THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY, STEAM AND CHEMISTRY
The invention of the first electrical machine was made by Otto Von
Guericke, of Magdeburg, about 1670. It consisted of a sulphur ball, a
stick with a point, and a linen thread "an ell or more long," hanging
from the stick. The lower end of the thread being made to hang "a thumb
breadth distance" from some other body, and the sulphur ball rubbed and
brought near the point of the stick, the lower end of the thread moved
up to the body. The ball being removed, the lower end of the thread
would drop away from the body; so that by moving the ball back and
forth, the lower end of the thread would be made to move back and forth
simultaneously.
It may be objected that Guericke made no invention, because he did not
conceive the idea of making a machine or instrument and did not, in
fact, produce one: that he merely made a discovery. The author admits
that such an objection would have great reasonableness, and that
Guericke's feat is a little hard to class. It is classed by many as an
invention, however, and the present author is inclined to class it so;
because there seems no reason to doubt that Guericke first conceived
the idea of doing what he did do, and that he did produce a device
whereby an actual motion of a rubbed ball at one place caused actual
motion at another place, through the medium of a current of electricity
that traversed a conductor joining the two places. The device is
sometimes spoken of as the first telegraph instrument.
Guericke (like Gilbert) was more distinctly an experimenter than an
inventor,--and (like Gilbert) his work was not only in electricity, but
in most of the other branches of science. Of the two, Guericke seems
to have covered a wider field, and to have been more distinctly an
inventor. His celebrated experiment of holding two hollow hemispheres
together, then exhausting the air from the hollow sphere thus formed,
and then demonstrating the force of the atmosphere by showing that
sixteen horses could not pull the hemispheres apart, indicates just the
kind of clear apprehension of the laws of Nature that characterizes the
inventor.
By some, Guericke is esteemed the inventor of the first electric light,
because by rubbing a sulphur ball in a dark room he produced a feeble
electric illumination. Of Guericke's discoveries and inventions, the
only one that has survived as a concrete apparatus is the air pump;
but it is doubtful if the direct influence on history of the air pump,
great as it has been, has actually been any greater than the indirect
influence of his less widely known discoveries and experiments.
[Illustration: Hero's Engines]
One of the early influences of the art of printing was to bring to the
notice of some restless minds the writings of Hero and Archimedes. In
Hero's _Pneumatics_, published more than 120 years before Christ, he
gives such a clear account of an invention of his own, in which the
expansive force of steam was used to give and maintain motion, as to
establish thoroughly his right to the basic invention of the steam
engine. He described three apparatus that he devised. In one, the
currents of air and aqueous vapor rising through a tube from a hollow
sphere, containing water, under which a fire is burning, support a
ball placed immediately above the tube, and make it seem to dance. In
another apparatus, a hollow sphere into which steam has arisen from
what we now call a boiler, is supported on a horizontal or vertical
axis, and provided with tubes that protrude from the sphere, and are
bent at right angles to the radius and also to the pivot. The inner
ends of these tubes lie within the sphere, so that the steam passes
from the sphere through the tubes. As soon as this happens, the sphere
takes up a rapid rotation, that continue so long as the steam continues
to escape from the nozzles of the tubes, which point rearwardly. A
third apparatus was merely an elaboration of the second, in that the
sphere was connected with an altar which supported a large drum on
which were figures representing human beings. The fire being lighted,
the sphere would soon begin to revolve, and with it the drum; and
the figures on it would seem to dance around, above the altar. The
invention was probably to impress the people with the idea that the
priests were exerting supernatural power.
[Illustration: Hero's Altar Engine]
Hero's wonderful invention remained unused and unappreciated for nearly
2,000 years. About 1601, an Italian named Della Porta, published a book
that seems to show acquaintance with it, also with the fact that if
water be heated it is converted into a gas that can raise water to a
height. In 1615, a Frenchman named de Caus published a book in which he
showed a hollow sphere into which water could be introduced through an
orifice that could then be closed; the sphere carrying a vertical tube
that dipped into the water at its lower end, and ending in a small
nozzle at its upper end. When a fire was started under the sphere, the
air in the upper part expanded, and forced down the water that occupied
the lower part, so that a jet of water would soon issue from the upper
end of the tube. Of course, this was really less than Hero had done,
because the appliance described did not constitute a machine, in any
real sense of the word.
In 1629, an Italian named Branca carried Hero's invention a step
further, by inventing a simple apparatus whereby the revolution of
Hero's hollow sphere was communicated to a series of pestles in
mortars, and put to the useful work of compounding drugs. Branca seems
entitled to the basic invention of the steam engine as an industrial
machine.
About 1663, the Marquis of Worcester invented a steam engine that
exerted about two horse-power, and was employed to raise water from the
Thames River, and supply it to the town of Vauxhall. Six years later
(1669) Captain Thomas Savery erected a steam engine about twenty-five
feet above the water in a mine, and successfully drew water out. This
was a very important feat, because the difficulties surrounding the
problem of freeing the mines from water were extremely great, and the
desirability of overcoming them was equally so. In Savery's engine,
there were two boilers in which steam was raised, and two receivers
communicating with them. Steam being admitted to one receiver, the
connection with the boiler was shut off by a valve, and a cold jet was
then suddenly thrown on the receiver, condensing the steam and forming
a partial vacuum. This vacuum the water below immediately rushed up to
overcome. Connection with the pipe leading down was then shut off, and
steam introduced to the receiver. This steam forced out the water from
the receiver into a pipe, which discharged it above. This operation
was then performed by the other boiler and receiver; so that, by
their continued and alternate action, a fairly continuous stream of
discharged water was maintained.
This invention was quickly followed by Captain Savery with another, by
means of which the discharge stream was made to fall on a mill-wheel,
as though from a natural waterfall. Several of these machines were
erected for actuating the machinery of mills and factories in the
district.
In 1690, Dr. Papin invented a steam engine, in which he used a cylinder
containing water, with a piston so arranged that, when the water was
heated, the steam would raise the piston. The fire being then removed
the pressure of the atmosphere would force down the piston. This
was followed shortly by an invention of Newcomer and Cawley, which
was a very considerable advance on previous engines. It comprised a
separate boiler and furnace, a separate cylinder and piston, means for
condensing the steam in the cylinder by injecting water into it, and
a system of self-acting valves that were opened and closed by a long
beam that was moved by the piston. Furthermore, this beam communicated
motion to a pump that pumped the water up directly. This engine was
so efficient and so practically useful, that it was very generally
introduced into service for draining mines throughout England. About
1775, Smeaton built an engine carefully designed on these lines, of
which the cylinder was 72 inches in diameter, and the length of stroke
was 10 feet and 6 inches.
In 1725, Jacob Leupold invented an engine, in which the work was done
by steam alone, instead of by the atmosphere, as in the engines that
immediately preceded it. Leupold used two cylinders. They were open
at the top to the atmosphere as in the others, but he used higher
pressures of steam, and arranged a four-way cock between the bottoms of
the two cylinders in such a way that the bottom of each cylinder, in
its turn, was connected to the boiler or to the open air. Each cylinder
actuated directly a separate vibrating beam, which in turn actuated the
piston of a pump; the two pistons acting reciprocally, each drawing up
water in its turn.
[Illustration: Leupold's Engine]
In 1765, James Watt made the very great improvement of providing a
condenser separate from the cylinder of the engine, so that the great
loss of heat caused by cooling the cylinder and then heating it at
each stroke was wholly avoided. He covered the cylinder entirely, and
surrounded it with an external cylinder kept always full of steam, that
maintained the cylinder at a high temperature. The steam, instead of
being condensed within the cylinder, after it had done its work, was
allowed to escape into the condenser. To facilitate this action, the
condenser was fitted with an air-pump that maintained a good vacuum in
it.
In 1769, Watt invented an improvement that consisted mainly of means
whereby the supply of steam to the cylinder could be shut off at any
desired part of the stroke, and the steam allowed to complete the
rest of the stroke by virtue of its expansive force. This invention
increased tremendously the efficiency of the engine: that is, the
amount of work done with a given amount of steam.
During all this time, Watt had realized that virtually all the work was
done on the down stroke, and none on the up stroke, and also realized
that it would be highly desirable to devise an apparatus whereby the
reciprocating motion of the piston could be converted into a rotary
motion. Watt was able to accomplish both feats, and to connect the
bottom and top of the cylinder alternately with the condenser and
boiler by a simple mechanism driven by a wheel rotated by the engine.
The result was the reciprocating steam engine in its main features, as
it exists today.
The influence of Hero's invention on history is not direct, because
his engine has never been employed for any industrial purpose. But
Hero's engine has had an enormous influence on history, nevertheless,
because it supplied the basis on which the steam engine of the last
two centuries has rested. The influence of Hero's invention was not
realized until two thousand years after he had died, and until after
all those men had died whose names have just been mentioned. It is
inconceivable that any of those men could really have expected that
their work was to have even a small fraction of the influence on
mankind that it actually has had. The influence of Watt's work became
visible to some degree before he died, and became clearly visible not
very long after he had died; so clearly visible that by many men Watt
is credited with the invention of the steam engine. But his good work
was built on the good work of his predecessors, whose main work was
in making Watt's work possible. The successive feats of all, like the
successive layers in the foundations of any building, were to support,
in time, the whole superstructure of the great and beneficent science
of steam engineering.
But the work done by these men was not all the work that had to be
done, to make Watt's steam engine the efficient machine it was. These
men were the men who are directly to be credited, but they were not
the only men engaged. Neither did they belong to the only class of
men engaged. There was another class of men whose labors were equally
arduous, and equally important, though not so clearly in evidence--the
physicists, as we now call them. It was by the knowledge which they
gleaned regarding the properties of steam and air and water and iron,
regarding the laws of motion and heat and work and force and weight
and mass, that the inventors' experiments were guided. It is true that
the science of physics was then in its infancy, as we realize with the
knowledge of the science today; but Aristotle in the days of Greece,
and Archimedes and Hero later, and Galileo and many others in Italy--as
well as Guericke in Germany, Newton and Gilbert in England, and others
of less note, had evolved a good deal of order out of what had been
chaos, and had given inventors a great deal of firm ground on which
to stand themselves and raise their structures. And reciprocally, the
inventors found themselves confronted with problems of a kind that gave
opportunities for the physicists to show their skill and knowledge.
Thus were opened up promising avenues of investigation, and not only
of investigation, but of invention also. For it is obvious that,
while investigation and experimentation can hardly fail to secure
data, they may secure nothing else, and usually do. But mere data are
mere facts; and, valuable as they are if suitably classified, they
are not valuable unless they are classified; and even after data are
classified, they are not useful until some use is found for them. The
data in card-indexes are mere unrelated facts, and are almost useless,
until they have been classified and arranged in boxes alphabetically
labeled. Then they are useful whenever any use is found; when, for
instance, some one is seeking information on a certain subject. In
this condition, data are like material substances, in that they are
available for use,--in fact, data are often spoken of by writers
as "material"; a certain series of incidents, for instance, supply
"material" for a story. Now, just as pieces of iron and brass supply
material with which an inventor can create a new machine, so classified
facts, or data, supply material with which an inventive investigator
can create a new theory, or formulate a new law.
Our books on physics are full of accounts of experiments and
investigations conducted by such men as Hero, Archimedes, Gilbert,
Galileo and many others, the consequent discoveries that they made,
and the consequent laws that they enunciated; but those books could
not possibly describe all the investigations that have ever been
made. Those which they describe are those that ended in some definite
creations, such as the hydrostatic law enunciated by Archimedes. Most
investigations, experiments and researches have ended in nothing
definite:--most of them, in all probability, have not even established
facts. The investigations that we studied about when boys were such as
those of Archimedes, that presented us with inventions, in the form of
useful and usable laws. No appreciable difference is apparent between
the mental operations of Archimedes in inventing these laws and his
mental operations in inventing his screw: for in both cases the mental
operations consisted mainly in conceiving an idea and then embodying
it. The Archimedean screw was a machine of an entirely new kind that,
in the hands of a man understanding its use, would enable the man to
do something he could not do before--or enable him to do a thing he
could do before, but do it better. So were his laws. The laws have been
utilized ever since, as definite and concrete devices; and to a much
greater extent than the special form of screw that he invented.
In a like way, all the laws that investigators have put into concrete
and usable form, have been used by other investigators as bases
for further investigations, and by inventors as bases for future
inventions. Even the inventor of the fist-hammer had to know something
about the material which he employed; he had to know that it was hard
and heavy, for instance, and that it could be hammered so as to have a
point and a sharp edge. He had to know also something about the flesh
of a man: he had to know that if his flesh was struck with a sharp hard
instrument, it would be bruised, and the man injured, and maybe killed.
Similarly, the inventor of the gun, and the inventor of printing,
and the inventors of steam engines, had to know a good deal about
the materials which they employed, and about the uses to which their
appliances could be put. Naturally, they had to know much more than did
the inventor of the fist-hammer. But the inventor of today has to know
still more, because there is still more to know. An inventor of the
present day who knew no more about physical science than Galileo did
would not be able to go far.
A like remark may be made about any man in any vocation, as compared
with his predecessor in Galileo's time. The machine of civilization is
so vast and so complex, that the amount of knowledge which anyone of
us needs in mere daily life is almost incredible. Let anyone try to
enumerate all the facts he knows! The attempt will convince him quickly.
It may be pointed out here that, while modern civilization differs
from ancient civilization in many ways, it differs more in complexity
than in any other one way. Some of the factors of ancient civilization
were as good as those of today; such things, for instance as temples
and pyramids and stationary objects in general. But the ancients did
not understand motion clearly, especially irregular motion; and they
had no fast vehicles of any kind. Their knowledge of statics must have
been fairly complete, or they could not have built their temples and
pyramids; but their records show little understanding of dynamics.
Now the basis of dynamics is mathematics. Dynamics is the result of the
application of mathematics to the observed effects of force on bodies,
in producing motion. Dynamics is a branch of the science of mechanics,
and a most difficult branch. It is built on the observations,
calculations and conclusions of Newton and a host of experimenters and
mathematicians of lesser mentality, and it could not have come into
being without them.
But dynamics has not been the only physical science involved in making
the machine of civilization. All the physical sciences have taken part;
and each one has taken a part which was essential to the final result,
and without which the final result could not have been attained.
The science of light made possible the solution of our problems of
illumination and the development of inventions for producing it; the
science of acoustics made possible the solution of our problems of
sound, including music, and the invention of acoustic and musical
instruments; the science of heat made possible the invention of all the
complex and powerful steam and gas engines that have revolutionized
society; the science of electricity (including magnetism) has made
possible the invention of those electric and electro-magnetic machines
that have supplemented the work of the steam engine; and the science of
pneumatics has made possible the invention of those "flying machines"
of many kinds, that promise to complicate civilization further still.
But let us realize clearly that no one of these sciences by itself
has been able to perform any of the feats just mentioned. Each one
was virtually dependent on every other one; and all were dependent on
mathematics. In order to make the steam engine work efficiently, it was
not enough that heat should expand water into steam: the mathematical
laws which showed how much water was needed to secure a certain amount
of steam, for instance, and how a certain desired pressure of steam
could be secured, had first to be comprehended and then to be followed.
In order to have boilers and engines so designed as to prevent
disastrous explosions, the laws governing the strength of materials
had to be known and followed. In order that a projectile could be so
fired from a gun as to reach a certain predetermined spot, the laws of
heat, pneumatics, chemistry and dynamics had all to be understood and
followed with exactness.
But it was not only the machines and instruments that needed the
assistance of those sciences, it was the sciences themselves; because
it was only after eliminating phenomena caused by one agency from those
caused by another, that accuracy in any conclusions whatever could be
secured; and in order that the phenomena caused by one agency could
be kept separate from the phenomena caused by another agency, the
laws underlying both had to be understood. The science of light could
not be developed until the action of heat was fairly well understood;
dynamics had to wait on statics; Newton could not have contributed what
he did to astronomy, unless the science of light (including optics) was
sufficiently understood; and the laws of pneumatics could not have been
developed, unless the laws of heat had been developed, etc. And not one
of the physical sciences could have gone beyond the state of infancy,
if the science of mathematics had not been invented and made into a
workable machine.
The paragraph above may be put into a different form, and made to
state that all the physical sciences have been brought up to their
present stage, by subjecting the phenomena studied by each science
to quantitative investigation. It was by making these quantitative
investigations that Newton and the others were able to ascertain the
exact facts from which to start in their endeavor to discover the
laws of nature; and it was from the laws of nature thus induced that
later investigators were able to start on still further expeditions of
discovery into the unknown. As the common basis of all quantitative
work is mathematics, the common basis of all the physical sciences
is mathematics. This makes all the physical sciences interdependent,
despite the fact that each is independent of the others. Each one
of the physical sciences has contributed its part to building the
machine of civilization; the part that each has specially contributed
can be clearly specified; and yet, since the machine is the result
of the combination of what all have contributed, their contributions
are interdependent. This remark applies to the various parts of all
machines. The piston of a steam engine, for instance, and the valve
that admits steam to the cylinder are entirely separate from each
other; but from the mere fact that they both work together, each one
must be designed and operated with reference to the other; so that both
in their construction and their operation, they are interdependent.
Francis Bacon, in the sixteenth century, may be said to have
inaugurated the system on which the whole of modern progress has been
based, and Newton in the seventeenth century to have taken up Bacon's
work and carried it further on. Following Newton, only a few great
investigators can be seen in the seventeenth century; but in the
eighteenth, began that intense and brilliant movement of investigation,
discovery and invention, that has been adding more and more to the
machine of civilization--and still is adding more.
One of the earliest and most important contributions was an apparatus
for measuring time accurately. Who was the inventor is not precisely
known. It seems fairly well established, however, that Galileo was the
first to call attention to the fact that the vibrations of a pendulum
were nearly isochronous, and could be used to measure the lapse of
time; and that Galileo's son (as well as Dr. Hooke, Huygens and a
London mechanic named Harris, in the early part of the seventeenth
century) made clocks based on that principle. It is fairly well
established also that Huygens was the first one to make a mathematical
investigation of the properties of the pendulum, and to enumerate the
laws since utilized for making accurate clocks and watches.
Most of the investigators of the eighteenth century occupied themselves
with studies indirectly or directly caused by the invention of the
steam engine, that is with studies relating to heat and light; but,
by reason of the interdependence of all the physical sciences, their
investigations led them automatically into the allied fields of
acoustics and electricity. Their investigations led even further; they
led to the establishment, on the ruins of the illusions of alchemy, of
a wholly new and supremely important science, chemistry.
One of the most important inventions of a purely scientific character
made during the period was one that has never been known by any other
name than "Atwood's machine." It is an interesting illustration of the
addition of invention to investigation, in that its end was--merely
investigation; and it reminds us of a fact that many people are
prone to forget, that invention may be applied to almost any purpose
whatever, and that even a "machine" may be devoted to a purpose not
utilitarian.
Atwood's machine was the outcome of studies into the relations between
force and a body to which force may be applied. Galileo had shown
that a body subjected to a constant force, like that of gravity, will
gradually acquire a velocity and at a constant rate; and also that
this rate, or acceleration, is proportional to the force (leaving out
the effect of air resistance). Atwood's machine consisted merely of an
upright with a pulley at its upper end over which passed a cord, to
both ends of which weights could be attached. In any given experiment,
a weight was attached to one end and allowed to fall free; but another
weight could automatically be attached to the other end by a simple
device, when the first weight had fallen through any predetermined
distance. If the added weight were equal to the first weight, the
velocity of movement became uniform at once; while if it were less, the
velocity approached uniformity to a degree depending on the approach
to equality of the two weights. While this machine did not establish
any new law, or prove anything that Newton had not proved before, it
supplied a very valuable device for conducting quantitative experiments
with actual weights, and for instructing students.
The first important improvement in the art of printing was made by
a Scotch goldsmith named William Ged, about the year 1725. It is now
called stereotyping, and it seems to have been successful from the
first, from a technical point of view. It was far from successful from
a financial point of view, however, mainly because of the opposition
from the type-founders; so that Ged died without realizing that he had
accomplished anything. Ged's invention was not put to practical use
for nearly fifty years after his death; but after that, its employment
extended rapidly over the civilized world. Ged's experience was bitter,
but no more so than that of many other discoverers, inventors and
benefactors. He did not profit in the least by his invention; in fact,
it must have brought him little but exasperation and discouragement.
But can we even imagine civilization to exist as it exists today, if
stereotyping had not been invented?
An invention of a highly original kind was made some time in the middle
of this century which is attributed by some to Daniel Bernoulli, one
of the eight extraordinary investigators and scholars of that family.
According to this theory, the pressure of any gas is due to the
impact of its molecules against the walls of the vessel containing
it. Naturally, the greater the density of the gas, and the greater
the velocity of the molecules, the greater is the pressure. This
theory has greatly assisted the study of gases, and contributed to the
investigation of electric discharges in gases and partial vacua, and
therefore to the modern science of radio-activity.
In the year 1640 there came to the little throne of the Margravate
of Brandenburg a coarse and violent man, who conceived a principle
of government that seems to have been wholly novel at that time, the
principle of efficiency. Having conceived this idea clearly in his
mind, he proceeded to develop it into a system of administration, in
spite of opposition of all kinds, especially inertia. He ruled till
1688. He found Brandenburg unimportant, disordered and poor; he left
Brandenburg comparatively rich, with a good army, an excellent corps of
administrators, a very efficient government, and a recognized standing
before the world. For his contribution to the cause of good government,
he is known in history as The Great Elector. He might be called, with
much reasonableness, the inventor of governmental efficiency, if Julius
Cæsar had not in some degree forestalled him.
He was followed by his son, who contributed nothing to this cause
or to any other, but who was able to take advantage of his father's
work and be crowned as King of Prussia. He was followed by his son,
King Frederick William I, who was a man like the Great Elector, his
grandfather, in the essential points of character, both good and bad.
He was somewhat like Philip of Macedon also; for he conceived the
idea of making his army according to a certain pattern, novel at that
time, though considerably like the pattern that Philip had employed.
The likeness was in so organizing and training the soldiers that a
regiment or division could be handled like a coherent and even rigid
thing, directed accurately and quickly at a pre-determined point, and
made to hit an enemy at that point with a force somewhat like the blow
of an enormous club. He succeeded during his reign of twenty-seven
years in developing his conception into such a perfect and concrete
reality, that he was able on his death in 1740 to bequeath to his son a
veritable military machine--the first since the days of Rome.
These two Frederick Williams were inventors in the broad sense of
the word, and made inventions that have had an influence on history
since they died, as great as that of almost any other contemporary
inventions that can be specified. Their immediate influence was to make
it possible for the son of King Frederick William, Frederick the Great,
to put Prussia in the first rank among the nations, and to lay the
foundations of the German Empire.
It may be objected that the ultimate result was not extremely great,
after all, because the German Empire fell in 1918. To this possible
objection, it may be answered that, nevertheless, the doings of Prussia
and the German Empire have had an enormous influence up to the present
time; and that, though the empire itself has ceased, the influence of
its policies and doctrines, of its military system, and, above all, of
its doctrine of efficiency in government has not ceased, and shows no
signs of ceasing. Besides, _history still is young_.
Frederick the Great made no inventions in improving the military
machine bequeathed him; but he did operate it with inventiveness,
daring and success. He showed these qualities in his actual operations
in the field; but he showed inventiveness in an equal degree before
those operations took place, in the plans which he prepared. As a
tactician, Frederick could hardly help being good, in view of the
training he had received and the military atmosphere in which he
had been born and bred. But no amount of training could have given
Frederick the brilliant and yet correct imagination that enabled him
to see entire situations clearly and accurately with his mental eye;
that enabled him to form a correct picture of the mission in each case,
the difficulties in the way of accomplishing it, and the facilities
available for his use. And, equally, no amount of training or knowledge
or experience could of themselves have given him the constructive
ability necessary to build up such plans as he built up, for
accomplishing the mission with the facilities available and in spite of
the difficulties.
Frederick's first invention was his successful invasion of Silesia.
This may be called by some "an invention of the devil," and perhaps it
was inspired by him. But even if Frederick's conception came straight
from the devil, it was a brilliant conception, nevertheless, as the
conceptions of the devil himself are popularly supposed to be. So
original in conception and so perfect in development was Frederick's
invented plan, that he had seized the capital of Silesia before Austria
had taken any real defensive measures of any kind.
During the first half of Frederick's reign, or twenty-three years (from
1740 to 1763), he was engaged continually in war or preparation for
war; and in both activities he had to plan to fight against odds that
often seemed overwhelming. They would have overwhelmed any man, except
a man like Frederick. It is true that Frederick had two advantages,
the best trained army, and the fact that all his forces, military and
political, were united under one head--his own. But it is the verdict
of history that even these advantages were far from sufficient to
explain his victories; that his victories cannot be explained except
on the ground that Frederick showed a generalship superior to that
of his foes. In what did its superiority consist? A careful study of
his campaigns, even if it be not in detail, shows that Frederick was
able to invent better plans than his adversaries, to invent them more
quickly, and to carry them into effect more promptly. If he had been
born under other stars, he might have exercised his inventiveness in
such ways as men like Guericke, for instance, did; as is shown by his
gathering around him, in the peaceful period of the latter half of
his reign, a company selected from the most eminent philosophers and
scientists of the age; and as is shown with equal clearness by his
admirably conceived and executed measures for the better government of
his country.
The middle of the eighteenth century is especially distinguished by the
success of some extraordinary and brilliant experiments with electrical
apparatus. One of the most important in results occurred about 1746,
in the town of Leyden, where Muschenbroek invented a device that made
possible the accumulating and preserving of charges of electricity.
This appliance consisted of merely a glass jar, coated on the outside
and the inside with tin foil. It was a most important invention, and it
is still in general use, and called the Leyden jar.
The Leyden jar was soon put to practical work in electrical
investigations, notably by the Royal Society in London; and many
valuable demonstrations were made with it. Among these were the firing
of gunpowder by the electric spark that passed when both surfaces of
tin foil were connected by an external conductor; and the transfer
of the spark over a distance of two miles, by using one discharging
conductor or wire two miles long, the earth acting as the return
conductor.
But the greatest results came from the investigations of Benjamin
Franklin, who proved that there was only one kind of electricity, that
the two coatings of tin foil were both charged with it, that one had
more than its ordinary quantity, while the other had less, and that
the spark was caused by the transfer of electricity from one coating
to the other. These discoveries were as much as any one discoverer
might reasonably be expected to contribute; but Franklin soon followed
them by his discovery of the power of points to collect and discharge
electricity. He then pointed out with extraordinary clearness the fact
that all the phenomena which had been produced by electricity were like
those produced by lightning; and made the suggestion that lightning
and electricity were identical.
This was an interesting suggestion, but a suggestion only. To make
it into a theory, or prove it as a law, an invention was required.
Franklin made the invention. He conceived the idea of bringing down the
electricity, with which he imagined that a storm-cloud was charged, by
means of a long conductor, and of drawing off a spark from the lower
end of the conductor as from an electrical machine. The long conductor
he had in mind was a high spire that was about to be erected in
Philadelphia. The erection of the spire being delayed, his imagination
presented to his mind the picture of a kite flying near the cloud,
and the charge flowing down the cord, made into a conductor by the
accompanying rain. Forthwith, he embodied his conception in definite
form by preparing a kite to which was connected a long cord, that ended
with a piece of non-conducting silk, that was to be held in the hand,
and kept dry if possible, and a key that was secured to the junction of
the conducting cord and the non-conducting silk. The expectation was
that the key would receive the charge from the cloud and give it out as
a spark, if Franklin applied to it the knuckle of his disengaged hand.
The invention was a perfect success in every way; sparks were given
off, a Leyden jar was charged, and subsequent discharges of the Leyden
jar were made to perform the same electrical feats as jars charged from
ordinary electrical machines. (June, 1752.)
The courage shown by Franklin in performing this experiment may here be
pointed out. To the eye of a casual observer, he must have been trying
to get struck by lightning.
This brilliant invention caused Franklin to conceive another brilliant
invention, the utilization of the discovery he had just made in
combination with his previous discovery of the power of points to
collect electricity. He embodied his conception in what we now call
"lightning rods," by erecting on the highest points of houses thin
metal rods or conductors, the lower ends of which were buried in the
earth, while their upper ends were sharpened to points, and made to
project upward, above the houses. Franklin's theory was that the points
would collect the electricity from the clouds and allow it to pass
harmlessly through the conductors into the ground. The invention worked
perfectly, and has been utilized everywhere ever since.
Naturally, Franklin's epochal discoveries stirred the scientific world
in Europe, and gave a great impetus to the study of electricity and
the other physical sciences. One of the earliest important discoveries
that followed (made by Mr. Cavendish) was that the electrical spark
could decompose water and atmospheric air, and make water by exploding
mixtures of oxygen and hydrogen. An epochal discovery was made by Mr.
Cavendish about 1787, when he exploded a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen
and obtained nitric acid.
In 1790 Galvani discovered that, if two dissimilar metals were
placed in contact at one end of each, and if the free ends are put
into contact with the main nerve of a frog's hind leg and the thigh
muscle respectively, spasmodic muscular movements would ensue. In
investigating the cause of this phenomenon, Volta discovered that if
the lower ends of two dissimilar metals were immersed in a liquid they
would assume opposite electrical states; so that if their outer ends
were joined by a conducting wire, electricity would pass along it. This
led him at once to the invention of the Voltaic cell. The enormous
value of the Voltaic cell in building up the science of electricity
need hardly be pointed out. It is still used in electric telegraphy as
a source of current.
During the eighteenth century, the relations between chemistry and
heat were very ill defined; but they were cleared up gradually by the
researches of such men as Black in Scotland, Priestley and Cavendish
in England, and Lavoisier in France. Black's work was mainly in
making investigations of the phenomena of heat. In the course of them
he discovered the important fact that different substances require
different amounts of heat to be applied to a given mass to raise its
temperature 1°. From this discovery arose the science of calorimetry,
which deals with the specific heats of all substances, solid, liquid
and gaseous, and which is necessary to the present science of heat
and the arts that depend upon it. About 1774 Dr. Priestley discovered
oxygen.
Lavoisier prosecuted rigorous researches in heat and chemistry, and
finally made a discovery that cleared up a great fog of doubt as to
the nature of oxidation, by proving that it consisted in an actual
attack on a metal by oxygen, and that the increased weight resulting
from oxidation was that of the oxygen that became associated with the
metal in the form of rust. He therefore disproved the theory formerly
loosely held that the increase in weight was due to the escape of a
spirituous substance which the chemists of that day imagined to depart
from the metal, and called by the name phlogiston. An analogous and
equally valuable contribution by Lavoisier was that of introducing the
use of exact measurements into the study of chemistry. The result of
his labors was to put the science of chemistry on a new basis and to
separate it from physics entirely.
It might be supposed that Lavoisier would live and die in great honor.
He lived in comparative obscurity, and was publicly guillotined on a
false accusation. He requested a brief respite, in order to complete an
important experiment, and was told in answer that "the Republic has
no need of philosophers." This was France's reward for one of the most
useful lives that has ever been lived.
One of the most important industrial inventions ever produced and
one of the first of the long list of inventions for making things
by machinery that had formerly been made by hand, was the spinning
machine, that was invented by Dr. Paul in England about 1738. Spinning
is an exceedingly ancient art, and consists in forming continuous
lengths of thread by drawing out and twisting together filaments of
such material as wool, cotton, flax, etc. This art was practiced in
many of the ancient countries; and it seems to have been practiced in
essentially the same way in England in the eighteenth century A. D.,
as in Egypt and Assyria long before the eighteenth century B. C. About
1738 Dr. Lewis Paul invented and patented a simple mechanism that
anyone with imagination could have invented at any time during the
two or three thousand years before, in which the filaments were drawn
between rollers. The invention seems to have been moderately successful
from the start; for it is stated that in 1742 a spinning mill was
in operation in Birmingham in which ten girls were employed, and in
which the motive power was supplied by two asses. Paul's invention
was improved by a weaver named Hargreaves, who invented the "spinning
Jenny"; and it was later brought to a high state of efficiency and
value by an invention of a poor and wholly uneducated barber, named
Richard Arkwright. The spinning machines of the present day are of
the highest order of intricacy, efficiency and usefulness; but they
are all based directly on the invention of Arkwright, and his was
based on the previous inventions of Paul and Hargreaves. Few persons
have contributed so much as these three men of humble station to the
comfort and well-being of the race.
On July 3, 1775, George Washington arrived at Cambridge, near Boston,
and took command of an army of about 17,000 men that faced a British
army occupying Boston. Washington devoted his energies to organizing
and training his motley force during the ensuing fall and winter, the
enemy making no decided move to drive him off. Finally, on March 4,
1776, having conceived a plan that promised success to him, he suddenly
seized and fortified Dorchester Heights, about two miles south of
Boston, from which he could command the whole of Boston and the channel
south of it, by means of guns which he had ordered, to be dragged
through the snow from Ticonderoga. His plan worked perfectly; for the
British General Howe, after a vain attempt to drive Washington away,
evacuated Boston himself, and took his army to Halifax.
This was Washington's opening move in our War of the Revolution. It
was the execution of a plan admirably conceived. There may seem little
of originality or brilliancy in it to us now, looking at a map of
Boston in the quiet and safety of a library, but there must have been
a great deal of merit and originality in it; for it took a British
major-general completely by surprise, and compelled him to evacuate an
important stronghold with a precipitancy that must have been distinctly
galling to British pride. Few neater feats of strategy can be found in
military history.
Washington's next feat was in extricating his force from a distinctly
perilous position in Brooklyn in front of a superior British force,
retreating across the East River to New York, and landing near what
is now called Fulton Street. This was on August 30, 1776. The next
three months were spent in maneuvers that showed great clearness in
conception and great energy in execution on Washington's part, and
ended with his occupying Trenton, and Howe occupying New York with
the bulk of his forces. Washington had only a little more than 4,000
men, while Howe had 30,000. Washington's troops were discouraged,
half-ragged, underfed and untrained; Howe's were elated, well clad,
well fed and thoroughly trained. Washington was in as dangerous a
plight as can easily be imagined. He extricated himself by conceiving
and carrying into execution the brilliant plan of crossing the Delaware
River on Christmas night, forcing his way through floating ice, and
falling on the amazed camp of the Hessians on the other side. His
invention worked perfectly, and effected almost a complete reversal in
the relative conditions of the opposing forces; for it put the British
on the defensive, and made them withdraw all their forces from New
Jersey.
Thenceforward, Washington, by the exercise of imagination,
constructiveness and sheet force of will, fought a continual fight
against forces that were superior in material and training, but
inferior in mentality. Finally, in August, 1781, the crisis came.
The British were occupying New York, and Washington was in front of
it, threatening to attack it, but knowing that he could not do so
with success. About August 14 he received a letter written in July
by Admiral Comte de Grasse, then in the West Indies, saying that he
would start with his fleet and a force of troops for Chesapeake Bay
on August 13. Washington knew that the British General Cornwallis
was entrenched at Yorktown, near the mouth of the Chesapeake, with
a force considerably inferior to his own. He instantly proceeded
to embody in action an idea that he had already conceived--that of
leaving the vicinity of New York secretly, and marching with the utmost
possible despatch to Yorktown, and calling on de Grasse to assist him
to capture Yorktown, and if possible Cornwallis. No invention ever
succeeded better. Its influence on history was to precipitate the
collapse of the entire British program of hostilities, and cause the
establishment of the United States.
The balloon was invented about 1783. Mr. Cavendish had found that
hydrogen was about seven times lighter than air, and Dr. Black had
forthwith delivered a lecture in which he pointed out that a thin light
vessel inflated with hydrogen should be able to rise and float in the
air. He conceived the idea of the balloon, but made no invention. The
Italian philosopher, Cavallo, about 1782, inflated soap-bubbles with
hydrogen gas, but went no further. The subject of making balloons
filled with hydrogen was widely discussed; but the first balloon
really to rise was the hot-air balloon invented by Joseph and Stephen
Montgolfier. This balloon made a successful ascent on June 5, 1783,
carrying the two brothers, flew about ten minutes, and alighted safe,
after a trip of about a mile and a half. This was followed on August 27
by a flight of a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, the design of which
was made by the physicist Charles, and the cost of which was met by a
popular subscription. The flight was followed shortly by many others.
The first employment of balloons in practical work was in making
observations of the enemy by the French army in 1794.
An important invention for utilizing mechanical power in place of
hand-power was the power-loom invented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright.
This was an invention of the most clean-cut kind, originating in the
conception by the Rev. Dr. Cartwright of the possibility of doing much
more weaving by mechanical power than by hand, then constructing the
machine to accomplish it, and then accomplishing it. An interesting
fact in the early development of looms for weaving was the determined
and angry opposition of weavers to each improvement in succession.
Another invention also utilizing external power, made near the end of
the eighteenth century, was the hydrostatic press. It consisted of a
vertical cylinder, fitted with a piston prevented by suitable means
from rising, except against great pressures; the piston resting on a
liquid in the bottom of the cylinder, which was connected by a small
pipe with a small pump, by which more liquid could be forced in. When
the pump was operated the pressure per square inch on the piston of
the pump was communicated to each square inch of the large piston in
the press, and a force exerted equal to that pressure multiplied by
the difference in area of the two pistons. This is the model on which
hydraulic jacks and many other hydraulic mechanisms are constructed;
and it has taken a prominent part in the development of the science of
hydraulics ever since it was invented.
Because of the gradual recognition of the value of sea-commerce in the
British Isles, and the fact that the stormy seas adjacent necessitated
the construction of ships at once sturdy and yet capable of speed,
much study and experimentation were carried on during the eighteenth
century, especially in England. In these experiments, the invention
by Archimedes of the hydrostatic principle of buoyancy supplied the
starting-point, and gave an excellent illustration of the influence
of invention on history: for from experiments and investigations on
floating bodies carried on in England, based on the invention of
Archimedes, and followed by others of English origin, sprang England's
merchant marine and England's navy and England's domination over a
quarter of the land on the surface of the earth.
The eighteenth century closed with the invention of two very important
mechanisms that reinforced the power of the human hand with power
drawn from external sources: these were the threshing machine and
the cotton gin; the former invented by Andrew Meikle in 1788, and
the latter by Eli Whitney in 1793. It would be hard to decide with
knowledge as to which has had the greater influence in constructing
the machine of civilization; but it is not at all hard to realize that
the machine of civilization could not have attained its present stage
without the assistance of both.
One of the last important inventions of the century was that of an
art entirely new, as distinguished from inventions like the cotton
gin, that merely increased the value of an art already in existence.
This was the invention of lithography, or printing from stone, made by
Alois Senefelder in 1796. The first thing printed by him was a piece of
music. While this invention was more brilliant than those of Meikle and
Whitney, it was hardly so important. Nevertheless, it was important in
a high degree and made a valuable addition to civilization.
An invention of a kind different from either Whitney's or Senefelder's
was made on October 15, 1793, by Napoleon Bonaparte. He was at that
time a young and ill-clad captain of artillery, attending a Council of
War in Toulon. An idea for driving out the English had been conceived
and embodied in a complete plan by a celebrated engineer, and it
had been approved by the Committee on Fortifications. The youthful
and prestigeless captain opposed this plan with a vehemence and
convincingness that came to be familiarly known a few years later,
and proposed in place of it a plan that he had himself conceived and
embodied in a concrete form. His plan consisted in the main merely in
mounting some guns on a point of land that he designated, from which
they could command the British war-ships in the harbor; and it was so
much simpler and in every way better, that, despite his obscurity
and youth, it was adopted, and he himself was charged with carrying
it into operation. This he did; and with such constructive skill and
energy, that the British ships were driven from the harbor and the
entire vicinity, and without doing any damage to the town. The British
soldiers, then unsupported, immediately withdrew.
What was the determining difference between Napoleon's plan and that of
the great engineer? _The idea conceived._