Skip to main content

Full text of "Wonderful inventions: from the mariner's compass to the electric telegraph cable"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http: //books .google .com/I 



> 



. 1 



i 




f 



1 



1 \ 



If * 

r'' • 



J 



■ - # ■ 



■ ^ 



> 



.1 



F 



^ 



• 1 



. ' ' -. ,.;< -N 



: ' ^ . 






?ii: •'-•-■ 




/ . / 



/ 




-1^*^ 



S- — Tasi-Iton LiBhthonai 



WONDERFUL 

I NVENTIONS 



FROM THE MARINER'S COMPASS TO THE 
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH CABLE 



BY 

JOHN TIMES 



EDITOR OP "the year BOOK OF FACTS," AND AUTHOR OF "THINGS NOT 

GENERALLY KNOWN," ETC. 



NEJV EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED, 
WITH ADDITIONS, BRINGING DOWN THE SUBJECTS 

TO THE PRESENT TIME 




LONDON 
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
NEW YORK : 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE 

1882 



POPULAR WORKS ON SCIENCE. 

Price los. 6d. Demy 8vo, Cloth, Gilt edges. 

Discoveries and Inventions of the 
Nineteenth Century, 

BY 

ROBERT ROUTLEDGE, B.Sc (Lond.), F CS. 

With numerous Illustrations, Portraits, etc. 



Price 12S 6d. Demy 8vo, Cloth, Gilt edges, 

A Popular History of Science. 

BY 

ROBERT ROUTLEDGE, B.Sc. (Lond.),|F.C.S. 

Author of " Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth 

Century." 

With many original Illustrations, Portraits, and Sixteen 

Full-page Plates. 



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT 

EDITION. 

This new edition of the late Mr. Timbs* work has been 
carefully revised, and a considerable amount of fresh matter 
has been added. The alterations comprise the correction 
of some typographical errors ; certain changes here and there 
in the explanations of scientific principles and in the descrip- 
tions of apparatus, with a view to greater clearness antl 
precision of statement ; and, in a few instances, the substitu- 
tion of a sentence or a paragraph for one of the original 
author's, which, by the progress of time, may have appeared 
less accordant with the actual course of discovery or with 
the present state of opinion. The article on " The Micro- 
scope " has been almost entirely re-written. The additions 
consist of succinct notices of the most important and interesting 
developments which the various inventions have received since 
the appearance of the preceding edition of this work. The 
number of ilbistrations has also been increased by nearly half 
as many again as were contained in the former edition ; and 
of these new cuts, several have been engraved expressly for 
the present volume. 

« 

November, i83i. 



PREFACE. 




HE more my Uncle Toby 

drank of this sweet foun- 
tain of science, the greater 
was the heat and im- 
patience of his thirst" 
These words, uttered by the 
sentimental humorist more 
than a century ago, have, 
in the comparatively brief 
interval, received a legion 
of exemplifications. No province of human knowledge is 
more cumulative, or more closely follows the example of time, 
than do Science and its Applications ; for, as remarked by 
one of its most celebrated Professors, " Science is nothing 
more than the refinement of common sense, making use of 
facts already known to acquire new facts." To present to 
the Reader some of the more important results of such 
acquisitions is the object of the present volume, ranging in 



VI PREFACE. 



its narratives from the Compass to the Cable, and keeping 
in view the old poet*s mandate : 

** Up into the watch-lower get, 

And see all things despoiled of fallacies ; " 

— a labour of more gravity than implied by the stern personi- 
fication of the past, upon the preceding page, who seems to 
say, " Look, my abridgement comes." 

The Series commences with the Mariner's Compass, and 
ends with the Electric Telegraph, one of the most useful 
applications of magnetic power ; for, although the ancients, in 
their attempt to leap from obvious facts to the highest point 
of generality, inferred from the magnet attracting iron that the 
magnetic pole of the earth would draw the nails out of a ship's 
bottom which came, near it, they never anticipated "girdhng 
the universe with a sentence in forty minutes." 

The staple of these Wonderful Inventions is the great 
discoveries in Electricity, Chemistry, and Mechanical Science. 
In the Telescope and Microscope, the application of the 
phenomena of Light allures us to brighter worlds, and tran- 
scends that genius which 

** Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new.** 

In the histories of Gunpowder and Gun-cotton, and Gas- 
lighting, we have triumphs of chemical science in mitigating 
the suffering of war, and exemplifying that concentration which 
produces high convenience. 

The noble craft and mystery of Printing, likened to the lever 
of Archimedes, with which he could move the world, has cul- 
minated in the most intellectual application of Steam — a 
success of the last fifty years, and the consummation of an 
art which man may have borrowed from nature. 



PREFACE. yji 

Among the Curiosities of the volume may be named the 
ingenious means by which men have taken note of time, and 
embellished the recording power with fancy and curious 
device; as in Clocks and Watches. 

Nearly half the volume is devoted to the progress that has 
been made in the adaptation of Steam to Printing and Mining, 
Navigation, Textile Manufactures, Locomotion by land, and 
working Iron — from the time when the captive nobleman 
meditated on that mighty power which was so strangely to 
influence the material world with its illimitable applications. 

It will thus be seen that the paramount Inventions given in 
this volume, as tales that are told, are taken, in great measure, 
from our own time; and the older Inventions— as in the 
case of Printing— have been perfected by the genius of our 
own age. 

The materials of the present volume have been drawn from 
the most accredited sources ; and especial care has been 
taken to award to each inventor his share in the invention. 
This has been no light labour, in which the Author has been 
aided by the experience of Forty Years, in publishing, year 
by year, a record of Facts in Science and Art. 

With this introductory glance at the object of the Work, and 
the means by which it has been worked out, the Author com- 
mends the result to the kindly consideration of the Reader. 

October, 1867. 

["The Atlantic Telegraph Cables."— The Author has 
specially to acknowledge his indebtedness to the "Diary 
of the Cable,'* in the Times^ and to the Engravings in the 
Illustrated London News, obtained at very considerable cost 
for that journal.] 



CONTENTS. 



The Mariner's Compass i— 21. 

Invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar, i. — Directive power of the magnet, 
2. — Phoenician traders, 2. — Invention of the compass, 3. — The loadstone 
and magnet, 4. — Tiger Island, ma^^netic, 4. — Polarity of the magnet, 5. 
— Chinese magnetic chariot, 6. — Klaproth*s researches, 7. — Early notices 
of the compass, 8. — The compass in Europe, 9. — The needle, 11. — 
Compass in English records, 12. — Adamant, 12. — Compass brought from 
China, 12. — Artificial magnet, 13. — North and south pole of the mag- 
net, 14. — Touching needles for the compass, 14. — Gioia and the compass, 
15. — Compass described, 16. — Variation of the needle, 17. — Columbus 
and the needle, 17. — Chinese compaj?s, 18. — Errors of the compass, 19. 
— Magnetism and navigation, 19. — Scoresby*s magnetic voyage to 
Australia, 20. — The compass illustrated, 20, 21. 



Lighthouses and Lifeboats 22 — ^42. 

Early lighthouse^ 22. — The Pharos^ 23. — Colossus of Rhodes, the oldest 
lighthouse, 23. — Tower of Cordovan, 23. — Eddystone lighthouses, 24 — 
29. — Bell Rock lighthouse, 29. — Skerryvore lighthouse, building the, 
30. — Reflecting lighthouse, origin of, 31. — South Foreland lighthouse, 
32. — Goodwin Sands beacon and light, 32. — Plymouth Breakwater light, 
33. — Horsburgh lighthouse, 33. — Cast-iron lighthouses, 33. — Mooring 
screw lights, 34. — Early lights — Drummond light, 34. — Gas in light- 
houses, 34. — Electric lights, 35. — Wolff Rock lighthouse, 35. — Building 
a lighthouse, 35. — Lighthouses of Ireland, 36. — Floating lights, 37. — 
Optical apparatus of lighthouse, 37. — The lifeboat invented, 38. — Cap- 
tain Manby, 38. — Lifeboats in the Great Exhibition of 185 1, 38, 39. — 
The Northumberland lifeboat, 41. — Tubular lifeboats, 41. — koyal 
National Lifeboat Institution, 42. 



X CONTENTS. 

The Barometer . 43 — S®- 

Invention of the barometer, 43. — Galileo and Torricelli, 43. — Pascal, 
Mersenne, and Boyle, 45. — Baro'neter for measuring heights, 45. — 
Weather-glass, the, 46. — WoUaston's thermometrical barometer, 47. — 
Capt. Basil Hall and the barometer, 47, 48. — Aneroid barometer, 48. — 
Daniell on barometers, 49. — Admiral Fitzrt)y*s Barometer Manual, 49. — 
Clock-faced barometers, 50. — The aelloacope, 50. 



The Thermometer 51 — 57. 

Origin of, and early thermometers, 51. — Boyle's improvements, 52. — Air 
thermometers, 52. — Use in mountain ascents, 53. — Saussure's researches, 
53. — Ascent of Mont Blanc, 54. — Thermometers now in use : Reaumur 
and Fahrenheit, 55. — Centigrade, 56. — Maximum and minimum ther- 
mometers, 56. 



Printing , 58—80. 

The Scriptorium of the monasteries, 58. — Saxon MSS., 59* — Origin of 
printing, 59. — Chinese block- printing, 59. — Nature-printing, 59. — Poor 
Met^s Bible J 60. — Gutenberg and Fust, their Latin Bible, 60. — Metal 
type invented, 61. — Schoffer, 62. — Thorwaldsen's statue of Gutenberg, 
62. — Printing introduced throughout Europe, 63. — Celebrated printers 
and early presses, 63. — Typefounding, early, 63. — Star Chamber re- 
straints, 64. — Printing introduced into England, 64. — William Caxtonand 
Wynkyn de Worde, 64. — The Romance of Troy^ 64. — Caxton's printing- 
office at Cologne, 65. — Hi. first book, 65. — Caxton settles in Westmin- 
ster, 65. — Caxton's Game of ChesSy 66. — Death of Caxton, 66, — Early 
printing-offices in Fleet-street, 67, 68 — De Worde's will, 67. — His im- 
print, 68. — Caxton's type, 68. — William Caslon, 69. — Baskerville, 69. — 
Foundries abroad, 69. — The compositor at work, 69, 70. — Printing 
materials, 70. — Composing machine-, 71. — Ancient printing-press, 71. — 
Earl Stanhope's improvements, 71. — Steam-printing, inking balls and 
rollers, 72. — Printing-machine invented : Nicholson and Konig, 74, 75. 
— Times printing machines, 74. — Applegath and Cowper's machines, 
74 — 76. — Hoe and Middleton's machines, 77. — The Walter press, 78. — 
Bank-note printing, 79. — Printing wood-blocks, 79. — Fleet-street the 
cradle of steam-printing, 8a— Sterr^o'yping, 80. 



The Telescope 81—104. 

Sir David Brewster on the invention of the telescope, 81, 82. — Velocities 
of light, 82. — The earth and the moon, 83. — Arab tubes, 83. — Who 
invented the lens? 84. — Early "perspective glasses," 84. — ^Jansen and 
Lippersheim's telescope, 85. — Galileo and the telescope, 86. — Galileo's 



CONTENTS. XL 

telescope, 86. — What Galileo first saw with his telescope, 87. — Milton's 
vi it to Galileo in prison, 88. — Astronomical and refracting telescopes, 
90. — Huyghens' improvements, 90.— The first reflectino; telescope, 90. — 
Dioptric telescope, 91. — Newton makes his first reflecting telescope, 
91, 92. — Gregory and Hooke's improvements, 92. — Specula improved, 
93. — Sir William Herschel's telescope at Slough, 93. — Ramage's reflect- 
ing telescope, 94. — DoUond's improvements, 95. — Achromatic telescope, 
95. — Faraday's chemical experiments in glass-making, 96. — Guinand's 
glass, 96, 97. — Caroline Herschel, 97. — Lord Rosse's great reflecting 
telescope, 98 — 100. — Brewster and Scoresbyon the Rosse tele«^cope, 100, 
loi.— Great Northumberland telescope at Cambridge, loi. — The planet 
Neptune discovered, loi. — Great telescope for Victoria, 102. — The spec- 
troscope applied to the telescope, 102. — Brewster on the telescope, 103. 
— Large object-glasses, 104. — Silvered glass reflectors, 104, 



The MicRnscoPE 105 — 123. 

The microscope and the telescope compared, 105. — Two kinds of micro- 
scopes, 106. — Antiquity of the simple micro-cope, 106. — Optical prin- 
ciples of the microscope, 107. — Refraction by a double convex lens, 108, 
— Formation of images, 109. — Structure of the eye, ill. — Magnifying 
power of a simple lens explained, in. — The compound microscope, 1 12. 
— History of the simple microscope, 113. — Leuwenhoek and Gray, 
114. — Hooke, Lieberkiihn and WoUaston, 115. — Holland, Huyghens, 
Drebbel, Borell and Galileo, 1 16.- — Jansen, Divini, and modern improvers, 
117. — Gem lenses, 117. — The object-glass and the general construction 
of the best compound microscopes, 118. — Services rendered to science 
by the microscope, 120. — The projecting microscope, 122. — Establishment 
of microscopical societies, 123. 



Clocks and Watches 124—156. 

Directive and registrative science, 124. — Earliest measurement of time, 125. 
—Sun-dial, hour-glass, and Clepsydr£Byi2$. — Wheelwork, by Archimedes, 
126. — Candle-clocks, by Alfred the Great, 127. — The word clock, 127. 
— Wallingford*s clock, 127. — Wells Cathedral clock, 127. — Early clocks, 
128. — Clock mentioned by Chaucer, 129. — Henry de Wyck's clock, 129. 
— rThe clock a compound of separate inventions, 129. — The alarum or 
alarm, 130. — Hampton Court Palace clock, 131. — Henry VIIL, clocks 
belonging to, 130. — Anne Boleyn's clock, 130. — Clocks designed by 
Holbein, 130. — Automaton figure-clocks, 131. — St. Dunstan's clock. 
Fleet Street, 131. — ^The Strassburg clock, 131,132. — Clochard at West- 
minster, 133. — Earliest wheel-clock, 133. — St. PauFs Cathedral clock, 
134. —Westminster clock, 135. — The pendulum invented, 135, — Tycho 
Brahe's clock, 135. — Striking and repeating clocks, 136. — Royal Ex- 
change clock and chimes, 136, 137. — Westminster Palace clock, 137. — ■ 
Electrical clocks, 138. — Horse Guards clock, 139. — General Post-oflice 
clock, 139. — Clocks at the International Exhibition of 1862, 139.—^ 



ZU CONTENTS. 

Wooden and American clocks — Time-ball signal at Greenwich, 140. — 
Accnracy of a clock — Repeating clocks and watches, 141. — Barometer 
clock, 141. — Cox*s curious clocks, 142. — Clerk en welF clock-making 
establishment, 143. — Difference between a clock and a watch, 144. — 
Watches invented, 145. — Ancient watches, 145. — Skull watches, 147. — 
£li2abethan watches, 147, 148. — South Kensington Museum, watches at, 
148. — Clockmakers* CoJipany, 148. — -Charles I. *s watches, 149. — Spiral 
or pendulum springs, 149. — Repeating watches, 149. — Watch-jewelling, 
and miniature watch, 150. — Breguet the watchmaker, 151. — Astrono- 
mical watches, 151. — Crystal watch, 152. — Sultan's watch, 152. — Watch- 
making by machinery, 152. — The chronometer, 152. — Harrison's 
improvements, ratingf chronometers, and Astronomer-Royal on chrono- 
meters, 152. — New York chronometers, 154. — ^Variations in clocks and 
watches, 154. — Watchmaking in England and America, 154. — Watch- 
making in Switzerland, 155. — Clocks and watches, English and French, 
156. 



Gunpowder and Gun-cotton 157 — 174. 

Battle-fields, ancient and modern, 157. — Gunpowder serviceable to peace, 
158. — Invention of gunpowder, 159. — China, gunpowder in, 159. — 
Roger Bacon and gunpowder, 159. — Battle of Crecy, 160. — Sch>Kartz 
invented, 160. — Tartaglia's account, 160. — Prince Rupert's method, 
161. — Composition and force of gunpowder, 161, — Count Rumford's 
experiments — Manipulation of gunpowder, 162. — Siege of Gibraltar, 
1782, 163. — Siege of Acre, 1840, 164. — Duke of Wellington on, 165. — 
Congreve rocket, the, 165. — Waliham Abbey po^^ der-mills, 166. — 
Terrific explosions of gfun-powder, in 1864, 167, 168. — Blasting rocks 
by powder, 168. — Railway works, 168. — Mining operations, 169. — 
Gun-cotton invented by Schonbein, 170. — Early experiments, 170. — Gun- 
cotton first used in actual warfare, 170. — Gunpowder and gun-cotton 
compared, 171. — Blasting operations, 172. — Gun-cotton safer than 
gunpowder, 172. — Nitro-glycerine, 172. — Warner experiment, 1844, 
1 73. — Percusbion-caps, 1 74. 



Gas-lighting 175—188. 

The Cresset and beacon light, 175. — How London has been lighted, 176. — 
Gas-lighting prevision, 177. — Gas in China, 177. — Gas by the fireside, 
177^ — Burning-well at Wiofan, 178. — Gas-lighting from colleries, 178. — 
Murdoch's apparatus, 178. — Soho foundry lighted, 178. — Gas-lighting 
cotton mills — In London, 179. — Winsor's experiments, 180. — London 
generally lighted, 180. — Royal Society, committee, 180. — Mistakes of 
Davy, Wollaston, and Watt, 180. — Manufacture of coal-gas, 180-182. 
— Carburetting, 182. — Gas-lighting railways and steamers, 183. — 
London companies, 183. — Portable gas, 183. — Oil-gas, 184. — Ga>- 
lighting London, 184. — Light of coal-gas, 185. — Ga- -burners, 185. — 



CONTENTS* Xlll 

Explosions of gas, i86, 187. — Benefit of public illumination, 187. — Value 
of gas tar, 187. — Other applications of gas, l88. 

Artesian Wells « . • • • 189—194. 

Origin of the name, 189. — Boring operations, 190. — Well at Crenelle, 
Paris, 190. — Boring at Tottenham, by Vulliamy, 191. — Depth of the 
Crenelle Well, 191.— Well at Place Hebert, Paris, 192.— Wells in 
and roimd London, 192. — Trafalgar-square waterworks, 193. — ^Dr. 
Buckland and Mr. Prestwich on artesian wells, 193 — Arago on the 
temperature of artesian wells, 194. — The well at Creue le, Paiis, 194. 



The Steam-engine • • • • . 195 — 231. 

Steam-power an era of progress, 195. — Steam triumphs — Steam kno^^m 
to the ancients, 196.- — Steam-gun and seoJopile, 197. — High-pressure 
steam, 197. — Steam-engine simplified, 197, 198. — Steam from the 
kettle, 199. — Data by Dr. Lardner, 200. — Cornish engines, 200. — 
Hero's machine, 201, 202. — Blasco de Garay's experiment at Barce- 
lona, 202, 203. — De Causes machine, 204. — Brancas's machine, 205. — 
Marquis of Worcester's experiments and machine, 206, 207. — 'llie 
Century of Inventions^ 208. — Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire, 209. — 
Marian Delorme's letter on the origin of the steam-engine, 210. — 
Morland, Papin, and Savcry's machines, 212, 216. — Papin's Digester, 
215. — Newcomen*s engine, 216. — Humphrey Potter's hand-gear, 217. — 
bteam pumps and steam-engines, 218. — James Watt's birth and boy- 
hood, 218. — Muirhead, Mrs., and the boy Watt, 218, 219. — Watt's 
steam-experiments, 220. — Boulton and Watt, 221. — Parallel motion, 
221. — The "Old Bess Engine," 222. — Throttle-valve, 223.— Double- 
action steam-engine, 223, 224. — Watt's prosperity at Soho, 226. — Heath- 
field House, 227, 228. — Smiles, Mr., his biojjraphy of Boulton and Watt 
— Watt's workshop at Heathfield, 228. — Watt's trip in asteam-b)at: 
his steam-carriage and model engine, 229. — Death of Watt, and Lord 
Brougham's inscription for his statue, 229. — Proposed monumental tower 
to Watt, at Greenock, 230. — Arago on the genius of Watt, 23a — Statue 
of Watt, in Handsworth Church, 231. 

The Cotton Manufacture 232—257. 

Ancient use of cotton, 232, — Hindoo weavers, 233. — Pound of cotton, 
stages of, 234. — Weaving cloth, 234. — Fly-shuttle, 235. — Warping- 
milJ, 235.— The cotton-plant, 236. — Sea island cotton, 236. — New cotton 
fields, 238. — Spinning jenny, the, 238. — Lancashire cotton manufacture, 
239. — Arkwright's spinning by rollers, 240. — Hargreaves's spinning- 
frame, 240. — Crompton's spinning - mule, 241. — Story of Samuel 
Crompton, 242. — Crompton and the Peels, 243. — Richard Arkwrighr, 
career of, 244. — ^The Strutts of Derby, 245. — The steam-engine in the 



XIV CONTENTS. 

cotton manufacture, 245. — Invention of the power-loom, 246, 248. — 
Machinery in spinning and weaving, 249. — Calico-printing introduced, 
250. — Rise of the Peels, 251. — The first Sir Robert Peel, 252. — Block 
and cylinder printing, 253. — Chlorine in calico-printing, '253. — 
Machinery in the cotton manufacture, 254. — The cotton manufacture 
illustrated, 255. — Cotton famine, the, 256. — Cotton culture in the 
colonies, 257. — Cotton mill described by Professor George Wilson, 257. 



Steam Navigation 258 — 291. 

Steam-power on land and water, 258. — Antiquity of the paddle-wheel, 
258. — Papin's working paddle-wheels, by steam, 259. — Jonathan Hulls' 
steam-boat, 260. — Paddle-wheel steam-boat, 1774, 260. — Fulton's ex- 
periments, 260. — Thomas Paine and propulsion of ves'-els by steam, 
261. — American steam-boat experiments, 261. — James Watt cau.^es the 
steam to act above the piston as well as below it — Miller's patent engine 
and steam navigation, 262. — Symington's improvement;, 264. — The 
Charlotte Dundas, 264. — Fulton's claim, 265. — His experiments in 
America, 267, 268. — The Comet steamer, 268. — Steam-boats in the 
Thames, 270. — The Margery and Thames steamers, 270. — Margate 
steamers, 272. — ^The first open sea steamer, Rob Roy^ 2'j^,r~City of 
Edinburgh and Aaron Manby steamers, 273. — Savannah ocean steamer, 
274. — Sirius and Great Western^ 274. — British Queen and President^ 
275. — Great Britain screw steam-ship, 275, 276. — History of the screw 
propeller — Rattler^ the first war screw-steamer, 278. — The paddle and 
the screw, by Mr. Macgregor, 278. — Archimedes steam screw propeller, 
278. — Testimonial to Mr. F. Pettit Smith, 279. — Who invented the 
screw propeller? 279. — Carpenter's double screw propellers, 279. — 
Lei.iathan {Great Eastern) steam-ship, its story, 280. — Mr. Bournca' 
hi>tory of the Fcrew-propeller, 281. — Combination of marine engines, 
282. — Greenwich and Woolwich steamers — Penn's engines, 283. — 
Victoria and Albert and Fairy steamers, 283, 284. — Penn's marine 
enjjines, 284. — Casting a cylinder for a marine engine, 285. — Steam- 
shipping in the port of London, 286. — Victoria Docks, the, 287 — 
Progress of steam naviga'ion, 288. — Larj^est steamers in the world, 
289. — The Castalia^ 291, — Consumption of coal by steam-ships, 291, 



The Railway and the Locomotive Steam-engine. 292—326. 

The railway characterised, 292. — ^Watt's locomotive engine, 292. — Tron- 
working, 293. — Nasmyth's steam-hammer, 293. — Maudslay's slide- 
rest, 294. — Earliest railways, 294, — Colliery railway, 295. — Origin of 
tramroads, 296. — Coleb. ook-dale Railway, 296. — Iron-works. 297. — 
Edge rail and flanged wheel, and gauges, 298. — Blenkinsop's cog- 
wlieel, 299 — Surrey iron railway, 299. — Sir Edward Banks, 299. — 
The locomotive upon the railway, 300. — Darwin's " fiery chariot," 
306. — DdJ\vin'.s Temple of Nature, 301. — Murdoch's Lilliputian loco- 



CONTENTS. XV 

motive, 302. — TrevithicVs high-presFiire locomottve, 302. — George 
Stephenson and the Stockton and Darlinjjton Railway, 302. — The 
Killingworth engine, 302. — "Puffing Billy" at South Kensington, 
303. — Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 304. — Chatmoss and Sankey 
Viaduct, 305. — Stephenson's Rocket prize locomotive, 306, 308, 309. — 
Speed on railway.*, 309. — London and Birmins/ham Railway, 31a — 
John Steele and the Stephenpons — Great Western Railway, and Box 
Tunnel, 311. — ^The electric telegraph on railway?, 312. — London and 
Greenwich Railway, 314. — The atmospheric railway, 314. — Under- 
ground railway, 315. — First railway in the United States, 316. — An 
elevated railway, 317. — Railways in India, 317. — Railway bridges of 
great span, 318. — Great tubular bridges, 320. — Britannia bridge, 321. — 
The modem locomotive, 322. — Iron DukCy Great Western locomotive, 
324. — Rail way statistics for ten years, 326. — Great tunnels, 330, — Recent 
railways and moaem rolling stock, 332. 



Iron Ships op War, Guns, and Armour . . • 336—366. 

History of iron shipbuilding, 336. — Iron vessels shot-proof, 337. — Iron- 
plated floating batteries, 337. — Rifled guns, 337. — La Gloire built, 
337. — The Warrior built, 338. — Captain Coles's cupola ship, or turret 
ship, 338. — The Minotaur^ 338. — Mr. Reed's Enterprise, 338. — English 
and American systems, 339.— Our ironclad fleet, 340. — Royal Sovereign 
turret ship, -340. — Progress of gunnery, 331. — Hercules' armour-plates, 
341. — Medusa armour-clad gunboat, and the Bellerophon, 342. — Stu- 
pendous American turret ship, 343. — An episode from the American 
War, 343, 4. — Invention of gunboats, 344. — Composite gunboats, 344. — 
The Devastation and the Thunderer ^ 346. — Granite forts must be plated 
as well as ships, 347. — Granite casemates at Shoeburyness, 347. — 
Isle of Wight forts. Horse Sand fort, 349. — Shot and shell thrown into 
Sebastopol by the British siege train, 350. — English wrought-iron guns, 
350. — Materials' for projectiles, 351. — Best form of shot, 351. — Whit- 
worth and Armstrong guns, 352 — Krupp and Palliser guns, 353. — 
Results of recent gunnery experiments, 353. — Rifling guns, 354. — The 
Woolwich and the Armstrong guns, 355. — Small arms breech-loaders, 
357. — History of the needle-gun, 358. — ^Jacob Snider's cartridge, 360. — 
The Cbassepot rifle, 361. — ^The Martini- Henry rifle, 362. — The Gatling 
gun, 363. — Torpedoes, various, 364. — Land and self-acting torpedoe.^', 
365. — Fraser Gun and the Royal Laboratory, Woolwich, 366, 



Ti£E Electric Telegraph 367-— 387. 

Poetic predictions of electrical power, 367. — Stradi's magnetized needles, 
367. — Electric sijmaLs in 1 731 — Electricity passing through great lengths 
of conductor?, 358. — Telegraph wire benea'h the Thames, 368. — 
Lomond's electric telegraph in 1787 — Voltaic electricity in metallic 
bodies, 370. — Ronalds' electric telegraph, 1812, 370. — Oersted's 



XVI CONTENTS. 

discovery of electro-magnetic action, 370. — Application of Oersted's dis- 
covery to telegraphy 371. — Cooke and Wheatstone's telegraphs, 372. — 
The telegraph simplified, 373. — Steinheil's magneto-electric machine, 
373. — Faraday's electric spark, 374. — Wheatstone's telegraph, with 
movement signals, 374. — Telegraph clocks, 375. — Suspension of the 
wires on posts, 376. — Game of chess by telegraph, 377. — Police-capture 
by telegraph, 377. — Lardner and Leverrier's experiments, 377. — "The 
earth's circuit," 378. — Istruments by Morse, Hughes, Bonelli, and Ladd, 
379. — Caselii and Bakewell's telegraph, 380. — Telegraph printing instru- 
ments, 380. — Composing-machine and transmitting and receiving ap- 
paratus, by Bain, 381. — ** Nerves of London," 381, 383. — Faraday's 
magnetO'Clectric machine, 382. — ^Wheatstone's telegraph for the million, 
383. — ^Various telegraphs, 384. — Morse's printing telegraphs, 384. — 
Speed attained, 385. — Insulation of the Atlantic cables, 385. — WoUa- 
ston's thimble battery, 386. — Highton's miniature battery, 386. — Modem 
inventions in telegraphy, 386. 



Ocean Electro-Telegraphy. — The Electric Cables • 388 — ^416. 

Submarine telegraph and land telegraph, 3S8. — ^Morse's sub-aqueous 
plan, 388. — Telegraphing across the Atlantic and Pacific, 389, — England 
4ind America ** within speaking distance," 390. — Experiment in Folke- 
stone harbour, in 1849, 390. — Brett's printing telegraph, 390. — Lake's 
wire covered with g^tta percha, 391. — Electric glass tubes, 391. — Gutta 
percha, importance of, 392. — Dover and Calais cable, 392. — Atlantic 
cable practicable, 393. — Atlantic telegraph company formed, 393. — 
First attempt failed, 393. — Whitehouses experiments, 393, 3^4. — 
Sir W. Thomson's signalling instruments, 395. — Second unsuccessful 
attempt to lay the cable, 395. — The cable laid — first messages, 
396. — Failure, 397. — The cable of 1865 in the Great Eastern steam- 
ship, 397. — Mr. Cyrus Field's co-operation, 398. — Instrument room 
of the telegraph-house, Valentia, 399. — Ma ufacture of the cable of 
1865, 400. — Making the steel wires, 400, 401. — Sailing of the Great 
Eastern^ 400. — Breaking of the cable, 402. — Picking up the cable, 402, 
408. — Return of the Great Eastern^ 408. — New cable and improved 
apparatus 409, 410. — The cable laid, 411. — Recovery of the old cable, 
411, 413. — The great work completed, 415. — Honours conferred, 415. — 
Mr. Russell's "Diary of the Cable" in the Times, 416. — ^The achieve- 
ment celebrated at the Mansion Hou^se, 416. — Extension of submarine 
telegraphy, 416. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PACE 

FIRST LANDING OF C/ESAR IN BRITAIN I 

CHINESE MAGNETIC CHARIOT 6 

TRAVELLERS IN SYRIA ID 

THE MARINER AND HIS COMPASS 21 

LIGHTHOUSE AND LIFEBOAT . r 22 

THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE (SMEATON's) 2$ 

SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE (SMEATON's) 26 

REVOLVING LIGHT APPARATUS 39 

EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI 43 

BAROMETER 46 

GLACIERS OF CHAMOUNI 53 

MONTE ROSA 55 

THERMOMETER 56 

THE INVENTORS OF PRINTING 58 

GUTENBERG, FUST, AND SCHOEFFER 6 1 

STATUE OF GUTENBERG, AT MAYENCE 62 

CAXTON AND WVNKIN DE WORDE 65 

"CAXTON's house** at WESTMINSTER 66 

compositor at work 70 

ancient wooden printing-press . 7 1 

printing-balls • •' ; 72 

printing-roller 73 

cowper*s double cylinder printing-machine 75 

Napier's flatten machine 77 

newspaper printing-room with walter press 78 

milton visiting galileo in prison •..-.'.• 88 



XVm LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

ramage's reflecting telescope . • • • * . 94 

THE earl of ROSSE'S GREAT REFLECTING TELESCOPE, PARSONS- 
TOWN lOO 

FIG. I — DIAGRAM IO7 

FIG. 2— DIAGRAM • I08 

FIG. 3 — DIAGRAM I09 

FIG. 4— DIAGRAM 112 

FIG. 5— LIEBERKUEHN*S MICROSCOPE 11$ 

FJG. 6— DIAGRAM II6 

FIG. 7— DIAGRAM I18 

FIG. 8— baker's COMPOUND MICROSCOPE II9 

FIG. 9 — THE student's MICROSCOPE I20 

fig. 10— hydra, magnified 121 

the strassburg clock . » 132 

modern warfare i57 

st. george's hall, gibraltar 1 64 

blasting rocks in a mine . . • 169 

the warner experiment off brighton 173 

the cresset and watch-tower 175 

city of london gas-works 1 84 

hero's machine 202 

machine by d£ caus 204 

the marquis of worcester's engine . . * 206 

THE MARQUIS OF W^ORCESTER IN THE TOWER • • . facing 206 

PRETENDED SCENE OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER AND MARIAN 

DELORME MKETING WITH DE CAUS, IN THE BIC^TRE ... 211 

SAVERY'S CONDENSING STEAM-ENGINE 2I4 

NEWCOMEN's STEAM-ENGINE . . . . « 2l6 

MRS. MUIRHEAD AND JAMES WATT • 219 

SOHO IRONWORKS 222 

watt's DOUBLE- action STEAM-ENGINE 224 

HEATHFIELD HOUSE, THE SEAT OF JAMES WATT 227 

STATUE OF JAMES WATT, BY CHANTREY 23I 

HINDOO WEAVER AT WORK . . 233 

MULE ROOM 241 

RICHARD ARKWRIGHT 244 

COTTON MANUFACTURE : WEAVING 248 

POWER-LOOM ROOM 249 

BIRTHPLACE OF THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL 25O 

ROBERT FULTON 266 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XIX 

PAHB 

ARRIVAL OF THE "GREAT WESTERN** STEAM-SHIP AT NEW YORK 275 

THE " GREAT BRITAIN *' IN DUNDRUM BAY 276 

CASTING A CYLINDER FOR A MARINE STEAM-ENGINE .... 285 

FIG. II — COMPARATIVE SIZES OF STEAM-SHIPS 288 

FIG. 12 — ^THE S.S. "CITY OF ROME** 289 

FIG. 13 — ^THE "CASTALIA'* AT DOVER 290 

SOUTH HETTON COLLIERIES RAILWAY 295 

MOUTH OF COAL-PIT, BROSELY, SALOP 296 

IRON WORKS, COLEBROOKDALE 29/ 

GEORGE STEPHENSON /'^"f?* 3^2 

SANKEY VIADUCT 305 

BOX TUNNEL 312 

RAILWAY EMBANKMENT NEAR BATH 313 

THE ALBERT BRIDGE, SALTASH 3I9 

THE BRITANNIA BRIDGE, MENAI STRAITS 321 

SECTION OF A LOCOMOTIVE 323 

THE LOCOMOTIVE "IRON DUKE,** GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY • 325 

FIG. 14 — CHART OF THE CHANNEL TUNNEL 331 

FIG. 15— GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE 333 

FIG. 16 — ** CAPE HORN '* 334 

RAILWAY CUTTING 335 

FIG. 17— H.M.S. "devastation" IN QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR . 346 

FIG. 18 — SECTION OF 9-INCH ERASER GUN 355 

FIG. 19 — THE 35-TON ERASER GUN 355 

FIG. 20— COMPARATIVE SIZES OF 35- AND 81-TON GUNS . . . 356 

FIG. 21 — THE CHASSEPOT RIFLE 361 

FIG. 22 — THE MARTINI-HENRY RIFLE 362 

FIG. 23 — THE CATLING BATTERY GUN . 363 

FIG. 24 — BELL*S TELEPHONE 387 

SUBMARINE CABLE BETWEEN DOVER AND CALAIS 391 

FIG. 25 — ^THOMSON'S MIRROR GALVANOMI'TER 395 

RECEIVING MESSAGES FROM THE "GREAT EASTERN** IN THE 

INSTRUMENT ROOM, VALENTIA 399 

MAKING THE STEEL WIRES FOR THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH • 

CABLE OF 1865 401 

BREAKING OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE ON BOARD THE 

"GREAT EASTERN** 4^4 

ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE, 1866 • • • • . 4II 

\ 







ajEARL^ two thou 
sand \eirs ha\e 
rolltd away since 
:l landed 
(rom his war galley on the 
English coast It was on a fine morning m August, jusf 
about the time that the Bntons were harvesting their corn, 
when the Roman legions first sa» the Bntish ttar<hanois, 
nith the blades of scythes projecting from the axle trees of 
their wheels, as they went thundLring along the beach below 
the cliff between Walmer Castle and Sandwich , and great must 
have been their astonishment, when the Romans saw from the 
decks of their galleys the half-naked, long-haired Britons, 
some of whom were paddling in their coracles, framed of 



2 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

slight ribs of wood, covered with the hides of oxen, in which 
they seldom ventured far from the shore. The Roman invader 
was beset by calamities, his galleys were scattered by a storm ; 
he was ignorant of the height to which the tide rises in these 
narrow seas ; his transports were dashed to pieces, and his 
galleys swamped with the rising waves. 

Although it was not until centuries after this period that the 
knowledge of the directive power of the magnet became known 
to the Greeks and Romans, they were aware, long before the 
time of Caesar, that an island, celebrated for its tin, lay some- 
where on the north or north-west of Europe. The Greeks made 
many attempts to discover this tin island, which one of the latest 
investigators of the question, Sir Henry James, shpws to have 
been St. Michael's Mount, off the coast of Cornwall. It appears, 
however, that the Greeks kept along the coast of Normandy and 
France, and were afraid to venture across our stormy channel, 
for they had no magnet to steer by. The Phoenicians, who were 
the earliest traders that visited England, baffled all inquiries that 
other voyagers made as to the situation of the tin island, and 
kept for centuries all the traffic in tin to themselves. It was in 
vain that the Greeks sent out ships to discover where these 
early Phoenician voyagers landed ; the latter ran their vessels 
ashore on the coast of France, and would not steer across the 
English Channel' until the Greeks had given up the search, 
and departed ; nor does the secret of the Phoenicians appear 
to have been discovered until Caesar had invaded Britain. 

It will readily be perceived, by referring to a map of Europe, 
that a few hours would be sufficient to cross the narrow sea 
which divides France from England ; and on a clear day our 
white island-cliffs may be seen from the opposite coast. Until 
the galleys ventured over, they would therefore keep in sight of 
the shore, and glide safely from headland to headland as they 
crept along the opposite coast. In those early times, chance or 
accident led to the discovery of distant countries. A vessel 
might be borne along by a heavy wind ; and in dark, cloudy, or 
tempestuous weather, when the sun did not appear, these early 
mariners would neither be able to distinguish the east from the 
west, nor the north from the south : there they would be com- 
pelled to sail for days, ignorant of the latitude they were in, until 
they at last reached land ; nor would they then be able to tell 
in what quarter lay the country they had left behind. Hundreds, 
no doubt, were lost who were thus driven out into those . un- 



THE mariner's COMPASS. 3 

known knd perilous seas without either map or chart, or any 
guide by which to steer. Tempest-tossed, they were carried 
they knew not where by the winds and currents : 

** Kude as their ships was navigation then, 
No useful compass or meridian known ; 
Coasting they kept the land within their ken, 

And knew no north but when the pole-star shone" 

Dryden. 

Even with the knowledge of the sea which the researches 
of centuries have contributed, still how great are its perils. 
It has been well observed : " How a small box of men 
manages to be buffeted for months up one side of a wave, and 
down another ; how they ever get out of the abysses in which 
they sink ; and how, after such pitching and tossing, they reach 
in safety the very harbour in their native country from which 
they originally departed, can, and ought only to be accounted 
for, by acknowledging how truly it has been written that * the 
Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters/" There is 
nowhere to be found so inhospitable a desert as the wide blue 
seas, in whose beds the edifices and work of nations, whose 
history is altogether unknown to existing generations, are em- 
bedded and preserved : — 

" What wealth untold, 

Far down and shining through their stillness, lies ; 
They have the starry gems, the burning gold, 

Won from a thousand royal argosies. 
Yet more— the depths have more— their waves have roll'd 

Above the cities of a world gone by ; 
Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old. 

Sea- weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry." 

Curious it is to find that the discovery of the properties of a 
certain mineral substance proved a safeguard to the mariner in 
his ocean of peril, and thenceforth enabled him to steer with 
security as to his course. The Compass was the invention ; 
the discovery which preceded it — for there must be a discovery 
preceding every invention — was the finding of the natural 
Magnet, or Loadstone ; and the application of its properties — 
which was overlooked, although it attracted observation by a 
different peculiarity — ".has influenced by its accidental dis- 
covery the fortunes of mankind more than all the deductions 
of philosophy." Locke says: "He that first discovered th^ 

B 2 



4 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

use of the Compass, did more for the supplying and increase 
of useful commodities than those who built workhouses." 

The power of the loadstone to attract iron was known to the 
ancient Egyptians, but was not by them appUed to any practical 
purpose. It is a dark iron-grey mineral, approaching to black, 
found in great abundance in the iron mines of Sweden, in 
some parts of the East, in America, and sometimes, though 
rarely, among the iron -ores of England. It possesses the re- 
markable property of attracting iron, which it draws into con- 
tact with its own mass, and holds firmly attached by its own 
power of attraction. According to Pliny, it is named Magnet 
from its being abundantly found near Magnesia, a city of Lydia, 
in Asia Minor ; and the ancient poet Hesiod also makes use of 
the term " Magnet Stone.'* The name loadstone is stated to be 
derived from an Icelandic term leiderstein, signifying leading- 
storie, so designated from the stony particles found connected 
with it. We find the word in Sir John Davys's " Dedication 
to Queen Elizabeth :" — 

" To that clear majesty which in the north 
Doth, like another sun, in Glory rise, 
Which standeth fix'd, yet spreads her heavenly worth ; 
Loadstone to hearts, and loadstar to all eyes." 

The attractive power of the Magnet, known thus early, is re- 
ferred to by Aristotle, and by Pliny, who states that ignorant 
persons called it, ferrum vivum, or quick iron. The loadstone 
was also believed to be of two species, male and female. In 
•the Middle Ages it was used medicinally — to cure sore eyes, 
and as an alterative. In modern times plasters were made 
from the ore ; and much quackery was perpetrated by its means. 
Tradition refers the mysterious agency of the Magnet to acci- 
dental origin. The Greek story is that one Magnes, a shepherd, 
leading his flocks to Mount Ida, stretched himself upon the 
greensward to take repose, and left his crook, the upper part 
of which was made of iron, leaning against a large stone. When 
he awoke and rose to depart, he found, on attempting to 
take up his crook, that the iron adhered to the stone. He 
communicated this fact to some philosophers ; and they called 
the stone after the name of the shepherd, Magnes, the Magnet. 
It is also denominated among many nations, the love-stone, from 
its apparent affection for iron. 

Tiger Island, at the mouth of the Canton River, in China, in 



THE MARINER*S COMPASS. 5 

great measure consists of magnetic ore, as mariners infer from 
the circumstance of the needles of their compasses being much 
affected when in proximity to the island ; and an ancient tradi- 
tion exists among the Chinese of a mountain of magnetic ore, 
rising in the midst of the sea, whose intensity of attraction is so 
great as to draw the nails and iron bands, with which the planks 
of the ships are fastened together, from their places with great 
force, and cause the ship to fall to pieces. Ptolemy also places 
this mountain in the Chinese seas. In a work attributed to 
St. Ambrose, there is an account of one of the islands in the 
Persian Gulf in which the Magnet is found ; and the precaution 
necessary to be taken (of building ships without iron), to navi- 
gate in that vicinity, is distinctly specified. We should add that 
the Chinese writers place this magnetic mountain in precisely 
the same geographical Region that the story of the voyages of 
Sindbad the Sailor does ; which is to be regarded as a confirma- 
tion of the Oriental origin of a great number of tales, — half 
fiction, half fact, — which are universally diffused amongst the 
legendary literature of every language. 

At what period the most important property of the Magnet, 
"polarity," or its disposition to turn to the north and south 
poles of the earth, was first discovered, is not known. We have 
seen that the Greeks and Romans were alike ignorant of it. 
Among the Chinese, however, the Magnet appears to have been, 
from a very remote date, so far understood as to be used for the 
purposes of direction, in most of the leading countries of Asia, 
including Japan, as well as China, India, and even Arabia. The 
earliest notice of the Magnetic Compass being used on land 
prior to service at sea, is from the Chinese as follows. Honang- 
ti punishes Tchi-yeou at Tchou-lou. The Waiki said : Tchi- 
yeou bore the name of Khiang : he was related to the Emperor 
Yantt. He delighted in war and turmoil. He made swords, 
lancets, and large crossbows, to oppress and devastate the 
empire. He called and brought together the chiefs of pro- 
vinces : his grasping disposition and avarice knew no bounds. 
Tan-ti-yu-wang, unable any longer to keep him in check, 
ordered him to withdraw himself to Chao-hao, in order that he 
might thus detain him in the west. Tchi-yeou, nevertheless, 
persisted more and more in his perverse conduct. He crossed 
the river Yang-chaoni, ascended the Kieou-nao, and gave battle 
to the Emperor Tanti, at Khounsang. Tanti was obliged to 
retire, and seek an asylum in the plains of Tchoulou. Hiuan- 



6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

yuan (the proper name of the Emperor Houang-ti) then col- 
lected the forces of the vassals. of the empire, and attacked 
Tchi-yeou in the plains of Tchou-lou. 'ihe latter raised a 
thick fog in order that by means of the darkness he might spread 
confusion in the enemy's army ; but Hinan-yuan constructed a 
chariot for indicaiing the south, in order to distinguish the four 
cardinal points, by means of which he pursued Tohi-yeou, and 
took him prisoner, and caused him to be ignominiously put to 
death at I'choung-ki, which received from this circumstance the 
name of the plain of the broken curb. This narrative pro- 
fesses to record a transaction that occurred in 2634 B.C., three 
centuries before the Deluge of our chronologers. 




Humboldt, in his Cosmos, allow.* that " a thousand years be- 
fore oar era, in the obscure age of Codnis, the Chinese had 
already magnetic carriages on which the moveable arm of the 
figure of a man continually pointed to the south, as a guide to 
find the way across the boundless grass-plains of Taitary ; nay, 



THE mariner's COMPASS. 7 

even in the third century of our era, therefore at least 700 
years before the use of the Mariner's Compass in the European 
seas, Chinese vessels navigated the Indian Ocean under the 
direction of magnetic needles pointing to the south." 

In Xh^ Japanese Cyclopaedia^ vol. 33, is a representation of one 
of these chariots. The figure in front was made of some light 
material ; it was fixed upon a pivot, and its finger invariably 
pointed to the south, which was the Kibleh^ or sacred point of 
the Chinese, to which they always turned when performing 
their devotions. It is intimated rather obscurely, that these 
magnetic chariots were first invented for a religious purpose ; 
namely, to enable the devout to discover Xki^ix Kibleh when the 
sun and stars were obscured by clouds — a purpose to which the 
Compass is frequently applied in the present day by Moham- 
medan nations ; but there are also full descriptions of the 
use made of these chariots in directing the march of armies 
and guiding ambassadors. M. Klaproth has collected, from 
Chinese authorities, many curious anecdotes of the use made 
of these chariots : under the Tsin dynasty they formed a 
part of every royal procession. In the history of that dynasty, 
we find : " The wooden figure placed on the magnetic car re- 
sembled a genius wearing a dress made of feathers ; whatever 
was the position of the car, the hand of the genius always 
pointed to the south. When the Emperor went in state, one 
of these cars headed the procession, and served to indicate the 
cardinal points." 

In the history of the second Tchao dynasty, which lasted 
from A.D. 319 to A.D. 351, we read : — " The Chang-Fang (presi- 
dent of the Board of Works) ordered Kiai-Fei, who was dis- 
tinguished by his great skill in constructing every kind of instru- 
ment, to build a number of magnetic chariots, which were sent 
as presents to the principal grandees of the empire." There are 
several accounts of the manner in which the magnetic figures 
were constructed : a magnetized bar passed through the arm of 
the figure, and the only variety of ingenuity displayed by the 
architect was in balancing the figure upon the pivot. We quote 
these details from a notice of M. Klaproth's work, in the 
AthenceuTTiy No. 369. 

Extracted firom the annals of a Chinese historian, contem- 
porary with the destruction of the Bactrian empire by Mithri- 
dates I., we find that the Emperor Tching-wang (mo years 
before our era) presented to the Ambassadors of Tong-King and 



8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Cochin China, who dreaded the loss of their way back to their 
own country, five magnetic cars, which pointed out the south by 
means of a moving arm of a little figure covered with a vest of 
feathers. To each of these cars, too, a hodometer, marking the 
distances traversed by strokes on a bell, was attached, so as to 
exhibit a complete dead reckoning. Maurice, in his Indian 
Antiquities^ describes this instrument as a sort of magnetic 
index, which the Chinese called Chimaus ; a name by which 
they at this day denominate the Mariner's Compass. Such in- 
ventions, says Sir John Herschel, are not the creation of a few 
years, or a few generations. They presuppose long centuries 
of previous civilization, and that, too, " at an epoch contem- 
porary with Codrus and the return of the Heraclides to the 
Peloponnesus" — the obscure dawn of European history ! Even 
the declination of the needle, or its deviation from the true 
meridian, was known to this extraordinary people at the epoch 
in question. 

The Magnetic Car or Wagon was used as late as the fifteenth 
century. Several of these carriages were carefully preserved in 
the Chinese Imperial Palace, and were employed in the building 
of Buddhist monasteries, in fixing the points towards which the 
main sides of the edifice should be directed. 

The Sea, or strictly speaking. Mariner's Compass, is first no- 
ticed as used by the Chinese in the dynasty of Tain, 265-419 a.d., 
in their great Dictionary Poi-we-yeu-fou. It was known on the 
Syrian coast before its general use in Europe, and is thus 
described by Bailak Kibdjaki, in 1242: "We have to notice 
amongst other properties of the Magnet, that the captains who 
navigate the Syrian Sea, when the night is so dark as to conceal 
from view the stars which might direct their course according to 
the position of the four cardinal points, take a basin full of water, 
which they shelter from wind by placing it in the intferiorof the 
vessel : they then drive a needle into a wooden peg or a corn- 
stalk, so as to form the shape of a cross, and throw it into a 
basin of water prepared for the purpose, on the surface of 
which it floats. They afterwards take a loadstone of sufficient 
size to fill the palm of the hand, or even smaller, bring it to the 
surface of the water, give 10 their hands a rotatory motion 
towards the right, so that the needle turns on the water's 
surface ; they then suddenly and quickly withdraw their hands, 
when the two points of the needle face north and south. 
They have given me ocular demonstration of this ^process 



THE mariner's COMPASS. 



(luring our sea-voyage from Syria to Alexandria, in the year 
640 of the Hegira.'* 

Earlier notices are given by the Arabic writers, but this is the 
most distinct. Instead of calling the magnet a needle, the 
Arabians name it monasala^ a dart; hence the mistake of 
the feathers for fleur-de-lis ; and the needle, therefore, still 
points to the south, as it does in China. 

Humboldt considers it probable that Europe owes the use of 
the Mariner's Compass to the Arabs, and that these people 
were, in turn, indebted for it to the Chinese. In the fourth 
century of our era, Chinese ships employed the Magnet to 
guide their course safely across the open sea ; and it was by 
means of these vessels that the knowledge of the Compass was 
carried to India, and from thence to the eastern coast of 
Africa. The Arabic designations Tor on and Aphron (south 
and north), which are given to the two ends of the Magnetic 
Needle, indicate, like many Arabic names of stars, which we 
still employ, the channel and the people from whom Western 
countries received the elements of their knowledge. 

In Christian Europe, the first mention of the use of the Mag- 
netic needle occurs in the politico-satirical poem, Le Bible, by 
Guyot of Provence, in 1190 ; but it is evident from the terms 
used by him that it was an instrument but little known, and 
which had only lately been introduced into Europe. Cardinal 
de Vitry and Vincent de Beauvais, who were attached to the 
French army in the Crusades, both speak of the Compass as a 
great curiosity which they had seen in the East. Guyot, or De 
Provence, was a minstrel ; and, as he wrote some five-and- 
twenty years before the Cardinal, probably obtained his know- 
ledge of the polarity of the Magnet, and its application to the 
purposes of direction, from the same part of the world. As 
one reads the stories of these chroniclers, the imagination pic- 
tures the wild scenery of a Syrian landscape, where a party of 
bewildered travellers, composed of such as the persons we 
have mentioned, are resting beside some crystal spring. 
Around are picturesque hills, beneath one of which ar© 
grouped the persons who first brought authentic informa- 
tion to Europe of that invention which was so marvellously to 
influence the destinies of mankind. There sits the Cardinal, 
half soldier, half priest, frocked and tonsured, but armed with a 
two-handed sword ; De Beauvais, with helmet on head, guarded 
at all points by his well-joined armour; and De Provence, 



10- WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

who has just laid aside the lute with which he has beguiled his 
hearers and the time listening to the strange accounts of the 
dark bearded and turbaned traveller who with the small Com 
pass m his hand ii pointing to 
the direction they must take to 
rejoin their fnends 

About thirty >ears after the 

r above date Cardinal de \itry 

1 visited Palestine in the Fourth 

rusade and subsequently at 

ttie beginning of the thirteenth 

century he returned to Europe, 

and afternards went back to 




the Holy Land where he wrote his work entitled Historta 
Ortentalis as neatly as can be determined between the jears 
1215 and 1220 In chapter xci of that work he has this 
singular passage — The iron needle after contact with the 
loadstone constantly turns to the north star which as the 
axis of the firmament, remains immoveable, whilst th" others 



THE mariner's COMPASS. II 

revolve ; and hence it is essentially necessary to those navi- 
gating on the ocean." These words are as explicit as they 
are extraordinary ; they state a face and announce a use. 

About 1260, Brunetto Latin^, author of Le Tresor, in French, 
and Dante's teacher, observes that the Needle was highly useful 
at sea; but at the same time notices the prejudices by which 
navigators were deterred from its adoption : ** For," says he, 
" no master-mariner dares to use it, lest he should fall under 
the supposition of being a magician ; nor would even the 
sailors venture themselves out to sea under his command, if 
he took with him an instrument which carries so great an 
appearance of being constructed under the influence of 
some infernal spirit." Dante refers, in a simile, to the needle 
"which points to the star." Navarrete quotes a remarkable 
passage in the Spanish Leyes delas Partidas of the middle of the 
thirteenth century : " The needle which guides the seaman in 
the dark nights, and shows him, both in good and in bad 
weather, how to direct his course, is the intermediate agent 
between the loadstone and the north star." Raymond Lully, 
of Majorca, the analytic chemist and skilful navigator, in 
1286, remarked that the seamen of his time employed "instru- 
ments of measurement, sea-charts, and the magnetic needle." 

To recapitulate. From its use on land the Compass became 
finally adapted to maritime purposes. When it had become 
general throughout the Indian Ocean, along the shores of 
Persia and Arabia, it was introduced into the West, in the 
twelfth century, either directly through the influence of the 
Arabs, or through the agency of the Crusaders, who, since 
1096, had been brought in contact with Egypt and the true 
Oriental regions. The most effectual share in its use seems to 
have belonged to the Moorish pilots, the Genoese, Venetians, 
Majorcans,. and Catalans. The old story that Marco Polo 
first brought the Compass into Europe, has long been dis- 
proved : as he travelled from 1 271 to 1295, it is evident, from 
the testimony we have given us, that the Compass was, at all 
events, used in European seas from sixty to seventy years 
before Marco Polo set forth on his joumeyings. 

The earliest mention in English records of the primitive 
Mariner's Compass is that by Alexander Neckham, who 
describes the same in his Treatise on Things pertaining to 
Ships, Neckham was bom at St. Alban's, in 1 157. A trans- 
lation of his works, from the Latin, was published in 1866. 



12 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

In the reign of Edward III., the magnet was known by the 
name of the sail-stone^ or adamant^ and the Compass was called 
the sailing-needle or dial, though it is long after this period 
before we find the word Compass. A ship called the Plenty 
sailed from Hull in 1338, and we find that she was ^teered 
by the sailing-stone. In 1345, another entry occurs of one 
of the King's ships, called the George^ bringing over sixteen 
horologies from Sluys, in Normandy, and that money had 
been paid at the same place for twelve stones, called adamants, 
or sail-stones, for "repairing divers instruments pertaining to 
a ship." Chaucer, who died in 1400, mentions the Compass; 
and states that the sailors reckon thirty-two points of the 
horizon, which is the present division of the card. We may 
here remark that Adamant is the name given to the magnet 
in old authors. Greene, in his play, Tu qtwque, has — 

" As true to thee as steel to adamant." 

The mutual repulsion of two magnets, which takes place 
in some situations, is alluded to here : 

" We'll be as differing as two adamants : 
The one shall shew the other." 

Adamant is thus used so lately as in the English translation 
of Gailland's Arabian Nights^ and, what is more extraordinary, 
it stands unaltered in Dr. J. Scott's corrected edition (18 10). 
In the story of the Third Calendar we have this passage : 

" To-morrow about noon we shall be near the black moun- 
tains, or mine of adamant, which at this very minute draws all 
your fleet towards it, by virtue of the iron in your ships ; and 
when we approach within a certain distance, the attraction of the 
adamant will have such force, that all the nails will be drawn 
out of the sides and bottoms of the ships, and fasten to the 
mountain, so that your vessels will fall to pieces and sink." 
As the word is now not current in this sense, it ought to have 
been changed to loadstone.* 

At the close of the sixteenth century Dr. William Gilbert, of 
Colchester, published a book on magnetism entitled De Arte 
Magnetica, The novelty and importance of many of his 
discoveries, and the clear and ingenious reasoning used in his 
investigation, are so remarkable that the publication of Gilbert's 
hook may be considered to mark the commencement of a new 

* Nares's Glossary ^ new edit. 1858. 



THE mariner's COMPASS. IJ 

era in the history of physical science. The laws of the attrac- 
tions and repulsions between the poles of magnets, and the very 
notion of a magnetic pole, are for the first time distinctly 
propounded in this work, which contains also a full account of 
all the facts concerning magnetism known in Gilbert's time, as 
well as his researches in other branches of science, and particu- 
larly in electricity. 

The use of the word Compass had become familiar in the 
reign of Charles I. who employed it by way of comparison in 
one of his Golden Rules : " The breath of religion fills the 
sails : profit is the compass by which factious men steer their 
course." And Barton Booth, in one of his Songs, says : 

"Trae as ihe needle to the pole, 
Or the dial to the sun." 

And Rowe, in his play of Jane Shore, has : 

" With equal force the tempest blows by turns 
From every comer of the seaman's compass. " 

The principle on which the Mariner's Compass is formed, 
may be easily understood from a knowledge of the leading 
laws of Magnetism. A piece of Loadstone drawn several times 
along a needle, or a small piece of steel, converts it into an 
Artificial Magnet. If this magnetized needle be then carefully 
balanced, so as to move easily on its centre, it will voluntarily 
turn round, until one of its ends points to the north ; and if 
removed from this direction, will, when left at liberty, invari- 
ably return to the same point. The magnetized needle also 
possesses the power of attracting iron, and of communicating 
this power to another piece of iron or steel, similar to that 
of the Loadstone itself, in proportion to the intensity of the 
magnetic property which has been imparted to it. 

The magnetic power can also be imparted to iron or steel, 
without the intervention of either a natural or an artificial 
magnet If a bar of steel is held in a slanting direction, the 
upper end of the bar leaning to the south, and the other end 
to the north, and whilst in this position it is struck smartly 
at the lower end with a hammer, the bar itself resting against 
an anvil or other piece of iron, it will be found to possess 
the properties of a magnet ; and if nicely balanced upon its 
centre, the poised bar will swing round until it points to the 
north. 

Another very curious property is this. If the end of a needle 
pointing to the north be brought near to the end of a stcoxid 



14 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

needle, pointing in the same direction, they will move away from 
each other; but if the north end of one is brought near to 
the south end of the other, they will be mutually attracted, 
and approach each other. I'hat end of the magnet which 
points to the north, is said to be its north pole^ and the opposite 
is called its south pole. The powers of either a natural or an 
artificial magnet may be destroyed in several ways ; by a red 
heat, by a stroke of lightning, or even by being laid in an 
injudicious position. 

.Sir John Ross, during his last voyage in the Felix^ when 
frozen in about one hundred miles north of the magnetic pole, 
concentrated the rays of the full moon on the magnetic needle, 
when he found it was five degrees attracted by it. A curious 
notion has long been current, more especially on the shores of 
the Mediterranean, that if a magnetic rod be rubbed with an 
onion, or brought into contact with the emanations of that 
plant, the directive force will be diminished, while a Compass 
thus treated will mislead the steersman. " It is difficult," says 
Humboldt, **to conceive what could have given rise to so 
singular a popular error." 

Canton, in 1750, divulged his method of making artificial 
magnets without the use of natural ones. This he did by 
using a poker and tongs to communicate magnetism to steel 
bars. He derived his first hint from observing them one evening, 
as he was sitting by the fire, to be nearly in the same direction 
with the earth as the dipping needle. He thence concluded 
that they must, from their position and the frequent blows they 
receive, have acquired some magnetic virtue, which, on trial, 
he found to be the case ; therefore, he employed them to 
impregnate his bars, instead of having recourse to the natural 
loadstone. Dr. Knight also received considerable sums of 
money by touching fieedles for the Mariner's Compass. 

It is curious to find that the Western nations, the Greeks 
and Romans, knew that magnetism could be communicated to 
steel, and that that metal would retain it for a length of time. 
*' The great discovery of the terrestrial force," says Humboldt, 
" depended, therefore, alone on this — that no one in the West 
had happened to observe an elongated fragment of magnetic 
iron stone, or a magnetic steel rod, floating by the aid of a 
piece of wood in water, or suspended in the air by a thread, or 
in such a position as to admit of free motion." 

In the reign of St Louis (i 461- 1483), "the French mariners 



THE mariner's COMPASS. 1 5 

commonl)r used the magnetic needle, which they kept swimming 
in a little vessel of water, and prevented from sinking by two 
tubes."* 

In the beginning of the previous century, Flavio Gioia, of 
Amalphi, made the great improvement of suspending the needle 
on a centre, and enclosing it in a box ; hence Gioia, in after- 
times, came to be considered as the inventor of the Mariner's 
Compass, of which he was only the improver. He lived in the 
reign of Charles of Anjou, who died King of Naples in 1300. 
It was in compliment to this sovereign (for Amalphi is in the 
dominions of Naples) that Gioia distinguished the north point 
by a fleur-de-lis. This was one of the circumstances by which 
the French in later days endeavoured to prove that the Mari- 
ner^s Compass was a French invention. Gioia's improvement 
consisted in attaching a card to the needle, which is the chief 
point of difference between our needle and that of the Chinese ; 
externally, the two compass-boxes appear quite dissimilar. The 
European plan was to supersede the basin of water as used on 
the Syrian shore of the Mediterranean. 

In the absence of all distinct evidence on this point Sir John 
Davis considers that the figure is an ornamental cross, and 
originated in the devotion of an ignorant and superstitious age 
to a mere symbol. Or, as the Compass undoubtedly came 
into Europe from the Arabs, the fleur-de-lis might be a modi- 
fication of the monasaia, or dart, the name by which the Arabs 
called the needle. This corresponds with the opinion at 
page 9. 

All that has been stated as to the invention may be granted, 
without in the least impairing the just claims of Gioia to the 
gratitude of mankind. The truth appears to be this: — "The 
position of Gioia, in relation to the Compass, was precisely that 
of Watt in relation to the steam-engine, — the element existed, 
he augmented its utility. The Compass used by mariners in 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was a very uncertain and 
unsatisfactory apparatus. It consisted only of a magnetic 
needle floating in a vase or basin by means of two straws or a 
bit of cork, supporting it on the surface of the water. The 
Compass used by the Arabians in the thirteenth century was an 
instrument of exactly the same description. Now the incon- 
venience and inefl[iciency of such an apparatus are obvious ; 
the agitation of the ocean and the tossing of the vessel might 

* Sir John Davis's Chinese^ vol. ii. p. 222. 



I 6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

render it useless in a moment. But Gioia placed the magnetized 
needle on a pivot, which permits it to turn to all sides with 
facility. Afterwards it was attached to a card, divided into 
thirty-two points, called Rose des Vents; and then the box con- 
taining it was suspended in such a manner that, however the 
vessel might be tossed, it would always remain horizontal. The 
result of an investigation shared in by men of various nations^^ 
and possessing the nighest degree of competency, may thus be 
stated. The discovery of the directive virtue of the magnet 
was made anterior to the time of Gioia. Before that period, 
navigators sailing the Mediterranean and Indian seas employed 
the magnetic needle ; but Gioia, by his invaluable improvement 
in the principle of suspension, is fully entitled to the honour of 
being considered the real inventor, in Europe, of the Compass 
as it now exists."* 

Dr. Johnson defines the Compass as " The instrument, com- 
posed of a needle and card, whereby mariners steer." It is 
constructed as follows : — A magnet made like the hand of a 
clock, with that end which points to the north shaped like the 
head of an arrow, is carefully balanced on a steel point and 
placed inside a circular box, and to this is attached a circular 
card, on which the divisions of north, south, east, and west, 
are printed, and which is made to go round along with the 
needle. The cardinal points are named from the word carda^ 
a hinge or pivot. By simply looking at the position of the needle, 
the mariner can see the direction in which the vessel is sailing, 
and regulate his steering accordingly. The box is also connected 
sideways by pivots to a frame composed of concentric circles, 
represented by two hoops, placed so as to cross each other; 
the card being suspended just in the centre of the two, which- 
ever way the vessel may lurch, the card is always in an horizontal 
position, and certain to point the true direction of the head of 
the ship. The circles, or gimbals, are generally allowed to have 
been the invention of an Englishman. What is called the Dip 
of the Needle— that is, the angle which such needle, when sup- 
ported on its centre of gravity, makes with the plane of the 
horizon — was discovered by Robert Norman, of Wapping, in 
1594, and published in 1596, in a book now become scarce. 

About the middle of the sixteenth century, it was discovered 
that the needle did not point directly to the north, but that its 
direction was somewhat to the east of that point ; and this 

• Campbeirs Maritime Discovery and Christian Missions, 



THE MARINERS COMPASS. 1 7 

has since been called the Variation of the Compass, To account 
for this it was supposed that the magnetic pole of the earth 
did not coincide with that of the axis on which the globe itself 
turned. Subsequent observations and appearances have con- 
firmed this theory; and the northern magnetic pole is 
supposed to be situated in the north-west extremity of Baffin's 
Bay. 

The first chart, showing the variation of the Compass, is due 
to Halley, who is justly entitled the father and founder of 
Terrestrial Magnetism. The first Variation Compass was con- 
structed before 1525, by an ingenious apothecary of Seville. 
So earnest were the endeavours to learn more exactly the de- 
chnation of the needle, that in 1585, Juan Jayme sailed with 
Francisco Gali, from Marrinato Acapulco, for the sole purpose 
of tr3dng in the Pacific a declination instrument which he had 
invented. 

The Variation of the Needle must have been known to the 
Chinese as far back as the beginning of the twelfth century : 
it is mentioned in a work written by a Chinese philosopher, 
named Keontsoung-chy, who wrote about the year mi, as 
stated by Sir Snow Harris, in his Rudimentary Magnetism, 
In the Life of ColumbuSy written by his son, the discovery is 
assigned to that celebrated man. He was sailing across the 
Atlantic Ocean, in his attempt to find a new world. On the 
13th of September, 1392, in the evening, being about two hun- 
dred leagues from the island of Ferro, Columbus first noticed 
this phenomenon, which had never before been remarked. The 
variation was a little to the west : for Columbus perceived 
about nightfall, that the needle, instead of pointing to the 
north star, varied about half a point, or between five and six 
degrees to the north-west, and still more on the following morn- 
ing. Struck with this circumstance, he observed it attentively 
for three days, and found that the variation increased as he 
advanced. He at first made no mention of this phenomenon, 
knowing how ready his people were to take alarm, but it soon 
attracted the attention of the pilots and filled them with con- 
sternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were 
changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another 
vorld subject to unknown influences. They apprehended that 
the Compass was about to lose its mysterious virtues, and, 
without this guide, what was to become of them in a vast and 
trackless ocean ! 

c 



1 8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Columbus tasked his science and ingenuity for reasons with 
which to allay their terrors. He told them that the direction of 
the needle was not to the polar star, but to some fixed and in- 
visible point. The variation, therefore, was not caused by any 
fallacy in the Compass, but by the movement of the north star 
itself, which, like the other heavenly bodies, had its changes 
and revolutions, and every day described a circle round the 
pole. The high opinion that the pilots entertained of Columbus, 
as a profound astronomer, gave weight to his theory, and their 
alarm subsided. As yet the solar system of Copernicus was 
unknown ; the explanation of Columbus, therefore, was highly 
plausible and ingenious, and it shows the vivacity of his mind, 
ever ready to meet the emergency of the moment. The theory 
may at first have been advanced to satisfy the minds of others ; 
but Columbus appears subsequently to have remained satis- 
fied with it himself The phenomenon has now become familiar 
to us, but we are not so cognisant of its cause. " It is," says 
Washington Irving, " one of those mysteries of nature open to 
daily observation and experiment, and apparently simple from 
their familiarity, but which on investigation, make the human 
mind conscious of its limits ; bafiiing the experience of the 
practical, and humbling the pride of science." This was written 
nearly forty years since. We are, year by year, approaching the 
wished-for goal. 

Columbus also discovered a magnetic line without variation. 
In 1498 he wrote : — ** Each time that I sail from Spain to the 
Indies, I find, as soon as I arrive a hundred miles to the west 
of the Azores, an extraordinary attraction in the movements of 
the heavenly bodies, in the temperature of the air, and in the 
character of the ocean ; I have observed these attractions with 
particular care, and have recognised that the needle of the 
Mariner^s Compass, the deviation ot which had been norf/i- 
east, now turned to the north-west. 

The Chinese Compass, instead of consisting of a moveable 
card, attached to the needle, is simply a needle of less than an 
inch in length, slung in a glazed hole in the centre of a solid 
wooden dial, finely varnished. The broad circumference is 
marked off into concentric circles, on which are inscribed the 
eight mystical figures of Fohi ; the twelve horary characters, the 
ten others which, combined with these, mark the year of the 
cycle, the twenty-four divisions of their solar year, the twenty- 
eight lunar immersions, &c. The old card Chinese Compass 



THE mariner's COMPASS. I9 

was a very common pocket companion on land or at sea, as a 
kind of almanack. 

The errors of the Compass from the action of iron, now 
largely employed in the construction of ships, have demanded 
correction. In England, the magnetic action of the iron upon 
the Compass is neutralised by placing near it powerful mag- 
nets, the action of which is calculated to produce upon the 
needle equal effects, but opposite to those of the ship. The 
French mode is by employing a table of corrections, based 
upon minute observation, and applicable to every indication 
of the Compass affected. In spite of these precautions, fatal 
accidents are still attributed to errors of the Compass. Another 
plan consists of such modifications of the log of tne vessel as 
would show not only the velocity, but also the direction of its 
motion, and the errors of the Compass ; and which, in cases of 
shipwreck, would certainly determine whether the calamity 
was really due to those errors. A correcting Compass is used, 
which affords the means of taking the same position, whereby 
the deviation may be set right. W^en a vessel is nearing 
land, the needle is said to be affected ; and certain rocks exer- 
cise a decided magnetic influence upon the Compass, vol- 
canic rocks especially, but this influence is not felt on board 
ship. The action of the iron ships' sides is far different : 
nothing, not even the interposition of a non-magnetic body, 
will stop its influence. The ship herself, under her weight of 
canvass, may increase the deviation of the needle. To freight 
an iron ship before she has been at sea for a considerable time, 
to ascertain how her compass behaves, is imprudent ; and 
a captain ifndertaking the command of an iron ship should 
have the experience of a long voyage, so that he may know how 
to deal with the deviations on board the vessel to be com- 
manded. 

There remains to be named one who directed his atten- 
tion to practical Magnetism and its relation to Navigation, 
throughout a very long life. Such was William Scoresby, the 
Arctic explorer, who, in the year 1836, in a lecture, exhibited 
an important experiment, which does not appear to be generally 
known. He took a bar of iron, two or three feet long, about 
one inch in diameter, and placing it in the direction of the 
magnetic meridian, — ^that is, pointing to the north, at an angle 
of forty or fifty degrees with the horizon — he struck it a smart 
blow with a heavy hammer, by which, from a simple bar of iron, 

c 2 



20 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

it became a magnet Afterwards he placed the same iron bar 
in a direction at right angles with its former position, and, 
striking as before, its magnetism was thereby discharged, and it 
was proved to have none of the properties of a magnet. This 
is considered to be a very favourable illustration, though not 
so designed, by Scoresby, of the magnetic theory of Euler, dis- 
closed in his Letters to a German Princess!^ Dr. Scoresby hav- 
ing published his various investigations of the influence of 
iron ships upon their Compasses, and the requisite correction, 
in 1855 communicated to the British Association a summaiy 
of his matured views, and the evidence in their favour, in 
which he recalled attention to his plan of a compass aloft^ as 
affording a simple and effective mode of ascertaining tlie di- 
rection of a ship's course ; and to exemplify this, and to deter- 
mine other questions in magnetic science. Dr. Scoresby under- 
took, in 1856, a voyage to Australia in the Royal Charter, iron 
steamship. Everything corresponded with theory ; but he 
never recovered from the exhausting efforts of this great scien- 
tific labour for a frame approaching seventy years of age. 
Upon one occasion, when a violent cyclone was raging, he 
ascended the mizen rigging to judge of the height of the waves, 
which he calculated to be then 30ft He returned to England 
in shattered health, and gave an interesting account of his 
voyage to a large audience at Whitby ; but while preparing the 
results of his labours for publication, he died in May, 1857, 
and was buried at Torquay, where a tablet has been erected by 
public subscription to his memory. Another memorial of his 
eminent services was presented to his widow, by subscription — 
namely, a chair, made of timber taken from the Royal Charter 
steamship, with a suitable inscription upon a plate made from 
a copper bolt from the above vessel. 

Here is a simple experiment which perfectly illustrates the 
completeness of this invention. If a needle or other magnetised 
steel bar be fixed on the top of a piece of cork, which is then 
placed on the surface of the water and left to float unrestrained, 
the needle will turn till one end of it points nearly towards the 
north. Into this position it will soon settle, and the other 
end will, of course, point nearly towards the south ; and if the 
cork be turned round, so as to direct the needle to the points 
opposite to those towards which it is naturally directed, it 

••• Communicated to Notes and Queriesy December i, 1866. 



THE mariner's compass. 21 

. as soon as it is released from compulsion, again assume the 
tion which it previously held. This at once explains the 
on why the mariner can direct his ship across the waves, 
1 in the darkest night and the remotest regions, as by his 
ipass he can always ascertain the course his vessel is 
Qg ; and by altering the bearing of the helm and shifting 
sails, he keeps his ship constantly under command, and 
cs her to her destined haven. The benefits of this 
t invention were presently manifest : within twelve years, 
i. doubled the Cape of Storms ; Di Gama found his course 
le East Indies ; Columbus trod the Bahamas. Such were 
larly triumphs with the bar of steel, which the experimenter 
ng rubbed with a natural loadstone, it became a Compass 
le, and earned its name by threading the mariner's way 
ugh the labyrinths of the sea. 




LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 

■HERE is another provision for the safety of the 
mariner, which, if not so important as the Compass, 
tends to protect him from much of that danger to 
which he is continually exposed. This is the Light- 
house, erected on the sea-coast, or on some rock far away from 
shore, over which the waves of the stormy sea are unceasingly 
breaking, and which is placed there to warn vessels of shoals 
or other perils that might cause their destruction. A few 
centuries ago, our sea-girt island had few such lights to cast 
their blaze upon the boiling eddies, and warn ships from rocks, 
■hallows, and sand-banks. The billows broke upon the beach 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 23 

over the wrecked vessel : for then, instead of Lifeboats manned 
with brave seamen, who from youth had been familiar with the 
dangers of the deep, there were often cruel wreckers prowling 
upon the shore ready to plunder the half-drowned mariners. 

One of the earliest Lighthouses of which we have any account 
was built on a rock called Pharos, opposite the city of Alexan- 
dria, and surrounded by water. It consisted of several stories of 
galleries of a prodigious height ; on the top fires were kept con- 
tinually burning to direct sailors how to reach the harbour 
of Alexandria ; it was then provided with a lantern, and Arab 
historians describe the huge mirror of metal which was placed 
here as a reflector, and which the inhabitants of Alexandria 
are said to have used to concentrate the rays of the sun, and 
thus bum the vessels of their enemies. This Lighthouse was 
built by one of the Ptolemies, a.m. 3670 : it was 450 feet in 
height, or 50 feet higher than St. Paul's Cathedral ; and its cost 
was 800 talents Attic (165,000/.), or in Alexandria double 
that sum. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the World ; 
all lighthouses after it were calleu Pharos^ and the descrip- 
tion of Lighthouses might therefore be termed Pharology. 
Among the Roman remams of Dover Castle is a small pharos. 
Another ancient lighthouse was the huge lamp which blazed 
in the right hand of the Colossus of Rhodes. The oldest 
existing Lighthouse is that at Corunna, in Spain, said to have 
been erected in the reign of Trajan, and now fitted with a very 
fine modem light apparatus. 

Among the most celebrated modem Lighthouses is the 
Tower of Cordovan, or Corduan, founded in 1584, finished in 
16 10, at the mouth of the Garonne river : thirty years since it 
was considered the best illuminated Lighthouse in France, 
and supposed "the finest light in the world." There is a 
fine print of it, engraved by order of Louis XIII. It is built 
of stone, circular in plan, architecturally ornamented, and 
more resembling a church tower than the plain tubular light- 
houses of our days. In 1782 the simple plan of illuminating 
by a group of candles enclosed in a lantern fitted with glass 
sides, was superseded at this lighthouse by the method then 
newly introduced, in which a number of oil-lamps, each pro- 
vided with a metallic reflector, took the place of the candles. 
On the Tower of Cordovan no fewer than eighty such lamps were 
mounted, but from the unscientific constmction of the lamps 
and of their reflectors, the illumination was still very inadequate. 



24 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

The difficulties so successfully surmounted in the construc- 
tion of the Eddystone, the Bell Rock, and the Skerryvore Light- 
houses and their brilliant lights, render them objects of great 
interest. Upon the Eddystone rock, about 14 miles S.S.W. 
from Plymouth, and fronting the entrance to Plymouth Sound, 
there had been built two Lighthouses, prior to that which now 
breasts the waves on the same reef. The first was designed by 
Mr. Henry Winstanley, a gentleman of Littlebury, in Essex, 
whose genius for mechanism had been displayed in various 
inventions. His was a polygonal building, about 100 feet 
high, which was commenced in 1696, and finished in 1700. 
That edifice was swept away in the great storm of 1703, to- 
gether with its ill-fated architect, who was then within it, super- 
intending some repairs. He had been heard to say a short 
time before — "he was so well assured of the strength of his 
building, that he should only wish to be there in the greatest 
storm that ever blew under the face of the heavens, that he 
might see what effect it would have upon his structure." 
Unhappily, his confidence proved most misplaced ; for not a 
vestige of his labour was ever found, except some iron cramps, 
and part of an iron chain. Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, con- 
ceived, after examining the spot, that the Lighthouse had been 
" overset altogether," and had torn up a portion of the rock 
along with it. 

The next Lighthouse on the Eddystone, was erected by 
Mr. John Rudyerd, a silk mercer, on Ludgate-hill, who was 
a Cornishman of very humble parentage. His building was 
altogether unlike the preceding ones, for its shape was the 
frustrum of a cone ; it was constructed of strong oak-planks, 
and other timber, caulked with oakum, and bolted and clamped 
with iron. Its height was 92 feet, the work being terminated 
with an octagonal balcony, and light-room, surmounted by a 
cupola. But this Lighthouse, after enduring several tempests, 
was, on the morning of the 2nd of December, 1755, totally 
destroyed by fire : it broke out in the cupola, which was of 
light timber, and burnt downwards to the very foundations, 
nothing remaining but the iron cramps and branches, which 
had been fixed into the rocks, and the lower part, which had 
been filled with stone as ballast. The Lighthouse on the 
Bell Rock, off the coast of Fife, and the one placed at the 
entrance of the Mersey, on the Black Rock, are constructed 
similarly to the second Eddystone, so that there seems to be 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 



35 



good reason for Rudyerd adopting the principle ; he had 
been assisted by two shipwrights from the Royal Arsenal at 
Woolwich. Mr. Smeaton thought that the work was well 
done, though the worm had affected the timbers. 

After a considerable lapse of time, the first stone of the 
present Eddystone Lighthouse, by Smeaton, was laid June 
la, 1757, and completed in October, 1759. For the construc- 
tion of this Lighthouse the stones were hewn, and dovetailed, 
and fitted to each other on shore, at Mill Bay, adjoining the 
Hoo, at Plymouth, and tnence conveyed to the rock by yawls 




and other vessels. All the lower comers of stone ar 
and morticed into the rock itself, which was hewed for^hat 
purpose into six steps ; and every surmounting course of 
masonry is hkewise so ingeniously dovetailed together, as well 
as into each other, and strengthened with oak trenails,' iron 
cramps, and chainwork, (the latter embedded in lead), that the 



afi WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

whole may be regarded as constituting one solid massl the 
base, 26 feet in diameter, being barely less than the surface of 
the rock on which it stands. The basement and exterior are 
entirely of Cornish Moorstone, or granite, but most of the 
interior is of Portland stone. The light-room is octagonal, of 
cast and wrought-iron framework, with copper window sashes, 
glazed with plate-glass ; the whole surmounted by a cupola, 
(weighing about 1 1 cwt.), and a gilt ball. Below the light-roora 
are two store-rooms, a kitchen, and a bed-room. On the course 
of granite under the ceiling in the upper store-room, is the fol- 
lowing verse from the 127th Psalm, wrought in by a pick ; 



There are in all, fifty-two courses of stonework to the top of 
the masonry; of these forty-six courses are contained in the 




main column, the height of which, to the floor of the balcony, 
is 70 feet The height of the light-room to the top of the ball 
is twenty-four feet ; the entire height is ninety-four feet ; or 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 2 J 

* 

within 7 feet of half the height of the London Monument 
Notwithstanding this great elevation, such is the force of the 
sea, in great storms, that the waves sweep up the sides of the 
lighthouse in one immense column, which rises to more than 
double its height, and then breaks over it in an archlike cataract 
of spray and foam ; at which time the building is wholly 
enveloped in the water. Originally the light was shown by 
means of chandeliers, but these have been removed, and their 
place supplied by a framework, fitted with Argand burners, 
and parabolic reflectors of silvered copper. 

The foregoing account of Smeaton's structure on the Eddy- 
stone we leave as it appeared in the first edition of this work, 
but probably before these lines come under the reader's eye, 
Smeaton's famous lighthouse will have become a thing of the 
past; for on the 19th of August, 1879, was laid the foundation 
of a new lighthouse on the Eddystone, designed by Mr. 
Douglass, the engineer-in-chief to the Trinity House. The 
top stone of the tower was put in its place by the Duke of 
Edinburgh on the ist of June, 1881, but the completion of 
the lighthouse will require another year. It has been found 
that the shape of Smeaton's tower, tapering as it does in a curve 
upward from the very foundation, is by no means the best, for it 
allows the waves readily to run up towards the summit, where 
the pressure of the water acts with enormous leverage, thus 
tending to weaken the base of the structure. The shocks of 
the waves, thus delivered, caused much tremor throughout the 
edifice, and water was frequently driven through the joints of 
the masonry. It has more than once been found necessary to 
strengthen the structure ; and massive wrought-iron stays have 
been passed fi*om the lantern to the lower part of the tower. 
In 1865 the heavy seas which ran up the tower and struck the 
projecting cornice, were found to have actually lifted some 
of the stones, and it was judged advisable to reduce the pro- 
jection of the cornice, and to fasten the stones together by 
bolts. But the shocks constantly delivered on the upper parts 
of the tower did not cease to weaken the foundation ; and 
even the gneiss rock, on which the tower stands, appears to be 
so shaken as to allow the sea to partially undermine the base 
of the structure. 

In the new design, Mr. Douglass carries his tower up verti- 
cally for a certain distance before it begins to taper in a curve ; 
and he lays the foundation in a manner differing from 



28 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Smeaton*s. The old lighthouse was built upon a portion of 
the reef which, in ordinary weather, is just at the level of high 
water, and which affords no more than room for the structure 
placed upon it ; but the new one will stand upon a portion 
which is entirely submerged at high water, and which is the 
summit of a sort of platform of rock, slightly convex in its 
general form, and thus having a somewhat broad base at a level 
lower than its central part. In this central part an excavation 
has been made to receive the foundation ; and the floor of this 
excavation is 2 feet 6 inches below the low-water mark at spring 
tides. The stones of the first course of the lighthouse are 
bolted to the rocky base by bolts of yellow metal, fixed in a 
manner presently to be described; and the stones of each 
subsequent course are made to dovetail with all the others with 
which they are in contact above, below, and on either side, the 
dovetails arLOunting to one-third the extent of the opposed 
surfaces, and having their interstices filled in with cement in 
such a manner as to render the joints stronger than the un- 
broken granite itself. The stones of the first course are two 
feet thick, and the metal rods with which they are bolted are 
two feet six inches long, and an inch and a half in diameter. 
For the reception of the bolt a hole is drilled through the 
stone, and a corresponding hole, undercut so as to be smaller 
above than below, is made in the rock beneath. The bolt is 
split at each end, and a wedge is inserted into the lower split, 
and is first put into the hole, in such a manner that, when the 
bolt is sent home, it is driven down upon this wedge and is 
made to expand, so that it fills the conical hole in the rock 
completely, and could not be pulled out again. A similar 
wedge is then introduced into the upper split, and is driven 
down so as to tighten this against the granite. 

In this way, by successive courses of granite bolted or dove- 
tailed as described, there will be constructed a solid cylindrical 
base, 44 feet in diameter and 22 feet high, having its upper 
surface 2 feet 6 inches above the high-water of spring tides. 
At the top of this base there will be a landing platform, 4 feet 
3 inches wide, and from this will spring the base of the true 
tower, 35 feet 6 inches in diameter at its commencement, and 
18 feet 6 inches in diameter under the cornice, the top of 
which will be 138 feet above the rock. With the exception of 
a water-tank, it will be solid to the height of 25^ feet above 
high*water spring tides. At this level the walls will be 8 feet 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 29 

6 inches thick, diminishing to 2 feet 3 inches at the top. The 
tower will contain nine apartments, each lo feet in height, in 
addition to the lantern, the seven uppermost being 14 feet 
in diameter. The elevation of the light will be 130 feet above 
high-water, instead of 72 feet as at present; by which its range 
wiU be increased from 14 to about 17^ nautical miles, so that 
it will just overlap the range of the new electrical lights at the 
lizard. The precise kind of light and the precise kind of fog- 
signal which will be employed have not yet been determined 
upon. 

There are used in the construction of this Lighthouse very 
large and flawless blocks of granite, supplied by the De Lank 
quarries, near Bodmin. Since these quarries lately passed into 
the possession of Messrs. Shearer and Smith, they have been 
in full operation, and promise a practically inexhaustible supply 
of blocks of a magnitude elsewhere unattainable. The granite 
is there found over an extent of twenty square miles, cropping 
out upon the surface, or even lying loosely upon it, and only 
waiting removal. Of these loose blocks, there are some from 
which might be cut twenty such monoliths as Cleopatra's needle. 

The famous Bell-rock Lighthouse is situated upon the Inch- 
cape Rock, in the German Ocean, about eleven miles southwest 
of the Forfarshire Coast, lying in the track of all vessels making 
for the estuaries of the Frith of Forth and Tay from a foreign 
voyage ; and being a sunken rock, it is extremely dangerous ; at 
spring tides it is about 1 2 feet under water. The top of the 
rock being only visible at low water, one of the Abbots of 
Aberbrothock attached to it a framework and a bell, which being 
rung by the waves, warned mariners to avoid the fatal reef 
A tradition respecting this bell has been embodied by Southey, 
in his ballad of " Ralph the Rover." A noted pirate of this 
name is said to have cut the bell from the framework, " to 
plague the Abbot of Aberbrothock, and some time after to 
have received the just punishment of his malice by being ship- 
wrecked on the spot." 

In the year 1799, about seventy vessels were wrecked on 
the coast of Scotland, in a dreadful storm. This calamity led 
to the erection of a Lighthouse on the Inchcape Rock, by 
Robert Stevenson, from his own designs, but on the principle of 
the Eddystone Lighthouse. The work was commenced in August, 
1807, ^^^ on February i, 181 1, the light was first shot from the 
summit of the majestic column. All the stones were shaped and 



30 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

prepared in the work-yard at Arbroath, and the Lighthouse is 
built as one solid mass from the centre to the circumference. 
It is circular, and externally of granite. The masonry is 
loo feet high, and including the Light-room, is 115 feet; its 
diameter 48 feet at the base, and at the top 13 feet. The solid 
part of the building is 30 feet in height. There are five upper 
apartments above the water-room ; all the windows have double 
sash-frames, glazed with plate-glass, and are protected by storm- 
shutters ; for although the light-room is full 88 feet above the 
medium level of the tide, and is defended by a projecting 
cornice, or balcony (with a railing of cast-iron, like meshes of 
network), yet the sea-spray, in gales of wind, is driven against 
the glass so forcibly, that it becomes necessary to close the 
whole of the deadlights to windward. The light-room is of 
cast-iron framework, and plate-glass one-fourth of an inch in 
thickness. The light is from Argand burners, with parabolic 
reflectors, upon a frame, which revolves, and exhibits in suc- 
cession a red and natural bright light; both so powerful as 
to be readily seen at 6 or 7 leagues distance. During storms 
or foggy weather, the reflector machinery rings two bells, each 
weighing about 1 2 cwt., to warn the seaman of his danger. The 
cost of this Lighthouse was 60,000/. It is one of the most 
prominent and serviceable beacons on the Scottish shore, and 
has been the means of preventing innumerable shipwrecks. 
The following beautiful lines were written by Sir Walter Scott 
in the Album kept in the Lighthouse, on his visit to it in 
the year 181 5 : 

Pharos Loquitur. 

Far on the bosom of the deep, 

O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep ; 

A ruddy gem of changeful light, 

Bound on the dusky brow of night ; 

The seaman bids my lustre hail, 

And scorns to strike his tim'rous sail. 

The Skerryvore Lighthouse, in Argyleshire, was built by Alex. 
Stevenson, son of the engineer of the Bell-rock Lighthouse. 
The mass of stone in this structure is more than double that used 
in the Bell-rock, and five times that contained in the Eddy- 
stone. The tower is 138 feet high, and the diameter at the 
base is 42 feet. In constructing this Lighthouse, the engineer 
appears to have chiefly relied on the weight rather than the 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 31 

extension of the materials for efficient resistance to the impact 
of the waves. The stones were not dove-tailed or joggled, but 
trenails were used merely to keep the work together during its 
erection. 

The Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses had for 
many years entertained the project of erecting a light-tower on 
the Skerryvore reef, and with that object had visited it in 
1814, in company with Sir Walter Scott, who has graphically 
descnbed it in his " Diary." 

The building of this light affords a good specimen of the 
difficulties of Lighthouse construction. The Skerryvore reef, 
which stretches over a surface of nearly 80 miles, is composed 
of the very hard rock, gneiss, the surface of which is worn as 
smooth as glass by the perpetual action of the water. In 
numerous places it rises in small rocky islets, the principal one 
of which forms the base of the Lighthouse ; and it is so small 
that at high-water little of the rock remains above the surface 
but a narrow band, a few feet in width, and some rugged lumps 
of rock, separated from it by gullies, through which the sea 
incessantly ploughs. The cutting of the foundation alone in 
this flinty mass occupied nearly two summers ; and the blasting 
of the rock in so narrow a space, without any shelter from the 
flying splinters, was attended with much danger. Everything 
had to be provided beforehand, and transported from a 
distance, to barracks on the neighbouring island of Tyree ; and 
also on the Isle of Mull, where the granite for the tower was 
quarried. Piers had to be built at both places to facilitate the 
shipment and landing of the materials ; and a small harbour 
or basin had to be specially formed for the accommodation of 
the vessel required to permanently attend on the light-keepers. 
A steam-tug was also provided for conveying the building 
materials, which served in the early stages of the work as a 
floating barrack for the workmen. In 1838, Mr. Stevenson 
commenced by erecting a wooden barrack on the rock, as far 
as possible removed from the foundation ; but in the great 
gale of the 3rd of November following it was entirely destroyed, 
and swept from the rock. Another wooden barrack was sub- 
sequently erected, and more strongly secured than the former 
one, and lasted many years after the completion of the 
building; notwithstanding, as Mr. Stevenson states, in his 
excellent account of the works, the men were often dis- 
turbed in their beds by the sea pouring over the roof, by 



32 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the Spurting of the water through the doors and windows, and 
by the rocking of the barrack on its supports. The difficult 
work was completed in 1844, and cost 86,978/. 

Reflecting lighthouses in England originated about a century 
since. At a meeting of a Society of Mathematicians at Liver- 
pool, one of the members wagered that he would read a para- 
graph in a newspaper at ten yards' distance by the light of a 
farthing candle. The wager was laid, and the proposer having 
covered the inside of a wooden dish with pieces of looking- 
glass, fastened in with glazier's putty, placed his reflector 
behind the candle, and read the paragraph. One of the com- 
pany marked this experiment with a philosophic eye. This was 
Captain Hutchinson, the dockmaster ; and with him originated 
the Reflecting Lighthouses, which were erected at Liverpool 
in 1763 ; a result calling to mind the lines in Shakspeare's 
Merchant of Venice: 

How far that little candle throws his beams, 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

The South Foreland Lighthouse was one of the earliest 
constructed in England, it is said, in the reign of Charles IL 
The original light was only burnt upon the flat roof of the towCT, 
which was supplanted in 1793, when a light was constructed 
of fifteen oil-lamps. There was also a lower Lighthouse, to 
enable the mariner, in time of danger, to keep the two lights 
in a line, and thereby avoid the Goodwin Sands. These 
Lighthouses were taken down in 1841, and have been re- 
built. 

Upon the Goodwin Sands, off the coast ot Ramsgate, 
perhaps more noble ships have foundered than upon any 
other sandbank in the ocean. At one moment, a ship may 
be in ten fathoms soundings, and in the next strike upon this 
treacherous shoal, where her destruction is inevitable. To 
guard against this fearful danger, beacons have been reared 
here, but one after another washed away. In 1840, Captain 
Bullock, R.N. erected here a Safety Beacon, a column, about 
40 feet above the sea-level, with a flag-staff* 10 feet high, and a 
gallery made of sail-cloth to hold 20 persons on the top of 
the column, with access by ropes and cleets. It was secured 
to a stout oak platform screwed fast below the siuface of the 
sand, with two tons of pig-iron ballast added to it, and oblique 
iron bars and chains communicating with the upper part of 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 33 

the column and the gallery. Next, Mr. Bush, C.E. attempted 
to erect here a Fixed Light, with a cast-iron base 64 feet 
high, and 30 feet in diameter, and 120 tons weight, to be sunk 
30 feet below the sands; and upon this base he placed a 
column 86 feet high, with a lantern; but the whole of the 
works were washed away in one night. A floating light has, 
however, since been placed here, and saved many a goodly 
vessel from foundering. 

In 1842, a noble Lighthouse was erected at the western 
extremity of Plymouth Breakwater, upon an inverted arch, 
founded 18 inches below low- water spring tides. The stones, 
of granite, are dovetailed and secured with dowels of slate ; 
the centre light is 55 feet from the top of the Breakwater. 

The Horsburgh Lighthouse, (named in memory of the late 
distingviished hydrographer to the India House,) the first 
light in the China Seas, Stevensons engineers, was built in 
185 1, on the Redro Branco Rock, at the entrance to the 
Straits of Singapore, ten miles from land. The tower is 95 
feet high ; the workmen employed in its construction were 
from various countries, no fewer than eleven different lan- 
guages being spoken — viz. three varieties of Chinese, Malay, 
Javanese, Boyans, Kling, Bengalese, Papuas, Jlawas, and 
English, so that many of the directions had to be given by 
signs. The Light is seen at fifteen miles* distance, the cur- 
vature of the earth preventing its being further visible. 

Cast-iron has been extensively used in constructing Light- 
houses. A small Light-tower was first erected on Gravesend 
pier. Next, a Lighthouse of cast-iron was built on Morant 
Point, Jamaica, designed by A. Gordon, in outline resembling 
that of the Celtic tow^s of Ireland. It was cast in England, 
and set up at Jamaica within six months, and at one-third 
of the cost of a stone lighthouse of equal dimensions : its 
height is 105 feet, aijd it was erected on the coral rock, by 
a derrick and crab from the inside, without any external 
scaffolding. The base is 27 feet of masonry and concrete. 
The tower shaft consists of tiers of iron plates, each 10 feet 
high, flanged together with nut and screw bolts, and caulked 
with iron cement. Ten radiating plates form the floor of 
the lightroom, secured to the tower upon brackets, and 
finished by an iron railing. Mr. Gordon has also built, on 
the same principle, at Gibbs Hill, Bermuda, a Lighthouse 130 
feet high, and another at Point-de-Galle, Ceylon. 

D 



34 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Lighthouses of iron, cast or wrought, or partly of gun- 
metal, are cheap, easily erected, strong to resist vibration 
in hurricanes, and safe from lightning, earthquakes, and fire; 
their lining and ventilation providing the desired and uni- 
form temperature. Lighthouses have also been constructed 
upon iron piles, fixed in the sand by mooring screws, and 
made compact by cast-iron braces; the Maplin and Chaplin 
Lights, at the mouth of the Thames, and those at Fleetwood 
and Belfast, are on this principle. Others have been built 
upon hollow cast-iron columns, as that on the Bishop's Rock, 
thirty miles from the Land's End, and more exposed to the 
force of the Atlantic than the famed Eddystone Lighthouse. 
The six columns are sunk five feet into the rock, and taper- 
ing upwards, support, at a height of about loo feet, the dwell- 
ings of the three light-keepers, with stores of provisions for 
four months ; the whole is surmounted by the lantern, and the 
access to the dwellings is by a spiral staircase within a central 
column. 

The sources of light in Lighthouses were, first, common wood 
fires, and then burning coals. A coal fire was employed in 
the Isle of Man for i8o years (as late as the year 1816). 
Tallow candles on wooden rods succeeded, and they were 
burnt in the Eddystone Lighthouse for forty years after it was 
completed by Smeaton. Then came lamps with twisted cotton 
wicks, and then common Argand lamps ; all these were super- 
seded by compound Argand lamps, with lenses and reflectors, 
and with lenses and reflecting prisms, instead of mirrors ; the 
first light of this kind, on a large scale, was put up by Alan 
Stevenson, at the Skerry vore. Captain Drummond, whose 
famous light can be seen for sixty miles, suggested that incan- 
descent lime should be employed for Lighthouses, heated by 
the burning of hydrogen in oxygen, passed through wire 
gauze and made to issue in two streams against the ball of 
lime : but about the year 1835 we were informed by the in- 
ventor that the apparatus for producing this light had not been 
sufficiently simplified to be used by persons who usually take 
charge of the lights in Lighthouses. Gas was first applied to 
the illumination of Lighthouses in 1847 ; in some cases it has 
been distinctly seen on board ships eighteen miles distant firom 
the coast. In the above year the Hartlepool Lighthouse, then 
just built, was lit with gas, and by ingenious contrivances for 
the admission of air, the burner produced a rich opaque mass 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 35 

of flame, affording a powerful and steady light ; and when this is 
placed in the centre of the optical arrangement of lenses, 1^- 
ticular zones, and mirrors, an immense amount of intense light 
is spread over the horizon. 

The South Foreland High Lighthouse has been illuminated 
by electricity made to stream into tlie lantern by the revo- 
lution of two magneto-electric machines, each put in motion 
by a two-horse power steam-engine : the whole consumption to 
produce the light being the coke and water required to raise 
the steam for the engineer, and carbon points for the lamp and 
the lantern. Professor Faraday tells us of an experiment in 
i860, "when the light shone up and down the Channel, and 
across into France, with a power far surpassing that of any other 
fixed light within sight, or anywhere existent." An electric 
machine has been constructed for the Lighthouse on Cape 
Grisnez, at Boulogne, of such power that the light is visible 
across the Channel ; and to passengers crossing the Straits of 
Dover, on a clear night, its splendour is very striking. 

One of the latest works of this class was the construction of 
the Lighthouse on the Wolff Rock, off the Land's End, 
where eighty-two hours are said to have been the whole time 
that was available to work on the rock during the year 1862. 
Some idea may be formed of the tremendous strain to which 
Lighthouses are subjected, from the fact that, at Skerry vore, 
where an instrument to test the force of the waves had been 
exposed, in the maximum case, it was found to have equalled 
no less than 6,o83lbs. on the square foot ; also from the fact 
that at the Bishop Rock light-tower, off Scilly, a massive bell, 
which was fixed with strong iron supports, built into the masonry 
at 120 feet above the sea-level, was struck with such force by 
a wave which ran up the tower, that it was wrenched from its 
position, and its iron supports were broken. To resist the 
impact of such enormous force, the greatest possible strength 
that can be devised is requisite ; and this is obtained in stone 
towers by a solid mass of masonry, sometimes to the height of 
30 feet above the sea-level ; the stones being all dove-tailed 
together, both laterally and vertically, and united by hydraulic 
cement, so that the stones cannot be separated without being 
broken, and the whole base is literally as solid and indivisible 
as if it were a natural solid rock. 

" In Lighthouse construction," says Professor Cowper, " one 
is struck with the intensity and exclusiveness of thought de- 

T)2 



36 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

voted to each part of the whole matter. The Admiralty 
intensely desire a Lighthouse upon a particular spot. The 
engineer is intensely occupied in surveying, levelling, and 
building ; and with a perseverance almost superhuman, he 
continues his work during two or three years on the edge of 
a rock just showing itself above the waves. He makes a tem- 
porary barrack on wooden piles on some adjacent point. This 
is all swept away in one night. He builds it again, and is 
obliged to live in it for fourteen days together, the weather 
preventing all access to it. Presently, however, a tower, 
138 feet high, stands securely fixed upon the exact spot 
assigned to it But the philosopher has also been at work, 
quietly but intensely considering the laws of reflection and 
refraction, and has contrived a glass prism of a new form, 
— without a thought of standing knee-deep in water twelve 
miles from land. The glass prism and lamp are now mounted 
on the tower, and confided to the keepers. These men have 
no careless task. If they have many lamps in a revolving 
light, the going out of one is comparatively immaterial ; but 
when one light only is used, life a7id death hang on its burning. 
Their intensity of thought is to keep it lighted. In the ship 
that is approaching are two small instruments — the quadrant 
and chronometer (the products of science) ; with these the 
captain will ascertain his position on the trackless ocean. He, 
probably, regards neither the construction of the Lighthouse 
nor its beautiful light. His intense interest is to see it. He 
says : * If I have calculated rightly by my instruments, and 
made allowance for the convexity of the earth, at such an hour 
the light will come into view.' Judge of his delight when it 
meets his eye ! It is as if his country watched for his return, 
and welcomed him home."* 

In a letter of the Astronomer Royal, Dr. Romney Robinson 
relates some interesting details of his recent inspection of the 
Lighthouses of Ireland, thirty-six in number — the cleanliness, 
order, and discipline of which he much commends. Dr. Robin- 
son states, in a note, that when leaving Gola Sound, though the 
gale was much abated, the waves were twenty feet high, and of 
such power that they made a clear sweep over the Stags of 
Aranmore, forty-five feet above the sea-level. With respect 
to the optical part of the Lighthouses, Dr. Robinson got 
additional evidence of the superiority of the dioptric to the 

* Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 1851. 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 37 

catoptric system. At Rathlin the keepers see the Maidens, 
distant twenty-seven nautical miles, in very clear weather ; at 
the Maidens they saw Rathlin — " a good strong dioptric."* 

Floating Lights, which have been incidentally mentioned, 
should never be placed where a suitable position can be had for . 
a fixed building. The former lights must be comparatively 
small, they are liable to drag their anchors in violent storms, 
and thus, by their change of position, mislead instead of guide 
the mariner. They are, besides, much more expensive : the 
management of a floating light requiring 1 1 men, and costing 
about 1,300/. per annum ; whereas a first-class Lighthouse 
requires but three men, and costs but 350/. Light vessels are 
ordinarily painted of a dark red colour, to make them readily 
distinguishable from other craft; and dark red, which is the 
opposite of green, being more conspicuous than any other on 
the surface of the water. 

The optical apparatus of the first-class Lighthouse consti- 
tutes a striking result of applied science. The object of such 
appliances is the utilization of the light that would otherwise 
pass away from the lamp without benefit to the mariner. It is 
sufficiently obvious that only those rays can reach a ship which 
proceed in a horizontal, or nearly horizontal, direction ; hence 
it is the purpose of the optical apparatus to gather up all the 
available beams and send them forth horizontally over the sea, 
either radiating equally to all points of the compass, or more 
commonly concentrated in a few powerful beams, which are 
made, by means of a rotation of the apparatus, to sweep round 
the whole horizon with a uniform or determinate period. 
There are two methods of projecting the light of the lamp in the 
required directions; the one is by metallic reflectors^ and the other 
by refracting the beams through glass lenses and prisms. The 
former was the method first used, one of the earliest instances 
being the Tower of Cordovan, already mentioned. It was the 
illustrious French savan, Auguste Fresnel, who first succeeded 
in constructing lenses of sufficiently great diameter and suffi- 
ciently short focal length, and he ingeniously accomplished 
this by building up a lens in steps {lentille d khelons). The 

* Our Colonial Lights are numerous and costly. In the year 1867, 
there were six Lighthouses in process of construction by the British Govern- 
ment—one on the Little Basses Rock at Ceylon ; one on the Roman Rocl^s 
at the Cape of Good Hope ; two in the Bahamas, on Castle Island and 
Imagua Island ; one on Sombrero Island ; and one on the Dellamara Point 
at Malta. 



38 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS, 

Structure of such a lens will be readily understood from an 
inspection of the next illustration, in which one lens is shown 
in section at ^ ^; and it will be seen that similar portions of a 
series, of lenses, having the same focal length, surround the 
centre, so that the whole has the same optical effect as a 
single lens of a very great thickness, as shown by the line c 0. 
The figure represents the revolving optical apparatus of a light 
of the first class, constructed on Fresnel's plan. The whole of 
the light is here utiHzed, except that which falls upon the base 
and on the top of the apparatus ; and while the rays falling 
upon the central zone, a h, are diverted by reflectors, those 
above and below are sent forth by total reflection, from the 
surfaces of a properly disposed series of glass prisms, seen in 
section at e e and ff» The Tour de Cordouan was again the 
first Lighthouse upon which, in 1823, such a complete appara- 
tus was erected ; and the application of Fresnel's apparatus 
made the Lighthouses of France the most perfect in the world. 
A considerable number of years passed before the dioptric 
principle was used in British Lighthouses; and the Skerry vore 
Lighthouse, the building of which is described on page 30, was 
the first in this country to be supplied with so complete an 
apparatus as that represented in our figure. 

Of kindred interest with that of Lighthouses is the Lifeboat, 
the invention of Mr. Henry Greathead, of South Shields, in 
1789. It was first put to sea January 30, 1790; and Mr. 
Greathead received a reward of 1200/. from Parliament for 
this great means of saving life from shipwreck. Its principle 
is such an elevation of the two extremities as that, if overset, 
these elevated ends would be as light as the body of the boat ; 
and to add to the effect, several pounds of cork are attached to 
the ends. The shape of the boat is curvilinear, approaching 
that of a crescent. 

Among the earliest of Captain Manby's humane inventions 
was his simple method of converting any common -boat into a 
Lifeboat, by merely lashing within the gunwale six or seven 
empty air-tight casks, a plan that has been found so efficacious 
in giving buoyancy, that sailors have put to sea in such a boat 
with a hole bored through its bottom. For this invention 
Captain Manby received a Parliamentary reward. 

In the Great Exhibition of 185 1, the general characteristics 
of the Lifeboats shown took for their common principle of 
buoyancy the construction of an air-tight lining in the interior 
of the boat — the space between the outward and inward sides, 



40 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

gradually widening until a very broad gunwale was formed. In 
other specimens the air-tight cell was placed lower, running m 
the form of a square or circular box round the boat, but beneath 
the thafts or seats. A few specimens were fitted with cork belts or 
furnishings, which keep the boat nearly as buoyant as air-tight 
tanks would do ; and certainly have the additional advantage 
of not being rendered useless by an accidental blow from the 
sea against the wreck. The danger, however, is sought to be 
guarded against by the construction of several air-tight com- 
partments — any of which, we are assured, would suffice to keep 
the boat, with her crew, above water. The long shallow shape 
of the boats was universal ; and they were constructed alike at 
stem and stem, so as to avoid the dangerous necessity of going 
about. A Whitby boat was furnished with outriggers, support- 
ing nets, into which people might leap from a ship, while the 
boat was kept at such a distance as to diminish the risk of her 
being swamped against the wreck. The Lowestoft and Yar- 
mouth Lifeboats had their buoyant apparatus in the sides 
beneath the thafts ; the oars double banked ; and beside every 
man a pump for getting rid of the sea when it filled the boat. 
A label attached to these boats stated that they were in use 
over a range of coast of about 20 miles ; not one of them had 
ever been upset, and they had saved from 500 to 600 lives. 
A Land's End Lifeboat was remarkable for the horizontal cuts 
or longitudinal openings like loop-holes, piercing her sides in 
continuous lines ; beneath she was open to the water. 

Holbrook's Iron Bottomless Boat, 26 feet long, was made of 
wrought and sheet iron, covered with strong netting ; it had six 
floaters, made of sheet iron, filled with tubing formed into air 
and water-proof barrels, with tanks for 222 gallons of fresh 
water; provisions, warm clothing, compass, alarm apparatus, 
fuel, fireworks, rockets, and 1000 feet of line ; and in the figure- 
head a kettle that would boil in ten minutes. The boat was 
secured with 400 screws and bolts, and 10,000 rivets. Having 
no bottom, this boat could scarcely capsize ; should its floaters 
let in water, the barrels inside would remain buoyant ; it would 
carry nearly 150 persons and food for many days. 

Bonney's Lifeboat, which had been experimented with on 
the Serpentine and the Thames with unvaried success, vvas 
clinker built ; the sides were doubled from the bilge to the 
spar-deck, and filled with gutta-percha water-tight cells ; and 
the fore and aft parts divided into water-tight compartments. 



LIGHTHOUSES AND LIFEBOATS. 4 1 

The boat had sailed full of water, without impediment, and 
being hauled over, and then half filled with water, and released, 
righted itself immediately. 

Here, too, was a Whitby Lifeboat, capable of emptying 
itself of water in four seconds, by two apertures in the bottom ; 
and a Lifeboat of wood and cork, with gutta percha air-tight 
compartments, and scupper in the keel for letting out water. 

Dyne's Lifeboat was built with diagonal battens laid lattice- 
wise, its outer sheathing formed of gutta percha ; its buoyancy 
350 cubic feet of air, capable of sustaining 9J tons, and letting 
off shipped water by 3600 holes ; in the con vexed bottom were 
three perforated steadying fins, and between them two tons of 
water, not one ounce weight to the boat when upright ; there 
were also galvanized springs placed at the stern, to act like 
railway buffers in collisions ; besides a full supply of fusees, 
rockets, and other lights. 

The Lifeboat which gained the prize of 100/. offered by the 
Duke of Northumberland, was modelled by James Beeching, 
of Great Yarmouth, and was of whale-boat body : " she 
would, from her form, both pull and sail well in all weathers ; 
she would have great stability, and be a good sea-boat, ; she 
had moderately small internal capacity for holding water under 
the level of the thwarts, and ample means for freeing herself 
readily of any water that might be shipped ; she was ballasted 
by means of water admitted into a well or tank at the bottom, 
after she was afloat ; and by means of raised air-cases at the 
extremities, a light iron keel, and the absence of mid-ship side 
air-cases, she would right herself in the event of being upset ; 
thus combining most of the qualities required of a lifeboat." 

A Tubular or Double Lifeboat was invented by H. F. 
Richardson, in 1853 : it is formed of two tubes of tinned iron, 
40 feet long by two-and-a-half feet in diameter, and tapering at 
the ends. An iron framework unites the two tubes, which are 
divided into water-tight compartments, occupied by air-tight 
bags ; the whole is surrounded by a cork fender. Seats for 
the rowers and passengers are placed above the framework. 
Colonel Chesney states this boat to have undergone several 
trials at Plymouth with great success, and he is of opinion that 
it cannot be upset. 

Clarkson's Lifeboat was experimented with at Dover, in 
1853 : manned by thirteen persons, she was put to sea, was 
filled by a bucket with water, and set sail. The weight of water 



42 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

had no effect upon the boat : she maintained her position, the 
crew then endeavoured by every means to sink her, but in 
vain. The boat was then pitched off the pier into the sea, but 
instantaneously righted, and reUeved herself of water ; she was 
then turned over keel upwards, but turned into her proper posi- 
tion immediately. 

The Expanding Tubular Life-raft, invented by G. F. Barratt, 
is formed of vulcanized India-rubber tubes, inclosed in canvas 
cases or nettings, lashed to cross spars, so as to form, when 
extended, a contrivance for floating on the water, or being 
rowed like a boat, in safety through a surf or heavy sea. The 
same inventor has produced a Collapsing Boat, consisting of 
tubes lashed round a boat-like framework, with three thwarts 
which shut up like a purse. The bottom is formed of nettings 
to enable the water to have a free course, and the thwarts are 
kept expanded by means of " moveable fishes." 

A noted Lifeboat, called the Mary Anne, belonging to the 
ports of Hartlepool and Sunderland, is able to right itself imme- 
diately, when purposely capsized, particularly when the boat is 
under sail ; the crew received, in four years, the sum of 250/. 
from the Board of Trade, for saving life, besides salvage money 
for assisting vessels in distress. 

In London has been established the *' Royal National Life- 
boat Institution," for the purpose of placing their succours 
upon various stations of our coast, and rewarding services 
which have saved life from shipwreck. In November, 1866, 
this institution, since its formation, had contributed to the 
saving of 1 5/700 lives from shipwreck. The Society is sup- 
ported by subscriptions, many in the form of bequests from 
benevolent persons. Thus, in 1866, Miss Ellen Goodman, of 
Eversholt, Bedfordshire, left the institution 600/. to pay for a 
Lifeboat, its equipment, and transporting carriage ; Mr. R 
Thornton West and Mrs. West gave the whole cost, amount- 
ing to 620/. of the Lifeboat station near West Wittering, on 
the Sussex coast; and in 1867, a lady of Upper Clapton, who 
had for many years been saving money for the purpose, at her 
death bequeathed to the institution 450/. with a request that 
a Lifeboat, named the George and Anne, should be stationed 
on the Isle of Wight, which request was readily complied with. 
Bequests of this nature are made under circumstances of 
touching interest, "which makes the whole world kin." 



THE BAROMETER. 



1HIS instrument is named from two Greek words, signi- 
fying the mmsure of wetgAt, since by it a column 
of air is weighed against a column of mercury. 

The circumstances attending its invention were 
cuiiously accidental. The common pump had been well known 
for many centuries, and its phenomena explained by the well- 
known maxim that " Nature abhors a vacuum," why, had never 
been discovered. The Duke of Florence had employed some 
pump-makers upon his premises, who found that water would 
n« rise higher than 30 feet, or thereabouts, when the air in the 
tube was exhausted. In their dilemma they applied to Galileo, 
*ho replied that nature had no 
power to destroy a vacuum be- 
yond thirty-two feet ; for, learned 
is Galileo was, he understood 
not the action of the weight of 
the atmosphere. At his desire, 
Iwwever, his pupil, Torricelli, 
invtstigated the subject 

Evangel ista Torricelli was a 
native of Piancondoli, in Ro- 
Diagna, where he was born in the 
year 1608. By the care of an 
uncle, he received an excellent 
tducation at the Jesuit School 
in Faenza, where he became re- 
markable for his mathematical mvAuciLisTA torricelm. 
Mid scientific attainments. At twenty years of age his uncle 
sent him to Rome, and he there became intimate with Castelli, 
then mathematical professor of the college of that city. About 
this time Galileo was endeavouring to overturn the received 




44 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

doctrine that substances descended in speed according to their 
natural gravity; and that consequendy, if two weights were 
to descend from a high position, the one which was ten times 
the weight of the other would reach the ground ten times 
as soon. Galileo, however, was aware of the resistance oflfered 
by the air to the motion of bodies through it, and of the 
opposition which it occasioned to the effect of the earth's 
attraction. He went, attended by several officials, to test its 
validity ; and two stones, of very unequal weight, were dropped 
from the Leaning Tower at Pisa. The truth was evident from 
the fact that the stones reached the ground nearly at the same 
moment; but it was in vain that Galileo pointed out that 
the difference in time of their descent was entirely owing to 
the unequal resistance of the air. Prejudice had darkened 
reason too much for conviction to enter into the minds of the 
persons by whom he was accompanied. 

These several experiments, and similar facts which had been 
educed from them, were not overlooked by Torricelli ; and he 
published two Tracts, one on the motion of fluids, and the 
other on machines, which soon obtained the notice of the 
venerable Galileo, by whom he was invited to Florence. After 
Galileo's death the Duke of Florence gave Torricelli the chair 
of Mathematics in the Academy ; and he thus became his 
friend's successor, when he was about 39 years of age. 

To return to the invention of the Barometer. Torricelli first 
imagined that the weight of the atmosphere might be the 
counterpoise to the 32 feet of water ; or, at least, he was the 
first whom we know to have applied himself to try this suppo- 
sition by experiment. He saw that if it be a weight of air 
which counterpoises the 32 feet of water, it must follow that by 
the substituting of mercury instead of water, the height of the 
column necessary to counterpoise the weight of air would be 
reduced in the proportion in which mercury was heavier than 
water. For instance, that if mercury be fourteen times heavier 
than water, bulk for bulk, the fourteenth part of thirty-two feet, 
or about two feet four inches, would supply the place and pro- 
duce the effect of the water. He accordingly filled a tube 
more than three feet long, and open at one end only, with mer- 
cury, and then stopping the open end with a finger, he 
placed the tube in an open vessel of mercury, with the 
open end downwards. On removing the finger, the mer- 
cury in the tube sank until it stood in the tube at about 



i. 



THE BAROMETER. 45 

28 inches liigher than the mercury in the vessel, leaving in the 
upper psLTt of the tube an empty space, known as the Torricel- 
lian vacuum. The top of the column within the tube is there- 
fore withdrawn from the atmospheric pressure, which, acting on 
the liquid in the open vessel balances the weight. Torricelli 
thus constructed what is at this time considered the best form 
of barometer. It should be stated that in 1601, that is, 12 years 
before Torricelli's observations, Descartes, the French philo- 
sopher, had made the same observation, although he does not 
appear to have turned it to any account. 

Torricelli died in 1647, leaving his great discovery not quite 
complete ; for, though he had made it apparent that the weight 
of the water and the mercury was a counterpoise of something, 
most probably of a weight of air, the latter was not quite cer- 
tain. The suggestion, however, was taken up by Pascal, Mer- 
senne, and others in France ; and by Boyle, in England, the 
latter, by means of the air-pump, being enabled to subject air of 
different degrees of density, to the test of the barometer. 
Pascal, who had repeated Torricelli's experiments at Rouen, 
before more than 500 persons, and obtained the same results 
as TorriceUi, did the same ; and assuming that the mercury 
in the Torricellian tube was sustained by the weight or pres- 
sure of the air, he suggested that it would necessarily fall in 
ascending a high mountain, by diminution of the superincum- 
bent column of air. At his request, his relative, M. Perrier, 
tried the barometer at the summit and base of the mountain of 
Puy de Dome, in Auvergne ; and the result was that the mer- 
cury, which at the base stood 26 J inches (French), was only 
23!^ inches at the summit ; the summit being between three 
and four thousand feet above the level of the sea. Similar 
results were afterwards obtained by Pascal himself; and he 
also discovered that the operation of the same law was very 
sensibly shown in the* ascent of a church-tower, or even of 
a private house; thus establishing the fact of atmospheric 
pressure beyond dispute. The pressure of the atmosphere 
is equal to that of a column of mercury about twenty-eight 
inches high, that is, a pressure of about fifteen pounds on a 
square inch. 

The discovery was, however, at first much misunderstood, 
and even disputed, until it was seen by a glaring instance, that 
the maintenance of the mercury in the tube was the effect of a 
perfectly definite external cause ; whilst its fluctuations, from 



46 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

day to day, with the varying state of the atmosphere, Strongly 
corroborated the notion of its beiog due to the pressure of the 
external air on the surface of the mercury in the reservoir. Tie 
truth is — it is the weight of the atmosphere — fifteen pounds on 
every square inch — that pushes water into the void left by the 
drawn-up piston of a pump ; and there is, of course, a limit be- 
yond which it cannot push the water, namely, the point of 
height at which the column of water in the pump tube is exactly 
balanced by the weight of the atmosphere. It is just a question 
of balance ; fifteen pounds commonly support fifteen pounds, 
— a thing which everybody now understands, thanks to Galileo, 
Torricelli, and Pascal, the seer, the discoverer, and verifier of 
llie fact. Pascal showed that many phenomena, which had 
formerly been ascribed to a vacuum, arose from 
„s 5ffos, , the weight of the mass of air ; and, after explaia. 
the various pressure of the atmosphere in 
I different localities, and in its different stales, 
and the rise of water in pumps, he calculates 
I that the whole mass of air round our globe weighs 
I 8,983,889,440,000,000,000 French pounds. ] 

Soon after the discovery, among many different 
- methods for improving the constmction of the ! 
Barometer, the continued variations of the altitude 
of the mercury suggested the idea of the weafher 
glass. It was observed that the changes in the 
height of the mercury corresponded to changes of 
the weather, though experience was not yet suffi- 
ciently extensive to decide in what manner. The 
instruments are now manufactured in several differ- 
ent forms, but the principle is the same in aB. 
The repeated observations during the ascent of 
the loftiest mountains in Europe and America, ha« 
confirmed the truth of the theory of the baro- 
meter. Indeed, the Barometer has been much 

employed as a convenient instrument for deterrain- 

{ \ ing the elevations of mountains. To deduce the 

I I height from the barometric indication would be a 

\j^ very easy problem if the density of the atmosphere 

were uniform. This, however, is not the case. 

Sir Henry Englefield constructed a Barometer expressly 

for these investigations. A rule or formula has been deduced 

from established theory and observed effects, by which the 



THE BAROMETER. 47 

change of elevation may be drawn from the Barometer. To 
apply this rule it is necessary to know, ist, the latitude of 
the place of observation ; 2ndly, the height of the Baronieter at 
the lower station ; and 3rdly, the height of the Barometer at 
the higher station. By arithmetical calculation, the difference 
of the levels of the two stations may then be ascertained. 

The atmosphere is densest near the surface of the earth, 
because it has to support the weight of the whole column of 
air above it ; which, owing to its being very compressible, com- 
pels it to occupy less space. This law of decrease in pres- 
sure being known, its apphcation is made use of in the measure- 
ment of Mountains ; for the Barometer will indicate a less 
pressure at the summit than at the base, though the decrease 
will not be in the simple proportion. 

The following interesting experiment was made with Wolla- 
ston's Thermometrical Barometer, 552 parts upon the scale of 
which are equal to 530 in altitude. With this instrument, 
boiled on the counter of a bookseller's shop in Paternoster-row, 
between 4 and 5 feet above the foot pavement on the north 
side of St Paul's Churchyard, and boiled again in the golden 
gallery of the Cathedral, there was a difference of 254 parts ; 
Sie corrected height indicated, therefore, 276 64 feet. General 
Roy makes the gallery above the north pavement to be 281 
feet, which, allowing five feet for the difference of station, 
being the author's estimate to 267 feet ; or, by another calcula- 
tion, founded on General Roy's statement ; the difference is 
less than two feet In navigation, the Barometer has become 
an important element of guidance ; and a most interesting inci- 
dent is related by Captain Basil Hall, indicative of its value 
in the open sea. While cruising off the coast of South America, 
in the Medusa frigate, one day, within the tropics, the com- 
mander of a brig in company was dining with him. The con- 
versation turned on the natural phenomena of the region, 
when Captain Hall's attention was directed to the Barometer 
in the state-room where they were seated, and to his surprise 
he observed it to evince violent and frequent alteration. His 
experience told him to expect bad weather, and he mentioned 
it to his friend. His companion, however, only laughed ; for 
the day was splendid, and not a cloud specked the deep blue 
sky above. But Captain Hall was too uneasy to be satisfied 
with bare appearances. He hurried his friend to his ship, and 
gave immediate directions for shortening the top sails of 



48 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the frigate as speedily as possible. His lieutenants and the 
men looked at him with surprise, and one of the former ven- 
tured to suggest the inutility of the proceeding. The Captain, 
however, persevered. The sails were furled, the top-masts were 
struck ; in short, everything that could oppose the wind was made 
as snug as possible. His friend, on the contrary, stood in 
under every sail. 

The wisdom of Captain Hall's proceedings was, however, 
speedily evident, just indeed as he was beginning to doubt the 
accuracy of the instrument. Hardly had the necessary pre- 
parations been made, and while his eye was ranging over the 
vessel to see if his instructions had been obeyed, a dark hazy 
hue rose in the horizon, a leaden tint rapidly overspread 
the sullen waves, and there burst upon the vessels one of the 
most tremendous hurricanes that ever seamen encountered. 
The sails of the. brig were torn to ribbons, her masts went by 
the board, and she was left a complete wreck on the tem- 
pestuous surf which raged around her, while the frigate was 
driven along at a furious rate, and had to sail under bare poles, 
across the wide Pacific, full three thousand miles, before it 
could be said she was in safety from the blast. 

The Aneroid Barometer, a recent French improvement, is 
named from a Greek compound, to express the principle of the 
instrument, viz., without Uquid. The principle on which it is 
constructed may be explained in a few words. The weight of 
a column of air, which, in a common barometer, acts on the 
mercury, in the Aneroid presses on a small circular metal box, 
from which nearly all air is extracted ; and to this box is con- 
nected, by nice mechanical arrangement, the hand visible over 
the face of the instrument. When the atmospheric pressure is 
lessened on the vacuum box, a spring, acting on levers, turns 
the hand to the left ; and when the pressure increases, the spring 
is affected differently, the hand being turned to the right. It 
acts in any position; but, as it often varies several hundredths 
with such a change, it should therefore be held uniformly. 
The Aneroid is quick in showing the variation of atmospheric 
pressure ; and to the navigators who know at times the difficulty 
of using barometers, this instrument is a great boon ; for it can 
be placed anywhere, quite out of harm's way, and is not affected 
by the ship's motion, although faithfully giving indication of 
increased or diminished pressure of air. It may be suspended 
on or near the upper deck, for easy reference ; and is not 



THE BAROMETER. 49 

easily to be injured by mere concussion of air, or vibration 
when guns are fired. In ascending or descending elevations, 
the hand of the Aneroid may be seen to move, like the hand 
of a watch, showing the height above the level of the sea, or the 
difference of level between places of comparison. 

The Barometer is absurdly called a Weather Glass, because 
it is observed that the changes of weather are indicated, not by 
the actual height of the mercury but by its change of height. 
One of the most general, though not absolutely invariable, 
rules is, that when the mercury is very low, and therefore the 
atmosphere very light, high winds and storms may be expected. 

Mr. Daniell, the eminent meteorologist, wrote, some forty years 
ago, " The common barometers are mere playthings, scarcely 
two agreeing within a quarter of an inch ; whereas the questions 
of meteorology, now of interest, require the measurement of 
I- 1 00th part of an inch of the mercurial column. The height 
of the mercury is never actually measured in these barometers, 
but they are graduated one from another, and their errors are 
thus unavoidably perpetuated ; neither is the diameter of the 
tube ascertained with any degree of accuracy." 

Admiral Fitzroy, in the Barometer Manual^ published by the 
Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, states that 
all Barometers should show the same pressure at the same 
place, if well made, whatever their construction, if duly cor- 
rected for their internal temperature —usually that of air close 
round them. A mercurial barometer, whether of one kind or 
another, may differ from and vary in its difference from a good 
and truly graduated Aneroid accurately compensated for tem- 
perature 'y but these differences are only fractions of the tenth 
of an inch generally. The Bourdon, or metallic barometer, 
may be occasionally exceptional, as it has undoubtedly shown 
special effects attributable to some cause besides pressure and 
temperature, probably electric. 

Atmospheric currents and their pressure, or tension, occasion 
changes in Barometers much more considerable than those 
caused by rains or snow (which descend from one current of 
air while influenced or acted on by another). Two such cur- 
rents of air, or winds, impelled against each other, and having 
more or less momentum, raise the Barometer, by an increase of 
tension, or pressure, laterally as well as vertically, and rain may 
fell, or snow, or hail, notwithstanding a high reading — ^perhaps 
considerably above 30 inches. In such cases the use of a ther- 
mometer, and a knowledge of seasonable temperatures (see 



50 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

any sixpenny manual), at once indicate the approach and tem- 
porary prevalence of either wind displacing another. 

Clock-faced barometers, when they are in adjustment, are as 
much to be relied on for weather purposes as those with an 
exposed column of mercury, but are not used where great 
scientific accuracy is required ; and further, the moisture of the 
air has no greater effect on this form of instrument than it has 
on any other. The only point in these instruments likely to 
mislead is the antiquated lettering, "Rain," "Change," and 
" Fair," which in modem barometers is well replaced by the 
words suggested by Admiral Fitzroy, and which serve as a per- 
petual memorandum to the observer. 

Mr. H. A. Clum, of the United States, has invented " the 
Aelloscope," an apparatus intended to supersede the Barometei^^ ^ 
and named because its special function is the viewing or indi- '" 
eating of storms. It combines the construction of the Barometer, 
having a cistern containing 70 lbs. of mercury, and a central 
mercurial column 2\ inches in diameter. In this column rests 
a float, or buoy, supporting large cylinders, or air-chambers, 
made of German silver ; and these, owing to their large dis- 
placement of air, are so sensitive of atmospheric changes, that 
exceedingly slight fluctuations are indicated which would not 
be observable in the ordinary Barometer. The indication is 
shown by a hand on a dial, read as easily as an ordinary clock; 
hence the trouble of reading by the delicate adjustment of a 
vernier, and nice observation of the top of the mercurial 
column, is altogether avoided. 




THE THERMOMETER. 



|HE origin of the Thermometer, like that of the 
Maxiner^s Compass, remains in obscurity. We only- 
know that the idea of measuring the degree of heat, 
which the atmosphere at different periods presents, 
s first conceived in Italy, that country which, during the 
ler portion of the Middle Ages, was distinguished by the 
tainments and discoveries of its scientific men. 
In the year 1626, there was a book published entitled, Com- 
entaries on the Works of Avicenna^ by a physician, named 
antorio, who resided at Padua ; and in this work he claims the 
onour of having invented the Thermometer. Cornelius Dreb- 
»el, of Alkmaar, in Holland, makes the same claim ; and after 
arefuUy examining the evidence, it appears, that although San- 
:oriowas the first to point out the use of the instrument, Drebbel 
^lad also discovered and made its properties known before he 
heard anything of the invention of the Itahan physician. 

For some time after the invention of the Thermometer, it 
'^ chiefly used for ascertaining the changes of temperature 
ilone, and the instrument was of the simplest description. A 
glass tube was formed with a ball at one end ; the other end 
^^ open, and inserted in a vessel partly filled with mercury or 
■oloured spirit — ^generally the latter. A portion of the air was 
teiously expelled from the ball by warming it over a lamp, 
•nd as the ball cooled the bulk of the included air diminished, 
nd the atmospheric pressure forced the liquid up the ^ibe. 
iTien the included air expanded by heat, it pressed down the 
pint ; on the contrary, when the temperature was reduced, its 
ressure upon the surface of the spirit decreased, and the 
tter was forced higher up the tube, as the air within be- 
ime contracted in bulk. A scale was then fixed beside the 

£ 2 



5* WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

tube divided into degrees, so that the several changes could 
be measured as correctly as might be expected from the 
simplicity of the contrivance. 

The invention soon attracted the attention of the celebrated 
Robert Boyle, who had already made great improvements in 
the Air-pump, and devised an alteration in the form of the 
heat-measurer. He left the tube open at both ends ; the 
lower end was immersed in a small glass vessel containing 
both air and coloured spirit, and the vessel being formed with 
a neck, which closely encircled the tube, it was hermetically 
sealed to the latter. The variations in the temperature of the 
atmosphere caused the air in the vessel to expand or con- 
tract, and thus to press with more or less force on the surface 
of the spirit ; the latter being consequently made to ascend or 
descend in the tube. Boyle, who was a son of the Earl of 
Cork, was a man distinguished for noble qualities of mind and 
heart. His chemical experiments date from the year 1646; 
shortly after which he turned his attention to the improvement 
of the Thermometer. He was one of the members of " The 
Invisible College," which was incorporated with the Royal 
Society. 

In 1702, Amontons, a French philosopher, invented an Air 
Thermometer which was about four feet long. It consisted of 
a tube open at one end, the other turning up and terminating 
in a ball containing air, which was subjected to the pressure of 
two atmospheres, for it supported the weight of a column of 
mercury, occupying about 26^^ inches of the vertical tube. 
Amontons recognised the importance of obtaining fixed 
points ©f temperature, and for one of these he proposed to 
adopt the boiling-point of water. Except, however, by the 
inventor himself, very few instruments were made on the 
principle he suggested. 

All these early forms of the Air Thermometer were liable to 
serious objections. In the fir&t place, their indications might, 
independently of any change of temperature, vary by reason of 
fluctuations in the atmospheric pressure. They were, to a 
certain extent, barometers as well as Thermometers ; and, there- 
fore, before the thermal effect could be ascertained from their 
indications, a correction would have to be applied for the baro- 
metric condition of the atmosphere at the time of observation. 
Again, as no precautions were taken to fill the air-chamber 
with perfectly dry and pure air, the expansibilit;^ would. vary 



THE THEEMOMETER. S3 

from one instrument to another. It would be affected also by 
the nature of the confining liquid, and the instrument would 
also be liable to derangement by the absorption or escape 
of i portion of the confined air. These objections were 
avoided in the more convenient instruments devised by the 
scientific members of the Florentine academy dei Ciiiento 
towards the middle of the seventeenth century. In these instru- 
ments the expansion of spirits of wine was used instead of the 
expansion of air. The metliod of construction was identical 
with that still in use, the liquid filling a bulb and part of a narrow 
tube proceeding from it. This tube being hermetically sealed, 
while filled with the liquid fuily expanded by heat, the space 




1 the tube above the liqmd is empty or at least can contam 
nly the vapour of the spint As alcohol never freezes the 
pirit thermometer is well adapted for very low temperatures ; 
MIS, it was used by Saussure in his Alpine ascents. 
Horace Benedict de Saussure was, at the age of twenty-one, 
ipointed to the Chair of Philosophy in the College of Geneva; 
id for five-and-twenty years he discharged the duties of a 
ublic teacher. In the intervals of his official labours, he 
ived to make excursions in the sublime and romantic country 
1 which he was bom ; and before he was eighteen years of 



54 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

age he had explored the mountains in the neighbourhood 
These excursions created in him new desires to explore more 
closely the lofty heights of the Alpine mountains ; and in the 
year 1760, alone, and on foot, he made his way to the Glaciers 
of Chamouni, then Httle visited by those who lived in the 
locality. The ascent and descent were both difficult and 
dangerous, but they were accomplished by him in safety ; and 
from this time Saussure, year by year, undertook many journeys 
to carry on his observations among the mountains in different 
parts of Europe. Between the years 1758 and 1779, ^^ 
traversed the whole chain of the Alps no less than fourteen 
times by eight different routes, and made sixteen other 
excursions to the centre of the mountain mass. He went 
pver the Vosges and the Jura, traversed the passes of Switzer- 
land, trod the craggy heights of Germany ; surveyed those of 
England, of Italy, and of Sicily and the adjacent islands; 
inspected the ancient volcanoes of Auvergne, and visited the 
mountains of Dauphind and other parts of France. And 
all this he did with his mineralogist's hammer in his hand, 
^:lambering up to every peak that promised anything of 
interest, and making his notes on the very spot, where the 
different peculiarities existed which he had set out to describe; 
besides collecting specimens of the minerals and mountains. 

In 1787, when forty-seven years of age, he ascended to the 
top of Mont Blanc, and in the intense cold of that lofty region 
he remained three hours and a half, noting the natural pheno- 
mena of that sublime district. 

In the following year, accompanied by his eldest son, he 
encamped on the Col du Gdant, at a height of 11,170 feet 
above the level of the sea, and remained there seventeen days 
without quitting his position. In the year after, he reached 
the summit of Monte Rosa in the Benin e Alps, the last ascent 
of importance which he performed. 

During his several journeys, while Saussure naturally turned 
his attention to the meteorological phenomena, he invented 
several philosophical instruments, the necessity for which he 
learned from his personal experience. Among others, a Ther- 
mometer for ascertaining the temperature of water at great 
depths ; an hygrometer to show the quantity of watery vapour 
in the atmosphere ; and an electrometer to develop its electri- 
cal condition. 

The Thermometer which is now in general use is a slender 



THE THERMOUETER. 55 

iibe of glass, tenninating in a ball containing mercury, the air 
laving been expelled, and the tube afterwards hermetically 
jealed. The idea of employing mercury for the purpose of 
Pleasuring degrees of heai by its expansion, is supposed to 
aave first occurred to Dr. Halley; but he did not employ it, 
>wing to the rate ot its expansion bsing much less than that of 
ilcoiiol. Boerhaave ascribes the invention of the mercurial 
rhermometer to Rbmer in 1709 ; but it was not till the year 
[724 that such a Thermometer was known in this country. In 
hat year, a mercurial Thermometer which had been invented 
jy Fahrenheit, of Amsterdam, in 1 7 zo, was described in a paper 
■ead to the Royal Society ; in which it was shown that the 




ncrcury employed as a thermometrlc liquid offers many 
idvantages not to be found in either alcohol or air. Being 
iastiy deprived of the air it contains, and from its metallic 
quality able to conduct heat rapidly, the change in its 
volume both quickly and accurately represents the alterations 
in the temperature. 

Fahrenheit's thermometer is the one now in general use 
in this country. Rbmer {Riaumur) is used by the German 
]xog]e ; the Frendi adopt that of Celsius, a Swedish philo- 



i: 



:ir 



56 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

sopher, calling it Centigrade, It differs from that of Reaumur or 
Deluc, only in the distance between the points of freezing 
and boiling water being divided into 100 parts, and 
it is now much in use among the philosophers of 
the Continent. Now, Centigrade degrees being larger 
than Fahrenheits in the proportion of 9 to 5, to 
convert the one into the other we have only to 
multiply by 5 and divide by 9, or vice versa. The 
main difference between the two former consists in 
the gradation of the scale — Reaumur fixing his zero 
at 32 degrees of Fahrenheit, and dividing the ranges 
between that point and the point of boiling water 
into 80 degrees; while Fahrenheit takes a scale of 
212 degrees between his zero and the boiUng point 

It is said that Fahrenheit obtained his zero by 
having mercury exposed in a tube to intense cold, in 
Iceland, during the year 1709. He then immersed the 
tube in freezing water, and found that the mercury 
stood at the 32nd degree above. On immersing it in boiling 
water, it stood at 212 degrees. This scale he obtained by 
ascertaining the capacity of the bulb ; and dividing it into ten 
thousand parts, he found that the expansion of the mercury 
was just equal to two hundred and twelve of these parts when 
it was exposed to boiling water. 

The Thermometer constructed by Reaumur was a spmt ther- 
mometer. He divided the capacity of the ball into one 
thousand parts, and then marked off the divisions, two of which 
were equal to one of those parts. He found his zero by 
exposing the instrument to freezing water ; and then plunging 
it into boiling water, he observed whether the spmt rose to 
exactly eighty of those divisions, and if it did not he 
strengthened or diluted the spirit until it rose. But this 
instrument could never really be so made, as spirit boils long 
before it reaches the point of boiling water, and the one 
now called Reaumur's Thermometer is an improvement upon 
that instrument by M. Deluc, who determined the points of 
freezing and boiling water by experiments, and divided the 
distance between them into eighty parts, the zero of the scale 
being at the former point. 

Other kinds of Thermometers have been invented for dif- 
ferent purposes. One of the chief of these is the instrument 
for registering the maximum and minimum temperatures in the 



THE THERMOMETER. cy 

absence of the observer. One of the best known contrivances 
for this purpose is the invention of Mr. Six, of Colchester. 
It is, in fact, a spirit Thermometer with a long cylindrical bulb, 
and a stem twice bent, so that the two parts of it are parallel 
to the cylindrical bulb. The stem terminates with a slight 
enlargement, which is partly, and the rest of the instrument 
completely, filled with alcohol, except where a column of mer- 
cury occupies a portion of the stem. This column of mercury 
moves with the spirit, and at either end pushes forward a small 
index consisting of a piece of iron wire enclosed in a glass tube, 
ivhich occupies nearly the width of the tube. When the mer- 
cury retires the index is left ; and thus, both the maximum and 
the minimum temperatures to which it has been subjected 
during any desired period may be read off. The indexes are 
set for a fresh obser\'ation by bringing each into contact with 
the mercury by means of a magnet, which attracts the piece 
of iron through the glass, so that the index follows the magnet. 
Rutherford's " day and night Thermometers *' consist of a 
spirit Thermometer, and a mercurial Thermometer of the ordi- 
nary construction, but provided each with a suitable index within 
the tube. The index in the spirit Thermometer follows the 
free surface of the liquid in its retreat towards the bulb, but is 
not shifted by the advancing liquid ; while that in the mer- 
curial Thermometer is pushed along only by the advance of 
the liquid. These two instruments are commonly mounted on 
one frame ; and they are always placed with the tubes in a 
horizontal position. Rutherford's Thermometers, properly 
adjusted and corrected, have furnished innumerable observa- 
tions of the utmost value in meteorological science. 



PRINTING. 




e could call up before us the Scriptorium of an 

English monastery in the olden time, we should see 

II the monks seated at their desks, their ink, pens, brushes, 

i, and colours before them ; one busily employed in 
finishing some richly illuminated initial, another slowly adding 
letter to letter, and word to word, translating and copying the 
ancient manuscript before him as he progressed with his tedious 
task. From day to day, and month to month, would he slowly 
proceed, forming those thick, angular, black-letter characters, 
with no cessation, saving to attend to his meals, his prayers, and 
his sleep ; unless he paused now and then with his quaint old- 



PRINTING. 59 

fashioned knife to erase some error he had made upon the 
parchment. Greece and Rome were then the great marts of 
these rare manuscripts; and many a journey did our Saxon 
ancestors make to purchase manuscripts at great cost, and, on 
their return to England, translate into the Saxon language, or 
multiply copies from the original. So precious were the manu- 
scripts in those days, that an Anglo-Saxon bishop, named 
Wilfred, had the books of the four Evangelists copied out in 
letters of gold upon purple parchment ; and such value did 
he set upon the work that it was kept in a case of gold, adorned 
with precious stones. The heathen sea-kings, the Danes, 
however, when they invaded England, burnt many valuable 
manuscripts, which had cost the Saxons years of labour to pro- 
duce ; and but for these ravages, England would have possessed 
the most valuable histories of any country in Europe since the 
dawn of Christianity. Many treasures that we lost for ever 
would then have been made familiar to us in the present 
day, through the invention of Printing. 

It is hard to say when this "noble craft and mystery" did 
not exist : whether an impression be made by pressure of the 
hand upon snow, or by wood or metal upon paper or vellum, 
it is alike printing; and one of our recent discoveries, pro- 
ducing an impression of a fern, is called Nature-printing. 
Nearly four thousand years ago, seals were impressed upon 
soft material : next, characters were stamped upon clay in 
forming bricks, as in Babylon ; of which art examples have 
been brought from Egypt, and from the buried cities of Asia. 
Besides these inscribed bricks have been found the wooden 
stamps to be seen in the British Museum. Brass or bronze 
stamps, with raised characters, with a handle at the back, for 
printing with colour upon papyrus, linen, or parchment, have 
also been found ; the process resembling that of stamping linen 
with marking-ink in our day. The Romans used the above 
stamps, and it is strange that they did not engrave sentences 
upon blocks, and transfer them to surfaces, to save the slow 
operation of copying manuscripts. The Chinese claim to have 
printed from blocks several centuries before it was practised 
in Europe, or fifty years before the Christian era. Next, printing 
from pictures engraved upon wooden blocks was accomplished 
in the thirteenth century ; then playing cards were taken from 
blocks by means of a burnisher, as engravers on wood take 
impressions on India paper in the present day ; and next, the 



6o WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

engravings of the Biblia Pauperum (Poor Men's Bible), with the 
text printed in from moveable types. 

Whether moveable wooden types were ever employed to print 
an entire book is very questionable. The formation ot metd 
types in a matrix or mould was the most important advance. 
This invention is now ascribed to John Goensfleisch, who was 
born at the village of Selgelock, in the year 1397, and went to 
reside at Mentz, or Mayence, with a family named Gutenberg, 
whose appellation he soon assumed, and ever afterwards bore. At 
Mentz he became implicated in a political insurrection, which 
being unsuccessful, he fled to Strasburg, where he had to look 
out for the means of a Hvelihood, and entered into partnership 
with other persons in " a wonderful and unknown art." An 
action at law arose, as proved by a legal document, dated 
1439 ; and evidence produced on the trial showed that one of 
the witnesses had learned from Gutenberg to " take the pages 
from the presses, and by removing two screws, thoroughly 
separate them ^the letters), from one another, so that no man 
may know what it is," thus proving that separated types were 
used, as well as some sort of press. 

After some years* residence at Strasburg, Gutenberg re- 
turned to Mentz, about the year 1450, with all his materials. 
His partnership had expired; and at Mentz he became ac- 
quainted with Herr Faust, or Fust, a rich goldsmith and 
citizen, who was taught the secrets of the art, upon advancing 
the requisite funds. There is a strange story told of their work. 
The first of their productions was a Latin Bible, and the letters 
of this impression were such an exact imitation of the works 
of the penman, that they passed it off as an exquisite speci- 
men of the copyist's art. Fust sold a copy to the King of 
France for seven hundred crowns, and another to the Arch- 
bishop of Paris for four hundred. The prelate, enchanted with 
his bargain (for the usual price was several hundred crowns 
above what he had given), showed it in triumph to the King. 
The King compared the two, and was filled with astonishment. 
They were identical in every stroke and dot. How was it 
possible for any two scribes, or even for the same scribe, to 
produce so undeniable a fac-simile of his work % The capital 
letters of the edition were of red ink. They inquired still 
further, and found that many other copies had been sold, all 
precisely alike in form and pressure. They came to the con- 
clusion that Fust was a wizard, and that the initials were in 




Hood ; he was, accordingly, apprehended, and to save himself 
from the flames the unhappy Fust had to confess the deceit, 
and also to reveal the secret of the art. The whole mystery 
consisted in cutting letters upon moveable metal types, and 
after rubbing them with ink, and they were correctly set, im- 
printing them upon paper by means of a screw. 

Another story attributes the invention of metal types to 
Peter Schoeffer, a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, who entered 
warmly into the designs of Gutenberg and Fust, and who sug- 
gested the idea of stamping the forms of the 
letters in lead or other soft substance ; this ~ 

they succeeded in accomplishing, and the in- 
itiatory process of printing was fully obtained. 
The principle of the screw-press had long 
been known, for it was just the time when 
the learning and scientific principles of the 
ancients were beginning to be revived, 
Schoeffer is stated to have discovered the 
method of forming the letters at the bottom 
of a sort of case or mould, -cailed a matrix. He privately cut 
the whole alphabet, and when he showed his master the result 
of his labours and ingenuity. Fust was so delighted that he pro- 
mised to give him his only daughter, Christiana, in marriage — a 
promise which he soon afterwards fulfilled. The types first 
cast are supposed to have been of lead, but afterwards, by the 
infusion of antimony, the metal was made sufficiently hard to 
bear the work to which it was subjected. Schoeffer's claim has 
been much controverted ; and certain bibliographers maintain 
that Lawrence Coster, of Haarlem, who died in 1440, may be 
fairly credited with the earliest use of moveable types ; it is also 
argued that experiments in the use of moveable types were, 
probably made about this period in every city where wood 
engraving and block printing were practised. 

The harmony between the partners appears to have been in- 
terrupted soon after Schoeffer entered the business, and in 1458 
Gutenberg was obliged to retire from the concern, having mort- 
gaged his printing materials to Fust, which is proved by the 
mitial letters used by Gutenberg and his partners in printing 
works between 1450 and 1455, being likewise used by Fust and 
Schoeffer in the Psalter of 1457 and 1459. Gutenbei^ having 
completed severalworksofimporiance, including the Mazarine 
Bible, started anew at Mayence, and there carried on business 



62 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

(or ten years. He retired in 1465, and died on the a4th of 
February, 1468. His printing-office and materials were sold to 
Nicholas Bechtermunze, of Elfieid, whose works are much 
prized, as they corroborate the genuineness of the works attri- 
buted to his great predecessor. There is no book known which 
bears the conjoint names of Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, 
nor any which has the imprint of Gutenberg alone ; but there 
are several books attributed, from internal evidence, to Guten- 
berg's press. He had to endure much from misconception 
and ingratitude; he was persecuted by the guilds and the 
priests, and even his partners leagued against him. Posterity 
has however 'n some degree made amends for the ingratitude 
of his contemporanes 

A sta ue of G tenberg b> the celebrated sculptor Thor 
Tialdsen vas erected at Mayence on the 14th of August 1B37 




when deputations from ail the great cities of Europe attended the 
ceremony, to do honour and homage to the inventor of print- 
ing. At high mass in the cathedral was displayed the first 
Bible printed by Gutenberg. This statue of a man who had 



PRINTING. 63 

won for his city the gratitude of the world was exposed to view 
amid such joyful demonstrations of popular feeling as had 
been wont only to greet the return of some mighty conqueror. 
A Society, to which all the writers of the Rhenish provinces 
belong, hold annually at Mayence a meeting in honour of the 
memory of Gutenberg. 

The capture of the city of Mentz by Count Adolphus, of 
Nassau, in 1462, interrupted the labours of Fust and Schoeffer : 
they and their work fled into the neighbouring States, and 
thus spread printing over the whole civilized world, and within 
fifteen years to every town of consideration in Christian Europe. 
It reached Bamberg in 146 1 ; Subiaco and Rome, 1465 ; Elfield, 
1467 ; Cologne, 1467 ; Augsburg, 1468 ; Venice, 1469 ; Milan, 
1469; Parij, 1470; Florence, 1471 ; Basle, 1474; Westmin- 
ster (Caxton), 1474; Antwerp, 1476 ; Geneva, 1478; Oxford, 
1478; St Alban*s, 1480; Vienna, 1482; Haarlem, 1483; 
CracDw, Munich, and Amsterdam, 1500; Edinburgh, 1507; 
Dublin (last capital in Europe), 155 1 ; Mexico, 1569 ; United 
States, 1639. Among the most skilful typographers are the 
Aldi, Frobenius, Plautinus, Operimus, the Stephani, the 
Elzeviri, the Gryphii, the Giunti, and tlie Moreti. The print- 
ing-office of Plautinus, at Antwerp, exists in its full integrity, 
and in the possession and use of his descendants, the Moreti ; 
the same presses, the same types, with the addition of modem 
improvements, are still in use. 

Thenceforth, down to the close of the last century, there 
appears to have been no alteration in the operation — the im- 
provements consisting in the gradual increase of the size and 
power of the press, together with the great beauty and variety 
of the types. 

For aught that appears to the contrary, the press used in 
Gutenber^s office differed in no essential point from those in 
use until the improvements of Blaew, in 1600-20. In the title 
pages of Badius's Ascensius, of Lyons (i495-i535)» we have 
wood-cuts of his press : the table, with the form of type, 
remain, and the platten was brought down by a powerful screw, 
by means of a lever inserted into the spindle, such as might be 
seen in our time in a London printing-office. 

It would appear from the device of Badiu^s Ascensius, just 
referred to, as well as that of Anthony Scholoker (an English- 
man notwithstanding his name, at Ipswich), that the matrices 
and punches used early in the fifteenth century, were much in 



64 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the same form as at the present time. For a long period the 
printers were their own typefounders ; but as the art spread the 
casting of letters became a separate business. The earliest 
record of this change is found in a decree of the Star Chamber, 
dated the nth of July, 1637, issued for the suppression of 
publications of the Puritans, and those who joined them in 
opposition to the Government, and who, it was believed, had 
established secret printing-otfices for that purpose. By the 
above decree it was ordained that there should be only four 
letter-founders throughout the kingdom ; and that when any 
vacancy occurred in that number, it should only be filled up 
under the orders and with the sanction of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury — the primacy at that time being held by Laud— 
and six Commissioners. The decree also regulated the taking 
of apprentices, and the employment of journeymen. The 
Star Chamber regulations remained in force, although the 
Court had been abolished; and the type-founder was still 
under restraint. 

For the introduction of Printing into England we are 
indebted to William Caxton, and his successor, Wynkin de 
Worde, who established for themselves a high reputation both 
as printers and letter-founders. Caxton was bom in the 
Weald of Kent, most probably in the year 1422-23. He was 
apprenticed to Robert Large, the mercer, in the Old Jewry. 
His master was Lord Mayor in 1439-40, and died in the follow- 
ing year. To Bruges, then a centre of commerce, Caxton was 
sent about 1441, and here he lived for about thirty-five years; 
first, we may suppose, as a clerk, then as a trader on his own 
account, and last, as head or governor of the English merchants 
settled in Bruges. In this capacity he was brought into close 
connexion with many English noblemen who resorted to 
Bruges on diplomatic or other errands, and also with the Court 
of Burgundy. With the Duchess Margaret, wife of Duke 
Charles, and sister of our Edward IV., he became a great 
favourite. In 1470, he held some office in her household ; and 
it was " the dreadful command'* of this " redoubted lady," as he 
expresses it, which led him subsequently to devote himself to 
literature and printing. In 1469, he translated fi:om French 
into English the Romance of Troy, the demand for copies of 
which was so great that it was impossible to transcribe them 
sufficiently fast. This seems to have led Caxton to turn his 
attention to the new invention of printing as a means of multi- 



PRINTING. 65 

plying his copies. Availing himself of the capture of Mentz, 
he secured one of the fugitive workmen of Fust and Schoeffer, 
and established a printing-office at Col<^e, where he printed 
the French original and his own translation of the Siege of Troy. 
Whilst at Cologne he became acquainted with Wynkyn de 
Worde and Theodorick Rood, both foreigners, and Thomas 
Hunte, his countryman, who all subsequently became printers 
in England. 




Such IS the general version of Caxton's career ; but Mr. 
Blades* has proved that Caxton derived from Colard Mansion, 
the first printer at Bruges, his types and his method of working. 
He shows that Caxton's first book was printed in 1472 ; was 
printed by Mansion himself, at Bruges, and not at Cologne, 
as hitherto believed ; and that Caxton employed Mansion to 
cut and cast him a new fount of type, with the intention of 
practising the art in England. 

Early m 1476 (not, as \^ generally said, in 1474), Caxton 
left Bruges, came over to England, and settled in Westminster 
(according to his own placard, preserved in Brasenose College, 
Oxford), in the Almonry, at " the Reed Pale," the name by 
which was known a house on the south side of Toth ill- street ; 
this house fell down in November, 1845, when wooden types 
are said to have been found here : its precise site is now 
" In his masterly Life of Cuton, vol. i. i36i. 



■ 66 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

occupied by the principal entrance to the Westminster Palace 
Hotel. We have engraved this house. Its identity, however, 
has been questioned. It has been suggested that Caxton^»f 
set up his printing-press in the triforium of Westminster Abbey, 
near one of the httle chapels, or in the ancient Scriptorium. 
(See Curiosities of London, p. 6.) Stow describes the press as 
in an old chapel, near the entrance to the Abbey. Caxton had 
subsequently an office in King-street, Westminster. 




Caxton certainly practised liis art under the protection of 
the Abbot of Westminster ; and there produced the first book 
printed in England, the Game of Chess, which was completed on 
the last day of March, 1476. For fifteen years he continued, 
with astonishing industry, translating and printing ; and he died, 
according to an entry in the registry of St. Margaret's, West- 
minster, towards the end of 1491, being about four score years 
of age. His epitaph has been thus written by some friend 
unknown : *' Of your charitie pray for the soul of Maister 



PRINTING. 67 

William Caxton, that in hys tyme was a man of moche ormate 
and moche renouned wysdom and connynge, and decesed full- 
crystenly the year of our Lord mcccclxxxxi. 

Moder of Merci shyld him frem thorribul fjnid, 
And bryng hym to lyfe eternal that never hath ynd." 

" Caxton," says Hansard, " must have been a man of won- 
derful perseverance and erudition, cultivated and enlarged by 
an extensivfe knowledge of books and the world. Of his in- 
dustry and devotedness some idea may be formed, when 
Wynkyn de Worde, his successor, states, in his colophon to the 
VttcB Pairium^ that Caxton finished his translation of that 
work from French into English on the last day of his life, 

Wynkyn de Worde came, as we have already seen, with 
Caxton to England, and remained with him in the superinten- 
dence of his office until the day of his death, when he succeeded 
to the business : he carried it on in the same premises for 
about six years, when he removed to the " Sygn of the Sonne, in 
Flete-strete, against the condyth." He subsequently removed to 
theSwan, and the Falcon, the latter on the site of Falcon-court. 
De Worde cut new and improved founts, and provided his 
contemporaries with type ; *' and it is even said that some of 
the latter used by English printers less than a century ago, are 
from his matrices, nay, that his punches are still in existence." 
(Hansard, Encyclop, Brit.^ 8th edit). His works amount to 
the extraordinary number of four hundred and eight : he made 
the first use in England of Greek, in moveable type ; and of 
Arabic and Hebrew, cut in wood : he printed the first book 
on paper made in England. Richard Pynson, a Norman by 
birth, studied the art of printing under Caxton. Pynson was 
an earlier printer than De Worde, having established an office 
before the death of Caxton : his first work, date 1493, was 
printed at "the Temple Bar of London." 

De Worde died about the year 1534. In his Will, still in the 
Prerogative Office, Doctors* Commons, dated 5th June, i534> 
he bequeaths many legacies of books to his friends and servants, 
with minute directions for the payment of small creditors, and 
forgiveness of debtors, betokening a conscientious and kindly 
disposition. His device is generally that of Caxton, with his 
own name added to the bottom ; but he also used a much more 
complicated one, consisting of fleur-de-lis, lions passant, port- 

r 2 



^8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

cullis, hearts, and roses, and other emblazonments of the Planta- 
genetsand the Tudors. 

Fleet-street has been the cradle of Printing almost from its first 
introduction : Wynkyn de Worde (assistant of Caxton), at the 
Golden Sun, Swan, and Falcon. The imprint to the Demaundes 
Joyous is as follows : — 

"Emprynted at London in Fletestre 

te at the signe of the Swane by 

me Wynkyn de Worde 

In the yere of our 

lorde A M 

c c c c c 

and XI 



There may be added Rastell, " at the signe of the Starre ;" 
and Richard Tottel, the eminent law printer and publisher, 
" within Temple bar, at the signe of the Hande and Starre," 
now the house and property of Messrs. Butterworth, who 
possess all the original leases of the same, including TottePs, in 
the reign of Henry VIII., to the present time. 

The following were also contemporary printers in Fleet-street, 
viz. ; Robert Copland, stationer, printer, bookseller, author, 
and translator: his sign, in 15 15, was the Rose Garland. 
John Butler lived at the sign of St. John the Evangelist, in 
1529. Thomas Bertholit, King's printer, dwelt at the Lucretia 
Romana: he retired from business about 1541. John Bedel, 
stationer and printer, lived, in 1 531, at the sign of Our Lady 
of Pity. John Waylond, citizen and stationer, lived at the 
Blue Garland, 1541. Lawrence Andrew, a native of Calais, 
was a printer at the Golden Press, by Fleet-bridge. Thomas 
Godfrey, who will be remembered as the printer of Chaucer's 
works, lived near the Temple Bar. 

Caxton used Xiv^ distinct founts of type. At this time all 
books were printed in the old black letter, in imitation of the 
mode of writing used by the monks. Towards the middle of the 
sixteenth century, the style of type now used was introduced by 
Aldus, and was called, from the place of its origin, Italic. The 
great plainness of the Roman character, now gradually super- 
seded other kinds of type, except in Germany. 

Although the art of Printing was now firmly established in 
England, the printers were for a long time supplied with t)rpe 
from the Continent, that from the Dutch foundries being only 



PRINTING. 69 

used in superior works. Early in the last century, William 
Caslon, prompted and assisted by William Bowyer, a man of 
learning, and a printer, established the " Caslon Foundry," 
which not only obtained pre-eminence for British types, and 
put an end to the demand for those from abroad, but led to the 
supply of the best offices on the Continent. The Caslon 
Foundry still exists, and is represented by one of the same 
name and family. Another eminent founder was John Basker- 
ville, of Birmingham. Caslon had considerably improved the 
Dutch types before Baskerville's attempt at type-founding ; but 
the latter carried that improvement further, though not until he 
had expended upwards of 600/. before he could get a single 
letter to his satisfaction, and several thousands before he realized 
any profit His types, however, ultimately were of great beauty ; 
at his death, in 1775, ^^^Y were sold by his widow to a Uterary 
society at Paris, and were used in printing some of the best 
editions of their first classics. He, doubtless, laid the founda- 
tion of that beautiful style of letter which has of late years so 
greatly improved our own castings. Another foundry was 
established by Dr. Fry, who assembled the most complete set 
known of founts for the Oriental languages. The Glasgow 
foundries, as well as those of Edinburgh, have always stood 
high in estimation. 

Abroad, the art has equally advanced, and extensive foundries 
exist both in Germany and France, as well as in Italy — the Propa- 
ganda, in the last named country, possessing one of the most 
complete establishments in the world ; though it does not ex- 
ceed in extent the foundry of Brieskopf, which is said to contain 
punches for not less than four hundred alphabets. Nor is it 
equal to that of Didot, in Paris, where the most minute and 
beautiful specimens of ordinary typography have been pro- 
duced, some to be read only by the aid of a magnifying glass. 

We now come to the business of the compositor, which will 
be understood by the aid of the accompanying illustrations. 

There are two cases, upper and lower — the upper for capital and 
small capital letters, the lower for small letters, — divided into 
compartments for each, those most frequently in use being 
largest, and nearest the compositor's hand. The compositor, 
having placed his copy on the upper case in front of him, takes 
in his left hand his composing-stick, a small iron frame with 
slider and screw, which is capable of being adjusted to any re- 
quired length of line ; with the forefinger and thumb of the 



WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



right hand he picks up the types forming the words of his copy, 
and receives them with the thumb of the left hand m the stick, 
feeling that the ittck which is on the under side of each letter. 




isuppermost as he drops it into its place Betneen words are 
inserted j/ r es, which being Ion er than the letters do not pro- 
duce an impression on the paper, and, varying in thickness, 
allow each line to be spaced out to a uniform width. All the 
letters are separate pieces of metal, fitting closely to each 
other ; and, in a page such as this there are about 2,500 
distinct pieces, each of which the compositor has to pick up 
separately, his wages being regulated by the number of thou- 
sands of letters he sets up. A Fount is any weight of type of 
the same body and face, consisting of every stop, figure, &c, 
in certain proportions, together with spaces and quadrats. 

The matter being composed, made into pages, tied up, and 
correctly laid down on the imposing-table, the compositor 
places over them a chase, or iron frame, divided by cross-bars ; 
he then adjusts pieces of wood, or metal, called furniture, and 
within the chase, next the pages, side and footslicks, wider at 
one end than the other, and between these and the chase fit 
wood quoins, which decrease in the same proportion as the 
side and foot sticks ; he then unties the pages, pushes up the 
quoins, planes down the pages gently, and with a mallet and 
shooting stick, drives so as to act as wedges, forcing the 
separate types to become a compact body ; and the united 



mass is called a form. Gutenberg, we read, used screws to 
lock up his pages, and of late years our printers liave employed 
screws, instead of quoins, which may be a revival of the screw 
method of four hundred years since.* (See p. 60, ante,') 

Attempts have been made to supersede to a great extent the 
manual labour of the compositor, by two machines, which are 
acted on in the same way as the keys of a pianoforte are when 
touched. The letters of each kind are arranged in different 
compartments, and one of each drops through, at each touch, 
as the key opens a valve at the bottom of the compartment. 
These machines are ingenious ; but peculiar skill and long 
tuition are required before they can be efficiently used. Other 
machines have been constructed ; but with little success in 
practice. 

If, however, it has hitherto proved unprofitable to adopt 
machinery to arranging the types, such has not been the case 
with regard to the impressions to be taken from them. Until 
towards the close of the last 
century, but little improve- 
ment had been made in the 
form of the old wooden print- 
ing-press, except, as already 
stated, in enlarging the size 
and increasing the power of 
the screw. But at the period 
alluded to. Earl Stanhope, a 
nobleman of great ingenuity, 
who was himself an amateur 
printer, and exceedingly desi- 
rous of improving the art, in- 
vented, and with the assistance 
of Mr. Walker, a skilful ma- 
chinist, brought to perfection, 
an iron press in which the 

power, instead of being derived ^ ^^^^ woodbn faidTiHa i-bhss, iiaS 
from the screw, was derived 

from a bent lever that impressed the platten or iron plate 
upon the paper, which is brought down on the surface of 
the types. The peculiar property of this press is, that when 
the platten first moves downward, its motion is rapid, while, 

• Star ia of Inventors and Discoverers, 1859, page 14. 




72 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

when the power is about to be applied, it is slow, so that the 
greatest amount of force is concentrated just at the time when 
it can be of the greatest effect This press of Lord Stanhope's 
was followed by several others of very ingenious construction. 
The most powerful was one called the Columbian press, in- 
vented by an American, named Clymerj and the quickest in its 
action was the Albion press, invented by Mr. Cope, and greatly 
improved by his successor, Mr. Hopkinson. The power in both 
these is obtained from the effect of levers alone ; and they are 
generally adopted for manual printing. During the trouble- 
some times that preceded the Great Rebelhon, the Puritans, 
jealously watched and persecuted, introduced ambulatory 
presses, which were constantly removed from town to town 
to escape the vigilance of the Star Chamber. At these 
presses, many of Milton's controversial pamphlets were 
printed ; and it is even said that the identical press at which 
the Areopagitica was printed is still in existence, and was 
lately in the possession of Mr. Valpy, the well-known printer 
of the Variorum Classics. 

Let us now turn to the crowning advance, the application 
of the Steam- engitiCy which makes the printing-press, in one 
sense, a self-acting machine, and brings by its aid the produc- 
tions of the noblest genius within the reach of myriads, whose 
means little more than suffice for the necessaries of life. This 
was accomplished by the invention of the Printing Machine^ 
by which cylindrical pressure is applied in place of the flat, or 
platten, impression obtained by the common press. 

Before, however, stating the circumstances of the application 
of steam-power to printing, we should notice an invention, 

without which steam machine-printing 
could never have been generally adopted. 
This is an improvement for inking the 
types by means of rollers. Printing ink 
consists of lamp-black and varnish, with 
some other constituents to increase the 
brilliancy of the colour, and keep the 
principal substances in coherence with 
each other. Formerly the ink was laid 
upon balls made of sheepskin stuffed 
with wool. The pressman, having a small 
portion of this ink on one of the balls, worked it against the 
other spirally, and occasionally dabbing the balls together 




PRINTING. 73 

until the ink was very evenly spread or distributed over them 
both. With these he then dabbed the form (i,e. a quantity of 
types, which are arranged in their several pages, in certain posi- 
tions on the bed of the press, where they are to give their impres- 
sion to the paper), keeping them constantly twirling round in his 
hands, when not absolutely touching the face of the types, 
until at length the whole of the letters were equally and suffi- 
ciently covered. This process required great nicety, and 
was very laborious, while considerable trouble and attention 
were necessary to keep the balls in proper working order. All 
was at length obviated by the discovery of Mr. Foster, who by 
the intermixture of glue, treacle, tar, and isinglass, formed a 
composition which retained all the requisite qualities of soft- 
ness, elasticity, and readiness to receive and impart the ink, 
and which could, moreover, be made to adhere round a 
wooden roller. It 

rently indispensa- 
ble value in machine printing. These rollers have been 
immensely improved. 

But to return to the Printing Machine. The want of some 
means to meet the increasing demand for books and news- 
papers had long been felt; and as early as 1790, before even 
Lord Stanhope*s press had been brought into use, Mr. W. 
Nicholson had taken out a patent for a Printing Machine, of 
which the chief points were the following. The type being 
rubbed or scraped narrower towards the bottom, was to be 
fixed upon a cylinder, which, with its type was to revolve in 
gear with another cylinder covered with soft leather (the im- 
pression cylinder) ; and the type received its ink from another 
cylinder, to which inking apparatus was applied. The paper 
was impressed by pressing it between the type and impression 
cylinders. This machine was, however, never brought into use. 

Some years afterwards, Konig, an ingenious German, who 
had been unable to obtain any support on the Continent, came 
to England with the idea of applying steam as the moving 
power to commoti presses^ which by his plan should acquire 



74 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

accelerated speed, and at the same time dispense with the 
employment of the man who inked the type. Three enter- 
prising printers, Messrs. Bensley, sen., R. Taylor, and G. 
Woodfall jointly supplied the capital for Konig's experiments, 
which, however, failed. He then turned his attention to 
cylindrical machine printing, which Nicholson had demon- 
strated in 1790; and at length Konig produced a machine 
capable of working 1,000 impressions per hour, and requiring 
only the superintendence of two boys. This machine was set 
to work in April, 181 1, and 3,000 copies of part of the New 
Annual Register were successfully printed by this means. 

It was then considered practicable to extend the principles 
and capabilities of this machine to printing a newspaper: 
Konig obtained a contract with Mr. Walter, proprietor of the 
Times newspaper, for two large machines to print his journal ; 
and on the 28th of November, 18 14, the readers of the Times 
were informed that they were, for the first time perusing a news- 
paper printed by the application of steam-power, and working 
1 100 impressions per hour. In these machines, Nicholson's 
plan was so far altered, that the ordinary type was used and 
laid upon a flat surface, and the impression was given by the 
form passing under a cylinder of great size. 

These machines were necessarily of a very complicated con- 
struction, and it may suffice to say that each consisted of a 
number of cylinders, which so revolved as to carry the sheets 
of paper, through the agency of a number of tapes and wheels, 
placed between them and the types on the surface of the table, 
which constantly moved backwards and forwards, receiving in 
turn the ink from the inking rollers, and impressing its form on 
the paper. Each machine was only capable of printing one 
side of the newspaper, and the sheets thus half printed by the 
one were perfected by the other. These machines were greatly 
simplified by Messrs. Applegath and Cowper, this being the 
first really useful machine : its principal improvement consist- 
ing in the application of two drums between the impression- 
cylinders, one of which reverses the sheet, and the other 
secures the register (that is, one page falling precisely on the 
back of another), by retaining it after the impression of the 
first form, just so long that it may pass on to the second 
cylinder in exact time to be impressed thereby upon the 
second form ; and of the distribution of the ink upon a plane 
surface, instead of by a number of rollers, by which Konig's 



PRINTING. J J 

complicated machinery was got rid o£ These machines, with 
numerous moditi cations, according to the plans of different 
makers are now* in general use The machines for the Times 
cost the proprietor of that journal 3000/ 

The next improvement was the construction of a perfecHng 
machine by Konig for Messrs Bensley which delivered the 
sheet of paper pnnted on both sides This double or per 
fecting machine threw off from 800 to 900 sheets per hour 
worked on both sides while the single or non perfecting 
machme delivered in the same space of time from i 300 to 
1,400 sheets pnnted only on one side 

Messrs Do nk in and Bacon in 1818 obtained a patent for a 
most ingenious but complex machine which claims the merit 
of being the first to print with the types arranged upon a 




honzon tally re voicing cyhnder instead of being placed on a 
fixed table as in other machines Although the fundamental 
pnnciple of this intention was found objectionable one great 
point was gained namely the introduction of the composition 
inking roHers, which were first applied to this machine, and 
immediately superseded thpse covered with leather which were 
used by Konig. 

Mr. Applegath next combined in one leviathan machine 
four of the single or now perfecting machines, all being simul- 
taneously driven by steam. There are four places at which to 
feed it with paper, four printing cylinders, and four places at 
which the sheets are delivered when printed; the combined 
• Videin/ra. 



76 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

action of these four auxiliaries producing from 4,350 to 4,500 
sheets per hour, printed on one side. Middleton s admirable 
perfecting machine is the same in principle as Applegath and 
Cowper's, but with some improvements. 

Next, to avoid a great waste of motive power, Mr. Applegath 
abandoned the principle of placmg the type on a plane table, 
and the reciprocating motion, and constructed a machine in 
which the type is placed on the surface of a cylinder of large 
dimensions, which revolves on a vertical axis, with a con- 
tinuous rotar}- motion. The Times has the credit of being first 
in adopting this great improvement in newspaper printing. 
The cylinder is a drum of cast iron, about 5 feet 6 inches in 
diameter. The forms, or pages of type, are made segments of 
its surface, just as a tower of brick might be faced with stone 
Eight printing cylinders, 40 inches in circumference, are aF 
ranged round the drum. Instead of the four impressions 
taken by the old machine in 'its double journey, eight sheets 
are printed in every revolution. In the vertical disposition 
there is the same centrifugal impulse as in the horizontal, but 
it is chiefly neutralized by means of the " column rules," which 
make the upright lines dividing the columns of the page. 
These column rules are usually long slips of brass, and in this 
instance they are so screwed to the sides of the iron frame, or 
chase, as to become powerful tension ties ; and being made 
with a wedge-like section, — that is thicker towards the outer 
surface of the type — they keep it in its place, hke the key-stone 
of an arch, or the stone ribs of a rubble vault. The type only 
covers a small portion of the circumference of the drum, and 
in the interval there is a large inking table, fixed like the type 
on its circular face. This table communicates the ink to eight 
upright inking rollers, placed between the several printing 
cylinders — the rollers, in their turn, communicating the ink to 
the type. So far the arrangement is perfectly simple, the 
machine being, in fact, composed of the parts in ordinary use, 
only made circular and placed in a vertical instead of a hori- 
zontal position. 

The great problem- of the inventor was the right mode of 
" feeding," or supplying the sheets of paper to their printing 
cylinders in their new position — or changing the sheet of paper, 
(the Times newspaper) in less than four seconds, from a hori- 
zontal to a vertical position and back again ; and through still 
more changes of direction \ all which is done by passing through 



PRIKTING. 77 

endless tapes and vertical rollers in rapid motion, which con- 
vey it round the printing cylinders, each of which always 
touches the type at the same corresponding point, the surfaces 
moving with a great velocity. 

"No description," says Hansard, "can give any adequate 
idea of the scene presented by one of these machines in full 
work, — the maze of wheels and rollers, the intricate lines of 
swift-moving tapes, the flight of sheets, and the din of ma- 
chinery. The central drum moves at the rate of 6 feet per 
second, or one revolution in three seconds ; the impression 
cylinder makes 5 revolutions in the same time. The layer-on 
delivers 2 sheets every 5 seconds, consequently 15 sheets are 
printed in that brief space. The Tim€s employs two of these 
eight-cylinder machines, each of which averages 12,000 impres- 
sions per hour; and one nine-cylinder, which prints j6,ooo." 

Messrs. Hoe, of New York, have constructed machines dif- 
fering from Applegath's Vertical, chietly in the drum and im- 
pression cy'.inder, being not vertical, but horizontal ; the type 
is fixed on the central cylinder, which lias a continuous or rota- 
tory motion, in contact with the impression cylinder, set around 
it. The Times has one of these machines with ten cylinders 
for working zo,ooo impressions in an hour. Another American 
has improved upon Hoe's machine by converting it into a per- 
fecting-machine. A horizontal cylinder machine, on the same 
system as Hoe's, made by Middleton, prints 20,000 impressions 
within an hour. 




78 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

But for rapid newspaper printing these machines have more 
recently been superseded at the Times office, and elsewhere, 
by the machine known as the Walter press. The chief novelty 
in this machine is that the paper does not receive the impres- 
sion from a form of type, but from a stereotype cast of the 
fonn, made of a cyUndrical shape, so as exactly to fit the 
surface of a revolving cylinder, which is not necessarily of a 
great diameter. The stereotype curved plate is obtained by 
taking from the torm of type an impression in papier matJti, 
from which, after drying, it is easy to obtain one or more casts 
of the required shape in some metallic alloy fiising at a tem- 
perature too low to injure the paper mould. . The Walter 
machine supplies itself with paper from a large roll, from which 
it cuts off the sheets when printed on both sides, and delivers 
them folded. The necessity of manual feeding beitig thus 
avoided, the machine may be driven at a very high rate of 
speed. The annexed sketch shows some Waiter presses at 
work. 




PRINTING. 79 

Several flat-surface machines, which communicate the impres- 
sion by a platten like the ordinary press, and are admirably 
adapted for fine book-work, are now in use. Their motion is 
similar to that of the hand press, and the work produced by 
them almost equals that from the hand press in excellence. In 
the platten machine of Messrs. Napier & Son, the inking appa- 
ratus is brought to very great perfection. 

The Bank of England notes were formerly printed from steel 
plates; but in 1853, the Bank adopted the surface or letter- 
press mode of printing. The plates are produced by the 
electrotype process ; the metal being so hard as frequently to 
yield nearly one million of impressions without being worn out 
The notes are printed at a steam-press, constructed by Napier, 
and no less than 3,000 are printed per hour. The numbers and 
dates of the notes are added in an after-printing by a cylinder 
machine, to which is attached a very ingenious mechanism, 
which makes it impossible to commit any fraud by printing two 
notes of the same number. 

The application of the Printing Machine to the working of 
wood engravings has been very successful. The printing of 
wood blocks had hitherto been a work of great expense and 
micisrtainty, and its slow rate rendered it unequal to demand in 
any very extensive numbers. Engravings were then printed by 
a hand-press with great nicety of light and shade ; but it re- 
named for the Printing Machine to accomplish with rapidity 
more brilliancy than had been attaijaed by the less rapid mani- 
pulation. The late Mr. Britton, who had long been accus- 
tomed to the fine work of the Chiswick Press for the illustra- 
tions of his costly antiquarian and topographical works, once 
declared to the writer, that many of the engravings in news- 
pa|>ers were then better printed by machine than press, that is, 
with sharper finish and more striking effect ; the portraits are 
special examples of this progress, and the writer well remem- 
bers the time when a printer could scarcely be found to work 
portraits by the ordinary press. The large block of Hay don's 
Dmlatus^ drawn and engraved by William Harvey, is a remark- 
Sible labour; but few persons are aware of the requisite time 
and patience on the part of the printer to produce these im- 
pressions ; and this was entrusted to Johnson, the practical 
printer, and author of the elaborate Typographia^ or, the 
Printer's Instructor^ printed in 1824. 

TTie most notable instance of machines printing woodcuts 



3o WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

dates from the establishment of the Illustrated London Ncws^ 
in 1842, by Herbert Ingram, bred a practical printer, in the 
town of Boston, which he subsequently represented in Parlia- 
ment, and where a marble statue has been erected to his me- 
ihory. His great newspaper at once proved a success, which 
he never for an hour neglected to improve ; and his Hberality 
to mechanism merited such a return. The large engravings in 
eight pages of the Illustrated London News have been "made 
ready " within two hours, and they are now worked at the rate 
of 1,400 impressions per hour; and some editions extend to 
300,000. 

We have spoken of the offices of our early printers, in Fleet- 
street. Here, too, was the cradle of steam printing : Bensley, 
of Bolt-court, being the first to aid the labours of Konig, who 
had applied to German and other Continental printers unsuc* 
cessfully. Konig and Bensley were joined by Woodfall and 
Taylor, printers ; and out of their joint exertions grew cylinr 
drical printing. Bensley's inking apparatus was, however, 
superseded by Cowper's — a very important advance. Soon 
after the above date, we remember to have seen the workmg 
model of a large cylinder-machine, which had been invented 
by Winch, a printers* joiner, while he was confined in the 
King's Bench Prison for debt. 

Another important invention connected with typography, is 
the progress of Stereotyping^ by which all the letters forming a 
page of type are cast in one piece or plate of type-metal, from 
a plaster mould taken of the page. When stereotype plates 
are printed, they are fixed upon blocks, which bring the plates 
exactly to the height of the regular printing types. Stereo- 
typing was first practised by William Ged, of Edinburgh, in the 
year 1725 ; the plan was so opposed by the workmen that 
it was a long time discontinued, but was eventually adopted for 
saving the necessity of employing a large quantity of ty^t. 

There is still another process by which stereotyping becoines 
optional, even after the type is distributed ; this is by taking 
moulds, to be hereafter used as matrices for the stereotyping, 
if required ; if not, the expense of the moulds is comparatively 
trifling. 



THE TELESCOPE. 



I HAT wonders yet remain to be discovered by the Tele- 
scope we know not, although every year brings to light 
some new world by its aid, that had stood unobserved, 
in the immensity of space, by the eye of man, since the 
^as first rolled into the illimitable expanse, at the bidding 
)mnipotent. Through the power of this wonderful instni- 
le human eye is enabled to sweep the whole solar system 
Ktent of space so vast, that had the swiftest race-horse 
5ver struck its hoof upon the earth, set out from the orbit 
lus, about three thousand years ago, and plunged on his 
ig course day and night without ceasing, he would not 
re traversed the half of this huge diameter that extends 
00,000 of miles. Where but few stars are visible, the 
: telescope of the Earl of Rosse has been turned, and 
rmaments have been discovered like our own, covered 
•untless stars, seeming in that vast distance like a spot 
ig with the dust of thousands of diamonds, one almost 
ng to touch another, yet each lying from each millions of 
.part, and every one a huge world, to which our own 
ears no more proportion than a single daisy does to the 
which it grows. 

David Brewster observes that "while all other instru- 
machines of human invention, embody ideas with which 
familiar, and are limited in their application to terrestrial 
blunary purposes, — the Telescope, even in its most 
tary form, embodies a novel scientific idea. It enables 
;ee what would for ever be invisible. It displays to us 
Dg and nature of bodies which we can neither see, nor 

G 



83 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

touch, nor smelL It exhibits forms and cbi^binations of 
matter whose final cause reason fails to discover, and whose 
very existence even the wildest imagination never ventured to 
conceive, and like all other instruments, it is applicable to 
terrestrial purposes ; but unlike them all, it has its noblest 
application in the grandest and remotest works of creation. 
The Telescope was never invented. It was a divine gift which 
God gave to man, in the last era of his cycle, to place before 
him and beside him new worlds and systems of worlds — to 
foreshadow the future sovereignties of His vast empire, the 
brightest abodes of disembodied spirits, and the final dwellings 
of saints that have suffered, and of sages that have been truly 
wise. 

"When viewed from the highest peak of a mountainous 
region, our own globe is the largest magnitude we* can 
perceive, and the circuit of its visible horizon the greatest 
distance we can scan ; but vast as are their limits in relation 
to the eyeball by which they are seen, they are small when 
compared with the globe itself, or with its circular outline. 
The navigator who has measured the earth's circuit by its 
hourly progress, or the astronomer who has proved a degree 
of the meridian, can alone form a clear idea of velocity when 
he knows that light moves through a space equal to the circum- 
ference of the earth, in the eighth part of a second of time — 
in the twinkling of an eye. Bearing in mind this unit of 
velocity, we are enabled to soar to far higher conceptions. 
The light of the sun takes i6o minutes to move to the Georgium 
Sidus, the remotest planet of our solar system ; and so vast is 
the unoccupied space between us and the nearest fixed star, 
that light would require five years to pass through it, and this, 
be it remembered, travelling a space vast as the circumference 
of the earth which we inhabit in the twinkling of an eye.* But 

* Speaking of the comparative velocities of Light, Mr. Beckett Denison, 
in his able work, Astronomy without Mathematics, says: "The waves of 
sound go ohly 377 yards in a second, while the earth itself goes 18J miles, 
and light ten thousand times faster than that ; while electricity (which again 
is probably another kind of vibration, of the solid atoms of bodies, and 
certainly not a fluid) runs along a wire about half as fast again as light So 
if the earth were a cannon ball, shot at the sun from its present distance, 
with the velocity it now travels with, and the moment of explosion tele- 
graphed to the sun, they would get the telegram there in about five 
minutes, and see the earth coming in eight minutes, and would have nearly 
two months to prepare for the blow, which they would receive about 



THE TELESCOPE. S^ 

this space is nothing, compared to the distance of stars which 
have been discovered by the Telescope, which are, beyond 
doubt, many thousands of times more distant from us than 
the nearest fixed star, the light of which must have travelled 
thousands of years before it became visible to us, even by the 
aid of the Telescope. The swiftest messenger that could have 
been despatched, had it started from one of these distant stars 
on the morning of the Mosaic creation, would not yet have 
reached our own planetary system." 

Before the invention of the Telescope, our earth was supposed 
to be the only planet that had a sun to.light it by day, and a moon 
to shine upon it by night By the telescope suns, moons, and 
worlds have been discovered, to many of which our earth may 
be likened as but a mole-hill to a mountain. By it the Pleiades, 
which, to the naked eye, show only a cluster of seven stars, 
were discovered by Galileo to contain forty ; and in the moon 
he found, by the aid of his novel instrument, high mountains, 
whose summits are gilded by sunshine, and deep valleys, into 
which the gloomy shadows thrown from these high ranges settle 
down. The moon being so much nearer to us than any other 
heavenly body, the telescopic power is more conspicuous when 
directed to it. The surface of the moon can be as distinctly 
seen by a good telescope magnifying i,ooo times, as it would be 
if the moon were not more than two hundred and fifty miles 
distant. 

The Telescope is an invention no germs of which can be 
traced in ancient times. Long tubes were certainly employed 
by Arabian astronomers, and very probably also by the Greeks 
and Romans ; the exactness of their observations being, in 
some degree, attributable to their causing the object to be seen 
through slits. Some one has clearly explained the use of these 
tubes : " If stars be more easily discovered during twilight by 
means of tubes, and if a star be sooner revealed to the naked 
eye through a tube than without it, the reason lies in the cir- 
cumstance that the tube conceals a great portion of the disturb- 
ing light diffused in the atmospheric strata between the stars 
and the eye applied to the tube. In like manner, the tube 
prevents the lateral impression of the faint light which the 
particles of air receive at night, from all the other stars in the 

15 years before they heard the original explosion. This is merely taking 
the sun as a target to be shot at, without regard to his power of attracting 
the earth at the final rate of 390 miles a second." 

G 2 



8^ WONDERFUL [NVENTIONS. 

firmament. The intensity of the image and the size of the star 
are apparently augmented." 

Until the thirteenth century we have no positive records of the 
power of a lens, or convex glass, to present objects in a greater 
magnitude than when seen by the naked eye. Vitello, a native 
of Poland, makes this earliest statement; and soon after, 
Roger Bacon imagined a peculiar magnifying instrument, though 
there is no proof that he carried his conception into practice, or 
invented the instrument, or that he really describes a Telescope 
when he asserts that by his instrument a small army could be 
made to appear very large , and that the sun and moon could be 
made to descend to all appearance, down below, and stand over 
the head of the ene'my. These ideas possibly might have pro- 
duced either the Telescope or some modification of it, for magni- 
fied images produced by reflection, and that before the time 
of Jansen and Galileo. There is little doubt that the combina^ 
tion of two lenses, or of a concave and a convex mirror and a 
lens must have been often made during the three centuries 
which elapsed between the time of Bacon and that which is 
generally considered as the epoch of the invention of telescopes, 

Dr. Dee, in his preface to Euclid's Elements^ i57o» after 
speaking of the skill necessary to discover the numerical strength 
of an enemy's army at a distance, says that " a captain may 
wonderfully help himself thereto by the use of perspective 
glasses," by which nothing can be understood but a Telescope, 
And in a work called Pantometria^ written by one Digges, 
which appeared in 157 1, and which was brought out by his 
son twenty years afterwards, it is shown that by concave and 
convex mirrors of circular and parabolic forms, or by frames of 
them placed at certain angles, and using the aid of transparent 
glasses which may break or unite the images produced by 
the reflection of the mirrors, there may be represented a whole 
region; also, that any part of it may be augmented, so that a 
small object may be observed as plainly as if it were close to 
the observer, though it may be as far distant as the eye can 
descry. Stilly this is a conception of the imagination as to 
the powers of a new instrument rather than a detail of fact. 

That this combination, however, had not been applied to any 
great purpose of practical utility for many years afterwards, 
appears to be tolerably evident from the little intimation we have 
of it during the first half of the seventeenth century. In the 
year 1655 a work entitled De Vera Telescopii Inventore was 



THE TELESCOPE. 85 

published at the Hague by Peter Borellus, who ascribes the inven- 
tion to two individuals, one named 2^chariah Jans or Jansen, 
and the other Hans Lippersheim, both of whom were spectacle- 
makers at Middelburg.* In a letter written by a son of 
Jansen, it is asserted that the invention was completed in the 
year 1590; while in -other accounts it is stated not to have been 
made until nineteen years afterwards — that is, in 1609. When 
these two makers, Jansen and Lippersheim presented a Tele- 
scope to Prince Maurice of Nassau, he desired the invention to 
be kept secret, as his country was at that time at war with France, 
and he expected to obtain some advantages over the enemy by 
ascertaining the number of their forces when at a distance. 
Descartes, however, gives a different account to this. He says, 
in his Dioptrics^ that the principle of the Telescope had been 
discovered about thirty years before ; that is about, or soon after, 
the year 1600, by a person named Metius, a native, or at any rate 
a resident at Alckmaer, and who was fond of amusing himself 
with making burning lenses of glass and ice, and who acci- 
dently placed a concave and a convex lens at the end of a tube. 
At any rate, whoever was the chief inventor of the instrument, 
the Jansens appear to have been the first to apply it to astrono- 
mical purposes ; and the younger of the two is said to have 
been the first to discover the satellites of Jupiter, for he per- 
ceived four small stars near that planet, but did not continue his 
obser\'ations long enough to become acquainted with their true 
character, or at least not sufficiently so to authorize him in pub- 
lishing his discovery to the world. It is, however, certain that 
the celebrated mathematician Harriot used a telescope magni- 
fying from ten to thirty times, and that with it he discovered, 
in 1 6 10, the spots upon the sun's disc; but whether he got his 
instrument from Holland or elsewhere, is not specified in his 
papers. 

Meanwhile in April or May, 1609, the rumour reached 
Galileo, who was staying witL a friend at Venice, that an opti- 
cal instrument which would cause distant objects to appear 

• The Rev. Charles Pritchard, F.R.S., President of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society, in a discourse given by him at the Royal Institution, on 
the construction of the Telescope, began by stating that the earliest lens 
which he knew of had been seen by him in the remains of a shop at Hercu- 
laneum. Spectacles were in use in the fourteenth century ; but it does not 
appear that an arrangement of lenses to view distant objects was made till 
1608, when Hans Lippersheim, of Middelburg, made a telescope, in the 
form of a long thin tube, which magnified three times. 



86 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

nearer to the observer, had been presented to Prince Maurice, 
by Lippersheim, who, it has been proved by Professor Moll, was 
in the possession of a Telescope made by himself so early as 
October, 1608. The truth of the report being confirmed to 
Galileo, he returned to Padua. There he sought out the prin- 
ciple of refraction ; and with a leaden tube a few inches long, 
fitted with lenses, one convex and one concave, at each of 
its extremities, applying his eye to the concave glass, he saw 
objects pretty large, and pretty near to him. This little instru- 
ment magnified only three times. He carried it to Venice, 
where crowds of the citizens flocked to his house to see the 
magical toy. The interest excited by Galileo's invention 
amounted to frenzy. On ascending the tower of St. Mark's 
that he might use one of his Telescopes without molestation, 
Galileo was recognised by a crowd in the street, who took pos- 
session of the wondrous tube, and detained the impatient 
philosopher for several hours, till they had successively wit- 
nessed its effects. These instruments were soon manufactured 
in great numbers, but were purchased merely as philosophical 
toys, and were carried by travellers into every comer of Europe. 
Galileo was informed by the Doge of Venice that the Senate 
would be much gratified by possessing the instrument; this 
Galileo presented to the senators, who conferred upon him for 
life the Professorship at Padua, and raised his salary from 520 
to 1000 florins. Galileo appears to be justly entitled to the 
honour of having invented that form of Telescope which still 
bears his name ; whilst we must accord to John Lippersheim, 
the spectacle-maker of Middelburg, the honour of having 
previously invented the astronomical Telescope.* 

* M. Boquillon was sent by the French Government on a scientific 
mission, the special object of which was to search for all documents bearing 
on the life and works of Galileo, in whatever public libraries, museums, 
or private collections they could be discovered. Thanks to the active 
Intervention of M. Mateucci, Minister of Public Instruction in Italy, and 
to the assistance of the well-known astronomer M. Donati, as well as to 
that of several learned Italians, M. Boquillon obtained access to an immense 
number of manuscripts by Galileo, which he was allowed to read at his 
leisure and copy, so that he became possessed of sufficient material for the 
composition of a complete work on the life of the great savant. La 
Specola, one of the most useful establishments of the new kingdom of Italy, 

Possesses most curious and interesting relics of Galileo. A portion of the 
uilding is denominated the ** Tribune di Galileo," and contains a number 
of instruments used by him, and likewise those which belonged to the 
Academia del Cimento. M. Boquillon took photographs of tie former. 
It is said that every instrument used by Galileo has been preserved. 



THE TELESCOPE. 87 

Galileo's tube, or cylinder^ as it was called, was now roughly 
mauufactured in grsiat numbers : they were made in London in 
February, 16 10, a year after Galileo had completed his own. 
The first Telescope magnified three times; others lie made 
possessed the gradually increasing power of magnifying four, 
seven, and thirty-two linear diameters ; but they never had a 
higher power. What Galileo first saw with his Telescope is 
thus eloquently and picturesquely told by Sir David Brewster : 
** The moon displayed to him her mountain-ranges, and her 
glens, her continents, and her highlands, now lying in darkness, 
now brilliant with sunshine, and undergoing all those variations 
of light and shadow which the surface of our own globe presents 
to the Alpine traveller, or to the aeronaut The four satellites 
of Jupiter illuminating their planet, and suffering eclipses in his 
shadow like our own moon ; the spots on the sun*s disc, 
proving his rotation round his axis in twenty-five days ; the 
crescent phases of Venus, and the triple form or the imperfectly 
developed ring of Saturn, — were the other discoveries in the 
solar system which rewarded the diligence of Galileo. In the 
starry heavens, too, thousands of new wonders were discovered 
by his Telescope ; and the Pleiades alone, which to the unas- 
sisted eye exhibit only seven stars, displayed to Galileo no less 
than forty^ 

But the discoveries of Galileo brought upon him persecution : 
hence the poet's line 

**The starry Galileo with his woes." 

' Directing his second Telescope towards the moon, he stripped 
that luminary of the character of geometrical perfection ab- 
surdly attributed to all the celestial bodies by the schoolmen, 
according to whom they were all perfectly round, self-luminous, 
and uncomipted by terrestrial tarnish. He found that the 
moon, instead of being a spherical orb, was no other than an 
earthy globe like our own ; and that she always turned the 
same face to the earth, so that, except through the influence of 
what are called her " librations," the whole of one of her 
hemispheres is hidden from our sight The idea which was sug- 
gested from the appearance of oceans and continents, moun- 
tains and valleys, on the moon, that she might be habitable, 
overwhelmed the schoolmen with horror, and struck the reli- 
gious with alarm. 

Shortly after, Galileo made his next discovery — that the Via 



88 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Lactea, or Milky Way, was an accumulation of myriads of 
stars, or, in the language of Milton, "powdered with stars." 
Not long afterwards, he discovered the satellites of Jupiter, 
and named them " Medicean Stars," in compliment to his 
patron, Duke Cosmo. His next observation was made on the 
planet Saturn, which appeared to him as constituted of three 
stars touching each other, for his instrument was inadequate for 
clearly showing the ring of this wonderful planet 

These discoveries, instead of procuring for Galileo the honour 
and respect he deserved, excited the anger and jealousy of 
many of his contemporaries, by the more bigoted of whom the 




cry of heresy was raised against him, because he published to 
the world his conviction of the soundness of the Copemican 
System. On two occasions his writings were condemned, and 
a sentence of imprisonment pronounced against him by the 
Council of the Inquisition -. in fact at the time of his death in 
1642, and for several years previous, he was confined a pri- 
soner, in his own house, by the order of Pope Urban VIII., 
who granted this as a mitigation of the more severe sentence 
passed upon him. It was during one of these imprisonments 
that Galileo was visited by the poet Milton, then on his travels 
in Italy ; and Milton, in one of his works, speaking of Italy, 



THE TELESCOPE. 89 

thus alludes to the circumstance : — " There it was that I found 
and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the 
Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the 
Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." Nearly half a 
century after the invention, Milton thus described some of the 
wonders laid open by the Telescope : — 

** The moon, v^hose orb, 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At evening from the top of Fesole 
Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands, 
Rivers> or mountains, in her spotty globe." 

Since the time of Galileo, Telescopes with a single concave 
lens as eye-piece have been called Galilean Telescopes, but 
they are not now used for surveying the heavenly bodies ; for 
on account of the smallness ot the tield, or the space in which 
the object is seen, when these instruments are made of great 
magnifying power, they have been almost entirely discontinued 
for that purpose, and are now used principally for distinguish- 
ing objects at a short distance. A manifest improvement 
upon this eye-piece was devised by Kepler, who, in his Diop- 
trics, suggested that, instead of one, two convex glasses should 
be used ; but he did not carry his design to any practical effect. 
The credit of having done so seems justly ascribed to Scheiner, 
a Jesuit, who, writing in 1650, gives a description of a Telescope 
with one convex glass, and states that he had used such an 
instrument before the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, thirteen 
years prior to that period, but acknowledged that it represented 
objects in an inverted position. Notwithstanding this defect, 
instruments with one convex glass were favourites with philo- 
sophers, on account of the larger field of view which they 
afforded ; but Telescopes with two convex glasses were devised 
both by Kepler and Scheiner, and presented objects as they 
are perceived by the naked eye, viz., not inverted 

In Italy, Joseph Campani constructed two refracting Tele- 
scopes, the one thirty-four, and the other eighty-six feet long ; 
and it was by these instruments that Dominique Cassini, in 
167 1-2, discovered the fifth and third satellites of Saturn. 
Louis XIV. greatly encouraged both the manufactory of 
Campani and the discovery of Cassini. The former he com- 
missioned to make him a Telescope 140 feet long, and with 
it the latter discovered the first and second, or the two 



go WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

smallest, satellites of Saturn : he also first saw the ring of te 
planet, and discovered and measured the figure of Jupiter 
with the Telescope made by Campani. 

The next improver of the Telescope was Huygens, son of 
the secretary of three Princes of Orange, and brother to the 
secretary who came with William III. to England in 1688. 
Huygens, was the author of several works on Mathematics 
and Astronomy, and was the first to ascertain that the two stars, 
seen by Galileo, in the neighbourhood of the planet Satum, 
were in reality only parts of the apparent ellipse of the ring (or 
rather rings, as Sir William Herschel subsequently discovered 
them to be), by which that immense globe is surrounded. 
Huygens, being a good mechanic as well as a philosopher, 
turned his attention to the improvement of the Telescope. His 
aim was a long focal length to the object-glass, and he suc- 
ceeded in constructing one of 122 feet focal length for an 
"aerial Telescope," which object-glass he afterwards presented to 
the Ro5al Society, and with which Dr. Bradley made many oi 
his observations. He fixed his object-glass of the requisite 
curve in a frame without a tube, but having joints, so that it 
could be turned in any direction at pleasure. This frsme was 
attached to a long pole fixed vertically in the ground, and was 
directed by the observer to any particular part of the heavens, 
by means of a string which he held in his hands. Near to the 
ground there was an eye-glass which could be brought into pre- 
cisely the same line as the object-glass ; and thus the power 
of making observations was attained, although there was no 
tube to connect the two lenses with each other. 

By whom the first reflecting Telescope was invented, is thus 
explained. The merit has been claimed for our countrjnman 
Digges, but without any suflScient foundation ; for the first 
clear notice we have of such an instrument is contained in a 
letter from the P^re Mersenne to his friend and fellow-student 
Descartes, and was written about 1639 : but nothing particularly 
useful appears to have been effected. The size and unwieldi- 
ness of the instruments at that time in use, proved so great an 
inconvenience, that philosophers and mechanicians set them- 
selves about obtaining an equal magnifying power in a smaller 
space. It was suggested that if the image were formed in the 
focus of a parabolic mirror, and were then observed through 
a convex lens, the entire object would thus be attained. Mr. 
James Gregory, of Edinburgh, was the first who made the 



THE TELESCOPE. 91 

iposidon in this country ; but, though he came to London for 
purpose, he could nowhere meet with an artist who would 
(ertake the formation of such a mirror as he had designed ; 
the attention of men of science was once more earnestly 
cted to the improvement of the dioptric Telescope, 
[ere again great difficulties had to be encountered ; for be- 
s the " spherical aberration " due to the forms of the 
cular surfaces, and by which the rays fail to concur 
irately at one focus, there was the far greater chromatic 
ration due to the varying refrangibility of the different 
. As the aberration in a mirror was smaller, and 
out the chromatic confusion, and consequently much 
e distinct, Newton set himself to construct such a mirror. 
had, when at Trinity College, Cambridge, entered in one 
is common-place books, dated January, 1664, " on the 
ding of spherical optic glasses; on the errors of lenses, and 
method of rectifying them, &c." To this Newton now 
ied himself, and purchased lenses, two furnaces, and 
ral chemicals. Towards the end of 1668, he first "made 
nail perspective to try whether his conjecture would hold 
i or not" The Telescope was six inches long : the aper- 
of the large speculum was something more than an inch, 
as the eye-glass was a plano-convex lens, with a focal 
th of one-sixth or one-seventh of an inch, " it magnified 
It forty times in diameter,'* which Newton believed was 
e than any six-feet refracting Telescope could do with 
nctness. It did not, however, through the bad materials 
the want of a good polish, represent objects so distinctly 
, good six-feet refractor; yet Newton saw with it Jupiter, 
the horns or " moon-like phase of Venus." He, therefore, 
lidered this small Telescope as an "epitome" of what might 
lone by reflectors ; and he did not doubt that in time a 
eet reflector might be made which would perform as much 
tny 60 or 100 feet refractor. He did not resume the 
itruction of reflectors till the autumn of 1671 : notwith- 
ding grinding and polishing, very little change took place, 
ti he discovered the defect to arise from the different re- 
pbility of the rays of light. He then took a prism which 
lad purchased at Stourbridge fair, and having made a hol^ 
he window-shutter of his darkened room, he admitted 
tigh the prism a ray of the sun's light, which, after re- 
ion, exhibited on the opposite wall the solar or prismatic 
trum, and proved the different refrangibility of the rays 



92 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

of light to be the real cause of the imperfection of refrai 
ting Telescopes. This he proposed to remedy by a metall 
speculum within the tube, by which the rays proceeding fro: 
the object are reflected to the eye ; or, in other words, 1 
" found it necessary, before attempting anything in the practic 
to alter the design, and place the eye-glass at the side of tl 
tube rather than at the middle." On this improved principl 
Sir Isaac Newton constructed his Telescope, which was c 
amined by King Charles II. : it was presented to the R03 
Society, near the end of 167 1, and is preserved in the libn 
at Burlington House, Piccadilly, with this inscription : " T 
First Reflecting Telescope, invented by Sir Isaac Newton, a 
made with his own hands." It is described by Sir Dai 
Brewster as consisting of a concave metalUc speculum, with 
or 14 inches radius of curvature, so that "it collected 1 
sun*s rays at the distance of 6, inches." The rays reflected 
the speculum were received upon a plane metallic speculi 
inclined 45 degrees to the axis of the tube, so as to reflect 1 
rays to the side of the tube in which there was a small aperti 
to receive a small tube with a plano-convex eye-glass wh( 
radius was one-twelfth of an inch, by means of which 1 
image formed by the speculum was magnified 38 times ; when 
an ordinary Telescope, of about 2 feet long, only magnifies 
or 14 times. Such was the first reflecting Telescope appli 
to the heavens ; but this instrument was small and ill-mai 
and fifty years elapsed before Telescopes of the Newtoni 
form became useful in astronomy. 

About the same time, Mr. Gregory succeeded in accompli 
ing the design which he had for so many years entertainc 
and M. Cassegrain,in France, also described the principles 
which a reflecting Telescope might be made. Dr. Hooke ^ 
likewise engaged in the improvement of the Telescope ; and 
1674 he produced before the Royal Society the first reflect 
instrument in which the great speculum was perforated, so t! 
objects might be viewed by looking directly at them.* 

About 1720, Dr. Bradley, Professor of Astronomy at Oxfc 
who had hitherto used in most of his observations, the 1( 

* Hooke is said to have proposed the use of Telescopes having a ler 
of 10,000 feet (or nearly two miles), in order to see animals in the mo 
an extravagant expectation which Auzout, the French astronomer, ^ 
was a good optician and maker of Telescopes, considered it necessar] 
refiite. 



THE TELESCOPE. 93 

• 

focal instrument of Huygens, applied himself, in conjunction 
with M, Molyneux, of Kew, to the improvement of reflecting 
Telescopes, especially to reducing the inconvenient size of 
which they were then made. They succeeded admirably ; and 
having, in 1738, directed the London opticians, Scarlet and 
Heame, in their mode of construction, these artists were soon 
enabled to manufacture Telescopes for general use. 

The improvement of specula during the whole of the 
eighteenth century was sought by all earnest opticians. At 
last, Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Herschel, while residing at 
Bath, employed his leisure hours in grinding and polishing 
specula, with which he formed Telescopes, both of the New- 
tonian and Gregorian kinds ; and about the end of 1783, that 
is, subsequently to the discovery of the planet which is called 
by his name, being aided by the Hberality of the King (George 
III.), Herschel set to work upon a speculum four feet in dia- 
meter, and forty feet in focal length. The plan of this Tele- 
scope was intimated by Herschel through Sir Joseph Banks, 
to George III., who offered to defray the whole expense 
of it (4,000/.). The thickness of the speculum, which was 
uniform in every part, was 3 J inches, and its weight nearly 
2,118 pounds ; the metal being composed of 32 copper, and 
1097 of tin ; it was the third speculum cast, the two previous 
tempts having failed. The speculum, when not in use, was 
preserved from damp by a tin cover, fitted upon a rim of 
dose-grained cloth. The tube of the Telescope was 39 ft. 
4 in. long, and its width 4 ft. 10 in. ;it was made of sheet- 
Mon, 20th of an inch thick, and was 3,000th lighter than if it 
W been made of wood. The observer was seated in a sus- 
pended moveable gallery at the mouth of the tube, and viewed 
the image of the object with a magnifying lens, or eye-piece, 
rhis Telescope was completed in 1789; and on the 28th of 
August, about the first time it was directed to the heavens, a 
lew body was added to the solar system, namely the sixth 
atellite of Saturn ; and in less than a month after, the seventh 
itellite of Saturn, "an object," says Sir John Herschel, " of a 
ir higher order of difficulty." 

This magnificent instrument was placed upon the lawn of 
ir William HerschePs house, near the corner of the road from 
ough to Windsor, The Telescope was suspended and moved 
f an apparatus resting upon two concentric circular brick walls, 
id by twenty concentric rollers moveable upon a pivot, which 



94 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

gave a horizontal motion to the whole of the apparatus, as « 
as to the Telescope. The difficulty of managing so large an 
strument — requiring as it did two assistants in addition to 
observer himself, and the person employed to note the tinv 
prevented its being much used. In 1839, the woodwotkof 
instrument being decayed. Sir John Herschel had it dea 
away, and the tube removed to Hawkhurst, in Kent 

After Sir William Herschel, cSme John Ramage, an Aberd 
merchant, who, as early as the year 1806, had made reflec 




with specula six inches in diameter. These he improved u 
and, only four years after, produced an instrument with a 
length of eight feet, and a mirror that measured nine ini 
He ventured still farther, and from a focal length of tw 



THE TELESCOPE. 95 

« 

feet, with a speculum thirteen and a half inches in diameter, 
he at length completed Telescopes twenty-five feet long, with 
miiTors of fifteen inches. Although these reflecting telescopes 
showed the double stars very distinctly, yet in no instance did 
Aey aid in a new discovery : not even when Ramage had suc- 
ceeded in making an instrument with a focal length of fifty-four 
feet, and a speculum twenty-one inches in diameter : in it 
objects were magnified about 6,500 times. 

While the reflecting Telescope was thus progressing towards 
Its present state of perfection, the endeavour to diminish the 
fringe of colours which surrounded the appearance of objects 
when viewed through dioptric instruments did not cease. An 
hnprovement made by Mr. Chester Hall, in 1729, greatly faci- 
htated the attainment of a clear image through the eye-glass by 
^ing lenses of diff*erent kinds of glass. This idea was carried 
fiirther by Mr. Dollond, about thirty years later. Euler had 
proposed to use hollow spherical segments of glass, with water 
between them, to diminish the aberration in Telescopes, which 
led Mr. Dollond to make experiments on wedges of diflerent 
kinds of glass, to ascertain the various degrees of refrangibility 
which they possessed. He ultimately discovered that by using 
* convex lens of crown-glass, and a concave lens of flint-glass, 
the different coloured rays in each pencil of light, after refrac- 
^on through both, fell upon the eye nearly colourless. For 
this improvement he was presented with the Copleian Medal 
7 the Royal Society; and, a few years afterwards, in 1765, 
his son, Mr. Peter Dollond, made a still further improvement 
hy diminishing the aberration occasioned by the spherical 
form of the glass. He planned a concave lens of flint-glass 
hetween two convex lenses of crown-glass, which almost 
^id away with the fringed colouration of the image, and 
S^ve the still further advantage of a large aperture for the ob- 
servation of the object when the focal length of the instrument 
Was short. Various improvements were afterwards made by 
Mr. Ramsden and others (chiefly with a view to destroy the 
aberration) through the union of spheres of different kinds of 
glass. 

Another great improvement in the construction of the 
Telescope was brought about by this singular means. The 
manufacture of flint-glass, indispensable for the achromatic 
Telescope, was so severely taxed by the British Government — 
hat if a philosopher melted a pound of glass fifty times, he had 



9'5 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



to pay the duty upon fifty pounds. The Government then 
pennitted a Committee of the Royal Society to erect an ex- 
perimental glass-house, and compound, without the supervision 
of the exciseman, a pot of glass. Dr. Faraday superintended 
the chemical part of the experiment; and by the year 1830, the 
Committee succeeded in producing glass of superior quality for 
optical purposes ; but the manufacture was not carried further.* 

However, Guinand, a maker of clock-cases, in the village ot 
Brenetz, in the canton of Neufchatel, was accustomed to grind 
spectacle-glasses for his own use. 1 his led him to make small 
refracting Telescopes, with pasteboard tubes. It chanced that 
an achromatic Telescope of English manufacture came into the 
hands of Guinand's master. Guinand was allowed to take the 
instrument to pieces, to separate its lenses, and measure its 
curves ; and fully understanding its properties, he resolved to 
make an achromatic Telescope for himself. Flint-glass .was 
only to be had in England ; and a friend, journeying thither, 
brought back as much flint-glass as enabled Guinand to supply 
several Telescopes. But the quality was bad, and Guinand 
next resolved to make flint-glass for his own use.' He con- 
tinued to experiment for this purpose from the year 1784 to 
1790. At length he succeeded, and gave up his clock-case 
making business for the more profitable making of bells for re- 
peaters. He prospered, and with increased means bought a 
piece of ground on the banks of the Doubs, and there built 
works, with a furnace that would fuse two hundred-weight of 
glass. Still he had many mishaps : his crucibles failed, and 
his furnaces burst, but these accidents only served to incite 
Guinand to further study how to prevent threads and specks 
which spoiled his glass. At last he succeeded in obtaining 
glass of uniform clearness and refractive powers, in pieces 
from 12 to 18 inches in diameter. He then acquired the 
art of soldering pieces of glass, and grinding out the joint- 
lines formed by globules of air and particles of sand ; this 
he did by means of an emeried wheel, and then replacing the 
mass in a furnace, the vitreous matter expanded, every trace 
of junction disappeared, and he thus produced the finest discs 
of flint-glass. 

Guinand's fame now spread, and having reached Frauen- 
hofer, the Bavarian optician, he went to Brenetz, in 1804, 

* See Pellatt's Curiosities of Glass-makings p. 44. 



THE TELESCOPE. 97 

nd induced Guinand to remove to Munich ; there he taught 
is art to Frauenhofer, who being an able chemist, soon learned 
le processes, and the theory of manipulation ; he studied 
ie refractive and dispersive powers of materials, and above 
11, by his great discovery of the fixed lines in the spectrum, 
isured achromatic glass by means which no other artist 
assessed. He was, however, cut off by disease in the prime 
life; or, as his biographer states, "he would have astonished 
urope with the production of an achromatic object-glass 
ghteen inches in diameter." 

In 1814 Guinand left Munich, and returned to Brenetz, 
uther, in 1820, came M. Lerebours, the celebrated optician 
Paris, who purchased all Guinand's stock of glass. Another 
liiil Parisian artist subsequently procured from Guinand 
56 discs of glass; and thus the refractive Telescopes of 
ince rivalled those of Munich ; while England had lost 

pre-eminence in this branch of practical optics. The 
:atious impost has, however, been repealed ; and the con- 
iction of large object-glasses is now followed up with re- 
ibled energy, 
juinand's secret lay in agitating the liquid glass when at 

highest point of fusion; and when annealed and cool, 
arating the striated portions by cleavage. Guinand left two 
s^ one of whom subsequently operated with M. Bontems, the 
nch scientific glass-maker. In 185 1, he quitted France, 
I joined Messrs. Chance, Brothers and Co., of Birmingham, 
improving their glass manufactures. He produced a disc 
flint of 29 inches in diameter, weighing 2 cwt, which 
T being proved by grinding and annealing, received a 
mdl Medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. From this 
ression upon glass-making we return to the Telescope itself. 
n his astronomical labours. Sir William Herschers sole as- 
mt was his sister. Miss Caroline Lucretia Herschel, aunt to 
John Herschel, bart., the late representative of that truly 
ntific family. To Miss Herschel's indefatigable zeal, dili- 
ce, and smgular accuracy of calculation, is due much of 
success of her brother's pursuits. Her attendance on both 
daily labours and nightly watches was put in requisition ; 
only reading the clock, and noting down all the observa- 
s from direction, as an amanuensis, but subsequently 
niting the extensive and laborious numerical calculations 
sssary to render them available to science. For the per- 

H 



98 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

fonnance of these duties, King George III. was pleased 
to place Miss Herschel in the receipt of a salary sufficient 
for her singularly moderate wants and retired habits. Her 
brother's observations were always carried on (circumstances ■ 
permitting), till daybreak, and chiefly in winter. " She it was, 
who having passed the night near the Telescope, took the 
rough manuscripts to her cottage at the dawn of day, and 
produced a fair copy of the night's work on the ensuing 
morning; she it was who planned the labour of each sue- ' 
ceeding night, and kept everything in systematic order." She 
it was — Miss Caroline Herschel — who helped our astronomer 
to gather an imperishable name. In the intervals. Miss Hers- 
chel likewise found time for astronomical observations of her 
own ; these she made with a small Newtonian sweeper con- 
structed for her by her brother, with which she found no less 
than eight comets ; and, on five of these occasions, her claim 
to the first discovery is admitted. In these surveys were de- 
tected several remarkable nebulae and clusters of stars, pre- 
viously unobserved. On her brother's death, in 1822, Miss 
Herschel returned to Hanover, which she never again quitted; 
passing the last twenty-six years of her life in repose, she 
died on the 9th of January, 1848, in her 98th year. To 
within a very short period of her death, her faculties con- 
tinued perfect, and her memory remarkably clear and distinct 

We now approach the most stupendous work of our time, 
namely, the Great Reflecting Telescope, constructed by the 
Earl of Rosse, at his seat. Birr Castle, at Parsonstown, about 
fifty miles west of Dublin. His Lordship has been charac- 
terised as " the great mechanic of the age, a man who, if he 
had not been bom a peer, would probably have taken the 
highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is his knowledge 
of smith's work that he is said to have been pressed on one 
occasion to accept the foremanship of a large workshop by 
a manufacturer to whom his rank was unknown." 

In the improvement of the Reflecting Telescope, the para- 
mount object has always been to increase the magnifying powor 
and the light by the construction of as large a mirror as possible; 
and to this point Lord Rosse's attention was directed as early 
as 1828. We have spoken of his mechanical skill, to which he 
adds profound mathematical knowledge ; to these may be 
added command of money ; for the gigantic telescope we are 
about to describe cost certainly not less than 12,000 pounds. 



THE TELESCOPE. 99 

Lord Rosse having first ascertained the most useful combina- 
tion of metals for specula, both in whiteness, porosity, and 
hardness, to be copper and tin, of this compound the Reflector 
was cast in pieces, which were fixed on a bed of zinc and 
copper ground as one body to a true surface, and then poHshed 
by machinery moved by a steam-engine, the peculiarities of the 
mechanism being entirely Lord Rosse's invention : they were 
chiefly, planing the speculum with the face upward, regulating 
the temperature by having it immersed in water, usually at 
55*^ Fahrenheit, and proportioning the pressure and velocity. 
This was found to work a perfect spherical figure in large sur- 
faces with a degree of precision unattainable by the hand ; the 
polisher, by working above, and upon the face of the speculum, 
being enabled to examine the operation, as it proceeded, with- 
out removing the speculum, which, when a ton weight, is no 
easy matter. The machine gives the parabolic figure to the 
speculum so true, that it is thrown out of focus by a motion of 
less than the thirtieth of an inch. Thus was executed the 
three-feet speculum for the 26-feet Telescope placed upon the 
lawn at Parsonstown, which, in 1840, showed with powers up to 
1000, and even 1600 ; and which resolved nebulae into stars, 
and destroyed that symmetry of form in globular nebul89 upon 
which was founded the hypothesis of the gradual condensation 
of nebulous matter into suns and planets. The instrument also 
discovered new objects in the moon, as a mountainous tract, 
dotted with minute craters ; and Dr. Robinson states that in 
this Telescope, a building the size of the Court-house at Cork 
would be easily visible on the lunar surface. 

Lord Rosse next resolved to attempt by the above processes 
to construct another reflector, with a speculum six feet in dia- 
meter dXkd fifty feet focus 'j and this magnificent instrument was 
completed early in 1845. The focal length of the speculum is 
fifty-four feet. If weighs four tons, and, with its supports, is 
seven times as heavy as the four-feet speculum of Sir William 
HerscheL The speculum is placed in one of the sides of a 
cubical wooden box, about eight feet wide, and to the opposite 
end of this box is fastened the tube, which is made of deal 
staves an inch thick, hooped with iron clamp-rings, like a huge 
cask. It carries at its upper end, and in the axis of the tube, 
a small oval speculum, six inches in its lesser diameter. The 
tube is about fifty feet long and eight feet in diameter in the 
middle, and furnished with diaphragms 6\ feet in aperture. 



lOO WOMDERFUI. INVENTIONS. 

The Dean of Ely, Dr. Peacock, walked through the tube with 
an umbrella up. 

The Telescope is established between two lofty castellated 
piers sixty feet high, and is raised to different altitudes by a 
strong chain-cable attached to the top of the tube, and ii 
there balanced by counterweights suspended by chains. The 
immense mass of matter weighs about twelve tons, but it can 
be raised from its least alUCude to the zenith by two men at 
the windlass in six minutes. On the eastern pier is a strong 
semicircle of cast-iron, with which the Telescope is connected bjr 
a racked bar, with friction-rollers attached to the tube by whed- 
work, so that by means of a handle near the eye-piece, the 
observer can move the Telescope along the bar on either side of 
the meridian, to the distance of an hour for an equatorial stai. 




On the western pier are stairs and galleries. The observing 
gallery is moved along a railway by means of wheels and a 
winch, and can be raised to various altitudes : a child can work 
the machinery. 

Sir David Brewster eloquently describes the marvellous sight 
which this Telescope discloses, — the satellites and belts and 
rings of Saturn, — the old and new ring, which is advancii^ 
wiUi its crest of waters to the body of the planet, — the rocks, 
and mountains, and valleys, and extinct volcanoes of the moon, 



THE TELESCOPE. lOI 

crescent of Venus, with its mountainous outline, — ^the 
s of double and triple stars, — the nebulae and starry 
s of every variety of shape, — and those spiral nebular 
ions which baffle human comprehension, and constitute 
latest achievement in modem discovery. The account 
>y an astronomer of the appearance of Jupiter was that it 
)led a coach-lamp in the telescope , and this well ex- 
j the blaze of light which is seen in the Rosse instru- 

Rev. Dr. Scoresby records that from the guidance we 
s of the comparative power of the six-feet speculum in 
letration of space, we might fairly assume the fact, that 
other Telescope now in use could follow the Sun if re- 

to the remotest visible position, or till its light would 
; 10,000 years to reach us, the grand instrument at 
stown would follow it so far that from 20,000 to 

years would be spent in the transmission of its light 

earth. But in the cases of clusters of stars, and of 
5 exhibiting a mere speck of misty luminosity, from the 
led light of perhaps hundreds of thousands of suns, the 
Han into space, compared with the results of ordinary 

must be enormous ; so that it would not be difficult to 
he probability that a million of years, in flight of light, 
be requisite, in regard to the most distant, to trace the 
ous interval. 

Great Northumberland Equatorial Telescope was the 

the Duke of Northumberland to the University of Cam- 

With this instrument, the planet Neptune was really 

ed by Professor Challis twice before its discovery by 

at BerUn. The object-glass, by Cauchois of Paris, is one 

in. aperture, and the focal length of the telescope is 
et. Special means are provided for easily placing the 
er in all positions in the surface of a sphere, whose 
is the centre of the Telescope. The observer, by means 
inch, can turn round the frame that carries himself and 
air ; and by aid of a bar and ratchet-wheel, can raise 
er the chair on the frame. The Equatorial Telescope 
'O axes of motion at right angles to each other, each 

a graduated circle attached to it This kind of instru- 
las one advantage over all others — namely, the object is 
d in the centre of the field of view for hours, without 
brt on the part of the observer. 



I02 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

The Legislature of Victoria have voted the sum of 5,000/. 
for the construction of a large reflecting Telescope, to be 
erected at Melbourne, for the purpose of effecting a thorough 
survey of the nebulae and multiple stars of the Southern 
hemisphere. The President and Council of the Royal Society 
(whose advice had been requested) have selected Mr. Grubb, 
of Dublin, the eminent optician, to construct this instrument 
The great cost of equivalent discs of glass of the requisite 
purity has rendered it imperative to employ catoptrics instead 
of dioptrics — reflection rather than refraction — in a Telescope 
of large size. An image is formed in the focus of the miiror, 
and is examined by suitable eyepieces. The tube has a dia- 
meter of 4J feet, and is of proportional length. The diameter 
of the speculum is but 6 inches less than that of the tube, or 
4 feet, being 4J inches in thickness, and weighing about 27 cwt.' 
The grinding was performed by a polishing machine and steam- 
engine, constructed for and belonging to the Telescope, and 
which accompany it to Melbourne. 

There are no results in the whole range of modem science 
more wonderful than those which have been obtained by the 
application of the spectroscope to the telescope. How impos- 
sible it appeared a few years ago that we should ever be able 
to know with certainty whether the chemical elements known 
to us on our planet exist in the far distant sun ? But at the 
present day we recognise in our luminary the existence of most 
of our terrestrial elements, and are able even to trace to some 
extent their distribution at various depths in the sun's luminous 
envelope. Not only has our own sun been compelled to 
reveal the nature of the materials of which it is composed, but 
those immeasurably distant suns, the so-called fixed stars, have 
likewise been made to declare the secret of their composition. 

Professor Nichol, speaking of telescopic discoveries, asks: 
" What mean those dim spots which, unknown before, loom in 
greater and greater numbers on the horizon of every new in- 
strument, unless they are gleams it is obtaining, on its own 
frontier, of a mighty infinitude beyond, also studded with 
glories, and unfolding what is seen as a minute and subservient 
part ? Yes ; even the six-feet mirror, after its powers of dis- 
tinct vision are exhausted, becomes, in its turn, simply as the 
child gazing on these mysterious lights with awfiil and hopeless 
wonder. I shrink below the conception which here — even at 
this threshold of the attainable — bursts forth on my mind. 



THE TELESCOPE. 103 

Look at a cloudy speck in Orion, visible, without aid, to the 
well-trained eye ; that is a stellar universe of majesty altogether 
transcendent, lying at the verge of what is known. And if any 
of these lights from afar, on which the six-feet mirror is now 
casting its longing eye, resemble in character that spot, the 
systems from which they come are situated so deep in space 
that no ray from them could reach our earth until after travelling 
through the intervening abysses, during centuries whose number 
stuns the imagination. There must be some regarding which 
that faint illumination informs us, not of their present existence, 
but only that assuredly they were, and sent forth into the in- 
finite the rays at present reaching us, at an epoch further back 
into the past than this momentary lifetime of man, by at least 
thirty millions of years ! " 

Sir David Brewster remarks : "In looking back upon what 
the Telescope has accomplished ; in reckoning the thousands of 
celestial bodies which have been detected and surveyed ; in 
reflecting on the vast depths of ether which have been sounded, 
and on the extensive fields of sidereal matter out of which worlds 
and systems of worlds are forming, and to be formed — can we 
doubt it to be the Divine plan that man shall yet discover the 
whole scheme of the visible universe, and that it is his individual 
duty, as well as the high prerogative of his order, to expound 
its mysteries and develop its laws. Over the invisible world he 
has received no commission to reign, and into its secrets he has 
no authority to look. It is over the material and the visible 
that he has to sway the intellectual sceptre ; it is among the 
structures of organic and inorganic life that his functions 
of combination and analysis are to be chiefly exercised. Nor 
is his task unworthy of his genius, or unconnected with his 
destiny. Placec upon a globe already formed, and constitut- 
ing part of a system already complete, he can scarcely trace, 
either in the solid masses around him, or in the forms and 
movements of the planets, any of those secondary causes by 
which these bodjcs have been shaped and launched on their 
journey. But in the distant heavens, where creation seemed to 
be ever active, where vast distance gives us the vision of huge 
magnitude, and \fhere extended operations are actually going 
on, we may study the cosmogony of our system, and mark, 
even during the brief space of human life, the formation of 
a planet in the consolidation of the nebulous system which 
surrounds it." 



104 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Since the preceding pages were written, several very notable 
improvements have been effected in the fabrication of object-. 
glasses and of specula. Object-glasses, of diameters far ex- 
ceeding any we have yet referred to, have been constructed 
Thus, for example, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Grubb, and others, have 
produced glasses of two feet or more in diameter. The efforts 
of some eminent practical opticians are now directed towards 
the attainment of still larger dimensions ; and it is not at all 
improbable that before long the astronomer will have at his 
command refracting Telescopes with ah aperture of three feet, 
perhaps of four feet. The difficulties of constructing lenses of 
so large a diameter are very great. Repeated attempts have to be 
made before a flawless disc of glass can be obtained, and the 
cost of this preliminary step may amount to many hundreds 
of pounds ; while the labour and skill required in tiie grinding 
and polishing processes are proportionately great 

In Reflecting Telescopes advantage has been taken of a 
very simple chemical process, by which an adherent film of 
pure highly-lustrous silver is deposited upon a glass surface. 
The speculum, instead of being cast in metal, is formed by 
grinding and polishing a thick glass disc. On the concave 
parabolic surface of this, the film of silver is spread, by simply 
immersing the speculum in the proper solution. The silver 
retains its brilliancy longer than speculum-metal, and whenever 
required can be renewed. A splendid reflector, with a silvered 
glass speculum four feet in diameter, was a few years ago 
erected at the Paris Observatory. The moderate cost of 
Telescopes of this kind, compared with Refiracting Telescopes 
of equal aperture, has caused them to be mach appreciated 
by private observers. 



r^, 



v^ 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



|ERTAIN dispositions of pieces of glass ground to a 
lenticular form furnish man in the telescope with an 
instrument that opens to his gaze ever deeper and 
deeper regions of endless space, and it is remarkable 
that certain other slightly different arrangements of like pieces 
of glass supply him in the microscope with the means of 
looking into infinity in the opposite direction. These two 
noble instruments reveal to us the existence of two otherwise 
unknown worlds — the world of the infinitely vast, and the 
world of the infinitely minute. 

A fine comparison between the telescope and the microscope 
has been drawn by Dr. Chalmers. He says, speaking of the 
two instruments : — " The one led me to see a system in every 
star. The other leads me to see a world in every atom. The 
one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of 
its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the 
high field of immensity. The other teaches me that every 
grain of sand may harbour within it the tribes and famDies of 
a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of 
the world I tread upon. The other redeems it from all its 
insignificance ; for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, 
in the flower of every garden, and in the waters of every 
rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as 
are the glories of the firmament. Tlie one has suggested to 
•me, that beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may 
De fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and 
cany the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes 
of the universe. The other suggests to me that within and 
beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has 
been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles; 



lo6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which 
shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as 
many wonders as Astronomy has unfolded, a universe within 
the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of 
the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room 
for the exercise of all His attributes, where He can raise another 
mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them with all the 
evidences of His glory." 

In point of time the discovery of the microscope must have 
preceded that of the telescope, for the simplest form of the 
microscope is merely a convex lens, and every convex lens is 
pro tanto a microscope ; while the telescope is necessarily a 
combination of lenses, as is also the later and far more efiicient 
kind of microscope. Microscopes then are of two kinds— 
simple, consisting of a single lens ; and compound, consisting 
of a combination of lenses. No name or period can be asso- 
ciated with the invention of the simple microscope, for a 
knowledge of the magnifying power of convex transparent 
bodies must have existed even in the remotest antiquity. No 
one who has ever observed with any degree of attention a drop 
of dew or rain on the surface of a green leaf, could be ignorant 
of the magnifying effect of the transparent globule. There are 
other numberless instances in which transparent spherules of 
various materials are formed by nature or by art, and of which 
the optical property in question could not fail to have attracted 
attention. Of course such casual observations must be con- 
sidered as very different from that systematic use of spherical or 
lenticular transparent bodies in the examination of minute 
objects, which would entitle the person who first made them 
to the honour of having invented the simple microscope. 

That such microscopes must have been known to the 
ancients, the excessively minute work on some of the engraved 
gems which have been preserved to us, seems to conclusively 
prove, for some of the work is invisible to the unassisted eye. 
Indeed, Mr. Layard found among some glass vessels, in the 
ruins of Nineveh, a lenticular shaped piece of rock crystal, 
which was pronounced by the late Sir D. Brewster to have 
been formed expressly for optical purposes. Again, from 
passages in certain ancient authors, it would appear that glass 
globuleis or globular vessels filled with water were known as 
" burning-glasses,'' and also for their magnif)dng properties. 
There is a passage in Seneca which has attracted much notice 



THE MICROSCOPE. I07 

I this connection. He says^" However small and obscure 
le writing may be, it appears larger and clearer when viewed 
irough a tittle glass globe filled with water," It is said also, 
■at some small highly magnifying lenses have been found 
[Qong the ruins of Herculaneum, The learned Arabian 
hilosopher, Alhazar, who flourished about the middle of the 
leventh century, appears to have been acquainted with the 
lagnifyiDg properties of glass lenses, or spherical segments, 
nt he seems, like many others, to have placed his glasses close 
the writing to be magnified, whereas belter results would 
lave been obtained by holding the glass close to the eye, and 
hen placing the writing at a proper distance from the lens. 
But when in the thirteenth century spectacles came into use, 
Ik art of grinding lenses had of course become an established 




'rade, and the difference between a common spectacle glass 
wd a lens entided to be regarded as a simple microscope is 
Only in the degree of curvature given to the surfaces. The 
Waller the radius of the spherical surface into which the glass 
■s shaped, the greater will be the magnifying power. 

Here it may be not improper to briefly explain the optical 
ptindplea upon which the powers of both microscopes and 
telescopes depend. The fundamental fact upon which the 
iction of lenses depends, is that when a ray of light passes 
from one medium to another, its course is altered according to 
J law which we shall endeavour to explain. 

Let the shaded part of Fig. j represent water, the level 
surface of which is supposed to be at right angles to the plane 
of the paper. Let u ^ be the direction of a ray of light falling 



Io8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

upon the water at c. This ray will not preserve its course in 
the direction oi ac produced, but will at c suddenly change its 
direction, following a straight line cb^ which will be nearer to 
the perpendicular de drawn through c than the direction of the 
ray before entering the water; that is, the angle ^^^ will be 
smaller than the angle acd. But these angles are always 
related to each other in one and the same remarkable way, 
namely this, — if we set off from c equal distances ca zxAch^ 
along each of the directions and from a and b^ the points so 
obtained, draw perpendiculars a d and eb on the line dgj the 
length of ^ ^ will always be three-fourths of that of a d. If 
the ray of light, instead of emanating from some point in the 
air as a, proceeds from a point b in the water, the rays will 
follow the same track, and the same relation of ^^ and df^will 
subsist. In the case of air and water the ratio of these lines 
is always 3 to 4, but it has a different value for each pair of 




Fig. 2. 



substances j thus for rays passing through flint gla^s the ratio 
is 5 to 8, and it varies for the different kinds of glass. 

Let us now consider the case of a double convex glass lens, 
as shown in Fig. 2. Let ^ be a point from which rays of 
light emanate in all directions. Upon the whole faa of 
the lens, rays from b will strike, and each of the rays on 
entering the glass, and again on emerging from it, will be 
refracted according to the law just explained. Now it is 
geometrically proved in elementary treatises on optics, that the 
spherical curvatures of the surface of the glass will by virtue of 
this law cause the several rays to take such a course that they 
will meet together at some particular point a. Conversely, if 
the rays proceed from a they will meet at b. In optical 
language a is called the focus of the rays from b, and vice versd^ 
and the pair of points a and b are sometimes named conjugate 
/oa\ The reader will remark that in Fig. 2 the courses of 
ifnfy three of the innumerable rays are traced, and that the 



THE MICROSCOPE. I09 

Rmaining straight line in the diagram is that called the principal 
am of the lens. If instead of & we take other points at about 
the same distance fiom the lens, no matter how far (within 
considerable limits) from the principal axis, the foa for these 
points will be at about the same distance as a from the lens on 
4e other side. It will now be easy for the reader to under- 
tUad how it is that a convex lens is capable of forming an 
ioferted image of an object on a screen, as shown in Fig. 3, 
*here, it should be carefully noted, the courses of only three 
rajs from the highest, and three from the lowest point of 
the object, are traced. The tracks of the other numberless 
rays which emanate from these points, and also from every point 
oftiie object, must be supplied in imagination. The remaining 
Hue is as before the prinapal axis, and this coincides also with 
lie direction of a single one of the rays emanating from the 
middle point of the object. 




Returning now to Fig. 2, let us remark that with the same 
lois, the distance from the lens of the focus a depends upon 
"le distance of the luminous point i, and of course the like 
^lies to the images, which are simply assemblages of_^«' of 
points. If i were gradually removed from the lens in a 
direction parallel to the axis, a would approach nearer to the 
lens, but only up to a certain hmit. The distance of a from 
the middle of the lens when i is at a very great distance is 
called the/oeal length, and it depends upon the nature of the 
glass or other material of which the lens is constructed, and 
npon the curvature of its surfaces. Rays of light cannot be 
nought to a focus by a lens at any point nearer to it than its 
focal length. But if the point b, instead of being at an extremely 
great disUnce from the lens is gradually brought nearer, 
the conjugate focus a will gradually recede from the lens, and 



no WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

when b has arrived at the focal distance a will be infinitely 
distant, or, in other words, the refractive effect of the lens wiU 
be to cause the rays issuing from it to be parallel to the line 
b a. It will be seen from the foregoing statements that we can 
easily ascertain ^'t focal length of any convex lens by measur- 
ing the distance from it at which a well-defined image of the 
sun (or moon) is formed on a screen of ground glass. A few ex- 
periments made with a candle and a spectacle lens (or o Jier lens 
such as an eye-glass), will soon render the reader familiar with 
the formation of images. He will find, for example, that with 
one and the same distance between the candle and the screen, 
there are, in general, two places for the lens, at each of which 
it will give an inverted image of the candle, but one of these 
images will be smaller than the object, and the other will be 
larger. Such images are called real images because they are 
made up of points to which rays of light actually do converge, 
and it will gready assist the reader's understanding of optical 
instruments if he will realise the following statement to his own 
mind : — If such a screen as that shown in Fig. 3 be removed, 
the image still exists ; that is, the rays from the several points 
of the object converge to corresponding points just as before. 
Now, it may be asked, why is the screen necessary for the 
observation of the image if the latter actually exists in the air? 
The reason why the image in the air is not visible from all sides 
will be obvious if one considers the well-known property of 
luminous rays to traverse a uniform medium in straight lines. 
The rays, therefore, when not dispersed by falling on a screen, 
continue their journey in straighft lines, and their optical effect 
at any part of their subsequent course will be the same as if they 
emanated from a real object occup)dng the exact position of 
the image as seen upon the screen. With a suitable convex 
lens the inverted images, one smaller, the other larger than the 
object, may readily be seen when the observer's- eye is placed 
in the track of the rays without the intervention of any screen. 
Now the purpose of the object-glass (or reflector, as the case 
rnay be) of the telescope and microscope is the formation of 
such an image, which it is the function of the eye-piece to 
magnify, and to cause to be viewed under the conditions 
requisite for distinct vision. 

This brings us to remind the reader that the eye itsellf is 
optically a double convex lens, by means of which images are 
formed to a screen exactly as in Fig. 3. The screen in the 



THE MICROSCOPE. Ill 

case of the eye is the retina^ on which is spread out a delicate 
network of nervous tissue. The conditions requisite for 
distinct vision are that rajrs of light emanating from the several 
points or parts of an obiect be brought to foci upon the retina 
^-or, to speak more exactly, upon a particular part of it — and 
this is effected by a self adjusting mechanism which operates 
to change the curvature of the surfaces of the crystalline lens. 
This adjustment extends to certain limits, and when an object 
is brought nearer to the eye than a certain distance (which 
varies from one person to another) the vision becomes indis- 
tinct, that is, the eye is unable to bring to a focus on the 
retina rays which have more than a certain degree of divergence. 
The condition which limits the power of the eye to distinguish 
any part of an object from the adjoining part, is that the foci 
on the retina of the rays from the several parts shall be 
separated by an interval not less than the dimensions of the 
physiological elements of the retina itself It is these dimen- 
sions which determine the magnitude of the smallest point 
visible to the eye, and the function of the lenses in the micro- 
scope and the telescope is simply to distribute over the area 
of a number of the retinal elements, those foci which otherwise 
would fail to be discriminated by reason of their incidence on 
but one such element. 

Presuming that the reader has realised to his own mind 
these conditions of distinct vision, he will have no difficulty 
in understanding the action of the single convex lens in the 
simple microscope. Referring again to Fig. 2, we have 
already stated the changes in the position of the focus a^ as the 
point of emanation of the rays b is brought nearer and nearer 
to the lens from a great distance, up to the focal distance. It 
will be remembered that a^ setting out from the focal length, 
recedes, continuing until it is at an infinite distance, or in other 
words, the emergent rays become parallel. Now the question 
arises, what happens if ^ be brought yet nearer to the lens 
than its focal length ? It can easily be shown that the emergent 
rays then become divergent, and of course never meet in a 
point towards a. No real image of an object can therefore be 
formed undo: these circumstances ; but, on the other hand, as 
the rays will diverge as if they emanated from a point on the 
axis ^ ^ at a greater distance from the lens than b, the result 
would be that an apparent, or what is optically termed a 
virtual image of the object, would be obtained. How this 



XI2 



WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



happens will be easily understood from Fig. 4, where the 
courses of three of the rays from b are traced, and the effect of 
the refraction they undergo is seen to be such that their 
divergence on leaving the glass is the ^ine as if they actually 
emanated from the point b on the axis ^^ at a greater 
distance from the lens. As the same thing happens for every 
point of the object b d^^ca eye placed on the side of the lens 
would receive the rays precisely as if they had come from a 
real, larger, and more distant object occupying the position 
of B D. For this reason the lens is said to form a virtual 
image. 

Microscopes are then of two kinds, namely, ist, the simple 
microscope^ in which a single lens is used, or a combination of 




Fig. 4. 



lenses having the same effect, namely, the formation of a 
virtual image ; 2nd, the compound microscope^ which must 
consist of at least two lenses, one of which, called the object- 
glass^ has for its function the formation of a real image, and the 
other lens called the eye-piece, or eye-glass, magnifies the real image 
in the same way as the simple microscope magnifies the object 
But the object-glass and the eye-piece of the compound micro- 
scope may, and in fact usually do, consist each of several 
distinct lenses, so disposed as to obviate certain defects in the 
result which are inseparable from the simple lens. It would 
be out of the province of this work to discuss in detail the 
various optical principles involved in the construction of the 
lenses of the admirable microscopes that are now constructed. 
The most important of these principles is that involved in the 
achromatic lens; for an account of which any elementary 



THE MICROSCOPE. II3 

treatise on optics may be referred to. It must suffice here to 
remark that the simple lens produces, to a certain extent, the 
eflfect of a prism in decomposing rays of light, and therefore 
the images formed by such lenses are liable to exhibit coloured 
borders, by which clearness and definition are lost. The 
remedy is found in the employment of different kinds of glass 
to form two or three lenses, ground to such surfaces that a single 
lens is built up by their juxtaposition, which shall produce 
the required refractions without dispersing the rays into their 
chromatic elements. 

It will be convenient first to sketch the history of the simple 
microscope^ as regards the successive improvements or modifica- 
tions introduced into its construction. Its use, as we have 
already seen, was known at a very remote period. In propor- 
tion as the magnifying power of the simple microscope is great, 
the lens has the greater curvature, and the radii of its 
spherical surfaces are shorter, and the nearer must the object 
be placed to the lens. The construction of very small lenses 
involves much difficulty, and their effective use is not to be 
acquired without much practice. About the middle of the 
seventeenth century there came into use small globules of 
glass made by fusing filaments of that substance in a flame. 
The spherical form assumed by the glass under these condi- 
tions obviated the necessity of grinding, and the globule was 
easily mounted by fixing it in a perforation in any thin 
plate of metal. Of course, a very high magnifying power is 
thus obtained, but the inconvenience attending the use of such 
instruments is the closeness of the eye, the lens, and the 
objects, and the very small portion of the object visible at 
once. The invention of the glass globules as simple micro- 
scopes has been claimed for various persons, amongst others 
for A. M. Hartsoeker, and the celebrated Dr. Robert Hooke, 
who, in the preface to a work entitled Micrographia Illustrata, 
pubHshed by him in 1656, clearly described the manner of 
making them. Having taken a clear piece of glass, he drew it 
out, by the heat of a lamp, into fine threads, and then holding 
the end of these threads in the flame, he melted them till they 
ran into a small round globule, which hung to the end of the 
thread. The globule was then stuck on the end of a piece of 
wood, with the thread, cut as short as possible, standing 
uppermost ; and the ends were ground off, first on a whetstone, 
and then polished on a metal plate with Tripoli. The globule 



114 WONDERF'JL INVENTIONS. 

was then placed against a small hole in a thin piece of metal, 
and fixed with wax. "Thus fitted up," says Dr. Hooke, "it 
will both magnify and make some objects more distinct than 
any of the great microscopes do.'* 

The " great microscopes " mentioned above, were the origi- 
nal kind of compound microscopes, to be presently described. 
These, as well as simple microscopes, were commonly made in 
Holland, at the end of the sixteenth century ; and a Dutch 
naturalist named Leeuwenhoek (porn^ 1632 — diedy 1723) will 
ever be famous in the history of science as the first great 
systematic microscopic observer. Leeuwenhoek communicated 
the results of his observations from time to time to the Royal 
Society, in whose journals his name appears for the first time 
in 1673. All Leeuwenhoek's work was done with simple 
microscopes, consisting merely of small double-curved lenses 
mounted in plates of metal. " That with such imperfect in- 
struments at his command,'* says Dr. W. B. Carpenter, "this 
accurate and painstaking observer should have seen so much 
and so 7uell, as to make it dangerous for any one, even now, 
to announce a discovery without having first consulted his 
works in order to see whether some anticipation of it may 
hot be found there, must ever remain a marvel to the 
microscopist.** 

Leeuwenhoek bequeathed to the Royal Society twenty-seven 
of the microscopic objects prepared by himself, each being 
mounted with its own double convex lens, which was let into 
a socket between two metallic plates riveted together, and 
pierced with a small hole ; the object was placed on a silver 
point or needle which, by suitable means, could be turned 
round, and brought nearer to or farther from the lens as 
occasion required. The glasses were all very clear, and of 
different magnifying powers, adapted to the nature of the 
object to be examined. Each glass being mounted for the 
examination of only one or two objects, Leeuwenhoek always 
kept some hundreds of lenses by him. 

In the Philosophical Trarisactiofis for 1696, Stephen Gray 
describes how, having observed that some pai tides in a globule 
of glass appeared distinct and enormously magnified when the 
glass was held close to his eye, he concluded that if he 
placed a globule of water, containing any small bodies, in a 
similar position, he should see these particles similarly magni- 
fied. His method was to take up, little by little, on a piece of 



THE MICROSCOPE. II5 

thin brass wire, some water containing animalcules, until there 
was more than a hemisphere of water; on holding the drop 
near the eye, the animalcules were found to be enormously 
magnified. Dr. Hook has also described a method of using 
the " water-microscoi)e." " If you are desirous," he says, **of 
obtaining a microscope with one single refraction, and, con- 
sequently, capable of procuring the greatest clearness and 
brightness any one kind of microscope is susceptible of, spread 
a little of the fluid you intend to examine on a glass plate ; 
bring this under one of your globules, then move it gently 
upwards till the fluid touches the globules, to which it will soon 
adhere, and that so firmly as to bear being moved a little 
backwards or forwards. By looking through the globule, 
you will have then a perfect view of the animalcules in 
the drop." 

One of the greatest improvements in the simple microscope 
was that devised by Lieberkuhn, about 1740 ; and consisted in 
mounting the lens in the centre of a small highly-polished 
concave silver speculum, of suitable curvature. The speculum 
concentrated a powerful light upon the part of the object 
under observation, and this obviated the great difficulty whicK 
had been previously found in illuminating opaque objects ; for, 
by the proximity of the observer's head, the side of the object 
next the eye had necessarily been deprived of most of the 
incident light. Fig. 5 represents, in section, 
one of Lieberkuhn's microscopes. It consists 
of a piece of brass tube, about one inch in 
length and one inch in diameter, and pro- 
vided with a cap, fitted with a screw at each 
end. At tf is a small aperture, behind which 
is fitted the double-convex lens ^, of half an 
inch focal length, and placed in front of the 
silver cap or speculum /, which also is pierced ^^^- m^roscj^e""''*^ 
by an opening. In front of this is a small 
metallic disc c^ three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and 
connected by a wire with the small knob d. When the knob 
is moved, the object attached to the side of the disc next the 
speculum is carried with it and adjusted to the position 
required. The tube is closed in front by the larger lens by 
which serves to concentrate light upon the speculum. 

Dr. Wollaston (born^ 1787 — died, 1826) contrived a combi- 
nation of two lenses, by which the simple microscope gained 

I 2 




Il6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS, 

much in definition and lightness, Wollaston's doublet consists 
of two plano-convex lenses, with focal lengtlis as one to three, 
and placed at a certain distance, best found by trial, with theit 
plane surfaces towards the object, and with an interposed 
diaphragm. This arrangement transraits a pencil of rays of a 
greater angle than would any single lens, without any marked 
distortion. WoUaston invented alsoalens 
consisting of a pair of hemispherical lensej 
with their plane faces turned towards 
each other, and a stop or diaphragm 
between. The lenses known as the Cod- 
dington and the Stanhope are very similar 
to this last. We must also mention a 
modification of Wollaston's doublet which 
was proposed by Mr. Holland, and coih 
sisted in substituting two lenses for tiie 
single lens next the eye. This arrai^e- 
ment is called the Holland triplet. 

One of the earlier forms of the com- 
pound microscope may be illustrated bf 
Fig. 6, which shows how the rays from a 
small object may form a magnified image 
of it. The first combinations, constituting 
compound microscopes, such as were made 
in Holland at the end of the sixteenth 
century, were simpler still. Huygens is of 
opinion that this instrument was invented 
not long after the telescope, and ten yean 
earlier than the compound microscope; 
he tells us that in 1621 microscopes of 
this kind were seen in possession of Cor- 
liW/ nelius Debrell of Alkinaar, who resided 

in London, as mathematician to James 
VI. ; and, adds Huygens, " those who were 
present have often told me this, and also 
that he was the first inventor of them." 
This statement is, however, contrary to 
that of Peter Borell, Dutch ambassador 
in 1691, who says that Debrell showed him a microscope which 
had been made by Jansen, the spectacle-maker at Middleburg, 
in 1 590, and presented to the archduke of Austria ; it was said 
to be six feet long. In the prefecc to the works of Galileo, 



THE MICROSCOPE. II 7 

published at Milan in 1808, it is stated that Galileo invented 
the microscope and telescope about the same time, and that he 
applied the former to examine objects otherwise invisible. Sir 
David Brewster, however, thinks it more probable that Galileo 
might have made a microscope in imitation of Jan sen's, as he 
did the telescope. It is obvious that no single individual can 
be considered as the inventor of the microscope. In the preface 
to his Micrographia, published in 1667, Hooke describes his 
compound microscope. It was three inches in diameter, and pro- 
vided with a number of tubes, by which it could be lengthened 
as occasion required. It had three glasses, but when it was 
necessary to examine the minute parts of an object, the middle 
glass was dispensed with. A microscope is described by Eusta- 
chio Divini, in the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1668, 
consisting of object-glass, a middle glass, and two eye-glasses. 
The eye-glasses were very large, three or four inches in 
diameter. In 1698 we find descriptions of two other forms 
of compound microscope ; and from time to time, during the 
eighteenth century, various modifications of the compound 
microscope were devised, and some improvements effected 
in the mode of illuminating the objects. But the instrument 
remained so comparatively inefficient, that Wollaston declared 
it as his opinion that the compound microscope would never 
rival the single. Nor, indeed, did it until the principle of the 
achromatic lens had been applied to the object-glass of the 
microscope. This was accomplished in a successful manner 
only after the first quarter of the nineteenth century had 
(Missed; and the names that we find associated most pro- 
minently with these improvements, which, in another quarter 
of a century, have brought the compound microscope to be 
one of the most perfect instruments in the hands of the scien- 
tific inquirer, are those of Amici, in Modena ; Selligues and 
Chevalier, in Paris ; Frauenhofer, in Munich ; Dr. Goring and 
Mr. Tulley, in London. Others, who largely aided and en- 
couraged the improvements in the microscope, were Sir David 
Brewster, Sir John Herschel, Mr. Lister, Mr. Solly, and Mr. 
Bowerbank. At the present time we have in England several 
makers of microscopes, whose work is unsurpassed even 
by the most distinguished of their continental rivals. 

Sir David Brewster likewise first pointed out the value 
of precious stones in the construction of microscopes. He 
formed lenses of ruby and garnet greatly superior to those of 



ii8 



WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



glass. Diamond lenses wera next executed by Dr. Goring 
and Mr. Pritchaxd. Sapphire, zircon, topaz, and rock-crystd 
hive also been used; but the diamond, when pure and 
homogeneous, and the garnet and spindle ruby, which have 
no double refraction, are the most suitable. It has been 
objected that diamonds are too expensive; and, says Sir 
David Brewster, ** they certainly are, for instruments intended 
merely to instruct and amuse ; but if we desire to make 
great discoveries, to unfold secrets yet hidden in the cells 
of plants and animals, we must not grudge even a diamond 
to reveal them." 

It may now be not inappropriate that the reader should 
have placed before him some of the forms in which the inst.u- 
ment is now constructed by our best makers. But first we 

show in the diagram (Fig. 7) the 
object-glass of the modem compound 
microscope. It consists of three 
small plano-convex lenses, each of 
which is an achromatic combination 
of two lenses ofNdifferent kinds of 
glass, cemented together. Fig. 8 will 
show the mechanical arrangements 
and aspect of a large and tolerably 
complete instrument. The large milled 
head, on the left, is for the rough 
adjustment ; the small milled heads, 
near the tube, are for fine adjustment, 
and the two remaining ones are to 
give motion in two dkections to the 
for placing any required part of an 
An instrument of simpler construction. 





Fig. 7. 



" traversing stage," 
object in the field. 

well adapted for the use of students, or for the every-day worlc 
of a physiological laboratory, is represented in Fig. 9. A 
description of the various ingenious and elegant optical and 
mechanical adjuncts of the microscope would be far beyoncJ 
the scope of this present article. Among the forms of th^ 
instrument ^yhich have aided in popularising the use of the 
microscope is the binocular^ in which the rays that have passecJ 
through the object-glass are so divided by a prism, that half 
are sent to one eye-piece and half to another, in such a manner 
that the object may be viewed with both eyes at once, as in 
the ordinary opera glass. The resulting image presents the 



THE MICROSCOPE. II9 

object in full relief, and the use of the instrument is commonly 
more agreeable to the eye than that of the monocular 
microscope. But the binocular form of instrument commonly 




lus a mechanical amngement for withdrawing the prism when 
<ibject.glasse3 of high power are used, so that one of the eye- 
pieces then receives the whole of the rays. 



I20 WONDERFDL INVEKTIONS. 

It would hardly be possible to over-estimate die sorices 
microscope has rendered to all branches of sdence. E 
those eai]f researches of M. IVembley, of Geneva, d 
enabled him, in 1739, to give an accurate description of 
"Fresh-water Polype," or Hydra, had the effect of chani 




profoundly the conception of zoologists on the nature of 
mal life. Hydrm are found in ponds and streams, dii 
to the leaves of water-plants ; and when stretched out 
appear like delicate hairs, of a quarter or half an in* 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



121 



h, A common form is shown in Fig. lo. For the first 
an animal was found capable of propagating by bud- 
, like a plant; and of reproducing a perfect individual, 
I even a small fragment of its body. Space would not 
oit even to name the structures and processes of organic 
which the microscope has been the means of revealing. 
• this instrument that has created the science of Histology^ 
iJi describes the animal and vegetable tissues in reference 
iieir origin and development. Hence, physiologists have 




I "'^^ife's.-rr.ni.RPKSSSa;^ 



% 



*"3od;:uSSu'-' 



^O-— HVDRA, WITH ITS TENTACLES DISPLAYED AND MAGNIFIED, ADHERING TO 
A STALK OF AnACHARIS ALSINASTRUM. 



Q led to the remarkable conclusion, that each integral 
3on of the animal or plant performs a series of actions 
aliar to itself ; and, as Dr. Carpenter expresses it, " the 
of a body, as a whole (like a symphony performed by a 
orchestra), consists in the harmonious combination of its 
rate instrumental acts, — the circulation of the blood, in- 
i of making the tissues, simply affording the supply of 
iment at the expense of which they evolve tremulce from 
IS previously existing. A single primordial cell, therefore, 
e first step in created life, and from the congeries of cells, 



122 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

to all appearance similar and equal, are developed those various 
parts of the noble casket which constitutes man, and incloses 
his immortal soul." * 

" The comparative anatomist," observes the writer of a popth 
lar treatise on the microscope, " makes use of this instrument 
to determine from the structure of the teeth, the form, habit, 
and class of animals which lived, and have become extinct on 
our earth for many thousand years. Thus, Professor Owen, 
from the examination of the structure of the tooth of the m^- 
therium, by demonstrating the identity of the dental structure 
with that of the sloth, has yielded us an unerring indication of 
the true nature of its food. By the aid of high-power magnify- 
ing glasses, we are informed that our island was once possessed 
of a climate nearly approaching to a tropical one ; for if we 
examine a piece of drift-wood, found in the eocene clay (so 
called from its being the dawn of a new creation) of the estuary 
of the Thames, we shall find that these fragments belong to a 
class of plants nearly allied to the pepper tribe, and that they 
flourished in company with the turtles, vultures, crocodiles, and 
boa-constrictors of the Sheppey district' ' 

There is a method of exhibiting to a number of persons 
simultaneously, greatly magnified images of small transparent 
bodies. It is the method of projecting images on a screen, 
with which everybody is familiar in the magic lantern, which is 
now so commonly used for displaying magnified images of 
photographic transparencies. When natural objects, illumi- 
nated not by a lamp but by sunlight, have their images 
similarly projected on a screen, the apparatus receives the name 
of the solar microscope. The only limit to the magnification 
of these images would be the imperfection of the optical 
apparatus ; and the exhibition is, of course, more entertaining 
than solitary observation, and readily lends itself to popular 
scientific exposition. But as a supply of direct sunshine could 
not be commanded, an apparatus, which is identical with the 
solar microscope in all but its means of illumination, was 
quickly devised when a source of intense artificial light was 
available. 

In 1832 was produced the oxyhydrogen microscope, which 
has since become so attractive in popular exhibitions. This 
novel application of Lieutenant Drummond's light was as 

* North British Review, No. 50. 



THE MICROSCOPE. 1 23 

3 : — A Stream of oxygen gas, and another of hydrogen 
¥ere brought into union and projected in an ignited 
upon a mass of lime, producing a light of intense 
acy, which, passing through a lens, threw the image of 
s magnified 10,000 to 100,000 times, in the manner of 
r microscope, upon a disc of 14 feet diameter. The 
late objects consisted of fragments of insects, grass, 
id, wood, &c. ; the minute external properties of which 
shown upon an exaggerated scale. A few hairs of an 
appeared like tubes, two inches in diameter. A small 
a of humana skin exhibited 'the courses of the arteries 
ins. The sting of a bee was a monstrous barbed weapon, 

long. The lancet of the horse-fly was a sabre, about 
in length. But the most curious part of the exhibition 
ted of the animalculae in a drop of water, some of which 
seen preying on each other ; some skeleton larvae ex- 
i even the vesicle of air which enables them to rise and 
id in the water ; and some of the worms found in stag- 
^ater appeared like large serpents. 

Toscopic research has been greatly advanced by the 
ishment of associations like the Microscopical Society of 
)n, which was instituted, in 1839, expressly for encourj(g- 
iprovements in the optical and mechanical construction 
: instrument, for the intercommunication and discussion, 
I its members, of observations and discoveries, and for 
thibition of new appliances and objects. This society 
hes a journal at regular periods. Similar associations 
been established elsewhere ; and in the United Kingdom 
large town has some association of amateur naturalists 
ed to microscopic research. Many of these have con- 
ed valuable additions to our knowledge ; and there can 

doubt that the zeal of amateurs, if wisely directed, might 
Dfitably expended in penetrating many of those mysteries 
lich the microscope gives the key. The interest mani- 
l in the results of the microscopic investigation of nature, 
licated by the fact that the yournal of the Microscopical 
y is by no means the only English periodical now 
:ed to matters pertaining to the microscope. 



I 




CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 



HE construction of the Barometer and Thermometer, 
the Sun-dial, the Compass, and the Clock, belongs to 
Directive and Registrative Science, the leading facfc 
of which have been thus felicitously illustrated by Pro 
fessor George Wilson. " There is,'* says this eloquent expositw 
" no more familiar natural phenomenon than that the sun leave 
in shadow that side of a body which is tiuned from him, an 
that this shadow changes its place in obedience to the apparet 
motion of the sun. And with no more than this fact of natui 
made over to him, even the barbaric mechanician construe 
his useful sun-dial, and the day measures itself into hours. * Tt 
wind,* said King Solomon, the greatest naturalist of his tim 
* goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north 
it whirleth about continually : and the wind retumeth accor 
ing to his circuits.* And the sailors of the ships of Tarshij 
had, like our sailors, their wind-vane and streamers, the 
anemoscopes and anemometers, though they did not so nan 
them, to tell from what quarter, and with what force the wir 
blew. The clock moved by the falling weight, the hour-glas 
with its noiseless shower of sand, the wheel turned by tl 
stream of water, the mill wrought by the ebb and flow of tl 
tide, the sea salt crystaUized by the heat of the sun, the borac 
acid of the volcanic lagoon evaporated by the heat of tl 
volcano, the direction and force of the wind noted down c 
paper by the anemometer, i.e. by a pen put between the finge 
of the wind itself, the photographic pictures which we comp 
the sun to draw with a chemical pencil of his own providin 
as often as we choose to spread a tablet before him : these a: 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 25 

but a few familiar examples of the office of Directive Science. 
Between it and Registrative Science it is impossible to draw a 
sharp line of demarcation. A balance or steelyard, for ex- 
ample, falls as much >vithin the one category as the other ; so 
do all kinds of chronometers. But where we avail ourselves 
of a natural agency, like the winds, as a mechanical motive 
power, or like solar heat, to induce chemical change, we may 
conveniently refer it to Directive Science ; whilst, where we 
employ such agency simply to signal to us a change in events, 
as when the sun-dial marks the passage of time, the compass- 
needle altered direction in space, or che thermometer altered 
temperature of the atmosphere, we may with equal propriety 
refer it to Registrative Science." 

The earliest measurement of time, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose, must have been by those means which nature herself 
suggested. The rising and setting of the sun, and the changes 
of the moon, must in all ages and countries have first marked 
the periods fixed by men to unite for labour or recreation. 
The shepherd of the early ages reckoned by full moons, as 
does the hunter of the prairie at the present day. The short- 
ening and lengthening of the shadows of rocks, trees, and 
mountains, gave the first notion of dividing the interval 
between sunrise and sunset, and afforded the first idea of the 
sun-dial. The sun-dial of King Ahaz, who lived about 742 
years before Christ, is the first on record. Herodotus ascribes 
the invention to the Babylonians, although he states that the 
first used in Greece was made by Anaximander, B.C. 546 ; the 
first constructed on mathematical principles was planned near 
tiie temple of Quirinus at Rome, B.C. 293 ; until which period 
the heavenly bodies appear to have been the only measure of 
time known to the Romans. 

The most perfect Sun-dial was, however, unavailable when 
the atmosphere was charged with clouds ; hence the dropping 
of water, or the running of sand through a tube, being nearly 
a regular motion, was at a remote period applied to the 
measurement of time. Hour-glasses were invented at Alex- 
andria, B.C. 149 ; and Vitruvius relates that about the year b.c. 
'45, Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a clepsydra^ or Water- 
Clock. This consisted of a small boat floating in a vessel 
^hich had a hole in it ; as the water escaped the boat gradually 
descended, while an oar placed in it pointed to the hours marked 
on the side of the vessel ; Ctesibius is even said to have ap- 



i 



126 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

plied toothed wheels to water-clocks. Clepsydrae were con- 
structed in which the water dropped through a hole made in 
a pearl, as it was considered that neither could adhesion take 
place to fill up the hole, nor could the constant running of the 
water enlarge it The clepsydra was used in Athens, as indi- 
cated by Demosthenes in his pleadings. In the third consul- 
ship of Pompey, it was first adopted at Rome. Pliny relates 
that Scipio Nasica discovered a method of dividing the hours 
of the night by means of water ; and this is nearly all we know 
of the instruments for measuring time used by the ancients. 

In modem times, Dom Charles Vailly, a Benedictine monk, 
is said to have improved the water-clock into a scientific instru- 
ment, about 1690; this instrument was a tin cylinder, divided 
into several small cells, and suspended by a thread fixed to its 
axis, in a frame, on which the hour distances, found by trial, 
were marked. As the water flowed from one cell into another, 
it very slowly put the cylinder in motion, so as to indicate the 
time on the frame. Later, an alarum, consisting of a bell and 
small wheels, was fixed to the top of the frame in which the 
cylinder was suspended, and a dial-plate with a handle was 
placed over the frame. 

The French historians describe a clepsydra sent to Charle- 
magne by the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, in the year a.d. 800: 
it was of gilded bronze, round which the course of the hours 
was displayed ; at the end of each hour, the number of brazen 
balls requisite to mark the hour was thrown out from above, 
and falling consecutively on a cymbal below, struck the hour 
required ; and a corresponding number of horsemen issued 
from windows placed around the dial. These details are 
questionable : it is, however, more certain that the above is 
the first timekeeper recorded to have struck the hours. 

Wheelwork was known and skilfully applied by Archimedes; 
but no description of any piece of mechanism resembling our 
clocks is found among the ancient Greeks. It would be almost 
impossible to point out when, where, and by whom the clock 
with wheels, having a balance, was first invented. It was, 
however, originally called an horologe — the word clock (probably 
from the French cloche) being applied even as late as the 
fourteenth century to the bell which was rung to announce 
certain hours indicated by the sun-dial or clepsydra. 

The Romans learned to make sounding clepsydrae; and later 
still, Lucian describes, among the conveniences of certain 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 27 

newly-built baths, an horologium that proclaimed the hour by 
means of a roaring sound ; this sound was, no doubt, produced 
by hydraulic pressure upon the air contained in a cupola with 
pipes attached to it. 

Candle Clocks, by which Alfred the Great measured and 
rightly divided his time, consisted of six wax-candles, each 
twelve inches in length, with the divisions of inches distinctly 
marked upon it. These being lighted one after another regu- 
larly, burnt four hours each, at the rate of an inch for every twenty 
minutes. The six candles thus lasted 24 hours. The tending 
of these candle-clocks Alfred confided to one of his domestic 
chaplains, who constantly, from time to time, gave him notice 
of their working. When the winds blew, and caused the 
candles to bum fester, how the ingenious king surrounded the 
candles with horn in wooden frames, to make them burn 
steadily in all weathers, and thus made lanthorns, we need 
scarcely relate. 

The first author who has introduced the term " clock " as ap- 
plicable to a clock that struck the hours appears to be Dante, 
who was bom in 1265, and died in 1321.* It, however, would 
appear that Striking Clocks moved by weights and wheels 
b^an to be made in the monasteries of Europe about the 
eleventh century. 

The first clock of which we have authentic record was in- 
vented by Richard Wallingford, Abbot of St. Alban's, who in 
1326 (reign of Edward I.) had it placed in his monastery. It 
showed the hours, the apparent motion of the sun, the changes 
of the moon, the ebb and flow of the tides, &c. ; it continued 
to go until the time of Henry VIII., when Leland said, "all 
Europe could not produce such another." Wallingford was the 
son of a blacksmith, and at ten years of age the Prior of Wal- 
^ord took him under his care, and prepared him for Oxford. 
The account which Wallingford gives of his clock is preserved 
^ the Bodleian Library. 

The old clock in Wells cathedral (which was removed from 
Glastonbury at the Reformation) was commenced about the year 

The et3rmology of the word Clock is variously stated : thus, we have the 
following: — Saxon, clugga^ clucga ; German, klocke ; Armoric, cloch^ or 
^"ffA; Irish, clog ; Welsh, cloc ; Belgic and Danish, kloke ; Teutonic, ^/c^^^; 
jrench, cloche; Latin, glocio ; Chinese, glog. It originally meant only a 
pU for striking a sound, and that signification it still retains in the French 
*oguage. — Curiosities of Clocks and Watches^ by E. J. Wood, 1866. 



128 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

1325, by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of Glastonbury; the dial 
showed the motions of the sun, moon, &c ; on the top 
of the clock, eight armed knights pursued each other with a 
rotatory motion. The bell of the Wells clock is to this day 
called the horologe ; and clockSy even at so late a period as the 
reign of James I., were often called horologes. The old interior 
works of this clock were of iron and brass, not differing mate- 
rially in principle from the mechanism of later clocks, except 
that the appliances for the variety of the movements of the 
dial-plate were necessarily complicated. They exhibit a 
rare and interesting specimen of the art of clock-making at 
so early a period, in which the monks particularly exceUed 
After going five centuries, the works were found to be so com- 
pletely worn out that about the year 1835 they were replaced 
by a new train, made by Thwaites and Reid, of ClerkenwelL 

The middle of the fourteenth century seems to be the time 
which affords the most certain evidence of the existence of 
what would now be called a clocks or regulated horological 
machine. There is a clock at Dover castle bearing the date 
1348. To this may be added the following records :^i) It is 
said that the first clock at Bologna was fixed up in 1356. (2) 
Henry de Wyck, or Henri de Vic, a German artist, placed a 
clock in the tower of the palace of Charles X., about the year 
1364, which has been generally described as the earliest clock of 
which the actual construction is known ; and Mr. E. B. Denison, 
in his Treatise on Clocks^ mentions a clock in Peterborough 
cathedral, still in use as to the striking parts, of which the 
combination is more like that of the Dover castle clock than 
that of De Vic, which was a large striking clock, going 
one day, and with one hand, (the hour-hand), and much the 
same except in the escapement, as many old church clocks still 
in existence. (3^ Mention is made in Rymer*s Foedera of pro- 
tection being given by Edward IH. to three Dutch horologiers, 
who were invited from Delft into England, in the year 1368. 
(4) Conradus Dasypodius erected the great Strasburg clock 
about 1370. (5) According to Froissart, Courtray had a Clock 
about the same period, which was taken away by the Duke of 
Burgundy in 1382. (6) Lehmann informs us that there was a 
clock at Spire in 1395. (7, 8, 9) Nuremburg had a clock in the 
year 1462 ; Auxerre had one in 1483 ; and Venice in 1497- 
(10) The curious clock still to be seen in the north tower of 
Exeter cathedral is said to have been invented by Bishop 



CXOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 29 

:enay in 1480 ; in this the earth is represented by a globe 

.' centre, the sun by a fleur-de-hs, while a ball is painted 

and white, so as to represent the moon's phases by turning 

axis. (11) Clocks, according to a letter of the period, 

not very numerous in private families on the Continent 

the end of the fifteenth century ; but there is good reason 

pposing that they became general in England about the 

period; for we find in Chaucer, who was bom in 1328, 

ied about 1400, the following lines : — 

** Full sick erer was his crowing in his loge, 
As is a clocks or any abbey orloge." 

'dinand Berthoud, who has written more on the subject of 
work than any other person, concludes his researches with 
elief — for which there appear to be good grounds — that 
k, such as that of Henry de Wyck, is not the invention of 
lan, but a compound of separate inventions, each worthy 
eparate contriver. Thus (i) Wheelwork was known and 
jd in the time of Archimedes. (2) A weight being applied 
naintaining power, would, in all probability, at first have 
similar to that of a kitchen-jack, to regulate the velocity, 
"he ratchet-wheel and click for winding up the weight with- 
etaching the teeth of the great or main wheel from those 
t pinion in which they were engaged, would soon be found 
lispensable contrivance. (4) The regulation by a fly being 
ct to such great changes from the variations of density in 
tmosphere, and the tendency of a falling body to accelerate 
otion, would necessarily give rise to the automaton motion 
e balance, with which invention an escapement of some 
must have been coupled. (5) The last-mentioned two in- 
3ns are most important ones, and would have induced such 
;ree of equability in the motion of the wheelwork as would 
the way to a dial-plate, and its necessary adjuncts, a hand 
►inter ; lastly, the striking part to proclaim at a distance, 
mt the aid of the person to watch the hour that was indi- 
l, completed the list of inventions. And the supposition, 
De Wyck's clock was a combination of the successive in- 
ons of different individuals is confirmed by analogy ; for 
locks and watches of the present day have been brought 
sir degree of perfection by a series of successive inventions 
improvements upon what may now be called the rude 

K 



I30 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

clock of De Wyck, which is the most ancient clock of which 
we have a description. 

One of the first additions to the mechanism already described 
was the alarum, or alarm, originally invented for arousing the 
priest to his morning devotions. Prior to 1344, when stnall 
clocks are first mentioned, the main-spring must have been sub- 
stituted for the weight, as the moving power ; and this may be 
considered a second era in horology, from which may be dated 
the application of the fusee ; for these inventions completely 
altered the form and principles of horological machines. Of 
these small or portable clocks, one of the oldest in this country 
in a perfect state is the astronomical clock possessed by the 
Society of Antiquaries ; this clock was made at Prague, in 1525, 
it is enclosed in a gilt brass case, and has a dial on the upper 
surface. 

Tlie clock . placed in one of the towers of the palace at 
Hampton Court, in 1541, is described as the oldest English- 
made clock extant. When in action, it showed the motions 
of several of the planets. The dial and part of the wheels 
attached to the back of the dial still remain ; and the small 
reniiiiint of this venerable piece of mechanism may perhaps 
rise in our estimation when we remember that it was con- 
temporary with Copernicus. 

Ilenry VIII. appears to have patronised foreign artisans 
only. We find cited payments to the astronomer for mending 
a ciock. At Strawberry Hill was a little clock of brass-gilt, 
wliich had been presented by Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, 
upon their marriage in 1532. At the Strawberry Hill sale, this 
famous clock was purchased by Queen Victoria for no/. 5^., 
it is now at Windsor Castle, and in going order ; it is richly 
chased and engraved ; the whole train is comparatively of 
recent date. Among valuable effects belonging to Henry VIII. 
in the palace at Westminster, in 1542, are several clocks, of iron, 
copper-gilt ; and the same year Sir Anthony Denny presented 
to tiie king, as a new year's gift, a very singular clock, designed 
by Holbein. It had on its summit a clock driven by wheel- 
work, below which were fore and after-noon dials showing the 
time by shadows ; and beneath them was a clepsydra, indicating 
the quarters of an hour by means of a fluid. 

At Walton Hall is the clock which Sir Thomas More used 
in his study, and which is shown in the famous picture of the 
More family at Chelsea, designed by Holbein. 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. I3I 

Martinelli, in 1663, describes an old clock going in his 
time on the Grand Piazza at Venice, in which, while two 
Moors struck the hour, three Kings entered from a door, 
and after making obeisance to figures of the Virgin and Child, 
placed in a niche, returned through a door on the opposite side. 
The striking figures in the above clock remind us of the two 
life-size figures of savages in an alcove outside the old church of 
St. Dunstan, in Fleet-street, and who, each with a club, struck 
the quarters upon two suspended bells, moving their heads at 
the same time. This clock and figures were made in 167 1, by 
Thomas Harrys, then Uving in Water Lane. On the church 
being taken down, in 1829, the figures were sold, and are 
now set up in the grounds of St. Dunstan's Villa, Regent's Park. 
There is a like contrivance to the above in Norwich Cathedral ; 
and the Paul's jacks at old St. Paul's were of this class of 
contrivances.* 

The old church at Lubeck has a specimen of early clock- 
work, representing the changes of the heavenly bodies until 
1875 > ^^^ when it strikes twelve, a number of automatic 
figures are set in motion ; the Electors of Germany enter from 
a small side door, and inaugurate the Emperor, who is seated 
upon a throne in front. Another door is then opened, and 
Christ appears, when, after receiving his benediction, the whole 
cavalcade retire amidst a flourish of trumpets by a choir of 
angels. 

The famous Strasburg Clock, already mentioned, is in the 
south transept of the cathedral, and was made by a living 
artist of Strasburg, to replace the older one, which had fallen 
to decay. The full mechanism is set in motion at noon only. 



• About this date, a new regulator for clocks was thus announced in the 
Comnumwealth Mercury^ Thursday, November 25th, 1668. — "There is 
htely a way found out for making clocks that go exact and keep equaller 
time than any now made without this regulator (examined and proved 
before his Highness the Lord Protector by such doctors, whose knowledge 
and learning is without exception), and are not subject to alter by change 
of weather, as others are, and may be made to go a week, or a month, or a 
year, with once winding up, as well as those that are wound up every day, 
and keep time as well ; and is very excellent for all house clocks that go 
other with springs or weights ; and also steeple clocks, that are most 
sobject to differ by change of weather. Made by Ahasuerus Fromanteel, 
who made the first that were in England. You may have them at his 
bouse, on the Bankside, in Mopes-alley, Southwark ; and at the sign of the 
^'iaremaid, in Lothbury, near Bartholmew-lane end, London." 

K 2 



13' WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

The original clock was described in 1580, as having on its 
plate a celestial globe, with the motions of the sun, tooon, 
earth, and planets ; the phases of the moon ; and a perpetual 
almanac on which the day of the month was pointed out If 
a statue ; the first quarter of the hour was struck by a child 
with an apple, the second by a youth with an arrow, the third 
by a man with the tip of his staff, and the last quarter by 
an old man with his crutch. The hour itself was struck on a 
bell by the figure of an angel, who opened the door and saluted 
the Virgin Mary; near to the first angel stood a second, 
who held an hour-glass, which he turned as soon as the hour 
had finished striking. In addition to these was the figure of 
a golden cock, wiiich, 
on the arrival of eveiy 
successive hour, flapped 
Us wings stretched forth 
Its neck and eroded 
twice Two hundred 
years after, this cele 
brated clock was almost 
entirely renewed, when 
great alterations in the 
ongmai mechanism were 
made A clock with 
s milarly complicated 
machinery, though dif 
fermg considerably ui its 
e\ternal performances, 
was erected about the 
year 1385 in the cathe- 
dral of Lyons. LaGrmt 
Horloge at Rouen has 
none of this machinery, 
but is remarkable for its 
large size and antiquity- 
Towards the end of 
the last century, a clock 
was constructed by * 
mechanic of Genevi, 
^ a shepherd, and a dog- 
When the clock struck the shepherd played six airs on his 
flute, and the dog approached and fawned upon him. This 




named Dros with figures of a negro 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. ^33 

dock was exhibited to the King of Spain, who, at the request 
>f Dros, took an apple from the shepherd's basket, when the 
uitomaton started up and barked so loudly, that the King's dog 
irhich was in the same room, began to bark also. 

At Versailles, in the Cour de Marbre of the palace, is " the 
:lock of the King's death ;'* it has no mechanism, and only one 
land, which is placed at the precise moment of the death 
rf the last King of France, and which does not move during 
iie whole of his successor's reign. This memorial dates from 
the time of Louis XIII. 

One of the most celebrated ancient clock-towers was that of 

stone, which, in 1365-6, Edward III. caused to be erected at 

IVestminster, in the courtyard, opposite the great Hall, and 

near the site of the present clock-tower of the Houses of 

Parliament This clochard^ or bell-tower, contained a clock 

Rrhich struck every hour on a great bell, to be heard in the 

Hall, in sitting-time of the Courts ; and, in a calm, in the City 

of London. The tower also contained other large bells, which 

Stow tells us were " usually rung at coronations, triumphs, the 

funerals of princes, and their obits — of these bells men fabled 

that their ringing soured all the drink in the town." In 

the accounts we find nothing respecting the construction or 

even placing of the clock, or the casting of the bells; but 

hell-ropes and a vice or engine occur. In later accounts 

(Henry VI.) we however have the expense of maintaining 

the clock and bells. Thomas, Clockmaker, received 13J. 4^. 

a year as his salary for general superintendence; he also 

received 8j. for the making of the sail {7'elum) when it was 

broken; 6s, Sd. for amending the spring of the barrel; 12^. 

for the wire of the stobil, &c ; two great ropes (52 lb. and 49 lb.) 

at three halfpence the pound ; for two ropes of thread for the 

little weight, 25. ; and for boards, laths, and matts, " bought 

for to stop the wind from the said clock," 22^. It is said 

^t Henry VI. gave the keeping of this clock, with the 

tower and appurtenances, to William Warby, or Walsby, Dean 

of Sl Stephen's, together with sixpence per day remuneration, 

to be received at the Exchequer. This clock-tower was de- 

Diolished in 17 15, and its site was denoted by a dial, which 

^ eiigraved by Hollar; its bell, called "Great Tom of 

Westminster," was granted to St. Paul's. 

Among the earliest of the Wheel Clocks seen in England was 
^t of St Paul's cathedral, London, in the year 1286, when 



134 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the allowances to the clock-keeper were at the rate of a loaf 
daily, and a liquid measure, probably of beer. In 1344 an 
agreement relating to a clock then in the cathedral shows that 
iron and steel were then used for the frame and clock, as they 
were until towards the end of the sixteenth century ; and the 
blacksmiths were in early times the makers of them, as the 
materials required heavy forging. In the Affairs of the Worlds 
1700, it is stated that " Mr. Thompson, the famous watchmaker 
in Fleet-street, is making a clock for St. Paul's cathedral, 
which, it is said, will go one hundred years without winding 
up ; will cost 3000/. or 4000/., and be far finer than the famous 
clock at Strasburg :" this project was not, however, carried out 
The present clock at St Paul's is remarkable for the magnitude 
of its wheels, and the fineness of its works. It was made by 
Langley Bradley, in 1708, at a cost of 300/. It has two did 
plates, one south and the other west, each between 50 and 60 
feet in circumference, and long stated to be the largest in this 
country furnished with a minute-hand. The hour-numerals are 
a little over 2 feet in height ; the minute-strokes of the dial 
are about 8 inches in length ; the minute-hands are about 8 or 
9 feet long, and weigh 75 pounds each; and the hour-hands 
are between 5 and 6 feet long, and weigh 44 pounds each. 
The pendulum is 16 feet long, and its bob weighs 180 pounds; 
but it is suspended by a spring no thicker than a shilling. Its 
beat is 2 seconds, that is, a dead-beat of 30 to a minute instead 
of 60. The clock goes eight days, and strikes the hour on the 
great bell, which is suspended about 40 feet from the floor. 
The hammer lies on the outside brim of the bell, has a large 
' head and weighs 145 pounds, is drawn by a wire to the back 
part of the clockwork, and falls again by its own weight on 
the bell. The clapper weighs 180 pounds. The diameter of 
the bell is 10 feet ; its weight is about 102 cwt, and it is 
inscribed "Richard Phelps made me, 17 16." Below this 
bell are two smaller ones, on which the clock strikes the 
quarters. 

Mr. T. Reid, in his Treatise dn Clock and Watch-making, 
observes, that in St. Paul's clock, the fall for the clock-weight 
allows of such a force as, by the stroke of a hammer, it can 
make a bell of 11,474 lb. be heard at a distance of 22 miles. 
"We heard it in June, 1773. The day was still apd calm; 
and attending to try if the clock could be heard when striking 
the twelve o'clock hour at noon (which we did hear), the sound 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 135 

which came through the air was not like that of a bell, but 
had a low, dull, and feeble tone, barely perceivable.*' 

In 1288 or 1289, Westminster was provided with a public 
clock and clock-house built with a fine upon Chief Justice 
Hengham, which clock is stated to have been the work of an 
English artist St. Mary's, at Oxford, was also furnished with 
a clock, in 1523, out of fines imposed on the students of the 
University. 

Clocks remained with balances, it seems, for about 300 years 
after De Wyck's time, or till towards the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, when pendulums were first applied to clocks. 
Before this time it was known that if a weight fastened to a 
string were suspended and put in motion, the several oscillations 
would mark small divisions of time with greater accuracy than 
any other known means. It is usually stated that the great 
Galileo, while a student at Pisa, observed that a lamp suspended 
firom the roof of the cathedral performed its oscillations, 
whether great or small, in equal periods; and he afterwards 
discovered that the number of oscillations performed by a 
pendulum in any given time depended on its length. Galileo 
is then said to have suggested the application to a clock; 
but this cannot be reckoned among his discoveries, "for 
the ancient astronomers of the East employed pendulums in 
measuring the times of their observations, patiently counting 
their vibrations during the phases of an eclipse, or the transit 
of the stars, and renewing them by a little pressure of the 
finger when they languished ; and Gassendi, Ricciali, and others 
in more recent times, followed their example "* 

The invention is thought to have been made independently 
by several persons about the same time. Within the pediment 
of St Paul's church, Covent Garden, built by Inigo Jones, was 
placed a pendulum clock, made by Richard Harris, in 1641, 
and stated by an inscription in the vestry to be the first made. 
If this inscription be correct, it negatives the claim of Huygens 
to having first applied the pendulum to the clock about 1657 : 
although Justice Bergen, mechanician to the Emperor Rodol- 
phus, who reigned from 1576 to 161 2, is said to have attached 
one to a clock used by Tycho Brahe.t Inigo Jones, the 
architect of St Paul's, having been in Italy during the time of 

• Encyclopedia Britannica. 

t In 1560^ Tycho Brahe possessed four clocks, which indicated hours, 
nunutes^ and seconds : the largest had but three wheels, the diameter of 



136 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Galileo, it is probable that he communicated what he heard of 
the pendulum to Harris. Huygens, however, violently con- 
tested for the priority ; while others claimed it for the younger 
Galileo, who, they asserted, had, at his father's suggestion, ap- 
plied the pendulum to a clock in Venice which was finished 
in 1649.* 

Dr. Hooke also claimed the invention. Mr. Denison con- 
siders Huygens to have been the discoverer of the true theory 
of the pendulum. George Graham was the first, in 17x5,10 
apply a compensating power to counteract the effect of heat 
and cold upon the length of the pendulum ; and John Harrison, 
in 1726, used different metals to compensate each other, the 
rods being placed in the form of a gridiron. Striking Clocks 
were made in great variety in the seventeenth century ; several 
by Thomas Tompion, not only struck the quarters on eight bells, 
but also struck the hour after each quarter. Repeating Clocks 
were invented by Barlow, an English clergyman, who in 1676 
employed Tompion to execute them. 

Two large and important public clocks have been con- 
structed in London since the year 1840. The first is the clock 
for the Royal Exchange, which was manufactured by Mr. Dent 
in 1843, and has been pronounced by the Astronomer Royal 
to be " the best public clock in the world ; " the pendulum, 
which weighs nearly 4 cwt., is compensated, and the first stroke 
of the hour is true to a second ; it has Mr. Airy's going-fiisee, 
by which the winding is effected without stopping the motion ; 
it has also an apparatus which enables it to be set to any 
fraction of a second. The clock has a remontoir escapement, 
and the pallets are jewelled with large sapphires. " Mr. Dent, 
finding himself unable to get this clock made for him, with 
the energy and genius by which he raised himself firom a 
tallow-chandler's apprentice to the position of the first horo- 
logist in the world, he at once set up a factory for himself at 
Somerset Wharf, Strand ; and there, with tools, worth about 
2,000/., expressly made for the purpose and under his personal 

one of them being three feet, and containing twelve hundred teeth, a proof 
of the imperfect state of clockwork at that period. Brahe also observed 
irregularities in his clocks, dependent upon changes in the atmosphere. At 
the Stowe Sale in 1848, a magnificent Huygens clock, made by Stoken- 
werk, was sold to Mr. Paxton, for only fifty-one guineas, although it was 
said to have cost the Duke of Buckingham one thousand. — Curiosities of 
Clocks and Watches, p. 68. 
* Adam Thomson's Time and Timekeepers^ pp. 67, 68. 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 37 

3ns, he manufactured this clock, the first turret-clock 
5 had constructed." Here also is a set of chimes, 15 
)y Mears, the largest being also the bell for the clock ; 
Is, in substance, form, dimensions, &c., are from the Bow- 
attem ; they are thought to be too large for the tower. 
his clock, the trains are contained within a strong cast- 
siming ; hollow iron drums are used instead of wooden 
;rs, for the driving barrels ; and wire instead of hempen 
are used for suspending the weights. The hands are 
, and the hammers of the striking part are raised directly 
he axis of the driving barrel, without the intervention of 

and pinions. The pendulum is compensated, and the 
roke of the hour is true to a second. For this purpose 
rer and hammer are removed to their greatest distance 

the time of striking; and the end of the lever remains 
ely poised upon the rounded point of the projecting 
of the "pin-wheel, until the exact time of striking has 
I, when it is released on the instant. The pendulum 

nearly 4 cwt, but its vibrations are correct within the 
n of a second. The clock has a remontoh* escapement, 
le pallets are jewelled with large sapphires. The chimes 
: of a set of fifteen bells, made by Mears, which cost 
the largest being also the hour-bell of the clock. 

Westminster Palace Clock was made by Mr. Dent, 

from the designs of Mr. Denison, about 1855. ^^^ 
ials are 22 feet in diameter, and are the largest in the 
with a minute-hand, which, on account of its great 
, velocity, weight, friction, and the action of the wind 
it, requires at least twenty times more force to drive it 
16 hour-hand. This clock goes for a week. The great 
of the going part is 27 inches in diameter ; the pendu- 

15 feet long, and weighs 680 pounds ; and the escape- 
which is driven by the musical-box spring, weighs about 
I ounce. The barrel is 23 inches in diameter, but only 
:hes long, as it does not require a rope above a quarter 
inch thick. The great wheels in the chiming part of 
3ck are ^S^ inches in diameter. The clock is said to 
east eight times as large as a full-sized cathedral clock. 
)rds its keepers 24 hours' work a week in winding up. 
:s with a rate of under one second a week, in spite of 
pheric changes. The clock reports its own time to 
wich by electrical connexion, and the clockmaker who 



138 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

takes care of it receives Greenwich time by electricity, and 
sets the clock right whenever its error becomes sensible, which 
seldom has to be done more than once a month. On October 
I St, 1859, the great bell sounded for the last time; its pre- 
decessor was similarly ill-fated. 

The cost of this clock has exceeded 22,000/. ; the outside 
gilding of the clock-tower cost 1,500/. In 1866 the President 
of the British Horological Institute stated, on the authority 
of Mr. Ellis, of the Royal Observatory, that there is no clock 
at Greenwich that keeps time so well as Mr. Denison's clock 
in the tower of the Houses of Parliament. It reports its own 
rate automatically twice a day to Greenwich by electric tele- 
graph, a test to which no other public clock has ever been 
subjected. Persons taking the time from it should remember 
that exact Greenwich time is indicated by the first stroke of 
the great hour-bell, and also by the first stroke of any of 
the quarter-chimes, except those at the hour. ' 

By electrical clocks, time may be transmitted as follows : 
The indicator is fixed, and furnished with a clock-face, the axis 
carrying an index or hand ; the communicating disc is moved 
round by the oscillation of a pendulum, which is kept going 
by electricity. In this way one good clock can be made to 
communicate its own time to a series of skeleton clocks at 
any distance. A system of time-distributing clocks has been 
in use for about twelve years at Greenwich Observatory. Here 
are six such clocks, one outside at a distance of 400 yards, 
and one at London Bridge, all which are maintained in perfect 
unison by the action of only one pendulum. Every hour 
throughout the day and night, signals are sent by wires from 
Greenwich to various public and private establishments in 
London and elsewhere. Horological electricity also performs 
the office of dropping time-balls, similar to that at Greenwich, 
where the parent electro-magnet clock is, at various places in 
London, and also at Deal. It moreover fires time-guns at 
Shields and Newcastle ; and exhibits an hourly signal in the 
clock-room at Westminster Palace, to enable the attendant to 
correct any errors which may happen in the great clock.* 

By means of electricity in horology, time is now laid on to 
public and private establishments, and paid for as water or gas 
might be. 

Mr. Vulliamy, who constructed the clock at the Queen's 

* Curiosities of Clocks and Watches^ p. 178. 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 39 

Mews, Pimlico, has here employed stone dials (6 feet lo 
inches in diameter), with the figures sunk (as in the Egyptian 
monuments), and a sunk centre for the hour-hand to traverse, 
so as to bring the minute-hand level with the figures, and thus 
avoid nearly all error from parallax. 

• The Horse Guards' Clock has about the same popular repu- 
tation for correct time at the West-end of the town, that St 
PauFs Clock holds in the City. The Horse Guards' Clock was 
originally made by Thwaites, in 1756; it is a large 30-hour 
clock, striking the quarters upon two bells. The frame is of 
wrought-iron ; the wheels are of yellow brass ; and the pinions 
are iron, case-hardened. The going-part discharges the hours 
as well as the quarters, which is a considerable drag upon the 
clock, the present practice being to make the quarters discharge 
the hours. Originally, the pendulum was 8 feet 2 inches long, 
and to reduce the arc of vibration it was furnished with fans — 
it has been preserved as a Curiosity ; the striking-parts were 
of the ordinary description. The work was throughout very 
coarsely executed. The clock was repaired, and improvements 
added by Vulliamy and Sons, 1815-16: it has since measured 
time with sufficient accuracy for any practical purpose not con- 
nected with astronomical observations ; but much of its repu- 
tation may be conventional — from the rigid punctuality with 
which the slightest military movement is executed. The dials 
are each 7 feet 5 inches diameter, and painted white, with black 
numerals and hands; the Whitehall dial is very effectively 
illuminated at night by a strong light thrown from a lamp, with 
a reflector, placed on the projecting roof in front of the clock- 
tower.* 

The General Post-Office Clock is described by Mr. Vulliamy 
as a very beautiful specimen of the art on a small scale, on 
account of the weight of the pendulum-bob, which is 448 lbs., 
requiring a maintaining power of only 33 lbs., to cause it to 
vibrate 2' 20" on each side of zero ; this weight, considering 
that it is for an eight-day clock, which is much encumbered 
with rod-work and other disadvantages, is, in reference to the 
weight of the bob, an extremely small motive power. 

In the International Exhibition of 1862 was a clock by 
Benson, which struck the hours and quarters on five bells, the 
largest weighing 22 cwt. The works were 300 feet from the 

* A detailed account of the Horse Guards' Clock was communicated by 
Mr. B. L. Vulliamy to the Curiosities of London^ 1855. 



I40 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

dial, the connexion being carried on underground. The 
weights exceeded a ton, and were 200 feet from the works. 
There was likewise a turret-clock, by Dent, which struck the 
hours on a bell weighing between three and four tons, and the 
quarters on four smaller bells. The wheels were of gun-metal; 
and each of the four dials was seven feet in diameter. Among 
the other horological machines in the Exhibition were, a steam 
or speed clock ; a chime clock with 50 changes, silent clocks, 
cuckoo-clocks ; a clock with a perpetual register of the week 
and month ; an astronomical clock impelled by gravitation ; a 
regulator to be wound up once in twelve months, and a geogra- 
phical clock showing the time throughout the world. Several 
curious clocks are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. 
Mr. Octavius Morgan, M.P., has one of the finest collections 
of clocks in England. The Dukes of Kent and Sussex possessed 
several valuable clocks at Kensington Palace. 

Wooden clocks have been made for about two centuries; 
they were named Dutch, from being first produced in Holland, 
but they are now mostly made on the confines of the Black 
Forest, by peasant families ; the labour being divided among 
the case-makers, the founders of the brass wheels and bells, the 
chain and chain^wheel makers, the piainters and varnishers; and 
the clock-makers, who put the works together and finish them. 
The annual export of clocks from the Grand Duchy of Baden 
alone, not including watches, amounts to 1,000,000/. sterling. 

American Clocks are made in vast numbers : at Connecticut 
one firm produces 600 clocks a-day; and in New Haven 50,000 
brass eight-day clocks are made in a year at Jerome's factory: 
the wheels and plate-holes are all stamped, and there is but 
little manual labour in the whole of the movements. That 
which is accomplished in an American clock by a spring, the 
going, was in the tall, old-fashioned eight-day clocks performed 
by the gradual fall of a heavy weight. 

The illumination of public clock-dials, so as to render them 
visible at night, dates from the year 1827, in London, but they 
lud long before been introduced in the provinces. 

The Time-ball signal is an invention of our own days, when 
everybody wants exact time, but cannot set up a transit instru- 
ment to obtain it. In England, especially about the metropolis, 
we naturally look to the fountain-head of astronomical science 
in this country, our National Observatory at Greenwich, for a 
regular supply of Greenwich time; and the question arises, 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 14^ 

>w is the astronomer in his sanctum to communicate his exact 
me to the outer world ? Very easily. Anything in the shape 
f an instantaneous signal, given at any pre-arranged instant, 
ttd r^ularly repeated every day, is all that is required for the 
urpose. Accordingly, we find that there has been for the past 
lirty years such a signal given daily from Greenwich Observa- 
bly. Upon one of the cupolas of that edifice there is to be 
een a large ball, which at five minutes to one o'clock daily is 
aised hafcway up a mast, upon which it slides. At three 
oinutes to one it is raised fully to the top, and remains there 
ill the instant of one, when, by the pulling of a trigger of the 
ipparatus that supports it, it suddenly falls ; the moment of one 
[>*<iock being that at which the ball first leaves the top of the 
mast, not that at which it reaches the bottom. 

The accuracy of a clock depends chiefly on its escapement, 
or that part of the mechanism which connects the regulating 
power with the wheelwork. Mr. Babbage tells us that " clocks 
and watches may be considered as instruments for registering 
the number of vibrations formed by a pendulum or a balance. 
The mechanism by which these numbers are counted is techni- 
cally called a scapement," which it is not easy to describe. 
Working models on an enlarged scale are almost necessary to 
make their action understood by the general reader; and 
unfortunately these are not often to be met with. 

Repeating Clocks and Watches are instruments for register- 
ing time, which communicate their information audibly only 
upon the pulling of a string, or by some similar application. 
Several instruments have been contrived for awakening the 
attention of the observer at times previously fixed upon. Such 
are the alarums connected with clocks and watches. In some 

• 

instances it is desirable to set them so as to give notice at many 
successive and distant periods of time, such as those of the 
arrival of certain stars on the meridian. Such was the Astro- 
i^omical Clock of Ferdinand Berthoud, used at the Greenwich 
Observatory in the last century, and which, by means of a cord, 
^s made to strike the seconds during the progress of an 
observation ; the number of beats being counted gave the time 
of duration. 

Alexander Cumming, F.R.S., the Edinburgh mathematician 
^d mechanic, made a clock for George III. which registered 
^e height of the barometer during every day throughout the 
year. This was effected by a circular card of about 2 feet 



142 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

in diameter, being made to turn once in a year. The card was 
divided by radii lines into 365 divisions, the months and days 
being marked round the edge, while the annual range of the 
barometer was indicated by inches and tenths by circular lines 
described from the centre. A pencil with a fine point pressed 
on the card by a spring, and, held by an upright rod floating on 
the mercury, accurately marked the state of the barometer; 
the card being carried forward by the clock, brought each day 
to the pencil. It was not even necessary to change the card at 
the year's end, as a pencil with a different coloured lead would 
make a distinction between two years. This Barometer Clock 
cost nearly 2000/., and the maker was allowed a salary of 200/. 
a-year to keep it in repair.* 

Curious clocks and clockwork have long formed great at- 
tractions in museums for public exhibition, such as that of Cox, 
the jeweller and mechanician, of the last century, whose col- 
lection contained 56 pieces, valued at 197,500/. ; they were 
exhibited in Spring Gardens in 1773 and 1774. One of these 
wonders was a cage of singing birds, all of jewellers' work; 
their plumage was of stones variously coloured : they fluttered 
their wings, warbled, and moved their bills to every note of the 
different tunes they sung, "which were duets and solos, sur- 
prising melodies, to the universal astonishment of the auditors." 
The details of these clockwork automata occupy too much space 
to describe ; Mason, the poet, has done this in a few lines : 

" Great Cox, at his mechanic call, 
Bids orient pearls from golden dragons fall ; 
Each little dragonet, with brazen grin. 
Gapes for the precious prize, and gulps it in; 
Yet, when we peep behind the scene, 
One master wheel directs the whole machine : 
The self-same pearls, in nice gradation, all 
Around one common centre rise and fall." 

Clerkenwell has long been the seat of the clock and watch 
manufacture in the metropolis. About the middle of the last 
century. Colonel Magniac, a famous clockmaker, had his work- 
shops in an old mansion in St. John's Square ; and his automa- 
ton clocks did much to render Clerkenwell noted as a clock- 
making parish. Two of the most remarkable clocks manufac- 
tured by him for the Emperor of China were rare" specimens of 

* Curiosities of Clocks and Watches^ p. 145. 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 143 

chanical skill : in addition to regiments of soldiers, musical 
formers parading, beasts and birds, all in action, combined 
3how what varied and graceful motions could be produced 
wheels, pinions, and levers ; and while pleasing the eye, also 
irmed the ear by the bell music, tunes, and chimes. Early 
the present century, the above mansion was taken down ; 
i upon the site was built the clock manufactory of Messrs. 
Smith and Sons, now the largest clockmaking establishment in 
erkenwell. 

In the yard round which the workshops are built is stored a 

)ck of mahogany, walnut, and oak, the logs of which are to 

; cut up into boards for cases, after the wood has become 

ily seasoned. The principal divisions in the manufacture of 

dock are the brass-casting, the wheel and pinion cutting, the 

Lse-making, and the movement-making. In the foundry the 

in-metal and brass-work are cast In the brass-finishing shop, 

le clock-rings, or barrels, are turned by the lathe, the hinges 

eing let into the rings, and soldered, and the whole subjected 

gain to turning, and finally finished. Here also the dials are 

Alvered, The cases for the clock-weights and pendulums, of 

sheet brass, are also made in this shop, at one end of which 

is a forge, used for forging the hammer stems, pulley-frames, 

pinions, repeating work, &c., of turret-clocks. Here also 

the brazing and soldering are effected. The wheels are cut out 

of solid brass for turret-clocks. The pinions of church-clocks 

are cut by another machine. The dials are made either of 

sheet copper, iron, or brass, the faces of which are coated with 

flake-white and varnish, and put into a stove, until hard enough 

to be polished to receive the figures; the divisions of the dials 

^ing set out by an index plate. 

Next are the shops for grinding the edges of clock and 
^atch glasses; and the glass-bending shop, fitted up with a 
furnace and annealing oven ; grinding and polishing, &c. In 
*e department set apart for " the system plan," each man 
attends to one particular branch of the business. Here is a 
l^e-engine by which the spiral groove is cut in the solid brass 
^tended for the fusee. 

There are two other clock-makers' shops : one for the fine 
^ork required for bracket-clocks, regulators, &c. ; and the 
other for the works of turret and church clocks. In the 
former are constructed the frames of thick brass, hammered, 
^d then pinned up and filed square. The pillars are turned 



144 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

and then the arbors of the pinions. The back-cock, the 
crutch, thumb-screws, and other brass works are then roughed 
out, and the several parts are finished, chiefly at a hand-lathe. 
The wheels being also finished, are fixed to their arbors of 
steel, and the exact positions of the centres of motion deter- 
mined upon, by the deepening tool ; the relative position oi 
wheel and pinion being regulated by an adjusting screw. The 
maintaining power, consisting of the barrel, the main wheel, 
the going rachet, and the two clicks, the brass dial-plate, with 
the hands of steel, and the compensation mercurial pendulum 
of glass, with its steel rod and index, make up the several parts 
of the regulator. 

Watches, under which name we include Chronometers, the 
highest forms of watches, are the concentrated results of the 
horological labours of many centuries ; during which the Sun- 
dial, the Clepsydra or Water Clock, and the Watch were suc- 
cessively, and by advancing gradations of skill, constructed. 
The word Watch is derived from the Saxon woscca, from wcscam^ 
woeccan^ to wake ; the Swedish vacht or vecktj watch, guard ; 
vachta, to watch ; and the Danish vagt. The name watch was 
applied to pocket clocks, because they were instruments by 
which the progress of time could be watched or noticed. 

Dr. Amott has, in his peculiarly lucid manner, thus explained 
the difference between a Clock and a Watch .- " A Watch differs 
from a clock in having a vibrating wheel instead of a vibrating 
pendulum ; and, as in a clock, gravity is always pulling the 
pendulum down to the bottom of its arc, which is its natural 
place of rest, but does not fix it there, because the momentum 
acquired during its fall from one side carries it up to an equal 
height on the other ; so, in a watch a spring, generally spiral, 
surrounding the axis of the balance-wheel, is always pulling 
this towards a middle position of rest, but does not fix it 
there, because the momentum acquired during its approach to 
the middle position from either side carries it just as far past 
on the other, and the spring has to begin its work again. The 
balance-wheel, at each vibration, allows one tooth of the 
adjoining wheel to pass, as the pendulum does in a clock ; 
and as a spring acts equally well whatever be its position, a 
watch keeps time, although carried in the pocket, or in a 
moving ship. In winding up a watch, one turn of the axle on 
which the key is fixed is rendered equivalent, by the train of 
wheels, to about 400 turns or beats of the balance-wheel ; and 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 45 

thus the exertion, during a few seconds, of the hand which 
winds up, gives motion for twenty-four or thirty hours." 

The invention of the coiled spring, in a watch — the motive 
power in place of a weight, the source of motion in clocks — 
dates from the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It has 
been claimed for Nuremberg, famous for its watches as far 
back as the year 1477 ; for the town of Blois, in France ; and 
China is said to have introduced the invention into Germany, 
whence it passed to France ; and so into England. It is cer- 
tain that Peter Hele, of Nuremberg, so early as 1490, made 
small watches of steel, which moved without weights, pointed 
out and struck the hours, and might be carried on the person. 
And Caspar Visconti, a noble Milanese poet, alludes to a 
watch in a sonnet written by him in 1494, whence it would 
seem that watches had, by that time, found their way into 
Italy, which has, indeed, claimed for itself the invention of 
them. In the last century, a watch, said to have been found 
in Bruce Castle, Fifeshire, found its way into the museum of 
George III. This watch has a chased silver and blue enamel 
case, and the ciphers R. B., very indistinct, at each corner ; 
upon the dial plate was engraved " Robertus B., Rex Scot- 
torum;" and over it a thin covering of horn, instead of glass. 
This watch was assumed to have belonged to Robert Bruce, 
King of Scotland, who died in 1328 ; but the inscription was, 
doubtless, an historical forgery. Of similar character are the 
stories of the Emperor Charles V. forming a collection of 
time-pieces, and attempting to make them go together. But 
watch-making had made rapid progress soon after its invention ; 
for the Emperor had a watch made in the jewel of a ring, and 
King James had the like. And in 1544, the guild of Master 
Clockmakers in Paris, obtained a statute from Francis I. secur- 
ii^g to them the exclusive privilege of making clocks and 
batches, within that city. 

The date when watches, as a Continental invention, were 
^t introduced into England, is much disputed. Towards the 
^^Mt of the sixteenth century, springs were applied as the 
Maintaining power to time-pieces, thus enabling them to be 
Made small and portable ; but these pieces, now called watches^ 
^'ere imperfect machines, going with even less precision than 
^n old clock ; they had only an hour hand, and most of them 
Required winding twice a day. Abbot Whitings' watch, thick 
^d octagon-shaped, and engraved on the cover of the face 



146 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

"Richard Whytinge, 1536," is of accredited antiquity : it is 
traceable to the family, one of whom bought it at the sale of 
Abbot Whiting's personal property, after his execution and the 
dissolution of his monastery. It came into possession of the 
last Duke of Sussex, who, at Kensington palace, had the most 
curious collection of time-pieces in this country. At the sale 
of His Royal Highness' effects, in 1843, Charles Fitzpatrick 
Sharpe purchased this watch, which he bequeathed to the 
late Duke of Sutherland. Count D'Albanne has a silver 
watch of English workmanship, dated 1529 ; and in the 
Leverian Museum was a watch dated 1531. Henry VIH. had 
a watch that went for a week, and was in going order so late 
as 1696, when Derham published his Artificial Clockmaker. 
In the "Privy Purse Expenses'' of Henry VIII. occur pay- 
ments for " clokkes," which, it is certain from the descriptions 
given of them, in some instances, meant watches. Thus, we 
find 10/. 10s., a large amount in those days, paid for a clock in 
a case of gold, doubtless, what we should now call a watch. 
In the Great Exhibition of 185 1, was a watch said to have 
been the property of Henry VIII. By a " Royal Household 
Book" it appeared that Edward VI. had at his palace at West- 
minster, in 1542, " oone larum or watch of iron, the case being 
likewise iron gilt, with two plumettes of led : " this throws 
some light on the origin of the term watch, which is usually 
applied to small portable machines that do not sound the hours j 
while the name clock has been given to those instruments 
which strike upon a bell : the former word, here seeming to be 
for the first time used, appears to be synonymous with a/arum. 
In early times, watches were often made in the forais of 
skulls and coffins, suggested, doubtless, by the solemnity of the 
flight of time. Sir John Dick Lauder has a Death's-head 
Watch, which formerly belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and 
was bequeathed by her to her maid of honour, Mary Setoun, 
on Feb. 7, 1587, and afterwards came into the possession of the 
father of the present owner ; this antique watch is of silver 
gilt, and is most elaborately ornamented. The forehead of 
the skull bears the symbols of death, the scythe and the hour- 
glass, placed between a palace and a cottage, to show the 
impartiality of the grim destroyer ; at the back of the skull is 
Time destroying all things, and at the top of the head are 
scenes of the Garden of Eden and the Crucifixion. The watch is 
opened by reversing the skull, placing the upper part of it in 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 47 

the hollow of the hand, and lifting the jaw by a hinge : this 
part being enriched by engraved representations of the Holy 
Family, angels, and shepherds with their flocks.' The works of 
the watch form the brains of the skull, and are within a silver 
envelope, which acts as a musically-toned bell ; while the dial- 
plate is in the place of the palate. This curious work of art, 
which was made at Blois, is too large to be carried as a pocket 
vatch. Another skull-watch, which once belonged to Mary, 
Queen of Scots, by its inscription and the date, 1560, shows 
that Francis II. of France presented it to his young wife 
many years before watches were supposed to have been 
brought to England from Germany. Several other of Queen 
Mary's watches are described : one in a case of crystal, shaped 
like a coffin ; and another, made at Rouen, in which a thread 
of catgut supplied the place of the chain used in the work of 
modem watches ; — the catgut is not found in watches later than 
those of the sixteenth century. The earliest specimen of a 
chain instead of a catgut is in a golden egg or acorn-shaped 
watch made by Hans John, of Konigsberg ; it has a small 
wheel-lock pistol, perhaps intended to serve as an alarum. 

Watches did not come into general use until the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, and then only amongst wealthy persons. The 
Fellows of colleges and other learned men in this age carried 
sand-glasses in their hands : for the newly-imported watches 
had not then commonly superseded the sand-glass. The early 
watches were worn as much for ornament as convenience ; 
some elaborately pierced, others studded with precious stones, 
or enamelled both on the inner and outer cases. Some were 
oval, others octangular, round, cruciform, skull, acorn, pear, 
melon, walnut, tulip, and purse shaped. They had not glasses, 
the cases opening at the back and front, and covers pierced 
for the emission of sound. The wheels were small, usually 
about one-fourth that of the plate, when the watch was round. 
The size was greatly enlarged for the pendulum spring. The 
works were iron and steel, brass being used for the pillars of 
watches before the invention of the fusee. The wheels con- 
tinued to be of steel ; but, during the second quarter of the six- 
teenth century, brass was used, and is continued to the present 
time. These early watches were sometimes so small as to be 
set in the head of walking-sticks, the clasps of bracelets, in 
rings or in pendants ; and we read of a striking watch mounted 
in a ring in the year 1542. 

L 2 



148 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

In the South Kensington Museum are three early watches, 
which display the progress of the art within a century of its 
invention. On'e is contained in an agate, gold-mounted case, 
the gold dial enriched with arabesques, and set with rubies. 
The height of this watch is one inch and three quarters, and 
its width an inch and a quarter ; it is of Italian workmanship. 
The second watch is in the form of a cross, and in a rock- 
crystal, metal-mounted case ; height 3^ inches, width one ind 
and a half. The third article at the Museum is a watch-case 
in bronze gilt, with perforated arabesque ornamentation: it is, 
probably, Venetian work, about the year 1550. Cruciform 
watches, of this period, were wrought with representations of 
the Crucifixion, the Virgin and Child, angels and cherubs. 

Queen P^lizabeth had a large collection of watches, mostly 
presents. The Earl of Leicester, Master of the Horse, gave to 
her in 157 1-2, '*one armlet or shakell of golde, all over fairely 
garnishedd with rubyes and dyemondes, having on the closing 
the air of a clocke." Then we read of other gifts, as "a 
clocke of golde, garnished with dyemondes, rubyes, emeraldes, 
and perles;" and in the inventory of the Queen's horological 
machines are four-and-twenty, mostly watches. Allusions to 
watches are not unfrequent by our early dramatists. Shake- 
speare and Ben Jonson have many. In Brome's comedy of 
the ifUipodes, 1638, a character regrets that 

— every clerk can carry 
The time of day in his pocket ; 

and a projector, in the same play, proposes to remedy the 
grievance by a *' project against the multiplicity of pocket- 
watches." 

Watches were not generally worn in the reign of James I. , 
when a watch was found upon Guido Fawkes, which he and 
Percy had bought the day before, " to try conclusions for the 
long and short burning of the touchwood which he had pre- 
pared to give fire to the train of powder." There is extant a- 
curious watch of this period : it has a silver case, ornamented 
with mythological figures ; it is of oval form ; it strikes the 
hours, and has an alarum ; shows the days of the week, the 
age and phases of the moon, with the days and months'af 
the year, and the signs of the Zodiac. On the inside is 3- 
Roman Catholic calendar, with the date 161 3. This watcli 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 49 

^s a present from the Countess of Arundel to her son, Sir 
Villiam Howard, K.B., 1629. 

The English Watchmakers of the City of London were 

ncorporated by Charles I. in 163 1, and by their charter, all 

jreign clocks, watches, and alarums were forbidden to be 

»rought into the country. Their journals show that in 1635 

brass watch was 40^. value. In 1643, 4/. were paid to 

edeem a watch taken from a nobleman killed in battle. In 

loUar's four engravings of the Four Seasons, a lady is repre- 

ented as Summer, with an egg- watch on her left side, sus- 

►ended from her girdle. Then we read of a seventeenth 

:entury Dutch Watch, with a pedlar and his dog engraved 

nside the numerals, and outside the circle was rich foliage in 

^liello work. A golci enamelled hunting-watch of about 1630 

3r 1640 has four subjects on the front, back, and inner side 

3f the lid and case, representing incidents from the Gierih 

udemme Liherata of Tasso. We have descriptions of several 

watches which belonged to Charles I., among which is the 

watch given by the King to Sir Thomas Herbert, and others 

to Mr. Worsley and Colonel Hammond ; the latter, a large 

silver watch, is engraved with a figure of the King praying, 

and a praying figure of a man, with Christ above. 

In 1658 was invented the spiral or pendulum spring, applied 
to the arbor of the balance, by which means effects were pro- 
duced in its vibrations similar to the action of gravity on the 
pendulum of a clock. This spring was originated by Dr. 
Hooke, and improved by Tompion, the famous watchmaker, 
who was originally a farrier, and began his great knowledge in 
^e equation of time by regulating the wheels of a jack to roast 
"ieat. Next, Quare, a London clockmaker, by applying the 
pendulum spring, and its means for regulating the oscillations 
to the greatest nicety, added to the hour-hand, minute and 
wheel-hands : many old watches were then altered to receive 
these improvements. Quare, in 1676, invented the repeating 
"movement in watches, by which they were made to strike at 
Pleasure, usually effected by compressing a spring, which caused 
^ hammer or hammers to strike on a bell the hours and 
<luarters. One of the first repeating watches was presented 
^y Charles II. to Louis XIV. of France. Quare made for 
)^'niiam III. a highly-finished repeating watch, which is still 
^ good preservation ; as is another made by Quare for James 
II« The English watchmakers of this century became so 



15^ WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

famous in their craft, that lest inferior articles should be sold 
abroad, as their work, a law was passed, in 1698, obliging all 
makers to put their names on their watches. 

Watch jewelling, that is, the application of jewels to diminish 
the friction of pivots, was employed at the beginning of the last 
century, though tried much earlier. The horizontal escape- 
ment was invented in 1724, by Graham, an apprentice of 
Tompion, and to whom we are indebted for two of the raost 
valuable improvements in clocks ever made, namely, the dead- 
beat, or Graham escapement, and the mercurial compensation 
pendulum. Graham's escapement is still employed in the 
Swiss watches ; but in England it has been superseded by the 
duplex, and more recently by the lever, which is only the appli- 
cation of the dead-beat escapement to a watch. The inventions 
of Graham and Harrison, together with the art of jewelling the 
pivot hole* of watches, only practised in England, gave to 
English watches, at the commencement of the last century, 
such pre-eminence, that the wealthy of every country sought to 
obtain them.* 

In 1764, Arnold, of Devereux-court, in the Strand, pre- 
sented to George III. a watch of his own manufacture, set in 
a ring. Its size did not exceed that of a silver twopenny piece. 
It contained one hundred and twenty different parts, but 
altogether weighed not more than five pennyweights, seven 
grains, and three- fourths. t So delicate were the works, that 
Arnold had to make tools himself before he could make the 

» Curiosities of Clocks and Watches, P* S'S- 

+ Thus minutely subdivided : The movement complete weighed two 
pennyweights, two grains, and one-eighth ; the great wheel and fusee two 
grains and three-fourths ; the second wheel and pinion three-fourths of a 
grain ; the barrel and mainspring three grains and a half; the third whed 
and pinion the ninth part of a grain ; the balance, pendulum, cylinder, 
spring, and collet, two-thirds of a grain ; the pendulum spring, the three- 
hundredth part of a grain ; the chain one half of a grain ; the barrel and 
mainspring, one grain and three-fourths ; the great wheel an'd ratchet, one 
grain ; the second wheel and pinion, the seventh part of a grain ; the third 
wheel and pinion, the eighth part of a grain ; the fourth wheel and pinion, 
the ninth part of a grain ; the fly-wheel and pinion, the seventeenth part of 
a grain ; the fly-pinion, the twentieth part of a grain ; the hour-hammer, 
half a grain ; the quarter-hammer, half a grain ; the rack-chain and pulley, 
one grain and a third ; the quarter and half-quarter rack, two-thirds of a 
grain ; the quarter and half-quarter small and common pinion, two-thirds 
of a grain ; the all-or-nothing piece, half-a-grain ; the two motion-wheels, 
one grain; the steel dial-plates, with gold figures, three grains and a half; 
the hour snail and star, half-a-grain and one-sixteenth. 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 1 51 

nratch. The King was so delighted with the work that he sent 
Arnold five hundred guineas. When the Czar of Russia heard 
3f this, he offered Arnold a thousand guineas to make a 
similar one for him ; but this the artist refused, determined 
that his own sovereign's watch should be unique. 

On Christmas day, 1770, Arnold, a watchmaker in St. 
James' Street, presented to George III. a small repeating 
v^atch in a ring, the cylinder of which was made of an Oriental 
ruby. Its diameter was the 54th part of an inch, its length 
the 47 th, and its weight the 200th part of a grain. 

Brequet, the celebrated French watchmaker, who flourished 
at the end of the last and early in the present century, was 
greatly encouraged by the Allies in 181 5. The Emperor 
Alexander purchased several of his unequalled watches ; and 
the Duke of Wellington had one of them, which, on touch- 
ing a spring at any time, struck the hour and minute. It 
cost the Duke 300 guineas ; he carried it fcr many years. 

Brequet was not an advocate for flat watches, as he said they 

impeded the proper action of the wheels, and could not be 

depended on as time-keepers. He paid some of his workmen 

30 francs a day, and none less than a Napoleon. He invented 

the touch watch {u?ie montre de iouche)^ in which the hours were 

indicated by eleven projecting studs round the rim of the case, 

while the pendant marked twelve o'clock. An index hand, 

at the back, when moved forward, stopped at the portion of the 

hour indicated by the dial ; and the index and studs together 

enabled the time to be felt by the fingers. Touch watches were 

also made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A 

touch watch for the use of the blind was manufactured by 

Mr. Dent, and exhibited in 1851. 

Napoleon I. had a pedometer watch that wound itself up by 
ineans of a weighted lever which rose and fell at every step ; 
hut those now made are for measuring speed in walking, which 
^n only be useful to such as make regular steps of given 
length, a known number of which equal a mile. 

Some of the old watchmakers made, what may be termed 
^ronomical watches. Thus, we read Of an oval silver watch 
^y Dupont, with index hands to show the hours of the day, the 
day of the week, the day of the month, and the age of the 
^oon, while there are other arrangements for denoting some- 
thing about the constellations ; and inside the cover are a sun- 
dial and a compass. Jean Baptiste Duboule, of Geneva, made 



152 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

a large watch which denoted the four parts of the day, th 
of the day, the cay of the week, the day of the mont 
name of the month, the sign of the zodiac, the age 
moon, the phase of thv. moon, and the four seasons 
year. More practicable was a watch made by a 
peasant, Kuhaiesky, at Warsaw, which denoted the t 
different places under different longitudes — a conti 
which has been imitated in a modern English watch. 

In 1839, there was made in Paris, by M. Rebellier, z 
parent crystal watch, in which the works were all visibl 
two-teethed wheels, which carried the hands, were of 
cr)-stal, and the other wheels were of metal. All the 
were fixed in crj'stal, and each axis turned on ruble; 
escapement was of sapphire, the balance-wheel of rock-( 
and the springs of gold. This watch kept excellent 
which the maker attributed to the feeble expansion 
cr)"stal in the balance-wheel. 

In 1844, Messrs. Hart, of Comhill, made for the 
Abdul Medschid, a very costly watch : it was five inc 
diameter, in a double gold case, enamelled with flowe 
arabesque scroll-work, in brilliancy surpassing any foreig 
of the kind. The movement was duplex, with a chronc 
balance, and jewelled in ten ruby holes ; the watch stru 
hours and quarters by itself. Wires, instead of a bel 
used, and the sound resembled that of a powerful an 
monious cathedral clock. The cost of this watch and j 
panion one, was one thousand two hundred guineas. 

The Great Exhibition of 1851 contained several i 
watches. Messrs. Rotherham and Sons, of Coventn 
first in England employed machinery impelled by steam- 
for performing many of the processes in the completio 
watch, exhibited the various parts of a lever watch sh( 
roughly cast, then as formed into proper shapes, and la 
finished. Several movements were also shown, and a be 
display of 137 watches of all kinds. The Intematior 
hibition of 186^ contained a reversible chronometer, 2 
nometer showing the day of the month, a reversible 
self-winding watch. 

The Chronometer, the most important and valuable 
that we possess, has long been manufactured in Engl; 
a high state of perfection. The determination of the lor 
at sea requires simply accurate instruments for the mi 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 153 

lent of the positions of the heavenly bodies. This question 
ad been but inaccurately solved for want of good Watches, 
^hen, about the year 1756, John Harrison, who had re- 
eived the Copley Medal for his improvements in watches, 
ontinued his labours, and in 1758 sent a timekeeper 
3r trial on a voyage to Jamaica, and for its performance 
eceived 5,000/. ; for Chronometers of a similar nature, 
ubjected to trial in a Barbadoes voyage, and explaining the 
'rinciple of their construction, Harrison received 10,000/. 
lore. Ultimately, this maker's Watch succeeded so com- 
'letely, that after it had been round the world with Captain 
'Ook, in the years 1772-1775, the second 10,000/ was given 
3 Harrison. 

Chronometers are tried, or rated^ at the Royal Observatory, 
Greenwich, where are frequently 100 chronometers at a time ; 
vo observers, from comparisons, deducing the daily rates by 
hich the goodness of the watch is determined. The errors 
■"^j^general bad workmanship, and over or under correction 
)r temperature. In the room is an apparatus in which the 
"atch may be continually kept at temperatures exceeding 100^ 
y the artificial heat of the chamber (as in a stove heated 
y gas) ; and outside the window of the room is an iron cage. 
I which the watch is subjected to low temperatures.* 

In 1834, Mr. Dent exhibited to the British Association 

Chronometer with a glass balance-spring, and presented an 
ccount of its rate kept at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. 
^ 1839, with twelve of Dent's Chronometers the differences of 
^ngitude were taken at London, Edinburgh, and Markerstoun : 
^d by a mean of all the observations taken in going to the 
^tter station, or returning, they were found to differ only b> 
've one-hundredths of a second. 

The Astronomer Royal has arrived at these conclusions with 
^ard to chronometers examined at the Greenwich Observa- 
ory. The material workmanship of all the chronometers is 
'^tygood, and there is veryHttle difference between them. In 
iniform circumstances of temperature every one of the chro- 
nometers would go almost as well as an astronomical clock, 
fhe great cause of failure is the want of compensation, or 
■^e too great compensation, for the effects of temperature. 
Wther very serious cause of error is brought out clearly in 

The interesting details of Rating Chronometers at the Royal Observa- 
^fy are given, from authority, in Curiosities of Sciencf^ pp. 229-232. 



154 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the trial ; namely, a fault in the oil, which is injured by heat. 
Nearly all the irregularities from week to week, which generally 
would be interpreted as proving bad workmanship, are in 
reality due to the two foregoing causes. 

One of the New York Chronometers supplied to the 
Grinnell Arctic Expedition, after being subjected to the 
severest test, yet was so exquisitely provided witli adjustments 
and compensations for the very great extremes of temperature 
to which it had been subjected, that in a polar winter, it was 
returned with a change in its daily rate, during a year and a 
half, of only the i8,oooth part of a second in that time. The 
temperature registered during the winter in Wellington Straits 
was actually 46° below zero. 

Clocks and Watches vary in their rate of going because of 
the expansion and contraction of the metals of which they 
are constructed. Thus, in regulating the length of the seconds 
pendulum, an exact acquaintance with the dilatation of metals 
is essential ; for when the bob is let down the hundredth part 
of an inch, the clock loses two seconds in twenty-four hours ; 
hence a thousandth part of an inch will cause it to lose one 
second per day, and a change of temperature equal to 30° of 
Fahrenheit will alter its length about one five-thousandth part, 
and occasion an error in the rate of going ot eight seconds 
per day. Variations of temperature also occasion variations 
in the balance-wheel of watches, which are obviated by various 
compensating apparatus.. 

Watchmaking in England is now allowed to suffer much from 
' overstrained competition and other causes. Thus, our watch- 
makers complain of the Goldsmiths' Company, in the stamp- 
ing of gold and silver watch-cases, injuring them materially, 
involving an additional expenditure of time and labour for 
their restoration, and thereby preventing the English watch- 
makers from competing on anything like equal terms with 
their continental rivals. It is asserted that the English manu- 
facture is rapidly decreasing, owing to the fact that the light 
cases used by the Swiss makers would be ruined by the 
stamping process at Goldsmiths' Hall, so that English watches 
are of necessity heavier and costlier. In proof of this state- 
ment we are told that the annual importation of gold watches 
from Switzerland is about 35,000, while the total number of" 
all kinds produced at home is but 26,000. 

Again, in America, Watches are manufactured on a large 



CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 155 

scale by the aid of machinery. On the southern banks of 
the river Charles, Waltham, Mass., Mr. A. L. Dennison has 
erected a brick building, two storeys in height, and inclosing 
a laige quadrangular court. Surrounding this large building 
there are loo acres of land, on which, here and there, are 
placed the cottages which form the rural homes of the watch- 
makers. In a large building, so constructed that the greatest 
amount of hght is admitted, there is accommodation for some- 
thing like 250 hands, more than half of whom are females. 
Driven by a steam-shaft, the bands traverse the whole building, 
and move the various machines which are used in this manu- 
facture. By means of machinery the first cutting of the stamps 
and dies is effected; also hardening and forming the barrels 
and chambers, coiling and fastening the mainsprings, gearing- 
wheels, and cutting their teeth, shaping of pinions and axles, 
cutting escape-wheels, trimming and marking the porcelain 
dials, drilling and shaping the jewels, and adjusting and fitting 
together the various parts. 

In the Watchmaking country of Switzerland, watches are 
made in great numbers by women. In Great Britain 186,000 
watches per annum are manufactured ; and, as this goes a very 
little way towards supplying the demand, there is a large 
importation from Switzerland * — exceedingly profitable to some- 
body at our expense, as the price of the article is kept up 
by the artificial scarcity at home. In the valleys of Switzer- 
land, in the cottages on the uplands, in the wildest recesses 
that men can inhabit, as well as in the streets of the towns, 
there are women helping to make watches. We are told that 
20,000 women are actually so employed. Why not 1 The metal 
in the inside of a watch costs about sixpence in its unwrought 
condition. By the application of the fine touch so eminently 
possessed by women, guided by their fine sight and observa- 
tion, that sixpenny- worth of metal is so wrought and adjusted 
as to become worth several pounds. If there are 20,000 Swiss 
^omen at work at their own windows, with their children 
about them and their husbands' dinner at the fire, making 

The following figures will serve to give some idea of the extent of the 
foreign trade : — In 1858 there were imported into Great Britain 346,894 
J'^tches. In the same year the number of watch-cases Hall-marked were, — 
*5 London, 83,614 silver, and 26,870 gold cases. In Chester, 13,648 
^I'er, and 8,200 gold cases. In Coventry, 16,000 silver cases. In all, 
'48,323. In 1857, 14,141 watches of British manufacture were exported 
**^ America, 



156 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

watches for Europe and America, why are there not 40,000 
Englishwomen helping the family independence in the same 
way ? Simply because the caste or guild of watchmakers will 
not permit it. By simply meeting the demand for watches at 
home, and yet more by preparing a due supply for America 
and our own colonies, our watchmakers would open a new vein 
of employment and profit for themselves and their households. 

For three centuries and upwards, this country has been dis- 
tinguished for the skill of its makers of Clocks and Watches. 
For a long time English watches were at a premium in every 
part of the civilized world. In the reigns of Henry VIIL, 
Queen Elizabeth, Charles I., and Charles II., and up to a 
comparatively recent date, time-pieces made in this country 
were chased and otherwise ornamented with considerable 
artistic skill. The designs were, also, in many instances, good 
and tasteful. In the reign of George III. the style of the 
watches was no less in correspondence with the prevailing 
taste : they were plain, ugly, and unwieldy ; but at the same 
time they were, in comparison with foreign watches, remarkable 
for the excellence of their workmanship. As regards the dials 
of House-Clocks, up to the beginning of the present century, 
they were decorated with engraved brass plates, mai\y of which 
were of good design and beautiful execution. Thomas and 
Robert Bewick, John Scott, and other engravers of note, 
devoted time to this kind of work. At a period when, as 
regards Art Manufactures, we were standing still, throughout 
France and other countries on the Continent art was being 
highly cultivated, and made a part of general education. 

In a French workshop we see evidence of this art-education; 
and to the science of manufacture more attention is paid by 
the body of the workmen than is the case in England. By 
the establishment of Schools of Art we are striving to improve 
our taste in ornamentation, so as to enable us to compete with 
our neighbours. The Clockmakers' Company possess a Lending 
Library of valuable English and foreign works on Horology, 
with a printed catalogue ; and the British Horological Institute 
is active in its wor1c of improvement. Our constructive ex- 
cellence in Clock and Watch making is acknowledged ; and 
we have only to attain the more extrinsic taste in ornament to 
complete the superiority : 

** The greater part perfo*-mec1, achieve the less." 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. 




lattie field of old th 

•wlmet, s banne and a n ( 

•Oman e wh h he mortal eng nes of he mo 1 

* olume of smoke d d mu h o ob 



a pi n of an n and 

mod n warfare The 

d oop and gl ttenng 

of b II an 



Wa 



Smoke obscureii the represenlalion as well as the realities of war. There 
B but one battle scene in the Picture-gallery at Apsley House : this is 
^Hfrloo, taken from Napoleon's head -quarters, by Sir William Allan ; 
'"'tliit picture the Duke of Wellington observed, "Good, very good— not 



158 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

then shorn of its false charms ; and many there were who, look- 
ing back to the days when men fought shield to shield and 
hand to hand, might exclaim with our great bard : — 

** It was great pity, so it was, 
That villainous saltpetre should be digged 
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed 
So cowardly." 

A modem battle-field is a most terrible spectacle. Tens 
and hundreds of thousands of men, determined on destruction, 
are rank opposed to rank, and horses and riders rush headlong 
upon each other. The air is filled with dark sulphureous 
smoke, through which the forked flames of the cannon are 
every moment flashing, as they send forth their messengers.of 
death. The rush of mighty squadrons — the loud clang of arms, 
heard even amidst the roar of artillery — the rapid volleys of 
musketry, filling up with their sharper rattle the din which 
arises from the imprecations of enraged men, the screams of 
anguish and the groans of the dying — these are the fearful 
accessories of modem war. Yet, dreadful as is such a scene, 
the principal agent through which it is enacted has been instru- 
mental in reducing the horrors of warfare. " Gunpowder," 
says a thoughtful writer, " though a warlike contrivance, has in 
its results been eminently serviceable to the interests of peace. 
Scarcely had it come into operation when it worked a great 
change in the whole scheme and practice of war. According 
to the old system, a man had only to possess what he 
generally inherited from his father, either a sword or a bow, 
and he was ready equipped for the field. According to the 
new system, first there was the supply of gunpowder, then 
there was the possession of muskets, which were expensive 
weapons, and considered difficult to manage. Then, too, there 
were other contrivances to which gunpowder naturally gave rise, 
such as pistols, bombs, mortars, shells, mines, and the like. 
All these things by increasing the complication of the military 
art, increased the necessity of discipline and practice ; while, 
at the same time, the change that was being effected in the 
ordinary weapons deprived the great majority of men of the 
possibility of procuring them. To suit these altered circum- 
stances, a new system was organized ; and it was found 
advisable to train up bodies of men for the sole purpose of 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. 1 59 

nd to separate them as much as possible from those 
mployments in which formerly all soldiers were occa- 
• engaged. Thus it was that there arose standing armies, 
: of which were formed in the middle of the fifteenth 
; almost immediately after Gunpowder was generally 

history of the invention of Gunpowder is involved in 
bscurity ; the most ancient writers differing from each 
I their accounts of this matter, and some of them con- 
g two distinct inquiries : the invention of the composition 
powder, and the discovery of the means of applying it 
urposes of war. It is claimed to have been invented 
irs ago ; but it is stated to have been used in China as 
A.D. 85 ; and the knowledge of it is said to have been 
id to us from the Arabs, on the return of the Crusaders 
jpe : it is added that the Arabs made use of it at the 
f Mecca, in 690 ; and that they derived it from the 
was contended by M. Langles, to the French Na- 
[nstitute, about 60 years since. 

. at the present day Gunpowder is probably far more 
ly used, — not in deadly waifare, but in the shape of fire- 
-in China than in any other country in the world. The 
t allusions to it as a power in war among the Gentbos 
ious ; as also is Philostratus's account of "those holy 
jloved of the gods," the Oxydracas, who dwelt between 
;rs Hyphasis and Ganges (in Oude, the " holy land " — 
ea — of India,) and who arrested Alexander's victorious 
and "overthrew their enemies with tempests and 
•bolts shot from their walls." 

reorge Staunton observes, that " the knowledge of Gun- 
in China and India seems coeval with the most distant 
events. Among the Chinese it has at all times been 
to useful purposes, as blasting rocks, &c. ; although it 
t been directed through strong metal tubes, as the 
ans did soon after they had discovered it.'* 
;r Bacon expressly mentions sulphur, charcoal, and 
e, as ingredients of Gunpowder ; but, independently of 
ms of the Chinese and Indians, Marcus Graecus, who 
ioned by an Arabic physician of the ninth century, gives 
iipt for Gunpowder. Bacon is known to have travelled 

• Buckle's History of Civilization in England, vol. i. 



l6o WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

through Spain, and he may have seen the treatise on Gun* 
powder in the Escurial, and bearing the early date of 1 219, in 
which it is traced to the Arabs and Saracens ; though its early 
use in engines of war was, probably, more like that of fire- 
works than artillery. It was commonly used in the fourteenth 
century ; its first application to the firing of artillery being 
ascribed to the English at the battle of Crecy, in August, 1346, 
as mentioned by Villani,. the Chronicles of St. Denis, and 
Froissart ; and moreover in some public accounts of the reign 
of Edward III., wherein are specified the names of the persons 
employed in the manufacture of Gunpowder (out of saltpetre, 
and " quick sulphur," without any mention of charcoal), with 
the quantities supplied to King Edward, just previously to his 
expedition to France, in June or July, 1346. The records show 
that a considerable weight had been supplied to the English 
army subsequently to its landing at La Hogue, and previously 
to the battle of Crecy ; and that before Edward III. engaged 
in the siege of Calais, he issued an order to the proper officers 
in England, requiring them to purchase as much saltpetre and 
sulphur as they could procure. In the Harleian MSS. is an 
order from Richard III., which shows that Gunpowder was 
made in England in 1483. 

Foreign writers mostly affirm the invention to be due to 
Barthold Schwartz, a monk of the order of St. Francis, and an 
accredited alchemist : he mixed, with a medical view, nitre, 
sulphur, and charcoal ; a spark accidentally fell upon the 
mixture, and it exploded ; he repeated his experiment, and 
appears in 1320 to have employed his powder to frighten some 
robbers from their haunts in the woods. Schwartz is believed 
to have died about 1354 ; and in 1853, there was erected at 
Freiburg, his birth-place, a stone statue of him. It should be 
added that the invention is claimed for him, because he did 
not learn it from any other person. 

The oldest intelligible accounts of the different processes 
are not of an earlier date than 1540 ; those given by Tartaglia 
yield powder scarcely more powerful than the composition of a 
squib, which did not arise from ignorance of proper proportions, 
but from the guns being so weak that stronger powder would 
have destroyed them. Chemistry was not sufficiently advanced 
to enable the manufacturers to determine the best proportion 
of ingredients, but this they did by dint of mere experience. 
To secure perfect mixture of the three ingredients, the saltpetre 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. l6l 

was first dissolved, then the sulphur and charcoal being added, 
the mixture was stirred assiduously, by which means all three 
ingredients were brought into combination very effectually. 
The graining must have been less successful. The mixture 
was moistened with vinegar, wine, and brandy, more frequently 
than with water ; this process being thought to add strength to 
the powder. The Transactions of the Royal Society record 
Prince Rupert's mode of making a Gunpowder tenfold the 
ordinary strength of that then used ; likewise a method of 
blowing up rocks in mines, or under water. Much of our 
powder was imported from Flanders, until it was manufactured, 
by patent, by the Evelyn family in Surrey ; and upon the 
stream of John Evelyn's own dear Wotton were formerly several 
powder-mills, worked by water or horses ; a mill is but a slight 
wooden building with a boarded roof Among the improvers 
of the process was the Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Watson, the 
Cambridge Professor of Chemistry. A late great improvement 
in Gunpowder consists in employing "cylinder" charcoal — 
distilktion being effected in cylindrical retorts, or ovens — by 
which the powder acquires so much additional strength that the 
proportion of charges used for ordnance is in consequence 
reduced nearly one third. Gunpowder, as now prepared, is for 
ordinary purposes rather too strong. Sir William Congreve 
actually made some Gunpowder, which exploded on percussion, 
and was in other respects highly dangerous. 

The known composition of Gunpowder consists of seventy- 
five parts of nitre, fifteen of charcoal, and ten of sulphur. 
The powder may be described as a solid body, in which an 
enormous power is locked up, capable of being brought into 
immediate operation whenever wanted ; the action being regu- 
hted by experience with wonderful precision. On the ignition 
of the Gunpowder, though the sulphur begins the combustion, 
it is not itself burned by the oxygen of the nitre, but unites 
chiefly with the potassium of that salt to form sulphide of 
potassium — and this union assists in giving to the flame of 
SQnpowder its intense heat. 

The enormous force of inflamed Gunpowder depends on 
ftc evolution of various gases. A cubic inch of Gunpowder is 
Converted by ignition into 250 cubic inches of permanent gases, 
^ch, according to Dr. Hutton, are increased in volume eight 
times at the time of their formation by the expansive influence 
^heat; so that confined and ignited Gunpowder will exert, at 

M 



1 62 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

least, a force of 2,000 pounds on every square inch opposed to 
its action. 

Some of the effects of ignited Gunpowder are wonderful 
When Gunpowder is heaped up in the open air and inflamed, 
there is no report, and but little effect is produced. A small quan- 
tity open and ignited in a room forces the air outwards, so as to 
blow out the windows ; put the same quantity confined within 
a bomb, in the same room, and ignited it tears in pieces and 
sets on fire the whole house. Count Rumford loaded a mortar 
with I -20th of an ounce of powder, and placed upon it a 
24-pounder cannon ; he then closed up every opening as com- 
pletely as possible, and fired the charge, which burst the mortar 
with a tremendous explosion, and lifted up its enormous weight 
In another experiment Count Rumford confined 28 grains of 
powder in a cylindrical space which it just fitted, and upon being 
fired it tore asunder a piece of iron which would have resisted a 
strain of 400,000 lbs. 

The force of Gunpowder is ascertained by trying the power 
of a given quantity, in projecting a known weight A charge 
of four drams of fine-grained or small-arm powder is expected 
to project a steel ball with the requisite force to perforate a 
certain number of half-inch wet elm-planks, placed three 
quarters of an inch asunder, the first being thirty feet fi*om the 
muzzle of the barrel. A charge of four ounces of cannon 
powder must be capable of projecting, from an 8-inch Gomer 
mortar, a 68-lb. iron shot not less than 380 feet 

For the manipulation of Gunpowder, the ingredients are 
reduced to an impalpable dust, and are then mixed together in 
a small barrel before being placed in the incorporating cylinder 
mill, in charges of 42-lbs. each, moistened by two or three pints 
of water. The thorough incorporation and combination of the 
elementary parts of the ingredients are most essential in good 
gunpowder. The operation is one of tact, and requires ex- 
j^erience to judge of its sufficiency, the practical indication of 
which is a uniform greyness of appearance and a "liveliness" 
of the composition during the latter part of the process. 

The incorporated material termed mill-cake is then sub- 
jected to a pressure of about 75 tons per superficial foot, in a 
hydrostatic press, or by a considerable mechanical power, by 
which it is brought into a much smaller substance, called press- 
cake ; after which it is crushed between toothed rollers, of 
different successive gauges, or broken by wooden mallets into 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. J 63 

pieces, which are put into parchment sieves in a frame 
ided at the comers, to which a shaking motion is given, 
sieve has in it two pieces of lignum- vitae, which, by the 
Q given to the frame, continue to crush the powder until 
pass through the holes pierced in the parchment of the 
iquired. The Gunpowder is then glazed ; i, <?., placed for 
ir and a half in a canvas cylinder, or a large cask, which 
le to perform about 40 revolutions per minute, by which 
»s of abrasion the grains lose their angular points, and 
e rotundity as well as smoothness. 

: nextoperation in the manufacture is the drying thoroughly 
legree of heat of not less than 140° or 150° of Fahrenheit, 
in a stove, or by a temperature raised by means of steam, 
effectually to drive off all remaining humidity, which the 
)al, or anydelinquescent impurity that might accidentally 
1 in combination with the saltpetre, may have induced, 
ong numerous examples of the powerful effects of 
3wder is that in the celebrated siege of Gibraltar, when 
assailed by the united forces of France and Spain, and 
ied by General Elliot. 

* chief attack was made on the 13th September, 1782. 
e part of the besiegers, besides stupendous batteries on 
nd side, mounting two hundred pieces of ordnance, there 
n army of 40,000 men. In the bay lay the combined 
of France and Spain, comprising forty-seven sail of the 
besides ten battering ships of powerful construction, 
those the heaviest shells rebounded ; but ultimately two 
;m were set on fire by red-hot shot, and the others were 
>yed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the 
1 commander. The rest of the fleet also suffered con- 
bly ; but the defenders escaped with very little loss. In 
ngagement 8,300 rounds were fired by the garrison, more 
half of which consisted of red-hot balls. During this 
>rable siege, which lasted upwards of three years, the 
expenditure of the garrison exceeded 200,000 rounds — 
barrels of powder being used. 

ring the progress of the siege, the fortifications were con- 
ibly strengthened, and in the solid rock were excavated 
rous galleries, having port-holes at which were mounted 
' guns, which kept up an incessant fire upon the enemy's 
apments on the land side. Communicating with Uie 
: tiers of these galleries are two grand excavations, known 

M 2 



WONDERFUL IMVENTIONS. 



as Lord Comwallis's and St Geoi^e's Halls. The latter which 
is capable of holding seieral hundred men, has pieces itf 
ordnance pointed in various directions 




Few persons are aware of the enormous quantity of Gun- 
powder used for military purposes. At the si^e of Ciudad 
Rod rigo, in January i8rz, 74,978 lbs. of Gunpowder were con- 
sumed in thirty hours and a half; at the storming of Badajos, 
228,830 lbs. in 104 hours, and this from the great guns only. At 
the first and second sieges of San Sebastian 502,110 lbs. welt 
used ; and at the siege of Saragossa, the French exploded 
4S,ooo lbs. in the mines and threw 16,000 shells during the 
bombardment. One day of the war in the Crimea, the Russians 
in Sebastopol discharged 13,000 rounds of shot and shell, ibc 
only result of which was three men ■wminded. 

At the siege of Acre, in 1 840, a vast quantity of Gunpowder 
was expended in three hours, with terrific efi"ecL The nartl 
force under the command of Sir R. Stopford sailed to bombarf 
the town, then considered to be one of the strongest fortresses 
in the world, almost impregnable. But Sir Robert despatched 
a few of his line-of-battle ships to silence the cannon on the 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. 1 65 

walls ; while, with the steam-frigates under his command, he 
kept further from shore, and threw, from the mortars on board 
of his vessels, large shells into the place. The fire was close 
and eflfective : and the guns of one of the seventy-four 
pounders was so placed, that the whole of her broadside was 
poured into one small space, described by an eye-witness as 
not more than ten feet square ; and all the balls striking nearly 
at the same instant, the force of the blow was so irresistible that 
the solid masonry cracked, yielded, and with a thundering 
crash finally fell into fragments, leaving a breach sufficiently 
wide enough for the assailants to enter the town. In the 
meantime, the Admiral contrived to ply the defenders with 
volleys of shells from the steam-frigates ; and one of these 
breaking through the roof of an encased building, there burst 
This chanced to be the magazine, where all the ammunition of 
the place was deposited. The contents immediately exploded ; 
and the vast mass of the building, with the bodies of seventeen 
hundred men, was driven, like the outpouring of a volcano, 
high and reddening into the air. Thus, though at a great 
sacrifice, in three hours, was brought to a conclusion a war 
which might have covered whole provinces and countries with 
desolation. The British had but 18 killed, and 41 wounded. 

This is one of the few instances recorded of a fort being 
taken by ships. The Duke of Wellington considered this 
achievement one of the greatest deeds of modem times. It 
was altogether a most skilful proceeding. On inquiring how 
it happened that so small a number of men were lost on 
board the fleet, he discovered that it was because the vessels 
were moored within one-third of the ordinary distance. The 
guns of the fortress were intended to strike objects at a greater 
distance ; and the consequence was, that the shots went over 
the ships that were anchored at one-third of the usual distance. 
By that means, they sustained not more than one-tenth of the 
loss which they would otherwise would have experienced. Not 
less than 500 pieces of ordnance were directed against the 
walls ; and the precision with which the fire was kept up, the 
position of the vessels, and, lastly, the blowing up of the large 
magazine, all aided in achieving this great victory in so short a 
time. 

The Congreve Rocket, exclusively a British weapon, was 
first employed at the attack of Boulogne, in 1806, by Com- 
modore Owen. This missile is contained in a metallic case. 



1 66 WONDERFUL UTVENTIONS. 

the carcase with a strong iron head, filled with composition 
as hard and solid as iron itself. The penetration of a 
32-pounder rocket-case in common ground is nine feet; and it 
has been found in the different bombardments where this 
rocket has been used, to pierce the walls of solid masonry, 
and pass through the several floors. It is confidently as9Wted 
that the art of making the Congreve Rockets cannot be pis- 
covered, either by inspection or analysis. J 

There were formerly three public manufactories for Gun- 
powder — Waltham Abbey, Faversham, and Ballincolig. Of 
these, Waltham Abbey alone remains in the hands of the 
Government. The mills are situate on one of the branches of 
the Lea, and have been rebuilt since 1801. The produce is 
now 20,000 barrels per annum. 

Foremost among the many improvements at Waltham 
Abbey, is the substitution of metal for wood in the con- 
struction of the machinery. Light iron wheels, with all the 
modem appliances for making the most of the water, replace 
the cumbrous wooden machinery, which dated back to 
Smeaton's time, and some of which was actually made by 
him. The chances of an accident have been considerably 
reduced by the introduction of special appliances. Thus, 
when an accident happens to one mill, all the others in the 
vicinity are instantly flooded with water, the very explosion 
being the agent by which this effect is produced. Hand- 
presses have been superseded by hydraulic presses, and the 
hand-coming system formerly adopted by a system of granulat- 
ing by self-acting machinery. At Waltham Abbey for the pre- 
paration of the ingredients there are an extensive saltpetre 
refinery and a range of charcoal ovens. The machinery con- 
sists of twenty-one water-wheels, averaging about 4-horse 
power each, a 30-horse power steam-engine, and a 7-horse 
power portable engine, steam being supplied from three 
boilers equal to 90-horse power collectively. There are four 
pairs of mixing mnners, two mixing machines, one charcoal 
mill, and twenty-two pairs of incorporating runners. Besides 
these there are four hydraulic presses, two breaking-down 
machines, three granulating machines, twenty dusting reels, 
four glazing barrels, and two drying stoves ; the heat being 
regulated by a thermometer. 

The explosion of a magazine stored with gunpowder has, 
in some instances, the effect of an earthquake. In the year 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. 1 67 

1864, on October 4, two powder magazines, in Plumstead 
Marshes, exploded shortly before seven in the morning : the 
buildings were isolated on the banks of the Thames, and were 
used for storing and embarking powder only. Two barges lay 
in the stream, unloading powder brought from Faversham 
Mills, the barrels being conveyed along a timber stage from 
the barges to the shore in barrows fitted with copper wheels. 
The instant the explosion occurred, the boats on the river 
entirely disappeared, and the second explosion following almost 
instantaneously on the first, destroyed the magazine and the 
neighbouring cottages. The effects of the explosions were dis- 
tinctly felt through a radius of at least 50 miles, proceeding 
from the magazines as a centre, with one exception, the 
mansion of Sir Culling Eardley, which, although very near, 
suffered but little, a gentle hill being between it and the seat 
of the explosions. At Woolwich, many windows and doors 
of dwelling-houses were blown in. This catastrophe specially 
directed attention to the necessity of adopting measures 
for reducing, as much as possible, the risk of such disastrous 
accidents ; and Mr. Gale proposes to render gunpowder 
less dangerous by a well-known method, which consists of 
diluting powder, or separating its grains from each other by 
means of a finely-powdered non-explosive substance ; for which 
purpose Mr. Gale uses powdered glass.* 

An official return has been made of the above explosion, 
with a Report from Colonel Boxer, in which it is stated that 
the quantity of powder exploded wis 1 15,300 lbs.; that the Gun- 
powder was first ignited in one of the barges lying at the jetty 
leading to Messrs. Hall's magazine ; that the cause is not 
accurately ascertainable, because of the fact of those who 
could have known it being killed ; but that it very likely arose 
from a lighted lucifer-match, dropped (perhaps accidentally) 
from the pocket of one of the men unloading the powder. 
To account for the accident in this way, however, it would be 
necessary to suppose that there was either a leakage in the 
powder-barrels or a quantity of loose powder lying about, or 
both combined. Colonel Boxer strongly recommends the most 
stringent enforcement of the rules as to the manufacture, stow- 

* Mr. Drayne, of the New Forest Powder Mills, Lyndhurst, in his 
process, does away with all machinery of a very complicated and dangerous 
character ; and does not subject the powder to a very heavy pressure — which 
is a most perilous operation. 



l68 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

age, and removal of Gunpowder. The results of the explosion 
were the destruction of Alessrs. HalFs magazine, of the Lowood 
Company's magazine, and of two barges ; nine men and four 
children killed, and several other persons injured; some houses 
and cottages blown down; also, 150 yards of the river wall 
carried away, and 120 yards of ic injured. Damage was done 
to buildings within a radius of 700 yards from the centre of 
the explosion ; a church within a radius of 1300 yards was 
also injured, and at 1600 yards windows were broken, as also 
at one mile radius. At from one and a-quarter miles to a 
distance of five miles damage was done to windows, in some 
cases to a greater extent than in buildings closer to the ex- 
plosion, owing to the higher position of the buildings. Even 
within a radius of ten miles some windows were broken. 

The following is a summary of instances of Gunpowder 
explosions for a space of ten years: — Nov. 15, 1855, French 
Siege Train, 92 fives lost; July 11, 1856, Salonica, 1000; 
Nov. 18, 1857, Mayence, 25; March 30, 1859, Hounslow 
Powder Mills, 7; Aug. 6, 1859, Ballincolig Powder Mills, 5; 
Sept. 9, 1862, Powder Works, near Redruth, 5 ; Oct i, 1864, 
Erith Magazines, 10; Oct 4, 1864, Powder Mills near St. 
Petersburg, 9; Nov. 7, 1864, Davington Powder Works, 2; 
Dec. 14, 1864, Her Majest/s ship "Bombay," 91; Jan. 18, 
• 1S65, Peninsular and Oriental steamer "Rangoon," 2; May 
24, 1865, Magazine at Mobile, 300 — total, 648. 

The application of Gunpowder to the blasting of rocks by 
the Chinese, has been already mentioned ; and of late years it 
has been similarly employed in great engineering works. In 
1843, Mr. Lewis Cubitt the engineer-in-chief of the South 
Eastern Railway, to avoid a tunnel of inconvenient length, re- 
solved on reducing the South Down Cliff, a portion of the 
chalk rock on the Kentish coast between Folkestone and 
Dover. As this reduction would, by manual labour, not only 
have cost a vast sum of money, but occupy considerable time, 
the engineer determined to blow it up with Gunpowder. 
Accordingly a gallery of small dimensions was opened in the 
rock, from the western end ; and at certain intervals chambers 
or open spaces were deposited. The chambers were then 
closed, only leaving small openings for the communication of 
fusees or ropes, having within them a copper wire which commu- 
nicated with a small house on the surface, at a considerable dis- 
tance from the spot where the firing was to take place. These 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN- 



169 



were attached, at the other extremity, to a galvanic 
, which, by the passage of electricity through them, would 
: gunpowder. Mr. Cubitt was assisted by Lieutenant 
n, of the Royal Engineers. On the day apf>ointed for 
eradon a vast concourse of persons was gathered on the 
L Yet there was nothing to see but the undulating sur- 
' the country, the sea in the distance, the small hut in 
:he operators were engaged ; and a rope, which, at a short 
:e, seemed to be lost in the ground. The battery was 
i, and in a few seconds a low rumbling noise was heard, 
ntly under foot, an almost imperceptible uprising oc- 
, and within a few seconds the immense mass of rock, 
ig upwards of 500,000 tons, was cast forward, and lay 
ed on the sea-shore. It is calculated that upwards of 
lonths' labour, and 10,000/. expense, were saved by this 
icperiment. 

sights are more astounding than that of blasting rocks 
ine. Where it is requisite to remove a large quantity of 




earth or stone, a |iLTi"i>raii<.>n is iiuiile 
L.^^ in the side, at the end of which a 
^^^ -,~_ "*- chamber or open place is formed, 
'^^ '^~' and into this cavity the gunpowder 

oduced; a fuse, so made as to allow the workmen 
: to a safe distance before it ignites the powder, is 
lighted, and in a few minutes the rock is torn from 



IJO WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

its bed, and the miners are enabled to proceed in the ex- 
traction of the mineral wealth which this explosion may 
bring to light. 

Of late years many substitutes have been proposed for 
Gunpowder, which, however, still maintains its position as the 
best of explosive compounds for the various uses to which 
it is applied. At the head of these substitutes must be placed 
Gun-Cotton. In England it was first introduced by its inventor, 
Professor Schonbein, at the meeting of the British Association 
at Southampton, in 1846. The simplest process of making 
the Gun-Cotton consists in dipping the fibre into strong 
nitric acid, and allowing the acid to saturate it thoroughly ; then, 
finally removing the cotton fibre, washing it until every trace of 
acid is separated, and drying it at a temperature under loo^ 
Gun-Cotton, though still resembling ordinary cotton to the 
naked eye, feels different, and presents a different aspect when 
examined microscopically. 

In Schonbein's laboratory at Berlin, a certain weight of Gun- 
powder, when fired, filled the apartment with smoke, whilst an 
equal weight of Gun-Cotton exploded without producing any 
smoke, leaving only a few atoms of carbonaceous matter 
behind. Balls and shells were experimentally projected by this 
prepared Cotton, which was stated to have nearly double the 
projectile force of Gunpowder ; in proof of which Schonbein 
experimented upon the wall of an old castle near Basle. It had 
been calculated that from three to four pounds of Gunpowder 
would be requisite to destroy this wall ; but four ounces of 
Gun-Cotton, when fired, blew the massive wall to pieces. Again, 
the sixteenth of an ounce of the Cotton placed in a gun 
carried a ball through two planks at the distance of 28 paces; 
and, with the same charge and distance, drove a bullet into 
a wall, 3f inches. Such were the earliest experiments made 
by Schonbein, the inventor, in Switzerland.* 

Gun-Cotton was used for the first time in actual warfare at 
the siege of Moultan, in the East Indies, in 18 18-19 ; when 

* Referring to Gun-Cotton in a recent lecture at Brooklyn, U.S., Professor 
Doremus staled that he treated a linen handkerchief with nitric acid, mak- 
ing it into gun-linen, and threw it into the wash with his other clothes. 
His servant girl washed and dried it, of course without perceiving any 
difference in its character. She then laid it upon the table to iron it, but, 
at the first touch of the hot iron, the handkerchief vanished ^nth a liglit 
flash, leaving no trace behind ! The handkerchief must have been veO^ 
dry, which is contrary to ordinary laundry practice. 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-C0TT(3n. 171 

:he brilliance and breadth of the flash of the guns fired by 
iiis new adaptation of science to the devastation of war are 
described to have been of terrific intensity. The new com- 
pound has its pacific uses. Gun-Cotton is soluble in ether, and 
forms collodion^ of the greatest use in many of the arts, espe- 
cially in photography. On being exposed to the air, the ether 
evaporates, leaving a thin transparent film behind, which is 
ipplied to wounded surfaces, instead of goldbeater's skin ; it 
may be made into delicate bags, into which hydrogen may be 
introduced for balloons. 

Another kind of Gun-Cotton has been prepared in the 
United States, by treating newly-prepared Gun-Cotton with 
a saturated solution of chlorate of potash. A pistol loaded 
with one grain of this cotton has sent a ball through a yellow 
pine door one inch thick, at the distance of 20 feet. 

The British Board of Ordnance decided against the adoption 
of this new explosive compound in the military and naval ser- 
vices ; but it was differently appreciated on the Continent, the 
Austrian Government presenting Professor Schonbein with the 
sum of 2,500/. as a reward for his invention. The study of 
Gun-Cotton was, however, resumed in England about the year 
1862, with its practical application. Very considerable quan- 
tities of the material have been manufactured at the works 
of Messrs. Prentice, at Stowmarket, and at the Government 
Gunpowder Works, at Waltham Abbey : its application to 
mining and artillery purposes, and to small arms, is progress- 
ing; and Gun-Cotton cartridges are employed for sporting 
purposes. 

The material may be most perfectly preserved, apparently for 
any period, either by immersion in water ; or, still more simply, 
by being impregnated with just sufficient moisture to render it 
perfectly uninflammable. In this condition, Gun-Cotton is 
much safer than Gunpowder can be rendered, even by mixture 
with very large proportions of incombustible materials. It 
may be transported with quite as much safety as the un- 
converted cotton. Its explosion is also much controlled by 
reducing the Gun-Cotton fibre to a pulp, as in the process of 
paper-making, and pressing this pulp into solid masses. General 
Hay, of the Hythe School of Musketry, reports that he has 
found the use of Gun-Cotton cleanly, and it has not the dis- 
^vantage of fouling the gun ; that it has much less recoil, 
^though the effect is the same ; that one-third of the weight of 



172 ' WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

charge is the equivalent proportion, and that it does not heat 
the guii. 

In driving tunnels, shafts, and drifts, in connexion with en- 
gineering work, one-sixth weight of charge of cotton is equal in 
blasting effect to Gunpowder, and this has been proved in practice 
in a number of instances. At Wingerworth colliery, in driving 
a shaft through soft but solid rock, one-thirteenth of the weight 
of Gun-Cotton as compared to Gunpowder, and in the slate 
quarries at Llanberis, at Allan Heads, one-seventh, were re- 
quired. At Allan Heads, in some lead mines, a tunnel was 
driven seven miles long ; drift 7 feet by 5 in the hardest lime- 
stone ; both ends worked with Gun-Cotton fired by an electric 
battery. The great advajitage experienced was that the air 
was not contaminated by smoke, and that the work could be 
carried on more rapidly. And in several places, one pound of 
Gun-Cotton detached from thirty to sixty tons' weight of rock. 

Professor Abel, who has thoroughly investigated the subject, 
states that the manufacture of Gun-Cotton is much safer and 
more uniform that that of Gunpowder, and when made it can 
be reHed on. For shells and for military mines, both land and 
submarine, the compressed or solid form of Gun-Cotton presents 
special advantages, on account of its great compactness ; a given 
weight arranged so as to ignite instantaneously under pressure 
{i.e., in strong vessels) may be made to occupy the same space 
as an equal weight of Gunpowder, whereas formerly it occupied 
about three times the space of Gunpowder. Beautiful pyro- 
technic effects may be readily produced by means of Gun- 
Cotton, and its fireworks may be displayed indoors without 
inconvenience. There appears at present no reason to doubt 
that the application of Gun-Cotton, with great advantage to a-t^ 
least some of the more important purposes for which Guti^' 
powder is used, will, ere long, be fully estabUshed ; and tha-^ 
this interesting explosive agent is destined to occupy a peJ^- 
manent and prominent position among the most important 
products of chemical industry. 

One of the most remarkable materials recently employed t:<^ 
replace Gunpowder, as a destructive agent, is Nitro-Glycerin^- 
This substance was discovered by Sobrero, in 1847, ^.nd is pro- 
duced by mixing strong nitric acid and sulphuric acid with 
glycerine. It is poisonous, and the tenth of a grain will kiH 
a dog. Its explosive force is ten times that of an equal weight 
of Gunpowder. With less than an ounce of it, a wrought-iron 



GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. 173 

block, we^hing about three cwl, has been rent into fragments; 
and terrific explosions with this formidable compound have 
taken place in various countries. 

Among the most celebrated explosive schemes proposed in 
oot time, was that of Mr. A. S. Warner, first described in 1831 
Md publicly experimented ofif Brighton, July ao, 1844, upon a 
barque of 300 tons' measurement The vessel was towed out one 




le and a half from the shore, and 300 yards in the wake of 
Wother vessel, on board which was Mr. Warner. The signal 
■M made from the shore ; and within five minutes the instru- 
""^t of destruction seemed to strike the vessel midships, from 
^nich point a huge column of water, intermingled with shingle 
''^llast, shot up higher than the highest topmast ; her mizen 
**"! by the board, her mainmast was shot clean out of her like 
' rocket; she heeled over to port to an angle of forty-iive 
''^rees; daylight was visible through her bottom timbers, and 
We seemed to part asunder as she went down, leaving only 
Perceptible the top of her foremast. The time from her being 
'tnick and her sinking could not have exceeded two and a half 
"■iouteB. This experiment showed the application at sea, in the 



174 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

blockade of towns, or defence of places from attack by sea ; 
another application being for a long range in the destruction of 
forts and places of strength. The latter proved a failure. The 
former was accomplished by a shell dropped into the sea from 
the steamboat, on board which Mr. Warner was ; the ship to be 
destroyed was then towed over the shell by the steamer, the 
explosion being caused, in some manner, by the ship itself; the 
smothered explosion proving that it took place under water. 

Here may be described the Percussion Cap for firing off 
hand-guns, by the employment of fulminating mercury, whidi 
explodes by percussion or a blow, without the aid of heat, 
and causes the ignition of the Gunpowder. This was done so 
long ago as 1806, though the details were then imperfect. About 
the year 1840, Dr. Ure conducted a series of experiments with 
this and other detonating compounds, in detailing the results 
of which, he states that the French prepare 40,000 percussion 
charges from two pounds and a half of fulminating mercury. 
The explosion is effected by putting the detonatmg mixture in 
a little copper box or cell, called a cap^ which is adjusted over 
the touch- hole, and so arranged as to the other part of the lock, 
that a smart blow bursts the cap, and explodes its contents. 
The little cell itself is destroyed, so that a new one is required 
for each firing. The caps are now made in large numbers at 
Birmingham, in much the same manner as metal buttons; 
blanks being cut out of a sheet of copper or mixed metal, 
and stamped or pressed into the proper shape. By a recent 
improvement, the cap is made double, or one cap within 
another, with the mixture between the two, and a small hole in 
the inner one to communicate with the gunpowder. 

The Percussion Cap has, however, now been in a great 
measure superseded by the use of breech-loaders, which receive 
cartridges containing the whole charge — powder, shot, and cap 
— in one piece. 



GAS-LIGHTING. 



[HAT the dark winter nights in England were some 
centuries ago, may be imagined from the circumstance 
that there were, with but few exceptions, no common 
highways as now ; and that the cresset which blazed at 
the top of the windy at«i hilly 
street, and the beacon-light 
that flashed high up on die 
turret, and threw its crimson 
light upon the dark waters 
of the surrounding moat, 
were the only signals that 
shone through the darkness. 
Often must these beacon- 
fires have startled the gos- 
herd beside the fen, or the 
fisherman beside the lonely 
mere ; while the bell of the 
distant abbey called [he 




176 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

monk to pray, and the layman to fight, until either the castle 
was stormed, or the assailants were driven off. In these, and 
in far later times, the solitary beacons that gleamed over the 
headlands of our sea-girt coast, served to alarm our island 
against the invasion of a foreign foe. 

The word Beacon is of Saxon origin, and one of our epic 
poets has thus happily employed it in simile : 

His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shields, 
Did burn with wrath, and sparkled living fire ; 
As two broad beacons, set in open field, 
Send forth their flames. 

Spenser's Fairy Queen. 

And Gay has this couplet : 

No flaming beacons cast their flare afar, 
The dreadful signal of invasive war. 

Johnson fully defines the Beacon as " Marks erected, or 
lights made in the night, to direct navigators in their courses, 
and warn them from rocks, shallows, and sandbanks.** 

Many an old man still remembers the time when, even in 
populous towns, a Httle oil-lamp only served to make darkness 
visible; and this, on stormy nights, was often extinguished, 
and the street was without a ray of light When the streets 
were unlighted, the watchman went his nightly round, bearing 
his halbert in one hand, and his lantern in the other, calling 
out, "Lantern! and a candle! Hang out your lights!" for 
in this manner many a London street was lighted about four 
hundred years ago, there being a law which compelled a 
certain number of householders in each street to hang out 
lanterns with a " whole candle *' during dark nights ; and the 
watchman thundered at the door of those who neglected to 
do so. In Queen Mary's days, the watchman had a bell, which 
he rung at the end of the street every time he passed. A 
century ago, London was so badly lighted and watched, that the 
Lord Mayor and Aldermen went with a petition to the King, 
stating the city to be so infested by gangs of highwaymen that 
it was dangerous to go out after dusk. Before the doors of a 
few old houses in London are still to be seen on each side of 
the lamp-iron, a large extinguisher, in shape like the old post- 
boy's horn ; into which the flambeaux or links were thrust after 



GAS-LIGHTING. 177 

»s of the house had been Hghted home. Then came 
f oil-lamps about 1762, and we had the lamplighter, 
adder, oil-can, and cotton wicks, and flaring torch to 
lamp at night. Dr. Johnson, when living in Bolt- 
et-street, in 1776, is said to have had a prevision of 
e from oil-lighting to gas-lighting, when, one evening, 
ivindow of his house, he observed the parish lamp- 
rend a ladder to light one of the ghmmering oil-lamps ; 
:arcely descended the ladder halfway when the flame 
quickly returning, he Hfted the cover partially, and 
:he end of his torch beneath it, the flame was instantly 
ated to the wick by the thick vapour which issued 
" Ah ! " exclaimed the Doctor, " one of these days 
» of London will be lighted by smoke ! " 
linese have for ages employed spontaneous jets of 
td from boring into coal-beds, for lighting and other 
il purposes. The inflammable gas is forced up in 
r 30 feet high, and conveyed in tubes for lighting the 
d large apartments, and kitchens ; and in a valley of 
n the United States, the natural coal-gas has been 
employed for lighting. 

ing to the statement of a missionary, the fire-springs 
y *' of the Chinese, which are sunk to obtain a -, 
;d hydrogen gas for salt-boiling, far exceed ouif 
^ells in depth. Their springs are commonly more 

feet deep; and a spring of continued flow was 
be 3,197 feet deep. This natural gas has been used 
linese province Tse-schuan from time immemorial : 
table gas," in bamboo-canes, has for ages been used 
f of Khiung-tscheu. In the viHage of Fredonia, in 
;d States, such gas has long been used both for 
md illumination. 

sit by the fireside, we may see the alternate bursting 
xtinction of pitchy vapour from coal : we witness gas- 

1 its rudest form. We can produce hydrogen gas 
:co-pipe, by filling the bowl with powdered coal, then 
over, placing the bowl in a fire, when the gas will 
: the pipe-end. By a similar process, one species of 
Jier, a variable mixture of two or three, composed of 
id hydrogen, is made in the outskirts of nearly every 
-a-days, in enormous quantities ; and then sent away 
•ge trough, or jar, as from a heart, to circulate through 



178 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

pipes and tubes, for the purpose of lighting streets and 
houses. 

The inflammability of coal-gas has been known in England 
for two centuries. In the year 1659, Thomas Shirley traced 
the burning well at Wigan, in Lancashire, to the underlying coal 
beds ; and soon after, Dr. Clayton, Dean of Kildare, influenced 
by the reasoning of Shirley, actually made coal-gas, and detailed 
the process to the Hon. Robert Boyle, who died in 1691. He 
distilled coal in a retort, and thus obtained phlegm, black oil, 
and a spirit, which, being unable to condense, he confined in a 
bladder, and burnt the gas as it came from the bladder through . 
holes made in it with a pin. Dr. Clayton also discovered that 
gas retains its inflammabiUty after passing through water ; by 
which means the phlegm becomes water, the black oil coal- 
tar, and the spirit gas. This fact might have brought gas- 
lighting into operation a century earlier, had there not been 
mechanical difficulties then too great to overcome. 

In 1753, Sir James Lowther found a spontaneous combustion 
of gas at a colliery belonging to him, near Whitehaven ; air 
rushed up, which caught fire at the approach of a candle, and 
burned with a flame two yards high, and one yard wide. It 
was found to annoy the workmen, and a tube was made to 
carry it off ; and the gas being fired, burnt two years and nine 
months, without any sign of decrease. It was carried away in 
bladders by persons, who, fitting little pipes to the bladders, 
burnt the gas as they required it. Bishop Watson next, about 
the year 1750, distilled the coal, passed the gas through water, 
and conveyed it away through pipes ; and we are only surprised 
that he did not bring gas into general use, with his influence 
as Professor of Chemistry. .. 

Mr. Murdoch, the engineer, in Cornwall, in 1792, erected a 
small gas-holder and apparatus, which produced gas enough to 
light his own house and offices ; but it was not until 1798, that 
having matured his plans, he constructed an apparatus for 
lighting the Soho Foundry, Birmingham, with aorangements 
for the purification of the gas : four years elapsed before the 
new light was exhibited complete at the Soho manufactory, at 
the Peace rejoicings in 1802 ; and upon a similar occasion, in 
18 14, gas was employed to light the pagoda and bridge across 
the canal in St. James's Park. 

From the first lighting up of Boulton and Watt's Soho 
Foundry by gas, in 1802, to the close of 1822, a period of pnly 



GAS-LIGHTING. 179 

twenty years, so rapidly had the discovery proceeded, and so 
high was" the appreciation of it by the public, that, by the 
report of Sir William Congreve, it appears that the capital 
invested in the gas-works of the metropolis alone amounted to 
one million sterling ; while the pipes connected with the various 
establishments embraced an extent of upwards of one hundred 
and fifty miles. In the course of a few years after gas was first 
introduced, it was, indeed, adopted by all the principal towns 
in the kingdom, for lighting streets, as well as shops and public 
buildings. Into private dwellings, through the careless and 
imperfect way in which the service-pipes were at first fitted up, 
and which occasioned annoyances, it was more slowly received. 
But a better knowledge of its management has been acquired. 

At Birmingham, several manufacturers early adopted the use of 
gas : a button manufacturer used it largely for soldering. Mr. 
Samuel Clegg, about 1806, exhibited gas-lights in front of his 
manufactory. Halifax and other towns followed. A single mill 
at Manchester used* above 900 burners, and several miles of 
pipe supply, for the erection of which, in 1808, was awarded 
the Gold Medal of the Royal Society. The success of gas- 
lighting in the cotton factory was not only the clearness and 
intensity of the light, but it was free from the danger and 
inconvenience of snuffing, which candles required ; and it thus 
diminished the hazard of fire, and lessened the high insurance 
premium on cotton mills. Even the risk of gas explosions is 
greatly prevented by the unmistakeable smell which denotes 
the presence of gas. 

In London, the use of gas made but slow progress ; the light 
was poor, and the smell offensive. Lectures and experiments 
were made upon gas-lighting by F. Winsor, who, in 1803-4, 
lighted the old Lyceum Theatre ; he also established a New 
Light and Heat Company, with 50,000/. for further experi- 
ments; in 1807 he lighted the wall between Pall Mall and 
St James's Park, on June 4 ; and next exhibited gas-light at 
the Golden-lane Brewery, August 16, 1807. In the same year, 
part of Whitecross-street and Beech-street, Barbican, were ex- 
perimentally lighted with gas.* 

*' One of the earliest Gas-works is that of the Chartered Gas-light Com- 
pany's Works, in Brick -lane, St Luke's, and a large coloured engraving of 
" Drawing the Retorts," in this factory, the frontispiece to On^ Thousand 
Experiments in Chemistry^ published in 1820, came upon the public with 
the effect of a picture of Tartarus. 

N 2 



XSO WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

In 1809 Winsor applied to Parliament for, a charter, when 
the testimony of Accum, the chemist, was bitterly ridiculed by 
the Committee. In 18 10-12 was established the Gas-Light 
and Coke Company, in Cannon-row, Westminster : next removed 
to Peter-street, Westminster. In 18 14, Westminster Bridge 
was lighted with gas ; the old oil-lamps were removed from SL 
Margaret's parish, and gas lanterns substituted. On Christmas- 
day, 1 8 14, commenced the general hghting of London with gas. 

Mains were this year first laid in the City ; and on Lord 
Mayor's day in the following year, Guildhall was, for the first 
time, lighted with gas. 

In 1 8 14, a Committee of Members of the Royal Society was 
appointed to inquire into the causes which led to an explosion 
of the gas-works in Westminster, which had only just been 
established. The Committee consisted of Sir Joseph Banks, 
Sir C. Blagden, Col. Congreve, Mr. Lawson, Mr. Rennie, Dr. 
Wollaston, and Dr. Young. They met several times at the 
Gas-works, for the purpose of examining the apparatus, and 
made a very elaborate Report. They were strongly of opinion 
that if gas-lighting were to become prevalent, the gas-works 
ought to be placed at a considerable distance from all buildings, 
and that the reservoirs or gasholders should be small and 
numerous, and always separated from each other by mounds 
of earth or strong party-walls. Yet the scheme had been so 
ridiculed that Sir Humphry Davy asked if it were "intended 
to take St. Paul's for a gasometer." 

Dr. Arnott has truly said, with respect to the mistakes about 
gas-lighting, that " such scientific men as Davy, Wollaston, and 
Watt, at first gave an opinion that coal-gas could never be safely 
applied to the purposes of street-lighting." St. Paul's Cathedral 
was experimentally lighted with gas in 1822. In the same year, 
St. James's Park was first lighted with gas ; and the last im- 
portant locality to adopt gas-lighting was Grosvenor Square, 
in 1824. 

The safety of gas-works was not, however, established ; for in 
1825, on the part of the Government, a Committee of scientific 
men inspected the gas-works, and reported that their occasional 
inspection of the works was necessary. 

The apparatus for the production and purification of coal- 
gas consists, in the first place, of the retorts^ or vessels for 
decomposing by heat the coal from which the gas is to be 
procured; secondly, of the dip-pipes and condensing tnain^ 



GAS-LIGHTING. l8l 

ed to conduct the gas into vessels, where it is removed 
le tar and other gross products ; thirdly, of the puri- 
ipparatus, for abstracting the sulphuretted hydrogen, 
ic acid, &c. ; and lastly, of the gas-holder, with its tank, 
lich the gas is finally received in a purified state. 
retorts are usually formed of cast-iron, and are com- 
of a cylindrical shape. They are fixed in brick-work, 
maces beneath them. For carbonizing a given quantity 
[ — that is, for separating the gaseous matter from it — the 
red heat is the most favourable. The qualijty of the gas 
I by coal varies greatly at different periods of the 
\ operation. 

time which elapses from the period at which the retorts 
'rgedy or fitted, to the moment when they are draivn^ or 
d of the residuary carbon, or cinder, varies with the 
f coal used : cannel coal, which is easily decomposed, 
:s but three and a half or four hours, while Newcastle 
kes six. The quantity of gas also varies with the quality ^ 
I : thus cannel coal yields 430 cubic feet of gas per 
:dweight ; Newcastle coal about 370 feet. 
dip-pipes are bent pipes from which the gas ascends out 
retorts, as it is produced, into the condensing maiji^ a large 
)n pipe placed in a horizontal position, and supported 
umns in front of the brick-work which contains the 
The tar, aqueous vapour, and oleaginous matter 
ascend with the gas from the retort, are left by it in 
ndensing main. The gas has now to be further purified, 
conveyed by pipes from the condensing main into other 
.tus, when, m small quantity, sulphide of carbon and 
products are left; but in larger, carbonic acid and 
retted hydrogen. These easily unite with quicklime, 
is employed, in one form or other, in all gas establish- 
for the last step of the purifying process to which 
IS is submitted to render it fit for combustion, 
ery large establishments, the gas is forced in succession 
h a series of vessels stored with lime to purify it 
ghly, and it is then conveyed into the large vessel, the 
der, in which it is stored up for use. This is an inverted 
ical cup, of which the diameter is about double the depth. 
:onstructed of sheet iron, well riveted at the joints, 
jpt in shape by stays and braces, perfectly tight. The 
der is suspended in a tank containing water, by a chain 



l82 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

and counterpoise, over pulleys. As the gasholder, when im- 
mersed, suffers a loss of weight equal to that of the portion 
of fluid it displaces, arrangement has to be made to counteract 
the varying pressure resulting from the different depths to 
which it is immersed, or the gas in it will be expelled at 
different times with varying force. 

Under the bottom of the tank in which the gasholder floats, 
the gas is introduced and conducted off by pipes, usually below 
the level of those in the street with which they communicate, 
so that they are apt to be filled up with condensed water, whidi 
passes off in a vaporous state with the gas. Vessels for re- 
ceiving the condensed water are, therefore, connected with the 
entrance and exit pipes, and so contrived that the accumulated 
water can be easily removed. 

The transmission of the gas for use is through the main 
and service pipes — the size of the former being relative to the 
united sizes of the latter ; that is, the sum of the areas of the 
sections of main-pipes being equal to the sum of the areas 
of the sections of branch or service pipes supplied. The 
supply of gas to the main-pipe is regulated by the "governor," 
a piece of mechanism consisting of a rod and valve placed 
between them and the pipe by which the gas enters the 
gasholder. 

The process termed Carhuretting employs an apparatus, 
containing naphtha, complete in itself, which can be adapted 
to all existing gas lamps and burners, whether for public 
or private lighting. It tends to economy in consumption of 
gas, without diminishing the brilliancy of the light, and has 
been tried for a month in the public lighting of Moorgate- 
street, and in front of Cambridge House, Piccadilly, with satis- 
factory results. 

The quality of gas has been much improved by passing it 
over naphthalin, when it takes up its vapour, thirty grains of 
which to one foot of gas increases the light seven or eight 
times ; with oil, the result exceeds from four to five times ; 
but even this is an important gain. 

Here let us recapitulate the steps by which gas is produced. 
I. The carburetted hydrogen, which constitutes the gas for 
illumination, is separated from the coal by distilling it in 
heated vessels or retorts. 2. The substance left behind in the 
heated retorts, after the volatile portions have been separated 
from it, forms the fuel known as coke. 3. The volatilized 



GAS-LIGHTING. 183 

igredients are so far from being pure carburetted hydrogen, 
lat they comprise tar, ammonia (sal-ammoniac), sulphuretted 
ydrogen, and other substances, all which must be removed 
y " purification " before the light-producing ingredient is 
btained. 4. The volatile product is condensed by passing 
irough water. 5. The sulphuretted hydrogen is removed 
y lime or lime-water, leaving the carburetted hydrogen to be 
assed into the gasholder, and thence to streets and buildings 
y pipes laid underground; the supply being regulated by 
auges and valves. ' 

Professor Frankland has lucidly explained at the Royal 
nstitution, the apparatus and processes used in the manufac- 
ire, purification, and distribution of coal-gas, by a miniature 
aswork in actual operation. From retorts in a small furnace 
le products of destructive distillation are successively con- 
eyed through stand-pipes, the hydraulic main, the water and 
IT well, the condensers, the exhauster, the purifiers, the station- 
leter ; and, finally, the gasholder, with its governor to regulate 
le pressure, received the purified gas, which was shown to be 
uperior to that supplied to the Institution. 

Gas has been adopted in railway carriages by being stored 
1 India-rubber bags made like the bellows of accordions and 
oncertinas, which close gradually by their own weight, and 
xpel the gas by closing ; or the gas is contained in a high- 
ressure iron vessel, or gasholder, laid along the bottom of 
he carriage. 

Steamboats are also lighted with gas : instead of the dull, 
moky flame produced by oil, the signal-lamps are brilliantly 
luminated by a jet of the clearest gas-light ; at night in the 
ngine-room, every part of the machinery is more clearly 
isible to the engineer than during the day-time ; while sun- 
•umers give light and ventilation to the passengers in the 
aloons. 

The London Gas Company's works, Vauxhall, are the most • 
owerful and complete : from this point, their mains pass across 
^auxhall-bridge to western London ; and by Westminster and 
V^aterloo Bridges to Hampstead and Highgate, seven miles 
istant, where they supply gas with the same precision and 
bundance as at Vauxhall. 

Portable gas was employed in illuminating the London 
ionument on Fish-street Hill, June 13, 1825, in commemora- 
on of laying the first stone of the New London Bridge. In 



184 WOXDEKFUI. INVENTIONS. 

the evening a lamp was placed at each of the loopholes of the 
column, to give the idea of its being wreathed with Same; 
whibt two other series were placed on the edges of the 
gallerj-. 

Gas made from oil and resin is too costly for street-lighting, 
but has been used for large public establishments. Coveni- 
garden Theatre was formerly lighted with oil-gas, made on the 
premises; and the London Institution with resin-gas, fiist 
made by Mr. Daniell, the eminent chemist. The lirae-ball, 
Bude, Boccius, and electric lights, have been exhibited experi- 
mentally for street- lighting, but are too expensive. Upon the 
Patent Air-light (from the vapour of hydro-carbon, mixed with 
atmospheric air), proposed in 1838, upwards of 30,000/. wew 
expended unsutcessfull;-. 




In the year 1865, the total revenue paid by the consumera 
and the public for gas in the metropolis, amounted to the large 
sum of 1,767,261/. iqs. i)d. per annum. This total increases 
every year with the growth of the metropolis and the increased 
consumption of gas. Yet London is ill supplied with gas, at 
a costly rate. Professor Frankland has had the illuminating 
power of the gas supplied to different large towns tested by 



GAS-LIGHTING. 185 

Standard sperm-candles, and the results are as follows : — 
in, 15-5 candles i Paris, 12*3 ; London, 121 ; Vienna, 9*0; 
iburgh, 28*0; Manchester, 22*0; Liverpool, 22*0; Glas- 
, 28-0; Aberdeen, 35*0; Greenock, 58*5 ; Harwich, 30*0; 
jrness, 25*0; Paisley, 30*3; Carlisle, 16*0; Birmingham, 
. Thus the gas supplied to Edinburgh and Glasgow gives 
e than twice the light of the gas provided for London. 

Parliamentary Committee upon Gas Supply report that 

find the illuminating power greater, and the quality of the 
better, in Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Plymouth, 

other towns, than in London ; that the purification is 
jrfect in London ; that the effect of the Act was to raise 
market value of the shares. It has been shown that for 
ing with gas St. James's Hall, Piccadilly, 1,300/. per annum 
aid, for what is called cannel-coal gas of 20 candles, at 
I//. ; whereas, at Manchester^ 3^. 2//. is paid for an infinitely 
rior light. 

rofessor Frankland, in estimating the real source of light 
)al gas, refers it to ignited hydrocarbon gases and vapours. 
se gradually lose hydrogen when exposed to heat, and their 
on particles shrink together and form compounds of greater 
plexity, being some of the dense vapours which exist in a 
lame ; and even the soot produced by a gas-flame is not 
, but requires intense and prolonged ignition to free it 
I hydrogen. A gas-flame is also perfectly transparent, and 
5 equal light in difl*erent positions. 

he illuminating power of gas-burners is registered by an 
iratus for maintaining a constant pressure, and through 
is supplied a small jet. The whole is inclosed in a case 
^hich perfect ventilation is secured without fear of dis- 
ance to the flame, by which erroneous results would 
ue This case has a glass front, on which is a graduated 
5; there is also a similar arrangement at the back, so 

the height of the flame can be accurately ascertained, 
registering variations in the height of the flame, the light 
imitted through a slit on to a piece of sensitized paper, to 
:h a tranverse motion is imparted in a photographic 
era. A continuous image is thus secured, the varying 
ht of the flame being indicated by the height of the image 
lifferent points. Mr. Sugg, by his ingenious clockwork 
iratus for the measurement of the luminosity of the flame, 
:h apparatus combines meter, governor, burner, &c., shows 



tS6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

that a. certain gas-light is equal to that of twelve ^enn 
candles. 

It will be recollected that the' danger of permitting gas- 
works to be constructed in the metropolis was urged by the 
Committee of the Royal Society, appointed in 1 8 14, whore- 
ported that such works ought to be placed at a considerable 
distance from all buildings ; and that the reservoirs should be 
small and numerous. Amidst the success of the invention, 
however, these precautions seem to have been strangely dis« 
regarded. Thus, within a third of a mile, as the crow flies, 
of one of the largest Gas-works in London, are Westminster 
Abbey and Westminster Hospital ; hard by are the Houses of 
Parliament, and groups of public offices. Milbank Penitentiaiy 
has but the river between it and the London Works > close 
adjoining is a huge holder. The Phoenix Works at Vauxhall 
are close to those of the London Company ; at Bank-side are 
extensive works; and opposite are the Whitefriars Works, 
which threaten the crowded city, and its stupendous cathedral, 
St. Paul's. Explosions of appalling extent and destruction of 
life and property have occurred, an evil only to be provided 
for by the removal of the great works out of the metropolis ; 
to this the companies object, on account of the expense, 
although their profits enable them to divide 10 and even 20 
per cent., besides a large reserve ; and they tear up streets 
to the injury and annoyance of the public, even where sub- 
ways have been made for gas and water pipes beneath the 
pavements. 

The quantity of gas made by the several metropolitan gas 
companies is about 10,440,000,000 cubic feet per annum ; the 
gas sold may be taken at 9,000,000,000 cubic feet per annum. 
The difference between these quantities is the amount of the 
loss incident to the distribution ; in fact, so much worse than 
pure waste, as it is injurious to health on being absorbed into 
the earth and expended in the air. The manufacture consumes 
nearly a million and a quarter tons of coal a year ; the loss 
represents 1,440,000,000 cubic feet, which, at the mean cost 
of 4s. Sd. per thousand, is worth 336,000/. per annum, or a 
dividend of nearly 6/. per cent, on the metropolitan gas 
companies, or gd. per thousand feet on the cost of their gas. 
Yet, the West London Junction Gas Company has a meter at 
its works, and another three miles off, at the Great Western 
Station; and there is na difference between the quantities 



GAS-LIGHTING. 1 87 

r^tered by these meters, conclusively establishing that gas 
mains can be laid so as not to leak. 

An explosion of gas is a terrific scene of destruction. On 
October 31, 1865, at the London Gas-light Company's works, 
at Nine Elms, Battersea-road, a gas-holder exploded, killing 
ten persons, and injuring twenty- two. This was one of the 
largest holders in London, its capacity being 1,039,000 cubic 
feet, though the Company have one which will hold 2,000,000 
cubic feet The former was 150 ft. diameter, 60 ft. high, 
with a tank depth of 30 ft., and at the instant of the ex- 
plosion was nearly full, being about 50 ft. to 55 ft. high. The 
meter-house was blown to atoms, and the force of the explo- 
sion struck the side of the gas-holder, bulging it in, and at 
the same time driving out a portion of the top. As the side 
plates were eight to twelve wire gauge, the force must have 
been very great. With the bursting of the top there was an 
immediate rush of gas, which instantly caught fire, and shot 
up in a vast column of flame, discernible at a great distance. 
Tlie concussion ripped open another gas-holder, the escaping 
gas caught fire, and meeting the flames from the first gas- 
holder, rolled away in one vast expanse of flame : an awful 
crash followed, and many of the neighbouring houses were 
shattered to pieces. 

Undoubtedly, the discovery of gas, and the application of 
it for the purpose of lighting our chief towns and cities by 
night, did as much good towards checking street robberies as 
the organization of the powerful Police-force. It is scarcely 
possible to overrate the importance of this invention, not only 
in an economical but in a moral point of view. 

In quite recent times, the progress of discovery has brought 
about some considerable advances in the economics of gas- 
making, and in the applications of gas itself. These advances 
have not been alluded to in the foregoing account, which was 
written before these new applications had assumed their 
present importance. First, we shall mention how it has come 
to pass that one of the bye-products of gas-making, a sub- 
stance which used to be regarded as absolutely valueless, now 
brings large profits. This substance is coal-tar, mentioned on 
page 181 ; which chemists have found to be composed of a 
mixture of a large number of different substances, many of 
which constitute the raw material of very valuable chemical 
products. Of these we need only mention the beautiful and 



1 88 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

varied series of aniline colours^ such as mauve, magenta, &c., 
the manufacture of which has itself become a large industry. 
Among the latest products that chemistry has discovered is 
the means of preparing from coal-tar artificial alizarine^ which 
is the same colouring principle as that of the madder-plant, 
so largely used for dyeing Turkey-reds, &c. Another sub- 
stance derived from coal-tar is carbolic acid — now well known 
as a disinfectant 

It has been found that, for many purposes, the combustion 
of gas supplies a most convenient source of heat. In labora- 
tories, and workshops of various kinds, gas is now largely 
consumed for heating purposes j and the use of gas-stoves, 
and gas cooking apparatus, is becoming common. Meanwhile, 
much attention is being paid to improvement in gas-burners, 
and other appliances by which the illuminating power may be 
brought to the highest possible degree ; for gas, as the means 
of public and private illumination, is now threatened by a 
formidable rival, namely, the electric light. There is yet 
another application of gas which deserves mention here, and 
that is, the gas-engine, in which a series of small explosions of 
a mixture of gas and air is made the motive power for actuating 
an engine instead of steam. 



ARTESIAN WELLS. 

|HIS method of raising water by perpendicular per- 
forations or borings into the ground has been named 
Artesian from the belief that it was first used in the 
district of Artois, in France ; but the name appears 
Lve been as well known in Italy as in Artois, from time 
jmorial. It is also probable that it was known to the 
:nts ; for Niebuhr cites from Olympiodorus : " Wells 
lunk in the oases from 200 and 300 to 400 cubits in 
1 (the cubit is equal to half a yard), whence water 
and flows over." Through the Artesian borings the 
r rises from various depths, according to circumstances, 
e the surface of the soil, producing a constant flow or 
m. They are highly useful in districts where springs or 
5 are scarce, or where the usual surface-water is of in- 
•ent quality. Their action is due to the constant endeavour 
ater to seek its level, and the principle is the same as that 
1 artificial fountain. Thus, imagine a somewhat basin- 
ed bed of sand, or chalk, or any rock of a porous nature, 
J upon a stratum of clay impermeable to water, and to be 
red with another stratum equally impermeable. The former 
being saturated to a great extent by the water which flows 
it from its higher and exposed edges — a hilly region, per- 
t where rain falls in abundance — becomes a reservoir, 
h, if an opening is bored down into it through the over- 
clay, will discharge its waters upwards with a force 
mined by the level at which they are kept in the reservoir, 
ate at which they can percolate through its substance, and 
ize of the orifice ; and, in proportion as this reservoir is 
td by the borer, must the supply it affords on its upper 
in be diminished. 



1 9© WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

As the water becomes impregnated with the various sub- 
stances through which it passes, a general geological knowledge 
of the country in which Artesian Wells should be bored is 
indispensable : indeed, the power of pointing out these situ- 
ations is one of the practical applications of geology to the 
useful purposes of life. 

The operation of boring these wells is performed with chisels 
or jumpers, augers, and similar instruments, attached to the 
lower end of an iron rod formed of many lengths, which screw 
into one another. To the upper end of this compound rod is 
attached a transverse handle, worked by two men, by whid 
the boring instrument may either be turned round, where an 
auger is used, or raised — turned a little way between each 
stroke ; whereas, in cutting through rock, the hole must be 
formed more by chipping than boring. In boring through soft 
strata, a kind of cylindrical auger is used, which, when full of 
earth, must be drawn up and cleared ; and a similar instrument 
is used to remove the chippings produced by the chisels em- 
ployed to perforate rock. As the weight of the rods required 
for boring to a great depth would render them unmanageable 
by hand, a triangle of poles, supported by tackle for raising the 
boring rod is erected over the hole ; and to facilitate the cutting 
or chipping through rock, the rod is suspended over the hole 
by a chain, from an elastic wooden pole fixed at one end only 
in a pile of stones. The vibration of this pole, when set in 
motion, gives the required up-and-down motion to the rod, 
while the tuniing of the trans versed handle causes the chisel or 
jumper continually to vary its strokes. But there has been 
devised a boring instrument to be readily slid up and down the 
rod, so that the charged auger alone has to be raised, without 
disturbing a single joint of the rod. 

One of the most celebrated Artesian Wells is that bored by 
the Messrs. Mulot at Crenelle, in Paris, which occupied 7 
years, i month, 26 days, to the depth of 1794! English feet; 
or i94y feet below the depth at which M. Elie de Beaumont, 
the geologist, foretold that water would be found. The sound 
or borer weighed 20,000 lbs. and was treble the height of the 
dome of the Hospital of the Invalides, at Paris. In May 1837, 
when the bore had reached 1246 feet, 8 inches, the great chisel, 
and 262 feet of rods, fell to the bottom ; and, although these 
weighed five tons, M. Mulot tapped screws on the heads of 
the rods, and thus, connecting another length to the end, after 



ARTESIAN WELLS. 19^ 

fifteen months' labour, drew up the whole. The engineers care- 
fiilly noted the thickness of each stratum traversed, and the 
specimens they preserved formed a complete geological section. 

It is generally supposed that a provincial well-digger intro- 
duced into England the process of boring for water by the 
Artesian method, and that Tottenham was the site of the first 
boring, about 1822. The priority of the invention is, however, 
due to Mr. Benjamin Vulliamy, who, upon his estate of Nor- 
lands, at the foot of Notting Hill, bored the first complete and 
overflowing well by.means of a tube. Mr. Vulliamy, who was 
a man of scientific repute, and a skilful mechanician, finished 
his arduous work in November 1794. He began to sink his 
well in the usual manner ; it had a diameter of 4 feet, the land- 
springs were stopped out, and the well was sunk and steined to 
the bottom. When the workmen had got to the depth of 236 
feet, thinking the water to be not very far off, they did not 
consider it safe to sink any deeper. A double thickness of 
staining was then made about 6 feet from the bottom upwards, 
and a borer of 5} inches' diameter was used. A copper pipe of 
the same diameter as the borer was driven down the bore-hole 
24 feet, at which depth the borer pierced through the rock 
into the water; and, by the manner of its going through, it 
probably broke into a stratum containing water and sand. 
At the time the borer thrust through, the top of the copper 
pipe was about three feet above the bottom of the well : a 
mixture of sand and water instantly rushed in through the 
aperture of the pipe ; and in less than an hour and a half the 
water of the well stood within 17 feet of the surface; it rose the 
first 124 feet in 11 minutes, and the remaining 119 feet in 
I hour 9 minutes. The boring was then found filled with sand 
to the depth of 96 feet, the removal of which was a work of 
difficulty, as was also the rebuilding of a portion of the brick- 
work ; but at length the water ran over the top of the well. 

The depth of the Crenelle Well is nearly four times the 
height of Strasbourg Cathedral ; more than six times the height 
of the Hospital of the Invalides at Paris ; more than four times 
Ac height of St. Peter's at Rome ; nearly four times and a half 
the height of St Paul's, and nine times the height of the Monu- 
ment, London. Lastiy, suppose all the above edifices to be 
piled upon each other, from the base-line of the Well of Cre- 
nelle, and they would reach within 11^ feet of its surface. 

Artesian Wells have, however, been bored of much greater 



192 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

depth than that of Crenelle. Thus, an Artesian Well, bored at 
Mondorff, in the Duchy of Luxembourg, is 2,400 ft. deep; and 
another at New Saltzwerk, in Westphalia, is 2,100 ft. deep. 

Another Artesian Well has been commenced at Paris, at the 
Place He'bert, and has been continued in spite of the numerous 
difficulties met with at almost every step. The first 72 feet of 
the shaft are lined with masonry. Then succeeds wrought-iroa 
tubing, forced in by screw-pressure. When this lining had 
been carried down through thirty-six beds, there was reached 
a row of sand mingled with such a quantity of water that the 
sand was almost in a fluid state. It was then found that 
the under-currents of water had driven the tubing out of the 
perpendicular. To obviate this was impossible, and the defect 
could only be remedied by taking up the tubes altogether, and 
continuing the masonry lining. The cylinders were removed 
with great difficulty, when it was found that the masonry 
could not be continued in the ordinary means, and a new 
method was devised. After several yards had been excavated 
below the existing masonry, and the sides shored up, a strong 
cradle of timber, exactly fitting the circumference of the well, 
was lowered and held suspended by stout chains to beams over 
the orifice of the well. This being done, the masonry was 
rapidly carried up from the cradle or platform as far as the 
existing lining, the chains being seated up in the work. One 
section being finished, another space was cleared, another 
platform was let down, by other chains, and the masonry laid 
upon it. Although the calcaire grossier was reached, the 
water sprung up in such abundance, that the sinking of the 
well by manual labour had to be abandoned, and recourse had 
to the trepan, an implement weighing no less than five tons, 
and composed of six branches, each armed with a steel chisel 
It was expected that the work would be free from obstacles 
till the chalk was reached at an estimated depth of 472 feet 

Artesian Wells have been bored in and around London 
with opposite results, the alterations in the London strata 
being so great that no one experienced in wells will venture to 
infer from one place what will occur in another. The New 
River Company sunk a vast well at the foot of their reservoir 
in the Hampstead-road, at the cost of 12,412/., and three 
years* operations, but the water obtained in the chalk was 
inconsiderable. 

At Kentish Town, in 1856, an Artesian Well was abandoned 



ARTESIAN WELLS. 193 

iFhen the borings had reached 1302 feet, no water having been 
net with, though a copious supply had been predicted from 
the lower greensands naturally expected to occur immediately 
bdow the gault ; but the gault was found to be succeeded by 
176 feet of a series of red clays, with intercalated sandstones 
and grits — a fact which set geologists pondering. The two 
WTells for the Government Water-works, Trafalgar-square, by 
C.K Amos, C.E., were sunk in 1844, 300 feet and 400 feet deep ; 
uid cost nearly 8,000/. At South Kensington there has been 
iunk and bored, for the supply of the Horticultural Gardens, a 
^11 401 feet deep, and 5 feet clear in diameter, the bore-hole 
»eing 201 feet deep from the bottom of the well ; water rises 
3 feet in the shaft, the pumps lifting 144,000 gallons daily, of 
xcellent chalk spring-water. 

Dr. Buckland, the eminent geologist, one of the first to show 
be fallacy, states that, although there are from 250 to 300 so- 
alled Artesian Wells in the metropolis, there is not one real 
irtesian Well within three miles of St. Paul's : such being a 
rell that is always overflowing, either from its natural source 
•r from an artificial tube ; and when the overflowing ceases, it 
\ no longer an Artesian Well. The wells which are now made 
\y boring through the London clay are merely common wells. 
t has been said that a supply of water, if bored for, will rise 
f its own accord ; but the water obtained for the fountains in 
Trafalgar- square does not rise within forty feet of the surface, 
jid is pumped up by means of a steam-engine — the same 
^ater over and over again. 

Mr. Prestwich, jun., F.G.S., in his Geological Inquiry^ con- 
iders " it difficult to account for the generally unfavourable 
opinion regarding Artesian Wells as a means of public supply, 
irere it not that the annually decreasing yield of water from the 
ertiary sands and the chalk beneath London has produced an 
mpression of uncertainty as to all such sources of supply ; 
rhich, with the constantly increasing expense caused by the 
lepth which the water has to be pumped, and the proportion 
►f saline ingredients being so much greater in them than in the 
iver waters, have been taken as sufficient grounds of objection. 
Jut it is to be observed, in explanation of the diminished supply 
rom the present source, that the tertiary sands are of very 
Imited dimensions ; that the chalk is not a freely permeable 
[eposit ; and that the peculiarities of the saline ingredients 
[epend upon the chemical composition of these formations. 

o 



194 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

All these causes, however, are local, and can by no means be 
considered as grounds of objection against the system of Ar- 
tesian Wells generally." Mr. Prestwidb suggests a fresh system 
of Artesian Wells, especiaUy as none have as yet been carried 
through the chalk; though it is shown that the conditions in 
this country are more favourable than in France. 

Arago was the first to observe that the temperature of the 
water in Artesian Wells increases with their depth, due regard 
being paid to the mean temperature of the climate in which 
they may be bored. This fact has been considered an aigu- 
ment in favour of the interior heat of the earth. At Grendk^ 
the water brought up from the greatest depth has a coostaat 
temperature of 8i°7 of Fahrenheit, while the mean temperatnt 
of the air in the cellar of the Paris Observatory is only 53*. 
Mr. Walferdin has ascertained the temperature of two borings 
at Creuzot, i^-ithin a mile of each other ; commencing at a 
height of 1,030 feet above the sea, and going down to a depth, 
the one of 2,678 feet and the other about 900 feet The remits 
gave a rise of one degree of Fahrenheit for every 55 feet down 
to a depth of 1,800 feet ; beyond this the rise of temperature 
was more rapid, being one degree of Fahrenheit for every fOTty- 
four feet of descent 

The water of the Artesian Well at Crenelle, instead of being 
allowed simply to rush up into the air, is made to ascend in a 
vertical tube, no feet high, at the top of which is a cistern or 
reservoir. Thence it is distributed by pipes to the places where it 
is required, the height of the reservoir giving sufficient pressmc 
to carry the supply to even comparatively elevated places. An 
elegant structure of cast-iron, in the form of a light hexagonal 
tower or column, supports the reservoir. This tower is, of 
course, not placed immediately over the boring, but receives 
the water from it by a subterranean aqueduct. The tower, 
which is 139 feet in height, may be ascended by an open spiral 
staircase of 150 steps. 




THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



[F a person were required to name the invention or 
contrivance which more than any other has bene- 
ficially influenced the progress of mankind, he 
would surely name the Steam-engine. The advance 
of the mechanical arts, which marks the last hundred years, 
is observed to far exceed all that the long course of previous 
ages can show; and this rapid advance is, beyond doubt, 
laigely due to the mighty instrument which the genius of Watt 
placed in the hands of industry, when he transformed a philo- 
K^hical toy into the Steam-engine. Not less remarkable are 
the changes in social life, and in international commerce, which 
steam-power has brought about, by facilitating intercourse and 
cheapening the transport of commodities by sea and land. 
Half a century since, a distinguished American orator * spoke 
thus of the power of steam : — " In comparison with the past, 
what centuries of improvement has this single agent comprised 
m the short compass of fifty years ? Everywhere practicable, 
everywhere efficient, it has an arm a thousand times stronger 
than that of Hercules, and to which human ingenuity is capa- 
ble of fitting a thousand times as many hands as belonged to 
Briareus. Steam is found in triumphant operation on the seas ; 
and, under the influence of its strong propulsion, the gallant 
ship still steadies with an upright keel against wind and tide. 
It is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on his oars ; it is 
on the highways, and exerts itself along the courses of land 
conveyance; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand feet 
below the earth's surface ; it is in the mill, and in the work- 
shops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, 
it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints. It 
seems to say to men, at least to the class of artizans, ' Leave 

* Daniel Webster, in 1828. 
O 2 



196 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

off your manual labour, give over your bodily toil ; bestow but . 
)^our skill and reason to the directing of ray power, and I will 
bear the toil — with no muscle to grow weary, no nerve to 
relax, no breast to feel faintness.' What further improvements 
may still be made in the use of this astonishing power it ifr 
impossible to know, and it were vain to conjecture. What we 
do know is, that it has most essentially altered the face of 
affairs, and that no visible limit yet appears beyond which its 
progress is seen to be impossible. If its power were now to 
be annihilated, if we were to miss it on the water, and in the 
mills, it would seem as if we were going back to rude ages." 

It has been asked, " What might the world have become, by 
this time, had the wonderful capabilities of steam been known 
to the. nations of antiquity?" They were known in remote 
times, but it was long before they were understood, or bene- 
ficially applied. " A century ago," says Dr. Arnott, " no man 
had conceived it possible that human ingenuity would one day 
devise a machine like the modem Steam-engine, which, at 
small comparative cost, and with perfect obedience to man's 
will, should be able to perform the work of millions of human 
beings,* and of countless horses and oxen, and of water-mills 
and wind-mills ; and which, in doing such complex and 
delicate labour as formerly was supposed to be obtainable only 
from- human hands and skill, as of spinning, weaving, em- 
broidering flower-patterns on cloth, &c., should work with 
speed and exactness far surpassing the exertions of ordinary 
hands." 

It is curious to find the ancients employing this, power 
in aid of superstition. Thus we read of the architect of 
Justinian, to annoy the orator Zeno, his neighbour and his 
enemy, conducting steam in leather tubes from concealed 
boilers, through the partition -wall beneath the beam which 
supported Zeno's house ; and the steam being raised, the ceiling 
shook as if by an earthquake. Another ancient made an 
image of metal, with a hollow head, which he filled with 
water, having previously stopped the apertures at the eyes and 
mouth by wedges of wood ; burning coals were then placed 
beneath the head, steam was shortly raised, which forcing out 

* About ten years ago, the Steam-power of Great Britain was estimated 
in the Quarterly Review to be equivalent to the manual labour of 400,000,000 
of men, or more than double the number of males supposed to inhabit the 
globe. . 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 19^ 

he wedges, the steam escaped by eyes and mouth with a thick 
iloud and a loud report. Archimedes is stated to have con- 
structed a "steam gun," which carried a ball, a talent in 
A'eight ; and on the Jfeolopile, or Ball of -^olus, being full of 
^ater and placed on the fire, the steam rushed up a long 
pipe, and was applied to drive the vanes of a mill. The steam 
from a tea-kettle has been similarly employed. And about 
two centuries ago, the people of Staffordshire made a small 
steam-boiler in the form of a kneeling man, which being filled 
with water at the back of the head, and set on a strong fire, 
evaporated the steam by the mouth. 

The importance of heat in the production of mechanical 
agents is evident from bodies, whether liquid, solid, or aeri- 
form, exerting a certain degree of mechanical force in the pro- 
cess of enlarging their dimensions, or receiving an accession of 
heat ; and any obstacle which opposes this enlargement sustains 
an equivalent pressure. 

Tlius, a pint of water, when converted into steam, occupies 
nearly 2,000 times the space of the water, because the heat 
merely produces a repulsion among the particles, and by no 
means fills up the insterstices. The powerfiil effects of high- 
pressure steam are illustrated upon a small scale by the Uttle' 
glass bubbles commonly called candle or fire crackers ; they are 
hermetically, that is closely, sealed, and contain a drop of 
water, which occasions them to burst with violence when 
sufficiently heated to convert the water into steam. 

The Steam-engine is much more intelligible than its name 
first suggests. It is, in fact, only a pump, in which the fluid is 
made to impel the piston, instead of being impelled by it ; 
that is to say, in which the fluid acts as the power, instead of 
the resistance. It may be described simply as a strong barrel, 
or cylinder, with a closely-fitted piston in it, which is driven up 
and down by steam admitted alternately above and below 
from a suitable boiler ; while the end of the piston-rod, at 
which the whole force may be considered as concentrated, is 
connected in any convenient way with the work that is to be 
performed. The power of the engine is of course proportioned 
to the size or area of the piston, on which the steam acts with 
a force of from 15 to 100 or more pounds to the square inch. 
The large vibrating beam is important, because one end being 
connected with the piston-rod is pulled down, while the power 
of the engine is applied at the other end to any mechanical 



k 



198 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

purpose. Thus, when connected with immense water-pumps, 
it causes almost a river of water to gush out from the bowels 
of the earth. 

The action of the Steam-engine, it may be added, depends 
principally upon the two leading properties of steam— namely, 
its expansive force and its easy condensation. To take the 
most simple view of these as moving powers, provide a glass 
tube with a bulb at its lower end. It is held in a brass 
ring, to which a wooden handle is attached, and contains a 
piston, which, as well as its rod, is perforated, and may be 
opened or closed by a screw at top : it is kept central by pass- 
ing through a slice of cork. When used, a littie water is 
poured into the bulb, and carefully heated over a spirit-lamp ; 
the aperture in the piston-rod being open, the air is thus ex- 
pelled, and, when steam freely follows it, the screw may be 
closed ; then, on applying cold to the bulb — as, for instance, 
putting it on the surface of a little mercury in a glass,— the 
included steam is condensed, and a vacuum formed, which 
causes the descent of the piston, in consequence of the air 
pressing upon it from above. On again holding the bulb 
over the lamp, steam is reproduced, and the piston again 
forced up ; and these alternate motions may be repeatedly per- 
formed by the alternate applications of heat and cold. This 
instrument gives a tolerably correct notion of the application 
of steam in the old engines, where it was employed conjointly 
witli the pressure of the air as a moving power. In the most 
perfect construction of Watt's engine, to be hereafter described, 
steam is exclusively employed both for elevating and depress- 
ing the piston.* 

* In Mr. Bourne's valuable work, Recent Improvements in the Steam 
Engine^ 1865, is this admirable note, — ** Steam in the production of power 
is itself condensed ; and less heat will pass into the condenser than is gener- 
ated in the boiler by the amount that is the equivalent of the power generated 
If this were not so, a steam-engine would be a heat-producing engine ; for 
the power of the engine is capable of producing heat by friction ; and if we 
had in the condenser all the heat which the coal can generate, and if we also 
had the heat generated by the friction, we should have a total amount of 
heat greater than the coal could generate, which is an absurd supposition. 
There will, consequently, always be in the condenser less heat than the 
boiler produces ; and the greater this disparity — supposing there is no loss 
by radiation — the more effective the engine will be. In a perfect engine the 
temperature of the condenser would not be raised at all ; but the heat would 
totally disappear by its transformation into power. In such an engine, the 
•team would enter the cylinder at the temperature of the fiiniaces ; and as it 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 1 99 

But, in order to understand aright the simplicity of the means 
by which such great changes have been wrought, it is necessary 
to explain further what Steam is, and the manner in which it 
acts in propelling the machines to which it is applied. 

From a common tea-kettle boiling upon the fire may be 
seen issuing by the spout a stream of vapour, which pours 
forth more energetically the more the water boils. This is 
the natural result of the application of heat to water ; for as 
the bottom of the vessel is nearest the fire, it first feels the 
effect of the heat, which is next communicated to the water 
Mnmediately above it. As this gets warm it expands, and 
thus becoming specifically lighter, it ascends through the mass, 
while its place is taken by the less heated water. This process 
continues, until at length the water acquires such a temperature 
that the particles next the bottom assume the form of vapour ; 
and these, being lighter than the water, gradually rise in the 
fonn of bubbles of steam until they reach the surface, where 
they may be partially condensed into water again, or they may 
remain as vapour, having to overcome the resistance of the 
atmosphere, which presses with a weight of fifteen pounds on 
the square inch, above them. As the number of these vapor- 
ous globules increases, the sound of their propulsion against 
the particles of air accumulates until it becomes audible at 
a little distance, and then we hear what is called singing. 

As the heat still continues to be applied to the water, this 
expansion of it gradually increases until it is diffused through 
he whole body in the vessel ; the disturbance is shown in the 
ipheaving and tumultuous agitation of the surface, and the 
^ter appears in a state of ebuUition, or is what we call boiling. 
\s the boiling goes on, the number of globules of water which 
re expanded into steam increases so much that the force over- 
omes the weight of the superincumbent atmosphere, and the 
team pours forth. 

We are in the habit of associating a smoky appearance with 
team, because we generally observe it is beginning to be 
ondensed ; as when it escapes, for instance, from the spout of 
le tea-kettle ; but when perfectly formed, it is quite invisible, 

q>anded more and more, its temperature would fall more and more, until 
nally it entered the condenser at the same temperature as the condenser 
self. Such an engine indeed would not require a condenser, since the 
:eam would itself condense as the heat left it by its transformation into 



owcr." 



200 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

as shown in the experiment by Professor Faraday, just described 
This invisibility may also be shown by boiling water in a flask, 
when perfect transparency will exist in the upper part of the 
vessel, which is filled with the hot vapour, and it only becomes 
visible when it escapes into the air, and begins to be con- 
densed. 

Dr. Lardner furnishes us with the following interesting 
examples of the motive power of a pint of water, when con- 
verted by the consumption of two ounces of coal into steam : 
— " A pint of water," he informs us, " may be evaporated by 
two ounces of coal. In its evaporation it swells into two hmi- 
dred and sLxteen gallons of steam, with a mechanical force 
sufficient to raise a weight of thirty-seven tons a foot high. 
The steam thus produced has a pressure equal to that of com- 
mon atmospheric air ; and by aUowing it to expand, by virtue 
of its elasticity, a further mechanical force may be obtained, 
at least equal in amount to the former. A pint of water, there- 
fore, and two ounces of common coal, are thus rendered 
capable of doing as much work as is equivalent to seventy-four 
tons raised a foot high." 

In relation to the consumption of fuel. Dr. I^rdner ob- 
serves : — " The circumstances under which a Steam-engine is 
worked on a railway are not favourable to the economy of fuel. 
Nevertheless, a pound of coke burned in a locomotive engine 
will evaporate about five pints of water. In their evapora- 
tion, they will exert a mechanical force sufficient to draw two 
tons' weight on the railway a distance of one mile in two 
minutes. Four horses working in a stage coach on a common 
road, are necessary to draw the same weight the same distance 
in SIX minutes. 

" The circumference of the earth measures twenty-five thou- 
sand miles ; and if it were begirt with an iron railway, a train 
carrying two hundred and forty passengers would be drawn 
round it by the combustion of about thirty tons of coke, and 
the circuit would be accomplished in five weeks. 

"In the drainage of the Cornish mines, the economy of 
fuel is much attended to, and coals are there made to do more 
work than elsewhere." 

The Steam-engines employed in these mines are of a very 
superior description, and do a vast amount of work, in pro- 
portion to the quantity of fuel consumed. The number of 
engines employed is about eighty-two, with a total horse-power 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 20I 

of between five and six thousand. The average quantity of 
water raised from the Cornish mines is about 9,000 gallons per 
minute, or nearly one million gallons per week. A striking 
illustration of the power of steam, as applied to these engines, 
is that the Menai bridge consists of a mass of iron not less than 
four millions of pounds' weight, suspended at a medium height 
of 120 feet above the level of the sea.- The consumption of 
seven bushels of coals by the steam-engine would suffice to 
raise it to that height ! The main pump-rod of one of the 
Cornish engines is about a mile in length. A quantity of 
about eighty gallons of water is brought up from this great 
depth by every stroke of the engine. To effect this, a weight 
of more than three hundred tons is put in motion at every 
stroke ! 

It may cause the reader some surprise to be informed that 
the discovery of the fact that a mechanical force is produced 
when water is evaporated by the application of heat (the first 
capital step in the invention of the Steam-engine) is very nearly 
two thousand years old, having been first pointed out by Hero 
of Alexandria one hundred artti twenty years before the Chris- 
tian era. This important discovery slumbered, as it were, 
for nearly seventeen hundred years before any application of it 
to practical uses was attempted ; and for upwards of another 
hundred years before such application, even to the most limited 
extent, proved successful. About a century and a half ago a 
Steam-engine, constructed on an imperfect principle, was first 
used for the raising of water out of mines, which, though much 
improved upon during the next eighty years, was not sought to 
be applied to any other purpose. 

The machine invented by Hero, which was moved by the 
mechanical force of the vapour of water, is supposed to have 
been constructed on the following principle. A hollow globe 
or ball was placed on pivots at a and b, on which it was 
capable of revolving ; steam was supplied from a boiler through 
the horizontal tube at the bottom of the machine, which tube 
communicated with the pivot b. This steam filled the globe 
and also the numerous arms attached to it; while a lateral 
orifice at the end of each of these arms allowed the steam to 
escape in a jet. The reaction consequent on this produced a 
recoil and drove the arms round ; if therefore there had been a 
pulley, as represented, at the upper part of the machine c, with 
a strap passing round it, the effect would have been to set any 



302 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

machinery in morion t3 which thu other end of the strap migk 
have been attached. This machine, after a lapse of nearlytwo 
thousand years, has been lately revived, and rotary engines, 
constructed on the same principle as Hero's, but simpler in 




details, are now made as common toys. An excellent account 
of Hero's inventions has been published by Mr, Bennd 
Woodcroft. 

Next in our chronicle of experiments is that made, in 1543, 
by Blasco de Garay, a sea-captain, to propel vessels by what 
has been somewhat loosely assimilated to a steam-engine. In 
going over the ground of history practised writers are con- 
tinually stumbling. Thus a popular journalist, referring to 
the above experiment, said : " Three centuries ago Blasco de 
Garay attempted to propel a boat by steam in the harbour of 
Barcelona." To this positive assertion it was replied, " The 
evidence cited by the Spaniards, often repeated, is a letter 
from Blasco himsel£" By permission of the Queen of Spain, 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 203 

bot after much hindrance, the person who questioned the 
statement was enabled to inspect this letter, which is preserved 
wth the archives at Simancas, near Valladolid, and there is 
^ot one word about steam in the document Blasco describes 
ninutely a vessel propelled by paddles, worked by 200 men. 
t is true that the two letters at Simancas do not mention 
^««, as pointed out by Mr. Macgregor to the Society of Arts, 
^ 1858 ; but the account of the experiment, as mentioned by 
"^avanrete, leaves no doubt. We have not space for the entire 
etails. Blasco de Garay is described to have presented to the 
-naperor Charles V. an engine which he had invented to propel 
W|[e vessels without sails or oars. The account continues : — 
The inventor did not publish a description of his engine ; but 
le spectators saw that it consisted principally of an apparatus 
^t boiling a great quantity of water ; in certain wheels, which 
•rved as oars ; and a machine that communicated to them the 
earn produced by the boiling water." Then we have the 
easurer Ravago's objection, that ** the boiler continually ex- 
^ed the vessel to an explosion." The account concludes 
us : — " These facts are extracted from the original register in 
e archives at Simancas, among the papers of Catalonia, the 
ouster of the War Office of the year 1543." The " cauldron 
boiling water " is also mentioned in the account from Navar- 
;e, under " Barcelona," Penny Cyclopcedia, vol. iv. p. 438. 
r. Macgregor impugns Navarrete's refport ; and, as the result 
his inquiries in Spain, he attests that not only are the letters 
Simancas without evidence of the steam^ but the statement 
not known there, or at Barcelona, by the public officers, 
pposing the evidence to be strictly correct, it bears only con- 
tural proof of the use of steam^ though a boiler was used, 
ray took away the machinery. It has been suggested that 
\ moving power was obtained by an apparatus resembling 
; primitive steam-engine of Hero, just described. 
Graray was rewarded, and the usefulness of the contrivance 
towing ships out of port was admitted; yet it does not 
[)ear that a second experiment was made. The vessel was 
ind to progress at the rate of a league an hour, or, according 
Ravago, the treasurer, who was one of the commissioners, 
It unfriendly to the design) at the rate of three leagues in two 
ars ; but it did progress, and was found to be easily under 
nmand, and turned with facility to any point where it was 
ected. 'Favourable reports were made to the Emperor and 






WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



to his son Philip II., but an expedition in which they were at 
that time engaged prevented the carrying out of the design lo 
any practical extent. Thus the world was in all probabilily 
prevented for two centuries from reaping the immense advan- 
tages that would have resulted from the adoption of steam 
navigation. 

At the conclusion of the experiment Garay, who was de- 
termined to keep his invention perfectly secret, immediately 
removed his machinery, leaving nothing but the bare wooden 
frameworic behind. This discovery, however, was thought so 
highly of that he was rewarded with promotion and two 
hundred thousand maravedis, besides having his expenses 
allowed him. 

In the year 1615 a work appears to have been published at 
Frankfort, written by Solomon De Caus, an eminent French 
mathematician and engineer, from 
a passage in which M. Arago, the 
distinguished philosopher, claimed 
forilsamhora share of the honour 
of the invention of the steam- 
engine. De Caus was at one 
time in the service of Louis the 
Thirteenth, and afterwards in that 
of the Elector Palatine, who 
married the daughter of our James 
the First. During the latter period 
he visited this country, and was 
employed by Henry, Prince of 
^Vaies, in ornamenting the gardens 
of Richmond Paiace. The pas- 
sage referred to by M. Arago is 
much as follows : — Let there be 
attached to a ball of copper, a, 
a tube, b, and stop-cock, c, and 
also another tube, d; these tubes 
should reach almost to the bottom 
of the copper ball, and be well 
soldered in every part. The copper ball should then be filled 
with water through the tube, b, and the stop-cock be shut, 
when, if the ball is placed on a fire, the heat acting upon it 
will cause the water to rise in the tube, d, as indicated in the 
engraving. De Caus ascribed the force entirely to the ai^ 




THE STEAM-ENGINE. 205 

and not to the steam, which he does not mention, though 
the pressure may have caused the ball to burst with a noise 
like a petard. Notwithstanding the advocacy of M. Arago, 
De Caus is not entitled to any share in the invention of the 
Steam-engine. 

A few years after the appearance of De Causes work an 
Italian engineer, Giovanni Branca, proposed a machine consist- 
ing of a wheel with flat vanes upon its rim, similar to the boards 
of a paddle-wheel. The steam was to have been produced in 
a close vessel and made to issue with considerable force out of 
a tube directed against the varies, which would cause the revolu- 
tion of the wheel, the tube projecting from the mouth of a 
figure ; but the steam had to pass through the atmosphere in 
its passage to the wheel. This method bears no resemblance 
to any application of steam-power in use in engines of the 
present day. 

We now come to the more interesting claim of one of our 
own countrymen to the honour of being regarded as one of the 
chief inventors of the Steam-engine. Such was the Marquis of 
Worcester, who, living in the time of the Civil War between 
Charles I. and his Parliament, took part with the King, and 
after losing his fortune in the cause, was imprisoned in Ireland; 
he managed to escape, and fled to France, whence, after spend- 
ing some time at the Court of the exiled Royal Family of 
England, he returned to this country as their secret agent; 
but, being detected, was committed prisoner to the Tower. It 
is said that during his captivity, while he was engaged one day 
in cooking his own dinner, he observed the lid of the saucepan 
was continually being forced upwards by the vapour of the 
boiling water. Having a turn for scientific investigation, he 
began to reflect on the circumstance, when it occurred to him 
that the same power which was capable of raising the iron 
cover of the pot might be applied to useful purposes ; and 
on obtaining his liberty he set to work to produce a practical 
exposition of his ideas on the subject in the shape of a 
working machine, which he described in his work in the follow- 
ing terms : — 

" I have invented an admirable and forcible way to drive 
up water by fire ; not by drawing or sucking it upwards, for 
that must be, as the philosopher terms it, intra sphceram 
acttvitatis, which is but at such a distance. But this way hath 
no bounder if the vessels be strong enough. For I have taken 



zo6 



WONDERFUL INVENTtOMEL 



a piece of whole cannon, whereof the end was bnrst, and filled 
it three-quartere full of water, stopping and screwing up (he 
broken end, and also the touch-hole, and making a consBnt 
fire under it ; within twenty-four hours it burst, and made a 
great crack. So that, having a way to make my vessels, so that 
tiiey are strengthened by the force within them, and the one 
to fill after the other, I have seen the water nm like a constant 
fountain stream forty feet high. One vessel of water larified 
by fire driveth up forty of cold water, and a man that tends 
the work has but to turn two cocks ; that one vessel of vatei 
being consumed, another begins to force and refill with cold 
water, and so successively ; the fire being tended and kept 
constant, which the self-same person may likewise abundantly 
perform in the interim between the necessity of turning the 
said cocks." 

In the accompanying figure of the Marquis of Worcestei's 
engine the boiler is composed of arched iron plates, with their 




cmiTex sides turned inward , they are festened at the joinings 
f bf bolts passing through holes in their sides, which also pass 



dte ends of the lods t 



, a series of which rods 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 20 7 

extends from end to end of the boiler, being a few inches apart 
The ends of the boiler are hemispherical, and are fastened to 
flanges on the plates h^ hy h. It will be evident that, each 
plate being an arch, before the boiler can burst several, if not 
nearly all, the rods i, /, /, must either be pulled asunder or torn 
from the bolts at the point of junction ; and as the strength of 
the rods and bolts may be increased to any extent without 
interrupting the action of the fire, there can be no doubt that a 
boiler might be so constructed as to be perfectly safe under any 
pressure which could be required for raising water to a given 
height, because the pressure in such a boiler will never exceed 
the weight of a column of water equal in height to the cistern. 
hy Cy represent two vessels, which communicate with the boiler a, 
by means of the pipes /,yj and the way-cocks w, «, and with 
the reservoir from which the water is to be drawn by the 
pipes /, /.• ^, g^ are two tubes, through which the water is 
elevated to the cistern ; they reach nearly to the bottom of the 
vessels hy c, and are open at each end. The pipe /, as well 
v& fyfy communicates with the vessels b, r, by means of the 
wray-cocks m^ «, which, by moving the handles o, /, can be so 
placed that either the steam from the boiler, or the water from 
the reservoir, shall instantly have access to the vessels b, c. 
Fire having been kindled under the boiler a, in the furnace dy 
the cock n is placed in the position represented in the engrav- 
ing, when the water will have access from the reservoir to the 
vessel Cy which being filled, the handle / is turned back, so that 
the cock shall be relatively in the position shown at m ; the 
steam then fairly enters, through the pipe f^ into the vessel Cy 
and having no other mode of escape, presses on the surface of 
the water, which it forces up through the pipe g. During this 
operation, the pipe m having been placed, as shown, at «, the 
vessel b is filled from the reservoir through the pipe /, so that 
the water in the vessel c being consumed, the handle o of the 
cock m is turned, which admits the steam on the surface of the 
water in by shutting off by the same operation the communica- 
tion between b and the reservoir. 

The Marquis of Worcester left a " Definition " of this engine, 
of which the only copy known is in the British Museum : it is 
printed on a single leaf, without date, and is judged to have 
been written for procuring subscriptions to a Water Company 
which the Marquis projected : he describes it as " a stupen- 
dous, or Water-commanding Engine, boundless for height 



2o8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

or quantity, requiring no external or even additional help or 
force to be set or continued in motion, but what intrinsically is 
afforded from its own operation, nor yet the twentieth part 
thereof." The particulars are then given, and the account con- 
cludes with : " Whosoever is master of weight is master of 
force ; whosoever is master of water is master of both ; and 
consequently to him all forcible actions and achievements are 
easier." There is also preserved the manuscript of a very 
eloquent thanksgiving prayer addressed to God by the Mar- 
quis " when first with his corporall eyes he did see finished a 
perfect tryall of his Water-commanding Engine. " 

This machine is also described by the Marquis in his cele- 
brated Century of Inventions^ or one hundred contrivances which 
he projected : many of which have been brought into general 
use, including stenography, floating baths, telegraphs, and 
speaking tubes; carriages, from which horses can be dis- 
charged if unruly ; locks and keys, &c. This work was first 
printed in 1663.* In the same year the profits that might arise 
from the Engine were secured to Lord Worcester by Act of 
Parliament. A tenth of the profits was to go to the King, 
Charles II., who, however, remitted this share upon surrender 
of a warrant dated at Oxford 5th January, 20 Car. I., by which 
His then Majesty did grant the Marquis lands to the value of 
40,000/., in consideration of a debt due to the Marquis from 
His Majesty. While the Marquis was a close prisoner in the 
Tower, the Engine was shown in operation, " beyond the 
Palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury," probably at Vaux- 
hall, where the Lord Worcester states that he had " built pre- 
mises as workshops for engineers and artists to work public 
works in," he having expended above 50,000/. — an enormous 
amount two hundred years ago — "trying experiments and 
conclusions of arts." 

Lord Worcester died in retirement near London, April 3, 
1667 : his remains were interred in the cemetery of the Beau- 
fort family, in Raglan church, the coffin being placed in an 

* The Century has been seven times reprinted. The seventh edition, 
1825, with explanatory notes by Mr. Partington, the able writer on the 
Steam-engine, is admirably edited : it is a small 8vo volume of 150 pages. 
There has since appeared *' The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the 
second Marquis of Worcester. To which is added a reprint of his Century 
of Inventions, 1663, with a Commentary thereon." By Henry Dircks, 
Esq., C.E., 1865. This is a most exhaustive work. 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 209 

arched stone vault.* Now, in the Century^ the Marquis con- 
cludes his description of the Water-commanding Engine with 
these words : " I do intend that a model thereof be buried with 
me." Whether this intention was carried out is uncertain : the 
opening of the coffin would settle the question ; and we agree 
with a reviewer in the Mechanics' Magazine^ 1865, that " It 
would, indeed, be a proud day for the British aristocracy, if it 
could be shown that one of the noblest of their class, descended 

• Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire, now a picturesque ruin, stood at a short 
distance from the village of Raglan, on the right of the Abergavenny or great 
road into Wales. The fortifications were destroyed by the Parhamentary 
forces in 1646, when the timber in the parks was cut down and sold. The 
lead alone that covered the castle was sold for 6,000/., and the loss to the 
£unily in the house and woods was estimated at not less than 100,000/. In 
1640 some rustics, in the interest of the Parliament, came to search the castle 
for arms, from which, however they desisted ; but the inventive Lord Herbert, 
afterwards Marquis, in the parley which ensued, " brought them over a 
high bridge that arched over the moat that was between the castle and the 
great tower, wherein the Lord Herbert had newly contrived certain water 
works, which, when the several engines and wheels were to be set a-going, 
much quantity of water through the hollow conveyances of the aqueducts 
was to be let down from the top of the high tower. " These engines were set 
to work, and their noise and roar so frightened the parliamentary searchers 
that they ran as fast as they could out of the grounds upon being told that 
** the lions had got loose." The position of these water- works, as described 
by a contemporary chaplain, exactly coincides with some remaining vestiges 
in the stonework of the castle. Mr. Dircks, in his work already referred to, 
gives a view of this external wall of the keep of the castle, whereon are seen 
certain strange mysterious grooves," on that side of the wall facing the 
moat, "which point like a hieroglyphic inscription to the precise place 
wrhere once stood in active operation the first practical application in a 
primitive form of a means of employing steam as a mechanical agent." 
There are three large vertical grooves cut into the stone wall, proceeding from 
IS many cells, which may each have held a steam boiler. From the summit 
3f the three large vertical channels to the ground the distance measures 
46 ft. The proximity to the moat is fiirther evidence that the stone casings 
Kad something to do with the Marquis's " stupendous water-commanding 
engine," and that the pipes were probably used to convey water from the 
moat up to a cistern on the top of the citadel. At first sight, says the 
Mechanic^ Magazine^ the number of boilers for forcing up water to such a 
short height seems unaccountable ; but the mode of using the steam, and 
the low pressure, must have led to much condensation, and consequent 
drain of steamu An interesting letter of the Marquis was preserved in the 
MS. collection of the late Dawson Turner, Esq., of Yarmouth, addressed 
to the Earl of Lotherdale, in order to induce him to take a share in the 
patent The different eight points "defining" his "water-commanding 
engine " also exactly define the range of action of a modem steam pumping 
engine. It is "a perfect counterpoise for what quantity of water soever," 
and "for what height soever," and other "particulars." 

P 



2IO WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

from the royal Plantagenets, had .given the first impulse to the 
introduction of the Steam-engine. Certainly, the general in- 
difference in England with regard to the claims of the Marquis 
of Worcester seems marvellous, especially so when contrasted 
with the feverish and morbid anxiety of the French to annex 
the honour to their own country." 

The French assert that Lord Worcester took the idea of the 
Steam-engine from De Caus ; and in proof of this assertion 
bring forward a letter from Marian Delorme, a celebrated 
beauty of the reign of Louis XIIL, to M. Cinq Mars, beheaded 
by Cardinal Richelieu, for the part taken by him in some 
conspiracy. The following is the substance of the letter .^ 






Paris, y^d February^ 1641. 

Whilst you forget me at Narbonne, where you give yomself vp to tlie 
pleasures of the court, and delight in vexing my Lord Caroiiial, I, in apooid- 
ance with the wish you expressed to me, do the honours at Parian to 7001 
great English lord, the Marquis of Worcester, and I escort huo, or nflw 
he escorts me, from one curious sight to another ; for example^ we pod • 
visit to Bicetre, where he pretends, in a madman, to have discovered t mm 
of genius ! Whilst crossing the court-yard of the hospital, more dead than 
alive from fear, and clinging to my companion, an ugly countenance pre- 
sented itself behind the large iron bars, and cried loudly, *I am not mad! 
I have made a discovery which must enrich any country that will put it in 
operation. ' * And, pray, what is his discovery ? * said I to the keeper who 
showed us the establishment. *Ah !' replied he, shrugging his shoulders, 
* something very simple, but that you would never guess. It's the applica- 
tion of boiling water.' I burst out laughing. *This man,' continued the 
keeper, * calls himself Solomon De Caus ; he came from Normandy four 
years ago to present to the king a treatise upon the wonderful efifects of 
steam. Cardinal Richelieu dismissed this madman without hearing him. 
Solomon De Caus, instead of being discouraged, followed my lord the 
Cardinal everywhere, who, annoyed at finding him continually crossing his 
path and importuning him with his follies, ordered his imprisonment at 
Bicetre, where he has been for three years and a half. He cries out to every 
stranger that he is not a madman, and that he has made an admirable dis- 
covery.' * Conduct me near to him,' said Lord Worcester ; I wish to speak 
with him.' They conducted his lordship : he returned sad and thought- 
ful. ' Now, ' he exclaimed, * he is indeed mad ; misfortune and captivity 
have for ever injured his reason. You have made him mad ; for when you 
cast him into this dungeon you cast there the greatest genius of his time, 
and in my country, instead of being imprisoned, he would have been loaded 
with riches. ' " 

There is another translation of this letter, which the Rev. 
Sydney Smith is stated to have copied from a periodical work, 
and which he believed to be authentic. A man of opposite 
tone of mind, Arago, who was rich in inventive faculty, and oi 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 211 

■ery ardent temperament • was imposed upon by the above 
omantic fiction now conclusively proved by M Figuier to be 
. forgery Nevertheless a French art st has illustrated the 
tory with this circumstant al minutene a 




In reference to the invention of Lord Worcester Dr. Lardner 
•bserves that, " on comparing it with the contrivance previously 
U^ested by De Caus, it will be observed that even if he (De 
^us) knew the physical agent by which the water was driven 
pwards in the apparatus described by him, still it was only a 
tethod of causing a vessel of boiling water to empty itself; and, 
efore a repetition of the process could be made, the vessel 
lust be refilled, and again boiled. In the contrivance of 
xjrd Worcester, on the other hand, the agency of the steam 
'as employed in the same manner as it is in the Steam-engines 
f the present day, being generated in one vessel and 
sed for mechanical purposes in another. Nor must this dis- 
inction be regarded as trifling or insignificant, because on it 

* The Emperor Napoleon III. said, when a captive at Ham, "Araco 
Kmeises in a high degree Ihese two faculties so difficult to mett with in the 
Mne man — (hat of heing the grand priest of science, and of being able to - 
ititiMe the vulgar into its mysteries." 



212 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

depends the whole practicability of using steam as a mecha- 
nical agent Had its action been confined to the vessel in which 
it was produced, it never could have been employed for any 
useful purpose." Here we may mention that Professor Mil- 
lington has, in our day, designed an engine on similar principles 
to that of the Marquis, and which, with a few alterations, 
might be made available for the purposes recommended by 
Worcester. 

Sir Samuel Morland, Master of Mechanics to Charles II., 
next, in 1682, in a short tract on the Steam-engine, explained 
his " Principles of the New Force of Fire," converting water 
into vapour, in which he showed the number of pounds that 
may be raised 1800 times per hour to a height of six inches by 
cylinders half filled with water, as well as the different diame- 
ters and depths of the cylinders : his approximations are correct, 
and must have been the results of experiments ; but Morland 
does not explain the form of the machine by which he proposed 
to render the force of steam a useful mover, and his researches 
were little heeded. 

Denis Papin, the engineer of Blois, in 1688, produced a 
moving power by means of a piston working in a cylinder, to 
be effected by the condensation of steam into water ; in other 
words, he imagined the formation of a vacuum by cooling the 
steam, and when he wanted it to cool, he took away thejire, or 
rather the heated plate ; the piston was then pressed down 
again by the force of the atmosphere above. Papin did not 
make any machine at all, but only a small model ; beyond this 
no further steps were taken, although Arago gives the invention 
of the Steam-engine to Papin. After the lapse of a few years, 
the necessities of the mining operations in Cornwall drew the 
attention of practical men to some means of drawing off the 
water which continually accumulated in the mines ; and Captain 
Thomas Savery devised a machine for that purpose. This was 
a combination of the Marquis of Worcester's machine with an 
apparatus for raising water by suction in a vacuum produced 
by the condensation of steam. Savery stated that he derived 
the idea of his machine from having flung on the fire a flask 
containing a small quantity of wine, and called for a basin of 
water to wash his hands. The wine in the flask began to boil, 
and steam issued from its mouth ; when it occurred to Savery 
to invert the flask, and plunge its mouth into cold water. 
Putting on a thick glove, to protect his hand from the heat, he 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 213 

seized the flask, and the moment he plunged its mouth into 
water, the liquid rushed into the flask and filled it. Savery 
then concluded that instead of exhausting the barrel of the 
pump by a piston and sucker, it might be accomplished by 
first filling it with steam, and then condensing the steam ; when 
the atmospheric pressure would force the water from the mine 
into the pump-barrel, and thence into any vessel connected 
with it, provided the vessel was not more than thirty-four feet 
above the level of water in the mine. He thought, after having 
raised the water to this height, that he might use the elastic 
force of steam at a high temperature to lift the water to a much 
greater elevation, after the plan proposed by the Marquis of 
Worcester ; and by condensing this same steam he considered 
he could reproduce the vacuum, and thereby draw up more 
water. Savery's machine may be described as follows : — 

The engine was fixed in a good double furnace, so contrived 
that the flame of the fire might circulate round and encompass 
the boilers. Before the fire was lighted, the two small gauge- 
pipe cocks, G and n, belonging to the two boilers were un- 
screwed, the larger boiler l filled two-thirds full of water, 
and the small boiler d quite full. The said pipes were then 
screwed on again, as fast and as tight as possible. The fire b 
was then lighted, and when the water boiled in the large boiler 
the cock of the vessel p (shown in section) was opened. This 
made the steam rising from the water in l pass with irresistible 
force through o into p, pushing out all the air before it through 
the clack r. When the air had left the vessel, the bottom of 
it became very hot ; the cock of the pipe of this vessel was 
then shut, and the cock of the other vessel p opened, until that 
vessel had discharged its air, through the clack r, up the force- 
pipe s. In the meantime a stream of cold water (supplied by 
a pipe connected with the discharging pipe s, but not shown in 
the cut) was passed over the outside of the vessel p, which, by 
condensing the steam within, created a vacuum, and the water 
from the well necessarily rose up through the sucking pump 
(cut off" below m), lifting up the clack m, and filling the 
vessel p. 

The first vessel, p, being emptied of its air, the cock was again 
opened, when the force of steam from the boiler pressed upon 
the surface of the water with an elastic quality like air, still 
increasing in elasticity, or spring, till it counterpoised or rather 
exceeded the weight of water ascending in the pipe s, out of 



214 WONDERFUL 

which the water was immediately dischai^ed when h had once 
reached the top. 

The woodcut represents two reservoirs, p p, designed for 
alternate action ; the tube e was for the purpose of conveying 
water from the discharging pipe, to replenish the boiler l when 
the water in it began to be consumed : this was done by keep- 
ing the boiler d supplied with water, and by lighting the fire at 
B, generating suHicient steam to press the water into l, 
through the pipe k. 




Thus was constructed the first engine in which steam was 
ever brought into practical operation. Savery exhibited a 
model of his engine to the Royal Society, June 14, 1699 ; and 
the Society gave him a certificate of its success. Savery pre- 
sented a drawing of his engine, which is preserved among the 
Society's collection of prints and drawings ai Burlington House : 
a description of the engine is printed in the 21st volume of the 
Transactions. Thus we are indebted to Savery for the intro- 
duction of a vacuum, which enabled his engine to perform 
double the work of that invented by the Marquis of Worcester. 
Savery's engine was first shown in a potter's house at Lambeth ; 
though the engine was small, the water forced its way through 
the roof and struck up the tiles " in a manner that surprised all 
the spectators." By this success, especially the Royal Society's 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 215 

certificate, Savery procured a patent from the Crown for the , 
manufacture of Steam-engines. 

But Savery. had his detractors : Desaguliers unjustly accused 
him of having derived his plans from the Marquis of Worces- 
ter. In the Afiner^s Friend; or, an Engine to raise Water by 
Fire, by Thomas Savery, Gent., published in 1702, or nearly 
forty years after the Century, Savery certainly carried out the 
plan. In his Course of Experimental Philosophy, pubHshed 
in' 1763, Desaguliers distinctly stated that Savery, in order to 
claim the invention for himself, " bought up all the Marquis 
of Worcester's books that he could purchase in Paternoster- 
row and elsewhere, and burned them in the presence of the 
gentleman, his friend, who told me this." The contest as to 
the introduction of the fire-engine, which led to the atmo- 
spheric engine, which last, in its turn, generates the modern 
Steam-engine, must lie between the Marquis of Worcester and 
Captain Savery. 

Then Savery is stated to have borrowed from Papin ; but the 
former worked on essentially different principles. His moving 
poorer was the elasticity of st earn, to which our engineers have 
again returned since Watt demonstrated the great advantage 
of it ; whereas Papin used the pressure of the atmosphere, 
wnich can never exceed a few pounds on the square inch of 
the piston, and steam was only a subordinate agent by which 
\it produced a vacuum. The arrangement also of the different 
parts of Savery's engine, and particularly the means he used 
for condensing the steam, are all his own, and mark him for 
a man of truly inventive genius. Such is the testimony of 
Professor Rigaud, F.R.S. 

DesaguHers, who had been so active against Lord Worces- 
ter's claim, about 17 17 applied to Savery's engine the safety- 
valve which Papin had invented for his Digester, eighteen 
years before, though it is strange that he did not apply it to his 
own steam-machine. Papin's Digester was invented upon the 
principle, that if vapour be prevented from rising the water 
becomes hotter than the usual boiling point ; and the strength 
required for this machine, and the requisite means for confin- 
ing the covers, must have shown Papin what a powerful agent 
he was using. The Digester is used for softening bones, and 
is employed in cookery and confectionery at the present day. 
Charles II. had a Digester made for his Laboratory at White- 
hall ; and with it was cooked a " philosophical supper," given 



2'6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

to the Royal Society. Papin declared it would prepare jellies at 
one third of the usual cost ; and make the hardest bones soft 
as cheese, with less than eight ounces of coal, producing " an 
incredible quantity of gravy." This machine was a source of 
great hilarity among the usually grave Fellows of the Royal 
Society. 

An accidental visit to the tin mines of Cornwall next led to 
important results, about the year 1710, when Thomas New- 
comen, an ironmonger, and John Cawley, a glazier, as they 
stood watching Savery's engine at work, detected the cause of 
its shortcomings in drainage. This Newcomen proposed to 
remedy by his atmospheric engine, in which there was a cylinder 




c open at the upper end, through which a piston worked. This 
end of the piston was attached to a beam t, resting at the middle 
OD a pier or shaft, and provided at each end with a curved piece 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 217 

of wood or iron, like a segment of the rim of a wheel, in 
order to maintain the position of the rods with which this 
beam was connected at either end. At the lower part of 
the cylinder there was a chamber, which, by means of a steam- 
pipe, communicated with the boiler a. In order to preserve it 
air-tight, the upper part of the cyUnder was kept about six 
inches deep in water. On each side, at the bottom of the 
cylinder, there was a cock : one communicating with a reser- 
voir of watery, and which when opened allowed a jet of water 
to enter the cylinder through the pipe d; another which 
allowed the condensed steam and air* to escape through f 
down the pipe o. In the foregoing engraving of New- 
comen's engine the interior of the lower part of the engine is 
shown. The safety valve b was raised when the steam pro- 
duced by the boiler exceeded the pressure of the atmosphere by 
more than one pound on the square inch, and the steam escaped 
through it. The water then boiling, the cock k in the steam- 
pipe e was opened by the attendant, who pushed down the 
handle to/; this gradually filled the lower part of the cylinder 
with steam : but the power of the steam being only sufficient to 
ecjual the pressure of the atmosphere, would not of itself raise the 
piston and beam ; this was therefore effected by means of the 
weight or counterpoise /, which on the rise of the piston forced 
down the pump rod m into the pump below. The attendant then 
returned the handle to its original position, which prevented 
the admission of more steam from the boiler ; and at the same 
time opened the cock «, which, communicating with the reser- 
voir g, threw a jet of cold water into the cylinder. This 
instantly condensed the steam, and the piston, as it descended, 
in consequence of the pressure of ,the superincumbent atmo- 
sphere, drove out the water and air* from the bottom of the 
cylinder, and raised the pump-bucket in the mine. The steam- 
cock was again opened, and the piston again rose : again the 
steam was condensed, the piston descended, the water and air 
were driven out ; and so the process went on so long as the 
services of the engine were required. 

Humphrey Potter, a mere lad, who had to attend to the cock 
of the atmospheric engine, becoming tired of the monotony of 
his employment, ingeniously contrived the adjustment of a 
number of strings, which, being attached to the beam of the 
engine, opened and closed the cock, with regularity and 
certainty, as the beam moved upwards and downwards, thus 

* ue, air derived from the cold water. 



iZ 1 8 . WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

rendering the machine totally independent of manual superin- 
tendence. The contrivance of Potter, which is the Hand-gear^ 
was soon improved upon ; and the whole apparatus was, about 
the year 17 18, brought into complete working order by an 
engineer named Beighton. 

The earlier Steam-engines may be regarded as Steam-pumps, 
and that of Newcomen the connecting link between the Steam- 
pump and the modem engine. Newcomen's engines, improved 
in various ways by Brindley, Smeaton, and other engineers, 
continued in use during the greater part of the last century ; but 
it was in effect the same until the days of Watt, the result of 
whose labours has been a harvest of wealth, prosperity, and 
ingenuity, without a parallel in the history of the world. 

James Watt, who was bom at Greenock, in Scotland, January 
19, 1736, had from his birth delicate health; and as he grew 
up, instead of being subjected to educational restraints, was, 
for the most part, left at liberty to choose his own occupations 
and amusements. His father was a mathematical instmment 
maker, and in his workshop little Watt soon found his toys. 
By amusing himself with a quadrant he was led to the study 
of optics and astronomy. He was found one day stretched upon 
the hearth, tracing with chalk various Hnes and angles. " Why 
do you permit this child," said a friend to Watt's father, '* to 
waste his time so ? why not send him to school ] " Mr. Watt 
replied, "You judge him hastily; before you condemn us, 
ascertain how he is employed." On examining the boy, then 
six years of age, it was found that he was engaged in the 
solution of a problem of Euclid. Observing the tendency of 
his son's mind, Mr. Watt placed at his son's disposal a collec- 
tion of tools, which he soon leamed to use. He took to pieces 
and put together, again and again, all the children's toys which 
he could procure ; and he employed himself in making new 
ones. Subsequently he constmcted a little electrical machine, 
the sparks proceeding from which much amused the play- 
fellows of the young invalid. 

The father, who was sufficiently clear-sighted, entertained 
high hopes of the growing faculties of his son. More distant 
or less sagacious relations were not so sanguine. One day 
Mrs. Muirhead, the aunt of the boy, reproaching him for what 
she conceived to be listless idleness, desired him to take a 
book, and occupy himself usefully. ** More than an hour has 
now passed away," said she, " and you have not uttered a single 



THE STEAM-ENGINF, 219 

word. Do you know what you have been doing all this time! 
Vou have taker off anJ put on, repeatedly, the lid of the tea- 
pot : you have been holdingthe saucer and the spoons over 
the steam, and you have beefi endeavouring to catch the drops 
of water formed on them by the vapour. Is it not a shame 
fcir you to waste your time so ) " 




Mrs, Muirhead was little aware that this was the first experi- 
ment in the career of discovery which was subsequently to 
immortalise her nephew. She did not see, as many can, in the 
little boy playing with the teapot, the great engineer preluding 
to more discoveries which were destined to confer on mankind 
inestimable benefits. Another relative. Watt's cousin, Mrs. 
Marian Campbell, describes him watching the steam from a 
tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and spoon showing the 
condensation of steam. 

Young Watt was now sent to a commercial school, where he 
acquired a fair share of Latin, and a little Greek ; but his chief 
success lay in mathematics. At the age of nineteen Watt went 
to London, and there sought a situation ; but in vain ; he began 
to despond, when he obtained employment with John Morgan, 
as mathematical instrument maker, in Finch-lane, Coinhilt : 
he remained here but a twelvemonth, and then returned to 
Glasgow, taking with him twenty guineas' worth of additional 
tools. Here he opened a shop as " mathematical instrument 



220 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

maker to the University," and drew around him friends and 
patrons ; among whom were Adam Smith, Dr. Black, and John 
Robison : the latter said of young Watt, " I saw a workman, 
and expected no more ; but was surprised to find a philosopher 
as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me." 

It was about the year 1762, or 1763, that Watt's attention 
appears to have been first turned to the principle of the 
Steam-engine, when he made several experiments with Papin's 
Digester; and by balancing a piston-rod with a weight at one 
end, and then admitting steam under it, he succeeded in obtaining 
a continuous motion. But it was not until the following year 
that his inventive and acute faculties were truly practically 
engaged upon the great object 

About this time, the expense of lifting the water from mines, 
sometimes from depths of seven or nine hundred feet, was 
great ; drawing off the water alone, in some places, cost above 
10,000/. a year; and the time seemed approaching when the 
mines would cease to be wrought at all, the outlay greatly 
exceeding the returns. Steam-engines had staved off this result 
for some years before Watt arose ; but the quantity of fuel they 
consumed was immense when compared with the quantity of 
mineral and water they raised. With a model of one of New- 
comen's engines, belonging to Glasgow College, Watt began his 
experiments. He soon found that it would not give the amount 
of work represented by the fuel consumed ; and, having closely 
examined the structure of the machine, he was led to ask why 
the steam should do its work in the cylinder, and then be con- 
densed there by a jet of cold water. Steam, like air, is an 
elastic fluid, and will rush into a vacuum communicating with a 
vessel in which it is contained. Let the cylinder of the engine 
be filled with steam; establish a communication between it 
and another vessel kept as free as possible of air, and in which 
a jet of cold water is playing; the steam will then be condensed, 
and the temperature of the cylinder will not be affected. This 
is the great discovery of Watt : his condensing engine keeps 
its place, after a century of progress in the arts ; and it will 
most likely do so until steam itself retire, to make way for 
a cheaper, if not a more powerful, agent. Watt made his 
experiments with a little tin cistern, which is still preserved ; 
while busy investigating the subject, he was once observed by 
a visitor kicking it beneath the table, to prevent questioning.* 
* James Syme, M.A. : Edinburgh Essays, 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 221 

In the progress of the invention one great anomaly struck 
Watt; the condensation of a little steam at 212° was 
sufficient to make water rise to the boiling heat of 212° of 
Fahrenheit's thermometer. On mentioning this strange circum- 
stance to Dr. Black, that eminent chemist showed the cause of 
it, and then developed the properties of latent heat^ which he 
had lately discovered. Although Watt hit upon the idea of the 
separate condenser in 1765, and had in two or three days 
worked out in his mind the leading points of the modem 
Steam-engine, yet it was not until the end of 1774 that his 
first model was brought to work satisfactorily. The machine- 
tools of the present day were not in existence ; he could not 
even obtain a cylinder that was true in the bore, and bitter was 
his lament over the decease of his " white-iron man." Again, 
the financial difficulty was almost as great a difficulty to con- 
quer as the mechanical one. Soon after his discovery of the 
separate condenser he entered into partnership with Dr. Roe- 
buck, of the Carron Ironworks : a patent was taken out, Watt 
agreeing to cede to Roebuck two-thirds of all advantages to be 
derived from the invention. An experimental engine on a 
large scale was next constructed, the success of which, with 
the exception of some practical difficulties that presented them- 
selves, was complete. 

A few years afterwards Dr. Roebuck became embarrassed, 
when, in 1773, Matthew Boulton, of the Soho Works, near 
Birmingham, was induced to take Roebuck's two-thirds share 
of the patent of 1769 as a bad debt, until which time the prac- 
tical application of the ingenious labours of Watt can scarcely 
be said to have commenced. It has been happily said that 
without Boulton there would have been no Watt. 

In the following year an application was made to Parliament 
for an extension of the patent, and in 1775 an Act was passed 
extending the term, which, according to the original patent, 
would have expired in 1783, for a period of seventeen years 
longer. Watt now applied himself vigorously to the perfection 
of his invention in all its practical details ; and the result was 
the construction, on a large scale, of what is now known as his 
single-action Steam-engine. 

During the progress of the accessory improvements must be 
noticed Watt's ingenious parallel motion, of which he used to 
say, " Though I am not over anxious after fame, yet I am 
more proud of parallel motion than of any other mechanical 



22Z WONDERFUL 

invention I ever made." By this he attempted to remedy the 
irregularity of action caused by the suspension of the power of 
the engine during the ascent of the piston-rod ; but his idea 
was divulged by a workman, who communicated it to one 
Wasborough, who at once adopted it, and took out a patent 
for the application of the crank to Steam-engines. To avoid 
litigation. Watt abandoned his idea of using a crank, and sub- 
stituted " the sun and planet motion," an arrangement which 
may be seen in the " Old Bess Engine," now in the "South 
Kensington Museum : this is a venerable relic of the Soho 
factory, where it commenced work in 1779, being the very 
first constructed by Watt on the expansion principle. It was 
the great show engine in the last century, and was at work in 
that establishment until a few years ago, when it was removed 
to its present resting-place. The completion of the rotative 




engine, which placed the whole industry of the country at the 
feet of the firm, should have given Watt unbounded satisfac- 
tion ; but, on the contrary, he discountenanced it. Boulton, 
however, with great foresight, ignored Watt's advice in the 
matter. We are told that the first rotative engine was erected 
for Mr. Reynolds, at Ketley, in 1782, and was used to drive a 
corn-mill ; and the third engine is still working, though in a 
modified form, at Whitbread's Brewery, in Chi swell-street. To 
remedy the irregularity of motion produced by the unequal 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 223 

supply of Steam from the boiler, Watt invented the Throttle- 
valve, which being placed in the pipe through which the steam 
is conveyed from the boiler to the cylinder, the opening and 
partial closing of it, by means of a lever, increased or reduced 
the supply of steam, according as it was required. To secure 
the efficiency of the throttle- valve, and to make it self- 
acting, Watt connected the lever, by means of which its 
motions were regulated, with an apparatus, founded on the 
principle of the regulator employed in windmills, to which he 
gave the name of the Governor. This consists of two heavy 
balls, which are attached to a pair of levers that revolve with a 
spindle connected with the main shaft of the engine. The 
centrifugal action exerted by these masses is greater as the 
rotation is more rapid. The levers carrying the balls are so 
jointed with others, that the centrifugal force which causes the 
balls to diverge, acts upon a rod connected with the throttle- 
valve in such a manner that the greater the divergence the 
more obstructed becomes the passage of the steam; until 
at a certain limit the valve would be almost completely closed, 
and the speed of the engine would be effectually checked. 

Before proceeding further, we think it desirable to bring 
before the reader at one view the high state of perfection to 
which the Steam-engine had been advanced by the superior 
intelligence and energy of Watt. This object will, we think, 
be effected by the study of the engraving and description of 
the double-action Steam-engine here given. 

The steam from the boiler is conveyed to the cylinder a 
through the steam-pipe b, the supply being regulated by the 
throttle-valve c, which valve is under the direct influence of 
the governor d. On one side of the cylinder, at the upper and 
lower ends, are attached two square hollow boxes, marked e. 
which communicate with the cylinder by means of a passage in 
the middle of each. These boxes have each two valves, by 
means of which they are divided into three compartments. 
The top compartment in both boxes communicates with the 
steam-pipe, and the lower one with the eduction-pipe leading 
to the condenser. These valves move in pairs ; that is, the 
upper induction-valve f and the lower exhaustion-valve / 
move together, and the same with the upper exhaustion-valve 
G and the lower induction-valve g. The piston r, being 
accurately fitted to the cylinder by packing, as it moves, divides 
the cylinder into two compartments, between which there is no 



224 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

communication. By opening the valve f, therefore, steam is 
admitted above the piston, while it is, at the same time, with- 
drawn from below the. piston, and allowed to pass to the 




condenser, by the opening of the valve/. In the same manner 
steam is withdrawn from above the piston by means of the 
valve G, and admitted beneath the piston through the valve g. 
These valves are ail worked with one lever h (called the span- 
ner), as will shortly be explained. Below the cylinder is (he 



THE STEAM-ENGINE, 325 

condensing apparatus, consisting of two cylinders, i and j, im- 
mersed in a cistern of cold water. A pipe k, having an end like 
the rose of a watering-pot, conveys water from the cistern to 
the cylinder i ; the supply, which is, however, continual, being 
regulated by a cock. J3y this means the steam constantly 
passing into the cylinder i becomes condensed. The other 
cylinder j, called ihe air-pump, has a close-packed piston l, 
with a valve in it opening upwards, which operates like thd 
bucket of a common pump, and draws off the surplus water 
that is continually collecting at the bottom of the condenser i, 
through the passage which communicates between the two 
vessels at the lower part, by means of a valve opening towards 
the air-pump into the reservoir / The hot-water pump m then 
conveys this water into the tank which supplies the boiler. 
The cold-water pump n supplies the cistern in which the air- 
pump and condenser are submerged, so as to keep down its 
temperature to the proper limit. On the rod of the air-pump 
two pins are placed, so as to strike the spanner h upwards and 
downwards at the proper times, when the piston approaches the 
termination of the stroke at the top or bottom of the cylinder. 
To the working end of the beam o a rod of cast-iron p, called 
the connecting-rod, is attached, and is again fixed at its other 
end to the crank q, by means of a pivot. Its weight is such 
that it serves to balance the weight of the piston-rod of the air- 
pump and cylinder, on the other side of the beam ; while the 
weight of the rod of the cold-water pump is nearly equivalent 
to that of the rod of the hot-water pump. On the axle of the 
crank is placed the fly-wheel, and connected with it is the 
governor d, which regulates the throttle- valve, as before 
mentioned. 

The working of the engine is as follows : — Supposing the 
piston to be at the top of the cylinder, and the whole of the 
space below to be filled with steam, the upper steam-valve and 
the lower exhaustion valve will be opened by the spanner 
being raised by the lower pin of the air-pump rod, while the 
upper exhaustion valve and the lower steam-valve are closed. 
By this means steam will be admitted above the piston, and the 
steam beneath it be drawn off into the condenser, where it 
will be converted into water. The effect of this will be the 
forcing of the piston, by the pressure of the steam above it, to 
the bottom of the cylinder. Just as this takes place, the 
spanner will be moved downwards by the upper pin on the rod 

Q 



226 WONDERFUL INVpNTIONS, 

of the air-pump ; and the valves that were previously opened 
closed, while those that remained closed will be, at the same 
time, opened. The steam will, therefore, be admitted into 
the cylinder beneath the piston, and the steam above be drawn 
off into the condenser, and be converted into water, as before. 
While the above action is going on, the air-pump will draw off 
the hot water in the condenser into the upper reservoir, and at 
the same time the hot-water pump will convey this water back 
again to the tank which supplies the boiler. 

In 1786 Watt and Boulton visited Paris, by invitation of the 
French Government, to superintend the erection of certain 
Steam-engines, and to suggest improvements in the great 
hydraulic machine of Marly. In Paris Watt met Lavoisier, 
Laplace, and Fourcroy ; and discussed with BerthoUet his new 
method of bleaching by chlorine. 

After innumerable difficulties — among which may be men- 
tioned the fight the Comishmen made against paying the 
royalty of one-third of the fuel saved by the new engine — 
towards the end of 1787 Watt began to reap the fruits of his 
invention ; he had 4,000/. at his bankers' and a promise of 
further instalments. To the frugal engineer this was, indeed, 
wealth. 

As Soho prospered, Watt became a changed man, the racking 
headaches which disturbed his early life disappeared, and as 
the profits of his engine came in, he forgot to curse it. He be- 
came more cheerful and contented, and we feel assured that it 
is from this period of his life that his more favourable social 
qualities have been drawn by those who came in contact with 
him. We are told that he was passionately addicted to novel 
reading, and that he and his wife cried like children over a 
touching novel. To the world this gives a picture of the great 
mechanical genius it could little have expected. 

The patent right which had been granted to Boulton and 
Watt for their improved engine having expired in the year 
1800, Watt, although only 62 years old, retired from the active 
duties of Soho, leaving his two sons (one of whom died a few 
years afterwards) in conjunction with his former partner, the 
indomitable Boulton, who lived in the excitement of business ; 
he not only remained, but in his old years set about no less a 
project than the reform of the coinage, then in a very low con- 
dition. The application of the Steam-engine to the presses, 
and his own love of art, enabled him to pursue this new branch 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



of industry with a success in which not only this, but other 
nations participated. It might be said that he died in harness, 
for, although suffering from a cruel disease, he was as active as 




ever in his great establishment at Soho to within a year of his 
death, which occurred in 1809.* Watt, towards the latterjears 
of his life, indulged in all the pleasures of being a landed pro- 

* Mr. Smiles has written (he joint biography of Malthew Boulton and 
James Watt with great success. The present representative of ihe Boulton 
kmily, M. P. W. Boulton, Esq., of Tew Park, gave Mr. Smiles full access 
to the Soho papers, and to the extensive original correspondence between 
Boulton and WatI, so that an authentic history is the result. Boulton's con- 
nexion with Watt arose in this way. Want of water-power was one of the 
great defects of Soho as a manufecturing establishment, and for a long lime 
Bouiton struggled with the difficulty. The severe summer droughts obliged 
him to connect a horse-milt with the water-wheel. " The enormous expense 
of the horse-power," he wrote to a friend, "put me upon thinking of turning 
the mill by lire, and I made many fruitless experiments on theBubjecl." In 
1766 we find him engaged in a correspondence with Benjamin Franklin as to 
steam-power. Eight years before Franklin had visited Boulton at Birming- 
ham, and made his acquaintance. They were mutually pleased with each 
other, and continued to correspond during FrankUn's stay in England, ex- 
changing Iheir views on magnetism, electricity, and other subjects. When 
Boulton began to study the fire-engine," that is, in fact, the steam-engine, 
with a view to Its improvement, Franklin was one of the first whom he 
consulted. From their correspondence it appears that Boulton, like Watt — 
who was at about the same time occupied with his invention at Glasgow — 
had a model constructed for experimental purposes, and that this model was 
then with Franldin in Landoii. 



228 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

prietor ; but he still remained true to his old instincts. Upon 
his retirement to Heathfield, in the neighbourhood of Birming- 
ham, he fitted up a room next his bedroom as a workshop, 
where he occupied himself with many curious inventions ; 
among the best known of which was the famous Copying 
Machine, which he called his " likeness lathe.'* With this inge- 
nious instrument, which reproduces with mathematical accuracy 
pieces of sculpture, &c., he amused himself almost up to the 
day of his death. Watt lived in this little garret, and it was 
■fitted up with appliances for cooking his meals. The great 
inventor, who may be said to have moved the world, would seem 
to have lived in a wholesome fear of his wife, who detested 
dirt, and hated the sight of his leathern apron and soiled hands, 
and he was obliged to go through a cleansing process before he 
dared to enter her apartments. If we are to believe Mrs. 
Schimmelpenninck, she treated him as she did her pug-dog, 
whom she forced to wipe his feet upon the mat before venturing 
to cross the hall. No wonder that Watt stuck to his garret 

A visit to James Watt's workshop is thus described by a 
member of the British Association, who attended the Meeting 
of 1865, when he made a pilgrimage to this home of genius. 
" We were admitted into his workroom — a garret at the top of 
the house. It appears he had a scolding wife, who didn't like 
the messes and noises he made ; so he was sent to the attic. 
This room is exactly as Watt left it. The very ashes are still 
in the grate ; his little lathe has a bit of unfinished w^ork in it ; 
tools lie about ; books and drawings are in old drawers, and 
strewed here and there. It is a miserable little place. Only 
. four of us could get in at one time. In fact, the daughter of 
the house who went with us had to tuck herself up into all 
manner of shapes to prevent her crinoline sweeping all the 
letters into the corners. The house is a very good one, and 
Watt was rich when he died there ; but it's clear his wife kept 
him and his little workroom in the background. This room 
has only been recently opened. By the will of Watt's son it 
was ordered to be left for ever as the old man left it when he 
last went out at its door. It was not looked into for more than 
thirty years." 

Watt, in his retirement, was not unmindful of his early 
friends. In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, 
whence he had borrowed the model of Newcomen's engine; 
and in 181 6 he made a donation to his native town, Greenock, 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 229 

towards forming a scientific library. In his latter days he 
still dwelt on steam navigation : he had long since inquired 
whether a " spiral oar,*' or " two wheels," were preferable for 
this purpose. But he lived to know that two steam-vessels had 
been impelled by steam-engines constructed at Soho on the 
principles invented by himself In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, 
he made a trip in a steamboat to Rothsay and back again ; 
and while on board pointed out to the engineer of the boat 
the method of backing the engine. It is remarkable that Watt 
made but feeble efforts to apply steam-power to locomotion 
on land: he constructed a steam-carriage; but we have no 
evidence of his anticipating the union of the rail and wheel. 

In the Museum of the Patent Office the model engine con- 
structed by Watt, and used for the purpose of turning his 
lathe, is now to be seen. 

Watt died tranquilly at his house at Heathfield, on the 19th 
of August, 18 19, in his eighty-third year. Age had not dimmed 
his intellectual vigour, his colloquial animation, or his bene- 
volence ; his instructive conversation, or his lively, and even 
playful, manner : he was even to the last " ready to distribute, 
willing to communicate." A marble sitting portrait statue —for 
which Chantrey received 6,000 guineas — was placed in West- 
minster Abbey, with an eloquent and truthful inscription from 
the pen of Lord Brougham ; well befitting the memory of one 
whose cardinal merits were candour and truth. " Let James 
speak," said Watt's father; "from him I always hear tlie truth." 
The inscription tells us that James Watt, 

Directing the force of an original genius, 

Early exercised in philosophical research, 

To the improvement of 

The Steam-engine, 

Enlarged the resources of his country, 

Increased the power of man, 

And rose to an eminent place 

Among the most illustrious followers of Science 

And the real benefactors of the world. 

In the cemetery at Greenock it was proposed to raise to the 
memory of Watt, a monumental Tower, 514 feet above the 
level of the sea ; with, in the upper turret an electric time-ball, 
and a gallery of memorials commemorative of men eminent in 
science and philosophy ; but this project has not been executed. 
In the Watt Institution, at Greenock, however, his memory is 
honoured by a marble statue of the great inventor, by Chantrey, 



230 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

which was paid for by subscription ; and the building which 
contains it was erected partly through the same medium, and 
partly by gift from the successors and representatives of Watt: 
here are deposited the books of the Greenock Library. 

Arago has left this comprehensive tribute to the genius ot 
Watt : " There are few inventions, great or small, among those 
which are so admirably combined in our present Steam-engines, 
which are not the development of some of the original ideas of 
Watt. Examine his labours, and, in addition to the principal 
points, you will find that he proposed machines without con- 
densation, in which, after having acted, the steam is dispersed 
in the air ; and which were intended for localities where large 
quantities of water could not easily be procured. The operation 
of the principle of expansion in machines with several cylinders 
was also one of the projects of the Soho engineer. He sug- 
gested the idea of pistons which should be perfectly steam- 
tight, although composed exclusively of metal. It was Watt 
who first had recourse to mercurial manometers for measuring 
the elasticity of steam in the boiler and the condenser ; who 
conceived the idea of a single and permanent gauge, by whose 
assistance might always be ascertained, with a glance of the eye, 
the level of the water in the boiler ; and who, to prevent this 
level ever varying injuriously, connected the movements of the 
feeding-pump with those of a float ; and who, when required, 
placed in an opening in the cover of the principal cylinder of 
the machine the indicator, a small apparatus so constructed 
that it accurately exhibits the state of the steam, in relation to 
the position of the piston, &c. Nor was Watt less skilfiil in 
his attempts to improve the boilers, to diminish the loss of 
heat, and to consume those torrents of black smoke, which 
issue from common chimneys, however elevated they may be." 

From time to time new power has been added to the Steam- 
engine, and, by numerous modifications by eminent workmen, 
it has been applied to all the purposes of manufacture ; driving 
machinery, impelling ships, grinding com, printing books, 
stamping money, hammering, planing, and turning iron : in 
short, of performing every description of mechanical labour 
where power is required. These successive advances, how- 
ever, have not been the result of the genius of any one 
inventor, but of the continuous and successive industry and 
inventiveness of many generations ; not of one man, but of the 
efforts of a nation of mechanical engineers. 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 23I 

The tomb of Watt, adorned by Chantre/s noble statue, is 
in a small chapel at the south side of Handsworth church ; 
the window opposite is overshadowed by trees, which add to 
the solemn and imposing character of the figure. On the sides 
of the chancel are tablets to the memory of Boulton and 
Murdoch. This is a fitting place to meditate on the lives of 
these men : the lesson to be learned therefrom may be read in 
the motto on the massive base on which the statue of Watt is 
seated — " Ingenio et labore." From the church may be seen 
Heathfield House, the last residence of Watt: the grounds 
were laid out by Watt himself. Here he passed the closing 
years of his studious and useful life. The present owner of 
the estate, Mr. J. W. Gibson Watt, carefully preserves every- 
thing connected with the memory of the great engineer and 
practical philosopher who formerly resided here. Even the 
tools and the lathe in his private workshop are left just where 
the hand of James Watt last touched them, covered with the 
dust of seven and forty years : the trees overhanging the pool 
in the grounds were planted by the same hand. 




THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 



|LTHOUGH steamboats, perhaps, appear more promi- 
nently in our eyes than other benefits which Watt was 
the means of conferring upon mankind, it would be a 
mistake to regard these as the noblest monuments of 
his fame : progress in manufactures was contemporary with 
Watt's invention, and in course of time became dependent on 
it Our textile and iron manufactures received an impulse at 
this period from the appHcation of new or improved machinery, 
which, so far from having spent its force, has been increased 
from time to time by fresh triumphs of genius, and is still be- 
stowing prosperity and wealth upon the nation. In one branch 
of industry has this forward impulse been especially apparent, 
namely, in the Cotton Manufacture ; and it has been aptly 
remarked : " It is to the spinning jenny and the steam-engine 
that we must look, as having been the true moving powers of 
our fleets and armies, and the chief support also of a long 
continued agricultural prosperity." 

Cotton, which is produced over many parts of the earth 
spontaneously, has been wrought into garments for the people 
of India for 3,000 years. We find it among the arts of Egypt 
and other eastern countries : the Egyptian looms were famed 
for their fine cotton fabrics, some worked with the needle in 
coloured patterns, and others woven in the piece ; and the 
dresses painted on Egyptian monuments prove that such were 
used by the Egyptians more than 3,000 years ago, as they 
were at a later period by the Babylonians. Cotton was known 
in Spain in the twelfth century, and eventually it found its 
way to England; but, except for candle-wicks, it was not 
employed in England long before the year 1641, when it was 
used at Manchester in md]k.ing fustians and dimities. 



MANUFACTURE. 233 

For ages had our grandmothers sat down to the spinning- 
wheel, and spun the yam of wool or flax, which was afterwards 
sent to the weaver, and woven into strong homely dresses, 
by the old " weaver's beam and shuttle," with very little im- 
provement, the same as that mentioned in the Book of Job, 
What the ancient cloths were may be seen by examining such 
as have been brought from the tombs of Thebes, or are 
swathed around the mummies of Egypt. 

At all times clothing, to some extent at least, was necessary 
in the states where civilization existed ; and we find in the 
antique monuments of Thebes plain representations of the 
implements by which the inhabitants wove the cloth that 
protected them from the changes or the inclemency of the 
weather 




Even at the present day the Hindoo, seated on the ground; 
with his legs in a hole, and the weft of his muslin tied to the 
branches of a couple of trees, throws his shuttle with a skill 
that, in the end, produces the most beautiful muslin or calico ; 
yet such is the superiority obtained by the use of machinery, 



234 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

that the cotton grown on his native plains can be brought ten 
thousand miles, cleansed, spun, woven, dried, packed, and 
carried back again, and then sold in the province where its 
woolly fibre first silvered the bud, at a less price than that of 
the cloth produced by the Indian artisan. 

There is a curious account of the early stages of a pound 
weight of unmanufactured cotton, which strikingly proves the 
importance of the trade and employment afforded by this 
plant : " The cotton wool came from the East Indies to 
London ; from London it went to Manchester, where it 
was manufactured into yarn ; from Manchester it was sent to 
Paisley, where it was woven ; it was then sent to Ayrshire, 
where it was tamboured ; it came back to Paisley, where it 
was veined ; afterwards it was sent to Dumbarton, where it 
was hand-sewed, and again brought to Paisley ; whence it was 
sent to Renfrew to be bleached, and was returned to Paisley ; 
whence it was sent to Glasgow, and was finished ; and firom 
Glasgow was sent per coach to London. The time occupied 
in bringing this article to market was three years, from its being 
packed in India, till it arrived in cloth at the merchant*s ware- 
house in London. It must have been conveyed 5,000 miles by 
sea, and about 920 by land ; and contributed to support not 
less than 150 persons, by which the value had been increased 
2,000 per cent." 

It is unnecessary to remark that cloth made by weaving is 
formed by interlacing the threads with each other crosswise ; 
but it is not so generally known that there are regular terms for 
all the different kinds of weaving. Thus, plain weaving is 
merely the process of making each single thread interlace with 
that next to it, by means of a shuttle sent horizontally between 
the threads, which are placed upright before the weaver. In 
weaving twilled stuffs the shuttle is made to pass over one and 
under two, or over two and under three or four, just as it is 
desired to produce that diagonal line which we perceive in 
galloons, bombazines, and fabrics of similar manufacture. 
When stripes are to be produced, the colours are arranged in 
the warp^ which is the name given to the long threads, while 
the weft^ the cross threads, is made to pass in the usual 
manner ; but when checks are required, the colours have to be 
arranged both in the warp and weft ; and, in the weaving of all 
kinds of patterns, they are produced by making the weft to pass 
under and over at particular spots, wherever it is wished the 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 235 

spots or flowers should be seen. In " shot silk" the warp is of 
one colour and the weft of another. 

In all probability the weft was in the first place formed by 
throwing a ball of thread through the shed, as that open space 
is called which is formed by the weaver treading down first one 
treadle and then another, to raise or depress the alternate 
warp thread. And this ball, unwinding as it passed along, 
formed the weft ; but afterwards a more convenient means was 
adopted in the common shuttle^ which is a piece of wood, some- 
thing in the shape of a boat, hollowed out in the middle, where 
the thread or cotton is placed, and so protected from the rub- 
bing to which it would be otherwise subject In the com- 
monest mode of weaving the shuttle is passed from side to 
side with both hands ; but about a hundred years ago what is 
termed the fly-shuttle was invented by an ingenious person, 
named Kay, who resided at Bury. By this invention the shuttle, 
with the aid of a string, can be cast both ways by the same 
hand, so that the workman saves a considerable portion of his 
time in the operation. 

In India and China, to the present day, the warp is formed 
by laying the threads side by side in an open field : and in the 
infancy of cotton manufacture in England the same plan was 
commonly followed ; but the uncertainty of the climate neces- 
sarily subjected the process to frequent hindrance, and a 
machine was invented called the warping-milL This consists 
of a number of upright posts, which are fastened at top and 
bottom into the rim of a wheel, with a shaft, which turns Hke an 
axle, in the centre. This is made to revolve by means of what 
is called an endless rope — that is, a rope with the ends fas- 
tened together ; which is passed round a short axle, and 
wound round and round by means of a handle. Close by this 
there is an upright framing, in which a number of bobbins are 
fixed, four or five end to end, and several tiers one above 
another. The ends of the threads of these several bobbins are 
then brought all together and passed through a sliding piece, 
which by means of a rope is made to travel up and down the 
outer framing of the mill. By turning the axle, therefore, the 
threads are made to wind spirally round the mill ; and when a 
sufficient length has been obtained, by means of some pins the 
motion of the mill is reversed ; and the process is thus con- 
tinued until a sufficient number of threads has been obtained 
to form the whole breadth of the warp. This then is attached 



236 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

to the frame of the weaving machine, and the cross threads are 
interlaced, as has been already described. 

At what period the Cotton Plant was introduced into the 
localities from which our supplies are now chiefly drawn is not 
precisely stated. The j&nest and best kind, which is known 
by the name of Sea Island Cottony from its being grown on the 
low sandy islands off the coast of the United States, is the pro- 
duce of a plant that appears to have been first carried to the 
Bahamas from the island of Anguilla (whither it is believed to 
have been, transported from Persia), and was sent to Georgia in 
1786. But there is evidence of the existence of the cotton plant 
in America long before there was any direct communication 
between the civilized world and the two great portions of that 
Continent ; and we have it positively stated that the Spaniards 
found calico a common article in the dress of the inhabitants 
when they conquered Mexico. 

Cotton is estimated by the length and shortness, the silki- 
ness and coarseness, and the weakness and strength, of the 
several filaments, which are the downy hairs that grow 
on the surface of the white seed-pod of the plant. Some 
species of cotton thrive best in sea-air, and the produce is 
fine in proportion to their nearness or distance from the 
coast. Others again require the interior of the country. In 
dry climates the best plants, as on the mountain-bound 
shores of Brazil, are met with on the coast ; while in damp 
climates, like that of Pemambuco, the most valuable produce 
is obtained from the interior. But whether seen bordering 
the lofty acclivities of the Andes, with the wide Pacific heav- 
ing its boundless waves to a limitless horizon, beneath a sky 
of more than Italian azure, or met with in the broad rich valleys, 
bright with the luxuriant bloom of tropical wild-flowers, a field 
of cotton shrubs, with their dark green leaves and silvery pods, 
and here and there a magnificent mangolia or a noble palm 
reanng its lofty head, is at all times a beautiful sight, and more 
especially in the picking-season, when hosts of busy labourers are 
gathering the valuable produce, and preparing it for shipment. 

Nothing in the history of British commerce shows so mar- 
vellous a rate of progress as the importation of cotton from the 
United States within the present century. In the early stages 
of the trade the raw cotton manufactured in Great Britain was 
chiefly the produce of the West Indies ; Uie finer sorts came 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 237 

from Surinam, the Brazils, and the Isle of Bourbon. But at 
the end of the last century the Sea Island cotton proved 
its superiority. This is only found in Georgia, Florida, and 
South Carolina, and is often termed by the inhabitants of the 
Southern States " black seed cotton," from the seed contained 
in the pods being black ; while the seeds of the short staple 
cotton, or that which has the short filaments, is called the 
^^ green seed cotton" on account of its colour. This latter kind 
is also called ^^a/<?^ Georgia or upland cotton ; having acquired 
the latter appellation from its being grown in the upper districts 
of the State, instead of on the low tracts along the sea-coast. 
It is called bowed cotton because the strings of a bow were 
made to twang sharply upon the mass of produce, and thus, by 
repeated strokes, to loosen the locks of cotton, and separate 
the seeds from the filaments ; but this is now more speedily 
and effectually done by a saw gin. 

In 1784 an American vessel arrived at Liverpool, having on 
board eight bales of cotton, when they were seized by the 
custom-house officers of that port, under the impression that they 
had been imported from some other country, as they had never 
before seen American cotton. In 1785 only five bags were 
imported, and next year six ; such were the small beginnings of 
that immense trade which now gives employment to millions 
on both sides of the Atlantic. The total value of the Ameri- 
can crop of cotton in 1855 was estimated at 140,000,000 
dollars ; and in 1856 the crop showed an increase of nearly 
700,000 bales. 

The capabilities of the British colonies for producing cotton 
are great. The West Indian Islands, Port Natal, and our 
other African possessions, will grow cotton quite as well as 
the United States ; while Australia would produce an unlimited 
amount ; and in the great colony of India the plant is indi- 
genous. It has been computed that a piece of ground of the 
size of Yorkshire is sufficient to produce a quantity of cotton 
nearly double the annual consumption of England, stated, in 
i860, to be 2,523,000 bags, of which 85 per cent, came from 
the United States. The rate is, however, rapidly changing. 
Whilst the supply from North America is passing away, that 
from the British possessions is greatly increasing, and especially 
in India, in consequence of the construction of railways and 
canals; whilst specimens of cotton cloth have been shown from 



238 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the East and West Indies, and Australia, fully equal in quality 
to the best from New Orleans.* 

The great starting-point of our Cotton Manufacture may be 
dated from the year 1760, — the beginning of a new era of 
commercial history and a century of commerce the most 
wonderful the world has ever known. In that year the Society 
of Arts offered a premium for the greatest improvement in 
the common spinning wheel, and afterwards offered 100/. for 
the construction of a machine that would spin six threads of 
wool, cotton, flax, or silk at the same time. This led to 
Wyatt's invention, which, as we shall presently see, proved 
impracticable. 

In the year 1760, or soon after, Hargreaves, the Lancashire 
weaver, invented the Carding Machine, not very different from 
that now in use ; and in 1767 he invented the Spinning Jenny ^ 
at first containing eight spindles, made to revolve by bands 
from a horizontal wheel. The power of the Jenny was then 
increased to 80 spindles, when the saving of labour so alarmed 
the workmen that a rising ensued, and they went through the 
county, destroying Carding and Spinning Machines, wherever 
they could find them, so as to drive away the manufacturer 
from Lancashire to th^ town of Nottingham. Hargreaves used 
to relate that he took the idea of the Jenny from the following 
incident: a hand-wheel with a single spindle being overturned, 
he remarked that the spindle, which before was horizontal, was 
then vertical; and as it continued to revolve, he drew the 
roving of wool towards him into a thread, when it seemed that if 
something could be contrived to hold the roving, as the finger 
and thumb did, and that contrivance could be made to travel 
backwards and forwards on wheels, six, or eight, or even 

* A complete return of the value of the raw cotton imported in 1866 
shows the total to have been 77,521,406/, as compared with 66,032, 193/. 
in 1865, 78,203,729/. in 1864, 56,277>953^- in 1863, 31,093,045 in 1862, 
38,653,398/. in 1861, 35,756,889/. in i860, 34,559,636/. in 1859, 
30,106,968/. in 1858, and 29,288,827/. in 1857. Of the vast amount paid 
in 1866 for raw cotton, the United States absorbed 34,977,986/., while the 
corresponding total for 1865 was 12,035,484/., and for 1864 1,711,890/. 
The value of the raw cotton received in 1866 from British India is set down 
at 25,270,547/., as compared with 25,005,856/. in 1865, and 38,214,723/. 
in 1864. None of the new cotton fields appear to hold their own to any 
extent except India ; the Bahamas, Mexico, China, &c., seem to be fast 
receding to their old insignificance as centres of production. A considerable 
quantity of cotton was still received, however, in 1866 from Brazil and 
Egypt. 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 239 

twelve, threads, from as many spindles, might be spun at once. 
This was done, and succeeded ; but Hargreaves, who, as we 
have said, having fled to Nottingham, could not bear up 
against the savage treatment he had received, and he died 
in great distress, having given the property of his Jenny to 
the Strutts, who thereupon laid the foundation of their great 
opulence and a peerage. 

The demand for cotton goods which began to pour into 
the towns of Lancashire from abroad, about a hundred years 
ago, could no longer be met by hand-labour ; spinners, chiefly 
women, were bribed to supply the weavers with yarn, but the 
weaver could not supply the manufacturer with cloth. Hand- 
labour had reached the limit of its capabilities in spinning, 
and genius, at length, furnished mechanism to take its place. Of 
the numerous processes to which cotton fibres are subjected, 
there are two in particular on which all the rest depend. Cot- 
ton, flax, and wool are received by the manufacturer in tangled 
heaps of fibres doubled and twisted among each other, and these 
must be laid lengthways and parallel. This was done by the 
carding machine (wire brush), which was greatly improved by 
Lewis Paul and Arkwright, who substituted machinery for the 
hand, and furnished the spinner with a riband of cotton some 
hundred yards long, instead of the short rolls formerly stripped 
off" the cards. Wyatt, however, in 1739, introduced the method 
of spinning by means of two or more pairs of rollers with 
different velocities. 

Next, M. de Gennes published in the Philosophical Transac- 
tions — the date is 1768 — an account of a machine to make 
linen cloth without the aid of an artificer, ft was to be worked 
by water-power, and the description contains all the germs of 
the power-loom, which was thereafter to produce such wonderful 
results. The chief difficulty which De Gennes conceived he 
had to overcome was breaking the threads of the warp; and 
this he said his machine would obviate, by preventing the shuttle 
from touching them ; while he averred that it would set ten or 
twelve looms at work, and the cloth might be made to any 
width. Yet this machine, ingenious as it was, never appears to 
have been of any practical use ; and, subsequently, Mr. Austin, 
Mr. Miller, and two Frenchmen, named respectively Dolignon 
and Vaucanson, attempted the same thing. Of these, only that 
designed by Mr. Austin was brought to any practical effect, 
and a power-loom was put up by him in the factory of 



240 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Mr. Monteith, near Glasgow ; but after a short time even this 
was laid aside. 

Arkwright, with more success, in 1769, the same year that 
Watt took out his first patent for improvement on the Steam- 
engine, introduced an invention which is described to have 
changed the character of the cloth trade. It is thus described 
by Mr. Syme: "If a riband of parallel fibres be caught between 
two rollers, of which the upper is pressed down on the lower by 
heavy weights, it will be drawn through and compressed as they 
revolve ; but it will not be lengthened out. If, however, the 
end escaping from one set of rollers be caught between a 
second which turn twice or thrice as quickly, it will be drawn 
forward with greater speed than before. A known length of 
riband is passed through the first set by one turn : but if the 
second set b^ made to revolve twice as fast, the same quantity 
must pass between them in one half the time ; or, as the 
tenacity of the fibres prevents the riband from tearing across, it 
will be drawn out to double its length and fineness. A slight 
twist is at the same time given to increase the strength of the 
^rovifigj as the attenuated thread is now called. By repeat- 
ing the process great fineness may be attained, and a still fur- 
ther twist given ; and, by employing a sufficient number of 
rollers, a thousand threads may be spread in this way as easily 
as one. Arkwright at first employed water-power to move his 
machinery, and the yarn which he produced was therefore 
called water-\?^\%\.. Such in principle were the two great inven- 
tions that effected an entire change in the manufacture of 
cotton, wool, and flax. The men by whom they were really 
invented, Paul and Wyatt, partners in the same establishment, 
did not succeed in procuring for them public favour ; while 
Arkwright, possessing more perseverance, and perhaps equal 
inventive power, carried off the prize of fortune and fame to 
which the original inventors were entitled. 

"Before Arkwright introduced spinning by rollers, Har- 
greaves, the ingenious mechanic of Blackburn, had contrived a 
frame in which a number of previously prepared rovings were 
drawn out to greater fineness and twisted into yarn, enabling 
one man to do the work of eight, or even eighty. Arkwright's 
invention prepared the rovings and spun the yarn ; Hargreaves' 
could do the latter only. The former was best adapted for 
producing firm warp yam ; the latter for spinning the finer 
kinds used as weft. The union of the principles of both was 



MAKUFACTURE. 24^ 

requisite to perfect the art of spinning, Hargreaves (1767) 
attached the ends of several parallel rovings to spindles 
placed vertically in a frame, and seizing the whole by a clasp 
at some distance, drew it from the frame, when the reduced 
roving was twisted by the rapid revolution of the spindle, and 
then wound upon a bobbin. The rollers of Arkwright and the 
motion from the spindles are united in the Mule of Crompton, 
which was invented in 1779; and, after many unsuccessful 
attempts, made self-acting about forty years ago : so that one 
spinner can make 800, 1,000, or even 2,000 threads at once. 
The rovings part the rough rollers, which turn for some time, 
and then stop ; the spindles are placed on a carriage, which 



N^^-ifc^ 


7:^""^^^ .. ./^tC^ 


&-fc=^^^iiP^;^ 


.-5?^^ 


^^^p^&t^^ftsa 


il iii, «i .. \ 

Hiiiffliiii'.: 




^4^^s 






•.i.' 


^^ • ^"swin 


1 


K-'-^^S 



moves from the rollers, after they have ceased to turn and draw 
out the thread ; the spindles revolve, the requisite twist is com- 
municated to the fibres, and the thread thus spun is then 
wound on the bobbins as the carriage advances towards the 
rollers."* 

As soon as the whole of these processes are performed, the 
mule disengages itself from those portions of the machine 
which have been used to propel it, and the attendant returns 
it again to the carriage, to perform its work afresh. 

* Edinburgh Estays. 



242 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Some idea of the value of this last invention may be formed 
by the fact that, while the water-frame is capable of spinning a 
pound of cotton to the length of nineteen miles, or forty hanks, 
the mule has not yet met with any limit short of 950 miles to 
the pound of cotton, or 2,000 hanks. These inventions have, 
more or less, been extended to the spinning of other staples. 

The story of Samuel Crompton and the Spinning Mule is a 
saddening one ; though its results gave a wonderful impulse to 
the industry, wealth, and population of South Lancashire, and 
raised its villages to the importance of large and populous 
towns. Crompton was well educated, but "his little legs 
became accustomed to the loom almost as soon as they were 
long enough to touch the treadles." At his soHtary loom, in an 
old mansion, he became, prematurely, a thinker; in this old 
place he toiled late and early for five years, during which time 
he worked entirely alone, and invented and completed his 
Spinning Machine, at the expense of every shilling he had in 
the world : we read of his playing the violin in the orchestra 
of the Bolton Theatre at is, 6d, per night, which assisted him in 
procuring tools for his mechanical operations. His machine 
was first called the Muslin Wheel, because it was available for 
yam for making muslins ; and finally it got the name of the 
Mule, from its partaking of the two leading features of Ark- 
wright's machine and Hargreaves* Spinning Jenny. Crompton 
had just completed his first Mule, when the Blackburn spinners 
and weavers rose ; and to save his new machine from destruc- 
tion, he took it to pieces, which he hid in a loft of the old 
Hall, and there it remained for some weeks : but in the same 
year he completed the Mule, and spun upon it muslin yam, and 
out of its first eamings he bought a silver watch. The demands 
for the new machine were now one hundred times greater than 
he could supply : the old Hall was besieged by cunning persons 
as well as purchasers, who came to get at the secret of the new 
wheel ; and among them was Arkwright, who travelled 60 miles 
to get at the mystery. Crompton, as he could not retain the 
secret of his machine, nor patent it, gave it to the public, upon 
condition of being paid a sum of money, to be raised by sub- 
scription, which did not amount to 60/. ; yet many wealthy 
Bolton firms built their fortunes upon this small investment 
Then persons broke their promise of subscription, and de- 
nounced Crompton as an impostor : this made him moody and 
mistrustful. Before 1785 he removed to a farm-house near 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 243 

Bolton, and there worked secretly at his machine : inquisitive 
visitors came, and among them Mr. " (afterwards the first Sir 
Robert) Peel * 

In 1800, with 500/., raised principally at Manchester, Cromp- 
ton rented a factory-storey at Bolton, and toiled unceasingly : 
he sought reward from the Royal Society and the Society of 
Arts, but neither of these well-supported institutions would 
entertain the invention. The pubhc had got it, and that was 
enough I Yet at this time there were 4,600,000 mule spindles, 
spinning 40,000,000 pounds of cotton wool in a year. He 
petitioned Parliament, and, after much delay, the sum of 5,000/. 
was granted him. About two years after this Crompton died, 
and was followed to the grave by a host of Bolton worthies; 
but to be treated with respect after death is but a poor recom- 
pense for being neglected while we are Hving ! From that day 
little has been said or thought of Samuel Crompton. 

But the last great triumph of mechanical ingenuity in this 
manufacture was that for which a patent was taken out by 
Mr. Roberts, a machine-maker of Manchester, in 1830. It 
obviated the necessity of an attendant to take the spindle back 
in the carriage ; for the mule not only disengaged itself, but, by 
an intervening contrivance, returned without human aid to 

* Mr. J. G. French, the eminent manufacturer of Bolton, who has, in his 
Life and Times, in a bold and manly spirit, raised Crompton from neglect, 
relates that when Crompton lived at Oldhams, he received two visits from 
Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Peel. On his first visit Crompton was absent; 
but Mr. Peel chatted with his wife, and gave young George half-a-guinea. 
Mrs. Crompton going into her dairy to bring her guest a bowl of milk, Mr. 
Peel took the opportunity to ask the boy where his father worked. George 
was pointing out the nail-head which, on being pressed, lifted the concealed 
latch of the door leading to the upper storey, when his mother returned with 
the milk, and by a look warned him that he had committed an error. 

The objects of Mr. Peel's visits were to oifer Mr. Crompton, first, a 
lucrative situation of trust in his establishment, and afterwards partnership 
in it Both these offers were declined, partly from Crompton's love of 
independence, and partly from a jealous suspicion of persons in a superior 
social position, caused by a feeling of personal dislike to the future baronet, 
which he entertained all his life, arising, it is said, from some disagreement 
on Mr. Peel's first inspection of the m\3e. It is added, that when he called 
at the Hall in the Wood, to see the new wheel, in terms of his subscription 
of one guinea from Peel, Yates, and Co., of Bury, he brought with him 
several mechanics in his employment, who inspected the wheel along with 
him, and were able to carry away its details in their memory. To this there 
could be no reasonable objection, as such was the known purpose of the 
Tisit ; but Samuel Crompton could not forget or forgive the indignity of 
being offered a payment of sixpence each for these men, 

R 2 



244 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

repeat its duty from the carriage, so that the only assistance 
required is that of a child to piece the threads when they 
happen to break. The yam is now complete, and it has only 
to be prepared for sale, or the home trade, or for exportation. 

We will now glance at the career of the honourable person 
at the head of these improvers of the Cotton Manufacture. 
Richard Arkwright was bom of lowly parents in the town of 
Preston, in the year 1733 ; his boyhood was passed in indigent 
circumstances, and he was at length apprenticed to a barber. 
After he had served his time, he set up a business for himself 
in the neighbounng town of 
Bolton, wht-re he continued 
to follow his humble occupa 
tion till he was twenty eight 
years of age In 1760 he 
quitted his employment as a 
barber, and took to travelling 
up and down the country col 
lecting hair, which he sold to 
the makers of wigs, who had 
a business which, from the 
peculiar fashion of the time, 
was in great repute Ark 
wnght was a man of genius 
and knowledge beyond the 
requirements of his business 
He was fond of mechanics, and made e^perlments to discover 
"perpetual motion," which in Arkwnghts time, and long 
after was a temptation to young experimenters ; there being a 
notion prevalent that Government would reward the discoverer 
of it with 10,000/ Not long after entering upon this hopeless 
enterprise, he turned his attention towards some means of 
supplying the rapidly increasing demand for spun cotton — 
cotton weft for the weavers loom He proceeded to put 
together the rudiments of his dtsign, and, although struggling 
with poverty, he resolved m 1767 or 1768 being then settled 
at Preston, his native town, to bring his spinning machine 
into use. 

About the same time Hargreaves had patented something 
for a similar purpose j and as Arkwright had already suffered 
much from the envy of others, he was suspicious of Hargreaves, 
and accordingly removed from his own neighbourhood to 




THE COTTON MANUFACTURE, 245 

Nottingham, where he was assisted by Messrs. Wright, the 
bankers, who advanced him the means for carrying out his pro- 
jects. They at length grew tired, and introduced him to a 
stockinger, named Need, who brought him into communication 
with Mr. Jedediah Strutt, of Derby ; he pointed out certain 
deficiencies in Arkwright's machine, and these being remedied, 
Arkwright in 1769 took out his first patent. Mr. Strutt and 
Mr. Need next became Arkwright's partners, and their first mill, 
worked by horse-power, was erected at Nottingham. They were 
successful, and in 177 1 they established another mill at Crom- 
ford in Derbyshire, in which water was the motive agent. 
Arkwright tells us that he accidentally derived the first hint of his 
invention from seeing a red-hot bar of iron elongated by being 
made to pass between rollers ; and though there is no me- 
chanical analogy between that operation and the process of 
spinning, it is not difficult to imagine that by reflecting upon 
it, and placing the subject in different points of view, it might 
lead to his invention. Arkwright effected other improvements, 
for which a fresh patent was taken out in 1775. For five years 
these enterprising men worked on without profit. The time for 
their reward, however, came at last ; and the tide of prosperity 
flowed abundantly. Mr. Arkwright engaged in various other 
cotton manufactories besides the one in which he was most 
largely interested ; he served as high-sheriff of Derbyshire in 
1786 ; and received knighthood on presenting an address of 
congratulation to King George III. But Arkwright's sedentary 
life induced ill-health, and on the 3rd of August, 1792, he died at 
the comparatively early age of sixty. He had presented, on two 
occasions, each of his ten children with the sum of ten thousand 
pounds ; and he left at his death half a million of money ; he 
had for a number of years fixed the price of cotton yarn for all 
the trade. A beautiful monument, sculptured by Chantrey, 
has been erected over Sir Richard Arkwright's remains in 
Cromford ChapeL 

The power which gave motion to the rollers and spindles of 
Arkwright and his fellow inventors was supplied at first by falls 
of water. Manufacturers were accordingly under the necessity 
of planting their estabHshments in districts where water-power 
was readily obtained, however inconvenient those situations 
might be in other respects. Watt's improvements on the 
^team-engine, however, supplied them with what they wanted, 
at a higher price, certainly, but in any place and at any time 



246 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

they chose. As soon as Steam-engines were used to drive the 
machinery, factories might be set down in towns, made inde- 
pendent of drought or flood, and wrought by a motive power 
whose energies could be adapted with the utmost nicety to the 
work required. Steam-engines were accordingly employed in 
turning the rollers and other machines used in spinning the 
cotton as early as 1785 ; and the inventions of Watt and 
Arkwright, when thus combmed, gave an impulse to the manu- 
facture which neither of them by itself could have produced.* 
And, now, what were the advantages of this combination of 
intellect, industry, and capital ? The quantity of cotton intro- 
duced into this country was under five million pounds when 
the inventions of Arkwright were projected : it was in 1865 
8,73i»949 cwts. 

But the triumphs of the above combination were not confined 
to spinning. Several attempts had been made to weave cloth 
by machinery before 1769 ; but they had been unsuccessful or 
were soon forgotten. By a singular accident, however, this was 
effected. In the year 1784 some gentlemen were conversing 
upon the then recent invention of Arkwright for spinning yam, 
when one of them observed that it would produce so much 
yam, there would not be hands enough to weave it. To this, 
one of the party. Dr. Cartwright (brother of the political Major, 
whose statue is set up in Burton Crescent, London) observed 
in reply, that Arkwright must then invent machinery for weaving 
also. The Doctor's manufacturing friends pronounced this 
impossible. He was not, however, discouraged, and though 
entirely ignorant of mechanics, the idea had taken so strong a 
hold upon his mind that he shortly afterwards set about the 
construction of a machine which should perform the three 
motions of weaving : he succeeded so far that in the following 
year he patented his invention, and established a power-loom 
factory at Doncaster, but did not prosper. The Messrs. Grim- 
shawe, at Manchester, were alike unsuccessful. The machine 
Dr. Cartwright contrived was rude and awkward, for his own 
loom was the first he had ever seen : he, however, persevered, 
and contributed much to render the power-loom what it is ; 
but, after taking out several patents, and spending upwards of 
40,000/. without any personal benefit, he relinquished all hope 
of fully accomplishing his object. One of the chief impedi- 

* James Synie, M.A. ; Edinburgh Essays, 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 247 

ments with which the inventors had to contend was the 
frequent necessity for stopping the loom in order to dress the 
warp, which was continually liable to breakage. This was 
obviated by dressing the warp before being put into the loom, 
by the ingenious invention of the dressing machine of Mr. 
Radcliffe, of Stockport, who was assisted by one of his work- 
men, named Johnson. This piece of mechanism consists of 
eight rollers, four at one end of a frame and four at the other ; 
these rollers are brought from the warping-frame, and the yarns 
from these are made to pass between two rollers, the lower one 
of which dips into a reservoir of thin paste, and thus transfers 
a coating of starch to the cotton ; the yams afterwards pass 
over and under brushes, (by which it is rubbed into the fibres,) 
and then over a heated copper box to dry them, and are ulti- 
mately coiled round the warp beam of the loom. Some time 
after the invention of the dressing-machine two manufacturers 
at Stockport, Messrs. Marsland and Horrocks, fairly brought 
the steam-engine into effective use, and Mr. Roberts, of the firm 
of Sharp and Roberts of Manchester, having introduced con- 
siderable improvements, the Power-Loom became fully and 
effectively established. 

In order that the weaving should be perfect, great care is 
necessary in all the preliminary arrangements of the warp yam, 
which must be extended on the loom in parallel lines, and with 
an equal degree of tension. The rods which separate the 
altemate threads, technically called the lease-rods, are to be set 
so as to keep the threads which are to go through one heddle 
quite distinct from those belonging to the other. Having re- 
ceived his yarn in a bundle, the weaver first rolls it regularly on 
the yam cylinder, keeping the threads distinct by an instrument 
called a ravel, which is in fact a coarse kind of reed. After the 
warp is wound on the cylinder, the operation of " drawing-in " 
commences ; that is, the alternate threads are to be drawn 
through their respective healds or heddles, and all the threads 
through the dents of the reed. The instmment used in this 
process is called a sley, or reed-hook, and is so constmcted as 
to take two threads through every dent or interval of the reed. 
The lease, or separation of the altemate threads in the warp 
yarn, is made by the pins in the warping-mill, and is preserved 
by the lease-rods. These rods being tied together at the ends, 
secure the permanency of the lease and guide the operative in 
drawing the alternate yards through the heddles. To facilitate 



248 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the process, the beam on which the warp yam has been wound 
is suspended a little above the heddles, so as to allow the yarn 
to hang down perpendicularly. The operative then opens the 
loop in each of the twines of the heddles successively, and 
through each draws a warp thread. This is, therefore, an 
operation not very unlike threading a needle, having its eye in 
the middle instead of the end. After ihe threads have been 




passed singly through the loops or eyes of the heddles, they are 
drawn in pairs through the df nts of the reed. The heddles are 
then mounted with the cords by which they are moved, and 
the reed being placed in the batten, everything is ready for 
the weaver to commence his operations. 

The utility of the power-loom was too evident to be over- 
looked by the shrewd and enterprising members of the British 
manufacturing community, and it soon came into general use. 
The construction of the machine and the method of dressing 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 



249 



have been improved since that time ; and cloth is now woven, 
by the help of steam, with a rapidity and to an extent formerly 
unknown. A steam-engine of forty or sixty horse-power gives 
motion to thousands of rollers, spindles, and bobbins for spin- 
ning yam, and works four or five hundred looms besides. This 
gigantic spinner and weaver needs very little assistance from 
man. It undertakes and faithfully discharges all the heavy 
work of putting shafts, wheels, and pulleys in motion ; of throw- 




ing the. shuttle, working the treadles, driving home the weft, 
and turning round the warp and cloth beams. One man may 
now do as much work as two or three hundred men ninety years 
ago. Labour is greatly lightened, and the fruits of industry 
are vastly increased by the assistance of this untiring fellow- 
worker. 

Mr. Syme, from whose able paper these illustrations are in 
the main quoted, remarks : " The substitution of machinery, in 
place of hand-labour, in spinning and weaving, has been pro- 
ductive of the most beneficial consequences to the whole king- 
dom during the century that has almost elapsed since Ihe 
inventions of Arkwright and Watt were made. Results which 
the most sanguine never anticipated have been obtained, not in 



250 WONDERFUL. INVENTIONS. 

one branch of the trade or industry but in all. Really good 
Steam-engines and mill-gearing could not be manufactured 
when mechanical power was first introduced. Both were in- 
dispensable to success, and a revolution in working iron was the 
result For many years after Arkwright's time heavy shafts of 
wood and cast iron huge wheels and pulleys slow motion, and 
great fnction gave a ponderous and ungainly appearance to the 
factories compared with the light wrought iron rods the smaller 
wheels quintupled velocities and the diminished fnction of the 
present day 

But the cloth was stdl white and though adapted for many 
useful purposes, was but little tit for the purpose for which it 
has been to such an immense extent adapted — atOre 




Calico printing was firsl mtroduced m Lancashire in the 
year 1764 by the Claytons of Hamber Bridge near Preston. 
About two miles east of Blackburn there Jned a tall robust 
man who owned forty acres of poor grass land and three of 
his sons worked each at a loom m the dwelling house One of 
these sons chanced to spoil in the weaving a piece of cloth, 
which was therefore unsaleable Ihe father took it to the 
Clayton s at Bamber Bndge to have it prmted of a pattern for 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 2$ I 

neckerchiefs, which was done. The high price charged for 
printing induced the owner to attempt the art himself, which he 
did in a small apartment of his farmhouse. The experimenter 
was Robert Peel, father of the first Sir Robert Peel. The 
farmer had remarked the tediousness of the process by which 
the raw cotton wool was brought into a state fit for spinning by 
the common hand-card ; and he it was, there is almost every 
proof, that invented the cylinder for doing the work much 
better and more expeditiously. Success attended him here suffi- 
ciently to induce him altogether to give up farming ; and he 
turned calico-printer. He set to work, and with his own hands 
he cut away on blocks of wood with such tools as he could 
command till he had formed the figure of a parsley-leaf. At 
the back of each of these blocks he fixed a handle, and a 
little pin of strong wire at each of the four comers in front. 
Each of these blocks was ten inches long and five broad. He 
then got a tub, into which he put some coloured mixture, with 
a little alum in it. He next covered the tub with a woollen 
cloth which sunk till it touched the colouring matter, and be- 
came saturated with it. The calico was stretched tightly across 
the table-top, and the quondam farmer of Blackburn then 
touched the woollen cloth with the face of his parsley-leaf 
block, and as soon as the leaf was fairly covered with the 
colour, he placed it squarely on the cloth and struck it sharply 
with a mallet, so that the figure of the engraving was left upon 
the white calico. The little points at the corners enabled him 
to repeat the process with regularity, and so he continued till 
the whole was complete. As soon as it was dry his wife and 
daughters set to work and ironed it with the common smoothing- 
irons, and this they continued to do for some time. 

But Peel was as little satisfied with this process as he had 
been with the hand-card ; and having seen the good effect of a 
cylinder in that case, he resolved to try it in this. He had an 
oblong frame made, with a smooth wooden bottom, and 
upright posts, and a rail on each side. Running from side to 
side was a roller with a handle to turn it, and round the 
roller was a rope wound spirally. Each end of the rope was 
fastened to an oblong deal box, as wide and as long as the 
frame; it was filled with bricks and was very heayy. He wound 
his pieces of calico round smooth wooden rollers, which were 
placed in the bed of the frame under the box, and that being 
drawn backwards and forwards by means of the rope round the 



252 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

upper roller, the winch soon gave the requisite smoothness 
to the new work. This in truth was the Mangle^ and the 
earliest printing-machine much resembled the same implement. 
Peel's machine, though it answered the purpose admirably, was 
superseded by superior machinery. This Robert Peel, " Pars- 
ley Peel," as he was called, also superseded the hand-carding 
of cotton- wool, by using cards, one fixed to a block of 
wood, and the other slung from hooks fixed in a beam, one of 
which remained in the kitchen of his farmhouse in 1850. 
Peel had his Carding-machine destroyed by mobs, and was 
driven out of the country by his neighbom-s. The son of 
this humble inventor, the first Sir Robert Peel, next estab- 
lished printworks at Bury; his residence being at Chamber 
Hall ; and in a small cottage hard by (in consequence of 
the hall undergoing repair), was born his eldest son. Sir 
Robert Peel, the distinguished Minister, who once remarked 
of his father : — " He moved in a confined sphere, and em- 
ployed his talents in improving the cotton-trade. He had 
neither wish nor opportunity of making himself acquainted 
with his native country, or society far removed from his native 
county Lancaster. I lived under his roof till I attained the 
age of manhood, and had many opportunities of discovering 
that he possessed in an eminent degree a mechanical genius 
and a good heart. He had many sons, and placed them all 
in situations that they might be useful to each other. The 
cotton-trade was preferred as best calculated to secure this 
object ; and by habits of industry and imparting to his offspring 
an intimate knowledge of the various branches of the cotton 
manufacture, he lived to see his children connected together in 
business, and by their successful exertions to become, without 
one exception, opulent and happy. My father may be truly said 
to have been the founder of our family ; and he so accurately 
appreciated the importance of commercial wealth in a national 
point of view, that he was often heard to say that the gains 
to individual^ were small compared with the national gains 
arising from trade." 

To return to Blackburn : Mr. Peel removed from thence to 
Brookside, two miles distant, for the sake of water, and there, 
by the assistance of his sons, extended his business very con- 
siderably. In 1773, his eldest son, Robert, left the concern, 
and entered into partnership with a Mr. Yates, and his uncle 
named Haworth, and with them carried on an extensive 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 253 

business at Bury. Two other sons entered into partnership at 
Bury, and were alike successful. 

The principle of block-printing, however, was found too 
slow, especially when more than one colour was to be used, and 
cylinders were again employed. The patterns to be printed were 
engraved on the face of a cylinder, which revolves in connec- 
tion with another of equal size. To the credit of this adoption 
Mr. Peel is specially entitled. The lower cyhnder, on which 
the pattern is wrought, turns with half its circumference in a 
box which contains colouring matter, which in the course of its 
progress is shaven off by a blade of soft steel, except where the 
pattern is engraved. The cloth is passed between the two 
cylinders, and receives the impression of the pattern ; it is 
afterwards passed over another cylinder filled with hot steam, 
and almost instantly dried. Where three or four colours are to 
be used, there must be as many cylinders ; and thus a piece of 
calico, of twenty-eight yards in length, can be printed, in 
various colours, in about two minutes — a work which, by hand- 
labour, could not be performed in less than a week. 

But another improvement was made. These cylinders had 
usually been made of copper, and they were not only expen- 
sive, but soon wore out. To reduce this expense was engraved 
a very small steel cylinder, of two or three inches in length, 
with the pattern desired, when the metal was in what is called 
the decarbonized or softened state, after which it was attem- 
pered till it became very hard. When it was hardened to the 
utmost, it was worked by powerful machinery against a large 
cyhnder, which, being duly softened, received the design ; that 
also was in its turn hardened, and then worked against the 
copper roller, which received the impression as originally 
engraved, and thus was fitted for the printing process. 

At this time it wag that chemistry came to the assistance of 
art, in Chlorine, which discharges all vegetable colours, and thus 
bleaches the cloth to a fairer and purer white in a few hours, 
than could by the old process of exposure to the air, on the 
grass, have been obtained in many months. This was of ines- 
timable value, for in order to print the richest patterns the most 
perfect white that could be obtained was necessary. But the 
prints would not wash^ and consequently, when once dirtied, 
a dress became useless, and the earth was ransacked to obtain 
what are called mordants^ from the French word mordre, to 
bite, as they seem to make the colour bite into the cloth and be- 



254 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

come fixed : one of the plans adopted was to print the cloth 
with the mordant only, then to dip it in the dying-vat, and 
afterwards wash it out, when the mordant was found to have 
retained the pattern in beautiful integrity. Another plan is to 
print the pattern with lemon-juice ; the piece is then steeped 
in the mordant, dried quickly, and dyed in the vat When 
washed, the acid is found to have resisted the mordant, and the 
pattern stands out in pure white, all the rest of the cloth ot 
course retaining the colour in which it was dyed. This is 
called discharge-work^ and gave to the Peels an opportunity of 
imitating very beautifully the Indian patterns which were at 
that time very much admired. 

Another discovery made by a person, not possessing scien- 
tific knowledge, was resist-work^ which consists in printing the 
cloth with a kind of paste, and then dying it with indigo ; when 
the paste will resist the colouring matter, and the pattern be 
pure white : without the paste the indigo would not wash 
out The secret was sold to the first Sir Robert Peel, for five 
pounds. 

In the history of inventions there are many episodes of enthu- 
siasm, by which genius is misled as by the ignis fatuus that lures 
us from the safe path, and raises hopes never to be realised ; 
while, on the other hand, alarmists spring up at almost every 
change. Spinners, weavers, and many kind-hearted men, at 
first believed that machinery would deprive operatives of their 
bread, reduce an industrious population to beggary, and turn 
thickly-peopled districts into wastes, occupied by steam-engines 
and spinning-jennies. The Cotton Manufacture has proved 
the reverse case. Liverpool is the port of Manchester, Leeds, 
and the populous country around; Glasgow of Lanarkshire. 
The merchants of Manchester and Glasgow required to be 
brought into easy and rapid connection with the cotton-growing 
districts of the world; and steam navigation and railways 
have followed. Lancashire, from being third in population 
among the English counties at the beginning of the century, 
is now more populous than Middlesex itself. 

It was long thought that the British workman could never 
rival the delicate Cotton fabrics of the Hindoo ; and it was 
even feared that the cheapness of labour in India would not 
only render it impossible to undersell the workers of that 
country, but would operate to the disadvantage of British in- 
dustry. Machinery, however, spins finer yams than the Hindoo 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 255 

fingers, and enables the British merchant to buy the Cotton of 
India, pay for its carriage to this country, turn it into cloth, 
and export it to Calcutta or Bombay, at a profit* These useful 
fabrics have come into common use in India. Still more 
recently our Glasgow and Manchester manufacturers have ob- 
Uined patterns from India, and have made imitations of them, 
perhaps not very successfully, since they continue to be in 
comparatively limited demand. They have not certainly 
affected the produce of the native Indian looms, which is 
preferred because it is more durable, more suitable for wear; 
it does not vary from the old traditional patterns of the 
country, besides being of fast colours, which use and constant 
washing rather improve than injure. Nor can we rival the 
muslins of Dacca. The fibres of the cotton are more con- 
solidated, and the cotton itself, a short-stapled variety, is, 
perhaps, stronger than the American used in European muslins. 
This fact is well worth the consideration of our scientific manu- 
facturers ; and where the short-stapled Indian or American 
cottons are used for long cloths and gray shirtings (and the 
same may be said of all cottons), the want of " wear " which is 
complained of in English, in comparison with native fabrics, 
may be accounted for by the cotton not having been as 
sufficiently twisted by the jenny as it is by the spindle and 
hand process of the Indian spinner. t 

The perfection of machinery has largely contributed to our 
success. Mr. H. Ashworth, late president of the Manchester 
Chamber of Commerce, has well illustrated this position of the 
Cotton Manufacture. "At first," he tells us, "the various 
operations of beating, carding, roving, and spinning were house- 
hold operations ; but progressively, with a view to economy of 
time and quickness, they led to the building of factories ; and 
the concentration of them under one roof, with a propelling 
power of water or steam, gave a united and combined action to 
all the processes, which caused them to be carried on with the 
precision of clockwork. This led to the regulation of wages by 
the yard in length or the pound in weight of finished work, and 
in this way the discipline and productive power of a factory 
determined the income of the operative with uniformity and 
certainty. It led to the attraction of labour from all parts of 

* James Syme, M.A. : Edinburgh Essays. 

+ See Dr. Forbes Watson's valuable work on the Textile Manufactures 
and the Costumes of the People of India. Printed for the India Office, 1866. 



256 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the country, and the population of Lancashire, which was 
673,000 in 1801, had increased in 1861 to 2,428,744, or 360 
per cent ; while the increase in the country as a whole was 
only 225 per cent As a measure of progress, it is a striking 
feet that, while in the year 1760, according to Dr. Percival, the 
entire Cotton trade of Great Britain did not return for mate- 
rials and labour more than 200,000/., in i860 the returns of 
our Cotton Manufacture were estimated by Mr. Bazley, M.P., 
at 65,000,000/. The value had increased 400 times, and we 
were consuming 270 times as much cotton. It has been stated 
that we now employ 36,000,000 spindles, that in one minute 
we can spin a length of Cotton which would wind four times 
round the earth, while every day 10,000,000 yards of Cotton 
fabrics come out of our looms. The price, at the same time, 
has been greatly reduced. In 1786, No. 42*s cotton yam was 
I Of. 11//., while in i860 it was only iid. per lb. In the same 
period loo's yam was reduced from 38^. per lb. to 2s, 6d. In 
1790 a white cotton dress was 6s. a yard, while in i860 the 
same quality of fabric was obtainable at 2\d. to 3//. per yard. 
As compared with fabrics of wool or flax, the economy of Cot- 
ton is striking. A garment of one pound in weight of flannel 
cost 3^. id. in i860; of linen, 2s. 4^/. j while of cotton it was 
only IS. 

It is calculated that about the middle of the last cen- 
tury, there were probably 20,000 persons engaged in the 
Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain ; but by the population 
returns of 1851, it appeared that there were then upwards of 
half a million, exceeding by more than twenty thousand, the 
whole number employed in the silk, linen, woollen, and worsted 
manufactures of the island ; these numbers referring to persons 
actually working in mills. The operatives are now a mu<::h 
better paid and more intelligent class of men than ever ; 
though it must be confessed that commercial crises and un- 
happy strikes often chequer this prosperity. The great losses 
sustained through " the Cotton Famine " of Tate years have 
been met by benevolent relief,* as well as the best means to pre- 

• The Liverpool Committee for obtaining subscriptions for the relief of 
the sufferers by the Cotton Famine had, up to the 31st of December, 1866. 
collected a gross sum of 103,068/. 6y. 3</., of which 61,999/. is. 2d. had 
been spent in relief, and 390/. in expenses, leaving in hand a balance, less 
400/. not collected, of 40,679/. 5^. id. This sum it is proposed to devote 
to the building of a Convalescent Hospital. 



THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 257 

vent the recurrence of a like calamity, by the culture of Cotton 
in our colonies. It must, however, be carefully borne in mind 
that Great Britain no longer has the exclusive use of that supe- 
rior machinery which at one time placed us so far ahead of 
other nations ; and that there has been a gradual extension of 
those more refined mechanical contrivances which for a period 
appeared to give to the British cotton spinner and manufac- 
turer a monopoly of the markets of the world. In the com- 
parison of the spinning of French and English yams it has 
been recently found that the application of a French invention 
has been of great importance ; this being, the combing machine, 
which greatly facilitates the production of the fine numbers — in 
fact, renders that comparatively easy which formerly appeared 
almost impossible, and indeed, was so, except in the hands of 
the special few. 

Professor George Wilson has eloquently said : " The most 
striking actions of machinery are those which involve not only 
swift irresistible motion, but also transformation of the materials 
on which the moving force is exerted. Take, for example, a 
Cotton Mill. On the basement story revolves an immense 
steam-engine, unresting and unhasting as a star in its stately, 
orderly movements. It stretches its strong iron arms in every 
direction throughout the building ; and into whatever chamber 
you enter, as you climb stair after stair, you find its million 
hands in motion, and its fingers, which are skilful as they are 
nimble, busy at work. They pick cotton, and cletnse it, card 
it, rove it, twist it, spin it, dye it, and weave it. They will 
work any pattern you select, and in as many colours as you 
choose ; and do all with celerity, dexterity, and unexhausted 
energy, and skill. For my part," continues the Professor, " I 
gaze with extreme wonder on the steam Agathodaemons of a 
Cotton Mill, the embodiments, all of them, of a very few 
simple statical and dynamical laws ; and yet able, with the 
speed of race-horses, to transform a raw material, originally as 
cheap as thistle-down, into endless useful and beautiful fabrics." 
They who remember the display of Cotton machinery in 
the Great Exhibition of 185 1, — whose perfections were alike 
watched and admired by sovereign and subject, — will bear testi 
mony to the truthful eloquence of Professor Wilson's illus- 
tration. 




STEAM NAVIGATION. 



HAT the very obvious application of Steam Power as 
a moving agent on land and water should long have 
escaped the attention of James Watt must have 
struck every enquirer with astonishment That he 
made some feeble efforts towards solving the problem of apply- 
ing the new agent as a locomotive power is admitted ; but that 
he never crowned his labours with a working model is equally 
indisputable. Indeed, he seems to have had some jealousy of 
William Murdoch's efforts in this direction, as we find him com- 
plaining to Boulton, that Murdoch was wasting his time on a 
fruitless attempt ; yet that attempt was a more momentous one 
(the steam-engine itself excepted) than any other of the last or 
present century. William Murdoch's locomotive model, the 
first ever cctnstructed, was exhibited, it will be remembered, at 
the Exhibition of 185 1, on the gigantic screw-shaft of the James 
Watt, 91 gun ship, executed just three-quarters of a century 
afterwards by the firm of the Messrs. Watt 

But the sea as well as the land was destined soon to witness 
the triumphs of ingenuity and machinery : the present century 
has produced the process of diagonal bracing in the construc- 
tion of ships, the application of Watt's engine to propel them, 
iron vessels instead of wood, water-tight compartments, and a 
multitude of other useful and important changes. Here, as 
in the textile manufactures, Steam lies in a great degree at the 
root of progress in Shipbuilding and sailing. 

The antiquity of the paddle-wheel, as a means of propulsion, 
has been strangely overstated. It has been attributed to Egypt, 
Nineveh, and China, but the authorities given have in either 
cases failed to substantiate the fact We find boats propelled 
by paddle-wheels mentioned by many early writers, such as 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 259 

Julius Scaliger, in 1558; Bourne in 1568; Ranielliin 1588; 
and Roger Bacon, in 1597. Mr. Macgregor, in his exhaustive 
paper on the Paddle and the Screw, read by him to the Society 
of Arts in 1858, before considering the application of the Steam- 
engine to turn paddle wheels, notices briefly some of the other 
agencies employed : " The muscular power of men, of horses, 
and of other animals, was often used and frequently patented, 
even to the year 1848, by Miller ; and 1856, by Moses. The 
Marquis of Worcester, in 1661, patented the application of a 
current, to turn paddle-wheels, or a vessel propelled by winding 
up a rope. Papin, in 1690, proposed to work the wheels by 
gunpowder, exploded under pistons. Conrad, in 1709, used 
the force of the wind ; Maillard, in 1773, and Goutaret, 1853, 
applied clockwork; Harriott, in 1797, used falling water; 
weights were employed by Tremeere in 1801 ; Congreve, in 
1827, used the capillary attraction of a wheel of sponge or 
glass plates ; Dundonald, in 1833, applied the oscillations of 
mercury; and Jacobi, in 1838, employed an electro-magnet to 
work the paddle-wheels of a vessel on the Neva. 

The absurd claims to priority urged by Spaniards on behalf 
of Blasco de Garay have been dissipated by the examination of 
a letter written by him in 1543, and now in the Archives at 
Simancas, where the paddle-wheels of his " steamboat" turn out 
to have been moved by men. There is not a word about steam 
in the letter (see ante, p. 203). 

It appears that Denis Papin, in 1690, first proposed to use 
steam to work paddle-wheels : by means of rackwork moved by 
pistons descending in steam-cylinders by atmospheric pressure. 
He is said to have offered to the Royal Society to put his plan 
in practice for the small advance of fifteen pounds towards the 
expenses ; the offer was rejected, chiefly, it is believed, from 
the Society being at that time in straitened circumstances. 
Savery, in 1702, scarcely ventured with timidity to suggest the 
use of his Steam-engine for the purpose : but it is asserted, in a 
French work, that Papin, in 1707, actually propelled a vessel 
on the Fulda by Savery's engine ; and in the manuscript cor- 
respondence between Leibnitz and Papin, in the Royal Library, 
at Hanover, are to be read the experiments of the latter with 
a model steam boat, in the above year. When Papin resided in 
England, he witnessed an experiment on the Thames, in which 
a boat, constructed from a design of the Prince Palatine 
Robert^ was fitted with revolving oars or paddles, attached to 

s 2 



26o WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the two ends of a long axle, going across the boat ; they 
received their motion from a trundle, working a wheel turned 
by horses ; and this horse-boat beat the king's barge, manned 
with 1 6 rowers. In 1682, a similar horse-tow vessel was used 
at Chatham. 

The first patent relating to a Steam-boat is that of Jonathan 
Hulls, in 1736. He placed a paddle-wheel on beams projecting 
over the stem, and it was turned by an atmospheric steam- 
engine, acting in conjunction with a counterpoise weight, upon 
a system of ropes and grooved wheels. His mode of obtaining 
a rotary motion was new, and would enable a steam-boat to be 
moved through water ; but it was not practically useful. Had 
Hulls discovered the requisite application of the crank, the 
steam-engine, in all probability, would have been then applied 
not only to propel boats, but to various other useful purposes. 
Among other experimenters of about this period was M. (Jene- 
vois, a pastor of Berne, who invented a steam-propeller, formed 
like the foot of a duck, to expand and present a large surface 
to the water when moved against it, and to close it into a small 
compass when moved in an opposite direction. 

The Comte d' Auxiron and M. Perrier are stated to have used 
a paddle-wheel steamboat upon the Seine, near Paris, in 1774 ; 
but the account of their experiments is vague and unsatisfac- 
tory. Desblancs, in 1782, sent a model to the Conservatoire 
(still there), of a vessel in which an endless chain of floats is 
turned by a horizontal steam-engine. According to a statement 
of M. Arago, in an historic sketch of the progress of Steam, 
published in 1837, the Marquis de Jouffroy, in 1783, made 
attempts on a large scale at Beaume-les-Danes, and again tried 
a boat of considerable size on the Saone, at Lyons. This 
experiment excited much attention, and all the authorities agree 
in the assertion that the vessel used was upwards of 120 feet 
long and not less than fifteen feet beam. 1 he dreadful distur- 
bances which shortly afterwards broke out in France put a stop to 
his efforts ; and for several years he was an exile from his native 
country. On his return, in 1796, he found the principal part of 
his invention had been adopted by the above-named Desblancs, 
a watchmaker at Trevoux, who had assiduously gathered infor- 
mation respecting the operations of the marquis. The latter 
appealed to the goverment ; but Desblancs had obtained a 
patent during his absence, so that he was left without any 
redress, Robert Fulton, who afterwards took up an im- 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 26 1 

portant position in reference to Steam-navigation, was at that 
time experimenting in France, and had adopted a series of flat 
boards, which were moved by an endless chain stretched over 
two wheels that projected on either side of the boat ; but he 
ultimately abandoned this plan and used paddles. Desblancs 
complained of the infringement of his patent; and Fulton, 
after showing him the difference between the two machines, 
offered a portion of the advantages if he would bear a portion 
of the expenses of the trials ; but no arrangement appears to 
have been entered into between them. Neither Desblancs nor 
his country obtained any advantage from his efforts; and this 
appears to have been nearly all that was done in France for 
Steam navigation before the close of the last century. 

In 1778, the notorious Thomas Paine, the republican, pro- 
posed in America the propulsion of vessels by steam. Paine, 
at one period, employed himself much in mechanical specula- 
tions : in 1787, he submitted to the Academy of Sciences at 
Paris a plan for the construction of iron bridges, which he 
afterwards explained in a letter printed at Rotherham. He 
published four or five Treatises — on iron bridges, the yellow 
fever, on the building of ships of war, &c. 

The enterprising spirit of the Americans was not likely to 
suffer them to be wanting in efforts to bring that to pass which 
had caused so much sensation on this side of the Atlantic, and 
which, even at that time, promised such immense results. 
Accordingly, we find that two individuals, named Rumsey and 
Fitch, were engaged in active rivalry in the United States in 
applying the Steam-engine to the propulsion of vessels. The 
latter of these two gentlemen, as early as 1783, was occupied 
in the construction of a boat, which he afterwards contrived to 
move with paddles, by the aid of a steam-engine, on the Dela- 
ware ; and in 1785, he had so far completed his design that he 
presented a model of his apparatus to Congress. He was 
encouraged by the support of several wealthy men who pro- 
vided the means for his experiments, and was so sanguine of 
success as to express his firm conviction that the ocean would 
ultimately be crossed by steam-vessels — a declaration which, 
when it was made, must have appeared to be little else than the 
notion of a visionary, but which many of Fitch's generation have 
lived to see so wonderfully realized. Rumsey, his rival, was 
also backed by a company ; and in 1784 succeeded in the con- 
struction of a boat, a model of which in that year he exhibited 



262 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

to Geoetal Washington. This vessel was about fifiy feet long, 
and was carried along the Potomac by means of a stream of 
water which, with a pump worked by a steam-engine, entered 
at the bow and was carried out at the stem, the reaction of the 
water being the impelling agent The boiler only held about 
five gallons, and the fiiel consumed was about six bushels of 
coal in twelve hours. Yet with this imperfect apparatus — 
when the boat was loaded with three tons weight, besides the 
engine, which was about a third of a ton more — Rumsey 
succeeded in attaining a rate of three or four miles an hour. 
He afterwards came to England, and by the assistance of 
some capitalists built another vessel, which was tried on the 
Thames, in the month of February, 1693 ; and in several trials 
made afterwards, one attained a speed, against wind and tide, of 
upwards of four miles an hour. About the same year, Mr. 
Lineaker, the master shipwright of Portsmouth dockyard, 
began a series of experiments on the same principle, which he 
patented. 

Meanwhile, in England, one of Watt's patented improve- 
ments in the steam-engine, January 5, 1769, caused the steam to 
act above the piston^ as well as below it; this was the first step 
by which the Steam-engine was successfully used to propel a 
vessel ; " and this improvement," says Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, 
" was applied to the first practically-propelled steamboat, and is 
still used in the present system of Steam Navigation." 

In the Commissioners of Patents' Museum, at South Ken- 
sington, is "the Parent Engine of Steam Navigation," the 
history of which is briefly as follows : For some years prior to 
1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton, Scotland, had experi- 
mented with double and triple vessels propelled by paddle^ 
wheels, worked by manual labour. In the trips of 1786 and 
1787, he was assisted by Mr. James Taylor, the tutor to his 
two younger sons ; and at the suggestion of Taylor, it was 
determined to substitute steam-power for manual labour. For 
this purpose, early in 1788, Taylor introduced Symington, the 
eminent engineer, who had, the year before, patented " his new 
invented Steam-engine on principles entirely new," and Sym- 
ington applied an engine, constructed according to his inven- 
tion, to one of Mr. Miller's vessels, — which is the engine now 
at South Kensington. In October, 1788, the engine, mounted 
on a frame, was placed upon the deck of a double pleasure- 
boat, 25 feet long and 7 feet broad, and connected with two 



STEAM NAVlGATIOlf. 263 

paddle-wheels, one forward and the other abaft the engine, in 
the space between the two hulls of the double boat This engine 
propelled the vessel along Dalswinton lake five miles an hour. 

There exists the following evidence, almost of the very day 
above named. In a letter from Dr. Franklin to Dr. Ingenhauz, 
dated Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 1788, the doctor remarks: "We 
have no philosophical news here at present, except that a boat 
moved by a steam-engine rows itself against tide in our river, 
and it is apprehended the construction maybe so simplified and 
improved as to become generally useful." 

After Mr. Miller and his friends had made experimental trips 
in the boat, the engine was taken into Mr. Miller's house, where 
it remained in the library until his decease in 1815. Some 
time after, the engine was sent by his son, packed in a deal case, 
to the banking-house of Messrs. Coutts & Co., in the Strand, 
and was there kept until 1837, when it was removed to Til- 
bury's storehouse, in Marylebone. Here it remained until the 
end of January, 1846, when it was forwarded to Mr. Kenneth 
Mackenzie, at Edinburgh. By him the engine was sold to his 
brother-in-law, a plumber, in Edinburgh, who removed the 
engine from the framing, and threw it into a comer for the 
purpose of melting ; this intention, however, was not carried 
into effect, doubtless owing to the death of the plumber. 
It was subsequently found to be in the possession of Messrs. 
William Kirk wood, from whom it was purchased, and despatched 
to the Great Seal Patent Office, in 1853. Subsequently, it was 
transmitted to Messrs. Penn, the engineers, of Greenwich, who 
gratuitously reinstated it in a frame, and put it again in work- 
ing order, as an object of great public interest. The engine 
was returned as good as new, January 4th, 1855; and on the 
29th of January, 1857, it was removed from the Great Seal 
Patent Office to the Patent Museum at South Kensington.* 

The engine is of the class known in the early history of steam- 
machinery as the " atmospheric engine," in which the piston is 
raised by the action of steam, and then on a vacuum being 
produced beneath, by the condensation of the steam, it is 
forced down again by the pressure of the atmosphere. The 
cylinders (two in number) are open at the top, which is en- 
larged, to prevent the overflow of the water used for keeping 
the piston steam-tight upon the plan adopted by Newcomen. 
The lower part of each cylinder is furnished with James Watt's 
* From Mr, Bennet Woodcroft's Descriptive Catalogue. 



264 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS, 

patented condenser and air-pump in a modified form, — ^the 
condenser and air-pump being attached to the cylinder, instead 
of being separate from it, as proposed by Watt. The valves 
are opened and closed by an improved arrangement of Henry 
Beighton*s hand-gear, A T-head or cross-head is applied to 
the end of the piston-rod, apparently for the first time ; and a 
communication is established between it and the paddle-wheel 
shaft by an arrangement of chains, ratchet-wheels, clicks, &c., 
for which Matthew Wasbrough obtained letters patent (in Eng- 
land only) March 10, 1779, whereby the rectilinear movement 
of the piston is converted into circular motion. To Symington, 
credit is justly due for combining these improvements in the 
same engine. 

When it was applied to propel a boat, as already men- 
tioned, numerous projects had been proposed and several 
abortive attempts had been made to propel vessels by steam- 
power, commencing with an experiment said to have been 
made in the year 1543 ; but the whole of the projects and 
experiments previous to the application of this engine proved 
valueless for any practical use. 

The result of the experiments with this engine and with a 
larger one subsequently made on the same plan for Mr. Miller, 
demonstrated to Symington that a more simple arrangement of 
the parts forming a steam-engine was required before steam- 
power could be applied practically to navigation. 

Accordingly, in 1801, Symington was employed by Lord 
Dundas to construct a steam-boat, and having by his former 
failures learned what was required, he availed himself of the 
great improvements recently made in the Steam-engine by Watt 
and others, and constructed an improved engine in combination 
with a boat and paddle-wheel, on the plan which is now gene- 
rally adopted. This boat, called the Charlotte Dundas^ was the 
first practical steam-boat ; and for the novel combination of all 
the parts Symington obtained letters patent on the 14th October, 
1 801. In this vessel there was an engine worked by steam, 
acting on each side of the piston, and then discharged from the 
cylinder into a separate condenser (Watt's patented invention); 
the rectilinear motion of the piston was converted into rotary 
by a connecting rod and crank (Pickard's patented invention) ; 
and the crank was united to the axis of Miller's improved 
paddle-wheel (Symington's patented invention.) Thus had 
Symington the undoubted merit of having combined together 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 265 

for the first time those improvements which constitute the 
present system of steam navigation. The speed, when running 
alone and not towing other boats, was six miles an hour. 

" The use of this vessel," says Dr. Macquom Rankine, " was 
abandoned, not from any fault in her construction or working, 
but because the directors of the Forth and Clyde Canal feared 
that she would damage its banks. Yet the man in all Britain 
who possessed, at that time, the greatest practical experience of 
the working ,of canals — the Duke of Bridgwater — was not 
deterred by any such apprehension from ordering, in 1802, 
eight similar vessels, from Symington, to be used on this canaL 
The death of the Duke of Bridgwater, early in the following 
year, prevented the execution, of that order. But Symington 
had evidently done all that lay in his power, and all that was 
necessary, to convert the steam-boat from an awkward piece of 
experimental apparatus to a practically useful machine; and 
the honour paid to his memory ought not to be lessened 
because the career of his invention was cut short by a mis- 
fortune." 

The widow of Mr. Taylor received, in recognition of his 
efforts to introduce Steam Navigation, a pension from Govern- 
ment, of 50/. per annum; and in 1837, each of his four 
daughters, received a gift of 50/., through Lord Melbourne. 
About the year 1825, Symington memorialized the Lords of 
the Treasury, when 100/. was presented from His Majesty's 
privy purse ; and a year or two afterwards a further sum of 50/. 
The poor inventor hoped that the allowance would be repeated 
annually, but his hopes were defeated. He received a small 
sum from the London steam-boat proprietors, and kind relatives 
contributed to his support in the decline of life. This was all 
that was awarded to the inventor of " the first practical steam- 
boat " in the great country of the steam-engine ! ! 

Many attempts have been made, and much misrepresentation 
used, to obtain for Fulton, the American engineer, the credit of 
first using steam locomotion on the water. He certainly did not 
fail to profit by the labours of others. Dr. Cartwright con- 
trived a steam-barge, which he explained to Fulton, some say 
in 1793, when he was studying painting under Benjamin West : 
others state 1796, when Fulton was introduced to Dr. Cartwright 
at Paris. Golden, the biographer of Fulton, states that he 
made drawings of an apparatus for Steam Navigation, in 1793, 
and submitted them to Lord Stanhope in 1795, who was then 




366 WONDERPCL IKVENTJONS. 

experimenting with duck-feet paddles, but never got beyond 
three miles an hour. 

Although Fulton possessed much inventive genius, and had 
been engaged with Chancellor 
Livingston, who was at the time 
minister for the United States 
in Paris, in the construction of 
vessels to be propelled by steam, 
still he never accomplished anj 
thing until after he had seen the 
vessels of Symington, 

Before he returned to America, 
Fulton visited England, and 
there induced Symington to 
afford him much information, 
and even take a steam tnp on 
his account, during which Fulton 
noted in a memorandum book 
the particulars of the construe hobhht fi-iton 

tion and effect of the machme, which Symmgton unhesitatmgly 
afforded him. Everythmg connected with his expenments for 
the accomplishment of Steam Navigation was shown to Fulton, 
and all he did not comprehend was txplamed to him It is 
true that in the plea for a patent, jointly sued for by Fulton 
and Livingston, the former claimed the nght as an inventor , 
but there is no apparent ground for such an assumption, and 
the honour is sufficient for him to have been the first to 
bring it into great practical application Chancellor Living 
ston having supplied the means, a vessel was launched upon 
the Hudson, by Fulton, eirly in the spnng of 1807 By the 
assistance of engineers from the works of Boulton and Watt, at 
Birmingham, the engines were completed in August, and every 
thing was ready for the tnp by the commencement of the new 
year ; and the first attempt to navigate the waters of the New 
World by the aid of steam was made in January, 1808. Fulton 
thus described to a friend the disheartening circumstances 
under which the construction of the first steam-boat — nick- 
named by the Americans "Fulton's Folly" — was patiently 
persevered in by himself. He records as follows : " When I 
was building my first steam-boat at New York, the project was 
viewed by Ae public either with indifference, or with contempt, 
as a visionary scheme. My friends, indeed, were civil, but they 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 267 

were shy. They listened with patience to my explanations, but 
with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. Never 
did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, a warm wish, 
cross my path. Silence itself was but politeness veiling its 
doubts or hiding its reproaches." 

Fulton's biographer describes the trial : " Before the boat 
had made the progress of a quarter of a mile, the greatest 
unbeliever was converted, and Fulton was received with shouts 
and acclamations of congratulation and applause. The vessel, 
Clermont^ made her first voyage from New York to Albany, 140 
miles, at the average rate of five miles an hour ; stopping some 
time at Clermont to take in water and coals. The whole pro- 
gress up the Hudson was a continued triumph. The vessel is 
described as having the most terrific appearance. The dry 
pine-wood fuel sent up many feet above the flue a column of 
ignited vapour, and, when the fire was stirred, tremendous 
showers of sparks. The wind and tide were adverse to them, 
but the crowds saw with astonishment the vessel rapidly coming 
towards them ; and when it came so near that the noise of the 
machinery and paddles was heard, the crew, in some instances, 
shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight; while others 
prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect 
them from the approach of the horrible monster, which was 
marching on the tide, and lighting its path by the fire that it 
vomited." 

Mr. Dyer had sailed in the Clermont^ and remembers the 
sensation created by her appearance, and the high admiration 
bestowed on the projector of so great an enterprise. That sen- 
sation in 1807 was precisely the same as the Margery created 
among the vessels on the Thames in 1815. In 1816, the 
Marquis de Jauffroy complained that the Fulton steam-boat 
on the Seine had taken the " paddle-wheels " invented by him 
and used at Lyons thirty-four years before, but also abandoned 
by him. To this charge Mons. Royou replied in tht/oumai 
des Debats, thus .• — " It is not concerning an invention, but the 
means of applying a power already known. Fulton never pre- 
tended to be an inventor with regard to steam-boats in any 
other sense. The application of steam to navigation had been 
thought of by all artists, but the means of applying it were 
wanting, and Fulton furnished them." The Fulton^ of 327 tons, 
was built in 1813, and the first steamer for harbour defence was 
built under Fulton's direction, 2,740 tons, launched in 18 14. 



268 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

This became the model ship for the iron-clad batteries and 
rams, since constructed with many changes. It will be seen by 
the drawings of Fulton's plans, that he had tried the several 
other kinds of propellers — the chain-float, duck's-foot, and the 
screw-fan — before adopting the paddle-wheel ; for though the 
screw was good in principle, it was many years before it could 
be constructed to act efficiently. 

But the Clermont soon had a competitor. Within a few 
weeks, Mr. Stevens, of Hoboken, launched a steam-vessel, 
which, as she could not ply on the waters of the Hudson, 
in consequence of the exclusive patent of Fulton and Living- 
ston, he took round to the Delaware ; and this was the first 
steamer that ever braved the tides of ocean. 

It was not till nearly four years after this that Steam Navi- 
gation became practically useful, in the common sense of the 
term, in the British Isles ; and there seems to be something like 
a coincident propriety in the fact that it was also a Scotch- 
man by whom it was first made available on this side of the 
Atlantic. 

Among the persons who had been acquainted with the ex- 
periments of Mr. Miller and his associates on the Forth, was 
Mr. Henry Bell, of Glasgow, who had been the medium of 
communication between Fulton and the Scotch coadjutors, 
and who had sent to the former drawings of the boat and 
engines which they had used. Some time after, Fulton wrote 
to Bell to say that he had constructed a boat fi^om them, which 
prompted Bell to turn his attention to the introduction of Steam 
Navigation in his own country. He accordingly set to work, 
but had to make several models. At length he put one into the 
hands of Messrs. John Wood and Co., of Port Glasgow, who, 
from it, built for him a vessel of forty feet keel and ten feet six 
inches beam. This he fitted with an engine and paddles, and 
gave her the name of Cornet^ from the circumstance of a bril- 
liant comet appearing towards the latter end of the year i8it, 
in which she was launched. This vessel Bell was enabled to 
turn to profitable account ; for, being a builder, he had erected 
a bath-house and hotel at Helensburgh, a watering-place on the 
opposite bank of the Clyde, and he employed the Comet to 
convey passengers across the river, and thus derived a double 
advantage from it. The vessel was of twenty-five tons burthen, 
forty feet long, ten and a half feet beam, and four horse power ; 
the engine being placed on one side and the boiler on the 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 269 

Other, while the funnel was bent round, so as to rise in the 
middle of the deck, and serve the purpose of a mast. The 
Comef began to run in January, 1812 ; she was moved at first 
by mere paddles, and attained a speed of five miles an hour ; 
but Bell substituted wheels, with four paddles of the malt- 
shovel form. The engine was made by Anderson, Campbell, 
and Co. (now Laird and Co.) and David Napier, then a work- 
man, was employed in making the boiler. 

There is another application of steam-power, the credit of 
which is due to Fulton. During the war between Great Britain 
and the United States, in 18 14, the coast of the latter was 
much exposed to the insults and ravages of our cruisers. 
Fulton proposed to free his countrymen from this annoyance, 
and to defend the harbour of New York from attack, by means 
of steam-frigates. That which he actually did build much re- 
sembled the double boats, or twins, constructed by Miller of 
Dalswinton. But it was not to cannon and rapid movements 
that the merchants of New York trusted ; for the frigate was 
fitted with machinery calculated to discharge an immense 
quantity of hot water through the port-holes of an enemy's 
ship, by which the ammunition would be rendered useless, and 
the crew scalded to death. The people of New York believed 
themselves safe against every hostile power, and the liveliest 
apprehensions were entertained in Britain : cutlasses without 
number were said to be moved by machinery ; pikes, darted 
forth and withdrawn every quarter of- a minute, would sweep 
the decks of our men-of-war ; in short, the iron fingers of a 
modem Scylla would kill the sailors at their posts. Such is 
the account by Mr. Syme, who adds, little did either nation 
imagine that, before the lapse of forty years. Great Britain would 
depend on this very application of steam to maintain her 
supremacy at sea, of which many supposed it had deprived her. 

Soon after the above success, Mr. Hutchinson, of Glasgow, 
had a vessel built by Thomson, an engineer who had been 
engaged in some of Bell's experiments. She was larger than 
the Comet, being fifty-eight feet long, twelve feet beam, and 
five feet deep ; engines, ten horse power. She was named the 
Eiizabeth, and performed the distance between Greenock and 
Glasgow, twenty-seven miles, twice a day. 

Mr. Dyer tells us that in 18 11, he endeavoured to introduce 
Steam Navigation into England, but found a strong conviction 
that it would not answer in this country, our most eminent 



270 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

engineers saying, " We don't doubt the success of steam-boats 
in the wide rivers and harbours of America, but in our com- 
paratively small rivers and crowded harbours they will never 
answer." Even such sdentific engineers as John Rennie and 
Peter Ewart, both advised Dyer to relinquish the attempt to 
introduce steam-boats, as sure to prove a waste of time and 
money to no purpose. However, when conviction came over 
the public mind that Steam Navigation would answer here — 
but not until after more than 5,000 tons of steam-boats had 
been lauQched on the Hudson in 18 16, did it so come — then 
began the spread of Steam Navigation, since extended with 
such marvellous rapidity and perfection as to atone for the 
sluggish beginning. 

The success of these enterprises was not likely to pass 
unnoticed by the shipowners and builders of the greatest port 
in the world ; and we find that in 18 14, a steam-boat was em- 
ployed between London and Richmond. George Dodd, son 
of Ralph Dodd, the well-known engineer, from 1814 to 1828, 
had more to do with establishing steam-boats on the Thames 
than any other individual. He it was who started the Rich- 
mond packet, in 18 14 — the first steam-boat which succeeded in 
plying for hire on the Thames. He had to contend against 
the Watermen's Company, who for a long time succeeded in 
preventing any steam-boat plying for hire unless navigated by 
free watermen. The Richmond was not, however, the first 
steam-boat seen on the Thames. Sir I. M. Brunei, as may be 
read in his Life by Beamish, made a voyage to Margate in a 
boat of his own, propelled by a double-acting engine, and met 
with such opposition and abuse that the landlord of the hotel 
where he stopped refused him a bed ! In 18 13, according to 
Stuart, in his History of the Steam-enginey a Mr. Dawson, an 
Irishman, and Mr. Lawrence of Bristol, attempted to run 
steamers on the Thames, but succumbed to the opposition of 
the Thames watermen. Dawson's boat was sent soon after to 
ply between Seville and San Lucar, in Spain. 

Another vessel, the Margery ^ about 70 tons, which was built 
on the Clyde, was taken south, along the east coast of Scot- 
land. When she reached the Thames, the EngHsh fleet were 
at anchor : and she passed close. " The extraordinary appa- 
rition," says the Greenock Advertiser^ " excited a great commo- 
tion among officers and men : none of them had ever seen a 
steamer before, and by some of them she was taken for a 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 27 1 

Hre-shipr She made her first trip from London to Gravesend 
on the 23d of January, 1815 ; she continued to run between 
the two places during the following summer, but was frequently 
laid up for repairs. At this early stage of the invention, acci- 
dents were frequent : an explosion paralysed public confidence 
in the safety of the early steamers ; and immediately following 
such a disaster, we remember reading in the Times newspaper 
a long letter from Sir Richard Phillips, to prove by detail 
of the principle of the invention, that only by gross mis- 
management could danger arise. Such was the origin of the 
River Steamer, which, in a beautiful country has been thus 
eloquently pictured : — 

I saw her when her smoky volumes curl'd 
O'er the wood. She paw'd the river tide, 
And dash'd the flaky waters far and wide ; 
And, as she pass'd, her frightful hissings hurl'd 
Like some vast monster of a former world, 
Rent by convulsions from a mountain's side 
(Its stony sinews with new life supplied). 
Amid a new creation wondering whirl'd. 
The woods are mute, and the late leafy stems 
Are hid as with a murky vale of death. 
And now, the paintress Nature all regems, 
And paints with golden tints the monster's breath ; 
The reign of beauty may not suffer wrong ; 
So the sweet birds resume their cheerful song. 

The Margery continued, for several years, to ply as a pioneer 
steamer on the Thames — in great repute as a pioneer steamer 
— till she was broken up. She was followed by another 
vessel, about 75 tons burthen, with engines of sixteen horse 
power, and wheels of nine feet diameter ; built on the Clyde. 
When launched, she was called the Glasgow ; but that name 
was afterwards altered for the Thames ; she was brought round 
firom Scotland, by her owner, Mr. Dodd, by m'eans of both sail 
and steam, and had to contend with very rough weather in the 
Irish Sea. Of the voyage between Dublin and London, a 
passenger, Mr. Weld, gives some details : on Sunday, the 28th 
of May, 18 1 5, they steamed out of the Liffey at noon, in the 
presence of many thousand spectators. Mr. Weld adds : — 
" We soon left far behind us all the vessels which sailed 
from Dublin with the same tide as we had done ; and the fol- 
lowing morning about nine o'clock we were off Wexford. The 
dense smoke which issued from our mast-chimney was observed 



272 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

from the heights above that town, and it was concluded that 
our vessel was on fire. All the pilots immediately put to 
sea to assist us ; and on the arrival of the first boat alongside, 
surprise was mingled with disappointment, when they saw that 
we were in no danger whatever, and that their hopes were at an 
end." On reaching the Isle of Ramsay, off" the Irish coast, 
several boats went off" to the vessel's assistance, on the same 
supposition that deceived the Wexford pilots, namely, that the 
ship was on fire. When the Thames reached Portsmouth, 
great was the excitement among the spectators in the harbour. 
From Portsmouth, the steamer proceeded to Margate, and, 
after stopping a day, started for London, passing every fast 
sailing vessel on the passage ; this being the most wondrous 
feat of the day. 

Next, the Regent^ built for a Mr. Hall, and put on the 
Margate line, proved a failure, and was, by the advice of Isam- 
bard Marc Brunei, fitted by Henry Maudslay, and became 
eventually one of the most successful of the early Thames 
steamers. The Regent engine was the first made by Maudslay, 
for a steam-boat ; she was the first steamer to tow a ship to sea 
from the Thames; she was burnt ofi" Whitstable in 181 7, and 
was, it is believed, the first steamer burnt. 

A year later, a vessel called the Majestic^ which had been 
used as a towing-boat, and had once been as far as Calais, was 
employed to run between London and Margate. This year, 
18 1 8, Dodd's Victory was put on the Margate station; as was 
also the Favourite^ with side lever engines, by Boulton and 
Watt. The London Engineer^ with a chimney, by Maudslay, 
was likewise placed for a time on the Margate station, and is 
said to have been the first steamer which crossed the English 
Channel. Another vessel, called the Sons of Commerce^ ran 
between London and Margate ; and once performed the distance 
of eighty-eight rriiles in rather more than seven hours and a 
half. In 18 1 7, the first beam-engine made by Boulton anc) 
Watt was placed by them in a Clyde-built boat, the Caledonia : 
she was purchased by the Danish Admiralty, and was employed 
as a government packet between Kiel and Copenhagen. 

In 1 8 18, so much had the principle of steam-navigation 
spread, that besides the vessels, then numerous on the Thames, 
there were two on the Trent, four on«the Humber, two on the 
Tyne, one on the Orwell, eighteen on the Clyde, two on 
the Tay, two at Dundee, six on the Forth, two at Cork, two 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 273 

on the Mersey, three on the Yare, one on the Avon, one on the 
Severn, and two to run between Dublin and Holyhead. There 
were other steamers in active employment in Russia, France, 
Spain, and the Netherlands ; and a large number on the rivers 
of the United States. 

Up to this period, although there had been isolated voyages 
by sea, from one station to another, there had been no regular 
passages made. The delay which was often experienced by 
the sailing packets in traversing the stormy channel between 
Holyhead and Dublin, suggested the adoption of steam to 
obviate this loss of time. The first steam-vessel that ever sped 
regularly to the open sea was the Rob Roy^ a ship of about 
ninety tons burthen, and thirty horse power, the property of 
Mr. David Napier, one of a family at Glasgow, almost every 
member of which became distinguished for eminence in me- 
chanical science. This vessel Napier appointed to run between 
Glasgow and Belfast, a passage which she performed during the 
stormy months of winter, although steamers had only been out 
previously during the summer season ; and after running for 
two years there, she was transferred to the station of Calais and 
Dover, as a Government packet. In the following year, Mr. 
Napier employed Messrs. Wood to build a vessel of i8o tons 
burthen, with two engines of 30 horse-power each, named the 
Talbot^ followed by the Ivanhoe — the finest and most complete 
vessels of the time. These steamers were placed on the Holy- 
head station, to run between that port and Dublin, and assist the 
sailing packets which carried the mails ; but such was their 
speed and regularity that they soon superseded them. Other 
vessels were added, strengthened by diagonal framing, under 
the direction of Sir Robert Seppings, the Surveyor of the Navy. 
And, according to evidence before Parliament, it appeared 
that, while one hundred mails by the sailing packets had. owing 
to the wind and other accidents of a sea voyage, been behind 
their proper lime of arriving at the Post-office, only twenty- two, 
even in the most stormy state of the Irish Sea, had been too 
late when conveyed by steam-vessels. 

In 182 1, the City of Edinburgh^ the first steamer built for a 
long voyage, was placed on the London and Leith station : 
builders, Wigram, of Blackwall ; engines by Boulton and Watt ; 
tonnage, 400 ; W. P. 80 ; length, 143 feet ; diameter of wheels, 
18 feet. In the same year the Aaron Manby^ the first iron 
steamer, built by Manby, of the Horsley Ironworks, made her 

T 



274 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

first voyage, commanded by Sir Charles Napier, when she con- 
veyed a cargo from London to Paris direct, without trans- 
shipment. 

For several years the extent and importance of our connexion 
with the United States had suggested that there might be a 
more frequent and certain transit across the Atlantic; and 
the project was now taken up with the ardour of scientific 
earnestness, and the energy of commercial enterprise. On 
July 19, 1 8 19, the Savannah steamer of 350 tons, arrived at 
Liverpool, having made the voyage from New York in twenty- 
six days. The next ocean venture was the first steam voyage 
to India in the Enterprize^ which left Falmouth, August 16. 
1825 : for this triumph the captain of the vessel obtained 
10,000/. \ 

Nevertheless, the project of Steam Navigation to America 
slept until 1836, when Dr. Lardner informed the British Asso- 
ciation Meeting, at Bristol, that a company had been formed 
there for the express purpose of navigating steam-vessels di- 
rectly, and by a single voyage, between that port and New 
York, and where was then building a vessel of 1,200 tons for 
the purpose. At length, in 1838, the Sirius, of London, and 
the Great Western^ of Bristol, effected the voyage to New York 
almost simultaneously. The Sirius, an admirably built vessel 
of 700 tons, with 320 horse-power, started from Cork, April 4, 
1838, and struck boldly and directly across the ocean for New 
York. A few days after, the Great Western, a vessel noble in 
every way in her proportions and appointments, which had 
been built under the direction of a company of British mer- 
chants, started from Bristol for the same destination. The 
voyage was triumphantly successful. The ships, it had been 
intended, should stop at the Azores, Halifax, or St. John's, to 
shorten the voyage ; but, without calling at a single port for 
assistance or supply, they held on their course towards America, 
and at length, on the 23d of the same month, on the same 
day, the Sirius first, and the Great Western a few hours after, 
entered the harbour of New York. Long before their a;rrival 
notice of their coming had been given, and when the ships 
approached the shores of the greatest commercial city of the 
New World, they were greeted with flags and banners, and with 
music and ringing of bells, and the acclamations of an un- 
numbered multitude. In her second voyage out and home, the 
Great Western is stated to have netted about 3,000/. over and 



STEAH NAVIGATION. 



275 



above her expenses and in her third outward voyage 3 500/. 
The Sinus on the other hand was found to be an uneco- 
nomical vessel her accommodation not bemg equal to the 
expense ot the voyage and she was placed upon another line- 




The British Queen was the next Atlantic steamer built ; she 
was the largest vessel then launched, and her length was 35 feet 
greater than thai of any ship in the British Navy. This was 
followed by the President. Each of these magnificent vessels 
cost nearly 91,000/., or nearly double the original estimate. 
The fate of the PresidejU, which sailed from New York, in 
March, 1841, remains to this day a melancholy mystery. 

The large steamers hitherto named, were built of wood. The 
next stupendous novelty was, however, constructed of iron, 
and propelled by an enormous Archimedean screw, in place of 
paddles. This was the Great Britain, which, in trials, was 
commended as a weatherly ship, and the screw approved of as 
a means of propulsion at sea : she made her first voyage 
to New York in 1845, in 14 days, 2t hours: her vast length, 
320 feet, a line of six masts, a wire rigging, rendering the " big 



fjA WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

ship" a marvel to the New Yorkers. On September aa, 1846, 
she left Liverpool for New York, with upwards of 180 passen- 
gers.'then the largest number that had ever crossed the Adantlc 
in any steamer : in 9^ hours the vessel struck on the Irish 
coast :' the attempts to raise her involved a series of mechanical 
operations attended with vast expense, and not until August, 
1847, was the huge vessel rescued from her perilous position. 




Next, the Oriental Steam-packet Company placed their 
splendid vessels on the waves of the Mediterranean, and 
brought the cities and the millions of India within the journey 
of a month. Again, and two years more saw a line of equally 
splendid ships bringing every fortnight the rich produce of our 
West India Colonies. A squadron of steamers then likewise 
commenced their missions of prosperity and peace beyond the 
isthmus of Panama. 

We have now to chronicle the introduction of the Screw 
Propeller. Among the difficulties which prevented the steam- 
engine from being applied to navigation at an eariier period 
was the small space in the hold of a vessel at the disposal 
of the engineer, and the difficulty in adapting the engine to 
these limits. Then, how was the steam-engine, even when 
fitted to the confined hold of a river-boat, to ui^e the vessel 
through the water? Symington used the crank, Fulton, the 
sun-and- planet wheel, and both employed the improved water- 
wheels of Miller. A single engine with a fly-wheel worked the 
paddle-wheel shaft, but a heavy fly-wheel might be dangerous 



STEAM NAVIGATION. * 277 

in river-boats, and was totally inapplicable to sea-going steam- 
ers. " The expediency of paddle-wheels at all," says Mr. Syme, 
** was soon questioned. They take up space, when it might 
be better employed, they may be too deeply immersed at the 
beginning of a voyage, and too little at the end, owing to the 
diminished draught caused by the consumption of one or two 
hundred tons of coals, and in a ship-of-war they are prominent 
marks to an enemy's shot. These objections to paddle-wheels 
have led to the introduction of the Screw Propeller into the 
merchant service and the Navy." Paddle-wheel steamers would 
in war be easily crippled by an enemy, and soon be rendered 
useless. The screw leaves a clear broadside for the guns, does 
not prevent the use of sails, and allows the machinery to be 
placed six or eight feet below the water-line, thus leaving the 
upper decks free for working the guns. The progress of the 
Screw in the Navy since 1839, when the Rattler^ the first war 
ship fitted with it, has been most rapid. In 1852, there were 
125 armed steamers, both paddle and screw, in the Navy, 
carrying 800 guns ; at the great Naval Review at Portsmouth, 
in 1856, nearly twice as many steamers, principally screws, 
were assembled, carrying double the number of guns. 

We must go back to early times for the first appearance of 
the Screw Propeller." " It is probable," says Mr. Macgregor, 
" that, as the action of a water-mill suggested the use of the 
paddle-wheel, so the motion of a wind-mill (a contrivance of 
unknown antiquity) may have prompted the use of the oblique 
vaned propeller." The use of the Screw Propeller in China 
may be of indefinite antiquity : a model of one was brought 
from that country about 1780. But the first distinct description 
of the Screw Propeller to be turned by machinery inside a 
vessel seems to have been by D. Bemouilli, of Groningen, in 
1752, who proposed to use Screw Propellers at the bows, sides, 
and stern of a ship, and to drive them by a steam-engine. A 
sketch of this early suggestion is given in the Annales des Arts 
et Manufactures^ tome 20. In 1775 Kraft noticed this in- 
vention in a memoir at St. Petersburg, and two years afterwards 
we find it mentioned in the Monthly Review^ vol. 56. As 
usual, the idea was frequently reproduced or copied by other 
inventors ; but even a century ago it included provisions for 
raising the screws out of water when out of use. In 1770, 
James Watt suggested a Steam Screw Propeller; Bramah, in 1785, 
patented a rotary-engine for this purpose; Ramsey, in 1792, 



/ 



278 ' WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

put the screw between two hulls; and Lyttleton, in 1794, used 
a three-threaded screw; while Fulton, in 1798, tried one with 
four blades. The first screw steamer Mr. Macgregor could 
find was tried by Stevens in America, in 1804. In 1825, 
Brown used one on the Thames. And before 1830, Mr. Scott 
Russell saw a steamboat propelled by a screw.* 

In the Patent Museum at South Kensington are several 
models of Screw Propellers, mostly contributed and destribed 
by Mr. Bennet Woodcroft To Mr. Pettit Smith, more than 
any other engineer, is due the merit of having brought into 
general use the system of Screw Propulsion. Mr. Smith's is 
the double-threaded screw, the form of screw most commonly 
adopted ; but instead of half a convolution^ as proposed by Mr. 
Smith, about one-sixth of a convolution is found to give the 
best result. The length to give a maximum performance, how- 
ever, will depend to some extent on the kind of vessel to which 
the screw is applied. Smith patented his Screw Propeller in 
1836 ; and the Admiralty, to test it on a large scale, built the 
Archimedes of 237 tons burden, which made her first trip in 
1839. In a debate in the House of Commons in May, 1855, 
on the grant of 20,000/. for rewarding the invention of the 
Steam Screw Propeller, it was stated that there were no fewer 
than 44 claimants for the reward : the list was then reduced by 
the Committee to five, an arrangement was effected for dividing 
the money, and Mr. Smith shared the Parliamentary reward. In 
1858, Mr. Smith's services were commemorated by a splendid 

* Mr. Macgregor, in his valuable paper, "The Paddle and the Screw, from 
the Earliest Times," with its curious engraving , 185S, rays : ** In the modes 
of propulsion adopted by aquatic animals may be found almost every plan 
which has been used by man with machinery. Thus, water is ejected by 
propulsion by the cuttle-fish and paper-nautilus; sails are used by the 
volella and water-birds ; punting and towing by the whelks and the 
lepidosiren ; a folding paddle by the lobster ; feathering paddles by ducks ; 
and oblique surfaces by fish of all kinds. A screw-like appendage is found 
in the wings of an Australian fly; but it is supposed to be shaped thus 
only when dried after death. There is, however, one remarkable animal 
which propels itself by a rotary movement, acting on the water by means 
very similar to those of the paddle-wheel and screw-propeller combined. 
This is the infusorial insect Paramecium, in which a furrowed grove runs 
obliquely round the oval -shaped body of the animal. A wave-like pro- 
tuberance passing along the groove (with or without ciliae), causes the 
body to rotate on its longer axis, and thus propels it as by the fore and aft 
stroke of a paddle, as well as by the screw-like progress induced by the 
spiral groove." 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 279 

testimonial, presented to him at a public dinner in St. James's 
Hall, Piccadilly, towards the end of June ; Mr. Robert Ste- 
phenson, M.P., presiding. The gift consisted of a silver salver 
and claret-jug, amounting, with the money subscribed, to 
2,678/., contributed chiefly by eminent naval officers, engineers, 
ship builders, ship-owners, and men of science ; and with the 
plate was presented an address engrossed on vellum. At this 
time, 174 of her Majesty's ships had been fitted with the 
Screw Propeller: 52 line-of-battle ships; 23 frigates; 17 cor- 
vettes; 55 sloops; 8 floating batteries; and 19 troop and store 
ships. 

It is hard to say who was the inventor of the screw pro- 
peller, so old is the principle. We see it claimed, in 1857, for 
Frederick Sauvage, long resident at Perrey, near Havre, where 
he made his experiments with the screw in a small boat, which 
he had constructed and navigated in a large tub sunk in his 
garden. The Emperor of the French more than once assisted 
Sauvage with money, and when the poor inventor's state of 
mind required that he should be placed in a maison de sante, 
his Imperial Majesty took upon himself the payment of the 
expense. In 1866, Mr. James Lowe, engineer, who claimed 
to be the inventor of the screw propeller, was accidentally run 
over at Newington, on the 12 th of October, and died in 
consequence. 

There has likewise been invented a system of twin or 
double screw-propellers, driven by independent engines, for 
our men-of-war. So long ago as the year 185 1, Captain 
Carpenter, R.N. experimented with a model of a vessel having 
two screws, one under each quarter, each worked by a separate 
and independent motive power. In consequence of the satis- 
factory results obtained by these experiments, Mr. George 
Rennie constructed in 1855 a small boat with separate and 
independent engines, each engine driving a screw propeller 
under the quarter ; and thus the boat was enabled to manoeuvre 
without the rudder, and make various evolutions by regulating 
the speeds of either or both propellers. 

In 1857, Messrs. J. and G. Rennie made several gunboats 
of light draught of water for the Indian Government, to assist 
in the rivers in suppressing the Mutiny. These boats carried 
one gun forward, and being fitted with ordinary horizontal 
engines, but separate and independent of each other, to each 
screw propeller, the boat's head was enabled to be kept in the 



28o WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

desired direction by going ahead with one engine and propeller 
and astern with the other when required. 

The sea-going steamers of this countiy present specimens 
of constructive skill, mechanical completeness, and decorative 
taste, which are unsurpassed. Those built and engined in the 
Clyde, in speed, stability, or external appearance, are noble 
vessels. The vastness, however, culminates in the Leinathan^ 
(now Great Eastern) constructed on the wave principle and 
lines of Mr. Scott Russell, at Millwall, in 1857, with these 
dimensions: length, 680 feet; breadth, 83 feet; depth, 58 
feet ; tonnage, 23,000 tons ; carries of coals and cargo, 
18,000 tons; nominal horse-power of paddle-wheel engines, 
(Scott Russell,) 1000 H. p. ; nominal horse -power of screw 
engines, (Watt and Co.,) 1600 draft of water (light) 18 feet; 
ditto (loaded) 28 feet. The paddle-wheel engines are the 
largest specimens of Mr. Scott Russell's four cylinder engines 
that have yet been produced. The largest previously con- 
structed were those of the Victoria^ of 400 horse-power. 
The four cylinders of the Great Eastern engines are probably 
the largest steam cylinders ever made for marine service, at 
least in England. They are 74 inches in diameter, and have 
a stroke of 14 feet. Each cylinder is a casting in one piece, 
weighing 28 tons. The condenser is a casting in one piece 
of 36 tons. The upper frames are four castings, of 13 tons 
each, all cast in the works at Millwall without a flaw. The 
paddle-wheel shafts have Mr. Scott Russell's patent self-acting 
gearing, by which the engines engage or disengage themselves 
from either paddle-wheel. The paddle-wheels are 58 feet in 
diameter, and in turning once round will advance 60 yards. 
Ten revolutions of the wheel per minute would cover 600 
yards, or 36,000 yards per hour, which is a speed of 20 miles 
an hour for the circumference of the wheel 

The story of the Great Eastern is a sad one. This ship 
originally belonged to the Eastern Steam Navigation Company, 
established to carry the India and China Mails by the long sea 
route, but in this they were overmatched by the Peninsular and 
Oriental Company. In 1854, the ship was commenced by 
Mr. Brunei, and nearly 100,000/. was expended before she was 
tried; pecuniary difficulties ensued, and in 1858 a new Company 
was formed with 330,000/. capital. In the autumn of 1859, she 
went to sea, when off" Hastings a destructive accident occurred, 
and thence followed a series of casualties, without material 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 281 

injury to her hull or machinery ; she rode out a gale in Holy- 
head harbour ; encountered a hurricane in the Atlantic, which 
disabled her rudder and damaged her paddles, and left her for 
three or four days rolling about in the trough of a heavy sea. 
She ran upon a rock at New York, and broke her bottom plates 
for a length of 80 feet, which were repaired while afloat, and 
without going into dock; yet she came home safely. Then 
increased her financial difficulties, and eventually the ship 
was sold for 25,000/., scarcely one third of its value as old 
materials. 

The history of the Screw Propeller has been most ably 
written by Mr. John Bourne, C. E., — with a comprehensiveness 
and interesting character, which has few parallels in this class 
of works. Mr. Bourne's Treatise is not a succession of dry 
mechanical details, or a sketchy history of the invention ; but 
it is a masterly treatment of a truly great subject in a manner 
at once sound and attractive, practical and popular. The 
labour was beset with great difficulties, and there was much to 
clear away from the perplexing subject. Thus, in a recent number 
of this valuable work, we read of a specification which describes 
a great number of inventions, not one of which has come 
into use. The Treatise brings us down to the middle of 1862, 
the notices including references to various proposed methods 
of propelling vessels besides the screw system proper. We 
select one example of the Screw Propeller for quotation, namely, 
the invention of Mr. Charles Augustus Holm, who in 1853 
took out a patent " for an improved form of Screw Propeller, 
the object of which was to obviate loss of effect either by im- 
pact or by dispersion. The leading edge of the screw is made 
so as merely to enter the water without propelling, and the 
pitch increases slowly at first and then very rapidly, until at 
the trailing edge it becomes infinite, the trailing edge standing 
in a line with the keel. The periphery or outer edge of the 
blade is turned over so as to form a curved flange, and is joined 
to the trailing edge by a spoon-like corner forming a portion of 
a sphere. For backing, a piece of flange Hke the circum- 
ferential flange is attached to the back of the screw. The 
propeller presents a peculiar appearance ; its theoretical prin- 
ciple is sound, and Mr. Bourne has made a considerable number 
of these propellers, and fitted them to vessels. Although the 
screw acted in a perfectly satisfactory manner, Mr. Bourne 
came to the conclusion that it was no better than common 



282 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

screws in its actual efficiency. Any gain obtained from its 
superior action on the water was lost by the increased friction 
incident to the larger amount of rubbing surface."* 

The progress of the construction of Marine Engines, a most 
important branch of our subject, has been ably ilUustrated in 
an account of the great Marine Engine Factory of Messrs. 
Penn, at Greenwich, an establishment most intimately asso- 
ciated with the early history of Steam Navigation. 

The construction of Marine Engines has gone on so rapidly 
that not many years ago a lady was receiving an annuity in 
consequence of her husband having first suggested the placing 
a steam-engine in a boat to move its paddle-wheels. This 
was in the year 1788, when the steam-engine was called a 
fire-engine, had no rotatory motion, and was only used for 
pumping water out of mines. Symington was employed to 
make the engine, as we have already narrated. The experi- 
ment was considered exceedingly successftil ; and the first little 
voyage under steam was made on the small Scotch lake ot 
Dalswinton. It must be remembered that, as we have re- 
marked, the steam-engine of that day having no rotatory motion, 
Symington had consequently to tax his ingenuity to convert the 
reciprocating action of the engine into another action which 
should turn the paddles; and this he contrived to do in a most 
ingenious manner, though by complicated means as compared 
with his second attempt. These little engines were the first 
examples of their kind, and are now in the Patent Museum 
at South Kensington, having been repaired and restored as 
already narrated at pp. 253, 254. They were constructed 
for the Charlotte Diindas^ and were so perfect and com- 
plete that the boat might have been at work at this day had 
she been kept in repair. She had a cylinder, with the steam 
acting on both sides of the piston, working a connecting rod 
and crank, and the union of the crank to the axis of the 
paddle-wheels, which latter contrivance was Symington's patent. 
Perfect as this little vessel was, she failed to attract much atten- 
tion from the public ; but Fulton, the American engineer, saw 
at a glance what new life such a power would give his country, 
and he at once ordered an engine at Soho, and built a boat, so 
that the Americans had steam-vessels, a British invention, on 
the Hudson as soon as we had them on our rivers ; for the first 

* Mechanics' Magazine. 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 283 

passenger steam-boat did not start here until 1812. This was 
BelFs Cornet^ and it is a remarkable fact, that the identical 
engine which propelled the first passenger steam-boat that ever 
ran was put in the Patent Museum at Kensington by the very 
man who made it and fitted it into Henry Bell's boat, The 
Comet. Since that date Steam Navigation has progressed 
with giant strides. 

About the year 1836 steam-ship building was introduced on 
the Thames by Thomas Ditchburn, of Blackwall, in partner- 
ship with Mr. C. Mare. Among many other vessels con- 
structed by them were some small boats to ply between the 
bridges in London, and from London to Greenwich and 
Woohvich. These vessels were fitted with engines by John 
Penn, the father of the present head of the establishment at 
Greenwich, who, thirty years before, had started as a mill- 
wright and machinist on the same spot where now stand the 
first marine engine-building works in the world. The engines 
placed in these little boats were on the oscillating principle, 
and so perfect in design, so excellent in workmanship, and so 
light and compact, that they excited the greatest interest ; for 
the marine engines previously in use were chiefly of the class 
called side-lever engines, very excellent, but ponderous and 
large. Penn's oscillating engines were pronounced perfect, but 
the wise in such matters said the oscillating principle would 
only do for small engines ; and they were not a little startled 
when they heard that John Penn was actually constructing a 
pair of oscillating engines of 260 horse-power for H.M.S. 
Black Eagle, These large engines turned out a great success, 
for in half the space, with half the weight, they were equal in 
power to the old side-lever engines. This success led to still 
greater efforts in the same direction, and engines of 500-horse 
power were built for H.M.S. Sphynx. Such great strides having 
been made by the engine-builders, the shipwrights were not, 
behindhand, and sought to obtain speed. This was done by 
that remarkable vessel the Banshee^ built by Mr. Lang. The 
highest rate of speed hitherto obtained is by the Royal yacht 
Victoria and Albert^ with engines by Penn, of 600-horse power ; 
the firm next constructed oscillating engines of 800-horse 
power for a yacht built for the Pacha of Egypt, to which we 
shall return. 

The first screw introduced into the Royal Navy was applied 
to her Majesty's yacht the Fairy^ built by Ditchburn about 



284 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

twenty-two years since, and fitted with engines by Penn. This 
wonderful httle boat has been in constant use from that time 
until now, and still ranks as one of the best examples of that 
system of propulsion. For vessels of war greater compactness 
is necessary, to enable the engines to be placed below the 
water-line and out of the way of cannon-shot. These require- 
ments led Messrs. Penn to design an entirely new class of 
engines, which they called trunk-engines, and which were 
specially adapted to drive the screw-propeller. The first of 
this class was fitted to the Encounter and Arrogant frigates, of 
360-horse power ; to which have been added the Warrior^ 
Black Prince^ and Achilles^ with engines of 1250-horse power; 
the Minotaur and Northumberland ^ of 1350-horse power. 

The business of the great firm of Messrs. Penn and Sons is 
carried on at two establishments — one at Greenwich, where 
the engines are built ; and the other at Deptford, where the 
boilers are constructed and the engines fitted in all ships whose 
draught of water will allow of their getting alongside the wharf. 
The various fitting and tool shops at Greenwich cover seven 
acres of ground, and in them are employed about 1,300 men 
and boys. Here all the castings are made, some of immense 
size, from twenty to thirty tons of metal being run into some of 
the moulds for the cylinders. Screw-propellers and shafts are 
cast here in gun-metal, some of which, when finished, weigh 
twenty-four tons. The separate parts of each engine are made 
in different divisions of the factoiy, but all come together at last 
to be fitted in the great fitting-shop. In the works at Dept- 
ford, where the boilers are constructed, about 500 hands are 
employed, making nearly 2,000 hands in all. The quantity of 
wrought- iron boiler-plate used in this part of the works is 
1,500 tons annually, which, when formed into tubes, the united 
length of which exceeds forty miles, would consume 1,200 tons 
of coal per day, and evaporating 11,000 tons of water, which 
yields a power equal to that of 40,000-horse power. 

The accompanying engraving represents the operation of cast- 
ing one of the cylinders for a pair of the enormous marine 
engines Messrs. Penn so frequently construct. Casting large 
masses of metal is always interesting, even when the casting is of 
the ordinary kind ; but in the case of that shown here is pecu- 
liarly so, because the mass of metal, while of immense magni- 
tude, has to be cast with all the exactness and perfection that 
can be given to the smallest castings. The operation is on the 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 



J85 



largest scale, jsret its result is the highest degree of perfection 
both in matenal and workmanship. Here the molten metal is 
being poured into the mould. The iron, carefully selected, is 
melted in several cupolas, placed adjacent to the foundry. 
The^e are supplied with the metal and fuel by an hydraulic 
! ft When he me a s eady h upo a a app d and he 
mo en on un h o gh h e 




they emp y hem eenoon uon Ven 

fu he e a d by p e o an and a k e o e he 

ape ure n h upp pa o h n ou d bu of ourse 

they require to be raised on one side to cause the metal to run 
out. This is done by means of wheels with spokes on their 
outer edges, acting as levers. ■ The pouring of so large a mass of 
metal equally into the mould is a most important matter, and 
is executed by the principal founder ; for irregulaTtty or too 
quickly running the metal would not only spoil the casting, but 



286 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

might endanger the lives of those present. The operation of 
casting one of these cylinders, which requires from twenty to 
thirty tons of iron to fill the mould, must necessarily employ 
machinery of the most ponderous character, and bring into 
play forces of immense power ;. yet the actual manipulation of 
these huge masses is done with the delicacy required in wind- 
ing up a watch. The scene during the few minutes occupied 
in filling the mould is particularly fine in effect ; the hitherto 
dark foundr}* being suddenly lit up with the glare of the rivers 
of liquid iron running over the lips of the cauldrons ; the most 
beautiful coruscations of fire fly about in all directions ; the air 
is positively full of coloured sparks ; while the bright glow of 
the molten iron, almost white in its intense heat, lights up the 
features and forms of the workmen and numerous visitors in a 
wondrous manner ; for at such times, not only are the visitors 
numerous, but all the younger hands of the establishment con- 
trive to find their way into the foundry ; and so do many of 
the old ones, for the hearts of the men, as well as those of the 
masters, must be in the work in such a factory as this. * 

Of Steam-shipping we possess almost the exclusive mono- 
poly. But the most astounding fact, as shown by Mr. Capper, 
in his account of the Port of London, is the enormous increase 
of this Steam-shipping during the last ten years. Between 1850 
and i860 the tonnage of our steam-vessels increased from 
158,000 to no less than 454,000 tons. It must be recollected, 
too, that, inasmuch as one steamer in the coasting and short 
trades can do as much work as five sailing-vessels, this tonnage 
is really five times greater than it appears. Notwithstanding 
this, railways have proved formidable competitors, at least for 
passenger traffic. In the early days of steam- vessels, they were 
thought to be specially and peculiarly applicable to the naviga- 
tion of inland waters. Mr. Porter, in his Spirit of the Nation^ 
remarked, that " the countless thousands who annually pass in 
these packets up and down the River Thames seem almost 
wholly to have been led to travel by the cheap and commodious 
means that have been thus presented to them, since the amount 
of journeying by land has by no means lessened." The ten 
years that have elapsed since these words were written have 
effected a revolution. In 1835 the number of persons con- 
veyed between London and Gravesend was ascertained by the 

* Abridged from the Illustrated London News, 



STEAM NAVIGATION. a8) 

collector of the pier dues in that town to be nearly seven hun- 
dred thousand. It was stated in evidence before a Committee 
of the House of Commons, in 1836, that upwards of a million 
passengers, including those to and from Gravesend, at that 
time passed Blackwall in steamboats every year. But the 
steam-vessels have been obliged completely to abandon the 
struggle with the railways. Two lines, one on each side of 
the river, convey passengers to Gravesend ; and, as a conse- 
quence, of the two or three fleets of admirable vessels which 
in 185 1 performed the water-passage between London Bridge 
and that point with the greatest speed and regularity, scarcely 
one remains. . Mr. Capper doubts whether, upon any river 
in England, there now exists a steamboat service of any 
moment where the river's bank possesses a railway. 

Almost at the moment we writer the Victoria Docks, in 
the Plaistow Marshes, perhaps the finest in the world, pre- 
sent us with this impressive picture of our country's pre- 
eminence in Steam-shipping: — We come first upon a crowd 
of yachts, of all ages, rigs, and sizes ; next, keeping to the west, 
is the Donald Mackay, one of our 2,000-ton merchant-fleet, 
with her skysail yards crossed and ready for sea. A little fur- 
ther is one of the finest models afloat of a fast screw trading 
steamer from Waterford. Still further westward we come upon 
four monstrous ships. First in rank comes the SerapiSy the 
most magnificent transport ship in the world. Her spars look 
light for her size, yet they are those of a. line-of-battle ship ; but 
so great is her bulk that if her engines were disabled they would 
probably do little more than keep her head straight, unless in a 
gale of wind. Alongside of the Serapis lies a noble Spanish 
armour-clad ram frigate ; she has immense strength, great beam, 
and her sides are curved to repel heavy shot. Another frigate 
for the same Government lies close to her. Then the Crocodile^ 
a sister ship to the Serapis^ but not in so forward a state. Here 
we have in one recess of this vast dock four of the finest ships 
afloat. Under the shears lies a large iron-clad frigate, for the 
Prussian Government, by Messrs. Samuda. The intention of 
placing two monstrous guns to fire end-on from her bow is 
evident from the work now going on, and she will have a for- 
midable broadside also. Though of 3,470 tons she will only 
draw twenty-four feet of water. In the creek to the east of 
these docks another splendid armour-clad is almost ready for 
launching by the Thames Company. She will be 355 feet long. 



288 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

60 feet beam, and 5,930 tons, and will be plated with 8-tnch 
iron. Some of her guns will weigh fifty tons, and carry a shot 
of foolbs. Of the speed of these splendid steam-ships we re- 
pieatedly read astounding records. One of the recent examples 
is the Egyptian paddle-wheel steam yacht Mahrousm, built by 
the Samudas, for the Viceroy of E^TDt, which has performed 
the voyage from Southampton to Malta in the unprecedented 
short time of 157 hours. When under full steam, she con- 
sumes seven tons of coal an hour, and is without exception the 
fastest vessel afloat. At the measured mile in Stokes Bay her 
average speed was upwards of i8'4 knots an hour, which is 
equal to about loj statute miles. This splendid vessel is of 
1,800 tons, and is fitted with machinery of 8oo-horse power. 
Her interior fittings are of extraordinary magnificence. Her 
cost is said to have been .166,000/.* 

The rapid progress of steam navigation in recent years, is 
well shown by the increase in the tonnage of British steam- 
shipping from the year 1870, when it amounted to 1,111,375 




Fig. II.— CoHPASATin Sizet or Stbahships. 
ia':fi, Great IValem; rif^, Grtal Britain : iii6,Penia; 1858. Gwii 



* Abridged Trom Ihe CTareiwi 



STEAM NAVIGATION, 3S9 

tons, to the year 1876, when the amount was no less than 
2,150,302 tons:, that is, during these six years, the tonnage of 
the steam-shipping of this country had nearly doubled. A 
remarkable increase of the size and power of steam ships of 
the best class has taken place since the Great Western was 
built for the Atlantic passage. The diagram (Fig. 11) shows 
the comparative sizes of the most remarkable steam vessels 
built between 1838 and 1858. The culminating magnitude 
was reached, of course, at one great bound in the case of the 
Great Eastern, which is still the largest vessel afloat. Although 
this ship did not prove a commercial success, it showed how 




s.s. City ef Rsmt. 



enormous ships could be constructed ; and it is noticeable tnat 
since Brunei's bold enterprise the size of steam-ships has been 
gradually increasing. The City of Brussels, and other noble 
vessels, have been built since the Persia ; but these have now 
all been surpassed in size by a vessel built for the Inman 
Company, and launched on the rsth of June, 1881. This ship 
has received the name of the City of Rome, and, with the 
single exception of the Great Eastern, she is the largest ship 
in the world. Her speed is intended to be 18 knots an hour; 
and if this ba attained she will convey passengers across the 
Atlantic in a period of time not much longer than would be 
occupied by an ordinary railway train traversing the same 



190 



WO;jDElftT;L INVENTIONS, 



distance. Her engines will regularly work at an indicated 
horse-power of 8,000, but will be capable, when lequired, of 
workbg up to 10,000 H.p, The Ciiy of Rome is 600 feet 
in length, 52 feet in breadth, and 37 feet deep. Her length is 
therefore only 90 feet less than that of the Great Eastern. 
The tonnage of the City of Rome is estimated at 8,000 tons, 
ar.d she will provide acccmmodation for 1,500 passengers, of 




whom the first class will have at their command all the com- 
forts and luxuries of a well-appointed hotel. The ship will be 
driven by a single screw-pro pellor, 24 feet in diameter, and the 
principal shafting will be z feet i inch in diameter, made 
hollow, and formed of Sir J. Whitworth's fluid-compressed 
steel. It will be seen from the sketch (Fig. iz), that the ship 
will carry three funnels and four masts. Other vessels of the 
same class are also in progress. 




"fJM at- |:\ 



d his Sod Roben.— Page ijd 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 29 1 

One of the curiosities of steam-ship navigation is the 
tivin-ship^ which has been designed to meet the requirements 
of the steam service between Dover and Calais. The object 
is to obtain the greatest amount of steadiness ; and Captain 
Dicey, a few years ago, built the Castalia^ a vessel with two 
hulls, propelled by paddle-wheels placed between them. The 
Castalia has plied regularly across the Channel, but her speed 
having been found inadequate, the more powerful and efficient 
vessel, the Calais et Dowvres^ constructed upon the same general 
principle, has been placed upon the regular service. 



An important point in the economy of the Steam-engine may be noted 
here, as specially interesting in connexion with the great question of Coal 
Supply. For some considerable time the consumption of the Steam-engine 
has progressively decreased. Some fifteen or twenty years ago marine 
engines, burning not more than 7 lb. of coal per horse-power per hour, were 
thought to do very fairly indeed. The Admiralty estimated consumption 
at that time was 81b., subsequently reduced to 61b. Now, a consumption 
of 3J lb. is not regarded as being eminently economical, and steamships 
might probably be counted by the score whose engines are developing a 
horse power per hour with from half to three-quarters of a pound less of 
coal ; while under exceptional circumstances a very much higher duty than 
even this has been obtained during very long runs. The consumption of 
the Octavia^ Constance^ and Arethusay between Plymouth and Madeira, 
represent a remarkable advance in economic efficiency over any engines 
previously supplied to the Navy, and demonstrates the practicability of in- 
troducing generally a greatly improved practice of steam-engine construction. 
The consumption of the above vessels compares most favourably with the 
consumption on board the competing Liverpool — over 4 lb. per horse per 
hour— a ship carrying very fair engines of the class commonly met with in 
our old wooden vessels. — Abridged from the Engineer. 

* Abridged from the Churchman, 



U 2 




THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMO- 
TIVE STEAM-ENGINE. 

|HENEVER the history of our time is written, the 
invention of the Railway and the Locomotive Steam- 
Engine will furnish its most important and interesting 
chapter. Its benefits are more universally diflfused 
than any other : nearly every man, woman, and child, partici- 
pates in the profit and practical comfort, and even luxury, to be 
enjoyed by means of the Railway and its Engine. AH ages 
share its physical completeness in conveying us without energy 
or effort from place to place, and contributing to convenience 
and enjoyment in a more direct manner than any other result 
of human ingenuity. It is the universal messenger of life, and 
is more tributary to the enjoyment of all classes than any other 
contrivance to be named : its iron roads are the very arteries of 
our existence as a commercial and manufacturing community, 
and they largely increase our pleasures, by the delightful change 
of scene which they bring within the reach of all grades of 
the community. 

Such completeness as this invention presents has not, how- 
ever, been the production of one mind. Railways of wood 
were used more than 250 years ago, to lessen horse-labour, be- 
tween which and the introduction of iron rails was a long 
interval. Watt patented a locomotive engine, but it did not 
occur to him to place it on the rail ; and the Directors of the 
Liverpool and Manchester Railway were for some time unde- 
termined as to the kind of motive power which they should 
adopt, ere they decided upon the Steam Locomotive Engine. 

We have already narrated the triumphs of Steam and in- 
genuity applied to the mines,, the navigation, and the cotton 
inanufacture, in the main due to important improvements 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 293 

effected in smelting and working iron. Before Mr. Cort's time^ 
the wrought-iron formed in the furnace was prepared for use in 
the arts by the shingling hammer, which beat out the hot piles 
of metal into bars two or three yards long, and then welded 
several of them into one. Mr. Cort employed heavy rollers in 
reducing the balls of wrought-iron taken from the furnace into 
forms required in the arts, which could not always be done 
without the assistance of the steam-engine. The rollers make 
from 60 to 400 revolutions per minute, and travel as last as 
ordinary railway trains, and it requires a powerful engine with 
a heavy fly-wheel to carry the plates through. " Sometimes, 
however," says Mr. S)nne, ** the forge-hammer must be em- 
ployed for work which the rollers cannot perform. The shafts 
to which the paddle-wheels of steamers, or the driving-wheels 
of locomotives are keyed, could not be manufactured between 
cylinders, or under the old forge hammer. The former in some 
cases weigh twenty tons, and are many feet in length, and uni- 
form strength throughout the mass, as well as thorough welding 
of the several pieces, are indispensable." Nasmyth's steam- 
hammer was invented for such work. " A heavy block of cast- 
iron, sometimes five tons in weight, and attached to the lower 
end of a piston rod, working in an inverted cylinder, is lifted 
by admitting steam beneath the piston, and then allowed to fall 
upon the work by its own weight ; or, by a little management, 
it may be made to slide up and down without striking at all. 
The heaviest work is forged under the blows of this ponderous 
hammer, which acts with an energy that the strength of iron 
cannot withstand, and yet it is kept in such control that a nut- 
shell may be cracked or an egg chipped as easily as iron beams 
are welded or shaped." 

Mr. Syme proceeds to describe among the revolutions in 
working iron, " iron blocks squeezed between rollers, or com- 
pressed in the jaws of an iron alligator — two or three welded 
into one, or formed into a sheet, squeezed out to greater thin- 
ness ; huge shears working with marvellous rapidity, clipping 
three-quarter-inch plates at the rate of ten feet each stroke ; 
circular saws, moving with greater speed than the fastest railway 
trains, cutting railway bars in two with a precision otherwise 
unattainable ; heavy hammers uniting ponderous bars of iron ; 
slight ones, striking a thousand times in a minute; holes 
punched through masses of iron almost a foot thick, as easily 
as if they were pieces of wood or cheese ; and sheets nailed 



294 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

together with a firmness that gives to hundreds of united plated 
the stiffness of one. Another invention of the greatest im- 
portance is the manufacture of steam cylinders, of uniform 
diameter from top to bottom, valve faces accurately planed, and 
piston-rods of the same thickness throughout. This was for- 
merly left to the eye of the workman ; but Maudslay's slide- 
rest has changed the state of things entirely. Instead of 
allowing the cutting tool to lean against the chest of the work- 
man, the machine takes off shavings to the same depth through- 
out, and uniform thickness is secured in all parts by the machine 
sliding its own cutting tool along ; and the services of the work- 
man, except at the beginning and end of the operation, are 
dispensed with altogether. This principle, so simple in its 
nature, has been applied to the turning of rods, the planing 
of surfaces, the boring of cylinders, the formation of cones, the 
cutting of screws, and other purposes ; and nine-tenths of all 
the fine mechanism is through the agency of the slide-rest and 
planing machine." 

This progress in machinery and manufactures led to great 
changes in travelling and the carriage of goods and mineral 
produce. Formerly, when coal was found, easy means of con- 
veying it from the high regions in which it lies, were soon 
thought of. In the neighbourhood of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 
the produce of the mines began to be borne to vessels waiting 
in the river by the laying down of pieces of wood upon the 
ground, end to end, for the wheels of coal-wagons to run upon. 
An oak railway was laid down between the pit and the wharf, 
and the wagon-wheels had broad flanges to keep them from 
slipping off the rails. Trains of wagons were allowed to run 
down an incline by their own weight, or were dragged along 
the level ground by horse-power. They were easily stopped by 
locking the wheels. Then we had the contrivance illustrated 
in the next page. 

Lord Keeper North, in 1676, describes " rails of timber from 
the colliery down to the river, exactly straight and parallel ; 
and bulky carts made with four rowlets fitting these rails, 
whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse will draw four 
or five chaldron of coals, and is of immense benefit to the coal 
merchant'* 

These ways were much improved ; but a century and a half 
elapsed before the rails were laid upon cross pieces, or sleepers, 
to which they were fastened by pegs, and the spaces between 



THE RAILWAV AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 295 

filled up with Sand, stones, or any other substance. After a 
time, much inconvenience was felt from the upper pieces be- 
coming worn out or displaced, whether by the swelling of the 
soil from rain, or from any sudden shock, when the whole of 
the way was necessarily interrupted until another piece was put 
into its place. This suggested other pieces placed longitu- 
dinally throughout the whole track, and fastened by pegs or 
screws, so that where one was injured it could within an hour 
be taken out and replaced without injury to the rest. 




The ivagons used to carry the coals on these railways usually 
held from three to four tons, and were drawn by one horse 
each, going upon small wheels, to which was added the flange. 
About the year 1716, thin iron plates were laid upon the sur- 
face of the rails, which by their greater smoothness, offered less 
obstruction to the tyre * of the wheels, so that the labour of the 



396 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

horse was lightened. The roads were then called tram-roads, 
having been first laid down, it was said, by Outram, from 
whose name, omitting the first syllable, the word is said to have 
been first derived. "The derivation would apply equally well 
to the word trammel — the rail flanges being in reality trammels 
to gauge the road, and confine the wheels." 




From 17 16 till fifty years afterwards, these were all the 
improvements effected in the tram-ways : stone ways were 
tried instead of wooden ones, but the surface was rougher, and 
they soon fell into disuse. A suggestion was made about the 
year 1767. At the Colebrook Dale Iron Works, in Shropshire, 
a wooden railway requited firequent repairs, which were often 
expensive and inconvenient. Iron happened to be then very 

With respect to the word rail, the plonks forming a path for the wheels, 
connected by cross timbers, inclosed a space, from which apparently comes 
rail, — a cognate, probably, of apparel, which applies to dress, and also to 
the tackle of a ship ; also, raiment and night rail, expressing clothing which 
encloses (he person. Probably, the resemblance of the timbers in form to 
the rails of a posl-and.rail inclosare may have supplied the nomenclature." 
We quote these etymons, which are somewhat fanciful, from the Exeycla' 
f<tdia BritoHHica, eighth edit ait. Railways. 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 297 

low in price, and a Mr. Reynolds, one of the proprietors of the 
Colebrook Dale Works, suggested casting their pigs of iron in 
longer lengths than usual, and laying them down on the surface 
of the tramway ; observing that when the price of iron rose, 
they could easily take them up and dispose of them. ITiis, 
however, was never done ; nor were the scantlings, as they were 
called, ever removed until they were replaced by the improved 
iron rail which afterwards came into use. George Stephenson 
tells us, from the books of the Colebrook Dale Company, that 
in 1767, between five and six tons of cast-iron rails were made 
at these works ; but only as an experiment, at the suggestion 
of one of the partners. 




In the tramroad, however, the rail was liable to be covered 
with dust or gravel To obviate this, Jessop, in 1789, laid 
down at Loughborough cast-iron edge-rails, from which the 
guiding edges were removed, and applied round the edges of 
the wheels, forming flanges, the rails being elevated sufficiently 
to allow the descending flange to clear the ground. This 
appears to have been tiie first system of rails laid down on 
cast-iron chairs and on sleepers : the rails were pinned or 



298 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

bolted into the chairs. This improvement was brought into 
use at one of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries, near Sheftield, in 
1776 ; but the first edge railway of which we have any account 
was laid down in 1801, at the Penrh)na slate quarries, in 
Wales. It was composed of pieces four feet six inches in 
length, each of which was, with the end of the piece that 
joined it, fitted into an iron block firmly embedded in the road 
To keep the wheels in their places, they were made with a 
grooved t}Te, but this wore away and made the carriage drag, 
when Mr. Watt put a r^ular flange on each side of the wheel, 
thus giving both to the rail and ^e wheel a flat surface. Such 
was Ae advantage of this plan, that two horses could draw a 
train of twenty-four wagons, each containing a ton weight of 
material ; and no more than ten horses were required to do the 
work which it had formerly required four hundred to perform. 

Edge-rails now came into general use ; but the outer flanges 
of these were soon removed as unnecessary. In the rails 
there have been various clianges : some have been cast with 
the thickness greater in the middle than at the ends, so that 
whilst the latter rested on the chairs, the middle might rest on 
the solid ground. These were caW^^Jish-beilied rails, and instead 
of cast were of rolled wrought-iron, patented by Birkenshaw, in 
1820; similar in form to Jessop's, but rolled in continuous 
lengths, embracing a number of spans, with stiffening ledges or 
flanges on the under side. This form of rails grew into favour, 
and was adopted in the construction of the Liverpool and 
Manchester Railway, which was opened in 1829. The rail 
weighed 33 lbs. per yard, and was laid in cast-iron chairs, 
spiked down to square stone blocks, at three feet bearings. 
This line served as a model railway for those which more 
immediately succeeded it The edge-rail and flanged wheel 
are happily matched : they constitute essentially the mechani- 
cal idea of a Railway — the basis of the whole system. The 
gauge or measure of a railway is taken at the distance apart of 
the upper surfaces or treads of the two rails forming a line 
of rails, or a way. There are two gauges, known as the narrow 
gauge, 4 feet 8^ inches, and the broad gauge, 7 feet between 
the rails. The narrow is the national or Stephenson guage, 
adopted with few exceptions, the most important of which is 
the broad gauge, 7 feet, introduced by the younger Brunei on 
the Great Western Railway, but now being changed. 

One of the mistakes of this day, notwithstanding the expcri- 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 299 

ence in the traction of carriages on railways by animal power, 
was that if engines did move forward on a perfect level, the 
slightest ascent would stop their tractive action. No more 
erroneous idea could have been entertained, for comparatively 
steep inclined planes were soon surmounted by railway engines. 
To obviate the supposed defect of an insufficient adhesion of 
the wheels to the rails, Mr. Blenkinsop patented a machine to 
move a large cog-wheel, the projections of which fitted into 
a rack, which was laid down alongside the railway. This plan 
was adopted, and worked many years, on the Hunslet Moor 
Collieries tramway, near Leeds; and its relic, the notched 
rack, long remained on the Moor after it was disused. We 
may here mention, so useful had these railways been found, 
that the proposal to levy a tax on iron in 1806, was opposed, 
because it would increase the expense of constructing them 
about 700/. a mile. 

About this time an iron tramroad, or railway, was projected, 
to open a direct communication between the chalk and lime 
works at Merstham, in Surrey, and the Thames, at Wandsworth. 
The train of carriages carrying the Hme and chalk, was drawn 
by one horse : this railway was completed in 1805 ; as a specu- 
lation it failed, and only small detached portions remain. To 
preserve the necessary level, the railway took its course through 
a natural break in the range of the chalk hills; but in the 
highest part it was sunk not less than 26 feet ; yet no chalk 
was discovered, the soil being, in the deepest part, a stiff gravelly 
clay, though lying between the chalk hills of Coulsdon and those 
of Merstham. The late Sir Edward Banks, when a labourer, 
worked on this railway, then under construction : he rose to be 
builder of three of the noblest bridges in the world — those of 
Waterloo, S9uthwark, and London ; besides many other public 
works. When working at Chipstead, he was so impressed with 
its retired and picturesque churchyard, that he chose it as the 
depository of his remains. His tomb bears his bust, and 
representations of an arch of each of the three great bridges, 
with a long inscription, referring to his forty years' work ; his 
benevolence and simplicity of manners, his integrity, justice in 
purpose, and firmness in execution : such was one of our 
earliest railway " navvies" — and an honour to any rank. 

The above tramway — the Surrey Iron Railway — as it was 
called, crossed the turnpike-road near Wandsworth, and here, 
some sixty years ago, a home tourist, on seeing one of the 



o 



OO WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



railway trains drawn by one horse, musingly speculated upon the 
benefit which would accrue from four or five millions of the 
public money being spent in extending double lines of iron rail- 
way fi-om London to our cities and great towns. He adds, " We 
might, ere this hour, have witnessed our mail-coaches running 
at the rate of ten miles an hour, drawn by a single horse, or 
impelled fifteen miles an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine.'* 
Here we have the suggestion of uniting railway communication 
into a system^ as connecting hues are now called. 

It may readily be conceived that Locomotive Engines did 
not at once start into approximate perfection, but have been 
gradually matured by successive modifications and improve- 
ments. The Railway was perfected in this progressive manner, 
and it was followed by the Locomotive. The first suggestion 
of the application of Steam-power to the propelling of carriages 
is due to the illustrious Watt, who proposed it in 1759, to his 
friend Dr. Robison, at Glasgow College. Watt projected 
Steam carriages on roads ; but as we have already said, he did 
not contemplate placing the Locomotive upon the Railway. 
And Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, thought of the same thing 
in 1782, when he patented "a Steam wagon;" but it does not 
appear that anything more than a good high-pressure stationary 
engine was the result of his labours. 

A letter of Dr. Darwin to Boulton is preserved, without date, 
in which the doctor lays before the mechanical philosopher 
the scheme of " a fiery chariot," which he had conceived, — in 
other words, of a locomotive steam-carriage. He proposed to 
apply an engine with a pair of cylinders working alternately, to 
drive the proposed vehicle ; and he sent Boulton some rough 
diagrams illustrative of his views, which he begged might be 
kept a profound secret, as it was his intention, if Boulton 
approved of his plan and would join him as a partner, to 
endeavour to build a model engine, and, if it answered, to take 
out a joint patent for it. But Dr. Darwin's scheme was too 
crude to be capable of being embodied in a working model ; 
and nothing more was heard of his fiery chariot, — except it be 
in the oft quoted passage in Darwin's Botanic Garden^ first pub- 
lished in 1789, but written it is known at least twenty years 
before it was published : 

Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam, afar 
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. ' 30I 

Or, on wide-waving wings expanded bear 
The flying chariot through the fields of air. 
Fair crews triumphant leaning from above, 
Shall wave their fluttering 'kerchiefs as they move ; 
Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, 
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy doud : 
So mighty Hercules, o'er many a clime 
Waved his huge mace in virtue's cause sublime ; 
Unmeasured strength with early art combined. 
Awed, served, protected, and amazed mankind. 

In the Midland counties Darwin was a celebrity who, in his 
time, possessed sufl5cient influence to get most of what he said 
believed; but his prediction is scarcely entitled to more 
credence than the fancied prevision of the Atmospheric 
Railway, by Coleridge, in his Ancient Mariner : 

For why drives on that ship so fast, 

W^ithout or wave or wind ? 
The air is cut away before, 

And closes from behind. 

But in another and less widely known poem by Darwin, 
The Temple of Nature^ published in 1820, there occurs this 
anticipation, more remarkable than the above. In a note to 
line 373, canto ii. of the poem, the author sets out with, "the 
progressive motion of fish beneath the water is produced 
principally by the undulation of their tails ;" and after giving 
the rationale of the process, he goes on to say that " this power 
seems to be better adapted to push forward a body in the 
water than the oars of boats;" concludhig with the query: 
" Might not some machinery resembling the tails of fish be 
placed behind a boat so as to be moved with greater effect than 
common oars, by the force of wind or steam ?'* Darwin also 
projected an " aerial steam-carriage," (the " flying chariot," in 
the above passage,) in which he proposed to use wings similar 
to those of a bird, to which motion was to be given by a 
gigantic power worked by high-pressure steam, though* the 
details of his plan were not bodied forth. 

Leaving these poetic flights, we return to our chronicle. 
In 1784, Watt patented a locomotive carriage ; and in the 
same year his friend and assistant, Murdoch, constructed a 
non-condensing steam locomotive of lilliputian dimensions. 
This Locomotive was placed on three wheels ; the boiler 
was of copper ; the flue passed obliquely through it, and was 
heated by a spirit-lamp ; the steam cylinder was only three- 



302 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

fourths of an inch in diameter, with a stroke of 2 inches, 
turning a crank on the axle of the larger wheels, which were 
9^ inches high. This little locomotive, standing not higher 
than 15 inches above the ground, could run at a speed of 
six or eight miles per hour. This model is interesting, inas- 
much as it was the first ever made by an Englishman, pre- 
ceding that by Trevithick by many years. It is to be seen at 
South Kensington, in the Patent Museum. Here also is a 
small model of a locomotive intended for the common road, 
patented in 1802 by Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian. 
This was supposed to be the first model in existence of a loco- 
motive. But in the Museum of the Patent-office at Paris, 
there is a model of a locomotive of long prior date ; and 
in an adjoining church, now appropriated as a kind of hospital 
for old decayed engines, is the original locomotive that actually 
ran upon the road, but in doing so killed a man, and subjected 
the inventor to imprisonment 

In 1804, Richard Trevithick constructed a high-pressure 
Locomotive for the Merthyr Tydvil Railway, in South Wales ; 
it had a great defect in the slipping of the wheels, which 
Mr. Blenkinsop endeavoured to obviate in 181 1, by employ- 
ing a rack-rail, in which a large toothed wheel was set to 
work. In 1813, Mr. Brunton, of Butterley, contrived a loco- 
motive carriage to be propelled by levers, like horses' feet. 
In 182 1, George Stephenson laid out a colliery railway from 
Stockton to Darlington. Mr. Pease contemplated using horse- 
power, but Stephenson assured him his Killingworth engine 
was worth fifty horses. This was adopted, Stephenson was 
appointed engineer, the line was opened in 1825, and the 
Locomotive did its work admirably. It was very clumsy and 
ugly, but it drew 30 tons at four miles an hour. Some improve- 
ments were made in this engine, and next year Stephenson 
built a Locomotive which contained the germ of all that has 
sincfe been effected; "there being no material difference 
between the cumbrous machines that screamed and jolted 
along the coal tram-road in 18 15, and the elegant and noiseless 
locomotives which now take out the express train, gliding 
smoothly and swiftly as a bird through the air." But Stephen- 
son's Killingworth engine attracted little notice; though 
he confidently maintained that one day, such engines and 
railways would be known all over Britain. The No. i Dar- 
lington engine is at present on a pedestal at the Darlington 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 303 

Station ; arid the Patent Museum only wants this engine to 
possess the most interesting group of Locomotives in the 
world. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was one of the 
first examples of Locomotive power on a railway for passengers. 
In 1 8 14, George Stephenson constructed an engine for the 
Killingworth Colliery, near Newcastle, in which toothed wheels 
were employed to engage and turn all the four wheels of the 
^gine, and so to utilize all their adhesive power, to "bite" 
the rails. 

In the Patent Museum at South Kensington, may be seen 
a patriarchal Locomotive, rigged with iron beams and rods, 
which liken it almost to a ship. This is the premier Locomo- 
tive — a machine which heralded changes almost as momentous 
as the Steam engine itself. Compared with one of the splendid 
engines of the Great Western or North- Western, "Puffing 
Billy," the brainwork of William Headley, the Wylam Colliery 
viewer, and the handiwork of Jonathan Foster, the engineer or 
smith (for the two terms were almost synonymous in the year 
18 13), looks but a poor bungling piece of workmanship out of 
which it would seem hopeless to expect any good results. Yet 
this very engine was at work drawing eight wagon-loads of 
coals day by day from Lemington to the shipping port in the 
Tyne, eight miles distant, from the day she was set rolling 
until the moment she was finally taken off work for the purpose 
of being transferred to the Museum. In this engine the two 
great features which made the locomotive a success were first 
applied — the sufficiency for traction of the smooth rail and 
wheel, and the application of the steam-blast up the chimney. 
The sufficiency of the smooth rail and the wheel for traction 
was, indeed, the great principle, the establishment of which 
rescued the Locomotive from oblivion. The only means by 
which heavy loads had been drawn by locomotive power before 
Headle/s time was by the employment of the toothed wheel 
and the racked rail, as introduced by Blenkinsop and Trevithick, 
but " the pull " tore up the racked rail, and consequently this 
system had to be abandoned for horses. It was in the year 
18 1 2, when the price of com and all kinds of horse provender 
was so dear, that the necessity of substituting mechanical power 
for living muscle again thrust itself upon the attention of the 
Wylam viewer. IJnless some saving could be made in the 
working of the colliery, the works must be closed, and himself 
and family deprived of bread. Thus stimulated to exertion, 



304 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

he brought out his plan of weighting the engine and of coupling 
the wheels so as to prevent any of them slipping. He proved 
this could be done experimentally, by constructing a wagon, 
weighting it with iron, and then propelling it by the power of 
several men seated upon it and working winches. The carriage 
thus weighted drew several loaded wagons well enough. In 
order to prove that it was the weight which caused the wheels 
to bite, in place of the iron load, were substituted a number 
of men who, at a given signal, left off working at the winches 
and jumped to the ground, when the wheels immediately 
began to slip round. The model of this experimental wagon, 
with the connected wheels, which thus solved the problem of 
making the smooth wheel adhere to the smooth rail, or, to use 
the language of Stephenson, of making "man and wife'* of 
them, is in the Museum beside "Puffing Billy," and fully 
establishes the claim of William Headley to the discovery 
of this all-important principle. 

We must now leave the Locomotive and return to the 
Railway, to describe in outline the construction of the Liverpool 
and Manchester line, sanctioned by Parliament in 1826. In 
the formation of this railway, — ^be it remembered, the first, — 
the engineer had almost every variety of difficulty to contend 
with. He had hills to surmount, flats to p^ss, and to make 
firm one of those loose morasses, which are not unfrequent 
in the north of England, but which had to be made as solid as 
the common ground before it would be able to sustain the 
ponderous weights which would have to pass over it. Chat 
Moss was notorious as one of the most dangerous and uncer- 
tain quagmires in the kingdom. Whether the instability of the 
ground for so many miles was owing to the filtering of the 
waves from the Irish Sea, or from the settling of the waters 
from the heights of Cumberland and Westmoreland, was, and 
is still, a problem. Many plans were followed, which proved 
unsuccessful ; but at length the engineer decided upon throwing 
in bundles of " kids " or faggots, till at last a broad foundation, 
or floating basis, was established ; as the workmen wrought 
higher and higher, the way gained hourly in soUd character, 
and in the end, when the ballast for the rail was laid, a road 
firm, substantial, and enduring, was formed of the most fi*agile 
material upon which the engineer could lay his hand. Chat 
Moss was twenty to thirty feet deep, and four miles across. An 
eminent opposing engineer said, " No man in his senses would 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 305 

attempt a railroad over Chat Moss." He calculated it would 
cost 227,000/ to cross it; yet it was completed for 40,000/. 
Geoi^e Stephenson organized all the work himself, there being 
then neither contractors nor navvies; he sent for his son 
.Robert, who had been some years in America, for his co- 
operation in the great work. 




A viaduct, or elevated roadway, over Sankey Valley was 
another difficult work. For the security of this work, it was 
necessary to drive two hundred piles, varying from twenty to 
thirty feet in length, into the foundation of each of the ten 
piers : thus in ail, two thousand piles had to be driven. 

Mr. George Rennie has left some very interesting details of 
this Railway. The physical difficulties were great The 
construction of the tunnel at Liverpool, on so great a scale, 
through the red sandstone rock ; the crossing of the great 
Sankey Valley and its canal by a long and lofty viaduct, or 
bridge and embankment ; also'the Newton Valley, the bridge 
and embankment, beside other valleys of great length and 
depth; the construction of upwards of loo bridges over and 
under the railway ; the deep cutting through Olive Mount and 
Rainhill ; the carrying the roadway over the much dreaded 
Chat and Parr Mosses ; the determination of the width of 



3o6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

guage, and distance between the lines of railway, &c., all of 
which subjects were scarcely known, involved difficulties of no 
ordinary kind; nevertheless they were deemed practicable. 
The duties of the Railway Engineer are very heavy. " He is 
responsible," says Mr. Fowler in his Presidential Address to 
the Institution of Civil Engineers, " for the vast number of 
objects required in the machinery for erecting and repairing 
shops for the engines and carriages, for the pumping and other 
fixed engines, and especially for the Locomotive engine itself, 
and for rolling and fixed plant generally." 

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was completed in 
1829, and September in the following year was fixed for its 
being opened. There had been much debate among the 
Directors as to the means that should be employed for drawing 
the carriages, and a strong feeling existed in favour of 
employing stationary steam-engines, which should work ropes 
to and fro, at certain intervals along the line. Horse-power 
being evidently insufficient to keep up the speed which the 
Directors and the public desired, it was ultimately decided to 
use Locomotives, and the Directors offered a premium of 500/ 
for the best Locomotive that could be produced with certain 
conditions. These were : that the chimney should emit no 
smoke ; that the engine should be on springs, not weigh more 
than six tons, or four tons and a half, if it had only four wheels ; 
that it should be able to draw three-times its own weight, 
and not cost more than 550/. 

Four engines, with the required qualifications, were produced 
on the day of trial, September 15, 1830. One of the engines 
was withdrawn. Of the others the first was the Novelty^ con- 
structed by Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson, which was exceed- 
ingly light, and it had its draft produced by means of a blow- 
ing-machine. The next was the Sanspareil^ built by Mr. 
Hack worth, much on the principle of Trevethick*s engine, 
but having two cylinders instead of one. The next was 
the Rocket^ built by Mr. George Stephenson, and which gained 
the prize for lightness, power and speed, awarded by the 
Directors. It weighed 4 tons* 5 cwt. ; the tender following 
weighed 3 tons 4 cwt. ; and two loaded carriages drawn by 
it on the trial, weighed 9 tons 1 1 cwts. : thus, the drawn 
weight was 12 tons 15 cwt., and the gross total 17 tons. It 
averaged a speed of 14 miles per hour ; its greatest velocity 
was 29 miles an hour; and it evaporated i8| cubic feet, or 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 307 

114 gallons of water per hour. The Novelty was driven on 
the trial by Sir Charles Fox, the engineer. 

To recapitulate, Locomotives came into use in 1804, but 
their machinery was very imperfect. They were much im- 
proved in the next twenty years, and a speed of from 4 to 7 
miles was attained, with a prospect of greater. High-pressure 
engines required to be used, but they frightened the ignorant ; 
the very name was alarming. " The difficulty of arranging the 
parts of a high-pressure engine on a moveable carriage, and the 
apparent impossibility of furnishing enough of steam to make 
the wheels turn at the rate of 20 or even 10 miles an hour, 
retarded the progress of the Locomotive. If a wheel, 4 feet in 
diameter, turn no times in a minute, or travel at the rate of 15 
miles an hour, each cyHnder will take from the boiler 220 fills 
of steam per minute ; and it is not surprising, therefore, that 
many thoughtful people, whose opinions were entitled to re- 
spect, regarded a speed of 15 or even 10 miles an hour as un- 
attainable. Where learning failed, however, natural genius 
triumphed. George Stephenson, once a locomotive stoker in the 
north of England, and afterwards one of the most distinguished 
engineers of modem times, invented the tubular boiler, and 
raised the speed of the engine from 7 to 30 miles an hour. A 
large heating surface is indispensable to generate the heat re- 
quired ; but the space allowed for the whole engine on the 
carriage is necessarily limited, and Stephenson's ingenuity was 
exercised in providing the former without unduly increasing the 
latter. The flame and heated air leave the fire-box at a very 
high temperature, and much heat would be wasted if they were 
allowed to escape immediately into the atmosphere. Stephen- 
son had already made an improvement on locomotives, which 
enabled him to supplement the ordinary operation of the fur- 
nace by this heated air." * If the steam, instead of being allowed 
to escape, were made to pass into the smoke-box, and then con- 
veyed up the chimney, it would act as a powerful blast upon 
the fire. Instead of blowing the fire, it blows the chimney; 
and more air will, of course, enter the fire if the chimney be 
cleared more quickly. " This, then, was Stephenson's first great 
improvement, and it enabled him to give effect to another. 
Putting the chimney at one end of the boiler, and the fire-box 
at the other, he connected the two by a number of metal tubes 
passing from the back of the furnace to the smoke-box. Hot 

• Mr. Syme ; Edinburgh Essays, 
X 2 



3o8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS: 

air escaping through these tubes, heats the water by which they 
are surrounded, and enables engines to travel at the rate of 20, 
60, or even 70 miles an hour. " The Rocket was constructed 
on this principle, and with this Stephenson gained the prize, 
and placed beyond doubt the propriety of using locomotives in 
preference to horses or stationary engines. The great object 
was now attained : a speed of 10 miles an hour, with ordinary 
loads, was certain, and 30 miles was not impossible. " George 
Stephenson came eminently at the right time in scientific 
history, gathering into one magnificent fact all the floating 
prophecies of possibilities, solving the problem, and setting 
the question of the Railway and the Locomotive Engine at 
rest for ever by his grand and masterly invention." 

The Rocket was the produce of the locomotive works which 
Stephenson, with the aid of Mr. Pease, had established some 
years previously at Newcastle-upon-T)nie. It was the accurate 
workmanship of this engine, resulting from the trained hands in 
the Newcastle Locomotive Works, that stood Stephenson in 
good stead on the day of trial The Rocket^ which is now in 
the Patent Museum, presents very little difference in outward 
appearance from the engines of the present day, except in its 
small size. All the rods and working machinery, which here- 
tofore, even in the Darlington engines, were carried high in the 
air over the boiler, were now placed lower down on either side 
of it near the centre of gravity, the cylinders being placed at an 
angle of 45°, and acting directly upon the driving-wheels, the 
spokes and fellies of which, strangely enough, are of wood ! 
The Sanspareil has also been added to the Museum. After its 
defeat in the great trial, it was employed in the conveyance of 
passengers and general traffic on the Bolton and Leigh Railway 
until the year 1844, when, being found short of power for the 
rapidly increasing traffic, it was removed to Mr. Hargreaves's 
colliery at Cappul, near Chorley, where it was used as a fixed 
engine in winding and pumping. This work it did most satis- 
factorily until the end of the year 1863, when it was removed 
in consequence solely of the pit being exhausted. The engine 
is very similar in appearance to Mr. Headley's old Wylam 
engine, but it has one great improvement — the coupling of the 
wheels, instead of being accomplished by the cog-wheel arrange- 
ment underneath the boiler, was produced by a simple coup- 
ling-rod fixed upon the two wheels. In the perpendicular 
position of the cylinders, high up over the boiler, it resembled 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 309 

the Wylam engine, but the pistons worked from their under 
sides, and in fixed slides, being a grand improvement on the 
complicated system of rods in that old engine.* 

By the great success of the Rocket^ the key-note was struck. 
Constructors worked each in his own way, at the Locomotive, 
to improve the detail and increase the efficiency ; and for 
many years the practice of builders was moulded into two 
general classes of engines, with two cylinders placed horizon- 
tally inside the smoke-box, under the chimney, and otherwise 
essentially similar to each other, except in one great feature, 
the number and disposition of the wheels. In one class there 
were six wheels, of which one pair was placed behind the boiler, 
typified in the engines of the day, made by Mr. Robert Ste- 
phenson ; in the other class there were but four wheels, placed 
under the barrel of the boiler, leaving the fire-box overhung, 
typified in the engines made by Mr. Bury for the London and 
Birmingham Railway. Experience has demonstrated the dis- 
advantage of an overhung mass, with a very limited wheel 
basis in the four-wheeled engine running at high speed ; and it 
became the general practice to apply six wheels to all ordinary 
locomotive stock. 

Here we must say something of the speed attained on Rail- 
ways. The greatest speed of Trevithick's Engine was five 
miles an hour. The ordinary speed of George Stephenson's 
Killing worth Engine in 18 14, was four miles an hour. In 1825, 
Mr. Nicholas Wood, in his work on Railways, took the stan- 
dard at six miles an hour, drawing forty tons on a level ; and 
so confident was he that he had guaged the power of the loco- 
motive, that he said : ** Nothing could do more harm towards 
the adoption of railways than the promulgation of such non- 
sense, as that we shall see locomotive engines travelling at the 
rate of 12, 16, 18, and 20 miles an hour." The promulgator of 
such nonsense was George Stephenson. In 1829, it was esti- 
mated that at 15 miles an hour the gross load was 9I tons, and 
the net load very little; and that, therefore, high speed, if 
attainable, was practically useless. Before the end of that year, 
George Stephenson got with the Rocket a speed of 29I miles 
per hour, carrying a net load of 94 tons. In 1831, his engines 
were able to draw 90 tons on a level at 20 miles an hour. Nor 
were the engineers themselves alone mistaken in estimating the 
gigantic strength of the railway. A writer in a leading journal, 

• Abridged from the Times, 



3^0 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the Quarterly Rernew^ gravely observed: "As to those per- 
sons who speculate on the making of railways generally 
throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the canals, all the 
wagons, mail and stage coaches, postchaises, and in short every 
other mode of conveyance by land and by water, we deem them 
and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice ; " and in 
allusion to an opinion expressed on the probability of railway 
engines running at the rate of i8 miles an hour, then in con- 
templation between London and Woolwich, the reviewer adds 
— ** We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer 
themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet 
rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of a machine going at 
such a rate/* In two-and-twenty years afterwards, trains run- 
ning at more than double this speed had become of daily 
occurrence, and nearly quadruple the speed which so alarmed 
the reviewer had been attained with perfect safety. 

The advantages which had resulted from the Liverpool and 
Manchester Railway suggested the idea of uniting the metropolis 
with one of the great manufacturing cities : and Mr. Robert 
Stephenson was engaged to lay out and construct a line for 
that purpose between Birmingham and London. Few great 
undertakings ever excited so much controversy as this. The 
distance to be traversed was a hundred and ten miles. Lofty 
heights had to be surmounted, rivers to be crossed, deep 
valleys and ravines to be passed, and almost every difficulty 
that can be opposed to engineering skill had to be overcome. 
The preliminary proceedings cost the Company the enormous 
sum of 72,868/. The Railway was completed in 4 years 4 
months ; which, upon the whole distance of 1 1 2| miles, gives, 
as the average rate of progress, one mile in every fortnight ; 
the average cost per mile was 50,000/., or more than double 
the estimate. The two greatest works are the Watford Tunnel, 
1 79 1 1 yards (a mile and 31 yards in length)^ cost 140,000/; 
and the Kilsby Tunnel, upon which 1,300 men were constantly 
employed, and 12 steam-engines were worked day and night 
The Euston Terminus cost 800,000/., and occupies 1 2 acres ; 
the architectural gateway is pure Grecian Doric, and cost 
80,000/ ; its columns are higher than those of any other 
building in London. In the great Hall is Baily's colossal 
marble statue of George Stephenson, the originater of the rail- 
way system.* 

* There are, unfortunately, in the histories of great inventions, many 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 3II 

The capital expended on the Liverpool and Manchester 
Railway had been upwards of a million and a half; that laid out 
on the London and Birmingham line, was more than seven 
millions and a quarter. Next came the design of uniting the 
old metropolis of the commerce of the Western Ocean, Bristol, 
with London, by the Great Western Railway. One of the most 
striking of the many engineering difficulties that had to be sur- 
mounted in the construction of this line, was the excavation 
through the solid rock qf the celebrated Box Tunnel, which was 
satisfacorily accomplished under the direction of Mr. Brunei, 
the engiaeer-in-chief. This tunnel, which is ventilated by six 
shafts, vaying from 70 to 300 feet in depth, is 3,175 yards in 
length. The Tunnel pierces through Box Hill, between Chip- 
discrepancies in the statements of the precise share of merit due to the in- 
ventors. In -lome cases, the claim is altogether set at nought ; in others 
two or more ninds are shown to have been simultaneously at work upon 
the same idea,but separately ; and in others claimants arise for a large share 
of the merit, tc which the inventor believes himself to be wholly and solely 
entitled. Of tie latter class is John Steele, who is stated to have assisted 
the Stephensonsto mount the ladder of fame ; and whose claim has been cir- 
cumstantially ui^ed by Messrs. Jeaflfreason and Pole. John Steele (says 
Mr. Jeaffreason),one of George Stephenson's early friends, the son of a 
brakesman on tie Pontop Railway, in his early childhood, displayed re- 
markable ingenuiy in the construction of models of machines. His school- 
- fellows at CoUierjDykes used to marvel at the correctness of his imitations 
of pit-engines, and remember how in school the master could never **set 
him fast '' in figups. While he was still a school lad, his leg was acci- 
dentally crushed o the Pontop tramway. After leaving the Newcastle 
Infirmary, where th limb was amputated, he was apprenticed to Mr. John 
Whinfield, the ironkunder and engineer, of the Pipewell-gate, Gateshead. 
Here he attracted te attention of Trevithick, whom Steele joined, and 
assisted in the manmcture of the locomotive constructed by that original 
mechanician in 1803-^. He then returned to Gateshead, and there ** built 
the first locomotive tht ever acted on the banks of the Tyne. "... When 
it was finished it ran n a temporary way laid down in Whinfield's yard, at 
Gateshead. John Tunbull, of Eighton Banks, living in 1858, remembered 
the engine being madewhile serving his apprenticeship at Whinfield's, and 
said that, when competed, ** it ran backwards and forwards quite well, 
much to the gratificatio of * the quality ' who came * to see her run.* " . . . 
** Every word that cam from Steele — Trevithick's pupil and workman, who 
had himself, within six liles of Killingworth, built a machine which, with 
all its defects, had actusly travelled under the influence of steam— George 
Stephenson stored up i his memory. Steele was never weary of pro- 
phesying that * the day v)uld come when the locomotive engine would be 
fairly tried, and would hen be found to answer. ' " No wonder that 
Stephenson caught enthiiasm from such a teacher. Poor Steele himself 
was eventually killed at tons by the bursting of the boiler of a steamboat, 
in the year 1825." 



WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 



penham and Bath, part of which is 400 feet above the level of 
the railway. The number of bricks used in its construction 
was 50,000,000 : a ton of gunpowder and a ton of candles were 
consumed every week for 2 J years: and 1,100 men and 250 
horses were kept constantly employed. 




By the genius of Mr. Locke, the line Ijetwen the banks of 
the Thames and Southampton has been redered so safe, so 
speedy in transit, and so convenient, that thestate dues of the 
latter place, which before the railway was m Je were only a few 
hundred thousand pounds, increased to upwads of four millions 
per annum, and it has become the third pot in the kingdom, 
and head-quarters for the highway betwe^ Britain and the 
Southern World. 

Upon this magnificent line was first confructed the Electric 
Telegraph — that ofl"spring and independeij companion of rail- 
ways, and properly called " the silent hiiway," along which 
messages flash. To the working of railwys the telegraph be- 
came essential : the needle is capable o/indicating, at every 
station, whether the line is clear or blocWd, or if accident has 
anywhere occurred. There can indeed le no doubt that but 
for the opportune invention of the electc telegraph, it would 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 313 

have been quite impossible for our railways to have been worked 
to the present extent with anything like the comparative safety 
and comfort now experienced We have not space to detail the 
systems of signals upon the vanous railways one of the most 
recent is Preece s senes of appliances for showing how eiectnc 
signals can be passed at pleasure along a railway train from 
any one of the carnages or vans to another— from a passenger 
to the front and rear guard at once, warning at the same time 




the engine-driver, or from a carriage which has broken away or 
dropped off. In the latter case the detaching of the coupling 
sets a bell ringing in the guard's van, and it continues to ring 
until the coupling is replaced ; consequenlly it would be im- 
possible for part of a train to become detached without the 
fact becoming known to the guard, who would immediately 
signal the engine-driver. Mr. Preece's system has already stood 
the test of experience on tlie South-Westem line. From the 
great proportion of passenger traffic expected, it was proposed 
to travel at a higher speed upon the Great Western line 
than had hitherto been attained. With this view the per- 
manent way was peculiarly laid — principally in fixing the gauge 



3^4 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

at seven feet, a much greater width than had hitherto been 
adopted, and by which greater steadiness could be ensured 
than otherwise consistent with high speed. The rails are 
bridge-shaped, with wide flanges, laid upon bearings of wood, 
instead of upon chairs ; by which would be insured greater . 
steadiness, less noise and wear and tear ; the rails are mostly of 
Welsh iron. The whole length of the Une is ii8 miles 20 
chains. The hroad gauge of this line tripled the working power 
of the locomotive, and gave us 60 miles an hour, where we 
should have been lingering at 20. Thirty miles an hour was 
thought progress ; an express at 35 miles an hour seemed to 
have reached the further limit; but in 1846, Brunei succeeded 
in working the express to Bristol in 2| hours, and to Exeter in 
four hours. In the Great Western locomotives, cylinders were 
increased to 15 and 18 inches diameter ; the fire-box surface 
in the Rocket was 20 square feet ; in the broad gauge engines 
it has been increased to above 100 square feet 

It would far exceed our limit to attempt to sketch the varie- 
ties of railway construction ; and we can only glance at a few 
of the more prominent instances. The Greenwich Railway, 
Landmann, engineec-in-chief, was the first completed line from 
the metropolis : opened Dec 14, 1836 : the rails are laid upon 
upwards of 1,000 arches, in building of whiA more than 70 
millions of bricks were used. The Blackwall line, 3! miles, 
is carried nearly throughout on an arched viaduct of brickwork. 
Originally, the carriages were drawn by stationary engines, two 
at each end of the line ; which, by means of ropes, dragged 
the up and do^Ti trains alternately, a mode of working ridi- 
culed in Parliament as visionary and impracticable ; the rope 
cost upwards of 1200/., and the stationary engines 30,000/. each; 
but locomotives are now used ; the line cost 31 1,912/. per mile. 

The Atmospheric Railway consists of an iron pipe in 
the middle of the track, in which a piston moves with the 
velocity of from 20 to 30 miles an hour, by exhausting the tube 
in front of it, and admitting the air to press on the opposite 
side. A connexion is formed between this piston and the car- 
riages by a rod passing through an opening on the top of the 
tubes, which is kept air-tight by a well-contrived valve that 
opens to allow the passage of the rod ; the necessary vacuum 
is produced by air-pumps, worked by a stationary steam-engine. 

In practically working the Atmospheric Railway, the 
obstacles were great. The amount of atmospheric pressure 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 315 

requisite in so small a tube was very great ; and the leakage, 
»vaste of power, and first cost, were enormous. In the Pneu- 
matic Railway of Mr. Rammell, C.E., the pressure is only 2^ 
oz. per square inch, whereas in the Atmospheric it was from 
7 lb. to lo lb. The Pneumatic principle had already been 
tested in a Dispatch tube, through which parcels were pro- 
pelled on ledges or rails, cars filled with parcels, on the signal 
being given, by the exhaustion and pressure of the air in the 
tube, by a wheel worked by a high -pressure engine. This 
motive power is in the Pneumatic Railway applied to passen- 
gers in an enlarged tube. The principle of propulsion is very 
simple. It has been likened to the action of a pea-shooter, 
and the train the pea, which is driven along in one direction 
by a strong blast of air, and drawn back again in the opposite 
direction by the exhaustion of the air in front of it ; the motion 
being modified by mechanical arrangements. The. air is ex- 
hausted from near one end of the tube by means of an exhaust- 
ing apparatus, from which the air is discharged by centrifugal 
force. The contrivance may be compared to an ordinary 
exhausting fan. The rails are cast in the bottom of the tubes ; 
a few strips of vulcanized India-rubber screwed round the fore- 
end of the carriage constitute the piston, leaving three-eighths 
of an inch clear between the exterior of the piston and interior 
of the tube ; there is no friction, and the leakage of air does 
not interfere with the speed of transit. The Whitehall and 
Waterloo Pneumatic Railway will extend from the station in 
Scotland-yard, carried in brickwork beneath the tunnel of the 
Underground District Railway, and then under the Low Level 
Sewer to the northern abutment, and from this iron tubes of i6 
feet diameter are to be laid on the clay beneath the Thames. 

The Subterranean Railway, beneath the crowded streets of 
London, Mr. Fowler, engineer-in- chief, extends from Padding- 
ton to Finsbury, 4^ miles : the difficulties of construction — 
through a labyrinth of sewers, gas and water mains, churches to 
be avoided, and houses left secure — was an herculean labour ; 
but one of the greatest perplexities was to construct an engine of 
great power and speed, capable of consuming its own smoke, 
and to give off no steam. This Mr. Fowler surmounted by 
inventing an engine which, in the open air, works like a com- 
mon Locomotive, but when in the tunnel, consumes its own 
smoke, or rather makes no smoke, and by condensing its own 
steam, gives off not a particle of vapour. It was next proposed, 



3l6 WONDERFUL IN\nENTIONS. 

by extensions at either end of the underground line, and by a 
new line, to be called the " Metropolitan District Railway,*' to 
complete what will form pretty nearly an inner circle, but will 
also throw out branches to connect itself with the suburban 
systems north and south of the Thames ; so that when the entire 
scheme is in working order we shall have something like a com- 
bination of two circles — the inner and the outer — as a thorough 
system for the metropolis. Of the progress of the works a 
specimen is afforded in 2,000 men, 200 horses, and 58 engines 
many months working, and whole terraces, streets, and squares 
in south-west London being tunnelled under almost without 
the knowledge of the inhabitants. The railway bridges across 
the Thames, and the magnificent stations upon the banks attest 
the completeness of the metropolitan system. 

The first Railway constructed in the United States of America, 
was a line of about four miles for the conveyance of granite 
from the quarries at Irving to Boston harbour, which was first 
opened in 1827. The successful introduction of Steam loco- 
motion in England was followed by the formation of numerous 
important lines in America;* and in 1839, more than 3,000 
miles were completed in the United States. Cheapness of land 
and timber made the average cost greatly below that of English 
railways ; the average cost of several lines did not reach 5,000/. 
a mile. American practice, after having passed through various 
phases, has arrived at two great types of locomotive for passen- 
gers and for goods traffic, which are universally adopted in the 
United States. The passenger-locomotive has eight wheels, of 
which four in front are placed in a moveable frame, called a 
" bogie " or " truck," which swivels on a central pivot, and 
adapts itself to the curves of the lines ; the four wheels behind 
are the ** drivers ;" they are larger than the front wheels, and of 
equal size and coupled. The cylinders are placed outside, 
just over the truck, horizontally. A "cab" or "house" is 
placed upon the hinder part of the machine, behind the boiler, 
for the protection of the engine-driver and the stoker from the 
weather, with ample glazed opening, to afford a clear view 
ahead. The chimney or *' stalk" is in form externally like an 
inverted cone, expanding upwards ; internally, it is cylindrical, 
and the space between the outer and inner chimneys forms a 
reservoir for cinders and ^shes thrown up through the inner 
chimney, which are deflected by a baffle-plate at the top, and 
thrown over into the reservoir, trap, or " spark-catcher." This 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 317 

contrivance is specially designed for th^ use of wood as fuel, 
and to prevent the risk of conflagration arising from the 
numerous sparks which would otherwise be discharged in 
passing through forests and other ignitable districts. As a 
further precaution for the prevention of sparks, the top of the 
stalk is covered with a fine wire-net. The steam-whistle is 
situated above the boiler for ordinary use ; and the bell is hung 
near to the cab, with ropes inathin reach of the engine-man. 
The bell is used in passing through the streets. The cow- 
catcher is hung in front of the engine, to ward off stray cattle, 
&c, and the American flag is hung behind it The tender is 
carried on eight wheels, disposed under two trucks, fore and 
aft, to facilitate the turning of the tender on the curves. 

In 1855, the number of miles of railway in the United 
States exceeded those in the rest of the world altogether by 
2,550 miles. In 1837, the only railway in British North 
America was the Champlain and St. Lawrence line, 16 miles 
long, worked by locomotives. The longest line of railway 
in the world is the Grand Trunk Railway, which extends 
from Portland to Quebec and the river Du Loup, east, to 
Samia, at the foot of Lake Huron, west, with several branch 
lines, including a total of 1,396 miles, under one manage- 
ment 

The highest railway in the world is in Chili,* and has its 
terminus at an elevation of 4,075 feet above the sea level — a 
less height, of course, than that to which Trevithick worked 
the stationary engine in Pasco, but said to be one thousand 
feet higher than any other locomotive has reached. These 
summit levels teach engineers greater daring ; and the Alps, 
Cordilleras, and Ghauts, even the mighty Himalaya itself, will 
no longer be considered bounds to the railway system. The 
summit of the Northern Bengal Railway, at Darjeeling, is as 
high as that of the Copiapo Railway. 

Railway construction in India has been largely aided by the 
Government At the commencement of the year 1866 there 
were 3,331 iriiles of railway open for traffic, and 306 miles since 
opened, making 3,637 miles of railway open in India. Of the 
306 miles, 150I miles belong to the Great Indian Peninsula, 
47^ to the Great Southern, 30 to the Delhi, 34 to the Madras, 
42 to the Indian Branch Railway, and two to the East Indian, 
which latter includes the girder bridge across the River Jumna 
at Delhi. The additions to the Great Indian Peninsula Rail 

* Vide infra, p. 327. 



3i8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

way include the last si^ction of the line to Nagpore, the present 
terminus of that line in the great cotton districts of Central 
India. 3,638 miles were open for traffic on the ist of May, 
1867, leaving 432 miles to be opened during the year, 464 
miles in 1868, and 1,109 in 1869, and subsequently, together 
2,005 miles remaining to be finished. The total amount 
advanced by the Government from the year 1849 to the end of 
1866 for guaranteed interest was 18,929,576/., and about 
7,000,000/. had been paid back by the Companies from the 
earnings of the railways, making the debt of the railways 
to the Government nearly 12,000,000/. 

Amongst the more prominent Railway works are Bridges of 
enormous span. The widest single span of any railway bridge 
in the world is 1,224 feet, carrying the JLexington and Danville 
Railway, at an elevation of 300 feet, over the Kentucky River, 
in the United States. 

The next widest span is that of the Niagara Suspension 
Bridge, connecting the American and Canadian Railways at 
Niagara Falls ; the clear span is 822 feet. The next widest 
are those of the Britannia Bridge, 460 feet each ; the Saltash 
Bridge, two spans, 455 feet each ; and the Conway Bridge, 400 
feet. 

The next is the immense bridge carrying the Royal Eastern 
Prussian Railway over the Vistula, at Dirshau ; this is an iron 
lattice bridge, having six spans of 397 feet 3 inches each. The 
Nogat Bridge, on the same line, has two iron lattice spans of 
321 feet, and one span of 53 feet 6 inches. The great railway 
bridge at Cologne has four lattice spans of 344 feet 6 inches 
each. 

The middle opening of the Great Victoria Bridge at Montreal 
is 330 feet wide, the other twenty-four openings being each 
242 feet. 

The Chepstow Bridge has a span of 306 feet, besides three 
side spans of 100 feet each. The Boyne Viaduct has one 
lattice span of 264 feet, and two side spans of 138 feet 8 inches 
each. 

The widest masonry span ever erected for railway purposes, 
is one of 180 feet, carrying the Glasgow and South Western 
Railway over the river Ayr. 

The railway bridge across the Thames at Pimlico, has four 
cast-iron arches of 175 feet each, the widest yet employed. 

The Saltash Bridge on the Cornwall Railway, I. K. Brunei, 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 



319 



engineer is amongst the most remarkable, achievements of skill. 
It consists of nineteen spans, seventeen wider than the widest 
arches of Westminster Bridge ; while two, resting on a. cast-iron 
pier of four columns, cross the whole stream of the Tamar at 
a leap of upwards of 900 feet, or a greater distance than the 
breadth of the Thames at Westminster. The total length of 
the structure from end to end, is 2,240 feet; its height from 
foundation to summit is 260 feet, or more than 50 feet higher 
than the Monument The main pier, in the centre of the . 
river, on which the great spans rest, has its foundation on solid 




rock, under some 70 feet of sca-water, with so feet of mud and 
concrete gravel. This was built on the coffer-dam principle : 
an immense wrought -iron cylinder of boiler-plate, loo feet high, 
and 37 feel in diameter, and weighing upwards of 300 tons, was 
made and sunk exactly on the spot whence the masonry was 
to rise ; then the water was pumped out, and the air forced 
in , the men descended, and working as in a gigantic diving- 
bclL at the bottom of the river, cleared out the mud and 
gravel, until the rock was reached, and hewn into form, to 
support the cylinder evenly all round. Powerful steam air-pumps 



320 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

were necessary to keep the labourers supplied below, and they 
worked at an atmospheric pressure of upwards of 35 lb. to the 
inch. On this massive pile, built in the cylinder, the iron 
columns for the centre pier are raised. Until these ponderous 
masses were cast, metal works of such dimensions were seldom 
dreamt of. There are four octagon columns, 10 feet in 
diameter, and 100 feet high, and 150 tons weight. Each stands 
10 feet apart from the other, in the centre of the granite, and 
all are bound together with a massive lattice-work of wrought- 
iron. The great spans, each end of which rests on two of these 
columns, is made on the principle of a double bow : the lower 
bow is of chains, carrying tho roadway ; the upper is a tube of 
wrought-iron, to which the lower is attached by powerful 
supports. Thus, a great weight on the lower bow only tends 
to give additional support by straightening the upper, and 
vice versd ; each, in fact, counteracts the effect of the other. 
Each arched tube is elliptical in form, and made throughout of 
inch boiler-plate, with inside wrought-iron diaphragms, with 
tie-rods and angle-irons. The pressure on the centre pier 
foundation is more than eight tons to the foot 

The great Tubular Bridges on the Chester and Holyhead Rail- 
way are also triumphs of engineering skill. When Mr. Robert 
Stephenson, the engineer for the line, proposed to span the 
Menai Straits by a tunnel of wrought-iron stretching from side 
to side, and allowing a passage for the trains to run through 
its interior, he confided the experiments to be made upon the 
strength of iron for that purpose, to Mr. Fair bairn, the eminent 
engineer of Manchester, who introduced wrought-iron girders, 
and found it more convenient and safe to make the top cellulat, 
instead of using thicker plates than in the bottom. After 
many experiments, it was proposed to build " an iron box, 460 
feet long, 30 feet high, and 14 feet broad, on the banks of the 
Menai Straits; to float this mass of 3,450 tons at high water to 
openings in piers for its reception; to lift it upwards of 100 
feet, and build solid masonry underneath for its support ; to 
rest it at its utmost height on cast-iron rollers, which would allow 
it to expand and contract, as the sun rose and set, or as 
summer advanced and waned, and then to make it a tunnel 
for the passage of railway trains, weighing perhaps, a hundred 
tons. Experience made Mr. Fairbairn confident that there 
was no danger of the bridge giving way under its own weight ; 
and numerous experiments on a large scale proved the truth of 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 32I 

his opinion. Chains were as unnecessary to support this bridge 
as intermediate piers, even if the latter could have been built. 
Its strength is derived from a different source from either. The 
roof consists of two platforms, divided into eight equal parts by 
partitions running from end to end of the bridge ; and the cells 
thus formed keep the tube from giving way to compression in 
the top, where the material is most liable to be injured. 
*The first of those stupendous bridges was built on the Con- 
way, in 1848. Two tubes of 400 feet span were required, one 
for each line of rails. A train of wagons, weighing altogether 




301 tons, was placed in the middle of one of them ; and the 
deflection in the centre amounted to 11 inches. The Britannia 
Bridge over the Menai Straits was finished about a year after, 
and is justly regarded as the greatest triumph of engineering 
that this or any other country has ever witnessed. A splendid 
tower rises to the height of 230 feet from a rock in the middle 
of the Straits ; and four tubes, each 460 feet in length, stretch 
from it to smaller towers on the bank. Other four tubes, of 
230 feet each, carry the railway to the high grounds on ihe 
east and west sides of the straits. This magnificent bridge was 



32 2 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the culminating point of railway enterprise and engineering; and 
half a century may elapse before necessity produces its rival." * 
The modem locomotive is one of the most perfectly organized 
machines that human ingenuity has ever constructed; and 
though the general principle of its arrangement is simple and 
readily understood, the number of contrivances required for the 
proper performance of its functions, and for the due adjustment 
of the various subordinate actions, is very considerable indee'd. 
An inspection of the cut on the opposite page, with the follow- 
ing explanation in reference thereto, will enable the reader who 
is already acquainted with the action of the stationary steam- 
engine, to form an accurate notion of the general construction of 
the locomotive. The cut shows a section of the machine through 
its centre, and though such a section would not pass through 
the cyHnders, one of them is nevertheless shown in section. 
Its piston is seen at h, and the head of the piston-rod moving 
in slides, gives motion to the cofinecting-rody which is connected 
with a cranky l, formed by forging the driving-shaft with a 
double bend. The boiler is cylindrical, and is tmversed from 
end to end by a great number of brass tubes, from one and a 
quarter inch to two inches diameter, which pass from tht fire-box 
to the smoke-box^ f. The water in the boiler surrounds and 
covers these tubes, which, by the large extent of total surface 
they present, very quickly convey to the water the heat of the 
fire. The draught of the flame through these tubes is aided by 
the escape of the waste steam from the cylinders, through the 
blast-pipe^ f, into the chimney, G ; and, of course, the more 
rapidly the steam is consumed the greater is the draught, which 
thus regulates itself to the demand made on the machine. 
The steam leaves the boiler from the upper part oi the steam- 
dome, A, where it enters the pipe, b, and then passes through 
the regulator, c, which can be closed or opened to any extent 
by the handle, d. The steam is conveyed towards the cylin- 
ders by the pipe, e, wholly- within the boiler, until it reaches 
the smoke-box, where it divides into two branches, one for each 
cylinder. Each cylinder is provided with a slide-valve, by the 
action of which the steam is admitted on each side of the 

* Mr. Syme ; Edinburgh Essays, Mr. Fairbaim, it will be recollected, 
claimed the idea of the self-supporting Tubular Bridge, which Mr. R. 
Stephenson constructed. How fertile a principle this has proved need 
hardly be pointed out : it is to having been constructed on this principle 
that the Great Eastern steamship owes its enormous strength. * 



THE RAILWAY ANP THE LOCOMOTIVE. 323 




324 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

piston alternately, at the same time that the communication on 
the other side is closed with the boiler and opened to the 
exhaust pipe, f. The outer surface of the boiler is shielded 
from the cooling contact of the external air by a covering of 
felt, or other bad heat-conductor, which is overlaid with strips 
of wood, and the whole is surrounded with sheet-iron. 

Among the fine examples of the most powerful class of Loco- 
motives is that constructed for the broad gauge of the Great 
Western Railway, which forms one of the illustrations of 
Mr. Bourne's Recent Improvements in the Steam-engine. In 
this engine, the "Iron Duke," the cylinders are i8 inches 
diameter and 24 inches stroke, the grate contains 21 square 
feet of area, and there are 305 tubes of 2 inches diameter 
in the boiler. The total heating surface is 1,952 square 
feet, and a cubic foot of water may be evaporated in the 
hour by every five square feet of heating surface. An en- 
gine of this class will exert 750 actual horse-power. The 
pressure in the boiler is 100 lbs. per square inch, and the 
initial pressure in the cylinder is about 10 lbs. less. But at 
high speeds the pressure in the valve-box is greater than that in 
the boiler, which may be imputed to the momentum of the 
steam when its continuous flow is arrested by the shutting of 
the slide-valve. At 60 miles an hour, when the handle which 
moves the link was in the first notch, and the steam was cut off at 
a quarter of the stroke, the back pressure, when the area of the 
blast orifice was one-sixteenth of the area of the piston, was 
36 per cent, of the total pressure ; and when the area of the 
blast orifice was enlarged to 1-107 of the area of the cylinder, 
the back pressure fell to 10 per cent. 

** In the * Iron Duke,' the steam is drawn fi-om the water 
through a perforated steam-pipe, and its admission to the 
cylinders is regulated by a gridiron slide set in the smoke-box, 
and worked by a rod extending through the perforated steam- 
pipe to the front of the boiler. The damper consists of an 
arrangement of iron Venetians set against the ends of the tubes 
in the smoke-box, each of which acts as a hanging-bridge in 
retaining the hottest smoke in contact with the tubes. These 
Venetians are lifted or lowered by an appropriate handle, and 
the draught is thus regulated."* Mr. Gooch states that an 
engine of this class will evaporate from 300 to 360 cubic feet 

* Abridged from Recent linprovements in the Steam-engine, 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 325 




326 WONDERFUL INVENTrONS* 

of water in the hour, and will convey a load of 236 tons at a 
speed of 40 miles an hour, or a load of 181 tons at a speed of 
60 miles an hour. The weight of this engine empty is 31 tons ; 
of the tender 8 J tons ; and Sie total weight of the engine when 
loaded is 50 tons. 

The weight of engines of this class is, says Mr. Bourne, 
" very injurious to the railway ; bending, crushing, and disturb- 
ing the rails, and trying severely the whole of the railway 
works. No doubt the weight might be distributed upon a 
greater number of wheels, but if the weight resting on the 
driving wheels be much reduced, they will not have sufficient 
bite upon the rails to propel the train without slipping. This, 
however, is only one of the evils which the demand for high 
rates of speed has produced. As, however, the attainment of 
a high rate of speed requires much power, and consequently 
much heating surface in the boiler, and as the number of tubes 
cannot be increased without reducing their diameter, it has 
been found necessary, in the case of powerful engines, to 
employ tubes of a small diameter, and of great length, to 
obtain the necessary quantity of heating surface ; and such 
tubes require a very strong draught in the chimney to make 
them effective.* 

We conclude with a few of the more striking Statistics of 
Railways, during the Ten Years from 1855 to 1865. 

Mr. Robert Stephenson, in 1855, described our Railways as spreading like 
a network over Great Britain and Ireland, to the extent of 8,054 miles 
completed. In length they exceeded the ten chief rivers of Europe united; 
and more than enough, if single rails were laid, to make a belt of iron round 
the globe. 

The Railway works had then penetrated the earth with tunnels to the 
extent of more than fifty miles. There were eleven miles of viaduct in the 
vicinity of the metropolis alone. The earthworks measured 550,000,000 
cubic yards, which would form a pyramid a mile and a half in height, 
with a base larger than St. James's Park. 

Eighty millions of train miles were run annually on the Railways, 5,000 
engines and 150,000 vehicles composed the working stock; the engines, in 
a straight line would extend from London to Chatham ; the vehides from 
London to Aberdeen ; and the Companies employed 90,400 officers and 
servants ; while the engines consumed annually 22,000,000 tons of coals, so 
that in every minute of time, four tons of coal flashed into steam twenty 
tons of water, an amount sufficient for the supply of the town of Liverpool 
The coal consumed is almost equal to the whole amount exported to foreign 
countries, and to one half of the annual consumption of London. 

* Catechism 0/ the Steam-engine, 1856. 



THE RAILWAV and THE LOCOMOTIVE. 327 

Fortunately, the Railway System, since the introduction of the Loco- 
motive engine, by Stephenson, gave it vitality, has been a complete suc- 
cess, in the reproduction of capital, in the enormous saving in the cost of 
transport ; in the facilities it affords for the development of mines, and 
of nearly all branches of national industry. 

The consumption of fuel had been diminished. Before 1829, it required 
about 5 lbs. to carry one ton a mile. In that year George Stephenson 
reduced it to 2*41 lbs. of coke. It can now be brought to less than a 
quarter of a pound per ton per mile. 

In 1854, 11,000,000 of passengers were conveyed on Railways ; each pas- 
senger travelled an average of twelve miles. The old coaches carried an 
average of ten passengers, and for the conveyance of 300,000 passengers a 
day of twelve miles each, there would have been required at least 10,000 
coaches and 120,000 horses. 

The Railway wear and tear is great : 20 tons of iron require to be re- 
newed annually*; and 26,000,000 of sleepers annuaHy perished ; 300,000 
trees were annually felled to make good the loss of sleepers ; and 
300,000 trees can be grown on little less than 5iOOO acres of forest land. 

The Acts of Parliament which Railways had then been forced to obtain, 
cost the country 14,000,000/. sterling; and the legislation of Parliament 
had made Railways pay 70,000,000/. of money to landowners for land 
and property; yet almost every estate traversed by a railway has been 
greatly improved in value. Railway accidents occurred to passengers in the 
first half of 1854 in the proportion of one accident to every 7,195,343 
travellers. 

The results of Railways were then (in 1854) astounding : 90,000 men 
were employed directly, and upwards of 40,000 collaterally — 130,000 men, 
\rith their wives and families, represent a population of 500,000 souls; so 
that I in 50 of the entire population of the Kingdom might be said to be 
dependent on Railways ! The annual receipts on Railways had reached 
2a, 000, 000/., or nearly half the amount of the ordinary revenue of the 
State. Had Railway intercourse been suspended, the same amount of 
trafHc could not have been carried on under a cost of 60,000,000/. per 
annum ; so that 40,000,000/. a year were saved by Railways to the public ; ' 
"time is money," and in point of time a further saving was effected ; for on 
every journey averaging 12 miles in length, an hour was saved to 
11,000,000 of passengers per annum, which is equal to 38,000 years in the 
life of a man working eight hours a day ; and allowing an average of 3^. 
per diem for his work, this additional saving was 2,000,000/. a year. 

In 1865, the capital expended in this country on Railways had been up- 
wards of three hundred and eighty-five millions sterling, or nearly half the 
National Debt.* This amount had been devoted to the construction of eleven • 
thousand five hundred miles of Railway in the British Islands, which are 
now open for traffic. The works executed in connexion with these under- 
takings, says the Railway News, have been of extraordinary magnitude. 
Navigable rivers and even arms of the sea have been crossed over ; hills have 
been pierced by tunnels and viaducts, embankments and cuttings made in 
all directions. All this has been accomplished within the lifetime of a 
single generation of men, who have not only executed the work, but pro- 

* Parliamentary Return. 



328 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Tided the means out of their owe private resources, without any assistaace 
wbaiever from the funds of die State. In a word, the Railway System of 
Fngland has been the ^XMitaneoos outgrowth of the native industry, 
cnei^, and enteqirise of its people. The rapid growth of the Railway 
System of the United Kingdom to its present dimoisions must be accepted 
as a remaiiLable proof of the progress of the country. During the 41 years 
which passed since Stephenson ran his first train on the Stockton and 
Darlii^on line, the Railways of the kingdom absorbed 50Q,ooo,€XX)/. ot 
capital, and extended over m<He than 14,000 miles. In 1865, the length of 
fines was 13,289 miles, of which more than a third were single lines, and 
die rest double ; this was an increase of 500 miles over the preceding year. 
The main trunk lines have now been laKl out, and litde more is wanted 
than lines and iHanches. 

The statistics of a year's work on the existing Railwajrs afford a striking 
illustration of the ocmstant activity of our population, as well as of the 
important part which this means of communication plays in the social and 
industiial life of the nadon. We find that in 1S65, 3,448,509 passenger 
trains, carrying 251,862,715 passengers, travelled 71,206,818 miles ; while 
2,108,198 gocds trains transported 15,179,000 horses, dogs, catde, and 
other stock, 77,805,786 tons of minerals, and 36,787,638 tons of general 
merdiandise over 68,320,309 miles. Thus, taking passenger and goods 
trains together, it appears that they travelled in the 12 months as great a 
distance as from the earth to the sun, and about half the way bark again. 
In order to do this the Companies had to keep a rolling stock of 7,414 loco- 
motives, 17,997 passenger coaches, and 233,260 goods waggons, trucks, &c 
This, together with the cost of permanent way, management, servants, 
lawyers* bills, and compensation for accidents, involved an expenditure ot 
17,211,000/. On the other hand, there was received for passengers' fares 
16,572,000/., and for goods 19,318,000/., together 35,890,000/., whick 
leaves a balance of profit for the Companies of about 1^679,000/. 

What is implied by the Railway Interest — its hold on the country and 
monetary value — may be gathered from the following statistics ; — The first 
Railway in the United Kingdom in length and revenue is the London and 
North- Western, extending over 1,274 miles, and drawing 6,276,879/. cf 
annual receipts. Next comes the Great Western, 1,256 miles long, with 
3,585,614/. of annual receipts; followed by the North-Eastem, 1205 mile^ 
and 3,529.288/. annual receipts; the Great Eastern, 756 miles, and 
1,690,269/. receipts ; the North British, 723 miles, and 1,309,865/ 
Midland, 700 miles, and 2,729,131/; the London and South- Western, 
576 miles, and 1,477,843/. ; the Caledonian, 494 miles, and 1,432,445/. : 
the I^ncashire and Yorkshire, 431 miles, and 2,150,643/.; the London 
and Brighton, 275 miles, and 1,055,116/.; the London Chatham, and 
Dover, 132 miles, and 446,896/. The profits of railway work, how- 
ever, are not necessarily in proportion to length of mileage or amount ol 
revenue. 

Mr. Tidd Pratt states that upwards of 160,000 persons compose the 
general body of the working men on the Railways of this country. The 
public has a deep interest in the well-being and contentment of those who 
have the practical management of the railway traffic of the country, and in 
their being a faithful, vigilant, and well-conducted class of men, because 
upon them depends not only the safety of the lives of a great portion of 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 329 

the people of this country, but also the management and regular carrying 
on the commercial traffic of the kingdom. 

The Army, Navy, and Volunteers, are services much indebted for their 
efficiency to the Railway System throughout the country. It has been stated 
at a Railwav inquiry, that whereas at one time it took nine days and many 
marches to bring a regiment from Manchester to London, it could now be 
accomplished in a few hours. In reference to the Navy, Railways have 
proved a most valuable boon, inasmuch as through their agency ships can 
oe jnuch more quickly served with stores and ammunition ; and it may be 
truly said that the Volunteers are greatly benefited by the facilities they 
derive from the operations of the Railway System. 

The longest railway in the world is the Illinois Central, which, with its 
branches, is 731 miles in length, and was constructed at a cost of 
15,000,000 dollars. 

Since page 317 was printed, stating the highest Railway in the World to 
be that in Chili, at an elevation of 4,075 feet above the sea-level, the line of 
Railway which had been in the course of construction for the last eighteen 
months over Mont Cenis, and which follows in the main the great road 
of the first Napoleon, was successfully traversed on the 21st of August, 
1867, over its whole length, or 48 miles, by a locomotive engine. A train, 
composed of an engine and two carriages, left the St. Michel station at 

' 6.30 A.M. 

Mr. Fell's system consists in the application of a central double- 
headed rail placed on its side in the middle of the way, and elevated about 
14 inches above the ordinary rails. There are four horizontal driving- 
wheels on the engine, under the control of the engine-driver, which can 
be made by pressure to grasp the central rail so as to utiHze the whole 
power of the engine, and so enable it to work up incredible gradients 
without slipping. The carriages also have four horizontal wheels under- 
neath, which, with the central rail, form a complete safety-guard. In 
addition to the ordinary break there are breaks upon the central rail. It 
Would appear, therefore, impossible for the engine or carriages to leave 
the rails where the central one is laid. 

After leaving the deep valley in which St. Michel is situated, the line 
passes by a gradient of i in 30 to the Pont de la Denis, where an iron 
bridge spans the River Arcq, near the site of that which was carried 
away by the inundations of 1866. 

The first verj' steep gradient of i in 10 was seen in passing Modane, 
and, foreshortened to the view, appeared on the approach as if impossible 
to surmount ; but the engine, the second constructed on this system, had 
already proved equal to the task on the experimental line, and, clutching 
the central rail between its horizontal wheels, it glided quickly up, under a 
pressure of steam of not more than 80 lb. to the square inch, without 
apparent effisrt. The progress was purposely slow, because no engine 
or carriage had previously passed over the line, and also to give oppor- 
tunity for examining the works. The train entered Lanslebourg station 
under a triumphal arch, having accomplished 24 miles of distance, and 
attained an elevation of 2, 100 feet above St. Michel. 

From this point the zigzags of ascent commence, and the gradients over 
a distance of four miles were for the most part i in 12. Looking down 



330 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

from the train near the summit, as if from a balloon, four of the zigzagsi 
were visible at the same instant to a depth of 2,000 feet. The power o! 
the engine was satisfactorily tested in this ascent, and the summit was 
reached under salvoes of artillery from an improvised battery, and amid 
the cheers of French and Italians who had gathered to welcome the 
English on the frontier. The engine again came to a stand under a 
triumphal arch, at an elevation of 6,700 feet above the sea. Flags of 
the three nations, and a silk flag specially presented by Signor Ginaoli 
to Mr. Fell, waved over a simiptuous breakfast, also provided by that 
gentleman. The hospice, the lake, and the plateau of the summit, sur- 
rounded by snow-clad peaks and glaciers, rising to an elevation of from 
10,000 feet to 13,000 feet, were passed, and the portion of the descent com- 
menced from the Grand Croix. The railway here follows the old Napoleon 
road, which was abandoned long since for diligence traffic on account of the 
dangers from avalanche. Masonry-covered ways of extraordinary strength 
had here been specially provided for the railway. 

The descent to Susa was a series of the sharpest curves and steepest 
gradients, on which the central rail had been continuously laid. Thus was 
completed a journey unexampled in its character both as respects .the steep- 
ness of gradients, the elevation of the summit level, and the ease with 
which the curves and precipices were overcome. 



To the foregoing account, of the development of railways, 
some allusions to the changes in the most recent times must 
now be added. First, the railway over the Mount Cenis has 
been superseded by a tunnel, 8 miles in length, pierced through 
the mountain called the Grand Vallon. What renders the 
making of this tunnel remarkable is that it is bored through 
hard rock, and is provided with no natural ventilating shafts. 
The work was begun in 1857, completed in 1870; and was 
performed for the first four years by manual labour, but after- 
wards by specially-constructed boring-machines. It cost about 
3,000,000/. sterling; but, from the experience acquired in its 
construction, it was calculated that similar work could after- 
wards be done for about half the cost. And, indeed, other 
very long tunnels have since been finished or projected, as, 
for instance, the St. Gothard — by which Italy and Switzerland 
are united by another route of railway. Still bolder is the 
enterprise — of which the initiatory stages are now in progress 
— of driving a tunnel beneath the Straits of Dover, so that 
England and France may be in direct railway communication. 
Fig. 14 is a chart of the proposed tunnel, which it is intended 
to drive through the lower or grey chalk — a formation known 
to extend beneath the bed of the Channel from shore to 
shore. 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 




33^ WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

It would, of course, be easy to extend the statistical account 
of British railways given on page 324 and following pages, 
so as to include the most recent returns; and although the 
figures would, in perhaps every case, show an increase, and, in 
som6 cases, a striking increase, they would probably have no 
particular interest for readers not specially devoted to the 
cuUivation of this kind of science. The figures already given 
sufficiently serve to illustrate the magnitude of railway enter- 
prise in this country. Nor will it be necessary to point out 
the extensions of the various railway systems which have been 
made either in Britain or abroad, although it may be noticed, 
in passing, that the Underground Railway in London has been 
extended beyond the limits named on page 315. Mr. Fell's 
system of railway has been applied in several localities where 
previously the construction of railways had never been thought 
of. The Righi in Switzerland, and Mount Vesuvius, are cases 
in point. The "Atmospheric" and "Pneumatic" railways, 
mentioned on pages 314 and 315, are abandoned, so far as 
regards the method of propulsion by atmospheric pressure or 
compressed air. The droad gauge has practically been given 
up upon the Great Western Railway, the rails being in some 
places retained in addition to those of the usual gauge, only 
in order that the existing rolling-stock constructed for the broad 
gauge might not be useless. 

The application of steam, or other mechanical power, to the 
tram-cars, which now ply in the streets of all the large towns 
of Europe and of North America, is commencing ; and when 
it is successfully carried out we may consider the result as 
essentially an extension of railways. 

Some of the valuable improvements in the fittings and 
mechanism of the ** rolling-stock," and which have tended 
towards the increased safety and comfort of railway travelling, 
will doubtless be known to our readers. We need but allude 
to the continuous brakes^ the sleeping carriages, and Pulman 
cars ; all of which are of recent introduction on British rail- 
ways. The locomotive itself, though essentially the same as 
that already represented, has been in some respects modified 
in the adjustment of its parts, at the dictates of experience, 
and in more exact adaption to the special work required on 
different lines. Fig. 15 represents one of the latest types of 
locomotives, as constructed by the Great Northern Railway 
Company. This engine was put upon the rails for the first 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 333 

time to be shown at the celebration of the " Stephenson Cen- 
tenary" (U Newcastle, on the 9th of June, 1881, where the 
best and most modem tj^ical locomotives were exhibited by 
the chief railway companies of England and Scotland. The 
engine shown in our figure has outside cylinders, and a single 
pair of driving wheels of very large diameter, namely, 8 feet 
3 inches, so that each complete movement of the pistons will 
carry it forward nearly 26 feet It is of the kind called a iogy- 
engine — the name bogy designating a framework capable of a 
certain amount of horizontal movement with regard to the 
eiigine, and bearing four wheels, as seen in the front part of 
our cut. 

With regard to the question as to which is the longest and 
which the highest railway in the world (pages 317 and 327), it 




fia. 15.— Ghkat Nohtkern R' 



may be stated that perhaps the Union Pacific line, from Omaha 
to Ogden, in the United States, a distance of 1,032 miles, may 
bear the palm for length. This line has been, within the last 
few years, supplemented by another — the Centra! Pacific — 
which carries the communication from Ogden to San Francisco, 
a further distance of 889 miles ; so that a person may now travel 
in one and the same carriage completely across the American 
continent, from ocean to ocean. The whole distance from 
New York to San Francisco is 3,215 miles, and the journey 
occi^ies a week, the trains travelling night and day. The line 
between Omaha and San Francisco traverses some extraordi- 



WONDeRFin. IKTENTIOHS. 



nary scenery of wild and varied character. At one point the 
line crosses the Black Hills at an deration aboye the sea^evel 




of 8,143 feet; and this is probably the greatest elevation yet 
rcAched by any railway. The line shows in places some of the 



THE RAILWAY AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 335 

most daring achievements of railway engineering. There is, 
for instance, the locality represented in Fig. i6, where the line 
is carried along the nearly vertical side of a mountain called 
" Cape Horn," at the height of 2,500 feet above the bed of the 
stream below. 





IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND 

ARMOUR. 

CENTURY has rolled away since Edmund Burke, in 
fierce invective, taxed the invention of men with 
" sharpening and improving the mystery of murder^ 
fi-om the first rude essay of clubs and stones, to the pre- 
sent perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, mining." 
Mr. Carlyle has said, in a more kindly vein : — " The true Epic 
of our time is not Arms and the man, but Tools and the man 
— an infinitely wider kind of Epic." Our machinery has been 
the making of us ; our ironworks have, in spite of the progress 
of other nations, still kept the balance in our hands. Smith- 
work in all its branches of engine-making, machine-making, 
tool-making, cutlery, iron ship- building, and iron- working gene- 
rally, is our chief glory. All that we can attempt within our 
limited space is to focus the constructive character of these 
grand inventions. First, as to Iron Shipbuilding : "The future 
destiny of nations," says Mr. Fairbaim, " seems to be involved 
in the consideration of iron and its application to an entirely 
new system of construction in vessels of war, calculated to 
unite with equal facility the powers of attack and defence." 

The history of Iron 81 ip> dates from 1787, when Wilkinson, 
of Bradley Forge, built a canal-boat, drawing eight or nine 
inches when light In 18 15, Jevons, of Liverpool, built a 
small iron boat, and sailed her on the Mersey ; and in 182 1, 
Aaron Manby designed an iron sea-going steam vessel, which 
was built by the Horseley Company, and sent to London in 
sections, re-constmcted in one of the docks, and navigated 
across the British Channel to Havre, and thence up the Seine 
to Paris, under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Napier. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 337 

A second vessel was built in parts, and put together at Charen- 
ton. About 1830-38, an iron vessel, the Manchester^ 84 feet 
long by 14 feet beam, with recessed paddle-boxes, was built at 
Manchester ; and shortly after Messrs. Laird built the Alburka, 
a small iron vessel, for the Landers' exploration of the Niger. 
The strength and sailing qualities of these vessels were con- 
firmatory of the great superiority of iron over wood for ship- 
building. 

In 1 834, the Admiralty undertook experiments to ascertain the 
resistance of iron plates to shot, when they condemned the use of 
iron of the thickness used for shipbuilding, and fell back upon 
the use of wood. In 1835, similar experiments were made at 
Metz, upon which General Du Bourg concluded that " of all 
steam vessels the most unfitted are those of iron." In 1839, 
Laird built the Nemesis and the Fhlegethon, which took an 
active part in the Chinese war of 1842 ; they were of 660 and 
570 tons burden respectively, and proved the power of iron 
vessels to bear the concussion of heavy guns fired from their 
decks. Next various target and other experiments were made ; 
and General Paixhans expressed an opinion that vessels built 
of iron might be made shot-proof ; but Sir Howard Douglas 
considered the proposition absurd. 

During the Crimean war, Napoleon III. reopened the ques- 
tion by the construction of iron-plated floating batteries, when 
the shells and molten shot were destructive upon wooden sides. 
Next, the Minie rifle outranged field artillery : Whitworth in- 
vented a rifle more accurate and more powerful than Minim's ; 
and Armstrong a rifled cannon that pierced every obstacle ; — 
his 400-pounder, smooth bored, with 850 lb. bolt, and a charge 
of 50 lbs. of gunpowder, penetrated a target of 4I inch plates, 
and 18 inches of solid teak backing. Whitworth's 120-pounder 
muzzle-loader rifled, with a flat ended cylindrical shell of 
homogeneous metal, and a charge of 27 lbs., pierced a 4I inch 
target, at a range of 800 yards. It was evident that wooden 
ships could not stand such artillery. M. Dupuy de Loine, at 
the instigation of the French Emperor, designed, and con- 
structed the Gloire, a timber-framed ship, plated with iron- 
rolled plates, ^\ inches thick ; her plates weigh 800 tons, 
she throws a broadside weight of metal of 425 lbs., and carries 
36 French 50-pounders. Her submersion is very great — the 
port sills hardly 7 feet out of the water, and the weight of her 
armour shakes her wooden frame. Next our Admiralty built 

z 



338 • WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the Warrior, a far greater success than the Gloire; her frame 
is of iron, with an iron inner skin, a backing of 18 inches of 
solid teak ; and a broadside armour of 4^ inch plates, about 
one-third of her length. She had cross bulk heads of iron, fore 
and aft, she was built to carry 50 guns, but has only 13 
68-pounder broadside. Our Admiralty then cut down some of 
our timber ships, and plated them with armour, and the Royal 
Oak surpassed the Gloire: she throws 400 lbs. more broadside 
of metal, but steams 07 knots less, and is 1,000 tons less dis- 
placement. But the Gloire and Warrior are only partially 
protected ; and entire protection has been since substituted in 
all the frigates commenced. The extra weight of armour, how- 
ever, involves the necessity of a vessel nearly twice the tonnage 
to carry the same battery ; and this size and the extra draught 
of water are serious drawbacks. 

The Cupola-ship or Turret-ship, designed by Captain Coles, 
supplied the wants required : the weight of armour on the top- 
sides is reduced ; there are great facilities for working heavier 
guns, and moving them mechanically; and much greater range 
is obtainable, as well as high velocity, and keeping down the 
tonnage. Captain Coles claims for cupola-ships the power of 
carrying the heaviest ordnance that can be manufactured; 
throwing a far heavier broadside in proportion to tonnage, 
with greater rapidity and precision of fire, and greater extent of 
training. These vessels have superior speed, are better sea- 
going ships, are shorter and easier for turning and docking, 
spread more canvas, bum less fuel, and afford less chance of 
fouling the screw from there being no lower rigging ; the ven- 
tilation is better, the crew are berthed more comfortably, the 
defensive power is greater, and the cost less. Still, it is con- 
tended that a man-of-war should be iron-clad throughout ; and 
accordingly our Admiralty built the Minotaur , which is iron- 
plated from stem to stem ; 100 feet length, beam 59 feet 
3 inches, tonnage 6,621— only 50 tons more than that of the 
Warrior; she draws 26 ft 2 in. water, and steams 14*3 in.; 
carries 13 68-pounders and 4 iio-pounders on her broadsides, 
704 men, and throws a broadside equal to 1,324 lbs. 

Next, Mr. E. J. Reed, who had received the appointment of 
Chief Constmctor of the Navy, submitted plans for the construc- 
tion of armour-plated wooden ships of small dimensions and 
light draught ; these were accepted : and he built the Enter- 
prise, a sea-going ship, plated with 4| inches of armour, with 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 339 

an upper deck nearly 8 feet, and a gunwale nearly 12 feet out 
of the water ; well ventilated ; having guns, engines, boilers, 
funnel, rudder, steering-wheel, shell rooms and magazines pro- 
tected, and fitted with masts and sails. Mr. Reed has also 
built the Favorite^ in opposition to which Captain Coles has 
designed the Naughty Child, '%2a.^ to out-distance Mr. Reed*s 
system ; for, with the same dimensions and the same speed. 
Captain Coles carries a crew of 40 less men, and throws a 
much heavier broadside — 900 lb. against 356 lb. Nor is this 
all : the Naughty Child, working her guns upon the central 
system, has for her after-guns an arc of training equal to* 
154 deg., and for her foremost guns an arc of training equal to 
310 deg. ; while the Favorite has an arc of training of 50 deg. 
for her broadside guns, and of 12 deg. for guns when placed in 
her cross bulksides. Again, the guns of the Favorite, being 
placed nearly close to the broadside, have their muzzles im- 
mersed in water when the ship is inclined at an angle of 
20 deg. ; while the Naughty Child has her guns in a turret 
which is several feet within the line of the broadside, and 
consequently the gun's muzzle is clear of the water. An 
objection to the Favorite is the great area of her square bat- 
tery, which presents a large surface for the enemy to aim at : 
whereas the areas of the Naughty Child's shields are much less, 
and would oblige the enemy to divide his fire and attention. 

There are two great systems of arranging the iron intended 
to protect the sides of ships, the English and the American — 
the former by solid rolled plates in front, with wooden backing 
more or less interlaced with iron, and behind all an iron skin ; 
the latter by laminated armour — i, e., by thin plates laid one 
upon another till the required thickness is obtained ; after that 
the backing and skin. For the attack there are likewise two 
systems of artillery fire — the English method of " punching" or 
driving shot and shell through the ship's defences, piercing 
holes in her sides to admit the water, destroying her guns and 
crew, and sinking or setting her on fire; and the American 
"racking" — i.e., hurling heavy missiles against the opposing 
vessel with comparatively low velocity, thus shaking her sides, 
and perhaps in time shattering her plates. It appears most 
probable that the construction of the respective targets has 
governed the means employed for attacking them ; but the 
Shoeburyness experiments have conclusively proved that Eng- 
lish guns can pierce American ships' sides, while the effect upon 

z 2 



340 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Our targets of the huge round shot projected from American 
ordnance remains to be shown.* 

The history of the armour and armament of the broadside 
gun ships of our iron-clad fleet, may be summed up as fol- 
lows. The Warrior and others designed about the same time 
were built to carry the then most powerful gun — the 95 cwt 
68-pounder, and were clothed with proportionately defensive 
armour of 4^ inches in thickness. But they were simply " box" 
armoured ships, carrying their guns behind their armour only 
amidships, and leaving their ends, with the water-line before 
and abaft the central box, unprotected by armour. With the 
Hector and Valiant class this defect was in a manner reme- 
died, the former carrying a band of plating entirely round the 
main or gun deck, and the latter giving more protection to the 
water-line. Then came the wholly armoured ships, of iron and 
wooden construction respectively ; the former represented 
grandly by the Achilles^ Minotaur^ &c., and the latter by the 
squadron of the Caledonian and Royal Oak class. With the 
iron ships was introduced an increase in the armour-plating to 
5 and 5^ inches, and the Achilles was given as her armament 
the new wrought-iron 9-inch smooth-bore or " Somerset " gun 
in the place of the cast-iron 68-pounder and the no-pounder 
breech-loading Armstrong, the latter never having been, at 
close quarters, with rapid firing, considered a match for the old 
cast-iron smooth-bore 8-inch. The trials of the Royal Sove- 
reign and the feats of the American Monitors naturally gave 
birth to enlarged ideas on the arming and clothing of iron- 
clads. The turrets of the Royal Sovereign carried 12-ton 
guns, but it was also evident they could carry and work 
ordnance of double the weight ; while the tremendous shot- 
resisting power which they must possess with their 10 inches of 
iron round the face of the turret round the gunports was very 
materially increased by the shot-deflective power given by their 
circular form. 

Turret ships, low down in the water, present small marks, 
but it must not be forgotten that their decks are vulnerable, 
and at close range the taller-built broadsiders would send shot 
and shell through the decks, tearing a passage downwards and 
outwards below the water-line. A broadside ship carrying 
turrets also according to Mr. Reed's new plan will have this 
advantage, that as long as she steams straight at an enemy her 

* Times Journal 



IRON SHIPS, OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 34I 

sloping bows will be almost invulnerable, and once within 
short range the number of broadside guns must tell. Com- 
mander John Rodgers, whose rough, sailor-like evidence before 
an American Committee in 1864 should be better known in 
England than it is, gave it as his opinion that turrets were 
better against ships, broadsides against forts ; but his ex- 
perience was confined to the laminated armour of the day, 
and, though the 15-inQh gun on board his ship, the Weehaw^ 
ken, "broke a hole in the side of the Atlanta some 4 feet or 
5 feet long, knocked in about a couple of barrels of splinters 
of wood and iron, wounded a whole gun*s crew, and prostrated 
between 40 and 50 men, including those that were wounded," 
it must not be forgotten that the inclined sides of the Atlanta 
were protected by only 4| inch thickness of laminated iron, a 
structure perfectly vulnerable to our old 68-pounder smooth- 
bore, with a cast-iron shot* 

For some years past, in the progress of Gunnery, we have 
seen smooth-bored guns succeeded by rifled ordnance of strange 
powers and perpetually increasing dimensions ; iron plates 
growing from a thickness of an inch and a half to that of 
1 1 inches, and targets built up layer by layer till they arrived 
at the immense bulk intended for the defences of the Hercules, 
nearly four feet and a half of combined wood and iron. The 
Hercules' armour-plates were manufactured by Brown and Co., 
of the Atlas Works, Sheffield, where have since been rolled 
13 J inch plates ; and their machinery is capable of rolling plates 
of even greater thickness, and of cutting and shaping them 
afterwards. The practical result of the gun campaign of the 
year 1866 may be summed up in a few words — it consists in 
the adoption of what is now called the Woolwich, but what 
was previously known as the French gun. The Hercules tar- 
get was subjected to the fire of three Armstrong 300-pounders 
or 12-ton guns, fired with 300 lb. rifled projectiles, and charges 
of 45 lbs., 55 lbs., and 60 lbs. of powder, when it proved quite 
impenetrable by any single shot Subsequently, the 600- 
pounder Armstrong, or 22-ton gun, was brought to bear against 
it at 700 yards range, with rifled projectiles of from 575 lbs. to 
585 lbs. weight, and 100 lbs. of powder, charges altogether 
unprecedented in any rifled gun. The target was still vic- 
torious, except where two shots happened to strike close to- 
gether. The Hercules target is the only structure which has 

* Times JoumaL 



34* WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

foiled every attempt to penetrate it with a single shot The 
exterior plates, 8 inches and 9 inches thick, were indeed 
pierced, but if the target opened its mouth it was to swallow 
up the huge projectiles one after another, till a space of 18*2 
feet by 8 feet had received blows amounting to upwards of 
seventy thousand foot tans^ and had only been penetrated once 
when a second shot struck close to one which had gone before. 
In its thickest part this target had 11 1 inches of iron and 40 
inches of wood, besides various iron ribs to bind the whole 
together. 

The Medusa^ built by Messrs. Dudgeon, her engines by 
James Watt and Co., is an armour-clad gunboat, 190 feet in 
length. Her hull is built of iron, with eight water-tight com- 
partments, and is covered in with |-in. iron-plated deck, on 
which is laid the usual wood planking. Round the water-line 
of the hull is fixed a belt of armour-plating 4^in. thick, and 
4 ft wide. The stem of the ship is fitted on 3ie " ram" prin- 
ciple. In a central position on the hull is built up a square 
armour-cased battery, covered with 4i-in. armour-plating, and 
pierced with eight gun-ports. This battery mounts four ten- 
ton rifled WTiitworth guns. The engines are ordinary direct 
acting, horizontal, the cylinders of 34 in. diameter, and the 
stroke 21 in. They drive a pair of independently working 
screws of 7 ft 6 in. in diameter, and 11 ft. 6 in. pitch. The 
draught of water of the Medusa^ with all on board and com- 
plete for active ser\-ice, is stated at 8 ft. forward and aft. 

The importance of having the vessels of our fiiture Iron 
Fleet constructed on the double-bottom or unsinkable prin- 
ciple, is now admitted. The Bellerophan is constructed with 
water-tight internal walls, completing the double bottom; 
and thus is, in fact, a double ship fi*om end to end. Unlike a 
wooden vessel of war, the bottom of an iron vessel is so weak 
in comparison with its other parts, and so liable to injury, that 
unless the ship is divided internally into numerous independent 
compartments or chambers, a comparatively slight touch of a 
rock, or other such injury below water, would expose her to the 
risk of almost instant destruction. In the new iron-cased ship 
Bellerophony throughout the entire central portion, in which the 
engines, boilers, magazines, &a are placed, the bottom of the 
ship is double, the inner and outer bottoms or hulls being placed 
from three to four feet apart, in order that there may be ample 
space between for cleaning and painting both when desirable. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 34J 

The Miantonomoh (wood), the first American turret-ship that 
has visited the shores of Europe as a war-machine, for close 
heavy fighting appears perfect. The 15-inch Rodman guns are 
mounted on carriages and slides, very superior to anything 
before seen in England. The turrets are believed by the officers 
of the ship to be invulnerable to any gun that can be carried 
afloat. The sides of the ship are so low in the water that 
nothing remains for an enemy to hit but the turrets, and they, 
with their 250-pounders, hit very hard in return. Between 
decks the visitor is at first bewildered by the quantity of 
machinery scattered about There are no less than seventeen 
steam-engines, large and small, on this deck. Six drive the 
blowers which receive the air from the main air-shaft, and dis- 
tribute it along shaftings, and up through gratings in all parts 
of the ship ; for at sea the ship is necessarily battened down 
fore and aft. Her guns, although of the immense diameter of 
bore of 15 in. at the muzzle, (the outer diameter was only 
21 in.,) but the breech is immensely weighted with metal. The 
gun, however, is so evenly balanced upon its trunnions, that 
the captain of the gun can elevate or depress it with one of 
his fingers only on the screw-lever. During a visit of the 
Lords of the Admiralty to the Miantonomoh, the first gun fired 
was charged with a 35-pound powder cartridge and a sabot 
live shell, at extreme elevation. The effect was very grand as 
the vast globe of metal propelled from the mouth of the gun 
with a deep hoarse roar, went hurling on its course until it fell 
at an estimated distance of about 3,500 yards from the ship. 

The following episode from the War of Secession in America, 
is calculated to show the terrific power of the iron-clad floating 
batteries in practice : — 

On the afternoon of March 8, I862, the Merrimac, one 
of the frigates which had been sunk in Norfolk Harbour, on 
the 2 1 St of April, 1861, but which had been raised, re- 
paired, replated with iron, and fitted with two iron beaks 
at the stem, attacked the Federal ships in Hampton Road, 
at the mouth of the James River. She was mounted with 
ten very large guns. The Merrimac, after firing two guns, 
ran into the Cumberland, a sloop-of-war carrying 24 heavy 
guns, striking her with the sharp bows, and making a large 
hole at the water mark. The Cumberland immediately 
began to sink, when the Merrimac backed a little, and ran into 
her a second time, making another large hole^ and the 



344 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Cumberland heeled over, and finally sank. About 130 men 
were destroyed, most of them by drowning ! The Merrimac 
next attacked the Congress, a 50-gun frigate, which, in less than 
an hour, hoisted a white flag. The officers and marines were 
taken prisoners, but the seamen were allowed to escape. At 
night the Congress was set on fire, and at midnight blown up. 
The Minnesota, a Federal steamer, carrying 40 guns, got 
aground, and could render no assistance. In the evening the 
Monitor arrived from New York, but was not then prepared to 
take part in the action. The Monitor was the first specimen 
of those iron-clad floating batteries, of which several others 
have since been constructed. It had a turret, which was in fact 
a revolving bomb-proof fort, carrying two i i-inch guns. On 
the morning of the 9th, the Merrimac came out and attacked 
the Minnesota, which would probably have been destroyed, had 
not the Monitor engaged the Merrimac. The action lasted a 
considerable time, the Merrimac both firing and attempting to 
sink the Monitor by running into it. The result was, that the 
Merrimac, considerably injured, was compelled to retreat into 
Norfolk Harbour; and on May 19 following, the Federals 
having taken possession of the City of Norfolk, the formidable 
Merrimac was blown up by the Confederates, on the c^posite 
side of Elizabeth River. 

Composite-built hulls for gunboats, is a new phrase in naval 
architecture.* A composite twin-screw gun-vessel has been 

* After much controversy, it has been decided that to Mr. Assheton 
Smith, of Tedworth, is due the invention of the Gun-boats now generally 
introduced into the English and French navies; and of which our fleet 
stood in such sore need while it lay helplessly idle off Cronstadt during the 
Russian war. The origin is thus told in Mr. Smith's Memoirs : — " Some 
years ago, when the Duke of Wellington was staying at Tedworth, Mr. 
Smith communicated to the great captain his notions respecting gun-boats. 
The Duke listened, as he always did, with attention to the squire's remarks, 
but gave no opinion at the time respecting the subject of them. Next 
morning as they were both walking on the terrace after breakfast, the Duke 
said * Smith, I have been thinking that there is a good deal in what you 
said last night about those gun-boats, and I should advise your writing to 
the First Ix>rd of the Admiralty,* then Lord , which Mr. Smith ac- 
cordingly did, but received no answer. Some time after, when walking 
down Regent-street, he met the First Lord, whom he knew personally, and 
asked him, in the course of conversation, if he had received his letter con- 
taining suggestions for the introduction of gun-boats. The First Lord 
replied that he had, but that the Admiralty could not pay attention to all 
the recommendations made to them. Upon this, Mr. Smith took off his 
hat, and turning away from him with a stately bow, observed, * What His 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 345 

built by Messrs. Dudgeon, of Millwall, a firm to whose 
unaided exertions and enterprise the country owes the intro- 
duction of the twin-screw principle of propulsion into the 
Royal Navy. This new vessel, the The Eugenie^ has a tonnage 
of 315, builders' measurement, with an extreme breadth of 
22 ft., and a moulded depth of lo ft. Her draught of water, 
with crew, stores, armament, and everything on board, is 
7 ft. 6 in. Her guns on board consist of one 70-pounder 
rifle muzzle-loader, one 40-pounder breech-loader, and two 
20-pounder breech-loaders. She has a frame of angle-iron 
of 3 J in. by 3 in., with diagonal tie-stamps 6 in. by 6-8ths, the 
latter extending from the bilge to the upper stringer, and form- 
ing squares of about 8 ft. apart. The upper deck has also tie- 
plates of similar strength. The iron frame is completed with 
the usual centre and floor plates, and wrought-iron deck 
beams, and has five water-tight bulk-heads. The stem and 
sternpost are built up of wood, and the entire hull is sheathed 
with two thicknesses of teak of 2f in. and 2 in. thickness. 
Her machinery consists of two pairs of direct-acting inclined 
cylinder- engines of 30-horse power, nominal, each. The 
cylinders stand at an inclination of 35 deg., almost touching 
each other at the top ; and the space between them below is 
occupied by the condenser and hot well, which also forms part 
of the framing of the engines. The cylinders have a diameter 
of 25 J in., and a length of stroke of 14 in. The screw shafting 
is carried out under each quarter in two brass tubes, each of 
these brass tubes being enclosed in other tubes, which are built 
out as part of the iron frame of the ship. Both are finally en- 
closed in the outer wooden tube on the plan patented by Messrs. 
Dudgeon. The shafting carries two three-bladed screws, each 
having a diameter of 5 ft. 10 in., and a pitch of 9 ft. 6 in. Its 
rate of speed, by a vessel of 315 tons, having a propelling 

Grace the Duke of Wellington has considered worthy of attention, I think 
your Lordship might have at least condescended to notice.' Yet within 
ten years from this interview, one fleet of our formidable * vixen ' craft was 
at sea, and another being fitted out for service. Little perhaps did the 
spectators, who proudly gazed upon the goodly swarm of these dark hulls 
at Spithead, know that the projector of them was a foxhunter, and that to 
a foxhunter's clear head and far-seeing eye was the gallant Wildman 
mainly indebted for * the single little vessel (the Staunch) with which he 
demolished four large junks in the Chinese seas. Yet it has been said that 
Mr. Smith was a foxhunter and nothing more. The verdict of true English- 
men will be very different." 



346 WONDERFUL IHVENTIONS. 

power of only 6o-horee, has never yet been equalled by any 
gun-vessel of similar tonnage and power afloat 

The British navy now possesses two very formidable 
armoured ships in t\ie Devaslatioa (Fig. 17) and the Thundertr, 
Each of these has two turrets, 24 feet 3 inches in diameter 
inside, constructed of teak and iron. Inside there is, first, a 
lining of z\ incli iron plates ; then 6 inches of teak, in iron 
frames ; next, 6-incli armour plates -, then 9 inches of teak ; 




ij.— H.M.S. Di 



OUEINSTOWN HabBDUK. 



and, outside of all, 8 inches of amiour-plates. Each turret 
carries two 35-1011 Fraser muzzle-loading rifled guns, and can 
be turned either by hand or by steam power. These vesseb 
are propelled by twin-screws, worked by independent engines, 
capable of indicating 5,600 horse-power. Each ship can carry 
no less than 1,800 tons of coal, and can steam at the rate of 
nearly 14 miles an hour. It is 285 feet long, 58 feet wide, 
26 feet draught The hull is double, the distance between the 
outer and inner skins of the bottom being 4 feet 6 inches. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 347 

and the outside very heavily plated. As there are no masts or 
sails, a clear range is afforded for the guns fore and aft. 

We now proceed to the question of Forts, The stone sea- 
ports of Sebastopol had beaten off the combined navies of 
England and France, and borne almost unscathed the impact 
of 50,000 shot and shell, according to General Todleben*s 
estimate. Stone, therefore, and, above all, granite, seemed 
sufficient security against attack from the sea. Experiments 
have since taught us that iron ships can be constructed capable 
of carrying enormous guns, and of keeping the sea in the 
roughest weather ; and since granite has been found to crumble 
before 3oo-poun(ier shot and shell, we now know that iron 
must be met by iron, that forts must be plated as well as ships. 
The most important experiment carried on against granite was 
that by the Ordnance Select Committee in December, 1865, 
against a granite casemate for two guns, erected at Shoebury- 
ness to test the resistance of iron and granite. There were two 
iron shields on the east and west embrasures. That on the 
east was 2 1 in. thick. In front three slabs of rolled iron 4 in. 
thick, behind them 8 in. in depth of | in. iron plates placed ver- 
tically on their edges, then a 2-inch solid plate, next 6 in. of 
teak, and finally a i-inch iron plate ; the whole bolted together 
from front to rear, and secured to a strong iron girder-frame, 
the base of which turned back horizontally, and was strongly 
attached by nuts to vertical bolts let into the granite. I'he 
west shield consisted of a solid rolled iron plate 13^ inches 
thick, and was carefully secured. The east shield received 13 
blows, chiefly from a steel shot of high calibre, amounting, on 
the whole, to 424 foot tons to every square foot of its actual 
surface, deducting the porthole. The west shield was struck 
nine times. The total blows upon it averaged 800 foot tons to 
every square foot of its surface, deducting the porthole. Both 
shields continued to afford a fair amount of protection to the 
guns behind them. Against the granite were fired altogether 
65 rounds, giving an average blow of 302 foot tons per square 
foot of surface, while the average against the iron was 520 
foot tons per square foot. Moreover, almost all the shots 
fired at the iron were of steel, while cast-iron shot and 
shell were almost exclusively used against the granite. One 
projectile was on an average planted on every five square 
feet of iron shield, and on every eight square feet of 
granite. 



34^ WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

The demolition would have caused the abandonment of the 
two casemates attacked before the firing ceased ; they were 
quite untenable after the 54th hit The injury done to the 
stonework was irreparable ; nothmg short of complete recon- 
struction would restore it ; whereas a structure of iron would 
admit of easy repair by recasing the wounded parts, which 
always serve as support, and might be actually rendered 
stronger than before by the accumulation of thicknesses of 
plate, and it was observed that the dust, grit, and fine splinters 
of granite sent into the work were sufficient to amount to 
anno3rance, if not to an actual obstruction of the working of 
the gun. The experiment has proved that while the attack of 
a properly-constructed iron-built battery would be hopeless, 
except with steel or hardened shot, at a range not much ex- 
ceeding 600 jrards, the destruction of a granite fort may readily 
be effected with cast-iron shot at 1,100 yards. This appears to 
settle the question of iron versus granite, as far as protection to 
guns is concerned; but there is another aspect of the case 
which requires consideration. It is now acknowledged that 
shields are absolutely necessary to the safe working of guns 
engaged with iron-clad ships. 

Engineers of all schools seem satisfied that old strongholds 
may now be considered to be in their dotage, and that they 
must be protected by a rising young family of detached 
forts, built so as to guard their parent as long as possible 
fi^om rude contact with the besiegers* shot and shell. Fur- 
ther than that, the opinion gains ground that, while brick 
and stone can be crumbled into ruinous heaps at long ranges, 
earthworks, unless of huge capacity, are almost equally vul- 
nerable to large shells containing good bursting charges of 
powder. Iron therefore is loudly called for to protect the 
guns, and here the controversy of turrets versus broadside runs 
as high as it does in the navy. We have projects for masonry 
casemates with iron shield by Captain Inglis, R.E., first pro- 
posed in 1862 ; iron casemate by Lieutenant CoUinson, R.E. ; 
iron casemate by Captain Schuman, of the Prussian Engineers ; 
iron embrasure in earth and iron movable chamber for one gun 
by the same ingenious officer. Which of these or other inven- 
tions may prove best, time and experiment alone will show. 
Every experiment made on this subject points to the lesson that 
where defensive works have to be overcome, no effort should 
be spared to bring up guns of the largest possible calibre ; one 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 349 

of these being able to perform work of a nature impossible to 
any number of its lighter brethren. 

These results rendered necessary the covering of the prin- 
cipal forts of the Isle of Wight with iron round their whole 
circumference, because they are exposed to attack on all sides ; 
the rest, iron towards the sea, granite casemates, with iron 
shields, towards the land. The Horse Sand Fort affords a type 
of the whole cluster. The bottom of the foundation is 11 feet 
below low-water, ordinary spring-tides. Here is laid a ring of 
masonry, outside granite, inside concrete, in blocks. The 
breadth of the ring where it rests on the ground is 54 feet ; 
the upper part, i^ feet above high water, is 40 feet 8 inches 
thick. The central hollow is filled in, first with clay and shin- 
gle, and, lying flat upon the bed thus made, a thick layer of 
concrete. Down through the centre of the solid mass sinks an 
iron shaft 6 feet in diameter, to a depth of 54 feet below the 
bottom, yet these works are but the foundations for the fort. 
An outer wall of granite and Portland stone 16 feet high and 
14 feet 6 inches thick is then built round the circumference, 
its foot set back 18 inches to leave room for a facifig of iron*, 
backed by concrete. Holes are left in the wall to take the 
bolts necessary for supporting the iron plates and backing. 
Behind the wall, in the interior of the fort, are magazines, shell 
stores, provision stores, water-tanks, and ablution-rooms for the 
men. Now we. come to the main alterations. The fort has 
an uniform face of grey metal, pierced with two rows of mere 
holes, and for many feet of granite, 15 inches of wrought iron. 
All architectural features disappear, and the Noah's -Ark like 
structure bears about the same relation to the first design, that 
a Monitor does to a handsome wooden three-decker. The ark 
is not wanting in chimneys ; four large truncated cones crown 
the roof, but their tops are covered with heavy irpn plates, and 
the smoke that curls from their sides will be the breath of 
600-pounders. Each turret revolves upon an iron cylinder ; 
and if huge gaps were made in the exterior, the eight guns 
within it would stand as firm as ever. The total number of 
guns mounted in each of these two formidable forts will be 63, 
all of high calibre ; their smooth sides cannot be scaled in the 
darkness of night, nor can they even be approached in time of 
war, for iron gun-vessels will creep round the water-line, and 
torpedoes nestle at their feet Nothing can compare with 
these works for strength : they are Cyclopean, yet equally 



35© WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

remarkable with their vastness is the amazing fecility with 
which they are carried on. Huge blocks of granite or concrete 
weighing several tons are picked up from barges undetneath 
the circular stages erected over the site of the foundations, 
moved from place to place, and slung down to their beds as 
easily as a mason lays the single bricks with which he works. 
There is somethmg very fascinating about the apparatus, which 
in a day of ten hours, and with an expenditure of about 6 cwt 
of coal, can lift and deposit some i,ooo tons of material, under 
the guidance of one man. Nor is another mechanical feat 
unworthy of English engineering, unsuggestive of English re- 
sources. A few years ago Yorkshire stone frequently took 
several weeks to travel from the mouth of the Humber to 
Portsmouth. Now, 48 hours by railway suffice to transfer a 
block from the quarry to its final resting-place in the fort.* 

Next, of Guns. Mindful of present economy rather than 
desirous to obtain a weapon of increased strength, many 
European nations have retained the old material in their ser- 
vice. Austria, France, Spain, Italy, and the other copyists of 
La Grande Nation still use gun-metal for their field artillery ; 
Prussia and Russiat go hand in hand in this as in other mili- 
tary matters, emplopng steel for their light as well as their 
heavy ordnance ; England devotes herself to wrought-iron, 
having caught the trick of its manufacture, and her Armstrong 
field-guns are practically everlasting. 

We have not space to detail how first long narrow projectiles 
of hard and tough material, called shells by courtesy because 
their interior could contain a small bursting charge, were 
slipped through the Warrior target ; how these were followed 

* Abridged from the Times JournaL 

t In the Proceedings of the Royal Artillery Institution^ vol i., we find the 
following "Return of the daily amount of shot and shell thrown into 
Sebastopol by the British Siege Train." This contains a ghastly catalogue 
of killed and wounded in the bombardments. During the siege a total of 
253,042 rounds of shot and shell were thrown into the city from the English 
batteries alone, and in the last four days' bombardment 24, 732. No wonder 
the Russians called it a feu cTenfer. All honour to them for their long 
resistance, and to our own troops for their determination to push on m spite 
of all the difficulties with which they were surrounded, and notably the 
presence of a large Russian army always endeavouring to break the siege. 
Three hundred and sixty-seven pieces of heavy ordnance were employed in 
the reduction of the place by the British forces, 238 of them were worn out 
or placed hors de combat by the fire of the enemy, so that there remained 
129 serviceable at the end of the war. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 35 1 

by larger missiles with increasing bursting charges ; how the 
fierce heat of the shock was found enough to ignite the powder 
without any fuzes ; how Sir W. Armstrong and Captain Alder- 
son, R.A., invented their respective solid-headed shells, so that 
the massive iron plate being overcome, destruction of the wood 
and skin might follow as a matter of course. Suffice it to say 
that the Warrior^ and vessels of even higher strength, are vul- 
nerable to shells fired from the weakest of our present M. L. 
ship guns, and that we know of no foreign iron-plated ship 
through whose sides our artillerists will not pledge themselves 
to drive these terrible projectiles of one calibre or other at 
ranges of 500 to 1,000 yards. 

What is the best material for projectiles intended to pene- 
trate iron plates, and what form should we give them 1 Com- 
mon cast-iron is cheap, and always to be found in any quan- 
tity; but when it came to be used against \iTought-iron plates 
it was found to be quite ineffective, because so large a portion 
of its " stored up work " was expended in dashing itself to 
pieces that the target suffered but little. In the absence of 
better material, however, it is well to know that cast-iron shot 
will give their maximum effect when fired with a very high 
velocity, because the indent or penetration is effected before 
the shot has had time to fly in pieces, or the rest of the plate to 
reinforce the part attacked. A cast-iron shell is of about as 
much use against a good iron plate as a pat of butter would be. 
Hence, for a long time, steel was always used for penetrating 
purposes. • But steel is very expensive, and when in the form 
of a shell resists too strongly the explosive force of the bursting 
charge. 

Spherical shot have less range and accuracy than elongated 
projectiles : they experience more resistance in proportion to 
their " work," and are, therefore, ill adapted for penetration ; 
they break up more easily on impact, and the capacity of the 
spherical shell is much less. The form must therefore be elon- 
gated, but with what shape of head ? Mr. Whitworth long 
advocated a flat head, which is that best adapted for punching 
a clean hole. But then we do not want to punch a clean hole j 
and, besides, the piece driven out of the iron plate has to be 
carried by the shot through the wooden backing, at the ex- 
pense of much force, so, on the whole, a conical or elliptical 
form of head has the superiority, for it tears through the plate, 
and is free to wedge itself through the wood behind, without 



352 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

carrying any weight but its own. The latest form of head, and 
that found best hitherto, is called '*ogival pointed," and combines 
the strength of the curve with the penetration of the wedge. 

The two great rivals, Armstrong and Whitworth, contest the 
palm of excellence. When England awoke from her peaceful 
sleep in 1859, the Armstrong gun was the only one offered to 
her at once successful and complete. Mr. Whitworth* had a 
sjrstem of rifling and a shape of projectile, but his guns were 
not then forthcoming. Before he was ready, many hundreds 
of his rival's guns were actually mounted behind the parapets 
of fortresses at home or in the colonies, and forming the arma- 
ments of war ships. The Whitworth gun ought not to suffer in 
the eyes of the world because it was rejected. What could be 
more wonderful than its accurate shooting at long ranges? 
What more encouraging to EngUshmen than to see two rival 
inventors producing weapons which, after firing more than 
3,000 rounds with service charges and all sorts of projectiles, 
were subjected to every means that could be devised to burst 
them, and yet remained imburst at last 1 

The Armstrong 23-ton gun shown at the Paris International 
Exhibition, was by far the finest and most complete solution of 
modem military materid displayed. There were heavy guns 
and light, carriages of iron and of wood, projectiles adapted for 
dashing through iron plates, tearing the side of a ship to pieces, 
setting it on fire, smothering men with pestilential vapours, or 
sweeping them down in heaps by showers of leaden and iron 
balls ; and, among them all, turned out from the same arsenal, 
and by the same hands, was the hfe-saving apparatus for the 
succour of shipwrecked sailors. Everything was provided to 
save life and to kill it The idea of the Armstrong gun is no 
novelty. Coiled ropes and even coiled iron bars were wrapped 
round the weak interior tubes of guns ages ago, but Sir W. 

* In Mr. Whitworth's built-up steel guns, the breech is screwed in, being 
formed of one, two, or three concentric cylinders, so exquisitely perfect in 
manufacture that every thread of them all fits into its appointed groove with 
the nicest accuracy, never failing to run smoothly with the others. This 
perfection of accurate proportions is Mr. AMiitworth's speciality. Much 
modern work has only been rendered possible since he invented an ap- 
paratus for measuring the millionth part of an inch, and produced absolutely 
true planes which may float on each other, separated by a thin film of air ; 
or, if this film be pushed aside by sliding the top plate forwards instead 
of placing it at once face to face with the lower one, the two will adhere 
together, as if made of one piece. Mr. Whitworth has not yet constructed 
a gun of very high calibre. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 3S3 

Armstrong not only adopted the idea, but carried it out with 
all the perfection of workmanship possible only since modern 
machinery was invented. All improvements since introduced 
in the Government manufactories are but modifications of his 
system. The aim of Krupp's method is to produce solid steel 
guns, and other continental makers have followed in his track. 
It is only in his heaviest ordinance that he supplements the 
steel gun by external rings of steel, shrunk on while hot. 
Armstrong builds up all his guns coil by coil, cylinder by 
cylinder, ring by ring. Mr. Fraser, of the Royal Arsenal at 
Woolwich, takes cheaper iron, coils several bars one over 
another without cooling, turning, or boring, and then welds 
them together, building up the gun at last of only three or four 
pieces. He thus gains cheapness of construction, with pro- 
bably little difference in strength. 

Krupp's 15-inch rifled breech-loading gun is entirely made ot 
steel, in three principal parts — the inner tube which extends 
from end to end of the piece, and two layers of superimposed 
steel hoops. Considered as a grand mass of worked metal 
nothing can be finer than this huge monster ; but as a piece of 
artillery it is certainly defective. The weight of the huge gun is, 
roughly, 50 tons, and the weight of the projectile is said, in 
Mr. Krupp's list of his contributions, to be 1,000 Prussian lbs., 
or half an English ton. The charge is to weigh about i cwt. 

Next are Palliser's new guns, in which a coiled wrought-iron 
double tube takes the first shock of the gas, and is surrounded 
by a mass of iron cast over it in a mould as the French guns 
are cast round their cores. This is theoretically the right way 
to apply the two forms of iron, if cast-iron is to be used at all. 
The gun exhibited by Major Palliser at Paris has a 9-inch 
bore, and throws a shot of 250 lb. weight, It has been fired 
twenty times with 43 lb. of powder; four times with 55 lb.; 
eighty-seven times with 45 lb., its service projectile being used 
throughout the proof* 

The results of recent Gunnery experiments in England have 
established that — 

For actual perforation of iron-plated targets of modem construction heavy 
guns are required, and as these must be capable of throwing a projectile 
with a high velocity, they must be strong enough to stand large charges of 
powder. The projectiles must be of hard material. Palliser's chilled iron 

* Abridged from the Times Journal. 

A A .. ; 



354 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

shot and shell are equal, if not superior, to steel, and far cheaper. Shells 
should be so constructed that the bursting charges may act in a forward 
direction; their heads must be solid, and the best form is the "ogival 
pointed." With hard projectiles, ih^ perforation is directly proportional to 
the *' work" attained, and inversely proportional to the diameter of the shot 
or shell. The resistance of wrought-iron plates equally well made varies as 
the square of their thickness. Placing them at an angle to the line of fire 
diminishes the effect of the shot in the proportion of the sine of the angle 
of incidence to unity. The resistance of plates to perforation is hardly 
effected by a backing of wood simply, but much increased by a rigid backing 
of iron combined with wood, or of granite, iron, brick, &c., much of the 
shot's effect being transferred to the backing, which suffers proportionately. 
Iron-built ships with compact oak or teak backing are stronger than 
similarly clad wooden ships ; the best form of backing being wood com- 
bined with horizontal plates of iron, as in the Chalmers, Bellerophon, and 
Hercules targets. Palliser's bolts are found to be the best for securing iron 

Elates. An inner skin of iron is almost essential, for it not only renders the 
acking more compact, but prevents many splinters from passing into the 
ship. Every ironclad, whether built of wood or iron, should therefore have 
an mner iron skin. Laminated armour is much inferior to solid armour. 

Nothing seemed available to match the rapidity of a shot 
moving at the rate of i,ooo feet a second. The power of 
electricity came at last into the hands of the philosophers. 
Professor Wheatstone proposed in 1840 to set the new spirit a 
task that had baffled the most powerful of its predecessors, and 
thus to utilize a velocity in comparison to which the motion of 
a shot was but as the creeping of a tortoise to the flight of a 
falcon. A variety of suggestions were soon made by scientific 
men, but the first instrument actually constructed and practically 
used in 1849 was invented by an ingenious Belgian artillery 
officer — Captain Navez. 

The great improvement of rifling guns, that is spirally groove- 
bored, has been described as that final touch without which the 
most monstrous cannon that ever was forged is only a Samson 
shorn of his locks ; and must stand before a 9-inch rifled gun as 
Goliath did before David, its ponderous bulk but a gigantic 
target, unable to reach its despised foe before receiving the 
fatal missile. Not that rifling a gun of necessity increases its 
range. A round ball discharged from a rifle goes no further 
than the average of a number of similar balls fired from a 
smooth-bore. But it can be trusted to strike its mark^ and its 
range is uniform or nearly so ; whereas an unrifled shot may go 
left, right, over, or under a target, even in the hands of the most 
perfect marksman. It is only from a rifled gun that an elongated 
shot can be fired and sail smoothly through the air, unchecked 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, CUNS, AND ARMOUR. 355 

by the medium which its narrow body and pointed head 
cleave as a fish cleaves the water which detains the ship's 
log. From the same weight of gun, therefore, if rifled, you 
can fire a shell which will range further, go straighter, and 
pierce a stronger target than if the bore were left smooth. The 
elongated shell will also contain more powder or bullets, as 
the case may be, than the round shell. 




The guns now made at Woolwich are built up of the several 
parts which are indicated in the section (Fig. i8). These are, 
ist, the steel barrel ; 2nd, the b tube ; 3rd, the breech coil ; 
4th, the cascable screw. The inner barrel is made of a steel 
cylinder, which, after having been roughly turned and bored, 
is subjected to a process called toughening, by which its 




Fie. 19.— Thi jj-toh F(a«u 



tenacity is greatly increased. The b tube is made by winding 
a red-hot iron bar spirally, and afterwards forging the coils into 
one mass. The breech coil is similarly made from iron bars ; 



356 WOKDERTin. INVENTIONS. 

and the sevcnd pieces of the gun are fitted to each other with 
the utmost accuiacyy the outer ones being shrunk upon the 
inner. The grooves of the rifling are cut by means of in- 
geniously contrived machinery, by which most remarkable 
accuracy is obtained. One of the 35-ton guns constructed on 
this plan is shown in Fig. 19. These pieces of ordnance have, 
however, been surpassed by the 81-ton guns that have more 
recently been made at Woolwich on the same general plan. 
The comparative size of these pieces is shown in Fig. 20. 
Yet more recentiy Sir W. Armstrong has made still heavier 
cannon for the Italian Government, the weight of each gun being 
about 100 tons. He has also constructed equally heavy guns 
fcM- some of our own coast defences. The force of the pro- 
jectiles discharged from such guns is enormous. Thus, for 
example, the 1,200 lb. shot of the Woolwich 81-ton gun leaves 




Fig. ao.— Comparatttk sizes of 35 and 8i-tok'Guns, 
▲. 35-toii. B. 8x-ton. 

the muzzle with such a velocity that the projectile possesses an 
energy of more than 14,000 foot-tons ; and at long range it will 
completely penetrate an iron plate 20 inches in thickness. One 
of Sir W. Armstrong's improvements in artillery is a sjrstem 
of handling large guns by means of hydraulic machinery. The 
training and loadmg of the heaviest ordnance are, by this 
system, performed with the greatest ease by the mere touching 
of handles connected with certain valves in the apparatus, 
and the method is applicable to naval guns as well as those in 
forts. The arrangements are such that the operations are per- 
formed under cover, so that the artiller3niien are not exposed 
to any special danger in loading and training the piece. 

As, whatever, may be its strength, the "life " of a piece of 
ordnance is limited, so that after a certain number of rounds 
it becomes unsafe or useless the first cost of a gun becomes a 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 357 

matter of consideration. This cost is great in any case, but 
it varies much from one system to another, according to the 
nature of the material and the workmanship required. Thus, 
for example, a 35-ton gun constructed on Sir J. Whitworth's 
plan would cost 6,000/., while Sir W. Armstrong's estimate is 
3,500/., and the gun is made at Woolwich, on Mr. Eraser's 
plan at a calculated expense of 2,500/. 

Of Small Arms, the Breech-loader is stated to multiply the 
fire of an army three or four fold, placing as it Were three 
or four rifles in each soldier's hand. The Dano-German war 
proved the value of the system, of which the famous needle- 
gun was but an indifferent exponent; and on July 11, 1864, 
a Government committee reported that **it was desirable to 
arm the whole of our infantry with breech-loading rifles ;*' which 
thereby signed the death-warrant of muzzle-loaders for British 
soldiers. Captain Majendie states that the Snider gun is 
proved " to be fifty per cent quicker than its rivals, as well as 
stronger ; it is simple and apparently durable ; the breech 
arrangement being well adapted to sustain any number of dis- 
charges, fi'om the fact of those shocks being sensible only." 
In answer to the exaggerated reports of its failure. Captain 
Majendie states that its general use in Canada, at Hythe, and 
at Aldershott has been reported to be highly successful : and 
he adds that out of 50,000 rounds of ammunition fired by him- 
self, only I in 300 failed from any cause. 

Mr. Kenneth Cornish, in his new Breech-loader, has sim- 
plified the mechanism of the breech in a wonderful manner. 
Imagine a child's cross-bow, minus the arc and string ; and that 
is the shape of the stock and barrel of the rifle. A bullet put 
in at the muzzle would run down the barrel and out in a 
straight line along the groove upon the stock ; for what in the 
cross bow is the place for introducing the arrow is in this rifle 
the place for dropping or pushing in the cartridge. Across the 
barrel, at a point somewhat higher up than where this joins the 
stock, is the breech-piece, not a solid hinged block, as in the 
Snider rifle, but a species of flap, set on edge, and in shape and 
action not unlike the knife of a guillotine. This is simply 
lifted up or pressed down as occasion may require : and when 
raised, by pulling it open somewhat further than it would go of 
its own accord, the extraction, worked by a sere spring, is set in 
motion and draws : or, if the motion communicated be quick and 
sudden^ throws out the copper-based cartridge from the barrel 



358 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

The advantages of breech-loaders are chiefly these : i, Mul- 
tiplication offire^ so that for all contests, not actually hand to 
hand, the number of jnen are practically multiplied, say, three- 
fold ; but every loss of a soldier is in such a case equal to the 
loss of three ; 2. Facility of loading in all positions and in all 
weathers ; this enables the soldier to seek any cover — a stone, 
a log, even a sod of earth behind which he can lie and maintain 
a steady fire, without exposing body or limbs. At close quar- 
ters, too, his bayonet need never be moved from the line with 
his enemy's breast, while he puts in the cartridge which will 
settle matters between them ; 3. Reduction of fatigue ; joined 
with No. 2 this improves the actual shooting \ there are few 
rifles that are not more accurate than the average soldier who 
points them ; 4. Ease of repair and cleaning; an oiled rag has 
only to be drawn through the barrel to clean it, and a damaged 
breech apparatus is readily replaced in all systems worth 
naming. 

The history of the Needle-gun presents more than one claim- 
ant to the invention, and possibly each claimant may be 
entitled to share the merit It was first patented in 183 1, by 
Moser, an engineer, of Kennington. It originated in the 
method of igniting the charge by passing a needle through the 
cartridge to strike the detonating gunpowder, and thus ignite 
the powder in front of the charge, instead of behind it, as in 
the ordinary percussion-gun ; Moser's drawings also show a 
cartridge containing an elongated bullet for a musket This 
was the needle-gun in its original form. But Moser could not 
get his invention investigated in practical England ; his plan was 
tried in Prussia, and eventually adopted ; and in 1835, Dreyse, 
a gunmaker, of Sommerda, applied the breech-loading arrange- 
ment The gun was definitively introduced in the Prussian ser- 
vice in 1 848. The mechanism at the breech of the gun resembles 
the ordinary bolt of a street-door, and has a large projecting 
knob or handle, by which it is moved into or out of the grooved 
catch which fastens it. In the body of this bolt, the arrangement 
for cocking and discharging the needle is enclosed ; and this 
part of the contrivance is as simple as the mechanism of the 
interior of an ordinary child's toy-gun, in which the spiral spring 
which fires the wooden pellet, and the method of maintaining 
it and discharging it by the direct action of the trigger, are pre- 
cisely similar to the lock of the needle-gun. In 1850, several 
rifles, on this model were made at the Government factory at En- 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 359 

field, and condemned partly from the supposed danger of having 
the fulminate contained in the cartridge, but mainly from the 
escape of gas round the needle. Various improvements have 
been made in the Prussian weapon; but in all the various 
patterns, the principles of Moser's invention aie retained in the 
position of the fulminate and the elongated projectile. In the 
cartridge a new and very doubtful principle is, however, intro- 
duced. The bullet, which fits into a pasteboard sabot, or shoe, 
containing the fulminate to be exploded by the touch of the 
needle, is made so small that it does not touch the barrel in its 
passage through it, the rotation of the rifling being communi- 
cated b/ the sabot only. Thus perfect cleanliness is ensured, and 
absence of fouling. The Prussian needle-gun will not compare 
with the muzzle-loading Enfield for precision to 500 yards ; and 
its maximum of efficiency, even against masses of troops, is 
700 yards, the Enfield being effective at 900. In short, in this 
arm the main feature is quickness. In the converted Enfield 
Rifle we have succeeded in obtaining the same rapidity, with 
increased solidity and much greater accuracy. 

The cartridge was said to be so great a secret that it could 
only be manufactured in Prussia ; but this was untrue. The 
smaller diameter of the bullet was a secret, as also the composi- 
tion of the percussion-powder, which is generally the fulminate 
of mercury intimately combined with meal-gunpowder ; but it 
is mixed with collodion, and moulded into the cartridge whilst 
moist The collodion adds nothing but combustible matter 
(gun-cotton) to the mixture. 

We have already named one claimant to the Needle-gun. 
Mr. Hanson, of Folly Hall, near Huddersfield, states himself 
to be the inventor, and to have given the secret to a townsman 
of his, Mr. Golden, gunmaker, of Huddersfield, who patented 
it, and made some of the guns. These were but rook-guns 
of small range. The specifications of English patents find 
their way abroad ; and, in consequence, Mr. Golden received 
an order from the King of Prussia for two of his patent needle- 
guns. They were duly sent to his Majesty, through his Ambas- 
sador in London ; as three letters of correspondence, with the 
large Prussian seal upon them, now in the possession of Mr. 
Golden, will testify. This is how the needle-gun got into 
Prussia. In two years after, this gun, with some little modifica- 
tion, and made larger for military purposes, was introduced into 
England as the Prussian needle-gun. It was exhibited daily 



360 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

at the Polytechnic Institution, and 'caused a. great sensation. 
Happening to be in London at the time, Mr. Hanson went to 
see it, and was astonished to see his needle-gun there — not the 
identical gun sent to Prussia, but on the same principle, as proved 
by the specification and drawings. 

The invention of the needle-gun has been claimed by the 
Prussians, the French, and the Belgians. According to the 
Prussians, Nicholas Dreyse, already named, presented this gun 
to the King in 1844 ; some years afterwards it was introduced 
into the regiments of the Guard, and for twelve years it has 
been in use in the whole army (infantry, cavalry, and engineers). 
In 1848, when the Berhnese attacked the arsenal, they managed 
to get hold of a dozen of these guns ; and in 1850 one of these 
very guns is said to have been exhibited at Paris at the shop of 
a marchand (Tarmes, 

Others attribute the invention to a M. Descoutures, an old 
member of the Polytechnic : he presented this gun to Na- 
poleon III., who was struck with its advantages, and charged 
Colonel, now General Fav^, to make experiments ; and the 
same having proved successful, the Emperor placed it in the 
special armoury, and even proposed to give it the name of 
Fusil Napoleon, But its employment was objected to by the 
Minister-of-War and others, and Descoutures carried the in- 
vention to Prussia, where it was adopted. In Belgium it is 
maintained that the ignition of the cartridge by the needle is 
due to Montigny, a gunmaker at Brussels, who, in 1832, pro- 
duced the first breech-loading gun ignited by a needle. The 
Belgian Government refused to entertain the invendon. Mon- 
tigny next went to St. Petersburg, and proposed it to the Czar ; 
the trials were successful, but the artillery department opposed 
it, and Montigny was so disappointed that he died of grief in 
1845. Next we have a parallel case of defeated hope. 

In the conversion of the Enfield musket, Jacob Snider's car- 
tridge, which contained ignition, was chosen ; but the Ordnance 
Committee then employed their own officers ; Snider was 
offered a very inadequate remuneration, which he refused to 
accept, and while the matter was in dispute, the poor inventor 
died! 

An improvement on the Prussian Needle-gun has been 
patented by Sears and Hunt : it can be loaded and fired six 
times in one minute, if necessary, and without any alteration in 
its position after firing ; its range and accuracy are stated to be 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 



361 



equal to those of any gun in existence, while its accuracy is not 
to be surpassed. The escape of gas is prevented, and it can 
be fired hundreds of times without fouling ; it can be taken 
asunder and again put together in less than one minute ; and 
the cartridge is most easily made. 

The Chassepot musket is said to insure great rapidity of 
fire. A man with a lot of loose cartridges besides him can fire 
this improved musket twelve times in one minute ; but that 
rate the most skilful and robust soldier cannot keep up beyond 
about thirty rounds ; past that the fire perceptibly slackens. 
The cause is purely physical, Le,, the fatigue of the man, whose 
arm has often to support unaided the whole weight of the 
weapon. The Chassepot Musket may sustain very advan- 
tageously a competition with the Needle gun. Its superiority 
arises "chiefly from the more perfect closing of the breech, 
which is complete, whilst it is very defective in the needle gun. 
All the gases developed by the ignition of the charge are 
utilised to propel the bullet, which adds to its range and pene- 




trating power. The firing of the Chassepot rifle astonished the 
late Emperor of the French by its destructiveness. In two 
minutes a battalion of 500 men, at 600 yards from the mark, 
had fired 8,000 balls, of which 1,992 had struck the line of 
aim. The ground in front of the mark was so cut up that not 
a blade of grass could be seen ; and the Emperor is reported 
to have exclaimed, " It is frightful I It is a massacre 1 " 

The mechanism of the Chassepot rifle is shown in Fig. ai, 



5^2 



WOXDE&nn. IXTEKnONS. 



wEiexe b ccvrespcods with the poirt called, in the old percussion* 
C2p lock, the ^ hammer.'^ When b is drawn out it is retained 
by the cardi c, cocmected with the trigger, b has a rod with a 
coQed spiingr which, when released bj pulling the trigger, 
darts fofward the needle, idiich enters the base of the cartridge 
and e3q>lodes the fidmixaie in its centre. The lever £ enables 
the breecbpiece r to be withdrawn for the introduction of the 
cartridge. 

The rifle of the British annj is now the Martini-Henry (Fig. 
22), so called becanse it is a combination of Martini's breech- 
loadii^ mechanian with Henry's system of rifling. The barrel 
is of steel, and the twist of the rifling is one turn in 22 inches. 





Fig. 22- — ^The Mastxki-Hbxky Rifle. 
A, readj for loadii^ ; s, loaded and ready for firing; 



The charge consists of 85 grains of powder, and a bullet 
weighing 480 grains. The cartridge is of the same general 
construction as that used in the Snider rifle ; but the Martini- 
Henry is, in every respect, a superior weapon — ^in accuracy, 
and rapidity of fire, length of range, penetrating power, and 
simplicity of mechanisnu 

Among the new weapons must be mentioned that of which 
so much was heard at the commencement of the Franco- 
Prussian war under the name of mitraillair^ or mitrailleuse. 
It was a battery of rifles imited in one machine, and the 
details of the construction were at first kept concealed. 
Weapons on the same principle have since been added to the 
armament of other nations. The form of mitrailleur adopted 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 363 

in the British service, about 1870, is that known as the Gatllng 
gun, which is represented in Fig, 23. The Catling gun has 
ten distinct and separate barrels, which are screwed into a 
solid revolving piece at the breech end, and neat their muzzles 
pass through a circular plate, by which they are kept parallel 
to each other. The weapon is made of three sizes, the largest 
firing half pound bullets i inch in diameter, and the smallest 
bullets of -45 inch diameter. The small Catling is said to 
be effective at a range of more than a mile and a quarter, and 
it can discharge 400 bullets in one minute. The main features 




of the gun may be thus described : each barrel is provided 
with its own independent lock or firing mechanism. When the 
gun is kept in operation by turning the handle, all the locks 
and barrels revolve together ; and the whole operation of load- 
ing, closing the breecn, discharging and expelling the empty 
caftridge-cases, is continuously conducted by rotatory move- 
ment. There is, therefore, no pause in the several operations. 
As only four men are needed for working the gun, the exposure 
of life is fai less than in the case of infantry having the same 



364 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

firing power ; and Mr. Gatling contends that, shot for shot, his 
machine is more accurate and steady. 

Torpedoes, explosive engines fired by electricity, were em- 
ployed with various success in America during the late Civil 
War.* Drifting torpedoes were first tried by the Confederates, 
but unsuccessfully. The Federals placed nets which caught 
the drifters, when the boats of the fleet disposed of them 
easily. The Southerners then devised stationary torpedoes 
under the water. These were of three distinct classes. 

1. Torpedoes fixed at the end of spars anchored in a stream, 
or on piles driven into the bed : these were called stake-guns. 

2. Torpedoes moored at the bottom, and floating below the 
surface, arranged to be fired by contact or by electricity. 

3. Torpedoes at the bottom, arranged to be fired by electricity. 
Torpedoes of the first class appear to have been employed 
chiefly upon the Mississippi, and without much effect. 

Those of the second were very successfiil on the Roanoke 
River, in 1864. Though out of 100 torpedoes laid, only about 
thirty remained in position, they managed to blow up three out 
of nine Federal gunboats. Four other gunboats were so 
seriously damaged that they could not be employed again. 
Many torpedoes with detonating apparatus were used, because 
the shores of some of the southern rivers are so pestilential 
that men could not remain permanently in charge of the appa- 
ratus required for exploding the mines by electricity. " The 
mosquitoes and snakes alone would, probably, have driven off" 
the torpedo detachment sent for observation and to fire the 
mines." The banks of the James River being occupied in 
force, the mines could generally be fired by electricity, whether 
they were, of the second or third class. Here id a sickening 
picture of the fate of a Federal gunboat on James River, in 
the year 1864. On the explosion taking place the gunboat 
appeared to rise and then bend a little in the middle. The 
movement was followed almost immediately by the explosion 
of the boilers, which sent ever)rthing into the air. The explo- 
sion must have been an awful sight to witness, for the air 
seemed filled with burning bodies. This, to a certain extent, 
was the case, for all the crew were blown up with the vessel ; 
but their apparent number was enormously increased by the 

* Torpedoes are named from the Torpedo, Electric Ray, or Cramp-fish, 
fix)m the Latin Torpeo^ to benumb ; the engineer having imitated the ^)- 
paratus in the fish, in which resides its dectric or galvanic power. 



IRON SHIPS OF WAR, GUNS, AND ARMOUR. 365 

stores of clothing that happened to be on board being set on 
fire and driven about by the explosion. The affair was fol- 
lowed by a most remarkable stillness, only broken by the 
splash of the falling bodies and fragments. The officers 
and crew of the gunboat numbered 151, and the greater 
portion were killed outright ! The number of Federal ships 
actually destroyed by Confederate torpedoes of one class or 
another was thirty-nine^ besides some damaged and forced to 
go into dock for repairs. The American Government became 
so thoroughly impressed with the value of these strange and 
insidious defenders of coasts and rivers that they equipped 
five large vessels with torpedo arrangements, and have built 
some small rams. 

Land torpedoes seem also to have acted a very important 
part in the defence of Richmond and other places. The 
known presence of a large number of them in front of the 
works withheld the Federals from attacking at a time when the 
parapets were guarded by but few troops. Like watchdogs, 
they scared away the would-be intruder without need of touch- 
ing him. 

At the Paris International Exhibition were shown two torpe- 
does from Austria : — i. Such as are fired from the shore^ depend- 
ing, therefore, for their certain action upon an accurate knowledge 
of the attacking ship's position. The channel of Malamocco, 
just outside Venice, was provided with these. Their obvious 
disadvantage is that on a dark night it would be impossible 
to know the position of the vessel doomed to destruction, and 
the whole apparatus would become almost useless, unless the 
defenders were prepared to waste their whole line of torpedoes 
upon a single pilot vessl. 2. Self -acting torpedoes, which ex- 
plode on being struck by the ship attempting to pass. Pola 
was defended by a double line of these. They were con- 
nected with a magnetic arrangement on shore. The advancing 
vessel strikes upon one of a numerous array of studs pro- 
jecting from the case containing the powder, or, still better, 
gun-cotton. The blow overcomes the force of a spiral spring, 
which, however, pushes back the stud as the torpedo yields 
or the ship moves on. The current is thus broken and 
remade, and the fierce gas dashes through the bottom of the 
ship, or breaks her back by the concussion. " Of all the 
operations of war this mining is, perhaps, the most terrible. 
From without the fortress the attackers burrow towards the 



^56 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

defenders' works. As they approach nearer they speak no 
word, and work as quietly as may be, for they know that 
the enemy is Hstening intently for the sound that may betray 
them. If they can but escape his observation the defences 
will surely fell before them, but if detected they are lost. 
He hears their advance, lodges his chaige, and fills in his 
gallery. But two thin wires lie hidden in tiie mass of earth, 
and when the time has come — ^just, perhaps, as the besiegers 
are placing their powder at the end of their painfully achieved 
task — 3, muffled sound is heard, the sohd earth heaves above 
their heads or beneath their feet, and then closes slowly in 
upon the wretches, burying them alive in the grave which their 
own hands have dug." 

Torpedoes have also been invented at Woolwich, for destroy- 
ing an enem/s ship ; they explode by the shghtest contact 

Here, also, in the Gun Factories, may be witnessed the 
manufacture of various portions of the Fraser Gun, recently 
introduced as the new service gun for sea and land use. As 
you are conducted from forge to forge, you see the various 
modes which the section and coils of the gun have to undergo 
before being brought under the huge Nasmyth hammer to be 
wrought into proper shape ; and finally, the method of welding 
the coils to form the tube, and transpose the whole into a sohd 
and combined mass, completing the gun in a rough state, 
which is then left to cooL In the Royal Laboratory nearly 
400 persons are employed. In the Boxer cartridge factory, 
upwards of 300,000 cartridges are turned out per day. In 
the Shell Foundry are the Boxer and other soUd shot broken 
for the purpose of exhibiting the quality of the metals of which 
they are composed, and the manner of fracture. Of the 8-inch, 
lo-inch, and 12-inch Palliser shot 500 are produced per day. 
Stamping trucks into shape is now used, instead of the old 
system of casting, which was not sufficiently durable for the 
present heavy guns ; and there is a new process of cutting an 
inch slad of iron with the band saw wh'ch is very efficient. 




THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



HE applications of electricity to the arts of life, are, 
in themselves, of such romantic, if not poetic charac- 
ter, as to lead to their fancied predictions being 
traceable in the higher regions of embellished thought 
Contemplating these marvellous results, it is asked, might we 
not exclaim, after the inspired author of the book of Job, 
" Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto 
thee — Here we are V* There is a fancied allusion to the appli- 
cation of electrical power in Hudibras^ where Sidrophel knows 
how to 

— fire a mine in China, here, 
With sympathetic gunpowder. 

And even Puck's fairy boast of putting a girdle round about 
the earth in forty minutes, has been almost reduced to practice ; 
one of our most profound electricians having exclaimed, " Give 
me but an unlimited length of wire, with a small battery, and I 
will girdle the universe with a sentence in forty minutes." And 
this is no vain boast ; for so rapid is the transition of the 
electric current along the lines of the telegraph wire, that, sup- 
posing it were possible to carry the wires eight times round the 
earth it would but occupy one second of time. And the antici- 
pation of covering the earth with the iron net-work, like a 
spider's web, recalls Pope's couplet : — 

"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! 
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line." 

The learned Italian Jesuit, Strada, in one of his Prolusiones 
AcademioB, in 1617, has a sort of prevision of the instantaneous 
transmission of thoughts and words between two individuals^ 
over an ind^nite space, by supposing the existence of "a 



^6S WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

species of loadstone which possesses such virtue, that if two 
needles be touched with it, and then balanced on separate 
pivots, and the one turned in a particular direction, the other 
will sympathetically move parallel to it" Each of these needles 
was to be poised and mounted parallel on a dial having the 
letters of the alphabet arranged round it Accordingly, if there 
be two persons at a distance, and each has a dial, and there be 
a pre-arrangement as to details, a correspondence could be kept 
up between them by simply pointing the needles to the letters 
of the required words. Strada's conceit was, however, too 
much for Bishop Wilkins, who believed in the possibility of our 
flying, and he took care to caution his readers against Strada's 
delusion. It slept altogether for nearly a century, when, in 
17 12, Addison, in the Spe^fafor, revived tiie story of the sympa- 
thetic needles, and their conversation across a whole continent, 
and the conveyance of their thoughts to one another in an 
instant over cities, or mountains, seas or deserts. Yet, Addison 
only quoted Strada's proposition in playful suggestion of 
having in place of the letters on the dials certain amatory 
words, which should abridge " the lover's pains in this way of 
writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most 
useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle." 
But when Strada wrote, and Addison quoted, it never entered 
into the mind of either to expect its almost ultimate realisation. 
Then we read of one of the Brethren of the Charter-house 
beguiling his time by making electrical signals through a wire 
765 feet long. And next, 25th November, 1731, on the same 
night that Dr. Frobenius's experiments cost the Royal Society 
ten guineas for the phosphorus employed in them, the Charter- 
house Brother, above mentioned, showed the learned Fellows 
the facility with which electricity passes through great lengths 
of conductors, "which experiment succeeded, notwithstanding 
the largeness of the company." This was repeated in 1745, 
when Dr., afterwards Sir William Watson, assisted by several 
Members of the Society, caused the shock to pass across the 
Thames on Westminster Bridge, the circuit being completed by 
making use of the river for one part of the chain of communica- 
tion. Upon making the discharge the shock was felt instan- 
taneously by the observer on each side of the river.* 

* At the opening of George the Third's Museum, at King's Collie, 

London, in June, 1843, an interesting experiment was performed before 

Tiinoe Albert by Professor Wheatstone, with one of his Telegraphs, so as 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 369 

Subsequently the same parties made experiments near 
Shooter's Hill, when the wires formed a circuit of four miles, 
and conveyed the shock with equal facility. In the paper 
detailing these experiments, printed in the 45 th volume of the 
Philosophical Transactions^ occurs the first mention of Dr. 
Franklin's name, and of his theory of positive and negative 
electricity. 

In the Scots^ Magazine of March, 1753, appeared a distinct 
proposition for a system of telegraphic communication, by as 
many conducting wires as there are letters in the alphabet ; and 
Cavallo, in his treatise on electricity, records a similar system 
of telegraphing, invented by a Jesuit at Rome. 

In 1787, Arthur Young, while travelling in France, in his 
Diary, dated October id^ made an entry which goes a great 
way towards establishing the fact that a French mechanic, 
M. Lomond, had then, in actual operation in Paris, an Electric 
Telegraph. The entry is as follows : — 

" Oct. 16, 1787. — In the evening to Mons. Lomond, a very ingenious and 
inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement of the jenny for 
spinning cotton. In electricity he has made a remarkable discovery. You 
write two or three words on paper ; he takes it with him into a room and 
turns a machine enclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an 
electrometer, a small fine pith ball ; a wire connects with a similar cylinder 
and electrometer in a distant apartment, and his wife, by remarking the 
corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate ; 
from which it appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the 
length of the wire makes no difference in the effect, a conespondence might 
be carried on at any distance — within and without a besieged town, for 
instance. Whatever the use may be, the invention is beautiful." 

Sir Bernard Burke, in communicating the above to the Times^ 
in 1866, asks, "Is it not possible that the poor French 
mechanic may have perished in the Revolution, and his 
mighty invention with him T 

to form a communication between the College and the lofty Shot-tower on 
the opposite bank of the Thames. This was done by laying the wire along 
the parapets of the terrace at Somerset- House and Waterloo-bridge, ana 
thence to the top of the tower, about 150 feet high, where one of the 
telegraphs was placed. The wire then descended, and a plate of zinc at- 
tached to its extremity, was plunged into the mud of the river, whilst a 
similar plate was attached to the extremity at the north side, and was 
immersed in the water. The circuit was thus completed by the entire 
breadth of the Thames, and the telegraph acted as well as if the circuit 
were entirely metallic. 

B B 



$^0 WONDERFUL INVENTIONa 

Volta's discovery of the development of electricity in metallic 
bodies, animal electricity as it is called, causing convulsions in 
the limbs of frogs when the divided nerves were connected by 
a metallic wire, gave a new turn to the researches. Next, 
Reizer, in 1794, constructed his apparatus. Wire was the 
conductor, as in the present tel^raphs, but the electric spark, 
ehcited by friction, was the only agent The wire conducted to 
a darkened room, around which were placed pieces of tin-foil 
inscribed with letters, and fixed on plates of glass. The spark, 
it was found, in leaping across the glass plates to pursue its 
course along the wire, illuminated the pieces of tin-foil, and 
thus the letters could be read. 

Soemmering next, in 1809, exhibited to the Munich Academy, 
an apparatus in which the signalling was by gas-bubbles, from 
the decomposirion of water in glass tubes, each of which 
denoted a letter of the alphabet ; subsequently he dispensed 
with the tubes. 

Three years later, Francis Ronalds, emplopng frictional elec- 
tricity, constructed a telegraph of a single insulated wire, the 
indication being by pith balls, in front of a dial. When the 
wire was charged, the balls were divergent ; but collapsed when 
the wire was discharged ; the signals were clocks with lettered 
dials. Ronalds succeeded, and exhibited his telegraph at 
Hammersmith ; the Government witnessed the trials, but de- 
clined to accept the invention, as they had already done in the 
case of a Voltaic Electric Telegraph, devised in 1813, by Mr. 
Hill, of Alfreton, in Hampshire. In the same year that 
Ronalds exhibited his telegraph, its success may have prompted 
Andrew Crosse, the electrician, to utter his prediction : " I 
prophesy that by means of the electric agency we shall be 
enabled to communicate our thoughts instantaneously with 
the uttermost parts of the earth."* 

Next, in 1820, M. Oersted, of Copenhagen, made his cele- 
brated discovery of Electro-magnetic action, for which he 
received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. When Oersted 
discovered that the connecting wire of a voltaic circuit acts 

* A few copies of the remarkable pamphlet on this subject, entitled, 
Description of an Electric TeU^raph, by Francis Ronalds, 1823, may be siill 
obtained ^om Mr. Spon, of Charing Cross. Mr. Ronalds himself lately 
was living at Battle, in Sussex, and his por'raits may be obtained from 
Messrs. Maull and Polyblank. His pamphlet is one of very great interest, 
and well worth reading. 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 37 ^ 

upon a magnetic needle, he found that the needle had a 
tendency to place itself at right angles to the wire ; a kind of 
action altogether different from any which had been suspected. 
" This observation," says Dr. Whewell, " was of vast im- 
portance 3 and the analysis of its conditions and conse- 
quences employed the best philosophers in Europe immediately 
on its promulgation." 

A single wire has but small power on the needle ; but Pro- 
fessor Schweiger invented the ** multiplier," as he called it, in 
which the needle, being surrounded with many successive coils 
of insulated wire, is acted upon by the joint force of all. 
Another important discovery was made shortly after, by Oersted, 
Davy, Arago, and others. They succeeded in rendering iron 
magnetic, by the passage of a galvanic current through a wire 
coiled round the iron. It was found that provided the iron to be 
magnetised were perfectly soft and pure, the magnetised pro- 
perty remained only during the actual transmission of the elec- 
tricity, and was lost immediately on the interruption of the 
electric circuit. If the iron to be exposed to the galvanic 
current were combined with sulphur, carbon, or phosphorus, 
the magnetic power became more or less permanent. 

Professor Owen has eloquently said of Oersted's discoveries : 
" Remote as such profound conceptions and subtle trains of 
thought seem to be from the needs of every-day life, the most 
astounding of the practical augmentation of man's power has 
sprung out of them. Nothing might seem less promising of 
profit than Oersted's painfully-pursued experiments, with his 
little magnets, voltaic pile, and bits of copper wire. Yet out 
of these has sprung the Electric Telegraph ! Oersted himself 
saw such an application of his convertibility of electricity into 
magnetism, and made arrangements for testing th^t application 
to the instantaneous communication of signs through distances 
of a few miles. The resources of inventive genius have 
made it practicable for all distances, as we have lately seen 
in the submergence and working of the electro-magnetic 
cord connecting the Old and the New World of the 
geographers." 

According to the statement of Dr. Hamel, of St. Peters- 
burg, Baron Schilling was the first to apply Oersted'is dis- 
covery to telegraphy, by greatly simplifying the means. 
Next, in 1835, Gauss and Woher established communication 
between the Observatory and University at Gottingen, the 

B B 2 



372 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. ^ 

former under Professor Gauss. In the following year, 1836, 
Professor Munck, of Heidelberg, who had imported Schil- 
ling's telegraphic apparatus, explained the value to William 
Forthergill Cooke, who had long been studying electrical 
communications. He returned to England early in 1837, 
and in June, with Professor ^Vheatstone, took out a joint 
patent for the first Electric Telegraph, which was laid on 
the London and Blackwall Railway. The wires employed 
were of copper, inclosed in an iron tube, each wire being 
separated from its neighbour by some non-conducting material. 
A much smaller number of needles, to denote all the re- 
quired signals, was used than hitherto; the temporary mag- 
netism excited by the current in soft iron, to ring an alarm, 
either directly or indirectly, by veritable machinery ; and the 
reciprocal arrangement ; by which the invention was rendered 
applicable to a long line of communication. At one ter- 
minus, five needles were arranged, with their axes in a hori- 
zontal line. When at rest, those needles hung vertically, by 
reason of a slight preponderance given to their lower ends. At 
the other terminus, five pairs of finger-keys, resembling those 
of a pianoforte, were placed over a trough of mercury, to which 
a voltaic battery was attached. On depressing the keys, the 
wires belonging to them, respectively, were brought into con- 
nexion with the trough, and receiving the voltaic current, it 
flowed along them >vith the rapidity of lightning, and caused 
the needles to deflect at the other terminus. Letters were in- 
dicated by the movement of the needles, and a communication 
could thus be carried on rapidly with certainty. The instru- 
ments at the two termini were also rendered reciprocating ; a 
set of finger-keys and a voltaic battery being placed at each 
station, so that either could transmit or receive a signal. The 
bell or alarum, rung to draw attention at either terminus, was 
of two kinds ; a hammer was impelled against the bell by mag- 
netic attraction, or a catch was released fix)m a train of clock- 
work, which, by the usual intervention of a wheel and pallets, 
tang the bell, as in common alarums. 

In the beginning of 1838, Messrs. Cooke and AVheatstone 
obtained a patent for improvements which rendered it possible, 
not merely for the two extreme tennini, but for any number 
of intennediate stations, to hold conmiunication. The five 
needles were now reduced to two ; and some important im- 
(KOvemants made in insulating and protecting the wires, 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, 373 

which were to be laid beneath the earth in tubes of wood, 
iron, or earthenware. In 1839, this improved telegraph was 
brought into actual operation on the Great Western Railway, 
and the inventors were gratified by seeing their scheme tri- 
umphantly successful. 

One of the most simplified descriptions of the Electric 
Telegraph is the following by Mr. Alfred Smee, F.R.S., to 
whom science is indebted for a battery of great value in 
experimental researches when the most speedy and energetic 
electric action is needed, such as the production of the elec- 
tric light, deflagration of metals, ignition of gunpowder for 
mining purposes, &c. Mr. Smee's simplification is as follows : 
— " A magnetic needle, suspended in such a manner that it is 
free to turn in any direction, takes a position from north to 
south, with a little deviation. By simply being able to 
understand the property of this needle, man can steer his 
course over the vast expanse of the ocean, even when he is 
unable to see the land. By it, man can traverse the densest 
forest, or the most dreary desert, when neither sun, moon, 
nor stars are visible for days and days. 

" Now, we find that, if we have a magnetic needle, and 
pass a current of electricity parallel to it, the needle is de- 
flected across the current of electricity. By taking advantage 
of a knowledge of this deflection, Cooke and Wheatstone 
have far outstripped the velocity of the carrier-pigeon, the 
swiftest horse, or the most rapid railway-train, in the rate at 
which messages may be transmitted from place to place. 
For the purpose of working the telegraph, they place along 
the railway-lines wires, which extend in one continuous length 
from station to station. Whenever the voltaic force passes, 
it acts upon the needles at the opposite end. This action 
represents a sign ; and by using these signs upon a pre-con- 
certed plan, the messages are sent." 

Other discoverers were in the field, as well as our two 
meritorious countrymen. Dr. Steinheil, of Munich, substi- 
tuted for the ordinary voltaic battery the magneto-electric 
machine, in which, according to Faraday's great discovery, 
the electric current was derived by induction from a perma- 
nent magnet He also contrived an apparatus by which, in- 
stead of merely indicating letters, the needle could be made to 
drop ink on paper, so that, from the number and arrange- 
ment of the dots, a communication could be fixed on a strip 



314 f mBkLMUeff BTL UVKSklMMES. 

and 2Efterw3rd$ read ; but the cooimiiiiicatkxi was slow. Fro- 
fesaor Xooe slso turned his attenttqm to mnting the electric 
teiegraph. a. registering^ nistnimieTTt.. In his stJieme a pencil was, 
St txrit, sobsrimred for nik ; and then was added a steel point, 
wfaich. pressing- the p(^)er into a groover made an indentation ; 
and &QCII the nrrmher of oaarksy iettos and figures were de- 
noted- 

Earlj in i^43r Profosor Wheatstone patented his Electro- 
inagnetic Telegraph* with movement sEgnals^ which could be 
appliexl to most important parpotsesw The "'communicator'' is 
a torn disc of wood, taming hocizontallF upoa a pillar or axis, 
its circirmference being difided into eqoai spaces, alternately 
filled op with metal or ivory. The metal divisions communi- 
cate with a central cc^umn, and through it with one pole of a 
batterv, the other pole of which is connected with the return 
Wire, or with the earth. Against the drcumference of the disc 
rests a spring, fiom the foot of which proceeds a wire to the 
line or long conductor. As the disc revolves on its centre, 
the spring rests alternately on metal and ivor}', and were 
there no break in the magnetic current at the distant station, 
the current from the battery would be transmitted or inter- 
cepted accordingly. Cher each division of the circumference 
is placed a letter or figure, so that by bringing one letter after 
the other opposite a dot fixed near to the disc, the galvanic 
circle is opened or completed alternately with each succeeding 
letter. For the ease of turning the disc, it is provided with 
spokes or arms, radiating around its upper surface. 

The Telegraph operated upon by this communicator, pos- 
sesses great simplicity both in its principle and combination. 
Opposite and near to the poles of a temporary or voltaic mag- 
net, is placed a small armature of soft iron. When the iron is 
rendered magnetic, the armature is attracted to it ; but, on 
interrupting the galvanic circuit, the magnetism of the iron 

• Faraday was the first to elicit the Electric Spark from the magnet ; he 
found it visible at the instant of breaking and renewing the contact of the 
conducting wires, and only then : 

** Around the magnet, Faraday 
Is sure that Volta's lightnings play ; 

But Avw to draw them from the wire? 
He took a lesson from the heart : 
'Tis when we meet, 'tis when we part. 
Breaks forth the electric fire." 

Blackvoooifs Edinburgh Magazine, 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 375 

ceases, and a small reacting spring throws the armature back to 
its original position. The armature itself turns on an axis, 
which carries a pair of pallets, taking into the teeth of an 
escapement-wheel and moving the wheel onward, one tooth at 
a time ; or a spring-barrel and fuzee are employed to turn the 
escapement-wheel, and the pallets merely control its revolu- 
tions, like the same parts in a common clock. The object is 
to communicate to a light paper or mica dial, bearing letters 
around its circumference, a step by step motion, wholly under 
the control of the operator at a distant station ; so that he may 
bring any figure or letter on the dial to a small opening in a 
screen, through which it will be visible to the observer. The 
number and order of the signals upon the paper disc, correspond 
with those on the " communicator," so that the operator sees 
on his own dial the signals he makes on his correspondent's 
apparatus. To reduce the chance of an error, each word, as 
it is completed, is acknowledged by the correspondent, through 
a signal, before the next word is commenced. 

Two of the important applications of the principles of this 
invention of Professor Wheatstone, must be mentioned. The 
multiplication of " Telegraph Clocks," to any number, by their 
connexion through a single wire with one governing chrono- 
meter a: a central point, so that the indication of time, in every 
part of a country, might be the same precisely ; and a conr 
trivance for enabling the telegraph to print its own intelligence^ 
instead of rendering it visible, or to do both at the same time. 
For the latter purpose a type disc is made to rotate, precisely 
as the paper dial or the index would do, in front of a cylinder 
covered with white paper ; there being interposed between the 
type and cylinder, a sheet of the copying or transfer paper well 
known as the carbonic ink paper. The slowness with which 
signals would be rendered, as compared with the needle instru- 
ment, prevented this grand invention of Wheatstone's from 
being brought much into use. 

The relative positions of Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone, in 
connexion with the invention of the Electric Telegraph, have 
been much disputed. The award of Sir M. I. Brunei and 
Prof. Daniell says, "Whilst Mr. Cooke, is entitled to stand 
alone as the gentleman to whom this country is indebted for 
having practically introduced and carried out the Electric 
Telegraph, as a useful undertaking, promising to be a work of 
national importance, — and Prof. Wheatstone is acknowledged 



376 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

as the scientific man whose profound and successful researches 
had already prepared the public to receive it as a project 
capable of practical application, — it is to the united labours of 
two gentlemen so well qualified for mutual assistance that 
we must attribute the rapid progress which this important 
invention has made during the five years since they have 
been associated." 

This award, it is contended, refers only to the first patent 
in which Mr. Wheatstone was associated with Mr. Cooke. 
Prof. Daniell, too, contends that the document has been mis- 
interpreted : he maintains that " the applications which Prof. 
Wheatstone has made of the almost instantaneous transmission 
of this wonderful power to unlimited distances in telegraphic 
purposes, are far more wonderful, ingenious, and practically 
useful than anything which has yet been contrived for the 
concentrated action of the force. Like the DagueTeotype 
and the Voltatype, they have sprung from scientific principles 
to perfection. It is not difficult to foresee, that these modes 
of distant communication will rank, ere long, amorgst the 
necessary conveniences of a highly civilized community." 

And, M. de la Rive contends that Mr. Wheatstone was led 
to this beautiful result by the researches that he had made 
in 1834 upon the velocity of Electricity — researches in which 
he had employed insulated wires of several inches in length, 
and which had demonstrated to him the possibility of making 
voltaic and electro-magnetic currents to pass through circuits 
of this length. Vice-Admiral Smyth bears this testimony : 
Prof Wheatstone " has had much obfuscation to put up with ; 
though he is, undoubtedly, the first contriver of the Electric 
Telegraph in the form which made it available for popular 
use."* 

In 1843, Mr. Cooke introduced the most important improve- 
ment, regarded in a commercial point of view. This was 
the suspension of the wires, in the air, upon posts or standards, 
for insulation, instead of conveying them under ground. The 
wires do not come in contact with any part of the standard, 
but pass through rings of earthenware. Iron wires of a large 
size can thus be used instead of copper. 



* See the Memoir of Professor Wheatstone, which contains circumstantial 
details collected at considerable pains, and is accompanied by an engraved 
portrait of Professor Wheatstone, in the Year Book of I* acts y 1867, 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 377 

Here are two of the early applications of this marvellous 
power : 

The first newspaper report by Electric Telegraph appeared in the Morn- 
ing Chronicle^ May 8, 1845, detailing a railway meeting held at Portsmouth 
on the preceding evening. On April 10, in the same year, a game of chess 
was played by Electric Telegraph, between Captain Kennedy, at the South- 
Western Railway terminus, and Mr. Staunton, at Gosport ; the mod^ ot 
playing was by numbering the squares of the chess-board and the men ; 
and in conveying the moves, the electricity travelled backward and forward 
during the game upwards of 10,000 miles. 

In 1845, by ^^ Electric Telegraph then laid from Paddington to the 
Slough station, on the Great Western Railway, John Tawell was captured 
on suspicion of having murdered Sarah Hart at Salt-hill, on Jan. i . Tawell 
left Slough by the railway on that evening ; and at the same instant, by 
telegraph, his person was described, with instructions to the police to watch 
him on his arrival at Paddington : he was accordingly followed, apprehended 
and identified. 

Dr. Lardner in 1850, shared with Leverrier, the Astronomer, 
and some other men of science, a series of experiments made 
with the view of testing " the efficiency of certain telegraphic 
apparatus." Two wires extending from Paris to Lille, were 
united at the latter place, so as to form one continuous wire, 
extending to Lille and back, making a total distance ot 
336 miles. This, however, not being sufficient for the purpose, 
several coils of wire wrapped with silk, were obtained, mea- 
suring in their total length, 746 miles, and were joined to 
the extremity of the wire returning from Lille, thus making 
one continuous wire, measuring 1082 miles. A message 
consisting of 282 words, was then transmitted from one end 
of the wire. A pen attached to the other end immediately 
began to write the message upon a sheet of paper moved 
under it by a simple mechanism, and the entire message was 
written in full before the committee of scientific persons 
present. 

" This might well be looked upon as a feat sixteen years ago, 
but the science of Telegraphy has made such wonderful 
progress, that at the present time the two Atlantic Cables, 
when joined end to end, so as to form one unbroken length 
of nearly 4,000 miles, can readily be worked at a speed far 
greater than through the comparatively small length of line 
referred to in the foregoing experiment Each cable can 
easily pass fifteen words per minute, or upwards of forty 
average messages per hour between Europe and America. 



378 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS* 

This speed of transmission is greatly exceeded in the working 
of short land-lines." * 

We have already spoken of the earth being used with great 
advantage for one-half of the telegraphic circuit. This pro- 
perty is a most extraordinary phenomenon, and still remains 
a paradox to scientific men, and plays a most important part 
in telegraphy throughout the world. The writer on mathema- 
tical and physical science in the Encyclopcedia Britannicay 
eighth edition, vol. I., p. 986, observes, under the head of 
" The Earth Circuit," — " There is one circumstance connected 
with the electric telegraph deserving of particular notice. I 
mean the apparently infinite conducting power of the earth 
when made to act as the vehicle of the return current. Setting 
all theory aside, it is an unquestionable fact that if a telegraphic 
communication be made, suppose from London to Brigfhton, 
by means of a wire going thither passing through a galvano- 
meter, and then returning, the force of the current shown 
by the galvanometer at Brighton will be almost exactly 
doubled if instead of the return wire, we establish a good 
communication between the end of the conducting wire and 
the mass of earth at Brighton, the whole resistance of the 
return wire is at once dispensed with. This fact was more 
than suspected by the ingenious M. Steinheil, in 1838, but, 
from some cause or other, it obtained little publicity; nor 
does the author appear to have exerted himself to remove 
the reasonable prejudice with which so singular a paradox 
was naturally received. A most ingenious artist, Mr. Bain, 
established for himself the principle, and proclaimed its appli- 
cation somewhat later, and, in 1843, perhaps the first 
convincing experiments were made by M. Mateucci, at Pisa." 
Again, Lardner observes that "of all the miracles of science 
surely this is the most marvellous. A stream of electric fluid 
has its source in the cellars of the Central Electric Telegraph 
Office, Lothbury, London ; it flows under the streets of the 
great metropolis, and, passing on wires suspended over a 
zigzag series of railways, reaches Edinburgh, where it dips 
into the earth, and diffuses itself upon the buried plate. From 
that it takes flight through the crust of the earth and finds 
its own way back to the cellars at Lothbury." 

We now proceed to detail a few of the amplifications and 
modifications, which it is anticipated by some writers upon 

* The Electric Telegraph, by Lardner and Bright, new edit 1867, 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 379 

the subject, "will enable the telegraph to print its message, 
and even to speak it" Morse's instrument requires four 
waves for each letter, and the dial seven; still, Mr. D. E. 
Hughes has produced a Telegraph that requires but one 
electric wave. It has twenty-eight keys, like those of a piano, 
each of which corresponds to a letter, or number, or stop. 
When one of these keys is depressed, it brings a detent in 
contact with a pin corresponding to that letter on the circum- 
ference of a revolving type-wheel, stops it, and at the same 
time sends an electric wave to the distant station ; here an 
electro-magnet detaches a similar detent, and, after stopping 
the same letter, a revolving cam presses a slip of paper against 
the type and takes off an impression. The keys may be 
touched, one after the other, with this result, nearly as quickly 
as one would touch those of a piano ; they will render 
four words per minute a length of 2,800 miles, or six words in 
the same time a distance of 2,000 miles, or ten words per 
minute 1,000 miles, or twenty-four words per minute a length 
of 500 miles. 

Bonelli's Telegraph consists of two tables of cast-iron placed 
inversely to each other at the corresponding station : each is 
provided with a miniature railway — over which run two wagons, 
one containing the type-set message, the other the paper — 
and two combs formed by the extremities of the wires of 
the line, one of which touches the type at one station, while 
the other passes over the prepared paper at the other. A 
spring catch to each of the wagons sets them free to move 
by the closing of an electrical current. Mr. W. Cooke, who 
furnished particulars of this instrument to the Bristol Asso- 
ciation, asserts that a well-considered system of counter- 
currents had completely annihilated the inconveniences which, 
from the time of Bain to the present moment, had existed 
in electro-chemical telegraphy, and that no difficulty could 
be experienced in working it either on long or short distances. 

Mr. W. Ladd proposed to convey from station to station 
a musical note or sound which, divided into various lengths 
and combinations, would form a sound alphabet similar to 
the signals written by Morsels Telegraph. Reiss's instrument 
consists of two pieces of apparatus, the one for transmitting 
the signal having a small mouth-piece. When a sound is 
made into the mouth-piece, the membrane vibrates and breaks 
contact between the pin and plate in its centre, causing 



380 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the iron coil in the receiving instrument to be magnetized 
and demagnetized according to the number of vibrations 
with a musical sound. The production of exact facsimiles 
of pictures, or music, or writing, is another phase of this 
wondrous power. M. Casselli has elaborated Mr. BakewelFs 
principle by the contrivance of two cylinders moving at the 
two stations synchronously by mechanical means of his 
own invention. For the purpose of transmitting short-hand 
accounts of speeches at public meetings, or other news, 
this Telegraph would appear to be useful. 

We read also of a Telegraph Printing instrumeht, producing 
letters printed in ordinary type by means of pressing small keys 
bearing the respective letters. It is worked by a combination 
of clockwork and electricity, and is stated to have been in use 
for some weeks without a single derangement A very simple 
apparatus, invented about 186 1, is described in the London 
Review as follows : — " In order to apply the current to the pur- 
pose of transmitting signals, the mechanism of the communi- 
cator is so arranged that when any one of the keys or buttons 
is depressed by the finger, the passage of the electric current 
is cut off along the line ; andfwhen any other key is similarly 
depressed, the action of a simple piece of mechanism causes the 
former key to be elevated, open the electrical circuit, and allow 
the induced current to flow through the instrument, along the 
wire, and to the distant station. In this way a message is 
readily transmitted. The person sending it with one hand 
keeps the handle of the box revolving ; and with a finger of the 
other hand depresses by turns and successively the keys oppo- 
site the several letters required to spell the words. It needs no 
skilled operator to use the instrument ; a child who knows his 
letters may send a message to his playmate who is just able to 
read, though he may be a hundred miles away from him. But 
how can the person to whom the message is sent receive and 
understand it ? By means of what is termed the * indicator.' 
This apparatus is something like a watch, placed on a small 
stand in any convenient position for observing the dial. The 
face of this dial is spaced and lettered in the same manner as 
that of the * communicator.' To the hand of this indicator a 
step-by-step motion is given by means of an electro-magnetic 
apparatus, the details of which it is not necessary to explain, 
but so arranged as to be set in motion by the electric current 
sent along the wire from the communicator. The hand or 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 381 

pointer of this indicator moves precisely as the hand moves on 
the dial-plate at the other extremity of the line. The apparatus 
is not only simple, but it is so efficient, that with a small amount 
of practice a hundred letters may be transmitted within the 
minute ; and it has this further recommendation, that it does 
not require the employment of any galvanic apparatus or 
corrosive acids." 

Mr. A. Bain proposed to the Society of Arts, in January 
1866, to form a complete system by the composing machine 
and the transmitting and receiving apparatus combined in the 
following manner. There should be only two wires at most on 
one line of posts, one to be called the up-wire and the other 
the down-wire, so that messages can be transmitted in both 
directions at the same time. The action is as follows : — The 
current passes from the battery to the main wire, from thence 
to a spring, through the perforations of the paper to a roller, 
then to the frame of the clockwork, and from thence to th^ 
main wire ; but at each of the intermediate stations, when they 
are necessary, a portion will pass down through the ends of the 
branch circuits to the frames, through the styles to the chemi- 
cal paper, and will return by the end to the main wire. In this 
way the currents are made to write a copy at every station on 
the line ; but at the stations where copies may not be desired 
all that the operator has to do is to lift up the pen from the 
paper, or he may turn back the penholder frame altogether 
away from the disc. Mr. Bain showed a method by which a 
despatch could be transmitted from a central station, say from 
London, to any number of telegraph lines simultaneously, so 
that the despatch may be received and written at any number 
of towns on each line, in the way already described. This 
system has been proved electrically, chemically, and mechani- 
cally in England, France, and America. It can transmit intel- 
ligence from London to the farthest corner of England or Scot- 
land at the rate of, in round numbers, 6 words per second, 333 
per minute, 20,000 per hour, and with a degree of accuracy 
never before attained by any other system ; and, further, it can 
automatically transmit despatches of any length from any 
place, say from London, to all the principal towns of England 
simultaneously, at the above-named degree of celerity. 

" The Nerves of London " is the term applied to the system 
of wires which may be seen stretching across the sky-line of 
great thoroughfares, and visibly triangulating the town in every 



382 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

direction. By a simplified apparatus messages are sent along 
these lines at the rate of 100 letters a minute ; the process of 
reading or renewing the message is, of course, proportionally 
rapid; and the new instruments for this purpose bear the 
same relation to the old ones that the works of a watch bear to 
the stronger machinery of an eight-day clock. A twofold 
advantage accrues from this. On the one hand, a means of 
producing the electro-motive power far simpler and more con- 
venient than the voltaic battery, with its solutions and manipu- 
lation, can be employed; for a feebler current will do the 
work with these than with the heavier instruments. Likewise, 
from feebler currents being employed, and from the com- 
paratively short distances these have to traverse in order to 
connect the furthest-sundered limits of even this metropolis, 
wires of far smaller dimensions can be employed to convey 
these currents. The use of copper for the material of the wire 
is also rendered possible and convenient by this great diminu- 
tion in the size of the wire ; and copper is a far less sluggish 
conductor than iron, pure copper standing at the head of all 
conducting substances. 

The battery employed to transmit the electric impulse along 
this delicate thread of metal is a form of the magneto-electric 
machine — one of the most beautiful of Faraday's splendid gifts 
to science. By the converse proposition to that established by 
Oersted, that a magnet tends to place itself athwart a wire along 
which an electric current is passing, Faraday was enabled to 
show that a current having all the characters of one of voltaic 
electricity can be induced in a wire running athwart or winding 
round a magnetized bit of iron, so often as the magnetic repose, 
so to say, of the particles of that magnetic system is interrupted 
— as, for instance, by the sudden removal or replacement of its 
armature. By rapid rotation such a removal and replacement 
of a piece of iron before the poles of a magnet can be made to 
produce a series of electric impulses along a wire coiled around 
it ; and electric impulses of this kind can be produced from a 
very small magnet, which yet possess sufficient power to work 
the delicate instruments that have been described, even after 
traversing some 150 miles of the ordinary coarse iron wire, or 
twelve miles of the extremely fine copper wire now used by 
Mr. Wheatstone in his new cables. 

But it is to the construction of these cables, and to their 
distribution over London, that the business-world is to look for 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 383 

the effective working of the new system. The fine copper wires 
that have been mentioned as the conductors of the current 
would be too frail to resist the strain imposed on the iron 
lines now used. They are, therefore, merely suspended with- 
out strain, and at short intervals, from iron wires previously 
stretched tightly from post to post. But as each wire is to be, 
so to speak, a separate nerve attached to some special house, 
the demand from many householders would require the supply 
of a corresponding number of wires. Hence twenty, fifty, a 
hundred, or even many hundreds of these little nerves are con- 
nected into a system. Each is carefully wound with a thin, 
almost invisible, ribbon of the purest caoutchouc — and tele- 
graphy is much indebted to the progress that has been made in 
the purification and treatment of that wonderful gum. Almost 
any number of these wires, thus varnished and protected from 
the damp, which in wet weather dissipates to a serious extent 
the electricity in the ordinary wires, are then united into one 
compact cable. This system of wires is then hung as has been 
described, and as may be seen vexing the eye at St. Clement 
Danes and St. Mary-le-Strand, the wires that sustain it being 
strained from poles from the house-tops. The area of London 
being divided by a system of triangulation, the posts that form 
the meeting-points of three series of cables become the points 
at which all these multitudinous wires have to be distributed, 
at intervals carefully selected. Such is a general sketch of 
this system of telegrams for the million, by Mr. Wheatstone's 
new scheme ; and evidence of its general popularity may be 
gathered from the good-natured readiness with which house- 
holders have permitted the posts to be erected on the roofs of 
their dwellings.* 

The varieties of the Electric Telegraph are so numerous that 
it may be convenient here to recapitulate those most exten- 
sively adopted, as stated by a contemporary. The apparatus 
employed to transmit intelligence by means of Electricity may 
be divided into two great classes — Telegraphs whose signals are 
transient, and must be read off one by one as they appear; 
and those which record their signals permanently, so that they 
can be read at leisure. 

The instruments used in this country of the first class are 
the double and the single needle Telegraphs of Cooke and 

♦ Abridged from the Saturday Review* 



3^4 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Wheatstone, used by the Electric Company and the South- 
Eastern Railway Company, — the single needle requiring one 
wire and the double needle two, — and a modification of the 
single needle used by the Magnetic Telegraph Company. 
Instruments of this class indicate letters by the separate or 
combined movements of their needles or pointers, are very 
simple in their construction, Uttle liable to get out of order, 
and therefore are most suitable for the business of a railway, 
where skilled clerks cannot be employed. 

The Telegraph of Professor Wheatstone, in which a hand 
points to the letter itself on a dial, is gaining ground for pri- 
vate use ; and the Bell Telegraph of Sir Charles Bright, which 
reproduces the signals of the Magnetic Company's needle 
instrument by strokes upon two bells of different pitch, one of 
which represents the movements of the needle to the left, the 
other the movements to the right, is extensively used by the 
Magnetic Company, and has the advantage of leaving the 
hands free to write down the message as received. 

The instruments of the second class are the so-called Print- 
ing Telegraphs of Morse and Bain, which record the signals 
received in an alphabet composed of dots and strokes. These 
instruments are used on all the important circuits of the 
Electric Company, and Morse's system is generally employed 
throughout Europe. 

The Type-printing instrument of Professor Hughes has been 
introduced ; but it is said not to be very successfully worked at 
present. It records the message in ordinary letters, which can, 
of course, be read by any one. 

Professor Wheatstone has also introduced a Type-printing 
instrument for private use. To him Electro-telegraphy owes 
much; but his latest achievement (1867) excels all we have 
yet heard of. With his improved automatic instrument, 
properly manipulated, he can transmit 600 distinctly legible 
signs or letters in a minute. 

The commercial value of an instrument does not depend 
upon the use of the ordinary alphabets, but upon the amount 
of work it will turn out, and its accuracy and freedom from 
derangement. The Morse instrument is at present unsurpassed 
in these respects, and it has been found that its introduction 
upon a circuit previously worked by the needle system reduces 
error to a very considerable extent. This arises from its 
signals being recorded: they can be read calmly and without 



THE ELECTPIC TELEGRAPH. 385 

flurry ; and should an error arise, it can be traced to the person 
in fault, thus inducing a far greater sense of responsibility. 

The speed attained by the double needle and Morse instru- 
ments in the highest speed on a circuit of a little under 200 
miles was — 

Double needle 35 words per minute. 

Printing 38 „ 

Average of between two and three hours' continuous work 
reporting a speech — 

Double needle 24*3 words per minute. 

Printing 26*5 „ 

And for a circuit of more than 400 miles : — 

Printing, average speed . . . 24*5 words per minute, 

clerk reading from the manuscript of the Times reporter — not 
always very legible.* 

The following results among what may be termed the curiosi- 
ties of Batteries are very striking. " To show how thoroughly 
perfect the insulation of the Atlantic Cables is, Mr. I^timer 
Clark had the extremities of the two conducting wires which 
now stretch across the Atlantic joined together in Newfound- 
land, so as to form an immense unbroken loop-line of 3,700 
miles. He then put some acid in a lady's silver thimble with 
a small piece of zinc, and another of copper, and by this simple 
agency he actually succeeded in passing signals through the 
entire length of both cables in little more than a second of 
time. 

" To show how exceedingly small an electric charge may be 
made to produce signals through the Atlantic Cables, during 
the experiments carried on by Dr. Gould at Valentia, Mr. 
Collett, the superintendent at Newfoundland, actually sent a 
message with a battery composed of a copper peraission-cap and 
a small strip of zinc, which luas excited by a drop of acidulated 
water, the simple bulk of a tear," 

We quote the above from Mr. E. R Bright's excellent 



♦ From A Handbook of Practical Telegraphy : by R. S. Culley, TeU- 
graphic Engineer. Published with the sanction of the Chairman and 
Directors of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, who 
have adopted it for the use of their staff. Reviewed in The Builder^ 

C C 



336 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Additions to the Electric Telegraphy by Dr. Lardner, reprinted 
in 1867. The thimble battery reminds us of the elementary 
galvanic battery which Dr. WoUaston, many years ago, 
formed out of a silver thimble with its top cut off. It was 
then partially flattened, and a small plate of zinc being intro- 
duced into it, the apparatus was immersed in a weak solution 
of sulphuric acid- With this minute battery he was able to 
fuse a wire of platinum one-three-thousandth of an inch in 
diameter, a degree of tenuity to which no one had ever before 
succeeded in drawing it 

Mr. E. Highton, C.E., has made a battery which exposes a 
surface of only one-hundredth part of an inch : it consists but 
of one cell ; it is less than one-ten-thousandth part of a cubic 
inch; yet it produces electricity more than sufficient to over- 
come all the resistance in the patent gold-leaf Telegraph of 
the inventor's brother, and works the same powerfully. It is 
also a battery which, although it will go through the eye of 
a needle, will yet work a Telegraph welL Mr. Highton had 
previously constructed a battery in size less than one-fortieth 
part of a cubic inch. This battery he found would ring a 
Telegraph-bell ten miles ofld* 

Within the last few years some very remarkable discoveries 
have greatly added to the resources of telegraphic art. The 
Morse printing, the single needle, the bell sounder, and, in 
some cases, the alphabetic dial instrument, still keep their 
ground as the most generaUy used for land lines ; and these 
forms appear, indeed, to have practically superseded all the 
other numerous, and often highly-ingenious, forms of electric 
communication that have yet been proposed. 

That one and the same wire could be used for two messages 
simultaneously, in opposite directions, would have, at one 
time, appeared to the ablest electrician a sheer impossibility. 
Yet this has been practically accomplished by ingenioudy 
devised plans, which, however, would require for their explana- 
tion too much technical detail for these pages. This method 
of duplex telegraphy is in daily operation, and by its means 
double work is obtainable from each wire. Even this has been 
surpassed ; for an extended application of the same principle 
makes it possible for four different telegraphic messages to be 
simultaneously traversing the same wire. 

* Paper read before the Society of Arts. 



THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 387 

Still more recent is the wondeiful realization of a long- 
desired achievement, namely, the transmission of sounds, or 
the production of articulate speech at an indefinite distance, 
This is what has been accomplished by the telepJiom, invented 
by Mr. Graham Bell, in 1876. It is not a little remarkable 
that the instrument by which you may converse with a person 
a hundred miles away, is, of all the instruments for communi- 
cation at a distance, one of the very simplest. Externally it 
presents the appearance of a wooden handle, to which two 
wires are attached. Fig. 24 is a section through the centre of 
it ; where n s represents a steel magnet, b a coil of silk-covered 

V . --^ .. 



^hB — ■ ■ - ■ 



copper wire surrounding one end of the magnet, and having 
the terminals 1 1', to which are attached the wires c c', going to 
a receiving instrument of identical construction, l l' is a thin 
circular metallic plate, and in front of it is the bell-shaped open- 
ing R r'. Into this opening you speak in your usual tone, and 
your correspondent at the distant end of the line, holding his 
instrument close to his ear, distinctly hears the words and evea 
recognizes the sound of your voice. Many different forms of 
speaking-instcuments have lately been devised, and some have 
given very wondeiful results j bnt their description would cany 
us far beyond the limits prescribed for this article. 




OCEAN ELECTRO-TELEGRAPHY. 
THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 



!E establishment of submarine telegraph lines, which 
enable instantaneous communications to pass between 
distant lands, is an achievement perhaps even more 
<adculafced to strike the public mind than the system 
of electric communication by land, where the visible connections 
between the stations have become familiar to our eyes. If we 
ask for the first inventor or projector of the submarine electric 
telegraphic line, we meet with the difficulty which also arises in 
other cases, from the fact that all such inventions are really 
developments, and that the palm can at best be awarded only 
to him who has made the widest step. For instance, as regards 
the invention we are now discussing, we find that, in firing 
mines by electricity. Schilling used submerged conductors as 
early as 1812. In 1839 Dr. O'Shaughnessy, superintendent of 
our Indian telegraphs, is said to have established a communi- 
cation by a submerged wire across the River Hoogly ; and 
it seems certain that, as early as 1837, Professor Wheatstone 
had conceived the idea of a submarine telegraph between 
Dover and Calais, and he had, in 1840, sufficiently matured his 
plans to bring before a Committee of the House of Commons 
a project for thus electrically connecting England and France. 
But it was, as we shall presently see, at least ten years later 
before the idea was successfully carried out. 

Professor Morse claims the credit of having made the first prac- 
tical experiment on the mode of crossing rivers or other bodies 
of water by electricity. In 1842 he conceived his subaqueous 
plan, which in December, 1844, he submitted to the "United 
States House of Representatives. In the autumn of the former 
year the Professor connected, at New York, Governor's Island 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 389 

with Castle Garden, a distance of one mile. For this purpose 
he laid his wires, properly insulated, beneath the water. He 
had scarcely begun to operate when a part of his conductor 
was destroyed by a vessel which drew the wires up on her anchor, 
and cut them off.* The Professor, however, persevered, and 
next so arranged his wires along the banks of the river, as to 
cause the water itself to conduct the electricity ; and the law of 
its passage was next ascertained. This plan was also put in 
practice by Captain Taylor, in his telegraph laid across the 
English Channel, by which instantaneous communication was 
made from coast to coast across the harbour of Portsmouth, 
from the house of the Admiral, in the Dockyard, to the railway 
terminus at Gosport ; and thus a direct communication was 
made from London to the official residence of the Port Admiral 
at Portsmouth. 

As soon as it had become known that Morse's experiments 
had proved the practicability of submarine telegraphs, many 
schemers came forward with their plans for a line between 
Europe and America. On the other hand, there were not 
wanting voices loudly to proclaim the impossibility, or at least 
improbability, of success in such an enterprise. The wire, it 
was said, would be frayed on rocks, or divided by the constant 
agitation of the waters, or it would be broken by the impact of 
great fishes, &c., &c. When, in spite of these prophecies of 
evil, the first submarine cable had been constructed and laid 
across the English Channel, or sunk in the bed of the Atlantic 
Ocean, the earlier experience seemed, as we shall presently 
show, to realize these unfavourable predictions. That the 
projectors should have recognized in these first failures merely 
the consequences of preventible accidents, shows their entire 
confidence that their enterprise was founded on just principles 
and would ultimately succeed. When a concession had been 

* Professor Wheatstone made a similar experiment, and with a like 
result. Mr. George Cruikshank tells us that Mr. Wheatstone, when first 
appointed Lecturer at King's College, having seven miles of wire in the 
lower part of that building, which abuts on the river Thames, for the pur- 
pose of measuring the speed of the electric current, said to Mr. Cruikshank, 
** I intend one day to lay some of this wire across the bed of the Thames, 
and to carry it up to the top of the shot-tower on the other side, and so 
make signals." This was explained to Prince Albert on his visit to the 
College in 1843 : the wire was duly laid, but was broken and swept away 
by a Thames barge. The experiment was, however, repeated with entire 
success. This was about eight months after Morse's experiment 



390 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

obtained from the Governments, authorizing the laying of a sub- 
marine cable, it was fomid that at first the public confidence in 
the success of these enterprises was so small that the necessary 
funds were not forthcoming. 

Then a bold American schemed a telegraph across the 
Atlantic, to bring England and America within a speaking 
distance. He proposed to run a copper wire, well covered, and 
as large as a pipe-stem, fi-om Nova Scotia to the coast of Ire- 
land This he thought might be accomplished by winding the 
wire upon reels, and arranging it on board a steamer, so as to 
be reeled off as fast as the boat's progress, and dropped the 
whole width of the Atlantic. A more confident experimenter 
claimed a telegraph ** right-of-way " across the Atlantic He 
proposed to carry the necessary wire part of the distance on 
board a steamer, and reel it off in a spool in its wake ; main- 
taining that the wire of its own weight would sink down to a 
point where from the soHdity of the water(!) it would remain in 
suspension ; being at the same time below the line of travel 
of the monsters of the sea and the currents of the deep. 

Next, Mr. C. V. Walker, superintendent of telegraphs to the 
South-Eastem Railway, having assisted in perfecting a wire 
covered with gutta-percha for use in tunnels, employed it for 
insulation in wet tunnels, and this suggested a submarine 
experiment On January 9, 1849, having tested two miles of 
copper wire, insulated with gutta-percha, it was wound upon a 
wooden drum, mounted on a frame, and thus conveyed ta 
Folkestone Harbour. Here a pole was set up in the sands, 
but above high-water mark, by which a wire was led from the 
telegraph office to the margin of the sea, thus completing the 
communication with the metropolis, by conversing with the 
clerks. Mr. Walker shortly afterwards laid down a chart of 
soundings, and traced upon it the line of a cable between 
Dover and Calais, nearly that actually adopted. 

In the meantime Mr. Jacob Brett, of Hanover-square, had 
patented his " Subterranean and Oceanic Printing Telegraph,*' 
by which he and his brother, in 1845, ^^^ proposed to the 
British Government to put the metropolis in connexion with the 
various Colonial and Channel Islands. This line being com- 
bined with Brett's Patent Printing Telegraph, any communica- 
tion could be instantly transmitted and deHvered, in an unerring 
printed form, almost at the same instant of time, at the most 
distant part either of the United Kingdom or of the colonies. 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 391 

Next, Mr. Brett and his partners obtained the right to establish 
an electric telegraph between France and England, by a sub- 
marine communication across the Channel : the points selected 
were from the beach at Dover to Cape Grin ez, near Calais; the 
vessel employed was the Goliath. The experiment succeeded ; 
but within a week the wire was cut asunder among the 
sharp rocks at Cape Grinez, and all communication between 
coast and coast was suspended. The experiment, so far as it 
went, proved the resistance of the gutta-percha to the action of 
salt water, and its perfect insulation ; and that the weights on 
the wire were sufficient to prevent its being drifted away by the 
currents. 

It appears, however, that in January, 1849, Mr. John Jos. 
Lake, of the-Ordnance Office, Plymouth, proposed, to prevent 
the injury to telegraphs from the nature of the bottom of the 
sea, to suspend them by corks, placed at intervals, and to 
secure them to the bottom by anchors or a dead weight, at 
certain greater distances. " Had this plan been adopted," 
says Mr. Lake, " the injury to the wires off Cape Grinez could 
not have occurred, as no part of the wire would have touched 
tlie bottom." 

In estimating the helps and appliances to the success of the 
Electric Telegraph, it is scarcely possible to overrate the pro- 
perties of Gutta-percha, the discovery of which new substance 
dates within the decade of the Telegraph. It would seem 
almost as though one were sent to perfect the other. It was 
first employed in electrical experiments by Faraday, in 1848, who 
stated its use to depend upon the high insulating power which 
it possesses under ordinary conditions, and the manner in which 
it keeps this power in states of the atmosphere which make the 
surface of glass a good conductor. The telegraph-wire is not 




39 2 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

only coated with gutta-percha, but inclosed in tubing made of 
it. For this purpose tiie gutta is dissolved in bisulphuret of 
carbon ; the wire is passed over pulleys through the solution, 
and then through a tube lined with brushes, which remove any- 
thing superfluous ; and by the time the wire reaches the secofid 
pulley, the bisulphuret has evaporated, and left a thin coating 
of gutta. Where the wire is to be roughly used, it is covered 
with cotton, and then passed through the gutta solution ; but 
the tubing is more effective. A great feat of dispatch has been 
accomplished in this application. One day, in 1849, a coil of 
copper wire, 12,240 feet long, was delivered at the Gutta Percha 
Company's Works, City-road, at 4 p.m., to be covered with sul- 
phuretted gutta for the Russian Government, with a strict 
injunction that it must be dispatched by the Hamburgh mail on 
the following day ; and the coil was shipped within twenty-four 
hours of its arrival at the works. Such expedition is worthy of 
the Electric Telegraph itself. 

To return to its early progress. The Dover and Calais cable 
had resolved the doubt which had been held as to the possi- 
bility of sufficiently insulating a wire for any considerable 
length under water ; and the experimental line had failed by 
accident. Another cable was accordingly commenced at the 
Millwall manufactory, as suggested by Kuper — namely, a colliery 
rope, with outside iron wires laid spirally around the conduct- 
ing wires covered with gutta-percha, instead of over the usual 
hemp core : by this means great strength was combined with 
an armour protection ; and every subsequent cable upon this 
plan has proved a perfect success. The Dover and Calais 
cable was laid in 185 1: notwithstanding the enonnous traffic 
up and down Channel, this cable has been seldom injured 
during upwards of fifteen years' service, and has been easily 
repaired on each occasion; and in January, 1867, it was in a 
perfect state of insulation as regards the whole of its four 
conducting wires. The success attending the Dover and Calais 
cable led to the execution of further works of the kind, to 
connect England with Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Hanover, 
and Denmark, and subsequently for the Mediterranean and 
other seas and channels. In all, there have been no less than 
seventy-four important cables constructed in this country 
alone.* 

* Dr. Lardner's Electric Telegraphy revised and rewritten by E. B. Bright, 
1867. This work contains a list of the above Submarine Cables ; the year 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 393 

Before the close of 1855 the practicability of uniting the 
British Islands (the extreme west of Ireland) and Newfound- 
land (North America), nearly 2,000 miles apart, became more 
evident ; and all doubts were removed by experiments upon 
underground lines in a co»tinuous circuit of upwards of 2,000 
miles, transmitting signals at the rate of 210, 241, and 270 per 
minute. Soundings had been taken, which proved that a 
gently undulating plateau of great breadth extends nearly the 
whole of the distance between Ireland and British North 
America, at depths of from 1,700 to 2,300 fathoms; and it 
was noted that the microscopic shells upon the surface of this 
plateau are so fragile that a breath would destroy them, thus 
affording proof that there are no currents moving here; "for 
had the shells been rolled to and fro, their delicate organism 
would have been bruised to pieces." * 

The Governments on both sides encouraged the project, and 
the Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed, nearly the whole 
of the capital — 350 shares of 1,000/. each — being subscribed 
for in this country in a few days. The engineer-in-chief was 
Sir Charles (then Mr.) Bright ; the electrician, Mr. Whitehouse. 
The cable was manufactured by Glass, Elliot, & Co., of Green- 
wich, and Newall, of Birkenhead. The cable, with massive 
ends, weighing 10 tons to the mile, and encased with wires ot 
great thickness, was in August, 1857, taken by the Agamemnon 
and Niagara^ and paid out successfully to the extent of 335 
miles. Then, great was the consternation occasioned by 
the discovery that the electrical continuity was lost. To the 
inexpressible delight, however, of everybody on board, the 
electricity suddenly returned, just as the scientific authorities 
were going to give the order to cut the cable and wind in. 
Before morning their joy was turned to sadness, for the brakes 
were applied to. stop the cable from running out too fast, and 
as the stern of the ship rose from the trough of the sea the 
strain was too sudden, and the cable parted. 

Such was the failure of the first attempt to span the Atlantic. 
The cable had been manufactured after experiments on up- 
wards of sixty kinds of cables. The expedition started from 

when laid ; the number of conducting wires ; number of outer iron wires ; 
total lengti ; weight per mile ; and remarks. Those cables in italics (27 
in number out of 74) have failed. Thus at a glance we see the progress 
which has been made in Submarine Telegraphy to January, 1867. 
* Dr. Lardner's Electric Telegraph, p. no. 



394 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Valentia, Ireland, where the shore-end being landed, there 
was a ceremonial inauguration of the enterprise. The Lord 
Lieutenant, the Earl of Carlisle, received the extreme end of 
the cable, and drew it into a hut, where electric batteries had 
been placed, on the beach of Valentia Harbour. Great was 
the enthusiasm of the poetic temperament of his Excellency ; 
as well as the earnestness of the people, and of the practical 
men who accompanied the ships to sea, paying out the cable 
as they went. When they had reached 200 miles, messages 
were conveyed to and from land and the ships with the utmost 
facility. 

Mr. Whitehouse, the electrician, now resumed his experiments 
with a view to a renewed attempt to lay the cable. In the ordi- 
nary wires by the side of a railway the electric current travels on 
with the speed of lightning ; but when a wire is encased in gutta- 
percha, or any similar covering, for submersion into the sea, new 
forces come into play. The electric excitement of the wire acts 
by induction, through the envelope, upon the particles of water 
in contact with that envelope, and calls up an electric force 
of an opposite kind. There are two forces, in fact, pulling 
against each other through the gutta-percha, as a neutral 
medium, — that is, the electricity in the wire, and the opposite 
electricity in the film of water immediately surrounding the 
cable; and to that extent the power of the current in the 
enclosed wire is weakened. 

A submarine cable, when in the water, is virtually a 
lengthened-out Ley den jar ; it transmits signals while being 
charged and discharged, instead of merely allowing a stream to 
flow evenly along it ; it is a bottle for holding electricity rather 
than a pipe for carrying it ; and this has to be filled for every 
time of using. The wire being carried underground, or through 
the water, the speed becomes quite measurable — say a thousand 
miles in a second, instead of two hundred thousand — owing to 
the retardation by induced or retrogade currents. The energy 
of the currents and the quality of the wire also affect the speed. 
Until lately it was supposed that the wire acted only as a 
conductor of electricity, and that a long wire must produce a 
weaker effect than a short one, on account of the consequent 
attenuation of the electrical influence ; but it is now known 
that, the cable being a reservoir as well as a conductor, its 
electrical supply is increased in proportion to its length. 

As a consequence of these properties, the signals are not 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 



395 



received at the end of a long submarine cable with the 
promptitude and decision which characterize the working of 
a land line. Indeed, but for such delicate instruments as those 
invented by Sir W. Thomson, it would have been impossible 
to work long submarine lines except with great slowness. 
There are two instruments of Sir W. Thomson's particularly 
used for submarine lines, namely, the mirror galvanometer, and 
the syphon recorder. The former is represented in Fig. 25. 
The general principle on which it acts is the same as that of the 
single needle instrument, but the magnet is very small, light, and 
delicately suspended, and carries a little mirror, by which a 
ray from a lamp, D, is reflected on a screen, c, and appears as 
a spot of light. The slight movement of the mirror is greatly 
magnified in the movement of the spot of light, which may be 





considered ac practicallya long, weightless pointer for indicating 
the motion of the magnet. The messages are received by 
watching the movements of the spot of light, and in these 
movements, which, closely observed by a bystander, would 
appear merely irregular starts or stoppages, the telegraphic 
clerk recf^nizes distinct signals from the other end of the line. 
The other instrument is, as its name imports, a recording one, 
that is, it writes the message in a permanent form. 

The next attempt, early in 1858, was made under the imme- 
diate direction of Mr. Cyrus W. Field, who from the com- 
mencement greatly promoted the scheme, and now accepted the 
post of general manager, generously refusing a proffered salary. 



396 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Mr. Everett had now designed a paying-out machine on a new 
principle ; and Mr. Appold had invented " self-releasing brakes," 
so constructed as to give way when the strain exceeded a ton 
and a half. As the cable was calculated to support a strain of 
something over three tons, the recurrence of the accident of 
the previous year was thus rendered impossible. On this occa- 
sion, the la)dng of the cable was commenced in mid-ocean, 
the Niagara and Agamemnon proceeding in opposite direc- 
tions after splicing their respective portions. Twice the cable 
broke when the ships had not long separated, and twice the 
gallant ships met again and renewed the splice. The third 
time the ships receded from one another as far as 200 miles, 
when the electric current again ceased to flow. This time the 
cable was found broken within 20 feet of the Agamemnon I No 
one could then guess the cause of the disaster ; and by experi- 
ments, which were made before cutting off the now useless 
remnant from the Niagara^ it appeared that the cable, or what 
remained of it, was capable of supporting a strain of four tons 
for an hour and forty minutes. 

Notwithstanding this failure, the ships, after re-coaling, 
started for another and this time successful effort ; and the 
cable was laid between the two continents on the 5 th of 
August, 1858, by Sir Charles Bright, and his staff of engineers, 
after eight days, during which 2,022 miles of cable were placed. 
After transmitting messages for nearly a month, some defect in 
the insulation of the conducting wire put an end to the further 
working. The testing showed a fault at about 270 miles from 
Valentia, the electrical leakage having been augmented by the 
strong currents used to pass signals through the cable. During 
the working period, 97 messages had been forwarded from 
Valentia to Newfoundland, and 269 messages from Newfound- 
land to Valentia. " Among these may be instanced the mes- 
sage from her Majesty to the President of the United States, 
and his reply ; messages stopping the departure from Canada 
of two regiments for this country, thus saving at least 50,000/. 
unnecessary expense to our Government; and messages an- 
nouncing the safe arrival of the steamer Europa^ with mails and 
passengers uninjured, after her collision with the Arabia^ * 
Mr. Cyrus Field, on the 5th of August, Ifrom the Niagara^ 
Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, telegraphed to the Associated 

* Dr. Lardner's Electric Tele^aph, edited by Bright, p. 115. 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 397 

Press, New York, that the Atlantic Telegraph was completed. 
No words can express the enthusiasm with which Mr. Field 
was received as he steamed in triumph into New York. Alas ! 
on the very day which had been set apart to do him special 
honour, the speaking, living existence of the cable was at an 
end, and it lay along the bed of the Atlantic an inanimate and 
useless mass! Several attempts were made to pick up the 
cable to see where the faults were, but were unsuccessful. Just 
III years previously, on the 5th of August, 1747, Dr. Watson 
astonished the scientific world by practically proving that the 
electric current could be transmitted through a wire hardly 
two miles and a half long. 

From the above time to 1865, a period of seven years, no fresh 
attempt was made. Valuable experience had, however, been 
gained. It was ascertained that it was advisable to construct 
a cable proportionately stronger and specifically lighter than 
the first Atlantic line, so that it might be recoverable from great 
depths. A larger conductor and more perfect insulation were 
requisite for so long a circuit, to insure greater speed with 
a less intense current. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Company 
survived, and at length the cable of 1865 was proposed. Sir 
Charles Bright recommended the combination of iron wire and 
hemp for the outer protecting strands, by which the specific 
gravity was reduced, and greater strength gained ; while casing 
the wires in hemp, saturated with tar, would preserve them 
from rust. The weight and bulk of the cable were so enor- 
mous, that the Great Eastern wns taken up for its shipment, 
and prepared accordingly ; huge tanks were built within her to 
receive the cable, and keep it saturated with water. Here 
is a description of the work as it lay in the Great Eastern^ 
prepared for the Expedition : — " The Atlantic Cable is just 
2,200 nautical miles, or in round numbers, about 2,600 miles 
long. The central conductor is composed of seven fine copper 
wires, twisted into one complete strand, insulated with Chat- 
terton*s patent compound. Outside this come four distinct 
layers of gutta-percha, each also insulated with the same mate- 
rial that encloses the conductor. Outside the gutta-percha 
again are wound eleven stout iron wires, each of which, before 
being twisted on, is itself carefully wound round with strands of 
hemp, soaked with tar. Thus, then, there are no less than 
25,000 miles of copper wire in the conductor, about 35,000 
miles of iron wire in the outside covering, and upwards of 



398 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

400,000 miles of strands of hemp, more than enough in all to 
go 24 times round the world. In strength the cable is equal 
to bearing a strain of 7| tons, while its specific gravity is so 
low that it can with safety be depended on to support 1 1 miles 
of its length in water. It has been made mile by mile, joined 
up in long lengths of 700 and 800 miles, and shipped on board 
the Great Eastern into three enormous wrought-iron tanks: 
the first holding a coil of 630 miles of cable, the second one of 
840, and the third one of 830. The tanks themselves, with 
water and their contents of cable, weigh in all upwards of 5,000 
tons. To shore them up with cross-beams, struts, and braces, 
no less than 400 loads of timber were consumed. The mere 
cable, was but an item in the mass of heavy weights the Great 
Eastern had to carry on this occasion. Her draught of water 
was rather over than under 30 feet, and, all told, her weights, 
when starting from Valentia, came near the stupendous mass 
of 18,000 tons.*' 

Dr. Field, of New York, has published a History of the 
Electric Telegraphy which a reviewer in the Athenceum states to 
contain a " personal narrative, which the author can only have 
derived, as a whole, from the actual promoters of the scheme," 
and upon which the reviewer founds the following : — 

" It was while turning round a globe, and meditating on Mr. Gisbome's 
proposition for a tel^p:aph from Newfoundland to New York, that a 
young merchant, who had retired from business with an ample fortune, 
was led to ask himself the question, "Why should not there be a wire 
across the Atlantic Ocean itself > The subject had occupied other 
people's minds ; and Lieut Berryman, sent out by the Navy Department 
to study winds and currents, had already reported Uie existence of the deep 
sea plateau. Accordingly, when Mr. Field wrote to the National Observa- 
tory at Washington to ask for scientific advice as to the feasibility of the 
telegraph scheme, Lieut. Maury answered, — * Singularly enough, just as 
I received your letter I was closing one to the Secretary of the Navy on the 
same subject.* He inclosed a copy of this official letter, and it contained 
the following remarkable words : — * Whether it would be better to lead the 
wires from Newfoundland or Labrador is not now the Question ; nor do I 
pretend to consider the question as to the possibility of finding a time calm 
enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, a ship big enough, to 
lay a coil of wire sixteen hundred miles in length. ... A wire laid across 
from either of the above-named places on this side will pass to the north of 
the Grand Banks, and rest on that beautifiil plateau to which I have alluded, 
and where the waters of the sea appear to be as quiet and as completely at 
rest as it is at the bottom of a mill-pond.* Strange that this 'beautiful 
plateau * should occur at the narrowest part of the ocean, and between 
countries which are both occupied by energetic Anglo-Saxons ! Here then 
was sufficient encouragement : other men, to whom science was a r^^ilar 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 



399 



pursuit, had prepared the course, Cyrus Field was the man to run the lace. 
Heat once set to work with extraordLnary enei^, and, with his own example 
to back his ailments, succeeded in inducing four other men of large fortune 
lo enlist themselves in the enterprise. With some little trouble a very 
liberal charter was obtained from the Government of Newfoundland, and 
at six o'clock, one Monday murning, at the house of Mr. Cyrus Field's 
bcolher, a company was organised with live directors, the charter was 
formally accepted, and a capital of a miUion and a half of dollars was 
subscribed." 

The accompanying Illustration shows the reception of the 
Telegrams, and the interior of the Instrument-room of the 
Telegraph-house at Foilhommerum, Valentda : the instruments 
are Professor Thomson's. 




The introduction of the cable to the telegraph station in 
1865, is thus described by the artist of the Illustrated London 
News: — "The shoreend of the cable was taken up by Mr. 
Glass, and handed to Sir Robert Peel, who passed it through a 
hole left for the purpose in the building which forms pro tern. 
the station, where it was speedily connected with the batteries 



4^0 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

in the instrument-room. A signal was then interchanged with 
the Caroline^ proving that the electric communication was per- 
fect. Mr. Glass formally announced the success of the test 
that had been applied, and then the men returned to the beach, 
and filled in the trench in which the cable lay. The Hawk 
having arrived from Kingstown, towed the Caroline out of the 
bay to lay the cable, which was done under the direction of 
Mr. Canning." We now return to the details of the manu- 
facture of the cable. 

The cable of 1865 was constructed by Messrs. Glass and 
Elliot, at their factory at Morden Wharf, East Greenwich. 
The metallic wire wound spirally around the cable to protect 
it from damage, was manufactured at Birmingham, by Webster 
and Horsfall, of Hay Mills. The engraving on the next page 
represents the large range of shopping, showing the men at 
work, each superintending a drum on which the wire is coiled, 
as it is drawn down from one size to another ; this wire being 
used for binding round the core containing the copper wire 
along which the electric current is transmitted. This portion 
of the manufacture has just been described at page 370. 
Messrs. Glass and Elliot having combined their works with 
those of the Gutta Percha Company, the insulation of the 
conducting wire was proceeded with, pari passu, under the 
careful superintendence of Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Willoughby 
Smith. The eight separate insulating coatings reduced 
incalculably the chance of any defect occurring at one point 
in all, and resulted in the insulation being far superior to that 
of any previous cable. 

The Great Eastern sailed from Valentia on the 23d of 
July. On the second day after starting from the Irish coast, a^ 
fault in the electric insulation of the cable was detected : a tiny 
piece of loose iron wire had forced its way through the outer 
covering and the gutta-percha surrounding the electric wire, so 
as to come in contact with the latter ; and, when this piece 
was cut out and a new splice made, the fault was effectually 
cured. The cable had again to be raised and examined in the 
same way, on the 2901, when the ship was in 2,000 fathom 
water, 636 miles from Valentia, and 1,028 miles from New- 
foundland. A total loss of electric insulation, or "dead 
earth," as it is called, was discovered about one o'clock that 
afternoon. The ship was stopped at once, and, as soon as the 
picking-up machinery could be put in gear, the end of the 



402 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

cable was hauled in again over the bows, and the faulty portion 
having been cut off and laid aside for a minute examination, 
the remainder was spliced afresh, and the operation of pay- 
ing-out over the stem of the ship was recommenced next 
morning. 

We abridge from Mr. RusselFs Diary, his very able account 
of the actufid breaking of the cable, on Wednesday, the 2d of 
August, which he has justly called "a sad and memorable 
day." " While Mr. Cyrus Field was on watch in the tank, a 
little before the time of the accident, a grating noise was audible 
as the cable flew over the coil. One of the experienced hands 
immediately said, * There is a piece of wire,' and called to the 
look-out man above to pass the information aft, but no notice 
appears to have been taken for some time of the circumstance. 
After the ship had been stopped, and the remainder of the fluke 
in which the fault was supposed to have occurred had been 
paid out, a piece of wire was seen projecting out of the cable 
in the fluke. It was nearly three inches long, and evidently 
of hard, ill-tempered metal, which had flown out through the 
strands of the cable in the tank. The discovery was in some 
measure a relief to men's minds, because it showed that one 
certainly, and the second possibly, of the previous faults might 
have been the results of similar accident It was remarked, 
however, that this fault occurred on the same watch as all the 
previous misfortunes had occurred. 

" With less difficulty than usual, the cable was hauled in over 
the bows at 10.8 a.m. Greenwich time. It was fortunate that 
we had not got a few miles ftirther, as we should have then 
been in the very deepest part of the Atlantic plateau. As far 
as could be ascertained, the ship was now over a gentle eleva- 
tion, on the top of which there were only 1,950 fathoms of 
water. The picking-up was, as usual, exceedingly tedious, and 
one hour and forty-six minutes elapsed before one mile was got 
on board ; then one of the engine's eccentric gear got out of 
order ; next, the supply of steam failed, and when the steam 
was got up it was found that there was not water enough in 
the boilers, and so the picking-up ceased altogether for some 
time, during which the ship forged ahead and chafed against 
the cable. 

" After two miles of cable had been picked up, the Greai 
Eastern was forced to forego the use of her engines because 
the steam failed, while her vast broadside was exposed to the 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 4^3 

wind, which was drifting her to the larboard or the left-hand 
side, till by degrees an oblique strain was brought to bear on 
the cable, which came up from the sea to the bows on the 
right side. Against one of the hawsepipes at the bows the 
cable now caught, while the ship kept moving to the left, and 
thus chafed and strained the cable greatly against the bow, for 
now it was held by this projection, and did not drag from the 
V-wheel in front. The Great Eastern could not go astern lest 
the cable should be snapped, and without motion some way 
there is no power of steerage. At this critical moment, too, 
the wind shifted, so as to render it more difficult to keep the 
head of the ship up to the cable. As the cable then chafed so 
much that in two places damage was done to it, a shackle chain 
and a wire rope belonging to one of the buoys were passed 
down the bow over the cable and secured in a bight below the 
hawsepipes. These were hauled so as to bring the cable, 
which had been caught on the left-hand side by the hawse- 
pipes, round to the right-hand side of the bow, the ship still 
drifting to the left ; while the cable, now drawn directly up from 
the sea to the V-wheel, was straining obliquely from the right 
with the shackle and rope attached to it It was necessary to 
do this instead of veering away, as we were near the end of 
the cut of cable. 

" The cable and the wire rope together were now coming in 
over the bows in the groove in the larger wheel, the cable 
being wound upon a drum behind by the machinery, which was 
once more in motion, and the wire rope being taken in round 
the capstan. Still, the rope and cable were not coming up in a 
right line, but were being hauled in, with a great strain on 
them, at an angle from the right-hand side, so that they did 
not work directly in the V in the wheel. Still, up they came. 
The strain was shown on the dynamometer to be very high, 
but not near breaking-point. At last, up came the cable and 
wire rope shackling together on the V-wheel in the bow. They 
were wound round on it, slowly, and were passing over the 
wheel together, the first damaged part being inboard, when a 
jar was given to the dynamometer, which flew up from 60 cwt. 
— the highest point marked — with a sudden jerk, 3J in. In 
fact, the chain shackle and wire rope clambered, as it were, up 
out of the groove on the right-hand side of the V of the wheel, 
got on the top of the rim of the V-wheel, and rushed down 
with a crash on the smaller wheel, giving, no doubt, a severe 

D D 2 



404 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

shock to the cable to which it was attached. The machioery 
was still in motion, the cable and the rope travelled aft toge- 
ther, one towards the capstan, the other towards the drum, 
when, just as the cable reached the dynamometer, it parted, 
30 feet from the bow, and with one bound leaped, as it were, 
into the sea." 




This is the scene on board represented above, from an 
engraving, drawn by Mr. Robert Dudley, the artist who 
accompanied the Expedition, to sketch its many incidents 
for the Illustrated London News. Mr. Canning, the chief 
engineer of the work, was standing close by. Mr. Russell 
goes on to say : — "It is not possible for any words to portray 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 4^5 

the dismay with which the sight was witnessed and the news 
heard. It was enough to move one to tears, and, when a 
man came aft with the inner end still lashed to the chain, 
and we saw the tortured strands, torn wires, and lacerated 
core, it is no exaggeration to say that a strange feeling of pity, 
as though for some sentient creature mutilated and dragged 
asunder by brutal force, passed through the hearts of the 
spectators. But of what avail was sentimental abstraction, 
when instant, strenuous action was demanded ] Alas ! action? 
There, around, spread the placid Atlantic, smiling in the sun, 
and not a dimple to show where lay so many hopes buried. 
However it was something to know, though it was little 
comfort, that we had at noon run precisely 116*4 rniles since 
yesterday, that 1,186 miles of cable had been paid out, that we 
were 1,062*4 miles from Valentia, 606 6 miles from Heart's 
Content, that we were in lat. 51 deg. 25 min. long. 
39 min. 6 min. our course being 76 deg. S. and 25 deg. W. 
The Terrible YidiS signalled *The cable has parted,' and was 
requested to bear down to us, which she did, and came-to off 
our port-beam. After a brief consideration Mr. Canning, 
whose presence of mind and self-possession never left him, 
came to the resolution to seek for the cable in the bottom of 
the Atlantic, and to get out his grapnels and drop down on it 
and pick it up again." 

There were men on board who had picked up broken 
cables from the Mediterranean, full 600 fathoms down. 
It was settled that the Great Eastern should steam ten or 
twelve miles to windward and eastward of the position in 
which she was when the cable went down, out with the grap- 
nels and wire rope, and drift down across the track in which 
the cable was supposed to be lying. The grapnels were two 
five-armed anchors with flukes, with sharply-curved, tooth- 
like ends, the hooks with which the engineer was going to 
fish from the Great Eastern for more than a million. The 
ship lay-to, in smooth water, with the Terrible in company. 
The grapnel, weighing three cwt. shackled and secured to 
a length of wire buoy-rope, of which there were five miles on 
board, was brought up to the bows, and thrown over. At first, 
the iron sank but slowly, but soon the picking-up machinery 
lowered length after length over cog-wheel and drum, till the 
iron wires, warming with work, heated at last so as to convert 
the water thrown upon the machinery into clouds of steam. 



4o6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS* 

Still the rope descended, and the strain was diminished, when 
at 2,500 fathoms, or 15,000 feet, the grapnel reached the bed 
of the Atlantic ; and as the ship drifted across the course of 
the cable, there was just a surmise that the grapnel might 
catch it In the search from August 3 to August 11, the 
cable was grappled three times — on the 3d, 7th, and nth; 
it was hfted each time a considerable way from the bottom : 
but the grapnel, ropes, and lifting machinery, were not suffi- 
cient to bring it to the surface. On the first attempt, the 
grapnel having been let down overnight, they began to haul 
in the rope early next morning. At eight o'clock, 300 fathoms 
were in, and it was evident to all on board that the grapnel 
was holding on, and lifting "something" from the bottom. 
Presently the upper wheel of the picking-up apparatus broke, 
and the operation of taking in the rope became dangerous. 

The weather, which had hitherto been very thick and hazy, 
now settled down into a dense fog, and the Great Eastern 
lost sight of the Terrible; but the conviction was that the cable 
was really once more attached to the Great Eastern^ no matter 
how precariously, or how far off. The hawser toiled and 
pulled as if it were a living thing, and struck out a consider- 
able angle from the bows, as if it were towed by some giant 
force underneath and away from the steamer. When 500 
fathoms were inboard, the most sceptical admitted the cable 
must be on the iron hooks ; but all hopes and fears were now 
abruptly ended. The drum flew round rapidly, the tail of the 
rope flourished in the air, as it flew inboard, and with a light 
splash the other end of the rope dived into the Atlantic. One 
of the iron swivels had yielded to the strain. The rope used 
was divided into lengths of 100 fathoms, each having a shackle 
at the end, with a heavy iron swivel. The head of the bolt 
of one of these had been drawn right through the iron collar, 
as 900 fathoms had been secured. Not a moment was to be 
lost. It was clear that the grapnel could pick up the cable in 
more than 2,000 fathoms, and the only question now was 
whether the wire rope would bear the purchase and weight of 
hauling up from such vast depths. There was fortunately 
wire rope enough left to make another attempt, and it was 
then resolved to steam forthwith to a point two miles east- 
ward of the extreme end of the cable, so as to have only 
a mile or so of it to lift up in the bight when the ship drifted 
over it ; as the broken part would, it was hoped, in coming 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES, 407 

up on the grapnel, twist round the other portion of the cable. 
A fog came on that afternoon, and the Great Eastern lay for 
the night in a smooth sea. Next day she drifted 34 miles, 
which, with 12 miles steamed, made 46 :miles from the posi- 
tion where the cable parted. A raft .was then made, and on it 
was placed a buoy to slip over with 2 J miles of cable, itself 
attached to a mushroom anchor, as soon as they reached the 
spot where they had grappled the cable the day before. This 
was done, and the big ship steamed off again j the fog con; 
tinned two days, and she drifted still about 

On Monday, Aug. 7, between 11 and 12 o'clock, the wea- 
ther having cleared, the grapnel, .with, 2, 5 op fathoms; of cable, 
was hove over. The machinery was so much improved, that 
the grapnel was only half the time in reaching the bottom, and 
the diminished strain soon showed that it was resting on the 
ooze. The day was fine, a steady breeze from the, north drift; 
ing the ship towards the cable, at the rate of a mile an hour, 
broadside on. At noon the position was at lat..5i° 27', long>. 
48^42'. For several hours the grapnel dragged the bottor^ 
without obstruction. At 6.15 the strain increased from 45 
cwt. to 48 cwt. and soon began to rise steadily to 55 cwt 
and thence to 60 cwt Presently was observed a slight ten- 
dency in the ship to come round to the wind, and in an 
hour and . a half the cable was caught again. The ship'§ 
head was brought round to the wind by the screw, and the 
capstan engine was set to work to aid the new machinery 
of the picking-up gear to haul up the cable. At :half-pas,t 
II, 500 fathoms were hauled in. AH seemed going on 
hopefully till next morning. Between five and six o'clock, A.M.), 
it was calculated that the grapnel, with the cable, was the?i 
rising from the bottom. The rope had come steadily on at 
an average during the night of 150 fathoms an hour;, and 
there was consequently great gladness on board. The on^ 
mile mark. was. hauled in, and it was demonstrated that a 
ship could pick up a cable in 2,500 fathoms of water, and 
pull it one mile from the bottom. The cable was now sus- 
pended 1,500 fathoms, or one mile and a half below in 
ocean. This good news was signalled to the Terrible, and 
in an instant the flags were flying, and all was over. One 
of the shackles and swivels which joined each length of wire 
rope to the other, had come over the bow, had passed over 
the drum, and was in the third round of rope taken in by 



4o8 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the capstan, when the head of the swivel-pin gave way, and 
quick as lightning, with the end flourishing, the iron shackle 
like a mailed fist in the air, right and left, as if menacing 
with death any one in its way, glanced aloft, and leapt exult- 
ingly into the sea, to join the cable and the 1500 fathoms of 
wire rope which still hung from the grapnel. Now all these 
shackles and swivels were examined before they were put 
over to prevent the recurrence of accident ; the strain was 
not near that put down as the breaking point, yet such was 
the sad result The news was signalled to the Terrible^ and 
her boat put off to learn what was to be done. At 9.50 a 
second buoy, secured on a raft of casks, was lowered with 
2,500 fathoms of telegraph cable moored to a broken spar- 
wheel, the buoy being let go as close as possible to the spot 
where the grapnel-rope sank. Almost in despair the operators 
resolved on one more attempt. 

Augu-3t 9 and 10 were employed in re-adjusting and fortifying 
the picking-up machinery and the grapnel-tackle. The anchor 
capstan was enlarged and strengthened with huge beams of 
oak, and an iron casing all round it, forming a huge drum of 
twice the diameter of the ordinary capstan for winding on the 
wire rope and great hawsers more rapidly ; while " the slack " 
was to be taken in from this drum as fast as it accumulated, 
and passed along a line of men to the place where it was to be 
coiled on deck. 

August 1 1 was the last day of painful trial, the final yield- 
to the disaster. Not satisfied with the progress of the work, 
the operators drew up the grapnel to examine it, and found it 
defective. The stock of wire being diminished by all these 
mishaps, hempen rope was added to supplement it. Another 
grapnel was lowered, and another attempt was made to catch 
the cable. Nearly a mile was hauled on board, when the 
hempen rope snapped, and for the fourth time the cable went 
to the bottom. AH was over. There were not materials 
enough on board for a fifth attempt. 

The Terrible steamed on to America to announce the failure 
to those who were anxiously waiting the result at Newfound- 
land ; and the Great Eastern^ after lowering a third buoy, 
returned home. Nearly 1,200 miles of the cable now lay 
along the bed of the Atlantic Ocean ; one end attached to the 
shore at Valentia, the other submerged under 1,950 fathoms 
of water, and resting on a soft, oozy bottom. A length of 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 409 

5,500 miles of cable altogether had been made for this great 
Atlantic enterprise from 1857 to 1865, and nearly 4,000 miles 
had been swallowed up in the ocean ; a million and a quarter 
had been sunk ; but the grand hopes were not crushed. 

The various telegraphic companies interested in the com- 
pletion of the undertaking wisely concluded to resume opera- 
tions forthwith. Their first intention was to construct all the 
necessary mechanical appliances and send back the Great 
Eastern in October to pick up the broken cable, splice it with 
what remained on board, and finish the work which accident 
had suspended. On consultation with Captain Anderson, 
however, they substituted for this plan a much wiser one. The 
three companies, Atlantic, Construction, and Great Ship, 
agreed on the general basis of a new scheme : the Construc- 
tion Company undertook both the raising of the old cable, 
and the making of a new one. The Great Ship Company 
agreed to make any needful alteration in the ship, to be char- 
tered by the Construction Company, who were to receive 
600,000/. if the enterprise succeeded, 500,000/. it it failed. The 
new cable, placed by the side of that of 1865, is stronger, 
lighter, and more flexible, giving it an immense aggregate 
superiority, and enabling it at any point to resist a strain of 
eight tons. The length shipped was 2,730 miles; that of 
1865, was 2,300 miles. The new cable was made by the 
Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, at their 
works in the City Road, and at East Greenwich. 

Should hauHng in become necessary, it could now be done 
either from the head or stern of the Great Eastern. From 
the stem it might be effected by the paying-out machinery, the 
drums of which were altered and strengthened, and reversing 
gear was added ; so, in fact, the machine could be used either 
in paying out or hauling in. The machinery for this purpose 
in the bows of the ship was entirely new ; it had double drums, 
and was calculated to work up to a strain of sixteen tons, 
and would not give way under a pressure of considerably 
more than thirty tons. It was specially constructed with 
a view to grappling for the old cable, and was to be worked 
by a double-cylinder trunk-engine of 40-horse power, no- 
minal. I'he dynamometers for the picking-up as well as for 
the paying-out machinery were fitted with adjusting weights, 
and had larger scales attached, so that more delicate obser- 
vations would be attainable. A " crinoline " guard, weighing 



41 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

17 tons, over or around the screw-propeller of the Great 
Eastern^ to prevent entanglement with the cable during its 
descent from the stem of the ship. If a fault should occur 
the screw might be backed, and the cable hauled in, to exa-. 
mine the cause of fault, with great quickness, by the altera- 
tions thus made in the apparatus. 

The electricians were at work during the winter of 1865-6, 
in the wooden shanty, the telegraph-room at Valentia, working 
and watching the exquisite apparatus connected with the end 
of the 1865 cable. Impulses were driven through the eleven or 
twelve hundred miles of submerged cable twice or thrice every 
day, to see whether insulation and conductivity were jat all 
injured. Of course, no messages could be sent or received, 
because the other end of the cable was down two miles deep 
at the bottom of the Atlantic ; but Professor Thompson, Mr. 
Willoughby Smith, and Mn Varley, had so improved the 
apparatus, that they could tell at once whether an impulse 
was going through the wire or not. Every test showed that 
the cable was as perfect from end to end as when first laid 
down, in all electrical qualities. There was a minute mirror 
attached to a magnet, and a graduated scale on which reflected 
light from the mirror fell ; if an electric current through the 
cabl^ affected the apparatus, the minutest oscillation of the 
magnet moved the mirror at the same time, and caused a 
moving spot of light to travel along the graduated arc ; the 
extent of the oscillation being measured by the range of 
travel over the graduations. 

On Sunday, July i, the Great Eastern^ with her costly bur- 
den, left the Nore, and on the 7th arrived atBelhaven, a small 
but fine anchorage at the south-west of Ireland; and the Wil- 
liam Corry having arrived, everything was got ready for splicing 
the shore-end with the main cable. On the 13th of July, the 
shore-end being buoyed up, it was easily found and taken up 
by the Great Eastern, The sea-end of this massive shore-cable 
was then carefully spliced to the end of the main cable, . an 
operation which occupied about five hours. Then the. real 
start began, the much-prized cable uncoiling itself firom the 
tanks, and dipping into the sea, amid the firing of cannon, 
hoisting of flags, the playing of music, &c. On the 14th and 
15th, two telegrams were received. On the T7th they finished 
paying out the portion of the old cable of 1865, having spliced 
it to the new. On the morning of the 27 th, the Great Eastern 



THE ATLANTIC 

sighted Newfoundland ; at 9, the cable was cut, preparatory to 
splicing it to the massive shore-end. There the important 
voyage practically terminated ; for all else was mere handicraft 
work. On the 28th the main cable was carefully spliced to the 
shore-end : the men Jumped into the water and carried or 
dragged the cable about twenty yards. The first trial with the 
electric instruments showed that the insulation and con- 
ductivity of the cable were excellent. Europe was once again 
united with America, as she had been for a brief period in 
1858. Even before the Great Eastern entered the harbour it 
had received a telegram through the cable from the Queen for 
transmission to President Johnson, to which was transmitted a 
reply. " On the ist of August, political and commercial tele- 
grams were sent from New York to London, being the prac- 
tical commencement of the system for which the whole eventful 
enterprise had been undertaken. Shortly afterwards, a tele- 
gram was transmitted, certainly the most remarkable which, up 
to that time, had ever been achieved. It was from New York. 
to Bombay. It went across a wide stretch of America, then 
spanned the Atlantic, then crossed Ireland and England, with 
the intervening bit of sea, then the continent of Europe, the 
Bosphoms, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf, and 
the Indian Ocean, to Kurrachee." {Companion to the Almanac, 
1867.) 

Then commenced the second part of the final work, the 
recovery o( the old cable. The storms of twelve months 
had passed over it : that it had not drifted was thoroughly 
believed. The naval commanders had made accurate obser- 
vation of the exact latitude and longitude of the spot where 




412 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

the end of the cable finally disappeared in August, 1865 ; 
and, as the same nautical instruments, applied in the same 
way, would find the same spot again, this was the test, and 
the only test relied on. On the 9th, the Albany hooked the 
cable, and tried to raise it, but on the nth a ^ inch mooring- 
chain broke, and two miles of grapnel-rope were lost. The 
Great Eastern and Medway arrived on the 1 2th at the cable- 
fishing ground. We have not space to detail the series of 
snatchings, losings, raisings and breakings, dodgings and fish- 
ings, of the vessels engaged in this cable-craft ; but pass on to 
the 16th, when while hauling up the gilapnel, the splice betv^'een 
the grapnel-rope and the buoy-rope broke, and down went 
rope, grapnel, cable, and all. The position being a good one, 
another grapnel was put forth ; it was dragged ; the strain on 
the dynamometer (the instrument that shows the amount of 
force or weight pulling at the grapnel-rope, in addition to its 
own weight) indicated that the grapnel had got hold of the 
cable ; it was hauled in; and lo, on the 17th up came to sight 
the actual cable itself! This was in lat 51° 29', long. 38** 48'. 
By 10.30 A.M. 2,300 fathoms of grapnel had come on board, 
and there now remained but 15 fathoms of the i|^ chain 
attached to the grapnel. Nearly every one on board the 
ship crowded to the bows to see the grapnel come up over 
the water. The lost cable of 1865, lifted from its oozy bed 
two miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, now 
made its appearance, attached to the flukes of the grapnel, 
amid a spontaneous cheer; the sound of this, however, had 
scarcely passed away, when the fact became known that the 
cable had quietly and easily disengaged itself from the flukes 
and springs of the grapnel. 

On the appearance of the cable all were struck with the 
fact that one half of it was covered with ooze, staining it a 
muddy white, while the other half was just in the state as it 
left the tank the year before, with its tarred surface and strands 
unchanged, which proved that the cable simply lay in the ooze, 
only half imbedded. 

Next week, the three ships in different changes of their 
respective positions, attempted to lay hold of the cable, and 
to suspend it from the buoys, in the form of a bight or festoon, 
so that it might be taken up within the bight and raised to 
the surface, thus bearing, of course, with a greatly diminished 
weight on the lifting apparatus. The weather was very 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 4^3 

unsettled, and on Sunday, the 26th, when the Great Eastern 
let down her grapnel for the tenth time, having twice drifted 
over the cable without catching it, there was a general gloom 
on board ship, with a determination, however, to persevere so 
long as a bit of rope was left. Just before dinner-time the 
Medway came up and brought the bad news that she had 
broken the cable south-west of the buoy. Success at length 
came, thus recorded : 

"Sunday morning, 3.45, Sept. 2. — We have succeeded. The 
Atlantic Telegraph cable of 1865 has been raised to the surface, 
and in a few minutes afterwards communication established with 
Valentia, It is impossible adequately to describe the enthusi- 
siastic joy which prevails on board the ship at the present 
moment. 

" The pickingAip went on with its usual certainty and pre- 
cision, and by twelve o'clock (midnight) the bows of the ship 
were crowded, not only by those actually on the watch, but by 
nearly all the hands, who turned out to see the result of this 
attempt to recover the cable. Precisely at 12.50 this morn- 
ing the cable made its appearance upon the grapnel, and, save 
when the voice of Captain Anderson or Mr. Canning was 
heard giving an order, one could almost hear a pin drop, 
such was the perfect silence which prevailed. No excitement, 
no cheering, as there was on the Sunday when we lifted it 
before ; all was calm and quiet, the men scarcely spoke above 
their breath. After some precautionary operations, the signal 
being given to haul up, the western end of the bight was cut 
with a saw, and the cable then rose over the bows of the 
Great Eastern^ slowly passing round the sheave at the bow, 
and then over the wheels on the fore-part of the deck." 

The old cable of 1865 was found, not merely bodily, but 
with all its electric qualities in full efficiency. The cable 
itself told the tale. Mr. Willoughby Smith entered the test- 
ing room of the Great Eastern^ bringing in carefully the end 
of the long cable. There it was — the copper in the middle, 
then the gutta percha, then the iron wires, and then the outer 
covering of Manilla hemp. The problem to be solved was, 
whether the cable, after being twelve months at the bottom 
of the Atlantic, would transmit an electric message to Valentia. 
Mr. Smith applied the end of the cable to his delicate instru- 
ments, amid the breathless silence of those around him. Pre- 
sently he took off his hat, and gave a cheer — the cable spoke! 



4*4 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Rockets announced the triumph, and there was cheering every- 
where. During these anxious moments, Mr. May, a careful 
observer in the Telegraph room at Valentia, was watching for 
any indications of life in the 1865 cable, the shore end of 
which was connected with instruments in the room. Suddenly^ 
at a quarter to six, on that eventful Sunday morning, he ob- 
served a peculiar movement in the apparatus, which showed 
that a message was about to arrive through the cable ; then 
the movements assumed all the regularity of letter-by-letter 
and word-by-word transmission; and then he read off: "Sun- 
day, 5.40 A.M. Signals through 1865 cable, which is all right. 
Now splicing. Please inform directors;" and then Mr. Can- 
ning sent a message to Mr. Glass, the managing director of 
the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, ex- 
pressing the pleasure he felt at speaking to him through the 
cable of 1865, and the operator at Valentia telegraphed back 
his congratulations. 

These messages or telegrams* came with a distinctness and 
precision greater than even those through the new cable ; 
showing that the old ocean-washed messenger had been im- 
proved rather than injured by its long submersion. The news 
was known in London by nine o'clock the same morning ; 
before noon the Great Eastern received a congratulatory tele- 
gram ; and the morning journals of next day, September 3d, 
published the information. 

The long-sought cable having been brought to the surface 
of the water, a splice was soon made to a sufficient length 
of new or additional cable; and the Great Eastern's prow 
was once more turned westward, to submerge the 600 miles 
of new cable from the place of pick-up to Heart's Content 
Not the least among the wonderful feats connected with the 
expedition was this : that when Greenwich time was flashed 
from Valentia to the ship, on the morning of the 2d, Com- 
mander Moriarty was able to detect so small an error as 
sLx-tenths of a secofidy accumulated in twenty-six days, in the 
admirable chronometer supplied by M. Barraud. 

The ship went on westward, paying out the cable. On 
September 2d, the Grfot Eastern submerged 29 knots by 
noon ; and on each of the next five days the length submerged 
averaged 135 knots per day, about 5} knots per hour. On 
the 3d, the cable had to reach the profound depth of 2,424 
fathoms — almost precisely 2 J English miles — equal to 40 



THE ATLANTIC CABLES. 415 

times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. By noon, on the 
7th, the ship was 115 miles from Heart's Content, and in 
154 fathoms of water. On the 8th of September, the Great 
Eastern finished her grand labours. She came into harbour, 
and spliced her main cable to a new massive shore-end, and 
trusted the submersion of the latter to the Medway^ aided 
by the boats of the Terrible, The cable was landed at 4 p.m. 
and in the presence of the Governor, the Bishop, and other 
notabilities of Newfoundland, a telegram was flashed to Valentia, 
speedily followed by a congratulatory reply. On the 9th of 
September the Great Eastern turned her head to the east, 
and amid the cheers of the Newfoundlanders, began her return 
voyage to England, bringing with her most of the persons 
who had been engaged in the noble work. 

In commemoration of the event her Majesty was pleased 
to confer the honour of a baronetcy in two cases, and of 
knighthood in the four others : — i. Sir Daniel Gooch, Bart., 
M.P., the first engineer who has received a baronetcy, and 
once the locomotive superintendent of the Great Western 
Railway. 2. Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson, Bart., deputy- 
chairman of the original Telegraph Company. 3. Sir Richard 
At wood Glass, Knt., who designed and made the cables of 
1865 and 1866. 4. Professor Sir William Thompson, Knt, 
the famed electrician. 5. Sir Samuel Canning, C.E. Knt, 
engineer-in-chief of the Telegraph Construction and Main- 
tenance Company. 6. Captain Sir James Anderson, Knt, 
commander of the Great Eastern. 

"This last great telegraphic triumph is simply one of engi- 
neering skill, care, and perseverance. But a wonderful triumph 
it is. The difficulties to be overcome were neither few nor 
small. Think of the difficulty of encasing a bundle of thin 
wires of more than two thousand miles in length, in a tube of 
gum, and that without the slightest fissure or most minute pin- 
hole in the whole of that length. And then to case this with a 
material sufficiently strong to protect this inner core fi'om strain 
or friction ; and, lastly, to deposit it at the bottom of the 
Atlantic, in many places more than two miles in depth. Think 
of these things, and then say if the men who have done 
this are not worthy of all praise. But they have done more. 
They have taken up the loose end of last year's cable, and 
spliced it, and successfully laid the remainder. May these 
cables be more durable than many others that have been 



41 6 WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

laid ! There is every reason to hope they will They have 
been much more carefully made."* Here we see the result of 
the long course of experiences which attended this herculean 
labour. 

The eventful feat has been signalized and chronicled most 
worthily. Mr. Russell's " Diary of the Cable," originally 
written for the limes journal, has not only the attraction of 
brilUancy, but the greater value of a minute record of a 
scientific labour, in such language "that he may run that 
readeth it" This is one of the most complete chronicles 
of its kind which has ever appeared in any public journal. 
The numerous incidents of trial and endurance are suggestive 
throughout of the many difficulties which beset labours under- 
taken without the advantage of experience to aid in the 
attainment of precise results. The greatest successes are 
achieved by such means, though they are often mistakenly 
attributed to fortuitous turns. Mr. Russell's Diary has taken 
the more permanent form of a handsome folio volume, with 
truly artistic Illustrations, such as only the Art of the present 
day could produce. 

Among the commemorations was a Banquet given by the 
Lord Mayor of London, at the Mansion-house, to which men 
of science associated with this triumph were invited ; thus 
celebrating this truly British achievement in a characteristic 
British manner. 

The reader is probably already aware of the great develop- 
ment of submarine telegraphy which has taken place since 
1866. Cables connecting shore with shore lie upon the beds 
of seas and oceans in every direction, and the Atlantic itself 
is now traversed by three working cables, while others are 
being projected to extend still more the electric communication 
between the Old World and the New. 



FINIS. 



INDEX. 



Artesian Wells, 189 
A., derivation of the word, 189 
A. W. in and round London, 

192 
Boring for water, 190 
Buckland on A. W., 193 
Crenelle A. W. at Pari-, 190 
Prestwich on A. W., 193 ' 
Temperature of water of A. W., 

194 
Tottenham, A, W, at, 191 

Barometer, The 
Aelloscope, the, 50 
Aneroid B., 48 
Clock-faced B., 50 
Daniell on B., 49 
Derivation of the word B., 43 
Englefield's B., 46 
Fitzroy's B. Manual^ 49 
Galileo and atmospheric pressure, 

44 
Galileo and Torricelli, 43 

Hall, Capt., on the B., 47 

Pascal and the B., 45 

Torricelli first makes B., 44 

Weather-glass, 49 

Wollas-ton's thermometical B., 

47 

Clocks and Watches, 124 
Alarum invented, 130 
Anne Boleyn's C, 130 
American C., 140 
Brcguet's W., 151 
Candle C, 127 



Celebrated C, 128 
Charles I.*s W., 149 
Charlemagne's C, 126 
Chronometer, 152 
Chronometers rated, 153 
Clepsydrae, 125 
Clerkenwell C. -making;, 142 
C. comprises several inventions, 

128 
C. designed hy Holbein, 130' 
C. at Exhibition of 1862, 139 
C. -manufacturing at Clerkenwell, 

143 
C, origin of the name, 127 

C. and W., difference between, 

144 
Cox's curious C. 142 
Crystal W., 152 
Death's-head W., 146 
Directive and registrative science, 

124 
Dover Castle C. 128 
Dutch C, 140 
Elizabeth's (Queen) W., 148 
English C. and W., 150 
Electrical C, 138 
General Post Office C, 139 
Galileo and the pendulum, 135 
Horologes^ 128 
Horse Guards C, 139 
Hour-glasses invented, 125 
Illuminated C. dials, 140 
Miniature W. described, 150 
New York chronometers, 154 
Nuremberg W., 145 
Pendulum spring, 149 

• E E 



4i8 



INDEX. 



Pcndnlans appGeJ to C, I J5 
Rcsabtar for ex. 131 
Rcpetiii^ C awl W., 141 
Rojal F . Trhmg e C, I j6 
St.'l>ui«ttn^s C^ 131 
SuPanTsC, 133 
Stnssbms, 131 
Striknig C, orrij, 127 
Stiikii^ and rcpea'ii^ C, 136 
San-daU tbe, 125 
Time-ball si^naL 14D 
Tompioii, Graham, and Hafns^i^ 

150 
TTcho Bnhe'sCX, 13S 
XVallu^fofd's C, 127 
VersiiUcs, ۥ at, 133 
Wakham W.. 155 
'^*., ortnn of name, 144 
W.-jewcUing, 150 
W.-^priiuf, ioTmiioaol^ 145 
\V^ historical, 145 
W. , introduced into Ei^^land, I45 
\V., temp. Etiiabeth, 147 
W.>makiiK^ in Englaiod and 

America. 154 
W. makii^ in Switieriand, 155 
W.>makin^ by steam>power, 152 
Wells Caihearal C, 127 
Westminster, C. tower a% 133 
Westmins er Palace C, 137 
Wheel C, early, 126 

Cotton Manufactdrk, The, 232 
Ancient use of C, 233 
Arkwright's first patent, 240 
Arkwri^ht, sketdi of, 244 
Calico-printing, 250 
Cardin^-machine, 339 
Cart^ right's weaving - machine, 

246 
Chlorine in caUco-printing, 253 
C, American and West lud.an, 

237 
C. famine, 266 

C. mill, 257 

C, history of, 254 

C. plant, 232 

C, varieties of, 236 

Crompton and Peel, 243 

Crompton's spiiming-mule, 242 

Crompton^ iitory of, 242 



Dressiog-machine^ 247 
Haigreaves' spinning-jenny, 23S 
Hindoo weavrng, 233 
Madiinery in C. M., 255 
Madiinery in spinning and weav* 

i% 249 
P^usley-lesif pattern, 251 
Peel, the first Sir R., 252 
Peel's birthplace, 250 
Powcr-locHn, 247 
Sea Island C., 236 
Shuttle and fly-shuttle, 235 
Spinning by rollers, 241 
Strutt family, the, 239 
Syme, quo ed, 240 
\Varping*mill, 235 
Weaving, 234 

Electric Telegraph, The, 367 
Batteries, 385 
Booelli's T., 379 
Cooke and Wheatstone^ 372 
Earth circuit, 378 
Faraday's spark, 374 
Gutta percha, 383. 
Hughes T., 379 
Insulation of cables, 3S5 
Iron-made magnetic, 371 
Ladd's sound alphabet, 379 
Lardner and Leveiri^, 377 
Lomond's discovery, 369 
Magnetic-electric machine, 373 
Morse's T., 379 
Multiplier, 371 
Newspaper reporting, 377 
Oersted's discovery, 370 
Printing instruments, 3S0 
Ronalds' T., 370 
Schilling's T., 371 
Soemmering^s apparatu;:, 370 
Strada's prevision, 36S 
T. simplified, 373 
T. clock, 375 
Voha's discovery, 370 
Watson, 368 
Wheatstone's T., 374 
Wheatsione and Cooke, 376 
Wires, insulated, 376 

Gas-I.ighting, 175 
Aniline colour.-, 1S7 



INDEX. 



419 



Birmingham, early G.-L. at, 179 

Burning weil, 178 
Carburetting coal G ., 182 
Chinese G.-L., early, 177 
Cleffg's G.-L., 179 
Coal G. manufacture, 180 
Colliery G. near Whitehaven, 

178 
Cresset beacon, 1 75 
Davy and Wall on G.-L., 180 
Enijriiie, G., 188 
Frankland on G.-L., 184 
G. -burners, 185 
G. explo>ion«, 187 
G.-L., cost of, 184 
G. on railways, &c., 183 
G. tar a valuable product, 187 
Johnson, Dr. 177 
Lights, Bude, electric, &c., 184 
London G.-L., 179 
London G. -works, 183, 186 
London, ancient li^htiu^ of, 176 
Murdoch, 178 
Oil and resin G., 184 
Portable G., 183 
Royal Society committee, 180 
Winsor's experiments, 180 

Gunpowder and Gun-cotton, 

157 
Arabs and Saracens, 160 

Bacon describes Gp., 159 

Battle of Crecy, 160 

Blasting', 168 

China and India, 159 

Composition of Gp., 161 

Con.jreve rocket, 165 

Explosions, terrific, 166, 16S 

Force of Gp., 161 

G.-c. first used in war, 170 

G.-c. invented, 171 

G.-c. and Gp. compared, 171 

Gp., invention of, 159 

Gp. serviceable for peace, 1 58 

Manipulation of Gp., 162 

Mining works, 169 

Nitro-glycerine, 172 

Percu.ssion-caps, 174 

Prince kupert makes Gp., 161 

Kumford's exf^eriments, 162 

Schonbein prepares G.-c, 170 



Schwartz makes Gp., 160 
Siege of Acre in 1840, 165 
Siege of Gibraltar in 1782, 163 
Waltham Abbey Mills, 166 
Warfare, ancient and modern, 

157 , 
Warners explosive experiments, 

172 

Iron Ships of War, Guns, and 
Armour, 336 
Armour-plated ship«, 339 
Armstrong shell-, 351 
Armstrong gun- , 352 
Bdlerophon^ 342 
Broadside gun ships, 340 
Chassepot rifle, 361 
Cole's turret ^hips, 338 
Dtvastation^ 346 
Enfield rifle, 358 
Enterprise^ 338 
Eui^Suie, 345 
Forts, plated, 338, 348 
First iron ship, 347 
Eraser gun, 355, 366 
Gatling gun, 363 
Gloite, 337 

Gunboats invented, 344 
Gun factories at Woolwich, 362 
Gunnery experiments, 352 
Hercules^ 341 
Iron-plated floating batteries, 

337 
Iron ship-buildingr, 336 

Iron versus granite, 350 

Isle of Wight forts, 349 

Knipp guns, 353 

Martini- Henry rifle, 362 

Medusa^ 342 

Merrimac and Monitor^ 343 

Mianionomoh, 343 

Minotaur^ 338 

Mitrailleuse, 362 

Nasmyth hammer, 362 

Naughty Childy 339 

Needle-gun, 358 

Palliser guns, 353 

Projectiles, 351 

Prus ian needle-gun, 358 

Keed, navy constructor, 338 

Rifling guns, 354 



420 



INDEX. 



Koyal Sovereign^ 340 
Shoeburyness experiments, 347 
Shots, velocity of, 354 
Siege of Sebastopol, 347 
Small arms, 357 
Spherical shot, 351 
Thunderer^ 346 
Torpedoes, 364 
"Warrior, 350 
"Woolwich guns, 355 

Lighthouses and Lifeboats, 
22 

Bell-rock L., 29 

Cast-iron L., 33 

Colonial L., 37 

Colossus of Rhodes, 23 

Cowper on L., 35 

Drummond light in L,, 34 

Earliest L., 23 

Eddystone L. (Winstanley'.s), 24 
(Rudy card's), 24 
(Smeaton's), 25 
(Douglasb's), 27 

Electric light in L., 35 

Floating lights, 37 

Fresnel's apparatus, 37 

Gas-light in L., 34 

Goodwin Sands, 32 

Hartlepool L., 34 

Horsburgh L., 33 

Inchcape Rock L., 29 

Lifeboat invented, 38 

Lifeboats in Exhibition of 1851, 

L. on iron piles, 34 
Lights in L., 34 
Manby's lifeboat, 38 
Mary Ann lifeboat, 42 
Northumberland lifeboat, 41 
Pharos of Alexandria, 23 
Plymouth breakwater L., 33 
Reflecting apparatus, 32 
Scott on a L., 30 
Skerryvore L., 30 
South Foreland L., 32 
Stevenson's Bell-rock L., 29 
Tower of Cordovan, 23 
Tubular lifeboats, 42 
"Whitby lifeboats, 39, 4I 
Wolff Rock L., 35 



Mariner's Compass, The, 
Adamant, 12 
Artificial magnet, 1 3 
Caesar landing in Britain, I 
Chinese C, 6, 18 
Columbus and the C, 16 
C, utility of, 21 
C, described, 16 
C, first mention of, II 
Davis on the C, 1$ 
Dip of the needle, 16 
Earth a magnet, 13 
Error of the C, 19 
Euleron magnetism, 20 
Flavio Gioia, 15 
Fleur-dt-lys on the C, 9 
Line of no variation, i8 
Loadstone, 3, 4, 11 
Neckham on the C, 1 1 
Onion and magnet, 14 
Perils of the sea, 3 
Phoenicians, 2 
Polarity of magnets, 5 
Rose des Vents ^ 16 
St. Michael's Mount, 2 
Scoresby's researches, 19 
Syria, magnet in, 8 
Tiger Island, magnetic, 4 
Touching needles, 14 
Variation of needles, 16 
Vitry, Cardinal, 10 

Microscope, The, 105 
Achromatic lens, 112 
Alhazar, 107 
Binocular M., II 8 
Borell, 116 
Brewster, 106, 117 
Carpenter, Dr. W. B., quoted, 

114, 121 
Codringlon lens, 116 
Compound M., 114 
Convex lens, 108 
Drebell, 116 

Drummond's limelight, 122 
Eye, no 
Eyepiece, no 
Focal distance, 109, ill 
Foci, 108 
Galileo, 117 
Gem lenses, 117 



tNDEX. 



421 



Gray*s simple M., 1 14 

Histology, 121 

Hooke, 113, 115, 117 

Hydra, 120 

Images, 109, 1 10, 1 12 

Jaasen, 1 16. 

Jl.euwenhoek, 114 

Lens, refraction by a, 108 

Lenses, earliest, 106 

M. and telescope compared, 105 

M., kinds of, 112 

Microscopical societies, 123 

Nineveh, lens found at, 106 

Object-glass, 112, 118 

Optical principles of M., 107 

Owen, 122 

Oxyhydrogen M., 122 

Refraction, 107 

Royal Society, 114 

Seneca, quoted, 107 

Simple M., 106, 113 

Solar M., 122 

Stanhope lens, 1 16 

Telescope and M., 105 

Trembley, 120^ 

Wollaston, 115, 117 

Ocean Electro-Telegraphy. — 
The Atlantic Cables. 
Atlantic T. cable, 393 
Breaking of C, 404 
Brett's T., 390 
A. C. of 1865, 397 
A. C. of 1866, 409 
Copper wire insulated, 390 
Dover and Calais C, 390, 392 
Faraday, 391 
Field, Cyrus, 395 
Great Eastern^ 400 
Land T., 387 

Making the C. of 1865, 400 
Mirror galvanometer, 395 
Morse, 388 
Paying out, 414 
Picking up broken C, 405 
Russell's Diary of the 6'., 402 
Submarine C, change in, 394 
Syphon recorder, 395 
Thomson, Sir W., 395, 399 
Valentia, T. station at, 399 
Whitehouse's experiments, 394 



Printing, 58. 

Applegath and Cowper, 74 

Balls and rollers, 72 
f Bank-note P., 78 

Bensley and Cowper, 75 

Biblia Pauperuntf 60 

Blade's Life of Caxton^ 65 

Caxton, 69 

Chinese blocks, 59 

Columbian press, 72 

Composing-machines, 71 

Compositor at work, 69 

Diffusion of P., 63 

First book printed in En^^land, 
66 

Fount of type, 70 

Gutenburg and Fust, 60 

Hoe's P. -machines, 77 

Illustrated Ijmdon Neius^ 79 

Konig's machine-, 65, 73 

Mazarine Bible, 61 

Napier's P.-machine, 78 

Nature-P., 59 

Press, ancient, 71 

P. in England, 64 

P. materials, 71 

Saxon MSS., 59 

Schoffer and Coster, 61 

Scriptorium y 58 

Stanhope press, 71 

Steam P., 79 

Stereotyping, 79 

Times newspaper, 74 

Types, 60 

Typographia^ 78 

Walter, John, 74 

Walter P.-machine, 78 

Wood-engraving, 78 

Wynkyn de Worde, 67 

Railway, The, and the Loco- 
motive. 
American R., 316, 317, 333 
Atmospheric R., 314, 332 
Blackwall K., 314 
Blenkinsop's engine, 299 
Brakes, 332 
Box Tunnel, 311 
Bridges, R., 318 
Britannia Bridj^e, 321 
Channel Tunnel, 330 



423 



INDEX. 



Chatmoss, 304 

ChiU, R. in, 317 

Colebrookdale, R. at, 296 

Cort, 293 

Darwin, 300 

Fairbairn, 320 

Gauges, 298 

Great Western R., 298, 314, 

324 
Greenock R., 314 

Headley, 303 

Indian R., 317 

Iron Duke L., 324 

Iron, 293 

Liverpool and Manchester R., 

292, 304* 3'o 
Locke, the engineer, 312 

L. competition in 1830, 306 

L. engines, 292, 322, 333 

L. at South Kensington, 303 

London and Birmingham R., 

310 

Maudslay's slide rest, 294 

Nasmyth's steam hammer, 

293 
Mont Cenis Tunnel, 330 

Pneumatic R., 315, 332 

Pulman cars, 332 

Quarterly Revie^v^ 310 

R, engineer, 306 

R. interest, 328 

R. wear and tear, 327 

R. capital, 327 

Rocket engine, 306, 309 

Saltash bridge, 318 

Slide rest, 294 

Statistics of R., 326 

Steele, John, 311 

Stephenson, George, 306, 307, 

308, 310 

Stephenson, Robert, 309, 310 

Syme, 293 

Telegraph, 312 

Traction on R., 298 

Tramroads, 294, 296 - 

Trcvithick*s L., 302 

Tubular bridges, 320 

Tunnels, 311, 330 

Tyre wheels, 295 

Underground R., 315, 332 

Union Pacific R., 333 



Steam Engtne, The, 195 
Arago on Watt, 230 
Boulton and Watt, 221, 226 
Branca's machine, 205 
Century of Inventions ^ 208 
Chantrey's statue of Watt, 229 
De Cans, 204 
Cornish S.E., 200 
Garay's E., 203 
Hero's machine, 200 
Newcomen's £., 228 
Old Bess Ys,^ 222 
Papin's digester, 215 
Papin and the S.E., 212 
Potter, Humphrey, 217 , 

Raglan castle, 209 
Savery*s K, 212 
S.E. simplified, 197 
S. from the kettle, 199 
S. pumps, 218 
Throttle valve, 223 
Watt's S.E., 223 
Watt, epitaph on, 229 
Web-ter, Daniel, quoted. 195 
Worcester, Marquis of, 205 

Steam Navigation, 258 
American S. N., 261 
Archimedes ss., 278 
Atmospheric engine, 263 
British Queen ss., 275 
CcLstalia ss., 291 
Casting a cylinder, 284 
Charlotte Dundas^ ss., 264 
City of Rome ss., 289 
Cofnet SS.J 268 
Elizabeth ss., 269 
Fulton's experiments, 265 
Fulton ss., 267 
Great Britain ss., 27 ^ 
Great J* astern fs., 289 
Great Wi stern ss., 274 
Hulls' steamboat, 260 
LevicUhan^ 280 
Margate steamers, 272 
Margery as., 271 
Marine engines, 282, 2S4 
Miiller's experiments, 252, 254 
Ocean steamers, 373 
Oriental S. N. Company, 276 
Paddle and the Screw, 278 



INDEX. 



423 



sup-ly, 



Paddle-wheel, 258 
Paine, Thos., 261 
Papin's paddle-wheel, 259 
Pean's engines, 284 
Kattlerss,^ 277 
Screw propeller, 276 
Steam power, 258 
Steam engine and coal 

288 
Steamship building, 2^3 
lar^e, 287 
Steam-shipping, 286 
Symington's engine, 262 
Thames steamers, 270 
Victoria docks, 287 
Wall's steamboat, 262 



Telescope, The, 81 
Hacon, Ro?er, 84 
Bradley and Molyneux, 93 
Brewster, 81, 103 
Dee*s persoective glasses, 84 
Dollond*S improvements, 97 
Faraday's optical glass. 96 
Galileo s discoveries, 87 
Gregory's T , 90 
Guinand's gla^s, 96 
Harriot's T., 85 
Herschel, 93, 97 
Hooke's proposals for T., 92 
Huyghens' improvements, 90 
Jansen and Lippersheim, 85 
Kepler's improvements, 89 



Lense;:, 84 

Melbourne T., 102 

Milton and Galileo, 88 

Moon viewed, 83 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 91 

Nichol, Prof., 102 

Northumberland equatorial T., 

lOI 

Object-glasFes, large, 104 
Ramage's reflecting T., 94 
Reflecting T., 90 
Refracting T., 89 
Rosse's, Lord, T., 98 
Silvered 'glass reflectors, 104 
Spectroscope, 102 
Velocity of light, 82 

Thermometer, The, 51 
AirT., 52 

Boyle's improvements, 52 
Centigrade T., 56 
Col du Geant, 54 
Early T., 51 
Fahrenheit's T., 55 
Glaciers of Chamouni, 54 
Halley and the T., 55 
Maximum and minimum T., 56 
Origin of the T., 51 
Reaumur's T., 55, 56 
Rutherford's T., 57 
Santorio Drebbel, 5 1 
Saussure, 53 
Six's T., 57 



ERPATA. 

Tn the diagram fig. s, p. zo8. the point on the extreme right should be marked 3, that 
n the left, a. 

Page 115, line 4, for Hook, rtad HooVt. 
,. Z16. lines 4 and iz from bottom, for Debrell, rva^ Drebbel. 
„ 39 z, dcltte the foot-note. 



THE END. 



LONDON S 
t. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOKg 
MCBAD STRSBT HILL, B.C 



GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS! 
LIST OF NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. 



s. d, 
21 o THE HANS ANDERSEN LIBRARY. Twenty Vols., 

cloth gilt, in a Box. 

JO 6 RANDOLPH CALDECOTVS COLLECTION OF PIC- 

TURKS AND SONGS. Mr. CALDECOTT'S Scries of Eight Shilling Toy 
Books, in One Volume. 

lo 6 THE HANS ANDERSEN LIBRARY. Two Series, each 

containing Ten Volumes, in a Box. 

lo 6 THE POEMS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 

New Revised Red Line Edition, with numerous Illustrations. 

lo 6 THE POEMS OF JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER. 

New Revbed Red Line Edition, with numerous Illustrations. 

ID 6 THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES RUSSELL 

LOWELL. New Revised Red Line Eklition, with numerous Illustrations. 

ID 6 A MERICA A^ POEAfS— Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, 

HOLMES, LOWELL. EMERSON. Red Line Edition, with Biographical 
Sketches, Notes, and Illustrations. 

lo 6 MICHAUD'S CRUSADES. The History of the 

CRUSADES, by JOSSPH FRANgOIS MICHAUD. Translaicd by W. 
ROBSoN. Three Vols., crown 8vo, cioth. 

7 6 ROUTLEDGE S PICTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 

With 700 Illustrations, 

60 A DAY IN A CHILUS LIFE. Thirty-two pages of 

Pictures, designed by KATE GREENAWAY, printed in Colours by 
EDMUND EVANS. 

6 o ROUTLEDGE' S EVERY BOY'S ANNUAL for 1882. 

Edited by EDMUND ROUTLEDGE, F.R.G.S. With full-page Illustra- 
tions and Coloured Plates. Twentieth Year of Publication. 

6 o ROUTLEDGE' S EVERY GIRL'S ANNUAL for 1882. 

Edited by ALICIA AMY LEITH. With full page Illustrations and Coburcd 
Title and Frontispiece designed by KATE GREENAWAY. Fourth Year. 

60 PAUL AND VIRGINIA. With 316 Illustrations. 

6 o PICCIOLA. By X. B. Saintine. With Ten Etchings by 

L. FLAMENG. 

5 o CALDECOTT'S TOY BOOK. With 102 Illustrations. 

Containing The Three Jovial Huntsmen, Sing a Seng for Sixpence, The Queen 
of Hearts, and the Farmer's Boy. 

5 o LITTLE WIDEAWAKE for 1882. Edited by MRS. Sale 

BARKER. With many Original Illustrations, and Coloured Frontispiece by 
KATE GREENAWAY. And in boards, 3*. 

5 o THE HISTORY OF A SHIP, from her Cradle to her 

Grave. With many Illustratioiis and fiill<^page Plates. Crown 8vo, cloth. 



GEORGE RbUTLEDGE & SONS' LIST— e^»/inued. 

f 

SO TI/E HISTORY OF WONDERFUL INVENTIONS, 

By JOHN TIMBS. A New Edition, Revised and partly Rewritten. With 
liiustratlons. Crown 8vo, d^th. 

5 o UTTLE TINY'S BOX OF BOOKS. A Christmas Box, 

containing^ these Four Picture Books : 

I. LITTLE TINY'S NATURAL HISTORY, 
a. LITTLE TINY'S BOOK OF OBJECTS 

3. LITTLE TINY'S B )OK OF ONE SYLLABLE. 

4. LITTLE TINY'S BOOK OF THE COUNTRY. 

5 o PUNCHINELLO'S PICTURE BOOK, for Good Little 

Children. With about 3cx> Illustrations. And in boards, y, 

3 6 MOTHER GOOSE, Forty-eight Pictures de^ig^ied by Kate 

GREENAWAY, and printed in Colours by EDMUND EVANS. 

3 6 ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. An Entirely New 

Edition, with Sixty Illustrations in the Text, and Six full-page Coloured Plates. 

3 6 THINGS INDOORS AND THINGS OUT-OF-DOORS. 

With 940 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth. 

3 6 HOODIE. By MRS. Molesworth, Author of "The 

Cuckoo Clock." With Twelve Illustrations by M. £. £. Crown 8vo, cloth 

3 6 EMINENT SAILORS. By W. H. Davenport-Adams. 

With full page Illustrations. 

3 6 LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. With Sixty 

Illustrations by Sir JOHN GILBERT, R.A., and Coloured Plates. 

3 6 SCHOOLDAYS AT KINGSCOURT. By the Rev. H. C. 

ADAMS. With Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, d th. 

3 6 HISTORY OF SANDFORD AND MERTON. By 

THOMAS DAY. A New Edition, with Sixty Illustrations and Coloured 
Plates. 

3 6 THE BOY'S OWN COUNTRY BOOK. By Thomas 

MILLER. With 140 Illustrations by BIRKET FOSTER and others. 
Post Bvo, cloth. 

3 6 ROUTLEDGES LARGE-SIZE COLOURED PICTURE 

BOOK. Containing Twentv-four full-page Pictures from Designs by T. D. 
WATSON. HARRIS '>N WEIR, E. H. CjRBJULD, and others. Demy 
4to, cloth ; and in boards, 2f . 6^. 

3 6 SOME OF MY LITTLE FRIENDS. By Mrs. Sale 

BARKER. With Twenty-four full-page Plates, printed in Colours by 
KRON H EIM. And in boards, 2f. 6d. 

3 6 DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE AND THE 

GREAT FIRE OF LONDOM. With Illustrations on Steel by GEORGE 
CRUIKSHANK. {Routledge's Standard Library.) 

3 6 LORn BRAPOURNE'S (E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen) 

each. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN. New and Cheaper Editions. 

MOONSiiINE: Fairy Stories. 
TALES A T TEA-TIME: Fairy Stories. 
UNCLE JOE'S STORIES. 
OTHER STORIEi^. 



t ■ 

GEORGiE ROUTLEDGE & SONS' JASt— Continued. 

f 

3 6 PROFESSOR HOFF.ifAIVN'S NEW BOOK.— THS 

CARD-SHARPER DETECTED AND EXPOSED. By Professor HOFF- 
MANN. With Illusiratiuns. 

3 6 THE PICTURE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 

With 250 Pictures. And in boards, 2;. 6d. 

3 6 THE PICTURE NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS, 

With 350 Pictures. And in boards, 2s. 6d. 

3 6 THE PICTURE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES, 

INSECTS, &c. With 250 Pictures. And in boards, af. 6d, 

2 6 ROUTLEDGFJS ALBUM FOR CHILDREN. With i8o 

full-page Illustrations. Fancy boards. 

2 6 ROUTLEDGE'S SUNDAY ALBUM FOR CHILDREN. 

With 180 fulUpage Illustrations. Fancy boards. 

2 6 THE CHILD'S COUNTRY BOOK. In Words of Two 

Syllables. By THOMAS MILLS l^. With Sixteen Coloured Illustrations. 
Fancy boards. 

2 o SCHNICK SCHNACK: Trifles for the Little Cnes. 

CHIMES AND RHYMES FOR YOUTHFUL TIMES. 
BUDS AND FLOWERS OF CHILDISH LIFE. 
BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES for Little Children. 

Illustrated by OSCAR PLETSCH, printed in Colours by LEIGHTON. 
Fancy boards. 

2 o ARCTIC ADVENTURES. By W. H. G. Kingston. 

With many Illustrations and a Col )Hred Fr .ntispiece. 

2 o THINGS IN-DOORS. With 470 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 

cloth gilt. 

2 o THINGS OUT-OF-DOORS. With 470 lUustrations. Crown 

8vo, cloth gilt. 

2 o TWO-SHILLING JUVENILES.— New Volumes. Post 

each. 8vo, cloth. 

THE HAMPDENS. By HARRIEIT Martineau. 

Illustrated by J. E MILLAIS, R.A. 

ROSABELLA : A Doll's Christmas Story. By AUNTIE 

BEE. 

BEING A BOY. By Charles Dudley Warner. 
HIS OWN MASTER. By J. T. Trowbridge. 
I 6 THE BOY'S OWN COUNTRY BOOK OF SPRING. 

each. 

THE BOY'S OWN COUNTRY BOOK OF SUMMER. 
THE BOY'S OWN COUNTRY BOOK OF AUTUMN. 
THE BOY'S OWN COUNTRY BOOK OF WINTER. 

Illustratsd by BIKKET FOSTER and others, with CoLiUred Ftnaxb^M 



GEOBGE ttOXTTLEXyCS. & SOmST LUSTT- 



I 5 UTTLB TLVY^S BOCiC OF THJE C3li:^rrS3L WMtx 
I 6 LITTLE TINVS BOOiC OF QISTEi sr- rrr^^rjs^ 

a ?^.*iaaiK 'm £«er7 Paae. Ant j 



I o ROUTLF^DOKS LARGE-SIZE, STT^ rr r r^^ rz, ■ » y^. 



jrie.i*. LEICESTEUrS SCHOOL^ 3«- <r-=ir^gT-ag 

MARY LAMR 

r//^ BRAVE BOY; or, rTiWcrf^Tw ^i,^ , ,i .^„, 
I o ^yf.V^ ANDERSEN UBRARY. Nejr V^iimnc^ 



WHAT THE GRASS STALKS S.,IJZD^ 3v FTxxg 

FmmUpiece. 

f o ROVTLEDGE'S CHRISTJfAS NTrjf3E:il, 

fiiit-page niinnrwwww nr»im Ongioal Desii^zxv tt ^AND* ' LPS' .'" X r. n Wi~r^ H^ 
WALirf.«<: CkASE, KATE t^AEtNA^AY. 'i;. SX^VTi DOR^Tsi^ 
Oi.MELU. r^ K .PXIN.-i. C DiLi >KT. cL XKJZKX. ADRX.i2# ^amtT, 

atuct ich«r». printed in Giinort iv tLilirN J EV'AJliS. -^T^f «-^i-: ^-. :^m^ 

by I>>nl ERABOUR.Vri.. ilii F14ELEai».K LiJCXSa. a. iff. "^a. 
S.>!*. Mi« ALUjT, M<iiiK. DE WITT, J. GlHAAIlCSr, A. GO£U^«d 

f o RANDOLPH CALDECOTT'S TOT BOCSTS^ 

^uA. V'Jntne*. 

THE riUEEN OF HEARTS. 
THE FARMEfeS BO K 

f o MASTER JACK SERIES,— ^cv Volunics^ 

***" I, GOLDEN DA WN. 

2. GOLDEN DAY, 

3. EVENING LIGHT. 

4. MORNING LIGHT 

With fulHof^e lUiMtrackMi by A. W. BATES. 

o6 ROUTLEDGBS LARGE -SIZE SIXFEjr\'V TOY 

«<h, HOOKS. ^ ^' 

1. rai/ THUMB, With Six fott-pagr Ptctures from 

2. THE THREE BEARS, WiA SLt ftxtt-paOT Pi-tn«K; 

ttrm, D«igns by J. D. WATSON and HARRISoXWSM.^^^ 



3, r//i^ ^^^^^5- /Y THE WOOD, With Six foD- 

pajjc Picture* from Desgns by E. H. CORBOULD. ^^ 

A. r//j5: WHITE CAT, With Six fan-pase Pic^tnnKs 

frvm r>«igT» by F. SKILL. ^^^ *^*^™'^ 

Printed io Colonra by KR DNHEIM Jk Gx. ^V/ 



LONDON ; GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SOITS. 



GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS' IjIST— Con finued. 
I 6 LITTLE TINY'S BOOK OF THE COUNTRY, With a 

Picture on Every Page. And in boards, x*. 

I 6 LITTLE TINY'S BOOK OF ONE SYLLABLE. With 

a Picture on Every Page. And in boards, xs. 

I Q ROUTLEDGE' S LARGE-SIZE SHILLING JUVE- 

each* NILES. — New Volumes. 

MRS, LEICESTER'S SCHOOL. By Charles and 

MARY LAMB. 

THE BRAVE BOY; or, Christian Heroism. 
I o HANS ANDERSEN LIBRARY, New Volume. 

WHAT THE GRASS STALKS SAID. By Hans 

CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. With lUusfrations and Coloured 
Frontispiece. 

I o ROUTLEDGE' S CHRISTMAS NUMBER. ConUining 

full-page Illustrations from Original Designs by RANDOLPH CALD^CO 11, 
WALTER CRANE, KATE GREENAWAY. GUST AVE DORE, GIA- 
COMELLl, L. H(jPKINS, C DcLOkT, E. NICZKY. ADRIEN MARIE, 
and others, printed in Colours by EDMUN D EVANS. And Christnxas Stories 
by Lord BRABOURNE, Mrs FREDERICK LOCKER, R. M. JEPH- 
SON, Miss ALCOT, Mdme. BE WlTl', J. GIRARDIN, A. GODIN, and 
others. 

I o RANDOLPH CALDECOTT'S TOY BOOKS. New 

each. Volumes. 

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. 
THE FARMER'S BOY, 

I o MASTER JACK SERIES.— liew Volumes. 

each. 

1. GOLDEN DA PVN. 

2. GOLDEN DAY. 

3. EVENING LIGHT. 

4. MORNING LIGHT. 

With fuU-page Illustrations by A. W. BAYES. 

o6 ROUTLEDGE S LARGE - SIZE SIXPENNY TOY 

each. EOOKS. 

1. TOM THUMB, With Six full-page Pictures from 

Designs by H. PETHERICK. 

2. THE THREE BEARS. With Six full-page Pictures 

from Designs by J. D. WATSON and HARRISON WEIR. 

3. THE BABES IN THE WOOD, With Six full- 

page Pictures from Designs by E. H. CORBOULD. 

4. THE WHITE CAT, With Six full-page Pictures 

from Designs by F. SKILL. V 

Printed in Colours by KRONHEIM & Co. ^ 



LONDON ; GEORGE. R0\3TLEDGE AND SOWS. 



i