[Sidenote: The Patent Office.]
The progress in practical science and invention, in this country and the
civilized world, has been so amazingly rapid during the present century,
that the merest hint of a few of the most important elements of that
progress can alone be given. The fertility of the human intellect, in
devising quicker and more exact methods of doing those things which
contribute to the wealth and the pleasure of man, has accomplished
results so vast and so varied since the Declaration of Independence,
that the mind cannot survey the smallest portion of this field without
bewilderment and wonder. If we should visit the Patent Office at
Washington, and give ourselves up to a scrutiny of its records, its
tabulated results, and its long rows of cases of models, we should in
time gain some idea of the extent to which American minds have carried
the effort of invention.
[Sidenote: Discoveries in the Exact Sciences.]
Yet the Patent Office, while it exhibits the results of American
invention, fails to show anything like the total amount of useful
discovery which has been achieved on this continent since the foundation
of the government. There are those who discover and invent, and who do
not patent. There are discoveries which cannot be circumscribed by the
filling-out of blank forms, and an official restriction on their use.
This is emphatically the case with discoveries in the exact sciences,
which, while they have added immeasurably to the knowledge of mankind,
have also attained results the most useful and practical.
[Sidenote: Meteorological Laws.]
Illustrations of this truth may be found in the progress made by such
sciences as astronomy and meteorology. No one can doubt the value of
the result which accrues to human lore from a more accurate knowledge
of astronomy, of the mutual influences of the solar system, and the
physical character of its members. Nor can we deny that the rapid
strides which have been made within thirty years in the science of
meteorology are of the most immediate benefit to the material interests
of men. The simple statement that the predictions of "Old Probabilities"
as to the weather prove, in a large majority of instances, to be
justified by the event,--founded as they are, not upon mere guesswork,
but upon ascertained meteorological laws and a proved uniformity in the
direction of storms,--is enough to show the importance of the recent
discoveries in this field. One has only to reflect upon the changes in
the course of little and of great events wrought by the weather, to be
convinced of their large and permanent value.
[Sidenote: Improvements in Machines and Methods.]
We can look in no direction, however, without at once in some degree
appreciating, and being astonished at, the metamorphosis which has been
effected by the activity of scientific invention and discovery of
the most palpably practical kind. No practical profession, trade, or
industry can be named in which the improvements in machinery and
methods have not been such, within the century, as to alter most of
its conditions, and very greatly to multiply its efficiency and
productiveness. These improvements have descended, too, from general
systems to the minutest details. Cloth fabrics are not only manufactured
on a very different scale and extent, but every little appliance of the
machinery has been made better, and does its appointed work faster and
with greater precision.
[Sidenote: Steam and Electricity.]
[Sidenote: Conveyances.]
If one were asked what two inventions made within the century have
wrought the greatest changes, the reply would be prompt that they are
locomotion by steam and communication by electricity. The steam-engine
and the steamship have made it possible to travel around the world, if
not in the eighty days required of Jules Verne's hero, at least in a
hundred; while the telegraph enables us to talk with our friends at the
antipodes--if such we have--within a week. What share America has had in
achieving these mighty agencies is signified by the names of Fulton
and Morse. Nor have other means of locomotion and communication been
neglected. The horse-car has to a large extent taken the place of the
omnibus and of the lumbering stage-coach; while vertical travelling, by
means of the elevator, has become easy and luxurious in our day. In the
making of carriages of every kind, the progress becomes very apparent
when we compare the light and elegant vehicles which fill our
fashionable avenues on a pleasant day, with the coaches in which
Washington and Lafayette deigned to ride on state occasions.
[Sidenote: Iron Manufactures.]
In the great industries, invention has supplied the means of changing
the rude ore or the raw material into every manifold form of use and
ornament, in an increased production which would have filled the men of
'76 with amazement. Machinery has come to do a vast amount of work which
manual labor used to do; yet, by a happy compensation in the economic
condition of things, human labor, far from being left in the lurch by
mechanical introduction and ever increasing efficiency, is in greater
demand than before. In the melting and puddling of iron, in its casting,
forging, and rolling, and especially in its turning and planing,
the inventions have been, perhaps, more striking than in any other
operations upon metals; and the importance of the improvements thus
effected in the manufacture of iron may be appreciated when we consider
to how many more precious uses iron is put than any other metal. The
advances made in the working of wood, and in that noble engineering
science which employs itself in the construction of canals, dikes, and
bridges, are not less notable.
[Sidenote: Machines and Weapons.]
To even mention the devices by which the manufacture of cotton and
woollen fabrics, of shoes, of silks, and very many other articles, has
been brought from rude processes to the rapid production seen to-day at
our great industrial centres, would require a volume. To America is due
the sewing-machine, which in the factory and in the household has given
a manifold value to labor, has cheapened time, and is assuredly one of
the chief triumphs of human ingenuity. We have done our part, too, in
devising deadly weapons for contending armies. The revolver, invented by
Samuel Colt, made a man armed with it six times as formidable as he was
before; and the breech-loader, first attempted by John Hall of Yarmouth,
Massachusetts, more than seventy years ago, was generally adopted in
Europe. It is said that the greater number of the military arms made
in the United States for Europe are on the breech-loading system.
The invention of what is called the principle of "assembling," which
consists in making the various parts of a machine "in distinct pieces
of fixed shape and dimensions, so that the corresponding parts are
interchangeable," has brought about a revolution in the manufacture
of other articles besides fire-arms. It is applied also to watches,
sewing-machines, knitting-machines, and even to agricultural implements
and the building of locomotive engines.
[Sidenote: Labor Saving Appliances.]
The kitchen, the farm, and the sitting-room have been invaded by
labor-saving appliances so numerous and so deft as to make each of these
domestic departments a sort of factory in itself. The spinning-wheel
has been abandoned for the sewing and the knitting machine, and the
hand-plough for the steam-plough, and the scythe for the mowing-machine,
and the rude kitchen knife and spoon for an endless variety
of contrivances, from the apple-parer, the egg-beater, and the
bean-shelters, to the lemon-squeezers, knife-sharpeners, and
coffee-mills.
[Sidenote: Various Inventions.]
It is equally vain to attempt the enumeration of the improvements in
the security of movable property, the rapidly changing devices for more
effective fire-alarms, the revolution in the system of fire prevention
with its steam-engine and its fire-alarm telegraph, the growing
efficiency of the science of aerostation, the invention of scales for
weighing heavy bodies, the processes for refining the precious metals,
the achieved idea of making ice by machinery, the great advance effected
in the making of glass, and the vast changes which have been wrought in
many respects by the perfection of india-rubber as an article of common
use.
[Sidenote: Surgical Progress.]
[Sidenote: Printing and Engraving.]
Nor must we forget to hint at the discoveries which have given new
effect to surgical skill--the discovery of anaesthetics, the perfection
of artificial limbs, the repair of the body, and the valuable method
of lithotrity; while even the match need not be disdained as one of the
chief inventions of the century. Paper, too, and engraving, and
printing (with all its complications of stereotyping, electrotyping, and
heliotyping), photography (with its constant improvements), can only be
mentioned to open the mind to a wide vista of marvellous triumphs.
We have but to glance along the stalls of a modern book-store, to
appreciate that the arts of printing and engraving have made a more
rapid progress during the past hundred years than during all the
previous centuries since the invention of type; while it may fairly
be said that the United States can at last boast that not only is her
literature worthy to be compared with that of England, but that it is
as well printed, illustrated, and bound, and is presented on home-made
paper as elegant and as durable, as are the choicest publications of
London and Paris.