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STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS


[Illustration:

    Guglielmo Marconi
    Benjamin Franklin
    Thomas Edison
    Sir Henry Bessemer
    Robert Fulton
    Alexander Graham Bell
    Hudson Maxim

A GROUP OF INVENTORS]




                    STORIES OF
                 USEFUL INVENTIONS

                        BY
                   S. E. FORMAN

    AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES,"
              "ADVANCED CIVICS," ETC.

                  [Illustration]

                     NEW YORK
                  THE CENTURY CO.
                       1911


                Copyright, 1911, by
                  THE CENTURY CO.

            _Published September, 1911_




PREFACE


In this little book I have given the history of those inventions which
are most useful to man in his daily life. I have told the story of the
Match, the Stove, the Lamp, the Forge, the Steam-Engine, the Plow, the
Reaper, the Mill, the Loom, the House, the Carriage, the Boat, the
Clock, the Book, and the Message. From the history of these inventions
we learn how man became the master of the world of nature around him,
how he brought fire and air and earth and water under his control and
compelled them to do his will and his work. When we trace the growth of
these inventions we at the same time trace the course of human progress.
These stories, therefore, are stories of human progress; they are
chapters in the history of civilization.

And they are chapters which have not hitherto been brought together in
one book. Monographs on most of the subjects included in this book have
appeared, and excellent books about modern inventions have been written,
but as far as I know, this is the first time the evolution of these
useful inventions has been fully traced in a single volume.

While preparing the stories I have received many courtesies from
officers in the Library of Congress and from those of the National
Museum.

      S. E. F.

  May, 1911.
    Washington, D. C.




CONTENTS


                                           PAGE

        THE FOREWORD                         ix

        I THE MATCH                           3

        II THE STOVE                         13

        III THE LAMP                         28

        IV THE FORGE                         38

        V THE STEAM-ENGINE                   54

        VI THE PLOW                          73

        VII THE REAPER                       85

        VIII THE MILL                        97

        IX THE LOOM                         109

        X THE HOUSE                         123

        XI THE CARRIAGE                     144

        XII THE CARRIAGE (_Continued_)      156

        XIII THE BOAT                       166

        XIV THE CLOCK                       187

        XV THE BOOK                         203

        XVI THE MESSAGE                     222




A FOREWORD[1]


These stories of useful inventions are chapters in the history of
civilization and this little book is a book of history. Now we are told
by Herodotus, one of the oldest and greatest of historians, that when
the writer of history records an event he should state the _time_ and
the _place_ of its happening. In some kinds of history--in the history
of the world's wars, for example, or in the history of its
politics--this is strictly true. When we are reading of the battle of
Bunker Hill we should be told precisely when and where the battle was
fought, and in an account of the Declaration of Independence the time
and place of the declaration should be given. But in the history of
inventions we cannot always be precise as to dates and places. Of course
it cannot be told when the first plow or the first loom or the first
clock was made. Inventions like these had their origin far back in the
earliest ages when there was no such person as a historian. And when we
come to the history of inventions in more recent times the historian is
still sometimes unable to discover the precise time and place of an
invention.

It is in the nature of things that the origin of an invention should be
surrounded by uncertainty and doubt. An invention, as we shall see
presently, is nearly always a response to a certain want. The world
wants something and it promises a rich reward to one who will furnish
the desired thing. The inventor, recognizing the want, sets to work to
make the thing, but he conducts his experiments in secret, for the
reason that he does not want another to steal his ideas and get ahead of
him. We can see that this is true in respect to the flying machine. The
first experiments with the flying machine were conducted in secret in
out of the way places and pains were taken that the public should know
as little as possible about the new machine and about the results of the
experiments. The history of the flying machine will of course have to be
written, but because of the secrecy and mystery which surrounded the
beginnings of the invention it will be extremely difficult for the
future historian to tell precisely when the first flying machine was
invented or to name the inventor. If it is so difficult to get the facts
as to the origin of an invention in our own time, how much more
difficult