Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

Lavoisier prosecuted rigorous researches in heat and chemistry, and finally made a discovery that cleared up a great fog of doubt as to the nature of oxidation, by proving that it consisted in an actual attack on a metal by oxygen, and that the increased weight resulting from oxidation was that of the oxygen that became associated with the metal in the form of rust. He therefore disproved the theory formerly loosely held that the increase in weight was due to the escape of a spirituous substance which the chemists of that day imagined to depart from the metal, and called by the name phlogiston. An analogous and equally valuable contribution by Lavoisier was that of introducing the use of exact measurements into the study of chemistry. The result of his labors was to put the science of chemistry on a new basis and to separate it from physics entirely.

It might be supposed that Lavoisier would live and die in great honor. He lived in comparative obscurity, and was publicly guillotined on a false accusation. He requested a brief respite, in order to complete an important experiment, and was told in answer that "the Republic has no need of philosophers." This was France's reward for one of the most useful lives that has ever been lived.

One of the most important industrial inventions ever produced and one of the first of the long list of inventions for making things by machinery that had formerly been made by hand, was the spinning machine, that was invented by Dr. Paul in England about 1738. Spinning is an exceedingly ancient art, and consists in forming continuous lengths of thread by drawing out and twisting together filaments of such material as wool, cotton, flax, etc. This art was practiced in many of the ancient countries; and it seems to have been practiced in essentially the same way in England in the eighteenth century A. D., as in Egypt and Assyria long before the eighteenth century B. C. About 1738 Dr. Lewis Paul invented and patented a simple mechanism that anyone with imagination could have invented at any time during the two or three thousand years before, in which the filaments were drawn between rollers. The invention seems to have been moderately successful from the start; for it is stated that in 1742 a spinning mill was in operation in Birmingham in which ten girls were employed, and in which the motive power was supplied by two asses. Paul's invention was improved by a weaver named Hargreaves, who invented the "spinning Jenny"; and it was later brought to a high state of efficiency and value by an invention of a poor and wholly uneducated barber, named Richard Arkwright. The spinning machines of the present day are of the highest order of intricacy, efficiency and usefulness; but they are all based directly on the invention of Arkwright, and his was based on the previous inventions of Paul and Hargreaves. Few persons have contributed so much as these three men of humble station to the comfort and well-being of the race.

On July 3, 1775, George Washington arrived at Cambridge, near Boston, and took command of an army of about 17,000 men that faced a British army occupying Boston. Washington devoted his energies to organizing and training his motley force during the ensuing fall and winter, the enemy making no decided move to drive him off. Finally, on March 4, 1776, having conceived a plan that promised success to him, he suddenly seized and fortified Dorchester Heights, about two miles south of Boston, from which he could command the whole of Boston and the channel south of it, by means of guns which he had ordered, to be dragged through the snow from Ticonderoga. His plan worked perfectly; for the British General Howe, after a vain attempt to drive Washington away, evacuated Boston himself, and took his army to Halifax.

This was Washington's opening move in our War of the Revolution. It was the execution of a plan admirably conceived. There may seem little of originality or brilliancy in it to us now, looking at a map of Boston in the quiet and safety of a library, but there must have been a great deal of merit and originality in it; for it took a British major-general completely by surprise, and compelled him to evacuate an important stronghold with a precipitancy that must have been distinctly galling to British pride. Few neater feats of strategy can be found in military history.

Washington's next feat was in extricating his force from a distinctly perilous position in Brooklyn in front of a superior British force, retreating across the East River to New York, and landing near what is now called Fulton Street. This was on August 30, 1776. The next three months were spent in maneuvers that showed great clearness in conception and great energy in execution on Washington's part, and ended with his occupying Trenton, and Howe occupying New York with the bulk of his forces. Washington had only a little more than 4,000 men, while Howe had 30,000. Washington's troops were discouraged, half-ragged, underfed and untrained; Howe's were elated, well clad, well fed and thoroughly trained. Washington was in as dangerous a plight as can easily be imagined. He extricated himself by conceiving and carrying into execution the brilliant plan of crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night, forcing his way through floating ice, and falling on the amazed camp of the Hessians on the other side. His invention worked perfectly, and effected almost a complete reversal in the relative conditions of the opposing forces; for it put the British on the defensive, and made them withdraw all their forces from New Jersey.

Thenceforward, Washington, by the exercise of imagination, constructiveness and sheet force of will, fought a continual fight against forces that were superior in material and training, but inferior in mentality. Finally, in August, 1781, the crisis came. The British were occupying New York, and Washington was in front of it, threatening to attack it, but knowing that he could not do so with success. About August 14 he received a letter written in July by Admiral Comte de Grasse, then in the West Indies, saying that he would start with his fleet and a force of troops for Chesapeake Bay on August 13. Washington knew that the British General Cornwallis was entrenched at Yorktown, near the mouth of the Chesapeake, with a force considerably inferior to his own. He instantly proceeded to embody in action an idea that he had already conceived—that of leaving the vicinity of New York secretly, and marching with the utmost possible despatch to Yorktown, and calling on de Grasse to assist him to capture Yorktown, and if possible Cornwallis. No invention ever succeeded better. Its influence on history was to precipitate the collapse of the entire British program of hostilities, and cause the establishment of the United States.

The balloon was invented about 1783. Mr. Cavendish had found that hydrogen was about seven times lighter than air, and Dr. Black had forthwith delivered a lecture in which he pointed out that a thin light vessel inflated with hydrogen should be able to rise and float in the air. He conceived the idea of the balloon, but made no invention. The Italian philosopher, Cavallo, about 1782, inflated soap-bubbles with hydrogen gas, but went no further. The subject of making balloons filled with hydrogen was widely discussed; but the first balloon really to rise was the hot-air balloon invented by Joseph and Stephen Montgolfier. This balloon made a successful ascent on June 5, 1783, carrying the two brothers, flew about ten minutes, and alighted safe, after a trip of about a mile and a half. This was followed on August 27 by a flight of a balloon filled with hydrogen gas, the design of which was made by the physicist Charles, and the cost of which was met by a popular subscription. The flight was followed shortly by many others. The first employment of balloons in practical work was in making observations of the enemy by the French army in 1794.

An important invention for utilizing mechanical power in place of hand-power was the power-loom invented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright. This was an invention of the most clean-cut kind, originating in the conception by the Rev. Dr. Cartwright of the possibility of doing much more weaving by mechanical power than by hand, then constructing the machine to accomplish it, and then accomplishing it. An interesting fact in the early development of looms for weaving was the determined and angry opposition of weavers to each improvement in succession.

Another invention also utilizing external power, made near the end of the eighteenth century, was the hydrostatic press. It consisted of a vertical cylinder, fitted with a piston prevented by suitable means from rising, except against great pressures; the piston resting on a liquid in the bottom of the cylinder, which was connected by a small pipe with a small pump, by which more liquid could be forced in. When the pump was operated the pressure per square inch on the piston of the pump was communicated to each square inch of the large piston in the press, and a force exerted equal to that pressure multiplied by the difference in area of the two pistons. This is the model on which hydraulic jacks and many other hydraulic mechanisms are constructed; and it has taken a prominent part in the development of the science of hydraulics ever since it was invented.