Invention: The Master-key to Progress

by Bradley A. Fiske

In 1870, Gramme invented the famous Gramme dynamo-electric machine, which was so excellent a machine for producing a smooth and unidirectional electric current, that it gave the start to that wonderful succession of electrical inventions which established the Age of Electricity. The main part of Gramme's machine was a modification of the Pacinnoti ring, invented by Pacinnoti in 1862, which seems never to have been put to practical use, and never to have been heard of by Gramme. The Pacinnoti ring consisted of a ring around which a continuous coil of wire was wound. This ring being rotated in a magnetic field, the various parts of the wire at any instant lay at different angles to the lines of force, instead of at the same angle to them, as was the case with the flat coil of previous dynamo machines. The result was that some coil was always cutting the magnetic lines-of-force at the maximum speed, while others were cutting them at varying speeds, down to zero; so that the aggregate of all was approximately the same at all instants. The result was that the current was nearly uniform in strength. The influence of this invention on subsequent history need hardly be pointed out; for it is impressed on us every day and every night, in every part of the civilized world.

In the same epochal year that ushered in the Franco-Prussian War and the Gramme machine, the Hyatts invented celluloid. The invention was of the simplest character, involving mainly the compression of camphorated gun-cotton by hydraulic or other force. This was not a great invention, but a useful one; making it possible to fabricate many useful articles at low cost.

In the following year of 1871, Goodyear invented his welt shoe-sewing machine and Maddox made his epochal discovery. This was that when nitrate of silver was added to a solution of gelatine in water containing a soluble bromide, silver bromide was formed, which did not subside even after long standing; that the emulsion could be made quickly and in large quantities, and that by thus substituting gelatine for collodion on the surface of glass plates used in photography, greater sensitiveness, and therefore, greater speed could be obtained. This led to an important improvement, and paved the way to others, and thus became the basis of rapid photography.

By 1871 the work of several inventors had produced a press that printed an endless sheet of paper on both sides and folded it automatically. In the same year Ingersoll invented his compressed air rock drill. In 1872, Lyall invented his positive-motion weaving loom, and Clerk Maxwell propounded his electro-magnetic theory of light. According to this theory, luminous and electric disturbances are the same in kind, the same medium transmits both, and light is an electro-magnetic phenomenon. This was a most important invention in the field of physical science, and is now accepted by the majority of scientists. It is not so applicable to the needs of men at the present moment as the weaving loom; but in the future, it may be more so.

In the same year, Westinghouse invented an improvement on his original air-brake that made it automatic under some conditions, and in the following year Janney invented the automatic car-coupler. Both of these were brilliant inventions, though not nearly so brilliant as Clerk Maxwell's. They were immeasurably more important, however, from the standpoint of material contributions to the Machine. One result was that the inventors were immeasurably more rewarded in a material way than was that great mathematical physicist, Clerk Maxwell.

In the same year of Our Lord, 1873, Willis invented his platinotype photographic process, in which finely divided platinum forms an image virtually permanent, and Edison invented his duplex telegraph. This was the first of those wonderful inventions that made Edison famous; and it embodied possibly as brilliant an idea as he ever conceived. The principle was exceedingly simple, and consisted merely in using currents that increased in strength as the key was pressed to actuate an ordinary electro-magnet for one message, and using currents whose direction was reversed when the key was pressed, to actuate a polarized relay for another message. By combining this scheme with one long before proposed, of putting the receiving instruments across the arms of a Wheatstone Bridge, the entire system could be duplicated, and two messages sent at the same time in each direction. This, of course, constituted quadruplex telegraphy.

In the same year, Gorham invented the twine-binder for harvesters, Bennett improved the gelatine-bromide process of Maddox; and Locke and Wood invented the self-binding reaper. In 1874, Glidden and Vaughan invented a machine for making barbed wire, and Sir William Thomson invented his super-excellent siphon-recorder for receiving messages over the Atlantic cable. This invention combined the three elements that constitute a great invention; brilliancy of conception, excellence of construction and concrete product. It was of immediate usefulness also, which a great invention may not necessarily be. But Sir William Thomson was a "canny Scot," a good mechanic, and a man of the world, as well as a mathematical physicist of the highest order; with the result that even on his loftiest flights, he held tight to a string that connected him to the earth, and that kept his flights within the regions of the practical and immediate. His siphon-recorder was very much more sensitive to electric currents than any recorder ever invented before; a quality which made feebler currents utilizable, decreased induction and therefore increased speed. Coming when it did, and coming because Sir William Thomson saw a need for it, it was a great and important contribution to submarine telegraphy, and therefore to the Machine; for the Machine has now become very large and complicated, and needed the best possible communication among its various parts. Some of these parts were far distant from each other.

In the following year, 1875, Brown invented his cash-carrier. This was not so brilliant or important an invention as Sir William Thomson's; but it can hardly be doubted that a hundred thousand times as many cash-carriers and their children, cash-registers, have been made as siphon-recorders. In the same year, Lowe invented his illuminating water-gas; Wegmann his roller flour mills; Smith his middlings purifier for flour; and Pictet his ice-machine. The last four inventions were of that distinctly practical kind that contribute directly to the operativeness of the Machine, by facilitating the conditions of living in large communities, and make great cities possible. Of the four, the invention of Pictet was the most brilliant and scientific, and the least directly useful.

In 1876, Bell made an invention that is usually conceded to be the most important of modern times, and that was also of the highest order of brilliancy of conception, excellence of construction and concreteness of result. The invention was that of the speaking telephone.

The telephone is not in the class with the actual doers of things, like the weaving machine and the gun, but rather in the class with the telegraph and the typewriter, in being an assistant to the doers of things: that is, it is an instrument rather than a machine. This does not mean that a machine is more important than an instrument, though possibly machines have done more work directly in furthering civilization than instruments have. A machine does something itself; an instrument is a means or agency or implement with which men do something. As a class, machines have probably been more directly useful than instruments; but this does not mean, of course, that any machine that one may name has been more useful than any instrument. A machine (generally speaking) does only one class of work; the sewing-machine, for instance, does no work save sewing; while such an instrument as the telephone is an aid to men in directing the work of thousands of machines.