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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romance of Industry and Invention, Edited
+by Robert Cochrane
+
+
+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: The Romance of Industry and Invention
+
+
+Editor: Robert Cochrane
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2011  [eBook #38329]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY AND
+INVENTION***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Chris Curnow 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
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+      Images of the original pages are available through
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+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the
+      closest paragraph break.
+
+      Mixed fractions are represented using forward slash and hyphen
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+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Rush for the Gold-fields.]
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY AND INVENTION
+
+Selected by
+
+ROBERT COCHRANE
+
+Editor of
+'Great Thinkers and Workers,' 'Beneficent and Useful Lives,'
+'Adventure and Adventurers,' 'Recent Travel and Adventure,'
+'Good and Great Women,' 'Heroic Lives,' &c.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia
+J. B. Lippincott Company
+1897
+
+Edinburgh:
+Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Our national industries lie at the root of national progress. The first
+Napoleon taunted us with being a nation of shopkeepers; that, however,
+is now less true than that we are a nation of manufacturers--coal, iron,
+and steel, and our textile industries, taken along with our enormous
+carrying-trade, forming the backbone of the wealth of the country.
+
+A romantic interest belongs to the rise and progress of most of our
+industries. Very often this lies in the career of the inventor, who
+struggled towards the perfection and recognition of his invention
+against heavy difficulties and discouragements; or it may lie in the
+interesting processes of manufacture. Every fresh labourer in the field
+adds some link to the chain of progress, and brings it nearer
+perfection. Some of the small beginnings have increased in a marvellous
+way. Such are chronicled under Bessemer and Siemens, who have vastly
+increased the possibilities of the steel industry; in the sections
+devoted to Krupp, of Essen; Sir W.G. Armstrong, of the Elswick Works,
+where 18,000 men are now employed alone in the arsenal; Maxim, of Maxim
+Gun fame; the rise and progress of the cycle industry; that of the gold
+and diamond mining industry; and the carrying-trade of the world.
+
+Many of the chapters in this book have been selected from a wealth of
+such material contributed from time to time to the pages of _Chambers's
+Journal_, but additions and fresh material have been added where
+necessary.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+  The Rush for the Gold-fields                          _Frontispiece_
+  Nasmyth's Steam-hammer                                            19
+  Bessemer Converting Vessel                                        28
+  Bessemer Process                                                  30
+  Krupp's 15.6 Breech-loading Gun (breech open)                     47
+  Josiah Wedgwood                                                   52
+  Wedgwood at Work                                                  56
+  Portland Vase                                                     62
+  The Worcester Porcelain Works                                     64
+  Chinese Porcelain Vase                                            71
+  Wool-sorters at Work                                              82
+  Cotton Plant                                                     101
+  The Hand-cradle Method of extracting Gold                        103
+  Welcome Nugget                                                   106
+  Hydraulic Gold-mining                                            115
+  Prospecting for Gold                                             125
+  Square-cut Brilliant, Round-cut Brilliant, Rose-cut Diamond      136
+  Kimberley Diamond-mine                                           139
+  Some of the Principal Diamonds of the World                      145
+  The _Great Harry_                                                153
+  Gatling Gun on Field Carriage                                    163
+  Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark              164
+  Lord Armstrong                                                   166
+  Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun                                          178
+  One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England'                         184
+  The _Majestic_                                                   186
+  Section of the Goubet Submarine Boat                             190
+  The Dandy-horse                                                  204
+  The _Great Eastern_ and the _Persia_                             232
+  The _Campania_                                                   237
+  Clipper Sailing-ship of 1850-60                                  241
+  _La France_                                                      246
+  The _Great Eastern_ paying out the Atlantic Cable                281
+  Edison with his Phonograph                                       291
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+IRON AND STEEL.
+                                                                  PAGE
+    Pioneers of the Iron and Steel Industry--Sir Henry Bessemer--
+    Sir William Siemens--Werner von Siemens--The Krupps of Essen     9
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+POTTERY AND PORCELAIN.
+
+    Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood Ware--Worcester Porcelain      51
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SEWING MACHINE.
+
+    Thomas Saint--Thimonnier--Hunt--Elias Howe--Wilson--Morey--
+    Singer                                                          72
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WOOL AND COTTON.
+
+    WOOL.--What is Wool?--Chemical Composition--Fibre--Antiquity
+    of Shepherd Life--Varieties of Sheep--Introduction into
+    Australia--Spanish Merino--Wool Wealth of Australia--Imports
+    and Exports of Wool and Woollen Produce--Woollen Manufacture    81
+
+    COTTON.--Cotton Plant in the East--Mandeville's Fables about
+    Cotton--Cotton in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt--Columbus finds
+    Cotton-yarn and Thread in 1492--In Africa--Manufacture of
+    Cloth in England--The American Cotton Plant                     91
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GOLD AND DIAMONDS.
+
+    GOLD.--How widely distributed--Alluvial Gold-mining--Vein
+    Gold-mining--Nuggets--Treatment of Ore and Gold in the
+    Transvaal--Story of South African Gold-fields--Gold-production
+    of the World--Johannesburg the Golden City--Coolgardie
+    Gold-fields--Bayley's discovery of Gold there                  102
+
+    DIAMONDS.--Composition--Diamond-cutting--Diamond-mining--
+    Famous Diamonds--Cecil J. Rhodes and the Kimberley Mines       135
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BIG GUNS, SMALL-ARMS, AND AMMUNITION.
+
+    Woolwich Arsenal--Enfield Small-arms Factory--Lord Armstrong
+    and the Elswick Works--Testing Guns at Shoeburyness--Hiram
+    S. Maxim and the Maxim Machine Gun--The Colt Automatic Gun--
+    Ironclads--Submarine Boats                                     152
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE CYCLE.
+
+    In praise of Cycling--Number of Cycles in Use--Medical
+    Opinions--Pioneers in the Invention--James Starley--Cycling
+    Tours                                                          192
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+STEAMERS AND SAILING-SHIPS.
+
+    Early Shipping--Mediterranean Trade--Rise of the P. and O. and
+    other Lines--Transatlantic Lines--India and the East--Early
+    Steamships--First Steamer to cross the Atlantic--Rise of
+    Atlantic Shipping Lines--The _Great Eastern_ and the New
+    Cunarders _Campania_ and _Lucania_ compared--Sailing-ships     205
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+POST-OFFICE--TELEGRAPH--TELEPHONE--PHONOGRAPH.
+
+    Rowland Hill and Penny Postage--A Visit to the Post-office--
+    The Post-office on Wheels--Early Telegraphs--Wheatstone and
+    Morse--The State and the Telegraphs--Atlantic Cables--
+    Telephones--Edison and the Phonograph                          247
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY
+
+AND
+
+INVENTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+IRON AND STEEL.
+
+    Pioneers of the Iron and Steel Industry--Sir Henry Bessemer--Sir
+    William Siemens--Werner von Siemens--The Krupps of Essen.
+
+
+Francis Horner, writing early in this century, said that 'Iron is not
+only the soul of every other manufacture, but the mainspring perhaps of
+civilised society.' Cobden has said that 'our wealth, commerce, and
+manufactures grew out of the skilled labour of men working in metals.'
+According to Carlyle, the epic of the future is not to be Arms and the
+Man, but Tools and the Man. We all know that iron was mined and smelted
+in considerable quantities in this island as far back as the time of the
+Romans; and we cherish a vague notion that iron must have been mined and
+smelted here ever since on a progressively increasing scale. We are so
+accustomed to think and speak of ourselves as first among all nations,
+at the smelting-furnace, in the smithy, and amid the Titanic labours of
+the mechanical workshop, that we open large eyes when we are told what
+a recent conquest all this superiority is!
+
+There was, indeed, some centuries later than the Roman occupation, a
+period coming down to quite modern times, during which English
+iron-mines were left almost unworked. In Edward III.'s reign, the pots,
+spits, and frying-pans of the royal kitchen were classed among his
+majesty's jewels. For the planners of the Armada the greater abundance
+and excellence of Spanish iron compared with English was an important
+element in their calculations of success. In the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, the home market looked to Spain and Germany for its
+supply both of iron and steel. After that, Sweden came prominently
+forward; and from her, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century,
+no less than four-fifths of the iron used in this country was imported!
+
+The reason of this marvellous neglect of what has since proved one of
+our main sources of wealth lay in the enormous consumption of timber
+which the old smelting processes entailed. The charcoal used in
+producing a single ton of pig-iron represented four loads of wood, and
+that required for a ton of bar-iron represented seven loads. Of course,
+the neighbourhood of a forest was an essential condition to the
+establishment of ironworks; but wherever such an establishment was
+effected, the forest disappeared with portentous rapidity. At
+Lamberhurst, on the borders of Kent and Sussex, with so trifling a
+produce as five tons per week, the annual consumption of wood was two
+hundred thousand cords. The timber wealth of Kent, Surrey, and
+Sussex--which counties were then the centres of our iron
+industry--seemed menaced with speedy annihilation. In the destruction of
+these great forests, that of our maritime power was supposed to be
+intimately involved; so that it is easy to understand how, in those
+days, the development of the iron manufacture came to be regarded in
+the light of a national calamity, and a fitting subject for restrictive
+legislation! Various Acts were passed towards the end of the sixteenth
+century prohibiting smelting-furnaces within twenty-two miles of London,
+and many of the Sussex masters found themselves compelled, in
+consequence, to break up their works. During the civil wars of the
+seventeenth century, a severe blow was given to the trade by the
+destruction of all furnaces belonging to royalists; and after the
+Restoration we find the crown itself demolishing its own works in the
+Forest of Dean, on the old plea that the supply of shipbuilding timber
+was thereby imperilled. Between 1720 and 1730 the ironworks of
+Worcestershire and the Forest of Dean consumed 17,350 tons of timber
+annually, or five tons for each furnace.
+
+'From this time' (the Restoration), says Mr Smiles, 'the iron
+manufacture of Sussex, as of England generally, rapidly declined. In
+1740 there were only fifty-nine furnaces in all England, of which ten
+were in Sussex; and in 1788 there were only two. A few years later, and
+the Sussex iron-furnaces were blown out altogether. Farnhurst in
+Western, and Ashburnham in Eastern Sussex, witnessed the total
+extinction of the manufacture. The din of the iron hammer was hushed,
+the glare of the furnace faded, the last blast of the bellows was blown,
+and the district returned to its original rural solitude. Some of the
+furnace-ponds were drained and planted with hops or willows; others
+formed beautiful lakes in retired pleasure-grounds; while the remainder
+were used to drive flour-mills, as the streams in North Kent, instead of
+driving fulling-mills, were employed to work paper-mills.' The
+plentifulness of timber in the Scottish Highlands explains the
+establishment of smelting-furnaces, in 1753, by an English company at
+Bunawe in Argyllshire, whither the iron was brought from Furness in
+Lancashire.
+
+Few of our readers can be unacquainted with the fact that iron-smelting
+at the present day is performed not with wood but with coal. It will
+readily, then, be understood that the substitution of the one
+description of fuel for the other must have formed the turning-point in
+the history of the British iron manufacture. This substitution, however,
+was brought about very slowly. The prejudice against coal was for a long
+period extreme; its use for domestic purposes was pronounced detrimental
+to health; and, even for purposes of manufacture, it was generally
+condemned. Nevertheless, as wood became scarcer and dearer, a closer
+examination into the capabilities of coal came naturally to be made; and
+here, as in almost every other industrial path, we find a foreigner
+acting as our pioneer. The Germans had long been experienced in mining
+and metallurgy; and it was a German, Simon Sturtevant, who first took
+out a patent for smelting iron with coal. But his process proved a
+failure, and the patent was cancelled. Other Germans, naturalised here,
+followed in Sturtevant's footsteps, but with no better results; until at
+last an Englishman, Dud Dudley (1599-1684), took up the idea, and gave
+it practical success. The town of Dudley was even then a centre of the
+iron manufacture, and Dud's noble father, Lord Dudley, owned several
+furnaces. But here, also, the forest-wealth of the district was fast
+melting away, and the trade already languished under the dread of
+impending dissolution. In the immediate neighbourhood, meanwhile, coal
+was abundant, with ironstone and limestone in close proximity to it.
+Dud, who, as a child, had haunted and scrutinised his father's ironworks
+with wondering delight, was placed just at this juncture in charge of a
+furnace and a couple of forges, and immediately turned his energetic
+mind to the question of smelting with coal. Some careful experiments
+succeeded so well that he wrote to his father, requesting him to take
+out a patent for the process; and this patent, registered in Lord
+Dudley's name, and dated the 22d February 1620, properly inaugurated the
+great metallurgic revolution which had made the English iron trade what
+it now is. Andrew Yarranton was another pioneer in the iron and
+tin-plate industry, and wrote a remarkable work on _England's
+Improvement by Sea and Land_ (1677-81).
+
+Nevertheless, even with this positive success on record, the inert
+insular mind long refused to follow the path cleared for it. Dud's
+discovery 'was neither appreciated by the iron-masters nor by the
+workmen;' and all schemes for smelting ore with any other fuel than
+wood-charcoal were regarded with incredulity. His secret seems to have
+been bequeathed to no one, and for many years after his death the old,
+much-abused, forest-devouring system went tottering on. Stern necessity,
+however, taught its hard lesson at last, and a period insensibly arrived
+when the employment of coal in smelting processes became the rule rather
+than the exception, and might be seen here and there on an unusually
+large scale--especially at the celebrated Coalbrookdale works, in the
+valley of the Severn, Shropshire.
+
+The founder of the Coalbrookdale industries was a Quaker--Abraham Darby
+(1677-1717). A small furnace had existed on the spot ever since the days
+of the Tudors, and this small furnace formed the nucleus of that
+industrial activity which the visitor of Coalbrookdale surveys with such
+wonder at the present day.
+
+In Darby's time, the principal cooking utensils of the poorer classes
+were pots and kettles made of cast-iron. But even this primitive ware
+was beyond native skill, and most of the utensils in question were
+imported from Holland. Exercising an effort of judgment, which, moderate
+as it was, seems to have been hitherto unexampled, Darby resolved to
+pay that country a visit, and ascertain in person why it was that Dutch
+castings were so good and English so bad. The use of dry sand instead of
+clay for the moulds comprised, he found, the whole secret.
+
+On returning to England, Darby took out a patent for the new process,
+and his castings soon acquired repute. The use of pit-coal in the
+Coalbrookdale furnaces is not supposed, however, to have become general
+until the worthy Abraham had been succeeded by his son; but when it once
+did become so, the impetus thereby given to the iron trade and to
+coal-mining was immense. It is the latter industry which may
+pre-eminently claim to have called the steam-engine into existence. The
+demand for pumping-power adequate to the drainage of deep mines set
+Newcomen's brain to work; and the engine rough-sketched by his
+ingenuity, and perfected by the genius of Watt, soon increased
+enormously the production of iron by rendering coal more accessible and
+the blast-furnace more efficient.
+
+A son-in-law of Abraham Darby's, Richard Reynolds by name, made a great
+stride towards the modern railway by substituting iron for wood on the
+tramways which connected the different works at Coalbrookdale; and it
+was a grandson of the same Abraham who designed and erected the first
+iron bridge.
+
+England, we have seen, borrowed the idea of her smelting processes and
+iron-castings from Germany and Holland; but the discovery of that
+important material, cast-steel, belongs, at least, to one of her own
+sons. Yet even here the relationship is a merely conventional one, for
+Benjamin Huntsman (1704-1776) was the child of German parents who had
+settled in Lincolnshire.
+
+Huntsman's original calling was that of a clock-maker; but his
+remarkable mechanical skill, his shrewdness, and his practical sense,
+soon gave him the repute of the 'wise man' of the district, and brought
+neighbours to consult him not only as to the repair of every ordinary
+sort of machinery, but also of the human frame--the most complex of all
+machines! It was his daily experience of the inferior quality of the
+tools at his command that led him to make experiments in the manufacture
+of steel. What his experiments were we have no record to show; but that
+they must have been conducted with Teutonic patience and thoroughness
+there can be no doubt, from the formidable nature of the difficulties
+overcome.
+
+England, however, long refused to make use of Huntsman's precious
+material, although produced in her very midst. The Sheffield cutlers
+would have nothing to do with a substance so much harder than anything
+they were accustomed to, and Huntsman was actually compelled to look for
+his market abroad! All the cast-steel he could manufacture was sent over
+to France, and the merit of employing this material for general purposes
+belongs originally to that country. The inventions of Henry Cort
+(1740-1800) for refining and rolling iron (1785) were the mainspring of
+the malleable iron trade, and made Great Britain independent of Russia
+and Sweden for supplies of manufactured iron. One authority has stated
+that since 1790, when Cort's improvements were entirely established, the
+value of landed property in England had doubled. But he was unfortunate
+in business life, and in 1811 upwards of forty iron firms subscribed
+towards a fund for the assistance of his widow and nine orphan children.
+David Mushet (1772-1847) did much for the expansion of the iron trade in
+Scotland by his preparation of steel from bar-iron by a direct process,
+combining the iron with carbon, and by his discovery of the effect of
+manganese on steel.
+
+Steel is the material of which the instruments of labour are
+essentially made. Upon the quality of the material, that of the
+instrument naturally depends, and upon the quality of the instrument,
+that, in great measure, of the work. Watt's marvellous invention ran
+great risk, at one time, of being abandoned, for the simple reason that
+the mechanical capacities of the age were not 'up' to its embodiment.
+Even after Watt had secured the aid of Boulton's best workmen, Smeaton
+gave it as his opinion that the steam-engine could never be brought into
+general use, because of the difficulty of getting its various parts made
+with the requisite precision.
+
+The execution by machinery of work ordinarily executed by hand-tools has
+been a gigantic stride in the path of material civilisation. The
+earliest phase of the great modern movement in this direction is
+represented, probably, by the sawmill. A sawmill was erected near London
+as long ago as 1663--by a foreigner--but was shortly abandoned in
+consequence of the determined hostility of the sawyers; and more than a
+century elapsed before another mill was put up. But the sawmill is
+comparatively a rude structure, and the material it operates upon is
+easily treated, even by the hand. When we come to deal, however, with
+such substances as iron and steel, the benefit of machinery becomes
+incalculable. Without our recent machine-tools, indeed, the stupendous
+iron creations of the present day would have been impossible at any
+cost; for no amount of hand-labour could ever attain that perfect
+exactitude of construction without which it would be idle to attempt
+fitting the component parts of these colossal structures together.
+
+The first impulse, however, to the improvement of machine-tools for
+ironwork was given by a difficulty born not of mass but of minuteness.
+
+Up to the end of the last century, the locks in common use among us
+were of the rudest description, and afforded scarcely any security
+against thieves. To meet this universal want, Joseph Bramah set his
+remarkable inventive faculties to work, and speedily contrived a lock so
+perfect, that it held its ground for many a day. But Bramah's locks are
+machines of the most delicate kind, depending for their efficiency upon
+the precision with which their component parts are finished; and, at
+that time, the attainment of this precision, at such a price as to
+render the lock an article of extensive commerce, seemed an insuperable
+difficulty. In his dilemma, Bramah's attention was directed to a
+youngster in the Woolwich Arsenal smithy, named Henry Maudsley, whose
+reputation for ingenuity was already great among his fellows. Bramah was
+at first almost ashamed to take such a mere lad into his counsels; but a
+preliminary conversation convinced him that his confidence would not be
+misplaced. He persuaded Maudsley to enter his employment, and the result
+was the invention, between them, of the planing-machine, applicable
+either to wood or metal, as also of certain improvements in the old
+lathe, more particularly of that known as the 'slide-rest.'
+
+In the old-fashioned lathe, the workman guided his cutting-tool by sheer
+muscular strength, and the slightest variation in the pressure
+necessarily led to an irregularity of surface. The rest for the hand is
+in this case fixed, and the tool held by the workman travels along it.
+Now, the principle of the slide-rest is the opposite of this. The rest
+itself holds the tool firmly fixed in it, and slides along the bench in
+a direction parallel with the axis of the work. All that the workman has
+to do, therefore, is to turn a screw-handle, by means of which the
+cutter is carried along with the smallest possible expenditure of
+strength; and even this trifling labour has been since got rid of, by
+making the rest self-acting.
+
+Simple and obvious as this improvement seems, its importance cannot be
+overrated. The accuracy it insured was precisely the desideratum of the
+day! By means of the slide-rest, the most delicate as well as the most
+ponderous pieces of machinery can be turned with mathematical precision;
+and from this invention must date that extraordinary development of
+mechanical power and production which is a characteristic of the age we
+live in. 'Without the aid of the vast accession to our power of
+producing perfect mechanism which it at once supplied,' says a
+first-class judge in matters of the kind, 'we could never have worked
+out into practical and profitable forms the conceptions of those
+master-minds who, during the past half-century, have so successfully
+pioneered the way for mankind. The steam-engine itself, which supplies
+us with such unbounded power, owes its present perfection to this most
+admirable means of giving to metallic objects the most precise and
+perfect geometrical forms. How could we, for instance, have good
+steam-engines if we had not the means of boring out a true cylinder, or
+turning a true piston-rod, or planing a valve-face?'
+
+It would perhaps be impossible to cite any more authoritative estimate
+of Maudsley's invention than the above. The words placed between
+inverted commas are the words of James Nasmyth, the inventor of that
+wonderful steam-hammer which Professor Tomlinson characterises as 'one
+of the most perfect of artificial machines and noblest triumphs of mind
+over matter that modern English engineers have yet developed.'
+
+[Illustration: Nasmyth's Steam-hammer.]
+
+This machine enlarged at one bound the whole scale of working in iron,
+and permitted Maudsley's lathe to develop its entire range of capacity.
+The old 'tilt-hammer' was so constructed that the more voluminous the
+material submitted to it, the _less_ was the power attainable; so that
+as soon as certain dimensions had been exceeded, the hammer became
+utterly useless. When the _Great Western_ steamship was in course of
+construction, tenders were invited from the leading mechanical firms for
+the supply of the enormous paddle-shaft required for her engines. But a
+forging of the size in question had never been executed, and no firm in
+England would undertake the contract. In this dilemma, Mr Nasmyth was
+applied to, and the result of his study of the problem was this
+marvellous steam-hammer--so powerful that it will forge an Armstrong
+hundred-pounder as easily as a farrier forges a horse-shoe, and so
+delicately manageable that it will crack a nut without bruising its
+kernel!
+
+
+BESSEMER STEEL.
+
+In 1722, Reaumur produced steel by melting three parts of cast-iron with
+one part of wrought iron (probably in a crucible) in a common forge; he,
+however, failed to produce steel in this manner on a working scale. This
+process has many points in common with the Indian Wootz-steel
+manufacture.
+
+As we have seen, to Benjamin Huntsman, a Doncaster artisan, belongs the
+credit of first producing cast-steel upon a working scale, as he was the
+first to accomplish the entire fusion of converted bar-iron (that is,
+blister-steel) of the required degree of hardness, in crucibles or clay
+pots, placed among the coke of an air-furnace. This process is still
+carried on at Sheffield and elsewhere, and is what is generally known as
+the crucible or pot-steel process. It was mainly supplementary to the
+cementation process, as formerly blister-steel was alone melted in the
+crucibles; but latterly, and at the present time, the crucible mode of
+manufacture embraces the fusion of other varieties and combinations of
+metal, producing accordingly different classes and qualities of steel.
+
+In 1839, Josiah Marshall Heath patented the important application of
+carburet of manganese to steel in the crucible, which application
+imparted to the resulting product the properties of varying temper and
+increased forgeability. He subsequently found out that a separate
+operation was not necessary to form the carburet--which is produced by
+heating peroxide of manganese and carbon to a high temperature--but that
+the same result could be attained by simply in the first instance adding
+the carbon and oxide of manganese direct to the metal in the crucible.
+He unsuspectingly communicated this after-discovery to his agent--by
+name Unwin--who took advantage of the fact that it was not incorporated
+in the wording of the patent, and so was unprotected, to make use of it
+for his own advantage. The result was one of the most remarkable patent
+trials on record, extending over twelve years, and terminating in 1855
+against the patentee--a remarkable instance of the triumph of legal
+technicalities over the moral sense of right.
+
+A very important development of the manufacture of steel followed the
+introduction of the 'Bessemer process,' by means of which a low carbon
+or mild cast-steel can be produced at about one-tenth of the cost of
+crucible steel. It is used for rails, for the tires of the wheels of
+railway carriages, for ship-plates, boiler-plates, for shafting, and a
+multitude of constructional and other purposes to which only wrought
+iron was formerly applied, besides many for which no metal at all was
+used.
+
+Sir Henry Bessemer's process for making steel, which is now so largely
+practised in England, on the continent of Europe, and in America, was
+patented in 1856. It was first applied to the making of malleable iron,
+but this has never been successfully made by the Bessemer method. For
+the manufacture of a cheap but highly serviceable steel, however, its
+success has been so splendid that no other metallurgical process has
+given its inventor so great a renown. Although the apparatus actually
+used is somewhat costly and elaborate, yet the principle of the
+operation is very simple. A large converting vessel, with openings
+called tuyeres in its bottom, is partially filled up with from 5 to 10
+tons of molten pig-iron, and a blast of air, at a pressure of from 18 to
+20 lb. per square inch, is forced through this metal by a blowing
+engine. Pig-iron contains from 3 to 5 per cent. of carbon, and, if it
+has been smelted with charcoal from a pure ore, as is the case with
+Swedish iron, the blast is continued till only from .25 to 1 per cent.
+of the carbon is left in the metal, that is to say, steel is produced.
+Sometimes, however, the minimum quantity of carbon is even less than .25
+per cent. In England, where a less pure but still expensive
+cast-iron--viz. haematite pig--is used for the production of steel in the
+ordinary Bessemer converter, the process differs slightly. In this case
+the whole of the carbon is oxidised by the blast of air, and the
+requisite quantity of this element is afterwards restored to the metal
+by pouring into the converter a small quantity of a peculiar kind of
+cast-iron, called _spiegeleisen_, which contains a known quantity of
+carbon. But small quantities of manganese and silicon are also present
+in Bessemer steel. The 'blow' lasts from 20 to 30 minutes. Steel made
+from whatever kind of pig-iron, either by this or by the 'basic'
+process, is not sufficiently dense, at least for most purposes, and it
+is accordingly manipulated under the steam-hammer and rolled into a
+variety of forms. Bessemer steel is employed, as we have said, for heavy
+objects, as rails, tires, rollers, boiler-plates, ship-plates, and for
+many other purposes for which malleable iron was formerly used.
+
+Basic steel is now largely made from inferior pig-iron, such as the
+Cleveland, by the Thomas-Gilchrist process patented in 1878. It is,
+however, only a modification of the Bessemer process to the extent of
+substituting for the siliceous or 'acid' lining generally used, a lime
+or 'basic' lining for the converter. Limestone, preferably a magnesian
+limestone in some form, is commonly employed for the lining. By the use
+of a basic lining, phosphorus is eliminated towards the end of the
+'blow.' Phosphorus is a very deleterious substance in steel, and is
+present, sometimes to the extent of 2 per cent., in pig-iron smelted
+from impure ore.
+
+The four inventions of this century which have given the greatest
+impetus to the manufacture of iron and steel were--the introduction of
+the hot blast into the blast-furnace for the production of crude iron,
+made by J. B. Neilson, of the Glasgow Gas-works, in 1827; the
+application of the cold blast in the Bessemer converter which we have
+just described; the production of steel direct from the ore, by Siemens,
+in the open hearth; and the discovery of a basic lining by which
+phosphorus is eliminated and all kinds of iron converted into steel.
+This last was the discovery of G. J. Snelus, of London, and it was made
+a practical success by the Thomas & Gilchrist process just described. In
+1883, Mr Snelus was awarded the Bessemer gold medal of the Iron and
+Steel Institute 'as the first man who made pure steel from impure iron
+in a Bessemer converter lined with basic materials.'
+
+
+SIR HENRY BESSEMER.
+
+Sir Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the modern process of making steel
+from iron, which has just been described, was the son of Anthony
+Bessemer, who escaped from France in 1792, and found employment in the
+English Mint. He was born in 1813, at Charlton, Herts, where his father
+had an estate, was to a great extent self-taught, and his favourite
+amusement was in modelling buildings and other objects in clay. He came
+up to London 'knowing no one, and no one knowing me--a mere cipher in
+this vast sea of enterprise.' He first earned his living by engraving a
+large number of elegant and original designs on steel with a diamond
+point, for patent medicine labels. He found work also as designer and
+modeller. He has been a prolific inventor, as the volumes issued by the
+Patent Office show. It has been said that he has paid in patent stamp
+duties alone as much as L10,000. At twenty he invented a mode of taking
+copies from antique and modern basso-relievos in such a way that they
+might be stamped on card-board, thousands being produced at a small
+cost.
+
+His inventive faculty also devised a ready method whereby those who were
+defrauding the government by detaching old stamps from leases,
+money-bills, and agreements, and by using them over again, could be
+defeated in their purpose.
+
+His first pecuniary success was obtained by his invention of machinery
+for the manufacture of Bessemer gold and bronze powders, which was not
+patented, but the nature of which was long kept secret. Another
+successful invention was a machine for making Utrecht velvet. He also
+interested himself in the manufacture of paints, oils, and varnishes,
+sugar, railway carriages, ordnance, projectiles, and the ventilation of
+mines. In the Exhibition of 1851 he exhibited an ingenious machine for
+grinding and polishing plate-glass.
+
+Like Lord Armstrong, Bessemer turned his attention to the subject of the
+improvement of projectiles when there was a prospect of a European war
+in 1853. He invented a mode of firing elongated projectiles from
+smooth-bore guns, but received no countenance from the officials at
+Woolwich.
+
+Commander Minie, who had charge of the experiments which Bessemer was
+making on behalf of the Emperor of the French, said: 'Yes, the shots
+rotate properly; but if we cannot get something stronger for our guns,
+these heavy projectiles will be of little use.' This started Bessemer
+thinking and experimenting further, and led up, as we will see, to the
+great industrial revolution with which his name stands identified. He
+informed the Emperor that he intended to study the whole subject of
+metals suitable for artillery purposes. He built experimental works at
+St Pancras, but made many failures, furnace after furnace being pulled
+down and rebuilt. His prolonged and expensive experiments in getting a
+suitable ordnance metal were meanwhile using up his capital; but he was
+on the eve of a great discovery, and began to see that the refinement of
+iron might go on until pure malleable iron or steel could be obtained.
+His wife aided and encouraged him at this time as only a true wife can.
+After a year and a half, in which he patented many improvements in the
+existing systems of manufacture, it occurred to him to introduce a blast
+of atmospheric air into the fluid metal, whereby the cast-iron might be
+made malleable. He found that by blowing air through crude iron in a
+fluid state, it could thus be rendered malleable. He next tried the
+method of having the air blown from below by means of an air-engine.
+Molten iron being poured into the vessel, and air being forced in from
+below, resulted in a surprising combustion, and the iron in the vessel
+was transformed into steel. The introduction of oxygen through the fluid
+iron, induced a higher heat, and burned up the impurities. Feeling that
+he had succeeded in his experiment, he acquainted Mr George Rennie with
+the result. The latter said to him: 'This must not be hid under a
+bushel. The British Association meets next week at Cheltenham; if you
+have patented your invention, draw up an account of it in a paper, and
+have it read in Section G.' Accordingly Bessemer wrote an account of his
+process, and in August 1856, he read his paper before the British
+Association 'On the Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel without
+Fuel,' which startled the iron trade of the country.
+
+On the morning of the day on which his paper was to be read, Bessemer
+was sitting at breakfast in his hotel, when an iron-master to whom he
+was unknown, laughingly said to a friend: 'Do you know that there is
+somebody come down from London to read us a paper _on making steel from
+cast-iron without fuel_? Did you ever hear of such nonsense?'
+
+Amongst those who spoke generously and enthusiastically of Bessemer's
+new process was James Nasmyth, to whom the inventor offered one-third
+share of the value of the patent, which would have been another fortune
+to him. Nasmyth had made money enough by this time, however, and
+declined.
+
+In a communication to Nasmyth, Sir Henry Bessemer thanked him for his
+early patronage, and described his discovery: 'I shall ever feel
+grateful for the noble way in which you spoke at the meeting at
+Cheltenham of my invention. If I remember rightly, you held up a piece
+of malleable iron, saying words to this effect: "Here is a true British
+nugget! Here is a new process that promises to put an end to all
+puddling; and I may mention that at this moment there are
+puddling-furnaces in successful operation where my patent hollow
+steam-rabbler is at work, producing iron of superior quality by the
+introduction of jets of steam in the puddling process. I do not,
+however, lay any claim to this invention of Mr Bessemer; but I may
+fairly be entitled to say that I have advanced along the roads on which
+he has travelled so many miles, and has effected such unexpected
+results, that I do not hesitate to say that I may go home from this
+meeting and tear up my patent, for my process of puddling is assuredly
+superseded."'
+
+After giving an account of his failures, as well as successes, Sir Henry
+proceeded to say: 'I prepared to try another experiment, in a crucible
+having no hole in the bottom, but which was provided with an iron pipe
+put through a hole in the cover, and passing down nearly to the bottom
+of the crucible. The small lumps and grains of iron were packed round
+it, so as nearly to fill the crucible. A blast of air was to be forced
+down the pipe so as to rise up among the pieces of granular iron, and
+partly decarburise them. The pipe could then be withdrawn, and the fire
+urged until the metal with its coat of oxide was fused, and cast-steel
+thereby produced.
+
+'While the blowing apparatus for this experiment was being fitted up, I
+was taken with one of those short but painful illnesses to which I was
+subject at that time. I was confined to my bed, and it was then that my
+mind, dwelling for hours together on the experiment about to be made,
+suggested that instead of trying to decarburise the granulated metal by
+forcing the air down the vertical pipe among the pieces of iron, the air
+would act much more energetically and more rapidly if I first melted the
+iron in the crucible, _and forced the air down the pipe below the
+surface of the fluid metal_, and thus burnt out the carbon and silicum
+which it contained.
+
+'This appeared so feasible, and in every way so great an improvement,
+that the experiment on the granular pieces was at once abandoned, and as
+soon as I was well enough, I proceeded to try the experiment of forcing
+the air under the fluid metal. The result was marvellous. Complete
+decarburation was effected in half an hour. The heat produced was
+immense, but unfortunately more than half the metal was blown out of the
+pot. This led to the use of pots with large, hollow, perforated covers,
+which effectually prevented the loss of metal. These experiments
+continued from January to October 1855. I have by me on the mantelpiece
+at this moment, a small piece of rolled bar-iron which was rolled at
+Woolwich Arsenal, and exhibited a year later at Cheltenham.
+
+'I then applied for a patent, but before preparing my provisional
+specification (dated October 17, 1855), I searched for other patents to
+ascertain whether anything of the sort had been done before. I then
+found your patent for puddling with the steam-rabble, and also Martin's
+patent for the use of steam in gutters while molten iron was being
+conveyed from the blast-furnace to a finery, there to be refined in the
+ordinary way prior to puddling.'
+
+[Illustration: BESSEMER CONVERTING VESSEL: _a_, _a_, _a_, tuyeres;
+_b_, air-space; _c_, melted metal.]
+
+Several leading men in the iron trade took licenses for the new
+manufacture, which brought Bessemer L27,000 within thirty days of the
+time of reading his paper. These licenses he afterwards bought back for
+L31,000, giving fresh ones in their stead. Some of the early experiments
+failed, and it was feared the new method would prove impracticable.
+These experiments failed because of the presence of phosphorus in the
+iron. But Bessemer worked steadily in order to remove the difficulties
+which had arisen, and a chemical laboratory was added to his
+establishment, with a professor of chemistry attached. Success awaited
+him. The new method of steel-making spread into France and Sweden, and
+in 1879 the works for making Bessemer steel were eighty-four in number,
+and represented a capital of more than three millions. His process for
+the manufacture of steel raised the annual production of steel in
+England from 50,000 tons by the older processes to as many as 2,000,000
+tons in some years. It was next used for boiler-plates; shipbuilding
+with Bessemer steel was begun in 1862, and now it is employed for most
+of the purposes for which malleable iron was formerly used. The
+production of Europe and America in 1892 was over 10,000,000 tons, of a
+probable value of L84,000,000, sufficient, as has been remarked, to make
+a solid steel wall round London 40 feet high, and 5 feet thick. It would
+take, according to the inventor, two or three years' production of all
+the gold-mines in the world to pay in gold for the output of Bessemer
+steel for one year. The price of steel previous to Huntsman's process
+was about L10,000 per ton; after him, from L50 to L100. Now Bessemer
+leaves it at L5 to L6 per ton. And a process which occupied ten days can
+be accomplished within half an hour.
+
+[Illustration: Bessemer Process.]
+
+In his sketch of the 'Bessemer Steel Industry, Past and Present' (1894),
+Sir Henry Bessemer says: 'It is this new material, so much stronger and
+tougher than common iron, that now builds our ships of war and our
+mercantile marine. Steel forms their boilers, their propeller shafts,
+their hulls, their masts and spars, their standing rigging, their cable
+chains and anchors, and also their guns and armour-plating. This new
+material has covered with a network of steel rails the surface of every
+country in Europe, and in America alone there are no less than 175,000
+miles of Bessemer steel rails.' These steel rails last six times longer
+than if laid of iron.
+
+Bessemer was knighted in 1879, and has received many gold medals from
+scientific institutions. In addition he has, to use his own words,
+received in the form of royalties 1,057,748 of the beautiful little gold
+medals (sovereigns) issued by her Majesty's Mint. The method chosen by
+the Americans to perpetuate his name has been the founding of the
+growing centre of industry called Bessemer in Indiana, while Bessemer,
+in Pennsylvania, is the seat of the great Edgar Thompson steel-works.
+Thus the man who was at first neglected by government has become wealthy
+beyond the dreams of avarice, and his name is immortal in the annals of
+our manufacturing industry.
+
+
+SIR CHARLES WILLIAM SIEMENS AND THE SIEMENS PROCESS.
+
+Another pioneer in the manufacture of steel and iron was CHARLES WILLIAM
+SIEMENS, the seventh child of a German landowner, who was born at
+Lenthe, near Hanover, 4th April 1823. He showed an affectionate and
+sensitive disposition while very young, and a strong faculty of
+observation. He received a good plain education at Luebeck, and in
+deference to his brother Werner he agreed to become an engineer, and
+accordingly was sent to an industrial school at Magdeburg in 1838, where
+he also learned languages, including English; mathematics he learned
+from his interested brother. He left Magdeburg in 1841 in order to
+increase his scientific knowledge at Goettingen, and there he studied
+chemistry and physics, with the view of becoming an engineer. Werner,
+his elder brother, was still his good genius, and after the death of
+their parents counselled and encouraged him, and looked upon him as a
+probable future colleague. They corresponded with one another, not only
+about family affairs, but also about the scientific and technical
+subjects in which both were engrossed. This became a life-long habit
+with the brothers Siemens. One early letter from William described a new
+kind of valve-gearing which he had invented for Cornish steam-engines.
+Then the germ of the idea of what was afterwards known as the
+'chronometric governor' for steam-engines was likewise communicated in
+this way. Mr Pole says that his early letters were significant of the
+talent and capacity of the writer. 'They evince an acuteness of
+perception in mechanical matters, a power of close and correct
+reasoning, a sound judgment, a fertility of invention, and an ease and
+accuracy of expression which, in a youth of nineteen, who had only a few
+months' experience in a workshop, are extraordinary, and undoubtedly
+shadow forth the brilliant future he attained in the engineering world.'
+
+Werner in 1841 had taken out a patent for his method of electro-gilding,
+while William early in 1843 paid his first visit to England, travelling
+by way of Hamburg. He took up his abode in a little inn called the 'Ship
+and Star,' at Sparrow Corner, near the Minories. In an address as
+President of the Midland Institute, Birmingham, on 28th October 1881, he
+related his first experiences in England, and how he secured his first
+success there.
+
+Mr Siemens said: 'That form of energy known as the electric current was
+nothing more than the philosopher's delight forty years ago; its first
+application may be traced to this good town of Birmingham, where Mr
+George Richards Elkington, utilising the discoveries of Davy, Faraday,
+and Jacobi, had established a practical process of electroplating in
+1842.... Although I was only a young student of Goettingen, under twenty
+years of age, who had just entered upon his practical career with a
+mechanical engineer, I joined my brother Werner Siemens, then a young
+lieutenant of artillery in the Prussian service, in his endeavour to
+accomplish electro-gilding.... I tore myself away from the narrow
+circumstances surrounding me, and landed at the East End of London, with
+only a few pounds in my pocket and without friends, but an ardent
+confidence of ultimate success within my breast.
+
+'I expected to find some office in which inventions were examined into,
+and rewarded if found meritorious, but no one could direct me to such a
+place. In walking along Finsbury Pavement I saw written up in large
+letters, "So-and-So"--I forget the name--"undertaker," and the thought
+struck me that this must be the place I was in quest of; at any rate, I
+thought that a person advertising himself as an "undertaker" would not
+refuse to look into my invention, with the view of obtaining for me the
+sought for recognition or reward. On entering the place I soon convinced
+myself, however, that I came decidedly too soon for the kind of
+enterprise there contemplated.' By dint of perseverance, however,
+Siemens secured a letter from Messrs Poole and Carpmaell, of the Patent
+Office, to Mr Elkington of Birmingham. Elkington and his partner Josiah
+Mason both met the young inventor in such a spirit of fairness that, as
+he says, he returned to his native country, and to his mechanical
+engineering, 'a comparative Croesus.' After the lapse of forty years
+his heart still beat quick when thinking of this determining incident in
+his career.
+
+The sum which Elkington paid him for his 'thermo-electrical battery' for
+depositing solutions of gold, silver, and copper was L1600, less L110
+for the cost of the patent. Although quite successful at the time, other
+and cheaper processes speedily supplanted it; but the young German had
+gained a footing and the money he needed for future experiments. When he
+came back to Germany he was looked upon as quite a hero by his admiring
+family circle. It was indeed a creditable exploit for a youth of twenty.
+When he returned to England again in February 1844, he received so much
+encouragement from leading engineers and scientific men for his
+'chronometric governor,' that he decided to settle permanently there,
+and he became a naturalised British subject in 1859. He joined with a
+civil engineer, named Joseph Woods, for the promotion and sale of his
+patents. 'Anastatic printing' was one of his early inventions, which,
+however, never became profitable. Then came schemes in paper-making, new
+methods of propelling ships, winged rockets, and locomotives on new
+principles, all of which were a continual drain on his own and his
+friends' resources without a corresponding return, so that in 1845 he
+took a situation and earned some money by railway work, which enabled
+him to pay another visit to Germany. In 1846, undaunted by previous
+failures, he threw himself heartily into the study of the action of heat
+as a power-giving agent, and invented an arrangement known as the
+'regenerator' for saving certain portions of this waste. As afterwards
+applied to furnaces for iron, steel, zinc, glass, and other works, it
+was pronounced by Sir Henry Bessemer a beautiful invention, at once the
+most philosophic in principle, the most powerful in action, and the most
+economic of all the contrivances for producing heat by the combustion of
+coal. He now secured an appointment in 1849 with Fox & Henderson,
+Birmingham, at a fixed salary of L400 a year, and his interest in his
+patent. Here he profited largely by the experience gained, but the
+engagement terminated in 1851, when he afterwards settled as a civil
+engineer in 7 John Street, Adelphi, in March 1852.
+
+His next great achievement was the production of steel direct from the
+raw ores by means of his regenerative furnace, which the President of
+the Board of Trade in 1883 mentioned in the House of Commons as one of
+the most valuable inventions ever produced under the protection of the
+English patent law, and he said further that it was then being used in
+almost every industry in the kingdom. Siemens had spent fourteen years
+in perfecting this regenerative furnace, and it took him other fourteen
+to utilise it, and perfect it in making steel direct from the raw ores.
+Martin of Sireil, who made one or two additions to the Siemens steel
+furnace, has been termed its inventor, but this claim has no foundation.
+What is known, however, as the 'Siemens-Martin process' is now competing
+very effectively with the Bessemer process. It consists essentially in
+first obtaining a bath of melted pig-iron of high quality, and then
+adding to this pieces of wrought-iron scrap or Bessemer scrap, such as
+crop ends of rails, shearings of plates, &c. These, though practically
+non-infusible in large quantities by themselves, become dissolved or
+fused in such a bath if added gradually. To the bath of molten metal
+thus obtained spiegeleisen or ferro-manganese is added to supply the
+required carbon and to otherwise act as in the Bessemer converter. The
+result is tested by small ladle samples, and when it is of the desired
+quality a portion is run off, leaving sufficient bath for the
+continuation of the process.
+
+Siemens took out his patent for the 'open hearth' process of
+steel-making (the Forth Bridge is built of steel made in this way) in
+1861, and four years later erected sample steel works at Birmingham. The
+engineer of the London and North-Western Railway adopted his system at
+Crewe in 1868, and the Great Western Railway works followed. In 1869
+this process was being carried out on a large scale at the works of the
+Landore-Siemens Steel Company and elsewhere in England, as well as at
+various works on the Continent, including Krupp's, at Essen.
+
+In 1862, Siemens was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1874
+was presented with the Royal Albert Medal, and in 1875 with the Bessemer
+Medal in recognition of his researches and inventions in heat and
+metallurgy. He filled the president's chair in the three principal
+engineering and telegraphic societies of Great Britain, and in 1882 was
+President of the British Association. As manager in England of the firm
+of Siemens Brothers, Sir William Siemens was actively engaged in the
+construction of overland and submarine telegraphs. The steamship
+_Faraday_ was specially designed by him for cable-laying. In addition to
+his labours in connection with electric-lighting, Sir William Siemens
+also successfully applied, in the construction of the Portrush Electric
+Tramway, which was opened in 1883, electricity to the production of
+locomotion. In his regenerative furnace, as we have seen, he utilised in
+an ingenious way the heat which would otherwise have escaped with the
+products of combustion. The process was subsequently applied in many
+industrial processes, but notably by Siemens himself in the manufacture
+of steel.
+
+The other inventions and researches of this wonderful man include a
+water-meter; a thermometer or pyrometer, which measures by the change
+produced in the electric conductivity of metals; the bathometer, for
+measuring ocean depths by variations in the attraction exerted on a
+delicately suspended body; and the hastening of vegetable growth by use
+of the electric light. He was knighted in April 1883, and died on
+November 19 of the same year. There is a memorial window to his memory
+in Westminster Abbey.
+
+As the elder brother of Sir William Siemens was so closely connected
+with him in business life, and may be said to have encouraged and led
+him into the walk of life in which he excelled, he also deserves a
+notice here. WERNER VON SIEMENS, engineer and electrician, was born
+December 13, 1816, at Lenthe in Hanover. In 1834 he entered the Prussian
+Artillery; and in 1844 was put in charge of the artillery workshops at
+Berlin. He early showed scientific tastes, and in 1841 took out his
+first patent for galvanic silver and gold plating. By selling the right
+of using his process he made 40 louis d'or, which supplied him with the
+means for further experiments. During the Schleswig-Holstein war, he
+attracted considerable attention by using electricity for the firing of
+the mines which had been laid for the defence of Kiel harbour. He was of
+peculiar service in developing the telegraphic service in Prussia, and
+discovered in this connection the valuable insulating property of
+gutta-percha for underground and submarine cables. In 1849 he left the
+army, and shortly after the service of the state altogether, and devoted
+his energies to the construction of telegraphic and electrical apparatus
+of all kinds. The well-known firm of Siemens and Halske was established
+in 1847 in Berlin, and to them the Russian government entrusted the
+construction of the telegraph lines in that country. Subsequently
+branches were formed, chiefly under the management of the younger
+brothers of Werner Siemens, in St Petersburg (1857), in London (1858),
+in Vienna (1858), and in Tiflis (1863). In 1857, Siemens accomplished
+the remarkable feat of successfully laying a cable in deep water, at a
+depth of more than 1000 fathoms. This was between Sardinia and Bona.
+Shortly after he superintended the laying of cables in the Red Sea; and
+these successful experiments soon led to the greatest undertaking of
+all, the connection of America with Europe. Besides devising numerous
+useful forms of galvanometers and other electrical instruments of
+precision, Werner Siemens was one of the discoverers of the principle of
+the self-acting dynamo. He also made valuable determinations of the
+electrical resistance of different substances, the resistance of a
+column of mercury, one metre long, and one square millimetre cross
+section at 0 deg. C., being known as the Siemens Unit. His numerous
+scientific and technical papers, written for the various journals, were
+republished in collected form in 1881. In 1886 he gave 500,000 marks for
+the founding of an imperial institute of technology and physics; and in
+1888 he was ennobled. He died at Berlin, 6th December 1892. A
+translation of his _Personal Recollections_ by Coupland appeared in
+1893.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Space forbids us mentioning other worthy names in the steel and iron
+trade, although we cannot pass by Sir John Brown, founder of the Atlas
+Steel-works, Sheffield (1857), and one of the first to adopt the
+Bessemer process. He was also the pioneer of armour-plate making. The
+immense strides he made in business may be judged from the fact that
+when he started in 1857 his employees numbered 200, with a turnover of
+L3000 a year; in 1867 they numbered 4000, and the turnover was
+L1,000,000. The weekly pay roll amounted to L7000 in 1883, and when he
+handed over the business to his successors, he was paid L200,000 for the
+goodwill.
+
+
+KRUPP'S IRON AND STEEL WORKS AT ESSEN.
+
+One of the largest iron and steel manufacturing establishments in the
+world is that founded by the late Alfred Krupp, the famous German
+cannon-founder, whose name is so well known in connection with modern
+improvements in artillery. His principal works are situated at Essen, in
+Prussia, in the midst of a district productive of both iron and coal.
+The town of Essen, which at the beginning of the present century
+contained less than four thousand inhabitants, has become an important
+industrial centre, with a population of nearly eighty thousand persons,
+this increase being chiefly due to the growth of the ironworks, and the
+consequent demand for labour. In the vicinity of the town, numerous coal
+and iron mines, many of which are owned by the Krupp firm, are in active
+working, and furnish employment to the large population of the
+surrounding district. Much of the output of iron ore and coal from these
+mines is destined for consumption in the vast Krupp works within the
+town. Those works had their origin in a small iron forge established at
+Essen in the year 1810 by Frederick Krupp, the father of Alfred Krupp.
+The elder Krupp was not prosperous; and a lawsuit in which he became
+involved, and which lasted for ten years, though finally decided in his
+favour, reduced him nearly to bankruptcy. He died in 1826, in
+impoverished circumstances, leaving a widow and three sons, the eldest
+of whom was Alfred, aged fourteen. The business was continued by the
+widow, who managed, though with difficulty, to procure a good education
+for her sons. When the eldest, Alfred, took control of the works in
+1848, he found there, as he himself has described, 'three workmen, and
+more debts than fortune.'
+
+Krupp's subsequent career affords a remarkable instance of success
+attained, despite adverse circumstances, by sheer force of ability and
+energy, in building up a colossal manufacturing business from a humble
+beginning. On his death in 1887 his only son succeeded him. At the
+present time, Krupp's works within the town of Essen occupy more than
+five hundred acres, half of which area is under cover. In 1895, the
+number of persons in his employ was 25,300, and including members of
+their families, over 50,000. Of the army of workers, about 17,000 were
+employed at the works in Essen, the remainder being occupied in the 550
+iron and coal mines belonging to the firm, or at the branch works at
+Sayn Neuwied, Magdeburg, Duisburg, and Engers; or in the iron-mines at
+Bilbao, in Spain, which produce the best ores. In Krupp's Essen works
+there are one hundred and twelve steam-hammers, ranging in weight from
+fifty tons down to four hundred pounds. There are 15 Bessemer
+converters, 18 Martin-furnaces, 420 steam-engines--representing together
+33,150 horse-power--and twenty-one rolling trains; the daily consumption
+of coal and coke being 3100 tons by 1648 furnaces. The average daily
+consumption of water, which is brought from the river Ruhr by an
+aqueduct, is 24,700 cubic metres. The electric light has been
+introduced, and the work ceases entirely only on Sunday and two or three
+holidays. Connected with the Essen works are fifty miles of railway,
+employing thirty-five locomotives and over 1000 wagons. There are two
+chemical laboratories; a photographic and lithographic studio; a
+printing-office, with steam and hand presses; and a bookbinding room,
+besides tile-works, coke-works, gas-works, &c.
+
+Though, in the popular mind, the name of Krupp is usually associated
+with the manufacture of instruments of destruction, yet two-thirds of
+the work done in his establishment is devoted to the production of
+articles intended for peaceful uses. The various parts of steam-engines,
+both stationary and locomotive; iron axles, bridges, rails, wheel-tires,
+switches, springs, shafts for steamers, mint-dies, rudders, and parts of
+all varieties of iron machinery, are prepared here for manufacturers.
+The production is, in Dominie Sampson's phrase, 'prodigious.' In one day
+the works can turn out 2700 rails, 350 wheel-tires, 150 axles, 180
+railway wheels, 1000 railway wedges, 1500 bombshells. In a month they
+have produced 250 field-pieces, thirty 5.7-inch cannon, fifteen
+9.33-inch cannon, eight 11-inch cannon, one 14-inch gun, the weight of
+the last named being over fifty tons, and its length twenty-eight feet
+seven inches. Till the end of 1894 the firm has produced 25,000 cannon
+for thirty-four different states.
+
+Alfred Krupp devoted much attention to the production of steel of the
+finest quality, and was the first German manufacturer who succeeded in
+casting steel in large masses. In 1862 he exhibited in London an ingot
+of finest crucible steel weighing twenty-one tons. Its dimensions were
+nine feet high by forty-four inches diameter. The uniformity of quality
+of this mass of metal was proven by the fact that when broken across it
+showed no seam or flaw, even when examined with a lens. The firm can now
+make such homogeneous blocks of seventy-five tons weight if required.
+Such ingots are formed from the contents of a great number of small
+crucibles, each containing from fifty to one hundred pounds of the
+metal. The recent developments of the manufacture of steel by the
+open-hearth process have removed all difficulty in procuring the metal
+in masses large enough for all requirements, and of a tensile strength
+so high as thirty-three to thirty-seven tons to the square inch.
+Crucible steel, however, though more expensive, still holds its place
+as the best and most reliable that can be produced; and nothing else is
+ever used in the construction of a Krupp gun. By the perfected methods
+in use at the Essen works, such steel can be made of a tensile strength
+of nearly forty tons to the square inch, and of marvellous uniformity of
+quality. The ores used in the Krupp works for making the best steel are
+red haematite and spathic ore, with a certain proportion of
+ferro-manganese. The crucibles employed are formed of a mixture of
+plumbago and fire-clay, shaped by a mould into a cylindrical jar some
+eighteen inches in height, and baked in a kiln. When in use, they are
+filled with small bars of puddled metal, mixed with fragments of marble
+brought from Villmar, on the Lahn. They are then shovelled into large
+furnaces, whose floors are elevated three or four feet above the
+ground-level. In the earthen floor of the immense room containing the
+furnaces are two lines of pits, one set to receive the molten metal, the
+other intended for the red-hot crucibles when emptied of their contents.
+When the crucibles have undergone sufficient heating, the furnace doors
+are opened simultaneously at a given signal, and the attendant workmen
+draw out the crucibles with long tongs, and rapidly empty them into the
+pits prepared for the reception of the metal. The empty crucibles when
+cooled are examined, and if found unbroken, are used again; but if
+damaged, as is usually the case, are ground up, to be utilised in making
+new ones.
+
+The production of steel by this method furnishes employment for eight or
+nine hundred men daily in the Krupp works. The Bessemer process for
+converting iron into steel is also largely used there for making steel
+for certain purposes. All material used in the different classes of
+manufactures is subjected at every stage to extreme and exact tests; the
+standards being fixed with reference to the purpose to which the metal
+is to be applied, and any material that proves faulty when suitably
+tested is rigorously rejected.
+
+The guns originally manufactured by the Krupp firm were formed from
+solid ingots of steel, which were bored, turned, and fashioned as in the
+case of cast-iron smooth-bore cannon. With the development of the power
+of artillery, the greater strain caused by the increased powder-charges
+and by the adoption of rifling--involving enhanced friction between the
+projectile and the bore--had the result of demonstrating the weakness
+inherent in the construction of a gun thus made entirely from one solid
+forging, and that plan was eventually discarded. Artillerists have
+learnt that the strain produced by an explosive force operating in the
+interior of a cannon is not felt equally throughout the thickness of the
+metal from the bore to the exterior, but varies inversely as the square
+of the distance of each portion of the metal from the seat of effort.
+For example, in a gun cast solid, if two points be taken, one at the
+distance of one inch from the bore, and the other four inches from the
+bore, the metal at the former point will during the explosion be
+strained sixteen times as much as that at the distance of four inches.
+The greater the thickness of the material, the greater will be the
+inequality between the strains acting at the points respectively nearest
+to and farthest from the interior. The metal nearest the seat of
+explosion may thus be strained beyond its tensile strength, while that
+more remote is in imperfect accord with it. In such a case, disruption
+of the metal at the inner surface ensues, and extends successively
+through the whole thickness to the exterior, thus entailing the
+destruction of the gun.
+
+This source of weakness is guarded against by the construction of what
+is termed the built-up gun, in which the several parts tend to mutual
+support. This gun consists of an inner tube, encircled and compressed
+by a long 'jacket' or cylinder, which is shrunk around the breech
+portion with the initial tension due to contraction in cooling. Over the
+jacket and along the chase, other hoops or cylinders are shrunk on
+successively, in layers, with sufficient tension to compress the parts
+enclosed. The number and strength of these hoops are proportionate to
+the known strain that the bore of the gun will have to sustain. The
+tension at which each part is shrunk on is the greater as the part is
+farther removed from the inner tube; the jacket, for example, being
+shrunk on at less tension than the outer hoops. The inner tube, on
+receiving the expansive force of the explosion, is prevented by the
+compression of the jacket from being forced up to its elastic limit; and
+the jacket in its turn is similarly supported by the outer hoops; and on
+the cessation of the internal pressure the several parts resume their
+normal position.
+
+This system of construction originated in England, and is now in general
+use. The first steel guns on this principle were those designed by
+Captain Blakely and Mr J. Vavasseur, of the London Ordnance Works. At
+the Exhibition of 1862, a Blakely 8.5-inch gun, on the built-up system,
+composed wholly of steel, was a feature of interest in the Ordnance
+section. The plan devised by Sir W. Armstrong, and carried into effect
+for a series of years at Woolwich and at the Armstrong Works at Elswick,
+consisted in enclosing a tube of steel within a jacket of wrought iron,
+formed by coiling a red-hot bar round a mandrel. The jacket was shrunk
+on with initial tension, and was fortified in a similar manner by outer
+hoops of the same metal. The want of homogeneity in this gun was,
+however, a serious defect, and ultimately led to its abolition. The
+difference in the elastic properties of the two metals caused a
+separation, after repeated discharges, between the steel tube and its
+jacket, with the result that the tube cracked from want of support. Both
+at Woolwich and at Elswick (described on a later page), therefore, the
+wrought-iron gun has given place to the homogeneous steel built-up gun,
+which is also the form of construction adopted by the chief powers of
+Europe and by the United States of America.
+
+The failure of some of his solid-cast guns led Krupp, about 1865, to the
+adoption of the built-up principle. With few exceptions, the inner tube
+of a Krupp gun is forged out of a single ingot, and in every case
+without any weld. The ingot destined to form the tube has first to
+undergo a prolonged forging under the steam-hammers, by which the utmost
+condensation of its particles is effected. It is then rough-bored and
+turned, and subsequently carefully tempered in oil, whereby its
+elasticity and tensile strength are much increased. It is afterwards
+fine-bored and rifled, and its powder-chamber hollowed out. The latter
+has a somewhat larger diameter than the rest of the bore, this having
+been found an improvement. The grooves of the rifling are generally
+shallow, and they widen towards the breech, so that the leaden coat of
+the projectile is compressed gradually and with the least friction. The
+jacket and hoops of steel are forged and rolled, without weld, and after
+being turned and tempered, are heated and shrunk around the tube in
+their several positions, the greatest strength and thickness being of
+course given to the breech end, where the force of explosion exerts the
+utmost strain. The completed gun is mounted on its appropriate carriage,
+and having been thoroughly proved and tested and fitted with the proper
+sights, is ready for service. The testing range is at Meppen, where a
+level plain several miles in extent affords a suitable site for the
+purpose.
+
+For many years all guns of the Krupp manufacture have been on the
+breech-loading system, and he has devoted much time and ingenuity to
+perfecting the breech arrangements. The subject of recoil has also
+largely occupied his attention. In the larger Krupp guns the force of
+recoil is absorbed by two cylinders, filled with glycerine and fitted
+with pistons perforated at the edges. The pistons are driven by the
+shock of the recoil against the glycerine, which is forced through the
+perforations. In England a similar arrangement of cylinders, containing
+water as the resisting medium, has been found effective; and in America,
+petroleum is employed for the same purpose. The advantages of the use of
+glycerine are that in case of a leak it would escape too slowly to lose
+its effect at once, and it is also more elastic than water, and is less
+liable to become frozen.
+
+The resources of Krupp's establishment are equal to the production of
+guns of any size that can conceivably be required. He has made guns of
+one hundred and nineteen tons weight. The portentous development of the
+size and power of modern ordnance is exemplified by these guns and the
+Armstrong guns of one hundred and eleven tons made at Elswick. Amongst
+the class of modern cannon, one of the most powerful is Krupp's
+seventy-one-ton gun. This, like all others of his make, is a
+breech-loader. Its dimensions are--length, thirty-two feet nine inches;
+diameter at breech end, five feet six inches; length of bore,
+twenty-eight feet seven inches; diameter of bore, 15.75 inches; diameter
+of powder-chamber, 17.32 inches. The internal tube is of two parts,
+exactly joined; and over this are four cylinders, shrunk on, and a ring
+round the breech. Its rifling has a uniform twist of one in forty-five.
+It cannot possibly be fired until the breech is perfectly closed. Its
+maximum charge is four hundred and eighty-five pounds of powder, and a
+chilled iron shell of seventeen hundred and eight pounds.
+
+[Illustration: Krupp's 15.6 Breech-loading Gun (breech open).]
+
+Krupp did much to promote the welfare and comfort of his workpeople. For
+their accommodation, he erected around Essen nearly four thousand family
+dwellings, in which more than sixteen thousand persons reside. The
+dwellings are in suites of three or four comfortable rooms, with good
+water-arrangements; and attached to each building is a garden, large
+enough for the children to play in. There are one hundred and fifty
+dwellings of a better kind for officials in the service of the firm.
+Boarding-houses have also been built for the use of unmarried labourers,
+of whom two thousand are thus accommodated. Several churches, Protestant
+and Catholic, have also been erected, for the use of his workmen and
+their families. There have likewise been provided two hospitals, bathing
+establishments, a gymnasium, an unsectarian free school, and six
+industrial schools--one for adults, two for females. In the case of the
+industrial schools, the fees are about two shillings monthly, but the
+poorest are admitted free. A Sick Relief and Pensions Fund has been
+instituted, and every foreman and workman is obliged to be a member. The
+entrance fee is half a day's pay, the annual payment being proportioned
+to the wages of the individual member; but half of each person's
+contribution is paid by the firm. There are three large surgeries; and
+skilful physicians and surgeons, one of whom is an oculist, are employed
+at fixed salaries. For a small additional fee each member can also
+secure free medical aid for his wife and children. The advantages to
+members are free medical or surgical treatment in case of need, payment
+from the fund of funeral expenses at death, pensions to men who have
+been permanently disabled by injuries while engaged in the works,
+pensions to widows of members, and temporary support to men who are
+certified by two of the physicians as unable to work. The highest
+pension to men is five pounds monthly, the average being about two
+pounds sixteen shillings monthly. The average pension to widows is
+about one pound fourteen shillings monthly.
+
+The firm have made special arrangements with a number of life insurance
+companies whereby the workmen can, if they choose, insure their lives at
+low rates. They have formed a Life Insurance Union, and endowed it with
+a reserve fund of three thousand pounds, from which aid is given to
+members needing assistance to pay their premiums. An important
+institution in Essen is the great Central Supply Store, established and
+owned by the firm, where articles of every description--bread, meat, and
+other provisions, clothing, furniture, &c.--are sold on a rigidly cash
+system at cost price. Connected with the Central Store are twenty-seven
+branch shops, in positions convenient for the workpeople, placing the
+advantages of the system within the easy reach of all.
+
+The original name, 'Frederick Krupp,' has been retained through all
+vicissitudes of fortune as the business title of the firm. The small
+dwelling in which Alfred Krupp was born is still standing, in the midst
+of the huge workshops that have grown up around it, and is preserved
+with the greatest care. At his expense, photographs of it were
+distributed among his workmen, each copy bearing the following
+inscription, dated Essen, February 1873: 'Fifty years ago, this
+primitive dwelling was the abode of my parents. I hope that no one of
+our labourers may ever know such struggles as have been required for the
+establishment of these works. Twenty-five years ago that success was
+still doubtful which has at length--gradually, yet wonderfully--rewarded
+the exertions, fidelity, and perseverance of the past. May this example
+encourage others who are in difficulties! May it increase respect for
+small houses, and sympathy for the larger sorrows they too often
+contain. The object of labour should be the common weal. If work bring
+blessing, then is labour prayer. May every one in our community, from
+the highest to the lowest, thoughtfully and wisely strive to secure and
+build his prosperity on this principle! When this is done, then will my
+greatest desire be realised.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Germany has become a formidable competitor to Great Britain in the iron
+and steel trade, and German steel rails, girders, and wire come in
+freely to this country. From reports we learn that Great Britain
+produced in 1882 8-1/2 million tons of iron and 5 million tons of
+finished iron and steel, while the production of Germany was then less
+than 3-1/2 and 2-1/2 million tons respectively. English production had
+fallen to 7-1/2 million tons of iron and 4 million tons of finished iron
+and steel in 1895, while Germany had risen to 5 million tons and 6
+million tons respectively.
+
+Contrary to what has been commonly believed, it appears that the
+difference all round in wages amongst ironworkers, as between England
+and Germany, is not great.
+
+Chicago, Pittsburg, Buffalo, and New York are the chief centres of the
+American iron and steel trade, the production of pig-iron in 1895 being
+about 9-1/4 million tons, whereas in 1880 it was well under 4 million.
+At present over 4 millions of tons are produced of Bessemer pig-iron.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+POTTERY AND PORCELAIN.
+
+    Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood Ware--Worcester Porcelain.
+
+
+When Mr Godfrey Wedgwood, a member of the famous firm of potters at
+Etruria, near Burslem, Staffordshire, went to work about forty years
+ago, his famous ancestor and founder of the world-famed Wedgwood ware
+was still named amongst the workmen as 'Owd Wooden Leg.' A son of Mr
+Godfrey Wedgwood, now in the firm, is the fifth generation in descent,
+and the manufactory is still carried on in the same buildings erected by
+Josiah Wedgwood one hundred and twenty years ago.
+
+One hundred years ago Josiah Wedgwood, the creator of British artistic
+pottery, passed away at Etruria, near Burslem, surrounded by the
+creations of his own well-directed genius and industry, having
+'converted a rude and inconsiderable manufacture into an elegant art and
+an important part of national commerce.' His death took place on 3d
+January 1795, the same year in which Thomas Carlyle saw the light at
+Ecclefechan, and one year and a half before the death of Burns at
+Dumfries. During fifty years of his working life, largely owing to his
+own successful efforts, he had witnessed the output of the Staffordshire
+potteries increased fivefold, and his wares were known and sold over
+Europe and the civilised world. In the words of Mr Gladstone, his
+characteristic merit lay 'in the firmness and fullness with which he
+perceived the true law of what we may call Industrial Art, or, in other
+words, of the application of the higher art to Industry.' Novalis once
+compared the works of Goethe and Wedgwood in these words: 'Goethe is
+truly a practical poet. He is in his works what the Englishman is in his
+wares, perfectly simple, neat, fit, and durable. He has played in the
+German world of literature the same part that Wedgwood has played in the
+English world of art.'
+
+[Illustration: JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.]
+
+Long ago, in his sketch of Brindley and the early engineers, Dr Smiles
+had occasion to record the important service rendered by Wedgwood in the
+making of the Grand Trunk Canal--towards the preliminary expense of
+which he subscribed one thousand pounds--and in the development of the
+industrial life of the Midlands. Since that time Smiles has himself
+published a biography of Wedgwood, to which we are here indebted.
+
+More than once it has happened that the youngest of thirteen children
+has turned out a genius. It was so in the case of Sir Richard Arkwright,
+and it turned out to be so in the case of Josiah Wedgwood, the youngest
+of the thirteen children of Thomas Wedgwood, a Burslem potter, and of
+Mary Stringer, a kind-hearted but delicate, sensitive woman, the
+daughter of a nonconformist clergyman. The town of Burslem, in
+Staffordshire, where Wedgwood saw the light in 1730, was then anything
+but an attractive place. Drinking and cock-fighting were the common
+recreations; roads had scarcely any existence; the thatched hovels had
+dunghills before the doors, while the hollows from which the potter's
+clay was excavated were filled with stagnant water, and the atmosphere
+of the whole place was coarse and unwholesome, and a most unlikely
+nursery of genius.
+
+It is probable that the first Wedgwoods take their name from the hamlet
+of Weggewood in Staffordshire. There had been Wedgwoods in Burslem from
+a very early period, and this name occupies a large space in the parish
+registers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; of the fifty
+small potters settled there, many bore this honoured name. The ware
+consisted of articles in common use, such as butter-pots, basins, jugs,
+and porringers. The black glazed and ruddy pottery then in use was much
+improved after an immigration of Dutchmen and Germans. The Elers, who
+followed the Prince of Orange, introduced the Delft ware and the salt
+glaze. They produced a kind of red ware, and Egyptian black; but
+disgusted at the discovery of their secret methods by Astbury and
+Twyford, they removed to Chelsea in 1710. An important improvement was
+made by Astbury, that of making ware white by means of burnt flint.
+Samuel Astbury, a son of this famous potter, married an aunt of Josiah
+Wedgwood. But the art was then in its infancy, not more than one hundred
+people being employed in this way in the district of Burslem, as
+compared with about ten thousand now, with an annual export of goods
+amounting to about two hundred thousand pounds, besides what are
+utilised in home-trade. John Wesley, after visiting Burslem in 1760, and
+twenty years later in 1781, remarked how the whole face of the country
+had been improved in that period. Inhabitants had flowed in, the
+wilderness had become a fruitful field, and the country was not more
+improved than the people.
+
+All the school education young Josiah received was over in his ninth
+year, and it amounted to only a slight grounding in reading, writing,
+and arithmetic. But his practical or technical education went on
+continually, while he afterwards supplemented many of the deficiencies
+of early years by a wide course of study. After the death of his
+father, he began the practical business of life as a potter in his ninth
+year, by learning the throwing branch of the trade. The thrower moulds
+the vessel out of the moist clay from the potter's wheel into the
+required shape, and hands it on to be dealt with by the stouker, who
+adds the handle. Josiah at eleven proved a clever thrower of the black
+and mottled ware then in vogue, such as baking-dishes, pitchers, and
+milk-cans. But a severe attack of virulent smallpox almost terminated
+his career, and left a weakness in his right knee, which developed, so
+that this limb had to be amputated at a later date. He was bound
+apprentice to his brother Thomas in 1744, when in his fourteenth year;
+but this weak knee, which hampered him so much, proved a blessing in
+disguise, for it sent him from the thrower's place to the moulder's
+board, where he improved the ware, his first effort being an ornamental
+teapot made of the ochreous clay of the district. Other work of this
+period comprised plates, pickle-leaves, knife-hafts, and snuff-boxes. At
+the same time he made experiments in the chemistry of the material he
+was using. Wedgwood's great study was that of different kinds of
+colouring matter for clays, but at the same time he mastered every
+branch of the art. That he was a well-behaved young man is evident from
+the fact that he was held up in the neighbourhood as a pattern for
+emulation.
+
+[Illustration: Wedgwood at Work.]
+
+But his brother Thomas, who moved along in the old rut, had small
+sympathy with all this experimenting, and thought Josiah flighty and
+full of fancies. After remaining for a time with his brother, at the
+completion of his apprenticeship Wedgwood became partner in 1752, in a
+small pottery near Stoke-upon-Trent: soon after, Mr Whieldon, one of the
+most eminent potters of the day, joined the firm. Here Wedgwood took
+pains to discover new methods and striking designs, as trade was then
+depressed. New green earthenware was produced, as smooth as glass, for
+dessert service, moulded in the form of leaves; also toilet ware,
+snuff-boxes, and articles coloured in imitation of precious stones,
+which the jewellers of that time sold largely. Other articles of
+manufacture were blue-flowered cups and saucers, and varicoloured
+teapots. Wedgwood, on the expiry of his partnership with Whieldon,
+started on his own account in his native Burslem in 1760. His capital
+must have been small, as the sum of twenty pounds was all he had
+received from his father's estate. He rented Ivy House and Works at ten
+pounds a year, and engaged his second-cousin, Thomas, as workman at
+eight shillings and sixpence a week. He gradually acquired a reputation
+for the taste and excellence of design of his green glazed ware, his
+tortoiseshell and tinted snuff-boxes, and white medallions. A specially
+designed tea-service, representing different fruits and vegetables, sold
+well, and, as might be expected, was at once widely imitated. He hired
+new works on the site now partly occupied by the Wedgwood Institute, and
+introduced various new tools and appliances. His kilns for firing his
+fine ware gave him the greatest trouble, and had to be often renewed.
+James Brindley, when puzzled in thinking out some engineering problem,
+used to retire to bed and work it out in his head before he got up. Sir
+Josiah Mason, the Birmingham pen-maker, used to simmer over in his mind
+on the previous night the work for the next day. Wedgwood had a similar
+habit, which kept him often awake during the early part of the night.
+Probably owing to the fortunate execution of an order through Miss
+Chetwynd, maid of honour to Queen Charlotte, of a complete cream service
+in green and gold, Wedgwood secured the patronage of royalty, and was
+appointed Queen's Potter in 1763. His Queen's ware became popular, and
+secured him much additional business.
+
+An engine lathe which he introduced greatly forwarded his designs; and
+the wareroom opened in London for the exhibition of his now famous
+Queen's ware, Etruscan vases, and other works, drew attention to the
+excellence of his work. He started works besides at Chelsea, supervised
+by his partner Bentley, where modellers, enamellers, and artists were
+employed, so that the cares of his business, 'pot-making and
+navigating'--the latter the carrying through of the Grand Trunk
+Canal--entirely filled his mind and time at this period. So busy was he,
+that he sometimes wondered whether he was an engineer, a landowner, or a
+potter. Meanwhile, a step he had no cause to regret was his marriage in
+1764 to Sarah Wedgwood, no relation of his own, a handsome lady of good
+education and of some fortune.
+
+Wedgwood had begun to imitate the classic works of the Greeks found in
+public and private collections, and produced his unglazed black
+porcelain, which he named Basaltes, in 1766. The demand for his vases at
+this time was so great that he could have sold fifty or one hundred
+pounds' worth a day, if he had been able to produce them fast enough. He
+was now patronised by royalty, by the Empress of Russia, and the
+nobility generally. A large service for Queen Charlotte took three years
+to execute, as part of the commission consisted in painting on the ware,
+in black enamel, about twelve hundred views of palaces, seats of the
+nobility, and remarkable places. A service for the Empress of Russia
+took eight years to complete. It consisted of nine hundred and fifty-two
+pieces, of which the cost was believed to have been three thousand
+pounds, although this scarcely paid Wedgwood's working expenses.
+
+Prosperity elbowed Wedgwood out of his old buildings in Burslem, and led
+him to purchase land two miles away, on the line of the proposed Grand
+Trunk Canal, where his flourishing manufactories and model workmen's
+houses sprang up gradually, and were named _Etruria_, after the Italian
+home of the famous Etruscans, whose work he admired and imitated. His
+works were partly removed thither in 1769, and wholly in 1771. At this
+time he showed great public spirit, and aided in getting an Act of
+Parliament for better roads in the neighbourhood, and backed Brindley
+and Earl Gower in their Grand Trunk Canal scheme, which was destined,
+when completed, to cheapen and quicken the carriage of goods to
+Liverpool, Bristol, and Hull. The opposition was keen: and Wedgwood
+issued a pamphlet showing the benefits which would accrue to trade in
+the Midlands by the proposed waterway. When victory was secured, after
+the passing of the Act there was a holiday and great rejoicing in
+Burslem and the neighbourhood, and the first sod of the canal was cut by
+Wedgwood, July 26, 1766. He was also appointed treasurer of the new
+undertaking, which was eleven years in progress. Brindley, the greatest
+engineer then in England, doubtless sacrificed his life to its success,
+as he died of continual harassment and diabetes at the early age of
+fifty-six. Wedgwood had an immense admiration for Brindley's work and
+character. In the prospect of spending a day with him, he said: 'As I
+always edify full as much in that man's company as at church, I promise
+myself to be much wiser the day following.' Like Carlyle, who
+whimsically put the builder of a bridge before the writer of a book,
+Wedgwood placed the man who designed the outline of a jug or the turn of
+a teapot far below the creator of a canal or the builder of a city.
+
+In the career of a man of genius and original powers, the period of
+early struggle is often the most interesting. When prosperity comes,
+after difficulties have been surmounted, there is generally less to
+challenge attention. But Wedgwood's career was still one of continual
+progress up to the very close. His Queen's ware, made of the whitest
+clay from Devon and Dorset, was greatly in demand, and much improved.
+The fine earthenwares and porcelains which became the basis of such
+manufactures were originated here. Young men of artistic taste were
+employed and encouraged to supply designs, and a school of instruction
+for drawing, painting, and modelling was started. Artists such as Coward
+and Hoskins modelled the 'Sleeping Boy,' one of the finest and largest
+of his works. John Bacon, afterwards known as a sculptor, was one of his
+artists, as also James Tassie of Glasgow. Wedgwood engaged capable men
+wherever they could be found. For his Etruscan models he was greatly
+indebted to Sir W. Hamilton. Specimens of his famous portrait cameos,
+medallions, and plaques will be found in most of our public museums.
+
+The general health of Wedgwood suffered so much between 1767 and 1768
+that he decided to have the limb which had troubled him since his
+boyhood amputated. He sat, and without wincing, witnessed the surgeons
+cut off his right leg, for there were then no anaesthetics. 'Mr Wedgwood
+has this day had his leg taken off,' wrote one of the Burslem clerks at
+the foot of a London invoice, 'and is as well as can be expected after
+such an execution.' His wife was his good angel when recovering, and
+acted as hands and feet and secretary to him; while his partner Bentley
+(formerly a Liverpool merchant) and Dr Darwin were also kind; and he was
+almost oppressed with the inquiries of many noble and distinguished
+persons during convalescence. He had to be content with a wooden leg
+now. 'Send me,' he wrote to his brother in London, 'by the next wagon a
+spare leg, which you will find, I believe, in the closet.' He lived to
+wear out a succession of wooden legs.
+
+Indifference and idleness he could not tolerate, and his fine artistic
+sense was offended by any bit of imperfect work. In going through his
+works, he would lift the stick upon which he leaned and smash the
+offending article, saying, 'This won't do for Josiah Wedgwood.' All the
+while he had a keen insight into the character of his workmen, although
+he used to say that he had everything to teach them, even to the making
+of a table plate.
+
+He was no monopolist, and the only patent he ever took out was for the
+discovery of the lost art of burning in colours, as in the Etruscan
+vases. 'Let us make all the good, fine, and new things we can,' he said
+to Bentley once; 'and so far from being afraid of other people getting
+our patterns, we should glory in it, and throw out all the hints we can,
+and if possible, have all the artists in Europe working after our
+models.' By this means he hoped to secure the goodwill of his best
+customers and of the public. At the same time he never sacrificed
+excellence to cheapness. As the sale of painted Etruscan ware declined,
+his Jasper porcelain--so called from its resemblance to the stone of
+that name--became popular. The secret of its manufacture was kept for
+many years. It was composed of flint, potter's clay, carbonate of
+barytes, and _terra ponderosa_. This and the Jasper-dip are in several
+tones and hues of blue; also yellow, lilac, and green. He called in the
+good genius of Flaxman in 1775; and, for the following twelve years, the
+afterwards famous sculptor did an immense amount of work and enhanced
+his own and his patron's reputation. Flaxman did some of his finest work
+in this Jasper porcelain. Some of Flaxman's designs Wedgwood could
+scarcely be prevailed upon to part with. A bas-relief of the 'Apotheosis
+of Homer' went for seven hundred and thirty-five pounds at the sale of
+his partner Bentley; and the 'Sacrifice to Hymen,' a tablet in blue and
+white Jasper (1787), brought four hundred and fifteen pounds. The first
+named is now in the collection of Lord Tweedmouth. Wedgwood's copy of
+the Barberini or Portland Vase was a great triumph of his art. This
+vase, which had contained the ashes of the Roman Emperor Alexander
+Severus and his mother, was of dark-blue glass, with white enamel
+figures. It now stands in the medal room of the British Museum alongside
+a model by Wedgwood. It stands 10 inches high, and is the finest
+specimen of an ancient cameo cut-glass vase known. It was smashed by a
+madman in 1845, but was afterwards skilfully repaired. Wedgwood made
+fifty copies in fine earthenware, which were originally sold at 25
+guineas each. One of these now fetches L200. The vase itself once
+changed hands for eighteen hundred guineas, and a copy fetched two
+hundred and fifteen guineas in 1892.
+
+[Illustration: Portland Vase.]
+
+Josiah Wedgwood now stood at the head of the potters of Staffordshire,
+and the manufactory at Etruria drew visitors from all parts of Europe.
+The motto of its founder was still 'Forward;' and, as Dr Smiles
+expresses it, there was with him no finality in the development of his
+profession. He studied chemistry, botany, drawing, designing, and
+conchology. His inquiring mind wanted to get to the bottom of
+everything. He journeyed to Cornwall, and was successful in getting
+kaolin for chinaware. Queen Charlotte patronised a new pearl-white
+teaware; and he succeeded in perfecting the pestle and mortar for the
+apothecary. He invented a pyrometer for measuring temperatures; and was
+elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Amongst his intimate friends were
+Dr Erasmus Darwin, poet and physician (the famous Charles Robert Darwin
+was a grandson, his mother having been a daughter of Wedgwood's),
+Boulton of Soho Works, James Watt, Thomas Clarkson, Sir Joseph Banks,
+and Thomas Day.
+
+We have an example of the generosity of Wedgwood's disposition in his
+treatment of John Leslie, afterwards Professor Sir John Leslie of
+Edinburgh University. He was so well pleased with his tutoring of his
+sons that he settled an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds upon
+him; and it may be that the influence of this able tutor led Thomas
+Wedgwood to take up the study of heliotype, and become a pioneer of
+photographic science, even before Daguerre. How industrious Wedgwood had
+been in his profession is evident from the seven thousand specimens of
+clay from all parts of the world which he had tested and analysed. The
+six entirely new pieces of earthenware and porcelain which, along with
+his Queen's ware, he had introduced early in his career, as painted and
+embellished, became the foundation of nearly all the fine earthenware
+and porcelains since produced. He had his reward, for besides a
+flourishing business, he left more than half a million of money.
+
+
+WORCESTER PORCELAIN.
+
+One of the most artistic and interesting industries in this country is
+the manufacture of porcelain in the ancient city of Worcester. There is
+no special local reason for the establishment of such works there, but
+Worcester has been noted as the home of the famous porcelain for more
+than a century. It was in 1751 that Dr Wall, a chemist and artist,
+completed his experiment in the combination of various elements, and
+produced a porcelain which was more like the true or natural Chinese
+porcelain than any ever devised. This was the more remarkable because
+kaolin had not then been discovered in this country. The inventor set up
+his factory in Worcester, close to the cathedral, and for a long time he
+produced his egg-shell and Tonquin porcelain in various forms, chiefly,
+however, those of table services. Transfer-printing was introduced later
+on, and was executed with much of the artist's spirit by experts who
+attached themselves to the Worcester works after the closing of the
+enamel works at Battersea. It was a remarkable century in its devotion
+to ceramic art; and it was characteristic of the ruling princes of the
+Continent that they should patronise lavishly various potteries of more
+or less repute. Towards the end of the century the first sign of this
+royal favour was vouchsafed to Worcester. George III. visited the
+factories, and under the impetus given by his patronage, the wares of
+the city advanced so much in popularity that, in the early part of this
+century, it is said, there were few noble families which had not in
+their china closets an elaborate service of Worcester, bearing the
+family arms and motto in appropriate emblazonment. In 1811, George IV.
+being then Prince Regent, several splendid services of Worcester
+porcelain were ordered to equip his table for the new social duties
+entailed by his regency, and one of these alone cost L4000. In the
+museums at the Worcester works there are specimens of many beautiful
+services, designed in accordance with the contemporary ideas of pomp and
+stateliness. The porcelain artists in those days must have been well
+versed in heraldry; for their chief duties seem to have been the
+reproduction of crests and coats-of-arms. Some of the services have
+interesting stories. There is one of deep royal blue, beautifully
+decorated, and bearing in the centre an emblematical figure of Hope. The
+story ran that it was ordered by Nelson for presentation to the Duke of
+Cumberland, and that the figure of Hope was really a portrait of Lady
+Hamilton. This, however, was an error: the service was ordered by the
+Duke himself in the ordinary way, and though Lord Nelson did order a
+service of Worcester porcelain, he died before it could be completed,
+and it was afterwards dispersed. Another story attaches to a plate
+adorned with a picture of a ship in full sail approaching harbour. The
+Imaum of Muscat sent many presents to the Prince Regent, and hinted that
+he would like a ship of war in return. The English authorities, however,
+did not see fit to give attention to this request, and sent him instead
+many beautiful things, including a service of Worcester ware, bearing on
+each piece a scene showing the royal yacht which bore the gifts entering
+the cove of Muscat. When the potentate heard, however, that his dearest
+wish had been thwarted in this way, he refused to allow the vessel to
+enter the harbour, and all the presents had to be brought back again.
+The picture on the plate, therefore, is more imaginative than accurate.
+
+[Illustration: The Worcester Royal Porcelain Works.]
+
+The Worcester porcelain began to develop in fresh directions soon after
+the Great Exhibition of 1851, which gave an impulse to the efforts of
+the artists, and the decorative side of the work was brought into a much
+more prominent position. For instance, the 'Worcester enamels,' in the
+style of those of Limoges, were introduced, and an illustration of this
+work is to be seen in a pair of remarkable vases, bearing enamel
+reproductions of Maclise's drawings, founded on the Bayeux tapestries.
+About this time, too, after several years of experiment, the ivory
+ware--an idea inspired by the lovely ivory sculptures in the
+Exhibition--was brought to perfection. It is a beautiful, creamy,
+translucent porcelain, singularly fitted for artistic treatment, and it
+is now the most characteristic of the later developments of the
+Worcester work. In fact, the art directors of the enterprise will not
+issue now any new wares in the style of those which found favour at an
+earlier period, for they know that they would instantly be palmed off on
+the unwary as the genuine products of the bygone times.
+
+To trace the process of the manufacture, from the mixing of the
+ingredients to the burning of the last wash in the decorated piece, is
+very interesting. It is a process freely shown to visitors, and forms
+one of the principal lions in the sober old town which has lain for so
+many centuries on the banks of the Severn. The materials are brought
+from all parts of the world. Kaolin, or china clay, which is the felspar
+of decomposed granite washed from the rocks, is brought from Cornwall,
+so is the Cornish or china stone; felspar is brought from Sweden, and
+though of a rich red, it turns white when burnt; marl and fire-clay come
+from Broseley, in Shropshire, and Stourbridge; flints are brought from
+Dieppe; and bones--those of the ox only--come all the way from South
+America to be calcined and ground down. The grinding is a slow matter;
+each ingredient is ground separately in a vat, the bottom of which is a
+hard stone, whereon other hard stones of great weight revolve slowly.
+From twelve hours' to ten days' constant treatment by these remorseless
+mills is required by the various materials, some needing to be ground
+much longer than others before the requisite fineness is attained. It is
+essential that all the ingredients should be reduced to a certain
+standard of grain; and the contents of each vat must pass through a lawn
+sieve with four thousand meshes to the square inch. When the materials
+are sufficiently ground to meet this test, they are taken to the
+'slip-house,' and mixed together with the clays, which do not need
+grinding. A magnet of great strength is in each mixing trough, and draws
+to itself every particle of iron, which, if allowed to remain in the
+mixture, would injure the ware very much. When properly mixed, the water
+is pressed out, and the paste or clay is beaten so that it may obtain
+consistency. Then it is ready to be made into the many shapes which find
+popular favour.
+
+The process of manufacture depends on the shape to be obtained. A plain
+circular teacup may be cast on a potter's wheel of the ancient kind.
+When it is partly dried in a mould, it is turned on a lathe and trimmed;
+then the handle, which has been moulded, is affixed with a touch of the
+'slip'--the porcelain paste in a state of dilution is the cement used in
+all such situations--and the piece is ready for the fire. A plate or
+saucer, however, is made by flat pressing; a piece of clay like a
+pancake is laid on the mould, which is set revolving on a wheel; the
+deft fingers of the workmen press the clay to the proper shape, and it
+is then dried. But the elaborate ornamental pieces of graceful design
+are made in moulds, and for this process the clay is used in the thin or
+'slip' state. The moulds are pressed together, the slip is poured into
+them through a hole in one side, and when the moisture has been absorbed
+by the plaster moulds sufficiently, the piece is taken out. It is often
+necessary, in making a large or complicated piece, to have as many as
+twenty or thirty castings. In moulding a figure, for instance, the legs
+and arms and hands, even the thumbs in many cases, are cast separately,
+and with many other parts of the design are laid before a workman, who
+carefully builds up the complete figure out of the apparent chaos of
+parts, affixing each piece to the body with a touch of slip. When these
+wares are complete, they have to be fired for the first time; and they
+are taken to a kiln, and placed with great care and many precautions in
+the grim interior. The contraction of the clay under fire is a matter to
+which the designers must give much study; and the change which takes
+place during forty hours' fierce firing in the kiln is shown by
+contrasting an unburnt piece and a piece of 'biscuit' or burnt ware, and
+marking the shrinkage. Your ware must be calculated to shrink only so
+much; if it shrink a shade further, the whole process may be spoiled.
+There is a loss of twenty-five per cent. sometimes in these kilns, in
+spite of the assiduous care of the workmen. When the biscuit ware has
+cooled, it is dipped in the glaze, which is a compound of lead and borax
+and other materials--virtually a sort of glass--and then it is fired for
+sixteen hours in the 'glost oven.' There is no contraction in this
+ordeal; but there is a risk none the less from other causes. In fact,
+there is the danger of injury every time the ware goes to the fire, and
+as the highly decorated pieces have to go to the kiln many times, it may
+be inferred that the labour of weeks and even months is sometimes
+nullified by an untoward accident in the burning.
+
+It is during the process of decoration that the ornate vases and figures
+make so many trips to the fire. The artist department is a very large
+and important one. The designers, however, are a class of themselves.
+They project the idea; it is the business of the artist, in these
+circumstances, to execute it. The painters are taken into the works as
+lads and trained for the special service. What you remark chiefly in
+going through the decorating rooms is the great facility of the artists.
+You see a man with a plate or vase on which he is outlining a landscape,
+and you marvel at the rapid, accurate touches with which he does the
+work. Flowers, birds, and figures they can reproduce with great skill,
+and many of them are artists not merely in facility but in instinct.
+They work with metallic colours only. They rely on copper, for
+instance, to give black and green, on iron to yield red hues, and so on;
+and the gold work is done with what seems to be a dirty brown paste, but
+is really pure gold mixed with flux and quicksilver. When the first wash
+is put on, the piece must be fired, so that the colours shall be burnt
+into the glaze. Then it returns to the painter, who adds the next
+touches so far as he can; the firing again follows; the piece is
+returned to him once more; and so on it goes till the work is complete.
+
+It is therefore a highly technical business, especially as the colours
+change very much in the fire, and the painter has to work with full
+knowledge of the chemical processes in every firing. There is one form
+of the decorative process which is very singular--that is, the piercing
+work. The artist has the vase in the dried state before the firing, and
+with a tiny, sharp-pointed knife he cuts out little pieces according to
+the design in his mind, and produces an extremely beautiful perforated
+ware, the elaborate pattern and the lace-like delicacy of which almost
+repel the idea that the work is done by the unaided hand of man. In the
+colour processes, the work is virtually complete when the dull gold has
+been burnished; and the porcelain is then ready to be transferred to the
+showrooms, or exported to America, which is the greatest patron, at
+present, of Worcester art. America, however, failed to retain one lovely
+vase no less than four feet high, the largest ever made in the works; it
+was taken to the Chicago Exhibition and back without accident, and was
+then sold in England for one thousand pounds.
+
+It is important to remember the distinction between 'pottery' and
+'porcelain:' the porcelain is clay purified by the fire, whereas pottery
+leaves the oven as it entered it--clay. The purification of the ware is
+really an illustration of the process which sustains the artistic
+inspiration of the work. The gross, the vulgar, the mean are
+eliminated; a standard of beauty is set up, and to it every article must
+conform. It is to this ideal, sustained by a long succession of artists
+through a century and a half, that Worcester owes its world-wide
+reputation as the birthplace of some of the loveliest porcelain ever
+burnt in a kiln.
+
+[Illustration: Chinese Porcelain Vase.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SEWING-MACHINE.
+
+    Thomas Saint--Thimonnier--Hunt--Elias Howe--Wilson--Morey--Singer.
+
+
+Although the sewing-machine has not put an end to the slavery of the
+needle, and although 'The Song of the Shirt' may be heard to the
+accompaniment of its click and whirr, just as it was to the 'stitch,
+stitch' of Tom Hood's time, yet has it unquestionably come as a boon and
+a blessing to man--and woman. Its name now is legion, and it has had so
+many inventors and improvers that the present generation is fast losing
+sight of its original benefactors. Indeed, we take the sewing-machine
+to-day as an accomplished fact so familiar as to be commonplace. And yet
+that fact is a product of as moving a history as any in the story of
+human invention.
+
+It is the growth of the last half-century, prior to which the real
+sewing-machine was the heavy-eyed, if not tireless, needlewoman, whose
+flying fingers seemed ever in vain pursuit of the flying hours.
+Needlework is as old as human history, for we may see the beginnings of
+it in the aprons of fig-leaves which Mother Eve sewed. What instrument
+she used we know not, but we do know from Moses that needles were in use
+when the tabernacle was built. Yet, strange to say, it was not until
+the middle of last century that any one tried to supersede manual labour
+in the matter of stitching. It is said that a German tailor, named
+Charles Frederick Weisenthal, was the first to attempt it, but for
+hand-embroidery only--with a double-pointed needle, eyed in the middle.
+This was in 1755, and fifty years later, one John Duncan, a Glasgow
+machinist, worked out Weisenthal's idea into a genuine embroidering
+machine, which really held the germ of the idea of the 'loop-stitch.'
+But neither of these was a sewing-machine, and before Duncan's invention
+some one else had been seized with another idea.
+
+This was a London cabinetmaker called Thomas Saint, who in or about 1790
+took out a patent for a machine for sewing leather, or rather for
+'quilting, stitching, and making shoes, boots, spatterdashes, clogs, and
+other articles.' This patent, unfortunately, was taken out along with
+other inventions in connection with leather, and it was quite by
+accident that, some eighty years later, the specification of it was
+discovered by one who had made for himself a name in connection with
+sewing-machines. Even the Patent Office did not seem to have known of
+its existence, yet now it is clear enough that Thomas Saint's
+leather-sewing-machine of 1790 was the first genuine sewing-machine ever
+constructed, and that it was on what is now known as the 'chain-stitch'
+principle. Rude as it was, it is declared by experts to have anticipated
+most of the ingenious ideas of half a century of successive inventors,
+not one of whom, however, could in all human probability have as much as
+heard of Saint's machine. This is not the least curious incident in the
+history of the sewing-machine.
+
+In Saint's machine the features are--the overhanging arm, which is the
+characteristic of many modern machines; the perpendicular action of the
+Singer machine; the eye-pointed needle of the Howe machine; the
+pressure surfaces peculiar to the Howe machine; and a 'feed' system
+equal to that of the most modern inventions. Whether Saint's machine was
+ever worked in a practical workshop or not, it was unquestionably a
+practicable machine, constructed by one who knew pretty well what he was
+about, and what he wanted to achieve.
+
+Now note the date of Thomas Saint's patent (1790), and next note the
+date of the invention of Barthelmy Thimonnier, of St Etienne, who is
+claimed in France as the inventor of the sewing-machine. In 1830,
+Thimonnier constructed a machine, principally of wood, with an
+arrangement of barbed needles, for stitching gloves, and in the
+following year he began business in Paris, with a partner, as an army
+clothier. The firm of Thimonnier, Petit, & Co., however, did not thrive,
+because the workpeople thought they saw in the principal's machine an
+instrument destined to ruin them; much as the Luddites viewed
+steam-machinery in the cotton districts of England. An idea of that sort
+rapidly germinates heat, and Thimonnier's workshop was one day invaded
+by an angry mob, who smashed all the machines, and compelled the
+inventor to seek safety in flight. Poor Thimonnier was absent from Paris
+for three years, but in 1834 returned with another and more perfect
+machine. This was so coldly received, both by employers and workmen in
+the tailoring trade, that he left the capital, and, journeying through
+France with his machine, paid his way by exhibiting it in the towns and
+villages as a curiosity. After a few years, however, Thimonnier fell in
+with a capitalist who believed in him and his machine, and was willing
+to stake money on both. A partnership was entered into for the
+manufacture and sale of the machine, and all promised well for the new
+firm, when the Revolution of 1848 broke out, stopped the business, and
+ruined both the inventor and the capitalist. Thimonnier died in 1857,
+in a poorhouse, of a broken heart.
+
+This French machine was also on the chain-stitch principle, but it was
+forty years later than Saint's. In between the two came, about 1832, one
+Walter Hunt, of New York, who is said to have constructed a
+sewing-machine with the lock-stitch movement. Some uncertainty surrounds
+this claim, and Elias Howe is the person usually credited with this
+important, indeed invaluable invention. Whether Howe had ever seen
+Hunt's machine, we know not; but Hunt's machine was never patented,
+seems never to have come into practical working, and is, indeed, said to
+have been unworkable. There is, besides, in the Polytechnic at Vienna,
+the model of a machine, dated 1814, constructed by one Joseph
+Madersberg, a tailor of the Tyrol, which embodies the lock-stitch
+idea--working with two threads. But this also was unworkable, and Elias
+Howe has the credit of having produced the first really practical
+lock-stitch sewing-machine.
+
+His was a life of vicissitude and of ultimate triumph, both in fame and
+fortune. He was born at a small place in Massachusetts in 1819, and as a
+youth went to Boston, there to work as a mechanic. While there, and when
+about twenty-two years old, the idea occurred to him at his work of
+passing a thread through cloth and securing it on the other side by
+another thread. Here we perceive the germ of the lock-stitch--the two
+threads. Howe began to experiment with a number of bent wires in lieu of
+needles, but he lacked the means to put his great idea to a thorough
+practical test. Thus it slumbered for three years, when he went to board
+and lodge with an old schoolfellow named Fisher, who, after a while,
+agreed to advance Howe one hundred pounds in return for a half share in
+the invention should it prove a success. Thus aided, in 1845 Howe
+completed his first machine, and actually made himself a suit of
+clothes with it; and this would be just about the time of Thimonnier's
+temporary prosperity in alliance with the capitalist, Mogrini.
+
+Feeling sure of his ground, Howe took bold steps to 'boom' his
+invention. He challenged five of the most expert sewers in a great
+Boston clothing factory to a sewing match. Each of them was to sew a
+certain strip of cloth, and Howe undertook to sew five strips, torn in
+halves, before each man had completed his one strip. The arrangements
+completed, the match began, and to the wonder of everybody, Howe
+finished his five seams before the others were half done with one seam.
+But murmurs instead of cheers succeeded the victory. He was angrily
+reproached for trying to take the bread out of the mouth of the honest
+working-man, and a cry was raised among the workers (as it has been
+heard time and again in the history of industrial development) to smash
+the machine. Howe, indeed, had much difficulty in escaping from the
+angry mob, with his precious machine under his arm.
+
+In Howe's experience we thus see one parallel with Thimonnier's; but
+there was another. The American was quite as poor and resourceless as
+the Frenchman, and the next step in Howe's career was that he went on
+tour to the country fairs to exhibit his machine for a trifling fee, in
+order to keep body and soul together. People went in flocks to see the
+thing as a clever toy, but no one would 'take hold' of it as a practical
+machine. And so, in despair of doing any good with it in America, Elias
+Howe, in 1846, sent his brother to England to see if a market could not
+be found for the invention there. The brother succeeded in making terms
+with one William Thomas, staymaker, in Cheapside, London, and he sent
+for Elias to come over.
+
+The price to be paid by Thomas for the patent was two hundred and fifty
+pounds, but Howe was to make certain alterations in it so as to adapt
+it to the special requirements of the purchaser. While engaged in
+perfecting the machine, he was to receive wages at the rate of three
+pounds per week, and this wage he seems to have received for nearly two
+years. But he failed to achieve what Thomas wanted, and Thomas, after
+spending a good deal of money over the experiments, abandoned the thing
+altogether. Howe was thus astrand again, and he returned to America as
+poor as ever, leaving his machine behind him in pawn for advances to pay
+his passage home. And yet there were 'millions in it.'
+
+This was in the year 1849, and just about the time when Howe was
+returning to America, another American, named Bostwich, was sending over
+to England a machine which he had invented for imitating hand-stitching,
+by means of cog-wheels and a bent needle. And a year or two after Howe's
+return, one Charles Morey, of Manchester, attempted to carry out the
+same stitch on a somewhat different plan, but failed to find sufficient
+pecuniary support. Indeed, poor Morey had a tragic end, for, taking his
+machine to Paris in the hope of finding a purchaser there, he incurred
+some debt which he could not pay, and was clapped into the Mazas prison.
+While there, he inadvertently broke the rules, and was shot by the guard
+for failing to reply to a challenge which he did not understand.
+
+When Howe got back to the United States, he found a number of ingenious
+persons engaged in producing or experimenting in sewing-machines, and
+some of them were trenching on his own patent rights. He raised enough
+money, somehow, to redeem his pawned machine in England, and then raised
+actions against all who were infringing it. The litigation was
+tremendous both in duration and expense, but it ended in the victory of
+Elias Howe, to whom, by the finding of the court, the other patentees
+were found liable for royalty. It is said that Howe, who as we have seen
+left London in debt, received, before his patent expired in 1867,
+upwards of two million dollars in royalties alone.
+
+But ingenious men were now busy in both hemispheres in perfecting what,
+up till about fifty years ago, was regarded as nothing better than a
+clever toy. Besides Morey, the Manchester man we have mentioned, a
+Huddersfield machinist, named Drake, brought out a machine to work with
+a shuttle. About the same time, or a little later, a young Nottingham
+man, named John Fisher, constructed a machine with a sort of lock-stitch
+movement, which he afterwards adapted to a double loop-stitch. But
+Fisher's machine was intended rather for embroidering than for plain
+sewing.
+
+Passing over some minor attempts, the next great development was that of
+Allen Wilson, who, without having heard either of Howe's or of any other
+machine, constructed one in 1849, the design of which, he said, he had
+been meditating for two years. His first machine had original features,
+however much it may have been anticipated in principle by Howe's patent.
+In Wilson's second design, a rotary hook was substituted for a
+two-pointed shuttle, and by other improvements he achieved a greater
+speed than had been attained by other inventors. Later still, he added
+the 'four-motion feed,' which is adopted on most of the machines now in
+general use.
+
+This idea was an elaboration of a principle which seems to have first
+occurred to the unfortunate Morey. In Morey's machine there was a
+horizontal bar with short teeth, which caught the fabric and dragged it
+forward as the stitches were completed. It took nearly thirty years,
+however, to evolve the perfect 'feed' motion out of Morey's first crude
+germ.
+
+While Wilson was working away, perfecting his now famous machine, an
+observing and thoughtful young millwright was employed in a New York
+factory. One day a sewing-machine was sent in for repairs, and after
+examining its mechanism, this young man, whose name was Isaac Singer,
+confidently expressed his belief that he could make a better one. He did
+not propose either to appropriate or abandon the principle, but to
+improve upon it. Instead of a curved needle, as in Howe's and Wilson's
+machines, he adopted a straight one, and gave it a perpendicular instead
+of a curvular motion. And for propelling the fabric he introduced a
+wheel, instead of the toothed bar of the Morey design.
+
+It need hardly be said that the Singer machine is now one of the most
+widely known, and is turned out in countless numbers in enormous
+factories on both sides of the Atlantic. It is not so well known,
+perhaps, that Singer, who was a humble millwright in 1850, and who died
+in 1875, left an estate valued at three millions sterling--all amassed
+in less than twenty-five years!
+
+The machines of Howe, Wilson, and Singer were on the lock-stitch
+principle, and the next novelty was the invention of Grover and Baker,
+who brought out a machine working with two needles and two continuous
+threads. After this came the Gibbs machine, the story of which may be
+briefly told.
+
+About the year 1855, James G. Gibbs heard of the Grover and Baker
+machine, and having a turn for mechanics, began to ponder over how the
+action described was produced. He got an illustration, but could make
+nothing of it, and not for a year did he obtain sight of a Singer
+machine at work. As in the case of Singer with Wilson's machine, so
+Gibbs thought he could improve on Singer's, and turn out one less
+ponderous and complicated. He set to work, and in a very short time took
+out a patent for a new lock-stitch machine. But he was not satisfied
+with this, and experimented away, with an idea of making a chain-stitch
+by means of a revolving looper. This idea he eventually put into
+practical form, and took out a patent for the first chain-stitch
+sewing-machine.
+
+Since the days of Elias Howe, the number of patents taken out for
+sewing-machines has been legion--certainly not less than one
+thousand--and probably no labour-saving appliance has received more
+attention at the hands both of inventors and of the general public.
+There is scarcely a household in the land now, however humble, without a
+sewing-machine of some sort, and in factories and warehouses they are to
+be numbered by the thousand. Some machinists have directed their
+ingenuity to the reduction of wear and tear, others to the reduction of
+noise, others to acceleration of speed, others to appliances for
+supplying the machine in a variety of ways, others for adapting it to
+various complicated processes of stitching and embroidering. Some users
+prefer the lock-stitch, and some the chain-stitch principle, and each
+system has its peculiar advantages according to the character of the
+work to be sewn.
+
+A recent development is a combination of both principles in one machine.
+Mr Edward Kohler patented a machine which will produce either a
+lock-stitch or a chain-stitch, as may be desired, and an embroidery
+stitch as well. By a very ingenious contrivance the machinery is altered
+by the simple movement of a button, and (when the chain-stitch is
+required) the taking out of the bobbin from the shuttle. If the
+embroidery stitch is wanted, the button is turned without removing the
+bobbin, and the lock-stitch and chain-stitch are combined in one new
+stitch, with which very elaborate effects can be produced. It is said
+that the Kohler principle can be easily adapted to all, or most,
+existing machines.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WOOL AND COTTON.
+
+    WOOL.--What is Wool?--Chemical Composition--Fibre--Antiquity
+    of Shepherd Life--Varieties of Sheep--Introduction into
+    Australia--Spanish Merino--Wool Wealth of Australia--Imports
+    and Exports of Wool and Woollen Produce--Woollen Manufacture.
+
+    COTTON.--Cotton Plant in the East--Mandeville's Fables about
+    Cotton--Cotton in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt--Columbus finds
+    Cotton-yarn and Thread in 1492--In Africa--Manufacture of Cloth
+    in England--The American Cotton Plant.
+
+
+WOOL.
+
+What is wool? 'The covering of the sheep, of course,' replies somebody.
+Yes; but what _is_ it? Let us ask Professor Owen. 'Wool,' he says, 'is a
+peculiar modification of hair, characterised by fine transverse or
+oblique lines from two to four thousand in the extent of an inch,
+indicative of a minutely imbricated scaly surface, when viewed under the
+microscope, on which and on its curved or twisted form depends its
+remarkable felting property.' At first sight this definition seems
+bewildering, but it will bear examination, and is really more tangible
+than, for instance, Noah Webster's definition of wool: 'That soft curled
+or crisped species of hair which grows on sheep and some other animals,
+and which in fineness sometimes approaches to fur.' It is usually that
+which grows on sheep, however, that we know as wool, and the number of
+imbrications, serratures, or notches indicates the quality of the fibre.
+Thus, in the wool of the Leicester sheep there are 1850--in Spanish
+merino, 2400--in Saxon merino, 2700, to an inch, and the fewer there are
+the nearer does wool approach to hair.
+
+[Illustration: Wool-sorters at Work.]
+
+Here is a still more minute description by Youatt, a great authority on
+wool: 'It consists of a central stem or stalk, probably hollow, or at
+least porous, and possessing a semi-transparency, found in the fibre of
+the hair. From this central stalk there springs, at different distances
+in different breeds of sheep, a circlet of leaf-shaped projections. In
+the finer species of wool these circles seemed at first to be composed
+of one indicated or serrated ring; but when the eye was accustomed to
+them, this ring was resolvable into leaves or scales. In the larger
+kinds, the ring was at once resolvable into these scales or leaves,
+varying in number, shape, and size, and projecting at different angles
+from the stalk, and in the direction of the leaves of vegetables--that
+is, from the root to the point. They give to the wool the power of
+felting.'
+
+This is the estimate of the chemical composition of good wool: Carbon,
+50.65; hydrogen, 7.03; nitrogen, 17.71; oxygen and sulphur, 24.61. Out
+of a hundred parts, ninety-eight would be organic, and two would be ash,
+consisting of oxide of iron, sulphate of lime, phosphate of lime, and
+magnesia. What is called the 'yolk' of wool is a compound of oil, lime,
+and potash. It makes the pile soft and pliable, and is less apparent on
+English sheep than on those of warmer countries, the merino sheep having
+the most 'yolk.'
+
+The fibre of wool varies in diameter, the Saxon merino measuring 1/1370
+of an inch, and the Southdown, 1/1100. Lustrous wool, it is said, should
+be long and strong; but if it is very fine it is not long. Strong wool
+may be as much as twenty inches in length. The wool of the best sheep
+adheres closely, and can only be removed by shearing; but there are
+varieties of sheep which shed their wool, as, for instance, the Persian,
+which drop the whole of their fleeces between January and May, when
+feeding on the new grass.
+
+This, then, is wool, the first use of which for cloth-making is lost in
+antiquity. There is no doubt that the pastoral industry is the oldest
+industry in the world; for even when the fruits of the earth could be
+eaten without tillage and without labour, the flocks and herds required
+care and attention. The shepherd may be regarded as the earliest pioneer
+of industry, as he has been for centuries the centre of fanciful
+romance, and the personification of far from romantic fact. The old
+legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece is in itself evidence of the
+antiquity of the knowledge of the value of wool; and much as the
+mythologists make out of the legend, there are some who hold that it
+merely is meant to record how the Greeks imported a superior kind of
+sheep from the Caucasus and made money thereby.
+
+Australia is now the land of the Golden Fleece, and millions of money
+have been made there out of the docile sheep. It is not indigenous, of
+course, to the land of the Southern Cross, where the only mammal known
+when Europeans discovered it was the kangaroo. Mr James Bonwick, a
+gentleman well known in Australian literature, gathered together many
+records of the introduction of the sheep into Australia, and of the
+marvellous development of the pastoral industry there in his very
+interesting book, _The Romance of the Wool-trade_.
+
+But, first, as to the different kinds of sheep. The Bighorn is the
+wild-sheep of Kamchatka, and it may be taken for granted that all
+species of the domestic sheep were at one time wild, or are descended
+from wild tribes. When the Aryan Hindus invaded India, it is recorded
+that they took their flocks with them; but whether the wild-sheep still
+to be found on the hills of Northern India are the descendants of
+wanderers from these flocks, or descendants of the progenitors of them,
+we do not pretend to say.
+
+Chief among the domesticated sheep of the British Isles is the
+Southdown, whose characteristics used to be--although we are told they
+are changed somewhat now--thin chine, low fore-end, and rising backbone,
+a small hornless head, speckled face, thin lips, woolled ears, and
+bright eyes. The wool should 'be short, close, curled, fine, and free
+from spiry projecting fibres.' Then there are the Romney Marsh, the
+Cotswold, the Lincoln, the Leicester, and the Hardwick sheep, each with
+its distinctive marks and value. The Welsh sheep have long necks, high
+shoulders, narrow breasts, long bushy tails, and small bones; the wool
+is not first class, but the mutton is excellent. The Irish native sheep
+are of two kinds, the short-woolled and long-woolled; but Southdowns and
+Leicesters have been so long crossed with them that their idiosyncrasies
+are no longer marked. The Shetland sheep are supposed to have come from
+Denmark, but have also been crossed with English and Scotch varieties.
+In Scotland, the Cheviot and the Blackfaced are the two ruling types.
+The Cheviot is a very handsome animal, with long body, white face, small
+projecting eyes, and well-formed legs. The wool is excellent, as the
+'tweed'-makers of the Border know, but is not so soft as that of the
+English Southdowns. The Blackfaced is the familiar form we see in the
+Highlands, supposed to have come originally 'from abroad,' but now
+regarded as the native sheep of Scotland. It is a hardy animal,
+accustomed to rough food and rough weather, with a fine deep chest,
+broad back, slender legs, attractive face, and picturesque horns. The
+wool is not so good as that of the Cheviot variety, but the mutton is
+better. Of course, English varieties have been largely crossed with the
+two native Scotch kinds; yet these still remain distinct, and are easily
+recognisable.
+
+As long ago as the time of the Emperor Constantine, the wool of English
+sheep had a high reputation, and had even then found its way to Rome. Of
+English monarchs, Edward III. seems to have been the first to endeavour
+to stimulate the pastoral industry by the manufacture of woollen cloths
+and the export of raw wool. But Henry VIII. thought that sheep-breeding
+had been carried too far, and the farmers were making too much money out
+of it; so he decreed that no one should keep more than two thousand four
+hundred sheep at one time, and that no man should be allowed to occupy
+more than two farms. In the time of Charles II. the export of both sheep
+and wool was strictly prohibited. As late as 1788, there were curious
+prohibitory enactments with reference to sheep; and the date is
+interesting, because it was the date of the settlement of New South
+Wales. There was a fine of three pounds upon the carrying off of any
+sheep from the British Isles, except for use on board ship; and even
+between the islands and the mainland of Scotland, or across a tidal
+river, sheep could not be transported without a special permit and the
+execution of a bond that the animals were not for exportation. Indeed,
+no sheep could be shorn within five miles of the sea-coast without the
+presence of a revenue officer, to see that the law was not evaded.
+
+It is not surprising, then, that the first sheep settled in
+Australia--the only great pastoral country that has never had a native
+variety--did not go from England. It is very curious that in Australia,
+New Zealand, and Tasmania, where now lies a great portion of the
+pastoral wealth of the world, there never was any animal in the
+smallest degree resembling a sheep until some enterprising Britons took
+it there.
+
+The first sheep introduced into Australia were from the Cape and from
+India. The ships which went out with the convicts of 1788 had a few
+sheep on board for the officers' mess, which were presumably consumed
+before the Cape of Good Hope was reached. There, some animals were
+procured for the new settlement. The Cape at the time was in the hands
+of the Dutch, who had large flocks of sheep and immense herds of cattle.
+The sheep they had were not imported from Europe, but were the native
+breed they had found in the hands of the aborigines when the Dutch
+colony was founded one hundred and thirty years previously.
+
+The native African sheep is of the fat-tail kind. Wool was not then an
+item of wealth in the Dutch colony; but the fat tails were appreciated
+as an excellent substitute for butter. All over Africa and over a large
+part of Asia, varieties of the fat-tail species are still to be found.
+In Tibet they abound; and the Turcomans have vast flocks of them. But
+Tibet has also other varieties, and notably one very like the llama of
+Peru, with a very soft and most useful fleece, providing the famous
+Tibetan wool. In Palestine and Syria the fat-tail sheep is abundant; and
+of the Palestine breed it is recorded that they 'have a monstrous round
+of fat, like a cushion, in place of the tail, which sometimes weighs
+thirty or forty pounds. The wool of this sheep is coarse, much tangled,
+and felted, and mixed with coarse dark-coloured hair.'
+
+Although the first sheep taken to Australia were from the Cape, the most
+important of the earlier consignments were from India, the nearest
+British possession to the new colony. Indeed, for over thirty years
+Australia was ecclesiastically within the see of the Bishop of Calcutta,
+and letters to England usually went by way of the Indian capital.
+
+The Bengalee sheep are described as 'small, lank, and thin, and the
+colour of three-fourths of each flock is black or dark gray. The quality
+of the fleece is worse than the colour; it is harsh, thin, and wiry to a
+very remarkable degree, and ordinarily weighs but half a pound.' Not a
+very promising subject, one would think, for the Australian pastures,
+but the flesh was excellent; and climate and crossing of breeds work
+wonders.
+
+That which gave value to the Australian breed of sheep, however, was the
+introduction of the Spanish merino, which in time found its way to the
+Cape, and thence to Australia. There is an old tradition that the famous
+merino sheep of Spain came originally from England; but it appears from
+Pliny and others that Spain had a reputation for fine wool long before
+the Roman occupation. The Spanish word merino originally meant an
+inspector of sheepwalks, and is derived from the Low Latin _majorinus_,
+a steward of the household. Some writers believe that the merino came
+originally from Barbary, probably among the flocks of the Moors when
+they captured Southern Spain. The merinos are considered very voracious,
+and not very prolific; they yield but little milk, and are very subject
+to cutaneous diseases. Youatt describes two varieties of them in Spain,
+and the wool is of remarkable fineness.
+
+About the year 1790, the Spanish merino began to be imported into the
+Cape, and a few years later a certain Captain Waterhouse was sent from
+Sydney to Capetown to buy stock for the colonial establishment. He
+thought the service in which he was engaged 'almost a disgrace to an
+officer;' but when he left the Cape again, he brought with him
+'forty-nine head of black-cattle, three mares, and one hundred and seven
+sheep'--arriving at Port Jackson with the loss of nine of the cattle
+and about one-third of the sheep. Three cows, two mares, and twenty-four
+of the sheep belonged to that officer, and with this voyage he founded
+not only his own fortune, but also the prosperity of the great
+Australian colony. Further importations followed; and a Captain
+Macarthur, early in the present century, went home to London to
+endeavour to form a company to carry on sheep-rearing on an extensive
+scale. He did not succeed, and returned to Port Jackson to pursue his
+enterprise himself. Eventually he obtained the concession of a few
+square miles of land, and thus became the father of Australian
+'squatting.' He located himself on the Nepean River, to the south-west
+of Sydney; and to his industry and sagacity is attributed in great part
+the origin of the immense wool-trade which has developed between the
+colony and the mother-country.
+
+And what is now the wool wealth of Australasia? In 1820 there were not
+more than ten thousand sheep of 'a good sort' in New South Wales; and in
+the same year, wool from the colony was sold in London at an average of
+three shillings and sevenpence the pound. This led to the circulation of
+fabulous reports of the profits to be made out of sheep; and there was
+quite a run for some years on the squatting lots. In 1848 some
+Australians started sheep-running in New Zealand; and by 1860 the sheep
+in these islands had increased to 2,400,000. In 1865 the number there
+had grown to 5,700,000; in 1870, to 9,500,000; and in 1894, to
+19,000,000.
+
+In 1886 the pastoral wealth of the whole of the Australian colonies
+consisted of 84,222,272 sheep. At only ten shillings per head, this
+represents a capital of over forty-two millions sterling, without
+counting the value of the land. The number of sheep in 1894 was over
+99,000,000.
+
+But now as to the yield of the flocks. The value of the wool for 1884
+was L20,532,429.
+
+The total importations of wool into England in 1885-86 were 1,819,182
+bales, of which no fewer than 1,139,842 bales, or nearly three-fourths
+of the whole, came from Australasia. The rest came from the Cape and
+Natal, India, the Mediterranean, Russia, other European countries,
+China, and the Falkland Islands. The imports in 1894, from all quarters,
+consisted of 705 million pounds, of a value of L25,000,000.
+
+It would transcend the limits of our space to attempt to sketch the
+history and growth of the woollen industry in the manufacture of cloths.
+It is an industry, if not as old as the hills, at least very nearly as
+old as the fig-leaves of Eden; for we may assume as a certainty that the
+next garments worn by our forefathers were constructed in some way from
+the fleecy coats of these bleating followers. We exported woollen and
+worsted yarns of a value of over four million pounds sterling in 1894,
+and of woollen and worsted manufactures, a value of 14 millions
+sterling.
+
+In the middle ages all the best wool was produced in England, and the
+woollen manufacture centred in Norfolk, although both the west of
+England and Ireland had also factories. There are in existence specimens
+of cloth made in these medieval days which show that the quality of the
+wool employed was not equal to that which we now use. The art of weaving
+is supposed to have been brought from the Netherlands; at any rate there
+were strong political alliances between the English sovereigns and the
+weavers of Bruges and of Ghent. In these old days, when Norwich,
+Aylsham, and Lynn had the lion's share of the woollen trade, the great
+mart for English and foreign cloths was at Stourbridge, near Cambridge,
+where a fair was held which lasted a month every year.
+
+There were 2546 woollen and worsted mills in the United Kingdom in 1890.
+The chief seats of the wool manufacture in England in the 14th century
+were Bristol, London, and Norwich. Now Wiltshire and Gloucestershire are
+famous for broadcloths, while the towns of Leeds and Huddersfield in
+Yorkshire are important centres. Galashiels and Hawick are noted for
+their tweeds.
+
+
+COTTON.
+
+The Father of History, in writing about India--'the last inhabited
+country towards the East'--where every species of birds and quadrupeds,
+horses excepted, are 'much larger than in any other part of the world,'
+and where they have also 'a great abundance of gold,' made the following
+remarkable statement. 'They possess likewise,' he said, 'a kind of
+plant, which, instead of fruit, produces wool of a finer and better
+quality than that of the sheep, and of this the natives make their
+clothes.' This was the vegetable wool of the ancients, which many
+learned authorities have identified with the byssus, in bandages of
+cloth made from which the old Egyptians wrapped their mummies. But did
+Egypt receive the cotton plant from India--or India from Egypt--and
+when? However that may be, there is good reason to believe that cotton
+is the basis of one of the oldest industries in the world, although we
+are accustomed to think of it as quite modern, and at any rate as
+practically unknown in Europe before the last century. As a matter of
+fact, nevertheless, cotton was being cultivated in the south of Europe
+in the 13th century, although whether the fibre was then used for the
+making of cloth is not so certain. Its chief use then seems to have been
+in the manufacture of paper.
+
+The beginning of the Oriental fable of the Vegetable Lamb is lost in the
+dateless night of the centuries. When and how it originated we know
+not; but the story of a Plant-Animal in Western Asia descended through
+the ages, and passed from traveller to traveller, from historian to
+historian, until in our time the fable has received a practical
+verification. Many strange things were gravely recorded of this
+Plant-Animal: as, that it was a tree bearing seed-pods, which, bursting
+when ripe, disclosed within little lambs with soft white fleeces, which
+Scythians used for weaving into clothing. Or, that it was a real
+flesh-and-blood lamb, growing upon a short stem flexible enough to allow
+the lamb to feed upon the surrounding grass.
+
+There were many versions of the marvellous tale as it reached Europe;
+and the compiler and concocter of the so-called Sir John Mandeville's
+travels, as usual, improved upon it. He vouched for the flesh-and-blood
+lamb growing out of a plant, and declared that he had both seen and
+_eaten it_--whereby the writer proved himself a somewhat greater
+romancer than usual. Nevertheless, he has a germ of truth amid his lies,
+for he relates of 'Bucharia' that in the land are 'trees that bear wool,
+as though it were of sheep, whereof men make clothes and all things that
+are made of wool.' And again, of Abyssinia, that mysterious kingdom of
+the renowned Prester John, he related: 'In that country, and in many
+others beyond, and also in many on this side, men sow the seeds of
+cotton, and they sow it every year; and then it grows into small trees
+which bear cotton. And so do men every year, so that there is plenty of
+cotton at all times.' This statement, whencesoever it was borrowed, may
+be true enough, and if so, is evidence that, eighteen centuries after
+Herodotus, cotton was still being cultivated, as the basis of a textile
+industry, both in Western Asia and in Africa. It is said that in the
+Sacred Books of India there is evidence that cotton was in use for
+clothing purposes eight centuries before Christ.
+
+The expedition of Alexander the Great from Persia into the Punjab was a
+good deal later, say, three hundred and thirty years before Christ. On
+the retreat down the Indus, Admiral Nearchus remarked 'trees bearing as
+it were flocks or bunches of wool,' of which the natives made 'garments
+of surpassing whiteness, or else their black complexions make the
+material whiter than any other.' The Alexandrine general, Aristobulus,
+is more precise: he tells of a wool-bearing tree yielding a capsule that
+contains 'seeds which were taken out, and that which remained was carded
+like wool.' And long before Pliny referred to cotton in Egypt--'a shrub
+which men call "gossypium," and others "xylon," from which stuffs are
+made which we call xylina'--Strabo had noted the cultivation of the
+plant on the Persian Gulf.
+
+At the beginning of the Christian era we find cotton in cultivation and
+in use in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt--but whether indigenous to these
+countries, or conveyed westward during the centuries from India, we know
+not. Thereafter, the westward spread was slow; but the plant is to be
+traced along the north coast of Africa to Morocco, which country it
+seems to have reached in the 9th century. The Moors took the plant, or
+seeds, to Spain, and it was being grown on the plains of Valencia in the
+10th century; and by the 13th century it was, as we have said, growing
+in various parts of Southern Europe.
+
+Yet, although the Indian cloths were known to the Greeks and Romans a
+century or two before the Christian era, and although in the early
+centuries Arab traders brought to the Red Sea ports Indian calicoes,
+which were distributed in Europe, we find cotton known in England only
+as material for candle-wicks down to the 17th century. At any rate,
+M'Culloch is our authority for believing that the first mention of
+cotton being manufactured in England is in 1641; and that the 'English
+cottons,' of which earlier mention may be found, were really _woollens_.
+
+And now we come to a very curious thing in the Romance of Cotton.
+Columbus discovered--or, as some say, rediscovered--America in 1492; and
+when he reached the islands of the Caribbean Sea, the natives who came
+off to barter with him brought, among other things, cotton yarn and
+thread. Vasco da Gama, a few years later than Bartholomew Diaz, in 1497
+rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Zanzibar coast. There the
+natives were found to be clothed in cotton, just as Columbus found the
+natives of Cuba to be, as Pizarro found the Peruvians, and as Cortes
+found the Mexicans. These Europeans, proceeding from the Iberian
+Peninsula east and west, found the peoples of the new worlds clothed
+with a material of which they knew nothing. Cotton was king in America,
+as in Asia, before it began even to be known in Western Europe.
+
+Not only that, but cotton must have been cultivated in Africa at the
+time when the mariners of Prince Henry the Navigator first made their
+way cautiously down the west coast. It is, at any rate, upwards of four
+hundred years since cotton cloth was brought from the coast of Guinea
+and sold in London as a strange barbaric product. Whether the plant
+travelled to the Bight of Benin from the land of Prester John, or from
+the land of the Pharaohs, or across from the Mozambique coast, where the
+Arabians are supposed to have had settlements and trading stations in
+prehistoric days, who can now say? But it is curious enough that when
+Africa was discovered by Europeans, the Dark Continent was actually
+producing both the fibre and the cloth for which African labour and
+English skill were afterwards to be needed. The cotton plantations of
+Southern America were worked by the negroes of Africa in order that the
+cotton-mills of Lancashire might be kept running. And yet both Africa
+and America made cotton cloth from the vegetable wool long before we
+knew of it otherwise than as a traveller's wonder.
+
+Even in Asia, the natural habitat of the cotton plant, the story has
+been curious. Thus, according to the records above named, cotton has
+been in use for clothing for three thousand years in India, and India
+borders upon the ancient and extensive Empire of China. Yet cotton was
+not used in China for cloth-making until the coming of the Tartars, and
+has been cultivated and manufactured there for only about five hundred
+years. This was because of the 'vested interests' in wool and silk,
+which combined to keep out the vegetable wool from general use.
+
+To understand aright the romance of cotton we must understand the nature
+of the plant in its relation to climate. It has been called a child of
+the tropics, and yet it grows well in other than tropical climes. As Mr
+Richard Marsden--an authority on cotton-spinning--says: 'Cotton is or
+can be grown (along) a broad zone extending forty-five degrees north to
+thirty-five degrees south of the equator. Reference to a map will show
+that this includes a space extending from the European shores of the
+Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope, from Japan to Melbourne in
+Australia, and from Washington in the United States to Buenos Ayres in
+South America, with all the lands intermediate between these several
+points. These include the Southern States of the American Union, from
+Washington to the Gulf of Mexico, and three-fourths of South America,
+the whole of the African Continent, and Southern Asia from the Bosphorus
+to Pekin in China. The vast area of Australia is also within the cotton
+zone, and the islands lying between that country and Asia.'
+
+The exact period at which the manufacture of cotton was begun in England
+is not known with absolute certainty. But as we have said, the first
+authentic mention of it occurs in 1641; and it is in a book called
+_Treasure of Traffic_, by Lewis Roberts. The passage runs thus: 'The
+town of Manchester, in Lancashire, must be also herein remembered, and
+worthily for their encouragement commended, who buy the yarne of the
+Irish in great quantity, and weaving it, returne the same again into
+Ireland to sell. Neither doth their industry rest here; for they buy
+_cotton-wool_ in London that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and at
+home worke the same, and perfect it into fustians, vermilions, dimities,
+and other such stuffs; and then return it to London, where the same is
+vended and sold, and not seldom sent into foreign parts, who have means,
+at far easier terms, to provide themselves of the said first materials.'
+
+But here it should be explained that from the first introduction of the
+cotton fibre into this country, and until about the year 1773, in the
+manufacture of cloth it was only the weft that was of cotton. Down to
+about 1773, the warp was invariably of linen yarn, brought from Ireland
+and Germany. The Manchester merchants began in 1760 to employ the
+hand-loom weavers in the surrounding villages to make cloth according to
+prescribed patterns, and with the yarns supplied by the buyers. Thus
+they sent linen yarn for warp, and raw cotton--which the weaver had
+first to card and spin on a common distaff--for weft. Such was the
+practice when, in 1767, James Hargreaves of Blackburn inaugurated the
+textile revolution by inventing the spinning-jenny, which, from small
+beginnings, was soon made to spin thirty threads as easily as one. The
+thread thus spun, however, was still only available for weft, as the
+jenny could not turn out the yarn hard and firm enough for warp. The
+next stage, therefore, was the invention of a machine to give the
+requisite quality and tenuity to the threads spun from the raw cotton.
+This was the spinning-frame of Richard Arkwright, the story of which
+every schoolboy is supposed to know.
+
+Here, then, we reach another point in our romance. The manufacture of
+cotton cloths in England from raw cotton is older than the cotton
+culture of North America. It is, in fact, only about one hundred years
+since we began to draw supplies of raw cotton from the Southern States,
+which, previous to 1784, did not export a single pound, and produced
+only a small quantity for domestic consumption. The story of the
+development of cotton-growing in America is quite as marvellous as the
+story of the expansion of cotton-manufacturing in England. In both cases
+the most stupendous extension ever reached by any single industry in the
+history of the world has been reached in less than a hundred years.
+
+And yet Columbus found the Cubans, as Pizarro found the Peruvians, and
+Cortes found the Mexicans, clothed in cotton. Was it from the same plant
+as now supplies 'half the calico used by the entire human race' (as an
+American writer has computed)? This estimate, by the way, was arrived at
+thus: In 1889-90 the cotton crop of the world was 6094 millions of
+pounds, and the population of the world was computed at 1500 millions.
+This gave four pounds of raw cotton, equal to twenty yards of calico,
+per head; and the proportion of raw cotton provided by the Southern
+States was equal to eleven and a half yards per head. The raw cotton
+imported by Great Britain in 1894 had a value of nearly 33 million
+pounds sterling; the exports of cotton yarn and manufactured goods
+amounted to about 66 millions sterling.
+
+There are several species of the cotton plant; but those of commercial
+importance are four in number. Herbaceous Cotton ('Gossypium
+herbaceum') is the plant which yields the East Indian 'Surat' and some
+varieties of the Egyptian cotton. Its habitats are India, China, Arabia,
+Egypt, and Asia Minor. It is an annual: it grows to a height of five or
+six feet, it has a yellow flower, and it yields a short staple. Tree
+Cotton ('Gossypium arboreum'), on the other hand, grows to a height of
+fifteen or twenty feet, has a red flower, and yields a fine silky wool.
+Its habitats are Egypt, Arabia, India, and China. Hairy Cotton
+('Gossypium hirsutum') is a shrub of some six or seven feet high, with a
+white or straw-coloured flower, and hairy pods, which yield the staple
+known as American 'Upland' and 'Orleans' cotton. Another variety, called
+'Gossypium Barbadense,' because it was first found in Barbadoes, grows
+to a height of about fifteen feet, and has a yellow flower, yielding a
+long staple, and fine silky wool known as 'Sea Island' cotton. This now
+grows most extensively on the coasts of Georgia and Florida; but has
+been experimented with in various parts of the world, notably in Egypt,
+where it has succeeded; and in the Polynesian islands, where, for some
+reason or another, it has failed.
+
+The cotton plant of the American cotton plantations is an annual, which
+shoots above ground in about a fortnight after sowing, and which, as it
+grows, throws out flower-stalks, at the end of each of which develops a
+pod with fringed calyces. From this pod emerges a flower which, in some
+of the American varieties of the general species, will change its colour
+from day to day. The complete bloom flourishes for only twenty-four
+hours, at the end of which time the flower twists itself off, leaving a
+pod or boll, which grows to the size of a large filbert, browns and
+hardens like a nut, and then bursts, revealing the fibre or wool encased
+in three or four (according to the variety) cells within. This fibre or
+wool is the covering of the seeds, and in each cell will be as many
+separate fleeces as seeds, yet apparently forming one fleece.
+
+Upon the characteristics of this fleece depends the commercial value of
+the fibre. The essential qualities of good and mature cotton are thus
+enumerated by an expert: 'Length of fibre; smallness or fineness in
+diameter; evenness and smoothness; elasticity; tensile strength and
+colour; hollowness or tube-like construction; natural twist; corrugated
+edges; and moisture.' The fibre of Indian cotton is only about
+five-eighths of an inch long; that of Sea Island about two inches. Then
+Sea Island cotton is a sort of creamy-white colour; and some kinds of
+American and Egyptian cotton are not white at all, but golden in hue;
+while other kinds, again, are snow-white.
+
+Although the term 'American Cotton' is applied to all the cotton
+produced in the United States of America, it really applies to a number
+of different varieties--such as Texas, Mobile, Upland, Orleans,
+&c.--each one known by its distinctive name. The differences are too
+technical for explanation here; but, generally speaking, the members of
+the 'hirsutum' species of the 'Gossypium' tribe now rule the world of
+cotton.
+
+They are the product of what is called the 'Cotton-belt' of the United
+States, an area stretching for about two thousand miles between its
+extreme points in the Southern States, which are North and South
+Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas,
+and Texas. Over this area, soil and climate vary considerably. The
+'Cotton-belt' lies, roughly speaking, between the thirtieth and fortieth
+parallels of north latitude. As an American expert says: 'Cotton can be
+produced with various degrees of profit throughout the region bounded on
+the north by a line passing through Philadelphia; on the south by a line
+passing a little south of New Orleans; and on the west by a line
+passing through San Antonio. This is the limit of the possibilities.'
+
+The cotton plant likes a light sandy soil, or a black alluvial soil like
+that of the Mississippi margins. It requires both heat and moisture in
+due proportions, and is sensitive to cold, to drought, and to excessive
+moisture. The American cotton-fields are still worked by negroes, but no
+longer slaves, as before the war; and, in fact, the negroes are now not
+only free, but some of them are considerable cotton-growers on their own
+account. On the other hand, one finds nowadays little of the old system
+of spacious plantations under one ownership. Instead, the cultivation is
+carried on on small farms and allotments, not owned but rented by the
+cultivators. Large numbers of these cotton farmers are 'financed' by
+dealers, by landowners, or even by local storekeepers.
+
+The cotton factor is the go-between of the grower and the exporting
+agent in Galveston or New Orleans, or other centre of business. After
+the crop is picked by the negroes--men, women, and children--and the
+harvest is a long process--the seeds are separated from the fibre by
+means of a 'gin;' and then the cotton-wool is packed into loose bales
+for the factor, while the seeds are sent to a mill to be crushed for
+cotton-seed oil and oil-cake for cattle-feeding. The loose cotton bales
+are collected by the factors into some such central town as Memphis,
+where they are sorted, sampled, graded, and then compressed by machinery
+into bales of about four hundred and forty pounds each, for export. In
+calculating crops, &c., a bale is taken as four hundred pounds net.
+
+The cotton then passes into the hands of the shipping agent, who brands
+it, and forwards it by river-steamer to one of the Southern ports, or by
+rail to New York or Boston, where it is put on board an ocean steamer
+for Europe. The beautiful American clippers with which some of us were
+familiar in the days of our youth are no longer to be seen; they have
+been run off the face of the waters by the 'ocean liner' and the
+'tramp.' Arrived in Liverpool, cotton enters upon a new course of
+adventures altogether, and engages the thoughts and energies of a wholly
+new set of people.
+
+[Illustration: Cotton Plant.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+GOLD AND DIAMONDS.
+
+    GOLD.--How widely distributed--Alluvial Gold-mining--Vein
+    Gold-mining--Nuggets--Treatment of Ore and Gold in the
+    Transvaal--Story of South African Gold-fields--Gold-production
+    of the World--Johannesburg the Golden City--Coolgardie
+    Gold-fields--Bayley's discovery of Gold there.
+
+    DIAMONDS.--Composition--Diamond-cutting--Diamond-mining--Famous
+    Diamonds--Cecil J. Rhodes and the Kimberley Mines.
+
+
+In the getting of gold--the metal--for the purpose of possessing
+gold--as money--there has always been an element of excitement and
+romance.
+
+'How quickly nature falls into revolt when gold becomes her object!' as
+Shakespeare says:
+
+  For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
+  The farmer ploughs the manor.
+
+There is a vast difference between the way in which the precious metal
+is now extracted and the primitive methods which were considered perfect
+in the earlier part of the century. The miner of fifty years ago never
+dreamt of machinery, costly and magnificent, capable of crushing
+thousands of tons of quartz per week. He 'dollied,' or ground, his
+little bits of rock by means of a contrivance resembling a pestle and
+mortar, and it was only the very richest stone that repaid him for his
+labour. In fact, there was very little crushing in those days, quartz
+not being easily found sufficiently rich to make such work a paying
+concern, and it was therefore alluvial gold which was chiefly sought
+for. The gold-seeker having decided on the place where he was to make
+his first venture, provided himself with a shovel and pick and started
+for the 'diggings.' Gold-mining was then carried on all over California,
+and he had his choice of many camps.
+
+[Illustration: The Hand-cradle Method of extracting Gold.]
+
+But what a wild and lawless place was California in those days! Here in
+these gold-fields were gathered together thousands of the greatest
+desperadoes that the earth could boast of, and thousands of needy, if
+harmless, adventurers from every country in the world. Fortunately with
+them were mixed thousands of honest hard-working men, of every condition
+in life, from the peer to the peasant, men who had been doing well, or
+fairly well, at their professions, or in their business offices at home,
+but for whom the attractions of this El Dorado had proved too powerful.
+
+Gold is perhaps the most widely and universally sought product of the
+earth's crust. In the very earliest writings which have come down to us
+gold is mentioned as an object of men's search, and as a commodity of
+extreme value for purposes of adornment and as a medium of exchange. The
+importance which it possessed in ancient times has certainly not
+lessened in our day. Without the enormous supplies of gold produced at
+about the time when the steam-engine was being brought into practical
+use it is difficult to imagine how our commerce could have attained its
+present proportions; and but for the rush of immigrants to the
+gold-fields in the beginning of the second half of this century
+Australia might have remained a mere convict settlement, California have
+become but a granary and vineyard, and the Transvaal an asylum of the
+Boers who were discontented with the Cape government.
+
+On the score of geographical distribution, gold must be deemed a common
+metal, as common as copper, lead, or silver, and far more common than
+nickel, cobalt, platinum, and many others. Theorists have propounded
+curious rules for the occurrence of gold on certain lines and belts,
+which have no existence but in their own fancy. Scarcely a country but
+has rewarded a systematic search for gold, though some are more richly
+endowed than others, and discoveries are not always made with the same
+facility. The old prejudices, which made men associate gold only with
+certain localities hindered the development of a most promising
+industry even within the British shores. Despite the abundant traces of
+ancient Roman and other workings, the gold-mines of Wales were long
+regarded as mythical; but recent extended exploitation has proved them
+to be rich. This is notably the case in the Dolgelly district, where
+considerable gold occurs, both in alluvial gravels and in well-formed
+quartz veins traversing the Lower Silurian Lingula beds and the intruded
+diabasic rocks called 'greenstone' in the Geological Survey. A
+peculiarity of the veins is the common association of magnesian
+minerals. The gold is about 20 or 21 carats fine, and often shows traces
+of iron sesquioxide. So long ago as 1861 some L10,000 worth of gold per
+annum was taken out of the Clogan mine by imperfect methods. Some
+samples have afforded 40 to 60 ounces per ton--a most remarkable yield.
+There are probably many veins still waiting discovery.
+
+A calculation was made in 1881 that the total gold extracted from all
+sources up to that date from the creation had been over 10,000 tons,
+with a value of about 1500 millions sterling. California, to the end of
+1888, was reckoned to have afforded over 200 million pounds' worth, and
+this figure is exceeded by the Australian colony of Victoria.
+
+The origin of gold-bearing mineral veins is inseparably connected with
+that vexed question, the origin of mineral veins generally. By far the
+most common matrix of vein-gold is quartz or silica, but it is not the
+only one. To pass by the metals and metallic ores with which gold is
+found, there are several other minerals which serve as an envelope for
+the precious metal. Chief among them is lime. Some of the best mines of
+New South Wales are in calcareous veins. Sundry gold-reefs in
+Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Bohemia are full of calcite.
+Dolomite occurs in Californian and Manitoban mines; and apatite,
+aragonite, gypsum, selenite, and crystalline limestone have all proved
+auriferous, while in some cases neighbouring quartz has been barren.
+Felspar in Colorado and felsite magnesian slate in Newfoundland carry
+gold.
+
+
+NUGGETS.
+
+[Illustration: Welcome Nugget.]
+
+The physical conditions under which gold occurs are extremely variable.
+Popularly speaking, the most familiar form is the 'nugget,' or shapeless
+mass of appreciable size. These, however, constitute in the aggregate
+but a small proportion of the gold yielded by any field, and were much
+more common in the early days of placer-mining in California and
+Australia than they are now. One of the largest ever found, the
+'Welcome' nugget, discovered in 1858 at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, weighed
+2217 ounces 16 dwt., and sold for L10,500, whilst not a few have
+exceeded 1000 ounces. One found at Casson Hill, Calaveras county,
+California, in 1854, weighed 180 pounds. The 'Water Moon' nugget, found
+in Australia in 1852, weighed 223 pounds. The origin of these large
+nuggets has been a subject for discussion. Like all placer or alluvial
+gold, they have been in part at least derived from the auriferous veins
+traversing the rocks whose disintegration furnished the material forming
+the gravel beds in which the nuggets are found.
+
+The famous nugget known as the 'Welcome Stranger' was discovered under
+singular circumstances in the Dunolly district of Victoria, which is one
+hundred and ten miles north-west of the capital, Melbourne, by two
+Cornish miners named Deeson and Oates. Their career is remarkable, as
+showing how fortune, after frowning for years, will suddenly smile on
+the objects of her apparent aversion. These two Cornishmen emigrated
+from England to Australia by the same vessel in 1854. They betook
+themselves to the far-famed Sandhurst Gold-field in Victoria; they
+worked together industriously for years, and yet only contrived to make
+a bare livelihood by their exertions. Thinking that change of place
+might possibly mean change of luck, they moved to the Dunolly
+Gold-field, and their spirits were considerably raised by the discovery
+of some small nuggets. But this was only a momentary gleam of sunshine,
+for their former ill-luck pursued them again, and pursued them even more
+relentlessly than before.
+
+The time at last came, on the morning of Friday, February 5, 1869, when
+the storekeeper with whom they were accustomed to deal refused to supply
+them any longer with the necessaries of life until they liquidated the
+debt they had already incurred. For the first time in their lives they
+went hungry to work, and the spectacle of these two brave fellows
+fighting on an empty stomach against continued ill-luck must have moved
+the fickle goddess to pity and repentance. Gloomy and depressed as they
+naturally were, they plied their picks with indomitable perseverance,
+and while Deeson was breaking up the earth around the roots of a tree,
+his pick suddenly and sharply rebounded by reason of its having struck
+some very hard substance. 'Come and see what this is,' he called out to
+his mate. To their astonishment, 'this' turned out to be the 'Welcome
+Stranger' nugget; and thus two poverty-stricken Cornish miners became in
+a moment the possessors of the largest mass of gold that mortal eyes
+ever saw, or are likely to see again. Such a revolution of fortune is
+probably unique in the annals of the human race. Almost bewildered by
+the unexpected treasure they had found at their feet, Deeson and Oates
+removed the superincumbent clay, and there revealed to their wondering
+eyes was a lump of gold, a foot long and a foot broad, and so heavy that
+their joint strength could scarcely move it. A dray having been
+procured, the monster nugget was escorted by an admiring procession into
+the town of Dunolly, and carried into the local branch of the London
+Chartered Bank, where it was weighed, and found to contain 2268-1/2
+ounces of gold. The Bank purchased the nugget for L9534, which the
+erstwhile so unlucky, but now so fortunate, pair of Cornish miners
+divided equally between them. Whether the storekeeper who refused them
+the materials for a breakfast that morning apologised for his harsh
+behaviour, history relates not, but the probability is that he was paid
+the precise amount of his debt and no more; whereas, had he acted in a
+more generous spirit towards two brothers in distress, he might have
+come in for a handsome present out of the proceeds of the 'Welcome
+Stranger.'
+
+The 'Welcome' nugget above mentioned, found at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, in
+Victoria, on June 15, 1858, was nearly as large as the one just
+described, its weight being 2217 ounces 16 dwts. It was found at a depth
+of one hundred and eighty feet in a claim belonging to a party of
+twenty-four men, who disposed of it for L10,500. A smaller nugget,
+weighing 571 ounces, was found in close proximity to it. After being
+exhibited in Melbourne, the 'Welcome' nugget was brought to London and
+smelted in November 1859. The assay showed that it contained 99.20 per
+cent. of gold.
+
+Another valuable nugget, which was brought to London and exhibited at
+the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, was the 'Blanche Barkly,' found by a party
+of four diggers on August 27, 1857, at Kingower, Victoria, just thirteen
+feet beneath the surface. It was twenty-eight inches long, ten inches
+broad in its widest part, and weighed 1743 ounces 13 dwts. It realised
+L6905, 12s. 6d. A peculiarity about this nugget was the manner in which
+it had eluded the efforts of previous parties to capture it. Three years
+before its discovery, a number of miners, judging the place to be a
+'likely' locality, had sunk holes within a few feet of the spot where
+this golden mass was reposing, and yet they were not lucky enough to
+strike it. What a tantalising thought it must have been in after-years,
+when they reflected on the fact that they were once within an arm's
+length of L7000 without being fortunate enough to grasp the golden
+treasure! Kingower, like Dunolly, from which it is only a few miles
+distant, is a locality famous for its nuggets. One weighing 230 ounces
+was actually found on the surface covered with green moss; and pieces of
+gold have frequently been picked up there after heavy rains, the water
+washing away the thin coating of earth that had previously concealed
+them. Two men working in the Kingower district in 1860 found a very fine
+nugget, weighing 805 ounces, within a foot of the surface; and one of
+715 ounces was unearthed at Daisy Hill at a depth of only three and a
+half feet.
+
+A notable instance of rapid fortune was that of a party of four, who,
+having been but a few months in the colony of Victoria, were lucky
+enough to alight on a nugget weighing 1615 ounces. They immediately
+returned to England with their prize and sold it for L5532, 7s. 4d. The
+place where they thus quickly made their 'pile,' to use an expressive
+colonialism, was Canadian Gully, at Ballarat, a very prolific
+nugget-ground. There was also found the 'Lady Hotham' nugget, called
+after the wife of Sir Charles Hotham, one of the early governors of
+Victoria. It was discovered on September 8, 1854, at a depth of 135
+feet. Its weight was 1177 ounces; and near it were found a number of
+smaller nuggets of the aggregate weight of 2600 ounces, so that the
+total value of the gold extracted from this one claim was no less than
+L13,000. As showing the phenomenal richness of this locality, it may be
+added that on January 20, 1853, a party of three brought to the surface
+a solid mass of gold weighing 1117 ounces; and two days afterwards, in
+the same tunnel, a splendid pyramidal-shaped nugget weighing 1011 ounces
+was discovered; the conjoint value of the two being L7500.
+
+A case somewhat similar to one already described was that of the 'Heron'
+nugget, a solid mass of gold to the amount of 1008 ounces, which was
+found at Fryer's Creek, Victoria, by two young men who had only been
+three months in the colony. They were offered L4000 for it in Victoria;
+but they preferred to bring it to England as a trophy, and there they
+sold it for L4080.
+
+The 'Victoria' nugget, as its name suggests, was purchased by the
+Victorian government for presentation to Her Majesty. It was a very
+pretty specimen of 340 ounces, worth L1650, and was discovered at White
+Horse Gully, Sandhurst. Quite close to it, and within a foot of the
+surface, was found the 'Dascombe' nugget, weighing 330 ounces, which was
+also brought to London, and sold for L1500.
+
+Just as a book should never be judged by its cover, so mineral
+substances should not be estimated by superficial indications. A
+neglect of this salutary precept was once very nearly resulting in the
+loss of a valuable Victorian nugget. A big lump of quartz was brought to
+the surface, and, as its exterior aspect presented only slight
+indications of the existence of gold, it was at first believed to be
+valueless; but as soon as the mass was broken up, there, embedded in the
+quartz, was a beautiful nugget of an oval shape.
+
+New South Wales, the parent colony of the Australian group, has produced
+a considerable quantity of gold, but not many notable nuggets. Its most
+famous nugget was discovered by a native boy in June 1851 at Meroo
+Creek, near the present town of Bathurst. This black boy was in the
+employ of Dr Kerr as a shepherd, and one day, whilst minding his sheep,
+he casually came across three detached pieces of quartz. He tried to
+turn over the largest of the pieces with his stick; but he was
+astonished to find that the lump was much heavier than the ordinary
+quartz with which he was familiar. Bending down and looking closer, he
+saw a shining yellow mass lying near; and when he at last succeeded in
+lifting up the piece of quartz, his eyes expanded on observing that the
+whole of its under surface was of the same shining complexion. He
+probably did not realise the full value of his discovery; but he had
+sufficient sense to break off a few specimens and hasten to show them to
+his master. Dr Kerr set off at once to verify the discovery; and when he
+arrived at the spot, his most sanguine anticipations were fulfilled by
+the event. He found himself the possessor of 1272 ounces of gold; and he
+rewarded the author of his wealth, the little black boy, with a flock of
+sheep and as much land as was needed for their pasture.
+
+
+METHODS OF MINING.
+
+The more common form of alluvial gold is as grains, or scales, or dust,
+varying in size from that of ordinary gunpowder to a minuteness that is
+invisible to the naked eye. Sometimes indeed the particles are so small
+that they are known as 'paint' gold, forming a scarcely perceptible
+coating on fragments of rock. When the gold is very fine or in very thin
+scales, much of it is lost in the ordinary processes for treating
+gravels, by reason of the fact that it will actually float on water for
+a considerable distance.
+
+From what has been already said it will be evident that gold-mining must
+be an industry presenting several distinct phases. These may be classed
+as alluvial mining, vein-mining, and the treatment of auriferous ores.
+
+In alluvial mining natural agencies, such as frost, rain, &c., have, in
+the course of centuries, performed the arduous tasks of breaking up the
+matrix which held the gold, and washing away much of the valueless
+material, leaving the gold concentrated into a limited area by virtue of
+its great specific gravity. Hence it is never safe to assume that the
+portion of the veins remaining as such will yield anything like so great
+an equivalent of gold as the alluvials formed from the portion which has
+been disintegrated. As water has been the chief (but not the only) agent
+in distributing the gold and gravel constituting alluvial diggings or
+placers, the banks and beds of running streams in the neighbourhood of
+auriferous veins are likely spots for the prospector, who finds in the
+flowing water of the stream the means of separating the heavy grains of
+gold from the much lighter particles of rock, sand, and mud. Often the
+brook is made to yield the gold it transports by the simple expedient of
+placing in it obstacles which will arrest the gold without obstructing
+the lighter matters. Jason's golden fleece was probably a sheepskin
+which had been pegged down in the current of the Phasis till a quantity
+of gold grains had become entangled among the wool. To this day the same
+practice is followed with ox-hides in Brazil, and with sheepskins in
+Ladakh, Savoy, and Hungary. This may be deemed the simplest form of
+'alluvial mining.' If the gold deposited in holes and behind bars in the
+bed of the stream is to be recovered, greater preparations are needed.
+Either the river-bed must be dredged by floating dredgers, worked by the
+stream or otherwise; or the gravel must be dug out for washing while the
+bed is left dry in hot weather; or the river must be diverted into
+another channel (natural or artificial) whilst its bed is being
+stripped. The first-named method is best adapted to large volumes of
+water, but probably is least productive of gold, passing over much that
+is buried in crevices in the solid bed-rock. The second plan is
+applicable only to small streams, and entails much labour. The third is
+most efficient, but very liable to serious interference by floods, which
+entail a heavy loss of plant.
+
+In searching for placers it is necessary to bear in mind that the
+watercourses of the country have not always flowed in the channels they
+now occupy. During the long periods of geological time many and vast
+changes have taken place in the contour of the earth's surface. Hence it
+is not an uncommon circumstance to find beds of auriferous gravel
+occupying the summits of hills, which must, at the time the deposit was
+made, have represented the course of a stream. In the same way the
+remains of riverine accumulations are found forming 'terraces' or
+'benches' on the flanks of hills. Lacustrine beds may similarly occur at
+altitudes far above the reach of any existing stream, having been the
+work of rivers long since passed away.
+
+Another form of alluvial digging occurs in Western America and New
+Zealand, where the sea washes up auriferous sands. These are known as
+'ocean placers' or 'beach diggings,' and are of minor importance.
+
+Whilst most placers have been formed by flowing water, some owe their
+origin to the action of ice, and are really glacial moraines. Others are
+attributed to the effects of repeated frost and thaw in decomposing the
+rocks and causing rearrangement of the component parts. Yet another
+class of deposits is supposed to have been accumulated by an outpouring
+of volcanic mud. And, finally, experts declare that some of the rich
+_banket_ beds of the Transvaal became auriferous by the infiltration of
+water containing a minute proportion of gold in solution.
+
+In all cases the recovery of alluvial gold is in principle remarkably
+simple. It depends on the fact that the gold is about seven times as
+heavy, bulk for bulk, as the material forming the mass of the deposit.
+The medium for effecting the separation is water in motion. The
+apparatus in which it is applied may be a 'pan,' a 'cradle,' or a 'tom,'
+for operations on a very small scale, or a 'sluice,' which may be a
+paved ditch or a wooden 'flume' of great length, for large operations.
+The method is the same in all: flowing water removes the earthy matters,
+while obstructions of various kinds arrest the metal. As a rule, it is
+more advantageous to conduct the water to the material than to carry the
+material to water. In many cases a stream of water, conveyed by means of
+pipes, and acting under the influence of considerable pressure, is
+utilised for removing as well as washing the deposit. This method is
+known as 'piping' or 'hydraulicing' in America, where it has been
+chiefly developed, but is now forbidden in many localities, because the
+enormous masses of earth washed through the sluices have silted up
+rivers and harbours, and caused immense loss to the agricultural
+interest by burying the rich riverside lands under a deposit that will
+be sterile for many years to come. The plan permits of very economical
+working in large quantities, but is extremely wasteful of gold. The
+water-supply is of paramount importance, and has led to the construction
+of reservoirs and conduits, at very heavy cost, which in many places
+will have a permanent value long after gold-sluicing has ceased. These
+large water-supply works are often in the hands of distinct parties from
+the miners, the latter purchasing the water they use. To give an example
+of the results attained in alluvial mining, it may be mentioned that in
+a three-months' working in one Victorian district in 1888, over 33,500
+tons of wash-dirt were treated for an average yield of 18-1/2 grains of
+gold per ton, or, say, one part in 700,000. Where water cannot be
+obtained recourse is had to a fanning or winnowing process for
+separating the gold from the sand, which, however, is less efficacious.
+
+[Illustration: Hydraulic Gold-mining.]
+
+Vein-mining for gold differs but little from working any other kind of
+metalliferous lode. When the vein-stuff has been raised it is reduced to
+a pulverulent condition, to liberate the gold from the gangue. In some
+cases roasting is first resorted to. This causes friability, and
+facilitates the subsequent comminution. When the gold is in a very fine
+state, too, it helps it to agglomerate. But if any pyrites are present
+the effect is most detrimental, the gold becoming coated with a film of
+sulphur or a glazing of iron oxide. The powdering of the vein-stuff is
+usually performed in stamp batteries, which consist of a number of
+falling hammers. While simple in principle, the apparatus is complicated
+in its working parts, and is probably destined to give way to the
+improved forms of crushing-rolls and centrifugal roller mills, which are
+less costly, simpler, more efficient, and do not flatten the gold
+particles so much. One of the most effective is that by Jordan. When the
+vein-stuff has been reduced to powder, it is akin to alluvial wash-dirt,
+and demands the same or similar contrivances for arresting the liberated
+gold and releasing the tailings--that is, mercury troughs, amalgamated
+plates, blanket strakes, &c.; but, in addition, provision is made for
+catching the other metalliferous constituents, such as pyrites, which
+almost always carry a valuable percentage of gold. These pyrites or
+'sulphurets' are cleansed by concentration in various kinds of
+apparatus, all depending on the greater specific gravity of the portion
+sought to be saved.
+
+Of the metals and minerals with which gold is found intimately
+associated in nature are the following: Antimony, arsenic, bismuth,
+cobalt, copper, iridium, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, osmium,
+palladium, platinum, selenium, silver, tellurium, tungsten, vanadium,
+and zinc, often as an alloy in the case of palladium, platinum,
+selenium, silver (always), and tellurium. The methods of separation vary
+with the nature of the ore and the conditions of the locality.
+
+
+TREATMENT OF ORE AND GOLD IN THE TRANSVAAL.
+
+The method of treatment of ore and gold in the Transvaal, the most
+perfect and effective known at the present time, has thus been described
+by Arthur Stenhouse:
+
+The rock when hoisted out of the mine is first assorted, the waste rock
+being thrown on one side and the gold-bearing ore broken into lumps by a
+stone-breaker. The lumps of ore now pass by gravitation and feeders
+through a battery (or stamp mill), each stamp of which weighs about 1150
+pounds, every stamp being lifted and dropped separately by the cam shaft
+at a speed of about 95 drops a minute. A stream of water is introduced,
+the ore is crushed into fine sand, and is carried by the water over a
+series of inclined copper plates, which are coated with quicksilver. The
+free gold in the sand at once amalgamates with the quicksilver on the
+plates, and the sand-laden stream continues on its course.
+
+The sand, having now passed over the plates, is carried by launders on
+to the concentrators, or frue vanners. These concentrators separate and
+retain the heavy sand (or concentrates), whilst the lighter sand is
+carried by gravitation through a trough (or launder) to the cyanide
+vats.
+
+The stream of water carrying the lighter sand empties itself into the
+cyanide vats, and as each successive vat is filled up, the water is
+allowed to drain through the sand. A solution of cyanide of potassium is
+then pumped up and evenly distributed (by distributors) over the sand,
+and dissolves the gold in its progress, leaving pure sand alone in the
+vat. The gold-containing liquid (or solution) having left the vat, is
+led into a series of boxes filled with zinc shavings, the gold separates
+from the liquid, and settles on the zinc shavings in the shape of a
+small black powder. The cyanide solution now freed from the gold runs
+into the solution vats, and is restrengthened and ready for further use.
+
+_Gold Recovery._--In the mill or battery the copper plates are scraped
+daily, and the amalgams (that is, quicksilver and gold) are weighed and
+placed in the safe in charge of the battery manager. This amalgam is
+generally retorted once a week, that is to say, the quicksilver is
+evaporated (but not lost) and the gold is left in the retort. This
+retorted gold is then smelted into bars.
+
+The concentrates recovered by the frue vanners are generally treated by
+chlorination (roasted). This process is gone through so that the iron
+can be separated from the gold. Concentrates are sometimes treated by
+cyanide, but the process, if cheaper, is slow and less effective.
+Chlorinated gold is also smelted into bars.
+
+_Cyanide._--The gold from the zinc shavings is recovered by retorting.
+It is afterwards melted into bars and called 'cyanide gold.'
+
+Slimes (or float gold) are generally conserved in a dam, and when the
+quantity is sufficient they are treated by chlorination, or by a
+solution of cyanide of potassium.
+
+After treatment all sand is still retained, and is really a small
+unbooked asset of the various gold-mining companies. The Rand
+undoubtedly is the best field to-day for students who wish to acquire
+the details of gold recovery. In no other country has science produced
+such excellent results. At least 95 per cent. of the gold in the ore can
+now be recovered, and scientific men from all countries are resident on
+the fields, and advantageous discoveries in the treatment of various
+ores are of almost daily occurrence.
+
+
+STORY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD-FIELDS.
+
+There is material for the philosopher in the fact of gold-finding having
+occurred in connection with a part of the world to which King Solomon
+the Wise sent for supplies of gold and 'almug-trees,' for the mysterious
+Ophir has been located in Mashonaland, and the Queen of Sheba identified
+with the Sabia districts, which, though not in 'the Randt,' are
+curiously connected with the rise and progress of the mania.
+
+Let us briefly trace that romantic history, merely mentioning by the way
+that, even in European history, African gold is no novelty, for the
+Portuguese brought back gold-dust (and negro slaves) from Cape Bojador
+four hundred and fifty years ago. The ruins of Mashonaland were
+discovered in 1864 by Karl Mauch, who also discovered the gold-field of
+Tate on the Zambesi, of which Livingstone had reported that the natives
+got gold there by washing, being too lazy to dig for it. When Karl Mauch
+came back to civilisation, people laughed at his stories of ruined
+cities in the centre of Africa as travellers' fables, but a number of
+Australian gold-diggers thought his report of the Tate gold-field good
+enough to follow up. So about 1867, a band of them went out and set up a
+small battery on the Tate River for crushing the quartz. This may be
+called the first serious attempt at gold-mining in South Africa since
+the days of the lost races who built the cities whose ruins Karl Mauch
+discovered and which Mr Theodore Bent has described. A Natal company
+assisted the Tate diggers with supplies, and enough gold was found to
+justify the floating of the Limpopo Mining Company in London. This was
+in 1868, and was practically the foundation of the 'Kaffir Circus,'
+though its founders knew it not. Sir John Swinburne was the moving
+spirit of this enterprise, and went out with a lot of expensive
+machinery, only to meet with a good deal of disappointment. The diamond
+discoveries in Griqualand soon drew away the gold-seekers, who found the
+working expenses too heavy to leave gold-mining profitable, and for a
+time the Tate fields were deserted. They were taken up again, however,
+twenty years later by a Kimberley enterprise, out of which developed the
+Tate Concession and Exploration Company, to whom the unfortunate
+potentate Lobengula granted a mining concession over no less than eight
+hundred thousand square miles of Matabeleland.
+
+Just as the Australians were breaking ground on the Tate, Thomas Baines,
+the traveller, was making up his mind to test the truth of tales of gold
+in the far interior, which the Portuguese from Da Gama onwards had
+received from natives. In 1869 he set forth from Natal with a small
+expedition, and in 1870 received from Lobengula permission to dig for
+gold anywhere between the rivers Gwailo and Ganyona. Some seventeen
+years later this same concession was repeated to Mr Rudd, and became the
+basis from which sprang the great Chartered Company of British South
+Africa.
+
+In the course of his journey, Baines encamped on the site of the present
+city of Johannesburg, without having the least idea of the wealth
+beneath him, and intent only upon that he hoped to find farther inland.
+On the map which he prepared of this journey is marked the 'farm of H.
+Hartley, pioneer of the gold-fields,' in the Witwatersrandt district.
+Hartley was known to the Boers as 'Oude Baas,' and was a famous
+elephant-hunter, but as ignorant as Baines himself that he was dwelling
+on the top of a gold-reef. And it was not in the Witwatersrandt,
+foremost as it now is, that the African gold boom began.
+
+While the Tate diggers were pursuing their work and Baines his
+explorations, a Natalian named Button went, with an experienced
+Californian miner named Sutherland, to prospect for gold in the
+north-east of the Transvaal. They found it near Lydenburg, and companies
+were rapidly formed in Natal to work it. Such big nuggets were sent down
+that men hurried up, until soon there were some fifteen hundred actively
+at work on the Lydenburg field. The operations were fairly profitable,
+but the outbreak of the Zulu war, and then the Boer war, put an end to
+them for some years.
+
+And now we come to one of the most romantic chapters in the golden
+history of South Africa, a history which was marked by hard and
+disheartening days what time the lucky diamond-seekers at Kimberley were
+swilling champagne, as if it were water, out of pewter beer-pots. There
+is more attraction for adventurers, however, in gold-seeking than in
+diamond-mining, for gold can be valued and realised at once, whereas
+diamonds may not be diamonds after all, and may be spoilt, lost, or
+stolen, before they can find a purchaser.
+
+It is to be noted that much as the Transvaal Republic has benefited from
+gold-mining, the Boers were at first much averse to it, and threw all
+the obstacles they could in the way of the miners. And it was this
+attitude of the Boers, especially towards the Lydenburg pioneers, that
+led to the next development.
+
+One of the tributaries of the Crocodile River (which flows into Delagoa
+Bay) is the Kaap River, called also the River of the Little Crocodile,
+which waters a wide deep valley into which projects the spur of a hill
+which the Dutch pioneers called De Kaap (the cape). Beyond this
+cape-like spur the hills rise to a height of three thousand feet, and
+carry a wide plateau covered with innumerable boulders of fantastic
+shape--the Duivel's Kantoor. The mists gather in the valley and dash
+themselves against De Kaap like surf upon a headland; and the face of
+the hills is broken with caves and galleries as if by the action of the
+sea, but really by the action of the weather. Upon the high-lying
+plateau of the Duivel's Kantoor were a number of farms, the chief of
+which was held by one G. P. Moodie.
+
+One day a Natal trader named Tom M'Laughlin had occasion to cross this
+plateau in the course of a long trek, and he picked up with curiosity
+some of the bits of quartz he passed, or kicked aside, on the way. On
+reaching Natal he showed these to an old Australian miner, who instantly
+started up-country and found more. The place was rich in gold, and
+machinery was as quickly as possible got up from Natal, on to Moodie's
+farm. On this farm was found the famous Pioneer Reef, and Moodie, who at
+one time would gladly have parted with his farm for a few hundreds, sold
+his holding to a Natal company for something like a quarter of a
+million. Then there was a rush of diggers and prospectors back from the
+Lydenburg district, and the De Kaap 'boom' set in. The beginning was in
+1883, and two years later the whole Kaap valley and Kantoor plateau was
+declared a public gold-field. Two brothers called Barber came up and
+formed the centre of a settlement, now the town of Barberton. Every new
+reef sighted or vein discovered was the signal for launching a new
+company--not now in Natal only, but also in London, to which the
+gold-fever began to spread (but was checked again by the De Kaap
+reverses).
+
+Some fifteen Natalians formed a syndicate to 'exploit' this country
+on their own account. Some were storekeepers in the colony, some
+wagon-traders, and some merely waiters on fortune. Only eleven of them
+had any money, and they supplied the wherewithal for the other four, who
+were sent up to prospect and dig. After six months of fruitless toil,
+the money was all done, and word was sent to the four that no more aid
+could be sent to them. They were 'down on their luck,' when as they
+returned to camp on what was intended to be their last evening there,
+one Edwin Bray savagely dug his pick into the rock as they walked
+gloomily along. But with one swing which he made came a turn in the
+fortunes of the band, and of the land, for he knocked off a bit of
+quartz so richly veined with gold as to betoken the existence of
+something superexcellent in the way of a 'reef.' All now turned on the
+rock with passionate eagerness, and in a very short time pegged out what
+was destined to be known as 'Bray's Golden Hole.'
+
+But the syndicate were by this time pretty well cleaned out, and capital
+was needed to work the reef, and provide machinery, &c. So a small
+company was formed in Natal under the name of the Sheba Reef Gold-mining
+Company, divided into 15,000 shares of L1 each, the capital of L15,000
+being equitably allotted among the fifteen members of the syndicate.
+Upon these shares they raised enough money on loan to pay for the
+crushing of 200 tons of quartz, which yielded eight ounces of gold to
+the ton, and at once provided them with working capital. Within a very
+few months the mine yielded 10,000 ounces of gold, and the original
+shares of L1 each ran up by leaps and bounds until they were eagerly
+competed for at L100 each. Within a year, the small share-capital
+(L15,000) of the original syndicate was worth in the market a million
+and a half sterling. This wonderful success led to the floating of a
+vast number of hopeless or bogus enterprises, and worthless properties
+were landed on the shoulders of the British public at fabulous prices.
+Yet, surrounded as it was by a crowd of fraudulent imitators, the great
+Sheba Mine has continued as one of the most wonderfully productive mines
+in South Africa. Millions have been lost in swindling and impossible
+undertakings in De Kaap, but the Sheba Mountain, in which was Bray's
+Golden Hole, has really proved a mountain of gold.
+
+The De Kaap gold-field had sunk again under a cloud of suspicion, by
+reason of the company-swindling and share-gambling which followed upon
+the Sheba success, when another startling incident gave a fresh impetus
+to the golden madness.
+
+Among the settlers in the Transvaal in the later seventies were two
+brothers called Struben, who had had some experience, though not much
+success, with the gold-seekers at Lydenburg, and who took up in 1884 the
+farm of Sterkfontein in the Witwatersrandt district. While attending to
+the farm they kept their eyes open for gold, and one day one of the
+brothers came upon gold-bearing conglomerates, which they followed up
+until they struck the famous 'Confidence Reef.' This remarkable reef at
+one time yielded as much as a thousand ounces of gold and silver to the
+ton of ore, and then suddenly gave out, being in reality not a 'reef'
+but a 'shoot.' There were other prospectors in the district, but none
+had struck it so rich as the Strubens, who purchased the adjacent farm
+to their own, and set up a battery to crush quartz, both for themselves
+and for the other gold-hunters. The farms were worth little in those
+days, being only suitable for grazing; but when prospectors and company
+promoters began to appear, first by units, then by tens, and then by
+hundreds, the Boers put up their prices, and speedily realised for
+their holdings ten and twenty times what they would have thought
+fabulous a year or two previously. And it was on one of these farms that
+the city of Johannesburg was destined to arise as if under a magician's
+wand, from a collection of huts, in eight years, to a city covering an
+area three miles by one and a half, with suburbs stretching many miles
+beyond, with handsome streets and luxurious houses, in the very heart of
+the desert.
+
+[Illustration: Prospecting for Gold.]
+
+It was one Sunday evening in 1886 that the great 'find' was made which
+laid the base of the prosperity of the Johannesburg-to-be. A
+farm-servant of the brothers Struben went over to visit a friend at a
+neighbouring farm, and as he trekked homeward in the evening, knocked
+off a bit of rock, the appearance of which led him to take it home to
+his employer. It corresponded with what Struben had himself found in
+another part, and following up both leads, revealed what became famous
+as the Main Reef, which was traced for miles east and west.
+
+A lot of the 'conglomerate' was sent on to Kimberley to be analysed, and
+a thoughtful observer of the analysis there came to the conclusion that
+there must be more good stuff where that came from. So he mounted his
+horse and rode over to Barberton, where he caught a 'coach' which
+dropped him on the Rand, as it is now called. There he quietly acquired
+the Langlaagte farm for a few thousands, which the people on the spot
+thought was sheer madness on his part. But his name was J. B. Robinson,
+and he is now known in the 'Kaffir Circus' and elsewhere as one of the
+'Gold Kings' of Africa. He gradually purchased other farms, and in a
+year or two floated the well-known Langlaagte Company with a capital of
+L450,000, to acquire what had cost him in all about L20,000. In five
+years this company turned out gold to the value of a million, and paid
+dividends to the amount of L330,000. The Robinson Company, formed a
+little later to acquire and work some other lots, in five years produced
+gold to the value of one and a half million, and paid to its
+shareholders some L570,000 in dividends. With these discoveries and
+successful enterprises the name and fame of 'the Rand' were established,
+and for years the district became the happy hunting-ground of the
+financiers and company promoters. The Rand, or Witwatersrandt, is the
+topmost plateau of the High Veldt of the Transvaal, at the watershed of
+the Limpopo and the Vaal; and on the summit of the plateau is the
+gold-city of Johannesburg, some five thousand seven hundred feet above
+the sea.
+
+Soon the principal feature in Johannesburg was the Stock Exchange, and
+the main occupation of the inhabitants was the buying and selling of
+shares in mining companies, many of them bogus, at fabulous prices. The
+inevitable reaction came, until once resplendent 'brokers' could hardly
+raise the price of a 'drink;' though, to be sure, drinks and everything
+else cost a small fortune. To-day the city is the centre of a great
+mining industry, and the roar of the 'stamps' is heard all round it,
+night and day. From a haunt of gamblers and 'wild-catters,' it has grown
+into a comparatively sedate town of industry, commerce, and finance, and
+the gold-fever which maddened its populace has been transferred (not
+wholly, perhaps) to London and Paris.
+
+The Stock Exchange of Johannesburg sprang into existence in 1887, and
+before the end of that year some sixty-eight mining companies were on
+its list, with an aggregate nominal capital of L3,000,000. During the
+1895 'boom' in the market for mining shares in London and Paris, the
+market value of the shares of the group of South African companies was
+in the aggregate over L300,000,000! It is true that these are not all
+gold-mining shares, but the great majority are of companies either for
+or in connection with gold-mining. In 1887 the Transvaal produced only
+about 25,000 ounces of gold; in 1894 the output was 2,024,159 ounces; in
+1895 it was 2,277,633 ounces.
+
+Just before the Californian discoveries--namely, in 1849, the world's
+annual output of gold was only about L6,000,000. Then came the American
+and Australian booms, raising the quantity produced in 1853 to the value
+of L30,000,000. After 1853 there was a gradual decline to less than
+L20,000,000 in 1883. This was the lowest period, and then the De Kaap
+and other discoveries in Africa began to raise the total slowly again.
+Between 1883 and 1887 the El Callao mine in South America and the Mount
+Morgan in Australia helped greatly to enlarge the output, and then in
+1807 the 'Randt' began to yield of its riches. The following are the
+estimates of a mining-expert of the world's gold production during 1890,
+L23,700,000; 1891, L26,130,000; 1892, L29,260,000; 1893, L31,110,000;
+1894, L36,000,000; 1895, L40,000,000.
+
+As to the future of the South African sources of supply, it is estimated
+by Messrs Hatch and Chalmers, mining engineers, who have published an
+exhaustive work on the subject, that before the end of the present
+century the Witwatersrandt mines alone will be yielding gold to the
+value of L20,000,000 annually; that early next century they will turn
+out L26,000,000 annually; and that the known resources of the district
+are equal to a total production within the next half century of
+L700,000,000, of which, probably, L200,000,000 will be clear profit over
+the cost of mining.
+
+These estimates are considered excessive by some authorities;
+nevertheless it is to be remembered that the productivity of deep level
+mining has not yet been properly tested, that even the Transvaal itself
+has not yet been thoroughly exploited, and that there is every reason
+to believe that Matabeleland and Mashonaland are also rich in gold. But
+we have not to look to Africa alone. In Australia, besides the regular
+sources of supply which are being industriously developed, new deposits
+are being opened up in Western Australia at such a rate that some people
+predict that the 'Cinderella of the Colonies' will soon become the
+richest, or one of the richest, members of the family.
+
+The following shows the contributions towards the world's gold supply on
+the basis of 1894:
+
+  United States                      L7,950,000
+  Australasia                         8,352,000
+  South Africa                        8,054,000
+  British Columbia and South America  2,000,000
+  Russia                              4,827,000
+  Other Countries                     4,807,000
+                                    -----------
+                                    L35,990,000
+
+
+JOHANNESBURG--THE GOLDEN.
+
+The railway journey from Capetown to Johannesburg of about three days is
+through a seemingly endless sandy country, with range succeeding range
+of distant mountains, all alike, and strikes a greater sense of vastness
+and desolation than an expanse of naked ocean itself. First and second
+class have sleeping accommodation, the third being kept for blacks and
+the lowest class Dutch. Well, we reach Johannesburg, which has not even
+yet, with all its wealth, a covered-in railway station; whilst by way of
+contrast in the progress of the place, just across the road is a huge
+club, with tennis, cricket, football, and cycling grounds, gymnasium,
+military band, halls for dancing, operas, and oratorios, &c., which will
+bear comparison with any you please. Its members are millionaires and
+clerks, lodgers and their lodging-house keepers, all equal there; for
+we have left behind caste, cliques, and cathedral cities, and are
+cosmopolitan, or, in a word, colonial. An institution like this gives us
+the state of society there in a nutshell, for, as wages are very high,
+any one in anything like lucrative employment can belong to it; and the
+grades in society are determined by money, and money only.
+
+Johannesburg, the London of South Africa, which was a barren veldt
+previous to 1886, is now the centre of some one hundred thousand
+inhabitants, and increasing about as fast as bricks and mortar can be
+obtained. It is situated directly on top of the gold, and on looking
+down from the high ground above, it looks to an English eye like a huge,
+long-drawn-out mass of tin sheds, with its painted iron mine-chimneys
+running in a straight line all along the quartz gold-reef as far as you
+can see in either direction. The largest or main reef runs for thirty
+miles uninterruptedly, gold-bearing and honeycombed with mines
+throughout. This, even were it alone, could speak for the stability and
+continued prosperity of the Transvaal gold trade. In a mail-steamer
+arriving from the Cape there is sometimes as much as between L300,000
+and L400,000 worth of gold, and the newspapers show that usually about
+L100,000 worth is consigned by each mail-boat.
+
+As we enter the town we find fine and well-planned streets, crossed at
+places with deep gutters--gullies rather--to carry off the water, which
+is often in the heavy summer rains deeper than your knees. Crossing
+these at fast trot, the driver never drawing rein, the novice is shot
+about, in his white-covered two-wheeled cab with its large springs, like
+a pea in a bladder. Indeed, one marvels at the daintily dressed
+_habitue_ of the place being swung through similarly, quite unconcerned,
+and without rumpling a frill. We pass fine public buildings, very high
+houses and shops--somewhat jerry-built, it is true--but now being added
+to, or replaced by larger and more solid buildings. Indeed, bricks
+cannot be made fast enough for the demand, both there and in some of the
+outlying Transvaal towns where the 'gold boom' is on. There are lofty
+and handsome shops, with most costly contents, which can vie with London
+or Paris.
+
+Let us watch from the high-raised stoep outside the Post-office, looking
+down over the huge market-square. What strikes us first are the
+two-wheeled two-horse cabs with white hoods, recklessly driven by Malays
+in the inseparable red fez, and these with the fast-trotting mule or
+horse wagons show the pace at which business or pleasure is followed. As
+a contrast comes the lumbering ox-wagon with ten or twelve span of oxen,
+a little Kaffir boy dragging and directing the leading couple by a thong
+round the horns, and the unamiable Dutch farmer revolving around,
+swearing, and using his fifteen-foot whip to keep the concern in motion
+at all. Then passes a body of some two hundred prisoners, Kaffirs, and a
+few whites leading, marched in fours by some dozen white-helmeted police
+and four or five mounted men, all paraded through the main streets,
+innocent and guilty alike, to the court-house, and many escaping _en
+route_ as occasion offers. Well-dressed English men of business, and
+professional men, women in handsome and dainty costumes, hustle Jews of
+all degrees of wealth; carelessly dressed miners, and chaps in rags come
+in from prospecting or up-country, with the Dutchman everywhere in his
+greasy soft felt and blue tattered puggaree, Chinese shopkeepers,
+Italians, Poles, Germans; whilst outside in the roadways flows a
+continual stream of Kaffirs in hats and cast-off clothing of every sort
+imagination can picture, who are not allowed by law to walk upon the
+pavement.
+
+
+GOLD-FIELDS OF COOLGARDIE.
+
+It was at one time generally believed that the unexplored regions of the
+vast Eastern Division of Western Australia consisted merely of sandy
+desert or arid plains, producing at most scrub and spinifex or 'poison
+plants.' In recent years, however, a faith that the interior would prove
+rich in various mineral resources began to dawn, and rose in proportion
+as each report of a new 'find' was made to the government. But only a
+few ventured to cherish a hope that tracts of fertile country were lying
+beyond their ken, awaiting the advent of the explorer whose verdict upon
+the nature of the soil, or possibilities of obtaining water, would
+result in settlement, and prosperity, and civilisation.
+
+By the opening up of the country surrounding Coolgardie--situated at a
+distance of three hundred and sixty-eight miles inland from Fremantle,
+the port of Perth--it has been proved that not only thousands of square
+miles of auriferous country are contained in these once despised 'back
+blocks,' but also large areas of rich pasturage and forest-lands.
+
+At Coolgardie the country is undulating; and in the distance Mount
+Burgess makes a bold and striking feature in the landscape, isolated
+from the neighbouring low hills. A few miles to the south lies the
+vigorous little town, surrounded by a halo of tents. It is situated
+thirty-one degrees south, one hundred and twenty-one degrees east; the
+climate is therefore temperate, though very hot during the dry season.
+It has been judiciously laid out, and promises to be one of the
+prettiest inland towns in the colony. In the principal street all is
+bustle and activity: teams arriving from Southern Cross; camels
+unloading or being driven out by picturesque Afghans; diggers and
+prospectors setting out for distant 'rushes;' black piccaninnies
+rolling in the dust, or playing with their faithful kangaroo dogs--their
+dusky parents lolling near with characteristic indolence--and men of
+every nation and colour under heaven combine to give the scene a
+character all its own. In March 1896 Coolgardie was connected by rail
+with Perth.
+
+There are good stores, numerous thriving hotels; and a hospital has
+lately been started in charge of two trained nurses. The spiritual needs
+of the population are supplied by Wesleyan services and Salvation Army
+meetings, and other agencies. As yet the public buildings are not
+architecturally imposing; the principal one is a galvanised-iron shed
+which does duty for a post-office. When the mail arrives, the two
+officials, with the aid of an obliging trooper, vainly endeavour to sort
+the letters and newspapers quickly enough to satisfy the crowd, all
+eager for news from home. During the hot dry months, Coolgardie has been
+almost cut off from the outside world. It was found necessary to limit
+the traffic between it and Southern Cross, owing to the great scarcity
+in the 'soaks' and wells along the road. Condensers have been erected at
+various stations close to the salt lakes, and the water is retailed by
+the gallon; by this means the road can be kept open till the wet season
+sets in.
+
+Prospectors are energetically exploring the country in every direction
+around Coolgardie, and from all sides come glowing accounts of the
+quality of the land, which, besides being auriferous, is undoubtedly
+suitable for agricultural and pastoral purposes. To the eastward lie
+many thousands of acres of undulating pasture-land, wooded like a park
+with morrell, sandalwood, wild peach, zimlet-wood, salmon-gum, and other
+valuable timbers. The soil is a rich red loam, which with cultivation
+should equal the best wheat-growing districts of Victoria. So green and
+abundant is the grass that it has been described as looking like an
+immense wheat-field before the grain has formed. Several kinds of grass
+are to be found: the fine kangaroo variety; a species of wild oats; and
+a coarse jointed grass, all of which stock eat with relish, and thrive,
+it is said.
+
+A Water-supply Department has been formed by the Western Australian
+government, and measures are being taken to obtain supplies of artesian
+water, as well as to construct a system of reservoirs and dams on a
+large scale.
+
+Mr Bayley's discovery of Coolgardie might serve as an apt illustration
+of the 'early-bird' theory. While on a prospecting expedition in
+September 1892, he went one auspicious morning to look after his horse
+before breakfast. A gleaming object lying on the ground caught his eye.
+It was a nugget, weighing half an ounce. By noon, he, with his mate, had
+picked up twenty ounces of alluvial gold. In a couple of weeks they had
+a store of two hundred ounces. It was on a Sunday afternoon that they
+struck the now world-famed Reward Claim, and in a few hours they had
+picked off fifty ounces. Next morning they pegged out their prospecting
+area. But whilst thus profitably employed, they were unpleasantly
+surprised by the arrival of three miners who had followed up their
+tracks from Southern Cross. The discoverers worked on during the day at
+the cap of the reef, and by such primitive methods as the 'dolly-pot,'
+or pestle and mortar, easily obtained three hundred ounces of the
+precious metal. The unwelcome visitors stole two hundred ounces of the
+gold, a circumstance which obliged them to report their 'find' sooner
+than they would otherwise have done, fearing that, if they delayed, the
+thieves would do so instead, and claim the reward from the government.
+
+On condition that they would not molest his mate during his absence, Mr
+Bayley agreed to say nothing about their having robbed him, and set out
+on his long ride to Southern Cross. He took with him five hundred and
+fifty-four ounces of gold with which to convince the Warden that his
+discovery was a genuine one. The field was declared open after his
+interview with the authorities.
+
+
+DIAMONDS.
+
+The diamond is a natural form of crystallised carbon, highly valued as a
+precious stone, but of much less value than the ruby. The lustre of the
+diamond is peculiar to itself, and hence termed 'adamantine.' In a
+natural condition, however, the surface often presents a dull,
+lead-gray, semi-metallic lustre. The high refractive and dispersive
+powers of the diamond produce, when the stone is judiciously cut, a
+brilliancy and 'fire' unequalled by any other stone. A large proportion
+of the incident light is in a well-cut diamond reflected from the inner
+surface of the stone. The diamond, especially when coloured, is highly
+phosphorescent, that is to say, after exposure to brilliant illumination
+it emits the rays which it has absorbed, and thus becomes self-luminous
+in the dark. Its excessive hardness serves to distinguish the diamond
+from other gem-stones: any stone which readily scratches ruby and
+sapphire must be a diamond. Notwithstanding its hardness the diamond is
+brittle, and hence the absurdity of the ancient test which professed to
+distinguish the diamond by its withstanding a heavy blow struck by a
+hammer when placed on an anvil.
+
+In recent years, highly refined researches on this subject have been
+made by Dumas, Stas, Roscoe, and Friedel, all tending to prove that the
+diamond is practically pure carbon. Chemists have generally
+experimented, for the sake of economy, with impure specimens, and have
+thus obtained on combustion a considerable amount of ash, the nature of
+which has not been well ascertained. It has been shown, however, that
+the purer the diamond the smaller is the proportion of ash left on its
+combustion.
+
+[Illustration: Square-cut Brilliant.]
+
+[Illustration: Round-cut Brilliant.]
+
+[Illustration: Rose-cut Diamond.]
+
+The art of cutting and polishing the diamond is said to have been
+discovered in 1456 by Louis de Berguem of Bruges. As now practised, the
+stone is first, if necessary, cleaved or split, and then 'bruted' or
+rubbed into shape. The faces of the stone thus 'cut' are ground and
+polished on flat metal discs, fed with diamond dust and oil, and
+revolving with great rapidity by steam-power. Antwerp comes first, then
+Amsterdam as the chief home of this industry, and the trade is chiefly
+in the hands of Jews; but diamond cutting and polishing are also now
+extensively carried on in London, Antwerp, &c. The common form of the
+diamond is either the _brilliant_ or the _rose cut_. The brilliant
+resembles two truncated cones, base to base, the edge of the junction
+being called the _girdle_, the large plane on the top is the _table_,
+and the small face at the base the _culet_; the sides are covered with
+symmetrical facets. The rose has a flat base, with sides formed of rows
+of triangular facets rising as a low pyramid or hemisphere; but this
+form of diamond is daily becoming less fashionable, and is therefore of
+comparatively little value.
+
+Although the term 'carat' is applied to diamonds as well as to gold, it
+does not mean the same thing. Used with regard to the metal, it
+expresses quality or fineness--24-carat being pure gold; and 22-carat
+equal to coined gold. But applied to the diamond, carat means actual
+weight, and 151-1/2 carats are equal to one ounce troy.
+
+India was formerly the only country which yielded diamonds in quantity,
+and thence were obtained all the great historical stones of antiquity.
+The chief diamond-producing districts are those in the Madras
+Presidency, on the Kistna and Godavari rivers, commonly though
+improperly termed the Golconda region; in the Central Provinces,
+including the mines of Sumbulpur; and in Bundelkhand, where the Panna
+mines are situated.
+
+At present the diamond production of India is insignificant. It is
+notable, however, that in 1881 a fine diamond, weighing 67-3/8 carats,
+was found near Wajra Karur, in the Bellary district, Madras. The stone
+was cut into a brilliant weighing 24-5/8 carats, and is known as the
+'Gor-do-Norr.'
+
+Brazil was not regarded as a diamond-yielding country until 1727, when
+the true nature of certain crystals found in the gold washings of the
+province of Minas Geraes was first detected. Diamonds occur not only in
+this province, but in Bahia, Goyaz, Matto Grosso, and Parana. The
+geological conditions under which the mineral occurs have of late years
+been carefully studied by Professors Derby, Gorceix, and Chatrian. The
+diamonds are found in the sands and gravels of river-beds, associated
+with alluvial gold, specular iron ore, rutile, anatase, topaz, and
+tourmaline. In 1853 an extraordinary diamond was found by a negress in
+the river Bogagem, in Minas Geraes. It weighed 254-1/2 carats, and was
+cut into a brilliant of perfect water, weighing 125 carats. This
+brilliant, known as the 'Star of the South,' was sold to the Gaikwar of
+Baroda for L80,000.
+
+Both the Indian and the Brazilian diamond-fields have of late years been
+eclipsed by the remarkable discoveries of South Africa. Although it was
+known in the last century that diamonds occurred in certain parts of
+South Africa, the fact was forgotten, and when in 1867 they were found
+near Hopetown, the discovery came upon the world as a surprise. A
+traveller named O'Reilly had rested himself at a farm in the Hopetown
+district, when his host, a man named Niekerk, brought him some
+nice-looking stones which he had got from the river. O'Reilly, when
+examining the pebbles, saw a diamond, which afterwards realised L500.
+Niekerk afterwards bought a diamond from a native for L400 which
+realised L10,000. The principal mines are situated in Griqualand West,
+but diamonds are also worked in the Orange River Free State, as at
+Jagersfontein. The stones were first procured from the 'river diggings'
+in the Vaal and Orange rivers. These sources have occasionally yielded
+large stones; one found in 1872 at Waldeck's Plant on the Vaal weighed
+288-3/8 carats, and yielded a fine pale yellow brilliant, known as the
+'Stewart.'
+
+[Illustration: Kimberley Diamond-mine.]
+
+It was soon found that the diamonds of South Africa were not confined to
+the river gravels, and 'dry diggings' came to be established in the
+so-called 'pans.' The principal mines are those of Kimberley, De Beer's,
+Du Toit's Pan, and Bultfontein. The land here, previously worth only a
+few pence per acre, soon rose to a fabulous price. At these localities
+the diamonds occur in a serpentinous breccia, filling pipes or
+'chimneys,' generally regarded as volcanic ducts, which rise from
+unknown depths and burst through the surrounding shales. The 'blue
+ground,' or volcanic breccia containing fragments of various rocks
+cemented by a serpentinous paste, becomes altered by meteoric agents as
+it approaches the surface, and is converted into 'yellow earth.' At
+Kimberley the neighbouring schists, or 'reefs,' are associated with
+sheets of a basaltic rock, which are pierced by the pipes. About 2000
+white men are employed in the industry, and about 4000 blacks, who earn,
+on an average, about L3 a week. In the year 1887 the production of the
+principal mines was over L4,000,000. The production for 1894 was
+somewhat less, while the total value of diamonds exported from 1867 to
+1894 was about L70,000,000.
+
+The great number of large stones found in the mines of South Africa, as
+compared with those of India and Brazil, is a striking peculiarity. In
+the earliest days of African mining a diamond of about 83 carats was
+obtained from a Boer. This stone, when cut, yielded a splendid
+colourless brilliant of 46-1/2 carats, known as the 'Star of South
+Africa,' or as the 'Dudley,' since it afterwards became the property of
+the Countess of Dudley, at a cost of L25,000. Some of the African stones
+are 'off coloured'--that is, of pale yellow or brown tints; but a large
+gem of singular purity was found at Kimberley in 1880. This is the
+famous 'blue-white' diamond of 150 carats, known from the name of its
+possessor as the 'Porter Rhodes.' At the De Beer's Mine was found, in
+1889, the famous stone which was shown at the Paris Exposition. It
+weighed 428-1/2 carats in the rough, and 228-1/2 carats when cut. It
+measured one inch and seven-eighths in greatest length, and was about an
+inch and a half square.
+
+Even larger than this remarkable stone is a diamond found in the
+Jagersfontein Mine in 1893, and named the 'Jagersfontein Excelsior.'
+This is now the largest and most valuable diamond in the world. It is of
+blue-white colour, very fine quality, and measures three inches at the
+thickest part. The gross weight of this unique stone was no less than
+969-1/2 carats (or about 6-1/2 oz.), and the following are its recorded
+dimensions: Length, 2-1/2 inches; greatest width, 2 inches; smallest
+width, 1-1/2 inches; extreme girth in width, 5-3/8 inches; extreme girth
+in length, 6-3/4 inches. It is impossible to say what is the value of so
+phenomenal a gem. We do not know that an estimate has been even
+attempted; but it may easily be half a million if the cutting is
+successful. The diamond has, however, a black flaw in the centre. It is
+the property of a syndicate of London diamond merchants. The native who
+found it evaded the overseer, and ran to headquarters to secure the
+reward, which took the form of L100 in gold and a horse and cart.
+
+Previous to this discovery, the most famous of the African diamonds was,
+perhaps, the 'Pam' or 'Jagersfontein' stone, not so much from its size,
+as because the Queen had ordered it to be sent to Osborne for her
+inspection with a view to purchase, when the untimely death of the Duke
+of Clarence put an end to the negotiations. The 'Pam' is only of 55
+carats now; but it weighed 112 carats before being cut, and is a stone
+of remarkable purity and beauty. Its present value is computed at about
+twenty-five thousand pounds sterling.
+
+The most valuable diamond in the world is (if it is a diamond) the
+famous 'Braganza' gem belonging to Portugal. It weighed in the rough
+state 1680 carats, and was valued at upwards of 5-1/2 millions sterling.
+
+It has long been known that diamonds occur in Australia, but hitherto
+the Australian stones have been all of small size, and it is notable
+that these are much more difficult to cut, being harder than other
+diamonds. Although Victoria and South Australia have occasionally
+yielded diamonds, it is New South Wales that has been the principal
+producer. The chief diamond localities have been near Mudgee, on the
+Cudjegong River, and near Bingera, on the river Horton.
+
+Borneo also yields diamonds. The stone known as the 'Matan' is said to
+have been found in 1787 in the Landak mines, near the west coast of
+Borneo. It is described as being an egg-shaped stone, indented on one
+side, and weighing, in its uncut state, 367 carats. Great doubt,
+however, exists as to the genuineness of this stone, and the Dutch
+experts who examined it a few years ago pronounced it to be simply
+rock-crystal. Among other diamond localities may be mentioned the Ural
+Mountains and several of the United States. The largest diamond yet
+recorded from North America was found at Manchester, Chesterfield
+county, Virginia. It weighed 23-3/4 carats, and yielded, when cut, a
+brilliant known as the 'Ou-i-nur,' which weighed, however, only 11-3/4
+carats.
+
+A few special diamonds, from their exceptional size or from the
+circumstances of their history, deserve notice. Of all the great
+diamonds, the 'Koh-i-nur' is perhaps the most interesting. While
+tradition carries it back to legendary times, it is known from history
+that the Sultan Ala-ed-din in 1304 acquired this gem on the defeat of
+the Rajah of Malwa, whose family had possessed it for many generations.
+In 1526 it passed by conquest to Humaiun, the son of Sultan Baber. When
+Aurungzebe subsequently possessed this stone, he used it as one of the
+eyes of the peacock adorning his famous peacock throne. On the conquest
+of Mohammed Shah by Nadir Shah in 1739, the great diamond was not found
+among the Delhi treasures, but learning that Mohammed carried it
+concealed in his turban, Nadir, on the grand ceremony of reinstating
+the Mogul emperor on the throne at the conclusion of peace, offered to
+exchange turbans, in token of reconciliation, and by this ruse obtained
+possession of the gem. It was when Nadir first saw the diamond on
+unfolding the turban, that he exclaimed 'Koh-i-nur,' or 'Mountain of
+Light,' the name by which the gem has ever since been known. At Nadir's
+death it passed to his unfortunate son, Shah Rokh, by whom it was
+ultimately given to Ahmed Shah, the founder of the Durani Afghan empire.
+By Ahmed it was bequeathed to his son, Taimur Shah; and from his
+descendants it passed, after a series of romantic incidents, to
+Runjit-Singh. On the death of Runjit, in 1839, the diamond was preserved
+in the treasury of Lahore, and on the annexation of the Punjab by the
+British in 1849, when the property of the state was confiscated to the
+East India Company, it was stipulated that the Koh-i-nur should be
+presented to the Queen of England. It was consequently taken in charge
+by Lord Dalhousie, who sent it to England in 1850. After the Great
+Exhibition of 1851, where it had been exhibited, it was injudiciously
+re-cut in London by Voorsanger, a skilful workman from Messrs Coster's
+factory at Amsterdam. The re-cutting occupied 38 days of 12 hours each,
+and the weight of the stone was reduced from 186-1/16 to 106-1/16
+carats. The form is that of a shallow brilliant, too thin to display
+much fire. According to Lady Burton, it is believed to bring ill-luck to
+its possessor.
+
+The 'Nizam' is the name of a stone said to have been found in the once
+famous diamond-mines of Golconda. Sir William Hunter, however, gives us
+to understand that there were really no diamond-mines at Golconda, and
+that the place won its name by cutting the stones found on the eastern
+borders of the Nizam's territory, and on a ridge of sandstone running
+down to the rivers Kistna and Godavery, in the Madras Presidency.
+However that may have been, both regions are now unproductive of
+valuable stones. The 'Nizam' diamond is said to weigh 340 carats, and to
+be worth L200,000; but we are unable to verify the figures.
+
+The 'Great Table' is another Indian diamond, the present whereabouts of
+which is not known. It is said to weigh 242-1/2 carats, and that 500,000
+rupees (or at par, L50,000) was once refused for it. The 'Great Table'
+is sometimes known as 'Tavernier's' diamond. It was the first blue
+diamond ever seen in Europe, and was brought, in 1642, from India by
+Tavernier. It was sold to Louis XIV. in 1668, and was described then as
+of a beautiful violet colour; but it was flat and badly cut. At what
+date it was re-cut we know not, but, as possessed by Louis Le Grand, it
+weighed only 67-1/2 carats. It was seized during the Revolution, and was
+placed in the Garde Meuble; but it disappeared, and has not been traced
+since. Some fifty years later, Mr Henry Hope purchased a blue diamond
+weighing some 44-1/2 carats (now known as the 'Hope' diamond), which it
+was conjectured may have been part of the 'Great Table.' It is preserved
+in the Green Vaults, Dresden, and is regarded as one of the most superb
+coloured diamonds known.
+
+Another famous Indian diamond is the 'Great Mogul,' which appears to
+have been found about 1650, in the Kollur mine, on the Kistna. It was
+seen by the French jeweller Tavernier at the court of Aurungzebe in
+1665, and is described as a round white rose-cut stone of 280 carats.
+Its subsequent history is unknown, and it is probable that at the
+sacking of Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1739 it was stolen and broken up. Some
+authorities have sought to identify the Great Mogul with the Koh-i-nur,
+and others with the Orloff.
+
+[Illustration: SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL DIAMONDS OF THE WORLD: _a_, Great
+Mogul; _b_, Star of the South; _c_, Koh-i-nur; _d_, Regent; _e_, Orloff.
+All actual size.]
+
+The 'Orloff' is an Indian stone which was purchased at Amsterdam in 1776
+by Prince Orloff for Catharine II. of Russia. The stone at one time
+formed the eye of an idol in a temple in the island of Seringham, in
+Mysore, whence it is said to have been stolen by a French soldier, who
+sold it to an English trader for L2000. The Englishman brought it home,
+and sold it for L12,000 to a Jew, who passed it on at a profit to an
+Armenian merchant. From the Armenian it was acquired, either by
+Catharine of Russia, or, for her, by one of her admirers, for L90,000
+and a pension. It is now valued at L100,000. It weighs 193 carats, is
+about the size of a pigeon's egg, and is mounted in the imperial sceptre
+of the Czar.
+
+Other famous stones are: The 'Austrian Yellow,' belonging to the crown
+of Austria, weighing 76-1/2 carats, and valued at L50,000; the
+'Cumberland,' belonging to the crown of Hanover, weighing 32 carats, and
+worth at least L10,000; the 'English Dresden,' belonging to the Gaikwar
+of Baroda, weighing 76-1/2 carats, and valued at L40,000; the
+'Nassak'--which the Marquis of Westminster wore on the hilt of his sword
+at the birthday ceremonial immediately after the Queen's
+accession--which weighs 78-1/2 carats, and is valued at L30,000.
+
+The 'Regent' is a famous diamond preserved among the national jewels in
+Paris. It was found in 1701, at the Parteal mines, on the Kistna, by a
+slave, who escaped with it to the coast, where he sold it to an English
+skipper, by whom he was afterwards treacherously killed. Thomas Pitt,
+grandfather of the first Earl of Chatham, at that time governor of Fort
+St George, purchased the stone, and had it re-cut in London, whence it
+is often known as the 'Pitt.' Its original weight was 410 carats, but it
+was reduced in cutting to 136-3/4; the result, however, was a brilliant
+of fine water and excellent proportions. Pitt sold it in 1717, through
+the financier John Law, to the Duke of Orleans, then Regent of France
+during the minority of Louis XV. The price paid was L135,000, and its
+value has since been estimated at L480,000. The stone is now among the
+French jewels in the Museum of Paris.
+
+The large 'Sancy' is an historical diamond, about which many
+contradictory stories have been told. It appears that the Sancy was an
+Indian stone, purchased about 1570 by M. de Sancy, French ambassador at
+Constantinople. It passed temporarily into the possession of Henry III.
+and Henry IV. of France, and was eventually sold by Sancy to Queen
+Elizabeth of England. By James II. it was disposed of to Louis XIV.,
+about 1695, for L25,000. At the beginning of the 19th century it passed
+to the Demidoff family in Russia, and by them it was sold in 1865 to Sir
+Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. In 1889 it was again in the market, the price
+asked being L20,000.
+
+The Russian diamond, 'Moon of Mountains,' is set in the imperial
+sceptre, weighs 120 carats, and is valued at 450,000 roubles, or, say,
+about L75,000. The 'Mountain of Splendour,' belonging to the Shah of
+Persia, weighs 135 carats, and is valued at L145,000. In the Persian
+regalia there is said to be another diamond, called the 'Abbas Mirza,'
+weighing 130 carats, and worth L90,000.
+
+
+THE HON. CECIL J. RHODES, THE DIAMOND KING.
+
+We get a good insight into the character of Mr Rhodes from all his
+utterances and public acts; and an anecdote about him when busy with the
+work that made him famous as the 'Diamond King,' the amalgamation of the
+diamond-mines, shows up the man. He was looking at a map of Africa hung
+in the office of a Kimberley merchant. After looking at it closely for
+some time, he placed his hand over a large part of Southern and Central
+Africa, right across the continent, and turning to a friend at his
+side, said, 'There, all that British! That is my dream.' 'I give you ten
+years,' said his friend. When he was in power at the Cape, and the times
+were ripe, his dream was realised, and the shield of the great White
+Queen was thrown over North and South Zambesia, and railway and
+telegraphic communication was being pushed on towards the equator.
+
+The Right Hon. Cecil John Rhodes is the fourth son of a clergyman, of
+Bishop Stortford, where he was born in 1853. He was educated at the
+local school, but his health being far from good, he was sent to Natal
+to join his elder brother, a planter there. Both brothers made for
+Kimberley at the first diamond rush, Cecil going into partnership as a
+diamond digger with Mr C. D. Rudd, who had also gone out to South Africa
+for his health. While at Kimberley, young Rhodes read sufficiently to
+enable him to pass at Oxford. His crowning achievement of the union of
+the De Beers Company and the Kimberley Central Company was not the work
+of a day, but it was accomplished largely through Mr Rhodes's financial
+skill, and became known as the De Beers Consolidated Mines, of which he
+was elected chairman and one of the life governors. The capital
+valuation of the company now stands at about twenty-five millions.
+Regular dividends of twenty-five per cent. have been paid for some
+years. It was natural that an influential man like Mr Rhodes should be
+sent to the Cape Parliament, and in 1889 he rose to be a member of the
+Cabinet. Another successful attempt at company promoting was his
+association with Mr Rudd in the Transvaal gold-fields. At first their
+mines on the Witwatersrandt did not turn out well; but it is long since
+they began to pay enormously, the net profits of 1894 being over two
+millions, while the market value of the concern is ten millions
+sterling.
+
+Several gold prospectors had dealings with and concessions from
+Lobengula, in Matabeleland, before Mr Rudd and Mr Rhodes joined forces
+in 1888 and secured mineral concessions covering the whole of his
+kingdom. Then came the launching of the Chartered Company, incorporated
+in October 1889, with a capital of one million, which has since been
+raised to two and a half millions. Then Mashonaland was prospected, and
+forts built and roads were made, and the telegraph was carried on to
+Salisbury, giving connection with the Cape. When it was found that the
+settlers could not live in peace with Lobengula, a force under Dr
+Jameson, the administrator, broke the power of the Matabele in the
+autumn of 1893. The only serious affair was the deaths of forty-nine men
+of Wilson's column. Since that time the country has been slowly settled,
+and the railway is being pushed on to Buluwayo. Mr Rhodes has interested
+himself also in pushing on the telegraph system towards the Great
+Central African lakes, by way of Zumbo, in the Central African
+Protectorate, under the capable rule of Sir H. H. Johnston. Matabeleland
+is an excellent pastoral country, and if a sufficient number of
+agricultural emigrants could be got to remain and develop the territory,
+its future would be secured. Unfortunately, this class of emigrant has
+hitherto been lacking in South Africa--the gold and diamond fields have
+been too tempting--but in time, doubtless, the slow and sure sort of
+emigrant will find it to his interest to develop the land.
+
+The residence of Mr Rhodes is at Groote Schnur, Rondebosch, near Cape
+Town. In the twelve hundred acres which surround the house there are
+charming views, and a natural Zoo, upon which he is said to have spent
+at least one hundred thousand pounds. He has thrown this place open to
+pleasure-seekers from the Cape for all time coming. He enjoys riding
+over his estate, and watching the visitors enjoying themselves. Lord
+Salisbury once termed him a 'remarkable man.' This is well borne out by
+all who have come in contact with him. 'He presents,' says the _African
+Review_, 'a character that is well worthy of analysis--that is a curious
+compound of generosity and almost repellent cynicism, of
+disinterestedness and ambition, of large aims that are dependent on
+things that are essentially trivial; the keen, hard-tempered character
+of a self-made man who has carved a career out of Kimberley finance and
+Cape Colonial politics.... Of giant force of mind and will, with
+practised judgment that nearly amounts to intuitive perception, with a
+grasp of cause and effect that is founded upon a microscopic observation
+of the laws of nature, he is decidedly a big man. He is a rarely
+accurate critic of his fellow-mortals.'
+
+Dr Jameson prophesied, when in this country in 1895, that the annexation
+and occupation of Matabeleland and Mashonaland meant more than mere
+annexation of territory, but would lead to a commercial union,
+amalgamation, or federation of South African states. In Rhodesia, a
+country nearly as large as Europe, white men and women could live, and
+white children could be reared in health and vigour. Gold was to be
+found there, and coal and iron. The country has been settled since the
+power of Lobengula was broken, and the road and railway are doing their
+beneficent work. The revenue for 1894 nearly balanced the expenditure.
+
+When Mashonaland and Matabeleland needed the railway, Mr Rhodes was
+still the key of the position. 'Krueger will not let us take the
+Kimberley line into his country? Very well,' in effect said Mr Rhodes,
+'we will take it round him, and beyond, on the way to the Transvaal of
+the Zambesi.' And so the matter was arranged between the Imperial and
+Colonial government and the Chartered Company. So much land was to be
+given for taking the line to Vryburg, so much to Mafeking, in
+connection with the main trunk line from the Cape.
+
+Dr Jameson's raid into Transvaal territory, early in 1896, ostensibly
+taken for the purpose of helping the people of Johannesburg, who
+complained of their treatment by the Boer government, and the
+complications which ensued, led to the resignation of Mr Rhodes as a
+member of the Cape government, when he turned his attention to the
+development of Rhodesia, the new and promising territory, which has been
+so named after him.
+
+[Illustration: African Village.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BIG GUNS, SMALL-ARMS, AND AMMUNITION.
+
+    Woolwich Arsenal--Enfield Small-arms Factory--Lord Armstrong and
+    the Elswick Works--Testing Guns at Shoeburyness--Hiram S. Maxim and
+    the Maxim Machine Gun--The Colt Automatic Gun--Ironclads--Submarine
+    Boats.
+
+
+WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
+
+Since early days, Woolwich has been an important centre for warships and
+war-material. Here ships were built and launched when England first
+began to have a navy of specially constructed men-of-war, for Henry
+VIII. established the Woolwich dockyard, and also appointed
+Commissioners of the navy, and formed the Navy Office. Some of the
+earliest three-deckers, or, as we may almost call them, five-deckers,
+were built at this dockyard; and of these the most famous was the _Great
+Harry_, so named after the king, which was launched here in 1514. For
+the period, the ship was a large one, being of a thousand tons burden;
+though we should not think much of her size now, when we have ironclads
+of over eleven thousand tons. There are models of her in the Greenwich
+Naval Museum, which is not far from Woolwich; and a curious lofty wooden
+castle she is, rising far up above the water-line, and offering a fair
+target, if the cannon of those days had any accuracy.
+
+[Illustration: The _Great Harry_.]
+
+On June 3, 1559, Queen Elizabeth came down to Woolwich to witness the
+launch of a large ship called after her name. In 1637 a ship half as
+large again as the _Great Harry_ was launched at Woolwich. She was the
+marvel of her days, and though named the _Royal Sovereign_, was more
+often called the _Golden Devil_, from the amount of mischief she wrought
+in the Dutch fleet. Her guns were probably of small size; but she
+carried enough of them on her three flush-decks, her forecastle, her
+half-deck, her quarter-deck, and in her round-house; for in her lower
+tier were sixty ports; in the middle, thirty; in the third, twenty-six;
+in her forecastle were twelve; in her half-deck were fourteen. She was
+decorated in the emblematical style of the time with gilding and
+carvings; and these designs were the work of one Thomas Haywood, an
+actor, who has left us an account of the ship which he adorned, in a
+quarto volume published the same year in which she was launched. We can
+imagine what she looked like, with her lofty forecastle and poop, the
+latter provided with five lanterns, one of which, we are told, was large
+enough to contain ten persons.
+
+Old Samuel Pepys gives us many references to Woolwich in his famous
+_Diary_. He paid frequent visits to the dockyard on his duties as
+Secretary to the Admiralty, and seems to have looked after his business
+well. For instance, on June 3, 1662, he writes: 'Povy and Sir W. Batten
+and I by water to Woolwich; and there saw an experiment made of Sir R.
+Ford's Holland yarn, about which we have lately had so much stir; and I
+have much concerned myself for our rope-maker, Mr Hughes, who
+represented it so bad; and we found it to be very bad, and broke sooner
+than, upon a fair trial, five threads of that against four of Riga yarn;
+and also that some of it had old stuff that had been tarred, covered
+over with new hemp, which is such a cheat as hath not been heard of.'
+The next month he is looking after the hemp again, and writes: 'To
+Woolwich to the rope-yard, and there looked over several sorts of hemp,
+and did fall upon my great survey of seeing the working and experiments
+of the strength and charge in the dressing of every sort; and I do think
+have brought it to so great a certainty, as I have done the king some
+service in it, and do purpose to get it ready against the Duke's coming
+to town to present to him.' He adds pathetically: 'I see it is
+impossible for the king to have things done as cheap as other men.'
+
+Of as early date probably as the dockyard, was the 'Warren,' the name by
+which the Arsenal was formerly called. This establishment seems to have
+begun as a cannon-foundry, and such, indeed, it chiefly continues to be.
+Moreover, in other days when the dockyard flourished, stores of ships'
+cannon were kept here, ready to be placed on ships as soon as
+commissioned. But now that the dockyard is a thing of the past, and now
+that the large building-slips, workshops, and ropewalk are empty, the
+cannon at the Arsenal are chiefly those for the royal artillery and for
+forts. The dockyard has been closed since 1869; its broad roads are
+deserted, its workshops are silent, and its large sheds are only used
+for stores; but the Arsenal has increased in magnitude; and the
+'Warren,' in which, before the establishment of the Plumstead magazines,
+powder was proved ('before the principal engineers and officers of the
+Board of Ordnance, to which many of the nobility and gentry were often
+invited, and afterwards sumptuously entertained by them'), has now
+become an enormous establishment, covering acres of ground, and
+containing workshops provided with the most complicated machinery, and
+foundries of enormous size. It is round this Arsenal that we propose to
+take the reader.
+
+Having gained admittance, the visitor is put in charge of a guide. The
+tapping of the great furnace is a remarkable sight. A stream of molten
+steel runs into a huge tank which can contain four or five tons of
+metal, and this tank is dragged off by some score of men to fill the
+various moulds. It is remarkable, also, to see a huge steam-hammer of
+some forty tons' force welding a mass of metal at white-heat.
+
+The Arsenal is divided into four departments--the Laboratory, the Gun
+Factory, the Gun-carriage Department, and the Stores; and of these four
+divisions, the first two contain the chief things not to be found in
+very many other places.
+
+The Gun-carriage Department has workshops both for metal and wood work,
+and each branch contains many subdivisions. There is nothing, however,
+in this department which is peculiar to the Arsenal, with the exception,
+of course, of the special articles which are manufactured; that is to
+say, forging, steam-carpentering, wheel-making, and so on, are carried
+out as they would be executed elsewhere. The guides always make a point
+of showing the wheel-shoeing pit, as it is called, in which the tyre is
+put on a gun-wheel. The machinery in this department is very complete,
+especially in the carpenters' shops, where the lathes which work
+automatically, and turn wheel-spokes and such things according to a
+given pattern, and the steam-saws for cutting dovetails for sides of
+boxes, and other machinery, are all constructed on highly ingenious
+principles. With regard to the articles constructed, the trail of a gun
+may be followed in all stages of its construction until it appears
+complete with its wheels, and ready for the gun to be placed on it.
+Here, too, may be seen the ingenious Moncrieff gun-carriage, by which
+the gun is only raised above a fortification at the moment when it is
+fired, the 'sighting' being done from below by an arrangement of
+mirrors.
+
+The Stores, again, are remarkable only for the quantity of material
+stowed away ready for use. For instance, there are ten thousand complete
+sets of harness for guns and baggage wagons always kept in stock. But
+when the visitor has just walked once through these storehouses, he will
+probably have seen all that he cares to see there.
+
+It is, however, when we come to the Gun Factory that the special
+interest of the Arsenal begins. Imagine a huge mass of steel welded--for
+casting would not give sufficient strength--into the form of the trunk
+of a large fir-tree, and you have the first stage of a gun's existence.
+This solid mass is to form the tube of a cannon, and the solid core has
+to be removed by ingenious and powerful machinery. It takes a week or
+two to bore the interior of some of the larger guns. Some of the
+machines are constructed to bore a hole which is continually enlarged by
+successive tools; while others actually cut out a round solid mass from
+the interior. The tube has also to be subjected to the process of being
+turned both within and without, and it is then fit for the next process,
+which is that of cutting the grooves within it which give the required
+spin to the projectile, commonly called rifling. This is a delicate and
+intricate process, for the utility of the gun of course depends largely
+on the accuracy with which the grooves are made. The actual cutting is
+performed by a machine which travels up the tube at the required spiral;
+but as the work proceeds, the man in charge carefully examines the
+grooves along their whole length with the aid of a candle fixed at the
+end of a long rod which he pushes up the tube.
+
+But when the tube has been bored, turned, and rifled, the gun is by no
+means finished. The tube by itself would be far too delicate for the
+large charges of powder employed; and, consequently, it has to be fitted
+at the breech end with two or three outer cases or jackets, the outside
+one of which bears the trunnions on which the gun rests. At last the gun
+is completed; and the next thing is to subject it to a severe test by
+firing from it a charge of powder proportioned to its size. For this
+purpose, it has to be taken to Plumstead Marshes, a portion of which
+forms the testing-ground and powder-magazines connected with the
+Arsenal. Lines of railway run down to the marshes, and the gun is
+mounted on a truck and dragged off by a locomotive to the place
+appointed for its trial. It may be mentioned that lines of railway run
+in all directions through the Arsenal, one of narrow gauge being
+introduced into most of the workshops, so that the visitor has to keep a
+lookout lest a tiny locomotive with a train of what may almost be called
+toy trucks should bear down upon him as he is walking along.--But to
+return to the gun. When it has been finally tested, cleaned, polished,
+and stamped, it is coated with a particular varnish, and is fit for
+service.
+
+The next most interesting place to the Gun Factory is the Laboratory,
+where shells and bullets are manufactured. Shells are cast rough, and
+then finished off in a lathe. A band of copper now usually takes the
+place of the copper studs which were formerly inserted to enable the
+shell to fit into the rifled grooves. This band is expanded by the force
+of the explosion when the gun is fired, and fills up the grooves, so as
+to give the necessary spin to the shells. Shells are charged with their
+interior bullets at the Laboratory; but the powder is added down at the
+marshes. A shell when completed has become a very expensive article,
+especially if it is a large one. Some of those projectiles are so heavy
+that the guns from which they have to be fired are provided with small
+cranes for lifting them up to the breech. The shells are, like the guns,
+beautifully finished off and varnished, and then sent off to the stores.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting place in the Laboratory department is the
+Pattern Room, which is a sort of museum where shot and shells of all
+sorts are to be seen, from the old-fashioned chain-shot, made of round
+balls fastened together, to the most perfect specimens of modern shells.
+Here, also, are to be seen those strange weapons of modern warfare
+called torpedoes, amongst them the famous 'fish torpedo,' which with its
+complicated mechanism may be almost described as an under-water ship. It
+is so constructed that it finds its way unseen and unheard, with its
+terrible charge of dynamite, to the side of a hostile vessel.
+
+
+THE ENFIELD SMALL-ARMS FACTORY.
+
+It is at Enfield, on the river Lea, some twelve miles down the Great
+Eastern Railway, that small-arms are manufactured, almost entirely, as
+required by our army.
+
+Enfield Factory has not, like Woolwich Arsenal, an ancient history of
+its own. In the days of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth, of the Duke of
+York and his faithful secretary, Samuel Pepys, Woolwich was famous for
+the production both of ships and of guns; but the small-arms factory on
+the borders of Essex dates only from the early part of this century. Its
+site seems to have been chosen regardless of any peculiar advantages for
+manufacturing purposes. It is simply a collection of workshops built in
+the flat meadows through which run the various branches, natural and
+artificial, of the lazy Lea; and the nearest town, about a mile and a
+half distant, is quiet and remote little Waltham, chiefly known for its
+Abbey Church, the burial-place of King Harold, which rises in its midst.
+
+The situation of the Enfield Factory is, however, advantageous in this
+way: the canals form a safe means of water transit for the gunpowder
+which is manufactured in the adjacent mills at Waltham, and which is
+required at Enfield for use in the proving of the barrels of firearms;
+while the far-stretching marshes provide an apparently interminable
+range for carrying out the necessary experiments and trials with regard
+to the accuracy of the weapons manufactured.
+
+Where one of the canals has been conducted into a square-shaped basin,
+the older and principal buildings of the manufactory have been located.
+They form a quadrangle of some extent; and here, too, are situated the
+offices and the quarters of the executive staff, which is composed
+partly of civilians and partly of military officers. Behind these, on
+the east side of the enclosure, and on the banks of one of the canals,
+are rows of workmen's cottages. Near the entrance gates are situated
+schools for the workmen's children; and at the other end of this street,
+as we may call it, is a church, which is served by the clergy of the
+parish of Enfield. On the west side extend north and south the flat
+meadows or marshes which form so convenient a spot for the testing and
+proving of the rifles.
+
+All sorts of personal weapons required for the arming of a soldier in
+the English army are made here, not only firearms, such as rifles and
+revolvers, but lances, swords, and bayonets, the last having now become
+a sort of short sword. There is also one class of weapons which occupies
+a sort of intermediate position between those carried by the soldier
+himself and those drawn by horses--that of machine guns, as they are
+called, which, though not carried by men on their shoulders or in their
+hands, are drawn about by them on small carriages. These machine guns
+are classed with personal arms, because they are usually employed in
+connection with infantry; and also because--which is a far more
+important reason--the ammunition required for them is similar to that
+used in rifles. In fact, they are in principle only a collection of
+infantry rifles fastened together, or, as we shall see, a single rifle
+barrel with machinery attached which enables it to discharge with great
+rapidity.
+
+There is one more general principle which we shall do well to bear in
+mind before we enter the factory. It is this, that of course the
+manufacture of small-arms is in as much a condition of uncertainty as
+that of larger warlike weapons in these days. What we see now may become
+obsolete in a very short time, and we shall be shown specimens of
+firearms which formed the universal weapons of the British army only a
+very few years ago, but are now as much out of date for practical
+purposes as cross-bows. Remembering this, let us go first when we enter
+to one of the offices, where we shall see arranged in a rack against the
+wall, amongst others, specimens of the old Enfield muzzle-loader, of the
+same weapon converted into a breech-loader, of the Martini-Henry rifle,
+and of the latest pattern of all, the magazine rifle. While, stored
+away in some out-of-the-way corner, it is just possible we might come
+across a specimen of the old smooth-bore or 'Brown Bess,' which formed
+the weapon of certain English linesmen so late as the beginning of the
+Crimean War.
+
+The Enfield workshops are of course in appearance much like other
+workshops. There are the same processes of forging and casting, and the
+same machinery for hammering and turning and boring and drilling which
+we see elsewhere.
+
+A rifle, as every one knows, consists of three portions--the wooden
+stock, the barrel, and the lock. The stock is usually made of walnut
+wood, and is manufactured in what we should perhaps describe as a
+carpenter's shop. Formerly, the stock of a rifle was formed out of one
+long piece of timber; but now the complicated machinery of the breech
+and lock cannot be contained in a hollow in the wood, as was formerly
+the case, but has to be enclosed in a steel case, to which the wooden
+butt and barrel support are screwed. To the rifles of the newest pattern
+there hangs, just below the lock, the magazine, in which are carried
+five or, in some cases, ten cartridges, which spring up into place in
+turn, ready to be discharged. In short, the rifle has become, as regards
+its rapidity of action, something similar to a revolver pistol. We shall
+find that a lock has in its manufacture to pass through an almost
+infinite number of processes, each part having to be forged or beaten
+out till the whole can be fitted together.
+
+Let us pass on to the barrel-making shop. Rifle barrels are made from a
+solid round bar of steel, which is at first considerably shorter and
+stouter than the finished barrel will be. This steel bar is heated
+red-hot, and is passed between several pairs of rollers, which convert
+it outwardly into the required form. It has, however, afterwards to be
+bored and then rifled--that is, furnished with the spiral grooves
+within, which gives the bullet the necessary spin. Of course the barrel
+is by far the most important portion of a firearm, and the barrels of
+rifles are, at Enfield, tested and proved in the most ingenious and
+searching manner. The first proof takes place after the barrel has been
+bored, but before it is rifled. The barrels are loaded with cartridges
+of considerably greater weight both in powder and bullet than those
+which will be used in them when they are ready for service, and are
+enclosed in a sort of strong box which has one side open. They are then
+discharged through the open side into a heap of sand, and examined; but
+it is a rare event to find a barrel that has not been able to bear this
+test. The second proof, which takes place after the rifling, is of a
+similar character.
+
+But these proofs are only to test the strength of a barrel; the test of
+its accuracy is a much more delicate operation. Of course the machinery
+by which it is bored and rifled works with the most admirable precision;
+but yet it is necessary to put this machine-work to trial. There are,
+amongst others, two highly ingenious methods for doing this. In the one
+case it is placed on a stand which is so constructed that on it the
+barrel can be made to revolve rapidly. The barrel is pointed towards a
+window, and in front of it is a fixed sight. The workman looks through
+it while it is revolving; and if the sight remains steady to his eye,
+that is a proof that the barrel may be said to be straight. But there is
+yet another method. The mechanism of this testing apparatus is rather
+difficult to describe, but is something of this fashion. The barrel is
+made to revolve as before; but this time there is inserted in it a
+spindle, on which is fixed a short arm with a point which touches very
+lightly the interior of the barrel. If there is any inequality, or if
+the barrel is not perfectly straight, this short arm is of course
+shaken, and when this is the case, the motion is further communicated to
+a long arm at the end of which is an indicator, which is looked at by
+the workman through a magnifying glass.
+
+[Illustration: Gatling Gun on Field Carriage.]
+
+Barrel, stock, and lock being at last completed and tested, the rifle is
+put together; but even then it is subjected to one more trial. This is
+carried out on the proof-ground in the marshes, and takes the form of an
+actual discharge of the weapon at a target. The rifle is screwed to a
+fixed and firm support, and then a certain number of rounds are fired at
+ranges of five hundred and one thousand yards respectively. In this test
+the hitting of the centre of the target, or 'bull's-eye,' is not the end
+in view, as it is in ordinary target practice. That sort of shooting
+depends of course on the steadiness with which the marksman holds the
+rifle. In this case, however, the fixed _rest_ may be directed on any
+portion of the target, and the _grip_ will always be the same. The only
+object of the test is to see whether the rifle throws the bullet at each
+round on or near the same spot. A marker at the butt examines the
+position of each shot, and the smaller the space on which they strike,
+the better the weapon.
+
+We have not yet spoken of the machine guns. These weapons are, as part
+of the regular equipment of armies, quite modern, though the idea of
+binding together a quantity of barrels and then discharging them at
+once, or with great rapidity one after another, is not altogether novel.
+Sometimes, instead of a number of barrels, one only is required, and the
+cartridges are discharged from short barrels or chambers which are
+brought in turn into position with the longer one. This is the ordinary
+revolver system; but modern machine guns are a great improvement on this
+method, and entirely dispense with the necessity of loading separate
+chambers. Machine guns have succeeded one another with extraordinary
+rapidity, and a gun seems only to be adopted in order to be superseded.
+Thus we have had during the last few years a series of these weapons
+bearing the names of Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and Maxim, described
+on a later page.
+
+[Illustration: Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark.]
+
+As we walk about the factory we see, besides the workmen, here and there
+groups of men in military uniform. These are armourer sergeants, who
+attend classes at which they are taught the mysterious mechanism of the
+breech-loaders and machine guns. In former days, Tommy Atkins could be
+instructed how to keep his weapon in order, lock and all; but now its
+complications are beyond the power of his understanding or of his
+fingers, perhaps of both, and he has to hand over his rifle to a more
+skilled superior when it is out of order. Truly, military matters, from
+the movement of the vast army corps of the present day down to the
+mechanism of the soldier's weapons, have become a highly technical
+matter.
+
+
+LORD ARMSTRONG AND THE ELSWICK WORKS.
+
+Sir W. G. Armstrong, the chairman and founder of this great firm of
+warship builders and makers of big guns at Elswick, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
+is the son of a Cumberland yeoman, and born at Newcastle in 1810. He
+early showed a turn for mechanical contrivances, and delicate youth as
+he was, when confined to the house he was quite happy making toys of old
+spinning-wheels and such-like things. He would also spend hours in a
+joiner's shop, copying the joiner's work, and making miniature engines.
+He had ample opportunity in his father's house of making himself
+acquainted with chemistry, electricity, and mechanics. In spite of his
+turn for mechanics, he was articled to a solicitor, who, at the finish
+of his apprenticeship, made him his partner. In his leisure hours he
+conducted his experiments. Fishing was also a favourite pastime with
+him, and in 1836, while rambling through Dent Dale, he saw a stream
+descending from a great height and driving only one single mill. This
+led him to think that there might be a more economical use of this water
+hydraulically, with the result that he produced a hydraulic engine,
+which was followed by the invention of a hydraulic crane for raising
+weights at harbours and in warehouses. It was soon adopted at the
+Albert Dock, Liverpool, and elsewhere.
+
+[Illustration: LORD ARMSTRONG.]
+
+Next he invented an apparatus for extracting electricity from steam,
+afterwards introduced into the Polytechnic Institution, London. Napoleon
+III. heard of this famous machine, and sent experts to examine it.
+Armstrong began to receive recognition; he was elected a member of the
+Royal Society in 1846, and a year later, aided by some friends, he began
+on a small scale the Elswick Engine-works in the suburbs of Newcastle,
+which have grown to be the largest concern of the kind in the country.
+At first the enterprise chiefly consisted in the manufacture of
+hydraulic cranes, engines, accumulators, and bridges.
+
+The addition of ordnance and shipping, for which Armstrong became
+chiefly known, came later. Previous to the year 1853, the weapon used by
+the infantry portion of the British army was a clumsy smooth-bore
+musket, which was only effective up to three hundred yards at the
+farthest; the usual distance at which practice was made by the soldier
+seldom exceeding one hundred yards. In the above-named year, an arm was
+brought into use, termed, from the locality of its manufacture, the
+Enfield rifle. This weapon being lighter, and possessing a much greater
+range than the old small-arm, Brown Bess, as it was called, threatened
+very seriously to diminish the effect of field-artillery, if not to
+abolish that arm entirely, as, indeed, many infantry officers were
+sanguine enough to predict. Nor were they without good reason for their
+boasting, the only field-artillery consisting of 6-pounder brass guns
+for horse-artillery, 9-pounder guns for field-batteries, and sometimes
+12-pounder and 18-pounder guns as batteries of position--that is to say,
+batteries used when the general of a force meant to make any stand in a
+suitable position; on these occasions, the guns were taken to the
+requisite places, and there left. Now, all these guns were
+smooth-bored; and as the range of the 6 and 9 pounders was limited in
+practice to about one thousand yards, it was a fair enough supposition
+that a company of concealed riflemen with their Enfield rifles could
+pick off the gunners and remain themselves comparatively secure,
+especially as their muskets being sighted up to, and effective at,
+eleven hundred yards, the guns also would be a good mark to aim at, and
+the riflemen hard to see, even if exposed.
+
+Such was the state of affairs when Armstrong stepped in to the rescue of
+the artillery, and provided the British government with the rifled
+cannon now in use, and about which so much has been written.
+
+Armstrong, during the Crimean War, made an explosive apparatus for
+blowing up ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him to turn his attention
+to improvements in ordnance. He invented a kind of breech-loading
+cannon, and soon had an order for several field-pieces after the same
+pattern. He began with guns throwing 6 lb. and 18 lb. shot and shells,
+and afterwards 32 lb. shells; and the results at the time were deemed
+almost incredible. He had both reduced the weight of the gun by
+one-half, reduced the charge of powder, and his gun sent the shell about
+three times farther. His success led to his offering to government all
+his past inventions, and any that he might in the future discover. A
+post was created for him, that of Chief Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for
+seven years provisionally.
+
+The founder of this great firm was knighted by the Queen in 1858, and
+made C.B. In 1887 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Armstrong of
+Cragside. His mansion and estate of Cragside is at Rothbury, and it is
+fitted up with the electric light and every convenience of wealth and
+taste. Armstrong's peculiar partnership between government and the
+Elswick Works was brought to a close in 1863, since which time the
+progress of the firm has been continuous. In 1882 an amalgamation took
+place between the Elswick Works and the firm of Charles Mitchell & Co.,
+shipbuilders at Low Walker. Dr Mitchell, who was a native of Aberdeen,
+and a munificent donor to Newcastle and Aberdeen, was one of the
+directors of Armstrong, Mitchell, & Co. till his death in 1895.
+
+This firm are now the leading warship builders in the world. Krupp's
+works at Essen (described in the earlier part of this book) are the only
+parallel to them in Europe. The engineering works, begun, as we have
+seen, in 1847, now occupy about nine acres; the ordnance works, founded
+ten years later, occupy about forty acres; while about five thousand men
+are employed. The shipbuilding yards are at Low Walker, nearer the sea.
+The hydraulic machinery for the Tower Bridge and the Manchester Ship
+Canal were both produced by this great firm.
+
+Some years ago one of his biographers wrote: 'He entertains the great
+institutes of England when they visit his native city on royal lines, in
+regal splendour. His works at Elswick enjoy all modern improvements. His
+home at Jesmond is the abode of art, literature, and luxury. When his
+health complained under its heavy load, he cultivated agriculture,
+botany, and forestry for recreation; bought an estate at Rothbury, where
+the kindly invigorating air had healed him in days gone by; converted
+the barren hills into an earthly paradise; lighted his Cragside mansion
+with Swan's lamp and his own hydraulic power; applied water-power to his
+conservatory, that his plants might secure the sun. But amid all the
+luxuries which surround him, his life is as simple as nature; and now,
+at the ripe age of seventy-three, he maintains the freshness and
+elasticity of youth. He was wont to run like a deer along the moors of
+Allenheads to examine the target fired at by the original Armstrong
+gun.'
+
+Lord Armstrong has been honoured both at home and abroad, and has done
+much for the amenity of Newcastle; and Jesmond Dene, part of his Jesmond
+estate, was thrown open to the public by the Prince of Wales while his
+guest at Cragside. The high-level bridge, giving easy access to the park
+for the town, cost L20,000. Other benefactions have been L12,500 towards
+a museum; a hall for the literary society, a mechanics' institute,
+schools at Elswick, &c.
+
+A recent purchase was at Bamborough, the ancient capital of the
+Northumbrian kings, where, nearer our own time, Grace Darling was born
+and died. Already great improvements are in progress there in the shape
+of workmen's houses; and the parish church is being restored. Bamborough
+Castle, which is also included in the purchase, is an imposing mass of
+masonry, standing on a pile of columnar basalt, which is mentioned early
+in history; there was a castle here as early as the fifth century. By
+the will of Lord Crewe it had been devoted as far back as 1721 to
+charitable purposes.
+
+In the autumn of 1893, Lord Armstrong told the Elswick shareholders that
+he believed the time was coming when armoured ships would be as obsolete
+as mail-clad men. 'Do what we will,' he said, 'I believe that the means
+of attack will always overtake the means of defence, and that sooner or
+later armour will be abandoned.' His reason for this statement was the
+use of high explosives and quick-firing guns. In the future, light
+vessels of great speed, armed with quick-firing guns, are likely to be
+the order of the day. The life of a battleship, he also said, was far
+too valuable to be staked on the use of its ram; special ships should
+therefore be built for ramming. On another occasion he discussed the
+improvements in the manufacture of cordite which had made it possible to
+secure enormous power even with moderate-sized guns. With a 6-inch gun
+of 45 calibre, and a 100 lb. projectile, a velocity of nearly 3000 feet
+per second has been reached, giving an energy of 5884 tons, as against
+the 5254 tons of the 8-inch gun of ten years ago. This last gun could
+only fire four rounds in five minutes; now we hear of ten and eighteen
+rounds in three minutes. As to speed, some warships built for the
+Argentine Republic and for Japan had reached a speed of 26-1/4 miles an
+hour, and were at the time the fastest war-vessels afloat.
+
+At the annual meeting of shareholders in 1895, Lord Armstrong said that
+the war-material which they supplied for the great naval war in the East
+thoroughly stood the test, and the quick-firing guns of the Japanese
+navy had greatly helped their victory. The heavily-armed high-speed
+cruisers also deserve a share of the credit, and these had been built by
+their firm.
+
+In connection with an official inquiry it was found that in 1896 there
+were 18,000 men employed in the arsenal at Elswick alone, and that 13
+ironclads and cruisers, and 1400 guns were being built.
+
+
+TESTING GUNS AT SHOEBURYNESS.
+
+It is at Shoeburyness, in the county of Essex, that experiments are
+carried out with the guns, large and small, manufactured at Woolwich and
+Enfield.
+
+Shoeburyness has become a military centre, not because of any advantages
+afforded by its position on the sea, but because it consists of a large
+tract of dreary marshes flanked to the south and east by the
+far-stretching Maplin sands, which are almost entirely uncovered at
+low-water. These sands form the attraction from a scientific point of
+view.
+
+The first connection of Shoeburyness with modern military matters
+appears to have been made so lately as the time of the Crimean War,
+when the flat rough marshland was employed as a camping ground for men
+and horses with the view of accustoming both to the hard work which lay
+before them in the East. This tract of country has thus become the
+property of the War Department, and that administrative body soon found
+another use for it, in which the half-submerged sands were to bear an
+important part. The idea was conceived that targets might be erected on
+these sands, and that the projectiles which were fired at them might be
+recovered at low-water. Hence the first connection of Shoeburyness with
+the artillery of the present day. A safe range can be found across the
+sands to almost any distance, and these marshes have therefore become
+the stage on which our great guns, such as Armstrongs and Whitworths,
+have made, so to speak, their first _debut_.
+
+To reach Shoeburyness we take the railway which runs along the south
+coast of Essex and the northern bank of the Thames. As we near the mouth
+of the estuary we pass Southend, beloved of _trippers_, with its pier
+stretching out in its length of over a mile, and then cross the base of
+the ness itself, when we reach the sea again. On the south-eastern face
+of the ness we are at our journey's end, and the railway also, so far as
+the general public is concerned, has come to a full stop. We walk
+through the little town or village, and on the farther side find what we
+may call the original settlement of gunnery experiments, now for the
+most part a group of barracks and quarters such as we might find at any
+military station. A few differences we notice, however, for, as we pass
+through the barrack-yard, we observe that one building is labelled
+'Lecture-room,' and other evidences there are here and there that the
+artillerymen who are quartered here are not altogether engaged in their
+ordinary duties. We shall probably not linger long at the barracks, but
+we shall not fail to observe that the officers' quarters and mess-room
+occupy an extremely pleasant position on a wooded bank above the sea,
+and that at high-water the waves come rippling up to the very trees
+themselves. Farther on are the houses appropriated to married officers,
+all alike situated on the pleasant sea-bank.
+
+We see in front of us huge wooden erections standing on the edge of the
+shore. These are conning-towers from which, when practice is going on, a
+view is obtained of the direction of the shot. Beneath them are the
+batteries from which the guns are fired, and here go on the courses of
+instruction in practical artillery work, which are necessary for newly
+joined officers.
+
+But we have by no means seen the most important part of Shoeburyness
+when we have visited the barracks and the batteries. We notice that a
+line of rails winds its way in and out amongst guns and storehouses, and
+if we have timed our visit right we shall find a little miniature train
+just about to start for what is called _The New Range_. Taking our
+places in this train we shall be carried first through the village and
+past the terminus of the public line, and then along a private railway
+which winds along amongst the corn-fields, until we reach a retired spot
+on the sea-shore hemmed in by lofty trees. In this private place are
+carried on all the experiments for which Shoeburyness is famous, and
+here both guns and explosives are tested to their utmost capability.
+
+It is not altogether an unpicturesque spot at which we have arrived.
+Grouped together in this immediate neighbourhood are certain nice old
+farmhouses and other buildings which have been taken possession of by
+the military. The space in front would no doubt be an admirable
+rabbit-warren, only the whole ground is now covered by guns of various
+sizes, targets, shields, breastworks, and models of portions of ironclad
+and other vessels. Amongst these run lines of rails by which guns and
+materials can be moved to any part of the ground; and in places there
+are overhead travelling cranes by which heavy cannon may be hoisted on
+to or off from their carriages or into trucks, as need may require; and
+we again see lofty conning-towers, though target practice at a distance
+is not carried on here to the same extent as it is in that portion of
+the establishment which we first visited. The work at _The New Range_ is
+connected rather with experiments as to the force of explosives and the
+penetrating power of projectiles than with accuracy of aim and the
+direction of the shot.
+
+We ought first to say a few words about modern explosives. Old-fashioned
+gunpowder, or _black_ powder as it is now usually called, is composed,
+as everybody knows, of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur mixed together
+in the proportion usually of seventy-five, fifteen, and ten parts
+respectively.
+
+Two chief varieties of the new brown powders are now made, and are known
+as 'slow-burning cocoa'--from the fact that cocoa-nut fibres were first
+employed in the experiments--and 'Prism brown I.' The former contains
+about four per cent. of sulphur, and burns rather more rapidly than the
+latter, which contains only two per cent. Baked straw is the material
+now used to supplant the charcoal, as it provides a form of cellulose
+which may be readily reduced to a fine state of division. The shape is
+still the perforated hexagonal prism introduced in America.
+
+The burning of these powders is steady and the increase of pressure
+gradual, attaining a maximum when the bullet is about half-way down the
+barrel of the gun. The damage inflicted on the firing-chamber is very
+slight; perhaps as slight as ever will be obtained with such large
+charges of powder.
+
+Uniformity of velocity is secured by ensuring that in the making the
+proportions employed shall be accurate and the mixing complete. The
+prisms of any given class of powder are made exactly the same in weight
+and composition, and in consequence, a charge composed of a given number
+of prisms will give in every case almost exactly the same propelling
+force. It is thus that fine aiming adjustments are made possible, as two
+consecutive bullets of the same weight may be propelled almost exactly
+the same distance--varying only a few yards in a range of several
+miles--by equal weights of powder of uniform composition.
+
+But explosives of the present day are composed of other substances.
+Cordite, of which we now hear so much, is made of nitro-glycerine,
+gun-cotton, and mineral jelly in the proportion of fifty-seven,
+thirty-eight, and five parts. It is also steeped in a preparation of
+acetone. Gun-cotton itself is dipped in a mixture of three parts of
+sulphuric to one of nitric acid. The force of cordite over gunpowder may
+be judged from the following facts. A cartridge containing seventy
+grains of black powder fired in the ordinary rifle of the army will give
+what is called a muzzle velocity of one thousand three hundred and fifty
+feet a second, while thirty grains only of cordite will give a velocity
+of two thousand feet. In larger arms, a little less than a pound of
+cordite fired in a twelve-pounder gun will give more velocity than four
+pounds of black powder fired in the same weapon. It need hardly be said
+that in the experiments at Shoeburyness it is the new-fashioned
+explosive which is chiefly used.
+
+Let us examine one of the guns, a breech-loader, and see what
+improvements have been made which may conduce to rapidity of fire. We
+see that in the older pattern three motions were necessary to open the
+breech. First the bar which is fixed across the base of the block had to
+be removed, then a half turn had to be given to the block to free it in
+its bed, and then it had to be pulled forward. Firstly, it had to be
+thrown back on its hinge so as to open the gun from end to end. We are
+shown that in later patterns the cavity or bed into which the block fits
+is made in the form of a cone, so that the breech-block itself can be
+turned back without any preliminary motion forward. In artillery work,
+time is everything, and any one motion of the gunner's hands and arms
+saved is a point gained. Now let us look at the mechanism by which the
+recoil or backward movement of the gun is checked at the moment of
+firing. The gun slides in its cradle, and its recoil is counteracted by
+buffers which work in oil, something in the fashion of the oil springs
+which we see on doors. Iron spiral springs push the gun back again into
+place. Another interesting piece of mechanism is the electric machinery
+by which the gun is fired. When the recoil has taken place, the wire,
+along which runs the electric current, is pushed out of place, so that
+it is impossible to fire the gun, even though it be loaded, until it has
+been again fixed in its proper position on the cradle. Truly a modern
+cannon is a wonderful machine, and yet it is only a development from the
+sort of iron gas-pipe which was used in the middle ages. Hard by is a
+gun which has come to grief. In experiments which are carried on at
+Shoeburyness, guns are charged to their full, or, as in this case, more
+than their full strength. There is an ugly gash running down the outer
+case or jacket, as it is called, of the gun, and the latter has broken,
+and nearly jumped out of its cradle. Nursery phraseology certainly comes
+in strongly in the technical slang of gunnery when we have to do with
+_Woolwich Infants_.
+
+After looking at the guns we naturally go on to look at the targets at
+which they are fired. Targets at _The New Range_ are not so much marks
+as specimens of armour-plates and other protections. Some of these are
+built up with a strength which to the uninitiated appears to be proof
+against any attack. Here, for instance, we find a steel plate of
+eighteen inches in thickness, and behind this six inches of iron, the
+whole backed up by huge balks of timber. But notwithstanding its depth,
+the enormous mass has been dented and cracked, and in places pierced.
+When we look at plates which are not quite so thick, we see that the
+shells have formed what are pretty and regular patterns, for small
+triangles of metal have been splintered off and turned back, so that the
+aperture is decorated with a circle of leaves, and resembles a rose with
+the centre cut out. Where the shell has entered the plate before it
+bursts, the pattern remains very perfect; but when it explodes as it
+touches the surface, some of the encircling leaves are entirely cut off.
+
+One target is pointed out to us which represents the iron casing of the
+vulnerable portions of a torpedo boat, consisting of engine-room,
+boilers, and coal-bunkers. These compartments have been riddled again
+and again. Even a service-rifle bullet can penetrate one side, and a
+shell of the smallest size will go through both, for torpedo boats are
+not very heavily built.
+
+
+HIRAM S. MAXIM AND THE MAXIM MACHINE GUN.
+
+Statisticians inform us that the entire loss of life in wars between
+so-called civilised countries from the year 1793 down to 1877 had
+reached the enormous amount of four million four hundred and seventy
+thousand. To many persons these figures convey a sad and salutary
+lesson. But, leaving the sentimental part of the subject aside, all will
+readily unite in admiring the wonderful mechanism which makes the Maxim
+Machine Gun an engine of terrible destructiveness. Stanley provided
+himself with this formidable weapon, to be used defensively in the
+expedition on which he started for the relief of Emin Bey. It obtained a
+gold medal at the Inventions Exhibition, and has been approved of, if
+not actually adopted, by many governments.
+
+[Illustration: Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun.]
+
+Its rate of firing--770 shots a minute--is at least three times as rapid
+as that of any other machine gun. It has only a single barrel, which,
+when the shot is fired, recoils a distance of three-quarters of an inch
+on the other parts of the gun. This recoil sets moving the machinery
+which automatically keeps up a continuous fire at the extraordinary rate
+of 12 rounds a second. Each recoil of the barrel has therefore to
+perform the necessary functions of extracting and ejecting the empty
+cartridge, or bringing up the next full one and placing it in its proper
+position in the barrel, of cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
+As long as the firing continues, these functions are repeated round
+after round in succession. The barrel is provided with a water jacket,
+to prevent excessive heating; and is so mounted that it can be raised or
+lowered or set at any angle, or turned horizontally to the left or to
+the right. The bore is adapted to the present size of cartridges; and
+the maximum range is eighteen hundred yards. The gun can therefore be
+made to sweep a circle upwards of a mile in radius.
+
+Nor is the gun excessively heavy, its total weight being only one
+hundred and six pounds, made up thus: Tripod, fifty pounds; pivot (on
+which the gun turns and by which it is attached to the tripod), sixteen
+pounds; gun and firing mechanism, forty pounds. The parts can be easily
+detached and conveniently folded for carriage, and may be put together
+again so quickly that, if the belt containing the cartridges is in
+position, the first shot can be delivered within ten seconds. It would
+therefore be extremely serviceable in preventing disaster through a body
+of troops being surprised. Reconnoitring parties, too, would deem it
+prudent to pay greater deference to an enemy's lonely sentry on advanced
+outpost duty if the latter were provided with this new Machine Gun,
+instead of the ordinary rifle.
+
+Immediately below the barrel of the gun, a box is placed, containing the
+belt which carries the cartridges. The belts vary in length. Those
+commonly used are seven feet long, and capable of holding three hundred
+and thirty-three cartridges; shorter ones hold one hundred and twenty
+cartridges; but the several pieces can be joined together for continuous
+firing. Single shots can be fired at any time whether the belt is in
+position or not--in the former case by pressing a button, which prevents
+the recoil; in the latter, by hand-loading in the ordinary way. To start
+firing, one end of the belt is inserted in the gun, the trigger is
+pulled by the hand once, after which the movement becomes continuous and
+automatic as long as the supply of cartridges lasts. At each recoil of
+the barrel, the belt is pushed sufficiently onward to bring the next
+cartridge into position; the mechanism grasps this cartridge, draws it
+from the belt, and passes it on to the barrel. Should a faulty or an
+empty cartridge find its way in, and the gun does not go off in
+consequence, there is of course no recoil to keep up the repeating
+action, and the mechanism ceases to work until the obstruction is
+removed.
+
+To devise and adjust the necessary parts of the machine with such
+precision that each part performs its proper function at the exact
+moment pre-arranged for it--to do all this while the gun fires at the
+enormous rate of six hundred rounds a minute, must have cost an
+immensity of thought, of labour, and of time.
+
+The 'Colt Automatic Gun,' a new machine gun manufactured by the Colt
+Firearms Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, promised in 1896 to be a
+rival to the Maxim, as it fired 400 shots a minute.
+
+Hiram S. Maxim was born in the state of Maine in 1840, and in his
+fourteenth year was apprenticed to a carriage-builder. From his father,
+who had a wood-working factory and mill, he learned the use of tools and
+derived his inventive turn of mind. After some experience in
+metal-working in his uncle's works at Fitchburg, he was in turn a
+philosophical instrument maker, and on the staff of some ironworkers and
+shipbuilders. About 1877 he became a consulting electrical engineer, a
+branch of science which he studied and became master of in a short time.
+Some of the earliest electric lights in the States were devised and
+erected by him. He was in England and Europe in 1880 in order to
+investigate electrical methods there. He was back in London in 1883, and
+after that visit, like Siemens, he made it his headquarters. What
+leisure he now had (1883-4) on hand he devoted to inventing his
+automatic machine gun, which should load and fire itself, and the
+British government was the first to recognise its merits and adopt it.
+The making of it has been taken over by the Maxim-Nordenfelt Gun
+Company, which has a capital of about two millions sterling.
+
+Like Edison he has taken out about a hundred different patents, some of
+which are connected with oil motors and smokeless gunpowder. His
+flying-machine, as described in his paper at the British Association in
+1894, burns oil fuel, which developed three hundred and sixty
+horse-power. It was driven at sixty miles an hour horizontally, and the
+machine contained an aeroplane sloping six degrees to the horizon. The
+weight to be lifted was eight thousand pounds. After running nine
+hundred feet, the machine exerted an upward thrust of two thousand
+pounds greater than its own weight. The machine, after one thousand
+feet, broke loose; the steam was shut off, and it fell. The experiments
+have been conducted at Bexley, in Kent, where Mr Maxim had a light track
+of railway laid down, sixteen hundred feet long, on which the machine
+moved. The back part of the machine having been liberated from the
+check-rail too soon caused the accident at the experiment, and sent the
+whole machine off the track. There is sufficient evidence that it did
+rise from the ground, and Lords Rayleigh and Kelvin have become
+believers in its possibilities. This machine, as described at the time,
+with its four side sails and aeroplanes set, is over one hundred feet
+wide, and looks like a huge white bird with four wings instead of two.
+It is propelled by two large two-bladed screws, resembling the
+screw-propellers of a ship, driven by two powerful compound engines.
+
+
+IRONCLADS.
+
+A modern ironclad is an enormous piece of complicated mechanism. In
+order to protect this mechanism from hostile shot, the greater part of
+it is placed under water and covered by a thick steel deck; the
+remainder above water being protected by vast armour-plates varying from
+eight to twenty-four inches in thickness. From the exterior, an ironclad
+is by no means a thing of beauty; one writer has described it as 'a
+cross between a cooking apparatus and a railway station;' but in place
+of this ingenious parallel, imagine a low flat-looking mass on the
+water; from the centre rises a huge funnel, on either side of which are
+a turret and a superstructure running to the bow and stern; two short
+pole masts, with platforms on the top for machine guns, complete an
+object calculated to bring tears to the eyes of the veteran sailor who
+remembers the days of the grand old line-of-battle ship, with its tall
+tapering masts and white sails glistening in the sun. A stranger going
+on board one of our newest types of ironclads would lose himself amid
+the intricacies and apparent confusion of the numerous engines,
+passages, and compartments; it is a long time, in fact, before even the
+sailors find their way about these new ships; and the Admiralty allow a
+new ironclad to remain three months in harbour on first commissioning
+before going to sea, in order that the men may become acquainted with
+the uses of the several fittings on board, each ironclad that is built
+now being in many ways an improvement on its predecessor.
+
+Those who have not been on board a modern ironclad can form no idea of
+the massiveness and solidity of the various fittings; the enormous guns,
+the rows of shot and shell, the huge bolts, bars, and beams seem to be
+meant for the use of giants, not men. Although crowded together in a
+comparatively small space, everything is in perfect order, and ready at
+any moment to be used for offensive or defensive purposes. It is not,
+perhaps, generally known that the captain of a man-of-war is ordered to
+keep his ship properly prepared for battle as well in time of peace as
+of war. Every evening before dark the quarters are cleared and every
+arrangement made for night-battle, to prevent surprise by a better
+prepared enemy. When at anchor in a harbour, especially at night, the
+ship is always prepared to repel any attempts of an enemy to board or
+attack with torpedoes or fireships. In addition to the daily and weekly
+drills and exercises, once every three months the crew are exercised at
+night-quarters, the time of course being kept secret by the captain, so
+that no preparations can be made beforehand, the exercise being intended
+to represent a surprise. In the dead of night, when only the officers of
+the watch and the sentries posted in the various parts of the ship are
+awake, the notes of a bugle vibrate between the decks; immediately, as
+if by magic, everything becomes alive; men are seen scrambling out of
+their hammocks, and lights flash in all directions; the huge shells are
+lifted by hydraulic power from the magazines, placed on trucks, and
+wheeled by means of railways to the turrets; men run here and there with
+rifles, boarding-pikes, axes, cases of powder and ammunition; others are
+engaged laying fire-hose along the decks, others closing the water-tight
+doors; while far down below, the engineers, stokers, and firemen are
+busy getting up steam for working the electric-light engines, turrets,
+&c. At the torpedo ports, the trained torpedo-men are placing the
+Whiteheads in their tubes; others are preparing cases of gun-cotton for
+boom-torpedoes. In ten minutes, however, all is again silent and each
+man stands at his station ready for action. The captain, followed by his
+principal officers, now walks round the quarters and inspects all the
+arrangements for battle, after which various exercises are gone through.
+A bugle sounds, and numbers of men rush away to certain parts of the
+ship to repel imaginary boarders; another bugle, and a large party
+immediately commence to work the pumps; another low, long blast is a
+warning that the ship is about to ram an enemy, and every man on board
+stretches himself flat on the decks until the shock of the (supposed)
+collision takes place. After a number of exercises have been gone
+through, the guns are secured, arms and stores returned to their places,
+the men tumble into their hammocks again, and are soon fast asleep.
+
+[Illustration: One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England.' _The Duke of
+Wellington_ Screw Line-of-Battle Ship. One hundred and thirty-one Guns.]
+
+It would be interesting to glance at some of the principal offensive and
+defensive capabilities of a modern ironclad. The first-class
+line-of-battle ship of fifty years ago carried as many as a hundred and
+thirty, what would be called in the present day, very light guns; in
+contrast to this, her Majesty's armour-plated barbette ram _Benbow_
+carries _two_ guns weighing a hundred and ten tons each. These enormous
+weapons are forty-three feet eight inches long, and are capable of
+sending a shot weighing three quarters of a ton to a distance of seven
+miles. The effect of a shell from one of these guns piercing the armour
+of a ship and bursting would be very disastrous, and there are few, if
+any, ships whose armour, when fairly hit at a moderate distance, could
+withstand such a blow.
+
+Guns, however, although terrible in effect, are now supplemented by
+other and more deadly means of offence. Foremost amongst these stands
+the Whitehead or Fish Torpedo. This infernal machine can be discharged
+from tubes in the side of a ship to a distance of a thousand yards under
+water at a speed of twenty-five miles per hour. Armed with its charge of
+gun-cotton it rushes forth on its mission; and, if successful in
+striking the ship against which it is aimed, explodes, and rends a large
+hole in her side, through which the water pours in huge quantities. In
+order to protect a man-of-war from this danger, she can be surrounded at
+short notice with thick wire-nettings, hanging from projecting
+side-spars, against which the torpedo explodes with harmless effect.
+These nettings are, however, principally intended for use when ships are
+at anchor in harbour at night; they could not well be employed in action
+with an enemy, as they offer such resistance to the water as to reduce
+the speed of the ship by four or five knots, and so encumber her as to
+render her liable to be rammed by a more active opponent.
+
+All large ironclads now have two or three torpedo boats. These craft are
+constructed of steel one-sixteenth of an inch thick, and steam at a
+speed of sixteen knots, some of the larger kind reaching twenty or
+twenty-one knots an hour. Carrying two Whiteheads, they are valuable
+auxiliaries to the parent ship; their rapid movements, together with
+their dangerous freight, distracting the attention of an enemy.
+
+[Illustration: The _Majestic_.]
+
+Machine-guns, however, form a very effective remedy for them; a single
+torpedo boat attacking an ironclad would, directly she got within range,
+be riddled with Gardner and Nordenfelt shot, and sunk in about fifteen
+seconds. It is only when three or four approach in various directions,
+or during night attacks, that they become really dangerous. The electric
+search-lights, with which most large men-of-war are now provided, will
+show a torpedo boat at the distance of a mile on the darkest night; but
+there is of course always a chance of their getting close enough to a
+ship to discharge a torpedo before they are discovered.
+
+The bow of many of our ironclads is constructed for the purpose of
+ramming (running down and sinking) an antagonist. To use a ram requires
+great speed and facilities for turning and manoeuvring quickly; for
+the latter purposes, short ships are better than long ones. It would
+be a comparatively easy thing for a ship steaming fourteen knots to
+ram another that could only steam ten; a small ship might also
+outmanoeuvre and ram a long one; but it would be extremely difficult,
+in fact almost impossible, for a ship to ram another vessel of equal
+speed and length. To secure facilities in turning and manoeuvring, all
+our modern ships are built as short as possible, and have two screws,
+each worked by entirely separate sets of engines, so that one can go
+ahead whilst the other goes astern. If one set of engines is disabled,
+the other can still work independently, and a fair speed be maintained.
+We always think that two ships at close quarters trying to ram one
+another, must be like a game at chess, requiring the closest observation
+of your opponent's movements and the nicest judgment for your own, a
+wrong move being fatal to either.
+
+It is the opinion of many naval men of authority that a modern naval
+battle would only occupy about half the time of a fight in the old
+Trafalgar days; that half the ships employed would be sunk, and that
+most of the remainder would be so battered as to be unfit for further
+service for months to come.
+
+In connection with the Navy Estimates for 1896-7 it was announced in
+the House of Commons that the following vessels would be constructed: 13
+first-class battleships, 10 first-class cruisers, 16 second-class
+cruisers, 7 third-class cruisers, and 48 torpedo-boat destroyers.
+
+
+SUBMARINE BOATS.
+
+In 1864, during the American civil war, a submarine boat succeeded in
+sinking the Federal frigate _Housatonic_. This boat, however, was hardly
+an unqualified success, as, running into the hole made by its torpedo,
+it went down with the ship; and three crews had previously been lost
+while carrying out its initial experiments. Since then, many methods of
+submersion have been tried; but it is only within recent years that
+naval powers have awakened to the fact that a submersible boat, though
+by no means so formidable for offensive purposes as its name at first
+leads one to believe, is a factor which might have to be taken into
+consideration in the next naval war.
+
+Modern types of these boats are the Holland, Nordenfelt, Tuck, and
+Goubet. The Holland boat comes to us from over the Atlantic, and is
+peculiar in its weapon of offence. It is fifty feet long, eight feet in
+diameter, and is driven by a petroleum engine carrying sufficient fuel
+for two days' run. The diving is effected by means of two horizontal
+rudders, one on each side of the stern. This only allows of submersion
+when the boat is in motion; and the boat cannot be horizontal while
+submerged. It carries ten-inch gelatine blasting shells, fired from a
+pneumatic gun twenty feet long, whose radius of action is two hundred
+yards under water and one thousand yards above. The use of gelatine is
+also objectionable, as the confined space and the vibration of the boat
+prevent such explosives being carried without some risk of premature
+explosion. It is for this reason that gun-cotton is adopted in torpedo
+work, as it will not explode on concussion, and is little affected by
+change of temperature.
+
+The principal features of the Nordenfelt boat are its method of
+submersion and its propulsion by steam. The boat is one hundred and
+twenty-five feet long, twelve feet beam, and displaces two hundred and
+fifty tons when entirely submerged, one hundred and sixty tons when
+running on the surface. Her propelling machinery consists of two double
+cylinder compound engines, with a horse-power of one thousand, and
+propelling the boat at fifteen knots on the surface. The submersion of
+the boat is effected by means of two horizontal propellers working in
+wells at each end. Two conning-towers project about two feet above the
+deck, of one-inch steel, surmounted by glass domes, protected with steel
+bars, for purposes of observation. The boat usually runs on the surface
+with these towers showing, unless the buoyancy, which is never less than
+half a ton, is overcome by the horizontal propellers, when the boat
+becomes partially or totally submerged according to their speed. To
+ascend to the surface it is only necessary to stop the horizontal
+propellers, which also stop automatically on reaching a set depth. In
+the forward tower are the firing keys, machinery and valves necessary
+for driving or steering the vessel, for controlling the horizontal
+propellers, and for discharging the Whitehead torpedoes. Four of these
+are carried, and they are discharged with powder from two tubes in the
+bows. In the conning-tower are also placed the instruments indicating
+the depth, level, and course. When the boat is awash, the funnels have
+to be unshipped and the boat closed up before submersion. The length of
+time, twenty-five minutes, required for this operation is an objection
+to this boat, though when submerged it does not get unpleasantly hot.
+The temperature after a three hours' submerged run was only ninety
+degrees Fahrenheit. The crew consists of a captain and eight men.
+
+The Tuck also comes from America. It is of iron, cigar-shaped, thirty
+feet long and six feet in diameter. It is submerged by means of a
+horizontal rudder in the stern and a horizontal propeller acting
+vertically amidships beneath the boat. It is driven by electricity,
+supplied from storage batteries packed closely in the bows. Compressed
+air is carried in reservoirs, but a supply is usually obtained when the
+boat is not far from the surface, by means of an iron pipe twenty feet
+long, which usually lies on deck, but which can be raised to an upright
+position by gearing from within. The top then rises above the surface of
+the water, and by opening a valve in the foot and attaching a pump,
+fresh air is drawn into the interior. The crew need not exceed three
+men.
+
+[Illustration: Section of the Goubet Submarine Boat.]
+
+The Goubet class are of iron, sixteen feet long, three feet wide, and
+about six feet deep. The motive power is a Siemens motor driven by
+storage batteries. Fifty of these boats were purchased by the Russian
+government. They have no rudder, but a universal joint in the screw
+shaft permits of the screw being moved through an arc of ninety degrees.
+The torpedo is carried outside the boat, secured by a catch worked from
+inside. On arriving under the enemy, the torpedo is released, and
+striking the ship's bottom, is held there by spikes. The boat then
+withdraws, unreeling a connecting wire; and when at a safe distance,
+fires. The absence of a rudder, however, causes erratic steering, and
+the spikes with which the torpedo is fitted might fail to stick in
+steel-bottomed ships.
+
+Submarine boats cannot be driven under water at a speed exceeding six
+knots. If driven beyond, they are inclined to dive, and in deep water,
+before the corrective forces against a dive have had time to act, might
+reach a depth where the pressure would drive in the sides or compress
+them to a sufficient extent to seriously reduce the displacement. In
+shallow water, the boat might be driven on to the bottom, and if it be
+clay, held there, an accident attended with fatal consequences in the
+case of one boat.
+
+It is also difficult to direct the course of a submarine boat; and it is
+doubtful whether the advantage of not being seen counteracts the
+disadvantage of not being able to see. According to Mr Nordenfelt in a
+lecture on Submarine Boats, 'The mirror of the surface throws a strong
+light into the boat; you cannot see forward at all, and you cannot see
+far astern; it is as black as ink outside; you can only see a sort of
+segment.' This means that you cannot safely advance at a great speed
+under water. It is impossible to think of a submarine boat as a boat
+that actually manoeuvres and does its work under water. The boat should
+run awash, and you can then see where you are. When we consider, then,
+that a boat totally submerged cannot be driven over six knots, and
+cannot be properly directed; when we consider the speeds of seventeen
+and eighteen knots attained by modern battleships, we arrive at the
+conclusion that boats totally submerged are useless against modern
+battleships in motion. Running awash, they could be tackled by torpedo
+catchers and torpedo boats.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+EVOLUTION OF THE CYCLE.
+
+    In praise of Cycling--Number of Cycles in Use--Medical Opinions--
+    Pioneers in the Invention--James Starley--Cycling Tours.
+
+
+Sir Walter Scott once told a friend that if he did not see the heather
+once a year he would die. He saw it much oftener than once a year. When
+the building and planting of Abbotsford had become a passion with him,
+and when the vacation came round in connection with his duties in the
+Court of Session, he would not stay ten minutes longer in Edinburgh than
+he could help. Sometimes his carriage would be waiting in Parliament
+Square to bear him off as swiftly as possible to Abbotsford. John Locke
+says there is a good vein of poetry buried in the breast of most
+business men; there is at least in the breast of most men, strong or
+latent, a longing, a passion for freedom, for change. When the buds
+swell and burst; when the May-blossom breaks forth on the hawthorn, and
+makes a spring snowstorm in the valley; when the cuckoo is heard, and
+the lark rains down his drops of melody above the springing clods; when
+the lambs gambol in the green fields, and the hives are murmurous with
+their drowsy insect hum--the awakening comes in man, too, for freedom,
+freshness, change. They are happy who can enjoy such, and be rested and
+refreshed; for millions are chained to the oar, and know not what they
+miss, and millions more have not had their eyes or their desires
+awakened to what they miss. Lowell expresses the feeling:
+
+  What man would live coffined with brick and stone,
+    Imprisoned from the healing touch of air,
+    And cramped with selfish landmarks everywhere,
+  When all before him stretches, furrowless and lone,
+  The unmapped prairie none can fence or own?
+  What man would read and read the self-same faces,
+    And like the marbles which the windmill grinds,
+    Rub smooth for ever with the same smooth minds,
+  This year retracing last year's, every year's, dull traces,
+  When there are woods and unpenfolded spaces?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  To change and change is life, to move and never rest:
+  Not what we are, but what we hope, is best.
+  The wild, free woods make no man halt or blind;
+    Cities rob men of eyes and hands and feet.
+
+We want, then, to recover our eyes, and hands, and feet, remembering the
+story of eyes and no eyes. For this end, few things are better than a
+day now and then in the open air, in order to bring a man to himself.
+The best stimulant in the world is mountain air, and the grandest
+restorative music the rhythmic beat of the waves along the shore.
+
+The cyclist covers a wonderful stretch of country, going and returning,
+and comes back refreshed too, though tired, thinking that nobody in the
+universe can have had a better or pleasanter holiday than he has
+enjoyed. He has whizzed along leafy lanes, with glimpses of running
+streams to right and left; he has heard the musical monotony of the hill
+burns as he rested on the bridge; he has awakened sleepy villages, and
+enjoyed his repasts at country inns. And so the cyclist has a ready
+power to give himself the requisite and healthful change of scene.
+
+
+CYCLING.
+
+The pastime of cycling, at first only patronised by athletic youth, has
+now spread to every class of the community. The vast improvement in
+machines, and the health and exhilaration to be gained by the exercise,
+have had much to do with its popularity alike with aristocracy and
+democracy. Like golf, it has come to stay, although many who take
+cycling up for amusement will drop it again as they would do anything
+else. But there will always remain a strong and increasing contingent,
+fully aware, by practical experience, of its health and pleasure giving
+powers, who will place it second to no existing recreation. And so the
+cyclist gets gleams and glances of beauty from many a nook and corner of
+the land, where railway, coach, or his unaided pedestrian powers would
+never carry him. It has widened a twenty-mile radius to a forty-mile
+radius, and increased man's locomotive powers threefold. Let no one
+imagine that there is not a considerable amount of exertion and fatigue,
+and sometimes hardship. But it is of a wholesome kind, when kept within
+limits, and physically, morally, and socially, the benefits that cycling
+confers on the men of the present day are almost unbounded.
+
+Truly, we have here a great leveller; as one says: 'It puts the poor man
+on a level with the rich, enabling him to "sing the song of the open
+road" as freely as the millionaire, and to widen his knowledge by
+visiting the regions near to or far from his home, observing how other
+men live. He could not afford a railway journey and sojourn in these
+places, and he could not walk through them without tiring sufficiently
+to destroy in a measure the pleasure which he sought. But he can ride
+through twenty, thirty, fifty, even seventy miles of country in a day,
+without serious fatigue, and with no expense save his board and
+lodging.' This is very well put. Another enthusiast has said: 'If you
+want to come as near flying as we are likely to get in this generation,
+learn to ride on a pneumatic bicycle.' 'Sum up,' says another, 'when
+summer is done, all the glorious days you have had, the splendid bits of
+scenery which have become a possession for ever, your adventures worth
+telling, and see how you have been gladdened and enriched.'
+
+An enthusiastic journalist who had been burning the candle at both ends
+betook himself to the wheel, and found it of so much service to body and
+mind that he straightway, in the columns of his newspaper, began to
+advise the whole world to learn the bicycle. He could hardly tell the
+difference it had made to his feelings and general health, and he knew
+of no exercise which brought so easily such a universal return in good
+health, good spirits, and amusement. Mr G. Lacy Hillier, of the
+Badminton volume on Cycling, confirms this. The cyclist seems to enter
+into the spirit of Emerson's saying as thoroughly as Thoreau might have
+done: 'Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires
+ridiculous.' Many overdo the exercise, then renounce it, or give it a
+bad name; others, by over-rapid riding in towns, make themselves public
+nuisances, and vastly increase the dangers of overcrowded streets. The
+sensible cyclist rides for health, increase of knowledge, and amusement.
+
+Though at one time Mr Ruskin was prepared to spend all his best bad
+language in abusing the wheel, the world has gone its own way, and the
+careering multitudes in Battersea Park and elsewhere, on country and
+suburban roads, in crowded towns, have been the means of creating new
+manufactures, which have vastly benefited our home industries. Mr H. J.
+Lawson, inventor of the rear-driving safety, lately estimated the annual
+output of cycles at over a million, and the money spent at over ten
+millions. But in the absence of statistics this is only guesswork. The
+periodical called _Invention_ has stated that in 1884 there were 8
+bicycle factories, which turned out 6000 machines. In 1895 there were
+about 400 factories, with an estimated output of 650,000 bicycles. The
+bicycle tax in France is said to yield not less than L80,000 a year. In
+the United States, where cycling has become a greater craze than with
+us, two hundred and fifty thousand cycles at least were purchased in
+1894; in 1895 more than four hundred thousand changed hands. When the
+proposal was made some time ago to impose a tax on cycles, it was
+calculated that there were at least eight hundred thousand riders in the
+United Kingdom. Now the number is estimated at over a million. The past
+few seasons have witnessed quite a 'boom' in cycling and a great
+increase in the number of riders. Ladies have taken more rapidly to the
+pastime in America and France than in England. The rubber and then the
+pneumatic or inflated tyre have wrought a marvellous revolution; the
+high 'ordinary,' the tricycle, and the heavy 'solid,' and even the
+'cushion,' have in most cases been relegated to the home of old iron.
+The Pneumatic Tyre Company, with a capital of four millions sterling,
+when in full swing, turns out twenty-five thousand tyres per week. The
+profits of this concern in 1896 were at the rate of L432,000 a year.
+Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, London, and other towns, have
+largely benefited by the cycle trade.
+
+Sir B. W. Richardson has often called attention to the benefit of
+cycling in the case of dwellers in towns. Dr Turner finds that nothing
+neutralises better the poison introduced into the blood through faulty
+digestion than gentle and continued exercise on the wheel. Mr A. J.
+Watson, the English amateur one-mile and five-mile champion in 1895,
+declared that he never suffered from any ill effects, save perhaps
+during the hard days in winter, when prevented from riding. Dr Andrew
+Wilson once quoted a budget of correspondence from ladies who had tried
+the wheel, all of which was in the same direction, provided that
+overstrain was avoided. Where the heart is weak, cycling should be left
+alone. The muscles of the legs are developed and the circumference of
+the chest increased in the case of healthy riders.
+
+Here are a few hints by a medical man: 'Never ride within half an hour
+of a meal, either before or after. Wheel the machine up any hill the
+mounting of which on the wheel causes any real effort. See that the
+clothing round the stomach, neck, and chest is loose. Have the
+handle-bar sufficiently raised to prevent stooping. Be as sparing as
+possible of taking fluids during a long ride. Unless the wind, road,
+&c., be favourable, never ride more than ten miles an hour, save for
+very short distances, and never smoke while riding.'
+
+The cycle as we know it did not burst upon the world in all its present
+completeness, but has been a gradual evolution, the work of many a busy
+hand and brain, guided by experience. As far back as 1767 we find that
+Richard Lovell Edgeworth had something of the nature of a velocipede;
+and about the same date, William Murdoch, inventor of gas for
+illuminating purposes, had a wooden horse of his own invention upon
+which he rode to school at Cumnock.
+
+The French appear to be entitled to whatever of credit attaches to the
+original invention of the hobby-horse, a miserable steed at best, which
+wore out the toes of a pair of boots at every journey. M. Blanchard, the
+celebrated aeronaut, and M. Masurier conjointly manufactured the first
+of these machines in 1779, which was then described as 'a wonder which
+drove all Paris mad.' The Dandy-horse of 1818, the two wheels on which
+the rider sat astride, tipping the ground with his feet in order to
+propel the machine, was laughed out of existence. In 1840, a blacksmith
+named Kirkpatrick Macmillan, of Courthill, parish of Keir,
+Dumfriesshire, made a cycle on which he rode to Glasgow, and caused a
+big sensation on the way. This worthy man died in 1878, aged 68. The
+notable fact regarding Macmillan's cycle is, that he had adapted cranks
+and levers to the old dandy or hobby-horse. Gavin Dalziel, of
+Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, had a bicycle of his own invention in daily use
+in 1846. The French are probably justified, moreover, in claiming as
+their own the development of the crude invention into the present
+velocipede, for, in 1862, a M. Riviere, a French subject residing in
+England, deposited in the British Patent Office a minute specification
+of a bicycle. His description was, however, unaccompanied by any drawing
+or sketch, and he seems to have taken no further steps in the matter
+than to register a theory which he never carried into practice.
+Subsequently, the bicycle was re-invented by the French and by the
+Americans almost simultaneously, and indeed, both nations claim priority
+in introducing it. It came into public notoriety at the French
+International Exhibition of 1867, from which time the rage for them
+gradually developed itself, until in 1869 Paris became enthusiastic over
+velocipedes. Extensive foundries were soon established in Paris for the
+sole purpose of supplying the ironwork, while some scores of large
+manufactories taxed their utmost resources to meet the daily increasing
+demand for these vehicles.
+
+There was a revival of cycling between 1867-69. An ingenious Frenchman,
+M. Michaux, had some years before fitted pedals and a transverse handle
+to the front wheel of what came to be irreverently known as the
+'bone-shaker.' This embryo bicycle had a considerable vogue, and was
+introduced to Mr Charles Spencer's gymnasium in London in 1868. Spencer
+was in Paris in 1868, in company with Mr R. Turner, representative of
+the Coventry Machinists' Company, and they were each admiring the
+graceful evolutions of Henri Tascard on his velocipede over the broad
+asphalt paths of the Luxemburg Gardens. 'Charlie, do you think you could
+do that?' said Turner. Spencer said he thought he would have a trial,
+and would take home a machine that very night. He accordingly brought
+over a machine to London, practised riding stealthily in some of the
+most out-of-the-way London streets, and soon gained sufficient
+confidence to appear in public. Mr John Mayall, jun., photographer,
+Regent Street, witnessed the arrival of one of the first bicycles at
+Spencer's gymnasium, in Old Street, St Luke's. 'It produced but little
+impression upon me,' he says, 'and certainly did not strike me as being
+a new means of locomotion. A slender young man, whom I soon came to know
+as Mr Turner of Paris, followed the packing-case and superintended its
+opening. The gymnasium was cleared, Mr Turner took off his coat, grasped
+the handles of the machine, and, with a short run, to my intense
+surprise, vaulted on to it, and putting his feet on the treadle made the
+circuit of the room. We were some half-a-dozen spectators, and I shall
+never forget our astonishment at the sight of Mr Turner whirling himself
+round the room--sitting on a bar above a pair of wheels in a line, that
+ought, as we inadvertently supposed, to fall down as soon as he jumped
+off the ground.'
+
+It is almost laughable, now, to read how Spencer at first always rode on
+the pavement, and how politely everybody cleared out of his way. Even
+Policeman X helped to make a passage for him. Some wiseacre, on being
+quizzed as to the uses of this strange new machine, would reply, 'Why,
+it is a machine for measuring roads, of course;' and a street arab would
+shout, 'Oh, crikey, Bill, 'ere's a lark. A swell a ridin' on two
+wheels. Mind how you fall, sir,' &c. Spencer's speed at first was but
+five miles an hour. Soon there were many inquiries for this wonderful
+new aid to locomotion. Spencer and Turner entered heartily into the
+business. An order for 500 machines was given to the Coventry
+Machinists' Company in the end of 1868. This was the firm with which Mr
+James Starley, inventor of the 'Coventry Tricycle,' was connected, and
+this order helped the start of what has grown to be an enormous and
+beneficial industry to the town of Coventry.
+
+The account of feats of long-distance riding, of forty and fifty miles a
+day, got abroad--the feat by Turner, Spencer, and Mayall particularly,
+in riding to Brighton and back in a day, in February 1869, further
+popularised cycling. Charles Dickens and James Payn were amongst those
+who were bitten by the velocipede 'mania.'
+
+Yet the bone-shaker craze might have died a natural death but for the
+introduction of the rubber tyre and other improvements. Mr James
+Starley, of Coventry, through whose inventive genius the tricycle was
+evolved from the bicycle, was also an improver and pioneer. Starley says
+of his improvements: 'I regarded the rider as the motive force; and
+believing it absolutely necessary that he should be so placed that he
+could exert the greatest amount of power on his pedals, with the least
+amount of fatigue to himself--believing, also, that the machine of the
+future must be so made that such essentials as the crank-shaft, pedals,
+seat, and handles could easily be made adjustable--I decided to change
+my shape, make my wheels of a good rolling size, place my crank-shaft as
+near the ground as safety would permit, connect my back wheel with my
+crank by means of a chain, so that the gear might be adjusted and varied
+at pleasure, and a short, strong man could ride with a fifty, a sixty, a
+seventy, or even a higher gear, while a tall, weak man could ride with a
+lower gear than the short, strong one; to give my saddle a vertical
+adjustment so that it could be raised or lowered at will; so to place my
+handles that they could be set forward or backward, raised or lowered,
+as might be desired; and finally, to make it impossible for the
+pedalling to interfere with the steering.' In the 'Rover' bicycle he
+gave an impetus to the early history of the machine, which has been
+crowned in the pneumatic tyre, the invention of John Boyd Dunlop, born
+at Dreghorn, Ayrshire, in 1840. Mr Dunlop was engaged as a veterinary
+surgeon near Belfast, where he built himself an air-wheel from ordinary
+thin rubber sheets, with rubber valve and plug. Mr C. K. Welch followed
+with the detachable tyre. The big, ungainly looking wheels were at first
+laughed at, but when pneumatic tyred machines won race after race, they
+became the rage. And when the company formed to make the Dunlop tyre
+sold their interest in the concern, in 1896 it was worth about
+L3,000,000. The capital originally subscribed was L260,000, and L658,000
+had been paid in dividends.
+
+A cycling tour is health-giving and enjoyable when gone about rationally
+and prudently. It is pleasant to plan, and no less so to carry out, as
+it is always the unexpected which happens. There are halts by the
+wayside, conversations with rustics, fine views; and every part of the
+brain and blood is oxygenated, giving that kind of wholesome
+intoxication which Thoreau said he gained by living in the open air.
+One's own country is explored as it has never been explored before. Some
+wheelmen have been credited with seven and eight thousand miles in a
+single season. Others, more ambitious, have made a track round the
+globe. Mr Thomas Stevens, starting from San Francisco in April 1884,
+occupied three years in going round the world. Mr T. Allen and Mr L.
+Sachtleben, two American students, as a practical finish to a
+theoretical education, occupied three years in riding round the
+world--15,404 miles on the wheel. They climbed Mount Ararat by the way,
+and interviewed Li Hung Chang, the Chinese viceroy. The wheel ridden by
+these 'foreign devils' was described by one Chinaman as 'a little mule
+that you drive by the ears, and kick in the sides to make him go.'
+
+Mr Frank G. Lenz, who started from America in June 1892 to ride round
+the world, was unfortunately killed by six Kurds, sixty-five miles from
+Erzeroum, between the villages of Kurtali and Dahar, on May 10, 1894.
+There have been many interesting shorter rides. Mr Walter Goddard of
+Leeds, and Mr James Edmund of Brixton, started from London and rode
+entirely round Europe on wheels; Mr Hugh Callan rode from Glasgow to the
+river Jordan; Mr R. L. Jefferson, in 1894, rode from London to
+Constantinople, between March 10 and May 19. In 1895 the same gentleman
+rode from London to Moscow, 4281 miles, and had nothing good to say of
+Russian inns or roads. A lady of sixty has done seventy miles in one
+day; while an English lady tourist did twelve hundred miles in her
+various ups and downs between London and Glasgow during one holiday.
+
+The lighter the machine, the more expensive it is. Racing-machines are
+built as light as twenty pounds in weight. Some of the swiftest
+road-riders patronise machines of twenty-six or twenty-seven pounds; but
+for all-round work, one of thirty-three pounds, without lamp or bell, is
+a good average machine. As to speed, we have had 460 miles in the
+twenty-four hours on the racing-track, and 377 miles on the road. Huret,
+a French rider, has done 515 miles between one midnight and another; the
+Swiss cyclist Lesna has done 28 miles an hour; while Mr Mills and Mr T.
+A. Edge, in a ride from Land's End to John o' Groat's on a tandem, beat
+all previous records, doing the journey in three days four hours and
+forty-six minutes.
+
+A very sensible American rider, when on tour, starts shortly after
+breakfast, and with a brief rest for lunch, has his day's work of about
+fifty miles over by four P.M. Then he changes underclothing--a most
+important and never-to-be-forgotten matter--has dinner, and an enjoyable
+ramble over the town or village where he stays over-night. But he is a
+luxurious dog, and not many will carry such an abundant kit in the
+triangular bag below the handle bar. Imagine three light outing shirts,
+three suits, gauze underclothing, a dark flannel bicycle suit, laced
+tanned gaiters, light-weight rubber coat, comb; clothes, hair, and tooth
+brushes; soap and towel, writing-pad and pencil, map and matches, and
+tool bag! Many a cyclist carries a hand camera, and brings home a
+permanent record of his journeys.
+
+It has been well said that many a boy will start in life with a more
+vigorous constitution because of the bicycle, and many a man who is
+growing old too fast by neglect of active exercise will find himself
+rejuvenated by the same agency. Only let the getting over a certain
+distance within a certain time not be the main object. And winter
+riding, when the roads permit, need not be neglected, for nothing is
+more invigorating than a winter ride. The doctors tell us that as long
+as one can ride with the mouth shut, the heart is all right. A fillip
+should be given to the appetite; whenever this is destroyed, and
+sleeplessness ensues, cycling is being overdone.
+
+Cycling, of course, as we have already said, is not all pleasure or
+romance. There is a considerable amount of hard work, with head-winds,
+rain, mud, hills, and misadventures through punctures of the tyre. This
+last may happen at the most inopportune time; but the cyclist is
+generally a philosopher, and sets about his repairs with a cool and easy
+mind.
+
+A word in closing about accidents, which are often due to carelessness
+and recklessness. A cyclist has no right to ride at ten or fourteen
+miles an hour in a crowded thoroughfare. He takes his life--and other
+people's!--in his hands if he does so. No less is caution needed on
+hills, the twists and turns in which are unseen or unfamiliar, and where
+the bottom of the incline cannot be seen. As the saying goes, 'Better be
+a coward for half an hour than a corpse for the rest of your lifetime.'
+But experience is the best guide, and no hard-and-fast rules can be laid
+down for exceptional circumstances.
+
+[Illustration: The Dandy-horse.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+STEAMERS AND SAILING-SHIPS.
+
+    Early Shipping--Mediterranean Trade--Rise of the P. and O. and
+    other Lines--Transatlantic Lines--India and the East--Early
+    Steamships--First Steamer to cross the Atlantic--Rise of Atlantic
+    Shipping Lines--The _Great Eastern_ and the New Cunarders
+    _Campania_ and _Lucania_ compared--Sailing-ships.
+
+
+THE CARRYING-TRADE OF THE WORLD.
+
+Of all the industries of the world, that which is concerned with the
+interchange of the products of nations is suffused with the most
+interest for the largest number of people. Not only is the number of
+those who go down into the sea in ships, and who do business on the
+great waters, legion, but three-fourths of the population of the globe
+are more or less dependent on their enterprise. The ocean-carrying trade
+we are accustomed to date from the time of the Phoenicians; and
+certainly the Phoenicians were daring mariners, if not exactly
+scientific navigators, and their ships were pretty well acquainted
+with the waters of Europe and the coasts of Africa. But the
+Phoenicians were rather merchant-adventurers on their own account than
+ocean-carriers, as, for instance, the Arabians were on the other side of
+Africa, acting as the intermediaries of the trade between Egypt and East
+Africa and India. In the early days, too, there is reason to believe
+that the Chinese were extensive ocean-carriers, sending their junks both
+to the Arabian Gulf and to the ports of Hindustan, long before Alexander
+the Great invaded India. But there is nothing more remarkable in the
+history of maritime commerce than the manner in which it has changed
+hands.
+
+Even down to the beginning of the present century, almost the whole of
+the carrying-trade of the Baltic and the Mediterranean was in the hands
+of the Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, while our own harbours were
+crowded with foreign ships. This was one of the effects of our peculiar
+Navigation Laws, under which foreigners were so protected that there was
+hardly a trade open to British vessels. It is, indeed, just ninety years
+since British ship-owners made a formal and earnest appeal to the
+government to remove the existing shackles on the foreign trade of the
+country, and to promote the development of commerce with the American
+and West Indian colonies. One argument of the time was the necessity for
+recovering and developing the Mediterranean trade, as affording one of
+the best avenues for the employment of shipping and the promotion of
+international commerce. It was a trade of which England had a very
+considerable share in the time of Henry VII., who may very fairly be
+regarded as the founder of British merchant shipping. He not only built
+ships for himself for trading purposes, but encouraged others to do so,
+and even lent them money for the purpose. And it was to the
+Mediterranean that he chiefly directed his attention, in eager
+competition with the argosies of Venice and Genoa. There resulted a
+perfect fleet of what were called 'tall ships' engaged in carrying
+woollen fabrics and other British products to Italy, Sicily, Syria, and
+the Levant, and in bringing home cargoes of silk, cotton, wool, carpets,
+oil, spices, and wine.
+
+Steam has worked a change in favour of this country nowhere more
+remarkable than in the Mediterranean trade. When the trade began to
+revive for sailing-vessels, by a removal of some of the irksome
+restrictions, Lisbon was the most important port on the Iberian
+Peninsula for British shipping. There was a weekly mail service by
+sailing-packets between Falmouth and Lisbon, until the Admiralty put on
+a steamer. Some time in the 'thirties,' two young Scotchmen named Brodie
+Wilcox and Arthur Anderson had a small fleet of sailing-vessels engaged
+in the Peninsular trade, and in the year 1834 they chartered the steamer
+_Royal Tar_ from the Dublin and London Steam-packet Company. This was
+the beginning of the great Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
+Company, destined to revolutionise the carrying-trade both of the
+Mediterranean and the East. When the Spanish government negotiated for a
+line of steamers to be established between England and Spain, Wilcox and
+Anderson took up the project, organised a small company, and acquired
+some steamers, which at first did not pay. They persevered, however,
+until shippers saw the superiority of the new vessels to the old
+sailers, and at last the Peninsular Company obtained the first
+mail-contract ever entered into by the English government. This was in
+1837; the Cunard and Royal Mail (West Indian) lines were not established
+until 1840. In a couple of years the Peninsular Company extended their
+line through the Straits to Malta and Alexandria, and again to Corfu and
+the Levant. In 1840 they applied for and obtained a charter as the
+Peninsular and Oriental Steam-navigation Company, with the object of
+establishing a line of steamers on the other side of the Isthmus of
+Suez, from which have developed the great ramifications to India, China,
+Japan, the Straits Settlements, and Australia. It was, indeed, through
+the Mediterranean that we obtained our first hold on the Eastern
+carrying-trade.
+
+In considering the development of maritime commerce, it is always to be
+remembered that the design of Columbus and the early navigators in
+sailing westwards was not to find America, but to find a new way to
+India and Far Cathay. Mighty as America has become in the world's
+economy, its first occupation was only an incident in the struggle for
+the trade of the Far East. But with the occupation of America came two
+new developments in this carrying-trade--namely, one across the
+Atlantic, and one upon and across the Pacific. To the eventful year in
+which so many great enterprises were founded--namely, 1840--we trace the
+beginning of steam-carrying on the Pacific, for in that year William
+Wheelwright took or sent the first steamer round Cape Horn, as the
+pioneer of the great Pacific Steam-navigation Company. Within about a
+dozen years thereafter, the Americans had some fifty steamers constantly
+engaged on the Pacific coast of the two Continents, besides those of the
+English company. Out of one of those Pacific lines grew Commodore
+Vanderbilt's Nicaragua Transit Company, a double service of two lines of
+steamers, one on each side of the Continent, with an overland connection
+through Nicaragua. Out of another grew the New York and San Francisco
+line, connecting overland across the Isthmus of Panama--where M. de
+Lesseps did _not_ succeed in cutting a Canal. And out of yet another of
+those Pacific enterprises, all stimulated by Wheelwright's success, grew
+in the course of years a line between San Francisco and Hawaii, and
+another between San Francisco and Australia. Some forty years ago the
+boats of this last-named line used to run down to Panama to pick up
+passengers and traffic from Europe, and it is interesting to recall that
+at that period the design was greatly favoured of a regular steam
+service between England and Australia _via_ Panama. A company was
+projected for the purpose; but it came to nothing, for various reasons
+not necessary to enter upon here. But as long ago as the early fifties,
+when the Panama Railway was in course of construction, there were eight
+separate lines of steamers on the Atlantic meeting at Aspinwall, and
+five on the Pacific meeting at Panama. Later on, when the Americans had
+completed their iron-roads from ocean to ocean across their own
+dominions, they started lines of steamers from San Francisco to China
+and Japan. And later still, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was
+completed across Canada, a British line of ships was started across the
+Pacific to Far Cathay, and afterwards to Australia and New Zealand. So
+that the dream of the old navigators has, after all, been practically
+realised.
+
+The repeal of the corn laws gave an immense impetus to British shipping,
+by opening up new lines of traffic in grain with the ports of the
+Baltic, the Black Sea, and Egypt; and the extension of steamer
+communication created another new carrying-business in the transport of
+coals abroad to innumerable coaling stations. Thus demand goes on
+creating supply, and supply in turn creating new demand.
+
+From the old fruit and grain sailers of the Mediterranean trade have
+developed such extensive concerns as the Cunard line (one of whose
+beginnings was a service of steamers between Liverpool and Havre), which
+now covers the whole Mediterranean, and extends across the Atlantic to
+New York and Boston; the Anchor line, which began with a couple of boats
+running between the Clyde and the Peninsula, and now covers all the
+Mediterranean and Adriatic, and extends from India to America; the Bibby
+line, which began with a steamer between Liverpool and Marseilles, and
+now covers every part of the Mediterranean (Leyland line), and spreads
+out to Burma and the Straits. These are but a few of many examples of
+how the great carrying-lines of the world, east and west, have
+developed from modest enterprises in mid-Europe. And even now the goods
+traffic between the Mediterranean and the United Kingdom, North Europe
+and America, is less in the hands of these great lines than in that of
+the vast fleets of ocean tramps, both sail and steam.
+
+One of the most wonderful developments in the carrying-trade of the
+world is the concern known as the Messageries Maritimes of France--now
+probably the largest steamer-owning copartnery in the world. Prior to
+the Crimean War, there was an enterprise called the Messageries
+Imperiales, which was engaged in the land-carriage of mails through
+France. In 1851 this company entered into a contract with the French
+government for the conveyance of mails to Italy, Egypt, Greece, and the
+Levant; and as years went on, the mail subsidies became so heavy that
+the enterprise was practically a national one. During the war, the
+Messageries Company's vessels were in such demand as transports, &c.,
+that the company had to rapidly create a new fleet for mail purposes.
+With peace came the difficulty of employing the enormously augmented
+fleet. New lines of mail and cargo boats were therefore successively
+established between France and the Danube and Black Sea; Bordeaux and
+Brazil and the River Plate; Marseilles and India and China, &c. In fact,
+the Messageries Company's ramifications now extend from France to Great
+Britain, South America, the whole of the Mediterranean, the Levant, the
+Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, and the
+South Pacific.
+
+Few people, perhaps, have any conception of the numbers of regular and
+highly organised lines of steamers now connecting Europe and America.
+Besides the Messageries, the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's and the Italian
+mail lines run between the Mediterranean and the River Plate. Argentina
+and Brazil are connected with different parts of Europe by about a
+dozen lines. Between the United States and Europe there are now about
+thirty distinct regular lines of steamers carrying goods and passengers;
+and about a dozen more carrying goods only. Four of these lines are
+direct with Germany, two with France, two with Holland, two with
+Belgium, one with Denmark, and two with Italy, one of which is under the
+British flag. All the rest of the passenger lines and most of the cargo
+lines run between the United Kingdom and the United States. As for the
+'tramps' steaming and sailing between North America and Europe, they are
+of all nations; but again the majority fly the British flag, though once
+upon a time the American-built clippers, of graceful lines and
+'sky-scraping' masts, used to monopolise the American carrying-trade
+under the stars and stripes. Once upon a time, too, these beautiful
+American clippers had the bulk of the China tea-trade, and of the
+Anglo-Australian general trade. But they were run off the face of the
+waters by the Navigation Laws of America and the shipping enterprise of
+Britain. The great and growing trade between the United States and
+India, too, is now nearly all carried in British vessels; and a large
+part of the regular steam service between New York and the West Indies
+is under the British flag. That a change will take place when America
+repeals the laws which forbid Americans to own vessels built abroad or
+manned by foreigners is pretty certain.
+
+With regard to India, the growth in the carrying-trade has been enormous
+since Vasco da Gama, four hundred years ago, found his way round the
+Cape of Good Hope to Calicut. For an entire century, down to 1600, the
+Portuguese monopolised the trade of the East, and as many as two and
+three hundred of their ships would often be gathered together in the
+port of Goa, taking in cargo for different Eastern and European ports.
+To-day, Goa is a deserted port, and the Portuguese flag is rarely
+seen--a ship or two per annum now being sufficient for all the trade
+between Portugal and India. In the century of Portuguese prosperity the
+English flag was hardly known in Eastern waters. It was the Dutch who
+drove out the Portuguese; and the reason why the Dutch were tempted out
+to India was because the rich cargoes brought home by the Portuguese
+could not be disposed of in Portugal, and had to be taken to Amsterdam,
+or Rotterdam, or Antwerp, where the opulent Dutch merchants purchased
+them for redistribution throughout Europe. This is how the Dutch came
+into direct relations with the Indian trade before the English, and why
+Barentz and others tried to find a near way to India for the Dutch
+vessels by way of the north of Europe and Asia. Failing in the north,
+the Dutch followed the Portuguese round the Cape, and reaching Sumatra,
+founded the wide domain of Netherlands-India. This occupation was
+effected before 1600; and between that year and 1670 they expelled the
+Portuguese from every part of the Eastern Archipelago, from Malacca,
+from Ceylon, from the Malabar Coast, and from Macassar.
+
+The Dutch in turn enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade for about a
+hundred years. Then with the rise of Clive came the downfall of the
+Dutch, and by 1811 they were stripped of every possession they had in
+the East. Later, we gave them back Java and Sumatra, with which Holland
+now does a large trade, reserved exclusively to Dutch vessels. But in
+India proper the Dutch have not a single possession, and it is doubtful
+if in all the Indian Peninsula there are now a hundred Dutchmen
+resident.
+
+Two immense streams of trade are constantly setting to and from India
+and Europe through the Suez Canal and round the Cape. Not only is the
+bulk of that trade conducted by the well-known Peninsular and Oriental,
+British India, City, Clan, Anchor, and other lines (though the
+Messageries Maritimes, North German Lloyd's, and other foreign lines
+have no mean share), but the whole coast-line of India is served by the
+steamers of the British-India and Asiatic lines; and British vessels
+conduct the most of the carrying-trade between India and Australia,
+China, Japan, the Straits, Mauritius, &c.
+
+A new carrying-trade was created when the Australasian colonies were
+founded one after the other--in the taking out of home manufactures,
+implements, machinery, &c., and bringing back wool and tallow; and then
+gold, wheat, fruit, and frozen meat. This colonial trade is now divided
+between sailers and steamers, and in the steamer traffic some of the
+foreign lines are eagerly bidding for a share. Similarly, a new
+carrying-trade has been of quite recent years developed by the opening
+up of South Africa, and this is practically all in British hands.
+
+An important item of international carriage of recent development is the
+mineral oil of America and Russia. The carriage of these oils is a trade
+of itself. Another special branch of the world's carrying-trade is
+connected with the sea-fisheries. All the fishing-grounds of the
+Atlantic and North Sea may be said to be now connected with the
+consuming markets by services of steamers. The cod-fishers off the Banks
+of Newfoundland transfer their dried and salted fish to vessels which
+speed them to the good Catholics of Spain and France and Italy, just as
+the steam auxiliaries bring to London the harvests gathered by the boats
+on the Dogger Bank.
+
+Of late years not unsuccessful efforts have been made, especially by
+Captain Wiggins, to establish direct communication between Great Britain
+and the arctic coasts of Russia once every summer. And hopes are
+entertained that on the completion of the railway from Winnipeg to Fort
+Churchill, the greatly shorter sea-route _via_ Hudson Strait and Hudson
+Bay may greatly facilitate communication with Manitoba and the Canadian
+North-west.
+
+It is computed that on the great ocean highways there are not fewer than
+ten thousand large and highly-powered steamers constantly employed. If
+it be wondered how sailing-vessels can maintain a place at all in the
+race of competition in the world's carrying-trade, a word of explanation
+may be offered. Do not suppose that only rough and low-valued cargo is
+left for the sailers. They still have the bulk of the cotton and wheat
+and other valuable products, not only because they can carry more
+cheaply, but because transport by sailing-vessels gives the merchant a
+wider choice of market. Cargoes of staple products can always be sold
+'to arrive' at some given port, and it is cheaper to put them afloat
+than to warehouse them ashore and wait for an order.
+
+What, then, are the proportions borne by the several maritime nations in
+this great international carrying-trade? The question is not one which
+can be answered with absolute precision, but the tables of the Marine
+Department of the Board of Trade enable one to find an approximate
+answer. In 1893 the tonnage of steam and sailing vessels of all
+nationalities in the foreign trade entering and clearing at ports in the
+United Kingdom was 74,632,847, of which 54,148,664 tons were British,
+and 20,484,183 tons were foreign. In the foreign total, the largest
+proportions were Norwegian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and French.
+The Teutonic races have thus the most of the ocean-carrying; the United
+States proportion of the above total was small.
+
+So far the United Kingdom. Now let us see what part British shipping
+plays in the foreign trade of other countries. We find that the total
+tonnage of the British Empire was 10,365,567. The other principal
+maritime countries owned 12,000,000 tons. Therefore, roughly speaking,
+the British Empire owns about five-elevenths of the entire shipping of
+the world. Even so recently as thirty years ago, about two-thirds of the
+ocean-carrying trade was performed by sailing-vessels; to-day, about
+four-fifths of it is performed by steamers.
+
+
+THE FIRST STEAMER TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC.
+
+The earliest steamers the world ever saw, not reckoning the experimental
+craft constructed by such men as Fulton, Bell, Symington, and Watt, were
+those employed in the transatlantic trade. As far back as the year 1819,
+the Yankee paddle-steamer _Savannah_, of three hundred tons burden,
+crossed from the port of that name, in Georgia, to Liverpool. She
+occupied twenty-five days upon the passage; but, as she was fully
+rigged, and under all sail during at least two-thirds of the voyage, the
+merit of her performance, as an illustration of the superiority of the
+engine over canvas, is somewhat doubtful. Yet she was beyond dispute the
+first steamer to accomplish a long sea-voyage, and to the Americans
+belong the credit of her exploit. Indeed, from the time of their last
+war with us, down to within a quarter of a century ago, our Yankee
+neighbours generally seemed to be a little ahead of this country in
+maritime matters. They taught us a lesson in shipbuilding by their
+famous Baltimore clippers, and they were the first to demonstrate in a
+practical manner, and to the complete capsizal of the learned Dr
+Lardner's theories, the possibility of employing steam for the purposes
+of ocean navigation.
+
+Although in 1838 the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ successfully made
+the journey from England to America, yet five years before that date,
+Canadian enterprise accomplished the feat of bridging the Atlantic
+Ocean with a little vessel propelled wholly by steam. This was the
+_Royal William_, whose beautiful model was exhibited at the British
+Naval Exhibition in London, where she attracted the attention and
+curiosity of the first seamen in the empire. The _Royal William_--named
+in honour of the reigning sovereign--was built in the city of Quebec by
+a Scotchman, James Goudie, who had served his time and learned his art
+at Greenock. The keel was laid in the autumn of 1830; and her builder,
+then in his twenty-second year, writes: 'As I had the drawings and the
+form of the ship, at the time a novelty in construction, it devolved
+upon me to lay off and expand the draft to its full dimensions on the
+floor of the loft, where I made several alterations in the lines as
+improvements. The steamship being duly commenced, the work progressed
+rapidly; and in May following was duly launched, and before a large
+concourse of people was christened the _Royal William_. She was then
+taken to Montreal to have her engines, where I continued to superintend
+the finishing of the cabins and deck-work. When completed, she had her
+trial trip, which proved quite satisfactory. Being late in the season
+before being completed, she only made a few trips to Halifax.'
+
+The launching of this steamer was a great event in Quebec. The
+Governor-general, Lord Aylmer, and his wife were present, the latter
+giving the vessel her name. Military bands supplied the music, and the
+shipping in the harbour was gay with bunting. The city itself wore a
+holiday look. The _Royal William_, propelled by steam alone, traded
+between Quebec and Halifax. While at the last-named place, she attracted
+the notice of Mr Samuel Cunard, afterwards Sir Samuel, the founder of
+the great trans-continental line which bears his name. It is said that
+the _Royal William_ convinced him that steam was the coming force for
+ocean navigation. He asked many questions about her, took down the
+answers in his note-book, and subsequently became a large stockholder in
+the craft.
+
+The cholera of 1832 paralysed business in Canada, and trade was at a
+standstill for a time. Like other enterprises at this date, the _Royal
+William_ experienced reverses, and she was doomed to be sold at
+sheriff's sale. Some Quebec gentlemen bought her in, and resolved to
+send her to England to be sold. In 1833 the eventful voyage to Britain
+was made successfully, and without mishap of any kind. The _Royal
+William's_ proportions were as follows: Builder's measurement, 1370
+tons; steamboat measurement, as per Act of Parliament, 830 tons; length
+of keel, 146 feet; length of deck from head to taffrail, 176 feet;
+breadth of beam inside the paddle-boxes, 29 feet 4 inches; outside, 43
+feet 10 inches; depth of hold, 17 feet 9 inches. On the 4th of August
+1833, commanded by Captain John M'Dougall, she left Quebec, via Pictou,
+Nova Scotia, for London, under steam, at five o'clock in the morning.
+She made the passage in twenty-five days. Her supply of coal was 254
+chaldrons, or over 330 tons. Her captain wrote: 'She is justly entitled
+to be considered the first steamer that crossed the Atlantic by steam,
+having steamed the whole way across.'
+
+About the end of September 1833, the _Royal William_ was disposed of for
+ten thousand pounds sterling, and chartered to the Portuguese government
+to take out troops for Dom Pedro's service. Portugal was asked to
+purchase her for the navy; but the admiral of the fleet, not thinking
+well of the scheme, declined to entertain the proposition. Captain
+M'Dougall was master of the steamer all this time. He returned with her
+to London with invalids and disbanded Portuguese soldiers, and laid her
+up off Deptford Victualling Office. In July, orders came to fit out the
+_Royal William_ to run between Oporto and Lisbon. One trip was made
+between these ports, and also a trip to Cadiz for specie for the
+Portuguese government.
+
+On his return to Lisbon, Captain M'Dougall was ordered to sell the
+steamer to the Spanish government, through Don Evanston Castor da Perez,
+then the Spanish ambassador to the court of Lisbon. The transaction was
+completed on the 10th of September 1834, when the _Royal William_ became
+the _Ysabel Segunda_, and the first war-steamer the Spaniards ever
+possessed. She was ordered to the north coast of Spain against Don
+Carlos. Captain M'Dougall accepted the rank and pay of a Commander, and,
+by special proviso, was guaranteed six hundred pounds per annum, and the
+contract to supply the squadron with provisions from Lisbon. The _Ysabel
+Segunda_ proceeded to the north coast; and about the latter part of 1834
+she returned to Gravesend, to be delivered up to the British government,
+to be converted into a war-steamer at the Imperial Dockyard. The crew
+and officers were transferred to the _Royal Tar_, chartered and armed as
+a war-steamer, with six long thirty-two pounders, and named the _Reyna
+Governadoza_, the name intended for the _City of Edinburgh_ steamer,
+which was chartered to form part of the squadron. When completed, she
+relieved the _Royal Tar_ and took her name.
+
+In his interesting letter, from which these facts are drawn, to Robert
+Christie, the Canadian historian, Captain M'Dougall thus completes the
+story of the pioneer Atlantic steamer: 'The _Ysabel Segunda_, when
+completed at Sheerness Dockyard, took out General Alava, the Spanish
+ambassador, and General Evans and most of his staff officers, to Saint
+Andero, and afterwards to St Sebastian, having hoisted the Commodore's
+broad pennant again at Saint Andero; and was afterwards employed in
+cruising between that port and Fuente Arabia, and acting in concert with
+the Legion against Don Carlos until the time of their service expired
+in 1837. She was then sent to Portsmouth with a part of those discharged
+from the service, and from thence she was taken to London, and detained
+in the City Canal by Commodore Henry until the claims of the officers
+and crew on the Spanish government were settled, which was ultimately
+accomplished by bills, and the officers and crew discharged from the
+Spanish service about the latter end of 1837, and _Ysabel Segunda_
+delivered up to the Spanish ambassador, and after having her engines
+repaired, returned to Spain, and was soon afterwards sent to Bordeaux,
+in France, to have the hull repaired. But on being surveyed, it was
+found that the timbers were so much decayed that it was decided to build
+a new vessel to receive the engines, which was built there, and called
+by the same name, and now [1853] forms one of the royal steam-navy of
+Spain, while her predecessor was converted into a hulk at Bordeaux.'
+
+This, in brief, is the history of the steamer which played so important
+a role in the maritime annals of Canada, England, and Spain. Her model
+is safely stored in the rooms of the Literary and Historical Society of
+Quebec, where it is an object of profound veneration. At the request of
+the government, a copy of the model was made, and formed part of the
+Canadian exhibit to the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893.
+
+It was not, however, until five years later that the successful passages
+of two memorable vessels from England to America fairly established the
+era of what has been called the Atlantic steam-ferry. These ships were
+respectively the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_. The former was a
+craft of about 700 tons burden, with engines of three hundred and twenty
+horse-power: she sailed from Cork on the 4th of April 1838, under the
+command of Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., bound for New York. The latter
+vessel was a steamer of 1340 tons, builders' measurement, with engines
+of four hundred and forty horse-power: she was commanded by Captain
+Hoskins, R.N., and sailed from Bristol on the 8th of April in the same
+year, bound likewise for New York. The _Sirius_, it was calculated, had
+a start of her competitor by about seven hundred nautical miles; but it
+was known that her utmost capabilities of speed scarcely exceeded eight
+knots an hour; whilst the _Great Western_, on her trial trip from
+Blackwall to Gravesend, ran eleven knots an hour without difficulty.
+
+The issue of the race was therefore awaited with the utmost curiosity on
+both sides of the Atlantic. Contemporary records usually afford good
+evidence of the significance of past events, and the interest in this
+novel ocean match was prodigious, to judge from the accounts with which
+the Liverpool and New York papers of the day teemed. The following is in
+brief the narrative of the voyage of these two famous ships across the
+Western Ocean. The _Sirius_, after leaving Cork on the 4th of April,
+encountered very heavy weather, which greatly retarded her progress. She
+arrived, however, off Sandy Hook on the evening of Sunday, the 22d of
+April; but going aground, she did not get into the North River until the
+following morning. When it was known that she had arrived, New York grew
+instantly agitated with excitement.
+
+'The news,' ran the account published by the _Journal of Commerce_ in
+the United States, 'spread like wildfire through the city, and the river
+became literally dotted all over with boats conveying the curious
+to and from the stranger. There seemed to be a universal voice in
+congratulation, and every visage was illuminated with delight. A tacit
+conviction seemed to pervade every bosom that a most doubtful problem
+had been satisfactorily solved; visions of future advantage to science,
+to commerce, to moral philosophy, began to float before the "mind's
+eye;" curiosity to travel through the old country, and to inspect
+ancient institutions, began to stimulate the inquiring.
+
+'Whilst all this was going on, suddenly there was seen over Governor's
+Island a dense black cloud of smoke spreading itself upward, and
+betokening another arrival. On it came with great rapidity, and about
+three o'clock in the afternoon its cause was made fully manifest to the
+accumulated multitudes at the Battery. It was the steamship _Great
+Western_, of about 1600 tons burden (_sic_) [the difference probably
+lies between the net and the gross tonnage], under the command of
+Lieutenant Hoskins, R.N. She had left Bristol on the 8th inst., and on
+the 23d was making her triumphant entry into the port of New York. This
+immense moving mass was propelled at a rapid rate through the waters of
+the Bay; she passed swiftly and gracefully round the _Sirius_,
+exchanging salutes with her, and then proceeded to her destined
+anchorage in the East River. If the public mind was stimulated by the
+arrival of the _Sirius_, it became almost intoxicated with delight upon
+view of the superb _Great Western_. The latter vessel was only fourteen
+clear days out; and neither vessel had sustained a damage worth
+mentioning, notwithstanding that both had to encounter very heavy
+weather. The _Sirius_ was spoken with on the 14th of April in latitude
+45 deg. north, longitude 37 deg. west. The _Great Western_ was spoken on
+the 15th of April in latitude 46 deg. 26' north, longitude 37 deg. west.
+At these respective dates the _Great Western_ had run 1305 miles in seven
+days from King Road; and the _Sirius_ 1305 miles in ten days from Cork.
+The _Great Western_ averaged 186-1/2 miles per day, and the _Sirius_
+130-1/2 miles; _Great Western_ gained on the _Sirius_ fifty-six miles per
+day. The _Great Western_ averaged seven and three-quarter miles per hour;
+the _Sirius_ barely averaged five and a half miles per hour.'
+
+Such was the first voyage made across the Atlantic by these two early
+steamships, and there is something of the true philosophy of history to
+be found in the interest which their advent created. It is worthy of
+passing note to learn what ultimately became of these celebrated
+vessels. The _Sirius_, not proving staunch enough for the Atlantic
+surges, was sent to open steam-communication between London and St
+Petersburg, in which trade she was for several years successfully
+employed. The _Great Western_ plied regularly from Bristol to New York
+until the year 1847, when she was sold to the Royal Mail Company, and
+ran as one of their crack ships until 1857, in which year she was broken
+up at Vauxhall as being obsolete and unable profitably to compete with
+the new class of steamers being built.
+
+The success of these two vessels may be said to have completely
+established steam as a condition of the transatlantic navigation of the
+future. 'In October 1838,' says Lindsay, in his _History of Merchant
+Shipping_, 'Sir John Tobin, a well-known merchant of Liverpool, seeing
+the importance of the intercourse now rapidly increasing between the Old
+and New Worlds, despatched on his own account a steamer to New York. She
+was built at Liverpool, after which place she was named, and made the
+passage outwards in sixteen and a half days. It was now clearly proved
+that the service could be performed, not merely with profit to those who
+engaged in it, but with a regularity and speed which the finest
+description of sailing-vessels could not be expected to accomplish. If
+any doubts still existed on these important points, the second voyage of
+the _Great Western_ set them at rest, she having on this occasion
+accomplished the outward passage in fourteen days sixteen hours,
+bringing with her the advices of the fastest American sailing-ships
+which had sailed from New York long before her, and thus proving the
+necessity of having the mails in future conveyed by steamers.'
+
+In fact, as early as October 1838, the British government, being
+satisfied of the superiority of steam-packets over sailing-ships, issued
+advertisements inviting tenders for the conveyance of the American mails
+by the former class of vessels. The owners of the _Great Western_, big
+with confidence in the reputation of that ship, applied for the
+contract; but, not a little to their chagrin, it was awarded to Mr
+(afterwards Sir Samuel) Cunard, who as far back as 1830 had proposed the
+establishment of a steam mail service across the Atlantic. The terms of
+the original contract were, that for the sum of fifty-five thousand
+pounds per annum, Messrs Cunard, Burns, and MacIver should supply three
+ships suitable for the purpose, and accomplish two voyages each month
+between Liverpool and the United States, leaving England at certain
+periods; but shortly afterwards it was deemed more expedient to name
+fixed dates of departure on both sides of the Western Ocean.
+Subsequently, another ship was required to be added to the service, and
+the amount of the subsidy was raised to eighty-one thousand pounds a
+year. The steam mail service between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston was
+regularly established in 1840, the first vessel engaged in it being the
+_Britannia_, the pioneer ship of the present Cunard line.
+
+We get an admirable idea of what these early steamships were from
+Dickens's account of this same _Britannia_, which was the vessel he
+crossed to America in on his first visit to that country in 1842. In one
+of his letters to John Forster, describing a storm they were overtaken
+by, he unconsciously reflects the wondering regard with which the world
+still viewed the triumphant achievements of the marine engine. 'For two
+or three hours,' he writes, 'we gave it up as a lost thing. This was not
+the exaggerated apprehension of a landsman merely. The head-engineer,
+who had been in one or the other of the Cunard vessels since they began
+running, had never seen such stress of weather; and I afterwards heard
+Captain Hewitt say that nothing but a steamer, and one of that strength,
+could have kept her course and stood it out. A sailing-vessel must have
+beaten off and driven where she would; while through all the fury of
+that gale they actually made fifty-four miles headlong through the
+tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in the least.' What
+would the skipper of one of the modern 'Atlantic greyhounds' think of
+such a feat? And, more interesting speculation still, what must Dickens
+himself have thought of the performances he lived to witness as against
+this astonishing accomplishment on the part of the old _Britannia_?
+
+There exists a tendency to ridicule the early steamers as they appear in
+portraits, with their huge paddle-boxes; tall, thin, dog-eared funnels;
+and heavily-rigged masts, as though their engines were regarded as quite
+auxiliary to their sail-power, and by no means to be relied upon.
+Contrasted with some of the leviathans of the present day, the steamers
+of half a century ago are no longer calculated to strike an awe into the
+beholder; but, in truth, some very fine vessels were built whilst the
+marine engine was still quite in its infancy. In a volume of the
+_Railway Magazine_ for 1839 is an account of what are termed colossal
+steamers. 'An immense steamer,' runs the description, 'upwards of two
+hundred feet long, was lately launched at Bristol, for plying between
+England and America; but the one now building at Carling & Co.'s,
+Limehouse, for the American Steam-navigation Company, surpasses anything
+of the kind hitherto made. She is to be named after our Queen, the
+_Victoria_; will cost from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds, has
+about one hundred and fifty men now employed daily upon her, and is
+expected to be finished in November next. The extreme length is about
+253 feet; but she is 237 feet between the perpendiculars, 40-1/4 feet
+beam between the paddle-boxes, and twenty-seven feet one inch deep from
+the floor to the inner side of the spar-deck. The engines are two, of
+250 horse-power each, with six feet four inch cylinders, and seven feet
+stroke. They are to be fitted with Hall's patent condensers, in addition
+to the common ones. She displaces at sixteen feet 2740 tons of water;
+her computed tonnage is 1800 tons. At the water-line every additional
+inch displaces eighteen and a half tons. The average speed is expected
+to be about two hundred nautical miles a day, and consumption of coal
+about thirty tons. The best Welsh coal is to be used. It is calculated
+she will make the outward passage to New York in eighteen days, and the
+homeward in twelve, consuming 540 tons of coal out, and 360 home.
+Expectation is on tiptoe for the first voyage of this gigantic steamer,
+alongside of which other steamers look like little fishing-boats.'
+
+The next route on which steam-navigation was opened, following upon that
+of the North Atlantic passage, was between Great Britain and India. The
+steamers of the Honourable Company had indeed doubled the Cape nearly
+two years before the _Sirius_ and _Great Western_ sailed upon their
+first trip. The _Nautical Magazine_ for 1836 contains the original
+prospectus issued by a syndicate of London merchants upon the subject of
+steam-communication with the East Indies. As an illustration of the
+almost incredible strides that have been made in ocean travelling since
+that period, this piece of literature is most instructive. The circular
+opens by announcing that it is proposed to establish steam traffic with
+India, extending, perhaps, even to Australia! It points out in sanguine
+terms how those distant parts of the earth, by the contemplated
+arrangement, 'will be reached at the outset in the short period of
+seventy-three days; and, when experience is obtained, this time will in
+all probability be reduced by one-third; shortening the distance by the
+route in question, from England to Australia, in forty days' steaming,
+at ten miles an hour. If two days be allowed for stoppages at stations,
+not averaging more than a thousand miles apart throughout the line, the
+whole time for passing between the extreme points would only be sixty
+days, but a relay of vessels will follow, if the undertaking be matured,
+in which case twenty-four hours will be ample time at the depots, and a
+communication may be expected to be established, and kept up throughout
+the year, between England and Australia, in fifty days. It is reasonably
+expected that Bombay will be reached in forty-eight days, Madras in
+fifty-five, Calcutta in fifty-nine, Penang in fifty-seven, Singapore in
+sixty, Batavia in sixty-two, Canton in sixty-eight, and Mauritius in
+fifty-four days.'
+
+The _Nautical Magazine_ writer gravely comments upon this scheme as
+quite plausible. He is indeed inclined to be anticipatory. Instead of
+seventy-three days to Australia, he is of opinion that the voyage may
+ultimately be accomplished in fifty, and that the table of time
+generally may be reduced by about one-third throughout; although, to
+qualify his somewhat daring speculations, he admits that it is well to
+base the calculations on the safe side. But the Honourable East India
+Company asserted their prerogatives, and put a stop to the scheme of the
+New Bengal Steam Company, as the undertaking was to have been called.
+This raised a strong feeling of dissatisfaction, and the Court of
+Directors was obliged to provide a substitute in lieu of the new line
+they had refused to sanction. Their own homely, lubberly craft were
+quite unequal to the requirements of 'prompt despatch' which even then
+was beginning to agitate the public mind. The possibility of
+establishing steam-communication between England and India had been
+clearly demonstrated as early as the year 1825, when the _Enterprise_,
+of 480 tons and 120 horse-power, sailed from London on the 16th of
+August, and arrived in Calcutta on the seventh of December. She was the
+first steamer to make the passage from this country to our great Eastern
+Empire; the first, indeed, ever to double the stormy headland of the
+Cape.
+
+But it was not until the people of India began to petition and the
+merchants of London to clamour for the adoption of steam-power in the
+Indian navigation that the conservative old magnates of John Company
+were stimulated into action. Lieutenant Waghorn's Overland Route had
+almost entirely superseded the sea-voyage by way of the Cape; but the
+want of an efficient packet service between London and Alexandria, and
+Suez and Bombay, was greatly felt. Accordingly, in December 1836, the
+steamship _Atalanta_ was despatched from Falmouth to ply on the Indian
+side of the route. She was a vessel of 630 tons burden, with engines of
+210 horse-power, and was built at Blackwall by the once famous firm of
+Wigram & Green. The orders of Captain Campbell, who commanded her, were
+that he was to steam the whole distance, only resorting to sail-power in
+case of a failure of machinery, in order fully to test the superiority
+of the marine engine over canvas. She sustained an average speed of
+about eight knots an hour during the entire passage, and but for her
+repeated stoppages would undoubtedly have accomplished the quickest
+voyage yet made to India. She was followed, in March 1837, by the
+_Bernice_, of 680 tons and 230 horse-power. This vessel, which likewise
+made the run without the assistance of her sails, left Falmouth on March
+17, and arrived at Bombay on the 13th of June.
+
+As the race between the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ may be said to
+have inaugurated the steam-navigation of the Atlantic, so did the
+voyages of the _Atalanta_ and _Bernice_ first establish regular
+communication by steamers between Great Britain and India. True, there
+had been desultory efforts of enterprise prior to this time, and the
+pioneer of the Peninsular and Oriental steamers, the _Royal Tar_, had
+sailed some three years before; but there was no continual service. The
+_Times_ of November 11, 1838, pointed out the approaching change.
+'Scarcely,' it says, 'has the wonder created in the world by the
+appearance of the _Great Western_ and _British Queen_ begun to subside,
+when we are again called upon to admire the rapid strides of enterprise
+by the notice of an iron steamship, the first of a line of steamers to
+ply between England and Calcutta, to be called the _Queen of the East_,
+2618 tons, and 600 horse-power. This magnificent vessel is designed by
+Mr W. D. Holmes, engineer to the Bengal Steam Committee, for a
+communication between England and India. Great praise is due to Captain
+Barber, late of the Honourable East India Company's service, the agent
+in London for the Steam Committee in Bengal, who has given every
+encouragement to Mr Holmes in carrying forward his splendid undertaking.
+When these vessels are ready, we understand the voyage between Falmouth
+and Calcutta will be made in thirty days.'
+
+From this time ocean steamers multiplied rapidly. One after another of
+the now famous shipping firms sprang up, beginning with the Cunard and
+the Peninsular and Oriental lines. The first British steamship was
+registered at London in the year 1814: in 1842 there were 940 steamers
+registered; and already was the decay of the sailing-ship so largely
+anticipated, that Mr Sydney Herbert, in a Committee of the House of
+Commons, had this same year pointed out 'that the introduction of
+steamers, and the consequent displacement of the Leith smacks, Margate
+hoys, &c., would diminish the nursery for seamen by lessening the number
+of sailing-vessels.'
+
+
+THE NEW CUNARDERS.
+
+Less than fifty years ago the Eastern Steam-navigation Company having
+failed to obtain the contract to carry the mails from Plymouth to India
+and Australia--in vessels of from twelve hundred to two thousand tons,
+with engines of from four to six hundred horse-power, which were never
+built--began to consider a new enterprise, suggested by the late
+Isambard K. Brunei. This was to build the largest steamer ever yet
+constructed, to trade with India round the Cape of Good Hope. The
+general commercial idea was, that this leviathan vessel was to carry
+leviathan cargoes at large freights and great speed, to Ceylon, where
+the goods and passengers would be rapidly trans-shipped to smaller swift
+steamers for conveyance to various destinations in India, China, and
+Australia. The general mechanical idea was, that in order to obtain
+great velocity in steamers it was only necessary to make them
+large--that, in fact, there need be no limit to the size of a vessel
+beyond what might be imposed by the tenacity of material. On what was
+called the tubular principle, Brunei argued--and proved to the
+satisfaction of numerous experts and capitalists--that it was possible
+to construct a vessel of six times the capacity of the largest vessel
+then afloat that would steam at a speed unattainable by smaller vessels,
+while carrying, besides cargo, all the coal she would require for the
+longest voyage.
+
+Thus originated the _Great Eastern_, which never went to India, which
+ruined two or three companies in succession, which cost L120,000 to
+launch, which probably earned more as a show than ever she did as an
+ocean-carrier--except in the matter of telegraph cables--and which
+ignobly ended a disastrous career by being sold for L16,000, and broken
+up at New Ferry, on the Mersey.
+
+We are now entering upon a new era of big ships, in which such a monster
+as the _Great Eastern_ would be no longer a wonder. Two additions to the
+Cunard fleet, the _Campania_ (1892) and _Lucania_ (1893), are within a
+trifle as large as she, but with infinitely more powerful engines and
+incomparably greater speed.
+
+We need not suppose, however, that the idea of big ocean steamers has
+been the monopoly of this country. So long ago as 1850 or thereabouts,
+Mr Randall, a famous American shipbuilder, designed, drafted, and
+constructed the model of a steamer for transatlantic service, 500 feet
+long by 58 feet beam, to measure 8000 tons. A company was formed in
+Philadelphia in 1860 to carry out the project; but the civil war broke
+out soon after, and she was never built.
+
+The _Great Eastern_ was launched in January 1858, and her principal
+dimensions were these: Length between perpendiculars, 680 feet; breadth
+of beam, 83 feet; length of principal saloons, 400 feet; tonnage
+capacity for cargo and coals, 18,000 tons; weight of ship as launched,
+12,000 tons; accommodation for passengers, (1) 800, (2) 2000, (3) 1200 =
+4000; total horse-power, 7650. She had both screw and paddles for
+propulsion, and her displacement was 32,160 tons.
+
+By this time the Cunard Company had been eighteen years in existence.
+They started in 1840 with the _Britannia_--quickly followed by the
+_Acadia_, _Columbia_, and _Caledonia_, all more or less alike--which was
+a paddle-steamer of wood, 207 feet long, 34 feet broad, 22 feet deep,
+and of 1156 tons, with side-lever engines developing 740 indicated
+horse-power, which propelled the vessel at the average speed of nine
+knots an hour. There was accommodation for 225 tons of cargo and 115
+cabin passengers--no steerage in those days--who paid thirty-four
+guineas to Halifax and thirty-eight guineas to Boston, for passage,
+including provisions and wine.
+
+At the time of the _Great Eastern_ the latest type of Cunarder was the
+_Persia_, and it is interesting to note the development in the interim.
+This vessel was 380 feet long, 45 feet broad, 31 feet deep, of 3870
+tons, with engines developing 4000 indicated horse-power, propelling at
+the rate of thirteen and a half knots an hour. The _Persia_ and the
+_Scotia_, sister-ships, were the last of the Atlantic side-wheelers. In
+1862 the first screw-steamer was added to the Cunard fleet. This was the
+_China_, built by the Napiers of Glasgow, 326 feet long by 40-1/2 feet
+broad, and 27-1/2 feet deep, of 2600 tons, and with an average speed of
+about twelve knots.
+
+Such was the type of Cunarder in the early days of the _Great Eastern_,
+whose dimensions have now been nearly reached. The _Campania_, however,
+was not built with a view to outshine that huge failure, but is the
+outcome of a wholly different competition. The _Campania_ and the
+_Lucania_ represent the highest development of marine architecture and
+engineering skill, and are the product of long years of rivalry for the
+possession of the 'blue ribbon' of the transatlantic race.
+
+[Illustration: The _Great Eastern_ and the _Persia_.]
+
+The competition is of ancient date, if we go back to the days when the
+American 'Collins' Company tried to run the Cunard Company off the
+waters; and during the half-century since the inauguration of steam
+service the Cunard Company have sometimes held and sometimes lost the
+highest place for speed. The period of steam-racing--the age of
+'Atlantic greyhounds'--may be said to have begun in the year 1879, when
+the Cunard _Gallia_, the Guion _Arizona_, and the White Star _Britannic_
+and _Germanic_ had all entered upon their famous careers. It is matter
+of history now how the _Arizona_--called the 'Fairfield Flyer,'
+because she was built by Messrs John Elder & Company, of Fairfield,
+Glasgow--beat the record in an eastward run of seven days twelve and a
+half hours, and a westward run of seven days ten and three-quarter
+hours. To beat the _Arizona_, the Cunard Company built the _Servia_, of
+8500 tons and 10,300 horse-power; but she in turn was beaten by another
+Fairfield Flyer, the _Alaska_, under the Guion flag. The race continued
+year by year, as vessels of increasing size and power were entered by
+the competing companies. While all the lines compete in swiftness,
+luxury, and efficiency, the keenest rivalry is now between the Cunard
+and the White Star companies. And just as the _Campania_ and _Lucania_
+were built to eclipse the renowned _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_, so the
+owners of these boats prepared to surpass even the two Cunarders we
+describe.
+
+Let us now see something of these marvels of marine architecture. They
+are sister-ships, both built on the Clyde by the Fairfield Shipbuilding
+and Engineering Company, and both laid down almost simultaneously. They
+are almost identical in dimensions and appointments, and therefore we
+may confine our description to the _Campania_, which was the first of
+the twins to be ready for sea.
+
+This largest vessel afloat does not mark any new departure in general
+type, as the _Great Eastern_ did in differing from all types of
+construction then familiar. In outward appearance, the _Campania_, as
+she lies upon the water, and as seen at a sufficient distance, is just
+like numbers of other vessels we have all seen. Nor does her immense
+size at first impress the observer, because of the beautiful proportions
+on which she is planned. Her lines are eminently what the nautical
+enthusiast calls 'sweet;' and in her own class of naval art she is as
+perfect a specimen of architectural beauty as the finest of the grand
+old clippers which used to 'walk the waters as a thing of life.' The
+colossal size of St Peter's at Rome does not strike you as you enter,
+because of the exquisite proportions. And so with the _Campania_--you
+need to see an ordinary merchant-ship, or even a full-blown liner,
+alongside before you can realise how vast she is.
+
+Yet she is only 60 feet shorter than the mammoth _Great Eastern_, and
+measures 620 feet in length, 65 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 43 feet in
+depth from the upper deck. Her tonnage is 12,000, while that of the
+_Great Eastern_ was 18,000; but then her horse-power is 30,000 as
+against the _Great Eastern's_ 7650!
+
+This enormous development of engine-power is perhaps the most remarkable
+feature about these two new vessels. Each of them is fitted with two
+sets of the most powerful triple-expansion engines ever put together. A
+visit to the engine-room is a liberal education in the mechanical arts,
+and even to the eye of the uninitiated there is the predominant
+impression of perfect order in the bewildering arrangement of pipes,
+rods, cranks, levers, wheels, and cylinders. The two sets of engines are
+placed in two separate rooms on each side of a centre-line bulkhead
+fitted with water-tight doors for intercommunication. Each set has five
+inverted cylinders which have exactly the same stroke, and work on three
+cranks. Two of the cylinders are high-pressure, one is intermediate, and
+two are low-pressure. Besides the main engines, there are engines for
+reversing, for driving the centrifugal pumps for the condensers, for the
+electric light, for the refrigerating chambers, and for a number of
+other purposes--all perfect in appointment and finish. In fact, in these
+vast engine-rooms one is best able to realise not only the immense size
+and power of the vessel, but also the perfection to which human
+ingenuity has attained after generations of ceaseless toil--and yet it
+is only half a century since the _Britannia_ began the transatlantic
+race.
+
+Each of the various engines has its own steam-supplier. The main engines
+are fed by twelve double-ended boilers, arranged in rows of six on each
+side of a water-tight bulkhead. The boilers are heated by ninety-six
+furnaces, and each set of six boilers has a funnel with the diameter of
+an ordinary railway tunnel. In the construction of these boilers some
+eight hundred tons of steel were required, the plates weighing four tons
+each, with a thickness of an inch and a half. From these mighty machines
+will be developed a power equal to that of 30,000 horses! Compare this
+with the _Great Eastern's_ 7650 horse-power, or even with the later
+'greyhounds.' The greatest power developed by the two previous additions
+to the Cunard fleet, the _Etruria_ and _Umbria_, is about 14,000 horses,
+which is the utmost recorded by any single-screw engines. The _City of
+Paris_ has a power of 18,500, and the _Teutonic_ a power of 18,000 by
+twin-screw engines. The _Campania_, therefore, is upwards of half as
+much again more powerful than the largest, swiftest, and most powerful
+of her predecessors.
+
+These engines of the _Campania_ work two long propeller-shafts, each
+carried through an aperture in the stern close to the centre-line, and
+fitted to a screw. Unlike other twin-screw vessels, the propellers and
+shafts are, as it were, carried within the hull, and not in separate
+structures. Abaft of the screws, the rudder is completely submerged, and
+is a great mass of steel-plating weighing about twenty-four tons.
+
+With a straight stem, an elliptic stern, two huge funnels, and a couple
+of pole-masts--intended more for signalling purposes than for
+canvas--the _Campania_ looks thoroughly business-like, and has none of
+the over-elaborated get-up of the _Great Eastern_, with her double
+system of propulsion and small forest of masts. The bulwarks are close
+fore and aft; and from the upper deck rise two tiers of houses, the
+roofs of which form the promenade deck and the shade deck. In the
+structure of the hull and decks enormous strength has been given, with
+special protection at vital parts, as the vessel is built in compliance
+with the Admiralty requirements for armed cruisers. Below the line of
+vision are four other complete tiers of beams, plated with steel
+sheathed in wood, on which rest upper, main, lower, and orlop decks. The
+last is for cargo, refrigerating-chambers, stores, &c.--all the others
+are devoted to the accommodation of passengers.
+
+The _Campania_ is fitted to carry 460 first-class passengers, 280
+second-class, and 700 steerage passengers--in all, 1440, besides a crew
+of 400. She has cargo-space for 1600 tons, which seems a trifle in
+comparison with her size, but then it is to be remembered that the fuel
+consumption of those 96 furnaces is enormous, and requires the carrying
+of a very heavy cargo of coals for internal consumption.
+
+[Illustration: The _Campania_.]
+
+The accommodation for passengers is probably the most perfect that has
+yet been provided on an ocean steamer, for here the experience of all
+previous developments has been utilised. The dining-room is an apartment
+100 feet long and 64 feet broad, furnished in handsome dark old
+mahogany, to seat 430 persons. The upholstery is tastefully designed,
+and the fittings generally are elegant; but the peculiar feature is a
+splendid dome rising to a height of thirty-three feet from the floor to
+the upper deck, and designed to light both the dining-room and the
+drawing-room on the deck above it. The grand staircase which conducts to
+these apartments is of teak-wood; the drawing-room is in satin-wood
+relieved with cedar and painted frieze panels. The smoking-room on the
+promenade deck is as unlike a ship's cabin as can be imagined; it is,
+in fact, a reproduction of an old baronial hall of the Elizabethan
+age, with oaken furniture and carvings. The other public apartments,
+library, boudoir, &c., are all more remarkable for quiet taste and
+artistic effect than for the gorgeousness of gilded saloons affected on
+some lines, but the prevailing feeling is one of luxurious comfort. The
+staterooms for first-class passengers occupy the main, upper, and
+promenade decks, and they are as much like real bedrooms as the old type
+of 'berths' are not. Besides the single bedrooms, there are suites of
+rooms for families or parties, finely appointed with ornamental woods,
+rich carpets, and with brass bedsteads instead of the old wooden bunks.
+All the sleeping-rooms are as light, lofty, and well ventilated as the
+sleeping-rooms on the old liners were the reverse.
+
+The first-class passengers are placed amidships; the second-class are
+placed aft; and the steerage, forward. The steerage accommodation is
+superior to anything yet provided in that class; while the second-class
+accommodation is quite up to the usual first-class, with spacious,
+beautifully furnished staterooms, a handsome dining-room in oak, an
+elegant drawing-room in satin-wood, and a cosy smoking-room. Indeed,
+some of the second-class apartments look as if they were intended to be
+utilised for first-class passengers in times of extra pressure.
+
+These are details of interest to possible passengers and to those who
+have already experienced the comforts and discomforts of the Atlantic
+voyage. But the great interest of the ship, of course, is in her immense
+size and enormous power. The navigating-bridge from which the officer in
+charge will direct operations, is no less than sixty feet above the
+water-level, and from there one obtains a survey unique of its kind. The
+towering height, the vast expanse of deck, the huge circumference of the
+funnels, the forest of ventilators indicative of the hives of industry
+below, the great lighthouse structures which take the place of the old
+angle-bedded side-lights--everything beneath you speaks of power and
+speed, of strength and security.
+
+The following table shows at a glance how the _Campania_ compares with
+her largest predecessors in point of size and power:
+
+                    Tonnage.    Length    Breadth  Horsepower.
+                                in feet.  in feet.
+
+  Great Eastern      18,900      682       82        7,650
+  Britannic           5,000      455       46        5,500
+  Arizona             5,150      450       45        6,300
+  Servia              8,500      515       52       10,300
+  Alaska              6,400      500       50       10,500
+  City of Rome        8,000      545       52       11,890
+  Aurania             7,270      470       57        8,500
+  Oregon              7,375      500       54        7,375
+  America             5,528      432       51        7,354
+  Umbria              7,700      501       57       14,320
+  Etruria             7,800      520       57       14,500
+  City of Paris      10,500      560       63       18,500
+  Teutonic            9,860      582       57-1/2   18,000
+  Normannia           ----       520       57-1/4   16,350
+  Campania       }
+  Lucania        }   12,950      620       65       30,000
+
+As to speed, the record of course has been broken. In 1850 the average
+passage of a Cunarder westward was thirteen days, and eastward twelve
+days sixteen hours; in 1890, the average was reduced to seven days
+fifteen hours twenty-three minutes, and seven days four hours and
+fifty-two minutes, respectively. The fastest individual passages down to
+1891 were made by the _Etruria_, westwards in six days one hour and
+forty-seven minutes; and by the _Umbria_, eastwards in six days three
+hours and seventeen minutes. But these were beaten by the _Teutonic_,
+which reduced the homeward record to five days and twenty-one hours; and
+by the _City of Paris_, which reduced the outward passage to five days
+and sixteen hours. Roughly speaking, these new Cunarders are about ten
+times the size and forty times the power of the pioneers of the fleet,
+and the _Campania_ will run every twenty minutes almost as many miles as
+the _Britannia_ could laboriously make in an hour.
+
+Is it possible that within the next fifty years we shall be able to make
+the voyage to New York in three days? The old _Britannia_ took fourteen
+days to Boston, and it was not until 1852 that the ten days' record to
+New York was broken by the 'Collins' Company. If, then, in forty years
+we reduced the record from ten to five, who can say that the limit of
+speed has yet been reached?
+
+
+SAILING-SHIPS.
+
+A modern sailing-ship replete with labour-saving appliances is a
+veritable triumph of the naval architect's art, and an excellent object
+lesson on man's power over the forces of nature. If Christopher Columbus
+could revisit our planet from the shades, he would doubtless be
+astonished by a critical comparison between the tiny wooden caravel with
+which he discovered a New World, and a leviathan four-masted steel
+sailing-ship, now navigated in comparative comfort to every possible
+port where freight is obtainable. Wooden cargo-carrying craft impelled
+by the unbought wind are surely diminishing in numbers; and in the near
+future it is not improbable that a stately sailing-ship will be as
+seldom seen on the waste of waters as a screw steamship was half a
+century ago. Even looking leisurely backward down the imposing vista of
+the last thirty years of the Victorian era, it will be readily perceived
+with what marvellous mastery iron and steel have supplanted, not only
+wood in the hulls, masts, and yards of sailing-ships, but also hemp in
+their rigging.
+
+[Illustration: Clipper Sailing-ship of 1850-60.]
+
+A radical revolution has been effected in the form, size, and
+construction of these cargo-carriers during such a relatively
+insignificant interval, and the end is not yet. The old-fashioned type
+of wooden merchantman remained practically invariable for more than a
+hundred years; but change is all-powerful at present, so that a vessel
+is almost of a bygone age before she shall have completed her maiden
+voyage. It would appear, however, that the limit of size has been
+reached. Ship-owning firms and shipbuilders will probably soon be
+compelled to keep the modern steel sailing-ship within more moderate
+dimensions. Vessels of exceptionally large carrying capacity are in
+demand owing to the fact that experience proves them to be the best kind
+for affording a fair return to the capital invested. Salvage appliances
+and docks do not keep pace with the requirements of such leviathans; so
+that underwriters evince an increasing dislike to big ships, and the
+premium for insurance rises accordingly, to compensate for extra risk.
+
+Many mariners and some shipbuilders were at one time quick to express a
+pronounced opinion that it was quite unnatural for an iron ship to
+remain afloat. Wood was made to swim, but iron to sink, said these
+sincere but mistaken admirers of the good old days. Their misgivings
+have proved to be without foundation in fact, for iron ships have ousted
+wooden craft almost utterly from the ocean-carrying traffic. Iron has
+also reached its meridian altitude, and steel is rapidly rising above
+the horizon of progress. The shipbuilding yards of Nova Scotia, Canada,
+the United States of America, and British Columbia, however, still
+launch wooden sailing-vessels, although in decreasing numbers, and, as a
+rule, of inconsiderable tonnage.
+
+It seems scarcely credible that only as recently as 1870 there were not
+more than ten sailing-ships afloat of two thousand tons register and
+upwards under the red ensign of the British mercantile marine. To-day we
+have more than that number of splendid steel sailing-ships, each having
+a register tonnage in excess of three thousand. During the twelve months
+of 1892 there were turned out from one yard alone on the Clyde, that of
+Messrs Russell & Co., no fewer than thirteen huge sailing-vessels,
+varying in register tonnage from two thousand three hundred to three
+thousand five hundred! One of the largest wooden sailing-ships afloat in
+1870 was the _British Empire_, of two thousand seven hundred tons
+register, which, under the command of Captain A. Pearson, was an ark of
+safety to the families of European residents in Bombay during the Indian
+Mutiny. She had been originally intended for a steamship, and this will
+account for her exceptional dimensions. The shipbuilding firm of A.
+Sewall & Co., of Bath, Maine, U.S.A., in 1889 built the _Rappahannock_,
+of 3054 tons register; in 1890, the _Shenandoah_, 3258 tons; in 1891,
+the _Susquehanna_, 2629 tons; and in 1892, the _Roanoke_, of 3400 tons
+register.
+
+Several cities claim to be the birthplace of Homer, and there exists
+similar rivalry with respect to the first iron ship. This at least is
+certain, that the first iron vessel classed by Lloyd's was the British
+barque _Ironsides_, in 1838. She was but 271 tons register. The Clyde
+stands _facile princeps_ in this most important branch of industry.
+Vessels built on the banks of that river have rendered a praiseworthy
+account of themselves on every sea and under every flag. No other
+country, save ourselves, launched any iron or steel ships of 2000 tons
+register or above, but preferred to obtain them from our shipbuilding
+yards. The so-called protection of native industry principle prevailing
+in America precludes ship-owners over there from taking advantage
+directly of the cheapest market. Several of the large sailers, however,
+built on the Clyde for citizens of the United States are therefore
+necessarily sailed under the British, Hawaiian, or some flag other than
+that of the country to which they actually belong.
+
+The number of seamen carried per one hundred tons in the modern
+four-masted sailing-ship is cut down to the uttermost limit consistent
+with safety; and, as a consequence, dismasting and tedious passages are
+not infrequent. The _Hawaiian Isles_, 2097 tons register, a United
+States ship under a foreign flag, bound to California with a cargo of
+coal, found it impossible to weather Cape Horn by reason of violent
+westerly gales. She was turned round, ran along the lone Southern Ocean,
+before the 'brave west winds' so admirably described by Maury, and
+eventually reached her destination by the route leading south of
+Australia. She was one hundred and eighty-nine days on the passage, and
+no fewer than sixty guineas per cent. had been freely paid for her
+re-insurance. A similar ship, the _John Ena_, carrying a substantial
+cargo of 4222 tons of coal from Barry to San Francisco, also encountered
+bad weather, made a long passage, and twenty guineas per cent. was paid
+on her for re-insurance. Another new ship, the _Achnashie_, 2476 tons
+register, got into still more serious difficulty under like
+circumstances. She had to put back to Cape Town, damaged and leaky,
+after attempting in vain to contend against the bitter blast off Cape
+Horn. There, her cargo was discharged, and she went into dry-dock for
+the absolutely necessary repairs. The _Austrasia_, 2718 tons register,
+was almost totally dismasted near the island of Tristan da Cunha, in the
+South Atlantic, on her maiden passage, while bound from Liverpool to
+Calcutta with a cargo of salt. By dint of sterling seamanship she was
+brought to Rio Janeiro in safety, returned to Liverpool under improvised
+masts, discharged her cargo, refitted, took in quite a different cargo
+at London, and sailed for California. The _Somali_, 3537 tons register,
+the largest sailing-ship launched in 1892, was dismasted in the China
+Sea. Everything above the lower masts had to be made for her on the
+Clyde; yet, within fifteen days of the order being received by Messrs
+Russell & Co., the spars and gear were completed and shipped for passage
+to the _Somali_ at Hong-kong. Underwriters suffer severely with such
+ships.
+
+One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, _La
+France_, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes
+et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came
+from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of
+nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with
+5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that
+she was overladen. There is not a single five-masted sailing-ship under
+the British flag. The United States has two five-masters, the _Louis_ of
+830 tons, and the _Gov. Ames_ of 1778 tons, both fore-and-aft schooners,
+a rig peculiar to the American coast. Ships having five masts can be
+counted on the fingers of one hand; but, strange to say, the steamship
+_Coptic_, of the Shaw, Savill, & Albion Co., on her way to New Zealand,
+in December 1890, passed the _Gov. Ames_ in fourteen degrees south,
+thirty-four degrees west, bound for California; and two days later, in
+six degrees south, thirty-one degrees west, the French five-master, _La
+France_, bound south. Passengers and crew of the _Coptic_ might travel
+over many a weary league of sea, and never again be afforded two such
+excellent object lessons in the growth of sailing-ships in quick
+succession.
+
+Some large sailing-ships experience a decided difficulty in obtaining
+freights that will repay expenses, even ignoring a margin for profit,
+and we are reluctantly compelled to confess that the days of
+sailing-ships are almost numbered. The cry for huge sailers is an
+evidence that steam is determining the dimensions of the most modern
+cargo-carriers under sail.
+
+[Illustration: _La France._]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+POST-OFFICE--TELEGRAPH--TELEPHONE--PHONOGRAPH.
+
+    Rowland Hill and Penny Postage--A Visit to the Post-office--The
+    Post-office on Wheels--Early Telegraphs--Wheatstone and Morse--The
+    State and the Telegraphs--Atlantic Cables--Telephones--Edison and
+    the Phonograph.
+
+
+THE STORY OF ROWLAND HILL AND PENNY POSTAGE.
+
+The story of Penny Postage and its inception by Sir Rowland Hill is full
+of romantic interest, and that great social reform, introduced more than
+fifty years ago, has unquestionably spread its beneficial influence over
+every country in which a postal system of any kind exists.
+
+The Hill family were, we know, in those bygone days far from being well
+off, and were often hard put to to find the money to pay the high
+postage on letters which they received. Born in 1795, Rowland Hill was
+considerably past middle life before he entertained any idea of
+practising his reforming hand on the Post-office, and had passed a busy
+existence chiefly as a schoolmaster, in which capacity he had indulged
+in many schemes, scholastic and otherwise, with more or less success. At
+the time that his attention was first directed to Post-office matters,
+he was employed as Secretary of the Commissioners for the Colonisation
+of South Australia. He was no doubt attracted to the subject of postal
+reform by the frequent discussions which were then taking place in
+parliament in regard to the matter. Mr Wallace of Kelly, the member for
+Greenock, who was the champion of the cause in the House of Commons, was
+fierce in his denunciation of the existing abuses and irregularities of
+the post, and subsequently proved a strong and able advocate of the
+scheme for postage reform.
+
+Once arrested by the subject which has since made his life famous,
+Rowland Hill went to work in a very systematic manner. Firstly,
+he read very carefully all the Reports relative to the Post-office;
+then he placed himself in communication with Mr Wallace and the
+Postmaster-general, both of whom readily supplied him with all necessary
+information. In this manner he made himself acquainted with his subject,
+with the result that, in 1837, he published his famous pamphlet on
+_Post-office Reform: its Importance and Practicability_, the first
+edition being circulated privately amongst the members of parliament and
+official people; while some months later a second edition was published
+which was given to the public.
+
+We have to remember that at this time the postage charges were
+enormously high, that they depended not upon weight alone, but also upon
+the number of enclosures, and that they varied according to distance.
+Thus, for example, a letter under one ounce in weight and with one
+enclosure (that is, sheet or scrap of paper) posted in London for
+delivery within the metropolitan area, or even, we believe, fifteen
+miles out, cost 2d.; if for delivery thirty miles out, 3d.; eighty miles
+out, 4d.; and so on. Again, as showing how the charges according to
+enclosure operated, a letter with a single enclosure from London to
+Edinburgh was charged 1s. 1-1/2d.; if double, 2s. 3d.; and if treble,
+3s. 4-1/2d. Moreover, the charges were not consistently made, for
+whereas an Edinburgh letter (posted in London) was charged 1s. 1-1/2d.,
+a letter for Louth, which cost the Post-office fifty times as much as
+the former letter, was only charged 10d.
+
+The public, however, found means of their own of remedying the evil,
+which, if not wholly legitimate, were under the circumstances to be
+regarded with some degree of leniency. Letter-smuggling was a not
+unnatural result of the high and disproportionate charges referred to,
+and was almost openly adopted to an extent that is hardly credible.
+Thus, many Manchester merchants--Mr Cobden amongst the number--stated
+before the Post-office Inquiry Committee appointed in 1838, their belief
+that four-fifths of the letters written in that town did not pass
+through the Post-office. A carrier in Scotland confessed to having
+carried sixty letters daily for a number of years, and knew of others
+who carried five hundred daily. A Glasgow publisher and bookseller said
+he sent and received fifty letters or circulars daily, and added that he
+was not caught until he had sent twenty thousand letters otherwise than
+through the post! There were also other methods of evading the postage
+rates at work. Letters were smuggled in newspapers, which in these days
+passed free within a stated period through the post, the postage being
+covered by the stamp-duty impressed on the papers. Invisible ink, too,
+was used for inditing messages on the newspapers themselves; while the
+use of certain pre-arranged codes on the covers of letters was likewise
+systematically adopted, the addressees, after turning the letters over
+and learning from the covers all they desired to know, declining to take
+in the letters on the ground that they could not afford to pay the
+postage.
+
+The system of 'franking' letters in the high-postage days led to an
+appalling abuse of that privilege, which belonged to peers and members
+of the House of Commons. It was no doubt originally allowed to enable
+members to correspond with their constituents; but under the
+circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that the plan soon became
+abused, and was ultimately used to cover all kinds of correspondence,
+not only members' but other people's as well. At one time, indeed, all
+sorts of curious packages passed free under the franking privilege, such
+as dogs, a cow, parcels of lace, bales of stockings, boxes of medicine,
+flitches of bacon, &c. Sometimes, indeed, franked covers were actually
+sold; and they have even been known to be given in lieu of wages to
+servants, who speedily converted them into ready money.
+
+This abuse, taken together with the illicit traffic in letters, so
+openly and widely carried on, formed of course a most important argument
+in favour of the proposals for cheap postage formulated by Rowland Hill,
+and no doubt did much to damage the cause of his opponents. But there is
+one other abuse to which Londoners were subject which may just be
+mentioned. At that time the Twopenny Post was in operation in the
+English metropolis, and would have fairly served the inhabitants in
+postal matters if it had not been for the practice which existed of
+allowing commercial houses and other firms who were willing to pay for
+the privilege to have their letters picked out from the general heap and
+delivered by special postmen, and so enable them to get their
+correspondence an hour earlier than those who did not pay the
+'quarterage,' as it was called, of five shillings (per quarter), and
+which, it appears, went into the pockets of the postmen concerned, many
+of whom, we are told, and it can easily be understood, thus made incomes
+of from three to four hundred pounds a year. However beneficial such a
+system was to commerce and trade in London, it operated most unfairly on
+ordinary correspondents, and it was certainly not the least of the evils
+which the introduction of Penny Postage swept away.
+
+It is not necessary to enter at any length into all the arguments that
+weighed with Rowland Hill in propounding his great scheme. It need only
+be very briefly stated that the great point to which he applied himself
+was the cost to the Post-office of receiving, transmitting, and
+delivering a letter. Having roughly and, as subsequently proved, not
+inaccurately calculated the average postage at sixpence farthing per
+letter, he then went to work to ascertain the expenses of management;
+and the result of his investigations showed that, no matter what
+distance had to be traversed, the average cost of each letter to the
+government was less than one-tenth of a penny! From this there was only
+one conclusion that could well be forced on his mind, and that was a
+uniform rate of postage. Having solved this great problem, there were
+many other matters of adjustment and improvement to which his attention
+had to be given. He was, for example, not long in deciding that the
+charge according to enclosures was an iniquitous one, and that a just
+and fair tax could only be made according to weight. Then, again, he
+clearly saw that the principle of throwing the postage on the recipients
+of letters was an improper one, while it was also a burden on the
+Post-office employees. The prepayment of postage became necessarily a
+feature of his plan; but he experienced some difficulty in arriving at a
+feasible method of adopting it. At first he considered that this might
+be carried out by payment of money over the counter; but he subsequently
+came to the conclusion that the purposes of the public and the
+Post-office would be better served by the use of some kind of stamp or
+stamped covers for letters, and this arrangement he brought forward and
+fully explained before the Commissioners of Post-office Inquiry,
+referring to it as 'Mr Knight's excellent suggestion.' Charles Knight
+had suggested the idea of stamps for prepayment in 1833-34. The
+following extract from the Commissioners' Report, which gives a brief
+description of the proposed arrangement, may perhaps be read with
+interest at the present time:
+
+'That stamped covers, or sheets of paper, or small vignette stamps--the
+latter, if used, to be gummed on the face of the letter--be supplied to
+the public from the Stamp-office, and sold at such a price as to include
+the postage. Letters so stamped to be treated in all respects as franks.
+That each should have the weight it is entitled to carry legibly printed
+upon the stamp. That the stamp of the receiving-house should be struck
+upon the superscription or duty stamp, to prevent the latter being used
+a second time. The vignette stamps being portable, persons could carry
+them in their pocket-books.'
+
+The proposed arrangement met with approval from the Commissioners, and
+also from the Committee on Postage in 1837 and 1838; and, in
+consequence, the Penny Postage Act of 1840 contained a clause providing
+for the use of such stamps and stamped covers.
+
+Such were the main points of Rowland Hill's plan, which was so logical
+and reasonable in all its features, and so intelligible to the popular
+mind, that it can be readily understood how heartily it was embraced by
+the general public. But popular as his scheme was with the mass of the
+people, it encountered the bitterest opposition from many quarters; and
+in successfully carrying it through, Rowland Hill had, like most other
+great reformers, to overcome huge difficulties and obstacles. It is very
+amusing at this distance of time, when we have become so accustomed to
+the immense advantages of Penny Postage as to view them almost as part
+of the ordinary conditions of life, to recall some of the arguments used
+fifty years ago against the measure. Lord Lichfield, as
+Postmaster-general, in adverting to the scheme in the House of Lords,
+described it thus: 'Of all the wild visionary schemes which I have ever
+heard of, it is the most extravagant;' and endorsed this statement six
+months later when he had given more attention to the subject, being
+'even still more firmly of the same opinion.' On a subsequent occasion
+he contended that the mails would have to carry twelve times as much in
+weight as before, and therefore the charge would be twelve times the
+amount then paid. 'The walls of the Post-office,' he exclaimed, 'would
+burst; the whole area in which the building stands would not be large
+enough to receive the clerks and letters.' Outside the Post-office, too,
+as well as by both the government and opposition, much animosity was
+exhibited against the proposal.
+
+If, however, the opposition against the introduction of Penny Postage
+was strong, the advocacy of the plan was no less powerful, while,
+moreover, it was thoroughly backed by popular opinion. Complaints as to
+the high rates of postage flowed in, and parliament was nearly inundated
+with petitions in favour of the scheme, which also received much
+literary support. The Mercantile Committee during all the time of
+agitation actively spread information of the progress of the measure,
+with a view to rouse the public to a sense of its importance. The _Post_
+circular kept circulating; and handbills, fly-sheets, and pictorial
+illustrations were freely distributed. One print took a dramatic form,
+representing 'A Scene at Windsor Castle,' in which the Queen, being in
+the Council Chamber, is made to say: 'Mothers pawning their clothes to
+pay the postage of a child's letter! Every subject studying how to evade
+the postage without caring for the law!'--(To Lord Melbourne): 'I trust,
+my lord, you have commanded the attendance of the Postmaster-general and
+Mr Rowland Hill, as I directed, in order that I may hear the reasons of
+both about this universal Penny Postage plan, which appears to me likely
+to remove all these great evils.' After the interview takes place, the
+Queen is made to record the opinion that the plan 'would confer a great
+boon on the poorer classes of my subjects, and would be the greatest
+benefit to religion, morals, to general knowledge, and to trade.' This
+_jeu d'esprit_, which was published by the London Committee, was
+circulated by thousands, and proved extremely useful in bringing the
+burning question home in an attractive form to the masses of the nation.
+
+The agitation as to Rowland Hill's scheme lasted for two years, and with
+such vehemence that the period has become an epoch in the history of
+this country. The end of the story of this memorable reform is soon
+told; for an agitation which may be said to have shaken the nation to
+its core and was felt from end to end of the kingdom could have but one
+conclusion, and that a successful one. A Parliamentary Committee was
+appointed to inquire into the whole matter; and after a session of
+sixty-three days, reported in favour of Penny Postage. That was in
+August 1838. Next year a Bill for Cheap Postage passed through
+parliament with slight opposition; and on the 12th of November 1839 the
+Treasury issued a Minute authorising a uniform rate of fourpence for
+inland letters. This was, however, merely a temporary measure, in which
+Rowland Hill concurred, and was resorted to chiefly to accustom the
+Post-office clerks to a uniform rate and the system of charging by
+weight. The full measure of the Penny Postage scheme was accomplished a
+few months later on, when, on the 10th of January 1840, the uniform rate
+of One Penny for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight was
+officially introduced.
+
+Such in brief is the story of Penny Postage, which has caused such a
+revolution not only in the postal arrangements of this country, but in
+the conditions of all sections and grades of society. In the first year
+of its operation the number of letters posted was more than doubled,
+the number sent in 1840 being 169,000,000, as against 82,000,000 posted
+in 1839, including 6,500,000 letters sent under the franking privilege,
+which was abolished with the introduction of the Penny Postage system.
+In 1851 the number of letters posted in Great Britain and Ireland had
+risen to 670,000,000; while in 1895 the quantity sent reached the
+fabulous number of 1771 millions, or about forty-five letters per head
+of the population. This refers to letters pure and simple. If we take
+into account post-cards, newspapers, book-packets, &c., the aggregate
+number of postal packets posted in 1895 will be found to fall not far
+short of 1134 millions. Truly may it be said that the results of Penny
+Postage have been stupendous. But more than this; the net revenue
+derived from postage has long, long since exceeded that which accrued
+under the old system.
+
+The story of Penny Postage would be incomplete if we did not add a word
+as to how the great reformer fared at the hands of his country. With the
+introduction of his scheme he of course became associated with the
+Post-office, although at first he held a Treasury appointment, from
+which, however, after about three years' service, he was dismissed on
+the ground that his work was finished. Public indignation was aroused at
+this treatment of one who had already done so much for his country; and
+the nation seemed to think that the right place for Rowland Hill was at
+the Post-office, where further useful reforms might well be expected to
+follow from one who had begun so well. At all events, in 1846 he was
+restored to office, being appointed Secretary to the Postmaster-general,
+and eight years later he became Chief Secretary of the Post-office, an
+appointment which he held for ten years, when, from failing health, he
+retired with full pay into private life, full of years and honours. Soon
+after his dismissal from the Treasury, a grateful country subscribed
+and presented him with the sum of fifteen thousand pounds; and on his
+retirement, parliament voted him the sum of twenty thousand pounds. In
+1860 he received at Her Majesty's hands the dignity of Knight Commander
+of the Bath; and both before and after his retirement he was the
+recipient of many minor honours. In 1879 Sir Rowland Hill was presented
+with the freedom of the City of London; but he was an old man then, and
+only lived a few months to enjoy this civic honour. He had a public
+funeral, and was accorded a niche in the temple of fame at Westminster.
+
+
+A VISIT TO THE POST-OFFICE.
+
+Without a personal visit to the Post-office, it is perhaps difficult to
+gain any correct impression of its immensity, or of the perfect
+discipline and order which prevade the buildings devoted to postal and
+telegraphic work. It is a visit which should be made by every one
+interested, if possible. They would then marvel that we get our letters
+and papers in the short time we do, if they were to see the thousands
+upon thousands that are poured into St Martin's-le-Grand day by day. The
+General Post-office never sleeps save on Sunday between twelve and
+half-past one. The work is never at a standstill.
+
+We began our visit to St Martin's-le-Grand by inspecting what is known
+as the 'blind' department, where letters with indistinct, incomplete,
+and wrongly spelt addresses are puzzled out by those specially trained
+in solving such mysteries. Scrap-books are kept in this department, into
+which the curious and amusing addresses originally inscribed on the face
+of letters transmitted through the Post-office are copied and preserved.
+Whilst we were looking at these a post-card was handed in to one of the
+officials merely addressed Jackson. Whether the sender thought it would
+go around to the various Jacksons in London, we know not, but anyway it
+was decided to take the trouble to return it to the sender, advising him
+that it was insufficiently addressed. The trouble careless persons give
+the Post-office is inconceivable, and the way some try to cheat in the
+manner of registering letters needs to be seen to be believed.
+
+From the 'blind' department we were conducted to the 'hospital,' where
+badly done up letters and parcels which have come to grief are doctored
+and made sufficiently secure to reach their destination. When it is
+recollected that postage is so cheap, the outside public might at least
+take the trouble to do up letters and parcels properly without putting
+the Post-office to the enormous trouble thus caused--needless trouble
+sustained without a murmur and without extra charge. Some are put into
+fresh envelopes, others are sealing-waxed where slits have occurred, and
+others are properly tied up with string. All this trouble might be saved
+by a little forethought on the part of the senders.
+
+The number of samples that different firms send through the post each
+day is astonishing. It is said that 1,504,000 pattern and sample packets
+are posted annually in the metropolis. In addition to those just
+mentioned, alpaca, corduroy, gloves, ribbons, plush, whalebone, muslin,
+linen, biscuits, oilcakes, pepper, yeast, toilet soap, sperm candles,
+mustard, raisins, &c, are sent by sample post. One firm alone posted
+125,418 packets containing spice.
+
+The time to visit the sorting process at the Post-office is between
+half-past five and eight o'clock in the evening. At closing time the
+letters are simply poured by thousands into the baskets waiting to
+receive them, and each one as soon as full is wheeled off in an instant
+to the sorters and other officials waiting to deal with them. When they
+have been deposited on the innumerable tables, the first process is to
+face the letters--not so easy a task when the shapes and sizes of the
+letters are so varied. As soon as the facing process is over, they are
+passed as quick as lightning on to the stampers, who proceed to deface
+the Queen's head. The noise whilst this process is being gone through is
+deafening. Some stampers have a hand-machine, whilst others are making a
+trial of a treadle stamping-machine which stamps some four hundred
+letters per minute. From the stampers the letters pass on to the
+sorters. Whilst all this is proceeding, the visitor should step up into
+the gallery for a minute or two and look down on the busy scene below.
+It is a sight well worth seeing and not likely to be forgotten--the
+thousands of letters heaped on the tables, and the hundreds of workers
+as hard at work as it is possible for them to be. The envelopes are
+separated and placed in the several pigeon-holes which indicate the
+various directions they are to travel. Liverpool, Manchester,
+Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Glasgow have special receptacles for
+themselves, as the first three cities have on an average fifteen
+thousand letters a day despatched to each; and further, there are eight
+despatches a day to these places, eleven thousand per day go to Glasgow,
+and between eight and nine thousand to Edinburgh. All official
+letters--that is, 'On Her Majesty's Service'--have a special table to
+themselves. Some eighty-nine thousand Savings-bank books pass through St
+Martin's-le-Grand daily. Some sorters get through between forty and
+fifty letters a minute, whilst a new-comer will not be able to manage
+more than twenty or thirty.
+
+The nights on which various mails go out are extra busy ones, especially
+Friday evening, when the Indian, Chinese, and Australian mails are sent.
+The reduction of the postage has made an enormous difference in the
+contents of the mail-bags to these parts of the world. It may be
+interesting here to note how the mails are dealt with at Brindisi. Van
+after van conveys the mail-bags from the train to the ship, where two
+gangways are put off from the shore to the ship's side. Lascars run up
+one and down the other with the bags. Each lascar has a smooth flat
+stick like a ruler, and as he deposits his mail-bag on a long bench over
+the hold, he gives up his stick to a man standing by. When five lascars
+have arrived, the sticks go into one compartment of a small wooden box;
+and when the box is full--that is, when a hundred have been put in--the
+box is carried off and another brought forward. Three hundred and
+ninety-two bags is a good average, and they take just under forty
+minutes to put on board. The French and Italian mails are included in
+these; but no other European mails go by the Peninsular and Oriental
+Company. At Aden, two sorters come on board and spend their days in some
+postal cabins sorting the mails for the different parts of India, &c.
+The bags in which these mails are enclosed are only used once. They are
+made in one of our convict prisons, and fresh ones are distributed each
+week both outward and homeward.
+
+Turning from the General Post-office South, which is now exclusively
+utilised for letters and papers, we proceed to the General Post-office
+North, which is devoted solely to the telegraph department. The
+Savings-bank department was originally in the same building as the
+telegraph; but owing to the rapid increase in both departments, the
+Savings-bank has been removed to Queen Victoria Street. Coldbath-Fields
+Prison was converted into a home for the Parcel Post. Some three
+thousand male and female clerks are employed in the telegraph department
+alone. The top floor of the building is devoted to the metropolitan
+districts. A telegram sent from one suburb of London to another is bound
+to pass through St Martin's-le-Grand; it cannot be sent direct. The
+second floor deals with the provinces. The pneumatic tube is now used a
+great deal; and by means of it some fifty telegrams can be sent on at
+once, and not singly, as would be the case if the telegraphic instrument
+was the only instrument in use. The tube is mostly used at the branch
+offices.
+
+The press is a great user both of the postal and telegraphic department.
+In the postal department the representatives can call for letters at any
+hour, provided their letters are enclosed in a distinctive-coloured
+envelope, such as bright red or orange. Of course this privilege has to
+be paid for. In the telegraph department the press can obtain their
+'private wires' after six in the evening, as the wires are no longer
+required for commercial purposes. The plan adopted in sending the same
+message to every provincial town which has a daily journal is the
+following: all along the route the operators are advised of the fact,
+and whilst the message is only actually delivered at its final
+destination, the words are caught as they pass each town by means of the
+'sounder.' By this ingenious arrangement, dozens of towns are placed in
+direct communication with the central office whence the message is
+despatched. To carry on our telegraphic arrangements three miles of
+shelves are needed, on which are deposited forty thousand batteries.
+
+
+THE POST-OFFICE ON WHEELS.
+
+The particular portion of the 'Post-office on Wheels' which we purpose
+describing is the Special Mail which leaves London from Euston Station
+daily. We have selected this mail, not only because all the duties
+appertaining to the Travelling Post-office are performed therein, but
+also because it is the most important mail in the United Kingdom,
+probably in the whole world. In the Special Mail, the post-office
+vehicles are forty-two feet in length, and one of thirty-two feet. There
+is a gangway communication between all the carriages, so that the
+officers on duty can pass from one to another throughout the entire
+length without going outside. All the carriages are lighted with gas.
+
+The pair-horse vans which convey the London bags for provincial towns
+come dashing into the station in rapid succession, and as there are only
+fifteen minutes before the train starts, no time is to be lost. The bags
+are quickly removed from the vans, the name of each being called out in
+the process, thus enabling an officer who stands near to tick them off
+on a printed list with which he is provided. They are then stowed away
+in the respective carriages in appointed places.
+
+Having proceeded to the principal sorting carriage, we see that there
+are some thousands of the letters which have come from the London
+offices still to be disposed of. They lie on the desks in large bundles;
+but every minute there is a perceptible diminution of their numbers by
+means of the vigorous attacks of the men engaged. From end to end of one
+side of the carriage--that farthest from the platform--rows of
+sorting-boxes, or 'pigeon-holes,' are fixed nearly up to the roof,
+starting from the sorting-table, which is about three feet from the
+floor. The boxes into which the ordinary letters are sorted are divided
+into sets, numbered consecutively from 1 to 45, and one sorter works at
+each set. The numbers on the boxes are in accordance with a prescribed
+plan, each number representing the names of certain towns, and into such
+boxes the letters for those towns are sorted. The plan mentioned is
+carried out as follows: Suppose we say that No. 10 represents Rugby, of
+course when the mail-bag for that town is despatched the box is empty.
+It is then used, say, for Crewe, and when the bag for that place is gone
+the box again becomes empty. It is then used for some other town farther
+down the line, and so on to the end of the journey. The set of boxes
+nearest the fore-end of the carriage is used by the officer who deals
+with the registered letters. This set can be closed by means of a
+revolving shutter, which is fitted with a lock and key; so that, should
+the registered-letter officer have to quit his post for any purpose, he
+can secure the contents of his boxes, and so feel satisfied that they
+are in a safe place. This officer also disposes of all the letter-bills
+on which the addresses of the registered letters are advised.
+
+The set of boxes into which the newspapers and book packets are sorted
+is about twice the size of an ordinary letter set, and occupies the
+centre part of the whole box arrangement. This space is assigned to the
+newspaper boxes for two reasons: the set is exactly opposite the doorway
+through which the bags are taken in at the stopping station, so that
+they lie on the floor behind the sorter who opens them; he has therefore
+simply to turn round and pick them up one by one as he requires them,
+thereby saving both time and labour. Again, as the bags are opened, the
+bundles of letters which are labelled No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, in
+accordance with the list supplied to postmasters for their guidance,
+have to be distributed to the letter-sorters--No. 1 bundles to the left,
+No. 2 to the right; and this distribution could not be so conveniently
+performed with the newspaper or bag-opening table placed in a different
+position. Most of the newspaper boxes, as we have said, are about twice
+the size of a letter box; some, however, such as those used for large
+towns like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, &c., are four times the
+size; and the necessity for this can be readily understood.
+
+We will now look at the other side of the carriage--or that nearest the
+platform. Along the whole length of that side, strong iron pegs are
+fixed about an inch apart, and on these pegs the bags to be made up and
+despatched on the way are hung. Most of the bags used in the Travelling
+Post-office are of one size--three feet six inches long, and two feet
+four inches wide; but for the large towns, bags of greater dimensions
+are required. Each bag is distinctly marked on both sides with the name
+of the town to which it is to be forwarded, the letters forming the name
+being an inch and a quarter in length. The name is also stencilled
+inside the mouth of the bag, so that the sorter has it immediately
+before his eyes when putting the letters, &c., away. On reaching its
+destination the bag is emptied of its contents, is turned inside out,
+and then the name of the Travelling Post-office from which it was
+received appears in view. The bag is then folded up and kept ready for
+the return despatch on the following night. In this way it passes and
+repasses until it is worn out, when it is withdrawn, and a new one takes
+its place.
+
+We will now assume the train is fairly on its way, and that we are
+approaching Harrow, the first station at which the mail-bags are
+received by means of the apparatus. As the machinery constituting the
+apparatus is of great importance in the system of working, we shall here
+endeavour to describe it.
+
+We may say that the apparatus in the Special Mail is worked in a
+separate carriage which runs immediately behind the one to which we have
+referred in the preceding details. A large and very strong net is firmly
+fixed on the side of the carriage on the near end, and the woodwork
+being cut away, an aperture is formed through which the pouches
+containing the bags are taken into the carriage. The net is raised or
+lowered by pressing down a lever very similar in structure and
+appearance to the levers which are seen in a signalman's cabin. When the
+net is lowered, a strong rope is seen to stretch across from the
+fore-part, and this rope, being held in position by a chain attached to
+the back-part of the net, forms what is called a detaching line in the
+shape of the letter V placed thus, <; and as the carriage travels along,
+the rope at the point forming the angle strikes the suspended pouch, and
+detaches it from the standard, when it falls into the net, and is
+removed by the officer attending to the apparatus. The machinery is also
+arranged so that a bag can be despatched as well as received. A man
+doing this work should possess keen eyes, steady nerves, and a full
+average amount of strength. On a dark or foggy night it is difficult to
+see the objects which serve as guides to the whereabouts of the train,
+and which are technically known in the office as 'marks.'
+
+The net is now lowered for the receipt at Harrow. In a second or two, a
+tremendous thud is heard, and a large pouch comes crashing into the
+carriage through the aperture, the men meanwhile keeping a respectful
+distance. I should perhaps explain that in the Special Mail a new form
+of net is used. The bottom of it is flush with the carriage floor, and
+as the lower portion is constructed with an angle of about forty-five
+degrees, the pouches roll into the carriage by their own weight.
+
+We will now see what the pouch from Harrow contains. It is quickly
+unstrapped; the bags are taken out; and it is then laid aside, to be
+used for despatch at a subsequent station. There are three bags for the
+Travelling Post-office received in this pouch--two containing
+correspondence for England and Scotland, and one for Ireland. The bags
+are immediately opened by the proper officers. The first duty is to
+find the letter-bill; and if there are any registered letters, to
+compare them with the entries on the bill, when, if correct, the bill is
+signed and passed over, together with the registered letters, to the
+officer who disposes of that class of correspondence, and by whom an
+acknowledgment of the receipt of the letters is at once given to the
+bag-opener. It is in this way that a hand-to-hand check is established
+which ensures the practical safety of such letters.
+
+The bag-opener then proceeds to pick out from amongst the mass of
+correspondence the bundles of ordinary letters, and to pass them to the
+right or left according as they are labelled No. 1 or No. 2. These
+bundles are cut open by the respective sorters who work at the several
+sets of boxes, the letters being laid in a row on the desk, and the men
+then proceed to sort them in accordance with the addresses they bear. As
+the boxes (each of which will hold about one hundred and fifty) become
+full, the letters are tied up securely in bundles, and the sorters,
+turning round, drop them into the bags which hang along the other side
+of the carriage. And so the work goes on in the same way throughout the
+entire journey.
+
+Let us now try to show to how great an extent the Travelling Post-office
+has contributed to the acceleration of correspondence from place to
+place. On an examination of the letters received from Harrow, it is
+found that there are three for Aberdeen; and a similar number for that
+city will be received from the several towns between London and Rugby,
+and so on. Of course, the number of letters mentioned would not be
+sufficient for a direct bag between each of these places and Aberdeen;
+but the small numbers referred to being brought together in the
+Travelling Post-office, it is found that when the train arrives at
+Carlisle a sufficient amount of correspondence for the northern city
+has been received to fill a large bag. This bag is therefore closed at
+that point, and a fresh one hung up, to contain the correspondence for
+that city received northwards of Carlisle. The same may be said of the
+other large towns in Scotland. Now, if there were no Travelling
+Post-office, how would the few letters for Aberdeen emanating from the
+various towns in England be dealt with? In the first place, they would
+have to be picked up by a stopping train, and even if this train ran
+direct to Aberdeen, there would be a difference in the time of arrival
+of at least eight hours. But the letters could not go direct in such a
+case, as that would mean the making-up of separate bags at each place;
+and we have already shown that the letters are too few in number to
+justify such an arrangement. They would have to be collected at some
+central office, say at Birmingham, where they would of necessity be
+detained some time; so that altogether it is probable they would not
+arrive at their destination early enough to be delivered on the day
+following that of posting. What, however, is the case now? Thanks to the
+Travelling Post-office with its mail-bag apparatus, the letters are
+whirled along at close upon fifty miles an hour without intermission,
+thus admitting of the delivery of letters from London at so remote a
+place as Aberdeen long before noon on the following day.
+
+We will now assume that the train has arrived at Rugby--the distance
+eighty-four miles. At this station mails for Coventry, Birmingham, &c.,
+are left to be forwarded by a branch train. After a stop of four
+minutes, the train again speeds on its way, the next stopping-place
+being Tamworth. Here a large number of mail-bags are despatched,
+including those for the Midland Travelling Post-office, going north to
+Newcastle-on-Tyne, which serves Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and the whole
+country-side bordering on the north-east coast; for the Shrewsbury
+mail-train, which serves the whole of Mid-Wales; and for the Lincoln
+mail-train, which serves Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.
+
+The next halt is at Crewe, where formerly a large exchange of bags took
+place, having been passed without stopping. Crewe is, for Travelling
+Post-office purposes, by far the most important junction in the kingdom.
+Within three hours--that is, between half-past eleven at night and
+half-past two in the morning--over a dozen mail-trains, each with
+sorting-carriages attached, arrive and depart; whilst the weight of
+mails exchanged here within the hours mentioned is not less than twenty
+tons. A great amount of labour is involved in receiving and delivering
+such an immense weight of bags, the work being all done by hand, and the
+mail-porters have to exercise great care in keeping them in proper
+course for the respective trains. Nevertheless, these responsible duties
+are remarkably well performed, mistakes very rarely occurring.
+
+The Irish mail which runs from London to Holyhead, and in which
+correspondence for Ireland is almost exclusively dealt with, branches
+off at Crewe, the remainder of the journey being run by way of Chester
+and North Wales.
+
+Leaving Warrington, the next stoppage is at Wigan. Here the mails for
+Liverpool are despatched, and the receipt includes bags which have been
+brought through a long line of country, stretching from
+Newcastle-on-Tyne through York, Normanton, and Stalybridge, and thence
+to Wigan. The mails for Preston and East Lancashire are left at Preston,
+and, running through Lancaster, Carnforth is soon reached. At this
+station the mails for North-west Lancashire and West Cumberland are
+despatched, and this is the last stopping-place before arriving at
+Carlisle, which is the terminal point of the North-Western Railway.
+
+Mention should be made of the noteworthy despatch of mails by apparatus
+at Oxenholme, the junction for Kendal, Windermere, and the Lake
+District. It is the largest despatch by that method in the kingdom, as
+many as nine pouches being delivered into two nets. Each pouch at this
+station weighs on an average fifty pounds, so that altogether four
+hundred and fifty pounds of mail-matter is despatched at this one
+station--no inconsiderable feat.
+
+At Carlisle the mails for the Waverley route country and for the whole
+of the south-west of Scotland, including Ayrshire, are left. There is
+another long run over the Caledonian Railway--about seventy-eight
+miles--without a stop, the apparatus being worked seven times in that
+distance until Carstairs is reached. Here, one of the sorting-carriages
+is detached, and proceeds to Edinburgh; and a few miles farther on three
+more are detached, and proceed to Glasgow from Holytown Junction. From
+that point, therefore, only two sorting-carriages remain in the train,
+and these go on to Aberdeen.
+
+The next stop is at Stirling, where the bags for the Western Highlands
+are left; and we then run on to Perth.
+
+At Perth, the mails for Dundee and the northern Highlands are
+despatched, the latter being forwarded by a mail-train which runs on the
+Highland Railway _via_ Inverness. Again the Special Mail starts on its
+way, there being only one stop--at Forfar--before arriving at Aberdeen,
+where the journey ends. Here the last bags are despatched. The carriage
+is clear. The sorting-boxes are carefully searched, to see that no
+letters have been left in them; and the carriage is then taken charge of
+by the railway officials, to be thoroughly cleansed and made ready for
+the return journey on the following day. The duties on the way to London
+are performed in a precisely similar manner to those on the journey
+northwards.
+
+
+EARLY TELEGRAPHS.
+
+The ancient Greeks and Romans practised telegraphy with the help of pots
+filled with straw and twigs saturated in oil, which, being placed in
+rows, expressed certain letters according to the order in which they
+were lighted; but the only one of their contrivances that merits a
+detailed description was that invented by a Grecian general named Aeneas,
+who flourished in the time of Aristotle, intended for communication
+between the generals of an army. It consisted of two exactly similar
+earthen vessels, filled with water, each provided with a cock that would
+discharge an equal quantity of water in a given time, so that the whole
+or any part of the contents would escape in precisely the same period
+from both vessels. On the surface of each floated a piece of cork
+supporting an upright, marked off into divisions, each division having a
+certain sentence inscribed upon it. One of the vessels was placed at
+each station; and when either party desired to communicate, he lighted a
+torch, which he held aloft until the other did the same, as a sign that
+he was all attention. On the sender of the message lowering or
+extinguishing his torch, each party immediately opened the cock of his
+vessel, and so left it until the sender relighted his torch, when it was
+at once closed. The receiver then read the sentence on the division of
+the upright that was level with the mouth of the vessel, and which, if
+everything had been executed with exactness, corresponded with that of
+the sender, and so conveyed the desired intimation.
+
+We must here pause a moment to point out one great advantage that this
+contrivance, simple as it undoubtedly was, will be seen to possess over
+the more scientific ones that follow, and that was, its equal efficacy
+in any sort of country and in any position, whether on a plain, on the
+summit of a hill, or in a sequestered valley.
+
+To descend to more modern times. Kessler in his _Concealed Arts_ advised
+the cutting out of characters in the bottom of casks, which would appear
+luminous when a light was placed inside. In the _Spectator_ of December
+6, 1711, there is an extract from Strada, an Italian historian, who
+published his _Prolusiones Academicae_ in 1617. In the passage referred
+to, the modern system of telegraphy is curiously indicated. It is as
+follows: 'Strada, in one of his Prolusions, gives an account of a
+chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain
+loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several
+needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other,
+though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the
+same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them
+possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing
+it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of
+the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of
+the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move
+round without impediment so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty
+letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries,
+they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a
+certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of
+this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles
+asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time
+appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a
+mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every
+letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little
+pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The
+friend, in the meanwhile, saw his own sympathetic needle moving of
+itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By
+this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed
+their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains,
+seas or deserts.
+
+It was not till near the close of the seventeenth century that a really
+practical system of visual signalling from hill to hill was introduced
+by Dr Hooke, whose attention had been turned to the subject at the siege
+of Vienna by the Turks. He erected on the top of several hills having a
+sky-line background three high poles or masts, connected at their upper
+ends by a cross-piece. The space between two of these poles was filled
+in with timbers to form a screen, behind which the various letters were
+hung in order on lines, and, by means of pulleys, run out into the clear
+space between the other two, when they stood out clear against the
+sky-line. The letters were thus run out and back again in the required
+order of spelling, and were divided into day and night letters--the
+former being made of deals, the latter with the addition of links or
+lights; besides which there were certain conventional characters to
+represent such sentences as, 'I am ready to communicate,' 'I am ready to
+receive.' In his description of the device, read before the Royal
+Society on the 21st of May 1684, Dr Hooke, after claiming for it the
+power of transmitting messages to a station thirty or forty miles
+distant, said: 'For the performance of this we must be beholden to a
+late invention, which we do not find any of the ancients knew; that is,
+the eye must be assisted with telescopes, that whatever characters are
+exposed at one station may be made plain and distinguishable at the
+other.' A cipher code was subsequently added by an ingenious Frenchman
+named Amontons.
+
+In 1767 we find Mr Richard L. Edgeworth, the father of Maria Edgeworth,
+employing the sails of a common windmill for communicating intelligence,
+by an arranged system of signals according to the different positions of
+the arms. The signals were made to denote numbers, the corresponding
+parties being each provided with a dictionary in which the words were
+numbered--the system in vogue for our army-signalling till 1871, when
+the Morse alphabet was substituted for it.
+
+A great stride was made in 1793 by M. Chappe, a citizen of Paris, when
+the French Revolution directed all the energies of that nation to the
+improvement of the art of war; reporting on whose machine to the French
+Convention in August of the following year, Barere remarked: 'By this
+invention, remoteness and distance almost disappear, and all the
+communications of correspondence are effected with the rapidity of the
+twinkling of an eye.' It consisted of a strong wooden mast some
+twenty-five feet high, with a cross-beam twelve feet by nine inches
+jointed on to its top, so as to be movable about its centre like a
+scale-beam, and could thus be placed horizontally, vertically, or anyhow
+inclined by means of cords. To each end of this cross-beam was affixed a
+short vertical indicator about four feet long, which likewise turned on
+pivots by means of cords, and to the end of each was attached a
+counterweight, almost invisible at a distance, to balance the weight of
+it. This machine could be made to assume certain positions which
+represented or were symbolical of letters of the alphabet. In working,
+nothing depended on the operator's manual skill, as the movements were
+regulated mechanically. The time taken up for each movement was twenty
+seconds, of which the actual motion occupied four; during the other
+sixteen, the telegraph was kept stationary, to allow of its being
+distinctly observed and the letter written down by those at the next
+station. All the parts were painted dark brown, that they might stand
+out well against the sky; and three persons were required at each
+station, one to manipulate the machine, another to read the messages
+through a telescope, and the third to transfer them to paper, or repeat
+them to No. 1 to send on. The first machine of this kind was erected on
+the roof of the Paris Louvre, to communicate with the army which was
+then stationed near Lille, between which places intermediate ones from
+nine to twelve miles apart were erected, the second being at Montmartre.
+The different limbs were furnished with argand lamps for night-work.
+
+Shortly after this, our own government set up lines of communication
+from the Admiralty to Deal, Portsmouth, and other points on the coast,
+which we find thus reported in the _Annual Register_ for 1796:
+
+March 28th. 'A telegraph was this day erected over the Admiralty, which
+is to be the point of communication with all the different sea-ports in
+the kingdom. The nearest telegraph to London has hitherto been in St
+George's Fields; and to such perfection has this ingenious and useful
+contrivance been already brought, that one day last week information was
+conveyed from Dover to London in the space of only seven minutes. The
+plan proposed to be adopted in respect to telegraphs is yet only carried
+into effect between London and Dover; but it is intended to extend all
+over the kingdom. The importance of this speedy communication must be
+evident to every one; and it has this advantage, that the information
+conveyed is known only to the person who sends and to him who receives
+it. The intermediate posts have only to answer and convey the signals.'
+
+The machines used consisted of three masts connected by a top-piece. The
+spaces between the masts were divided into three horizontally, and in
+each partition a large wooden octagon was fixed, poised upon a
+horizontal axis across its centre, so that it could be made to present
+either its surface or its edge to the observer. The octagons were turned
+by means of cranks upon the ends of the axles, from which cords
+descended into a cabin below. By the changes in the position of these
+six octagonal boards, thirty-six changes were easily exhibited, and the
+signal to represent any letter or number made: thus, one board being
+turned into a horizontal position so as to expose its edge, while the
+other five remained shut or in a vertical position, might stand for A,
+two of them only in a horizontal position for B, three for C, and so on.
+It was, however, found that the octagons were less evident to the eye at
+a distance than the indicators of Chappe's machine, requiring the
+stations to be closer together; nor could this telegraph be made to
+change its direction, so that it could only be seen from one particular
+point, which necessitated having a separate machine at the Admiralty for
+each line, as well as an additional one at every branch-point. It was,
+moreover, too bulky and of a form unsuitable for illumination at night.
+
+Here we may notice that in 1801 Mr John Boaz of Glasgow obtained a
+patent for a telegraph which effected the signal by means of twenty-five
+lamps arranged in five rows of five each, so as to form a square. Each
+lamp was provided with a blind, with which its light could be obscured,
+so that they could be made to exhibit letters and figures by leaving
+such lamps only visible as were necessary to form the character.
+
+The next improvement again came from France, in 1806, when an entirely
+new set of telegraphs on the following principle was established along
+the whole extent of the coast of the French empire. A single upright
+pole was provided with three arms, each movable about an axis at one
+end--one near the head, the other two at points lower down, all painted
+black, with their counterpoises white, so as to be invisible a short way
+off. Each arm could assume six different positions--one straight out on
+either side of the pole, two at an angle of forty-five degrees above
+this line, and two at forty-five degrees below it. The arm near the head
+could be made to exhibit seven positions, the seventh being the
+vertical; but as this might have been mistaken for part of the pole, it
+was not employed. The number of combinations or different signals that
+could be rendered by this machine, employing only three objects, was
+consequently three hundred and forty-two against sixty-three by that of
+our Admiralty just described, and which employed six objects.
+
+It was not long, however, before we copied the advancement of our
+neighbours across the Channel, and in some respects improved upon it,
+the main differences being that only two arms were employed--one at the
+top, the other half-way down, and that the mast was made to revolve on a
+vertical axis, so that the arms could be rendered visible from any
+desired quarter. Its mechanism, the invention of Sir Home Popham,
+enabled the arms to be moved by means of endless screws worked by iron
+spindles from below, a vast improvement on the old cords, the more so as
+they worked inside the mast, which was hollow, hexagonal in section, and
+framed of six boards bound together by iron hoops, and were thus
+protected from the weather. Inside the cabin he erected two dials, one
+for each arm, each having an index finger that worked simultaneously
+with its corresponding arm above, on the same principle as the little
+semaphore models to be seen nowadays in our railway signal cabins.
+
+We have now described the most prominent of the numerous contrivances
+which, prior to the application of electricity to that end, were devised
+and made use of for telegraphic communication, all of which, unlike that
+subtle power that is not afraid of the dark and can travel in all
+weathers, possessed a common weakness in their liability to failure
+through atmospheric causes, fog, mist, and haze. To us who live in this
+age of electrical marvels, when that particular science more than all
+others progresses by leaps and bounds, it appears passing strange and
+almost incredible that so many years were allowed to elapse before the
+parents of the electric telegraph, the electrical machine and magnetic
+compass, were joined in wedlock to produce their amazing progeny, which
+now enables all mankind, however distant, to hold rapid, soft, and easy
+converse.
+
+
+THE TELEGRAPH OF TO-DAY.
+
+A veil of mystery still hangs around the first plan for an electric
+telegraph, communicated to the _Scots Magazine_ for 1753 by one 'C. M.'
+of Renfrew. Even the name of this obscure and modest genius is doubtful;
+but it is probable that he was Charles Morrison, a native of Greenock,
+who was trained as a surgeon. At this period only the electricity
+developed by friction was available for the purpose, and being of a
+refractory nature, there was no practical result.
+
+But after Volta had invented the chemical generator or voltaic pile in
+the first year of our century, and Oersted, in 1820, had discovered the
+influence of the electric current on a magnetic needle, the illustrious
+Laplace suggested to Ampere, the famous electrician, that a working
+telegraph might be produced if currents were conveyed to a distance by
+wires, and made to deflect magnetic needles, one for every letter of the
+alphabet. This was in the year 1820; but it was not until sixteen years
+later that the idea was put in practice. In 1836 Mr William Fothergill
+Cooke, an officer of the Madras army, at home on furlough, was
+travelling in Germany, and chanced to see at the university of
+Heidelberg, in the early part of March, an experimental telegraph,
+fitted up between the study and the lecture theatre of the Professor of
+Natural Philosophy. It was based on the principle of Laplace and
+Ampere, and consisted of two electric circuits and a pair of magnetic
+needles which responded to the interruptions of the current. Mr Cooke
+was struck with this device; but it was only during his journey from
+Heidelberg to Frankfort on the 17th of the month, while reading Mrs Mary
+Somerville's book on the _Correlation of the Physical Sciences_, that
+the notion of his practical telegraph flashed upon his mind. Sanguine of
+success, he abandoned his earlier pursuits and devoted all his energies
+to realise his invention.
+
+The following year he associated himself with Professor Wheatstone; a
+joint patent was procured; and the Cooke and Wheatstone needle telegraph
+was erected between the Euston Square and Camden Town stations of the
+London and Birmingham Railway. To test the working of the instruments
+through a longer distance, several miles of wire were suspended in the
+carriage-shed at Euston, and included in the circuit. All being ready,
+the trial was made on the evening of the 25th of July 1837, a memorable
+date. Some friends of the inventors were present, including Mr George
+Stephenson and Mr Isambard Brunel, the celebrated engineers. Mr Cooke,
+with these, was stationed at Camden Town, and Mr Wheatstone at Euston
+Square. The latter struck the key and signalled the first message.
+Instantly the answer came on the vibrating needles, and their hopes were
+realised. 'Never,' said Professor Wheatstone--'never did I feel such a
+tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I
+heard the needles click; and as I spelled the words I felt all the
+magnitude of the invention, now proved to be practical beyond cavil or
+dispute.'
+
+It was in 1832, during a voyage from Havre to New York in the packet
+_Sully_, that Mr S. F. B. Morse, then an artist, conceived the idea of
+the electro-magnetic marking telegraph, and drew a design for it in his
+sketch-book. But it was not until the beginning of 1838 that he and his
+colleague, Mr Alfred Vail, succeeded in getting the apparatus to work.
+Judge Vail, the father of Alfred, and proprietor of the Speedwell
+ironworks, had found the money for the experiments; but as time went on
+and no result was achieved, he became disheartened, and perhaps annoyed
+at the sarcasms of his neighbours, so that the inventors were afraid to
+meet him. 'I recall vividly,' says Mr Baxter, 'even after the lapse of
+so many years, the proud moment when Alfred said to me, "William, go up
+to the house and invite father to come down and see the
+telegraph-machine work." I did not stop to don my coat, although it was
+the 6th of January, but ran in my shop-clothes as fast as I possibly
+could. It was just after dinner when I knocked at the door of the house,
+and was ushered into the sitting-room. The judge had on his
+broad-brimmed hat and surtout, as if prepared to go out; but he sat
+before the fireplace, leaning his head on his cane, apparently in deep
+meditation. As I entered his room he looked up and said, "Well,
+William?" and I answered: "Mr Alfred and Mr Morse sent me to invite you
+to come down to the room and see the telegraph-machine work." He started
+up, as if the importance of the message impressed him deeply; and in a
+few minutes we were standing in the experimental room. After a short
+explanation, he called for a piece of paper, and writing upon it the
+words, "A patient waiter is no loser," he handed it to Alfred, saying,
+"If you can send this, and Mr Morse can read it at the other end, I
+shall be convinced." The message was received by Morse at the other end,
+and handed to the judge, who, at this unexpected triumph, was overcome
+by his emotions.' The practical value of the invention was soon
+realised; by 1840 telegraph lines were being made in civilised
+countries, and ere long extended into the network of lines which now
+encircle the globe and bring the remotest ends of the earth into direct
+and immediate communication.
+
+
+ATLANTIC CABLES.
+
+A year or two before the first attempt to lay an Atlantic cable, there
+were only eighty-seven nautical miles of submarine cables laid; now, the
+total length of these wonderful message-carriers under the waves is over
+160,500 English statute miles. There are now fourteen cables crossing
+the Atlantic, which are owned by six different companies.
+
+The charter which Mr Cyrus W. Field obtained for the New York,
+Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company was granted in the year 1854.
+It constructed the land-line telegraph in Newfoundland, and laid a cable
+across the Gulf of St Lawrence; but this was only the commencement of
+the work. Soundings of the sea were needed; electricians had to devise
+forms of cable most suitable; engineers to consider the methods of
+carrying and of laying the cable; and capitalists had to be convinced
+that the scheme was practicable, and likely to be remunerative; whilst
+governments were appealed to for aid. Great Britain readily promised
+aid; but the United States Senate passed the needful Bill by a majority
+of one.
+
+But when the first Atlantic cable expedition left the coast of Kerry, it
+was a stately squadron of British and American ships of war, such as the
+_Niagara_ and the _Agamemnon_, and of merchant steamships. The
+Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company,
+and of British railways, were there, with representatives of several
+nations; and when the shore-end had been landed at Valentia, the
+expedition left the Irish coast in August 1857. When 335 miles of the
+cable had been laid, it parted, and high hopes were buried many fathoms
+below the surface.
+
+The first expedition of 1858 also failed; the second one was successful;
+and on the 16th of August in that year, Queen Victoria congratulated the
+President of the United States 'upon the successful completion of this
+great international work;' and President Buchanan replied, trusting that
+the telegraph might 'prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and
+friendship between the kindred nations.' But after a few weeks' work,
+the cable gave its last throb, and was silent.
+
+Not until 1865 was another attempt made, and then the cable was broken
+after 1200 miles had been successfully laid. Then, at the suggestion of
+Mr (afterwards Sir) Daniel Gooch, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company
+was formed; and on 13th July 1866 another expedition left Ireland; and
+towards the end of the month, the _Great Eastern_ glided calmly into
+Heart's Content, 'dropping her anchor in front of the telegraph house,
+having trailed behind her a chain of two thousand miles, to bind the Old
+World to the New.'
+
+But the success of the year was more than the mere laying of a cable:
+the _Great Eastern_ was able, in the words of the late Lord Iddesleigh,
+to complete the 'laying of the cable of 1866, and the recovering that of
+1865.' The Queen conferred the honour of knighthood on Captain Anderson,
+on Professor Thomson, and on Messrs Glass and Channing; whilst Mr Gooch,
+M.P., was made a baronet. The charge for a limited message was then
+twenty pounds; and it was not long before a rival company was begun, to
+share in the rich harvest looked for; and thus another cable was laid,
+leading ultimately to an amalgamation between its ordinary company and
+the original Anglo-American Telegraph Company.
+
+[Illustration: The _Great Eastern_ paying out the Atlantic Cable.]
+
+Then, shortly afterwards, the Direct United States Cable Company came
+into being, and laid a cable; a French company followed suit; the great
+Western Union Telegraph Company of America entered into the Atlantic
+trade, and had two cables constructed and laid. The commencement of
+ocean telegraphy by each of these companies led to competition, and
+reduced rates for a time with the original company, ending in what is
+known as a pool or joint purse agreement, under which the total receipts
+were divided in allotted proportions to the companies. These companies
+have now eight cables usually operative; and it was stated by Sir J.
+Pender that these eight cables 'are capable of carrying over forty
+million words per annum.'
+
+In addition to the cables of the associated companies, the Commercial
+Cable Company own two modern cables; and one of the two additional ones
+was laid by this company--the other by the original--the Anglo-American
+Company. But the work is simple now to what it was thirty years ago.
+Then, there were only one or two cable-ships; now, Mr Preece enumerates
+thirty-seven, of which five belong to the greatest of our telegraph
+companies, the Eastern. The authority we have just named says that 'the
+form of cable has practically remained unaltered since the original
+Calais cable was laid in 1851;' its weight has been increased; and there
+have been additions to it to enable it to resist insidious submarine
+enemies. The gear of the steamships used in the service has been
+improved; whilst the 'picking-up gear' of one of the best known of these
+cable-ships is 'capable of lifting thirty tons at a speed of one knot
+per hour.' And there has been a wide knowledge gained of the ocean, its
+depth, its mountains, and its valleys, so that the task of cable-laying
+is much more of an exact science than it was. When the first attempt was
+made to lay an Atlantic cable, 'the manufacture of sea-cables' had been
+only recently begun; now, 140,000 knots are at work in the sea, and
+yearly the area is being enlarged. When, in 1856, Mr Thackeray
+subscribed to the Atlantic Telegraph Company, its share capital was
+L350,000--that being the estimated cost of the cable between
+Newfoundland and Ireland; now, five companies have a capital of over
+L12,500,000 invested in the Atlantic telegraph trade. The largest
+portion of the capital is that of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company,
+which has a capital of L7,000,000, and which represents the Atlantic
+Telegraph Company, the New York, and Newfoundland, and the French
+Atlantic Companies of old.
+
+Though the traffic fluctuates greatly, in some degree according to the
+charge per word (for in one year of lowest charges the number of words
+carried by the associated companies increased by 133 per cent., whilst
+the receipts decreased about 49 per cent.), yet it does not occupy fully
+the carrying capacity of the cables. But their 'life' and service is
+finite, and thus it becomes needful from time to time to renew these
+great and costly carriers under the Atlantic.
+
+
+THE STATE AND THE TELEGRAPHS.
+
+Since the telegraphs of the United Kingdom passed into the hands of the
+State, the changes which have taken place during that period in the
+volume of the business transacted, the rapidity in the transit of
+messages, and the charges made for sending telegrams, are little short
+of marvellous. It was in the year 1852 that the acquisition of the
+telegraph system by the State was first suggested, but not until late in
+the year 1867, when Mr Disraeli was Chancellor of the Exchequer, did the
+government definitely determine to take the matter up. At that time, as
+Mr Baines, C.B., tells us in his book, _Forty Years at the
+Post-office_: 'Five powerful telegraph companies were in existence--The
+Electric and International, the British and Irish Magnetic, the United
+Kingdom, the Universal Private, and the London and Provincial Companies.
+There were others of less importance. Terms had to be made with all of
+them. The railway interest had to be considered, and the submarine
+companies to be thought of, though not bought.' With strong and
+well-organised interests like these fighting hard to secure for
+themselves the very best possible terms, the government had not
+unnaturally to submit to a hard bargain before they could obtain from
+Parliament the powers which they required. However, after a severe
+struggle, the necessary Bill was successfully passed, and the consequent
+Money Bill became law in the following session. As the result of this
+action, the telegraphs became the property of the State upon the 29th of
+January 1870, and upon the 5th of the following month the actual
+transfer took place. The step seems to have been taken none too soon,
+for under the companies the telegraphs had been worked in a manner far
+from satisfactory to the public. Many districts had been completely
+neglected, and even between important centres the service had been quite
+inadequate. Moreover, charges had been high, and exasperating delays of
+frequent occurrence.
+
+Six million pounds was the sum first voted by Parliament for the
+purchase of the telegraphs, and this was practically all swallowed up in
+compensation. The Electric and International Company received
+L2,938,826; the Magnetic Company, L1,243,536; Reuter's Telegram Company,
+L726,000; the United Kingdom Company, L562,264; the Universal Private
+Company, L184,421; and the London and Provincial Company, L60,000. But
+large as these amounts were, they only made up about one-half of the
+expenditure which the government had to incur, and the total cost
+ultimately reached the enormous sum of eleven millions. Some idea of the
+manner in which the extra five millions was expended may be gathered
+from the fact that between October 1869 and October 1870, about 15,000
+miles of iron wire, nearly 2000 miles of gutta-percha-covered copper
+wire, about 100,000 poles, and 1,000,000 other fittings were purchased
+and fixed in position, 3500 telegraph instruments and 15,000 batteries
+were acquired, and about 2400 new telegraphists and temporary assistants
+were trained. The total expenditure was so vast that the Treasury
+eventually took fright, and in 1875 a committee was appointed 'to
+investigate the causes of the increased cost of the telegraph service
+since the acquisition of the telegraphs by the State.'
+
+This committee found that the following were the three main causes of
+the increase: The salaries of all the officials of the telegraph
+companies had been largely increased after their entry into the
+government service; the supervising staff maintained by the State was
+much more costly than that formerly employed by the companies; and a
+large additional outlay had been forced upon the government in
+connection with the maintenance of the telegraph lines. 'It would not,'
+they say in their report, 'be possible, in our opinion, for various
+reasons, for the government to work at so cheap a rate as the telegraph
+companies, but ... a reasonable expectation might be entertained that
+the working expenses could be kept within seventy or seventy-five per
+cent. of the gross revenue, and the responsible officers of the
+Post-office telegraph service should be urged to work up to that
+standard. Such a result would cover the cost of working, and the sum
+necessary for payment of interest on the debt incurred in the purchase
+of the telegraphs.' In regard to this question of cost, Mr Baines most
+truly remarks that the real stumbling-block of the Department was, and
+still is, 'the interest payable on L11,000,000 capital outlay, equal at,
+say, three per cent, to a charge of L330,000 a year.'
+
+The transfer of the telegraphs to the State was immediately followed by
+a startling increase in the number of messages sent. In fact, the
+public, attracted by the shilling rate, poured in telegrams so fast, and
+were so well supported by the news-agencies, who took full advantage of
+the reduced scale, that there was at first some danger of a collapse.
+Fortunately, however, the staff was equal to the emergency, and after
+the first rush was over, everything worked with perfect smoothness.
+
+During the next four years the enlargement of business was simply
+extraordinary. In 1875 the rate of increase was not maintained at quite
+so high a level, but nevertheless nearly 1,650,000 more messages were
+dealt with than during the previous year. The quantity of matter
+transmitted for Press purposes was also much greater than it had ever
+been before, and amounted to more than 220,000,000 words.
+
+In 1895 the number of telegraph offices at post-offices was 7409, in
+addition to 2252 at railway stations, or a grand total of 9661. The
+number of ordinary inland messages sent during the year was 71,589,064.
+
+In regard to the great increase of pace in the transmission of
+telegraphic messages, Mr Baines tells us that, 'looking back fifty
+years, we see wires working at the rate of eight words a minute, or an
+average of four words per wire per minute, over relatively short
+distances. Now, there is a potentiality of 400 words--nay, even 600 or
+700 words--per wire per minute, over very long distances. As the
+invention of duplex working has been supplemented by the contrivances
+for multiplex working (one line sufficing to connect several different
+offices in one part of the country with one or more offices in another
+part), it is almost impossible to put a limit to the carrying capacity
+of a single wire.' In 1866 the time occupied in sending a telegram
+between London and Bournemouth was two hours, and between Manchester and
+Bolton, two hours and a quarter; while in 1893 the times occupied were
+ten minutes and five minutes respectively.
+
+Press telegrams have enormously increased in number and length since the
+purchase of the telegraph system by the State. When the companies owned
+the wires, the news service from London to the provinces was ordinarily
+not more than a column of print a night. At the present time the news
+service of the Press Association alone over the Post-office wires to
+papers outside the metropolis averages fully 500 columns nightly. Since
+1870 this Association has paid the Post-office L750,000 for telegraphic
+charges, and in addition to this, very large sums have been paid by the
+London and provincial daily papers for the independent transmission of
+news, and by the principal journals in the country for the exclusive
+use, during certain hours, of 'special wires.' Some of the leading
+papers in the provinces receive ten or more columns of specially
+telegraphed news on nights when important matters are under discussion
+in Parliament; and from this some idea may be formed of the amount of
+business now transacted between the Press and the Telegraph Department.
+
+
+THE TELEPHONE.
+
+So much have times altered in the last fifty years, that the electric
+telegraph itself, which now reaches its thin arms into more than six
+thousand offices, is threatened in its turn with serious rivalry at
+the hands of a youthful but vigorous competitor, the telephone. Its
+advantages are such that its ultimate popularity cannot be a matter
+of doubt. It is no small benefit to be able to recognise voices, to
+transact business with promptitude by word of mouth, to get a reply,
+'Yes' or 'No,' on the spot, instead of having to rush to the nearest
+telegraph office.
+
+Great inventions are often conceived a long time before they are
+realised in practice. Sometimes the original idea occurs to the man who
+subsequently works it out; and sometimes it comes as a happy thought to
+one who is either in advance of his age, or who is prevented by adverse
+circumstances from following it up, and who yet lives to see the day
+when some more fortunate individual gives it a material shape, and so
+achieves the fame which was denied to him. Such is the case of M.
+Charles Bourselle, who in 1854 proposed a form of speaking-telephone,
+which, although not practicable in its first crude condition, might have
+led its originator to a more successful instrument if he had pursued the
+subject further.
+
+The telephone is an instrument designed to reproduce sounds at a
+distance by means of electricity. It was believed by most people, and
+even by eminent electricians, that the speaking-telephone had never been
+dreamed of by any one before Professor Graham Bell introduced his
+marvellous little apparatus to the scientific world. But that was a
+mistake. More than one person had thought of such a thing, Bourselle
+among the number. Philip Reis, a German electrician, had even
+constructed an electric telephone in 1864, which transmitted words with
+some degree of perfection; and the assistant of Reis asserts that it was
+designed to carry music as well as words. Professor Bell, in devising
+his telephone, copied the human ear with its vibrating drum. The first
+iron plate he used as a vibrator was a little piece of clock-spring
+glued to a parchment diaphragm, and on saying to the spring on the
+telephone at one end of the line: 'Do you understand what I say?' the
+answer from his assistant at the other end came back immediately: 'Yes;
+I understand you perfectly.' The sounds were feeble, and he had to hold
+his ear close to the little piece of iron on the parchment, but they
+were distinct; and though Reis had transmitted certain single words some
+ten years before, Bell was the first to make a piece of matter utter
+sentences. Reis gave the electric wire a tongue so that it could mumble
+like an infant; but Bell taught it to speak.
+
+The next step is attributed to Mr Elisha Gray of Chicago, who sent
+successions of electrical current of varying strength as well as of
+varying frequency into the circuit, and thus enabled the relative
+loudness as well as the pitch of sounds to be transmitted; and who
+afterwards took the important step of using the variations of a steady
+current. These variations, positive and negative, are capable of
+representing all the back-and-fore variations of position of a particle
+of air, however irregular these may be: and he secured them by making
+the sound-waves set a diaphragm in vibration. This diaphragm carried a
+metallic point which dipped in dilute sulphuric acid; the deeper it
+dipped the less was the resistance to a current passing through the
+acid, and _vice versa_: so that every variation in the position of the
+diaphragm produced a corresponding variation in the intensity of the
+current: and the varying current acted upon a distant electro-magnet,
+which accordingly fluctuated in strength, and in its attraction for a
+piece of soft iron suspended on a flexible diaphragm: this piece of soft
+iron accordingly oscillated, pulling the flexible diaphragm with it; and
+the variations of pressure in the air acted upon by the diaphragm
+produced waves, reproducing the characteristics of the original
+sound-waves, and perceived by the ear as reproducing the original sound
+or voice. Mr Gray lodged a _caveat_ for this contrivance in the United
+States Patent Office on 14th February 1876; but on the same day
+Professor Alexander Graham Bell filed a specification and drawings of
+the original Bell telephone.
+
+Bell's telephone was first exhibited in America at the Centennial
+Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876; and in England, at the Glasgow
+meeting of the British Association in September of that year. On that
+occasion, Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin) pronounced it, with
+enthusiasm, to be the 'greatest of all the marvels of the electric
+telegraph.' The surprise created by its first appearance was, however,
+nothing to the astonishment and delight which it aroused in this country
+when Professor Bell, the following year, himself exhibited it in London
+to the Society of Telegraph Engineers. Since then, its introduction as a
+valuable aid to social life has been very rapid, and the telephone is
+now to be found in use from China to Peru.
+
+
+THOMAS ALVA EDISON AND THE PHONOGRAPH.
+
+The Phonograph is an instrument for mechanically recording and
+reproducing articulate human speech, song, &c. It was invented by Mr T.
+A. Edison in the spring of 1877, at his Menlo Park Laboratory, New
+Jersey, and came into existence as the result of one of the many lines
+of experiment he was then engaged upon.
+
+Thomas Alva Edison, this notable American inventor, was born at Milan,
+Ohio, 11th February 1847, but his early years were spent at Port Huron,
+Michigan. His father was of Dutch, and his mother of Scotch descent; the
+latter, having been a teacher, gave him what schooling he received.
+Edison was a great reader in his youth, and at the age of twelve he
+became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Line running into Detroit, and began
+to experiment in chemistry. Gaining the exclusive right of selling
+newspapers on this line, and purchasing some old type, with the aid of
+four assistants he printed and issued the _Grand Trunk Herald_, the
+first newspaper printed in a railway train. A station-master, in
+gratitude for his having saved his child from the front of an advancing
+train, taught him telegraphy, in which he had previously been greatly
+interested; and thenceforward he concentrated the energies of a very
+versatile mind chiefly upon electrical studies.
+
+[Illustration: Edison with his Phonograph.]
+
+Edison invented an automatic repeater, by means of which messages could
+be sent from one wire to another without the intervention of the
+operator. His system of duplex telegraphy was perfected while a
+telegraph operator in Boston, but was not entirely successful until
+1872. In 1871 he became superintendent of the New York Gold and Stock
+Company, and here invented the printing-telegraph for gold and stock
+quotations, for the manufacture of which he established a workshop at
+Newark, N.J., continuing there till his removal to Menlo Park, N.J., in
+1876. Ten years later he settled at Orange, at the foot of the Orange
+Mountains, his large premises at Menlo Park having grown too small for
+him.
+
+His inventive faculties now getting full play, he took out over fifty
+patents in connection with improvements in telegraphy, including the
+duplex, quadruplex, and sextuplex system; the carbon telephone
+transmitter; microtasimeter; aerophone, for amplifying sound; the
+megaphone, for magnifying sound. Thence also emanated his phonograph, a
+form of telephone, and various practical adaptations of the electric
+light. His kinetoscope (1894) is a development of the Zoetrope, in which
+the continuous picture is obtained from a swift succession of
+instantaneous photographs (taken 46 or more in a second), and printed
+on a strip of celluloid. Of late he has devoted himself to improving
+metallurgic methods. He has taken out some 500 patents, and founded many
+companies at home and in Europe.
+
+Following up some of his telegraphic inventions, he had developed a
+machine which, by reason of the indentations made on paper, would
+transfer a message in Morse characters from one circuit to another
+automatically, through the agency of a tracing-point connected with a
+circuit-closing device. Upon revolving with rapidity the cylinder that
+carried the indented or embossed paper Mr Edison found that the
+indentations could be reproduced with immense rapidity through the
+vibration of the tracing-point. He at once saw that he could vibrate a
+diaphragm by the sound-waves of the voice, and, by means of a stylus
+attached to the diaphragm, make them record themselves upon an
+impressible substance placed on the revolving cylinder. The record being
+made thus, the diaphragm would, when the stylus again traversed the
+cylinder, be thrown into the same vibrations as before, and the actual
+reproduction of human speech, or any other sound, would be the result.
+The invention thought out in this manner was at once tried, with
+paraffined paper as the receiving material, and afterwards with tinfoil,
+the experiment proving a remarkable success, despite the crudity of the
+apparatus. In 1878 Mr Edison made a number of phonographs, which were
+exhibited in America and Europe, and attracted universal attention. The
+records were made in these on soft tinfoil sheets fastened around metal
+cylinders. For a while Mr Edison was compelled to suspend work on this
+invention, but soon returned to it and worked out the machine as it
+exists practically to-day. It occupies about the same space as a hand
+sewing-machine. A light tube of wax to slide on and off the cylinder is
+substituted for the tinfoil, which had been wrapped round it, and the
+indenting stylus is replaced by a minute engraving point. Under the
+varying pressure of the sound-waves, this point or knife cuts into the
+tube almost imperceptibly, the wax chiselled away wreathing off in very
+fine spirals before the edge of the little blade, as the cylinder
+travels under it. Each cylinder will receive about a thousand words. In
+the improved machine Mr Edison at first employed two diaphragms in
+'spectacle' form, one to receive and the other to reproduce; but he has
+since combined these in a single efficient attachment. The wax cylinders
+can be used several hundred times, the machine being fitted with a small
+paring tool which will shave off the record previously made, leaving a
+smooth new surface. The machine has also been supplemented by the
+inventor with an ingenious little electric motor with delicate governing
+mechanism, so that the phonograph can be operated at any chosen rate of
+speed, uniformly. This motor derives its energising current either from
+an Edison-Lalande primary battery, a storage battery, or an
+electric-light circuit.
+
+The new and perfected Edison phonograph has already gone into very
+general use, and many thousands are distributed in American business
+offices, where they facilitate correspondence in a variety of ways. They
+are also employed by stenographers as a help in the transcription of
+their shorthand notes. Heretofore these notes have been slowly dictated
+to amanuenses, but they are now frequently read off to a phonograph, and
+then written out at leisure. The phonograph is, however, being used for
+direct stenograph work, and it reported verbatim 40,000 words of
+discussion at one convention held in 1890, the words being quietly
+repeated into the machine by the reporter as quickly as they were
+uttered by the various speakers. A large number of machines are in use
+by actors, clergymen, musicians, reciters, and others, to improve their
+elocution and singing. Automatic phonographs are also to be found in
+many places of public resort, equipped with musical or elocutionary
+cylinders, which can be heard upon the insertion of a small coin; and
+miniature phonographs have been applied to dolls and toys. The value of
+the phonograph in the preservation of dying languages has been perceived
+too, and records have already been secured of the speech, songs,
+war-cries, and folklore of American tribes now becoming extinct. It is
+also worthy of note that several voice records remain of distinguished
+men, who 'being dead yet speak.' Their tones can now be renewed at will,
+and their very utterances, faithful in accent and individuality, can be
+heard again and again through all time.
+
+Improvements are being made in the wholesale reproduction of
+phonographic cylinders, by electrotyping and other processes; and the
+machine, in a more or less modified form, is being introduced as a
+means of furnishing a record of communications through the telephone.
+Phonographic clocks, books, and other devices have also been invented by
+Mr Edison, whose discovery is evidently of a generic nature, opening up
+a large and entirely new field in the arts and sciences.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+Edinburgh:
+
+Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.
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