The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1891-08-20
discoveries and inventions.

MUS. We are disposed to think OF
our ancestors as very slow-going
people who possessed little of the
wisdom of this nineteenth century
and therefore conclude they are to
be pitied for their ignorance. Ac-
cording to recent writer in a lead
ing daily paper, our pity is misplaced.
He says
The real truth seems to be that
the ancients knew about every thing
We know, only the knowledge was
not generally diffused. The learned
man 1900 or 5000 years ago was so
far superior to the majority that he
was regarded as wizard, and pru-
IDENTIFY kept his learning to himself.
In our schools at the present, we use
Euclid's Elements of Geometry,
written by Euclid 1900 years ago.
Euclid also wrote on music and op-
tics, antedating much which we
think we discovered. The science
of optics must have been pretty far
advanced in his day, because we
know that Alexander the Great had
a copy of the Had inclosed in nut
shell, and it is quite certain that it
could not have been written without
the aid of a microscope. Layard
found in the ruins of Ninevah what
Sir David Brewster pronounced to
be a "magnifying-glass,' and nearly
1000 years ago the Egyptians and
Assyrians observed the stars through
a sliding tube" which we have rea-
son to believe was telescope. We
make some very fine razors at the
present day, but we cannot make
any finer steel than that contained
in the Damascus swords and knives
which the ancients used several
thousand years ago. At the same
time the people of Tyre were such
experts in dyeing that Tyrian pur-
pie remains unexcelled to this day.
The Egyptians were also wonderful
dyers, and could produce colors SO
durable that they may be called i'm
perishable. The ancients were Won
derful glass workers, and discovered
method of making it malleable,
which we have not been able to do.
They could spin glass into garments,
dye it in every shade of the rainbow,
and etch it with marvellous skill.
Twenty centuries before the birth OF
Watt, Hero Of Alexandria described
machines whose motive power was
steam. He also invented double
force-pump, used as a fre-englne,
and anticipated the modern turbine
wheel by a machine he named
"Neolpile. +" Electicity derives its
name from the Greek word for am
Der, electron, because Thales, about
600 B. c., discovered that amber,
when rubbed, attracts light and dry
bodies, and in the twelfth century
the scientific priests of EtruSia drew
lightning from the clouds with iron
rods. All the mechanical powers,
the screw, lever, pulley, inclined
plane, wedge, wheel and axle, were
known to the ancients and used in
everyday life. They were expert
builders, as existing relics testify.
The ancient Gauls used reaping
machine. Hobbs gave his name to
a lock found in a tomb of Egypt.
Natural gas conveyed in bamboo
tubes was utilized in China centuries
ago, and one of the Mongolian au-
thors writes of boxes which repeated
the sound of voices of men long
since dead-an approximation to the
phonograph of Edison. In the med
ical skill the Oriental physicians of
India practiced vaccination 1000
years ago. Anasthetics were known
in the days of Homer, and the
Chinese, 1900 years ago, had a
preparation of hemp known as "una
vo" to deaden pain-something sim
liar to the modern cocaine. Coins
were stamped with engraved dies so
far back that we have lost the rec
ord, and movable types are said to
have been known to the Romans. In
all that pertains to sculpture and
painting the ancients knew so much
that their superiority has never been
questioned, and their work remains
as unsurpassed models. We may
say with truth that much of our
light and mechanical wisdom is but
the match put once again to the old
candle of our ancestors. The old
times were days of war and oppres-
sion, and the inventor hid his inven-
ton for fear of being robbed The
vast majority had no money to buy
a laboring device. even if they had
brains to use it. It was not a prac-
teal age, and the knowledge, as well
as wealth, was confined to the few.
Nowadays an invention of value
spreads over this world like a flash
of gunpowder, and in the light of
modern common sense the invention
of the common friction match has
done more for the good of mankind