DIAMONDS.--Composition--Diamond-cutting--Diamond-mining-- Famous Diamonds--Cecil J. Rhodes and the Kimberley Mines 135
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
In praise of Cycling--Number of Cycles in Use--Medical Opinions--Pioneers in the Invention--James Starley--Cycling Tours 192
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
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
Pioneers of the Iron and Steel Industry--Sir Henry Bessemer--Sir William Siemens--Werner von Siemens--The Krupps of Essen.
Francis 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!
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!