Inventions in the Century

CONTENTS.


PAGE

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Inventions and Discoveries.--Distinctions and Contrast.--The
One, Useful Contrivances of Man; the Other, New Things Found
in Nature.--Galileo and the Telescope.--Newton and the Law of
Gravitation.--Often United as Soul and Body.--Inventions and
Discoveries do not Precede or Succeed in Order.--Inventions--
Alphabetical Writing; Arabic Notation; The Mariner's Compass;
The Telescope; The Steam Engine.--Discoveries;--Attraction of
Gravitation; Planetary Motions; Circulation of Blood; Velocity
of Light.--Nineteenth Century Inventions and Discoveries.--
Further Definitions.--Law of Development.--Contrivances, not
Creations.--Man Always an Inventor.--Prof. Langley on Slow
Growth of Inventions.--Inventions of this Century Outgrowth of
Past Ones.--Egyptian Crooked Stick, Precursor of Modern
Plough.--Hero of Alexandria and James Watt.--David's Harp and
the Grand Piano.--Electrical Science in 1600 and the Present
Day.--Evolution and Interrelation of the Arts.--Age of Machine
Inventions.--Its Beginning.--The Inducements to Invention.--
Necessity not Always the Mother.--Wants of Various Kinds.--
Accident.--Governmental Protection the Greatest Incentive.--
Origin and Growth of Patent Laws.--Influence of Personal,
Political and Intellectual Freedom and Education.--Arts of
Civilization Due to the Inventor.--Macaulay's Estimate.--
Will Inventions Continue to Increase or Decrease.--Effect of
Economic, Industrial and Social Life upon Inventions.--What
Inventions have Done for Humanity.--Thread of the Centuries.--
The Roll of Inventions too Vast for Enumeration. 1


CHAPTER II.

AGRICULTURE AND ITS IMPLEMENTS.

The Egyptians the Earliest and Greatest Agriculturists.--
Rome and Farming.--Cato, Varro, Virgil.--Columella.--Pliny.--
Palladius.--The Decline of Agriculture.--Northern Barbarism.--
Lowest Ebb in the Middle Ages.--Revival in the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries.--With Invention of Printing.--Publications
then, Concerning.--Growth in Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries.--Jethro Tull.--Arthur Young.--Washington.--
Jefferson.--The Art Scientifically Commenced with Sir Humphry
Davy's Lectures on Soils and Plants, 1802-1812.--Societies.--
"Book Farming" and Prejudice of Farmers.--A Revisit of Ruth
and Cincinnatus at Beginning of Nineteenth Century.--Their
Implements still the Common Ones in Use.--The Plough and its
History.--Its Essential Parts and their Evolution to Modern
Forms.--Originated in Holland.--Growth in England and
America.--Small, Jefferson, Newbold.--Lord Kames' Complaint.--
The American Plough.--Cutting Disks.--Steam Ploughs: Implements
for Preparing the Soil for Planting.--Various Forms of Harrows. 13


CHAPTER III.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

The Sowing of Grain.--The Sower of the Parables.--His Art and
its Defects Lasted until Nineteenth Century.--The Problems to
be Solved.--Assyrian and Chinese Seeding Implements.--India.--
Italy First to Introduce a Grain Sowing Machine, Seventeenth
Century.--Zanon's Work on Agriculture, 1764.--Austria and
England.--A Spaniard's Invention.--Don Lescatello.--The Drill
of Jethro Tull.--A Clergyman, Cooke's Machine.--Washington
and Others.--Modern Improvements in Seeders and their Operation
and Functions.--Force Feed and Gravity Feed.--Graduated Flow.--
Divided Feeds for Separate Grains and Fertilizing Material.--
Garden Ploughs and Seeders.--Gangs of Heavy Ones.--Operated by
Steam.--Corn Planters.--Walking and Riding.--Objects of Proper
Planting.--How Accomplished by Machinery.--Variety of
Machines.--Potatoes and the Finest Seeds.--Transplanters.--
Cultivators.--Their Purposes and Varieties.--Primitive and
Modern Toilers.--Millet.--Tillers of the Soil no Longer
"Brothers of the Ox." 23


CHAPTER IV.

AGRICULTURAL INVENTIONS.

Harvesting in Ancient Times.--The Sickle.--Pliny's Machine.--
Now the Clover Header.--Palladius' Description.--Improved in
1786.--Scotchman's Grain Cradle in 1794.--The Seven Ancient
Wonders and the Seven Modern Wonders.--The Modern Harvester
and the Cotton Gin.--Requirements of the Harvester.--Boyce.--
Meares.--Plucknett.--Gladstone and the First Front Draft
Machine, 1806.--Salonen introduced Vibrating Knives over
Stationary Blades, 1807.--Ogle and Reciprocating Knife Bar,
1822.--Rev. Patrick Bell, 1823, Cuts an Acre of Grain in an
Hour.--Mowers and Reapers in America in 1820.