Their name is legion in almost all branches of the arts and sciences. "There's nothing new under the sun," is a trite English proverb; a wittier one is a French equivalent, "It is only the new that has been forgotten." Every one who has made but an elementary study of the history of civilization during the past century must know that the men who have first learned the secrets of Nature, whose discovery has most obviously added to the assets of the race, have rarely made their discoveries practically usable; yet, in the majority of instances, these again have had their so-called inventions foreshadowed in the writings and experiments of long-forgotten ancestors. A full and detailed history of the anticipation of momentous modern inventions would form a fascinating work; but needless to point out, it is a subject which could not be attempted within the limits of a magazine paper. Here we can only deal with a strictly limited number, a selection from the most epoch-making of our own age, which, let us hope, will make up in the quality of its curious information for what it lacks in quantity.

It is generally supposed that the first machine-gun, as we now term the class of weapons which literally pump lead on the enemy, was the "organ" gun invented by Mr. Gatling, and used in the American Civil War of 1863. It was followed by the mitrailleuse, on which the French army pinned their faith at the outbreak of hostilities with Germany in 1870. The failure of the mitrailleuse in that war, however, brought all machine-guns into bad odor and fully ten years elapsed before these inventions next attracted serious notice. The new stage in their evolution

was then ushered in by the appearance of the Gardiner and Nordenfelt guns, quickly followed by the invention of the deadly semi-automatic contrivance emanating from the brain of Mr. Hiram Maxim, and bearing his name. At the present day the Maxim gun, in the latest refinements of its beautiful mechanism, may be taken as the bestknown and most ubiquitous of all machine-guns, but the general idea and purpose of the same were anticipated at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Mr James Puckle, an original thinker and author of several curious works, who issued somewhere about the year 1720 an engraved broadside, entitled:

A DEFENCE

Defending King George, your Country and Lawes

Is defending yourselves and the Protestant cause.

Invented by Mr. James Puckle, For Bridges, Breaches, Lines, and Passes,

Ships, Boats, Houses, and other Places.

The engraving shows a large revolver on a tripod, the breech of which is turned by hand, and contains six chambers, the contents of which are discharged in turn through a single long barrel. The tripod possesses an elevating arrangement, and the weapon can be swivelled in any desired direction. The part containing the chambers is removable at pleasure, and when one "sett❞ had been discharged, a loaded one was substituted. One "sett" is depicted as intended for a "ship shooting round bullets against Christians," a second as for one "shooting square bullets against Turks," but the reason for this curious distinction is lacking. The machine

was also devised to discharge "Grenado shells." Like his successors in the same field of invention, Puckle appears to have tried to float his gun as a company; hence the following allusion that is made to it, as forming the basis of one of the many bubble projects of 1720 in a satirical print dealing with the wild-cat schemes of the South Sea mania of that year:

A rare invention to destroy the crowds Of Fools at home instead of foes abroad

Fear not, my Friends, this Terrible Ma. chine

They're only wounded that have shares therein.

After this date we hear nothing more of "Puckle's machine," and the idea itself lay dormant for another one hundred and fifty years.

About the year 1860 the idea that sound-producing vibrations could be transmitted through a wire by means of electricity began to be recognized by several men of science. Shortly afterwards a German electrician, named Reis, invented an apparatus which could produce at a distant station the pitch of a musical sound by means of a discontinuous current along a telegraph wire; but it was not until 1876 that Professor Graham Bell discovered an articulate telephone depending upon the principle of the undulating current, and by which conversation itself could be reproduced at a distant station. Simultaneously with the publication of Bell's discovery, now known all over the world as the "Bell Telephone," a Chinese professor is said to have demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that the "far-speaking tube," as he termed it, was already known to his own countrymen A.D. 982, and was the invention of an inhabitant of Peking. Be this as it may, Raphael's pen-andink sketch entitled: "Hercules as the God of Eloquence," certainly, though

unwittingly, indicates the same thing. In this superb drawing, probably executed about the year 1515, the principal figure is Hercules, who is represented as the God of Eloquence, and persuading people by its power rather than by force. Grouped around him are numerous figures in various attitudes of the closest attention. From the lips of Hercules proceed a number of golden strings or wires, each terminating in the right or left ear of the listeners. As we have said, this sketch furnishes us with an unconscious but none the less most remarkable anticipation of one of the greatest inventions of the age.

Professor Graham Bell's invaluable discovery paved the way to the invention of the Phonograph by Edison in the following year. This again, however, has been extraordinarily foreshadowed by the original work of Cyrano de Bergerac, entitled "The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun," written near the middle of the seventeenth century. In it the author gives a graphic account of his imaginary adventures in the sun and moon, and tells us how that on leaving he is presented with a book-"but such a strange and wonderful book that had neither leaves nor letters, in fine, it was a book or box made wholly for the ears and not for the eyes; within somewhat of metal, almost like to our clocks, full of I know not what little springs and imperceptible engines. So that when anybody has a mind to read in it, he winds up that machine, with a great many little strings; then he turns his hand to the chapter which he desires to read, and straight as from the mouth of a man, or a musical instrument, proceed all the distinct and different sounds which the lunar grandees make use of for expressing their thoughts instead of language." A few years later, namely in 1648, an English writer, Bishop Wil

kins, in his "Mathematical Magick," anticipates the very same thing by saying: "Walchius thinks it possible entirely to preserve the voice, or any words spoken, in a hollow trunk or pipe; and that this pipe being rightly opened, the words will come out of it in the same order as wherein they were spoken."

Barely fifteen years can have elapsed since the automatic coin-in-the-slot machine first appeared in public places to supply customers with cigarettes, matches, chocolates, sweetmeats, stationery, etc.; while in its latest phase this contrivance-in conjunction with a lighted street-lamp-has been made available for the automatic purveyance of hot water and hot drinks. Surely it may be thought, this extremely utilitarian invention can only have been due to the ingenuity of the present generation; and it is, therefore, startling to learn that the automatic machine is one of the oldest projects in everyday use, since it was known a century before Christ, being the invention of that great mathematician, Hero of Alexandria, who flourished B.C. 117-81. Hero invented what he termed a "sacrificial vessel which flows only when money is introduced," and a full description of this apparatus is contained in his famous treatise on pneumatics, reissued by Thevenot, royal librarian to Louis XIV of France, in the year 1692. "If into certain sacrificial vessels a coin of five drachms be thrown, water or wine shall flow out and surround them," so runs the postulate; and the illustration accompanying the letterpress shows an ornate vase, with a slot at the top for the entry of the coin, and a duct on one side for the release of the liquid. The explanation of the mechanism inside the vase is very simple: the vessel contains another holding the wine, and near to the latter is placed a vertical rod about which turns a well-balanced beam. When the coin is dropped

through the slot, it falls on one end of this horizontal beam, which, being depressed, opens a valve suspended from a chain at the other end, and the wine commences to flow out through a pipe. When the beam has been depressed to a certain angle, the coin falls off, and the valve or lid, being counterweighted, again descends and closes the outlet so that the discharge ceases. This is exactly the principle upon which our modern automatic machine acts, bar such later refinements as the return of unsuitable coins. Did Hero, we wonder, place his machines along the streets of Alexandria, which was the most luxurious and stately city of antiquity? Were the small boys of Alexandria hauled up before the representatives of the Ptolemies for tampering with the machines by inserting counterfeit discs of the required weight and shape, and sentenced to receive six strokes with the rod of eel-skins? But five drachms, equal to four shillings of our money, is a stiff price for a drink; the patrician alone could have patronized Hero's vase. Again, it will be remembered that only a year or so ago an idea was mooted for the automatic supply of travelling literature by means of coinin-the-slot machines, to be placed in railway carriages. This has also been anticipated by Richard Carlile, the notorious free-thinking publisher. In or about the year 1834 his shopmen were arrested so frequently that he sold his books by clockwork, so that the buyer was unable to identify the seller. Unfortunately no illustration of this machine appears to be extant, and it has been described as follows: "On a dial was written the title of every publication for sale; the purchaser entered and turned the handle of the dial to the publication he wanted; on depositing the money the book dropped down before him."

The ninth of November, 1896, saw the expiration of the legal restrictions con

fining the use of road locomotives, or motor-cars, within a very narrow compass, and compelling them to be preceded by a man with a red flag. Many persons are fully aware, of course, that the idea of self-propelling road vehicles was then no new one, but probably few among our readers have any conception of the pitch of excellence they once attained. For, thanks to the avarice of toll-keepers, the hostilities of road-trustees and the outside influence brought to bear upon members of Parliament, the doom of the motor-cars which flourished during the early portion of this century was sealed just when their future seemed brightest, and the idea was not revived until sixty years had elapsed. From 1821 to 1831 Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and Sir Charles Dance experimented successfully with steam barouches and phaetons; but at the end of the year 1831 an Act was passed prohibiting their use in all but London and the home counties. Walter Hancock, a Stratford engineer, had for many years turned his talents in the same direction, and when Gurney and Dance were compelled to retire from the field, he came forward with some steam omnibuses of his own manufacture. Hancock's vehicles were both elegant and comfortable and it is no exaggeration to state that they finally reached a degree of perfection hardly exceeded by the motor-cars of to-day. The bulk of the machinery was always fixed behind, and by a very complete suspension on springs and a system of vibrating stays, concussion and unsteadiness in running were reduced to a minimum. Several steam carriage companies were soon formed, notably the London and Brighton and the London and Paddington, and arrangements were entered into between Hancock and their managers for the former to supply the rolling stock. From the drawings of these coaches, named the "Era," the "Infant," the "Autopsy," the "Erin," etc.,

it is very evident that they were firstclass specimens of the coach-builder's art, being handsomely got up, and, what is more striking, having their mechanism almost entirely hidden from view. Between the years 1833 and 1836 the London steam coaches ran regularly between the more important suburbs and the City, and during the last five months of 1836 12,761 passengers were conveyed 4,200 miles by them.

The "Era" coach frequently attained to a speed of twenty-one miles an hour. In the crowded London thoroughfares there occurred only one collision of any importance, and during the three years the machines were a regular feature of the streets the horses became quite used to them, and not a single person, passenger or otherwise, suffered the slightest injury. In short, Hancock practically demonstrated that steam travelling at the rate of speed of from ten to fourteen miles an hour with passengers, and for goods and merchandise at from five to seven miles an hour, could be effected safely, and at a cost much below the horse conveyances of the period. But although Hancock had proved himself to be by far the most successful exponent of steam locomotion on common roads, the fates were against him. By the immunity of his vehicles from any serious accident he had won the confidence of the public, when the mismanagement of the companies with which he was connected caused the failure of the whole system. By the year 1840 all the former were bankrupt, and simultaneously with this disaster the Turnpike Acts which had vanquished Gurney and Dance were extended to include the whole kingdom; and the latter was the last nail in the coffin of the early motor-car. Hancock was compelled to turn his energies elsewhere, and gradually the once promising story of these vehicles sank into oblivion.