Invention

tricity. When the century opened, the steam engine of Watt existed in a practical and useful form, and the numberless experiments of the physicist

zing on the facilities thus supplied, and noting the worldly success that certain discoverers and inventors had achieved, the inventors of the nineteenth century got speedi

while during the latter half, the principal inventions were electrical:-though some very important electrical inventions were made before 1850. In this brief résumé, no attempt will be mad

Patrick Miller, with the assistance of an engineer named William Symington, had constructed a steam vessel that attained a speed of five knots on a lake in Scotland. In the next year, Mr. Miller and Mr. Symington had put another steamboat on the water that developed a speed of nearly seven knots. None of these experiments could be called successful of itself; but the

own mind. It is clear, however, that it was the direct issue of several inventions, and that it was the first embo

uilt the Clermont in 1807. This vessel went into regular service

by sea in 1808. It was built by Mr. R. L. Stevens, an engineer of Hoboken. If it accomplished nothing else,

f his paper, he declared that he had secured profiles of paintings made on glass by throwing the shadows of those paintings on paper covered with a solution of the nitrate; the paper showing the objects delineated in tones that were dark or l

t be fixed; because, unless the paper was ever afterward kept away from the light, its whole surface would become dark, and the picture therefore cease to exist. In consequence, it aroused almost no interest whatever at the time. In 1814, M. Niepce invented a process that he called "heliography," by which he made pictures on silvered copper covered with a t

the wires in contact with the liquid. But Brugnatelli seems to have been the first to conceive the idea of utilizing these facts in a device whereby he could deposit metals at will at the negative end of a solution. In the embodiment of his conception, pieces (say of silver) were hung on rods i

gations. Possibly the most important result was his discovery of a new metal, to which he gave the name Potassium, formed at the negative pole by the el

a considerable distance. The extent of this distance was found later to be dependent on the number of cells in the battery. He noted also that the discharge did not follow a straight line, but was bent into an arc; and for this reason he gave it the name, "Voltaic arc." This light i

oughness and system, and ascertained that the gas would not explode if it were mixed with less than six times or more than fourteen times its volume of air; that air rendered impure by the combustion of a candle would not explode the gas; that, if a candle were burnt in a closed vessel, with small openings near the flame, no explosion would take place, even if the vessel were i

ustomary chorus of prejudice and opposition, it justified its existence by a quickly established re

steel pen, a process of making malleable iron castings, the planing

cially by a Mr. Murdock in the latter decade of the century. In 1802 Mr. Murdock made a public display of the result of his labors, by illuminating a factory with gas. In the year 1803–1804 the Lyceum Theatre in London was so lighted, and a year later some extensive cotton mills in Manchester. Pub

ble amount of invention must have been done in the aggregate, for the reason that a wholly novel art was created. If it was not invented, how was it brought into being? The best answer probably is that the art was not

and causing the advancement of the whole. In 1807 a wagon-way was laid down on which cars were run to and from a colliery, and this wagon-way passed close in front of a house in which lived a poor family named Stephenson, a member of which was a boy whose Christian name was George. In the following year, the wooden parts

d Liverpool, and a prize of ￡500 was offered for the best engine. On October 6, 1829, the competition was held, though only t

invention. We do see, however, the result of the superposition on one brilliant invention (that of

ed surface of the cylinder, they were made narrower toward the bottom. The machine was invented by an Englishman named Nicholson. It was never put into practical use; but a machine embodying the revolving cylinder for receiving the force of the impression communicated to the paper, was invented and put into successful use later by a German named K?nig. The type, however, was not put on a cylinder in this machine, but on a flat plate that passed

hort of greatness in only one element, that of usefulness. By a careful adjustment of two prisms at a definite angle to each other, Sir David showed that geometrical images of the utmost beauty and variety could be made of objects placed between the mirrors, especially if those objects were small objects, and if they were of different colors, like bits of colored glass. Knowledge of this escaping, thousands of kaleidoscopes were soon put on the market, and sold in all the principal cities, before Sir David had had time to get a patent. Though the

d ended with the carrying into operation of that plan. Napoleon was great in each of these lines of work. He had a brilliant and yet correct imagination, that enabled him to conceive ideas of extraordinary brilliancy, and also to select from them the ideas that were the most susceptible of being made into concrete plans of the kind that could be carried out successfully. He possessed great constructiveness, that enabled him to construct mentally a plan in which all the means available for his use were seized u

ducation, and a result of the training of the reasoning faculties. Courage and impulsive energy again are elemental faculties, and are observable more in savages than in the civilized. It seems to be the effect of civilization, therefore, to develop the reasoning faculties, at the expense of both imagination and courage. In fact

Later, this plan was approved, and he himself was put in command in Italy. It was this plan, executed by the Bonaparte of those days, that began the career of the Napoleon of history. So original and brilliant had been the conception, so mathematically correct and practically feasible had been the plan which Bonaparte developed from it, and so furiously energetic were his operations in carrying out the plan, that the sluggish Piedmontese were defeated before they quite real

ampaign beginning with an invasion of Egypt. Everything proceeded in substantial accordance with the plan d

holly concluded until it had been raging for nearly four hours. In fifteen minutes, the French fleet on which depended

eption of an idea so revolting to professional ethics would not occur to an unimaginative man: and still less would it be retained. But it did occur to Nelson; and Nelson retained it and looked it squarely in the face. To embody his idea in a practicable plan was a simple matter to his active and trained intelligence, while to execute the plan was an act so natural as to be almost automatic. Much to the amazement of the Commander of the fleet and all the officers and men in both the fleets, the little division commanded by Commodore Nelson was seen actually to leave the

he had conceived as soon as he heard of Bonaparte's departure from Toulon on a destination carefully kept secret, but which Nelson divined as Egypt. He so divined it, by imagining himself in Bonaparte's place, and imagining for what purpose he, Nelson, would have left Toulon under the conditions prevailing then in France. He engaged the French fleet

e see Napoleon leaving Paris to undertake a campaign in northern Italy, in accordance with a plan embodied to carry out an idea conceived in his fertile mind, of taking his army through the great St. Bernard pass, dragging his cannon with him through the snow. This plan (like most of his plans) w

maritime affairs. A League of Armed Neutrality against her was finally formed, that soon assumed menacing proportions. This league was completely broken by the same Horatio Nelson in a naval battle off Copenhagen on April 2, 1801. This battle was the direct result of a plan conceived by Nelson, that was so original and so daring tha

brilliancy of conception and skill of execution by Moreau, and ended with the battle of Hohenlinden and the disastrous def

s, and Napoleon seeing the folly of attempting further to ruin British commerce th

ta. For various reasons that do not concern this discussion

ured up in his brilliant imagination, Napoleon selected the one which showed a French fleet threatening British possessions in the West Indies, a British fleet rushing to the West Indies to save them, the French fleet returning and joining with another French fleet waiting for it, then the combined fleets securing the mastery of the English Channel from the depleted Britis

he pre-occupation of his waking and his sleeping hours. By dint of herculean exertions, he finally collected near Boulogne about 200,000 troops a

est Indies-and away he went in pursuit. Arriving there, and finding that Villeneuve had been in the West Indies but had left, Nelson left also. He imagined that Villeneuve had sailed for Europe; and so Nelson sailed for Europe also, sending a fast frigate to inform the Admiralty of all that he had learned, and of all that he inferred.

a. On October 19, he brought the Austrians to battle near Ulm, and achieved one of the most decisive victories of his career. The victory was mainly due to the clearness and correctness of Napoleon's conceived idea, and the amazin

ugh England was still greater on the sea than France, France was also great, and was still a powerful weapon which he could wield against England, with all the power of genius. But, two days after the victory of Ulm, came the disaster near Cape Trafalgar, when Nelson defeated the

hat brilliant mind, and to have prevented those clear and correct pictures from forming there that had formed before. The result was that he embarked on a new project for ruining England that began with an invasion of Portugal and Spain, which brought on a war with Austria. It is true

le). It is an old saying that "one cannot teach an old dog new tricks." Clearly, this cannot be because of any failing of memory, though memory fails with age; because the memory is not involved, save slightly. It must be therefore because of failing impressionability and receptivity. We all speak of the "receptive years," meaning the years of childhood and then of youth; and it is a common saying that young people are more receptive than old people.

that the highest qualities of our nature are the most difficult to maintain and therefore are the first to fail, under unhealthful surroundings. The spiritual faculties fail first, then the moral, then the mental and lastly the phy

such as Napoleon had lived under for several years, the picture of himself in his mind had become unduly magnified in relation to the

his antagonists. The very faculty (imagination) which started Napoleon on his great successes, started him now on his great reverses. The actual beginning of these was in his carelessly planned campai

Trafalgar had prevented him from achieving European domination), yet, if he had been able to see them as clearly as he had seen situations in his

meeting transient situations with success, as distinguished from inventors like Newton and Watt, who made permanent

were given an amazing impetus almost instantly. Possibly one cannot find in the whole history of modern invention any instrument so small and so inexpensive that has been so wide

le and little instrument that began virtually perfect, and that exists today substantially as it started. Oersted did something equally important, that ultimately initiated intricate inventions of many kinds, and yet he did not really invent anything whatever. The importance of his discovery was recognized at once; so quickly, in fact, and by so many experimenters and inventors, that Oerst

discovered that, if a conducting wire were wrapped around iron wires, those iron wires became magnets and remained magnets as long as the electric current continued to pass. Thereupon, Arago

an aid to physical and chemical research. The man who attacked the problem in the most scientific manner was Ampère, who in consequence solved it in the following year, after a series of mathematically conducted experiments of the utmost originality and inductiveness. As a result in 1820, he showed that all the actions and reactions of magnets could be performed by coils of wire through which electric currents were passing, even if t

s passing; in the second a conductor was made to revolve continuously around a fixed magnet; in a third machine, a magnet so mounted on a longitudinal axis that an electric current could be made to pass from one pole half way to the other pole, and then out, would revolve continuously as long a

y winding the conductor into a coil, the magnetic needle being within the coil. The galvanometer (named after Galvani) was an invention of the utmost value, and it is in use to this day, though in many modified forms. When one realizes how obvious a utilization of Oersted's discovery the galvanometer was, and that Schweigger did not invent it until two years later, he w

a current of electricity will be generated, the strength of which will vary with the metals employed and the difference in temperature of the junctions. The discovery was soon utilized in Nobili's invention of the thermopile in whic

machine in 1822. The usefulness of this invention was so apparent that it was not long in coming into use, or long in caus

ility of doing this had long been suspected by physicists reasoning from known phenomena; but the actual accomplishment of the liquefaction of gas was none the less a feat of a high order of brilliancy and usefulness. In experiments subsequently made, Dewar received the g

il the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad was opened in 1830. In 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company constructed a short railroad, and sent an agent to England to buy

lity by Watt, had now come to full fruition, and entered upon that career of world-wide u

decade before, when in 1819 the American steamship Savannah crossed t