The conveniences, the comforts, and luxuries conferred on Society by
the many important Inventions of the present century, must naturally
excite a desire to know the origin and progress of the application of
scientific principles, by which such advantages have been gained.
Practically considered, those Inventions are of much greater value
than the discoveries of Science on which most of them depend; and the
scientific inquirer who confines his views to abstract principles,
without looking beyond them to the varied methods of their application
to useful purposes, may be compared to a traveller who, having toiled
arduously to gain the top of a mountain, then shuts his eyes on the
prospect that lies before him.
To the inquiring youth, more particularly, it is desirable that he
should be enabled to satisfy his wish to know by what means such
wonders as Steam Navigation, Locomotion on Railways, the Electric
Telegraph, and Photography have been gradually developed; and in
becoming acquainted with the successive steps by which they have
advanced towards their present perfection, he will at the same time
learn a useful lesson of perseverance under difficulties, and will have
his mind impressed with many valuable scientific truths. The knowledge
to be gained by such inquiry is eminently practical, and of a kind
which those engaged in any of the pursuits of life can scarcely fail to
require.
A History of Inventions almost necessarily implies a description of
the mechanisms and processes by which they are effected; so far, at
least, as to render the principles on which their actions depend
understood. It would be impossible, however, in a work of this limited
size to enter minutely into explanations of mechanisms, and into the
applications of scientific discoveries, which would require a separate
treatise for each; but it has been the Author's endeavour to give a
succinct, intelligible account, free from technicalities, of the manner
in which they operate, so as to be comprehensible to all classes of
readers.
By thus giving a popular character to the work, to make it acceptable
to the young, it is hoped that it will not be found less worthy, on
that account, the perusal of those more advanced in life.
When Beckman wrote his History of Inventions, towards the close
of last century, scarcely any of the wonderful discoveries and
contrivances that now form parts of our social system were known;
and the table of contents of his two large volumes affords a curious
insight to the nature and limited extent of such contrivances as were
then considered most important. The introduction into his history
of such subjects as canary birds, carp, the adulteration of wine,
apothecaries, cock-fighting, and juggling, lead us to infer that the
Historian of Inventions at that time must have had some difficulty to
find appropriate matter wherewith to fill his volumes. The opposite
difficulty now presents itself. The numerous important, wonderful,
and curious accomplishments of human skill and ingenuity during the
present century render preference perplexing, where so many deserve
description. From among the number that press for notice, the Author
has endeavoured to select those that are either the most important, the
most remarkable, or that seem to possess the germs of future progress;
and he trusts that the selection he has made, and the mode in which the
subjects have been treated, will render this volume interesting and
instructive.