American Inventions and Inventors

by William A. Mowry; Arthur May Mowry

Now the long journey across the continent is over, and we are standing on the dock in New York City. Here we see the steamboat Puritan, thronged with passengers, ready to steam away from the wharf on its regular night trip to Fall River. For hours, perhaps, we have been watching the longshoremen as they have rushed back and forth, loading the great vessel with freight for New England. A few minutes later, as we see the majestic steamer, hundreds of feet long—larger than most city business buildings—slowly, but gracefully moving away from the dock, we say to ourselves, "Can it be that steam, caused by fire, has power enough to make the steamboat move through the water like this?"

While we watch the steamer glide around Castle Garden into East River, evening begins to come on; we must hasten uptown. As we pass along Broadway, lights flash out in the darkness and our thoughts are again turned to fire and steam. We have heard that the source of the electric light is in the dynamo, and that steam power is used to turn that great machine. The enormous engine, the mammoth boat, the brilliant light—all need the power of steam, and nothing but fire will produce this steam. What, then, is fire? and is its only use that of changing quiet, liquid water into powerful steam? Let us see.

Did you notice that machine shop which we passed when we were in Cleveland a few days ago? Did you see those furnaces with the huge volumes of flame bursting out of the open doors? You know that great heat is necessary to make tools and other implements of iron, and all the instruments of everyday life that are formed out of metals. Our pens and needles, our hoes and rakes, our horseshoes, our stoves and furnaces, our registers and the iron of our desks—all depend upon heat for their production. Fire can do much for us. To change water into steam is but one of its powers. Fire and heat are behind most of the operations of modern life.

As we open the door of the house we are met by a current of warm air rushing out into the chilly evening. It is the last of October, and in the middle of the day windows and doors have been left wide open to let in all the light and warmth of the bright sunshine. But it is evening now, and the sun has long since sunk below the horizon; it no longer gives us any of its heat. All night the air will grow colder and colder, and were we unprotected by clothing we should suffer from the chill atmosphere. Even coverings are not sufficient to keep the heat of our bodies from passing off into the air, just as the warm air rushed out through the open hall door. It has been found necessary to warm the air in our houses so that the bodily heat, which we need to sustain life, may not so easily be lost. The heat which the sun furnishes us is called natural heat; that which is produced by the skill of man is called artificial heat.

This artificial heat is used for a fourth purpose also. As we have seen, it makes steam for the locomotive, the steamboat, and other engines; it is necessary in the manufacture of tools and various utensils out of iron and other metals; and it warms our houses and schools, our offices and stores. It is also used everywhere and by everybody in cooking. Had we no fires or artificial heat of some sort we should have to eat our meat and fish raw; we could only mix our meal and flour with cold water, which would not be palatable to most of us; our vegetables, uncooked, would fail to satisfy us; and many of us would find ourselves limited to fruits and nuts, which would be hardly sufficient to keep us in good health, to say the least.

Have you ever thought that men or human beings are very much like other animals? Have you ever tried to find out the important differences between man and what are called the lower animals? One of these differences comes right in the line of our present thought. Dogs are fond of meat, and so are most people; but dogs do not need to have their meat cooked as we do. Horses whinny for their oats at night and morning; but they would not care for our favorite breakfast dish of cooked oatmeal. Bears are partly protected from the cold by their thick, shaggy coverings of fur; but even in very cold regions they have no warm fire around which to gather. Man is the "only fire-making animal," and to this fact he owes much of his power.

A VESTAL VIRGIN.

If we read the history of the world, and especially the story of the earlier life of the different nations and peoples, we shall find that fire was considered by them all to be one of the greatest blessings belonging to man. They thought that the gods whom they worshipped also treasured fire. The Romans offered sacrifices to Vesta, the goddess of the fireplace, and it was the duty of the vestal virgins to keep a fire always burning on her altar. Among the Greeks the hearth or fireplace itself was an object of worship.