: Stories of Useful Inventions by Forman S E Samuel Eagle - Inventions

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THE FOREWORD ix

I THE MATCH 3

II THE STOVE 13

V THE STEAM-ENGINE 54

VI THE PLOW 73

X THE HOUSE 123

A FOREWORD

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 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 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.

FOOTNOTE:

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

STORIES OF USEFUL INVENTIONS

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