whether he waits four years or fifteen for his pay. ”

“ American inventors should bear in mind that, as a general rule, any invention that is valuable to the patentee in this country is worth equally as much in England and some other foreign countries. Five patents—embracing Canadian, English, German, French, and Belgian—will secure to an inventor the exclusive monopoly to his discovery among about ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLIONS of the most intelligent people in the world. The facilities of business and steam communication are such that patents can be obtained abroad by our citizens almost as easily as at home. ”

“ The Post, of Birmingham, England, remarks with regard to American competition, that "perhaps the most humiliating feature of the business for British manufacturers is the fact that their competitors are prevailing, not through the cheapness, but through the excellence of their goods. Time was when English workmanship ranked second to none, and the names of our great manufacturing firms were a guarantee for the sterling quality of the goods they turned out; but competitions, trades unions, piece work, short hours, and other incidents of the 'march of progress' have altered all that. ”

“ The American standard of production is not the highest, and it can be materially elevated, and while, as at present, too many common articles are supplied, the leading manufacturers should turn to producing finer, the finest, and in smaller quantities, to take the place of many articles now imported, and to supply the new market which such productions will always create in any country. ”

“ A serious objection attaching to the animal oils is present in petroleum. If, through the exhaust steam, some of the oil be carried into the boiler, foaming or priming is the consequence, but the same thing happening in the case of petroleum is rather a benefit than otherwise, for it not only does not cause foaming, but it prevents incrustation or adhesion of the scale or deposit, and this aids in the preservation of the boiler, and is perhaps the best preventive of the many everywhere suggested. ”

“ Will not our silk men put a velvet industry into operation as a germ from which a future industry may grow? And we might name a hundred other lesser enterprises which have hardly name in this country, but every one of which is needed and will add to the wealth of the people. ”

“ Already we notice several instances in which the workmen, renouncing their prejudices, have willingly consented to the substitution of machine for hand work, and we doubt not that the success of these innovations, conjoined with the pressure of the times, will ere long create a complete revolution in the ideas of the British workmen, so that instead of longer opposing they will demand the improved appliances and facilities for work, converting them from rivals or opponents to allies. ”

“ One great objection to cement joints is the rigidity of them; in cases where pipes have been disturbed by other excavations and settled, I found in all cases that the mains were broken. In a leading main from our old works, with cement joints, the main, a 10-inch one, was broken entirely off and fractured lengthwise besides, by the upheaval of the ground from frost. In some of the same mains that we had rejointed with lead the mains were drawn apart, drawing the lead out, but with very little loss of gas, as the gasket being driven in tight prevented any great leakage. ”

“ With this, in favorable moments, we see that the sun's surface away from the spots, everywhere, is made up of hundreds of thousands of small, intensely brilliant bodies, that seem to be floating in a gray medium, which, though itself no doubt very bright, appears dark by comparison. What these little things are is still uncertain; whatever they are, they are the immediate principal source of the sun's light and heat. To get an idea of their size we must resort to some more delicate means of measurement than we used in the case of the watch. ”

“ Our Patent Law.
To the Editor of the Scientific American:
While I cannot handle this subject with any master talent, nor afford to devote the time which should be given to so important a subject before expressing an opinion, yet I can less afford to keep quiet and allow shrewd avarice to manipulate or titled ignorance to legislate my property out of existence. "Property! There is no property in patents," I often hear said. And how about the invention covered by a patent? ”

“ In fact the intense whiteness of everything is oddly suggestive of something very cold, rather than very hot, as we know it really. I have had much the same impression when looking into the open mouth of a puddling furnace at the lumps of pure white iron, swimming half-melted in the grayer fluid about them. Here, however, the temperature leaves nothing solid, nothing liquid even; the iron and other metals of which we know these spot-forms do in part at least consist are turned into vapor by the inconceivable heat, and everything we are looking at consists probably of clouds of such vapor ”

“ C, watches the machine he uses, and spends his leisure hours in working out an improvement, which he patents and offers to C for sale; but as the invention is useless except as attached to C's machine, he thinks B can't help himself, and adopts the improvement without paying for it. When a few years have built up a great industry, and C is rich from his spoils, B steps in with a few friends at his back, incorporated especially to make C shell out. ”

“ After failure comes research, which to be of value must be extended. Every investigator can recall the novelty that induced his first experiments, and can recount his trials in his search for information.
Among the inventions or discoveries that have induced extended experiment, the telephone may, without doubt, be mentioned as the chief, for no sooner was the first speaking telephone brought out than here and there all over the country it was imitated. Persons who never had the slightest knowledge of electrical science had a desire to see and test the telephone. ”

“ The use of perfect appliances and the best material and the employment of the highest skill are not yet the first step and an absolute necessity, as it should be, in America. The supply of such machinery, material, and labor can be had if those who propose to enter the production of first class articles will insist upon it, and if such supplies are appreciated by the payment of their higher value. ”

“ The carbon telephone represents a special material in a special way to a special purpose.
The microphone demonstrates and represents the whole field of nature; the whole world of matter is suitable to act upon, and the whole of the electrical conducting materials are suitable to its demonstrations.
The one represents a patentable improvement; the other a discovery too great and of too wide bearing for any one to be justified in holding it by patent, and claiming as his own that which belongs to the world's domain.
London, July 2, 1878. D. E. HUGHES.
New Industrial Enterprises. ”

“ And this principle is so far acknowledged that the laborer holds a lien on the product of his labor, even though the property belongs to another.
Mr. A has an unpromising piece of land on which he would like to raise corn. He analyzes the soil, experiments upon it chemically, reads up on the properties and components of corn, the effects of fertilizers and acids upon the soil, and makes himself a fool and laughing-stock generally among his neighbors because he steps out of the beaten track by which they have succeeded in making the ground barren. ”

“ Our engraving, which represents a portion of the park at the Paris Exhibition grounds, needs little mention beyond that it is one of those delightful retreats so refreshing to the weary visitor, who, tired out with tramping about the buildings and grounds, is only too pleased to refresh his eyes with some of that exquisite miniature water scenery which is scattered about the grounds. ”