Hyatt N. Y., the son of John Wesley Hyatt, a black- smith, and Anne (Gleason) Hyatt. His great- grandfather, Stephen Hyatt, was a native of England. Young John's common-school educa- tion was supplemented by a year at Eddytown Seminary, where he excelled in mathematics. At the age of sixteen he went to Illinois and became a printer—a trade that he followed for ten years. Early in life, however, his mechanical and in- ventive ability became apparent. At the age of twenty-four he patented a device for sharpening kitchen-knives, which involved a new method for making solid emery wheels. While at Al- bany, N. Y., working as a journeyman printer, he saw an offer of $10,000 by Phelan & Col- lander of New York for a substitute for ivory- suitable for billiard-balls. Experimenting nights and Sundays in the hope of gaining the reward —scarcely a proper Sunday pursuit for a youth christened John Wesley—he obtained several plastic compositions none of which was good enough for billiard-balls, but out of pressed wood he began to make checkers and dominoes. To manufacture these he and his two brothers established the Embossing Company of Albany, a successful corporation, under the mechanical direction of the youngest brother, C. M. Hyatt. In 1868-69 J°hn Hyatt continued to seek a sub- stance suitable for billiard-balls and achieved success with a combination of paper flock, shel- lac, and collodion. The ball he produced has been widely adopted. Having noticed the dried "artificial skin" left after evaporation of liquid collodion, he continued experimenting with ni- trocellulose as a foundation for plastics, despite his scant knowledge of chemistry. Although heating a substance similar to guncotton under pressure is a dangerous practice, and he was ignorant of the efforts of Alexander Parkes, Daniel Spill, and others to utilize soluble pyroxy- lin in the making of plastics, he nevertheless dis- covered the important fact on which the inven- tion of celluloid is based, namely, that a mixture of nitrocellulose, camphor, and a small amount of alcohol can be made soft enough by heat to mold, but becomes hard again under atmospheric conditions. His experiments differed from those of Parkes in that he made a hard mass soft by heat and pressure, whereas Parkes tried to hard- en liquids and doughs. Hyatt's experiments were begun in Albany with the help of his brother, Isaiah Smith Hyatt, who later interested New York capitalists to invest in a celluloid factory m Newark, whither the Hyatts removed during the winter of 1872-73. John developed the com- plicated technique of celluloid and designed the special machinery for its manufacture and ma- Hyatt nipulation. Something of a revolution in indus- try was brought about by this successful utili- zation of a cheap synthetic substitute for costly natural substances. The prior rights of the in- vention of celluloid were disputed by the Eng- lishman Spill, who had invented xylonite before the date of the Hyatts' patent, No. 105,338, July 12, 1870 (House Executive Document No. 89, 41 Cong., 3 Sess., II, 567), but the latter was sus- tained by the courts. Hyatt also obtained many patents on machinery for manufacturing com- mercial articles and novelties from celluloid. In 1881-82, he and his brother Isaiah took up the problem of filtration and purification of wa- ter and started the Hyatt Pure Water Company. Coagulants had previously been used to purify water, but it had been necessary to put the chem- ical into a large tank or reservoir, agitate the water, and allow it to stand for twelve to twenty- four hours in order that the impurities might settle to the bottom. The Hyatts patented a process by which a coagulant is added to the water while it is on the way to the filter, so that no large settling basin is required and no time is lost. The Hyatt filters can be washed by sim- ply reversing the current. Many paper and woolen mills, as well as many cities, adopted them, and in 1887 Hyatt introduced them in Eu- rope. In 1891-92 he devised a type of roller- bearings to reduce friction on machinery and moving parts. The important Hyatt Roller Bearing Company, at Harrison, N. J., was a re- sult Like others of his inventions, these roller- bearings show mechanical advantages which only a practical and ingenious technician would fore- see. His versatility is further shown by his in- vention of a sugar-cane mill, on which he worked between 1891 and 1901. It obtained a higher ex- traction of juice from the cane by a smaller ex- penditure of power, and it used a lighter and cheaper machine than others and had various mechanical advantages typical of Hyatt's de- signs, such as ease of separation and of clean- ing. The pressed cane from this mill was dry enough to use as fuel—an economical achieve- ment. Other Hyatt inventions include: in 1900, a sewing-machine capable of sewing fifty lock- stitches at once and suitable for making machine- belting; in 1901, a machine for cold rolling and straightening steel shafting; in 1873, machinery for making a slate for school use; in 1878, a sub- stance containing bone and silica, called "boni- slate," suitable for billiard-balls, buttons, knife- handles, etc.; in later years, a method of solidify- ing American hard woods to make bowling balls, golf heads, mallets, etc.; in 1870, a ma- chine for turning out billiard-balls. The Society 448