Chapter I: Preface

In the preparation of this book the author has tried to give an interesting account of the invention and workings of a few of the machines and mechanical processes that are making the history of our time more wonderful and more dramatic than that of any other age since the world began. For heroic devotion to science in the face of danger and the scorn of their fellowmen, there is no class who have made a better record than inventors. Most inventions, too, are far more than scientific calculation, and it is the human story of the various factors in this great age of invention that is here set forth for boy readers.

New discoveries, or new applications of forces known to exist, illustrating some broad principle of science, have been the chief concern of the author in choosing the subjects to be taken up in the various chapters, so that it has been necessary to limit the scope of the book, except in one or two instances, to inventions that have come into general use within the last ten years. In "The Boy's Book of Inventions," "The Second Boy's Book of Inventions," and "Stories of Invention," Mr. Baker and Mr. Doubleday have told the stories of many of the greatest inventions up to 1904, including those of the gasoline motor, the wireless telegraph, the dirigible balloon, photography, the phonograph, submarine boats, etc. Consequently for the most part the important developments in some of these machines are treated briefly in the final chapters, while the earlier chapters are devoted to new inventions, which, if made before 1904, did not receive general notice until after that time.

Although the subjects treated in the earlier chapters are here spoken of as new inventions, all of them are not recent in the strictest sense of the word, for men had been working on the central idea of some of them for many years before they actually were developed to a stage where they could be patented and sent out into the world.

H. E. M.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AEROPLANE 3
How a Scientist Who Liked Boys and a Boy Who
Liked Science Followed the Fascinating Story of
the Invention of the Aeroplane.

II. AEROPLANE DEVELOPMENT 49
How the Inventors Carried On the Art of Aviation
Until It Became the Greatest of All Sports
and Then a Great Industry.

III. AEROPLANES TO-DAY 91
Our Boy Friend and the Scientist Look Over
Modern Aeroplanes and Find Great Improvements
Over Those of a Few Years Ago. A
Model Aeroplane.

IV. ARTIFICIAL LIGHTNING MADE AND HARNESSED
TO MAN'S USE 129
Our Friends Investigate Nikola Tesla's Invention
for the Wireless Transmission of Power, by
Which He Hopes to Encircle the Earth With
Limitless Electrical Power, Make Ocean and Air
Travel Absolutely Safe, and Revolutionize Land
Traffic.

V. THE MOTION PICTURE MACHINE 164
Machines That Make Sixteen Tiny Pictures Per
Second and Show Them at the Same Rate Magnified
Several Thousand Times. Motion Pictures
in School. Our Boy Friend Sees the
Whole Process of Making a Motion Picture Play.

VI. ADVENTURES WITH MOTION PICTURES 195
Perilous and Exciting Times in Obtaining Motion
Pictures. How the Machine Came to Be Invented
and the Newest Developments in Cinematography.

VII. STEEL BOILED LIKE WATER AND CUT LIKE
PAPER 224
Our Boy Friend Sees How Science Has Turned
the Greatest Known Heats to the Everyday Use
of Mankind.

VIII. THE TESLA TURBINE 263
Dr. Nikola Tesla Tells of His New Steam Turbine
Engine, a Model of Which, the Size of a
Derby Hat, Develops More Than 110 Horse
Power.

IX. THE ROMANCE OF CONCRETE 288
The One Piece House of Thomas A. Edison and
Other Uses of the Newest and Yet the Oldest
Building Material of Civilized Peoples, Seen By
the Boy and His Scientific Friend.

X. THE LATEST AUTOMOBILE ENGINE 320
Our Boy Friend and the Scientist Look Over the
Field of Gasoline Engines and See Some Big
Improvements Over Those of a Few Years Ago.

XI. THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH UP TO THE MINUTE 332
The Scientist Talks of Amateur Wireless Operators.
The Great Development of Wireless That
Has Enabled It to Save Three Thousand Lives.
Long Distance Work of the Modern Instruments.

XII. MORE MARVELS OF SCIENCE 352
Color Photography, the Tungsten Electric Lamp,
the Pulmotor, and Other New Inventions Investigated
by Our Boy Friend.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Wilbur Wright _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

The First Wright Aeroplane 4

The First Wright Glider 5

The Second Wright Glider 5

A Long Glide 5

Motor of the Wright Biplane 12

A 16-Cylinder, 100-Horsepower Antoinette Motor 12

An 8-Cylinder, 50-Horsepower Curtiss Motor 12

Standard Gnome Aeroplane Motor 13

A 14-Cylinder, 100-Horsepower Gnome Motor 13

Testing a Gnome Motor on a Gun Carriage 13

Model Aeroplane Fliers 16

A Modern College Man's Glider 17

Otto Lilienthal Making a Flight in His Glider 17

The Chanute Type Glider 32

The Herring Glider 32

An Early Helicopter 32

Prof. Samuel Pierpont Langley 33

Sir Hiram Maxim 33

Octave Chanute 33

Langley's Steam Model 36

The Maxim Aeroplane 36

Medals Won by the Wright Brothers 37

The First Santos-Dumont Aeroplane 44

The Cross-Channel Type Blériot Monoplane 44

A Voisin Biplane 44

Glenn Curtiss About to Make a Flight 45

Henri Farman Starting Aloft with Two Passengers 45

Louis Blériot 45

Glenn Curtiss Making a Flight in the _June Bug_ 52

Orville Wright Making a Flight at Fort Myer 52

The First Letter Ever Written Aboard an Aeroplane
in Flight 53

The Goddess of Liberty 60

First Actual War Expedition of an Aeroplane 61

War Manoeuvres 61

Harry N. Atwood Arriving at Chicago 64

Finish of Atwood's St. Louis to New York Flight 64

Starting with the Aeroplane Mail 65

Chavez on His Fatal Flight Across the Alps 80

The Late Calbraith P. Rodgers, Trans-Continental
Flier 81

The World's Longest Glide 96

The End of a Glide 96

Landing on a Warship 97

Boarding a Battleship 97

The Curtiss Flying Boat 112

The Flying Boat Starting 112

Glenn Curtiss Allowing His Hydro-Aeroplane to
Float on the Water After Alighting 112

Hydro-Aeroplanes at Monte Carlo 113

The Wright Biplane 116

Standard Curtiss Biplane 117

Curtiss Steering Gear 117

Standard Farman Biplane 120

Farman with Enclosed Nose 120

A Modern Blériot 121

A Standard Blériot 121

Passenger-Carrying Blériot 121

The Antoinette Monoplane 124

The Nieuport Monoplane 125

Like a Bolt of Lightning 136

Dr. Nikola Tesla 137

Doctor Tesla's First Power Plant 137

Electricity Enough to Kill an Army 164

A Battle Scene in the Studio 165

The Men Who Gave the World Motion Pictures 172

The Motion-Picture Projector 173

A Section of Motion-Picture Film 176

Making a Motion-Picture Play in the Studio 177

A Motion-Picture Studio 192

A Realistic Film of Washington Crossing the Delaware 193

The Corsican Brothers--A Famous Trick Film 200

The Guillotine 201

A Romance of the Ice Fields 216

The Spanish Cavalier 216

All Ready for a Thermit Weld 217

Thermit in Eruption 224

Dr. Hans Goldschmidt 225

Thermit Weld on Sternframe of a Steamship 240

A Large Shaft Welded by the Thermit Process 240

Cutting Up the Old Battleship _Maine_ 241

Cutting Away the Decks 241

An Oxy-Acetylene Gas Torch Weld 260

Tiny 200-Horsepower Turbine 261

The Tesla Turbine Pump 261

The Marvellous Tesla Turbine 280

Thomas A. Edison and His Concrete Furniture 281

Model of Edison Poured Concrete House 281

What One Set of Boys Did with Concrete 288

Massive Concrete Work 289

A Level Stretch of Catskill Aqueduct 289

Huge Concrete Moulds at Panama 304

Concrete Locks on the Panama Canal 305

The World-Wide Use of Concrete 308

The Catskill Aqueduct 309

The Aqueduct Deep Under Ground 309

The Silent Knight Motor 316

A Portable Army Wireless Outfit 317

The Wireless in the Navy 317

The Navy Wireless School 344

An Amateur Wireless Outfit 345

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

A Simple Model Aeroplane 120

Diagram of the Earth 147

A Motion-picture Camera 177

A Motion-picture Printing Machine 184

Diagram of the Tesla Turbine 275

The Curtiss Turbine 285

Marconi Transmitter Layout 342

Marconi Detector Layout 344

The Pulmotor 372

THE BOY'S BOOK OF NEW INVENTIONS