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vised that the characters printed are con-
stantly changing, making the message ab-
solutely undecipherable without the key,
and with the key recipient should he not
have his machine, by a special arrangement
of the key figures which he alone
possesses, though by a somewhat tedious
process, can, in cases of emergency, re-
arrange the characters and read the mes-
sage. This invention is a triumph of inventive
skill of high order ; his computing
scale, which has filled as useful a place
in commercial life as the cash register
device, and the many other utilities his
inventive excellence has furnished the
world, bring his name into creditable
prominence in the world of mechanics
and invention.
In his laboratory, the Buena Vista Lab-
oratory at West Hartford, Mr. Des Jar-
dins has, of late years, devoted his efforts
to the elucidation of many difficult problems
of mechanical science. Freed of
the urgent material necessity, his days
now are given more especially to the development
of mechanical movements that
have never before been produced, irre-
spective of whether they be immediately
applicable or not, and, as hereinbefore re-
corded, his research has found practical
utilization in mechanical lines not related
to those to which he has devoted special
attention in recent years. His computing
machines demonstrate movements many
leading engineers had declared impossible
of accomplishment. An assorting ma-
chine of his invention is capable of almost
unlimited extension, even though
the patent drawings state its capacity
definitely as that of sorting 9,999 differ-
ent articles. The numbered boxes of the
device are controlled from a keyboard, to
some extent similar to that of an adding
machine, and the machine, which adds
greatly to the efficiency of department-
store accounting, has a wide range of
uses, among them, to mention a few, that
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
101
of sorting sales tickets, money orders and
cheques, letters, et cetera.
Withal, his achievements of later life
emphasize the inherent ability which in
him lay, and by which he was capable of
serving the world so usefully when once
the first struggle had been overcome, and
the diverting perplexities of poverty had
been passed. But that struggle he had to
fight alone, and in the outcome is evident
the man. A contemporary biographer
wrote the following, respecting Mr. Des
Jardins and his work
Mr. des Jardins's works have practically established
new eras in their respective arts. The
history of the development of these inventions,
from their first inception at the unskilled hands of
a young college student and newspaper writer to
the mechanical triumph of an ingenious mind
and trained hands, is but the story of many
another inventor whose sleepless nights and persistent
thought have at last been rewarded by
seeing the creatures of his brain move like
things of life and perform the functions ex-
pected of them as though endowed with a soul.
In 1898, the Des Jardins Type Justifier
Company was organized, with Mr. William
H. Rand, of Rand, McNally & Company,
as one of the prime movers, and
Mr. Des Jardins as president, the capital
of which corporation was $500,000; in
1899 the Des Jardins Computing Register
Company was incorporated, with a capital
of $100,000, and with Mr. Des Jardins
originally as vice-president, though for
the last five years he has been president.
From 1899 to the present, Mr. Des Jar-
dins has become actively interested in
many companies formed for the purpose
of manufacturing and marketing his in-
ventions of various kinds. Many of his
devices perfected in the last few years of
the nineteenth century were unfortunately
placed in the hands of new companies
whose promoters and controlling elements
had had no experience in enter-
prises of this character, and as a consequence
failed to properly place the de-
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