We are now prepared for the consideration of the part woman has taken in this specializing movement and for a discussion of her share in modern inventions and in the improvements of those manifold inventions which were due to her genius and industry untold ages ago. Considering the short time during which her inventive mind has been specially active, and the many handicaps which have been imposed on her, the wonder is not that she has achieved so little in comparison with man, but rather that she has accomplished so much. The first woman to receive a patent in the United States was Mary Kies. It was issued May 5, 1809, for a process of straw-weaving with silk or thread. Six years later Mary Brush was granted a patent for a corset. It seems to have been quite satisfactory, for no other patent for this article of feminine attire was issued to a woman until 1841, when one was granted to Elizabeth Adams. During the thirty-two years which elapsed between the issuing of a patent to Mary Kies and Elizabeth Adams, but twenty other patents were granted to women. The chief of these were for weaving hats from grass, manufacturing moccasins, whitening leghorn straw, for a sheet-iron shovel, a cook stove and a machine for cutting straw and fodder. During the decade following 1841, fourteen patents were issued to as many different women. Among the articles patented by them were an ice-cream freezer, a weighing scale and a fan attachment for a rocking chair. It was not recorded, however, that this last invention, valuable as it was apparently, ever became particularly popular. But by far the most remarkable of woman's inventions during this period was a submarine telescope and lamp, for which a patent was awarded in 1845 to Sarah Mather. From 1851 to 1861, twenty-eight patents were issued to women--just twice the number awarded them during the preceding decade. Most of these patents were for articles of domestic use or feminine apparel. Four of them, however, comprised a scale for instrumental music, for mounting fluid lenses, a fountain pen and an improvement in reaping and mowing machines.