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diff --git a/37574.txt b/37574.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3aaccdb --- /dev/null +++ b/37574.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4945 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Great Inventions and Discoveries, by Willis +Duff Piercy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Great Inventions and Discoveries + + +Author: Willis Duff Piercy + + + +Release Date: September 30, 2011 [eBook #37574] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES*** + + +E-text prepared by Albert László and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by +Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 37574-h.htm or 37574-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37574/37574-h/37574-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37574/37574-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/greatinventionsd00pier + + + + + +[Illustration: THE FIRST SHEET FROM THE PRINTING PRESS] + + +Graded Supplementary Reading Series + +GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES + +by + +WILLIS DUFF PIERCY + + + + + + + +New York +Charles E. Merrill Company + +Copyright, 1911 +By Charles E. Merrill Co. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. Introduction 7 + + II. The Printing Press 15 + + III. The Steam Engine 30 + + IV. Electricity: The Telegraph and the Telephone 56 + + V. Electricity: Lighting, Transportation, and Other Uses 78 + + VI. The Discovery of America 92 + + VII. Weapons and Gunpowder 108 + +VIII. Astronomical Discoveries and Inventions 127 + + IX. The Cotton-gin 138 + + X. Anaesthetics 147 + + XI. Steel and Rubber 154 + + XII. Stenography and the Typewriter 164 + +XIII. The Friction Match 169 + + XIV. Photography 177 + + XV. Clocks 182 + + XVI. Some Machines 188 + The Sewing Machine 188 + The Reaper 192 + Spinning and Weaving Machines 197 + +XVII. Aeronautics 203 + + + + +GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTION + + +Tens of thousands of years ago, when the world was even then old, +primitive man came into existence. The first men lived in the branches +of trees or in their hollow trunks, and sometimes in caves. For food +they chased horses or caught fish from the streams along whose shores +they lived. If they had clothing, it was the skins of wild beasts. Life +was simple, slow, and crude. There were no cities, books, railroads, +clocks, newspapers, schools, churches, judges, teachers, automobiles, +or elections. Man lived with other animals and was little superior to +them. These primitive men are called cave-dwellers. + +A resident of modern New York sits down to a breakfast gathered from +distant parts of the earth. He spreads out before him his daily +newspaper, which tells him what has happened during the last +twenty-four hours all over the world. Telegraph wires and ocean cables +have flashed these events across thousands of miles into the newspaper +offices and there great printing presses have recorded them upon paper. +After breakfast he gets into an electric street car or automobile and +is carried through miles of space in a very short time to a great steel +building hundreds of feet high. He steps into an electric elevator and +is whirled rapidly up to his office on the twentieth floor. The postman +brings a package of letters which fast-flying mail trains have brought +him during the night from far-away places. He reads them and then +speaks rapidly to a young woman who makes some crooked marks on paper. +After running her fingers rapidly over the keyboard of a little +machine, she hands him type-written replies to the letters he has +received. A boy brings him a little yellow envelope. In it he finds a +message from Seattle or London or Hong Kong or Buenos Ayres sent only a +few moments ago. He wishes to talk with a business associate in Boston +or St. Louis. Still sitting at his desk, he applies a small tube to his +ear and speaks to the man as distinctly and as instantaneously as if he +were in the next room. He finds it important to be in Chicago. After +luncheon, he boards a train equipped with the conveniences of his own +home, sleeps there comfortably, and flies through the thousand miles of +distance in time to have breakfast in Chicago the next morning. + +What is the difference between the life of the cave-dweller and the +life of the modern New Yorker? We call it _civilization_. It is not at +one bound or at one thousand that we pass from the primitive cave to +New York City. Civilization is the accumulation of centuries of +achievement. It is builded, in the language of Isaiah, "line upon +line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." + +Different nations have accomplished different things and have scattered +the seeds of these accomplishments among other nations. Certain +individuals have seen farther in certain directions than their fellows +and have contributed to civilization the results of their vision. +Whoever has added to the safety, the happiness, the power, or the +convenience of society; whoever discovers a star or a microbe; whoever +paints a picture or plants a tree, builds a bridge or fights a +righteous battle; whoever makes two ears of corn grow where there grew +but one before; whoever lets the light shine in upon a darkened street +or a darkened spirit is an agent of civilization. + +The history of civilization is largely a history of man's struggle +against the forces of nature and of his victory over them. Nature is +always saying to man, "Thou shalt not"; and man is always replying, "I +will." If diseases lurk in air and water, cures are ready in the mind +of man. Nature shoves men apart with lofty mountains; but man drives +his iron horse over the mountains or through them. Vast oceans roll and +mighty winds blow between continents; but steam laughs at stormy seas. +The moon's light is not sufficient for man's purposes and he makes a +brighter one. When winter blows his icy breath, man warms himself with +coal and fire. The South pours down upon him her scorching summer; but +he has learned how to freeze water into ice. Time and space conspire +together for human isolation; man conjures with electricity and with it +destroys both. The stars seek to hide their secrets behind immeasurable +distances; but an Italian gives man a glass that brings the heavens +closer before his vision. History tries to conceal itself in the +rubbish of ages; but with ink man preserves the past. His asylums, +hospitals, churches, schools, libraries, and universities are lights +along the shore guiding the human race in its voyage down the ever +widening stream of growth and possibility. + +The centuries do not yield to man equal advancement. Some are very +fertile; others are almost, if not quite, barren. The entire period of +a thousand years stretching from the fall of Rome to the discovery of +America was as sterile as a heath. On the other hand, the nineteenth +century was the greatest in history in point of human progress, +especially in the field of inventions. It alone gave to man far more of +civilization than the whole ten centuries before the discovery of +America or indeed any other period of a thousand years. One hundred +years ago there was not a mile of railroad, ocean cable, or telegraph +wire in the world; not a telephone, automobile, electric light, or +typewriter. The people were then deriding the new-born idea of the +steamboat, and wireless telegraphy had not been dreamed of. + +Even up to the beginning of the Revolutionary War, less than one +hundred fifty years ago, no man in America had ever seen an envelope, a +match, a stove, a piece of coal, a daily newspaper, a sewing machine, a +reaper, a drill, a mowing machine, ether, chloroform, galvanized iron, +India-rubber, or steam-driven machinery. We who are alive to-day are +fortunate more than any other generation thus far in the world's +population. + + "We are living, we are dwelling + In a grand and awful time; + In an age on ages telling-- + To be living is sublime." + +The horse and the dog of to-day are not very different from the horses +and the dogs of a thousand years ago. From the beginning they have done +about all they can ever do. Not so with man. He is a progressive +animal. He is always reaching outward and upward for broader and higher +things. Tennyson sings, + + "For I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, + And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns." + +The difference between the lives of the primitive cave-dweller and the +modern American is unspeakably vast. But looking far down the vista of +future ages, who shall say that the fortieth century may not as far +surpass the twentieth as the twentieth does the sleepy dawn of man's +existence on the earth? We are packing more of life into a day than our +ancestors could put into a month. And the hours of the centuries to +come hold a fuller experience than our days. + +Thomas Carlyle calls man a "tool-using animal." Throughout all time man +has made and used tools. These tools are the best measure of his +civilization. According to the material out of which they have been +made, man's progress has been divided into epochs or ages. + +Primitive man made a few implements of bone, horn, and stone. They were +few and crude. This period is called the Stone Age. During it men dwelt +in caves or huts, dressed themselves in skins, and lived by catching +fish, chasing wild animals, and gathering wild fruits. By and by man +learned how to make tools out of bronze, an alloy composed of copper +and tin. These bronze implements were more numerous and more efficient +than the stone tools and gave man a higher degree of power and +workmanship. With them he cut down trees or carved stone for his +dwellings and acquired generally a higher order of life. This era is +named the Bronze Age. Finally the use of iron was discovered. This +metal afforded many tools that could not be made of stone or +bronze--tools that were much stronger and more efficient. Man became +correspondingly more powerful and his life more complex. The period +during which iron was used is called the Iron Age. + +_Invention_ is the making of some new thing not previously existing. +_Discovery_ is the finding of something already in existence but not +known before. There was no electric telegraph until Samuel Morse made +or invented it; America has always existed, but was not known until +Christopher Columbus found or discovered it. + +Among all the builders of civilization, not the least are the inventors +and discoverers. High up on the page of those who have made the world +great will always stand the names of Gutenberg or Coster, Watt, +Stephenson, Morse, Edison, Fulton, Galileo, Newton, Columbus, Morton, +Bell, Marconi, and others who have invented new machines and discovered +new processes for making life more happy, safe, and powerful. + +Regarding the influence of inventions upon civilization, Lord Salisbury +says: "The inventors and even the first users of the great discoveries +in applied science had never realized what influence their work was to +have upon industry, politics, society, and even religion. The discovery +of gunpowder simply annihilated feudalism, thus effecting an entire +change in the structure of government in Europe. As to the discovery of +printing, it not only made religious revolutions possible, but was the +basis on which modern democratic forms of government rested. The steam +engine not only changed all forms of industry and the conditions under +which industries were prosecuted, but it made practically contiguous +the most distant parts of the world, reducing its vastness to a +relatively contracted area. And now the introduction of electricity as +a form of force seems destined, as its development proceeds, to bring +about results quite as important in their way, though but yet dimly +seen by the most far-sighted." + +Secretary Seward pays this tribute to invention: "The exercise of the +inventive faculty is the nearest akin to the Creator of any faculty +possessed by the human mind; for while it does not create in the sense +that the Creator did, yet it is the nearest approach to it of anything +known to man." + +And Lord Bacon tells us: "The introduction of new inventions seemeth +to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new +inventions may extend to all mankind universally; while the good of +political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; +these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former forever. +Inventions make all men happy, without injury to any one single +person. Furthermore, they are, as it were, new creations, and +imitations of God's own works." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PRINTING PRESS + + "Blessings be on the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever + it is, that first invented books." + + _Thomas Carlyle._ + + +"Except a living man," says Charles Kingsley, "there is nothing more +wonderful than a book--a message to us from the dead--from human souls +whom we never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of miles away; and yet +these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify +us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. We ought +to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things." +Milton calls a good book "the precious life blood of a master spirit, +embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." Cicero +likens a room without books to a body without a soul. Ruskin says, +"Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we +would eat it, in a good book." And Thomas Carlyle exclaims: "Wondrous, +indeed, is the virtue of a true book! O thou who art able to write a +book, which once in two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to +do, envy not him whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity +him whom they name conqueror or city-burner!" + +Is it not wonderful that a record of all the world has thought and said +and felt and done can be deposited in a corner of my room, and that +there I may sit and commune with the master spirits of all the +centuries? Socrates, Plato, Homer, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Paul, David, +Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare, Hugo, Wordsworth, +Tennyson, Carlyle, and Emerson, all in one room at the same time! + +Great as books are, however, the world has not long had them. For many +generations after man's advent, he had no language. He communicated +with his fellows by means of gestures or gave vent to his feelings in +rude grunts or cries, much as the lower animals do now. But God gave to +man something He did not bestow upon the other animals--the power of +articulate speech. Certain sounds came to represent certain ideas and a +kind of oral language grew up. This became more and more highly +developed as time went by. For centuries the traditions, stories, and +songs of men were handed down orally from father to son and were +preserved only in the memory. The poems of Homer, the great Greek bard, +were recited by readers to large audiences, some of them numbering +probably twenty thousand. + +By and by men felt the need of preserving their thoughts in some more +permanent way than by memory, and there grew up a rude system of +writing. At first pictures or rude imitations of objects were used; a +circle or a disc might represent the sun, and a crescent the moon. The +idea of a tree was denoted by the picture of a tree. The early Indians +of North America were among the peoples who used a system of picture +writing. In process of time, as men grew in knowledge and culture, +certain fixed signs began to denote certain sounds, and a phonetic +system of writing was developed. + +For the first phonetic alphabet it is generally supposed that we are +indebted to the Phoenicians, an active, commercial people, who lived +along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. They were a maritime +nation and scattered their alphabet wherever they sailed, so that some +kind of phonetic alphabet finally existed throughout the civilized +world. + +Books among the ancients were very different from the books of the +present. Paper has not been known long, nor, indeed, has the art of +printing. When man began to preserve his thoughts and deeds in more +permanent form than in the memory, various substances were used to +write upon. Josephus, an historian of the Jews, mentions two columns, +one of stone and the other of brick, upon which the children of Seth +wrote accounts of their inventions and astronomical discoveries. +Tablets of lead containing the works of Hesiod, a Greek writer, were +deposited in the temple of the Muses in Boeotia. According to the +Bible, the ten commandments which the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai +for the children of Israel were engraved on two tablets of stone; and +the laws of Solon, the great Grecian law-giver, were carved on planks +of wood. + +Sixty centuries ago on the banks of the Nile in northern Africa +flourished the civilization of the Egyptians. There grew abundantly in +Egypt a marsh reed called the papyrus. From the name of this plant is +derived our word _paper_. The Egyptians made their books from the +papyrus plant. With a sharp instrument they cut lengthwise strips +through the stalk, put these strips together edge to edge, and on them +at right angles, placed another layer of shorter strips. The two layers +were then moistened with Nile water, pressed together, and left to dry. +A leaf of writing material was thus produced. Any roughness on the +surface of the sheet was polished away with some smooth instrument. A +number of leaves were then glued together so as to form a long piece of +the material. The Egyptians took reeds, dipped them in gum water +colored with charcoal or with a kind of resinous soot, and wrote on the +long papyrus strip. Sometimes ink was made of the cuttle fish or from +lees of wine. After the papyrus had been written upon, it was rolled up +and became an Egyptian book. Papyrus was used for writing material not +only by the Egyptians but by the Greeks and the Romans also, and for a +long time it was the chief substance used for writing throughout the +civilized world. It continued in use to a greater or less extent till +about the seventh century after Christ. + +On the plains of Asia lived the Chaldeans, whose civilization was +about as old as that of the Egyptians. But their books were very +different. Men use for their purposes the things that are close at +hand. In Egypt the papyrus plant was utilized for making books. In +Chaldea, instead of this marsh reed, there were great stores of clay +and of this material the ancient Chaldeans, and the Babylonians and +the Assyrians who followed them, made their books. The Chaldeans took +bricks or masses of smooth clay and, while they were yet soft, made +impressions on them with a metal stiletto shaped at the end like the +side of a wedge. In Latin the word for _wedge_ is _cuneus_. Hence +this old writing of the Chaldeans is called cuneiform or wedge-shaped. +Some of these wedge-shaped impressions stood for whole words, others +for syllables. After the clay tablets had been written upon, they were +burned or dried hard in the sun. A Chaldean book was thus made very +durable and lasted for ages. During recent years many of them have +been dug up in ancient Babylonia and deciphered. They consist of +grammars, dictionaries, religious books and hymns, laws, public +documents, and records of private business transactions. + +The early Greeks and Romans used for their books tablets of ivory or +metal or, more commonly, tablets of wood taken from the beech or fir +tree. The inner sides of these tablets were coated with wax. On this +wax coating the letters were traced with a pointed metallic pen or +stiletto called the stylus. Our English word _style_, as used in +rhetoric, comes from the name of this instrument. The other end of the +stylus was used for erasing. Two of these waxed tablets, joined at the +edges by wire hinges, were the earliest specimens of bookbinding. Wax +tablets of this kind continued in partial use in Europe through the +Middle Ages. Later the leaves of the palm tree were used; then the +inner bark of the lime, ash, maple, or elm. + +The next material that came into general use for writing purposes was +parchment. This was made from the skins of animals, particularly sheep +or lambs. Next came vellum, the prepared skin of the calf. Parchment +and vellum were written upon with a metallic pen. As these substances +were very costly, sometimes one book was written over another on the +same piece of parchment or vellum. Of course this made the reading of +the manuscript very difficult. + +About the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the tenth, after +Christ, parchment and vellum as material for books gave way to paper. +At first paper was made of cotton, but during the twelfth century it +was produced from linen. It is not known who invented linen paper, but +its introduction gave the first great impulse to book making. + +In the early Greek books the lines ran in opposite directions +alternately. That is, there would be a line from left to right across +the page, and then the next lower line would begin at the right and run +towards the left. Among some of the Orientals the lines ran from right +to left. In the old Chinese books the lines were vertical down the +page, as they are still. Among Western and Northern peoples the lines +ran from left to right as in our modern books. + +The old civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia, in which the art of +book-making originated, sprang up, flourished, and decayed, burying +from the sight of men precious secrets in the arts and sciences. The +beautiful flower of Greek culture budded, bloomed, and withered. +Passing on from east to west, civilization knocked at the door of Rome +and awakened there such military and legal genius as the world had not +yet seen. Then a horde of wild barbarians poured over the mountains of +northern Italy and overthrew the mighty city on the Tiber. The sun of +civilization was setting, at least for a time. Night was coming on, the +night of the Dark Ages, a night without a star of human thought or +achievement, a night full of the noxious vapors of ignorance and +superstition. + +About the beginning of the fifteenth century after Christ there came +over the world a great intellectual awakening. The human intellect +began to awake, to stretch itself, to go forth and conquer. One of the +first signs and causes of this intellectual awakening was an event that +happened at Mainz in Germany or at Haarlem in Holland, or possibly in +both places at the same time. Of all the events that have made for +civilization and have influenced the progress of the human race, this +event at Haarlem or Mainz is the most important. It is the invention of +printing. Before this time, ever since man began to record his +thoughts, whether on plank, stone, or papyrus, on bark of tree, skin of +animal, or tablet of wax or paper, every letter was made by hand. The +process was necessarily slow, books were rare and costly, and only the +few could have them. But with the advent of a process that would +multiply books and make them cheap, learning was made accessible to the +multitude. The clang of the first printing press was the death knell of +ignorance and tyranny. + +[Illustration: AN ADVERTISEMENT OF CAXTON, THE FIRST PRINTER IN +ENGLAND] + +Before the invention of printing with movable, metal types, a kind of +block printing was used. The words or letters were carved on a block of +wood; the block was applied to paper, silk, cloth, or vellum, and thus +impressions were made. + +It has always been a matter of dispute as to who invented printing. It +is fairly clear that printing, both with blocks and with movable types, +was practised in China and Japan long before it was in Europe. There is +a tradition that as far back as 175 A.D. Chinese classics were cut upon +tablets of stone, that these tablets were placed outside the +university, and that impressions were made from them. However, we are +not indebted to China or Japan for the art of printing. The real +invention of printing, so far as the civilized world is concerned, +occurred in Europe in the latter part of the fifteenth century. The +inventor is often said to be Johann Gutenberg, of Mainz, Germany. +Another strong claimant for this honor is Lourens Janszoon Coster, who +lived at Haarlem, in Holland. + +Concerning the lives of Coster and Gutenberg little is known. Coster +was born at Haarlem, Holland, about 1370 A.D. He was a member of the +Haarlem Council, assessor and treasurer. He probably perished in the +plague that visited Haarlem in 1439-40. Gutenberg was born of noble +parents at Mainz, Germany, in 1410. He had an active mind and gave +attention to the manufacture of money, the polishing of stones, and the +making of looking-glasses, besides his efforts in printing. He died in +February, 1468, poor, childless, and almost friendless. + +The first printed book, so far as can be determined, was made at Mainz, +Germany, and bears the date of 1454 A.D. From certain legal records it +is supposed that Gutenberg was the maker of this book and the inventor +of printing. On the other hand, there is a story that Coster, while +walking in the woods one autumn afternoon, chanced to make for his +little grandchild some letters from the bark of a tree; that these +letters suggested to him the idea of metallic types; and that he, and +not Gutenberg, was the inventor of printing. As the story goes, a slave +stole Coster's types and ran away with them from Haarlem to Mainz; and +the books which, it is supposed, were made at the latter place came +really from Coster's types, not Gutenberg's. The fact cannot be known. +It has hopelessly gone with the years. + +This first book, which was printed in two different editions, consisted +of certain letters written by Pope Nicholas V in behalf of the kingdom +of Cyprus. By about 1477 A.D. printing had extended from Mainz to all +the chief towns of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, the +Netherlands, Spain, and England. By the beginning of the sixteenth +century it had spread to all the principal places of Europe. + +In the type of the early books the various letter forms were not fixed +as they are in modern books, but the type for each book was made as +much as possible like the writing of the original manuscript. As +printers moved from place to place introducing their art, it seems that +not one carried away the types of his master but each made his own +anew. Type was originally made and set up by hand, piece by piece, so +that even the production of printed books was very slow. Various +mechanical devices have been invented from time to time, quickening and +cheapening the making of books and other printed matter, so that to-day +printers turn out books and papers in large quantities in an amazingly +short time. + +[Illustration: THE PRINTING PRESS IN BOSTON AT WHICH FRANKLIN +WORKED] + +The first newspaper in the world is believed to have been the _Frankfurter +Journal_, published about 1615 A.D. at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in +Germany. But of this there is no certainty. Newspapers, however, had +their beginnings in Germany and Italy some time in the latter part of +the sixteenth or the first part of the seventeenth century. It is +believed that the _Weekly News_, started in London in 1622, was the +first newspaper published in England. In the United States there +was a printing press attached to Harvard College, at Cambridge, +Massachusetts, as early as 1638, two years after the college was +founded, and only six years after the settlement of Boston. With this +one exception, for a long time there were no printing presses in the +colonies. A newspaper called _Publick Occurrences_ was started in +Boston in 1690, but it was soon afterward suppressed by the British +government. The first permanent newspaper in America was the _Boston +News Letter_, established at Boston in 1704. + +One of the greatest wonders and triumphs of civilization is the great +modern daily newspaper. It occupies a giant "sky-scraper" as its home, +employs a small army of workmen, spends vast sums of money in obtaining +and printing the news, and is sold for a cent per copy. The head of a +newspaper staff is the editor-in-chief. He is in a general way +responsible to the publishers for the paper. Next in command is the +managing editor who has charge of the actual work of publication. +Subordinate to the managing editor are other editors who have control +over various departments of the paper. The telegraph editor looks after +news sent by telegraph; the city editor has charge of happenings in the +city of publication; the exchange editor clips items from other papers; +the religious editor attends to affairs of religion; the sporting +editor collects and arranges news of sports and games; the commercial +editor works with the markets and matters of commerce and business; the +society editor gives attention to social functions; and the dramatic +editor takes note of the theaters. The city editor commands a company +of perhaps half a hundred reporters, who are sent scurrying daily +throughout the city to bring in the news from its various sources. One +goes to the ball game, another to a funeral, another to the courts, +another to a hotel to interview some prominent person, and still +another goes to a political convention. There are also photographers, +illustrators, and editorial writers. + +At the close of the day, special correspondents and representatives of +press associations in every nook and corner of the earth send the +world's news for the day by telegraph and ocean cable direct into the +newspaper office. A king has died; a battle has been fought; storm, +earthquake, or fire has destroyed a city; or there has been some +achievement in science or art. The local reporters have brought in the +news of the city. After all has been quickly written, examined, and +edited, the reports are sent to the composing room to be put into type. + +The foreman of the composing room distributes the manuscript, called +copy, among skilled operators, who by means of type-setting machines +put it into type. Impressions are then made from this type on strips of +paper. These impressions are called proofs. Proof readers compare these +proofs with the original copy for the purpose of correcting errors. +After the correction of errors the columns of type, called galleys, are +locked up in a form which is the size of a page. The form is next sent +to the stereotyping room, where an exact reproduction is made in metal. +The metal plates are put in place on the presses. The machinery is +started. Tons of white paper are fed into the presses at one end. Out +at another in an instant comes the finished newspaper, printed, cut, +and folded. These papers are counted and delivered automatically to the +mailing room, at the rate of about 100,000 copies in an hour, for the +improved, modern press. After their arrival at the mailing room, papers +that are for out-of-town subscribers are wrapped in packages, +addressed, and carried in express wagons to fast mail trains, which +carry this record of what man did the previous day to readers hundreds +of miles away. + +This afternoon at five o'clock a prominent man dies suddenly in San +Francisco. To-night at midnight the newspapers of St. Louis, Chicago, +and New York will come from the press with his picture and a long +sketch of his life. How is this possible in so short a time? The papers +have on file, arranged in alphabetical order, photographs of prominent +persons and places and biographical sketches of great men, kept up to +date. Whenever any noted person, place, or thing is made conspicuous by +any event, the picture and sketch are taken from the files and used. + +It is the electric telegraph that makes possible the modern daily +newspaper. Before its invention, papers resorted to various devices for +transmitting news. For some years messengers riding ponies brought news +from Washington to the New York papers. These papers also utilized +small, swift-sailing vessels to meet incoming ships bearing news from +foreign countries. + +A recent bulletin on printing and publishing issued by the Census +Bureau of the United States government showed that there were in the +United States 21,394 newspapers and periodicals, printed in +twenty-seven different languages. Of these, 2,452 were daily; 15,046 +weekly; 2,500 monthly; 353 quarterly; 58 tri-weekly; 645 semi-weekly; +and 340 of all other kinds. 20,184 of these papers were English; 619 +German; 158 Scandinavian; 58 Italian; 41 French; 44 Bohemian; 31 +Spanish; 18 Hebrew; 21 Dutch; 7 Chinese; 9 Japanese; 5 Greek; 46 +Polish; 5 Hungarian; 3 Arabic; and two each in the Welsh, Syrian and +Gaelic languages. The capital invested in printing and publishing in +the United States was a little more than $385,000,000. It would take +one person twelve hours a day every day for six thousand years, or from +the beginnings of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization to the dawn of +the twentieth century, to read at an average rate all the papers +published in the United States during a single year. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE STEAM ENGINE + + +THE SONG OF STEAM + +BY GEORGE WASHINGTON CUTTER + + Harness me down with your iron bands; + Be sure of your curb and rein; + For I scorn the power of your puny hands, + As the tempest scorns a chain. + How I laughed as I lay concealed from sight + For many a countless hour, + At the childish boast of human might, + And the pride of human power. + + When I saw an army upon the land, + A navy upon the seas, + Creeping along, a snail-like band, + Or waiting the wayward breeze; + When I marked the peasant faintly reel + With the toil which he daily bore, + As he feebly turned the tardy wheel, + Or tugged at the weary oar; + + When I measured the panting courser's speed, + The flight of the courier dove, + As they bore the law a king decreed, + Or the lines of impatient love,-- + I could not but think how the world would feel, + As these were outstripped afar, + When I should be bound to the rushing keel, + Or chained to the flying car; + + Ha, ha! they found me out at last; + They invited me forth at length; + And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast, + And I laughed in my iron strength. + Oh, then ye saw a wondrous change + On the earth and the ocean wide, + Where now my fiery armies range, + Nor wait for wind and tide. + + Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o'er; + The mountain's steep decline; + Time--space--have yielded to my power; + The world--the world is mine! + The rivers the sun hath earliest blest, + Or those where his beams decline; + The giant streams of the queenly West, + And the Orient floods divine. + + The ocean pales where'er I sweep, + I in my strength rejoice; + And the monsters of the briny deep + Cower, trembling, at my voice. + I carry the wealth and the lord of earth, + The thoughts of his god-like mind; + The wind lags after my going forth, + The lightning is left behind. + + In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine + My tireless arm doth play, + Where the rocks never saw the sun decline, + Or the dawn of the glorious day. + I bring earth's glittering jewels up + From the hidden caves below, + And I make the fountain's granite cup + With a crystal gush o'erflow. + + I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, + In all the shops of trade; + I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel, + Where my arms of strength are made; + I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint; + I carry, I spin, I weave; + And all my doings I put into print + On every Saturday eve. + + I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay, + No bones to be "laid on the shelf," + And soon I intend you may "go and play," + While I manage this world myself. + But harness me down with your iron bands, + Be sure of your curb and rein; + For I scorn the power of your puny hands, + As the tempest scorns a chain! + +The most powerful and important mass of matter on the earth is the +steam engine. It is the throbbing heart of civilization, even as the +printing press is its brain. It would be difficult for man to compute +his debt to steam. Upon it he relies for food, clothing, and shelter, +the three necessities for which the race has always striven; and +without it he could have scarcely any of life's comforts and luxuries. +Steam is the mistress of commerce, manufacturing, and mining, and the +servant of agriculture. Steam gives employment to millions of men. It +plants cities and towns in waste places. It enables man to leave the +little valley or hillside where his fathers lived, and makes of him a +citizen of the world. It lessens the power of time and space, and makes +neighbors of ocean-divided continents. + +It would not be easy for men living in the twentieth century to imagine +a society uninfluenced by the use of steam; but nearly all of man's +life on the earth has been passed without its help. Fire and water, the +two productive factors of steam, have always existed; but it was not +until a few score of years ago that man learned to put them together +successfully, and to produce the greatest force known to civilization. +In the few years since its discovery it has spread to every nook and +corner of civilization. Suppose you could ascend to some great height +whence you could see working at one time all the steam driven machinery +in the world. What a sight it would be! What if the noise from all this +machinery--the screech of the speeding locomotive, the hum and roar of +factory and mill, the hoarse yell of ships, and the puffing of +mine-engines--should reach your ear at once? What a sound it would be! + +The idea of using steam for driving stationary machinery originated in +the early centuries. This was the first use to which steam was put. For +a long time no one seems to have thought of using it for transportation +purposes. As far back as 130 B.C., we find mention of "heat engines," +which employed steam as their motive power, and were used for organ +blowing, the turning of spits, and like purposes. But from this early +date till the seventeenth century practically no progress was made in +the use of steam. Though men had experimented with steam up to this +time with more or less success, the world is chiefly indebted for the +developed type of the steam engine to James Watt and George Stephenson. + +Watt was born in Greenock, Scotland, January 19, 1736. He was a poor +boy and early in life he was thrown upon his own resources. During his +youth he struggled against ill health; for days at a time he was +prostrated with severe headaches. But he was bright, determined, and +had a genial disposition that made him many friends. When he was +twenty-one years old, he secured a position as maker of scientific +instruments for the university in Glasgow. He began discussing with +some scientific friends at the university the possibility of improving +the steam engine, which at that time was used only for pumping water, +chiefly in the drainage of mines. He entered upon a scientific study of +the properties of steam and tried to devise means for making the steam +engine more useful. One Sunday afternoon early in 1765, while walking +in Glasgow, the idea he had studied so long to evolve suddenly flashed +into his mind. Without delay Watt put his plan to the test and found +that it worked. + +For a long time, owing to a lack of money, he had difficulty in +establishing the merits of his improvements. Finally he formed a +partnership with Matthew Boulton, a wealthy and energetic man who lived +at Birmingham, England. They began the manufacture of steam engines at +Birmingham, under the firm name of Boulton and Watt. This partnership +was very successful. Watt supplied the inventions; Boulton furnished +the money and attended to the business. + +Before the time of Watt, the steam engine was exclusively a steam +pump--slow, cumbrous, wasteful of fuel, and very little used. Watt made +it a quick, powerful, and efficient engine, requiring only a fourth as +much fuel as before. Under his first patent the engine was still used +only as a steam pump; but his later improvements adapted it for driving +stationary machinery of all kinds and, save in a few respects, left it +essentially what it is to-day. Prior to Watt's inventions, the mines of +Great Britain were far from thriving. Many were even on the point of +being abandoned, through the difficulty of removing the large +quantities of water that collected in them. His improvements made it +possible to remove this water at a moderate cost, and this gave many of +the mines a new lease of life. The commercial success of his engine was +soon fully established. + +Watt paid practically no attention to the use of steam for purposes of +transportation. In one of his patents he described a steam locomotive; +but he offered little encouragement when his chief assistant, Murdoch, +who was the inventor of gas lighting, made experiments with steam for +locomotion. The notion then was to use a steam carriage on ordinary +roads. Railroads had not been thought of. When the idea of using steam +on railways began to take shape in the later days of Watt, he refused +to encourage the plan. It is said that he even put a clause in a lease +of his house, providing that no steam carriage should ever approach it +under any pretext whatever. + +Besides developing the steam engine, Watt made other inventions, +including a press for copying letters. He also probably discovered the +chemical composition of water. He died at Heathfield, England, on the +nineteenth of August, 1819. + +It is denied many men to see the magnitude of their achievements. Moses +died on Pisgah, in sight of the "Promised Land," toward which for forty +years he had led the children of Israel through the wilderness. Wolfe +gave up his life on the plains of Quebec just as the first shouts of +the routed French greeted his ears. Columbus was sent home in chains +from the America he had discovered, not dreaming he had given to +civilization another world. Lincoln's eyes were closed forever at the +very dawn of peace, after he had watched in patience through the long +and fearful night of the Civil War. It never appeared to James Watt +that the idea which flashed into his mind that Sunday afternoon while +he was walking in the streets of Glasgow, would transform human life; +that like a mighty multiplier it would increase the product of man's +power and give him dominion, not over the beasts of the field and the +fowls of the air, but over tide and wind, space and time. + +Victor Hugo calls locomotives "these giant draft horses of +civilization." But man never harnessed these wonderful iron animals +until the time of George Stephenson, less than a hundred years ago. + +Stephenson was born at Wylam, near Newcastle, England, June 9, 1781. +His father was a fireman of a coal-mine engine at that place. In +boyhood George was a cowherd, but he spent his spare time making clay +models of engines and other objects of a mechanical nature. When he was +fourteen years old, he became assistant to his father in firing the +engine at the colliery, and three years later he was advanced to engine +driving. At this time he could not even read; but, stimulated by a +strong desire to know more of the engines made by Boulton and Watt, he +began in his eighteenth year to attend a night school. He learned +rapidly. During most of this time he studied various experiments with a +view to making a successful steam locomotive. + +Modern railways had their origin in roads called tramways, which were +used for hauling coal from the mines of England to the sea. At first +ordinary dirt roads were used for this purpose; but as the heavy +traffic wore these roads away, it become the practice to place planks +or timbers at the bottoms of the ruts. Afterwards wooden rails were +laid straight and parallel on the level surface. The rails were oak +scantlings held together with cross timbers of the same material, +fastened by means of large oak pins. Later strips of iron were nailed +on the tops of the wooden rails. Over these rails, bulky, four-wheeled +carts loaded with coal were pulled by horses. + +Stephenson made what he called a traveling engine for the tramways +leading from the mines where he worked to the sea, nine miles distant. +He named his engine "My Lord." On July 25, 1814, he made a successful +trial trip with it. + +The successful use of steam in hauling coal from the mines led +thoughtful persons to consider its use for carrying merchandise and +passengers. At this time freight was transported inland by means of +canals. This method was slow; thirty-six hours were required for +traveling fifty miles. Passengers were conveyed by coaches drawn by +horses. In 1821 a railroad for the transportation of merchandise and +passengers was opened between Stockton and Darlington in England. The +line, including three branches, was thirty-eight miles long. The plan +was to use animal power on this road, but George Stephenson secured +permission to try on it his steam locomotive. + +In September, 1825, the first train passed over the road. It consisted +of thirty-four cars weighing, all told, ninety tons. The train was +pulled by Stephenson's engine, operated by Stephenson himself, with a +signalman riding on horseback in advance. The train moved off at the +rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and on certain parts of the road +it reached a speed of fifteen miles per hour. The trial was a complete +success. + +The road had been built chiefly for the transportation of freight, but +from the first passengers insisted on being carried, and in October, +1825, the Company began to run a daily passenger coach called the +"Experiment." This coach carried six persons inside and from fifteen +to twenty outside. The round trip between Stockton and Darlington was +made in two hours. A fare of one shilling was charged, and each +passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of baggage free. The Stockton +and Darlington was the first railway in the world over which +passengers and freight were hauled by steam. + +Stephenson was next employed to help construct a railway between +Liverpool and Manchester. The most eminent engineers of the day +predicted that the road could not be built. But it was built. On the +fifteenth of September, 1830, Stephenson made a trial trip over the +road with an improved locomotive named the "Rocket." On the trial trip +the "Rocket" made twenty-nine miles an hour. This trip firmly proved +the possibilities of steam as motive power on railways and started the +modern era of railroad building. Other railways were quickly built and +soon they radiated from London to nearly every English seaport. + +[Illustration: AN EARLY RAILROAD TRAIN IN ENGLANDAN EARLY RAILROAD +TRAIN IN ENGLAND] + +Stephenson's son, Robert, assisted him in the construction of the +"Rocket" and later attained considerable reputation as an engineer. + +It is claimed that George Stephenson was the inventor of the safety +lamp for use in mines, an invention usually accredited to Sir Humphry +Davy. He was often consulted in the building of subsequent railroads, +but he spent the last years of his life in farming and gardening at his +home at Chesterfield, England, where he died August 12, 1848. + + +Before the days of railroads in America, freight was hauled on canals +and passengers rode in stage coaches or on horseback. A coach made the +trip from Boston to New York twice a week and the journey required six +days. A trip from New York to Philadelphia took two days. From +Philadelphia to Baltimore the roads were good, but south of Baltimore +they were bad and even dangerous. South of the James River the traveler +was compelled to make his journey on horseback. A coach from Charleston +to Savannah was the only public conveyance south of the Potomac River. + +In the days of the old colonial stagecoach, if a traveler wished to go +from Boston to New York, he would have to be ready to begin the journey +at three o'clock in the morning. The stage had no glass windows, no +door or step, and passengers were obliged to climb in at the front. One +pair of horses pulled the stage eighteen miles, and then they were +relieved by another pair. At about ten o'clock in the evening, after a +day's journey of forty miles, the stage drew up at an inn for the +night. At three o'clock the next morning, after dressing by the light +of a horn lantern, the traveler must resume his journey. If the roads +were bad, he might have to alight from the stage and help the driver +pull the wheels out of the mud. Rivers were crossed on clumsy +flat-boats. When the streams were swollen with rains or filled with +floating ice, the passage across was often dangerous. The trip from +Boston to Philadelphia, which would have taken eight days of +Washington's time, can easily be made now by train in as many hours. In +these days of the modern railroad, San Francisco is nearer in time to +New York than Washington was scarcely a hundred years ago. + +The first railway in America was built in 1826. It connected a granite +quarry at Quincy, Massachusetts, with the town of Milton in the same +state. It was only two or three miles long, and was operated with +horses. In May, 1829, three English locomotives--the first ever seen in +America--were unloaded at New York City. On August 9 of the same year, +one of these engines was tried at Honesdale, Pennsylvania. This was the +first time that a locomotive ever turned a wheel on a railway in +America. + +A canal which the business men of Philadelphia proposed to construct +from their city to Pittsburg, in order to give them access to the trade +centers of the West, threatened the commercial prosperity of Baltimore. +To offset the advantages which this canal would give Philadelphia, at a +great public meeting in Baltimore it was decided to build a railway +from Baltimore to some point on the Ohio River. The road was named the +Baltimore and Ohio. In 1830 it was finished from Baltimore as far as +Ellicott's Mills, a distance of fifteen miles. The Baltimore and Ohio +was the first railroad in the United States built for the express +purpose of carrying passengers and freight. The original intention was +to pull cars over this road with horses. But Peter Cooper persuaded the +railroad officials to try his engine "Tom Thumb," which he had built in +1829. The trial was successful, for "Tom Thumb" drew a car-load of +passengers at the rate of fifteen to eighteen miles per hour. This +engine was the first locomotive built in America, and its trial was the +first trip ever made by an American locomotive. + +The first railroad in the United States constructed with the original +purpose of using steam as motive power was the South Carolina railroad, +a line one hundred thirty-six miles long between Charleston and +Hamburg. A locomotive built in New York City, called the "Best Friend," +made its first trip over this road in November, 1830. It was the first +locomotive to run regularly on a railroad in the United States. + +Railroad building spread rapidly in America, as it had in England. By +1835 there were twenty-two railroads in the United States, two of them +being west of the Alleghenies, though no road was more than one hundred +forty miles in length. There was no railroad west of the Mississippi +River prior to 1853, and in that year a line only thirty-eight miles +long was built. During 1906 alone, 5516 miles of railroad were +constructed in the United States. At the end of that year, there was a +total in the United States of 222,635 miles, or nearly enough to reach +nine times around the entire globe. The United States now has thirty +per cent. more miles of railway main track than all of Europe, and +contains two fifths of the railroad mileage of the world. The railroads +of the United States represent a value of about fifteen billion +dollars, and give employment to a million and a half persons. + +The Pennsylvania Railroad was originally owned by the state. Any one +could use it by paying certain charges, and each person operating the +road furnished his own cars, horses, and drivers. There were frequent +blockades; when two cars going in opposite directions met, one had to +turn back. If rival shippers came together and neither was willing to +yield to the other, a fight probably settled the rights of precedence. +After a time steam became the sole motive power, and the locomotives +were owned by the state. + +The railroad journeys of our grandfathers were very different from our +own. In their day the rails were wooden beams or stringers laid on +horizontal blocks of stone. Strips of iron were fastened with spikes to +the tops of the wooden rails. The cars were small, each seating only a +few passengers. The locomotive was crude. Its greatest speed was about +fifteen miles an hour. It could not climb a hill, and when a grade was +reached, the cars had to be pulled up or let down with ropes managed by +a stationary engine. No cab sheltered the engineer; no brake checked +the speed. Sometimes the spikes fastening the iron strips to the tops +of the wooden rails worked loose, and these strips curled up and +penetrated the bottoms of the cars, greatly to the annoyance and fright +of the traveler. The bridges in those days were roofed. The smokestack +of the locomotive, being too tall to pass under the roof, was made in +two joints or sections fastened together with hinges. When the train +approached a bridge, the top section of the stack was lowered. As wood +only was used for fuel, the stack emitted a shower of sparks, smoke, +and hot cinders. The passengers coughed and sputtered, and covered +their eyes, mouths, and noses with handkerchiefs. + +The trip from Chicago to New York is about a thousand miles, over +prairie, river, and mountain. Should you make the journey between these +cities over the Pennsylvania Railroad of to-day, there would be little +danger of conflict because two rival trains might want the track at the +same time. Nor would you have to wait while ropes pulled the train up a +grade, for the locomotive can climb the hills. Instead of the old +wooden rails with their strips of iron, there is a double track of +solid steel rails all the way. The landscape would fly past you at the +rate of a mile a minute, instead of fifteen miles an hour. + +Let us suppose that you leave Chicago at 2.45 o'clock P.M., central +time. Before the train starts you could telephone to a friend without +leaving the car. You might sit down, in an elegant dining-car, to a +dinner of all the delicacies the market could afford. You might occupy +your own exclusive compartment in a luxuriously equipped Pullman car, +lit by electric bulbs, or you could spend the evening reading the +magazines, newspapers, and books provided in the train library. You +might write at a comfortable desk with train stationery, or dictate +letters and telegrams to the train stenographer. You are provided with +hot and cold water, bathing facilities, and a barber shop. A maid could +be summoned to the service of women and children; and a valet would be +in attendance to sponge and press clothing over night. You would arrive +in New York the next morning at 9.45 o'clock, having traveled the +thousand miles in eighteen hours. + +Simple as the idea of the sleeping-car is in reality, it was not +introduced until 1858, when the Lake Shore Railroad ran the first crude +and uncomfortable night-cars. George M. Pullman in 1859 set for himself +the task of producing a palace car which should be used for continuous +and comfortable travel through long distances by day and night. He +remodelled into sleeping-cars two passenger coaches belonging to the +Chicago and Alton Railroad. Though these cars fell far below the +inventor's ideal, they were far in advance of the first make-shifts and +in consequence created a demand for more and better cars of the same +kind. In 1863, at his factory in Chicago, Pullman began the +construction of the "Pioneer," the first of the Pullman palace cars. +This car was built at a cost of $18,000. It was first used in the +funeral train which conveyed the body of President Lincoln to his +burial place in Springfield, Illinois. + +Few inventions have been financially so remunerative to the inventors +as the Pullman palace car. It brought Mr. Pullman an immense fortune. +The Pullman Palace Car Company, founded by Pullman in 1867, is one of +the largest and most successful manufacturing concerns in America. It +employs a capital of $40,000,000, gives work to fourteen thousand +persons, furnishes sleeping-car service for 120,000 miles of railway, +and operates over 2,000 cars. Mr. Pullman adopted plans for the +vestibule car in 1887. He died at his home in Chicago, October 19, +1897. + + +The idea of the steamboat did not originate in the brain of Robert +Fulton. It is claimed that, as early as 1543, Blasco de Garay propelled +a boat by steam, and that in 1707, just a hundred years before the time +of Fulton's _Clermont_, Papin ran a boat with steam on a river in +Germany. In 1763 William Henry experimented with a steamboat on the +Conistoga River in Pennsylvania. + +James Rumsey, a Scotchman living in Maryland, is said to have been the +first American to discover a method for running a vessel with steam +against wind and tide. He conceived the idea in August, 1783. During +1785 he made his boat, and in 1786 he navigated it on the Potomac River +at Shepherdstown, Virginia, in the presence of hundreds of spectators. +He wrote to General Washington of his invention, and Washington wrote +concerning it to Governor Johnson of Maryland. In 1839 Congress voted a +gold medal to James Rumsey, Jr., son and only surviving child of the +inventor, in recognition of the elder Rumsey's achievement. + +In 1787 John Fitch exhibited on the Delaware River a vessel to be +propelled by steam, and in 1790, from June to September, he ran a +steamboat on that river between Philadelphia and Trenton. But he could +not induce the public to patronize his boat, and for lack of business +it had to be withdrawn. + +Some British authorities claim that the first practical steamboat +in the world was the tug "_Charlotte Dundas_," built by William +Symmington, and tried in 1802 on the Clyde and Forth Canal in Scotland. +The trial was successful, but steam towing was abandoned for fear of +injuring the banks of the canal. Symmington had built a small steamboat +that traveled five miles an hour in 1788. + +[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON] + +To Robert Fulton, an American, belongs the credit for placing the +steamboat on a successful commercial basis. Fulton was born at Little +Britain, Pennsylvania, in 1765. At the age of seventeen he adopted the +profession of portrait and landscape painter. At twenty-two he went to +England to study art. There he met James Watt, the inventor of the +steam engine, and soon he began to give attention to mechanics. In +1793 he started to work on the idea of propelling boats by steam. He +made an unsuccessful experiment with a steamboat on the Seine River in +France. The vessel sank because its construction was faulty. Fulton +returned to America and in New York harbor began to build another +boat which he named the _Katherine of Clermont_, shortened to the +_Clermont_. Her engine was procured from Boulton and Watt in England. +The boat was one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, weighed one +hundred sixty tons, and was equipped with side paddle wheels and a +sheet-iron boiler. As the inventor worked patiently at his task, the +newspapers gave him but little notice and the public ridiculed him. +The New York legislature had passed a bill granting to Fulton and to +Chancellor Livingston the exclusive right to navigate with steam boats +the waters of New York State. This bill was a standing subject of +ridicule among the legislators at Albany. + +In August, 1807, the _Clermont_ was ready for her trial trip. A large +crowd of spectators lined the banks of the Hudson as the boat slowly +steamed out into the river. The crowd jeered and hooted and shouted at +the vessel their nick-name of "Fulton's Folly." As the _Clermont_ +moved up the river, making slow headway against the current, the crowd +changed their jeers to expressions of wonder and finally to cheers. +The dry pine wood used for fuel sent out a cloud of thick, black +smoke, flames, and sparks, which spread terror among the watermen of +the harbor. The _Clermont_ made the voyage from New York up the Hudson +to Chancellor Livingston's country estate near Albany, a distance of a +hundred ten miles, in twenty-four hours. The trip was without mishap +and it thoroughly established the practicability of steam for purposes +of navigation. + +Concerning this voyage Fulton wrote to a friend in Paris: "My +steamboat voyage to Albany and back has turned out rather more +favorably than I had calculated. The voyage was performed wholly by +power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners +beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at +anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. +The morning I left New York there were not thirty persons in the city +who believed that the boat would ever move a mile an hour, or be of +the least utility. While we were putting off from the wharf, I heard a +number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men +compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. I feel infinite +pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantages my country will +derive from the invention." + +The _Clermont_ was soon running as a regular packet between New York +and Albany. The owners of sailing craft on the river hated her and +tried to sink her. The New York legislature passed a bill declaring +that any attempt to destroy or injure the _Clermont_ should be a +public offense punishable by fine and imprisonment. Then the enemies +of the boat applied to the courts for an injunction restraining Fulton +from navigating the Hudson with his steamboat. Daniel Webster appeared +as Fulton's attorney. He won the case and secured for the _Clermont_ +the full rights of the river. + +Fulton afterward built other steamboats, including a system of steam +ferries for New York City. In 1814 he constructed the first United +States war steamer. Before constructing the _Clermont_, Fulton was +interested in canals and in the invention of machinery for spinning +flax and twisting rope. He also made experiments with sub-marine +explosives in England, France, and the United States; but these were +considered failures. He died February 24, 1815. + +[Illustration: THE CLERMONT ON THE HUDSON] + +The first steamboat in the West was built at Pittsburg in 1811, and +within a few years after the first trip of the _Clermont_, steamboats +were being used on all the leading rivers of the country. + +From the earliest times men had sailed the seas, but their ships were +small and slow and subject to wind, tide, and current. The success of +the river steamboat led to the use of steam in ocean navigation. The +first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the _Savannah_, in 1818. +The vessel relied almost as much upon wind as upon steam for motive +power, but during the voyage of twenty-five days steam was used on +eighteen days. + +The wood required for fuel left little room in the vessel for freight. +With the advent of coal for fuel, and better machinery, steamships +grew in importance, and in 1837 two ships, the _Sirius_ and the _Great +Western_, crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York with the use +of steam alone. By 1850 the average time for a trans-Atlantic voyage +had been reduced to eleven or twelve days. + +[Illustration: THE LUSITANIA OF THE CUNARD LINE] + +If the old _Savannah_ could be placed beside the _Lusitania_, the +giantess of the Cunard line of ocean steamers, a comparison would +demonstrate the triumphs of the century in ocean navigation. If you +were to cross the ocean on the _Lusitania_ or her sister-ship the +_Mauretania_, you would enter a vast floating mansion seven hundred +ninety feet long, eighty-eight feet wide, eighty-one feet high from +keel to boat deck, and weighing thirty-two thousand five hundred tons. +Her height to the mastheads is two hundred sixteen feet; each of her +three anchors weighs ten tons; and her funnels are so large that a +trolley car could easily run through them. The _Lusitania_ has +accommodation for three thousand passengers, officers, and crew, and +is driven by mighty turbine engines of sixty-eight thousand horse +power. The steamer was built at a cost of $7,500,000. She has traveled +the three thousand miles across the Atlantic in about four and a half +days--the quickest trans-Atlantic voyage ever made. She moves through +the great waves of the ocean with such steadiness that passengers can +scarcely tell whether they are on water or land. A telephone system +connects all parts of the ship; there are electric elevators, a +special nursery in which children may play; a gymnasium for exercise, +shower baths, and an acre and a half of upper deck. There are five +thousand electric lights, requiring two hundred miles of wire. +Wireless telegraphy flashes messages to the moving ship from distant +parts of the world, and bears back greetings from her passengers. A +daily illustrated newspaper of thirty-two pages is published on board +ship. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ELECTRICITY: THE TELEGRAPH AND THE TELEPHONE + + +The great miracle of the twentieth century is electricity. If the +printing press is the brain of civilization and the steam engine is +its heart, electric wires are its nervous system. Steam is a giant; +electricity is a witch. There is something uncanny about it. Man +writes volumes about electricity; calls it positive and negative and +measures it in ohms and volts; gives courses to explain it in his +schools and universities; kills criminals, cures the sick, and +scatters darkness with it; makes it whirl him through space; compels +it to bear his whisper through hundreds of miles, and can make it fly +around the entire earth with his written word--and yet no man knows +what electricity is. Electricity exists, and has always existed, from +the back of a cat to the infinite arch of the sky. + +A hundred years ago practically nothing was known of electricity. +Persons now living were born into a world that had never seen an +electric telegraph, a telephone, an electric car, or an electric +light. We are living in the morning of electrical knowledge, and what +the day may bring no one can imagine. Americans have given the world +many of the greatest inventions, and in the field of electricity they +have given it nearly everything of value. It is to American ingenuity +that civilization is indebted for the electrical telegraph, the +sub-marine cable, the telephone, the electric light, and the electric +car. The names of Morse, Vail, Field, Bell, Brush, Gray, Edison, and +Sprague--all American electrical inventors--will always be prominent +in the list of the world's great benefactors. + +If you will rub a stick of sealing wax briskly with a woolen cloth, +you will find that the stick of wax will attract to itself bits of +bran, small shreds of paper, and the like. This is the simplest +experiment in electricity. In the same way, by rubbing amber with +silk, Thales, a Greek philosopher who lived in the sixth century +before Christ, is thought to have discovered electricity. The Greek +word for _amber_ is _elektron_. Because of the supposed discovery of +electricity in amber by Thales, the English word _electricity_ was +"coined" and used for the first time by William Gilbert, a British +physician and scientist, who lived during the reigns of Elizabeth and +James. + +For nearly twenty-five centuries, reaching from the time of Thales to +the opening of the nineteenth century, the world learned practically +nothing about electricity. The start in modern electrical knowledge +was made by Galvani, an Italian scientist, born in 1737, who just +before the last century dawned showed that electricity can be produced +by the contact of metals with fluids. The term _galvanic_, used in +connection with electricity, comes from the name of this investigator. +Galvani's experiments suggested the electric battery to Volta, another +Italian scientist who was born in 1745. The electrical word _voltaic_ +is in honor of Volta. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin flew his kite into the +thunderstorm and proved that lightning is electricity. A little later +Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish investigator, pointed out the +relation between electricity and magnetism. In the early part of the +nineteenth century, Michael Faraday, an eminent English physicist, +discovered the possibility of producing electric currents through the +motion of a magnet. Faraday's discovery led to the electric dynamo +machine, the source of modern power over electricity. + +The oldest and greatest of electrical inventions is the telegraph. +_Tele_ is a Greek adverb meaning "afar." _Graph_ comes from the Greek +verb "to write." _Telegraph_ therefore means "to write afar." + +The idea of telegraphic communication is more than two and a half +centuries old. In 1632 Galileo referred to a secret art of +communicating at great distances by means of magnetic needles. In 1753 +there appeared in the _Scots Magazine_ an article signed "C. M." +(since ascertained to have been Charles Morrison, of Greenock in +Scotland) setting forth a fairly clear idea of the electric telegraph. +Joseph Henry, of Washington, D.C., in 1831 signaled through an +electrical circuit a mile in length. The first commercially successful +telegraph was devised in 1837 by Samuel F. B. Morse, an American. + +Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, +April 27, 1791. He was educated in the common schools of his native +town and in Yale University, where he was graduated in 1810. After +graduation, like Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, he went to +Europe to study art, and became successful as an artist. On his return +to America in 1832, one of his fellow passengers on the ship was +Charles T. Jackson, who had been studying electricity in Paris. Jackson +told Morse of some experiments in electricity which the French had been +making, and remarked that it would be a good thing if news could be +transmitted through long distances by electricity. Morse replied, "Why +can't it be done?" From that hour he gave his time and energy to the +invention of the electric telegraph. During the remainder of the voyage +he drew plans for apparatus and tried to devise an electric alphabet. +In 1837 he put two instruments at the ends of a short line through +which he sent and received messages. About this time he met a man who +was destined to be of great service to him in promoting his invention, +and one who deserves almost as much credit for it as Morse himself. +This was Alfred Vail. + +Vail was born at Morristown, New Jersey, September 25, 1807. He was a +son of Stephen Vail, the wealthy owner of the Speedwell iron works. + +One day in September, 1837, after Morse had completed his apparatus, he +was invited to exhibit it at the University of the City of New York. +Alfred Vail was a student in the university at the time and was one of +the spectators to whom the apparatus was exhibited. He was much +impressed with it. Morse needed money, and Alfred Vail's father had it. +Morse was invited to the home of the Vails in Speedwell, where the +matter of the invention was talked over. The sum of two thousand +dollars was necessary to get the invention started. Stephen Vail agreed +to furnish the money. Alfred Vail was to construct apparatus and +exhibit it to Congress. For this he was to have one-fourth of the +proceeds arising from the patent. + +Alfred Vail set to work to construct the apparatus. A room in his +father's factory was set apart for this purpose. William Baxter, a +bright mechanic employed in the iron shops, was chosen to assist him. +As secrecy was required for the work, the room was kept locked. For +several months Vail and Baxter occupied together the locked room, +sharing each other's confidence and each other's elation or +disappointment as the work went well or ill. On January 6, 1838, +Baxter, without hat or coat, rushed to the elder Vail's residence to +announce that the apparatus was completed. + +Mr. Vail had become discouraged. However, he went to see the trial of +the apparatus. He found his son at one end of the three miles of wire +that was stretched around the room, and Morse at the other. After a +short explanation had been made to him, he wrote on a piece of paper, +"A patient waiter is no loser." He then said to his son, "If you can +send this, and Mr. Morse can read it at the other end, I shall be +convinced." The message was sent and read at the other end of the wire. +The apparatus was taken to Washington, where it created not only wonder +but excitement. + +[Illustration: SAMUEL F. B. MORSE] + +In September, 1837, Morse filed an application for a patent on his +invention. In December of the same year he failed in his effort to +secure from Congress an appropriation for an experimental line which he +proposed to build between Washington and Baltimore. In May, 1838, he +went to Europe seeking aid. The governments there refused him funds or +patents. In May, 1839, he returned to the United States and began an +heroic struggle for recognition. During this period he often suffered +for the barest necessities of life. Sometimes he could afford but a +single meal in twenty-four hours. + +Finally, after repeated disappointments, when Morse himself had almost +given up hope, the House of Representatives of the Twenty-seventh +Congress, on the last night of its session, March 3, 1843, by a vote of +ninety to eighty-two, appropriated thirty thousand dollars for building +a trial line between Washington and Baltimore. After the bill had +passed the House, the outlook for its passage in the Senate was not +bright. One Senator who was favorable to the bill advised Morse to +"give it up, return home, and think no more of it." The bill had been +made the object of opposition and ridicule; one prominent official, to +show his contempt for the project, proposed that half the amount asked +for should be used in mesmeric experiments. Morse, believing that the +Senate would defeat the appropriation, went to his lodging place to +retire for the night. He found that after paying the amount he owed at +the hotel, he would have less than forty cents left. Early the next +morning information reached him that a little before midnight the +Senate had passed the bill. Apparent failure had turned into victory; +the fight was won. + +"Work was begun at once.[1] On April 30 the line reached Annapolis +Junction, twenty-two miles from Washington, and was operated with +satisfactory results. + + [1] From an account by Stephen Vail used in _Graded Literature + Readers_, by permission of _Truth_. + +"May 1, 1844, was the date upon which the Whig convention was to +assemble in Baltimore, to nominate the candidates of that party for +President and Vice-President. It was arranged between Morse and Vail +that the latter should obtain from the passengers upon the afternoon +train from Baltimore to Washington, when it stopped at Annapolis +Junction, information of the proceedings of the convention and transmit +it at once to Morse at the Capitol in Washington. + +"The train arrived at half-past three o'clock, and from the passengers, +among whom were many of the delegates to the convention, Mr. Vail +ascertained that the convention had assembled, nominated the +candidates, and adjourned. This information he at once dispatched to +Morse, with whom was gathered a number of prominent men who had been +invited to be present. Morse sat awaiting the prearranged signal from +Vail, when suddenly there came from the instrument the understood +clicking, and as the mechanism started, unwinding the ribbon of paper +upon which came the embossed dots and dashes, the complete success of +the telegraph over twenty-two miles of wire was established. + +"Slowly came the message. When it had ended, Morse rose and said: +'Gentlemen, the convention has adjourned. The train bearing that +information has just left Annapolis Junction for Washington, and Mr. +Vail has telegraphed me the ticket nominated, and it is--' he +hesitated, holding in his hand the final proof of victory over space, +'it is--it is Clay and Frelinghuysen.' + +"'You are quizzing us,' was the quiet remark. 'It's easy enough for you +to guess that Clay is at the head of the ticket, but Frelinghuysen--who +is Frelinghuysen?' + +"'I only know,' was the dignified answer, 'that it is the name Mr. Vail +has sent to me from Annapolis Junction, where he had the news five +minutes ago from the train bound this way bearing the delegates.' + +"At that time the twenty-two miles from the Junction to Washington +required an hour and a quarter for the fastest trains, and long before +the train reached Washington the newsboys--enterprising even in those +days--had their 'extras' upon the streets, their headings 'By +Telegraph' telling the story, and being the first time that such a +legend had ever appeared upon a printed sheet. + +"A great and enthusiastic crowd greeted the delegates as they alighted +from the train at the station. They were struck dumb with astonishment +when they heard the people hurrahing for 'Clay and Frelinghuysen,' and +saw in cold type before their very eyes the information which they +supposed was exclusively their own, but which had preceded them 'by +telegraph.' They had asked Mr. Vail at the Junction what he was doing +when they saw him working the telegraph key, and when he told them, +they joked about it most glibly, for no one had any belief in the +success of the telegraph." + +[Illustration: THE FIRST MESSAGE BY TELEGRAPH] + +By May 23 the entire line was completed from Washington to Baltimore. +On the next day, May 24, 1844, Morse from Washington sent to Vail at +Baltimore the first message ever sent over the completed wire, "What +hath God wrought?" + +This famous message was dictated by Miss Ellsworth, daughter of the +commissioner of patents at that time. She had taken a keen interest in +the success of the bill appropriating the thirty thousand dollars for +the experiment, and was the first to convey to Morse the news that the +bill had passed. Morse thereupon gave Miss Ellsworth his promise that +the first message to pass over the line should be dictated by her. A +bit of the original wire and the receiver that Vail used at Baltimore +are now preserved in the National Museum in Washington. The transmitter +used by Morse at the Washington end of the line has been lost. + +Morse lived to see his system of telegraphy adopted by the United +States, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Australia. +Ninety-five per cent of all telegraphy is by his system. He finally +received a large fortune from his invention. Unlike Columbus, Morse was +honored in his lifetime for his achievement. Foreign nations bestowed +upon him honors and medals, and in August, 1858, a convention of +European powers called by Napoleon III at Paris gave Morse four hundred +thousand francs (about $80,000) as a testimonial of his services to +civilization. In October, 1842, he laid the first sub-marine telegraph +line. It was across the harbor of New York. Later he assisted Peter +Cooper and Cyrus W. Field in their efforts to lay the first Atlantic +cable. Honored by all the civilized world, he died in New York City +April 2, 1872. Thirteen years earlier Vail had died at his home in +Morristown, New Jersey. + +In the Morse system the alphabet is represented by combinations of +dots and dashes. The dots denote short currents of electricity flowing +through the wire; the dashes, longer ones. Credit for the alphabet +really belongs to Vail; Morse had devised a somewhat complicated +system, but Vail invented the dots and dashes. He discovered that _e_ +and _t_ are the most frequently used letters. He denoted _e_ by one +dot, or one short current; _t_ he indicated by one dash, or one long +current. The other letters are denoted by dots and dashes, as _a_, one +dot and one dash; _b_, one dash and three dots, etc. + +In 1838 Steinheil, a German investigator, contributed an important +element to the practical operation of the electric telegraph by +discovering that the earth could take the place of the return wire, +which up to that time had been deemed necessary to complete the +circuit. + +At first only one message could be sent over a wire at a time. Now +several messages may be transmitted in opposite directions over the +same wire at the same time. + +Wireless telegraphy is based on the principle discovered and announced +by the English scientist Michael Faraday, that heat, light, and +electricity are transmitted by ether waves, and that these ether waves +permeate all space. The first to demonstrate the practical operation of +wireless telegraphy was Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian. In 1890 he +undertook experiments to prove his theory that the electric current +readily passes through any substance, and when once started in a given +direction follows a direct course without the aid of a conductor. +Marconi made the first practical demonstration of wireless telegraphy +in 1896. In March, 1899, he sent a wireless message across the English +channel from France to England. In December, 1901, be began his first +experiments in wireless telegraphy across the Atlantic. In December of +the following year the first official trans-Atlantic wireless message +was sent. Now wireless telegraphic messages are sent regularly to and +from moving ships in mid-ocean, and across the three thousand miles of +the Atlantic between Europe and America. + +One of the most striking illustrations of the power of perseverance is +the successful struggle of Cyrus West Field in laying the Atlantic +cable. Mr. Field was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, November 30, +1819. His schooling, which was slight, was secured in his native town. +When he was fifteen years old, he secured a position in a business +house in New York City at a salary of fifty dollars a year. He +subsequently founded a prosperous business in the manufacture and sale +of paper. In 1854 Mr. Field's attention was directed to an attempt to +lay an electric cable at Newfoundland, which had failed for want of +funds. The idea of laying a cable across the Atlantic occurred to him. +He laid his plans before a number of prominent citizens of New York. On +four successive evenings they met at his home to study the project, and +they finally decided to undertake it. On May 6, 1854, a company was +organized to lay the cable, with Peter Cooper as president. + +The next twelve years Field devoted exclusively to the cable. He went +to England thirty times. The first cable was brought from England and +was to be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Forty miles had been +successfully laid, when a storm arose and the cable was cut in order to +save the ship. Then came a year's delay. Meantime the bottom of the sea +was being explored and a vast tableland was discovered stretching from +Newfoundland to Ireland. Field went to England, where he had little +difficulty in organizing a company, and work was then begun on the +construction of a new cable. Next he laid his enterprise before +Congress, and asked for money. An appropriation bill was finally passed +in the Senate by a majority of one, and was signed by President Pierce +on March 3, 1857, the day before he retired from office. Field returned +to England to superintend the construction of the cable and to make +preparations for laying it. At last it was ready, tested, and coiled on +the ship. On August 11, 1857, the sixth day out, after three hundred +and thirty-five miles had been laid, the cable parted. + +Lord Clarendon, in an interview with Field, had remarked: "But, +suppose you don't succeed? Suppose you make the attempt and fail--your +cable is lost in the sea--then what will you do?" The reply came +promptly, "Charge it to profit and loss, and go to work to lay +another." Lord Clarendon was so well pleased with the reply that he +pledged his aid. The loss of three hundred and thirty-five miles of +cable was the loss of half a million dollars. Field came back to +America and secured from the Secretary of the Navy the vessels needed +for another trial. On June 10, 1858, the United States steam frigate +_Niagara_, then the largest in the world, and the British ship +_Agamemnon_ set out from opposite shores, bound for mid-ocean. The +vessels met, and the two sections of the cable were spliced; then they +began laying it toward both shores at the same time. After a little +more than a hundred miles had been laid, this cable parted in +mid-ocean, and Field hurried to London to meet the discouraged +directors. + +On July 17, the ships set sail again for mid-ocean. The cable was +spliced in fifteen hundred fathoms of water and again the ships +started for opposite shores. Field was on the _Niagara_ headed toward +Newfoundland. Scarcely any one looked for success. Field was the only +man who kept up courage through this trying period. On August 5, 1858, +he telegraphed the safe arrival of the ship at Newfoundland. The shore +ends of the cable were laid and on August 16 a message from Queen +Victoria of England to President Buchanan flashed under the sea. There +was great excitement everywhere. The two worlds had been tied together +with a strange electric nerve. + +[Illustration: CYRUS W. FIELD] + +On the evening of the first of September a great ovation was tendered +Field in New York. National salutes were fired; processions were +formed; there was an address by the mayor, and late at night a great +banquet. While the banquet was in progress, the cable parted. + +Everyone except Field was disheartened. He went to work again, and +during the next five years, the long years of the Civil War, he +labored unceasingly. A larger cable with a greater resisting force was +made. On the twenty-third of July, 1865, the steamship _Great Eastern_ +began another attempt to lay the cable. When it was within six hundred +miles of Newfoundland, the cable parted again. For nine days attempts +were made, in two and a half miles of water, to grapple the cable, +splice it, and continue the work of laying it. Three times the cable +was grappled, but the apparatus on the ship was not strong enough to +hoist it aboard. Still Field never faltered. Another British company +was formed and another cable was constructed. The _Great Eastern_ was +again loaded and on July 13, a Friday, set sail westward laying the +cable. After an uncertain voyage of two weeks the _Great Eastern_ +arrived at Newfoundland, and the undertaking had again been +successfully accomplished. Field telegraphed his arrival as follows: +"_Hearts Content, July 27, 1866_. We arrived here at nine o'clock this +morning. All well. Thank God, the cable is laid, and is in perfect +working order. CYRUS W. FIELD." + +Twelve years of unfaltering perseverance had won. Honors were heaped +upon Field. Congress voted him a gold medal and the thanks of the +nation. The prime minister of Great Britain declared that only the fact +of his being the citizen of another nation prevented his receiving the +highest honors in the power of the British government to bestow. The +Paris "Exposition Universelle" of 1867 honored him with the Grand +Medal, the highest prize it had to give. + +Mr. Field was afterward interested in the laying of cables connecting +Europe, India, China, Australia, the West Indies, and South America. In +1880-81 he made a trip around the world, full of satisfaction in his +own part in making a new era of the world's civilization. He died at +his home in New York on July 11, 1892. + +The effect of the electric telegraph on government, intelligence, and +civilization in general can scarcely be overstated. Sydney Smith, +writing to Earl Grey after the admission of California into the United +States, said that this marked an end to the great American republic; +for how could people with such diversified interests, with such natural +barriers, hold together? He did not foresee how strongly a fine copper +wire could bind together the two seaboards and the great plains of the +interior. Without the electric telegraph, neither the great daily +newspaper nor the modern operation of railroads would be possible. It +wipes away the natural boundaries of nations and makes neighbors of all +men. + +In 1819 Sir Charles Wheatsone, an English physicist, invented an +instrument popularly known as the "magic lyre," but which he called +the telephone. The first part of this word is the same Greek adverb +_tele_ that is found in _telegraph_. The _phone_ is from another Greek +word meaning "to sound." To _telephone_, therefore, means "to sound +afar." The use of the English word _telephone_ by Wheatsone is +historically the first appearance of the word in our language. His +device did nothing but reproduce music by means of sounding boards. +The inventor of the modern telephone is Alexander Graham Bell. + +Mr. Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 3, 1847. His father was +Alexander Melville Bell, a Scotch educator, inventor of a system of +visible speech, and author of some text-books on elocution. His +grandfather was Alexander Bell, noted for his efforts to remove +impediments of speech. Alexander Graham Bell was therefore well fitted +by heredity for the invention of an instrument to transmit speech. He +was educated in the Edinburgh high school and in the University of +Edinburgh, and in 1867 he entered the University of London. Hard study +broke down his health and he moved to Canada. Thence he moved to the +United States, becoming first a teacher of deaf mutes, and afterward +professor of vocal physiology in Boston University. In 1874, at the +suggestion of the Boston Board of Education, he began some experiments +to show to the eye the vibrations of sound, for the use of the deaf and +dumb. The results of these experiments convinced Bell that articulate +speech could be transmitted through space. Early in 1876 he completed +the first telephone. The same year he exhibited it at the Centennial +Exposition at Philadelphia, where it was pronounced the "wonder of +wonders." + +He filed application for a patent on his invention at the Patent Office +in Washington, February 14, 1876. It is a singular fact that another +application for a patent on the telephone was received at the Patent +Office a few hours later on the same day from Elisha Gray, an +electrical inventor of Chicago. The patent was issued to Bell, not +because his invention was superior in merit to Gray's, but on the +ground that his application was received first. This is a case where +"the early bird catches the worm," for the profits arising from the +patent have made Mr. Bell very wealthy, and high honors have come to +him as the inventor of one of the world's greatest and most marvelous +inventions. + +The Bell Telephone Company was organized in 1877, and in 1878 the first +telephone exchanges were constructed. By the following year the +telephone was firmly established as a social and commercial necessity. +It has grown with great rapidity. It is now found in every city of the +world; hotels, large buildings, and ships have their private exchanges, +and it has found its way recently into thousands of farmhouses. + +Bell had to fight hard in the courts to sustain his patent. Suit after +suit was brought by rival claimants, attacking his right to the patent. +The litigation was bitter and protracted. One of the most noteworthy of +these suits was brought by a Pennsylvania mechanic named Drawbaugh. He +claimed that about 1872 he had made a working telephone out of a cigar +box, a glass tumbler, a tin can, and some other crude materials; and +that with the apparatus thus constructed he had talked over a wire +several hundred feet long. Many persons testified that they were +acquainted with Drawbaugh's apparatus, some of them having used it. +Some instruments, said to be the original ones which Drawbaugh had +constructed, were brought into court and exhibited. It was shown that +speech could be transmitted with them in a crude way. Drawbaugh claimed +that he was too poor at the time of making the apparatus to take out +the necessary patent. The Court decided in favor of Bell. Elisha Gray, +whose application for a patent had been received the same day that +Bell's was, also brought suit against Bell. Before making his +application, Gray had filed some preliminary papers looking forward to +a patent on the telephone. In his suit against Bell he charged that the +patent examiner had fraudulently and secretly conveyed to Bell the +contents of those papers. But Bell won this suit, and he finally +established over all rivals his legal title as the inventor of the +telephone. + +Recently a wireless system of telephoning has been in process of +development, and it will not be strange if, within a few years, we +shall be talking through space without wires, so boundless seem the +possibilities of the age. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ELECTRICITY: LIGHTING, TRANSPORTATION, AND OTHER USES + + +Man must have discovered artificial light as soon as he discovered +fire, for the two exist together. The first light was probably produced +by burning sticks or pieces of wood. In his search for more light, man +learned how to make the tallow candle. Lights made in one form or other +from the fats of animals persisted almost to the threshold of the +present. The next step forward was to the use of oil; and the next, to +the use of gas. + +The first practical use of gas for purposes of illumination was in +1792. In that year William Murdoch, an English engineer, produced gas +artificially from coal, and with it lighted his house in Cornwall, a +county of England. Nine years afterward a Frenchman named Lebon +illuminated his house and garden in Paris with gas produced from wood. +Street lighting by gas was introduced in 1807 by an Englishman named F. +A. Winzer or Windsor, in Pall Mall, one of the fine streets of London. +The first gas lights in America were installed in 1806 by David +Melville, of Newport, Rhode Island, in his residence and in the streets +adjacent. Baltimore was the first city in the United States to adopt +gas lighting for its streets. This was in 1817. + +When gas was first used, there was much opposition to it, as there +usually has been to improvements in general. The citizens of +Philadelphia protested for more than twenty years against the +introduction of gas into that city for purposes of illumination. Some +of the newspapers of the time called gas a "folly and a nuisance"; and +one of the professors in the University of Pennsylvania declared that +even if gas were the good thing its supporters were declaring it to be, +tallow candles and oil lamps were good enough for him. But gas +triumphed, and to-day the world could scarcely do without it, either +for illumination or for fuel. + +The electric light had its beginning about 1800 in the experiments of +Sir Humphry Davy, a British investigator. He discovered that if two +pieces of carbon are brought into contact, completing a circuit +through which an electric current flows, and if the carbon points are +separated by a short distance, the points will become intensely hot +and emit a brilliant light. The word _arc_, used in connection with +the arc lamp or light, refers to the gap or arc between the two carbon +points, across which the electric current leaps in creating the light. + +Following Sir Humphry Davy's experiments, several arc lights were +invented, with greater or less degree of success, and about 1860 +electricity was tried successfully for lighting in some lighthouses +along the British coast. The widespread usage and the usefulness of the +arc electric light, however, are due to Charles Francis Brush, an +electrical inventor of Cleveland, Ohio, who in 1876 simplified the arc +light so as to bring it into general use for lighting streets, large +rooms, halls, and outdoor spaces. Brush was also the inventor of an +electric-dynamo machine that has added to his fame. After the invention +of the arc light, he took out more than fifty other patents. The +incandescent electric light, for lighting residences and small rooms, +came a little later as the invention of Edison. + +Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most remarkable men of all times and +places. Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon together did not benefit +mankind as has this quiet American inventor. He was born at Milan, +Ohio, February 11, 1847. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother +was Scotch. The mother, who had been a teacher, gave him all the +schooling he received. Early in life he showed great mental vigor and +ingenuity. When he was twelve years old, he is said to have read the +histories of Hume and Gibbon. + +[Illustration: THOMAS A. EDISON] + +When Thomas was seven years old, the Edison family moved to Port +Huron, Michigan. He soon became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk railway +running into Detroit. He also became proprietor of a news stand, a +book store, and a vegetable market, each a separate enterprise in Port +Huron, employing eleven boys in all. His spare hours in Detroit, +between the arrival and departure of his train, he spent reading in +the Free Library. Before long he had bought a small hand printing +press, some old type, and plates for "patent insides" from the +proprietor of a Detroit newspaper, and using the baggage car for an +office, he started the _Grand Trunk Herald_, the first and only +newspaper ever published on a railway train. His inquiring mind led +him one day to make some chemical experiments in the car. He +overturned a bottle of phosphorus, set the car on fire, and as a +result was not permitted to use it longer for a newspaper office. + +One day young Edison snatched the child of the station agent at Mount +Clemens, Michigan, from beneath the wheels of a locomotive. In +gratitude for this act, the station agent taught him telegraphy. In a +few months his ingenuity, one of the chief characteristics of the great +inventor, led him to string a private telegraph wire from the depot to +the town. Over this wire he forwarded messages, charging ten cents for +each message. Next he went to Stratford, Canada, as night operator for +the Grand Trunk railway. One night he received an order to hold a +train. He stopped to reply before signaling the train, and when he +reached the platform the train had passed. A collision resulted, though +not a serious one, and Edison was ordered to report at the office of +the general manager. Edison hastily climbed on a freight train, went to +Port Huron, and probably has not yet called on the general manager. + +Edison worked as telegraph operator at various places. Although he was +a brilliant and rapid telegrapher, his fondness for playing pranks and +making fun lost him several positions. After making his first +experiments with a telegraph repeater, he left Indianapolis for +Cincinnati, where he earned sixty dollars per month, besides something +extra for night work. He Worked next in Louisville and Memphis. He was +poor in purse, for all his money went to defray the expenses of his +experiments. His fondness for Victor Hugo's great work, _Les +Miserables_, gained for him the nicknames of "Victor" and "Hugo." + +At Memphis he perfected his telegraph repeater and was the first to +bring New Orleans into direct communication with New York. However, the +manager at Memphis was jealous of him and dismissed him. Shabby and +destitute, he made his way back to Louisville, walking a hundred miles +of the way, and resumed his old position. After he had worked in the +Louisville office for two years, his experimenting again got him into +trouble. He upset some sulphuric acid, part of which trickled through +the floor and spoiled the carpet in the manager's room below. For this +he was discharged. He next went to New Orleans, intending to sail for +Brazil; but the ship had gone and an old Spanish sailor advised him to +stay in America. He went back to Cincinnati, where he made some of his +first experiments in duplex telegraphy, a system whereby two messages +may be sent over the same wire at the same time. + +A little while afterward, as poor as ever and as unattractive in dress, +he walked into the telegraph office in Boston, where he had procured +work. His co-workers there, thinking they would have some fun at his +expense, set him to receiving messages from the most rapid operators in +New York. Instead of throwing up his hands in defeat, as his companions +expected, he received the messages easily, with a good margin to spare, +and asked the operator sending at the other end of the line to "please +send with the other foot." He was at once placed regularly on the New +York wire. While in Boston, Edison opened a small workshop, put many of +his ideas into definite shape, and took out his first patent. It was +upon a chemical apparatus to record votes. He tried to introduce this +into Congress, but failed, although he proved that it "would work." + +He left Boston not only without money, but in debt, and went to New +York. This was in 1871 when he was twenty-four years old. At that time +an apparatus called a "gold indicator" was in use in the offices of +about six hundred brokers, to show fluctuations in the prices of gold. +The system was operated from a central office near Wall street. One day +this central office was filled with six hundred messenger boys, each +bringing the complaint that the machinery had broken. No one knew how +to repair it. A stranger walked up, looked at the apparatus, and said +to the manager, "Mr. Law, I think I can show you where the trouble is." +The machinery was repaired, the office was cleared, and order was +restored. "What is your name, sir?" asked the delighted manager. +"Edison," was the reply. He was engaged as superintendent at a salary +of $200 per month, and from that hour his fortunes were assured. + +Edison at once busied himself with inventing. He improved and invented +various machines used in the stock markets, and in 1872 perfected his +system of duplex telegraphy. Two years later he brought out the +wonderful quadruplex system, by which four messages may be sent over +the same wire at the same time. This system saved millions of dollars +and dispensed with thousands of miles of poles and wires. + +He started a large factory at Newark, New Jersey, employing some three +hundred men. Sometimes he was working on as many as forty-five +improvements and original inventions at once. In 1876 he stopped +manufacturing and turned all his attention to inventing. In that year +he established a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, twenty-five +miles from New York City. When this laboratory was outgrown, he founded +a new one at Orange, New Jersey, the largest laboratory ever +established by one man for scientific research and invention. It +comprises one building 250 feet long and three stories high, and four +smaller buildings, each one hundred feet long and one story high. The +principal building contains a library of thirty thousand reference +books, a lecture room, and an exhibition room, where a remarkable +collection of instruments of almost every kind is to be seen. + +When Edison began working to produce an incandescent electric light for +illuminating residences and small rooms, most of the scientists of +England said that such a light could not be produced. For nine years he +worked on this invention. The chief problem was to find, for the +horseshoe thread or filament used to give off the light, a material +that should glow with sufficient intensity and yet not be consumed by +the great heat necessary to produce the light. In his search for this +material he tried all kinds of rags and textiles steeped in various +chemicals, different kinds of paper, wood, inner and outer bark, +cornstalks, etc. Finally he sent one of his assistants to the East, and +in Japan a kind of bamboo was found answering the requirements. +Perseverance won, and the incandescent electric light became a reality +about 1880. + +[Illustration: AN INCANDESCENT LIGHT] + +Thomas Edison is one of the most systematic of workers, and nearly all +his inventions have been the result of intelligent and methodical labor +directed toward a definite aim. He reads carefully what other +investigators have found out, so as not to waste time in going over +fruitless ground. He also keeps copious note books of his own +operations, so that there may be no loss of time and energy. His +invention of the phonograph, however, was accidental. While he was +working to improve the telephone, the idea of the phonograph suddenly +came into his mind. A little while afterward the first phonograph, +crude but successful, was finished. At first this instrument was +regarded as a toy, but later the invention was sold for a million +dollars. + +Edison is a man of remarkable personality. Once when someone referred +to him as a genius and said that he supposed a genius worked only when +the spirit moved him, the inventor replied, "Genius is two per cent +inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration." He certainly +possesses great native talent for inventing. This was apparent in his +early boyhood. But much of his marvelous success is due to the +intelligent direction of effort, to tireless perseverance, and to long +hours of work. In 1897 he devoted his attention exclusively to the +invention of a new storage battery, upon which he had been working for +five years. For more than a year he worked harder than a day laborer. +He was in his laboratory by half past seven in the morning; his +luncheon was sent to him there; he went home to dinner, but he returned +by eight o'clock. At half past eleven his carriage called for him, but +often the coachman was compelled to wait three or four hours before the +inventor was willing to suspend his work. While the first incandescent +electric lighting plant was being prepared in New York City, Edison +himself worked part of the time in the trenches, to be sure that the +work would be properly done. + +There is scarcely an electrical apparatus or an electrical process in +existence to-day that does not bear the mark of some great change for +the better coming from this most ingenious of American inventors. He +has taken out more than four hundred patents on original inventions and +improvements. Mr. Edison is still living in his beautiful home at West +Orange, New Jersey, near his laboratory. He is frequently called the +"Wizard of Menlo Park." + +The idea of using electricity as motive power on railroads is nearly as +old as the railroads themselves. In 1837, when the utility of steam for +purposes of transportation was doubted, Robert Davidson propelled a car +with an electric engine on the Edinburgh and Glasgow road. In the +fifties Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, constructed an electric +engine containing all the essential elements of the modern electric +motor. Little progress, however, was made in the use of electricity for +motive power, because the cost of producing the electric current was so +great. In 1887 Lieut. Sprague, overcoming most of the difficulties then +existing, installed at Richmond, Virginia, the first successful +electric railway in the world. Managers of street railways in other +cities visited Richmond, and after an inspection of what Sprague had +done there, decided to substitute electricity for animal power. No +other construction has had a more rapid growth since the time of its +invention than the electric railway. In 1890 there were only thirteen +unimportant electric roads. Now there is hardly a city of the civilized +world where the hum of the electric street car is not heard at all +hours of day and night. Modern urban life could scarcely exist without +it. It is rapidly pushing its way into the country and giving the +farmer the privilege of rapid and cheap transit. + +The uses of electricity are by no means exhausted in the four major +inventions of the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, and the +electric street car. It has been put to many minor uses. Among the most +interesting and important of these are the Roentgen or X-rays, +discovered by Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen, a German physicist, in 1895. +They were named X-rays by their discoverer, because the ultimate nature +of their radiation was unknown, the letter X being commonly used in +algebra to represent an unknown quantity. The X-rays are peculiar +electric rays having the power to penetrate wood, flesh, and other +opaque substances. They are of much value to surgery in disclosing the +location of bullets, foreign substances of various kinds, and other +objective points in the interior of the human body. + +The United States government has demonstrated through its Department of +Agriculture that electricity applied to the soil will quicken and help +the growth of certain vegetables. It has also shown that certain crops +are forwarded by the application of electric light. + +The New York legislature in 1888 passed a law providing that criminals +should be executed in that state thereafter by electrocution, that is, +by sending through the body of the condemned person, a current of +electricity strong enough to produce death. Execution in this way makes +death quicker and apparently less painful than by hanging, the method +used previously, and subsequently several other states have passed laws +for electrical execution, following the example of New York. + +Elisha Gray, who contested with Bell the invention of the telephone, +was the inventor of a peculiar machine called the telautograph. _Tele_ +and _graph_ have been previously explained. _Auto_ is from a Greek +word meaning "itself." The meaning of _telautograph_, therefore, is +"to write afar by itself." By means of the telautograph, which is +operated with electric currents, if a person writes with an ordinary +lead pencil on paper, say in Washington or any other place, at the +same time the writing will be reproduced with pen and paper at the +other end of the line, in New York or wherever the message may be +sent. + +One of the important uses of electricity is in connection with the +electric block signal. This is a device for preventing railroad +collisions. The signals are operated with electricity, and show +engineers whether or not a certain section of the track ahead of them +is clear. + +Electricity is used also in the production of certain chemical +substances; in covering base metals with a coating of a precious metal, +as gold or silver, called electroplating; in producing a solid metal +page from rows of type, called an electrotype, which is used in +printing; in the navigation of small boats and the propulsion of +automobiles; in playing organs and pianos; in driving electric fans; in +drawing elevators in high buildings; in call-bells and door-bells; in +police-alarms and fire-alarms; in the treatment of certain diseases; +and in many other useful ways. What electricity may do for the future +cannot even be guessed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA + + +The birthplace of mankind is supposed to have been somewhere in Asia, +untold thousands of years ago. The race is thought to have spread +thence to the northern coast of Africa and to the peninsulas that jut +down from the south of Europe. The travelers of ancient times were the +Phoenicians. They occupied a narrow strip of land along the eastern +shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Their country was small and with +difficulty supported an increasing population. To the east of them were +barbaric hordes, who poured over the mountains and pushed the +Phoenicians to the sea, making of them traders and colonizers. As +early as twelve centuries before Christ they were founding colonies, +exploring strange lands, trading all over the known world, and leaving +their alphabet wherever they went. Arriving at a favorable place, they +would pull their ships ashore, plant a crop, wait till it had matured, +reap it, and go on. They founded many colonies on such sites. + +Herodotus, a Greek, born in Asia Minor nearly five hundred years +before Christ, is called the father of history and geography. He tells +us that in his time the earth was thought to consist of the coast +regions of the Mediterranean Sea, extending rather vaguely north and +south, and bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and on the east +by the great Persian Empire. The word _Mediterranean_ is made up of +two Latin words meaning "the middle of the earth." Eratosthenes, a +Greek geographer who was born on the northern coast of Africa about +three centuries before Christ, wrote a geographical treatise in which +he announced his belief that the earth was in the form of a sphere +revolving on its own axis. He succeeded in convincing only a few, +however, that his theory was right. The next great geographer was +Strabo, born in the northeast part of Asia Minor in the year 64 B.C. +He was a great traveler and observer, and wrote a work on geography +that has come down to us. The parts dealing with his own observations +are especially valuable. + +The great traveler of mediaeval times was Marco Polo, an Italian, born +in Venice in 1254 A.D. He traveled widely, had many adventures, and +published an account of his travels. His experiences were a great +stimulus to geographical inquiry and discovery. About this time also +the mariners' compass was introduced into Europe. Civilization seems to +be indebted to the Chinese for the compass, for it is mentioned by them +as an instrument of navigation as early as the third or fourth century +after Christ. With the advent of the compass, seamen were no longer +compelled to hug the shore; they acquired more daring to sail the open +sea, and geographical exploration was correspondingly widened. + +Geographical knowledge grew very slowly. By the beginning of the +eighteenth century, explorers had become familiar with the range of the +ocean, the outline of the continents, and with many islands. At the +beginning of the nineteenth century, four fifths of the land area of +the entire globe was unknown. Africa, except a narrow rim of coast, was +almost as little known as the planet Mars is to-day. At the opening of +the last century men knew little more about Asia than did Marco Polo, +three or four centuries earlier. In America the whole vast area west of +the Mississippi River was unknown in 1800. The coast of Australia had +not yet been traced, and nothing was known of its interior. At that +time South America was better known than any other of the continental +land masses, except Europe; now it is the least explored of all. The +nineteenth century, wonderful for advancement in many fields of human +endeavor, was a marvelous one for the growth of geographical knowledge. +As we stand in the doorway of the twentieth century, there is scarcely +one eleventh of the land area of the whole earth that remains +unexplored. Lewis and Clark pushed their way through the unknown +vastness of the American Northwest; Livingstone and Stanley penetrated +the dark continent of Africa; and in September, 1909, Lieut. Robert E. +Peary of the United States Navy startled civilization by announcing his +discovery of the North Pole. With the exception of a few interior +tracts to-day, the only portions of the earth unknown and unmapped lie +around the poles, and these are being rapidly sought out and brought to +knowledge. + +Of all geographical conquests, by far the greatest is the discovery of +America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 A.D. The story of Columbus is +one of the most interesting and pathetic in history. It is a story of +toil, hardship, perseverance, and great success, requited with +disappointment and disgrace. + +Christophoro Colombo was born in Genoa, Italy, about 1435 or 1436 A.D. +Following the custom of those times in giving names Latin forms, his +name became Christopher Columbus. In Latin the word _columba_ means +"dove." His father was a wool-comber who was wealthy enough to send +his son to a university, where he studied mathematics and astronomy. +On leaving the university, he worked a few months at his father's +trade, but when he was fifteen years old he determined to be a sailor. + +Of the late boyhood and early manhood of Columbus little is known. He +seems to have traveled much, and it is certain that he studied much. It +was popularly supposed in the time of Columbus that the earth was flat; +that it was surrounded by a great world-river called "Oceanus" or the +ocean, and that if one should come to the edge he would plunge down +into illimitable space. From the time of Eratosthenes and Aristotle, +Greek thinkers and scholars who lived several hundreds of years before +the birth of Christ had known that the earth was round, and Columbus +believed this fact too. He mastered the books, both ancient and +contemporary, on geography and navigation, learned to draw charts and +to construct spheres, and fitted himself to be a practical seaman and +navigator. + +In 1470 he arrived at Lisbon, Portugal, after he had been shipwrecked +in a sea fight and had escaped to land on a plank. In Portugal he +married the daughter of an old sea captain. He pored over the logs and +papers of his father-in-law, and talked with old seamen of their +voyages and of the mysteries of the western sea. About this time he +seems to have arrived at the conclusion that much of the world remained +undiscovered. There were strange rumors about the western sea. +Navigators had seen queer pieces of wood and some canes in the ocean, +and the bodies of two strange men had been washed ashore, "very +broad-faced, and differing in aspect from Christians." European +commerce was in need of a shorter route to Asia than the overland route +then in use. Columbus hoped that he could reach the eastern coast of +Asia by sailing west. He did not believe the earth as large as it +really is, and he over-estimated the size of Asia, so that he did not +realize the breadth of the Atlantic or the magnitude of the task before +him. + +Columbus was poor, and money was required for so huge an undertaking as +a voyage to Asia. It was necessary, therefore, for him to seek aid in +the enterprise. He asked help first from the senate of his native town, +Genoa; but Genoa turned to him an unhearing ear. He applied next to +King John of Portugal. The king referred the matter to a council of +geographers, who reported against it. With the lurking hope that there +might be something in the plan, the king was dishonorable enough to +send out an expedition secretly to test it. The sailors who made the +attempt soon lost heart and returned without having accomplished +anything. When Columbus learned of the king's secret attempt, he was so +outraged that he left Portugal for Spain. At about the same time he +sent his brother Bartholomew to England to enlist the assistance of the +British sovereign, King Henry VII. After much waiting and much +vexation, Columbus at last gained the interest of the Spanish king, +Ferdinand, who referred the proposition to a council of his astronomers +and geographers. They finally decided that the project was vain and +visionary and that they could have nothing more to do with it. + +In great discouragement Columbus began preparations to go to France. At +the door of a monastery in the little maritime town of Palos, he +knocked and asked for bread and water for his son, Diego, who was +accompanying him. He was received at the monastery, and there he met +some persons of influence who interceded for him with the Spanish +queen, Isabella. He went to the Court again, his plan was once more +investigated, and once more Columbus was refused the aid he was +seeking. He set out for France and had journeyed some distance on the +way. In the meantime an official won the queen's consent to the +enterprise, and there is a story that in her enthusiasm she offered to +pledge her jewels to raise money for the expedition. A messenger who +was sent to overtake Columbus brought him back, and on the seventeenth +of April, 1492, the formal agreement between him and the king and queen +of Spain was entered into, signed, and sealed. + +Columbus's aim was to find the east coast of Asia. For the +accomplishment of this he had a number of motives. He wanted to win +wealth and fame for himself, to provide a shorter and cheaper route for +commerce with the East, and to convert to Christianity the Grand Khan, +a great Asiatic ruler, to whom he bore a letter of introduction from +the rulers of Spain. + +Great difficulty was experienced in finding sailors for so uncertain +and terrifying a trip. Freedom was offered to convicts and bankrupts if +they would accompany the expedition. At last seamen were secured to man +three small ships, stores were provided, and everything was made ready +for the voyage. The adventurers numbered, all told, one hundred and +twenty. The shore presented a strange spectacle on the morning of +departure. The friends of the sailors stood on shore weeping and +wringing their hands, confident in the belief that their loved ones +would be swallowed up by some fabulous monster of the western deep, or +in some way be forever lost to them. On the morning of Friday, August +3, 1492, at eight o'clock, the little fleet of three ships weighed +anchor at the port of Palos, Spain, and set out on the most uncertain +and the greatest of all ocean voyages. + +The ships had been on the sea three weeks, and no land had yet been +sighted. The compass no longer pointed due north. A meteor fell into +the ocean not far from the ships. The sailors lost courage. They +declared that they must perish if they went on, and that their +commander ought to be compelled to return. Some of them proposed to +throw him into the sea. Columbus kept two reckonings; a correct one for +himself, and an incorrect one to appease the sailors. He pleaded with +his men to be courageous, as long as mild methods availed. He then grew +harsh and commanded them. Through all the uncertainty and the +mutterings of the sailors, he clung unwaveringly to his purpose--to +push forward. He had no thought of going back. + +Flying birds and floating objects promised land, but time went on and +no land appeared. The sailors grew more and more violent. On the night +of the eleventh of October, Columbus himself saw a light in the +distance, which sometimes flickered and sometimes disappeared, as if it +might be a torch borne by some one walking. All were now in eager +expectancy. At two o'clock on the morning of Friday, October twelfth, a +cannon fired from one of the vessels announced that a sailor had +actually discovered land. + +When daylight came, Columbus landed. The first thing he did upon +reaching the shore was to fall upon his knees, kiss the earth, and with +tears of joy thank God for deliverance from the perils of such a +voyage. His men, ashamed of their mutiny and distrust, threw themselves +at his feet, imploring his forgiveness. Columbus next drew his sword, +planted the royal banner, and in the name of the Spanish sovereigns +took possession of the country. In honor of his deliverance he named +the place San Salvador, which means Saint Savior, or Holy Savior. + +One of his three vessels was wrecked by a storm near the island of +Santo Domingo, called also Hayti and Hispaniola. Columbus built a fort +on this island from the wrecked ship, and left in it a colony of about +forty of the crew. Desirous of returning to Spain with an account of +his voyage, he set sail in January, 1493, on the return trip. A +terrific storm was encountered. Columbus, fearing that his ships might +sink, and wishing to preserve a record of what he had done, wrote an +account of the voyage on a piece of parchment and placed it in a cask, +which he threw overboard in the hope that it might be carried to shore +and found. The storm abated, however, and on the fifteenth of March he +sailed with two of his vessels into the port of Palos. + +[Illustration: COLUMBUS ON THE DECK OF THE SANTA MARIA. From the +painting by von Piloty] + +He entered the city amid the shouts of the people, the booming of +cannons, and the ringing of bells. Hastening to Barcelona, where the +king and queen were then holding court, he was received with a +triumphal procession. Seated next to the throne, he gave an account of +his discoveries and exhibited the new country's products which he had +brought back--gold, cotton, parrots, curious weapons, strange plants, +unknown birds and beasts, and the nine Indians whom he had brought with +him for baptism. Great honors were poured upon him. The king and queen +could scarcely do enough for him. + +In September, 1493, Columbus sailed westward on his second voyage. The +fort which he had built on Santo Domingo was found burned, and the +colony was scattered. He decided to build a second fort, and coasting +forty miles east of Cape Haytien he selected a site where he founded +the town of Isabella, named in honor of the Spanish queen. He +discovered and explored a number of the islands of the West Indies, +including Porto Rico, which has belonged to the United States since the +recent war with Spain. The second voyage closed with his return to +Spain in June, 1496. + +On next to the last day of May, 1498, with six ships Columbus set out +on his third voyage. On the first day of August he discovered the +Continent of South America. He thought it was only an island. Sailing +along the shore, he believed that the various capes which he passed +were islands, and not until he reached the mouth of the great Orinoco +River did he conclude that what he had discovered was not an island but +a great continent. + +On his return to the new town of Isabella, he found that matters had +not gone well there while he was away. The natives had risen in revolt +against the tyranny of the governor whom Columbus left to rule the +island in his absence. For some time Columbus's enemies, who had become +jealous of him, had been trying to poison the minds of the Spanish king +and queen against him. Finally the Spanish rulers sent an officer to +inquire into the affairs of the new colony. When this officer arrived, +he took possession of Columbus's house, put Columbus in chains, and +sent him back to Spain. These chains Columbus kept to the day of his +death, and his son Hernando says his father requested that they might +be buried with him. After he arrived in Spain, he was restored to the +good will of the king and queen who soon sent him on another voyage. + +In May, 1502, Columbus set sail on his fourth and last voyage, during +which he endured very great dangers. Two of his vessels were destroyed +by a storm and the other two were wrecked off the coast of Jamaica. +Separated from all the rest of the world, a number of his companions +revolted, threatened his life, deserted him, and settled on another +part of the island. The natives ceased to bring him food, and death +seemed imminent. In this extremity he took advantage of an approaching +eclipse of the moon. He told the natives that his God would destroy the +moon as a token of the punishment to be inflicted upon them, if they +did not bring the white men food. When the eclipse came, the natives +implored Columbus to intercede for them with his God, and they brought +him food in abundance. After the shipwreck, the navigator sent some of +his boldest men in canoes to ask relief of the governor of the colony +in Hispaniola. The messengers reached the colony in safety, but the +governor would not undertake the rescue of Columbus. They bought a +vessel, took it to Jamaica, and after a year of danger and anxiety on +the island, in June, 1504, Columbus started on his homeward voyage. In +September of this year he landed on Spanish soil for the last time. +This final voyage was not productive of any important results. + +Soon after his return Queen Isabella died, and about two years later, +on May 12, 1506, Columbus himself died at Valladolid, Spain. He was +buried first at Valladolid, but his remains were soon transferred to a +monastery in Seville, Spain. They were exhumed in 1536 and taken across +the sea to the city of Santo Domingo, on the island of Hayti, which he +had discovered. In 1796 the remains were taken to Havana, Cuba, where +they remained until the close of the Spanish-American war. In 1898, +after the island of Cuba had passed from Spain to the United States, +the body of the great admiral was taken across the Atlantic again to +Spain, where it now rests. + +In person Columbus was tall and well formed. Early in life he had +auburn hair, but by the time he was thirty years old his hair had been +turned white with care, hardship, and trouble. His face was long, and +he had gray eyes and an aquiline nose. He was moderate in all his +habits, and was one of the most religious of men. He was of a poetic +temperament and thus lacked some of the essential qualities of great +leadership. He was broad in his outlook, noble in his aspirations, and +benevolent in spirit. + +Columbus died ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new world. +He believed that the great continent which he gave to civilization was +Asia, and that he had only found a new way to that country. He called +the natives whom he found "Indians," thinking that they were +inhabitants of India. When it was known that a new country had actually +been discovered, it was named "America" in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, +an Italian geographer and navigator, who visited, it seems, the +mainland of this country in 1497. The land discovered by Columbus on +the night of October 12, 1492, is believed to have been Watling's +island, one of the groups of the West Indies. + +Eighteen years elapsed between the time when Christopher Columbus +conceived his enterprise and that August morning in 1492 when he set +sail on his first voyage of discovery. He had gone about from place to +place seeking aid, but spurned everywhere. These years were spent in +almost hopeless anxiety, in poverty, and in neglect. The people of his +day thought him crazy. When he passed by, they pointed to their +foreheads and smiled. He braved the dangers of unknown waters, of +mutinous crews, of hostile natives, and of starvation. What is worse, +he endured the arrows of jealousy, slander, and misrepresentation. He +had a contract with the Spanish crown whereby he was to receive certain +honors and wealth as a result of his discoveries. He could not get King +Ferdinand to fulfill the contract. He was sent home in chains from the +great hemisphere he had discovered, and even the honor of its name went +to another who had no claim to it. + +Through the career of every successful man there runs a grim +determination to do the thing in hand. Columbus had this determination +and with it he triumphed. The stars hid themselves behind storms; the +compass refused to act normally; a strange and terrible ocean roared; +mutiny howled and jealousy hissed, but on one thing he was +determined--he would do his best to accomplish the thing he had set +himself to accomplish; and he did it. + +One of the most inspiring poems in American literature is Joaquin +Miller's "Columbus:"-- + + Behind him lay the gray Azores, + Behind the Gate of Hercules; + Before him not the ghost of shores, + Before him only shoreless seas. + The good mate said: "Now must we pray, + For lo! the very stars are gone. + Brave Adm'r'l, speak, what shall I say?" + "Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'" + + "My men grow mutinous day by day; + My men grow ghastly wan and weak." + The stout mate thought of home; a spray + Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. + "What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, + If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" + "Why, you shall say at break of day: + 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'" + + They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, + Until at last the blanched mate said: + "Why, now not even God would know + Should I and all my men fall dead. + These very winds forget their way, + For God from these dread seas is gone. + Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak and say"-- + He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!" + + They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: + "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. + He curls his lips, he lies in wait, + With lifted teeth as if to bite! + Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word: + What shall we do when hope is gone?" + The word leapt like a leaping sword: + "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" + + Then, pale and worn he kept his deck + And peered through darkness. Ah, that night + Of all dark nights! And then a speck-- + A light! a light! a light! a light! + It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! + It grew to be time's burst of dawn. + He gained a world; he gave that world + Its grandest lesson: "Oh! sail on!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WEAPONS AND GUNPOWDER + + +Man's weapons of warfare, offensive and defensive, have been many and +curious. David slew Goliath with a stone from a sling. The Scriptures +tell us that Samson, the mighty man of the Bible, killed a thousand +Philistines at one time with the jaw-bone of an ass. The study of the +development of arms makes one of the most significant chapters in the +history of civilization. + +The use of stone weapons seems to have been universally characteristic +of the earlier races of mankind, as it still is distinctive of the +ruder races. The weapons made from stone were necessarily few and +simple. The most common was an ax, made from various kinds of stone and +with varying degrees of skill. Spear-points and arrow-heads were made +of flint. These show a comparatively high type of workmanship. The +highest efforts of the ancient stone-workers culminated in a +leaf-shaped dagger or knife of flint, various in form but uniform in +type. These flint daggers differed also in size, but seldom exceeded a +foot in length. They were never ground or polished, but delicately +chipped to a fine, straight edge, and were often beautiful. + +[Illustration: STATUES SHOWING KNIGHTS IN ARMOR] + +In the Bronze Age several kinds of bronze daggers were made. The +characteristic weapon of this period, however, was the leaf-shaped +bronze sword. "No warlike weapon of any period is more graceful in form +or more beautifully finished." This sword had a very thin edge on both +sides running from hilt to point, and the handle was of bone, horn, or +wood. The thinness of the edge seems to have been produced without the +aid of hammer or file. The weapon was better fitted for stabbing and +thrusting than for cutting with the edge. Bronze spear-points have been +found, but throughout the Bronze Age arrow-heads were made of flint. +There were also shields of bronze, held in the hand by a handle +fastened to the center. The period of transition between the Bronze Age +and the Iron Age is marked by an iron sword, which was similar in form +to the leaf-shaped bronze sword. + +Homer, the great Greek bard who is supposed to have lived about a +thousand years before the birth of Christ, in speaking of the wars of +the Greeks, describes their weapons somewhat fully. They used a +double-edged, bronze-bladed sword, the hilt and scabbard of which were +adorned with gold and silver. In the combats of the Homeric age, +however, the spear, lance, or javelin played the principal part; swords +were used only for fighting at close range. Bows and arrows also were +used. The only iron weapon specifically mentioned is the arrow-head. +This was inserted in a split shaft, precisely like the flint +arrow-heads of the early North American Indians and other modern +savages. The defensive armor of the heroic age of Greece was entirely +of bronze. It consisted of a helmet for the head, cuirass for the +chest, greaves for the legs, and a shield. The bronze cuirass was often +ornamented with gold. The shield was round or oval in shape, very +large, and covered with hide. The Greeks of the later or historic age +fought chiefly with long, heavy spears. Later the shield was reduced in +size and the sword increased in length. The light-armed troops were +furnished with a light javelin having a strap or thong fastened to the +middle to assist in hurling. A linen corselet came into use instead of +the heavy metal cuirass. The mounted troops were supplied with a longer +sword, a javelin, and a short dagger. + +The military strength of early Egypt lay in her archers, who fought +either on foot or from chariots. The Egyptian bow was a little shorter +than a man's height. The string was of hide or cord; the arrows were of +reed, winged with three feathers and pointed with bronze heads, and +were from two to three feet in length. The Egyptian archers carried a +curved, broad-bladed sword, and a dagger or a battle-axe for combat at +close quarters. Their defensive armor consisted of a quilted head-piece +and coat. They used no shield, as this would have interfered with the +use of the bow. The infantry were classified according to the weapons +with which they fought--as spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, and slingers. +The spears were five or six feet long and had triangular or leaf-shaped +heads of bronze. The spearmen carried shields shaped like a door with a +curved top, having a hole in the upper portion through which they could +look. These shields were about half as high as a man and were covered +with hairy hide, with the hair attached. The early swords of Egypt were +of bronze, straight, double-edged, tapering from hilt to point, and +measuring from two and a half to three feet in length. + +The ancient Assyrians fought with swords somewhat like those of Egypt. +They used also bows, lances, spears, and javelins. Their shields were +round and convex; and their cuirass was a close-fitting garment made of +many layers of flax, plaited together or interwoven, and cemented and +hardened with glue. This linen corselet was found also among the +Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. + +The characteristic weapon of the Romans, the greatest warriors of +ancient times, was what the Romans themselves called the "pilum." This +weapon was a pike having a stout iron head carried on a rod of iron. +The iron rod was about twenty inches long and terminated in a socket +for the insertion of the wooden shaft, which was a little more than +three feet in length. The entire weapon was therefore about five feet +long. The pilum could be hurled as a javelin with great effect. +Piercing the shield of the enemy, the slender iron rod bent under the +weight of the shaft, which trailed along the ground, making the shield +useless for purposes of defense. When used at close quarters, the pilum +had something of the efficiency of the modern bayonet; and when wielded +firmly in both hands, it served to ward off sword-strokes, which fell +harmlessly upon the long and strong iron neck of the weapon. No warrior +of ancient times was more formidable than the Roman with his pilum. The +Romans had also swords of bronze and bronze armor, resembling the armor +and the swords of the Greeks. In the prosperous days of Rome, her +legions, under one of the greatest military commanders of all time, +Julius Caesar, brought nearly all the world of that day to the feet of +their general. + +The Franks, a Germanic people who lived early in the Christian era and +who gave their name to France, used the battle-ax as their chief +weapon. It had a broad blade and a short handle and was used as a +missile. It is said that a blow of an ax, when hurled, would pierce an +enemy's shield or kill him, and that the Franks rarely missed their +aim. They wore no armor, not even helmets, though they carried swords, +round shields, and darts with barbed iron heads, which were used for +throwing or thrusting. When this dart became fixed in an adversary's +shield, it was the habit of the Frank to bound forward, place a foot +upon one end of the trailing dart, and, compelling the enemy to lower +his shield, slay him with the battle-ax. The Franks used also a short, +straight, broad-bladed sword, double-edged and obtuse at the point. The +military organization of the later Franks changed from infantry to +cavalry, and this change gave way in time to the era of chivalry. The +superior soldiers of the time of Charlemagne had added to their +equipment the celebrated coat of mail. + +[Illustration: A KNIGHT IN ACTION] + +Our early Anglo-Saxon fathers fought with swords, spears, axes, and a +heavy, single-edged knife. The sword was especially the weapon of the +horseman, and was not carried by anyone under the rank of thane. The +infantry bore the other weapons. The early Anglo-Saxons do not appear +to have used the bow and arrow, though in later times the long bow was +an important weapon in England. The Anglo-Saxons of olden times were +not strong in cavalry. Saxon warriors carried round or oval shields +made of wood and covered with leather. Suits of metal armor were worn +for defense. + +The gallant knights of the Middle Ages fought on horseback, as they +went about protecting the weak, redressing the wrongs of the injured, +and upholding right against might. They were clad in armor of metal, +with swords buckled to their sides. Mail armor of interlinked metallic +rings was used until the beginning of the fourteenth century. From this +time to the beginning of the seventeenth century, armor was made of +solid plates of metal. After 1600, armor was gradually replaced by a +new agent of warfare, against which it was no protection. Likewise the +shield, the dagger, and the bow gave way, though the long bow continued +in use as an English weapon until the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign. + +[Illustration: AN ARCHER OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY] + +The invention of gunpowder was one of the most far-reaching events of +all history. This terrific substance has not only revolutionized +warfare, but has changed the current of human history itself. It is not +known who invented gunpowder, or when it was first used. It is a +compound of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur; the proportions in which +these three ingredients are mixed vary in different countries and in +different kinds of powders. It seems likely that powder was invented in +the Far East, perhaps in China. Saltpetre comes, for the most part, +from China and India, on whose vast plains it is found mixed with the +soil. An ordinary wood fire kindled on ground containing saltpetre +would bring the saltpetre into contact with charcoal, and thereby +practically produce powder. It is probable that the discovery of the +explosive occurred in this accidental way. Fireworks were used in China +from a very early date, but it is doubtful if the Chinese, or any other +nation of Asia, used gunpowder as a propelling force. It was left for +the Western nations to develop and give practical value to the +discovery of the Chinese. + +Our first knowledge of powder as an agency of war dates from about the +year 700 A.D., when it was used by the Byzantine emperors in defending +Constantinople against the Saracens. It was employed there, however, +not as a propelling force, but in the form of rockets or a fiery liquid +called Greek fire. Its first real use in Europe as a power for +propulsion was in Spain, where the Moors and the Christians both used +some kind of artillery as early as the twelfth century after Christ. +Gunpowder was first introduced into England by Roger Bacon, a British +scientist, who was born early in the thirteenth century. He probably +did not discover its properties independently, but by reading ancient +manuscripts. Owing to the crude and uncertain methods of making +gunpowder, it did not attain much value until Berthold Schwarz, a +German monk, at about 1320 A.D. introduced an improved method of +manufacture. The improved powder thus made was first used in England by +King Edward III in his war against the Scotch in 1327. It was perhaps +used on the continent of Europe earlier than this, but the occasions +are uncertain. The tubes from which the missiles were propelled were +called "crakeys of war." + +Spenser called cannon "those devilish iron engines." They were probably +used for the first time in field warfare by the English in the battle +at Crecy, a small town in France, where on August 26, 1346, the English +defeated the French. The artillery seemed to have been used in this +battle merely to frighten the horses of the enemy, and the cannon were +laughed at as ingenious toys. + +From the Battle of Crecy onward, the use of gunpowder spread rapidly +throughout Europe, the Russians being the last to adopt it. Saltpetre, +at first used in its natural state, began to be produced artificially, +and then the manufacture of powder extended among the nations. During +the French Revolution, according to Carlyle, the revolutionists were +driven to such extremities for want of powder that they scraped old +cellars seeking material for its manufacture. Many recent improvements +have been made in the production of gunpowder, the most important +resulting in the smokeless powder. + +Before the introduction of cannon using gunpowder as a propelling +force, various machines were used in warfare for hurling missiles. +Large stones and heavy darts or arrows were thrown by means of tightly +twisted ropes, like the action of a bow, or through the aid of a lever +and sling. Various names were applied to these weapons, the chief of +which were the ballista and the catapult. The ballista hurled stones by +means of a twisted cord or a lever; the catapult by darts or arrows +could throw a projectile half a mile. Both machines were used by the +Romans with great effect, in both defensive and offensive warfare. +In destroying the wall of a besieged town, the Romans used a +battering-ram. It consisted of a beam of wood with a mass of bronze or +iron on the end resembling a ram's head. In its earliest form, the +battering-ram was beaten against the wall by the soldiers; later it was +suspended in a frame and made to swing with ropes. Another kind moved +on rollers, the swinging movement being given to it also by means of +ropes. The beam of the ram was from sixty to one hundred and twenty +feet long, the head sometimes weighed more than a ton, and as many as a +hundred men were necessary to swing it. For the protection of the +soldiers using it, a wooden roof covered it, and the whole was mounted +on wheels. Scarcely any wall could resist the continued blows of the +battering-ram. The Romans were the most effective in the use of this +engine, though they borrowed it from the Greeks. + +The first cannon were clumsy and comparatively inefficient. They were +made of wooden bars held together with iron hoops, and they shot balls +of stone. Cannon of bronze were next made, and in the latter part of +the fifteenth century iron cannon came into use. The next improvement +was the production of cannon of steel, and for some years past the best +artillery has been made of this material. After stone balls ceased to +be used, round balls of iron were utilized. These in time gave way to +cylindrical projectiles of steel. Originally cannon were loaded at the +muzzle, but in recent years breech-loading devices have been developed, +so that now all of the best modern guns are loaded from the rear. + +Within the last twenty-five years, rapid-fire guns have been developed. +These have a mechanism by which the breech is opened and closed again +by a single motion of a lever. The loading with projectile and powder +is also done with one motion. The rapidity of firing varies from two +hundred shots per minute in the smallest guns to one shot in two +minutes in the largest. The largest British cannon are nearly eighteen +inches in calibre (diameter of bore), weigh a hundred tons, are +thirty-five feet long, shoot a shell weighing nearly a ton, consume at +each charge 450 pounds of powder, and have the power of penetrating +solid iron armor plate to the depth of almost two feet, at a distance +of one thousand yards. At least a year and a quarter is required for +making one of the great, heavy guns, and often a longer time. The cost +of constructing one of the largest English cannon is about $117,000, +and it costs about $175 to fire the gun once. Some of the most powerful +cannon may be relied upon to hit an object ten feet high at a distance +of about nine thousand yards. In battle, however, owing to conditions +of atmosphere and the limitations of human vision, fire would rarely be +opened at a greater distance than three thousand yards, or not quite +two miles. + +Guns discharged by machinery have been introduced within the last +half-century. The fire from machine guns is practically continuous. +Several kinds have been invented and improved by various persons. One +of the best types of this kind of ordnance is the Gatling gun, invented +in 1860 by Dr. R. J. Gatling, of Indianapolis. It consists of a number +of parallel barrels, usually ten, grouped around and fastened to a +central shaft. Each barrel has its own mechanism for firing. As the +barrels revolve, loaded cartridges are fed into them by machinery and +the empty cartridges are ejected. By means of an automatic mechanism, +the bullets may be scattered over such an arc in front as may be +desired, or concentrated upon a narrower range. The Gatling gun can +fire at the rate of 1200 shots per minute; it literally hails bullets. + +The greatest name connected with the manufacture of modern cannon is +that of Herr Alfred Krupp, of Germany, who was born at Essen in 1812 in +humble circumstances. He erected the first Bessemer steel works in +Germany in the city of his birth, and was the pioneer in the +introduction of steel for the manufacture of heavy guns. He believed in +the utility of steel when the great governments of the earth had no +faith in it. The works at Essen cover in all about one thousand acres, +and in them twenty thousand persons find employment. To Krupp Germany +owed much, and was not negligent in paying him honor. His factory +supplied artillery to nearly all the nations of Europe. He died in +July, 1887, and was succeeded in the management of the works by his son +Alfred, who also died recently. The plant still continues in operation. + +[Illustration: MUSKETEER AND PIKEMAN OF THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] + +The first portable or hand gun consisted of a simple iron or brass tube +fastened to a straight stock of wood. Horsemen used the first guns, and +fired them by placing the end of the stock against the breast and +letting the barrel rest on a fork fastened to the saddle. The gun was +discharged by applying a lighted match to a touch-hole in the top of +the barrel. One kind of powder was used for priming; another for +firing. Before the invention of cartridges, the powder and bullets were +loaded separately at the muzzle, with some kind of packing between. The +colonial rifles in America were loaded in this way. In a fight at close +quarters, after a gun had been once discharged, the soldier had to +fight with his sword. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the +bayonet was invented, taking its name from the town of Bayonne, in +France, where the inventor lived. + +The lighted match which soldiers originally carried for igniting their +guns gave way to the flint and steel; and in 1807 a Scotch clergyman +named Forsyth obtained a patent which led to the invention of the +percussion cap. This improvement revolutionized the mechanism of +firearms. Many improvements have been made recently in arms, so that +cartridges containing cap, powder, and projectile are fed automatically +into guns so delicately constructed that they have great carrying +power, precision, and rapidity. + + +From the dawn of human existence man has sought by some method or other +to overcome natural barriers of water. The idea of the ship is as old +almost as the race itself. The most primitive form of vessel was the +raft. In prehistoric ages men made vessels by hollowing out the trunks +of trees, either with fire or with such crude tools as they possessed. +The Latin poet Virgil mentions "hollowed alders" used for boats, and +indeed canoes were made from hollowed tree trunks as long ago as the +Stone Age. The next step forward in the art of shipbuilding was the +bark canoe. In countries where bark is scarce, small vessels were made +of skins, felt, or canvas covered with pitch. In process of time, boats +were made by fastening timbers together, and in this method the basic +principle of modern shipbuilding was reached. + +It is the relation of ships to purposes of war that interests us here. +When the curtain rose for the drama of civilization in Egypt five +thousand years ago, men were fighting at sea. The oldest ships of which +we have knowledge were Egyptian. The vessels of war were then propelled +by oarsmen, who were protected from the missiles of the enemy by +planks. On the Egyptian war-galleys there was often a projecting bow to +which was attached a metal head for ramming the vessels of the enemy. + +Our knowledge of Greek fighting ships--thanks to Greek literature--is +fairly full. In the time of Homer, about ten centuries before Christ, +Greek men-of-war carried crews of from fifty to one hundred and twenty +men, nearly all of whom took part in the labor of rowing. A military +boat called the "bireme" came into use in Greece about six or seven +centuries before Christ. The word means a vessel with two rows or banks +of oarsmen on each side, one row above the other. This disposition of +rowers was evidently for the purpose of securing the largest possible +number in the least possible space. It is probable that the Greeks did +not originate the bireme, but borrowed the idea from the Phoenicians +or possibly from Egypt. When Athens was at the zenith of her glory, the +principal war vessel was the "trireme," a ship with three rows of +oarsmen to the side, each rising above another. Larger ships were +subsequently constructed with four, five, and even sixteen banks of +rowers to a side, tier above tier. + +The Romans, although they were so powerful in land warfare, were not +strong in naval achievement until after the First Punic War. In this +war they learned the art of naval construction from their enemies, the +Carthaginians. A Carthaginian "quinquereme," or boat with five banks of +oars, drifted to the Roman coast. The Romans copied it, set up frames +on dry land in which crews were taught to row, and in sixty days from +the time the trees were felled they had built and manned a fleet. Later +the Romans used grappling hooks with which they bound together their +own and an opposing ship. They then boarded the enemy's vessel and +carried on the fight at close quarters. These tactics gave the Romans +command of the sea, and their war galley came to be the supreme object +of terror in the naval history of Roman days. + +Sails and wind superseded rowers as the motive force of ships. Then +came steam. But after gunpowder and steam had worked a revolution in +the modes of naval combat, vessels of war continued to be made of wood. + +The first fight between iron ships in the history of the world was +fought on the ninth of March, 1862, in Hampton Roads, near Norfolk, +Virginia, during the Civil War in America. The battle was the combat +between the _Merrimac_ and the _Monitor_. This engagement marked the +end of wooden navies. Thenceforth the nations of earth were to make +their warships of iron and steel. + +Among the largest battleships built for the United States navy are the +_Delaware_ and the _North Dakota_. Each of these battleships is five +hundred and ten feet long, a little more than eighty-five feet wide, +sinks to the depth of nearly twenty-seven feet in the water, and +travels at the rate of twenty-one knots per hour. Each vessel weighs +twenty thousand tons, and is armed with ten great guns a foot in +diameter at the mouth. The _North Dakota_ required 4688 tons of steel +armor at a cost of more than four hundred dollars per ton. Each of its +great twelve-inch guns cost nearly $110,000, weighs fifty-two tons, +and hurls a projectile weighing 850 pounds a distance of twelve miles. +Three hundred and eighty-five pounds of powder are consumed at a +single discharge. At a distance of more than a mile and a half the +projectiles of the _North Dakota_ will penetrate steel armor to a +depth of nearly twenty inches. When these projectiles leave the guns, +they fly through the air at the rate of 2,800 feet in a second. When +one hundred shots have been fired from one of these guns, it is worn +so that it will be useless until repaired. The cost of a single +discharge from one of these guns is about $350. + +Sub-marine navigation has always been attended by the most woeful +catastrophes, but in spite of numerous accidents the development of the +submarine boat has progressed uninterruptedly. Each new model presents +new preventive devices. Flasks of oxylithic powder are carried for +purifying the air in the water-tight compartments in which the crews +live while the boat is below the surface of the water. There is also a +special apparatus for signalling other vessels or the shore, in case of +danger. In 1904 three vessels, designated X, Y, and Z, were completed, +which could achieve submersion in the short space of two minutes. The +boats were armed with six torpedoes each. France owns the largest fleet +of under-water warships in the world. England stands next, and the +United States government is third. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS + + +"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the +stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of +him?" The Hebrew psalmist feels the insignificance of man compared with +the infinitude of the heavens. Victor Hugo expresses the opposite +thought: "There is one spectacle grander than the sea--that is the sky; +there is one spectacle grander than the sky--that is the interior of +the soul." + +There is nothing more dignified, more sublime, more awful, than a +contemplation of the heavens. In point of grandeur, astronomy may be +regarded as king of the sciences. It is also their patriarch. Thousands +of years before the birth of Christ the priests of Chaldea, from the +tops of their flat-roofed temples, studied the stars and laid the +foundations of the science of astronomy. The heavens, with their +teeming, whirling, circling congregation, obeying laws that have no +"variableness neither shadow of turning" do, indeed, "declare the glory +of God." + +From the earliest times the stars were supposed to influence for good +and ill the lives of men. There were supposed to be stars of good luck +and of bad omen. The cool, calculating Cassius tells Brutus, + + "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, + But in ourselves, that we are underlings." + +When you look up into the heavens at the flickering dots of light +which we call the stars, you are looking at worlds, many of them far +larger than our earth. They seem small because of vast distances from +us. Our own solar system, great as it is, in comparison with the +celestial universe is but a clod in an acre. At the center of our +system is the sun, a huge ball of fiery matter 93,000,000 miles from +the earth, and as large as 330,000 worlds like ours. Circling around +the sun like maddened horses around a race course are eight planets. +These planets, with the sun and some comets, constitute our solar +system; _our_ system, for how many solar systems there are in space no +one knows. These planets, in their order outward from the sun, are +Mercury, Venus, our Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. +Of these, Mercury is the smallest and Jupiter is the largest. The +following table shows some interesting facts about the planets: + + --------+----------+------------+-------------+-------------+---------- + | | Number of | | Time | + | | planets | Distance | required | Velocity + Name | Diameter |required to | from sun | for one | in orbit, + | in miles | equal sun | in millions | revolution | miles per + | | in size | of miles | around sun | hour + | | | | in days | + --------+----------+------------+-------------+-------------+---------- + Mercury | 3,008 | 5,000,000 | 36 | 88 | 107,012 + Venus | 7,480 | 425,000 | 66 | 225 | 78,284 + Earth | 7,926 | 332,260 | 92 | 365-1/4 | 66,579 + Mars | 4,999 | 3,093,500 | 141 | 687 | 53,938 + Jupiter | 88,439 | 1,048 | 483 | 4,332 | 29,203 + Saturn | 75,036 | 3,502 | 886 | 10,759 | 21,560 + Uranus | 30,875 | 22,600 | 1,783 | 30,687 | 15,202 + Neptune | 37,205 | 19,400 | 2,794 | 60,127 | 12,156 + --------+----------+------------+-------------+-------------+---------- + +The moon is 240,000 miles from the earth, and it would require nearly +24,500,000 moons to equal the sun in size. Other planets have moons, +some of them several. If you lived on the planet Mercury, your annual +birthday would come around about once in three of our months. If you +had your home out on the border land of the solar system, on the planet +Neptune, you would have a birthday once in about 165 years, as we count +time on the earth. It will be observed that the closer the planet is to +the sun, the faster it travels in its orbit. This fact is due to the +power of gravitation toward the sun. This strange influence drives the +planets around the sun, and the nearer the planet is to the sun the +greater is the power and consequently the faster the revolution. The +law of gravitation was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. + +Newton was born in 1642 in Lincolnshire, England. His father was a +farmer, and the farmhouse in which the son was born is still preserved. +He was educated at a grammar school in Lincolnshire, and later entered +Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he was graduated in 1665. Early +in life he displayed a great liking for mathematics. Within a few years +after he entered college, he had mastered the leading mathematical +works of the day and had begun to make some progress in original +mathematical investigation. + +Newton's great life work--the achievement which insured to his name a +place among the immortals--was suggested to him by accident. As the +story goes, while he was walking one day in a garden, he saw an apple +fall from a tree. He speculated upon the reasons for its falling, and +ultimately concluded that the same force which causes an apple to fall +from a tree holds the heavenly bodies in their places. Further +investigation brought him to the unfolding of this general law of +gravitation: "Every body in nature attracts every other body with a +force directly as its mass, and inversely as the square of its +distance." This law is the greatest law of nature. It is the central +fact of the physical universe, the cement of the material world, the +mighty, mystic shepherdess of space, that keeps the planets from +wandering off alone. It is this awful, silent power reaching out from +the enormous mass of the sun, that lashes the planets in their furious +race, and yet holds them tightly reined in their orbits. + +Newton was one of the greatest mathematicians, scientists, and thinkers +in the history of the world. He died at Kensington, England, on March +20, 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, with the illustrious +dead of Great Britain. + +[Illustration: SIR ISAAC NEWTON] + +The operation of this law of gravitation pointed the way to the +discovery of the planet Neptune, which is considered the greatest +triumph of mathematical astronomy since the days of Newton. Prior to +the discovery of Neptune, Uranus was the outermost known planet of the +solar system. It was noticed that Uranus was being pulled out of its +proper path. It was being tugged away by some strange force beyond the +edge of the known planetary system. As the result of a skilful and +laborious investigation, Leverrier, a young French astronomer, wrote in +substance to an assistant in the observatory at Berlin: "Direct your +telescope to a point on the ecliptic in the constellation of Aquarius +in longitude 326 deg., and you will find within a degree of that place +a new planet, looking like a star of the ninth magnitude, and having a +perceptible disk." Leverrier did not know of the existence of such a +planet. He calculated its existence, location, and mass from the fact +that some such body must be there, to account for the disturbance +caused to Uranus. The telescope in the Berlin Observatory was directed +to the place designated by Leverrier, and on the night of September 23, +1846, in exact accordance with his prediction and within half an hour +after the astronomers had begun looking, Neptune was discovered within +less than one degree from the exact spot where Leverrier had calculated +it must be. Such are the triumphs of the human mind. Such are the +failures of nature to hide her secrets from the inquiry of man, even +behind untold millions of miles. + +According to the principles of gravitation as unfolded by Newton, the +power of attraction decreases directly as the square of the distance +between the sun and a planet. Neptune, being on the outer rim of the +system and hence farthest away from the sun, moves in its orbit around +the sun more sluggishly than any other planet. Life such as we know it +on the earth could not exist on Neptune; it would be too cold. The +light and heat from the sun on Neptune are only one nine hundredth part +of what we get on the earth. But even so, the sunlight falling upon +Neptune is equal in power to seven hundred of our full moons. It was +thought that Uranus was the last planet of the solar system until +Neptune was found. Whether Neptune is the last, or whether other worlds +are roaming around beyond it, is not known. + +Ptolemy, who was one of the most celebrated astronomers of earlier +times, was born in Egypt about a century and a half after Christ. +According to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which Ptolemy expounded +but did not originate, the earth was considered the center of the +universe, and around it the other planets and the sun were believed to +revolve. A passage in the Bible in which Joshua commanded the sun to +stand still indicates that the old Hebrews believed the sun circled +around the earth. The Ptolemaic theory did not account for all the +facts observed by astronomers, but for nearly fifteen centuries it held +practically universal sway over the belief of men, until another +thinker set the matter right. + +Nicholas Copernicus was born in Prussia, February 19, 1473. He studied +mathematics, medicine, theology, and painting, but his greatest +achievements were in astronomy. He made holes in the walls of his room, +through which he might observe the stars. Copernicus did not believe in +the theory of Ptolemy that the earth was the center of the universe, +but held that the solar system had for its center the sun, and that +around it the planets, including the earth, revolved. In working out +this belief, which science has subsequently shown to be correct, he +laid the foundations of the modern system of astronomy. + +The book in which Copernicus expounded his theory was begun in 1507 and +was completed in 1530. He could not be induced to publish it, however, +until shortly before his death. On May 24, 1543, he lay dying in +Frauenburg. A few hours before his death, when reason, memory, and life +were slipping away from him, the first printed copy of his book was +borne to Frauenburg and placed in the great astronomer's hands. He +touched the book, looked at it for a time, and seemed conscious of what +it was. Quickly afterward he lapsed into insensibility and was gone. + +Johann Kepler, who was born in Germany in 1571, contributed several +important facts to astronomy. He studied the motions and laws of the +celestial bodies. Copernicus taught that the planets revolved around +the sun in circular orbits, but Kepler discovered that their paths are +ellipses. He also found that the nearer the planets are to the sun the +faster they travel. Kepler's discoveries were embodied in three great +laws of astronomy known as Kepler's laws. These furnished the +foundation for Newton's discoveries and are the basis of modern +astronomy. Kepler died in November, 1630. + +Many of the wonderful discoveries that have been made in the field of +astronomy could not have been possible without the telescope, the most +important instrument used by astronomers. The first part of the word +is the same Greek adverb meaning "afar," found in _telegraph_ and +_telephone_; the last part is derived from a Greek verb meaning "to +see." The telescope, therefore, is an instrument for seeing objects +that are far off. It is a long tube With lenses so arranged as to make +objects appear much larger than they would to the naked eye. The +telescope was invented by a Dutch optician named Hans Lippershey about +three hundred years ago. The Italian scientist Galileo, who was born +at Pisa in February, 1564, heard of the invention, began studying the +principles upon which it depends, and greatly improved it. Galileo was +the first to use the telescope for astronomical purposes. With it he +discovered the satellites of Jupiter, the spots on the sun, and the +hills and valleys of the moon. + +[Illustration: GALILEO] + +At the present time the largest telescopes in the world are made and +owned in America. The largest is the Yerkes telescope, belonging to the +University of Chicago and located on the shores of Lake Geneva, +Wisconsin. Microscopes, opera glasses, and other magnifying instruments +depend upon the same principles as the telescope. + +One of the most astounding of man's tools is the spectroscope, an +instrument used for analyzing light. Through a knowledge of chemistry +scientists can establish scientific relations between different +substances and the light which they emit. By analyzing the light from +the heavenly bodies with the aid of the spectroscope, and comparing +this result with the light sent out from different known kinds of +matter, man can stand on this little flying speck of matter we call the +earth and discover of what substances the stars are made. + +One of the most interesting questions arising in a study of the +heavenly bodies is whether or not any of them besides the earth are +inhabited. Is there any good reason for supposing that our pigmy +planet, so insignificant compared with many celestial bodies, is the +only one containing life? On the other hand, life such as we know it +could not exist on some of the other planets. Mercury would be too hot; +Neptune too cold. Climatic conditions on Mars are most nearly like +those of the earth. Within recent years the telescope has revealed on +the surface of Mars a number of peculiar, regular lines. Many +scientists hold that these are artificial canals or irrigation ditches, +and that the planet must be inhabited. The theory does not seem at all +unreasonable. But the most that can be safely said is that if any of +the other planets are inhabited, the most likely one is Mars. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE COTTON-GIN + + +Another great invention is the cotton-gin. It is great because of the +commercial prosperity which it brought to the Southern states; because +it cheapened and extended the use of an almost necessary article of +life; and because of its effect on American history. The inventor was +an American, Eli Whitney. + +The word _gin_ is an abbreviation of _engine_, and in former days +was often used to denote a handy mechanical device of any kind. The +cotton-gin is a machine for removing the seed from the fiber of the +cotton-plant. Its essential parts are a number of saws which tear the +fiber from the seeds, some stiff brushes used to remove the fiber from +the saws, and a revolving fan which blows the lighter substance of the +cotton away from the saws and brushes. The original cotton-gin has +been little changed by improvement since its invention. It seems to be +one of those inventions which have been perfected by the inventor +himself. + +Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, +December 8, 1765. His father was a thrifty farmer. Nature bestowed upon +the son marked ability in the use of tools. While he was yet a child, +his inventive genius manifested itself. Before he was ten years old, he +could use every tool in the farm workshop with the ease and skill of an +old workman. He made a violin before he was twelve and later he came to +be noted in the neighborhood as a skilful mender of fiddles. He also +turned his attention to making nails, which in Revolutionary days were +made by hand, and became the best nail-maker in Worcester County. When +he was twenty-four years of age, a desire for a college education +possessed him. His father agreed to furnish the money to pay for his +schooling, with the stipulation that the son should pay it back. He +entered Yale, where he was graduated in 1792. + +After graduation Whitney went South to act as tutor in a private +family. Upon arrival at his destination, he found that the position was +already filled. At that time the widow of General Nathanael Greene, who +fought in the Revolutionary War, lived near Savannah, Georgia. She had +become interested in young Whitney and invited him to make her +plantation his home. She noted his inventive skill, and one day when a +group of Georgia planters was discussing at her home the desirability +of a machine for removing cotton-seeds from the fiber, Mrs. Greene +said: "Gentlemen, apply to my friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make +anything." Whitney was called in and the planters laid the matter of +the machine before him. At this time he had never even seen cotton +fiber. But he made up his mind to try what he could do toward solving +the problem. + +He went to Savannah and searched among the warehouses and flat-boats +for samples of cotton. Mrs. Greene encouraged him in his undertaking +and gave him a room in the basement of her house for his workshop. Here +he shut himself up with his task, and was heard early and late +hammering, sawing, and filing. No one was admitted to the room but Mrs. +Greene and Phineas Miller, the tutor of Mrs. Greene's children. At the +outset Whitney had neither money nor tools. The money was supplied by +an old college friend; the tools Whitney made himself. He could procure +no wire in Savannah for constructing his machine, and was compelled to +make his own, which he did with much perseverance and skill. + +In 1793 the gin was sufficiently completed to convince the inventor +that it would be a complete success. Mrs. Greene invited a number of +distinguished planters and merchants to witness the working of the +machine. The spectators were not slow in realizing the success and the +significance of the invention. They saw that with this little machine +one man could separate as much cotton from the seed in one day as he +could separate by hand in a whole winter. With the gin the cotton grown +on a large plantation could be separated in a few days; by hand, the +separation would require a hundred workmen for several months. + +One dark night some unscrupulous persons broke open the shed in which +the unfinished machine had been placed and carried it away. Filled with +rage and despair at the wrong which had been done him, Whitney left +Georgia and went to Connecticut to complete his invention. But he had +scarcely left Savannah when two other claimants for the honor of the +invention appeared in Georgia. A few weeks later a gin very closely +resembling Whitney's came out. His stolen gin was doubtless used as a +model by these false claimants. + +On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent on his gin. Phineas +Miller, who had become the husband of Mrs. Greene, entered into a +partnership with Whitney for managing the new invention. Whitney was to +manufacture the gins in the North and Miller was to furnish the capital +and attend to the interests of the business in the South. They planned +not to sell machines or patent rights, but to make and own the gins, +loaning them to planters for a rental of one pound in every three +pounds of cotton ginned. They would have been wiser if they had +manufactured and sold the machines outright. In the first place, it +required a larger capital than the firm had to manufacture the +necessary number of machines. In the second place, no one firm could +make gins fast enough to supply the rapidly increasing demand, and +consequently great encouragement was given to infringements on the +patent rights. Unending troubles beset the new firm. Whitney himself +was a victim to severe illness in the winter of 1794. Scarlet fever +raged that year in New Haven, Connecticut, where the manufacturing was +being done, and many of the workmen in the gin factory were unable to +work. In 1795 Whitney was again seized with severe sickness, and to add +to the vexations of the business, the books, papers, and machinery were +destroyed by fire. Besides all this, rival claimants circulated a +report that Whitney's gin ruined the fiber of the cotton, and that for +this reason cotton ginned by the patent process was discriminated +against in the markets of England. Another gin which did its work by +crushing the seeds between rollers and leaving the crushed seeds in the +fiber was represented as superior to Whitney's machine. + +[Illustration: ELI WHITNEY] + +In speaking of his troubles Whitney said: "The difficulties with which +I have had to contend have originated principally in the want of a +disposition in mankind to do justice. My invention was new and distinct +from every other; it stood alone. It was not interwoven with anything +before known; and it can seldom happen that an invention or improvement +is so strongly marked, and can be so clearly and specifically +identified; and I have always believed that I should have had no +difficulty in causing my rights to be respected, if it had been less +valuable and been used only by a small portion of the community. But +the use of this machine being immensely profitable to almost every +planter in the cotton districts, all were interested in trespassing on +the patent right, and each kept the other in countenance.... At one +time but few men in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to the +most simple facts within their knowledge relative to the use of the +machine. In one instance I had great difficulty in proving that the +machine had been used in Georgia, although at the same moment there +were three separate sets of this machinery in motion within fifty yards +of the building in which the court sat, and all so near that the rattle +of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the court house." + +Whitney never received fair and proper compensation for his invention. +The machine itself was stolen; others sought to rob him of his honor; +he was opposed by an unlimited train of vexations; and after the +expiration of his patent he was never able to secure a renewal. + +The effect of the invention of the cotton-gin was far-reaching, +industrially and historically. In 1807, at a session of the United +States District Court held in Savannah, Georgia, the inventor finally +obtained judgment against the persons who had stolen his invention. In +the opinion rendered in favor of Whitney, Judge Johnson said of the +cotton-gin: "Is there a man who hears us who has not experienced its +utility? The whole interior of the, Southern states was languishing, +and its inhabitants were emigrating for the want of some object to +engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of +this machine at once opened new views to them which set the whole +country in active motion. Individuals who were depressed with poverty +and sunk in idleness have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. +Our debts have been paid off, our capitals have increased, and our +lands have trebled themselves in value. We cannot express the weight of +the obligation the country owes to this invention. The extent of it +cannot now be seen. Some faint presentiment may be formed from the +reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool, flax, silk, and +even furs, in manufactures, and may one day profitably supply the use +of specie in our East India trade. Our sister states also participate +in the benefits of this invention; for besides affording the raw +material for their manufactures, the bulkiness and quantity of the +article afford a valuable employment for their shipping." + +In the South "Cotton is king." The rise of the cotton industry dates +from the invention of Eli Whitney's cotton-gin. Before its invention +the labor of removing the seed from the fiber was so tedious that the +growth of the cotton was not profitable. Partly because of this fact +and partly because the Revolutionary War was just over, the South lay +dormant; its plantations were heavily mortgaged, its people were moving +away in streams. Then came a little machine that awoke the South from +its sleep and made it rouse itself. It brought energy, hope, and +prosperity, where before were languor, indifference, and stagnation. It +increased the exportation of American cotton from less than 190,000 +pounds in 1791 to 41,000,000 pounds in 1803. + +From the historical point of view the invention of the cotton-gin was +tremendous in its influence. This machine multiplied by many times the +demand in the South for slave labor and made slaves far more +profitable. One writer has said of Whitney: "He was, through his +invention, probably one of the most potent agencies for the extension +of slavery and the terrible struggle that marked the first half-century +of our nation's existence. While he was quietly sleeping in his grave, +the very earth was shaken with the tread of contending armies that he +had done more than any other one man to call forth to battle; for there +is little doubt that but for the invention of the cotton-gin slavery +would not have lived out the century of the Revolution." Macaulay says: +"What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's +invention of the cotton-gin has more than equaled in its relation to +the power and progress of the United States." In the light of the +wonderful, widespread material growth and prosperity that have come to +the whole of our country in recent years, Macaulay's statement is +overdrawn. But as matters were when it was written by the great +Englishman, it was probably true. + +Whitney achieved much success as the inventor of improved methods of +manufacturing firearms. He was the first to conceive the plan of making +the different parts of firearms by machinery, so that any part of a +weapon would fit any other like weapon equally well. This principle has +made possible the production of cheap watches, clocks, and sewing +machines. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, January 8, 1825. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ANAESTHETICS + + +If those inventions and discoveries out of which have come widespread +safety, happiness, or prosperity to mankind are to be considered great, +then Dr. Morton's discovery of anaesthetics and its application to +surgery is entitled to a high place among the world's discoveries and +inventions. The pain that has been destroyed, the lives that have been +saved, the sorrow that has been averted, give their testimony to the +value of this discovery to humanity. + +An anaesthetic is administered to produce temporary insensibility to +pain. At least something of anaesthetics was known to the ancients. +Homer mentions nepenthe, a potion which was said to make persons forget +their pains and sorrows. The word appears occasionally in literature. +In "Evangeline" Longfellow refers to it in this line: + + "Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the dews of + nepenthe." + +Virgil and other classical writers mention a mythical river Lethe which +was supposed to surround Hades. Souls passing over to the happy fields +of Elysium first drank from this river, whose waters caused them to +forget their sorrows. Milton speaks of the mythical stream in the +following passage from "Paradise Lost:" + + "Far off from these a slow and silent stream, + Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls her watery labyrinth." + +Herodotus wrote that it was the practice of the Scythians to inhale the +vapors of a certain kind of hemp to produce intoxication. The use of +the mandrake plant as an anaesthetic is spoken of as far back as Pliny, +the Roman historian. The sleep-producing effects of the mandragora or +mandrake are alluded to by Shakespeare. He also frequently mentions in +a general way draughts that act as anaesthetics, without making clear +their specific natures. An old Chinese manuscript indicates that a +physician of that country named Hoa-tho in the third century after +Christ used a preparation of hemp as an anaesthetic in surgical +operations. Although the ancients had knowledge of anaesthetics of one +kind or other, the practice of anaesthesia never became general, and +surgeons of the ancient world appear to have looked upon it with +disfavor. + +When in modern times Joseph Priestley, the English scientist (born in +1733, died 1804) gave great impetus to chemical research by his +discoveries in that science, the nature of gases and vapors was more +and more closely studied. The belief soon sprang up that many gases and +vapors would ultimately become of great value in medicine and surgery. +In 1800 Sir Humphry Davy experimented with nitrous oxide gas, called +"laughing gas," and discovered its anaesthetic qualities. He suggested +its use in surgery, but for practically half a century his suggestion +passed unheeded. Other scientists experimented with greater or less +success, seeking to find something that would alleviate physical pain; +but to Dr. William T. G. Morton, an American, belongs the credit for +the practical introduction of anaesthetics into modern surgery. + +Dr. Morton was born in Charlton, Massachusetts, August 9, 1819. His +ancestors were of Scotch extraction. He passed his early years in farm +work. At the age of thirteen he entered an academy at Oxford, +Massachusetts, where he remained only a few months, attending school +thereafter at Northfield and Leicester. His father's financial +condition caused him to leave school in 1836 and enter the employ of a +publishing firm in Boston. Deciding to engage in the practice of +dentistry, in 1840 he took a course in the Baltimore College of Dental +Surgery. Two years afterward he began the practice of his profession in +Boston. As dentistry at that time was in its beginnings as a distinct +profession, Dr. Morton took up, in addition to it, the study of general +medicine and surgery in the Harvard Medical School. + +In the days prior to the use of anaesthetics, the operations of dental +surgery were attended by much pain. Dr. Morton began seeking some means +for alleviating it. In the course of his investigations he became +acquainted with the effects of sulphuric ether as a local anaesthetic, +and frequently used this drug in minor operations. On one occasion he +applied it with unusual freedom in the treatment of a very sensitive +tooth. Observing how completely the tissues were benumbed by the ether, +he conceived the idea of bringing the entire system under its +influence, thereby producing temporary insensibility in all the sensory +nerves. The most serious problem with which he had to deal was the +manner of applying the ether. Although the soporific tendencies of both +ether and nitrous oxide gas were well known, it had not been proved +that they could be inhaled in sufficiently large quantities, or, if so, +that they would produce perfect insensibility. After a long series of +experiments with various animals, Dr. Morton succeeded in fully +establishing the narcotic power of ether. + +On October 16, 1846, he made his first public demonstration of the new +discovery in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, +in Boston, when he painlessly removed a tumor from the jaw of a +patient. This operation was wholly convincing to the medical +profession, and created profound public interest. Dr. Morton was +brought into immediate prominence. A meeting of the leading physicians +of Boston was held to choose an appropriate name for the new process. +A long list of words was presented, from which Dr. Morton selected the +term _letheon_, related to the Lethe of Virgil and the classical +writers. The words _anaesthetic_ and _anaesthesia_ were coined from the +Greek by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American poet and physician, +who was then living in Boston. The words proposed by Dr. Holmes have +become the established terms of the subject, superseding the _letheon_ +of the discoverer. + +[Illustration: DR. WILLIAM T. G. MORTON] + +Dr. Morton secured a patent on his discovery, but derived little +pecuniary profit from it. Although he permitted the free use of his +anaesthetic in charitable institutions, his patent was frequently +infringed. He vainly applied to Congress for compensation in 1846 and +1849. A bill to give him one hundred thousand dollars as a national +testimonial of his contribution to the welfare of the race was +introduced into Congress in 1852 and defeated. Measures in his behalf +at sessions of Congress in 1853 and 1854 were likewise voted down. The +only money that ever came to Dr. Morton for his discovery was a small +prize from the French Academy of Sciences and the sum of one thousand +dollars from the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The +governments of Russia and of Norway and Sweden conferred upon him +certain awards of honor in recognition of his great contribution to +science. + +He died in New York City, July 15, 1868, and was buried in Mount Auburn +Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, perhaps the most beautiful and +illustrious of American burial places. + +The monument of Dr. Morton in Mount Auburn bears this inscription: +"William T. G. Morton, inventor and revealer of anaesthetic inhalation, +by whom pain in surgery was averted and annulled; before whom, in all +time, surgery was agony; since whom, science has control of pain." He +is included among the fifty-three illustrious sons of Massachusetts +whose names are inscribed upon the dome of the new Hall of +Representatives in the State House at Boston; and is among the five +hundred noted men whose names adorn the facade of the Boston Public +Library. + +The news of Morton's discovery reached England December 17, 1846. +Within five days ether was in use as an anaesthetic by the English +dentists and surgeons. A year later Sir J. Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh +discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform, which has since +that time been the preferred anaesthetic in Europe. Ether has continued +in general use in America. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +STEEL AND RUBBER + + +It has been shown already in this volume that the materials from which +man has made his tools, and those tools themselves, are the best means +of determining his advance in civilization. Man passed from the Stone +Age with its few, crude implements into the Bronze Age, and from this +into the Iron Age, with each succeeding step increasing the number and +efficiency of his tools. The race has lately passed into an age which +might well be named the Age of Steel. The discovery or invention of +this metal--for there is in it the nature of both invention and +discovery--is sufficiently important to mark a distinct era in human +progress. + +Steel is not found native, but is a compound of iron and carbon and is +produced artificially. The great value of steel lies in the fact that +it can be made so hard that it can cut and shape almost every other +substance known to man, and yet this very quality of hardness can be so +modified as to make the metal capable of cutting and otherwise shaping +itself. Steel can be made nearly as hard as the diamond, or so soft +that it can be cut, bent, or hammered into this shape or that, rolled +into sheets, or drawn out into the finest wire. Nearly the whole of the +compound is iron, the carbon ranging from one-fourth of one per cent to +two and one half per cent. Ordinary steel contains certain other +chemicals, such as silicon, manganese, sulphur, and phosphorus, but +these are mere natural impurities existing in the metal. The essential +ingredients are iron and carbon. Steel is hardened by being heated to a +high temperature and then suddenly cooled by contact with cold water, +or in other like ways. Fixing the degree of hardness in a piece of +steel is called tempering. The degree of hardness is dependent upon the +suddenness of cooling. + +The widespread use of steel and its importance in the life of to-day +are due to Sir Henry Bessemer, an English inventor, who was born +January 19, 1813, and died March 15, 1898. The substance was known, +made, and used before the time of Bessemer, but its production was so +costly that it was little used. By his process of production the cost +was greatly reduced and steel consequently came into much wider usage. +By the Bessemer process molten iron is poured into a vessel with holes +in the bottom. Air at a powerful pressure is forced through these +openings, so that the pressure of the air prevents the melted metal +from running out. The air removes the carbon from the molten iron. +Afterward the required amount of carbon is admitted to the iron, and +the result of the union is a piece of steel. The process of Bessemer +was patented in 1856. + +Steel is used in the construction of great modern buildings, bridges, +and battleships; and in making cannon, railroad cars and rails, pipe, +wire, bolts and nails, swords, knives, saws, watch-springs, needles, +and innumerable tools and articles of every-day usage. Manifestly a +material that is used in the manufacture of articles ranging from a +needle to a great city sky-scraper or a battleship must be of prime +importance to the human race. + +[Illustration: STEEL FRAMEWORK OF THE FLATIRON BUILDING, NEW YORK +CITY] + +The United States Steel Corporation is the largest combination of +capital in the world. It was organized in March, 1901, under the laws +of New Jersey, for the manufacture and sale of steel products. This +giant corporation was formed by the union of ten large corporations, +each of which was, in turn, made up of smaller companies. Its total +capitalization is $1,404,000,000, or one half of all the money in the +United States. Its property consists of 149 steel works, with an annual +capacity of 9,000,000 tons; 18,000 coke furnaces; over 100,000 acres of +land; and 125 lake vessels and several small railroads. The Corporation +employs over 150,000 men, to whom it pays in Wages annually over +$120,000,000. + + +When on a wet morning one puts on rubbers and a rain coat, one scarcely +wonders about the history of the articles that give so much protection +and comfort. The story of rubber is an interesting one. The substance +at first was called "elastic gum." About 1770 it was discovered that +the gum would rub out lead pencil marks. It was imported into Great +Britain and sold for this purpose, and because of this property its +name was changed to rubber. The correct name of the material now is +caoutchouc, though its common name is India-rubber or simply rubber. It +is obtained from the sap of certain tropical trees and shrubs. The best +quality of rubber comes from Brazil, though supplies are procured from +other parts of South America, from Central America, the West Indies, +Africa, and parts of tropical Asia. + +The details of collecting the sap and preparing it for market vary +somewhat according to locality and the nature of the trees or shrubs +from which it comes. In the region of the Amazon, when the sap is to be +obtained from a tree, cuts are made each morning in the bark. The milky +sap that exudes is collected in little tin or clay cups fastened to the +trunk. At the end of about ten hours these cups are emptied into larger +ones, and on the morning of the following day new incisions are made in +each tree, about eight inches below the old ones. This process is +continued until incisions have been made in the bark from a height of +about six feet down to the ground; the lower down on the trunk of the +tree, the better is the quality of the sap. For the evaporation of the +sap, a fire is built of material yielding dense volumes of smoke. +Workmen dip wooden paddles into the liquid and hold them in the smoke +until the sap solidifies and acquires a slightly yellow tinge. They +repeat the process of dipping the paddle into the sap and holding it in +the smoke, until the paddle is covered with a layer of the dried gum +about an inch and a half in thickness. This layer is then removed from +the paddle and hung up to dry; and the process of evaporation is +commenced anew. The raw material, which is an elastic, yellowish, +gum-like substance, is sent away to be vulcanized. From the vulcanized +product are made the rubber goods of commerce. + +As far back as 1615 A.D. the Spaniards used rubber for waxing canvas +cloaks so as to make them water-proof. But it was not until two +centuries later that caoutchouc began to attract general attention. +Charles Goodyear, an American inventor, found a way for making it +commonly useful, and brought about its practical and widespread +utility. + +The story of Goodyear's life is pathetically interesting. He was born +in New Haven, Connecticut, December 29, 1800. His father was Amasa +Goodyear, a pioneer hardware manufacturer, from whom the son inherited +much of his inventive ability. Charles Goodyear was educated in the +schools of New Haven, and spent much of his time on his father's farm +and in the factory, where the father manufactured steel implements and +pearl buttons, the first ever made in America. The son intended to +become a preacher, but obstacles arose and he abandoned his purpose. +Though he was not to minister to man's spiritual needs, yet he was to +bring to the race a material blessing of great value. + +Goodyear entered into the hardware business with his father in +Connecticut and at Philadelphia, but their business failed. During the +ten years extending from 1830 to 1840 he was frequently imprisoned for +debt. All this time he was working to perfect unfinished inventions in +order that his creditors might be paid. + +While a boy on his father's farm, he one day picked up a scale of +rubber peeled from a bottle, and conceived the notion that this +substance could be turned into a most useful material if it were made +uniformly thin and prepared in such way as to prevent its melting and +sticking together in a solid mass. When he was first imprisoned for +debt, the use of rubber was attracting general attention. He became +strongly interested in finding a way for making the article more +useful. The chief difficulty in treating rubber lay in its +susceptibility to extremes of temperature; it melted in summer and +became stiffened in winter. Strenuous effort had been expended in +attempting to overcome this difficulty, but without success. Goodyear +dedicated his energies to a solution of the problem. His experiments +were conducted in Philadelphia, in New York, and in Massachusetts +towns. + +During this period he and his family lived literally from hand to +mouth, and more than once subsisted upon what was virtually the charity +of friends. Sometimes it was necessary to sell the children's books and +articles of household furniture to drive the wolf of hunger from the +door. Much of his experimentation was carried on in prison, with no +encouragement from any source to cheer him on. At times his hopes arose +as victory seemed near; they soon fell, as what he had mistaken for +triumph proved to be defeat. He became the butt of those who did not +share his own constant faith in the ultimate success of his labors. He +was calm in defeat, patient in ridicule, and always bore himself with +magnificent fortitude. + +[Illustration: CHARLES GOODYEAR] + +In the early months of 1839 Goodyear could shout with the old Syracusan +mathematician, "Eureka!"--"I have found it!" He had discovered that +rubber coated with sulphur and then heated to a high degree of heat is +rendered uniformly elastic in all temperatures. He had solved the +problem, but it was two long years before he could convince any one of +the fact. William Rider, of New York, finally furnished capital for +carrying on the business of manufacturing rubber goods according to the +new process. The firm was successful and Goodyear had soon paid off +thirty-five thousand dollars of indebtedness owed to creditors of his +old business that had failed ten or fifteen years before. + +The new process was called vulcanizing. Vulcan was the old Roman god +of fire and metal working, and was patron of handicrafts generally. +The word _volcano_ is derived from _vulcan_, and melted sulphur is +associated with volcanoes. The term _vulcanize_, therefore, is +traceable either directly or indirectly, through the fire or the +sulphur employed in the process, to the name of the Roman god. +According to the relative amount of sulphur used and the temperature +to which the compound is raised, either soft or hard rubber may be +produced. Hard rubber contains a greater quantity of sulphur and is +heated to a higher temperature. The heat used in vulcanization reaches +as much as three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. + +Goodyear's first patent was taken out in 1844, the year in which Samuel +F. B. Morse invented the telegraph. About this time he was imprisoned +for debt for the last time in the United States, though he suffered a +jail sentence for debt in France later. His patents were repeatedly +infringed in this country, and he could not secure any patents in Great +Britain or France. The United States Commissioner of Patents said of +Goodyear, "No inventor, probably, has ever been so harassed, so +trampled upon, so plundered by pirates as he, their spoliations upon +him having unquestionably amounted to millions of dollars." Daniel +Webster was the lawyer employed in the trial in which Goodyear's legal +right to the honor and profits of his invention was established. For +his services in this case Webster received a fee of twenty-five +thousand dollars. + +Goodyear himself made no very large sum of money from his invention, +though he added to life not merely a new material but a new class of +materials, applicable to many cases. Before his death he had seen +rubber put to more than five hundred different uses, and thousands of +persons engaged in manufacturing the various articles fashioned from +it. Goodyear died in New York City, July 1, 1860. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +STENOGRAPHY AND THE TYPEWRITER + + +It is difficult to see how man could now dispense with any of the great +inventions and discoveries that give him power over time and space. Not +one of them could be sacrificed without corresponding loss of power. +Among the great devices that economize time are stenography and the +typewriter. Stenography is the world's business alphabet; the +typewriter, its commercial printing press. + +The word _stenography_ is derived from the Greek adjective _stenos_ +meaning "narrow" or "close," and the Greek verb _graphein_ signifying +"to write." Stenography, therefore, is the art of close or narrow +writing, so named, perhaps, from the great amount of meaning that by +its use is packed into a narrow compass. It is a phonetic system in +which brief signs are used to represent single sounds, groups of +sounds, whole words, or groups of words. + +The idea of stenography or shorthand writing originated in ancient +times. Antiquarians have tried to show, with more or less plausibility, +that it was practised more than a thousand years before the birth of +Christ by the Persians, Egyptians, and Hebrews. Abbreviated writing, +for taking down lectures and preserving poems recited at the Olympic +and other games, was used by the Greeks. The first known practitioner +of the art of shorthand writing was Tiro, who lived in Rome 63 B.C., +and who was the stenographer of the great orator Cicero. He took down +in shorthand the speeches of his master, by whom they were afterward +revised. Plutarch says that when the Roman Senate was voting on the +charge which Cicero had preferred against Catiline, Cicero distributed +shorthand reporters throughout the Senate House for the purpose of +taking down the speeches of some of the leading Senators. At the close +of St. Paul's letter to the Colossians there is a note to the effect +that the Epistle was written from Rome by Tychicus and Onesimus. It has +been supposed that Tychicus acted as shorthand writer and Onesimus as +transcriber. Certain it is that the early Christian fathers employed a +system of shorthand writing. Saint Augustine refers to a church meeting +held at Carthage in the fourth century of the Christian era, at which +eight shorthand writers were employed, two working at a time. +Charlemagne, the great king of the Franks, who died in 814 A.D., delved +deep into the art of shorthand writing as practised by Tiro, Cicero's +stenographer. + +In Chapter xxxviii of _David Copperfield_, Charles Dickens describes +his own experience with shorthand thus: "I bought an approved scheme +of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and +sixpence), and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a +few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung +upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such +another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful +vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences +that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a +curve in a wrong place--not only troubled my waking hours, but +reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, +through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was +an Egyptian temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new +horrors, called arbitrary characters, the most despotic characters I +have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the +beginning of a cobweb meant _expectation_, and that a pen-and-ink +sky-rocket stood for _disadvantageous_. When I had fixed these +wretches in my mind, I found that they had driven everything else out +of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them; while I was picking them +up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, it was +almost heart-breaking." + +Till near the middle of the last century all systems of shorthand +writing were more or less crude and illogical. About 1837 Isaac Pitman, +an Englishman, put stenography upon a phonetic basis and therefore a +scientific basis. As there are in the English language forty-three +different sounds represented by twenty-six letters, Pitman adopted a +shorthand alphabet in which consonants were represented by simple +straight or curved strokes, the light sounds denoted by light strokes +and the heavy sounds by heavy strokes. "The leading heavy vowels are +represented by six heavy dots and a like number of heavy dashes, placed +at the beginning, middle, or end of the strokes, and before or after as +they precede or follow the consonants. The same course is followed with +the light vowels. Diphthongs are provided for by a combination of dash +forms, and by a small semicircle, differently formed and placed in +different positions. Circles, hooks, and loops are employed in distinct +offices." + +Pitman's invention of a phonographic alphabet for shorthand was the +beginning of verbatim reporting that has spread to every land which +Anglo-Saxon civilization has touched. There is scarcely a legislative +body, a court of importance, or a great convention of any kind, whose +proceedings are not taken down on the spot in shorthand, accurately and +at once, to say nothing of the very wide use of stenography in private +business. In this bewildering commercial whirl of the twentieth century +time is money, and stenography is time. + +The typewriter, invented about forty years ago, is parallel to +stenography in importance. The daily volume of the world's business +could not be accomplished without it. And, as in the case of all the +great inventions, men do not see how they got on before it came. The +world owes the typewriter to two Americans, John Pratt and Christopher +L. Sholes. Pratt was born in Unionville, South Carolina, April 14, +1831. In 1867, while in England, he produced the first working +typewriter that ever secured a sale. A description of his machine in +one of the English periodicals attracted the attention of Sholes, who +was born in Pennsylvania in 1819, but who at that time was living in +Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He began working at the idea of the typewriter +borrowed from Pratt, and in the same year that Pratt's machine was +first made, Sholes produced a typewriter that was practically +successful and started the manufacture of a machine that was to become +increasingly useful, and finally indispensable. + +No business in recent years has grown more rapidly than the typewriter +industry. From nothing forty years ago, it has grown into an industry +producing nearly a quarter of a million machines a year and employing +thousands of workmen. American manufacturers not only supply the home +trade with their output, but export machines to every part of the +civilized world, making this country the home and center of the world's +typewriter industry. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE FRICTION MATCH + + +The biggest things are not always the most important. A little article, +used many times in the course of every day and familiar to every +person, is one of the world's great inventions. It is the friction +match. + +Fire is one of man's absolute necessities. Without it civilization +would have been impossible, and life could scarcely continue. The story +of man's power to produce and use fire is practically the story of +civilization itself. So far as history can reveal there has never been +in any time a people who were without the knowledge and use of fire; +which, on its beneficent side, is man's indispensable friend; and in +its wrath, a terrible destroyer. + +A mass of mythological stories has come down from the days of antiquity +regarding the origin of fire. The Persian tradition is that fire was +discovered by one of the hero dragon-fighters. He hurled a huge stone +at a dragon, but missed his aim. The stone struck another rock. +According to the story, "the heart of the rock flashed out in glory, +and fire was seen for the first time in the world." The Dakota Indians +of North America believed that their ancestors produced fire from the +sparks which a friendly panther struck with its claws in scampering +over a stony hill. Finnish poems describe how "fire, the child of the +sun, came down from heaven, where it was rocked in a tube of yellow +copper, in a large pail of gold." Some of the Australian tribes have a +myth that fire came from the breaking of a staff held in the hands of +an old man's daughter. In another Australian legend fire was stolen by +a hawk and given to man; in still another a man held his spear to the +sun and thus procured fire. + +According to Greek mythology, fire was stolen from heaven by +Prometheus, friend of men, and brought to them in a hollow stalk of +fennel. As the legend runs, he took away from mankind the evil gift of +foreseeing the future, and gave them instead the better gifts of hope +and fire. For the bestowing of these gifts upon the human race, +Prometheus was sorely punished by Zeus, king of the gods. The myth that +fire was stolen from heaven by a hero is not confined to the Greeks; it +is scattered among the traditions of all nations. It is not strange +that primitive man should ascribe the origin of fire to supernatural +causes. Before he learned how to use and control it, he must have been +strangely impressed with its various manifestations--the flash of the +lightning, the hissing eruption of the volcano, the burning heat of the +sun, and perhaps the wild devastation of forest and prairie fires +caused by spontaneous combustion. + +Because of its mysterious origin and its uncontrollable power for good +or ill, fire was supposed from the earliest times to be divine. The +Bible tells us that the Lord went before the children of Israel in +their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land in a pillar of fire by +night. From the earliest hours of religious history the sun has been +worshiped as a god. All the tribes of antiquity had a fire god. It was +Agni in ancient India; Moloch among the Phoenicians; Hephaestus in +Greece; Vulcan among the Romans; Osiris in Egypt; and Loki among the +Scandinavians. In ancient religious belief fire and the human soul were +supposed to be one and the same in substance. In some instances fire +was held to be the very soul of nature, the essence of everything that +had shape. "From Jupiter to the fly, from the wandering star to the +tiniest blade of grass, all beings owed existence to the fiery +element." This theory was believed by the Aztecs, who invoked in their +prayers "fire the most ancient divinity, the father and mother of all +gods." Of these ancient fire-divinities some were good and some evil; +just as fire itself is both beneficent and malignant. + +Among some peoples fire was used for purification from sin and the cure +of disease. It also burned upon the tombs of the dead to dispel evil +spirits. Greek colonists, in setting out from the mother country for +the purpose of founding new homes, took fire from the home altar with +which to kindle fires in their new homes. Upon some altars fires were +kept constantly burning, and their extinguishment was considered a +matter of great alarm. If by chance the fire that burned in the Roman +temple of Vesta went out, all tribunals, all authority, all public and +private business had to stop immediately until the fire should be +relighted. The Greeks and the Aztecs received ambassadors of foreign +countries in their temples of fire, where at the national hearth they +prepared feasts for their guests. In some cases ambassadors were not +received until they had stood close to fire in order that any +impurities they might have brought should be singed away. No Greek or +Roman army crossed a frontier without taking an altar whereon burned +night and day fire brought from the public council hall and temple at +home. The Egyptians had a fire burning night and day in every temple, +and the Greeks, Romans, and Persians had such a fire in every town and +village. + +Among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors the ordeal by fire was one of the modes +of trying cases of law. The accused was compelled to walk blindfolded +over red-hot plowshares. If these burned him, he was adjudged guilty; +if not, he was acquitted, for it was supposed that the purity of fire +would not permit an innocent man to suffer. The custom of the North +American Indians was to discuss important tribal affairs around the +council fire. Each sachem marched around it thrice, turning to it all +sides of his person. Among peoples in both hemispheres it has been the +practice to free fields from the demons of barrenness by lighting huge +fires. The fields were supposed to be made fertile as far as the flames +could be seen. In Bavaria seeds were passed through fire before they +were sown to insure fertility. In some places children were held over +the flame of an altar fire for purposes of purification. + +Nothing has played a more important part in the history of the race +than fire. Human culture began with the use of it, and increased in +proportion as its use increased. For ages man felt his helplessness +before fire; he did not know how to produce it, or to turn it to good +account. By and by the secret was discovered; mind began to gain the +mastery over this great force. + +The most primitive method of producing fire artificially was by rubbing +two sticks together. This method was probably discovered by accident. +Fire from friction was caused also by pushing the end of a stick along +a groove in another piece of wood, or by twirling rapidly a stick which +had its end placed perpendicularly in a hole made in another piece of +wood. Focusing the rays of the sun powerfully upon a given point by +means of a lens or concave mirror, was another method used for starting +fire. The story is told that when the ancient city of Syracuse in +Sicily was being besieged, the great mathematician Archimedes, who was +a resident of that city, set on fire the enemy's ships by focusing the +sun's rays upon them with a mirror. In China the burning-glass was +widely used not very long ago. When iron came into use, it was employed +for making fire. A piece of flint was struck against an iron object. +The concussion produced a spark, which fell into a box containing +charred cotton called tinder. The tinder took fire but did not burst +into flame. The flame came by touching the burning tinder with a strip +of wood tipped with sulphur. This flint-and-steel method was used for +producing fire until less than a century ago. + +No attempt was made to produce fire by chemical means until 1805. In +that year M. Chancel, a Paris professor, invented an apparatus +consisting of a small bottle containing asbestos, saturated with +sulphuric acid, and wooden splints or matches coated with sulphur, +chlorate of potash, and sugar. The wooden splint, when dipped into the +bottle, was ignited. The first really successful friction matches were +made in 1827 by John Walker, an English druggist. They consisted of +wooden splints coated with sulphur and tipped with antimony, chlorate +of potash, and gum. They were sold at a shilling or twenty-four cents +per box, each box containing eighty-four matches. + +The modern phosphorus friction match came into use about 1833. It is +not possible to ascertain precisely who the inventor was. But in that +year Preschel had a factory in Vienna, Austria, for the manufacture of +friction matches with phosphorus as the chief chemical. For years +Austria and the States in the south of Germany were the center of the +match industry. Phosphorus is still used as the principal chemical +ingredient in the manufacture of matches. The first patent in the +United States for a friction match was issued October 24, 1836, to +Alonzo D. Phillips, of Springfield, Massachusetts. The "safety match," +which will not ignite unless brought into contact with the side of the +box in which it is packed, was invented by Lundstrom of Sweden, in +1855. The match industry in Norway and Sweden has developed during the +last few years with great rapidity. About sixty factories are in +operation in these countries. One town alone contains six thousand +matchmakers. In France the government has the sole right to manufacture +matches. + +Phosphorus is very poisonous, and the early manufacture of phosphorus +matches was attended with loss of life and great suffering. Inhalation +of phosphorus fumes produced necrosis, or decay of the bone, usually of +the lower jaw. In the first years of phosphorus match making, the +business was chiefly carried on by the poorer people in large cities. +The work was done in damp, foul cellars; and the peculiar disease of +the bone caused by the phosphorus fumes became so widespread that the +different governments drove the match factories out of the cellars and +ordered that the business be conducted in better ventilated buildings. +But the discovery of red phosphorus, which never produces the disease, +the use of lessened quantities of the ordinary phosphorus, and better +ventilation have all combined to make the malady now very rare. + +The first matches were made by hand, one by one, and were of necessity +few and costly. Matches are now made and boxed by machinery. One +million splints can be cut in an hour with the machinery in use. Some +single manufacturing firms make as many as one hundred millions of +matches in a day. With diminished cost of production have come +decreased prices, so that now a large box can be purchased for a very +few cents. Until about 1860 railroads in the United States would not +receive matches for transportation, owing to the danger involved. The +distribution before that year was mainly by canal or wagon. A match is +a little thing, but it is one of the world's really great inventions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PHOTOGRAPHY + + +Photography is one of the many triumphs of the human mind over time and +space. Thousands of miles are between you and the wonderful Taj Mahal. +You may never be able to go to it. But as the mountain would not go to +Mohammed and Mohammed therefore went to the mountain, so photography +brings the Taj Mahal to you. The chief struggle for civilization is +with these two abstract antagonists--time and space. In this struggle +the achievements of photography are such as to win it a place among the +world's great inventions and discoveries. + +Here, again, we borrow words from the Greeks. _Photography_ comes from +the Greek noun _phos_ meaning "light" and the Greek verb _graphein_ +signifying "to write," already referred to several times in this +volume. Photography is therefore the science and the art of writing or +reproducing objects by means of light. The science of photography +depends upon the action of light on certain chemicals, usually +compounds of silver. These chemicals are spread upon a delicately +sensitized metallic plate, which is exposed to light. The action of +light fixes the object desired upon this plate, from which copies of +the picture are made on paper of suitable kind. + +Like most of the great discoveries and inventions, photography is not +old. It had its beginning in 1777, when the Swedish chemist Scheele +began to inquire scientifically into the reason and effect of the +darkening of silver chloride by the rays of the sun. The first picture +ever made by the use of light on a sensitive surface was made in 1791 +by Thomas Wedgewood, an Englishman. The principle of the photographer's +camera was discovered in 1569 by Della Porta, of Naples. To Nicephore +Niepce, a Frenchman, belongs the honor of producing the first camera +picture. This was in 1827 after thirteen years of experimenting. He +called his process "heliography," _helios_ being the Greek word for +_sun_. His process consisted of coating a piece of plated silver or +glass with asphaltum or bitumen, and exposing the plate in the camera +for a time varying in length from four to six hours. The light acted on +the asphaltum in such a way as to leave the image on the plate. + +The predecessor of the modern photograph was the daguerreotype. It was +named for its inventor, Louis Daguerre, a French scene-painter, who was +born in 1789. In 1829 he formed a partnership with Niepce, and together +they labored to advance the art of photography. The discovery of the +daguerreotyping process was announced in January, 1839. The process of +Daguerre consisted in "exposing a metal plate covered with iodide of +silver for a suitable time in a photographic camera, the plate being +afterwards transferred to a dark room, and exposed to the vapor of +mercury, which develops the latent image, it being afterwards fixed. +Although this process has become almost obsolete, it was really the +first which was of any practical value, and experts all agree that no +other known process reproduces some subjects--for example, the human +face--with such fidelity and beauty." + +A little while before the daguerreotyping process was announced, Fox +Talbot, a British investigator, discovered a method of making pictures +by means of the action of light on chemically prepared paper instead +of metal, as in the case of Daguerre. Talbot originated the terms +_negative_ and _positive_ which are still used in photography. +Daguerre in France and Talbot in Great Britain had independently +achieved success in producing pictures, but neither had discovered a +way to make photographs permanent. In the course of time the pictures +faded. In 1839 Sir John Herschel of England found a chemical process +for making photographs permanent, by removing the cause for their +fading. The first sunlight photograph of a human face was that of Miss +Dorothy Catherine Draper, made by her brother, Prof. John William +Draper, of the University of the City of New York, early in 1840. + +Various chemical discoveries for improving photographs have been made +by different persons from time to time, until the art of photography +has now reached a high state of development. An important improvement +is in the lessening of the time of exposure to light necessary for +producing a photograph. Formerly hours were required, but under +improved conditions only the shortest instant of time is requisite. + +In 1906 a photographic paper for producing prints in color from an +ordinary negative was placed on the market. This paper is coated with +three layers of pigmented gelatin, colored respectively red, yellow, +and blue. After being exposed to the daylight in the usual way, the +paper is placed in hot water, where the image is developed. The grays +and blacks of the negative are translated into the colors they +represent in the object. + +The brothers Lumiere of Paris have found a method of producing a +photograph on a sensitive plate which, viewed as a transparency, shows +the object in its original colors. No prints can be taken from this +plate, and the picture cannot be viewed by reflected light, but the +colors are true and brilliant. + +The cinematograph is an instrument by which about fifteen photographs +per second can be received on a film, each representing the +photographed group at a different instant from the others. The +advantages of this mode of photographing and of throwing pictures on a +screen over the older methods are obvious. By controlling the rate at +which the pictures are represented on the screen, movements too rapid +to be analyzed by the eye may be made slow enough to permit +observation; and, similarly, movements too slow for comprehension or +rapid observation may often be quickened. The busy life of a city +street, the progress of races or other competitions, many scenes in +nature, and even the growth of a plant from seed to maturity, may be +shown by means of a "moving picture." + +Photography is a noble servant of mind and soul. It brings to us +likenesses of eminent persons and objects of nature and art which +perhaps we should never be able to see otherwise. It has been used in +measuring the velocity of bullets and in showing the true positions of +animals in motion. Photography has created the "new astronomy." +Immediately after its discovery, photography was applied to the science +of the stars, and it has been ever since of incalculable service in +this field of inquiry. Photographs of the moon were made as early as +1840, and much that is known to-day of the sun has been revealed by +photography. So sensitive is the modern photographic plate to the +influence of light, that photography has discovered and located stars +which are invisible through a strong telescope. Astronomers are now +engaged in making a photographic chart of the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CLOCKS + + +The matters of every-day life, much less the affairs of a complex +civilization, could scarcely be carried on without some accurate and +uniform system of measuring time. Nature herself furnishes measurements +for certain divisions of time. The "two great lights" that God made, as +the Bible tells us, were designed "for signs, and for seasons, and for +days and for years." The revolution of the earth around the sun marks +the year; the revolution of the moon around the earth determines the +month; the rotation of the earth on its axis causes and measures day +and night. But no object of nature distinguishes the hours of the day +or the divisions of the hour. + +Man requires a smaller unit of time than the day. He must divide the +day into hours; the hours into minutes; the minutes into seconds. The +division of the day into twenty-four hours is as old as authentic +history. But the means for determining the hours and their subdivisions +were at first quite crude and inefficient. + +[Illustration: A SUN DIAL] + +Perhaps the most primitive of all time-measuring devices was a stick or +pole planted upright in a sunny place. The position of the shadow which +it cast marked time. The sun-dial was a development of this simple +device. It consisted essentially of two parts: a flat plate of metal +marked off much like the dial of a modern clock or watch, and an +upright piece, usually also of metal, fastened to the center of the +dial. To make the direction of the shadow uniform for any given hour +throughout the year, the upright piece was made parallel to the axis of +the earth. As the earth rotated on its axis the shadow cast by the +upright piece moved from point to point on the dial, measuring the +flight of time. The sun-dial was in use among the earliest nations. +Herodotus is authority for the statement that the Greeks borrowed it +from the Babylonians. The sun-dial was obviously of no use on cloudy +days or dark nights, and even in sunny weather it could not accurately +or delicately indicate the passage of time. However, it continued in +use so long that to the end of the seventeenth century the art of +dialling was considered a necessary element of every course in +mathematics. + +Another ancient invention for measuring time was the water-clock. Water +was permitted to drop from a small orifice in a containing vessel. The +period required for emptying the vessel marked a unit of time. Its +principle was the same as the common hour-glass, according to which +time is measured by the slow dropping of sand from one receptacle into +another. The water-clock was used by the ancient Chaldeans and the +Hindoos, and also by the Greeks and Romans. Demosthenes mentions its +use in the courts of justice at Athens. + +In order to mark the hours of the day, the Saxon King Alfred the Great +is said to have made wax candles twelve inches in length, each marked +at equal distances. The burning of six of these candles in succession +consumed, roughly, just twenty-four hours. To prevent the wind from +extinguishing them they were inclosed in cases of thin, white, +transparent horn. The candles thus inclosed were the ancestors of the +modern lantern. + +Our word _clock_ comes from the Anglo-Saxon verb _clocean_ meaning "to +strike," "to give out a sound." It is impossible to ascertain by whom +clocks were invented, or when or where. It is fairly clear, however, +that a Benedictine Monk named Gerbert, who afterward became Pope +Sylvester II, made a clock for the German city of Magdeburg a little +before the year 1000 A.D. Clocks may have been made before this, but +if so it would be hard to establish the fact. In Gerbert's clock +weights were the motive power for the mechanism. Weight clocks were +used in the monasteries of Europe in the eleventh century, but it is +probable that these early clocks struck a bell at certain intervals as +a call to prayer, and did not have dials for showing the time of day. + +[Illustration: A "GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK," BELONGING TO WILLIAM PENN] + +The first clocks were comparatively by large and were stationary. +Portable ones appeared about the beginning of the fourteenth century, +though the inventor is not known, nor the exact time or place of +invention. When portable clocks were invented, the motive power must +have been changed from weights to main-springs, and this change in +motive force marks an era in the development of the clock. The +introduction of the pendulum as a regulating agent was, however, the +greatest event in clock development. This invention has been credited +to Huygens, a Dutch philosopher, who was certainly, if not the +discoverer of the pendulum, the first to bring it into practical use, +about 1657. Credit for inventing the pendulum is also claimed for +Harris, a London clockmaker; for Hooke, the great English philosopher; +for a son of Galileo, the celebrated Italian scientist; and for others. + +The modern watch is in reality but a developed type of the clock. +Watches were made possible by the introduction of the coiled spring as +motive power, instead of the weight. The coiled spring came into use +near the end of the fifteenth century, though it is not known where or +by whom it was invented. Watches were not introduced into general use +in England until the reign of Elizabeth, and then on account of the +cost they were confined to the wealthy. At first watches were +comparatively large and struck the hours like clocks. After the +striking mechanism was abandoned, they were reduced in size and for a +time were considered ornamental rather than useful. They were richly +adorned with pictures in enamel and with costly jewels. They were set +in the heads of canes, in bracelets, and in finger-rings. + +Watches and clocks had originally only one hand, which indicated the +hour. Minute and second hands were added later. Devices have been +introduced to counteract the effect of temperature on the mechanism of +time-pieces, so that they run uniformly in all kinds of weather. Within +recent years clocks operated with electricity have been invented. With +the advent of clock and watch manufacture by machinery, the cost has +been so reduced that practically any one may own an accurate +time-piece. The United States is one of the foremost countries of the +world in the manufacture and sale of clocks and watches. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SOME MACHINES + + +THE SEWING MACHINE + +Civilization owes the invention of the sewing machine to Elias Howe, +an American. Howe was born at Spencer, Massachusetts, July 9, 1819. +His father was a miller, and work in the mills gave the son's mind a +bent toward machinery. One day in 1839 while Howe was working in a +machine-shop in Boston, he overheard a conversation among some men +regarding the invention of a knitting machine. "What are you bothering +yourselves with a knitting machine for? Why don't you make a sewing +machine?" asked one. "I wish I could," was the reply, "but it can't be +done." "Oh, yes it can," said the first, "I can make a sewing machine +myself." "Well, you do it," replied the second, "and I'll insure you +an independent fortune." + +This conversation impressed Howe with the idea of producing a sewing +machine. The hope of relieving his extreme poverty set him to work on +the invention in earnest in the year 1843. George Fisher, a coal and +wood dealer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was a former schoolmate of +Howe, formed a partnership with him for producing the invention. In +December, 1844, Howe moved into Fisher's house, set up his shop in the +garret, and went to work. In the following April he sewed the first +seam with his new machine, and by the middle of May he had sewed all +the seams of two suits of clothes, one for himself and one for his +partner. + +On September 10, 1846, a patent on the sewing machine was issued to +Howe from the United States Patent Office at Washington. + +The tailors of Boston, believing that a sewing machine would destroy +their business, waged fierce warfare against it. In the spring of 1846, +seeing no prospect of revenue from his invention, Howe took employment +as a railroad engineer on one of the roads entering Boston, but this +labor proved too hard for him and he soon gave it up. Howe's partner, +Fisher, could see no profit in the machine and became wholly +discouraged. Howe then determined to try to market his invention in +England, and sent a machine to London. An English machinist examined +it, approved it, and paid $250 for it, together with the right to use +as many others in his own business as he might desire. Howe was +afterward of the opinion that the investment of this $250 by the +English machinist brought ultimately to that man a profit of one +million dollars. + +[Illustration: ELIAS HOWE] + +During all this time Howe was extremely poor. He and his wife and +children had gone to England, but on account of poverty he was +compelled to send his family back to America. His fourth machine, which +he had constructed in England, he was obliged to sell for 5 pounds +(about $25), although it was worth ten times as much, in order to +procure money enough to pay his return passage to America. He also +pawned his first-made machine and his patent on the invention. In +April, 1849, he landed at New York with only an English half-crown in +his pocket. Procuring employment in a machine-shop, the inventor took +up his abode in one of the cheapest emigrant boarding-houses. At this +time his wife lay dying in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his father had +to send him ten dollars to enable him to go to her. + +Finally the sewing machine began to succeed commercially. The +inventor's long night of discouragement was breaking on a day of +assured prosperity. In 1850 Howe was in New York superintending the +manufacture of fourteen sewing machines. His office was equipped with a +five-dollar desk and two fifty-cent chairs. A few years later he was +rich. Isaac Merritt Singer became acquainted with his machine, and +submitted to him the sketch of an improved one. It was Singer who first +forced the sewing machine upon the attention of the United States. Howe +charged that Singer was infringing his patent rights. Litigation +ensued. Judge Sprague of Massachusetts decided in favor of Howe. In his +opinion he stated that "there is no evidence in this case that leaves a +shadow of doubt that, for all the benefit conferred upon the public by +the introduction of a sewing machine the public are indebted to Mr. +Howe." From this time Howe began to reap the financial reward of his +labors. His revenues from the sewing machine amounted ultimately to +more than $200,000 a year. He spent vast sums, however, in defending +his patent rights, and many others of the "sewing machine kings" were +wealthier than he. Howe died at Brooklyn, New York, October 3, 1867. + +The sewing machine is used not only for sewing cloth into all kinds of +garments, but for making leather into boots, shoes, harness, and other +necessary articles of daily life. Great improvements have been made in +the sewing machine since its invention, but its essential principles +to-day are for the most part those that the inventor discovered and +brought into successful operation in his first machine. It is agreed by +disinterested and competent persons that "Howe carried the invention of +the sewing machine further toward its complete and final utility than +any other inventor before him had ever brought a first-rate invention +at the first trial." + + +THE REAPER + +In the Louvre at Paris is one of the noblest and most famous paintings +of modern art, purchased some years ago at a cost of three hundred +thousand francs. It is "The Gleaners" from the brush of the French +artist Jean Francois Millet. It pictures three peasant women who have +gone out into the fields to glean at the end of the harvest. They are +picking up the grain left by the reapers, seeking the little that is +left on the ground. In the background are the field, the groups of +reapers, the loaded wagons and the horses bringing the garnered sheaves +to the rick, the farmer on horseback among his men, and the homestead +among the trees. The transparent atmosphere of the summer day, the +burning rays of the sun, and the short yellow stubble are all as if +they were nature and not art. In the foreground are the three gleaners, +"heroic types of labor fulfilling its task until 'the night cometh when +no man can work.'" + +One of the most beautiful stories of the Bible is the tale of Ruth, the +Moabitess, who went out into the fields of Palestine to glean. "And she +went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and her hap +was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the +kindred of Elimilech." + +According to the old English law, gleaners had the right to go into the +fields and glean. And those needy ones who went for the leavings of the +reapers could not be sued for trespass. + +But it is not with reaping in art, literature, or law that we are here +concerned, but with the reaper as a machine, a concrete thing, a tool, +an instrument of civilization. + +From the earliest times until nearly the middle of the last century +the cutting of grain was done by means of a hand sickle or curved +reaping-hook. The sickles used by the ancient Jews, Egyptians, and +Chinese differed very little from those of our own ancestors. This tool +was only slightly improved as the centuries went by, and to this day +the sickle may be seen in use. In many parts of the British Isles the +reaping-hook gave place to the scythe in the earlier part of the +nineteenth century. An attempt to trace the idea of a machine for +reaping would carry us far back into the early stages of agriculture; +Pliny, the Roman writer, born early in the first century of the +Christian era, found a crude kind of reaper in the fields of Gaul. For +the great modern invention of the reaping machine, civilization is +indebted to Cyrus Hall McCormick, an American. + +McCormick was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, February 15, 1809. +His father, Robert McCormick, a farmer of inventive mind, worked long +to produce a reaper. In 1831 he put a reaping machine in the field for +trial, but it failed to work and its inventor was completely +discouraged. Against the counsel of his father, Cyrus McCormick began a +study of the machine that had failed, to determine and to overcome the +causes of failure. He produced another reaper, and in the late harvest +of 1831 he tested it in the wheat fields of his father's farm and in +some fields of oats belonging to a neighbor. The machine was a success. + +McCormick's invention, soon destined to revolutionize agriculture, was +combated for the alleged reason that it would destroy the occupation of +farm laborers during the harvest season. It was some years before +McCormick himself realized the importance of his invention, and he did +not take out a patent on it until June 21, 1834. It was not until 1840 +that he began manufacturing reapers for the market. In that year he +constructed one and sold it to a neighbor. For the harvest of 1843 he +made and sold twenty-nine machines. These had all been built upon the +home farm by hand, the workmen being himself, his father, and his +brothers. In 1844 he traveled with his reaper from Virginia to New York +State, and from there through the wheat fields of Wisconsin, Illinois, +Ohio, and Missouri, showing the machine at work in the grain and +enlisting the interest of agricultural men. + +[Illustration: A MODERN REAPER This machine cuts, threshes, winnows, +and sacks the wheat] + +In 1847 and 1848 Chicago was but a trading village. McCormick, +foreseeing its future growth, located his reaper factory there. In that +factory he constructed about nine hundred reapers for the harvest of +1848. + +In 1851 he exhibited his invention at the World's Fair in London. The +London _Times_ facetiously called it "a cross between a wheel-barrow +and a flying machine." Later the same paper said of the reaper that it +was "the most valuable contribution to the Exposition, and worth to +the farmers of England more than the entire cost of the Exposition." + +In 1848 McCormick's patent on the reaper expired. Although his claim as +the inventor was clearly established, and the commissioner of patents +paid him the highest compliments in words for his invention, a renewal +of the patent was denied. Other reapers had been made in the meantime, +and others have been brought out subsequently. It is an historical +fact, however, and one now seldom questioned, that every harvesting +machine which has ever been constructed is in its essential parts the +invention of Cyrus Hall McCormick. + +Besides being a great inventor and successful business man, McCormick +was a liberal philanthropist. He gave freely to educational and +religious institutions. He died at his home in Chicago, May 13, 1884. + +An improved type of the ordinary reaper of McCormick is the +self-binder, now in common use, a machine which not only reaps the +stalks of grain but binds them together in sheaves. + +The most primitive method of threshing grain from the straw was +doubtless by beating it with a stick. The ancient Egyptians and +Israelites spread out their loosened sheaves upon a circular plot of +earth and threshed out the grain by driving oxen back and forth over +it. Later a threshing-sledge was dragged over the sheaves. The Greeks +and the Romans beat out grain with a stick, trod it out with men or +horses, or used the threshing-sledge. The primitive implement for +threshing in northern Europe was the stick. A modification of this was +the flail, made of two sticks loosely fastened together at one end by +means of stout thongs. This implement was used by our ancestors in +America and has not yet entirely disappeared from all parts of the +world. The threshing machine was invented in 1787 by Andrew Meikle, a +Scotchman. Only a few years ago threshing machines were drawn by +horses, but of late years they have been moved with self-propelling +steam engines, commonly called traction engines. + +A remarkable combination machine has come into use recently, +particularly in the vast wheat fields of California, eastern +Washington, and the West. This machine is drawn by as many as +thirty-two horses. At one operation it cuts the grain, threshes it, +winnows it, and puts it into bags ready for the market. + + +SPINNING AND WEAVING MACHINES + +The low, monotonous hum of the spinning-wheel in the old farmhouse on +winter evenings, as the housewife spun the yarn which she was afterward +to knit into warm stockings for the family, has not entirely passed +away from the memory of the older generation of to-day. Thomas Buchanan +Read has a pathetic allusion to the old spinning-wheel in one of his +best poems, "The Closing Scene." And who has not felt the charm of the +spinning-wheel scene in Longfellow's "The Courtship of Miles Standish," +which pictures John Alden as he sits clumsily holding on his hands the +skein which Priscilla winds for knitting. + +There are two essential principles in the art of spinning: first, the +drawing out of uniform quantities of fiber in a continuous manner; and +second, the twisting of the fiber so as to give it coherency and +strength. The earliest spinning apparatus, and for ages the only one, +was the distaff and spindle. The former was a staff upon which was +loosely bound a bundle of the fiber to be spun. It was held in the left +hand or was fastened in the belt. The spindle, a tapering rod smaller +than the distaff, was held in the right hand. The rotation of the +spindle gave the necessary twist to the thread, and around the spindle +the thread was wound as it was twisted. The next development in +spinning machinery was the spinning-wheel, which has continued in use +in some rural parts of the world practically to the present day. + +The series of inventions that overthrew hand spinning, and made this +industry possible on a large scale, really began in 1738 when Lewis +Paul, an English inventor, discovered a process for drawing out and +attenuating threads of wool or cotton by passing the fiber through +successive pairs of rollers. To-day this principle forms a fundamental +feature of all spinning machinery. In 1764 James Hargreaves, an +illiterate weaver and carpenter of Lancashire, England, invented the +spinning-jenny, a device by which eight threads could be spun at once. +With a little improvement in this invention, eighty threads were +produced as easily as eight. The idea of the spinning-jenny is said to +have been accidentally suggested to its inventor by watching the +motions of a common spinning-wheel which one of his children had +unintentionally upset. + +Hargreaves is another in the long list of those who have suffered +persecution because of having done something to make the world better. +His fellow-spinners, filled with prejudice toward his invention because +they feared it might rob them of employment, broke into his house and +destroyed his machine. He then moved to Nottingham, where he erected a +spinning mill. In 1770 Hargreaves took out a patent on his invention, +but the patent was subsequently annulled on the ground that he had sold +a few machines before patenting the invention. + +Valuable as was the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves, it was adapted only +to producing the transverse threads, or the woof. It could not produce +sufficient firmness and hardness for the longitudinal threads, or the +warp. In 1767 Richard Arkwright, another native of Lancashire, invented +the spinning-frame, which was able to yield a thread fine enough and +firm enough to make the warp. At the time of his invention Arkwright +was so poor that he had to be furnished with a suit of clothes before +he looked respectable enough to appear at an election. Like Hargreaves, +he also was persecuted. Both were driven out of Lancashire to +Nottingham to escape popular rage. Arkwright's patent was annulled, and +at one time his factory was destroyed by the populace in the presence +of a powerful military and police force, who did nothing to restrain +it. And why were Hargreaves and Arkwright driven out of Lancashire? +They had invented machines that would produce more and cheaper +clothing; that would give powerful impetus to the cotton and the woolen +industries; that would lift the race higher in the path-way of +civilization. What was the reason? Misunderstanding, prejudice, and +selfishness. The interests of the few were shutting out the interests +of the world. And these interests of the few were imaginary. + +In spite of all opposition, however, Arkwright succeeded, and may be +regarded as the founder of the modern factory system. + +In 1779 Samuel Crompton, another Lancashire inventor, produced an +improved spinning machine called the spinning-mule. This invention +combined the good qualities of the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves and the +spinning-frame of Arkwright. Its chief point of excellence lay in the +fineness of the threads which it spun; from this kind of thread could +be made finer fabrics than were possible with the machines of +Hargreaves and of Arkwright. + +Crompton was very poor. By day he worked at the loom or on the farm to +earn bread for himself, his mother, and his two sisters, and at night +he toiled away on his invention. No sooner had he perfected his machine +than he was beset by persons seeking to rob him of its benefits. All +kinds of devices were employed for learning the secret. Ladders were +placed against his windows in order that unscrupulous spectators might +get a view of the machine. He did not dare to leave the house, lest his +secret be stolen from him. He had spent his last farthing upon the +invention and had no funds for securing a patent. A manufacturer +persuaded him to disclose to the trade the nature of his invention +under promise of a liberal subscription; but Crompton received only a +paltry sum amounting to less than $350. He finally saved up enough +money to begin manufacturing on a small scale, but his rivals had +already out-distanced him. He died in June, 1827, disspirited at the +ill treatment he had received, but not until he had seen his invention +a powerful agency in British cloth manufacturing. + +An interesting glimpse of the days when weaving was done by hand in +England may be found in the first chapter of George Eliot's _Silas +Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. The hand-loom in weaving was +superseded by the power-loom early in the nineteenth century. The loom +was the invention of the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, an English clergyman, +poet, and inventor. The date of the invention was 1785. Cartwright's +first loom was very crude, but he subsequently improved it. The idea +for the invention of his power-loom came to Cartwright after a visit +to the spinning mills of Arkwright. He too was subjected to opposition +from the weavers on account of his invention. At one time he was +associated with Robert Fulton in his experiments in applying steam to +navigation. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AERONAUTICS + + +To fly in the air has been the dream of all peoples in all ages. "Oh +that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away and be at rest!" +sang the Psalmist. It would seem from the recent inventions in the +science of aeronautics that this dream is to become in the near future +a practical experience of our every-day lives. + +A balloon is an apparatus with an envelope filled with gas, the +specific gravity of which is less than that of the atmosphere near the +surface of the earth. It is practically at the mercy of air-currents. +The science of balloon aeronautics dates definitely from 1783, when the +Montgolfier brothers at Angonay in France constructed their first +balloons. These Frenchmen and their successors developed the spherical +balloons to a state of efficiency which has scarcely been improved upon +to this day. The balloon in time came to be adopted throughout Europe +for military uses, mainly for the purpose of spying out the enemy's +position and defenses. + +A dirigible balloon usually has an elongated envelope and is equipped +with a motor and a rudder by which it can be steered at will against a +moderate wind. Balloon aeronautics became popular in 1898, when +Santos-Dumont, a wealthy young Brazilian, performed a series of +spectacular feats with his dirigible balloon. Immediately ballooning +became the sporting fad in France and the craze spread rapidly over the +Continent and to England. Numerous airships of the dirigible type made +their appearance and many balloon factories were established. + +[Illustration: A WRIGHT BIPLANE By Courtesy of Brooks Brothers] + +In Germany every community has its aero club. In the United States +there are about 300,000 club members scattered throughout the land who +individually or collectively own over 200 balloons. All of the great +nations own one or more aerial warships of the dirigible type, as well +as numerous spherical balloons. + +An aeroplane, as commonly known, is a machine which is sustained in the +air by one, two, or three sets of rigid surfaces or planes. Unlike the +balloon, it is heavier than air, and it must therefore maintain its +position in the air by some form of mechanical propulsion. It must, in +other words, fly like a bird. + +[Illustration: A BLERIOT MONOPLANE] + +The first aeroplane was invented by Henson, an Englishman, who in 1843 +flew his machine, using a two-horse-power steam engine. In 1888 and in +1900 two other practically successful models appeared, one made by a +French and the other by an English inventor. Langley, an American, who +began experimenting in 1885, managed to fly over the Potomac in 1896. +The Wright brothers made their initial flights under motor power in +1903. + +During the years since 1903 innumerable types of aeroplanes have been +developed, all based upon the lines laid down by Langley, Henson, +Maxim, and other pioneers. Among the most successful experimenters have +been Farman, Delagrange, Bleriot, Curtiss, and the Voisins. + +The flapping-wing machine is called an orthopter (_orthos_, straight, ++ _ptera_, wing) and is supposed to copy bird flight. Screw-flyers, +called helicopters, lift themselves from the ground by the thrust of +varying numbers of rapidly moving propellers, revolving horizontally. + +Some startling feats have been performed in the field of aeronautics. +On August 7, 1910, John B. Moisant, an American, flew in a Bleriot +monoplane across the English Channel, a distance of about twenty-five +miles, in thirty-two minutes. He carried one passenger. On September +12, 1910, Claude Grahame-White, an Englishman, flew in a Farman biplane +thirty-three miles in thirty-four minutes, near Boston, winning a prize +of ten thousand dollars. + + +Every day new ideas take shape and are developed in some form that +promotes the pleasure, comfort, or safety of mankind. There seems to +be literally no limit to man's inventive power. His brain teems with +thoughts and his hands labor incessantly to force his thoughts into +material forms. He mounts higher and higher on the scale of +civilization, casting away old ideas, inefficient methods, and +worn-out machines, and substituting the new and wonderful things which +he has achieved. + + + + +Graded Supplementary Reading Series + + + Classic Fables. For First and Second Grades. Selected and edited by + Edna Henry Lee Turpin. 127 pages, 12mo, cloth 30 cents + + Grimm's Fairy Tales. For Second and Third Grades. Selected and + edited by Edna Henry Lee Turpin. 207 pages, 12mo, cloth 40 cents + + Andersen's Fairy Tales. For Third and Fourth Grades. Selected and + edited by Edna Henry Lee Turpin. 253 pages, cloth 40 cents + + Stories from American History. For Fourth and Fifth Grades. + Selected and edited by Edna Henry Lee Turpin. 191 pages, 12mo, + cloth 40 cents + + Stories from Greek History. 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