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Marie Neurath and J. A. Lauwerys
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The first great inventions
The
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first great inventions
M A R I E N EU R AT H d ir e c to r of the is o t y p e in s titu te
J ■ ^ • L A U W E R Y S PROF ESSOR O F C O M P A R A T I V E E D U C A T I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y OF L O N D O N
M A X PARRISH & CO. LI MI TED A D P R I N T H O U S E , L O N D O N , W . l
LIST OF CONTENTS
Page
Great Inventions Made Before History Began 5
How the Wheel Travelled the World 6
Wonders Worked by Wheels 8
Clothes from Plants, Animals and Coal 10
When Men Found Pictures for Sounds 12
How tine World Learned to Write 14
Finding the Buried Treasure of Coal 16
Changes in Work Beneath the Earth 18
The Mighty Power of Steam 20
Inventions that Changed the Countryside 22
How Men Found Three Giant Helpmates 24
New Lamps for Old 26
Marvels of Light and Sound 28
A Hundred Years of Inventions 30
How News Travels Faster than a Jet Plane 32
Getting to Know 34
The Inventors of the Future 36Great Inventions Made Before History Began
The first farmers drew Then some unknown inventor made a plough with a
their own crude ploughs. long shaft and harnessed oxen to pull it along.
When we think of inventors we sticks to dig the ground. In time
usually imagine scientists working they invented wooden hoes and hand-
with test-tubes and microscopes, or ploughs which they pulled over the
engineers working in bright modern fields themselves.
workshops. But some of the inven Then, more than five thousand
tions we still use today were made by years ago, some unknown inventor
cave-dwellers who lived before history in ancient Egypt made a plough
began. It was these early men who with a long shaft to which a pair of
first learned how to make fire, how oxen could be harnessed by means
to get clothes and leather from animal of a cross-pole fixed in front of their
skins, how to make the first crude horns. The invention of a harness
tools of wood and flint. meant that animals could now be used
After the cave-dwellers came the not only for carrying loads, but also
first farmers who used rough pointed for pulling things.
5America Europe Mediterranean
How the Wheel
Travelled theWorld
Perhaps even earlier
than this, one of the great
est inventions of all ages
was made in or near
Mesopotamia—the wheel.
Historians have dug up
wagons with solid wooden
wheels, made between five
and six thousand years
ago. Some had shafts and
were drawn by oxen or
asses.
M ea n w h ile , on th e
prairies of central Asia
horses were being tamed,
and about four thousand
years ago some were taken
to Mesopotamia, probably
by invaders from Persia.
The people of Mesopota
mia found that horses
were swifter than oxen
and stronger than asses.
Gradually they began to
re p la c e b o th . L ig h t
vehicles were made using
spoked wheels instead of
6
Mesopotamia Central Asia China
solid wheels, and people
travelled faster and farther.
The eastern Mediterra
nean lands—Syria, Egypt,
Asia Minor—soon began
to breed their own horses
to draw chariots, but for
many years they used solid
wheels, like their own pot
ters’ wheels. Soon after
the days of Abraham,
horse-drawn chariots were
used in most parts of
Europe, and the invention
of the wheel had reached
C h in a . T h e re , s o lid
w h eeled w ag o n s w ere
used, as they often are
even today. The highly
civilized peoples of central
America had no working
animals and no wheeled
vehicles until the Spanish
invaders brought horses
and wagons across the
Atlantic about the time
of Columbus.
In most parts of the
world men learned to
drive horses long before
horses were harnessed to them. Riding began later, in Asia. they could ride them.Wonders Worked by Wheels
Before the invention of the wheel,
people had two main ways of making
pottery. Sometimes they took a ball
of clay, pressed a deep hole into it
with the fist, and then modelled the
walls of the clay to the shape they
wanted. Sometimes they took a long,
thin strip of clay and wound it round
and round in a spiral until it formed
the shape of a rough pot. Usually
when people were making pots by
hand, they rested the clay on a large
flat stone.
About five thousand years ago
some inventor in the lands near the
eastern Mediterranean rested his clay
on a solid, flat wheel, and set it spin
ning as he modelled. He found that
as the clay whirled round against the
curved palm of his hand it could be
shaped very much faster, and when
finished his vessels were more regular
in shape than ever before.
More than two thousand years by laying the grains on a flat stone
went by after that before men began and pounding them with a large round
to use stone wheels for grinding corn stone. Then, between two and
into flour. Early men ground corn three thousand years ago, somebody
began to make great strides in the
art of milling. About the time of
Christ, a Roman described how a
water-wheel might be used for turning
millstones, but it was twelve hundred
years later before watermills were in
common use in Europe.
In most parts of the world spinning
and weaving were both often done
without wheels until a few centuries
ago. Fibres which were to be spun
into thread used to be loosely rolled
round a stick called a distaff. Some
o f these fibres were twisted together
between finger and thumb to form a
thread, which was fixed to a weighted
stick called a spindle. The spindle
was hung from the spinner’s hand
and set whirling round. As it turned
Early potters used only their own hands it twisted more and more of the fibres
to model lumps o f clay into bowls or from the distaff into thread.
jugs. Later they learned to rest the For weaving, large wooden frames
clay on a solid, flat wheel which they
turned as they modelled. That way were used. The many parallel threads
they could work faster and also make which were to form the “ warp ” of
better shaped vessels. the cloth were stretched from top to
bottom. The thread to form the
“ woof” was moved backwards and
thought of the idea of grinding corn forwards across the frame by means
between two revolving wheels. This of a stick called a shuttle, going first
invention seems to have spread rather over and then under every other up
slowly, but after a time the Romans right thread.
9Clothes front Plants, M aterials Garments
Animals and Coal
**•
The first clothes were
made from the skins of
Tft* r n i A I I 7 T
animals, stretched, clean Pre-Roman
ed, dried and cut roughly
into shape. Flax and wool
were probably the next
materials used; the first ?Pf 0 m [
flaxen and woollen clothes
were woven before the Roman
ancient Egyptians built
the great pyramids. Early
clothes were usually cut
very simply—a square to
serve as a kilt or an oblong
Medieval
as a loose cloak. Some
times the cloth was cut
into a long, narrow cross.
n fe: C
Folded in half and stitched
together, this made a kind
# f 'w Y i | C
of jersey with sleeves and Modern
a hole for the neck.
After trade had grown
up between Europe and
China, Chinese silk was $ © fur i 8 c
used to clothe the wealth
ier Roman citizens. The Clothes were first made o f animal skins. Later on, men
graceful Roman cloak, or learned to weave clothes from the stems o f the flax plant,
10toga, was made from a
large circle of cloth or
silk. During the Middle
Ages clothes became more
complicated in design, but
no new materials were
used, and buttons were
still unknown.
About four hundred
y e a rs a g o , p e o p le in
Europe began to use a
material which the people
of India had been using
for four thousand years
—cotton. Now America
supplies cotton to more
than half the world. In the
past few years scientists
have given us rayon from
wood and nylon from
coal. Threads of rayon
and nylon are made by
squeezing pulp, under
great pressure, through
very fine holes.
Although people now
wear more different gar
ments than ever, they are
lighter and easier to move
the fleece o f sheep, and silk from silkworms. Today we about in than the clothes
wear many clothes, but they are light and comfortable. of earlier times.When Men Found Pictures
for Sounds
There is one great invention of
early times which you are making
use of as you read this book. It is
the invention of the alphabet, which
makes it possible for us to read and
write thousands of different words
with only twenty-six different letters.
Writing is a way of saying some
thing without actually speaking, and
perhaps the first step towards learn
ing to write was made by the cave
artists of thirty thousand years ago.
The cave-dweller who painted a bison
probably did so to bring good luck
to his tribe next time they went hunt
ing. But his picture did say some
thing to people who saw. it. It said
something like this: “ A bison has a
large head with two horns, a stout
body, and four rather small legs.”
Thousands of years later, when
men began to grow crops, most
villages had priests or wise men to
foretell the seasons for sowing and The Chinese use a separate picture for
reaping and to offer prayers and each word. Here you see how the pic
sacrifices to the God of Growing tures fo r “rain” and “ mountain” have
Things. These priests had many changed from early times until today.
12
things to remember. How many sand years ago the people of China
days had passed since the last corn also began to use picture writing and
was sown? Was a certain young even today the Chinese still use a
farmer yet old enough to be told separate picture for almost every
the secrets of the clan? How long word in their language.
was it since the chief man of the vil In some of the eastern Mediter
lage had brought a lamb for sacrifice ranean lands people began to write
or a tribute of corn to the temple? in a new way. Instead of using a
To remind them about many of these different picture or sign for each word
things they began to scratch rough or each idea, they used a different
drawings on wood, clay or animal sign for each sound in their language.
skins, and in time each little drawing Then, between two and three thou
came to have an exact meaning which sand years ago, probably in or near
other priests could understand. Syria, the Semitic peoples invented a
In this way picture writing gradually writing which used one sign for each
grew up in Egypt, Mesopotamia and consonant. That was the first true
India more than five thousand years alphabet, and from it have sprung all
ago. Between three and four thou the alphabets of the world.
t/ Kr A
The letters o f our own alphabet have also changed. The early Phoenician “A ”
looked like a bull’s head. Later, the people who lived near Suez made a simpler
“A ” o f three straight lines. The Greeks and Romans wrote it as we do today.
13How the World
Learned to Write
Slowly the art of writing
has found its way to al
most all parts of the earth.
From Syria the new
way of writing spread to
ancient Greece, and the
Greek alphabet, together
with its near relation, the
Russian alphabet, is now
used in eastern Europe
and central Asia. The
Romans copied sound
writing from the Greeks,
and as their empire grew
the Roman alphabet came
into use all over western
Europe. When the great
age of discovery began
five hundred years ago,
the people of Europe car
ried the Roman alphabet
to new lands across the
seas—North and South
America, South Africa,
and Australia.
H i Greek alphabet
Some two hundred years
after the Roman Empire The alphabet, invented near Palestine, has spread all
14crumbled, the Arabs be
gan to build a new empire
which spread over most
of north and east Africa,
and much of southwest
Asia. In those lands
people used the Arabic
alphabet. The Moslem
religion of the Arabs
spread farther still, to the
north of India, to parts of
Mongolia and to many
of the islands of south
east Asia. There, too,
people used the Arabic
alphabet which was the
alphabet of the sacred
Moslem book, called the
Koran.
In time, the old picture
writings of Egypt, India,
and Mesopotamia were
used less and less and
almost forgotten.
But in China picture
writing remained, and the
people of Japan have bor
rowed many of the Chi
nese pictures, some to
W Roman a|phab« & & Indian alphabets jailsAlphabets based on Chinese writing
stand for sounds and
over the world. Only China now uses picture writing. others to stand for words.Finding the Buried Treasure o f Coal
We have seen that many different coast of England lumps of coal are
people and many different ideas play often washed ashore by the sea.
ed a part both in inventing new uses Usually it didn’t seem worth while
for wheels and in making our alpha to go to the trouble of mining coal
bet. Perhaps even more people and except in places where most of the
more ideas were needed to bring forests had been cleared to make
about all the inventions connected room for fields or towns, or where it
with coal and coal-mining. was needed for some special industry.
The first people who made fires When the time came to make coal
could get all the fuel they needed by mines there were already many min
cutting down trees or branches with ing engineers who knew how to make
their stone axes. Later, when men them. Mining had been invented
smelted metals to make tools, they thousands of years earlier, when
made charcoal to heat the furnaces. people first dug pits and tunnels in
Wood and charcoal remained the the earth to get supplies of flint.
two main fuels for many centuries, Later, more mines had been sunk in
but here and there people began to many parts of the world to find the
use coal as well. An early Greek ores of copper, tin and iron.
author tells us of blacksmiths in The first coal-mines were begun by
southern Greece and along the north cutting into an outcrop of coal on a
ern coast of the Adriatic Sea who hillside. More and more coal was
were already using coal in their hewn away until a tunnel was made
forges. beneath the hill, following the line
The Greeks and Romans did not o f the coal-seam. As the tunnel cut
have to dig their coal from deep deeper into the hill, its roof and sides
mines. In several parts of Europe were strengthened with stout wooden
the end of a coal-seam, called an out pit-props to prevent them from col
crop, comes almost to the surface of lapsing under the tremendous weight
a hillside, and along the northeast of the soil above.
16
These men make a smokestack o f turf and build a large pile o f logs around it.
They set light to the bottom logs and cover the whole pile with more turf The
fire burns slowly and turns the wood into charcoal fo r their furnaces.
17Changes in Work
Beneath the Earth
Until about five hun
dred years ago coal was
little used except by black-
sm iths, lim e-bu rn ers,
brewers and dyers. Then
it began to be used for
purifying salt and occa
sionally to warm houses.
Later, when more and
more people had glass
windows in their homes,
glass-makers needed coal
furnaces to make glass.
After about 1750, when
timber had begun to get
scarce in many parts of
Europe, coal was used for
the new blast furnaces and
factories which were grow
ing up. Soon still more
coal was needed for the
newly invented steam en
gines and gasworks.
The first small tunnels
cut into hillsides were no
longer able to supply all
the coal that was needed. Coal was first cut from hillsides. Now that more coal is
18
"'"8D/cng Soon after 1400, hillside
tunnels were cut deeper
and buckets and wind
lasses were used to haul
coal to the surface. Later,
\ deep mine-shafts were
A«f t sunk beneath the level
ground to find the rich
coal-seams beneath. Coal
was pulled along the tun
nels in trucks which ran
on rails. Until steam-
\ powered lifts were invent
Aff t 7 ed, more than a hundred
years ago, it was hoisted
E 3 by ponies.
As these changes took
place, new ways had to
be found to drain off the
\ water which always col
lects underground. At
A§ill7 H< first the water simply ran
down the hillside; then as
[ the tunnels were made
deeper, special drainage
i1
channels had to be cut.
\ In mines under level
ground, water was at first
Aif t 7 2 Ik1
used, deep mines are cut and machines used to haul it.
hauled up in buckets, but
later steam engines were
invented to pump it out.The Mighty Power of Steam
The invention of the steam engine
was soon to change the lives of
millions of people all over the world.
Before the age of steam began, most
of the world’s work had to be done
by men and animals. Most, but not
quite all. The ancient Egyptians had
fitted masts and sails to their ships so
that the strength of the wind could
help the rowers, and later the Phoenic
ians built sailing-and-rowing ships
that could carry them the whole
length of the Mediterranean.
Then, more than eight hundred
years ago, some unknown inventor
made the first windmill, and soon the
millers of Germany and Holland were
using the wind’s strength to grind
their corn. In many parts of Europe,
too, water wheels were used to work
mills.
About 1700 the first steam engine
which could do a really useful job
The ancient Egyptians used levers to
was invented. It made steam to create help raise water from the river to their
pressure which could be used for fields. When the vessel was full, the
drawing water up from the mines. heavy ball at the end o f the short arm
Some sixty years later, James Watt, o f the lever helped to raise it.
20a Scotsman, invented steam engines
not only for pumping water but also
for turning wheels to drive various
simple machines.
Other engineers began to have
visions of making wonderful engines
which would turn their own wheels
and move along without the help of
horses. From 1800 onwards the first
locomotives began to be made, but it
was not until 1814 that a really
powerful one was produced by
George Stephenson. Now, less than
a century and a half after, railway
trains are running over nearly a
million miles o f track in all parts of
the w orld!
Steam was very soon put to work
on water as well as on land. In 1786
James Rumsey made a trip on the
Potomac River in a small boat driven
by a power-pump, but his speed was
only four miles per hour. Sixteen
years later, in Scotland, a more
From the boiler o f this early steam successful boat was built using steam-
engine, a large volume o f steam passed driven paddle-wheels. Soon paddle-
through a valve into the vessel above. steamers, including Robert Fulton’s
There it was cooled, and turned into a
small volume o f water. This caused a famous Clermont, were plying along
vacuum which pulled down one end o f many of the rivers and narrow strips
the beam. The other end was raised of sea in America and Europe, most
and drew up water from the mine. of them carrying sails as well.
21Inventions
that Changed
the Countryside
In many lands the whole
countryside was changed
by the inventions which
followed the steam engine.
Before 1800 there were
Nineteenth Century
not many large cities, and
none as big as London or
New York. Most of the
bigger towns were near the
sea, or on the banks of a
wide river, where sailing
ships could easily bring
supplies of food. Nearly
all the fuel needed was
still cut from forests, and
some of the wood was Twentieth Century
made into charcoal for the
few foundries and blast
furnaces. Most trades
were carried on by hand,
and only here and there a
mountain stream was used
to turn the wheel of a
sawmill or flour-mill.
By 1850 steam engines
were driving machines to Two hundred years ago ships were moved by the wind, and
do spinning and weaving, mill wheels turned by water. Later, steam was used to
22metal-working, printing
and scores of other trades.
Near the coalfields which
fed the boilers of the
new engines, huge, smoky
factory towns grew up.
Often they were far in
land, and canals were cut
and railroads built to
carry supplies to them.
Since that time new in
ventions have brought still
further changes. Most
machinery is now driven
by electricity, and there
are fewer smoking chim
neys in our cities. Electri
city can be taken to the
countryside more easily
than coal, and often new
factories are built some
distance from the towns.
People can make long
journeys from their homes
to work in fast cars and
buses, so there is no
longer any need to crowd
houses around factories.
Much of our food is car
drive ships, railway engines and machinery. Today we ried in lorries, and many
use petrol engines and electricity to help do our work. canals are seldom used.
23How Men Found Three Giant Helpmates
Once men had harnessed the power Greeks had noticed that when a piece
of steam they soon learned to make of amber or jet was rubbed briskly it
coal-gas, mineral oil and electricity had the power to lift small feathers
work for them too. or scraps of straw. (The word
Perhaps the first man to make and “ electric” is borrowed from the Greek
use coal-gas was William Murdock. word “ electron” , meaning amber.)
Murdock first began experimenting About two hundred and fifty years
with coal about 1790. He found that ago scientists of many lands began the
when coal was heated in a closed long struggle to learn how to control
space, in the same way as the char and use the great power of electricity.
coal burners heated wood, it gave off The first important invention to make
an invisible gas which burnt with a use of electricity was that of the tele
bright, warm flame. Later he installed graph, made in 1836, and twenty-five
a small coal-gas plant to light his years later the first telegraphic cable
cottage. Within the next fifty years was laid across the Atlantic, linking
huge gasworks grew up in many parts America and Britain. A few years
of Europe and America, and the later electric dynamos and motors
streets and houses of most large towns were invented, and not long after
were lit by gaslamps. wards the first electric lights were
It took many years to learn how to switched on.
make use of electricity. More than In those parts of the world where
two thousand years ago the ancient crude oil lies not far below ground
24
To carry the new electric telegraph messages across the Atlantic nearly ninety years
ago, metal cables were laid along the ocean bed from Europe to America.
level, people have dug shallow oil
wells for several hundred years, but it
is less than a century since deep wells
were sunk to find the vast supplies of
oil far beneath the earth’s surface.
In 1859 “ Colonel” Drake made the
world’s first deep oil well in Penn
sylvania by using a large, chisel
shaped tool to punch a hole nearly
seventy feet deep. Since that time
mechanical drills have been used to
bore thousands of wells, all much
deeper than Drake’s, in America,
Persia, Russia and Rumania.
From 1820 onwards many inventors
tried to make petrol-driven engines,
and about fifty years later a German
This oil is trapped between two upward-
inventor named Otto succeeded. Now curving layers o f rock. There is water
millions of petrol engines are driving below it and natural gas above. The
planes, cars, buses and ships all over centre bore draws off the natural gas
the world. and the outer ones the oil.
25New Lamps for Old
w
Before mineral oil, gas TORCHES
and electricity were brought
into use, the lighting of
^Vfia
men’s homes had changed a A a
very slowly through the FAT
long centuries. The first
men who lived on the earth
had no way of making
light. When darkness be
gan to fall they found
shelter and lay down to rest
until dawn broke once
more. After many thou
sands of years, men learned
to make fire, and at night
OLIVE OIL
CANDLES
W HALE OIL
if aA a
burning torches flared and
smoked in their caves.
'T&
l
Long before the first let
ter was written or the first MINERAL OIL
wheel made, somebody in
vented the wick and the
lamp. These primitive GAS
boat-shaped lamps were
usually fashioned from clay
and filled with animal fat.
The wick was probably ELECTRICITY
made from some kind of Years ago men made lights with wood or oil from plantsvegetable fibre. But lamps
were rare until the time of
the Greeks and Romans,
who made many beautiful
ones of clay or bronze,
which were filled with olive
oil and supplied with wicks
4
of twisted flax or cotton.
Not very long afterwards
& ___4
candles, too, were made.
A number of long wicks,
hung from a stick, were
dipped several times into
~
X melted fat or beeswax which
gradually formed a thick
coating round them.
Lamps were first filled
with whale oil about the
time of the Mayflower
when seamen began to hunt
sperm-whales in the Arctic
I seas. Later came mineral
oil, used in lamps which
Pal n V
could be regulated to give a
dim or bright light.
From about 1830 to 1900
the yellow flame of the gas-
r ft m %
and animals. Now we use mineral oil, gas and electricity.
jet was used in more and
more homes, until that, too,
had slowly to give place to
the new electric lighting.Marvels of Light and Sound
Within the last hundred and fifty he was able to make the first photo
years inventors have not only given us graphic negative. Where very little
better lighting; they have also learned light had fallen on the glass plate, the
to use light to make pictures. asphaltum could be dissolved and
During the time of Napoleon, a washed off. Where more light fell
Frenchman named Niepce discovered the asphaltum would not dissolve, and
that a substance called asphaltum would left a dark patch on the plate.
dissolve in certain liquids after it had Some years later, celluloid film was
been kept in the dark, but not after used in place of glass for photography.
light had fallen on it. He found that Later Edison used a long roll of cellu
by coating a glass plate with asphaltum loid film to take a number of fast pic-
The pictures are run through a film projector upside down. A lens turns them the right
way up, magnifies them, and brings them into focus on the screen.
28tures, one immediately after the other. running round a moving wax cylinder.
By using this roll in a projector rather In this way he made the forerunner of
like the magic lanterns of those days the modern gramophone record.
he was able to show the world’s first In the same year, the American
moving picture on a screen. scientist Alexander Graham Bell made
Some years earlier Edison had made the first telephone. People had been
another important invention, connec using the electric telegraph to carry the
ted with sound instead of light. Scien dot-and-dash sounds of Morse code
tists had known for many years that for about forty years. Bell’s aim was to
different sounds set the air moving make a current of electricity vary in the
in different ways. Edison used these same way as the air varies when sounds
sound-vibrations to move a sharp needle are made, so that he could send the
which cut marks into a spiral groove sound of human voices by electricity.
A Hundred Years
of Inventions
Recent inventions have
changed life so much that a
man of today would feel
very strange if he had to
live as his great-grand
father, his grandfather, or
even his father lived.
A hundred years ago,
for instance, bicycles had
no pedals. The bicycle of
seventy years ago had a
large front wheel, with
pedals fixed to its hub, and
a small back wheel. It was
some years before modern
bicycles, invented more
than sixty years ago, be
came common.
Seventy years ago, tele
phones were fitted with a
handle for ringing the ex
change. Later came phones
which rang automatically
when the receiver was lifted
from a hook. The dial tele
phone came into general A hundred years ago there were no bicycles like those
use twenty years ago. we know today, no telephones, no aeroplanes. These and
30
In flying, the last century has brought
even greater changes. Balloons were
first sent up in 1783, when two French
brothers named Montgolfier made a large
globe-shaped linen bag with a hole in the
bottom. They lit a fire under the hole,
and as the air inside the bag became hot
their balloon rose, because the hot air
inside was lighter than the air outside.
Within a few months other balloons
were made and filled with hydrogen, a
lighter-than-air gas, and people were soon
making the first balloon ascents. But
for many years balloonists could go only
where the wind blew them, and it was not
until 1900 that Count von Zeppelin
made the first successful petrol-driven
and hydrogen-filled airship. Airships
were often used to carry passengers until
about 1930, when they were gradually
replaced by planes. Balloons are seldom
used today except for observing weather
conditions at high altitudes.
Modern flying really began in 1903
when Wilbur and Orville Wright of Day-
ton, Ohio, fitted a glider with a propeller
and an engine. In 1905 they flew nearly
twenty-five miles in half an hour. Thirty-
five years later, fighter planes roared into
many other inventions have completely battle at four hundred miles an hour; now
changed the way in which people live. jet planes can travel faster than sound.How News Travels Faster
than a Jet Plane
Although a jet pilot can travel three
hundred times faster than the first men,
who walked barefoot from place to
place, there is something else which
travels many times faster still—news.
If there is an earthquake in Japan we
read about it in our newspapers or hear
about it on our radios within a few
hours, or even a few minutes. Yet sixty
years ago there were no radios, two
hundred years ago no daily papers, six
hundred years ago no printed books.
Until after 1400 every book had to be
made by hand. Scholars and monks
worked long hours writing with quill
pens on sheets of parchment which
were finally hand-bound in leather.
Then, some time before 1400, a
Chinese invention many hundreds of
years old came into use in Europe.
The Chinese had carved patterns on
flat blocks of wood and smeared them
with ink made of gum, lampblack and
water to stamp designs on silk. Later, The inside-out type is inked, and a
having learned to make paper, they sheet o f paper pressed on to it. When
used wood blocks to print the designs the paper is raised the letters are
on playing cards. In the fourteenth printed on it the right way round.
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century card games became very popu drive printing presses, and machines to
lar in Europe, and the same method set up type rapidly.
of printing was used. Many of these In 1864, before the first successful
old playing cards showed pictures of type-setting machines were produced, a
knights, and often the name of the Scottish scientist named Clerk Maxwell
knight was carved on the wood block. showed that electric power could be
About 1450, a German named turned into waves which travelled as
Gutenberg made separate little blocks fast as light and passed through many
for each letter so that they could be materials—through the air, for instance.
arranged to form any word or sentence Other scientists worked to find out
needed, and used over and over again. more about these waves, and in 1895 a
So the art of printing began. In a few young Italian inventor, Marconi, found
years it was in full swing in many parts that he could use them to telegraph a
of the world. message more than a mile without
Up-to-the-minute newspapers did not wires. Marconi went on improving
become possible until many years later his apparatus, and in a few years news
when there were electric telegraphs to could be flashed right round the world
bring news swiftly, steam engines to by radio.
Inked type and paper are placed on the “bed" o f this printing press.
A lever is pulled, and a large block presses the paper firmly on to the type.
33Getting to Know
Printed books, news
papers and the radio gave
people three new ways of
getting to know about the
world around them.
People who lived in the
first farming villages, thou
sands of years ago, had few
chances to learn what was
going on outside their own
settlements. Sometimes a
shepherd or herdsman who
had taken his flocks or
herds to graze in distant
pastures would return with
stories of strange peoples
and strange customs he had
met with. More rarely,
some early trader carrying
a bundle of goods brought
up from the coast would
tell wonderful stories of
ships with large sails, carry
ing cargoes of grain or spice
and manned by seafarers
who spoke a language he
could not understand.
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Five or six hundred years
ago, in the walled towns
In each o f these strips, the black figure and well-settled farmlands
in the green circle stands for a stay- of Europe there were few
at-home kind o f person. In early times
stay-at-homes could learn about the real hunters and no wan
outside world only by listening to the dering shepherds to carry
stories o f wandering traders, hunters, news. But there were many
herdsmen and shepherds. pilgrims who learned about
other lands by visiting
Rome and other great reli
gious centres. Knights and
soldiers, too, went to Pales
tine to fight against the
I/ Five hundred years ago they could
learn from priests, from soldiers who
Mohammedans, or Mos
lems,
returned
and many must have
with tales to tell
had fought in the religious wars, and about the fine buildings
from written books. and great learning these
people had.
Today the Church still
supplies some of our news,
through missionaries, and
travellers or soldiers serv
ing abroad still have tales
to tell us. But we also have
fast mails, the telegraph,
newspapers and the radio
to keep us informed. There
are printed books which all
can read and which all can
cables to bring news. afford.
35The Inventors of the Future
Fire is a destroyer!
The long story of inventions which
began way back in the caves, many
thousands of years ago, is certainly not
ended yet. At this very moment scien like the bows and arrows, swords,
tists, doctors, engineers, chemists and guns and bombs of earlier times, may
electricians all over the world are ex have the power to kill and destroy.
perimenting to find new drugs to save But if men throughout the world can
life, new ways to add to our comfort learn to live together in peace, the
and enjoyment, new sources of energy inventors of the future will use the
to turn the wheels of the world. power from the atom to do new miracles
Nobody can tell exactly what new of work for us, just as the earliest
wonders they will give us tomorrow inventors long ago harnessed the power
and in all the tomorrows which will of the great destroyer, fire, and made
follow. Some of these new inventions, it one of men’s most valued helpers.
The inventors o f the past harnessed fire to work for men. The inventors of
tomorrow can also use the power o f the atom to serve men.
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