This is an excerpt of The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, as part of Neatorama’s review (and giveaway contest) for the book.

Even though it’s said that "necessity is the mother of invention," women’s contribution to inventing and science have been, in the past, often overlooked. It’s likely women have been using their creativity and intelligence to engineer new ideas and products since the beginning of human experience, but nobody really kept track of such things until a few years ago. Below we’ve assembled some of our favorite daring women inventors, scientists, and doctors – from Nobel Prize winners to crafters of practical devices, from women who revolutionized the way diapers were changed to women whose revolutionary ideas changed the world.

1715
Sybilla Masters became the first American women inventor in recorded history, though in accordance with the laws of the time, her patent for "Cleansing Curing and Refining of Indian Corn Growing in the Plantations" was issued in her husband Thomas’ name by the British courts. Her husband was issued a second patent for another of her inventions, entitled "Working and Weaving in a New Method, Palmetta Chip and Straw for Hats and Bonnets and other Improvements of that Ware."

1870
Martha Knight patents a machine to produce flat-bottomed paper bags. She also becomes the first woman in the United States to fight and win a patent suit, when she defended her patent against a man who had stolen her design and filed for his own patent on it. He claimed a woman couldn’t possibly have the mechanical knowledge needed to invent such a complex machine, but Knight was able to back up her claim. After her success, she went on to develop and patent several other machines, including rotary machines and automatic tools.

1885
Sarah E. Goode, born a slave in 1850, obtains the first patent by an African American woman inventor for her folding cabinet bed, a space-saver that when folded up could be used as a desk, complete with compartments for stationery and writing supplies.

1889
Josephine Garis Cochran, of Shelbyville, Illinois, invents the first working automatic dishwasher. Her invention was first shown at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, and eventually went on to become associated with the KitchenAid company.

1903
Mary Anderson, of Alabama, invents the windshield wiper. Patented in 1905, windshield wipers became standard equipment on cars a decade later.

Scientist Marie Curie is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her discovery of the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She is awarded the Nobel Price for Chemistry in 1911, making her the first person to win two Nobel prizes.

1914
Mary Phelps Jacob invents the modern bra. She was inspired to fashion a comfortable upper-body undergarment after becoming fed up with restrictive corsets. Her brassiere, made from two silk handkerchiefs and a ribbon, became so popular that after she patented the invention, she went on to sell it to the Warner Corset Company.

1941
The actress Hedy Lamarr invents (along with George Anthiel) a "Secret Communications System" to help combat the Nazi in World War II.

1950
Marion Donovan invents the disposable diaper. When established manufacturers show little interest in this invention, she starts her own company, Donovan Enterprises, which she sells along with her diaper patent to Keko Corporation in 1951 for one million dollars.

1951
Bette Nesmith invents Liquid Paper, a quick-drying white liquid painted onto paper to correct mistakes. She was a secretary in Texas when she hit upon her invention, which became so successful it grew into the Liquid Paper Company. (Fun fact: Her son, Michael Nesmith, grew up to be a member of the 1960s rock group the Monkees.)

1952
Mathematician and U.S. naval officer Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper invents the computer compiler, which revolutionized computer programming. She and her team also developed the first user-friendly business computer programming language, COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language).

1964
Chemist Stephanie Louise Kwolek invents Kevlar, a polymer fiber that is five times stronger than the same weight of steel and is now used in bulletproof vests, helmets, trampolines, tennis rackets, tires, and many other common objects.

1983
Barbara McClintock, an American scientist and cytogeneticist, becomes the first woman to win, unshared, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for her discovery of a genetic mechanism called transposition.

1984
Frances Gabe invents the self-cleaning house. Each room of the house has a 10-inch square "Cleaning/ Drying/ Heating/ Cooling" device on the ceiling. At the push of a button, the cleaning unit sends a powerful spray of soapy water around the room and then rinses and blow-dries everything. Each room has a sloped floor to aid the water drainage, and all valuable objects and other things that should not get wet are stored under glass. The house, in the woods of Oregon, also has self-cleaning sinks, bathtubs, and toilets; a cupboard that doubles as a dishwasher; and closets that can clean and dry the clothes hung inside them.

1993
Ellen Ochoa becomes the first Hispanic female astronaut in space. The veteran of three space flights, who has logged over 719 hours in space, is also an electrical engineer with patents on high-tech optical recognition systems and optical systems for spacecraft automation.

The Daring Book for Girls is the perfect book for any girls with an eye for adventure and a nose for trouble!

For every girl with an independent spirit, here is the guide to everything from school yard games to great women in history! The Daring Book for Girls is the essential manual for everything that girls need to know – and that doesn’t mean sewing buttonholes! Whether readers consider themselves girly-girls, brainiacs, atheletes, or a little bit of everything, this book is the girl’s invitation to 21st century adventure.

Reviewed on Neatorama here (with FREE book giveaway!)

The romance of searching for pirate treasure has been celebrated in dozens of stories since Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. But is there really any buried treasure to be found? Maybe so … on Oak Island.

TREASURE ISLAND

In 1795, a teenager named Daniel McGinnis discovered an unusual, saucer-shaped depression on Oak Island, a tiny island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Next to the hole was an ancient oak tree with sawed off limbs. And, according to legend, a ship’s tackle hung from the tree directly over the depression – as if it had been used to lower something very heavy into the hole. (Oak Island image: Oak Island Treasure)

McGinnis was certain he had found buried pirate treasure, and with the help of two friends he began digging for it. Within minutes they hit rock – which turned out to be a flagstone buried two feet below surface. They hit another barrier made of oak logs at 10 feet deep; another at 20 feet, and a third at 30 feet. McGinnis and his friends kept digging – but they never found any treasure and eventually gave up. Still, word of their discovery spread.

SECOND TRY

In 1803, a wealthy man named Simeon Lynds took up the search. The diggers he hired found another platform at 40 feet, and found several more deeper down. Finally, at 90 feet, the workers found a large stone with strange symbols carved into it. No one could decipher what the stone said, but the workers were convinced they were close to treasure and kept digging. (The stone was later stolen.) At 98 feet deep, their shovels struck what felt like a wooden chest. But the sun was going down, so they stopped for the night.

By the time the workers got back the next morning, the hole had flooded to the top with seawater. And it somehow kept refilling, even as the workers tried to bail it out. They never were able to drain the pit enough to finish digging.

Like McGinnis, Lynds had hit a dead end.

AMAZING DISCOVERIES

Lynds wasn’t the last person to dig for treasure on Oak Island. In fact, so many excavations have been attempted that the precise location of the original hole – known as the “Money Pit” because so much money has been spent trying to solve its mysteries – has been forgotten because so many other holes have been dug nearby. Even young Franklin D. Roosevelt supervised a dig in 1909 (he followed Oak Island’s progress even as president). And the search continues today. Some findings:

There’s at least some gold down there. In 1849, treasure hunters sank a drill to the 98 foot level. Like Lynds, they hit what felt like a wooden chest. They dug through the top into what felt like “22 inches of metal in pieces (possibly gold coins),” through more wood, and into another 22 inches of metal. When they pulled the drill back to the surface, three links of gold chain were stuck to it. In nearly 200 years of digging, that’s all the treasure that’s been found.

In 1897, another group of drillers dug down to 155 feet. They pulled up a half-inch-square piece of parchment – but that’s not all. They also hit what they thought was a heavy iron plate at 126 feet, but couldn’t pull it up.

Money Pit inscription and cipher at The Active Mind

In 1987, an IBM cryptologist finally deciphered an engraving of Lynds’ lost stone. The message read: “Forty feet below, two million pounds are buried.”

Image: George Bates Maritime map set (The Oak Island Mystery)

HIGH SECURITY

Whoever dug the original pit went through a great deal of trouble to do it. In 1850, explorers resting on a nearby beach noticed that the beach “gulched forth water like a sponge being squeezed.” So they dug it up – and discovered it was a fake. The beach was actually a manmade network of stone drains that filtered seawater and fed it into the Money Pit. The drains – designed to flood the pit whenever treasure hunters got close to the treasure – had been buried in sand to avoid detection.

The Money Pit may even be protected by poison gas. On August 17, 1965, treasure hunter Bob Restall blacked out and fell into the pit he had dug. His son and four others tried to rescue him, but they also blacked out and fell in. Restall, his son, and two of the workers were killed. The autopsy finding: death by “marsh-gas poisoning and/or drowning.”

TODAY

In 1977, the Montreal-based Triton Alliance, Ltd., a consortium of 49 investors headed by David Tobias, bought the 128-acre Oak Island for $125,000. They have spent more than $3 million digging for treasure.

During one drill, Triton’s workers found bits of china, glass, wood, charcoal – even cement. But no treasure.

Perhaps the strangest incident associated with Oak Island occurred in 1971 when Tobias’ partner Dan Blankenship lowered an underwater video camera into a water-filled cavity at the bottom of a shaft. On the monitor, Blankenship suddenly saw what looked like a human hand. Horrified, he called over three crew members, who later verified his story. Asked by Smithsonian magazine about the legitimacy of his hand-sighting, he answered, “There’s no question about it.”

WHAT’S DOWN THERE?

Oak Island’s “treasure,” if there is one, could be worth over $100 million. Among the many theories of what the Money Pit could be hiding:

1. The missing crown jewels of France.
The Nova Scotia area was frequented by pirates in the 16th and 17th centuries – when the jewels were stolen. The local Mahone Bay takes its name from the French word mahonne, a craft used by Mediterranean pirates.

2. Inca gold plundered by Spanish galleons and later pirated by Sir Francis Drake.
A carbon analysis of wood samples recovered from the area dated them back to 1575, around the time of Drake’s explorations. However, there is no record of Drake ever having been to Nova Scotia.

3. Captain Kidd’s buried treasure.
Some believe Kidd buried his treasure there before being extradited and later hanged by the British. Before Kidd was executed in1701, he offered a deal: “He would lead a fleet to the spot where he had hidden his East Indian treasure, if the authorities would put off his execution. The deal was refused – and Kidd’s treasure has never been found.” There is, however, no evidence that Kidd was ever near Oak Island.

Others have their doubts. Some feel that the Money Pit is merely an elaborate decoy and that the treasure is actually buried in a nearby swamp. Others think it’s just a sinkhole. Many doubt whether pirates had the resources and engineering know-how to construct such an elaborate trap.

POSTSCRIPT

Similar Money Pits are rumored to have been found in Haiti and Madagascar, although these discoveries have not been confirmed by archaeologists.

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