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[Illustration:

  PLATE I.

  THE GREAT WHEEL IN ACTION.
]




                       DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS

                                 OF THE

                           NINETEENTH CENTURY


              Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed
              Under the tumbling mountain’s breast,
              In the safe herbal of the coal?
              But when the quarried means were piled,
              All is waste and worthless, till
              Arrives the wise selecting Will,
              And, out of slime and chaos, Wit
              Draws the threads of fair and fit.
              Then temples rose, and towns, and marts,
              The shop of toil, the hall of arts;
              Then flew the sail across the seas
              To feed the North from tropic trees;
              The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,
              Where they were bid the rivers ran;
              New slaves fulfilled the poet’s dream,
              Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.

                                                  EMERSON.




                       DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS
                                 OF THE
                           NINETEENTH CENTURY


                                   BY

                        ROBERT ROUTLEDGE, B.Sc.,
 SOMETIME ASSISTANT EXAMINER IN CHEMISTRY AND IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY TO
                        THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON


                           THIRTEENTH EDITION
             REVISED AND PARTLY RE-WRITTEN, WITH ADDITIONS


          CONTAINING FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS


                                 LONDON
                   GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED
                         BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
                                  1900




                                PREFACE.


In the following pages an attempt has