Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-11-21
NEW, INVENTIONS THAT ARE
= g OLD.
Many Modern discoveries Known to tho
AnCientS.

Many Modern discoveries Known to tho
Ancients.
We pride ourselves on living in an
age of discovery and invention. It has
no predecessor 80 distinguished. Our
ancestors were unfortunate in being
born too soon or in departing this life
too early. They knew but little and
found out less, and their tenure of exist
ence was simply an extended lease of
stupidity, stagnation, and big crack
between them and ourselves.
We live in corruscation of sciences
and discoveries, and we simply act the
dude with the century as the article
with nose and name does with q
necktie. We are not SO far ahead of
the old folks as we think, and our claim
to superior wisdom has yet to be estab-
lished. The discoveries and inventions
of the nineteen century have most of
them been ante-dated in the very morn
ing of human history. Time has simply
fructifed the germinal idea planted in
the first gray matter encased in q
human skull. Discovery is not o
creation, but process, and there is,
perhaps, no known appliance in modern
civilization that had not its original in
ception in some aboriginal historic age.
The manufacture of liquid glass was
an art known to the ancients, and the
science of making steel produced the
Damascus blade, with its keen and sinu-
Gus elasticity, centuries before the cut
lers of Sheffield could make a respect
able pair of scissors.
The science OF optics was known in
the days of Alexander, for that distin-
guished butcher with royal name had
q copy of the Iliad inclosed in nut
she'll that could not have been written
without the aid of microscopic glass.
Layard found in the ruins of Nineveh
what Sir David Brewster pronounced to
be @magnifying glass" and,a so-called
king 1000 years before the Christian
era observed the stars through slid
ing tube" = :
Twenty centuries before the birth of
Watt a mechanic of Alexandria de-
soribed machines whose motive, power
was steam, and even anticipated our
modern turbine wheel by machine he
named "Neolpile." When Fulton
launched the Clermont he was simply
repeating what was done in the harbor
of Barcelona as far back as 1913. We
have no parental claim on electric dis
covery, for in the twelfth century the
scientific priests of Etruria drew light
ming from the clouds, ante-dating
Franklin, and by means of an iron rod
on the shores of the Adriatic Sea the
signal service electrician of ancient days
released the electric spark by means of
his spear and the fishermen prepared
for the coming storm.
The ancient Gauls used reaping
machine Hobbs gave his name to q
lock found in the tombs of Egypt.
Natural gas conveyed in bamboo tubes
was utilized in China centuries ago, and
ono of tho old Menselion authors writes
of boxes WHICH repeated the sound ,.oi
voices of men long since dead, an ap.
proclamation to the photograph of Edi-
son.
In medical skill the oriental ply
sictan of India practiced vaccination
long before the doctrine was announced
by DR.. Jenner.
Anmsthetics were known in the days
of Homer, and the Chinese 1000 years
ago had preparation of hemp, known
as "una 20" to deaden pain.
The stamping of coins goes back to
the morning of history. and the Romans
are said to besacquainted with the: use
Of movable types: The discoveries Of
which We pride ourselves to be the
special fayoritess OF proprietofs are, in. q
general se4sei but al enlarged and i'm
proved edition Of ideas hardly SO iuye-
ni1eas ourselves: !; sfg !. < (.
No age in the history of man is. an iso-
lation. The history sof development is
continous and not detached by sections
Discovery is ! the. result of asprocess,
and when: made is but stepping stone
to another yet unreached. !; Every in:
vention has It's history outside. the hi
,ography of q. man who claims j the
patent, and: equally. 10 is the historic
fact: that much, :of- our bossted slight
and mechanical wisdom. s.isr but The,
match put once again to the old candle
our ancestors made, but time blew out.
A Little, Island Colony --.,.