WILBUR WRIGHT
Who with his younger brother, Orville Wright, invented the firstpractical aeroplane. Wilbur Wright's death of typhoid fever in thesummer of 1912 was an irreparable loss to aviation
THE BOY'S BOOK
OF NEW INVENTIONS
BY
HARRY E. MAULE
MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
Garden City New York
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1912
Copyright, 1912, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian
To My Mother
In Appreciation of Her Broad Interest
In All the Activities of the World
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The thanks of the publishers and author are due agreat many individuals and publications for aid insecuring photographs and data used in the preparationof this volume.
Although space prevents giving the names of all,opportunity is here taken to express to each theheartiest appreciation of their generous help andvaluable suggestions.
More than to all of these are my thanks due mywife, Edna O'Dell Maule, for her constant aid andcoöperation.
PREFACE
IN THE preparation of this book the authorhas tried to give an interesting account of theinvention and workings of a few of themachines and mechanical processes that are makingthe history of our time more wonderful andmore dramatic than that of any other age sincethe world began. For heroic devotion to sciencein the face of danger and the scorn of their fellowmen,there is no class who have made a betterrecord than inventors. Most inventions, too,are far more than scientific calculation, and it isthe human story of the various factors in thisgreat age of invention that is here set forth forboy readers.
New discoveries, or new applications of forcesknown to exist, illustrating some broad principleof science, have been the chief concern of theauthor in choosing the subjects to be taken upin the various chapters, so that it has been necessaryto limit the scope of the book, except in oneor two instances, to inventions that have comeinto general use within the last ten years. Invi"The Boy's Book of Inventions," "The SecondBoy's Book of Inventions," and "Stories of Invention,"Mr. Baker and Mr. Doubleday havetold the stories of many of the greatest inventionsup 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 importantdevelopments in some of these machines aretreated briefly in the final chapters, wh