attracted to other work, and the development of the
sewing machine was left for the other inventor. It was in 1846 that
Corliss began to develop those improvements in the steam engine which
were to revolutionize its construction. One trouble with the steam
engine as then built was that it was not uniform in motion. That is, if
the engine was running a lot of machines their speed would vary from
moment to moment, as they were started or stopped. For instance, a
hundred looms, all running at once, would run at a certain speed, but if
some of them were shut off, the speed of the others would increase, so
that it was very difficult to regulate them. Again, there was a
tremendous waste of power, so that the fuel consumption was out of all
proportion to the power actually developed.

It was these defects that Corliss set himself to remedy, and he did it
simply by taking a load off the governor, which had always been used to
move the throttle-valve. In the Corliss engine, the governor simply
indicated to the valves the work to be done, and the saving of fuel was
so great that the inventor often installed his engine under a contract
to take the saving in coal-bills from a certain period as his pay. One
of his great achievements was the construction of a 1400 horse power
engine to move all the machinery at the centennial exposition at
Philadelphia, in 1876. The engine, which worked splendidly, was one of
the sights of the exposition.

What the sewing-machine is to the needle, the typewriter is to the pen.
No other one invention has so revolutionized business, and the credit
for the invention of a practicable typewriting machine is due to C.
Latham Sholes. Others had tried their hands at the problem before he
took it up, but he was the first to hit upon its solution--a number of
type-bars carrying the letters of the alphabet operated by levers and
striking upon a common centre, past which the paper was carried on a
revolving cylinder.

Sholes had a varied and picturesque career. Born in Pennsylvania in
1819, he followed the printer's trade for a number of years, and it was
no doubt from the type that he got his idea of engraved dies mounted on
type-bars. Finally he removed to Wisconsin, where he edited a paper and
soon became prominent in the politics of the state, holding a number of
appointive positions. It was in 1866 that he began to experiment with a
writing-machine, and his first one, which was patented two years later,