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Geokqe Stephen&on Studying the Engine. Page 145. 
 
HEROES AND MARTYRS 
 
 OF 
 
 INVEN^TION 
 
 BY y^ 
 
 GEORGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " VASCO DA GAMA : HIS VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES " " PIZARRO : HIS 
 
 ADVENTURES AND CONQUESTS" "MAGELLAN; OR, THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND 
 
 THE WORLD " "'■ MARCO POLO ; HIS TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES " " RALEIGH : 
 
 HIS VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES " " DRAKE, THE SEA KING OF DEVON " 
 
 "YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND" ''YOUNG PEOPLE'S 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND" "THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL" 
 
 BOSTON MDCCCXC 
 LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 
 
 10 MILK STREET NEXT "THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE" 
 
 NEW YORK CHAS. T. DILLINGHAM 
 718 AND 720 BliOADWAY 
 

 Copyright, 1890, 
 By Lee and Shepard. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Early Inventors 7 
 
 11. Laurence Coster, the Discoverer of 
 
 TvPE-PRINTINa 23 
 
 III. John Gutenberg, the Inventor of 
 
 the Printing-Press 33 
 
 IV. Palissy the Potter ....... 43 
 
 V. William Lee, the Inventor of the 
 
 Stocking-Frame 52 
 
 VI. The Builders of the Eddystone . . 62 
 
 VIL The Inventors of Cotton-Machinery, 71 
 VIII. The Inventors of Cotton-Machinery, 
 
 continued 84 
 
 IX. James Watt, the Inventor of the 
 
 Steam-Engine 103 
 
 X. The Montgolfiers and the Balloon, 113 
 XL Humphry Davy and the Safety- 
 Lamp 123 
 
 XII. James Nasmyth and the Steam- 
 
 Hammer 132 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIII. George Stephenson, the Inventor 
 
 OF the Railway-Locomotive . . 141 
 
 XIV. Eobert Stephenson, the great 
 
 Bridge-Builder 151 
 
 XV. Egbert Fulton and the Steam- 
 boat 160 
 
 XVI. The Struggles of Charles Good- 
 year 170 
 
 XVII. Elias Howe and the Sewing- 
 
 Machine 180 
 
 XVIII. Iron and its Workers 190 
 
HEROES AND MARTYRS OF 
 INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY INVENTORS 
 A N IMPOSING CEREMONY tOok pkCG not 
 
 long ago in the ancient historic city of 
 Syracuse, in the Island of Sicily. A tardy 
 statue was raised by the Syracusans to their 
 most famous man, who has been two thou- 
 sand years in his grave. 
 
 The statue looks out upon the purple waters 
 of the beautiful bay, which, nearly two cent- 
 uries before Christ, Avitnessed some of those 
 signal triumphs of science, which have ren- 
 dered the name of Archimedes forever illus- 
 trious. 
 
 In the authentic history of invention, in- 
 deed, the name of Archimedes stands earliest 
 
8 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 and first. No doubt there were many invent- 
 ors;, and great inventors, before his time ; but 
 Archimedes is the first known inventor whose 
 astonishing labors have come down to us in 
 clear and trustworthy narrative. He is, there- 
 fore, entitled to be called the patriarch of 
 science. 
 
 And the more we learn of this wonderful 
 Syracusan, the more we marvel at the in- 
 genuity of his genius, and the creative power 
 of his intellect. He is declared to have been 
 equally skilled in all the sciences ; in astron- 
 omy and geometry, in hydrostatics, dynam- 
 ics, and optics. He was the parent of the 
 art of civil engineering. He was the author 
 of a great number of precious inventions. He 
 established the modern system of measuring 
 curved surfaces and solids. 
 
 He was the first to prove the important fact 
 ^Hhat a body plunged into a fluid loses as 
 much of its weight as is equal to the weight 
 of an equal volume of the fluid." The way 
 
EARLY mVENTORS 9 
 
 in which he discovered this principle is 
 curious and interesting. 
 
 His cousin, Hiero^ King of Syracuse, wish- 
 ing to make an offering to the gods of a 
 golden crown, ordered a certain goldsmith to 
 make one for him. It was soon found, how- 
 ever, that the goldsmith had dishonestly made 
 part of the crown of silver. Hiero called 
 upon Archimedes to find out how much silver 
 had been inserted in the crown. 
 
 The philosopher was perplexed; but one 
 day, while taking a brimming bath, Archime- 
 des observed that the quantity of water which 
 overflowed was just equal to the bulk of his 
 own body. Leaping out of the bath, he ran 
 homeward, exultantly crying : " Eureka ! I 
 have found it ! " 
 
 He now made two masses, one of gold and 
 one of silver. Filling a vessel brim full of 
 water, he alternately inserted in it the gold 
 and the silver mass. He thus found the 
 measures of water which answered to a cer- 
 
10 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 tain quantity of each of the two metals ; 
 thereby proved the comparative weight of 
 gold and of silver ; and was able to show just 
 how much of the baser metal had been in- 
 serted in the golden crown. 
 
 The whole life of Archimedes was romantic. 
 His scientific triumphs were striking and bril- 
 liant, and the influence of his absorbing labors 
 was marked and enduring upon the progress 
 of the human race. His most noted achieve- 
 ment, perhaps, was the part he took in de- 
 fending his native Syracuse from the assault 
 of the Romans under Marcellus. 
 
 The city was sore besieged by the Roman 
 galleys. It seemed as if nothing could avert 
 its doom. 
 
 " The vigorous attempts made by Marcellus 
 to carry Syracuse by storm," says Livy, the 
 Roman historian, " had certainly sooner suc- 
 ceeded but for the interposition of one man, 
 Archimedes ; famous for his skill in astron- 
 omy, but still more so for his surprising in- 
 
EARLY INVENTORS 11 
 
 vention of warlike machines. By tliese^ in 
 an instant^ lie destroyed what had cost his 
 enemy vast labor to construct. Against the 
 Roman vessels, which came up close to the 
 city, he contrived a kind of crow or crane, 
 projected above the battlements, with an iron 
 grapple attached to a strong chain. This was 
 let down on the prow of a ship, and, by 
 means of the weight of a heavy counterpoise 
 of lead, it raised up the prow, and set the 
 vessel upright on her end." 
 
 Another story, the truth of which was long 
 doubted by philosophers, but the probability 
 of which has been shown by the later dis- 
 coveries of science, is, that Archimedes set 
 the Roman ships on fire by means of mirrors. 
 When the ships were within bow-shot of the 
 shore, Archimedes placed some hexagonal 
 and smaller mirrors, each at a proper 
 distance, opposite the sun, and moved them 
 by means of hinges and metal plates. 
 Directed upon the ships, these were set on 
 
12 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 fire, and were burned as if by the operation 
 of maGric. 
 
 The possibility of this remarkable feat of 
 science has since been many times shown. It 
 is asserted that in the sixth century a famous 
 man of science, Proclus, set fire to the Thra- 
 cian fleet in the harbor of Constantinople, by 
 means of mirrors made of brass. In the last 
 century, the great French naturalist, Buffon, 
 repeated with success the exploit attributed 
 to Archimedes at Syracuse. Buffon, with his 
 apparatus of mirrors, set fire to planks at a 
 distance of two hundred feet, and melted 
 metals and minerals at a distance of forty 
 feet. 
 
 In our own day, the problem how to use 
 the heat of the sun by mechanical agency 
 is one of the most absorbing objects of the 
 search of natural philosophers. One of these 
 has recently been bold enough to assert that 
 on any space in the United States, twenty by 
 thirty miles square, enough of the heat of 
 
EARLY INVENTORS 13 
 
 the sun is wasted to drive all the steam 
 engines in the world. 
 
 In spite of the well-nigh superhuman 
 efforts of Archimedes in behalf of the proud 
 and lovely city of his birth^ it was at length 
 carried by surprise by the Roman legions. 
 As the exultant victors swarmed through the 
 streets, they found Archimedes quietly seated 
 in the public square. 
 
 His head was bent, and he was deeply 
 studying a series of geometrical figures, which 
 he had just traced in the sand. He did not 
 seem to be conscious that the city had been 
 captured, or that the Romans had invaded its 
 streets. A Roman soldier, not knowing who 
 he was, ran up to the absorbed philosopher 
 with a drawn sword. Archimedes perceived 
 his murderous intent'. 
 
 " Hold your hand a little," said he quietly, 
 glancing at the figures in the sand ; " only 
 spare my life until I have solved this problem." 
 
 But the petition fell on heedless ears; 
 
14 HEROES AND MARTYKS OF INVENTION 
 
 and this greatest man of his age perished by 
 the hand of the rude barbarian. Archimedes 
 was bm^ied with imposing funeral pomp. 
 
 Upon his tombstone^, in accordance with 
 his own desire, was engraved a cylinder bear- 
 ing a sphere ; a device which represented his 
 discovery of the proportion between a cylin- 
 der and a sphere of the same diameter. 
 
 But in the hurly-burly of the time he was 
 soon, and for long, forgotten. A hundred 
 and fifty years later, Cicero, wandering in 
 Syracuse, found the tombstone, neglected, 
 lost sight of, and overgrown with weeds and 
 thistles. 
 
 And now, at last, in the nineteenth century, 
 Syracuse has remembered her illustrious 
 ancient citizen, and has fittingly reared a 
 statue to his memory. 
 
 In his great lecture on " The Lost Arts," 
 Wendell Phillips described many inventions 
 the knowledge of which had become extinct, 
 though the products of those lost inventions 
 
EARLY INVENTORS 15 
 
 still survive. He told of others which^ hav- 
 ing become extinct; had been again revived 
 in later ages. 
 
 The re-discovery of ancient and once lost 
 artS; indeed; is a striking phase of the history 
 of mediaeval and modern invention. Many of 
 the most signal scientific triumphs of later 
 times were known at periods concerning which 
 only dim traditions remain. 
 
 Some of the uses of steam were known to 
 the ancientS; who employed it to grind drugs, 
 to turn spitS; and to amuse and to terrify the 
 common people. It is stated by antiquaries 
 that the Romans knew the art of printing ; 
 but opposed the practice of it, because it 
 deprived the scribes of their avocation. 
 Certain it is that the Romans made imprints 
 upon their pottery by means of stereotypes. 
 
 Printing was known to the Chinese in 
 remote antiquity ; and lithography had been 
 a familiar German art three centuries before 
 its re-discovery less than a hundred years ago. 
 
16 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 The Romans quite understood the properties 
 of gunpowder ; but rather played and trifled 
 with it^ as they did with steam^ than put it 
 to any useful service. As they made steam a 
 bugbear ;, so they used gunpowder mainly for 
 fireworks. 
 
 It is certain that Colt's revolver is only a 
 re-discovery of an ancient weapon ; for in the 
 Arsenal of Venice you may see not only 
 revolvers^ but rifled muskets and breech-load- 
 ing cannon, which were made and used in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 Locomotion by steam was attempted by 
 Blasco da Garay^ in the harbor of Barcelona, 
 two centuries and a half before Robert Fulton 
 guided the famous ^^ Clermont" up the Hud- 
 son. Dr. Darwin predicted the locomotive 
 and the steamboat, a quarter of a century 
 before Fulton's memorable trip, in the oft- 
 quoted lines, — 
 
 " Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam ! afar 
 Drag the slow barge, and drive the rapid car ! " 
 
EARLY INYENTORS 17 
 
 When the tunnel was built beneath the 
 Thames, it was believed to be indeed a new 
 thing under the sun ; a marvel of modern 
 engineering skill. But it was afterwards 
 found that tunnels had been laid beneath the 
 waters of the Euphrates at ancient Babylon. 
 The Romans built excellent macadamized 
 roads. The idea of the Congreve rocket was 
 borrowed by its re-inventor from the ingen- 
 ious arsenals of Hindostan. The Chinese, 
 ages ago, lit their houses with coal-gas. 
 
 If there is any modern discovery to which 
 we should be most strongly tempted to attrib- 
 ute absolute originality, it would be that of 
 the anaesthetic properties and uses of ether. 
 But in the works of Albertus Magnus, who 
 lived in the thirteenth century, — in the 
 midst of the hurly-burly of the Crusades, — 
 you will find a good practical recipe for pre- 
 paring ether as an anaesthetic. The same 
 principle, indeed, was known to many ancient 
 peoples. In the far East, nepenthe and man- 
 
18 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF IN\T:XTI0N' 
 
 dragora were* used to deaden pain. To a 
 similar purpose the Chinese put mayo, and 
 the Egyptians their soothing and seductive 
 hasheesh. 
 
 It was supposed that glass was a discovery 
 of mediseval times, until specimens of it 
 were found in the more elegant of the lava- 
 buried villas of Pompeii. 
 
 We must abandon, too, the proud and 
 cherished belief that the electric telegraph 
 was the original device of an illustrious 
 American of the nineteenth century. " The 
 invention of the telegraph," says a recent 
 English scientific writer, ^^^was clearly indi- 
 cated by Schwenter in 1636. He then 
 pointed out how two persons could communi- 
 cate with each other by means of the mag- 
 netic needle." A century later, in 1746, 
 Le Mounier exhibited a series of experiments 
 in the Royal Gardens at Paris, showing how 
 electricity could be transmitted through iron 
 wire nine hundred fathoms in length. 
 
EARLY INVENTORS 19 
 
 But a real electric telegraph was actually 
 set to work, in 1774, by Le Sage of Geneva. 
 His instrument comprised twenty-four metal- 
 lic wires, separated and enclosed in a non- 
 conducting substance. Each wire ended in 
 a stalk, mounted with a little ball of elder- 
 wood, suspended by a silk thread. A slight 
 stream of electricity was sent through the 
 wire ; the elder ball at the other end was 
 repelled ; and this repulsion indicated a letter 
 of the alphabet. 
 
 A device very much like that of Le Sage 
 was invented a few years later by Lomond of 
 Paris. 
 
 The discovery that the sun can paint pic- 
 tures on a plate prepared with certain chemi- 
 cals, can by no means be justly claimed by 
 Monsieur Daguerre, although he gave his 
 name to the daguerreotype. To the renowned 
 artist who, four centuries ago, decorated the 
 walls of the stately Refectory at Milan with 
 his splendid picture of " The Last Supper," 
 
20 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 who contended with Michael Angelo for the 
 artistic sceptre of Florence, and who was not 
 only a painter and sculptor of the highest 
 genius, but was also a noted chemist, a suc- 
 cessful engineer, a melodious poet, a graceful 
 musician, and an ardent astronomer; to 
 Leonardo da Vinci the world perhaps owes 
 the great idea of photography, which has 
 given so much aid to science, and so much 
 pleasure, instruction, and delight to all man- 
 kind. 
 
 Six hundred years ago, old Friar Bacon 
 taught his countrymen that many of the 
 wonders which, in their ignorance, they 
 attributed to sorcery, to the machinations of 
 the Evil One, to the weird agency of ghosts 
 and witches, were really works of nature, or 
 of skilful human art. 
 
 It is almost startling, indeed, to see how 
 this learned and far-seeing English monk, of 
 an almost barbaric period, imagined and 
 clearly foreshadowed some of the greatest 
 
EARLY INVENTORS 21 
 
 inventions of modern times. " Instruments 
 may be made/' he says^ " by which the largest 
 ships, with only one man guiding them, will 
 be carried with greater swiftness than if they 
 were full of sailors. Chariots may be built 
 that will move with incredible rapidity, with- 
 out the help of animals. Instruments of 
 flying may be formed, in which a man, sitting 
 at his ease, may beat the air with his artifi- 
 cial wings, after the manner of birds. A 
 small instrument may be made to raise 
 and depress the greatest weights. An in- 
 strument may be devised by which a man 
 may draw a thousand men to him by force, 
 and against their will. Machines can be 
 constructed which will enable men to walk 
 at the bottom of seas or rivers without 
 danger." 
 
 So it was that this bright morning star, 
 rising in the dim dawn of modern science, 
 shot its penetrating ray far athwart the 
 shadows of the future ; and discerned, almost 
 
22 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 clearly, locomotion by steam, the perfection 
 of the principle of the lever, the sounding of 
 the mysterious ocean depths by the diving- 
 bell, and the successful navigation of the 
 air. 
 
LAUKENCE COSTER ^ TYPE PRINTOTG 23 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LAURENCE COSTER, THE DISCOVERER OF TYPE- 
 PRINTING 
 
 In Holland there is a very ancient town 
 called Haarlem. It is a drowsy, humdrum 
 old place, with quaint houses of many gables, 
 and irregular grass-grown streets, and long 
 reaches of straight, stagnant canals. Some of 
 the streets are so narrow that you can shake 
 hands with a passer-by on the opposite side- 
 walk, and in some places the upper stories 
 project so far over the lower ones that two 
 people in opposite houses can easily converse 
 with each other. 
 
 On one of these streets stands a house which 
 seems even older than most of its neighbors. 
 It looks as if it were toppling over, and might 
 fall down over the rough sidewalk any windy 
 
24 HEROES AKD MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 day. Its windows are full of tiny, dust-cov- 
 ered panes^ and its single upper story so pro- 
 jects as to form a shelter and shade over the 
 doorway. This old house is pointed out to 
 strangers who go to Haarlem to see the curi- 
 osities of the venerable town as one of especial 
 interest. It is said to be at least six or seven 
 centuries old. But the reason why it is es- 
 pecially worth seeing is that once upon a time, 
 long, long ago, there dwelt in it a man of 
 whom the sedate people of Haarlem are still 
 very proud. His name was Laurence Coster. 
 He was the warden of a little church w^iich 
 stood not far from his modest dwelling, and 
 passed his time between his not very heavy 
 duties at the church and in the midst of his 
 family at home. 
 
 Among other tastes, Laurence Coster was 
 very fond of reading. He lived, indeed, five 
 hundred years ago ; and at that period, it need 
 not be said, there were no printed books 
 such as we have now. The only books which 
 
LAUKENCE COSTEE — TYPE-PKINTmG 25 
 
 then existed were those written on parchment 
 and vellum, and this was done mainly by the 
 monks in their quiet monasteries. It fol- 
 lowed that these written books were very 
 rare and expensive. They were not to be 
 found in the homes of the people. Even a 
 great and rich lord could only afford to have 
 a very few of them. They were as much of 
 a luxury in a rich household as a picture by a 
 famous artist is now. 
 
 Of course, as books were so scarce and ex- 
 pensive, very few of the common people ever 
 learned how to read. But Laurence Coster 
 was an exception to this rule. He had always 
 been a great student^ fond of learning, and 
 preferring solitude to the society of those 
 around him. In the little church of which he 
 was warden there were a few of the monks' 
 manuscript volumes ; and these, we may well 
 believe. Coster had read over and over until 
 he must have well-nigh known them by heart. 
 
 Thus Coster lived on to middle age, and 
 
26 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 then to old age^ in ca quiet, humdrum, studious 
 existence. He now found his little home 
 peopled with quite a family. His son had 
 married, and lived with him in the old 
 house, and three or four rosy grandchildren 
 delighted Coster's declining years. To give 
 pleasure to these grandchildren, and to teach 
 them what he himself knew, became the joy 
 of his old age. 
 
 Old Coster was very fond of strolling by 
 himself in the outskirts of the quiet town. 
 Sometimes, attired in his short seedy cloak, 
 and a hat which was shaped like a sugar-loaf, 
 and had a broad flapping brim, he would 
 saunter along the banks of the slow little 
 river Spaaren, which wound beyond the town. 
 But his favorite haunt was a dense grove 
 which stood a mile or two beyond the limits 
 of Haarlem, and which was little resorted to 
 by any one except himself. 
 
 This grove had for many a year been a 
 retreat to which Coster had loved to resort. 
 
LAUREIS-CE COSTER — TYPE -PRINTING 27 
 
 When he had been a young man, full of senti- 
 ment and romantic notions, he had gone out 
 to it to dream of the fair maid of his love. 
 Even now, in old age, he could find on one of 
 the trees the letters which formed the initials 
 of her name, which he had once fondly carved 
 there when in a sentimental mood. 
 
 In a different way this habit of carving 
 letters in the bark of the trees still seemed to 
 delight him. When of a languid summer 
 afternoon he stretched himself out on the 
 short soft moss beneath a beech-tree, he would 
 almost unconsciously tear off some of the 
 bark and begin to fashion letters from it with 
 his knife. One day it occurred to him not 
 only to carve the letters, but to cut them out, 
 put them in his pocket, and carry them home. 
 He thought that it would be the easiest possi- 
 ble way to teach his little grandchildren their 
 alphabet, and so in time enable them to read, 
 if he showed them the letters in the form of 
 playthings. 
 
28 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 After a while this became a regular custom 
 with him. He was delighted to see that the 
 letters of bark greatly amused the children, 
 and that they very soon learned to tell one 
 from another. Then the old man became 
 more careful and more skilful in carving the 
 letters. He tried to fashion them as nicely 
 and distinctly as possible, and spent more 
 hours than ever in the grove, absorbed in this 
 pleasant occupation, which was destined to 
 make him famous. 
 
 One afternoon Coster had been more than 
 usually successful in cutting the letters out of 
 the bark. His old eyes twinkled to see how 
 neatly he had made them. He happened to 
 have an old piece of parchment with him, and 
 with this he carefully wrapped up the letters 
 and carried them home in his pocket. 
 
 The grandchildren, as usual, were watching 
 eagerly for their dearly loved old grandsire, 
 and as he approached, ran out to meet him 
 and lead him by both hands into the house. 
 
LAURENCE COSTER- TYPE-PRINTING 29 
 
 They clapped their hands with glee when he 
 took the piece of parchment from his pockety 
 and, unfolding it, showed them a number of 
 prettier letters than they had ever seen be- 
 fore. They at once took the letters, and vied 
 with each other in pronouncing them, while 
 the old man playfully corrected their mistakes. 
 Meanwhile the old scrap of parchment had 
 been thrown carelessly aside. But it hap- 
 pened that one of the little boys, tired for the 
 moment of playing with the letters, picked up 
 the parchment and unfolded it. Then he 
 cried out in wonder, '' Look, grandfather ! see 
 what the letters have done ! " 
 
 Coster took the parchment from the boy to 
 see what he meant. His eyes dilated as he 
 gazed upon the parchment. There, upon its 
 surface, the letters had left a clear imprint. 
 To be sure, the imprint represented the letters 
 reversed, but nevertheless they were there, 
 printed upon the parchment. It soon ap- 
 peared that when Coster had carved the let- 
 
30 HEPwOES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 ters the bark had been moist with the sap of 
 the tree, and the sap had performed the ser- 
 vice of ink. 
 
 Old Coster, though a man in a humble 
 sphere of life, was very far from being a dull 
 one. His thoughtful, studious life enabled 
 him to perceive that this printing of the bark 
 letters on the parchment was really a great 
 discovery. What if, by thus having a series 
 of letters, and impressing them again and 
 again upon parchment, books might be multi- 
 plied and made cheap for all the w^orld ! 
 
 Laurence Coster now had a new occupation 
 in life, which absorbed all his hours and 
 labors. By a mere accident, as it seemed, he 
 had discovered the mighty art of pmiting with 
 types. He went to the grove and cut more 
 letters ; and then, using ink, pressed them 
 upon a piece of parchment. He reversed the 
 letters, and now they appeared properly 
 placed upon the page. Then he formed 
 words, and printed them also in the same 
 
LAURENCE COSTER — TYPE-PRINTrnG 31 
 
 way. He next cut the letters, no longer from 
 the fragile bark, but from the solid wood. 
 He managed to invent a thicker, glutinous 
 ink, which would not blur the page when im- 
 pressed on the parchment. Then he cut his 
 letters out of lead, and finally out of pewter. 
 
 When his ignorant and superstitious neigh- 
 bors heard what he was doing, some of them 
 declared that he was a madman, while others 
 darkly hinted that he was a sorcerer. After 
 a while they annoyed him so much that he 
 was forced to shut himself up and conceal his 
 work from them ; and so he went on, month 
 after month, striving to bring about the 
 realization of the great art of printing, which 
 he perceived to be possible. 
 
 One day, while old Coster was thus busily 
 at work, a sturdy German youth, with a 
 knapsack slung across his back, trudged into 
 Haarlem. By some chance this youth hap- 
 pened to hear how the churchwarden was at 
 work upon a wild scheme to print books in- 
 
32 HEROES AND MAKTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 stead of writing them. With beating heart 
 the young man repaired to Coster's house, 
 and made all haste to knock at the church- 
 warden's humble door. Who this youth was, 
 and what came of his visit to old Coster, will 
 be told in the next chapter. 
 
JOHN GUTENBERG — PRIISrTING-PKESS 33 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 JOHN GUTENBERG, THE INVENTOR OF THE 
 PRINTING-PRESS 
 
 The sturdy young German who, with knap- 
 sack on back and staff in hand, knocked at 
 old Laurence Coster's door, was no ordinary 
 youth. Although scarcely more than twenty, 
 he had already seen a great deal of life, and 
 even some of its rougher aspects. 
 
 John Gutenberg belonged to a family of 
 high degree, and had been reared in such 
 luxury as could be enjoyed in the rude 
 mediaeval time ; but he did not allow luxuri- 
 ous living to make him indolent or unam- 
 bitious. He was an ardent student, and had 
 received the best training which the learned 
 monks could give him. Often, when a boy, 
 he was found poring over the manuscripts 
 
34 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 which he found in the monasteries where he 
 was educated. He was also very religious in 
 thought and act. Many a time he would 
 earnestly exclaim, what a pity it was that 
 the Bible was a closed book to the masses of 
 the people ; that, as it was written by hand 
 on parchment, it could only be possessed 
 either by the churches and monasteries or by 
 very rich people. 
 
 Gutenberg's home was at Strasburg, on the 
 banks of the Rhine. He had often dreamed 
 of foreign countries, and imagined what they 
 and their peoples were like ; so one day, being 
 strong of limb and active in exercise, he 
 resolved to pack up his knapsack, attire him- 
 self in walking costume, and take a long 
 pedestrian tour. It was while on this jaunt 
 that, by a chance for which all later genera- 
 tions have had reason to be thankful, he 
 heard of old Coster and his discovery, and 
 hastened to present himself at the humble 
 churchwarden's door. 
 
JOHN GUTENBERG — PRINTING-PKESS 35 
 
 You can imagine the eagerness with which 
 Coster led his young guest in^ and how 
 delighted he was to show him just how the 
 printing of his letters worked. While with 
 his rude leaden types the old man pressed 
 letter after letter on the parchment^, Guten- 
 berg stood by, rapt in attention. Already 
 he imagined that he saw dimly to what great 
 uses this discovery might be put. 
 
 " And see here ! " exclaimed Coster^ holding 
 up some pages of parchment awkwardly 
 sewed together^ "here is my first hook in 
 prints 
 
 It was a Latin grammar. Old Coster had 
 slowly printed it^ letter by letter^ and right 
 proud was he of this first triumph of his 
 patient labor. 
 
 *^^But we can do better than this/' said 
 Gutenberg. " Your printing is even slower 
 than the writing of the monks. From this 
 day forth I will work upon this problem^ and 
 not rest till I have solved it." 
 
36 HEROES AND MARTYES OF INVENTION 
 
 Warmly grasping Coster's hand, and thank- 
 ing him for showing him his discovery, 
 Gutenberg resmned his knapsack, and trudged 
 out of Haarlem. He had no longer any 
 thought of continuing his tramp into new 
 scenes. His fondness for seeing strange lands 
 had for the wdiile deserted him. His only 
 thought was to get back as soon as possible 
 to Strasburg, where he lived, and to set to 
 work upon the task he had now set to him- 
 self. • 
 
 Gutenberg lived in an age of dense super- 
 stition and ignorance. Everything that was 
 new and unfamiliar seemed to the ignorant 
 people of that time to be the work of sorcery ; 
 and any one who dared to do things which 
 appeared marvellous in their eyes, was perse- 
 cuted and pursued as if he dealt in evil magic. 
 No one knew this better than the young 
 Strasburg scholar. 
 
 So, on his arrival at Strasburg, he gave out 
 that he was at work making jew^elry. Mean- 
 
JOHN GUTENBERG — PRINTING-PEESS 37 
 
 while he locked himself up in his room^ and, 
 scarcely taking time to eat or sleep, devoted 
 himself to the problem how to make Coster's 
 discovery useful to the world. But he found 
 that he was watched and interrupted, and 
 that his hiding himself so constantly in his 
 room gave rise to dark suspicions among his 
 neighbors. So he repaired to an old ruined 
 monastery, only one or two rooms of which 
 were habitable, and which stood a few miles 
 from the town. Here he thought he could 
 work in peace, for the monastery ruin was in 
 a lonely, deserted place. 
 
 Hidden in an obscure corner of this old 
 monastery of St. Arbogaste was a little cell. 
 This cell Gutenberg secured by a great oaken 
 door with heavy bolts, and here he hid the 
 tools and materials needed for his work. At 
 the same time he fitted up a half-ruined room 
 in a more open part of the monastery as a 
 jewelry shop. He engaged two young men 
 to help him polish precious stones and to 
 
38 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 repair trinkets. Tn this way he hoped to be 
 able to work at his types in the hidden cell 
 without discovery. 
 
 He now set to work, at such times as he 
 could escape into his little cell, in dead 
 earnest. It was not long before he had 
 carved out of some bits of wood with his 
 knife a number of separate types. The happy 
 idea struck him to string these on a piece of 
 wire in the form of words, and at last of sen- 
 tences. Then, finding that wood was not 
 hard enough, he carved some types, with more 
 difficulty, in lead. 
 
 Having made types which satisfied him, 
 Gutenberg used his knowledge of chemistry 
 to make an ink which would leave a distinct 
 imprint, and he soon succeeded in producing 
 such an ink. As he continued to work, the 
 great idea that was absorbing him grew more 
 and more clear. He had his types and his 
 ink, so he made a brush and a roller to put 
 the ink on the types. He had now got as far 
 
JOHN GUTENBERG — PRINTING-PRESS 39 
 
 as printing a whole word or sentence on a 
 piece of parchment; and by changing the 
 movable types about, could form at will new 
 words and sentences. 
 
 His next task was to construct ^^ chases/' 
 so that the types could be held together^ and 
 would print in pages. And at last the idea 
 of a printing-press was made a reality. 
 
 When Gutenberg had completed and 
 gazed with delight on the first printing-press 
 which had ever been constructed, the main 
 difficulties of his task w^ere over. With his 
 types set in their chases, his different colored 
 inks at his elbow, his rollers at hand to apply 
 the ink, and his press ready to press the types 
 down upon the blank pages, he stood ready 
 to complete the first book printed with 
 movable type. 
 
 But poor Gutenberg was not destined to 
 derive much happiness from the results of his 
 labors and the splendid invention he had 
 made. He worked so hard that the few hours 
 
40 HEROES AND MARTTES OF INVENTION 
 
 of the night which he took for sleep were dis- 
 turbed by uneasy dreams. Sometimes he 
 thought that angelic voices warned him not 
 to go on with his printing, for that it would 
 bring untold miseries upon the human race. 
 Then he would rise in the morning, unre- 
 freshed by his slumbers and terrified by the 
 vision, and, seizing a mallet, would be on the 
 point of smashing his printing-press all to 
 pieces. But sometimes other spirits would 
 appear to him in dreams, and urge him to go 
 on with his good work, saying that it would 
 be an immense blessing and benefit to all the 
 world in all future ages. This would inspire 
 him with new energy, and he would toil the 
 next day with a light heart. 
 
 But after the printing-press had been made, 
 and he had really begun to print books, his 
 assistants in the jewelry shoj) betrayed him. 
 They told the magistrates of Strasburg aboiit 
 his long absences and mysterious movements. 
 Their story soon spread through the town, 
 
JOHN GUTENBERG— PRINTING-PEESS 41 
 
 and roused the anger and hatred of the 
 writers of manuscript books^ who feared lest 
 printing should ruin their occupation. 
 
 Gutenberg's enemies soon compelled him to 
 fly from Strasburg. He was stripped of all 
 he had in the worlds and even his life was 
 threatened. So he went bacT^ to Mayence^ 
 his birthplace, and there resumed his printing. 
 He took a rich jeweller, Fust, into partner- 
 ship. But he was not allowed to work long 
 in peace. Fust turned against him, and he 
 was soon forced to leave Mayence as he had 
 left Strasburg. 
 
 He was noAv wretchedly poor, and for a 
 while roamed aimlessly from place to place. 
 But at last he found a home in Nassau, the 
 ruler of which offered him his protection. In 
 that quiet town, Gutenberg set up his press 
 again, and printed many books, and spent the 
 remainder of his days, it is pleasant to say, in 
 rest, comfort and content, although he never 
 mt rich from his invention. He died in the 
 
42 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 year 146 8, at the ripe age of sixty-nine ; and 
 many years after the statue of him^ which 
 may be seen standing in Mayence, was erected 
 in his honor by the descendants of those who 
 had driven him forth^ a beggar, from his 
 native city. 
 
PALISSY THE POTTER 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PALISSY THE POTTER 
 
 Ik the quaint old French village of Saintes 
 there livedo more than three hundred years 
 ago, a very strange, eccentric man. 
 
 So mysterious were his ways that his 
 neighbors, who were simple, ignorant coun- 
 try folk, avoided and feared him. As he 
 passed through the winding village street he 
 was dressed so shabbily that he looked like a 
 beggar. People who saw him for the first 
 time half expected him to stop, put on a 
 pleading face, and humbly ask for " one little 
 sou." 
 
 Yet, threadbare as he was, his air was not 
 at all that of a beggar. He hurried along 
 with a brisk step. His large brown eyes 
 glistened brightly, and there was almost 
 
44 HEKOES AKD MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 always an eager smile upon his lips. He 
 did not seem to be in the least conscious of 
 his tatters ; and if he nodded to his neigh- 
 bors^ and they turned their backs on him in 
 reply, he went on smiling just as before. 
 
 This peculiar man dwelt in an old cottage 
 a little out of the more thickly settled part 
 of the village. He had a pale, thin, sad- 
 looking wife, and three or four children, w^ho 
 looked as if they were far from being well 
 fed. \Yhat was stranger still, he never 
 liked to have any one enter his tumble-down 
 cottage. It was clear to the village folk that 
 he had some dark secret which he was very 
 anxious to keep from all the world, and that 
 he was afraid that if any one entered his door 
 it would be discovered. 
 
 Those were very ignorant, superstitious 
 times, and when there was a mystery about 
 any one, it was always attributed to some 
 wickedness or some unholy art. As this man 
 passed a group of villagers, they would look 
 
PALISSY THE POTTER 45 
 
 at him f rowningly^ and would fall to whisper- 
 ing to one another. 
 
 ^^He is a sorcerer/' one would mutter, 
 " and makes witches' philters, and casts the 
 Evil One's spells over people." 
 
 " No," another one would say under his 
 breath; "he is a coiner of false money. 
 Look you : he has built a big furnace in the 
 back of his house, and he keeps it ever 
 a-roaring. You can see the smoke and 
 sparks shooting up any time o' day. There 
 he has his crucibles and chemical things, 
 and he carries his false pieces of money away 
 to the towns, and exchanges them for good, 
 honest ware." 
 
 Then perhaps a third, more kind-hearted 
 than the others, would reprove his comrades, 
 and, slowly shaking his head, would add : 
 "No, the poor wretch is mad — clean gone 
 mad. How else could the man, who is so 
 poor, in rags, with wife and children always 
 a-starving, go about with such bright eyes 
 
46 HEROES AND MAETYRS OF IKYENTION 
 
 and so brave an air ? Be sure he is a mad- 
 man. God help his poor family ! " 
 
 But day after day the man went to and 
 fro, and heeded not his neighbors' frowns and 
 sneers, or their shrinking from him as he 
 passed by. 
 
 His name was Bernard Palissy, and his 
 whole soul was wrapped up in one object, to 
 which he sacrificed everything. 
 
 If you had entered the poor little cottage, 
 you would have indeed discovered just such 
 a furnace as the villager described; and 
 scattered about the room you would have 
 seen a number of pots, pieces of clay, and 
 various bottles and crucibles. It was true, 
 too, that the furnace was always roaring 
 with a big fire, which was kept constantly 
 at red heat. 
 
 But Palissy was not a sorcerer, and was 
 not concocting any magic draught, or trying 
 to turn the baser metals into gold. He was 
 engaged in a work which he knew, if he sue- 
 
PALISSr THE POTTER 47 
 
 ceeded in it^ would give him fame and wealth 
 to his heart's content. 
 
 Palissjj though of humble birth^ had 
 picked up here and there a good deal of 
 knowledge of chemistry and the qualities of 
 minerals and ores. He had^ too^ a very 
 ardent love of all beautiful objects. He had 
 begun life as a surveyor, and had then 
 learned to paint on glass. But though his 
 work was good^ he did not succeed very well ; 
 for, instead of attending to his business, he 
 was studying and dreaming his time away. 
 
 But an event happened one day which gave 
 him a new purpose in life, and changed the 
 whole current of his existence. While wan- 
 dering about a neighboring town he chanced 
 to spy in a shop window a very beautifully 
 decorated cup. The fine polish and brilliant 
 colors of the cup at once attracted his artistic 
 eye ; and, though he was poor, he managed 
 to scrape together enough money to buy it. 
 
 This cup, which had been made in Italy, 
 
48 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 absorbed his attention. He studied its every 
 line and feature, and kept wondering and 
 wondering how it received and could keep 
 such a beautiful, smooth, glossy polish. No 
 such cup could ever have been made in 
 France. 
 
 What if he could find the way to make 
 beautiful ware like this ! Surely then his for- 
 tune would be made, and his poor wife would 
 wear Lyons silks, and his hungry little chil- 
 dren would dine each day on ragouts and the 
 best of fruits. 
 
 Palissy abandoned everything to achieve 
 this object which he now set before himself. 
 No more surveying or glass-painting for him. 
 He would discover for himself the art of 
 enamelling, or die in the attempt. 
 
 So, in the rear of his cottage, he built with 
 his own hands the big, rude furnace, bought 
 the chemicals which he thought necessary for 
 his work, collected a supply of the right kind 
 of clay, and resolutely set about his task. 
 
PALISSY THE POTTER 49 
 
 For a long time he failed in every attempt to 
 produce a bright enamel^ such as he found 
 on the Italian cup. Meanwhile^ he grew 
 poorer and poorer. His wife and children, 
 poor things, scarcely got enough food to 
 keep body and soul together. 
 
 One morning, when Palissy's hope was 
 high that he would soon be able to perfect 
 the enamel, a workman, whom he had hired 
 for a pittance to help him, declared that he 
 would not stay another day unless the money 
 which was due him was paid. Palissy gave 
 him his last suit of clothes; but the man 
 was not satisfied, and soon went away. 
 Left thus alone, Palissy worked with more 
 desperate energy than ever. But now the 
 wood which he used for the fuel of his fur- 
 nace gave out, and he had no money to buy 
 any more. All his labor seemed about to 
 become in vain ; for if the fire of the furnace 
 went down, the enamel could not be made. 
 
 Stung almost into despair, Palissy was 
 
50 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 struck by a sudden idea. He rushed into his 
 little garden, tore down the trellises which 
 supported his few fruit-trees and grape-vines, 
 and hurled them on the fading fire. Yet, 
 alas ! the composition he had made and put 
 into the furnace would not melt. The fire 
 once more waned. Palissy then seized the 
 chairs and tables, frantically broke them up, 
 and cast them upon the flames. He tore the 
 door from its hinges, the window-frames from 
 their sockets, and piled them on the fire. 
 Then seeing that the enamel did not yet melt, 
 in his desperation he pulled up the very 
 boards which formed the floor of the room, 
 and added these to the roaring conflagration. 
 As now he looked into the blazing fire, he of 
 a sudden gave a wild shout of joy : '' Come 
 hither, good wife ; come hither, my children ! " 
 They hurried in, not knowing what to 
 make of the frantic cry. As they entered 
 the room where the furnace was, they saw 
 Palissy, his face flushed with the heat, and 
 
PALISSY THE POTTER 51 
 
 his eyes glistening with triumph^ standing by 
 the furnace. He held up the vase which he 
 . had just taken from it. It glittered with its 
 dazzling polish and its beautiful colors. At 
 last he had indeed discovered the secret of 
 enamelling. The time of triumph and for- 
 tune had come. 
 
52 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WILLIAM LEEj THE INVENTOR OF THE 
 ^ STOCKING-FRAME 
 
 Those wlio have strolled through the 
 streets of the old town of Cambridge^ in 
 England^ will not easily forget the many col- 
 lege edifices which appear on every side, com- 
 posing the ancient University. Many of 
 these buildings are imposing and beautiful. 
 They are adorned with numerous archi- 
 tectural devices : with arches, gables, oriel 
 windows, gargoyles, pinnacles, and other 
 sculptural ornaments, and almost all of them 
 bear the marks of great age. The air of the 
 town is one of studious repose ; it seems a 
 place well fitted for quiet study and for the 
 pursuits of tranquil scholars. The old town 
 has changed so little, moreover, in the prog- 
 
WILLIAM LEE — STOCKING-FRAME 53 
 
 ress of time, that very much as it looks now 
 it looked in the good Queen Elizabeth's time, 
 three centuries ago. 
 
 It was in the reign of Elizabeth that a 
 young man named William Lee repaired to 
 Cambridge to get an university education. 
 Lee was a country lad who had been brought 
 up on a large farm. From childhood he had 
 been fond of study, and had had a craving for 
 knowledge. He loved reading and learning 
 far better than the active duties on his 
 father's farm. All the time he was at the 
 University he studied hard^ and at the end of 
 his course had taken a high rank among his 
 comrades. As a reward for his good scholar- 
 ship he was given a " Fellowship." This pro- 
 vided him with a small income, and enabled 
 him to continue living at the University after 
 graduating, still pursuing his studies there. 
 
 Lee was one of those dreamy, thoughtful 
 young men who care for little outside of their 
 bookS; and, being much wrapped up in them, 
 
54 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 learn but little of the ways of the busy world. 
 He was not in the least what we call a 
 " practical man." His life was absorbed in 
 the love and pursuit of book knowledge. He 
 was wholly unfitted for any other kind of 
 work. His destiny seemed to be to live and 
 die a college professor. 
 
 And so he might have done if his fate had 
 not led him astray into the paths of love. If 
 he had not fallen in love, probably the world 
 never would have heard of William Lee. He 
 was fond of wandering through the pretty 
 roads and hedge-bound lanes in the vicinity 
 of Cambridge, taking a book with him on his 
 jaunts, and sauntering dreamily along the 
 paths, thinking of what he had been reading. 
 
 It chanced that on one of these excursions 
 he met a young country lass with such rosy 
 cheeks and bright eyes that he was at once 
 roused out of his reverie and attracted to her. 
 His dreams now took another turn. He 
 thought less of his books, and more of the 
 
WILLIAM LEE — STOCKING-FRAME 55 
 
 maiden who had stirred his heart. She lived 
 on a poor little farm some miles away from 
 the town ; and Lee^, having succeeded in mak- 
 ing her acquaintance^ betook himself more 
 and more often to the modest cottage where 
 she dwelt. To his delight^ his affection was 
 soon returned ; and now many were the happy 
 hours which he spent at his rosy-cheeked 
 young lady-love's side. But there was one 
 drawback to his pleasure, which greatly wor- 
 ried him. The young girl's parents were 
 very poor^ and it was her task to eke out the 
 small family income by knitting stockings. 
 She had her household duties to perform dur- 
 ing the day, and so she was obliged to take 
 up her knitting in the evenings. Oftentimes 
 when Lee came she was so busy with her 
 work that she could not talk to him. 
 
 At last his patience was exhausted, and he 
 proposed that they should get married. He 
 thought that his income as a ^^ Fellow" 
 would suffice for both, and he would be care- 
 
56 HEROES AND MARTYES OF INVENTION 
 
 ful to keep his marriage secret. It was a law 
 of the University that the Fellows should be 
 unmarried men, and Lee saw that if his mar- 
 riage were known he would lose his Fellow- 
 ship and be thrown upon the world. 
 
 So one morning they got married. But 
 Lee's happiness was not long-enduring. His 
 marriage was soon discovered, and he was 
 abruptly expelled from his Fellowship in the 
 University. Worse stilly when his father 
 heard of the marriage^ he disowned poor 
 William, who was now cast upon the world 
 with his young wife without a penny. What 
 should they do ? If they did not go to work, 
 they must soon starve. Every day they grew 
 poorer and more wretched. 
 
 His young wife, who was very cheerful and 
 industrious^, took up her knitting once more, 
 in order to earn enough, if possible, to sup- 
 port them. As for poor Lee, he was totally 
 unfitted to do anything, and his pride was 
 greatly hurt to sit idly by while his wife 
 
WILLIAM LEE — STOCKING-FRAME 57 
 
 toiled patiently^ hour after hour, on her 
 work. 
 
 One day, as he sat watching her fingers 
 busily plying the needles, a bright thought 
 suddenly struck him. Could not a machine 
 be somehow contrived which, imitating human 
 fingers, would knit stockings ? If he could 
 only devise such a machine, his wife would no 
 longer have to work so hard, and perhaps it 
 might even bring fortune to his poverty- 
 stricken door. It seemed that there was 
 something practical in the poor student after 
 all. He set eagerly to work to realize his 
 new idea. He studied such machines as he 
 could find in his neighborhood. He made a 
 great number of models, and was not dis- 
 heartened when one after another failed to 
 perform the task he had in view. But at last 
 the day came when an actual working stock- 
 ing-frame stood in the miserable little room 
 which was all the home he had. He had suc- 
 cessfully carried out the idea of imitating 
 
58 HEROES AN'D MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 fingers knitting, and to his joy he found 
 himself now able to weave stockings on his 
 machine finer in texture, and more rapidly, 
 than those which were made with his wife's 
 hands. 
 
 It was not long before Lee's great invention 
 became known far and wide. Queen Elizabeth 
 heard of the silk stockings woven by Lee's 
 frame, and, having received a pair, vowed that 
 she would never wear cloth hose apy more, 
 but would always thereafter wear woven silk 
 stockings. The great ladies adopted the 
 fashion, and Lee found himself raised at last 
 above the galling poverty which he had suf- 
 fered after his marriage. He established him- 
 self at Calverton, not far from his native 
 place, and for some time he did a thriving 
 business. But so valuable was his machine 
 that pretty soon unscrupulous men began to 
 make machines like it, and so Lee lost much 
 of the benefit of his invention. Though the 
 proud Elizabeth was glad enough to wear the 
 
WILLIAM LEE — STOCKING-FRAME 59 
 
 fine silk stockingSj she would not protect him 
 against those who invaded his rights^ and 
 when King James came to the throne he also 
 refused to aid the inventor. 
 
 But Lee, who had proved himself a far 
 more energetic and able man than he had 
 seemed to be in his studious days, was re- 
 solved that he would continue the industry 
 which he had created. So he packed up his 
 machines and crossed over to France. There 
 he was heartily welcomed by the great- 
 hearted King Henry the Fourth, and by 
 Sully, the king's wise and far-seeing minis- 
 ter. Lee settled in the beau.tiful old town of 
 Rouen, where he became so busy that he em- 
 ployed nine men to help him weave stockings. 
 His wife could now sit at home at ease and 
 take care of their children. Happy days had 
 dawned upon them, and it seemed as if their 
 troubles had forever vanished. 
 
 One day, however, the good king who had 
 so generously befriended the English inventor 
 
60 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 was murdered as he was riding in his car- 
 riage. Lee was now forced to give up his 
 establishment at Rouen, and sought obscurity 
 and safety in Paris. There, it is said, he died 
 in poverty and wretchedness before he had 
 passed the middle years of life. Some of his 
 workmen returned to England, and one of his 
 apprentices, named Aston, set up a stocking 
 factory in his own country, and established 
 the weaving of stockings as a permanent 
 industry of England. Thus Lee's invention 
 proved to be of the greatest benefit to his 
 native land, although he himself did not reap 
 fortune from it. 
 
 But happily his name was not forgotten. 
 Some time after his death a curious painting 
 was made of him watching his wife at her 
 knitting. He was represented as wearing the 
 costume of his college, and pointing to an 
 iron stocking-frame, while his wife was busy 
 with her needles at his side. On the picture 
 was this quaint inscription: ^^In the year 
 
WILLIAM LEE — STOCKIKG-FRAME 61 
 
 1589 the ingenious William Lee^ of St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, devised this profitable 
 art for stockings (but, being despised, went 
 to France) ; yet of iron to himself, but to us 
 and to others of gold ; in memory of whom 
 this is here painted." The curious old picture 
 long hung in the Stocking-weavers' Hall, in 
 London, but has now disappeared. 
 
 So lived, loved, worked, and died the 
 modest scholar who gave to England one of 
 her greatest industries, to create which he 
 was inspired by his tender affection for his 
 wife. 
 
62 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BUILDERS OF THE EDDYSTONE 
 
 Among the world's greatest benefactors 
 have been the patient and heroic men who, 
 often at the peril of life, have reared light- 
 houses on dangerous reefs. The lighthouse, 
 standing lonely, quiet, and ever steadfast 
 amid the restive turbulence of the sea, serves 
 two useful purposes. It warns away the 
 tempest-tossed sailor from the crags on 
 which it stands, and it guides him toward 
 the safe havens on the shore. Thus it con- 
 verts what was once a perpetual danger of 
 the ocean into an actual means of security 
 and life. 
 
 For many a century, a certain jagged reef 
 of rocks which lies about twelve miles off the 
 English coast, in the rough English Channel, 
 
THE BUILDERS OF THE EDDYSTONE 63 
 
 was a terror to all the seamen who ap- 
 proached it. Many a goodly craft had 
 struck upon its jutting crags^ and had in an 
 instant broken up and sunk to the bottom. 
 Often hidden amid dense fogs^ the ships of the 
 olden time could never make out just where it 
 lay ; and each year it claimed and devoured 
 its victims^ sometimes by the hundred, so that 
 those near and dear to them never knew what 
 had been their fate. 
 
 The ocean, dashing in ceaseless breakers 
 upon this hideous mass of rocks, breaks in 
 circling eddies and whirlpools around them ; 
 and from this circumstance the reef, ages 
 ago, received the now famous name of the 
 Eddystone. 
 
 It was upon this terrible reef of the Eddy- 
 stone that the first lighthouse which was ever 
 built upon a rock at a distance from the 
 mainland was erected ; and it is curious that 
 the idea of putting a lighthouse there was 
 conceived, not by a sailor or an engineer, not 
 
64 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 by a man of science or by the government, 
 but by a quiet, eccentric English country 
 gentleman. About two centuries ago this 
 gentleman, whose name was Henry Winstan- 
 ley, was living at ease in his ancient manor- 
 house in eastern England. Winstanley was 
 a very queer, whimsical man. He was quite 
 rich, and used his wealth in a very singular 
 way. His neighbors, though they liked him 
 for his good-nature and easy-going w^ays, 
 thought that he was perhaps a little 
 ^'cracked." Winstanley, among other odd 
 traits, w^as very fond of playing practical 
 jokes. Indeed, he spent a good deal of his 
 time and money in giving people sudden 
 shocks and surprises. He filled his house 
 and grounds, for instance, with all sorts of 
 strange devices for this purpose. 
 
 Yet it was this very man of strange w^liims 
 and terrifying jokes, Henry Winstanley, who 
 undertook the unheard-of feat of erecting a 
 lighthouse on the tempest-riven reef of the 
 
THE BUILBEES OF THE EDDYSTONE 65 
 
 Eddystone. Inspired by the noble idea of 
 saving so many lives and so much property 
 from the jaws of the great deep^, Winstanley 
 abandoned his idle life and went to work 
 with a will. He himself aided and superin- 
 tended his workmen, giving up all his time 
 and energies to the great work. For six 
 years he toiled ceaselessly to finish it. He 
 constantly braved the storms that ever swept 
 around the dreadful reef ; more than once, 
 bound to the rock, he came near starving ; 
 and when the lighthouse had been reared, 
 and was all but completed, he fell at last a 
 victim to his noble design. 
 
 One evening at dusk, Winstanley, with a 
 party of his workmen, set out in a boat from 
 Plymouth to put some finishing touches to 
 the lighthouse. Just as he was starting, a 
 friend, pointing to the gathering clouds, 
 warned him that a storm was brewing, and 
 begged him not to go. But Winstanley, 
 in his reckless way^ replied, "1 only wish I 
 
66 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 could be at the lighthouse in the greatest 
 storm that ever blew under the face of the 
 heavens." His wish was to be fulfilled 
 sooner than he thought. As night closed in, 
 the tower of the lighthouse could be dimly seen 
 from the shore, rising proudly above the angry 
 surge. But before the next morning dawned it 
 had disappeared forever from human sight. 
 The crags of the Eddystone rose grim, bleak, 
 and bare from the swelling bosom of the sea. 
 The brave Winstanley and all his men, and 
 every stone, and buttress, and cable, and nail 
 of his lighthouse — everything excepting 
 only a single chain which remained riveted 
 in the crevice of the rock — had been swept 
 away. For all had gone down under the 
 most terrific gale which had raged in the 
 English Channel for many years. 
 
 But the sad fate of Winstanley did not 
 prevent other intrepid spirits from making 
 fresh attempts to transform the Eddystone 
 from an awful peril into a beacon of safety. 
 
THE BUILDERS OF THE EDDYSTONE 67 
 
 Four years after Win Stanley was lost, a plain, 
 sensible man, John Rudyerd, whose trade was 
 to deal in silk goods, went to work and 
 erected a wooden lighthouse, which was 
 shaped like a pine cone, on the bleak and 
 barren reef. But as the waters and winds 
 had proved the destruction of Winstanley's 
 tower, so fire afterward consumed that of 
 Rudyerd. 
 
 Rudyerd's tower stood the brunt of wave 
 and storm for forty-six years. Then, early 
 one cold December morning, some fishermen, 
 who were getting ready their nets on the 
 beach, saw clouds of smoke issuing from the 
 lighthouse. Three men were known to be in 
 the lighthouse ; one of them, the keeper, was 
 ninety-four years old. As soon as these men 
 discovered the fire, they began to work fran- 
 tically with their buckets ; but their water 
 was soon exhausted. They became wild with 
 fright, and the terrible heat soon exhausted 
 them. The melting lead, too, began to drop 
 
68 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 on them from the roof^ and bm^ned them 
 terribly. As the flames spread through the 
 tower, and swept down with fierce rapidity 
 from the top to the bottom, the terror- 
 stricken men retreated before it nntil they 
 sought refuge from the blazing beams and 
 molten lead in a big crevice in the rock. 
 There they huddled together, almost dead 
 with terror and pain. 
 
 Meanwhile the fishermen on shore had 
 jumped into a boat, and had rowed with 
 might and main to the crag. They arrived 
 just in time to save the poor wretches from 
 being burned. Their sufferings had been 
 terrible. No sooner had the boat brought 
 them safely to the shore than one of them, 
 the moment he got out of the boat, was seized 
 with an insane frenzy. He plunged into the 
 forest and was never more seen. As for the 
 poor old keeper, he was so entirely overcome 
 by his fright and his maddening burns, that 
 he died a few days after his rescue. 
 
The Edpystone Lighthouse. Page 6y. 
 
THE BUILDERS OF THE EDDYSTONE 69 
 
 The third Eddystone Lighthouse^ which 
 stood sturdily on the rock for more than a 
 hundred years, was erected four years after 
 Rudyerd's tower was burned. It was built 
 by John Smeaton, one of the greatest invent- 
 ors and engineers of the eighteenth century. 
 
 It is said that, when a small boy, Smeaton 
 liked to play with workmen's tools rather 
 than with children's ordinary toys. At the 
 early age of fourteen he built an engine 
 for turning rose-work, and at twenty-five he 
 invented an instrument for measuring a ship's 
 way at sea. 
 
 The lighthouse which Smeaton erected on 
 the tempest-beaten crag of the Eddystone 
 was a noble column of granite, which rose to 
 a height of eighty-five feet. It resembled in 
 shape the trunk of an oak-tree, and swept up 
 in a gentle curve from its base. On the sum- 
 mit was placed a large lantern, with a gallery 
 around it. This famous lighthouse was taken 
 down, stone by stone, in 1884, and re-erected 
 
70 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 on a height on the mainland, near the old 
 seafaring town of Plymouth — on the very 
 spot, indeed, where Queen Elizabeth's brave 
 old sea- warriors, Drake, Hawkins, and Fro- 
 bisher, were playing their famous game of 
 bowls, three hundred years ago, when the 
 Spanish Armada hove in sight in the English 
 Channel. A new and larger lighthouse was 
 built on the Eddystone ; and this it is which 
 to-day sheds its far-gleaming rays over the 
 waters, and guides the sailors to their homes 
 on the shore. 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 71 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY : 
 KAY; HARGREAVES; ARKWRIGHT 
 
 The machinery for the spinning of cotton 
 yarn, and for the weaving and printing of 
 cotton cloths^ has, in every part of it, been 
 invented and brought to its present excellence 
 within the past one hundred and fifty years. 
 As lately as in 1730^ no machine whatever 
 existed even for the spinning of yarn. 
 
 To six men of genius especially — five 
 Englishmen and one American — is to be 
 awarded the distinction of having established 
 the cotton manufacture as one of the mightiest 
 of the world's industries. For this industry 
 has, in a century, created the English Man- 
 chester out of a straggling rural hamlet, and 
 Liverpool out of an obscure fishing village ; 
 
72 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 has transformed the English county of Lan- 
 caster from a dreary and barren waste into a 
 noisy network of dense^ busy towns and 
 crowded factories. 
 
 These six men were John Kay, who in- 
 vented the fly-shuttle ; James Hargreaves, 
 who devised the spinning-jenny ; Richard 
 Arkwrightj who made the water frame ; 
 Samuel Crompton, who constructed the spin- 
 ning-mule ; Edmund Cartwright, whose genius 
 produced the power-loom ; and Eli Whitney, 
 to whom we owe the great improvement of 
 the cotton gin. 
 
 Down to a period as recent as 1730, the 
 spinning of cotton yarn was done by the 
 finger and thumb, a thread at a time. 
 The yarn was also woven by hand, the shuttle 
 being thrown back by each hand alternately. 
 It was in 1733 that John Kay revolutionized 
 the art of weaving by introducing his fly- 
 shuttle. 
 
 This machine^ which seems simple even to 
 
THE IKVENTORS OF COTTOX-MACHINERY 73 
 
 uncoutlmess to our eyes^ merely supplied a 
 handle and spring, with which the shuttle 
 could be worked with one hand. But so 
 important was the change which the fly- 
 shuttle effected, that Kay became at once 
 the object of persecution by two opposite 
 classes. 
 
 The weavers, on one hand, were so incensed 
 that they burst into his house, destroyed every 
 one of his machines on which they could lay 
 their hands, and threatened him with the 
 same furious treatment. The capitalists, on 
 the other hand, welcomed his invention. But 
 they attempted to use it without right, and 
 to deprive him of all the benefits of his 
 device. Kay was forced to take refuge in 
 Paris, where he soon after died in beggary 
 and neglect. 
 
 A fate scarcely less harsh overtook the 
 next great improver of cotton machinery. 
 James Hargreaves was a poor but ingenious 
 weaver. A sore need was felt for some de- 
 
74 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION" 
 
 vice which would spin yarn more rapidly 
 than had before been done. 
 
 One day, an accident revealed to Hargreaves 
 how this could be effected. As he sat brood- 
 ing in his humble cottage, his wife's spinning- 
 wheel happened to fall over upon the floor. 
 Hargreaves perceived that the wheel still 
 continued to revolve, the spindle being now 
 in an upright, instead of a horizontal posi- 
 tion. 
 
 This gave him the hint which he needed. 
 He went to work and made a spinning-frame, 
 with eight spindles and a horizontal wheel. 
 This machine he called after his wife (Jenny) 
 the ^^spinning-jenny." But no sooner had 
 his invention become known to the neighbor- 
 ing spinners, than Hargreaves was assailed 
 by a storm of savage anger and abuse. 
 
 His cottage was attacked by a brutal mob. 
 His precious spinning-jenny was broken to 
 atoms ; and he himself barely escaped, with 
 his wife, from the eager clutches of his enemies. 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 75 
 
 The rest of his life, like that of Kay before 
 him, was a dreary yet patient struggle against 
 starvation ; and he^, too, died unacknowledged, 
 poor, an outcast, his invention having proved 
 the greatest misfortune of his life. 
 
 One of the most prosperous and busy towns 
 in the great manufacturing region in northern 
 England is Bolton. A hundred and thirty 
 years ago it was a much smaller town than 
 now, but it had then the reputation of being 
 one of England's most thriving industrial 
 centres. At that time Bolton was a queer 
 straggling place, with many old grimy houses, 
 and many narrow lanes and alleys branching 
 off from the streets. One of these alleys con- 
 ducted the wayfarer to an ancient, cosey inn, 
 the Old Millstone. If you had been walking 
 in this alley about the year 1750, you would 
 have seen a rude sign hanging over a cellar 
 on one side, bearing these words : " Come to 
 the underground Barber ! He shaves for a 
 penny!" 
 
76 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 Descending into the cellar^ you would have 
 found the barber to be a bright-eyed, active, 
 keen-looking young man about twenty-one 
 years of age, standing ready in his shirt- 
 sleeves to shave the next customer. Nor 
 w^ould he have to wait long, for the cheap 
 rate at which he relieved people of their 
 stubby beards brought an almost continual 
 succession of artisans from the neighboring 
 machine-shops to his dark little cellar. 
 
 When he had shaved a customer, the latter 
 would hasten to a lead cistern against the 
 wall to wash his face ; for barbers in those 
 days did not ^^fix up" their customers as 
 comfortably after shaving as they do now. 
 
 This lively barber, besides being very 
 expert at his trade, was, like many another 
 barber before him and since, a great talker. 
 Everybody who came under the swift sweep 
 of his razor had to pay his contribution of 
 chatter. The barber asked his customers 
 about their various trades, and he was always 
 
THE INTENTORS OF COTTON"-MACHINERY 77 
 
 especially eager to learn what anybody would 
 tell him about machinery. He loved to hear 
 all about the new machines which were in- 
 troduced from time to time into the shops and 
 factories — how they were made^ how they 
 worked, how much labor they saved, and 
 what kind of goods they turned out. 
 
 The name of our inquisitive and energetic 
 barber was Richard Arkwright. Ilis child- 
 hood and boyhood had not been very happy. 
 His father was a very poor man, and had 
 thirteen children. Of course, as there were 
 then no free schools in England, he could not 
 hope to give this large family a good educa- 
 tion. The result was that Richard grew up 
 without learning much of anything, and just 
 as soon as he was strong enough to work he 
 was set about it. Yet Richard was a youth 
 of a very persevering, resolute spirit. He 
 had a manly independence about him and a 
 cheerful courage, which enabled him to bear 
 bravely whatever hardships came upon him. 
 
78 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 and to sturdily carry on his struggles with 
 the world. 
 
 While he was shaving for a penny, he was 
 always dreaming of something better and 
 more profitable. He knew that he had a 
 good deal of mechanical ingenuky, and he 
 resolved to put it to use as soon as he could. 
 He spent the little leisure time he had in 
 studying machinery, and in trying to invent 
 something. By the time he was thirty, 
 Richard made up his mind that he had had 
 quite enough of the shaving business. He 
 worked hard, yet he only made enough to 
 keep body and soul together ; he was laying 
 up nothing for the future. So, throwing 
 aside the razor, he took up the trade of a 
 dealer in hair. 
 
 He wandered about the country, buying the 
 ringlets of rustic young girls, making them up 
 into wigs, and selling them to the old people. 
 Meanwhile he invented a new way of dyeing 
 hair, which brought him in quite a brisk 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 79 
 
 trade. He thrived so well in his new busi- 
 ness that he laid up a considerable sum of 
 money, and falling in love with a farmer's 
 daughter, he married her. 
 
 One day he was in a manufacturing town, 
 where he heard some weavers talking about 
 the threads used in the weaving of cloth. 
 The cloth they made consisted of linen thread 
 w^oven wdth cotton. But it was hard, they 
 said, to get enough cotton thread to form 
 what was called the " weft " of the cloth. A 
 machine for spinning cotton thread had 
 already been invented by the poor weaver, 
 James Hargreaves, to whom his invention 
 had been nothing but a misfortune^ since 
 he had been persecuted and driven from 
 place to place, because the spinners thought 
 that his " spinning-jenny " would deprive them 
 of work. But the spinning-jenny did not pro- 
 duce enough thread for the demand, nor was 
 its thread fine and close enough for the weft. 
 
 Richard Arkwright listened intently to all 
 
80 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 that the weavers were saying. He plied 
 them with questions. He found one of Har- 
 greaves's spinning-jennies^ and examined 
 closely its every part. From that time he 
 had but one idea — to invent a machine which 
 would spin thread faster and finer than the 
 spinning-jenny. And now^ like many invent- 
 ors who absorb themselves in their one idea, 
 Richard began to neglect his regular business. 
 His young wife was angry to see him daily 
 growing poorer and poorer ; for, instead of 
 saving money, he did not now earn enough 
 to give them the common comforts of life. 
 Instead of going up and down the country 
 for his stock of maidens' tresses, he stayed at 
 home, making models of machines and brood- 
 ing over them by the hour together. One 
 day he would feel sure that the model he had 
 just made would answer the purpose, and 
 bring fame and fortune at last ; the next, he 
 would discover some fatal defect, would throw 
 the model aside, and begin on a new one. 
 
THE INYEI^TORS OF COTTOI^-MACHmERY 81 
 
 They finally grew so poor that it was hard 
 for them to procure enough to eat from 
 day to day. Richard's wife^ who was a 
 young woman of rather violent temper^ was 
 always upbraiding him for what she thought 
 his idleness, and crying out to him that his 
 attempts to invent a spinning-machine were 
 all nonsense. At last her patience gave way 
 entirely, and one day she seized the last 
 model, which he had carefully and laboriously 
 made, and in a fit of rage threw it violently 
 on the floor. 
 
 Richard could not stand this. He was 
 infuriated to see his pretty model lying on 
 the floor in twenty pieces, and told his wife 
 to leave him forever. She obeyed him, going 
 away from their humble home, never to 
 return. 
 
 After several years of great poverty and 
 suffering, during which he met and overcame 
 many obstacles, Richard at last completed the 
 machine which has made his name immortal 
 
82 HEROES Al^D MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 in the annals of invention. It was while he 
 was struggling with his troubles that one day 
 he arrived at Preston^ which he had made his 
 home. An election for member of Parlia- 
 ment was going on, and his vote was greatly 
 needed. But he looked so shabby and ragged 
 that the party managers were ashamed to 
 lead him to the polls. So they took him to 
 a tailor's, fitted him out with a new suit of 
 clothes, and brought him up to the voting- 
 place. 
 
 But the old days of want vanished 
 forever after Arkwright had at last intro- 
 duced his spinning-frame. This machine 
 produced a cotton thread fit not only for the 
 " weft/' but also for the ^^warp " of the cloth, 
 so that the cloth could now be woven wholly 
 of cotton. 
 
 In a few years the beautiful vale of the 
 river Derwent, in the centre of England, 
 revealed to the eye several large mills busily 
 at work with Arkwright's machines, and not 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 83 
 
 far from them rose a stately country-house, 
 with parks and lawns, known as Willersley 
 Castle. Both the mills and the castle belonged 
 to Richard Arkwright, who had become rich 
 and prosperous, and was growing richer every 
 day. 
 
 He who had once been a humble barber in 
 a dingy cellar, shaving workmen for a penny 
 apiece, was now one of the chief men of his 
 neighborhood, and one of the most famous in 
 all England. He was made High Sheriff of 
 his county, which in England is a high honor ; 
 and once, when King George the Third paid 
 a visit to the locality, Arkwright, as Sheriff, 
 presented the monarch with an address of wel- 
 come. For this slight deed, and not because 
 he was the inventor of one of the most useful 
 machines ever made, the king made Arkwright 
 a knight, so that he rose from his knees with the 
 title of Sir Richard Arkwright. Thus titled, 
 rich, and renowned, the inventor lived to a 
 good old age, happy in the respect of all men. 
 
84 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY^ CON- 
 TINUED : CROMPTON, CARTWRIGHT^ WHITNEY 
 
 The next advance in cotton machinery 
 was the spinning-mule, invented by the shy, 
 simple, and confiding Samuel Crompton. 
 Crompton's mule is confidently declared to be 
 " the fulcrum of that mighty lever, the cotton 
 trade of England." It almost displaced the 
 spinning-jenny of Hargreaves, and its princi- 
 ple has remained to this day, for the most 
 part, unchanged. 
 
 It may be fairly said that it was Samuel 
 Crompton, chiefly, who created by his inven- 
 tion that great network of English manu- 
 facturing towns, of which the centre is 
 Blackburn ; which includes Oldham, Preston, 
 and Manchester; and to which appears to 
 
THE INYEN^TORS OF COTTON'-MACHINERY 85 
 
 have been awarded the special task of cloth- 
 ing mankind. 
 
 Crompton revealed the signs of unusual 
 talents at a very early age. He was fond of 
 books. He had a rare taste for music. He 
 constructed excellent fiddles when a mere 
 boy. He early learned to weave, and before 
 he had arrived at manhood had already begun 
 to construct, in his own mind, the machine 
 which was destined, not indeed to enrich him, 
 but to add enormously to the wealth and 
 prosperity of his native country. 
 
 In the " Hall-in-the-Wood," an ancient, 
 rambling mansion which stood amid fine old 
 oaks on the banks of the river Eagley, near 
 Bolton, Crompton worked diligently and in 
 secret for five years. At the end of that 
 time, the spinning-mule had grown into a 
 practical machine. It united the leading 
 features of the machines of Hargreaves and 
 Arkwright, and turned out a yarn easily 
 superior to anything previously produced. 
 
86 HEROES AOT) MARTYRS OF INYENTIOltT 
 
 But now Crompton was called upon to 
 undergo the same persecutions and bitter 
 wrongs which had assailed the others. The 
 same Blackburn weavers and spinners who 
 had driven Hargreaves from his home now 
 attacked Crompton^ and destroyed his ma- 
 chines. He took one of his mules to piei^es^ 
 and hid it in the roof of the ^^ Hall-in-the- 
 Wood." When, after many weeks, the rage 
 of his enemies subsided, he put the mule 
 together again, and, hid in the garret, spun 
 his yarn upon it day aiid night. 
 
 Soon the yarn which he produced became 
 famous for its firmness and fineness through 
 all the country round. Curious folk flocked 
 from every direction to see his machine. 
 When Crompton refused them admission, 
 they brought ladders, and climbed up to the 
 windows to catch a glimpse of it. " One 
 pertinacious fellow," so goes the story, " hid 
 himself for several days in the cock-loft, from 
 which he watched Crompton at work in the 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 87 
 
 garret below^ through a gimlet hole which he 
 had bored in the ceiling." 
 
 Crompton's struggles against poverty^ mob- 
 violence^ and many attempted thefts of his 
 invention^ were long and desperate ; but he 
 bore them all with a sweet and patient tem- 
 per, which showed him to be a hero among 
 men. 
 
 After many years of suspense^ however^ he 
 seemed at last to be on the very verge of re- 
 ceiving the reward of his splendid service to 
 the great industry of cotton-spinning. The 
 prime minister of England, Spencer Perceval, 
 expressed his intention of conferring on the 
 veteran inventor a liberal pension. 
 
 One day, Crompton was awaiting the prime 
 minister in the lobby of the House of Com- 
 mons. Presently Perceval came up and told 
 Crompton that he should receive twenty thou- 
 sand pounds, as a gift from the nation. Per- 
 ceval then turned away to enter the House. 
 At that instant the sharp ring of a pistol 
 
88 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INYENTION" 
 
 eclioed through the hall. There was a loud 
 cry of alarm and dismay. Perceval fell to the 
 floor, shot through the heart by the crazy 
 assassin Bellingham. Crompton's last hope 
 was gone, and he turned sadly away. The 
 man who had created a machine which even 
 then spun daily a thousand pounds of yarn, 
 was put off with a pittance of five thousand 
 pounds, which was at once swallowed up by 
 his debts ; and Crompton, like Kay and Har- 
 greaves before him, spent the days of his old 
 age in privation, neglect, and almost in 
 beggary. 
 
 The four men who have already been 
 described as the pioneers in the invention of 
 cotton machinery were all of humble origin. 
 They were what we are wont to call self- 
 made men. Kay was an artisan loom-maker, 
 Arkwright was a barber and then a dealer in 
 hair, Hargreaves and Crompton were obscure 
 weavers. Each, by the sheer force of un- 
 tutored genius, rose from the lower regions of 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 89 
 
 hand-labor, into the higher sphere of success- 
 ful inventors. 
 
 The next in the line of cotton-machine 
 inventors, however, was a man of far dif- 
 ferent pursuits. Edmund Cartwright came of 
 an excellent family. He was a graduate of 
 the University of Oxford. He was a quiet 
 country clergyman of the Church of England. 
 He was a man of tranquil literary tastes, a 
 student, a bookworm, and a tolerable poet. 
 Nothing, it would seem, could be more remote 
 from the bent of his mind than mechanics. 
 His habits were all those of the study, and of 
 the even tenor of pious duty. 
 
 In this quiet and useful life, Cartwright 
 lived on to middle age. It was not until his 
 fortieth year that, strangely and suddenly, 
 the genius of mechanical invention awoke 
 within him. A chance conversation at the 
 dinner table led to the great invention by 
 Edmund Cartwright of the power-loom. 
 
 It appeared that Arkwright's machines 
 
90 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 were spinning more yarn than the weavers 
 could turn into cloth. It struck the grave 
 country parson, Cartwright, that machinery 
 might be devised which would weave the 
 yarn as fast as it could be spun. His com- 
 panions at table ridiculed the idea as absurd ; 
 but Cartwright retorted that he had just seen, 
 in London, a curious automaton figure which 
 moved chessmen to their pro3)er places on the 
 chessboard, for all the world as if it were 
 alive. 
 
 " Before many years," declared the learned 
 churchman, " we shall have weaving Johnnies, 
 as well as spinning Jennies." 
 
 He himself fulfilled his daring prophecy. 
 He had never seen a loom in his life ; but 
 from this time forth he brooded perpetually 
 upon the idea which floated, at first vaguely 
 and then more and more definitely, in his 
 mind. It is to be feared that the church 
 fairs, the parish children, and the pastoral 
 visits were somewhat neglected ; that the 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 91 
 
 doctor's favorite poets and essayists took on 
 layers of dust, and that tlie doctor's ser- 
 mons were somewhat less edifying than of 
 old. 
 
 " He was often observed by his family/' 
 says his biographer, " striding up and down 
 the room in a fit of abstraction, and throwing 
 his arms violently from side to side, like a 
 weaver jerking the shuttles." 
 
 After months of thought and repeated ex- 
 periment, the power-loom was completed as a 
 practical machine, and it soon brought about 
 a complete revolution in the weaving of cot- 
 ton cloths. 
 
 But neither Cartwright's age, nor sacred 
 calling, nor immense service to the industries 
 of England, saved him from persecution, or 
 sheltered him from the biting cares of poverty. 
 Masters and men were up in arms against 
 him as soon as his design was known. His 
 goods were maliciously damaged ; his work- 
 men were spirited away from him ; his patent 
 
92 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 right was repeatedly infringed. Calumny and 
 hatred dogged his steps. 
 
 After a succession of disasters his prospects 
 assumed a brighter hue. A large Manchester 
 firm contracted for the use of four hundred 
 looms- But a few days after they were at 
 work, the mill which had been built to receive 
 them stood a heap of blackened ruins. 
 
 When Cartwright had turned from his 
 quiet pastoral pursuits to the labors of inven- 
 tion, he had been the possessor of a large for- 
 tune. He was now so reduced in means, that, 
 in his old age, he was forced to attempt to 
 gain a bare living by his pen. But soon the 
 fascination of inventing drew him again irre- 
 sistibly into the troublous field from which he 
 had been driven by poverty. He had not 
 entered it at first for the sake of riches. 
 
 Cartwright was a man of a singularly 
 noble, benevolent, unselfish character. His 
 high purpose was to benefit mankind ; and to 
 that purpose he clung with heroic fidelity. 
 
THE mVENTOBS OF COTTON-MACHINEEY 93 
 
 Neither discouragement nor ruin could cow 
 him, or drive him from it. So it was that 
 the years of his old age, spent though they 
 mostly were in privation, were filled with 
 varied and useful labors. The resources of 
 his inventive genius seemed imlimited. He 
 devised wool-combing machines, and baking 
 machines ; rope-making machines and fire 
 preventives ; ploughs and wheel-carriages. 
 He had, too, that wonderful foresight which 
 has so often been a gift of men of inventive 
 genius ; for, twenty years before Fulton 
 piloted the " Clermont " up the Hudson, Cart- 
 wright predicted to his son that, if he lived to 
 be a man, he would see both ships and land- 
 carriages impelled by steam. 
 
 Eli Whitney was one of those bright, pre- 
 cocious Yankee boys who in early years 
 reveal a great fondness for making things, 
 and who show ingenuity in doing whatever 
 they turn their hands to. His father was a 
 plain Massachusetts farmer, who tilled his 
 
94 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 acres near Westborough in that State. Eli, 
 from the first, disliked farming. He avoided 
 farm work whenever he could, and instead 
 spent much of his time in his father's work- 
 shop. The good farmer was in the habit of 
 repairing his own wheels and chairs and 
 mending his fences, so that he had a small 
 collection of tools. These tools were Eli's 
 delight. Whenever he had the chance he 
 would slip away into the workshop and try- 
 to fashion some article which his already in- 
 genious mind had designed. 
 
 On one occasion, when Eli was twelve 
 years old, his father, on his return from a 
 journey, asked what his boys had been doing 
 during his absence. The reply was that the 
 other boys had been steadily at work in the 
 fields, but that Eli had spent his time in 
 the workshop. 
 
 " And what has he been doing there ? " 
 
 ^^He has been making a fiddle." 
 
 " Ah," sighed the worthy farmer, " I 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 95 
 
 fear Eli will have to take his portion in 
 fiddles!" 
 
 Nevertheless^ the fiddle proved to be a very 
 good one, and served its purpose quite well at 
 the country dances in the neighborhood. 
 
 Another time the farmer, on going to 
 church one Sunday morning, chanced to 
 leave his watch — - a big, old-fashioned silver 
 ^Hurnip" — at home. As soon as his father 
 was out of the house, Eli seized the watch, 
 and eagerly took it to pieces, bit by bit. 
 When he saw what he had done he was horri- 
 fied, for his father was a very strict man, and 
 would be sure to punish him severely for 
 spoiling his watch. So Eli set to work, and 
 by dint of his skill succeeded in putting the 
 watch together again just as the farmer got 
 back from church. So neatly did he do this 
 that his father never discovered how his 
 watch had been treated, until, years after, Eli 
 told him what he had done. 
 
 There are many other stories of Eli's 
 
96 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 youthful ingenuity, which there is not space 
 to repeat here. He was always trying his 
 hand at something, and he usually succeeded 
 in whatever he attempted. His stepmother 
 found him useful in a hundred ways in the 
 household, repairing old utensils and making 
 new ones. When the Revolutionary War 
 broke out, Eli began to make nails, which 
 were greatly needed by the patriots. Then 
 he turned his hand to making the long pins 
 which the women of that day used for fas- 
 tening their bonnets ; and he also for a w^hile 
 drove a thriving trade in walking-sticks, in 
 which he invented many striking and grace- 
 ful devices. 
 
 As Eli approached manhood he began to 
 feel sorely the need of a better education 
 than the country schools afforded. He had 
 studied much by himself in the intervals 
 between work, and knew more about mathe- 
 matics and mechanics than most lads of his 
 age. But he was not satisfied with this. He 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 97 
 
 wanted to go to college. His father was 
 resolutely opposed to this, and refused to 
 give him the means. So Eli set hard to 
 work, and managed, by making various arti- 
 cles and teaching school, to save enough 
 money to enter college. He went to Yale 
 when he was twenty-three years old, and 
 graduated four years later. While in college 
 young Whitney gave many proofs of his 
 mechanical ingenuity. On one occasion he 
 repaired the apparatus of one of the profess- 
 ors, who was about to send it to Europe for 
 the purpose, as he supposed that no one in 
 this country had the skill to do it. 
 
 Eli Whitney at first intended to adopt 
 teaching as his profession. His heart was 
 wrapped up in mechanics, but he was poor, 
 and could see no way in which he could fol- 
 low his natural bent. Not long after gradu- 
 ating, therefore, he accepted an engagement 
 as a tutor in the family of a gentleman who 
 lived in Georgia. It was a fortunate accident 
 
98 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 that^ while on his way to the South^ young 
 Whitney made the acquaintance of the widow 
 of the famous Revolutionary hero^ General 
 Nathaniel Greene. This lady, who lived 
 near Savannah, at once took a liking to him, 
 and on their arrival in Georgia invited him 
 to stay for a while at her home. This was 
 all the more agreeable, as Whitney found, to 
 his disappointment, that the gentleman who 
 had engaged him had selected another tutor. 
 Mrs. Greene kindly cheered him, and told him 
 to make her house his home. 
 
 Thus left without the employment which 
 had been promised him, Whitney again 
 turned his attention to his first love, 
 mechanics. It happened that an occasion 
 soon arose when he was able to show his 
 generous hostess and friend how skilful he 
 was in mechanical devices. The good lady 
 was fond of embroidery, but found that the 
 tambour or frame upon which she did her 
 delicate work was not well fitted for that 
 
THE INVENTORS OF COTTON-MACHINERY 99 
 
 purpose. Whitney eagerly assured her that 
 he could make a frame which would serve 
 her much better. He set cheerfully to work, 
 and had soon completed a frame far superior 
 to the old one. 
 
 This proof of his inventive talent greatly 
 impressed Mrs. Greene, and soon opened to 
 the young man the grand opportunity of 
 his life. Not long after, Mrs. Greene was 
 entertaining a number of her husband's old 
 army friends at Mulberry Grove, her home. 
 One day the conversation happened to turn 
 upon the cotton production of the Southern 
 States. One of the officers remarked that 
 cotton could be easily raised all through the 
 South, but that so long as it required so 
 much labor to separate the cotton from its 
 seed, the cotton crop could not be made a 
 profitable one. If any device could be found, 
 he added, by which the cotton could be easily 
 cleaned, the production of cotton would 
 become an enormously paying industry. 
 
100 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 ^^ Gentlemen/' said Mrs. Greene^ who was 
 intently listening to the talk^, "'Hell this to 
 my young friend^ Mr. Whitney. I verily 
 believe he can make anything." 
 
 Now AYliitney had never seen a piece of 
 cotton in his life ; none the less^ he promptly 
 made np his mind that he would devote his 
 every energy to solving the problem thus put 
 to him. He first examined some cotton, and 
 saw at once what the task was which he had 
 to perform. He had no tools with which to 
 begin his work, but he sturdily set about 
 making some. 
 
 In less than ten days he had completed his 
 first model of a cotton-cleaning machine. 
 He was delighted with its success, and went 
 on improving it by every device he could 
 think of. In two or three months he had 
 perfected a perfectly practicable working 
 cotton-gin. It was speedily proved that this 
 machine, which could be worked by a single 
 man or woman, could clean more cotton in a 
 
THE INYENTOES OF COTTON-MACHINERY 101 
 
 single day than could be done by a man or 
 woman;, by the old hand method^ in several 
 months. The immense utility of the cotton- 
 gin was at once recognized throughout the 
 South; and now Whitney suffered, as so 
 many inventors had suffered before him, from 
 the dishonesty of greedy money-makers. The 
 building in which his cotton-gin was kept 
 was broken into, and the cotton-gin taken 
 away. It was at once copied, and put into 
 use in various places before he could get his 
 patent. 
 
 The fruits of his great invention were 
 thus stolen from him. Although he got sev- 
 eral patents, he never grew rich, as so many 
 Southern planters did by the use of his 
 machine. In vain he petitioned Congress 
 for redress and compensation. The inventor 
 of the cotton-gin, by which he undoubtedly 
 created the wealth and power of nearly every 
 Southern State, lived and died almost in a 
 state of poverty. But his was a patient and 
 
102 HEROES AKD MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 heroic spirit. He bore the injustice of men 
 and the ingratitude of his country with 
 cheerful serenity^ and died assured at least of 
 a deathless fame^ with his name enrolled high 
 up on the list of the world's greatest inventors. 
 
JAMES WATT -STEAM-ENGINE 103 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JAMES WATT, THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM- 
 ENGINE 
 
 In a small cottage at Greenock, near Glas- 
 gow, in Scotland, there was living, about a 
 century and a half ago, a very bright but 
 delicate boy. In many ways he was quite 
 unlike other boys of his age. He was very 
 fond of books, yet he disliked going to school 
 so much that, being feeble in health, his 
 parents kept him at home. He was a very 
 truthful boy. When any dispute took place 
 between him and his playmates, his father 
 would always say, " Let us hear what James 
 says about it. From him I always get the 
 truth." 
 
 When this boy was seven or eight years old 
 a neighbor said to his father, " Why don't 
 
104 HEROES AND MARTYES OF INVENTION 
 
 you send tins lad to school ? He is wasting 
 his time doing nothing here at home." 
 
 '^ See what he is doing/' was the father's 
 reply, "before you say he is wasting his 
 time." 
 
 The neighbor looked down at James, who 
 was seated on the hearth. He was not amus- 
 ing himself with playthings, but was very 
 busy drawing triangles and curves and other 
 mathematical lines. " You must pardon my 
 hasty words," said the neighbor ; " his educa- 
 tion has not been neglected ; he is, indeed, no 
 common child." 
 
 Not far away from his own home lived an 
 aunt of James, with whom he often stayed. 
 One day, the aunt found him in the kitchen, 
 studying her tea-kettle. He was bent over 
 it, and was closely watching the steam which 
 puffed from its spout. Then he would take 
 off the lid, hold a cup over the steam, and 
 carefully count the drops of water into which 
 it was condensed. The aunt roundly scolded 
 
JAMES WATT — STEAM-ENGINE 105 
 
 him for what she ttiought his trifling. She 
 little dreamed that the boy was taking his 
 first lesson in a science, by the pursuit of 
 which he was destined to change the whole 
 character of the industries of the world, and 
 win for himself an immortal fame. 
 
 James Watt's pastimes and tastes, indeed, 
 from earliest boyhood were very different from 
 those of other lads. His father kept a store 
 for the sale of articles used by ships, and it 
 was a favorite recreation of James to spend 
 his time there among the ropes, sails, and 
 tackle, finding out how they were made, and 
 to what uses they were devoted. He was 
 often found in the evening, too, sprawled at 
 full length on the sward of the hill near 
 Greenock, gazing for hours together at the 
 stars. Already an ambition to learn the 
 great secrets of astronomy had arisen in his 
 mind. 
 
 When he was fifteen years old, young Watt 
 was known in his neighborhood as a prodigy 
 
106 HEROES AND MARTYKS OF INVENTION 
 
 of learning for his age. He had now been to 
 school for a year or two^ and had ardently 
 studied mathematics and natural philosophy. 
 At the same time he had learned a great deal 
 about mineralogy^ chemistry, botany, and 
 physiology. Not only had he derived much 
 knowledge from books, but he understood 
 how to apply this knowledge in many ways. 
 He had become a good carpenter ; he knew 
 how to work in metals ; and he took great 
 delight in making chemical experiments in a 
 little laboratory which he had fitted up at 
 home. But perhaps the most wonderful thing 
 that he did was to construct a small electri- 
 cal machine, which astonished every one who 
 saw it. 
 
 There was a queer old man in Glasgow, 
 which was not very far from Greenock, who 
 kept a small dingy shop, where he mended 
 spectacles, fishing-tackle, and fiddles. In this 
 shop young Watt worked for a while as an 
 apprentice. But he was now eighteen years 
 
JAMES WATT — STEAM-ENGINE 107 
 
 old^ and quite a man in his thoughts and aims. 
 He longed to make his way in the great 
 world ; above all^ he desired to see London, 
 and learn what could only be acquired in that 
 great city. So one day, supplied with a 
 small bundle of clothes, and accompanied by 
 his friend, John Marr, he set out for London 
 on horseback. It took the travellers ten days 
 to make their journey, and as Watt had 
 never before been far away from his native 
 place he saw many sights on the way which 
 interested and delighted him. 
 
 His father was poor, and Watt carried but 
 a small sum of money with him. So when 
 he at last reached London he looked up some 
 very humble lodgings in an obscure part of 
 the city. He ate only enough to keep body 
 and soul together, and after spending a few 
 days in viewing the wonders of the vast, 
 crowded capital, he set to work on his studies 
 with all his might. He took service with an 
 instrument-maker, and soon became very 
 
108 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 skilful in making quadrants^ compasses, and 
 other instruments. 
 
 But so delicate in health was he that he 
 soon broke down with hard work and meagre 
 fare, and was obliged to go back home again. 
 His native air restored his strength, and he 
 resumed work with redoubled zeal. At the 
 age of twenty-one Watt opened a shop of his 
 own in Glasgow, and put out his sign as a 
 mathematical-instrument maker. But he did 
 many other things besides making instru- 
 ments. He constructed organs, fiddles, gui- 
 tars, and flutes. At the same time he pursued 
 other studies with the greatest ardor, and 
 soon knew a great deal about engineering, 
 natural history, languages, and literature. He 
 became well known to the professors and stu- 
 dents of Glasgow University, in the shade of 
 which his little shop stood, and his amiable 
 disposition and ripe knowledge made him a 
 great favorite with them, and secured him 
 many warm and valuable friends. 
 
JAMES WATT — STEAM-ENGINE 109 
 
 It was while Watt was engaged in these 
 many busy and useful occupations that an 
 incident occurred which changed the whole 
 course of his life, and which in time led to 
 fame and fortune. One day an old steam- 
 engine, made by a man named Newcomen, 
 was brought to him to repair. This engine 
 was the best that had ever been invented ; but 
 it was a clumsy affair at best, and could not 
 do better or quicker work than horses. As 
 soon as Watt's keen eve examined it, he saw 
 that the Newcomen engine was not good for 
 much. Yet it showed him that an engine 
 might be made which, with the use of steam, 
 would perform wonders. 
 
 From that time he gave himself up to an 
 absorbing study as to how to make a really 
 useful and powerful steam-engine. There 
 was something wanting — what was it ? This 
 was the question which perplexed him for 
 days and weeks, and even years : how to keep 
 the cylinder of the engine always as hot as 
 
110 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 the steam which entered it, and yet to have 
 the cylinder get cold enough to condense the 
 steam when the piston descended. Many a 
 time Watt was on the point of giving up the 
 problem in despair ; but his resolute will kept 
 him at work, and impelled him to persevere 
 bravely. 
 
 One day, as with knitted brow he was 
 sauntering across the Glasgow common, all 
 of a sudden an idea struck him which solved 
 the difficulty which had so long worried him. 
 It occurred to him that, since steam was elas- 
 tic, it would rush into any space or vessel the 
 air in which had been exhausted. He hurried 
 home in a fever of impatience. He con- 
 structed a vessel separate from the cylinder, 
 and made a connection between them, and 
 the vessel being exhausted of air, he found 
 that the steam rushed into it. 
 
 This was the most important of all Watt's 
 discoveries. He worked away on his engine 
 now with redoubled zeal ; but years were to 
 
JAMES WATT — STEAM-ENGINE 111 
 
 pass before his great object was fully achieved. 
 It was ten years after his walk on Glasgow 
 common before his idea had taken shape in 
 an actual working steam-engine. His health 
 more than once failed him^ and on one occa- 
 sion, so discouraged had he become^ he bitterly 
 exclaimed^ " Of all things in the world, there 
 is nothing so foolish as inventing ! " 
 
 But the triumph of his life, bringing with 
 it world-wide renown and ample wealth, came 
 at last. About a hundred years ago Watt set 
 up his first complete steam-engine in London. 
 It saved labor, and in many industries at once 
 took the place of man and horse power. All 
 the world saw after a while what a wonderful 
 machine it was ; but no one then could have 
 foretold to what vast uses the idea of Watt's 
 engine was to be put. We, who live in the 
 days of steamships, railways, great mills, 
 elevators, and a thousand other results of 
 Watt's invention, can more clearly see of what 
 enormous benefit it has been to mankind. 
 
112 HEEOES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 James Watt lived to a happy and prosper- 
 ous old age, crowned with honors and revered 
 by all his countrymen. He pursued his 
 labors and researches to the end, and many 
 were the ingenious devices which he invented. 
 A fine statue of him stands in the Museum at 
 Glasgow, near which the little model of his 
 steam-engine, made by himself, was long kept 
 for every one to see. The visitor to West- 
 minster Abbey may observe among the m^ 
 morials of poets, statesmen, and the most 
 famous of Britain's sons, a statue of Watt, in 
 a sitting posture, with an eloquent inscrip- 
 tion by Lord Brougham. > 
 
THE MONTGOLFIERS AND THE BALLOON 113 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE MONTGOLFIERS AND THE BALLOON 
 
 On a blustering winter's night in the 
 latter part of the last century (1782), two 
 brothers were seated before a blazing log fire 
 near Lyons in France. The room in which 
 they sat was situated in their paper manufac- 
 tory ;, for their trade was the making of paper. 
 Between the brothers^ as they were comforta- 
 bly toasting their knees at the fire, was a 
 square table^ and on the table a map was 
 spread out. The two young men soon 
 became absorbed in an earnest conversation. 
 News had arrived that the giant fortress of 
 Gibraltar, which had lono^ been held bv the 
 English, was being vigorously besieged by 
 the French fleet ; and all Frenchmen were 
 eagerly hoping for a victory by their coun- 
 
114 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INYENTIOIS' 
 
 trymen. The Montgolfiers — this was the 
 name of the brothers — were eagerly discuss- 
 ing the prospects of French success. Every 
 now and then they would get up and bend 
 over the map^ and try to trace out the posi- 
 tions of the hostile forces at Gibraltar. At 
 last^ Stephen^ the elder^ pointing to a certain 
 fortification on the map;, exclaimed^ ^^ Ah^ if 
 our good fellows could only in some way get 
 over tliat^ victory would surely be theirs ! '' 
 
 It happened that just then his wife came 
 into the room with some clothes she had been 
 washing. Spreading a line in front of the 
 fire before which the brothers were sitting, 
 she proceeded to hang up the clothes in order 
 to dry them. Presently a petticoat fell off 
 the line and floated over the blazing logs. 
 Instead of falling into the fire, however, it 
 became suddenly inflated, and, swelling out, it 
 slowly floated up the chimney, out of sight. 
 
 The two brothers stared at the disappear- 
 ing petticoat with wonder and amazement. 
 
THE MONTGOLFIERS AND THE BALLOON 115 
 
 In a moment a startling idea flashed through 
 Stephen's brain. What if a machine could be 
 devised which would carry people through 
 the air^ by means of an inflated bag^ just as 
 this inflated petticoat had soared aloft ? If 
 such a device could be made^ then the French 
 soldiers might be carried safely over the 
 obstructing rampart at Gibraltar;^ and the 
 triumph would be won ! 
 
 This is one version of the story of bow 
 the idea of the balloon first entered Stephen 
 Montgolfier's head. Another version is that 
 it was not the good dame's petticoat^ but the 
 paper cover of a conical sugar-loaf^ which, 
 being thrown upon the fire, became inflated 
 and soared up the chimney. 
 
 Whichever story is the true one, it is cer- 
 tain that it was an accident which turned the 
 thoughts of the Montgolfier brothers in the 
 direction of making an air-machine which 
 would enable people to travel in the air as 
 well as on land and sea. But no accident 
 
116 HEROES AND MAllTYKS OF INVENTION 
 
 could have given such ca hint to men of com- 
 mon intellect. The Montgolfier brothers were 
 far above the ordinary French manufacturer 
 of their time in education and intelligence. 
 They were ardently fond of study, and while 
 they did not neglect their calling of paper- 
 making, they devoted their spare hours to 
 the reading of books, and to talking with 
 each other about what they had read. Hap- 
 pily the two brothers had congenial tastes, 
 and were devotedly attached to each other. 
 'Vy^hen young they had not wasted their time 
 in pleasure-seeking, and from their entrance 
 upon active life their aims were high and 
 serious. 
 
 No sooner had the idea of air-machines 
 taken possession of their minds than they 
 became deeply absorbed in it. Stephen, the 
 elder and more able of the two, devoted days 
 and nights to the construction of such a 
 machine. At first he inflated a paper bag 
 with hydrogen, since hydrogen, being lighter 
 
THE MONTGOLFIERS xVND THE BALLOOIN^ 117 
 
 than air, would rise above it. But the gas 
 escaped from the paper bag, and it thus 
 became evident that paper was too light and 
 frail a material for the purpose intended. 
 The brothers next made a series of experi- 
 ments with electricity, in the course of which 
 they discovered that electricity lessened the 
 weight of bodies. They made a rude balloon, 
 and lit a fire under it, not only to rarefy the 
 air, but also to supply a layer of electric fluid. 
 This balloon was a large bag of silk, with a 
 capacit}^ of about forty cubic feet. As soon 
 as it had been inflated by the fire applied be- 
 neath it, it rose rapidly until it bumped 
 against the ceiling. 
 
 Stephen Montgolfier was now convinced 
 that he had found a way to make a balloon, 
 and he resolved to prove it publicly to the 
 world. He accordingly announced that on a 
 certain June day in 1783, a balloon would be 
 inflated and sent aloft in the public square of 
 Annonay, the town where he lived. When 
 
THE MONTGOLFIERS AND THE BALLOON 119 
 
 Paris^ and were speedily at work on another 
 balloon. This time they resolved to use hydro- 
 gen instead of heated air for inflating their 
 machine. The balloon was soon ready, and 
 on a midsummer's day a tremendous crowd 
 gathered on the Champ de Mars, in Paris, to 
 see it ascend. Up it went when loosened 
 from its mooring-s, floatino; hio:h above the 
 big city, and sweeping eastward, until it fell 
 to the earth fifteen miles away. 
 
 Thus far, however, though the Montgolfiers 
 had proved that a machine could be made 
 which would travel in the air, no experiment 
 had been made of carrying up human beings 
 in it. At first the Montgolfiers thought they 
 would try the effect of an aerial voyage on 
 some of the lower animals. Accordingly, 
 they attached a small car or basket to one of 
 their balloons, and placed in it a duck, a sheep, 
 and a cock. These first travellers of the air 
 went aloft, and after remaining several thou- 
 sand feet above the earth, came down all safe 
 
120 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 and sound. Then people began to think that 
 in like manner men might trust themselves 
 to the upper element. But at first it was 
 thought safest to try a balloon which w^as 
 fastened to the earth by ropes. In this way 
 several men went up a hundred feet in 
 a Montgolfier balloon. Then two men — the 
 Marquis d'Arlandes and M. de Rozier — re- 
 solved that they would cut altogether loose 
 from the eartli; and risk the perils of a voyage 
 in the upper air. Stephen Montgolfier set to 
 work upon a balloon for this purpose. When 
 it was finished he decorated it with ribbons 
 and colors, and attached to its lower end a 
 circular box or car for its human occu- 
 pants. 
 
 Finally all was ready. The balloon was 
 inflated at Passy, a suburb of Paris. A great 
 multitude gathered to see the ascent of the • 
 first human beings who had ever mounted 
 in the air far above the earth, while in 
 Paris crowds occupied the towers of the 
 
THE MOXTGGLFIERS AND THE BALLOON 121 
 
 cathedral of Notre Dame and other elevated 
 points. 
 
 D'Arlandes and De Rozier took tlieir places 
 in the car^ the word to cut loose was given, 
 and np shot the balloon into the clouds which 
 hung in the air. It ascended slowly and 
 steadily to a height of three thousand feet, 
 and then passed at an easy pace over the 
 streets and houses of Paris. It completely 
 crossed the city, and soon ascended to such a 
 height that the occupants of the car could not 
 see any of the objects on the earth below 
 them. Then D' Arlandes became alarmed, and 
 insisted on descending. As soon, therefore, as 
 they had got clear of the city, so that they 
 would not fall on the buildings, the air was 
 suffered to gradually escape, and the balloon 
 fell just outside Paris. More than a hundred 
 years have passed since the memorable voyage 
 of D' Arlandes and De Rozier in their Mont- 
 golfier balloon ; but, although it is very com- 
 mon for men to make balloon voyages, no way 
 
122 HEROES a:n'd martyrs of invention 
 
 has as yet been discovered for guiding bal- 
 loons, and propelling them against the air- 
 currents, and so making them practically use- 
 ful for the purposes of travel. 
 
HUMPHRY D A Y Y — SAFETY-LAMP 1 23 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HUMPHRY DAVY AND THE SAFETY-LAMP 
 
 Few boys have ever led a happier, busier, 
 or more varied existence than did Humphry 
 Davy. He was the son of a poor wood- 
 carver, who lived in the pretty seaside town 
 of Penzance, in England, where Humphry was 
 born in 1778. Lowly, however, as was his 
 birth, in his earliest years Humphry gave 
 many proofs that nature had endowed him 
 with rare talents. 
 
 Some of the stories told of his childish 
 brightness are hard to believe. They relate, 
 for instance, that before he was two years 
 old he could talk almost as plainly and 
 clearly as a grown person ; that he could re- 
 peat many passages of " Pilgrim's Progress," 
 from having heard them^ before he could 
 
124 HEROES AND MART YES OF INVENTION 
 
 read ; and that at five years old he could 
 read very rapidly^ and remembered almost 
 everything he read. 
 
 His father, the wood-carver, had died while 
 Humphry was still very young, and had left 
 his family poor. But by good-fortune a kind 
 neighbor and friend, a Mr. Tonkine, took care 
 of the widow and her children, and obtained 
 a place for Humphry as an apprentice with 
 an apothecary of the town. Humphry proved, 
 indeed, a rather troublesome inmate of the 
 apothecary's house. He set up a chemical 
 laboratory in his little room upstairs, and 
 there devoted himself to all sorts of experi- 
 ments. Every now and then an explosion 
 would be heard, which made the members 
 of the apothecary's household quake with 
 terror. 
 
 Humphry began to dream ambitious dreams. 
 Not for him, he thought, was the drudgery of 
 an apothecary store. He felt that he had in 
 himself the making of a famous man, and he 
 
HUMPHRY DAVY — SAFETY-LAMP 125 
 
 resolved that he would leave no science un- 
 explored. He set to work with a will. His 
 quick mind soon grasped the sciences not only 
 of mathematics and chemistry^ but of botany, 
 anatomy, geology, and metaphysics. His 
 means for the experiments he desired to make 
 were very limited, but he did - not allow any 
 obstacle to prevent him from pursuing them. 
 
 He was especially fond of wandering along 
 the seashore, and observing and examining 
 the many curious and mysterious objects 
 which he found on the crags and in the sand. 
 One day his eye was struck with the bladders 
 of seaweed, which he found full of air. The 
 question was, how did the air get into them? 
 This puzzled him, and he could find no 
 answer to it, because he had no instruments 
 to experiment with. 
 
 But on another day, soon after, as he 
 strolled on the beach, what was his surprise 
 and delight to find a case of surgical instru- 
 ments^ which had been flung up from some 
 
126 HEROES AND MART YES OF INVENTION" 
 
 wreck on the coast ! Armed with this, he 
 hastened home, and managed to turn each one 
 of the instruments to some useful account. 
 He constructed an air-pump out of a surgeon's 
 syringe, and made a great many experiments 
 with it. 
 
 Fortunately for Humphry, he formed a 
 friendship with a youth who could not only 
 sympathize with him, but was of a great deal 
 of use to him. This was Gregory Watt, a 
 son of the great James Watt, the inventor of 
 the steam-engine. Gregory Watt had gone 
 to Penzance for his health, and had there 
 fallen in with the ambitious son of the wood- 
 carver. This new friend was able to give 
 Humphry many new and valuable hints, and 
 encouraged him with hopeful words to go on 
 with his studies and experiments. 
 
 Already Humphry was getting to be known 
 as a scientific genius beyond the quiet neigh- 
 borhood of Penzance. He had proposed a 
 theory on heat and light which had attracted 
 
HUMPHRY DAVY — SAFETY-LAMP 127 
 
 the attention of learned men ; and at twenty- 
 one he had discovered the peculiar properties 
 of nitrous oxide — what we now call ^^ laugh- 
 ing-gas" — though he nearly killed himself 
 by inhaling too much of it. He had also 
 made many experiments in galvanism^, and 
 had found silicious earth in the skin of reeds 
 and grass. 
 
 So famous indeed had he already become^ 
 that at the age of twenty-two — when most 
 young men are only just leaving college — he 
 was chosen lecturer on science at the great 
 Eoyal Institution in London. There he 
 amazed men by the eloquence and clearness 
 with which he revealed the mysteries of 
 science. He was so bright and attractive a 
 young man, moreover, that the best London 
 society gladly welcomed him to its drawing- 
 rooms, and praises of him were in every 
 mouth. His lecture-room was crowded when- 
 ever he spoke. 
 
 But he was not a bit spoiled by all this 
 
128 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 flattery and homage. He worked all the 
 harder ; resolved to achieve yet greater tri- 
 umphs in science than he had yet done. An 
 opportunity soon arose to turn his knowl- 
 edge and inventive powers to account in a 
 very important way. For a long time the 
 English public had every now and then been 
 horrified by the terrible explosions which took 
 place in the coal mines. These explosions 
 resulted often in an appalling loss of human 
 life. Their cause was the filling of the mine 
 by a deadly gas, called ^^ fire-damp/' which, 
 when ignited by a lighted candle or lamp, ex- 
 ploded with fearful violence. One day an 
 explosion of fire-damp occurred which killed 
 over one hundred miners on the spot. 
 
 This event called universal attention to the 
 subject, and Humphry Davy was besought to 
 try and find some means of preventing, or 
 at least lessening, similar calamities. He 
 promptly undertook the task, and set about 
 it with all his wonted energy. The problem 
 
HUMPHRY DAVY — SAFETY-LAMP 129 
 
 before him was how to provide light in the 
 mines in such a way that the miners might 
 see to work by it^ and at the same time be 
 safe from the danger of fire-damp explosion. 
 Many attempts had been made to achieve this^ 
 but they had all failed. 
 
 Davy began his experiments. He soon 
 made several valuable discoveries. One was 
 that explosions of inflammable gases could 
 not pass through long narrow metallic tubes. 
 Another was that when he held a piece of 
 wire gauze over a lighted candle^ the flame 
 would not pass through it. As a result of his 
 long and patient toil Davy was able at last to 
 construct his now famous Safety-Lamp^ which 
 has undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands 
 during the period which has elapsed since it 
 was invented. He presented a model of his 
 new lamp to the Royal Society^ in whose 
 rooms in London it is to be seen to this day. 
 
 It is a simple affair^ being merely a lamp 
 screwed on to a wire gauze cylinder, and 
 
130 HEKOES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 fitted to it by a tight ring. His idea was to 
 admit the fire-damp into the lamp gradually 
 by narrow tnbes^ so that it would be con- 
 sumed by combustion. The Safety-Lamp was 
 in truth the greatest triumph of Humphry 
 Davy's useful life. 
 
 " I value it/' he said^ " more than anything 
 I ever did." 
 
 Honors of all kinds were showered upon 
 him. Many medals were awarded to him^ 
 and the grateful miners subscribed from their 
 scant wages enough to present him" with a 
 magnificent service of silver worth 1 12^000. 
 His discovery was hailed from every part of 
 Europe. The Czar Alexander of Russia sent 
 him a beautiful vase^, and he was chosen a 
 member of the historic Institute of France ; 
 while his own government conferred upon 
 him the coveted title of baronet. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy, as he was now called, 
 died in the prime of life and in the fulness of 
 honor and fame. Fond of travel, and con- 
 
HUMPHRY DAVY — SAFETY-LAMP 131 
 
 tinning to the last his scientific studies^ he 
 went to the Continent, and took up his abode 
 at Geneva, on the borders of one of the 
 loveliest of Swiss lakes. There he had a 
 laboratory, where he could work at will, and 
 could also indulge his passion for fishing and 
 hunting. 
 
 But he was worn out before his time. He 
 was attacked by palsy, and passed away at 
 Geneva in 1829, in the fifty-first year of his 
 age. There he was buried. A simple monu- 
 ment reveals where he lies in the foreign 
 churchyard ; while a tablet in Westminster 
 Abbey keeps alive his memory in the hearts 
 of his countrymen. 
 
132 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 JAMES NASMYTH AND THE STEAM-HAMMER 
 
 The roll of modern inventors contains no 
 more attractive name than that of the stm^dy 
 Scot who invented the marvellous steam- 
 hammer. The life of James Nasmyth was 
 a romance. His achievements were noble^ 
 his success was brilliant^ and his character 
 was so cheerful, sunny, upright, and happy, 
 that it is a delight to dwell upon it. 
 
 He himself has told us, in words of simple, 
 hearty enthusiasm, the story of his boyhood 
 and of the triumphs of his manhood. It is 
 curious that his very name had a history in 
 striking contrast with the actual facts of his 
 life. One of his ancestors, it is said, in trying 
 to escape from the enemy on a battle-field, 
 assumed the disguise of a blacksmith. He 
 
JAMES NASMYTII — STEAM-HAMMER 133 
 
 was caught^ after a sharp race^ when his 
 captor^ perceiving his disguise^ exclaimed, — 
 
 '^Why, ye are nae smyth" (no smith); 
 whence came the family name of Nasmyth. 
 
 Now no greater smith ever lived than this 
 James of the contrary name, who made the 
 steam-hammer. The old warlike family 
 motto too, ^^Non arte, sed marte " (Not by 
 art, but by war), was so entirely contrary 
 to James Nasmyth' s pursuits that he turned 
 it entirely around, and made it, " Non marte, 
 sed arte" (Not by war, but by art). It 
 was, indeed, by his masterful art that he 
 achieved triumphs more enduring for the 
 good of mankind than any war has ever 
 done. Let us see what an unusual kind of a 
 boy James Nasmyth was. 
 
 He came of a very practical and mechani- 
 cal family. His grandfather was an architect 
 of Edinburgh, while his father was not only 
 a very fair artist in colors, but was also skil- 
 ful as an architect and as a mechanic. James 
 
134 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 was born and brought up in the quaint old 
 Scottish capital. His mother was a shrewdy 
 keen-witted Scotchwoman, who very early in 
 her boy's life perceived that he was a '^ very 
 noticin' bairn." When James, in his teens, 
 was at the Edinburgh High School, his me- 
 chanical ingenuity quickly became apparent. 
 
 The favorite toys of the Edinburgh boys 
 at that time were spinning-tops and small 
 cannon. James thought he could make 
 better tops and cannon than they sold at the 
 stores. So he set to work with his father's 
 foot-lathe, and soon made tops which de- 
 lighted his school comrades bej^ond measure. 
 He also made little brass cannon which 
 worked perfectly, and even out of old keys 
 contrived to fashion a small hand-gun. Fly- 
 ing kites and paper balloons he easily con- 
 structed, and he made himself wondrously 
 popular at school by freely supplying his 
 mates with these means of enjoying their 
 holidays. 
 
JAMES IS^ASMYTII — STEAM-HAMMER 135 
 
 He soon became deeply interested in 
 chemistry. The father of one of his school- 
 mates had a chemical laboratory at Leith, a 
 mile or so distant from Edinburgh, and to 
 this laboratory young Nasmyth was freely 
 admitted. When some interesting experi- 
 ment was about to be made, Tom Smith, 
 Nasmyth' s young friend, would hoist a white 
 flag on a pole in the garden at Leith, where- 
 at Nasmyth eagerly ran down and took part 
 in the experiment. The boys not only had a 
 hand in the experiments, but taught them- 
 selves how to make each material used in 
 them, instead of buying them in the stores. 
 Thus Nasmyth soon became a very skilful 
 practical chemist. 
 
 At the age of seventeen young Nasmyth 
 began to turn his mechanical talents to prac- 
 tical account. He made a little steam-engine 
 for grinding his father's colors ; he con- 
 structed some workshop engines, and the 
 model of a condensing engine to be used at 
 
136 HEROES AIS'D MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 mechanics' institutes ; and after attending 
 for four or five years tlie Edinburgh School 
 of Arts^ made the model of a steam-carriage 
 for railway purposes. For it was just at that 
 time, when Nasmyth was nineteen, that the 
 possibility of applying steam to land travel 
 was on the point of being proved. 
 
 It took Nasmyth four months of absorbing 
 labor to complete his steam-carriage, and 
 when done it was run successfully on the 
 Queensberry Road, near Edinburgh, carrying 
 eight passengers, who sat upon low seats only 
 three feet from the ground. This seems to 
 us now a very rude and uncouth way of trav- 
 elling, but when Nasmyth' s steam-carriage 
 proved to be a success, it was looked upon as 
 a wonder of wonders. 
 
 One of the most important events of 
 young Nasmyth's life was when he was ad- 
 mitted to the famous works of Henry 
 Maudsley in London. Mr. Maudsley was an 
 eccentric but kind-hearted man, and very 
 
JAMES NASMYTH — STEAM-HAMMER 137 
 
 able in meclianical work, and liis reputa- 
 tion was world-wide. He had long refused 
 to admit any more pupils in his works ; but 
 he was so struck with the genius shown in 
 the models which Nasmyth displayed to him, 
 that he not only accepted the young Scot as 
 a pupil, but took him into his own private 
 workshop. 
 
 ^•^Here I wish you to work," said Maudsley, 
 ^^ beside me, as my assistant." 
 
 Nasmyth remained with this generous 
 patron two years, when Maudsley died. 
 
 Nasmyth was now fully equipped for his 
 life-work. He took charge of a large foun- 
 dry near Manchester, where he soon acquired 
 more than a competence. 
 
 He was one of those who had the rare 
 privilege of witnessing the opening of the 
 first railway, — that between Manchester and 
 Liverpool — and to see Stephenson's ^*^ Rocket" 
 draw the first train out of Manchester. The 
 establishment of railways gave abundance of 
 
138 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 work to Nasmytlij who now made locomo- 
 tives for the new companies which rapidly 
 sprang up. 
 
 But the great achievement of Nasmyth's 
 life was the invention of that powerful 
 steam-Iiammer^ which still continues to be a 
 marvel to all who see its operation^ at once 
 mighty and delicate. It is said of this 
 machine that it can chip an egg resting on an 
 anvil without breaking it^ while it can also 
 deliver a twelve-ton blow which will make a 
 whole township tremble. We cannot do 
 better than quote Nasmyth's own description 
 of this crowning mechanical triumph of his 
 life. 
 
 " It consisted of^ firsts a massive anvil oh 
 which to rest the work ; second^ a block of 
 iron constituting the hammer or blow-giving 
 portion ; and third, an inverted steam-cylin- 
 der, to whose piston-rod the hammer-block 
 was attached. All that was then required to 
 produce a most effective hammer was simply 
 
JAMES ISTASMYTH — STEAM-HAMMER 139 
 
 to admit steam of sufficient pressure into the 
 cylinder so as to act on the under side of the 
 piston^ and thus to raise the hammer block 
 attached to the end of the piston-rod. 
 
 " By a very simple arrangement of a slide 
 valve, under the control of an attendant, the 
 steam was allowed to escape, and thus permit 
 the massive block of iron rapidly to descend 
 by its own gravity upon the work then on 
 the anvil. Thus, by the more or less rapid 
 manner in which the attendant allows the 
 steam to enter or escape from the cylinder, 
 any required number or any intensity of 
 blows can be delivered." 
 
 One of the first uses to which the steam- 
 hammer was put was that of the driving of 
 piles. There were many mechanics who did 
 not believe that it would drive piles faster or 
 better than was done by the old method. So 
 Nasmyth resolved to have a match between 
 his steam-hammer and the ordinary pile- 
 driver. Two immense logs were selected, 
 
140 HEROES AN^D MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 and the two machines began to work at-the 
 same moment. The result was that while it 
 took the old-fashioned machine twelve hours 
 to drive its log to the proper depth, the 
 steam-hammer had finished its task in four 
 and a half minutes. 
 
 The invention of the steam-hammer not 
 only made Nasmyth famous wherever in the 
 world the mechanic arts are practised, but 
 added quickly and largely to his worldly 
 wealth. He was only thirty-one years of 
 age, and had already achieved a great life- 
 work. 
 
GEOKGE STEPHENSON - LOCOMOTIVE 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON5 THE INVENTOR OF THE 
 RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE 
 
 In the north of England^ in a district 
 through which flows the river Tyne^ and of 
 which the principal town is Newcastle^ there 
 is a vast region of coal-mines. For a long 
 period this region has been a busy scene of 
 grimy labor^ with its clusters of villages 
 inhabited by the coal-miners^ its railways 
 running from the mouths of the coal-pits to 
 the river-bankj and its appliances for raising 
 the coal from the dark depths of the nether 
 earth. 
 
 One of the villages, occupied for the most 
 part by miners, is called Dewley Burn. It is 
 but a short distance from Newcastle, the 
 smoking chimneys of which may be plainly 
 
142 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INYENTIOlSr 
 
 descried from its cottage windows. It was at 
 Dewley Burn that there livedo just about a 
 hundred years ago^, a very remarkable little 
 boy — a boy whose father was nothing but 
 a humble colliery fireman^ and very poor at 
 that ; a boy who had never seen the inside of 
 a schoolhouse in his life ; yet who^ even 
 before he had reached his teens^, showed un- 
 mistakable signs of brilliant genius^ and who 
 in after-life was destined to become one of 
 the most famous men in the history of the 
 world. 
 
 George Stephenson — this was the boy's 
 name — was forced to learn the stern realities 
 of a life of labor at a very early age. His 
 father had six children, and his wages were 
 only three dollars a week. Each of his boys, 
 therefore, had to go to work just as soon as 
 he was old enough to turn his hands to any- 
 thing at all. So we find George, when he 
 was but seven years old, sent off to the fields 
 to tend a herd of cows. The little fellow 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON — LOCOMOTIVE 143 
 
 was bare-headed and bare-legged ; his clothes 
 scarcely sufficed to cover his active little body. 
 But he was quick^ bright, and light-hearted^, 
 and always went whistling or singing merrily 
 to his daily task. 
 
 Even at that early age George Stephenson's 
 fondness for mechanics, which in after-years 
 was destined to confer a vast benefit upon the 
 whole human race, revealed itself. When he 
 had an hour or two to spare he did not spend 
 it in idleness or in playing games or stroll- 
 ing about with his mates. Instead, he always 
 hastened to the engine-room where his father 
 was at work. He deligrhted in nothino; so 
 much as to watch the movements of the 
 engine, and to study the different parts of it, 
 and the use of each. The engine seemed to 
 his keen mind the most curious and wonder- 
 ful thing in the world. He was never tired 
 of gazing at it as its every part moved swiftly 
 and smoothly up and down or to and fro. 
 
 One day George was in the field just outside 
 
144 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVEXTIOlSr 
 
 the village tending his herd as usual. While, 
 however, he kept his eye from time to time 
 on the cows, he was observed by a villager to 
 be busily working at something with his 
 hands. The villager went up to him, and 
 found that he had moulded a little engine 
 out of clay, and had inserted in his model 
 pipes made of hemlock stalks. This was the 
 first engine George Stephenson ever built. 
 The last that he built, many years after, 
 revolutionized the whole trade, commerce, 
 and comfort of the earth. 
 
 George Stephenson all through his boyhood 
 and youth had a hard life of it, though it 
 never was an unhappy one. Early accus- 
 tomed to hardship and rugged tasks, he 
 worked always blithely, and, indeed, seems 
 really to have loved his work. While other 
 boys of his age were going to school, he was 
 tending cows, ploughing, hoeing potatoes and 
 turnips, and finally aiding his father as as- 
 sistant fireman on wages of twenty-five cents 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON" — LOCOMOTIVE 145 
 
 a day. When he was fifteen he was made 
 very proud by being promoted to be a full- 
 blown fireman to an engine, on wages of three 
 dollars a week. ^^Now/' exclaimed the de- 
 lighted youth, when he told his father of 
 his promotion, '' I am a made man for life ! '' 
 So the hard-working years passed until 
 George reached his eighteenth birthday. Up 
 to this time, strange to say, he had not had 
 an hour's schooling. It is odd to think that 
 at eighteen George Stephenson, who a few 
 years after was recognized as one of the 
 greatest men of science the world ever pro- 
 duced, could neither read, write, nor cipher ! 
 Yet he was intelligent, keen, and ambitious. 
 He was a complete master of the engine, and 
 his brain was already teeming with bright 
 ideas and with devices for improving the 
 machinery then in use. He saw clearly how 
 much in need he was of some education, and 
 he resolved that, hard as he had to work at 
 his trade by day, he would begin to learn 
 
146 HEROES AND MARTYBS OF INVENTION 
 
 something from books. So^, when his long 
 task of twelve hours was done^ he ate a hasty 
 supper, and repaired three evenings every 
 week to school. In less than a year he had 
 learned to read and write, and had mastered 
 his arithmetic from cover to cover. 
 
 The next phase of young Stephenson's life 
 is a pretty love story. He had now been pro- 
 moted to be the brakeman of a large coal- 
 mine, and his wages were about five dollars a 
 week. Not content with this, he employed 
 his leisure evenings in mending shoes. It so 
 happened that he had made the acquaintance 
 of a pretty maid, who lived at a farm a mile 
 or two away from the village. Her name 
 was Fanny Henderson. Soon Stephenson 
 found himself very much in love with her. 
 One day Fanny asked him if he would not 
 mend her shoes for her. He accepted the 
 task with eager delight. He was so fond of 
 the pretty owner of the shoes, that after he 
 had mended them, he could not bear to carry 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON — LOCOMOTIVE 147 
 
 them back to her at once^ but kept them in 
 his pocket for some days as he went to his 
 work. Every now and then he would take 
 them out and gaze fondly at them, and re- 
 turned them at last with a sigh of regret. * 
 
 His love for the fair Fanny stirred him to 
 work all the harder, and by the time he was 
 twenty-one he had saved up enough money to 
 hire and furnish a cottage. Then one morn- 
 ing he took Fanny to church, where they 
 were quietly married. After the knot was 
 tied they both got upon the same horse and 
 so rode blithely home to the newly furnished 
 cottage. The married life of young Stephen- 
 son and his Fanny was very happy, but very 
 brief. In a few years the young wife died, 
 leaving an only son. This son, Robert, was 
 destined, in after years, to rival his father in 
 renown as an inventor and engineer. 
 
 George Stephenson, though grief-stricken 
 by his great loss, continued to work with all 
 his wonted, untiring vigor. In order to give 
 
148 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 little Robert the ediiciition of which he him- 
 self so sorely felt the need, he added to his 
 labor as a brakenian the cleaning of his 
 neighbors' clocks and watches. " It was 
 thns/' he said after ward^ " that I procured 
 the means of educating my little son." 
 
 The time Avas fast comings however, when 
 Stephenson, by his genius and energy, was to 
 raise himself forever above the pains and 
 troubles of poverty. It came about in this 
 way. As a boy he had often seen the tram- 
 way of parallel rails, upon which the car-loads 
 of coal had been drawn by horses from the 
 mines to the bank^ of the Tyne. A few years 
 later, as we have seen, he had learned all 
 about steam-engines, and had mastered the 
 structure and powers of tlie perfected steam- 
 engine invented by James Watt. The brill- 
 iant thought noAV occurred to Stephenson 
 that the engine might be so adapted as to 
 work upon parallel rails, and miglit be so 
 made as to take the place of horses in drag- 
 
GEORGE STErnENSON — LOCOMOTIVE 149 
 
 ging car-loads. Hitherto the steam-engine 
 had been used as a stationary machine. He 
 proposed to make it move and travel. He 
 set himself the task^ as he said, of " wedding 
 the engine to the rail, as man to wife." 
 
 It is not easy to imagine what an enor- 
 mous task this was ; what great and various 
 difficulties he had to meet and overcome ; 
 what violent opposition and prejudices he had 
 to baffle and conquer. It was years before 
 Stephenson was able to construct a steam- 
 locomotive which would actually go on rails. 
 When he had succeeded in this, he had yet to 
 persuade an unbelieving community that he 
 could successfully draw trains of cars with it 
 over the parallel rails. 
 
 The first successful trip made by his steam- 
 locomotive was made on a little tramway at 
 Kitting worth. It drew a train of cars with a 
 load of thirty tons, up a steep grade, at the 
 rate of four miles an hour. This proved to 
 Stephenson that, beyond a doubt, the loco- 
 
150 HEROES AXD MARTYES OF IXYEXTIO:X 
 
 motive miglit be used for hauling not only 
 freight^ but passengers also. At last, a little 
 less than sixty years ago, the first regular 
 railway line was completed between Manches- 
 ter and Liverpool. Upon the new track was 
 j)laced a small train of passenger cars, with 
 Stephenson's new locomotive, the '^ Rocket," 
 puffing in front of it. Railways had become 
 an actual fact, and Stephenson's victory was 
 complete. 
 
ROBERT STEPHENSON — BRIDGE-BUILDER 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ROBERT STEPHENSON;, THE GREAT BRIDGE- 
 BUILDER 
 
 It will be remembered that while George 
 Stephenson^ the noble-hearted inventor of the 
 railway locomotive, was still struggling for a 
 livelihood, he lost his young wife, who left 
 behind an only infant son. A famous father 
 is seldom followed by a son equally famous. 
 But the little boy who was thus left mother- 
 less became in course of time not less cele- 
 brated than George Stephenson himself. The 
 two names stand side by side in the bright 
 roll of the benefactors of their age/ just as 
 they two worked side by side for many years, 
 together laboring upon and finally solving 
 the problem of the locomotive, and winning 
 many other brilliant scientific triumphs. 
 
 The story of Robert Stephenson, indeed, is 
 
152 HEROES AKD MARTYRS OF INYENTIOIST 
 
 not less interesting and inspiring than that of 
 his father. Left without a mother's tender 
 care^ tlie boy at a very early age became liis 
 father's intimate companion^ and was the joy 
 and pride of his father's life. From the first 
 he revealed a quick^ bright mind^ and, to his 
 father's great delight, showed a taste for 
 study, and especially for mechanics. George 
 Stephenson had not yet become rich or 
 famous. He was still plodding with cheerful 
 industry, at his shoe-making and clock-mak- 
 ing, varying these occupations with reading 
 scientific books and constructing models. He 
 had learned by his own experience w^iat an 
 obstacle ignorance of books was to getting 
 on fast in the w^orld ; and so, just as soon as 
 Eobert ^as old enough to go to school, to 
 school he was sent. 
 
 But this was not all the early education he 
 had. At Newcastle, a short distance from 
 their home, there was a library for working 
 people, to w^hich George Stephenson secured 
 
ROBERT STEPHENSON — BRIDGE-BUILDER 153 
 
 admittaDce for his son. Out of school hours^ 
 then, you might have seen little Robert trudg- 
 ing on the road to the big town, repairing to 
 the library, reading for an hour or two, and 
 then returning home again. In the winter 
 evenings he would sit down at the cosey coal 
 fire opposite his father, and would carefully 
 repeat to him what he had been reading at 
 the library. So the boy in a way taught his 
 hard-working father, while impressing upon 
 his own mind the results of his reading. Not 
 only did they study together, they also made 
 models and plans for machinery together. 
 Robert proved to be amazingly quick and apt 
 in this practical work. Once he made a very 
 accurate sun-dial, which his father delightedly 
 fixed on the wall over the door of his little 
 cottage. 
 
 When Robert was fifteen he went to work 
 in the same colliery where his father was now 
 employed as engineer. After the day's work 
 was over, every evening was spent by the two 
 
154 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 in study^ or in discussing useful subjects with 
 each other. They often held very exciting 
 arguments as to the power of steam, and as 
 to the possibility of applying it to locomotion. 
 Already in both minds the locomotive was 
 beginning to take form and shape. Little by 
 little George Stephenson carefully hoarded 
 his savings, until he had enough to send 
 Eobert to Edinburgh, to the university there. 
 It is true that the young man only remained 
 at the university six months ; but during that 
 brief time he is said to have done as much 
 studying as most college boys do in three 
 years. Proud indeed was his father when 
 Robert returned from Edinburgh with the 
 prize for mathematics. It is said that Robert 
 learned how to write shorthand before going 
 to Edinburgh, and that while at the univer- 
 sity he took down every lecture that he heard, 
 word for word. 
 
 George Stephenson had now matured his 
 plan for a railway locomotive, and had estab- 
 
ROBERT STEPHElSrSON'— BRIDGE-BUILDER 155 
 
 lished a factory for building locomotives at 
 Newcastle. Robert now joined him^ and for 
 two years worked hard to make the machine 
 a practicable one. Then his health broke 
 down from overwork, and he took a long 
 voyage to South America. But he did not 
 spend his time while away in idleness and 
 pleasure-seeking. Ever earnest of purpose, 
 and intensely interested in the products and 
 forces of the world, he visited the gold and 
 silver mines, founded a mining company, 
 and planned the machinery for it. 
 
 After an absence of three years, he re- 
 turned to England to find his father prepar- 
 ing to make the great experiment of running 
 a locomotive by steam. He threw himself 
 with all the energy of his nature into the 
 project, and did more perhaps than even his 
 father to perfect the first successful locomo- 
 tive, the '^ Rocket." This engine received the 
 prize of five hundred pounds offered by the 
 new Liverpool and Manchester Railway Com- 
 
156 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVEl!^TION 
 
 pany. It may well be supposed that Robert 
 exulted as greatly as his father when at last 
 the little ^^ Rocket" sped safely with its first 
 train from Manchester to Liverpool. 
 
 But though the world is probably indebted 
 as much to Robert as to George Stephenson 
 for the inestimable gift of steam locomotion 
 by land^ the son won yet greater renown by 
 his later triumphs as an engineer. For some 
 years he devoted himself to laying out and 
 building railway lines in his own country^ 
 Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Can- 
 ada, Egypt, and India. Honors and wealth 
 were showered upon him by the grateful na- 
 tions which he thus served. By the time he 
 had reached middle age he might have retired 
 to a life of ease and enjoyment. But Robert 
 Stephenson loved. work; idleness would have 
 been torture to his vigorous and untiring brain. 
 
 He now turned with youthful energy to the 
 construction of great bridges, and in this 
 pursuit he achieved many very remarkable 
 
ROBERT STEPHENSOIN" — BRIDGE-BUILDER 157 
 
 triumphs. Those of our readers who have 
 travelled in Canada^ and have* visited Mont- 
 real, cannot have failed to gaze with wonder 
 at the mighty Victoria Bridge^ which spans 
 the St. Lawrence near that historic city. 
 This noble structure, with the graded road- 
 ways leading to it on either bank^ covers 
 a space of but little short of two miles. 
 It has been well said that "' in its gigantic 
 strength and majestic proportions there is no 
 structure to compare with it in ancient or 
 modern times/' It consists of a series of 
 twenty-five great tubular bridges^, with a 
 vast central span springing more than three 
 hundred feet. The iron-work which the 
 bridge easily uplifts in the air weighs no 
 less than ten thousand tons^ and the piers 
 comprise stone-work each of eight thousand 
 tons weight. It may be safely declared that 
 this Victoria Bridge^, designed and built by 
 the bold genius of Robert Stephenson, dwarfs 
 all the miditiest works of Roman enojineering;. 
 
158 HEROES AKD MARTYBS OF INVENTION 
 
 Two other bridges of world-wide fame 
 were built by Stephenson. One is the 
 Highland Bridge, which spans the river 
 Tyne at Newcastle very near where both 
 George and Robert Stephenson were born ; 
 and the other, yet more wonderful, is the 
 Britannia Bridge, which at Menai Straits, on 
 the Welsh coast, leaps high across a broad 
 inlet of the ocean, at such an elevation that 
 ^M^essels of large burden in full sail can pass 
 beneath its lofty arches." 
 
 All these bridges were built on what is 
 called the *^Hubular" principle — an idea in- 
 vented by Robert Stephenson himself. The 
 main structure of the tubular bridge comprises 
 a tunnel of wrought-iron, within which the 
 railway trains pass to and fro. The Britannia 
 Bridge has four of these tunnels or tubes, each 
 two hundred and sixty feet long. Besides 
 these bridges, Stephenson built one over the 
 Damietta branch of the Nile in Egypt, and 
 another at Bekat-al-Saba, in the same country. 
 
ROBERT STEPHENSON — BRIDGE-BUILDER 159 
 
 Even such vast labors did not exhaust 
 Robert Stephenson's energies. While super- 
 vising: the buildingr of his brid^jes he had 
 time to study various systems of water-works^ 
 to help Sir Joseph Paxton in his designs for 
 the great first World's Exhibition in Hyde 
 Parkj and to take his seat in Parliament^ 
 where his scientific knowledge enabled him to 
 be especially useful. He was also a member 
 of many learned and scientific societies^ in all 
 of which he took an active part. Nor amid 
 all his fame did he forget the humble place of 
 his birth. He took down the cottage in 
 which he was born^ and caused buildings to 
 be erected on the spot where it had stood^, 
 which were used as a school for poor boys 
 and girls^ and for a mechanics' institute. 
 
 This great and good man died at the early 
 age of fifty-six^ and was laid to rest in West- 
 minster Abbey, among famous kings, nobles, 
 poets, and philosophers. 
 
160 HEROES AND MAKTrKS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ROBERT FULTON AND THE STEAMBOAT 
 
 There are few more interesting or dra- 
 matic stories in the history of science than 
 that which relates to the invention of steam- 
 boats. This story, curiously enough, reaches 
 far back into the remote past and among 
 ancient peoples. The paddle-wheel, for in- 
 stance, by w^hich steamboats are propelled 
 even down to our own day, is said to have 
 been known to the ancient Egyptians, and to 
 have been used by them on the river Nile. 
 The Chinese were probably acquainted with 
 it as far back at least as the seventh century. 
 Twenty years before Columbus crossed the 
 Atlantic on his voyage of discovery, pictures 
 of paddle-Avheels for the moving of vessels 
 were to be seen in Europe. Roger Bacon, 
 
ROBERT FULTON — STEAMBOAT. 161 
 
 seven hundred years ago^ mentioned this de- 
 vice as one well suited to the navigating of 
 rivers. 
 
 In the seventeenth century dim hints were 
 given that other agencies than the human 
 muscle might be used as the power for the 
 moving of small vessels. Denis Papin^ the 
 famous French inventor^ for instance, pro- 
 posed that the oars of boats should be moved 
 by heat. Savery shortly after declared his 
 belief that the rude little steam-engine which 
 he had invented might be used to propel 
 paddle-wheels. In 1724 John Dickens as- 
 serted that a vessel could be driven against 
 wind and tide by forcing water through its 
 stern and by firing gunpowder to move the 
 engines. James Watt invented several de- 
 vices which led almost directly to the idea of 
 the steamboat. The Marquis de Jouffroy in 
 France, Fitch and Rumsey in America, and 
 Miller and Symington in Scotland, clearly 
 perceived that it was possible to apply steam 
 
162 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 to lake and river navigation, long before the 
 steamboat was finally perfected. 
 
 The very first steamboat which actually 
 puffed its way over the water was built by 
 James Symington, and was launched on a 
 bleak autumn morning in 1788 on the Scot- 
 tish lake of Dalswinton. On board the little 
 craft, as it sped over the waves at the then 
 astounding rate of five miles an hour, were a 
 number of famous men. There were Alex- 
 ander Nasmyth, a famous artist, the father 
 of James Nasmyth who invented the steam- 
 hammer; Henry Brougham, afterward Lord 
 High Chancellor of England ; and Robert 
 Burns, soon to be known through the world 
 as a great poet. But, curiously enough, 
 though Symington's steamboat proved that 
 steam could be used to propel vessels, the 
 idea was not then adopted and followed up. 
 After several more trials Symington's device 
 fell into disuse. Its immense importance 
 was not perceived. 
 
ROBERT FULTON — STEAMBOAT 163 
 
 It was the task of Robert Fulton, an 
 American, to establish for all time the fact 
 that steam navigation could be made practi- 
 cal and permanent. Robert Fulton was a 
 native of Pennsylvania, and in early life re- 
 vealed a marked talent as an artist. He 
 took lessons in painting, and for many years 
 pursued his art with ardor. His parents 
 were poor, yet Fulton managed to procure 
 enough money to go to Europe, where at 
 twenty-one we find him studying under the 
 great court painter, Benjamin West. Him- 
 self an American, West found a pride in 
 guiding his bright-eyed young countryman in 
 his efforts to become a good artist. But 
 while in England, Fulton seems to have been 
 diverted from art in order to study mechanics. 
 He soon showed that his genius lay in the 
 direction of inventing. At first he aided the 
 Duke of Bridgewater in the construction of 
 the canal known by that nobleman's name, 
 inventing inclined planes for locks for the 
 
164 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 passage of canal-boats. Then he invented a 
 mill for the sawing of marble^ and new 
 methods of making ropes. 
 
 It was at this time that the experiments of 
 Symington and others in applying steam to 
 navigation were creating a great deal of 
 attention in England^ and Fulton soon be- 
 came absorbed in this new problem. He was 
 a young man of sensitive and enthusiastic 
 nature, somewhat frail in health, but en- 
 dowed with a keen, quick intellect and a 
 courageous, persistent spirit. He made up 
 his mind that he himself would establish 
 finally and forever the possibility of naviga- 
 tion by steam. Fulton was an ardent lover 
 of his native land as well as an inventive 
 genius. As he thought with glowing pride 
 of the fifty thousand miles of navigable 
 rivers which flowed through our Western 
 States, inviting to them population, capital, 
 and business energy, he saw that the steam- 
 boat, if it could be perfected, would be the 
 
ROBERT FULTON — STEAMBOAT 165 
 
 means of developing those vast, rich, and 
 fertile Western lands. 
 
 So he set to work with a will, and devoted 
 himself exclusively to the problem of steam 
 navigation for fourteen years. At the age of 
 thirty-one he repaired to Paris. His fame as 
 an engineer was already great, and Edward 
 Livingston, then the American Minister to 
 France, and a very enlightened, liberal, and 
 public-spirited man, invited him to become an 
 inmate of his house. Fulton lived for some 
 years under Mr. Livingston's hospitable roof, 
 all the time working at his task with all his 
 might. He overcame many obstacles, and 
 rose with renewed energy from many fail- 
 ures. He sought the advice of the great 
 inventors of the day, such as Watt and 
 Cartwright, who gladly lent their aid to the 
 bright young toiler. He made many experi- 
 ments, and on one occasion a steamboat 
 which he had built was launched on the river 
 Seine. This, however, did not work well. 
 
166 HEROES AWD MARTYRS OF USTYENTION 
 
 A less resolute spirit than Fulton's might 
 have despaired ; but he kept straight on, un- 
 daunted by his want of success. When in 
 process of time his project came to the notice 
 of the great Napoleon^ that famous man de- 
 clared that " it was capable of changing the 
 face of the entire world." 
 
 At last Fulton became satisfied that he 
 could build and launch a successful steam- 
 boat. His good and generous friend, Mr. 
 Livingston, had not lost faith in him, and 
 shared his confidence. Mr. Livingston gave 
 Fulton a large sum of money with which to 
 build a steamboat on his latest plan, and 
 Fulton sailed for New York. There he at 
 once set about carrying out his scheme. This 
 time the steamboat which he constructed 
 seemed to him to fulfil every condition of 
 success. 
 
 This steamboat he named the '^ Clermont." 
 It was on a morning in August, 1807, that 
 the " Clermont," all completed, with her engine 
 
Ph 
 
 O 
 
 (JO 
 
 C 
 D 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 C 
 
ROBERT FULTON — STEAMBOAT 167 
 
 duly equipped and fixed^ — a novel sight for 
 the lookers-on to see^ — lay moored at lier 
 dock in the North River. The momentous 
 day for her first trip had arrived. A crowd 
 assembled at the dock to see her start. 
 Fulton, with beating heart, stood on the little 
 deck, surrounded by a group of curious and 
 anxious friends. The word was given, the en- 
 gine was started, and the " Clermont " pushed 
 out upon the stream. Then, after going a 
 little way, the boat suddenly stopped. It was 
 a moment of harrowing suspense to the 
 brave inventor. A slight hitch in the 
 machinery was speedily discovered. It was 
 quickly set right, and the " Clermont," amid 
 murmurs of wonder and delight, resumed her 
 voyage. 
 
 As she steamed up the Hudson, by the 
 Palisades, between the lofty banks of 
 Yonkers and Tarrytown, past the wooded 
 heights of West Point, the country people 
 from miles around gathered on the shore on 
 
168 HEKOES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 either side to witness her progress. They 
 were bewildered and terrified. The " Cler- 
 mont/' indeed^ seemed to their eyes " di mon- 
 ster moving on the water^ defying the winds 
 and tide, and breathing flames and smoke." 
 When the crews of the river boats heard the 
 rumble of her machinery and the splashing 
 of her paddles, and saw the steam and 
 sparks bursting from her valves and funnel, 
 they flew below-deck in their fright ; or^ pros- 
 trating themselves on deck, prayed to be 
 protected from " the horrible creature which 
 was marching on the tides and lighting its 
 path by the fires which it vomited." 
 
 The " Clermont/' however, reached Albany 
 in safety, and Fulton and his friends stepped 
 exultantly on shore. His great end, after 
 so many years of difficulty, trial, and perse- 
 verance, was at last accomplished. Steam 
 navigation had become a fact. The great 
 test had been successful ; and thenceforth all 
 the waters of the earth were to swarm with 
 
EGBERT FULTON— STEAMBOAT 169 
 
 steam-vessels; of which the little ^^ Clermont " 
 was the parent and the pioneer. 
 
 After thisj Fulton built other steamboats^ 
 one of which was a steam-frigate. But^ as is 
 the case with most great inventors^ no sooner 
 was he successful than dishonest men at- 
 tempted to reap for themselves the reward of 
 his long labors. His patents were disputed, 
 and he was involved in a long series of weary 
 lawsuits. Deeply suffering under these vexa- 
 tions, his sensitive nature and frailty of con- 
 stitution brought him to the grave, and he 
 died in 1815, at the age of forty-nine. Ful- 
 ton was known as a man of social feelings 
 and generous nature, and his death called 
 forth general mourning throughout the land 
 of which he had always been so proud, and 
 which honored him as one of the foremost 
 inventors and benefactors of the time. 
 
170 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE STRUGGLES OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 
 
 Never did any man work harder^ suffer 
 more keenly^ or remain more steadfast to one 
 great purpose of life, than did Charles Good- 
 year. The story of his life — for the most 
 part mournful — teems with touching inter- 
 est. No inventor ever struggled against 
 greater or more often returning obstacles, or 
 against repeated failures more overwhelming. 
 Goodyear is often compared, as a martyr and 
 hero of invention, to Bernard Palissy the 
 potter. He is sometimes called " the Palissy 
 of the nineteenth century." But his suffer- 
 ings were more various, more bitter, and 
 more long enduring than ever were even 
 those of Palissy ; while the result of his 
 long, unceasing labors was infinitely more 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 171 
 
 precious to the world. For if Palissy restored 
 the art of enamelling so as to produce beau- 
 tiful works of art^ Goodyear perfected a 
 substance which gives comfort and secures 
 health to millions of human beings. 
 
 Charles Goodyear was born at New Haven, 
 Connecticut, in the first year of the present 
 century. He was the eldest of the six chil- 
 dren of a leading hardware merchant of that 
 place, a man both of piety and of inventive 
 talent. When Charles was a boy, his father 
 began the manufacture of hardware articles, 
 and at the same time carried on a farm. 
 He often required his son's assistance, so 
 that Charles's schooling was limited. He 
 was very fond of books, however, from an 
 early age, and instead of playing with his 
 mates, devoted most of his leisure time to 
 reading. 
 
 It was even while he was a schoolboy that 
 his attention was first turned to the material, 
 the improvement of ^ which for common uses 
 
172 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 became afterwards his life-work. " He hap- 
 pened to take up a thin scale of India-rubber/' 
 says his biographer^, " peeled from a bottle, 
 and it was suggested to his mind that it 
 would be a very useful fabric if it could be 
 made uniformly so thin, and could be so pre- 
 pared as to prevent its melting and sticking 
 together in a solid mass." Often afterward 
 he had a vivid presentiment that he was 
 destined by Providence to achieve these re- 
 sults. 
 
 The years of his youth and early manhood 
 were spent in the hardware trade in Philadel- 
 phia and then in Connecticut ; and at twenty- 
 four he was married to a heroic young wife, 
 who shared his trials, and was ever to him a 
 comforting and encouraging spirit. From 
 boyhood he was always devout and pure in 
 habits. On one occasion, soon after his mar- 
 riage, he wrote to his wife while absent from 
 her: ^^I have quit smoking, chewing, and 
 drinking all in one day. You cannot form an 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 173 
 
 idea of the extent of this last evil in this 
 city [New York] among the young men." 
 
 Charles Goodyear' s misfortunes began early 
 in his career. He failed in business, his 
 health broke down, and through life there- 
 after he suffered from almost continual 
 attacks of dyspepsia. He was, moreover, 
 a small, frail man, with a weak constitution. 
 He was imprisoned for debt after his failure ; 
 nor was this the only time that he found 
 himself within the walls of a jail. That was 
 almost a frequent experience with him in 
 after life. 
 
 It was under discouragements like these 
 that Goodyear began his long series of experi- 
 ments in India-rubber. Already this peculiar 
 substance — a gum that exudes from a certain 
 kind of very tall tree, which is chiefly found 
 in South America — had been manufactured 
 into various articles, but it had not been 
 made enduring, and the uses to which it 
 could be put were very limited. 
 
174 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 There is no space here to follow Goodyear' s 
 experiments in detail. He entered upon 
 them with the ardor of a fanatic and the 
 faith of a devotee. But he very soon found 
 that the difficulties in his way were great and 
 many. He was bankrupt, in bad health, with 
 a growing family dependent on him, and no 
 means of support. Yet he persevered, 
 through years of wretchedness, to the very 
 end. It is a striking fact that his very first 
 experiment was made in a prison cell. 
 
 During the long period occupied by his re- 
 peated trials of invention he passed through 
 almost every calamity to which human flesh 
 is heir. Again and again he was thrown into 
 prison. Repeatedly he saw starvation staring 
 him and his gentle wife and his poor little 
 children in the face. He was reduced many 
 times to the very last extreme of penury. 
 His friends sneered at him, deserted him, 
 called him mad. He was forced many times 
 to beg the loan of a few dollars, with no pros- 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 175 
 
 pect of repayment. One of his children died 
 in the dead of winter^ when there was no 
 fuel in the cheerless house. A gentleman was 
 once asked what sort of a looking man Good- 
 year was. " If you meet a man/' was the 
 reply J " who wears an India-rubber coat, cap^ 
 stock, vest, and shoes, with an India-rubber 
 money purse without a cent in it, that is 
 Charles Goodyear." 
 
 Once, while in the extremity of want, 
 when he was living at Greenwich, near New 
 York, he met his brother-in-law, and said, 
 "Give me ten dollars, brother; I have 
 pawned my last silver spoon to pay my 
 fare to the city." 
 
 " You must not go on so ; you cannot live 
 in this way," said the other. 
 
 " I am going to do better," replied Good- 
 year cheerily. 
 
 It was by accident at last that he hit upon 
 the secret of how to make India-rubber dur- 
 able. He was talking one day to several 
 
176 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 visitors^ and in his ardor making rapid gest- 
 ures, when a piece of rubber which he was 
 holding in his hand accidentally hit against a 
 hot stove. To his amazement, instead of 
 melting, the gum remained stiff and charred, 
 like leather. He again applied great heat to 
 a piece of rubber, and then nailed it outside 
 the door, where it was very cold. The next 
 morning he found that it was perfectly flexi- 
 ble ; and this was the discovery which led to 
 that successful invention which he had strug- 
 gled through so many years to perfect. The 
 main value of the discovery lay in this^ that 
 while the gum would dissolve in a moderate 
 heat, it both remained hard and continued to 
 be flexible when submitted to an extreme 
 heat. This came to be known as the " vul- 
 canization '' of India-rubber. 
 
 Two years were still to elapse, however, 
 before Goodyear could make practical use of 
 his great discovery. He had tired every- 
 body out by his previous frequent assertions 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 177 
 
 that liis invention had been perfected, when 
 it had until now always proved a failure. 
 Many a time he had gone to his friends, de- 
 claring that he had succeeded, so that when 
 he really had made the discovery nobody be- 
 lieved in it. 
 
 He was still desperately poor and in 
 wretched health. Yet he moved to Woburn, 
 in Massachusetts, resolutely continuing his 
 experiments there. He had no money, and 
 so baked his India-rubber in his wife's oven 
 and saucepans, or hung it before the nose of 
 her tea-kettle. Sometimes he begged the use 
 of the factory ovens in the neighborhood 
 after the day's work was over, and sold his 
 children's very school-books in order to sup- 
 ply himself with the necessary gum. At this 
 time he lived almost exclusively on money gifts 
 from pitying friends, who shook their heads 
 in their doubts of his sanity. Often his 
 house had neither food nor fuel in it; his 
 family were forced to go out into the woods 
 
178 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 to get wood to burn. " They dug their pota- 
 toes before they were half-grown^ for the sake 
 of having something to eat." 
 
 Goodyear was terribly afraid that he 
 should die before he could make the world 
 perceive the great uses to which his discov- 
 ery might be applied. What he was toiling 
 for was neither fame nor fortune^ but only to 
 confer a vast benefit on his fellow-men. 
 
 At last, after infinite struggles, the absorb- 
 ing purpose of his life was attained. India- 
 rubber was introduced under his patents, and 
 soon proved to have all the value he had, in 
 his wildest moments, claimed for it. Success 
 thus crowned his noble efforts, which had con- 
 tinued unceasingly through ten years of self- 
 imposed privation. India-rubber was now seen 
 to be capable of being adapted to at least five 
 hundred uses. It could be made " as pliable as 
 kid, tougher than ox-hide, as elastic as whale- 
 bone, or as rigid as flint." But, as too often 
 happens, his great discovery enriched neither 
 
THE STRUGGLES' OF CHARLES GOODYEAR 179 
 
 Goodyear nor his family. It soon gave em- 
 ployment to sixty thousand artisans^ and 
 annually produced articles in this country 
 alone worth eight millions of dollars. 
 
 Happily the later years of the noble, self- 
 devoted inventor were spent at least free from 
 the grinding penury and privations of his 
 years of uncertainty and toil. He died in 
 his sixtieth year (1860), happy in the thought 
 of the magnificent boon he had given to man- 
 kind. 
 
180 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ELIAS HOWE AND THE SEWING-MACHINE 
 
 In the enlightened days of the nineteenth 
 century the great inventors enjoy a brighter 
 and sunnier lot than did those who lived 
 in ruder and darker times. The modern in- 
 ventor is seldom the victim of ignorance. He 
 is no longer hunted down by fierce and fanat- 
 ical superstition. He is no longer thought to 
 be a sorcerer ; for his magic is seen to be the 
 product of intellect and reason. He is now 
 courted and popular, and shares with the 
 great soldiers, statesmen, and explorers the 
 gratitude of nations. Yet modern inventors 
 have by no means always found the path to 
 success and wealth an easy one. If the in- 
 ventors of the olden time often suffered vio- 
 lence and death; those of a later period 
 
ELIAS HOWE — SEWmG-MACHINE 181 
 
 have sometimes been forced to face miscon- 
 ception and ridicule^, poverty and long endur- 
 ing privations^ injustice and robbery, before 
 they reached the goal of their ambition. 
 
 A striking illustration of this fact is found 
 in the life of Elias Howe, the inventor of the 
 sewing-machine ; and in that life, also, w^e are 
 able to discover qualities as noble and brave, 
 a perseverance as sturdy and enduring, as 
 were seen in Palissy, Arkwright, and Watt. 
 Elias Howe's life, indeed, presents a touching 
 picture of trials and troubles long continued, 
 borne with courage and patience, and crowned 
 at last with a grand success. 
 
 It is interesting that many of the foremost 
 of modern American inventors were born and 
 brought up, not in the busy cities, but among 
 the green hills and valleys of the country. 
 Eli Whitney, W. T. G. Morton (who claimed 
 to have discovered the use of ether in deaden- 
 ing pain), and Elias Howe were all sons of 
 New England farmers. Howe was a native 
 
182 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 of the beautiful town of Spencer, which is 
 spread on the crest of high hills in central 
 Massachusetts. His father was both farmer 
 and miller ; and Howe's boyhood's years were 
 spent amid quiet rustic scenes. When Elias 
 was a child, no one would have guessed that 
 he was destined to do any great thing in the 
 world ; for he was small of size, feeble in 
 health, and suffered from lameness in one 
 foot from his birth. His father was very 
 poor, and as soon as the little lad was able to 
 work at all, he helped his father in the mill 
 and on the farm. 
 
 When he was eleven years old, Elias was 
 " put out," or apprenticed, to a neighboring 
 farmer ; but in a short time, being unable to 
 endure the hard farm-work, he returned for 
 a while to his father's mill. Already he 
 began to take an interest in tools and machin- 
 ery. He mended furniture, and during his 
 spare hours spent his time in learning the use 
 of such tools as his father had, and making 
 
ELIAS HOWE — SEWIISrG-MACHINE 183 
 
 all sorts of things with them. His fondness 
 for mechanics developed rapidly^ and^ at six- 
 teen^ resolute of will though frail of body, he 
 set out from his country home and repaired 
 to the great manufacturing town of Lowell. 
 He worked for two years in the Lowell mills 
 on small wages, at the same time studying 
 and mastering the details of the machinery 
 which was used in them. 
 
 Then he moved to Waltham, and went to 
 work in the mills there. At Waltham was 
 working, at the same time, a cousin of Elias 
 Howe, who has since become famous both as 
 a statesman and as a soldier. This was 
 Nathaniel P. Banks. The two cousins little 
 thought, when they were toiling at the Wal- 
 tham looms, that one would become Speaker 
 of the National House of Eepresentatives, 
 Governor of Massachusetts, and a major-gener- 
 al in the army ; and that the other would grow 
 to be forever famous as one of the greatest 
 inventors of all time. 
 
184 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 While he was in the mills Elias grew more 
 and more interested in machinery^ and he 
 soon began to dream of being an inventor. 
 This led him^ when he was about twenty 
 years old, to repair to Boston, where he found 
 an employer who was an inventor, and who 
 kept a shop in Cornhill. In this shop Elias 
 earned nine dollars a week. He now fell in 
 love, and although he was earning but a small 
 pittance, he was imprudent enough to get 
 married. The early days of his wedded life 
 were full of hardship and privation ; but all 
 was borne with cheerful courage by him and 
 his young wife. Unfortunately his health, 
 never strong, broke down completely, and his 
 wife and child were brought to the brink of 
 starvation. 
 
 It was while their fortunes were at this low 
 ebb that the idea struck Elias Howe which 
 was destined to give him a new object in life, 
 and which was to lead him, through many 
 misfortunes and miseries, to fame and for- 
 
ELI AS HOWE — SEWING-MACHINIE 185 
 
 tune. His awakening to the knowledge of 
 his powers of invention was as sudden as that 
 of Edmund Cartwright^ who invented the 
 power-loom, and as romantic as that of Wil- 
 liam Lee, the inventor of the stocking-frame. 
 Love, indeed, was the wizard which called his 
 inventive genius into action. Howe sat by 
 his young wife one day in their dismal lodg- 
 ing, not knowing where the next day's food 
 would come from, and with starvation staring 
 them in the face. The wife was busily sev> 
 ing, and Howe was watching her fingers as 
 they busily plied the needle. All of a suddeii 
 the question occurred to him whether a ma- 
 chine could not be made, which, imitating the 
 human fingers, would take stitches many 
 times faster than his wife could do? By a 
 little thought, it seemed to him that such a 
 machine might take fifty stitches while his 
 wife was taking one. 
 
 This idea, when once it had got fixed in his 
 mind, never left it. He went to work at 
 
186 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 once^ thinking out the plan of such a ma- 
 chine. He first attempted to attain his 
 object with a needle which had its eye in the 
 middle, and which was sharp at both ends. 
 Then, with difficulty, he made, with pieces of 
 wood and bits of wire, a rude model, which, 
 however rude it was, convinced him that, 
 with toil and patience, a real working sewing- 
 machine could be constructed. 
 
 He moved to Cambridge, where his father 
 was living, and he now had the good-fortune 
 to fall in with a friend, George Fisher, who 
 lent him five hundred dollars to continue 
 his experiments, and soon after took Howe 
 and his family into his own house. After the 
 lapse of six months Howe had completed his 
 first machine, which was about a foot and a 
 half high. He showed it to the Boston 
 tailors, but some of them laughed him to 
 scorn, others feared that it would ruin the 
 tailoring trade if it were brought into use ; 
 not one of them would purchase it. Then 
 
ELIAS HOWE -SEWING-MACHINE 187 
 
 came a period of bitter trials and ill-healtli, 
 during which Howe depended upon charity 
 for sustenance. But not then^ or ever, did 
 misfortune discourage the soul or shake the 
 faith of Elias Howe. 
 
 We see him, just as soon as he could raise 
 as much as a pittance, taking passage in the 
 steerage of a sailing-vessel for London, cook- 
 ing his own food as he made the cheerless 
 voyage across the ocean ; giving the use of his 
 machine to a capitalist in London, who, as 
 soon as his workmen had learned how to 
 manage the sewing-machine, cast Howe 
 adrift ; Howe pawning his clothes to pay 
 for the wretched supply of beans which 
 barely kept body and soul together; spend- 
 ing four months in making a machine, which 
 he sold for twenty-five dollars ; and, at last, 
 drawing his baggage in a hand-cart to the 
 vessel in which he had engnged himself as a 
 steerage cook, and returning weary, but never 
 despairing, ta his native land. 
 
188 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INYENTION 
 
 He arrived in New York to learn that liis 
 devoted wife was dying at Cambridge ; and 
 he had not money enough to make the jour- 
 ney thither. He earned it in a New York 
 machine shop, and reached his wife's bedside 
 just in time to see her die. So poor was he 
 that he was forced to borrow a suit of clothes 
 in which to follow her to her grave. A few 
 days after, he heard that the ship which con- 
 tained all his worldly goods had gone to the 
 bottom of the sea. 
 
 Yet Elias Howe stoutly persevered, and 
 rose bravely above all his difficulties. At 
 last the sewing-macliine was introduced, suc- 
 cessfully established, and came into rapid 
 demand on every hand. At the age of 
 thirty-five his income from this great inven- 
 tion was two hundred thousand dollars a 
 year. At forty-eight he was worth two 
 millions. His later life, rich and famous 
 though he was, was not one of ease and idle 
 luxury. He dispensed generous and quiet 
 
ELIAS HOWE— SEWING-MACHINE 189 
 
 charities ; he was kind and benevolent, and 
 especially so toward women in distress ; and 
 he was earnestly patriotic. 
 
 For this millionnaire, lame as he was, and 
 wearied as he well might have been after such 
 a life of toil and trials, was one of the first 
 to respond to the call to arms at the outbreak 
 of the civil war. He enlisted in the army as 
 a private ; shouldered his musket, and went 
 into the ranks; and when, on one occasion, 
 the pay of his regiment (the Seventeenth Con- 
 necticut) was behindhand, he himself promptly 
 advanced the thirty thousand dollars needed 
 to supply the wants of his fellow-soldiers. 
 Not long after the close of the war, Elias 
 Howe, not yet an old man, died, leaving the 
 record of a noble, generous, upright life, and 
 a name ever to be honored among the great 
 inventors of the age. 
 
190 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IRON AND ITS WORKERS 
 
 With the advent of iron the whole face 
 of human life was changed. By its aid^ it 
 became possible to erect secure dwellings^ so 
 that man ceased to be a wanderer and settled 
 down permanently on one spot. By its 
 meanSj the art of agriculture took its rise. 
 The creation of a home and a farm resulted 
 in settlements, hamlets, villages, thriving 
 towns, and, finally, in the political and social 
 relations which lie at the base of modern 
 civilization. 
 
 When, indeed, we consider the wide range 
 of uses to which iron can be put, uses so 
 opposite as " a steel pen and a railroad, the 
 needle of a mariner's compass and a Krupp 
 cannon, a surgeon's lancet and a steam-en- 
 
IRON AND ITS WORKERS 191 
 
 gine, the delicate mainspring of a watch and 
 an iron-clad man of war^ a pair of scissors 
 and a Nasmyth hammer^ a lady's ear-ring and 
 a tubular bridge/' we can see what a vast 
 change it has wrought in the material condi- 
 tion of the human race. 
 
 Of the original discovery that this dull 
 and unlovely metal, hidden in its rough ore, 
 and concealed by its jagged matrix, could be 
 turned to innumerable uses by man, there is 
 no authentic trace, or scarcely a credible 
 tradition. There is, indeed, an ancient story 
 that the qualities of iron were first brought 
 to light by the burning of a forest in 
 Greece ; that the charcoal thus formed 
 turned the ore of a mine beneath into the 
 malleable metal. Bnt this story has the 
 character of dim legend rather than of 
 proved history. 
 
 The first certain fact about iron is this, 
 that its discovery marked the beginning of 
 the epoch, in man's industrial progress, which 
 
192 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 has lasted down to the present day. After 
 centuries of dispute^ men of science are now 
 agreed in dividing the natural history of 
 human civilization into three ages^ according 
 to the material of which the implements used 
 in each age were made. 
 
 First, there was the epoch of stone, in 
 which the weapons and utensils were of wood, 
 bone, and yet more frequently of stone and 
 flint. The second age was that of bronze, in 
 which a metal composed of copper and tin 
 took the place of the ruder and simpler 
 materials of old. Bronze, of course, with its 
 greater hardness, and its capacity of being to 
 some degree, at least, sharpened, afforded 
 implements far more effective in the felling 
 of trees, the hewing of stones, the building 
 of boats, and the tilling of land, than those 
 which it replaced. Then came the third 
 epoch, that of the mysterious metal, iron. 
 
 No doubt these periods somewhat over- 
 lapped each other. In the bronze age, flint 
 
IRON AND ITS WORKERS 193 
 
 and bones were still somewhat used; for 
 bronze was expensive, and could only be em- 
 ployed sparingly. It was the same in the 
 early part of the iron age. Stone and bronze 
 implements survived for a while^ even after 
 iron had not only been found, but smelted 
 and forged into practical use. 
 
 With iron, however, the human race 
 started forth upon a new career, and took 
 its first step upwards towards the civilization 
 of to-day. 
 
 Iron has never been displaced by any 
 other metal or natural agency. It is still 
 " the soul of manufacture/' still the basis 
 upon which the greatest discoveries of mod- 
 ern times are built up. 
 
 There is nothing more striking in the his- 
 tory of industry than the eagerness with which 
 men, as soon as they found it, seized on, glori- 
 fied, and multiplied the capacities of iron. 
 Gold, with all its glitter, beauty, and precious 
 value, sank into the background before this 
 
194 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 powerful though grimy and uncouth rival. 
 When Croesus was boasting of his vast golden 
 treasures, the wise Solon retorted on him, — 
 
 ^^If another comes that hath better iron 
 than you^ he will be master of all that gold." 
 
 Wheii^ in the Seven Years' War, an alche- 
 mist offered to convert all the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick's iron into gold^ that wise warrior 
 replied, — 
 
 " By no means. I want all the iron I can 
 find to resist my enemies. As for gold, I can 
 get it from England." 
 
 So late, indeed, as the time of the Enghsh 
 ■ Edward the Third, the pots, spits^ and frying- 
 pans of the royal kitchen were considered to 
 be among the king's jewels. The nations 
 which used iron weapons against those who 
 did not were the conquering nations ; and 
 always, in the wars, the army which fouglit 
 with the most and best iron weapons over- 
 came their foes. Wherever a people with 
 iron came into collision with a people who 
 
IRON AND ITS WORKERS 195 
 
 hud only stone and bronze, the former extir- 
 pated and replaced the latter. 
 
 One of the most signal instances of the 
 triumphs of iron is seen in the foundation, by 
 its use in war, of the once mighty Turkish 
 Empire. The Turks were originally the 
 wretched, hopeless slaves of a barbarous 
 Oriental ruler. But they lived in an iron 
 district, and they were set at work by their 
 master, forging weapons of iron for his wars. 
 At last, an able and valiant Turk persuaded 
 his fellow-slaves to Use the weapons they thus 
 made to secure their own liberties. They 
 poured down from their mountain defiles, as- 
 sailed the tyrant and his legions, and thus 
 won their freedom. ^^For centuries after," 
 says an account of this thrilling event, " the 
 Turkish nation continued to celebrate their 
 liberation by an annual ceremony, in which 
 a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a 
 smith's hammer was successively handled by 
 the prince and his nobles." 
 
196 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF IlSryEKTION 
 
 The Philistines knew well the advantage 
 held by a people who forged and tised 
 weapons of iron. We read in the Bible 
 that^ in completing their conquest of the 
 Israelites^ they captured and carried off all 
 the smiths in Judea 5 " for the Philistines 
 said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or 
 spears. But the Israelites went down to the 
 Philistines to sharpen every man his share, 
 his coulter, and his axe, and his mattocks." 
 
 When the tribes and nations found out the 
 uses of iron, they valued it so preciously that, 
 in their ignorance and superstition, they were 
 tempted to worship it as something sacred 
 and divine. The Romans called it '^ Mars," 
 after their god of war; and Captain Cook 
 tells us that the New Zealanders of the last 
 century were ready to pay homage to the 
 axe, as to a deity, to offer sacrifices to the 
 saw, and to make an idol of the knife. The 
 inventor of the saw, indeed, was exalted by 
 the Greeks to a seat among their gods. 
 
IRON" AND ITS WORKERS 197 
 
 It naturally followed from this veneration 
 for iron^ a homage awarded to it alone among 
 metals^ that a lofty place should be given by 
 common consent to the workers in iron. In 
 remote ages^ therefore^ and indeed^ in ages 
 not very remote^ the smith was truly a hero 
 among his fellows. The ancient smith was 
 honored on all occasions with specLil honors 
 and privileges. He was a man of rare and 
 various accomplishments. 
 
 "He made nails/' says a recent writer, 
 " and shod horses ; he fashioned axes, saws, 
 adzes, chisels, augers, and hammers for the 
 mechanics, and spades and hoes for the farm- 
 ers ; he devised bolts and chains for the 
 castle-gates of the great barons, and fasten- 
 ings for their bridges and portcullises. But 
 especially was the smith valued as the artifi- 
 cer of the weapons and appliances of war 
 and of barbaric sports. He made and 
 mended the weapons used in the chase and 
 in war, the gavelocks, bills, and battle-axes ; 
 
198 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 he tipped the bowmen's arrows^ and furnished 
 spear-heads for the men-at-arms. But, above 
 all, he forged the mail-coats and cuirasses of 
 the chiefs, and welded those huge swords on 
 the temper and quality of which life, honor, 
 and victory depended on the battle-field." 
 
 In the Anglo-Saxon period of English 
 history, the smith was indeed a mighty man. 
 He sat at royal tables, below the court chap- 
 lain, and above the court physician. At the 
 court of Wales it was provided that the smith 
 was entitled to a draught of every kind of 
 liquor that was brought into the king's din- 
 ing-hall. Special laws guarded the safety of 
 his person. Once a Scottish smith committed 
 a crime for which the penalty was death. 
 But so precious were his services to the chief 
 of his clan, that the latter ordered that two 
 weavers should be hanged in his stead. 
 
 The common people often attributed to the 
 smith supernatural power. He who could 
 forge swords like the sword " Excalibur " of 
 
IPtOX AND ITS WORKERS 199 
 
 King Arthur and the sword ^^Joyeuse" of 
 Charlemagne, weapons which were them- 
 selves regarded as inanimate heroes, and had 
 names as if they were living warriors, must, 
 thought the Saxon churl, be endowed with 
 magical powers. The names of the great 
 smiths of the Saxon and mediaeval times are 
 as familiar in legend and chronicle as are 
 those- of the kings and the Crusaders. 
 Weland, the smith, is closely bound up with 
 the heroic traditions of King Arthur. The 
 dark smith of Drontheim is the hero of 
 Norwegian tales. Henry Ferrers, the smith 
 who went in William the Conqueror's train, is 
 almost as renowned as the Conqueror him- 
 self ; and his descendant, the present Earl 
 Ferrers, bears the sign of his origin from the 
 anvil, in the six horse-shoes which appear on 
 his coat"Of-arms. 
 
 There are few more brilliant names in the 
 annals of industrial art than that of Andrea 
 de Ferrera, who forged, in the Highlands of 
 
200 HEROES AKD MARTYRS OF INVENTION 
 
 Scotland^ swords wliicli rivalled in their fine 
 temper and ductile strength^ the famous 
 blades of Damascus^ Milan^ and Toledo. 
 
 In the middle ages in England^ the smith 
 had become by all odds the most important 
 and skilful personage in the working commu- 
 nity. His achievements w^ere now no longer 
 confined to the making of implements, 
 weapons, and armor. He seemed indeed to 
 be " the rivet which held society together." 
 He was the farrier and veterinary surgeon, 
 the dentist and sometimes the doctor, the 
 parish clerk and the news-monger of his 
 district. The smithy was the universal 
 resort where to receive and discuss the 
 tidings of the day; and of all those who 
 discussed the news the smith was by far 
 the most learned and the most respectfully 
 listened to. The smithy was thus " the very 
 eye and tongue of the village." 
 
 In early times, the surnames of men were 
 often derived from their callings ; and, as the 
 
IKON AND ITS WORKERS 201 
 
 smith was the earliest and most highly con- 
 sidered of all men who worked with their 
 hands, so the name of Smith became, and 
 has continued to this day, the most fre- 
 quently met with of all English surnames. 
 Not only is this true of English names ; in 
 other tongues, we find that the equivalent of 
 " Smith " is more common than other names. 
 " Schmidt " in German, " Cowan" in Scottish, 
 ^^Fabri" in Italian, ^^Lefevre" in French, 
 mean precisely what Smith means in English. 
 Our modern ^^Mr. Smith," therefore, need 
 not blush for his name, nor be nettled by the 
 witticisms and amusement with which it is 
 sometimes greeted. For his surname is high 
 and ancient. He can boast of an ancestry 
 revered and honored when the ancestors of 
 England's haughtiest nobles and America's 
 proudest families, nay, when the ancestors of 
 some crowned monarchs, were savages roam- 
 ing the forests, or robbers desolating domains 
 and burning villages ! 
 
202 HEROES AND MARTYRS OF I]SrYE:NrTION 
 
 It has only been within the past two hundred 
 years that the progress of iron manufacture 
 has been rapid^ and that its uses have become 
 well-nigh universal. This is owing to the fact 
 that it was not until the seventeenth century 
 that Dud Dudley discovered the art of smelt- 
 ing iron with pit-coal. In all the preceding 
 centuries iron had been slowly smelted with 
 charcoal. It was Dudley's invention which 
 began the revolution in iron manufacture^ by 
 which it has truly become^ as John Locke 
 called it^ " the author of plenty/' in our own 
 age. 
 
^^W'^ OF- HISTORY 
 
 By GEORGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE. 
 
 HandBomely Illustrated. Price per vol., $1.25. Sets in neat bozen 
 
 VASCO DA GAMA: 
 
 HIS VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES. 
 *' Da Gama'e history Is full of striking adventures, thrilling incidents, and 
 
 Eerilous situations; and Mr. Towle, while not sacrificing historical accuracy, 
 as so okilfuliy used his materials, that we have a charmingly romantic tale." 
 — Rubral New- Yorker, 
 
 PIZ ARRO: 
 HIS ADVENTURES AND CONQUESTS. 
 ** No hero of romance possesses greater power to charm the youthful reader 
 than the conqueror of Peru. Not even King Arthur, or Thaddeus of War- 
 saw, has the power to captivate the imagination of the growing boy. Mr. 
 Towle has handled his subject in a glowing but truthful manner; and wc 
 venture the assertion, that, wer-i our children led to read such books as this, 
 the taste for unwholesome, exciting, wrong-teaching boys' books — dime 
 novels in books' clothing — would be greatly diminished, to the great gain of 
 mental force and moral purpose in the rising generation." — Chicago Alliance. 
 
 MAGELLAN; 
 
 OR, THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 *♦ What more of romantic and spirited adventures any bright boy coold 
 want than is to be found in this series of historical biography, it is difficult 
 to imagine. This volume is written in a most sprightly manner; and th© 
 life of its hero, Fernan Magellan, with its rapid stride from the softness of 
 a petted youth to the sturdy courage and persevering fortitude of manikood, 
 makes a tale of marvellous fascination." — Christian Union. 
 
 MARCO POLO: 
 
 HIS TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES. 
 "The story of the adventurous Venetian, who six hundred years ago pena 
 trated into India and Cathay and Thibet and Abyssinia, is pleasantly and 
 clearly told; and nothing better can be put into the hands of th(Q scliool boy 
 or girl than this series of the records of noted travellers. The heroism dis- 
 played by these men was certainly as great as that ever shown by conquering 
 warrior; and it was exercised in a far nobler cause, — the cause of knowledge 
 and diflcovery, which has made the nineteenth century what it i&" ^Graphic. 
 
 RALEGH: 
 
 HIS EXPLOITS AND VOYAGES. 
 
 •'This belongs to the * Young Folks' Heroes of History * series, and deals 
 with a greater and more interesting man than any of its predecessors. With 
 all the black spots on his Tame, there are few more brilliant and striking 
 figures in English history than the soldier, sailor, courtier, author, and ex. 
 plorer. Sir Walter Ralegh. Even at this distance of time, more than two 
 hundred and fifty years after his head fell on the scaffold, we cannot read hia 
 Btory without emotion. It is graphically written, and is pleasant reading, 
 Rot only for young folks, but for old folks with young hearts." — IFoanan'* 
 Journal. 
 
 DRAKE: 
 THE SEA-LION OF DEVON. 
 
 Drake wap the fc^-emost sea-captain of his age, the first English admiral 
 to send a ship completely round the world, the hero of the magnifieonl 
 victory which the English won over the Invincible Armada. His caieer wai 
 itirring bold, and adventurous, from early youth to old age. 
 
 LEE AND SHEPAED, Publishers, Boston. 
 
y OUNG F OLKS' -! 
 
 B QQKS OF Travel 
 
 DRIFTING ROUND THE WORLD; A Boy's Adventures by 
 
 Sea and Land 
 By Capt. Charles W. Hall, author of " Adrift in the Ice-Fields," " The 
 Great Bonanza," etc. With numerous full-page and letter-press illustra- 
 tions. Royal 8vo. Handsome cover. $1.75. Cloth, gilt, $2.50. 
 ** Out of the beaten track" in its course of travel, record of adventures, 
 and descriptions of life in Greenland, Labrador, Ireland, Scotland, England, 
 France, Holland, Russia, Asia, Siberia, and Alaska. Its hero is young, bold, 
 aad adventurous ; and the book is in every way interesting and attractive. 
 
 EDWARD GREEY'S JAPANESE SERIES 
 YOUNG AMERICANS IN JAPAN ; or, The Adventures of the 
 Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo 
 
 With 170 full-page and letter-press illustrations. Royal 8vo, 7 x 9I inches^ 
 Handsomely illuminated cover. $1.75. Cloth, black and gold, $2.50. 
 This story, though essentially a work of fiction, is filled with interesting and 
 
 truthful descriptions of the curious ways of living' of the good people of the 
 
 land of the rismg sun. 
 
 THE WONDERFUL CITY OF TOKIO ; or, The Further Ad- 
 ventures of the Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo 
 
 With 169 illustrations. Royal 8vo, 7 x 95 inches. With cover in gold and 
 . colors, designed by the author. $1.75. Cloth, black and gold, $2.50. 
 
 *' A book full of delightful information. The author has the happy gift of 
 permitting the reader to view things as he saw them. The illustrations are 
 mostly drawn by a Japanese artist, and are very unique." — Chicago Herald. 
 
 THE BEAR WORSHIPPERS OF YEZO AND THE ISLAND 
 OF KARAFUTO; being the further Adventures of the 
 Jewett Family and their Friend Oto Nambo 
 
 x8o illustrations. Boards, $1.75. Cloth, $2.50. 
 
 Graphic pen and pencil pictures of the remarkable bearded people who livft 
 in the north of Japan. The illustrations are by native Japanese artists, and 
 give queer pictures of a queer people, who have been seldom visited. 
 
 HARRY W. FRENCHES BOOKS 
 OUR BOYS IN INDIA 
 
 The wanderings of two young Americans in Hindustan, with their exciting 
 
 adventures on the sacred rivers and wild mountains. With 145 illustrations. 
 
 Royal Svo, 7 x 95 inches. Bound in emblematic covers of Oriental design, 
 
 $1.75. Cloth, black and gold, $2.50. 
 
 While it has all the expting interest of a romance, it is remarkably vivid ia 
 its pictures of manners and customs in the land of the Hindu. The illustra- 
 tions are many and excellent. 
 
 OUR BOYS IN CHINA 
 
 The adventures of two young Americans, wrecked in the China Sea on their 
 
 return from India, with their strange wanderings through the Chinese 
 
 Empire. 188 illustrations. Boards, ornamental covers in colors and gold, 
 
 $1.75. Cloth, $2.50. 
 
 This gives the further adventures of" Our Boys" of India fame in the land 
 ©f Teas and Queues. 
 
 §9ld by ah booksetleys, and sent by mail, postpaid ^ on receipt of price 
 
 LEE ASH SHEPAED Publishers Bostoa 
 
L JISTORICAL ROOKS « • * ♦ 
 . • • • FOR yOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 Young Folks" History of the United States 
 
 By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 The story of our country in the most reliable and interesting form. As a 
 •tory-book it easily leads all other American history stories in interest, while as 
 a text-book for the study of history it is universally admitted to be the best. 
 
 Young Folks' Book of American Explorers 
 
 By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Uniform with the ** Young Folks* 
 History of the United States." One volume, fully illustrated. Price $1.50. 
 ** It is not a history told in the third person, nor an historical novel for young 
 folks, where the author supposes the chief characters to have thought and said 
 such and such things under such and such circumstances; but it is the genuine 
 description given by the persons who experienced the things they described in 
 letters written home." — Montpelier Journal, 
 
 The Nation in a Nutshell 
 
 By George Makepeace Tovvle, author of " Heroes of History," " Young 
 Folks* History of England," " Young Folks' History of Ireland," etc. 
 Price 50 cents. 
 
 " To tell the story of a nation like ours in a nutshell, requires a peculiar 
 faculty for selecting, condensing, and philosophizing. The brevity with which 
 he relates the principal events in American history, does not detract from the 
 charming interest of the narrative style." — Public Opinion* 
 
 Young People's History, of England 
 
 By George Makepeace Towle. Cloth, illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 '* The whole narrative is made interesting and attractive — in every way 
 what a book of this kind should be in its clearness of statement, freshness of 
 style, and its telling of the right ways." — Critic. 
 
 Ha ndbook of En gl ish History 
 
 Based on ** Lectures on English History,** by the late M. J. Guest, and 
 brought down to the year 1880. With a Supplementary Chapter on the 
 English Literature of the 19th Century. By F. H. Underwood, LL.D. 
 With Maps, Chronological Table, etc. $1.50. 
 " It approaches nearer perfection than anything in the line we have seen. 
 
 It is succinct, accurate, and delightful." — Hartford Evening Post. 
 
 Youn g People's History of Ireland 
 
 By George Makepeace Towle, author of " Young People's History of 
 
 England," '* Young Folks' Heroes of History," etc. With an introduction 
 
 by John Boyle O'Reilly. Cloth, illustrated. $1.50^ 
 
 ** The history is like a novel, increasing in interest to the very end, and 
 
 terminating at the most interesting period of the whole; and the reader lays 
 
 down the book a moment in enthusiastic admiration for a people who have 
 
 endured so much, and yet have retained so many admirable characteristics." — 
 
 N.y. World. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price 
 
 LEE ANB SHEPARD Publishers Boston 
 6 
 
hb AND ^ mm'^ 
 
 W HITE B LACK AND QOLD gERlES 
 
 On fine paper, profusely illustrated, and bound in white, black, and gol4, 
 
 with new and original dies, making very attractive books 
 
 Per uolume, $1.50 New edition 
 
 HEROES OF THE CRUSADES By Amanda M. Douglas 
 
 With 50 full-pag-e illustrations by Gustave Dore 
 
 ** This work is an accurate and exceeding^ly interesting history of the 
 Crusades, a story of the personal incidents and efforts of the Crusaders 
 themselves in their heroic endeavors to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, break 
 up the Feudal System, and extend the influence of the Christian civiliza- 
 tion. The work abounds in fascinating- passages, descriptive of the 
 heroism of tlie Crusaders, and the 50 full-page illustrations add greatly 
 to its value and interest." 
 
 ADVENTURES OF A CHINAMAN By Jules Verne 
 50 full-page illustrations 
 
 " In this volume he gives a full rein to his lively fancy, and the result is a 
 book that will compare with any of his preceding works in the matter of 
 pleasure to be derived from its pages. The Flowery Kingdom offers a fertile 
 field for a writer such as he is, and he has made it the scene of incidents that 
 show his fertility of invention, his k^en sense of humor, and his faculty for 
 imparting valuable information, garnished with much that is extravagant and 
 only designed to amuse." — Budget. 
 
 FIGHTING PHIL The Life of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, by 
 Headlev With full-page ilhistrations 
 
 *' The present volume is one of the most successful that the author has 
 produced. It is the life-record of a brave and good man, who was honored, 
 admired, and respected. Little Phil Sheridan endeared himself to the hearts 
 of a nation whose offspiing should learn the story of his life. The wortc 
 is very handsomely printed, illustrated and boimd, and, while it is one of the 
 most desirable gifts for a boy, it is a thoroughly historical and readable work, 
 suitable for all who wish to learn the facts in the career of a noble American 
 hero." — Atnericaii Hebretu. 
 
 PERSEVERANCE ISLAND or The Robinson Crusoe of 
 THE Nineteenth Century By Douglas Frazar With full-page illus- 
 trations 
 
 " It is an admirably told story, full to repletion of the most exciting adven- 
 ture. Its author was cast away alone upon a desolate island in mid-ocean, 
 and all his shipmates lost. The writing is a history of his life and adventures. 
 This history was launched in the balloon, and reached civilization and the 
 public in the manner specified. The old Robinson Crusoe was a bungler, but 
 this modern specimen was an adept in all mechanical contrivance, and the 
 young reader will be not only entertained, but instructed, in the chapters. 
 How he prepared fresh water, how he made gunpowder, lucifer matches, 
 edged tools, built houses and boats, is graphically told in these pages." 
 — Intcr-Occau. 
 
 OUR STANDARD-BEARER Oliver Optic's Life of Gen. 
 
 U. S. Gr.\nt With full-page illustrations 
 
 " This volume is specially adapted to the youth of the country, but is 
 equally, if not more, interesting to those of maturer years. It is just such a 
 book as will be a favorite in the library of any household, be that library large 
 or small. It gives fine entertainment and capital instruction. The scenes 
 and incidents of the great general's infancy, childhood, and youth are told in 
 a pleasant way, while tlie later incidents of his eventful career are described 
 with a faithful and graphic pen." — Keokuk Democrat. 
 
 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS From Washington to 
 
 Cleveland With new portraits. 
 
 A very interesting series of short biographies of the Presidents, describing 
 ihe principal events of each administration in an entertaining and readable 
 manner, giving just the information that is needed to convey, in brief, the 
 history of the United Slates, and affording in compact form a ready reference 
 b.iol: m 'nfiinil nrfai-s. 
 
 *«" ^oid by all booksellers, or sent by mail on receipt 0/ price 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Bostoai 
 
QTORIES H MERICAN V 
 
 0^^oF^±.il V HISTORY 
 
 Three Books. Clothi illustrated. Price for each book, 50 cents. 
 30 cents net By mail, 35 cents 
 
 First Series 
 STORIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY. By N. S. Dodge 
 As a reading-book for the younger classes in public and private schools 
 (by many of which it has been adopted), it will be found of great value. 
 
 ** Nobody knows better than the author how to make a good story out 
 of even the driest matters of fact. . . . Here are twenty-two of siich 
 stories; and tliey are chosen with a degree of skill which of itself would 
 indicate its author's litness for the task, even if we had no other evidence 
 of that fitness. There is no better, purer, more interesting, or more in. 
 structive book for boys." — JVezu- York Hearth a?id Home 
 
 Second Series 
 
 NOBLE DEEDS OF OUR FATHERS. As Told by Soldiers 
 of the Revolution gathered around the Old Bell of Independence. 
 Revised and adapted from Henry C. Watson 
 
 "Every phase of the struggle is presented, and the moral and 
 religious character of our forefathers, even when engaged in deadly con- 
 flict, is depicted witli great clearness. The young reader — indeed, older 
 readers will like the stories — will be deeply interested in the story of 
 I^afayette's return to this country, of reminiscences of Washington, of 
 the night before the battle of Brandy wine, of the first prayer in Congress, 
 of the patriotic women of that day, stories of adventure regarding Gen. 
 Wayne, the traitor Arnold, the massacre of Wyoming, the capture of 
 Gen. Prescott, and in other narratives equally interesting and important.'* 
 — Norzvich Bulletin 
 
 Third Series 
 
 THE BOSTON TEA PARTY and other Stories of 
 the Revolution. Relating many Daring Deeds of the Old 
 Heroes. By Henry C. Watson 
 
 "The tales are full of interesting material, they are told in a very 
 graphic manner, and give many incidents of personal daring and descrip- 
 tions of famous men and places. General Putnam's escape, the fight at 
 Concord, the patriotism of Mr. Borden, the battle of Bunker Hill, the 
 battle of Oriskany, the mutiny at Morristown and the exploits of Peter 
 Francisco are among the subjects. Books such as this have a practical 
 value and an uVideniable charm. History will never be dull so hmg as 
 it is presented with so much brightness and color." — Philadelphia Record, 
 
 From David S. Keck, A.M., Sxcpt. of Berks County Schools. 
 I received a package containing " Stories of American History," 
 *' Boston Tea Party," and '* Noble Deeds of our Forefathers," and am 
 ready to say that the stories are all historical, and the matter is presented 
 in such simple and pleasing style that it will arouse patriotic feelings in 
 the heart of every American, and at the same time awaken a desire to 
 study history. I wish 1 could find s?t least a dozen of the books named 
 in every one of my schools, for I am positive they would be productive 
 of viuch good. 
 
 <-EE AND SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston 
 
I HE AND « • ,^^W 
 
 EE AND « • .-^ ..^fY-FIVE GEN/ - « 
 
 * JUVENILES 
 
 Comprising new editions of the following popular Juveniles Bound in 
 best English cloth bright colors Any volume sold separately 
 
 CHARLEY AND EVA STORIES By Miss L. C. Thukstom 
 How Charley Roberts became a Man 
 How Eva Roberts gained her Education 
 Home in the West 
 Khildren of Amity Court 
 
 Miss Thurston writes with a purpose. She is an admirer of manly boys 
 and womanly girls, and so carries her characters through scenes and 
 situations that elevate and purify. The books are by no means slow, 
 being full of adventures. 
 
 GOLDEN PROVERB SERIES By Mrs. M. E. Bradlby 
 and Miss Kate J. Neely 
 Birds of a Feather 
 
 Fine Feathers do not make Fine Birds 
 Handsome is that Handsome Does 
 A Wrong Confessed is Half Redressed 
 One Good Turn deserves Another 
 Actions Speak Louder than Words 
 
 Two capital story-tellers, ** birds of a feather," have flocked together, 
 and produced from six old proverbs six as bright and taking story-books 
 as ever gladdened the hearts of Young America; showing, indeed, that 
 " handsome is that handsome does." 
 
 GOLDEN RULE STORIES By Mrs S. C. B. Samuel* 
 The Golden Rule Nettie's Trial 
 
 The Shipwrecked Girl The Burning Prairie 
 
 Under the Sea The Smuggler's Cave 
 
 CELESTA'S LIBRARY for Boys and Girls 
 Celesta A Thousand a Year 
 
 Crooked and Straight Abel Grey 
 
 The Crook Straightened May Coverley 
 
 Mrs. Samuels has written many attractive books. The scenes and 
 incidents she portrays are full of life, action, and interest, and decidedly 
 wholesome and instructive. 
 BALT-WATER DICK STORIES By May Mannering 
 Climbing the Rope The Little Spaniard 
 
 Billy Grimes's Favorite Salt-Water Dick 
 
 Cruise of the Dashaway Little Maid of Oxbow 
 
 Not all tales of the sea, as the title of the series would imply, but stories 
 of many lands by a lady who has been a great traveller, and tells what she 
 has seen, in a captivating way. 
 UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES By Rosa Abbott 
 Jack of all Trades Upside Down 
 
 Alexis the Runaway The Young Detective 
 
 Tommy Hickup The Pinks and Blues 
 
 VACATION STORIES for Boys and Girls 6 vols. 
 
 Illustrated 
 Worth not Wealth Karl Keigler or The Fortunes 
 
 Country Life of a Foundling 
 
 The Charm Walter Seyton 
 
 Holidays at Chestnut Hill 
 
 GREAT ROSY DIAMOND STORIES for Girls 
 
 6 vols. Illustrated 
 The Great Rosy Diamond Minnie or The Little Womao 
 
 Daisy or The Fairy Sptciacles The Angel Children 
 Violet a Fairy Story Little Blossom's Reward 
 
 %uld by nH booksellers and sent by mail posfnnid on receipt of prl§9 
 
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 ,^'-57 50 
 

 
 
 
 
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