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The four inventions I learned about this week were the pencil, the stethoscope, the tunneling shield, and lastly the paved roads. Conte invented the Conte pencil and Henry David Thoreau reinvented it. The stethoscope was invented in 1816 by Lannec. It signaled a turning point in medicine. Britain needed to tunnel under the Thames River and the tunneling shield protects miners from cave-ins. John McAdam invented the method of paved roads in 1816. To make it, you need crushed stone and asphalt. It was the cheapest method at the time.