Machines are man’s creation, and yet in a sense the man of to-day is a machine product; for modern civilization owes its material and in large measure its esthetic development to machinery. The story of machinery, from primitive man’s first attempts to augment his physical powers with mechanical aids down to the present era of gigantic, steel-muscled machinery and marvelously intricate mechanisms, is the story of human progress. It is this story that we have endeavored to tell in the following pages, but the subject is too large to be covered in a single volume or even a dozen volumes. Under the circumstances we have been obliged to confine ourselves to a mere outline, selecting certain avenues of progress more marked than others and presenting brief sketch maps of them. We have aimed in this way to give a bird’s-eye view of the whole story of human progress in things material. The book has not been written for the mechanical engineer, but for the layman who would learn of the mechanical contrivances that contribute to his material welfare; hence technical terms have been avoided, as far as possible, and where unavoidable have been explained and defined. A. RUSSELL BOND CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. TOOL-MAKING ANIMALS 9 II. THE ANATOMY OF A MACHINE 20 III. MACHINES FOR MAKING MACHINES 42 IV. COUNTING SECONDS 57 V. PUTTING RIVERS TO WORK 75 VI. LIQUID LEVERS AND GEARS 94 VII. AIR _vs._ WATER 109 VIII. AIR SPRINGS AND CUSHIONS 126 IX. POWER FROM HEAT 139 X. BURNING FUEL IN THE ENGINE CYLINDER 155 XI. WHEN COAL AND OIL ARE EXHAUSTED 171 XII. INVASION OF THE SEA 182 XIII. SLIDING, ROLLING, WALKING, AND CREEPING 203 XIV. INVASION OF THE SKY 219 XV. HELPING THE FARMER 239 XVI. MACHINING THE EARTH 251 XVII. FROM FIBER TO FABRIC 268 XVIII. THE MAKING OF PAPER 289 XIX. TYPESETTING AND PRINTING MACHINERY 300 XX. CAST IRON, WROUGHT IRON, AND STEEL 314 XXI. ANIMATED MACHINERY 326 XXII. HEAT VACUUMS 345 XXIII. ENGINES OF DESTRUCTION 359 XXIV. SUMMARY OF MECHANICAL PROGRESS 376 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE DROP FORGE--FORGING A STEEL PLATE _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE RAISING WATER WITH A CHAIN OF POTS--A PRIMITIVE PUMP USED IN EGYPT 32