THE BEGINNINGS OF THINGS.

EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.

The pianoforte was directly evolved from the clavichord and the harpsichord. In 1711, Scipione Maffei gave a detailed account of the first four instruments, which were built by Bartolommeo Cristofori, named by him pianoforte, and exhibited in 1709.

Marius, in France, exhibited harpsichords, with hammer action, in 1716; and Schroter, in Germany, claimed to have invented the pianoforte between 1717 and 1721.

Marius at first was generally credited with the invention, for it was not until 1738, when Cristofori's instruments had become famous, that the Italian advanced his claim, and it was in 1763 that he brought forward the proof of his contention.

Pianos of that period were shaped like the modern grand, the first square piano being built by Freiderica, an organ builder of Saxony, in 1758. The first genuine upright was patented in England and the United States by John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, in 1800.

THE FIRST LIGHTHOUSE.

There is excellent authority for stating that the first lighthouse ever erected for the benefit of mariners was that built by the famous architect Sostratus, by command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, between 285-247 b.c. It was built near Alexandria, on an island called Pharos, and there was expended upon it about eight hundred talents, or over a million of dollars.

Ptolemy has been much commended by some ancient writers for his liberality in allowing the architect to inscribe his name instead of his own. The inscription reads: "Sostratus, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of seafaring people." This tower was deemed one of the seven wonders of the world and was thought of sufficient grandeur to immortalize the builder.

It appears from Lucian, however, that Ptolemy does not deserve any praise for disinterestedness on this score, or Sostratus any great credit for his honesty, as it is stated that the latter, to engross in after times the glory of the structure, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterward covered with lime and thereon put the king's name.

In process of time the lime decayed, and the inscription on the marble alone remained.

ORIGIN OF THE TYPEWRITER.

Many persons will be surprised to learn that the typewriter is not, as they imagined, a distinctly modern invention. So long ago as 1714 a patent was taken out in England by Henry Mill for a "machine for impressing letters singly and progressively as in writing, whereby all writings may be ingrossed in paper so exact as not to be distinguished from print."

His machine was very clumsy and practically useless, however. It was not until more than a century later (1829) that anything more was attempted. Then the first American typewriter, called a "typographer," was patented by W.A. Burt.

In 1833 a machine was produced in France having a separate key lever for each letter, and between the years 1840 and 1860 Sir Charles Wheatstone invented several machines which are now preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London.

In 1873, C.L. Sholes, an American, after five or six years' work, succeeded in producing a machine sufficiently perfect to warrant extensive manufacture. He interested E. Remington & Son, the gun-manufacturers, in it, and in 1874 the first model of the modern typewriter was put upon the market.

THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK.

The first book printed with type, according to Pettigrew, was the Latin Bible printed by John Gutenberg, at Mayence, about 1455; but Haydn is inclined to assign a somewhat later date to this, making the Book of Psalms, by Faust and Scheffer, printed on August 14, 1457, the first book.

The Gutenberg book is called the Mazarin Bible, having first been found in the library of Cardinal Mazarin.

There are only twenty copies of this first edition known to exist, and the workmanship in type, ink, and paper far exceed any of the subsequent editions for two hundred years.

Christopher Sower (or Saur) made the first punches and matrices and cast the first type in America at Germantown, Pennsylvania, about 1735. The anvil on which he hammered them out is still preserved. They were for a German Bible which Sower published.

"The price of our newly finished Bible, in plain binding, with a clasp, will be eighteen shillings," he said, "but to the poor and needy we have no price."

THE INVENTION OF MATCHES.

Friction matches are a comparatively modern invention. They were first made by John Walker in England, in 1827, but were rather crude affairs; he improved them somewhat in 1833 by using phosphorus. But the first really practical friction match was made in the United States in 1836 by L.C. Allin, of Springfield, Massachusetts. Before this time a clumsy form of match was imported from France, which had to be dipped into a bottle of sulphuric acid before it was lighted.

This took a great deal of time and trouble, and Allin, seeing the necessity for friction matches, set about to make them, and succeeded. He neglected to patent them, however, and on finally applying for a patent found that a man named Alonzo Phillips, who was a peddler, had discovered through a third person the secret of making the matches and had already obtained a patent. Allin, though the real inventor, was forced to become a mere manufacturer under another man's patent.

THE FIRST HORSE-CARS.

The modern street-railway for passenger service is distinctly an American invention. The first in the world was operated in New York in 1831-1832, when a horse-car, much like an old English stage-coach, was run on wooden rails from Prince Street and the Bowery to Yorkville and Harlem, following, for some distance, the route now taken by the present Madison Avenue line, which still operates under the original charter of 1831.

This remained the only line in the world until 1852, when charters were granted for the Second, Third, Sixth, and Eighth Avenue lines.

In 1856 a line was built in Boston, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia established one in 1857.

In 1860, through the efforts of George Francis Train, the first line was started in Birkenhead, England, but it was not until 1868 that one was laid in Liverpool and in 1869-1871 in London.

The first line in Paris was built in 1875, though there had been one from St. Cloud to Paris since 1856.