n making soap and in the manufacture
of glass, was made by leaching wood ashes and boiling down the lye. To
produce a ton of potash, the trees on an acre of ground would be cut
down and burned, the ashes leached, and the lye evaporated in great iron
kettles. A ton of potash was worth about twenty-five dollars. Nothing
could show more plainly the relative value of money and human labor in
those early times.

Two more patents were issued during the year 1790. The second went to
Joseph S. Sampson of Boston for a method of making candles, and the
third to Oliver Evans, of whom we shall learn more presently, for an
improvement in manufacturing flour and meal. The fourth patent was
granted in 1791 to Francis Baily of Philadelphia for making punches
for types. Next Aaron Putnam of Medford, Massachusetts, thought that
he could improve methods of distilling, and John Stone of Concord,
Massachusetts, offered a new method of driving piles for bridges. And
a versatile inventor, Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, received four
patents in one day for threshing grain, cutting and polishing marble,
raising a nap on cloth, and breaking hemp.

Then came improvements in making nails, in making bedsteads, in the
manufacture of boats, and for propelling boats by cattle. On August 26,
1791, James Rumsey, John Stevens, and John Fitch (all three will appear
again in this narrative) took out patents on means of propelling boats.
On the same day Nathan Read received one on a process for distilling
alcohol.

More than fifty patents were granted under the Patent Act of 1790, and
mechanical devices were coming in so thick and fast that the department
heads apparently found it inconvenient to hear applications. So the
Act of 1790 was repealed. The second Patent Act (1793) provided that a
patent should be granted as a matter of routine to any one who swore to
the originality of his device and paid the sum of thirty dollars as a
fee. No one except a citizen, however, could receive a patent. This act,
with some amendments, remained in force until 1836, when the present
Patent Office was organized with a rigorous and intricate system for
examination of all claims in order to prevent interference. Protection
of the property rights of inventors has been from the beginning of the
nation a definite American policy, and to this policy may be ascribed
innumerable inventions which have contributed to the greatness of
American industry and multiplied the world