SOME CATHOLIC INVENTORS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 45, 8 November 1900, Page 15

SOME CATHOLIC INVENTORS.

The Catholic monks (says an exchange) were the first to put floating bells over sunken rocks as a warning to mariners in fog and darkness. Cardinal Stephen Langton was the first to fonnd a society for the purpose of systematically putting fixed lights on dangerous headlands to guide ships safely on their way. He called it the Guild of St. Clement and the Most Blessed Trinity, and Trinity House at the present day, which rules all lighthouses in England, is its direct successor.

Cardinal Simon Langham was the first to establish technioal schools in England for painting, architecture and the cultivation of orchards, gardens and rare plants. William of Wykeham, the great Bishop of Winchester, was the first to introduce a technical system of making good roads. The daily date so familiar to us on the top of every newspaper is due to the labors of the Jesuit Father Clavins, performed at the order of Pope Gregory XIII. The life of Leonardo da Vinci is a "wonderful lesson in architecture, engineering, art and science.

Modern physiology is based on the work performed by Eustachius, Fallopius, Vesalius and Malphigi, and Bishop Steno wu the first to write a systematic treatise on geology. These and a host of instances beside should be enough to convince honest minds that the Catholic religion is in no way opposed to true science workiDg in the service of man.