The Romance of Industry and Invention

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[Illustration: The Rush for the Gold-fields.]

THE ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY AND INVENTION

Selected by

ROBERT COCHRANE

Editor of 'Great Thinkers and Workers,' 'Beneficent and Useful Lives,' 'Adventure and Adventurers,' 'Recent Travel and Adventure,' 'Good and Great Women,' 'Heroic Lives,' &c.

Philadelphia J. B. Lippincott Company 1897

Edinburgh: Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.

PREFACE.

Our national industries lie at the root of national progress. The first Napoleon taunted us with being a nation of shopkeepers; that, however, is now less true than that we are a nation of manufacturers--coal, iron, and steel, and our textile industries, taken along with our enormous carrying-trade, forming the backbone of the wealth of the country.

A romantic interest belongs to the rise and progress of most of our industries. Very often this lies in the career of the inventor, who struggled towards the perfection and recognition of his invention against heavy difficulties and discouragements; or it may lie in the interesting processes of manufacture. Every fresh labourer in the field adds some link to the chain of progress, and brings it nearer perfection. Some of the small beginnings have increased in a marvellous way. Such are chronicled under Bessemer and Siemens, who have vastly increased the possibilities of the steel industry; in the sections devoted to Krupp, of Essen; Sir W.G. Armstrong, of the Elswick Works, where 18,000 men are now employed alone in the arsenal; Maxim, of Maxim Gun fame; the rise and progress of the cycle industry; that of the gold and diamond mining industry; and the carrying-trade of the world.

Many of the chapters in this book have been selected from a wealth of such material contributed from time to time to the pages of Chambers's Journal, but additions and fresh material have been added where necessary.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE The Rush for the Gold-fields Frontispiece Nasmyth's Steam-hammer 19 Bessemer Converting Vessel 28 Bessemer Process 30 Krupp's 15.6 Breech-loading Gun (breech open) 47 Josiah Wedgwood 52 Wedgwood at Work 56 Portland Vase 62 The Worcester Porcelain Works 64 Chinese Porcelain Vase 71 Wool-sorters at Work 82 Cotton Plant 101 The Hand-cradle Method of extracting Gold 103 Welcome Nugget 106 Hydraulic Gold-mining 115 Prospecting for Gold 125 Square-cut Brilliant, Round-cut Brilliant, Rose-cut Diamond 136 Kimberley Diamond-mine 139 Some of the Principal Diamonds of the World 145 The Great Harry 153 Gatling Gun on Field Carriage 163 Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark 164 Lord Armstrong 166 Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun 178 One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England' 184 The Majestic 186 Section of the Goubet Submarine Boat 190 The Dandy-horse 204 The Great Eastern and the Persia 232 The Campania 237 Clipper Sailing-ship of 1850-60 241 La France 246 The Great Eastern paying out the Atlantic Cable 281 Edison with his Phonograph 291