1000 Inventions and Discoveries

1401 – 1750

University. There was so much to read. univeRsal law
The official teaching was old-fashioned,
but Newton taught himself the new science The mass of the Moon is unimaginably
greater than that of an apple. Yet both
obey the same law of gravity.

of Galileo, Descartes, and others. “Plato is Reflecting telescope
my friend, Aristotle is my friend,” he wrote Newton believed that lenses
in his notebook, “but my best friend is truth.” would never make a good
telescope, so he designed one
No sooner had he received his degree, in that used a mirror instead.
1665, than the Plague came, which forced everyone to leave Cambridge. It is still a popular design.

Newton returned to Woolsthorpe. The orchard was still there, and

Newton still went to sit there, his mind now full of scientific questions.

One of them was “What keeps the planets in their orbits?” A famous story

tells us that as Newton pondered this among the old trees, with heavenly

bodies like the Moon uppermost in his thoughts, an apple fell. It took a

genius like Newton to see the connection. The Moon kept circling Earth Replica of
because, like the apple, it was falling. Gravity made the Moon curve Newton’s
toward Earth instead of continuing in a straight line. And what worked for reflecting
the Moon could work for the planets circling the Sun. telescope

Newton was able to show that the force of gravity got weaker

in proportion to the square of distance. In other words,

a planet twice as far from the Sun as

another will experience only one

quarter of the force; if it is three

times as far away, the force will

be one ninth, and so on.

Other people had suggested

this, but Newton went further.

Using powerful new math he’d

invented, together with his laws of

motion, he proved that gravity

could account for the orbits of all

the planets. It was the glue that held the

universe together.

In 1687, Newton published his book

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, usually

known as the Principia, a shortened form of its Latin

title. In it he explained his three basic laws, which govern solaR system
the way objects move, and his theory of gravity and the universe. But This clockwork model of the
solar system was built in about
his personal universe was not so well ordered. Just before publication, 1712. Newton thought of the
another scientist, Robert Hooke, accused him of copying his ideas.
Newton never forgave him. Just as he hated the man who stole his solar system as a giant
mother, he now despised the rival who was trying to steal his glory. machine. He was never sure
that God would not have to
intervene to keep it running.

99

New worlds, New ideas Newton showed that light is Steam engine
actually made up of many
Two separate colors by using a second prism c 1710
plant groups to recombine light back into
white. Although he made this Thomas Newcomen,
1703 discovery in 1670, he waited John Calley
until 1704 to publish his
John Ray findings in his book Opticks. English engineer
Thomas Newcomen
Plants come in two kinds: Piano designed his steam
the ones that look like engine in about 1710
grasses or palms, and the 1709 and built the first one
rest. Scientists call them in 1712. It was based
monocotyledons and Bartolomeo Cristofori on an earlier pump
dicotyledons – monocots and invented by Thomas
dicots for short. The baby Today, most keyboard Savery, which used the
seedlings in the first group instruments play louder vacuum created by
have only one leaf, while the when the keys are struck condensing steam to suck
others have two. These harder. The best keyboard of water out of mines.
important plant groups were 300 years ago, the harpsichord, Working at first with
first recognized by English did not do this because it another inventor, John
naturalist John Ray, in 1703, plucked its strings with a Calley, Newcomen
after a lifetime of study. mechanism that was unaffected made the vacuum
by the force applied. Italian move a piston, which
Composition of harpsichord builder Bartolomeo then drove a separate
white light Cristofori invented touch- pump to remove the
sensitivity in 1709 with his water. Although
1704 gravicembalo col piano e forte incredibly inefficient,
(harpsichord with soft and the Newcomen engine
Isaac Newton loud), which eventually became remained the best
the piano. Cristofori’s keyboard available for 50 years.
Long before Newton’s time, it instrument hit its strings with
was generally known that small hammers, giving more Laws of
white light passing through a control over the sound. chance
prism is broken into colors.
However, most people believed Steam engine The piston of a 1713
that it was due to some change Newcomen engine was connected to
the prism made on light – like the rods of a water pump by a Jakob Bernoulli,
clay being pressed through a rocking beam. Abraham de Moivre
mold. To disprove this notion,
Guessing and
gambling might not mercury thermometer
suggest the precision of This early English thermometer has
mathematics, but top its tube attached to a scale marked
mathematicians like on a separate piece of wood.
Pierre de Fermat and
Blaise Pascal were
studying the laws of
chance as early as the
17th century. The first
important book on the
subject came from Swiss
mathematician Jakob
Bernoulli, and was
published in 1713.
Then, in 1718, came
another by French
mathematician Abraham de
Moivre, which revealed most of
today’s basic probability theory.

1703 Peter the Great, the Europe”. Thousands of Russian 1707 England and Scotland agrees to be governed
tsar of Russia, serfs die in the building of the Scotland become the by parliament in England, but
founds the city of St. Petersburg, city which, in 1712, will become Kingdom of Great Britain with keeps it own legal system and
which he calls his “window on Russia’s capital for two centuries. the passing of the Act of Union. Presbyterian Church.

100

1401 – 1750

Aberration
of light

1728

James Bradley

There was no direct evidence
that Earth is speeding
through space until English
astronomer James Bradley
discovered the aberration of
light in 1728. Imagine a car
standing in the rain. Streaks of
rain run vertically down the
windows. When the car moves,
the streaks slope backwards.
This is what Bradley saw, only
the car was Earth, the rain was
light from a star, and the slope
was an extra tilt of his telescope.

Achromatic lens

1729

Mercury Diving bell Stereotype This is a clay Chester Hall
thermometer stereotype mold. The metal
1717 stereotype made from it is reversed. Isaac Newton said that lenses
1714 would always produce images
Edmond Halley Stereotype with color fringes. In 1729,
Daniel Fahrenheit English judge Chester Hall
Adiving bell is a chamber in 1727 proved him wrong. By combining
German physicist Daniel which people can stay a convex lens of ordinary glass
Fahrenheit invented two under water without diving William Ged with a concave lens of heavy
things at once: a more useful equipment. In 1687, William flint glass, he cancelled out the
thermometer and a temperature Phips, the future governor of Once a book was printed, fringes, creating a color-free, or
scale which was later named the state of Massachusetts, USA, early printers broke up the achromatic, lens. English
after him. Early thermometers made one to recover sunken type and reused it. If a reprint optician John Dollond later did
either relied on the expansion treasure in the West Indies, but was needed they had to set up the same. The lenses led to the
of air or allowed alcohol to his divers wouldn’t use it. The the pages again. Scottish first really good microscopes
expand from a small bulb into first long periods spent under goldsmith William Ged saved and telescopes.
a fine tube. Fahrenheit’s water were in a bell invented labor in 1727 by inventing the
thermometer, which he by English astronomer Edmond stereotype, a copy of a page of Cobalt
produced in 1714, used the Halley. In 1717, he described type made by pouring metal
second of these methods, but how people had survived at a into a plaster mold. French 1730
with mercury instead of depth of 55 ft (17 m) for an printer Gabriel Valleyre had a
alcohol. This allowed him to hour and a half. He supplied similar idea, but used clay. With Georg Brandt
measure higher temperatures. air to the bell by sending it stereotypes, printers did not
down in weighted barrels. have to lock up tons of type. In the early 18th century,
chemistry was shaking off the
last of alchemy. Georg Brandt, a
metallurgist from Sweden, used
the more scientific approach.
He was rewarded in 1730 with
the discovery of cobalt. He later
exposed alchemists claiming to
make gold as frauds. Cobalt is
now essential to advanced
magnets and radiotherapy.

1726 Anglo-Irish writer as Gulliver’s Travels. His satire 1729At Oxford Church. Preaching personal
Jonathan Swift about countries called Lilliput, University, England, salvation through faith, Wesley’s
writes Travels into Several Remote John Wesley, with his brother new, less formal Church appeals
Nations of the World, later known Brobdingnag, Houyhnhnms, and Charles, founds the Methodist strongly to working people.

Laputa will become a classic. 101

New worlds, New ideas Sextant Using a system of mirrors, Measurement of
the sextant can measure latitude to blood pressure
Sextant an accuracy of 0.01 of a degree.
When used with a chronometer, 1733
c 1730 for calculating longitude, it
enabled sailors to work out Stephen Hales
John Hadley, their exact position at sea.
Thomas Godfrey Stephen Hales was an
Navigator sees English clergyman and
Sailors can navigate by the horizon also an expert scientist.
measuring the height of and the Sun He specialized in taking
the Sun. Simple ways of through the measurements of living things
doing this are inaccurate, and telescope and was the first person to
looking straight at the Sun measure blood pressure. His
can damage the eyes. In By reading the angle technique, revealed in 1733,
about 1730, from the index arm, was brutally straightforward: he
John Hadley the Sun’s altitude, and simply stuck a tube into a
in Britain hence its latitude, can horse’s artery and measured the
and Thomas be calculated height to which the blood rose.
Godfrey in
North America Rubber
both found a
better method: 1736
looking at a
reflection of the Charles-Marie
Sun in a movable de la Condamine
mirror. The
instruments that Rubber got its name in
they invented 1770 when British chemist
were called Joseph Priestley found
octants, it would rub out
pencil. Rubber
Mirrors reflect trees, with their
the Sun sticky sap, had
been discovered
Index arm is earlier by the French
moved until the scientist Charles-Marie de la
mirrors appear to Condamine, while he was on
line up the Sun an expedition in South
with the horizon America. Rubber wasn’t really
new to Europeans – even
because the Flying Shuttle Shown here are Christopher Columbus knew
mirror swung over two 18th-century Kay shuttles. about it – but it was
one-eighth of a circle. A later
version, the sextant, gave even Rollers underneath
greater accuracy. reduce friction

Flying shuttle

1733

John Kay economical
to have two weavers.
In weaving, thread on a reel in Kay added rollers to the
a holder called a shuttle is shuttle so that it ran on a track.
shot back and forth. John Kay, It was operated by one weaver,
the son of an English woollen halving the labor needed
manufacturer, invented the for broad cloth. It was
flying shuttle in 1733. Before a key to the Industrial
then, for wide cloth, a solitary Revolution in Britain (✷ see
weaver had to walk from one page 111), but brought Kay
side of the loom to the other to neither fame nor fortune.
pick up the shuttle and throw
it back, so it was more

1731 The first magazine “storehouse”, and The Gentleman’s 1732 American writer and country dweller who becomes
to be called a Magazine is a sort of storehouse printer Benjamin
magazine is published in Britain. of articles collected every month Franklin begins publishing Poor known for his practical proverbs
At this time, magazine means Richard’s Almanac, about a simple
from other publications. and witty aphorisms. Franklin
102 continues the Almanac until 1758.

1401 – 1750

Condamine’s samples, sent burning stoves of today. Made Celsius went decimal with a the process in about 1745. He
back to France in 1736, that of cast-iron, it had a hinged scale that ran from 0 to 100, started with iron molds, but
put this unique natural product door to enclose the fire and but made freezing point 100 soon discovered that plaster
on the scientific map. metal baffles to heat the air and and boiling point 0. Eventually, molds worked better because
circulate it into the room. his scale was turned upside- they sucked out water from the
Bernoulli effect down to produce the Celsius slip and speeded up drying.
High-quality scale used today.
1738 steel Leyden jar
Silver-plated
Daniel Bernoulli c 1740 tableware 1745

Swiss scientist Daniel Benjamin Huntsman 1743 Ewald von Kleist,
Bernoulli figured out that Pieter van Musschenbroek
if a stream of fluid (a gas or Mass-produced steel is Thomas Boulsover
liquid) speeds up, its pressure good enough for most In the 18th century, electricity
drops. This “Bernoulli effect” things, but sometimes a more There has always been a was often regarded as a fluid
can be seen in a popular personal touch is needed. demand for anything that – something that has no
science exhibit – a ball English clockmaker Benjamin looks like solid silver but costs definite shape, but takes on the
suspended on a stream of air Huntsman, finding that less. In 1743, English cutlery shape of its container. This may
from a blower. The air coming ordinary steel made poor watch maker Thomas Boulsover have been the thinking behind
out of the blower is moving springs, began to make his own discovered that he could make German physicist Ewald von
faster than the air that went in, steel in Sheffield in about 1740. copper look and behave like Kleist’s invention of the Leyden
so its pressure is lower than the He was the first to make steel silver. Working in Sheffield, jar in 1745. The
surrounding air. If the ball hot enough to melt, allowing it Boulsover heated copper jar’s inside and
moves from the air stream, the to form a perfectly even alloy. between thin sheets of silver, outside were
higher pressure pushes it back. Huntsman’s work helped make then rolled the hot sandwich to covered with metal
Sheffield famous for fine steel. produce Sheffield plate. It foil. With the
Franklin stove quickly pushed solid silver off outside grounded,
Celsius scale of all but the wealthiest tables. a charge
1740 temperature given to the
Slip casting inside would
Benjamin Franklin 1742 be stored
c 1745
Benjamin Franklin was a Anders Celsius Leyden jar
writer, scientist, and Ralph Daniel This jar is
diplomat, who played a leading Inventors of temperature charged by
part in creating the US. He still scales hate doing the obvious. Some earthenware items are bringing a
found time to create a simple Daniel Fahrenheit set the made by slip casting. A source of
invention that would warm freezing and boiling points of suspension of clay in water, electricity
thousands of homes in the water at a seemingly strange called slip, is poured into a into contact
republic: the Franklin stove. It 32 and 212 degrees. In 1742, mold. When dry, the shape is with the
was marketed as the Swedish astronomer Anders removed and fired. English central rod.
“Pennsylvania Fireplace” and potter Ralph Daniel invented
was the ancestor of the wood-

With two pins, but with both connected, a
this shuttle weaves spark was produced. The

two-ply thread following year, physicist
Pieter van Musschenbroek
Pointed end of the University of Leiden
helps the shuttle in the Netherlands invented
to pass through the jar independently. He
named it and told other people
the threads about it. A charged jar could
give a mighty shock. One
demonstration involved
1,000 hand-holding monks.
When the jar was connected
to the first and last monk, all
of them jumped.

1742 On April 13, in work Messiah is performed for 1745 Charles Edward Scotland, on July 25. He will lead
Dublin, Ireland, the first time. An instant success, Stuart, known as an unsuccessful attempt to put
German composer George Frideric Bonnie Prince Charlie, lands on him on the British throne in
Handel’s choral and orchestral it will be a hugely popular work the isle of Eriskay, off western place of the German George II.

for centuries to come. 103

crehvoaluntiognaersy
Political revolution in France and
independence for the US had enormous effects
on the world between 1750 and 1850. At the
same time, the Industrial Revolution moved
Western workers from farms to factories, and
sciences such as chemistry shook off their last

links with the ancient past.

104

1751 – 1850

Electrical nature ElEctrical naturE of helped chemists to gain a new by sailors for centuries. The
of lightning lightning Thunderclouds understanding of air and also weather had destroyed two
threaten as Franklin flies his kite. of combustion. lighthouses there before British
1752 engineer John Smeaton
Plants) in 1753, botanists Prevention of discovered how to defy nature.
Benjamin Franklin described plants using very scurvy He cemented together
long-winded names. Linné, interlocking blocks of stone
US scientist Benjamin known as Linnaeus, classified 1757 with concrete that would set
Franklin could have killed plants into closely related under water. His lighthouse
himself when he flew a kite in groups, or genuses, then gave James Lind lasted more than 100 years.
a thunderstorm. He did it to Even then it was the rock that
prove that lightning is caused each one the genus name Scurvy is caused by lack of crumbled, not the lighthouse.
by electricity. Electric charge plus its own species name. vitamin C. The gums swell,
from the thunderclouds passed For example, Taraxacum joints get stiff, and there may Improved blast
down the string and Franklin officinale is the dandelion. be bleeding beneath the skin. furnace
collected it in a Leyden jar Linnaeus’ system is still In 1757, British naval surgeon
(✷ see page 103). Amazingly, in use today. James Lind published a book 1760
he lived to show that the recommending that sailors
charge behaved just like Carbon should receive rations of citrus John Smeaton
electricity from other sources. dioxide fruits, which contain vitamin C.
At that time more British sailors When Abraham Darby
Scientific names 1756 died from scurvy than in battle. started using coke to
for plants The navy thought about Lind’s smelt iron (✷ see page 89),
Joseph Black idea for 40 years, then tried it. he needed a better blast
1753 Scurvy disappeared like magic. furnace. British engineer John
Carbon dioxide was Smeaton, one of the first to
recognized by the Indestructible apply science to engineering,
alchemist Jan Baptist van lighthouse made the furnace larger and
Helmont in 1648, but the blew air through it with a fan
first person to investigate it 1759 powered by an efficient new
systematically and relate it waterwheel. Water rushed over
to other chemical substances John Smeaton the top of the new “overshot”
was the British chemist Joseph wheel instead of underneath it.
Black. In 1756, he announced Lashed by storms off the
his discovery that carbonates coast of England, the PrEvEntion of scurvy James
release what he called “fixed Eddystone rock has been feared Lind tells sick sailors that limes
air” (carbon dioxide) when are the answer to their problems.
heated. Black’s work eventually

Carolus Linnaeus

Until Swedish botanist Carl
von Linné published his
Species Plantarum (Kinds of

1752 In August, the bell where it was made. It will be 1759 French writer novel Candide. Its central
that will be known rung on July 8, 1776 to celebrate Voltaire, a critic of character, Candide, fights against
as the Liberty Bell arrives in the first public reading of the those who try to restrict others’ the stupidity of the world but is
Philadelphia,from England, Declaration of Independence. freedom of thought, writes his forced in the end to give up.

105

RevolutionaRy changes

Faller wire Pulleys Spinning jenny
guided the thread rotated the
spindles 1764

Clove James Hargreaves
helped to
twist the Until the middle of the 18th
century, people spun
fibers thread with a spinning wheel,
together which could spin only one
Creels held
the fibers to thread at a time. James
be spun Hargreaves’ spinning jenny

Driving wheel was (said to be named after his
turned to make the daughter) could spin
several threads at
spindles rotate once. Traditional
spinners were
Latent latitude (position Spinning alarmed about
heat north or south), but jenny This the machine,
measuring longitude because it could
1761 replica of put them out of
Hargreaves’ work, but it
Joseph Black (position east or machine shows that it helped to start
west) was was basically the older the Industrial
When water is heated, it difficult. One spinning wheel rearranged Revolution in Britain
keeps getting hotter until way was for to drive several spindles. and brought greater
it turns into steam. Some of the them to
heat doesn’t actually raise the prosperity in the end.
temperature, but is used to
change the “state” of water into Finding longitude at
steam. Likewise, when water Sea The fourth version of
changes into ice, heat is also Harrison’s chronometer
released. This hidden heat was looks very much like a
discovered by British chemist modern watch, only bigger.
Joseph Black. Three years later It is shown here at about
he explained the effect to James two-thirds its actual size.
Watt, who had noticed it while
working on a steam engine. compare
the time
Finding at home,
longitude at sea shown by a
clock, with the time where they
1761 were at sea, shown by the Sun.
But no clock existed that
John Harrison would work at sea and
keep accurate enough
Early sailors navigated by the time. The government
Sun and the stars. This was offered £20,000 to
all right for determining their anyone who solved the
longitude problem.
Between 1735 and 1761,
British clockmaker John
Harrison built four
chronometers. The
fourth model was tested
on a trip to Jamaica and
proved accurate to within
five seconds. Although
Harrison had solved the
problem, the government was
reluctant to give him his full
reward, and he was an old man
before it finally paid up.

1762 Ideas about Rousseau. His argument that true 1763 The Treaty of Paris Britain all of its North American
education change education can be built only on ends the Seven Years’ lands east of the Mississippi
with the publication of Émile by children’s natural impulses will War, also known as the French River, and Canada. Spain gives
the French thinker Jean-Jacques greatly influence later educators. and Indian War. France gives up Florida to Britain for Cuba.

106

Dividing engine reduce the waste, allowing Nicolas Cugnot, a French 1751 – 1850
steam engines to compete with army engineer, to build a three-
1766 waterwheels in powering the wheeled steam tractor. The Water frame
new factories. He also invented following year, he built a
Jesse Ramsden better ways of controlling steam bigger one to pull heavy guns. 1769
engines and connecting them Its single front wheel, which
Accurate measurements to other machines. (✷ See also was used for steering, was Richard Arkwright
require accurately made The story of steam.) driven by a two-cylinder
measuring tools. Before British high-pressure steam engine. Before fibres can be woven
instrument maker Jesse Steam tractor Although the later machine into cloth they have to be
Ramsden perfected his dividing successfully pulled a three-ton spun into threads. To keep up
engine in 1766, angles on 1769 cannon at walking speed, with the demands of new
theodolites and other Cugnot never got the money weaving machinery, such as the
instruments were made by Nicolas Cugnot he needed to solve its flying shuttle (✷ see page 102),
hand by craftsmen and could problems, such as how it spinning had to speed up. In
be somewhat hit-or-miss. The Early steam engines were could carry enough water to 1769, Richard Arkwright
dividing engine produced huge, heavy, and keep the engine going, and invented a high-speed spinning
scales for scientific instruments underpowered, but by 1769 how to stop the high-pressure machine that made really
mechanically. It was faster and they were good enough for steam from leaking out. strong thread. He called it a
more accurate than craftsmen, water frame because it was
and meant that maps, as well driven by water power.
as astronomical and
navigational measurements, THE STORY OF STEAM
were more reliable.
Thomas savery’s sTeam engine, which he patented in 1698, simply
Hydrogen sucked up water with the vacuum created when steam condenses. Thomas
Newcomen’s engine, built in 1712, had a piston and could operate a
1766 mechanical pump, but wasted fuel
because its cylinder had to be
Henry Cavendish warmed up from cold after every
stroke. James Watt added a
British scientist Henry separate cooling chamber,
Cavendish was the first allowing the main cylinder to stay
person to show that hydrogen hot all the time.
was a distinct gas, not just a
sort of air. He released Savery’S engine
hydrogen from sulfuric acid by Steam entered a chamber, forcing water out
dissolving metal in it, then through a valve. The steam was then
measured its density. He found cooled, creating a vacuum that sucked
that it was lighter than any water in through another valve, ready to be
other gas. Later, he confirmed forced out during the next cycle.
that hydrogen forms water neWcomen’S engine
when it burns. This led French Steam entered a cylinder, causing a piston
chemist Lavoisier to call it to move upwards. The steam was then
hydrogen, from the Greek for cooled, creating a vacuum that allowed the
“water maker”. atmosphere to push the piston down. This
operated a pump through a rocking beam.
Improved Watt’S engineS
steam engine Having added a separate cooling chamber,
Watt further improved Newcomen’s engine
1769 by letting steam push the piston down as
well as up, and adding gears that allowed
James Watt the engine to drive rotating machinery.

The first steam engines were Drawing of a Newcomen engine of about 1826
built to pump water out of
coal mines. It was lucky there
was plenty of coal, because the
engines wasted a lot of fuel.
James Watt discovered how to

1765 England enacts the two acts are widely resented 1769 San Francisco Bay, foot. Led by Spanish explorer
Stamp Act and the by colonists and spark the one of the world’s Gaspar de Portolá, they were sent
Quartering Act to raise revenues independence movement in best natural harbors, is to look for Monterey Bay but
in the English colonies. These the American colonies. discovered by people arriving on missed it and went too far north.

107

RevolutionaRy changes Oxygen phlogiston out. Lavoisier’s new by fellow astronomer Johann
name for it, oxygen, means Bode in 1772. At that time,
Factory 1772 “acid maker”, which it isn’t. there were gaps where the
formula predicted there should
c 1770 Bode’s Law be planets. When later
astronomers found that the
Richard Arkwright Carl Scheele, 1772 asteroids and Uranus filled the
Joseph Priestley gaps, it seemed to prove Bode’s
Richard Arkwright realized Johann Titius, Johann Bode law. Then Neptune and Pluto
that his water-powered Oxygen has a complicated were discovered, and these
spinning machine (✷ see page history. Swedish chemist There’s something odd about planets don’t obey the law, so
107) meant that spinners Carl Scheele discovered it in the planets from Mercury the relationship is probably just
would have to gather where 1772, but waited five years to Uranus. There seems to be a an amazing coincidence.
there was a waterwheel. In before publishing the fact. relation between their distances
about 1770, in partnership Meanwhile, British chemist Carbonated
with two local stocking makers, Joseph Priestley discovered a from the Sun. drinks
Samuel Need and Jedediah gas in which things burned This was
Strutt, he opened a water- fast. Believing that burning first noticed 1772
powered mill at Cromford in things gave out “phlogiston” by German
Derbyshire, England. This was (✷ see page 97), he called it astronomer Joseph Priestley
the first real factory, and marked “dephlogisticated air”. But the Johann Titius,
the start of the industrial age. French chemist Antoine The first carbonated drinks
Lavoisier proved that the gas and his flowed out of the ground –
combined with burning formula was natural carbonated water from
substances rather than sucking published

Factory Collycroft Water flows
woolen mill was built under the
in Bedworth, England,
in about 1790. It was mill, turning
a typical water- the wheel
powered factory. This
model of it is cut away
to show the inside.

1770 London’s Bethlem shuts its doors to admission- 1772 John Fielding, chief Pursuit, an information sheet
Royal Hospital, an paying spectators. The behavior magistrate of the detailing current stolen property
asylum for mentally ill people of its inmates is no longer
that is better known as Bedlam, regarded as entertainment. Bow Street Police Court, London, and wanted persons. It will
starts issuing the Quarterly become the daily Police Gazette.
108

health-giving springs. The first John Wilkinson improved Iron bridge 1751 – 1850
to imitate them was Joseph matters greatly with the astronomers generously insisted
Priestley. In 1772, he started precision boring machine he 1779 it should be called Herschel. In
producing “soda water” in built in 1775 at his father’s the end it was decided to stick
quantity. He had found out factory in Wales. It could bore Abraham Darby, to naming planets after gods,
how to make it several years deep, wide holes in large pieces Thomas Pritchard and it became Uranus.
earlier, and in the process had of iron to form much more
made important discoveries accurate cylinders than before. Ametal bridge seemed Paper
about the gas carbon dioxide. James Watt used the machine revolutionary at a time balloon
when building his later engines when stone, bricks, and wood
Precision (✷ see page 107). were the only materials used Hot-air balloon The first
boring machine for large structures. Abraham demonstration of a Montgolfier
Division of Darby built the world’s first balloon took place in June 1783.
1775 labor iron bridge in 1779 to the
design of Thomas Pritchard. Hot-air
John Wilkinson 1776 Its 100 ft (30.5 m) arch balloon
spans the Severn River at
Early steam engine builders Adam Smith Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, 1783
were hampered by the in England. Having survived
difficulty of To make a sandwich, bread disastrous floods in 1795, Joseph Montgolfier,
making the huge has to be filled and Darby’s bridge is still used Étienne Montgolfier
cylinders the condiments added. If two today.
engines required. people have to make a pile of The first hot-air balloons
British ironmaster sandwiches, is it quicker if Mule spinning were made by two French
both people make complete machine papermakers, Joseph and
1776 On Thursday July 4, sandwiches, or if one fills and Étienne Montgolfier. In
the Declaration of the other adds condiments? 1779 September 1783, they sent three
Independence is approved in the The second way is quicker animals on a successful 2 mile
US. It notes why 13 British because doing just one job is Samuel Crompton (3 km) trip in a balloon. Then,
simpler. This principle, called in November, they organized
division of labor, was identified Samuel Crompton’s “mule” the first human escape from
in 1776 by Scottish economist could draw, twist, and wind Earth’s surface. Two volunteers
Adam Smith. He saw its extra fibres into a fine thread. remained aloft for 25 minutes,
productivity as the true source Unlike a hand spinner, climbing to 1,500 ft (450 m)
of prosperity. though, it could work on a above Paris and traveling
thousand reels at the same 5.3 miles (8.5 km). Strangely,
Photosynthesis time. Like the animal of the the brothers never risked a
same name, the mule was a flight themselves.
1779 hybrid, using ideas from Towards the South Pole and Round
Hargreaves’ spinning jenny and the World. Cook spent a year
Jan Ingenhousz Arkwright’s water frame charting its islands and getting
(✷ see pages 106 and 107). to know its Maori people.
In sunlight, green plants It soon replaced both of them.
take in more carbon
dioxide than they give Uranus
off, and give off more
oxygen than they take in. 1781
In darkness, the reverse
is true. Dutch doctor Jan William Herschel
Ingenhousz published
this discovery in 1779 The planet Uranus is just
under the delightful title visible to the naked eye,
Experiments Upon but British astronomer William
Vegetables, Discovering Herschel discovered it with a
Their Great Power of telescope. On March 13, 1781,
Purifying the Common Air he spotted what he thought
in Sunshine, and of Injuring might be a comet, but the way
It in the Shade and at it moved convinced him it was
Night. This was the first a planet. He wanted to name it
description of the basics after the king, while French
of photosynthesis.
1777 Europeans learn of
colonies “ought to be Free the existence of New
and Independent States.” Zealand when British explorer
Independence Day will later be James Cook publishes A Voyage
celebrated as a national holiday.

109

RevolutionaRy changes melting point of any metal as well as far away. Reading Pick-proof lock
that can be made into wire, is glasses make nearby objects
Hydrogen extremely dense – making it clearer, but make distant ones 1784
balloon good for fishing weights – less clear. In his old age,
and is an important ingredient Benjamin Franklin solved the Joseph Bramah
1783 of cutting tools. It was first problem with the bifocal lens.
isolated by the Spanish This has a section for distant Picking a lock means
Jacques Charles D’Elhuyar brothers, Juan and vision mounted above one for opening it without the key.
Fausto, in 1783, although it near vision. When wearers of Some locks are harder to pick
While the Montgolfiers was already known to the bifocal spectacles look down than others, but one of the
were experimenting with Swedish chemist Carl Scheele. to read, they automatically see hardest was invented as long
hot air over Paris (✷ see page through the near vision part ago as 1784. British engineer
109), the French scientist Bifocal of the lens; when they look up, Joseph Bramah offered £210
Jacques Charles was working spectacles the distant vision section to anyone who could pick his
with the lightest of all gases, comes into play. lock, but it was 67 years before
hydrogen, to get a balloon 1784 anyone claimed the reward.
airborne. In 1783, he ascended Even then it took US locksmith
in a hydrogen balloon to Benjamin Franklin
nearly 10,000 ft (3 km). A. C. Hobbs 51 hours
Charles is also known for a Older people can – hardly feasible
law describing how gases find it hard to for a burglar.
expand when heated. see things close up
Heddle
Parachute raised and
lowered the
1783 warp threads

Louis Lenormand

Frenchman Louis
Lenormand invented
his parachute as a
means of escape from
a burning building.
After testing it
by jumping
from trees, he
made his first
serious trial in
December 1783.
He leaped from
the top of the Montpelier
observatory in France with
a 14 ft (4.3 m) chute and
landed safely on the ground.
The first person to jump
from the air was another
Frenchman, André
Garnerin, who took the
plunge in 1797 after his hot-
air balloon burst over Paris.

Tungsten

1783

Juan D’Elhuyar, Gear wheels Finished Power loom By the
Fausto D’Elhuyar drove cams to cloth wound mid 19th century, the power loom
onto a roller had been developed into a highly
Tungsten is the metal that move the effective, reliable machine. British looms
glows white-hot inside a different parts like this one by Harrison and Sons
light bulb. It has the highest produced cloth for sale worldwide.

1784 Jedidiah Morse, geography textbook, 1786 On May 1, an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus
father of the Geography Made Easy. It is a great audience in Vienna, Mozart. Its comic scenes disguise
inventor of Morse code, success, and Morse writes several an attack on the foolishness and
publishes the US’s first Austria, gives a warm reception corruption of the nobility.
more books on US geography. to The Marriage of Figaro, a new
110

Puddling 1751 – 1850
process for
wrought iron WEAVING A NEW WORLD

1784 Between aBout 1750 and 1850, in a process known as the Industrial
Revolution, Britain transformed itself from a largely agricultural nation into the
Henry Cort world’s leading industrial power. The industry that led the way was cloth
making. Attracted by higher wages, workers moved from farms into the new
Iron with too much carbon factories. These were made possible by water power, steam power, new
in it is brittle. Before British machines, and more adventurous ways of raising money.
ironmaster Henry Cort
invented his “puddling”
process in 1784, the only
way to produce flexible, or
wrought, iron was to hammer
freshly smelted iron while it
was still hot, squeezing out
carbon. Cort melted iron with
iron oxide to form a puddle,
then stirred it while hot gases
burned off the carbon. The
purer metal gathered into a

large ball that, with just a
little hammering, became

wrought iron.

Power This 1834 drawing of a Lancashire cotton mill cannot convey the deafening noise of the many power looms.
loom
Speeding up Spinning Looming Larger From country to city
1785 Until about 1770, spinning Weaving, too, was done at Early factories were noisy
was a cottage industry. home until looms in factories and dangerous, but offered
Edmund Merchants delivered raw wool started to threaten cottage regular work at better wages
Cartwright and picked up finished yarn weavers. Although the change than farm laboring. Even
made at home. This changed was slower than in spinning, skilled craft workers, unable
The designer when powered machines by 1825 half the cloth in to compete with factory
of the first forced spinners to work in Britain was coming from prices, were forced into the
power loom, a factory, or starve. power looms. fast-growing industrial cities.
Edmund Cartwright, was
a British country parson. Stability of the applied, does predict in windmills.
He was, in his own solar system a stable solar system: Weights
words, “totally ignorant of in the long run, any mounted on
the subject, having never 1786 wobbles cancel out. a spindle flew
at that time seen a person out sideways if
weave”. He realized, Pierre-Simon Laplace Centrifugal the engine speeded
though, that cheap yarn governor up, closing the steam
from powered spinning Although gravity explains valve and slowing
machines could the way the planets move, 1787 down the engine. Like
transform cloth making. Newton (✷ see pages 98–99) Cornelis Drebbel’s
His first loom, built in 1785, was not sure they would go on James Watt thermostat of 1600
was very crude, but by forever. He suggested that God (✷ see page 86),
1787 he had improved it intervened from time to time to The governor was one of it was an early
enough to start a weaving keep them on track. A century James Watt’s more example of
factory in Doncaster. The later, people did not believe so significant additions to the feedback control.
government later awarded him readily in divine intervention. steam engine. It kept the centriFugaL
£10,000 in recognition of his In 1786, French mathematician engine’s speed constant as governor Watt
pioneering work. (✷ See also Pierre-Simon Laplace proved conditions varied. Watt based his governor on
Weaving a new world.) that Newton’s theory, properly adapted it from a device used this windmill regulator.

1787 During the summer, in Philadelphia. It defines the 1787 Eleven ships sail Bay, but later divert to a new site,
the Constitution of various parts of the US’s system from England, Port Jackson. Of the 1,030 people
the United States of America is of government and the basic carrying the first white settlers to who land there on January 26,
written by 55 delegates meeting rights of its citizens. Australia. They arrive at Botany 1788, 736 are convicts.

111

RevolutionaRy changes

Threshing machine The Platinum
machine represented by this model
was built in 1860. It was driven 1789
by a separate steam engine.
P. F. Chabaneau
Threshing
drum beat The valuable, silvery-
grey metal platinum
the grain was known as long ago
out of
as 700 bc, but only as
the cereal an impurity in gold.
Workable platinum was
Elevator Grain received its final Chutes
took the cleaning and grading here delivered first produced in 1789
grain up the grain by the French physicist
for further In Britain, William into sacks P. F. Chabaneau.
cleaning Symington built a steam Instead of using it for
tugboat that pulled barges in Modern some sensible laboratory
Iron-hulled ship 1802. Another US inventor, chemistry apparatus, he had it made
Robert Fulton, having seen the into a decorative cup,
1787 tugboat, built the first really 1789 which he gave to the Pope.
successful steamship, the
John Wilkinson Clermont, in 1807. With its Antoine Lavoisier, Uranium
sister ship Phoenix, it plied the John Dalton
John Wilkinson had iron in Hudson River for many years. 1789
his soul. When he was 20 Before French chemist
years old he built an iron Threshing Antoine Lavoisier cleaned it Martin Klaproth
furnace. Later, as well as machine up, chemistry was full of old-
making a machine to bore fashioned names and notions. Uranium, essential to
holes in iron (✷ see page 109), 1788 As well as overturning nuclear power, was
he was involved in building the mistaken theories, he and his discovered in
first iron bridge. He used his Andrew Meikle followers renamed the known 1789
boring machine to make iron elements and compounds, and
cannons, and in 1787 built an Corn was traditionally established the basic naming
iron barge to carry them down beaten, or threshed, with system used today. After this,
the Severn River in Britain – sticks to separate the grain Lavoisier’s 1789 Elementary
the first ever iron ship. He was from its straw and outer Treatise of Chemistry, together
even buried in an iron coffin. covering, known as chaff. The with British schoolmaster John
wind was then used to blow Dalton’s 1808 New System of
Steamship away the smaller chaff. In 1788, Chemical Philosophy, laid the
Scottish millwright Andrew foundations of modern
1787 Meikle invented a machine to chemistry. Lavoisier’s brilliance
do the threshing. The wheat did not save him from the
John Fitch, was trapped between a rotating French Revolution though: he
William Symington, drum and a close-fitting cover, was guillotined in 1794.
to strip the chaff from the grain.
Robert Fulton There was no wind inside the
machine, so the mixture had to
The first working steamboat, be separated afterward.
built in France, shook to
pieces in 15 minutes. In 1787,
US clockmaker John Fitch built
a more robust craft that made
several 20 mile (30 km) trips.

1788 After years of odd bill to remove him from the 1789 The United States appeal. John Jay becomes the first
behavior, King throne and replace him with his Supreme Court is Chief Justice. Congress adopts
George III of England becomes so son. He will recover the next year established as the highest court the first 10 amendments to the
deranged that parliament passes a before the law comes into effect. in the land and the final court of Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

112

by the German chemist Martin century, the leather on the Titanium 1751 – 1850
Klaproth. He named it after the roller was replaced by a strange
planet Uranus. Although he but effective mixture of glue 1791 for battlefield injuries. In 1792,
believed that he had isolated a and molasses. Larrey organized the “flying
new element from the mineral William Gregor, ambulance” – a mobile team of
pitchblende, in reality he had Speech Martin Klaproth paramedics supporting
only extracted uranium synthesizer Napoleon’s troops in battle.
dioxide. The French chemist Titanium dioxide is what They carried medical supplies
Eugène Péligot, realizing this in 1791 makes white paint white. with them and could get some
1841, was the first to produce Pure titanium and its alloys are of the wounded back to hospital
uranium as pure metal. Wolfgang von Kempelen used inside jet engines because on a lightweight vehicle. Larrey
they stand up well to the became chief surgeon of the
Printing ink If your computer can talk, enormous heat. This versatile French army, and later devised
roller it’s thanks to research that element was first discovered, as ambulances to get the wounded
goes back to the 18th century. an ore called menachanite, by into field hospitals.
1790 By the 1770s, the basics were British clergyman William
understood well enough for Gregor on a Cornish beach in Gas lighting
William Nicholson Hungarian engineer Wolfgang 1791. Three years later,
von Kempelen to start building German chemist Martin 1792
In the 18th century, printing the first speech synthesizer. Klaproth confirmed Gregor’s
ink was dabbed onto the He published details of his discovery and chose the name William Murdock
type with leather pads. This machine in 1791 in his book titanium for the new element.
was a slow process and The Mechanism of Human Speech In the 19th and 20th centuries,
required some skill to get the and a Description of a Speaking Ambulance coal gas was used for lighting.
type inked evenly. In 1790, Machine. His machine could Early experiments were carried
British engineer William produce sentences, but it 1792 out in Belgium and Scotland by
Nicholson came up with an needed a lot of skill to “play”. chemist J. P. Minckelers and the
improvement that was literally The original machine, with Dominique Larrey Earl of Dundonald, but the gas
revolutionary: a leather roller. nostrils and a mouth, bellows industry owes more to Scottish
When printing presses were for lungs, and a reed for the The ambulance was a engineer William Murdock. In
mechanized in the 19th voice, is now in the Deutsches military invention. Before 1792, he lit his cottage in
Museum, Munich, Germany. French surgeon Dominique Cornwall, England, by heating
Larrey’s work, few armies had coal in a closed vessel and
much more than a first-aid kit piping the gas to lights. Later,
he developed a complete system
for making and storing gas.

AmbulAnce By 1915, during
World War I, the military
ambulance really could fly. But
only the favored few went by air.

1789 The French the Bastille, a royal prison, and 1791The Ordnance Ireland. Its prime objective is to
Revolution begins in organize a people’s militia. The Survey of Great provide better maps for military
earnest on Tuesday, July 14, hated King Louis XVI is forced Britain is founded and begins to purposes. Its work sets new
when the people of Paris storm to withdraw his troops. make new maps of Britain and standards for detail and accuracy.

113

RevolutionaRy changes

Screw-cutting lathe Cast-iron tailstock Accurate lead Tool was Headstock gripped
This is said to be Henry supported the free screw moved the clamped here and and rotated the
Maudslay’s first screw-cutting end of the workpiece workpiece
lathe. It originally had gears tool as the moved by hand
to vary the thread it cut, but workpiece rotated or lead screw
these are now missing.

Triangular steel Tailstock was
bars formed the adjusted by
bed of the lathe
turning this bar

Cotton gin Semaphore sideways, it cuts a screw thread. German actor, Aloys Senefelder.
telegraph This could be done with a hand- He was trying to make printing
1793 operated screw mechanism, but plates from limestone, by
1794 in 1797 Henry Maudslay in writing on them with grease
Eli Whitney Britain and David Wilkinson in and then etching them, when
Claude Chappe the US invented lathes where he discovered that his plates
Cotton is the fibre attached the tool was driven by a screw would print before they were
to the seeds of the cotton Between 1792 and 1814, geared to the lathe. They cut etched because the printing
plant. It cannot be used until France was usually at war accurate threads with ease. ink stuck to the grease but not
the seeds have been removed. with Austria. Some of the to the wet stone. In today’s
In 1793, US engineer Eli fighting was near Lille in Chromium lithography, the plates are
Whitney invented the first northern France. To speed up metal and the image is formed
machine to remove the seeds – communication with Paris, 1797 photographically, but the
the cotton gin. A revolving engineer Claude Chappe built a principle remains the same.
cylinder covered with rows of chain of towers. Each one had Nicolas Vauquelin
hooks forced the cotton through movable arms to signal letters Beryllium
a comb to rake out the seeds. It and numbers, which could be Chromium can prevent
was so successful that it made seen from the next tower using corrosion of other metals, 1798
the US the world’s leading a telescope. In August 1794, either as plating or in stainless
cotton producer, overtaking this semaphore telegraph sent steel. French chemist Nicolas Nicolas Vauquelin
other regions such as Egypt news of a victory over a Vauquelin discovered the
and India. Despite this, it distance of 128 miles (205 km) element in 1797 as an impurity Perhaps the best known
brought Whitney little profit. in less than an hour. in lead ore. He called it beryllium compound is the
chromium, from the Greek green gemstone called emerald.
Screw-cutting word for color, because its Electrical contacts made of
lathe compounds are brightly copper also contain beryllium,
colored. This makes them which makes the copper
1797 especially useful in paints. springy without reducing its
conductivity. Beryllium was
Henry Maudslay, Lithography first identified as beryllium
David Wilkinson oxide by French chemist
1798 Nicolas Vauquelin in 1798.
Alathe spins metal against This compound conducts heat
a tool to give it a circular Aloys Senefelder well but does not conduct
shape. If the tool also moves electricity, making it useful
Most printing today relies today in certain electronic
on a process invented in components. Pure beryllium
1798 by an unsuccessful metal was prepared in 1828
by German chemist Friedrich
Wöhler and, independently, by
French chemist Antonine
Bussy. It is often used in the
space and nuclear industries.

1794 What will become burning bright / In the forests of 1795 France replaces its to be one 40-millionth of the
one of the world’s old weights and circumference of Earth. By the
best loved poems, “The Tyger,” the night,” is printed by British measures with the metric system. late 20th century, it will be used
which begins “Tyger, tyger, Its basic unit, the meter, is taken by most countries worldwide.
artist and poet William Blake in
114 Songs of Innocence and Experience.

1751 – 1850

Shaft was turned PROTECTION FOR LIFE
by a gearbox
(now missing) Edward JEnnEr hit on thE principlE by which all vaccines

Smallpox work. The body creates different antibodies to destroy specific
vaccine
viruses or other invaders. But making the right antibody takes
1798
time, so a big infection can overwhelm the system. It works
Edward Jenner
better with advance warning in the shape of harmless vaccine
Smallpox was a deadly viral
infection common 200 particles resembling the unwanted guest. Then, if the real
years ago. British surgeon
Edward Jenner noticed that thing comes along, the body is ready for it. Edward Jenner
people who caught cowpox,
a similar but milder disease, Simple tools used Smallpox before Jenner Vaccination for all
never got smallpox. In 1796, by Jenner for his Before vaccination, the only Jenner’s work stirred up a
he scratched a boy’s skin, then early work known precaution against lot of opposition, but his
applied fluid from a girl with Cupping smallpox was a dangerous ideas began to take hold as
cowpox. It was the first procedure called variolation. deaths from smallpox
vaccine. The boy later survived horn Infectious matter from a person dwindled. In 1881, the
deliberate smallpox infection, with smallpox was applied to a French biologist Louis
and in 1798 Jenner published scrape in the skin of someone who Pasteur created a vaccine
the first book on vaccination. wanted to be protected from the against anthrax, a fatal
(✷ See also Protection for life.) disease. The procedure produced disease caught from animals.
either immunity or smallpox. Today, we can be vaccinated
Laughing gas against a wide range of once
deadly infections.
1799
Vaccine
Humphry Davy points

Joseph Priestley discovered Vaccination lancets Lancet
nitrous oxide in 1772, but it and
was 1799 before Humphry vaccinator
(later Sir Humphry) Davy found
that the gas could make people laughing gaS In this 1802 cartoon, James Gillray suggests some Stratigraphy
laugh. While suggesting that it comical dangers of playing with laughing gas. Davy is wielding the bellows.
might be useful in surgery, he 1799
also liked to throw parties at
which he used nitrous oxide to William Smith
give his guests a good laugh.
Stratigraphy, a key way to
understand Earth, was
developed by British surveyor
William Smith. He noticed the
same sequence of rock layers in
different places. Tracing these
over a wide area, he drew the
first geological maps. He also
saw that each rock had its own
fossils, and that those in higher
layers were more complex life
forms. This lets geologists
group rocks by age, according
to the fossils they contain.

1796 A new medical Hahnemann. It treats an illness 1798 British poets William Ballads. It opens with Coleridge’s
system called with tiny doses of drugs that Wordsworth and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
homeopathy is introduced by a produce effects similar to the
German doctor named Samuel symptoms of that illness. Samuel Taylor Coleridge together and marks the start of poetry’s
produce the slim volume Lyrical
Romantic Movement.

115

RevolutionaRy changes ChromatiC harp This French paper into contact with it. between 1801 and 1810. Its
pedal harp dates from about 1810. Wooden presses couldn’t stand double-action pedal mechanism
Battery the force needed to print a can instantly retune any of its
Strings stretched large sheet. Charles Stanhope, a seven sets of strings.
1800 between the scientifically minded aristocrat,
neck and the improved things by making the Jacquard loom
Alessandro Volta sound box first cast-iron press. Stronger
than a wooden press, it could 1801
In 1780, Italian doctor Pedals for print large sheets in one pull.
Luigi Galvani noticed retuning Jacques de Vaucanson,
that a frog’s leg in Asteroid Joseph-Marie Jacquard
contact with two the strings
different metals would 1801 By raising and lowering the
twitch, and found that warp (lengthways) threads
the effect was electrical. Giuseppe on a loom in the right
His friend Alessandro Piazzi sequence, elaborate patterns
Volta proved that it was the can be woven. In the 18th
metals, not the animal tissue, Italian century, this was done
that produced the electricity. In astronomer manually by a “drawboy”.
1800 he made the first battery, Giuseppe Piazzi Inventor Jacques de Vaucanson
a stack of silver and zinc discs discovered the replaced the boy with a
separated by brine-soaked first asteroid in punch-card mechanism in
cardboard, and showed that 1801, but soon 1745, but this was ignored
electricity from his “pile” lost it again as it until 1801, when Joseph-Marie
behaved like static electricity. moved into the Jacquard turned it into the
daytime sky. It Jacquard loom. As well as
Electrolysis of fitted just where weaving under the control of
water Bode’s Law said punch cards, it acted as an
there was a missing inspiration to the earliest
1800 planet (✷ see page computer pioneers.
108). German
William Nicholson, mathematician Carl Ultraviolet light
Anthony Carlisle Gauss invented a way
of calculating its orbit 1801
British engineer William from Piazzi’s few
Nicholson and surgeon observations. Using this Johann Ritter
Anthony Carlisle began to use information, German
Volta’s new battery. They found astronomer Franz von Radio waves, X rays, and
that bubbles formed when they Zach later found the many other kinds of
put wires from the battery missing asteroid. Piazzi radiation, including light, the
into salt water. Investigation named it Ceres. only visible kind, are
revealed that the bubbles from electromagnetic waves. They
one wire were hydrogen. Chromatic can be arranged in order of
Oxygen was liberated at the harp wavelength to form a spectrum.
other wire, but it combined The part of the electromagnetic
with the wire rather than c 1801 spectrum that we can see, the
forming bubbles. This was the visible spectrum, has red at one
start of electrochemistry, which Sébastien Érard end and violet at the other. In
would reveal much about the 1800, William Herschel
nature of chemical compounds. Simple harps have one string discovered infrared radiation
per note, and can normally beyond the red end of the
Iron-framed play in only one key. Adding visible spectrum when he put a
printing press too many extra strings would thermometer there and noted
make the instrument that it heated up. This made
1800 unplayable, so attempts to German physicist Johann Ritter
solve the problem have all been have a look beyond the violet
Charles Stanhope based on rapid retuning. The end. There he found that silver
first harp that could play in chloride, which darkens in
In printing, the bigger the every key was designed by light, darkened more quickly,
area of type, the greater Sébastien Érard in France again revealing the presence of
the force needed to squeeze the radiation – ultraviolet light.

1800 In the US, the years earlier, its goal is to collect 1801 Following a decree royal art collections of France
Library of Congress at least one copy of everything of the revolutionary at last become fully accessible
is founded. Like the British published in the US, as a way government of France, seven to the public. They are displayed
Museum library, founded 41 of establishing copyright. years earlier, what were once the at the Louvre palace in Paris.

116

High-pressure Names for Railroad 1751 – 1850
steam engine clouds locomotive It pulled 70 people and 11 tons
(10 tonnes) of iron 10 miles
1802 1803 1804 (16 km) at a speed of 5 mph
(8 km/h). Its advanced
Richard Trevithick, Luke Howard Richard Trevithick features included
Oliver Evans blowing used steam up
Clouds tell us In 1804, when Richard its own chimney to
James Watt would never try a lot about Trevithick added wheels to make the fire burn
steam at high pressure the weather, so his high-pressure engine faster. Unfortunately,
because he was convinced it it’s not surprising and used it on a tramway, the locomotive wore
was too dangerous. British that meteorologists he created the first out the cast-iron tracks
engineer Richard Trevithick had recognize many steam locomotive. on which it ran, so
no such fears. He made his types. Most of the Trevithick was forced
cylinders extra thick and the names they use, to abandon it.
pressure 10 times higher. In such as cirrus
1802, he patented the resulting and cumulus, Rods Railway locomotive
smaller, more powerful engine, were invented in powered by This is a model of Trevithick’s
which made steam power far 1803 by British the piston
more versatile. At about the chemist Luke drove the locomotive Catch-Me-
same time, Oliver Evans was Howard. His rear wheels Who-Can, which he
pioneering high-pressure lifelong interest built in 1808.
engines in the US, where they in the weather
were taken up with even led him to Strongly Pump fed
greater enthusiasm. lecture on built water into
boiler the boiler

Mass

production meteorology
and to publish
1802 the first book
about it. In
Marc Brunel, recognition of
Henry Maudslay his work, he
was elected to
Mass production reduces a the Royal
complex operation to Society (a leading
simpler operations, each scientific society
carried out by a separate founded in
machine. The first true mass 1660) in
production system made 1821.
wooden blocks for the rigging
of sailing ships. It was
designed by French
engineer Marc Brunel
and built by British
engineer Henry
Maudslay. Each of
its 45 machines
carried out a single
operation, such as
drilling a hole. It
increased output
per person by
more than
10 times.

1802 After the break-up France, with several models 1804 Tsurya Namboku IV, Tokubei of India: Tales of Strange
of her marriage, and two children. She will tour chief playwright of Lands. Written for top actor
Marie Tussaud, an expert in wax Britain for 33 years, then start a the Kawarazaki Theatre in Japan, Onoe Matsusuke I, it is full of
modelling, arrives in Britain from waxwork museum in London. scores his first big hit with
the macabre and the grotesque.

117

RevolutionaRy changes connected a battery across the
molten masses to extract the
Arc light metals from their different
compounds electrically.
c 1807
Atomic weights
Humphry Davy
1808
By 1807, British chemist
Humphry Davy had John Dalton
demonstrated a sensational
effect to an audience at the In 1808, British schoolmaster
Royal Institution of Great John Dalton helped to create
Britain. He brought together the formulas and equations of
two carbon rods connected to modern chemistry. In his New
a colossal 3000-volt battery, System of Chemical Philosophy he
then drew them apart to said that chemical elements
produce a blinding white consist of atoms, each element
flame 4 in (10 cm) long. It was having atoms of a different
another 70 years before electric weight. The ratios of these
generators were good enough weights, and the proportions in
to turn this bold experiment which atoms combined, were
into practical lighting for streets whole numbers. Ignored for
and warehouses. nearly 50 years, Dalton’s work
eventually had a great effect.

Lace-making

machine

1809

arC light In Minneapolis, the John Heathcoat Canning Canned food gradually Compound
first electric arc lights were became commonplace as food steam engine
illuminated in February 1883. Lace was originally made by companies opened factories for
clever hands manipulating canning all kinds of food. 1811
Sodium and lots of bobbins. Only rich 1809. He put jars of food into
potassium people could afford to buy it. boiling water, then sealed them Arthur Woolf
In 1809, British inventor John while still hot. Although Appert
1807 Heathcoat patented a machine didn’t know it, this killed In a high-pressure steam
that could imitate handmade bacteria and prevented engine, the steam released
Humphry Davy lace. With his partner Charles reinfection. In 1810, British after each stroke of the piston
Lacy, he set up a mill to turn inventor Peter Durand replaced is still under pressure, and
Volta’s battery (✷ see page out the new product. It was the jars with tin-coated iron therefore contains wasted
116) brought a flurry of wrecked in 1816 by Luddites – containers, creating the first energy. By feeding it into a
new discoveries. Two of them, organized groups of workers canned food. By 1820, it was second cylinder, much of this
sodium and potassium, were who tried to stop machines feeding the British navy.
made by Humphry Davy at the forcing workers into factories.
Royal Institution. Because these
elements are so reactive, they Canning
are never found uncombined.
In separate experiments, Davy 1810
melted sodium hydroxide and
potassium hydroxide, then Nicolas Appert,
Peter Durand

Canned food started with an
attempt to provide better
food for French soldiers. The
idea was developed by French
confectioner Nicolas Appert, in

1807 Three years after all Wilberforce and Thomas 1812 In Germany, of a two-volume set of folktales
US states north of Clarkson finally succeed in language and
Maryland abolish slavery, British making it illegal to import folklore researchers Jacob and called Kinder- und Hausmärchen.
antislavery reformers William slaves into any British colony. Wilhelm Grimm publish the first The stories will appear 45 years

118 later as Grimms’ Fairy Tales.

Cylinder Sensory and 1751 – 1850
printing press motor nerve
Miner’s
1811 fibers safety lamp

Friedrich König, 1811 1816
Andreas Bauer
Charles Bell Humphrey Davy,
Early 19th-century printing George Stephenson
presses worked in much Scottish anatomist Charles
the same way as the one used Bell did fundamental See pages 120–121 for the
by Gutenberg in 1455 (✷ see research on the human nervous story of how Davy and
page 76). Then, with better system. Working in London, he Stephenson fought to save
engineering, faster machines investigated the structure of the miners’ lives.
brain and spinal nerves. His
became possible. biggest discovery was that there Kaleidoscope
The first was are two kinds of nerve fibres:
designed by sensory fibres that bring in 1816
German messages to the spinal cord and
engineers brain, and motor fibres that David Brewster
Friedrich König send out instructions. Bell’s
and Andreas findings were later confirmed In 1816, Scottish physicist
Bauer in 1811. by the French physiologist David Brewster took time
The paper was François Magendie. off work to invent the optical
wrapped around toy called a kaleidoscope.
a cylinder that Kaleidoscope Brewster’s Multiple reflections between
rotated as the kaleidoscope was far a pair of mirrors set at an
type rolled more elaborate than angle to each other turn a
under it. In today’s toy. collection of colored fragments
1814, a steam- into a constantly changing
driven König symmetrical pattern. Its name
and Bauer at is Greek, meaning “see
the offices of
The Times beautiful shapes.”
newspaper in
London hit a
record-breaking
total of 1,100
sheets an hour.

Tube in which
coloured
fragments are
viewed

can be recovered. British Object plates Lockable
inventor Jonathan Hornblower containing loose case
patented the idea in 1781, colored fragments
but was prevented from
developing it by James
Watt, who claimed that it
infringed his own steam
engine patent. (✷ see
page 107). However,
British engineer Arthur
Woolf rediscovered the
principle in 1804 and
produced the first successful
compound engine in 1811,
after Watt’s patent had expired.

1813 Jane Austen sees her Austen declares the book’s central 1815 On June 18, making some tactical errors, he is
novel Pride and character, Elizabeth Bennett, to Napoleon suffers his heavily outnumbered by 133,000
Prejudice in print at last, 17 years be her favorite among the many final defeat, at the Battle of men led by General von Blücher
after she started writing it. heroines she has created. Waterloo in Belgium. As well as and the Duke of Wellington.

119

RevolutionaRy changes

MAKING THE MAGIC LAMP

Humphry Davy and George Stephenson
fight to save miners’ lives

Monday, May 25, 1812, was a terrible day for the mining
village of Felling, near Newcastle, England. A massive
underground explosion killed 92 miners, some of them only

10 years old. It was one of a series of disasters caused by the flame in

being a miner miners’ lamps making “firedamp,” or methane gas, explode. In the
previous 10 years, 108 miners had died in the northeast alone. Now
A section through the number had risen to 200. Something had to be done.
Bradley mine in
Staffordshire, in 1808, A committee was formed to investigate the problem. It asked the
shows the rock strata advice of William Clanny, a local doctor, Humphry Davy, a chemist,
and the jobs of miners. and George Stephenson, a self-educated mine mechanic.
As well as coping with
rock fall and floods, Both Clanny and Stephenson started work on a safer lamp.
early miners worked Clanny sealed his with water, but miners had to pump air in
in almost total by hand, so it wasn’t very useful. Stephenson tried letting
darkness. Any light the air in through small holes. Firedamp got in too, and
came from candles,
which could cause
devastating explosions.

burned, but the metal around the

holes cooled the flame, preventing

explosions. Stephenson’s lamp was

tested in October 1815, and it worked.

Back in London, Davy experimented

with firedamp from a mine. Like

Stephenson, he fed in air through small

holes, but he realized that the holes had

to be very small indeed. His lamp had

The compeTiTors copper gauze around the flame. It was

Humphry Davy and tested in January 1816, and was a

George Stephenson success. The mine owners held a
were very different
people. Davy, born celebration dinner and gave Davy

in the southwest some silverware worth 50 times a

of England, was miner’s yearly pay.
a well educated
gentleman and a The miners were not impressed. They

skilled scientist. resented a southerner getting credit for
Stephenson, who
came from the something one of their own people had

northeast, was a Humphry Davy was a George Stephenson already invented. Many wouldn’t use
tough, practical mine chemist, but he turned pioneered the first public Davy’s lamp, and stuck to their “geordie”
his hand to scientific steam railway as well as – Stephenson’s design. Davy said that
mechanic who had matters of many kinds. inventing a safety lamp.
never been to school.

120

Stephenson had stolen the idea from him and that 1751 – 1850
the geordie wouldn’t work because it wasn’t scientific. Safety lampS
Davy’s lamp (right) and
In the end, most miners’ lamps incorporated ideas from Stephenson’s lamp (left) were
all three inventors. They had glass instead of gauze around the first safety lamps to be used
the flame, so they gave more light than Davy’s lamp, but in coal mines, but the Marsaut
the air was still fed in through gauze to prevent lamp of the 1880s (center) was
explosions. The problem was solved. one of the safest, and saw many
years of successful service.
Or was it? Unfortunately, the new lamps encouraged
mine owners to send miners into areas that were
previously thought too dangerous. And because the
lamps weren’t totally safe, there were just as many
deaths as before. Davy and Stephenson may have
fought each other for nothing.

The industrial world of the 19th century was
powered by coal. The safety lamp, which
made it possible to work in dangerous areas, helped coal
owners to get a lot more coal out of their mines.

Continuing tragedy
Explosions like this one in
1866 at Barnsley, England,
were still killing miners 50
years after the invention of
the safety lamp.

121

Helmet Face plate tunnel rings to be inserted. was perhaps shy of putting his
made of South African-born civil ear to their chests. Instead, he
copper Diving suit The heavy helmet engineer James Greathead listened through a wooden tube
and brass of the 1830 Siebe suit provided a improved this in the 1860s. and found that this cylindre
somewhat restricted view. transmitted body sounds that
Stirling engine quickly. He called his product Diving suit he could relate to various
superphosphate. It didn’t catch medical conditions. After he
1816 on, until 1843 when British 1 819 published his findings in 1819,
farmer John Lawes started other doctors improved on his
Robert Stirling making it on a larger scale. Augustus Siebe instrument, eventually creating
the device seen today.
Exploding boilers upset Tunneling The first practical
Scottish clergyman Robert shield diving suit was Adding
Stirling, so he invented an invented in 1819 by machine
engine that didn’t need steam. 1818 German engineer
Patented in 1816, it works by Augustus Siebe. Until 1820
compressing a cold gas then Marc Brunel, then, underwater workers
transferring it to a heated Peter Barlow, sat in a diving bell – an Thomas de Colmar
cylinder, where it expands James Greathead open-bottomed air chamber.
against a piston to do work. It Siebe’s first suit was a jacket The first calculating machine
is then cooled again by a Digging a tunnel with an airtight helmet into that really worked was the
radiator. The Stirling engine is under a river was which air was pumped from arithmometer, patented by
quiet, clean, and efficient, but impossible until French the surface. By 1830, he had French insurance agent Thomas
its cost and bulk limit its use. engineer Marc Brunel created a totally enclosed suit. de Colmar in 1820. Although it
invented his shield in could add, subtract, multiply,
Superphosphate 1818. This supported the Stethoscope and divide, it was at first a
fertilizer tunnel and stopped water failure, mostly because its
from rushing in. As the 1819 inventor was not an engineer.
c 1817 tunnel grew, workers By the 1850s, an improved
moved the shield forward René Laënnec version was beginning to be
James Murray and built a lining behind noticed, and by 1880 hundreds
it. Brunel created the first French doctor René Laënnec were in use – particularly in the
Plants need phosphorus, river tunnel in 1843. wanted to listen to his insurance industry.
and one source of this is Later, Peter Barlow patients’ lungs and hearts, but
fertilizer made of bones. In developed a circular
about 1817, Irish doctor James shield that allowed precast
Murray discovered that treating
bones with sulfuric acid made
them soluble, so that plants
got their phosphorus more

1816 In Rome, the opera Based on an earlier comedy by 1818 The first science- Shelley while she was staying in
The Barber of Seville the French writer Pierre de fiction novel, Switzerland with the poet Byron.
by Italian composer Gioacchino Beaumarchais, it will become one She was one of several guests he
Rossini has its first performance. of Rossini’s most popular operas. Frankenstein, is published. It was challenged to write a ghost story.
written two years earlier by Mary
122

Electromagnetism malaria, a disease caused by a mathematical technique called 1751 – 1850
parasite in the blood. It was the Fourier transform, now
1820 isolated in 1820 by French help with the design of Bernhard Riemann extended
chemists Pierre Pelletier and electronic communications non-Euclidean geometry,
Hans Christian Ørsted Joseph Caventou, and marked systems and much else. providing a basis for Einstein’s
the start of a shift from the view of gravity (✷ see pages
Until Danish physicist Hans use of whole plant extracts Non-Euclidean 178–179).
Christian Ørsted’s crucial toward chemically pure geometry
experiment of 1820, electricity drugs for treating disease. Waterproof
and magnetism were seen as The same pair of men also 1823 cloth
two separate subjects. The isolated several other well
experiment was made possible known natural chemicals, János Bolyai, 1823
by the battery, which Volta including chlorophyll. Nikolay Lobachevsky
invented in 1800 (✷ see page Charles Macintosh
116). Ørsted put a compass Fourier analysis School geometry includes
needle near a wire, then Euclid’s (✷ see page 45) Charles Macintosh, working
connected the wire to the 1822 statement that there can be in rainy Glasgow, Scotland,
terminals of a battery. The only one line that passes found a way to make the first
needle set itself at right angles Joseph Fourier through a given point and waterproof cloth. He
to the current in the wire, lies parallel to a given line. discovered that rubber would
showing that electricity could Engineers and scientists In 1823, Hungarian dissolve in naphtha, a gasoline-
create magnetism. The two often have to deal with mathematician János Bolyai like liquid produced in the
subjects were really one. waves, and these can have an discovered that he could forget making of coal gas. In 1823, he
infinite variety of shapes. this idea and create a “non- stuck two layers of fabric
Quinine Thanks to the work of French Euclidean” geometry that made together with his rubber
mathematician Joseph Fourier, sense. Russian mathematician solution. Although at first there
1820 engineers don’t actually have to Nikolay Lobachevsky published were problems with leaking
deal with every possible wave the same discovery in 1829. seams and softening rubber, a
Pierre Pelletier, shape. In 1822, in a book Euclidean geometry describes “macintosh” soon became the
Joseph Caventou about heat flow, he showed that the small spaces we are used only thing to wear in the rain.
a wave of any shape can be to but may not be true for
Quinine is the active broken down into simpler space as a whole. In the 1850s, Adding mAchine Arithmometers
substance in a tree-bark waves known as sine waves. German mathematician were made by several different
extract that helps patients with Fourier analysis, and a related companies. This wood-cased brass
machine dates from about 1870.

Digits of
result
appeared in
windows

Handle
turned to
calculate

1819 British administrator positioned between the Indian 1822 Ancient Egyptian in 1799, this has the same text in
Sir Stamford Raffles Ocean and the South China Sea, hieroglyphs are hieroglyphs and Greek, allowing
founds a colonial settlement on the island will become a highly deciphered thanks to the Rosetta French scholar Jean François
the island of Singapore. Ideally successful country. Stone. Found by French troops Champollion to crack the code.

123

RevolutionaRy changes country by a Yorkshire builder, until Danish chemist Hans to Stockton. The world’s first
Joseph Aspdin, in 1824. He Christian Ørsted extracted public steam railroad had
Maximum burned a mixture of clay and some from aluminum chloride opened. Both passengers and
efficiency of a limestone until it became so in 1825. It had already been freight traveled in open cars –
heat engine hot that it partly turned into named by Humphry Davy, who except the railroad’s directors,
glass. Aspdin thought his identified it in alum, used in who had a covered carriage.
1824 material was just as good as dyeing. He called it alumium, (✷ See also Railroad mania.)
the fine stone quarried in then aluminum (now its name
Sadi Carnot Portland, hence the name. in North America), and finally Amalgam filling
by its English name, aluminum,
Aheat engine, such as a steam Self-trimming to match names like sodium. c 1826
engine, turns heat, a form candle wick Whatever the name, it is one of
of energy, into mechanical the world’s most useful metals. August Taveau, Thomas Bell
work, another form of energy. 1824
The percentage of heat that gets Public steam Having teeth filled is no
turned into work is known as J. J. Cambacères railroad fun, but it used to be
the engine’s thermal efficiency. much worse. The first metal
It is never anywhere near 100 To burn properly, a candle 1 825 fillings had to be heated to
percent. In 1824, French needs just the right length boiling point before going into
scientist Sadi Carnot discovered of wick. Before 1824, wicks George Stephenson the tooth. In about 1826,
what limits the maximum had to be trimmed by hand, August Taveau in France and
power ouput of any given because the wax burned down George Stephenson was Thomas Bell in Britain found
engine. It is the temperature but the wick didn’t. French already building industrial that a mixture of mercury and
difference between the hottest inventor Cambacères found locomotives when he became silver formed a paste that could
and coldest parts inside the that if the wick is braided engineer of a proposed public be inserted cold and would
engine: the larger the difference, instead of twisted, it flops over tram system from Darlington harden rapidly. They had
the greater the power output. and sticks out through the to Stockton in northeast invented the amalgam filling,
flame, constantly burning away England. He thought that which is still used today.
Portland and trimming itself. All candles steam locomotives and iron
cement are now made this way. rails would be better than the Public steam railroad
proposed horses and wooden Stephenson’s Locomotion
1824 Aluminum rails. On September 27, 1825, No. 1, seen here as a model,
a steam provided the power for the
Joseph Aspdin 1825 train ran first public steam railroad.
from
Portland cement is ordinary Hans Christian Ørsted Darlington
building cement. It has
nothing to do with Portland, in Although aluminum is the
the south of England; it was most common metal on
invented in the north of the Earth, nobody had seen any

Water tank was
carried in a waggon
behind the locomotive

1824 The great German Written for a large choir as 1825 The Bolshoi (Great) Petrovsky Theatre, it renames the
composer Ludwig well as full orchestra, its last Theatre opens in company the Bolshoi Ballet. It
van Beethoven, now totally deaf, movement contains a setting Moscow, Russia. Taking over the will become one of the world’s
composes his ninth symphony. of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”. dancers of its predecessor, the finest ballet companies.

124

RAILRoAd MANIA 1751 – 1850
Bring your own train
RailRoads staRted as wooden tRacks for horse-drawn traffic, In Britain, the Surrey Iron Railway opened
but once Stephenson had proved what steam could do, steam in 1803 and ran from Wandsworth on the
railroads spread across Britain and the Americas with astonishing Thames River to Merstham, south of
speed. Money, both public and private, poured into the new London. It was the first to be open to
technology. By 1850, Britain had more than 6,250 miles everyone, but carriers had to provide their
(10,000 km) of track, while pioneers in the US had opened own wagons and horses.
up the West with 9,000 miles (14,500 km) of railroads.

Horses walked between A simple horse-drawn railroad
the wooden tracks speeded production at a quarry
near Bath, England, in about 1730.
the railroad age Begins
At the opening of the going like a rocket
Stockton & Darlington The first all-steam railroad with
Railway, crowds fought to its own rolling stock ran between
experience the new thrill of Liverpool and Manchester in
rail travel. A total of England. It opened on
600 people piled into the September 15, 1830, with a train
wagons, some even clinging hauled by Stephenson’s Rocket,
to the outside. the clear winner of competitive
trials held in 1829.

This 1949 painting by Terence Cuneo vividly captures the excitement
surrounding the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

Interchangeable John Hall succeeded in making successful reaper was designed Mammals
parts exactly what they wanted. He’d in 1826 by Scottish farmer from eggs
had to invent a new set of tools Patrick Bell, who encouraged
1826 and techniques, but in doing so other farmers to copy it. A few 1827
had perfected an essential years later, in the US, Cyrus
John Hall ingredient of mass production. McCormick invented a similar Karl von Baer
machine, which, like Bell’s,
Most products today are Reaping had a revolving reel for Most people know that
assembled from mass- machine drawing the corn into the birds come from eggs, but
produced parts. In the 18th cutter. McCormick’s production it’s not so obvious that mammals
century, nobody could make 1826 models went on sale in 1840, do too. This fact was published
parts accurately enough to and competed successfully with in 1827 by Estonian naturalist
guarantee that they would Patrick Bell, a factory-built version of the Karl von Baer. A professor at
fit together, but the US Cyrus McCormick Bell reaper. McCormick sold his Konigsburg University (now
government needed guns with reapers by the thousand. His Kaliningrad in Russia), he found
interchangeable parts so that Without mechanical help, company continued until 1902, out more about how animals
weapons could be repaired harvesting demands when it merged with four develop, and created the science
quickly. In 1826, US gunmaker fields full of people. The first others to form the International called comparative embryology.
Harvester Company.

1826 Japanese artist Fuji. The series includes 1827The first volume of Robert Havell. The complete
Katsushika Hokusai The Breaking Wave off Kanagawa, US bird artist John book contains 435 magnificent
which will become the best hand-colored illustrations and
starts publishing a series of prints Audubon’s Birds of America is makes Audubon famous.
entitled Thirty-six Views of Mount known Japanese print of its time. published by London engraver
125

RevolutionaRy changes Macadamized heat. George Stephenson used Water fell on to a horizontal
road the same idea in Rocket, the rotor and rushed through
Greenhouse first locomotive to run on an curved blades, making the
effect 1827 all-steam railroad. rotor spin and producing as
much power as six horses. He
1827 John McAdam Ohm’s law was soon building turbines that
spun at 2,000 rpm (revolutions
Joseph Fourier Scottish engineer John 1827 per minute) to produce 40 kW
McAdam realized that the of power – ideal for generating
The greenhouse effect is in best base for a road was dry Georg Ohm electricity. In 1895, Fourneyron
the news as cars and power soil. In 1827, he started turbines were installed for this
stations pump carbon dioxide building roads made from Ohm’s law is purpose at Niagara Falls on the
into the atmosphere. Natural compacted soil with stones on fundamental to Canada/US border.
greenhouse effects would top. Iron-tired cartwheels broke electrical and
keep the Earth at a comfortable the stones into smaller pieces, electronic Handles for
temperature, but the polluting which filled any gaps and made engineering. pushing the
gases produced by humans trap the surface waterproof. machine
too much heat and make the “Macadamized” roads were It says that electric current
Earth warmer. The existence of used everywhere until cars, = voltage ÷ resistance. So Clutch
the effect, and its similarity to whose pneumatic tires when you connect a wire lever
how a greenhouse works, were damaged them by sucking out across a battery, if you
first suggested by the French the smallest stones, demanded double the length of the wire, Differential
mathematician Joseph Fourier a road surface made with tar or and therefore the resistance, gear
in 1827. He didn’t know how bitumen. you will halve the current.
much people would worry George Ohm’s scientific 1827
about it 175 years later. Multiple fire colleagues in Germany
tube boiler thought that the law was Onésiphore Pecqueur
Match nonsense when he published
1827 it in 1827, but Ohm had the Avehicle with both back
1827 last laugh. In 1841, the Royal wheels on one axle will
Marc Séguin, Society in London gave him have trouble getting around
John Walker George Stephenson a medal, and his name lives corners. This is because the
on as the unit of resistance. wheel on the outside of the
As chemical knowledge The first steam boilers were curve has to travel further, and
increased, inventors began tanks on top of a fire. This Water turbine therefore turn faster, than the
to apply it in the search for a was inefficient because little of wheel on the inside. This is
better light. A few burned the water was in contact with 1827 impossible if both wheels are
their fingers with creations the fire. In 1827, French
like chemical-tipped wood engineer Marc Séguin invented Claude Burdin, attached to the same shaft.
dipped in sulfuric acid, then, in a boiler with tubes going Benoît Fourneyron Modern rear-wheel
1827, British chemist John through the water, and hot drive cars avoid this
Walker produced the first gases from a fire going through French engineer Claude problem by having
practical match. His “friction the tubes. It heated water Burdin coined the word
lights” lit up when rubbed on quickly and wasted less “turbine” from the Latin Head tipped
turbo, meaning with mixture
sandpaper, just like “spinning top.” One containing
some matches of his students at the phosphorus
today. St Étienne Technical
School, Benoît
Fourneyron, built a
working water
turbine in 1827.

Match Thin wooden spill
Early matches lit as burned easily
soon as they were warmed by
friction, so were supplied in a fireproof
box in case they lit by accident.
Modern matches are safer to carry.

1828 Noah Webster of the English Language. It 1829 Following a throws herself on her husband’s
introduces American contains about 70,000 entries – campaign by funeral pyre is outlawed by the
religious reformer Ram Mohan British authorities who control
grammar and spelling when he almost half have not appeared Roy, the rite in which a widow parts of India at this time.
publishes the American Dictionary
in any earlier dictionary.

126

each rear wheel on a separate Lawnmower eLectromagnetic 1751 – 1850
axle, driven from the engine induction Faraday’s
through an arrangement called 1830 ring looks very much which is used to change
a differential gear. This contains electric voltages. US scientist
several gearwheels, which allow Edwin Budding like some modern Joseph Henry discovered
the two rear wheels to rotate at transformers.
different speeds where Lawns were possible electromagnetic induction at
necessary. It was invented by before lawnmowers, British scientist Michael about the same time, but
French engineer Onésiphore but only for people Faraday guessed that Faraday published his
Pecquer in 1827, long before with gardeners or sheep magnetism might produce findings first.
cars were thought of, for use on to keep them trimmed. electricity. In 1831, he showed
steam vehicles. Edwin Budding’s cylinder that it could. Plunging a Cell nucleus
mower, patented in 1830, magnet into a coil of wire
Braille made tidy green squares produced a surge of current – 1831
available to far more the principle of the electric
1829 people. Largely displaced by generator. Faraday also found Robert Brown
other machines for small lawns, that if two coils were wound
Louis Braille Budding’s mechanism lives on on an iron ring, connecting or Most living cells keep their
in tractor-pulled mowers for disconnecting one coil to or genes in a nucleus, a
Louis Braille was blinded in large areas of grass. from a battery produced a distinct blob in their centre.
an accident at the age of current in the other – This structure was first noticed
three. When he was 10, he Electromagnetic the principle of the and named by Scottish botanist
went to Paris, where he was induction transformer, Robert Brown in 1831, while
he was investigating orchids.
shown a way of writing 1831 Although Brown didn’t
messages with raised dots, understand what the nucleus
designed for soldiers to use Michael Faraday, did, his discovery was part of
Joseph Henry a growing realization that
at night. Braille simplified plant cells, far from
and improved this system, When Hans Christian being empty, were
and in 1829 and 1837 Ørsted discovered that full of life.
electricity could produce
published his own six- magnetism (✷ see page 123),
dot code for blind
people. It’s difficult
to learn, but is still
in use today.

Gears turned Lawnmower Budding based his
the cutting grass-cutting machine on the rotary
cylinder cutter used for trimming the surface
of woollen cloth in textile mills. Early
Budding mowers were large machines
for professional gardeners – this one
was made by Ransomes of Ipswich,
England – but the principle was later
applied to domestic models.

Cutting Handle for a
cylinder second person

to help with
the machine

Roller for
adjusting
the height
of the cut

Main roller
provided drive

1830 A group of British It supports explorations in Africa, 1831 Inspired by love for romantic Symphonie Fantastique.
travelers, the Raleigh the Arctic, and other areas, and Irish actress Harriet He fashions the huge orchestral
Travellers’ Club, forms the in 1859 will become the Royal Smithson, French composer work as a musical drama that
Geographical Society of London. Geographical Society. Hector Berlioz writes his highly ends with its hero’s death.

127

RevolutionaRy changes Iron core Safety fuse electric current, Hippolyte
Two wire Pixii, son of a Paris instrument
North pole coils 1831 maker, devised the first
of magnet South pole practical electric generator. His
of rotating William Bickford machine, built in 1832, rotated
Magneto permanent a magnet near a coil of wire,
Pixii’s machine magnet Blasting out rock from generating alternating current
was called a mines and quarries with in the wire. Later, at the
magneto Hand-turned gunpowder is a good idea as suggestion of physicist André
because it used wheel rotated long as nobody gets blown Ampère, he added a switch that
a permanent the magnet up. Until William Bickford’s broke the circuit for half of
magnet to invention of the safety fuse each rotation, creating a pulsed
provide the in 1831, miners set off direct current for experiment
changing explosions with gunpowder in electrolysis.
magnetic field laid on the ground or
needed to packed into reeds or goose Electric motor
generate quills – all highly dangerous.
current. Bickford made his fuse from 1832
cloth wrapped around
gunpowder. It burned at a William Sturgeon,
predictable rate, allowing Thomas Davenport
people to get away to safety
before the big bang. It wasn’t easy to develop a
useful motor from Hans
Steam bus Christian Ørsted’s discovery
that electricity could move a
1831 magnet (✷ see page 123).
The vital component was the
Goldsworthy Gurney, commutator, a switch that
Walter Hancock continually reverses the current
to keep the motor rotating.
Buses existed before Practical commutators were
1831, but they were invented in 1832 by British
pulled by horses. The first engineer William Sturgeon
mechanical buses appeared and in 1834 by US blacksmith
in Britain. Inspired by Thomas Davenport. Davenport
Stephenson’s Rocket (✷ see used his motor to drive several
page 125), English inventor machines, including a car.
Goldsworthy Gurney built
several steam coaches that Inductance
operated between
Cheltenham and Gloucester. 1832
In London, Walter Hancock
set up a steam omnibus Joseph Henry
service. Opposition from
horse-coach owners soon In 1832, US scientist Joseph
forced Gurney off the road, Henry discovered self-
but Hancock’s service was inductance, often called
able to survive for five years. simply inductance. In this,
the magnetism created by an
Magneto electric current tends to
maintain that current when
1832 conditions change. The effect
is shown clearly when a wire
Hippolyte Pixii is coiled up to create a stronger
magnetic field. Joseph Henry
Soon after Michael discovered it when he
Faraday discovered disconnected an electromagnet
that relative motion and saw big sparks as the
between a magnet and current carried on through the
a wire produces air instead of stopping.

1833 Oberlin College, the later, it will be the first college 1835 Fourteen years after top of the Champs Élysées in
first college to admit to admit African–Americans, his death, one of Paris. Built by Jean Chalgrin and
both men and women, is and in 1841 will award academic Napoleon’s pet projects, the Arc Jean Raymond, it celebrates past
established in Ohio. Two years degrees to three women. de Triomphe, is completed at the French victories.

128

Drawing Mirror STereoScope Wheatstone’s 1751 – 1850
placed here reflected the original device was cumbersome,
was seen right-hand but useful for investigating Telegraph
only by the drawing and stereoscopic vision. Brewster
left eye blocked the redesigned it without the mirrors. 1837
left-hand one
Stereoscope Letters William Cooke,
engraved Charles Wheatstone
1832 on the face
Hans Christian Ørsted’s
Charles Wheatstone Drawing placed Pivoted discovery that a compass
here was seen magnetic needle responds to electric
Astereoscope combines two only by the current suggested a way of
slightly different pictures, right eye needles making an effective electric
one for each eye, into a three- telegraph. In 1837, ex-soldier
dimensional image. The Telegraph The five-needle William Cooke and physicist
pictures are normally telegraph was easy to use Charles Wheatstone patented
photographs, but British but needed a six-wire the first telegraph to send
physicist Charles Wheatstone connection. Pairs of
invented the stereoscope before needles swung left or useful messages. Its five
photography existed. His right to point to needles, operated by six
invention was little used until the letters on wires, could point to
David Brewster showed a the face. 20 letters of the
simplified version at London’s alphabet. By 1839, it
Great Exhibition in 1851. Terminals was installed
Queen Victoria was entranced, used to on the Great
and stereoscopy soon became Western
a popular craze. connect wires Railway in
England and
Horse-drawn was sending the
tram service first public
telegrams.
1832

John Stephenson, Reflex Keys pressed in pairs to send letters
G. F. Train
1837 Hall, seeing a headless newt Morse code
The idea of using tracks for respond to a pin-prick, was
vehicles eventually spread Marshall Hall the first to realize that nerves 1837
from mines and railroads to from the spinal cord can act
the streets. Trams were at first When someone pulls their independently to receive Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail
drawn by horses. Probably the finger away from a hot sensations and make suitable
earliest tram builder was the iron, they’re using a reflex, a responses. British colleagues See pages 130–131 for
Irish-US inventor John response that bypasses the ridiculed Hall’s ideas, but the story of how Morse
Stephenson. His trams started brain for maximum speed. European scientists discovered and Vail invented a new way
running on the New York and British physiologist Marshall that he was right. to communicate.
Harlem Railroad in 1832, and
his company later built trams
for services all over the world.
The US entrepreneur G. F. Train
also brought the tram to many
cities. In 1860, he installed a
tramway in Birkenhead, near
Liverpool – the first in Britain.

1836 During its fight for Santa Anna, wipe out everyone in 1837 In the United Victoria, aged only 18, becomes
independence from the fort called the Alamo. Santa Kingdom, King Queen. She will become one of
Mexico, the state of Texas is hit Anna is later defeated by Texans William IV dies without an heir. the most important figures in
hard when the Mexicans, under shouting “Remember the Alamo!” On Tuesday 20 June, his niece British history.

129

RevolutionaRy changes

WIRING THE WORLD

Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail invent
a new way to communicate

Morse’s first telegraph The Reverend Jedidiah Morse did not want his son to be an artist, but he
The first telegraph Morse built felt it was better than having him waste time with electricity. So, after
was more elaborate than the being tutored in England, Samuel Morse became a painter, one of the best
final version reengineered by
Vail. Its operator did not tap in the US.
out messages directly, but In 1832, on a ship home from Europe, Samuel heard
assembled shaped pieces of
metal in a holder, which moved about the newly invented electromagnet, and his interest
through a switch mechanism in electricity was rekindled. With his artist’s imagination,
to turn the current on and off. he could see it sending messages around the world.

By 1835, Morse had built an electric telegraph, using

This unlikely odds and ends that included one of his wooden frames
contraption was for stretching artists’ canvas. But how was he to convey
Morse’s first thousands of different words along its single wire?
receiver.

His first idea was to make a numbered list of words,

then send the numbers, switching the current once for one,

Morse’s telegraph needed only one wire,
which made it easy to construct. To make
the single wire work, Morse and Vail
invented a code based on patterns of
pulses – an idea now used for all
kinds of telecommunications.
130

1751 – 1850

twice for two, and so on. It was terribly slow, even with an Alfred VAil
Vail met Morse
automatic switch and a better code that used short and long soon after
graduating from
bursts of current – “dots” and “dashes.” His homemade college. He
agreed to help
telegraph proved to be unreliable, too. Morse and pay
for getting patents
That might have been the end of it, but in 1837, at an as long as he could
share in any profits.
unsuccessful demonstration of the telegraph in New York, He got his father to
help Morse as well.
Morse met the young engineer Alfred Vail. Vail took one look
A Morse key for
at Morse’s amateurish efforts and offered to redesign the whole sending messages

thing. He strengthened the electromagnet and replaced Morse’s the fiNAl

complicated switch with a simple, hand-operated key. He threw out system

Morse’s word list and devised a dot-and-dash code for each letter of the By about 1870, many
refinements had been made to
alphabet. The telegraph was beginning to take shape. the telegraph. Operators could

In 1843, after several successful decode a message just by
listening to the clicking of a
demonstrations and some political sounder, leaving them free to
write it down. Punched tape
wrangling, the US government gave allowed messages to be stored,
and a version of Morse code
Morse $30,000 to build a telegraph had been developed for use

line between Baltimore and with underwater cables.
Not Very priVAte
Washington, DC. There were A picture from a songsheet of
1860 illustrates one problem
quite a few technical with the telegraph: every
message had to be read by the
problems, because nobody operator. This could cause
embarrassment, as here, with
had ever laid 40 miles messages of an intimate nature.

(65 kilometers) of wire before. But

by May 24, 1844, everything was ready..

With Vail in Baltimore tending a stack of

batteries, and Morse in Washington looking after the This receiver
politicians, the new line delivered its first message: embossed dots
“WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT”. Within a year, it was and dashes on
paper tape.

open to the public. Within another 30 years, telegraphs

covered the globe. Thanks to Vail the

engineer, the vision of Morse the

artist had become a reality.

131

RevolutionaRy changes both invented underwater Photography Talbot announced a rival
propellers. Smith’s looked like a system. It allowed shorter
Ship’s propeller screw, while Ericsson’s was c 1839 exposures and could produce
more like a fan. The British multiple prints. (✷ See also
1839 Navy wasn’t interested in either, Louis Daguerre, Photo pioneers.)
but a small ship equipped with William Fox Talbot
John Ericsson, Francis Smith Ericsson’s propeller was shown Cell as the basic
to the US Navy. In 1839, both In 1826, French inventor unit of living
Early steamships had propellers were attached to Nicéphore Niepce coated a things
paddlewheels, but these larger ships, and trials sheet of metal with tar, put it
did not work well in high seas. confirmed the effectiveness of in a box with a lens, and 1839
Engineers John Ericsson of this new form of propulsion. pointed it out of the window.
Sweden and Francis Smith Matthias Schleiden,
(later Sir Francis) of Britain Eight hours later, he Theodor Schwann
had a permanent
Ship’S propeller This is a model of SS Francis Smith, which was fitted photograph. By 1839, German lawyer Matthias
with Smith’s propeller. Modern ships have their propeller further back. his colleague Louis Schleiden turned his
Daguerre was taking hobby of botany into a full-
pictures in 20 minutes. time job and studied plants
A year later, William Fox under the microscope. In 1838
he concluded that all plants are
made of tiny building blocks,
or cells, and they grow as the
cells divide. A year later, his
friend Theodor Schwann
found that the same applied
to animals, establishing one
of the basics of biology.

Vulcanized
rubber

1839

Charles Goodyear

Raw rubber gets weak and
sticky when warm. In the
US, rubber worker Nathaniel
Hayward discovered that sulfur
reduced the stickiness.
Businessman Charles Goodyear,
who had himself been trying
to improve rubber, bought
Hayward’s invention. In 1839,
after a series of experiments, he
discovered a chemical reaction
with sulfur that made the
rubber harder and stronger.
This way of hardening rubber
is called vulcanization, and it
is essential today for car tires
and many other rubber items.

Vulcanized rubber By 1923,
when this advertisement appeared,
cars had become more common
and rubber tires were big business.

1838 US lion tamer Isaac lion’s mouth. She 1839 The Grand Liverpool at Aintree, Liverpool, in England.
van Amburgh comes asks artist Edwin Steeplechase, the The winner is Lottery, a nine-
to England and amazes Queen Landseer to paint the American’s horse race now called the Grand year-old owned by John Elmore
Victoria by putting his head in a portrait, complete with lions. National, is run for the first time and ridden by Jem Mason.

132

1751 – 1850

PHOTO PIONEERS

Many early 19th-century artists and Plate holder Daguerreotypes
Daguerreotype
scientists wanted to capture the lifelike images Daguerre’s pictures were
taken with silver iodide,
images they saw in the camera obscura formed by iodine acting on

(✷ see page 81), a common a silvered copper plate.

drawing aid at that time. Sitters had to be clamped in
place for the extremely long
Silver salts darkened on exposure. After treatment

exposure to light, but they with mercury vapor and

were not really sensitive fixing with salt, the delicate,
silvery image
enough. Worse still, they was framed

kept what sensitivity they Aperture under glass to
rings protect it.
had after the picture was
Early
taken, so the image was daguerreotype
soon destroyed. Daguerre and camera

Fox Talbot both solved these problems,

but in completely different ways.

Lens and
attachments
A daguerreotype
camera of the 1840s

Calotypes
When daguerreotypes appeared, Fox Talbot hastened to perfect his
calotype process. It used paper soaked in silver salts. He discovered that
before these darkened visibly they formed a hidden image, which a
developing solution could reveal, allowing shorter exposures. After fixing
with a sodium salt, he used his paper negatives to make positive prints.

Calotype made by Fox Talbot at his home, Lacock Abbey, England, in about 1843

Fuel cell Polystyrene Babbitt metal Electroplating

1839 1839 1839 c 1840

William Grove Eduard Simon Isaac Babbitt George Elkington,
Auguste de La Rive
Unlike ordinary electric The clear plastic of CD cases Rotating machinery needs
batteries, fuel cells never is polystyrene. It is also bearings – holes lined Electroplating uses electricity
run down – as long as they’ve made into a lightweight with metal that can stand up to coat surfaces with a layer
got something to burn. A packaging material. It consists to the constant rubbing of a of metal. It can make brass
Welsh judge, William Grove, of molecules of a carbon-based shaft. One of the best materials look like gold. The process was
made the first one in 1839. chemical, styrene, linked to for lining plain bearings is invented independently in
Knowing that electricity splits form chains. It was first made babbitt metal. It is an alloy of about 1840 by British
water into hydrogen and in 1839 by German chemist two soft metals, tin and lead, industrialist George Elkington
oxygen, he simply reversed the Eduard Simon, but was not and two harder ones, antimony and Swiss physicist Auguste de
process. His cell burned used because impurities made and copper. It takes oil well, La Rive. It was Elkington who
hydrogen in oxygen to produce it brittle. In 1937, US chemist will not seize up if it runs dry, made it a success. He invented
water and electricity. Today, fuel Robert Dreisbach made purer and lasts a long time. It was a plating bath, then bought up
cells are used in space and may styrene, and within a year invented by US goldsmith all the rival processes so that
soon appear in electric cars. polystyrene was on the market. Isaac Babbitt in 1839. people had to use his system.

1840 Britain gains control give Maoris British citizenship 1840 Canadian Samuel from Liverpool to Boston. Cunard
of New Zealand as and protect their land, but its Cunard starts the will continue to lead the way
45 Maori chiefs sign the Treaty terms are not clear and will across the Atlantic with larger
of Waitangi. The treaty aims to later lead to conflict. first regular Atlantic steamship ships, such as Queen Elizabeth.
service when RMS Britannia sails
133

RevolutionaRy changes expensive for ordinary people, it in 1842. By then, though, Package tour By the 1870s,
he pointed out the folly of Brunel had changed his mind Cook’s brochure offered package
Ozone charges that were based on about his ship, deciding to use tours to wonders of the world both
distance and collected on the more modern propellers ancient and modern.
1840 delivery. A fixed charge, he instead of paddlewheels.
said, prepaid with an adhesive Package tour
Christian Schönbein stamp, would slash costs by Dinosaurs
75 percent. People listened in 1841
Ozone in the stratosphere the end, and in 1840 Britain 1841
protects us from radiation, introduced the penny post. Thomas Cook
but ozone from a photocopier With it came the first postage Richard Owen
can be dangerous. It’s a highly stamp, the famous penny black. ABritish missionary, Thomas
reactive form of oxygen, with People had been finding Cook, organized the first
three atoms per molecule Steam hammer fossilized dinosaur bones all vacation tour in 1841. It was
instead of two. Ozone can be over the place, but they didn’t only a train trip from Leicester
made by passing air through an 1840 know what they were. Then to Loughborough, but it
electrical discharge – as in a British surgeon Richard Owen proved there was a demand.
photocopier. Discovered and James Nasmyth recognized that they belonged In 1855, Cook organized trips
named in 1840 by German to an extinct group of reptiles to France, and then tours of
chemist Christian Schönbein, In 1839, British engineer unlike any now living. He Europe. His firm is now
many uses have since been Isambard Kingdom Brunel named them “Dinosauria,” famous worldwide.
found for it, from purifying started work on his ship Great meaning “terrible lizards,” in
water to bleaching food. Britain. He soon discovered that 1841. Owen later became Doppler effect
hammering out the giant shafts famous for opposing Darwin’s
Postage stamp for its paddlewheels was theory of evolution and for 1842
beyond human ability. Scottish getting the details of the earliest
1840 engineer James Nasmyth came fossil bird completely wrong.
up with the idea of a steam
Rowland Hill hammer and designed one that Steam hammer A gang of
would hit harder than a whole workers feeds a red-hot piece of iron
Rowland Hill believed in gang of people. He made the through a hammer which slowly
democracy. When he first one in 1840 and patented pounds it into shape.
discovered that post office
procedures made letters too

Christian Doppler

The sound of a speeding
car falls to a lower pitch
as the car passes. Austrian
physicist Doppler explained
this in 1842. As a sound
source approaches, the waves
reaching our ears are bunched
up, but as it recedes they
stretch out. This happens
with light too, so astronomers
can tell how fast stars are
approaching or receding. With
radar, it enables police to check
the speed of cars.

1840 Snowshoe racing Snowshoe Club. Racers strap 1841 George Catlin American Indians. He had painted
becomes an broad, flat frames to their feet to publishes Letters and over 500 works while traveling
organized sport in Canada with stop them from sinking, and run Notes on the Manners, Customs,
the formation of the Montreal races of up to 1 mile (1.6 km). and Condition of the North the Great Plains and visiting

134 American Indian tribes.

1751 – 1850

Conservation of Christmas before the first phone. Bain Christmas Card John Horsley’s
energy card proposed scanning printers’ card combined religion, good cheer,
type to create a telegraph and rustic decoration.
1842 1843 signal, with pendulums
synchronizing transmitter and seriously that work stopped
Julius von Mayer John Horsley receiver. Bain never built his for several years. London
machine, but Giovanni Caselli Underground trains now rattle
As early as 1806, a British The first Christmas card was used much the same principle through the tunnel every day.
doctor, Thomas Young, was designed by British painter for a fax service between Paris
using the word “energy” in its John Horsley for Henry Cole, and Lyon in 1863. Sunspot cycle
modern sense: the capacity to later a founder of the Victoria
do work. In 1842, another & Albert Museum in London. River tunnel 1843
doctor, Julius von Mayer of Showing people enjoying a
Germany, stated that energy Christmas party, it went on sale 1843 Samuel Schwabe
cannot be created or destroyed. in London in 1843.
Mayer did not have much Marc Brunel, Amateurs can contribute a
supporting evidence, and at the Fax principle Isambard Brunel lot to astronomy by
time few people understood making regular observations. In
what he was saying, but this 1843 The first underwater tunnel Germany, Samuel Schwabe kept
principle of conservation of was dug under the Thames watch on the Sun for 17 years,
energy has since become Alexander Bain River in London, from hoping to find a planet closer
central to science. The Rotherhithe to Wapping. It was to the Sun than Mercury.
principle was discovered Surprisingly, faxes were started in 1825 but didn’t open Instead, he found that the
independently by at least three invented before phones. until 1843. Even using Marc spottiness of the Sun increased
others with more influence: Scottish mechanic Alexander Brunel’s tunneling shield and decreased in an 11-year
William Grove in 1846, and Bain patented his “electric (✷ see page 122), water cycle. He announced the fact in
James Joule and Hermann von printing and signal telegraph” poured in several times during 1843. It’s of great importance
Helmholtz in 1847. in 1843, more than 30 years construction, once injuring on Earth, because sunspots can
Brunel’s son Isambard so ruin radio communication.

1842 China surrenders the the First Opium War. Another 1843 A new dance with a lively 2–4 rhythm. In no
island of Hong Kong island will be added in 1860, sensation hits Paris time at all, people in the US,
to Great Britain as part of the and in 1898 more territory will in the shape of the polka, a step- Latin America, and Scandinavia
Treaty of Nanking, which ends be leased for 99 years. and-hop dance from Bohemia will be polka-crazy, too.

135

RevolutionaRy changes Anaesthetic Lock-stitch Neptune
sewing machine
Type-rotating 1846 1846
printing press 1846
William Morton Urbain Le Verrier,
1845 Walter Hunt, Elias Howe, Johann Galle
Anaesthetics were first used Isaac Singer
Richard Hoe by two US dentists, The discovery of the planet
Horace Wells and William Inventors struggled for years Neptune proved the power
The first printing press Morton. Wells tried using to mechanize sewing. The of physics. Astronomers knew
produced a couple of sheets laughing gas (✷ see page 115), solution was to use two threads. that Uranus had an irregular
a minute. Modern presses print unsuccessfully, in 1845 and An eye-pointed needle pushed orbit, and the only explanation
10 whole newspapers every had also tried ether as a local one thread through the cloth was that it must be attracted
second, mainly because they go anaesthetic. Morton thought from above while a shuttle by another planet. French
around and around instead of that he would try to get his whizzing to and fro below astronomer Urbain Le Verrier
up and down. The first totally patients to inhale ether, and looped another thread through calculated where this planet
rotary press was built by US he used it in a successful it. Walter Hunt invented this in must be. When German
engineer Richard Hoe in 1845. demonstration of anaesthetic the US in about 1843, and astronomer Johann Galle
It could print two sheets a surgery in 1846. A year later, Elias Howe patented the same looked there on September 23
second, but had one snag: if all Scottish surgeon James idea in 1846, but we really owe 1846, he found the planet
the pieces of type on its Simpson started using the sewing machine to US within an hour. A British
revolving cylinder were not chloroform to help women inventor Isaac Singer. He added mathematician, John Adams,
locked in tightly, they shot out through the pain of childbirth. his own ideas to Howe’s and had already done the same
when the press started. turned a raw invention into a calculation in 1844, but
Thread unwinds mass-market product. British astronomers did not
Wheel drives as it is used up take this seriously.
the machine

Lacquered cast-iron Screw adjusts
body supports and pressure of
protects the mechanism the foot

Crank system Lock-stitch sewing machine Lever raises
drives needle This Singer sewing machine of the and lowers
and bobbin 1930s shows a new addition – an the foot
Electric motor electric motor. Before this, users who Needle moves
wanted both hands free had to power up and down
a treadle machine with their feet. The to link thread
covers of this machine have been with another
removed to show the mechanism. thread on a
bobbin
Foot holds underneath
the material
to be sewn

1846 Founded on the Institution for “the increase and 1847 Charlotte Brontë, with its self-willed heroine and
bequest of English diffusion of knowledge.” In the one of three literary emphasis on social psychology,
scientist James Smithson, Congress 21st century it will be the world’s sisters living in Yorkshire, writes will become one of the most
establishes the Smithsonian largest museum complex. Jane Eyre. This powerful novel, famous in English literature.

136

Nitroglycerine 1751 – 1850

1846 Albumen print Lewis
Carrroll, the author of Alice,
Ascanio Sobrero made this albumen print of two
of his aunts in about 1858.
Until 1846, the only widely
used explosive was Albumen print
gunpowder. Then Italian
chemist Ascanio Sobrero c 1850
discovered nitroglycerine, the
first “high explosive.” Much Louis Blanquart-Évrard
more powerful than
gunpowder, it is also extremely Those very old, brown
dangerous: just dropping a family photos that you
container of the chemical on may have seen could have
the floor can cause a been printed on albumen
devastating explosion. Despite paper. It was a breakthrough
this problem, nitroglycerine was in its time. Before French
used in mining even before a photographer Louis
way was found to make it safe. Blanquart-Évrard invented it
in about 1850, prints were
made by Fox Talbot’s
original process (✷ see page

132). The new
paper, with its
glossy coating of
egg white, gave
much richer,
sharper results.

electricAl nAture of nerve Laws of Mechanical Keys used
impulses Emil Du Bois-Reymond thermodynamics equivalent of to make a
invented this “frog pistol.” He put a contact with
frog’s leg inside the tube and formed 1849 heat the nerve
a contact with the nerve ends, which ends in the
made the leg muscles contract. William Thomson, 1849 frog’s leg
Rudolf Clausius
Electrical James Joule Speed of nerve
nature of nerve The first law of impulses
thermodynamics is just Steam engines showed that
impulses conservation of energy (✷ see heat could turn into work. 1850
page 135). The second is: heat Could the opposite be true?
1849 energy flows only from hot to When British physicist James Hermann von Helmholtz
cold. The consequences are Joule announced in 1847 that
Emil Du Bois-Reymond surprising. For example, a glass he had warmed water simply By 1849, scientists knew
of cold water contains more by stirring it, nobody believed that nerve impulses were
German physiologist Emil heat than a teaspoonful of him. After a further two years’ electrical, making it possible
Du Bois-Reymond knew boiling water (even though the work, Joule submitted a paper to measure their speed. The
there was something electrical boiling water has a higher to the Royal Society called On German scientist Hermann von
about animals when a fish gave temperature) because there is the Mechanical Equivalent of Helmholtz quickly invented the
him an electric shock. In 1849, more of it. But the second law Heat, which was accepted. It necessary equipment. In 1850,
he discovered that when nerves prevents this heat from doing stated exactly how much heat his new “myograph” showed
were stimulated electrical waves any work. Several scientists was produced by a given that nerves were quicker than
traveled along them. Du Bois- worked on this idea from amount of work. The unit of most other things biological.
Reymond realized that far from 1824 onward. William energy now bears his name. He saw impulses zipping along
being channels for “animal Thomson coined the term at about 60 mph (100 km/h).
spirits”, as some people had “thermodynamics” in 1849 and
thought, nerves were more like Rudolf Clausius published the
telegraph wires delivering laws in 1850. Since then, two
messages around the body. more have been added.

1848 Revolution sweeps Transylvanians demand greater 1849 The British writer David Copperfield. The story of a
Europe as French, political rights, better Charles Dickens young man betrayed by his
Germans, Italians, Poles, Czechs, government, and, where starts serial publication of what stepfather earns Dickens the
Slovaks, Hungarians, Danes, and necessary, national independence. he considers his best novel, amazing sum of £7000 ($34,000).

137

cscoienncte traokesl

The laTe 19Th cenTury saw the rise of totally
new industries that could not have existed
without science. Plastics, synthetic fabrics,
electric light, telephones, sound recording,
popular photography, cars, and radio were

just a few of the inventions that would
eventually transform people’s lives.

138

Mechanism of Wet-plate photogRaphy 1851 – 1900
the inner ear Roving photographers had to
carry all these Wet-plate
1851 bottles of photography
chemicals
Alfonso Corti – and a 1851
darkroom.
Buried deep inside the ear Frederick Archer
is the organ of Corti, a RefRigeRatoR The US
delicate mechanism that turns General Electric “monitor top” Although calotypes could
sound into nerve impulses. It refrigerator of 1934 had its be reprinted, their paper
was first described in 1851 by compressor mounted on top. negatives were grainy (✷ see
Italian anatomist Alfonso page 133). In 1851, British
Corti. It contains thousands of a 220 ft (67 m) wire inside a one way to refrigerate is to sculptor Frederick Archer
tiny hairs, which brush against tall building in Paris, forming compress a gas, let it cool, then made the first transparent
a membrane suspended in a large pendulum. As it swung lower its pressure to cool it still negatives by coating glass
fluid. When sound waves back and forth, it appeared to more. The cold gas can then with a light-sensitive cellulose
shake the fluid, the membrane be turning gradually, but it was cool other objects. US doctor solution. The new plates
ripples against the hairs, actually Earth turning beneath John Gorrie found that he produced clearer pictures than
making nerve cells attached to it. Foucault’s pendulum is a could produce cold air to cool their predecessors, and needed
them send signals to the brain. popular science exhibit today. feverish patients in this way, shorter exposures, but they had
and patented a refrigerator to be exposed while wet and
Prefabricated Refrigerator based on this principle in developed immediately. The
building 1851. Eight years later, French results were so good that
1851 inventor Ferdinand Carré photographers did not mind,
1851 developed a refrigerator more and “wet plates” quickly
John Gorrie, like those we use today. These replaced the earlier processes.
Joseph Paxton Ferdinand Carré use a working fluid that
changes from liquid to gas Airship
In 1851, British gardener Gases get hot when they when it expands. This makes it
Joseph Paxton created the are compressed and cool absorb even more heat from 1852
first large building made from down when they expand. So inside the fridge.
prefabricated components. The Henri Giffard
Crystal Palace was built to
house the Great Exhibition in French engineer Henri
London. The spectacular glass Giffard’s airship was the
and iron structure was 1,848 ft first successful powered flying
(563 m) long, 108 ft (33 m) machine. As in all airships, lift
high and 408 ft (124 m) at its came from a light gas, in this
widest point. It went up in just case hydrogen, so its three-
six months. Paxton’s secret was horsepower steam engine had
the repeated use of basic parts only to push it along. Choosing
that slotted together like a a dead calm day, Giffard piloted
construction kit. the 144 ft (44 m) cigar-shaped
craft over Paris at a speed of
Foucault’s 6 mph (10 km/h) for 20 miles
pendulum (30 km). It would be years
before airships could cope with
1851 windy conditions.

Jean Foucault

Although early 19th-century
scientists knew that the
Earth must rotate on its axis,
they had no direct proof. Then,
in 1851, French physicist Jean
Foucault hung a heavy ball on

1851 At La Fenice Theatre his 17th opera. It is a big step 1852 One of Europe’s Brooklyn, New York, and fed
in Venice, Italian forward in the development of most common birds, partly by grain spilled by horses,
opera, with music and the house sparrow, is introduced the newcomer will cover the
composer Guiseppe Verdi sees storytelling cleverly intertwined. into the US. Arriving in continent within a century.
the first performance of Rigoletto,

139

Science takeS control Plunger Hypodermic Boolean algebra
with screw syringe This
Gyroscope fearsome syringe of 1854
thread the Pravaz type was
1852 made in France. George Boole
to lift, stabilize,
Jean Foucault and control a fixed-wing Hypodermic Today’s computers owe a lot
machine. Realizing that syringe to someone whose only
Awheel that is spinning no existing engine could math teaching came from a
resists changes in the power an airplane, he 1853 shoe repairer – his father.
direction of its axis. Jean stuck to gliders. In George Boole had to learn the
Foucault used this fact to 1853, his coachman Charles Pravaz, rest himself, but by the age of
confirm his earlier observation flew the first Alexander Wood 24 he was submitting work to
of the Earth rotating beneath a manned glider serious mathematical journals.
swinging pendulum (✷ see flight. Later, a The two parts of the He thought that logic should be
page 139). In 1852, he young German hypodermic syringe – part of math, and in 1854 he
mounted a wheel so that its named Otto the needle and the plunger published An Investigation into
axis was free to point in any Lilienthal built a – were invented in 1853 the Laws of Thought. It described
direction. He set it spinning series of small by two different people in what is now called Boolean
and watched as it kept its gliders and two different countries. In algebra. This allows
position while the Earth turned succeeded in France, surgeon Charles complicated logical statements
beneath it. He called this making regular Pravaz invented a gadget to be simplified, and underlies
arrangement a gyroscope, controlled flights for injecting fluid into the design of much digital
meaning “something that in them. Cayley’s veins through a tube with a hardware and software.
makes rotation visible.” and Lilienthal’s blade inside it. In Scotland,
work established physician Alexander Wood Can-opener
Bloomers the basics of invented the hollow needle
aircraft design. and adapted Pravaz’s device 1855
c 1853 to go with it, forming the
first hypodermic syringe. Robert Yeates
Amelia Bloomer Hollow
needle Safety elevator Ahammer and chisel for
Pants for women were getting into cans were
thought outrageous in the Bloomers The new fashion, 1853 essential kitchen tools until
19th century, which may have also known as Turkish British inventor Robert Yeates
been why US reformer Amelia trousers, was worn as early as Elisha Otis invented his can-opener in
Bloomer liked them. She 1849 by the actor Fanny 1855. It wasn’t very convenient
advocated long, baggy pants Kemble and others, but it was Elisha Otis was working – just a sharp blade that had to
gathered at the ankle as part Amelia Bloomer who gave it as a master mechanic in be stuck into the can top and
of a new costume that she publicity, hence the name. a US bed factory when he worked around the rim. But the
hoped would liberate invented something to diminish design became popular in the
women. When she appeared a recurring nightmare. Knowing US when a canned-beef
in her pants in about 1853, that people were scared of company gave it a cast-iron
there was more laughter elevators, he invented a safety bull’s head and issued it free of
than liberation. But within hoist with arms that shot out charge with their cans.
35 years, a new invention and grabbed the sides of the
made “bloomers” seem like elevator shaft if the supporting Printing
a good idea: they were cable broke. He sold the first telegraph
ideal for women who safety hoist, for goods only, in
wanted to ride a bike. 1853. Later, in New York City, 1855
he demonstrated its
Glider effectiveness by having the David Hughes
cable cut while he was in it. He
1853 installed his first passenger The first electric telegraphs
safety elevator in 1857 in a allowed messages to be sent
George Cayley, New York store. After his death, along a wire (✷ see page 129).
Otto Lillienthal his sons, Charles and Norton, The message was given to a
continued the business, and the clerk, who tapped it out in
Attempts to soar like a bird name Otis is on elevators and Morse code. At the other end,
came to nothing until escalators everywhere today. another clerk translated the
British aristocrat George Cayley
abandoned flapping wings. He
worked out what was needed

1854 Florence Nightingale disease than from bullets in 1855 While exploring the enormous waterfall 355 ft
arrives at a British the war they are fighting. Her Zambesi River in (108 m) high and nearly 1 mile
army hospital in Turkey, where nursing services will make her Africa, Scottish missionary David (1.6 km) wide. He loyally names
more soldiers are dying from famous worldwide. Livingstone discovers an it after Queen Victoria.

140

dots and dashes into words. by David Hughes, who taught Condensed 1851 – 1900
Many inventors tried to bypass music in the US. Its keyboard, milk
this with “printing telegraphs” which looked a little like a children becoming ill from
that sent written messages piano, sent out signals that were c 1856 infected milk. By 1856, he had
directly. The first successful automatically translated and patented a process of boiling
system was invented in 1855 printed at the receiving end. Gail Borden milk under vacuum, which
sterilized it without spoiling its
Each key Printing telegraPh In 1851, US flavor. He called it condensed
sent out a Hughes’ “piano” keyboard inventor milk because, knowing nothing
would have seemed quite Gail Borden about bacteria, he thought that
different natural in an age without was distressed it was the removal of water that
letter of the typewriters. Each key sent a made it safer to drink.
differently timed pulse to a to see
alphabet printer at the other end of the Aniline dye
line. Good operators could The message
send 30 words a minute. was recorded 1856
on paper tape
Chain William Perkin
and pulley
drove the Until 1856, natural plant
rotating extracts dominated the dye
mechanism industry. This changed when a
young British chemistry
Heavy weight student, William Perkin, tried
attached to the to make the drug quinine and
pulley descended produced an intense violet dye
to power the instead. Mauve was soon in
machine great demand by fashionable
Victorians. Many more dyes of
the same type, known as
aniline dyes, were to come out
of different labs as Perkin’s little
error turned into an industry.

Transatlantic
telegraph

1858

Cyrus Field, Charles Bright,
William Thomson

By the 1850s, there were
several short underwater
telegraph lines. US financier
Cyrus Field wanted to go
further and link the US and
Britain with a cable across the
Atlantic. He recruited several
brilliant engineers and
scientists, including Charles
Bright and William Thomson.
After heroic efforts, a cable was
laid in 1858 to great rejoicing
on both sides. There were
problems, including poor
insulation, which made the
cable fail within weeks, but it
proved that the idea worked.
A permanent link between the
two countries was finally
established in 1866.

1858 In Australia, and South Australia. The system 1858 The third and final government for years to keep
voting slips and will be adopted in Britain in Seminole war ends. their native lands in Florida.
ballot boxes appear as the first 1872 and in the USA after the Led by chief Oceola, the Ultimately, the tribe will be
secret ballots are held in Victoria 1884 presidential elections. Seminole tribe has fought the US forced to relocate in the West.

141

Science takeS control Although Lenoir’s engines did Machine supported
not produce much power, he by the cow itself
Evolution by sold hundreds of them in
natural selection France and Britain. The machine
was operated
1859 Lead–acid manually
battery
Charles Darwin Milking Machine
1859 This Danish milking
In 1859, Charles Darwin, the machine of 1892
son of a doctor, published a Gaston Planté demanded a very
book that shook the world. On patient animal.
the Origin of Species presented Even the latest cars rely on a
evidence that animals and very old type of battery.
plants were not created as we French physicist Gaston Planté
see them today, but evolved knew that electrodes of lead
from earlier forms and are still and lead oxide immersed in
evolving. Darwin’s theory was sulfuric acid formed a
based on what he called natural rechargeable cell. Realizing that
selection. Every member of a this would deliver more current
species is slightly different. than existing cells, he
Darwin said that the members developed it into a practical
with differences that make battery in 1859. Commercial
them more able to compete are versions were ready just in
more likely to survive and pass time for the first cars.
on these useful differences to
their offspring. (✷ See also
Arguing about apes.)

Light from Parallel beam of Prism separates Telescope
source light produced light into its to view the
enters here spectrum spectrum
in here
Spectroscope
Gas engine Oil well
1859
1859 1859
Robert Bunsen,
Étienne Lenoir Edwin Drake, George Bissell Gustav Kirchhoff

Burning an engine’s fuel People originally used Each element, when made
inside it rather than in a petroleum only for lighting hot enough, gives out light
boiler promised a smaller, more and medicinal purposes. They at wavelengths that identify it
efficient machine. But the first collected it as it oozed out of like a fingerprint identifies a
successful engine of this type a soft rock called shale. One person. The spectroscope
was not particularly small and of the best places for this was reveals these as lines that can be
certainly not very efficient. Titusville, Pennsylvania, photographed and measured. It
Invented by French engineer There in 1859, Edwin Drake
Étienne Lenoir in 1859, it persuaded landowner was invented in 1859 by
was basically a steam engine George Bissell to let him German chemist
converted to run on gas. Its try drilling for oil instead Robert
single piston sucked a mixture of just waiting for it to
of gas and air into a cylinder. emerge. Only 69 ft (21 m) SpectroScope This 19th-
A spark then lit the mixture down he struck lucky, century instrument, based on
to push the piston out again. creating the world’s first oil Bunsen’s and Kirchoff’s
well and the industry that design, used a prism to split
would make the US rich. light into its colours.

1859 A clock with a huge Parliament. The sound of Big Ben 1859 Rights such as self- take for granted, are defended by
bell known as Big will become known all around expression, privacy,
Ben is installed in St. Stephen’s the world when the BBC begins and the rights of minorities, British philosopher John Stuart
tower at London’s Houses of to broadcast it 65 years later. which future generations will Mill in his essay On Liberty. It
will influence many people.
142

1851 – 1900

Bunsen and physicist Gustav chambers. Air to feed the cloth with layers of a substance area, which helps us to find the
Kirchhoff. The two scientists flame is drawn through these containing linseed oil and other right words. It was identified
used their new instrument to chambers to preheat it. This ingredients. This slowly reacted by French surgeon and
compare lines from the Sun saves fuel and also allows the with air to form a thick, resilient anthropologist Paul Broca in
with those from elements on flame to be made hot enough coating. Linoleum is still used 1861. He studied people with
Earth, giving the first analysis to melt steel. in areas that get heavy wear. injuries that made them speak
of the Sun’s atmosphere. hesitantly, but did not stop
Linoleum Speech centre them from understanding what
Milking machine in the brain people said. He usually found
c 1861 damage to an area in the front
1860 1861 left of the brain. It was the first
Frederick Walton time that anyone had identified
L. O. Colvin Paul Broca a part of the brain with a
Linoleum, invented by particular job. Other scientists,
The first successful milking British rubber manufacturer Whenever we talk, certain notably the German neurologist
machine was patented by Frederick Walton, in about parts of our brain, Carl Wernicke, later found
US engineer L. O. Colvin in 1861, was the first successful mostly on the left side, go into areas near Broca’s that were
1860. Its big disadvantage was smooth floor covering. Walton action. One of them is Broca’s associated with other aspects of
that it applied a constant originally made it by coating speech and language.
vacuum to suck out the milk,
which could damage the cow’s ARGUING ABOUT APES
udder. It was 1889 before
Scottish engineer Alexander Although most scientists accepted
Shields introduced the modern Darwin’s theory, the public and most
type of machine, which sucks of the Church were not so happy. As
intermittently like a calf. well as contradicting religious
beliefs, the theory implied that living
Open-hearth creatures were ruled entirely by
process for physical laws. Worse still, it seemed
making steel to treat people as animals descended
from apes. Fortunately for Darwin,
1861 who was a shy man, his friend, the
naturalist Thomas Huxley, positively
enjoyed speaking up for him in the
great debate.

William Siemens, Life before Darwin In 1874, when this cartoon was published, the idea of
Pierre Martin Most people thought species were fixed, people having apes for ancestors still seemed strange.
or replaced occasionally by God. Some
The open-hearth process scientists had proposed theories of new forms of Darwinism
was once the most evolution: Jean Lamarck thought that Darwin’s theory fits well with modern genetics,
important way of making steel. animals could pass on changes that but not all scientists accept it completely. The
It was invented by German- happened to them during their lives. renowned US geologist Stephen Jay Gould says
British engineer William How Darwin got His iDeas that it fails to explain the way species have
Siemens in 1861 and perfected Darwin saw that finches on various Pacific evolved in jumps, rather than smoothly.
by French engineer Pierre islands were different. He also looked at the
Martin. It works by blowing a fossil record. The idea of natural selection
very hot flame on to a mixture came to him after he read an essay by the
of steel scrap and molten iron naturalist Thomas Malthus. Malthus said
from a blast furnace, held in a that animals compete to survive, and
shallow, brick-lined bath. This Darwin realized that competition could
melts the steel and burns out explain why animals change.
excess carbon from the iron.
The hot gases from the hearth
are used to heat brick-lined

1861 The tiny principality 46 years of rule by Sardinia. Its 1861 On March 17, after proclaimed by a parliament
of Monaco, just east only city, Monte Carlo, opens years of struggle, assembled in Turin. Rome and
of Nice in the south of France, what will rapidly become the the Kingdom of Italy, with Victor Venice, still occupied by foreign
regains its independence after world’s best known casino. Emmanuel II as its king, is troops, are not part of it.

143

Science takeS control Yale lock This of things by studying the light American, James Plimpton.
lock has been cut in they give out when hot. One of He started a US and British
Yale lock half to show how the things he studied was very craze for roller skating, which
the key moves the hot – the Sun. By comparing is still popular today.
1861 tumblers to the right its light with light given out
height so that the Underground
Linus Yale inner cylinder can by hydrogen in his railroad
be turned. laboratory, he was able
The Yale is probably the to show in 1862 that 1863
most widely used type of Solar the Sun’s atmosphere
lock. It was invented in the US hydrogen contains hydrogen. John Fowler
in 1861, and is based on a
principle known to the ancient 1862 Roller- Traffic threatened mid-
Egyptians: several pins stop the skates 19th-century cities with
lock from moving until the Anders Ångström death by choking. London
right key pushes them all into 1863 fought back in 1863 with the
the right positions. Linus Yale’s The Swedish physicist world’s first underground
father had designed a lock Anders Ångström was a Joseph Merlin, railroad. It wasn’t very far
using this “pin tumbler” idea in pioneer of spectroscopy, a way James Plimpton underground: just a deep
1848, but it was Linus Yale Jr. of discovering the composition trench dug down the centre of
who perfected the compact The first person to skate the street and roofed over so
revolving barrel and flat key Plaque without ice may have been that traffic could run above it.
that is used today. Joseph Merlin, who lived in Despite fumes from its steam
the 18th century in what is locomotives, the Metropolitan
Parkesine now Belgium. But his skates Railway, engineered by John
seem to have been more like Fowler, was a great success.
1862 in-line skates than roller skates. Electrified in 1906, the line is
Four-wheeled skates were still in use today.
invented in 1863 by an

Dish

Alexander Parkes Medallions

The first plastic was based Female Head
on the natural substance head of Jesus
cellulose. British chemist
Alexander Parkes discovered Female head
that if he treated cellulose with
nitric acid, dissolved it in Parkesine The first plastic did Seal Box
alcohol and ether, and mixed not melt like most modern plastics, Flat disc
it with pigments, it formed a but was shaped by being squeezed
dough that he could mold into a mold while soft. It was not
into small articles. He won a very strong, so was used only for
medal for his discovery in small decorative items.
1862, and in 1866 the
Parkesine Company went into
business. It failed within two
years, possibly because Parkes
was too stingy to make his
new material properly.

1863 During this year of the Emancipation Proclamation 1863 In October, soccer’s standardize the rules of the game
the Civil War, and the Gettysburg Address. governing body, the and, within eight years, organize
President Abraham Lincoln gives Both emphasize the importance Football Association, is founded the English championship, which
his two most famous speeches, of the freedom of all men. at a meeting in London. It will will be known as the FA Cup.

144

Antiseptics Mercury Pullman 1851 – 1900
vacuum pump sleeping car
1865 Clinical
1865 1865 thermometer
Ignaz Semmelweis,
Joseph Lister Hermann Sprengel George Pullman, Ben Field 1866

Hungarian doctor Ignaz Early-19th-century vacuum Before air travel, it could take Thomas Allbutt
Semmelweis upset his boss pumps moved air with days to travel between cities
by telling medical students at pistons. But, as the pressure in the US, and people usually Nineteenth-century doctors
Vienna’s maternity hospital to dropped, the pistons and had nowhere to sleep but in knew that a patient’s
disinfect their hands. Although valves began to leak and their seat on the train. Builder temperature was a good guide
he proved that this made giving contamination of the vacuum George Pullman realized that to their health, but until
birth less dangerous, he was by lubricants became a there was a market for British physician Thomas
fired in 1849. Even after 1864, problem. A German something more civilized than Allbutt invented the clinical
when Louis Pasteur’s germ glassblower, Heinrich Geissler, this. Working with his friend thermometer, there was no
theory was accepted in France, found a solution in 1855 when Ben Field, he introduced the convenient way of measuring it.
most surgeons still did not even he made use of the vacuum first railroad car with The only thermometers
put on clean clothes before an that appears above the mercury comfortable beds, the Pioneer, available could take 20 minutes
operation. In 1865, Scottish in a barometer. Then in 1865, in 1865. The beds were to give a reading, and some of
surgeon Joseph Lister sprayed Hermann Sprengel used falling arranged like bunks, with the them were 12 in (30 cm) long.
carbolic acid, a powerful germ mercury to sweep out gas lower bed doubling as a seat Allbutt reduced them to a
killer, around his operating molecules, producing a high- for daytime. Pullman was soon pocket-sized instrument, which
room and onto dressings, and vacuum pump, which led to running a big organization with was not only more convenient
things began to change. Lister’s many further inventions, its own town, Pullman, to to handle but also worked
ideas led in the end to modern, including the cathode-ray tube. house its workers. much faster. He usually put his
sterile surgery. thermometer under a patient’s
arm, not in their mouth.

Hair slides CliniCal thermometer This Pasteurization Laws of
Allbutt-type thermometer of heredity
about 1880 looks very much 1865
like those used a century 1866
later. It was designed to Louis Pasteur
hold its reading after Gregor Mendel
removal from the Pasteurization gets its name
patient. from the great French Aman and a woman, both
Barrette scientist Louis Pasteur, who with brown eyes, could
was the first person to show have a one-in-four chance of
Flat discs that invisible organisms can producing a child with blue
spoil food and cause disease. eyes. Basic genetic facts like
He invented the process in this go back to the work of an
1865. It makes liquids hot Austrian monk, Gregor
enough to kill any harmful Mendel. By crossing different
organisms without destroying strains of peas, he discovered
their food value. For example, that organisms inherit their
milk can be pasteurized by characteristics in a way
being heated to 145°F (63°C) governed by mathematical
for 30 minutes, then quickly laws. He published his results
chilled for storage. Although in 1866, but it was only in
pasteurization increases food 1900 that Dutch botanist
safety, some people prefer Hugo De Vries realized their
untreated dairy products importance to modern biology.
from disease-free cows.

1865 On Friday, April 14, performance of Our American 1865 Writing as Lewis Based on stories written for a
just days after the Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Carroll, British child called Alice Liddell, and
end of the Civil War, President Washington, D.C. is shot. He illustrated by John Tenniel, the
Abraham Lincoln, attending a mathematician Charles Dodgson book is an immediate success.
dies the following morning. publishes Alice in Wonderland.
145

leclanché cell Liquid-filled THE BUG HUNTERS
glass cells just like this one
remained in use well into the Others befOre Pasteur had thought that invasion
20th century. They were ideal for by invisible organisms might be responsible for
powering electric door bells. decay and disease. But they had not been able to
prove it, so most people believed that decaying
Germs matter created life by “spontaneous generation.”
Even after Pasteur, many people found it hard to
1867 believe in the invisible killers. Those who did,
such as Scottish surgeon Joseph Lister and German
Leclanché cell Louis Pasteur doctor Robert Koch, made great progress.

1866 In the mid 19th century, Germs before Pasteur
some natural processes In 100 bc, a Roman writer declared that disease was caused by
Georges Leclanché were still a mystery. What an invisible invasion. Much later, in 1684, Francesco Redi wrote
turned grape juice into that spontaneous generation could not occur because “only life
Modern batteries started as wine, for example? Why produces life.” In the 19th century, Italian scientist Agostino
the Leclanché cell, did it sometimes go sour? Bassi showed that a disease of silkworms was caused by
invented in 1866 by French French chemist Louis infection with invisible fungus spores.
engineer Georges Leclanché. Pasteur proved that invisible
The cell’s negative terminal was organisms were responsible. Pasteur’s leGacy
a glass jar containing a zinc rod He also proved that diseases German doctor Robert Koch showed that bacteria could be
in a solution of ammonium were transmitted by bred in the laboratory, and established many of the techniques
chloride. A smaller pot inside microorganisms, rather than of bacteriology. By 1883, he had isolated the organisms that
the jar contained manganese polluted air. The Academy of cause cholera and tuberculosis. Scientists now know that not
dioxide and a carbon rod, Sciences officially accepted all bacteria are bad: we
forming the positive terminal. his conclusions in 1864, and depend on many
It eventually developed Pasteur was given his own microorganisms inside
into today’s smaller, laboratory at France’s École our bodies to keep them
dryer battery. Supérieure in 1867. His working properly.
“germ” theory then began
to be more widely accepted. Compound
By establishing the reality microscopes
of germs, Pasteur
revolutionized medicine
and the food industry.
(✷ See also The
bug hunters.)

Glass
beaker

Silkworm Culture
cocoons slide
Germs This selection of
equipment from Pasteur’s laboratory Pipette
shows both his tools for studying
germs and one of his major Bronze ink stand
concerns – the health of silkworms. and ink wells

1866 The world’s first ski- made the sport possible by 1867 Russia sells Alaska to invasion. Many Americans think
jumping competition inventing ski bindings. He will the US, prompted by the price of $7.2 million is too
is held in Telemark, Norway. It is later ski the 200 miles (322 km) a fall in demand for furs from the high, but Alaska will prove
won by Sondre Nordheim, who from Telemark to Oslo. region and the threat of British to be rich in oil.

146

1851 – 1900

Dynamite yellow region of the Sun’s Chewing gum Early competition produced some unlikely advertising,
spectrum. He thought it came such as this suggestion that gum chewing was the height of fashion.
1867 from sodium, but British
astronomer Norman Lockyer Air brake Chewing gum
Alfred Nobel declared that it indicated an
unknown element. He named 1869 1869
The dangers of nitroglycerine it with the help of chemist
were brought home to Edward Frankland. George Westinghouse Thomas Adams
Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel
in 1864 when his Möbius strip To stop a long train, the The main ingredient of
nitroglycerine factory blew up, brakes must be applied to chewing gum is chicle, a
killing his younger brother. 1868 all the wheels, but how? US rubbery substance from a
Determined to tame this inventor George Westinghouse Central American tree. Many
otherwise useful explosive, he August Möbius found the answer in 1869 – use 19th-century inventors tried to
mixed it with an absorbent air. Unlike a mechanical linkage, use it like rubber. One of them
material, kieselguhr, converting German air can be taken from carriage was US photographer Thomas
the dangerous liquid into a mathematician to carriage easily. Westinghouse’s Adams, who bought some from
safer solid, which he patented August Möbius died system also had an important a Mexican. He failed to make
in 1867 as dynamite. Ironically, without revealing his safety feature. The brakes were rubber, but he noticed that the
it made him rich enough to set best-known discovery, the held in the off position by air Mexican liked chewing chicle.
up the foundation that awards Möbius strip. It was found pressure and applied by In 1869, he boiled up some
the Nobel peace prize. among his papers after his releasing it, so any leaks with flavorings and offered it to
death in 1868. It is a simple automatically put them on. a store. Customers loved it.
Paper boat strip of paper given a half-twist
and then glued to form a loop,
1867 and it has weird properties. For
example, it has only one edge
Elisha Waters, and it is impossible to make
George Waters each side of it a different color
because it has only one side.
In 1867, US carton maker When cut down the center, it
Elisha Waters and his son opens out into a single loop
George started making rowing twice the size with a double
boats out of paper. They glued half-twist. Two Mobiüs strips
paper over a wooden form, let zipped together form what is
it dry, then varnished it. The called a Klein bottle, which has
keel and other main members no edges and only one surface.
were made of wood. The light,
stiff boats were ideal for sports: Margarine
during 1876, US crews rowing
Waters boats won no fewer 1869
than 12 major races. The
Waters construction technique Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés
has since been reinvented in
the modern fiberglass boat. Many people today prefer
margarine to butter, but
Helium it’s hard to believe that anybody
in the Sun preferred the first margarine, a
mixture of beef fat, skimmed
1868 milk, cow’s udder, and pig’s
stomach. When French
Pierre Janssen, inventor Hippolyte Mège-
Norman Lockyer Mouriés concocted it in 1869,
Napoleon III awarded him a
The gas helium gets its name prize for producing the first
from helios, the Greek for alternative to butter. It soon
“Sun,” because that’s where it improved, and by 1885 it
was first detected. In 1868, was enough of a threat to the
French astronomer Pierre dairy industry for the British
Janssen saw a dark line in the government to stop the use of
its original name, “Butterine”.

1867 The British North and what will be Quebec and 1869 In Victoria, Australian more than 56 lb (71 kg). They
America Act creates Ontario. Its government is based John Deason and get £9,534 ($36,540) for the
the Dominion of Canada from on British practice and its Richard Oates dig up Australia’s find, which becomes known as
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, sovereign is the British monarch. largest gold nugget, weighing the “Welcome Stranger” nugget.

147

Science takeS control Periodic table his dynamo in 1870. It used cuffs. Unfortunately, it was
an electromagnet powered by extremely flammable and
Synthetic 1869 the generator itself. Several caused many accidents, so
alizarin other types of dynomos it is rarely used today.
Dmitry Mendeleyev already existed, but Gramme’s
1869 version went further. It had a Penny-farthing
In 1866, Russian chemist highly efficient design and a bicycle
Heinrich Caro, Dmitry Mendeleyev listed the new way of connecting its
William Perkin elements by atomic weight. He generating coils. Gramme’s 1870
found that the list showed a dynamo gave a strong, steady
In 1869, Heinrich Caro in pattern, with similar elements output, making it a much James Starley,
Germany and William Perkin appearing at regular intervals, better generator. William Hillman
in Britain demonstrated the or periods. He published his
power of chemistry by wiping periodic table in 1869, and in Celluloid Bizarre though it looks,
out an entire industry. They 1871 produced a version with with its huge front wheel
both found a way to make gaps where there were breaks 1870 and tiny rear wheel, the
alizarin, the active component in the pattern. He said that the penny-farthing was a serious
of a natural red dye. It was one gaps represented undiscovered John Hyatt invention by leading bicycle
of the few red dyes available at elements, but most chemists pioneers. British engineers
the time, and thousands of did not see the importance of Celluloid was the first truly James Starley and William
people earned their living this until at least 20 years later. successful plastic. Like its Hillman created it in 1870 as
producing the natural substance unsuccessful predecessor a lighter alternative to existing
– until the chemists got to Dynamo Parkesine (✷ see page 144), it velocipedes. The big front
work. Caro beat Perkin to the was based on cellulose. Its US wheel did the same job as
patent by one day, but Perkin 1870 inventor, John Hyatt, created modern gears, enabling the
still made the dye in Britain, the first clear, flexible material, rider to power the bike
using a cheaper method. Zénobe Gramme making possible both popular efficiently. It worked: on one
photography and motion long trip, a group of penny-
Celluloid Basically colourless, Electric generators were not pictures. Patented in 1870, farthing riders averaged
celluloid could be made in a very effective until Belgian celluloid was also used for 46 miles (74 km) a day.
variety of forms, from fake ivory engineer Zénobe Gramme built everything from dolls to shirt
to mock tortoiseshell.

“Ivory” “Tortoiseshell”
box haircombs

“Ivory”
evening
handbag

“Mother of Marble-effect “Ivory”
pearl” handbag hand
mirror
cigarette case Designed by French diplomat 1870 German
Ferdinand de Lesseps, it provides archaeologist be just the stuff of ancient Greek
“Ivory” a short cut from the Indian Heinrich Schliemann discovers legends. He finds battlements,
hairpin box Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. the city of Troy, long thought to walls, and gold treasure on a
mound called Hissarlik in Turkey.
1869 On November 17,
after 15 years’ hard
negotiating and harder digging,
the Suez canal is opened.

148