SECTION OF TRANSPORTATION AND ENGINEERING. 167 



Plot". F. W. Ohiikc, s. 1?., of Ohio, chief (^litMiii.st IT. S. Geological Survey: '''I'lie 

 KelatioDS of Abstract Scieiititic Research to I'ractical Invention, with Special Ref 

 erence to Chemistry and Physics." 



Hou. William T. Harris, Commissioner of Education : "The Relation of Invention 

 to the Communicatiou of Intelligence and the Dift'usion of Knowledge l>y News])aper 

 and Book.'' 



Prof. Otis T. Mason, ph. o., of Virgin i:i, curator U. S. National Museum: "The 

 Birth of Invention." 



Edward Atkinson, ph. i>., i.r.. i>., of Massachusetts: •' Invention in its Effects upon 

 Household Economy." 



Dr. John S. Billings, curator U. S. Army Medical Museum: "American Invention 

 and Discoveries in Medicine, Surgery, and Practical Sanitation." 



During the meetings, wliicli were attended by citizens from all 

 parts of the country, a loan collection was installed in the lecture hall 

 of the National Museum, where machines of antique design, models, and 

 early jiatents were inspected and studied by many visitors drawn to 

 Washington by their interest in the Patent Centennial Celebration. In 

 this attractive collection were j)atents signed by James Madison, Pres- 

 ident of the United States, and James Monroe, Sec-retary of State, March 

 3, 1813, granting to John W. Bronough and Jesse Talbot the sole right 

 to manufacture a refrigerator. Several patents and assignments of 

 patents granted by the English Government in 1877 were also in the 

 collection. 



No better description of the character of this loan exhibition can be 

 furnished than that contained in the Washington Evening Star, April, 

 1891, which reads as follows : 



The first two talking machines ever made are on exhibition in the lecture hall of 

 the National Museum. There are a great many other curious things gathered in that 

 apartment just now, put there for the edification and instruction of those who are 

 interested in the Patent Centeunial, which is now in full working order. There is a 

 case full of talking machines, and subscribers who are continually tangling them- 

 selves up with " Central " may be able to discover in the interior of one of the instru- 

 ments the cause of their trouble. 



The first talking machine is a small walnut cone divided. The apex is the receiver, 

 the truncated portion is the transmitter. Those Avho ought to know say that it talks 

 well, but no company could collect $90 per annum upon any such looking thing as it 

 is. Bell's lii[uid transmitter is in the case, and so is the first form of hand telejihone. 

 This must have made even the inventor tired, for it is enormously large, and affords 

 a striking contrast to the ear trumpet now so common. The first experimental forms 

 of the Blake transmitter are shown, and alongside of them are the component parts of 

 the long-distance telephone. How far this latter will work no one knows. 



Mr. H. v. Hayes, who is arranging the exhibit, talked this morning with his family 

 in his home at Cambridge, Mass., a mere matter of .500 miles. Edison's motophone is 

 shown in the telephone case. 



AX AXTIQUK KLKCTRICAL RAILKOAn. 



An anticjue electrical railway, dating back to 1837, is one of the interesting 

 curios of the collection, attracting as much general attention, perhaps, as the origi- 

 nal telegraph instruments used at the Baltimore end of the line which made S. F. B. 

 Morse and Stephen Vail famous. 



