The Romance of Modern Invention — Archibald Williams
The Romance of Modern Invention, by Archibald Williams—A Project Gutenberg eBook. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The Romance of Modern Invention Author : Archibald Williams Release date : October 24, 2012 [eBook #41160] Most recently updated: October 23, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41160 Credits : Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF It works a pump capable of delivering 1,400 gallons per minute. [ See pp. 210, 211 . ] THE ROMANCE OF MODERN INVENTION CONTAINING INTERESTING DESCRIPTIONS IN NON-TECHNICAL LANGUAGE OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, LIQUID AIR, MODERN ARTILLERY, SUBMARINES, DIRIGIBLE TORPEDOES, SOLAR MOTORS, AIRSHIPS, &c. &c. BY ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS AUTHOR OF “THE ROMANCE OF MODERN MECHANISM” “THE ROMANCE OF MODERN ENGINEERING” &c. &c. WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET 1907 Preface The object of this book is to set before young people in a bright and interesting way, and without the use of technical language, accounts of some of the latest phases of modern invention; and also to introduce them to recent discoveries of which the full development is yet to be witnessed. The author gratefully acknowledges the help given him as regards both literary matter and illustrations by:—Mr. Cuthbert Hall (the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Co.); Mr. William Sugg; Mr. Hans Knudsen; Mr. F. C. B. Cole; Mr. E. J. Ryves; Mr. Anton Pollak; the Telautograph Co.; the Parsons Steam Turbine Co.; the Monotype Co.; the Biograph Co.; the Locomobile Co.; the Speedwell Motor Co. September 1902. Contents Page Wireless Telegraphy 7 High-speed Telegraphy 28 The Telephone—wireless Telephony 39 The Phonograph—the Rotographophone—The Telephonograph 54 The Telautograph 72 Modern Artillery—Rifles—Machine guns—Heavy Ordnance—Exploxives—In the Gun Factory 83 Dirigible Torpedoes 126 Submarine Boats 143 Animated Pictures 166 The Great Paris Telescope 183 Photographing the Invisible—Photography in the Dark 194 Solar Motors 207 Liquid Air 213 Horseless Carriages 224 High-Speed Railways 258 Sea Expresses 272 Mechanical Flight 284 Type-setting by Machinery 306 Photography in Colours 317 Lighting 330 List of Illustrations The Sun Motor Used on the Pasadena Ostrich-Farm Frontispiece A Corner of Mr. Marconi’s Cabin 10 Mr. Marconi’s Travelling Station 16 The Poldhu Tower 22 Guglielmo Marconi 26 High-Speed Telegraphy: a Receiving Instrument 28 High-Speed Telegraphy. Specimen of Punched Tape 34 A Unique Group of Phonographs 56 The Telautograph: Receiver and Transmitter 72 The Telautograph, Showing the Principal Parts 75 The Telautograph, Specimen of the Work Done 76 The Simms Armour-Clad Motor Car 114 The “Holland” Submarine Boat 144 An Interior View of the “Holland” 150 The “Holland” Submarine in the Last Stages of Submersion 160 The Great Paris Telescope 188 The Liquid Air Company’s Factory at Pimlico 214 M. Serpollet on the “Easter Egg” 224 A Motor Car Driven by Liquid Air 242 Diagram of Liquid Air Motor Car 246 H.M.S. Torpedo Destroyer “Viper” 278 Airship of M. Santos-Dumont Rounding the Eiffel Tower 288 M. Santos-Dumont’s Airship Returning to Longchamps 300 The Linotype Machine 308 The Monotype Casting Machine 312 WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY One day in 1845 a man named Tawell, dressed as a Quaker, stepped into a train at Slough Station on the Great Western Railway, and travelled to London. When he arrived in London the innocent-looking Quaker was arrested, much to his amazement and dismay, on the charge of having committed a foul murder in the neighbourhood of Slough. The news of the murder and a description of the murderer had been telegraphed from that place to Paddington, where a detective met the train and shadowed the miscreant until a convenient opportunity for arresting him occurred. Tawell was tried, condemned, and hung, and the public for the first time generally realised the power for good dormant in the as yet little developed electric telegraph. Thirteen years later two vessels met in mid-Atlantic laden with cables which they joined and paid out in opposite directions, till Ireland and Newfoundland were reached. The first electric message passed on August 7th of that year from the New World to the Old. The telegraph had now become a world-power. The third epoch-making event in its history is of recent date. On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi, a young Italian, famous all over the world when but twenty-two years old, suddenly sprang into yet greater fame. At Hospital Point, Newfoundland, he heard by means of a kite, a long wire, a delicate tube full of tiny particles of metal, and a telephone ear-piece, signals transmitted from far-off Cornwall by his colleagues. No wires connected Poldhu, the Cornish station, and Hospital Point. The three short dot signals, which in the Morse code signify the letter S, had been borne from place to place by the limitless, mysterious ether, that strange substance of which we now hear so much, of which wise men declare we know so little. Marconi’s great achievement, which was of immense importance, naturally astonished the world. Of course, there were not wanting those who discredited the report. Others, on the contrary, were seized with panic and showed their readiness to believe that the Atlantic had been spanned aërially, by selling off their shares in cable companies. To use the language of the money-market, there was a temporary “slump” in cable shares. The world again woke up—this time to the fact that experiments of which it had heard faintly had at last cu