type+of+invention

come

A ◑ n sperme m.

B excl ( reassuringly) come (now)! allons! ; come, come! (in warning, reproach) allons, allons!

C vtr ( prét came ; pp come)

1 ( travel) faire ; to come 100 km to see faire 100 km pour voir ;

2 ○ GB ( act) don't come the innocent with me ne fais pas l'innocent ; to come the heavy-handed father jouer les pères autoritaires.

D vi ( prét came ; pp come)

1 ( arrive) [person, day, success, fame] venir ; [bus, letter, news, results, rains, winter, war] arriver ; the letter came on Monday la lettre est arrivée lundi ; your turn will come ton tour arrivera ; to come after sb ( chase) poursuivre qn ; to come by ( take) prendre [bus, taxi, plane] ; I came on foot/by bike je suis venu à pied/à bicyclette ; to come down descendre [stairs, street] ; to come up monter [stairs, street] ; to come down from Scotland/from Alaska venir d'Écosse/de l'Alaska ; to come from venir de [airport, hospital] ; to come into entrer dans [house, room] ; the train came into the station le train est entré en gare ; to come past [car, person] passer ; to come through [person] passer par [town centre, tunnel] ; [water, object] traverser [window etc] ; to come to venir à [school, telephone] ; to come to the door venir ouvrir ; to come to the surface remonter à la surface ; to come to the company as entrer dans l'entreprise comme [apprentice, consultant] ; to come to do venir faire ; to come running arriver en courant ; to come limping down the street descendre la rue en boitant ; to come crashing to the ground [structure] s'écraser au sol ; to come streaming through the window [light] entrer à flots par la fenêtre ; lunch is ready, come and get it! le déjeuner est prêt, à table! ; when the time comes lorsque le moment sera venu ; the time has come to do le moment est venu de faire ; I'm coming! j'arrive! ; come to mummy viens voir maman ; to come and go aller et venir ; you can come and go as you please tu es libre de tes mouvements ; fashions come and go les modes vont et viennent ; come next week/year la semaine/l'année prochaine ; come Christmas/Summer à Noël/en été ; there may come a time ou day when you regret it tu pourrais le regretter un jour ; for some time to come encore quelque temps ; there's still the meal/speech to come il y a encore le repas/discours ;

2 ( approach) s'approcher ; to come and see/help sb venir voir/aider qn ; to come to sb for venir demander [qch] à qn [money, advice] ; I could see it coming ( of accident) je le voyais venir ; don't come any closer ne vous approchez pas (plus) ; he came to the job with preconceived ideas quand il a commencé ce travail il avait des idées préconçues ; to come close ou near to doing faillir faire ;

3 (call, visit) [dustman, postman] passer ; [cleaner] venir ; I've come to do je viens faire ; I've come about je viens au sujet de ; I've come for je viens chercher ; my brother is coming for me at 10 am mon frère passe me prendre à 10 heures ; they're coming for the weekend ils viennent pour le week-end ; I've got six people coming to dinner j'ai six personnes à dîner ; my sister is coming to stay with us ma sœur vient passer quelques jours chez nous ;

4 ( attend) venir ; I can't ou won't be able to come je ne pourrai pas venir ; come as you are venez comme vous êtes ; to come to venir à [meeting, party, wedding] ; to come with sb venir avec qn, accompagner qn ; do you want to come fishing? est-ce que tu veux venir à la pêche? ;

5 ( reach) to come to, to come up/down to [water] venir jusqu'à ; [dress, carpet, curtain] arriver à ; I've just come to the chapter where… j'en suis juste au chapitre où… ;

6 ( happen) how did you come to do? comment as-tu fait pour faire? ; that's what comes of doing/not doing voilà ce qui arrive quand on fait/ne fait pas ; how come? comment ça se fait? ; how come you lost? comment ça se fait que tu aies perdu? ; come what may advienne que pourra ; to take things as they come prendre les choses comme elles viennent ; when you come to think of it à la réflexion ; come to think of it, you're right en fait, tu as raison ;

7 ( begin) to come to believe/hate/understand finir par croire/détester/comprendre ;

8 ( originate) to come from [person] être originaire de, venir de [city, country etc] ; [word, song, legend] venir de [country, language] ; [substance, food] provenir de [raw material] ; [coins, stamps] provenir de [place, collection] ; [smell, sound] venir de [place] ; to come from France [fruit, painting] provenir de France ; [person] être français/-e ; to come from a long line of artists être issu d'une longue lignée d'artistes ;

9 ( be available) to come in exister en [sizes, colours] ; to come with a radio/sunroof être livré avec radio/toit ouvrant ; to come with chips être servi avec des frites ; to come with matching napkins être vendu avec les serviettes assorties ; calculators don't come smaller/cheaper than this il n'existe pas de calculatrice plus petite/moins chère que celle-là ;

10 ( tackle) to come to aborder [problem, subject] ; I'll come to that in a moment je reviendrai sur ce point dans un moment ; to come to sth ou to doing sth late in life se mettre à faire qch sur le tard ;

11 ( develop) it comes with practice/experience cela s'apprend avec la pratique/l'expérience ; wisdom comes with age la sagesse vient en vieillissant ;

12 ( be situated) venir ; to come after suivre, venir après ; to come before (in time, list, queue) précéder ; ( in importance) passer avant ; to come within faire partie de [terms] ; to come first/last [athlete, horse] arriver premier/dernier ; where did you come? tu es arrivé combien ○ ?, tu es arrivé à quelle place? ; my family comes first ma famille passe avant tout ; nothing can come between us rien ne peut nous séparer ; don't let this come between us on ne va pas se fâcher pour ça ; to try to come between two people essayer de s'interposer entre deux personnes ; nothing comes between me and my football! pour moi le foot c'est sacré! ;

13 ( be due) the house comes to me when they die la maison me reviendra quand ils mourront ; death/old age comes to us all tout le monde meurt/vieillit ; he had it coming (to him) ○ ça lui pendait au nez ; they got what was coming to them ○ ils ont fini par avoir ce qu'ils méritaient ;

14 ( be a question of) when it comes to sth/to doing lorsqu'il s'agit de qch/de faire ;

15 ○ ( have orgasm) jouir.

come again ○ ? pardon? ; I don't know if I'm coming or going je ne sais plus où j'en suis ; ‘how do you like your tea?’-‘as it comes’ ‘tu le prends comment ton thé?’-‘ça m'est égal’ ; he's as stupid/honest as they come il n'y a pas plus stupide/honnête que lui ; come to that ou if it comes to that, you may be right en fait, tu as peut-être raison ; to come as a shock/a surprise être un choc/une surprise.

■ come about

1 ( happen) [problems, reforms] survenir ; [situation, change] se produire ; the discovery came about by accident on a fait la découverte par hasard ;

2 Naut virer de bord.

■ come across:

▶ come across ( be conveyed) [meaning, message] passer ; [feelings] transparaître ; the message of the film comes across clearly le message du film est clair ; his love of animals comes across strongly on sent bien qu'il adore les animaux ; she comes across well on TV elle passe bien à la télé ; come across as donner l'impression d'être [liar, expert] ; paraître [enthusiastic, honest] ;

▶ come across [sth] tomber sur [article, reference, example] ; découvrir [qch] par hasard [village] ; we rarely come across cases of nous avons rarement affaire à des cas de ;

▶ come across [sb] rencontrer [person] ; one of the nicest people I've ever come across une des personnes les plus sympathiques que j'aie jamais rencontrées.

■ come along

1 ( arrive) [bus, person] arriver ; [opportunity] se présenter ; to wait for the right person to come along attendre que la personne idéale se présente ;

2 ( hurry up) come along! dépêche-toi! ;

3 ( attend) venir ; why don't you come along? tu veux venir? ; to come along to venir à [lecture, party] ; to come along with sb venir avec qn, accompagner qn ;

4 ( make progress) [pupil, trainee] faire des progrès ; [book, building work, project] avancer ; [painting, tennis] progresser ; [plant, seedling] pousser ; your Spanish is coming along votre espagnol a progressé ; how's the thesis coming along? est-ce que ta thèse avance?

■ come apart

1 ( accidentally) [book, parcel, box] se déchirer ; [shoes] craquer ; [toy, camera] se casser ; the toy just came apart in my hands le jouet m'est resté dans les mains ;

2 ( intentionally) [sections, components] se séparer ; [machine, equipment] se démonter.

■ come around US = come round.

■ come at:

▶ come at [sb]

1 ( attack) [person] attaquer (with avec) ; [bull, rhino] foncer sur ;

2 fig there were criticisms/questions coming at me from all sides j'étais assailli de critiques/questions.

■ come away

1 ( leave) lit partir ; to come away from quitter [cinema, match, show] ; sortir de [interview, meeting] ; fig to come away from the match/from the meeting disappointed/satisfied sortir déçu/satisfait du stade/de la réunion ; to come away with the feeling that rester sur l'impression que ;

2 ( move away) s'éloigner ; come away! ( said by parent) pousse-toi de là! ; ( said by official) circulez! ; come away from the edge éloigne-toi du bord ;

3 ( become detached) [handle, plaster, cover] se détacher (from de).

■ come back

1 ( return) gen [letter, person, memories, feeling, good weather] revenir (from de ; to à) ; ( to one's house) rentrer ; to come running back revenir en courant ; the memories came flooding back les souvenirs me sont revenus d'un seul coup ; to come back to revenir à [topic, problem] ; retourner auprès de [spouse, lover] ; to come back with sb raccompagner qn ; to come back with ( return) revenir avec [present, idea, flu] ; ( reply) répondre par [offer, suggestion] ; can I come back to you on that tomorrow? est-ce que nous pourrions en reparler demain? ; it's all coming back to me now tout me revient maintenant ; the name will come back to me le nom me reviendra ; to come back to what you were saying pour en revenir à ce que tu disais ;

2 ( become popular) [law, system] être rétabli ; [trend, method, hairstyle] revenir à la mode ; to come back into fashion revenir à la mode.

■ come by:

▶ come by [person] passer ; you must come by and see us passez donc nous voir ;

▶ come by [sth] trouver [book, job, money].

■ come down

1 ( move lower) [person] descendre (from de) ; [lift, barrier, blind] descendre ; [curtain] tomber ; to come down by parachute descendre en parachute ; to come down in the lift prendre l'ascenseur pour descendre ; he's really come down in the world fig il est vraiment tombé bas ; his trousers barely came down to his ankles son pantalon lui arrivait à peine aux chevilles ;

2 ( drop) [price, inflation, unemployment, temperature] baisser (from de ; to à) ; [cost] diminuer ; cars are coming down in price le prix des voitures baisse ;

3 Meteorol [snow, rain] tomber ; the fog came down overnight le brouillard est apparu pendant la nuit ;

4 ( land) [helicopter] se poser ; [aircraft] atterrir ;

5 ( crash) [plane] s'écraser ;

6 ( fall) [ceiling, wall] s'écrouler ; [curtain rail] tomber ; [hem] se défaire ;

7 fig ( be resumed by) se ramener à [question, problem, fact] ; it all really comes down to the fact that ça se ramène au fait que.

■ come forward

1 ( step forward) s'avancer ;

2 ( volunteer) se présenter (to do pour faire) ; to come forward with présenter [proof, proposal] ; offrir [help, money, suggestions] ; to ask witnesses to come forward lancer un appel à témoins.

■ come in

1 ( enter) [person, rain] entrer (through par) ;

2 ( return) rentrer (from de) ; she comes in from work at five elle rentre du travail à cinq heures ;

3 ( come inland) [tide] monter ; a wind coming in from the sea un vent soufflant de la mer ;

4 ( arrive) [plane, train, bill, complaint, delivery, letter] arriver ; which horse came in first? quel cheval est arrivé premier? ; we've got £2,000 a month coming in nous avons une rentrée de 2 000 livres sterling par mois ;

5 ( become current) [trend, invention, style] faire son apparition ; [habit, practice] commencer à se répandre ;

6 ( interject) intervenir ; to come in with an opinion exprimer son opinion ;

7 Radio, Telecom ( in radio transmission) come in, Delta Bravo! c'est à vous, Delta Bravo! ;

8 ( participate) to come in with sb s'associer à qn ; to come in on the deal participer à l'affaire ;

9 ( serve a particular purpose) where do I come in? à quel moment est-ce que j'interviens? ; where does the extra money come in? à quel moment est-ce qu'on introduira l'argent en plus? ; to come in useful ou handy [box, compass, string etc] être utile, servir ; [skill, qualification] être utile ;

10 ( receive) to come in for criticism [person] être critiqué ; [plan] faire l'objet de nombreuses critiques ; to come in for praise recevoir des éloges.

■ come into:

▶ come into [sth]

1 ( inherit) hériter de [money] ; entrer en possession de [inheritance] ;

2 ( be relevant) to come into it [age, experience] entrer en ligne de compte, jouer ; luck/skill doesn't come into it ce n'est pas une question de hasard/d'habileté.

■ come off:

▶ come off

1 ( become detached) ( accidentally) [button, label, handle] se détacher ; [lid] s'enlever ; [paint] s'écailler ; [wallpaper] se décoller ; ( intentionally) [handle, panel, lid] s'enlever ; the knob came off in my hand la poignée m'est restée dans la main ; the lid won't come off je n'arrive pas à enlever le couvercle ;

2 ( fall) [rider] tomber ;

3 (wash, rub off) [ink] s'effacer ; [stain] partir ; the mark won't come off la tache ne part pas ;

4 ( take place) [deal] se réaliser ; [merger, trip] avoir lieu ;

5 ( succeed) [plan, trick, project] réussir ; [parody] être réussi ;

6 Theat, TV ( be taken off) [play] être retiré de l'affiche ; [TV show] être déprogrammé ;

7 ( fare) she came off well ( in deal) elle s'en est très bien tirée ; who came off worst? ( in fight) lequel des deux a été le plus touché? ;

▶ come off [sth]

1 ( stop using) arrêter [pill, tablet, heroin] ;

2 ( fall off) tomber de [bicycle, horse] ;

3 ( get off) descendre de [wall] ; come off the lawn! sors de la pelouse!

■ come on

1 ( follow) I'll come on later je vous rejoindrai plus tard ;

2 ( exhortation) ( encouraging) come on, try it! allez, essaie! ; come on, follow me! allez, suivez-moi! ; ( impatient) come on, hurry up! allez, dépêche-toi! ; ( wearily) come on, somebody must know the answer! enfin, il y a sûrement quelqu'un qui connaît la réponse! ; come on, you don't expect me to believe that! non mais franchement, tu ne t'attends pas à ce que je croie ça! ;

3 ( make progress) [person, player, patient] faire des progrès ; [bridge, road, novel] avancer ; [plant] pousser ; how are the recruits coming on? est-ce que les recrues font des progrès? ; her tennis is coming on well elle fait des progrès en tennis ;

4 ( begin) [asthma, attack, headache] commencer ; [winter] arriver ; [programme, film] commencer ; [rain] se mettre à tomber ; it came on to snow il s'est mis à neiger ;

5 ( start to work) [light] s'allumer ; [heating, fan] se mettre en route ; the power came on again at 11 le courant est revenu à 11 heures ;

6 Theat [actor] entrer en scène.

■ come out

1 ( emerge) [person, animal, vehicle] sortir (of de) ; [star] apparaître ; [sun, moon] se montrer ; [flowers, bulbs] sortir de terre ; [spot, rash] apparaître ; come out with your hands up! sortez les mains en l'air ; when does he come out? (of prison, hospital) quand est-ce qu'il sort? ; he came out of it rather well fig il ne s'en est pas mal tiré ;

2 ( originate) to come out of [person] être originaire de ; [song] venir de ; [news report] provenir de ; the money will have to come out of your savings il faudra prendre l'argent sur tes économies ;

3 ( result) to come out of [breakthrough] sortir de ; something good came out of the disaster il est sorti quelque chose de bon du désastre ;

4 ( strike) faire la grève ; to come out on strike faire la grève ;

5 [homosexual] déclarer publiquement son homosexualité ;

6 ( fall out) [contact lens, tooth, key, screw, nail] tomber ; [electrical plug] se débrancher ; [sink plug] sortir ; [contents, stuffing] sortir ; [cork] s'enlever ; his hair is coming out il commence à perdre ses cheveux ;

7 ( be emitted) [water, air, smoke] sortir (through par) ; the water comes out of this hole l'eau sort par ce trou ;

8 ( wash out) [stain, ink, grease] s'en aller, partir (of de) ; it won't come out ça ne part pas ;

9 ( be deleted) [reference, sentence] être éliminé ;

10 (be published, issued) [magazine, novel] paraître ; [album, film, model, product] sortir ;

11 ( become known) [feelings] se manifester ; [message, meaning] ressortir ; [details, facts, full story] être révélé ; [results] être connu ; [secret] être divulgué ; it came out that on a appris que ; if it ever comes out that it was my fault si on découvre un jour que c'était de ma faute ; the truth is bound to come out la vérité finira forcément par se savoir ; so that's what you think-it's all coming out now! c'est ça que tu penses-tu finis par l'avouer! ;

12 Phot, Print [photo, photocopy] être réussi ; the photos didn't come out (well) les photos ne sont pas réussies ; red ink won't come out on the photocopy l'encre rouge ne donnera rien sur la photocopie ;

13 ( end up) to come out at 200 dollars [cost, bill] s'élever à 200 dollars ; the jumper came out too big le pull était trop grand ; the total always comes out the same le total est toujours le même ;

14 ( say) to come out with sortir [excuse] ; raconter [nonsense, rubbish] ; I knew what I wanted to say but it came out wrong je savais ce que je voulais dire mais je me suis mal exprimé ; whatever will she come out with next? qu'est-ce qu'elle va encore nous sortir ○ ? ; to come straight out with it le dire franchement ;

15 ( enter society) faire ses débuts dans le monde.

■ come over:

▶ come over

1 ( drop in) venir ; come over for a drink venez prendre un verre ; to come over to do venir faire ;

2 ( travel) venir ; they came over on the ferry ils sont venus en ferry ; she's coming over on the 10 am flight elle arrive par l'avion de 10 heures ; she often comes over to France elle vient souvent en France ; their ancestors came over with the Normans leurs ancêtres sont venus ici au temps des Normands ;

3 ( convey impression) [message, meaning] passer ; [feelings, love] transparaître ; to make one's feelings come over exprimer ses sentiments ; to come over very well [person] donner une très bonne impression ; to come over as donner l'impression d'être [lazy, honest] ;

4 ○ ( suddenly become) to come over all embarrassed se sentir gêné tout à coup ; to come over all shivery se sentir fiévreux/-euse tout à coup ; to come over all faint être pris de vertige tout d'un coup ;

▶ come over [sb] [feeling] envahir ; what's come over you? qu'est-ce qui te prend? ; I don't know what came over me je ne sais pas ce qui m'a pris.

■ come round GB, come around US

1 ( regain consciousness) reprendre connaissance ;

2 ( make a detour) faire un détour (by par) ;

3 ( circulate) [steward, waitress] passer ;

4 ( visit) venir ; to come round and do venir faire ; to come round for dinner/drinks venir dîner/prendre un verre ;

5 ( occur) [event] avoir lieu ; the elections are coming round again les élections auront bientôt lieu ; by the time Christmas comes round à Noël ;

6 ( change one's mind) changer d'avis ; to come round to an idea/to my way of thinking se faire à une idée/à ma façon de voir les choses ;

7 Naut [boat] venir au vent.

■ come through:

▶ come through

1 ( survive) s'en tirer ;

2 ( penetrate) [heat, ink] traverser ; [light] passer ;

3 ( arrive) the fax/the call came through at midday nous avons reçu le fax/l'appel à midi ; my posting has just come through je viens de recevoir ma mutation ; she's still waiting for her visa/her results to come through elle n'a toujours pas reçu son visa/ses résultats ;

4 ( emerge) [personality, qualities] apparaître ;

▶ come through [sth]

1 ( survive) se tirer de [crisis] ; se sortir de [recession] ; survivre à [operation, ordeal, war] ;

2 ( penetrate) [ink, dye] traverser [paper, cloth] ; [light] passer au travers de [curtains].

■ come to:

▶ come to ( regain consciousness) ( from faint) reprendre connaissance ; ( from trance) se réveiller ;

▶ come to [sth]

1 ( total) [shopping] revenir à ; [bill, expenditure, total] s'élever à ; both columns should come to the same figure les deux colonnes devraient donner le même total ; that comes to £40 cela fait 40 livres sterling ;

2 ( result in) aboutir à ; if it comes to a fight si on en vient à se battre ; all her plans came to nothing aucun de ses projets ne s'est réalisé ; did the plans come to anything? est-ce que les projets ont abouti? ; all our efforts came to nothing tous nos efforts ont été vains ; I never thought it would come to this je n'aurais jamais imaginé que les choses en arriveraient là ; it may not come to that ce ne sera peut-être pas nécessaire.

■ come under:

▶ come under [sth]

1 ( be subjected to) to come under scrutiny faire l'objet d'un examen minutieux ; to come under suspicion être soupçonné ; to come under threat être menacé ; we're coming under pressure to do on fait pression sur nous pour faire ;

2 ( be classified under) (in library, shop) être classé dans le rayon [reference, history] ; Dali comes under Surrealism Dali fait partie des surréalistes.

■ come up:

▶ come up

1 ( arise) [problem, issue, matter] être soulevé ; [name] être mentionné ; to come up in conversation [subject] être abordé dans la conversation ; this type of question may come up c'est le genre de question qui pourrait être posée ;

2 (be due, eligible) to come up for re-election se représenter aux élections ; my salary comes up for review in April mon salaire sera révisé en avril ; the car is coming up for its annual service la voiture va avoir sa révision annuelle ;

3 ( occur) [opportunity] se présenter ; something urgent has come up j'ai quelque chose d'urgent à faire ; a vacancy has come up une place s'est libérée ;

4 ( rise) [sun, moon] sortir ; [tide] monter ; [bulb, seeds] germer ; [daffodils, beans] sortir ;

5 Jur [case, hearing] passer au tribunal ; to come up before [case] passer devant ; [person] comparaître devant.

■ come up against:

▶ come up against [sth] se heurter à [problem, prejudice, opposition].

■ come up with:

▶ come up with [sth] trouver [answer, idea, money].

■ come upon:

▶ come upon [sth] tomber sur [book, reference] ; trouver [idea] ;

▶ come upon [sb] rencontrer, tomber ○ sur [friend].

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Robert was the eighth of twelve children of the landlord of a hotel in the village of Albeck. He wanted to be a botanist and zoologist, but at the age of 18 he was apprenticed as a precision mechanic. He travelled widely in the south of Germany, which is unusual for an apprenticeship. In 1884, he went to the USA, where he found employment with Thomas A. Edison and his colleague, the German electrical engineer Siegmund Bergmann. During this period he became interested and involved in the rights of workers.

In 1886 he set up his own workshop in Stuttgart, having spent a short time with Siemens in England. He built up a sound reputation for quality, but the firm outgrew its capital and in 1892 he had to sack nearly all his employees. Fortunately, among the few that he was able to retain were Arnold Zähringer, who later became Manager, and an apprentice, Gottlieb Harold. These two, under Bosch, were responsible for the development of the low-tension (1897) and the high-tension (1902) magneto. They also developed the Bosch sparking plug, again in 1902. The distributor for multi-cylinder engines followed in 1910. These developments, with a strong automotive bias, were stimulated by Bosch's association with Frederick Simms, an Englishman domiciled in Hamburg, who had become a director of Daimler in Canstatt and had secured the UK patent rights of the Daimler engine. Simms went on to invent, in about 1898, a means of varying ignition timing with low-tension magnetos.

It must be emphasized, as pointed out above, that the invention of neither type of magneto was due to Bosch. Nikolaus Otto introduced a crude low-tension magneto in 1884, but it was not patented in Germany, while the high-tension magneto was invented by Paul Winand, a nephew of Otto's partner Eugen Langen, in 1887, this patent being allowed to lapse in 1890.

Bosch's social views were advanced for his time. He introduced an eight-hour day in 1906 and advocated industrial arbitration and free trade, and in 1932 he wrote a book on the prevention of world economic crises, Die Verhütung künftiger Krisen in der Weltwirtschaft. Other industrialists called him the "Red Bosch" because of his short hours and high wages; he is reputed to have replied, "I do not pay good wages because I have a lot of money, I have a lot of money because I pay good wages." The firm exists to this day as the giant multi-national company Robert Bosch GmbH, with headquarters still in Stuttgart.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

The Breguet family had been manufacturing fine clocks since before the French Revolution, but Louis Breguet and his brother Jacques used their mechanical skills to produce a helicopter, or "gyroplane" as they named it. It was a complex machine with four biplane rotors (i.e. thirty-two lifting surfaces). Louis Breguet had carried out many tests to determine the most suitable rotor design. The Breguet brothers were assisted by Professor Charles Richet and the Breguet-Richet No. 1 was tested in September 1907 when it succeeded in lifting itself, and its pilot, to a height of 1.5 metres. Unfortunately, the gyroplane was rather unstable and four helpers had to steady it; consequently, the flight did not qualify as a "free" flight. This was achieved two months later, also in France, by Paul Cornu who made a 20-second free flight.

Louis Breguet turned his attention to aeroplane design and produced a tractor biplane when most other biplanes followed the Wright brothers' layout with a forward elevator and pusher propeller. The Breguet I made quite an impression at the 1909 Reims meeting, but the Breguet IV created a world record the following year by carrying six people. During the First World War the Breguet Type 14 bomber was widely used by French and American squadrons. Between the First and Second World Wars a wide variety of designs were produced, including flying boats and another helicopter, the Breguet- Dorand Gyroplane which flew for over one hour in 1936. The Breguet company survived World War II and in the late 1940s developed a successful four-engined airliner/transport, the Deux-Ponts, which had a bulbous double-deck fuselage.

Breguet was an innovative designer, although his designs were functional rather than elegant. He was an early advocate of metal construction and developed an oleo- (oil-spring) undercarriage leg.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Chanute was born in Paris, but from the age of 6 he lived in the United States, where he became a prominent railway engineer. He developed an interest in aviation relatively late in life, and in fact built his first glider at the age of 64. Before that, he had collected all the information he could find on aviation, especially on the work of Otto Lilienthal in Germany. In 1894 he published an account of these researches in a classic work, Progress in Flying Machines.

By 1896 Chanute was ready to carry out practical experiments of his own and designed a series of hang-gliders. He started with a Lilienthal-type monoplane and progressed to his very successful biplane glider. He used a bridge-truss method of cross-bracing to give his wings the required strength, a system used by many of his successors, including the Wright brothers. Chanute's gliders were flown on the shore of Lake Michigan by his two young assistants A.M.Herring and W.Avery. The biplane glider made some seven hundred flights without mishap, covering up to 100 m (110 yds). In 1898 Herring fitted an engine into a modified glider and claimed to have made two short hops.

In 1900 the Wright brothers made contact with Chanute and sought his advice, which he readily gave, indeed, he became one of their most trusted advisors. In 1903 Chanute travelled to Paris and gave an illustrated lecture describing his own and the Wrights' gliding successes, generating much interest amongst European aviators.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Clerk began his engineering training at about the age of 15 in the drawing office of H.O.Robinson \& Company, Glasgow, and in his father's works. Meanwhile, he studied at the West of Scotland Technical College and then, from 1871 to 1876, at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. Here he worked under and then became assistant to the distinguished chemist T.E.Thorpe, who set him to work on the fractional distillation of petroleum, which was to be useful to him in his later work. At that time he had intended to become a chemical engineer, but seeing a Lenoir gas engine at work, after his return to Glasgow, turned his main interest to gas and other internal combustion engines. He pursued his investigations first at Thomson, Sterne \& Company (1877–85) and then at Tangyes of Birmingham (1886–88. In 1888 he began a lifelong partnership in Marks and Clerk, consulting engineers and patent agents, in London.

Beginning his work on gas engines in 1876, he achieved two patents in the two following years. In 1878 he made his principal invention, patented in 1881, of an engine working on the two-stroke cycle, in which the piston is powered during each revolution of the crankshaft, instead of alternate revolutions as in the Otto four-stroke cycle. In this engine, Clerk introduced supercharging, or increasing the pressure of the air intake. Many engines of the Clerk type were made but their popularity waned after the patent for the Otto engine expired in 1890. Interest was later revived, particularly for application to large gas engines, but Clerk's engine eventually came into its own where simple, low-power motors are needed, such as in motor cycles or motor mowers.

Clerk's work on the theory and design of gas engines bore fruit in the book The Gas Engine (1886), republished with an extended text in 1909 as The Gas, Petrol and Oil Engine; these and a number of papers in scientific journals won him international renown. During and after the First World War, Clerk widened the scope of his interests and served, often as chairman, on many bodies in the field of science and industry.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

[br]

[br]

[br]

His father was a mason and brickmaker but, anxious to improve himself, Cort set up in London in 1765 as a navy agent, said to have been a profitable business. He recognized that, at that time, the conversion of pig iron to malleable or wrought iron, which was needed in increasing quantities as developments in industry and mechanical engineering gathered pace, presented a bottleneck in the ironmaking process. The finery hearth was still in use, slow and inefficient and requiring the scarce charcoal as fuel. To tackle this problem, Cort gave up his business and acquired a furnace and slitting mill at Fontley, near Fareham in Hampshire. In 1784 he patented his puddling process, by which molten pig iron on the bed of a reverberatory furnace was stirred with an iron bar and, by the action of the flame and the oxygen in the air, the carbon in the pig iron was oxidized, leaving nearly pure iron, which could be forged to remove slag. In this type of furnace, the fuel and the molten iron were separated, so that the cheaper coal could be used as fuel. It was the stirring action with the iron bar that gave the name "puddling" to the process. Others had realized the problem and reached a similar solution, notably the brothers Thomas and George Cranage, but only Cort succeeded in developing a commercially viable process. The laborious hammering of the ball of iron thus produced was much reduced by an invention of the previous year, 1783. This too was patented. The iron was passed between grooved rollers to form it into bars. Cort entered into an agreement with Samuel Jellico to set up an ironworks at Gosport to exploit his inventions. Samuel's father Adam, Deputy Paymaster of the Navy, advanced capital for this venture, Cort having expended much of his own resources in the experimental work that preceded his inventions. However, it transpired that Jellico senior had, unknown to Cort, used public money to advance the capital; the Admiralty acted to recover the money and Cort lost heavily, including the benefits from his patents. Rival ironmasters were quick to pillage the patents. In 1790, and again the following year, Cort offered unsuccessfully to work for the military. Finally, in 1794, at the instigation of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, Cort was paid a pension of £200 per year in recognition of the value of his improvements in the technology of ironmaking, although this was reduced by deductions to £160. After his death, the pension to his widow was halved, while some of his children received a pittance. Without the advances made by Cort, however, the iron trade could not have met the rapidly increasing demand for iron during the industrial revolution.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity

[br]

[br]

[br]

Crookes entered the Royal College of Chemistry at the age of 15, and from 1850 to 1854 held the appointment of Assistant at the college. In 1854 he became Superintendent of the Meteorological Department at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. He moved to a post at the College of Science in Chester the following year. Soon after this he inherited a large fortune and set up his own private laboratory in London. There he studied the nature of electrical discharges in gases at low pressure and discovered the dark space (later named after him) that surrounds the negative electrode, or cathode. He also established that the rays produced in the process (subsequently shown by J.J.Thompson to be a stream of electrons) not only travelled in straight lines, but were also capable of producing heat and/or light upon impact with suitable anode materials. Using a variety of new methods to investigate these "cathode" rays, he applied them to the spectral analysis of compounds of selenium and, as a result, in 1861 he discovered the element thallium, finally establishing its atomic weight in 1873. Following his discovery of thallium, he became involved in two main lines of research: the properties of rarified gases, and the investigation of the elements of the "rare earths". It was also during these experiments that he discovered the principle of the Crookes radiometer, a device in which light is converted into rotational motion and which used to be found frequently in the shop windows of English opticians. Also among the fruits of this work were the Crookes tubes and the development of spectacle lenses with differential ranges of radiational absorption. In the 1870s he became interested in spiritualism and acquired a reputation for his studies of psychic phenomena, but at the turn of the century he returned to traditional scientific investigations. In 1892 he wrote about the possibility of wireless telegraphy. His work in the field of radioactivity led to the invention of the spinthariscope, an early type of detector of alpha particles. In 1900 he undertook investigations into uranium which led to the study of scintillation, an important tool in the study of radioactivity.

While the theoretical basis of his work has not stood the test of time, his material discoveries, observations and investigations of new facts formed a basis on which others such as J.J. Thomson were to develop subatomic theory. His later involvement in the investigation of spiritualism led to much criticism, but could be justified on the basis of a belief in the duty to investigate all phenomena.

[br]

KF / MG

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Robert Kay improved his father John's flying shuttle by inventing the drop box, in which up to four shuttles could be stored one below the other. The weaver's left hand controlled levers and catches to raise or lower the drop box in order to bring the appropriate shuttle into line with the shuttle race on the slay. The shuttle could then be driven across the loom, leaving its particular type or colour of weft. On the earliest power looms of Edmund Cartwright in 1785, and for many years later, it was possible to use only one shuttle. In 1845 Squire Diggle of Bury, Lancashire, took out a patent for mechanizing the drop box so that different types or colours of weft could be woven without the weaver attending to the shuttles. He used an endless chain on which plates of different heights could be fixed to raise the boxes to the required height; later this would be operated by either the dobby or Jacquard pattern-selecting mechanisms. He took out further patents for improvements to looms. One, in 1854, was for taking up the cloth with a positive motion. Two more, in 1858, improved his drop box mechanism: the first was for actually operating the drop box, while the second was for tappet chains which operated the timing for raising the boxes.

[br]

See also: Kay, John

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Both her father, a mathematician, and her mother encouraged Flügge-Lotz in her desire, unusual for a woman at that time, for a technical education. Her interest in aeronautics was awakened when she was a child, by seeing zeppelins (see Zeppelin, Ferdinand, Count von) being tested. In 1923 she entered the Technische Hochschule in Hannover to study engineering, specializing in aeronautics; she was often the only woman in the class. She obtained her doctorate in 1929 and began working in aeronautics. Two years later she derived the Lotz Method for calculating the distribution in aircraft wings of different shapes, which became widely used. Later, Flügge-Lotz took up an interest in automatic flight control of aircraft, notably of the discontinuous or "on-off" type. These were simple in design, inexpensive to manufacture and reliable in operation. By 1928 she had risen to the position of head of the Department of Theoretical Aerodynamics at Göttingen University, but she and her husband, Wilhelm Flügge, an engineering academic known for his anti-Nazi views, felt themselves increasingly discriminated against by the Hitler regime. In 1948 they emigrated to the USA, where Flügge was soon offered a professorship in engineering, while his wife had at first to make do with a lectureship. But her distinguished work eventually earned her appointment as the first woman full professor in the Engineering Department at Stanford University.

She later extended her work on automatic flight control to the guidance of rockets and missiles, earning herself the description "a female Werner von Braun ".

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

In May 1791, Richard Gorton took out a patent for a new type of power-driven loom for narrow fabrics to "work one or several pieces at the same time, either by hand, lath, steam engine, or by water-machinery". The sley with the reed was worked by a crank, and the picker by a lever and cam. The shuttle-box had springs to retain the shuttle, and the warp was kept tight by weights. A stop, which was usually pushed out of the way by the shuttle entering the box, prevented the sley or lath "driving the shuttle against the piece" when the shuttle stuck in the middle. One particularly interesting feature was the sizing of the warp threads by means of brushes and a roller that turned in a square trough filled with size. This pre-dates Radcliffe's sizing machine, which is always considered the first, by a number of years. The mill in which these machines worked was at Cuckney, near Mansfield, England. In 1788 Thomas Gorton had installed one of the earliest Boulton \& Watt rotative steam engines there.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

[br]

[br]

[br]

Hoover was descended from a Swiss farming family called Hofer who emigrated from Basle and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early eighteenth century. By 1832 the family had become tanners and lived near North Berlin in Ohio. In 1870 William Henry Hoover, who had studied at Mount Union College, bought the tannery with his brothers and soon expanded the business to make horse collars and saddlery. The firm expanded to become W.H.Hoover \& Co. In the early years of the first decade of the twentieth century, horses were beginning to be replaced by the internal combustion engine, so Hoover needed a new direction for his firm. This he found in the suction vacuum cleaner devised in 1907 by J.Murray Spangler, a cousin of Hoover's wife. The first successful cleaner of this type had been operating in England since 1901 (see Booth), but was not a portable model. Attracted by the development of the small electric motor, Spangler produced a vertical cleaner with such a motor that sucked the dust through the machine and blew it into a bag attached to the handle. Spangler applied for a patent for his invention on 14 September in the same year; it was granted for a carpet sweeper and cleaner on 2 June 1908, but Spangler was unable to market it himself and sold the rights to Hoover. The Model O machine, which ran on small wheels, was immediately manufactured and marketed. Hoover's model was the first electric, one-person-operated, domestic vacuum cleaner and was instantly successful, although the main expansion of the business was delayed for some time until the greater proportion of houses were wired for electricity. The Hoover slogan, "it beats as it sweeps as it cleans", came to be true in 1926 with the introduction of the Model 700, which was the first cleaner to offer triple-action cleaning, a process which beat, swept and sucked at the carpet. Further advances in the 1930s included the use of magnesium and the early plastics.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Synthetic materials

[br]

[br]

[br]

Leaving school at the age of 16, Hyatt spent ten years in the printing trade, demonstrating meanwhile a talent for invention. The offer of a prize of $10,000 for finding a substitute for ivory billiard balls stimulated Hyatt to experiment with various materials. After many failures, he arrived at a composition of paper flock, shellac and collodion, which was widely adopted. Noting the "skin" left after evaporating collodion, he continued his experiments, using nitrocellulose as a base for plastic materials, yet he remained largely ignorant of both chemistry and the dangers of this explosive substance. Independently of Parkes in England, he found that a mixture of nitrocellulose, camphor and a little alcohol could, by heating, be made soft enough to mould but became hard at room temperature. Hyatt's first patent for the material, celluloid, was dated 12 July 1870 (US pat. 105338) and was followed by many others for making domestic and decorative articles of celluloid, replacing more expensive natural materials. Manufacture began at Albany in the winter of 1872–3. In 1881 Hyatt and his brother Isiah Smith floated the Hyatt Pure Water Company. By introducing purifying coagulants into flowing water, they avoided the expense and delay of allowing the water to settle in large tanks before filtration. Many towns and paper and woollen mills adopted the new process, and in 1891 it was introduced into Europe. During 1891–2, Hyatt devised a widely used type of roller bearing. Later inventions included a sugar-cane mill, a multistitch sewing machine and a mill for the cold rolling and straightening of steel shafts. It was characteristic of Hyatt's varied inventions that they achieved improved results at less expense.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

Thomas Johnson was an assistant to William Radcliffe c.1802 in his developments of the sizing machine and hand looms. Johnson is described by Edward Baines (1835) as "an ingenious but dissipated young man to whom he [Radcliffe] explained what he wanted, and whose fertile invention suggested a great variety of expedients, so that he obtained the name of the “conjuror” among his fellow-workmen". Johnson's genius, and Radcliffe's judgement and perseverance, at length produced the dressing-machine that was soon applied to power looms and made their use economic. Cotton warps had to be dressed with a starch paste to prevent them from fraying as they were being woven. Up to this time, the paste had had to be applied as the warp was unwound from the back of the loom, which meant that only short lengths could be treated and then left to dry, holding up the weaver. Radcliffe carried out the dressing and beaming in a separate machine so that weaving could proceed without interruption. Work on the dressing-machine was carried out in 1802 and patents were taken out in 1803 and 1804. These were made out in Johnson's name because Radcliffe was afraid that if his own name were used other people, particularly foreigners, would discover his secrets. Two more patents were taken out for improvements to hand looms. The first of these was a take-up motion for the woven cloth that automatically wound the cloth onto a roller as the weaver operated the loom. This was later incorporated by H.Horrocks into his own power loom design.

Radcliffe and Johnson also developed the "dandy-loom", which was a more compact form of hand loom and later became adapted for weaving by power. Johnson was the inventor of the first circular or revolving temples, which kept the woven cloth at the right width. In the patent specifications there is a patent in 1805 by Thomas Johnson and James Kay for an improved power loom and another in 1807 for a vertical type of power loom. Johnson could have been involved with further patents in the 1830s and 1840s for vertical power looms and dressing-machines, which would put his death after 1846.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

John Kay was the youngest of five sons of a yeoman farmer of Walmersley, near Bury, Lancashire, who died before his birth. John was apprenticed to a reedmaker, and just before he was 21 he married a daughter of John Hall of Bury and carried on his trade in that town until 1733. It is possible that his first patent, taken out in 1730, was connected with this business because it was for an engine that made mohair thread for tailors and twisted and dressed thread; such thread could have been used to bind up the reeds used in looms. He also improved the reeds by making them from metal instead of cane strips so they lasted much longer and could be made to be much finer. His next patent in 1733, was a double one. One part of it was for a batting machine to remove dust from wool by beating it with sticks, but the patent is better known for its description of the flying shuttle. Kay placed boxes to receive the shuttle at either end of the reed or sley. Across the open top of these boxes was a metal rod along which a picking peg could slide and drive the shuttle out across the loom. The pegs at each end were connected by strings to a stick that was held in the right hand of the weaver and which jerked the shuttle out of the box. The shuttle had wheels to make it "fly" across the warp more easily, and ran on a shuttle race to support and guide it. Not only was weaving speeded up, but the weaver could produce broader cloth without any aid from a second person. This invention was later adapted for the power loom. Kay moved to Colchester and entered into partnership with a baymaker named Solomon Smith and a year later was joined by William Carter of Ballingdon, Essex. His shuttle was received with considerable hostility in both Lancashire and Essex, but it was probably more his charge of 15 shillings a year for its use that roused the antagonism. From 1737 he was much involved with lawsuits to try and protect his patent, particularly the part that specified the method of winding the thread onto a fixed bobbin in the shuttle. In 1738 Kay patented a windmill for working pumps and an improved chain pump, but neither of these seems to have been successful. In 1745, with Joseph Stell of Keighley, he patented a narrow fabric loom that could be worked by power; this type may have been employed by Gartside in Manchester soon afterwards. It was probably through failure to protect his patent rights that Kay moved to France, where he arrived penniless in 1747. He went to the Dutch firm of Daniel Scalongne, woollen manufacturers, in Abbeville. The company helped him to apply for a French patent for his shuttle, but Kay wanted the exorbitant sum of £10,000. There was much discussion and eventually Kay set up a workshop in Paris, where he received a pension of 2,500 livres. However, he was to face the same problems as in England with weavers copying his shuttle without permission. In 1754 he produced two machines for making card clothing: one pierced holes in the leather, while the other cut and sharpened the wires. These were later improved by his son, Robert Kay. Kay returned to England briefly, but was back in France in 1758. He was involved with machines to card both cotton and wool and tried again to obtain support from the French Government. He was still involved with developing textile machines in 1779, when he was 75, but he must have died soon afterwards. As an inventor Kay was a genius of the first rank, but he was vain, obstinate and suspicious and was destitute of business qualities.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

The object of condensing, the last process in carding, is to obtain a roving, or slightly twisted yarn which is the same thickness and weight throughout its length. In a tape condenser, the web of fibres from the last swift of the carder is divided into the requisite number of ribbons, which are supported on tapes before being rubbed into round rovings and wound onto bobbins ready for spinning.

It was Martin who introduced in 1861 what became the most common type of condenser on the European continent. It divided the web by a combined tearing and cutting action between leather tapes and a pair of rigid rollers. As its division of the web was more minute than with earlier machines, its product was more suitable for fine yarns, so it was accepted rapidly in Belgium and France but much more slowly in England and the United States.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

From his high-school days, Pierce showed an interest in science and in science fiction, writing under the pseudonym of J.J.Coupling. After gaining Bachelor's, Master's and PhD degrees at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) in Pasadena in 1933, 1934 and 1936, respectively, Pierce joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City in 1936. There he worked on improvements to the travelling-wave tube, in which the passage of a beam of electrons through a helical transmission line at around 7 per cent of the speed of light was made to provide amplification at 860 MHz. He also devised a new form of electrostatically focused electron-multiplier which formed the basis of a sensitive detector of radiation. However, his main contribution to electronics at this time was the invention of the Pierce electron gun—a method of producing a high-density electron beam. In the Second World War he worked with McNally and Shepherd on the development of a low-voltage reflex klystron oscillator that was applied to military radar equipment.

In 1952 he became Director of Electronic Research at the Bell Laboratories' establishment, Murray Hill, New Jersey. Within two years he had begun work on the possibility of round-the-world relay of signals by means of communication satellites, an idea anticipated in his early science-fiction writings (and by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945), and in 1955 he published a paper in which he examined various possibilities for communications satellites, including passive and active satellites in synchronous and non-synchronous orbits. In 1960 he used the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 30 m (98 1/2 ft) diameter, aluminium-coated Echo 1 balloon satellite to reflect telephone signals back to earth. The success of this led to the launching in 1962 of the first active relay satellite (Telstar), which weighed 170 lb (77 kg) and contained solar-powered rechargeable batteries, 1,000 transistors and a travelling-wave tube capable of amplifying the signal 10,000 times. With a maximum orbital height of 3,500 miles (5,600 km), this enabled a variety of signals, including full bandwidth television, to be relayed from the USA to large receiving dishes in Europe.

From 1971 until his "retirement" in 1979, Pierce was Professor of Electrical Engineering at CalTech, after which he became Chief Technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, also in Pasadena, and Emeritus Professor of Engineering at Stanford University.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Seguin trained under Joseph Montgolfier, one of the inventors of the hot-air balloon, and became a pioneer of suspension bridges. In 1825 he was involved in an attempt to introduce steam navigation to the River Rhône using a tug fitted with a winding drum to wind itself upstream along a cable attached to a point on the bank, with a separate boat to transfer the cable from point to point. The attempt proved unsuccessful and was short-lived, but in 1825 Seguin had decided also to seek a government concession for a railway from Saint-Etienne to Lyons as a feeder of traffic to the river. He inspected the Stockton \& Darlington Railway and met George Stephenson; the concession was granted in 1826 to Seguin Frères \& Ed. Biot and two steam locomotives were built to their order by Robert Stephenson \& Co. The locomotives were shipped to France in the spring of 1828 for evaluation prior to construction of others there; each had two vertical cylinders, one each side between front and rear wheels, and a boiler with a single large-diameter furnace tube, with a watertube grate. Meanwhile, in 1827 Seguin, who was still attempting to produce a steamboat powerful enough to navigate the fast-flowing Rhône, had conceived the idea of increasing the heating surface of a boiler by causing the hot gases from combustion to pass through a series of tubes immersed in the water. He was soon considering application of this type of boiler to a locomotive. He applied for a patent for a multi-tubular boiler on 12 December 1827 and carried out numerous experiments with various means of producing a forced draught to overcome the perceived obstruction caused by the small tubes. By May 1829 the steam-navigation venture had collapsed, but Seguin had a locomotive under construction in the workshops of the Lyons-Sain t- Etienne Railway: he retained the cylinder layout of its Stephenson locomotives, but incorporated a boiler of his own design. The fire was beneath the barrel, surrounded by a water-jacket: a single large flue ran towards the front of the boiler, whence hot gases returned via many small tubes through the boiler barrel to a chimney above the firedoor. Draught was provided by axle-driven fans on the tender.

Seguin was not aware of the contemporary construction of Rocket, with a multi-tubular boiler, by Robert Stephenson; Rocket had its first trial run on 5 September 1829, but the precise date on which Seguin's locomotive first ran appears to be unknown, although by 20 October many experiments had been carried out upon it. Seguin's concept of a multi-tubular locomotive boiler therefore considerably antedated that of Henry Booth, and his first locomotive was completed about the same date as Rocket. It was from Rocket's boiler, however, rather than from that of Seguin's locomotive, that the conventional locomotive boiler was descended.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

After leaving school, Vail was initially employed at his father's ironworks in Morristown, but he then decided to train for the Presbyterian ministry, graduating from New York City University in 1836. Unfortunately, he was then obliged to abandon his chosen career because of ill health. He accidentally met Samuel Morse not long afterwards, and he became interested in the latter's telegraph experiments; in return for a share of the rights, he agreed to construct apparatus and finance the filing of US and foreign patents. Working in Morristown with Morse and Leonard Gale, and with financial backing from his father, Vail constructed around his father's plant a telegraph with 3 miles (4.8 km) of wire. It is also possible that he, rather than Morse, was largely responsible for devising the so-called Morse code, a series of dot and dash codes representing the letters of the alphabet, and in which the simplest codes were chosen for those letters found to be most numerous in a case of printer's type. This system was first demonstrated on 6 January 1838 and there were subsequent public demonstrations in New York and Philadelphia. Eventually Congress authorized an above-ground line between Washington and Baltimore, and on 24 May 1844 the epoch-making message "What hath God wrought?" was transmitted.

Vail remained with Morse for a further four years, but he gradually lost interest in telegraphy and resigned, receiving no credit for his important contribution.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Domestic appliances and interiors

[br]

[br]

[br]

Walton's linoleum consisted of a burlap base coated with a cement made from linseed oil, gum, resin and colour pigments. The linseed oil was oxidized in order to produce a rubbery consistency, and this was achieved either by adding the oil to the burlap in a series of coats, allowing each coat to dry in a heated room and so absorb the oxygen from the atmosphere, or by inserting the product into a steam-heated container, thereby hastening the process. The coated fabric was then calendered so that the heat and pressure of the rollers would soften the coating mixture, making it adhere firmly to the fabric backing. On 19 December 1863 Walton applied for a patent for the manufacture of his invention at British Grove Works in Chiswick, Middlesex. The patent was granted on 31 May 1864 for "Improvements in the Manufacture of Floor Cloths and Coverings and Similar Fabrics and in Pavements". Later in 1864 Walton set up a factory in Staines.

The term linoleum derives from the Latin words linum, meaning linen thread, and oleum, meaning oil. Linoleum was made in rolls in everincreasing quantity until about 1950, by which time it was being replaced by synthetic vinyl-type coverings.

[br]