Tolland County Press

CURIOUS PATENTS.

Some investigating person has furnished the New York Times with a brief list of patents on small things which in many instances have proved great mines of wealth to the lucky discoverer. The list might be extended to a much larger number, but we only state those given in the Times. Among these trifles is the favorite toy, the "return ball"--a wooden ball with an elastic string attached, selling for ten cents each, but yielding to its patentee an income equal to $50,000 a year.

The rubber tip on the end of lead pencils affords the owner of the royalty an independent fortune. The inventor of the gummed newspaper wrapper is also a rich man. The gimlet pointed screw has evolved more wealth than most silver mines, and the man who first thought of putting copper tips on children's shoes is as well off as if his father had left him $2,000,000 in United States bonds.

Although roller skates are not so much used in countries where ice is abundant, in South America, especially in Brazil, they are very highly esteemed, and have yielded over $1,000,000 to their inventor; but he had to spend fully $125,000 in England alone fighting infringements. The "dancing Jim Crow"--a toy--provided an annual income of $75,000 to its inventor, and the common needle threader is worth $10,000 a year to the man who thought of it.

The "drive well" was an idea of Colonel Green's, whose troops, during the war, were in want of water. He conceived the notion of driving a two-inch tube into the ground until water was reached and then attaching a pump. This simple contrivance was patented after the war, and the tens of thousands of farmers who have adopted it have been obliged to pay him a royalty, a moderate estimate of which is placed at $300,000.

The spring window shade yields an income of $100,000 a year; the stylographic pen also brings in $100,000 yearly; the marking pen for shading in different colors, $100,000; rubber stamps the same. A very large fortune has been reaped by a western miner, who, ten years since, invented a metal rivet or eyelet at each end of the mouth of coat and pants pockets to resist the strain caused by the carriage of pieces of ore and heavy tools.