Great Inventions and Discoveries

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shelter, the three necessities for which the race has always striven; and without it he could have scarcely any of life's comforts and luxuries. Steam is the mistress of commerce, manufacturing, and mining, and the servant of agriculture. Steam gives employment to mi

years ago that man learned to put them together successfully, and to produce the greatest force known to civilization. In the few years since its discovery it has spread to every nook and corner of civilization. Suppose you could ascend to some great height whence you could see working at one time all

ck as 130 B.C., we find mention of "heat engines," which employed steam as their motive power, and were used for organ blowing, the turning of spits, and like purposes. But from this early date till the seventeenth century practically

When he was twenty-one years old, he secured a position as maker of scientific instruments for the university in Glasgow. He began discussing with some scientific friends at the university the possibility of improving the steam engine, which at that time was used only for pumping water, chiefly in the drainage of mines. He en

hew Boulton, a wealthy and energetic man who lived at Birmingham, England. They began the manufacture of steam engines at Birmingham, under the firm n

a steam pump; but his later improvements adapted it for driving stationary machinery of all kinds and, save in a few respects, left it essentially what it is to-day. Prior to Watt's inventions, the mines of Great Britain were far from thriving. Many were even on the point of being aban

the inventor of gas lighting, made experiments with steam for locomotion. The notion then was to use a steam carriage on ordinary roads. Railroads had not been thought of. When the idea of using steam on railways began

press for copying letters. He also probably discovered the chemical compositi

olumbus was sent home in chains from the America he had discovered, not dreaming he had given to civilization another world. Lincoln's eyes were closed forever at the very dawn of peace, after he had watched in patience through the long and fearful night of the Civil War. It never appeared to James Watt that the idea w

ization." But man never harnessed these wonderful iron animals u

mechanical nature. When he was fourteen years old, he became assistant to his father in firing the engine at the colliery, and three years later he was advanced to engine driving. At this time he could not even read; but, stimulated by a strong

se roads away, it become the practice to place planks or timbers at the bottoms of the ruts. Afterwards wooden rails were laid straight and parallel on the level surface. The rails were oak scantlings held together with

from the mines where he worked to the sea, nine miles distant. He named his

was slow; thirty-six hours were required for traveling fifty miles. Passengers were conveyed by coaches drawn by horses. In 1821 a railroad for the transportation of merchandise and passengers was opened between Stock

ed by Stephenson's engine, operated by Stephenson himself, with a signalman riding on horseback in advance. The train moved off at the rate of

called the "Experiment." This coach carried six persons inside and from fifteen to twenty outside. The round trip between Stockton and Darlington was made in two hours. A fare of one shilling w

enth of September, 1830, Stephenson made a trial trip over the road with an improved locomotive named the "Rocket." On the trial trip the "Rocket" made twenty-nine miles an hour. This trip firmly proved

ilroad Trai

e construction of the "Rocket" and later att

ccredited to Sir Humphry Davy. He was often consulted in the building of subsequent railroads, but he spent the l

the journey required six days. A trip from New York to Philadelphia took two days. From Philadelphia to Baltimore the roads were good, but south of Baltimore they were bad and even dang

ten o'clock in the evening, after a day's journey of forty miles, the stage drew up at an inn for the night. At three o'clock the next morning, after dressing by the light of a horn lantern, the traveler must resume his journey. If the roads were bad, he might have to alight from the stage and help the driver pull the wheels out of the mud. Rivers were crossed on clumsy flat-boats.

r three miles long, and was operated with horses. In May, 1829, three English locomotives-the first ever seen in America-were unloaded at New York City. On August 9

re to some point on the Ohio River. The road was named the Baltimore and Ohio. In 1830 it was finished from Baltimore as far as Ellicott's Mills, a distance of fifteen miles. The Baltimore and Ohio was the first railroad in the United States built for the express purpose of carrying passengers and freight. The original intention was to pull cars over this road wi

oad, a line one hundred thirty-six miles long between Charleston and Hamburg. A locomotive built in New York City, called the "Best Frien

1853, and in that year a line only thirty-eight miles long was built. During 1906 alone, 5516 miles of railroad were constructed in the United States. At the end of that year, there was a total in the United States of 222,635 miles, or nearly enough to reach nine times around the entire globe.

ses, and drivers. There were frequent blockades; when two cars going in opposite directions met, one had to turn back. If rival shippers came together and neither was will

grade was reached, the cars had to be pulled up or let down with ropes managed by a stationary engine. No cab sheltered the engineer; no brake checked the speed. Sometimes the spikes fastening the iron strips to the tops of the wooden rails worked loose, and these strips curled up and penetrated the bottoms of the cars, greatly to the annoyance and fright of the traveler. The bridges in those days were roofe

tle danger of conflict because two rival trains might want the track at the same time. Nor would you have to wait while ropes pulled the train up a grade, for the locomotive can climb the hills. Instead of

a luxuriously equipped Pullman car, lit by electric bulbs, or you could spend the evening reading the magazines, newspapers, and books provided in the train library. You might write at a comfortable desk with train stationery, or dictate letters and telegrams to the train stenographer. You are provided with ho

ugh long distances by day and night. He remodelled into sleeping-cars two passenger coaches belonging to the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Though these cars fell far below the inventor's ideal, they were far in advance of the first make-shifts and in consequence created a demand for more and better cars of t

ullman in 1867, is one of the largest and most successful manufacturing concerns in America. It employs a capital of $40,000,000, gives work to fourteen thousand persons, furnishes sle

ray propelled a boat by steam, and that in 1707, just a hundred years before the time of Fulton's Clermont, Papin ran a boat

1785 he made his boat, and in 1786 he navigated it on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, Virginia, in the presence of hundreds of spectators. He wrote to General Washington of his invention, and Washington

from June to September, he ran a steamboat on that river between Philadelphia and Trenton. But he

Symmington, and tried in 1802 on the Clyde and Forth Canal in Scotland. The trial was successful, but steam towing was abandon

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a of propelling boats by steam. He made an unsuccessful experiment with a steamboat on the Seine River in France. The vessel sank because its construction was faulty. Fulton returned to America and in New York harbor began to build another boat which he named the Katherine of Clermont, shortened to the Clermont. Her engine was procured from Boulton and Watt in England. The boat was one hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, weighed one hundr

p the river, making slow headway against the current, the crowd changed their jeers to expressions of wonder and finally to cheers. The dry pine wood used for fuel sent out a cloud of thick, black smoke, flames, and sparks, which spread terror among the watermen of the harbor. T

, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York there were not thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move a mile an hour, or be of the least utility. While

l declaring that any attempt to destroy or injure the Clermont should be a public offense punishable by fine and imprisonment. Then the enemies of the boat applied to the courts for an injun

amer. Before constructing the Clermont, Fulton was interested in canals and in the invention of machinery for spinning flax and twisting rope. He also

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and within a few years after the first trip of the Clermont, ste

he river steamboat led to the use of steam in ocean navigation. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the Savannah, in 1818. The vess

eamships grew in importance, and in 1837 two ships, the Sirius and the Great Western, crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to New

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anchors weighs ten tons; and her funnels are so large that a trolley car could easily run through them. The Lusitania has accommodation for three thousand passengers, officers, and crew, and is driven by mighty turbine engines of sixty-eight thousand horse power. The steamer was built at a cost of $7,500,000. She has traveled the three thousand miles across the Atlantic in about four and a half days-the quickest trans-Atlantic voyage ever made. She moves through the great waves of the ocean with such steadiness that passengers can sca