country and in Europe. He spent two years in working on his model, making improvements in it at every step, and by 1835 had brought it to such a state of excellence that he was enabled to apply for a patent in the United States. His application was successful. Before it was decided, however, he visited England and France, and patented his invention in those countries. Though now only twenty-one years old, he had given seven years of study and labor to his "revolver," and had brought it to a state of perfection which was far in advance of his early hopes.
"At this time, and, indeed, for several years after, he was not aware that any person before himself had ever conceived the idea of a fire-arm with a rotating chambered breech. On a subsequent visit to Europe, while exploring the collection of fire-arms in the Tower of London and other repositories of weapons of war in England and on the continent, he found several guns having the chambered breech, but all were so constructed as to be of little practical value, being far more liable to explode prematurely and destroy the man who should use them than the objects at which they might be aimed. Unwilling, however, to seem to claim that which had been previously invented, he read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in England (of which he was the only American associate), in 1851, an elaborate paper on the subject, in which he described and illustrated, with appropriate drawings, the various early inventions of revolving fire-arms, and demonstrated the principles on which his were constructed."
Having secured patents in the United States and in the principal countries of Europe, Mr. Colt exerted himself to organize a company for the manufacture of his revolver. He met with considerable opposition, for it was commonly asserted that his pistol would never be of any practical value. The wise ones said it was too complicated for general use, and that its adoption would be attended by the killing or maiming of the majority of those who used it. The inventor disregarded these birds of ill omen, however, and, persevering in his efforts, finally succeeded in