Week 3 History Essay

             The four inventions that I learned about this week are the pencil, the stethoscope, the tunneling shield, and paved roads. In lesson eleven I learned about the pencil. Nicholas-Jacques Conte invented the pencil in the late 1700s in France. Before his invention the Greeks and Romans used erasable wax paper. The American pencil was invented by Henry David Thoreau. It made it easier to write and erase things that are written down. It made it so you could see it, but it was still erasable on the paper. In lesson 12 I learned about the stethoscope. The stethoscope was invented by Rene Laennec in France in 1816. It solved the problem of doctors being able to hear people’s heart beat without putting their ear on someone’s chest. New technology increases medical accuracy. In lesson 13 I learned about the tunneling shield. The tunneling shield was invented by Marc Isambard Brunel in London in 1818. He got this idea by watching a mollusc that can tunnel through wood. It protects people that are digging tunnels underground. It made it possible to dig under soft surfaces. In lesson 14 I learned about paved roads. The Macadam road was invented by John McAdam. He got his ideas from Perre- Marie-Jerome Tresaguet and Thomas Telford. The Macadam way of making roads was first used in Brisole in the early 1800s. It made a more stable and efficient road. It led to roads that we have today. Those are the four inventions that I learned about this week.