As in the case of most inventions of such immense value as the telephone, a fortune has had to be spent in order to protect the patent rights; but in Bell's case the inventor's money reward has been ample and is now said to amount to more than $1,000,000 a year. Just at present Mr. Bell is engaged upon a modification of the phonograph, which may enable persons not wholly deaf to hear a phonographic reproduction of the human voice, even if they cannot hear the voice itself. Honors have poured in upon him within the last fifteen years. In 1880 the French Government awarded him the Volta prize of $10,000, which Mr. Bell devoted to founding the Volta Laboratory in Washington, an institution for the use of students. In 1882 he also received from France the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. XI. AMERICAN INVENTORS, PAST AND PRESENT. There are now in force in this country nearly three hundred thousand patents for inventions and devices of more or less importance and aid to everyone. To how great a degree the world is indebted to the inventor, very few of us realize. The more we think of the matter, however, the more are we likely to believe that the inventor is mankind's great benefactor. Watt should stand before Napoleon in the hero-worship of the age, and the man who perfected the friction-match before the author of an epic. Some day this redistribution of the world's honors will surely take place, and it should be a satisfaction to us Americans that our country stands so high in the ranks of inventive genius. Within the last half century Americans have contributed, to mention only great achievements, the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the sewing-machine, the reaper, and vulcanized rubber, to the world's wealth--a far larger contribution than that of any other nation. What may not the next generation produce? Some people seem to believe that so much has already been invented as to have exhausted the field. In this connection I have quoted in another place some remarks Mr. Edison once made to me as to what the next fifty years might bring forth. Still more astonishing than our past fecundity in invention would be future barrenness. This century has done its work and produced its marvels with comparatively blunt tools, or no tools at all. The next century will be able to work with superb instruments of which our grandfathers knew nothing. The school-boy to-day knows more of the forces of nature and their useful application than the magician of fifty years ago. It has been said that the fifteen blocks in the "Gem" puzzle can be arranged in more than a million different ways. The material in the game at which man daily plays is so infinitely more complex that the number of combinations cannot be written out in figures. The rôle played by invention in modern life is infinitely greater than during preceding ages. One invention, by affording a new tool, makes others possible. The