. Scientific American Volume 86 Number 14 (April 1902) . SWORD-PISTOL. have more than the patience of Job, more than the-perseverance of the beaver, more than the industry ofthe bee. He must work hard, and be content to workfor months at a time without making any apparentprogress. He must be content to travel over the samefield again and again and again, indefatigably. That isthe secret of the inventors success—never-ending ap-plication. The idea that an inventor is necessarily agenius is entirely fallacious. Genius for invention ismerely the capacity for concentration and for these


. Scientific American Volume 86 Number 14 (April 1902) . SWORD-PISTOL. have more than the patience of Job, more than the-perseverance of the beaver, more than the industry ofthe bee. He must work hard, and be content to workfor months at a time without making any apparentprogress. He must be content to travel over the samefield again and again and again, indefatigably. That isthe secret of the inventors success—never-ending ap-plication. The idea that an inventor is necessarily agenius is entirely fallacious. Genius for invention ismerely the capacity for concentration and for these qualities, and a power of close observa-tion, and you have the make-up of a successful inven-tor. He need be no learned scientist, and yet he maybe able to work up most valuable inventions in manysciences. He need be no perfectly trained electrician,and yet he may be able to work up a valuable electricalappliance. But always he must be prepared to take-advantage of new phenomena, and to know all about. f&»M •;:* V^~ /Jc/.X/T*/ LAWN SPRINKLER. the field in which they lie. Many of our most impor-tant inventions are the result not so much of deep-knowledge as of the power of observation and theability to appreciate the possibilities of phenomenathat the less observing would pass by without seeing. April 5, 1902. Scientific American 243 THE CHAINLESS-BICYCLE COASTER-BRAKE GEAR-CHANGER. Prom the very advent of the safety bicycle inventorsbegan to devise speed-changing gears, which, as ageneral rule, were so fearfully complicated as to beutterly impracticable. Difficult as the problem hasLcen, so far as the chain bicycle is concerned, it mustbe confessed that it has not become simpler in themodern chainless wheel. The chief requisites of sim-plicity of construction and certainty of operation havebeen so wofully lacking in the speed-changing gearsdevised for both forms of bicycles that bicycle manu-facturers have almost given up the hope of eversecuring the contrivance they desi


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