s travel on horseback or on
foot.

Even the wealthiest Americans of those days had few or none of the
articles which we regard today as necessities of life. The houses were
provided with open--which, however cheerful, did not keep them warm--or
else with Franklin's stoves. To strike a fire one must have the flint
and tinderbox, for matches were unknown until about 1830. Candles made
the darkness visible. There was neither plumbing nor running water. Food
was cooked in the ashes or over an open fire.

The farmer's tools were no less crude than his wife's. His plough had
been little improved since the days of Rameses. He sowed his wheat
by hand, cut it with a sickle, flailed it out upon the floor, and
laboriously winnowed away the chaff.

In that same year, 1790, came a great boon and encouragement to
inventors, the first Federal Patent Act, passed by Congress on the 10th
of April. Every State had its own separate patent laws or regulations,
as an inheritance from colonial days, but the Fathers of the
Constitution had wisely provided that this function of government should
be exercised by the nation.* The Patent Act, however, was for a
time unpopular, and some States granted monopolies, particularly of
transportation, until they were forbidden to do so by judicial decision.

* The Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8) empowers
Congress: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries."

The first Patent Act provided that an examining board, consisting of the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney-General, or
any two of them, might grant a patent for fourteen years, if they
deemed the invention useful and important. The patent itself was to be
engrossed and signed by the President, the Secretary of State, and
the Attorney-General. And the cost was to be three dollars and seventy
cents, plus the cost of copying the specifications at ten cents a sheet.

The first inventor to avail himself of the advantages of the new Patent
Act was Samuel Hopkins of Vermont, who received a patent on the 31st of
July for an improved method of "Making Pot and Pearl Ashes." The world
knows nothing of this Samuel Hopkins, but the potash industry, which was
evidently on his mind, was quite important in his day. Potash, that is,
crude potassium carbonate, useful i