One of the results of the increased use of mathematics, especially arithmetic, was the invention of Babbage's calculating machine in 1822. The usefulness of this invention was so apparent that it was not long in coming into use, or long in causing the invention of improvements on it of many kinds. The calculating machine was a distinct contribution to civilization.
Another contribution, but of quite a different kind, was made by Faraday in the following year (1823) when, after a series of experiments, he announced that he had succeeded in liquefying many of the gases then known by the combined action of cold and pressure. The possibility of doing this had long been suspected by physicists reasoning from known phenomena; but the actual accomplishment of the liquefaction of gas was none the less a feat of a high order of brilliancy and usefulness. In experiments subsequently made, Dewar received the gases in a vessel of his invention which had double walls, the space between which he had exhausted of air, and thus made a vacuum—which is a non-conductor of heat. The "thermos bottle" of today was invented by the great chemist Dewar, and is not therefore a new invention.
Meanwhile, the steam engine had been undergoing rapid development, though the use of locomotives for drawing passenger trains does not seem to have come into regular use until the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad was opened in 1830. In 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company constructed a short railroad, and sent an agent to England to buy the necessary locomotives and rails. In the four years following twelve railroad companies were incorporated. The Baltimore and Susquehanna began actual operations in 1831.
The inventions of Hero, Branca, Worcester, Savery, Papin and Leupold, brought to practicality by Watt, had now come to full fruition, and entered upon that career of world-wide usefulness that has advanced civilization so tremendously and still continues to advance it.
But the most decisive triumph of the steam engine had come more than a decade before, when in 1819 the American steamship Savannah crossed the Atlantic ocean in 26 days, going from the United States to Liverpool.
[CHAPTER IX]
INVENTIONS IN STEAM, ELECTRICITY AND CHEMISTRY CREATE A NEW ERA
When the nineteenth century opened, George III was King of England, Napoleon was First Consul of France, Francis II was Emperor of Germany, Frederick William III was King of Prussia, Alexander was Czar of Russia (beginning 1801), and John Adams was President of the United States.
By this time the influence of the inventions of the few centuries immediately preceding, especially the invention of the gun and that of printing, was clearly in evidence. The Feudal System had entirely vanished, the sway of great and powerful sovereigns had taken the place in Europe of the arbitrary rule of petty dukes and barons, the value of the natural sciences was appreciated, and a fine literature had developed in all the countries.