Transcriber’s Notes:
Misspellings in the source text have been corrected.
The oe-ligature is indicated with œ in this text version.
Missing page entries for “Wooden shoes” was assigned a page number by
the transcriber.
Index entry for “Stamfield, Jas.” was removed since this name does not
occur in the main text.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SERIES
EDITOR:
JUSTIN McCARTHY.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS:
REV. W. H. WITHROW, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.C.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A., F.R.C.I.
J. CASTELL HOPKINS, F.R.S.L.
T. G. MARQUIS, B.A.
REV. T. S. LINSCOTT, F.R.C.I.
INVENTIONS IN THE CENTURY
BY
WILLIAM H. DOOLITTLE
_Expert and Patent Solicitor, Ex-Examiner in the Patent Office and
Assistant Commissioner of Patents at Washington, Writer of Inventions,
Etc._
THE LINSCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY
TORONTO AND PHILADELPHIA
W. & R. CHAMBERS, Limited
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
1903
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the Year One Thousand Nine
Hundred and Two, by the Bradley-Garretson Co., Limited, in the Office
of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Entered, according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the Year One
Thousand Nine Hundred and Two, by the Bradley-Garretson Co., Limited,
in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
_All Rights Reserved._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.
Inventions and Discoveries.--Distinctions and Contrast.--The
One, Useful Contrivances of Man; the Other, New Things Found
in Nature.--Galileo and the Telescope.--Newton and the Law of
Gravitation.--Often United as Soul and Body.--Inventions and
Discoveries do not Precede or Succeed in Order.--Inventions--
Alphabetical Writing; Arabic Notation; The Mariner’s Compass;
The Telescope; The Steam Engine.--Discoveries;--Attraction of
Gravitation; Planetary Motions; Circulation of Blood; Velocity
of Light.--Nineteenth Century Inventions and Discoveries.--
Further Definitions.--Law of Development.--Contrivances, not
Creations.--Man Always an Inventor.--Prof. Langley on Slow
Growth of Inventions.--Inventions of this Century Outgrowth of
Past Ones.--Egyptian Crooked Stick, Precursor of Modern
Plough.--Hero of Alexandria and James Watt.--David’s Harp and
the Grand Piano.--Electrical Science in 1600 and the Present
Day.--Evolution and Interrelation of the Arts.--Age of Machine
Inventions.--Its Beginning.--The Inducements to Invention.--
Necessity not Always the Mother.--Wants of Various Kinds.--
Accident.--Governmental Protection the Greatest Incentive.--
Origin and Growth of Patent Laws.--Influence of Personal,
Political and Intellectual Freedom and Education.--Arts of
Civilization Due to the Inventor.--Macaulay’s Estimate.--
Will Inventions Continue to Increase or Decrease.--Effect of
Economic, Industrial and Social Life upon Inventions.--What
Inventions have Done for Humanity.--Thread of the Centuries.--
The Roll of Inventions too Vast for Enumeration. 1
CHAPTER II.
AGRICULTURE AND ITS IMPLEMENTS.
The Egyptians the Earliest and Greatest Agriculturists.--
Rome and Farming.--Cato, Varro, Virgil.--Columella.--Pliny.--
Palladius.--The Decline of Agriculture.--Northern Barbarism.--
Lowest Ebb in the Middle Ages.--Revival in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries.--With Invention of Printing.--Publications
then, Concerning.--Growth in Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries.--Jethro Tull.--Arthur Young.--Washington.--
Jefferson.--The Art Scientifically Commenced with Sir Humphry
Davy’s Lectures on Soils and Plants, 1802-1812.--Societies.--
“Book Farming” and Prejudice of Farmers.--A Revisit of Ruth
and Cincinnatus at Beginning of Nineteenth Century.--Their
Implements still the Common Ones in Use.--The Plough and its
History.--Its Essential Parts and their Evolution to Modern
Forms.--Originated in Holland.--Growth in England and
America.--Small, Jefferson, Newbold.--Lord Kames’ Complaint.--
The American Plough.--Cutting Disks.--Steam Ploughs: Implements
for Preparing the Soil for Planting.--Various Forms of Harrows. 13
CHAPTER III.
AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.
The Sowing of Grain.--The Sower of the Parables.--His Art and
its Defects Lasted until Nineteenth Century.--The Problems to
be Solved.--Assyrian and Chinese Seeding Implements.--India.--
Italy First to Introduce a Grain Sowing Machine, Seventeenth
Century.--Zanon’s Work on Agriculture, 1764.--Austria and
England.--A Spaniard’s Invention.--Don Lescatello.--The Drill
of Jethro Tull.--A Clergyman, Cooke’s Machine.--Washington
and Others.--Modern Improvements in Seeders and their Operation
and Functions.--Force Feed and Gravity Feed.--Graduated Flow.--
Divided Feeds for Separate Grains and Fertilizing Material.--
Garden Ploughs and Seeders.--Gangs of Heavy Ones.--Operated by
Steam.--Corn Planters.--Walking and Riding.--Objects of Proper
Planting.--How Accomplished by Machinery.--Variety of
Machines.--Potatoes and the Finest Seeds.--Transplanters.--
Cultivators.--Their Purposes and Varieties.--Primitive and
Modern Toilers.--Millet.--Tillers of the Soil no Longer
“Brothers of the Ox.” 23
CHAPTER IV.
AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS.
Harvesting in Ancient Times.--The Sickle.--Pliny’s Machine.--
Now the Clover Header.--Palladius’ Description.--Improved in
1786.--Scotchman’s Grain Cradle in 1794.--The Seven Ancient
Wonders and the Seven Modern Wonders.--The Modern Harvester
and the Cotton Gin.--Requirements of the Harvester.--Boyce.--
Meares.--Plucknett.--Gladstone and the First Front Draft
Machine, 1806.--Salonen introduced Vibrating Knives over
Stationary Blades, 1807.--Ogle and Reciprocating Knife Bar,
1822.--Rev. Patrick Bell, 1823, Cuts an Acre of Grain in an
Hour.--Mowers and Reapers in America in 1820.--Reaper and
Thresher combined by Lane, of Maine, 1828.--Manning’s Harvester,
1831.--Schnebly.--Hussey.--McCormick, 1833-34.--Harvesters and
Mowers at World’s Fair, London, 1851.--Automatic Binders.--Wire
and Twine.--Advances Shown at Centennial Exhibition, 1876.--
Inventions Beyond the Wildest Dreams of Former Farmers.--One
Invention Generates Another.--Lawn Mowers.--Hay Forks and
Stackers.--Corn, Cotton, Potato, Flax Harvesters.--Threshing.--
The Old Flail.--Egyptian and Roman Methods.--The First Modern
Threshing Machine.--Menzies, Leckie, Meikle.--Combined
Harvesters and Threshers.--Flax Threshers and Brakes.--Cotton
Gins.--Eli Whitney.--Enormous Importance of this Machine in
Cotton Products.--Displacement of Labour. 32
CHAPTER V.
AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS (_continued_).
Harvest Ended, Comes the Preparation of Grain and Fruits for
Food.--Cleaning.--Separating.--Grinding.--Fanning Mills and
Sir Walter Scott.--The Rudimentary Mills.--Egyptian.--Hebrew,
Grecian, and Roman Methods, Prevailed until Middle of Eighteenth
Century.--The Upper and Nether Mill Stone in Modern Dress.--
Modern Mills Invented at Close of Eighteenth Century.--Oliver
Evans of America, 1755-1819.--Evans’ System Prevailed for Three
Quarters of a Century.--New System.--Middlings.--Low Milling.--
High Milling.--Roller Mills.--Middlings Separators.--Dust
Explosions and Prevention.--Vegetable Cutters.--Choppers.--Fruit
Parers and Slicers.--Great Range of Mechanisms to Treat the
Tenderest Pods and Smallest Seeds.--Crushing Sugar Cane.--
Pressing and Baling.--Every Product has its own Proper Machine
for Picking, Pressing, Packing, or Baling.--Cotton Compress.--
Extensive and Enormous Cotton Crops of the World.--Cotton
Presses of Various Kinds.--Hay and its Baling.--Bale Ties.--
Fruits and Foods.--Machines for Gathering, Packing, Preserving,
etc., all Modern.--Drying and Evaporating.--Sealing.--
Transporting.--Tobacco.--Its Enormous Production.--The Interdict
of James I., and of Popes, Kings, Sultans, etc.--Variety of
Machines for its Treatment. 45
CHAPTER VI.
CHEMISTRY, MEDICINES, SURGERY, DENTISTRY.
Chemistry among the Ancients.--Egyptians.--Phœnicians.--
Israelites.--Greeks and Romans.--Chinese.--Became a Science in
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.--Libavius.--Van
Helmont.--Glauber--Tachenius.--Boyle.--Lémery.--Becher.--
Stahl.--Boerhaave.--Black.--Cavendish.--Lavoisier.--Priestley.--
Chemistry of Nineteenth Century a New World.--Atomic and
Molecular Theories.--Light, Heat, and Electricity.--Correlation
and Conservation of Forces.--Spectrum Analysis.--Laws of
Chemical Changes.--John Dalton.--Wollaston.--Gay.--Lussac.--
Berzelius.--Huygens’and Newton’s Discoveries in Light in
Seventeenth Century.--Unfolded and Developed by Fraunhofer,
Kirchoff.--Bunsen in the Nineteenth.--Young of America.--
Combination of Spectroscope and Telescope.--Huggins of England,
Spectrum Analysis of the Stars.--Heat and other Forces.--Count
Rumford.--Davy.--Mayer.--Helmholtz.--Colding.--Joule.--Grove.--
Faraday.--Sir William Thomson.--Le Conte and Martin.--French
Revolution and Agricultural Chemistry.--Lavoisier, Berthollet.--
Guyton.--Fourcroy.--Napoleon.--Sir Humphry Davy.--Liebig.--
Fermentation.--Alcohol.--Yeast.--Malt.--Wines.--Beer.--Huxley’s
Lecture on Yeast, 1871.--Protein.--Protoplasm.--Evolution from
one all-pervading Force.--Alcohol and Pasteur.--Manufacture of
Liquors.--Carbonating.--Soils and Fertilisers.--Liquids, Oils,
Sugar and Fats.--Bleaching and Dyeing.--Aniline Colours.--
Perfumes.--Electro-Chemical Methods.--Applied to the Production
of Artificial Light.--Abradants.--Disinfectants.--Pigments.--
Mineral Analysis.--Purification of Water and Sewage.--
Electroplating Metals.--Chemicals and the Fine Arts.--Redemption
of Waste Materials.--Medicines and Surgery.--Their Growth from
Empiricism.--Anæsthetics.--Davy.--Morton.--Jackson.--Innumerable
Medical Compounds.--Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds.--Vast
Variety of Surgical Instruments Invented.--Four Thousand Patents
in United States Alone.--Dentistry.--Its Ancient Origin.--
Account of Herodotus.--Revolution in, during Nineteenth
Century.--Instruments.--Artificial Teeth.--Vast Relief from Pain. 58
CHAPTER VII.
STEAM AND STEAM ENGINES.
Prophecy of Dr. Darwin in Eighteenth Century.--Review of the Art
from Hero to James Watt.--Pumping Engines.--Road Carriages.--
Watt.--Cugnot.--Rumsey.--Fitch.--Oliver Evans.--Read.--
Symington.--Trevithick.--Locomotives.--Blenkinsop.--Griffith.--
Bramah.--Horse Engine.--Hancock.--Blackett.--George
Stephenson.--Hackworth.--Braithwaite.--Ericsson.--Huskisson
First Victim of Railroad Accident.--Seguin.--John C. Stevens.--
Horatio Allen.--Peter Cooper.--Symington.--Lord Dundas.--Fulton
and Livingston.--The First Successful Steamboat.--Transatlantic
Steam Navigation.--Scarborough of Georgia.--Bell of Scotland.--
Cunard Line; Paddle Wheels.--Screw Propellers.--The Age of
Kinetic Energy.--Professor Thurston.--Variety of Engines and
Boilers.--Corliss.--Bicycle and Automobile Engines.--Napoleon’s
Stage Trip and Present Locomotion.--Daniel Webster’s Survey of
the Art. 73
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGINEERING AND TRANSPORTATION.
The Duties of a Civil Engineer.--Great Engineering of the
Past.--The Divisions.--Steam.--Mining.--Hydraulic.--
Electrical.--Marine.--Bridge Making, Its Development.--First
Arched Iron Bridge.--Darby.--Telford.--Leading Bridges of the
Century.--Suspension.--Tubular.--Tubular Arch.--Truss.--
Cantilever.--Spider’s Web and Suspension.--Sir Samuel Brown.--
The Tweed.--Menai Straits and Telford.--M. Chaley and
Fribourg.--J. K. Brunel and Isle of Bourbon.--British America
and the United States united in 1855--Niagara.--John A.
Roebling.--The Brooklyn Bridge.--Caissons and the Caisson
Disease.--Tubular Bridge at Menai.--“The Grandest Lift in
Engineering.”--Robert Stephenson.--The Tubular Arch at
Washington.--Captain Meigs and Captain Eads.--St. Louis
Bridge.--Truss System and Vast Modern Bridges.--Cantilever
Succeeded the Suspension.--New Niagara and River
Forth.--Schneider.--Hayes.--Fowler and Baker.--Milton’s
Description.--Lighthouses.--Smeaton.--Douglass.--Bartholdi.--
Eiffel.--Excavating, Dredging, Draining.--Road-making.--
Railroads.--Canals.--Tunnels.--Excavating.--Desert Lands
Reclaimed.--Holland and Florida Swamps.--The Tunnels of the
Alps.--Suez Canal.--Engineering, as seen from a Pullman
Car.--Cable Transportation.--Pneumatic Lock System.--Grain
Elevators--Progress in Civilisation. 93
CHAPTER IX.
ELECTRICITY.
Theories and Definitions.--Franklin’s and a Modern One.--
Varieties of the Force.--Generation.--Dynamic Energy.--
Discoveries before the Nineteenth Century.--Magnetism and
Electricity.--Fathers of the Science.--Doctor Gilbert.--Otto
von Guericke.--Sir Isaac Newton.--Gray.--Dufay.--Professor
Muschenbroeck.--Cuneus.--Charles Morrison.--Franklin and
Galvani.--Volta.--The Door to Nineteenth Century Inventions
then Opened.--Fabroni.--Sir Humphry Davy, Wollaston, Nicholson,
and Carlisle.--Ritter Followed--Electrolysis.--Faraday and its
Laws.--Davy and the Electric Light.--Batteries.--Daniell.--
Grove.--Bunsen.--Brilliant Discoveries from 1800 to 1820.--
Oersted, Schweigger.--Magnetising Helix.--Indicators.--Arago
and Davy.--Ampère’s Discoveries.--Sturgeon and the first
Electro-Magnet, 1825.--Telegraphy.--Gauss, Weber, Schilling.--
Professor Barlow’s Demonstration that Telegraphy was
Impracticable.--Joseph Henry.--Powerful Magnets.--Modern and
Ancient Telegraphy of Various Kinds.--The Third Decade.--George
Simon Ohm.--Steinheil.--Telegraph of Morse, Vail, Dana, Gale.--
Wheatstone.--U.S. Supreme Court on Morse System.--His Alphabet
and Submarine Telegraph.--Michael Faraday and Science of
Magnets.--Steam and Magneto-Dynamo Machines.--Chemical Affinity
and Electricity.--Helmholtz, Faraday, Henry, and Pixii.--
Ruhmkorff Coil.--Page.--Electrical Light.--Decomposition of
Water.--Professor Nollet.--First Practical Electric Light
Shone on the Sea, 1858.--Faraday and Holmes.--Lighthouse
Illumination.--Dr. W. Siemens.--Wilde’s Machine.--Other
Powerful Magnetic Machines.--Field Magnets.--Z. Gramme.--
The Various Ways and Means of Developing Electric Light.--
Geissler Tubes.--First House Lighted in America.--Moses
G. Farmer.--Jablochoff’s Candle.--French Regulators.--Outdoor
and Indoor Illumination.--Siemens, Farmer, Brush, Maxim,
Westinghouse, Edison, Swan, Lane--Fox and Others.--Arc Lamps
of Heffner von Alteneck.--Ocean Cables.--Cyrus W. Field.--John
Bright’s Expression.--Weak Currents.--Thomson’s Remedy.--Mirror
Galvanometer.--Centennial Exhibition and the Telephone.--
Alexander Graham Bell, 1875.--The Telephone and Helmholtz’
Theory of Tone.--Scott’s Phonautograph.--Page’s Production of
Galvanic Music and Researches of Reis.--Its Slow Growth.--The
Ideas of Faraday and Henry still the Basis of the Great
Machines.--“Lines of Force.”--Electric Railway.--Storage
Batteries.--Dynamos.--First Railway at Berlin, 1879.--Then
Saxony, Paris, London, New York.--Telpherage by Professor
Jenkin.--Problems Solved.--Electrical Magicians.--Edison and
Tesla.--Recent Improvements in Telegraphy.--The Talks Both Ways
at Same Time and Multiplied.--Printing Systems by Types and
Otherwise.--Electrical Elevators.--Microphone.--Ticks of a
Watch and the Tread of a Fly Recorded.--Musical Sounds from
Minerals and Other Substances.--Signalling and Other
Appliances.--The X Rays.--Wireless Telegraphy. 111
CHAPTER X.
HOISTING, CONVEYING, AND STORING.
Drudgery of Ancient Times Relieved by Modern Inventions.--
The Labour of Men and Beasts now Done by Steam Giants.--
Labour-Saving Appliances for Transportation.--Tall Buildings
and Elevators.--Evolution Slow until 19th Century.--Carrying
of Weights.--The Pyramids.--Modern Methods.--Ship-Loading.--
The Six Ordinary Powers Alone Used until the Time of Watt.--
Elevator Mills of Oliver Evans.--The Hydraulic Press of
Bramah.--The Lifting of Tubular Bridge by Robt. Stephenson.--
Compressed Air Elevator of Slade.--Counterbalance Lifts of
Van Elvean.--Modern Elevator of Otis, 1859.--Steam-Water.--
Compressed Air.--Electricity: Elevators, how Controlled.--
Store Service Conveyors.--Pneumatic Transmission: Dodge’s
Air Blast Conveyor.--Mode of Switching Conveyors.--“Lazy
Tongs” Conveyors.--Buffers.--Endless Cables.--Clutches,
Safety.--Labour-Saving Devices and Derangement of Labour.--
In One Sense, Inventions Labour-Increasing Devices. 152
CHAPTER XI.
HYDRAULICS.
Old as the Thirst of Man.--Prehistoric Inventions.--China.--
Pliny’s Record.--Egyptian, Carthaginian, Greek and Roman Water
Works.--“Pneumatics of Hero.”--Overshot, Undershot, and Breast
Wheels, Ancient.--Screw of Archimedes.--Frontinus, a Roman
Inspector.--1593, Servière Invents the Rotary Pump.--1586,
Stevinus of Holland, Father of the Elementary Science.--Galileo,
Torricelli, Pascal, and Sir Isaac Newton in the Seventeenth
Century.--Bernoulli, D’Alembert, Euler, Abbé Bossut, Venturi,
and Eylewein in the Eighteenth.--Water Distribution then
Originated.--Peter Maurice and the London Bridge Pumps.--La
Hire’s Double Acting Pump.--Dr. John Allen and David Ramsey of
England.--Franklin’s Force Pump.--Water Ram of Whitehurst and
Montgolfier.--Nineteenth Century Opens with Bramah’s Pumps.--
Water and Steam.--Pumps the Strong Hands of Hydraulics.--Review
of Past Inventions: Pascal’s Paradox.--Turbines of Forneyron.--
Power of Niagara and Turbines there.--Jonval’s.--Euler’s Old
Centrifugal Pumps Revived.--Massachusetts and Appold Systems.--
Lowlands of Holland, Marshes of Italy, Swamps of Florida,
Drained.--Injectors.--Giffard.--Intensifiers.--Hydraulicising.--
Hydraulic Jack and Cleopatra’s Needle.--Flow of Cold Metal.--
Lead Pipe Made, and Cold Steel Stretched by Water Pressure.--
Cotton Presses, Sir Wm. Armstrong’s Inventions.--Tweddle and Sir
Wm. Fairbairn.--Water Motors.--Baths and Closets.--Results of
Modern Improvements.--Germ Theory and Filters. 164
CHAPTER XII.
PNEUMATICS AND PNEUMATIC MACHINES.
The Slow March of the Human Mind.--Burke.--The Age of Mechanical
Inventions not until nearly Watt’s Steam Engine.--Review of
“Learning” until that Time.--Motor Engines not Produced until
Seventeenth Century.--Suggested by the Bellows and the
Cannon.--Huygens and Papin.--Van Helmont the Author of the
Term “Gas,” 1577-1644.--Robert Boyle and the Air Pump.--Law
of Gases.--Mariotte.--Abbé Hauteville, 1682.--The Heart and
a Motor.--Sun Burner.--Murdock, 1798, Uses Coal Gas for
Illumination.--John Barber and Carburetted Hydrogen.--
Street’s Heated Gas.--1801, Lebon Proposes Coal Gas Motor.--
Investigations of Dalton and Gay-Lussac, 1810.--Heat engines:
Air, Gas, Steam, Vapor, Solar.--Explosive.--Temperature the Tie
that Binds them as One Family.--1823-26, Sir Samuel Brown.--
Gunpowder and Gas Engine.--Davy and Faraday.--Gas to a Liquid
State.--Wright, 1833.--Burdett’s Compressed Air Engine, 1838.--
Lenoir’s.--Hugon’s.--Beau de Rohes’ Investigations.--Oil Wells
of United States, 1860.--Petroleum Engines.--Brayton, Spiel.--
Otto’s Gas Engine and Improvements.--Ammoniacal Gas Engines.--
Nobels’ Inventions.--Storm’s Gunpowder Engine.--Gas and Vapour
Compared with Steam.--Prof. Jenkins’ Prediction.--Gas to
Supplant Steam.--Compressed Air Engines.--Innumerable
Applications of Pneumatic Machines.--A Number Mentioned.--
Their Universal Application to the Useful and Fine Arts. 182
CHAPTER XIII.
ART OF HEATING, VENTILATING, COOKING, REFRIGERATING AND LIGHTING.
Prometheus and the Modern Match.--1680, Godfrey Hanckwitz
Invented First Phosphorous Match.--Other Forms of Matches.--
Promethean Matches in 1820.--John Walker.--Lucifer.--Tons of
Chemicals, Hundreds of Pine Trees Yearly Made into Matches.--
Splints and Machines.--Reuben Partridge.--Poririer.--Pasteboard
Box.--Machines for Assorting and Dipping, Drying and Boxing.--
Cooking and Heating Stoves.--History of, from Rome to Ben
Franklin.--The Old-Fashioned Fireplace.--Varieties of Coal
Stoves.--Stove Fireplace.--Ventilation.--Hot Air Furnaces.--
How Heat is Distributed, Retained, and Moistened.--Hot Water
Circulation.--Incubators.--Baking Ovens, the Dutch and the
Modern.--Vast Number of Stove and Furnace Foundries in United
States.--Ventilation.--Parliament Buildings and U. S. Capitol.--
Eminent Scientific Men who have Made Ventilation a Study.--Best
Modes.--Its Great Importance.--Car Heaters.--Grass and Refuse
Burning Stoves.--Oil, Vapour, and Gas Stoves, their Construction
and Operation.--Sterilising.--Electric Heating and Cooking.--
Refrigeration.--Messrs. Carré of France, 1870.--Artificial
Ice.--Sulphuric Acid and Ammonia Processes.--Absorption and
Compression Methods Described.--Refrigerating Cars.--Liquid Air. 199
CHAPTER XIV.
METALLURGY.
The Antiquity of the Art.--The “Lost Arts” Rediscovered.--
The Earliest Forms of Smelting Furnaces.--Ancient Iron and
Steel.--India and Africa.--Early Spain and the Catalan
Furnace.--The Armour of Don Quixote.--Bell’s History of the
Art.--Germany.--Cast Iron Made by Ancients, Disused for 15
Centuries.--Reinvented by Page and Baude in England, 1543.--
German Furnaces.--Dud Dudley, the Oxford Graduate and his
Furnace, 1619.--Origin of Coke in England.--Use in United
States.--Revival of Cast Iron.--Cast Steel in England, Huntsman,
1740.--Henry Cort and Puddling, 1784, and its Subsequent
Wonderful Value.--Steam Engine of Watt and Iron.--Refining of
Precious Metals.--Amalgamating Process.--Review of the 18th
Century.--Herschel’s Distinction of Empirical and Scientific
Art.--The Nineteenth Century, Scientific Metallurgy.--Steam,
Chemistry, Electricity.--Rogers’ Iron Floor.--Neilson’s Hot Air
Blast, 1828, Patent Sustained.--Anthracite Coal.--Colossal
Furnaces.--Gas Producers.--Bunsen’s Experiments.--Constituents
of Ores.--Squeezing Process.--Burden’s Method.--Mechanical
Puddlers.--Rotary.--Henry Bessemer’s Great Process--1855-1860.--
Steel from Iron.--Holley’s Apparatus.--Effects of and Changes in
Bessemer Process.--Old Methods and Means Revived and Improved.--
Eminent Inventors.--New Metals and New Processes Discovered.--
Harveyised Steel.--Irresistible Projectiles and Impenetrable
Armour Plate.--Krupp’s Works.--Immense Manufactures in United
States.--Treatment of Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, etc.; Mining
Operations, Separation, Reduction.--Chemical Methods:
Lixiviation or Leaching.--MacArthur.--Forrest.--Sir Humphry
Davy.--Scheele.--Chlorine and Cyanide Processes.--Alloys.--
Babbitting.--Metallic Lubricants.--Various Alloys and Uses.--
Reduction of Aluminium and other Metals.--Electro-Metallurgy.--
Diamonds to be Made.--All Arts have Waited on Development of
this Art. 218
CHAPTER XV.
METAL WORKING PROCESSES AND MACHINES.--TUBE MAKING.--WELDING.--ANNEALING
AND TEMPERING.--COATING AND METAL FOUNDING.--METAL WARE.--WIRE WORKING.
Metal Working Tools One of the Glories of 19th Century.--Wood
Working and Metal Working.--Ancient and Modern Lathe.--Turning
Metal Lathe.--A Lost Art in Use in Egypt and in Solomon’s
Time.--Revived in Sixteenth Century.--Forgotten and Revived
again in Eighteenth.--Sir Samuel Bentham and Joseph Bramah
Laid Foundation of Nineteenth Century Tools.--The Slide Rest
and Henry Maudsley.--Nasmyth’s Description.--Vast Rolls, and
Most Delicate Watch Mechanisms, cut by the Lathe and its
Tools.--Metal Planing.--Eminent Inventors, 1811-1840.--
Many Inventions and Modifications Resulting in a Wonderful
Evolution.--Metal-Boring Machines.--Modern Vulcan’s Titanic
Work-Shop.--Screw Making.--Demand Impossible to Supply under
Old Method.--Great Display at London Exhibition, 1851, and
Centennial, Philadelphia, 1876.--J. Whitworth & Co., of England,
Sellers & Co., of America, and Others.--The Great Revelation.--
Hoopes and Townsend and the Flow of Cold, Solid Metal.--Cold
Punching, etc.--Machine-Made Horse-Shoes.--The Blacksmith
and Modern Inventions.--Making of Great Tubes.--Welding by
Electricity, and Tempering and Annealing.--How Armour Plate
is Hardened.--Metals Coated.--Electro-Plating and Casting.--
Great Domes Gilded.--Moulds for Metal Founding.--Machines
and Methods.--Steel Ingots.--Sheet Metal and Personal Ware.--
Great Variety of Machines for Making.--Wire Made Articles.--
Description of Great Modern Work-Shop. 240
CHAPTER XVI.
ORDNANCE, ARMS, AMMUNITION, AND EXPLOSIVES.
This Art Slow in Growth, but no Art Progressed Faster.--The
Incentives to its Development.--The Greatest Instruments in
the New Civilisation.--Peace and its Fruits Established by
them.--Its History.--Chinese Cannon.--India.--The Moors.--
Arabs.--Cannon at Cordova in 1280.--The Spaniards and Gibraltar,
1309.--The Spread of Artillery through Europe.--Description of
Ancient Guns.--Breech Loaders and Stone Cannon Balls.--Wrought
Iron Cannon and Shells in 15th Century.--Big Cannon of the
Hindoos and Russians.--Strange Names.--France under Louis
XI.--Improvements of the Sixteenth Century.--Holland’s Mortar
Shells and Grenades in the Seventeenth.--Coehorn Mortars and
Dutch Howitzers.--Louis XIV.--French Artillery Conquers Italy.--
Eighteenth Century.--“Queen Ann’s Pocket Piece.”--Gribeauval
the Inventor of the Greatest Improvements in the Eighteenth.--
His System Used by Bonaparte at Toulon, the French Revolution,
and in Italy.--Marengo, 1800.--Small Arms, their History.--From
the Arquebus to the Modern Rifle.--Rifle, the Weapon of the
American Settler, and the Revolution.--Puckle’s Celebrated
Breech-Loading Cannon Patent, and Christian and Turk Bullets.--
1803, Percussion Principle in Fire-arms, Invented by a
Clergyman, Forsyth.--1808, Genl. Shrapnel.--Bormann of
Belgium.--1814, Shaw and the Cap.--Flint Locks Still in Use,
1847.--Colt’s Revolvers, 1835-1851.--History of Cannon again
Reverted to.--Columbiads of Bomford.--Paixhan in 1822.--Shells
of the Crimea.--Kearsarge and Alabama.--Requirements of Modern
Ordnance.--Rodman One of the Pioneers.--Woodbridge’s Wire Wound
Guns, Piezometer, and Shell Sabot.--Sir William Armstrong and
Sir Jos. Whitworth.--Krupp’s Cannon and Works.--The Latest
Improvements.--Compressed Air Ordnance.--Constructions of
Metals and Explosives.--The “Range Finder.”--Small Arms again
Considered.--History of the Breech Loader and Metallic
Cartridges.--Wooden Walls and Stone Forts disappeared.--Monitor
and Merrimac.--Blanchard and Hall.--Gill.--Springfield Rifle.--
Machine Guns.--Electric Battery.--Gatling’s, Hotchkiss’.--
Explosives.--Torpedoes.--Effect of Modern Weapons. 252
CHAPTER XVII.
PAPER AND PRINTING, TYPEWRITING AND THE LINOTYPE.
Paper-making Preceded the Art of Printing.--The Wasp Preceded
Man.--The Chinese, the Hindoos, Egyptians, and other Orientals
had Invented Both Arts.--History of Papyrus.--Parchment.--
Twelfth Century Documents Written on Linen Paper still
Extant.--Water Marks.--Wall Paper, Substitute for Tapestry,
1640.--Holland in Advance, Seventeenth Century.--Rittenhouse
of Holland Introduces Paper-Making in America, Eighteenth
Century.--Paper a Dear Commodity.--The Revolution of the
Nineteenth Century.--400 Different Materials now Used.--
Nineteenth Century Opens with Robert’s Paper-Making Machine.--
Messrs. Fourdrinier.--Immense Growth of their System.--Modern
Discoveries of Chemists.--Soda Pulp and Sulphite Processes.--
Paper Mills.--Paper Bag Machines, etc.--Printing.--Chinese
Invented Both Block and Movable Types.--European Inventors.--
The Claims of Different Nations.--From Southern Italy to
Sweden.--Spread of the Art.--Printing Press and the
Reformation.--First Printing Press in New World Set up in
Mexico, 1536.--Then in Brazil.--Then in 1639 in
Massachusetts.--Types and Presses.--English and American.--
Ramage and Franklin.--Blaew of Amsterdam.--Nineteenth Century
Opens with Earl of Stanhope’s Hand Press.--Clymer of
Philadelphia, 1817.--The First Machine Presses.--Nicholson in
Eighteenth.--Konig and Bauer in Nineteenth Century, 1813.--
London Times, 1814.--1815, Cowper’s Electrotype plates.--1822,
First Power Press in United States.--Treadwell.--Bruce’s Type
Casting Machines.--Hoe’s Presses.--John Walter’s.--German and
American Presses.--Capacities of Modern Presses.--Mail
Marking.--Typewriting.--Suggested in Eighteenth Century.--
Revived by French in 1840.--Leading Features Invented in
U. S., 1857.--Electro-Magnet Typewriters.--Cahill.--
Book-binding.--Review of the Art.--Linotype “Most Remarkable
Machine of Century.”--Merganthaler.--Rogers.--Progress and
Triumphs of the Art. 273
CHAPTER XVIII.
TEXTILES.
The Distaff and the Spindle, without a Change from Ancient
Days to Middle of Fourteenth Century.--Ancient and Modern Cloth
Making.--Woman the Natural Goddess of the Art.--The Ancient and
Isolated Weavers of Mexico.--After 40 Centuries of Hand-Weaving
Comes John Kay, of England, 1733.--The Spinning Machines of
Wyatt and Hargreaves.--1738-1769, Richard Arkwright.--The
“Spinning Jenny” and the “Throstle.”--The Steam Engine and
Weaving.--1776, Crompton and the “Mule.”--1785, Cartwright
and Power Looms.--1793, Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin.--
1793-1813, Samuel Slater, Lowell, and Cotton Factories of
America.--The Dominion of the Nineteenth Century.--What it
Comprises in the Art of Spinning and Weaving.--Description
of Operations.--Bobbins of Asa Arnold and the Ring Frame of
Jenks.--Spooling Machines.--Warping and Dressing and other
Finishing Operations.--Embroidery.--Cloth Finishing.--The
Celebrated Jacquard Loom.--Jacquard and Napoleon.--Bonelli’s
Electric Loom.--Fancy Woollen Looms of George Crompton.--
Bigelow’s Carpet Looms.--Figuring, Colouring, Embossing.--
Cloth Pressing and Creasing.--Felting.--Ribbons.--Comparison
of Penelopes of Past and Present.--Knitting Days of our
Grandmothers and Knitting Machines.--A Mile of Stockings.--
Fancy Stocking and Embroidery Machines.--Netting and Turkish
Carpets.--Matting.--Spun Glass, etc.--Hand, and the Skilled
Labour of Machinery. 292
CHAPTER XIX.
GARMENTS.
“Man is a Tool-using Animal, of which Truth, Clothes are
but one Example.”--Form of Needle not Changed until 1775.--
Weisenthal.--Embroidery Needle.--Saint’s Sewing Machine,
1790.--John Duncan’s Tamboring Machine, 1804.--Eye Pointed
Needles for Rope Matting, 1807.--Madersperger’s Sewing Machine,
1814.--France and the Thimonnier Machine, 1830-1848-50, Made of
Wood.--Destroyed by Mob.--English Embroidering Machine, 1841.--
Concurrent Inventions in Widely Separated Countries.--Thimonnier
in France, Hunt in America, 1832, 1834.--Elias Howe, 1846.--
Description of Howe’s Inventions.--Recital of his Struggles and
final Triumphs.--The Test of Priority.--Leather Sewing Machines
of Greenough and Corliss, 1842-43.--Bean’s Running Stitch,
1843.--The Decade of 1849-1859, Greatest in Century in Sewing
Machine Inventions.--Hood’s “Song of the Shirt,” a Dying
Drudgery.--Improvements after Howe.--Blodgett and Lerow’s Dip
Motion.--Wilson’s Four-Motion Feed.--Singer’s Inventions, their
Importance, his Rise from Poverty to Great Wealth.--The Grover
and Baker.--The Display in 1876 at the Centennial.--Vast Growth
of the Industry.--Extraordinary Versatility of Invention in
Sewing and Reaping Machines, and Breech-Loading Fire-arms.--
Commercial Success due to Division of Labour and Assembling
of Parts.--Innumerable Additions to the Art.--Seventy-five
Different Stitches.--Passing of the Quilting Party.--Embroidery
and Button-hole Machines.--Garment-cutting Machines.--Bonnets
and Inventions of Women.--Hat Making.--Its History.--Bonjeau’s
Improvements in Plain Cloths, 1834.--Effect of Modern Inventions
on Wearing Apparel and Condition of the Poor.--The Epoch of Good
Clothes. 310
CHAPTER XX.
INDUSTRIAL MACHINES.
Inventions Engender Others.--Co-operative Growth.--Broom
Making.--Crude Condition until the Modern Lathe, Mandrel,
Shuttle and Sewing Machine.--Broom Sewing Machines.--Effect
on Labour.--The Brush and Brush Machines.--A Hundred Species
of Brushes, each Made by a Special Machine.--First Successful
Brush Machine, Woodbury’s, 1870.--Wonderful Operations.--
Street-Sweeping Machines, 1831.--Most Effective Form.--Abrading
Machines.--Application of Sand Blast.--Nature’s Machine
Patented by Tilghman in 1870.--Things Done by the Sand Blast
and How.--Emery and Corundum Machines.--Vast Application in
Cutting, Grinding, Polishing.--Washing and Ironing Machines.--
Their Contribution to Cleanliness and Comfort.--Laundry
Appliances.--Old and the New Mangle.--Starch Applying.--Steam
Laundry Machinery.--Description of Work done in a Modern Laundry. 328
CHAPTER XXI.
WOOD-WORKING.
Contrast of Prehistoric Labour and Implements and Modern
Tools.--The Ages of Stone, Bronze, Iron, and the Age of
Wood.--The Slow Growth of Wood-working Inventions.--Tools
of the Egyptians.--Saw of the Greeks.--Known to Hindoos
and Africans.--Accounts of Pliny and Ansonius as to Planes
and Marble Sawing.--Saw-mills of France, Germany, Norway,
Sweden.--Holland 100 Years ahead of England, and Why.--William
Penn Found Saw-mills in America in 1682.--What made Americans
Inventors.--Progress Unknown where Saw-mills are not.--Steam
and Saw Mills.--Splendid System and Inventions of Samuel
Bentham, Bramah and Branch at Close of Eighteenth Century.--
First Decade of Nineteenth Century Produces Wonderful Inventor,
Thomas Blanchard.--His Life and Inventions.--Machines for
Turning Irregular Forms in Wood and Metal.--The Boring Worm
and Boring Machine.--Gun-making and Mortising Machines.--
Complicated Ornamental Wood-cutting and Carving Machines.--
Whatever Made by Hand can be Better Made by Machinery.--
Pattern-Cutting Machines.--Xyloplasty.--Art of Hand Carving
Revived.--Bending of Wood by Fire and Steam.--The Problems
Solved by Wood-working Inventors.--Great Saws at the Vienna
Exposition, 1873.--Boring Tools, Augers, Planes, Lathes, etc.
How Improved and by Whom.--“The Universal Wood Workers.”--
Flexible Shafting.--Shingles and Tiles.--A Great Log, how
Turned into Bundles of Shingles.--Veneering.--What Pliny
Thought of It.--Brunel’s Machines, 1805-1808.--Homes Made
Beautiful by Modern Wood-working.--Objects without and Within
a House, Made by Such Machinery.--Array of Wood-working
Machinery at International Expositions.--The Art of Forestry. 339
CHAPTER XXII.
FURNITURE.--BOTTLING, PRESERVING, AND LAMPLIGHTING.
Universal Supply of Convenient and Ornamental Furniture Due
to Modern Inventions and Machinery.--The Furniture of the
Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.--Tables.--Modern Improvements.--
Combined Tables, Desks, and Chairs.--Special Forms of Each.--
Beds: Advance from the Ponderous Bedsteads of Former Times.--
Modern, Ornamental, Healthful Styles.--Iron, Brass, Springs,
Surgical and Invalid Chairs and Beds.--Kitchen Utensils.--Vast
Amount of Drudgery Relieved.--Curtains, Shades, and Screens.--
Great Changes Produced by Steaming and Bending Wood.--The
Bentwood Ware Factories of Austria, Hungary, Moravia (1870-73),
in Vast Beech Forests Followed in other Countries.--Modern
Chairs of Various Kinds.--The Dentist and the Theatre.--Bottle
Stoppers.--Enormous Demand for Cork Exhausting the Supply.--
Modern Substitutes.--Fruit Jars, etc.--Lamplighting, Ancient
and Modern.--Revolution Produced by Petroleum.--Wickless and
Electric Lamps. 354
CHAPTER XXIII.
LEATHER.
Leather and Prehistoric Man.--Earliest Implements and Processes
Forerunners of Modern Inventions.--Modern Leather Unknown to
the Earliest Races.--Tanning.--Leathers of Different Nations.--
Hand Tools and Variety of Operations.--Inventions of Nineteenth
Century--Labour-Saving Machinery and New Processes.--Epoch of
Modern Machinery.--1780, John Bull and his Scraping Machine,
Hide-mill, Pioneer Machine of Century.--Fleshing Machines.--
Tanning Apparatus.--Reel Machines.--Tanning Processes and the
Chemists.--Machines for Different Operations.--Pendulum Lever
Machine.--Leather Splitting, and other Remarkable Machines.--
Boots and Shoes, their Character before Modern Inventions.--
Randolph’s Riveting Machine of 1809.--Great Civil Engineer,
J. M. Brunel’s Machines.--1818, Walker Invents the Wooden
Peg.--Peg-making Machines.--1858, Sturtevant’s Great
Improvement.--Fifty-five Million Pairs of Boots and Shoes then
Annually Pegged.--Metal Wire, and Screw Pegs.--Last-turning
Machines of Blanchard.--McKay’s Shoe Sewing Machine.--
Revolution in Shoe Making.--Special Machines for Making Every
Part.--One Machine Makes 300 Pairs a Day.--Many Millions made
Daily.--Vast Increase of Labourers as the Art Advances.--
Illustrations of Yankee Enterprise.--Modern and Ancient
Harnesses.--Embossed Leather.--Book Covers and the many Useful
and Beautiful Leather Articles.--The Vast and Important Leather
Manufactures. 361
CHAPTER XXIV.
MINERALS.--WELLS.
Ancient Tools and the Art of Building.--The Parthenon.--
Aqueducts of Rome.--Tombs of India.--Halls of Alhambra.--
Gothic Cathedrals.--Steam First Drew Coal, then Sawed Wood and
then Stone.--Stone-cutting Machinery.--Carving.--Dressing.--
Drilling.--Tunnels.--Wonderful Work of Stone-Boring Machine
on Pillars of Ohio State Capitol.--Stone Drills and Compressed
Air.--Hell Gate.--Crushing Stones and Ores.--Blake’s Crusher.--
“Road Metal.”--Different Form of Crushers.--Assorting Coal.--
Steam and Coal, strong Brothers.--Compressed Air for Mining
Machinery.--Mighty Picks Driven by Air.--Electric Motor.--
Machines for Screening, Loading, and Weighing.--Ore Mills.--
Separators.--Centrifugal Action.--Ore Washing.--Amalgamators:
Electric, Lead, Mercury, Plate, Vacuum, Vapour, etc.--The
Revolution in Mining.--Well Boring an Ancient Art.--Artesian
Wells.--Coal Oil and Coal Wells.--Preceded by Discovery of
Paraffine and its Uses.--Reichenbach, Young.--Petroleum
Discovery.--New Industry.--Col. Drake and First Oil Well.--
Sudden Riches of Farmers.--Boring Water Wells.--Green’s Driven
Wells.--The Deserts Made to Bloom as the Rose. 373
CHAPTER XXV.
HOROLOGY AND INSTRUMENTS OF PRECISION.
Time Measuring Instruments of Antiquity.--Sun-dial.--Clepsydra,
Hour-glass, Graduated Candle.--Plato’s Bell.--The Clepsydra
of Ctesibius.--Incense Sticks of Chinese.--Sun-dials of Greeks
and Romans.--Candles of Alfred the Great.--Wonderful Clocks
of the Middle Ages.--Henry de Vick of France, 1370.--Two
Hundred Years without Advance.--Astronomers, Brache and
Valherius.--1525, Zech’s Fusee.--Progenitors of Modern Watch,
1500.--1582, Swinging Lamp of Galileo.--1639, Galileo’s
Book.--Huygens and the Pendulum.--Dr. Hooke’s and David Ramsey’s
Inventions.--Hair-Spring Balances.--George the Third’s Small
Time-Piece.--Eighteenth Century Division of Time Pieces into
Hours, Minutes and Seconds.--Stem Winders.--Astronomical
Discoveries and Chronometers.--Dutch, Leading Clockmakers;
Germany, Switzerland.--Systems Followed in these Countries.--
Minute Sub-divisions of Labour.--Watch and Clock Making in the
United States.--American System.--Wonderful Machines for every
Part.--Watch factories.--Pope’s Simile.--Revolution in
Nineteenth Century.--Electric System.--4000 Patents in U.S.
since 1800.--Registering Devices.--“A Mechanical Conscience.”--
Cash Registers.--Voting Machines.--Electrical Recorders.--
Cyclometers.--Speed Indicators.--Weighing Scales and Machines,
History of.--The Fairbanks of Vermont, 1831.--Platform and other
Scales.--Spring Weighing.--Automatic Recorders of Weight and
Prices.--Testing Machines, English, German, American.--The Emery
Scales.--Gages, Dynamometers.--Hydraulic Testing.--Delicate
Operations.--Strength of a Horse-hair and Great Steel Beam,
Tested by Same Machine.--Effect on Public Works. 384
CHAPTER XXVI.
MUSIC, ACOUSTICS, OPTICS, PHOTOGRAPHY, FINE ARTS.
Musical Instruments Old as Religion.--Abounded before the Lyre
of Apollo or the Harp of Orpheus.--Their Evolution.--To Meet
Wants and Growing Tastes.--Nineteenth Century and the Laws
of Helmholtz.--The Story of the Piano, the Queen, Involves
whole History of the Art of Music.--Ancient Harp and Growth.--
Psaltery and Dulcimer of Assyrians and Hebrews.--No Inventions
by Greeks and Romans in this Art.--Fifteenth Century and the
Clavicitherium.--Sixteenth Century, the Virginal and the
Spinet.--Seventeenth Century, the Clavichord and Harpsichord.--
Italian Cembello.--Bach, Mozart, Handel, Haydn.--Cristofori of
Florence, Schreiber of Germany and Modern Piano.--Eighteenth
Century, Pianos of Broadwood and Clementi of London, Erard of
Strasburg, Petzold of Paris and Others.--Two Thousand Years
Taken to Ripen the Modern Piano.--Description of Piano Parts.--
Helmholtz’s Great Work, 1862.--Effect on System of Music and
Musical Instruments.--The Organ, King in the Realm of Music.--
History of, from Earliest Times.--Improvements of the Nineteenth
Century.--The Auto-harp.--Self-playing Instruments.--The Science
of Acoustics and Practical Applications.--Auricular Tubes.--
Telephone, Phonograph, Graphophone, Gramophone.--Their
Evolution and their Inventors.--Optical Instruments.--Their
Growth.--Lippersheim, Galileo, Lieberkulm, John Dolland.--The
Improvements and Inventors of the Nineteenth Century.--Brewster
and the Kaleidoscope, Stereoscope.--Lenticular Lenses.--
Lighthouse Illumination.--Faraday and Tyndall.--Abbé Moigno’s
Troubles.--Ophthalmoscope.--Spectroscope.--Making of Great
Lenses.--Solarmeter.--Measuring the Position and Distances
of Unseen Objects.--Light Converted into Music.--Daguerre and
Photography.--History and Development.--Colour Reproduction.--
Pencils.--Painting.--Air Brushes.--Telegraphic Photographs. 400
CHAPTER XXVII.
SAFES AND LOCKS.
Safes, how Constructed before this Century.--Classification.--
Century Starts out to Make Safes Fireproof.--Scott in 1801.--
Marr, 1834.--Result of Great Fire in New York, 1835.--Wilder’s
and Herring’s Safes.--Burglar-proof Safes, 1835.--Chubb, Newton,
Thompson, Hall, Marvin and Others.--Electricity.--Seal Locks
from 1815.--Locks of Various Kinds in Ancient Days.--Of
Ponderous Size.--Key of the House of David.--Lock of Penelope’s
House.--Locks of the Middle Ages.--Letter Locks of the Dutch,
1650.--Carew’s Verse.--Eighteenth Century Locks.--Tumblers.--
Joseph Bramah’s Locks.--Combination, Permutation and Time
Locks.--Yale Locks.--Modern Locks Invented for Special Uses.--
Master or Secondary Key Locks.--Value of Simple, Cheap,
Effective Locks.--Mail Locks and Others.--Greater General
Security for Property of all Kinds now Obtained. 420
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CARRIAGES AND CARRYING MACHINES GENERALLY.
Review of Conveyances from Time of Ptolemy’s Great Procession,
270 B. C., until Nineteenth Century.--The Old Stage Coaches.--
Coaches of the Rich, the Middle Classes and the Poor.--The Past
Art Compared with the Art as Exhibited at Centennial Exhibition
in 1876 at Philadelphia.--The Varieties of Different Vehicles
there Displayed by Different Nations.--Velocipedes and
Bicycles.--1800 to 1869.--French, German, English, Scotch.--
The “Draisine” of Von Drais, 1816.--Johnson’s “Curricle,”
1818.--Gompertz’s “Dandy” and “Hobby Horse,” 1821.--Michaux’s,
1863.--Lallement’s of France, 1866, Crank and Pedal.--America
and Europe Adopts it, 1866, 1869.--Pneumatic Rubber Tire
Invented by Thomson, 1845.--Sleeps Forty Years.--Improvements
since 1869.--Motor Vehicles and Automobiles.--Traction
Engines.--Brakes, Railway, Air and Electric.--Automatic
Couplers, Buffers, and Vestibule Trains. 428
CHAPTER XXIX.
SHIPS AND SHIP BUILDING.
“Ships are but Boards.”--“The Great Harry.”--Noah’s Ark the
Prototype of the Modern “Whale-back.”--Phœnicians.--
Northmen.--Dutch, French, English, and American Types.--
Nineteenth Century, the Yankee Clippers.--Donald McKay.--
“Great Republic.”--Steam as Motive Power in Ships the Leading
Event in the Art.--Lord Dundas and Steam Canal Boats.--Iron
Ships in Place of Wood, 1829-30.--John Laird of Birkenhead.--
Sir William Fairbairn.--Clyde Works.--Comparison of Wood and
Iron.--1844, the Great Britain.--John Ericsson.--Monitor and
Merrimac.--Composite Style of Vessels.--Marine Propulsion.--
Paddle Wheels.--Screws.--1804, John Stevens.--1807, Fulton.--
Screw Propeller of Ericsson.--The Ogden, the Stockton and the
Princeton, the First Naval Warship of its Kind.--The Two
Revolutions Produced by Ericsson.--Pneumatic Propellers.--
Description of a Warship.--The Deutschland.--Torpedo Boats.--
Franklin and Oil on the Waves.--Air Ships.--Count Zeppelin’s
Boat.--Other Plans of Air Navigation.--The Problems to be Solved. 438
CHAPTER XXX.
ILLUMINATING GAS.
What Artificial Light has done for Man.--Its Condition before
the Nineteenth Century.--Experiments of Dr. Clayton, Hon. R.
Boyle, Dr. Hales, Bishop Watson, Lord Dundonald, Dr. Rickel,
and William Murdock in Eighteenth Century.--1801, Le Bon Makes
Gas, Proposes to Light Paris.--1803, English Periodicals
Discuss the Subject.--1806, Melville of Newport, U. S., Lights
House and Street.--1817, First Lighthouse Lit by Gas.--The
Beaver Tail on Atlantic Coast.--Parliament in 1813, London
Streets Lit in 1815, Paris, 1820, American Cities 1816-25.--
Gas Processes.--Chemistry.--Priestley and Dalton.--Berthollet,
Graham, and Others.--Clegg of England and his Gas Machines.--
Art Revolutionised by Invention of Water Gas, 1823-1847.--
Donovan, Lowe, White.--T. S. C. Lowe, Anthracite Process,
1873.--Competition with Electricity.--Siemens’ Regenerative
System.--The Generators, Carburetors, Retorts, Mixers,
Purifiers, Meters, Scrubbers, Holders, Condensers, Governors,
Indicators, Registers, Chargers, Pressure Regulators, etc.--
Portable Gas Apparatus.--Argand Burners.--Acetylene Gas.--
Calcium Carbide.--Magnesium.--Bunsen Burner and Welsbach Mantle. 450
CHAPTER XXXI.
POTTERY, PLASTICS, PORCELAINS, STONEWARE, GLASS, RUBBER, CELLULOID.
Brickmaking from the Earliest Ages to Nineteenth Century.--
Pottery, its Origin Unknown.--Its Evolution.--Women the First
Inventors in Ceramic and Textile Arts.--Progress of Man Traced
in Pottery.--Review of Pottery from Time of Homer to the
Wedgwood Ware of Eighteenth Century.--Labour-Saving Devices
of Nineteenth.--Operations in Brickmaking and Machinery.--The
Celebrated Pug Mill, the Pioneer.--Moulding and Pressing.--
Drying and Burning.--The Slow Growth of Methods.--Useful
Contrivances never wholly Supplanted.--Modern Heat
Distributors.--Hoffman’s Kilns.--Wedgwood’s Pottery in
Eighteenth.--Siemens’ Regenerators in Nineteenth, and other
Kilns.--Susan Frackelton’s.--The Filter Press.--Chinese and
French Porcelains--Battam’s Imitations of Marbles and Plaster
Moulds.--Faience.--Porcelain Moulding and Colours.--Atomisers
and Backgrounds.--Rookwood Pottery and Miss Fry.--Enamelled
Ware.--Artificial Stone.--Modern Cements.--Glass the Sister
of Pottery.--The Inventors of Blowing, Cutting, Trimming by
Shears and Diamond Cutting, Ancient and Unknown.--Glass Windows
and Mirrors Unknown to the Poor Prior to Eighteenth Century.--
The Nineteenth Century the Scientific Age of Glass.--Its
Commercial Development.--Crystal Palace of 1851.--Description
of Modern Discoveries.--Materials.--Colours and Faraday’s
Discovery in 1824.--Gaffield’s Extensive Experiments in
Producing Colours.--The German Glass Works at Jena of Abbe
and Schott.--Methods Followed for Different Varieties.--
Machines for Different Purposes.--Cut Glass and other
Beautiful Ware.--Cameo Cutting.--Porcelain Electroplating.--
Rubber, History of, in Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries.--Sketch of Goodyear.--His Inventions and Present
State of the Art.--Glass Wool of Volcano of Kilauea and Krupp’s
Blast Furnaces. 457
INVENTIONS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY--INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES--THEIR DEVELOPMENT.
In treating of the subject of Inventions it is proper to distinguish
them from their scientific kindred--Discoveries.
The history of inventions is the history of new and useful contrivances
made by man for practical purposes. The history of scientific
discoveries is the record of new things found in Nature, its laws,
forces, or materials, and brought to light, as they exist, either
singly, or in relation, or in combination.
Thus Galileo invented the telescope, and Newton discovered the law of
gravitation. The practical use of the invention when turned to the
heavenly bodies served to confirm the truth of the discovery.
Discovery and invention may be, and often are, united as the soul is to
the body. The union of the two produces one or more inventions. Thus the
invented electro-telegraph consists of the combination of discoveries of
certain laws of electricity with an apparatus, by which signs are
communicated to distances by electrical influence.
Inventions and discoveries do not precede or follow each other in order.
The instrument may be made before the laws which govern its operation
are discovered. The discovery may long precede its adaptation in
physical form, and both the discovery and adaptation may occur together.
Among the great _inventions_ of the past are alphabetical writing,
Arabic notation, the mariner’s compass, the telescope, the
printing-press, and the steam-engine. Among the great _discoveries_ of
the past are the attraction of gravitation, the laws of planetary
motion, the circulation of the blood, and velocity of light. Among the
great inventions of the nineteenth century are the spectroscope, the
electric telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the railways, and the
steam-ships. Among the great discoveries of this century are the
correlation and conservation of forces, anæsthetics, laws of electrical
energy, the germ theory of disease, the molecular theory of gases, the
periodic law of Mendeljeff in chemistry, antiseptic surgery, and the
vortex theory of matter. This short enumeration will serve to indicate
the different roads along which inventions and the discoveries of
science progress.
By many it is thought that the inventions and discoveries of the
nineteenth century exceed in number and importance all the achievements
of the kind in all the ages of the past.
So marvellous have been these developments of this century that, not
content with sober definitions, men have defined _invent_, even when
speaking only of mechanical productions, as “creating what had not
before existed;” and this period has been described as an age of new
creations. The far-off cry of the Royal Preacher, “There is no new thing
under the sun: Is there anything whereof it may be said, see this is
new, it hath been already of old time which was before us,” is regarded
as a cry of satiety and despair, finding no responsive echo in the array
of inventions of this bright age.
But in one sense the Preacher’s words are ever profoundly true. The
forces and materials of Nature always exist, awaiting man’s discovery,
and at best he can but vary their relations, re-direct their course, or
change their forms. In a still narrower sense the truth of the
Preacher’s declaration is apparent:--
In an address before the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1885,
the late Prof. F. A. Seely, of the United States Patent Office, set
forth that it was one of the established laws of Invention, that,
“Every human invention has sprung from some prior invention, or from
some prior known expedient.”
Inventions, he said, do not, like their protectress, Pallas Athene,
spring forth full grown from the heads of their authors; that both as to
modern inventions and as to those whose history is unrecorded, each
exhibits in itself the evidence of a similar sub-structure; and that,
“in the process of elimination we go back and back and find no resting
place till we reach the rude set of expedients, the original endowment
of men and brutes alike.”
Inventions, then, are not creations, but the evolution of man-made
contrivances.
It may be remarked, however, as was once said by William H. Seward: “The
exercise of the inventive faculty is the nearest akin to that of the
Creator of any faculty possessed by the human mind; for while it does
not create in the same sense that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest
approach to it of anything known to man.”
There is no history, rock-record, or other evidence of his existence as
man, which discloses a period when he was not an inventor.
Invention is that divine spark which drove, and still drives him to the
production of means to meet his wants, while it illuminates his way.
From that inward spark must have soon followed the invention of that
outer fire to warm and cheer him, and to melt and mould the earth to his
desires. Formed for society, the necessity of communication with his
fellows developed the power of speech. Speech developed written
characters and alphabets. Common communication developed concert of
action, and from concert of action sprung the arts of society.
But the evolution of invention has not been uniform. Long periods of
slowness and stagnation have alternated with shorter or longer periods
of prolific growth, and these with seasons of slumber and repression.
Thus, Prof. Langley has said that man was thousands of years, and
possibly millions, in evolving a cutting edge by rubbing one stone on
another; but only a few thousand years to next develop bronze tools, and
a still shorter period tools of iron.
We cannot say how long the period was from the age of iron tools to the
building of the pyramids, but we know that before those stupendous
structures arose, the six elementary mechanical powers, the lever, the
wheel, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge and the screw, were
invented. And without those powers, what mechanical tool or machine has
since been developed? The age of inventions in the times of the ancients
rested mainly upon simple applications of these mechanical powers. The
middle ages slumbered, but on the coming of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the inventions of the ancients were revived, new ones added,
and their growth and development extended with ever-increasing speed to
the present time.
The inventions of the nineteenth century, wonderful and innumerable as
they are, and marvellous in results produced, are but the fruit of the
seed sown in the past, and the blossom of the buds grown upon the stalks
of former generations. The early crude stone hatchet has become the keen
finished metal implement of to-day, and the latter involves in itself
the culmination of a long series of processes for converting the rough
ore into the hard and glistening steel.
The crooked and pointed stick with which the Egyptian turned the sands
of the Nile has slowly grown to be the finished plough that is now
driven through the sod by steam.
The steam-operated toys of Hero of Alexandria were revived in principle
and incorporated in the engines of Papin and the Marquis of Worcester in
the seventeenth century; and the better engines of Savery, Newcomen, and
more especially of James Watt in the eighteenth century, left the
improvements in steam-engines of the nineteenth century--great as they
are--inventions only in matter of detail.
It has been said that electrical science began with the labours of Dr.
Gilbert, published in 1600. These, with the electrical discoveries and
inventions of Gray, Franklin, Galvani, and others in the next century,
terminating with the invention of his battery by Volta in 1800,
constituted the framework on which was built that world of flashing
light and earth-circling messages in which we now live.
The study of inventions in any one or all eras cannot proceed
intelligently unless account is taken not only of their mode of
construction, and of their evolution one from another, but of the
evolution of distinct arts, their relation, their interdependence in
growth, and their mutual progress.
The principles adopted by the ancients in weaving and spinning by hand
are those still in force; but so great was the advance of inventions
from hand-operated mechanisms to machines in these and other arts, and
especially in steam, in the last half of the eighteenth century, that it
has been claimed that the age of machine production or invention then
for the first time really began.
When the humble lift became the completed elevator of to-day, the
“sky-scraper” buildings appeared; but these buildings waited upon the
invention of their steel skeletons, and the steel was the child of the
Bessemer process.
The harp with which David stirred the dead soul of Saul was the
prototype of the sweet clavichord, the romantic virginal, the tinkling
harpsichord, and the grand piano. The thrumming of the chords by the
fingers was succeeded by the striking keys; and the more perfect
rendition of tones awaited the application of new discoveries in the
realm of musical sounds. The keys and the levers in the art of musical
instruments were transferred to the art of printing, and are found
to-day striking a more homely music on the type-writer and on those
other and more wonderful printing instruments that mould, and set, and
distribute the type. But these results of later days did not reach their
perfected operations and forms until many other arts had been discovered
and developed, by which to treat and improve the wood, and the wire, and
all the other materials of which those early instruments were composed,
and by which the underlying principles of their operations became known.
Admitting that man possesses the faculty of invention, what are the
motives that induce its exercise? Why so prolific in inventions now? And
will they continue to increase in number and importance, or decrease?
An interesting treatise of bulky dimensions might be written in answer
to these queries, and the answers might not then be wholly satisfactory.
Space permits the submission of but a few observations and suggestions
on these points:----
_Necessity_ is still the mother of inventions, but not of all of them.
The pressing needs of man in fighting nakedness and hunger, wild beasts
and storms, may have driven him to the production of most of his early
contrivances; but as time went on and his wants of every kind
multiplied, other factors than mere necessity entered into the problem,
and now it is required to account for the multiplicity of inventions
under the general head of _Wants_.
To-day it is the want of the luxuries, as well as of the necessities of
life, the want of riches, distinction, power, and place, the wants of
philanthropy and the wants of selfishness, and that restless, inherent,
unsatisfied, indescribable want which is ever pushing man onward on the
road of progress, that must be regarded as the springs of invention.
_Accident_ is thought to be the fruitful source of great inventions. It
is a factor that cannot be ignored. But accidents are only occasional
helps, rarely occurring,--flashes of light suddenly revealing the end of
the path along which the inventor has been painfully toiling, and
unnoticed except by him alone. They are sudden discoveries which for the
most part simply shorten his journey. The rare complete contrivance
revealed by accident is not an invention at all, but a discovery.
The greatest incentive in modern times to the production of inventions
is governmental protection.
When governments began to recognize the right of property in inventions,
and to devise and enforce means by which their author should hold and
enjoy the same, as he holds his land, his house, or his horse, then
inventions sprung forth as from a great unsealed fountain.
This principle first found recognition in England in 1623, when
parliament, stung by the abuse of the royal prerogative in the grant of
exclusive personal privileges that served to crush the growth of
inventions and not to multiply them, by its celebrated Statute of
Monopolies, abolished all such privileges, but excepted from its
provisions the grant of patents “for the sole working or making of any
manner of new manufactures within this realm to the true and first
inventor” thereof.
This statute had little force, however, in encouraging and protecting
inventors until the next century, and until after the great inventions
of Arkwright in spinning and James Watt in steam-engines had been
invaded, and the attention of the courts called more seriously thereby
to the property rights of inventors, and to the necessity of a liberal
exposition of the law and its proper enforcement.
Then followed in 1789 the incorporation of that famous provision in the
Constitution of the United States, declaring that Congress shall have
the power “To promote the progress of science and useful arts by
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right
to their respective writings and discoveries.”
In 1791 followed the law of the National Assembly of France for the
protection of new inventions, setting forth in the preamble, among other
things, “that not to regard an industrial invention as the property of
its author would be to attack the essential rights of man.”
These fundamental principles have since been adopted and incorporated in
their laws by all the nations of the earth.
Inventions in their nature being for the good of all men and for all
time, it has been deemed wise by all nations in their legislation not to
permit the inventor to lock up his property in secret, or confine it to
his own use; and hence the universal practice is to enact laws giving
him, his heirs, and assigns, exclusive ownership to this species of his
property for a limited time only, adjudged sufficient to reward him for
his efforts in its production, and to encourage others in like
productions; while he, in consideration for this protection, is to fully
make known his invention, so that the public may be enabled to freely
make and use it after its exclusive ownership shall have expired.
In addition to the motives and incentives mentioned inducing this modern
mighty outflow of inventions, regard must be had to the conditions of
personal, political and intellectual freedom, and of education. There is
no class of inventors where the mass of men are slaves; and when dense
ignorance abounds, invention sleeps.
In the days of the greatest intellectual freedom of Greece, Archimedes,
Euclid, and Hero, its great inventors, flourished; but when its
political _status_ had reduced the mass of citizens to slaves, when the
work of the artisan and the inventor was not appreciated beyond the gift
of an occasional crown of laurel, when manual labour and the labourer
were scorned, inventions were not born, or, if born, found no
nourishment to prolong their lives.
In Rome, the labourer found little respect beyond the beasts of burden
whose burdens he shared, and the inventor found no provision of
fostering care or protection in her mighty jurisprudence. The middle
ages carefully repressed the minds of men, and hid away in dark recesses
the instruments of learning. When men at length awoke to claim their
birthright of freedom, they invented the printing-press and rediscovered
gunpowder, with which to destroy the tyranny of both priests and kings.
Then arose the modern inventor, and with him came the freedom and the
arts of civilisation which we now enjoy.
What the exercise of free and protected invention has brought to this
century is thus summarised by Macaulay:
“It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; has extinguished
diseases; has increased the fertility of the soil; given new security to
the mariner; furnished new arms to the warrior; spanned great rivers and
estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the
thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the
night with splendour of the day; it has extended the range of human
vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has
accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated
intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all despatch of
business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to
soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of
the earth; to traverse the land in carts which whirl along without
horses; to cross the ocean in ships which run many knots an hour against
the wind. Those are but a part of its fruits, and of its first fruits,
for it is a philosophy which never rests, which is never perfect. Its
law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal
to-day, and will be its starting point to-morrow.”
The onward flow of inventions may be interrupted, if not materially
stayed, by the cessation of some of the causes and incentives which now
give them life. When comfort for all and rest for all, and a suitable
division of labour, and an equal distribution of its fruits are reached,
in that state of society which is pictured in the visions of the social
philosopher, or as fast as such conditions are reached, so soon will
cease the pricking of those spurs of invention,--individual rewards, the
glorious strife of competition, the harrowing necessities, and the
ambitions for place and power. If all are to co-operate and share alike,
what need of exclusive protection and fierce and individual struggle?
Why not sit down now and break the loaf and share it, and pour the wine,
and enjoy things as they are, without a thought for the morrow?
The same results as to inventions may be reached in different but less
pleasant ways: When all the industries are absorbed by huge combinations
of capital the strife of competition among individuals, and the making
of individual inventions to meet such competition, will greatly
disappear. Or, the same results may be effected by stringent laws of
labour organisations, in restricting or repressing all individual
independent effort, prescribing what shall be done or what shall not be
done along certain lines of manufacture or employment. So that the
progress of future inventions depends on the outcome of the great
economic, industrial, and social battles which are now looming on the
pathway of the future.
But what the inventions of the nineteenth century were and what they
have done for Humanity, is a chapter that must be read by all those now
living or to come who wish to learn the history of their race. It is a
story which gathers up all the threads of previous centuries and weaves
them into a fabric which must be used in all the coming ages in the
attainment of their comforts, their adornments, and their civilisations.
To enumerate all the inventions of the century would be like calling up
a vast army of men and proclaiming the name of each. The best that can
be done is to divide the wide field into chapters, and in these chapters
give as best one may an idea of the leading inventions that have
produced the greatest industries of the World.