The job was going to cost more than he had calculated, on.
He was trying to invent something that would dig the ditch,
and fill in the dirt again after the pipe was laid. Cornell
listened to him, questioned him, found out the size of the
pipe and the depth of the ditch, then sat down and passed
some minutes in hard thinking. Finally he said,--
"You are on the wrong tack. You don't want either a ditch or
a scraper."
He took a pencil and in a few minutes outlined a machine,
which he said would cut a trench two feet deep, lay the pipe
at its bottom, and cover the earth in behind it. The motive
power need be only a team of oxen or mules. These creatures
had but to trudge slowly onward. The machine would do its
work faithfully behind them.
"Come, come, this is impossible!" cried editor Smith.
"I'll wager my head it can be done, and I can do it,"
replied inventor Cornell.
He laid a large premium on his confidence in his idea,
promising that if his machine would not work he would ask
no money for it. But if it succeeded, he was to be well
paid. Smith agreed to these terms, and Cornell went to work.
In ten days the machine was built and ready for trial. A
yoke of oxen was attached to it, three men managed it, and
in the first five minutes it had laid one hundred feet of
pipe and covered it with earth.
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