1Where readers are quite young the Foreword had better be postponed until the stories themselves are read.

2Mr. Walter Hough of the National Museum, himself a wizard in the art of fire-making, tells me that a blaze cannot be produced simply by rubbing sticks together. All that can be done by rubbing is to make them glow.

3A narrow strip of leather.

4The ancient Greeks used a burning-glass or -lens for kindling fire. The lens focused the sun's rays upon a substance that would burn easily and set it afire. The burning-glass was not connected in any way with the development of the match.

5Several of the illustrations in this chapter are reproduced through the courtesy of the Boston Stove Co.

6Hold the end of a dry towel in a basin of water and watch the water rise in the towel. It rises by capillary action.

7Light a short piece of candle and place it in a tumbler, and cover the top of the tumbler. The experiment teaches that a flame must have a constant supply of fresh air and will go out if the air is shut off.

8J. R. Smith, "The Story of Iron and Steel," p. 3.

9From "Five Black Arts," p. 311.10The old forge continued to be used by the side of the blast furnace for centuries, and of course where it was used it was still called a forge. Thus we are told that in Maryland in 1761, there were eight furnaces and ten forges. It is said that as late as twenty-five years ago in certain parts of the Appalachian regions the American mountaineer still worked the little primitive forge to make his iron.11It was given the name of pig iron because when the molten metal ran into the impressions made for it upon the sanded floor and cooled, it assumed a shape resembling a family of little pigs.12Daniel Webster was another great statesman who turned his attention to the making of plows. He planned a plow (Fig. 11) and had it made in his workshop on his farm at Marshfield. When the plow was ready for use, Webster himself was the first man to take hold of the handles and try it. The plow worked well and the great man is said to have been as much delighted with his achievement as he was with any of his triumphs in public life at Washington.13To winnow grain is to separate it from the chaff by a fanning process.14Matthew xxiv, 41. In ancient times nearly all the grinding was done by women.15Ceres was the goddess of grain.16In the thirteenth century wind-power began to be used for turning mills, and in some countries windmills were as common as water-mills.17About the year 1700 elliptical springs were invented, but they did not find their way into general use until more than a hundred years later.18A spirited account of life on a Roman galley is found in Wallace's "Ben Hur."19Wood, "Curiosities of Clocks and Watches."20The illustration is taken from Keary's "Dawn of History."21In the payment of the postage no stamps were as yet used. Indeed the postage stamp is a late invention. Postage stamps were not used in England until the year 1840, while in the United States they were not regularly used until 1847.22In 1840, the English government following the recommendations of Sir Rowland Hill, adopted throughout the United Kingdom a uniform rate of one penny for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight, and after this cheap postage became the rule in all countries.23The verb telegraph means to write at a distance afar off.24As there are only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet, the last group was one letter short, but this did not interfere with the working of the system.25Just as the word telegraph means to "write afar off," so the word telephone means to "sound afar off."