WOMEN AS INVENTORS 335 



regarding the inventions of women were fully confirmed 

 by what was being done in their own time. Man's first 

 needs were food, shelter and clothing; and tradition in all 

 parts of the world is unanimous in ascribing to woman the 

 invention, in essentially their present forms, of all the 

 arts most conducive to the preservation and well-being of 

 our race. 



In Egypt, as Diodorus Siculus informs us, the inventors 

 of specially useful things were, as a reward of their deserts, 

 enrolled among the gods, as were certain heroes among 

 the ancient Greeks and Romans. Foremost among these 

 was Isis, who laid the foundation of agriculture by the in- 

 troduction of the culture of wheat and other cereals. Be- 

 fore her time the Egyptians lived on roots and herbs. In 

 lieu of these crude articles of food, Isis gave them bread 

 and other more wholesome aliments. She invented the 

 process of making linen and was the first to apply a sail 

 to the propulsion of a boat. To her also was attributed 

 the art of embalming, the discovery of many medicines and 

 the beginnings of Egyptian literature. 



Even more prominent was Pallas Athene, one of the 

 greatest divinities of the Greeks. Virgil, in his Georgics, 

 invokes her as 



"Inventor, Pallas, of the fattening oil, 

 Thou founder of the plow and the plowman's toil." 



But not only was she regarded as the olece invent rix 

 inventress of the olive as Virgil phrases it, but also as 

 the inventor of all handicrafts, whether of women or men. 

 Like Isis, she was deemed the originator of agriculture and 

 many of the mechanic arts. But, above all, she was the 

 inventor of musical instruments and those plastic and 

 graphic arts which have for ages placed Greece in the fore- 

 front of civilization and culture. 



From the beginning it was woman who first made use 

 of wool and flax for textile fabrics ; and of this prehistoric 



