ough to anchor the
post, however, and the experiment went off swimmingly. The boat was
hooked on to the chain, and the passage back and forward--two
miles--was made in eleven minutes.

"I ran that boat some ten days," says Mr. Cooper, "to let people see
what could be done, and carried nearly a thousand people. Part of the
time I ran two boats. Once I counted 52 people in one boat. I made the
whole chain myself and planted the posts. As I could find no wheels to
suit me I made the moulds and cast the wheels myself out of block tin
and zinc. It was no small job, I can tell you."

This was unquestionably a grand invention. In itself it was a perfect
success; but it was not used. Mr. Cooper tells why:

"It demonstrated completely that the elevated water power along the
line of the canal and every lock in the canal could be made use of to
drive the boats. Governor Clinton gave me $800 for the privilege of
buying the right to the plan in case he should want to use it on the
Erie Canal. In making the canal he had promised the people along the
route that as soon as it was finished they could sell their horses to
tow the boats, their grain and fodder to feed the horses, and their
provisions for the passengers. On reflection he thought that if he
took all that away from them he would have to run the gantlet again,
and he could not afford to do that. There never was anything done with
the plan until a few years ago, when Mr. Welch, president of the
Camden and Amboy Railroad and Canal, invented exactly the same thing
and put it in practice on his locks on the canal. He found it saved
half the time and great expense. He went to Washington to take out a
patent for it, and when he got there he found that I had patented the
same thing fifty-three years before. My patent had run out, so he
could use the plan on his canal. It has also been used on one lock on
the Erie Canal. If they could have used that chain on the whole length
of the Erie Canal it would have saved many millions of dollars."

This would not be a bad place, were there room for it, to speak of
"undeveloped" and therefore worthless inventions; and the assumption
that if an inventor does not make his invention immediately profitable
it must be good for nothing, and should be dispatented. But the moral
goes without telling.

Mr. Cooper's next attempt at invention was made about the same time,
but in quite a different direction. It was during the struggle of the
Greeks