STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS
[Illustration:
Guglielmo Marconi
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Edison
Sir Henry Bessemer
Robert Fulton
Alexander Graham Bell
Hudson Maxim
A GROUP OF INVENTORS]
STORIES OF
USEFUL INVENTIONS
BY
S. E. FORMAN
AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES,"
"ADVANCED CIVICS," ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1911
Copyright, 1911, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published September, 1911_
PREFACE
In this little book I have given the history of those inventions which
are most useful to man in his daily life. I have told the story of the
Match, the Stove, the Lamp, the Forge, the Steam-Engine, the Plow, the
Reaper, the Mill, the Loom, the House, the Carriage, the Boat, the
Clock, the Book, and the Message. From the history of these inventions
we learn how man became the master of the world of nature around him,
how he brought fire and air and earth and water under his control and
compelled them to do his will and his work. When we trace the growth of
these inventions we at the same time trace the course of human progress.
These stories, therefore, are stories of human progress; they are
chapters in the history of civilization.
And they are chapters which have not hitherto been brought together in
one book. Monographs on most of the subjects included in this book have
appeared, and excellent books about modern inventions have been written,
but as far as I know, this is the first time the evolution of these
useful inventions has been fully traced in a single volume.
While preparing the stories I have received many courtesies from
officers in the Library of Congress and from those of the National
Museum.
S. E. F.
May, 1911.
Washington, D. C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE FOREWORD ix
I THE MATCH 3
II THE STOVE 13
III THE LAMP 28
IV THE FORGE 38
V THE STEAM-ENGINE 54
VI THE PLOW 73
VII THE REAPER 85
VIII THE MILL 97
IX THE LOOM 109
X THE HOUSE 123
XI THE CARRIAGE 144
XII THE CARRIAGE (_Continued_) 156
XIII THE BOAT 166
XIV THE CLOCK 187
XV THE BOOK 203
XVI THE MESSAGE 222
A FOREWORD[1]
These stories of useful inventions are chapters in the history of
civilization and this little book is a book of history. Now we are told
by Herodotus, one of the oldest and greatest of historians, that when
the writer of history records an event he should state the _time_ and
the _place_ of its happening. In some kinds of history--in the history
of the world's wars, for example, or in the history of its
politics--this is strictly true. When we are reading of the battle of
Bunker Hill we should be told precisely when and where the battle was
fought, and in an account of the Declaration of Independence the time
and place of the declaration should be given. But in the history of
inventions we cannot always be precise as to dates and places. Of course
it cannot be told when the first plow or the first loom or the first
clock was made. Inventions like these had their origin far back in the
earliest ages when there was no such person as a historian. And when we
come to the history of inventions in more recent times the historian is
still sometimes unable to discover the precise time and place of an
invention.
It is in the nature of things that the origin of an invention should be
surrounded by uncertainty and doubt. An invention, as we shall see
presently, is nearly always a response to a certain want. The world
wants something and it promises a rich reward to one who will furnish
the desired thing. The inventor, recognizing the want, sets to work to
make the thing, but he conducts his experiments in secret, for the
reason that he does not want another to steal his ideas and get ahead of
him. We can see that this is true in respect to the flying machine. The
first experiments with the flying machine were conducted in secret in
out of the way places and pains were taken that the public should know
as little as possible about the new machine and about the results of the
experiments. The history of the flying machine will of course have to be
written, but because of the secrecy and mystery which surrounded the
beginnings of the invention it will be extremely difficult for the
future historian to tell precisely when the first flying machine was
invented or to name the inventor. If it is so difficult to get the facts
as to the origin of an invention in our own time, how much more
difficult it is to clear away the mystery and doubt which surround the
beginnings of an invention in an age long past!
In a history of inventions, then, the historian cannot be precise in
respect to dates and places. Fortunately this is not a cause for deep
regret. It is not a great loss to truth that we cannot know precisely
when the first book was printed, nor does it make much difference
whether that book was printed in Holland or in Germany. In giving an
account of an invention we may be content to treat the matter of time
and place broadly, for the story is apt to carry us through a stretch of
years that defies computation, a stretch that is immensely longer than
the life of any nation. For our purpose these millenniums, these long
stretches of time, may be thought of as being divided into three great
periods, namely: the _primitive_, the _ancient_, and the _modern_
period. Even a division so broad as this is not satisfactory, for in the
progress of their inventions all countries have not kept equal step with
the march of time. In some things ancient Greece was modern, while in
most things modern Alaska is primitive and modern China is ancient.
Nevertheless it will be convenient at times in this book to speak of the
_primitive_, the _ancient_ and the _modern_ periods, and it will be
useful to regard the _primitive_ period as beginning with the coming of
man on earth and extending to the year 5000 B. C.; the _ancient_ period
may be thought of as beginning with the year 5000 B. C. and ending with
the year 476 A. D., leaving for the _modern_ period the years that have
passed since 476 A. D.
In tracing the growth of an invention the periods indicated above can
serve as a time-guide only for those parts of the world where the course
of civilization has taken its way, for invention and civilization have
traveled the same road. The region of the world's most advanced
civilization includes the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea,
Central and Northern Europe, the British Isles, North America, South
America and Australia. It is within this region that we shall follow the
development of whatever invention is under consideration. When speaking
of the first forms of an invention, however, it will sometimes be
necessary, when an illustration is desired, to draw upon the experience
of people who are outside of the wall of civilization. The reason for
going outside is plain. The first and simplest forms of the useful
inventions have utterly perished in civilized countries, but they still
exist among savage and barbarous peoples and it is among such peoples
that the first forms must be studied. Thus in the story of the clock,
we must go to a far-off peninsula of Southern Asia (p. 190) for an
illustration of the beginning of our modern timepiece. Such a departure
from the beaten track of civilization does not spoil the story, for as a
rule, the rude forms of inventions found among the lowest races of
to-day are precisely the same forms that were in use among the Egyptians
and Greeks when they were in their lowest state.
When studying the history of an invention there are two facts or
principles which should ever be borne in mind. The first principle is
this: _Necessity is the mother of invention._ This principle was touched
upon when it was said that an invention appears as a response to a want.
When the world wants an invention it usually gets it and makes the most
of it, but it will have nothing to do with an invention it does not
want. The steam-engine was invented two thousand years ago (p. 55) but
the world then had no work for steam to do, so the invention attracted
little attention and came to naught. About two hundred years ago,
however, man did want the services of steam and inventors were not long
in supplying the engine that was needed. About a hundred years ago the
broad prairie lands of the United States began to be tilled but it was
soon found that the vast areas could not be plowed and that the immense
crops could not be harvested by the old methods. So improvements upon
the plow and the reaper began to be made and in time the steam gang-plow
and the complete harvester were invented. When the locomotive first came
into use a simple handbrake was used to stop the slow-going trains, but
as the size and the speed of trains increased the handbrake became more
and more unsatisfactory. Sometimes a train would run as much as a half
mile beyond a station before it could be stopped and then when "backed"
it would again pass beyond the station. The problem of stopping the
train promptly became fully as important as starting it. The problem was
solved by the invention of the air-brake. And thus it has been with all
the inventions which surround us: necessity has been the mother of them
all.
The other principle is that a mechanical invention is a _growth_, or, to
state the truth in another way, an invention nearly always is simply an
improvement upon a previous invention. The loom, for example, was not
invented by a particular person at a particular time; it did not spring
into existence in a day with all its parts perfected; it _grew_, century
by century, piece by piece. In the stories which will follow the steps
in the growth of an invention are shown in the illustrations. These
pictures are not for amusement but for study. As you read, examine them
carefully and they will teach you quite as much about the growth of the
invention as you can be taught by words.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Where readers are quite young the Foreword had better be postponed
until the stories themselves are read.
STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS
THE MATCH
Did you ever think how great and how many are the blessings of fire? Try
to think of a world without fire. Suppose we should wake up some bitter
cold morning and find that all the fires in the world were out, and that
there was no way of rekindling them; that the art of kindling a fire had
been lost. In such a plight we should all soon be shivering with the
cold, for our stoves and furnaces could give us no warmth; we should all
soon be hungry, for we could not cook our food; we should all soon be
idle, for engines could not draw trains, wheels of factories could not
turn, and trade and commerce would come to a standstill; at night we
would grope in darkness, for we could use neither lamp nor gas nor
electric light. It is easy to see that without fire, whether for light
or heat, the life of man would be most wretched.
There never was a time when the world was without fire, but there was a
time when men did not know how to kindle fire; and after they learned
how to kindle one, it was a long, long time before they learned how to
kindle one easily. In these days we can kindle a fire without any
trouble, because we can easily get a match; but we must remember that
the match is one of the most wonderful things in the world, and that it
took men thousands of years to learn how to make one. Let us learn the
history of this familiar little object, the match.
Fire was first given to man by nature itself. When a forest is set on
fire by cinders from a neighboring volcano, or when a tree is set ablaze
by a thunderbolt, we may say that nature strikes a match. In the early
history of the world, nature had to kindle all the fires, for man by his
own effort was unable to produce a spark. The first method, then, of
getting fire for use was to light sticks of wood at a flame kindled by
nature--by a volcano, perhaps, or by a stroke of lightning. These
firebrands (Fig. 1) were carried to the home and used in kindling the
fires there. The fire secured in this way was carefully guarded and was
kept burning as long as possible. But the flame, however faithfully
watched, would sometimes be extinguished. A sudden gust of wind or a
sudden shower would put it out. Then a new firebrand would have to be
secured, and this often meant a long journey and a deal of trouble.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--GETTING A MATCH FROM NATURE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PRIMITIVE FIRE-MAKING. THE STICK-AND-GROOVE
METHOD.]
In the course of time a man somewhere in the world hit upon a plan of
kindling a fire without having any fire to begin with; that is to say,
he hit upon a plan of producing a fire by _artificial_ means. He knew
that by rubbing his hands together very hard and very fast he could make
them very warm. By trial he learned that by rubbing two pieces of dry
wood together he could make _them_ very warm. Then he asked himself the
question: Can a fire be kindled by rubbing two pieces of wood together,
if they are rubbed hard enough? He placed upon the ground a piece of
perfectly dry wood (Fig. 2) and rubbed this with the end of a stick
until a groove was made. In the groove a fine dust of wood--a kind of
sawdust--was made by the rubbing. He went on rubbing hard and fast,
and, behold, the dust in the groove began to glow! He placed some dry
grass upon the embers and blew upon them with his breath, and the grass
burst into a flame.[2] Here for the first time a man kindled a fire for
himself. He had invented the match, the greatest invention, perhaps, in
the history of the world.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE FIRE DRILL.
(Simple Form.)]
The stick-and-groove method--as we may call it--of getting a flame was
much better than guarding fire and carrying it from place to place; yet
it was, nevertheless, a very clumsy method. The wood used had to be
perfectly dry, and the rubbing required a vast amount of work and
patience. Sometimes it would take hours to produce the spark. After a
while--and doubtless it was a very long while--it was found that it was
better to keep the end of the stick in one spot and twirl it (Fig. 3)
than it was to plow to and fro with it. The twirling motion made a hole
in which the heat produced by the friction was confined in a small
space. At first the drilling was done by twirling the stick between the
palms of the hands, but this made the hands too hot for comfort, and
the fire-makers learned to do the twirling with a cord or thong[3]
wrapped around the stick (Fig. 4). You see, the upper end of the stick
which serves as a drill turns in a cavity in a mouthpiece which the
operator holds between his teeth. If you should undertake to use a
fire-drill of this kind, it is likely that your jaws would be painfully
jarred.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--FIRE DRILL.
(Improved Form.)]
By both the methods described above, the fire was obtained by rubbing or
_friction_. The friction method seems to have been used by all primitive
peoples, and it is still in use among savages in various parts of the
world.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--STRIKING FIRE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--TINDER BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND SULPHUR-TIPPED
SPLINTERS.]
The second step in fire-making was taken when it was discovered that a
spark can be made by striking together a stone and a piece of iron ore.
Strike a piece of flint against a piece of iron ore known as pyrites, or
fire-stone, and you will make sparks fly. (Fig. 5.) Let these sparks fall
into small pieces of dried moss or powdered charcoal, and the _tinder_,
as the moss or the charcoal is called, will catch fire. It will glow,
but it will not blaze. Now hold a dry splinter in the glowing tinder,
and fan or blow with the breath and the splinter will burst into a
flame. If you will tip your splinter with sulphur before you place it in
the burning tinder, you will get a flame at once. This was the
strike-a-light, or _percussion_, method of making a fire. It followed
the friction method, and was a great improvement upon it because it took
less work and a shorter time to get a blaze. The regular outfit for
fire-making with the strike-a-light consisted of a tinder-box, a piece
of steel, a piece of flint, and some splinters tipped with sulphur (Fig.
6). The flint and steel were struck together, and the sparks thus made
fell into the tinder and made it glow. A splinter was applied as quickly
as possible to the tinder, and when a flame was produced the candle
which rested in the socket on the tinder-box was lighted. As soon as the
splinter was lighted the cover was replaced on the tinder-box, so as to
smother the glowing tinder and save it for another time.
The strike-a-light method was discovered many thousands of years ago,
and it has been used by nearly all the civilized nations of the
world.[4] And it has not been so very long since this method was laid
aside. There are many people now living who remember when the flint and
steel and tinder-box were in use in almost every household.
About three hundred years ago a third method of producing fire was
discovered. If you should drop a small quantity of sulphuric acid into a
mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar, you would produce a bright
flame. Here was a hint for a new way of making a fire; and a thoughtful
man in Vienna, in the seventeenth century, profited by the hint. He took
one of the sulphur-tipped splinters which he was accustomed to use with
his tinder-box, and dipped it into sulphuric acid, and then applied it
to a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The splinter caught fire
and burned with a blaze. Here was neither friction nor percussion. The
chemical substances were simply brought together, and they caught fire
of themselves; that is to say, they caught fire by _chemical_ action.
The discovery made by the Vienna man led to a new kind of match--the
chemical match. A practical outfit for fire-making now consisted of a
bottle of sulphuric acid (vitriol) and a bundle of splints tipped with
sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sugar. Matches of this kind were very
expensive, costing as much as five dollars a hundred; besides, they were
very unsatisfactory. Often when the match was dipped into the acid it
would not catch fire, but would smolder and sputter and throw the acid
about and spoil both the clothes and the temper. These dip-splint
matches were used in the eighteenth century by those who liked them and
could afford to buy them. They did not, however, drive out the old
strike-a-light and tinder-box.
In the nineteenth century--the century in which so many wonderful things
were done--the fourth step in the development of the match was taken. In
1827, John Walker, a druggist in a small English town, tipped a splint
with sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sulphid of antimony, and rubbed it
on sandpaper, and it burst into flame. The druggist had discovered the
first _friction-chemical_ match, the kind we use to-day. It is called
friction-chemical because it is made by mixing certain chemicals
together and rubbing them. Although Walker's match did not require the
bottle of acid, nevertheless it was not a good one. It could be lighted
only by hard rubbing, and it sputtered and threw fire in all directions.
In a few years, however, phosphorus was substituted on the tip for
antimony, and the change worked wonders. The match could now be lighted
with very little rubbing, and it was no longer necessary to have
sandpaper upon which to rub it. It would ignite when rubbed on any dry
surface, and there was no longer any sputtering. This was the
_phosphorus_ match, the match with which we are so familiar.
After the invention of the easily-lighted phosphorus match there was no
longer use for the dip-splint or the strike-a-light. The old methods of
getting a blaze were gradually laid aside and forgotten. The first
phosphorus matches were sold at twenty-five cents a block--a block (Fig.
7) containing a hundred and forty-four matches. They were used by few.
Now a hundred matches can be bought for a cent. It is said that in the
United States we use about 150,000,000,000 matches a year. This, on an
average, is about five matches a day for each person.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--A "BLOCK" OF MATCHES.]
There is one thing against the phosphorus match: it ignites too easily.
If one is left on the floor, it may be ignited by stepping upon it, or
by something falling upon it. We may step on a phosphorus match
unawares, light it, leave it burning, and thus set the house on fire.
Mice often have caused fires by gnawing the phosphorus matches and
igniting them. In one city thirty destructive fires were caused in one
year by mice lighting matches.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--A BOX OF MODERN SAFETY MATCHES.]
To avoid accident by matches, the _safety match_ (Fig. 8) has recently
been invented. The safety match does not contain phosphorus. The
phosphorus is mixed with fine sand and glued to the side of the box in
which the matches are sold. The safety match, therefore, cannot be
lighted unless it is rubbed on the phosphorus on the outside of the box.
It is so much better than the old kind of phosphorus match that it is
driving the latter out of the market. Indeed, in some places it is
forbidden by law to sell any kind of match but the safety match.
The invention of the safety match is the last step in the long history
of fire-making. The first match was lighted by rubbing, and the match of
our own time is lighted by rubbing; yet what a difference there is
between the two! With the plowing-stick or fire-drill it took strength
and time and skill to get a blaze; with the safety match an awkward
little child can kindle a fire in a second.
And how long it has taken to make the match as good as it is! The
steam-engine, the telegraph, the telephone, and the electric light were
all in use before the simple little safety match.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Mr. Walter Hough of the National Museum, himself a wizard in the art
of fire-making, tells me that a blaze cannot be produced simply by
rubbing sticks together. All that can be done by rubbing is to make them
glow.
[3] A narrow strip of leather.
[4] The ancient Greeks used a burning-glass or -lens for kindling fire.
The lens focused the sun's rays upon a substance that would burn easily
and set it afire. The burning-glass was not connected in any way with
the development of the match.
THE STOVE
From the story of the match you have learned how man through long ages
of experience gradually mastered the art of making a fire easily and
quickly. In this chapter, and in several which are to follow, we shall
have the history of those inventions which have enabled man to make the
best use of fire. Since the first and greatest use of fire is to cook
food and keep the body warm, our account of the inventions connected
with the use of fire may best begin with the story of the stove.
The most important uses of fire were taught by fire itself. As the
primitive man stood near the flames of the burning tree and felt their
pleasant glow, he learned that fire may add to bodily comfort; and when
the flames swept through a forest and overtook a deer and baked it, he
learned that fire might be used to improve the quality of his food. The
hint was not lost. He took a burning torch to his cave or hut and
kindled a fire on his floor of earth. His dwelling filled with smoke,
but he could endure the discomfort for the sake of the fire's warmth,
and for the sake of the toothsomeness of the cooked meats. After a time
a hole was made in the roof of the hut, and through this hole the smoke
passed out. Here was the first stove. The primitive stove was the entire
house; the floor was the fireplace and the hole in the roof was the
chimney (Fig. 1). The word "stove" originally meant "a heated room." So
that if we should say that at first people lived in their stoves, we
should say that which is literally true.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE PRIMITIVE STOVE.]
Early inventions in cooking consisted in simple devices for applying
flame directly to the thing which was to be cooked. The first roasting
was doubtless done by fastening the flesh to a pole placed in a
horizontal position above the fire and supported as is shown in Figure
2.[5] The horizontal bar called a spit was originally of wood, but after
man had learned to work in metals an iron bar was used. When one side of
the flesh was roasted the spit was turned and the other side was exposed
to the flames. The spit of the primitive age was the parent of the
modern grill and broiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PRIMITIVE COOKING.]
Food was first boiled in a hole in the ground. A hole was filled with
water into which heated stones were thrown. The stones, by giving off
their heat, caused the water to boil in a very short time. After the
art of making vessels of clay was learned, food was boiled in earthen
pots suspended above the fire.
The methods of warming the house and cooking the food which have just
been described were certainly crude and inconvenient, but it was
thousands of years before better methods were invented. The long periods
of savagery and barbarism passed and the period of civilization was
ushered in, but civilization did not at once bring better stoves.
Neither the ancient Egyptians nor the ancient Greeks knew how to heat a
house comfortably and conveniently. All of them used the primitive
stove--a fire on the floor and a hole in the roof. In the house of an
ancient Greek there was usually one room which could be heated when
there was need, and this was called the "black-room" (_atrium_)--black
from the soot and smoke which escaped from the fire on the floor.
But we must not speak harshly of the ancients because they were slow in
improving their methods of heating for in truth the modern world has
not done as well in this direction as might have been expected. In a
book of travels written only sixty years ago may be found the following
passage: "In Normandy, where the cold is severe and fire expensive, the
lace-makers, to keep themselves warm and to save fuel, agree with some
farmer who has cows in winter quarters to be allowed to carry on their
work in the society of the cattle. The cows would be tethered in a long
row on one side of the apartment, and the lace-makers sit on the ground
on the other side with their feet buried in the straw." Thus the
lace-makers kept themselves warm by the heat which came from the bodies
of the cattle; the cows, in other words, served as stoves. This
barbarous method of heating, was practised in some parts of France less
than sixty years ago.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A ROMAN BRAZIER.]
The ancient peoples around the Mediterranean may be excused for not
making great progress in the art of heating, for their climate was so
mild that they seldom had use for fire in the house. Nevertheless there
was in use among these people an invention which has in the course of
centuries developed into the stove of to-day. This was the _brazier_, or
warming-pan (Fig. 3). The brazier was filled with burning charcoal and
was carried from room to room as it was needed. The unpleasant gases
which escaped from the charcoal were made less offensive, but not less
unhealthy, by burning perfumes with the fuel. The brazier has never been
entirely laid aside. It is still used in Spain and in other warm
countries where the necessity for fire is rarely felt.
The brazier satisfied the wants of Greece, but the colder climate of
Rome required something better; and in their efforts to invent something
better, the ancient Romans made real progress in the art of warming
their houses. They built a fire-room--called a _hypocaust_--in the
cellar, and, by means of pipes made of baked clay, they connected the
hypocaust with different parts of the house (Fig. 4). Heat and smoke
passed up together through these pipes. The poor ancients, it seems,
were forever persecuted by smoke. However, after the wood in the
hypocaust was once well charred, the smoke was not so troublesome. The
celebrated baths (club-rooms) of ancient Rome were heated by means of
hypocausts with excellent results. Indeed, the hypocaust had many of the
features and many of the merits of our modern furnace. Its weak feature
was that it had no separate pipe to carry away the smoke. But as there
were no chimneys yet in the world, it is no wonder there was no such
pipe.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--A ROMAN HYPOCAUST.]
The Romans made quite as much progress in the art of cooking as they
did in the art of heating. Perhaps the world has never seen more skilful
cooks than those who served in the mansions of the rich during the
period of the Roman Empire (27 B.C.-476 A.D.). In this period the great
men at Rome abandoned their plain way of living and became gourmands.
One of them wished for the neck of a crane, that he might enjoy for a
longer time his food as it descended. This demand for tempting viands
developed a race of cooks who were artists in their way. Upon one
occasion a king called for a certain kind of fish. The fish could not be
had, but the cook was equal to the emergency. "He cut a large turnip to
the perfect imitation of the fish desired, and this he fried and
seasoned so skilfully that his majesty's taste was exquisitely deceived,
and he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish." Such
excellent cooking could not be done on a primitive stove, and along with
the improvements in the art of cooking, there was a corresponding
improvement at Rome in the art of stove-making.
When Rome fell (476 A.D.), many of the best features of her civilization
perished with her. Among the things that were lost to the world were the
Roman methods of cooking and heating. When the barbarians came in at the
front door, the cooks fled from the kitchen. The hardy northerners had
no taste for dainty cooking. Hypocausts ceased to be used, and were no
longer built. For several hundred years, in all the countries of Europe,
the fireplace was located, as of old, on the floor in the center of the
room, while the smoke was allowed to pass out through a hole in the
roof.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--A CHIMNEY AND FIREPLACE IN AN OLD ENGLISH
CASTLE.]
The eleventh century brought a great improvement in the art of heating,
and the improvement came from England. About the time of the Conquest
(1066) a great deal of fighting was done on the roofs of English
fortresses, and the smoke coming up through the hole in the center of
the roof proved to be troublesome to the soldiers. So the fire was moved
from the center of the floor to a spot near an outside wall, and an
opening was made in the wall just above the fire, so that the smoke
could pass out. Here was the origin of the _chimney_. Projecting from
the wall above the fire was a hood, which served to direct the smoke to
the opening. At first the opening for the smoke extended but a few feet
from the fire, but it was soon found that the further up the wall the
opening extended the better was the draft. So the chimney was made to
run diagonally up the wall as far as possible. The next and last step
in the development of the chimney was to make a recess in the wall as a
fireplace, and to build a separate structure of masonry--the
chimney--for the smoke. By the middle of the fourteenth century chimneys
were usually built in this way (Fig. 5). As the fireplace and chimney
cleared the house of soot and smoke, they grew in favor rapidly. By the
end of the fifteenth century they were found in the homes of nearly all
civilized people.
The open fireplace was always cheerful, and it was comfortable when you
were close to it; but it did not heat all parts of the room equally.
That part next to the fireplace might be too warm for comfort, while in
another part of the room it might be freezing. About the end of the
fifteenth century efforts were made to distribute heat throughout the
room more evenly. These efforts led to the invention of the modern
stove. We have learned that the origin of the stove is to be sought in
the ancient brazier. In the middle ages the brazier in France took on a
new form. Here was a fire-box (Fig. 6) with openings at the bottom for
drafts of air and arrangements at the top for cooking things. This
French warming-pan (_réchaud_) was the connecting-link between the
ancient brazier and the modern stove. All it lacked of being a stove was
a pipe to carry off the smoke, and this was added by a Frenchman named
Savot, about two hundred years ago. We owe the invention of the chimney
to England, but for the stove we are indebted to France. The Frenchman
built an iron fire-box, with openings for drafts, and connected the box
with the chimney by means of an iron flue or pipe. Here was a _stove_
which could be placed in the middle of the room, or in any part of the
room where it was desirable, and which would send out its heat evenly in
all directions.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--A STOVE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.]
The first stoves were, of course, clumsy and unsatisfactory; but
inventors kept working at them, making them better both for cooking and
for heating. By the middle of the nineteenth century the stove was
practically what it is to-day (Fig. 7). Stoves proved to be so much
better than fireplaces, that the latter were gradually replaced in large
part by the former. Our affection, however, for a blazing fire is
strong, and it is not likely that the old-fashioned fireplace (Fig. 8)
will ever entirely disappear.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--THE MODERN STOVE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--AN OLD-FASHIONED FIREPLACE AND OVEN.]
The French stove just described is intended to heat only one room. If a
house with a dozen rooms is to be heated, a dozen stoves are necessary.
About one hundred years ago there began to appear an invention by which
a house of many rooms could be heated by means of one stove. This
invention was the _furnace_. Place in the cellar a large stove, and run
pipes from the stove to the different rooms of the house, and you have a
furnace (Fig. 9). Doubtless we got our idea of the furnace from the
Roman hypocaust, although the Roman invention had no special pipe for
the smoke. The first furnaces sent out only hot air, but in recent years
steam or hot water is sent out through the pipes to _radiators_, which
are simply secondary stoves set up in convenient places and at a
distance from the source of the heat, the furnace in the cellar.
Furnaces were invented for the purpose of heating large buildings, but
they are now used in ordinary dwellings.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--A MODERN FURNACE.]
In its last and most highly developed form, the stove appears not only
without dust and smoke, but also without even a fire in the cellar. The
modern _electric_ stove, of course, is meant. Pass a slight current of
electricity through a piece of platinum wire, and the platinum becomes
hot. You have made a diminutive electric stove. Increase the strength of
your current and pass it through something which offers greater
resistance than the platinum, and you get more heat. The electric stove
is a new invention, and at present it is too expensive for general use,
although the number of houses in which it is used is rapidly increasing,
and in time it may drive out all other kinds of stoves. It will
certainly drive all of them out if the cost of electricity shall be
sufficiently reduced; for it is the cleanest, the healthiest, the most
convenient, and the most easily controlled of stoves.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Several of the illustrations in this chapter are reproduced through
the courtesy of the Boston Stove Co.
THE LAMP
Next to its usefulness for heating and cooking, the greatest use of fire
is to furnish light to drive away darkness. Man is not content, like
birds and brutes, to go to sleep at the setting of the sun. He takes a
part of the night-time and uses it for work or for travel or for social
pleasures, or for the improvement of his mind, and in this way adds
several years to life. He could not do this if he were compelled to
grope in darkness. When the great source of daylight disappears he must
make light for himself, for the sources of night-light--the moon and
stars and aurora borealis and lightning--are not sufficient to satisfy
his wants. In this chapter we shall follow man in his efforts to conquer
darkness, and we shall have the story of the lamp.
We may begin the story with an odd but interesting kind of lamp. The
firefly or lightning-bug which we see so often in the summer nights was
in the earliest time brought into service and made to shed its light for
man. Fireflies were imprisoned in a rude box--in the shell of a
cocoanut, perhaps, or in a gourd--and the light of their bodies was
allowed to shoot out through the numerous holes made in the box. We
must not despise the light given out by these tiny creatures. "In the
mountains of Tijuca," says a traveler, "I have read the finest print by
the light of one of these natural lamps (fireflies) placed under a
common glass tumbler (Fig. 1), and with distinctness I could tell the
hour of the night and discern the very small figures which marked the
seconds of a little Swiss watch."
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A FIREFLY LAMP.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--A BURNING STICK WAS THE FIRST LAMP.]
Although fireflies have been used here and there by primitive folk, they
could hardly have been the first lamp. Man's battle with darkness really
began with the _torch_, which was lighted at the fire in the cave or in
the wigwam and kept burning for purposes of illumination. A burning
stick was the first lamp (Fig. 2). The first improvement in the torch
was made when slivers or splinters of resinous or oily wood were tied
together and burned. We may regard this as a lamp which is all wick.
This invention resulted in a fuller and clearer light, and one that
would burn longer than the single stick. A further improvement came when
a long piece of wax or fatty substance was wrapped about with leaves.
This was something like a candle, only the wick (the leaves) was
outside, and the oily substance which fed the wick was in the center.
In the course of time it was discovered that it was better to smear the
grease on the _outside_ of the stick, or on the outside of whatever was
to be burned; that is, that it was better to have the wick _inside_.
Torches were then made of rope coated with resin or fat, or of sticks or
splinters smeared with grease; here the stick resembled the wick of the
candle as we know it to-day, and the coating of fat corresponded to the
tallow or paraffin. Rude candles made of oiled rope or of sticks smeared
with fat were invented in primitive times, and they continued to be used
for thousands of years after men were civilized. In the dark ages--and
they were dark in more senses than one--torch-makers began to wrap the
central stick first with flax or hemp and then place around this a thick
layer of fat. This torch gave a very good light, but about the time of
Alfred the Great (900 A.D.) another step was taken: the central stick
was left out altogether, and the thick layer of fat or wax was placed
directly around the wick of twisted cotton. All that was left of the
original torch--the stick of wood--was gone. The torch had developed
into the _candle_ (Fig. 3). The candles of to-day are made of better
material than those of the olden time, and they are much cheaper; yet in
principle they do not differ from the candles of a thousand years ago.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE CANDLE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--A SHELL FILLED WITH OIL AND USED AS A LAMP.]
I have given the development of the candle first because its forerunner,
the torch, was first used for lighting. But it must not be forgotten
that along with the torch there was used, almost from the beginning,
another kind of lamp. Almost as soon as men discovered that the melted
fat of animals would burn easily--and that was certainly very long
ago--they invented in a rude form the _lamp_ from which the lamp of
to-day has been evolved. The cavity of a shell (Fig. 4) or of a stone,
or of the skull of an animal, was filled with melted fat or oil, and a
wick of flax or other fibrous material was laid upon the edge of the
vessel. The oil or grease passed up the wick by capillary action,[6] and
when the end of the wick was lighted it continued to burn as long as
there were both oil and wick. This was the earliest lamp. As man became
more civilized, instead of a hollow stone or a skull, an earthen saucer
or bowl was used. Around the edge of the bowl a gutter or spout was made
for holding the wick. In the lamp of the ancient Greeks and Romans the
reservoir which held the oil was closed, although in the center there
was a hole through which the oil might be poured. Sometimes one of these
lamps would have several spouts or nozzles. The more wicks a lamp had,
of course, the more light it would give. There is in the museum at
Cortona, in Italy, an ancient lamp which has sixteen nozzles. This
interesting relic (Fig. 5) was used in a pagan temple in Etruria more
than twenty-five hundred years ago.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--AN ETRUSCAN LAMP 2500 YEARS OLD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--AN ANCIENT LAMP.]
Lamps such as have just been described were used among the civilized
peoples of the ancient world, and continued to be used through the
Middle Ages far into modern times. They were sometimes very costly and
beautiful (Fig. 6), but they never gave a good light. They sent out an
unpleasant odor, and they were so smoky that they covered the walls and
furniture with soot. The candle was in every way better than the ancient
lamp, and after the invention of wax tapers--candles made of wax--in the
thirteenth century, lamps were no longer used by those who could afford
to buy tapers. For ordinary purposes and ordinary people, however, the
lamp continued to do service, but it was not improved. The eighteenth
century had nearly passed, and the lamp was still the unsatisfactory,
disagreeable thing it had always been.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--AN ARGAND LAMP.]
Late in the eighteenth century the improvement came. In 1783 a man
named Argand, a Swiss physician residing in London, invented a lamp that
was far better than any that had ever been made before. What did Argand
do for the lamp? Examine an ordinary lamp in which coal-oil is burned.
The _chimney_ protects the flame from sudden gusts of wind and also
creates a draft of air,[7] just as the fire-chimney creates a draft.
Argand's lamp (Fig. 7) was the first to have a chimney. Look below the
chimney and you will see open passages through which air may pass upward
and find its way to the wick. Notice further that as this draft of air
passes upward it is so directed that, when the lamp is burning, an extra
quantity of air plays directly upon the wick. Before Argand, the wick
received no supply of air. Now notice--and this is very important--that
the wick of our modern lamp is flat or circular, but _thin_. The air in
abundance plays upon both sides of the thin wick, and burns it without
making smoke. Smoke is simply half-burned particles (soot) of a burning
substance. The particles pass off half-burned because enough air has not
been supplied. Now Argand, by making the wick thin and by causing plenty
of air to rush into the flame, caused all the wick to be burned and
thereby caused it to burn with a white flame.
After the invention of Argand, the art of lamp-making improved by leaps
and by bounds. More progress was made in twenty years after 1783 than
had been made in twenty centuries before. New burners were invented, new
and better oils were used, and better wicks made. But all the new kinds
of lamps were patterned after the Argand. The lamp you use at home may
not be a real Argand, but it is doubtless made according to the
principles of the lamp invented by the Swiss physician in 1783.
Soon after Argand invented his lamp, William Murdock, a Scottish
inventor, showed the world a new way of lighting a house. It had long
been known that fat or coal, when heated, gives off a vapor or gas which
burns with a bright light. Indeed, it is _always_ a gas that burns, and
not a hard substance. In the candle or in the lamp the flame heats the
oil which comes up to it through the wick and thus causes the oil to
give off a gas. It is this gas that burns and gives the light. Now
Murdock, in 1797, put this principle to a good use. He heated coal in a
large vessel, and allowed the gas which was driven off to pass through
mains and tubes to different parts of his house. Wherever he wanted a
light he let the gas escape at the end of the tube (Fig. 8) in a small
jet and lighted it. Here was a lamp without a wick. Murdock soon
extended his gas-pipes to his factories, and lighted them with gas. As
soon as it was learned how to make gas cheaply, and conduct it safely
from house to house, whole cities were rescued from darkness by the new
illuminant. A considerable part of London was lighted by gas in 1815.
Baltimore was the first city in the United States to be lighted by gas.
This was in 1821.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--THE GAS JET.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--AN EARLY ARC LAMP.]
The gas-light proved to be so much better than even the best of lamps,
that in towns and cities almost everybody who could afford to do so laid
aside the old wick-lamp and burned gas. About 1876, however, a new kind
of light began to appear. This was the _electric_ light. The powerful
_arc light_ (Fig. 9), made by the passage of a current of electricity
between two carbon points, was the first to be invented. This gave as
much light as a hundred gas-jets or several hundred lamps. Such a light
was excellent for lighting streets, but its painful glare and its
sputtering rendered it unfit for use within doors. It was not long,
however, before an electric light was invented which could be used
anywhere. This was the famous Edison's _incandescent_ or glow lamp (Fig.
10), which we see on every hand. Edison's invention is only a few years
old, yet there are already more than thirty million incandescent lamps
in use in the United States alone.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--AN INCANDESCENT ELECTRIC LIGHT.]
The torch, the candle, the lamp, the gas-light, the electric
light,--these are the steps of the development of the lamp. And how
marvelous a growth it is! How great the triumph over darkness! In the
beginning a piece of wood burns with a dull flame, and fills the dingy
wigwam or cave with soot and smoke; now, at the pressure of a button,
the house is filled with a light that rivals the light of day, with not
a particle of smoke or soot or harmful gas. Are there to be further
triumphs in the art of lighting? Are we to have a light that shall drive
out the electric light? Only time can tell.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Hold the end of a dry towel in a basin of water and watch the water
rise in the towel. It rises by capillary action.
[7] Light a short piece of candle and place it in a tumbler, and cover
the top of the tumbler. The experiment teaches that a flame must have a
constant supply of fresh air and will go out if the air is shut off.
THE FORGE
After men had learned how to use fire for cooking and heating and
lighting they slowly learned how to use it when working with metals. In
the earliest times metals were not used. For long ages stone was the
only material that man could fashion and shape to his use. During this
period, sometimes called the "stone age," weapons were made of stone;
dishes and cooking utensils were made of stone; and even the poor, rude
tools of the age were made of stone (Fig. 1).
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--IMPLEMENTS OF THE STONE AGE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--IMPLEMENTS OF THE BRONZE AGE.]
In the course of time man learned how to make his implements and weapons
of metals as well as of stone. It is generally thought that bronze was
the first metal to be used and that the "stone age" was followed
directly by the "bronze age," a period when all utensils, weapons, and
tools were made of bronze (Fig. 2). It is easy to believe that bronze
was used before iron, for bronze is made of a mixture of tin and copper
and these two metals are often found in their pure or natural state.
Whenever primitive man, therefore, found pieces of pure copper and tin,
he could take the two metals and by melting them could easily mix them
and make bronze of them. This bronze he could fashion to his use.
There is no doubt that he did this at a very early age. In nearly all
parts of the world there are proofs that in primitive times, many
articles were made of bronze.