Chapter I: Front Matter

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Photographed at night while sending a message across the Atlantic.

The terrific snapping of the electric discharge is heard by one standing near the station, but no light is seen. The strange light given out from the network of wires is invisible to the eye, but is caught by the photographic plate.

THE STORY OF GREAT INVENTIONS

BY ELMER ELLSWORTH BURNS

INSTRUCTOR IN PHYSICS IN THE
JOSEPH MEDILL HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMX

Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS

Published November, 1910.
_Printed in the United States of America_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE AGE OF ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes the first great inventor.--The battle of
Syracuse.--Archimedes' principle.--Inventions of the ancient
Greeks

CHAPTER II

THE AGE OF GALILEO

Galileo and the battle for truth.--The pendulum
clock.--Galileo's experiment with falling shot.--The
telescope.--Galileo's struggle.--Torricelli and the
barometer.--Otto von Guericke and the air-pump.--Robert Boyle
and the pressure of air and steam.--Pascal and the hydraulic
press.--Newton.--Gravitation.--Colors in sunlight

CHAPTER III

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

James Watt and the steam-engine.--The first steam-engine with a
piston.--Newcomen's engine.--Watt's engine.--Horse-power of an
engine.--The Leyden jar.--Conductors and insulators.--Two kinds
of electric charge.--Franklin's kite experiment.--The
lightning-rod.--Galvani and the electric current.--Volta and the
electric battery

CHAPTER IV

FARADAY AND THE FIRST DYNAMO

Count Rumford.--Count Rumford's experiment with the
cannon.--Davy.--Faraday's electrical discoveries.--Oersted and
electromagnetism.--Ampère.--Arago.--Faraday's first electric
motor.--An electric current produced by a magnet.--Detecting and
measuring an electric current.--An electric current produced by
the magnetic field of another current.--Faraday's dynamo.--A
wonderful law of nature

CHAPTER V

GREAT INVENTIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Electric batteries.--The dry battery.--The storage battery.--The
dynamo.--Siemens' dynamo.--The drum armature.--Edison's
compound-wound dynamo.--Electric power.--The first electric
railway.--Electric lighting.--The telegraph.--Duplex
telegraphy.--The telephone.--The phonograph.--Gas-engines.--The
steam locomotive.--How a locomotive works.--The turbine

CHAPTER VI

THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY OUTLOOK

Air-ships.--The aeroplane.--How the Wright aeroplane is kept
afloat.--Submarines.--Some spinning tops that are useful.--The
monorail-car.--Liquid air and the greatest cold.--The electric
furnace and the greatest heat.--The wireless telegraph.--The
wireless telephone.--Wonders of the alternating current.--X-rays
and radium