1.  A simple and cheap safety horse-shoe,—­secured by steel studs inserted into the ordinary soft iron shoes.

2.  Glass screw-tops to bottles.

3.  Steam-vessels with the wheels inside; in fact, a double boat or catamaran, with the machinery amid-ships.

4.  The introduction of coca-leaf to allay hunger, and to be as useful here as in Chili.

5.  A pen to carry its own ink.

6.  The colouring of photographs on the back.

7.  Combined vulcanite and steel sheathing.

There were also some other small matters wherein authorial energy busied itself.  But although I had models made of some, and wrote about others, no good results accrued to me. 1.  As for the horse-shoes, blacksmiths did not want to lose custom by steel saving the iron. 2.  For the glass-stoppers, I had against me all the cork trade, and the wine-merchants too, who recork old wines. 3.  The steamers were never tried on a large scale, and models are pronounced deceptive. 4.  The coca loses most of its virtues when in a dried state. 5.  The pen (I had it made in silver, a long hollow handle ending with a conical point) either grew clogged if the ink was too thick, or emitted blots when too thin. 6.  An establishment in Leicester Square has since worked on this idea. 7.  I also troubled the Ordnance Office, and had an interview with Sidney Herbert about two more futile inventions! one a composite cannon missile of quoits tied together:  another of a thick vulcanite sheathing for ships, over either wood or iron.  I have letters on these to and from the office.  Briefly, I did not gain fortune as an inventor:  though I urged my horse-shoe at least as a valuable thought, and one worth a trial, to save our poor horses on asphalte pavements and in hard frosts.  It is a losing game to attempt to force an invention:  so many vested interests oppose, and so many are the competitors:  moreover, some one always rushes into the pool of Bethesda before you.

I thought also that there might as well be “essence of tea,” as well as of coffee; but nothing came of it.  Also amongst other of my addled eggs of invention, I may mention that in my chemistry days as a youth I suggested to a scientific neighbour, Dr. Kerrison, that glass might be rendered less fragile by being mixed in the casting with some chemical compound of lead,—­much as now has come out in the patent toughened glass.  Also we initiated mild experiments about an imitation of volcanic forces in melting pounded stone into moulds,—­as recently done by Mr. Lindsay Bucknall with slag:—­but unluckily we found that the manufacture of basalt was beyond our small furnace power:  I fancied that apparently carved pinnacles and gurgoyles might be cast in stone; and though beyond Dr. Kerrison and myself, perhaps it may still be done by the hot-blast melting up crushed granite.

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