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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 it is to clear away the mystery and doubt which surround the
beginnings of an invention in an age long past!

In a history of inventions, then, the historian cannot be precise in
respect to dates and places. Fortunately this is not a cause for deep
regret. It is not a great loss to truth that we cannot know precisely
when the first book was printed, nor does it make much difference
whether that book was printed in Holland or in Germany. In giving an
account of an invention we may be content to treat the matter of time
and place broadly, for the story is apt to carry us through a stretch of
years that defies computation, a stretch that is immensely longer than
the life of any nation. For our purpose these millenniums, these long
stretches of time, may be thought of as being divided into three great
periods, namely: the _primitive_, the _ancient_, and the _modern_
period. Even a division so broad as this is not satisfactory, for in the
progress of their inventions all countries have not kept equal step with
the march of time. In some things ancient Greece was modern, while in
most things modern Alaska is primitive and modern China is ancient.
Nevertheless it will be convenient at times in this book to speak of the
_primitive_, the _ancient_ and the _modern_ periods, and it will be
useful to regard the _primitive_ period as beginning with the coming of
man on earth and extending to the year 5000 B. C.; the _ancient_ period
may be thought of as beginning with the year 5000 B. C. and ending with
the year 476 A. D., leaving for the _modern_ period the years that have
passed since 476 A. D.

In tracing the growth of an invention the periods indicated above can
serve as a time-guide only for those parts of the world where the course
of civilization has taken its way, for invention and civilization have
traveled the same road. The region of the world's most advanced
civilization includes the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea,
Central and Northern Europe, the British Isles, North America, South
America and Australia. It is within this region that we shall follow the
development of whatever invention is under consideration. When speaking
of the first forms of an invention, however, it will sometimes be
necessary, when an illustration is desired, to draw upon the experience
of people who are outside of the wall of civilization. The reason for
going outside is plain. The first and simplest forms of the useful
inventions have utterly perished in civilized countries, but they still
exist among savage and barbarous peoples and it is among such peoples
that the first forms must be studied. Thus in the story of the clock,
we must go to a far-off peninsula of Southern Asia (p. 190) for an
illustration of the beginning of our modern timepiece. Such a departure
from the beaten track of civilization does not spoil the story, for as a
rule, the rude forms of inventions found among the lowest races of
to-day are precisely the same forms that were in use among the Egyptians
and Greeks when they were in their lowest state.

When studying the history of an invention there are two facts or
principles which should ever be borne in mind. The first principle is
this: _Necessity is the mother of invention._ This principle was touched
upon when it was said that an invention appears as a response to a want.
When the world wants an invention it usually gets it and makes the most
of it, but it will have nothing to do with an invention it does not
want. The steam-engine was invented two thousand years ago (p. 55) but
the world then had no work for steam to do, so the invention attracted
little attention and came to naught. About two hundred years ago,
however, man did want the services of steam and inventors were not long
in supplying the engine that was needed. About a hundred years ago the
broad prairie lands of the United States began to be tilled but it was
soon found that the vast areas could not be plowed and that the immense
crops could not be harvested by the old methods. So improvements upon
the plow and the reaper began to be made and in time the steam gang-plow
and the complete harvester were invented. When the locomotive first came
into use a simple handbrake was used to stop the slow-going trains, but
as the size and the speed of trains increased the handbrake became more
and more unsatisfactory. Sometimes a train would run as much as a half
mile beyond a station before it could be stopped and then when "backed"
it would again pass beyond the station. The problem of stopping the
train promptly became fully as important as starting it. The problem was
solved by the invention of the air-brake. And thus it has been with all
the inventions which surround us: necessity has been the mother of them
all.

The other principle is that a mechanical invention is a _growth_, or, to
state the truth in another way, an invention nearly always is simply an
improvement upon a previous invention. The loom, for example, was not
invented by a particular person at a particular time; it did not spring
into existence in a day with all its parts perfected; it _grew_, century
by century, piece by piece. In the stories which will follow the steps
in the growth of an invention are shown in the illustrations. These
pictures are not for amusement but for study. As you read, examine them
carefully and they will teach you quite as much about the growth of the
invention as you can be taught by words.


FOOTNOTE:

[1] Where readers are quite young the Foreword had better be postponed
until the stories themselves are read.




STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS




THE MATCH


Did you ever think how great and how many are the blessings of fire? Try
to think of a world without fire. Suppose we should wake up some bitter
cold morning and find that all the fires in the world were out, and that
there was no way of rekindling them; that the art of kindling a fire had
been lost. In such a plight we should all soon be shivering with the
cold, for our stoves and furnaces could give us no warmth; we should all
soon be hungry, for we could not cook our food; we should all soon be
idle, for engines could not draw trains, wheels of factories could not
turn, and trade and commerce would come to a standstill; at night we
would grope in darkness, for we could use neither lamp nor gas nor
electric light. It is easy to see that without fire, whether for light
or heat, the life of man would be most wretched.

There never was a time when the world was without fire, but there was a
time when men did not know how to kindle fire; and after they learned
how to kindle one, it was a long, long time before they learned how to
kindle one easily. In these days we can kindle a fire without any
trouble, because we can easily get a match; but we must remember that
the match is one of the most wonderful things in the world, and that it
took men thousands of years to learn how to make one. Let us learn the
history of this familiar little object, the match.

Fire was first given to man by nature itself. When a forest is set on
fire by cinders from a neighboring volcano, or when a tree is set ablaze
by a thunderbolt, we may say that nature strikes a match. In the early
history of the world, nature had to kindle all the fires, for man by his
own effort was unable to produce a spark. The first method, then, of
getting fire for use was to light sticks of wood at a flame kindled by
nature--by a volcano, perhaps, or by a stroke of lightning. These
firebrands (Fig. 1) were carried to the home and used in kindling the
fires there. The fire secured in this way was carefully guarded and was
kept burning as long as possible. But the flame, however faithfully
watched, would sometimes be extinguished. A sudden gust of wind or a
sudden shower would put it out. Then a new firebrand would have to be
secured, and this often meant a long journey and a deal of trouble.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--GETTING A MATCH FROM NATURE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PRIMITIVE FIRE-MAKING. THE STICK-AND-GROOVE
METHOD.]

In the course of time a man somewhere in the world hit upon a plan of
kindling a fire without having any fire to begin with; that is to say,
he hit upon a plan of producing a fire by _artificial_ means. He knew
that by rubbing his hands together very hard and very fast he could make
them very warm. By trial he learned that by rubbing two pieces of dry
wood together he could make _them_ very warm. Then he asked himself the
question: Can a fire be kindled by rubbing two pieces of wood together,
if they are rubbed hard enough? He placed upon the ground a piece of
perfectly dry wood (Fig. 2) and rubbed this with the end of a stick
until a groove was made. In the groove a fine dust of wood--a kind of
sawdust--was made by the rubbing. He went on rubbing hard and fast,
and, behold, the dust in the groove began to glow! He placed some dry
grass upon the embers and blew upon them with his breath, and the grass
burst into a flame.[2] Here for the first time a man kindled a fire for
himself. He had invented the match, the greatest invention, perhaps, in
the history of the world.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE FIRE DRILL.

(Simple Form.)]

The stick-and-groove method--as we may call it--of getting a flame was
much better than guarding fire and carrying it from place to place; yet
it was, nevertheless, a very clumsy method. The wood used had to be
perfectly dry, and the rubbing required a vast amount of work and
patience. Sometimes it would take hours to produce the spark. After a
while--and doubtless it was a very long while--it was found that it was
better to keep the end of the stick in one spot and twirl it (Fig. 3)
than it was to plow to and fro with it. The twirling motion made a hole
in which the heat produced by the friction was confined in a small
space. At first the drilling was done by twirling the stick between the
palms of the hands, but this made the hands too hot for comfort, and
the fire-makers learned to do the twirling with a cord or thong[3]
wrapped around the stick (Fig. 4). You see, the upper end of the stick
which serves as a drill turns in a cavity in a mouthpiece which the
operator holds between his teeth. If you should undertake to use a
fire-drill of this kind, it is likely that your jaws would be painfully
jarred.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--FIRE DRILL.

(Improved Form.)]

By both the methods described above, the fire was obtained by rubbing or
_friction_. The friction method seems to have been used by all primitive
peoples, and it is still in use among savages in various parts of the
world.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--STRIKING FIRE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--TINDER BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND SULPHUR-TIPPED
SPLINTERS.]

The second step in fire-making was taken when it was discovered that a
spark can be made by striking together a stone and a piece of iron ore.
Strike a piece of flint against a piece of iron ore known as pyrites, or
fire-stone, and you will make sparks fly. (Fig. 5.) Let these sparks fall
into small pieces of dried moss or powdered charcoal, and the _tinder_,
as the moss or the charcoal is called, will catch fire. It will glow,
but it will not blaze. Now hold a dry splinter in the glowing tinder,
and fan or blow with the breath and the splinter will burst into a
flame. If you will tip your splinter with sulphur before you place it in
the burning tinder, you will get a flame at once. This was the
strike-a-light, or _percussion_, method of making a fire. It followed
the friction method, and was a great improvement upon it because it took
less work and a shorter time to get a blaze. The regular outfit for
fire-making with the strike-a-light consisted of a tinder-box, a piece
of steel, a piece of flint, and some splinters tipped with sulphur (Fig.
6). The flint and steel were struck together, and the sparks thus made
fell into the tinder and made it glow. A splinter was applied as quickly
as possible to the tinder, and when a flame was produced the candle
which rested in the socket on the tinder-box was lighted. As soon as the
splinter was lighted the cover was replaced on the tinder-box, so as to
smother the glowing tinder and save it for another time.

The strike-a-light method was discovered many thousands of years ago,
and it has been used by nearly all the civilized nations of the
world.[4] And it has not been so very long since this method was laid
aside. There are many people now living who remember when the flint and
steel and tinder-box were in use in almost every household.

About three hundred years ago a third method of producing fire was
discovered. If you should drop a small quantity of sulphuric acid into a
mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar, you would produce a bright
flame. Here was a hint for a new way of making a fire; and a thoughtful
man in Vienna, in the seventeenth century, profited by the hint. He took
one of the sulphur-tipped splinters which he was accustomed to use with
his tinder-box, and dipped it into sulphuric acid, and then applied it
to a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The splinter caught fire
and burned with a blaze. Here was neither friction nor percussion. The
chemical substances were simply brought together, and they caught fire
of themselves; that is to say, they caught fire by _chemical_ action.

The discovery made by the Vienna man led to a new kind of match--the
chemical match. A practical outfit for fire-making now consisted of a
bottle of sulphuric acid (vitriol) and a bundle of splints tipped with
sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sugar. Matches of this kind were very
expensive, costing as much as five dollars a hundred; besides, they were
very unsatisfactory. Often when the match was dipped into the acid it
would not catch fire, but would smolder and sputter and throw the acid
about and spoil both the clothes and the temper. These dip-splint
matches were used in the eighteenth century by those who liked them and
could afford to buy them. They did not, however, drive out the old
strike-a-light and tinder-box.

In the nineteenth century--the century in which so many wonderful things
were done--the fourth step in the development of the match was taken. In
1827, John Walker, a druggist in a small English town, tipped a splint
with sulphur, chlorate of potash, and sulphid of antimony, and rubbed it
on sandpaper, and it burst into flame. The druggist had discovered the
first _friction-chemical_ match, the kind we use to-day. It is called
friction-chemical because it is made by mixing certain chemicals
together and rubbing them. Although Walker's match did not require the
bottle of acid, nevertheless it was not a good one. It could be lighted
only by hard rubbing, and it sputtered and threw fire in all directions.
In a few years, however, phosphorus was substituted on the tip for
antimony, and the change worked wonders. The match could now be lighted
with very little rubbing, and it was no longer necessary to have
sandpaper upon which to rub it. It would ignite when rubbed on any dry
surface, and there was no longer any sputtering. This was the
_phosphorus_ match, the match with which we are so familiar.

After the invention of the easily-lighted phosphorus match there was no
longer use for the dip-splint or the strike-a-light. The old methods of
getting a blaze were gradually laid aside and forgotten. The first
phosphorus matches were sold at twenty-five cents a block--a block (Fig.
7) containing a hundred and forty-four matches. They were used by few.
Now a hundred matches can be bought for a cent. It is said that in the
United States we use about 150,000,000,000 matches a year. This, on an
average, is about five matches a day for each person.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--A "BLOCK" OF MATCHES.]

There is one thing against the phosphorus match: it ignites too easily.
If one is left on the floor, it may be ignited by stepping upon it, or
by something falling upon it. We may step on a phosphorus match
unawares, light it, leave it burning, and thus set the house on fire.
Mice often have caused fires by gnawing the phosphorus matches and
igniting them. In one city thirty destructive fires were caused in one
year by mice lighting matches.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--A BOX OF MODERN SAFETY MATCHES.]

To avoid accident by matches, the _safety match_ (Fig. 8) has recently
been invented. The safety match does not contain phosphorus. The
phosphorus is mixed with fine sand and glued to the side of the box in
which the matches are sold. The safety match, therefore, cannot be
lighted unless it is rubbed on the phosphorus on the outside of the box.
It is so much better than the old kind of phosphorus match that it is
driving the latter out of the market. Indeed, in some places it is
forbidden by law to sell any kind of match but the safety match.

The invention of the safety match is the last step in the long history
of fire-making. The first match was lighted by rubbing, and the match of
our own time is lighted by rubbing; yet what a difference there is
between the two! With the plowing-stick or fire-drill it took strength
and time and skill to get a blaze; with the safety match an awkward
little child can kindle a fire in a second.

And how long it has taken to make the match as good as it is! The
steam-engine, the telegraph, the telephone, and the electric light were
all in use before the simple little safety match.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] Mr. Walter Hough of the National Museum, himself a wizard in the art
of fire-making, tells me that a blaze cannot be produced simply by
rubbing sticks together. All that can be done by rubbing is to make them
glow.

[3] A narrow strip of leather.

[4] The ancient Greeks used a burning-glass or -lens for kindling fire.
The lens focused the sun's rays upon a substance that would burn easily
and set it afire. The burning-glass was not connected in any way with
the development of the match.




THE STOVE


From the story of the match you have learned how man through long ages
of experience gradually mastered the art of making a fire easily and
quickly. In this chapter, and in several which are to follow, we shall
have the history of those inventions which have enabled man to make the
best use of fire. Since the first and greatest use of fire is to cook
food and keep the body warm, our account of the inventions connected
with the use of fire may best begin with the story of the stove.

The most important uses of fire were taught by fire itself. As the
primitive man stood near the flames of the burning tree and felt their
pleasant glow, he learned that fire may add to bodily comfort; and when
the flames swept through a forest and overtook a deer and baked it, he
learned that fire might be used to improve the quality of his food. The
hint was not lost. He took a burning torch to his cave or hut and
kindled a fire on his floor of earth. His dwelling filled with smoke,
but he could endure the discomfort for the sake of the fire's warmth,
and for the sake of the toothsomeness of the cooked meats. After a time
a hole was made in the roof of the hut, and through this hole the smoke
passed out. Here was the first stove. The primitive stove was the entire
house; the floor was the fireplace and the hole in the roof was the
chimney (Fig. 1). The word "stove" originally meant "a heated room." So
that if we should say that at first people lived in their stoves, we
should say that which is literally true.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE PRIMITIVE STOVE.]

Early inventions in cooking consisted in simple devices for applying
flame directly to the thing which was to be cooked. The first roasting
was doubtless done by fastening the flesh to a pole placed in a
horizontal position above the fire and supported as is shown in Figure
2.[5] The horizontal bar called a spit was originally of wood, but after
man had learned to work in metals an iron bar was used. When one side of
the flesh was roasted the spit was turned and the other side was exposed
to the flames. The spit of the primitive age was the parent of the
modern grill and broiler.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PRIMITIVE COOKING.]

Food was first boiled in a hole in the ground. A hole was filled with
water into which heated stones were thrown. The stones, by giving off
their heat, caused the water to boil in a very short time. After the
art of making vessels of clay was learned, food was boiled in earthen
pots suspended above the fire.

The methods of warming the house and cooking the food which have just
been described were certainly crude and inconvenient, but it was
thousands of years before better methods were invented. The long periods
of savagery and barbarism passed and the period of civilization was
ushered in, but civilization did not at once bring better stoves.
Neither the ancient Egyptians nor the ancient Greeks knew how to heat a
house comfortably and conveniently. All of them used the primitive
stove--a fire on the floor and a hole in the roof. In the house of an
ancient Greek there was usually one room which could be heated when
there was need, and this was called the "black-room" (_atrium_)--black
from the soot and smoke which escaped from the fire on the floor.

But we must not speak harshly of the ancients because they were slow in
improving their methods of heating for in truth the modern world has
not done as well in this direction as might have been expected. In a
book of travels written only sixty years ago may be found the following
passage: "In