Russell Doubleday

“ It is the purpose of this book to give, in a measure, the adventurous side of invention. The trials and dangers of the builders of the submarine; the triumphant thrill of the inventor who hears for the first time the vibration of the long-distance message through the air; the daring and tension of the engineer who drives a locomotive at one hundred miles an hour.
The wonder of the mechanic is lost in the marvel of the machine; the doer is overshadowed by the greatness of his achievement. ”

“ The sun shines with a cold gleam, and the surf has an angry snarl to it as it surges up the sandy slopes and then recedes, dragging the pebbles after it with a rattling sound. The outer line of sand-bars, which in summer breaks the blue sea into sunny ripples and flashing whitecaps, then churns the water into fury and grips with a mighty hold the keel of any vessel that is unlucky enough to be driven on them. When the keen winter winds whip through the beach grasses on the dunes and throw spiteful handfuls of cutting sand and spray ”

“ At this time, when the telephone is as necessary as pen and ink, it is hard to realise a time when men could not speak to one another from a distance, yet a little more than a quarter of a century ago the genius who invented it first conceived the great idea.
Sometimes an inventor is a prophet: he sees in advance how his idea, perfected and in universal use, will change things, establish new manners and customs, new laws and new methods. Alexander Graham Bell was one of these prophetic inventors—the telephone was his invention, not his discovery. ”

“ All this occupied much time, for the hands of the sailors were numb with cold, the ropes stiff with ice, while the wild and angry wind snatched at the tackle and tore at the clinging figures.
In a trice the willing arms on shore hauled out the buoy by means of an endless line reaching out to the wreck and back to shore. Then with a joy that comes only to those who are saving a fellow-creature from death, the life-savers saw a man climb into the stout canvas breeches of the hanging buoy, and felt the tug on the whip-line that told them that the rescue had begun. ”

“ Imagine a room eighty by one hundred feet, low and criss-crossed by massive timber braces, resting on the black, slimy mud of the river bottom; electric lights shine dimly, showing the half-naked workmen toiling with tremendous energy by reason of the extra quantity of oxygen in the compressed air. The workmen dug the earth and mud from under the iron-shod edges of the caisson, and the weight of the masonry being continually added to above sunk the great box lower and lower. ”

“ Slowly and with infinite labour this first submarine navigator worked his way through the water in the first successful under-water boat, the crank-handle of the propelling screw in front of him, the helm at his side, and the crank-handle of the screw that raised or lowered the craft just above and in front. No other man had made a like voyage; he had little experience to guide him, and he lacked the confidence that a well-tried device assures; he was alone in a tiny vessel with but half an hour's supply of air, a great box of gunpowder over him, and a hostile fleet all around. ”

“ The designer is often the constructor as well, and he is always a man of great practical experience. He has in his time stepped out on a foot-wide girder over a rushing stream, directing his men, and he has floundered in the mud of a river bottom in a caisson far below the surface of the stream, while the compressed air kept the ooze from flowing in and drowning him and his workmen. ”

“ From the car windows hardly any part of the slender structure can be seen, and the train seems to be held over the foaming torrent by some invisible support, yet hundreds of trains have passed over it, the winds of many storms have torn at its members, heat and cold have tried by expansion and contraction to rend it apart, yet the bridge is as strong as ever. ”

“ It was during the American Revolution that a man went below the surface of the waters of New York Harbour in a submarine boat just big enough to hold him, and in the darkness and gloom of the under-water world propelled his turtle-like craft toward the British ships anchored in mid-stream. On the outside shell of the craft rested a magazine with a heavy charge of gunpowder which the submarine navigator intended to screw fast to the bottom of a fifty-gun British man-of-war, and which was to be exploded by a time-fuse after he had got well out of harm's way. ”

“ It never starts out on any run without the good wishes of the entire force, and it seldom puffs out of the train-shed and over the maze of rails in the yard without receiving the homage of those who happen to be within sight. It is impossible to tell of all the things that enter into the running of a fast train, but as it flashes across States, intersects cities, thunders past humble stations, and whistles imperiously at crossings, it attracts the attention of all. ”

“ All along the coast, from Maine to Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, and the Pacific, these men patrol the beach as a policeman walks his beat. When the winds blow hardest and sleet adds cutting force to the gale, then the surfmen, whose business it is to save life regardless of their own comfort or safety, are most alert. ”

“ The operator of the Lanston machine sits at a keyboard, much like a typewriter in appearance, containing every character in common use (225 in all) , and at a speed limited only by his dexterity he plays on the keys exactly as a typewriter works his machine. This is the sum total of human effort expended. The machine does all the rest of the work; makes the calculations and delivers the product in clean, shining new type, each piece perfect, each in its place, each line of exactly the right length, and each space between the words mathematically equal—absolutely "justified." ”

“ From time to time the earth was mixed with water and sucked to the surface by a great pump. With hundreds of tons of masonry above, and the watery mud of the river on all sides far below the keels of the vessels that passed to and fro all about, the men worked under a pressure that was two or three times as great as the fifteen pounds to the square inch that every one is accustomed to above ground. If the pressure relaxed for a moment the lives of the men would be snuffed out instantly—drowned by the inrushing waters ”

“ He kept his eyes on the steam-gage most of the time, and the minute the quivering finger began to drop, showing reduced pressure, he opened the door to the glowing furnace and fed the fire. The steam-cylinders act on the boiler a good deal as a lung-tester acts on a human being; the cylinders draw out the steam from the boiler, requiring a roaring fire to make the vapour rapidly enough and keep up the pressure.
Though the engineer seemed to be taking it easily enough with his hand resting lightly on the reversing-lever, his body at rest, the fireman was kept on the jump. ”

“ The success of his explosive gasoline engine, forerunner of all succeeding gasoline motor-car engines, was the incentive to inventors to perfect the steam-engine for use on self-propelled vehicles.
Unlike a locomotive, the automobile must be light, must be able to carry power or fuel enough to drive it a long distance, and yet must be almost automatic in its workings. All of these things the modern motor car accomplishes, but the struggle to make the machinery more efficient still continues. ”

“ The steel piano wires by which the keel and apparatus are hung to the balloon skin are like spider-webs in lightness and delicacy, and the motor that has the strength of eighteen horses is hardly bigger than a barrel. ”

“ Many an imaginative boy with a mechanical turn of mind has dreamed and planned wonderful machines that would carry him triumphantly over the tree-tops, and when the tug of the kite-string has been felt has wished that it would pull him up in the air and carry him soaring among the clouds. Santos-Dumont was just such a boy, and he spent much time in setting miniature balloons afloat, and in launching tiny air-ships actuated by twisted rubber bands. ”

“ To most travellers time is more valuable than money, and so everything about a train is planned to facilitate rapid travelling. Almost every part of a locomotive is controlled from the cab, which prevents unnecessary stopping to correct defects; from his seat the engineer can let the condensed water out of the cylinders; he can start a jet of steam in the stack and create a draft through the fire-box; by the pressure of a lever he is able to pour sand on a slippery track, or by the manipulation of another lever a snow-scraper is let down from the cowcatcher. ”

“ The chief engineer in charge of the erection of a bridge far from civilisation is a little king, for it is necessary for him to have the power of an absolute monarch over his army of workmen, which is often composed of many different races.
With so many thousand tons of steel and stone dumped on the ground at the bridge site, with a small force of expert workmen and a greater number of unskilled labourers, in spite of bad weather, floods, or fearful heat, the constructing engineer is expected to finish the work within the specified time, and yet it must withstand the most exacting tests. ”

“ And so it was the reading of the discovery of Hertz that started the boy on the train of thought and the series of experiments that ended with practical, everyday telegraphy without the use of wires. To begin with, it is necessary to give some idea of the medium that carries the wireless messages.
It is known that all matter, even the most compact and solid of substances, is permeated by what is called ether, and that the vibrations that make light, heat, and colour are carried by this mysterious substance as water carries the wave motions on its surface. ”

“ A telephone system may be likened, in a measure, to a complicated railroad line: the trunk wires to subscribers are like the tracks of the railroad, and the central station may be compared to the switch tower, while the central operators are like the switchmen. It is the central girls' business to see that connections are made quickly and correctly, that no lines are tied up unnecessarily, that messages are properly charged to the right persons, that in case of a break in a line the messages are switched round the trouble, and above all that there shall be no delay. ”

“ The passengers are his special care, and it is his business to see that their getting on and off is in accordance with their tickets. He is responsible for their comfort also, and must be an animated information bureau, loaded with facts about every conceivable thing connected with travel. The brakemen are his assistants, and stay with him to the end of the division; the engineer and fireman, with their engine, are cut off at the end of their division also.
The fastest train of a road is the pride of all its employees; all the trainmen aspire to a place on the flyer. ”

“ The steam-engines in motor-cars are not very different from the engines used to run locomotives, factory machinery, or street-rollers, but they are much lighter and, of course, smaller—very much smaller in proportion to the power they produce. It will be seen how compact and efficient these little steam plants are when a ten-horse-power engine, boiler, water-tank, and gasoline reservoir holding enough to drive the machine one hundred miles, are stored in a carriage with a wheel-base of less than seven feet and a width of five feet, and still leave ample room for four passengers. ”

“ A moving-picture machine is really a rapid-fire repeating camera provided with a lens allowing of a very quick exposure. Internal mechanism, operated by a hand-crank or electric motor, moves the unexposed film into position behind the lens and also opens and closes the shutter at just the proper moment. The same machinery feeds down a fresh section of the ribbon-like film into position and coils the exposed portion in a dark box, just as the film of a kodak is rolled off one spool and, after exposure, is wound up on another. ”

“ Before the engineer can run his train, the way must be cleared for him, and when the train starts out it becomes part of a vast system. Each part of this intricate system is affected by every other part, so each train must run according to schedule or disarrange the entire plan.
Each train has its right-of-way over certain other trains, and the fastest train has the right-of-way over all others. If, for any reason, the fastest train is late, all others that might be in the way must wait till the flyer has passed. ”

“ The practised ear of a locomotive engineer often enables him to discover defects in the working of his powerful machine, and he is generally able, with the aid of various devices always on hand, to prevent an increase of trouble without leaving the cab.
As explained above, a fast run means the use of a great deal of steam and therefore water; indeed, the higher the speed the greater consumption of water. Often the schedules do not allow time enough to stop for water, and the consumption is so great that it is impossible to carry enough to keep the engine going to the end of the run. ”

“ For a time all went well and he felt the exhilaration that no earth-travelling can ever give, as he experienced somewhat of the freedom that the birds must know when they soar through the air unfettered. ”

“ In an ice-plant operated on the can system a great many blocks are freezing at once—in fact, the whole floor of a great room is honeycombed with trap-doors, a door for each can. The freezing is done in rotation, so that one group of cans is being emptied of their blocks of ice while others are still in process of congealing, while still others are being filled with fresh water. When the freezing is complete, jets of steam or quick immersion of the can in hot water releases the cake and the can is ready for another charge. ”