Diving Mask An inventor in Braddock's Field, Penn, added a simple valve to the mouthpiece for exhaling and inhaling air. You can attach the hoses to a tiny barrel floating on the surface if you want to breath air and not water... Image: Scientific American, June 17, 1865
Log Splitter Patented in St. Louis, Missouri. A heavy iron hammer can split lots of logs with ease (the tired young lad working long days in the lumber yard is also at risk of getting split--Industrial safety anyone?)... Image: Scientific American, January 9, 1865
Elevated Train Narrow cars on upper and lower tracks let light into surrounding buildings and ran on a pulley system. Mr. P. Andrew of Cincinatti devised a nice system for 1865 except that the tiny 12-person capacity of each car is about one-twentieth the size of a New York City subway car in 2015... Image: Scientific American, September 9, 1865
Hand Rake It is "adapted to the strength of an ordinary man." But it looks like Mr. S. C. Rundlett of Portland, Maine, churned out a very cumbersome garden tool. Image: Scientific American, January 28, 1865
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School Seat The future of education is not the Common Core Learning Standards, but furniture--this desk patented by a New York City inventor. Schools must supply their own stern schoolmaster for terrorizing callow youths... Image: Scientific American, May 6, 1865
Forge Bellows Even the original text called this blacksmith an "isolated and mysterious-looking individual." A person of exceptionally good balance might avoid toppling over into the forge fire if he were always paying attention... Image: Scientific American, February 25, 1865
Fox Trap This farmer's friend resets itself each time it traps a fox. But I'm a city boy and I like foxes for their rodent-killing ability as opposed to hating them for whatever chickens they might steal, so I don't like the idea... Image: Scientific American, July 8, 1865
Hay Derrick This one just screams "industrial accident waiting to happen." A sincere attempt to ease the farmer's burden in 1865, but too large, complex, expensive and dangerous to be practical. Image: Scientific American, July 29, 1865
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Horse Shoe, Removable "Humanitarians have urged that it is no more reasonable that a horse should retain his stiff, unyielding shoes, after a hard day's work, than his master." Impractical, but nicely advanced thinking for an otherwise Dickensian age?... Image: Scientific American, February 4, 1865
Barrel Roller You grab the barrel with this giant pair of patented tongs and wheel it along. Of course you could just kick the barrel along like everyone else on the planet. Image: Scientific American, August 12, 1865
![Good and Bad Inventions from 1865 [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/28D43C30-6B5B-41CA-9B695EA9612895E6.jpg?w=590&h=393)
