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.
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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.
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CONTENTS.
1
Page
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND STEEL.
Pioneers of the Iron and Steel Industry--Sir Henry Bessemer--Sir William Siemens--Werner von Siemens--The Krupps of Essen
9
CHAPTER II.
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN.
Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood Ware--Worcester Porcelain 51
CHAPTER III.
THE SEWING MACHINE.
Thomas Saint--Thimonnier--Hunt--Elias Howe--Wilson--Morey--Singer 72
CHAPTER IV.
WOOL AND COTTON.
Wool.--What is Wool?--Chemical Composition--Fibre--Antiquity of Shepherd Life--Varieties of Sheep--Introduction into Aus-
tralia--Spanish Merino--Wool Wealth of Australia--Imports and Exports of Wool and Woollen Produce--Woollen Manufacture
81
Cotton.--Cotton Plant in the East--Mandeville's Fables about Cotton--Cotton in Persia, Arabia, and Egypt--Columbus finds
Cotton-yarn and Thread in 1492--In Africa--Manufacture of Cloth in England--The American Cotton Plant 91
CHAPTER V.
GOLD AND DIAMONDS.
Gold.--How widely distributed--Alluvial Gold-mining--Vein Gold-mining--Nuggets--Treatment of Ore and Gold in the [Pg
8]Transvaal--Story of South African Gold-fields--Gold-production of the World--Johannesburg the Golden City--Coolgardie
Gold-fields--Bayley's discovery of Gold there 102
Diamonds.--Composition--Diamond-cutting--Diamond-mining--Famous Diamonds--Cecil J. Rhodes and the Kimberley Mines
135
CHAPTER VI.
BIG GUNS, SMALL-ARMS, AND AMMUNITION.
Woolwich Arsenal--Enfield Small-arms Factory--Lord Armstrong and the Elswick Works--Testing Guns at Shoeburyness--Hiram
S. Maxim and the Maxim Machine Gun--The Colt Automatic Gun--Ironclads--Submarine Boats 152
CHAPTER VII.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CYCLE.
In praise of Cycling--Number of Cycles in Use--Medical Opinions--Pioneers in the Invention--James Starley--Cycling Tours
192
CHAPTER VIII.
STEAMERS AND SAILING-SHIPS.
Early Shipping--Mediterranean Trade--Rise of the P. and O. and other Lines--Transatlantic Lines--India and the East--Early Steamships--First Steamer to cross the Atlantic--Rise of Atlantic Shipping Lines--The Great Eastern and the New Cunarders Campania and Lucania compared--Sailing-ships 205
CHAPTER IX.
POST-OFFICE--TELEGRAPH--TELEPHONE--PHONOGRAPH.
Rowland Hill and Penny Postage--A Visit to the Post-office--The Post-office on Wheels--Early Telegraphs--Wheatstone and
Morse--The State and the Telegraphs--Atlantic Cables--Telephones--Edison and the Phonograph 247
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ROMANCE OF INDUSTRY AND
INVENTION.
2
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND STEEL.
Pioneers of the Iron and Steel Industry--Sir Henry Bessemer--Sir William Siemens--Werner von Siemens--The Krupps of Essen.
rancis Horner, writing early in this century, said that 'Iron is not only the soul of every other manufacture, but the mainspring perhaps of civilised society.' Cobden has said that 'our wealth, commerce, and manufactures grew out of the skilled labour of men working in metals.' According to Carlyle, the epic of the future is not to be Arms and the Man, but Tools and the Man. We all know that iron was mined and smelted in considerable quantities in this island as far back as the time of the Romans; and we cherish a vague notion that iron must have been mined and smelted here ever since on a progressively increasing scale. We are so accustomed to think and speak of ourselves as first among all nations, at the smelting-furnace, in the smithy, and amid the Titanic labours of the mechanical workshop, that we open large eyes when we are told what a recent conquest all this superiority is!
[Pg 10]There was, indeed, some centuries later than the Roman occupation, a period coming down to quite modern times, during which English iron-mines were left almost unworked. In Edward III.'s reign, the pots, spits, and frying-pans of the royal kitchen were classed among his majesty's jewels. For the planners of the Armada the greater abundance and excellence of Spanish iron compared with English was an important element in their calculations of success. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the home market looked to Spain and Germany for its supply both of iron and steel. After that, Sweden came prominently forward; and from her, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, no less than four-fifths of the iron used in this country was imported!
The reason of this marvellous neglect of what has since proved one of our main sources of wealth lay in the enormous consumption of timber which the old smelting processes entailed. The charcoal used in producing a single ton of pig-iron represented four loads of wood, and that required for a ton of bar-iron represented seven loads. Of course, the neighbourhood of a forest was an essential condition to the establishment of ironworks; but wherever such an establishment was effected, the forest disappeared with portentous rapidity. At Lamberhurst, on the borders of Kent and Sussex, with so trifling a produce as five tons per week, the annual consumption of wood was two hundred thousand cords. The timber wealth of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex--which counties were then the centres of our iron industry--seemed menaced with speedy annihilation. In the destruction of these great