Who invented the wheel, and when and where did he invent it? This is one of the unanswered questions of history. The war-chariot suddenly appears on the stage, without any preliminary announcement, and without any knowledge on our part that even the wheel on which it moved had been invented. It is true that the records of prehistoric man show us that in fashioning pottery he used a disc that he revolved on a spindle and applied to the surface of the urn or vase; and it is also true that a revolving disc is a kind of wheel. But a disc revolving on a stationary spindle is in its intent and use a very different implement from a wheel placed on a chariot, and turned by the forward movement of the chariot itself, for the important purpose of reducing its resistance to being drawn along the ground. It is true also that invention was needed to produce the revolving disc, the forerunner of all the polishing and turning machines on the earth today. But the wheel was a different invention, probably a later one, and certainly a more important one. There are things sometimes seen in nature that look a little like revolving discs; for instance, swirls of dust or water. In fact, almost anything put in rotation looks like one, if the rotation is rapid enough; for instance, the sling that a primeval slinger revolved around his head. But what do we know of in nature that looks like a wheel, or that is used for a similar purpose? Nothing. This being the case, the mind may lose itself in speculation as to what could have led to the conception of such an appliance in the mind of the original inventor of the wheel. The suggestion may be hazarded that the invention was preceded by an accidental recognition of the fact that it was easier to drag something along the ground, if it rested on round logs, than if it did not so rest; and by noting also that the logs were passed over and left behind continually. From this point to the mental conception of a roller that would not be left behind, but would be secured to the thing dragged by a round shaft on which it revolved, there was probably a single mental jump. Someone saw such a contrivance with his mental eye. It looked dim and unreal--but he saw it. To make the picture clear, and then to develop the thing pictured, constructiveness was used. In other words, conception and development accomplished their successive but cooperating tasks. The invention was complete when a wheel was actually produced. To realize the importance of the wheel, we have but to ask ourselves (or our neighbors) how history could possibly have been even approximately what it has been if the wheel had not been invented.