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[Illustration: GUTENBERG TAKES THE FIRST PROOF]




    Historic Inventions

    By
    RUPERT S. HOLLAND

    _Author of "Historic Boyhoods," "Historic Girlhoods,"
    "Builders of United Italy," etc._


    PHILADELPHIA
    GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
    PUBLISHERS


    Copyright, 1911, by
    GEORGE W. JACOBS AND COMPANY
    _Published August, 1911_

    _All rights reserved_
    Printed in U.S.A.


    _To
    J. W. H._




    CONTENTS


       I. GUTENBERG AND THE PRINTING PRESS            9

      II. PALISSY AND HIS ENAMEL                     42

     III. GALILEO AND THE TELESCOPE                  53

      IV. WATT AND THE STEAM-ENGINE                  70

       V. ARKWRIGHT AND THE SPINNING-JENNY           84

      VI. WHITNEY AND THE COTTON-GIN                 96

     VII. FULTON AND THE STEAMBOAT                  111

    VIII. DAVY AND THE SAFETY-LAMP                  126

      IX. STEPHENSON AND THE LOCOMOTIVE             140

       X. MORSE AND THE TELEGRAPH                   168

      XI. MCCORMICK AND THE REAPER                  189

     XII. HOWE AND THE SEWING-MACHINE               206

    XIII. BELL AND THE TELEPHONE                    215

     XIV. EDISON AND THE ELECTRIC LIGHT             233

      XV. MARCONI AND THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH        261

     XVI. THE WRIGHTS AND THE AIRSHIP               273




    ILLUSTRATIONS


    Gutenberg Takes the First Proof                    _Frontispiece_

    Palissy the Potter After an Unsuccessful
    Experiment                                     _Facing page_   46

    Galileo's Telescope                                 "    "     58

    Watt First Tests the Power of Steam                 "    "     72

    Sir Richard Arkwright                               "    "     88

    The Inventor of the Cotton Gin                      "    "    104

    _The Clermont_, the First Steam Packet              "    "    120

    The Davy Safety Lamp                                "    "    136

    One of the First Locomotives                        "    "    156

    Morse and the First Telegraph                       "    "    180

    The Earliest Reaper                                 "    "    194

    Elias Howe's Sewing-Machine                         "    "    210

    The First Telephone                                 "    "    222

    Edison and the Early Phonograph                     "    "    258

    Wireless Station in New York City Showing
    the Antenna                                         "    "    268

    The Wright Brothers' Airship                        "    "    281




I

GUTENBERG AND THE PRINTING PRESS

About 1400-1468


The free cities of mediaeval Germany were continually torn asunder by
petty civil wars. The nobles, who despised commerce, and the burghers,
who lived by it, were always fighting for the upper hand, and the
laboring people sided now with one party, and now with the other.
After each uprising the victors usually banished a great number of the
defeated faction from the city. So it happened that John Gutenberg, a
young man of good family, who had been born in Mainz about 1400, was
outlawed from his home, and went with his wife Anna to live in the
city of Strasburg, which was some sixty miles distant from Mainz. He
chose the trade of a lapidary, or polisher of precious stones, an art
which in that age was held in almost as high esteem as that of the
painter or sculptor. He had been well educated, and his skill in
cutting gems, as well as his general learning and his interest in all
manner of inventions, drew people of the highest standing to his
little workshop, which was the front room of his dwelling house.

One evening after supper, as Gutenberg and his wife were sitting in
the room behind the shop, he chanced to pick up a playing-card. He
studied it very carefully, as though it were new to him. Presently
his wife looked up from her sewing, and noticed how much absorbed he
was. "Prithee, John, what marvel dost thou find in that card?" said
she. "One would think it the face of a saint, so closely dost thou
regard it."

"Nay, Anna," he answered thoughtfully, "but didst thou ever consider
how the picture on this card was made?"

"I suppose it was drawn in outline, and then painted, as other
pictures are."

"But there is a better way," said Gutenberg, still studying