INVENTION, THE MASTER-KEY
TO PROGRESS

INVENTION

THE MASTER-KEY
TO PROGRESS

BY
REAR-ADMIRAL BRADLEY A. FISKE, LL.D.
UNITED STATES NAVY

Former Aid for Operations of the Fleet, President U. S. Naval Institute,
Gold Medallist of U. S. Naval Institute, the Franklin Institute
and the Aero Club of America.

Author of "Electricity in Theory and Practice," "War Time in Manila,"
"The Navy as a Fighting Machine," "From Midshipman to
Rear-Admiral," "The Art of Fighting," etc.

Inventor of the Gun Director System, the Naval Telescope Sight, the Stadimeter,
the Turret Range Finder, the Horizometer,
the Torpedoplane, etc., etc., etc.

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue

Copyright, 1921,
By E. P. Dutton & Company

All Rights Reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA

v

PREFACE

To show that inventors have accomplished morethan most persons realize, not only in bringingforth new mechanisms, but in doing creative work inmany walks of life, is, in part, the object of this book.To suggest what they may do, if properly encouraged,is its main intention. For, since it is to inventorsmainly that we owe all that civilization is, it is toinventors mainly that we must look for all thatcivilization can be made to be.

The mind of man cannot even conceive what wondersof beneficence inventors may accomplish: for theresources of invention are infinite.

vi

The author is indebted to Ginn & Company, Boston,for the use of illustrations from "General History forColleges and High Schools," by Philip Van NessMyers, and "Ancient Times, A History of the EarlyWorld," by James Henry Breasted, and to George H.Doran Company, New York, for the use of a mapfrom "A History of Sea Power," by William OliverStevens and Allan Westcott.

vii

CONTENTS