It is called a treadle machine, my grandmother had one, and it was made by Singer, a well-known maker of sewing machines until comparatively recently. And yes, since Uncle Andrew, the technology freak, was in Narnia, and Frank and Helen were his contemporaries, of course Narnia would have limited technology. I expect they had those mangles for washing laundry with. Helen obviously knew about those.
Thus I don't see any problem with the Narnians making tea or coffee, both of which were around well before the Victorian age, as noted by the famous Boston tea party and Lewis Carroll, an Oxford predecessor of C.S.Lewis.
The airship is possible of course, but improbable. It fits much better into something like Golden Compass with a similar Victorian connexion in Oxford. Despite the Splendour Hyaline, the Dawn Treader and other ships, on the whole, the Narnians didn't seem all that interested much in travel for travel's sake. The later Telmarines certainly weren't very interested when governed by Miraz.
Tea and coffee are fine for Narnia. Tea can be made by merely putting tea leaves into hot water and then sifting out the leaves with a strainer. Coffee can be made by merely crushing the coffee beans in hot water, and then straining similarly.
Member of Ye Olde NarniaWeb
Also there were fireworks in Narnia (in PC the book), though I'm pretty sure that on earth fireworks are a rather ancient inventions in themselves. I think one of the pedaled sewing machines would fit the description good Also there's the lamppost, but we all know how that got there
"The mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly." -John Muir
"Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed." -Richard Adams, Watership Down
Coffee can be made by merely crushing the coffee beans in hot water, and then straining similarly.
...that is to say - first you roast the beans, then grind them, then mix them somehow with the boiling-hot water. (I hand-grind coffee beans pretty well every day. ).
Technology - well, there were pulleys, levers (both of which would be needed on the Dawn Treader) and there was pretty advanced optics, for telescopes and spectacles. Oh, and advanced steel-making, of course, not just iron-working. I think we can be pretty certain about looms, too, though I can't recall mention of one right now...
And cuckoo clocks, which require a pretty sophisticated level of mechanics (mid-17th C in our world).
The difference is that people wanted to hear the stories, whereas I never met anyone who wanted to read the essays
I like Narnia how it is. with no tech stuff (accept for flashlights) and at the end of LB no more old narnia. so there might be some tech in new narnia.
The Hobbit in theaters: 14 December 2012
By the way, the cosmetics used by King Tirian to look like Calormenes would be some chemotechnical advance, I think.
I wouldn't go that far. It could be a recent Narnian discovery, but people have been using dyes (both for skin and clothing) for a VERY long time.
Member of Ye Olde NarniaWeb
Coffee can be made by merely crushing the coffee beans in hot water, and then straining similarly.
...that is to say - first you roast the beans, then grind them, then mix them somehow with the boiling-hot water. (I hand-grind coffee beans pretty well every day. ).
Or you mix them with cold water (or just pour water on top of them, no need to stir) and then boil the mixture. When it is just at the boiling point, it is ready to be poured and drunk. Use a strainer.
(avi artwork by Henning Janssen)
MOD NOTE: We're getting a bit sidetracked off of the topic at hand. I have no problem talking about how technologies developed in this world, so long as their relation to the Narnian World is what is being discussed. We've taken the coffee discussion a lot farther away from the Narnian World than should be permitted by forum rules.
Let's try to get back to "Narnian Technologies."
Member of Ye Olde NarniaWeb
If they had something like that, I guess it would have been the centaurs who were running it They seem to me to have been the ones who would have been most interested in such technology and what it could be used for.
(avi artwork by Henning Janssen)