The Story of Great Inventions Part 17

Process of making steel, blowing air through molten pig-iron to burn out carbon, then adding spiegel iron; first production of cheap steel--Sir Henry Bessemer, England, 1855.

Regenerative furnace, a gas-furnace in which gas and air are heated before being introduced into the furnace, giving an extremely high temperature--William Siemens, England, 1856.

Open-hearth process of making steel--Siemens-Martin, England, 1856.

Nickel steel, much stronger than ordinary steel, used for armorplate--Schneider, United States, 1889.

Mining

Miners' safety-lamp--Sir Humphry Davy, England, 1815.

Compressed-air rock-drill--C. Burleigh, United States, 1866.

Diamond rock-drill, a tube of cast-steel with a number of black diamonds set at one end. The machine cuts a circular groove, leaving a core inside the tube. This core is brought to the surface with a rod, and the powdered rock is washed out by water forced down the tube and flowing up the sides of the hole. The drill does not have to stop for cleaning out--Herman, United States, 1854.

Photography

First photographic picture, not permanent--Thomas Wedgewood, England, 1791.

Daguerreotype, first developing process--Louis Daguerre, France, 1839.

First photographic portraits, daguerreotype process--Prof. J.

W. Draper, United States, 1839.

Collodion process in photography--Scott Archer, England, 1849.

Photographic roll films--Melhuish, England, 1854.

Dry-plate photography--Dr. J. M. Taupenot, 1855.

Photographic emulsion, bromide of silver in gelatine, basis of present rapid photography--R. L. Maddox, England, 1871.

Hand photographic camera for plates--William Schmid, United States, 1881.

Printing

First printing with movable types in Europe and first printing-press--Guttenberg, Germany, about 1445.

Screw printing-press--Blaew, Germany, 1620.

First newspaper of importance--_London Weekly Courant_, 1625.

Stereotyping, making plates from casts of the type after it is set up--William Ged, Scotland, 1731.

First practical steam rotary printing-press, paper printed on both sides, 1800 impressions per hour--Frederick Koenig, Germany, 1814.

Printing from curved stereotype plates--H. Cowper, England, 1815.

Hoe's lightning press, 2000 impressions per hour--R. Hoe, United States, 1847.

Printing from a continuous web, paper wound in rolls, both sides printed at once--William Bullock, United States, 1865.

"Straightline newspaper perfecting" press, prints 100,000 eight-page papers per hour--Goss Company, United States.

Linotype machine. The operator uses a keyboard like that of a typewriter. The machine sets the matrices which correspond to the type, casts the type in lines from molten metal, delivers the lines of type on a galley, and returns the matrices to their appropriate tubes. It does the work of five men setting type in the ordinary way--Othmar Mergenthaler, United States, 1890.

Steam Navigation

First steamboat in the world--Papin, River Fulda, Germany, 1705.

First steamboat in America--John Fitch, Delaware River, 1783.

First pa.s.senger steamboat in the world, the _Clermont_--Robert Fulton, Hudson River, 1807.

First steamer to cross the Atlantic, the _Savannah_, built at New York--First voyage across the Atlantic, 1819.

The screw propeller first used on a steamboat--John Ericsson, United States, about 1836.

Compound engines adopted for steamers--1856.

First turbine-steamer, the _Turbinia_--Parsons, 1895.

First mercantile steam-turbine s.h.i.+p, the _King Edward_--Denny and Brothers, England, 1901.

Steam Used for Power and Land Transportation

First steam-engine with a piston--Denys Papin, France, 1690.

First practical application of the power of steam, pumping water--Thomas Savery, England, 1698.

Double-acting steam-engine and condenser--James Watt, Scotland, 1782.

Steam-locomotive first used to haul loads on a railroad--Richard Trevethick, England, 1804.

First pa.s.senger steam railway, the "Stockton & Darlington"--George Stephenson, England, 1825.

First steam-locomotive in the United States, the "Stourbridge Lion"--1829.

Link motion for locomotives--George Stephenson, England, 1833.

Steam-whistle, adopted for use on locomotives--George Stephenson, 1833.

Steam-hammer--James Nasmyth, Scotland, 1842.

Steam-pressure gauge--Bourdon, France, 1849.