Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

Chapter X Mechanical Inventions and Inventors

Tools and civilization
  The beginnings of tools
  Dexterity of hand chiefly relied on
  Opposition to manufacturing machines
  Gradual process of invention
  The human race the true inventor
  Obscure origin of many inventions
  Inventions born before their time
  “Nothing new under the sun”
  The power of steam known to the ancients
  Passage from Roger Bacon
  Old inventions revived
    Printing
    Atmospheric locomotion
    The balloon
    The reaping machine
    Tunnels
    Gunpowder
    Ancient firearms
    The steam gun
    The Congreve rocket
    Coal-gas
    Hydropathy
    Anaesthetic agents
    The Daguerreotype anticipated
    The electric telegraph not new
  Forgotten inventors
  Disputed inventions
  Simultaneous inventions
  Inventions made step by step
  James Watt’s difficulties with his workmen
  Improvements in modern machine-tools
  Their perfection
  The engines of “The Warrior”