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YALE
MEDICAL LIBRARY

HISTORICAL
LIBRARY
BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY.

BECKMANN'S
HISTORY OF INVENTIONS,
DISCOVERIES, AND ORIGINS.
 —

" Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every
variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to
me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss
and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading Give a
man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of
making him a happy man unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most
;

perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society
in every period of history, —with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the
bravest,and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make
him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has
been created for him." Sir John Herschel. Address on the opening of
the Eton Library, 1833.
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
Open Knowledge Commons and Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

http://www.archive.org/details/historyofinventi01unse
chmUbt.
 HISTORY
OF

INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES,
AND ORIGINS.

By JOHN BECKMANN,
PROFESSOR OF (ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,

By WILLIAM JOHNSTON.

dfoutti) QBtjition,

CAREFULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY

WILLIAM FRANCIS, Ph.D., F.L.S.,
EDITOR OF THE CHEMICAL GAZETTE ;

AND
J. W. GRIFFITH, M.D., F.L.S.,
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1846.
PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

T
\
 3

CONTENTS.

Page
Italian Book-keeping ... 1

Odometer 5
Machine for noting down Music 12
Refining Gold and Silver Ore by Quicksilver 14
Cold or Dry Gilding 19
Gold Varnish ., 20
Tulips 22
Canary Bird 32
Archil 35
Magnetic Cures 43
Secret Poison 47
"Wooden Bellows G

Coaches 68
Water-clocks, Clepsydras S2
Tourmaline 86
Speaking-trumpet „ 93
Ananas .
— Pine- apple 1 02

Sympathetic Ink 106

Diving-bell ., Ill
Coloured Glass. — Artificial Gems 123
Sealing-wax ..... 137
Corn-mills 147
Verdigris, or Spanish Green 17.1

Saffron , 175
 Page
Alum 180
Falconry 198
Turf.... 205
Artichoke 212
Saw-mills 222
Stamped Paper 230
Insurance 234
Adulteration of Wine 245
Artificial Pearls 258
Paving of Streets 269
Collections of Natural Curiosities 282
Chimneys 295
Hungary Water 315
Cork 318
Apothecaries 326
Clocks and Watches 340
Clocks and Watches (additional) 355
Quarantine 373
Paper-hangings 379
Kermes. Cochineal 385
Writing-pens 405
Wire-drawing 414
Buck-wheat 425
Saddles 431
Stirrups 435
Horse-shoes 442
Floating of Wood 454
Lace 463
Ultramarine 467
Cobalt, Zaffer, Smalt 478
Turkeys 487
Butter 499
Aurum Fulminans 509
Garden-flowers 512
 ;

ADVERTISEMENT.

In revising Beckmann's celebrated Work, we have endeavoured

to improve it principally by altering suck names, characters,

descriptions, and opinions as have become obsolete, or are

now known to be erroneous ; and by such additions as seemed

necessary to bring the accounts of the subjects treated of to

the present state of knowledge. In some cases, these additions

may appear to diverge from the declared object of the work

but in this we have only followed the example of Beckmann
himself, who frequently deviates from a strict historical path,

and we think advantageously, for the purpose of introducing

curious, instructive, or amusing information. In most cases,

where the subject under consideration is a process of manu-

facture, we have given a brief outline of its practice or theory,

unless this had previously been done by the author. The trans-
lation, also, has been carefully compared with the German, but

in only a very few cases could we detect errors which rendered

the passages contradictory or unintelligible : on the whole, it is

extremely well executed ; and too much praise cannot he given

to Johnston, for the judicious manner in which he has embodied
in one article, detached essays on the same subject, which Beck-
mann published at different periods, as he acquired fresh in-

formation. The only instances in which this had been omitted,

are the articles on Turf, Cork, and Quarantine, which were

still encumbered with addenda; in the present edition, these have

been incorporated. All such quotations from Latin and Greek
authors, as might be deemed essential to the understanding of
the text, have been given in English ; those of a mere critical

and philological character, it has been thought advisable to

leave untranslated. The book may be classed as a compound

of learned research and light reading, suitable both to the

popular reader and the scholar ; and that character has been
preserved in the present edition. To the kindness of John

Frodsham, Esq., the present proprietor of Arnold's Chronome-

ter Establishment, we are indebted for much of the interesting

information added to the article on ' Clocks and Watches ;'

and we have also to return our thanks to the publisher, Mr.

H. G. Bohn, for the assistance he has constantly afforded us,

as well as for his Memoir of the author.

W. Francis.
J.W. Griffith.
 ;

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

That the arts had their rise in the East, and that they were
conveyed thence to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans,
is universally admitted. Respecting the inventions and dis-
coveries however of the earliest ages, nothing certain is known.
Many of those most useful in common life must have been
the production of periods when men were little acquainted
with letters, or any sure mode of transmitting an account of
their improvements to succeeding generations. The taste
which then prevailed of giving to every thing a divine origin,
I'endered traditional accounts fabulous ; and the exaggeration
of poets tended more and more to make such authorities less
worthy of credit. A variety of works also, which might have
supplied us with information on this subject, have been lost
and the relations of some of those preserved are so corrupted
and obscure, that the best commentators have not been able
to illustrate them. This in particular is the case with many
passages in Pliny, an author who appears to have collected
with the utmost diligence whatever he thought useful or curi-
ous,and whose desire of communicating knowledge seems to
have been equal to his thirst for acquiring it.
Of all those nations whose history has been preserved, the
most distinguished are certainly the Greeks and the Romans;
but, as far as can be judged at this remote period, the former
were superior to the latter in point of invention. The Romans
indeed seem to have known little, except what they borrowed
from the Grecians ; and it is evident, by their sending their
vol. j. b
X TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.

young men of rank to finish their education in Greece, that

they considered that country as the seat of the arts and the
sciences, and as a school where genius would be excited by
the finest models, while the taste was corrected and formed.
From some hints given however by Pliny and other writers,
we have reason to conclude that the Romans possessed more
knowledge of the arts than the moderns perhaps are willing
to allow, and that some inventions, considered as new, may be
only old ones revived and again rendered useful.
When Rome, abandoned to luxury and vice, became an
easy prey to those hordes of barbarians who overran the em-
pire, her arts shared in the general wreck, and were either
The deplorable state of
entirely lost, or for a time forgotten.
ignorance in which Europe was afterwards plunged during
several centuries, retarded their revival ; and it was not till a
late period, when favoured and protected by a few men of
superior genius, that they began to be again cultivated. It
cannot however be denied, that several important discoveries,
altogether unknown to the ancients, which must have had
considerable influence on the general state of society, were
made in ages that can hardly be exempted from the appella-
tion of barbarous. As a proof of this may be mentioned the
invention of paper 1
,
painting in oil 2 , the mariner's com
1
Montfaucon, notwithstanding all his researches in France and Italy,
was not ahle to discover any charter or diploma written on common paper,
older than the year 1270. Paper, however, made of cotton, is said to be
much older, and to have heen introduced into Europe by the Arabs. If
we can believe an Arabian author, who wrote in the thirteenth century,
quoted by Casiri, in Biblioth. Arabico-Hispana, vol. ii. p. 9, paper (doubt-
less of cotton) was invented at Mecca by one Joseph Amru, about the year
of the Hegira 88, or of the Christian aera 706. According to other Arabian
authors, quoted by Casiri and Abulfeda, the Arabs found a manufactory of
paper at Samarcand in Bucharia, when they conquered that country in the
year of the Hegira 85, or of our <era 704. The art of making paper from
silk was, as some pretend, known to the Chinese 180 years before Jesus
Christ. See a letter from Father de Mailla to Father Etienne Souciet, in
Memoires des Inscript. et des Belles Lettres, vol. xv. 520.
2
The oldest picture, known at present, painted in oil-colours on wood
ispreserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. It was painted in the year
1297, by a painter named Thomas de Mutina, or de Muttersdorf, in Bohe-
 TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XI

pass 1
,
gunpowder 2 printing 3 and engraving on copper 4 After
, , .

the invention of the compass and printing, two grand sources

mia. Two
other paintings in the same gallery are of the year 1357 ; one
of them by Nicholas Wurmser of Strasburg, and the other by Thierry of
is
Prague. It appears therefore that painting in oil was known long before
the epoch at which that invention is generally fixed; and that it is errone-
ously ascribed to Hubert van Eyck and his brother and pupil, John van
Eyck, otherwise called John of Bruges, who lived about the end of the
fourteenth century, and not the beginning of the fifteenth, as is commonly
supposed. [There is evidence in the books of the Painters' Company, under
the date of the 11th of Edward I. (1283), that oil painting was in use at that
time. See a communication from Sir Francis Palgrave given in the new
edition of Carter's Ancient Sculpture and Paintings in England, page 80.]
1
The person who first speaks of the magnetic needle and its use in na-
vigation, a Provencal poet, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth
is
century, and Who wrote a poem entitled Bible Guyot. This work is a
satire, in which the author lashes with great freedom the vices of that age.
Comparing the Pope to the polar star, he introduces a description of the
compass, such as it appears to have been in its infancy. This invention
however is claimed by the Italians, who maintain that we are indebted for
it to a citizen of Amalphi, named Flavius Gioja, and in support of this
assertion quote commonly the following line of Panormitanus :

Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalfis.

2
Of the use of gunpowder in Europe no certain traces occur till to-
wards the middle of the fourteenth century. It seems pretty well proved,
that artillery was known in France after the year 1345. In 1356, the city
of Nuremberg purchased the first gunpowder and cannon. The same year
the city of Louvain employed thirty cannon at the battle of Santfliet
against the Flemings. In 1361, a fire broke out at Lubec, occasioned by
the negligence of those employed in making gunpowder. In 1363, the
Hans-towns used cannon for the first time, in a naval combat which they
fought against the Danes. After 1367, the use of fire-arms became general
throughout Italy, into which they had been introduced from Germany.
3 The invention of printing has given rise to many researches. Meer-
mann in his Origines Typographic, published in 1768, endeavours to
prove that Laurence Coster of Haarlem was the inventor, about the year
1430. Most authors however agree that John Gutenberg was the inventor
of moveable types, but they differ respecting the place of the invention.
Some make it to be Strasburg, others Mentz, and some fix the epoch of
the invention at 1440, and others at 1450.
4 Vasari, in Vite de' Pittori, vol. iv.
p. 264, ascribes the invention of
engraving on copper to a goldsmith of Florence, named Maso Finiguerra,
about 1460. The oldest engravers whose names and marks are known,
were Israel de Mecheln, of Bokholt, in the bishopric of Munster Martin;

Schcen, who worked at Colmar in Alsace, where he died in 1486 and ;

Michael Wolgemuth of Nuremberg, who was preceptor to the famous Al-

bert Durer, and engraved the plates in the well-known Nuremberg Chro-
nicle. It may be proper here to observe, that the art of engraving on wood

62
Xll TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.

were opened for the improvement of science. In proportion as

navigation was extended, new objects were discovered to awaken
the curiosity and excite the attention of the learned and the ;

ready means of diffusing knowledge, afforded by the press,

enabled the ingenious to make them publicly known. Igno-
rance and superstition, the formidable enemies of philosophy
in every age, began soon to lose some of that power which
they had usurped ; and states, forgetting their former blind
nolicy, adopted improvements which their prejudice had before
condemned.
Though it might be expected that the great share which
new inventions and discoveries have at all times had in effect-
ing such happy changes among mankind would have secured
them a distinguished place in the annals of nations, we find
with regret, that the pen of history has been more employed
in recording the crimes of ambition and the ravage of con-
querors, than in preserving the remembrance of those who, by
improving science and the arts, contributed to increase the
conveniences of life, and to heighten its enjoyments. So
little indeed has hitherto been done towards a history of in-

ventions and discoveries, that the rise and progress of part of

those even of modern times is involved in considerable dark-
ness and obscurity of some the names of the inventors are
:

not so much as known, and the honour of others is disputed

by different nations ; while the evidences on both sides are so
imperfect, that it is almost impossible to determine to which
the palm is due. To Professor Beckmann, therefore, those
fond of such researches are much indebted for the pains he
has been at to collect information on this subject ;and though
he has perhaps not been able to clear up every doubt respect-
ing the objects on which he treats, he has certainly thrown

seems to be older than the invention of printing, to which perhaps it gave

rise. The names of the first engravers on wood are however not known.
[In the Athenaeum Journal for 1845, page 965, is given a fac-smiile of a large
wood-engraving, bearing the date of 1418, which was discovered at Malines
in 1844, and is now preserved in the public library at Brussels.]
 ;

TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. Xlll

much light on many curious circumstances hitherto buried in

oblivion.
The author, with much modesty, gives to this work in the
original the title of only Collections towards a History of In-
ventions : but as he has carefully traced out the rise and pro-
gress of all those objects which form the subject of his in-
quiry, from the earliest periods of their being known, as far
as books supplied information, and arranged his matter in
chronological order, the original title may admit, without
being liable to much criticism, of the small variation adopted
in the translation. The author, indeed, has not in these
volumes comprehended every invention and discovery, but he
has given an account of a great many, most of them very im-
portant.
Should any one be disposed to find fault with the author
for introducing into his work some articles which on the first

view may appear trifling, his own words, taken from the short
preface prefixed to the first volume of the original, will per-
haps be considered as a better exculpation than anything the
translator might advance in his favour. " I am sensible," says
he, " that many here will find circumstances which they may
think unworthy of the labour I have bestowed upon them
but those who know how different our judgements are respect-
ing utility, will not make theirs a rule for mine. Those whose
self-conceit would never allow them to be sensible of this truth,
and who which they do not observe
reject as useless all ore in
pure gold, as they display very little acuteness, must be often
duped by the tinsel glare of false metal and they give me as
;

little uneasiness as those who have no desire to know the

origin of inventions, or how they were brought to their pre-

sent utility. If my extending the term Invention farther than
is perhaps usual, by comprehending under it several police-

establishments, be a fault, it is at any rate harmless, and on

that account may be pardoned without much apology.'
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

John Beckmann, Professor of (Economy at Gottingen during

a period of forty-five years, was born at Hoye, a small town
in the kingdom of Hanover, in 1739. His father held the ap-
pointment of postmaster and receiver of taxes in that place,
and at the same time cultivated a small farm, which appears
to have inspired his son with a taste for agricultural pursuits.
The superintendence of his education devolved principally on
his mother, a woman of great prudence and strength of mind,
who was left a widow when young Beckmann was scarcely
seven years old. In a lonely house, amid examples of industry
and daily labour, he passed his youth in the perusal of works,
which, although of a common-place description, were not
without their use, as they led him to contract a methodical
habit of mind, and afforded considerable information on va-
rious subjects, which in the sequel greatly assisted him in the
pursuits to which he owed his celebrity. He himself relates
that, when quite a boy, he was in the habit of making extracts
of all the striking passages he met with in the course of his
reading, by which means he acquired a ready use of the pen.
The insufficient circumstances of his family prevented his
education being cultivated in the schools till nearly fifteen ; at
which age he was sent to the Gymnasium of Stade, then under
the direction of Gehlen, where in a short time he highly di-
stinguished himself in classical literature. Intended for the
clerical profession, he entered the university of Gottingen in
1759, for the purpose of completing his theological studies;
but whether the advice of Hollmann (afterwards his father-in-
law), with whom he had formed a close intimacy, produced a
change in his plans, or that the mathematical instructions of
XVI MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

Professors Kaestner and Mayer were more congenial to his

mind than he abandoned the career marked out for
divinity,
him, and devoted himself to the natural sciences and their
application, as well as to mathematics ; whilst he cultivated
philology with such zeal, that he ultimately made himself
master of ten different languages. In order to gain greater
proficiency in these pursuits, he made a journey in 1762 to
the Netherlands, but returned to Hoye in the following year,
in consequence of the serious indisposition of his mother, who
dying shortly afterwards, left him destitute of guidance, and
in the greatest anxiety respecting his future prospects. At
this juncture Busching advised him to travel to St. Petersburg,
where, upon the strong recommendations with which he was
provided, he was speedily appointed to the chair of Natural
Philosophy. Shortly after, Busching, quitting the institution,
returned to Germany, and dissensions having arisen among
the directors, Beckmann likewise resigned his office. He then
proceeded to Sweden, with the view of acquiring a detailed
knowledge of the working of the mines in that country making ;

his principal sojourn at Upsal, where he became acquainted

with Linnaeus, and enjoyed the friendship and hospitality, as
well as the instructions, of that eminent naturalist Leaving 1
.

Sweden, ne directed his course to Denmark, visiting Copen-

hagen and other towns, where he examined the various mu-
seums, libraries and manufacturing establishments. On ar-
riving at Altona, he found there his friend Busching, who
recommended him to Miinchhausen, curator of the Academy
of Gottingen. After paying a visit to his brother at Mar-
burgh, he proceeded to Hanover and being approved of by
;

Struve, then president of Gottingen under Miinchhausen, he

was appointed, in 1766, Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy
Heyne, in his funeral oration, says Beckmann was so struck with ad-
1

miration at the vast knowledge of Linnaeus, that he became ensnared, like

the companions of Ulysses in the island of Circe, and was disheartened
from proceeding any further in his own botanical studies. To this cir-
cumstance is attributed the coolness with which he afterwards cultivated
this department of science.
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. XVII

to that university, of which he eventually became one of the

brightest ornaments.
His lectures upon ceconomy had the recommendation of
novelty, and produced so much applause, that in 1770 he was
made ordinary professor of that science. They were attended
by the flower of the studious youth of all countries, Gottingen
being at that period one of the most popular universities in Eu-
rope and many even of the distinguished statesmen and public
;

functionaries of Germany did not disdain to be ranked among

his auditors. He was in the habit of accompanying them him-
self into the workshops, to give them a practical knowledge of
the different processes and handicrafts of which he had ex-
plained the theory. Once a week, also, he held a Practicum
Camerale, a scientific meeting, at which he explained subjects
of ceconomy, administration, and finance, illustrating them
by readings from a great variety of sources. He composed,
to serve as a guide in this course of instruction, treatises on
rural ceconomy, policy, finance, commerce, and other de-
partments of knowledge ; which, though since carried to a
higher degree of perfection, owed to Beckmann their first
systematic form. He never entirely relinquished these public
lectures, but insensibly his private studies took a direction
altogether historical, the motives for which it may not be un-
interesting to point out.
It is indispensably requisite at Gottingen that every pro-
fessor should be able to give account of the progress and
existing state of the science to which he is appointed. Any
one, who two years after the publication of a work of im-
portance in his department should not have read and analysed
it, with a view of enriching his own observations, would
not be regarded as a worthy successor to the chair of Haller,
of Mosheim, of Gessner and Michaelis. Beckmann, who had
studied at Gottingen at a time when the example of these
great men dictated the law and gave the tone to the University,
and perhaps to the literature of Europe, was determined to
 ;

XV111 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

keep pace with the spirit of the age, and not to remain igno-
rant of the great advances then making throughout Europe,
in the numerous sciences which furnished the subjects of his
practical investigations. But this was a task of no slight mag-
nitude and indeed when the immense additions to so many
:

different sciences are considered, can it be wondered at, that,

notwithstanding his utmost zeal and application, he found it
impossible to read up all the important works which had ap-
peared since 1770, in chemistry, physics, natural history and
mathematics ? Despairing of success in so Herculean an un-
dertaking, he began to entertain feelings of aversion towards
what he deemed the innovations, which were then chan-
ging the face and enlarging the scope of science. But his
course of lectures, turning principally on practical matters,
was not materially affected he was, however, so fearful of
;

falling under the imputation of being behind the progress of the

age, that he devoted his mind, peculiarly fitted for this kind
of study, almost exclusively to the history of arts and trades
employing in the illustration of his subjects, the materials to
which he had access in the very extensive library belonging to
the university and it is to his consequent labours and researches
;

that we owe the " History of Inventions and Discoveries." In

this work, Beckmann traces their first germs from the re-
motest periods of antiquity, and following their gradual deve-
lopment, exhibits the latest improvements among civilized na-
tions with almost unequalled acumen and ability. It abounds
with invaluable materials respecting the general history of the
origin and progress of the mechanic arts, which are so im-
portant a branch in civilization and what must give it an
;

additional value in the eyes of all who are unwilling to place

reliance on assertions unsupported by authority, or may be
anxious to investigate the subject more deeply, the most
scrupulous references to original authorities accompany each
article. Among the numerous other works of merit for which
we are indebted to the literary industry of Beckmann, are,
 :

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. XIX

" A History and Analysis of early Voyages and Travels," a

highly interesting collection, which occupied the last years of
his life, and was left unfinished at the eighth number ; elabo-
rate editions of " De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus," attri-

buted to Aristotle, 1786; " Antigoni Carystii Historise Mi-

rabiles," 1791; and " Marbodi Liber de Gemmis," 1799;
publications which required the rare combination of physical
knowledge with philological learning.
The Royal Society of Gb'ttingen had, in the year 1772, ad-
mitted him one of its members, and from that period to 1783
he continued to supply their proceedings with interesting me-
moirs (all written in Latin), among which are the following
;"
" On the Reduction of Fossils to their original substances
" On the History of Alum ;" " On the Sap of Madder ;" " On
Meerschaum, from which are formed the heads for tobacco
pipes ;" " On the History of Sugar," &c. After this period,
however, he declined participating any longer in the labours
of this learned body ; owing, probably, to a change in the ob-
jects of his own particular studies. In 1784 he was created
an aulic councillor of Hanover ; in addition to which he was
elected member of the Imperial Academy of Naturalists, of
the Swedish Society of Science, of the Academies of Norway
and Mayence, of the Physiographical Society of Lund, and of
almost all the learned societies in Germany and the North of
Europe.
With a copious knowledge of the principal sciences, Beck-
mann united extensive reading in the works of ancient and
modern writers, not only in reference to their immediate con-
nection with his main studies, but in respect also to their ap-
plication generally to every other branch. Convinced that
every professor ought, as much as possible, to have thoroughly
searched into all matters relating to the subject on which he
treats, he spared no expense in forming a most extensive, as
well as choice library ; at the same time he did not fail to
avail himself of the rich intellectual stores contained in that
XX MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

belonging to the university. His mind being wholly directed

to all that is practical in human knowledge, it was his espe-

cial endeavour to bring it into systematic rules, based upon

fundamental principles. To him particularly is to be ascribed
the merit of having been the first to give to agriculture its

scientific form, and to have separated it more distinctly than

heretofore from the administrative and financial departments.
The number of pupils indebted to him for their education,
and who, eventually, — whether filling offices of state or follow-
ing his footsteps as professors, — brought into effect the prin-
ciples he had taught them, formed a very numerous body;
and whilst he was thus the means of considerably enlarging
the circle of academic subjects for the instruction of the
student, he contributed not a little towards the prosperity of
the university itself. His activity likewise as a writer was
as persevering as it was meritorious; he united an extensive
knowledge of nature, with a decided turn for applying it to
practical purposes and he published several works in Ger-
;

man, which show this tendency of mind among others, ;

" Principles of German Agriculture," " Introduction to

Technology," "Introduction to the Science of Commerce,"
&c.
To he issued a periodical work
assist his literary researches,

called " Physico-OEconomical Library," in which quarterly

information was communicated respecting the newest works
connected with the arts, manufactures, and agriculture, giving
short extracts of whatever was valuable, instead of severe cri-
ticisms, of which he did not approve. It was commenced in

1770, and continued, with some little interruption, until 1807?

forming 23 volumes.
Having said thus much respecting his abilities and genius,
we will in conclusion take a brief glance at his private cha-
racter, which, amiable and virtuous as it was, cannot fail to
command the world's estimation. Honest and unpretending,
a lover of peace and justice, he lived quite retired, devoted to
 MEMOIH OF IHE AUTHOR. .XXI

the conscientious performance of his duties; his candour, his

sincerity in friendship, his affability to the students, have been
celebrated with one accord by his coadjutors and auditors.
In the domestic relations of life, he presented an example of
the most exact system of order and ceconomy, and enjoyed the
reputation of being one oi the richest professors of the uni-
versity; which enabled him to exercise his ready benevolence
during a period of severe dearth and suffering. Among his
colleagues, Schlcetzer, the distinguished historian, with whom
in hisyouth he had become acquainted in Russia, was the
one with whom he maintained the most uninterrupted inti-
macy, arising, no doubt, from the congeniality of their pur-
suits. Few were better qualified than Schlcetzer to appreciate
the researches of Beckmann, as he had himself insisted with
so much force on the necessity of introducing into history a
simultaneous view of the influence exercised on social insti-

tutions by the efforts of industry, and maturity or

and the rise

domestic arts. Beckmann married the daughter of Hollmann,

his tutor and friend, with whom he enjoyed a long and unin-
terrupted course of happiness she survived him only a few
;

weeks, leaving a son and daughter who had arrived at years

of maturity. His decease took place on the 3rd of February,
1811, in the 72nd year of his age. His illustrious colleague,
Heyne, pronounced an eloquent eulogium on him before the
Academy, which was published in the. Gdttingen Transactions,
from which we subjoin a few extracts.
" O colleagues, if we indulge in deep sorrow at this new
diminution of our fraternity by the death of one of its seniors,
it must be forgiven, as consonant to our duty and piety, as

well as to the affections of human nature. Indeed, when his

death was announced, and when I afterwards beheld the mourn-
fulpomp of his funeral, I was afflicted with the utmost grief.
Nor can this be wondered at, when it is borne in mind that
he was nearly of my own age, and next to me the eldest of
our Society the habit, too, of friendly intercourse enjoyed for
;
 — ;

XXU MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

many years, has great influence in riveting the affections of

the mind.
" There is a narrative in Herodotus, concerning Psamme-
nitus king of Egypt, who was conquered by Cambyses king
of Persia. The city of Memphis being taken by storm, he
had fallen into the hands of Cambyses ; who, enraged at the
vigorous defence he had encountered, commanded the royal
family to be brought forth and put to death. In the first

place, his daughter was paraded before him, with many maidens
of noble birth, clothed as slaves and though the other parents
;

uttered piteous lamentations, yet Psammenitus kept his eyes

fixed on the ground in like manner, when his sons, together
:

with two thousand of the principal youths, their necks bound

with ropes, with bridles in their mouths, were ignominiously
led to death, the king did not even utter a groan but on ;

seeing an aged ;nan approach, one of his old friends, who had
formerly partaken of the royal table, walking in the dress of
a mendicant, and imploring mercy through the different ranks
of the army, then indeed the king could restrain his emotions
no longer, but broke forth most bitter wailings. The
into the
cause of this strange grief would be foreign to our present
it

purpose to discuss I only wish to draw this conclusion

;

that the death of an old friend and companion was alone able
to subdue his mind, even after it had supported him against
the severest calamities. For the force of habit and friendly
intercourse is most powerful we bring to recollection many
:

things which prey upon our feelings they rush upon our
;

memory with one impetus, and swell the rising grief we dwell ;

on early struggles, on proofs of mental power, and instances

of benevolence, which formerly we had passed unheeded.
" What is known favourably of the character of him who is
taken away from us, it is our pleasing duty to bring before you
what is otherwise, if anything exist, it is not our province to
remember.
" The studies of Beckmann were applied to other branches
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. XXIII

of learning, quite distinct from those in which I am occupied :

but it was this very circumstance which cemented our ac-

quaintance. His conversations on scientific subjects could
not but prove profitable ; especially as he blended them with
a feeling for ancient literature. was accustomed to consult
I
him concerning and art, which I did not
subjects of nature
sufficiently understand; and he sometimes referred to me re-
specting philological matters, of which he wished to gain
further information. But the varied talents of this illustrious
man were wonderful an unceasing desire to search into the
:

origin of arts and sciences, and the history and success of in-
ventors, was united with an insatiable thirst for general
knowledge and classical learning. He was incessantly in our
public library, eagerly investigating and comparing rare books
in pursuit of his object; seizing their hidden treasures, and
then contributing his booty to the mental improvement of the
million."

The remainder of this elegant oration concerns the details of

his career, which are already embodied in the preceding sketch.

H. G. B.
 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS
AN1>

DISCOVERIES.

ITALIAN BOOK-KEEPING.
Those who are acquainted with the Italian method of book-
keeping must allow that it is an ingenious invention, of great
utility to men in business, and that it has contributed to ex-
tend commerce and to facilitate its operations. It requires no
less attention, care, and accuracy, than many works which are
styled learned but it is undoubtedly true, that most mercan-
:

tile people, without knowing the foundation of the rules on

which they proceed, conduct their books in as mechanical a
manner as many of the literati do their writings.
The name, Italian book-keeping, Doppia scrittura, with
several words employed in this branch of science and still re-
tained in all languages, make it probable that it was invented
by the Italians and that other nations borrowed it, as well as
;

various short methods of reckoning, from their mercantile

houses, at the time when all the East-India trade passed through
Italy.
De Porte says l , " About the year 1495, brother Luke,
la
an published a treatise of it in his own language. He
Italian,
is the oldest author I have seen upon the subject." Anderson,
in his Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of
Commerce 2 gives the following account " In all probability,
, :

this art of double-entry accounts had its rise, or at least its

1
La science des negocians et teneurs de livres. Paris 1754.
2
Vol. i. p. 408-
2 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

revival, amongst the mercantile cities of Italy possiblyit might

:

be first known at Venice, about the time that numeral algebra

was taught there from the principles of which science double-
;

entry, or what we call merchants' accounts, seems to have

been deduced. It is said that Lucas de Burgo, a friar, was
the first European author who published his algebraic work,
at Venice, anno 1494."
This author, who was one of the greatest mathematicians of
the fifteenth century, and who is supposed to be the first per-
son who acquired a knowledge of algebra from the writings
of the Arabians, was called Lucas Paciolus, e Burgo S. Sepul-
chri. He was a Franciscan, and so f.urnamed from a town in
the duchy of Urbino, on the Florentine confines, called Burgo
S. Sepulchro 1
.

Anderson tells us s that he had in his possession the oldest

,

book published in England in which any account is given of

the method of book-keeping by double-entry. It was printed
at London, in 1569, in folio. The author, whose name is
James Peele, says, in his preface, that he had instructed many
mercantile people in this art, which had been long practised
in other countries, though in England it was then undoubtedly
new. One may readily believe that Mr. Anderson was not
ignorant of the difference between the method of book-keep-
ing by single and that by double-entry but he produce,
;

nothing to induce us to believe that Peele taught the latters

and not the former for what he says of debit and credit is
;

of no importance, as it may be applied also to the method by

single-entry.
Of this Peele no mention is made in Ames's Typographical
Antiquities but in that work (p. 410) there is an account of a
;

still older treatise of book-keeping, entitled A

briefe instruc-
tion and manner how to keepe bookes of accompts, after the
order of debitor aisd creditor, and as well for proper accompts,
partible, &c. by tlaree bookes, named the memoriall, journall,
and leager. Newly augmented and set forth by John Mellis
schole maister. London 1588, 12mo. Mellis, in his preface,

1
Those who are desirous of further information respecting Lucas de
Borgo, may consult Scriptores ordinis Minorum, recensiut Fr. Lucas Wad-
dingus, Romae lfi50; —
Heilbronneri Historia Matheseos universal, Lipsiae
1742 ; —
Histoire des Mathcmatiques, par Montucla, Paris 1758.
a Vol. i. p. 409.
 ITALIAN BOOK-KEEPING. 3

says that he is only the re-publisher of this treatise, which was

before published at London in 1543 by a schoolmaster named
Hugh Oldcastle. From the above title, and particularly from
the three account books mentioned in it, I am inclined to be-
lieve that this work contained the true principles of book-
keeping by double-entry.
The oldest German work on book-keeping by double-entry
with which I am at present acquainted, is one written by John
Gotlieb, and printed at Nuremberg, by Frederick Peypus, in
1531 '. The author in his preface calls himself a citizen of
Nuremberg, and says that he means to give to the public a
clear and intelligible method of book-keeping, such as was
never before printed. It appears, therefore, that he considered
his book as the first of the kind ever published in Germany.
It is worthy of remark, that even at the end of the sixteenth
century, the Italian method of book-keeping began to be ap-
plied to finances and public accounts. In the works of the
celebrated Simon Stevin, published at Leyden in Dutch, and
the same year in Latin, we find a system of book-keeping, as
applied to finances, drawn up it appears for the use of Maurice
prince of Orange. To this treatise is prefixed, in Dutch and
Latin, a dedication to the duke of Sully, in which the author
says, that his reason for dedicating the work to Sully was be-
cause the French had paid the greatest attention to improve
the method of keeping public accounts. The work begins
with a conversation, which took place between Stevin and
prince Maurice, respecting the application of book-keeping
to public accounts, and in which he explains to the prince the
principles of mercantile book-keeping. This conversation com-
mences with explaining the nature of debit and credit, and
the principal accounts. Then follow a short journal and led-
ger, in which occur only the most common transactions ; and
the whole concludes with an account of the other books ne-
cessary for regular book-keeping, and of the manner of
balancing. Stevin expressly says, that prince Maurice, in the
year 1604, caused the treasury accounts to be made out after
the Italian method, by an experienced book-keeper, with the
best success ; but how long this regulation continued I have
not been able to learn. Stevin supposes, in this system, three
1
The title runs thus Ein Teutsch verstendig Buchhalten fur Herren
:

oder Gesellschafter inhalt wellischem Process.

 •1 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ministers, and three different accounts a qumstor, who re-

:

ceives the revenues of the domains ; an acceptor, who receives

allthe other revenues of the prince and a thesaurarius (trea-
;

surer), who has the care of the expenditure. All inferior

offices for receiving or disbursing are to send from their books
monthly extracts, which are to be doubly-entered in a princi-
pal ledger ; so that it may be seen at all times how much re-
mains in the hands of each receiver, and how much each has
to collect from the debtors. One cannot help admiring the
ingenuity of the Latin translator ', who has found out, or at
least invented, words to express so many new terms unknown
to the ancient Romans. The learned reader may, perhaps, not
be displeased with the following specimen. Book-keeping is
called apologistica or apologismus ; a book-keeper apologista ;
the ledger codex accepti expensique ; the cash-book arcarii li-
ber the expense-book impensarum liber ; the waste-book liber
;

deletitius accounts are called nomina stock account sors ;

; ;

profit and loss account lucri damnique raliocinium, contentio

or sortium comparatio the final balance epilogismus ; the
;

chamber of accounts, or counting-house, logisterium, &c.

In the end of this work Stevin endeavours to show that the
Romans, or rather the Grecians ( for the former knew scarcely
anything but what the latter had discovered), were in some
measure acquainted with book-keeping, and supports his con-
jecture by quoting Cicero's oration for Roscius. I confess
that the following passage in Pliny, Fortunes omnia expensa,
huic omnia feruntur accepta, et in tota ratione mortalium sola
utramque paginam facit-, as well as the terms tabulce accepti
et expensi ; nomina translata in tabulas, seem to indicate that
the Romans entered debit and credit in their books on two
different pages; but it appears to me not yet proved, and im-
probable, that they were acquainted with our scientific method
of book-keeping with the mode of opening various accounts;
;

of comparing them together, and of bringing them to a final

balance. As bills of exchange and insurance were not known
in the commerce of the ancients, the business of merchants
was not so intricate and complex as to require such a variety
of books and accounts as is necessary in that of the moderns.

1
Bay1« says, that the Latin translation of Stevin's works was executed
principally by Willebrord Snellius.
8 Lib. ii. cap. 7.
 ODOMETER. 5

of opinion that attempts were made in France

Klipstein is

to apply book-keeping, by double-entry, to the public accounts,

under Henry IV., afterwards under Colbert, and again in the
year 1716. That attempts were made, for this purpose, under
Henry IV., he concludes from a work entitled An Inquiry
into the Finances of France ; but I do not know whether what
the author says be sufficient to support this opinion.
[The system of double-entry began from the commencement
of the present century to be adopted by several governments
in the management of the public accounts, among others by
those of Austria, France and Holland, with highly beneficial
effects. Some attempts have been more recently made in this
country to introduce it into the government offices, and from
the great success which has attended them, this system will
probably soon be generally used.]

ODOMETER.
An Odometer, Pedometer, Perambulator, or Way-measurer,
is an instrument or machine by which the steps of a person
who walks, or the revolutions made by the wheel of a carriage,
can be counted, and by which the distance that one has
travelled can be ascertained. Vitruvius, in his tenth book ',
describes a machine of this kind for a carriage, and which, in
his opinion, would answer for a ship. We are told by Capi-
tolinus, in the life of the emperor Pertinax, that among the
effects of the emperor Commodus exposed to sale, there were
carriages of various kinds, some of which " measured the road,
and pointed out the hours ;" but whether by these words we
are to understand an odometer, cannot with certainty be de-
termined.
That this instrument was known even in the fifteenth century,
can be proved from the carving on the ducal palace at Urbino
— an edifice erected in an uncommon style of magnificence,

1 C. 14. Nicolai, in the first part of his Travels, has translated this de-
scription of an odometer, and illustrated it with a figure by H. Catel.
6 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES,

by duke Frederic, who died in 1482. The ornaments here

employed form, almost, a complete representation of all the
warlike apparatus used at that period, both by sea and land ;

and among these is the figure of a ship, which seems to be

furnished with an odometer but whether the wheels and
;

springs, carved out apart, be intended to show the construction

of it, not venture to decide 1 .
I will
Thecelebrated John Fernel, physician to Catherine of Me-
dici, queen of France, measured with an instrument of this
kind, in 1550, a degree of the meridian between Paris and
Amiens, and found it to be 68,096 geometrical paces, or about
56,747 toises (364,960 English feet) that is, 303 toises less
;

than Picard found it to be or about 300 toises less than later

;

measurements have made it. Picard himself, in his mathema-

tical measurement, assisted by the newest improvements, erred
123 toises. It is therefore very surprising that Fernel shoidd
approach so near the truth with such an instrument. The
manner of constructing it however, as far as I know, appears
to be lost 2 .

Levin Hulsius, in his Treatise of mechanical instruments,

published at Frankfort in 1604, describes an odometer, but
without naming the inventor. It appears, however, that it
was the production of Paul Pfinzing, born at Nuremberg in
1554 3 and who, besides other works, published, in 1598,
;

Methodus Geometrica, or a Treatise on measuring land, and

how to use proper instruments for that purpose, on foot, on
horseback, or in a carriage. This treatise, which was never

1
This palace, with its ornaments, is described in the Memorie concer-
nenti la citta di Urbino. Roma, 1724. fol. The figure to which I allude is in
plate 53. Bernardino Baldi, the author of the descriptive part, considers
it an odometer.
as
2
In Joannis Fernelii Ambianalis Cosmotheoria, Parisiis 1528, we find
only the following passage respecting this invention :
—
" Nee vulgi suppu-
tatione satiatus, vehiculum, quod Parisios recta via petebat, conscendi, in
eoque residens tota via 17024 fere rotae circumvolutiones collegi, vallibus
et montibus ad equalitatem, quoad facultas nostra ferebat, redactis. Erat
autem rotae diameter." In Almagesti novi parte posteriori, tomi primi,
Bononiae 1651. fol. the author, Riccioli, says that Fernel contrived his
carriage in such a manner, that the revolutions of the wheels were shown
by a hammer striking on a bell. Where that Jesuit discovered this I cannot
learn.
3 Doppelraayer, Nachricht von Nurnberg Kiinstlern,
p. 82. Will, Nurn-
bergisches Gelehrten-Lexicon, iii. p. 156.
 ODOMETER. /

sold, but given away by the author, contains a description of

the same instrument described by Hulsius, and which, as Ni-
colai says, is still preserved in the collection of curiosities at
Dresden.
In the same collection is an odometer which Augustus, elec-
tor of Saxony, who reigned between the years 1553 and 1586,
employed in measuring his territories. This instrument is
mentioned by Beutel , without naming the inventor; but I
1

think it very probable that it was made by Martin Feyhel, who

was born at Naumburg, and resided at Augsburg ; as Von
Stetten 2 relates, in his History of the Arts at Augsburg, that
Feyhel made a way-measurer (probably odometer) for the elec-
tor of Saxony, and that he himself called it a new instrument
never before heard of. This artist was an intimate friend of
the celebrated Christopher Schissler, also of Augsburg, who in
1579 constructed a quadrant, still to be found at Oxford; and
in 1606 an armillary sphere, still preserved at Augsburg.
The emperor Rudolphus II., who reigned from 1576 to 1612,
and who was fond of, and acquainted with, the mechanical
arts, possessed two very curious odometers, which not only
pointed out distances, but also marked them down on paper
by the way. The description and use cf one of these is given
by De Boot 3 who was that
, prince's librarian ; and what he
says has been copied by Kircher 4 and illustrated with a coarse
,

figure. It is not improbable that the before-mentioned Schiss-

ler was the maker of this instrument, as we are informed by
Stetten that he constructed a great many machines and auto-
mata for the emperor Rudolphus II. The other odometer,
which wasmuch more curious, appears to have been constructed
by that emperor himself 5 .
About the end of the 17th century, an artist in England,
named Butterfield, invented an odometer which met with
great approbation. In the first volume of the Philosophical
Transactions there are two papers written by this ingenious
man but of his odometer I have not yet been able to find a
;

description.
In the beginning of the last century, Adam Frederick Zur-
1
Cimelium Geographicum Tripartitum. Dresden, 1680.
2
Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, p. 167.
3 Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 468.
4
Magnes, sive De arte magnetica. Colonise, 1643, 4to, p. 221.
5 Boot. Hist. Gemmarum, p. 473.
8 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ner, towhom we are indebted for good maps of the electorate

of Saxony, invented also an odometer, or geometrical carriage,
a description and figure of which, taken from Schramm's
Saxonia Monumentis Viarum illustrata, is given by Nicolai.
This instrument is not now to be found in the Dresden col-
lection.
In Bion's Treatise on the construction of mathematical in-
struments, improved by Doppelmayer, there is a description of
a pedometer, and the author praises a new invention by one
Sauveur.
In the year 1724 Meynier laid before the Royal Academy
of Sciences at Paris an odometer, a short account of which,
without a figure, is given in the history of the Academy for
that year. This machine was afterwards improved by Outhier;
and a description of the improvements, but without any figure,
is to be found in the history of the Academy for 1742. full A
description, together with a figure, may however be seen in a
work, entitled Machines et Inventions approuvees par l'Aca-
demie, t. vii.
Perhaps the most perfect machine of this kind was that
made at Berlin by an artist named Hohlfeld, a short account
of which may be found in the ninth volume of the Hamburg
Magazine. A complete description I have not seen but ;

I learn from Professor Bernoulli's Tour through Brandenburg,

Pomerania, &c, that a model of it is preserved in the ex
cellent collection of Count de Podewils at Gusow . The1

inventor of it was a man of such rare talents, and rendered

such benefit to the public, that the following anecdotes of his
life may prove not unacceptable to many readers. It was
written by Professor Muller at Berlin, and transmitted to me
by Dr. Bloch.
Hohlfeld was born of poor parents at Hennerndorf in the
mountains of Saxony, in 1711. He learned the trade of lace-
making at Dresden, and early discovered a turn for mechanics
by constructing various kinds of clocks. From Dresden he
removed to Berlin to follow his occupation. As he was an
excellent workman, and invented several machines for shorten*

1
This machine was used by Sulzer during his tour. See his Journal,
published at Leipsic, 1780, 8vo, p. 3. It has been since improved by
Schumacher, a clergyman at Elbing, by Klindworth, Catel at Berlin, and
by an anonymous clergyman in the Schwabisches Magazin, 1777, p. 306.
 OIX>METER. 9

ing his labour, he found sufficient time to indulge his inclina-

tion for mechanics ; and he made there, at the same time that
ho pursued his usual business, air-guns and clocks.
In the year 1748 he became acquainted with the celebrated
Sulzer, at whose desire he undertook the construction of a
machine for noting down any piece of music when played on
a harpsichord. A machine of this kind had been before in-
vented by Von Unger but Hohlfeld, from a very imperfect
;

description, completed one without any other assistance than

that of his own genius. Of this machine, now in the possession
of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, Sulzer gave a figure,
from which it was afterwards constructed in England. This
ingenious piece of mechanism was universally approved, though
several things may be wanting to render it complete but no
;

one was so generous as to indemnify the artist for his expenses,

or to reward him for his labour.
About the year 1756, the Prussian minister, Count de Pode-
wils, took him into his service, chiefly for the purpose of con-
structing water-works in his magnificent gardens at Gusow.
There he invented his well-known thrashing machine, and
another for chopping straw more expeditiously. He also dis-
played his talent for invention by constructing an apparatus,
which, being fastened to a carriage, indicates the revolutions
made bj the wheels. Such machines had been made before,
but exceeded every thing of the kind. Having lost
his far
this machine by a fire, he invented another still simpler, which
was so contrived as to be buckled between the spokes of the
wheel. This piece of mechanism was in the possession of
Sulzer, who used it on his tour, and found that it answered
the intended purpose.
In the year 1765, when the duke of Courbnd, then here-
ditary prince, resided at Berlin, he paid a visit to Hohlfeld,
and endeavoured to prevail on him to go to Courland, by
offering him a pension of 800 rix-dollars ;but this ingenious
man was so contented with his condition, and so attached to
his friends, that he would not, merely for self-interest, quit
Berlin. His refusal, however, obtained for him a pension of
150 dollars from the king.
Besides the before-mentioned machines, he constructed,
occasionally, several useful models. Among these were a
loom for weaving figured stuffs, so contrived that the weaver
10 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

had no need of anything to shoot through the woof a pedo- 1

;

meter for putting in the pocket; a convenient and simple bed

for a sick person, which was of such a nature, that the patient,
with the least effort, could at any time raise or lower the
breast, and when necessary convert the bed into a stool and ;

a carriage so formed, that if the horses took fright or ran

away, the person in it could, by a single push, loosen the pole
and set them at liberty. The two last models have been lost.
Every machine that this singular man saw, he altered and
improved in the simplest manner. All his own instruments
he made himself, and repaired them when damaged. But as
he was fonder of inventing than of following the plans of
others, he made them in such a manner that no one except
himself could use them. Several of his improvements were,
however, imitated by common workmen, though in a very
clumsy manner. It is worthy of remark, that he never be-
stowed study upon anything but when he had once conceived
;

an idea, he immediately executed it. He comprehended in a

moment whatever was proposed, and at the same time saw
how it was to be accomplished. He could therefore tell in an
instant whether a thing was practicable if he thought it was
;

not, no persuasion or offer of money could induce him to at-

tempt it. He never pursued chimseras like those mechanics
who have not had the benefit of education or instruction and ;

though this may be ascribed to the intercourse he had with

great mathematicians and philosophers, there is every reason
to believe that he would have equally guarded against them,
even if he had not enjoyed that advantage. The same quick-
ness of apprehension which he manifested in mechanics he
showed also in other things. His observations on most sub-
jects were judicious, and peculiar to himself; so that it may
be said, without exaggeration, that he was born with a philo-
sophical mind.
A little before his death he had the pleasure of seeing a
curious harpsichord he had made, which was purchased by
his Prussian Majesty, and placed in an elegant apartment in
the new palace at Potsdam. As he had for some time neg-
lected this instrument, the too great attention which he be-
stowed on putting it in order contributed not a little to bring
on that disease which at last proved fatal to him. His clock
1
This model is preserved in the collection of the Academy.
 ODOMETER. 11

having become deranged during his illness, he could not be

prevented, notwithstanding the admonition of his friend and
physician Dr. Stahls, from repairing it. Close application
occasioned some obstructions which were not observed till
too late and an inflammation taking place, he died in 1771,
;

at the house of Count de Podewils, in the 60th year of his

age.
[The instrument now generally used in this country for
measuring the distance gone over, is that invented by Mr.
Payne, watchmaker, of Bond-street. In this ingenious con-
trivance motion is communicated from the traveller to the
machinery of the pedometer, by means of a horizontal lever,
which is furnished with a weight at one end and a pivot or
axis at the other under the lever is a spring, which keeps
;

the lever when at rest close up to a regulating screw the ;

spring is so arranged as to be only just sufficiently strong to

overcome the weight of the lever and to prevent its falling
downwards.
When the body of the traveller is raised in progression, the
lever impelled downwards by the jerk, and immediately re-
is

turned to its place by the spring, and so long as the motion is

continued the lever is constantly in a state of vibration. A
small ratchet-wheel is fixed to the axis of the lever, and be-
neath it is another and larger ratchet-wheel which fits on the
same axis, but is not attached to it. These two wheels are
connected by a ratchet or pale in such a manner, that when the
lever falls, both wheels are moved forward one or more teeth,
but when the lever rises again from the force of the spring,
the larger ratchet-wheel is held stationary by a ratchet. The
larger wheel is connected with a series of toothed wheels and
pinions, by means of a pinion fixed on its under-surface. The
centre wheel carries an index or hand, which points to figures
on the dial-plate. The whole apparatus packs into the case
of a watch 1 .]

1
There is a figure of it in the Penny Cyclopaedia, vol. xvii. p. 367.
12 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

MACHINE FOR NOTING DOWN MUSIC.

As I have occasionally mentioned in the preceding article, a
machine for noting down any piece of music played on a
harpsichord or other musical instrument, I shall here add a
short history of the invention of it, as far as I know and ;

with the greater pleasure, as another nation has laid claim to

it, though it belongs to my countrymen.

It appears incontestable, that a proposal for inventing such

a machine was first made known by an Englishman. In the
month of March 1747, John Freke transmitted to the Royal
Society a paper written by a clergyman of the name of Creed,
which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions under
the following title :
—A
Demonstration of the possibility of
making a machine that shall write extempore voluntaries, or
other pieces of music, as fast as any master shall be able to
play them upon an organ, harpsichord, &c. and that in a cha- ;

racter more natural and more intelligible, and more expres-

sive of all the varieties those instruments are capable of ex-
hibiting, than the character now in use . The author of this
1

paper however points out the possibility only of making such

a machine, without giving directions how to construct it.
In the year 1745, John Frederic Unger, then land-bailiff
and burgomaster of Einbec, and who is known by several
learned works, fell upon the same invention without the small-
est knowledge of the idea published in England. This in-
vention however, owing to the variety of his occupations, he
did not make known till the year 1752, when he transmitted
a short account of it, accompanied with figures, to the Aca-
demy of Sciences at Berlin. The Academy highly approved
of it, and it was soon celebrated in several gazettes, but a de-
scription of it was never printed.
A few days after Euler had read this paper of Unger's be-
fore the Academy, M. Sulzer informed Hohlfeld of the inven-
tion, and advised him to exert his ingenuity in constructing
such a machine. In two weeks this untaught mechanic, with-
out having read Unger's paper, and even without inspecting
the figures, completed the machine, which Unger himself had
1
Phil. Trans, vol. xliv. p. ii. No. 483, p. 446.
 MACHINE FOR NOTING DOWN MUSIC. 13

not been able to execute through want of an artist capable of

following his ideas.
Unger's own description of his invention was printed, with
copper-plates, at Brunswick, in the year 1774, together with
the correspondence between him and Euler, and other docu-
ments. A description of Hohlfeld's machine, illustrated with
figures, was published after his death by Sulzer, in the new
memoirs of the Academy of Berlin, 177l 5 under the title of
' Description of a machine for noting down pieces of music as

fast as they are played upon the harpsichord.' Sulzer there

remarks, that Hohlfeld had not followed the plan sketched out
by Unger, and that the two machines differed in this that —
Unger's formed one piece with the harpsichord, while that of
Hohlfeld could be applied to any harpsichord whatever.
When Dr. Burney visited Berlin, he was made acquainted
with Hohlfeld's machine by M. Marpurg; and has been so
ungenerous, or rather unjust, as to say in his Musical Tra-
vels, that it is an English invention, and that it had been be-
fore fully described in the Philosophical Transactions. This
falsehood M. Unger has sufficiently refuted. Without re-
peating his proofs, I shall here content myself with quoting
his own words, in the following passage :
—
" How can Bur-
ney wish to deprive our ingenious Hohlfeld of the honour of
being the sole author of that invention, and to make an En-
glishman share it with him, because our German happened to
execute successfully what his countryman Creed only sug-
gested? Such an attempt is as unjust in its consequences as
it is dishonourable to the English nation and the English

artists. When we reflect on the high estimation in which

music is held in England, the liberality of the English nobility,
and their readiness to spare no expenses in bringing forward
any useful invention, a property peculiar to the English, it
affords just matter of surprise that the English artists should
have suffered themselves to be anticipated by a German jour-
neyman lace-maker. To our Hohlfeld, therefore, will incon-
testably remain the lasting honour of having executed a Ger-
man invention ; and the Germans may contentedly wait to see
whether Burney will find an English mechanic capable of con-
structing this machine, from the information given by his
countryman Creed."
14« HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

REFINING GOLD AND SILVER ORE BY QUICK-

SILVER.

AMALGAMATION.
It is well known that quicksilver unites very readily with
almost all metals, and when added in a considerable quantity
forms with them a paste which can be kneaded, and which is
called amalgam. On the other hand, as it does not unite with
the earths, being a metallic substance, it furnishes an excel-
lent medium for separating gold and silver from the sub-
stances with which they are found. The amalgam is squeezed
through a piece of leather, in which these precious metals re-
main with a certain portion of the quicksilver ; and the former
are freed from the latter by means of fire, which volatilizes
the mercury. This amalgam made with gold sorves also for
gilding metals (water-gilding) if it be rubbed over them,
1
,

and afterwards heated till the quicksilver be driven off.

1 [Among the improvements of recent date
there are perhaps none of
greater importance than those of electro-gilding and gilding by immer-
sion, which have almost entirely superseded the process of gilding by an
amalgam of mercury and gold, so fatal to the workmen exposed to the
deleterious effects of the mercurial vapours. It is not our intention to
enter at present into a history of the invention of these processes they
;

will more properly be reserved for a future volume, in which the disco-
veries of the present century will be treated of. The following short outline
may however not prove uninteresting to the reader :
—
It had long been
known to experimentalists on the chemical action of voltaic electricity,
that solutions of several metallic salts were decomposed by its agency, and
the metal produced in its free state. The precipitation of copper by the
3
voltaic current was noticed by Mr. Nicholson in a paper entitled 'Ac-
count of the new Electrical Apparatus of Sig. Alex. Volta, and experiments
performed with the same ;' but the earliest recorded process in electro-
gilding is probably that contained in a letter from Brugnatelli to Van
Mons b in which he states that he had deposited a film of gold on ten sil-
,

ver medals by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire

with the negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the
other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well-saturated.
This announcement of a process identical with those now extensively used,
attracted no attention at the time it was made, and no further experiments

* Nicholson's Journal, July 1800, p. 179.

b
Philosophical Magazine, 1805.
 ;

REFINING GOLD AND SILVER ORE. 15

The first use of quicksilver is commonly reckoned a Spanish

invention, discovered about the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury ; but it appears from Pliny, that the ancients were ac-
quainted with amalgam and its use, not only for separating
gold and silver from earthy particles, but also for gilding 1 .
Vitruvius describes the manner of recovering gold from cloth
in which it has been interwoven. The cloth, he says, is to be
put into an earthen vessel, and placed over the fire, in order
that it may be burnt. The ashes are to be throAvn into water,
and quicksilver added to them. The latter attracts the parti-
cles of the gold, and unites with them. The water is then to
be poured off, and the residue put into a piece of cloth
which being squeezed with the hands, the quicksilver, on ac-
count of its fluidity, oozes through the pores, and the gold is
left pure in a compressed mass 2 . Isidore of Seville says also,
that quicksilver is best preserved in vessels of glass, as it pene-
trates all other substances and that without it neither silver
;

nor brass can be gilded 3 Modern mineralogists however

.

have this advantage over the ancient, that they know how to
separate the quicksilver from gold and silver without losing
it. Instead of exposing the amalgam to an open fire, as for-

on the application of electricity to the deposition of metals for the purposes

of the arts were published until the year 1830, when Mr. E. Davy read a
paper before the Royal Society, in which he distinctly states that he had
gilded, silvered, coppered and tinned various metals by the voltaic bat-
tery*. The experiments of Brugnatelli and Davy were however completely
lost sight of, and the art may be said to date its origin from the period
when the late Professor Daniell described his constant battery. Since
that time the art has continued to advance most rapidly, either in the per-
fecting of the apparatus or in the pointing out of more suitable salts of
gold and silver, from which the metals might be precipitated. Among
those who have contributed to its advancement we may particularly in-
stance the names of our countrymen, Woolrich, Spencer, Jordan, Mason,
Murray, Smee, Elkington, Fox Talbot, and Tuck. Nearly all the gilt
articles manufactured at Birmingham are now gilded by the process patented
by Mr. Elkington, in which, after the articles have been cleansed by a
weak acid, they are placed in a hot solution of nitro-muriate of gold, to
which a considerable excess of bicarbonate of potash has been added ; in
the course of a few seconds they thus receive a beautiful and permanent
coating of gold.]
3
Phil. Trans. 1831, p. 147.

1
Lib. xxxiii. cap. 6. 2 Vit. 8
lib. vii. c.
s In Origin, lib. xvi. c. 18.
 ;

16 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

merly, and driving off the volatile metal, it is now put into a
retort, and the quicksilver is collected in a receiver for fur-
ther use.
Those also who wash gold from the sand found near rivers,
use quicksilver before their work is completed ; and I am
strongly inclined to believe that this method prevailed in Ger-
many long before the discovery of the mines in America. In
the year 1582, John Michael Heberer described the washing
of gold as he saw it practised at Selz, not far from Strasburg
and at that time quicksilver had been long employed for that
purpose. In Treitlinger's Dissertation, also, concerning the
collecting of gold, and particularly in the Rhine, there is a
description of the manner in which gold sand is washed by
means of quicksilver, but no date is mentioned . 1

The history of employing mercury in procuring the Ame-

rican silver is, as far as I know, most fully given by, the Jesuit
Acosta 2 whose relation of the Indies abounds with curious
,

and useful information. The quicksilver mines of Peru are

situated in an extensive ridge of mountains near Guamanga,
on the south side of Lima, and at no great distance from it.
They are called Guancabelica, or Guancavilia. The mines
were discovered about the year 1566 or 1567, when Castro
was viceroy of Peru, by Henry Garces, or Graces, as he is
called by the Portuguese. This man was a native of Porto,
went to Peru in the Spanish service, and after the death of
his wife became canon of the cathedral of Mexico. He
translated the Lusiad of Camoens from the Portuguese into
Spanish, and this has procured him a place in Professor Dieze's
translation of Velasquez's History of Spanish Poetry. He
caused a law to be enacted that no silver bullion should be
suffered to circulate in Peru but his greatest service was the
;

discovery of the quicksilver mines. As he was one day exa-

mining the red earth, which the Indians use for paint, and
call limpi, he observed that it was native cinnabar; and as he
knew that quicksilver was extracted from it in Europe, he
went to the placewhere it was dug up, made some experi-
ments, and thus laid a foundation for the most important
works. No one however thought of employing this metal in
the silver mines till the year 1571, when Francis de Toledo
1
De Aurilegio, prajcipue in Rheno. Argent. 177G.
2 Historia naturale e morale dellc Indie. Venetia, 159G.
 REFINING GOLD AND SILVER ORE. 17

being viceroy, one Pero Fernandes de Velasco came to Peru,

and offered to refine the silver by mercury, as he had learnt
at the smelting-houses in Mexico. His proposal being ac-
cepted, and his attempts proving successful, the old methods
were abandoned, and that of amalgamation was adopted in its
stead '. From this account it appears that Garces was not the
inventor of amalgamation, that it was introduced into Peru in
the year 1571, and that it had been long before practised in
Mexico but at what period it was first used there I have not
;

been able to learn. The abbe Raynal says, that quicksilver

was a free article of trade till the year 1571, when it was de-
clared to belong exclusively to the crown and this regulation ;

was made in consequence of its being employed in refining.

Robertson, in his History of America, tells us that the mines
of Guanacabelica were discovered in 1563, and that amalga-
mation was introduced in 1574.
Anderson says, in his History of Commerce 2 that in the ,

second volume of Hakluyt there is a letter which shows the

use of quicksilver to have been a new invention in the year
1572. This letter I found, not in the second, but in the third
and last volume of the Voyages collected by Hakluyt 3 It .

was written in the above year by a merchant named Henry

Hawks, and contains only the following information " A :

good owner of mines must have much quicksilver and as for ;

this charge of quicksilver, it is a new invention, which they

find more profitable than to fine their ore with lead."
Gobet, in a work entitled The Ancient Mineralogists of
France, accuses Alphonso Barba of asserting that he found
out amalgamation in the year 1609. To examine this charge,
it will be necessary to give some account of the metallurgic

works of that Spaniard, which, perhaps, may not prove unac-

ceptable to those who are fond of metallurgy and mineralogy.
Alvaro Alphonso Barba was born at Lepe, a small town in
Andalusia, and officiated many years as clergyman of the
church of St. Bernard, at Potosi. The first edition of this

1
The same account as that given by Acosta may be seen in Garcilasso
de la Vega, Commentarios reales ; Lisboa 1609, p. 225; in Rycaut's En-
gjisli translation, London 1688, fol. i. p. 347 ; and in De Laet, Novus
Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, fol. p. 447.
2 Vol. i.
p. 414.
3
Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages. London, 1600, fol. vol. iii. p. 466.
VOL. I. C
18 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

work was printed in quarto, at Madrid, in 1640, in the Spa-

nish language, and illustrated with cuts. This book the Spa-
niards for a long time concealed, because they considered it
as containing all their metallurgic secrets though at that ;

time there were much better works of the kind in Germany,

and though amalgamation had been long known and prac-
tised. Edward earl of Sandwich, being ambassador to Spain,
found however an opportunity of procuring a copy of it, as a
great rarity and he began a translation of it into English, but
;

translated only the first two books. This translation was pub-
lished at London in octavo, in 1674, after the earl's death,
and entitled The First Book of the Art of Metals, in which is
declared the manner of their generation, and the concomi-
tants of them. Written in Spanish by Albaro Alonso Barba,
translated by theearl of Sandwich. From this English edi-
tion several German translations have been made, of which I
am acquainted with the following two at Hamburg, one :

printed in 1676, and the other in 1696; and two at Frank-

fort, one in 1726, and another in 1739. In the year 174-9 a
new edition appeared at Vienna. This edition, which is very
different from any of the former, was translated from the
French by one Godar, who was not a German, and who on
that account apologises in the preface for the badness of his
style. All these editions however are imperfect; for the ori-
ginal contains five books, as we learn from Leibnitz, who
caused them to be transcribed. In the year 1751 a new trans-
lation came out at Paris, entitled Metallurgy, or the art of
extracting and purifying metals, translated from the Spanish
of Alphonso Barba, by M. Gosfort, with the most curious dis-
sertations on mines and metallic operations of this transla- ;

tion the celebrated abbe Lenglet de Fresnoy is said to have

been the editor 1
.

To judge by two of the German editions, Gobet has done

Barba an injustice. In that of 1676, I find Barba expressly
says he does not believe the ancients were acquainted with
the art of extracting silver from pounded ore by the means of
quicksilver. This certainly does not indicate that he laid
claim to the invention besides, he everywhere speaks of
;

amalgamation as an art long used in America, but complains

1
See La France litteraire. Paris, 1769, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. ii. p. 410.
 ;

COLD OR DRY GILDING. 19

of the negligence with which it was practised. In a passage

however in the Vienna edition, and which has probably been
added by Gobet, we are told that in the year 1609, Barba
attempted to fix quicksilver, and with that view bethought
himself of mixing it with finely pounded silver ore that he ;

at first imagined, with surprise, that he had obtained a mass

of silver, but that he soon perceived that the mercury was not
changed into silver, but had only attracted the particles of
that metal. " I was," adds Barba, " highly pleased with my
new discovery of managing ore, of extracting its contents,
and of refining it; and this method I continued to practise."
I imagine that Barba was still in Europe in 1609, and made
that experiment before he was acquainted with the smelting-
works in America. I am however of opinion, that one will
see by the original that Barba did not wish to claim the in-
vention of amalgamation as practised in the mines of America..

COLD OR DRY GILDING.

Dry gilding, as it is called by some workmen, is a light me-
thod of gilding, by steeping linen rags in a solution of gold,
then burning them and with a piece of cloth dipped in salt
;

water, rubbing the ashes over silver intended to be gilt. This

method requires neither much labour nor much gold, and
may be employed with advantage for carved work and orna-
ments. It is however not durable.
I amof opinion that this manner of gilding is a German
invention, and that foreigners, at least the English, were first
made acquainted with it about the end of the last century
for Robert Southwell describes it in the Philosophical Trans-
actions for the year 1698, and says that it was known to very
few goldsmiths h? Germany.

c2
 20 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

GOLD VARNISH.
As mankind could not have everything that they wished for
of gold, they were contented with incrusting many articles
with this precious metal. For that purpose the gold was beat
into plates, with which the walls of apartments, dishes, and
other vessels were covered. In early ages these plates were
thick, so that gilding in this manner was very expensive 1
;

but in process of time the expense was much lessened, be-

cause the art was discovered of making these gold plates
thinner, and of laying them on with a size. Articles however
ornamented in this manner were still costly, and the valuable
metal was always lost. Yellow golden colours of all kinds
were then tried but these did not fully produce the required
;

effect, as they wanted that splendour peculiar to metals, and

appeared always languid and dull. It was not till modern
times that artists conceived the idea of overlaying with silver,
or some cheaper white metal, such things as they wished to
have the appearance of gold, and then daubing them over
with a yellow transparent varnish, in order to give to the
white metal the colour of gold, and to the colour the splen-
dour of metal. " When we cover our houses with gold,"
says Seneca, " do we not show that we delight in deception?
for we know that coarse wood is concealed under that gold 2 ."
This ingenious process, which at present is employed all
over Europe in gilding wooden frames, coaches, and various
articles, and which was formerly used in the preparation of the
now old-fashioned leather tapestry, was invented towards the
end of the 17th century. Anderson, in his Historical and
chronological deduction of the Origin of Commerce, says that
it was introduced into England by one Evelyn in the year
1633 and quotes, in support of this assertion, The Present
;

State of England, printed in 1683.

This invention, however, does not belong to the English,
but to the Italians, and properly to the Sicilians. Antonino
1
One may see in Homer's Odyssey, book iii. v. 432, the process em-
ployed for gilding in this manner, the horns of the cow brought by Nestor
as an offering to Minerva.
2
Epist. 115.
 GOLD VARNISH. 21

Cento, an artist of Palermo, found out the gold varnish, and in

the year 1680 published there an account of the method of
preparing it. That work I have never seen but I found this ;

information in a book printed at Palermo in 1704, and entitled

The Inventions of the Sicilians Among the few important
1
.

things contained in this book, the greater part of which is

compiled from old Latin writers, there is, in the additions, a
receipt how to prepare the gold varnish (vernice doro). The
whole account I shall transcribe, as the authors of the French
Journal of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Arts, thought it
worth their trouble to make it known in that work in 1778.
" Take shell-lac, and having freed it from the filth and bits
of wood with which it is mixed, put it into a small linen bag,
and wash it in pure water, till the water no longer becomes
red ; then take it from the bag and suffer it to dry. When it
is perfectly dry, pound it very fine because the finer it is
;

pounded the more readily will it dissolve. Then take four

parts of spirit of wine, and one of the lac, reduced, as before
directed, to an impalpable powder, so that for every four
pounds of spirit you may have one of lac : mix these toge-
ther, and, having put them into an alembic, graduate the fire
so that the lac may dissolve in the spirit. When dissolved,
strain the whole through a strong piece of linen cloth throw ;

away what remains in the cloth, as of no use, and preserve

the liquor in a glass bottle closely corked. This is the gold
varnish which may be employed for gilding any kind of wood.
" When you wish to use it, you must, in order that the work
may be done with more smoothness, employ a brush made of
the tail of a certain quadruped called the vari, well-known to
those who sell colours for painting and with this instrument
;

dipped in the liquor wash gently over, three times, the wood
which has been silvered. You must, however, remember every
time you pass the brush over the wood to let it dry ; and thus
your work will be extremely beautiful, and have a resemblance
to the finest gold."
After this invention was made known, it was not difficult to
vary, by several methods, the manner of preparing it. Differ-
ent receipts, therefore, have for that purpose been given in a
number of books, such as Croker's Painter, and others and, :

on this account, young artists are frequently at a loss which

1
La Sicilia inveutrice. Palermo, 1704, 4to.
22 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

to choose ; and when a receipt is found better than another,

experienced artists keep it always secret.
With the preparation of that varnish used for gilding leather
Reaumur was acquainted, and from his papers it was
tapestry
made known by Fougeroux de Bondaroy. The method of
making the English varnish was communicated by Scarlet to
Hellot, in the year 1720 and by Graham to Du Fay, in 1738.
;

In the year 1761, Hellot gave the receipt to the Academy of

Sciences at Paris, who published it in their memoirs for that
year.
If it be true, as Fougeroux was
says, that gilded tapestry
made above two hundred might be worth the little
years ago, it

trouble that such an examination would require to investigate

the method used to gild it.

TULIPS.

The greater part of the flowers which adorn our gardens have
been brought to us from the Levant. A few have been pro-
cured from other parts of the world and some of our own indi-
;

genousplants, that grow wild, have, by care and cultivation, been

so much improved as to merit a place in our parterres. Our
ancestors, perhaps, some centuries ago paid attention to flowers;
but it appears that the Orientals, and particularly the Turks,
who in other respects are not very susceptible of the inanimate
beauties of nature, were the first people who cultivated a va-
riety of them in their gardens for ornament and pleasure. From
their gardens, therefore, have been procured the most of those
which decorate ours and amongst these is the tulip.
;

Few plants acquire through accident, weakness, or disease,

so many tints, variegations, and figures, as the tulip. When
uncultivated, and in its natural state, it is almost of one colour,
has large leaves, and an extraordinary long stem. When it
has been weakened by culture, it becomes more agreeable in
the eyes of the florist. The petals are then paler, more varie-
gated, and smaller ; the leaves assume a fainter or softer green
 — — ;

TULIPS. 23

colour and this masterpiece of culture, the more beautiful it

:

turns, grows so much the weaker; so that, with the most

careful skill and attention, it can with difficulty be transplanted,
and even scarcely kept alive.
That the tulip grows wild in the Levant, and was thence
brought to us, may be proved by the testimony ofmany writers.
Busbequius found it on the road between Adrianople and
Constantinople Shaw found it in Syria, in the plains between
'
;

Jaffa and Rama and Chardin on the northern confines of

;

Arabia. The early-blowing kinds, it appears, were brought

to Constantinople from Cavala, and the late-blowing from
Caffa and on this account the former are called by the Turks
;

Cavala lale, and the latter Cafe lale. Caval is a town on the
eastern coast of Macedonia, of which Paul Lucas gives some
account and Caffa is a town in the Crimea, or peninsula of
;

Gazaria, as it was called, in the middle ages, from the Gazares,

a people very little known 2 .

Though florists have published numerous catalogues of the

species of the tulip, botanists are acquainted only with two, or
at most three, of which scarcely one is indigenous in Europe 3 .

1 " As we saw everywhere abundance of flowers, siich as the

passed, M'e
narcissus, hyacinth, and those called by the Turks tulipan, not without great
astonishment, on account of the time of the year, as it was then the middle
of winter, a season unfriendly to flowers. Greece abounds with narcissuses
and hyacinths, which have a remarkably fragrant smell it is, indeed, so :

strong as to hurt those who are not accustomed to it. The tulipan, how-
ever, have little or no smell, but are admired for their beauty and variety
of their colour. The Turks pay great attention to the cultivation of flowers
nor do they hesitate, though by no means extravagant, to expend several
aspers for one that is beautiful. I received several presents of these flowers,
which cost me not a little." Busbequii Ep., Basiliae, 1740, 8vo, p. 36.
2 See some account of them in Memoriae popidorum ad
Danubium by
Stritter.
3
The Tulipa sylvestris, Linn, grows wild in the southern parts of France.
Dodonaeus says, in his Florum coronariarum herbarum historia, Antverpiae
1569, 8vo, p. 204, " In Thracia et Cappadocia tulipa exit ; Italiae et Belgio
peregrinus est flos. Minores alicubi in Gallia Narbonensi nasci feruntur."
Linnaeus reckons it among the Swedish plants, and Haller names it among
those of Switzerland, but says, afterwards, I do not believe it to be indi-
genous, though it is found here and there in the meads. Hist. Stirp. ii.
p. 115. It appears that this species is earlier than the common Tulipa Ges-
neriana, though propagated from it. The useless roots thrown perhaps
from Gesner's garden have grown up in a wild state, and become natural-
ized, as the European cattle have in America. See Miller's Gardener's
Dictionary7 iv. p. 518.
,
24< HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

All those found in our gardens have been propagated from

the species named after that learned man, to whom natural
history is so much indebted, the Linnseus of the sixteenth cen-
tury, Conrad Gesner, who first made the tulip known by a bo-
tanical description and a figure. In his additions to the works
of Valerius Cordus, he tells us that he saw the first in the
beginning of April 1559, at Augsburg, in the garden of the
learned and ingenious counsellor John Henry Herwart. The
seeds had been brought from Constantinople, or, according to
others, from Cappadocia. This flower was then known in Italy
under the name of tulipa, or tulip, which is said to be of Turk-
ish extraction, and given to it on account of its resembling a
turban 1 .
Balbinus asserts that Busbequius brought the first tulip-
roots to Prague, from which they were afterwards spread all
over Germany 2 . This is not improbable; for Busbequius
says, in a letter written in 1 554<, that this flower was then new
to him and it is known that besides coins and manuscripts he
;

collected also natural curiosities, and brought them with him

from the Levant. Nay, he tells us that he paid very dear to
the Turks for these tulips but I do not find he anywhere says
;

that he was the first who brought them from the East.
In the year 1565 there were tulips in the garden of M. Fugger,
from whom Gesner wished to procure some 3 . They first
appeared in Provence, in France, in the garden of the cele-
brated Peyresc, in the year 1611 4 .

After the tulip was known, Dutch merchants, and rich

people at Vienna, who were fond of flowers, sent at different
times to Constantinople for various kinds. The first roots
planted in England were sent thither from Vienna, about the
end of the sixteenth century, according to Hakluyt 5 ; who is,

1
See Martini Lexicon Plrilologicum, and Megiseri Diction. Turcico-Lat.>
where the word tulbent, a turban, is derived from the Chaldaic.
2 Balbini Miscellanea Bohemias, p. 100.
3 Gesneri Epistoke Medicinales. Tiguri, 1577, 8vo, p. 79 and 80.
4 Vita Peirescii, auctore Gassendo. 1655, 4to, p. 80.
5 Hakluyt says, "And now within these four years there have been brought

into England from Vienna in Austria, divers kind of flowers called tulipas,
and those and others procured thither a little before, from Constantinople,
by an excellent man, Carolus Clasius." See Biographia Britannica, ii.
p. 164. [Gerarde in bis Herbal, 1597, speaks of the Tulip in the follow-
ing manner :
—
" My loving friend Mr. James Garret, a curious searcher of
 ;

TULIPS. 25

however, wrong in ascribing to Clusius the honour of having

first introduced them into Europe for that naturalist only-
;

collected and described all the then known species.

These flowers, which are of no further use than to orna-
ment gardens, which are exceeded in beauty by many other
plants, and whose duration is short and very precarious, be-
came, in the middle of the 17th century, the object of a trade
such as is not to be met with in the history of commerce, and
by which their price rose above that of the most precious
metals. An account of this trade has been given by many
authors ;but by all late ones it has been misrepresented.
People laugh at the Tulipomania because they believe that
1
,

the beauty and rarity of the flowers induced florists to give

such extravagant prices they imagine that the tulips were
:

purchased so excessively dear in order to ornament gardens

but this supposition is false, as I shall show hereafter.
This trade was not carried on throughout all Europe, but
in some cities of the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam,
Haavlem, Utrecht, Alkmaar, Leyden, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enk-
huysen, and Meedenbiick and rose to the greatest height in
;

the years 1634—37 2 . Munting has given, from some of the

books kept during that trade, a few of the prices then paid, of
which I shall present the reader with the following. For a

simples, and learned apothecary in London, hath undertaken to find out,

if it were possible, the infinite sorts hy diligent sowing of their seeds, and
by planting those of his own propagation, and by others received from his
friends beyond the seas for the space of twenty years, not being yet able to
attain to the end of his travail, for that each new year bringeth forth new
plants of sundry colours not before seen ; all of which, to describe parti-
cularly, were to roll Sisyphus' stone, or number the sands."]
1
This word was coined by Menage.
2 The principal works in which an account of this Tulipomania is to be
—
found are, Eerste Tzamenspraak tuschen Waermondt en Gaargoed nopens
deopkomst en ondergang van Flora. Amsterdam, 1643, 12mo. Meterani —
Novi, or New History of the Netherlands, part fourth. Amsterdam, 1640,
folio, p. 518, from which Marquard, De Jure Mercatorum, p. 181, has taken
his information. — Naauwkeurige beschryving der Aardgewassen, door
Abraham Munting. Leyden en Utrecht, 1696, folio, p. 907. De Koop- —
—
handel van Amsterdam, door Le Long, ii. p. 307. Le Negoce d'Amster-
—
dam, par J. P. Ricard. A Rouen, 1723, 4to, p. 11. Breslauer Samlung
—
von Natur- und Kunst-Geschichten, 1721, May, p. 521. Francisci Schau-
—
biihne, vol. ii. p. 639. Tenzel, Monatliche Unterredungen, 1690, Novem-
ber, p. 1039. — —
Annee Litteraire, 1773, xv. p. 16. Martini Zeiler Mis-
—
cellanea, p. 29. Christ. Funcii Grbis Politicus, p. 879.
 — —

26 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

root of that species called the Viceroy the after-mentioned

articles,valued as below expressed, were agreed to be de-
livered :

Florins.
2 lasts of wheat 448
4 ditto rye 558
4 oxen
fat 480
3 swine
fat 240
12fat sheep 120
2 hogsheads of wine .... 70
4 tons of beer 32
2 ditto butter 192
1000 pounds of cheese 120
a complete bed 100
a suit of clothes 80
a silver beaker 60

Sum 2500
These tulips afterwards were sold according to the weight of
the roots. Four hundred perits of Admiral Leifken cost
'

4400 florins 446 ditto of Admiral Von der Eyk, 1620 florins;
;

106 perits Schilder cost 1615 florins; 200 ditto Semper Au-
gustus, 5500 florins 410 ditto Viceroy, 3000 florins, &c. The
;

species Semper Augustus has been often sold for 2000 florins;
and it once happened that there were only two roots of it to
be had, the one at Amsterdam and the other at Haarlem. For
a root of this species, one agreed to give 4600 florins, together
with a new carriage, two gray horses, and a complete harness.
Another agreed to give for a root twelve acres of land for ;

those who had not ready money, promised their moveable and
immoveable goods, houses and lands, cattle and clothes. A
man whose name Munting once kn«w, but could not recollect,
won by this trade more than 60,000 florins in the course of
four months. It was followed not only by mercantile people,
but also by the first noblemen, citizens of every description,
mechanics, seamen, farmers, turf-diggers, chimney-sweeps,
footmen, maid-servants and old clothes-women, &c. At first,
every one won and no one lost. Some of the poorest people
gained in a few months houses, coaches and horses, and

1
A perit is a small weight less than a grain. Trans.
 TULIPS. 27

figured away like the first characters in the land. In every

town some tavern was selected which served as a 'Change,
where high and low traded in flowers, and confirmed their
bargains with the most sumptuous entertainments. They
formed laws for themselves, and had their notaries and clerks.
When the nature of this trade is considered, it will readily
be perceived, that to get possession of these flowers was not
the real object of it, though many have represented it in
that light. The price of tulips rose always higher from the
year 1634 to the year 163? but had the object of the pur-
;

chaser been to get possession of the flowers, the price in such

a length of time must have fallen instead of risen. " Raise
the prices of the productions of agriculture, when you wish
to reduce them," says Young and in this he is undoubtedly
;

right, for a great consumption causes a greater reproduction.

This has been sufficiently proved by the price of asparagus at
Gottingen. As it was much sought after, and large prices
paid for it, more of it was planted, and the price has fallen.
In like manner plantations of tulips would have in a short
time been formed in Holland, and florists would have been
able to purchase flowers at a much lower price. But this
was not done and the chimney-sweeper, who threw aside his
;

besom, did not become a gardener, though he was a dealer in

flowers. Roots would have been imported from distant coun-
tries, ac asparagus was from Hanover and Brunswick to Gbt-
tingen the high price would have induced people to go to
;

Constantinople to purchase roots, as the Europeans travel to

Golconda and Visapour to procure precious stones but the ;

dealers in tulips confined themselves to their own country,

without thinking of long journeys. I will allow that a flower
might have become scarce, and consequently dearer but it ;

would have been impossible for the price to rise to a great

height, and continue so for a year. How ridiculous would it
have been to purchase useless roots with their weight of gold,
if the possession of the flower had been the only object !

Great is the folly of mankind but they are not fools without
;

a cause, as they would have been under such circumstances.

During the time of the Tulipomania, a speculator often
offered and paid large sums for a root which he never re-
ceived, and never wished to receive. Another sold roots
which he never possessed or delivered. Oft did a nobleman
 ;;

28 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

purchase of a chimney-sweep tulips to the amount of 2000

florins, and sell them at the same time to a farmer; and nei-
ther the nobleman, chimney-sweep or farmer had roots in
their possession, or wished to possess them. Before the tulip
season was over, more roots were sold and purchased, be-
spoke and promised to be delivered, than in all probability
were to be found in the gardens of Holland aud when Sem-
;

per Augustus was not to be had, which happened twice, no

species perhaps was oftener purchased and sold. In the space
of three years, as Munting tells us, more than ten millions
were expended in this trade in only one town of Holland.
To understand this gambling traffic, it may be necessary
to make the following supposition. A nobleman bespoke of
a merchant a tulip-root, to be delivered in six months, at the
price of 1000 florins. During these six months the price of
that species of tulip must have risen or fallen, or remained as
it was. We shall suppose that at the expiration of that time
the price was 1500 florins in that case the nobleman did not
;

wish to have the tulip, and the merchant paid him 500 florins,
which the latter lost and the former won. If the price was
fallen when the six months were expired, so that a root could
be purchased for 800 florins, the nobleman then paid to the
merchant 200 florins, which he received as so much gain
but if the price continued the same, that is 1000 florins, nei-
ther party gained or lost. In all these circumstances, how-
ever, no one ever thought of delivering the roots or of re-
ceiving them. Henry Munting, in 1636, sold to a merchant
at Alkmaar, a tulip-root for 7000 florins, to be delivered in six
months but as the price during that time had fallen, the
;

merchant paid, according to agreement, only ten per cent.

" So that my father," says the son, " received 700 florins for
nothing but he would much rather have delivered the root
;

itself for 7000." The term of these contracts was often much
shorter, and on that account the trade became brisker. In
proportion as more gained by this traffic, more engaged in it
and those who had money to pay to one, had soon money to
receive of another; as at faro, one loses upon one card, and
at the same time wins on another. The tulip-dealers o ften
discounted sums also, and transferred their debts to one an-
other; so that large sums were paid without cash, without
bills, and without goods, as by the Virements at Lyons. The
 ;

TULIPS. 29

whole of this trade was a game at hazard, as the Mississippi

trade was afterwards, and as stock-jobbing is at present. The
only difference between the tulip-trade and stock-jobbing is,
that at the end of the contract the price in the latter is de-
termined by the Stock-exchange whereas in the former it
;

was determined by that at which most bargains were made.

Hiidi- and low-priced kinds of tulips were procured, in order
that both the rich and the poor might gamble with them
and the roots were weighed by perits, that an imagined whole
might be divided, and that people might not only have whole,
but half and quarter lots. Whoever is surprised that such a
traffic should become general, needs only to reflect upon
what is done where lotteries are established, by which trades
are often neglected, and even abandoned, because a speedier
mode of getting fortunes is pointed out to the lower classes.
In short, the tulip-trade may very well serve to explain stock-
jobbing, of which so much is written in gazettes, and of which
so many talk in company without understanding it; and I
hope, on that account, I shall be forgiven for employing so
much time in illustrating what I should otherwise have con-
sidered as below my notice l .
At length, however, this trade fell all of a sudden. Among
such a number of contracts many were broken many had ;

engaged to pay more than they were able the whole stock ;

of the adventurers was consumed by the extravagance of the

winners new adventurers no more engaged in it and many,
; ;

becoming sensible of the odious traffic in which they had been

concerned, returned to their former occupations. By these
means, as the value of tulips still fell, and never rose, the
sellers wished to deliver the roots in natura to the purchasers
at the prices agreed on ; but as the latter had no desire for
tulips at even such a low rate, they refused to take them or
to pay for them. To end this dispute, the tulip-dealers of
Alkmaar sent in the year 1637 deputies to Amsterdam and ;

a resolution was passed on the 24th of February, that all con-

tracts made prior to the last of November 1636 should be
null and void and that, in those made after that date, pur-
;

chasers should be free on paying ten per cent, to the vender.

The more people became Cusgusted with this trade, the
1
[How well the author's remarks apply to the recent mania in railway
scrip !]
30 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

more did complaints increase to the magistrates of the differ-

ent towns but as the courts there would take no cognizance
;

of it, the complainants applied to the states of Holland and

West Friesland. These referred the business to the deter-
mination of the provincial council at the Hague, which on
the 27th of April 1637 declared that it would not deliver its
opinion on this traffic until it had received more information
on the subject; that in the mean time every vender should
offer his tulips to the purchaser and, in case he refused to
;

receive them, the vender should either keep them, or sell

them to another, and have recourse on the purchaser for any
loss he might sustain. It was ordered also, that all contracts
should remain in force till further inquiry was made. But as
no one could foresee what judgement would be given respect-
ing the validity of each contract, the buyers were more obs-
tinate in refusing payment than before and venders, think-
;

ing it much safer to accommodate matters amicably, were at

length satisfied with a small profit instead of exorbitant gain ;
and thus ended this extraordinary traffic, or rather gambling.
It is however certain, that persons fond of flowers, particu-
larly in Holland, have paid, and still pay, very high prices for
tulips, as the catalogues of florists show
1
This may be called
.

the lesser Tulipomania, which has given occasion to many

laughable circumstances. When John Balthasar Schuppe
was in Holland, a merchant gave a herring to a sailor who
had brought him some goods. The sailor, seeing some valu-
able tulip-roots lying about, which he considered as of little
consequence, thinking them to be onions, took some of them
unperceived, and ate them with his herring. Through this
mistake the sailor's breakfast cost the merchant a much greater
sum than if he had treated the prince of Orange. No less
laughable is the anecdote of an Englishman who travelled
with Matthews. Being in a Dutchman's garden, he pulled a

1
In the year 1769, the dearest kinds in England were Bon Quevedo and
Valentinier : the former cost 21. 2s. and the latter 21. 12s. 6d. See Wes-
ton's Botanicus Universalis, part 2. In the German catalogues none of
the prices are so high. The name Semper Augustus is not once to be found
in new catalogues. [They still remain flowers of considerable value among
florists; for, according to Mr. Hogg, a moderate collection of choice bulbs
cannot now be purchased for a sum much less than 1000/., at the usual
—
prices. See Chambers' Journal, March 15. 1845.
 ;

TULIPS. 31

couple of tulips, on which he wished to make some botanical

observations, and put them in his pocket but he was appre-
;

hended as a thief, and obliged to pay a considerable sum be-

fore he could obtain his liberty 1 .
Reimman and others accuse Just. Lipsius of the Tulipo-
mania'2 but; by this word we understand that gambling
if
traffic which I have described, the accusation is unfounded.
Lipsius was fond of scarce and beautiful flowers, which he
endeavoured to procure by the assistance of his friends, and
which he cultivated himself with great care in his garden
but this taste can by no means be called a mania 3 Other .

learned men of the same age were fond of flowers, such as

John Barclay 4 Pompeius de Angelis, and others, who would
,

probably have been so, even though the cultivation of flowers

had not been the prevailing taste. It however cannot be de-
nied, that learned men may be infected with epidemical follies.
In the present age, many have become physiognomists because
physiognomy is in fashion and even animal magnetism has
;

met with partisans to support it.

1 Blainville's Travels.
2
Introd. in Hist. Lit. iii. 3, p. 92.
3 That he might relax and refresh his mind, worn out by study, he
amused himself with the cultivation of his garden and of flowers, and
particularly of tulips, the roots of which he was at great pains to procure
from all parts of the world, by means of Dodonaeus, Clusius, and Boisotus,
men singularly well-skilled in horticulture, and by others of his friends.
Here, at a distance from civil tumult, with a cheerful countenance and
placid eye, he sauntered through his plants and flowers, contemplating
sometimes one declining, sometimes another springing up, and forgetting
all his cares amidst the pleasure which these objects afforded him. See
the Life of Lipsius, prefixed to the edition of his works printed at Antwerp
in 1637. This is confirmed by what Lipsius says himself in his book De
Constantia, ii. 2, 3, in praise of gardening.
4 He rented a house near to the Vatican, with a garden, in which
he
had planted the choicest flowers, and those chiefly which are not propa-
gated from seeds or roots, but from bulbs. These flowers were not known
about thirty years before, nor had they been ever seen at Rome, but lay
neglected in the Alps. —
Of these flowers, which have no smell, but are
esteemed only on account of their colours, Barclay was remarkably fond,
and purchased their bulbs at a great price. Erythrsei Pinacotheca. Lips.
1712, 8vo, iii. 17, p. 623. See also Freheri Theatrum, p. 1515.
 ;

32 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

CANARY BIRD.

This little bird, highly esteemed for its song, which is reared
with so much care, particularly by the fair sex, and which
affords an innocent amusement to those who are fond of the
wild notes of nature, is a native of those islands from which
it takes its name. As it was not known in Europe till the
fifteenth century, no account of it is to be met with in any of
the works of the old ornithologists. Bellon, who about the
year 1555 described all the birds then known, does not so
much as mention it. At that period it was brought from the
Canary Islands. It was therefore so dear that it could be
procured only by people of fortune, and those who purchased
were even often imposed on 1 It was called the sugar-bird,
.

because it was said to be fond of the sugar-cane, and that it

could eat sugar in great abundance. This circumstance seems
to be very singular; for that substanee is to many birds a
poison. Experiments have shown, that a pigeon to which
four drachms of sugar were given died in four hours, and that
a duck which had swallowed five drachms did not live seven
hours after. It is certain, therefore, that the power of poison
is relative.
The first figure of this bird is given by Aldrovandus, but it
is small and inaccurate. That naturalist reckons the Canary
bird among the number of those which were scarce and ex-
pensive, as it was brought from a distant country with great
care and attention. The first good figure of it is to be found
in Olina 2 it has been copied by both Johnston and Willughby.
:

In the middle of the seventeenth century these birds began

to be bred in Europe, and to this the following circumstance,
related by Olina, seems to have given occasion. A
vessel,
which, among other commodities, was carrying a number of
Canary birds to Leghorn, was wrecked on the coast of Italy
and these birds, being thus set at liberty, flew to the nearest
land, which was the Island of Elba, where they found the
climate so favourable, that they multiplied, and perhaps would

Gesneri Historise Animalium, liber tertius. Tiguri, 1555, fol. p. 234.

1

2 Roma,
Uccelliera, overo Discorso della natura di diversi Uccelli.
1622, 4to.
 CANARY BIRD. 33

have become domesticated, had they not oeen caught in snares;

for it appears that the breed of them there has been long since
destroyed. Olina says that the breed soon degenerated but ;

it is probable that these Canary birds, which were perhaps all

males, did at the Island of Elba what the European sailors do

in India. By coupling with the birds of the island, they may
have produced mules. Such hybrids are described by Gesner
and other naturalists 1 .
The breeding of these birds was at first attended with great
difficulty partly because the treatment and attention they re-
;

quired were not known, and partly because males chiefly, and
few females, were brought to Europe. We are told that the
Spaniards once forbade the exportation of males, that they
might secure to themselves the trade carried on in these birds,
and that they ordered the bird-catchers either to strangle the
females or to set them at liberty 2 But this order seems to
.

have been unnecessary for, as the females commonly do not

;

sing, or are much inferior in the strength of their notes to the

males, the latter only were sought after as objects of trade.
In the like manner, as the male parrots are much superior in
colour to the females, the males are more esteemed, and more
of them are brought to Europe than of the females. It is
probable, therefore, that in our system of ornithology, many
female parrots belonging to species already well-known are
considered as distinct species. It was at first believed that
those Canary birds bred in the Canary Islands were much
better singers than those reared in Europe but this at present
;

is doubted 3 In latter times various treatises have been pub-

.

lished in different languages, on the manner of breeding these

birds, and many people have made it a trade, by which they
have acquired considerable gain. It does no discredit to the
industry of the Tyrolese that they have carried it to the greatest
extent. At Ymst there is a company who, after the breeding
season is over, send out persons to different parts of Germany
and Switzerland to purchase birds from those who breed them.

1
Gesneri redivivi, aucti et emendati, tomus ii. Franc. 1669, fol. p. 62.
More information respecting hybrids may be found in Brisson, Ornitho-
logie, t. iii. p. 187; and Frisch, Vorstellung der Vogel in Teutschland, the
twelfth plate of which contains several good figures.
2 Coleri
(Economia ruralis et domestica. Franc. 1680, folio.
3
Harrington's paper in the Phil. Trans, vol. lxiii. p. 249.
VOL. I. D
34< HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Each person brings with him commonly from three to four hun-
dred, which are afterwai'ds carried for sale, not only through
every part of Germany, but also to England, Russia, and even
Constantinople. About sixteen hundred are brought every
year to England ; where the dealers in them, notwithstanding
the considerable expense they are at, and after carrying them
about on their backs, perhaps a hundred miles, sell them for
five shillings apiece. This trade, hitherto neglected, is now
carried on in Schwarzwalde ; and at present there is a citizen
here at Gdttingen, who takes with him every year to England
several Canary birds and bullfinches (Loxia pyrrhula), with
the produce of which he purchases such small wares as he has-
occasion for.
The principal food of these birds is the Canary seed, which,
as is commonly affirmed, and not improbably, was first brought,
for this purpose, from the Canary Islands to Spain, and thence
dispersed all over Europe. Most of the old botanists, how-
ever, are of opinion that the plant which produces it is the
same as that called Phalaris by Dioscorides 1 . Should this be
true, it will follow that this kind of grass must have grown
wild in other places besides the island it takes its name from ;
which is not improbable. But those who read the different
descriptions which the ancients have given of Phalaris, will,
in my opinion, observe that they may be equally applied to
more plants and Pliny seems to have used this name for more
;

than one species of grass 2 .

However this may be, it is certain that this seed, when it
was used as food for these birds, began to be cultivated first
in Spain, and afterwards in the southern parts of France. A-
present it is cultivated in various parts, and forms no incon-
siderable branch of trade, particularly in the island of Sicily,
where the plant is called Scagliuola, or Scaghiola. The seed
is sold principally to the French and the Genoese. In En-
gland, the industrious inhabitants of the Isle of Thanet, par-
ticularly those around Margate and Sandwich, gain consider-
ably by this article, as they can easily transport it to London
by water.
That this plant might be cultivated with little trouble
1
Phalaris Canariemis. The best figure and description of it are to be
found in Schreber's Beschreibung dcr Griiser, ii. p. 83, tab. x. 2.
2 Lib. iii. c. 159, and lib. xxvii. c. 12.
 ARCHIL. 35

in Germany, is shown by the yearly experience of those who

raise it in their gardens, and by its having become so natural-
ized in some it propagates by seed of
parts of Hesse, that
itself in the fields. The use
of the seed might also be ex-
tended, for it yields a good meal but the grains are not easily
;

freed from the husks.

I shall here take occasion to remark, that Savary has been '

guilty of an error, when he says that archil is cultivated in

the Canary Islands in order to be sold as food for Canary
birds. One may easily perceive that this mistake has arisen
from his confounding that lichen used for dyeing with this
kind of grass and I should not have considered it worth no-
;

tice, had it not been copied into Ludoviei's Dictionary of

Trade, from which, perhaps, it may be copied into the works
of others.

ARCHIL.

Under the names Orseille, Orceille, Orsolle, Ursolle, Orcheil,

Orchel, in Italian Oricello-, Orcella, Roccella, in Dutch Or-
chillie, and in English Archil, Canary weed or Orchilla weed,
is understood a lichen used for dyeing, and from which a kind
of paint is also prepared. This species of lichen, of which the
best figure and a full description may be seen in Dillenius 3 ,
is by Linnseus called Lichen roccella. It is found in abun-
dance in some of the islands near the African coast, particu-
larly in the Canaries, and in several of the islands in the Ar-
chipelago. It grows upright, partly in single partly in double
stems, which are about two inches in height. When it is old
these stems are crowned with a button, sometimes round and
sometimes of a flat form, which Toumefort very properly

1
Dictionnaire de Commerce, t. v. 1765, fol. p. 1149.
2
In the Dictionary of the Academy della Crusca the word oricello is
thus explained Tintura colla quale si tingono i panni, che si fa con orina
:

d'uomo, e con altri ingredienti.

3 Historia Muscorum, Ox. 1741, 4to, p. 120.
d2
36 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

compares to the excrescences on the arms of the Sepia. Its

colour is sometimes a light, and sometimes a dark gray. Of
this lichen with lime, urine, ammoniacal salts, or a solution of
ammonia prepared by distillation, is formed a dark red paste,
which in commerce has the same name, and which is much
used in dyeing. That well-known substance called litmus is
also made of it.
2
Theophrastus l
, Dioscorides , and their transcriber Pliny 3 ,
give the name of Phycos thalassion or pontion to a plant
which, notwithstanding its name, is not a sea-weed but a li-
chen, as it grew on the rocks of different islands, and particu-
larly on those of Crete or Candia. It had in their time been
long used for dyeing wool, and the colour it gave when fresh
was so beautiful, that it excelled the ancient purple, which
was not red, as many suppose, but violet. Pliny tells us, that
with this lichen dyers gave the ground or first tint to those
cloths which they intended to dye with the costly purple. At
least I so understand, with Hardouin and others, the words
conchyliis substernitur, which the French dyers express by the
phrase donner le pied.
Though several kinds of lichen produce a similar red dye,
I agree in opinion with Dillenius, that Phycos thalassion is our
archil ; for at present no species is known which communi-
cates so excellent a colour, and which corresponds so nearly
with the description of Theophrastus. Besides, it is still col-
lected in the Grecian islands, and it appears that it has been
used there since the earliest ages 4 .
Tournefort b found this lichen in the island Amorgos, which
lies on the eastern side of Naxos, and which at present is
called Morgo. In his time it was sent to England and Alex-
andria, at the rate of ten rix-dollars per hundred weight and ;

he says expressly that it was common in the other islands.

i Hist. Plant, iv. c. 7.
3 Lib. iv. c. 95.
3
Lib. xxvi. 10 xxxii. c. 6.
c. ;

4 Hardouin quotes Aristot. Hist. Animal, vi. c. 9. But that naturalist

speaks of a sea-weed whicb was cast on shore by the Hellespont. A dye
or paint was made of it, and the people in the neighbourhood imagined
that the purple of this sea-weed, which served as food to certain shell-fish,
communicated to them their beautiful dye. A proof that sea-weeds (fuci)
can communicate a red colour may be found in the Transactions of the
Swedish Academy, iv. p. 29.
3
Voyage du Levant. Amsterd. 1718, 4to, i. p. 89.
 ;

ARCHIL. S7

He shows from Suidas, Julius Pollux

1
, and other ancient
writers, that this island was once celebrated for a kind of red
linen cloth, which in commerce had the name of the island
and he conjectures, not without probability, that it might have
been dyed with this lichen.
Imperati 2 says, that the roccella, of which he gives a figure,
was procured from the Levant. This naturalist gives the figure
also of a lichen from Candia, used for dyeing, which was then
called rubicula, and which, as may be seen in Bauhinus
3
is ,

comprehended under the name of Roccella. JJillenius and

Linmeus, however, make it a distinct species and the latter
;

names it Lichen fuciformis. This distinction is, perhaps, not

improper for the rubicula does not grow like a shrub or bush,
:

as the roccella, but belongs rather to the foliaceous lichens. Be

this as it may, it is certain, as Dillenius has remarked, and as
I know from my own observation, that L. fuciformis is often
mixed with the real roccella, and particularly with that brought
from the Canary Islands but whether it be equally good,
;

experience has not yet taught us.

From what has been said, I think I may venture to conclude
that our archil was not unknown to the ancient Grecias.
But when was it first employed as a dye by the moderns, and
introduced into our commerce? Some writers are of opinion
that this drug was first found in the Canary Islands, and af-
terwards in the Levant. The use of it, therefore, is not older
than the last discovery of that island. That this opinion is
false, will appear from what follows.
Among the oldest and principal Florentine families is that
known under the name of the Oricellarii or Rucellarii, Rus-
of whom have distinguished them-
eellai or Rucellai, several
and men of letters. This family are de-
selves as statesmen
scended from a German nobleman named Ferro or Frederigo,
who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century 4 . One of

1" Prseterea Amorgina, optima quidem in Amorgo fiunt, sed et haec e

lino esse asserunt. Tunica autem Amorgina etiam amorgis nuncupatur."
— Onomasticon, vii. c. 16.
2 Histor. Nat. lib. xxvii. c. 11.
3 Pinax Plant,
p. 365. Hist. Plant, iii. 2. p. 796.
4 Other accounts say that he was
an Englishman ; hut the name Freds*
rigo confirms his German extraction.
 ;

38 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

his descendants in the year 1300 carried on a great trade in

the Levant, by which he acquired considerable riches, and
returning at length to Florence with his fortune, first made
known in Europe the art of dyeing with archil. It is said
that a little before his return from the Levant, happening to
make water on a rock covered with this lichen, he observed
that the plant, which was there called respio or respo, and in
Spain orciglia, acquired by the urine a purple, or, as others
say, a red colour. He therefore tried several experiments
and when he had brought to perfection the art of dyeing wool
with this plant, he made it known at Florence, where he alone
practised it for a considerable time, to the great benefit of
the state. From this useful invention the family received
the name of Oricellarii, from which at last was formed Ru-
cellai 1
.

As several documents, still preserved among the Florentine

archives, confirm the above account of the origin of this family
name, from the discovery of dyeing with oricello 2 , we may,

1
Giornale de' Letterati d' Italia, t. xxxiii. parte i. p. 231.
2 These documents from the Florentine records may be found in Domi-
nici MariiE Florentinis Inventis Commentarium. Ferrariae, 1731,
Manni de
p. 37, from which have extracted the following
I :
—
" One of this family-
resided formerly a long time in the Levant, where he carried on trade,
according to the custom of the Florentine nation. Being one day in the
fields, and happening to make water on a plant, of which there was great
abundance, he observed that it immediately became extraordinarily red.
Like a prudent man, therefore, he resolved to make use of this secret of
nature, which till that time had lain hid; and having made several expe-
riments on that herb, and finding it proper to dye cloth, he sent some of
it to Florence, where, being mixed with human urine and other things, it

has always been employed to dye cloth purple. This plant, which is called
respo, is in Spain named orciglia, and by botanists commonly corallina.
The mixture made with it is called oricello, and has been of great utility
and advantage to the woollen manufacture, which is carried on to greater
extent in Florence than in any other city. From this circumstance the in-
dividuals of that family, by being the inventors of oricello, have been called
Oricellai, and have been beloved by the people for having procured to
them this particular benefit. Thus has written John di Paolo Rucellai
{Manni sai/s thai this learned and opulent man wrote in the year 1451) ;

and the same account is still given by dyers in our city, who relate and
affirm that their ancestors have for a century exercised the art of dyeiog,
and that they know the above from tradition."
This is confirmed by another passage :
—
" One of this family, on account
 ARCHIL. 39

in myopinion, consider it as certain that the Europeans, and

firstthe Florentines, were made acquainted with this dye-stuff
and its use in the beginning of the fourteenth century. At
that time the Italians brought from the East the seeds of many
arts and sciences, which, afterwards sown and nurtured in
Europe, produced the richest harvests; and nothing is more
certain than that the art of dyeing was brought to us from the
East by the Italians. I do not believe that the merit of having
discovered this dye by the above-mentioned accident is due to
that Florentine ; but I am of opinion that he learnt the art in
the Levant, and on his return taught it to his countrymen,
which was doing them no small service '. After that period
the Italians long procured archil from the Levant for them-
selves, and afterwards for all Europe. I say for a long time,
because since the discovery of the Canary Islands the greater
part of that substance has been procured from them.
These islands, after being a considerable time lost and for-
gotten, were again discovered about the end of the fourteenth
or the beginning of the fifteenth century, and since that time
they have been much frequented by the Europeans. One of
the first who endeavoured to obtain an establishment there,
was John de Betancourt, a gentleman of Normandy, who in
1400, or, as others say, in 14-17, landed on Lancerotta.
Amongst the principal commodities which this gentleman and
other Europeans brought back with them was archil, which was
found there more beautiful and in greater abundance than any-
where else and Betancourt enjoyed in idea the great profit
:

which he hoped to derive from this article in commerce. Glass is

surprised that the Europeans, immediately upon their arrival,
sought after this lichen with as much eagerness and skill as

of the trade earned on faithfully and honestly by the Florentines, travelled

to the Levant, and brought thence to Florence the art, or rather secret, of
dyeing in oricello."
1
In the genealogical history of the noble families of Tuscany and Um-
bria, written by P. D. Eugenio Gamurrini, and published at Florence 1668
—1673, 3 vols, in folio, is the following account, vol. i. p. 274, of the origin
of this family: —
" This family acquired their name from a secret brought by
one of them from the Levant, which was that of dyeing in oricello, never
before used in this country. On that account they were afterwards called
Oricellari, as appears from several records among the archives of Florence,
and then by corruption Rucellari and Rucellai. Of their origin many
speak, and all agree that they came into Tuscany from Britain."
40 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

they did after gold in America, though they were not so well
acquainted with the former as the latter before the discovery
of these new lands l . But as this is not true, the wonder will
cease.
According to information procured in the year 1731, the
island of Teneriffe produced annually five hundred quintals of
this moss ;Canary, four hundred Forteventura, Lancerotta,
;

and Gomera, three hundred each and Fero, eight hundred

;
;•

making in all two thousand six hundred quintals. In the islands

of Canary, Teneriffe and Palma, the moss belongs to the crown;
and in the year 1730 it was let by the king of Spain for one
thousand five hundred piastres. The farmers paid then for
collecting it from fifteen to twenty rials per hundredweight 2 .

In the rest of the islands it belongs to private proprietors, who

cause it to be collected on their own account. In the begin-
ning of the last century a hundred weight, delivered on board
at Santa Cruz, the capital of Teneriffe, was worth from only
three to four piastres but since 1725 it has cost labour amount-
;

ing to ten piastres, because it has been in great request at

London, Amsterdam, Marseilles, and throughout all Italy 3 .

In the year 1726 this lichen cost at London eighty pounds

sterling per ton, as we are told by Dillenius, and in 1730 it
bore the same price.
Towards the end of the year 1 730, the captain of an English
vessel, which came from the Cape de Verde islands, brought
a bag of archil to Santa Cruz by way of trial. He discovered
his secret to some Spanish and Genoese merchants, who, in
the month of July 1731, resolved to send a ship to these
islands. They landed on that of St. Anthony and St. Vincent,
where in a few days they obtained five hundred quintals of
this lichen, which they found in such abundance, that it cost
them nothing more than a piastre per cent, by way of present
to the governor. The archil of the Cape de Verde islands

1
The History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands, by
George Glass. London, 1764, 4to.
2
[Dr. Ure copies this information in his Dictionary, hut gives it as the
return of an official report for the year 1831 !]
3
This information is to be found in Hellot's Art of Dyeing, into which
it has been copied, as appears by the Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, par
Valmont de Bomare, from an account written by M. Porlier, who was con-
sul at Teneriife in 1731.
 ,

ARCHIL. 41

appears larger, richer, and longer than that of the Canaries

and this, perhaps, is owing to its not being collected every
year >. Adanson, in 1749, found also the greater part of the
rocks in Magdalen island, near Senegal, covered with this li-
chen. Though the greater part of our archil is at present
procured from the Canary and Cape de Verde islands, a con-
siderable quantity is procured also from the Levant, from Sicily,
as Glass says, and from the coast of Barbary and some years ;

ago the English merchants at Leghorn caused this lichen to

be collected in the island of Elba, and paid a high price for
it 2 .

dyers do not purchase raw archil, but a paste made of

Our
it, which the French call orseille en pate. The preparation of
it was for a long time kept a secret by the Florentines. The
person who, as far as I know, made it first known was Rosetti ;
who, as he himself tells us, carried on the trade of a dyer at
Florence. Some information was, afterwards published con-
cerning it by Imperati 3 and Micheli the botanist 4 . In later
times this art has been much practised in France, England,
and Holland. Many druggists, instead of keeping this paste
in a moist state with urine, as they ought, suffer it to dry, in
order to save a little dirty work. It then has the appearance
of a dark violet-coloured earth with here and there some white
}

spots in it.
The Butch, who have found out better methods than other
nations of manufacturing many commodities, so as to render
them cheaper, and thereby to hurt the trade of their neigh*
bours, are the inventors also of lacmus 5 , a preparation of ar-
chil called orseille en pierre, which has greatly lessened the use
of that en pate, as it is more easily transported and preserved,
and fitter for use and as it is besides, if not cheaper, at least
;

not dearer. This art consists, undoubtedly, in mixing with

that commodity some less valuable substance, which either

1
As the archil grows in the African islands, and on the coast of Africa,
Glass supposes that the Getulian purple of the ancients was dyed with it;
hut this opinion is improbable, for Horace praises " Gaetula murice tinctas
vestes."
2
Lettres mx l'Histoire Naturelle de l'lsle d'Elbe, par Koestlin. Vienne,
1780, 8vo p. 100.
3 Lib. xxvii. c. 9.
* Nova Plantarum Genera. Flor. 1729.
5
Some translate this word lacca musica, musiva.
 —

42 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISC0VERIE3.

improves or does not much impair its quality, and which at

the same time increases its weight 1 . Thus they pound cinna-
bar and smalt finer than other nations, and yet sell both these
articles cheaper. In like manner they sift cochineal, and sell
it at a less price than what is unsifted.

It was for a long time believed that the Dutch prepared

their lacmus from those linen rags which in the south of France
are dipped in the juice of the Croton tinctorium* ; and this
idea appeared the more probable, as most of this tournesol
en drapeaux was bought up by the Hollanders but, as they :

are the greatest adulterators of wine in Europe, they may per-

haps have used these rags to colour Pontack and other wines.
It is however not improbable that they at first made lacmus of
them, as their dye approaches very near to that of archil. At
present it is almost certainly known that orseille en pate is the
principal ingredient in orseille en pierre, that is in lacmus 3 :
and for this curious information we are indebted to Ferber 4 .
But whence arises the smell of the lacmus, which appears to
me like that of the Florentine iris ? Some of the latter may,
1
[According to Dr. Ure, the Dutch first reduce thelichen to a fine pow-
der by means of a mill, then mix a certain proportion of potash with it.
The mixture is watered with urine and allowed to undergo a species of
fermentation. When this has arrived at a certain degree, carbonate of
lime in. powder is added to give consistence and weight to the paste, which
is afterwards reduced into small parallelopipeds, which are carefully dried.]
2 This plant grows in the neighbourhood of Montpelier, and
above all,
in the flats of Languedoc. In harvest, the time when it is collected,
the peasants assemble from the distance of fifteen or twenty leagues around,
and each gathers on his own account. It is bruised in a mill, and the juice
must be immediately used some mix with it a thirtieth part of urine. It
;

is poured over pieces of canvas, which they take care to provide, and
which they rub between their hands. These rags are dried in the sun,
and then exposed, above a stone stove, to the vapour of urine mixed with
quick-lime or alum. After they have imbibed the juice of the plant, the
same operations are repeated till the pieces of cloth appear of a deep blue
colour. They are called in commerce tournesol en drapeaux. Large quan-
tities of them are bought up by the Dutch, who make use of them to
colour wines and the rinds of their cheese. Trans.
3
[Lacmus or litmus is now prepared from Lecanora tartarea, the famous
Cudbear, so called after a Mr. Cuthbert, who first brought it into use. It
is imported largely from Norway, where it grows more abundantly than
with us yet in the Highland districts many an industrious peasant gets a
;

living by scraping off this lichen with au iron hoop, and sending it to the
Glasgow market.]
* Linn. Mantissa Plantarum, i. p. 132.
 :

MAGNETIC CURES. 43

perhaps, be mixed with it ; for I think I have observed in it

small insoluble particles, which may have been pieces of the
roots. The addition of this substance can be of no use to im-
prove the dye but it may increase the weight, and give the
;

lac more body and perhaps it may be employed to render im-

;

perceptible some unpleasant smell, for which purpose the roots

of that plant are used on many other occasions.
Another kind of lichen, different from the roccella, which
in commerce is known by the names orseille de terre, orseille
d'Auvergne, is used also for the like purpose but it contains;

fewer and weaker colouring particles. This species, in botany,

is called Lichen Parellus (Lecanora Parella), and is distin-*

guished from the roccella by its figure, as it grows only in

a thin rind on the rocks It is collected in Auvergne, on rocks
of granite and volcanic productions, and in some parts of Lan-
guedoc ; the greater part of it is brought from St. Flour. Its
name, perelle, comes from an old Languedocian word pire
(pierre, a rock) as roccella, afterwards transformed into or-
;

seille, is derived from rocca. The use of perelle is very trifling

the Dutch purchase it to make lacmus, perhaps on account of
its low price. This lichen has been found also in Northumber-
land and other mountainous districts of Great Britain, but it
'

is not collected there for any purpose.

MAGNETIC CURES.
The external use of the magnet, to cure the tooth-ache and
other disorders, is a remedy brought into fashion in modern
times, but not a new discovery, as supposed by Lessing, who
ascribes it to Paracelsus 2 . It was known to Ae'tius, who lived
so early as the year 500. That author says, " are assured We
that those who are troubled with the gout in their hands or

1
See Wallis's Natural History and Antiquities of Northumberland, 1 769,
2 vols 4to, i. p. 279.
3 In his
Kollektaneen. Berlin, 1790, ii. p. 117.
44 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

their feet, or with convulsions, find relief when they hold a

magnet in their hand 1 ." He
does not however give any proof
of this from his own experience and perhaps he doubted the
:

truth of it. The above passage contains the oldest account

known at present respecting this virtue ; for the more ancient
writers speak only of the internal use of the magnet.
It is evident therefore that this cure has not been discovered
in later times, but that it has been preserved by the old phy-
sicians copying it from each other into their works. In like
manner, many things are mentioned in the Materia Medica
which were used or proposed by the ancients, but into the pro-
perties of which they never made sufficient inquiry.
Paracelsus recommended the magnet in a number of diseases,
as fluxes, haemorrhages, &c. Marcellus, who lived in the fif-
teenth century, assures us that it cures the tooth-ache 2 The .

same virtue is ascribed to it by Leonard Camillus*' , who lived 1

in the sixteenth century: and Wecker 4 , who was nearly co-

temporary, says that the magnet when applied to the head,
cures the head-ache and adds that Holler had taken this cure
;

from the works of the ancients 5 . We

read also in Porta 6 ,
that it was recommended for the head-ache and in Kircher 7 , ;

that it was worn about the neck as a preventive against con-

vulsions, and affections of the nerves. About the end Of the
17th century magnetic tooth-picks and ear-pickers were made,
and extolled as a secret preventive against pains in the teeth,
eyes and ears 8 .
[In addition to these external uses of the magnet, in which
it was supposed to act by a peculiar power over the nervous

system, it has been employed on account of its true magnetic

properties. Thus Kirkringius, Fabricius Hildanus, and sub-
sequently Morgagni, have used it to remove particles of iron
which had accidentally fallen into the eyes. Kircher employed
1
Aetii Op. 1. ii. c. 25.
2 In Stephani Artis Med. Princip. ii. p. 253.
3 De Lapidibus, lib. ii. p. 131.
4 J. J. Wecker, De Secretis.
5took the trouble to search for this passage in Jac. Hollerii lib. de
I
morbis internis, Parisiis 1711, 4to, but I could not find it, though the be-
ginning of the book treats expressly of head-aches.
6
Magia Naturalis, lib. vii.
7 Kircheri Magnes, sive De Arte Magnetica, lib. iii. c. i.
8 P. Borrelli, Hist, et Observ. Medico-physic, cent. 4. obs.
75.
 ;

MAGNETIC CURES. 45

it also to cure hernia. The patient took iron-filings internally

and the loadstone powder mixed with some
in the state of
vegetable substance, thus forming a magnetic plaster, was ap-
plied to the hernia. Even Ambrose Pare states on the au-
thority of a surgeon, that several patients had been thus cured.
About the 16th and early in the 17th century, two cases
occurred, one near Prague in Bohemia, the other in Prussia,
in which a knife was swallowed, but it unfortunately got too
far and passed into the stomach. By the application of these
magnetic plasters, the point became attracted towards the sur-
face, so that it could be removed by incision '.
In the 18th century, after the properties of magnets had
begun to be scientifically investigated, they were made of
various forms and their effects studied in numerous parts of
Europe, and many treatises were published on their supposed
properties. Perhaps the most important and best authenti-
cated, are those of MM.
Audry and Thouret. These ex-
perimenters believed that they were effective agents.
Since that time, the use of magnets as remedial agents has
been almost entirely laid aside and forgotten, it having been
found that no constancy was exhibited in the results of their
application, and that their occasional supposed efficacy de-
pended upon other circumstances, which were overlooked from
the sufferers' attention being engrossed by the magnet. The
application of the magnet to remove small particles of iron or
steel which have accidentally fallen into the eyes, has been
lately revived. In some manufactories, where these minute
particles are constantly thrown off in the grinding of hard-
ware and driven into the eyes, large magnets are kept fixed
at a proper height, so that the workmen can resort to them
immediately. Such is the case for instance at Fairbairne in
Belgium, and we believe the same has been adopted in some
of our own manufactories to catch the floating particles, and
thus to prevent their being drawn into the lungs during respi-
ration. The reader may form some idea of the effective man-
ner in which magnets can be applied, from the following in-
cident which occurred to Prof. Faraday, whilst experimenting
with a powerful (electro-) magnet an iron candlestick which
;

happened to be standing near its poles on the table at which

1
Observations sur l'usage de l'aimant en niedecine, par MM. Audry
et Thouret.
46 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

lie was at work flew to them, attracted with

such violence as
to displace or break everything in way.
its

In the 18th century, a new supposed magnetic power was

discovered, and with various success has continued to be applied
to the delusion of the public. About 1770, Father Hehl, a
Jesuit, the Professor of Astronomy at Vienna, who had great
faith in the influence of the loadstone on human diseases, and
had invented steel plates of a peculiar form, which he impreg-
nated with magnetic virtues and applied to the cure of diseases,
communicated his discoveries to Anton Mesmer, who subse-
quently invented animal magnetism or mesmerism. Mesmer
made use of his friend Hehl's plates to employ the magnet ac-
cording to certain notions of his own. In his subsequent
experiments magnets were gradually dispensed with, and as
practised in modern times, they have been found unnecessary.
Hence mesmerism or animal magnetism has no relation to the
magnetism of the magnet, and may therefore form the subject
of a future article.
About the year 1798, a man named Perkins invented a
method of treating various diseases with metallic bars called
tractors ; these were applied to and drawn over various parts
of the body, and were supposed to cure numerous maladies,
such as ulcers, head-aches, &c. These instruments were patent-
ed. A
few years afterwards, Dr. Falconer had wooden tractors
made so exactly to resemble those of Perkins, that they could
not be distinguished by the eye; on employing these on a large
scale at the Bath hospital, he found that exactly the same effects
and cures were produced by one as the other. Since that
time these tractors have hardly been heard of, and are now
forgotten.
Quite recently, a new means has been contrived in England
for deluding the public, in the form of rings, which are to be
worn upon the fingers or toes, and are said to prevent the
occurrence of, and cure various diseases.They are called
galvanic rings. But this invention may be with propriety
classed with the real magnet, animal magnetism and tractation.
What has been stated relative to the metallic tractors,
equally applies to the magnetic rings; for although by the
contact of the two metals of which they are composed an in-
finitesimally minute current of electricity, hence also of mag-
netism, is generated, still from the absurd manner in which the
 SECRET POISON. 47

pieces of metal composing the ring are arranged, and which

displays the most profound ignorance of the laws of electri-
city and magnetism, no trace of the minute current traverses
the finger or toe on which the ring is worn so that a wooden,
;

any other ring, or none at all, would have exactly the same
effect, as regards the magnetism or galvanism.]

SECRET POISON.
Under this name are generally understood all poisons which
can be administered imperceptibly, and which gradually shorten
the life of man, like a lingering disease. They were not first
discovered in the 17th century in France and Italy as
many believe, but were known to the ancient Greeks and
Romans, by whom they were used. I must however allow,
that they were never prepared with more art at any period,
or in any country, or employed oftener and with more success,
than they were in these countries, and at that time. If it be
true that they can be prepared in such a manner as to occa-
sion death at a certain period previously determined, or that
the person to whom they are given will die within a certain
time limited, it must be confessed that the ancient poisoners
have been far exceeded by the modern. But this advantage
will be considered as scarcely possible, when one reflects upon
the many variable circumstances which have an influence on
the operation of medicines and poisons ; and it has often
happened that a company have swallowed the same poison, at
the same time, and in the same quantity, some of whom have
died sooner and some later, while some have survived. Thus
died Pope Alexander VI. in the year 1503, and Caesar Borgia
recovered without any loss of health, though, by the bottles
being changed through mistake, he drank of the poison that
had been prepared for the other guests alone. At any rate, I
am of opinion that the celebrated Tophania, when she engaged
to free wives from lisagreeable husbands within stated weeks
48 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and days, must have had certain and very accurate informa-
tion respecting their contitution and manner of living, or, as
the physicians say, their idiosyncrasy
Some physicians have doubted respecting secret poison ; 1

and others have only denied that its effects can with certainty
be regulated to a fixed time 2 . I agree in opinion with the
latter ; but the former can be confuted by many examples both
of ancient and modern times ; for that the ancients were ac-
quainted with this kind of poison, can be proved by the testi-
mony of Plutarch, Quintilian, and other respectable authors.
We are told by Plutarch, that a slow poison, which occasioned
heat, a cough, spitting of blood, consumption, and a weakness
of intellect, was administered to Aratus of Sicyon 3 ; and Quin-
tilian in his Declamations, speaks of this poison in such a
manner as proves that it must then have been well known 4 .
It cannot be said that such an invention was too great for that
period, or that it required more knowledge of chemistry than
any one possessed ; for the Indians in America are acquainted
with a most perfect poison of this kind, and can employ it
with so much skill, that the person to whom it is given cannot
guard against the treachery, even with the utmost precaution,
but infallibly dies, though in a lingering manner, often after
the expiration of some years 5 .
1 Heberden in the Neue Hamburg. Mag. xvii.
p. 219. I am convinced
that many of the accounts we have of the extraordinary effects of poison
are fabricated, like those mentioned in Frid. Hoffmanni Dissert. deLsesioni-
bus externis, abortivis Venenis ac Philtris. Francof. 1729, et recusaLips.
1755. That author, however, denies some which are true. It is, for ex-
ample, certain that camphor and rue do not produce the effects ascribed
to them by Dioscorides, Paulus iEgineta, and others but there are without
;

doubt other substances which will produce these effects.

Sennerti Instit. Med. ii. 2, 12.
2
3
He gave to Aratus a poison, not speedy and violent, but of that kind
which at first occasions a slow heat in the body, with a slight cough, and
then gradually brings on a consumption. One time, when Aratus spat up
blood, he said, " This is the effect of royal friendship." See Plutarch, Vit.
Arati.
4
Quint. Declamat.
xvii. 11.
5 of the Indians, however, the ancients could not be
With the poison
acquainted, as it is prepared from a plant unknown in Europe before the
discovery of America. Kalm, in his Travels, does not name it, and in that
he lias done right for, as the plant is now to be found everywhere, no
;

government could guard against a misapplication of it, were it publicly

known.
 —

SECRET POISON. 49

Theophrastus speaks of a poison which could be moderated

in such a manner as to have effect in two or three months, or
at the end of a year, or two years and he remarks that the
;

death, themore lingering it was, became the more miserable.

This poison was prepared from aconitum, a plant which, on
that account, people were forbidden to have in their possession,
under pain of capital punishment He relates also, that
1
.

Thrasyas had discovered a method of preparing from other

plants a poison which, given in small doses of a drachm, occa-
sioned an easy but certain death, without any pain, and which
could be kept back for a long time without causing weakness
or corruption. This Thrasyas, whose scholar Alexias carried
the art still further, was a native of Mantinea, a city in Arca-
dia, and is celebrated by Theophrastus on account of his abi-
lities, and particularly his knowledge of botany but those are
;

mistaken who ascribe to him the discovery of secret poison.

This poison was much used at Rome about two hundred
years before the Christian sera. As several persons of distinc-
tion died the same year at that period, and of the like distem-
per, an inquiry being made into the cause, a maid-servant
gave evidence against some ladies of the first families, who,
she said, prepared and distributed poison and above a hun-
;

dred and fifty of them were convicted and punished 2 As so .

many had learnt this destructive art, it could not be suppressed;

and we find sufficient proofs in the Roman history that it was
continually preserved. Sejanus caused such a secret poison
to be administered by an eunuch to Drusus, who gradually
declined afterwards, as by a consumptive disorder, and at
length died 3 . Agrippina, being desirous of getting rid of
Claudius, but not daring to despatch him suddenly, and yet
wishing not to leave him sufficient time to make new regula-
tions respecting the succession to the throne, made choice
of a poison which should deprive him of his reason, and gra-
dually consume him. This she caused to be prepared by an
1 They say
a poison can be prepared from aconite so as to occasion
death within a certain period, such as two, three, or six months, a year,
and even sometimes two years. Those, we are told, whose constitutions
are able to hold out longest, die in the greatest misery for the body is
;

gradually consumed, and must perish by continual wasting. Those die

easiest who die speedily. No remedy has been found out for this poison.
Theophr. Hist. Plant, ix. c. 16.
* Livius, lib. viii. c. 18. 3 Taciti Annal. lib. iv. c. 8.

VOL. I. E
50 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

expert poisoner, named Locusta, who had been condemned to

death for her infamous actions, but saved that she might be
employed as a state engine. The poison was given to the
emperor in a dish of mushrooms but as, on account of his
;

irregular manner of living, it did not produce the desired effect,

it was assisted by some of a stronger nature . This Locusta
1

prepared also the poison with which Nero despatched Britanni-

cus, the son of Agrippina, whom his father Claudius wished to
succeed him on the throne. As this poison occasioned only a
dysentery, and was too slow in its operation, the emperor com-
pelled Locusta by blows, and by threatening her with death, to
prepare in his presence one more powerful. It was first tried
on a kid ; but as the animal did not die till the end of five hours,
she boiled it a little longer, until it instantaneously killed a pig
to which it had been given, and this poison despatched Britan-
nicus as soon as he had tasted it 2 For this service the emperor
.

pardoned Locusta, rewarded her liberally, and gave her pupils

whom she was to instruct in her art, in order that it might not
be lost.
The
art of preparing this poison must have been well un-
derstood also at Carthage. When M. Attilius Regulus, the
Roman general, who had been taken by the Carthaginians,
was sent to Rome to propose to the senate that the Carthagi-
nian prisoners might be restored in exchange for him, he pre-
vented this negotiation, because he knew that a poison had
been administered to him, by which the state would soon be
deprived of his services. He returned, therefore, to Carthage,
in compliance with the promise he had made to the enemy, who
put him to death with the most exquisite torture 3 .
All these poisons were prepared from plants, particularly
aconite, hemlock and poppy, or extracted from animal sub-
stances. Among those made from the latter, none is more
remarkable than that supplied by the sea-hare, lepus marinus,
1
The account given by Tacitus deserves to be read ; see lib. xii. c. 66.
2 The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal.
xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see
also Juvenal, sat. i. 71.
3 This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of
Tuditanus. —
Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity
of Regulus as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices,
;

book iii. chap. 27 but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned.
;

Valerius Maximus also, booki. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison.

 SECRET POISON. 51

with which, as Philostratus says 1 Titus was despatched by

,

Domitian. Without here attempting to define the substances

employed by the ancients to compose their poisons, I shall only
observe, that the lepus marinns, the terrible effects of which
are expressly mentioned by Dioscorides, Galen, Nicander,
Aetius, iElian 2 Pliny 3 and others, is that animal called at
, ,

present in the Linnsean system Aplysia depilans*, as Rondelet

conjectured, and has been since fully proved by Bohadsch 6 .
This animal poison however seems to have been seldom used,
as it easily betrays itself by some peculiar symptoms. It ap-
pears that it was not known to Aristotle, at least he makes no
mention of it 6 .With the far stronger, and now common
mineral poisons the ancients were not acquainted ; for their
arsenic was what we call orpiment, and not that pernicious
metallic oxide which formed the principal ingredient of those
secret poisons which in latter times were in France and Italy
brought to a diabolical perfection 7 .

Ivlo one was ever more infamous by this art than Tophania,

or Toff'ana, a woman who resided first at Palermo, and after?

1 Apollonii Vit. Kb. vi.

c. 14.
2 Histor. Animal, lib. ii. c. 45. 3 Lib. ix. c.
48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1.
4 Linnaei SystemaNat., through an error of the press, stands Laplysia,
In
which word has since become common. 'AirXvaia signifies an unclean-
ness which cannot be washed off and in Aristotle's History of Animals,
;

b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a zoophyte. In the
like manner other errors in tbe System of Linnaeus have been copied into
the works of others, such as Dytiscus instead of Dyticus, &c.
J. B. BohadschDe quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdae, 1761, 4to,
5

p. 1-53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure of this ani-
mal, under the name of Lernaa, which was used in the first editions of
Linnaeus.
6
The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected
in Grevini Lib. deVenenis, Antverpiae 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas,
iii. (Script. Byz.), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison
; and
in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevita-
ble destruction to man.
7 See Stenzelii Diss, de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quae Galli les
poudres de succession vocant ; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergae, 1730. This
tract contains several historical relations
; but the reader is often referred
to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who
must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As
for example, Galen in b.ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without
mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his
bookDe Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison;
E 2
52 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

wards at Naples. She sold those drops, which from her ac-
quired the name of aqua Tophania, aqua delta Toffana, and
which were called also acquetta di Napoli, or only acquetta ;

but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to 6uch

wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six
drops were sufficient to destroy a man and it was asserted
;

that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain

time. As she was watched by the government, she fled to
an ecclesiastical asylum and when Keysler was at Naples in
;

1730, she was then still living, because no one could, or was
willing to take away her life, while under that protection. At
that time she was visited by many strangers out of curiosity.
In Labat's Travels through Italy 1 we also find some informa-
tion which may serve still further to illustrate the history of
Tophania. She distributed her poison in small glass phials,
with this inscription, Manna of St. Nicholas of Sari, and
ornamented with the image of the saint. A
miraculous oil,
employed by folly in the cure of many diseases, drops from
the tomb of that saint which is shown at Bari in the kingdom
of Naples and on this account it is dispersed in great abun-
;

dance under the like name. It was therefore the best appel-
lation which Tophania could give to her poison, because the
reputed sanctity of it prevented the custom-house officers from
examining it too closely. When the viceroy was informed of
this, which I think was in 1709, Tophania fled from one con-
vent to another, but was at length seized and thrown into
prison. The clergy raised a loud outcry on account of this
violation of ecclesiastical freedom, and endeavoured to excite
the people to insurrection. But they were soon appeased on
a report being spread that Tophania had confessed she had
poisoned all the springs in the city. Being put to the rack,
she acknowledged her wickedness, and confessed to having
caused the death of not less than 600 persons named those ;

who had protected her, who were immediately dragged from

churches and monasteries and declared that the day before
;

she had absconded, she had sent two boxes of her manna to

but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de disposi-

tionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6.
tract. 2. c. 14, it is said " Fel canis aquatici intcrficit post hebdomadam."
Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted bv StenzeL
p. 7. » Vol. iv. p. 33.
 SECRET POISON. 53

Rome, where it was found in the custom-house, but she did

not accuse any one of having ordered it. She was afterwards
strangled, and to mitigate the archbishop, her body was thrown
at night into the area of the convent from which she had been
taken. Tophania however was not the only person at Naples
who understood the making of this poison for Keysler says
;

that at the time he was there it was still secretly prepared and
much employed.
In the year 1659, under the government of Pope Alex-
ander VII., it was observed at Rome that many young mar-
ried women were left widows, and that many husbands died
when they became disagreeable to their wives. Several of
the clergy declared also, that for some time past various per-
sons had acknowledged at confession that they had been
guilty of poisoning. As the government employed the utmost
vigilance to discover these poisoners, suspicion fell upon a
society of young married women, whose president appeared to
be an old woman who pretended to foretell future events, and
who had often predicted very exactly many deaths to persons
who had cause to wish for them. To ascertain the truth, a
crafty female, given out to be a person of considerable distinc-
tion, was sent to this old woman, pretending that she wished
to obtain her confidence, and to procure some of her drops
for a cruel and tyrannical husband. The whole society were
by this stratagem arrested and all of them, except the for-
;

tune-teller, whose name was HieronymaSpara, confessed before

they were put to the torture. —
" Where now," cried she, " are
the Roman princes, knights and barons, who on so many occa-
sions promised me their protection ! Where are the ladies
who assured me of their friendship ! Where are my children
whom I have placed in so distinguished situations I" In order
to deter others from committing the like crime, one Gratiosa,
Spara's assistant, three other women, and the obstinate Spara
herself, who still entertained hopes of assistance till the last
moment, were hanged in the presence of innumerable specta-
tors. Some months after, several more women were executed
in the same manner ;some were whipt, and others were ba-
nished from the country. Notwithstanding these punish-
ments, the effects of this inveterate wickedness have been from
time to time remarked. Le Bret, to whom we are indebted
 —

54- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

for the above account, says l that Spara was a Sicilian, and
acquired her knowledge from Tophania at Palermo. If that
be true, the latter must have been early initiated in villany,
and must have become when very young a teacher of her in-
famous art. Keysler calls her a little old woman.
The art of poisoning never excited more attention than it
did in France about the year 1670 -. Mary Margaret d'Au-
bray, daughter of the lieutenant-civil Dreux d'Aubray, was in
the year 1651 married to the Marquis de Brinvillier, son of
Gobelin president of the Chamber of Accounts, who had a
yearly income of thirty thousand livres, and to whom she
brought a portion of two hundred thousand. He was mestre-
de-camp of the regiment of Normandy, and during the course
of his campaigns became acquainted with one Godin de Sainte
Croix, a young man of a distinguished family, who served as
a captain of cavalry in the regiment of Trassy. This young
officer, who was then a needy adventurer, became a constant
visitor of the marquis, and in a short time paid his addresses
to the marchioness, who lost her husband after she had helped
to dissipate his large fortune, and was thus enabled to enjoy
her amours in greater freedom. Her indecent conduct, how-
ever, gave so much uneasiness to her father, that he procured
a lettre de cachet, had Sainte Croix arrested while in a car-
riage by her side, and thrown into the Bastille 3 . Sainte Croix
there got acquainted with an Italian named Exili, who under-
stood the art of preparing poison, and from whom he learnt
it. As they were both set at liberty after a year's imprison-
ment, Sainte Croix kept Exili with him until he became per-
fectly master of the art, in which he afterwards instructed the
marchioness, in order that she might employ it in bettering
the circumstances of both. When she had acquired the prin-

1
J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten und-Kirchen-
Geschichte, partiv. Francf. andLeips. 1774, 8vo, p. 131-141.
2 The following account is collected from Causes celebres, par M. Guyot

de Pitaval, tome i.— Lettres de Mad. de Sevigne, tome iv. — Histoire du

Regne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon, 1746, v. p. 159.
Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martiniere, 1740, iv. p. 229.— Le
Siecle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc.
3 Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown into the

Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the case, for this
reprobate was at that time not in the array.
 ;

SECRET POISON. 55

ciples of the art, she assumed the appearance of a nun, distri-

buted food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hotel-Dieu,
and gave them medicines, but only for the purpose of trying
the strength of her poison undetected on these helpless
wretches It was said in Paris, by way of satire, that no
1
.

young physician, in introducing himself to practice, had ever

so speedily filled a churchyard as Brinvillier. By the force
of money, she prevailed on Sainte Croix's servant, called La
Chaussee, to administer poison to her father, into whose ser-
vice she got him introduced, and also to her brother, who was
a counsellor of the parliament, and resided at his father's
house. To the former the poison was given ten times before
he died the son died sooner; but the daughter, Mademoiselle
;

d'Aubray, the marchioness could not poison, because perhaps

she was too much on her guard for a suspicion soon arose
;

that the father and son had been poisoned, and the bodies
were opened. She would however have escaped, had not
Pi'ovidence brought to light the villany.
Sainte Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to
wear a glass mask but as this once happened to drop off by
;

accident, he was suffocated, and found dead in his laboratory.

Government caused the effects of this man, who had no
family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out.
On searching them, there was found a small box, to which
Sainte Croix had affixed a written request, that after his death
it might be delivered to the Marchioness de Brinvillier, or in
case she should not be living, that it might be burnt 2 No- .

1
This circumstance denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to con-
is
tradict Pitaval, whom he
calls tin avocat sans came.
2
This request was as follows —
" I humbly beg that those into whose
:

hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the hands
only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue Neuve Saint
Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone
and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any persons ex-
cept her and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and every-
;

thing it contains, without opening or altering anything; and in order that

no one may plead ignorance, I swear by the God whom I adore, and by
all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if
my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I
charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order
that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris
this 25th of May in the afternoon, 1672.
" De Sainte Cboix."
56 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND D1SCOVEHIES.

thing could be a greater inducement to have it opened than

this singular petition and that being done, there was found
;

in it a great abundance of poisons of every kind, with labels

on which their effects, proved by experiments made on ani-
mals, were marked. When the marchioness heard of the death
of her lover and instructor, she was desirous to have the
casket, and endeavoured to get possession of it, by bribing
the officers of justice but as she failed in this, she quitted the
;

kingdom. La Chaussee, however, continued at Paris, laid

claim to the property of Sainte Croix, was seized and impri-
soned, confessed more acts of villany than were suspected,
and was in consequence broke alive on the wheel in 1673.
A very active officer of justice, named Desgrais, was des-
patched in search of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who was
found in a convent at Liege, to which she had fled from En-
gland. To entice her from this privileged place, which folly
had consecrated for the protection of vice, Desgrais assumed
the dress of an abbe, found means to get acquainted with her,
acted the part of a lover, and, having engaged her to go out
on an excursion of pleasure, arrested her. Among her effects
at the convent, there was found a confession, written by her
own hand, which contained a complete catalogue of her
crimes. She there acknowledged that she had set fire to
houses, and that she had occasioned the death of more per-
sons than any one ever suspected. She remarked also, that
she had continued a virgin only till the seventh year of her
age. Notwithstanding all the craft which she employed to
escape, she was conveyed to Paris, where she at first denied
everything ; and, when in prison, she played picquet to pass
away the time. She was however convicted, brought to a con-
fession of her enormities, became a convert, as her confessor
termed it, and went with much firmness to the place of execu-
tion, on the 16th of July, 1676 where, when she beheld the
; E

multitude of the spectators, she exclaimed in a contemptuous

manner, " You have come to see a fine spectacle I" She was
beheaded and afterwards burnt a punishment too mild for
;

such an offender . As she had been amused with some hopes

1

1
Martiniere says that she was burnt alive, together with all the papers
respecting her trial. The latter is improbable, and the former certainly
false, notwithstanding the account given in the Encyclopedic
 SECRET POISON. 57

of a pardon, on account of her relations, when she mounted

"
the scaffold, she cried out, " C'est done tout de bon !
1

Among a number of persons suspected of being concerned

in this affair, was a German apothecary, named Glaser, who
on account of his knowledge in chemistry, was intimate with
Exili and Sainte Croix. From him they had both procured
the materials which they used, and he was some years con-
fined in the Bastille but the charge against him being more
;

minutely investigated, he was declared innocent, and* set at

liberty. He was the author of a Treatise on Chemistry, printed
at Paris in 1667, and reprinted afterwards at Brussels in 1676,
and Lyons in 1679.
at
the execution of this French Medea, the practice of
By
poisoning was not suppressed many persons died from time
;

to time under very suspicious circumstances ; and the arch-

bishop was informed from different parishes that this crime
was still confessed, and that traces of it were remarked both
in high and in low families. For watching, searching after, and
punishing poisoners, a particular court, called the Chambre de
Poison or Chambre ardente, was at length established in 1679.
This court, besides other persons, detected two women named
La Vigoreux and La Voisin 2 , who carried on a great traffic
in poisons. The latter- was a midwife. Both of them pre-
tended to foretell future events, to call up ghosts, and to teach
the art of finding hidden treasures, and of recovering lost or
stolen goods. They also distributed philtres, and sold secret
poison to such persons as they knew they could depend upon,
and who wished to employ them either to get rid of bad hus-
bands, or recover lost lovers. Female curiosity induced se-

1
The following may perhaps be of use to our
physiognomists :
—"description
In order to
of Brinvillier
satisfy the curiosity of those who may be
desirous of knowing such a celebrated criminal partook of the beauties
if
of her sex, I shall observe that nature had not been sparing of them to
the marchioness her features were exceedingly regular, and the form of
;

her face, which was round, was very graceful. This beautiful outside con-
cealed a heart extremely black. Nothing proves more that metoposcopy,
or the science of physiognomy, is false for this lady had that serene and
;

tranquil air which announces virtue." —

Pitaval, p. 269.
2 Some information respecting La Voisin may be found in Lettres His-

toriques et Galantes par Madame de C . A Cologne, 1709-1711,

4 vols. 12mo, ii. p. 101, and iv. p. 376. The authoress of these letters was
Mad. du Noyer.
 58 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

veral ladies of the first rank, and even some belonging to the
court, to visit these women, particularly La Voisin and who, ;

without thinking of poison, only wished to know how soon a

husband, a lover, the king or his mistress, would die. In the
possession of La Voisin was found a list of all those who had
become dupes to her imposture. They were arrested and
carried before the above-mentioned court, which, without
following the usual course of justice, detected secret crimes
by means of spies, instituted private trials, and began to imi-
tate the proceedings of the holy inquisition. In this list were
found the distinguished names of the Countess de Soissons,
her sister the Duchess de Bouillon, and Marshal de Luxem-
bourg. The first fled to Flanders to avoid the severity and
disgrace of imprisonment the second saved herself by the
;

help of her friends and the last, after he had been some
;

months in the Bastille, and had undergone a strict examination,

by which he almost lost his reputation, was set at liberty as
innocent. Thus did the cruel Louvois the war minister, and
the Marchioness de Montespan, ruin those who opposed their
measures. La Vigoreux and La Voisin were burnt alive on
the 22nd of February 1680, after their hands had been bored
through with a red-hot iron and cut off. Several persons of
ordinary rank were punished by the common hangman those ;

of higher rank, after they had been declared by this tribunal

not guilty, were set at liberty; and in 1680 an end was put
to the Chambre ardente, which in reality was a political in-
quisition.
It is certain that notwithstanding such punishments, like
crimes have given occasion to unjust succession both in Italy
and in France, and that attempts have been made for the
same purpose even in the northern kingdoms. It is known
that in Denmark Count Corfitz de Ulfeld was guilty, though it
was not proved, of having intended to give the king a poison,
which should gradually destroy him like a lethargy . Charles
1

XI. also, king of Sweden, died by the effects of such a poison.

Having ruined several noble families by seizing on their pro-
perty, and having after that made a journey to Torneo, he fell
into a consumptive disorder which no medicine could cure.
One day he asked his physician in a very earnest manner,
1
Leben des Grafen von Ulfeld, von II. P. aus dem Danischen iibersetzt.
Copenhagen und Leipzig, 1775, 8vo, p. 200.
 ;

SECRET POISON. 59

what was the cause of his illness? The physician replied,

" Your majesty has been loaded with too many maledictions."
" Yes," returned the king, " I wish to God that the reduction
of the nobility's estates had not taken place, and that I had
never undertaken a journey to Torneo !" After his death his
intestines were found to be full of small ulcers . 1

The oftener poisoning in this manner happens, the more it

is to be wished that preventives and antidotes were found out,

and that the symptoms were ascertained but this is hardly

;

possible as long as it is not known of what the poison properly

consists. Governments, however, have wisely endeavoured to
conceal the recipes, by suppressing the criminal procedures.
Pope Alexander VII. caused them to be shut up in the castle
of St. Angelo in France, it is said, they were burnt together
;

with the criminals in Naples only the same precaution was

;

not taken. I do not know that observations on the bodies of

persons destroyed by slow poison have been ever published
for what Pitaval says on that subject is not sufficient 2 . People
talk of powders and pills, but the greater part of this kind of
poison appears to be a clear insipid water, and that prepared
by Tophania never once betrayed itself by any particular effects
on the body. The sale of aqua-fortis was a long time forbid-
den at Rome, because it was considered as the principal in-
gredient ; but this is very improbable. At Paris it was once
believed that succession powder consisted of diamond dust
pounded exceedingly fine. Without assenting to this idea,
one may contradict Voltaire, who conceives that diamond dust
is not more prejudicial than powder of coral. It may be rather

compared to that fine sand which is rubbed off from our mill-

1
This anecdote was told to me by the celebrated Linnaeus. An account
of what appeared on opening the body of this prince may be seen in Bal-
dinger's Neues Magazin fur Aerzte, vol. i. p. 91.
2 " The lieutenant-civil continued
still to grow worse. After having lan-
guished a long time, being seized with a loathing of every kind of food
presented to him, his vomitings still continuing, and nature being at length
exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days he had
wasted very much he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt a great
;

heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum were
found to be black, and sloughing off in pieces the liver was mortified,
;

and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months, had the like
symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same manner. When
—
opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar state." pp. 274, 275.
60 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

stones, and which we should consider and guard against as a

secret poison, were we not highly negligent and careless of our
health in the use of food In the casket of Sainte Croix were
1
.

found corrosive sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol,

and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal
ingredients of which the physicians were not able to distin-
guish. Many have affirmed that sugar of lead was the chief
ingredient 2 but the consequences of the poison did not seem
;

to indicate the use of that metal. For some years past a

harmless plant, which is only somewhat bitter and astringent,
the ivy-leaved Toadflax (Linaria Cymbalaria), that grows on
old walls, has been loaded with the opprobrium of producing
this slow poison, while at the same time it has been celebrated
by others on account of its medicinal properties but it ie ;

perhaps not powerful enough to do either mischief or good ;

and it is probable that it has been added to poisons either
through ignorance, or to conceal other ingredients for the ;

1
In one year a ton of sand, at least, 'which is baked with the flour, is
rubbed off from a pair of mill-stones. If a mill grinds only 4385 bushels
annually, and one allows no more than twelve bushels to one man, a person
swallows in a year above six pounds, and in a month half a pound of pul-
verized sandstone, which, in the coarse of a long life, will amount to up-
wards of three hundred weight. Is not this sufficient to make governments
more attentive to this circumstance ?

[Although not very agreeable to the reader to learn that he swallows

above six pounds of mill-stone powder in the course of the year, it may
perhaps ease his mind to know that the learned author is entirely mistaken
in regarding it as a poison. The inhabitants of the northern countries of
Europe frequently mix quartz powder with their heavy food to assist in its
digestion ;and we are informed by Professor Ehrenberg, that in times of
scarcity, the inhabitants ofLapland mix the siliceous shells of some species
of fossil Infusoria with the ground bark of trees for food. It is probably
from this circumstance that the infusorial deposit derives its name of Berg-
mehl, or Mountain-meal.]
2 For the following important information I am indebted to Professor

Baldinger :
—
" There is no doubt that the slow poison of the French and
Italians, commonly called succession powder (poudre de la succession),
owes its origin to sugar of lead. 1 know a chemist who superintends the
laboratory of a certain prince on the confines of Bohemia, and who by the
orders (perhaps not very laudable) of his patron, has spent much time and
labour in strengthening and moderating poisons. He has often declared,
that of sugar of lead, with the addition of some more volatile corrosive, a
very slow poison could be prepared which, if swallowed by a dog or other
;

animal, would insensibly destroy it, without any violent symptoms, in the
course of some weeks or months."
 SECRET POISON. 61

emperor Charles VI., who was king of the Two Sicilies at the
time when Tophania was arrested, told his physician Garelli,
Avho communicated the same in a letter 1 to the celebrated
Hoffmann, in 1718 or 1719, that the poison of that Italian
Circe was composed of an arsenical oxide, dissolved in aqua
cymbalariee, and which I suppose was rendered stronger and
more difficult to be detected by a salt that may be readily
guessed. It is dreadful to think that this secret poison is ad-
ministered as a febrifuge by ignorant or unprincipled physi-
cians, quacks, and old women. It drives off obstinate fevers,
it is true but it is equally certain that it hastens death it is
; :

therefore a cure, which is far worse than the disease, and

against which governments and physicians cannot exclaim too
severely. It was remarked at Rome, by accident, that lemon
juice and the acid of lemons are, in some measure, counter-
poisons and a physician named Paul Branchaletti, respecting
;

whom I can find no information, wrote a book expressly on

this antidote to these drops, according to the account of Key-
sler, who however adds, " Everything hitherto found out, sup-
poses that one has taken the drops only for a short time, or
that one has had an opportunity to be upon one's guard when
suspicious circumstances occurred, and to discover the threat
ened danger."
It seems to be almost certain that the poisons prepared by
Tophania and Brinvillier were arsenical mixtures, or, as Dr.
Hahneman 2 rightly conjectures, neutral salts of arsenic. Loss
of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in the stomach, loss of
strength without any visible cause, a continual indisposition,
followed by a wasting of the viscera, a slow fever, &c, are all
symptoms which seem to announce that dangerous metallic
1
Garelli, the emperor's principal physician, lately wrote to me some-
thing remarkable in the following words :
—
" Your elegant dissertation on
the errors respecting poisons brought to my recollection a certain slow
poison, which that infamous poisoner, still alive in prison at Naples, em-
ployed to the destruction of upwards of six hundred persons. It was
nothing else than crystallised arsenic, dissolved in a large quantity of water
by decoction, with the addition, but for what purpose I know not, of the
herb cymbalaria. This was communicated to me by hiB imperial majesty
himself, to whom the judicial procedure, confirmed by the confession of
the criminal, was transmitted. This water, in the Neapolitan dialect, is
called aqva del Toffnina. It is certain death, and many have fallen a sacri-
fice to it."
3 Ueber
—
Hoffmanni Med. Rationalis System., p. ii. c. 2. § 19.
die Arsenikvergiftung. Leips. 1786, 8vo, p. 35.
62 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

oxide. The opinion, however, that it was composed of opium

and cantharides has, in latter times, received so many confir-
mations, that one is almost induced to believe that there, are
more kinds than one of this Stygian water. The information
given by the abbe Gagliani, seems to carry too much weight
with it to be denied . It is confirmed also by M. Archen-
1

On the 20th of December, 1765, died the dauphin, father of Louis XVI.,
1

and in 1767 died the dauphiness. It was a public report that they were
both despatched by secret poison and the gradual decline of their health,
:

the other circumstances which accompanied their illness, and the cabals
which then existed at court, make this at least not improbable. Many
private anecdotes respecting these events may be found in a book entitled
L'Espion Devalise. Feliciter audax. London, 1782. In page 61 it is said,
that on account of the suspicions then entertained, it was wished that in-
formation might be procured respecting secret poison, and the methods of
preparing it and that the abbe Gagliani, well known as a writer, has given
the following:
;

—
"It is certain that in Europe the preparation of these
drugs renders them pernicious and mortal. For example, at Naples the
mixture of opium and cantharides, in known doses, is a slow poison the ;

surest of all, and the more infallible as one cannot mistrust it. At first it
isgiven in small doses, that its effects may be insensible. In Italy we call
itaqua di Tvfania, Tufania water. No one can avoid its attacks, because
the liquor obtained from that composition is as limpid as rock water, and
without taste. Its effects are slow and almost imperceptible a few drops :

of it only are poured into tea, chocolate, or soup, &c. There is not a lady
at Naples who has not some of it lying carelessly on her toilette with her
smelling-bottles. She alone knows the phial, and can distinguish it. Even
the waiting-woman, who is her confidant, is not in the secret, and takes
this phial for distilled water, or water obtained by precipitation, which is
the purest, and which is used to moderate perfumes when they are too
strong.
" The effects of this poison are very simple. A general indisposition is
at first felt in the whole frame. The physician examines you, and per-
ceiving no symptoms of disease, either external or internal, no obstructions,
no collection of humours, no inflammations, orders detergents, regimen,
and evacuation. The dose of poison is then doubled, and the same indis-
position continues without being more characterized. The physician, who
can see in this nothing extraordinary, ascribes the state of the patient to
viscous and peccant humours, which have not been sufficiently carried off
—
by the first evacuation. He orders a second a third dose a third eva- —
cuation —
a fourth dose. The physician then sees that the disease has
escaped him that he has mistaken it, and that the cause of it cannot be
;

discovered but by changing the regimen. He orders the waters, &c. In

a word, the noble parts lose their tone, become relaxed and affected, and
the lungs particularly, as the most delicate of all, and one of those most
employed in the functions of the animal occonomy. The first illness then
carries you off because the critical accumulation settles always on the
;

weak part, and consequently on the lobes of the lungs the pus there fixes
;
 WOODEN BELLOWS. 63

holz 1 ; but what he says of the use made of Spanish flies, by

the Chinese, to invigorate the sixth sense, gives reason to sus-
pect that his voucher is L'Espion Devalise, to whom the abbe
Gagliani ascribes the same words. It appears to me, however,
if I may be allowed to judge from probabilities, that the poison
known in the East Indies under the name of powst is also
water which has stood a night over the juice of poppies. It
is given in the morning fasting to those persons, and particu-

larly princes, whom people wish to despatch privately, and

without much violence. It consumes them slowly, so that
they at length lose all their strength and understanding, and
2
in the end die torpid and insensible .

[Chemical science has made such rapid progress of late

years, that there are but few, if any, poisonoussubstanceswbich
cannot be detected with certainty. The improved state of our
medical knowledge, and the institution of coroners' inquests
in all cases where any suspicion of the cause of death occurs,
fortunately renders secret poisoning almost, if not quite im-
possible, at least in this country.]

WOODEN BELLOWS.
After the discovery ofthe first instrument employed to
fire,

blow it and strengthenhas undoubtedly been a hollow

it,

reed, until the art was found out of forming a stick into a pipe
by boring it. Our common bellows, which consist of two
boards joined together by a piece of leather, and which pro-
bably are an imitation of the lungs, appear to have been early
known to the Greeks. I have, however, met with no passage
in any ancient author from which I could learn the oldest

itself, and the disease becomes incurable. By this method they follow one
as long as they choose for months, and for years. Robust constitutions
resist a long time. In short, it is not the liquor alone that kills, it is rather
the different remedies, which alter and then destroy the temperament, ex-
haust the strength, extenuate and render one incapable of supporting the
first indisposition that comes."
1
England und Italien, ii. p. 354.
2 Universal History,
xxiii. p. 299-323.— The information contained there
is taken from Eraser's History of Nadir Shah. Aurengzebe also caused one
of his sons to be put to death by this poison.
64 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

construction of this machine, which in latter times has received

many improvements. Had I found such information, I should
have endeavoured to explain it, as it would have contributed
to enlarge the knowledge we have of the metallurgy of the
ancients.
It may be remarked on the following lines of Virgil,
Alii taurinis follibus auras
Accipiunt redduntque 1

that bull's leather is unfit for bellows, and that ox or cow

leather only can be used for that purpose but accuracy is ;

not to be expected in a poet ; and besides, Virgil is nGt the

only author who employs the expression folks laurinos for ;

Plautus says also, " Quam folles taurini habent, cum liquescunt
petras, ferrum ubi fit."
Strabo 2 tells us, from an old historian, that Anacharsis, the
Scythian philosopher, who lived in the time of Solon, invented
the bellows, the anchor, and the potter's wheel but this ac- :

count is very doubtful, as Pliny, Seneca 3 Diogenes Laertius 4 ,

,

and Suidas, who likewise speak of the inventions ascribed to

that philosopher, mention only the last two, and not the bel-
lows besides, Strabo himself remarks that the potter's wheel
:

is noticed in Homer, and this poet is certainly older than

Anacharsis. The latter, perhaps, became acquainted with

that useful instrument during the course of his travels, and
on his return, made his countrymen first acquainted with it.
However this may be, it is well known that the person who
introduces a foreign invention among a people, is often con-
sidered as the author of it.
In the oldest smelting-houses the bellows were worked by
men. Refuse, therefore, and other remains of metal, are often
found in places where until a recent period no works could be
erected, on account of the want of water.
Bellows made with leather, of which I have hitherto spoken,
are attended with many inconveniences. They require care-
ful management are expensive in their repairs
; and besides ;

last often not more than six or seven years. If thin leather is
employed, it suffers a great deal of the air to escape through
it; an evil which must be guarded against by continually be-
smearing it with train-oil, or other fat substances and this is ;

1 2 3 4
Georg. iv. 171. Lib. vii. Epist. 90. Lib. l. 8.
 ;
;

WOODEN BELLOWS. 65

even necessary when thick leather is used, to prevent it from

cracking in the folds. Damage by fire and water must also
be avoided and every time they are repaired, the leather
;

must be again softened with oil, which occasions a consider-

able loss of time.
In wooden bellows these inconveniences are partly lessened,
and partly remedied. As these bellows, except the pipe, con-
sist entirely of wood, many, who are not acquainted with the
construction of them, can hardly conceive the possibility of
making such a machine. Though they cannot be properly
described without a figure, I shall endeavour to give the reader
some idea of them by the following short sketch. The whole
machine consists of two boxes placed the one upon the other,
the uppermost of which can be moved up and down upon the
lower one, in the same manner as the lid of a snuff-box, which
has a hinge, moves up and down when it is opened or shut
but the sides of the uppermost box are so broad as to contain
the lower one between them, when it is raised to its utmost
extent. Both boxes are bound together, at the smallest end,
where the pipe is, by a strong iron bolt. It may be readily
comprehended, that when both boxes fit each other exactly,
and the upper one is raised over the under one, which is in a
state of rest, the space contained by both will be increased
and consequently more air will rush in through the valve in
the bottom of the lower one ; and when the upper box is again
forced down, this air will be expelled through the pipe. The
only difficulty is to prevent the air, which forces its way in,
from escaping anywhere else than through the pipe for it is
;

not to be expected that the boxes will fit each other so closely
as to prevent entirely the air from making its way between
them. This difficulty, however, is obviated by the following
simple and ingenious method. On the inner sides of the up-
permost box there are placed moveable slips of wood, which,
by means of metal springs, are pressed to the sides of the
other box, and fill up the space between them. As these long
slips of wood might not be sufficiently pliable to suffer them-
selves to be pressed close enough, and as, though planed per-
fectly straight at first, they would in time become warped in
various directions, incisions are made in them across through
their whole length, at the distance of from fifteen to eighteen
inches from each other, so as to leave only a small space in
VOL. I. F
€6 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES'.

their thickness, by which means they acquire sufficient pliabi-

lity to be everywhere pressed close enough to the sides 1
.

The advantages of these wooden bellows are very great.

When made of clean fir-wood without knots, they will last
thirty or forty years, and even longer, though continually kept
in action forty-six or forty-eight weeks every year nay, Pol-
:

hem assures us, that, when properly made, they will last a
century. The effect produced by them is stronger, as well as
xaore uniform, and can be moderated according to circum-
stances. They are worked also with greater facility. The
slips of wood on their sides are apt to become damaged but ;

they can soon and easily be repaired. Every three or four

months, however, the outer sides only of the inner box, and
the bolt which keeps the boxes together, must be smeared with
oil. If we reckon up the price of such bellows, and the yearly

expense, they will, according to Grignon's account, be only a

fifth part of those of the old leather bellows.
That the invention of these wooden bellows belongs to the
Germans, is certain. Grignon- expressly affirms so and in ;

Becher's 3 time they were to be found in Germany, but not in

England. Genssane, who ascribes the invention to the Swiss,
is certainly mistakenand perhaps he was led into this error,
;

because these bellows were first made known in France by a

Swiss. I cannot, however, ascertain the name of the real in-
ventor. In the middle of the sixteenth century lived at Nu-
remberg an artist called Hans Lobsinger, who, in ohe year
1550, gave to the magistrates of that city a catalogue of his
machines. From this catalogue Doppelmayer concludes that
he understood the art of making small and large bellows with-
out leather, and entirely of wood, which could be used in

1 Acomplete description and a figure of these bellows may be found in

Schluter's Unterricht von Hiitten-werken. Brunswick, 1738. — Traite de la
fonte des mines par le feu du charbon de terre ; par M. de Genssane. Paris,
1770, 2 vols. 4to. [Ure's Dictionary, p. 1128, also contains an excellent
figure of these wooden bellows.]
2 "Germany is the country of machines. In general the Germans lessen
manual labour considerably by machines adapted to every kind of move-
ment not that we are destitute of able mechanics we have the talent of
; ;

bringing to perfection the machines invented by our neighbours." —

P. 200.
[This remark of Grignon will sound rather odd to English ears.]
3 Becher's Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfort, 1683,
12mo, p. 113.
 WOODEN BELLOWS. :
67

smelting-houses and for organs, and likewise copper bellows

that always emitted a like degree of wind. As Lobsinger
made organs, he, perhaps, fell upon this invention but in ;

what it actually consisted, or whether it might not have died

with him, I have not been able to learn. Agricola, who died
in the year 1555, makes no mention of wooden bellows.
Samuel Reyher, formerly professor at Kiel, in a dissertation
on air printed there in 1669, tells us, that about forty years
1
,

before that period, two brothers, Martin and Nicholas Schel-

horn, millers at the village of Schmalebuche in Coburg, first
invented wooden bellows. Both the brothers, he says, kept
the invention secret, though he thinks they did not conceal it
so closely as to prevent its being guessed at ; and he relates
also how he himself formed an idea of it 2 .
To these bellows Schluter has assigned a much nobler in-
ventor, who, perhaps, was the first person who made them
known by a description. He says expressly that they were
invented by a bishop of Bamberg 3 but of this I have been
:

able to find no confirmation and I am inclined to ascribe that

;

service rather to an organ-builder, or a miller, than to a bishop.

According to Schluter's account, these bellows were employed
so early as the year 1620, in the Harz forest, to which they
were first brought by some people from Bamberg. What
Calvor says respecting the introduction of these bellows into
the Harz forest is much more probable that in the year 1621
;

1
In this dissertation, the time of the invention is stated to be about
forty years before, which would be the year 1629 or 1630 ; but in an im-
proved edition, printed with additions at Hamburg, in 1725, a different
period is given. " About eighty years ago," says the author, " a new kind
of bellows, which ought rather to be called the pneumatic chests, was in-
vented in the village of Schmalebuche, in the principality of Coburg, in
Franconia. Two brothers, millers in that village, Martin and Nicholas
Schelhorn, by means of some box made by them, the lid of which fitted
very exactly, found out these chests, as I was told by one of their friends,
a man worthy of credit. These chests are not of leather, but entirely of
wood joined together with iron nails. In blacksmiths' shops they are pre-
ferred to those constructed with leather, because they emit a stronger
blast, as leather suffers the more subtile part of the air to escape through
its pores."
2 In many places these bellows were at first put in a wooden case, to
prevent their construction from being known.
s
InJ.P.Ludewig,Scriptores RerumEpiscopatusBambergensis. Francof.
1718, fol. Where any bishop of latter times is praised, I find no mention
of this useful and ingenious invention.
f2
68 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Lewis Pfannenschmid, from Thuringia, settled at Ostfeld near

Goslar, and began to make wooden bellows. The bellows-
makers of that place conspired therefore against him, and
swore they would put him to death but he was protected by
;

the government. He would disclose his art to no one but his

son, who, as well as his grandson a few years ago, had the
making of all the bellows in the forest.
We are told by French authors, that the art of making these
bellows was introduced into France, particularly into Berry,
NivernoiS; and Franche Comte, by a German.

COACHES.
If by this name we are to understand every kind of covered
carriage in which one can with convenience travel, there is
no doubt that some of them were known to the ancients. The
arcera, of which mention is made in the twelve tables, was a
covered carriage used by sick and infirm persons . It ap- 1

pears to have been employed earlier than the soft lectica, and
by it to have been brought into disuse. A
later invention
is the carpentum, the form of which may be seen on antique
coins, where it is represented as a two-wheeled car with an
arched covering, and which was sometimes hung with costly
cloth 2 . Still later were introduced the carrucce, first men-
tioned by Pliny but so little is known of them, that antiqua-
;

ries are uncertain whether they had only one wheel, like our
wheelbarrows, or, as is more probable, four wheels. This
much, however, is known, that they were first-rate vehicles,
ornamented with gold and precious stones, and that the
Romans considered it as an honour to ride in those that were
remarkably high 3 In the Theodosian code the use of them
.

is not only allowed to civil and military officers of the first

rank, but commanded as a mark of their dignity 4 .

See Leges XII. tab. illustrate a J. N. Funccio, p. 72. Gellius, xx. 1.

1

2
Scheffer de Re Vehiculari, Spanhem.de Praestant. Nurnisraatum. Amst.
1671, 4to, p. 613. Propertius, iv. 8. 23, mentions serica carpenta.
3
In my opinion the height here alluded to is to be understood as that
of the body, rather than that of the wheels, as some think.
* Codex Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 12. and Cod. Justin, lib. xi. tit. 19.
 ;

COACHES. 69

After this, covered carriages seem more and more to have

become appendages of Roman pomp and magnificence but ;

the manner of thinking which prevailed under the feudal sy-

stem banished the use of them for some time. As it was of
the greatest importance to the feudal lords that their vassals
should be always able to serve them on horseback, they could
not think of indulging them with elegant carriages. They
foresaw that by such luxury the nobility would give over
riding on horseback, and become much more indolent and
less fit for military service. Masters and servants, husbands
and wives, clergy and laity, all rode upon horses or mules,
and sometimes women and monks upon she-asses, which they
found more convenient. The minister rode to court, and the
horse, without any conductor, returned alone to his stable, till
a servant carried him back to court to fetch his master. In
this manner the magistrates of the imperial cities rode to coun-
cil in the beginning of the sixteenth century so that in the
;

year 1502 steps to assist in mounting were erected by the

Roman gate at Frankfort ', The members of the council who,
at the diet and on other occasions, were employed as ambas-
sadors, were on this account called Rittmeister and even at ;

present the expression riding servant is preserved in some ot

the imperial cities. The public entry of great lords into any
place, or their departure from it, was never in a carriage, but
on horseback and in all the works which speak of the papal
;

ceremonies there is no mention of a state coach or body

coachmen, but of state horses or state mules. It was neces-
sary that a horse for his holiness should be of a gray colour
not mettlesome however, but a quiet, tractable nag that a ;

stool with three steps should be brought to assist him to

mount, and the emperor and kings, if present, were obliged
to hold his stirrup and to lead the horse 2 &c. Bishops made
,

their public entrance on horses or asses richly decorated 3 .

At the coronation of the emperor, the electors and principal
officers of the empire were ordered to make their entrance on
horses, and to perform their service on horseback 4 Formerly .

1
Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, i. p. 23.
2 Sacrarum Cseremoniarum Romanse Ecclesiae Libri tres, auctore J. Ca-
talans Roma?, 1750, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 131.
3 See
Caeremoniae Episcoporum, lib. i. c. 11.
4 Ludewig's Erlauter.
der Giildenen Bulle. Franc. 1719, vol. i. p. 569.
70 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

it was requisite that those who

received an investiture should
make their appearance the vassal was obliged
on horseback
:

to ride with two attendants to his lord's court, where, having

dismounted from his horse, he received his fief.
Covered carriages were known in the beginning of the six-
teenth century ; but they were used only by women of the
first rank, for the men thought it disgraceful to ride in them.
At that period, when the electors and princes did not choose
to be present at the meetings of the states, they excused them-
selves by informing the emperor that their health would not
permit them to ride on horseback and it was considered as
;

an established point, that it for them to ride

was unbecoming
like women What, according to the then prevailing ideas,
1
.

was not allowed to princes, was much less permitted to their

servants. In the year 1544, when Count Wolf of Barby was
summoned by John Frederic, elector of Saxony, to go to
Spires to attend the convention of the states assembled there,
he requested leave, on account of his ill state of health, to
make use of a close carriage with four horses. When the
counts and nobility were invited to the marriage solemnity of
the elector's half brother, duke John Ernest, the invitation
was accompanied with a memorandum, that such dresses of
ceremony as they might be desirous of taking with them should
be transported in a small waggon 2 . Had they been expected
in coaches, such a memorandum would have been superfluous.
The use of covered carriages was for a long time forbidden
even to women. In the year 1545 the wife of a certain duke
obtained from him, with great difficulty, permission to use a
covered carriage in a journey to the baths, in which however
much pomp was displayed, but with this express stipulation,
that her attendants should not have the same indulgence 3 .
It is nevertheless certain, that the emperor, kings and princes,
about the end of the fifteenth century, began to employ co-
vered carriages on journeys, and afterwards on public solem-
nities.
In the year 1474 the emperor Frederic III. came to Frank-
fort in a close carriage ; and as he remained in it on account
of the wetness of the weather, the inhabitants had no occasion
1
Ludolf, Electa Juris Publici, v. p. 417.
2 Ludolf, I. c.
3
Sattler, Historische Beschreibung des Herzogthums Wurtemberg.
 COACHES. 71

to support the canopy which was held over him, but while he
went to the council-house, and again returned. In the year
following the emperor visited the same city in a very magni-
ficent covered carriage. In the description of the splendid
tournament held by Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, at
Ruppin, in 1509, we read of a carnage gilt all over, which
belonged to the electress of twelve other coaches ornamented
;

with crimson, and of another of the duchess of Mecklenburg,

which was hung with red satin. At the coronation of the
emperor Maximilian, in the year 1562, the elector of Cologne
had twelve carriages. In 1591, when the margrave John Si-
gismund did homage at Warsaw on account of Prussia, he
had in his train thirty-six coaches with six horses each 1 .
Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of the emperor
Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, " The bride
rode with her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold ;
her maids of honour in carriages hung with black satin, and
the rest of the ladies in neat leather carriages." The same
author mentions the entrance of Cardinal Dietrichstein into
Vienna in 1611, and tells us that forty carriages went to meet
him 3 . At the election of the emperor Matthias, the ambas-
sador of Brandenburg had three coaches 3 When the con-
.

sort of that emperor made her public entrance, on her mar-

riage in 1611, she rode in a carriage covered with perfumed
leather. Mary, infanta of Spain, spouse of the emperor Fer-
dinand III., rode, in Carinthia, in 1631, in a glass carriage in
which no more than two persons could sit. The wedding
carriage of the first wife of the emperor Leopold, who was
also a Spanish princess, cost together with the harness 38,000
florins 4 The coaches used by that emperor are thus described
.

—
by Rink : " In the imperial coaches no great magnificence
was to be seen they were covered over with red cloth and
:

black nails. The harness was black, and in the whole work
there was no gold. The pannels were of glass, and on this
1
Suite des Memoires pour servir a l'Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, where
the royal author adds, " The common use of carriages is not older than the
time of John Sigismund."
2 Annal. Ferdin. V.
p. 2199 and vii. p. 375.
;

3 In Suite des Mem. pour serv. a l'Hist. de Brandenburg,

p. 63, it is re-
marked that they were coarse coaches, composed of four boards put together
in a clumsy manner.
4 Rink, Leben K. Leopold,
p. 607.
72 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On fes-

tivals the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The
imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having
leather traces but the ladies in the imperial suite were obliged
;

to be contented with carriages the traces of which were made

of ropes." At the magnificent court of duke Ernest Augustus
at Hanover, there were, in the year 1681, fifty gilt coaches
with six horses each '. So early did Hanover begin to surpass
other cities in the number of its carriages. The first time
that ambassadors appeared in coaches on a public solemnity
was at the imperial commission held at Erfurth in 1613, re-
specting the affair of Juliers 2.
The great lords at first imagined that they could suppress
the use of coaches by prohibitions. In the archives of the
county of Mark there is still preserved an edict, in which the
feudal nobility and vassals are forbid the use of coaches, un-
der pain of incurring the punishment of felony. In the year
1588, duke Julius of Brunswick published an order, couched
in very expressive terms, by which his vassals were forbid to
ride in carriages. This curious document is in substance as
—
follows : " As we know from ancient historians, from the
annals of heroic, honourable and glorious achievements, and
even by our own experience, that the respectable, steady,
courageous and spirited Germans were heretofore so much
celebrated among all nations on account of their manly virtue,
sincerity, boldness, honesty and resolution, that their assist-
ance was courted in war, and that in particular the people of
this land, by their discipline and intrepidity, both within and
without the kingdom, acquired so much celebrity, that foreign
nations readily united with them we have for some time past
;

found, with great pain and uneasiness, that their useful disci-
pline and skill in riding, in our electorate, county and lord-
ship, have not only visibly declined, but have been almost lost
(and no doubt other electors and princes have experienced
the same among their nobility) and as the principal cause of
;

this is that our vassals, servants and kinsmen, without di-

stinction, young and old, have dared to give themselves up to
indolence and to riding in coaches, and that few of them pro-
vide themselves with well-equipped riding horses and with
1
Liinig's Theatr. Cer. i. p.289.
2
Ludolf, v. p. 416. Von Moser's Hofrecht, ii. p. 337.
 ;

COACHES. 73

skilful experienced servants, and boys acquainted with the

roads not being able to suffer any longer this neglect, and
:

being desirous to revive the ancient Brunswick mode of riding,

handed down and bequeathed to us by our forefathers, we
hereby will and command, that all and each of our before-
mentioned vassals, servants and kinsmen, of whatever rank or
condition, shall always keep in readiness as many riding-horses
as they are obliged to serve us with by their fief or alliance
and shall have in their service able, experienced servants, ac-
quainted with the roads ; and that they shall have as many
horses as possible with polished steel harness and with sad-
dles proper for carrying the necessary arms and accoutre-
ments, so that they may appear with them when necessity re-
quires. We also will and command our before-mentioned
vassals and servants to take notice, that when we order them
to assemble, either altogether or in part, in times of turbulence
or to receive their fiefs, or when on other occasions they visit
our court, they shall not travel or appear in coaches, but on
their riding-horses, &C." 1 Philip II., duke of Pomerania-
Stettin, reminded his vassals also, in 1608, that they ought not
to make so much use of carriages as of horses 2. All these
orders and admonitions however were of no avail, and coaches
became common all over Germany.
It would be difficult to give an exact description of these
carriages without a figure, and drawings or paintings of them
do not seem to be common.
In the month of October 1785, when I visited the senate-
house at Bremen, I saw in the tax-chamber a view of the city,
painted on the wall in oil colours, by John Landwehr, in 1661.
On the left side of the fore-ground I observed a long qua-
drangular carriage, which did not appear to be suspended by
leather straps. It was covered with a canopy supported by
four pillars, but had no curtains, so that one could see all the
persons who were in it. In the side there was a small door,
and before there seemed to be a low seat, or perhaps a box.
The coachman sat upon the horses. It was evident, from
their dress, that the persons in it were burgomasters.
In the history of France we find many proofs that at Paris,
1
Lunig. Corp. Jur. Feud. Germ. ii. p. 1447.
2 An attempt was made also to prevent the use of coaches by a law in
Hungary in 1523.
 74 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries, the

French monarchs rode commonly on horses, the servants of
the court on mules, and the princesses, together with the prin-
cipal ladies, sometimes on asses. Persons of the first rank
frequently sat behind their equerry, and the horse was often
led by servants. When Charles VI. wished to see incognito
the entrance of the queen, he placed himself on horseback
behind Savoisy, who M as his confidant, with whom, however,
r

he was much incommoded in the crowd . When Louis, duke

1

of Orleans, that prince's brother, was assassinated in 1407,

the two ecuyers who accompanied him rode both upon the
same horse 2 In the year 1534, queen Eleonora and the
.

princesses rode on white horses (des haquenees blanches)

during a sacred festival. That private persons also, such as
physicians, for example, used no carriages in the fifteenth cen-
tury, is proved by the principal entrance to their public school,
which was built in 1472, being so narrow that a carriage could
not pass through it, though it was one of the widest at that
period. In Paris also, at all the palaces and public buildings,
there were steps for mounting on horseback, such as those
which the parliament caused to be erected in 1599 and Sau- ;

val says on this occasion, that though many ol these steps in

latter periods had been taken away, there still remained se-
veral of them in his time at old buildings.
Carriages, however, appear to have been used very early
in France. An
ordinance of Philip the Fair, issued in 1294,
for suppressing luxury, and in which the citizens' wives are
forbid to use carriages (cars), is still preserved 3 Under .

Francis I., or about 1550, somewhat later, there were at Paris,

for the first time, only three coaches, one of which belonged
to the queen, another to Diana de Poictiers, the mistress of
two kings, Francis I. and Henry II., by the latter of whom
she was created duchess of Valentinois, and the third to
Rene de Laval, lord of Bois-dauphin. The last was a cor-
pulent unwieldy nobleman, who was not able to ride on horse-
back. Others say, that the first three coaches belonged to
1
Histoire des Antiquites de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 187.
2
Sauval also Mezeray, Abrege Chron. de l'Histoire de France.
; Am-
sterdam, 1696, iii. p. 167.
3
This orrlonnance is to be found also in Traite de la Police, par De la
Marc, i. p. 418.
 COACHES, 75

Catherine de Medici Diana, duchess of Angouleme, tha na-

;

tural daughter of Henry II., who died in 1619, in the eightieth

year of her age and Christopher de Thou, first president of the

;

parliament. The last was excused by the gout but the rest of
;

the ministers of state soon followed his example Henry IV.

1
.

was assassinated in a coach but he usually rode through the

;

streets of Paris on horseback, and to provide against rain,

carried a large cloak behind him. For himself and his queen
he had only one coach; as appears by a letter still preserved,
in which he writes to a friend, " I cannot wait upon you to-
day, because my wife is using my coach 2 ." We, however,
find two coaches at the public solemnity on the arrival of the
Spanish ambassador, Don Peter de Toledo, under Henry IV.S
This contradiction is not worth further research; but it shows
that all writers do not speak of the same kind of carriages or
coaches, and that every improvement has formed as it were an
epoch in the history of them, which perhaps would be best
elucidated by figures or engravings.
Roubo, in his costly Treatise on joiners' work 4 has given ,

three figures of such {chars) carriages as were used under

Henry IV., from drawings preserved in the king's library.
By these it is seen that those coaches were not suspended by
straps, that they had a canopy supported by ornamented pil-
lars, and that the whole body was surrounded by curtains of
stuff or leather, which could be drawn up. The coach in
which Louis XIV. made his public entrance, about the middle
of the seventeenth century, appears, from a drawing in the
king's library, to have been a suspended carriage.
The oldest carriages used by the ladies in England were
known under the now-forgotten name of whirlicotes. When
Richard II., towards the end of the fourteenth century, was
obliged to fly before his rebellious subjects, he and all his fol-
lowers were on horseback his mother only, who was indis-
;

posed, rode in a carriage. This, however, became afterwards

somewhat unfashionable, when that monarch's queen, Ann, the

1
Valesiana. Paris, 1695, 12mo, p. 35.
3
Varietes Historiques, p. 96.
3
Sauval says, " I shall here remark, that this was the first time coaches
were used for that ceremony (the entrance of ambassadors), and that it
was only at this period they were invented, and began to be used."
4
L'Art du Menuisier-carossier, p. 457, planche 171.
 16 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

daughter of the emperor CharlesIV., showed the English ladies

how gracefully and conveniently she could ride on a side-saddle.
Whirlicotes therefore were disused, except at coronations
and
other public solemnities . Coaches were first known in En-
1

gland about the year 1580, and, as Stow says, were intro-
duced from Germany by Fitz-allen, earl of Arundel 2 In .

the year 1598, when the English ambassador came to Scot-

land, he had a coach with him 3 Anderson places the period
.

when coaches began to be in common use, about the year

1605. The celebrated duke of Buckingham, the unworthy
favourite of two kings, was the first person who rode with
a coach and six horses, in 1619. To ridicule this new
pomp, the earl of Northumberland put eight horses to his
carriage.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, when Charles
of Anjou made his entrance into Naples, the queen rode in a
carriage, called by historians caretta, the outside and inside
of which were covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with
golden lilies, a magnificence never before seen by the Nea-
politans. At the entrance of Frederic II. into Padua, in the
year 1239, it appears that there were no carriages, for the
most elegantly dressed ladies who came to meet him were on
palfreys ornamented with trappings (sedentes in phaleratis et
ambulantibus palafredis). It is well known that the luxury
of carriages spread from Naples all over Italy.
Coaches were seen for the first time in Spain in the year
1546. Such at least is the account of Twiss, who, according
to his usual custom, says so without giving his authority 4 .
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, John of Finland,
on his return from England, among other articles of luxury,
brought with him to SAveden the first coach 5 Before that.

period, the greatest lords in Sweden, when they travelled by

land, carried their Avives with them on horseback. The prin-
cesses even travelled in that manner, and, when it rained, took
with them a mantle of wax-cloth.
It appears that there were elegant coaches in the capital

1
Stow's Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 70.
2 Anderson's Hist, of Commerce, iv. p. 180.
3
Arnot's Hist, of Edinburgh, p. 596.
4 Twiss's Travels through Spain and Portugal.
b
Dalin, Geschichte des Reichs Sclnveden, iii. 1, p. 390 and 402.
 COACHES. 77

of Russia so early as the beginning of the seventeenth cen-

tury . 1

But to what nation ought we to ascribe the invention of

coaches ? If under this name we comprehend covered car-
riages, these are so old as not to admit of any dispute respect-
ing the question. To the following, however, one might ex-
pect an answer, Who first fell on the idea of suspending the
body of the carriage from elastic springs, by which the whole
machine has undoubtedly been much improved ? To this
question, however, I can find no answer, except the informa-
tion before mentioned, that suspended carriages were known
in the time of Louis XIV.
As the name coach is now adopted, with a little variation,
in all the European languages, some have thought to deter-
mine the country of this invention from the etymology of the
word 2 . But even allowing that one could fix the origin of
the word, it would by no means be ascertained what kind of
a carriage we ought properly to understand by it. M. Cor-
nides 3 has lately endeavoured to prove that the word coach is
of Hungarian extraction, and that it had its rise from a vil-
lage in the province of Wieselburg, which at present is oalled
Kitsee, but was known formerly by the name of Koisee, and
that this travelling machine was even there first invented.
However this may be, the grounds on which he supports his
assertion deserve to be here quoted, as they seem at least to
prove that in the sixteenth century, or even earlier, a kind of
covered carriages was known, under the name of Hungarian
carriages 4 As the word Gutschi, and not Gutsche, was used
.

1
Bacmeister, Essai sur la Bibliotheque de l'Academie de S. Petersburg,
1776, 8vo, p. 38.
3 Joh. Ihre, Glossarium Sueogothic. i. col. 1178. Kusk, a coachman.
It seems properly to denote the carriage itself. Gall, cocher. Hisp. id.
Ital. cocchio. Ang. coach. Hung, cotczy. Belg. goetse. Germ, kutsclie.
The person who drives such carriages is by the English called coachman,
which in other languages is made shorter, as the French say cocher, and th«
Germans husk. It is difficult, however, to determine whence it is derived,
as we do not know by whom these close carriages were invented. Menage
makes it Latin, and by a far-fetched derivation from vehiculum Junius;

derives it somewhat shorter from 6%eo) to carry. Wachter thinks it comes

from the German word Jcutten, to cover and Lye from the Belgic koetsen,
;

to lie along, as it properly signifies a couch or chair.

3 Ungriscb.es Magaz. Pressburg, 1781, vol. i. 15.
p.
4 Stephanus Broderithus says, speaking of the year 1526, " When the
• 8 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

at first in Germany, the

last syllable gives us reason to con-
jecture that rather of Hungarian than German extrac-
it is

tion. As Hortleder tells us that Charles V., because he had

'

the gout, laid himself to sleep in an Hungarian Gutsche, one

might almost conclude that the peculiarity of these carriages
consisted in their being so constructed as to admit people to
sleep in them. This conjecture is supported by the meaning
of the word Gutsche, which formerly signified a couch or
sofa 2 As the writers quoted by Cornides call the Hunga-
.

rian coaches sometimes (leves) light, sometimes (veloces) swift,

they ought rather to be considered as a particular kind of
carriages for travelling with expedition. It is, however, still
more worthy of remark, that, so early as the year 1457, the
ambassador of Ladislaus V., king of Hungary and Bohemia,
brought with him to the queen of France, besides other pre-
sents, a carriage which excited great wonder at Paris, and
which, as an old historian says, was branlant et moult liche 3 .
Does not the first word of this expression seem to indicate
that the carriage was suspended ?
A peculiar kind of coach has been introduced in latter times
under the name of Berlin. The name indicates the place

archbishop received certain intelligence that the Turks had entered Hun-
gary, not contented with informing the king by letter of this event, he
speedily got into one of those light carriages, which, from the name of the
place, we call Kotcze, and hastened to his majesty." Siegmund baron
Herberstein, ambassador from Louis II. to the king of Hungary, says, in
Commentario de Rebus Moscoviticis, Basil 15/1, fol. p. 145, where he oc-
casionally mentions some stages in Hungary, " The fourih stage for stop-
ping to give the horses breath is six miles below Jauriiium, in the village
of Coczi, from which both drivers and carriages take their name, and are
still generally called cotzi." That the word coach is of Hungarian ex-
traction is confirmed also by John Cuspinianus (Spiesshammer), physician
to the emperor Maximilian I., in Bell's Appar. ad llistor. lliinganai, dec. 1,
monum. 6, p. 292. " Many of the Hungarians rode in those light car-
riages called in their native tongue Kottschi." In Czvittinger's Specimen
Hungarise Litteratsc, Franc, et Lips. 1711, 4 to, we find an account of the
service rendered to the arts and sciences by the Hungarians ; but the au-
thor nowhere makes mention of coaches.
1 In his Account of the German War, p. G12.

2 Examples may be seen in Frisch's German Dictionary, where it ap-

pears that the beds which are used for raising tobacco plants are at pre-
sent called Ta.ba.cks hclschen, tobacco beds. This expression is old, for I
find it in Pet. Laurembergii Horticultura, Franc. 1631, p. 43.
* Roubo, The historian, however, gives it no name.
.
p. 457.
 COACHES. 79

"which gave birth to the invention, as the French themselves

acknowledge ; though some, with very little probability, wish
to derive it from the Italian . Philip de Chiese, a native of
1

Piedmont, and descended from the Italian family of Chiesa,

was a colonel and quarter-master-general in the service of
Frederic William, elector of Brandenburg, by whom he was
much esteemed on account of his knowledge in architecture.
Being once sent to France on his master's business, he caused
to be built, on purpose for this journey, a carriage capable of
containing two persons ; which, in France and everywhere
else, was much approved, and called a berline. This Philip
de Chiese died at Berlin in 1673 2.
Coaches have given rise to a profession which in large
cities affords maintenance to a great number of people, and
which is attended with much convenience ; I mean that of
letting out coaches for hire, known under the name of fiacres,
hackney-coaches 3 . This originated in France ; for about the
year 1650 one Nicholas Sauvage first thought of keeping
horses and carriages ready to be let out to those who might
have occasion for them. The Parisians approved of and
patronised this plan and as Sauvage lived in the street St,
;

Martin, in a house called the hotel St. Fiacre, the coaches,

coachmen and proprietor, were called fiacres. In a little
time this undertaking was improved by others, who obtained
a license for their new institutions on paying a certain sum of
money 4 . Some kept coaches ready in certain places of the
streets, and let them out as long as was required, to go from
one part of the city to another. These alone, at length, re-
tained the name of fiacre, which at first was common to every
kind of hired carriage without distinction. Others kept car-
riages at their houses, which they let out for a half or a whole

1 "
Berlin. Akind of carriage which takes its name from the city of
Berlin, in Germany though some persons ascribe the invention of it to
;

the Italians, and pretend to find the etymology of it in berlina, a name

which the latter give to akind of stage on which criminals are exposed to
public ignominy."
2 Nicolai
—Encyclopedic, ii. p. 209.
Beschreibung von Berlin, Anhang, p. 67.
3
. At Rome, however, at a very early period, there appears to have been
carriages to be let out for hire: Suetonius calls them (i. chap. 57) rheda
meritoria, and (iv. c. 39) meritoria vehicula.
4
Charles Villerme paid in 1650, into the king's treasury, for the exclu-
sive privilege of keeping coaches for hire within the city of Paris, 15,000
livres.
 ;

80 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

day, a week, or a month these coaches were known by the

:

name, of carosses de remise. Others kept carriages which at

a certain stated time went from one quarter of the city to an-
other, like a kind of stages, and took up such passengers as
presented themselves; and in the year 1662 some persons set
up carriages with four horses, for the purpose of conveying
people to the different palaces at which the court might be
these were called voitures pour la suite de la cour. The pro-
prietors often quarreled respecting the boundaries prescribed
to them by their licenses ; and on this account they were some-
times united into one company, and sometimes separated. The
police established useful regulations, by which the safety and
cleanliness of these carriages were promoted ; marks were
affixed to them, by which they might be known and young
;

persons and women of the town were forbidden to use

them ", &c.
A particular kind of hackney carriage, peculiar to the
Parisians, in the opinion of some does no great honour to
their urbanity. I mean the brouettes, called sometimes rou-
lettes, and by way of derision vinaigrettes. The body of these
is almost like that of our sedans, but rolls upon two low

wheels, and is dragged forwards by men. An attempt was

made to introduce such machines under Louis XIII. ; but the
proprietors of the sedans prevented it, as they apprehended
the ruin of their business. In the year 1669 they were how-
ever permitted, and came into common use in 1671, but were
employed only by the common people. Dupin, the inventor
of these brouettes, found means to contrive them so that they
did not jolt so much as might have been expected and he ;

was able to conceal this art so well, that for a long time he
was the only person who could make them*. The number
of all the coaches at Paris is by some said to be fifteen thou-
sand ; the author of Tableau de Paris reckons the number of
the hackney coaches to amount to eighteen hundred, and as-
serts that more than a hundred foot passengers lose their lives
by them every year.
1 A full history
of the Parisian fiacres, and the orders issued respecting
them, may be seen in Continuation du Traite de la Police. Paris, 1738,
fol. p. 435. See also Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 192.
2
An account of the manner in 'which these brouettes were suspended
may be seen in Roubo, p. 588. He places the invention of post-chaises
in the year 1664.
 COACHES. 81

Coaches to be let for hire were first established at London

in 1625. At that time there were only twenty, which did not
stand in the streets, but at the principal inns. Ten years after,
however, they were become so numerous, that king Charles I.
found it necessary to issue an order for limiting their number.
In the year 1637 there were in London and Westminster fifty
hackney coaches, for each of which no more than twelve
horses were to be kept. In the year 1652 their number had
increased to two hundred in 1654 there were three hundred,
;

for which six hundred horses were employed in 1694 they

;

were limited to seven hundred, and in 1715 to eight hundred 1 .

Hackney coaches were first established in Edinburgh in
1673. Their number was twenty but as the situation of the
;

city was unfavourable for carriages, it fell in 1752 to fourteen,

and in 1778 to nine, and the number of sedans increased.
Fiacres were introduced at Warsaw, for the first time, in
1778. In Copenhagen there are a hundred hackney coaches 2 .
In Madrid there are from four to five thousand gentlemen's
carriages 3 in Vienna three thousand, and two hundred hack-
;

ney coaches.
At Amsterdam coaches with wheels were in the year 1663
forbidden, in order to save the expensive pavement of the
streets ; for coaches there, even in summer, are placed upon
sledges, as those at Petersburgh are in winter. The tax upon
carriages in Holland has from time to time been raised, yet
the number has increased ; and some years ago the coach
horses in the Seven United Provinces amounted to twenty-
five thousand.
When Prince Repnin made his entrance into Constantinople
in 1775, he had with him eighty coaches, and two hundred
livery servants.
[Since the former edition of this work, published in 1814,
public conveyances have undergone considerable changes.
Stage-coaches, which in this country had arrived at such
a degree of perfection, and which, till within a few years,
passed through and connected almost every small town in
the United Kingdom, have now nearly disappeared in con-
sequence of the introduction of railroads. It is also rare in
1
Anderson's Hist, c* Commerce.
2 Haubers Beschr. von Copenhagen, p. 173.
3
Twiss's Travels through Spain and Portugal.
VOL. I. G
82 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

London to meet with a solitary hackney coach, this class of

vehicles being almost entirely superseded by the lighter one-
horsed cabriolets which were first introduced as public con-
veyances in the year 1823. The number of hackney coaches
and cabriolets now plying for hire in the streets of London
amounts to 2650, of which probably not more than 250 are
two-horsed coaches.
That very useful form of public conveyance, the omnibus,
which is at present met with in nearly every large town in Eu-
rope, originated in Paris in 1827. In the latter part of 1831 and
the beginning of 1832, omnibuses began to ply in the streets
of London. Those running from Paddington to the Bank
were the earliest. Carriages, however, of a similar form were
used in England as Long Stages more than forty years ago,
but were discontinued as they were not found profitable.
They were in most request at holiday time, by schoolmasters
in the neighbourhood of London and some even of the pre-
;

sent generation will remember their joyous pranks on jour-

neying home in these capacious machines.
There are now about 900 omnibuses running in London
and its immediate vicinity. The line from Paddington to the
Bank is served by two companies, the London Conveyance
Company, and the Paddington Association, which have mu-
tually agreed to run forty omnibuses each. An idea of the
utility of these conveyances may be formed from the fact that
the receipts of each of the eighty carriages on the above line
averages 1000^. per annum, in sixpences.
Omnibuses began to run in Amsterdam in 1839.J

WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS.
We are well assured that the ancients had machines by which,
through the help of water, they were able to measure time .
1

1
[Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. cap. 21) says that the Chahh-eans di-
vided the zodiac into 12 equal parts, as they supposed, by allowing water
star, and
to run out of a small orifice during the whole revolution of a
dividing the fluid into 12 equal parts, the time answering to each
part

being taken for that of ths passage of a sign over the horizon.]
 WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS. 83

The invention of them is by Vitruvius 1 ascribed to Ctesibius

of Alexandria, who lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, or about
the year 245 before the Christian sera 2 They were introduced
.

at Rome by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, in the year 594 after

the building of the city, or about 157 years before the birth
of Christ, How these water-clocks were constructed, or
whether they were different from the clepsydras, I shall not
inquire. If under the latter name we understand those mea-
surers of time which were used in courts of justice, the clep-
sydra is a Grecian invention, first adopted at Rome under
the third consulship of Pompey 3 The most common kinds
.

of these water-clocks all, however, corresponded in this, that

the water issued drop by drop through a hole of the vessel, and
fell into another, in which a light body that floated marked
the height of the water as it rose, and, by these means, the
time that had elapsed. They all had this failing in common,
that the water at first flowed out rapidly, and afterwards more
slowly, so that they required much care and regulation 4 .
That ingenious machine, which we have at present under
the name of a water-clock, was invented in the seventeenth
century. The precise time seems to be uncertain but had it ;

been before the year 1 643 5 , Kircher, who mentions all the
machines of this kind then known, would in all probability
have taken notice of it. It consists of a cylinder divided into
several small cells, and suspended by a thread fixed to its axis
in a frame on which the hour distances, found by trial, are
marked out. As the water flows from the one cell into the
other, it changes very slowly the centre of gravity of the

1
Lib. ix. c. 9.
2 [Some mode of measuring time by the reflux of water, however rude it
might be, was used at Athens before the time of Ctesibius, as we see by
various passages in Demosthenes.]
3
—
Auctor Dialog, de Caus. Cor. Eloq. 38. The orators were confined to
a certain time and hence Cicero says, latrare ad clepsydram.
;

4
Some account of the writers who have spoken of the water-clocks of
the ancients may be found in Fabricii Biblaograph. Antiquaria, p. 1011.
They were formerly used for astronomical observations. The authors
who treat of them in this respect are mentioned in Riccioli Almagest.
Novo, i. p. 117.
5
In that year Kircher's Ars Umbrae et Lucis was published for the first
time. In the edition of 1671, several kinds of water-clocks are described,
p. 698.

g2
84 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

cylinder, and puts it in motion much like the quicksilver

1
;

puppets invented by the Chinese 2 .

These machines must have been very scarce in France in
1691 for Graverol at that time gave a figure and description
;

of the external parts of one, but promised to give the internal

construction as soon as he should become acquainted with it 3 .

This was the only one then in Nismes. He says, also, that
they were invented a little before by an Italian Jesuit, who
resided at Bologna, but were brought to perfection by Tali-
aisson, professor of law at Toulouse, and a young clergyman
named De l'lsle.

Alexander says more than once that this machine was in-
vented at Sens in Burgundy, in 1690, by Dom Charles Vailly,
a Benedictine of the brotherhood of St. Maur, and that he
brought it to perfection by the assistance of a pewterer there,
named Regnard. This account is in some measure confirmed
by Ozanam for he says expressly, that the first water-clocks
;

were brought from Burgundy to Paris in 1693, and he de-

scribes one which was made of tin at Sens. Dom Charles
Vailly was born at Paris in 1646, and died in 1726 he was ;

celebrated on account of his mathematical knowledge, though

he is known by no works, as he burned all his manuscripts
4
.

Alexander, however, who was of the same order, seems to

have ascribed to his brother Benedictine an honour to which
he was not entitled for Dominic Martinelli, an Italian of
;

Spoletto, published at Venice, in 1663, a treatise written ex-

pressly on these water-clocks, which Ozanam got translated

1
A particular account of these water-clocks is to be found in Ozanam,
Recreations Math, et Physiques [republished in Hutton's Mathematical
Recreations, ii. 40]. Bion on Mathematical Instruments.
2 Muschenbroek, Philos. Natur. i.
p. 143.
3
Journal des Scavans, 1691.
* This monk may be considered
as the restorer of the clepsydra, or clock
which measures time by the fall of a certain quantity of water confined in
a cylindric vessel. These clocks were in use among ancient nations.
They are said to have been invented at the time when the Ptolemies
reigned in Egypt. Dom Vailly, who applied himself particularly to prac-
tical mathematics, having remarked the faults of these clocks, bestowed
much labour in order to bring them to perfection and by a number of ex-
;

periments, combinations, and calculations, he was at length able to carry

them to that which they have attained at present. At the time of their
arrival they were very much in vogue in France. —
Hist. Litteraire de la
de Congr. St. Maur, ordre de S. Benoit. Bruxelles, 1770, 4to, p. 478.
 WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS. 85

into French by one of his friends, and caused to be printed

with his additions . This translator says that water-clocks
l

were known in France twenty years earlier than Ozanam

had imagined. It appears therefore that they were invented
in Italy about the middle of the seventeenth century, and
that Vailly, perhaps, may have first made them known in
France 2 .
It may perhaps afford some pleasure to those who are fond
of the history of the arts, to know that Salmon, an ingenious
pewterer at Chartres in France, has given very full and ample
directions how to construct and use this machine 3 . He is of
opinion that the invention is scarcely a century old ; and that
these water-clocks, which are now common, were first made
for sale and brought into use among the people in the coun-
try, by a pewterer at Sens in Burgundy. What this artist
affirms, that they can be constructed of no metal so easily, so
accurately, and to last so long as of tin, is perfectly true. I
have however in my possession one of brass, which is well
constructed but it suffers a little from acids.
; Among the
newest improvements to this machine may be reckoned an
alarum, which consists of a bell and small wheels, like those of
a clock that strikes the hours, screwed to the top of the frame
in which the cylinder is suspended. The axis of the cylinder,
at the hour when one is desirous of being wakened, pushes
down a small crank, which, by letting fall a weight, puts the
alarum in motion. A dial-plate with a handle is also placed
sometimes over the frame.
[Avery ingenious application of the principle of the clep-
sydra, for the purpose of measuring accurately very small
intervals of time, is due to the late Captain H. Kater. Mer-
cury is allowed to flow from a small orifice in the bottom of a
vessel, kept constantly filled to a certain height. At the mo-
ment of noting any event, the stream is interrupted and turned
aside into a receiver, into which it continues to run till the
moment of noting any other event, when the intercepting
cause is suddenly removed. The stream then flows in its
1
Ozanam, ii. p. 475.
s
Alexander will not admit this to be the case. " It is possible," says
he, " that two persons of penetrating genius may have discovered the same
thing."
3 Art du potier d'etain, par Salmon. Paris, 1788, fol. p. 131.
86 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

original course. The weight of mercury in the receiver, com-

pared with the weight of that which passes through the orifice
in a given time, observed by the clock, gives the interval be-
tween the events.]

TOURMALINE.
The ancients, though ignorant of electricity, were acquainted
with the nature of amber, and knew that when rubbed it had
the power of attracting light bodies. In like manner they
might have been acquainted with the tourmaline, and might
have known that it also, when heated, attracted light bodies,
and again repelled them; for had they only bethought them-
selves, in order to search out the hidden properties of this
stone (which on account of its colour and hardness is very
remarkable), to put it into the fire, they would have then seen
it sport with the ashes. Some learned men have thought
they found traces of the properties of this stone, in what the
ancients tell us respecting the lyncurium, theamedes, and car-
bunculus. The fruit of my researches respecting this subject
I shall here lay before the reader. All that we find in the
ancients to enable us to characterize the lyncurium is, that it
was a very hard stone, which could with difficulty be cut that ;

seals were formed of it that it was transparent, and of a fiery

;

colour, almost like that of yellow amber; that it attracted

light bodies, such as chaff, shavings of wood, leaves, feathers,
and bits of thin iron and copper leaf, in the same manner as
amber that the ancients procured it from ^Ethiopia, but that
;

in the time of Pliny no stone was known under that name 1 .

This information proves, in my opinion, that the lyncurium
cannot be the belemnites, as some old commentators and
Woodward have affirmed for the latter has not the celebrated
;

hardness and transparency of the former, neither has it the

property of attracting light bodies, nor is it fit for being cut

1
Theophrast. De Lapidibus, edit. Heinsii, fol. p. 395, and Plin. lib. xxxvii.
c. 3, and lib. viii. c. 38.
 TOURMALINE. 87

into seals. That opinion probably has arisen in the following

manner : — the ancients
supposed that the lyncurium was the
crystallized urine of the animal which we call the lynx. As
some belemnites contain bituminous particles which give them
an affinity to the swine-stone, naturalists, when they have
rubbed or heated yellow and somewhat transparent pieces of
this fossil, have imagined that they smelt the fabulous origin
of the lyncurium.
Less ridiculous is the opinion of some old and modern
writers, that the lyncurium was a species of amber. Theo-
phrastus, however, the ablest and most accurate mineralogist
of the ancients, would certainly have remarked this and not
have separated the lyncurium from amber. Besides, the lat-
ter has not the hardness of the former, nor can it be said that
it is difficult to be cut ; for at present it is often made into

various toys with much ingenuity. The opinion of Pliny is

here of little weight for it is founded, as ours must be, on
;

the information of Theophrastus.

Epiphanius, who considered the Bible as a system of mine-
ralogy, but could not find the lyncurium in it, supposes that it
may have been the hyacinth . However ridiculous the cause
1

of this conjecture may be, it must be allowed that it is not

entirely destitute of probability ; and I say with John de Laet,
" The description of the lyncurium does not ill agree with the
hyacinth of the moderns 2." If we consider its attracting or
small bodies in the same light as that power which our hya-
cinth has in common with all stones of the glassy species, I
cannot see anything to controvert this opinion, and to induce
us to believe the lyncurium and the tourmaline to be the same.
The grounds which Watson produces for this supposition, are
more in favour of the hyacinth than the tourmaline 3 Had .

Theophrastus been acquainted with the latter, he would cer-

tainly have remarked that it did not acquire its attractive
power till it was heated. At present, at least, no tourmaline
is known to attract until it is heated though it would not
;

appear very wonderful if a stone like the magnet should re-

tain its virtue for a long time.
The duke of Noya Carafta believes the theamedes of the
1
Epiphanius De XII Gemmis.
2
J. deLaet De Gemmis. 1647, 8vo, p. 155.
3 Phil. Trans, vol. li. 1. p. 394.
 ;

88 HISTOKY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ancients to have been the tourmaline 1 . Of that stone we are

told, by Pliny, only that it possessed a power contrary to the
power of the magnet ; that is, that it did not attract but repel
iron. But this only proves, that it had then been remarked
that the magnet repelled the negative pole of a piece of mag-
netic iron. This account has been thus explained by Boot 2 .
To induce us to consider the theamedes as the tourmaline,
Pliny ought to have said that it attracted iron and then re-
pelled it.
With much greater probability may we consider as the tour-
maline a precious stone, classed by Pliny among the nume-
rous varieties of the carburele 3 ; for however perplexed and
unintelligible his account of the carbuncles may be, and how-
ever much the readings in the different copies may vary, we
still know that he describes a stone which was very hard

which was of a purple, that is a dark violet colour, and used

for seals and which, when heated by the beams of the sun, or
;

by friction, attracted chaff and other light bodies. Had Pliny

told us that it at first attracted and then repelled them, no
doubt would remain but he does not say so, nor do his tran-
;

scribers Solinus and Isidorus 4 .

A much later account of a stone that, when rubbed, is, like
the magnet, endued with an attractive power is to be found
in a passage of John Serapion, the Arabian, pointed out to
me by Professor Biitner 5 This stone indeed cannot with
.

1
Recueil de Mem. sur la Tourmaline, par jEpinus. Petersb. 1762, 8vo,
p. 122.
2 Gemm. Lapidum Historia. 1647, 8vo, p. 441, 450.
et
3 Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 7.
4
India produces also the lycbnites, the splendour of which is heightened
when seen by the light of lamps and on this account it has been so called
;

by the Greeks. It is of two colours either a bright purple, or a clear

;

red, and if pure is thoroughly transparent. When heated by the rays of

the sun, or by friction, it attracts chaff and shavings of paper. It obsti-
nately resists the art of the engraver. — Solinus, c. lii. p. 59. Traj. 1689,
fid.
5 " Hager albuzedi is a red stone, but less so than the hyacinth, the red
ness of which is more agreeable to the eye, as there is no obscurity in it
The mines where this stone is found are in the East. When taken from
the mine it is opake ; but when divested of its outer coat by a lapidary,
its goodness is discovered, and it becomes transparent. When this stone
has been strongly rubbed against the hair of the head it attracts chaff, as
the magnet does iron." —
Serapionis Lib. de simplicibus medicinis. Argent.
1531, fol. p. 263.
 TOURMALINE. 89

much probability be taken for the tourmaline, as all precious

stones, when heated, have the same property ; but it is wor-
thy of remark, that, like the lyncurium of the ancients, it be-
longs to the hyacinths, the colour of which many of the real
tourmalines have and among those of the island of Ceylon
;

there are, perhaps, some which ought to be classed among

the hyacinths, rather than among the schorls.
The real tourmaline was first brought from Ceylon, and
made known by the Dutch, about the end of the seventeenth
or beginning of the eighteenth century. It is commonly be-
lieved that the first account of it ever published is that to be
found in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris
for the year 1717 but it appears that fuller and more accu-
;

rate descriptions of the properties of that stone were given in

German works ten years before. The earliest information
that I know respecting book now almost and justly
it is in a
forgotten, entitled Speculations during Sleepless
Curious
Nights . In a passage, where the author, speaking of hard
1

and glassy bodies which attract light substances, affirms that

this property is not magnetic, he says, " The ingenious Dr.
Daumius, chief physician to the Polish and Saxon troops on
the Rhine, told me, that in the year 1703 the Dutch first
brought from Ceylon in the East Indies a precious stone called
tourmaline, or turmale, and named also trip, which had the
property, that it not only attracted the ashes from the warm
or burning coals, as the magnet does iron, but also repelled
them again, which was very amusing for as soon as a small
;

quantity of ashes leaped upon it, and appeared as if endea-

vouring to writhe themselves by force into the stone, they in
a little sprang from it again, as if about to make a new effort;
and on this account it was by the Dutch called the ashes-
drawer. The colour of it was an orange-red heightened by a
fire colour. When the turf coals were cold, it did not pro-
duce these effects, and it required no care like the magnet.
I have considered whether it would not attract and repel
the ashes of other burning coals as well as those of turf; and
I have no doubt, that, if heated, it would attract other things
besides ashes."
1
Curiose Speculations bey Schlaf-losen Nachten, 8vo, Chemnitz, 1707.
The author's name appears to be expressed by the initials I, G. S. This
work consists of forty-eight dialogues, each twelve of which have a distinct
title.
90 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

This whole passage has been inserted word for word, with-
out variation or addition, and without telling the source from
which taken, in a book perhaps equally forgotten, called
Observationes curioso-physicae, or Remarks and Observations
on the great Wonders of the World, by Felix Maurer, physi-
cian . This thick volume is entirely compiled from a number
l

of works, the names of which are not mentioned.

In the Catalogue of the collection of natural curiosities be-
longing to Paul Hermann, which were sold at Leyden in June
1711, 1 find, among the precious stones, Chrysolithus Turmale
Zeyhn. Though no description is added, it cannot be doubted
that our tourmaline is meant. From this however we learn
that the name together with the stone came to us from Ceylon,
as Watson has remarked. We learn further, that the stone
was at first considered as a chrysolite, and perhaps it may be
mentioned under this name in the old accounts of Ceylon.
Hermann, whose service to botany is well known, was in that
island from 1670 to 1677 and it might be presumed, from
;

his spirit of inquiry, that, had he known this stone, he would

somewhere or other in his works have taken notice of its pro-
perties but I find no mention of it either in his Cynosura
:

Materia? Medicse, or in Musasum Zeylonicum.

In the year 1719 the Academy of Sciences at Paris an-
nounced in their memoirs for 1717, that in the latter year
M. Lemery had laid before them a stone found in a river in
the island of Ceylon, which attracted and repelled light bodies 2.
It is there called a small magnet, though some difference be-
tween the two stones was admitted but the German natu-
;

1
Frankf. 1713, 8vo.
2 I shall here lay before the reader the
whole passage, taken from Histoire
de l'Academie for 1 71 7, p. 7
:
—
" Here we have a small magnet. It is a stone
found in a river of the island of Ceylon. It is of the size of a denier, flat,
orbicular, about the tenth part of an inch in thickness, of a brown colour,
smooth and shining, without smell and without taste, which attracts and
afterwards repels small light, bodies, such as ashes, filings of iron, and bits
of paper. It was shown by M. Lemery. It is not common, and that which
he had cost twenty-five livres (about twenty shillings sterling). When a
needle has been touched with a loadstone, the south pole of the loadstone
attracts the north pole of the needle, and repels its south pole : thus it
attracts or repels different parts of the same body, according as they are
presented to it, and it always attracts or repels the same. But the stone
of Ceylon attracts, and then repels in the like manner, the same small body
presented to it in this it is very different from the loadstone. It would
:

."
seem that it has a vortex. . .
 TOURMALINE. 91

ralist before-mentioned, denies that the tourmaline is endowed

with magnetic virtue. It is however very remarkable, that
though it is said, in the Memoirs of the Academy, that it has
the power of attracting and repelling, no mention is made that
it acquires that property, only after it has been heated, which

isexpressly remarked by the German. Those therefore who

wish to ascribe to the ancients a knowledge of the tourmaline
may say, If the editor of the Memoirs of the French Academy
could forget this circumstance, is it not highly probable that
Theophrastus might have forgot it in describing the lyncu-
riuni; Fliny, in describing the carbuncle; and Serapion, in
describing his hyacinth ?
After this period the tourmaline must have been very scarce
in Europe ; for when Muschenbroek made his well-known
experiments with the loadstone, and spared no labour to carry
them to the utmost extent, he was not acquainted with the
nature of the tourmaline, which, according to the account
given of it by the Academy at Paris, he considered as a mag-
net, as he himself says in the preface to his first dissertation,
published in 1724.
About the year 1740 however some German naturalists
made experiments with tim stone, in order to discover the
real cause of its attractive property. These may be seen,
under the article Trip, in the well-known Dictionary of Natu-
ral History which is often printed with Hiibner's preface but;

I do not know to whom the honour belongs of having first

investigated the properties of this stone. As the above dic-
tionary is common, I shall give here only a very short extract
from it :
—
" This stone was brought to Holland by some per-
sons who had travelled in India, from the island of Ceylon,
where it is found pretty frequently among the fine sand near
Columbo, and sold to the German Jews. These caused it to
be cut thinner, and the price of it soon rose to eight and ten
Dutch florins. It has been since much dearer; but at present
it is cheaper. It attracts not only ashes, but also metallic
calces : it however attracts more easily and with greater force

those which have been formed by means of sal-ammoniac, or

the spirit of that salt. It acquires its attractive power only
after it has been moderately heated for when cold or heated
;

to a greater degree it produces no effect, which the author

92 HISTORY; OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ascribes to its being united with martial sulphur. The chrys-

and other precious stones of the island do not possess
solites
the same property." As the author quotes the Laboratorium
Zeylonicum, I consulted it, but found no information in it re-
specting the tourmaline. The first person who thought of
explaining the property of the tourmaline by electricity was
the great Linnaeus, who in the preface to his Flora Zeylanica 1 ,
where he enumerates the productions of the island, calls it the
electrical stone ; but at that time, as he himself afterwards told
me, he had not seen it.
What Linnaeus only conjectured, iEpinus proved at Berlin
in 1757 by accurate observation and experiments, when en-
deavouring with Wilke to investigate the secret of negative
and positive electricity. The history of their discoveries I
shall here omit, as a better account of them than I could give
has been published in the Transactions of the Swedish Aca-
demy by Wilke.
[The discovery by Huygens, in 1678, of the polarization of
light by double refraction, laid the foundation of a much more
important application of the tourmaline for ; MM.
Biot and
Seebeck, in their subsequent experiments, discovered that cer-
tain yellowish tourmalines, that is, those which are yellowish
by refracted light, possessed the remarkable property of ab-
sorbing or checking one of the rays of a beam of polarized
light, and transmitting the others. This discovery led to the
use of tourmalines in most experiments which were subse-
quently made with polarized light. For this purpose, the
tourmaline, which generally crystallizes in the form of a long
prism, is cut lengthwise, that is, parallel to the axis of the
prism, into plates about the 30th of an inch thick.
The invention of Mr. Nichol of a method of destroying one
of the rays of a polarized beam in a crystal of calcareous spar,
has however in later times entirely replaced the use of the

1 " I must not omit to mention that the rivers

contain the electric stone,
which is of the size of a halfpenny, flat, orbicular, shining, smooth, of a
brown colour, one-tenth of an inch in thickness, without smell and without
taste, and which attracts light bodies, such as ashes, filings of iron, shavings
of paper, &c, and afterwards repels them. A wonderful and singular pro-
perty, discovered and observed in this stone alone, when neither heated by
motion nor by friction."
 SPEAKING-TRUMPET. 93

tourmaline in optical science, the colour of the tourmaline

being a disadvantage which is entirely removed in the use of
Nichol's prism .] 1

SPEAKING-TRUMPET
Instruments by which the voice could be so strengthened
as to be heard at a much
greater distance than would other-
wise have been possible, were known in the earliest ages for ;

of all musical instruments, wind instruments were first invent-

ed, and their use in war to give the signal of battle, we find

Light is called polarized, which, having heen once reflected or refracted,

[}
is incapable of being again reflected or refracted in certain positions of the
second medium. Ordinarily, light which has been reflected from a pane of
glass or any other substance, may be a second time reflected from another
surface, and will also freely pass through transparent bodies. But if a ray
of light be reflected from a pane of glass at an angle of 57°, it is rendered
totally incapable of reflexion from the surface of another pane in some
positions, whilst it will be completely reflected by it in others. If a plate
of tourmaline, cut in the manner described above, or a Nichol's prism be
held between the eye and a candle, and turned slowly round in its own
plane, no change will take place in the image of the candle but if the plate
;

or prism be fixed in a vertical position, on interposing another of the same

kind between the former and the eye, parallel to the first, and turning it
round slowly in its own plane, the image of the candle will be found to
vanish and re-appear alternately at each quarter turn of the plate, varying
through all degrees of brightness down to total or almost total eva-
nescence, and then increasing again by the same degrees as it had before
decreased. These changes depend upon the relative positions of the
plates when the longitudinal sections of the two plates are parallel, the
;

brightness of the image is at its maximum and when the axes of the sec-
;

tions cross at right angles, the image of the candle vanishes. Thus the
light, in passing through the first plate of tourmaline, has acquired a pro-
perty totally different from the ordinary light of the candle the latter
;

would penetrate the second plate equally well in all directions, whereas the
altered light will only pass through it in particular positions, and is alto-
gether incapable of penetrating it in others. The light is polarized by
passing through the first plate or prism. Thus, one of the properties of
polarized light is proved to be the incapability of passing through a plate
of tourmaline perpendicular to it in certain positions, and its ready trans-
mission in other positions at right angles to the former.!
94 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

mentioned in Job 1 , It had been remarked, even in Pliny's

time, that the least touch of a beam of wood could be heard
when the ear was applied to the other end 2 It was known .

likewise that the larger trumpets emitted a louder and stronger

sound. The Grecians had a wind instrument with the bel-
lowing noise of which the people who were placed to guard
the vineyards frightened away the wild animals 3 All these .

wind instruments however were little in comparison with the

monstrous trumpets of the ancient Chinese, a kind of speak-
ing-trumpets, or instruments by which words could not only
be heard at the greatest distance possible, but could be also
understood 4 This invention belongs to the 17th century,
.

though some think that traces of it are to be found among

the ancient Grecians.
Kircher, as far as I have been able to learn, was the first
person who made known, from a very ancient manuscript of
Aristotle, De Secretis ad Alexandrum Magnum, preserved in
the Vatican, that Alexander had a prodigious large horn with
which he could assemble his army at the distance of a hundred
stadia, or eight Italian miles. It was, according to the manu-
script, five cubits in diameter and Kircher, who gives a figure
;

of it, which he says he found in the manuscript, thinks that,

on account of its size, it must have been suspended from a
beam by a ring. This horn has by many been considered as
the oldest speaking-trumpet 5 but in my opinion without rea-
,

son. Secretum Secretorum ad Alexandrum Mag-

Aristotelis
num I have never had an opportunity to see. It appears to
have been printed only once, and is, like all the other works
ascribed to that philosopher, extremely scarce for they have ;

all had the fate of being little regarded after it became the
unanimous opinion of the learned that they were forged.
These works, however, are old some of them indeed very old
; :.

and, if some one would take the trouble to fix their antiquity,
they might be used with advantage on many occasions. Mor-
3 Plin. lib. xvi. c. 38, p. 32.
1
Goguet. i. p. 326.
3 Septalii Comm. Problem. Lugd. 1632, fol. p. 206. There
in Aristotelis
is also a passage to the same purpose in Seneca, Epist. 108.
* See Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la Chine, de deux voyageurs

Mahometans, qui y allerent dans le neuviemc siecle. Par Renaudot. Paris,

1718, 8vo, p. 25.
6 Ars magna lucis et umbra. Amst. 1671, fol. p. 102. Kircher repeats
this account with some new circumstances in his Phonurgia, p. 132.
 —

SPEAKING-TRUMPET. 95

hof had in his possession the edition of that book published by

Alexander Achillinus, a physician at Bologna, in 1516, which
is a Latin translation from the Arabic If we compare what
1
.

is said there and by Kircher, we may make the following con-

clusion :

In the first place, it is certain that the book itself, as well

as the whole account, is not the production of Aristotle, for
in all the writers who relate the actions of Alexander Ave do
not find the least mention of such a horn. Secondly, it is not
expressly said in that work that Alexander spoke through this
horn, but only that he assembled his soldiers by it, which in
past times was done by the sound of a trumpet, and at present
is done both by trumpets and drums. It appears also that the
author of the book, perhaps an Arabian, intended to give the
reader an idea of a horn that had an uncommonly strong and
loud sound. Thirdly, Kircher's account and figure of the
horn do not agree with that which Morhof found in the edi-
tion of Achillinus 2 Lastly, none of these descriptions are
.

such that an instrument to serve as a speaking-trumpet could

be constructed from them.
Wolf and other mathematicians are of opinion that the most
advantageous form of a speaking-trumpet would be found with
more certainty by experience than by theory. It may then
be asked, whether any one ever caused such an instrument to
be made from these descriptions. Kircher, who attempted
things much more improbable, says he never tried it. Du-
hamel however relates that a Frenchman tried it, and discovered
the real instrument 5 but this information is of little weight
;

1 Morhofii Diss, de vitro per vocis sonum rupto, in Dissertationibus

Academicis. Hamburgi 1669, 4to, p. 381.
2 Morhof quotes the following passage : —
" "With this brazen horn, con-
structed with wonderful art, Alexander the Great called together his army
at the distance of sixty miles. On account of its inestimable workmanship
and monstrous size, it was under the management of sixty men. Many
kinds of sonorou.3 metals were combined in the composition of it."
3 "Among many things which the celebrated D'Alance caused to be made-

for this purpose, the trumpet ascribed to Alexander, and with which he
called together his army, ought not to be omitted. As the figure of it was
represented in an old manuscript in the Vatican library, and had been
described by Bettini, that learned man was desirous of trying whether it
could be proved by experience, and the attempt succeeded for that kind.
:

of trumpet, if it does not excel, seems undoubtedly to equal the other

instruments constructed for that end."
96 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

as it is much to this Frenchman caused it to

be doubted that
be made according to the ancient description.
sufficiently exact
I am as little acquainted with Bettini as Morhof but I sus- ;

pect that Duhamel meant Mar. Bettini, who, without making

the smallest mention of Alexander's horn, proposes only a
tube, the one end of which should be applied to the mouth of
a person who speaks, and the other to the ear of one who
is dull of hearing This was rather an ear-trumpet than a
1
.

speaking-trumpet, and it is certain that the former was in-

vented before the latter.
What we read in Porta, and what many think alludes to a
speaking-trumpet, alludes evidently to an ear-trumpet only.
That author infers, very justly, from the form of the ear, and
particularly from that of the ears of those animals which are
quick of hearing, that to hear at a distance one must apply to
the ear a kind of wide funnel, as people to strengthen the sight
use spectacles 2 He asserts also, with equal truth, that one,
.

through a long tube, can convey a whisper to the ear of

another person at a very great distance 3 an experiment ;

which he himself made at the distance of two hundred paces.

Schwenter, who wrote before the speaking-trumpet was
known, proposes, from the hint of Porta, an ear-trumpet, one
end of which should be applied to the ear 4 .

Sir Samuel Morland, an Englishman, and the Jesuit Kir-

cher, have in later times contended respecting the invention
of the speaking-trumpet. The former, in 1671, published a
particular description of one, after he had made many experi-
ments upon it the year preceding. This instrument, shaped
like a wide-mouthed trumpet, he caused first to be constructed

1
Bettini Apiaria univ. Philosophise Mathemat. Bonon. 1642, fol. p. 38.
2 Magia Natural, lib. xx. c. 5.
" To communicate anything to one's friends by means of a tube. This
3

can be done with a tube made of earthenware, though one of lead is bet-
ter, or of any other substance, but very close, that the voice may not be
weakened for whatever you speak at the one end, the words issue perfect
;

and entire as from the mouth of the speaker, and are conveyed to the
ears of the other, which, in my opinion, may be done for some miles. The
voice, neither broken nor dispersed, is carried entire to the greatest di-
stance. We tried it at the distance of two hundred paces, not having
convenience for a greater, and the words were heard as clearly and distinctly
as if they had come from the mouth of the speaker."
4 Mathematischc Erquickstunden, i.
—
Lib. xvi. c. 12.
p. 243.
 SPEAKING-TRUMPET. 97

of glass, and afterwards of copper, with various alterations,

and performed several experiments with it in presence of the
king (Charles II.), prince Rupert, and other persons, who
were astonished at its effects . 1

As an account of this discovery was soon spread all over

Europe, Kircher asserted that he had constructed speaking-
trumpets before Sir Samuel Morland, and supported his asser-
tion by referring to his former writings, and by the testimony
of other authors. I shall first take notice of the former. His
Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae was first printed in 1643. I at
least conclude so, because, in the preface to his Phonurgia,
printed in 1673, he says that work had been published thirty
years before. The second edition is of 1671? in which I find
only the already-quoted passage respecting Alexander's horn,
and the figure of a tube, which, like that proposed by Bettini,
should be applied to the ear of a person who hears, and to
the mouth of the speaker. The Musurgia, printed in 1650,
contains better grounds for supporting the assertion of Kir-
cher. In the second part he describes how a funnel can be
placed in a building in such a manner, that a person in an
apartment where the narrow end is introduced can hear what
is spoken without the building, or in another apartment, where
the wide end may be. To this description a figure is added,
and the author acknowledges he was led to that idea by the
construction of a well-known building of Dionysius 2 He does .

1
An Account of the Speaking-trumpet, as it hath heen contrived and
published by Sir Samuel Morland, knight and baronet, together with its
use both at sea and land. London, 1671. An extract from it may be seen
in the Phil. Trans., No. 78, p. 3056.
2 Among
the antiquities of Syracuse in Sicily, one beholds with wonder
chambers and galleries which are hewn out in the solid rock, and par-
ticularly a grotto, from which arises a winding passage, that becomes up-
wards still narrower. Ancient tradition says that this was a prison, which
the celebrated tyrant Dionysius caused to be built for state prisoners, that
in an apartment of his palace, which stood over the narrow end of the
pass; ge, he might hear everything the prisoners said, or what plots they
formed against him. This grotto therefore is called Orechio di Diom/sio,
or la grotta della favella; auris Dionysii, the ear of Dionysius. iiany
travi Hers and others formerly imagined that this passage was an ingenious
imitation of that part of the human ear called the helix, which was first
rema ked by Alcmaon the Pythagorean. This is the account given by
Kircl er, who was there in the year 1638. See his Phonurgia (published
1673), p. S2, where there is a figure of it. In later times, however, this
grotto has been examined with more skill and acuteness by people less
VOL. I. H
98 HISTORY OE INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

not however say expressly that he had ever tried the experi-
ment but in the last page of the preface to the Phonurgia,
;

he pretends that so early as the year 1649 he had caused such

a machine to be fixed up in the Jesuits' college. But, sup-
posing this to be true, it can only be said that he then ap-
proached very near to the invention of the speaking-trumpet,
subject to prejudice, and since that period the supposed wonder has been
lessened. The rock consists of limestone, at least I conclude so from what
is said by Brydone, who found it everywhere full of cracks and fissures.
The stones of which Syracuse was built were hewn from the rock ; and
hence have been formed these chambers or openings, like those found in
the neighbourhood of other ancient and modern cities, such as Rome,
Naples, and Maestricht. Many of these, in the course of time, have been
employed as prisons, or used as burying- vaults. The above-mentioned
passage, which has excited so much wonder, is not properly spiral, and is
of such a figure that it may have been produced either by accident or
through the whim of the workmen employed to hew out the stones. The
double echo which Kircher assures us he heard in the grotto was not re-
marked by Schott, who was there in 1646, as he expressly says, in opposi-
tion to his brother Jesuit, in his Magia Naturalis. In the accounts still
remaining of Dionysius we find mention of an astonishing prison, which
is well described by Cicero in his fifth oration against Verres : " You have
allheard of," says he, " and most of you know the prison (lautumias) of
Syracuse. It is an immense and magnificent work, executed by kings and
tyrants the whole is sunk to a wonderful depth in the rock, and has been
;

entirely cut out by the labour of many hands. No place so secured against
an escape no place so enclosed on all sides ; no place so safe for con-
;

fining prisoners can be either planned out or constructed." But it can-

not be proved, and according to D'Orville's opinion it is improbable, that
this grotto was the work of that tyrant, who, as Plutarch tells us in his
Life of Dion, employed very different means to learn the intention of dan-
gerous persons. " The common people attacked the tyrant's friends, and
Seized those whom they called his emissaries (irpoaaydiyidas), worthless
men, detested by the gods. These went about the city, mixed with the
citizens, and, prying into everything, gave an account to the tyrant of
what they thought and what expressions they made use of." It was
merely for its strength, and the labour employed in building it, and not
on account of its ingenious construction, that the ancients admired the
prison of the tyrant. At present the upper end of the winding passage is
closed up and it is so narrow, that some years ago the captain of an
;

English vessel found great difficulty to clamber up it. It cannot, how-

ever, be denied that this grotto may have been used for the service ascribed
to it and I can readily believe that it may have led Kircher to the inven-
;

tion of the ear-trumpet. See the Travels of P. de la Valle, Ray, and Bry-
done Delle antiche Siracuse, da G. Bonanni, &c, 2 vols. fol. Palermo 1717.
;

Dan. Bartolo del suono e de' tremori harmonici, Bonon. 1680, who ex-
amined this grotto as a naturalist. D'Orville, Sicula. Amst. 1764, pp.
182, 194.
 SPEAKING-TRUMPET. 99

by an instrument, which, however, was calculated

in reality,
to strengthen the hearing, and not the voice and therefore
;

only the half is true of what he advanced in his preface in

1673, that twenty years before he had described in his Mu-
surgia the trumpet invented in England.
In the Phonurgia, however, written after Morland's publi-
cation was everywhere known, Kircher certainly treats of the
speaking-trumpet, and says that, from the similarity of the
progress of sound to that of the rays of light, he was led to
the idea of conveying the former, in the same manner as the
latter, to a great distance, by means of an instrument. For
this purpose, about twenty-four years before, he had caused
to be constructed, in the Jesuits' college at Rome, an ear-
trumpet, through which the porter could communicate any-
thing he had to say to him when he was in his apartment in
the upper story. This apparatus attracted the notice of many
strangers, who were astonished at its effect. He here repre-
sents it as a proper speaking-trumpet, and adds, that it ex-
cited much surprise, on account of the uncommon strength
which it gave to the voice. For this reason he was very de-
sirous of trying to what distance words could be distinctly-
conveyed by such a tube; and an opportunity occurred of
doing this the same year that he wrote his Phonurgia. From
a convent, situated on the top of a mountain, he assembled
twelve hundred persons to divine service, at the distance of
from two to five Italian miles, and read the Litany through it.
Soon after, the emperor caused a tube to be made according
to Kircher's description, by which, without elevating the
voice, he could be understood from Ebersdorf to Neugebeu.
But though Kircher came so near to the invention of the
speaking-trumpet, it does not appear certain by his works that
he attempted or constructed it before Sir Samuel Morland.
I shall now examine the evidences he adduces in his favour.
The most important of these is Schott, because he pub-
lished his Magia Naturalis in 1657, before the invention of
l

1
This machine was invented by Kircher, in imitation of the ear of
Dionysins ; nor is it a vain and empty speculation, for the machine pro-
duces an infallible effect. Kircher caused to be made at Rome, of tin
plate, a very large and straight tube, like a funnel, and placed it in an,
apartment next to his chamber, in such a manner that the large end pro-
jected into the garden of the college, and the less entered his chamber.
H 2
100 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Sir Samuel Morland. All that is to be found in this work,

however, relates alone to the ear-trumpet, a figure of which
is added from the Musurgia; but we learn, with certainty,
that Kircher then had the before-mentioned funnel or tube in
his apartment. It is also not improbable that he had tried to
answer the porter from his apartment, and that he had thereby
remarked that the voice was strengthened for it is not proved
;

by Schott that he at that time was acquainted with and had

in his possession a portable speaking-trumpet.
Another author by whom Kircher endeavours to support
his claim is Harsdorfer ;who, however, speaks only of tubes
to be closely applied to the mouth and to the ear, and who
refers to the Musurgia, without mentioning the real speaking-
trumpet, though the second part of his Mathematical Re-
creations was first printed in 1677, and the third in 1692.
Besides these testimonies, Kircher quotes also Eschinard con-
cerning sound 1
With that work I am not acquainted but
.
;

as the information it contains is taken from the Musurgia, it

is of as little importance as that of Derham 2 who refuses the
,

invention to his countryman, and gives it to Kircher. When

J unite all the evidence in favour of Kircher, it appears to be
certain that he made known and employed the ear-trumpet ear-
lier than the portable speaking-trumpet; that he, however,
approached very near to the invention of the latter, but did
not cause one to be constructed before Sir Samuel Morland,
to whom the honour belongs of having first brought it to that
state as to be of real use. Such, at least, is the manner in
which this dispute is decided by the Jesuit De Lanis 3 .

When Morland's invention was made known in France, it

When the porter of the college had occasion to call him to the gate, that
he might not be obliged always to go up stairs, or to bawl out, he went to
the broad end of the funnel, and communicated what he wished to Kircher.
— Schotti Magia Universalis, ii. p. 156.
1 Eschinardi Discursus de Sono Pneumatico,
p. 10.
3Physico-theology.
3 Our Kircher, in his Phonurgia, justly claims that invention, as it was
several years ago exhibited by him in the Jesuits' college at Rome, and an
account of it printed. That this is true I myself was an eye-witness;
though I must acknowledge that no one before the above-mentioned En-
glishman ever applied this speaking instrument, at least in so perfect a
—
manner, to that use for which it was afterwards employed. Magisterium
Naturse et Artis. Brixiffi. 1684-92 .fol.ii. p. 436.
 SPEAKING-TRUMPET. 101

was pretended that Salar, an Augustine monk, had seven or

eight years before caused such tubes or trumpets to be made,
in order to strengthen the voice of a weak bass-singer ; but
he himself acknowledges that he never had an idea of speak-
ing with them at a distance '.
This instrument was soon made for sale at Nuremberg in
Germany, particularly by that well-known artist Grundler,
mentioned by Becher, who imagined that two persons, by
means of a speaking-trumpet and an ear-trumpet, could con-
verse together at a great distance, without any one in the
neighbourhood, or in the intermediate space, hearing what
they said.
Of those who employed their ingenuity in improving this
instrument I shall mention the following. Cassegrain, known
on account of his optical instruments, published some hints for
that purpose in 1672 ~; as did Sturm 3 Conyers 4 , Hase and
,

others afterwards. The last who investigated the theory of

the speaking-trumpet was Lambert 5 ; according to whose
ideas the figure of a shortened cone, if not the best, is at least
as good as any other that might be employed.
[It would appear, however, from the experiments of Hassen-
fratz (Journ. de Phys., t. xxvi.) that neither the shape of the
instrument nor the material of which it is composed is of much
consequence. He ascertained the power of the trumpet by
fixing a small watch in the mouth-piece, and observing the
distance at which the beats ceased to be audible, and thus
found that the effects were precisely the same with a trumpet
of tinned iron, whether used in its naked form, or tightly
bound round with linen to prevent vibration, or when lined
with woollen cioth whereby reflexion was entirely prevented ;
he also found that the range of a cylindrical trumpet was as
great as that of a conical one.
Leslie supposes the effect of the trumpet to be owing to the
more condensed and vigorous impulsion given to the air from
its lateral flow being checked. He observes, " that the tube,
by its length and narrowness, detains the efflux of air, and

1
Journal cles Scavans, tome iii. - Ibid.
p. 131.
3
J. A. Sturm, Collegium Experiinentale, ii. p. 146.
4
Philosophical Transactions.
5 Memoires de l'Acad. des Sciences
a Berlin, 1763, p. 97.
102 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

has the same effect as if it diminished the volubility of that

fluid, or increased its density. The organs of articulation
strike with concentrated force, and the pulses, so vigorously
thus excited, are, from the reflected form of the aperture,
Anally enabled to escape and to spread themselves along the
atmosphere 1
."]

ANANAS.— PINE-APPLE.
To discover the excellence of the ananas required no great
skill; it recommended itself so much by its and
taste, smell,
colour, as to attract the notice of the first Europeans who
visited Brazil ; and we find it praised in the earliest writers on
America, who give an account of it, as well as of tobacco,
maize, and other productions of the new world.
Goncalo Hernandez de Oviedo is, as far as I know, the first
person who described and delineated the ananas. This author
was born at Madrid in 1478, went to America in 1513, and in
1535 was governor of St. Domingo. In the last-mentioned
year his General History of America was printed at Seville.
At that time three kinds were known, which in America were
called yayama, boniama, and yayagua, but by the Spaniards
pinas. Attempts had then been made to send the fruit to
Spain by pulling it before it was ripe but it had always be-
;

come spoilt in the course of the voyage. Oviedo had tried

also to send slips or young shoots to Europe, but these also
died by the way. He however entertained hopes that means
would be found to rear the ananas in Spain, in which maize
>r Turkish corn had been brought to maturity, provided it
could be transported with sufficient expedition 2 .

1 Experimental Inquiry into the Nature, &c. of He.it, p. 223.

2 La Historia General de las Indias. Seville, 153."), fol. lib. xvii. c. 13.
[An earlier notice of the pine-apple had been given by Andrrea Navagero
in his letter to Rannusio, dated from Seville, May 12, 152G. He says, " I
have also seen a most beautiful fruit, the name of which I do not recollect:
I have eaten of it, for it was imported fresh. It has the taste of the quince,
together with that of the peach, with some resemblance also of the melon :

it is fragrant, and is truly of most delicious flavour." —

Lettere di xiii
Huomhu Illustri.]
 PINE- APPLE. 103

Geronimo Benzono, a Milanese, -who resided in Mexico

from 1541 to 1555, caused, on his return, his History of the
New World to be printed, for the first time, at Venice in
1568. In this work he highly extols the pinas, and says he
believes that no fruit on the earth can be more pleasant sick ;

persons, who loathed all other food, might relish it.

After him, Andrew Thevet, a French monk, who was in
Brazil from 1555 to 1556, described and delineated this plant
under the name of nanus. The art of preserving the fruit with
sugar was at that time known '.
John de Lery, who went to Brazil in 1557 as chaplain to a
Huguenot colony, in the account of his voyage first used the
word ananas, which probably took its rise from the nanas of
Thevet ~.
In the middle of the sixteenth century Franc. Hernandes,
a naturalist, undertook an expensive, and almost useless
voyage to Mexico. It cost Philip II. king of Spain 60,000
ducats, and the observations he collected, for which, at the
time Acosta was in America, 1200 figures were ready, were
never completely printed and in what are printed one can
;

scarcely distinguish those of the original author from the addi-

tions of strangers. He has, however, given a somewhat better
figure of the ananas, which he calls matzatli or pinea Indica 3 .
Christopher Acosto, in his Treatise of the drugs and medi-
cines of the East Indies, printed in 1578, calls this plant the
ananas. He says it was brought from Santa Cruz to the
West Indies, and that it was afterwards transplanted to the
East Indies and China, where it was at that time common.
The latter part of this account is confirmed by J. Hugo de
Linschotten, who was in the East Indies from 1594« to 1595 4 .
Attempts were vei-y early made, as Oviedo assures us, to

1
Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, autrement nominee Ame-
rique. Par Andre Thevet. Anvers, 1558.
2
Voyage faiet en la terre du Bresil, autrement dite Amerique. Par J.
de Lery. Geneve, 1580, 8vo, p. 188.
3 Rerum
Med. nova? Hispanise Thesaurus. Rome, 1651. fol.
4
The accounts given by Acosta and Linschotten may he seen in Bau-
hini Histor. Plantaram, iii. p. 95. Kircher in his China Illustrata says,
"That fruit which the Americans and people of the East Indies, among
whom it is common, call the ananas, and which grows also in great abun-
dance in the provinces of Quantung, Chiamsi, and Fokien, is supposed to
have been brought from Peru to China."
104 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

transplant the ananas into Europe and as in the beginning

;

of the seventeenth century it was reckoned among the marks

of royal magnificence to have orange-trees in expensive hot-
houses, it was hoped that this fruit could be brought to ma-
turity also in the artificial climate of these buildings. These
attempts, however, were everywhere unsuccessful no fruit ;

was produced, or it did not ripen, because, perhaps, this

favourite exotic was treated with too much care. It is not
certainly known who in Europe first had the pleasure of
seeing ananas ripen in his garden but it appears that several
;

enjoyed that satisfaction at the same time in the beginning of

the last century.
The German gardens in which the ananas was first brought
to maturity appear to have been the following. First, that of
Baron de Munchausen, at Schwobber, not far from Hameln,
which on account of the botanical knowledge of its proprietor,
and the abundance of plants it contains, is well-known to all
those who are fond of botany. In the beginning of the last
century it belonged to Otto de Munchausen, who, perhaps,
was the first person who erected large buildings for the express
purpose of raising that fruit, and who had the noble satisfac-
tion of making known their advantageous construction. With
this view he sent a description and plan of his ananas-houses
to J. Christopher Volkamer, a merchant of Nuremberg, who
inserted them in his continuation of the Nuremberg Hespe-
rides, printed there in 1714, and by these means rendered the
attainment of this fruit common. This Baron de Munchausen
is the same who has been celebrated by Leibnitz : "All the

travellers in the world," says that great man, " could not have
given us, by their relations, what we are indebted for to a
gentleman of this country, who cultivates with success the
ananas, three leagues from Hanover, almost on the banks of
the Weser, and who has found out the method of multiplying
them, so that we may, perhaps, have them one day as plenti-
ful, of our own growth, as the Portuguese oranges, though
there will, in all appearance, be some deficiency in the taste'."
As the Baron Munchausen's garden at Schwobber was in the
absence of the proprietor, as Volkamer says, under the care

1
See Leibnitz, Nouveaux EssaissiuTEntendcment Ilumain (CEnv. Phil.),
p. 256, Amst. 1765, 4to.
 PINE-APPLE. 105

of J. F. Berner, canon of the cathedral of St. Boniface, he

probably may have had some share in rendering this service
to horticulture.
This fruit was produced garden of Dr. Vol-
also in the
kamer at Nuremberg, and that of Dr. F. Kaltschmid
in
at Breslau, almost about the same time. The latter was so
fortunate as to bring it to maturity so early as 1702, and he
sent some of it then for the first time to the imperial court.
At Frankfort on the Maine it was first produced in 1702 ; 1

and at Cassel in 1715, by the skill of Wurstorfs, the head

gardener.
Holland procured the first ripe ananas from the garden of
De la Court, whom Miller calls Le Com', in the neighbour-
hood of Leyden. As a great many plants were sold out of
this garden to foreigners, and as the English had theirs first
from it, many are of opinion that Europe is indebted for the
first possession of this fruit to De la Court, and his gardener
William de Vinck 2 .
I shall here take occasion to mention a circumstance which
belongs also to the history of gardening. Before the cultiva-
tion of the ananas was introduced, the Dutch had begun to
employ tanner's bark for making forcing-beds. From them
the English learned this improvement, and the first forcing-
beds in England were made at Blackheath in Kent, in 1688,
and employed for rearing orange-trees but about the year
;

1719, much later than in Holland, ananas became more com-

mon, and forcing-beds were in much greater use 3 .

This plant, the history of which I have given, received from

Plunder 4 who first distinguished its characters, the name of
,

JBromelia 5 , after the Swedish naturalist, whose remembrance

deserves to be here revived. Olof Bromelius was born in 1639,
at Oerebro, where his father carried on trade. He studied
1
Lersner, Chronik, ii. p. 824.
2
Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, i. p. 132. Lueder, Wartung der Kii-
ehengewiichse. Lubeck, 1780, 8vo, p. 248.
3
Miller, ii. p. 824. Lueder, p. 39. That putrid bark forms an excel-
lent manure, had been before remarked by Lauremberg, in Horticultura,,
p. 52.
4
Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera. Parisiis 1708, 4to, p. 46.
5
[The plants producing the pine-apple have been separated by Prof.
Lindley under the name Anaaassa from the allied genus Bromelia, after
which the Natural Order Bromeliace^e takes its name.]
106 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

physic at Upsal, disputed there in 1667 de Pleuritide, and in

2668 taught botany at Stockholm. In 1672 he was physician
to the embassy to England, and afterwards to that to Holland,
where, in 1673, he received the degree of doctor at Leyden,
and wrote a dissertation De Lumbricis. On his return to his
native country, in 1674, he became a member -of the college
of physicians at Stockholm but in 1691 he was city physician
;

to Gottenburg, and provincial physician in Elsburg and Bahus-

lan, in which situation he died in the year 1 705. His bota-
nical writings are Lupologia, and Chloris Gothica . His son, 1

Magnus von Bromel, is the author of Lithographia Suecana.

[Within the few last years, large numbers of pine-apples
have been imported into this country from the Bahamas, where
they are grown as turnips are grown in our fields. They are
sold comparatively speaking at an extremely moderate price,
and those that have become somewhat spoilt by the long car-
riage are hawked about the streets of London at a halfpenny
or penny per slice. They are however vastly inferior in fla-
vour to the pines cultivated in our hot-houses, lout it is to be ex-
pected, from the considerable demand, that greater care will be
bestowed on their cultivation, and the markets of London be
regularly supplied with a much improved kind.]

SYMPATHETIC INK.

If give this name to any fluid, which when written with,

we
willremain invisible till after a certain operation, such liquids
were known in very early periods. Among the methods, with
which Ovid teaches young women to deceive their guardians,
when they write to theirlovers 2 he mentions that of writing with
,

new milk, and of making the writing legible by coal-dust or

soot. Ausonius proposes the same means to Paulinus :i
; but his

3
Halleri Bibl. Botan. i. p. 640.
2 De Arte Amaudi, lib. iii. v. 629.
3 Ausorii Epist. xxiii. v. 21. The poet afterwards teaches other methods
of secret writing, and Gellins, lib. xvii. cap. 9, mentions the like.
 ;

SYMPATHETIC INK. 107

commentators seem not to have fully understood his meaning

for favilla is not to be explained, by favilla non modice calida,
as Vinetus has explained it, but by fuligo. That word is often
employed by the poets in the same sense. As a proof of it,
Columella, speaking of the method, not altogether ineffectual,
and even still used, of preserving plants from insects by soot,
calls it nigra favilla; and afterwards, when mentioning the
same method, free from poetical fetters, he says fuligmem qute.
supra focos tectis inhcsret It may be easily perceived, that
1
.

instead of milk any other colourless and glutinous juice might

be employed, as it would equally hold fast the black powder
strewed over it. Pliny, therefore, recommends the milky sap
of certain plants for the like purpose'2 .

There are several metallic solutions perfectly colourless, or,

at least, without any strong tint, which being used for writing,
*.he letters will not appear until the paper be washed over

with another colourless solution, or exposed to the vapour of

it; but among all these there is none which excites more asto-
nishment, than that which consists of a solution of lead in acetic
acid, and which by sulphuretted hydrogen gas becomes black,
even at a considerable distance. This ink, which may be em-
ployed by conjurers, proves the subtlety of this gas, and the
porosity of bodies as the change or colouring takes place, even
;

when the writing is placed on the other side of a thin wall.

This effect presented itself perhaps accidentally to some
chemist but the discovery is not of great antiquity. Wecker,
;

who compiled his book De Seeretis from Porta, Cardan, and

several old writers, and printed it for the first time in 1582,
and gave a third edition in 1592, must have been unacquainted
with it else he certainly would not have omitted it in the
;

fourteenth book, where he mentions all the methods of secret

writing. Neither would it have been unnoticed by Caneparius,
whose book De Atramentis was printed at Venice, for the first
time, in 1619.
The first person who, as far as I have been able to learn,
gave a receipt for preparing this ink, was Peter Borel, in
Historiarum et Observationum Medico-physic. Centurise qua-
tuor. In this work, which was printed for the first time in 1653,
and a second time in 1657, at Paris, and of which there were
1
Colum. De Re Rust. x. 354. and si. 3, 80.
' Plin. lib. xxyi. cap. 8. p. 400.
108 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

several editions afterwards, the author calls it a magnetic water,

which acts at a distance . After the occult qualities of the
1

schoolmen were exploded, it was customary to ascribe phse-

nomena, the causes of which were unknown, and particularly
those the causes of which seemed to operate without any visi-
ble agency, to magnetic effluvia; as the tourmaline was at first
considered to be a kind of magnet. Others concealed their
ignorance under what they called sympathy, and in latter
times attraction and electricity have been employed for the
like purpose. Borel, who made it his business to collect new
observations that were kept secret, learned the method of pre-
paring this magnetic water from an ingenious apothecary of
Montpelier, and in return taught him some other secrets. Otto
Tachen, a German chemist- afterwards thought of the same
2
,

experiment, which he explains much better, without the as-

sistance of magnetism or sympathy. The receipt for making
these liquids, under the name of sympathetic ink, I find first
given by Le Mort 3 and that name has been still retained 4
, .

1
The sixth observation of the second century is as follows : Magnetic
waters which act at a distance. An astonishing effect, indeed, is produced
hy the contest of the following waters, which are thus made. Let quick-
lime be quenched in common water, and while quenching, let some orpi-
ment be added to it (this however ought to be done by placing warm ashes
under it for a whole day), and let the liquor be filtered, and preserved in a
glass bottle well corked. Then boil litharge of gold well pounded, for
half an hour with vinegar in a brass vessel, and filter the whole through
paper, and preserve it also in a bottle closely corked. If you write any
thing with this last water with a clean pen, the writing will be invisible
when dry ; but it be
if washed over with the first water it will become
instantly black. In this, however, there is nothing astonishing ; but this
is wonderful, that though sheets of paper without number, and even a
board be placed between the invisible writing and the second liquid, it will
have the same effect, and turn the writing black, penetrating the wood and
paper without leaving any traces of its action, which is certainly surprising ;
but a fetid smell, occasioned by the mutual action of the liquids, deters
many from making the experiment. I am, however, of opinion, that I
could improve this secret by a more refined chemical preparation, so that
it should perform its effect through a wall. This secret I received, in ex-
change for others, from J. Brosson, a learned and ingenious apothecary of
Montpelier.
2 Tachenii Hippocraticre Medicinre Clavis,
p. 23G. 1669.
3 Collectanea ChvmicaLeydensia, edidit Morley. Lugd.
Bat. 1684, 4to,
p. 97.
4
For an account of various kinds of secret writing sec Halle, Magie odor
Zauberknifte der Natur. Berlin, 1783, 8vo, v. i. p. 138.
 SYMPATHETIC INK. 109

Another remarkable kind of sympathetic ink is that pre-

pared from cobalt, the writing of which disappears in the cold,
but appears again of a beautiful green colour, as often as one
chooses, after being exposed to a moderate degree of heat.
The invention of this ink is generally ascribed to a French-
man named Hellot. He was, indeed, the first person who,
after trying experiments with it, made it publicly known, but
he was not the inventor and he himself acknowledges that a
;

German artist of Stolberg first showed him a reddish salt,

which, when exposed to heat, became blue, and which he as-
sured him was made out of Schneeberg cobalt, with aqua
regiaU This account induced Hellot to prepare salts and ink
from various minerals impregnated with cobalt; but A, Ges-
ner proved, long after, that this ink is produced by cobalt only,
and not by marcasite".
When Hellot's experiments were made known in Germany,
it was affirmed that Professor H. F. Teichmeyer, at Jena, had

prepared the same ink six years before, and shown it to his
scholars, in the course of his lectures, under the name of sym-
pathetic ink 3 It appears, however, that it was invented, even
.

before Teichmeyer, in the beginning of the last century by a

German lady. This is confirmed by Pot, who says that the
authoress of a book printed in 1705, which he quotes under
the unintelligible title of D. J. W. in clave, had given a pro-
per receipt for preparing the above-mentioned red salt, and the
ink produced by it 4 If it be true that Theophrastus Para-
.

celsus, by means of this invention, could represent a garden

in winter, it must be undoubtedly older 5 .

1
Hist, et Mem. de 1'Acad. des Sciences a Paris, 1737, pp. 101 and 228.
2
Historia Cadmias fossilis, sive Cobalti. Berl. 1744.
3
This account, together with Teichmeyer's receipt for preparing it, may
he found in Commercium Litterarium Norimbergense, 1737, p. 91.
4 " Copiosius minera bismuthi tam ab aquaforti quam ab aqua regia dis-
solvitur, restante pulvere albo corroso; solutio in aqua forti roseum colo-
rem sistit, quae si sali in aqua soluto, secundum praescrip'tum D. J. W. in
clave, affundatur, abstrahatur, ex residuo extrahitur sal roseum, quod pul-
verisari et cum spiritu vini extrahi potest adeoque haec autrix jam anno
:

1705 publice totum processum et fundamentum sic dicti atramenti sympa-

thetici, quod a calore viridescit, evulgavit." —
Pot, Observ. Chym. collectio
prima. Berolini, 1739, p. 163.
5
So thinks Gesner in Selecta Physico-ceconomica, or Sammlung von
allerhand zur Naturgeschichte gehorigen Begebenheiten. Stutgard, vii.
p. 22.
 ;

110 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

[In consequence of the progress of modern chemistry and

the discovery of a vast number of new chemical compounds,
sympathetic inks may be made in an almost endless numbei
and variety. The principal may be classed in the following
—
manner: 1, such as taken dried upon paper being invisible,
on moistening until another liquid become again evident : oi
this kind there are a vast number among which we. may
;

mention a solution of a soluble salt of lead, or bismuth, for

writing, and a solution of sulphuretted hydrogen for washing
over the writing then appears black
; or green vitriol for
;

writing and prussiate of potash for washing over, when the

writing becomes blue 2, sack as are rendered evident by
1
;

being sifted over with some powder, as the milk with soot de-
scribed above 3, those which become visible by heat, such as
;

characters in dilute sulphuric acid, lemon-juice, solutions of

the nitrate and chloride of cobalt, and of chloride of copper
the two former become black or brown, the latter are rendered
green, the colouring disappearing subsequently when allowed
to cool in a moist place. Amusing pictures are sometimes
made with these sympathetic inks, particularly those composed
of cobalt for if a landscape be drawn to represent winter, the
;

vegetation being covered with a solution of cobalt, on holding

the paper to the fire, all those portions covered with the solu-
tion appear of a bright green, and thus completely change the
character of the scene.J

1
{Inks formed of solutions and icashed with solutions
of the following salts, of become
Muriate of antimony, tincture of galls, yellow.
Green vitriol, tincture of galls, black.
Nitrate of cobalt, oxalic acid, blue.
Subacetate of lead, hydriodic acid, yellow.
Arseniate of potash, nitrate of copper, green.
Nitrate of copper, prussiate of potash, brown.
Solution of gold, muriate of tin, purple.
Perchloridc of mercury, hydrochlorate of tin, black.]
 :

DIVIXG-EELL. HI

DIVING-BELL.

The first divers learned their art by early and adventurous

experience, in trying to continue under water as long as pos-
sible without breathing ; and, indeed, it must be allowed that
some of them carried it to very great perfection. This art,
however, excites little surprise for, like running, throwing,
;

and other bodily dexterities, it requires only practice but it ;

is certain that those nations called by us uncultivated and sa-

vage excel in it the Europeans 1 , who, through refinement and

luxury, have become more delicate, and less fit for such la-
borious exercises.
In remote ages, divers were kept in ships to assist in raising
anchors 2, and goods thrown overboard in times of danger 3 and, ;,

by the laws of the Rhodians, they were allowed a share of the

wreck, proportioned to the depth to which they had gone in
search of it 4 . In war, they were often employed to destroy
the works and ships of the enemy. When Alexander was
besieging Tyre, divers swam off from the city, under water,
to a great distance, and with long hooks tore to pieces the
mole with which the besiegers were endeavouring to block
up the harbour 5 The pearls of the Greek and Roman ladies
.

were fished up by divers at the great hazard of their lives ;

1
Instances of the dexterity of the savages in diving and swimming may
be seen in J. Kraft, Sitten der Wilderi, Kopenhagen, 1766, 8vo, p. 39. To
which may be added the account given by Maffaeus of the Brasilians
" They are," says he, " wonderfully skilled in the art of diving, and can
remain sometimes for hours under water, with their eyes open, in order to
search for any thing at the bottom."
2 Lucanus, iii. 697.
— Hist. Indie, lib. ii.

3 Livius, xliv. c. 10. Manilii Astronom. v. 449.

4 A Latin translation of these laws may be found in Marquard de Jure
Mercatorum, p. 33S. " If gold or silver, or any other article be brought
up from the depth of eight cubits, the person who saves it shall receive one-
third. If from fifteen cubits, the person who saves it shall, on account of
the danger of the depth, receive one-half. If goods are cast up by the
waves towards the shore, and found sunk at the depth of one cubit, the
person who carries them out safe shall receive a tenth part." See also
Scheffer De Militia Navali, Upsaliae, 1654, 4to, p.'llO.
5
Q. Curtius, iv. c. 3. The same account u given by Arrian, De Expedit.
We
Alexandri, lib. ii. p. 138. are told by Thucydides, in his seventh book„
that the Syracusans did the same thing.
112 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and by the like means are procured at present those which

are purchased as ornaments by our fair.
I do not know whether observations have ever been col-
lected respecting the time that divers can continue under
water. Anatomists once believed that persons in whom the
oval opening of the heart (foramen ovale) was not closed up,
could live longer than others without breathing, and could
therefore be expert divers. Haller ', however, and others,
have controverted this opinion as people who had that open-
;

ing have been soon suffocated, and as animals which have it not
can live a long time under water besides, when that opening-
:

is perceptible in grown persons, it is so small as not to be suf-

ficient for that purpose, especially as the ductus arteriosus is
scarcely ever found open.
The divers of Astracan, employed in the fishery there, can
remain only seven minutes under water 2 The divers in Hol-
.

land seem to have been more expert. An observer, during

the time they were under water, was obliged to breathe at
least ten times 3 . Those who collect pearl-shells in the East
Indies can remain under water a quarter of an hour, though
some are of opinion that it is possible to continue longer;
and Mersenne mentions a diver, named John Barrinus, who
could dive under water for six hours 4 How far this may be
.

true I shall leave others to judge.

[The various statements regarding the length of time during
which divers can remain under water, unaided by apparatus
for renewing the supply of atmospheric air, are not borne out
by the experience of those who have carefully observed and
noted these phenomena. The average time which human
1
Boerhaave, Prselectiones Academical, edit. Halleri, Gottingae, 1774.
8vo, v. ii. p. 472-474. Halleri Elementa Physiologiaa, iii. p. 252, and viii.
2, p. 14.
2
" The divers of Astracan stepped from the warm bath into the water,
in which they could not continue above seven minutes, and were brought
back from the water, cold and benumbed, to the warm bath, from which
they were obliged to return to the water again. This change from heat to
cold they repeat five times a day, until at length the blood flows from their
—
nose and ears, and they are carried back quite senseless." Gmelin's Reise
dutch Itussland, ii. p. 199.
3 Acta Philosophica
Societatis in Anglia, auctore Oldenburgio. Lipsiac,
1675, 4to, p. 724.
4
Scheeps-houw beschreven door Nic. Witsen. Amsterdam, 1671, foL
p. 288.
 DIVING-BELL. H$
beings can remain in the water under these conditions, is one
and a half or two minutes extraoi'dinary cases are attested
'
;

where five and even six minutes have elapsed, but these are
exceedingly rare instances and far beyond the average no in- ;

stance of a longer time than this is recorded on credible

authority. Some interesting remarks on this point were made
not long since by a member of the Asiatic Society to Dr. Fa-
raday. The lungs in their natural state are charged with a
large quantity of impure air; this being a portion of the car-
bonic acid gas which is formed during respiration, but which,
after each expiration, remains lodged in the involved passages
of the pulmonary tubes. By breathing hard for a short time,
as a person does after violent exercise, this impure air is ex
pelled, and its place is supplied by pure atmospheric air, by
which a person will be enabled to hold his breath much longer
than without such precaution. Dr. Faraday states, that although
he could only hold his breath, after breathing in the ordinary
way, for about three-fourths of a minute, and that with great
difficulty, he felt no inconvenience, after making eight or ten
forced respirations to clear the lungs, until the mouth and
nostrils had been closed more than a minute and a half; and
that he continued to hold breath to the end of the second mi-
nute. A knowledge of this fact may enable a diver to remain
under water at least twice as long as he otherwise could do.
It is suggested that possibly the exertion of swimming may
have the effect of occasioning the lungs to be cleared, so that
persons accustomed to diving may unconsciously avail them-
selves of this preparatory measure.]
It is certain, however, that men began very early to con-
trive means for supplying divers with air under the water, and
of thereby enabling them to remain under it much longer.
For this purpose the diving-bell, campana urinatoria, was
invented. Those who had no idea of this machine, might
have easily been led to it by the following experiment. If a
drinking-glass inverted be immersed in water, in such a man-
ner that the surface of the water may rise equally around the
edge of the glass, it will be found that the glass does not be-
come filled with water, even when pressed down to the great-
est depth ; for where there is air no other body can enter, and

1
[See the account of the Ceylon pearl fishery in Percival's Ceylon J
VOL. I. I
114 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

by the above precaution the air cannot, be expelled by the

water. In like manner, if a bell of metal be constructed under
which the diver can stand on a stool suspended from it so that
the edge of the bell may reach to about his knee, the upper
part of his body will be secured from water, and he can, even
at the bottom of the sea, breathe the air enclosed in the bell.
The invention of this bell is generally assigned to the six-
teenth century, and I am of opinion that it was little known
before that period. Weread, however, that even in the time
of Aristotle divers used a kind of kettle to enable them to con-
tinue longer under water but the manner in which it was
;

employed is not clearly described.

The oldest information we have respecting the use of the
diving-bell in Europe is that of John Taisnier, quoted by
Schott . The former, who was born at Hainault in 1509, had
1

a place at court under Charles V., whom he attended on his

voyage to Africa. He relates in what manner he saw at To-
ledo, in the presence of the emperor and several thousand
spectators, two Greeks let themselves down under water, in a
large inverted kettle, with a burning light, and rise up again
without being wet. It appears that this art was then new to
the emperor and the Spaniards, and that the Greeks were

1 "
Were the ignorant vulgar told that one could descend to the bottom
of the Rhine, in the midst of the water, without wetting one's clothes, or
any part of one's body, and even carry a lighted candle to the bottom of
the water, they would consider it as altogether ridiculous and impossible.
This, however, I saw done at Toledo, in Spain, in the year 1538, before the
emperor Charles V. and almost ten thousand spectators. The experiment
was made by two Greeks, who taking a very large kettle, suspended from
ropes with the mouth downwards, fixed beams and planks in the middle of
its concavity, upon which they placed themselves, together with a candle.
The kettle was equipoised by means of lead fixed round its mouth, so that
when let down towards the water no part of its circumference should touch
the water sooner than another, else the water might easily have overcome the
air included in it, and have converted it into moist vapour. If a vessel thus
prepared be let down gently, and with due care, to the water, the included
air with great force makes way for itself through the resisting fluid. Thus
the men enclosed in it remain dry, in the midst of the water, for a little
while, until, in the course of time, the included air becomes weakened by
repeated aspiration, and is at length resolved into gross vapours, being con-
sumed by the greater moisture of the water but if the vessel be gently
:

—
drawn up, the men continue dry, and the candle is found burning." Tais-
neri Opuscula decelerrimo motu, quoted by Schott in his Technica Curiosa,
lib. vi. c. 9, p. 393.
 DIVING-BELL, 115

induced to make the experiment

in order to prove the possibi-
lity of it. period the use of the diving-bell seems
After this
to have become still better known. It is described more than
once in the works of Lord Bacon, who explains its effects, and
remarks that it was invented to facilitate labour under the
water'.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century the diving-bell
was sometimes employed in great undertakings. When the
English, in the year 1588, dispersed the Spanish fleet called
the Invincible Armada, part of the ships went to the bottom
near the Isle of Mull, on the western coast of Scotland and ;

some of these, according to the account of the Spanish pri-

soners, contained great riches. This information excited, from
time to time, the avarice of speculators, and gave rise to seve-
ral attempts to procure part of the lost treasure. In the year
1665, a person was so fortunate as to bring up some cannon,
which, however, were not sufficient to defray the expenses.
Of these attempts, and the kind of diving-bell used, an ac-
count has been given by a Scotsman named Sinclair 2 but ;

Paschius 3 Leupold 4 and others falsely ascribe the invention

,

of this machine to that learned man. He himself does not

lay claim to this honour; but says only, that he conversed
with the artist and measured the machine.
Some years after attempts of the like kind were renewed.
William Phipps, the son of a blacksmith, born in America in.
1650, and who had been brought up as a ship-carpenter at
Boston, formed a project for searching and unloading a rich
Spanish ship sunk on the coast of Hispaniola, and represented

1 "
Excellent use may be made of this vessel, which is employed some-
times in labouring under water on sunk ships, to enable the divers to con-
tinue longer under water, and to breathe, in turns, for a little while. It was
constructed in this manner. A hollow vessel was made of metal, which was
let down equally to the surface of the water, and thus carried with it to
the bottom of the sea the whole air it contained. It stood upon three fept,
like a tripod, which were in length somewhat less than the height of a
man so that the diver, when he was no longer able to contain his breath,
;

could put his head into the vessel, and, having breathed, return again to
his work." —
Novum Organum, lib. ii. § 50. Bacon relates the same thing
in his Phaenomena Universi.
- G. Sinclari Ars nova et magna gravitatis et levitatis. Rot. 1669, 4to,
p. 220.
3
Paschii Invents nov-antiqua. Lipsiae, 1700, 4to, p. 650.
4
Theatri Static! universalis pars tertia. Lipsise, 1 726, fol. p. 242.
i2
116 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

his plan insuch a plausible manner, that king Charles II. gave
him a and furnished him with every thing necessary for
ship,
the undertaking. He set sail in the year 1683; but, being
unsuccessful, l'eturned again in great poverty,* though with a
firm conviction of the possibility of his scheme. He endea-
voured, therefore, to procure another vessel from James II.,
who was then on the throne ; but as he failed in this, he tried
to find the means of executing his design by the support or
private persons, and, according to the prevailing practice,
opened for that purpose a subscription. At first he was
laughed at; but at length the duke of Albemarle, son of
the celebrated General Monk, took part in it, and advanced a
considerable sum to enable him to make the necessary prepa-
rations for a new voyage. Phipps soon collected the re-
mainder; and in .1687 set sail in a ship of two hundred tons
burthen to try his fortune once more, having previously en-
gaged to divide the profit according to the twenty shares of
which the subscription consisted. At first, all his labour
proved fruitless but at last, when his patience was almost en-
;

tirely exhausted, he was so lucky as to bring up, from the depth

of six or seven fathoms, so much treasure, that he returned to
England with the value of two hundred thousand pounds
sterling. Of this sum he himself got about sixteen, others
say twenty thousand, and the duke ninety thousand pounds.
After he came back, some persons endeavoured to persuade
the king to seize both the ship and the cargo, under a pre-
tence that Phipps, when he solicited for his Majesty's permis-
sion, had not given accurate information respecting the busi-
ness. But the king answered, with much greatness of mind,
that he knew Phipps to be an honest man, and that he and
his friends should share the whole among them, had he re-
turned with double the value. His Majesty even conferred
upon him the honour of knighthood, to show how much he
was satisfied with his conduct. This Phipps was afterwards
high sheriff of New England, and died at London, greatly re-
spected, in 1693. This affair was attended with such good
consequences to the duke of Albemarle, that he obtained
from the king the governorship of Jamaica, in order to try
his fortune with other ships sunk in that neighbourhood.
But whether it was that the gold had been already taken
from the one before mentioned, or that, when the vessel
 —

DIVING-BELL. 117

went to pieces, the sea had dispersed the cargo, it is certain

that nothing further was found worth the labour of searching
for 1 .
In England, however, several companies were formed, and
obtained exclusive privileges of fishing up goods on certain
coasts, by means of divers. The most considerable of these
was that which, in 1688, tried its success at the Isle of Mull,
and at the head of which was the earl of Argyle. The divers
went down to the depth of sixty feet under water, remained
there sometimes a whole hour, and brought up gold chains,
money, and other articles, which, however, when collected,
were of very little importance 2 Without giving more ex-
.

amples of the use of the diving-bell, I shall now mention some

of those who, in later times, have endeavoured to improve it.
That this machine was very little known in the first half of
the sixteenth century, I conclude from the following circum-
stance. To the oldest edition of Vegetius on the art of war,
there are added, by the editor, some figures, of which no ex-
planation is given in the book. Among these is represented
a method of catching fish with the hands, at the bottom of
the sea. The apparatus for this purpose consists of a cap,
which is fitted so closely to the head of the diver that no
water can make its way between and from the cap there
;

ascends a long leather pipe, the opening of which floats on

the surface of the water. Had the person who drew these
figures been acquainted with the diving-bell, he would cer-
tainly have delineated it rather than this useless apparatus 3 .
Of the old figures of a divirjg machine, that which approaches
nearest to the diving-bell is in a book on fortification, by Lo-
rini who describes a square box bound round with iron,
;

which is furnished with windows, and has a stool affixed to it

1
is taken from the History of the British Empire in Ame-
This account
rica, by J. Wynne.
London, 1770, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 131, and from Camp-
bell's Lives ofthe Admirals.
2
Martin's Description of the Western Islands. The second edition.
—
London, 1716, 8vo, p. 253. Campbell's Political Survey of Britain. Lon-
don, 1774, 2 vols. 4to, p. 604.
3 These
figures are to be found in the following editions of Vegetius :

Lutetiae apud C. Wechelum, 1532, fol. p. 180. Fegetius, vier Biicher von
der Rytterschafft. Erfurt, Hans. Knappen, 1511, fol. These figures are
inserted also in Leupold's Theatrum Pontificale, p. 11, tab. ii. fig. 6.
 ;

118 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

for the diver. This more ingenious contrivance appears, how-

ever, to be older than that Italian at least he does not pre-
;

tend to be the inventor of it 1 .

In the year 1617, Francis Kessler gave a description of his
water-armour 2 intended also for diving, but which cannot
,

really be used for that purpose 5 . In the year 1671, Witsen

taught, in a better manner than any of his predecessors, the
construction and use of the diving-bell 4 but he is much mis-
; ,

taken when he says that it was invented at Amsterdam. In

1679 appeared, for the first time, Borelli's well-known work
De Motu Animalium 5
, in which he not only described the
diving-bell, but also proposed another, the impracticability of
which was shown by James Bernoulli 6 When Sturm pub-
.

lished his Collegium Curiosum, in 1678, he proposed some

hints for the improvement of this machine, on which remarks
were made in the Journal des Scavaus (Jan. 1678). None,
however, have carried their researches further for this purpose
than Dr. Halley, and Triewald a Swede.
The bell which Edmund Halley, secretary to the Royal
Society, caused to be made, was three feet broad at the top,
five feet at the bottom, and eight feet in height forming a ;

cavity of sixty-three cubic feet. It was covered with lead

and was so heavy that it sunk to the bottom, even when en-
tirely empty. Around the lower edge, weights were disposed
in such a manner that it should always sink in a perpendicular
direction, and never remain in an oblique position. In the
top was fixed a piece of strong glass to admit the light from
above, and likewise a valve to give a passage to the air cor-
rupted by the breath. Around the whole circumference of
the bottom was placed a seat, on which the divers sat and a ;

stool, fixed to ropes, hung below, on which they could stand

in order to work. The whole machine was suspended from a
cross beam fastened to the mast of a ship, so that it could be
easily lowered down into the water and again drawn up. That
the bell might be supplied with fresh air under the water,

1
Le Fortificationi di Bounaiuto Lorini. Venet. 1609, fol. p. 232.
2 Fran. Kessleri Secreta. Oppenheim, 1617, 8vo.
3 Bartliolini Acta Hafn. 1G76, p. i. obs. 17. 4
Scheeps-bouw, ut supra.
6
See vol. i. p. 222, edit. Hag. Com. 17*13.
6
Acta Erudiloruin, 1683, Decemb. p. 553. Jac. Bernoulli Opera,
 ;

DIVING-BELL. 119

large vessels filled with air, and which had an opening below
through which the water compressed the included air, were
let down by ropes. In the top of these vessels were leather
pipes, besmeared with oil, through which the diver introduced
air from the vessels into the bell ; and as soon as a vessel was
emptied, it was drawn up, on a signal made by the diver, and
another let down. The foul air in the bell, being the warmest
and lightest, rose to the top of the machine, where it was suf-
fered to escape through the valve before mentioned. By
these means the bell could be continually supplied with fresh
air in such abundance, that Halley, and four other persons,
remained under water, at the depth of ten fathoms, an hour
and a half, without suffering the least injury, and could, with
equal security, have continued longer, or even as long as they
might have wished. This precaution, however, is necessary,
that the bell be let down at first very slowly, that the divers
may be gradually accustomed to inspire the compressed air
and at every twelve fathoms the bell must be held fast, in
order to expel the water which has rushed in, by letting fresh
air into it. By such apparatus, Halley was enabled to make
the bottom of the sea, within the circumference of the bell, so
dry that the sand or mud did not rise above his shoe.
Through the window, in the top, so much light was admitted,
that when the sea was still and the waves did not roll, he
could see perfectly well to read and write under the water.
When the empty air-vessels were drawn up, he sent up with
them his orders, written with an iron spike on a plate of lead,
and could thus let those above know when he wished to be
removed with the bell to another place. In bad weather, and
when the sea was rough, it was as dark under the bell as at
night he then kindled a light ; but a burning candle con-
;

sumed as much air as a man. The only inconvenience ot

which Halley complained was, that, in going down, he felt a
pain in his ears, as if a sharp quill had been thrust into them.
This pain returned every time the bell was let down to a
greater depth, but soon went off again. A diver thought to
prevent this pain by putting chewed paper into both his ears;
but the bits of paper were forced in so far by the air> that a
surgeon found great difficulty to extract them.
Another improvement of the diving-bell was effected by the
well-known Triewald, a Swede, in 1732. His bell, which was
120 HISTORY OF IMVENTIOHS AND DISCOVERIES.

siiuelismaller and more commodious, was made of copper,

tinned in the inside. On the top there were panes of glass.,
which, for the greater security, were fixed in a frame of the
same metal. The stool below was placed in such a manner,
that the head only of the diver, when he stood upon it, rose
above the surface of the water in the bell. This situation is
much better than when the whole body is raised above the
water in the bell, because near the surface of the water the
air is much cooler and fitter to breathe in than at the top ot
the machine. That the diver also might remain conveniently
m the upper part of the bell, Triewald arranged his apparatus
so that when the diver had breathed as long as possible in the
srpper air, he found at the side of the bell a spiral pipe, through
which he could draw in the lower cool air which was over the
surface of the water. To the upper end of this copper pipe
was affixed a pliable leather one, with an ivory mouth-piece,
which the diver put into his mouth, and could thus inspire
fresh air, in whatever position his body might be . 1

fin 1776, Mr. Spalding of Edinburgh made some improve-

ments in Dr. Halley's diving-bell, for which he was rewarded
by the Society of Arts. His diving-bell was made of wood,
and was so light, that, with the divers and the weights attached
to its rim, it would not sink the weight necessary to counter-
;

act its buoyancy being added in the form of a large balance-

weight, suspended from its centre by a rope, which was so
mounted on pulleys that the divers could either draw the
balance-weight up to the mouth of the bell or allow it to fall
a considerable depth below it. Thus by letting the weight
down to the bottom, the divers could, as it were, anchor the
bell at any required level, or prevent its further descent if
they perceived a roek or part of a wreck beneath it, which
might otherwise overturn it. Also, by hauling in the rope
while the weight was at the bottom, the persons in the bell
might lower themselves at pleasure. Another improvement
consisted in the addition of a horizontal partition near the top
of the bell, which divided off a chamber, that might, by suit-
able openings and valves, be filled either with water or with
air from the lower part of the bell, so as to alter the specific

1
Phil. Trans. 1 736.— Martin Tricwald's Konst at lefwa under watnet.
Stockholm, 1741, 4 to.
 DIVING-BELL. 121

gravity of the whole machine, and thereby cause it to ascend

or descend at pleasure. The bell was supplied with air by an
apparatus resembling that of Dr. Halley, and ropes stretched
across the bell were used instead of seats and platforms for
standing on. Thus the persons in the diving-bell were en-
abled, in case of accident, to raise themselves to the surface
without any assistance from above, and it was rendered so
perfectly manageable, that it might be removed to a con-
siderable distance from the point at which it descended its ;

outward motion and its return to the vessel for the purpose of
being hauled up, being assisted by a long boat, which carried
the signal lines and the tackle for working the air-barrels.
Mr. John Farey, junior, made an improvement in Spalding's
apparatus . 1
The upper chamber of the diving-bell is very
strong and air-tight, without any openings for the admission
of water. Two pumps are fixed in the partition, by which air
may be forced into the upper chamber, whenever, during a
pause in the descent, the lower chamber or the cavity of the
bell is replenished with air. By this means, the upper chamber
is made a reservoir of condensed air, from which the bell may

be replenished with air, when it is desired to increase its

buoyancy, by forcing out the water from the lower part.
Hence also, the buoyancy of the bell may be at any time dimi-
nished, by pumping some of the air from it into the upper
chamber, whereby the water will be allowed to enter to a
greater height and as this is effected without wasting the air,
;

there is no danger of diminishing the buoyancy of the machine

to a degree which would prevent it from rising, in case the
suspending rope or chain should break.
Smeaton first employed the diving-bell in civil engineering
operations in repairing the foundations of Hexham bridge in
1779. The bell was made of wood, and was supplied with
air by means of a forcing-pump, which was fixed to the top,
and threw in a gallon of air at a time the river being shallow,
;

the top of the bell was not covered with water 2 In 1788 he
.

used a cast-iron one in repairing Ramsgate harbour a forcing- ;

pump in a boat supplied air through a flexible tube. Since

that time it has been frequently used by Rennie and others in

1
Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Art. Diving-bell.
2
Reports of the late John Smeaton, F.R.S., vol. iii. p. 279.
122 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

submarine operations, recovering property from wrecks, blast-

ing, &c. Mr. Rennie has moreover constructed apparatus for
moving the bell in any direction.
In addition to the various forms of diving-bell, different
water- and air-tight dresses have been invented to enable
divers to remain in the water and perform various operations.
Thus, Dr. Halley invented a leaden cap which covered the
diver's head it had glass before it, and contained as much air
;

as was sufficient for two minutes, and had affixed to it a thick

pliable pipe, with the other end fastened to the bell, and which,
at the cap, was furnished with a valve to convey fresh air to
the diver from the bell. This pipe, which the diver was
obliged to wind round his arm, served him also as a guide to
find his way back to the bell 1
.

Mr. Martin states that a gentleman at Newton-Bushel, in

Devonshire, invented an apparatus consisting of a large case
of strong leather, holding about half a hogshead of air, made
perfectly water-tight, and adapted to the legs and arms, with
a glass in the anterior part, so that when the case was put on,
he could walk about very easily at the bottom of the sea, and
go into the cabin and other parts of a ship in a wreck, and
deliver out the goods and that he practised this method for
;

forty years, and thereby acquired a large fortune and equal

fame-.
M. Klingert also invented a similar kind of apparatus, and
described it in a pamphlet published at Breslau in 1798. The
armour was made of tin-plate, in the form of a cylinder, with
a round end to enclose the head and body also, a leather;

jacket with short sleeves, and a pair of water-tight drawers

of the same, buttoned on the metal part, where they joined,
and were made tight by brass hoops. Two distinct flexible
pipes terminated in the helmet, and rose to the surface of the
water one was for inhaling, and terminated in an ivory mouth-
;

piece, the other was for the escape of foul air. The body
was kept down by weights.
Another method of supplying air to the apparatus was used
by Mr. Tonkin in 1804. This consisted in the application of
a bellows or pump, until the elastic force of the air was equal

1
Phil. Trans. 1717 and 1 721. The art of living under water, by Halley.
2 Martin's Philosonhia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 180.
 COLOURED GLASS. 123

to the pressure of the water, the foul air being allowed to

escape into the water through a valve, or conducted to the
surface by a pipe .] 1

COLOURED GLASS.— ARTIFICIAL GEMS.

It is probable that, there was no great interval between the

discovery of the art of making glass, and that of giving it dif-

ferent colours. When the substance of which it is formed
contains, by accident, any metallic particles, the glass assumes
some tint and this happens oftener than is wished nay, a
; ;

considerable degree of foresight is necessary to produce glass

perfectly colourless ; and I am of opinion that this skill has
not been attained till a late period in the progress of the art.
Even in Pliny's time the highest value was set upon glass en-
tirely free from colour, and transparent, or, as it was called,
crystal-. From
the different colours which glass acquired of
itself, it was easy to conceive the idea of giving it the tinge ot
some precious stone and this art, in ancient times, was car-
:

ried to a very great extent. Proofs of this may be found in

Pliny, who, besides others, mentions artificial hyacinths,
sapphires, and that black glass which approached very near to
the obsidian stone, and which in more than one place he calls
gemma vitrece 3 Trebellius Pollio relates in how whimsical a
.

manner Gallienus punished a cheat who had sold to his wife

1
For farther information on this important subject the reader is referred
to the article Diving-bell in theEncycloprcdia B'ritannica and its Supplement,
also the Encyclopaedia Metropolitan a, Brewster's Edinburgh and the Penny
Cyclopaedia, Halley's papers in the Phil. Trans, for 1716 and 1721, Trei-
wald's in the same for 1736, Healyin the Philosophical Magazine, vol. xv.,
and Leopold's Theatrum Machinarum Hydraulicarum.
- Lib. xxxvi. c. 26.
3 Lib. xxxv. c. 26. and lib. xxxvii. c. 9. The lapis obsidianus, which
Obsidius first found in Ethiopia, and made known, is undoubtedly the
same as that vulcanic glass which is sometimes called Icelandic agate,
pumex vitreus, and by the Spaniards, Mho brought it from America and
California, named yaUnaee.
124- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES."

a piece of glass for a jewel and Tertullian ridicules the folly

1
:

of paying as dear for coloured glass as for real pearls. The

glass-houses at Alexandria were celebrated among the an-
cients for the skill and ingenuity of the workmen employed in
them. From these, the Romans, who did not acquire a know-
ledge of that art till a late period, procured for a long time all
their glass ware. The learned author of Recherches sur les
Egyptiens et les Chinois, in the end of his first volume, relates
more of these glass-houses than T know where to find in the
works of the ancients but it is certain that coloured glass
;

was made even in those early ages. The emperor Adrian re-
ceived as a present from an Egyptian priest, several glass cups
which sparkled with colours of every kind, and which, as costly
wares, he ordered to be used only on grand festivals-. Strabo
tells us, that a glass-maker in Alexandria informed him that
an earth was found in Egypt, without which the valuable
coloured glass could not be made 3 .

Seneca, in his ninetieth epistle, in which he judges too phi-

losophically, that is, with too little knowledge of the world,
in regard to the value of labour, mentions one Democritus
who had discovered the art of making artificial emeralds 4 but ;

in my opinion this discovery consisted in giving a green

colour by cementation to the natural rock crystal : and this
art I imagine was treated of in that book, the name of which
Pliny, through an over-anxious care lest the deception should
become common, does not mention b . For colouring crystal
and glass, so as to resemble stones, Porta 6 Neri 7 , and others
,

have, in modern times, given directions which are, however,

not much used, because the crystal is thereby liable to acquire

1
Historiae Augustas Scriptores, iu vita Gallieni, cap. 12.
2
lb. in Vopisc. vita Saturnini, c. 8.
3
Strabo, Amst. 1707, fol. lib. xvi. p. 1099.— Some consider the glass
earth here mentioned as a mineral alkali that was really found iu Egypt,
and which served to make glass but, as the author speaks expressly of
;

coloured glass, I do not think that the above salt, without which no glass
was then made, is what is meant but rather a metallic oxide, such per-
;

haps as ochre or manganese.

1
Sen. Op. Lipsii, p. 579.
5
Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvii. c. 12. A passage iu Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii.
c. 52, alludes, in my opinion, to this method of colouring by cementation.
6
Magia Naturalis. Franc. 1591, 8vo, p. 275.
:
Kunkel's Ars Vitraria. Nur. 1743, 4to, pp. 98, 101.
 ;

COLOURED GLASS. 125

so many flaws that it cannot be easily cut afterwards, though,

as Neri assures us, these by attention may sometimes be
avoided.
It is worthy of remark, that in some collections of antiqui-
ties at Rome, there are pieces of coloured glass which were
once used as jewels. In the Museum Victorium, for example,
there are shown a chrysolite and an emerald, both of which
are so well executed, that they are not only perfectly trans-
parent and coloured throughout, but neither externally nor
internally have the smallest blemish, which certainly could
not be guarded against without great care and skill.
What materials the ancients used for colouring glass, has
not been told to us by any of their writers. It is, however,
certain that metallic oxides only can be employed for that
purpose, because these pigments withstand the heat of the
glass furnaces .and it is highly probable that ferruginous
;

earth, if not the sole, was at least the principal substance, by

which not only all shades of red, violet, and yellow, but even
a blue colour, could be communicated, as Professor Gmelin
has shown 1
Respecting the reel, of which only I mean here
.

to speak, there is the less doubt, as, at present, sometimes an

artificial, and sometimes a natural, iron ochre is often em-
ployed for that purpose. For common works this is sufficient
but when pure clear glass, coloured strongly throughout with
a beautiful lively red,w free from flaws, and in somewhat large
pieces, is required, iron is not fit, because its colour, by the
continued heat necessary for making glass, either disappears
or becomes dirty and almost blackish 2 .

In the last century, some artists in Germany first fell upon

the method of employing gold instead of iron, and of thereby
making artificial rubies, which when they were well set could
deceive the eye of a connoisseur, unless he tried them with a
diamond or a file. The usual method was to dissolve the gold
in aqua regia, and to precipitate it by a solution of tin, when
it assumed the form of a purple-coloured powder. This sub-
stance, which must be mixed with the best frit, is called the
precipitate of Cassius, gold-purple, or mineral-purple 3 .

1
Comment. Soc. Sclent. Gotting. ii. p. 41.
2
Montamy von den Farben zuni Porzellan- und Email-malen. Leipsic,
1767, 8vo, p. 82. Fontanieu, p. 16.
3 [The extensive use of this substance in colouring glass and porcelain
126 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

This Cassius, from whom it takes its name, was called

Andrew, and because both the father and the son had the same
christian name, they have been often confounded with each
other. The father was secretary to the duke of Schleswig,
and is not known as a man of letters but the son is celebrated
;

as the inventor or preparer of the gold-purple,and of a bezoar-

essence. He
took the degree of doctor at Leyden, in 1632,
practised physic at Hamburg, and was appointed physician
in ordinary to the bishop of Lubec. As far as 1 know, he
never published anything respecting his art; but this service
was rendered to the public by his son, who was born at Ham-
burg, and resided as a physician at Lubec. He was the
author of a well-known treatise, now exceedingly scarce, en-
titled Thoughts concerning that last and most perfect work
of nature, and chief of metals, gold, its wonderful properties,

has rendered its best and most (Economical preparation" a subject of interest
both to the chemist and the manufacturer. Although the determination
of its true chemical composition has presented obstacles almost insupe-
rable, still many important points with regard to its manufacture have been
elucidated. It has been found that the tin salt used in precipitating it
must contain both the binoxide and protoxide of tin in certain proportions,
and it has been also discovered that the degree of dilution both of the gold
and tin solutions exerts a very perceptible influence on the beauty of the
preparation. Capaun has examined this latter point with great attention,
by testing all the different products as to their power of colouring glass.
The first point to be attained is the preparation of a solution of sesqui-
oxide of tin and for this purpose Bolley proposes to employ the double
;

compound of bichloride of tin with sal-ammoniac (pink salt). This salt is

not altered by exposuic to the atmosphere, and contains a fixed and known
quantity of bichloride of tin, and when boiled with metallic tin it takes up
so much as will form the protochloride as the exact quantity of the bi-
;

chloi ide is known, it is very easy to use exactly such a quantity of tin as
will serve to form the sesquichloride. 100 parts of the pink salt require
for this purpose i0'7 parts of metallic tin.
Capaun recommends dissolving 1*34 gr. of gold in aqua regia, an excess
being carefully avoided, and diluting the solution with 480 grs. of water.
lOgis. of pink salt are mixed with 1"07 gr. of tin tilings and 40 grs. of
water, and the whole boiled till the tin is dissolved. 140 grs. of water are
then added to this, and the solution gradually mixed with the gold liquor,
slightly warmed, until no more precipitation ensues. The precipitate washed
and dried weighs 4 !)2 grs. and is of a dark brown colour.
-

M. Figuier states, as the results of his investigations, that the purple of

Cassius is a perfectly definite combination of protoxide of gold and of stannic
acid, or peroxide of tin, the proof of which is, that it is instantly produced
when protoxide of gold and peroxide of tin are placed in contact.]
 COLOURED GLASS. 127

generation, affections, effects, and fitness for the operations of

art; illustrated by experiments 1 .
From this work it will be easily understood why the author
does not give himself out as the inventor of the gold-purple 2 ,
which he. is commonly supposed to be, at which Lewis is much
astonished. seen also by it that Leibnitz calls him im-
It is

properly a physician at Hamburg, having probably con-

founded the father and son together 3 . Upon the whole, it is
not proved that any of the Cassius's was the inventor of the
above precipitate, else it would certainly not have been omit-
ted 4 in this treatise ; and mention of gold-purple is to be found
in the works of several old chemists 3 .
Something of this kind has, doubtless, been meant by the
old chemists, when they talk of red lions, the purple soul of
gold, and the golden mantle ; but what they wished to conceal
under these metaphors, I am not able to conjecture. In the
year 1606, when Libavius published his Alchemy, the art of
making ruby-glass must have been unknown. He indeed
quotes an old receipt for making rubies ; and conjectures, that
because the real stones of the same name are found in the
neighbourhood of gold mines, they may have acquired their
colour from that metal and that by means of art, glass might
;

be coloured by a solution of gold 6 . The later chemists, how-

ever, and particularly Achard, found no traces of gold, but of
iron, in that precious stone 7 .
Neri, who lived almost at the same time as Libavius 8 was ,

better acquainted with the gold-purple, though his receipt is

1
The original runs thus
title : —
De extrerno illo et perfectissimo naturae
opificio ac principeterrenorum sidere, auro, et adrniranda ejus natura, ge-
neratione, affectionibus, effectis, atque ad operationes artis habit udine,
cogitata; experirnentis illustrata. Ramburgi, 1685, ivo.
2 Job. Molleri Cimbria Literata. Havniae, 1774, fol. i. p. 88.
3
Miscellanea Berolinensia, i. p. 94.
4
The author shows only, in a brief manner, in how many ways this pre-
cipitate can be used ; but he makes no mention of employing it in colouring
glass.
* I cannot, however, affirm that the vasa murrhina of the ancients were

a kind of porcelain coloured with this salt of gold. This is only a mere
conjecture.
6
Alchymia Andr. Libavii. Franc. 1606, fol. ii. tract, i. c. 34.
7 See Gotting. Gel. Anzeigen, 1778, p. 177.
8 It
is well known that Neri's works are translated into Kunkel's Ars
Vitraria, the edition of which, published at Nuremberg in 1743, 1 have in
128 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

very defective. According to his directions, the gold solution

must be evaporated, and the residue suffered to remain over
the fire until it becomes of a purple colour. One may readily
believe that this colour will be produced but glass will ;

scarcely be coloured equally through by this powder, and

perhaps some of the gold particles will show themselves in it.
Kunkel affirms, and not without reason, that something more
is necessary to make rubies by means of gold but he has not ;

thought proper to tell us what it is 1

.

Glauber, who wrote his Philosophical Furnace 2 aboutthe mid-

dle of the seventeenth century, appears to have made several ex-
periments with the gold-purple. He dissolved the metal in
aqua regia precipitated it by liquor of flint, and melted into
;

glass the precipitate, which contained in it abundance of

vitreous earth 3 .

None, however, in the seventeenth century, understood better

the use and preparation of gold-purple than John Kunkel, who,
after being ennobled by Charles XL, king of Sweden, assumed
the name of Ldwenstiern. He himself tells us, that he made
artificial rubies in great abundance, and sold them by weight,
at a high price. He says, he made for the elector of Cologne
a cup of ruby glass, weighing not less than twenty-four pounds,
which was a full inch in thickness, and of an equally beautiful
colour throughout. He employed himself most on this art
after he engaged in the service of Frederic William, elector
of Brandenburg, in the year 1679. At that time he was in-
spector of the glass-houses at Potsdam and, in order that the
;

art of making ruby-glass might be brought to perfection, the

elector expended 1600 ducats. A
cup with a cover, of this
niarufacture, is still preserved at Berlin. Kunkel, however,
has nowhere given a full account, of this art. He has only

my possession. The time Neri lived is not mentioned in the Diction ary of
Learned Men but it appears, from the above edition of Kunkel, that he
;

was at Florence in 1601, and at Antwerp in 1609. The oldest Italian

edition of his works I have ever seen is L'arte vetraria —
del R. R. Antonio
Neri, Fiorentino. In Venetia, 1663. The first edition, however, must be
older. [It is Florence, Ciunti, 1612.— Ed.]
1
Neri, b. vii. c. 129, pp. 157 and 174.
2 Anist. 1651, vol. iv.
p. 78. Lewis says that Furnus Philosophicus was
printed as early as 1618.
3 Glauber first made known liquor of fiini, and recommended it fof
eevcrai uses. See Ettmulleri Opera, Gen. 1730, 4 vol. fol. ii. p. 170.
 COLOURED GLASS. 129

left in his works a few scattered remarks, which Lewis has

collected 1
.

In the year 1684?, earlier than Cassius, John Christian

Orschal wrote his well-known work, Sol sine veste 2 in which ,

he treats, more intelligibly than any one before him, of the

manner of making ruby-glass. He, however, confesses that
Cassius first taught him to precipitate gold by means of tin ;
that Cassius traded in glass coloured with this precipitate, and
that a good deal of coloured glass was then made at Freysin-
gen, but that the art was kept very secret. As Orschal
deserves that his fate should be better known, I shall here
mention the following few particulars respecting him. About
the year 1682 he was at Dresden, in the service of John
Henry Rudolf, from whom he learnt many chemical processes,
and particularly amalgamation, by which he gained money af-
terwards in Bohemia. After this he was employed at the mines
in Hesse but he brought great trouble upon himself by
;

polygamy and other irregularities, and died in a monastery in

Poland.
Christopher Grummet, who was Kunkel's assistant, wrote,
in opposition to Orschal, his known treatise, Sol non sine
veste, which was printed at Rothenburg, in 1685 3 In like .

manner, an anonymous author printed against Orschal, at

Cologne, in 1684-, another work, in duodecimo, entitled
Applies post tabulam observans maculas in Sole sine veste.
The dispute, however, was not so much concerning the use of
gold-purple, as the cause of the red colour, and the vitrifica-
tion of gold.
It is worthy of remark, that Kunkel affirms he could give
to glass a perfect ruby-red colour without gold which Orschal ;

and most chemists have however doubted. It is nevertheless

said, that Kriiger, who was inspector of the glass-houses at
Potsdam, under Frederic William king of Prussia, discovered
earlier the art of making ruby-glass without gold, and that a

1
Lewis, Zusammenhang der Kunste. Ziir. 1764, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 279.
2 The first edition was printed at Augsburg, in duodecimo, and the same
year at Amsterdam. It has been often printed since, as in 1739, in 3 vols.
4to, without name or place.
3 A French translation
of Orschal and Grummet is added to 1'A.rt de la
Yerrerie de Xeri, Merret et Kunkel. Paris, 1752, 4to. The editor is the
Baron de Holbach.
VOL. I. K
130 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

cup and cover of cut glass made in this manner is still pre-
served at Berlin.
Painting on glass and in enamel, and the preparation of
coloured materials for mosaic work, may, in certain respects,
be considered as branches of the art of colouring glass ; and
in all these a beautiful red is the most difficult, the dearest,
and the scarcest. When the old master-pieces of painting on
glass are examined, it is found either that the panes have on.
one side a transparent red varnish burnt into them, or that
the pieces which are stained through and through, are thinner
than those coloured in the other manner 1 It is therefore
.

extremely probable that the old artists, as they did not know
how to give to thick pieces a beautiful transparent red colour^
employed only iron, or manganese, which pigment, as already
observed, easily becomes in a strong heat blackish and muddy 2 .
Enamel-painters, however, were for a long time obliged to be
contented with it. A red colour in mosaic work is attended
with less difficulty, because no transparency, nay rather opacity,
is required. At Rome those pieces are valued most which
have the beautiful shining red colour of the finest sealing-wax.
We are told by Ferber that such pieces were at one time
made only by a man named Mathioli, and out of a kind of
copper dross ; at present (1792), there are several artists in
that city who prepare these materials, but they are not able
to give them a perfect high colour 3 .
[Of late years the interesting art of painting on glass has
attracted considerable attention lovers of the fine arts, anti-
;

quaries, and chemists, have contributed to its perfection, and

have sought to ascertain by what methods their predecessors
were able to give those beautiful and brilliant tints to their
productions, many of which have been so wantonly destroyed

See Peter le Vieil's Kunst auf Glas zu malen, Nuremberg 1779, 4to,
1

ii. p. 25.This singular performance must, in regard to history, particu-

larly that of the ancients, he read with precaution. Seldom has the author
perused the works which he quotes sometimes one cannot find in them
;

what he assures us he found, and very often he misrepresents their words.

2 In what the art of Abraham Helmback, a Nuremberg artist, consisted,

I do not know. Doppclmaycr, in his Account of the Mathematicians and

Artists of Nuremberg, printed in 1730, says that he fortunately revived, in
1717, according to experiments made in a glass-house, the old red glass ;
the proper method of preparing which had been long lost.
3 Ferber's Briefe aus Welschland. Prague, 1773, 8vo, p. 114.
 "

GLASS-PAINTING. 131

by the barbarity of thelast century . One of the most inge-

1

nious essays that has been written on the subject, is that

published by an anonymouscorrespondent in the Philosophical
Magazine for December J 836, which we subjoin in elucidation
of our present knowledge on the subject.

On the Art of Glass-Painting. By a Correspondent.

It is a singular fact, that the art of glass-painting, practised
with such success during the former ages from one end of
Europe to the other, should gradually have fallen into such
disuse, that in the beginning of the last century it came to be
generally considered as a lost art. In the course of the
eighteenth century, however, the art again began to attract
attention, and many attempts were made to revive it. It was
soon found by modern artists, that by employing the processes
always in use among enamel-painters, the works of the old
painters on glass might in most respects be successfully Imi-
tated but they Were totally unable to produce any imitation
;

whatever of that glowing red which sheds such incomparable

brilliancy over the ancient windows that still adorn so many
of our churches 2 For this splendid colour they possessed no.
.

substitute, until a property, peculiar to silver alone among all.

the metals, was discovered, which will presently be described.,

1
The devastations to which the productions of this beautiful art havebeen
subjected are deeply to be regretted. It appears from the interesting
Account of Durham Cathedral, published by the Rev. James Raine,
that there was much fine stained glass in the fifteen windows of the Nine
Altars which
" shed their many-colour'd light
Through the rich robes of eremites and saints ;

until the year 1795, when "their

richly painted glass and mullions were
swept away, and the present plain windows inserted in their place. ' The
glass lay for a long time afterwards in baskets on the floor and when the
;

greater part of it had been purloined the remainder was locked up in the ?

Galilee." And in 1802 a beautiful ancient structure, the Great Vestry *

" was, for no apparent reason, demolished, and tlie richly painted glass
which decorated its windows was either destroyed by the workmen or
afterwards purloined." The exquisite Galilee itself had been condemned,
but was saved by a happy chance.
2
In 1774 the French Academy published Le Vieil's treatise on Glass-
painting. He possessed no colour approaching to red, except the brick •

red or rather rust-coloured enamel subsequently mentioned in the text, de-

rived from iron.
132 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

The art of enamelling on glass differs little from the well-known

art of enamelling on other substances. The colouring materials
(which are exclusively metallic) are prepared by being ground
up with SlJIux, that is, a very fusible glass, composed of silex,
flint-glass, lead, and borax the colour with its flux is then
:

mixed with volatile oil, and laid on with the brush. The pane
of glass thus enamelled is then exposed to a dull red heat,
just sufficient to soften and unite together the particles of the
flux, by which means the colour is perfectly fixed on the glass.
Treated in this way, gold yields a purple, gold and silver mixed
a rose colour, iron a brick-red, cobalt a blue mixtures of
1
;

iron, copper and manganese, brown and black. Copper, which

yields the green in common enamel-painting 2 is not found to
,

produce a fine colour when applied in the same way to glass,

and viewed by transmitted light for a green therefore recourse
;

is often had to glass coloured blue on one side and yellow on

the other. To obtain a yellow, silver is employed, which,
either in the metallic or in any other form, possesses the sin-
gular property of imparting a transparent stain, when exposed
to a low red heat in contact with glass. This stain is either
yellow, orange, or red, according to circumstances. For this
purpose no flux is used the prepared silver is merely ground
:

up with ochre or clay, and applied in a thick layer upon the

glass. When removed from the furnace the silver is found
not at all adhering to the glass it is easily scraped off, leaving
;

a transparent stain, which penetrates to a certain depth. If a

large proportion of ochre has been employed, the stain is yellow;
if a small proportion, it is orange-coloured and by repeated
;

exposure to the fire, without any additional colouring matter,

the orange may be converted into red. This conversion of
orange into red is, I believe, a matter of much nicety, in which
experience only can ensure success. Till within a few years
this was the only bright red in use among modern glass-
painters and though the best specimens certainly produce a
;

fine effect, yet it will seldom bear comparison with the red
employed in such profusion by the old artists.
1
It appears by a boast of Suger, abbot of St.. Denis, which has been
preserved, that the ancient glass-painters pretended to employ sapphires
among their materials hence, perhaps, the origin of the term Zaffrcs, under
;

which the oxide of cobalt is still known in commerce.

2
Oxide of chromium is now substituted for the copper.
 !

GLASS-PAINTING. 133

Besides the enamels and stains above described, artists,

whenever the subject will allow of it, make use of panes co-
loured throughout their substance in the glass-house melting-
pot, because the perfect transparency of such glass gives a
brilliancy of effect, which enamel-colouring, always more or
less opake, cannot equal. It was to a glass of this kind that
the old glass-painters owed their splendid red. This in fact is
the only point in which the modern and ancient processes
differ, and this is the only part of the art which was ever really
lost. Instead of blowing plates of solid red, the old glass-
makers used to jlash a thin layer of red over a substratum of
plain glass. Their process must have been to melt side by side
in the glass-house a pot of plain and a pot of red glass : then
the workman, by dipping his rod first into the plain and then
into the red glass pot, obtained a lump of plain glass covered
with a coating of red, which, by dexterous management in
blowing and whirling, he extended into a plate, exhibiting on
its surface a very thin stratum of the desired colour . In this
1

state the glass came into the hands of the glass-painter, and
answered most of his purposes, except when the subject re-
quired the representation of white or other colours on a red
ground in this case it became necessary to employ a machine
:

like the lapidary's wheel, partially to grind away the coloured

surface till the white substratum appeared.
The material employed by the old glass-makers to tinge
their glass red was the protoxide of copper, but on the discon-
tinuance of the art of glass-painting the dependent manufacture
of red glass of course ceased, and all knowledge of the art be-
came so entirely extinct, that the notion generally prevailed
that the colour in question was derived from gold'2 It is not
.

1
That such was the method in use, an attentive examination of old spe-
cimens affords sufficient evidence. One piece that I possess exhibits large
bubbles in the midst of the red stratum another consists of a stratum of
;

red inclosed between two colourless strata: both circumstances plainly

point out the only means by which such an arrangement could be produced.
2 In 1793, the French government actually collected a quantity of old

red glass, with the view of extracting the gold by which it was supposed
to be coloured ! Le Vieil was himself a glass-painter employed in the re-
pair of ancient windows, and the descendant of glass-painters, yet so little
was he aware of the true nature of the glass, that he even fancied he could
detect the marks of the brush with which he imagined the red stratum had
been laid on
 ;

234 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

a little remarkable that the knowledge of the copper-red should

have been so entirely lost, though printed receipts have always
existed detailing the whole process. Baptista Porta (born
about 1540) gives a receipt in his Magia Naturalis, noticing
at the same time the difficulty of success. Several receipts are
found in the compilations of Neri, Merret and Kunckel, from
whence they have been copied into our Encyclopaedias '. None
of these receipts however state to what purposes the red glass
was applied, nor do they make any mention of the flashing.
The difficulty of the art consists in the proneness of the copper
to pass from the state of protoxide into that of peroxide, in
which latter state it tinges glass green. In order to preserve
it in the state of protoxide, these receipts prescribe various de-
oxygenating substances to be stirred into the melted glass,
such as smiths' clinkers, tartar, soot, rotten wood, and cinnabar.
One curious circumstance deserves to be noticed, which is,
that glass containing copper when removed from the melting-
pot sometimes only exhibits a faint greenish tinge, yet in this
state nothing more than simple exposure to a gentle heat is re-
quisite to throw out a brilliant red. This change of colour is
very remarkable, as it is obvious that no change of oxygena-
tion can possibly take place during the recaisson.
The art of tinging glass by protoxide of copper and flashing
it on crown-glass, has of late years been revived by the Tyne

Company in England, at Choisy in France-, and in Suabia in

Germany, and in 1827 the Academy of Arts at Berlin gave a
premium for an imperfect receipt. To what extent modern
glass-painters makeuse of these new glasses I am ignorant
the specimens that I have seen were so strongly coloured as
to be in parts almost opake, but this is a defect which might
no doubt be easily remedied 3 .

1
[M. Langlois names the following writers •' Neri en 1612, Handicquer
:

de Blancourt en 1667, Kunkel en 1679, Le Vieil en 1774, et plusieurs

autres ecrivains a diverses epoques, decrivaient ces precedes." (p. 192.)
He fixes the restoration of the art in France at about the year 1800, when
Brongniart, who had the direction of the Sevres porcelain manufacture,
worked with Meiaud at the preparation of verifiable colours, p. 194.
Among modern artists he particularly mentions Dihl, Schilt, Mortelegue,
Robert, Leclair, Collins, and Willement.]
2 Bulletin
de la Societe d'Encouragement pour 1' Industrie Nationale,
1826.
3 Though it
is difficult to produce the copper-glass uniformly coloured,
 GLASS-rAINTING. 13,5

1 shall now conclude these observations by a few notices

respecting glass tinged by fusion with gold, which, though
never brought into general use among glass-painters, has I
know been employed in one or two instances, flashed both on
crown- and on flint-glass. Not long after the time when the
art of making the copper-red glass was lost, Kunkei appears
to have discovered that gold melted with flint-glass was capa-
ble of imparting to it a beautiful ruby colour. As he derived
much profit from the invention, he kept his method secret,
and his successors have done the same to the present day.
The art, however, has been practised ever since for the pur-
pose of imitating precious stones, &c, and the glass used to
be sold at Birmingham for a high price under the name of
Jew's glass. The rose-coloured scent-bottles, &c, now com-
monly made, are composed of plain glass flashed or coated with
a very thin layer of the glass in question. I have myself made
numerous experiments on this subject, and have been com-
pletely, and at last uniformly, successful, in producing glass
of a fine crimson colour. One cause why so many persons
have failed in the same attempt I suspect is that they have
1
,

used too large a proportion of gold for it is a fact, that an ad-

;

ditional quantity of gold, beyond a certain point, far from deepen-

ing the colour, actually destroys it altogether. Another cause
probably is, that they have not employed a sufficient degree of
heat in the fusion. I have found that a degree of heat, which
I judged sufficient to melt cast-iron, is not strong enough to
injure the colour. It would appear, that in order to receive
the colour, it is necessary that the glass should contain a pro-
portion either of lead, or of some other metallic glass. I have
found bismuth, zinc, and antimony to answer the purpose,
but have in vain attempted to impart any tinge of this colour
to crown-glass alone.
Glass containing gold exhibits the same singular change of

it is easy to obtain streaks and patches of a fine transparent red. For this
purpose it is sufficient to fuse together 100 parts of crown-glass with one
of oxide of copper, putting a lump of tin into the bottom of the crucible.
Metallic iron employed in the same way as the tin throws out a bright
scarlet, but perfectly opake.
1 "
Dr. Lewis states that he once produced a potfull of glass of beautiful
colour, yet was never able to succeed a second time, though he took infi-
nite pains, and tried a multitude of experiments with that view. " Com-
merce of Arts, p. 177.
136 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

colour on being exposed to a gentle heat, as has been already-

noticed with respect to glass containing copper . The former
1

when taken from the crucible is generally of a pale rose-colour,

but sometimes colourless as water, and does not assume its
ruby colour till it has been exposed to a low red- heat, either
under a muffle or in the lamp. Great care must be taken in
this operation, for a slight excess of fire destroys the colour,
leaving the glass of a dingy brown, but with a blue transpa-
rency like that of gold-leaf. These changes of colour have
been vaguely attributed to change of oxygenation in the gold ;
but it is obviously impossible that mere exposure to a gentle
heat can effect any chemical change in the interior of a solid
mass of glass, which has already undergone a heat far more
intense. In fact I have found that metallic gold gives the red
colour as well as the oxide, and it appears scarcely to admit
of a doubt, that in a metal so easily reduced, the whole of the
oxygen must be expelled long before the glass has reached its
melting-point. It has long been known that silver yields its
colour to glass while in the metallic state, and everything leads
one to suppose that the case is the same as to gold.
There is still one other substance by means of which I find
it is possible to give a red colour to glass, and that is a com-

pound of tin, chromic acid, and lime but my trials do not lead
;

me to suppose that glass thus coloured will ever be brought

into use.

With respect to the production of artificial gems, they are

now made abundantly of almost every shade of colour, closely
approximating to those which occur in nature, excepting in
hardness and refractive power. They are formed by fusing
what is called a base with various metallic oxides. The base
varies in composition thus, M. Fontanieu makes his by fusing
:

silica with carbonate of potash, carbonate of lead and borax.

M. Donault Wieland's consists of silica, potash, borax, oxide of

1
[At the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, held at Cambridge (June 1845), M. Splittgerber exhibited spe-
cimens of glass into the composition of which gold entered as a chloride.
These specimens were white, but upon gently heating them in the flame of
n spirit-lamp, they became a deep-red. If again the same reddened glass
js exposed to the heat of an oxygen blowpipe, it loses nearly all its colours,,
u slight pinkiness only remaining.]
 ;
::
;

SEALING-WAX. 137

*ead, and sometimes arsenions acid. Hence the base differs

but composition from glass. By fusing the base with
little in
metallic oxides, the former acquires various tints. Thus with
oxide of antimony the oriental topaz is prepared with oxide ;

of manganese and a little purple of cassius, the amethyst

with antimony and a very small quantity of cobalt, the beryl
with horn silver (chloride of silver), the diamond and opal
the oriental ruby is prepared from the base, the purple of
cassius, peroxide of iron, golden sulphuret of antimony, man-
ganese calcined with nitre and rock crystal.]

SEALING-WAX.
Writers on diplomatics mention, besides metals, five other
substances on which impressions were made, or with which
letters and public acts were sealed, viz. terra sigillaris, cement,
paste, common wax, and sealing-wax . The terra sigillaris
1

was used by the Egyptians, and appears to have been the first
substance employed for sealing 2 The Egyptian priests bound
.

to the horns of the cattle fit for sacrifice a piece of paper

stuck upon it some sealing-earth, on which they made an im-
pression with their seal and such cattle only could be offered
;

up as victims 3
Lucian speaks of a fortune-teller who ordered those who
came to consult him to write down on a bit of paper the ques-
tions they wished to ask, to fold it up, and to seal it with clay,
or any other substance of the like kind 4 . Such earth seems
to have been employed in sealing by the Byzantine emperors
for we are told that at the second council of Nice, a certain
person defended the worship of images by saying, no one be-
lieved that those who received written orders from the emperor

1
Gattereri Elein. Artis Diplom. 1765, 4to, p. 285.*
2
It is singular that
Pliny denies that the Egyptians used seals, lib. xxiii.
c. 1. Herodotus however, and others, prove the contrary ; and Moses-
speaks of the seal-rings of the Egyptians. See Goguet.
3 4
Herodot. lib. ii. c. 38. Lucian. in Pseudomant.
 ;

138 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and venerated the seal, worshiped on that account the sealing-

earth, the paper, or the lead '.

Cicero relates that Verres having seen in the hands of one

of his servants a letter written to him from Agrigentum, and
having observed on it an impression in sealing-earth (cretula),
he was so pleased with it that he caused the seal-ring with
which it was made to be taken from the possessor -. The same
orator, in has defence of Flaccvis, produced an attestation sent
from Asia, and proved its authenticity by its being sealed with
Asiatic sealing-earth with which, said he to the auditors, as
;

you daily see, all public and private letters in Asia are sealed :
and he showed on the other hand that the testimony brought
by the accuser was false, because it was sealed with wax, and
for that reason could not have come from Asia 3 . The scholiast
Servius relates, that a sibyl received a promise from Apollo,
that she should live as long as she did not see the earth of
the island Erythrasa where she resided that she therefore
;

quitted the place, and retired to Cumce, where she became

old and decrepid ;but that having received a letter sealed
with Erythraean earth (creta), when she saw the seal she
instantly expired 4 .
No one however will suppose that this earth was the same
as that to which we at present give the name of creta, chalk
for if it was a natural earth it must have been of that kind
called potters' clay, as that clay is capable of receiving an im-
pression and of retaining it after it is hardened by drying.
That the Romans, under the indefinite name of creta, often

1 Act. iv. ap. Bin. torn. iii. Concil. part. i. p. 356. "Whether the yr/
arjfiavrph, however, of Herodotus and the td/Xos of Lucian and of the
Byzantine be the same kind of earth, can he determined with as little
certainty as whether the creta, called by some Roman authors a sealing-
earth, be different from both.
' Orat. in Verrem, iv. c. 9. In the passage referred to, some instead of
cretula read cerula. I shall here take occasion to remark also, that in the

Acts of the Council of Nice before -mentioned, instead of jnjXov some read
Kiipov -.
but I do not see a sufficient reason for this alteration, as in the
before-quoted passage of Lucian it is expressly said, that people sealed
Kr)p(jj f; tt/jX^J. lteiske himself, who proposes that amendment, says that
7ri}\6v may be retained. Stephanus, however, does not give that meaning
to this word in his Lexicon. Pollux and Hesychius tell us, that the Athe-
nians called sealing-earth also pvnov.
3 Orat. pro Flaeco, c. 16. 4 Scrv. ad lib. vi. iEneid. p. 1037.
 ;

SEALING-WAX. 139

understood a kind of potters' earth, can be proved by many-

passages of their writers. Columella speaks of a kind of chalk
of which wine-jars and dishes were made l . Virgil calls it
tough -; and the ancient writers on agriculture give the same
name to marl which was employed to manure land 3 . Not-
withstanding all these authorities, I do not clearly comprehend
how letters could be sealed with potters' clay, a.s it does not
adhere with sufficient force either to linen, of which in ancient
times the covers of letters were made, or to parchment ; as it
must be laid on very thick to have a distinct impression ; as
it is long in drying, and is again easily softened by moisture

and, at any rate, if conveyed by post at present, it would be

crumbled into dust in going only from Hamburg to Altona.
I can readily believe that the Roman messengers employed
more skill and attention to preserve the letters committed to
their care than are employed by our postmen ; but the distance
from Asia to Rome is much greater than that from Hamburg
to Altona.
But may there not be as little foundation for the ancient
expression creta Asiatica, Asiatic earth, as for the modern
expression, cera Hispanica, Spanish wax? May not the former
have signified a kind of coarse artiiicial cement ? These
questions might be answered by those who have had an oppor-
tunity of examining or only seeing the sigilla cretacea in
collections of antiquities. We
are assured that such are still
preserved; at least we find in Ficoroni 4 the representation of
six impressions which, as he tells us, consisted of that earth.
In that author however I find nothing to clear up my doubts ;
he says only that some of these seals were white others of a ;

gray colour, like ashes ; others red, and others brown. They
seem all to have been enclosed in leaden cases. Could it be
proved that each letter was wrapped round with a thread, and
that the thread, as in the seals affixed to diplomas, was drawn
through the covering of the seal, the difficulty which I think
occurs in the use of these earths, as mentioned by the ancients,
i 2 Georg- j. v 179.
Lib.xii. c. 43. .

3
—
Creta fossica, qua stercorantur agri. Varro, i. 7. S. It appears also
that the jnjAos of the Greeks signified a kind of potters' earth. Those who
do not choose to rely upon our dictionaries, need only to read the ancient
Greek writers on husbandry, who speak of appaye! ?ri]\oj apyiWwSeu
See Geopon. x. c. 75. 12, andix. c. 10. 4.
4
I piombi antichi. Roma 1740, 4to, p. 16.
140 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

would entirely disappear 1

It seems to me remarkable that
.

neither Theophrastus nor Pliny says anything of the Asiatic

creta, or speaks at all of sealing-earth ; though thev have
carefully enumerated all those kinds of earth which were worth
notice on account of any use.
In Europe, as far as I know, wax has been everywhere used
for sealing since the earliest ages. Writers on diplomatics,
however, are not agreed whether yellow or white wax was first
employed but it appears that the former, on account of its
;

low price, must have been first and principally used, at least
by private persons. It is probable also, that the seals of
diplomas were more durable when they consisted of yellow
wax for it is certain that white wax is rendered more brittle
;

and much less durable by the process of bleaching. Many

seals also may at present be considered white which were at
first yellow for not only does wax highly bleached resume
;

in time a dirty yellow colour, but yellow wax also in the course
of years loses so much of its colour as to become almost like
white wax. This perhaps may account for the oldest seals
appearing to be of white, and the more modern of yellow wax.
These however are conjectures which I submit with deference
to the determination of those versed in diplomatics.
In the course of time wax was coloured red and a good deal
;

later, at least in Germany, but not before the fourteenth cen-

tury, it was coloured green, and sometimes black. I find it
remarked that blue wax never appears on diplomas and I ;

may indeed say it is impossible it should appear, for the art

of giving a blue colour to wax has never yet been discovered ;
and in old books, such as that of Wecker, we find no receipt
for that purpose. Later authors have pretended to give di-
rections how to communicate that colour to wax, but they are
altogether false for vegetable dyes when united with wax
;

become greenish, so that the wax almost resembles the hip-

stone and earthy colours do not combine with it, but in
;

melting fall again to the bottom. A

seal of blue wax, not
coloured blue merely on the outer surface, would be as great
a rarity in the arts as in diplomatics, and would afford matter

1
Heineccius and others think that the amphora: vitrece diligenter gyp-
Petronius, were sealed hut it is much more probable that thejr
satce, in ;

were only daubed over or closed with gypsum, for the same reason that
wc pitch our casks.
 SEALING-WAX. 141

of speculation for our chemists but I can give

; them no hopes
that such a thing can ever be produced . The emperor
l

Charles V. in the year 1524 granted to Dr. Stockamar of Nu-

remberg, the privilege of using blue wax in seals a favour;
—
like that conferred in 1704 on the manufactories in the prin-
cipality of Halberstadt and the county of Reinstein, to make
indigo from minerals. It was certainly as difficult for the
doctor to find blue wax for seals as for the proprietors of these
manufactories to discover indigo in the earth'.
Much later are impressions made on paste or dough, which
perhaps could not be employed on the ancient parchment or
the linen covers of letters, though in Pliny's time the paper
then in use was joined together with flour paste 3 . Proper
diplomas were never sealed with wafers and in the matchless
;

diplomatic collection of H. Gatterer there are no wafer-seals

much above two hundred years old. From that collection I
have now in my possession one of these seals, around the im-
pression of which is the following inscription, Secretum civium
in Ulma, 1474 ; but it is only a new copy of a very old im-
pression. Kings, however, before the invention of sealing-wax,
were accustomed to seal their letters with this paste 4 .
Heineccius and others relate that maltha also was employed
for seals. This word signifies a kind of cement, formed chiefly
of inflammable substances, and used to make reservoirs, pipes,
&c. water-tight. Directions how to prepare it may be found
in the writers on agriculture, Pliny, Festus and others. The
latter tells how to make it of a composition of pitch and wax 5 :
but neither in that author nor in any other have I found
proofs that letters were sealed with it, or that seals of it were
affixed to diplomas : for the words of Pollux, " cera qua ta-
bella judicum obliniebatur 6 ," will admit of a different expla-
nation. If maltha has been in reality used for seals, that mix-
ture may be considered as the first or oldest sealing-wax, as
what of it is still preserved has been composed of resinous
substances.
1 [Blue
wax may now be seen in every wax-chandler's shop ; it is co-
loured blue by means of indigo.]
2 Heineccii
Syntagma de Vet. Sigillis, 1719, p. 55.
3 Plin. lib.
xxii. c. 25.
4 Trotz, Not. in Prim. Scribendi Origine, p. 73, 74.
5
P. Festi de Verb. Sig. lib. xx. Hesychius calls this cement jiefiaXay-
y,6vov Kripov.— Plin. lib. xxxvi. c. 24. 6 Lib, viii.
c. 4.
142 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Some writers assert upon the authority of Lebeuf 2 that

1
, ,

sealing-wax was invented about the year 1640 by a French-

man named Rousseau but that author refers his readers to
;

Papillon 3 who refers again to Pomet 4 so that the last appears

, ,

to be the first person who broached that opinion. According

to his account, Francis Rousseau, born not far from Auxerre,
and who travelled a long time in Persia, Pegu arid other parts
of the East Indies, and in 1692 resided in St. Domingo, was
the inventor of sealing-wax. Having, while he lived at Paris
as a merchant, during the latter years of the reign of Louis
XIIL, who died in 1643, lost all his property by a fire, he
bethought himself of preparing sealing-wax from shell-lac, as
he had seen it prepared in India, in order to maintain his wife
and five children. A lady of the name of Longueville made
this wax known at court, and caused Louis XIIL to use it,
after which it was purchased and used throughout all Paris.
By this article, Rousseau, before the expiration of a year,,
gained 50,000 livres. It acquired the name of cire d Espagne, '

Spanish wax, because at that time a kind of lac, which was

only once melted and coloured a little red, was called Portugal
wax, cire de Portugal 5 .

That sealing-wax was either very utile or not at all known

in Germany in the beginning of the sixteenth century, may be
concluded from its not being mentioned either by Porta or
Wecker though in the works of both these authors there are
;

various receipts respecting common wax, and little-known

methods of writing and sealing 6 The former says, that to
.

open letters in such a manner as not to-be perceived, the wax

1
Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique. Paris, 175!), 4 to, iv. p. 33.
2 Memoires cone. l'Histoire d'Auxerre. Par. 1743, ii. p. 517.
3 Bibliotheque des Auteurs de Bourgogne, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 217.
4
Histoire Generate des Drogues. Paris, 1735.
5
This Rousseau appeal's also in the History of Cochineal, as he sent to-
Pomet a paper on that subject, which was contradicted by the well-known
Plunder in the Journal des Scavans for 1694. He is mentioned also by
Labat, who says he saw him at Rochelle but at that time he must have
;

been nearly a hundred years cf age.

"•
Von Murr, in his learned Beschreibung der Merkwiirdigkeiten in
Nurnberg, Nurnb. 1778, Svo, p. 702, says that Spanish wax was not in-
vented, or at least not known, before the year 1559. This appears also
Irom a manuscript of the same year, which contains various receipts in the
arts and medicine. There arc some in it for making- the common white
sealing-wax green or red.
 SEALING-WAX. 14*3

seal must be heated a little, and must be then carefully sepa-

rated from the letter by a horse's hair and when the letter
;

has been read and folded up, the seal must be again dexter-
ously fastened to it. This manoeuvre, as the writers on diplo-
matics remark, has been often made use of to forge public
acts ; and they have therefore given directions how to discover
such frauds . The above method of opening letters, however,
1

can be applied only to common wax, and not to sealing-wax :.

had the latter been used in Wecker's time he would have

mentioned this limitation 2 .
Whether sealing-wax was used earlier in the East Indies
than in Europe, as the French think, I cannot with certainty
determine. Tavernier 3 , however, seems, to say that the lac
produced kingdom of Assam is employed there not only
in the
for lackering, but also for making Spanish sealing-wax. I
must confess also that I do not know whether the Turks and
other eastern nations use it in general. In the collection of
natural curiosities belonging to our university there are tw o r

sticks of sealing-wax which Professor Butner procured from

Constantinople, under the name of, Turkish wax. They are
angular, bent like a bow, are neither stamped nor glazed, and
are of a dark but pure red colour. Two other sticks which
came from the East Indies are straight, glazed, made some-
what thin at both ends, have no stamp, and are of a darker
and dirtier red colour. All these four sticks seem to be lighter
than ours, and I perceive that by rubbing they do not acquire
so soon nor so strong an electrical quality as our German wax
of moderate, fineness. But whether the first were made in
Turkey and the latter in the East Indies, or whether the whole
four were made in Europe, is not known. That sealing-wax
however was made and used in Germany a hundred years
before Rousseau's time, and that the merit of that Frenchman
consisted probably only in this, that he first made it in

1
See Chronicon Godvicense, p. 102.
2 Wecker gives directions also to make
an impression with calcined
gypsum, and a solution of gum or isinglass.
Porta knew that this could
be done to greater perfection with amalgam of quicksilver; an art em-
ployed even at present.
3
Tavernier, in his Travels, says that in Surat lac is melted and formed
•into sticks like sealing-wax. Compare with this Dapper's Asia, Nurem-
berg, 1631, fol. p. 237.
144 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

France, or made the first good wax, will appear in the course
of what follows.
The oldestknown seal of our common sealing-wax is that
found by M.
Roos, on a letter written from London, Aug. 3rd,
1554, to the rheingrave Philip Francis von Daun, by his agent
in England, Gerrard Hermann K The colour of the wax is a
dark-red : it is very shining, and the impression bears the
initials of the writer's name G.H. The next seal, in the order
of time, is one of the year 1561, on a letter written to the coun-
cil of Gorlitz at Breslau. This letter was found among the
ancient records of Gorlitz by Dr. Anton, and is three times
sealed with beautiful red wax 2 Among the archives of the
.

before-mentioned family M.Roos found two other letters of

the year 1566, both addressed to the rheingrave Frederick
von Daun, from Orchamp in Picardy, by his steward Charles
de Pousol the one elated September the 2nd, and the other
;

September the 7th. Another letter, written by the same per-

son to the same rheingrave, but dated Paris January 22nd,
1567, is likewise sealed with red wax, which is of a higher
colour, and appears to be of a coarser quality. As the oldest
seals of this kind came from France and England, M. Roos
conjectures that the invention, as the name seems to indicate,
belongs to the Spaniards. This conjecture appears to me
however improbable, was used at
especially as sealing-wax
Breslau so early as 1561 but this matter can be best deter-
;

mined perhaps by the Spanish literati. It is much to be la-

mented that John Fenn, in his Original letters of the last half
of the fifteenth century 3 when he gives an account of the size
,

and shape of the. seals, does not inform us of what substances

they are composed. Respecting a letter of the year 1455, he
says only, " The seal is of red wax ;" by which is to be un-
derstood, undoubtedly, common wax.
Among the records of the landgraviate of Cassel, M. Ledder-
hose found two letters of Count Louis of Nassau to the land-

1 Bruchstiicke betreffend die Pflicbten eines Staatsdieners ; aus den

Handlungen des RathsDreitz, nebst Bemerkungen vora altesten Gebrauche
des Spanischen Siegelwachses, Frankf. 1785, 4to, p. 86 where the use of
;

these antiquarian researches is illustrated by examples worthy of notice.

2 Historiscbe Untersuchungen gesammelt von J. G. Meusel, i.
3, p. 240.
3
Original Letters of the Paston Family, temp. Henry VI. i.p. 21, and p. 87
and 92.
 SEALING-WAX. 145

grave William TV., one of which, dated March the 3rd, 1563,
is sealed with red wax, and the other, dated November 7th,
the same year, is sealed with black wax
1
M. Neuberger,
.

private keeper of the archives at Weimar, found among the

records of that duchy a letter sealed with red wax, and written
at Paris, May the 15th, 1571, by a French nobleman named
Vulcob, who the year before had been ambassador from the
king of France to the court of Weimar. It is worthy of re-
mark, that the same person had sealed nine letters of a prior
date with common wax, and that the tenth is sealed with
Spanish wax. P. L. Spiess, principal keeper of the records at
Plessenburg, Avho gave rise to this research by his queries, saw
a letter of the year 1574 sealed with red sealing-wax, and
another of the year 1620 sealed with black sealing-wax. He
found also in an old expense-book of 1616, that Spanish wax,
expressly, and other materials for writing were ordered from
a manufacturer of sealing-wax at Nuremberg, for the personal
use of Christian margrave of Brandenburg 2 .

The oldest mention of sealing-wax which I have hitherto

observed in printed books is in the work of Garcia ab Orto 3 ,
where the author remarks, speaking of lac, that those sticks
used for sealing letters were made of it. This book was first
printed in 1563, about which time it appears that the use of
sealing-wax was very common among the Portuguese.
The oldest printed receipt for making sealing-wax was
found by Von Murr, in a work by Samuel Zimmerman, citizen
of Augsburg, printed in 1579 4 The copy which I have from
.

the library of our university is signed at the end by the author

himself. His receipts for making red and green sealing-wax
I shall here transcribe.
" To make hard sealing-wax, called Spanish wax, with which
if letters be sealed they cannot be opened without breaking
the seal :
—
Take beautiful clear resin, the whitest you can pro-
cure, and melt it over a slow coal fire. When it is properly
melted, take it from the fire, and for every pound of resin add
two ounces of vermilion pounded very fine, stirring it about.
1 2
Meusel's Geschichtforscber. Halle, 8vo, vi. p. 270. Ibid. iv. p.2ol.
3 Aroraatum et Simplicium aliquot Historia, Garcia ab Horto auctore.
Antverpias 1574, 8vo, p. 33.
4 Neu Titularbucb, — sambt etlicben binzugetbanen Gehaimniissen mid
Kiinsten, dasLesen und die Schreiberey betreffendt. 4to, 1579, p. 112,
VOL. Is L
146 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Then let the whole cool, or pour it into cold water. Thus you
will have beautiful red sealing-wax.
" If you are desirous of having black wax, add lamp-black
to it. With smalt or azure you may make it blue with white-
;

lead white, and with orpiment yellow.

" If instead of resin you melt purified turpentine in a glass
vessel, and give it any colour you choose, you will have a
harder kind of sealing-wax, and not so brittle as the former."
What appears to me worthy of remark in these receipts for
sealing-wax is, that there is no mention in them of shell-lac,
which at present is the principal ingredient, at least in that of
the best quality; and that Zimmerman's sealing-wax approaches
very near to that which in diplomatics is called maltha. One
may also conclude therefore that this invention was not brought
from the East Indies.
The expression Spanish wax is of little more import than
the words Spanish-green, Spanish-flies, Spanish-grass, Spanish-
reed, and several others, as it was formerly customary to give
to all new things, particularly those which excited wonder, the
appellation of Spanish and in the like manner many foreign
;

or neAv articles have been called Turkish such as Turkish

;

wheat, Turkish paper, &c.

Respecting the antiquity of wafers, M. Spiess has made an
observation which may lead to further researches, that the
1

oldest seal with a red wafer he has ever yet found, is on a let-
ter written by D. Krapf at Spires in the year 1624, to the
government at Bayreuth. M. Spiess has found also that some
years after, Forstenhausser, the Brandenburg factor at Nu-
remberg, sent such wafers to a bailiff at Osternohe. It appears
however that wafers were not used during the whole of the
seventeenth century in the chancery of Brandenburg, but
only by private persons, and by these even seldom because,
;

as Spiess says, people were fonder of Spanish wax. The first

wafers with which the chancery of Bayreuth began to make
seals were, according to an expense account of the year 1705,
sent from Nuremberg. The use of wax however was still con-
tinued and among the Plassenburg archives there is a re-
;

script of 1722, sealed with proper wax. The use of wax must
have been continued longer in the duchy of Weimar; for in
the Electa Juris Publici there is an order of the year 1716, by
1
Arcluviscbc Nebenarbeiten und Naclirichten. Halle, 1785, 4to, ii. p. 3.
 CORN-MILLS. 14<7

which the introduction of wafers in law matters is forbidden

and the use of wax commanded. This order however was
abolished by duke Ernest Augustus in 1742, and wafers again
introduced.

CORN-MILLS.
If under this name we comprehend all those machines, how-
ever rude, employed for pounding or grinding corn, these are
of the highest antiquity. We
read in the Scriptures, that
Abraham caused cakes to be baked for his guests of the finest
meal and that the manna was ground like corn. The earliest
;

instrument used for this purpose seems to have been the mor-
tar; which was retained a long time even after the invention
of mills properly so called, because these perhaps at first were
not attended with much superior advantage . It appears 1

that in the course of time the mortar was made rigid and the
pestle notched, at least at the bottom ; by which means the
grain was rather grated than pounded. A passage of Pliny 9 ,
not yet sufficiently cleared up, makes this conjecture probable.
When a handle was added to the top of the pestle, that it
might be more easily driven round in a circle, the mortar was
converted into a hand-mill. Such a mill was called mola trusa-
tiliss versatilis, manuaria 3 and was very little different from
,

those used at present by apothecaries, painters, potters and other

artists, for grinding coarse bodies, such as colours, e:lass, chalk,
&c. We
have reason to suppose that in every family there

1
Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 421. —
It appears that both the inortar and pestle
were then made of wood, and that the former was three feet in height but, ;

to speak the truth, Hesiod does not expressly say that this mortar was for
the purpose of pounding corn. The mortar was called ii-epns, pila the ;

pestle v-nrepos, or irVepoi/, pistillusorpistillum ; to pound, /idvo-etv, pinsere,

which word, as well aspinsor, was afterwards retained when mills came
to be used.
2 Plin.
— Plin. lib. xviii. c. 3.
xviii. 10. ii. p. 111. This passage Gesner has endeavoured to
explain, in his Index to the Scriptores Itei Rusticae, p. 59, to which he gives
the too-dignified title of Lexicon Itusticum.
3
Gellius, iii. c. 3.

L<2
348 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

was a mill of this kind. Moses forbade them to be taken in

pawn ; for that, says he, isthe same thing as to take a man's
life to pledge. Michaelis, on this passage, observes that a man
could not then grind, and consequently could not bake bread for
the daily use of his family Grinding was at first the employ-
! .

ment of the women, and particularly of the female slaves, as it

is at present among uncivilised nations, and must therefore
have required little strength 2 but afterwards the mills were
;

driven by bondsmen, around whose necks was placed a cir-

cular machine of wood, so that these poor wretches could not
put their hands to their mouths, or eat of the meal.
In the course of time shafts were added to the mill that it
might be driven by cattle, which were, as at present, blind-
folded 3 . The first cattle-mills, molce jitmentaricE, had perhaps
only a heavy pestle like the hand-mills 4 but it must have
;

been soon remarked that the labour would be more speedily

accomplished if, instead of the pestle, a large heavy cylindrical
stone should be employed. I am of opinion, however, that
the first cattle-mills had not a spout or a trough as ours have
at present ; at least the hand-mills which Tournefort 5 saw at
Nicaria, and which consisted of two stones, had neither; but the
meal which issued from between the stones, through an opening
made in the upper one, fell upon a board or table, on which
the lower stone, that was two feet in diameter, rested.
The upper mill-stone was called mete, or turbo and the ;

lower one catillus. Meta signified also a cone with a blunt

apex 6 ; and it has on that account been conjectured that corn

1 Deuteronomy, eh. xxiv. v. 6.

2 When Moses threatened Pharaoh with the destruction of the first-horn
in the land of Egypt, he said, "All the first-born shall die, from the first-
horn of Pharaoh that sitteth on the throne, even nnto the first-born of the
maid-servant that is behind the mill." —
Genesis, ch. xi. v. 5.
3 Apuleii
See Homeri
Odyss. vii.103, and xx. 105. Metamorph. lib. ix.
4
The oldest cattle-mills have, in my opinion, resembled the oil-mills
representedin plate 25th of Sonnerat, Voyages auxlndes,&c, i. Zurich, 1 783,
4to. To the pestle of a mortar made fast to a stake driven into the earth,
is affixed a shaft to which two oxen are yoked. The oxen are driven by a
man, and another- stands at the mortar to push the seed under the pestle.
Sonnerat says, that with an Indian hand-mill two men can grind no more
than sixty pounds of meal in a day while one of our mills, under the di-
;

rection of one man, can grind more than a thousand.

5 Voyage
du Levant, 4to, p. 155.
e
A haycock was called meta ami. Colum. ii. 19. Plin. xxvii, 28*
f
 CORN-MILLS. 149

was rubbed into meal by rolling over it a conical stone

at first
flatted at the end, in the same manner as painters at present
make use of a grinding-stone and it is believed that the same
;

name was afterwards given to the upper mill-stone. This

conjecture is not improbable, as some rude nations still bruise
their corn by grinding-stones. I do not, however, remember
any passage in the ancients that mentions this mode of grind-
ing and I am of opinion, that the pestle of the hand-mill, for
;

which the upper mill-stone was substituted, may, on account

of its figure, have been also called meta. Niebuhr found J

in Arabia, besides hand-mills, some grinding-stones, which

differed from those used by us in their consisting not of
a flat, but of an oblong hollow stone, or trough, with a pestle,
which was not conical, but shaped like a spindle, thick in
the middle and pointed at both ends. In this stone the corn,
after being soaked in water, was ground to meal and then
baked into cakes.
Respecting the figure and construction of the ancient hand-
mills, I expected to find some information from engraved stones,
and other remains of antiquity but my researches would have
;

proved fruitless, had not Professor Diez, to whose memory and.

erudition I am much indebted, pointed out to me the only
figure of one remaining. I say the only one remaining with
the more confidence, as Heyne tells us also that he remembers
no other. Anthony Francis Gori 2 has described a red jasper,
on which engraved the naked figure of a man, who in his
is

left-hand holds a sheaf of corn, and in his right a machine that

in all probability is a hand-mill. Gori considers the figure as
a representation of the god Eunostus, who, as Suidas says,
was the god of mills. The machine, which Eunostus seems
to exhibit, or to be surveying himself, is, as far as one can
distinguish (for the stone is scarcely half an inch in size),
shaped like a chest, narrow at the top, and wide at the bottom.
It stands upon a table, and in the bottom there is a perpendi-
cular pipe from which the meal, represented also by the artist,
appears to be issuing. Above, the chest or body of the mill
has either a top with an aperture, or perhaps a basket sunk
1
Niebuhr's Description de 1' Arabic. A figure of both stones is repre-
sented in the first plate, fig. H.
2
Memorie di varia erudizione della Societa Colombaria Fiorentina. Li-
vorno, 1752, 4to, vol. ii. p. 207.
150 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

into it, from which the corn falls into the mill. On one side,
nearly about the middle of it, there projects a broken shank,
which, without overstraining the imagination, may be consi-
dered as a handle, or that part of the mill which some called
motile. Though this figure is small, and though it conveys
very little idea of the internal construction, one may, however,
conclude from it, that the roller, whether it was of wood or of
iron, smooth or notched, did not stand perpendicularly, like
those of our coffee-mills, but lay horizontally; which gives us
reason to conjecture a construction more ingenious than that
of the first invention. The axis of the handle had, perhaps,
within the body of the mill, a crown-wheel, that turned a
spindle, to the lower end of the perpendicular axis of which
the roller was fixed. Should this be admitted, it must be
allowed also, that the hand-mills of the ancients had not so
much a resemblance to the before-mentioned colour-mills as
to the philosophical mills of our chemists and Langelott;

consequently will not be the real inventor of the latter. On

the other side, opposite to that where the handle is, there arise
from the mill of Eunostus two shafts, which Gori considers
as those of a besom and a shovel, two instruments used in
grinding but as the interior part cannot be seen, it appears
;

to me doubtful whether these may not be parts of the mill

itself.
The remains of a pair of old Roman mill-stones were
found
in the beginning of the last century at Adel in Yorkshire, a
description of which was given by Thornsby in the Philo- 1
,

sophical Transactions. One of the stones was twenty inches

in breadth thicker in the middle than at the edges, and con-
;

sequently convex on one side. The other was of the same

form, but had that thickness at the edges which the other had
in the middle, and some traces of notching could be observed
upon it.
I shall not here collect all those passages of the ancients
which speak of hand- and cattle-mills, because they have been
already collected by others, and afford very little information'2 .

1
No. 282, p. 1285, and in the abridgement by Jones, 1700— 20, vol.
ii. p. 38.
2
Job. Ileringii Tractatus de Molendinis eorumque jure. Franc. 1663, 4to.
A very confused hook, which requires a very patient reader. F. L. Gcetzius
De Pistnnis Veterum. Cygncic 1730, 8vo. Extracted chiefly from the
 —

CORN-MILLS. 151

Neither shall I inquire to what Ceres the Grecians ascribed

the invention of mills ; who Milantes was, to whom that
1

honour has been given by Stephanus Byzantinus 2 ; or how

those mills were constructed which were first built by Myletes
the son of Lelex, king of Laconia 3 . Such researches would
be attended with little advantage. I shall proceed therefore
to the invention of water-mills.
These appear to have been introduced in the time of Mith-
ridates, Julius Csesar, and Cicero. Because Strabo 4 relates
that there was a water-mill near the residence of Mithridates,
some have ascribed the honour of the invention to him but ;

nothing more can with certainty be concluded from this cir-

cumstance, than that water-mills were at that period known,
at least in Asia. We
are told by Pomponius Sabinus, in his
remarks upon a poera of Virgil called Moretus, that the first
mill seen at Rome was erected on the Tiber, a little before the
time of Augustus; but of this he produces no proof. As he
has taken the greater part of his remarks from the illustrations
of Servius, and must have had a much completer copy of that
author than any that has been printed, he may have derived
this information from the same source 5 . The most certain
proof that Rome had water-mills in the time of Augustus is

former, equally confused, and filled with quotations from authors who afford
very little insight into the history or knowledge of mills. Traite de la
Police, par De la Mare. — G. H. Ayrer, De Molarum Initiis et Prolusio de
—
;

Molarum Progressibus, Gottin. 1772. C. L. HoheiseliiDiss. de Molis Ma-

nualibus Veterum. Gedani 1728. — Pancirollus, edit Salmuth.ii.p.294.
.

Histoire de la vie privee des Francois, par Le Grand d'Aussy. Paris, 1782,
—
i. p. 33. See Fabricii Bibliographia Antiq. Hamburgi, 1760, p. 1002.
1 Plin. lib. vii. c. 56. 2 Stephan. De
Urbibus, v. nvXavria.
3 Pausanias, Hi. c. 20. edit. Kuhnii, p. 260.
4 Strabo, lib. sii. edit. Almelov. 834. In the Greek stands the words
p.
vdpaXenp, perhaps an anal. Xeyo/ievov, wiiich the scholiasts have ex-
plained by a water-mill. In many of the later translations of Strabo that
word is wanting.
5 This Pomponius Sabinus, author of a Commentary
on the works of
Virgil, is called also Julius Pomponius Ltetus, though in a letter he denies
that he is the author. He died in 1496. A good account of him may be
found in Fabricii Biblioth. Med. et Infimoe Latinitatis, iv. p. 594. There
are several editions of his Commentary, the first printed at Basil, 1544.
The one I have before me is contained in Vergilii Opera, cum Variorum
Commentariis, studio L. Lucii. Basilise (1613), fol. Where the poet gives
an ingenious description of a hand-mill, Pomponius adds, " Usus molarum
ad manum in Cappadocia inventus ; inde inventus usus earum ad vcntum
 ;

152 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the description which has been given of them by Vitruvius

(lib. s. 10). We
learn from this passage, that the ancients
had wheels for raising water, which were driven by being trod
upon by men. That condemnation to these machines was a
punishment, appears from Artemidorus, lib. i. c. 50, and Sue-
ton. Vita Tiber, cap. 51. And the pretty epigram of Antipater
" Cease your work, ye maids, ye who laboured in the mill
sleep now, and let the birds sing to the ruddy morning for ;

Ceres has commanded the water-nymphs to perform your task:

these, obedient to her call, throw themselves on the wheel,
force round the axle-tree, and by these means the heavy mill."
This Antipater as Salmasius with great probability asserts,
1
,

lived in the time of Cicero. Palladius 2 also speak.? with equal

clearness of water-mills, which he advises to be built on pos-
sessions that have running water, in order to grind corn with-
out men or cattle.
There are also other passages of the ancients which are
commonly supposed, but without certain grounds, to allude
to water-mills. Among these is the following verse of Lu-
cretius 3 :

Ut fluvios versare rotas atque haustra videmus.

It appears also that the water-wheels to which Heliogabalus

caused some of his friends and parasites to be bound 4 cannot ,

be considered as mills. These, as well as the haustra of Lu-

cretius, were machines for raising water, like those mentioned
In the before-quoted passage of Vitruvius 3 It is however .

ct Paulo ante Augustum molse aquis acta? Romsc in Tiberi

ad equos.
primum tempore Graecorura, cum fornices diruissent."
facta?,
This Greek epigram was first made known by Salmasius, in his Anno-
1

tations on the Life of Heliogabalus by Lampridius. See Historic Augustas

Scriptores ed. C. Salmasius, Par. 1620, fol. p. 193.
; It is to be found also
in Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, ii. p. 315, and iu Analecta
Veterum Grsecorum, edit. Brunk. ii. p. 119, epig. 39.
2 Pallad.
in Script. De Re Rustica, lib. i. 42, edit. Gesn.
3
Lucret. v. 517. Compare Salmas. ad Solin. p. 416.
4
Hist. Aug. Scr. Lamprid. in Vita Heliogabali.
5
Among the doubtful passages is one of Pliny, lib. xviii. c. 10. " Major
pars Italise ruido utitur pilo rotis etiam, quas aqua versct obiter, et molat."
;

So reads Hardouin but the French translator of Pliny divides these words
:

otherwise, and reads thus " Major pars Italic ruido utitur pilo, rotis etiam
:

quas aqua verset obiter et molit " which he translates as follows "Dans
;
;
;

la majeure partie de l'ltalie, on se scrt d'un pilon raboteux, ou de roues que

l'tau fait tourner et par fois aussi on y emploie la meule."
; This explana-
 CORN-MILLS. 153

evident that there were water-mills at Rome at this period ;

and it affords matter of surprise that wc do not find mention
oftener made of them, and that they did not entirely banish
the use of the laborious hand- and cattle-mills. That this was
not the case, and that the latter were very numerous for some
time after, may be concluded from various circumstances. When
Caligula, about twenty-three years after the death of Augustus,
took away all the horses and cattle from the mills, in order
to transport effects of every kind which he had seized, there
arose a scarcity of bread at Rome ; from which Beroaldus
justly infers that water-mills must have been then very rare 1 .
Nay, more than three hundred years after Augustus, cattle-
mills were so common at Rome, that their number amounted
to three hundred 2 . Mention of them, and of the hand-mills
always occurs, therefore, for a long time after in the laws.
The Jurist Paulus, who lived about the year 240, particular-
izing the bequest of a baker, mentions asina molendaria and
mola, a mill-ass and a mill 3 In the year 319 Constantine
.

ordered that all the slaves condemned to the mills should be

brought from Sardinia to Rome 4 . Such orders respecting
mill-slaves occur also under Valentinian 5 . When by the intro-
duction of Christianity, however, the morals of men became im-
proved, slaves were less frequent and Ausonius, who lived
;

under Theodosius the Great, about the end of the third century,
expressly says, that in his time the practice had ceased of con-
demning criminals to slavery, and of causing mills to be driven
by men.
Public water-mills, however, appear for the first time under
Honorius and Arcadius and the oldest laws which mention
;

tion is in my opinion very proper; Pliny is not speaking here of the labour
of grinding corn, but that of freeing it from the huslcs, or of converting it
into grits. For this purpose a mortar was used, the pestle of which could
be so managed that the grain remained whole ; but water-wheels were
sometimes employed also. I agree with Le Prince (Journal des Scavans,
1 779, Septern.), who thinks that Pliny here certainly speaks of a water-mill.
1
Sueton. Vita Calig. cap. 39.
2 Petr. Victor. De Regionibus urbis Romas.

7, 18, Cum delanienis.

3 Digestorum lib. xxxiii. tit.
4
Cod. Theodos. lib. ix. tit. 40, 3, or 1. 3, Quicunque. C. Th. de precis.
5
Cod. Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 3, 7, or 1. 7. Post quinquennii, C. Th. de
pistoribus. We are told in 1778 that there are no other mills in Sardinia
than such as are driven by asses. See Fran. Cetti, Quadruped! di Sardegna.
Sessati, 1778, 8vo.
 ;

154 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

them, about the year 398, show clearly that they were then a
new establishment, which it was necessary to secure by the
support of government and the orders for that purpose were
;

renewed and made more severe by Zeno towards the end of

the fifth century It is worthy of remark, that in the whole
1
.

code of Justinian one does not find the least mention of wooden
pales or posts, which occur in all the new laws and which,
;

when there were several mills situated in a line on the same

stream, occasioned so many disputes. The mills at Rome were
erected on those canals which conveyed water to the city
and because these were employed in several arts, and for va-
rious purposes, it was ordered that by dividing the water the
mills should be always kept going. The greater part of them
lay under Mount Janiculum 2 but, as they were driven by so
;

small a quantity of water, they probably executed very little

work and for this reason, but chiefly on account of the great
;

number of slaves, and the cheap rate at which they were main-
tained, these noble machines were not so much used, nor were
so soon brought to perfection as they might have been. It
appears, however, that after the abolition of slavery they were
much improved and more employed; and to this a particular
incident seems in some measure to have contributed.
When Vitiges, king of the Goths, besieged Belisarius in
Rome, in the year .536, and caused the fourteen large expensive
aqueducts to be stopped, the city was subjected to great
distress not through the want of water in general, because
;

it was secured against that inconvenience by the Tiber; but

by the loss of that water which the baths required, and, above
all, of that necessary to drive the mills, which were all situated

on these canals. Horses and cattle, which might have been

employed in grinding, were not to be found but Belisarius :

fell upon the ingenious contrivance of placing boats upon the

Tiber, on which he erected mills that were driven by the cur-

rent. This experiment was attended with complete success ;

and as many mills of this kind as were necessary were con-

structed. To destroy these, the besiegers threw into the stream
logs of wood and dead bodies, which floated down the river

1
Cod. Theodos.lib. xiv. tit. 15, 4 ; and Cod. Justin, lib. xi. tit. 42, 10.
Many things relating to the same subject may be found in Cassiodorus.
2
Procopius, Goihicornm lib. i. c. 9. Fabretti Diss, de aquis et aquaj-
ductibus vet. liomic, p. 176. Graevii Thesaur. Antiq. Rom. iv. p. 1G77.
 CORN-MILLS. 155

into the city ; but the besieged, by making use of booms, to

stop them, were enabled to drag them out before they could do
any mischief This seems to be the invention of floating-mills,
1
.

at least I know of no other. It is certain that by these means

the use of water-mills became very much extended; for floating-
mills can be constructed almost upon any stream, without
forming an artificial fall they can be stationed at the most
;

convenient places, and they rise and fall of themselves with

the water. They are however attended with these inconve-
niences, that they require to be strongly secured ; that they
often block up the stream too much, and move slowly ; and
that they frequently stop when the water is too high, or when
it is frozen.
After improvement the use of water-mills was never
this
laid aside or forgotten they were soon made known all over
:

Europe and were it worth the trouble, one might quote

;

passages in which they are mentioned in every century. The

Roman, Salic, and other laws 2 provided security for these

1
The account of Procopius, in the first book of the War of the Goths,
deserves to be here given at length :
—
" When these aqueducts were cut off
by the enemy, as the mills were stopped for want of water, and as cattle
could not be found to drive them, the Romans, closely besieged, were
deprived of every kind of food (for with the utmost care they could scarcely
find provender for their horses). Belisarius however being a man of great
ingenuity devised a remedy for this distress. Below the bridge which
reaches to the walls of Janiculum, be extended ropes well-fastened, and
stretched across the river from both banks. To these he affixed two boats
of equal size, at the distance of two feet from each other, where the current
flowed with the greatest velocity under the arch of the bridge, and placing
large mill-stones in one of the boats, suspended in the middle space a
machine by which they were turned. He constructed at certain intervals
on the river, other machines of the like kind, which being put in motion
by the force of the water that ran below them, drove as many mills as were
necessary to grind provisions for the city," &c.
2
"Si quis ingenuus annonam in moUno furaverit. . . .Si quis sclusam
de farinario aUeno ruperit. —
Si quis ferramentum de molino alieno furave-
rit. . . —
." Leges Francorum Saliese, edit. Eccardi, Francof. et Lipske 1720,
fol. p. 51. Sclusa is translated sluice, and there is no doubt that the French
word escluse is derived from it. All these words come from schliessen to shut
up, or the Low Saxon scJduten: but by that word in these laws we can hardly
understand those expensive works which we at present call sluices, but
probably wickets and what else belonged to the dam. Lex Wisigothorum,
30, may serve further to illustrate this subject " De confrin-
lib. viii. tit. 4, :

gentibus molina et conclusiones aquar'jo. Si quis molina violenter effre-

 156 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

mills, which they call molina or /urinaria ; and define a

punishment for those who destroy the sluices, or steal the mill-
irons (/err amentum). But there were water-mills in Germany
and France a hundred years before the Salic laws were formed.
Ausonius, who lived about the year 379, mentions some which
were then still remaining on a small stream that falls into the
Moselle, and which were noticed also by Fortunatus in the 1
,

fifth century. Gregory of Tours, who wrote towards the end

of the sixth century, speaks of a water-mill which was situated
near the town of Dijon and of another which a certain abbot
;

caused to be built for the benefit of his convent 2 . Brito, who

in the beginning of the thirteenth century wrote in verse an
account of the actions of Philip Augustus king of France 3 ,
relates how by the piercing of a dam the mills near Gournay
(castrum Gornacum or Comacuni) were destroyed, to the
great detriment of the besieged. In the first crusade, at the
end of the eleventh century, the Germans burned in Bulgaria
seven mills which were situated below a bridge on a small
rivulet,and which seem to have been floating-mills 4 In deeds .

of the twelfth and thirteenth century, water-mills are often

called aquimollia, aquimoli, aquismoli, aqidmola Petrus .

Damiani, one of the fathers of the eleventh century, says,

" Sicut aquimolum nequaquam potest sine gurgitis inundantia
"
frumenta permolere, ita, &c. 6
At Venice and other places, there were mills which righted

gerit, —
quod fregit intra triginta dies reparare cogatur. Eadem et de stagnis,
quae sunt circa molina conclusiones aquarum, praecipiirms custodire." The
sclusce are here called conclusiones aquarum, to which belong also the
mounds or dykes. See Corpus Juris Germanici Antiqui, ed. Georgisch.
Hala; 1738, 4to, p. 2097. Gregory of Tours calls them exclusas. But
what \sferr amentum'! The iron-work of our mills cannot be so easily
stolen as to render it necessary to secure them by particular laws.
1
Auson. Mosella, v. 362. Fortunati Carmina, Moguntine 1617, 4to, p. 83.
2
Gregorii Turonensis Opera, Paris, 1699, fol. Hist. lib. iii. 19, p. 126.
Ibid. Vita Patrum, 18, p. 1242.
3 Gul. Britonis Philippidos libri xii. lib. vi. v.220.
4 Chronicon Hierosolvmitanum, edit, a Reineecio. Helms. 1584, 4to,
lib. i. c. 10.
5
See Carpentieri Gloss. Nov. ad Scriptores medii, sevi, (Supp. ad Du-
cang.) Paris, 1766, fol. vol. i. p. 266. In a chronicle written in the year
1290, a floating-mill is called molendinwn navale, also navencum; and in
another chronicle of 1301, molendinum pendens.
6
Damiani Opera, ed. Cajetani. Paris, 1743, fol. i. p. 105, lib. vi. epist. 23.
 CORN-MILLS. 157

themselves by the ebbing and flowing of the tide, and which

every six hours changed the position of the wheels. Zanetti 1
has shown, from some old charters, that such mills existed
about the year 1044; and with still more certainty in 1078,
1079, and 1107. In one charter are the words: Super toto
ipso aquimolo molendini posito in palude jaxta campo alto
where the expression aquimolum molendini deserves to be
particularly remarked, as it perhaps indicates that the mill in
question was a proper grinding-raill. Should this conjecture
be well-founded, it would prove that so early as the eleventh
century water-mills were used not only for grinding corn, but
for many other purposes.
It appears that hand- and cattle-mills were everywhere still
retained at private houses a long time after the erection of
water-mills. We read in the Life of St. Benedict, that he
had a mill with an ass, to grind corn for himself and his col-
leagues. Among the legendary tales of St. Bertin, there is
one of a woman who, because she ground corn on a fast-day,
lost the use of her arm ; and of another whose hand stuck to
the handle, because she undertook the same work at an un-
seasonable time. More wonders of this kind are to be found
at later periods in the Popish mythology. Such small mills re-
mained long in the convents and it was considered as a great
;

merit in many ecclesiastics, that they ground their own corn

in order to make bread. The real cause of this was, that as
the convents -were entirely independent of every person with-
out their walls, they wished to supply all their wants themselves
as far as possible ; and as these lazy ecclesiastics had, besides,
too little labour and exercise, they employed grinding as an
amusement, and to enable them to digest better their ill-de-
served food. Sulpicius Severus 3 gives an account of the mode
of living of an Eastern monk in the beginning of the fifth
century, and says expressly that he ground his own corn.
Gregory of Tours mentions an abbot who eased his monks of
their labour at the hand-mill, by erecting a water-mill. It
deserves here to be remarked, that in the sixth century male-
factors in France were condemned to the mill, as is proved by
the history of Septimina the nurse of Childebert 3 .
1
Dell' Origine di alcune Arti Principal! Appresso i Veneziani. Ven.
1758, 4to, 2 Dialog,
p. 71. i. 2.
3 Histor. FrancoriUB, lib.
ix. 38, p. 462.
 ;

158 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The entrusting of that violent element water to support and

drive mills constructed with great art, displayed no little share
of boldness ; but it was still more adventurous to employ the
no less violent but much more untractable, and always change-
able wind for the same purpose. Though the strength and
direction of the wind cannot be any way altered, it has how-
ever been found possible to devise means by which a building
can be moved in such a manner that it shall be exposed to
neither more nor less wind than is necessary, let it come from
what quarter it may.
It is very improbable, or much rather false, that the Romans
had wind-mills, though Pomponius Sabinus affirms so, but
without any proof . Vitruvius 2 , where he speaks of all moving
1

forces, mentions also the wind ; but he does not say a word
of wind-mills nor are they noticed either by Seneca 3 or Chry-
;

sostom 4 who have both spoken of the advantages of the wind.

,

I consider as false also, the account given by an old Bohemian

annalist 5 who says that before the year 718 there were none
,

but wind-mills in Bohemia, and that water-mills were then

introduced for the first time. I am of opinion that the author
meant to have written hand- and cattle-mills instead of wind-
mills.
It has been often asserted that these mills were first invented
in the East, and introduced into Europe by the crusaders
but this also is improbable ; for mills of this kind are not at
all, or very seldom, found in the East. There are none of them
in Persia, Palestine, or Arabia, and even water-mills are there
uncommon, and constructed on a small scale. Besides, we
find wind-mills before the crusades, or at least at the time when
they were first undertaken. It is probable that these buildings
may have been made known to a great part of Europe, and
1
See Pomponius Sabinus, ut supra.
2 Lib. ix. x. c. 1, 13.
c. 9 ;

3 Natur. Qusest. lib. v. c. 18.

4
Chrysost. in Psalm, cxxxiv. p. 362.
5 "At
the same period (718) one named Halekthe son ofUladi the weak,
built close to the city an ingenious mill which was driven by water. It
was visited by many Bohemians, in whom it excited much wonder, and who
taking it as a model, built others of the like kind here and there on the
rivers ; for before that time nil the Bohemian mills were wind-mills, erected
—
on mountains." Wenceslai Hagecii Chronic. Bohem. translated into Ger-
man by John Sandel. Nuremherg, 1697, fob p. 13.
 CORN-MILLS. 159

particularly in France and England by those who returned

1
,

from these expeditions but it does not thence follow that

;

they were invented in the East 2 The crusaders perhaps saw

.

such mills in the course of their travels through Europe very ;

probably in Germany, Avhich is the original country of most

large machines. In the like manner, the knowledge of several
useful things has been introduced into Germany by soldiers
who have returned from different wars as the English and
;

French, after their return from the last war, made known in
their respective countries many of our useful implements of
husbandry, such as our straw-chopper, scythe, &c.
Mabillon mentions a diploma of the year 1105, in which a
convent in France is allowed to erect water- and wind-mills,
molendina ad ventum 3 In the year 1143, there was in
.

Northamptonshire an abbey (Pipewell) situated in a wood,

which in the course of 180 years was entirely destroyed. One
cause of its destruction was said to be, that in the whole
neighbourhood there was no house, wind- or water-mill built,
for which timber was not taken from this wood 4 In the .

1
—
See De la Mare, Traite de la Police, &c. ut supra. Description du
—
Duche de Bourgogne. Dijon, 1775, 8vo, i. p. 163. Dictionnaire des Ori-
gines, par d'Origny, v. p. 184. The last work has an attracting title, but
it is the worst of its kind, written without correctness or judgement, and
without giving authorities.
2 There are no wind-mills at Ispahan nor in any part of Persia. The mills

are ail driven by water, by the hand, or by cattle. Voyages de Chardin.

—
Rouen, 1723, 8vo, viii. p. 221. The Arabs have no wind-mills these are ;

used in the East only in places where no streams are to be found and in
;

most parts the people make use of hand-mills. Those which I saw on
Mount Lebanon and Mount Carmel had a great resemblance to those which
are found in many parts of Italy. They are exceedingly simple and cost
very little. The mill-stone and the wheel are fastened to the same axis.
The wheel, if it can be so called, consists of eight hollow boards shaped like
a shovel, placed across the axis. When the water falls with violence upon
these boards it turns them round and puts in motion the mill-stone over
—
which the corn is poured. Darvieux, Reisen, Partiii. Copenh. 1754, Svo.
I did not see either water- or wind-mills in all Arabia. I however found an
oil-press at Tehama, which was driven by oxen ; and thence suppose that
the Arabs have corn-mills of the like kind.
3 Mabillon, Annales Ord. Benedicti.
— Niebuhr, p. 217.
Pai-is, 1713, fol. p. 474.
4
—
Dugdale, Mon. i. p. 816. The letter of donation, which appears also
to be of the twelfth century, may be found in the same collection, ii. p. 459.
In it occurs the expression molendinum ventriticum. In a charter also in
vol. iii. p. 1 07, we read of molendinum ventorium. See Dugdale'; Monasti-
con, cd. nov. vol. v. p. 431-442.
160 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

twelfth century, when these mills began to be more common,

a dispute arose whether the tithes of them belonged to the
clergy ; and Pope Celestine III. determined the question in
favour of the church In the year 1332, one Bartolomeo
1
.

Verde proposed to the Venetians to build a wind-mill. When

his plan had been examined, a piece of ground was assigned
to him, which he was to retain in case his undertaking should
succeed within a time specified 2 . In the year 1393, the city
of Spires caused a wind-mill to be erected, and sent to the
Netherlands for a person acquainted with the method of grind-
ing by it 3 . Awind-mill was also constructed at Frankfort
in 1442, but I do not know whether there had not been such
there before.
To turn the mill to the wind, two methods have been in-
vented. The whole building is constructed in such a manner
as to turn on a post below, or the roof alone, together with
the axle-tree, and the wings are moveable. Mills of the former
kind are called German-mills, those of the latter Dutch.
They are both moved round either by a wheel and pinion
within, or by a long lever without 4 . I am inclined to believe
that the German -mills are older than the Dutch ; for the
earliest descriptions which I can remember, speak only of the
former. Cardan 5 in whose time wind-mills were very common
,

both in France and Italy, makes however no mention of the .

latter ; and the Dutch themselves affirm, that the mode of

building with a moveable roof was first found out by a Fleming
in the middle of the sixteenth century 6 Those mills, by
.

which in Holland the water is drawn up and thrown off from

the land, one of which was built at Alkmaar in 1408, another

1
Decretal Greg. 2
lib. iii. tit. 30. c. 23. Zanetti, ut supra.
3
Lehmann's Chronica der Stadt Speyer. Frankf. 1662,4to,p.847. "Sent
to the Netherlands for a miller who could grind with the wind-mill."
4
Descriptions and figures of both kinds may be found in Leupold's
Theatrum Machinarum Generale. Leipzig, 1724, fol. p. 101, tab. 41, 42, 43.
5 De Rerura Varietate, lib. i. cap. 10.
6
This account I found in De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Lc
Long. Amst. 1727, 2 vol. 8vo, ii. p. 584. " The moveable top for turning
the mill round to every wind was first found out in the middle of the six-
teenth century by a Fleming." We read there that this is remarked by John
Adrian Leegwater of whom I know nothing more than what is related of
;

him in the above work, that he was celebrated on account of various inven-
tions, and died in 1650, in the 75th year of his age.
 CORN-MILLS. 161

at Schoonhoven in 1450, and a third at Enkhuisen in 1452,

were at first driven by horses, and afterwards by wind. But
as these mills were immoveable, and could work only when
the wind was in one quarter, they were afterwards placed not.
on the ground, but on a float which could be moved round in
such a manner that the mill should catch every wind This 1
.

method gave rise perhaps to the invention of moveable mills.

It is highly probable, that in the early ages men were satis-
fied with only grinding their corn, and that in the course of
time they fell upon the invention of separating the meal from
the pollard or bran. This was at first done by a sieve moved
with the hands; and even yet in France, when what is called
mouture en grosse is employed, there is a particular place for
bolting, where the sieve is moved with the hand by means of*
a handle. It is customary also in many parts of Lower Saxony
and Alsace, to bolt the flour separately; for which purpose
various sieves are necessary. The Romans had two principal
kinds, cribra excussoria and po/Mnuria, the latter of which
gave the finest flour, called pollen. Sieves of horse-hair were
first made by the Gauls, and those of linen by the Spaniards-.
The method of applying a sieve in the form of an extended
bag to the works of the mill, that the meal might fall into it
as it came from the stones, and of causing it tn be turned and
shaken by the machinery, was first made known in the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, as we are expressly told in seve-
ral ancient chronicles 3 .

1
See Beschryving der Stadt Delft, Delft, 1729, folio 625.
2 Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 1 1.
3
At Midsummer 1502, machinery for bolting in mills was first intro-
duced and employed at Zwikau; Nicholas Boiler, who gave rise to this
improvement, being then sworn master of the bakers' company. It may

be thence easily seen, that coarse and not bolted flour, such as is still used
in many places, and as was used through necessity at Zwikau in 164.1', was
before that period used for baking. Chronica Cygnea, auct. Tub. Schinid-
ten. Zwikau, 1656, v. vol. 4to, ii. p. 2i9. See also Theatri Freibergensis
Chronicon. Freyberg, 1653, 4to, ii. p 335. Anno 1580, a great drought
and scarcity of water. Of all the mills near town there were only fifteen
going; and in order that the people mieht be better siippl ed with meal,
the bolting machinery was removed, and this was attended with such good
consequences that each mill could grind as much a< before. In Walsen's
Appenzeller Chronik. 8vo, p. 471, we are told that about that time ! 533), (

a freeman of Memmingen taught the people of Appenz.el to make the beau-

tiful white bolted flour so much and so far celebrated.

VOL. I. M
\6 lZ HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

This invention gave rise to an employment which at pre-

sent maintains a great many people ; Lmean that of preparing
bolting-cloths, or those kinds of cloth through which meal is
sifted in mills. As this cloth is universally used, a consider-
able quantity of it is consumed. For one bolting-cloth, five
yards are required ; we may allow, therefore, twenty-five to
each mill in the course of a year. When this is considered,
it will not appear improbable, that the electorate of Saxony,
according to a calculation made towards the end of the seven-
teenth century, when manufactories of this cloth were esta-
blished, paid for it yearly to foreigners from twelve to fifteen
thousand rix-dollars. That kind of bolting-cloth also which
is used for a variety of needle-work, for young ladies' sam-

plers, and for filling up the frames of window-screens, &c, is

wove after the manner of gauze, of fine-spun woollen yarn.
One might imagine that this manufacture could not be at-
tended with any difficulty yet it requires many ingenious
;

operations which the Germans cannot easily perform, and

with which they are, perhaps, not yet perfectly acquainted.
However this may be, large quantities of bolting-cloth are im-
ported from England. It indeed costs half as much again
per yard as the German cloth, but it lasts much longer. A
bolting-cloth of English manufacture will continue good three
months, but one of German will last scarcely three weeks.
The wool necessary for making this cloth must be long, well-
washed, and spun to a fine equal thread, which, before it is
scoured, must be scalded in hot water to prevent it from
shrinking. The web must be stiffened and in this the En-
;

glish have an advantage we have not yet been able to attain.

Their bolting-cloth is stiller as well as smoother, and lets the
flour much better through it than ours, which is either very
little or not at all stiffened. The places where this cloth is
made are also not numerous. A manufactory of it was esta-
blished at Ostra, near Dresden, by Daniel Kraft, about the
end of the seventeenth century and to raise him a capital
;

for carrying it on, every mill was obliged to pay him a dollar.
Hartau, near Zittau, is indebted for its manufactory to Daniel
Plessky, a linen-weaver of the latter, who learned the art of
making bolting-cloth in Hungary, when on a visit to his rela-
tions, and was enabled to carry it on by the assistance of a
schoolmaster named Strietzel. Since that period this business
 CORN-MILLS. 163

Las been continued there, and become common The cloth

1
.

which is sent for sale, not only everywhere around the coun-
try, but also to Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, is wove m
pieces. Each
piece contains from sixty-four to sixty-five
Leipsic ells the narrowest is ten, and the widest fourteen
:

inches in breadth. Apiece of the former costs at present

from four to about four dollars and a half, and one of the
latter six dollars. This cloth, it must be allowed, is not very
white ; but it is not liable to spoil by lying in warehouses.
Large quantities of bolting-cloth are made also by a company
in the duchy of Wurtemberg. At what time this art was in-
troduced there I cannot say; for every thing I know of it I
am indebted to a friend, who collected for me the following
information in his return through that country. The cloth is
not wove in a manufactory, but by eighteen or twenty master
weavers, under the inspection of a company who pay them,
and who supply all the materials. The company alone has
the privilege of dealing in this cloth ; and the millers must
purchase from their agents whatever quantity they have occa-
sion for 2 .The millers however choose rather, if they can, to
supply themselves privately with foreign and other home-
made bolting-cloth, as they complain that the weavers engaged
by the company do not bestow sufficient care to render their
cloth durable: besides, the persons employed to carry about
this cloth for sale, often purchase secretly cloth of an inferior
quality in other places, and sell it as that of the company.
Bolting-cloth is made also at Gera, as well as at Potsdam and
Berlin at the latter of which there is a manufactory of it
;

carried on by the Jews.

For some years past the French have so much extolled a
manner of grinding called mouture economique, that one might
almost consider it as a new invention, which ought to form an
epoch in the history of the miller's art. This art, which how-
ever is not new, consists in not grinding the flour so fine at
once as one may wish, and in putting the meal afterwards
several times through the mill, and sifting it through various

1
Transactions of the Economical Society at Leipsic, 1772. Dresden,
8vo, p. 79.
2 According
to the general rescript of 1750, which has heen often re-
r.?wed. The company obtained this exclusive right as early as the year
1668.
M2
264 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVEHIES.

sieves. This method, which in reality has nothing in it either

very ingenious or uncommon, was known to the ancient Ro-
mans, as we may conclude from the account of Pliny, who
names the different kinds of meal, such as similago, simila,
Jios, pollen, cibarium, &c. for these words are not synony-
;

mous, but express clearly all the various kinds of meal or flour
which were procured from the same corn by repeated grind-
ing and sifting. In general, the Romans had advanced very
far in this art and they knew how to prepare from corn
1
;

more kinds of meal, and from meal more kinds of bread, than
1
One may easily perceive by what Pliny says, that the Romans had
made a variety of observations and experiments on grinding and baking.
By comparing his information with what we know at present, I have re-
marked two things, which, as they will perhaps be serviceable to those who
hereafter may endeavour to illustrate Pliny, I shall lay before the reader.
That author says, book xviii. ch. 9, " Qure sicca moluntur plus farinse
reddunt qua? salsa aqua sparsa, candidiorem medullam, verum plus reti-
;

nent in furfure." A question here arises, whether the corn was moistened
before it was ground, and whether this was done with fresh or with salt
water. If Pliny, as is probable, here means a thorough soaking, he is not
mistaken for it is certain that corn which has been exposed to much wet
;

yields less meal, and that the meal, which is rather gray or reddish than
white, will not keep long. The millers also are obliged, when corn has
been much wetted, to put it through the mill oftener, because it is more
difficult to be ground. It is true also, that when salt water is used for
moistening corn, the meal becomes clammier and more difficult to be sepa-
rated from the bran. It is well known that it is not proper to steep in salt
water, malt which is to be ground for beer. On the other hand, a mode-
rate soaking, which requires experience and attention, is useful, and is
employed in preparing the finest kinds of flour, such as the Frankfort,
Augsburg and Ulm speltmeal, which is exported to distant countries.
There is another passage in the tenth chapter of the same book of Pliny,
where he seems to recommend a thorough soaking of corn that is to be
ground. " Do ipsa ratione pisendi Magonis proponetur sententia triti- :

cum ante perfundi aqua multa jubet, postea evalli, deinde sole siccatum
pilo repeti." I am of opinion that we have here the oldest account of the

manner of making meal that is, by pounding. This appears to me pro-

;

bable from the words immediately preceding, which I have above endea-
voured to explain, and from the word evalli. I do not think that it ought
to be translated to winnow, as almasius says, in Exercitat. Plinianse,
p. 907 but agree with Gesner in The^aur. Steph., that it signifies to free the
;

corn from the husk. The corn was first separated from the husks by
pounding, which was more easily done after the grain had been soaked;
the shelled corn was then soaked again, and by these means rendered so
brittle, that it was easily pounded to meal. The like method is employed
when people make grits without a mill, only by pounding; a process men-
tioned by Kriinitz iu his Encyclopedic, vol. ix. p. 805.
 CORN-MILLS. 165

the French have hitherto been able to obtain. Pliny reckons

that bread should be one-third heavier than the meal used for
baking it ; and that this was the proportion in Germany above
a hundred years ago, is known from experiments on bread
made at different times, which, however uncertain they may
always have been, give undoubtedly more bread than meal 1
In latter times the arts of grinding and of baking have de-
clined very much in Italy ; and sensible Italians readily ac-
knowledge that their bread is much inferior to that of most
parts of Europe, and that in this respect the Germans are
their masters 9 . Rome indeed forms an exception ; for one
can procure there as good bread as in Germany ; but it is
necessary to acquaint the reader, that it is not baked by Ita-
lians but by Germans ; and all the bread and biscuit baked at
Venice in the public ovens, either for home consumption, the
use of shipping, or for exportation, is the work of German.
masters and journeymen. They are called to Venice expressly
for that purpose ; and at Rome they form at present a com-
pany, and have a very elegant church. The ovens of these
German bakers are seldom suffered to cool, and the greater
part of the owners of them become rich ; but as through ava-
rice they often continue their labour, without interruption, in
the greatest heat for several days and nights, scarcely one in
ten of them lives to return with his wealth to Germany. The
Germans have, it is certain, long supplied the inhabitants of
proud Rome, the metropolis of Catholic Christendom, with
bread ; for in the fifteenth century it was customary in all the
great families to use no other than German bread, as is very
circumstantially related by Felix Fabri, a Dominican monk,
who wrote about the end of the above century, and died in
1502 3 .

1
Further information on this subject may he found collected in Kriinitz,
Encyclopedic, vol. iii. p. 334. According to experiments mentioned by
Kbhler, a hundred pounds of meal in Germany produce a hundred and
fifty pounds of dough, and these a hundred and fifty-three pounds eleven
and a half ounces of good bread.
2 See the treatise of Kosa, professor of medicine at Pavia, on the baking

of bread in Lombardy, in Atti dell' Academia delle Scienze di Siena,

torn. iv. p. 321.
3 " Italy, the most celebrated country in the world, and abundant in

grain, has no delicate, wholesome and pleasant bread, but what is baked
by a German baker, who, by art and industrious labour, subdues the fire,
166 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The mouture economique has been long known in Germany.

Sebastian Muller, in the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, gave so clear a description of it, that the French even
acknowledge it 1 . This author says that one Butre, who came
to Germany to teach the Germans to grind and to bake, was
not a little disconcerted when he found his scholars more
expert than their officious master, and that he met with no-
thing to console him but that, according to his opinion, the
mill-stones at Carlsruhe were too small, and that the bolt-
ing-sieves were not made in the same manner as those at
Paris ".
Millers and bakers, even in France, practised sometimes
this method of grinding so early as the sixteenth century ; but
it was some time forbidden by the police as hurtful. In the
year 1546, those were threatened with punishment who should
grind their corn twice 3 ; and in 1658 this threat was renewed,
and the cause added, that such a practice was prejudicial to
the health 4 .Such prohibitions however, made by the police
without sufficient grounds, could not prevent intelligent per-

tempers the heat, and equalises the flour in such a manner, that the bread
becomes light, fine and delicate whereas, if baked by an Italian, it is
;

heavy, hard, unwholesome and insipid. His holiness, therefore, prelates,

kings, princes and great lords, seldom eat any bread except what is baked
in the German manner. The Germans not only bake well our usual bread,
but they prepare also biscuit for the use of ships or armies in the time of
war, with so much skill, that the Venetians have German bakers only in
their public bakehouses and their biscuit is sent far and wide over Illy—
;

ria, Macedonia, the Hellespont, Greece, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania,

Spain, France, and even to the Orkney Islands and Britain, to be used by
their own seamen, or sold to other nations." — Historia Suevorum, lib. i.
c. 8. This history of Felix Fabri may be found in Suevicarum lterum Scrip-
tores, Goldasti. Franc. 1605, 4to, and Ulm, 1727, fol.
1
Bericht von Brodtbacken, etc., dureh Sab. Mullern, Leipsig, 1616, 4to.
Muller's work is republished in Arcana et Curiositates (Economical. By
David Maiern, 1706, 8vo.
2 Schreber,
in his Observations on Malouin, shows that the mill-stones
in France are too large.
3 Traite de la Police,
par De la Mare, ii. p. 259.
4 " Defenses sont aussi
faites ;i tous boulangers, tant maitres que forains,
de faire remoudre aucun son, pour par aprcs en faire et fabriquer du pain,
attendu qu'il seroit indigne d'entrer au corps humain, sur peine de qua-
rante-huit livres Parisis d'amende." — De la Mare, p. 228. The following
was the true cause of this prohibition. As a heavy tax in kind was de-
manded for all the meal brought to Paris, many seut thither not meal, but
 CORN-MILLS. 167

sons from remarking that the bran still contained meal, which,
when separated from it, would be as proper for food as the
first. Those who had observed this were induced, by the pro-
bability of advantage, to try to separate the remaining meal
from the bran ; and the attempt was attended with success,
but it was necessary to keep it concealed. Malouin relates,
that above a hundred years before, a miller at Senlis employed
this method, and that the same practice was generally, though
privately, introduced at all the mills in the neighbourhood.
There were people who made a trade of purchasing bran in
order to separate it from the meal, which they sold and it is
;

probable that many of them carried the art too far, and even
ground bran along with the meal. This was done chiefly
during times of scarcity, as in the year 1709. As men at
that time were attentive to every advantage, this art was more
known and more used, so that at length it became common,
The clergy of the royal chapel and parish church at Ver-
sailles sent their wheat to be ground at an adjacent mill it ;

was, according to custom, put through the mill only once,

and the bran, which still contained a considerable quantity of
meal, was sold for fattening cattle. In time, the miller, having
learned the mouture economique, purchased the bran from
these ecclesiastics, and found that it yielded him as good flou.
as they procured from the whole wheat. The miller at length
discovered to them the secret, and gave them afterwards four-
teen bushels of flour from their wheat, instead of eight which
he had given them before. This voluntary discovery of the
miller was made in 1760, and it is probable that, the art was
disclosed by more at the same time. A baker named Malis-
set proposed to the lieutenant-general de police to teach a
method, by which people could grind their corn with more
advantage and experiments were set on foot and published,
;

which proved the possibility of it. A mealman of Senlis,

named Buquet, who had the inspection of the mill belonging
to the large hospital at Paris, made the same proposal ; the
result of his experiments, conducted under the dirertion of
magistrates, was printed ; the investigation of this art was

bran abundant in meal, which they caused to be ground and sifted there,
and by these means acquired no small gain. When the tax was abolished,
an end was put to this deception, which would otherwise have brought
the mouture economique much sooner to perfection.
168 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

now taken up by men of learning, who gave it a suitable name;

and they exj)lained it, made calculations on it, and recom-
mended it so much, that the mouture econowique engaged the
attention of all the magistrates throughout France '• Govern-
ment sent Buquet to Lyons in 1764, to Bordeaux in 1766, to
Dijon in 1767, and to Montdidier in 1768; and the benefit
which France at present derives from this improvement is
well woith that trouble. Before that period, a Paris setter
yielded from eighty to ninety pounds of meal, and from one
hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty pounds of bran;
but the same quantity yields now one hundred and eighty-
five, and according to the latest improvements one hundred
and ninety-five pounds of meal. Ir^iie time of St. Louis,
from four to five setiers were reckoned necessary for the yearly
maintenance of a man, and these even were scarcely suffi-
cient; as many were allowed to the patients in the hospital
aux Quinze-Vingts and such was the calculation made by
;

Budee in the sixteenth century 2 When the miller's art was .

everywhere improved, these four setiers were reduced to three

and a half, and after the latest improvements to two.
Mills by which grain is only freed from the husk and
rounded, are called barley-mills, and belong to the new in-
dentions. At first barley was prepared only by pounding,
but afterwards by grinding and as it was more perfectly
;

rounded by the latter method, it was distinguished from that

made by pounding by the name of pearl-barley. Barley-
milis differ very little in their construction from meal-mills;
and machinery for striking barley is generally added to the
latter. The principal difference is that the mill-stone is rough-
hewn around its circumference and, instead of an under- ;

stone, has below it a wooden case, within which it revolves,

and which, in the inside, is lined with a plate of iron pierced
like a grater, with holes, the sharp edges of which turn up-
wards. The barley is thrown upon the stone, which, as it
runs round, draws it in, frees it from the husk, and rounds it;
after which it is put into sieves and sifted. At Ulm, however,
the well-known Ulm barley is struck by a common mill, after
the stones have been separated a sufficient distance from each
1
Ilistoirc de la Vic Privce des Francois, par M. Le Grand d'Aussy.
Paris, 1782, 3 vols. 8vo, i. p. 50.
2
Budanis De Asse. BasiJisc, lo56 ;
fol. p. 214.
 CORN-MILLS. 169

other. The first kind of barley-mills is a German invention.

In Holland the first was erected at Saardam not earlier than
the year 1660. This mill, which at first was called the Pelli-
kaan, scarcely produced in several years profit sufficient to
maintain a family; but in the beginning of the last century
there were at Saardam fifty barley-mills, which brought con-
siderable gain to their proprietors . 1

As long as the natural freedom of man continued unre-

strained by a multiplicity of laws, every person was at liberty
to build on his own lands and possessions whatever he thought
proper, and not only water- but also wind-mills. This free-
dom was not abridged even by the Roman law-. But as it is
the duty of rulers to consult what is best for the whole so-
ciety under their protection, princes took care that no one
should make such use of common streams as might impede or
destroy their public utility 3 . On this account no individual
was permitted to construct a bridge over any stream and it ;

is highly probable that the proprietors of land, when water-

mills began be numerous, restrained, from the same prin-

to
of erecting them, and allowed them only, when
ciple, the liberty
after a proper investigation they were declared to be not de-
trimental. Water-mills, therefore, were included among what
were called regalia and among these they are expressly
;

reckoned by the emperor Frederic I. 4 On small streams

however which were not navigable, the proprietors of the
banks might build mills everywhere along them 5 .
The avarice of landholders, favoured by the meanness and
injustice of governments, and by the weakness of the people,
extended this regality not only over all streams, but also
over the air and wind-mills. The oldest example of this with
which I am at present acquainted, is related by Jargow 6 In .

the end of the fourteenth century, the monks of the celebrated

but long since destroyed monastery of Augustines, at Winds-
!
De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le Long. ii. p. 538.
'-
Digestorum lib. xxxix. tit. 2. 24. 3
Ihid. lib. xliii. tit. 12. 1.
4
See a diploma of Frederic I., dated 1159, in Tolneri Codex Diplomati-
cs Palatinus, Franc. 1700, fol. p. 54. In Reliquiae Manuscriptorum, P.
Ludewig. Franc. 1720, 8vo, ii. p. 200, we read an instance of the emperor
Frederic I. having forbidden the building of a mill.
a
Digestor. lib. xliii. tit. 11, 12.
6
Einleitung in die Lehre von den Regalien. Rostock, 1757, 4to,
p. 494.
170 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

heim, in the province of Overyssel, were desirous of erecting

a wind-mill not far from Zwoll but a neighbouring lord en-
;

deavoured to prevent them, declaring that the wind in that

district belonged to him. The monks, unwilling to give up
their point, had recourse to the bishop of Utrecht, under
whose jurisdiction the province had continued since the tenth
century. The bishop, highly incensed against the pretender
who wished to usurp his authority, affirmed that no one had
power over the wind within his diocese but himself and the
church at Utrecht, and he immediately granted full power, by
letters patent, dated 1391, to the convent at Windsheim, to
build for themselves and their successors a good wind-mill, in
any place which they might find convenient'. In the like
manner the city of Haerlem obtained leave from Albert count
palatine of the Rhine to build a wind-mill in the year 1394 2.
Another restraint to which men in power subjected the
weak, in regard to mills, was, that vassals were obliged to
grind their corn at their lord's mill, for which they paid a cer-
tain value in kind. The oldest account of such ban-mills,
molendina bannaria, occurs in the eleventh century. Ful-
bert, bishop of Chartres, and chancellor of France, in a letter
to Richard duke of Normandy, complains that attempts be-
gan to be made to compel the inhabitants of a part of that
province to grind their corn at a mill situated at the distance
of five leagues 3 . In the chronicle of the Benedictine monk
Hugo de Flavigny, who lived in the eleventh and twelfth cen-
tury, we find mention of molendina guaiuor cum banno ipsius
villcB*. More examples of this servitude, secta ad molendi-
num, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, may be seen in
Du Fresne, under the words molendinum bannale.
It is not difficult to account for the origin of these ban-mills.
When the people were once subjected to the yoke of slavery,
they were obliged to submit to more and severer servitudes,
which, as monuments of feudal tyranny, have continued even
to more enlightened times. De la Mare 5 gives an instance
1
Chronicon Canon, reg. ord. August, capituli Windesemensis ; auctore
Job. Buschio. Antv. 1621, 8vo, p. 73.
2 Schrevelii Harlem nm. Lngd. Bat. 1647, 4to, p. 181.
3 This letter of Fulbert may be found in Maxima Bibliotlieca Yeterum
Fat rum. Lugduni 1677, fol. torn, xviii. p. 9.
* In Labbei
Biblioth. Manuscr. ii.p. 132.
6
Traites de la Police, ii. p. 151.
 VERDIGRIS, OR SPANISH GREEN. 171

where a lord, in affranchising his subjects, required of them,

in remembrance of their former subjection, and that he might
draw as much from them in future as possible, that they should
agree to pay a certain duty, and to send their corn to be ground
at his mill, their bread to be baked in his oven, and their
grapes to be pressed at his wine-press. But the origin of these
servitudes might perhaps be accounted for on juster grounds.
The building of mills was at all time3 expensive, and under-
taken only by the rich, who, to indemnify themselves for the
money expended in order to benefit the public, stipulated that
the people in the neighbourhood should grind their corn at no
other mills than those erected by them.

VERDIGRIS, or SPANISH GREEN.

Respecting the preparation of verdigris, various and in part
contradictory opinions have been entertained; and at present,
when it is with certainty known, it appears that the process is
almost the same as that employed in the time of Theophras-
tus, Dioscorides, and Vitruvius . At that period, however,
1

every natural green copper salt was comprehended under the

name of cervgo. Dioscorides and Pliny say expressly, that a
substance of the nature of those stones which yielded copper
when melted, was scraped off in the mines of Cyprus ; as is
still practised in Hungary, where the outer coat of the copper

ore is collected in the like manner, and afterwards purified by

being washed in water. Another species, according to the
account of Dioscorides, was procured from the water of a
grotto in the same island ; and the most saleable natural ver-
digris is still collected by a similar method in Hungary. The
clear water which runs from old copper-works is put into large
vessels, and after some time the green earth falls to the bottom
as a sediment.

1
Dioseorid.lib. v. cap. 91, 92. Theopbrastus De Lapidibus, edit. Heinsii,
p. 399. Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 11,12. Oribasius, lib. xiii. Stephani Medicae
Artis Principes, p. 453. Vitruv. lib. vii. cap. 12.
172 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The cervgo of the ancients, however, was our ver-

artificial
digris, or copper converted into a green salt by acetic acid.
To discover the method of procuring this substance could not
be difficult, as that metal contracts a green rust oftener than
is wished, when in the least exposed to acids. The ancients,
for this purpose, used either vessels and plates of copper, or
only shavings and filings and the acid they employed was
;

either the sourest vinegar, or the sour remains left when they
made wine such as grapes become sour, or the stalks and
;

skins after the juice had been pressed from them'. Some-
times the copper was only exposed to the vapour of vinegar
in close vessels, so that it did not come into immediate contact
with the acid in the same manner as was practised with plates
;

of lead in the time of Theophrastus, when white-lead was

made, and as is still practised at present. Sometimes the metal
was entirely covered with vinegar, or frequently besprinkled
with it, and the green rust was from time to time scraped off;
and sometimes copper filings were pounded with vinegar in a
copper mortar, till they were changed into the wished-for
green salt. This article was frequently adulterated, sometimes
with stones, particularly pumice-stone reduced to powder, and
sometimes with copperas. The first deception was easily dis-
covered; and to detect the second, nothing was necessary but
to roast the verdigris, which betrayed the iron by becoming
red or to add to the verdigris some gall-nut, the astringent
;

ingredients of which united with the oxide of iron of the

copperas, and formed a black ink.
In early periods verdigris was used principally for making
plasters, and for other medicinal purposes but it was em-
;

ployed also as a colour, and on that account it is by Vitruvius

reckoned among the pigments. When applied to the former
purpose, it appears that the copper salt was mixed with various
other salts and ingredients. One mixture of this kind was
called vermicular verdigris-, the accounts of which in ancient
1
Plinius vinacea.
: Dioscoridcs <TTep<l>v\a. Theophrastus: rpv'i. The
:

lastword has various meanings: sometimes it signifies squeezed grapes;

sometimes wine lees, &c, of which Nielas gives examples in his Observa-
tions on Geop. 457 but it can never be translated by amurca,
lib. vi. c. 13, p. ;

though that word used by Furlanus, the translator of Theophrastus. The

is

old glossary says, 'Afiupyi), karlv Se rpiiZ, eXaiov. Oil, however, has no-
thing to do with verdigris.
2
'lus <jkio\t]'£. aerugo scolacea, or vermicularis.
 VERDIGRIS, OR SPANISH GREEN. 173

authors seem to some commentators to be obscure but in my ;

opinion we are to understand by them, that the ingredients

were pounded together till the paste they formed assumed the
appearance of pieces or threads like worms and that from this
;

resemblance they obtained their name. For the same reason

the Italians give the name of vermicelli to wire-drawn paste of
flour used in cookery 1 . When the process for making this kind
of verdigris did not succeed, the workmen frequently added
gum to it, by which the paste was rendered more viscous but ;

this mixture is censured both by Piiny and Dioscorides. It

appears that the greater part of the verdigris in ancient times
was made in Cyprus, which was celebrated for its copper-works,
and in the island of Rhodes.
At present considerable quantities of verdigris are manufac-
tured at Montpelier in France, and by processes more advan-
tageous than those known to the ancients 2 The dried stalks
.

of grapes are steeped in strong wine, and with it brought to a

sour fermentation. When the fermentation has ceased, they
are put into an earthen pot, in alternate layers with plates of
copper, the surface of which in a i'ew days is corroded by the
acetic acid, and the salt is then scraped off. It is certain,
that, even in the fifteenth century, the making of verdigris
was an old and profitable branch of commerce in France.
The # city of Montpelier having been obliged to expend large
sums in erecting more extensive buildings to carry it on, and
having had very small profits for some years before, received
by letters patent from Charles VI., in 1411, permission to de-
mand sixteen sous for every hundred weight of verdigris made
there. In later times this trade has decayed very much.
Between the years 1748 and 1755, from nine to ten thousand
quintals were manufactured annually, by which the proprietors
had a clear profit of 50,000 crowns ; but a sudden change
1
Should this explanation be just, we ought for ceruca, the name given
by Vitruvius to verdigris, to read eimca though the conjecture of Mar-
:

cellus Vergilius (Dioscorides, interprete Mar. Vergilio. Coloniae, 1529, fol.

p. 656), that the reading should be ceaea or area, is no less probable for
;

.by this epithet its difference from aruyofcrri was frequently distinguished.
3 [Dr. Ure states, in his Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, that the

manufacture of verdigris at Montpelier is altogether domestic. In most

wine farm-houses there is a verdigris cellar; and its principal operations
are conducted by the females of the family. They consider the forming
the strata, and scraping off the verdigris the most troublesome part.]
174 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

seems to have taken place, for in 1759 the quantity manufac-

tured was estimated at only three thousand quintals. This
quantity required 630 quintals of copper, valued at 78,750
livres: the expenses of labour amounted to 1323 livres; the
necessary quantity of wine, 1033 measures, to 46,485 livres,
and extraordinaries to 10,330 livres so that the three thousand
;

quintals cost the manufacturers about 136,888 livres. In the

year 1759, the pound of verdigris sold for nine sous six de-
niers : so that the three thousand quintals produced 142,500
livres, which gave a net profit of only 5612 livres. Other
nations, who till that period had purchased at leastthree- fourths
of the French verdigris, made a variety of experiments in
order to discover a method of corroding copper which might
be cheaper and some have so far succeeded that they can.
;

supply themselves without the French paint in cases of ne-

cessity '.

In commerce there is a kind of this substance known under

the name of distilled verdigris, which is nothing else than
verdigris purified, and crystallized by being again dissolved
in vinegar 2 . For a considerable period this article was ma-
nufactured solely by the Dutch, and affords an additional ex-
ample of the industry of that people. Formerly there was
only one person at Grenoble acquainted with this art, which
he kept secret and practised alone; but for some years ,past
manufactories of the same kind have been established in va-
rious part:- of Europe.
The German name of verdigris (Spangriin) has by most
authors been translated Spanish green and it has thence been
;

concluded that we received that paint first from the Spaniards.

This word and the explanation of it are both old for we find;

ceruffo, and viride Uispanicum, translated Spangriin, Spon-

1
[In England large quantities of verdigris are now prepared by arranging
plates of eopper alternately with pieces of coarse woollen cloth steeped in
crude pyroligneous acid, which is obtained by the destructive distillation of
wood.]
2
[Verdigris is a mixture of three compounds of acetic acid with oxide
of copper, which contain a preponderance of the base, hence basic ace-
tates; distilled verdigris is made by d gesting verdigris, or the mixture
of basic acetates of copper, with excess of acetic acid and crystallizing by
evaporation the acid then exists in such proportions as to form a neutral
:

acetate of copper.]
 ;

SAFFRON. 175

grim, or Spansgriin, in many of the earliest dictionaries',

such as that printed in 1480 2 For this meaning, however,
.

I know no other proof than the above etymology, which car-

ries with it very little probability and I do not remember
;

that I ever read in any other works that verdigris first came
from the Spaniards.

SAFFRON.
That the Latin word crocus signified the same plant which
we and which, in botany, still retains
at present call saffron,
the ancient name, has, as far as I know, never been doubted
and indeed I know no reason why it should, however mistrust-
ful I may be when natural objects are given out for those which
formerly had the like names. The moderns often apply an-
cient names to things very different from those which were
known under them by the Greeks and the Romans : but what
we read in ancient authors concerning crocus agrees in every
respect with our saffron, and can scarcely be applied to any
other vegetable production. Crocus was a bulbous plant,
which grew wild in the mountains. There were two species
of it, one of which flowered in spring, and the other in au-
tumn. The flowers of the latter, which appeared earlier than
the green leaves that remained through the winter, contained
those small threads or filaments 3 which were used as a medi-
cine and a paint, and employed also for seasoning various kinds
of food 4 .
1
Frisch's Worterbuch, p. 291. In the works of George Agricola, printed
together at Basle, 1546, fol., we find in p. 473, where the terms of art are
explained, " iErugo, Griinspan, or Spansch-griin, quod primo ah Hispams
ad Germanos sit allata; barbari nominant viride ceris."
2
By Conrad Zeninger, Nuremberg. In that scarce work, Josua Maaler,
Teutsche Spraach oder Dictionarium Germano-Latinum, Zurich, 1561, 4 to,
aerugo is called Spangriine.
3 [The stigmata of Botanists.]
4
Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 6. Geopon. lib. xi. cap. 26, and Theophrast. Histor.
Plant, lib. vi. cap. 6, where Joh. Bod. von Stapel, p. 661, has collected,
though not in good order, every thing to be found in the ancients respect-
ing saffron. The small aromatic threads, abundant in colour, the only parts
of the whole plant sought after, were by the Greeks called yXwjfTVesj
176 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

appears that the medicinal use, as well as the name of this

It
plant, lias always continued among the Orientals and the ;

Europeans, who adopted the medicine of the Greeks, sent to

the Levant for saffron ', until they learned the art. of rearing
it themselves; and employed it very much until they were

made acquainted with the use of more beneficial articles, which

they substituted in its stead. Those who are desirous of know-
ing the older opinions on the pharmaceutical preparation of
saffron, and the diseases in the curing of which it was em-
ployed, may read Hertodt's Crocologia, where the author has
collected all the receipts, and even the simplest, for preparing
it 2 .

What in the ancient use of saffron is most discordant with

our taste at present, is the employing it as a perfume. Not

only were halls, theatres, and courts, through which one wished
to diffuse an agreeable smell, strewed with this plant 3 , but it
entered into the composition of many spirituous extracts, which
retained the same scent and these costly smelling waters were
;

often made to flow in small streams, which spread abroad their

much-admired odour 4 Luxurious people even moistened or
.

filledwith them all those things with which they were desirous
of surprising their guests in an agreeable manner 5 or with ,

which they ornamented their apartments. From saffron, with

the addition of wax and other ingredients, the Greeks as well
as the Romans prepared also scented salves, which they used
in the same manner as our ancestors their balsams '.

KpoKiScs, or rpi'xes; and by the Romans spicce. They arc properly the
end of the pistil, which is cleft into three divisions. A very distinct repre-
sentation of this part of tlie flower may he seen in plate 184 of Touniefort's
Institut. Rei llerbariae, [or in Stephens and ChurchilFs Medical Botany.]
1
On this account we often find in prescriptions, Recipe croci Oiien
talis
2 Jena, 1670, 8vo.
3 See Beroald's Observations on the
54th chapter of the Life of Nero by
Suetonius; and Spartian, in the Life of Adrian, chop. 19.
1
Lucan, in the ninth book of bis Pharsalia, verce 809, describing; how
the blood flows from every vein of a person bit by a kind of serpent found
in Africa, says that it spouts, out in the same manner as the sweet-smelling
essence of saffron issues from the limbs of a statue.
6
Petron. Satyr, cap. 60.
6
Of the method of preparing this salve or balsam, mentioned by Athe-
naeus, Cicero, and others, an account is to be found in JJioseoridcs, lib. L
c. 26.
 :

SAFFRON. 177

Notwithstanding the fondness -which the ancients showed

for the smell of saffron, it does not appear that :"n modern

times it was ever much esteemed. As a perfume,, it would

undoubtedly be as little relished at present as the greater part
of the dishes of Apicius, fricassees of sucking puppies sau- 1
,

sages, and other parts of swine, which one could not even
mention with decency in genteel company 2 though it cer- ;

tainly has the same scent which it had in the time of Ovid,
and although our organs of smelling are in nothing different
from those of the Greeks and the Romans. From parts of
the world to them unknown, we have, however, obtained per-
fumes which far excel any with which they were acquainted.
We have new flowers, or, at least, more perfect kinds of flowers
long known, which, improved either by art or by accident, are
superior in smell to all those in the gardens of the Hesperides,
of Adonis and Alcinous, so much celebrated. We have learned
the art of mixing perfumes with oils and salts, in such a man-
ner as to render them more volatile, stronger, and more plea-
sant and we know how to obtain essences such as the ancient
;

voluptuaries never smelt, and for which they would undoubt-

edly have given up their saffron. The smelling- bottles and
perfumes which are often presented to our beauties, certainly
far excel that promised by Catullus to a friend, with the as-
surance that his mistress had received it from Venus and her
Cupids, and that when he smelt it he would wish to become
all nose
Nam unguentum dabo quod meai puellse
Douarunt Veneres Cupidinesque,
Quod tu quom olfacies, deos rogabis,
Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

It cannot, however, be denied that both taste and smell

depend very much on imagination. We know that many ar-

1
Plin. lib. xxix. cap. iv.
2 Martial, b. xiii. ep. a cook who dressed the dugs of a sow
43, praises
with so much art and skill, that it appeared as if they still formed a part
of the animal, and were full of milk. A dish of this sort is mentioned by
Apicius, lib. vii. cap. 2. The same author gives directions, book vii. chap. i.
for cooking that delicious dish of which Horace says, op. i. 15, 41, " Nil
vulva pukhrius ampla." Further information on this subject may be found
in the notes to Pliny's Epistles, lib. i. i5; Plin. lib. xi. c. '5 7 Martial. Epig.
;

xiii. 56 ; and, above all, in Lottichu Commentar. in .'etrouium, lib. L

cap. 18.
VOL. I. N
 178 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

tides of food, as well as spices, are more valued on account of

their scarcity and costliness than they would otherwise be
Hence things of less value, which approach near to them iu
quality, are sought after by those who cannot afford to pur-
chase them ; and thus a particular taste or smell becomes
fashionable. Brandy and tobacco were at first recommended
as medicines they were therefore much used, and by con-
;

tinual habit people at length found a pleasure in these potent

and almost nauseating articles of luxury. Substances which
gratify the smell become, nevertheless, like the colour of
clothes, oft unfashionable when they grow too common. Cer-
tain spiceries, in which our ancestors delighted, are insupport-
able to their descendants, whose nerves are weak and more
delicate ; and yet many of the present generation have accus-
tomed themselves to strong smells of various kinds, by gra-
dually using them more and more, till they have at length be-
come indispensable wants. Some have taken snuff rendered
so sharp by powdered glass, salts, antimony, sugar of lead,
and other poisonous drugs, that the olfactory nerves have been
rendered callous, and entirely destroyed by it.
That saffron was as much employed in seasoning dishes as
for a perfume, appears from the oldest work on cookery which
has been handed down to us, and which is ascribed to Apicius.
Its use in this respect has been long continued, and in many
countries is still more prevalent than physicians wish it to be.
Henry Stephen says, " Saffron must be put into all Lent soups,
sauces, and dishes : without saffron we cannot have well-cook-
ed peas'."
It may readily be supposed that the great use made of this
plant in cookery must have induced people to attempt to cul-
tivate it in Europe ; and, in my opinion, it was first introduced
into Spain by the Arabs, as may be conjectured from its
name, which is Arabic, or rather Persian 2 . From Spain it
1
Apologie pour Herodote, par II. Estiene. A la Haye, 1 735, 2 vols. 8vo.
2 Meninski, in his Turkish Lexicon, has Zae'feran, crocus. Golius gives
it as a Persian word. That much saft'ron is still cultivated in Persia, and
that it is of the hest kind, appears from Chardin. See his Travels, printed
at Rouen, 1723, 10 vols. 12mo. iv. p. 37. That the Spaniards borrowed
the word safran from the Vandals is much more improbable. It is to be
found in Joh. Mariana; Hist or. de Rebus Hispaniae. Hagae, 1733, fol. i.
p. 147. The author, speaking of foreign words introduced into the Spanish
language, says,-' Vandalis al\x\oce$ncce]>tx{(ir\mtw,carnara,azafran" &Ct
 SAFFRON 179

was, according to every appearance, carried afterwards to

France, perhaps to Albigeois, and thence dispersed into vari-
ous other parts . Some travellers also may, perhaps, have
1

brought bulbs of this plant from the Levant. We

are at least
assured that a pilgrim brought from the Levant to England,
under the reign of Edward III., the first root of saffron, which
he had found means to conceal in his staff, made hollow for
that purpose 2 At what period this plant began to be cultiva-
.

ted in Germany I do not know but that this was first done
;

in Austria, in 1579, is certainly false. Some say that Stephen

von Hausen, a native of Nuremberg, who about that time
accompanied the imperial ambassador to Constantinople,
brought the first bulbs to Vienna, from the neighbourhood of
Belgrade. This opinion is founded on the account of Clusius,
who, however, does not speak of the autumnal saffron used as
a spice, but of an early sort, esteemed on account of the beauty
of its flowers 3 . Clusius has collected more species of this
plant than any of his predecessors and has given an account
;

by whom each of them was first made known.

In the fifteenth and following century, the cultivation of
saffron was so important an article in the European husbandry,
that it was omitted by no writer on that subject and an ;

account of it be found in Crescentio, Serres, Heres-

is to
bach, Von Hohberg, Florinus, and others. In those periods,
when it was an important object of trade, it was adulterated
with various and in part noxious substances and attempts ;

were made in several countries to prevent this imposition by

severe penalties. In the year 1550, Henry II., king of France,
issued an order for the express purpose of preventing such
frauds, the following extract from which will show some of the
methods employed to impose on the public in the sale of this
article 4 "For some time past," says the order, "a certain
:

quantity of the said saffron has been found altered, disguised

1
Uozier, Cours complet d' Agriculture, i. p. 266.
2 It is reported at Saffron-\\ alden, that a pilgrim, proposing to do good
to his country, stole a head of saffi on, and hid the same in his palmer's staff,
which he had made hollow before on purpose, and so he brought this root
into this realm, with venture of lis life; for if he had been taken, by the
—
law of the country from whence it came, he had died for the fact. Hakluyt,
vol. ii. p. 164.
3 Clusii
liar. Plant. Hist. 1601, fol. p. 207
* Traite de Police, par Ue la Mare, iii. p. 428,

N 2
 180 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and sophisticated, by being mixed with oil, honey, and oilier

mixtures, in order that the said saffron, which is sold by weight,
may be rendered heavier; and some add to it other herbs,
similar in colour and substance to beef over-boiled, and re
duced to threads, avMcIi saffron, thus mixed and adulterated,
cannot be long kept, and is highly prejudicial to the human
body which, besides the said injury, may prevent the above-
;

said foreign merchants from purchasing it, to the great dimi-

nution of our revenues, and to the great detriment of foreign
nations, againstwhich we ought to provide," &c.
[The high
price demanded for saffron offers considerable
temptation to adulteration, and this is not uncommonly taken
advantage of. The stigmata of other plants, besides the true
saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), are frequently mixed with
those which are genuine ; moreover, many other foreign sub-
stances are added, such as the florets of the safflower ( Cartha-
mus tinctorius), those of the marigold ( Calendula officinalis),
slices of the flower of the pomegranate, saffron from which the
colouring has been previously extracted, and even fibres of
smoked beef. Most of these adulterations may be detected by
the action of boiling water, which softens and expands the
fibres, thus exposing their true shape and nature. The cake
saffron of commerce appears entirely composed of foreign
substances. Great medicinal virtues were formerly attributed
to saffron. Its principal use is now as a colouring matter.J

ALUM.
This substance affords a striking instance how readily one may
be deceived giving names without proper examination. Our
in
alum was certainly not known to the Greeks or the Romans;
and what the latter called ah/men was vitriol, (ihe green sul-
1

phate of iron) 2 ; not however pure, but such as forms in mines

!
Called by the Greeks (rrvnTripia.
2
[It is scarcely necessary to observe, that many of the compounds of
sulphuric acid with metallic oxides were formerly commonly termed vitriols
 ALUM. 181

To those who know how deficient the ancients were in the

knowledge of salts, and of mineralogy in general, this assertion
will without further proof appear highly probable >. Alum and
green vitriol are saline substances which have some resem-
blance both contain the same acid called the vitriolic or sul-
;

phuric both have a strong astringent property, and on this

;

account are often comprehended under the common name of

styptic salts and both are also not only found in the same
;

places, but are frequently obtained from the same minerals.

The difference, that the vitriols are combinations of sulphuric
acid with a metallic oxide, either that of iron, copper or zinc,
and alum on the other hand with a peculiar white earth, called
on this account alumina, has been established only in modern.
times 3 .

A stronger proof however in favour of my assertion, is what

follows : —
The Greeks and the Romans speak of no other than
natural alum but our alum is seldom produced spontaneously
;

in the earth, and several of our most accurate mineralogists,

such as Scopoli and Sage, deny the existence of native alum 3 .
Crystals of real alum are formed very rarely on minerals which
abound in a great degree with aluminous particles, when they
have been exposed a sufficient time to the open air and the
rain ; and even then they are so small and so much scattered,
that it requires an experienced and attentive observer to know
and discover them. The smallest trace of alum-works is not
to be found in the ancients, nor even of works for making

from their glassy appearance ; thus, the green vitriol, or briefly vitriol, is
the sulphate of the protoxide of iron, white vitriol is sulphate of zinc, and
blue vitriol is the sulphate of copper. Sulphuric acid is still more generally
known by the name of oil of vitriol and vitriolic acid, from its having been
originally obtained by distilling green vitriol.]
1
[There can be little doubt however that even Pliny was acquainted with
our alum, but did not distinguish it from sulphate of iron, for he informs
us that one kind of alum was white and was used for dyeing wool of bright
colours.
2
— Pereira's Materia Medica, vol. i.]
[The alums, for at present several kinds are distinguished, are not
merely combinations of sulphuric acid and the earth alumina, but double
sulphates, the one constituent being sulphate of alumina, the other either
sulphate of potash, sulphate of ammonia, sulphate of soda, &c. The alum of
this country generally contains potash, that of France ammonia, or both
potash and ammonia, hence the name potash-alum, ammonia-alum, &c]
3
[Although native alum is not abundant, there is no question of its
occasional occurrence.]
182 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

vitriol (sulphate of iron), except what is mentioned by Pliny,

who us that blue vitriol was made in Spain by the process
tells

of boiling and this circumstance he considers as the only one

;

if its kind, and so singular, that he is of opinion no other salt

could be obtained in the same manner . Besides, everything 1

related by the ancients of their alum agrees perfectly with

native vitriols : but to describe them all might be difficult fot ;

they do not speak of pure salts, but of saline mixtures, which

nature of itself exhibits in various ways, and under a variety
of forms and every small difference in the colour, the exterior
;

or interior conformation, however accidental, provided it could

be clearly distinguished, was to them sufficient to make a di-
stinct species, and to induce them to give it a hew name 2 .
The celebrity which the ancient alum had, as a substance
extremely useful in dyeing and medicine, was entirely forgotten
when the alum of the moderns became known but this cele- ;

brity was again revived when it was discovered that real alum
could be often made from minerals containing sulphur com-
pounds or that where the latter are found there are generally
;

minerals which abound with it. In many of these places alum-

works have in the course of time been erected and this ;

circumstance has served in some measure to strengthen the

opinion that the alum of the ancients and that of the moderns
are the same salt because where the former was found in
;

ancient times, the latter has since been procured by a chemical

process. Some historians of the fifteenth century even speak
of the alum-works erected at that period, as if the art of making
this salt had only been revived in Europe.
The ancients procured their alum from various parts of the
world. Herodotus mentions Egyptian alum for he tells us ;

that when the people of Delphos, after losing their temple by a

fire, were collecting a contribution in order to rebuild it, Ama-
sis king of Egypt sent them a thousand talents of alum 3 In .

Pliny's time the Egyptian alum was accounted the best. It

is well known that real alum is reckoned among the exports

1
Plin. lib. xxxiv. c. 12. The same account is given by Isidor. Origin,
lib. xvi. c. 2, and by Dioscorides, lib. v. c. 1 14. The latter, however, differs
from Pliny in many circumstances.
2
Those who are desirous of seeing everything that the ancients have
left us respecting their alum may consult Aldrovandi Museum Mctallicum,
Lugd. 1G36, fol. p. 334.
3
Herodot. lib. ii. c. 180.
 ALUM 183

of Egypt at present but I am acquainted with no author who

,

mentions the place where it is found or made, or who has

described the method of preparing it.
The island of Melos, now called Milo, w as particularlyr

celebrated on account of its alum, as we learn from Diodorus

Siculus, Celsus, Pliny and others, though none was to be found
there in the time of Diodorus This native vitriol has been
1
.

observed in the grottos of that island by several modern

travellers, especially Tournefort 2 who very properly considers
,

it as the real alum of the ancients.

The islands of Lip'ara and Strongyle, or, as they are called

at present, Lipari and Stromboli, contained so great a quantity
of this substance, that the duty on it brought a considerable
revenue to the Romans 3 At one period, Lipari carried on
.

an exclusive trade in alum, and raised the price of it at plea-

sure but in that island at present there are neither vitriol nor
;

alum-works. Sardinia, Macedonia, and Spain, where alum

was found formerly, still produce a salt known under that
name 4 .

Wlie our alum became known, it was considered as a spe-

cies of the ancient and as it was purer, and more proper to
;

be used on most occasions, the name of alum 5 was soon appro-

priated to it alone. The kinds of alum however known to the
ancients, which were green vitriol, maintained a preference in
medicine and for dyeing black and on this account, these
;

impure substances have been still retained in druggists' shops

1
Diodor. Sic. lib. v. ed. Wesselingii, i. p. 338.
2
Tournefort, Voyage, i. p. 63. Some information respecting the same
subject maybe seen in that expensive but useful work, Voyage Pittoresque
de la Grece, i. p. 12.
3 Diodor. Sic. lib. c
c Strabo, lib. vi. edit. Almel. p. 423.
1
Copious information respecting the Spanish alum-works may be found
in Introduction a la Historia Natural de Espagna, par D. G. Bowles : and
in Dillon's Travels through Spain, 1780, 4to, p. 220.
5 The derivation
of the Latin name alumen, which, if I mistake not,
occurs first in Columella and Pliny, is unknown. Some deduce it from
<i\fii]
; others from d\et[i[xa ; and Isidore gives a derivation still more im-
probable. May it not have come from Egypt with the best sort of alum ?
Had it originated from a Greek word, it would undoubtedly have been
formed from orvxTtipia. This appellation is to be found in Herodotus;
and nothing is clearer than that it has arisen from the astringent quality
peculiar to both the salts, t nd also from arvyeiv, as has been remarked by
Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen.
I84< HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

under the name of mis?/, sory, &c. But a method was at

out of procuring thence crystallized martial salts
length fotnd
This
(Wit* of iron), which obtained the new name
of vitriol.
or twelfth century
appellation had its rise first in the eleventh
by whom
4 least I know no writer older than Albertus Magnus
it is mentioned or used.
Agricola conjectures that it was
vitriol had to
occasioned by the likeness which the crystals of
opinion of Vossius and it is very 1

afess. This is also the ;

for he observes,
singular that Pliny says nearly the same thing ;

that one
speaking of blue Vitriol, the only kind then known,
might almost take it for glass 2 .
By
inquiring into the uses to which the ancients applied
tl eir alum, I find that it was sometimes employed to secure

wooden buildings against fire. This remark I have here intro-

duced to show that this idea, which in modern times has given
occasion to many expensive experiments, is not new. Aulus
Gellius 3 relates, from the works of an historian now lost, that
Archelaus, one of the generals of Mithridates, washed over a
wooden tower with a solution of alum, and by these means
rendered it so much proof against fire, that all Sylla's attempts
to set it in flames proved abortive. Many have conjectured
that the substance used for this purpose was neither vitriol nor
our alum, but. rather asbestos, which is often confounded with
Atlas-vitriol 4 ; and against this mistake cautions are to be
found even in Theophrastus. But it may be asked, With
what was the asbestos laid on? By what means were the
threads, which are not soluble in water, made fast to the wood ?
How could a tower be covered with it ? I am rather inclined
to believe, that a strongly saturated solution of vitriol might
have in some measure served to prevent the effects of the fire,
at least as long as a thin coat of potters' earth or fiour-paste,
which in the present age have been thought deserving of ex-
periments attended with considerable expense. It does not
however appear that the invention of Archelaus, which is still

1 Etymol. 2 Plin. lib. xxxiv. 12. 3

Noct. Att. lib. xv. c. 1.
p. 779. c.
The hah Iridium of Scopoli. The first person who discovered this saH
4

to be vitriolic was llenkel, who calls it Atlas-vitriol. [The mineral halo-

trichite is, in a chemical sense, a true alum in which the sulphate of potash

is replaced by the sulphate of the \ rotcxide of iron. It is composed of one

atoiR ot'protosulphate cf iron, oncalom of sulphate of alumina, and contains,
like all the true alums, twenty-tour atoms of water.]
 ALUM. 185

retained in some old books has been often put in practice 2 ;

1
,

for writers on the art of war, such, for example, as iEneas,

recommended vinegar to be washed over wood, in order to
prevent its being destroyed by fire.
I shall now proceed to the history of our present alum,
which was undoubtedly first made in the East. The period
of the invention I cannot exactly determine, but I conclude
with certainty that it is later than the twelfth century 3 for ;

John, the son of Serapion, who lived after Rhazes, was ac-
quainted with no other alum than the impure vitriol of Dios-
corides 4 What made the new alum first and principally
.

known was its beneficial use in the art of dyeing, in which it

is employed for fixing as well as rendering brighter and more
beautiful different colours. This art therefore the Europeans
learned from the Orientals, who, even yet, though we have
begun to apply chemistry to the improvement of dyeing, are in
some respects superior to us, as is proved by the red of Aclria-
nople, their silks and theirTurkey leather. The Italians pro-
cured their alum from the Levant, along with other
first
materials for dyeing but when these countries were taken
;

possession of by the Turks, it grieved the Christians to be

obliged to purchase these necessary articles from the common
enemy, and bitter complaints on that subject may be seen in
the works of various authors. In the course of time the Ita-
lians became acquainted with the art of boiling alum for ;

some of them had rented Turkish alum-works, and manufac-

tured that salt on their own account. They at length found
aluminous minerals in their own country, on which they made
experiments. These having answered their expectations, they
were soon brought into use and this branch of trade declined
;

afterwards so much in Turkey, that many of the alum-works

there were abandoned.
We are told by many historians that the Europeans who
first made alum in Italy learned their art, as Augustin Justi-

1
WeckerDe Secretis, lib. ix. 18, p. 445.
2
Oneinstance of its being used for this purpose is found in Ammianus
Marcellinus, lib. xx. c. 12.
3 [This
cannot be correct for Geber, who is supposed to have lived hi
;

the eighth century, was acquainted with three kinds of it, and describes
the ir-"thod of preparing burnt alum.]
4 Job. Serapionis Arabis
de simplicibus mediciuis opus, cap. 410.
186 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

man says, at Rocca Rocca in Syria. Neither in

di Soria, or
books of geography nor maps, however, can I find any place
in
of this name in Syria. I at first conjectured that Rocca on
the Euphrates might be here meant, but at present it appears
to me more probable that it is Edessa, which is sometimes
called Roha, Raha, Ruha, Orfa, and also Roecha, as has been
expressly remarked by Niebuhr . Edessa is indeed reckoned
1

to be in Mesopotamia, but some centuries ago Syria perhaps

was understood in a more extended sense. This much at least
is certain, that minerals which indicate alum have been often

observed by travellers in that neighbourhood.

It appears that the new alum was at first distinguished from
the ancient vitriol by the denomination of Rocca, from which
the French have made akin de roche, and some of the Germans
roizalaun". Respecting the origin of this name very different
conjectures have been formed. Some think it is derived from
rocca, which in the Greek signifies a rock, because this salt is
by boiling procured from a stone and these translate the
;

word alumen rupeum, from which the French name is formed3 .

Some are of opinion that alum obtained from alum- stone has
been so called to distinguish it from that procured from schists,
which is generally mixed with more iron than the former 4 ; and
others maintain that alum acquired the name of Rocca from
the alum-rocks in the neighbourhood of Tolfa 5 It is to be
.

remarked, on the other hand, that Biringoccio, that expert

Italian, confesses he does not know whence the name has
arisen 6. For my part I am inclined to adopt the opinion of
Leibnitz, that alumen roccce was that kind first procured from
Rocca in Syria and that this name was afterwards given to
;

every good species of alum, as we at present call the purest

Roman alum 7 .

In the century there were alum-works in the

fifteenth
neighbourhood of Constantinople, from which John di Castro,
1
Reisebeschreibung, ii. p. 408, 409.
2 This singular appellation occurs in Valentini Historia Simplicium, and
several other works.
3 Jul. Cses. Scaligeri Exot. exercitat. Franc. 1612, 8vo, p. 325.
4
1 shall here take occasion to remark, that schist seems to have been
employed for making alum in the time of Agricola, as appears by his book
De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum, p. 47.
5 6
Mercati, Metallothcca, p. 54. Pyrotcchnia. Yen. 1559, 4to.
7 Leibnitii Protogaea, p. 47.
 ALUM. 187

of whom I shall have occasion to speak hereafter, learned his

art. May not these alum-works be those visited by Bellon,
and of which he has given an excellent description '? He
names the place Cypsellaov Chypsilar, and says that the alum
in commerce is called alumen Lesbium, or di Metdin. The
alum procured from Constantinople at present may perhaps be
brought from the same spot; but I am not sufficiently ac-
quainted with its situation to determine that point with cer-
tainty, for Biisching makes no mpntion of it. In some maps
I find the names Ypsala and Chipsilar on the western side of
the river Mariza, Maritz or Maricheh, which was the Hebrus
of the ancients; in others stands the name Scapsiler on the
west bank of the sea Bouron and it is not improbable that
;

these may be all derived from the old Scaptesyle or Scapta

Ht/la, where; according to the account of Theophrastus, Pliny
and others, there were considerable mines.
Another alum- work, no less celebrated in the fifteenth cen-
tury, was established near the. city Phoccca Nova, at present
called Foya Nova, not far from the mouth of the Hermus, in
the neighbourhood of Smyrna. Of this work, Ducas, who had
a house there, has given a particular description, from which
we learn that in his time, that is under the reign of Michael
Palaeologus, it was farmed by Italians, who sold the produce of
it to their countrymen, and to the Dutch, French, Spaniards,

English, Arabs, Egyptians, and people of Syria. This author

relates very minutely in what manner the alum was made, but
that work has been long since abandoned 2 : alum however

1
Bellonii Observationes, cap. Ixi.
2 " In Phocis, which lies close to Ionia, there is a mountain abundant in
aluminous mineral. The stones found on the top of this mountain are first
calcined in the fire, and then reduced to powder by being thrown into
water. The water mixed with that powder is put into a kettle and a ;

little more water being added to it, and the whole having been made to
boil, the powder is lixiviated, and the thick part which falls to the bottom
in a cake is preserved what is hard and earthy is thrown away as of no
;

use. The cake is afterwards suffered to dissolve in vessels for four days ;
at the end of which the alum is found in crystals around their edges, and
the bottoms of them also are covered with pieces and fragments of the like
nature. The remaining liquor, which at the end of four days does not
harden, is poured into a kettle, more water and more piwder are added to
it, and being boiled as before, it is put into proper vessels, and the alum

obtained in this manner is preserved as an article very necessary for dyers.

All masters of ships bound from the Levant to Europe, consider alum as a
 188 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

made in the neighbourhood is still exported from Smyrna 1 . It

ismuch to be wished that ingenious travellers would examine
the alum-works in Thrace, around Smyrna, and in Turkey in
general, and give an accurate description of them according
to the state in which they are at present 2 .
The oldest alum-works in Europe were established about
the middle of the fifteenth century; but where they were first
erected cannot with certainty be ascertained ; for it appears
that several were set on foot in different places at the same
period. Some affirm that the first alum made in Europe was
manufactured in the island iEnaria, or Pithacusa, at present
called Ischia, by a Genoese merchant, whom some name.
Bartholomew Perdix, and others Pernix. This man, who is
praised on account of his ingenuity and attachment to the
study of natural history, having often travelled through Syria,
learned the method of boiling alum at Rocca and on his re- ;

turn found alum-stones among the substances thrown up by the

eruption of a volcano which had destroyed part of the island,
and gave occasion to their being first employed in making that
salt. Such is the account of respectable historians, Pontanus 3 ,
very convenient and useful lading for vessels In the reign of Michael
Palseologus, the first emperor of his family, some Italians requested a lease
of that mountain, for which they promised to pay a certain sum annually.
The Romans and the Latins built Phocsea Nova on the sea-shore,
at the bottom of that mountain which lies on the east side of it. On the
west it has the island of Lesbos, on the north the neighbouring bay of
Elsea, and on the south it looks towards the Ionian sea." — Ducse liistoria
Byzantina. Venet. 1729, p. 71.
1
The alum of Smyrna is mentioned by Baume in his Experimental
Chemistry, i. p. 458.
2
Some account of other Eastern alum-works is contained in a treatise
of F. B. Pegolotti, written in the middle of the fourteenth century, on the
state of commerce at that time, and printed in a book entitled Delia decima
e di varie altre graverze imposte dal commune di Firenze. Lisbona c Lucca,
1765, 4to, 4 vols. It appears from this work, that in the fourteenth cen-
tury the Italians were acquainted with no other than Turkish alum.
3 "
I shall embrace this opportunity of giving a brief account of the
situation of the island, and of the nature of its soil. That yEnaria has been
at some time violently separated from the continent by an earthquake,
seems proved by a variety of circumstances, such as calcined rocks the ;

ground full of caverns and the earth, which, like that of the main land,
;

being abundant in warm springs, and dry, feeds internal fire, and on that
account contains a great deal of alum. A few years ago Bartholomew
Perdix, a Genoese merchant passing this island in his way to Naples, ob
served some aluminous rocks scattered here and there along the sca-coasl.
 ALUM 189

Bizaro 1 , Augustine Justinian 2 and Bottone 3 who wrote much

, ,

later. Bizaro says that this happened in the year 1459, which
agrees perfectly with the account of Pontanus; for he tells us
that it was under the reign of Ferdinand I., natural son of
Alphonsus, who ascended the throne in 1458. Besides, the
earthquake, which had laid waste the island one hundred and
sixty-three years before, took place in 1301, which makes the
time of this invention to fall about the year 1464. So seems
Bottone also to have reckoned, for he mentions expressly the
year 1465.
The alum-work which is situated about an Italian mile north-
About a hundred and sixty-three years before that period, the earth having
suddenly burst by the effects of fire confined in its bowels, a considerable
part of yEnaria was involved in flames. By this eruption a small town was
burned and afterwards swallowed up and large masses of rock mixed with
;

flames, sand and smoke, thrown up where the shore looks towards Cunue,
fell upon the neighbouring fields, and destroyed the most fruitful and the
most pleasant part of the island. Some of these huge pieces of rock being
at that time still lying on the shore, Bartholomew, by calcining them in a
furnace, extracted alum from them, and revived that art which he had
brought from Rocca in Syria, where he had traded for several years, and
—
which had been neglected in Italy for many centuries." Pontani Hist.
Neapol. in Grajvii Thesaurus Antiq. Italia?, ix. part 3. p. 88.
1 "
I must not omit to mention that about this time Bartholomew Pernix,
a citizen and merchant of Genoa, who had resided long in Syria for the
purpose of commerce, returned to his native country. Soon after, be made
a voyage to the island of /Enaria, situated in the Tuscan sea, called formerly
Pythacusa, and now in the vulgar Greek Iscla or Ischia and being a man
;

of an acute genius, and a diligent investigator of natural objects, he ob-

served near the sea-coast several rocks fit for making alum. He took some
fragments of them therefore, and having calcined them in a furnace, he
procured from them most excellent alum. He was the first person who,
to the incredible benefit of many, brought as it were again into use that
art long abandoned and almost lost in Italy and the greater part of other
countries. On that account his name deserves to be rescued from oblivion."
— Genuensis Rerum Annal. auct. P. Bizaro Sentinati. Antv. 1 579, fol. p. 302.
2 "About that period
(1459) Bartholomew Pernix, a Genoese merchant,
sailing past the island of /Enaria or Ischia, learned that there were near the
shore many aluminous rocks, that is to say, fit for making alum. He took
some of them, therefore, and having caused them to be calcined in a furnace,
be procured from them most excellent alum. This Bartholomew brought
back to Italy from the city of Rocca, in Syria, where he had traded many
years, the art of making alum, which had been neglected and lost for a long
—
space of time." Annali della Republica di Genoa, per Agostin'o Giustiniano.
Genoa, 1537, fol. lib. v. p. 214.
3 Dom. Bottone,
Pyrologia Topographica. Neapoli, 1G92, 4to. This
author calls the inventor Perclix, and not Pernix.
190 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

west from Tolfa, and six from Civita Vecchia, in the territories
of the Church, is by some Italian historians reckoned to have
been the first. However this may be, it is certain that it is
the oldest carried on at present. The founder of it was John
di Castro, a son of the celebrated lawyer, Paul di Castro , 1

who had an opportunity at Constantinople, where he traded in

Italian cloths and sold dye-stuffs, of making himself acquainted
with the method of boiling alum. He was there at the time
when the city fell into the hands of the Turks and after this
;

unfortunate event, by which he lost all his property, he re-

turned to his own country. Pursuing there his researches
in natural history, he found in the neighbourhood of Tolfa a
plant which he had observed growing in great abundance ia
the aluminous districts of Asia: from this he conjectured that
the earth of his native soil might also contain the same salt;
and he was confirmed in that opinion by its astringent taste.
At this time he held an important office in the Apostolic
Chamber and this discovery, which seemed to promise the
;

greatest advantages, was considered as a real victory gained

over the Turks, from whom the Italians had hitherto been
obliged to purchase all their alum. Pope Pius II., who was
too good a financier to neglect such a beneficial discovery,
caused experiments to be first made at Viterbo, by some
Genoese who had formerly been employed in the alum-woiks
in the Levant, and the success of them was equal to his ex-
pectations. The alum, which was afterwards manufactured in
large quantities, was sold to the Venetians, the Florentines,
and the Genoese. The Pope himself has left us a very minute
history of this discovery, and of the circumstances which gave
rise to it 2 . Some pretend that Castro was several years a slave
1
Fabricii Biblioth. Lat. medire et infimoe i^tatis, vol. v. p. 617.
2 " A little before that period came to Rome John di Castro, with whon*
the Pontiff had been acquainted when he carried on trade at Basle, and
was banker to Pope Eugenius. His father, Paul, was a celebrated lawyer
of his time, who sat many years in the chair at Padua, and filled all Italy
with his decisions for law-suits were frequently referred to him, and judges
;

paid great respect to his authority, as he was a man of integrity and sound
learning. At his death he left considerable riches, and two sons arrived to
the age of manhood, the elder of whom, following the profession of the
.ather, acquired a very extensive knowledge of law. The other, who was a
man of genius, and who applied more to study, made himself acquainted
with grammar and history but, being fond of travelling, he resided some
;

time at Constantinople, and acquired much wealth by dyeing cloth made

 ALUM. 191

to a Turk who traded in alum others affirm that he had,

' ;

even been obliged to labour as a slave in alum-works 2 ; and

in Italy, which was transported thither and committed to his care, on
account of the abundance of alum in that neighbourhood. Having by these
means an opportunity of seeing daily the manner in which alum was made,
and from what stones or earth it was extracted, he soon learned the art.
When, by the will of God, that city was taken and plundered about the year
1453, by Mahomet II., emperor of the Turks, he lost his whole property ;
but, happy to have escaped the fire and sword of these cruel people, he re-
turned to Italy, after the assumption of Pius II., to whom he was related,
and from whom he obtained, as an indemnification for his losses, the office
of commissary-general over all the revenues of the Apostolic Chamber, both
within and without the city. While, in this situation, he was traversing all
the hills and mountains, searching the bowels of the earth, leaving no stone
or clod unexplored, he at length found some alum-stone in the neighbour-
hood of Tolfa. Old Tolfa is a town belonging to two brothers, subjects of
the Church of Rome, and situated at a small distance from Civita Vecchia.
Here there are high mountains, retiring inland from the sea, which abound
with wood and water. While Castro was examining these, he observed
that the grass had a new appearance. Being struck with wonder, and in-
quiring into the cause, he found that the mountains of Asia, which enrich
the Turkish treasury by their alum, were covered with grass of the like
kind. Perceiving several white stones, which seemed to be minerals, he bit
some of them, and found that they had a saltish taste. This induced him to
make some experiments by calcining them, and he at length obtained alum.
He repaired therefore to the Pontiff, and addressing him said, I announce '

to you a victory over the Turk. He draws yearly from the Christians above
three hundred thousand pieces of gold, paid to him for the alum with which
we dye wool different colours, because none is found here but a little at the

1 " The Frangipani a third time acquired lands in the kingdom of Naples.
When they possessed in Maremma di Roma, Tolfa, Castello, and a jurisdic-
tion which brings at present eighty thousand crowns annually to the
Church, it happened that a son of Paul di Castro, a celebrated doctor, and
a vassal of these lords, who had been many years a slave in Turkey to an.
alum-merchant, returned free to his own country and observing that in
;

the territories of Tolfa there was abundance of alum mineral, he gave notice
of it to Lodovico Frangipani, his lord, and was the cause of greatly increa-
sing his revenues. Pope Paul II., however, pretending that the mineral be-
longed to the Apostolic See, as supreme lord of the fief, and not being
able to persuade Lodovico to give it up to the Church, he declared war
against him, but was vigorously opposed by Lodovico and his brother Peter,
lords of Tolfa, assisted by the Orsini their relations so that the Pope was
;

obliged to bring about an accommodation with them by means of king

Ferrante I., and to pay them as the price of Tolfa sixteen thousand crowns
of gold, of which Lodovico gave twelve thousand to the king, and was in-
vested by him in the lordship of Serino in the year 1469."
8
Ferbers Briefe fiber Welschland, p. 246.
192 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVEPaES.

others, thathe learned the art of boiling alum from a citizen

of Corneto, a town in the dominions of the Pope, and from a
Genoese, both of whom had acquired their knowledge in the
Levant 1
But as I do not wish to ascribe a falsehood to the
.

island of Hiscla, formerly called iEnaria, near Puteoli, and in the cave of
Vulcan at Lipari, which, being formerly exhausted by the Romans, is now
almost destitute of that substance. I have however found seven hills, so
abundant in it, that they would be almost sufficient to supply seven worlds.
If you will send for workmen, and cause furnaces to be constructed, and
the stones to be calcined, you may furnish alum to all Europe; and that
gain which the Turk used to acquire by this article, being thrown into your
hands, will be to him a double loss. Wood and water are both plenty,
and you have in the neighbourhood the port of Civita Vecchia, where
vessels bound to the West may be loaded. You can now make war against
the Turk : this mineral will supply you with the sinews of war, that is
money, and at the same time deprive the Turk of them.' These words
of Castro appeared jo the Pontiff the ravings of a madman : he considered
them as mere dreams, like the predictions of astrologers ; and all the car-
dinals were of the same opinion. Castro, however, though his proposals
were often rejected, did not abandon his project, but applied to his Holiness
by various persons, in order that experiments might be made in his presence,
on the stones which he had discovered. The Pontiff employed skilful
people, who proved that they really contained alum ; but lest some decep-
tion might have been practised, others were sent to the place where they
had been found, who met with abundance of the like kind. Artists who
had been employed in the Turkish mines in Asia were brought from Genoa;
and these, having closely examined the nature of the place, declared it to
be similar to that of the Asiatic mountains which produce alum and, ;

shedding tears for joy, they kneeled down three times, worshiping God,
and praising his kindness in conferring so valuable a gift on our age. The
stones were calcined, and produced alum more beautiful than that of Asia,
and superior in quality. Some of it was sent to Venice and to Florence,
and, being tried, was found to answer beyond expectation. The Genoese
first purchased a quantity of it, to the amount of twenty thousand pieces ol
gold and Cosmo of Medici for this article laid out afterwards seventy-five
;

thousand. On account of this service, Pius thought Castro worthy of the

highest honours and of a statue, which was erected to him in his own
country, with this inscription :
'
To John di Castro, the inventor of alum;'
and he received besides a certain share of the profit. Immunities and a
share also of the gain were granted to the two brothers, lords of Tolfa, in
whose land the aluminous mineral had been found. This accession of
wealth to the Church of Rome was made, by the divine blessing, under the
pontificate of Pius II. and if it escape, as it ought, the hands of tyrants,
;

and be prudently managed, it may increase and afford no small assistance

to the Roman Pontiffs in supporting the burdens of the Christian religion."
— Pii Secundii Comment. Rer. Memorab. quae temp, suis contigerunt.
Francof. 1614, fol. p. 185.
1 "
This year (1460) is distinguished by the discovery of alum at Tolfa
 ALUM. 193

Pontiff, I of opinion that the history of this discovery must

am
have been best known to him. He has not, indeed, established
the year with sufficient correctness; but we may conclude
from his relation that it must have been 1460 or 1465. The
former is the year given by Felician Bussi ; and the latter that
given in the history of the city of Civita Vecchia.
The plant which first induced John di Castro to search for
alum was that evergreen, prickly shrub, the Ilex aquifolium,
or holly, which in Italy is still considered as an indication
that the regions where it grows abound with that salt. But
though it is undoubtedly certain that the quality of the soil
may be often discovered by the wild plants which it produces,
it is also true that this shrub is frequently found where there

is not the smallest trace of alum ; and that it is not to be seen

where the soil abounds with it, as has been already remarked
by Boccone and Tozzetti 2 .
1

Among may be reckoned that which

the earliest alum-works
was erected at Volterra, in the district of Pisa, in 1458, by a
Genoese named Antonius 3 Others say that it was constructed
.

by an architect of Sienna but this opinion has perhaps

;

arisen only from the work having been farmed by a citizen of

Sienna, or built at his expense. On account of this alum-work

vecchia, no one there having been acquainted with it till that period and:

this happened by means of one John di Castro, who had acquired some
knowledge of it from a young man of Corneto, and a Genoese, who had
learned in Turkey the whole process of making it. The said John having
observed that in the mountains of Tolfa there were undoubtedly veins of
alum, he caused some of the earth and stones to be dug up, and the first
experiments were made on them at Viterbo in the following manner. The
stones were first calcined in a furnace a large quantity of water was then
;

thrown over them and when they were entirely dissolved, the water was
;

boiled in great leaden caldrons after which it was poured into wooden
;

vessels, where, evaporating by degrees, the result was alum of the most
perfect kind. Pope Pius II ., sensible of the great benefit which might arise
from this mineral to the Apostolic Chamber, employed more than eight
—
hundred persons at Tolfa in preparing it." Historia dellaCittade Viterbo,
di Feliciano Bussi. In Roma 1742, fol. p. 262.
1
Museo di Fisica, &c. Ven. 1697, p. 152. 2 Viaggi,
vii. p. 234.
3 Anno 1458. " Rock alum, which the Greeks call pharno, was at this
time first discovered by a Genoese in the territories of Volterra, where
being boiled and found to be good, it began to be dug up afterwards in
many of the mountains of Italy. Till that period the Italians had made no
use of mines of this kind for our alum was all brought from Turkey.
;

The above discovery was therefore a great advantage to us."

VOL. I. O
194 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

an insurrection of the inhabitants of Volterra broke out in

1472; but it was at length quelled by the Florentines, who
took and plundered the city Brutus, who wrote his History
1
.

of Florence in the year 1572, says that this alum-work was

carried on in his time but this is certainly false for Raphael
: ;

di Volterra 2 , who died in 1521 in his native city, expressly

teils us that in his time alum was no longer boiled there and ;

this is confirmed by Baccius 3 who also lived in the sixteenth

,

century. At present no remains of it are left; so thatToz-

zetti was not able to discover the place where the alum-stones
were broken 4.
It appears from what has been said, that the art of boiling
alum in Europe was first known in Italy, but not before the
year 1548. That document therefore of the year 1284, quoted
by Tozzetti, and in which alum-works, alwnifodinee, are men-
tioned, must, as he himself thinks, be undoubtedly false 5 .

The great revenue which the Apostolical Chamber derived

from alum, induced many to search for aluminous minerals,
and works were erected wherever they were found. Several
manufactories of this substance were established therefore in
various parts, which are mentioned by Baccius 6 Biringoccio,
,

and other writers of the sixteenth century. The pope how-

ever understood his own interest so well, that he never rested
until he had caused all the works erected in the territories of
others to be given up, and until he alone remained master of
the prize. He then endeavoured by every method possible to
prevent foreigners from acquiring an accurate knowledge of
the art of boiling alum and at the same time found means,
;

by entering into commercial treaties with other nations, and

by employing the medium of religion, which has always the
greatest effect on weak minds, to extend his commerce in this
article more and more. The price was raised from time to
time, and it at length became so high that foreigners could
purchase this salt at a cheaper rate from the Spaniards, and
even when they sent for it to Turkey. His Holiness, that he
might convert this freedom of trade into a sin, and prevent it
1
An account of this dispute between the Florentines and the people of
Volterra may be seen in Machiavelli's History of Florence, book vii.
2 Eap. Volatevrani Comment. Urbani. 3 De Thermis.
4 Viaggi, 5
Ibid. vii. p. 51
hi. p. 117.
6 De Thermis, Tozzetti, iv. p. 186.
p. 293.
 AXUM. 195

by the terror of excommunication, artfully gave out that he

meant to set apart the income arising from his alum-works to
the defence of Christianity ; that is, towards carrying on war
against the Turks. Prohibitions and threats now followed in
case any one should be so unchristian as to purchase alum
from the Infidels; but every person was at liberty to make
what bargain he could with his Holiness for this commodity.
In the year 1468 Pope Paul II. entered into a commercial
treaty respecting alum with Charles the Bold, duke of Bur-
gundy; but in 1504 Roman alum had risen to such an exor-
bitant price, that Philip the Fair, archduke of Austria, caused
a council of inquiry to be held at Bruges, by which it ap-
peared that this article could be purchased at a much cheaper
rate in Turkey. Commissions therefore were sent thither for
that purpose but scarcely was this known at Rome, when a
;

prohibition, under pain of excommunication, was issued by

Pope Julius II. This pontiff however was not the only one
from whom such prohibitions proceeded bulls of the like :

kind were issued also by Julius III., Paul III., Paul IV., Gre-
gory XIII. and others 1
.

But these means, like all those founded on the simplicity of

others, could not be of long duration and as soon as men be-
;

came a little more enlightened, they learned to know their

own interest, and to discover the selfishness of the Pope's bulls.
Unless Biringoccio, who visited a part of the German mines, be
under a mistake, the first European alum-work out of Italy
was erected in Spain and is that still carried on with con-
;

siderable profit at Almacaron, not far from Carthagena 2 In .

the beginning of the sixteenth century very large quantities of

alum were brought to Antwerp, as we learn from Guicciar-
dini's Description of the Netherlands.
At what time the first alum-work was erected in Germany,
I am not able to determine appears that alum began
; but it

to be made at Oberkaufungen in Plesse in the year 1.554. For

the alum-work at Commotau iri Bohemia, the first letters-
patent were granted in 1558. An alum-work was established
at Lower Langenau in the county of Glatz in 1563; but it
1
Nicol. Rodrig. Fermosini Tractatus Criminalmm. Lugd. 1670, 2 vol. fol.
torn. ii. p. 63.
3
Pyrotechn. p. 31. He says expressly that this was the only alum-work
in Europe in his time without the boundaries of Italy.
o2
196 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

was soon after abandoned. Several other manufactories of

alum are mentioned by Agricola, such as that of Dieben or
Duben, in the circle of Leipsic, and those of Dippoldiswalda,
Lobenstein, &c.
In England the first alum-work was erected at Gisborough
in Yorkshire, in the reign of queen Elizabeth though Ander-
;

son 1 says in 1608. Sir Thomas Chaloner, who had an estate

there, conjecturing from the nature of the plants which grew
wild that there must be minerals in the neighbourhood, after
making some search, at length discovered alum. As there
was however no one in England at that time who understood
the method of preparing it, he privately engaged workmen be-
longing to the Pope's alum-works ; and it is said, that as soon
as the Pontiff heard this, he endeavoured to recall them by
threats and anathemas. These however did no injury to the
heretics; and in a little time the alum-work succeeded so
well, that several more of the same kind were soon after
established 2 . But what more dishonoured the Pontiff's de-

1
History of Commerce, iv. p. 406. " The manufacture of alum," says
he, " was first found out in England, and carried on with success in 1608.
It was supported and patronized in the county of York by lord Sheffield,
6ir John Bourcher, and other landholders of the said county, to the great
benefit of England in general, and of the proprietors in particular, to the
present day. King James was a great promoter of this alum-work, after
he had by the advice of his minister appropriated to himself a monopoly of
it, and forbidden the importation of foreign alum."
2 Such is the account of Pennant in his Tour in Scotland, 1768. " The
alum-works in this country are of some antiquity they were first dis-
;

covered by sir Thomas Chaloner in the reign of queen Elizabeth, who ob-
serving the trees tinged with an unusual colour, made him suspicious of
its being owing to some mineral in the neighbourhood. He found out thai
the strata abounded with an aluminous salt. At that time the English
being strangers to the method of managing it, there is a tradition that sir
Thomas was obliged to seduce some workmen from the Pope's alum-works
near Rome, then the greatest in Europe. If one may judge from the curse
which his Holiness thundered out against sir Thomas and his fugitives, he
certainly was not a little enraged for he cursed by the very form that
;

Ernulphus has left us, and not varied a tittle from that most comprehensive
of imprecations. The first pits were near Gisborough, the seat of the Cha-
Ioners, who still flourish there notwithstanding his Holiness's anathema."
The following passage, extracted from Camden's Britannia, is much to the
same purpose " This (alum) was first discovered a few years since (anno
:

1607) by the admirable sagacity of that learned naturalist sir Thomas

Chaloner, knt. (to whose tuition Ms majesty (lung James the First) com-
 ;

ALUM. 197

nunciations was, that in later times the proprietors of the

English alum-works farmed those of the Apostolic Cham-
ber, and increased in various ways the benefit derived from
them 1
.

At what period alum-Avorks were established in other

countries I have not been able to learn. I however know that
one was erected at Andrarum 2 in Sweden in 1630.
[The process for obtaining alum from the alum-stone of
Tolfa, which is also found in Hungary, Auvergne, and other
parts of the world, and which contains all the ingredients re-
quisite for the production of alum, has been fully described.
The greater portion however of the alum manufactured in
this country is obtained from alum-slate, —
a bituminous schist
containing iron-pyrites (sulphuret of iron) diffused in ex-
tremely fine particles throughout its mass. Many of these
schists crumble to pieces when they are exposed to the air
the sulphur of the pyrites becomes gradually converted by the
absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere into sulphuric acid,
while, at the same time, the iron is peroxidized, and having in
this state no very great affinity for the sulphuric acid, parts
with the greater portion of it to the clay, which is thus con-
verted into sulphate of alumina. Many of these schists are of
such a loose texture, and contain the pyrites in so fine a state
of division, that the requisite heat is generated by the rapidity
with which the several chemical changes proceed others,
;

from their compactness and deficiency in combustible matter,

require calcining by a slow smothered fire. When the calci-
nation is complete, the mass is lixiviated, the solutions are run
into cisterns for evaporation, and when they have attained a
certain strength, are precipitated with sulphate or muriate of
potash or ammonia. The precipitated alum is washed, drained,

mitted the delight and glory of Britain, his son prince Henry), by observing
that the leaves of trees were of a more weak sort of green here than in
other places, &c."
1 "
For some time past the marquis of Lepri has farmed the alum-works
at Civita Vecchia for 37,000 scudi. The Apostolical Chamber supplies the
necessary wood, -which the marquis must be at the expense of cutting down
and transporting. About two hundred men are employed in the works ;
and alum to the amount of from forty-five thousand to fifty thousand scudi
is sold annually, particularly to the English and the French." See Voyage
en Italie, par le Baron de R. (Riesch.) Dresden, 1781, 2 vols. 8vo.
2 Voyages
Metallurgiques, par M. Jars, vol. hi. p. 297.
198 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and separated from various impurities by re-solution and cry-

and is then tit for the market.
tallization,
A very interesting process has recently been patented by
Dr. Turner of Gateshead '. It consists in fusing felspar, which
is a silicate of potash and alumina, with more potash. On
treating the fused mass with water, it is separated into two
parts the first, a solution containing silicate of potash, from
;

which the potash may be obtained by passing through it a

stream of carbonic acid gas, or by filtering it through a bed
of caustic lime; the second, an insoluble residue, consisting
of a silicate of alumina and potash. On digesting this with
sulphuric acid, the silica is separated and a solution of alum
obtained.]

FALCONRY.
The question whether Falconry was known to the ancient
Greeks, has been determined in the negative by Flavius Blon-
dus 2 , Laurentius Valla 3 , both writers of the fifteenth century;
1
See Chemical Gazette for July 15, 1843.
2
This author, Blondus or Biondo, describing an Italian village, says, " I
shall embrace this opportunity of mentioning a new circumstance, which
is, that fowling with that rapacious bird the falcon, a diversion much foU
lowed at Arno, by the celebrated Alphonsus king of Arragon, was entirely
unknown about two hundred years ago ; for though Servius, the gramma-
rian, says that Capua received that uaine from the augury of a falcon, be-
cause the Hetruscans, when founding it, saw one of these birds, which in
their language was called capis yet he does not tell us of what use they
;

were to mankind. Besides, Pliny, who gives the names of many rapacious
birds of the hawk kind (' accipitres scilieet majores et minores achilvones,
quos aliqui falcones fuisse volunt'), says nothing of their being employed to
catch game and, without doubt, had fowling in this manner been practised
;

in the time of Yirgi'l, he would have made iEneas and Dido carry such birds
along with them when they went out a hunting, whereas he says only,
'
Massylique ruunt equites et odora canum vis.'

I will venture therefore to affirm, that two hundred years ago, as I have
already said, no nation or people were accustomed to catch either land-
or water-fowls with any rapacious bird tamed for that purpose." I shall
here observe, that Biondo must have had a faulty copy of Pliny ; for the
word achilvones is not to be found in that author, who, nevertheless, men-
tions the practice of fowling with birds of prey.
3 Valla, the most learned man of the century in which he lived, contra-
 — ;

FALCONRY. 199

and likewise by Rigallius Pancirollus, Salmuth, and many

1
,

others. It may, nevertheless, be here asked, what is generally

understood under that term ? However much the thousand
barks which carried the Grecians to the siege of Troy might
have been inferior to those floating castles lately seen by my
countrymen before Gibraltar, they were nevertheless ships
and we cannot, on that account, .deny that the Greeks were
acquainted with the art of ship-building, though it was evi-
dently then in its infancy. In the like manner I agree with
Giraldus 2 in allowing that they had some knowledge of fal-
,

conry. I do not believe that they knew the art of hawking,

that is, of chasing game with birds of prey previously trained,
as practised in modern times, and which serves more for the
amusement of trifling princes than for any useful purpose ; but
that they had begun to employ the rapacity of some of the
winged tribe in hunting and fowling, cannot, in my opinion,
be denied 3 .

So early as the time of Ctesias, hares and foxes were hunted

in India by means of rapacious birds 4 The account of Ari- .

stotle however is still more to the purpose, and more worthy

of notice 5 " In Thrace," says he, " the men go out to catch
.

birds with hawks' The men beat the reeds and bushes which
5
.

diets Antonius Renaudensis, who says, Nola is a hawk's bell. " If Nola"
says Valla, " be an old word, it cannot signify that bell now worn by
hawks, because the ancients never tamed these birds for catching game,
as we do, nor ornamented them with bells. If it be a new word, let him
produce the author from whom it is taken." Laurentii Valise Opera. —
Basilia?, 1543, fol. p. 433.
1 In
the preface to Scriptores Rei Accipitrarise.
2
Gyraldi Dialogismi, in Op. Lugd. 1696, fol. ii. p. 870.
3
Those who are desirous of being acquainted with the art of falconry,
may consult Pluche, Spectacle de la Nature, vol. i., or the article Faucon-
jierie, in the French Encyclopedic.
4
See Herodotus.
5 "
In that part of Thrace, called formerly Cedropolis, the men go out
into the marshes in quest of birds, accompanied by falcons. The men beat
the trees and bushes with poles, and put the birds to flight; the hawks fly
after them, hy which means they are so frightened that they fall to the
ground, where the men strike them with their poles and kill them."
Ilistor. Animal, lib. ax. c. 6.
6
The Grecian authors above quoted call the rapacious birds used for
pursuing game lepaices and Pliny calls them accipitres. It would be
;
200 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

grow in marshy places, in order to raise the small birds, which

the hawks pursue and drive to the ground, where the fowler
kills them with poles." A
similar account is to be found in
another book ascribed also to Aristotle, which appears, at any
rate, to be the work of an author not much younger, but with
two additions, which render the circumstance still more re-
markable . 1
The first is, that the falcons appeared when
.

called by their names and the second, that of their own ac-
;

cord they brought to the fowlers whatever they caught them-

selves. Nothing is here wanting but the spaniel employed to
find out game, the hood which is put upon the head of the
hawk while it is perched on the hand, and the thong used for
holding it, to form a short description of falconry as still prac-
tised. Our falconers, when they have taken the bird from
the hawk, give him, in return, a small share of it; and in the
like manner the Thracian hawks received some part of their
booty. Other writers after Aristotle, such as Antigonus 2,

difficult,perhaps impossible, to distinguish with sufficient accuracy all the

species of these birds to which the ancients gave different names. This
genus is numerous, and the species often differ so little from each other,
that it is not easy to establish their characterizing marks. Besides, they
for the most part change their colour, and often their whole appearance,
according to their age or the season of the year; so that these characters
become very uncertain. It appears that on this account the ancients often
divided one species into two or more, and imagined that many species
passed one into the other, or that new species were produced by the mix-
ture of different breeds. It seems however certain that the ancients di-
vided those birds of prey which fly abroad in the day-time, into three spe-
cies: aeros aquila ;
yvip vultur and lepaZ accipiter.
; The first and last
belong to that genus which Linnaeus calls falco, and are the large species
of it. The vultures are the Ger-falcons, which are sufficiently distinguished
by their bald head and neck.
1 "
Respecting Thrace which is situated above Amphipolis, a wonderful
thing is related, which might appear incredible to those who had never
heard it before. It is said that boys go out into the fields, and pursue
birds by the assistance of hawks. When they have found a place conve-
nient for their purpose, they call the hawks by their names, which imme-
diately appear as soon as they hear their voices, and chase the birds into
the bushes, where the boys knock them down with sticks and seize them.
What is still more wonderful, when these hawks lay hold of any birds,
they throw them to the fowlers but the boys, in return, give them some
;

share of the prey." —

De Mirabilibus Auscultat. cap. 12B»
3 Antigoni Carystii Historiae Mirabiles, cap. 34.
 ;

FALCONRY. 201

^lian Pliny 2 and Phile 3 have also given an account of

1
, , ,

thismethod of fowling. iElian, who seldom relates anything

without some alteration or addition, says that in Thrace nets
were used, into which the birds were driven by the hawks
and in this he is followed by the poet Phile. iElian, also, in
another place describes a manner of hunting with hawks in
India, which, as we are told by several travellers, is still prac-
tised in Persia, where it is well understood, and by other

eastern nations 4 .
It seems, therefore, that the Greeks received from India
and Thrace the first information respecting the method of
fowling with birds of prey; but it does not appear that this
practice was introduced among them at a very early period.
In however, it must have been very common, for Mar-
Italy,
tial and Apuleius speak of it as a thing everywhere known.

1 " Hawks, which are no less fit for fowling than eagles, and which are

not inferior to them in size, are of all birds reckoned to be the tamest and
the fondest of man. I have heard that in Thrace they accompany people
when they go out in quest of birds in the fens. The fowlers, having
spread their nets, remain quiet, while the hawks flying about terrify the
birds, and drive them into them. When the Thracians catch any birds,
they divide them with the hawks, by which means they render them faith-
ful partners in fowling if they did not give them a share of the booty,
;

they would be deprived of their assistance."

2 Lib.
—
Histor. Anim. lib. ii. cap. 42.
x. c. 8. In a part of Thrace above Amphipolis, men and hawks
go out a-fowling, as it were in company. The former drive the birds from
among the bushes and reeds, and the latter flying after them strike them
down. The fowlers divide with them their prey.
3 Phile
De Animal. Proprietate, p. 36. Gesner, in his Hist. Anim. lib.
iii., has collected all the information to be found respecting that species of

hawk or falcon called Kipfcos, circus.

4 " The Indians hunt hares and foxes
in the following manner. They do
not employ dogs, but eagles, crows, and, above all, kites, which they catch
when young, and train for that purpose. They let loose a tame hare or
fox, with a piece of flesh fastened to it, and suffer these birds to fly after
it, in order to seize the flesh, which they are fond of, and which, on their

return, they receive as the reward of their labour. When thus instructed
to pursue their prey, they are sent after wild foxes and hares in the moun-
tains these they follow in hopes of obtaining their usual food, and soon
;

catch them and bring them back to their masters, as we are informed by
Ctesias. Instead of the flesh, however, which was fastened to the tame
animals, they receive as food the entrails of the wild ones which they have
—
caught." jEliani Hist. Animal, lib. iv. c. 26. Compare with this what
Pluche says in Nature Displayed, and the accounts given by Chardin and
Gemelli Carreri.
202 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The former calls a hawk a and the latter

fowler's servant,
makes use of a kind of pun on the word which sig- accipiter,
nified also a species of fish It cannot indeed be said that
1
.

this art was ever forgotten but, like other inventions, though
;

at first much admired, it was afterwards neglected, so that it

remained a long time without improvement. It is however
certain that it was at length brought to the utmost degree of
perfection. It is mentioned in the Roman laws 2 and in wri- ,

ters of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Julius Firmicus Maternus, who in the time of Constantine
the Great, about the year 336, wrote his Astronomicon, in
which he teaches the art of casting nativities, assures us that
those who are born under certain signs will become great
sportsmen, and keep hounds and falcons 3 Caius Sollius .

Apollinaris Sidonius, who lived about the year 480, celebrates

Herdicius, his wife's brother, and son of the emperor Avitus,
because he first practised in his territories hunting and fowling
with dogs and hawks. The same author mentions hawking
also in other parts of his work. That this diversion, however,
has not been oftener spoken of and praised, needs excite little
wonder. Hunting, and all the concomitant arts, were at first
employed for use in the course of time they were practised
;

by servants, and easy means only of catching game were

sought for. But when luxury was introduced into states, and
the number of those who lived by other people's labour in-
creased, these idlers began to employ that time which they
had not learned to make a proper use of, or which they were
not compelled to apply to more valuable purposes, in catch-
ing wild animals by every method that ingenuity could sug-
gest, or in tormenting them by lingering deaths. Hunting
and fowling, therefore, received many improvements by the

1
Martial. Epigr. lib. xiv. 216. 2 Digest, lib. xliii. tit. 24, 22.
3 " Those born when the planet Venus is in Aquarius will be much given
to bunting and fowling; in other things they will be slow, indolent, inac-
tive, and melancholy, and will apply to no laudable pursuit. They will,
however, be fond of breeding hawks, falcons, eagles, and other birds of the
like kind, and horses for bunting. They will be also very ingenious in such
exercises, and acquire by them a comfortable subsistence." Lib. v. c. 7. —
This nativity displays a knowledge of mankind for one may without much
;

difficulty find princes and great men with whose lives it exactly corre-
sponds, and who, to the great misfortune of their subjects and tenants,
nave undoubtedly been born under the sign Aquarius.
 FA.LCONRY. 203

assistance of art ; and the indolent clergy even indulged in

these cruel sports, though often forbidden by the church.
Such prohibitions were issued by the council of Agda in the
year 506 by that of Epaon in 517 ; by that of Macon in 585,
;

and perhaps oftener, but never with much effect.

Before I proceed further, I shall make two remarks. First,
that Pietro Crescentio gives one Daucus as the inventor of the
art of taming hawks, but without proof, or even probability.
Secondly, that the ancients bred up to hunting and fishing seve-
ral rapacious animals which at present are not used for that
purpose, such as the seal and sea-wolf 2 . Astruc 3 has endea-
1

voured to confute this idea but his reasoning appears to me

;

to have little weight ; and I agree in opinion with Rondeletius

and Isaac Vossius 4 , that seals might be instructed to catch
fish; I myself have seen some, that, when commanded by their
master, exhibited a variety of movements and tricks which un-
doubtedly prove their aptness to learn.
The seems to have been carried to the great-
art of falconry
est perfection, and to have been much in vogue at the princi-
pal courts of Europe in the twelfth century. Some on that
account have ascribed the invention of it to the emperor Fre-
deric I., and others to Frederic II, Frederic I., called Barba-
rossa, was the first who brought falcons to Italy at least ;

Pandolfo Collenuccio 5 says that this was the common report,

and Radevicus 6 seems to confirm it but I do not know from
;

what authority Pancirollus tells us that that emperor invented

falconry at the time when he was besieging Rome. Rainaldo,
marquis of Este, was the first among the Italian princes who
used this method of fowling 7 and that the emperor Henry
;

followed the example of his father, seems proved by the words

of Collenuccio. The service rendered by Frederic II. to this
art, if it can be said to deserve service, is shown by the book
which he wrote in Latin on it, entitled De Arte Venandi cum
Avibus, and which was printed for the first time at Augsburg

1
Plin. lib, ix. iElian. Hist. Anim. 1. ii. Oppiani Halieut. 1. v.
2 Plin. lib. x. cap. 8. Aristot. Hist. an. 1. ix. c. 36. Lilian. Hist. An,
1. vi. c. 65. Antigonus Caryst. cap. 33.
s 4
Histoire Nat. de Languedoc, p. 568. In Obs. on Pomp. Mela, ii. 5.
5 Istoria di Napoli, Yen. 1513, 4to, i. p. 88.
6 Kade\icus de Gestis Frid. I. lib. ii. cap. ultimo.
7 See Grsevji Tbesaurus Antiq. et Hist, vol. vii. p. 12.
 ;

204 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in the year 1596, from a manuscript belonging to Joachim Ca-

merarius, a physician of Nuremberg. It has here and there
deficiencies, because the manuscript was torn, and some ad-
ditions by the author's son Manfred, king of Sicily. In the
second book, there is an account of the use and manner of
making hoods, called capellce, which we are there told were
invented by the Arabs. The emperor received as a present
some hooded falcons from Arabian princes, and procured peo-
ple from Arabia who understood the management of them 1
.

Albertus Magnus has inserted a great deal from the work of

this emperor in his book upon animals.
In none of the sports of the field have the fair sex partaken
so much as in falconry. The ladies formerly kept hawks, in
which they greatly delighted, and which were as much fondled
by those who wished to gain their favour as lap-dogs are at
present 2 .What tended principally, however, to bring it into
disuse, was the invention of gunpowder. After that, hawks
were discarded, and the whole enjoyment of fowling was con-
fined to shooting. Less skill and labour were indeed required
in this new exercise but the ladies abandoned the pleasures
;

of the chase, because they disapproved of the use of fire-arms,

which were attended both with alarm and danger.
Among the oldest writers on falconry, we may reckon De-
metrius, who about
the year 1270 was physician to the emperor
Michael Palaeologus. His book, written in Greek, was first
printed at Paris in 1612, by Nicholas Rigaltius, from a manu-

1
As this work is extremely scarce, I shall here quote the following pas-
sage from it : —
" The hood had its origin among the Oriental nations for
;

the eastern Arabs used it more than any other people with whom we are
acquainted, in taming falcons and birds of the same species. When I
crossed the sea, I had an opportunity of observing that the Arabs used
hoods in this art. Some of the kings of Arabia sent to me the most ex-
pert falconers, with various kinds of falcons ; and I did not fail, after I
had resolved to collect into a book every thing respecting falconry, to in-
vite from Arabia and every other country such as were most skilful in it
and I received from them the best information they were able to give.
Because the use of the hood was one of the most effectual methods they
knew for taming hawks, and as I saw the great benefit of it, I employed a
hood in training these birds and it has been so much approved in Europe,
;

that it is proper it should be handed down to posterity."

s Sainte-Palaye, Memoires
sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, torn. iii. p. 183.
In this work may be found many anecdotes respecting the taste of the
French ladies for the sports of the field in the ages of chivalry.
 TURF. 205

script in the king's libiary, and with the Latin translation of

Peter Gyllius . Some other works on the same subject, the
1

antiquity of which is unknown, were printed at the same time.

One in the Catalonian dialect has the forged title of Epistola
Aquilas, Symmachi et Theodotionis ad Ptolemseum regem
iEgypti de re accipitraria. All these writings treat chiefly on
the rearing and diseases of hawks and contain cures, which,
;

though some of them perhaps may be good enough, would not

undoubtedly be all approved by any person of skill at present 2.
Aloes, to the size of about a bean, are ordered as a purge;
and quicksilver is prescribed for the itch and outbreaking.
We are told also, that a wild and untractable falcon was con-
fined some time with a hood on in a smith's shop, where it was
soon tamed by the continual thumping of the hammers. One
precept in Demetrius respecting the art of falconry seems
very ill-suited to the practice of modern times. He desires
sportsmen to say their prayers before they go out to the field.
Had this custom been continued to the present day, many great
men would be like the people mentioned by a certain traveller,
who solicit the assistance of God when they are preparing for
a piratical expedition 3 ; but with this difference, that these
rovers plunder only strange ships, whereas the latter destroy
the property and possessions of their own subjects.

TURF.
The discovery, that many kinds of earth, when dried, might
be employed as fuel, may have easily been occasioned by an
accident in some place destitute of wood. A
spark falling
fortuitously on a turf-moor during a dry summer often sets it
on fire, and the conflagration it occasions generally lasts so

1
Rei Accipitrarise Scriptores. Lutet. 1612, 4to.
2 Among the works of Sir Thomas Brown, there is one on Hawks and
Falconry, Ancient and Modern, which, however, consists chiefly of old
medical prescriptions.
3
Remarques d'un Voyageur Moderne au Levant. Amst. 1773, 8vo.
206 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

long that it Of the earth taking fire

cannot escape notice
'.

in this manner there are many instances to be found in the

ancients. One of the most remarkable is that mentioned by-
Tacitus, who relates, that not long after the building of the
city of Cologne, the neighbouring land took fire, and burned
with such violence that the corn, villages, and every produc-
tion of the fields were destroyed by the flames, which ad-
vanced even to the walls of the city 2 This remarkable pas-
.

sage is not to be understood as alluding to a volcanic eruption,

but to a morass which had been set on fire. In the duchy of
Berg and around Cologne there are very extensive morasses,
from which turf is dug up for fuel, and which undoubtedly
serve to confirm this idea.
That the use of turf was well known in the earliest periods
in the greater part of Lower Saxony, and throughout the
Netherlands, is fully proved by Pliny's account of the Chauci,
who inhabited that part of Germany which at present com-
prehends the duchies of Bremen and Verden, the counties of
Oldenburg, Delmenhorst, Diepholz, Huy and East Friesland.
Pliny says expressly, that the Chauci pressed together with
their hands a kind of peat earth, which they dried by the
wind rather than by the sun, and which they used not only
for cooking their victuals, but also for warming their bodies 3 .

I explain also by turf a short passage of Antigonus Carystius,

quoted from Phanias, in which it is said that a morass in Thes-
saly having become dry, took fire and burned.
The account therefore given in some Dutch chronicles, that
turf and the manner of preparing it were first found out about
the year 1215, and that about 1222 it had become common,
is certainly false
4 This information may be applicable to
.

1
In Siberia, a village which stood on a turf-moor was, on account of its
marshy situation, removed to another place and that the remains might
;

be more easily destroyed, they were set on fixe. The flames having com-
municated to the soil, which was inflammable, occasioned great devasta-
tion ; and when Gmelin was there, it had been continually burning for half
a year. See Gmelin's Reisen durch Russland, vol. i. p. 22.
2 The rustics, in despair, when they found the fire was unquenchable

either by rain or by the river- water which they poured over it, threw in heaps
of stones, beat down the flames issuing from the interstices with clubs, and
as the fire became subdued flung on their clothes, which being made of
skins and wetted, eventually extinguished the conflagration. See Tacitus,
3
An. xiii. 57. Hist. Nat. lib.xvi. c. 1.
4 "
The foresters, who had then got a new employment, that of turf-
 TURF. 207

certain lands and districts, and correct as to the introduction

of this kind of fuel in those parts for the use of it was not
;

extended far till a late period and even yet turf is neither
;

employed nor known in many places which possess it, even

though they are destitute of wood '. Some improvement in
the manner of preparing turf may have also been considered
as the invention of this fuel, which is undoubtedly of greater
antiquity. What induced Monconys to ascribe the invention
of turf to Erasmus, or who first propagated that error, I can
as little conjecture as Misson 2 .

Scaliger has erred 3 no less than Monconys, whose account

was doubted by Uffenbach 4 According to the first-mentioned
.

author, turf had been used in the Netherlands only about three
hundred years before his time, and he adds that he did not
know that this kind of fuel had ever been mentioned by the
ancients.
Those however are mistaken also who believe that it is to
be found in the Salic laws and those of the Alemanni. It is
true that the word turpha occurs in the former, and that Wen-
delin and others have declared it to mean turf; but the asser-
digging, which had been before unknown, or at least very uncommon, gave
as a present to the monastery of Mariengard, in 1215, several turf-bogs in
—
and near Backefeen." Chronique van Vriesland door P.Winsemium, 1622,
p. 158. That monastery was situated at the distance of two miles from
Leeuwaarden.
In Kronijck der Kronijcken, door S. de Vries, printed at Amsterdam in
1688, the following passage occurs, vol. v. p.553 :
—
"About this time (1221)
the digging of turf was first practised, which in some measure made amends
for the damage occasioned by the sea- water, and by which several acquired
great riches."
Some Dutch writers make turf-digging to be of much higher antiquity,
and in support of this opinion quote an old chronicle in rhyme, in which
mention is made of a donation by Gerolf count of Friesland ; but I am not
acquainted with the antiquity of that chronicle, and of the letter of dona-
tion there is only a Flemish translation. See Bakhey, Nat. Hut. v. Hoi.
vol. ii. p. 552.
1
The use of turf was first made known in France in the year 1621, by
Charles de Lamberville, advocate of the parliament of Paris, who resided
some time in Holland, to which he had been sent by the king on public
business. See Anciens Mineralogistes, par Gobet, i. p. 302.
2 Voyages de Monconys.
Lyons, 1666, 2 vol. 4to, ii. p. 129. C'est lui
(Erasme) qui a donne l'invention de la tourbe, qu'on brusle au lieu du
charbon. See also Misson's Travels.
3 Scaligerana,
ii. p. 243 ; Je ne scache aucun ancien, qui fasse mention

de tourbes. 4 Voyages, vol. iii.

208 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

tion of Eccard, that it signifies a village, called in German

Dorf 1
, is more probable.
can the doubtful word
Still less
curfodi, in the laws of the Alemanni, be supposed to allude to
this substance, though we are assured by Lindenbrog that he
found in a manuscript, in its stead, the term zurb% It is also
not credible that turf should be employed at that period, as
wood was everywhere superabundant.
The oldest certain account of turf in the middle ages with
which I am at present acquainted, is that pointed out by
Trotz 3 who says that it occurs in a letter of donation of the
,

year 1113. He has given the words in the Dutch language,

as if they had stood so in the original. But he has quoted his
authority in so careless a manner, that I have not been able to
conjecture what kind of book he meant. I have however
found a Latin copy of the letter of donation in a work pointed
out to me by Professor Reuss 4 . An abbot Ludolph, in the
year 1113, permitted a nunnery near Utrecht to dig cespites
for its own use in a part of his vence, but at the same time he
retained the property of these vence. Now there can be no
doubt that vena signifies a turf bog, and cespites turf. The
former is the same word as JFenne or Venne, which occurs in
the old Frisic and the present Veen b of the Dutch. The nuns
also could make no other use of the turf but employ it as fuel.
This passage however proves nothing though Trotz says that ;

a great trade was carried on with turf in the twelfth century,

and that the abbot wished to interdict the nuns from using
it.

It is w^-thy of remark that the words turba, turbo, turbce

adfocum, turfa, occur for turf, in the years 1190, 1191, 1201
and 1210, as is proved by the instances quoted by Du Cange.
Turbaria for a turf-moor is found in Matthew Paris, who died
in 1259 Turbagium, in a diploma of Philip the Fair in the
;

year 1308, signifies the right of digging turf, as turbare does

to dig up turf. The word mor also is found in a document Oi
1
Leges Salicre, ed. Eccardi, p. 42.
2 Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum. Franc. 1613.
3 Trotz Jus Agrarium Feed. Belgii, ii. p. 643.
4 Historia Episcopatuum Fcederati Belgii. Lugd. Bat. 1719, 2 vols. fol.

i. p. 130.
6 Worterbuch where conjectured, not without
Wiarda Altfrisisches ; it is

probability, that the name Finland is thence derived.—Du Cange, Glossa-

rium, under the word Venna.
 TURF. 209

the year 1246, quoted by Du Cange ; who however has not in-
troduced it into his dictionary K It seems to be the same as
mariscus and marescus. Brito, who lived about 1223, de-
scribing the productions of Flanders, says, " Arida gleba foco
siccis incisa marescis 2 ." That the last of these words signifies a
turf-bog is proved by a passage of Lambert, who lived at
Ardres "about the year 1200 " Quendam similiter mariscum,
:

ut aiunt, proprium perfodi fecit, et in turbas dissecari."

The assertion of Winsem and others, that the practice of
digging turf first became common after the year 1215, is
undoubtedly founded on information obtained from Sibrand
Leo's Vitas Abbatum Horti Divae Virginis seu Mariengard 3 ;
but this writer died in 1588, and can by no means be adduced
as an evidence he even says himself that turf-digging in 1212
:

was a new occupation.

The conjecture that the Netherlander, who in the twelfth
century established themselves as colonists in some districts of
Germany, and particularly Lower Saxony, first made known
there the preparation and use of this kind of fuel is improba-
ble, or at any rate not proved 4 . It is improbable, because the
Chauci, the oldest inhabitants of that country, burnt turf before
that period.
It is related by the Icelanders that Einar, Count or Earl of
Orkney or of the Orkney islands, discovered turf there, and on
that account was named Torffeinar. He was the son of Raugn-
wauld, or Rognwald, earl of Moren, Sued and Nordmor in
Norway, in the time of the celebrated Norwegian King Harold,
commonly called Haarfager or Pulcricomus, on account of his
beautiful hair 5 . He must have lived therefore in the middle of
1
The words are, " Morum dedit dictus comes dictse ecclesias ad turfas
fodiendas."
2
Britonis Philippidos lib. ii. v. 144.
3
These lives are in Matthfei Veteris Mxi Analecta, Hag. 1 738, v. p. 247.
4
I find quoted for this conjecture the Dissertation, Eelking de Belgis
saeculoxii. in Germaniam advenis,Gottingse, 1770, pp.162, 164. But nothing
further is found there than that the right of digging turf was in all proba-
bility confirmed to the colonists. This important Dissertation was written
by Professor "Wundt of Heidelberg.
* This information may be found in Crymogsea, sive rerum Islandicarum

libriiii. per Arngrimum Jonam Islandum. Hamburgi (1609), 4to, p. 50.

" Torf cujus inventor perhibetur in Orcadibus dux quidam Orcadensis, Eina-
rus Raugnvaldi ducis Norvegici de Maere films, tempore pulcricomi Norveg.
regis, qui idcirco Torffeinarus dictus est."
VOL. I. P
210 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the ninth century ; but on so trifling a subject I shall enter no

further into the labyrinth of the Icelandic Saga.
In Sweden turf was first made known at a very modern pe-
riod by some navigators in the district of Halland ; and in
the time of Charles XL much trouble was taken to introduce
it as fuel. In 1672 the town of Laholm obtained an ex-
emption from duty for the turf dug up in the lands belonging
to it.

In later times turf began to be burned to charcoal, some-

times in kilns, and sometimes in furnaces built for that purpose,
by which this advantage is obtained, that it kindles sooner,
burns with less air, and forms a more moderate and uniform
fire without much smoke. This method of reccing turf to
charcoal, which is still practised in some parts of Bohemia,
Silesia, and Upper Saxony, was, it appears, proposed about the
year 1669, by the well-known John Joachim Becher, who
recommended at that time a method of depriving coals of their
sulphur by burning them, and the use of naphtha or rock-oil
procured from them by that process The burning of tun
1
.

to coal seems to have been first made known in Germany by

" In Holland there is turf, and in England there are coals, neither of
1

which are good for burning either in apartments or in melting-houses. I

have, however, discovered a method of burning both these to good coals, so
that they shall not only produce no smoke or bad smell, but yield a heat
as strong for melting metals as that of wood, and throw out such flames
that a foot of coal shall make a flame ten feet long. This I have demon-
strated at the Hague with turf, and proved here in England with coals, in
the presence" of Mr. Boyle, by experiments made at Windsor on a large scale.
It deserves to be remarked on this occasion, that as the Swedes procure
their tar from fir-wood, I have procured tar from coals, which is in every-
thing equal to the Swedish, and even superior to it for some purposes. I
have tried it both on timber and ropes, and it has been found excellent.
The king himself ordered a proof of it to be made in his presence. This is
a thing of very great importance to the English, and the coals after the
—
tar has been extracted from them are better for use than before." Narrische
Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfurt, 1683, 12mo, p. 91. Boyle seems
to speak of this invention in The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, Lon-
don, 1774, fol. i. p. 515. The burning of coals in order to procure from
them rock-oil, which was used particularly by the leather manufacturers,
and which on that account could not be exported, was much practised in
England. It appears, however, that something of the like kind was attempt-
ed before Becher's time for in the year 1627, John Hacket and Octav.
;

Strada obtained a patent for their invention of rendering coals as useful

as wood for fuel in houses without hurting anything by their smoke. See
Anderson's History of Commerce.
 TURF. 211

Hans Charles von Carlowitz, chamber-counsellor, and principal

surveyor of the mines of the electorate of Saxony . To save l

wood and promote the benefit of the mines he nought for turf;
and having discovered it, he then endeavoured to find out
some method of rendering it fit to be employed in the melting-
houses, and this was the reducing to coal, which, as he himself
says 2 he first attempted in kilns at Scheibenberg, in the year
,

1708. At the Brocken the first experiments were made in

1744, with turf which had been dug up several years. This
was announced by F. C. Briickman in 1745 3 as a new inven-
,

tion ; but an anonymous writer stated 4 soon after, that this

charring had been long used in the district of Hadeln, and that
the smiths there employed no other kind of coals for their work.
[In 1842 a patent was taken out by Mr. Williams for com-
pressing peat into a dense mass, resembling coals. It is said
to be superior to coal in its properties of producing heat by
combustion, forming an excellent charcoal or coke. It is as-
serted that this charcoal is much more combustible than that
of wood, and very useful in the manufacture of fire-works,
The process is as follows —
Immediately after being dug it is
:

triturated under revolving edge-wheels faced with iron plates

perforated all over the surface, and is forced by the pressure
through these apertures, till it becomes a kind of pap, which
is freed from the greater part of its moisture by a hydraulic
press. It is then dried, and converted into coke in the same
manner as pit-coal. The factitious coal of Mr. Williams is
made by incorporating pitch or rosin, melted in a caldron
with as much peat-charcoal ground to powder as will form a
tough doughy mass, which is then moulded into bricks.]

1
The practice of charring turf appears however to be much older, if it
be true that charred turf was employed about the year 1560 at the Frei-
berg smelting-houses, though that undertaking was not attended with suc-
cess.— See Hoy's Anleitung zu einer bessern Benutzung des Torfs. Alten-
burg, 1781.
2 Von Carlowitz, Sylviculture CEconomica. Leipzig, 1713, fol. p. 430,
where an account is given of the first experiment.
8 In Hamburgischen Berichten, 4
lb. p. 170.
p. 93.

p2
212 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCO VERIE3.

ARTICHOKE.
That Imight be able to investigate whether our artichoke was
known to the ancients, I have not only collected a variety ol
scattered passages, compared them with one another and with
nature, and laboured through a tedious multitude of contra-
dictions and a confusion of names, but I have also been
obliged to examine a load of groundless conjectures, heaped^
together by commentators in order that I might understand
l
,

them and ascertain their value. By these means I have learned

more than seems hitherto to have been known and I have; ;

found that more is believed than can be proved but that ;

the fruits of my toil will give complete satisfaction to my read-

ers, I do not pretend to hope. Before the botany, however,
and the natural history in general of the ancients can be pro-
perly elucidated, before truth can be separated from falsehood,
what is certain from what is uncertain, and things defined
from those which are undefined, researches of this kind must
be undertaken, and the same method as that which I have
followed must be adopted.
The names of plants in ancient authors which have been
applied to our artichoke, are the following Cinara, Carduus,
:

ScolymuS) and Cactus.

The Cinara, which is originally a Greek word, belonged
certainly to the thistle species and the description of its top,
;

as given by Columella 2 seems, as has already been remarked

,

by Nonnius 3 and others, to agree perfectly with that of our

artichoke. The cinara was commonly furnished with prickles,
but that was preferred which had lost them by cultivation, and
for which means were prescribed that did not produce the
desired effect 4 . It was raised from seed sown in spring, but
was propagated also from slips or shoots which in Italy were
1
See Stapel, Uber die Pflanzen des Theophrast. p. 618. Salmasius ad
Solinum, p. 159. Casauboni Animadv. in Athen. Lugd. 1621, fol. p. 146.
Bauhini Hist. Plant, iii. p. 48.
2 Colum. lib. x. ver. 235.
3 Lud. Nonnii Diaeteticon. Antv. 1646, 4to, p. 56.
4 It was said, that if the corners of the seeds were bruised,
no prickles
would be produced. See Geopon. lib. xii. cap. 39. [It is a well-known phy-
siological fact in botany, that many plants which are naturally spinous,
when cultivated in gardens or rich soil, become unarmed. The production
 ARTICHOKE. 213

planted in autumn, that they might bear earlier the next sum-
mer '. The direction given to water these plants frequently,
is still followed by our gardeners in respect to their artichokes,
and they expect from this attention that the fruit will be more
abundant and tender. By this method many give to their
artichokes a superiority which others that have not been watered
so carefully cannot attain. A
complaint, which occurs in an-
cient authors, is also prevalent, that the roots are often de-
stroyed by mice. I do not, however, find it remarked what
part of the cinara was properly used, but it may be conjectured
2
it was the top, because the tender fruit is praised .

Carduus, among the Romans, was the common name of all

plants of the thistle kind. It occurs among those of weeds 3 , and
may be then properly translated by the word thistle. It, how-
ever, often signified an eatable thistle; and this has given Pliny
occasion to make use of an insipid piece of raillery, when he
says that luxury prepared as food for man what would not be
eaten by cattle.
It is an old and common fault, that when the Greek and
Roman authors have not given us such descriptions of natural
objects as are sufficient to enable us to ascertain exactly what
they are, we suppose that they have been known under different
names, and a variety of characteristics are drawn together to
enable us to determine them. What, for example, we find
respecting the cinara is too little to give a just idea of the
plant ; we read somewhat more of the carduus ; and because
between these there seems to be an affinity, it is concluded that
the cinara and the carduus were the same plant and every- ;

thing told us respecting both of them is thrown into one. Some

even go further, and add what they find under a third or a
fourth name. It is indeed true, that many natural objects
have had several names, and the species may sometimes be
rightly guessed ; but conjecture ought never to be admitted
of spines seems to arise from an imperfect development of the growing
point of a plant ; when this development is increased by the greater supply
of nutriment, the spines disappear, their places being supplied by a branch
having leaves. We have instances of this in the apple, pear, &c, which are
naturally spinous.]
1
Geopon. I. c. Columella, xi. cap. 3.
2 Geopon.
925, where repeated watering is directed ; it is said y>u will
then have tenderer fruit, and in more abundance.
3 Virgil.
Geor. i. 150. Plin. xviii. cap. 17.
 —

214 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

unless the identity can be fully established ; else one may form
such a monstrous production as Horace has delineated, when
he says,
Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis membris

I wish commentators would follow the example of our natural-

ists, who consider a plant as a distinct species until it has been

proved on sure grounds that it is nothing else than a variety

of a plant already characterized. I should not therefore affirm
that the cinara and the carduus are the same, were I not able
to produce the following incontestable proofs in support of my
assertion.
In the first place, the Latins, Palladius and Pliny, give us
•

the same account of the carduus that Columella and the Greeks
do of the cinara. The former lost its prickles through culti-
vation l ; its flowers were also of a purple colour 2 ; it was pro-
pagated by seed and by shoots ; it required frequent water-
ing ; and it was remarked that it throve better when the earth
was mixed with ashes. Had not the carduus and the cinara
been the same, Palladius and Pliny would have mentioned the
latter ; for we cannot suppose that they otherwise would have
omitted a plant that formed a dish so much esteemed and so
well-known among their countrymen. The latter claims to
himself the merit of having passed over no one that was held
in estimation. In the second place, Virgil has translated the
word cynaros in a part of Sophocles now lost, by carduus 3 ;
thirdly, Athenseus says expressly, that the cinara was by the
Latins named cardus and carduus 1", and, lastly, the old glos-
saries explain cinara by carduus, as we are told by Salmasius.
On these grounds, therefore, I am of opinion that the cinara
and the carduus were the same.
9, p. 934, and lib. xi. Octob. p. 987.
1 Palladius, iv.
In the first-men-
tioned place he gives the same direction for preventing prickles, as that
quoted respecting the cinara.
2 Pliny, lib. xx. says,
" The wind easily carries away the withered flowers
on account of their woolly nature."
3 Kvvapos aKavOa izavra irXtjOvei yvrjv. —
Sophocles, in Phoenice.
Scgnisque horreret in arvis
Carduus
4 Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second
—
Virgil. Georg. i. 50.
book, p. 70. Salmasius,
in his Remarks on Solinus, p. 159, is of opinion that Athenscus wrote
maptiov, not icapdvov ; and the Latins not carduus, but cardus.
 ARTICHOKE. 215

We are informed by Apicius and Pliny 2 in what manner

'

the carduus was dressed by the ancient cooks. The latter

gives directions for pickling it in vinegar; but neither of them
tells us what part of it was eaten. Lister thinks that Apicius
speaks of the tops of the young shoots, which, as far as I know,
are parts of the artichoke never eaten at present. It is, how-
ever, worthy of remark, that the tops (turiones) of certain
kinds of the thistle family of plants, and among these the
common burr 3 , are in some countries dressed and eaten like
asparagus. It is not improbable also that Pliny and Apicius
may have meant the ribs of the leaves though none of the;

ancients has taught us the art of binding up, covering with

earth, and blanching the cinara or carduus. This, perhaps,
was a new invention of the gardeners ; and the cooks may
have had other methods of rendering the ribs of the leaves
tender and eatable. Had they meant the bottom of the calyx,
they would not have omitted to give a circumstantial account
of the preparation previous to its being pickled.
The Scolymus is by Pliny and Theophrastus reckoned to
belong to the genus of the thistles. The former says, that,
like most others of the same kind, the seeds were covered by
a sort of wool (pappus). It had a high stem, surrounded with
leaves, which were prickly, but which ceased to sting when
the plant withered 4 . It flowered the whole summer through,
and had often flowers and ripe seed at the same time ; which
is the case also with our artichoke plants. The calyx of the
scolymus was not prickly 5 the root was thick, black and
;

sweet, and contained a milky juice. It was eaten both raw

and cooked and Theophrastus observes, as something very
;

remarkable, that when the plant was in flower, or, as others

explain the words, when it had finished blowing, it was most

1
Lib. cap. 19. 2
iii. Lib. xix. cap. 8.
3 Arctium Lappa, an indigenous weed, to be rooted out. Elskolz,
difficult
in his Gartenbau, speaking of the Spanish cardoons, says, " The strong stem
of the large burr, Arctium Lappa, may be dressed in the same manner, and
Is not much different in taste." See also Thomas Moufet's Health's Im-
provement. Lond. 1746, 8vo, p. 217.
4
Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16.
5
Theophrastus : " Conceptus non spinosus, sed oblongus." But Dios
corides says, " Capitulum spinosum." This contradiction, and other small
variations, have induced some to consider the scolymus of Theophrastus
and that of Dioscorides as two different plants.
216 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

palatable. What
renders this circumstance singular is, that
most milky roots used for food lose their milk and become
unfit to be eaten as soon as they have blown. This is the case
with the goat's beard, which is eatable only the first year.
The scolymus however is not the only plant which forms
an exception ; for the garden Scorzonera retains its milk, and
continues eatable after it has bloomed, and as long as it has
milk it may be used. According to Theophrastus and Pliny,
the roots of the scolymus are eatable. On the other hand,
Dioscorides says that the roots were not eaten, but the young
leaves only : as he informs us, however, that they were dressed
like asparagus, it would appear that he meant the young shoots 1 .
Theophrastus expressly tells us, that, besides the roots, the
flowers also were used as food ; and he calls that which was
eatable the pulpy part. We
have, therefore, full proof that
the ancients ate the tops of some plants in the same manner as
we eat our artichokes.
It may however be asked, what kind of a plant was the sco-
lymus ? That it was different from the cinara is undoubtedly
certain; for Dioscorides 2 expressly distinguishes them; nor
was it the eatable carduus, for Pliny compares it with the car-
duus, and says that it was characterized from the latter by
having roots fit to be eaten. Stapel is of opinion that the sco-
lymus is our artichoke but this seems to me improbable, for
;

the leaves and roots of the latter are not sweet, but harsh and
bitter, and the calyx is prickly, which was not the case in the
scolymus of Theophrastus. Besides, I find nothing in the whole
description of the scolymus or in the accounts given us by the
ancients of the cinara and carduus, that can be applied to our
artichoke alone, and not to any other plant. It may be here
replied, that it would be very difficult to ascertain plants from
the names of the ancients, were such strong proofs required,
because they had not the art of separating the different genera
correctly, and of assigning to each certain characterizing marks.
This I allow and for that reason it is impossible to elucidate
;

properly the Greek and Latin names of plants but, in my ;

opinion, it is better to confess this impossibility, than to de-

ceive oneself with distant probabilities. Let the genus be
1
Dioscor. iii. 16.
2
Dioscor. lib. iii. cap. 10, where he says of a plant that its leaves were
like those of the Scolymus, and its stem like that of the Cinara.
 ARTICHOKE. 217

ascertained when one cannot ascertain the species ; let the

order to which the plant belongs be determined when one
cannot determine the genus ; or, at least, let the class be as-
signed when there is sufficient authority to do so. The cinara,
carduus and seolymus were therefore species of the thistle, of
which the roots and young shoots, and also the bottom of the
calyx of the last, were eaten. Were I appointed or condemned
to form a new Latin dictionary, I should explain the article
—
Seolymus in the following manner : Planta composita, capi-
tata. Caulis longus, obsitus foliis spinosis. Radix carnosa,
lactescens, nigra, dulcis, edulis. Calyx squamis inermibus,
disco carnoso, ante effiorescentiam eduli. Semina papposa.
Turiones edules. This description, short as it is, contains
every thing that the ancients have said in order to characterize
that plant. It can, indeed, be understood only by those who
are acquainted with the terms of botany but what follows
;

will require no explanation or defining of botanical names.

Should it be said that the seolymus must be our artichoke
because no other plant of the thistle kind is known the bottom
of the calyx of which is eatable, I would in answer observe : —
First, other species may have been known in ancient times,
which perhaps have been disused and forgotten since the more
pleasant and delicious artichoke became known. It is certain
that many old plants have in this manner been banished from
our gardens by the introduction of new ones. Thus have
common alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrutn) fallen into neglect
since celery was made known by the Italians, about the end of
the seventeenth century ; and so at present has the cultivation
of winter-cresses (Erysimum barbarea), bulbous-rooted chse-
rophyllum( Chcerophyllmn bulboswni), vocket(Brassica eruca),
and others, been abandoned since better vegetables have been
obtained to supply their place. Secondly, it is certain that,
even at present, the bottom of the calyx of some others of the
thistle-kind, besides the genus of the artichoke, is eaten ; su h.
as the cotton-thistle ( Onopordum acanthium), and the carline
thistle (Carlina acaulis), without mentioning the sun-dowers
•which has been brought to us in modern times from South
America.
Without engaging to examine all the hypotheses of com-
.mentators and ancient botanists on this subject, I shall take
notice of one conjecture, which, upon mature consideration,
 218 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

appears to have some probability. Clusius is of opinion that

'

the plant called by the botanists of the seventeenth century

Carduus chrysanthemus, and by those of the present age Sco-
lymus hispanicus, the golden thistle, is the scolymus of Theo-
phrastus because its leaves, beset with white prickles, and
;

its pulpy, sweet, milky roots are eaten, and excel in taste all
roots whatever, even those of skirret ; and because it was col-
lected and sold in Spain, Italy, and Greece. But what has
principally attracted my attention to this conjecture, is the
account of Bellon 2 that this plant in Crete or Candia is called
,

still by the Greeks there ascolymbros. This name seems to

have arisen from scolymos ; and besides Stapel 3 found in an
old glossary the word ascolymbros. I am likewise convinced
that, as Tournefort 4 has said, the botany of the ancients would
be much illustrated and rendered more certain, were the names
used by the modern Greeks known. It is certain that many
old names have been preserved till the present time with little

1
Rariorum Plantarum Historian, lib. iv. p. 153.
2 " In Crete there is a kind of prickly plant, which in the common Greek
idiom is generally called ascolimbros. The ancient Latins called it also by
a Greek name, glycyrrhizon, though different from glycyrrhiza (liquorice).
It grows everywhere spontaneously, has a yellow flower, and abounds with
a milky juice. The roots and leaves are usually eaten before it shoots up
into a stem. We saw it exposed for sale with other herbs in the market-
place of Ravenna, and at Ancona, where the women who were digging it
up, gave it the name of riuci. We saw it gathered also in the Campagna
di Roma, where the inhabitants called it spinaborda. This is the plant
—
which by the modern Greeks is named ascolimbros." Bellonii Observa-
tions, lib. i. cap. 18. " In Crete it is called ascolymbros, and in Lemnos
scombrouolo, that is scombri carduus. This thistle abounds with a milky
juice, like succory, has a yellow flower, and is excellent eating ; so that I
know no root cultivated in gardens which can be compared to it in taste,
the parsnip not even excepted."
3 Theophrast.
Hist. Plant, p. 620. The figure which Stapel gives,p.621,
is not of the Scolymus hispanicus, but of Scolymus maculatus. It is taken
from Clusius, who has also a figure of the former.
4 "I considered
the heads of these poor Greeks as so many living inscrip-
tions, which preserve to us the names mentioned by Dioscorides and Theo-
phrastus. Though liable to different variations, they- will, doubtless, be
more lasting than the hardest marble, because they are every day renewed,
whereas marble is effaced or destroyed. Inscriptions of this kind will pre-
serve, therefore, to future ages the names of several plants known to those
skilful Greeks who lived in happier and more learned times." — Voyage du
Levant, i. p. 34. Compare with the above what Haller says in his Biblioth.
Botan. i. p. 26.
 ARTICHOKE. 219

variation but nevertheless I can as little admit the assertion

;

of Clusius as that of Stapel for Scolymus hispanicus has

;

neither the bottom of the calyx pulpy, nor wool adhering to

the seeds, like the scolymus of Theophrastus and the young ;

roots only can be eaten, because, like those of most plants of

the genus of the thistle, they lose their milk when the flower
is in bloom ; lastly, the leaves retain their power of pricking,

even after they have become withered.

The fourth name which, with any kind of probability, has
been translated by the word artichoke is cactus. This plant,
which, in the time of Theophrastus and Pliny, grew only in
Sicily and not in Greece, had broad prickly leaves '; the flower
was rilled with a kind of wool, which, when eaten inadvertently,
was pernicious 2 the calyx was prickly : and, besides a long
;

stem, it shot forth branches which crept along the ground 3 ,

and which, when the outer rind had been peeled off, were eaten
either fresh, or pickled in salt water 4 . The bottom of the
calyx of this plant was likewise used, after it had been freed
from its seeds and woolly substance 5 . It had a great reseno-
blance to the pith of the palm-tree 6 .
That the cactus was different from the scolymus we are ex-
pressly told by Theophrastus; and Pliny also distinguishes them
both from each other and from the carduus. Athenaeus 7 is
the only author who says that the cactus and the cinara. were
the same ; but he gives no other proof than a very simple
1
Plin. lib. xxi. cap. 16. See Theophrast. lib. vi. cap. 4. Theoocritus, Idyll.
x. 4,mentions a lamb wounded in the foot by a cactus. Tertullian names
this plantamong prickly weeds, together with the rubus, in the end of the
second chapter of that unintelligible book De Pallio. De la Cerda, in his
excellent edition of Opera Tertulliani, Lutetia? Paris. 1624,2 vols.fol. i.

p. 13, reads carecto instead of cacto but Salmasius, in his edition of that
;

work, p. 172, has sufficiently vindicated the latter.

2 Dioscorid. Alexipharm. cap. 33. 3
Theoph. p. 613.
4
The creeping branches were in particular called cacti, the upright
stem pternix.
5 Theophrastus calls the bottom of the calyx TrepttcapTriov, a word which
is still retained in botany. But he also says that the same part of the
cactus was called also aKaXia from which is derived the ascalia of Pliny.
;

Galen calls it cnrovSvXov.

6 Theoph. This term is explained by Pliny, lib. xiii. c. 4 "Dulcis me-
:
—
dulla palmarum in cacumine, quod cerebrum appellant."
7 Athen. Deipnos. at the end of the second book, p. 70. He gives every-
thing to be found in Theophrastus but either the author or some of his
;

transcribers have so confused what he says, that it is almost unintelligible.

220 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES,

etymology. It must therefore be admitted that the cactus

was a species of the thistle kind entirely different from any of
the former.
I think I have proved, therefore, that the Greeks and the
Romans used the pulpy bottom of the calyx, and the most tender
stalks and young shoots of some plants reckoned to belong to
the thistle kind, in the same manner as we use artichokes and
cardoons and that the latter were unknown to them. It appears
;

to me probable that the use of these plants, at least in Italy and

Europe in general, was in the course of time laid aside and
forgotten, and that the artichoke, when it was first brought to
Italy from the Levant, was considered as a new species of food.
It is undoubtedly certain that our artichoke was first known
in that country in the fifteenth century. Hermolaus Barbarus,
who died in 1494, relates that this plant was first seen at Ve-
nice in a garden in 1473, at which time it was very scarce . 1

About the year 1466, one of the family of Strozzi brought the
first artichokes to Florence from Naples 2 Politian, in a letter
.

in which he describes the dishes he found at a grand entertain-

ment in Italy in 1488, among these mentions artichokes 3 . They
were introduced into France in the beginning of the sixteenth
century 4 ; and into England in the reign of Henry the Eighth 5 .
Respecting the origin of the name various conjectures have
been formed, none of which, in my opinion, are founded even
on probability. Hermolaus Barbarus, Henry Stephen, Ruel-
lius, Heresbach, and others think that artichoke or artickaut,
as it is called by the French, and arciocco by the Italians, is
derived from the Greek word coccalus, which signifies a fir-
cone, with the Arabic article al prefixed, from which was
formed alcocalon, and afterwards the name now used 6 . This
etymology is contradicted by Salmasius 7 , who denies that
coccalus had ever that signification. He remarks also that arti-
chokes were by the Arabs called harsaf, harxqf, or harchiaf;
and he seems not disinclined to derive the name from these
1
Herra. Barbar. ad Dioscor. iii. 15.
2 Manni de Florentinis inventis commentarium, p. 34.
3 Lugd. 1533, 8vo, p. 444.
Politiani Opera.
4 RuelliusDe Natura Stirpium. Bas. 1543, fol.p. 485.
6 Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164. Biograpbia Britannica, vol. iv. p. 2462; and
Anderson's History of Commerce.
6
Herm. Barbarus, in his Observations on Dioscorides.
7 Salmas. ad Solin. p. 160.
 ARTICHOKE. 221

appellations Grotius, Bodseus, and some others, derive it

1
.

from a Greek word 2 which occurs in Alexander Trallianus,

,

and which is supposed to signify our plant but that word is ;

to be found in this author alone, and in him only once; so

that the idea of these critics appears to me very improbable.
Frisch affirms, in his dictionary, that our modern name is
formed from carduus and scolymus united, lhre 3 considers
the first part of the name as the German word erde (the earth),
because it is often pronounced erdschoke ; but I rather think
that the Germans changed the foreign word arti into the word
erde, which was known to them, in the same manner as oitar-
tuffolo we have made erdtoffeln *; besides, Hire leaves the latter
part unexplained 5 In the seventeenth century the plant was
.

often called Welscli distel (Italian thistle), because the seeds

were procured from Italy, and also Strobeldorn, a word un-
doubtedly derived from strobilus.
Were the original country of the artichoke really known, the
etymology of the name, perhaps, might be easily explained.
Linnaeus says that it grew wild in Narbonne, Italy, and Sicily,
and the cardoons in Crete but, in my opinion, the informa-
;

tion respecting the latter has been taken only from the above-
quoted passage of Bellon, which is improperly supposed to
allude to the artichoke. As far as I know, it was not found
upon that island either by Tournefort or any other traveller.
Garidel, however, mentions the artichoke under the name given
it by Bauhin, cinara sylvestris latifolia, among the plants grow-
ing wild in Provence but later authors assure us that they
;

sought for it there in vain 6 I shall here remark that the arti-
.

choke is certainly known in Persia but Ta vernier says ex- ;

pressly that it was carried thither, like asparagus, and other

European vegetables of the kitchen-garden, by the Carmelite
and other monks and that it was only in later times that it
;

became common 7 .

1
It is remarkedin Golius's Dictionary, p. 597, that this word signifies
also the scales of a fish, and the strong scales of the calyx of the plant may
have given rise to the name. 2
The Greek word is aprvriKij.
3 Glossarium Suiogothicum, 4 Potatoes.
i. p. 411.
5
A variety of derivations may be found in Menage's Dictionnaire Ety-
mologique.
6
See Kozier, Cours Complet d' Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 14.
7 See his Travels. Geneva, 1681, fol. p. 164.
 ;

222 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

SAW-MILLS.
In early periods, the trunks of trees were split with wedges into
as many and as thin pieces as possible and if it was necessary
' ;

to have them still thinner, they were hewn on both sides to

the proper size. This simple and wasteful manner of making
boards has been still continued to the present time. Peter the
Great of Russia endeavoured to put a stop to it by forbidding
hewn deals to be transported on the river Neva. The saw,
however, though so convenient and beneficial, has not been
able to banish entirely the practice of splitting timber used in
building, or in making furniture and utensils, for I do not speak
here of fire-wood and, indeed, it must be allowed that this
;

method attended with peculiar advantages, which that of

is

sawing can never possess. The wood-splitters perform their

work more expeditiously than sawyers, and split timber is
much stronger than that which has been sawn for the fissure
;

follows the grain of the wood, and leaves it whole whereas

;

the saw, which proceeds in the line chalked out for it, divides the
fibres, and by these means lessens its cohesion and solidity.
Split timber, indeed, turns out often crooked and warped but ;

inmany purposes to which it is applied this is not prejudicial

and such faults may sometimes be amended. As the fibres,
however, retain their natural length and direction, thin boards,
be bent much better. This is a great advan-
particularly, can
tage in making pipe-staves, or sieve-frames, which require still
more art, and in forming various implements of the like kind.
Our common saw, which needs only to be guided by the hand
of the workman, however simple it may be, was not known to
the inhabitants of America when they were subdued by the
Europeans 2 . The inventor of this instrument has by the Greeks
1 Virgil. Georg. lib. i. v. 144. Pontoppidan says, " Before the middle
of the sixteenth century all trunks were hewn and split with the axe into
two planks ; whereas at present they would give seven or eight boards.
This is still done in some places where there are no saw-mills in the neigh-
bourhood especially at Sudenoer and Amte Nordland, where a great many
;

boats and sloops are built of such hewn boards, which are twice as strong
as those sawn ; but they consume too many trunks." See Natiirliche His-
torie von Norwegen. Copenhagen, 1753, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 244.
2
De Garcilasso de la Vega, Histoire des Incas.
 SAW-MILLS. 223

been inserted mythology, with a place in which, among

in their
their gods, they honoured the greatest benefactors of the ear-
liest ages. By some he is called Talus, and by others Perdix.
Pliny alone ascribes the invention to Daedalus but Hardouin,
1
;

in the passage where he does so, chooses to read Talus rather

than Dsedalus. In my opinion, Pliny may have committed
an error as well as any of the moderns and as one writer at ;

present misleads another, Seneca 2 who gives the same inven- ,

tor, may have fallen into a mistake by copying Pliny. Dio-

dorus Siculus 3 Apollodorus 4 and others name the inventor
, ,

Talus. He was the son of Dsedalus's sister and was by his ;

mother placed under the tuition of her brother, to be instructed

in his art. Having once found the jaw-bone of a snake, he
employed it to cut through a small piece of wood and by ;

these means was induced to form a like instrument of iron,

that is, to make a saw. This invention, which greatly facili-
tates labour, excited the envy of his master, and instigated him
to put Talus to death privately. We are told, that being asked
by some one, when he was burying the body, what he was
depositing in the earth, he replied, a serpent. This suspicious
answer discovered the murder and thus, adds the historian, a;

snake was the cause of the invention, of the murder, and of its
being found out 5

Hyginus 6 Servius 7 Fulgentiue 8 Lactantius Placidus 9 Isi-

, , , ,

dorus 10 and others call the inventor Perdix. That he was the
,

son of a sister of Dasdalus they all agree but they differ re- ;

specting the name of his parents. The mother, by Fulgentius,

is called Polycastes, but without any proof; and Lactantius

gives to the father the name of Calaus. In Apollodorus, how-

ever, the mother of Talus is called Perdix ; and the same name
is given by Tzetzes to the mother of the inventor, whose name
Talus he changes into Attalus n . Perdix, we are told, did not
employ for a saw the jaw-bone of a snake, like Talus, but the
1
Lib. cap. 56. 2 Epist. 3
vii. 1. 90. Diodor. Sicul. iv. cap. 78.
4
Apollodori Bibl. lib. iii. cap. 16.
5
Those who are desirous of seeing the whole account may consult Dio-
dorus, or Banier's Mythology, [or Keightley's Mythology of Ancient Greece
and Lond. 1838.]
Italy, p, 398,
6
Hygin. Fab. 39, 244, 274. 7 Ad Georg. i. 143.
8
Mythograpbi, ed. Van Staveren, lib. iii. 2, p. 708.
9
In Mythogr. et in Ovid. Bum. lib. viii. fab. 3.
10 »
Orig. lib. xix. cap. 19. Chiliad, i. 493.
 :

224 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

back-bone of a fish ; confirmed by Ovid

and this is who 1
,

nevertheless is name of the inventor.

silent respecting the
What may be meant by spina piscis it is perhaps difficult to
conjecture but I can by no means make spina dorsi of it, as
;

Dion. Salvagnius has done, in his observations on the passage

quoted from Ovid's Ibis. The small bony processes which
project from the spine of a fish have some similitude to a saw;
but it would be hardly possible to saw through with them
small pieces of wood. These bones are too long, as well as
too far distant from each other and the joints of the back-
;

bone are liable to be dislocated by the smallest force. I am

not acquainted with the spine of any fish which would be suffi-
ciently strong for that purpose. The jaw-bone of a fish fur-
nished with teeth would be more proper but the words spina ;

in medio pisce prevent us from adopting that alteration. I

should be inclined rather to explain this difficulty by the bone
which projects from the snout of the saw-fish, called by the
Romans serra, and by the Greeks pristis. That bone, indeed,
might not be altogether unfit for such a use : the teeth are
strongly united to the broad bone in the middle, and are capa-
ble of resisting a great force but they are placed at rather
;

too great a distance. The old inhabitants of Madeira, how-

ever, we are told, really used this bone instead of a saw 2 .
That Talus found the jaw-bone of a snake with teeth like a
saw is extremely probable, for there are many snakes which
have teeth of that kind.
The saws of the Grecian carpenters had the same form, and
were made in the like ingenious manner as ours are at pre-
sent. This is fully shown by a painting still preserved among
the antiquities of Herculaneum 3 Two genii are represented
.

1
Metamorph. lib. viii. 244. The Mowing line from the Ibis, ver. 500,
alludes to thesame circumstance

" Ut cui causa necis serra reperta fuit."

2 See Cadomosto's Voyage to Africa, in Novi Orbis Navigat. cap. 6.

This account is not so ridiculous as that of Olaus Magnus, who says that
the saw -fish can with his snout bore through a ship. [There are however
many well-authenticated instances of the planks of ships being perforated
by the upper jaw of this powerful animal, which it has been supposed
occasionally attacks the hulls of vessels in mistake for the whale.]
3 Le Pitture antiche d'Ercolano, vol. i. tav. 34.
 .

SAW-MILLS. 225

at the end of a bench, which consists of a long table that rests

upon two four-footed stools. The piece of wood which is to
be sawn through is secured by cramps. The saw with which
the genii are at work has a perfect resemblance to our frame-
saw. It consists of a square frame, having in the middle a
blade, the teeth of which stand perpendicular to the plane of
the frame. The piece of wood which is to be sawn extends
beyond the end of the bench, and one of the workmen ap-
pears standing and the other sitting on the ground. The
arms, in which the blade is fastened, have the same form as
that given to them at present. In the bench are seen holes,
in which the cramps that hold the timber are stuck. They
are shaped like the figure seven and the ends of them reach
;

below the boards that form the top of it The French call a
cramp of this kind un valet . 1

Montfaucon 2 also has given the representation of two

ancient saws taken from Gruter. One of them seems to be
only the blade of a saw without any frame but the other ;

figure I consider as a cross-cut saw ; and I think I can distin-

guish all the parts, though it is imperfectly delineated. One
may however perceive both the handles between which the
blade is fastened the wooden bar that binds them together,
;

though the blade is delineated too near it; and about the
middle of this bar, the piece of wood that tightens the cord
which keeps the handles as well as the whole instrument firm.
Saws which were not placed in a frame, but fastened to a han-
dle, are thus described by Palladius 3
—
" Serrulse manubriatse
:

minores majoresque ad mensuram cubiti, quibus facile est,

quod per serram fieri non potest, resecando trunco arboris,
aut vitis interseri."
The most beneficial and ingenious improvement of this in-
strument was, without doubt, the invention of saw-mills,
which are driven either by water, wind, [or by steam]. Mills
of the first kind were erected so early as the fourth century,
1 That cramps or hold-fasts are still
formed in the same manner as those
seen in the ancient painting found at Herculaneum, particularly when fine
inlaid works are made, is proved by the figure in Roubo, l'Art du Memii-
sier, tab. xi. fig. 4, and xii. fig. 15.
2 L'Antiquite Expliquee, vol. iii. pi. 189.
3 Pallad. —
De Re Rust. lib. i. tit. 43. Cicero, in his oration for Cluentius,
chap, lxiv., speaks of an ingenious saw, with which a thief sawed out the
bottom of a chest.
VOL. I. Q
 —

226 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in Germany, on the small river Roer or Ruer for though 1

;

Ausonius speaks properly of water-mills for cutting stone, and

not timber, it cannot be doubted that these were invented later
than mills for manufacturing deals, or that both kinds were
erected at the same time. The art however of cutting marble
with a -saw is very old. Pliny 2 conjectures that it was in-
vented in Caria; at least he knew no building incrusted with
marble of greater antiquity than the palace of king Mausolus,
at Halicarnassus. This edifice is celebrated by Vitruvius 3 ,
for the beauty of its marble and Pliny gives an account of
;

the different kinds of sand used for cutting it for it is the ;

sand properly, says he, and not the saw, which produces that
effect. The latter presses down the former, and rubs it against
the marble and the coarser the sand is, the longer will be
;

the time required to polish the marble which has been cut by
it. Stones of the soap-rock kind, which are indeed softer
than marble, and which would require less force than wood,
were sawn at that period 4 : but it appears that the far harder
glassy kinds of stone were sawn then also for we are told 01;

the discovery of a building which was encrusted with cut

agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, and amethysts 5 . I have, how-
ever, found no account in any of the Greek or Roman writers
of a mill for sawing wood ; and as the writers of modern times
speak of saw-mills as new and uncommon, it would seem that
the oldest construction of them has been forgotten, or that
some important improvement has made them appear entirely
new.
Becher says, with his usual confidence, that saw-mills were
invented in the seventeenth century 6 Though this is cer-
.

tainly false, I did not expect to find that there were saw-mills
in the neighbourhood of Augsburg so early as the year 1337,
as Stetten 7 has discovered by the town-books of that place.
I shall here insert his own words, in answer to a request I
1
Ausonii Mosella, 3 Plin. lib.
v. 361. xxxvi. cap. 6.
3 Vitruv. lib. 4 Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 22.
ii. cap. 8.
5
See Jannon de S. Laurent's treatise ou the cut stones of the ancients,,
in Saggi di Dissertazioni nella Acad. Etrusca di Cortona, torn. vi. p. 56.
6 "
Saw-mills are useful machines, first introduced in this century and ;

I do not know any one who can properly be called the real inventor."
JNarrische Weishsit. Frankf. 1683, 12mo, p. 78.
7 In that excellent work, Kunst-und-handwerks Geschichte der Stadt

Augsburg, 1779, 8vo, p. 141.

 SAW-MILLS. 22?

made that he would be so kind as to communicate to me all

the information he knew on that subject :
—
" You are de-
sirous of reading that passage in our town-books, where saw-
mills are first mentioned but it is of very little importance.
;

There is to be found only under the year 1338 the name of a

burgher called Giss Saegemulier and though it may be ob-
;

jected that one cannot from the name infer the existence of
the employment, I am of a different opinion ; especially as I
have lately been able to obtain a pi oof much more to be de-
pended on. In the surveyors' book, which I have often be-
fore quoted, and which, perhaps, for many centuries has not
been seen or consulted by any one, I find under the year
1322, and several times afterwards, sums disbursed tinder the
following title : Molitori dicto Hanrey pro asseribus et swaert-
lingis. Schwartlings, among us, are the outside deals of the
trunk, which in other places are called Schwarten. This
word, therefore, makes the existence of a saw-mill pretty cer-
tain. As a confirmation of this idea, we have still a mill of
that kind which is at present called the Hanrey-mill; and
the stream which supplies it with water is called the Hanrey-
brook. Since the earliest ages, the ground on which this mill,
and the colour, stamping, and oil-mills in the neighbourhood
are built, was the property of the hospital of the Holy Ghost.
By that hospital it was given as a life-rent to a rich burgher
named Erlinger, but returned again in 1417 by his daughter
Anna Bittingerin, who had, above and under the Hanrey-
mill, two other saw-mills, which still exist, and for which, in
virtue of an order of council of that year, she entered into a
contract with the hospital in regard to the water and mill-
dams." There were saw-mills, therefore, at. Augsburg so
early as 1322. This appears to be highly probable also from
the circumstance, that such mills occur very often in the fol-
lowing century in many other countries.
When the Infant Henry sent settlers to the island of Madeira,
which was discovered in 1420, and caused European fruits of
every kind to be carried thither, he ordered saw-mills to be
erected also, for the purpose of sawing into deals the various
species of excellent timber with which the island abounded,
and which were afterwards transported to Portugal . About 1

1
This we are told by Abraham Peritsol, the Jew, in Itinera Mundi,
q2
228 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the year 14-27 the city of Breslau had a saw-mill which pro-
duced a yearly rent of three marks and in 1490 the ma-
;

gistrates of Erfurt purchased a forest, in which they caused a

saw-mill to be erected, and they rented another mill in the
neighbourhood besides. Norway, which is covered with fo-
rests, had the first saw-mill about the year 1530. This mode
of manufacturing timber was called the new art and because ;

the exportation of deals was by these means increased, that

circumstance gave occasion to the deal-tythe, introduced by
Christian III. in the year 1545 '. Soon after the celebrated
Henry Ranzau caused the first mill of this kind to be built in
Holstein 2 . In 1552 there was a saw-mill at Joachimsthal,
which, as we are told, belonged to Jacob Geusen, mathemati-
cian. In the year 1555 the bishop of Ely, ambassador from
Mary queen of England to the court of Rome, having seen a
saw-mill in the neighbourhood of Lyons, the writer of his
travels thought it worthy of a particular description 3 . In the
sixteenth century, however, there were mills with different
saw-blades, by which a plank could be cut into several deals
at the same time. Pighius saw one of these, in 1575, on the
Danube, near Ratisbon, when he accompanied Charles, prince
of Juliers and Cleves, on his travels 4 . It may here be asked
whether the Dutch had such mills first, as is commonly be-
lieved 5 . The first saw-mill was erected in Holland at Saar-
printed with the learned annotations of Thomas Hyde, in Ugolini Thesaur.
Antiq. Sacr. vol. vii. p. 103. Peritsol wrote before the year 1547.
1
Nic. Cragii Historia regis Christiani III. Hafnise 1737, fol. p. 293.
See also Pontoppidan's History of Norway.
2 Allgemeine Welthistorie, xxxiii. p. 227.
3 The account of this journey may be found in Hardwicke's Miscellane-

ous State Papers, from 1501 to 1726, i. p. 71 :

—
"The saw-mill is driven
with an upright wheel and the water that maketh it go, is gatbered whole
;

into a narrow trough, which delivereth the same water to the wheels.
This wheel hath a piece of timber put to the axle-tree end, like the handle
of a broch, and fastened to the end of the saw, which being turned with
the force of the water, hoisteth up and down the saw, that it continually
eateth in, and the handle of the same is kept in a rigall of wood from
swerving. Also the timber lieth as it were upon a ladder, which is brought
by little and little to the saw with another vice."
4 Hercules Prodicus. Coloniae 1609, 8vo, p. 95.
5 Leupoldi Theatrum Machinarum Molarium.
Leipzig, 1735, fol. p. 114.
I shall here take occasion to remark, that in the sixteenth century there
were boring-mills driven by water. Felix Fabri, in his Historia Suevorum,
p. 81, says that there were such mills at Uhu.
 ;;

SAW-MILLS. 229

dam, in the year 1596 and the invention of it is ascribed to

;

Cornelis Cornelissen ; but he is as little the inventor as the

!

mathematician of Joachimsthal. Perhaps he was the first

person who built a saw-mill at that place, which is a village of
great trade, and has still a great many saw-mills, though the
number of them is becoming daily less for within the last
;

thirty years a hundred have been given up 2 . The first mill of

thiskind in Sweden was erected in the year 1653 3 At pre-
.

sent, that kingdom possesses the largest perhaps ever con-

structed in Europe, where a water-wheel, twelve feet broad,
drives at the same time seventy-two saws.
In England saw-mills had at first the same fate that printing
had in Turkey, the ribbon-loom in the dominions of the Church,
and the crane at Strasburgh. When attempts were made to
introduce them they were violently opposed, because it was
apprehended that the sawyers would be deprived by them of
their means of getting a subsistence. For this reason it was
found necessary to abandon a saw-mill erected by a Dutchman
near London 4 in 1663; and in the year 1700, when one
,

Houghton laid before the nation the advantages of such a mill,

he expressed his apprehension that it might excite the rage of
the populace 5 What he dreaded was actually the case in
.

1767 or 1768, when an opulent timber-merchant, by the desire

and approbation of the Society of Arts, caused a saw-mill,
driven by wind, to be erected at Limehouse under the direc-
tion of James Stansfield, who had learned, in Holland and
Norway, the art of constructing and managing machines of
that kind. A
mob assembled and pulled the mill to pieces
but the damage was made good by the nation, and some of the
rioters were punished. A
new mill was afterwards erected,
which was suffered to work without molestation, and which
gave occasion to the erection of others 6 It appears, however,
.

that this was not the only mill of the kind then in Britain

1
De Koophandel van Amsterdam. Amst. 1727, ii. p. 583.
2 La Richesse de Hollande. Lond. 1778, 4to, i. p. 259.
la
3 Clason, Sweriges Handel
Omskiften 1751.
4 Anderson's
History of Commerce.
6
Houghton's Husbandry and Trade Improved, Lond. 1727, iii. p. 47.
6 Memoirs
of Agriculture and other (Economical Arts, by Robert Dossie.
Lond. 1768, 8vo, i. p. 123. Of Stansfield's mill, on which he made some
improvements, a description and figure may be seen in Bailey's Advance-
ment of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Lond. 1772, i. p. 231.
230 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

for one driven alsoby wind had been built at Leith, in Scotland,
some years before 1
.

[The application of the steam-engine has in modern times

almost entirely displaced the use of either water or wind as
sources of power in machinery, and most of the saw-mills now
in action, especially those on a large scale, are worked by
steam. Some idea of the precision with which their operations
are now accomplished may be obtained from the following
fact. At the City of London saw-mills, the largest log of wood
which had been placed, on the carriage in one piece a log of —
Honduras mahogany 18 feet long and three feet one inch
square, — was cut into unbroken sheets at the rate of ten to an
inch, and so beautifully smooth as to require scarcely any
dressing.]

STAMPED PAPER.
Paper stamped with a certain mark by Government, and
whichin many countries must be used for all judicial acts,
public deeds, and private contracts, in order to give them
validity, is one of those numerous modes of taxation invented
after the other means of raising money for the service of states,
or rather of their rulers, became exhausted. It is not of great
antiquity ; for before the invention of our paper it would not
have been a very productive source of finance. When parch-
ment and other substances employed for writing on were
dear, when greater simplicity of manners produced more
honesty and more confidence among mankind, and when
tallies supplied the place of notes, bonds, and receipts, writings
of that kind were very little in use.
De Basville, however, in his Memoires pour servir a, l'his-
toire de Languedoc, affirms that stamped paper was introduced
so early as the year 537, by the emperor Justinian. This
book, written by the author, intendant of that province in 1697,
for the use of the duke of Burgundy, was printed, in octavo,
at Marseilles in 1734, and not at Amsterdam, as announced
1 Anderson ut supra.
 STAMPED PAPER. 231

in the title but it was carefully suppressed by the Govern-

;

ment, and on that account is very scarce even in France 1 I .

have never seen it but 1 know the author's ideas respecting

;

stamped paper, from an extract in Varietes Historiques, Phy-

siques, et Litteraires, printed at Paris in the year 1752 2 . The
author of this work supports the opinion of his countryman:
but it is undoubtedly false for the law quoted as a proof re-
;

quires only that documents should be written on such paper

as had marked at the top (which was called the protocol!) the
name of the intendant of the finances, and the time when the
paper was made and this regulation was established merely
;

with a view to prevent the forging and altering of acts or

deeds 3 . A kind of stamped paper therefore was brought into
use, though from what we have at present, the prin-
different
cipal intention of which is not to render writings more secure,
but by imposing a certain duty on the stamps, proportioned to
the importance of the purpose it is employed for, to make a
considerable addition to the public revenue 4 . The stamps
serve as a receipt to show that the tax has been paid; and,
though many law papers must be stamped, that burthen has
tended as little to prevent law-suits as the stamping of cards
has to lessen gaming though some think differently. In both
:

too much is risked and too much expected for taxes to deter
mankind from engaging in either.
If in this historical research we look only to the antiquity of
stamping, we shall find that both the Greeks and the Romans
had soldiers marked in that manner ; if we may be allowed
and,
to bring together things so different, we might include under
the like head those runaway slaves who were marked by
being branded but ; here only to the stamped paper
I allude
now in use, which was certainlyinvented in Holland, a country
where every necessary of life is subjected to taxation. The
States of the United Provinces having promised a reward to
any one who should invent a new impost, that might at the

1
An account of this book may be fpund in Anecdotes seer, sur divers
sujets de litterat. 1734, p. 573, and in the preface to Etat de la France, de
M. de Boulainvilliers, fol. p. 12.
2 Inserted in the Encyclopedic, vol. xi. p. 862.
3
Novell, coll. iv. tit. 23. cap. 2. nov. 44.
4 Such is the idea of Stryk in Continuat. altera usus moderni pandecta-
rum, lib. xxii. tit. 4. p. 856.
 :

232 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

same time bear light on the people and be productive to the

government, some person proposed that of bezegelde brieven,
or stamped paper, which was approved and which Boxhorn, ;

to whom we are indebted for this information, considers as a

very proper tax. He is of opinion also that it might with great
advantage be adopted in other countries and this was really
l
;

the case soon after his death, which happened in 1653.

1 " The States of Holland having laid sufficiently heavy duties on mer-

chandise of every kind, and these not being equal to the expenditure, which
was daily increasing, began to think of imposing new ones. For that pur-
pose they issued an edict, inviting the ingenious to turn their thoughts
towards that subject, and offering a very ample reward to whoever should
invent a new tax, that might be as little burdensome as possible, and yet
productive to the republic. Some shrewd, deep-thinking person, at length
devised one on stamped paper (called de impost van bezegelde brieven), to
be paid for all paper impressed with the seal of the States. The inventor
proposed, that it should be enacted by public authority, that no petitions
from the states, or from the magistrates of any city or district, or any pub-
lic bodies, should be received ; that no documents should be admitted in
courts of justice; that no receipts should be legal, and that no acts signed
by notaries, secretaries, or other persons in office, and, in short, no contracts
should be valid, except such as were written upon paper to which the seal
of the States had been affixed, in the manner above mentioned. It was
proposed, also, that this paper should be sold by the clerks of the different
towns and courts at the following rate paper impressed with the great seal
;

of the States for sixpence, and that with the less seal for twopence per sheet
for according to the importance of the business it was necessary that the
great or less seal should be used. The States approved this plan, and it was
—
immediately put in execution." Boxhornii Disquisitiones Politic, casus 59.
In this collection there is also Boxhornii Reip. Bataviae Brevis et Accurata
Descriptio, in the eighth chapter of which the author gives the following
account of the origin of stamped paper :
—
" A very ingenious method has
lately been invented of raising large sums of money for the use of the re-
public. As there are many rich people who have entrusted a considerable
share of their property to the public treasury, the interest of which they
receive annually on giving receipts as many law-suits are carried on which
;

are generally entered into by the wealthy, and which cannot be brought
to a conclusion until a variety of instruments, as they are called, have been
executed on each side and as, on account of the flourishing state of trade,
;

many contracts are made, which, for the sake of security, must be mutually
signed, the States thought proper to enact by a public edict, that no receipts,
law-papers, contracts, or instruments of the like kind, should be legal or
valid, unless written on paper impressed with the great or small seal of the
States. A price was also fixed on the paper, to be paid by those who had
occasion for it so that a sheet which before could be purchased for a half-
;

penny, was raised to several pence and it is incredible how great a revenue
;

these sheets bring to the public, by so many of them being used. The poor,
 STAMPED PAPER. 233

Stamped paper was introduced in Holland on the 13th of

August, 1624, by an ordinance which represented the necessity
and great benefit of this new tax. Among other things ad-
vanced in its favour, was said that it would tend to lessen
it

law-suits, and, on that account, would soon recommend itself to

neighbouring nations. What we are told therefore by the
author of an extract in Varietes Historiques, before quoted,
that stamped paper began to be used in Holland and Spain
so early as the year 1555, is certainly false. The Spaniards
may, indeed, have been the first people who followed the ex-
ample of the Dutch for the author above mentioned asserts,
;

that he saw an act, executed by a notary at Brussels, in 1668,

which was written on stamped paper.
This tax was introduced in the electorate of Saxony by an
ordinance of the 22nd of March 1682 and into that of Bran-
;

denburg on the 15th of July, in the same year. Bartholdus

however says, but without producing any proof , that stamped
1

paper was used before that period in Denmark, Florence, and

Silesia. In Hanover it was first introduced, as I think, on the
20th of February, 1709.
[The stamp-tax was first introduced into this country in the
reign of William and Mary, in 1693 (5 W. & M. c. 21 ). This
act imposes stamps upon grants from the crown, diplomas,
contracts, probates of wills and letters of administration, and
upon all writs, proceedings, and records in courts of law and
equity it does not however seem to impose stamps upon deeds,
;

unless these are enrolled at Westminster or other courts of

record. Two years afterwards, conveyances, deeds and leases,
were subjected to the stamp duty, and by a series of acts in the
succeeding reigns, every instrument recording a transaction
between two individuals was subjected to a stamp duty before
it could be used in a court of justice. These laws have been
variously altered in later times, but it is beyond our province
to trace them further.]
however, and those of small fortune, feel little of this burden, as the rich
principally are concerned in the transactions above mentioned."
1
Fr. Jac. Bartholdi Diss, de Charta Signata resp. P. Kolhart, Franc.
;

1690, cap. 2, § 16, p. 36.

 ;

234- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

INSURANCE.
Insurance, that excellent establishment by which losses that
would entirely ruin a merchant, being divided among a com-
pany, are rendered supportable, and almost imperceptible by ;

which undertakings too great for one person are easily accom-
plished, and by which commodities brought from the most
distant regions are made cheaper appears not to have been
1
,

known to the Romans, however near they may have come to

the invention of it. If we examine closely the information from
which some endeavour to prove the contrary, it will be found
that it is far from sufficient to support their opinion.
Puffendorf 2 Barbeyrac 3 Loccenius 4 Kulpis 5 and others,
, , , ,

ground their assertions on a passage of Livy 6 who says, that ,

when the Roman army in Spain was distressed for provisions,

clothing and other necessaries, a company engaged to convey
to them everything they stood in need of, under the stipulation
that the State should make good their loss, in case their vessels
should be shipwrecked by storms, or be taken by the enemy
and we are told that these terms were agreed to. This was
undoubtedly a promise of indemnification, but by no means an
insurance, in which it is always necessary that a premium
should be given. On occasions of this kind, however, acts of
fraud were practised, like those committed at present, to the
prejudice of insurers. Shipwrecks were pretended to have
happened which never took place and old shattered vessels,
;

freighted with articles of little value, were purposely sunk, and

the crew saved in boats and large sums were then demanded
;

as a reimbursement for the loss 7 .

Little more is proved by a passage of Suetonius 8 which ,

1
"As the Turks are unacquainted with insurance, they do not lend
money but at the rate of fifteen or twenty per cent. But when they
•lend to merchants who trade by sea, they charge thirty per cent." Re- —
marques d'un Voyageur Moderne au Levant. Amst. 1773, 8vo.
3 De Jure Natura; et Gentium. 3 Droit de la Nature.
4 De Jure Maritimo. Holmice, 1650.
5 Collegium Grotianum, Francof. 1722, 4to.
6 7 Lib. xxv. cap. 3.
Lib. xxiii. cap. 44.
8 Lib. v. cap. 1 8. Langenbec, in his Anmerkungen iiber das Ham-
burgische Schiff-und-Seerecht, p. 370, is of opinion that no traces of in-
surance are to be found either in Livy or Suetonius.
 INSURANCE 235

Kulpis and others consider as affording an instance of insurance..

That author tells us, that the emperor Claudius promised to
indemnify merchants for their losses, if their ships should perish
by storms at sea. This passage Anderson must not have read ;

else he would not have said that Suetonius ascribed the inven-
tion of insurance to Claudius.
In Simon's edition of Grotius, a passage is quoted from
Cicero's epistles as an instance of insurance among the Ro-
*

mans, which seems to be more probable. Cicero says he hopes

to find at Laodicea security, by means of which he can remit
the money of the republic, without being exposed to any danger
on its passage. The word prced.es may here signify insurers ;

but, in my opinion, this quotation ought rather to be classed

among those which have been collected by Ayrer, as the first
traces of bills of exchange 2 .

Those remains of the ancient laws which, according to Kul-

pis and others, allude to insurance, concern bottomry {fcenus
nauticum) only and that this is much older than insurance
;

has been already fully proved by Stypman 3 .

Malynes 4 Anderson, and others affirm, that insurance is

,

mentioned in the marine laws of the Isle of Oleron. This

island, which lies opposite to the mouth of the Charente, on
the coast of France, was much celebrated in the eleventh,
twelfth, and following centuries on account of its trade. It
belonged then to the duke of Aquitaine, and came to the crown
of England by the marriage of Eleonora, daughter of the last
duke, with Henry II. Under Eleonora were framed in the
island those laws so well-known by the names Roole d' Oleron,
JRoole des Jugemens d'Oleron, that, like the laws of the Rho-
dians, they were used also by foreigners. These laws were af»
terwards enlarged and improved by Richard I., Eleonora's son ;
at least we are assured so by the French historians but the
:

English ascribe them to Richard alone. In order to determine

the period when they were framed, I shall only observe that
Eleonora died in the year 1202, and Richard in 1199; and

1
Epist.ad Famil. ii. ep. 17.
2 Ayreri Diatribe de Cambialis Instituti Vestigiis apud Romanos, added
to Uhle's edition of Heineccii Elementa Juris Cambialis.
3 De Jure Maritimo et Nautico. Gryphis. 1652.
4 Lex Mercatoria, or the Ancient Law-Merchant, by Gerard Malynes.

London, 1656, fol. p. 105.

236 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Anderson, therefore, not without probability, places the origin

of them in the year 1194. A copy of these laws, printed at
Rouen, is still preserved, in which it is said that they were first
drawn up in 1266. This, however, the French and the English
declare to be false 1
They are written in French, that is, in the old
.

Gascon dialect. I ana acquainted with them from the following

scarce book, the author of which, in the preface, calls himself
Cleirac :Us et Coutumes de la Mer 2 but I find no traces in
;

them of insurance. Cleirac himself, who has given an

Even
excellent explanation of the laws of Oleron, seems not to have
found any ; for where he relates everything he knew respecting
the history of it, he ascribes this invention, and also that of
bills of exchange, to the Jews, who made use of it when they were
expelled fromFrance. According to Cleirac, insurance waslong
detested by the Christians, who at that time considered it as a
sin to take interest and the use of it, as well as of bills of ex-
;

change, was first made common by the Guelphs and Ghibe-

lines. Of this pretended service of the Jews in regard to in-
surance, I know no proof.
The celebrated maritime laws of the city of Wisby, in the
island of Gothland, whether of later date, as the French as-
sert, or older, which is more probable, than those of Oleron,
are equally silent with respect to insurance These laws were
not written originally in Swedish, as l'Estocq 3 says, but in
the Low-German. The translation into High- German by
Marquard 4 is incorrect, and the French one of Cleirac is too
free and too much abridged. The Dutch translation pub-
lished at Amsterdam is the completest b .
Insurance was, undoubtedly, not known at the time when
the later Hanseatic maritime laws were framed, else it would
have been mentioned in them. Of these laws there are vari-
ous editions. One of those most used is that by Kericke,
which is inserted also in Heineccii Scriptorum de Jure Nau-
tico et Maritimo Fasciculus. Cleirac has given a French
translation of them.
As little respecting insurance is to be found in II Consolato
del Mare. These maritime laws, highly worthy of notice,
1
Seldeni Mare Clausum. Lond. 1636, p. 428. 2
Bourdeaux, 1661, 4to.
3 Auszug der Historie des Allgemeinen und Preussischen See-rechts.
Konigsberg, 174 7 4to, p. 32. 4 De Jure Mercatorum et Commerciorum.
5
Entitled, Tboek der Zee-rechteu. Amst. 1664, 4to.
 INSURANCE. 237

were originally written in the Catalonian dialect and it seems ;

very probable that they were drawn up at Barcelona. A

part of them appears to have been framed in the eleventh,
but the greater part in the thirteenth century for the book ;

itself proves, in more than one place, that they are not all of
the same antiquity. The most correct edition is that pub-
lished at Leyden in 1704;'. Those writers who have pre-
tended that insurance is mentioned in these Catalonian mari-
time laws have, nerhaps, been led into this error, because, in
an appendix to some of the common editions, there is a short
account of insurance as once practised at Barcelona. As I
have never seen this small treatise, I do not know whether it
contains anything respecting the history of it. The oldest
laws and regulations concerning insurance, with which I am
at present acquainted, are the following.
On the 28th of January 1523, five persons appointed for
that purpose drew up at Florence some articles which are still
employed on the exchange at Leghorn. These important
regulations, together with the prescribed form of policies,
which may be considered as the oldest 2 , have been inserted, v-
1
The title runs thus consolato del mare, nei quale si comprendono
: II
tutti gli statuti et ordini, disposti da gli antichi per ogni cosa di mercantia
et di navigare. Leyden, 1704, 4to.
2
In that old treatise, Le Guidon, inserted in Cleirac, it is remarked,
chap. i. art. i. that in old times insurances were made without any wri-
tings they were then called Assecurances en confiance Confidential in-
: ;

surances.
[M'Culloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce, art. Insurance, observes re-
specting this passage, that " Beckmann seems to have thought that the
practice of insurance originated in Italy, in the latter part of the fifteenth
or the early part of the sixteenth century. But the learned Spanish anti-
quary, Don Antonio de Capmany, has given, in his very valuable publica-
tion on the History and Commerce of Barcelona (Memorias Historicas
sobre la Marina, &c, de Barcelona, t. ii. p. 383), an ordinance relative to
insurance, issued by the magistrates of that city in 1435 whereas the ear-
;

liest Italian law on the subject is nearly a century later, being dated in
1523. It is however exceedingly unlikely, had insurance been as early
practised in Italy as in Catalonia, that the former should have been so much
behind the latter in subjecting it to any fixed rules and it is still more
;

unlikely that the practice should have escaped, as is the case, all mention
by any previous Italian writer. We
therefore agree entirely in Capmany's
opinion, that until some authentic evidence to the contrary be produced,
Barcelona should be regarded as the birth-place of this most useful and
beautiful application of the doctrine of chances." Had M'Culloch con-
sulted the treatise on Bills of Exchange, given in a subsequent part of the
238 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Italianand German, by Magens, in his Treatise on Insurance,

Average and Bottomry published at Hamburgh in 1753.
1
,

I should have been glad to have found in Italian authors some

information respecting the antiquity of these regulations 2 a ,

copy of which Magens says he procured from Leghorn ; but

I have hitherto sought for it in vain. Straccha however men-
tions a Florentine order of June the 15th, 1526, which forbids
common insurance, unless the goods and commodities are spe-
cified 3 .
There is still preserved a short regulation of the 25th May
1537, by the emperor Charles V., respecting bills of exchange
and insurance, in which the strictly fulfilling only of an agree-
ment of insurance is commanded.
In 1549 the same emperor issued an express order, " Op 't
faict van der zee-vaerdt," in which occur some articles re-
pecting insurance 4 , and additions were afterwards made to it
in 1561.
In the year 1556, Philip II., king of Spain, gave to the
Spanish merchants certain regulations respecting insurance,
which are inserted by Magens, with a German translation, in
his work before mentioned. They contain some forms of
policies on ships going to the Indies.
On the last of October 1563, Philip II. published his mari-
time laws, in which some forms of policies are given 5 but on ;

the last of March 1568 that prince forbade the practice of

insurance, on account of the bad use to which it had been
often applied. This prohibition I have not been able to find.
work (vol. iii. p. 430), he would have found that Beckmann, in noticing
the curious memoirs of Capmany, with which he had then become ac-
quainted, distinctly mentions " An ordinance of the year 1458 respecting
insurance, which required that underwriting should be done in the pre-
sence of a notary, and declared polices o scriptores privacies to be null and
void."] l
Versuche iiber Assecuranzen, etc. Hamb. 1753, 4to.
2 I found nothing
—
on the subject, either in Delia decima e della Mer-
catura de' Fiorentini, fino al secolo xvi. Lisbona e Lucca, 1765, 1766,
4 vols. 4to, which contains a variety of useful information respecting the
history of the Florentine trade, or in Mecatti, Storia Chronologica della
citta. di Firenze. In Napoli 1775, 2 vols. 4to.
3 Straccha} aliorumque Jurisconsultorumde Cambiis, Sponsionibus, &c
;,

Decisiones. Amst. 1669, fol. p. 24.

4
It may be found in Ordonantien ende Placcaeten ghepubliceert Vlaen-
deren. Antwerp, 1662, fol. i. p. 360.
6
Ordonantien ende Placcaeten, ii. p. 307. Groote Placaet-boeck der
Ver. Nederlanden, i. p. 796. Magens, p. 397.
 INSURANCE. 239

I am acquainted with it only by an order of the 20th of Ja-

nuary 1570, in which the king expressly recals it, because the
merchants at Antwerp, both subjects and foreigners, had pre-
sented strong remonstrances against it 1 .
In the year 1598, the Kamer von Assurantie, Chamber of
Insurance, was established at Amsterdam. An account of
the first regulations of this insurance-office may be seen in
Pontanus's History of the City of Amsterdam, and in other
works 2 .

In the year 1600, regulations respecting insurance were

formed by the city of Middelburg in Zealand.
It appears that the first regulations respecting insurances in
England, which may be seen in Anderson's History of Com-
merce, were made in the year 1601. We
find by them that
insurers had before that period conducted themselves in such
a manner, that the utmost confidence was reposed in their
honesty, and that on this account few or no disputes had
3
arisen .

In the year 1604, regulations were formed respecting in-

surance at Rotterdam; and in 1610 were drawn up those ot
Genoa, which Magens has inserted in his work, taken from
the Latin statutes of the Republic, together with a German
translation.
In 1612 the Insurance Chamber at Amsterdam was esta-
blished by public authority, and received several privileges.
Malynes asserts, but without either proofs or probability,
that the people of Antwerp were first taught insurance by the
English; and says that, as the merchants assembled'for trans-
acting business in Lombard-street, so called because certain
1
Ordonantien ende Placcaeten, ut supra, p. 335. Groote Placaet-
boeck, i. p. 828, and in the additions, ii. p. 2116.
2 The changes which this institution afterwards underwent, with an ex-

tract from its regulations, rnav be seen in La Richesse de la Hollande.

Lond. 1778, 4to, i. p. 81.
3 [The marine insurers are called in this country under -writers, because

they write their names under the policy. Under the authority of statute
6 George I. cap. 18, two corporate bodies, called the Royal Exchange As-
surance Company and the London Assurance Company, were chartered by
the crown. There are at present seven marine insurance companies in
London —
the two old chartered companies above-mentioned two esta-
:
;

blished immediately upon the passing of the act of the year 1824, the Al-
liance and the Indemnity Mutual; the Marine, established in 1836; ani
the General Marine'andi Neptune, established in 1839.]
240 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

Italians from Lombarcly had lombards there, or houses for

lending money on pledges, long before the building of the
Exchange, it became customary, as it was in his time (1622),
to be guided in policies by what was done in Lombard-street,
in London.
[M'Culloch states that it is probable insurance was intro-
1

duced into England some time about the beginning of the six-
teenth century, for it is mentioned in the statute 43 Eliz. c. 12,
in which its utility is very clearly set forth, that it had been
an immemorial usage among merchants, both English and
foreign, when they made any great adventure, to procure in-
surance to be made on the ships or goods adventured. From
this it may reasonably be supposed that insurance had been
in use in England for at least a century previous. It appears
from the same statute, that it had originally been usual to re-
fer all disputes that arose with respect to insurances to the
decision of " grave and discreet" merchants appointed by the
lord mayor. But abuses having grown out of this practice,
the statute authorized the lord chancellor to appoint a com-
mission for the trial of insurance cases; and in the reign of
Charles II. the powers of the commissioners were enlarged.
But this court soon after fell into disuse and, what is singu-
;

lar, no trace can now be discovered of any of its proceedings.]

Guicciardini, who wrote his Account of the Netherlands in
1567, remarks, in describing Antwerp, that the merchants
there were accustomed to insure their ships. Anderson says
that this is the first instance of maritime insurance, which is
very astonishing, as he thinks the invention of insurance is to
be found in Suetonius, and in the laws of the Isle of Oleron.
A most useful imitation of insurance in trade is the institu-
tion of insurance-offices, to indemnify losses sustained by fire.
As far as I have been able to learn, companies for that pur-
pose were first formed towards the middle of the last century,
though houses were insured by individuals much earlier. The
fire-office at Paris was established in 1745 that of the electo-
;

rate of Hanover in 1750; that of Nassau-Weilburg in 1751

those of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel anc Wirtemberg in 1753
1

that of Anspach in 1754; that of Baden-Durlach in 1758

that of the county of Mark in 1764; those of Saxe- Weimar
and Eisenach in 1768 and that of the Society of the Clergy
;

1
Dictionary of Commerce.
 INSURANCE. 241

in the Mark of Brandenburg to insure goods and household

1
,

furniture, was established in 1769.

It is perhaps known to few, that even in the beginning of
the seventeenth century, a proposal was made by some inge-
nious person, that all the proprietors of land should insure the
houses of their subjects against fire, on their paying so much
per cent, annually, according to the value of them. The au-
thor of this scheme presented it to count Anthony Gunther
von Oldenburg, in the year 1609, as a means of finance not to
be found in any work printed on that subject. The author in
his plan said 2 that " as many fires happened by which a great
,

number of people lost their property, the count might lay be-
fore his subjects the danger of such accidents and propose to ;

them, that if they would, either singly or united, put a value

on their houses, and for every hundred dollars valuation pay
to him yearly one dollar he, on the other hand, would en-
;

gage, that in case by the will of God their houses should be

reduced to ashes, the misfortunes of war excepted, he would
take upon himself the loss, and pay to the sufferers as much
money as might be sufficient to rebuild them and that all ;

persons, both natives and foreigners, who might be desirous

of sharing in the benefits of this institution, should not be ex-
cluded. The author was confident that, though the damage
might fall heavy at first, a considerable sum would be gra-
dually raised, from year to year and that every one might
;

thus insure his houses against accidents. He had no doubt

that it would be fully proved, if a calculation were made of
the number of houses consumed by fire, within a certain space,
in the course of thirty years, that the loss would not amount,
by a good deal, to the sum that would be collected in that
time. He did not however advise that all the houses in every
town should be comprehended, as the money claimed might
amount to too much but only that some and certain houses
;

should be admitted into this association."

I shall here insert, from the same author, the count's reflec-
tions on this plan, and the conclusion which he formed "It :
—
is to be considered," says he, " what sum every proprietor of

1
Krunitz, Oekonomisclie Encyclopedic, xiii. p. 221 ; where an account
may be found of other companies.
2
Winkelmanns Oldenburgischen Friedens- und der benachbarten Oerter
Kriegshandlungen. 1671 fol. p. 67.
VOL I. R
242 WISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

land may with certainty raise and receive whether the pro-
;

posed plan can, to the undoubted benefit of the subjects, and

the advantage of their lord, be honourably, justly, and irre-
proachfully instituted without tempting Providence without ;

incurring the censure of neighbours and without disgracing

;

one's name and dignity ; in the next place, that this institution^
may not have the appearance of a scheme to bring money
into the country ;and still more that it may have no resem-
blance to a duty, tax, or impost, but rather to a free contribu-
tion, or unconstrained remuneration for being insured from
danger, and by which losses being made good, houses can be
sooner rebuilt, and put in their former condition." The count
allowed that the object of the plan was good, considered in
every point of view, and that a company composed of common
individuals might be formed to insure each other's houses, and
pay the losses sustained by fire but he concluded, that, if he
:

undertook the plan, Providence might be tempted that his ;

own subjects might be displeased and that, improper ideas

;

being formed of his conduct, he might be accused unjustly of

avarice. " God," he said, " had without such means preserved
and blessed, for many centuries, the ancient house of Olden-
burg and he would still be present with him, through his
;

mercy, and protect his subjects from destructive fires." He

dismissed, therefore, the ingenious author of this plan, but not
without rewarding him according to his usual liberality.
[Insurance against fire has been known and carried on in
England for nearly a century and a half at present the number
;

of British Fire Offices amounts to nearly twenty. The pre-

mium demanded for insurance varies from 1*. 6d. to 10*. 6d.
per £100 according to the supposed risk the duty is enormous,
;

being no less than 3*. per cent on the amount insured. This tax
yields a considerable addition to the revenue; in 1842 it
amounted to £986,420, which corresponds to £563,668,571
value of property insured, leaving out of consideration the
value of insured farming stock, the duty on which was repealed
in the year 1833. On common risks the duty is no less
than 200 per cent, upon the premium " Such a duty " ob-
!

serves M'Culloch, " is in the last degree oppressive and im-

politic. There cannot, in fact, be the slightest doubt that,
were it reduced, as it ought to be, to one-third its present
amount, the business of insurance would be very much ex-
 INSURANCE. 243

tended and as it could not be extended without an increase

;

of security and without lessening the injurious consequences

arising from the casualties to which property is exposed, the re-
duction of the duty would be productive of the best results in
t public point of view while the increase of business would
;

prevent the revenue from being materially diminished." Se-

veral attempts have of late been made in Parliament to induce
the government to lower the amount of duty, hitherto without
success it is however to be hoped that some other mode of
;

raising the revenue may be devised than that of taxing so

enormously the prudence of the industrious classes 1
.

In addition to the marine and fire insurance, a somewhat

similar speculation has been applied to human life, in the for-
mation of life-insurance companieso These receive small
annual payments in consideration of securing to the relations
of the assured, or others to whom his property may be be-
queathed, a stipulated sum. This arrangement we consider of
the highest importance in mercantile countries, particularly to
persons engaged in professional or personal occupations, where
on the decease of the principal, the agency or appointment is
not usually susceptible of transfer or bequest. By means of
this species of insurance property is secured to descendants,
who, but for some such precaution, might be left destitute.
The oldest life-assurance office in London is the Amicable.
This company was chartered in 1706, in consequence of
application made to her majesty, Queen Anne, by Sir Thomas
Allen and others. There are now in London nearly eighty
life-assurance companies, of which about sixty are exclusively
deVoted to that object, and the remainder unite fire-insurance.
The terms vary in the different offices, although not consider-
ably, being founded upon recognised sets of tables. com- A
parative table of the annual rates of premium charged by each
British office will be found in Waterston's Cyclopaedia of Com-
merce. The premium is of course adapted to the probable du-
ration of life; the lowest being £1 7s. 9d. per £100 on a healthy
life at the entrance age of 15, the highest, at trie age of 60, being
about 7 per cent. A diseased condition in most incapaci-
tates for insurance, but in some offices even diseased lives and

1
[The publisher of the present volumes pays upwards of £200 per
annum for insurance on his stock in trade, and therefore feels strongly the
force of this observation.— H. G. B.]
R2
244 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

risks of every kind are insured, of course at a proportional

rate ';

In the reign of Queen Anne several offices were opened for

making insurances on marriages, births, christenings, service,
&c, and fraudulent practices prevailed to such a degree that
by Stat. 9 Ann. c. 6> § 37, a penalty of £500 is imposed on
every person setting up such office, and £100 for any person
making such assurance in any office already established.
The assurance principle has within the last few years like-
wise been applied, with the prospect of success, to the guaran-
teeing of fidelity in persons holding situations of trust. In
this case the calculation is, that out of a large vangeof instances
where individuals of good moral character are entrusted with
sums belonging to their employers, a nearly -egular amount
of defalcation will take place annually, or within some other
larger space of time» This may give an unpleasant view of
human nature, but it is found to be a true one, and the ques-
tion which arises with men of business is, by what means may
the defalcation be best guarded against. The choice is be-
tween a guarantee from one or two persons, and from a trading
company. By the former plan, the risk is concentrated upon
one or two, who may be deeply injured in consequence by :

the other plan, the risk is not merely difFused, it is extinguished,

for the premiums paid by the insuring parties stand for the
losses, besides affording a profit upon the business. Nor have
we only thus a protection for private parties against the dangers
of security but individuals, who have the offer of situations
;

on the condition of giving a sufficient guarantee, may now be

able to take, where formerly they would have had to decline
them, seeing that they might have failed to induce any friend
to venture so far in their behalf. Practically, it has also been
found that, so far from parties being more read3' to give way
to temptation when they know that the loss will fall upon a com-
pany, Jiey are less so, seeing that the company exercises a more
rigid supervision, and presents a sterner front to delinquents,
than is the case with private securities in general Guarantee
companies are now establishedin London, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
and other large cities See Chambers' Tracts, No. 44.]
1 Life insurances have been forbidden by the laws of France and of many

other foreign states, as being of a gambling nature, and opening the door
to a variety of abuses and frauds.
 245

ADULTERATION OF WINE.
No adulteration of any article has ever been invented so per-
nicious to the health, and at the same time so much practised,
as that of wine with preparations of lead; and as the inventor
must have been acquainted with its destructive effects, he de-
serves, for making it known, severer execration than Berthold
Schwartz, the supposed inventor of gunpowder.
The juice of the grape, when expressed, undergoes what is
termed vinous fermentation and so becomes converted into
wine, but very soon, if great care be not taken, it passes into
a different kind of fermentation, called the acetic its spirit
;

then becomes changed into an acid, which renders it unfit to

be drunk, and of much less utility. The progress of the fer-
mentation may be stopped by care and attention but to bring
;

the liquor back to its former state is impossible. Ingenuity,

however, has invented a fraudulent method of rendering the
acid in spoilt wine imperceptible so that those who are not
;

judges are often imposed on, and purchase sweetened vinegar

instead of wine. Were no other articles used for sweetening
it than honey or sugar, the adulterator would deserve no se-

verer punishment than those who sell pinchbeck for gold ; but
saccharine juices can be used only when the liquor begins to
turn sour and even then in very small quantities, else it would
;

betray the imposition by its sweetish-sour taste, and hasten

that change which it is intended to prevent. A sweetener
therefore, has been invented much surer for the fraudulent
dealer, but infinitely more destructive to the consumer and
;

those who employ it, undoubtedly, merit the same punishment

as the most infamous poisoners.
Lead and its oxide or carbonate, dissolved in the acid which
spoils wine, give it a saccharine taste not unpleasant, without
any new, or at least perceptible tint, and arrest the progress
of the acid fermentation. The wine, however, occasions,
according as it is used in a great or small quantity, and accord-
ing to the constitution of the consumer, a speedy or lingering
death, violent colics, obstructions and other maladies ; so that
one may justly doubt whether, at present, Mars, Venus, or
Saturn is most destructive to the human race.
246 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The ancients, in my opinion, knew that lead rendered harsh

wine milder, and preserved it from acidity, without being
aware that it was poisonous. It was therefore long used
with confidence and when its effects were discovered they
;

were not ascribed to the metal, but to some other cause.

When more accurate observation, in modern times, fully
established the noxious property of lead, and when it began to
be dreaded in wine, unprincipled dealers invented an artful
method of employing it, which the law, by the severest punish-
ment, was not able wholly to prevent.
The Greeks and the Romans were accustomed to boil their
wine over a slow fire, till only a half, third, or fourth part re-
mained, and to mix it with bad wine in order to improve it.
When, by this operation, it had lost part of its watery particles,
and had been mixed with honey and spices, it acquired several
names, such as mustum, mulsum, sapa, carenum, or caroenum,
defrutum &c. Even at present the same method is pursued
1
,

with sack, Spanish, Hungarian, and Italian wines. In Italy,

new wine, which has been thus boiled, is put into flasks, and
used for salad and sauces. In Naples it is called musto cotto;
but in Florence it still retains the name of sapa. Most of
those authors who have described this method of boiling wine
expressly say that leaden or tin vessels must be employed be- ;

cause the wine, by these, is rendered more delicious and dura-

ble, as well as clearer. It is, however, certain that must and
sour wine by slow boiling, for according to their directions it
should not be boiled quickly, must dissolve part of these danger-
ous metals, otherwise the desired effect could not be produced 2 .

Some also were accustomed to add to their wine, before it was

boiled, a certain quantity of sea water, Avhich by its saline
would necessarily accelerate the solution 3
particles .

That the acid of wine has the power of dissolving lead was
not unknown to the ancients for when the Greek and Ro-
;

man wine-merchants wished to try whether their wine was

1
Plin. lib. xxiii. cap. 2. Palladius, Octob. 18. edit. Gesneri, ii. p. 994.
2 Proofs of this will be found in Columella De Re Rustica, lib. xii. c. 19,
20. Cato De Re Rust. cap. cv. and cap. cvii., and Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 21.
3 Proofs that the ancients mixed their wine with sea-water may be found

in Pliny, lib. xxiii cap. 1. and lib. xiv. cap. 20. Celsus exclaims against
it, lib. ii. cap. 25. Dioscorides, lib. v. cap. 7, 9, &c. p. 573. See Petri
Andrea; Matthioli Commentarii in sex libros Dioscoridis de materia medica.
Venetiis, in oiiicina Erasmi Vincentii Valgrisii, 1553, fol.
 ADULTERATION OF WINE. 247

spoiled, theyimmersed in it a plate of lead . If the colour of

1

the lead was changed, which undoubtedly would be the case

when its surface was corroded, they concluded that their wine
was spoiled. It cannot, however, be said that they were alto-
gether ignorant of the dangerous effects of solutions of that
metal for Galen and other physicians often give cautions re-
;

specting white lead. Notwithstanding this, men fell upon the

invention of conveying water for culinary purposes in leaden
pipes 2 and even at present at London, Amsterdam, Paris, and
;

other places water is conveyed through lead, and collected in

leaden cisterns, though that practice has, on several occasions,
been attended with alarming consequences 3 . This negligence
in modern times makes us not be surprised when we read that
the ancients employed leaden vessels. It appears, however,
that it was not merely through negligence that this practice

prevailed. They were acquainted, and particularly in Pliny's

time, with various processes used in regard to wine*; and
among these was that of boiling it with lime or gypsum 5 ; and
the ancient physicians, who had not the assistance of our mo-

1
Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 20. This method of proof is given more circum-
stantially inGeopon. lib. vii. cap. 15.
2 Pallad. August, c. ii. vol. ii.
p. 977.
[The solvent action of water upon lead is highly interesting on account
of the very general use of leaden pipes and cisterns lined with this metal.
From the researches of Lieut. -Col. Yorke, published in the Philosophical
Magazine for August 1834 and January 1848, it would appear that a bright
leaden vessel containing pure water, such as distilled water, and exposed to
the air, soon becomes oxidized and corroded oxide of lead being readily
;

detected in solution by means of sulphuretted hydrogen and other sensitive

tests ;but river and spring water exert a much less or no such solvent
power, the carbonates and sulphates in such water preventing it. It is
on this account that leaden vessels are used with such impunity, the crust
which forms upon the metal entirely preventing all further action. How-
ever, as this crust consists partially of carbonate of lead, which is a very
dangerous poison, great care should be taken on cleaning or scraping such
cisterns to avoid using the water in which particles of the salt may have
become diffused. Leaden cisterns are sometimes rendered unsafe in
consequence of iron or zinc pipes being soldered or let into them, thus
giving rise to galvanic action, which greatly facditates the solution of the
lead.]
4 Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 20. The same author relates a great many arts
practised in regard to wine.
5
Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 19. That this method was practised in Italy is
confirmed by Columella, lib. xii. cap. 20, and Didymus in Geopon. lib. vi.
cap. 18. It is mentioned also by Dioscorides and Theophrastus.
248 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

dern chemistry, thought it more probable that their wine was

rendered noxious by the addition of these earths than by the 1
,

vessels in which it was boiled and they were the more in-
;

clined to this opinion, as they had instances of the fatal effects

produced by the use of them 2 They decried them, therefore,
.

so much, that laws were afterwards made by which they were

forbidden to be used, as poisonous and destructive to the hu-
man body.
Wine which has once begun to spoil cannot be perfectly
restored by lime for it cannot bring back to it the spirituous
;

part which it has lost, neither can it remove the acid with
which it is incorporated but it can render it imperceptible
;

to the tongue by uniting with it, and forming an earthy salt

of an almost insipid taste. This method of improving sour
wine is still practised in the island of Zante 3 in Spain 4 on , ,

the coast of Africa 5 and in many other countries. It is,

,

however, condemned by several physicians and chemists be- ;

cause obstructions and other bad effects are to be apprehended

from it. Some, on the contrary, consider it as harmless 6 ;

and I must confess that I should expect no bad consequences

from such a small quantity of lime as would be necessary for
that purpose. It will produce a salt which will have the same
effects as that tartareous crust called wine-stone, and will act
as a laxative, like the salts which our apothecaries prepare
from that calcareous stone crab's-eyes, by means of vinegar
or lemon-juice. The lime, which the acid of the wine cannot

1 2 Ibid. lib. xxxvi. cap. 24.

Plin. lib. xxiii. cap. 1.
3 " The -wine of the island of Zante is almost as strong as brandy. It is
supposed that this proceeds from the unslaked lime which is usually mixed
with it, under the pretence that it then keeps better, and is fitter to be
transported by sea." —
D'Arvieux, Voyages.
4 Christophori a Vega de Arte Medendi, lib. ii. cap. 2.
5 " No one sells wine at Tunis but the slaves, and this wine is not under

the jurisdiction of the Tunisian government. They put lime in it, which
—
renders it very intoxicating." Thevenot's Voyages.
6 In Anleitung zur Verbesserung der Weine in Teutschland, Franck. and

Leipsic, 1775, 8vo, the moderate use of lime is recommended. In France

crude potash is put into wine instead of lime. [Acidity in wine wa? for-
merly corrected in this country by the addition of quick-lime. This fur-
nishes a clue to Falstaflfs observation that there was " lime in the sack,"
which was a hit at the landlord, as much as to say his wine was worth little,
having its acidity thus disguised. Carbonate of soda is now most frequently
used for the purpose.]
 ;;

ADULTERATION OF WINE. 249

dissolve, will fall to the bottom as a sediment, and assist to

clarify the wine. Used however in too great quantity, it may
hasten the destruction of the still remaining spirituous part,
and render the wine weak ; a caution which has been given
to wine-merchants by Neumann.
Gypsum is compound of sulphuric acid with lime, and
a
were it always pure, its effects upon wine would be impercep-
tible; but as the most kinds of common gypsum contain
abundance of carbonate of lime, they effervesce with acids,
are dissolved in part by them, and form that salt which I have
before said I consider as harmless. By means of this car-
bonate gypsum improves sour wine, as well as common wine.
I took half an ounce of that gypsum which at Osterode is
pounded and used as mortar, and which is hard, white, and
shining, and almost of the nature of alabaster. When I had
pounded it, I put it into strong vinegar in a glass vessel, and
suffered it to boil for a few minutes. I then strained it
through filtering-paper and what remained, after it was
;

washed and dried, weighed 215 grains; so that the vinegar

had dissolved 25 grains, which were precipitated afterwards
by carbonated alkali. I pursued the like process with half an
ounce of burnt gypsum, such as is used here for floors and I ;

found that two ounces of the same vinegar dissolved half a

drachm of it, which was somewhat more in proportion than of
the former. Every one whom I caused to taste of this vinegar
remarked that both had lost a considerable share of their aci-
dity ; but that the vinegar which had been boiled with burnt
gypsum had lost the most. Few kinds of native gypsum are
perfectly pure and at any rate we have no reason to suppose
;

that the ancients sought pure gypsum for their wines. This
method is not yet disused. We are told by Arvieux, that it
is still employed in the island of Milo and I shall here take
;

occasion to observe that salt water also is added to wine there,

even at present. Christopher Vega, whom I have before
quoted, reproaches the Spaniards with the use of gypsum
and it has been condemned by the modern as well as the an-
cient physicians. An Englishman of the name of Hardy seems
to suspect that gypsum contains lead and arsenical earth '

1 " The properties of lead and arsenic are well understood but what
;

those of the ancient gypsums were, will require an explanation ; as there

seems to be just reason to believe, that some of them contained a portion
 ;

250 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

but it appears that this writer doubted whether our gypsum

be the same as that of the ancients and indeed it is neces-
;

sary, before we use their information respecting natural ob-

jects, to examine carefully whether they understood by any
name what we understand by it; and what they meant by
gypsum has been determined neither by Stephanus, Ferber,
nor Gesner. We however know this much, that the ancients
burnt their gypsum, and that they formed and cast images of
it . In my opinion wine cannot be poisoned by gypsum
1
and ;

wine-merchants who employ it and lime deserve no severer

punishment than brewers, who, in the like manner, render sour
beer fitter to be drunk and more saleable
That the ancients were accustomed to clarify their wine
with gypsum, is proved by different passages of the Greek
writers on husbandry. They threw gypsum into their new
wine stirred it often round, then let it stand for some time,
;

and, when it had settled, poured off the clear liquor 2 . It

would, however, appear that they had remarked that gypsum
caused the spirituous part to disappear for we read that the
;

wine acquired by it a certain sharpness which it afterwards

lost, but that the good effects of the gypsum were lasting 3 .
This process in modern times has been publicly forbidden, in
many countries, as it was in Spain in the year 1348.
Calcined shells were in ancient times used instead of lime 4 .
Potters-earth was also thrown into wine, in order to clarify it
by carrying the muddy particles with it to the bottom. This
method I have seen employed in the breweries at Amsterdam,
to purify the water. In the south of France it is used for
clarifying wine-stone ley; and in my opinion it might be
useful on many other occasions 5 .
The ancients poisoned their wine with lead without know-
ing it but at what period did that pernicious practice begin
;

of employing sugar of lead and litharge ? Litharge was not

unknown to the ancients for it is mentioned by Dioscorides,
;

Aetius, and others. Sugar of lead is, indeed, more modern

but I have found no information respecting the invention of
it, except that it was known to Paracelsus, who died in 1541,

—
of metallic or arsenical earth." A Candid Examination of what has been
advanced on the Colic of Poitou and Devonshire, by James Hardy, London,
» Plin. lib. xxxv. 2 Geopon.
i. 8vo, p. 84. pp. 462, 483, 494.
^ Ibid. 4 5
vii. 12, p. 483. Ibid. p. 486. Ibid. p. 486.
 ;

ADULTERATION OP WINE. 251

and who ventured to prescribe it for some disorders. It was

known also to Angelus Sala, one of the most ingenious of the
early chemists. In the Roman laws no particular orders occur
against the adulteration or poisoning of wine ; for what we
read in the Institutiones is applicable only to the spoiling of
1

another person's wine, and thereby occasioning a loss to him

and this explanation is confirmed by the Digesta 2 The Ger- .

man prohibitions against the adulteration of wine began in the

fifteenth century, and were from time to time renewed with
additional severity. In that century, we find complaints
against this practice with lime, sulphur, and milk but no in- ;

stance occurs of the poisoning with lead. I however conjec-

ture that the use of litharge was introduced in the twelfth or
thirteenth century but the framers of the laws were not ac-
;

quainted with the real poison and instead of causing it to be

;

examined by the chemists, who it must be confessed had not

advanced far in their art, they contented themselves with pro-
hibiting the use of those things which they found considered
by the ancients as dangerous.
Among the oldest German prohibitions against the adultera-
tion of wine is that of Nuremberg in the year 1409; in which
however there is no notice taken of litharge. Another of the
year 1475 is mentioned by Datt 3 but some Imperial ones of
;

an earlier period may have been lost 4 In the year 1487 the
.

emperor caused an order against the adulteration of wine to be

published by the governments in Swabia, Franconia and Alsace;
and this practice was a subject of deliberation at the diet of
Rothenburg the same year, and also at the diet of Worms,
under Maximilian L, in 1495. At the diet of Lindau the use
of sulphur was in particular prohibited, and also at Freyburg
in Brisgau in 1498. In the year 1500 the same affair was
discussed at Augsburg, and again at that city in 1548, under
Charles V. It appears that this business was left afterwards
to the care of the different princes, who from time to time
issued prohibitions against so destructive a fraud.
Older and severer prohibitions are however to be found in
other countries. By an order of William count of Hennegau,
1 13. 2
Lib. iv. tit. 3. § Digestor. lib. ix. tit. 2. leg. 27, § 15,
Later jurists call the adulteration of wine crimen stellionatus.,
3
Be pace imperii publica. Ulma3 1698, p. 632.
i Goldast. Constit. Imper. tom.ii.
p. 114.
252 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Holland and Zeeland, of the year 1327? we find that long before
that periodit was customary to adulterate wine with noxious

and dangerous substances. In the year 1384 the government

at Brussels issued a severer order of the like kind, in which,
vitriol, quicksilverand lapis calaminaris are mentioned . In 1

France we find an old ordonnance du prevot de Paris, for the

same purpose, dated September tne 20th and December the
2nd, 1371, in which no minerals are mentioned; but in that of
1696 litharge is particularly noticed 2 .

Conrade Celtes, who in the year 1491 was first crowned in

Germany as a poet, gives in his panegyric on Nuremberg some
information respecting the adulteration of wine, from which
we learn that he considered it as a new invention, and ascribed
it to a monk called Martin Bayr but his expressions are so
;

figurative, that little can be gathered from them 3 We are

.

however told by Zeller, that i f was believed that this dangerous

1
Memoires sur les questions proposees par l'Academie de Bruxelles en
1777. A
Bruxelles 1778, 4to.
2
Traite de la Police, par De la Mare, p. 514. [" In France it does not
appear that lead in any form has been employed in making or altering their
wines. On the 13th of March 1824, a member of the Chamber of Deputies
moved for a law to punish the practice. The motion was rejected, because
neither litharge nor any other preparation of lead was shown to have been
used, nor was any instance cited in which it had been detected, though an
—
ordinance was made against its use in 1696." Redding's History and De-
scription of Wines. Lond. 1836, p. 336.]
3 " I wish those who adulterate wine were punished with greater seve-
rity ; for this execrable fraud, as well as many more deceptions, has been
invented in the present age ; and a villany by which the colour, taste,
smell and substance of wine are so changed as to resemble that of another
country, has been spread not only through Germany, but also through
France, Hungary and other kingdoms. It was invented, they say, by a
monk named Martin Bayr, of Schwarzen-Eychen in Franconia. He un-
doubtedly merits eternal damnation for rendering noxious and destructive
a liquor used for sacred purposes, and most agreeable to the human body;
thus contaminating and debasing a gift of nature inferior to none called
forth from the bosom of the earth by the influence of the solar rays and;

for converting, like a sanguinary destroyer of the human race, that be-
stowed upon us by Nature to promote mirth and joy, and as a soother of
our cares, into a poison and the cause of various distempers. But if the
debasers of the current coin are punished capitally, what punishment ought
to be inflicted upon the person who hath either killed or thrown into dis-
eases all those who used wine ? The former by their fraud injure a few,
but the latter exposes to various dangers people of all ages, and of both
sexes occasions barrenness in women brings on abortions and makes
; ;

them miscarry ; corrupts and dries up the milk of nurses excites gouty
;
 ;

ADULTERATION OF WINE. 253

fraud was invented in France . Martin Zeiler, in his Chro-

1

nicle of Swabia (p. 65), says, " In the year 1453, the citizens
of Augsburg began to observe this fraud in the wine-market;
for during four years before, Martin Bayr, at Schwarzen-
Eychen in Franconia, first taught the German tavern-keepers
and the waggoners to preserve new wine from becoming sour;
to clarify wine by sulphur and likewise to counterfeit it by
;

spices, to the great prejudice of people's health." In this pas-

sage there is no mention of litharge, but of other mixtures.
The oldest account of the poisonous sweetening of wine is that
which occurs in the French ordinance of 1696 2 ; and Zeller's
conjecture that it was invented or first remarked in France,
seems to me the more probable, as it appears that it was prac-
tised at Wurtemberg about the same period. In the year
1697 it was known there that some wine-merchants, particu-
larly Hans George Staltser at Goppingen, used litharge for
refining wine, and by these means deprived many persons of
life, and occasioned the loss of health to others. Staltser
pleaded in excuse, that he considered the process he had em-
ployed as harmless, and that Masskosky, physician to the town
of Goppingen, who was accounted a man of knowledge, had
employed the same for his wine. Brugel also, physician to
the town of Heidenheim, had declared that litharge was not
prejudicial and as he was a person of reputation, his opinion
;

had tended not a little to establish the use of that practice.

This report was so hurtful to the wine-trade of Wurtemberg,
which at that time brought a great deal of money into the
pains in the body ; causes others in the bowels and reins, than which none
can be more excruciating and produces ulcers in the intestines in short,
; ;

his poison inflames, corrodes, burns, extenuates, and dries up nor does it
;

allay, but increase thirst; for such is the nature of sulphur, which, mixed
with other noxious and poisonous things, the names of which I should be
ashamed to mention, is added to wine, before it has done fermenting, in
order to change its nature. This poison we have been obliged to purchase
for our friends, wives, children and selves, at a high price as wine has
;

been scarce for several years past and it would seem that Nature had de-
;

nied this liquor so long out of revenge against her enemies and the destroy-
.
ers of the whole human race. You ought, therefore, most prudent fathers,
not only to empty their vessels, by throwing this poison into your river
but to cast alive into the flames the sellers of this wine, and thus to punish
—
poisoning as well as robbery." Pirkheimeri Opera, Franck. 1610, fol.
p. 136. [This writer was the friend and contemporary of Albert Durer.]
1
De docimasia vini lithargyrio mangonisati. Tubingse 1707.
2 De la Mare, Traite
de la Police, i. 615.
 ;

254 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

duchy from other countries, that the wine at Ulm remained

unsold and duke Everhard Louis was obliged to cause expe-
;

riments to be made to ascertain the nature of the substances

mixed with it. Solomon Keysel, the duke's physician, and
J. Gaspar Harlin, physician to the court, both declared that
litharge was noxious, but that sulphur besprinkled with bis-
muth was still more so. They strongly advised, therefore, that
both these substances should be forbidden to be used, under
the heaviest penalties and this. prohibition was put in force
;

with the greater severity as some persons of the first rank had
for several years before caused their spoiled and sour wine to
be made sweet and clear in this manner by a weaver of Pforz-
heim, who resided at Stutgart. An order was issued on the
10th of May 1697, forbidding this adulteration under pain of
death and confiscation of property, as well as of being declared
infamous and the duke requested the neighbouring states,
;

particularly Bavaria and Eychstat, to keep a more watchful

eye over their wine-merchants and waggoners, by which means
it was supposed all danger would be avoided.
In the following year, the city of Ulm discovered a poor
man at Giengen, within its own jurisdiction, who had sweetened
with litharge some sour wine purchased at Wurtemberg. He
was accordingly banished from the country and several other ;

persons in the duchy were condemned to labour at the forti-

fications. This example was attended with so good an effect,
that for some time adulteration was not heard of but eight ;

years after, John Jacob Ehrni of Eslingen introduced that

practice again with some variation, and not only employed it
himself, but induced others to follow it in several other places.
Greater severity was at length exercised. Ehrni was beheaded
the possessors of adulterated wine were fined, and the wine
was thrown away. After this second example, which was fol-
lowed in other parts of the country, the art of adulterating
wine seems to have been more carefully concealed, or to have
been entirely abandoned. But in the present century treatises
have been published on the management of wine, in which the
art of improving it by litharge has been taught, as a method
perfectly free from danger 1
.

For detecting metal in wine, the arsenical liver of sulphur

1
William Graham's Art of making "Wines from Fruit,Flowers and Herbs.
Sixth edit. London, 8vo.
 ;

ADULTERATION OF WINE. 255

is commonly employed a solution of which is called liquor

;

probatorius Wurtembergicus . This appellation, in my opi-

1

nion, has been given to it because it was first applied for that
purpose by a public order in the duchy of Wurtemberg
though the invention is ascribed to one of the duke's physi-
cians 2 . The use of it however is not attended with certainty,
because it precipitates several metals black without distinction,
and lead is not the only one that we have reason to suspect in
wine.
The operation of fumigating wine with sulphur is performed
by kindling rags of linen dipped in melted brimstone, and suf-
fering the vapour to enter a cask filled, or partly filled, with
that liquor. I do not know at what period this process was
invented ; but it is worthy of remark, that we are told by
Pliny 3 , that in his time some employed sulphur in the pre-
paration of wine. On this subject he quotes Cato but the ;

passage to which he alludes is not to be found in the works of

that author handed down to us and the method in which it
;

was really used is consequently unknown. Reason and expe-

rience show that the vapour of sulphur stops the fermentation
so hurtful to wine, and prevents it from spoiling ; and many
writers on the management of wine allow the free use of it for
that purpose 4 . It can certainly do no injury to the health;
and it was not necessary for the police in different countries
to distribute prescriptions for employing it, to forbid it, or to
limit the quantity 5 .
Some wine-dealers are accustomed to sprinkle over with
bismuth the rags dipped in sulphur used for fumigating wine,
and this addition is a German invention 6 . It has been severely
forbidden by express laws and there arc undoubtedly suffi-
;

1
[A solution of sulphuretted hydrogen answers much better.]
2
Anleitung zur Verbesserung der Weine in Teutschland, p. 32.
3 Lib. xiv. cap. 20.
4 by keeping the wine from contact with oxygen, which is essen-
[It acts
tial to the acetic fermentation.]
5 This was done at Rothenburg on the Tauberin 1497. It was ordered
that half an ounce of pure sulphur should be employed for a cask containing
a tun of wine and that when wine had been once exposed to the vapour
;

of sulphur, it should not undergo the same operation a second time.

6
In John Hornung's Cista Medica, Norimbergas 1625, there are two
letters from German physicians (Libavius and Doldius) respecting this-
practice.
256 HISTORY OF INVEN TIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

cient grounds for its being reprobated. At any rate this me-
tallic addition is of no use in any point of view, as the most
experienced dealers in wine have long since acknowledged.
In an old Imperial ordinance, milk also is mentioned as an
article used in the adulterating of wine. This method was
known to and practised by the ancient Grecians s. But in the
opinion of Von Rohr milk cannot be employed for that pur-
pose 2 "One can scarcely comprehend," says he, "how the
.

framers of laws should ever imagine that a wine-dealer would

be so simple as to adulterate wine with milk and those who
;

do so, deserve not to be punished for their folly. As they will

find no purchasers to wine adulterated by so strange a mixture,
that punishment will be sufficient." The effects of milk how-
ever may be easily comprehended. It causes the wine to throw
up a scum, which carries with it every impurity; and this
being taken off along with it, the wine must of course be ren-
dered much clearer. However, though this mixture cannot
be called an adulteration, it is certain that wine may be refined
much better by isinglass, and that method is followed at
present.
I shall observe in the last place, that in the year 1472, Stum-
wine, as it is called, was prohibited as a bad liquor prejudicial
to the health 3 By this term is understood wine, the fermen-
.

tation of which has been checked, and which on that account

continues sweet seldom becomes clear and, even when it
; ;

clarifies, turns muddy when exposed to the air, because the

fermentation, which has been stopped, again commences 4 .

Wines of this kind are allowed at present. They are called

vina niuta or suffocata, and have a great resemblance to a sort
of wine made principally at Bordeaux, to which the French
give the name of vin en rage.
[In no country of the world has the adulteration and brewing
of wines attained to such a pitch of perfection as in this " tight
little island." So impudently and notoriously are these, frauds
practised, and so boldly are they avowed, that there are books
1
Geopon. p. 486, 502. —Lemnius de Miraculis Occultis Nature, Colo-
nic, 1581, 8vo,p. 291.
2
See Haushaltungs-Recht, Leipsic, 1716, 4to, p. 1393.
3
Von Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, ii. p. 683. Wine seasoned
with mustard, and which was sold as boiled wine, was forbidden at the
same time. See p. 684. In the year 1484 wine mixed with the herb mug-
wort was prohibited also. 4 Anleitung, ut supra,
p. 93, 128.
 —

ADULTERATION OF WINE. 257

published called Publican's Guides and ' Licensed Victual-

'
'

lers' which the most infamous receipts imagi-

Directors,' in
nable are laid down to swindle their customers \ One of these
recommends port wine to be manufactured, after sulphuring
a cask, with twelve gallons of strong port; six of rectified
spirit three of cognac brandy; forty-two of fine rough cider
; ;

making sixty-three gallons, which cost about eighteen shillings

a dozen. Another receipt is forty-five gallons of cider six of ;

brandy eight of port wine two gallons of sloes stewed in two

; ;

gallons of water, and the liquor pressed off. If the colour is

not good, tincture of red sanders or cudbear is directed to be
added. This may be bottled in a few days, and a tea-spoon-
ful of powder of catechu being added to each, a fine crusted
appearance on the bottles will quickly follow. The ends of
the corks being soaked in a strong decoction of brazil-wood
and a little alum, will complete this interesting process, and
give them the appearance of age. Oak-bark, elder, brazil-
wood, privet, beet, turnsole, are all used in making fictitious
port wine.
The wines of Madeira are in like manner adulterated or wholly
manufactured in England, which from these devices may justly
claim the title of a universal wine country, where every spe-
cies is made if it be not grown. The basis of the adulteration
of madeira is vidonia, mingled with a little port, mountain,
and cape, sugar-candy and bitter-almonds, and the colour
made lighter or deepened to the proper shade, as the case may
require. Even vidonia itself is adulterated with eider, rum,
and carbonate of soda to correct acidity. Bucellas, cape, in
short every species of wine that it is worth while to imitate,
is adulterated or manufactured in this country with cheaper

substances. Common Sicilian wine has been metamorphosed

so as to pass for tokay and lachryma christi ; even cape wine
its-elf has been imitated by liquids, if possible inferior to the

genuine article.
Gooseberry wine is often passed off for champagne the very
;

bottles are bought up for the purpose of filling with gooseberry

wine, and are then corked to resemble champagne. It has also
been made from white and raw sugar, citric or tartaric acid,
water, home-made grape wine or perry and French brandy
cochineal or strawberries have been added to imitate the pink.
1
See Redding's History and Description of Modern Wines.
VOL. I. S
 ;

258 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

In fact vegetation has been exhausted, and the bowels of the

earth ransacked to supply trash for this most vicious practice.
Redding observes, in his valuable and most interesting work
on the History and Description of Modern Wines, that the
clumsy attempts at wine-brewing made a century ago would
be scorned by a modern adept. It is said that when George
the Fourth was in the "high and palmy" days of early dissi-
pation, he possessed a very small quantity of remarkably choice
and scarce wine. The gentlemen of his suite, whose taste was
hardly second to their master's, finding it had not been de-
manded, thought it was forgotten, and, relishing its virtues,
exhausted it almost to the last bottle, when they were sur-
prised by the unexpected command that the wine should be
forthcoming at an entertainment on the following day. Con-
sternation was visible on their faces a hope of escaping
;

discovery hardly existed, when one of them, as a last

resource, went off in haste to a noted wine-brewer in the city,
numbered among his acquaintance, and related his dilemma.
" Have you any of the wine left for a specimen ? " said the
adept; "O yes, there area couple of bottles." "Well then,
send me one, and I will forward the necessary quantity in time
only tell me the latest moment it can be received, for it must
be drunk immediately." The wine was sent, the deception
answered the princely hilarity was disturbed by no discovery
;

of the fictitious potation, and the manufacturer was thought a

very clever fellow by his friends. What would Sir Richard
Steele have said to so neat an imitation, when in his day he
complains that sinister fabrications were coarsely managed
with sloe-juice? the science of adulteration must then have
been in its infancy.]

ARTIFICIAL PEARLS.

Those round calcareous excrescences found both

1
the m
bodies and shells, especially on the nacreous coat, of several
1
It was because pearls are calcareous that Cleopatra was able to dissolve
hers in vinegar, and by these means to gain a bet from her lover, as we are
told by Pliny, 1. ix. c. 35, and Macrobms Saturn. 1. ii. c. 13. She must,
 ARTIFICIAL PEARLS. 259

kinds of shell-fish 1 , have been much used as ornaments since

the earliest ages 2 . The beautiful play of colours exhibited on
their surface has raised them to a high value 3 and this they
;

have always retained on account of their scarcity and the ex-

pense arising from the laborious manner in which they are
collected 4 . By the increase of luxury among the European
however, have employed stronger vinegar than that which we use for our
tables, as pearls, on account of their hardness and their natural enamel,
cannot be easily dissolved by a weak acid. Nature has secured the teeth
of animals against the effects of acids, by an enamel covering which answers
the same purpose but if this enamel happen to be injured only in one small
;

place, the teeth soon spoil and rot. Cleopatra perhaps broke and pounded
the pearls and it is probable that she afterwards diluted the vinegar with
;

water, that she might be able to drink it ; though dissolved calcareous

matter neutralizes acids and renders them imperceptible to the tongue.
We are told that the dissipated Clodius gave to each of his guests a pearl
dissolved in vinegar to drink : —
" Ut experiretur in gloria palati," says Pliny,
" quid saperent margaritse ; atque ut mire placuere, ne solus hoc sciret, sin-
gulos uniones convivis absorbendos dedit." Horace, lib. ii. sat. 3, says the
same. That pearls are soluble in vinegar is remarked in Pausanias,b. viii.
ch. 18, and Vitruvius, b. viii. ch. 3.
1
That pearls are not peculiar to one kind of shell-fish, as many believe,
was known to Pliny. I have a number of very good pearls which were
found by my brother in Colchester oysters. It is more worthy of remark,
and less known, that real pearls are found under the shield of the sea-hare,
(Aplysia), as has been observed by Bohadsch in his book De Animalibus
Marinis, Dresdse, 1761, 4to, p. 39.
2
In the time of Job, pearls were accounted to be of great value. Job,
chap, xxviii. ver. 18.
3
[When the surface of pearl is examined with a microscope, it is found
to be indented by a large number of delicate grooves, which by their effect
upon the light give rise to the play of colours ; and if impressions of them be
taken upon wax, fusible metal, lead, balsam of Tolu, &c, the impressed
surface exhibits the prismatic colours in the same manner as the pearl.
This principle has been applied by Mr. Barton and others to the making of
ornaments, in the form of buttons, artificial jewels, &c, by grooving the
surface of steel with a very fine cutting machine. The theory of the pro-
duction of the colours is this the surfaces of the grooves, from their varied
:

inclinations, reflect the incident white light at various angles, hence the
correspondence of the luminous undulations is interrupted and some of
them check or interfere with one another, others continue their course.
Now, ordinary white light being a mixture of coloured rays, when some of
these are checked or interfered with in their progress, the remainder con-
tinue their course and appear of that colour which results from the ocular
impression communicated by them.]
4
[One of the most remarkable pearls of which we have any authentic
account, was bought by Tavernier at Catifa in Arabia, a fishery famous in
the days of Plinv, for the enormous sum of £110,000. It is pear-shaped,
S2
260 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

nations, the use of pearls hasbecome more common and even ;

in Pliny's time they were worn by the wives of the inferior

public officers, in order that they might vie in the costliness
of their dress with ladies of the first rank. It is probable,
therefore, that methods were early invented to occasion or
hasten the formation of pearls and as at present those who
;

cannot afford to purchase gold, jewels, and porcelain, use in

their stead pinchbeck, artificial gems, and stone-ware, so
methods were fallen upon to make artificial pearls.
The art of forcing shell-fish to produce pearls was known,
in the first centuries of the christian sera to the inhabitants of
the coasts of the Red-sea, as we are told by the philosopher
Apollonius,who thought that circumstance worthy of particular
notice. The Indians dived into the sea, after they had rendered
it calm and more transparent by pouring oil into it. They
then enticed the fish by means of some bait to open their
shells ;and having pricked them with a sharp pointed instru-
ment, received the liquor that flowed from them in small holes
made in an iron vessel, in which they hardened into real pearls '.
Oleai'ius says that this account is to be found in no other
author: but it has at least been copied by Tzetzes 2 .
We are as yet too little acquainted with shell-fish to be able
to determine with certainty how much truth there really may
be in this relation : but there is great reason to conjecture from
it that the people who lived on the borders of the Red-sea

were then acquainted with a method of forcing shell-fish to

produce pearls ; and as the arts in general of the ancient In-
dians have been preserved without much variation, the process
employed by the Chinese at present, to cause a certain kind
of mussels to form pearls, seems to confirm the account given
by Philostratus. In the beginning of summer, at the time
when the mussels repair to the surface of the water and open
their shells, five or six small beads, made of mother-of-pearl,
and strung on a thread, are thrown into each of them. At
the end of a year, when the mussels are drawn up and opened,
the beads are found covered with a pearly crust, in such a
regular, and without blemish. It is rather more than half an inch in dia-
meter at the largest part, and from two to three inches in length. Wa- —
terston's Encyclopaedia of Commerce.]
1
Philostrat. in Vita Apollon. lib. iii. cap. 57, edit. Olearii, p. 139. Con-
rad c Gcsner, in his Hist. Nat. lib. iv. p. 634, gives a more correct transla-
2 Variorum, segm. 3-73.
tion of the passage. Tzetzes lib. ii.
 ARTIFICIAL PEARLS. 261

manner that they have a perfect resemblance to real pearls.

The truth of this information cannot be doubted, though some
experiments made in Bohemia for the same purpose were not
attended with success'. It has been confirmed by various
persons 2 , and it is very probable that some operations and
secrets, without which the process would prove fruitless even
in China, may be unknown to the Europeans. Besides, many
observations are known which seem to show the possibility of
such an effect being produced. Fabricius says that he saw
in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, at London, large Cha-
mce 3 , brought from China, in which there were several bits of
iron wire, incrusted with a substance of a perfect pearly nature 4 .
These bits of wire, he said, had been sharp, and it appeared
as if the mussels, to secure themselves against the points of the
wire, had covered them with this substance, by which means
ihey had been rendered blunt. May not therefore the process
employed by the ancients be still practised ? And may not
these bits of wire have been the same as those spikes used by
the people in the neighbourhood of the Red-sea for pricking
mussels, and which perhaps slipped from the hands of the
Chinese workmen and remained in the animals?
The invention therefore of Linnaeus cannot be called alto-
gether new. That great man informed the king and coun-
cil in the year 1761, that he had discovered an art by which
mussels might be made to produce pearls, and he offered to
disclose the method for the benefit of the kingdom. This
however* was not done, but he disposed of his secret to one
Bagge, a merchant at Gottenburg, for the sum of eighteen
thousand copper dollars, which make about five hundred du-
cats. In the year 1780, the heirs of this merchant wished to
sell to the highest bidder the sealed-up receipt 5 but whe-
:

ther the paper was purchased, or who bought it, I do not

1
See Dr. Joh. Mayer's Bemerkungen, in the fourth part of Abhand-
lungen einer Privatgesellschaft in Bohmen, p. 165.
2 Abhand. der Schwed. Akadem. der
Wissenschaften, vol. xxxiv. p. 89.
The author of the paper alluded to had a mussel with such artificial pearls,
which had been brought from China. It was a Mytilus cygneus, the swan-
mussel, or great horse-mussel. Mention is made also in Histoire de
l'Academie des Sciences de Paris, annee 1769, of a stone covered with a
pearly substance which was found in a mussel. 3
A kind of cockles.
4
J. C. Fabricius Briefe aus London, Dessau, 1784, 8vo, p. 104.
6 See Schlozer's Briefwechsel, number
40, p. 251.
 —

262 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

know; for Professor Retzius atLund, of whom I inquired re-
specting could not inform me .
it, In the year 1763, it was
1

said in the German newspapers, that Linnaeus was ennobled

on account of this discovery, and that he bore a pearl in his
coat of arms ; but both these assertions are false, though Fa-
bricius conjectures that the first may be true 2 Linnaeus re- .

ceived his patent of nobility, which, together with his arms, I

have seen, in the year 1756, consequently long before he said
anything respecting that discovery, of which the patent does
not make the least mention. What in his arms has been
taken for a pearl, is an egg, by which M. Tilas, whose busi-
ness it then was to blazon the arras of ennobled families,
meant to represent all nature, after the manner of the ancient
Egyptians. The arms are divided into three fields, each of
which, by the colour forming the ground, expresses one of
the kingdoms of nature; the red signifying the animal, and
the green the vegetable, &c. Over the helmet, by way of
crest, is placed the Linntza 3 that beautiful little moth the
;

Phalcena linneella, shining with its silvery colours, is dis-

played around the border instead of festoons; and below is
the following motto, Famam extendere factis. Linnaeus once
showed me, among his collection of shells, a small box filled
with pearl, and said, " Hos uniones confeci artificio meo; sunt
tantum quinque annorum, et tamen tam magni." " These
pearls I made by my art, and though so large they are only
five years old." They were deposited near the Unio marga-
ritifera, from which most of the Swedish pearls are procured ;

and the son, who was however not acquainted with his father's
secret, said the experiments were made only on this kind oi
mussel, though Linnaeus himself assured me that they would
succeed on all kinds.
I conjecture that Linnaeus alluded to this art in his writings
1
Dr. Stoever, in his Life of Linnaeus, vol. i. p. 360, says that the manu-
script containing this secret was in the possession of Dr. J. E. Smith, at
London. Trans. 2 In
his Letters, p. 104.
3 This pretty plant, named after the father of botany, grows in Nor-
thumberland and some woods in Scotland, also in Switzerland, Siberia,
and Canada, but particularly in Norway and Sweden, in shady places
amidst the thick woods. The flowers, which appear in May, June and
July, are shaped like a bell, rose-coloured without, yellowish in the inside,
and somewhat hairy. They have a pleasant smell, especially in the even-
ing. In Tronheim and the neighbouring parts they are drunk as tea for
medicinal purposes.
 ARTIFICIAL PEARLS. 263

so early as the year 1746, or long before lie ever thought of

keeping it a secret. The passage I mean is in the sixth edi-
tion of his Systema Naturae, where he says, " Margarita.
Testae excrescentia latere interiore, dum exterius latus per-
foratum." once told him that I had discovered his secret
I
in his own works but he seemed to be displeased, did not
;

inquire after the passage, and changed the discourse. That

pearls are produced when the shells have been pierced or in-
jured in a certain manner, is highly probable, and has been
in modern times often remarked 2 It appears also, that the
.

animal has the power of sometimes filling up such openings

with a calcareous substance, which it deposits in them. This
substance assumes the figure of the orifice, and the animal
it contains give it its brightness and lustre .
3
particles Pearl-
fishers have long known that mussels, the shells of which are
rough and irregular, or which exhibit marks of violence,
commonly contain pearls, though they are found also in others
in which the same appearances are not observed 4 I am per-
.

fectly aware that some experiments made by piercing the

shells of mussels, have been unsuccessful 5 but this does not
;

prove that it is impossible to procure pearls in that manner

Those who made them did not perhaps pierce the proper part
of the shell perhaps they made the orifice so large that it
;

weakened the animal and they may not have chosen the
;

fittestseason of the year. The strongest objection however

which can be made on this subject, is the undeniable truth
that the proper valuable pearls are not found adhering to the
shell, but in the body only ; and that therefore those calca-
reous balls which fill up holes, cannot be perfect pearls. But
from the words of Linnaeus above quoted, I am led to conjec-
ture, that he only made a hole in the shell without piercing it
quite through. Linnaeus also may have done some injury to
1
Pearl. An excrescence on the inside of a shell when the outer side
has been perforated.
2
See Chemnitz's theory of the origin of pearls, in the Beschaftigungen
der Berlin. Naturforsch. Gesellschaft, i. p. 348.
3 The animal part is rendered evident
on distillation by the evolution of
an ammoniacal odour and a somewhat inflammable oil and on solution
;

in muriatic acid the animal substance is left behind.

4 Abhand.
der Schwed. Akad. iv. p. 245, and xxi. p. 142.
5
Fabricius, in his Letters, p. 105, mentions such an experiment, which
was however continued only for a year.
1-0-i HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the animal itself when it opened its shell for it is certain

;

that testaceous animals are strong-lived, and can easily sus-

tain any violence. It appears by the Transactions of the Swe-
dish Academy, that some have been of opinion that shell-fish
might be made to produce pearls by a particular kind of nou-
rishment; and Lister thinks that these excrescences would be
1

more abundant, were the mussels placed in water impregnated

with calcareous matter; but Professor Linneeus seems certain
that his father employed none of these methods.
Under the name of false or artificial pearls are understood
at present small beads, so prepared by art as to approach very
near to real pearls in shape, lustre, colour, and polish. It ap-
pears that in Pliny's time such were not known, else he cer-
tainly would have mentioned them. The invention was not
easy, and this difficulty to imitate pearls has contributed,
with the reasons before mentioned, to keep up their value.
It would seem that at first, hopes were entertained of finding
a method to make large pearls from small or broken ones.
Tzetzes speaks of this imagined art, and receipts for that
purpose have been still retained in various books, where they
fill up room and amuse the ignorant ; for it is hardly possible

to give to the pulverised calcareous matter sufficient hard-

ness, and that lustre which belongs only to the surface of real
pearls, and which, when these are destroyed, is irrecoverably
lost. More ingenious was the idea of making pearl-coloured
glass beads of that kind called margaritini* ; but it excites
no wonder that this was not done earlier, although the art of
making coloured glass is very old for opal colours are ob-
;

tained only by a skilful process and the addition of putty,

bone-ashes, and other substances. Still earlier was the in-
vention of making hollow glass beads, which were incrusted
on the inside with a pearl-coloured varnish. This method
was first pursued, as far as I have been able to learn, by some
artists at Murano; but their invention seems to have been
considered by the government as too fraudulent, and was
therefore prohibited, as we are told by Francis Massarius,
who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century at Venice,
and must therefore have had an opportunity of knowing the
1
Exercitatio Anatom. de Cochleis. Lond. 1694, p. 183.
2This manner of preparing maryaritini may be seen in my Anlcitung
zur Teclinologie, p. 307.
 ARTIFICIAL PEARLS. 26.5

truth of this circumstance . Some say that an amalgam o.f

1

quicksilver was used for these pearls; and if that was the
case, the object of the Venetian prohibition was rather of a
medical nature. After this, small balls of wax or gum were
covered with a pearl-coloured enamel. These were praised
on account of their lustre but as their beauty was destroyed
;

by moisture, they did not continue long in use 2 A French .

bead-maker, however, named Jaquin, at length found out the

manner of preparing the glass pearls used at present, which
excel all others, and which approach as near to nature as pos-
sible, without being too expensive.
Jaquin once observed, at his estate near Passy, that when
those small fish called ables or ablettes were washed, the water
w as filled with fine silver-coloured particles. He suffered this
7

water therefore to stand for some time, and obtained from it

a sediment which had the lustre of the most beautiful pearls ;

and which on that account led him to the attempt of making

pearls from it 3 He scraped off" the scales of the fish, and
.

called the soft shining powder, which was diffused in the

water, essence of pearl, or essence d'orient*. At first he co-
vered with it small beads made of gypsum, or hardened paste;
and, as everything new, particularly in France, is eagerly
sought after, this invention was greatly admired and com-
mended. The ladies, however, for whose use it was chiefly
intended, soon found that it did not entirely answer their ex-
pectations. They were displeased because this pearly coat,
when exposed to heat, separated from the beads, adhered to
the skin, and gave it a brightness which they did not wish.
They proposed themselves, that small hollow glass beads
might be covered, in the inside, in the same manner as mir-
rors are silvered, with the essence of pearl and thus was ;

brought to perfection an art of which the following account

will enable the reader to form some idea.
Of a kind of glass easy to be melted, and made sometimes
1
Massarii in Plinii Nat. Hist. lib. ix. Castigationes. Bas. 1537, 4to,
2
cap. 35. Mercati Metallotheca, p.211.
3 These silver-coloured particles were examined by Reaumur, who gave
a description of them in Histoire de l'Aeademie, annee 1716, p, 229. [In
the scales of fishes, the optical effect is produced in the same manner as in
the real pearl, the grooves of the latter being represented by the inequali-
ties formed by the margins of the concentric lamina; of which the scales
4
are composed.] The artist no doubt had in view eastern pearls.
266 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

a bluish or dark, slender tubes are prepared, which are

little
called girasols From these the artist blows, by means of a
1
.

lamp, as many small hollow globules as he may have occasion

for. One workman can in a day blow six thousand but when ;

they are required to be extremely beautiful, only twelve 01

fifteen hundred ; and that they may have a greater resem-
blance to nature, he gives them sometimes blemishes, like
those generally observed in real pearls. They are made 01
all figures; some shaped like a pear, others like an olive, and
some that may be considered as coques de perles". To over-
lie these thin glass bubbles he mixes the pearl essence with

a solution of isinglass and the more of the former he uses,

;

the more beautiful and more valuable the pearls become.

This varnish, when heated, he blows into each globule with a
fine glass pipe, and spreads it over the whole internal sur-
face, by shaking the pearls thus prepared in a vessel placed
over the table where he is at work, and which he puts in mo-
tion by his foot, until the varnish is equally diffused all over
the inside of them, and becomes dry. Sometimes he adds to
1
Girasol.This word, which is wanting in most dictionaries, signifies
opal, and sometimes that stone called cat's-eye, Silex catophthalmns, pseu-
dopalus, &c. Couleur de girasol is applied to semitransparent milk-white
porcelain.
2Cogues de perles are flat on one side, and are used for ornaments, one
side of which only is seen. By Pliny they are called physemata. Artifi-
cial pearls of this kind have, for some time past, been employed in making
ear-rings. Our toymen, after the French, give these pearls the name of
perles coques but the following account of Pouget in Traite des Pierres
;

Precieuses, Paris 1762, i. p. 20, makes me dubious respecting them. " La

coque de perle" says he, " is not formed in a pearl-shell like the pearl it ;

is procured from a kind of snail found only in the East Indies. There are
several species of them. The shell of this animal is sawn in two, and one
coque cnly can be obtained from each. The coques are very small, and one
is obliged to fill them with tears of mastic to give them a body, before they

can be employed. This beautiful snail is found generally in the sea, and
sometimes on the shore." May not Pouget here mean that kind of snail
which others call burgeau, the shells of which are, in commerce, known by
the French under the name oiburgaudinesl Should that be the case, the
animal meant would be the Nautilus Pornpilius, as may be concluded from
Histoire des Antilles, par Du Terti e, ii. p. 239. For the author says, " C'est
de leur coque que les ouvriers en nacre tirent cette belle nacre qu'ils ap-
pellent la burgaudine, plus estimee que la nacre de perle." Irregular
pearls arecalled baroques, or Scotch pearls, because abundance of such were
once lound at Perth in Scotland. Some years ago artificial pearls of an
unnatural size, called Scotch pearls, were for a little time in fashion.
 ARTIFICIAL PEARLS. 267

the essence some red, yellow, or blue colour but as this is a

;

deviation from nature, it is not accounted a beauty. To give

these tender globules more solidity and strength, they are
rilled with white wax. They are then bored through with a
needle, and threaded in strings for sale. The holes in the
finer sort, however, are first lined with thin paper, that the
thread may not adhere to the wax . 1

The name able, or ablette, is given to several species of

fish but that which produces the pearl-essence is the Cypri-
;

nus alburnus, called in English the bleak. Professor Her-

mann, at Strasburg, was so kind as to send me one of these
fish, which was caught there for the purpose of making pearl-
essence, and which was dried so carefully that the species could
with certainty be distinguished. It corresponded exactlv with
the figure given in Duhamel 2 which has almost a perfect re-
,

semblance to that given by Schoneveld 3 . May not the albur-

nus mentioned by Ausonius among the inhabitants of the
Moselle, be the same? At any rate, the bleak is to be found
only in fresh water; and on account of its voracity bites rea-
dily at the hook. It is caught for the use of the French ma-
nufacturers in the Seine, the Loire, the Saone, the Rhine 4 , and
several other rivers. To obtain a pound of scales above 4000
fish are necessary and these do not produce four ounces of
;

pearl essence so that from eighteen to twenty thousand are

;

requisite to have a pound of it. In the Chalonnois, the fish-

ermen get for a pound of washed scales fifteen, eighteen, and
twenty-five livres. The fish, which are four inches in length,
and which have not a very good taste, are sold at a cheap
rate, after their scales have been scraped off. At St. John de
Maizel, or Mezel, in the Chalonnois, there was a manufactory
in which 10,000 pearls were made daily 5 .

1
A
complete account of the art of making glass pearls is contained in a
book, which I have however not seen, entitled, L'Art d'imiter les perle9
fines, par M. Varenne de Beost. An extract from it may be found in Dic-
tionnaire des Arts et Metiers, par M. Joubert, iii. p. 370. See also the arti-
cles perle and able in the Encyclopedie, i. p. 29 ;xii. p. 382.
2
Traite Generale des Pesches, par. ii. p. 403, tab. 23, fig. 1 et 2.
3
Ichthyologia, Hamb. 1624, 4to, p. 12, tab. 1, fig. 2, albula.
4 In the Almanach de
Strasburg for 1780, p. 76, among the commodi-
ties sold there were, Des ecailles d'ablettes dont on tire l'essence d'orient
employee pour les fausses perles.
5
Description Hist, et Topogr. du Duche de Bourgogne, par M. Cour-
tcpee, torn. iv. A Dijon, 1779, 8vo, p. 534.
268 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The first makers of these pearls roust have laboured under

a very great inconvenience, as they were acquainted with no
method of preserving the fishy particles for any time. They
were obliged to use the essence immediately, because it soon
putrefied and contracted an intolerable stench. The great con-
sumption, however, required that the scales should be brought
from distant provinces. Attempts were made to preserve them
in spirit of wine or brandy ; but these liquors destroyed their
lustre, and left them only a dull white colour. In the like
manner brandy spoiled a real pearl, which, with the animal
and the shell (Mactra lutraria), was sent to me by Dr. Taube,
at Zell. It was therefore a very important discovery for this
art that these animal particles can be kept for a long time in
solution of ammonia, which is now alone used, and which
perhaps could be used for many other purposes of the like
kind.
That the inventor of these pearls was called Jaquin, and that
he was a bead-maker at Paris, all agree but the time of the
;

invention seems to be uncertain. Some say that it belongs to

the reign of Henry IV. 1
and Reaumur mentions the year
;

1656. These pearls, however, in the year 1686, when Jaquin

had an assistant named Breton, must not have been very com-
mon for we are told in the Mercure Galant of that year, that
;

a marquis possessed of very little property, who was enamoured

of a lady, gained her affections and carried his point by pre-
senting her with a string of them, which cost only three louis ;

and which she, considering them as real ones, valued at 2000

francs. The servant who put the marquis on this stratagem,
declared that these pearls withstood heat and the moisture oc-
casioned by perspiration that they were not easily scratched,
;

had almost the same weight as real ones, and that the person
who sold them warranted their durability in writing. Jewellers
and pawnbrokers have, therefore, been often deceived by
them. Jaquin's heirs continued this business down to a late
period, and had a considerable manufactory au Rue de Petit
Lion at Paris.
1
Ponget. 4to, i. p 19.
 269

PAVING OF STREETS.
The most beneficial regulations of police, which we have in-
herited from our ancestors, are at present considered to be
so indispensable or necessary, that many people imagine they
must at all times have existed. If one, however, takes the
trouble to inquire into the antiquity of these regulations, it
willbe found that the greater part of them are new, and that
they were unknown to the largest and most magnificent cities
of ancient times. Among these are posts , the night-watch,
1

hackney coaches, and, besides many others, the paving of

streets.
Several cities, indeed, had paved streets before the begin-
ning of the Christian aera ; but those which are at present the
ornament of Europe, Rome excepted, were all destitute of this
great advantage, till almost the twelfth or thirteenth century.
I must nevertheless acknowledge, that in the Greek and Ro-
man authors I have hitherto met with more proofs of paved
highways than of paved streets. But we have reason to be-
lieve that the richest nations paid attention to the streets be-
fore their doors, sooner than to the roads before their gates.
In all probability, the former were paved at different times,
and by private persons and required so little expense and so
;

few regulations, that no occasion was given to remark the time

when it was done. On the other hand, for the constructing
of highways many miles in length, the concurrence of states,
and the consent and assistance of all the inhabitants, were ne-
cessary and, on that account, such circumstances were in-
;

serted in annals, and they were sometimes copied afterwards

by historians, and mentioned in their works. In the East,
where the roads are not spoiled, as among us, by snow, ice,
and rain, and where many cities were built on eminences and
in dry situations, the paving of streets and highways may have
been later thought of than might be expected, when we con-

1
I reckon the post among police regulations, to which its object origi-
nally belonged, as well as that of the coining of money ; though in the
course of time it has been made a productive source of revenue, by which
it has been rendered burdensome to the public, while its utility has been
lessened.
 ;

270 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

sider the refinement of the ancient people who inhabited that

country, and the progress they had made in the arts. Such
undertakings also were often retarded by the want of stone ;

an obstacle which many nations overcame with an ingenuity

and patience at which we, among whom workmen are fewer,
and the price of labour higher, because we have more wants,
and enjoy more liberty, are not a little astonished. It is how-
ever to be conjectured, that those people who first carried on
the greatest trade were the first who paid attention to have
good streets and highways, in order to facilitate intercourse,
so necessary to keep up the spirit of commerce.
This conjecture is in some measure confirmed by the testi-
mony of Isidorus 1 , who says that the Carthaginians had the
first paved streets, and that their example was soon copied by
the Romans. Long before that period, however, Semiramis
paved highways, as we are told by the vain-glorious inscrip-
tion which she herself caused to be put up 2 . Of the paving
of the Grecian cities I know nothing further than that at
Thebes the streets were under the inspection of the telearchs,
who had the care of keeping them in repair, and of cleaning
them. This office, which was there held in contempt, the
spiteful inhabitants conferred upon Epaminondas, in order to
disgrace him; but, by his prudence and attention to the pub-
lic good, he rendered it so respectable, that it was afterwards
sought for as an honourable employment. The streets of
Thebes, therefore, were paved, else how would it have been
possible to clean them 3 ? Whether Jerusalem was paved I
do not know ; for, in the first book of Kings mention is made
only of the fore-court of the temple 4 Josephus 5 relates that
.

the Jews proposed to Agrippa, after the building of the tem-

ple was finished, to employ the workmen who had been dis-
charged, the number of whom, with Jewish exaggeration, he
makes amount to eighteen thousand, in paving the streets
this however was not done. We
read in the Talmud 6 that ,

the streets of Jerusalem were swept every day, which un-

doubtedly implies a hard and solid pavement.

1 2 Strabo, lib. xvi.

Origin, lib. xv. cap. 16. p. 1071.
Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. cap. 13. Polyaeni Stratagem, lib. viii. cap. 26.
3 Valerius Max. lib. iii. cap. 7. Plutarch. Reipublicae Gerencte Prse-
cepta, p. 811. * 1 Kings, cbap. vii. ver. 12.
6 Antiquit. lib. xx. cap. 9. 6 Pesachhn, fol. 71. Metzia, fol. 26.
 ;

PAVING AND CLEANSING. 271

That neither the streets of Rome nor the roads around it

were paved during the time of its kings, is well known '. In the
year 188, after the abolition of the monarchical form of govern-
ment, Appius Claudius, who was then censor, constructed the
first real highway, which was as properly called after him the
Appian Way, as it was named on account of its excellence the
queen of roads 2 .The time however when the streets began
to be paved, cannot with certainty be determined; for the
passage of Livy 3 from which some have endeavoured to prove
,

that it was in the year 578 after the building of the city, is
inconclusive, as it will admit of various explanations equally
probable. It may be read, without forcing the sense, as if Livy
said that the pavement of the streets was then covered with sand
for the first time that the streets were then first paved at the
;

public expense, or that the paving of them was then performed

for the first time by contract. Besides, we are told by Livy
himself 4 that the censors in the year of the city 584 caused
,

the streets to be paved from the Oxen-market (Forum Boarium)

to the temple of Venus, and around the seats of lie magis-
trates in the great circus : but the information of the same
historian that the sediles in the year 459 caused the streets to
be paved from the temple of Mars to the Bovile, and from the
Capena gate to the temple of Mars 5 does not apply here, as
,

some have imagined for the temple of Mars was without the
;

city, and the author speaks not of streets, but of highways.

The extravagant Heliogabalus caused the streets around the
palace, or on the Palatine mount, to be paved with foreign
marble 6 . The inspection of the streets belonged to the sediles
and, under certain circumstances, occasionally to the censors.
In the course of time, however, particular officers, curatores
viarum, called on account of their number quatuor viri viarum,
were appointed for that express purpose. Thus we are told
that the two brothers, Publii Malleoli, when curule sediles,
caused the Mons Publicius to be paved, so that carriages could
pass from the street Velia to Mount Aventine 7 . That streets

1
Bergier, Hist, des Grands Chemins Rom. liv. i. chap. viii.
2 Statius, Sylv.ii.2, v. 12. 3 Lib.xli.cap. 27. 4 Lib. xxir. cap. 37.
5
Lib. x. cap. 23. Equally inapplicable are the passages lib. xxxviii.
6
cap. 28, and lib. x. cap. 47. Ml. Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 24.
7 Ovid. Fastor. lib. v. ver. 293. See also Marc. "Varro, lib. iv. de L. L.
Festus, p. 310. An examination of the question whether the sediles or
272 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

paved with lava, having deep ruts made by the wheels of car-
riages, and raised banks on each side for the accommodation
of foot-passengers, were found both at Herculaneum and Pom-
peii, is well known from the information of various travellers.
Of modern cities, the oldest pavement is commonly ascribed
to that of Paris but it is certain that Cordova in Spain was
;

paved so early as the middle of the ninth century, or about

the year 850, by Abdorrahman II., the fourth Spanish caliph.
This prince, who knew the value of the arts and sciences, and
who favoured trade so much that abundance in his reign pre-
vailed throughout the whole land ', caused water to be con-
veyed into that city which was then his capital, by leaden
;

pipes, and ornamented it with a mosque and other elegant

buildings 2 .

The France was not paved in the twelfth cen-

capital of
tury ; for Rigord, the physicianand historian of Philip II.,
relates, that the king standing one day at a window of his
palace near the Seine, and observing that the carriages which
passed threw up the dirt in such a manner that it produced a
most offensive stench, his majesty resolved to remedy this in-
tolerable nuisance by causing the streets to be paved which ;

was accordingly done, notwithstanding the heavy expense that

had prevented his predecessors from introducing the same
improvement. The orders for this purpose were issued by
the government in the year 1184 and upon that occasion, as
;

is said, the name of the city, which was then called Lutetia on

account of its dirtiness, was changed to that of Paris 3 This .

service rendered to Paris by that sovereign, who first also

caused the cathedral to be surrounded by a wall, is con-
firmed by various historians 4 Mezeray informs us, that Ge-
.

rard de Poissy, then intendant of the finances, expended eleven

censors had the inspection of the streets may be found in Ducker's notes
on Liv. lib. x. cap. 32 (edit. Drakenborchii).
1
Cardonne Histoire de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous les Arabes, 3 vols.
12mo, Par. 1765. Translated into German, with notes, by Dr. Murr.
Numb. 1768, i. p. 187.
2 Rod. Ximenez, archiep. Toletani, Historia Arabum,
cap. xxvi. p. 23.
Printed at the end of Erpenius' Historia Saracenica, 4to. Lugd. 1625.
5 Rigordus De Gestis Phil. Augusti, in Duchesne Hist. Script. Franc.

Par. 1649, fol. p. 16.

* Gulielmi Armorici Hist, de Vita Phil. Augusti, in Duchesne, p. 73.

Alberici Monachi Trium Fontium Chronicon, ed. a G. G. Leibnitio, Lips.

1698, 4to, p. 367.
 PAVING AND CLEANSING. 273

thousand marks of silver in this undertaking. It appears that

a certain income was allowed to the city for defraying the ex-
penses; for in 1285, a hundred years after, when it was pro-
posed that the pavement should be carried without the gate 01
St. Martin, the citizens excused themselves from the work, by
saying that the funds assigned to them were not sufficient for
that purpose It is certain, that in the year 1641 the streets
1
.

2
in many quarters of Paris were not paved .
It is very probable that other opulent cities, finding the

benefit which the capital derived from this improvement, were

induced to follow its example. At any rate we know that
Dijon, which was then reckoned one of the most beautiful, had
paved streets so early as the year 1391, to which Philip the
Bold, duke of Burgundy, the second husband of Margaret
heiress of Flanders and other parts of the Netherlands, contri-
buted two thousand livres and in 1424 paviors were employed
;

on all the streets 3 . Historians remark, that after this period,

dangerous diseases, such as the dysentery, spotted fever and
others, became less frequent in that city.
That the streets of London were not paved at the end of
the eleventh century, is asserted by all historians. As a proof
of this, they relate that in the year 1090, when the church of
St. Mary-le-Bow, in Cheapside, was unroofed by a violent
storm of wind, four pillars or beams, which were twenty-six
feet in length, sunk so deep into the ground, that scarcely
four feet of them appeared above the surface. The streets of
London then, says Howel, were not paved, but consisted of
soft earth 4 I can however find no account of the time when
.

paving was first introduced. It appears that the pavement of

this immense city became gradually extended as trade and
opulence increased. Several of the principal streets, such as
Holborn, which at present are in the middle of the city, were
paved for the first time by royal command in the year 1417 5 .

1
Felibien, Hist, de Paris, i. p. 104.
2 A
proof of this may be seen in De la Mare, iv. p. 197, who gives the
best account respecting the regulations made to keep in repair the pavement
of the streets of Paris. The later regulations are given by Perrot in Dic-
tionnaire de Voieriei, Paris, 1782, 4to, p. 315.
3Courtepee Description du Duche de Bourgogne, i. p. 233, and ii. p. 62.
*Anderson's Hist, of Commerce, vol. i. p. 483.
In the king's order it was said, that the highway named Holbourn in
6

London was so deep and miry, that many perils and hazards were thereby
VOL. I. T
'274- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Others were paved under Henry VIII., some in the suburbs 1

in 1544, others in1571 and 1605, and the great market of
Smithfield, where was first paved in 1614 2
cattle are sold, .

Of German can mention only Augsburg, which by

cities I
its trade soon rose to such eminence as to be able to rival
magnificent Rome, of which it was a colony, in many expen-
sive improvements. This city from the earliest periods had
small subterranean passages under the streets for conveying
away filth, which in some measure resembled the Roman
cloaca. Hans Gwerlich, a rich merchant there, having caused
a neat foot-path to be made before his house in the oxen-
market in 1415, gave rise to the paving of the city for this ;

convenience was so much admired, that after that time all the
streets were paved successively at the expense of the govern-
ment. Berlin, in the first half of the seventeenth century, was
not entirely paved. The new market was first paved in 1679
and the following years, and King-street before the houses in
1684. The square behind the cathedral and before the present
tilt-yard remained without pavement in 1679.
When a solid bottom had been given to streets, the cleansing
of them, which, as the Roman praetors said, is a continual
improvement 3 was then rendered possible. At Rome were
,

appointed tribuni rerum nitenthim, who had the care of clean-

ing the streets, markets, temples, baths and other public places4 .

Strict orders were given that no filth should be thrown into

the river or streets whoever transgressed against this prohi-
;

bition was subjected to punishment, and obliged to repair the

damage 5 . The public sewers, cloacce, under the streets con-
tributed very much to facilitate the cleaning of them, yet they

occasioned as well to the king's carriages passing that way as to those of

his subjects ; he therefore ordained two vessels, each of twenty tons bur-
then, to be employed at his expense, for bringing stones for paving and
—
mending the same. Anderson's Hist, of Com. i. p. 244.
1 In this order the streets were described " as very foul, and full of pits

and sloughs, very perilous and (noyous) noisome, as well for the king's
subjects on horseback as on foot, and with carriage." —
Anderson, ut supra,
p. 370.
2 Anderson, i.
p. 491. Northouck's History of London, 1773, 4to, p. 121.
3 Digest, lib. xliii. tit. 2.
217. 414. 436.
4 Notitia utraque dignitatum, Pancirolli. Lugd. 1608. —
Notit. Imperii
Occident, cap. 19. This work may be found in Gnevii Thes. Antiq. Rom.
6 and
vol. vii. Digestorum lib. xliii. tit. 12, lib. ix. tit. 3.
 PAVING AND CLEANSING. 2*75

were commonly full of mud 1 , as those of Paris are at present,

notwithstanding the many expensive regulations established to
prevent that nuisance.
Some centuries after Paris was paved, every citizen was
obliged to repair the street before his house, and to clean it at
his own expense, as is expressly commanded in an order issued
by Philip the Bold'2, in the year 1285. The public however
are often careless and negligent respecting the most beneficial
regulations, when the maintaining of them is attended with
trouble and expense, be it ever so small. By this want of at-
tention, all the streets of Paris were in the fourteenth century
entirely spoiled and filled with dirt; but they were again re-
paired; and in 1348 a law was first made for inflicting punish-
ment upon those who neglected to clean them 3 . This law was
rendered more severe in 1388, and several times afterwards.
The novelty of it, the dread of punishment, and the vigilance
of the new inspectors, produced such an effect, that the inha-
bitants of one or more neighbouring streets joined together
and kept at their common expense a dirt-cart, which at
that time was called un tombereau but the nobility and the
;

clergy, who always wish for immunities, endeavoured to ex-

empt themselves from this burthen. The markets and public
squares remained therefore uncleaned, and became still dir-
tier, as those who resided in the neighbourhood began to
throw filth into them privately in the night-time, in order to
avoid the expense of having it carried away, till at length
these places were rendered so impassable that the toymen who
frequented them with their wares wished to abandon them.
For this reason it was enacted in the year 1399, that no one
should be exempted from cleaning the streets and an order ;

was issued in 1374, that all those who lived in the markets,
together with the toymen who had booths there, should clean
them at their joint expenses 4 . Many now made the removing
of dirt a trade, and entered into contracts for that purpose;
but they as well as the paviors turned so extravagant in their
demands, that a price was set upon the labour of the former
in 1396, and the latter in 1501 were united into a company,

1
Martial, Epig. vii. 61. Juvenal, sat. iih ver. 247.
2
Afull history of the regulations made respecting the cleaning of the
streets of Paris may be found in De la Mare, iv, p. 200.
3
De la Mare, iv. p. 202. * ibid. iv. p. 172, 203.
T 2
276 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

every member of which was obliged to subscribe to certain

regulations . 1

When the city at length increased in size and population,

the cleaning of the streets became too troublesome and ex-
pensive to be left any longer to the care of individuals. Be-
sides, those who inhabited the suburbs complained, and with
great justice, that the burthen lay so heavy upon them as to
be intolerable because all the carts which entered the city, or
;

which conveyed from it, rendered their streets much dir-

filth
tier than the was resolved therefore, in the year 1609,
rest. It
that the streets should be cleaned at the public expense, under
the inspection of the police and a certain revenue in wine
;

was set apart for that purpose. The first person with whom
a contract was entered into for this service, was allowed
yearly, for cleaning the whole city, 70,000 livres, which sum
was raised in 1628 to 80,000% In 1704, the Parisians were
obliged to collect 300,000 livres, for which Government un-
dertook to maintain the lamps and clean the streets but in ;

1722 this contribution was increased to 450,000. The last

contract with which I am acquainted is that of the year 1748,
by which the contractors were to be allowed yearly, during
six years, for removing the dirt, 200,000 livres, and for clearing
away the snow and ice in winter 6000 more, making in all the
sum of 206,000 livres 3 .
All these regulations and expenses however would undoubt-
edly have been attended with very little benefit, had not deli-
berate dirtying of the streets been strictly prohibited, and all
opportunities of doing so been as much as possible prevented.
As the young king Philip, whom his father Louis the Fat had
united with himself as co-regent, and caused to be crowned
at Rheims, was passing St. Gervais on horseback, a sow run-
ning against his horse's legs made him stumble, and the prince
being thrown was so much hurt, that he died next morning,
3rd October 1131. On account of this accident an order was
issued that no swine in future should be suffered to run about
in the streets; but this was opposed by the abbey of St. An-
thony, because, as the monks represented, it was contrary to

1
De la Mare, p. 205. " Ibid. iv.
p. 216, 239, 243.
a
This contract inserted in Perrot, Dictionnaire de Voierie, p. 305.
is
In 1445 six carts were employed at Dijon in cleaning the streets.
 PAVING AND CLEANSING. 277

the respect due to their patron to prevent his swine from en-
joying the liberty of going where they thought proper, it
was found necessary therefore to grant these clergy an exclu-
sive privilege, and to allow their swine, if they had bells fast-
ened to their necks, to wallow in the dirt of the streets with-
out molestation '.
A
very improper liberty prevailed at Paris in the fourteenth
century, which was, that all persons might throw anything
from their windows whenever they chose, provided they gave
notice three times before, by crying out Gare Veau, which is
as much as to say, Take care of water. This privilege was
forbidden in 1372, and still more severely in 1395 2 A .

like practice however seems to have continued longer at

Edinburgh; for in the year 1750, when people went out into
the streets at night, it was necessary, in order to avoid dis-
agreeable accidents from the windows, that they should take
with them a guide, who as he went along called out with a
loud voice, in the Scotch dialect, Haudyour liaunde, Stop your
hand 3 .

This practice however would not have been suppressed at

Paris, had not the police paid particular attention to promote
the interior cleanliness of the houses, and the erection of
privies. Some will perhaps be astonished that these conve-
niences should have been first introduced into the capital of
France by an order from government in the sixteenth century ;

especially as they are at present considered to be so indispensa-

bly necessary, that few summer-houses are constructed with-
out them. Those however to whom this affords matter of
surprise must be still more astonished when they are told that
the residence of the king of Spain was destitute of this im-
provement at the very time that the English circumnavigators
1
Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, vol. ii. p. 640.
a De la Mare, iv. p. 253. Perrot, p. 307.
3 Letters from Scotland, 1760, 2 vols. 8vo. [At this period, when the
luxury of water-closets was unknown, it was a custom for men to peram-
bulate the streets of Edinburgh, carrying conveniences (pails) suspended
from a yoke on their shoulders, enveloped by cloaks sufficiently large to
cover both their apparatus and customers, crying, " Wha wants me, for a
bawbee?" It has since been used against the Edinburgh people as a
joke or satire upon an ancient custom. By way of a set-off, however, it
may be observed that at the present day there is a water-closet in almost
every house in Edinburgh.]
278 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

found privies constructed in the European manner near the

habitations of the cannibals of New Zealand '. But Madrid
is not the royal residence which has had dirty streets longest

on account of this want. Privies began to be erected at War-

saw for the first time only within these few years 2 .
In the Parisian code of laws, Coutume de Paris, which was
improved and confirmed in 1513, it is expressly ordered, that
every house should have a privy 3 This order, with the de-
.

nunciation of severer punishment in case of disobedience,

was renewed in 1533; and in 1538 the under officers of police
were obliged to examine the houses and to report the names
of those who had not complied with this beneficial regulation.
It appears, however, that the order of 1533 was not the latest;
for in 1697, and even in 1700, the police was under the
necessity of strictly commanding "that people should construct
privies in their houses, and repair those already constructed,
and that within a month at furthest, under the penalty of
being fined in case of neglect, and of having their houses shut
up until they should be in a proper condition." This order is
given in the same words in the Coutume de Mante, Etampes,
Nivernois, Bourbonnois, Calais, Tournay, and Melun 4 That .

issued at Bordeaux is of the year 1585.

All these regulations of police were not much older in Ger-
many than in Paris. The cleaning of the streets was con-
sidered there as an almost dishonourable employment, which
1 Cook's First Voyage, 4to, vol. ii. p. 281.
2 Whoever wishes to enter deeper into the history of this family conve-
nience, certainly an object of police, the improvement of which the Aca-
demy of Sciences at Paris did not think below its notice, may consult the
following work, Mem. de l'Acad. des Sciences, Inscriptions, Belles Let-
tres, Beaux Arts, etc. nouvellement etablie a Troyes en Champagne. A
Troves et Paris 1756. The author, who by this piece of ridicule wished,
perhaps, to avenge himself of some academy which did not admit him as a
member, has collected from the Greek and Latin writers abundance of dirty
passages respecting this question " Si l'usage de chier en plein air etoit
:

universel chez les anciens peuples." He proves from a passage of Ari-

srtophanes, Ecclesiaz. ver. 1050, that the Greeks had privies in their houses.
3
De la Mare, i. p. 568, and iv. p. 254. " Tous proprietaires de maisons
de la ville et fauxbourgs de Paris sont tenus avoir latrines et jirivez suffisans
en leurs maisons." [They should also have been compelled to make use of
them.]
4 — —
De la Mare, ut supra. Coutume de Mante, art. 107. Etampes, art.
87. —Nivernois, chap. x. art. 15. — —
Bourbonnois, art. 515. Calais, art.
179. —Tournay, tit. 17, art. 5.- Melun, art. 209.
 PAVING AND CLEANSING. . 279

in some places was assigned and in others to the

to the Jews,
executioner's servants. The Jews were
obliged to clean the
streets of Hamburgh before the present regulations were
established. How old these may be I do not know, but in
the year 1585 there were dirt carts in that city, and a tax was
paid by the inhabitants for supporting them. At Spandau, in
1573, the skinners were obliged to sweep the market-place,
which was not then paved, and for this service they were paid
by the council l In the beginning of the seventeenth century
.

the streets of Berlin were never swept, and the swine belonging
to the citizens wallowed in the increasing dirt the whole day,
as well as in the kennels, which were choked up with mud.
In the year 1624, when the elector desired the council to order
the streets to be cleaned, they replied, that it would then be of
no use, as the citizens at that time were busy with their farms.
Near Peter's church there was a heap of dust so large that it
almost prevented people from passing, and it was with great
difficulty, and not until strict orders had been often repeated,
that the elector could get the inhabitants to remove it. Fo?
a long time dirt of every kind was emptied in the new market-
place, and lay there in such quantity, that an order was issued
in 1671, that every countryman who came to the market should
carry back with him a load of dirt. The director of the pub-
lic mill made continual complaints, that, by the dirt being shot
down near the long bridge, the mill-dam was prevented from
flowing. Hog-sties were erected in the streets, sometimes even
under the windows. This practice was forbidden by the
council in 1641 2 ; but it was nevertheless continued, until the
elector at length, in the year 1681, gave orders that the
inhabitants should not feed swine ; and this prohibition was
carried into effect without any exception, as St. Anthony had
no abbeys at Berlin. Privies, however, seem to have been
common in the large and flourishing towns of Germany much
1
Historische Beytrage die Preussischen und benachbarten Staaten
betreffend. Berlin, 1784, 4to, iii. p. 373.
2 Nicholai Beschreibung von Berlin, p. 26. The author quotes, from
the order published at Berlin, Nov. 30, 1641, respecting the buildings of
the city, section fourth, the following words :
" Many citizens have
presumed to erect hog-sties in the open streets, and often under the win-
dows of bed-chambers, which the council cannot by any means suffer;"
and in the seventeenth section hog-sties are forbidden to be erected in
future in the small streets near the milk-market
280 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

earlier than in the capital of France ; and those who are not
disposed to find fault with me for introducing proofs here which
historians have not disdained to record, may read what
follows : 1
—In the annals of Frankfort on the Maine, where
mention is made of the cheapness of former times, we are told
how much a citizen there gave in the year 1477 for cleaning
his privy 3 . Weare informed also, that in 14*96 an order was
issued by the council forbidding the proprietors of houses
situated in a certain place planted with trees to erect privies
towards the side where the trees were growing ; and that in
1498, George PfefFer von Hell, J.U.D. and chancellor of the
electorate of Mentz, fell by accident into a privy, and there
perished. It appears however from the streets and houses of
most of our cities, that they were constructed before such
conveniences were thought of, and that these were erected
through force at a later period 3 .
1 " Frivola hsec fortassis cuipiam et nimis levia esse videantur, sed curi-
ositas nihil reeusat." —Vopiscus in Vita Aureliani, cap. 10.
2 Chronica der Stadt Frankf. von C. A. von Lersner, i.
p. 512.
3 [Berlin, strange to say, is very ill circumstanced in respect to these

conveniences, even at the present day (1846). In most of the houses, small
closets are located on the landings of the stairs, which require to be emp-
tied every other night, to the no great satisfaction of the olfactory nerves.
—
Nor are the streets kept in a very proper state, large puddles of filth being
allowed to collect before the doors even of the best houses, and which,
especially in the hot months of summer, diffuse a most horrible stench.
Something however must be allowed for the low situation of the town,
which renders drainage next to impracticable. Laing, in his Notes of a
Traveller, speaking of Berlin as he found it in 1841, says, " It is a fine city,
—
very like the age she represents very fine and very nasty The streets
are spacious and straight, with broad margins on each side for foot-passen-
gers ; and a band of plain flagstones on these margins make them much
more walkable than the streets of most continental towns. But these mar-
gins are divided from the spacious carriage-way in the middle by open
kennels, telling the nose unutterable things. These open kennels are boarded
over only at the gateways of the palaces, to let the carriages cross them, and
must be particularly convenient to the inhabitants, for they are not at all
particularly agreeable. Use reconciles people to nuisances which might be
easily removed. A sluggish but considerable river, the Spree, stagnates
through the town, and the money laid out in stucco work and outside deco-
ration of the houses, would go far towards covering overtheir drains, raising
the water by engines and sending it in a purifying stream through every
street and sewer. If bronze and marhle could smell, Bliicher and Biilow,
Schwerin and Ziethen, and duck-winged angels, and two-headed eagles
innumerable, would he found on their pedestals holding their noses instead
of grasping their swords. It is a curious illustration of the difference
 PAVING AND CLEANSING. 281

[A new era in paving has been commenced by the substi-

tution of wood for stone, but unfortunately, its vast superiority
in some respects is if not quite counterbalanced by its
nearly
defects, so that it probably be laid aside. An imperfect
will
kind of wooden pavement has been much used in North Ame-
rica, and is known by the name of corduroy road; but the
wooden pavement, properly so called, seems to have been first
used in Russia, and within the last few years, on a small scale
at Vienna, New York, &c. Its use in London was first
suggested by Mr. Finlayson in 1 825. It was originally formed
of hexagonal prismatic pieces of wood, the grain of which was
placed vertically. The blocks have-been kept together in various
ways, some by mere position, others by wooden pegs, strong
iron wire, &c. The great disadvantage of wooden pavement
is that it becomes slippery in wet weather. Attempts have
been made to remedy this defect, by paising those in the cen-
tre above the level of the lateral ones, or grooving the surfaces
of the blocks. Another objection to wooden pavement is the
a firm and durable foundation.
difficulty of laying The reten-
tion of water by the spaces left between the blocks and in the
pores of the wood itself, whereby an atmosphere of moisture is
continually preserved, has also been considered as likely to
predispose to certain diseases. Whether the latter is true or
not, the short duration of their adoption has hardly afforded
sufficient opportunities of deciding. The checking of the vi-
brations communicated from vehicles constantly running in
the streets, renders the wooden pavement of extreme value; its
durability has also been stated on good authority to exceed
that of stone, and its expense to be less. In these particulars
however it has not answered expectation and from the immense
;

number of horses which are daily thrown down, from the want of
resisting points on its surface, its use will probably be aban-

between the civilization of the fine arts and that of the useful arts, in their
influences on social well-being, that Berlin as yet has not advanced so far
in the enjoyments and comforts of life, in the civilization of the useful arts,
as to have water conveyed in pipes into its city and into its houses. Three
hundred thousand people have taste enough to be in die-away ecstasies
at the singing of Madame Pasta, or the dancing of Taglioni, and have not
taste enough to appreciate or feel the want of a supply of water in their
kitchens, sculleries, drains, sewers, and water-closets. The civilization of
an English village is, after all, more real civilization than that of Paris or
Berlin."]
282 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

doned and in several of the large thoroughfares where

; it had
been adopted it is now being replaced by stone.
A very valuable material for the formation of foot-pave-
ments has been found and patented in asphalte. That which
has been most used for this purpose is the native asphalte
from Seyssel it is mixed with a small quantity of native bitu-
;

men and sand. In preparing it, 93 parts of native asphalte

are reduced to powder and seven of bitumen these are melted
;

together and fine gravel or sand stirred in the mixture. It is

then spread upon a concrete foundation in layers about an inch
in thickness. Its elasticity renders it exceedingly durable.
Various compositions have been substituted for this mixture,
but we believe none have been found to answer so well. The
application of bituminous substances to carriage-pavements
has been almost exclusively limited to court-yards, but there
is very good evidence of its applicability to public thorough-
fares, in a piece of pavement, about 150 feet in length by 10
feet in width, laid down in 1838 at Whitehall, as a sample of
Messrs. Claridge's patent. It still remains in perfect condition.
The principal objection to the general adoption of asphaltic
pavement in the streets of London, appears to be the difficulty
of raising and relaying it, a process so constantly required to
reach the innumerable gas and water-pipes beneath.
Pavements have been laid down, especially in court-yards
and stables, one of the principal constituents of which is
caoutchouc]

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES.

If it be true that the written accounts which those who had
recovered from sickness caused to be drawn out of their cure,
their disorder, and the medicines employed to remove it, and
to be hung up in the temples, particularly that of iEsculapius,
were the first collections of medical observations ', as seems to

1
Fragments of such inscriptions have been collected by Mercurialis in
his work Dc Arte Gymnastica, lib. i. cap. 1.
 ;

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 283

appear by the testimony of Hippocrates, who did not disdain

to make use of them in order to acquire information we 1
;

have every reason to conjecture, that the rare animals, plants

and minerals, generally preserved in the temples also, were
the first collections of natural curiosities, and that they may
have contributed as much promote the knowledge of natural
to
improve the art of medicine. Na-
history, as those tablets to
tural objects of uncommon size or beauty, and other rare pro-
ductions, on which nature seemed to have exerted her utmost
power, were in the earliest periods consecrated to the gods 2 .

They were conveyed to the temples, where their value became

still enhanced by the sacredness and antiquity of the place

where they continued more and more to excite respect and

awaken curiosity, and where they were preserved as memorials
to the latest generations, with the same reverence as the other
furniture of these buildings. In the course of time these
natural curiosities dedicated to the gods became so numerous,
that they formed collections which may be called large for
those periods, and for the infant state in which natural history
then was.
When Hanno returned from his distant voyages, he brought
with him to Carthage two skins of the hairy women whom he
found on the Gorgades islands, and deposited them as a me-
morial in the temple of Juno, where they continued till the de-
struction of the city 3 The horns of a Scythian animal, in
.

which the Stygian water that destroyed every other vessel

could be contained, were sent by Alexander as a curiosity to
the temple of Delphi, where they were suspended, with an
inscription, which has been preserved by iElian 4 The mon- .

strous horns of the wild bulls which had occasioned so much

devastation in Macedonia, were by order of king Philip hung
up in the temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed shoul-
der-bones of Pelops were deposited in the temple of Elis 5 The .

horns of the so-called Indian ants were shown in the temple

of Hercules at Erythrae 6 and the crocodile found in attempt-
;

ing to discover the sources of the Nile was preserved in the

temple of Isis at Csesarea 7 . A
large piece of the root of the
1
Strabo, 2 Plin. lib. xii. cap. 2.
Plin. lib. xxix. cap. 1. lib. xiv.
3 Plin. lib. vi. cap. 4 Hist. Anim. cap. 40.
31. lib. x.
5 6
Plin. lib. xxviii. cap. 4. Plin. lib. xi. cap. 31.
'Plin. lib. v. cap.9. This crocodile was still remaining in the author's time.
284; HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

cinnamon-tree was kept in a golden vessel in one of the temples

at Rome, where it was examined by Pliny 1
. The skin of that
monster which the Roman army in Africa attacked and de-
stroyed, and which probably wasa crocodile, an animal common
in that country, but never seen by the Romans before the
Punic war, was by Regulus sent to Rome, and hung up in one
of the temples, where it remained till the time of the Numantine
war 2 In the temple of Juno, in the island of Melita, there
.

were a pair of elephant's teeth of extraordinary size, which

were carried away by Masinissa's admiral, and transmitted to
that prince, who, though he set a high value upon them, sent
them back again because he heard they had been taken from
a temple 3 . The head of a basilisc was exhibited in one of the
temples of Diana 4 and the bones of that sea-monster, proba-
;

bly a whale, to which Andromeda was exposed, were preserved

at Joppa, and afterwards brought to Rome 5 In the time of .

Pausanias, the head of the celebrated Calydonian boar was

shown in one of the temples of Greece but it was then de- ;

stitute of bristles, and had suffered considerably by the hand

of time. The monstrous tusks of this animal were brought
to Rome, after the defeat of Antony, by the emperor Au-
gustus, who caused them to be suspended in the temple of
Bacchus 6 Apollonius tells us, that he saw in India some of
.

those nuts which in Greece were preserved in the temples as

curiosities 7 .
It is however, that all these articles, though preserved
certain,
in the temples of the ancients as rarities or memorials of re-
markable events, or as objects calculated to silence unbelief,
were not properly kept there for the purpose to which our
collections of natural curiosities are applied but at the same ;

time it must be allowed that they might be of as much utility

to naturalists, as the tablets, in which patients who had re-
covered thanked the gods for their cures, were to physicians.
1
Lib. xii. cap. 19.
2 Valer. Max. Orosius, cap.
Plin. lib. viii. cap. 12. lib. i. cap. 8. lib. iv.
8. Obsequens de prodigiis, cap. 29. IIujus serpentis maxillae usque
Jul.
ad Numantinum bellum in publico pependisse dicuntur. May not this
animal have been the Boa constrictor ? 3 Cicero in Verrem, iv. cap.

46. Valer. Max. lib. i. 4

Scaliger De Subtilit. lib, xv. exercit. 246.
5 6 Pausanias,
Plin. lib. ix. cap. 5, and v. 13. 31. Strabo, lib. xvi.
n Arcadicis, cap. 46 and 47. 7 Philostrat. in Vita Apollon. lib.

iii. cap. 5. I conjecture that these nuts were cocoa-nuts.

 ;

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 285

We are told by Suetonius,, that the emperor Augustus had

in his palace a collection of natural curiosities'. I, however,

do not remember that any of the ancient naturalists make

mention of their own private collections though it is well ;

known that Alexander gave orders to all huntsmen, bird-

catchers, fishermen and others, to send to Aristotle whatever
animals they could procure 2 and although Pliny was accus-
;

tomed to make observations on such as he had an opportunity

of seeing. No doubt can be entertained that a collection of
natural curiosities was formed by Apuleius, who, next to Ari-
stotle and his scholar Theophrastus, certainly examined natural
objects with the greatest ardour and judgement who caused ;

animals of every kind, and particularly fish, to be brought to

him either dead or alive, in order to describe their external
and internal parts, their number and situation, and to determine
their characteristic peculiarities, and assign names to them
who undertook distant journeys to become acquainted with
the secrets of nature and who on the Getulian mountains
;

collected petrifactions, which he considered as the effects

of Deucalion's flood. It is much to be lamented that the
zoological works of this learned and ingenious man have been
lost.
The principal cause why collections of natural curiosities
were scarce in ancient times,must have been the ignorance of
naturalists in regard to the proper means of preserving such
bodies as soon spoil or corrupt. Some methods were indeed
known and practised, but they were all defective and inferior
to that by spirit of wine, which prevents putrefaction, and which
by its perfect transparency permits objects covered by it to be
at all times viewed and examined. These methods were the
same as those employed to preserve provisions, or the bodies
of great men deceased. They were put into salt brine or
honey, or were covered over with wax.
It appears that in the earliest periods bodies were preserved
from corruption by means of salt 3 and that this practice was
,

long continued. We are told that Pharnaces caused the body

1
Vita August!, 72. 2
c. Plin. lib. viii. cap. 16.
s Plin. lib. xxxi.
cap. 9. Isidorus Origin, lib. xvi. cap. 2. Nitre al90
was employed for the like purpose. Plin. lib. xxxi. cap. 10. Herodot. lib. ii.
Sextus Empiricus in Pyrrhon. Hypotypos. cap. 24. The last author ascribes
this custom to the Persians in particular.
286 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

of his father Mithridates to be deposited in salt brine, in order

that he might transmit it to Pompey Eunapius, who lived
1
.

in the fifth century, relates that the monks preserved the heads
of the martyrs by means of salt 2 and we are informed by
;

Sigebert, who died in 1113, that a like process was pursued

with the body of St. Guibert, that it might be kept during a
journey in summer 3 In the same manner the priests pre-
.

served the sow which afforded a happy omen to ./Eneas, by

having brought forth a litter of thirty pigs, as we are told by
Varro, in whose time the animal was still shown at Lavinium 4 .
A hippocentaur (probably a monstrous birth), caught in
Arabia, was brought alive to Egypt and as it died there, it
;

was, after being preserved in salt brine, sent to Rome to the

emperor, and deposited in his collection, where it was shown
in the time of Pliny, and in that of Phlegon 5 Another hip- .

pocentaur was preserved by the like method, and transmitted

to the emperor Constantine at Antioch 6 and a large ape of;

the species called Pan, sent by the Indians to the emperor

Constantius, happening to die on the road by being shut up
in a cage, was placed in salt, and in that manner conveyed to
Constantinople 7 . This method of preserving natural objects
has been even employed in modern times to prevent large
bodies from being affected by corruption. The hippopotamus
described by Columna was sent to him from Egypt preserved
in salt s .
To put dead bodies in honey, for the purpose of securing
them from is an ancient practice 9 and was used
putrefaction, ,

at an early period by the Assyrians 10 . The body of Agesipolis

king of Sparta, who died in Macedonia, was sent home in
1
Dion
Cassius, lib. xxxvii. cap. 14. See the Life of Pompey in Plutarch,
who adds that the countenance of Mithridates could no longer be distin-
guished, because the persons who embalmed the body in this manner had
2 Eunapius in jEdesio.
forgotten to take out the brain.
4
3 In Acta sancti Guiberti, cap. 6. Varro De Re Rustica, lib. ii. cap. 4.
6
Phlegon Trallian. De Mirabil. cap. 34, 35, adopts in his account the
same expression as that used in the Geoponica, lib. xix. cap. 9, respecting
the preservation of the flesh. Pliny however says, lib. vii. cap. 3, "Nos
principatu Claudii Csesaris allatum illi ex .<Egypto hippocentaurum in melle
vidimus." Perhaps it was placed in honey after its arrival at Rome, in order
6
that it might be better preserved. See Hieronymi Vita Pauli Eremitae.
7 Philostorgii Historia Ecclesiastica, 1643, 4 to, p. 41.
8 Columnae Aquatil. et Terrestr. Observat. cap. 15.
10
,J
Plin. lib. xxii. cap. 24. Strabo, lib. xvi.
 COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 287

honey ', were also the bodies of Agesilaus 2 and Aristobulus 3

as .

The Cleomenes caused the head of Archonides to be

faithless
put in honey, and had it always placed near him when he was
deliberating upon any affair of great importance, in order to
fulfil the oath he had made to undertake nothing without con-

sulting his head 4 According to the account of some authors,

.

the body of Alexander the Great was deposited in honey 5 ,

though others relate that it was embalmed accordingto the

manner of the Egyptians 6 The body of the emperor Justin
.

II. was also placed in honey mixed with spices 7 The wish of .

Democritus to be buried in honey s is likewise a confirmation

of this practice. Honey was often applied in ancient times to
purposes for which we use sugar. It was employed for pre-
serving fruit 9 and this pi-ocess is not disused at present. In
;

order to preserve fresh for many years the celebrated purple

dye of the ancients, honey was poured over it 10 , and certain
worms useful in medicine were kept free from corruption by
the like means". By the same method also were natural
curiosities preserved, such as the hippocentaur already men-
tioned ; and it has been employed in later times, as is proved
by the account given by Alexander ab Alexandro 12 respecting ,

the supposed mermen.

Among the Scythians 13 , Assyrians H and Persians 15 , dead
,

bodies were covered over with wax. That of Agesilaus, be-

cause honey could not be procured, was preserved in this

2
I
Xenophon, Rer. Grac. lib. v. Diodorus Sicuhis, lib. xv.
3 Josepbi Antiq. Jud. lib. xiv. c. 13. De Bello Jud. lib. i. c. 7.
4 yEliani Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 8. 5
Statins, Silv. iii. 2.
n
Curtius, lib. x. cap. 10. ' Corippus De Laudibus Justini II.
s Varro, in Nonius, cap. iii. The following words of Lucretius, b. iii.
ver. 902, "aut in melle sitani suffocari," allude perhaps to the above circum-
9 Columella, xii. 45.
stance. Apicii Ars Coquinar. lib. i. cap. 20.
10
Plutarch in the Life of Alexander relates, that among other valuables
in the treasury at Susa, that conqueror found 5000 talents of the purple
dye. which was perfectly fresh, though nearly two hundred years old, and
that its preservation was ascribed to its being covered with honey. This
account is well illustrated in Mercurialis Var. Lect. lib. vi. cap. 26.
II 12
Plin. lib. xxix. cap. 4. Dier. Genial, lib. iii. cap. 8.
13 Ilerodot. lib. iv. cap. 71. " Ocnvrovai 8'
ev fieXiri, Kriptp
n-FpiTrXcKjavTe's. Sepeliunt in melle, cera cadavere oblito. The bodies
therefore were first covered with wax, and then deposited in honey.
li
Herodot. lib. i. cap. 140. Cicero, Tusc. Quasst. lib. i. Alexandri ab
Alexau. Dier. Genial, lib. iii. cap. 2.
 ;

288 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

manner 1 which indeed ought not

, to be despised even at pre-
sent. When theOrientals are desirous of transporting fish to
any distance, they cover them over with wax 2 ; and the apples
carried every year to the northern parts of Siberia and Arch-
angel, from the southern districts of Russia, are first dipped in
melted wax, which, by forming a thick coat around them,
keeps out the air, and prevents them from spoiling. This
property has in my opinion given rise to the ancient custom
of wrapping up in wax-cloth the dead bodies of persons of
distinction. Linen, or perhaps silk, which had been done over
with wax, was used on such occasions, but not what we at
present distinguish by the name of wax-cloth, which is only
covered with an oil-varnish in imitation of the real kind. The
body of St. Ansbert, we are told, was wrapped up linteo cerato
and a camisole ceratum 3 was drawn over the clothes which
covered that of St. Udalric. When Philip duke of Burgundy
died in 1404<, his body was wrapped up in thirty-two ells de
toile ciree 4 . In an ancient record, respecting the ceremony
to be used in burying the kings of England, it is ordered that
the body shall be wrapped up in wax-cloth 5 In the year .

1774, when the grave of king Edward I., who died in 1307,
was opened, the body was found so closely wrapped up in
wax-cloth, that one could perfectly distinguish the form of the
hand, and the features of the countenance 6 . The body of
Johanna, mother of Edward the Black Prince, who died in
1359, was also wrapped up in cerecloth and in like manner;

the body of Elizabeth Tudor, the second daughter of Henry

1 Plutarchus in Vita Agesilai. The following passage of Quintilian's

understood by most commentators, as
Institut. Orat. lib. vi. cap. 1. 40, is
if the author meant to say that a waxen image of the person deceased, made
by pouring the wax into a mould of gypsum, was exhibited. " Et prolata
novissime, deformitate ipsa (nam ceris cadaver attulerant infusum) prae-
teritam quoque orationis gratiam perdidit." See Turnebi Adversar. lib.
xxix. cap. 1 3. But in my opinion it appears very probable that the body
itself, covered with wax, was carried into the court.
2 Near Damietta are found a kind of mullets, which, after being covered

over with wax, are by these means sent throughout all Turkey, and to dif-
ferent parts of Europe. —
Pocock's Travels.
3 Theophilus Raynaudus de incorruptione cadaverum, in vol. xiii. of the

works of that learned Jesuit, Lugd. 1665.

* Beguillet, Description du Duche de Bourgogne, i. p. 192.
6
Liber Regalis, in the article De exequiis regalibus.
6
Archaeologia, vol. iii. p. 376.
 :;

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 289

VII., was cered by the wax-chandler After the death of

1
.

George II., the apothecary was allowed one hundred and fifty-
two pounds for fine double wax-cloth, and other articles ne-
cessary to embalm the body 2 The books found in the grave
.

of Nurna, as we learn from the Roman historians, though they

had been buried more than five hundred years, were, when
taken up, so entire, that they looked as if perfectly new, because
they had been closely surrounded with wax-candles. Wax-
cloth it is probable was not then known at Rome 3 .

In those centuries usually called the middle ages, I find no

traces of collections of this nature, except in the treasuries of
emperors, kings and princes, where, besides articles of great
value, curiosities of art, antiquities and relics, one sometimes
found scarce and singular foreign animals, which were dried
and preserved. Such objects were to be seen in the old trea-
sury at Vienna and in that of St. Denis was exhibited the
;

claw of a griffin, sent by the king of Persia to Charlemagne

the teeth of the hippopotamus, and other things of the like
kind 4 . In these collections the number of the rarities always
increased in proportion as a taste for natural history became
more prevalent, and as the extension of commerce afforded
better opportunities for procuring the productions of remote
countries. Menageries were established to add to the magni-

1
Dart's "Westminster, ii. p. 28.
2 In the account of the funeral expenses stands the following article
" To Thomas Graham, apothecary to his majesty, for a fine double cerecloth,
with a large quantity of very rich perfumed aromatic powders, &c, for
embalming his late majesty's royal body, 152J." See Archseologia, ut supra,
p. 402.
3 Pliny, b. xiii. chap. 13, relates the same thing,
Livius, lib. xl. cap. 29.
withalittlevariation, respecting the annals of Cassius Hemina: "Mirabantur
alii, quomodo illi libri durare potuissent. Ille ita rationem reddebat ; la-
pidem fuisse quadratum circiter in media area vinctum candelis quoquover-
sus. In eo lapide insuper libros impositos fuisse, propterea arbitrari eos
non computruisse. Et libros citratos fuisse, propterea arbitrarier tineas non
tetigisse."— Hardouin thinks that libri citrati were books in -which folia citri
were placed to preserve them from insects. The first editions however have
libri cedrati, and even the paper itself may have been covered over with
some resinous substance. The scarce edition which I received as a present
from Professor Bause at Moscow, Opus impressum per Joan. Rubeum et
Bernardinum Fratresque Vercellenses 1507, fol. has in page 98 the word
caedratos, and in the margin caeraios,
4 A catalogue of this
collection may be found in the second volume of
Valentin's Museum Museorum.
VOL. I. U
 290 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ficence of courts, and the stuffed skins of rare animals were

hung up as memorials of their having existed. Public libraries
also were made receptacles for such natural curiosities as were
from time to time presented to them ; and as in universities
the faculty of medicine had a hall appropriated for the dissec-
tion of human bodies, curiosities from the animal kingdom
were collected there also by degrees and it is probable that
;

-the professors of anatomy first made attempts to preserve dif-

ferent parts of animals in spirit of wine, as they were obliged
to keep them by them for the use of their pupils ; and because
in old times dead bodies were not given up to them as at
present, and were more difficult to be obtained.
At a later period collections of natural curiosities began to
be formed by private persons. The object of them at first
appears to have been rather to gratify the sight than to im-
prove the understanding and they contained more rarities of
;

art, valuable pieces of workmanship and antiquities, than pro-

ductions of nature. It is certain that such collections were
first made in places where many families had been enriched
without much labour by trade and manufactures, and who, it
is likely, might wish to procure to themselves consequence and
respect by expending money in this manner. It is not impro-
bable that such collections were formed, though not first, as
Stetten thinks , at a very early period at Augsburg, and this
1

taste was soon spread into other opulent cities and states.
Private collections, however, appear for the first time in the
sixteenth century and there is no doubt that they were formed
;

by every learned man who at that period applied to the study

of natural history. Among these were Hen. Cor. Agrippa
of Nettesheim ; Nic. Monardes, Paracelsus, Val. Cordus-,
Hier. Cardan, Matthiolus, 1577; Conrad Gesner, George Agri-
1 Von Stettens Kunstg;schi elite von Augsburg,
p. 218. 362.
2 With how much care thislearned man, who died in 1544, in the twenty-

ninth year of his age, collected minerals and plants is proved by his Silva
Observationum Variarum, qur.s inter peregrinandum brevissime notavit.
"Walch, in his Naturgeschichte (lev Versteinerungen, considers it as the first
general oryctography of Germany, and is surprised that so extensive a wo« k -

should have been thought of at that period. Wallerius, in his Lucubratio

de Systematibus Mineralogicis, llohnise, 17G8, 8vo, p. 27, considers this
Silva as a systematic description of all minerals. Both however are mis-
taken. Cordus undertook a journey in 1542, through some parts of Ger-
many, and drew up a short catalogue without order, of the natural objects
lie met with in the course of his travels, which was published by Conrad
 ;

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES; 291

cola, 1555 l
; 1564; W. Rondelet, 1566 Thur-
Pet. Bellon, ;

neisser 2 ; Abraham 1598 3 and man}' others. That

Ortelius, ;

such collections were formed also in England 4 during the

above century, is proved by the catalogue which Hakluyt used
for his works.
The oldest catalogues of private collections which I remem-
ber, are the following Samuel Quickelberg, a physician from
:

Antwerp, who about the year 1553 resided at Ingolstadt, and

was much esteemed by the duke of Bavaria, published in
quarto at Munich in 1565, Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri
Amplissimi, complectentis Rerum Universitatis singulas Ma-
terias et Imagines. This pamphlet contained only the plan of
a large work, in which he intended to give a description of all
the rarities of nature and art. I have never had an opportu-
nity of seeing it. I am acquainted only with a copious extract
from it, which induces me to doubt whether Walch was right
in giving it out as a catalogue of the author's collection 5 .
The same year, 1565, John Kentmann, a learned physician
in Torgau, sent a catalogue of his collection, which consisted
principally of minerals and shells, to Conrad Gesner, who
caused it to be printed 6 . The order observed in it is princi-
Gesner, together with the other works of this industrious man, at Strasburg
in 1561. This book, which I have in my possession, has in the title page,
In hoc volumine continetur Valerii Cordi in Dioscoridis libros de Medica
Materia; ejusdem Historise Stirpium, &c. The Silva begins page 217.
1
That Agricola had a good collection, may be concluded from his wri-
tings, in which he describes minerals according to their external appearance,
and mentions the places where they are found.
2 H. Mohsen says in his
Account of Mark Brandenburg, Berlin, 1783,
4to, p. 142. Thurneisser is the first person, as far as is known at present,
who in this country formed a collection of natural curiosities.
3 " Ortelius habebat domi
suae imagines, statuas, nummos conchas ab
ipsis Indis et Antipodibus, marmora omnis coloris, spiras testudineas tantae
magnitudinis, ut decern ex iis viri in orbem sedentes cibum sumere possent
alias rursum ita angustas, ut vix magnitudinem capitelli unius acicuii adse-
—
quarent." M. Adami Vitas Germ. Philos. Heidelb. 1615, 8vo, p. 431.
4 See Biographia
Britannica, vol. iv. p. 2469. [The names of our early
English collectors, Tradescant, Ashmole, Petiver, and Sir Hans Sloane,
though a little later than the period alluded to, deserve to be recorded here.]
5
This extract may be seen in D. G. Molleri Dissert, de Technophysio-
tameis, Altorfi, 1704, p. 18. Some account of Quickelberg may be found
in Sweertii Athenae Belgicae, Antv. 1628, fol. p. 671 ; in Val. Andreas Biblio-
theca Belgica, Lov. 1643, 4to, p. 806 ; and in Simleri Bibliotheca Instituta
a Gesnero, Tiguri, 1574, fol. p. 617.
6
De Omni Rerum Fossilium Genere, op. Conr. Gesneri. Tig. 1565, 8vo.
292 HISTORIC OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

pally borrowed from Agricola. This collection, however, was

not extensive. It was contained in a cabinet composed of thir-
teen drawers, each divided lengthwise into two partitions, and
the number of the articles, among which, besides minerals, there
were various productions found in mines and marine bodies,
amounted to about sixteen hundred. It must however have
been considerable for that period, as the collector tells us he laid
out sums in forming it which few could be able to expend ; and '

as Jacob Fabricius, in order tosee it, undertook a journey from

Chemnitz to Torgau 2 About this time lived in France that
.

ingenious and intelligent potter, Bernard Palissy, who collected

all kinds of natural and artificial rarities, and published a cata-
logue of them, which he made his guide in the study of natural
history 3 Michael Mercati, a physician, who was contemporary,
.

formed also in Italy a large collection of natural curiosities,,

and wrote a very copious description of them, which was first
printed about the beginning of the last century 4 . The collec-
tion of Ferdinand Imperati, a Neapolitan, the description of
which was printed for the first time in 1599, belongs to the
same period ; and likewise the large collection of Fran. Cal-
1
He says in the preface, " Thesaurum fossilium multis impensis collegi,
paucis eomparabilem."
2 This is related by Jacob Fabricius, in the preface to the treatise of his

brother George Fabricius De Metallicis Rebus, which may be found in

Gesner's collection before quoted.
3 This catalogue is printed in (Euvres de B. Palissy. Par M. Faujas de
Saint-Fond e.t Gobet. Paris, 1777, 4to, p. 691. [Quite recently a new
edition of Palissy's works, together with an account of the life of this
remarkable man by M. Cap, has been published at Paris. Palissy, after
long devoting his services to the king and some of the royal family, was
shut up in the Bastille on account of his religion. It is said that one day
Henry III., having visited him in his prison, spoke to him thus " My good
:

man, you have been for forty-five years in my mother's and my service. We
have suffered you to live in your religion amidst fires and massacres now :

I am so strongly urged by the Guise party and by my people, that lam con-
strained'to leave you in the hands of my enemies, and to-morrow you will be
burnt if you are not converted." " Sire," replied Bernard, " I am ready to
lay down my life for the glory of God. You have often told me that you
pitied me and now I pity you, who have uttered these words, / am con-
;
'

strained !
Sire, it is not speaking like a king and it is what you yourself,
' ;

those who constrain you, the Guisards, and all your people, could never
compel me to for I know how to die." Palissy died indeed in the Bas-
;

tille, but a natural death, in 1 589. Thus ended a career illustrious alike for
4
great talents and rare virtues.] Mercati Metallotheca. Romaj, 1717,
fol. to which an appendix was added in 1719.
 COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES. 293

ceolari of Verona, the catalogue of which was first printed in

1584 1 . Walch and some others mention the catalogue of
Brackenhofter's collection as one of the earliest, but it was
printed for the first time only in 1677.
[The Tradescants, father and son, are celebrated as being
among the first collectors of rarities in this country, which
they deposited during their lives in a large house situate in the
parish of Lambeth. This became a place of fashionable resort
fromthe curiosities it contained, and obtained the appellation of
Tradescant's ark. A
catalogue of its contents was printed in
1656 under the title of Museum Tradescantium. In 1659 this
collection was purchased by Elias Ashmole, who presented
it, together with his books, MSS., and other rarities, to the

University of Oxford in 1683, thereby commencing the now

celebrated Ashmolean Museum.
About the same period, James Petiver, still celebrated for
his curious and interesting botanical publications, made exten-
sive collections of natural curiosities, employing captains, ship-
surgeons, merchants, &c. to bring him whatever they could find
suitable to his museum, at almost any cost. He kept up an
extensive correspondence in pursuit of this object, and even-
tually formed one of the finest collections hitherto made in
England. At his death it was purchased by that celebrated
naturalist, Sir Hans Sloane, and thus became the foundation
of perhaps the most important collection in Europe the —
Buitish Museum.
Sir Hans Sloane, after having accompanied the duke of
Albemarle to Jamaica as physician, was elected on his return
to this country to succeed Sir Isaac Newton as president of the
Royal Society. He was born in 1660, and died on the 11th
of January, 1752. Having with great labour and expense
during the course of his long life collected a rich cabinet oi
medals, objects of natural history, &c, and a valuable library
of books and MSS., he bequeathed the whole to the public on
1
Joh. Baptistse Olivi de reconditis et prsecipuis collectaneis a Franc.
Calceolario in Museo adservatis testificatio ad Hieron. Mercurialem. Venet.
1584, 4to. An edition was published also at Verona in quarto, in 1593. The
complete description was however first printed at Verona in a small folio, in
1622 Musaeum Calceolarianum Veronense. Maffei,in his Verona Illustrat.
;

Veron. 1732, fol. p. 202, says, " Galceolari fu de' primi, che raccoglien-
do grandissima quantita d'erbe, piante, minerali, animali diseccati, droghe
rare, cose impetrite.ed altreraritanaturali, formassemuseo diquestogenere."
 ———

294 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

condition that the sum of £20,000 should be paid to his

executors, being little more than the intrinsic value of the
medals, metallic ores and precious stones comprised in his
collection. Parliament fulfilled the terms of the legacy, and
in 1753 an act was passed "for the purchase of the museum
or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart, and of the Harleian
collection of MSS., and for procuring one general repository
for the better reception and more convenient use of the said
collection, and of the Cottonian library and additions thereto."
Such was the commencement of the British Museum, every
department of which has since been vastly augmented. The
printed books alone occupy Ten Miles of Shelf, and owing
to our connexions with every part of the globe, it vies in the
variety and number of objects of natural history with the most
celebrated museums of the world. The interest taken in these
collections by the public is evident from the number of persons
who visited them from Christmas 1844 to Christmas 1845,
amounting to nothan 685,614.
less
Nor should we omit to mention the collection of curiosities, &c.
formed by James Salter, more commonly known by the name
of Don Saltero. They were exhibited to the public at his Coffee-
house, Cheyne-Walk, Chelsea, which was first opened about the
year 1695. It was a very mixed collection of saints' bones, mo-
dels, carved ivory, and objects of natural history. The following
announcement, printed in the Weekly Journal for June 22, 1723,
may be regarded as containing the most positive and authentic
information concerning this establishment, inasmuch as it ap-
pears to have been sanctioned by the proprietor himself.
Sir. — Fifty years since to Chelsea Great,
From Rodman, on the Irish Main,
I with maggots in my pate,
stroll'd,
"Where, much improved, they still remain.
Through various employs I've past,
A scraper, virtuos', projector.
—
Tooth-drawer, trimmer, and at last
I 'm now a gim-crack-whim collector.
Monsters of all sorts here are seen,
Strange things in nature as they grew so :

Some relicks of the Slieba Queen,

And fragments of the famed Bob Crusoe.
Knick-knacks, too, dangle round the wall,
Some in glass-cases, some on shelf;
But, what 's the rarest sight of all,
Your humble servant shows Himself.
 :

CHIMNEYS. 295

On this my clriefest hope depends,

Now, if you will my cause espouse,
In journals pray direct your friends
To my Museum — Coffee-house.
And, in requital for the timely favour,
I '11 gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver
Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tarry,
—
And you shine bright as I do, Marry shall ye !

Freely consult your Revelation Molly, —

Nor shall one jealous thought a huff,
For she has taught me manners long enough.
Chelsea Knackatory. Don Saltero."
A engraving of Salter's house, with a description and
fine
catalogue of his collection, will be found in Smith's Historical
and Literary Curiosities.]

CHIMNEYS.
Notwithstanding the magnificence of the Grecian and Ro-
man architecture, which we still admire in those ruins that
remain as monuments of the talents and genius of the ancient
builders, it is very doubtful whether their common dwelling-

houses had chimneys, that is, passages or funnels formed in

the walls for conveying away the smoke from the fire-place or
stoves through the different stories to the summit of the edifice;
conveniences which are not wanting in the meanest of our
houses at present, and in the smallest of our villages. This
question some have pretended to determine without much
labour or research. How can we suppose, say they, that the
Romans, our masters in the art of building, should not have
devised and invented some means to keep free from smoke
their elegant habitations, which were furnished and ornament-
ed in a splendid and costly manner ? How is it possible that
a people who purchased ease and convenience at the greatest
expense, should suffer their apartments to be filled with smoke,
which must have allowed them to enjoy scarcely a moment of
pleasure ? And how could their cooks dress in smoky kitchens
the various sumptuous dishes with which the most refined ;
296 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

voluptuaries covered their tables ? One must however be very

little acquainted with the history of inventions and manners,
to consider such bare conjectures as decisive proofs. It is un-
doubtedly certain, that many of our common necessaries were
for many centuries unknown to the most enlightened nations,
and that they are in part still wanting in some countries at
present. Besides, it is probable that before the invention ol
chimneys, other means, now forgotten, were employed to re-
move smoke.
The ancient mason-work still to be found in Italy does not
determine the question. Of the walls of towns, temples, am-
phitheatres, baths, aqueducts and bridges, there are some
though very imperfect remains, in which chimneys cannot be
expected but of common dwelling-houses none are to be
;

seen, except at Herculaneum, and there no traces of chimneys

have been discovered The paintings and pieces of sculpture
1
.

which are preserved, afford us as little information for nothing

;

can be perceived in them that bears the smallest resemblance

to a modern chimney. If the writings of the ancients are to
be referred to, we must collect from the works of the Greek
and Roman authors whatever seems allusive to the subject.
This indeed has been already done by various men of learn-
ing 1 but the greater part of them seem to deduce more from
;

1 Winkelmann in his Observations on the Baths of the Ancients.

2 The following are the principal authors in whose works information is
to be found respecting this subject :
—Octavii Ferrarii Electorum libri duo.
Patavii 1679, 4to. This work consists of short treatises on different sub-
jects of antiquity. The ninth chapter of the first book, page 32, has for
title, " Fumaria, seu fumi emissaria, vulgo caminos, apud veteres in usu
fuisse, disputatur."
Justi Lipsii Epistolarum selectarum Chilias, 1613, 8vo. The seventy-
fifth letter in Centuria tertia ad Belgas, page 921, treats of chimneys, with
which the author says the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted.
Eberharti a Weyhe Parergon De Camino. To save my readers the trouble
which I have had in searching for this small treatise, I shall give them the
following information E. von Weyhe was a learned nobleman ot our elec-
:

torate, a particular account of whose life and writings maybe found in Mol-
leri Cimbria Litterata, vol.ii. p. 970. In the year 1612 he published Dis-
cursus de speculi origine, usu et abusu, Eberharti von Weyhe. This edi-
tion contains nothing on chimneys, nor is there any tiling to be found re-
specting them in the second, inserted in Dornavii Amphitheatrum Sapien-
tiae Socraticae Joco-seriae, Hanoviae 1619, fol. i. p. 733. But this treatise
was twice printed afterwards, as an appendix to the author's Aulicus Poli-
ticus ; Francf. 1615, and Wolfenb. 1622, in quarto ; and in both these edi-
 CHIMNEYS. 297

the passages they quote than can be admitted by those who

read and examine them without prejudice. I shall here pre-
sent them to my readers, that they may have an opportunity
of judging for themselves.
Weare told by Homer, that Ulysses, when in the grotto of
Calypso, wished that he might see the smoke ascending from
Ithaca, that is, he wished to be in sight of the island . Mont-
l

faucon is of opinion that this wish is unintelligible unless it

be allowed that the houses of Ithaca had chimneys. But can-
not smoke be seen to rise also when it makes its way through
tions may be found Parergon de camino, inquirendi causa ad-
at the end,
jectum. In this short essay, which consists of only two pages, the author
denies that the Jews, the Greeks, or the Romans had chimneys. Fabricius,
in his Bibliograph. Antiquaria, does not quote Von Weyhe, either p. 1004,
where he speaks of chimneys, or page 1014, where he speaks of looking-
glasses.
Balthasaris Bonifacii Ludicra Historia. Venetiis 1 652, 4to, lib. iii. cap. 23.
De Caminis, p. 109. What this author says on the subject is of little im-
portance.
Jo. Heringii Tractatus de molendinis eorumque jure, Francf. 1663, 4to.
P. Manutii Comment, in Ciceronis Epist. Familiar, lib. vii. epist. 10, de-
cides against chimneys, and speaks of the manner of warming apartments.
Petronii Satyricon, cura Burmanni, Amst. 1743, 4to, i. p. 836. Burmann,
on good grounds, is of opinion that the ancients had not chimneys.
Martini Lexicon Philologicum. Franc. 1655, fol. article Caminus.
Pancirollus De Rebus deperditis, ed. Salmuth, vol. i. tit. 33, p. 77.
Montfaucon, l'Antiquite expliquee, vol. i. p. 102. Montfaucon believes
that the ancients had chimneys.
Pitisci Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanarum, fol. The whole article Ca-
minus is transcribed from Lipsius, Ferrarius, and others, without the
author's own opinion.
Muratori, Antiquitates Italise Medii /Evi, ii. p. 418.
Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis aula? Byzantinse, t. ii. Lipsise, 1754, fol.
in Reiskii Commentar. p. 125.
Encyclopedie, tome troisieme, Paris, 1753, fol. p. 281.
Deutsche Encyclopedie, vol. iv. Frank. 1780, 4to, p. 823.
Maternus von Cilano, Romische Alterthumer, vol. iv. Altona, 1776, 8vo,
p. 945. This author is of opinion that chimneys were used by the Greeks,
but not by the Romans.
Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne, par Jean le Clerc, torn. xiii. 1720,
part i. p. 56. The author gives an extract from Montfaucon, which con-
tains a great many new observations.
Zanetti dell' origine di alcune arti principali appresso i Veneziani. Ve-
nezia, 1758, 4to, p. 78.
Raccolta d' opuscoli scientifici e filologici. Venezia, 1752, 12mo, tom.xlviL
A Treatise on Chimneys by Scip. Maffei is to be found page 67.
1
Odyss. lib. i. ver. 58.
298 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

doors and windows? When navigators at sea observe smoke

arising, they conclude that they are in the neighbourhood of
inhabited land ; but no one undoubtedly will thence infer, that
the habitations of the people have chimneys.
Herodotus 1 relates that a king of Lebsea, when one of his
servants asked for his wages, offered him in jest the sun, which
at that time shone into the house through the chimney, as
some have translated the original but it appears that what is
;

here called chimney, was nothing more than an opening in the

roof, under which, perhaps, the fire was made in the middle
of the edifice. Through a high chimney, of the same form as
those used at present, the sun certainly could not throw his
rays on the floor of any apartment.
In the Vespse of Aristophanes 2, old Philocleon wishes to
escape through the kitchen. Some one asks, " What is that
which makes a noise in the chimney ? " "I am the smoke,"
replies the old man, " and am endeavouring to get out at the
chimney." This passage, however, which, according to the
usual translation, seems to allude to a common chimney, can,
in my opinion, especially when we consider the illustration
of the scholiasts, be explained also by a simple hole in the
roof, as Reiske has determined and indeed this appears to be
;

more probable, as we find mention made of a top or covering

with which the hole was closed.
In a passage of the poet Alexis, who lived in the time of
Alexander the Great, quoted by Athenseus 3 , some one asks,
u Boy, is there a kitchen ? Has it a chimney ? " " Yes, but it
is a bad one —
the eyes will suffer." The question here alludes
without doubt to a passage for carrying off smoke but in- ;

formation is not given us sufficient to determine its form and

construction. Athenseus has preserved also a passage of the
poet Diphilus *, in which a parasite says, when he is invited to
the house of a rich man, he does not look at the magnificence
of the building or the elegance of the furniture, but to the
smoke of the kitchen. "If I see it," adds he, " rising up in
abundance, quick and in a straight column, my heart is re-
joiced, for I expect a good supper." In this passage, however,
which according to Maternus is clearly in favour of chimneys,
I can find as little proof as in the words of the poet Sosipater,

1 " 3 Lib.ix. p. 386. * Lib. 236.

Lib. viii. c. 137. Ver. 139. vi. p.
 CHIMNEYS. 299

quoted likewise by Athenasus x, who reckons the art of deter-

mining which way the wind blows to be a part of the know-
ledge requisite in a perfect cook. " He must know," says he,
" to discover from what quarter it comes, for when the smoke
is driven about it spoils many kinds of dishes." Instead of
agreeing with Ferrarius that this quotation seems to show that
the houses of the ancients were provided with chimneys, I
conclude rather from it, that they were not for, had there ;

been chimneys in their kitchens, the cooks must have left the
smoke to make its way through them without giving them-
selves any trouble but if they were destitute of these conve-
;

niences, it would be necessary for them to afford it some other

passage it would consequently be the business of the cook to
;

consider on what side it would be most advantageous to open

a door or a window and in this he would undoubtedly be
;

guided by the direction of the wind. That this really was the
case, appears from a Greek epigram, which by an ingenious
thought, gives us an idea of the passage of smoke through a
window 2 .

These, as far as I know, are all the passages which have

been collected from Greek authors respecting this question.
But instead of proving that the houses of the ancients were
built with chimneys, they seem much rather to show the con-
trary especially when we consider what the Roman writers
:

have said on the same subject for the information of the

;

latter, taken together, affords good gi^ounds to believe that no

chimneys were to be found in the houses at Rome, at least at
the time when these authors wrote and this certainly would
;

not have been the case had the Romans ever seen chimneys
among the Greeks. I shall now lay before my readers those
passages which appear on the first view to refute my con-
jecture.
When caused those who had
the triumviri, says Appian
3
,

been proscribed by them be sought out by the military,

to
some of them, to avoid the bloody hands of their persecutors,
hid themselves in wells, and others, as Ferrarius translates the
words, " in fumaria sub tecto, qua scilicet fumus e tecto evol-
vitur." The true translation however is " fumosa caenacula."
The principal persons of Rome endeavoured to conceal them-
1
Lib. ix. p. 378. 2 Antholog. lib. ii. cap. 32. p. 229.
s De Bellis Civil, lib. iv. p. 962, edit. Tollii.
 ;

300 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

smoky apartments of the upper story under the

selves in the
roof,which in general were inhabited only by poor people
and this seems to be confirmed by what Juvenal expressly i

says, " Rams venit in ca?nacula miles."

Those passages of the ancients which speak of smoke rising
up from houses have with equal impropriety been supposed
to allude to chimneys, as if the smoke could not make its way
through doors and windows. Seneca 2 writes, " Last evening
I had some friends with me, and on that account a stronger
smoke was raised not such a smoke however as bursts forth
;

from the kitchens of the great, and which alarms the watch-
men, but such a one as signifies that guests are arrived."
Those whose judgements are not already warped by prejudice,
will undoubtedly find the true sense of these words to be, that
the smoke forced its way through the kitchen windows. Had
the houses been built with chimney-funnels, one cannot con-
ceive why the watchmen should have been alarmed when they
observed a stronger smoke than usual arising from them ; but
as the kitchens had no conveniences of that kind, an appre-
hension of fire, when extraordinary entertainments were to be
provided in the houses of the rich for large companies, seems
to have been well-founded and on such occasions people
;

appointed for that purpose were stationed in the neighbour-

hood to be constantly on the watch, and to be ready to ex-
tinguish the flames in case a fire should happen 3 . There are
many other passages to be found in Roman authors of the
like kind, which it is hardly necessary to mention, such as that
of Virgil 4 :
Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant.

and the following words of Plautus 5 descriptive of a miser:

Quia divum atque hominum clamat contimio fidem,
Suam rem periisse, seque eradicarier,
De suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras.

1
Sat.x. ver. 17. 2 Epist. 64.
3
Such fire-watchmen were appointed by the emperor Augustus. Sue- —
ton, in Vit. Octav. August, cap. 30. That these watchmen, whom the sol-
diers in ridicule called Sparteoli, were stationed in the neighbourhood
of houses where there were grand entertainments, is proved by Tertulliani
Apologet. cap. xxxix. p. 188, edit. De la Cerda. Compare also Casaubon's
annotations on the passage of Suetonius above quoted.
4
Eclog. i. ver. 83. fi
Aulular. act. ii. sc. 4.
 : ;

CHIMNEYS. 301

If there were no funnels in the houses of the ancients to carry

off the smoke, the directions given by Columella to make
kitchens so high that the roof should not catch fire, was of the
utmost importance '. An accident of the kind, which that
author seems to have apprehended, had almost happened at
Beneventum, when the landlord who entertained Maecenas
and his company was making a strong fire in order to get some
birds sooner roasted
ubi sedulus hospes
Paene macros dum turdos versat in igne
arsit,
Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinam
Vulcano summum properabat lambere tectum 2 .

Had there been chimneys in the Roman houses, Vitruvius

certainly would not have failed to describe their construction,
which is sometimes attended with considerable difficulties, and
which is intimately connected with the regulation of the plan
of the whole edifice. He does not, however, say a word on
this subject ; neither does Julius Pollux, who has collected
with great care the Greek names of every part of a dwelling-
house and Grapaldus, who in later times made a like collec-
;

tion of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive
of a modern chimney 3
I shall hpre answer an objection which may be made, that
the word caminus means a chimney ; and I shall also explain
what methods the ancients, and particularly the Romans, em-
ployed without chimneys to warm their apartments. Caminus
signified, as far as I have been able to learn, first a chemical
or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible was placed for
melting and refining metals. It signified also a smith's forge 4 .
It signified likewise, without doubt, a hearth, or as we talk at
present, a fire-place, which served for warming the apartment
in which it was constructed and for that purpose portable
;

stoves or fire-pans were also employed. These were either

filled with burning coals, or wood was lighted in them, and,
when burned to coal, was carried into the apartment. In all
these however there appears no trace of a chimney.
The complaints often made by the ancients respecting
smoke serve also to confirm the opinion that they had no
1
De Re Rustica, lib. i. cap. 6.
2 Horat. lib. i. sat. 5. 3 Grapaldus Ue PartibusiEdium.
4 Plm. xxxiii. cap. 4. Virgil. Ma. iii.ver. 580. Juvenal, sat. xiv. ver. 117.
 ;

302 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

chimneys. Vitruvius where he speaks of ornamenting and

1
,

fittingup apartments, says expressly, that there ought to be

no carved work or mouldings, but plain cornices, in rooms
where fire is made and many lights burned, because they will
soon be covered with soot, and therefore will require to be
often cleaned. On the other hand, he allows carving in sum-
mer apartments, where the effects of smoke are not to be ap-
prehended. The moderns, however, who use chimneys, orna-
ment the borders of them with carving, painting and gilding,
nor are they injured by the smoke but we find that among ;

the ancients, furniture of every kind, ceilings and walls were

soon covered over with soot and from this even the images
;

of their ancestors, imagines tnajorum, were not secure, which,

though they were to be found only in the houses of the great,
and stood in niches in the atrium* or hall, became black with
smoke, and on that account were justly named fumosce 3 The .

smoke therefore must have been blown very much about, and
carried into every apartment. In the houses of the opulent,
care in all probability was employed to keep them clean but ;

the habitations of families who did not belong to the common

or poorest classes, are represented as smoky and black and ;

we are told that their walls and ceilings were full of soot.
They were therefore called black houses, as in Russia the huts
of the common people, which are furnished with paltry stoves,
and which are blackened in the same manner by the smoke of
the fir- wood used in them for fuel, are called black huts 4 .
1
Lib. vii. cap. 3.
2 The name atrium had from the walls of such places being black
its rise
with smoke. Isidorus, xv. 3. This derivation is given also bv Servius,
JEn. lib. i. ver. 730.
3 Seneca, ep. 44. Cicero Pison. cap. i.mJuvenal, sat. viii. ver. 6.
4 In the Equites of Aristophanes the houses
of the common people are
called yvwai and yvTrdpLa, because ymp signifies fuliginosum or fuscum.
On account of the smoke they were called also fiekaQpa. Lycophron, 770,
and 1190. MeXaQpov al9a\6ev, domicilium fuliginosum, occurs in Homer,
Iliad, ii. ver. 414, of which expression and i. ver. 204, the scholiast very
properly gives the following explanation cnro rov fie\aivea9ai vivo tov
:

kottvov, quoniam a fumo reddebantur nigraj. For the same reason, ac-
cording to the scholiasts, Apollonius Rhodius, lib. ii. ver. 1089, calls the
middle beam of the roof fieXaGpov. Columella, i. 17, says, " Fuligo quae
supra focos tectis inhseret " among us the soot adheres to the funnel of the
:

chimney, and not to the roof or ceiling.

Tecta 6enis subeunt, nigro deformia fumo
Ignis in hesterno stipite parvus erat. Ovid. Fast. — lib. v. 505.
 —

CHIMNEYS. , 303

As the houses of the ancients were so smoky, it may be

easily comprehended how, by means of smoke, they could dry
and harden, not only various articles used as food, but also
different pieces of timber employed for making all sorts of
large and small implements. In this manner was prepared the
wood destined for ploughs, waggons, and ships, and particu-
larly that of which rudders were formed '. For this reason
pantries for flesh and wine, and also coops to hold fowls, which
were said to thrive by smoke, were constructed near the
kitchen, where it always abounded 2 and on the other hand,
;

it was necessary to remove to a distance from kitchens, apart-

ments destined for the purpose of preserving such articles as

were liable to be spoiled by smoke 3 but among us the case
:

is widely different, for we often have neat and elegant apart-

ments in the neighbourhood of the kitchen.

From what has been said it will readily appear why the
ancients kept by them such quantities of hard wood, which,
when burning, does not occasion smoke. The same kind is
even sought after at present, and on this account we value
that of the white and common willow, Salix alba and trian-
dra because when burned in our chimneys, it makes little
;

smoke, and throws out fewest sparks. The great trouble, how-
ever, which was taken in old times to procure wood that would

In cujus hospitio nee fumi nee nidoris nebulam vererer. —Apuleii Metam. 1.

Sordidum flammse trepidant rotantes

Vertice fumum. —Horat. iv. od. 11.

It may be here said, that the above passages allude to the hovels of the
poor, •which are black enough among us. These are not, however, all so
smoky and so covered with soot both without and within for though this
;

may be the case in some villages, the houses of the common people in our
cities may be called dirty rather than smoky. These passages of Roman
authors speak principally of town-houses. The house in which Horace
wished to entertain his Phyllis was not a mean one, for, he tells her a little
before, " Bidet argento domus." [Black huts or hovels, such as are de-
scribed in the above remarks, having merely a hole in the roof, or an open
window for the escape of smoke, are still common in Ireland, and in some
of the less-frequented villages of the Continent. Indeed they are met with
even in England. But in all cases the buildings appear to be very ancient.]
1
Hesiodi Op. ver. 627. Virgilii Georg. lib. i. 175.
2 Columella, i.
6, et viii. cap. 3.
3
Columella, lib. i. cap. 6, p. 405. Artificial heat could not be employed
to prevent oil from becoming clotted by being frozen for it was liable to be
;

h,urt by soot and smoke, the constant attendants of artificial warming.

Columella, lib. i. cap. 6.
 —

304? HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

not smoke, clearly proves that this was much more necessary
in those periods than at present. It was customary to peel off
the bark from the wood, to let it lie afterwards a long time in
water, and then to suffer it to dry '. This process must un-
doubtedly have proved of great service, for we know that
wood which has been conveyed by water, in floats, kindles
more readily, burns brisker, and throws out less smoke than
that which has been transported from the forest in waggons.
Another method, much employed, of rendering wood less apt
to smoke, was to soak it in oil or oil-lees, or to pour oil over
it 2 . With the like view, wood, before it was used, Mas hard-
ened or scorched over the fire, until it lost the greater part of
its moisture, without being entirely reduced to charcoal. This
method is still employed with advantage in glass-houses and
porcelain manufactories, where there are stoves made on pur-
pose to dry wood. Such scorched wood appears to be that to
which the ancients gave the name of ligna coda or coctilia 3 .
It was sold in particular warehouses at Rome, called tabemce
eoctiliaricc, and the preparing as well as the selling of it formed
an employment followed by the common people, and which,
as we are told, was carried on by the father of the emperor
Pertinax 4 . When it was necessary to kindle fire without
wood prepared in that manner, an article probably too expen-
This method of preparing wood is described by Theophrastus, Hist.
1

2 Cato De Re Rust. cap. 130. Pliny, lib.

Plant, lib. xv. cap. 10. xv. cap. 8.
3
Such wood in Greek was called aKcnrra, in Latin acapna, in Homer's
Odyssey, book vi. KayKava and Savd, Pollux, p. 621, Ka.vmfi.et. This wood
is mentioned also by Galen, in Antidot. lib. i. Trebellius Pollio in Vita
Claudii, in an account of the firing allowed to him when a tribune, shows
that wood was given out or sold by weight, as it is at present at Amster-

dam. On the other hand, the coctilia were measured like coals. Martial,
lib. xiii. ep. 15 : Ligna acapna :

Si vicina tibi Nomento rura coluntur,

Ad villam moneo, rustice, ligna feres.

It would seem that in the above-mentioned neighbourhood there was no

wood propei for fuel, so that people were obliged to purchase that which
had been dried. Some hence conclude that the acapna must not have been
dear, because it is recommended to a countryman. But the advice here
given is addressed to the possessor of a farm who certainly could afford to
purchase dried wood.
4 Capitolinus says before, that the
Jul. Capitol, in Vita Pertin. cap. iii.
father carried on lignariam negotiationem. See the annotations of Salma-
fiius and Casaubon.
 CHIMNEYS. 305

sive for indigent families, we find complaints of smoke which

brought on a watering of the eyes and this was the case with
;

Horace at a paltry inn where he happened to stop when on a

journey '.
The information which can be collected from the Greek
and Roman authors respecting the manner in which the an-
cients warmed their apartments, however imperfect, never-
theless shows that they commonly used for that purpose a
large fire-pan or portable stove, in which they kindled wood,
and, when the wood was well-lighted, carried it into the room,
or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander the
Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather
was cold and raw, a small fire-bason was brought into the
apartment to warm it. The prince, observing the size of the
vessel, and that it contained only a few coals, desired his host,
in a jeering manner, to bring more wood or frankincense,
giving him thus to understand that the fire was fitter for burn-
ing perfumes than to produce heat 2 Anacharsis, the Scythian
.

philosopher, though displeased with many of the Grecian cus-

toms, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut out the
smoke and brought only fire into their houses 3 We are in- .

formed by Lampridius, that the extravagant Heliogabalus

caused to be burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian
spiceries and costly perfumes 4 It is also worthy of notice,
.

that coals were found in some of the apartments of Hercula-

neum, as we are told by Winkelmann, but neither stoves aor
chimneys. As in Persia and other countries of the East no
stoves made in the European manner are used at present, and
as it is certain that the manners, customs and furniture of the
early ages have been retained there almost without variation,
Ave have reason to suppose that the methods employed by the
inhabitants for warming themselves are the same as those used
by the ancients. They agree perfectly with the descriptions
given by the Greek and Roman authors, and serve in some
measure to illustrate them. I shall therefore here insert the
account given by De la Valle, as it is the clearest and most to
the purpose.
" The Persians," says he, " make fires in their apartments,
not in fire-places as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which
1
Horat. lib. i. sat. 5, 79. - Plutarch. Apophthegm, p. 180.
3
Plutarch. Sympos. lib. vi. 7. * Ml. Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 31.
VOL. I. X
306 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

they call tennor. These stoves consist of a square or round

hole, two spans or a little more in depth, and in shape not un-
like an Italian cask. That this hole may throw out heat sooner,
and with more strength, there is placed in it an iron vessel of
the same size, which is either filled with burning coals, or a
fire of wood and other inflammable substances is made in it.
When this is done, they place over the hole or stove a wooden
top, like a small low table, and spread above it a large cover-
let quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to the
floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to
warm the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse
there, and some who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above
the carpet, and lean, with their shoulders against the wall, on
square cushions, upon which they sometimes also sit for the ;

tennor is constructed in a place equally distant from the walls

on both sides. Those who are not very cold, only put their
feet under the table or covering but those who require more
;

heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it altogether.
By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body, without
causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable
a warmth, that I never in winter experienced anything more
pleasant. Those, however, who require less heat let the cover-
let hang down on their side to the floor, and enjoy without
any inconvenience from the stove the moderately heated air
of the apartment. They have a method also of stirring up or
blowing the fire when necessary, by means of a small pipe
united with the tennor or stove under the earth, and made to
project above the floor as high as one chooses, so that the wind,
when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts
immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there
is no longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed
up, that is to say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe
which conveys the air to it, by a flat stone made for that pur-
pose. Scarcely any appearance of them is then to be per-
ceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience, especially in a
country where it is always customary to cover the floor with
a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts
these stoves are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over
them. They are employed also to bake bread, and for this-
purpose they are covered with a large broad metal plate, on
which the cake is laid ; but if the bread is thick and requires
 —

CHIMNEYS. 3CT

more heat, it is put into the stove itself ." I shall here re-
1

mark, that the Jews used such stoves in their houses, and the
priests had them also in the temple 2 .

Those who have employed their talents on this subject be-

fore me, have collected a great many passages from the Greek
and Roman writers which speak of fires made for the purpose
of affording warmth but as they contain nothing certain or
;

decisive, 1 shall not here enlarge upon them 3 Though one

.

1 — —
See also Tavernier, Voyages, vol. i. Olearius, vol. i. Schweigger's
Reisebeschreibung nach Constantinopel und Jerusalem, p. 264. Voyage de —
—
Chardin, 12mo, vol. iv. p. 236. Voyage Litteraire de la Grece, par M. Guys,
Paris, 1776, 2 vols. 8vo, i. p. 34, Because this author is one of the latest
who has taken the trouble to compare the manners of the ancient and mo-
dern Greeks, I shall here give his account at fidl length : —
" The Greeks
have no chimneys in the apartments of their houses they make use only
;

of a chaffing-dish, which is placed in the middle of the apartment to warm

it, or for the benefit of those who choose to approach it. This custom is
very ancient throughout all the East. The Romans had no other method
of warming their chambers ; and it has been preserved by the Turks.
AafiTTTijp, says Hesychius, was a chaffing-dish placed in the middle of a
room, on which dry wood was burned to warm it, and resinous wood to
give light. This chaffing-dish was supported, as those at present, by a tri-
pod lamps were not introduced till long after. To secure the face from
;

any inconvenience, and from the heat of the chaffing-dish, oftentimes

dangerous, the tendour was invented. This is a square table under which
the fire is placed. It is covered with a carpet which hangs down to the
floor, and with another of silk, more or less rich, by way of ornament.
People sit around it either on a sofa or on the pavement, and they can at
the same time put their hands and their feet under the covering, which, as
it encloses the chaffing-dish on all sides, preserves a gentle and lasting
heat. The tendour is destined principally for the use of the women, who
during the winter pass the whole day around it, emploved either in em-
broidering or in receiving the visits of their friends."
2 As a proof of this, Faber, in his Archseologie der Hebraer,
Halle, 1773,
8vo, p. 432, quotes Kelim, v. 1, and Maimonides and Bartenora, p. 36,
Tamid, c. 50. Compare Othon. Lex. Rabbin, p. 85.
3 As it would be tedious to transcribe all these
passages, I shall, as ex-
amples, give only the following :

Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco

—
Large reponens. Horat. lib. i. od. 9.
These lines show that the poet had an aversion to cold when enjoying his
bottle, and that he wished for a good fire but they do not inform us whe-
;

ther the hearth, focus, had a chimney. We learn as little from ihe advice
of Cato, c. 143 " Focum purum circumversum quotidie, priusquam cubitum
:

eat, habeat." It was certainly wholesome to rake the fire together at night,
but it might have burned either with or without a chimney. Cicero, Epist.
Famil. lib. vii. 10 " Valde metuo ne frisreas in hibernis ; quam ob rem ca-
:

x2
 308 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

or more expressions may appear to allude to a chimney, and

even if we should conclude from them, with Montfaucon, that
the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing in
mason-work elevated funnels for conveying off the smoke, it
must be allowed, when we consider the many proofs which we
find to the contrary, that they were at any rate extremely
rare. As they are so convenient and useful, and can be easily
constructed upon most occasions, it is impossible, had they
been well known, that they should have ever been forgotten.
Montfaucon says, from caminus is derived chiminea of the
Spaniards; camino of the Italians; cheminee of the French;
and kamin of the Germans and it seems, adds he, beyond a
;

doubt, that the name, with the thing signified, has been trans-
mitted to us from the ancients. Though this derivation be
just, the conclusion drawn from it is false. The ancient name
of a thing is often given to a new invention that performs the
same service. The words mill and moulin came from mola ;

mino luculento utendum censeo." Cicero perhaps understood under that

term some well-known kind of stove which afforded a strong heat. Sue-
tonius, in Vita Vitellii, cap. viii.
:
" Nee ante in Praetorium rediit, quam fla-
grante triclinio ex conceptu camini." As Vitellius was proclaimed emperor
in January, a warm dining-room was certainly necessary. Du Cange in
Ms Glossarium quotes the word fumariolum from the Paraneticum ad Pce-
nitentiam of the Spaniard Pacianus but the latter takes the whole passage
;

from Tertullian, who wrote more than a century before. Sidonius Apollin.
lib.ii. epist.i.
:
" A cripto porticu in hyemale triclinium venitur,quod arcua-
tili camino sa?pe ignis animatus pulla fuligine infecit." No one can deter-

mine with certainty the meaning of arcuatiiis caminus. A covering made

of a thin plate of metal, or a screen, was perhaps placed over a portable
stove we however learn, that even where the arcuatiiis caminus was used,
;

the beauty of the dining-room was destroyed by smoke and soot. Ammia-
nus Marcell. lib. xxv.in the end of the life of Jovian " Ferturreceute calce
:

cubiculi illiti ferre odorem noxium neqnivisse, vel extuberato capite periisse
succensione prunarum immensa." This in an apartment where there was
a stove or a chimney would have been impossible.
The passage of Athenaeus, lib. xii. p. 519, which speaks of irvekoi, will
admit of various explanations. Dalechamp thinks that they were the
poeles of the French (something like our stoves). Casaubon says they were
bathing-tubs. This opinion is in some measure confirmed by Suidas, who
gives that meaning to 7rut-\os; and by Jul. Pollux, in whom it occurs in
the same sense more than once. Lipsius however rejects these explana-
tions, and considers TrueXoi to have been thecce, or vessels similar to those
which in low German are called riken, and which, instead of our stoves,
are much used in Holland by the women, who seldom approach the
chimney.
 —

CHIMNEYS. 809
and yet our mills were unknown to the ancients. Guys re-
lates, thata Greek woman, seeing an European lady covered
with a warm cloak, said, " That woman carries her termor
about with her."
Besides the methods already mentioned, of warming apart-
ments, the ancients had another still more ingenious, which
was invented and introduced about the time of Seneca . 1
A
large stove or several smaller ones were constructed in the
earth under the edifice; and these being filled with burning
coals, the heat was conveyed from them into dining-rooms,
bed-chambers, or other apartments which one wished to warm 2
by means of pipes inclosed in the walls. The upper end of
these hot-air pipes was often ornamented with the representa-
tion of a lion's or a dolphin's head, or any other figure accord-
ing to fancy, and could be opened or shut at pleasure. It ap-
pears that this apparatus was first constructed in the baths,
and became extended afterwards to common use. These pipes
sometimes were conducted around the whole edifice 3 , as I
have seen in our theatres. Palladius advises a branch of such
pipes to be conveyed under the floor of an oil-cellar, in order
that it may be heated without contracting soot 4 . Such a
mode of warming apartments, which approaches very near to
that employed in our German stoves, would have been impos-
sible, had the houses been without windows and it is worthy ;

of remark, that transparent windows, at the time Seneca lived,

were entirely new. These pipes, like those of our stoves, could
not fail in the course of time to become filled with soot ; and
as they were likely to catch fire by being overheated, laws were
made forbidding them to be brought too near to the wall of a
neighbouring house 5 , though there were other reasons also
for this regulation. As what is here said will be better elu-
cidated by a description of the still existing ruins of some an-
cient baths, I shall transcribe the following passage from
Winkelmann :

" Of chimneys in apartments," says this author, " no traces

are to be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in
the city of Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the
inhabitants used only charcoal fires for warming themselves.
In the houses of the common citizens at Naples, there are no

1
Seneca, ep. 90. 2
Senec. De Provident, p. 138. Cicero ad
Tratrem, lib. iii. ep. Plin. lib. 3
i. ii. ep. 17. Statii Sylv.lib. i. 5, 17.
4 PallacL De Re Rust. s
lib. i. 20, p. 876. Digester, lib. viii. tit. 2, 13.
310 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

chimneys at present and people of rank there as well as at

;

Rome, who adhere to the rules laid down by physi-

strictly
cians for preserving health, live in apartments without chim-
neys, and which are never heated by coal-fires. In the villas,
however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences
where the air was purer and colder, the ancients had hypo-
causta or stoves, which were more common perhaps than in
the city. Stoves were found in the apartments of a ruined
villa, when the ground was dug up to form a foundation for
the buildings erected there at present. Below these apart-
ments there were subterraneous chambers, about the height of
a table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all
sides. The flat top of these chambers consisted of very large
tiles, and was supported by two pillars, which, as well as the
tiles, were joined together, not with lime but some kind of
cement, that they might not be separated by the heat In the
roofs of these chambers there were square pipes made of clay,
which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths of them
were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like
kind, built into the wall of this lower apartment, rose into an-
other in the second story, where their mouths were ornamented
with the figure of a lion's head, formed of burned clay. A
narrow passage, of about two feet in breadth, conducted to the
subterranean chambers, into which coals were thrown through
a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them by means
of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately
above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic-work,
and the walls were incrusted with marble. This was the
sweating-apartment (sudatorium). The heat of this apartment
was conveyed into that on the second story by the clay pipes
enclosed in the wall, which had mouths opening into the for-
mer, as well as the latter, to collect and afford a passage to
the heat, which was moderated in the upper apartment, and
could be increased or lessened at pleasure."' Such a complex
apparatus would have been unnecessary had the Romans been
acquainted with our stoves'.
1
A passage from And. Baccii Liber de thermis, fol. p. 263, contains in-
formation much of the same kind. See also Robortelli Laconici sen suda-
tionis, explicatio, in Graevii Thes. Antiq. Rom.xii. p. 385. Vitruvius, cum
annotat. G. Philandri, Lugd. 1586, 4to, p. 279. Philander says that the
ancients conveyed from subterranean stoves, into the apartments above, the
steam of boiling water but of this 1 have found no proof. If this be true,
;

the Roman baths must have been like the Russian sweating-baths. [Many
 CHIMNEYS. 311

1 have, as yet, made no mention of a passage of the emperor

Julian, which is too remarkable to be entirely omitted though, ;

at the same time, it is so corrupted that little can be collected

from it Julian relates, that during his residence at Paris
1
.

the winter was uncommonly severe; but that he would not

allow the house in which he lived to be heated, though it had
the same apparatus for that purpose as the other houses of the
city. His reason for this was, that he wished to inure himself
to the climate ; and he was apprehensive also, that the walls
by being heated might become moist and throw out a damp
vapour. He suffered, therefore, burning coals only to be
brought into his apartment, which, however, occasioned pains
in his head, and other disagreeable symptoms. What appa-
ratus the houses of Paris then had for producing heat, no one
can conjecture from the passage alluded to. In my opinion,
they were furnished with the above-described subterranean
stoves but even if these should not be here meant, I cannot
:

help thinking that the emperor's relation confirms that they

had not chimneys like ours for, had the case been otherwise,
;

the cautious prince would not have exposed himself to the va-
pour of charcoal, the noxious quality and effects of which could
not be unknown to him.
Though the great antiquity of chimneys is not disputed,
too little information has been collected to enable us to deter-
mine, with any degree of certainty, the period when they first
came into use. If it be true, as Du Cange, Vossius, and others
affirm, that apartments called caminatce were apartments with
chimneys, these must, indeed, be very old ; for that word oc-
curs as early as the year 1069, and perhaps earlier 2 ; but it is
always found connected in such a manner as contradicts en-
tirely the above signification. Papias the grammarian, who
wrote about 1051, explains the word fumarium by caminus
per quern exit fumus and Johannes de Janua, a monk, who
;

about 1268 wrote his Catholicon, printed at Venice, says " Epi-
caustorium, instrumentum quodfitsuperignemcaussaemittendi

of the large establishments and work-shops in this country are now heated
by means of hot air, hot water, or steam circulating through a ramified
l
system of pipes.] Juliani op. Lips. 1696, fol. p. 341.
2 Zanetti,
p. 78, quotes a charter of that year, in which the following
words occur " Cum tota sua cella et domo, et caniinatis cum suo solario, et
:

aliis caniinatis."
312 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS .AND DISCOVERIES.

fumum." But these fumaria and epicaustoria may have been

pipes by which the smoke, as is the case in our vent-furnaces,
was conveyed through the nearest wall or window : at any
rate, this expression, with its explanations, can afford no certain
proof that chimneys are so old especially as later writers give
' ;

us reason to believe the contrary. Riccobaldus de Ferrara 2,

Galvano Fiamma or Flamma, a Dominican monk from Milan 3 ,
who died in 1344 professor at Pavia, and Giovanni de Mussis,
who about 1388 wrote his Chronicon Placentinum 4 and all ,

the writers of the fourteenth century, seem either to have been

unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as
the newest invention of luxury.
That there were no chimneys in the tenth, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, seems to be proved by the so-called igni-
tegium, or pyritegium, the curfew-bell of the English, and
couvre-feu of the French. In the middle ages, as they are
termed, people made fires in their houses in a hole or pit in
the centre of the floor, under an opening formed in the roof;
and when the fire was burnt out, or the family went to bed at
night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood. In those periods
a law was almost everywhere established, that the fire should
be extinguished at a certain time in the evening; that the
cover should be put over the fire-place and that all the family
;

should retire to rest, or at least be at home 5 . The time when

this ought to be done was signified by the ringing of a bell.
William the Conqueror introduced this law into England in
the year 1068, and fixed the iguilegium at seven in the even-
ing, in order to prevent nocturnal assemblies 6 ; but this law
was abolished by Henry I., in 1 1 00. From this ancient prac-
tice has arisen, in my opinion, a custom in Lower Saxony of
saying, when people wish to go home sooner than the com-
1
Such is the opinion of Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Med. M\. ii. p. 418.
2 In Muratori, Script. Ital. vol. ix. 3
Ibid.
4
Ibid, vol. xvi. p. 582. >
:
Reiske ad Ceiemon. aula; Byzant. p. 145.
6
The following passages of old writers, collected by Du Cange, allude
to this law. Statuta Leichefeldcnsis ecclesia; in Anglia " Est autem ignite-
:

gium qualibet nocte per annum pulsandum hora septima post meridiem."
Statuta Massil. lib. v. cap. 4 " Statuinius hacpitesenti constitutione perpetuo
:

observandum, quod nullus de c.ctero vadat per civitatem Massilia: vel sub-
urbia civitatis contigua de nocte, ex quo campana, quae dicitur Salvatcrra,
sonata fuerit, sine lumine." Charta Jobannis electi arehiepisc. Upsaliensis,
an. 1291 :
" Statuimus, ut nullus extra domum post ignitegium seu coverfu
exeat."
 CHIMNEYS. 313

pany choose, that they hear the JBiirgerglocke, burghers' bell.

The ringing of the curfew-bell gave rise also to the prayer-
bell, as it was called, which has still been retained in some
protestant countries. Pope John XXIII., with a view to avert
certain apprehended misfortunes, which rendered his life un-
comfortable, gave orders that every person, on hearing the
igfiitegium, should repeat the Ave Maria three times . When 1

the appearance of a comet and a dread of the Turks afterwards

alarmed all Christendom, Pope Calixtus III. increased these
periodical times of prayer by ordering the prayer-bell to be
rung also at noon 2 .

The oldest certain account of chimneys with which I am

acquainted, occurs in the year 1347; for an inscription which
is still existing or did exist at Venice, relates that at the above

period a great many chimneys (molti camini) were thrown

down by an earthquake 3 . This circumstance is confirmed by
John Villani, the historian, who died at Florence in 1348, and
who calls the chimneys fumajuoli*. Galeazzo Gataro, who in
the Dictionary of Learned Men is named De Gataris, and who
died of the plague in 1405, says in his History of Padua, which
was afterwards improved and published by his son Andrew,
that Francesco da Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in
the year 1368, and finding no chimneys in the hotel where he
lodged, because at that time fire was kindled in a hole in the
middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys, like those which
had been long used at Padua, to be constructed, and arched
by masons and carpenters whom he had brought along with
him. Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he
affixed his arms, which were still remaining in the time of
Gataro 5 .
While chimneys continued to be built in so simple a man-
ner, and of such a width as they are still observed to be in old
houses, they were so easily cleaned that this service could be
performed by a servant with a wisp of straw, or a little brush-
wood fastened to a rope ; but after the flues, in order to save

1
Pol. Vergil. De Rer. Invent, lib. vi. c. 12. Lugd. 1664, 12mo, p. 460.
2 The year is probably 1457 ; Calixtus was elected to the papal chair in
1455. 3
Dell' origine di alcune arti principali appresso i Veneziani.
Venezia, 1758, 4to, p. 80. 4 Historie Florentine, lib. xii. cap. 121.
5
This Chronicon Patavinum may be found in Muratori, Scriptor. Rerum
Ital. vol. xvii.
 —

S14? HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

room, were made narrower, or when several flues were united

together, the cleaning of them became
so difficult, that they
required boys, or people of small size, accustomed to that em-
ployment. The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came
from Savoy, Piedmont, and the neighbouring territories 1
.

These for a long time were the only countries where the
cleaning of chimneys was followed as a trade and T am thence
;

inclined to conjecture that chimneys were invented in Italy 9 ,

rather than that the Savoyards learned the art of climbing

from the marmots or mountain-rats, as some have asserted 3 .

These needy but industrious people chose and appropriated to

themselves, perhaps, this occupation, because they could find
no other so profitable. The Lotharingians, however, under-
took this business also, and on that account the duke of
Lotharingia was styled the Imperial Fire-master. The first
Germans who condescended chimneys appear to have
to clean
been miners and our chimney-sweepers still procure boys
;

from the Hartz forest, who may be easily discovered by their

language. The greater part of the chimney-sweepers (ramo-
neurs de cheminees) in Paris, at present, are Savoyards and ;

one may see there everywhere in the streets large groups of

their boys 4 many of whom are not above eight years of age,
,

and who, clad in linen frocks, will, when called upon, scramble
up at the hazard of their lives, with their besoms and other
instruments, through a narrow funnel often fifty feet in length,
filled with soot and smoke, and in which they cannot breathe
till they arrive at the top, in order to gain five sous and even ;

of this small pittance they are obliged to pay a part to their

avaricious masters 3 .
1
Gazoni Piazze Universale, Venet. 1610, 4to, p. 364.
2 A writer in the German Encyclopedic conjectures that the Italian
architects employed in Germany to build houses and palaces of stone,
brought with them people acquainted with the art of constructing larger
and more commodious chimneys than those commonly used.
3 Dictionnaire des Arts et des Metiers, par Jaubert, vol. iv. p. 534.
4 Ces honnetes enfans
Qui de Savoye arrivent tous les ans,
Et dont la main legerement essuye
Ces longs canaux, engorges par la suie. Voltaire.
6 "
C'est ainsi que se ramonent toutes les cheminees de Paris et des
;

regisseurs n'ont enregimente ces petits malheureux, que pour gagner encore
sur leur mediocre salaire. Puissent ces ineptes et barbares entrepreneurs
se ruiner de fond en comble ; ainsi que tous ceux qui ont sollicite des pri-
 315

HUNGARY WATER.
Hungary water is spirit of wine distilled upon
rosemary, and
which therefore contains the and powerful aroma
essential oil
of that plant. To be really good the spirit of wine ought to
be very strong and the rosemary fresh and if that be the ;

case, the leaves are as proper as the flowers, which according

to the prescription of some should only be employed. It is
likewise necessary that the spirit of wine be distilled several
times over the rosemary but that process is too troublesome
;

and expensive to admit of this water being disposed of at the

low price for which it is usually sold and it is certain that
;

the greater part of it is nothing else than common spirit,

united with the essence of rosemary in the simplest manner.
In general, it is only mixed with a few drops of the oil. For
a long time past this article has been brought to us principally
from France, where it is prepared, particularly at Beaucaire,
Montpelier, and other places in Languedoc, where that plant
grows in great abundance.
The name, feau de la reine d'Hongrie, seems to signify
that this water, so celebrated for its medicinal virtues, is an
Hungarian invention and we read in many books that the
;

receipt for preparing it was given to a queen of Hungary by

a hermit, or as others say, by an angel, who appeared to her
in a garden all entrance to which was shut, in the form of a
hermit or a youth . Some call the queen St. Isabella 2 but
1
;

those who pretend to be best acquainted with the circum-

stance affirm that Elizabeth wife of Charles Robert king of
Hungary, and daughter of Uladislaus II. king of Poland, who
died in 1380 or 1381, was the inventress. By often washing
with this spirit of rosemary, when in the seventieth year of
her age, she was cured, as we are told, of the gout and an

vileges exclusifs
!
" —Tableau de Paris. Hamburg, 1781, torn. ii. p. 249.
[Owing tomany serious accidents which attended the climbing of chimneys,
this practice was put down in this country by Act of Parliament, (3 & 4
Victoria, c. 85. sec. 2.). The use of machinery is now substituted, but does
not perform the operation so effectively as the old mode, especially where
the flues are in angles.] 1
Universal Lexicon, vol. xlix. p. 1340.
2 Traite
. de la Chemie, par N. le Febure. Leyde, 1669, 2 vols. 12mo, i.
p. 474.
 — :

316 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

universal lameness; so that she not only lived to pass eighty,

but became so lively and beautiful that she was courted by
the king of Poland, who was then a widower, and who wished
to make her his second wife.
John George Hoyer says that the receipt for preparing
1

this water, written by queen Elizabeth's own hand, in golden

characters, is still preserved in the Imperial library at Vienna.
But it has been already remarked by others 2 that Hoyer is
mistaken, and that he does not properly remember the ac-
count given of the receipt. It is to be found for the first time,
as far as I know, in a small book by John Prevot, which, after
his death in 1681, was published by his two sons at Frankfort
in 1659 3 .
1
In his notes to Blumentrost's Haus unci Reise-apotheke. Leipzig,1716,
8vo, cap. 16, p. 47.
2
Succincta Medicorum Hungarian et Transilvaniae Biographia, ex ad-
versariis St. Wespremi. Wien. 1778, 8vo, p. 213.
3
Selectioraremedia multiplied usu comprobata, quse inter secreta medica
jure recenseas. In page 6 the following passage occurs " For the gout in
:

the hands and the feet. As the wonderful virtue of the remedy given below
has been confirmed to me by the cases of many, I shall relate by what
good fortune I happened to meet with it. In the year 1606 I saw among
the books of Francis Podacather, of a noble Cyprian family, with whom I
was extremely intimate, a very old breviary, which he held in high vene-
ration, because, he said, it had been presented by St. Elizabeth, queen of
Hungary, to some of his ancestors, as a testimony of the friendship which
subsisted between them. In the beginning of this book he showed me a
remedy for the gout written by the queen's own hand, in the following
words, which I copied :

" I Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, being very infirm and much troubled
'

with the gout in the seventy-second year of my age, used for a year this
receipt given to me by an ancient hermit whom I never saw before nor
since and was not only cured, but recovered my strength, and appeared
;

to all so remarkably beautiful, that the king of Poland asked me in mar-

riage, he being a widower and I a widow. I however refused him for the
love of my Lord Jesus Christ, from one of whose angels I believe I re-
ceived the remedy. The receipt is as follows
"
Jo. Take of aqua vitae, four times distilled, three parts, and of the
'

tops and flowers of rosemary two parts put these together in a

:

close vessel, let them stand in a gentle heat fifty hours, and then
distil them. Take one dram of this in the morning once every
week, either in your food or drink, and let your face and the
diseased limb be washed with it every morning.
" It renovates the strength, brightens the spirits, purifies the marrow
'

and nerves, restores and preserves the sight, and prolongs life.' Thus far
—
from the Breviary." Then follows a confirmation which Prevot gives from
his own experience.
 HUNGARY WATER. 317

One may Prevot mistook this Elizabeth for

easily see that
St. Elizabeth, the daughter of king Andrew II., who was
never queen of Hungary, but died wife of a landgrave of
Thuringia in 1235. But respecting Elizabeth, the wife oi
king Charles Robert, we know from the information of Hun-
garian writers l that in her will she really did mention two bre-
,

viaries, one of which she bequeathed to her daughter-in-law,

and the other to one Clara von Pukur, with this stipulation,
however, that after her death it should belong to a monastery
at Buda. It is not impossible, therefore, that one of these books
may have come into the hands of Podacather's ancestors.
I must however confess, that respecting this pretended in-
vention of the Hungarian queen I have doubts it may be ;

readily conjectured that this Elizabeth must have been ex-

tremely vain but when she wished to make posterity believe
;

that in the seventieth, or seventy-second year of her age she

became so sound and so beautiful that a king, at that time a
widower, grew enamoured of her, we may justly conclude that
she was more than vain —
that she was perhaps childish. I
have taken the trouble to search for the king, then a widower,
who paid his addresses to Elizabeth, but my labour has proved
fruitless. This proposal of marriage must have been made
about the year 1370; but Casimir III., brother of the Hun-
garian Elizabeth, reigned in Poland till that year, and was
succeeded by her son Louis, who died after her in 1382; and
the throne then remained vacant for three years.
It is rather singular that the name of aqua-vita?, and the
practice of distilling spirit of wine upon aromatic herbs, should
be known in Hungary so early as the fourteenth century,
though I will not pretend to affirm the contrary. But I con-
sider it as more remarkable that the botanists of the seventeenth

century should have spoken of and extolled the various pro-

perties of rosemary without mentioning Hungary water. It
cannot however be denied, that in the sixteenth century, long
2
before Prevot, .Zapata , an Italian physician, taught the
1
Medicorura Hungarise Biographia, ut supra, p. 214.
2The book of Zapata, who is not noticed in the Gelehrten Lexicon, was
printed at Rome, as Haller says in his Biblioth. Botan. vol. i. p. 368, in
the year 1586 and other editions are mentioned in Boerhavii Methodus
;

Studii Medici, p. 728 and 869. I have now before me, Joh. Bapt. Zapa-
tse, —
Medici Romani, Mirabilia seu Secreta Medico-chirurgica per Davidem.
Spleissium. Ulmise, 1696. The passage above alluded to occurs in page 49.
318 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

method of preparing rosemary-water and he has even told :

us that it was known, though imperfectly, to Arnoldus de

Villa Nova but he does not say that it was an Hungarian

;

invention. It appears to me most probable, at present, that the

name Veau de la reine d'Hoiigrie, was chosen by those who in
later times prepared rosemary-water for sale, in order to give
greater consequence and credit to their commodity as various ;

medicines, some years ago, were extolled in the gazettes under

the title of'Pompadour, though the celebrated lady from whose
name they derived their importance, certainly neither ever
saw them nor used them.

CORK.
Those who are accustomed to value things used in common
lifeonly according to the price for which they can be pur-
chased, will perhaps imagine that my subject must be nearly
exhausted when I think it worth my while to entertain my
readers with a matter so inconsiderable. Cork, however, is a
substance of such a singular property, that no other has yet
been found which can be so generally employed with the same
advantage and before the use of it was known, people were
;

obliged on many occasions to supply the want of it by means

which to us would appear extremely troublesome.
Cork is a body remarkably light, can be easily compressed,
expands again by its elasticity as soon as the compressing
power is removed, and therefore fills or stops up very closely
that space into which it has been driven by force. It may be
easily cut into all forms and though it abounds with pores,
;

which are the cause of its lightness, it suffers neither water,

beer, nor any common liquid to escape through it, and it is
only very slowly and after a considerable length of time that
it can be penetrated even by spirits. Its numerous pores seem

to be too small to afford a passage to the finest particles of

water and wine, which can with greater facility ooze through
more compact wood that has larger or wider pores '.
1
What is here observed in regard to the pores of cork has been stated,
in general, by Lucretius, vi. 5984.
 CORK. 319

Cork is the exterior bark of a tree, belonging to the genus

of the oak, which grows wild in the southern parts of Europe,
particularly France, Spain, Portugal and Italy When the
1
.

tree is about twenty-six years old it is fit to be barked, and

this can be done successively every eight years .
2 The bark
always grows up again, and its quality improves with the in-
creasing ago of the tree. It is commonly singed a little over
a strong tire or glowing coals, and laid to soak a certain time
in water, after which it is placed under stones in order to be
pressed straight.
This tree, as well as its use, was known to the Greeks and
the Romans. By the former it was called phellus. Theo-
phrastus reckons it among the oaks, and says that it has a
thick fleshy bark, which must be stripped off every three years
to prevent it from perishing. He adds, that it was so light as
never to sink in water, and on that account could be used
with great advantage for a variety of purposes 3 The only .

circumstance which on the first consideration can excite any

doubt of the phellus being our cork-tree, is, that he expressly
says it lost its leaves annually, whereas our cork-tree retains
them. In another passage however he calls it an evergreen 4 .
This apparent contradiction several commentators have en-
deavoured to clear up, but their labour seems unnecessary;
for there is a species of our cork-tree which really drops its
leaves. Linnaeus did not think this species worth his notice; but
it has been accurately observed by Clusius and Matthiolus ,
b

1
Duhamel, Traite des Arbres et Arbustes, Tozzetti, Viaggi, iv. p. 278.
2
[In MacCulloch's Dictionary the word every is changed into for, and
the author then proceeds to observe, that "This erroneous statement having
been copied into the article Cork in Rees' Cyclopaedia, has thence been
transplanted into a number of other works " The mistake, however, is
!

wrongly attributed to Beekmann.]

5 Histor. Plantar, lib. iii.
cap. 16. He repeats the same thing lib. iv.
cap. 18, where he remarks as an exception, that the cork-tree does not die
after it has lost its bark, but becomes more vigorous. In the southern
parts of France the cork-trees are barked every eight, nine or ten years.
4
Lib. iii. cap. 4. This difficulty the commentators have endeavoured to
remove by reading here (peWodpvs instead of the two words <pe\\bs and
8pvs which are separated ; and indeed <pe\\6£pvs occurs in other parts of
the same work among the evergreens, lib. i. cap. 15.
5 Clusius in Rar.
Plantar. Histor. lib. i. cap. 14, describes this tree as he
found it without leaves in the month of April in the Pyrenees near Bayonne.
Theophrastus, p. 234, says, " The cork-tree, 0eXXds, which drops its
leaves yiverai kv Tvppijviq, :" but the Aldine manuscript and that of Basle
320 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and its existence is confirmed by Miller '. As Theophrastus 2 ,

Pliny 3 , Varro 4 and others mention a common oak which
always retains its leaves, it appears clear to me that the first-
mentioned author, where he speaks of evergreens, meant our
common species of the cork-tree, and that extraordinary kind
of oak but in the other passage that species which drops its
;

leaves in winter.
That the suber of the Romans was our cork-tree, is gene-
rally and with justice admitted. Pliny relates of it, in the
clearest manner, every thing said by Theophrastus 5 of the
phellus 6 and we find by his account, that cork at the period
;

when he wrote was applied to as many purposes as at present 7 .

have Hvpprjviq.. The latter reading is condemned by "Robert Constant, and
others but though the cork-tree is indeed indigenous in Tyrrhenia or
:

Etruria, I see no reason why Uvpprjvia should not be retained, as it is

equally certain that the tree grows in the Pyrenees, and that it there loses
its leaves according to the observation of Clusius. If, on the other hand, we
read Tvpprjviq:, this is opposed by the experience of Theophrastus for in ;

Italy, as well as in France and Spain, the tree keeps its leaves the whole
winter through. Stapel therefore has preferred the word Uvpprjvly. La-
bat, who saw the tree both in the Pyrenees and in Italy, says that in the
former it drops its leaves in winter, and in the latter preserves them. Ac-
cording to Jaussin (Memoires surles evenemens, arrives dans l'lsle de Corse.
Lausanne, 1759, 8vo, ii. p. 398) it is in Corsica an evergreen; and Carter
(Reise von Gibraltar nach Malaga, Leipsic, 1799, 8vo, p. 190) says that the
case is the same in Spain, but he expressly adds that beyond the Alps it
loses its leaves in autumn.
1
In his Gardener's Dictionary. Bauhin, in his Pinax, p. 424, mentions
2
this species particularly. Hist. Plant, lib. i. cap. 15.
4 5 Lib.xvi. cap. 8.
3 Lib. xvi. cap. 21.
"
De Re
Rustica, i. cap. 7.
6 The botanists of the seventeenth century, who paid more attention to

the names of the ancients than those of the present time, say that the cork-
tree is in Greek called also "iipos, or n|/6s, which word is not to be found in
Ernesti's dictionary. I have found it only once in Theophrastus, Histor.
Plantar, lib. cap. 6, where those plants are named which blow late. Be-
iii.

cause Pliny, cap. 25, says tardissimo genuine suber; iipos is con-
lib. xvi.
sidered to be the same as cpeWos. Hesychius however says that iipos in
some authors signifies ivy.
1 Our German word Kork, as well as the substance itself, came to us

from Spain, where the latter is called chorcha de alcornoque. It is, without
doubt, originally derived from cortex of the Latitts, who gave that appel-
lation to cork without any addition. Horace says, Od. iii. 9, " Tu levior
cortice ;" and Pliny tells us, " Non infacete Grseci (suberem) corticis arbo-
rem appellant." These last words are quoted byC. Stephanus in his Pnc-
dium Rusticum, p. 578, and RuelliusDe Natura Stirpium, p. 174, and again
p. 256, as if the Greeks called the women, on account of their cork
soles,

of which 1 shall speak hereafter, cortices arborum. This gives me reason

 CORK. 321

At made floats to their nets of cork ,

that time, fishermen
that they affixed pieces of cork to the rope which formed
is,

the upper edge of the net, and which it was necessary should
be kept at the surface of the water, in the same manner as is
done at present >. The use of cork for fishing-nets is men-
tioned by Ausonius 2 and Alciphron describes so abundant
;

a capture that the net and the cork floats sunk by the weight.
This use, however, was much limited by the high price of
cork and small boards of light wood, such as that of the pine,
;

3
aspen-tree, lime-tree, and poplar, were employed in its stead .
The wood of the Marum arborescens is used as floats in Gui-
ana, and that of the Hibiscus cuspidatus in Otaheite 4 . The
German and Swedish fishermen, and also the Cossacks, use
for the same purpose the bark of the black poplar but the ;

Dutch and Hanoverians, who fish on the Weser, employ for

their nets a kind of wood called in Holland toll-hout. It is a
wood of a reddish-brown colour, extremely light, and of a very
fine grain, which the Dutch, who export it to Germany, pro-
cure from the Baltic. At Amsterdam it costs a stiver per
pound but I have not yet been able to learn what wood it
;

properly is.

Another use to which cork was applied, according to Pliny,

was for anchor-buoys. " Usus ejus ancoralibus maxime navium."
These words Hardouin has not explained and Schefler 5 ; ,

where he speaks of anchors, and what belongs to them, takes

no notice of cork. Gesner, however, has attempted an ex-
planation 6 but what he says is, in my opinion, not satisfactory.
,

He certainly could not mean that it was employed to render

anchors lighter. According to my idea, they may be easily
made light enough without cork, and perhaps they can never
be made too heavy. The true explanation of this passage is,
that it was used for making buoys, called ancoralia, which
to conjecture a different reading in Pliny, and indeed I find in the same
edition already quoted, the words cortices arborum. This variation ought
to have been remarked by Hardouin.
1
Plin. p. 7. 2 Mosella, 246.
3 Linnsei Flora Suec. p. 358. Gmelin's Reise durch Russland, i. p. 138.
It is a mistake in Duroi, Harbkescher Baumzucht, ii. p. 141, that ropes for
fishng-nets are prepared from this bark.
4
Parkinson's Voyage to the South Seas, 1773, 4to.
5
De Militia Navali Veterum. Upsaliae, 1654, 4to, lib. ii. cap. 5.
6
In Stephens's Thesaurus he says, " Usus ancoralibus navium ; int. sus-
tinendis, et minuendo pondere ancorarum."
VOL. I. Y
322 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

were fixed to the cable, and by floating on the surface of the

water, over the anchor, pointed out the place where it lay
'.

Our navigators use for that purpose a large but light block of
wood, which, in order that it may float better, is often made
hollow 2 . A large cask also is sometimes employed. The
Dutch sailors call these blocks of wood boei or boeye and ;

hence comes their proverb, " Hy heeft een kop als een boei,"
he has a head like a buoy; he is a blockhead.
A third use of cork among the Romans was its being made
into soles, which were put into their shoes in order to secure
the feet from water, especially in winter and as high heels
;

were not then introduced, the ladies who wished to appear

taller than they had been formed by nature, put plenty of cork
under them 3 .

The practice of employing cork for making jackets to assist

one in swimming, is also very old for we are informed that
;

the Roman whom Camillus sent to the Capitol when besieged

by the Gauls, put on a light dress, and took cork with him
under it, because, to avoid being taken by the enemy, it was
necessary that he should swim through the Tiber. When he
arrived at the river, he bound his clothes upon his head, and,
placing the cork under him, was so fortunate as to succeed in
his attempt 4 .

The most extensive and principal use of cork at present, is

for stoppers to bottles. This was not entirely unknown to the
Romans, for Pliny says expressly, that it served to stop vessels
of every kind and instances of its being employed for that
;

purpose may be seen in Cato b and Horace 6 Its application

.

to this use, however, seems not to have been very common,

else cork-stoppers would have been oftener mentioned by the

1
Pausanias, viii. where he speaks of the different kinds of
12, p. 623,
oak in Arcadia. When
any one had the misfortune to fall into the sea, the
cork affixed to the anchor, ancoralia, was thrown overboard, in order that
the person in danger might catch hold of it. This we learn from the ac-
count of Lucian (Epist. i. 1, p. 7), when two men, one of whom had fallen
into the sea and another who jumped after him to afford him assistance,
were both saved by these means.
2 And to conceal contraband goods in them, of which I have seen in-

stances during my travels.

3 Xenophon De Tuenda Re Famil. and Clemens Alcxand. lib. iii. Paeda.
4 Plutarchus in Vita Camilli.
5 6
De Re Rustica, cap. 120. Lib. iii. od. 8, 10.
 ;

cork. 323

authors who have written on agriculture and cookery, and also

in the works of the ancient poets. We everywhere find di-
rections given to close up wine-casks and other vessels with
pitch 1
clay, gypsum or potters- earth, or to fill the upper part
,

of the vessel with oil or honey, in order to exclude the air

from those liquors which one wished to preserve 2 . In the pas-
sages therefore already quoted, where cork is named, mention
is made also of pitching. The reason of this I believe to be,
that the ancients used for their wine large earthen vessels with
wide mouths, which could not be stopped sufficiently close by
means of cork. Wooden casks were then unknown, or at least
scarce, as Italy produced little timber, otherwise these vessels
would have been stopped with wood, as is the case at present.
The practice of drawing off wine for daily consumption, from
the large vessels into which it is first put, into such smaller
vessels as can be easily corked, was then not prevalent 3 The .

ancients drew off from their large jars into cups or pitchers
whatever quantity of wine they thought necessary for the time,
instead of which the moderns use bottles. It appears to have
been customary at the French court, about the year 1258,
when grand entertainments were given, and more wine-vessels
had been opened than were emptied, that the remainder be-
came a perquisite of the grand-bouteiller*.
1
Before cork came to be used for this purpose pitching was more ne-
cessary, and therefore mention of pitch occurs so often in the Roman
writers on agriculture. When the farmer, says Virgil (Georg. i. 275), has
brought his productions to the city, he carries back articles of every kind,
such, for example, as pitch. On such occasions our poets would have
mentioned articles entirely different. Strabo (lib. v. p. 334) also extols
Italy, because together with wine it had a sufficiency of pitch, so that the
price of wine was not rendered dearer.
2 As proofs of this may everywhere
be found, it is hardly worthwhile to
quote them. Columella, xii. 12, teaches the manner of preparing cement
for stopping up wine-casks. The earthen wine-jars found at Pompeii ap-
pear to have had oil poured over them, and to have had no other care be-
stowed upon them. In Italy, even at present, large flasks have no stoppers,
but are filled up with oil.
3 Alexand. ab Alex. Dier.
Gen. v. 21, p. 302. When the Romans went out
to the chase, they carried with them some wine in a laguncula. —Plin.
Epist. i. 6. p. 22. I do not know however that these flasks were of glass
all those I have seen were made of clay or wood. See Pompa De Instrum.
Fundi, cap. 17, in the end of Gesner's edition of Scriptores Rei Rust. iL
p. 1187.
4
Le Grand d'Aussy, Histoire de la Vie Privee des Francois, ii. p. 367.
Y2
324? HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Stoppers of cork seem to have been first introduced after the

invention of glass-bottles, and of these I find no mention before
the fifteenth century ; for the amphora, vitrecs diligenter gyp-
satce of Petronius , to the necks of which were affixed labels,
l

containing the name and age of the wine, appear to have been
large jars, and to have formed part of the many uncommon
articles by which the voluptuary Trimalchio wished to distin-
guish himself. It is however singular, that these convenient
vessels were not thought of at an earlier period, especially as
among the small funeral urns of the ancients, many are to be
found which in shape resemble our bottles 2 . In the figure of
the Syracusan wine-flasks, I think I can discover their origin
from these, urns. Charpentier 3 quotes from a writing of the
year 1387, an expression which seems to allude to one of our
glass bottles but, when attentively considered, it may be easily
;

discovered that cups or drinking-glasses are meant. The name

boutiaux or boutilles, occurs in the French language for the
first time in the fifteenth century ; but were it even older it
would prove nothing, as it signified originally, and even still
signifies, vessels of clay or metal, and particularly of leather 4 .

Such vessels filled with wine, which travellers were accus-

tomed to suspend from their saddles, could be stopped with a
piece of wood, or closed by means of wooden or metal tops
screwed on them, which are still used for earthen-pitchers.
In the year 1553, when C. Stephanus wrote his Praedium Rus-
ticum, cork stoppers must have been very little known, else he
would not have said that in his time cork in France was used
principally for soles (p. 578). In the time of Lottichius, rich
people however had glass flasks with tin mouths, which could
be stopped sufficiently close without cork ; and these flasks
1
Petron. Sat. cap. xxxiv. p. 86. In the paintings of Herculaneum I find
many wide-mouthed pitchers, with handles, like decanters, but no figure
that resembles our flasks.
2 Aringhi Koma Subterranea. Romse, 1651. fol. i.
p. 502, where may be
seen an account of a flask with a round body and a very long neck.
3 Glossarium Novum, i. p. 1182: "
rlit Jaquet print un conouffle de
le
voirre, ou il avoit du vin et de
en but." fait
4 Grand d'Aussy quotes from Chronique Scandaleuse de Louis XI. " Des
bouteilles de cuyr." That word however is of German extraction, though
we have received it back from the French somewhat changed, like many
other German things. It is evidently derived from butte, botie, buta, bu-
ticula, buticetla, which occur in the middle ages. See C. G. Sehwarzii Ex-
ercitat. de Butigulariis. Altorfii, 1723, 4to, p. 5.
 cork 325

appear to have been as thin as the Syracusan wine-bottles ;

for he adds, that it was necessary to wrap them round with

rushes or straw '.
Flasks covered with basket-work must have been common
among the Greeks, if it be certain that tcvt'ivi) signifies a flask
of this kind. It appears indeed to do so, because Hesychius
says it was a plaited wine-vessel, like the baskets which pri-
soners were accustomed to make. Suidas, however, states that
it was a vessel woven of twigs, named in his time <fhaoKeiov,

from which is derived our word flask. It is probable that

these wine-vessels covered with basket-work were only of
earthenware, as glass ones were at that time costly and scarce.
But I do not think it can be proved that a flask of this kind
was called by the Romans tinia.
In the shops of the apothecaries in Germany, cork stoppers
began first to be used about the end of the seventeenth century.
Before that period they used stoppers of wax, which were not
only much more expensive, but also far more troublesome.
That the use of cork for stoppers was not known in the six-
teenth century may be proved from this circumstance, that it
is mentioned neither by Ruellius e nor Aldrovandi 3 though ,

they describe all the other purposes to which this substance

was applied. How great the consumption of it is at present,
will appear from the quantity used by the directors of the
springs at Niederselters alone who in the year 1781 employed
;

2,208,000 stoppers, each thousand of which cost four florins,

making a total of 8832 florins. They were furnished by a
merchant at Strasburg, who was obliged to take back the
refuse, which he then caused to be cut on his own account
into smaller stoppers, and many of these could be used by the
people at the springs. The experiment also was once made
of causing the corks to be cut on account of the directors of
the springs but the carriage of the refuse became too dear,
;

and there was no sale for the stoppers of the apothecary phials
which were made of them.
In later times, some other vegetable productions have been
found which can be employed instead of cork for the last-
mentioned purpose. Among these is the wood of a tree com-
mon in South America, particularly in moist places, which is
1
See his Observations on Petronius, p. 259.
2 De Natura Stirpiura, p. 256. 3 Dendrologia, 194.
p.
326 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

called there monbin or monbain, and by botanists Spondias

lutea. This wood was brought to England in great abundance
for that use. The spongy root of a North American tree, known
by the name of nyssa, is also used for the same end, as are
the roots of liquorice, which on that account is much culti-
vated in Sclavonia, and exported to other countries, and like-
wise the black poplar, for its bark is employed by the Cos-
sacks as stoppers to their flasks, and the JEschynomene la-
'

genaria, which is used instead of cork in Cochin-China 2 .

£That most useful substance, caoutchouc, now replaces cork

for numerous purposes, and is superior to it in almost every
respect, especially in its greater elasticity, in being subject to
less injury from the action of many substances, and but slightly
affected by moisture or dryness. It also keeps better, and is
not much more expensive. The quantity of stoppers now
manufactured by the Patent Caoutchouc Company is perfectly
astonishing.]

APOTHECARIES.
The history of the materia medica is a subject fit to be under-
taken only by physicians like Baldinger, Hensler, Mohsen 3 ,

and Gruner, who to an intimate acquaintance with what

belongs to their own profession, have united a knowledge of
every other branch of science. By making this acknowledg-
ment, I wish to guard against the imputation of vanity, which
I might incur as attempting to encroach on the province of such
learned men. That however is not the case. My intention is only
to lay before the public what I have collected respecting this
subject, because I have reason to flatter myself, that, however

1
Gmelin's Keise durch llussland, i. p. 138. Pallas, Flora Russica, i. p. 66.
2 Loureiro Flora Cochin-Chin. p. 447.
3 Dr. Motisen has already published a considerable part of what belongs

to this subject in his Geschichte dcr Wissenschaften in der Mark Bran-

denburg, besonders der Arzneywissenschaft. Berlin, 1781, 4to, p. 372.
Some information also respecting the history of apothecaries may be found
in Thomassii Dissert, de Jure circa Pharmacopolia Civitatum, in his Dis-
rcstationes Academical, Halle, 1774,4 vols, quarto.
 APOTHECARIES. 327

trifling, it may be of some use until a complete history be

obtained and because I may have met with some scattered
;

information, which, without my research, might have escaped

the notice of abler writers. Whoever is acquainted with such
labour, will at any rate allow that this is possible and I hope
;

the following essay towards a history of apothecaries will not

prove unacceptable to my readers.
That the medicines prescribed by the Greek and Roman
physicians for their patients were prepared by themselves is
so well known, that I think it unnecessary to produce proofs
with which no one can be unacquainted who has read Theo-
phrastus, Hippocrates, and Galen. They caused those herbs,
of which almost the whole materia medica then consisted, to
be collected by others and we have reason to believe that the
;

gathering and selling of medicinal plants must have at an early

period been converted into a distinct employment, especially
as many of them being exotics, it was neeessary to procure
them from remote countries, which every physician had not
an opportunity of visiting ; and as some of them were applied
to a variety of purposes, they were sought after by others as well
as by medical practitioners. Several of them were employed in
cookery and for seasoning different dishes many in dyeing
;

and painting, some of them as cosmetics, others for perfumes,

some for ointments, which were much used in the numerous
baths, and not a few of them may have been employed also
in other arts and manufactures. It must have been very con-
venient for the physicians to purchase from these dealers in
herbs, such articles as they had occasion to use but it is pro-
;

bable, and can even be proved, that these people soon injured
them in their profession, by encroaching on their business.
In the course of time they acquired a knowledge of the heal-
ing virtues of their commodities, and of the preparation they
required, which was then extremely simple and many of them
:

began to sell compounded medicines, and to boast of pos-

sessing secrets more beneficial to mankind. To these dealers
in herbs belong the piffmentarii, seplasiarii, pharmacopolce, me-
dicamentarii, and others who were perhaps
thus distinguished
by separate names on account of some very trifling circum-
stances in which they differed, or by dealing in one particular
article more than in another. Some of these names also may
possibly have been used only at certain periods, or in some
 ;:

328 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

places more than in others and perhaps it would be fruitless

;

labour to attempt to define their difference correctly. That the

pigmentarii dealt in medicines is proved by the law which
establishedapunishment for such assoldany onepoisonthrough
mistake The herbs which Vegetius 2 prescribes for the
l
.

diseases of cattle were to be bought from the seplasiarii and

;

that they sold also medicines ready prepared is proved by the re-

proach thrown out by Pliny against the physicians of his time,

that instead of making up their medicines themselves as formerly,
they purchased them from the seplasiarii, without so much as
knowing of what they were composed 3 That th.epha.rma-
.

copolce carried on a like trade appears evident from their name

but people of judgement placed no confidence in them, and they
were despised on account of their impudent boasting, and the
extravagant praises they bestowed on their commodities *. The
medicamentarii do not often occur, but we are given to under-
stand by Pliny 5 that they followed an employment of the same
,

nature and it appears that they must have been very worth-
;

less, for in the Theodosian code, male and female poisoners are
called medicamentarii and medicamentarice 6 .
It may be readily perceived that these herb-dealers had a
greater resemblance to our grocers, druggists, or mountebanks,
than to our apothecaries. It is well known that the word
apotheca signified any kind of store, magazine, or warehouse,
and that the proprietor or keeper of such a store was called
apoihecar'ms 1 It would be a very great mistake, therefore,
.

if in writings of the thirteenth and fourteenth century, where

these expressions occur, we should understand under the latter
apothecaries such as ours are at present 8 At these periods,
.

1 2 De Mulomedic. iii.
Digest, lib. xlviii. tit. 8, 3, 3. 2, 21, p. 1107.
3 4
Plin.lib xxxiv.cap.il. Maximus Tyrius, Dissert, x. p. 121. Aulus
5 6
Gellius, lib. i. cap. 15. Lib. xix. cap. 6. Cod. Theodos. iii. tit. 16.
7 Proofs of this may be found in Glossarhim Manuale, vol. i. p. 298. From

the word apotheca the Italians have made boteca, and the French boutique.
8 In the Nurnberger Biirgerbuch mention is made of Mr. Conrade Apo-

theker, 1403 ; Mr. Hans Apotheker, 1427 ; and Mr. Jacob Apotheker, 1433.
See Von Murr's Jornal der Kunstgeschichte, vi. p. 79. Henricus Apo-
thecarius occurs as a witness at Gorlitz, in a charter of the year 1439 ; and
one John Urban Apotheker excited an insurrection against the magistrates
of Lauhan in 1439. See Buddaei Singularia Lusatica, vol. ii. p. 424, 500.
One cannot with any certainty determine whether these people were pro-
perly apothecaries, which must be borne in mind in reading the following
passage of Von Stetten in his Kunstgeschichte der Stadt Augshurg, p. 212
 APOTHECARIES. 329

those were often called apothecaries who at courts and in the

houses of great people prepared for the table various preserves,
particularly fruit incrusted with sugar, and who on that ac-
count may be considered as confectioners. What peculiarly
distinguishes our apothecaries is, that they sell drugs used in
medicine, and prepare from them different compounds accord-
ing to the prescriptions given by physicians and others. But
here arises a question When did physicians begin to give up
:

entirely the preparation of medicines to such apothecaries,

who must now be more than herb-dealers, and must under-
stand chemistry ? And when did the apothecaries acquire an
exclusive title to that business and to their present name? It
is probable that physicians gradually became accustomed to

employ such assistance for the sake of their own convenience,

when they found in their neighbourhood a druggist in whose
skill they could confide, and whose interest they wished to
promote, by resigning in his favour that occupation.
Con ring asserts, without any proof, but not however with-
out probability that the physicians in Africa first began to
1
,

give up the preparation of medicines after their prescriptions

to other ingenious men and that this was customary so early
;

as the time of Avenzoar in the eleventh century. Should that

be the case, it would appear that this practice must have been
first introduced into Spain and the lower part of Italy, as far
as the possessions of the Saracens then extended, by the Ara-
bian physicians who accompanied the Caliphs or Arabian
princes. It is probable, therefore, that many Arabic terms of
art were by these means introduced into pharmacy and che-
mistry, for the origin of which we are indebted to that nation,
and which have been still retained and adopted. Hence it
may be explained why the first known apothecaries were to be
found in the k er part of Italy but at any rate we have rea-
;

son to conclude, that they obtained their first legal establish-

ment by the well-known medical edict of the emperor Fre-
deric II., issued for the kingdom of Naples, and from which
Thomasius deduces the privileges they enjoy at present 2 . By
" In very old times there was a family here who had the name of Apothe-
ker, and it is very probable that some of this family had kept a public apo-
thecary's shop. Luitfried Apotheker, or in der Apothek, lived in the year
1285, and Hans Apotheker was, in 1317, city chamberlain."
1
De Hermetica Medicina libri duo. Helmst. 1669, p. 293.
2 This edict may be found in Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum,
33G HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

that edict it was required that the confectionarii should take

an oath to keep by them fresh and sufficient drugs, and to
make up medicines exactly according to the prescriptions of
the physicians and a price was fixed at which the stationarii
;

might vend medicines so prepared, and keep them a year or two

for sale in a public shop or store. The physicians at Salerno
had the inspection of the stationes, which were not to be esta-
blished in every place, but in certain towns. The confec-
tionarii appear to have been those who made up the medicines
or confectiones. The statio was the house where they were
sold, or, according to the present mode
of expression, the apo-
thecary's shop ; and the seem
to have been the
stationarii
proprietors, or those who had the care of selling the medi-
cines. The word apotheca seldom occurs in that edict when ;

it does, it signifies the warehouse or repository where the

drugs were preserved. I however find no proof in it that the

physicians at that time sent their prescriptions to the stationes
to be made up. It appears rather that the confectionarii pre-
pared medicines from a general set of prescriptions legally
authorised, and that the physicians selected from these medi-
cines, kept ready for use, such as they thought most proper to
be administered to their patients. A physician who had passed
an examination, and obtained a licence to practise, was
obliged to swear that he would observe for mam curice hactenus
observatam and if he found quod aliquis confectionarius minus
;

bene conficiat, he was obliged to give information to the curia.

The confectionarii swore that they would make up confectiones,
secundum prcedictamformam. It was necessary that electua-
ries, syrups, and other medicines, should be accompanied with
a certificate from a physician to show that they were properly
prepared. I must acknowledge that the edict alludes here
only to some medicines commonly employed and I am sur- ;

prised that the recipes are not mentioned, if such were then
in use. I have never had the good fortune to meet with the
word JReceptum used to signify a prescription in any works of
the above century. The practice of physicians writing out.
almost at every visit, the method of preparing the medicines
which they order, may perhaps have been introduced at a
p. 809. The law properly here alluded to, de probabili experientia medi-
corum, by most authors ascribed to the emperor Frederic I., but by Con-
is
ring to his grandson Frederic II. See Coming De Antiquitatibus Acadc-
micis. Gottingae, 1739, 4 to, p. GO.
 APOTHECARIES 331

later period. The book of receipts most in use, by which the

medicines of that time were made up, was the Antidotarium,
which the physicians of Salerno caused to be collected and
translated into Latin from the works of the Arabian physician
Mesues, and from those of Avicenna, Galen, Actuarius, Nico-
laus Myrepsius, and Nicolaus Propositus, by the celebrated
professor in that city, Nicolaus di Reggio, a native of Calabria.
If it be true that the separation of pharmacy from medicine
first took place in Africa, it is highly probable that the well-
known Constantinus Afer may have contributed to introduce
it also into Italy. This man, who was a native of Carthage,
having learned the medical art from the Arabians, made it
known in that country, particularly after the year 10S6, when
he was a Benedictine monk in a monastery situated on Mount
Cassino and the service which he rendered to the celebrated
;

school of physic in the neighbouring city of Salerno, is well

known. After his time, the monks in many of the monaste-
ries applied to the preparing of medicines, which they sold to
the wealthy, but distributed gratis to the poor, and by these
means were much benefited in various respects.
It is well known all political institutions on this
that almost
side the Alps, and particularly every thing that concerned
education, universities, and schools, were copied from Italian
models. These were the only patterns then to be found and ;

the monks, despatched from the papal court, who were em-
ployed in such undertakings, clearly saw that they could lay
no better foundation for the Pontiff's power and their own
aggrandizement, than by inducing as many states as possible
to follow the examples set them in Italy. Medical establish-
ments were formed, therefore, everywhere at first according
to the plan of that at Salerno. Particular places for vending
medicines were more necessary, however, in other countries
than in Italy. The physicians of that period used no other drugs
than those recommended by the ancients; and as these were to
be procured only in the Levant, Greece, Arabia, and India, it
was necessary to send thither for them. Besides, according
to the astrological notions which then prevailed, herbs, to be
confided in, could not be gathered but when the sun and
planets were in certain constellations, and certificates of their
being so were requisite to give them reputation. All this was
impossible to be done without a distinct employment, for phy-
332 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

sicians were otherwise engaged. It was found convenient

therefore to suffer some of the principal dealers in drugs gra-
dually to acquire monopolies. The preparation of drugs was
becoming always more difficult and expensive. After the in-
vention of distillation, sublimation, and other chemical pro-
cesses, laboratories, furnaces, and costly apparatus were to be
constructed, and it was proper that men who had regularly
studied chemistry should alone follow pharmacy and that
;

they should be indemnified for their expenses by an exclusive

trade. These monopolists also could be kept under closer in-
spection, by which the danger of their selling improper drugs
or poison was lessened or entirely removed. It would appear
that no suspicions were at first entertained, that apothecaries
could amass riches by their employment, so soon and so easily
as they do at present for they were allowed many other ad-
;

vantages, and particularly that of dealing in sweetmeats and

confectionary, which were then the greatest delicacies. In
many places they were obliged on certain festivals to give
presents of such dainties to the magistrates, by way of ac-
knowledgment, and hence probably has arisen the custom of
sending new-years gifts of marchepanes and other things of
the like kind.
In many places, and particularly in opulent cities, the first
apothecaries' shops were established at the public expense,
and belonged to the magistrates. A
particular garden also
was often appropriated to the apothecary, in order that he
might rear in it the necessary plants, and which therefore was
called the apothecary's garden '. Apothecaries' shops for the
use of courts were frequently established and directed by the
consorts of princes; and it is a circumstance well-known, that
many of the fair sex, when they have lost the power of wound-
ing, devote themselves much to the healing and curing art,
and to the preparation and dispensing of medicines. [Such
indeed is the case at present in France, medicines being both
prepared and dispensed by the Sisters of Charity, who attend
the sick at the public hospitals, much to the annoyance of the
chemists and druggists, who have frequently petitioned the

1
These gardens in most cities have heen revoked, but they still retain
their ancient names, though applied to other purposes. In this manner
the ceconomical garden at Gottingen is called by the common people the
apothecary's garden.
 APOTHECARIES. 333

government to interfere to protect their interests.] Dr. Moh-

sen says that the apothecaries in Germany came from
first

Italy. This may be probable, but I know no proof of it. I

shall now proceed to give some account of the oldest mention
made of apothecaries, which will serve to confirm what I have
said above.
Of English apothecaries I know nothing more than what
has been stated by Anderson ',who says that king Edward III.,
in the year 134-5, gave a pension of sixpence a day to Coursus
de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, for taking care of and
attending his majesty during his illness in Scotland and this ;

is the first mention of an apothecary in the Fcedera.

Of apothecaries in France no mention occurs before the

year 1484s when they received their statutes in the month of
August from Charles VIII. 2 They received others in 1514?
under Louis XII. in 1516 and 1520 under Francis I. in 1571
; ;

under Charles IX.; in 1583 under Henry III.; and in 1594>

under Henry IV. These regulations were renewed and con-
firmed by Louis X1IL, in the years 1611, 1624, and 1638.
For the most copious information respecting German apo-
thecaries, we are indebted to Sattler. In the beginning of the
fifteenth century an apothecary's shop was established at Stutt-
gard by a person named Glatz, which, as the only one in the
country, was first sanctioned by the count of Wirtemberg in
1458. In the patent given on that occasion it was said that
Glatz's ancestors had for many years kept an apothecary's
shop at Stuttgard, and had furnished it as a proper apothecary
ought. In the year 1457 count Ulric gave to John Kettner,
whom the year before he had appointed to be his domestic
physician, leave also to establish an apothecary's shop at Stutt-
gard, and promised to allow no other in his dominions. The
apothecary received yearly from the count a certain quantity
of wine, barley and rye but, on the other hand, he engaged
;

to supply the court with as much confectionary as might be

necessary, at the rate of twelve schillings per pound 3 . Both
these shops seem afterwards to have been abandoned, and the
count and the apothecary to have entertained the same opi-
1
Hist, of Commerce, i. 319.
2 —
Histoire de Paris, par Sauval, ii. p. 474. Histoire de Paris, par Feli-
—
bien, ii. p. 927.
3
Traite de la Police, par De la Mare, i. p. 618.
SatUers Geschichte Wurtenberg, v. p. 159. Addenda, p. 329.
334 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

nion, that each could renounce his contract when he pleased.

In the year 1468, one Albrecht Mulsteiner, or Altumsteiner,
from Nuremberg, was appointed apothecary, with a promise
that no other private or public shop should be tolerated except
that at Wirtemberg. The patent is almost like that given to
Kettner but it deserves to be remarked that it contains, in an
;

additional clause, a catalogue of all the different articles, with

their prices. An apothecary's shop is mentioned at Tubingen,
under count Everhard, as an hereditary fief, the possessor of
which bound himself to serve as physician and apothecary to
the army in time of war. In the year 1500 duke Ulric of
Wirtemberg allowed one Syriax Horn to establish an apothe-
cary's shop at Stuttgard, and appointed him his apothecary for
six years. He was obliged to swear that he would supply
government and all public officers, as well as the duke's sub-
jects, with medicines ; and the body physician was enjoined
to visit the shop once every year, in order to examine whether
Horn conducted himself according to the regulations laid
down for him, and sold his medicines at the fixed prices. In
1559 four apothecaries were appointed in the duchy, viz. at
Stuttgard, Goppingen, Kalw and Bintigheim, which are still
called the land-apothecaries. At the same period there was
an apothecary's shop in the ducal palace at Stuttgard, which
the consort of duke Christopher caused to be furnished at her
own expense ; and from which the poor received gratis what-
ever medicines they stood in need of.
That there were apothecaries' shops at Augsburg so early
as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, according to the
conjecture of Von Stetten, has been mentioned already. By
the records of that city it appears that a public shop was kept
there by a female apothecary in the year 144-5 ; and at that
period a salary was paid by the city to the person who fol-
lowed that occupation. In 1507 an order was passed that the
apothecaries' shops should be from time to time inspected ;
and in 1512 a price was set upon their medicines, and all
others were forbidden to deal in them.
The antiquity of the first apothecary's shop at Hamburg,
which belonged to the council, cannot be determined but it
;

is with certainty known that one existed there before the six-

teenth century. It was situated in the middle of the city, near

the council-house and the exchange; and had a garden be-
 APOTHECARIES. 335

longing to it, in the new town.

Before the year 1618 there
was at Hamburg also a private apothecary's shop.
In 1529
a city physician was appointed, and quacks and mountebanks
were then banished. The annual visitation by the city physi-
cian was established in 1557. The oldest regulation respect-
ing apothecaries is of the year 1586.
Apothecaries' shops, legally established, existed without
doubt at Frankfort on the Maine before the year 1472 for at ;

that period the magistrates of Constance requested to know

what regulations were made there respecting the prices of
medicines. In 1489 the city physician was instructed to in-
spect them carefully, and to see that the proper prices were
affixed to the different articles. In 1500 all the apothecaries
were obliged to take an oath that they would observe the re-
gulations prescribed for them; and in 1603 a decree was
passed that no more apothecaries' shops should be allowed for
twelve years than the four then existing and yet we are told
;

that the fourth was 1629 1

first built in .

In the police regulations drawn up at Basle in the year

1440, by which it was ordered that a public physician should
be established in every German imperial city, with the allow-
ance of an ecclesiastical benefice or canonry, in order that he
might exercise his art gratis, it is said, " What costly things
people may wish to have from the apothecary's shop they must
pay for 2 ." Dr. Mohsen hence concludes that common roots
and herbs were not then sold in the apothecaries' shops, but
expensive compounds brought from other countries.
The first apothecary's shop at Berlin, of which any certain
and authentic account can be found in the king's feudal re-
cords, was established in 1488. At that period the magistrates
gave one Hans Zehender a right to the hereditary possession
of a shop, and promised to allow him yearly, to enable him to
support it, a certain quantity of rye, with a free house, and
engaged also to exempt him from all contributions, watching
and other public burthens, and to permit no other apothecary
to reside in the city. This agreement was confirmed in 1491
by the elector John and in 1499 the elector Joachim I., on
;

his coming to the government, gave the apothecary a new pa-

1
Lersner's Frankfurter Chronik, i. p. 26, 493 ; ii. pp. 57, 58.
" Goldasti Coustitutiones Imperiales. Francof. 1607, fol. p. 192.
 3S6 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

tent, in which his body physician was charged to take care that
the shop should be furnished with proper drugs ; that the me-
dicines for the elector and his court should be made up accord-
ing to the prescriptions; and that they should not be charged
too high, contrary to the regulated prices '. In the year 1573
there was an apothecary's shop in the palace for the use of the
court but Mr. Nicolai 2 conjectures that it was only a portable
;

one, and consisted of some chests filled with medicines. The

present one was founded in 1598 by Catharine, consort of the
elector Joachim Frederick but the establishment, as it now
;

stands, began to be formed in the year 1605, when Crispin

Haubenschmid, the first apothecary to the court, was brought
from Halle to Berlin. Catharine, widow of the margrave
John of Custrin, caused an apothecary's shop for the use of
the court to be established at Krossen, under the inspection
of her physician Wigands, because there was then no shop of
that kind in the place ; and at her death in 1574 she be-
queathed it to the magistrates.
In Halle there was no apothecary's shop till the year 14*93.
Before that period medicines were sold only by grocers and
barbers. In the above year however the council, with the
approbation of the archbishop, permitted one Simon Puster to
establish an apothecary's shop, in order, as stated in the pa-
tent, that the citizens might be supplied with confections,
cooling liquors, and such like common things, at a cheap rate-
and that, in cases of sickness, they might be able to procure
readily fresh and well-prepared medicines. Puster was ex-
empted by it from all taxes and contributions for ten years,
but with this proviso, that during that period he should fur-
nish yearly at the council-house for two collations in the time
of the festivals, eight pounds of good sugar confections, fit and
proper to be used at such entertainments. It stated, on the
other hand, that in future no kind of preserves made with
sugar, or what was called confectionary, or theriac, should be
kept for sale or sold either in the market or in booths, shops
or stalls, except at the annual fair. This apothecary's shop
was the only one in Halle till the year 1535, when the arch-
bishop gave his physician, J. N. von Wyhe, liberty to establish

1
Mohsfins Geschichte, p. 379.
3 Beschfleibung von Berlin, i. p. 39 and 87.
 >

APOTHECARIES. 331

a new one but with an assurance, that to eternity, no more

;

apothecaries' shops should be permitted in Halle ; and this

declaration was confirmed by the chapter. Notwithstanding
the archbishop's promise, strengthened by that of his clergy,
one Wolf Holzwirth, a skilful apothecary, who returned from
Italy, found means to procure permission in 1555 to establish
a third apothecary's shop 1
.

In the year 1409, when the university of Prague was trans-

ferred to Leipsic, and every thing at the latter was put on the
same footing as at the former, an apothecary's shop was also
established, which, as that at Prague had been, was known by
the sign of the Golden Lion.
In the year 1560 there was no apothecary's shop at Eise-
nach, and even in the time of duke John Ernest, who died in
1638, there was none for the court but the place of apothe-
;

cary was supplied by one of the yeomen of the jewellery.

In the year 1598, count John von Oldenburg caused an
apothecary's shop to be established at Oldenburg for the
common good of the country 2 .

In Hanover the first apothecary's shop was established by

the council in 1565, near the council-house 3 The consort of
.

duke Philip II. of Grubenhagen, a princess of Brunswick, who

was married in 1560, supported at her court an apothecary's
shop and a still-house, for the benefit of her servants and the
poor 4 Duke Julius, who came to the government of Bruns-
.

wick in 1568, caused apothecaries' shops to be established in

his territories and his consort, a daughter of the elector of
;

Brandenburg, kept, for the use of the poor, an expensive

apothecary's shop in her palace and the citizens of the new
;

Heinrichstadt, near Wolfenbuttel, were allowed when afflicted

1
Von Preyhaupts Beschreibung des Saal-Creyses, ii. 561.
2 Hamelmanns Oldenburgische Chronik, 1599, fol. p. 491.
3 Grupens Origines Hannoverenses. Gott. 1740, 4to, p. 341.
4 "
By her apothecary's shop and still-house one may discover what real
compassion the Christian-like electress showed towards the poor who were
sick or infirm for, by having medicines prepared, and by causing all kinds
;

of waters to be distilled, she did not mean to assist only her own people
and those belonging to her court, but the poor in general, whether natives
or foreigners, and not for the sake of advantage or gain, but gratis and for
the love of God." —
Letzners Dasselsche und Eimbecksche Chronica. —
Erfurt, 1596, fol. p. 104.
VOL. I. Z
338 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

by any epidemic disease, the dysentery, quinsy, scurvy, or stone,

to be supplied with medicines from it free of all expense '.
The apothecary's shop at the court of Dresden -was founded
by the electress Ann, a Danish princess, in the year 1581. In
1 609 it was renewed by Hedwig, widow of the elector Christian

I.; and in 1718 it received considerable improvement.

Gustavus Erickson, king of Sweden, was the first person in
that country who attempted to establish an apothecary's shop.
On the 20th of March, 1547, he requested Dr. John Audelius
of Lubeck, to send him an experienced physician and a good
apothecary. On the 5th of May, 1550, his body-physician,
Henry von Diest, received orders to bring a skilful apothecary
into the kingdom. When the king died in 1560, he had no
other physicians with him than his barber master Jacob, an
apothecary master Lucas, and his confessor Magister Johannes,
who, according to the popish mode, practised physic, and pre-
scribed for his majesty. Master Lucas, as appears, was the
first apothecary at Stockholm. On the 21st of March, 1575,
one Anthony Busenius was appointed by king John apothecary
to the court 2 and in 1623, Philip Magnus Schmidt, a native
;

of Langensalz in Thuringen, was chosen to fill that office.

In the year 1675 there, were five apothecaries' shops in Stock-
holm since 1694 the number has been nine.
; The first
apothecary's shop at Upsal was established in 1648 by Simon
Wolimhaus, who came from Konigsee in Thuringen, and from
whom the present family of count Gyllenborg are descended.
The first apothecary's shop at Gottenburg was established
about the same time. Towards the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury physicians and apothecaries were invited into Russia by
the czar Boris Godunow 3 .
I shall here take occasion to remark the following circum-
stance at the Byzantine court the keeper of the wardrobe,
:

1
This account taken from the learned information collected by Pro-
is

fessor Spittler, in his Geschichte Hannover.

G6tt. 1786, 8vo, p. 275.
That the council of Gottingen began very early to pay great attention to
medical institutions, is proved by the following passage from the Gottin-
gischen Chronike of Franciscus Lubecus :
—
"Anno 1380, the city procured
a surgeon from Eschwege, who with his servant was to be exempted from
contributions and watching and to receive clothes yearly from the coun-
;

cil." 2
Von Dalins Geschichte Schweden, ubersetzt von Dahnert
3
4 vols. 4to, p. 318 and 394. Backtncister, Essai sur la Biblioth. a St.
Pctersb. 1776, 8vo, p. 37.
 APOTHECARIES. 339

as the yeoman of the jewellery at Eisenach in the sixteenth

century, had the care of the portable apothecary's shop when
the emperor took the field. It was called pandectcc, and con-
tained theriac and antidotes, with all kinds of oils, plasters,
salves,and herbs proper for curing men and cattle 1
.

[In England, in 1543, an act was passed for the toleration

and protection of the numerous irregular practitioners, who
were neither surgeons nor physicians. It was entitled " An Act
that persons being no common surgeons may minister outward
medicines " the persons thus tolerated comprehending those
;

who kept shops for the sale of drugs, to whom the name ot
apothecaries was then exclusively applied. On the 9th of
April, 1606, king James I. incorporated the apothecaries of
London and united them with the grocers ; they remained so
until 1617, when they received a new charter, forming them
into a separate company under the designation of the master,
wardens, and society of the art and mysteries of apothecaries
of the city of London. It appears that the apothecaries of
London did not begin generally to prescribe as well as to dis-
pense medicines until a few years before the close of the
seventeenth century.]
I must add a few observations also respecting the earliest
Dispensatorium. It is almost generally admitted that the first
was drawn up by Valerius Cordus, or at least that his was the
first sanctioned by the approbation of public magistrates.
Haller has remarked one older but it is now known only from
;

the title mentioned by Maittaire 2 . Cordus however appears

to have first used the word dispensatorium for a collection of
receipts, containing directions how to prepare the medicines
most in use. This book it is well known has been often printed
with the additions of other physicians ; but, in my opinion,
Conring 3 is in a mistake when he says that it was improved
and enlarged by Matthiolus. I have in no edition found any
additions of Matthiolus and the error seems to have arisen
;

from the christian name of Matthias Lobelius, which stands

1
Constantinus Porphyrogen. de Ceremoniis Aula; Byzantines. Lipsiae,
1751, fol. i. p. 270.
3
Bibliotheca Botan. i. p. 244. Facettario di dottori dell' arte e di rae-
dicina del collegio Florentine-, all' instantia delli Signori Consoli della uni-
versita. delli speciali. Firenz. 1498, fol. Maittaire. Primum, quantum
repperi, dispensarium.
8 Introductio in Artem Medicam. Helmstadii, 1687, 4to, p. 375.
z 2
340 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in the title of some because his annotations are

editions,
added to them. very singular that Kestner
It is also has
l

fallen into this mistake, who, however, says that the name of
Matthiolus is only in the title, for in the book itself he found
no appearance of his having had any concern with it.

CLOCKS AND WATCHES.

A paper on this subject was read by Professor Hamberger,
in the year 1758, before the Society of Gottingen ; but as the
publication of the Transactions of the Society was interrupted,
it was never printed. I however procured the manuscript
from the professor's son, Secretary Hamberger, at Gotha,
and I here insert it, corrected in a few places, where neces-
sary, but without any other alteration 2 .
" Weidler 3 and Chambers 4 are, doubtless, both mistaken
when they place the invention of automatous clocks about the
end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century.
The latter says, ' It is certain that the art of constructing
clocks, such as those now in use, was first invented or at least,
revived in Germany about two hundred years ago.' The same
account is given by Weidler, whom Chambers perhaps copied.
But, however flattering this opinion may be to the ingenuity
of the Germans, it is so apparently false in regard to the time,
that one cannot assent to it nor is it even probable in regard
;

to the country, though it must be allowed that the art of

clockmaking flourished very much in Germany, particularly at
Nuremberg, about the beginning of the sixteenth century.
" As these two authors make the invention of clocks too
modern, others, on the contrary, carry it back to a period too
early. Without entering into any dissertation on the machines
of Archimedes and Posidonius, which are said to have mea-
sured the hours of the day, I shall only observe that a cer-
1 C. G. Kestneri Bibliotheca Medica, Jenae, 1746, 8vo, p. 638.
2
The author says that the principal writers on this subject are Alexan-
der, a monk of the order of St. Benedict ; Paute, his countryman and our
;

Derhatn. 3 Histor. Astron. 4 Encyclopaedia, art. Clock.

 " ;

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 3<ll

tain writer pretends to have found mention made of a clock

in the third century In support of this assertion he refers
1
.

to the Acts of St. Sebastian, the martyr, where Chromatius,

the governor of Rome, says, when about to be cured by him,
'I have a glass chamber in which the whole learning and
science of the stars is constructed mechanically, in making
which my father Tarquinius is known to have expended more
than two hundred pounds of gold.' St. Sebastian answers, 'If
you have made your choice to keep this whole, you destroy
yourself.' To which Chromatius replies, '
How so? do we em-
ploy any sacrificial rights in the construction of an almanac or
ephemeris, when merely the courses of the months and years
are distinguished numerically for every hour and the full and ;

new moon is, by means of certain calculations, foreshown by a

motion of the fingers 2 .' This valuable machine, however, can
hardly be called a clock for if it had been an automaton, it
;

would not have required to be moved with the fingers in order

to show the time of full moon. If I understand the author's
words properly, it was not calculated to point out the hours
but to exhibit the sun's course through the twelve signs of the
zodiac, the motion of the rest of the planets, and their relative
situation in every month, or at any period of the year. Tha*
the signs of the zodiac and the planets were represented on
the machine, appears from what follows. St. Polycarp (the
companion of St. Stephen) said, i There are the signs of the
Lion, of Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpio and the Bull in Aries ;

the moon, in the Crab an hour, in Jupiter a star, in Mercury

the tropics, in Venus Mars, and in all those monstrous demons
is seen an art hostile to God 3 .' But whatever this machii «•
1
Bona De Div. Psalmod. cap. 3. s. 2.
2
Act. SS. cap. 16. 20 Jan. p. 273. Chrom. " Habeo cubiculurn holo
vitrum, in quo omnis disciplina stellarum ac mathesis mechanica est arte
constructa, in cujus fabrica pater meus Tarquinius amplius quam ducenta
pondo auri dignoscitur expendisse." St. Sebast. " Si hoc tu integrum
habere volueris, te ipsum frangis." Chrom. "Quid eriim? Mathesis aut
ephemeris aliquo sacrificiorum usu coluntur, cum tantum eis mensium et
annorum cursus certo numero per horarum spatia distinguuntur ; et lu-
naris globi plenitudo, Tel diminutio, digitorum motu, rationis magisterio,
et calculi computatione praevidetur ?

3 " Illic signa Leonis, et Capricorni, et Sagittarii, et Scorpionis, et Tauri

sunt ; illic in Ariete Luna, in Cancro hora, in Jove stella, in Mercurio tro-
pica, inVenere Mars, et in omnibus istis monstruosis daemonibus ars Deo
inimica cognoscitur."
 — :

342 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

might have been, it was of no use to others, or to posterity

it was broken to pieces by these saints, so that, even allowing
it to have been a clock, the knowledge of it must have been

then lost.
"We find also, that Bernardus Saccus 1
ascribes the inven-
tion of clocks to Boethius, in the fifth century; but Bernardus
seems to have forgotten what he quoted a little before from
Cassiodorus 2 respecting the clock of Boethius, that it deter-
,

mined the hours guttis aquarum. It must, therefore, have

been a water-clock, and not a clock moved by wheels and
weights. The same Cassiodorus had provided his monks at
the monastery of St. Andiol 3 in Languedoc, with machines ,

of the like kind ' I am known,' says he, ' to have constructed
:

for you a time-piece which the light of the sun indexes;

moreover another acting by water which marks the hours
both day and night as frequently upon some days there is no
;

sunshine 4 .' We are to understand also, as alluding to such

clocks, what is said by the writer of the life of St. Leobin,
bishop of Chartrain, about the year 556 5 when he tells us, ,

that to him (St. Leobin) was committed the duty of regulating

the course of the hours and the vigils.
" I come now to the seventh century. In Du Cange's
Glossary we find the word Index, which is explained to be
the index or hand of a clock, or the small bell which an-
nounces the hours by its sound and this opinion is adopted ;

by Muratori 6 . Du Cange quotes in support of his assertion

a monkish work called Regula Magistri, the author of which
is not certainly known 7 but which Mabillon 8 asserts to have
,

been written before the year 700. The passages to which he

refers are, Cum advenisse divinam horam percussus in ora-
'

torio index monstraverit! (When the index being struck in

the oratory shall have shown that the hour for prayer had
come.) 'Cum sonuerit index and ' Cum ad opus divinum \

1 2
Hist. Ticin. lib. vii. c. 17. Var. lib. i. in fine.
3
In the original, Monasterium Vivariense. Trans.
4 "
Horologium vobis unuin, quod solis claritas indicet, praeparasse cog-
noscor ; alteram vero aquatile, quod die noctuque horarum iugiter indicat
quantitatem quia frequenter nonnullis diebus solis claritas abesse cognos-
—
;

citur." De Institut. Div. Litter, c. 29.

6 Mabil. 6 Antiq. Med.
Annales St. 0. B. sec. i. p. 123. ^Evi,
Diss. 24, p. 392. 7 Lucse Ilolstenii Codex Regularum. Paris,
8 Annales.
1G63, p. 172.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 343

oratorii index sonaverit But Du Cange might have per-

1 .'

ceived, had he quoted the whole passage from the fifty-fifth

chapter, that allusion is not here made to a clock for it is said,
;

not merely cum sonuerit index,' but ' cum sonuerit index ah
'

Abbate percussus.' (When the index struck by the Abbot

shall sound). It was a scilla or skella, perhaps only a board ;

and Martene 2 seems to understand the word index in the true

sense when he explains it the signal by which the brethren
were called to divine service.
" That machine which was sent as a present to Charle-
magne by the king of Persia, in the year 807, is supposed also
to have been a clock like those used at present and if we ;

follow the Chronicon Turonense, one may easily fall into the
same opinion The king of the Persians sent a time-piece in
:
'

which the twelve hours were marked by the performance of a

cymbal and of certain horsemen who at each hour went out
through the windows, and on their return in the last hour of
the day shut the windows as they marched back 3 .' The de-
scription of it however, to be found in Annales Francorum,
ascribed to Eginhard, shows clearly that it was far different
from our clocks. The author says, Likewise a time-piece
'

wonderfully constructed of brass with mechanical art, in which

the course of the twelve hours was turned towards a clepsy-
dra, with as many brass balls which fell down at the comple-
tion of the hour, and by their fall sounded a bell placed under
them 4 .'
It was evidently therefore a water-clock, furnished
with some ingenious mechanism, but having nothing in com-
mon with our clocks.
" About the same period lived Pacificus,archdeacon of
Verona, who is celebrated for having invented a clock 5 .

1
Capp. 54, 55. 95.
2 Index Onoinasticus ad torn. iv. De Antiq. Eccl. Hit.
3 Martene, Coll. ampl. torn. v. p. 960. " Misit rex Persarum —
horolo-
gium, in quo XII horarum cursus cognoscebantur, cymbalo ibi personante
et equitibus, qui per singulas horas per fenestras exibant, et in ultima bora
diei redeuntes, in regressione sua fenestras apertas claudebant."
4 Ad a. 807. Calmet, Hist, de Lorraine, vol. i. p. 582. " Nee non et
horologium, ex aurichalco arte mechanica mirifice compositum, in quo
duodecim horarum cursus ad clepsydram vertebatur, cum totidem xveis
pilulis, quae ad completionem horarum decidebant, et casu suo subjectum
sibicymbalum tinnire faciebant."
5 Panuvini Antiq. Veron. lib. vi. Scip. Maffei Degli Sciittori
p. 153.
Veronesi, p. 32. Muratori, Ant. Ital. Med. &v\, Diss. 24. p. 392.
 ;

Si4 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

His epitaph, besides relating other services which he did,

says,—
Horologium nocturnum nullus ante viderat.
En invenit argumentum et primus fundaverat
Horologioque carmen spherae cceli optimum,
Plura alia graviaque prudens invenit.

Scipio Maffei endeavours to prove, that we are here to under-

stand a clock moved by wheels and weights ; but, in my
opinion, his arguments are extremely weak. This horolo- '

gium] says he, ' the like of which had been never seen, and
which was different from a sun-dial, because it showed the
hours in the night-time, could not be a clepsydra or water-
clock, for clocks of that kind were not only known to the
ancients, but even to the inhabitants of Italy in latter times,
so that it could have been nothing but a clock like ours.'
But even if we allow, with this learned man, that water-clocks
were known in Italy at that period, it cannot be denied that
they were scarce, and used only by few, as may be evi-
dently gathered from what is said of these machines by Cas-
siodoms. The greater part of the people might have been
unacquainted with them at the above-mentioned time ; and
there is no necessity for adhering so closely to the words of
the epitaph, nullus ante viderat,' as Maffei has done. Besides,
'

Maffei himself destroys the foundation on which he rests his

opinion for he relates that a horologium nocturnum was sent
;

to Pepin, king of France, by pope Stephen II. This appears

from the pope's own letter ; but Maffei is under a mistake re-
specting the name, for it was Paul, and not Stephen. The
letter, which may be found in the Codex Carolinus , is dated 1

in the year 756. Maffei thinks that this machine was of a

construction different from that of a water- clock but if it ;

pointed out the hours in the day-time, as well as in the night,

according to his supposition, there is no reason, as Muratori
observes, why it should have been called horologium noctur-
num. In my opinion, we ought here to understand a cleps-
ydra, or water- clock, such as that used by Cassiodorus for
the like purpose, and which Hildemar recommended in the
ninth century to the monks, who were obliged to observe the

1
Bouquet, Recucil des Historicns de la Gaule, torn. v. p. 513.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 34-5

hours. Hildemar sayu, He who wishes to do this properly,

'

'
must have horologium aqucs 1
" That these water-clocks however were then scarce, as
well as in the following centuries, we have reason to conclude
from their being so little spoken of in the writings of those
periods. In the ancient customs of the monastery of St. Viton,
at Werden 2 , written as is said in the tenth century, no men-
tion of them occurs; and the monks regulated their prayers
by the crowing of the cock for it is said, Cum lucem ales
;
'

nunciaverit, dabuntur omnia signa in resurrectione Domini

nostri,' &c. I find as little mention of them in the eleventh
century, even in passages where they could not have been
omitted, had they been known. Thus, in a little work by
Pet. Damiani, De Perfectione Monachorum, where the author
speaks of the significator horartcm, he does not so much as
allude to a clepsydra. That the reader may know what he
means by significator horarum, I shall here quote his own
words He could not find time for idle fables, nor hold long
:
'

conversations, nor finally could he trouble himself about what

was done by the laity, but always intent on the duties of his
office, always provident, always anxious, he felt a desire to
construct a voluble sphere that should never stop, should show
the passage of the stars and the flight of time. He also had
a custom of singing to himself whenever he wished to have a
notion as to the quantity of time ; that, whenever the bright-
ness of the sun or the position of the stars was obscured by
the weather he might form a certain time-measurer by the
quantity of psalmody he had accomplished 3 .'
" Some ascribe the invention of our modern clocks to Ger-
bert, who, in the tenth century, was raised to the pontifical
chair at Rome, under the name of Sylvester II., and who was
reckoned to be the first mathematician and astronomer of his

1
See Martene De Kitib. Eccl. torn. iv. p. 5. 2 Martene, torn. iv. p. 853.
3 " Non non longa cum aliquo misceat, non denique, quid
fabulis vacet,
a secularibus agatur, inquirat sed commissse sibi curse semper intentus,
;

semper providus, semperque sollicitus, volubilis sphaerae necessitatem, qui-

escere nescientem, siderum transitum, et elabentis temporis meditetur
semper excursum. Porro psallendi sibi faciat consuetudinem, si discer-
nendi horas quotidianam habere desiderat notionem ; ut, quandocunque
solis claritas, sive stellarum varietas nubium densitate non cernitur, illic in
quantitate psalmodiae, quam tenuerit, quoddaru sibi velut horologium me-
tiatur."
346 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

time 1
. This opinion however is supported only by mere con-
jecture, and appears to be false from the account of Dithmar,
who says, ' Gerbert, on being expelled from his country,
sought the emperor Otho, and after a long conversation with
him, made the time-piece in Magdeburg, constructing it cor-
rectly by taking as guide the polar star 2 .' No mention is made
here of wheels or weights, and this horologium seems to have
been a sun-dial, which Gerbert fixed up by observing the
polar star. It appears, indeed, that Gerbert was acquainted
with no other kind of horologia; for those who speak of his
book De Astrolabio, in which he explains the method of con-
structing dials for various latitudes, produce no further proofs 3 .
Some, according to the testimony of Kircher, consider this
horologium to have been a portable dial, which showed the
hour when properly set by the help of a needle touched with
a magnet; but even this opinion is not warranted by the words
of Dithmar.
" The anonymous author of the Life of William, abbot of
Hirshau 4 , who lived in the eleventh century, and who was a
very learned man for his time, says, 'Naturale horologium ad
exemplum cselestis haemispherii excogitasse.' Though this pas-
sage is no idea can be formed from it of the con-
so short, that
struction of the machine, it is evident that it alludes neither to
a sun-dial nor to a water-clock, but to some piece of mechanism
which pointed out the hours and exhibited the motion of the
earth and other planets. As more frequent mention of horo-
logia occurs afterwards, and as, in speaking of them, expres-
sions are used which cannot be applied to sun-dials or water-
clocks, I am induced to think that the invention of our clocks
belongs to this period. In the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses,
or Gengebacenses, of the same William, it is said of the sa-
cristan, ? eum horologium dirigere et ordinare.' In the like
manner Bernardus Monachus, a writer of the same century,
says, in the Ordo Cluniacensis, ' apocrisiarium horologium
dirigere et diligentius temperare.' The same author, in the

1
Journal des Scavans, 1734, p. 773. " Chron. lib.vi. p.83.Franc. 1580.

fol. " Gerbertus, a finibus suis expulsus, Ottonem petiit imperatorem, et cum
eo diu conversatus, in Magdaburg borologium fecit, illudrecte constituens,
considerata per fistulam quadam stella nautarum duce."
3 Le Beuf. Rec.
de div. tcrits, &c. vol. ii. p. 89.
4
Published by Car. Stengelius. Aug. Viud. 1611, p. 1.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 347

Ancient Customs, &c. of the Monastery of St. Victor, at Paris,

written also about the same time, says that the registrar (ma-
tricularius), the sacrist's companion, ought horas canonicas
'

nocte et die ad divinum celebrandum custodire, signa pulsare,

liorologium temperare?
" The unequal hours then in use rendered this regulating
of the horologia necessary. The days and the nights consisted
of twelve hours each but were sometimes shorter and some-
;

times longer. The reason of this is explained in the sixty-

fourth chapter of the before-mentioned Customs, where it is
said, From the solstice of summer to the solstice of winter, the
'

time-piece is regulated thus as much as that space of night

:

which precedes the matins gradually increases according to

the increments of the nights through the several months, it,
slowly increasing, makes that space in the winter solstice which
is before matins to that which follows, twice. On the con-
trary, from the winter solstice to that of spring it is thus regu-
lated : it decreases that space which it had got in advance

according to the decrease of the nights through the several

months, until scarcely decreasing, it at length in the summer
solstice passes over in the same time that space which is be-
fore matins and that which follows .' Such was the regula-
1

ting of the horologia, and I much doubt whether it could be

applied to water-clocks.
" These horologia not only pointed out the hours by an
index, but emitted also a sound. This we learn from Primaria
Instituta Canonicorum Praemonstratensium 2 , where it is order-
ed that the sacristan should regulate the liorologium and make
it sound before matins to awaken him. I dare not however
venture thence to infer, that these machines announced the
number of the hour by their sound, as they seem only to have
given an alarm at the time of getting up from bed. I have

1
Ab sestivali solstitio usque ad solstitium hiemale sic horologium tem-
"
peretur, quatenus illud noctis spatium, quod matutinas praecedat, per sin-
gulos menses secundum incrementa noctium aliquantulum crescat, donee
paulatim crescendo tandem in hiemali solstitio spatium illud, quod est ante
matutinas, ad illud quod sequitur, duplum fiat. Similiter per contrarium
ab hiemali solstitio usque ad sestivale solstitium sic temperetur, quatenus
spatium, quod prsecedit, secundum noctium decrementum per singulos
menses decrescat, donee paulatim decrescendo, tandem in solstitio sestivali
spatium, quod est ante matutinas, et quod post sequitur, aequale fiat."
2 Diss. ii.
c. 8. ap. Martene De Ant. Rit. torn. iii. p. 909.
348 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

indeed never yet found a passage where it is mentioned that

the number of the hour was expressed by them and when ;

we read of their emitting a sound, we are to understand that

it was for the purpose of wakening the sacristan to morning-

prayers. The expression horologium cecidit,' which occurs

'

frequently in the before-quoted writers, I consider as allusive

to this sounding of the machine. Du Cange, in my opinion,
under the word horologium, conceives wrongly the expression
'
de ponderibus in imum delapsis,' because the machine was
then at rest, and could rouse neither the sacristan nor any one
else whose business it was to beat the scilla.
" I shall now produce other testimony which will serve
further to confirm what I have here said of the origin of clocks.
Calmet, in his Commentary on the Regulse S. Benedicti,
quotes from a book on the usages of the Cistercians, three
passages which I shall give as he has translated them, because
I have not access at present to the original. We read,' says
'

he, ' in chap. 21 of the first part of their Customs, compiled

about the year 1120, that the bells will not be sounded for
any service, not even for the clock, from the mass of Holy
Thursday, to that of Holy Saturday; and in chap. 114, the
sacristan is ordered to regulate the clock that it may strike
and wake him during winter before matins or before the noc-
turns; and in chaps. 68 and 11 4*, that when the brethren have
risen too early the sacristan give notice to him who reads the
last lesson to continue it until the clock strikes, or till signal
be made to the reader to leave off .' 1

" The use of these machines must have been continued

from that period, for we find them mentioned in the thirteenth
century, in the commentary of Bernardus Cassinensis (Bernard
of Cassino) on the unpublished Regulae S. Benedicti, from
the eighth chapter of which Martene gives the following quo-
tation :But the eighth hour being already come, there was
'

1 "
On lit, au chap. 21 de la prf a-iere partie de leurs Usages, compilez
vers l'an 1120, qu'on ne fera sonacr les cloches pour aucun exercice, pas
meine pour l'Horloge, depuis la messe du Jeudi saint jusqu'a celle du
Samedi saint; et au chap. 114, il est ordonneausacristain de regler l'Hor-
loge, en sorte qu'elle sonne, et qu'elle 1'eveille pendant l'hyver avant ma-
tines, ou avant les nocturnes; au chap. 68 et 114, que quand on s'est
et
leve trop tot, le sacristain avertit celui qui lit la derniere lecon, de la pro-
longer jusqu'a ce que l'Horloge sonne, ou qu'on fasse signc au lccteur de
cesser."
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 349

sufficient interval, —
from the middle of the night, when he
who had care of the clock rose to strike it and to light the
lamps of the church which might have gone out on account
of the length of the night, and to ring the bells in order to
—
wake the sleeping brothers, that he was able to get through
half the eighth hour before the brothers had risen *.' It is said
also in the Chronicon Mellicense, in Du Cange, ' Some one,
deputed by the superior who had the care of the striking clock,
struck; and also carried light to all the cells 2 .'
"As all arts are at first imperfect, it is observed of these
clocks that they sometimes deceived ; and hence, in the Ordo
Cluniacensis Bernardi Mon., the person who regulated the
clock is ordered, in case it should go wrong, ' ut notet in cereo,
et in cursu stellarum vel etiam luna?, ut fratres surgere faciat
ad horam competentem.' The same admonition is given in
the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses.
" From what has been said I think it is sufficiently apparent
that clocks moved by wheels and weights began certainly to
be used in the monasteries in Europe, about the eleventh
century. I do not, however, think that Europe is entitled to
the honour of this invention but that it is rather to be
;

ascribed to the Saracens, to whom we are indebted for most of

the mathematical sciences. This conjecture is supported by
the horologium, which, as Trithemius tells us, was sent by
the sultan of Egypt, in the year 1232, to the emperor Frederic
II. '
In the same year,' says he, the Saladin of Egypt sent
'

by his ambassadors as a gift to the emperor Frederic a va-

luable machine of wonderful construction worth more than
five thousand ducats. For it appeared to resemble internally
a celestial globe in which figures of the sun, moon, and other
planets formed with the greatest skill moved, being impelled
by weights and wheels, so that performing their course in
certain and fixed intervals they pointed out the hour night and
day with infallible certainty also the twelve signs of the
;

zodiac with certain appropriate characters, moved with the

1
Rit. Ant. torn. iv. p. 5. " Facta autem jam hora octava, modicum erit
amplius de media nocte quando surrexerit, horologio excitante, qui habet
horologium custodire, et accensis lucernis ecclesiae, quae poterant propter
prolixitatem noctis fuisse obscuratse, ac pulsatis campanis ad dormientium
fratrum excitationem, potuit transire dimidia octavas horae antequam sur-
2
rexerint fratres." Cap. 774. " Excitabit aliquisasuperiore deputatus, qui
horologium excitatorium babeat ad omnes quoque cellas lumen deferat,"
;
850 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

firmament, contained within themselves the course of the

1 .'
planets
" The writers of this century speak in such a manner of
clocks that it appears they must, at that period, have been well-

known. Gulielmus Alvernus, disputing against those who

deny the existence of the soul, after producing various argu-
ments, thus obviates one which might be used against him.
'
Neither,' says he, do the motions of those clocks which are
'

moved by water or weights give you uneasiness, both kinds

of which move but for a short and moderate time, require
frequent repair, the arranging of their parts, and the perfect
skill of the astronomer who has a thorough knowledge of his
art. But in the bodies of animals and vegetables the motive
power is entirely internal, which moderates and regulates the
movements of their parts and renders it in all ways perfect 9 .'

And Dante, the Italian poet, says 3 ,

E come cerchi in tempra d' orivoli

Si giran, si che '1 primo, a chi pon mente
Quieto pare, e 1' ultimo che voli, &c.
" In the fourteenth century mention is made of the machine
of Richard de Wallingford, which has been hitherto considered
as the oldest clock known. The description of it I shall give
in the words of Leland: Being chosen superior of the mo-
'

nastery, as he was now enabled by his ample fortune, he re-

solved to show by means of some glorious work a miracle not
only of genius, but also of excelling knowledge. He there-
1
"Eodemanno, Saladinus Egyptiorum Frederieo imperatori dono misit
per suos oratores tentorium pretiosum, mirabili arte compositum, cujus
pretii aestimatio quitique ducatorum millium procul valorem excessit. Nam
ad similitudinem sphserarum caelestium intrinsecus videbatur constructum,
in quo imagines solis, lunae, ac reliquorum planetarum artificiosissime com-
positse movebantur ponderibus et rotis incitatae ita videlicet, quod, cursum
;

suum certis ac debitis spatiis peragentes, horas tarn noctis quam diei in-
fallibili demonstratione designabant imagines quoque xii signorum zodiaci
;

certis distinctionibus suis motse cum firmamento cursum in se planetarum

continebant."
2
De Anima, c. i. p. 7, 72. " Nee te conturbant, inquit, motus horolo-
giorum, qui per aquam fiunt et pondera, qua3 quidem ad breve ternpus et
modicum fiunt, et indigent renovatione frequenti, et aptatione instrurnen-
torum suorum, atque operatione forinsecus, astrologi videlicet qui peritiam
habet hujus artificii. In corporibus vero animalium vel etiam vegetabilium
totum intus est, intra ea scilicet, quod motus eorum atque partium suarum
moderatur, et regit, ac modis omnibus perficit."
3
Parad. cant. xxiv. ver. 13.
 — :

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 351

fore with great labour, with greater expense and with the
utmost art, constructed such a clock as, in my opinion, exists
nowhere else in Europe whether we observe the course of the
;

sun and moon, or the fixed stars, again, whether we consider

the ebb and flow of the. tide, or the lines together with the
figures and demonstrations various almost to infinity and :

when he had brought to perfection this work so worthy of

eternity, he drew up rules for it, as he was the first man of his
age in mathematical learning, which he published in this book,
lest so excellent a machine should fall into disrepute through
the mistakes of the monks, or should become silent from the
law of its structure being unknoAvn .' This machine, if I re-
1

member right, was called by the inventor Albion (all by one).

" Clocks hitherto had been, as it were, shut up in monas-
teries but they now began to be employed for the common
;

use and convenience of cities, though no instance of this is to

be found before the above period. Hubert, prince of Carrara,
caused the first clock ever publicly erected, to be put up at
Padua, as we are told by Peter Paul Vergerius He caused :
'

to be built at the top of the tower, a clock, in which, during

day and night, the four-and-twenty hours pointed themselves
out 2.'
It is said to have been made by James Dondi, whose
family afterwards got the name of Ilorologio*. In remem-
brance of this circumstance the following verses were in-
scribed on his tombstone :

Quin procul excelsas monitus de vertice turris

Tempus, et instabiles numero quod colligis horas,
Inventum cognosce meum, gratissime lector.

1 " Electus in monasterii prsesidem —

cum jam per amplas licebat for-
tunas, voluit illustri aliquo opere non modo ingenii, verum etiam eruditio-
nis ac artis excellentis miraculum ostendere. Ergo talem horologii fabri-
tam magno labore, majore sumtu, arte vero maxima compegit, qualem non
habet tota, mea opinione, Europa secundam sive quis cursum solis ac lunee,
;

seu fixa sidera notet, sive iterum maris incrementa et decrementa, sen lineas
una cum figuris ac demon strationibus ad infinitum pene variis consideret
cumque opus seternitate dignissimum ad umbilicum perduxisset, canones,
ut erat in mathesi omnium sui temporis facile primus, edito in hoc libro
scripsit, ne tam insignis machina errore monachorum vilesceret, aut incog-
nito structure ordine sileret." —
See Tanneri Biblioth. Brit. Hibern. p. 629.
p. 171. " Horologium,
2 In Vit. Princip. Carrar. ap. Murator. torn, xvi.

quo per diem et noctem quatuor et viginti horarum spatia sponte sua de-
signarentur, in summa turri constituendum curavit."
3
See Scardeonius De Antiq. Urbis Patavii, lib. ii. class. 9, p. 205, ed.
Basil, 1560, fol. and the authors which he quotes.
 :

352 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

" John Dondi, son of the former, acquired no less fame by

a clock which he constructed also, and which is thus de-
scribed ' In which was the firmament and all
: the planetary-
globes, so that the movements of all the stars were comprised
as in the heavens it shows the days appointed for festivals
;

and many other things wonderful to be seen so great was the:

admirable construction of this clock, that after his death no

one knew how to correct it, nor to assign the suitable weights.
At length a skilful artist from France, attracted by the fame
of this clock, came to Pavia, and employed many days in ar-
ranging the wheels, which he succeeded in putting together
in proper order, and gave it the right motion '.'
" We are informed by the Chronica Miscella Bononiensis,
that the first clock at Bologna was fixed up in the year ] 356
' On the 8th day of April the great bell of the tower, which

was in the palace called della Biada, belonging to Giovanni, lord

of Bologna, was removed and was conveyed into the Corte del
;

Capitano, and was drawn up and placed on the tower del Ca-
pitano on Holy Wednesday and this was the first clock which
;

the state of Bologna ever possessed, and it began to strike on

the 19th of May, which Messer Giovanni caused it to do 2 .'
" Some time after the year 1364, Charles V., surnamed the
Wise, king of France, caused a large clock to be placed in the
tower of his palace, by Henry de Wyck 3 whom he invited,

from Germany, because there was then at Paris no artist of

that kind, and to whom he allowed a salary of six sols per day,
with free lodging in the tower.

1 " In quo erat firmamentum, et omnium planetarum sphaerse, ut sic si-

derum omnium motus, comprehendantur festa edicta in
veluti in ccelo, ;

dies monstrat, plurimaque alia oculis stupenda tantaque fuit ejus horologii
;

admiranda congeries, ut usque modo post ejus relictam lucem corrigere, et

pondera convenientia assignare sciverit astrologus nemo. Verum de Fran-
cia nuper astrologus et fabricator magnus,fama horologii tanti ductus, Pa-
piam venit, plurimisque diebus in rotas congregandas elaboravit tandem-;

que actum est, ut in unum, eo quo decebat ordine, composuerit, motumque

—
ut decet dederit." These are the words of Mich. Savanarola in Comm. de
Laud. Patav. in Muratori, vol. xxiv. col. 1164.
2 In Muratori, torn, xviii.
p. 444. " A di 8 di Aprile fu tolta via la cam-
pana grossa della torre, eh' era nel palazzo di Messer Giovanni signor di
Bologna, il qual palazzo dicevasi della Biada; e fu menata nella Corte del
Capitano, e tirata e posta sulla Torre del Capitano nel Mercoledi Santo; e
questo fu l'orologio, il quale fu il primo, die avesse mai il Commune di
Bologna, e si cornmincio a sonare a di 19 di Maggio, il quale lo fece fare
3
Messer Giovanni." Moreii, Diction, art. Horloge du Palais.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 353

"Towards the end of the century, about the year 1370,

Strasburg also had a clock, a description of which is given by
Conrad Dasypodius 1
.

" Courtray, about the same period, was celebrated for its
clock, which was carried away by the duke of Burgundy, in
the year 1382. This circumstance is thus related by Froissart,
a contemporary writer The duke of Burgundy took away a
:
'

clock (which struck the hours), one of the best to be found,

either here or beyond the sea and he caused this clock to be
:

taken to pieces and placed upon carriages and the bell also. This
clock was conveyed to the town of Dijon in Burgundy and ;

was there put together again and set up and there it strikes
;

the four-and-twenty hours in the course of day and night 2 .'

" We are told by Lehmann 3 that a public clock was put
,

up at Spire in the year 1395. ' That year,' says he, the '

clock was erected on the Altburg gate. The bell for calling
the people together to divine worship was cast by a bell-
founder from Strasburg. —
The works of the clock cost fifty-
one florins.'
" The greater part however of the principal cities of Eu-
rope were at this period without striking clocks, which could
not be procured but at a great expense. Of this we have an
instance in the city of Auxerre. In the year 1483, the ma-
gistrates resolved to cause a clock to be constructed but as ;

it would cost a larger sum of money than they thought they

had a right to dispose of by their own authority, they applied

to Charles VIII. to request leave to employ a certain part of
the public funds for that purpose.
" The great clock in the church of the Virgin Mary at Nu-
remberg was erected in the year 1462.
" Apublic clock was put up at Venice in the year 1497 4 .
" In the same century an excellent clock, which is described
in a letter of Politian 5 to Francis Casa, in the year 1484, was

1
In the account of the astronomical clock at Strasburg, to be found in
lac.von Konigshovens Elsass und Strasb. Chronik. p. 574.
2 " Le due de Bourgogne fit oster un horloge (qui sonnoit les heures),
Tun des plus beaux qu'on seust trouver deca. ne dela la mer et celui hor-
:

loge fit tout mettre, par membres et pieces, sur chars, et la cloche aussi.
Lequel horloge fut amene et charroye en la ville de Digeon en Bourgogne •

et fut la remis et assis: et y sonne les heures vingt-quatre, entre jour Pt

nui."—Vol. ii. c. 128, p. 229. 3
Lib. vii. c. 69, towards the end.
4 Thes.
Ital. iii. p. 3, p. 308. * Politiani Op. 1533, gvo,
p. 121.
VOL. I. 2 A
 — ;

354? HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

constructed by one Lorenzo, a Florentine, for Cosmo I. of

Medici.
" Towards the end of this century clocks began to be in use
among private persons. This appears from a letter of Am-
brosius Camaldulensis to Nicolaus, a learned man of Flo-
rence :When I received your letter I immediately made
-

ready your clock, and should have sent it had any one been at
hand to have taken it. I have caused it to be cleaned, for it was
full of dust, and thus as it could not go freely it was retarded
and because it could not thus run correctly, I gave it to that
illustrious youth Angelo, who is most skilful in these things 1 .'

•-About this period also, mention is made of watches.

Among the Italian poems of Gaspar Visconti, there is a son-
net with the following title Si fanno certi orologii piccioli
:
'

e portativi, che non poco di artificio sempre lavorano, mos-

trando le ore, e molti corsi de pianeti, e le feste, sonando
quando il tempo lo ricerca. Questo sonetto e facto in per-
sona de uno inamorato, che, guardando uno delli predicti
orologii, compara se stesso a quello, &c. 2
" It appears, therefore, that Doppelmayer is mistaken when
he says that watches were invented by Peter Hele, at Nurem-
berg, in the sixteenth century and that because they were
;

1 " Horologium tuum mox, ut tuas accepi literas, paravi, misissemque,

si fuisset praesto qui afferret. Ipsam mundari feci, nam erat puivere obsi-
tum, atque ideo, ne libere posset incedere. retardabatur. Et quia ne sic
quidem recte currebat, Angelo illi illustri adolescenti harum rerum peritis-
simo dedi."
2 This sonnet I shall here transcribe from A. Saxii Hist. Litterario-typo-

graphica Mediolan. :

H6 certa occulta forza in la secreta

Parte del cor, qual sempre si lavora
De sera a sera, e d'una a I'altra aurora,
Che non spero la mente aver mai quieta.
Legger ben mi potria ogni discreta
Vista nel fronte, oxe amor colora
D'affanno e di dolore il punto e l'ora,
E la cagion, che riposar mi vieta.
L'umil squilletta sona il pio lamento,
Che spesso mando al cielo, e la fortuna,
Per disfogar cridando il tier tormento.
De le feste annual non ne mostro una,
Ma pianeti iracondi, e di spavento,
Eclipsati col sole, e con la luna.
Dominico Maria Manni, in his book De Florentinis Inventis, chap. 29, calls
the artist Lorenzo a Vulparia, and says that he was a native of Florence.
 —

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 355

shaped like an egg, they were called Nuremberg animated

eggs. I. Cocleus, in his Description of Germany, speaking
of this Hele, says, This young man has performed works
'

which the most skilful mathematicians may admire. For he

makes small watches of steel with numerous wheels, which, as
they move without any weight, both point out and strike forty
hours, even though they are contained in the bosom or in the
"
pocket .'
1

CLOCKS AND WATCHES 2 (additional).

The term Horologia occurs very early in different parts of

Europe but as this word, in old times, signified dials as well
;

as clocks, nothing decisive can be inferred from it, unless it

can be shown by concomitant circumstances or expressions,
that it relates to a clock rather than a dial. Dante seems to be
the first author who hath introduced the mention of an orologio
that struck the hour, and which consequently cannot be a dial,
in the following lines :

Indi come horologic die ne chiami,

Nel hora che la sposa d'Idio surge,
Amattinar lo sposo, perche l'ami 3 .

Dante was born in 1265, and died in 1321, aged fifty-seven;

striking-clocks therefore could not have been very uncommon
in Italy, at the latter end of the thirteenth century or the be-
ginning of the fourteenth.
But the use of clocks was not confined to Italy at this
period for we had an artist in England about the same time,
;

who furnished the famous clock-house near Westminster Hall,

1 Added to his
Comm. in Pomp. Melam, cap. de Noriberga. " Eum ju-
venem adhuc admodum, opera efficere, quae vel doctissimi admirentur ma-
thematici. Nam ex ferro parva fabrieat horologia plurimis digesta rotulis,
quae, quocunque sertantur, absque ullo pondere, et monstrant et pulsant xl
horas, etiam si in sinu marsupiove contineantur."
2 This article was written by the Hon. Daines Barrington. It is here
given with the addition of Professor Beckmann's notes, which are distin
guished by the initials of his name. 3 Dante, Paradiso, c. x.
2 A 2
356 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

with a clock to be heard by the courts of law, out of a fine

imposed on the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in the six-
teenth year of Edward I., or in 1288 1 . Blackstone in his
Commentaries has observed, that this punishment of Radul-
phus de Hengham is first taken notice, of in the Year Book 2 ,

during the reign of Richard III., where indeed no mention is

made of a clock being thus paid for but if the circumstances
;

stated in the report of this case are considered, it was highly

unnecessary, and perhaps improper, to have alluded to this
application of the Chief Justice's fine.
It appears by the Year Book, that Richard III. had closeted
the judges in the Inner Star Chamber, to take their opinions
upon three points of law the second of which was, " Whe-
;

ther a justice of the peace, who had enrolled an indictment,

which had been negatived by the grand-jury, amongst the
true bills, might be punished for this abuse of his office." On
this question a diversity of opinion arose amongst the judges,
some of whom supposed that a magistrate could not be pro-
secuted for what he might have done, whilst others contended
that he might, and cited the case of Hengham, who was fined
eight hundred marks for making an alteration in a record, by
which a poor defendant was to pay only six shillings and
eightpence, instead of thirteen shillings and fourpence. Thus
far the answer of the judges to the question was strictly pro-
per but the application of the fine to build a clock-house
;

was not. the least material 3 besides, that it was probably a

;

most notorious fact to every student, upon his first attending

Westminster-hall, as we find judge Southcote, so much later,
in the early part of queen Elizabeth's reign, not only men-
tioning the tradition, but that the clock still continued there,
which had been furnished out of the Chief Justice's fine 4 .
Sir Edward Coke likewise adds, that the eight hundred marks
were actually entered on the roll, so that it is highly probable
he had himself seen the record 5 .

1
Seklen, in his preface to Hengham. 2 Mic. 2 Ric. III.
3 We find that this clock was considered, during the reign of Henry VI.,
to be of such consequence, that the king gave the keeping of it, with the
appurtenances, to William Warby, dean of St. Stephens, together with the
pay of sixpence per diem, to be received at the Exchequer. See Stow's
London, vol. ii. p. 55. The clock at St. Mary's, Oxford, was also furnished
in 1523, out of tines imposed on the students of the university.
s
' 111. last.
p. 72- IV. Inst. p. 255.
 ;

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 357

But we have remaining to this day some degree of evi-

dence, not only of the existence of such a clock, but that it is
of the antiquity already ascribed to it, viz. the reign of Ed-
ward I. On the side of New Palace-yard, which is opposite
to Westminster-hall, and in the second pediment of the new
buildings from the Thames, a dial is inserted with this remark-
able motto upon it, "Discite Justitiam moniti" which seems
most clearly to relate to the fine imposed on Radulphus de
Hengham being applied to the paying for a clock. But it
may be said that this inscription is on a dial and not upon a
clock which though it appears upon the first stating it to be
;

a most material objection, yet I conceive it may receive the

following satisfactory answer. The original clock of Edward
the First's reign was probably a very indifferent one, but from
its great antiquity, and the tradition attending it, was still
permitted to remain till the time of queen Elizabeth, accord-
ing to the authorities already cited. After this, being quite
decayed, a dial might have been substituted and placed upon
the same clock-house, borrowing its very singular motto
which whether originally applied in the time of Edward I. or
in later reigns, most plainly alludes to Hengham's punishment
for altering a record. should also be mentioned that this
It
dial seems to have been placed exactly where the clock-house
stood according to Strype . 1

Mr. Norris, secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, hath

been likewise so obliging as to refer me to the following in-
stance of a very ancient clock in the same century Anno :

1292, novum orologium magnum in ecclesia (Cantuariensi),

prethtm 301. 2 .
I shall now produce a proof, that not only clocks but watches
were made in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Seven
or eight years ago, some labourers were employed at Bruce
where they found a watch, together with
Castle, in Fifeshire,
some coin, both of which they disposed of to a shopkeeper of
St. Andrews, who sent the watch to his brother in London,
considering it as a curious piece of antiquity. The outer case
is silver, raised in rather a handsome pattern over a ground of
blus enamel; and I think I can distinguish a cypher of R. B.
1
p. 55, in his Additions to This clock-house continued in a
Stow.
—
rained state till the year 1715. Grose's Antiquarian Repertory, p. 280.
2 Dart's
Canterbury, Appendix, p. 3«
 — : : —
"

358 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

at each corner of the enchased work. On the dial-plate is

written Robertus B. Rex Scotorum, and over it is a convex
transparent horn, instead of the glasses which we use at pre-
sent. Now Robertus B. Rex Scotorum can be no other king
of Scotland than Robert Bruce, who began his reign in 1305,
and died in 1323 for the Christian name of Baliol, who suc-
;

ceeded him, was Edward nor can Robertus B. be applied to

;

any This very singular watch is not of a

later Scottish king.
larger size than those which are now in common use at which ;

I was much surprised had seen several of the sixteenth

till I

century in the collection of Sir Ashton Lever and Mr. Ingham

Forster, which were considerably smaller.
As I mean to deduce the progress of the art of clock-ma-
king in a regular chronological series, the next mention I find
of horologia is in Rymer's Fcedera, where there is a protection
of Edward III., in the year 1368, to three Dutchmen, who
were Orlogiers. The title of this protection is, " De horolo-
giorum artificio exercendo ;" and I hope to have sufficiently
proved that there was no necessity of procuring mere dial-
makers at this time.
Clock-makers however were really wanted at this period
of the fourteenth century, as may be inferred from the follow-
ing lines of Chaucer, when he speaks of a cock's crowing :

Full sikerer was his crowing in his loge,

As is a clock, or any abbey orloge '

by which, means to say,

as I conceive at least, our old poet
that the crowing was as certain as a bell or abbey-clock*. For
though we at present ask so often, " What is it o'clock ?
meaning the time-measurer, yet I should rather suppose, that
m the fourteenth century the term clock was often applied to
a bell which was rung at certain periods, determined by an
hour-glass or a sun-dial. Nor have I been able to stumble
1
Chaucer was born in 1328, and died in 1400.
2 To the time of queen Elizabeth clocks were often called orologes :

He '11 watch the horologe a double set,

If drink rock not his cradle. —Othello, act ii. sc. 3.

by which the double set of twelve hours on a clock is plainly alluded to?
as not many more than twelve can be observed on a dial and in the same ;

tragedy this last time-measurer is called by its proper name

More tedious than the dial eight score times. Ibid, act iii. sc. 4.

The clock of Wells cathedral is also, to this day, called the horologe.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 359

upon any passage which alludes by that name,

to a clock,
earlier than the thirteenth year of the reign ofHenry VIII 1
.

The abbey orloge (or clock) however must have been not un-
common when Chaucer wrote these lines and from clocks ;

beginning to be in use we might have had occasion for more

artificers in this branch, though it should seem that we had
Englishmen, who pretended at least to understand it, because
the protection of Edward III. above-cited, directs that the
persons to whom it was granted, should not be molested whilst
they were thus employed.
I now pass on to a famous astronomical clock, made by one
of our countrymen in the reign of Richard II., the account of
which I have extracted from Leland. Richard of Wallingford
was son of a smith, who lived at that town, and who, from his
learning and ingenuity, became abbot of St. Albans. Leland,
speaking of him, says, " Cum jam per amplas licebat fortu-
nas, voluit illustri aliquo opere, non modo ingenii, verum
etiam eruditionis, ac artis excellentis, miraculum ostendere.
Ergo talem horologii fabricam magno labore, majore sumtu,
arte vero maxima, compegit, qualem non habet tota Europa,
mea opinions, secundam, sive quis cursum solis ac lunse, seu
fixa sidera notet, sive iteruui maris incrementa et decrementa 2 ."
Richard of Wallingford wrote also a treatise on this clock,
" Ne tarn insignis machina vilesceret errore monachorum, aut
incognito structural ordine silesceret." From what hath been
above stated, it appears that this astronomical clock continued
to go in Leland's time, who was born at the latter end of
Henry VII.'s reign, and who speaks of a tradition, that this
famous piece of mechanism was called Albion by the in-
ventor.
Having thus endeavoured to prove that clocks were made
in England from the time of Edward I. to that of Richard II.,
it is not essential to my principal purpose to deduce them
lower through the successive reigns but when I have shortly
;

stated what I happened to have found with regard to this use-

1
See Dugdale's Origines Jurid. Lydgate, therefore, who wrote before
the time of Henry VIII., says,
I will myself be your orologere

2
To-morrow early. —Prologue to the Storye of Thebes.
Leland de Script. Brit. [The translation ofthis passage will be found
at p. 350J
 : —

360 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

of Europe, I shall attempt to show

ful invention in other parts
why they were not more common in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries.
The citation from Dante, which I have before relied upon,
shows that they were not unknown in Italy during that period ;

and M. Falconet, in Memoires de Litterature, informs us,

that a James Dondi, in the fourteenth century, assumed from
a clock made by him for the tower of a palace, the name of
Horologius, which was afterwards borne by his descendants.
In France, or what is now so called, Froissart mentions,
that during the year 1332, Philip the Hardy, duke of Bur
gundy, removed from Courtray to his capital at Dijon a
famous clock which struck the hours, and was remarkable for
its mechanism The- great clock at Paris was put up in the
1
.

year 1370, during the reign of Charles V., having been made
by Charles de Wic 2 a German. Carpentier, in his supple-
ment to Du Cange, cites a decision of the parliament of Paris
in the year 14*13, in which Henry Bye, one of the parties, is
styled Gubemator Horologii palatii nostri Parisiis 3 . About
the same time also the clock at Montargis was made, with the
following inscription :

Charles le Quint (sc. de France)

Me fit par Jean de Jouvence.
The last word seems to be the name of a Frenchman
Though I have not happened to meet with any mention of
very early clocks in Germany, yet from the great clock at
Paris in 1370 being the work of De Wic, as also from the
protection granted by Edward III. to three clock-makers from
Delft, it should seem that this part of Europe 4 was not without

2
1
ii. ch. 127.
Froissart, vol. Falconet, Memoires de Litt. vol. xx.
3 See Carpentier, art. Horologiator.
4
Mr. Peckett, an ingenious apothecary of Compton Street, Soho, hath
shown me an astronomical clock which helonged to the late Mr. Ferguson,
and which still continues to go. The workmanship on the outside is
elegant, and it appears to have heen made by a German in 1525, by the
subjoined nscription in the Bohemian of the time :

Tar. da. macht. mich. Iacoh. Zech.

Zu. Pracj. ist. bar. da. man. zalt. 1525.
The above Englished
Year. when. made. me. Jacob. Zech.
At. Prague, is. true. when, counted. 1525. The
 CLOCKS -AND WATCHES. 361

this useful invention and the same may be inferred with re-
;

gard to Spain from the old saying, " Estar como un relox ." 1

Having now produced instances of several clocks, and even

a watch, which were made in different parts of the fourteenth
century, as also having endeavoured to jjrove that they were
not excessively uncommon even in the thirteenth, it may be
thought necessary that I should account for their not being
more generally used during those periods, as in their present
state at least they are so very convenient. For this it should
seem that many reasons may be assigned.
In the infanc}7 of this new piece of mechanism, they were
probably of a very imperfect construction, perhaps never went
tolerably, and were soon deranged, whilst there was no one
within a reasonable distance to put them in order. To this
day the most musical people have seldom a harpsichord in
their house, if the tuner cannot be procured from the neigh-
bourhood. We find therefore that Henry VI. of England,
and Charles V. of France, appointed clock-makers, with a sti-
pend, to keep the Westminster and Paris clocks in order.
It need scarcely be observed also, that, as the artists were
so few, their work must have been charged accordingly, and
that kings only could be the purchasers of what was rather an
expensive toy than of any considerable use. And it may
perhaps be said, that they continued in a great measure to be
no better than toys till the middle of the seventeenth century.
Add to this, that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
there was so little commerce, intercourse, or society, that an
hour-glass, or the sun, was very sufficient for the common
purposes, which are now more accurately settled by clocks of
modern construction. Dials and hour-glasses likewise wanted
no mending.
Having now finished what hath occurred to me with regard

The diameter of the clock is nine inches three-fourths, and the height five
inches.
[I have transposed the words, as I find them in the original but vtar
;

seems to have stood in the place of bar, at least Barrington has translated
it by is true, and we must read,
\

Da man zdlt 1525 jar

—
Da macht mich Iacob Zech zu Prag ist wahr. I. B.]
1
I am also referred by the Rev. Mr. Bowie, F.S.A., to the following
passage in the Abridged History of Spain, vol. i. p. 568 ". The first clock
:

seen in Spain was set up in the cathedral of Seville, 1400."

362 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

to the first introduction of clocks, I shall conclude by a few

particulars, have been enabled to pick up, in relation
which I
to those more portable measurers of time, called watches, the
earliest of which, except that of Robert Bruce, king of Scot-
land, seems to be one in Sir Ashton Lever's most valuable
museum, the date upon which is 1541 1
.

Derham, in his Artificial Clock-maker 2 published in 1714,

,

mentions a watch of Henry VIII. which was still in order and ;

Dr. Demainbray informs me, that he hath heard both Sir Isaac
Newton and Demoivre speak of this watch 3 The emperor .

Charles V., Henry's contemporary, was so much pleased with

these time-measurers, that he used to sit after his dinner with
several of them on the table, his bottle being in the centre 4 ;

and when he retired to the monastery of St. Just, he continued

still to amuse himself with keeping them in order, which is

said to have produced a reflection from him on the absurdity

of his attempt to regulate the motions of the different powers
of Europe.
Some of the watches used at this time seem to have been
strikers at least we find in the Memoirs of Literature, that
;

such watches having been stolen both from Charles V. and

Lewis XL whilst they were in a crowd, the thief was detected
by their striking the hour 5 In most of the more ancient
.

watches, of which I have seen several in the collection

of Sir Ashton Lever and Mr. Ingham Forster, catgut sup-
plied the place of a chain 6 whilst they were commonly of a
,

1
The oldest clock we have in England that is supposed to go tolerably,
is of the preceding year, viz. 1540, the initial letters of the maker's name

—
being N. 0. It is in the palace at Hampton Court. Derham's Artificial
Clock-maker.
2
3
A German translation of this book is —
added to Welper's Gnomick. I. B.
That distinguished antiquary Horace Walpole has in his possession a
clock, which appears by the inscription to have been a present from Henry
VIII. to Anne Boleyn. Poynet, bishop of Winchester, likewise gave an
.astronomical clock to the same king.
4
—
Godwyn de Praesul.
Meinoires de Litt. vol. xx. See also Hardwicke's Collection of State
5
Papers, vol. i. p. 53. Vol. xx.
6
A clockmaker of this city (Gottingen) assured me that several watches
which had catgut instead of a chain, were brought to him to be repaired.
I. B. [Sir Richard Burton, of Sackets Hill, Isle of Thanet, has now in his
possession an early silver watch, presumed to be of the time of queen Eli-
zabeth, in which catgut is a substitute for chain.
A similar watch is also in the possession of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart.,
which formerly belonged to the unfortunate queen Mary, and descended to
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 363

smaller size than we use at present, and often of an oval

form '.

From these and probably many other imperfections, they

were not in any degree of general request till the latter end
of queen Elizabeth's reign. Accordingly in Shakspeare's
Twelfth Night, Malvolio says, " I frown the while, and per-
chance wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel."
Again, in the first edition of Harrington's Orlando Furioso,
printed in 1591, the author is represented with what seems to
be a watch, though the engraving is by no means distinct, on
which is written " II tempo passa 2 .

In the third year of James I., a watch was found upon Guy
Fawkes, which he and Percy had bought the day before, " to
try conclusions for the long and short burning of the touch-
wood, with which he had prepared to give fire to the train of
powder 3 ."
In 1631, Charles I. incorporated the clock-makers; and the
charter prohibits clocks, ivatches, and alarms, from being im-
ported which sufficiently proves that they were now more
;

commonly used, as well as that we had artists of our own who

were expert in this branch of business.
About the middle of the seventeenth century, Huygens made
him from the Seton family. It is made of silver in the form of a death's
head, with open work for the escape of sound, the other parts covered with
emblematical engraving. It appears originally to have been constructed
with catgut, but now has a chain. It goes extremely well, but requires
winding-up every twenty-six hours to keep it accurately to time. Queen
Mary bequeathed it to Mary Seton, February 7, 1587. An engraving with
a very full description of this curious watch, will be found in Smith's His-
torical and Literary Curiosities, Lond. 1845, 4to, plate 96. —H. G. B.]
1 Barrington says here, in a note, " Pancirollus informs us, that about

the end of the fifteenth century watches were made no larger than an
—
almond, by a man whose name was Mermecide. Encyclop." The first part
of this assertion is to be found, indeed, in Pancirollus, edition of Frankfort,
1646, 4to, ii. p. 168 but Myrmecides was an ancient Greek artist, whose
;

irapavaki'ifuciTa, or uncommonly small pieces of mechanism, are spoken of

by Cicero and Pliny. He is not mentioned by Pancirollus, but by Salmuth,
p. 231. It is probable that this error may be in the Encyclopedie at
;

least Barrington refers to it as his authority.— I. B.

2 Somner's Canterbury, Supplement, No. xiv. p. 36. See also, in an ex-
tract from archbishop Parker's will, made April 5th, 1575 "Do etlegofratri
:

rfieo Ricardo episcopo Eliensi baculum meum de canna Indica, qui horo-
logium habet in summitate." As likewise in the brief of his goods, &c, No.
3 Stow's Chron.
xiv. p. 39, a clock valued at 54£. 4*. p. 878 ; and
Introduct. to Mr. Reuben Burrow's Almanac for 1778.
364 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

his great improvement in clock-work, which produced many

others from our own countrymen the latest of which was
'
;

the introduction of repeating watches, in the time of Charles

II., who, as I have been informed by the late lord Eathurst,

sent one of the first of these new inventions to Lewis XIV.

The former of these kings was very curious with regard to these
time-measurers; and I have been told by an old person of the
trade, that watchmakers, particularly East, used to attend whilst
he was playing at the Mall a watch being often the stake.
;

But we have a much more curious anecdote of royal atten-

tion to watches in Dr. Derham's Artificial Clock-maker
(p. 107). Barlow had procured a patent, in concert with the
Lord Chief Justice Allebone, for repeaters but Quare making
;

one at the same time upon ideas he had entertained before the
patent was granted, James II. tried both, and giving the pre-
ference to Quare's, it was notified in the gazette. In the suc-
ceeding reign, the reputation of the English work in this branch
was such, that in the year 1698, an act passed, obliging the
makers to put their names on watches, lest discreditable ones
might be sold abroad for English -.

Letter on the pretended Watch of King Robert Bruce 3

.

You will remember

that I formerly mentioned something to
you in reference to the observations made by the Hon. Daines
Barrington, on the earliest introduction of clocks, published
in the Annual Register for 1779, under the article Antiquities,
p. 133. According to your desire, I will communicate what
circumstances come within my personal knowledge, about a
watch that corresponds very much to one described by him
as once the property of king Robert Bmce. I must be indulged,
although in some particulars I cannot speak with absolute
2
1
More particularly Dr. Hook, Tomplon, &c. The ninth and
tenth of William III. ch. 28, s. 2.
3 This letter, signed John Jamieson,. and dated Forfar, August 20th,

1785, is taken from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 688.

One of my literary friends in London, to whom I am indebted for much
learned information, says in a letter which I received from him, " I had
never believed the story of Robert Bruce's watch, mentioned in your trans-
lation of Barrington's History of Clocks, the more as Mr. Barrington is
famous for heing in the wrong but in the Gentleman's Magazine there is
;

a full account of the origin of this imposition." As this error occurs in a

paper which T have endeavoured to render more public by a translation, I
—
consider myself bound to give a translation of this letter also. B.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 365

certainty, as so much time hath elapsed since the transaction

I am going to relate.
Being early fond of anything ancient or uncommon, I used
to purchase pieces of old coin from a goldsmith who wrought
privately in Glasgow, and sometimes went about as a hawker.
Having often asked him from the curiosity of a boy, if he
had ever been at the castle of Clackmannan, or heard of any
antiquities being found there, he told me that he had pur-
chased from Mrs. Bruce, who is the only survivor of that
ancient family in the direct line, an old watch, which was found
in the castle, and had an inscription, bearing, that it belonged
to king Robert Bruce. I immediately asked a sight of it but
;

he told me it was not at hand. He fixed a time for showing

me this invaluable curiosity but even then it could not be
;

seen. My avidity produced many anxious calls, although by

that time I began to suspect he meant to play upon me, espe-
cially as I did not think it altogether credible that Mrs. Bruce
would sell such a relict of her family if she had ever had it
in her possession. At length I was favoured with a sight of it,
The watch; as far as I can recollect, almost entirely answered
the one described. It had a ground of blue enamel. It had
a horn above the dial-plate instead of a glass. The inscription
was on the plate. But whether it was Robertus B. or Robertus
Bruce, I cannot remember. The watch was very small and
neat, and ran only, to the best of my knowledge, little more than
twelve hours, at least not a complete day. The Hon. Mr.
Barrington does not mention anything about this circumstance.
It is about twelve years since I saw it. Whether there be any
castle in Fife properly called Bruce castle, I know not but
;

the castle of Clackmannan hath always been the residence of

the eldest branch of the family and although the town in
;

which it stands now gives name to a small county, yet in former

times, and still in common language, that whole district re-
ceives the name of Fife, as distinguishing it from the county
on the other side of the firths of Forth and Tay. The first
thing that occurred to me about the watch itself, was in regard
to the inscription. Observing that all the coins of king Ro-
bert's age bore Saxon characters, I could not believe the in-
scription to be genuine, because the characters were not pro-
perly Saxon, but a kind of rugged Roman, or rather Italic
characters, like those commonly engraved, but evidently done
366 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

very coarsely, to favour the imposition. He valued it at 1/. 10*.,

but I would have nothing to do with it. The first time I had
an opportunity of seeing Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, after
this, I asked her if such a watch had ever been found. She
told me that she never so much as heard of any such thing.
This confirmed the justness of my suspicion.
I paid no further regard to this story till about seven years
ago, when I received a letter from a friend, informing me, that
a brother of his in London, who had a taste for antiquity, had
desired him, if possible, to procure some intelligence from
Glasgow about a watch, said to be king Robert Bruce's, which
had thence found its way to London, and was there making
a great noise among the antiquaries. I then applied to my
former goldsmith, who was then in a more respectable way,
and mentioned the old story. He immediately fell a-laughing,
and told me, that he did it merely for a piece of diversion,
and thought the story would take with me, as I had been often
asking about the place. He said that it was an old watch
brought from America that, to get some sport with my cre-
;

dulity, he had engraved the inscription upon it in a rough,

antiquated-like form that he had afterwards sold it for two
;

guineas he had learned that it was next sold for five, and had
;

never more heard of it.

However early the invention of clocks might be, I am
greatly mistaken if any authentic documents can be produced
of the art of making pocket-watches being discovered so early
as the beginning of the fourteenth century. Lord Kaimes,
somewhere in his Sketches of Man, asserts, that the first watch
was made in Germany, so far as I can remember, near the close
of the fifteenth century '. If any watch had been made so
early as R. Bruce's time, it is most likely the inscription would
have been in Saxon characters, as not only the money both of
Scotland and England, but of Germany, in that age, bears a
character either Saxon, or greatly resembling it.
Whatever ardour one feels for anything that bears the ge-
nuine marks of antiquity, it is certainly a debt he owes to those
who have the same taste, to contribute anything in his power
1
The passage may be found, vol. i. p. 95, of the edition in quarto. Edin-
burgh, 1774: "Pocket-watches were brought there from Germany, an.
1577." Home, or Lord Kaimes, however, was too celebrated or too artful
—
a writer to produce proofs of his historical assertions. 13.
 CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 367

that may prevent impositions, to which antiquaries are abun-

dantly subject, through the low humour or avarice of others;
or that may tend to confirm a fact by proper comparison and
minute investigation of circumstances. Besides, this is of
greater moment than settling the genuineness of a coin, or
many other things of the same nature, because it involves in
it the date of a very important discovery. It doth not merely
refer to the history of an individual, or even of one nation,
but to the history of man. It respects the progress of the arts ;
and an anachronism here is of considerable importance,
because, being established upon a supposed fact, it becomes a
precedent for writers in future ages.
[The time and place at which watches were first made simi-
lar to those now in use, are not positively determined. The
first step towards its accomplishment must have consisted in
making a mainspring the source of motion instead of a
weight . The invention of the fusee speedily followed the
1

mainspring, and without it the former would be useless, in

consequence of its tension varying according to the size of its
coil. In the time of Elizabeth a watch was a very different
kind of instrument to one of the present day. As regards size, it
closely resembled one of our common dessert-plates. Before Dr.
Hooke's improvement, the performance of watches was so very
irregular that they were considered as serving only to give the
time for a few hours, and this in rather a random kind of way.
The invention by Dr. Hooke of a spiral spring applied to the
arbor of the balance, by which means effects were produced
on its vibrations similar to the action of gravity on the pen-
dulum of a clock, was perhaps of more importance than any
improvement which has been subsequently made. Watches
were common in France before 1544, as in that year the
corporation of master clockmakers in Paris had a statute enacted
to ensure to themselves the exclusive privilege of making
and causing to be made clocks and watches, large or small,
within the precincts of that city. The anchor-escapement was
invented by Clement, a London clockmaker, in 1680. Pre
viously to 1790, two kinds of watches were made, the vertical
and the horizontal. The former was first used in clocks, then
in watches. The horizontal was invented in 1724, by George
1
This was first used early in the sixteenth century.
 368 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Graham, F.R.S. (an apprentice of the renowned Tompion), to

whom we are indebted for two of the most valuable improve-
ments in clocks which have ever been made, viz. the dead-beat,
or Graham escapement as it is called, and the mercurial com-
1
,

pensation pendulum. The best proof that can be adduced of

the importance of these inventions is, that they still continue
to be employed in all their early simplicity, in the construction
of the best astronomical clocks of the present day. Graham's
horizontal escapement is still extensively employed in the Swiss
and Geneva watches, but in the better sort of those of English
manufacture, it has been superseded by the duplex, and re-
cently by the lever, which is nothing more than the applica-
tion of Graham's dead-beat escapement to the watch, though
patents have been taken out by various persons who have
claimed the invention. The most remarkable inventions of
this period were those of Harrison, consisting of his gridiron
pendulum, the going fusee, the compensation curb, and the
remontoir escapement. In 1736, he appears to have completed
his longitude watch, and received from the Royal Society their
gold medal he ultimately received the government reward of
;

£20,000, together with other sums from the Board of Longitude

and the Honourable East India Company. Notwithstanding his
application of the compensation curb to the watch, it was still
a subject of inquiry, and by many persons it was thought that
the expansion and contraction of the metal, of which the spring
is composed, was the source of variation in the equality of its

motion under changes of temperature but the consideration

;

thatthe change of rate inthe clock, with a seconds pendulum, in

passing from the winter to the summer temperature, amounted
only to about twenty seconds, while that of the watch exceeded
six minutes and a half under similar circumstances, led careful
observers to infer that some other cause must be assigned for
the anomaly, and the loss of elasticity of the balance-spring
by heat began to be suspected, as appears by the following
passage in the Prize Essay of Daniel Bernoulli, read before
the French Academy: —
" I must not omit (said this celebrated
1
A very detailed and learned pamphlet has just been written on this
beautiful escapement by Benjamin L. Vulliamy, F.R.A.S., clock-maker to
the Queen, entitled, '
On the Construction and Theory of the Oead-Beat
Escapement of Clocks.'
 CLOCKS J1ND WATCHES. 369

geometrician) a circumstance which may be prejudicial to ba-

lance watches ;it is, that experimental philosophers pretend to

have remarked that certain changes of elastic force uniformly

follow changes of temperature. If that be the case, the spring
can never uniformly govern the balance." That which Ber-
noulli only conjectured, was in 1773 established as a matter
of certainty, and the amount in loss of time due to each of the
three conjointly operating causes determined by Berthoud to
be,— loss by expansion of the balance, 62 seconds ; loss by
elongation of the balance-spring, 19 seconds and loss by the
;

diminution of the spring's elastic force by heat, 312 seconds, by

an increase of 60° of heat of Fahrenheit's scale. We have
previously observed that Harrison's compensation curb was in-
efficient, as besides other defects,it interfered too much with the
isochronism of the balance-spring, as the inventor himself was
candid enough to confess that the balance, balance-spring,
and compensation curb, were not contemporaneously affected
by changes of temperature, since small pieces of metal were
sooner atfected than large, and those in motion before those at
rest. Whence he was led to conclude, that if the provision for
heat and cold could properly reside in the balance itself, as
was the case with his gridiron pendulum clocks, the time-piece
might be made much more perfect. This ingenuous observa-
tion is the more to Harrison's credit, as it was certainly his in-
terest to conceal such a suggestion, being at that time a can-
didate for the government reward. The complexity of Har-
rison's timekeeper and the high price, £400, demanded by
Kendall to make them after that model, still left the timekeeper
to be discovered that would come within the means of par-
chase of private individuals for admirably as Harrison had
:

succeeded in the construction of those which had procured

him his reward, and great as were the talents of his assistant
Larcum Kendall, yet for practical purposes, there needed an
instrument of greater simplicity, and to John Arnold we are
indebted for its invention.
Arnold is manufacture of the smallest
also celebrated for the
repeating-watch ever known: was made for his majesty
it

George III., to whom it was presented on his birthday, the

4th of June 1764. Although less than six-tenths of an inch in
diameter, it was perfect in all its parts, repeated the hours,
vol. i. 2 b
370 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

quarters and half-quarters, and contained the first ruby cy-

linder ever made. Indeed so novel was the construction of
this little specimen of mechanical skill, that he was forced not
only to form the design and execute the work himself, but also
to manufacture the greater part of the tools employed in its con-
struction. It is minutely described in Rees's Cyclopaedia, and
also in the Sporting Magazine of that time, in which latter
work it is correctly stated to be of the size of a silver two-
pence, and its weight that of a sixpence. The King was so
much pleased with this rare specimen of mechanical skill, that
he presented Mr. Arnold with 500 guineas and the Emperor
;

of Russia afterwards offered Mr. Arnold 1000 guineas for a

duplicate of it, which he declined.
Arnold's model, though destined to perform the same office
as Harrison's, was entirely different in its construction, and
was as simple as his predecessor's was complex. By progres-
sive stages of improvement, it was brought by the inventor
himself to so high a point of perfection, that it continues to be
the model followed in the construction of the best chrono-
meters of the present day. The instruments upon which Ar-
nold experimented are now in the possession of his successor,
Mr. C. Frodsham, and show the gradual progress of advance-
ment made in the escapement, &c, until he arrived at that
oeautiful, yet simple, detached escapement, which is still fol-
lowed, and known under the name of the Arnold escapement.
He was the first watchmaker who introduced jewelling into
watches and clocks, and in 1771 he applied ruby pallets to the
two clocks of the Royal Society by Graham and Smeaton, and
likewise to the transit clock by Graham at the Royal Observa-
tory, Greenwich. In 1776 Arnold achieved Avhat was un-
questionably his greatest work, viz. the invention of the cy-
lindrical spring and compensation balance, and their applica-
tion in the chronometer, which is the name that Arnold then
first employed to designate his timekeepers. This ingenious
and valuable discovery introduced a new sera in chronometry.
Each part of the machine under the new arrangement per-
formed unchecked the office assigned to it. The escapement
was completely detached, except at the moment of discharge
and giving impulse the balance-spring, no longer interfered
;

with in corrections for temperature (as formerly) by the com-

 :

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 371

pensating curb, became a free agent and the generator of mo-

tion, in which state only it is capable of being perfectly iso-
chronized; the balance, by its expansion and contraction,
varied its inertia according to the varied tension of the balance-
spring by its increased or diminished elastic force in changes
of temperature, while the office of the main-spring was reduced
to that of a simple maintaining power. This beautiful dis-
covery, together with the law of isochronism and other im-
portant improvements in the modification of the compensation
balance, procured for him and his son John Roger Arnold the
reward from government of the sum of £3000. The accu-
racy with which chronometers Keep time is truly astonishing
in 1830 two chronometers constructed by Mr. Charles Frod-
sham were submitted for public trial at the Royal Observa-
tory, Greenwich, for twelve months, and were observed daily.
One of them made an extreme variation of 86-hundredth
parts of a second, and the other of 57-hundredths only but ;

even this degree of accuracy, surprising as it is, is surpassed

by the performance of his best astronomical clocks. It is
therefore highly honourable to the English artists, that by their
ingenuity and skill they have accomplished the great object
which had occupied the attention of the learned of Europe
for nearly 300 years, namely, the means of discovering the
longitude at sea. It is not a little singular that Sir Isaac
Newton suggested the discovery of the longitude by the aid of
an accurate timekeeper.
If we go back to the period of Philip III. of Spain, we shall
then see the interest and importance attached to this great
discovery. As early as 1598, this monarch offered a reward
of 100,000 crowns to any person who should discover the
means of finding the longitude of a ship at sea; but what
was the opinion then entertained of the nature of the task to
be accomplished by means of the balance-watches then in use.
may be gathered from an expression of Morin, who wrote
about the year 1630, and who in speaking to the Cardinal
Richelieu of the difficulty of constructing an instrument which
should keep time to the requisite degree of accuracy for that
purpose, is reported to have said, " Id vero an ipsi daemoni
nescio, homini autem suscipere scio esse stultissimum '."
1 " I know not what such an undertaking would be even to the devil him-
self, hut to man it would, undoubtedly, be the height of foliy."
2 b 2
 372 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

We have not said much on the beautiful discovery of the

law of isochronism, of the balance-spring, on which the higher
adjustment of clocks and watches so entirely depend, as an
elaborate essay on this subject by Charles Frodsham, F.R.A.S.,
is in the hands of the publisher, and will shortly be circulated.

Some very ingenious contrivances have within the last few

years been effected in the application of the electric fluid as
a source of motive power to clocks and chronometers, and
they offer peculiar advantages in the great simplicity of the
apparatus in which wheels are dispensed with, hence friction
is reduced to a minimum. Their invention is a subject of
dispute between Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Alexander
Bain '. We shall briefly describe Mr. Bain's clock. His
sourceof electricity is obtained by fixing galvanic plates in moist
earth. The clock consists of a pendulum, the bob of which
vibrates between the poles of two permanent magnets, the
opposite poles of which face one another. A small platinum-
ball is affixed to the upper part of a small brass stem, which is
free for lateral motion, being fastened below to a light spindle
carried by the upper part of the pendulum-rod. A wire coated
with silk is attached to the lower end of the suspension-spring
of the pendulum. It is led down the back of the rod (which
is composed of wood) and then coiled longitudinally in many

convolutions around the edge of the bob in a groove. It is

then taken up the back of the rod and terminates in the
bearings of the spindle. The pendulum is suspended from a
metal bracket fixed to the back of the case, and to which one
of the poles of the battery is attached. Two pins are fixed
horizontally, parallel with the platinum-ball, leaving space for
its lateral motions, and at such a distance that the ball alter-

nately comes into contact with each pin, when the pendulum
has reached the opposite extremity of its arc. The other pole
of the battery is placed in contact with the metal bracket which
supports one of the pins. As long as the platinum-ball rests
on the pin projecting from the pin-bracket to which the second
pole of the battery is attached, a constant current of electricity
is established and passes through the earth, the plates and the

wires. But when the pendulum is set in motion by being

1
The details of this dispute may be found in the " Applications of the
Electric Fluid to the Useful Arts," by Mr. Alexander Bain. Lond. 1843.
Professor Whcatstone's clock, &c. isdescribed in the Phil. Trans, for 1841.
 QUARANTINE. 373

drawn on one side, the point of support of the rod carrying

the platinum-ball is thus moved to the same side, hence the
centre of gravity of the platinum-ball being removed beyond
its base, it falls upon the opposite pin. This motion of the
ball lets on and cuts off the flow of electricity, at or near the
ends of the vibrations of the pendulum, so that the convoluted
wire of the bob is alternately attracted and repelled by the
magnets at the proper points of its vibrations, and thus a con-
tinual motion is kept up. Mr. Bain has also contrived arrange-
ments by which a great number of clocks may be worked
simultaneously or in rotation ; as also by which ordinary clocks
may be made to keep time. The latter are effected by trans-
mitting a current of electricity once in every four hours from
a regulating clock. As the details connected with these valu-
able contrivances can hardly be followed without figures, we
must rest satisfied with referring the reader to Mr. Baia's
workj before cited.]

QUARANTINE.
Of all the means by which in modern times the infection of
that dangerous malady, the plague, has been so much guarded
against, that according to general opinion, unless the Deity
render precaution useless, it can never again become com-
all

mon Europe, the most excellent and the most effectual is,
in
without doubt, the establishment of quarantine '. Had not
history been more employed in transmitting to posterity the

1
[This opinion not generally admitted by the most experienced me-
is
dical men It is a disputed point whether the plague is
in this country.
even contagious and the mass of evidence is in favour of its being so occa-
;

sionally, but that the plague is usually not propagated in this manner. The
disappearance of this pest from our own and most other countries of Europe
is undoubtedly owing to the much greater attention paid to drainage, ven-
tilation, and the prevention of the accumulation of filth in the streets, &c.
When the peculiar atmospheric conditions upon which its diffusion de-
pends are present, quarantine has proved insufficient to prevent its pro-
pagation.]
 ;

374 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

crimes of princes, and particularly the greatest of them, destruc-

tive wars, than in recording the introduction of such institu-
tions as contribute to the convenience, peace, health and happi-
ness of mankind, the origin of this beneficial regulation would
be less obscure than it is at present. At any rate, I have never
yet been so fortunate as to obtain a satisfactory account of it
but though I am well-aware that I am neither acquainted with
all the sources from which it is to be drawn, nor have ex-
amined all those which are known to me, I will venture to lay
'
/fore my readers what information I have been able to collect
Jn the subject, assuring them at the same time, that it will
afford me great pleasure if my attempt should induce others
fond of historical research to enlarge it.
The opinion that the plague was brought to Europe from
the East, is, as far as I am able to judge, so fully confirmed,
that it cannot be any longer doubted though it is certainly
;

true, that every nation endeavours to trace the origin of in-

fectious disorders to other people. The Turks think that the
plague came to them from Egypt the inhabitants of that coun-
;

try imagine that they received it from Ethiopia and perhaps the
;

Ethiopians do not believe that this dreadful scourge originated

among them '. As the plague however has always been con-
veyed to us from the East, and has first, and most frequently,
broken out in those parts of Europe which approach nearest
to the Levant, both in their physical and political situation,
those I mean which border on Turkey, and carry on with ic
the most extensive trade, we may with the more probability
conjecture that these countries first established quarantine,
the most powerful means of preventing that evil. If further
search be made in regard to this idea, we shall be inclined to
ascribe that service to the Venetians, a people who, when the
plague began to be less common, not only carried on the
1
The oldest plague of which we find any account in history, that so
fully described by Thucydides, book ii., was expressly said to have come
from Egypt. Evagrius in his Histor. Ecclesiast. iv. 29, and Procopius De
Bello Persico, ii. 22, affirm also that the dreadful plague in the time of the
emperor Justinian was likewise brought from Egypt. It is worthy of re-
mark, that on both these occasions, the plague was traced even still further
than Egypt for Thucydides and the writers above-quoted say that the in-
;

fection first broke out in Ethiopia, and spread thence into Egypt and other
countries.
 QUARANTINE. 375

greatest trade in the Levant, but had the misfortune to become

always nearer neighbours to the victorious Turks. It is also
probable that the Hungarians and Transylvanians soon fol-
lowed their example in this approved precaution, as the Turks
continued to approach them and this agrees perfectly with
;

everything I have read in history.

In the first centuries of the Christian aera, it does not seem
to have been known that infection could be communicated by
clothing and other things used by infected persons. The Chris-
tians all considered the plague as a divine punishment, or pre-
destinated event, which it was as impossible to avoid as an
earthquake and the physicians ascribed the spreading of it to
;

corrupted air, which could not be purified by human art. The

Christians therefore gave themselves up, like the Turks at
present, to an inactive and obstinate resignation in the will of
God, and hoped by fasting and prayer to hasten the end of
their misfortune.
But after the plague in the fourteenth century, which con-
tinued longer than any other, and extended over the greater
part of Europe, the survivors found that it was possible to
guard against or prevent infection and governments then
;

began to order establishments of all kinds to be formed against

it. The oldest of which mention has yet been found in history,
are those in Lombardy and Milan of the years 1374, 1383
and 1399 ».

In the first-mentioned year the Visconte Bernabo made

regulations, the object of which was to guard against the
spreading of the plague by intercourse and mixing with those
who were infected ; and with that view it was ordered, that
those afflicted with this disease should be removed from the
city, and allowed either to die or to recover in the open air,
Those who acted otherwise were to suffer capital punishment,
•and their property was to be confiscated. But twenty-five
years after it was strictly commanded that the clothes and
things used by those who had the plague should be purified
with great care: and in 1383 it was forbidden under severe
punishment to suffer any infected person to enter the country.
These means, however imperfect, must have been attended
1
They may be found in Muratori Scriptoros Rerum Italic, torn. xvi.
p. 560, and xviii. p. 82, thence copied into Chenot, p. 147. See also Bocca-
cio, Decamer. Amst. 1679, p. 2.
 376 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

with utility, because they were again employed during a new

danger of the same kind in the fifteenth century.
Brownrigg, an Englishman, who wrote a book on the means
of preventing the plague, says, that quarantine was first es-
tablished by the Venetians in the year 1484', but like his
learned countryman Mead, who assigns the same year, without
adducing any proofs ~. I imagined that I should find some
more certain information respecting this point in Le Bret's
History of the Republic of Venice but as that historian does
;

not mention, as the title professes, the original sources from

which he derived his materials, his work is less worthy of
credit. He tells us however that the grand council in 1348,
chose three prudent persons, whom they ordered to investigate
the best means for preserving health, and to lay the result of
their inquiry before the council. The plague which broke
out afterwards in 1478, rendered it necessary that some per-
manent means should be thought of, and on that account a
peculiar magistracy consisting of three noblemen, with the
title of sopra la sanita, was instituted in 1485. As these were
not able to stop the progress of the disease, the painful office
was imposed upon them, in 1504, of imprisoning people against
whom complaints might be lodged, and even of putting them
to death and in 1585 it was declared, that from the sentence
;

of these judges there should be no appeal. Their principal

business was to inspect the lazarettos erected in certain
places at some distance from the city, and in which it was re-
quired that all persons and merchandize coming from suspected
parts should continue a stated time fixed by the laws. The
captain of every ship was obliged also to show there the bill
of health which he had brought along with him.
As Le Bret, produces no proof that quarantine was esta-
blished by the Venetians so early as he says, I cannot help
suspecting that he is mistaken respecting the year (1348), and
conjecture that it ought to be 1448, or perhaps 1484. I
have not been able however to resolve my doubt for, in ex- ;

[" The Venetians seem to have been the first who established quaran-
tine in their dominions about the year 1484, soon after the Turks became
their neighbours in Europe the constant intercourse which they main-
;

tained with those powerful neighbours, either in war or by commerce, ren-

dering it necessary for them to take this and other precautions against the
introduction of this contagion into their country."]
'*
i)e Pestc, in Mead's Opera Medica.
 QUARANTINE. oil

amining different Italian writers, I find that various yeax-s are

given '. The institution of the council of health (sopra la
sanita) is mentioned by Bembo but I cannot discover from
;

him what year he alludes 2

to His countryman Lancellotti,
.

who undoubtedly must have understood him well, makes it to

be 1491 3 Caspar Contarenus, who died in 1542, in the
.

sixtieth year of his age, mentions no particular period, and

only says that the institution had been formed not long before
his time 4 The islands on which the pest-houses were erected,
.

were called il Lazaretto vecchio and il Lazaretto nuovo. In

the elegant description of Venice, ornamented with abundance
of plates, below mentioned, it is remarked that the pest-house
on the former island was built in 1423, and that on the latter
in 1468 5 The same account is given in the newest and best
.

Topography of Venice 6 .

The Venetians are entitled to the merit of having improved

the establishments formed to prevent infection; and that
their example was followed in other countries is generally
admitted. But the year in which quarantine was first ordered
by them to be performed is uncertain. Muratori 7 following ,

Lorenzo Candio, gives the year 1484, and Howard 8 says that
the college of health was instituted in 1448.
Brovvnrigg affirms that letters of health, in which he confides
more than in quarantine, were first written in 1665 by the
consuls of the different commercial nations, but they are much
older, for Zegata 9 asserts that they were first established in
1527, when the plague again made its appearance in Europe.
This much is certain, that all these means against infection,
which, though far from being perfect, have secured Europe
from this misfortune, weie not invented or proposed by physi-
1
Everything said by Le Bret on this subject may be found equally full
in D. C. Tentori, Saggio sulla Storia Civile, &c., della Republica di Vene-
zia. Ven. 1786, 8vo, t. vi. p. 391. As Sandi in his Principi di Storia Civile
della Republica di Venezia, 9 vols. 4to, 1755 —
1 769, gives the same account,

lib. viii. cap. 8. art. 4, they must have both got their information from the
2
same source. Historia Vinitiana. Vinegia, 1552, 4to, lib. i. p. 10.
3 L'Hoggidi, overo il
mondo non peggiore, ne piii calamitoso del passato.
4
Veu. 1627, 8vo, p. 610. De Republica Venetorum, lib. iv.
5 Thesaurus Antiquitatum Italia?, v.
2, p. 241.
6
Topografia Veneta, overo Descrizione della Stato Veneto. Venezia,
1786, 8vo, iv. p. 263. 7 Lib. i. cap. 11, p. 65.
8 Account of the principal Lazarettos, Loud. 1789, 4to, p. 12.
9
Cronica di Verona, in Verona, 1747, 4to, iii. p. 93.
37S HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

cians,but ordered by the police, contrary to their theory. The

latter seem
to have known, at an early period, the most dan-
gerous causes of infection, and to have formed at a very great
expense precautionary means, the observance of which was
enforced under pain of the severest punishment.
Why the space of forty days was chosen as a proof I do not
know. no doubt from the doctrine of the physicians
It arose
in regard to the critical days of many diseases. The fortieth
day seems to have been considered as the last or extreme ot
all the critical days on which subject many physicians appear
;

to have entertained various astrological conceits '. On the

Turkish frontiers this period was reduced under the emperor
Joseph II. to twenty days 2 .
[With respect to the quarantine establishments in this coun-
try, M c
Culloch observes that they are exceedingly defec-
tive. Even in the Thames there is not a lazaretto where
a ship from a suspected place may discharge her cargo and
refit so that she is detained, frequently at an enormous ex-
;

pense, during the whole period of quarantine, while if she have

perishable goods on board, they may be very materially in-
jured. The complaints as to the oppressiveness of quarantine
regulations are almost wholly occasioned by the want of proper
facilities for its performance. Were these afforded, the burdens
it imposes would be rendered comparatively light.

The existing quarantine regulations are embodied in the

act 6 George IV. c. 78, and the different orders in council
issued under its authority. These orders specify what vessels
are liable to perform quarantine, the places at which it is to
be performed, and the various formalities and regulations to
be complied with.]
1
See G. W. Wedelii exercitatio de quadragesima medica, in his Centu-
ria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. Jense, 1/01, 4to, decas iv. p. 16.
Wedel mentions various diseases in which Hippocrates determines the
fortieth day to he critical. Compare Rieger in Hippocratis Aphoris. Hag.
Com. 1767, 8vo, i. p. 221.
2 Martini Lange Rudimenta Doctrinoede Peste. Offeubachii 1791, 8vo.
See Gottingische Anzeigen von gelehrt. Sachen, 1791, p. 1799.
 379

PAPER-HANGINGS.
Three kinds of paper-hangings have for some time past been
much used on account of their beautiful appearance and their
moderate price. The first and plainest is that which has on
it figures printed or drawn either with one or more colours.

The second sort contains figures covered with some woolly

stuff pasted over them and the third, instead of woolly stuff, is
;

ornamented with a substance that has the glittering brightness

of gold and silver. It appears that the idea of covering walls
with parti-coloured paper might have readily occurred, but
the fear of such hangings being liable to speedy decay may
have prevented the experiment from being made. In my
opinion the simplest kind was invented after the more ingeni-
ous, that is to say, when the woolly or velvet kind was already
in use '. The preparation of them has a great affinity to the
printing of cotton. Wooden blocks of the like kind are em-
ployed for both plates of copper are also used and sometimes
; ;

they are painted after patterns. Artists possess the talent of

giving them such a resemblance to striped and flowered silks
and cottons, that one is apt to be deceived by them on the
first view. Among the most elegant hangings of this kind,
may be reckoned those which imitate so exactly every variety
of marble, porphyry, and other species of stones, that when the
walls of an apartment are neatly covered with them, the best
connoisseur may not without close examination be able to
discover the deception. That the resemblance may be still
greater, a hall may be divided by an architect into different
compartments by pillars, so as to have the appearance of a
grand piece of regular architecture. Whether M. Breitkopf
at Leipsic was the inventor of this kind of hangings, I do not
know, but it is certain that he brought it to great perfection.
1
The simplest or worst articles are not always the oldest or the first.
The deterioration of a commodity is often the continuation of an invention,
which, when once hegun, is by industry practised in every form, in order
that new gain may be acquired from each variation. The earliest printers,
for example, had not the art of printing with such slight ink and on such
bad paper as ours commonly employ and Aldus, perhaps, were he now
;

alive, would be astonished at the cheap mode of printing some of our most
useful and popular books.
380 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The second kind, or, as it is called, velvet-paper (now called

flock-paper), is first printed like the former, but the figures are
afterwards wholly, or in part, covered with a kind of glue,
over which is strewed some woolly substance, reduced almost
to dust, so that by these means they acquire the appearance
of velvet or plush. The ground and the rest of the figures
are left plain but the whole process is so complex that it is
;

impossible to convey a proper idea of it by a short description.

The shearings of fine white cloth, which the artist procures
from a cloth manufactory, and dyes to suit his work, are em-
ployed for this purpose. If they are not fine enough, he ren-
ders them more delicate by making them pass through a close
hair-sieve. This, as well as the third kind, was formerly made
much more than at present upon canvas ; and, in my opinion,
the earliest attempts towards this art were tried, not upon paper,
but on linen cloth. The paper procured at first for these ex-
periments was probably too weak and it was not till a later
;

period that means were found out to strengthen and stiffen it

by size and paste.
The invention of velvet-paper is by several French writers'

ascribed to the English ; and, if they are not mistaken, it was

first made known in the reign of Charles I. On the 1st of
May 1634, an artist, named Jerome Lanyer, received a patent
for this art, in which it is said that he had found out a method
of affixing wool, silk and other materials of various colours
upon linen cloth, silk, cotton, leather and different substances
with oil, size and cements, so that they could be employed for
hangings as well as for other purposes'-. The inventor wished
1
Origny, in Dictionnaire des Origines, v. p. 332. Journal (Economique,
1755, Mars, p. 86. Savary, Dictionnaire de Commerce, iv. p. 903.
2 I shall here insert the words of the patent :
" To all those to whom
these presents shall come, greeting. Whereas our trusty and well-
beloved subject and servant Jerome Lanyard hath informed us, that he by
his endeavours hath found out an art and mystery by affixing of wool, silk
and other materials of divers colours upon linen cloth, silk, cotton, leather
and other substances, with oil, size and other cements, to make them useful
and serviceable for hangings and other occasions, which he calleth Londrin-
diana, and that the said art is of his own invention, not formerly used by
—
any other within this realm, &c." llymeri Fcedera, torn. xix. London,
1732, fol. p. 554. The following observations may serve to illustrate all
works of this nature in general. Painting, according to the most common
technical meaning, may be divided into three kinds. In the first the colours
or pigments are mixed with a viscous or glutinous fluid to bind them, and
 1

PAPER-HANGINGS. 38

to give to this new article the name of Londrindiana, which

appears however not to have continued in use. It is worthv
of remark, that this artist first made attempts to affix silk upon
some ground, but that method as far as I know was not brought
to perfection ; that he employed for the ground, linen and cot-
ton cloth, or leather and that no mention is made of his
;

having used paper, though he seems not to have confined him-

self entirely to leather or cloth.
Tierce, a Frenchman, has however disputed this invention
with the English ; for he asserts that one of his countrymen at
Rouen, named Francois, made such kinds of printed paper-
hangings so early as the year 1620 and 1630, and supports
his assertion by the patterns and wooden blocks which are
still preserved, with the above-mentioned years inscribed on

them l. He is also of opinion, that some Frenchmen, who

fled to England when persecuted for their religion, carried
this art along with them. The inventor's son followed this
make them adhere to the body which is to he painted. Gums, glue, var-
nish, &c. may be used for this purpose. Vegetable colours will not admit
of such additions, because they contain gum in their natural composition.
Another kind consists in previously washing over the parts that are to
be painted with some viscous substance, and then laying on the colours
as the figures may require. Size or cement (I use the word in the most
extensive sense) is of such a nature that either in drying or glazing it be-
comes hard, and binds the colours. To this method belongs not only
gilding, imitating bronze and making velvet-paper-hangings, but also paint-
ing on glass and in enamel. By the third method the colours are applied
to the ground without any binding substance they are therefore- more
:

liable to decay, as is the case in painting with crayons but they will how-
;

ever adhere better when the pigments consist of very fine particles like
ceruse, or black-lead. It would be a great acquisition if a substance could
be found out to bind the colours used in this art without injuring them, or
to fix the crayons. The third kind of painting is not with colours, but
with different bodies ready coloured, which are joined together in pieces
according to a copy, either by cement or plaster, as in mosaic, or by work-
ing them into each other, as in weaving and sewing, which is painting with
the needle Are not the works of art almost like those of nature,
each connected together as a chain ? Do not the boundaries of one art
approach those of another ? Do they not even touch each other ? Those
who do not perceive this approximation are like people unacquainted with
botany, who cannot remark the natural order of plants. But if a connois-
seur observe a gap in the chain of artificial works, we are to suppose that
some links are still wanting, the discovery of which may become a merit
to more ingenious ages.
1
Journal (Economique, 1756, Fevrier, p. 92.
S82 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

business to a great extent for more than fifty years at Rouen,

and died in 1748. Some of his workmen went privately to
the Netherlands and Germany, where they sold their art and ;

the French, therefore, with great confidence maintain, without

knowing our artists and their works, that foreigners in this
branch of manufacture are still far behind them. In most
works of the kind my countrymen indeed are only imitators,
not through want of talents to invent or to improve, but be-
cause our great people, for whom they must labour, consider
nothing as fashionable or beautiful, except what has been first
made by the French or the English.
I shall here observe, that Nemeitz ascribes the invention of
wax-cloth-hangings, with wool chopped and beat very fine
(these are his own words), to a Frenchman named Audran,
who in the beginning of the last century was an excellent
painter in arabesque and grotesque figures, and inspector of
the palace of Luxemburg at Paris, in which he had a manu-
factory for hangings of that kind What particular service
l
.

he rendered to the art of making paper-hangings, I have not

however been able to learn. Equally uncertain and defective
is the information of Von Heinecken 2 that one Eccard in-
,

vented the art of imprinting on paper-hangings gold and silver

figures, and carried on a manufactory for such works.
In regard to the time when these hangings began to be
made in Germany, I can only say that the oldest information
I know respecting them is to be found in a work 3 by Andrew
Glorez von Mahren, printed for the first time in 16*70. It
shows that the art was then very imperfect as well as little
known, and that it was practised only by women upon linen
for making various small articles 4 .

1
Both his brothers, John and Benedict Audran, were celebrated en-
gravers.
2
Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunstsachen. Leipzig, 1768, 8vo, ii.
p. 56. The author, giving an account of his travels through the Nether-
lands, says, " Before I leave the Hague I must not omit to mention M.Ec-
card's particular invention for making paper-hangings. He prints some
which appear as worked through with gold and silver. They are fabri-
if
cated with much taste, and are not dear."
3
Haus-und Land-bibliothek, iii. p. 90.
4
The author says, " I shall give an account of a beautiful art, by which
one may cover chairs, screens and other articles of the like kind, with a
substance of various colours made of wool, cut or chopped very fine, and
 PAPER-HANGINGS. 383

One of the most ingenious new improvements in the art of

manufacturing these hangings, consists in bestrewing them
here and there with a glittering metallic dust or sand, by
which they acquire a resemblance to rich gold and silver bro-
cade. From the above-quoted work it appears that artists
began very early to cover some parts of paper-hangings with
silver- dross or gold- foil but as real gold was too dear to be
;

used for that purpose, and as imitations of it soon decayed,

this method seems not to have been long continued. Instead
of these, Nuremberg metallic dust as well as silver-coloured
foil are employed. Metallic dust is the invention of an artist
at Nuremberg, named John Hautsch, who constructed also a
carriage which could be moved by the person who sat in it.
He was born in the year 1595, and died in 1670. His de-
scendants have continued to the present time the preparation
of the metallic dust, which is exported in large quantities from
Nuremberg, and is used in shell-work, lackered-ware, and for
various other purposes. It is prepared by sifting the filings ot
different metals, washing them in a strong lye, and then placing
them on a plate of iron or copper over a strong fire, where
they are continually stirred till their colour is altered. Those
of tin acquire by this process every shade of gold-colour, with
a metallic lustre those of copper the different shades of red
;

and flame-colour those of iron and steel become of a blue or

;

violet ; and those of tin and bismuth appear of a white or

bluish-white colour. The dust, tinged in this manner, is after-
wards put through a flatting-mill, which consists of two rollers
of the hardest steel, like those used by gold and silver wire-
drawers, but for the greater convenience a funnel is placed
over them '. I have in my possession samples of all the above
kinds, which have an exceedingly beautiful appearance. This

cleaned by being made to pass through a hair-sieve I remember that

two Swabian women travelled about through some countries, and taught
people this art, by which means they gained a good deal of money." Of the
author I have been able to procure no information. His book is a com-
pilation selected without any taste, and according to the ideas of the seven-
teenth century, from different writers, almost always without mentioning
the sources from w hich the articles are taken
r
; but it deserves a plaee in
public libraries, because it contains here and there some things which may
help to illustrate the history of agriculture and the arts.
1
Kunkels Glasmacher-Kunst. Nurnb. 1/43, 4to, p. 368. J. J. Marxens
Neu vermehrte Materialkammer.
384 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS" AND DISCOVERIES.

metallic dust is affixed so strongly to paper by means of a

cement, that it is almost impossible to detach it without tearing

the paper, as is the case with the paper-hangings procured from
Aachen, In French, such paper is called papier avec paillettes.
The lustre of it is so durable that it continues unaltered even
on the walls of sitting-apartments. The metallic dust how-
ever has a considerable weight, which may undoubtedly injure
the paper.
This inconvenience may have induced artists to employ,
instead of metallic dust, that silver-coloured mica, which has
been long used in the like manner. So early as the seven-
teenth century the miners at Reichenstein in Silesia collected
and sold for that purpose various kinds of mica, even the
black, which acquires a gold-colour by being exposed to a
strong heat The nuns of Reichenstein ornamented with it
l
.

the images which they made, as the nuns in France and other
catholic countries ornamented their agni Dei, by strewing
over them a shining kind of talc 2 The silver-coloured mica
.

however has not such a bright metallic lustre as metallic dust,

but it nevertheless has a pleasing effect when strewed upon a
white painted ground, and its light thin spangles or scales re-
tain their brightness and adhere to the paper as long as it
lasts. At present 1 am acquainted with no printed information
respecting the method of laying on metallic dust and mica,
nor do I know where artists procure the latter, which in many
countries is indeed not scarce. I shall here observe, that I
once saw at Petersburg a kind of Chinese paper, which ap-
peared all over to have a silver-coloured lustre without being
covered with any metallic substance, and which was exceed-
ingly soft and pliable. It bore a great resemblance to paper
which has been rubbed over with dry acid of borax. I con-
jecture that its surface was covered with a soft kind of talc,
pounded extremely fine but as I have none of it in my pos-
;

session at present, I can give no further account of it.

[The manufacture of this important and elegant substitute
for the ancient " hangings" of tapestry has undergone a gra-
dual succession of improvements, and has now reached a
high state of beauty and perfection. The patterns on these
papers are sometimes produced by stencil plates, but more

1 2
Volkraann, Silesia Subterranea. Leipzig, 1720, 4to, p. 52. Pomet.
 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 3S5

commonly by blocks, each colour being laid on by a separate

block cut in wood or metal upon a plain or tinted ground.
The patterns are sometimes printed in varnish or size, and gilt
or copper-leaf applied or bisulphuret of tin is dusted over
;

so as to adhere to the pattern and in what are called Jlock-

;

papers, dyed wools mixed into powder are similarly applied.

Powdered steatite or French chalk is used to produce the
peculiar gloss known under the name of satin. Striped papers
are sometimes made by passing the paper rapidly under a
trough, which has parallel slits in its bottom through which
the colour is delivered and a number of other very ingenious
;

and beautiful contrivances have lately been applied in this

important branch of art. The invention of the paper-machine,
by which any length of paper may be obtained, effected a great
change in paper-hangings, which could formerly only be printed
upon separate sheets, and were much more inconvenient to
print as well as to apply to the walls '.]

KERMES. COCHINEAL.
Though a variety of information respecting the history of
cochineal and kermes may be found scattered in the works of
different authors, I shall venture to lay before the public what
I have gathered on the subject as I flatter myself with the
;

hope of being able to rectify some errors of my predecessors,

as well as to supply deficiencies which they have left; and as
it will undoubtedly be agreeable to many readers to see col-

lected in one point of view whatever is most important, with

the addition of a few explanatory observations and notes.
Cochineal and kermes, as they appear in commerce, are
small grains, shaped almost like those small dried grapes
without stones, which are called currants. They are some-
times of a deep and sometimes of a fainter reddish-brown, or
violet-brown colour, are often covered with a gray dust or

1
Erande's Dictionary of Science, &c.
VOL. I. 2 c
 ;
;

386 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

mouldiness appear full of wrinkles, as succulent bodies ge-

1
,

nerally do when dried, and for the most part are a little more
raised on the one side than on the other. When these grains
are chewed, they have a somewhat bitterish and astringent
taste, and communicate to the spittle a brownish-red colour.
They are employed in medicine, but their principal use is in
dyeing.
It is now well-known
that they belong to that genus of in-
sects called Coccus, and that they are principally the dried
impregnated females. Numerous species of these insects have
been described by entomologists 2 who have most frequently
,

named them from the plants on which they occur; for the
present object, however, it will be sufficient to take notice
only of three kinds.
The first is the real American cochineal, or that which at
present is most used, but which at the same time is the dearest.
By Linnaeus it is called Coccus Cacti. The second kind is
found chiefly on a species of oak, the Quercus Ilex, in the
Levant, Spain, France, and other southern countries, and is
therefore called Coccus Ilicis, Coccus arborum, and often also
kermes. The third comprehends that saleable cochineal found
on the roots of several perennial plants, which is known com-
monly under the appellation of Polish or German cochineal
though it is not certain whether those insects produced upon
the perennial knawel (Scleranthus), bears-breech (Uva-ursi)
and other plants, be the same species. They are often distin-
guished also by the name of Coccus radicwn.
That the second species has been mentioned by the ancient
Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Arabian writers cannot be denied
and those who know that our information respecting the na-
ture of this commodity, which is perhaps even yet imperfect,
has been in modern times procured after much labour and re-
search, will not be surprised to find their accounts mingled
with many falsehoods and contradictions. The ancients must
have been under more doubt and in greater ignorance on this
subject, the less they were acquainted with the propagation of
these insects but we should be too precipitate were we to
;

reject entirely everything they have said that may deviate

1
[The powder spread out by the female insect just before laying the eggs.]
2
[Stephens in his Catalogue of British Insects enumerates no less than
thirty species as inhabitants of these islands.]
 ;

KERMES. COCHINEAL. 387

from the truth and I think it would be no difficult task to

;

produce writers of the seventeenth and of the eighteenth cen-

tury, whose information on this point is as dubious and incor-
rect as that to be found in the writings of the ancients.
All the ancient Greek and Latin writers agree that kermes,
1

called by the latter coccum, perhaps also coccus, and often

granum, were found upon a low shrubby tree, with prickly
leaves, which produced acorns, and belonged to the genus of
the oak and there is no reason to doubt that they mean Coc-
;

cus Ilicis, and that low evergreen oak, with the prickly leaves
of the holly (aquifolium), which is called at present in botany
Quercus Ilex-. This assertion appears more entitled to credit,
as the ancients assign for the native country of this tree places
where it is still indigenous and produces kermes.
According to the account of Dioscorides, kermes were col-
lected in Galatia, Armenia, Asia, Cilicia and Spain. Most
commentators suppose that there must be here some error, as
that author first mentions Galatia and Armenia, and then Asia
in general. Some, therefore, understand by the latter, the city
of Asia in Lydia others have altered or rejected the word
;

altogether and Serapion, in his Arabic translation, seems to

;

have read Syria. Professor Tychsen, however, assured me

that Asia proconsularis is here meant, to which Cilicia did not
belong and in this particular sense the word is often used by
;

writers contemporary with Dioscorides. Of this difficulty

Salmasius takes no notice.
We are informed by Pliny 3 that kermes were procured from
Asia and Africa from Attica, Galatia, Cilicia, and also from
;

Lusitania and Sardinia but those produced in the last-men-

;

tioned place were of the least value. Pausanias says that they
were to be found in Phocis. As the coccus is mentioned like-

1
By Dioscorides they are called ko'kxos fiatyiK-rj. Dioscorides, iv. 48,
p. 260. Respecting the tree, Pausanias, lib. x. p. 890, seems to raise some
difficulty, as he compares it to the (T^Tvos, lentiscus, or, as others read the
word, (txoZvos. But it has been remarked long ago, that the reading ought
to be 7rpTvos, ilex and this alteration is supported by some manuscripts.
;

2
[Kirby and Spence and Stephens state that the Coccus Ilicis is found
upon the Quercus coccifera. Moreover Beckmann's description of the
"low evergreen oak" does not apply to Q. Ilex, but does to coccifera;
Ilex grows sixty feet high, coccifera only ten; in the other respects
detailed by him they agree.] 3 Plin.
Hist. Nat. lib. ix. cap. 41
lib. xvi. cap. 8 ; lib. xxii. cap. 2 ; lib. xxiv. cap. 4.
2c2
388 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

wise by Moses and other Hebrew writers, kermes must have

been met with at that period in some of the remote countries
of the East . 1
Bochart has quoted passages from the manu-
script works of Arabian authors, which undoubtedly allude
also to kermes and I shall class among these, without any
;

hesitation, the account of Ctesias, which has been copied by

Photius, JEUau, and the poet Phile, though in more than one
circumstance it deviates from the truth. It has already been
considered by Tyson and Delaval as alluding to kermes, or
rather the American cochineal, which Tyson, however, seems
to confound with the genus of insects Coccinella, in English
called the lady-bird 2 .

That the kermes-oak still grows and produces kermes 3 in

the Levant, Greece, Palestine, Persia and India, is sufficiently
proved by the testimony of modern travellers. Bellon and
Tournefort saw kermes collected in the island of Crete or
Candia 4 the former saw them also between Jerusalem and
;

Damascus 5 ; and he informs us that the greater part of them

was sent to Venice. That they are indigenous in Persia, is
expressly affirmed by Chardin. The kermes of Spain are so
well known that it is not necessary to bring proofs of their
being a production of that country. Dioscorides says that
she Spanish kermes were bad 6 and we are expressly told by
;

Garidel, that they are still of less value than the French.
With the real nature of kermes the ancients were not ac-
quainted. By the greater part they were considered as the
1
Bochart. Hierozoicon, vol. ii. lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 624.
2 —
Tyson's Anatomy of a Pigmy, 1751, 4to. Delaval's Experimental In-
quiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colours in Opake Bodies, 1777, 4to.
3 The insect is not natural to the tree, but adventitious. As all rose-
bushes have not tree-lice, nor all houses bugs so all ilices, or oaks, have
;

not kermes. —
4 Bellonii Itin. i. 17. Tournefort, Voy. du Levant, i. p. 1 9.
5 Bellon. ii. 88.— —
Roger, Voyage de la Terre Sainte, i. 2. Voyages de
—
Monconys, i. p. 179. Brown's Travels in Africa, &c.
6
In opposition to this account some have asserted that Spanish kermes
are praised in Petronius, cap. 119 but the passage varies so much, in differ-
;

ent editions, that no certain conclusion can be drawn from it. See the ex-
cellent edition of Mich. Hadrianides. Amstelod. 1G69, 8vo, p. 419. If we
even read, with Hardouin and others,
Hesperium coccum laudabat miles,
the soldier might mention kermes among those productions of Spain of
which be was fond, though he did not consider it as the best. Hardouin
says, " Loquitur de minio Ilispanico ;" but that was a colour for painting.
 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 389

proper and although they remarked the in-

fruit of the tree;
sects, was a common opinion that they were produced from
it

putrefaction without, propagation and on this account they

;

did not perceive their real origin. They imagined that the
insects were the effects of corruption and Pliny speaks as if
;

he conceived that certain species were liable to this fault

more than others. They were therefore named scolecion, and
less valued. But in another passage he calls kermes, not im-
properly, a scurf or scab of the tree, scabies fruticis. Diosco-
rides says that the kermes appeared on the tree like lentils, a
comparison with which Matthiolus is highly displeased but ;

it cannot be altogether unnatural, as many of the modems,

who never read the writings of the Greeks, compare them also
to lentils or peas. The account, that a kind of kermes in Si-
cily, like small snails, was collected by the women with their
mouths, seems to be attended with more difficulty. The com-
parison of snails, which may not be altogether inconsistent, I
shall admit; but the gathering with the mouth is too much
contrary to common sense not to be disputed. Commenta-
tors, therefore, have proposed various emendations, which
seem to be drawn from the different readings but the com- ;

mon one alluded to must be very old, as it has been adopted

by Serapion in his translation Marcellus and Cornarius
1
.

are of opinion that a word must be inserted, expressive of the

time when the kermes were gathered and that instead of ;

" with the mouth," ought to be read " in summer 2 ." For my
part, 1 think a word signifying some instrument employed by
the women in collecting them would be more proper for the ;

Grecian women, according to Bellon's account, use still for

that purpose a small instrument shaped like a sickle. In
France 3 and other countries, the women suffer the nails of
their fingers to grow, in order that they may assist them in
their labour 4 However this may be, both Dioscorides and
.

1 2 These writers
Cap. 311, p. 210. propose to read kv ry Oepei in-
stead of Ty (TTOfxari but the variation here is too great to be admitted.
;

2 Garidel,
p. 254.
3
Having mentioned the above passage to Professor Tychsen, he sug-
gested an emendation which, in my opinion, is preferable to any I have
hitherto seen " We must read," said he, " r<£ arovvxi, which transcribers
:

may have readily mistaken and changed into the word or 6 pan, with which,
perhaps, they were better acquainted. 2roVw? signified not only the ex-
tremity of the nail but also any kind of instrument, and even weapons, in
390 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Galen ascribe to kermes an astringent, bitter taste but I shall ;

leave to the examination of physicians the medicinal qualities

for which they have extolled them. I shall remark only, as a
technologist, that kermes was used formerly in dyeing purple
to give what is called the ground ; but our dyers employ it to
communicate a scarlet colour, which, without doubt, excels the
purple of the ancients.
The first-mentioned use of kermes in dyeing seems to have
been continued through every century. In the middle ages,
as they are called, we meet with kermes under the name of
vermiculus or vermiculum and on that account cloth dyed
;

with them was called vermiculata. Hence the French word

vermeil, derivative vermilion, as is well-known, had
and its

their extraction the latter of which originally signified the

;

red dye of kermes, but it is now used for any red paint, and
pounded cinnabar. In France and Spain, at pre-
also for finely
sent, kermes, as soon as they are gathered, are besprinkled
with vinegar and dried in the sun ; but it appears that in the
middle ages they were not dried sufficiently, and that they
were put into leather bottles to prevent them from making
their escape . In preparing the liquid dye, dyers used
1

which last sense it occurs more than once

in Lycophron." See Hesychius.
Much more forced and improbable the amendment proposed by Sal-
is
masius, which may be found in his Annotations on Solinus.
1
The following passage, highly worthy of notice, taken from Gervasii
Tilberiensis Otia Imperialia ad Ottonem IV. Imperatorem, iii. 55 a work
;

which the author, a very learned man for his time, wrote in the year 1211,
will serve to illustrate what I have said above " De vermiculo. In regno
:

Arelatensi (kingdom of Aries, which formerly belonged to the dukes of

Burgundy) et confinio maritimo est arbor cujus sarcina pretium facit duo-
decim nuramorum Wighorniensium. Ejus fructus in flore facit pretium
quinquaginta librarum. Ejus cortex ad onus vestis pretium habet quinque
solidorum. Vermiculus hie est, quo tinguntur pretiosissimi regum panni,
sive serici, ut examiti, sive lanci, ut scharlata. Et est mirandum, quod
nulla vestis linea colorem vermiculatum recipit, sed sola vestis quae ex vivo
animanteque vel quovis animato decerpitur." [The author here is un-
doubtedly right, as animal substances take a dye more readily than vege-
table.] " Vermiculus autem ex arbore, ad modum ilicis et quantitatem
dumi pungitiva folia habente, prodit ad pedem, nodulum faciens mollcm
ad formam ciceris" (the same comparison as that of Dioscoridcs), "aquo-
sum, et, cum exterius colorem habeat nebulae et roris coagulati, interms
rubet et cum ungue magisterialiter decerpitur, ne, tenui rupta pellicula,
;

humor —
inclusus effluat, postquam exsiccatur ct corio includitur. Cum enim
tempus solstitii acstivi advenerit, ex se ipso vermiculos generat, et nisi
coriis subtiliter consutis includerentur, omnes fugerent at in nihilum eva-
 :

KERMES. COCHINEAL. 391

Egyptian alum, the only kind then to be had, and also urine 1
.

This dye seems to have been known in Germany so early as

the twelfth century for among the productions of the country
;

which Henry the Lion sent as a present to the Greek emperor

we find scarlata-.

iiescerent. Hino
quod vermiculus nominatur propter dissolutionem
est,
quam in vermes ex natura roris Maialis, a quo generatur unde
facile facit, ;

et illo tantum mense colligitur. Arbor autem vermiculum generans vulgo

Analis nuncupatur." —
This book may be found in Leibnitii Scriptor. Rerum
Brunsvic. 1.
1
Muratori has published, in the second part of Antiquitat. Italic. Medii
-<Evi, p.379, a treatise which appears to have been written in the ninth
century, or in the time of Charlemagne, and which contains a great many
receipts respecting dyeing and other arts. Among these is the receipt then
commonly used for dyeing red, Compositio vermiculi. It is much to be re-
gretted that the manuscript was so illegible that there are whole passages
entirely destitute of sense, and that many words occur of which no one has
given, or perhaps ever will be able to give, an explanation. We find, how-
ever, that the kermes were boiled with urine in a linen bag (in linteolo raro)
addis hurinam expumatam. The other ingredients I confess I do not un-
derstand. What luzarim, lulachn, quianus, coccaris ? Many of these
is
words seem to compounded pigments. Lulacim, by
signify not simple but
p. 378, appears to have been the expressed juice of some plant boiled with
alum. "Coccarin nascitur in folio cedrin non tritse." Besides the word
vermiculum, the word coccum also occurs " Coccum delabas in urina."
:

In the last sentence we ought to read coctum.

2 See Barth. ad Guil. Britonis Philippidos libr. xii. Arnoldus Lubecensis,

at the end of Helmoldi Chronicon Slavorum, lib. iii. cap. 4 " Pramiserat :

autem dux munera multa etoptimajuxta morem terrse nostras, equospulcher-

rimos sellatos et vestitos, loricas, gladios, vestes de scharlatto et vestes lineas
tenuissimas." See Fischer's Geschichte des Teutschen Handels, Hanover,
1758, 8vo, i. p. 490. But can " munera juxta morem terras nostras " be.
with propriety translated "the productions of the country?" With all
due respect to the extensive reading and great learning of Professor Fischer,
I must warn the reader against some errors which occur in his book, and
against his too bold assertions. From what he says, p. 448, one woidd
suppose that he compared the kermes to our acorns but the fruit only of ;

the kermes-tree, as being a species of oak, has the figure of an acorn. In

p. 493, he ventures to criticise Professor J. H. Schulze, who, in Dissertat.
de Granorum Kermes Coccionellaa Convenientia, Viribus, et Usu, Halse,
1743, adopts the opinion of a Dutchman (not an Englishman) De Ruus-
cher, which has been completely justified, that cochineal is an insect. Ac-
cording to Professor Fischer, both the insect and the acorn are cochineal.
He talks of plantations of the kermes-tree among the ancients, and seems
to believe that the Celts brought kermes along with them to Galatia, from
their original country, in the same manner as the Europeans carried with
them to America the corn of Europe. Kermes, however, are insects which
cannot be transplanted, and I do not find any proof that there were ever
 ;

S92 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Our ancestors, in all probability, procured their kermes

from the southern part of France, or rather from Spain. The
Arabians, who from the earliest periods had been acquainted
with this production in Africa, found it in Spain, and em-
ployed it there for dyeing, and as an article of commerce
and on this account, as appears, the Arabic name kermes, or
alkerm.es, became so common '. Salmasius thinks that the Arabs
borrowed this word from the Latins, and that it is formed
from vermes- but even if we allow that it is not an original
;

Arabic word, it is perhaps more probable that it is of Celtic

extraction, as is the opinion of Astruc 3 Gucr or quer signi-
.

fied in the Celtic language a green (evergreen) oak and in ;

Lower Languedoc, uncultivated land on which the kermes-oak

grows is still called garrigues. From this g tier or quer Astruc
is inclined to derive also the Latin word quercus, the etymo-

logy of which is nowhere else to be found. This conjecture

is of the more importance, as mes in some parts signifies the

fruit of the oak so that guermes or kermes would be the

;

acorns, les glands du chesne. Although kermes are not acorns,

we cannot reject this appellation as improbable. Having re-
quested the opinion of Professor Tychsen, as being well-ac-
quainted with the Arabic language, on this subject, he readily
complied with my desire, and I have given it in the note below,

plantations of them. [This assertion is far from correct. The true cochi-
neal insect has been introduced from Mexico into Java, Spain, and recently
into Algiers. The Journal de Pharmacie for Feb. 1844, contains a long
account, by M. Simounet, of the success of the cochineal plantations in
Algiers] People collected kermes in the places where they happened to
find them. The comparison of cochineal with the lady-cow", or lady-bird,
as it is called, p. 493,
is altogether improper, as that insect is the Coccinella,
which has no affinity to cochineal. His proposal to place the Coccinellce,
or lady-birds, on the kermes-oak, or on the Scleranthus (perennial
knawell), is totally impracticable and even were they to remain there
;

for eternity, they would never become cochineal or kermes.

1
Matthiolus, in his Annotations on Dioscorides, p. 725, says that the
monks who wrote a Commentary on Mesues assert that the kermes of the
Arabians, the Coccus radicum, is not the Coccus arborum but he refutes
;

this idea upon the grounds that the Arabians themselves say everything of
their kermes that is related of them by Dioscorides. I am almost induced to
conjecture that the monks made this assertion in order to render more
agreeable that tribute which was paid to them, in some countries, under
the name of St. John's blood.
2
Salmasius in Solinuin, p. 854.
3
Ilistoire Naturelle de Languedoc. Par. 173/, lto, p. 472.
 —

KERMES. COCHINEAL. 893

in Ins own words It deserves to be remarked, that carmesin,

1
.

earmin, cramoisi of the French, and charmesi, ehermesino of

the Italians, and other like words, hence derive their origin.

1 "
The word Jcermes, Ttarmes, and, with the article, al kermes, is at pre-
sent in the East the common name of the animal which produces the dye,
as well as of the dye itself. Both words have hy the Arabs and the com-
merce of the Levant been introduced into the European languages. Ker-
mes, Span, al charmes, al qucrmes, or more properly alkermes, alkarmes.
Ital. cremesino, &c.
" To what language the word originally belongs cannot with certainty be
determined. There are grounds for conjecturing several derivations from
the Arabic, for example, karasa, extremis digitis tenuit, which would not
ill-agree with arovvt,; and karmis signifies imbecillus-, but this word may
be derived from the small insect, as well as the insect from it. As all these
derivations, however, are attended with grammatical difficulties, and as the
Arabians, according to their own account, got the dye and the word from
Armenia, it appears rather to be a foreign appellation which they received
with the thing signified, when they overran Upper
Asia. Jbn Beithar in
Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. kermes an Armenian dye and the
p. 625, calls ;

Arabian lexicographers, from whom Giggeus and Castellus made extracts,

explain the kindred word karmasal, coccineus, vermiculatus, as an Arme-
nian word.
" This dye however was undoubtedly known to the Hebrews, the Phoe-
nicians, and the Egyptians, long before the epoch of the Arabians in the
East. Among the Hebrews the dye occurs, though not clearly, under other
names, tola sehani, or simply tola, in their oldest writer, Moses. Tola is
properly the worm, and according to the analogy of kermes, worm-dye,
scarlet. The additional word sehani signifies either double-dyed, or, ac-
cording to another derivation, bright, deep red dye. For both significa-
tions sufficient grounds and old authorities might be quoted but the ;

former is the most usual, and on account of its analogy with EipaQov,
seems to be the most probable.
" But was the coccus known so early ? Is not tola, the worm-dye, per-
haps the same with purple, because the ancients made no distinction be-
tween vermis and snail ? I believe not. for purple the Orientals have a
particular name, argaman, argevan, which is accurately distinguished from
tola, and often added to it as something distinct. All the ancients there-
is

fore translate the Hebrew word tola by kokkos, kermes, zehori and zehorito
(deep red, bright dye), which words they never put for argaman. As the
Phoenicians traded at so early a period with Spain and other countries,
where the kermes are indigenous, it may be readily comprehended how
that dye was known in Palestine about and before the time of Moses.
" It must have been known also in Egypt about the same epoch for when
;

Moses, in the wilderness, required scarlet to ornament the tabernacle, it could

have been procured only from that country. Whether kermes be indigenous
in Egypt, I do not know. On the word naXdivov, quoted by Bochart from
Hesychius as Egyptian, the abbreviation of which, laia, in the Ethiopic lan-
guage signifies scarlet, I lay no great stress, because it cannot be proved,
 — ;

394? HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The coccus found on the roots of some plants, as far as I know,

has not been mentioned by the ancients. That these insects
however were collected in Germany in the twelfth century, was
first proved, as I think, by J. L. Frisch l . are told that in We
this, and at least in the following century, several monasteries
caused their vassals to collect this coccus, and bring to them by
1st, that the word is originally Egyptian, as it occurs several times in the
Greek writers and and 2ndly, that it signifies
in various significations ;

scarlet dye, because the ancients explain it sometimes by purple, some-

times by sea-colour. See Bochart, 1. c. p. 730. If the word be Egyptian,
it signifies rather red dye in general than defines purple colour. At any
rate, there is in Coptic for the latter a peculiar word, scadschi, or sanhad-
schi. The by Kircher in Prodrom. Copt. p. 337, mer-
latter is explained '

cator purpuras, vermiculus coccineus, purpura,' which is altogether vague

and contradictory. The Arabic lexicographer, whom he ought to have
translated, gives a meaning which expresses only purple ware.
" If one might venture a supposition respecting the language of a people
whose history is almost bare conjecture, I would ask if the Coptic dholi
was the name of scarlet in Egypt. The lexicographers explain it by a
worm, a moth but in those passages of the translation of the Bible which
;

I have compared another word is always used, when allusion is made to

worms which gnaw or destroy. Was dholi the name of the worm that
yields a dye ? As dholi sounds almost like the Hebraeo-Phcenician tola, we
might farther conjecture that the Egyptians received both the name and
the thing signified from the Phoenicians. But this is mere opinion. The
following conclusions seem to be the natural result of the above observa-
tions :

" 1st. Scarlet, or the kermes-dye, was known in the East in the earliest
ages, before Moses, and was a discovery of the Phoenicians in Palestine,
but certainly not of the small wandering Hebrew tribes.
" 2nd. Tola was the ancient Phoenician name used by the Hebrews, an?
even by the Syrians for it is employed by the Syrian translator, Isaiali.
;

chap. i. v. 18. Among the Jews, after their captivity, the Aramaean
word zehori was more common.
" 3rd. This dye was known also to the Egyptians in the time of Moses
for the Israelites must have carried it along with them from Egypt.
" 4th. The Arabs received the name kermes, with the dye, from Armenia
and Persia, where it was indigenous, and had been long known and ;

that name banished the old name in the East, as the name scarlet has
in the West. For the first part of tins assertion we must believe the
Arabs.
" 5th. Kermes were perhaps not known in Arabia at least they were not ;

indigenous, as the Arabs appear to have had no name for them.

•'
6th. Kermes signifies always red dye and when pronounced short, it
;

becomes deep red. I consider it, therefore, as a mere error of the trans-
lation when, in Avicenna, iii. Fen. 21, 13, kermesiah is translated pur-
pureitas. It ought to be coccineum."
1
Beschreibung von Allerley Insckten. Berl. 1736, 4to, vol. v. p. 10.
 ;

KERMES. COCHINEAL. 395

way of tribute 1 and that those who could not deliver the pro-
,

duction in kind were obliged to pay, in its stead, a certain sum

of money. The measure by which it was delivered was called
coppus, in German Kcpf, which word signified formerly not
only a globular drinking-vessel, but also a measure both for
dry and liquid things. It is still retained in the latter sense
in Zurich, Aachen, Regensburg, Austria, and several other
places 2. As the coccus was gathered at midsummer (St.
John's day), it was called St. John's blood probably because
;

the clei'gy wished by that appellation to make this revenue

appear as a matter of religion and that name is still con-
;

tinued among the country people. As the monks and nuns

carried on at that time various trades, particularly that of
weaving, they could employ the St. John's blood to very good
purpose 3 .
At later periods I find mention of the coccus only in the
works of naturalists, such as those of Cornarius 4 , Scaliger 3 ,
and others; but how long the use of it, and the collecting of
it for religious houses, continued, I cannot determine perhaps ;

longest in Poland. From that country, even at present (1 792),

a considerable quantity of it is sent every year to Venice
1
The ancient Spaniards, according to Pliny's account, were obliged to
pay tribute in kermes to the Romans and we are told by Bellon, that the
;

Turks exacted a tribute of the like kind from the modern Greeks. It ap-
pears, therefore, that the monks imitated the example of the Romans.
2 See Krunitz's Encyclopedie, xliv.
p. 2.
3 In Leibnitii Collectanea Etymologica, Hanoveras, 1717, 8vo,
p. 467,
there is a catalogue of the effects and revenues of the church at Priim,
where a monastery of Benedictines was established as early as the eighth
century. This catalogue, which was drawn up in the year 1222, says,
" Solvit unusquisque pro vermiculo denarios sex." But as allusion is made
here to people who lived near Metz in Lorraine, it may be conjectured that
we are to understand not Coccus radicum, but Coccus arborum, which they
might have procured from thence. For this doubt, however, there is no
room in Descriptio Censuum, Proventuum, ac Fructuum ex Praediis Mo-
nasterii S. Emmerammi, in the year 1301, to be found in Pezii Thesaurus
Anecdotorum Novissimus, i. p. 69. We are there told, " Singuli dant sex
denarios pro vermiculo ;" and p. 69 and 74, " singuli dant vascnlum ver-
miculi ;" p. 76, " reddunt vermiculi coppos duo." The people of whom
these passages speak belonged to the monaster}' of St. Emmeran. at Regens-
burg, and were settled in Bavaria. Papon relates in Histoire Generale de
Provence, ii. p. 356, that the archbishop of Aries, in the middle of the
twelfth century, sold to the Jews the kermes collected at St. Chamas and
other parts of his diocese.
4
In Dioscoridem, iv. 39. 5
De subtilitate ; exercit. 325, § 13.
396 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and I am some of it is collected still

inclined to believe that
in the county of Mark, and other parts of Germany. The
following, as far as I can find, are the reasons why this indi-
genous production has lost its value. First, the root-kermes
contain less colouring matter than the kermes of France and
Spain. Secondly, the collecting of the former is more la-
borious as well as more tedious and after they ceased to be
;

paid in natura to the monasteries, they became too dear to

stop the sale of those of France and Spain. But when the
American cochineal, which is undoubtedly a far superior pig-
ment, was in latter times made an article of commerce, and
was sent to Europe in large quantities for dyeing, as it could
be procured at all times, and in abundance, at a price which,
if not low, was at least moderate, considering its excellent
quality, from Mexico, where labour was cheaper and where
l
,

it was cultivated in plantations formed on purpose, the French

and Spanish kermes were entirely forgotten, as appears by a

French ordinance of 1671 respecting dye-stuffs: and this was
the case much more with the German, which, in all probability,
will never turn to great account, though some have entertained
a contrary opinion.
Mexico, or New Spain, the original country of the cochineal,
which word appears to be the diminutive of coccus", was dis-
covered by the Spaniards in 1518 and the years following.
Who remarked this profitable production, and made it
first
known Europe, I have not been able to discover. Some assert
in
that the native Mexicans, before they had the misfortune of

1
The price of cochineal has in latter times fallen. In the year 1728 it
cost fifty-eight schellings Flemish per pound ; but in May 1786 it cost only
twenty-seven and a half. [In 1814 the price of the best cochineal in this
country was as high as 36s., 39s., but it has since gone on regularly de-
clining till it has sunk to from 4s. to 6s. per pound.] Sifted cochineal is
dearer than unsifted. It is often adulterated in Spain, but oftener in
Holland, with the wild cochineal, as it is called. Some years ago an En-
glishman adulterated this article by mixing it with red wax but the fraud
;

required too laborious preparation, and was attended with too little profit
to be long continued. [In France it is frequently adulterated with talc
and white lead with a view of increasing its weight and in London with
;

sulphate of baryta or heavy spar and bone or ivory black].

2
There is reason to think that the Spaniards gave as names to several
American articles the diminutives of like Spanish or European production, .

Thus samaparilla signifies prickly vine-stock platina little silver. Is the

;

cause of this to be referred to the Spanish grandezza ?

 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 397

being visited by the Christians, were acquainted with cochineal,

which thev employed in painting their houses and dyeing their
clothing but others maintain the contrary 2 . The Spaniards,
1
;

who had long used kermes in their own country, could not
fail soon to observe the superiority of the American ; and I
find by Herrera, that the king in the year 1523 desired to be
informed by Cortez, whether what he had been told was true,
that kermes were to be found in abundance in Mexico, and if
they could, as was supposed, be sent with advantage to Spain.
He requested him, should this information be true, to pay
attention to it, and to cause them to be collected with diligence.
This commodity must soon after have begun to be an object
of commerce; for Guicciardini, who died in 1589, mentions
cochineal among the articles procured then by the merchants
of Antwerp from Spain 3 . The plant on which the animal
lives, belongs to the genus Cactus, and in Mexico is called
nopal or tuna, though several plants of the same kind seem to
be comprehended under the latter name. One species is the
Opuntia, which has become indigenous in Spain, Portugal,
and Italy, and which is not scarce in our green-houses. A
second species is the cocJunillifera. Oviedo 4 described and
gave figures of two kinds of tuna; but of the cochineal he makes
no mention. He speaks however of an excellent dye which
the Americans prepared from the fruit, and formed into small
cakes but he afterwards acknowledges that he had received
;

no authentic account on this subject. I nevertheless suspect

that these cakes were made of cochineal ; for Hernandez says
that such were made in his time.
With the first manner in
cochineal, a true account of the
which was procured must have reached Europe, and become
it

publicly known. Acosta in 1530, and Herrera in 1601, as

well as Hernandez and others, gave so true and complete a de-
scription of it, that the Europeans could entertain no doubt
respecting its origin. The information of these authors, how-
ever, was either overlooked or considered as false, and disputes
1
Raynal, Histoire des Indes. Gen. 1780, 4 vols. ii. p. 77.
2
Algemeine Geschichte der Lander und "Vblker von Amerika, Halle
1753, 2 vols. 4to, ii. p. 7. 3 See Anderson's Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 73. It
is possible however that Gnicniardini may have meant Spanish kermes.
< Histoire Naturelle et Generale des Indes. Paris, 1556, fol. p. 122, 130.
[Figures of the Opuntia cochinillifera and of the cochineal insects, will be
found in Pereira's Materia Medica, vol. ii. p. 1850.]
398 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

arose whether cochineal was insects or worms, or the berries

or seeds of certain plants. The Spanish name grana, con-
founded with granum, may have given rise to this contest;
but there is not, perhaps, in all natural history a point which
can be so fully cleared up as this can by the most undoubted
testimony. A
Dutchman, named Melchior de Ruusscher, af-
firmed in a society, from oral information he had obtained in
Spain, that cochineal consisted of small animals. Another
person, whose name he has not made known, maintained the
contrary with so much heat and violence, that the dispute at
length ended in a bet. Ruusscher charged a Spaniard, one or
his friends, who was going to Mexico, to procure for him in
that country authentic proofs of Avhat he had asserted. These
proofs, legally confirmed in October 1725, by the court 01
justice in the city of Antiquera, in the valley of Oaxaca, ar-
rived at Amsterdam in the autumn of the year 1726. I have
been informed that Ruusscher upon this got possession of the
sum betted, which amounted to the whole property of the
loser; but that, after keeping it a certain time, he again re
turned it, deducting only the expenses he had been at in pro-
curing the evidence, and in causing it to be published. It
formed a small octavo volume, with the following title, printed
in red letters The History of Cochineal, proved by authentic
:

documents . These proofs sent from New Spain are written

1

in Dutch, French, and Spanish.

It may be readily supposed, that the high esteem in which
this production was held would soon induce people to endea-
vour to convey these insects to other countries in order to
breed them. This the Spaniards did every thing in their
power to prevent and notwithstanding the severity of the
;

means which they employed, attempts were made for that

purpose. When Rolander, a scholar of Linnaeus, was in
America, he sent to Upsal, at the request of that celebrated
naturalist, a plant, with the insects upon it. The plant arrived
in the year 1756, when Linnaeus was engaged with his pupils.
The gardener, who was not acquainted with the nature of it,
cleared it from what he thought vermin, and planted it so that;

1
The title in the original is, Natucrlyke Historie van de Couchenille,
&c. Amst. 1729, 8vo. This work is scarce. A German translation of it
rnay he found in (C. Mylius) Physikalischen Belustigungen. Berlin, 1751,
8vo, i. p. 43.
 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 399

Linnaeus, when he returned from his class, did not find a single
insect alive. This circumstance, which he has mentioned in
his Systema Naturae, I was told by himself. I am however ot
opinion, that this was not the real cochineal, but the other kind
spoken of by Sylvester ; as the former, according to the latest
information, can scarcely be procured even with more labour
and expense than Rolander could bestow, and would hardly
stand such a long voyage to the northern regions. The spu-
rious kind were sent from Jamaica to England, on the Opuntia
Hcus Indica, which was planted by Miller but the insects
1
,

did not live above three or four months. Thiery, a young

French naturalist, brought the real cochineal to St. Domingo
in the year 1777, at so much hazard that he deserves a place
in the martyrology of the naturalist but after his death, which
;

soon followed, the insects perished through the avarice or neg-

ligence of his successors and in that island there are none
;

now to be found but the spurious kind 2 .

I am inclined to believe that the art of employing kermes

to dye a beautiful red colour was discovered in the East at a
very early period that it was soon so much improved as to
;

excel even the Tyrian purple and that it contributed to cause

;

the proper purple to be at length abandoned. From the costly

red dyes extolled so much by the Hebrew writers, and which,
according to the opinion of learned commentators, were made
from kermes, I shall not venture to adduce any proofs, as I am
not acquainted with the Oriental languages to examine their
accounts with accuracy but I have found a passage in Vo-
;

piscus 3 which seems to render my conjecture very probable.

,

That author informs us, that the king of Persia sent to the
emperor Aurelian, besides other articles of great value, some
woollen cloth, which was of a much costlier and brighter
purple colour than any that had been ever seen in the Roman
empire, and in comparison of which all the other purple cloth
worn by the emperor and the ladies of the court appeared dull
and faded. In my opinion, this cloth, which was of a beautiful
purple red colour, was not dyed with the liquor of the murex,
but with kermes. This idea was indeed not likely to occur to
the Romans, who were acquainted only with the purple of the
1
Miller's Gardener's Dictionary.
2 Traite de la culture du nopal et de education de la eochenille. Au
1'

Gap-Francois 1787, 8vo. 3 In Vita Aureliani, cap.

29.
 100 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

murex, and who had less experience in the arts in general

than in that of robbing and plundering, or who at any rate in
that respect were inferior to the Orientals. The Roman em-
perors caused this supposed purple to be sought for in India
by the most experienced dyers, who, not being able to find it,
returned with a vague report that the admired Persian purple
was producea by the plant Sandix. I am well aware, that
some commentators have supposed that the Sandix was our
madder . Hesychius, however, says, very confidently, that
1

the sandix is not a plant, but a kind of shrubby tree which

yields a dye like the coccus". The Roman dyers, perhaps,
prejudiced in favour of the murex, made that only the object
of their search and their labour proving fruitless, they might
;

have heard something of kermes, or the kermes-oak, which

they did not fully understand. Our dyers, even at present,
believe many false accounts respecting the dye-stuffs which
they use daily.
In Jater times, when it was known that the beautiful Orien-
tal kermes-dye was not properly purple, it was no longer called
by that name, but was considered as a new dye, and acquired
a new appellation. Cloth dyed with it was called scarlata,
squarlata, scarleta, scarlatina, scharlatica. That these words
have an affinity to our every one allows, but it may be
scarlet,
difficult to discover their origin. Pezronius 3 affirms that they
are of Celtic extraction, and have the same signification as
Galaticus rubor. Astruc, as I have already shown, derives
kermes from the same language, which, however, like the
1
Those who are desirous of further information respecting the sandix,
may consult Salmasius on Solinus, p. 810, and the editor of the Cyneget
of Gratius Faliscus, x. 86. p. 46.
2
Some have considered sandix as a mineral. Minerals however can be
used for painting but not for dyeing. It may be replied that the Romans
themselves dyed with kermes at this period, and that they must have easily
procured it. But they understood the art of dyeing with it so badly that
they employed it only for giving the ground of their purple, and on that
account it must have appeared improbable to them that the people in India
could produce by it a more beautiful colour than their purple was. From
the like ignorance in modern times, indigo was decried, because people
imagined that a complete colour could not be communicated by it and ;

this false conclusion retarded many improvements in the art of dyeing. It

is very likely that the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted witli the
effect produced upon kermes by acids, which the Persians and Indians
3
used. Antiquit. Celt. p. 00, 70
 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 4-01

Egyptian history, is often employed to explain what people

cannot otherwise explain, because so little is known of both
that much contradiction is not to be apprehended. Others
wish to make scarlet from the quisquilium, cusculium, or scole-
cium of Pliny. To some the word appears to be composed of
the first half of kermes and lack, with the addition of only an S,
and every one is left at liberty to determine at pleasure, whether
lack is to be understood as the Arabic for red, or the German
word lacken cloth. In the first case it signifies the same as
vermiculare rubrum in the latter pannus vermicularis. Stiler
;
'

says scarlach is entirely German, and compounded of schor

the fire, and lacken cloth, so that its real signification is fire-
cloth, fire-coloured cloth. Reiske, on the other hand, asserts,
that the word is originally the Arabic scharal, which means
the kermes-dye 3 Which of these conjectures is most agree-
.

able to truth, cannot with certainty be concluded but that the;

word is older than Dillon affirms it to be, on the authority of

a Spaniard, can be proved. Dillon says that it was first used
by Roderick, archbishop of Toledo, who finished his history
of Spain in 1243 s Vossius 4 has quoted several writers who
.

use escarletum or scarletum. The oldest is Csesarius, who

lived about the year 1227- Matthew Paris, who wrote about the
year 1245, used the word in referring to the year 1 134. But I
find that the emperor Henry III. in the middle of the eleventh
century, conferred upon the count of Clevesthe burg-graviate
of Nimeguen, on condition of his delivering to him yearly three
pieces of scarlet cloth made of English wool 5 . The word may
1
Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p. 1062.
2 In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aula; ByzantLme,
ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the derivation from Charlatan,
a mountebank, juggler, circumforaneus, agyrta, because such people for-
merly on account of their red clothes were called scarlatati or scarlatmu.
Other conjectures respecting this word may be found in Menage, Diction-
naire Etymologique. See in the same work also, p. 498, the word ecarlate.
In ancient French writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection
is called ecarlate, and we therefore meet with ecarlate blanche, ecarlate
verte. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebrasor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i.
cap. 15, p. 229, says, " Salacka, Tyrian red, from sar, Tyrus." He con-
troverts the opinion of Gronovius that scarlatum is derived from Galaticum.
3 Dillon's Travels through Spain,
1 780, p. 21
. Rod. Toletanus De Rebus
Hispan. lib. vii. 1. 4
G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis.
5 " Tres pannos scarlitinos
Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83 :

Anglicanos." The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig's Codex Di-
plom. Germanise, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the year 1172, in
VOL. I. 2 D
402 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

be often found in the twelfth century. It occurs in Petrus

Mauritius , who died in 1157, and also in the writings of Ar-
l

nold, who, in 1175, was the first abbot of Lubeck.

Of the preparation and goodness of the ancient scarlet we
certainly know nothing but as we find in many old pieces of
:

tapestry of the eleventh century, and perhaps earlier, a red

which has continued remarkably beautiful even to the present
time, it cannot at any rate be denied that our ancestors ex-
tolled their scarlet not without reason. We may however
venture to assert, that the scarlet prepared at present is far
superior, owing principally to the effects of a solution of tin.
This invention may be reckoned among the most important
improvements of the art of dyeing, and deserves a particular
relation.
The tincture of cochineal alone yields a purple colour, not
very pleasant, which may be heightened to the most beautiful
scarlet by a solution of tin in aqua regia, or muriatic acid 2 .

M. Ruhlenkamp at Bremen, one of the most learned dyers of

Germany, and who has studied with great care every new im-
provement of his art, gave me the history of this scarlet dye,
as I have already related in my Introduction to Technology 3 .

The well-known Cornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alkmaar,

and died at London in 1634, having placed in his window an
extract of cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose
of filling a thermometer, some aqua regia dropped into it from
a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and con-
verted the purple dye into a most beautiful dark red. After
some conjectures and experiments, he discovered that the tin
by which the window-frame was divided into squares had been
dissolved by the aqua-regia, and was the cause of this change.
He communicated his observation to Kuffelar, an ingenious
dyer at Leyden, who was afterwards his son-in-law 4 The .

latter brought the discovery to perfection, and employed

it some years alone in his dye-house, which gave rise to the

which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count of Gueldres the heri-
Nimeguen, on condition, "ut ipse et ejus successores
table jurisdiction of
imperatori de eodem telonio singulis annis tres pannoG scarlacos bene ru-

1
—
beos Anglicenses ardentis colons assignare deberet."
2 See Pomer's Anleitung
In Statutis Cluniacensibus. cap. 18. zur
Farbekunst. Leipzig, 1785, 8vo, p. 1G. 8 Page 113.
4
Monconys mentions in his Travels, p. 408, Dr. Keiffcr, a son-in-law of
Divbbel, who was a good chemist.
 KERMES. COCHINEAL. 403

name of Kuffelar's-colour '. Becher calls him Kuffler. Kunkel,

in a passage which I cannot again find, makes his name Kuster,
and says that he was a German. In the course of a little time
the secret became known to an anabaptist called Gulich, and
also to another person of the name of Van der Vecht, who
taught it to the brothers Gobelins in France. Giles Gobelin, a
dyer at Paris, in the time of Francis I. had found out an im-
provement of the then usual scarlet dye and as he had re- ;

marked that the water of the rivulet Bievre, in the suburbs of

St. Marceau, was excellent for his art, he erected on it a large
dye-house, which, out of ridicule, was called Folie- Gobelins-,
Gobelin's-Folly. About this period, a Flemish painter, whom
some name Peter Koek, and others Kloek, and who had tra-
velled a long time in the East, established, and continued to
his death in 1550, a manufactory for dyeing scarlet cloth by
an improved method 3 . Through the means of Colbert, one
of the Gobelins learned the process used for preparing the
German scarlet dye from one Gluck, whom some consider as
the above-mentioned Gulich, and others as Kloek and the ;

Parisian scarlet dye soon rose into so great repute, that the
populace imagined that Gobelin had acquired his art from the
devil 4 . It is well known that Louis XIV. by the advice of
Colbert, purchased Gobelin's building from his successors in
the year 1667, and transformed it into a palace, to which he
gave the name of Hotel Royal des Gobelins, and which he
assigned for the use of first-rate artists, particularly painters,
jewellers, weavers of tapestry, and others. After that time the
rivulet was no longer called Bievre, but Gobelins. About the
year 1643, a Fleming, named Kepler, established the first dye-
house for scarlet in England, at the village of Bow, not far from
London; and on that account the colour was called at first, bythe
English, thei&w-dye 5 In theyearl 667, another Fleming, named
.

Brewer, invited to England by king Charles II. with the pro-

mise ofa large salary, brought this art there to great perfection 6 .

1
In Borrichii Dissertat. ii. p. 104 : Color Kufflerianus.
2
xi. 22. Menage, Diction. Etyniol. i. p. 682.
Kabelais,
3 Francheville, in Dissertat. sur l'Art de la Teinture des Anciens et Mo-
dernes, in Histoire de l'Academ. de Berlin, 1767, p. 67. In this disserta-
tion, however, there is neither certainty nor proof.
4 Suite de Teinturier parfait. Paris, 1716.
5 Anderson's History of Commerce.
6
Cary's Bemerkungen iiber Grossbritanniens Handel ; iibersetzt ven
Wichrnann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experiment a
40* HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES-

All these accounts, however, and the names of the persons, are
extremely dubious.
[Mr. Ward states in his Mexicoin 1827, vol. i. p. 84, that the
plantations of the Nopal (Opimtia cochinillifera), on which
the cochineal insects feed, are confined to the district La
Misteca in the state of Oaxaca, in Mexico. The animals are
domesticated and reared with the greatest care. When the
females have become fecundated and enlarged, the harvest
commences. The insects are brushed off with a squirrel's tail,
and killed by immersing them in hot water, and afterwards
drying them in the sun, or by the heat of a stove. Three har-
vests are made annually the first being the best, since the
;

impregnated females alone are taken in the second the young

;

females are also collected and in the third both old and young
;

ones, and skins are collected indiscriminately. Before the

rainy season commences, branches of the nopal plant loaded
with young insects are cut off and preserved in the houses to
prevent the animals being destroyed by the weather. It is
stated in a letter from Mr. Faber to Dr. Pereira (Chemical Ga-
zette for January 15th, 1845), that the more extensive culti-
vators never kill the insect by immersion, but only by the bas-
kets being placed in heated rooms or stoves.
Three kinds of cochineal are now met with in the English
market the black, silver, and foxy. Silver cochineal is the im-
:

pregnated female insect,just before laying eggs black cochi-

;

neal is the female after laying and hatching the eggs. That
technically known in London as " foxy " cochineal is com-
posed of the insects of silver cochineal which have been killed
by boiling water. They are thus burst, and acquire a peculiar
reddish colour, very different from the fine transparent red
which forms the finest black. It is said that on the average
one pound of cochineal contains 70,000 dried insects. The
quantity exported from and consumed in England in 1844,
amounted to no less than 1,569,120 lbs. !]
de Coloribus, Colonise, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never
produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that he
had observed the Rood effects of a solution of tin.
 405

WRITING-PENS.
As long as peopie wrote upon tables covered with wax, they
were obliged to use a style or bodkin made of bone, metal, or
some other hard substance but when they began to write
;

Avith coloured liquids, they employed a reed, and afterwards

quills or feathers. This is well-known, and has been proved
by various authors '. There are two circumstances however
in regard to this subject, which require some further research ;

and which I shall endeavour to illustrate by such information

as I. have been able to collect. With what kind of reeds did
people write ? When, and where were feathers first employed
and for that purpose?
rather astonishing that we are ignorant of what kind of
It is
reeds the ancients used for writing, though they have men-
tioned the places where they grew wild, and where, it is highly
probable, they grow still. Besides, we have reason to suppose
that the same reeds are used even at present by all the Oriental
nations for it is well known, that among the people of the
;

East old manners and instruments are not easily banished by

new modes and new inventions. Most authors who have
treated on the history of writing have contented themselves
with informing their readers that a reed was employed but ;

the genus of plants called by the ancients Calamus and Arundo,

is more numerous in species than the genus of grasses/to which

their corn belonged and it might perhaps be as difficult to

;

determine with accuracy what kind of reed they employed for

writing, as to distinguish the species of grain called/ar, alica,
and avena.
The most beautiful reeds of this kind grew formerly in
Egypt 2 near Cnidus, a city and district in the province of
;

Caria, in Asia Minor 3 and likewise in Armenia and Italy 4

; .

Those which grew in the last-mentioned country, seem to

1
See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. Reimmanni Idea Syste-
matis Antiquitatis Litterariae, 1718, Svo, p. 169. Astle's Origin and Pro-
gress of Writing, 4to.
2 Plin. lib.
xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38.
3 Plin. lib.
c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus arundinosa.
Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi.
4
Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36.
 ;;

<i06 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

have been considered by Pliny as too soft and spongy but his :

words are so obscure that little can be gathered from them

and though the above places have been explored in later times
by many experienced botanists, they have not supplied us with
much certain information respecting this species of reed. It
ishowever particularly mentioned by the old botanists, who
have represented it as a stem, such as I have seen in collections ;

but as they give no characters sufficiently precise, Linnaeus

was not able to assign any place in his system to the Arundo
scriptoria of Bauhin l
.

Chardin speaks of the reeds which grow in the marshes Of

Persia, and which are sold and much sought after in the Le-
vant, particularly for writing. He has even described them
but his account has been of no service to enlarge our botanical
knowledge 2 Tournefort,who saw them collected in the neigh-
.

bourhood of Teflis, the capital of Georgia, though his descrip-

tion of them is far from complete, has taught us more than any
of his predecessors. We learn from his account, that this reed
has small leaves, that it rises only to the height of a man, and
that it is not hollow, but filled with a soft spongy substance.
He has characterized it, therefore, in the following manner in
his System of Botany Arundo orientalis, tenuifolia, caule
:

pleno, ex qua Turcse calamos parant 3 . The same words are

1
p. 17: Arundo scriptoria atro-rubens.
Bauhini Pinax Plantar, Hist.
Plant, 487. Theatrum Botan. p. 273.
ii. p.
2 " Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of the size
of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the same manner as
we do ours but they give them a much longer nib. These canes or reeds
;

are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in a large fen sup-
plied with water by the river Helle, a place of Arabia formed by an arm of
the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united. They are cut in March,
and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and laid for six months under
a dunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful polish and lively
colour, which is a mixture of yellow and black. None of these reeds are
collected in any other place. As they make the best writing-pens, they
are transported throughout the whole East. Some of them grow in India,
—
but they are softer and of a paler yellow colour." Voyages de Chardin,
vol. v. p. 49.
3 " It is a kind of cane which grows no higher than a man. The stem is
only three or four lines in thickness, and solid from one knot to another,
that is to say filled with a white pith. The leaves, which are a foot and a
half in length, and eight or nine lines in breadth, enclose the knots of the
stem in a sheath but the rest is smooth, of a bright yellowish-green co-
;

lour, and bent in the form of a half-tube, with a white bottom. The panicle
 — ;

WRITING-PENS. 407

applied to it by Miller but he observes that no plants of it

;

had ever -been introduced into England. That the best

writing-reeds are procured from the southern provinces of
Persia is confirmed by Dapper and Hanway. The former
says that the reeds are sown and planted near the Persian Gulf
in the place mentioned by Chardin, and he gives the same
description as that traveller of the manner in which they are
prepared.
The circumstance expressly mentioned by Tournefort, that
these writing-reeds are not entirely hollow, seems to agree
perfectly with the account given by Dioscorides . It is 1

probable that the pith dries and becomes shrunk, especially

after the preparation described by Chardin, so that the reed
can be easily freed from it in the same manner as the mar-
rowy substance in writing-quills is removed from them when
prepared. Something of the like kind seems to be meant by
Pliny, who, in my opinion, says that the pith dried up within
the reed, which was hollow at the lower end, but at the
upper end woody and destitute of pith. What follows re-
fers to the flowers, which were employed instead of fea-
thers for beds, and also for caulking ships. I conjectured
that Forskal had given an accurate description of this reed
but when I consulted that author, I did not find what I ex-
pected. He only confirms that a great many reeds of differ-
ent kinds grow near the Nile, which serve to make hedges,
thatch, and wattled-walls, and which are used for various other
purposes 2 .

These reeds were split and formed to a point like our quills ,

but certainly it was not possible to make so clean and fine

or hunch of flowers was not as yet fully blown, hut it was whitish, silky,
and like that of other reeds. The inhabitants of the country cut the steins
of these reeds to write with, but the strokes they form are very coarse,
and do not approach the beauty of those which we make with our pens."
Voyage du Levant, vol. ii. p. 136.
1
Lib. i. cap. 114. Rauwolf says in his Travels, vo.i. i. p. 93, " In the
shops were to be sold small reeds, hollow within and smooth without, and
of a brownish-red colour, which are used by the Turks, Moors, and other
Eastern people, for writing." It appears that Rauwolf did not see these
reeds growing, but prepared and freed from the pith. We
are told by
Winkelmann, in his second Letter on the Antiquities of Herculaneum,
p. 46, that for want of quills he often cut into writing-pens those reeds
which grow in the neighbourhood of Naples.
2 Flora iEgyptiaco-Arabica. Havnise, 1775, 4to, p. 47, 61.
408 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

strokes, and and so conveniently with them

to write so long 1

as one can with quills. The use

of them, however, was not
entirely abandoned when people began to write with quills,
which in every country can be procured from an animal ex-
tremely useful in many other respects. Had the ancients been
acquainted with the art of employing goose-quills for this pur-
pose, they would undoubtedly have dedicated to Minerva, not
the owl, but the goose.
A
passage in Clemens of Alexandria, who died in the be-
ginning of the third century, might on the first view induce
one to conjecture that the Egyptian priests even wrote with
quills. This author, after describing a procession of these
priests, says the sacred writer had in his hand a book with
writing-instruments, and on his head feathers 2 But it is im- .

possible to guess what might be the intention of these feathers

or wings on the head, among a people who were so fond of
symbols. Besides, Clemens tells us expressly, that one of the
writing-instruments was a reed with which the priests used to
write.
Some, assert from a passage of Juvenal 3 that quills were ,

used for writing in the time of that poet; but what he says is
only a metaphorical expression, such as has been employed by
Horace 4 and various ancient wiiters. Others have endea-
voured to prove the antiquity of writing-quills from the figure
of the goddess Egeria, who is represented with a book before
her, and a feather in her right hand but the period when this
;

Egeria was formed is not known, and it is probable that the

feather was added by some modern artist 5 No drawings in
.

manuscripts, where the authors appear with quills, are of great

antiquity. Among these is the portrait of Aristotle, in a ma-
nuscript in the library of Vienna, which, as expressly men-
tioned at the end, was drawn at Rome in the year 1457 and ;

we have great reason to think that the artist delineated the

1
Those who wish to see instances of learned men who wrote a great
deal and a long time with one pen, may consult J. II. Ackeri Historla Pen-
narum, Altenburgi, 1726. The author has collected every thing he ever
read respecting the pens of celebrated men.
2
Clementis Alex. Opera. Colonix, 1688, fol. p. 633. The best account
of these sacred writers may be found in the Prolegomena, p. 91, of Ja-
blonski's Pantheon .digvpt.
3 Sat. iv. 149. 4
Od. iii. 29, 53.
Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Gra:c. ii. n. 28.
 WRITING-PENS. 4<09

figure for ornamenting his work, not after an ancient painting,

but from his own imagination 1
.

If credit can be given to the anonymous author of the

history of Constantius, extracts from which have been made
known by Adrian de Valois, the use of quills for writing is as
old as the fifth century. We are informed by this author, who
lived in the above century, that Theodoric, king of the Ostro-
goths, was so illiterate and stupid, that during the ten years of
his reign he was not able to learn to write four letters at the
bottom of his edicts. For this reason the four letters were cut
for him in a plate of gold, and the plate being laid upon paper,
he then traced out the letters with a quill 2 This account is,
.

at any rate, not improbable for history supplies us with more

;

instances of such men not destined for the throne by nature,

but raised to it either by hereditary right or by accident, who
had neither abilities nor inclination for those studies which
it requires. The western empire was governed, almost about
the time of Theodoric, by the emperor Justin, who also could
not write, and who used in the like manner a piece of wood,
having letters cut in it, but with this difference, that, in tracing
them out, he caused his hand to be guided by one of his se-
cretaries 3 .
The oldest certain account however known at present re-
specting writing-quills, is a passage of Isidore, who died in
the year 636, and who, among the instruments employed for
writing, mentions reeds and feathers 4 . Another proof of quills
being used in the same century, is a small poem on a writing-
pen, to be found in the works of Althelmus, called sometimes
also Aldhelmus, Adelhemus, and Adelmus. This writer, de-
scended of a noble family, was the first Saxon who wrote Latin,
and who made the art of Latin poetry known to his country-
1
Lambec. lib. vii. p. 76. —Montfaucon, Palatograph. Grseca, lib. i. cap. 3,
p. 21.
2 Amra. Marcellini Hist. ed. Valesii, Par. 1681, fol. p. 699. The letters
might have been raised on the plate, or deeply engraven in it, so that Theo-
doric only followed with his pen an impression of them made upon the paper.
3
It is uncertain whether the characters were followed with a style, a
reed, or a quill for ypcupis (the word used) is the general appellation.
;

" There have been princes, also, acquainted with writing, but so lazy that
they kept a servant who could imitate their hand to subscribe for them."
Of this we have an instance in the emjieror Carinus, respecting whom
Vopiscus says, " Fastidium subscribendi tantum habuit, ut quendam ad sub-
scribendum poneret qui bene suam imitaretur manum."
4
Origines, Ub. vi. 1 3, p. 132.
 ; —

410 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

men, and inspired them with a taste for compositions of that

kind. He
died in the year 709 l .
In the eighth century writing-pens are mentioned by Alcuin,
who at that period, in the time of Charlemagne, was of service
in extending literary knowledge. He composed poetical in-
scriptions for every part of a monastery, among which there is
one even for a privy ", and another for a writing-study. Speak-
ing of the latter, he says that no one ought to talk in it, lest
the pen of the transcriber should commit a mistake 3 .
After the above period proofs occur which place the matter
beyond all doubt. Mabillon saw a manuscript of the gospels,
which had been written in the ninth century under the reign of
Louis I., in which the evangelists were represented with quills
in their hands. The same author mentions a like figure of the
eleventh century 4 . In the twelfth century, Peter de Clugny,
who by scholastic writers is called Venerabilis, and Avho died
in 1157, wrote to a friend, exhorting him to assume the pen
instead of the plough, and to transcribe, instead of tilling
land 5 . In short, writing-quills are often called calami by an-
cient and modern authors who wrote good Latin and it is ;

probable that this word is employed by older writers than

Isidore to signify writing-pens, where, for want of other proofs,
we understand reeds.
The poet Heerkens 6 has asserted, that the use of quills for

1
His writings may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugduni,
1677, fol. torn. xiii. In p. 27, is the following poem on a pen :

De Penna Scriptoria.
Me pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albam
Gutture qui patulo sorbet in gurgite lymphas.
Pergo ad albentes directo tramite campos,
Candentiqne viae vestigia cserula linquo,
Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.
Nee satis est unum per campos pandere callem
Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,
Qua? non errantes ad cceli culmina vexit.

The author does not speak here of a goose-quill, but of a pelican's, which
at any rate may be as good 2
Ad latrinium (latrinam).
as that of a swan.
3 Alcuini Opera, cura Frohenii, Ratisbonre,
1777, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 211.
4
De Re Diplomatica, Par. 1709, fol. in Suppl. p. 51.
6 Petr. Venerabil. lib. i. ep. 20, ad Gislebertum.
C. G. Schwarz, who
quotes the passage in Exercit. de Varia Supellectili Rei Librarise Veterum,
1725, 4to, § 8, ascribes them falsely to the venerable Bede,
Altorfii, who
died about the year 735.
6
Ger. Nic. Heerkens Aves Prisicse, Rot. 1788, 8vo, p. 106.
 WRITING- PENS. 411

writing is much older, and that the Romans became acquainted

with them during their residence in the Netherlands, where
they could not easily procure Egyptian reeds, and where, ac-
cording to the account of Pliny they paid so much attention
l
,

to the catching of geese. That writer, however, says that

this was done on account of the flesh of these animals, which
they esteemed much when roasted, and of the softness of their
feathers, on which they were fond of sleeping. Heerkens
himself remarks, that Pliny, had he known the use of quills
for writing, would not have passed it over in silence, when he
gives so circumstantial an account of writing-reeds. He is of
opinion also, that, as the Dutch terms of art which allude to
writing, such as schryfpen, &c, are of Latin extraction, the
Dutch must have acquired them as well as the things signified
from the Romans. This however seems to afford very little
support to his assertion. Of more importance is the observa-
tion that in an old and beautiful manuscript of Virgil, in the
Medicean library, which was written soon after the time of
Honorius, the thickness of the strokes, and the gradual fine-
ness of the hair-strokes of the letters give us reason to con-
jecture that they must have been written by some instrument
equally elastic as a quill, as it is not probable that such strokes
could be made with a stiff reed 2 It is also certain that the
.

letters of the greater part of ancient manuscripts, particularly

those found at Herculaneum, are written in a much stiffer and
more uniform manner. But little confidence is to be placed
in this observation ;for we do not know but the ancient artists
may have been acquainted with some method of giving ela-
sticity to their reeds, and may have employed them in such a
manner as to produce beautiful writing.
Notwithstanding the great advantage which quills have over
reeds for writing, the latter however seem to have continued
long in use even with the former. This conclusion I do not
form, because calamus and arundo are to be found in the works
of late writers for many authors may have employed these
;

old Latin words to express quills, like Cassiodorus, who in the

sixth century, when exhorting the monks to transcribe theo-
logical works, used both these terms indiscriminately 3 ; but I

" This manuscript

1
Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 22. was correctly
printed by P. F. Fogginius, in quarto, in 1741. A specimen of the writing
is given, p. 15. See also Virgilius Heynii, in Elenchus Codicum, p. 41.
3
Divin. Lection, cap. xxx. p. m. 477, 478.
412 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

found my assertion on the testimony of diplomatists, and par-

ticularly on the undoubted mention made of writing-reeds in
the sixteenth century.
Men of letters, well-versed in diplomatics, assure us, from
comparing manuscripts, that writing-reeds were used along
with quills in the eighth century, at least in France, and that
the latter first began to be common in the ninth. The papal
acts, and those of synods, must however have been written
with reeds much later In convents they were retained for
1
.

texts and initials, while, for small writing, quills were every-
where employed.
I can allow little credit to a conjecture supported merely
by a similarity of the strokes in writing, because it is proba-
ble that people at first would endeavour to write in as strong
and coarse a manner with quills, as had been before done with
reeds, in order that the writing might not seem much different
from what was usual and with quills one can produce writing
;

both coarse and fine. M. Meiners, however, referred me to a

passage in a letter of Reuchlin, which removes all doubt on
the subject. When this worthy man, to whom posterity is
so much indebted, was obliged to fly by the cruelty of his
enemies, famine and the plague, and to leave behind him all
his property, he was supplied with the most common necessa-
ries by Pirkheimer 2 Among other articles the latter sent to
.

him, in the year 1520, writing materials, good paper, pen-

knives, and, instead of peacocks-feathers which he had re-
quested, the best swan-quills. That nothing might be want-
ing, he added also proper reeds, of so excellent a sort, that
Reuchlin considered them to be Egyptian or Cnidian 3 .

These reeds at that period must have been scarce and in

great request, as it appears by some letters of Erasmus to
Reuchlin, for my knowledge of which I am under obligations
to M. Meiners, that the former received three reeds from the
latter, and expressed a wish that Reuchlin, when he procured
more, would send some of them to a learned man in England,
who was a common friend to both 4 .

Whatever may have been the cause, about the year 1433
1
Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, i. p. 537. 2 Reuchlin's life may

be found in Meiners' Lebensbeschreibungcn Beriihmter Manner. Zurich.

1795, 8vo, vol. i. 3 Pirkheimeri Opera, Franc. 1610, fol.p. 259.
4
Illustrium Virorum Epistolae ad Jo. Reuchlin.: Hagenoae, 1519, 4to,
p. 144.
 ;

WRITING PENS. 413

writing-quills at Venice, that it was with great

were so scarce
difficulty men
of letters could procure them. We
learn at
any rate, that the well-known Ambrosius Traversarius, a monk
of Camaldule, sent from Venice to his brother, in the above
year, a bunch of quills, together with a letter, in which he
said, " They are not the best, but such as I received in a pre-
sent. Show the whole bunch to our friend Nicholas, that he
may select a quill for these articles are indeed scarcer in this
;

city than at Florence ." This Ambrosius complains likewise,

1

that at the same period he had hardly any more ink, and re-
quested that a small vessel filled with it might be sent to him 2 .
Other learned men complain also of the want of good ink,
which they either would not or did not know how to make.
Those even who deal in it seldom know of what ingredients it
is principally composed.

[The softness of quill pens and the constant trouble required

to mend them naturally led to the search for some substitute.
Metals have supplied this, and the manufacture of metallic
pens now gives occupation to an immense number of persons.
Steel and other metallic pens have long been made occasion-
ally 3 but were not extensively used on account of their stiffness
,

this was remedied by Mr. Perry, who, in 1830, introduced the

use of apertures between the shoulder and the point. Numerous
other improvements have been made, the metals have all had
a trial, and pens can now be obtained of almost every form
and quality. Perhaps the most perfect and durable, although
the most expensive, are those in which the pen is made of gold,
with a nib of osmium and iridium. The total quantity of steel
annually employed in the manufacture of pens has been esti-
mated at 120 tons, from which upwards of 200,000,000 pens
are produced. One Birmingham manufacturer employed in
1838, 300 persons in making steel pens. They are also ex-
tensively manufactured in London and Sheffield. When first
introduced, steel pens were eight shillings a gross; they after-
wards fell to four shillings a gross, and now they are procured
at Birmingham for fourpence a gross 4 !]
1 Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolse. ed. L. Mehus. Florentise, 1759, 2 vols,
566. 2 Ibid. 3 [The publisher has in his
fol. ii. p. p. 580.
possession an extremely well-made metallic pen (brass) at least fifty years
old, and with it a style for writing by means of smoked paper, both in a
morocco pocket-book, which formerly belonged to Horace Walpolc, and
was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale.]
4 Watersion's Cyclopaedia of Commerce, 1845.
 414

WIRE-DRAWING.
It is highly probable that in early periods metals were beat
with a hammer to thin plates or leaves, which were afterwards
divided into small slips by means of a pair of scissors, or some
other instrument and that these slips were by a hammer and
;

file then rounded, so as to form threads or wire. This con-

jecture seems to be confirmed by the oldest information re-
specting work of this kind. When the sacerdotal dress of
Aaron was prepared, the gold was beaten and cut to threads,
so that it could be interwoven in cloth We are told also
1
.

that Vulcan, desirous to expose Mars and Venus, while en-

gaged in their illicit amour, repaired to his forge, and formed
on his anvil, with hammers and files, a net so fine that it could
be perceived by no one, not even by the gods themselves, for
it was as delicate as a spider's web 2 These fine threads there-
.

fore were at that time first beat upon the anvil, and afterwards
rounded by a file, but were not drawn out like our wire. I
do not remember to have found a single passage in ancient
authors where mention is made of metal prepared by being
wire-drawn. The ces ductile of Pliny was so called because it
was malleable, and could be beat into thin leaves and he says ;

"tenuatur in laminas 3 ." In my opinion, works made with threads

of metal occur too seldom in the writings of the ancients, to
allow us to suppose that they were acquainted with that easy
and cheap method of forming these threads by wire-drawing.
Wire-work is rarely mentioned, and wherever it is spoken of,
it appears to have been prepared on the anvil.

Such threads of the dearest and most malleable metal, gold,

seem to have been early employed for ornamenting different
articles of dress, but certainly not in so ingenious and beauti-
ful a manner as in modern times. It is probable that slips of
gold were sewed upon clothes, and particularly on the seams,
as is still practised with lace and perhaps gold stars and
;

other figures cut from thin plates of gold were applied to

dresses in the same manner, as is the case at present with
spangles, and perhaps they were only affixed to them with
1
Exodus, chap, xxxix. ver. 3. —Braun, Dc Vcstitu Sacerdotum Hebrse-
orum,p. 173.
'
2
Homer, Odyss. lib. viii. 273, 278. — Ovid.
3
Metamorph. lib. iv. 174. Lib. xxxiv. cap. 8.
 WIRE-DRAWING. 415

paste. People however soon began to weave or knit dresses

any other ma-
entirely of gold threads, without the addition of
terials at least such seems to be the account given by Pliny
;
1
.

Of this kind was the mantle taken from the statue of Jupiter
by the tyrant Dionysius 2 and the tunic of Heliogabalus men-
,

tioned by Lampridius 3 These consisted of real drap d'or, but

.

the moderns give that name to cloth, the threads of which are
silk wound round with silver wire flattened and gilded.
The invention of interweaving such massy gold threads in
cloth is by Pliny ascribed to king Attalus ;but I consider it
to be much older, though I have found no certain proofs to
support this opinion. I conjecture that the cloth of Attalus,
so much extolled on account of its magnificence, was embroi-
dered with the needle for in the passage where embroidery
;

is mentioned by Pliny for the first time, he speaks of its being

invented by the Phrygians; he then mentions the cloth of

Attalus and immediately after the Babylonian, which, as is
;

proved by several expressions in ancient authors, was cer-

tainly embroidered with the needle 4 . If I am not mistaken,
Attalus first caused woollen cloth to be embroidered (not in-
terwoven) with threads of gold and the doubt that Pliny
;

assigns too late a period to the interweaving cloth with threads

of gold is entirely removed. It appears that in the third cen-
tury gold was interwoven with linen, that linen was embroi-
1
Lib. xxxiii. cap. 4. — Aldrovandus relates, in his Museum Metallicum,
that the grave of the wife of the emperor Honorius was discovered at
Rome about the year 1544, and that thirty-six pounds of gold were pro-
cured from the mouldered dress which contained the body.
2 Cicero de Nat. Deor. hi.
34, 83.
3 Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.
—
Valer. Max. i. 1. exter. § 3.

4 That the cloth of Attalus was embroidered

Plin. lib.viii. cap. 48.
with the needle is proved by a passage of Silius Italicus, lib. xiv. 661. We
find by Martial, lib. xiii. ep. 28, that the Babylonian cloth was also orna-
mented with embroidery ; and the same author, lib. xiv. ep. 50, extols the
weaving of Alexandria, as being not inferior to the Babylonian embroidery
with the needle. In opposition to which might be quoted a passage of
Tertullian De Habitu Mulierum, where he makes use of the word insuere
to the Phrygian work, and of intexere to the Babylonian. By these ex-
pressions it would appear that he wished to define accurately the difference
of the Phrygian and Babylonian cloth, and to show that the former was
embroidered and the latter wove. But Tertullian often plays with words.
Intexere is the same as insuere. In Pliny, bookxxxv. ch. 9, a name em-
broidered with gold threads is called " aureis litteris in pallets intextum
nomea."
 416 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

dered with gold threads, or that gold threads were sewed upon
linen, which the emperor Alexander Severus considered as
folly because by these means the linen was rendered stiff,
;

cumbersome and inconvenient 1

.

It was not till a much later period that silver began to be

formed into threads by a like process, and to be interwoven
in cloth. Salmasius and Goguet have already remarked that
no mention of silver stuffs is to be found in the works of the
ancients for the passages which might be quoted from Homer
;

speak only, without doubt, of white garments 9 Pliny cer- .

tainly would not have omitted this manner of preparing silver,

had it been usual in his time especially as he treats so ex-
;

pressly of that metal, and its being employed for ornaments,

and speaks of gold threads and embroidering with gold. Vo-
piscus, however, seems to afford us an indubitable proof that
silver thread was not known in the time of the emperor Aure-
lian 3 This author informs us that the emperor was desirous
.

of entirely abolishing the use of gold for gilding and weaving,

because, though there was more gold than silver, the former
had become scarcer, as a great deal of it was lost by being
applied to the above purposes, whereas every thing that was
silver continued so 4 but it has been fully proved by Salma-
;

sius that silver threads were interwoven in cloth in the time of

the last Greek emperors 5 .

The period when attempts were first made to draw into

threads metal cut or beat into small slips, by forcing them
through holes in a steel plate placed perpendicularly on a table,
I cannot determine. In the time of Charlemagne this process
was not known in Italy for however unintelligible may be
;

the directions given in Muratori 6 " de fila aurea facere, de pe-

,

talis auri et argenti," we learn from them that these articles

were formed only by the hammer. It is extremely probable

1
Lamprid. Vita Alexand. Severi, c. 40.
2 Odyss. lib. v. 230 x. 23, 24. 3
Vita Aureliani, cap. 46.
;

4
A doubt however arises respecting this proof. It is possible that the
author here speaks of gilt silver for, as the ancients were not acquainted
;

with the art of separating these metals, their gold was entirely lost when
they melted the silver. I remember no passage in ancient authors where

mention is made of weaving or embroidering with threads of silver gilt.

3
Salmas. ad Vopisc. p. 394 et ad Tertull. de Pallio, p. 208. Such cloth
;

at those periods was called a-vpfiartvov, <jupixari]pbv, drap d'argent.

6
Antiquitat. Ital. Medii /Evi, ii. p. 374,
 WIRE-DRAWING. 417

that the first experiments in wire-drawing were made upon

the most ductile metals, and that the drawing of brass and
iron to wire is of later date. It is likewise certain that the
metal was at first drawn by the hand of the workman in the ;

same manner as wire is drawn by our pin-makers when they

are desirous of rendering it finer. They wind it off from one
cylinder upon another, by which means it is forced through
the holes of the drawing-iron ; and this process agrees per-
fectly with the description of Vanuccio and Garzoni -, as well
'

as with the figures in the German translation of the latter.

As long as the work was performed by the hammer, the
artists at Nuremberg were called wire-smiths ; but after the
invention of the drawing-iron they were called wire-drawers
and wire-millers. Both these appellations occur in the history
of Augsburg so early as the year 1351 and in that of Nu-
;

remberg in 1360 3 so that, according to the best information

;

I have been able to obtain, I must class the invention of the

drawing-iron, or proper wire-drawing, among those of the
fourteenth century.
At first threads exceedingly massy were employed for
weaving and embroidering. Among the ruins of Hercula-
neum were found massy gold tassels, the threads of which were
wound neither round silk nor any other materials 4 It would .

be of some importance if one could determine the period when

flatted metal wire began to be spun round linen or silk thread,
by which improvement various articles of dress and ornament
are rendered more beautiful as well as cheaper. The spinning-
mill, by which this labour is performed at present, is so inge-
niously contrived that the name of the inventor deserves to be
made immortal 5 .

It appears that the wire first spun about thread was round ;
and the invention of previously making the wire flat is, in my
opinion, a new epoch in the history of this art. Three times
as much silk can be covered by flatted as by round wire; so

1 2
Pyrotechnia, lib. ix. La Piazza Universale, Ven. 1610, 4to.
3 Von Murr, in Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, v. p. 78. To this author
we are indebted for much important information respecting the present
4
subject. Bjornstahls Briefe, i. p. 269.
5 See a description of it in Sprengel's Ilandwerken und Kiinsten, iii.
p. 64 ; or in the tenth volume of the plates belonging to the Encyclopedic,
under the article Tireur et fileur d'or.
VOL. I. 2 E
418 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES,

that tassels and other articles become cheap in proportion.

Besides, the brightness of the metal is heightened in an un-
common degree and the article becomes much more beauti-
;

ful '. The wireis flatted at present by means of a flatting-

mill, which consists of two steel cylinders, put in motion by a

handle, and as the wire passes through between them it is
compressed and rendered flat. These cylinders were at first
procured from the Milanese, and afterwards from Schwarzen-
bruck in Saxony but since the death of the artists in those
;

parts who were acquainted with the secret of making them,

they have generally been ordered from Neufchatel. A pair
of them cost two hundred dollars. The whole art, however,
seems to consist in giving a proper hardness to the steel and
in polishing them. In the earliest ages wire was flatted with
a hammer on the anvil and the broad slips were cut into
;

small threads by women with a pair of scissors. The process

is thus described by Vannuccio and Garzoni, without mention-
ing the flatting-mill which is now used for brass work, coining
money, and various other purposes.
Before I proceed to the newest inventions I shall add the
following observations. Of the wire-work of the ancients we
have very few remains, and these are to be found upon cast
statues, on which one cannot expect any fine wire spun or en-
twisted round other substances, even supposing that they had
such. In the museum at Portici, which contains a variety of
articles discovered at Herculaneum, there are three metal
heads, with locks in imitation of hair. One of them has fifty
locks made of wire as thick as a quill, bent into the form of a
curl. On the other the locks are flat like small slips of paper
which have been rolled together with the fingers, and after-
wards disentangled -. A
Venus, a span in height, has on the
arms and legs golden bracelets 3 (armillce et periscelides), which
are formed of wire twisted round them. Grignon found in
the ruins of a Roman city in Champagne a piece of gold thread
which was a line in thickness 4 Among the insignia of the
.

German empire is the sword of St. Maurice, the handle of

1
Bericht von Gold- und Silber-dratziehen ; von Lejisugo. Lubeck, 1744,
8vo, p. 199.
2 Winkelmann, von den Herculan. Entdeckungen. 3
Ibid. p. 38.
4
Second Bulletin des Fouilles d'une Ville Romaine, par Grignon. Paris,
1775, 8vo, p. 111.
 WIRE-DRAWING. 419

which is wood bound round with strong silver wire '. The
ancients, however, must have been acquainted at an early-
period with the art of making gold-wire of considerable fine-
ness, as they used it in weaving and for embroidery. When
surgeons were desirous to fasten a loose tooth or to implant
one of ivory in the room of one that had dropped out, they
bound it to the next one by a piece of fine gold wire 2 .

The greatest improvement ever made in this art was un-

doubtedly the invention of the large drawing-machine, which
is driven by water, and in which the axle-tree, by means of a

lever, moves a pair of pincers, that open as they fall against

the drawing-plate lay old of the wire, which is guided through
;

a hole of the plate shut as they are drawn back and in that
; ;

manner pull the wire along with them 3 What a pity that
.

neither the inventor nor the time when this machine was in-
vented is known It is, however, more than probable that it
!

was first constructed at Nuremberg by a person named Rudolf,

who kept it long a secret; and by these means acquired a
considerable fortune. Conrade Celtes, who wrote about the
year 1491, is the only author known at present who confirms
this information and he tells us that the son of the inventor,
;

seduced by avaricious people, discovered to them the whole

secret of the machinery which so incensed the father that he
;

would have put him to death, had he not saved himself by

flight 4 Von Murr, however, has not been able to find any
.

proofs of this circumstance and amongst the names of wire-

;

drawers, which he met with in the records of Nuremberg, it

appears that there must have been no Rudolf, else he would

1
Von Murr, Beschreibung von Niirnberg, 1778, 8vo, p. 229.
2 Some explain the following words in the twelve tables of the Roman
laws, " Cui auro dentes vincti sunt," as alluding to this circumstance. Func-
cius however does not admit of this explanation, because he does not be-
lieve it possible to bind a tooth in that manner. It has, nevertheless, been
sufficiently confirmed both by ancient and modern physicians. Celsus, de
Medicina, lib. vii. cap. 12.
3
A description of this excellent machine may be found in Sprengel's
Handwerken,iv. p. 208 ; Cancrinus BeschreibnngdervorziiglichstenBerg-
werke, Frankf. 1767, 4to, p. 128 ; in the tenth volume of the plates to the
Encyclopedic, under the article Tireur et fileur d'or and other works.
;

Von Murr quotes a very ingenious description of it by the well-known poet

Eobanus Hessus, who died in 1540.
4 This account may be found vol. i.
p. 197 of the Urbis Norimbergas
Descriptio, Hagenoae, 1518, fol. cap. 5.
2e2
42G HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

certainly have mentioned it. Doppelmayer \ from mere con-

Von
jecture, places Rudolf's invention in the year 1400; but
Murr makes it older, because he found in the year 1360 the
name Schockenzier, which signifies a person who works at
wire-drawing.
This art, it appears, was brought to the greatest perfection
at Nuremberg. Several improvements were from time to time
found out by different persons, who turned them to their ad-
vantage, and who received exclusive patents for using them,
sometimes from the emperor, and sometimes from the council,
and which gave occasion to many tedious law-suits. have, We
however, reason to believe that the finer kinds of work, par-
ticularly in gold and silver, were carried on with great success,
above all, in France and Italy and that many improvements
;

were brought from these countries to Germany. I have not

materials sufficient to enable me to give a complete account
of the progress of the art of wire-drawing at Nuremberg but ;

it affords me pleasure that I can communicate some important

information on this subject, which was published 2 by Dr. F.

C. G. Hirsching of Erlangen, taken from original papers,
respecting the wire-drawing manufactory at Nuremberg 3 and ,

which I shall here insert.

In the year 1570, a Frenchman named Anthony Fournier,
firstbrought to Nuremberg the art of drawing wire exceedingly
fine, and made considerable improvement in the apparatus
used for that purpose. In 1592 Frederick Hagelsheimer,
called also Held, a citizen of Nuremberg, began to prepare, with
much benefit to himself, fine gold and silver wire, such as
could be used for spinning round silk and for weaving, and
which before that period had been manufactured only in Italy
and France. Held removed his manufactory from France to
Nuremberg, and received from the magistrates an exclusive
patent, by which no other person was allowed to make or
to imitate the fine works which he manufactured, for the term
of fifteen years. On account of the large capital and great
labour which was required to establish this manufactory, his
patent was by the same magistrates continued in 1607 for fif-
teen years more.
1
Nachricht von Nurnbergischen Kunstlern, p. 281.
2 In the Journal des Freyberrn von Bibra.
8 Journal von unci fiir Teutscliland, 1788, achtes Stuck, p. 102.
 WIRE-DRAWING. 421

As this patent comprehended only fine work, and the city

of Nuremberg, and as works of copper gilt with silver or gold
were of great importance, he obtained on the 19th of March,
1608, from the emperor Rodolphus II., an extension of his
patent, in which these works were included, and by which
power was granted to him to seize, in any part of the empire,
as well as in Nuremberg, imitations of his manufactures made
by others, or such of his workmen as might be enticed from
his service. A prolongation of his patent for fifteen years was
again granted to him at the same time.
After the death of the emperor Rodolphus, his patent was
in everything renewed, on the 29th of September, 1612, by
the emperor Matthias, and extended to the term of fifteen
years more. On the 16th of June, 1621, the Nuremberg
patent expired ; and the same year the family of Held, with
consent of the magistrates of that city, entered into an agree-
ment, in regard to wages and other regulations, with the
master wire-drawers and piece-workers l , which was confirmed
in another patent granted to Held on the 28th of September,
1621, by the emperor Ferdinand II., agreeably to the tenor of
the two patents before-mentioned, and which was still continued
for fifteen years longer. On the 26th of September, 162-2, this
patent, by advice of the imperial council, and without any
opposition, was converted into a fief to the heirs male of the
family of Held 2 , renewable at the expiration of the term spe-
cified in the patent.
It appears that were flatting-
in the fifteenth century, there
Nuremberg. In the
mills in several other places as well as at
town-books of Augsburg there occurs, under the year 1351,
the name of a person called Chunr. Tratmuller de Tratmul,
who certainly seems to have been a wire-drawer. In 1545,
Andrew Schulz brought to that city the art of wire-drawing
gold and silver, which he had learned in Italy. Before this
period that art was little known in Germany and Von Stet-
;

ten mentions an imperial police ordinance of the year 1548,

in which gold fringes are reckoned among those wares for
1
Piece-workers were such masters as were obliged to work privately by
the piece because, according to the imperial patent, no one except Held or
;

those whom he permitted durst carry on this business. For this permission
it was necessary to pay a certain sum of money.
2 The family at this period consisted of Frederick Held and
his three sons
Bartholomew, Frederick, and Paul.
^22 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

which large sums were at that time sent out of the empire.
Schulz obtained a patent from the council, but his attempt
proved unsuccessful. The business, however, was undertaken
afterwards in Augsburg by others, and in particular by an opu-
lent mercantile family named Hopfer, who bestowed great pains
to establish it on a permanent footing. For this purpose they
invited from Venice, Gabriel Marteningi and his son Vincent,
who were excellent workmen and had great experience in the
art. George Geyer, who learned under them, was the first
person who introduced the flatting of wire at Augsburg; and
he and his son endeavoured for a long time to monopolize the
employment of wire-drawing, and to prevent other people
from engaging in it near them. In the year 1698, M. P. Ul-
statt, John George Geyer, Joseph Matti and Moriz Zech
obtained a new patent, and out of gratitude for this favour they
caused a medal to be struck, which deserves to be reckoned
among the most beautiful works of Philip Henry Muller, the
artist who cut the die.
In the year 1447 there was a flatting-mill at Breslau 1 ; and
another, together with a burnishing-mill was constructed at
Zwickau 2 in 1506. All the wire in England was manu-
factured by the hand till 1565, when the art of drawing it with
mills was introduced by foreigners 3 . Before that period the
English wire was bad ; and the greater part of the iron-wire
used in the kingdom, as well as the instruments employed by
the wool-combers, was brought from other countries. Ac-
cording to some accounts, however, this art was carried to
England at a much later period for we are told that the first
;

wire-making was established at Esher by Jacob Momma and

Daniel Demetrius 4 .Anderson himself says that a Dutchman
constructed at Sheen, near Richmond, in 1663, the first flatting-
mill ever seen in England.
Iron-wire in France is called^ (TArehal; and the artists
there have an idea, which is not improbable, that this appel-
lation took its rise from one Richard Archal, who either in-
vented or first established the art of drawing iron-wire in that
country. The expression filde Richard is therefore used also
1
Von Breslau, Documentirte Geschichte, ii. 2, p. 409.
2
Chronica Cygnaca, durch Tob. Schmidten, Zwickau, 1656, ii. p. 254.
3 Anderson's Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 101.
%
Husbandry and Trade improved, by J. Houghton, 1727, 8vo, ii.p. 188.
 WIRE-DRAWING. 423

among the French wire-drawers Of this Archal, however,

.

we know as little as of the Nuremberg Rudolf; and Menage

will not admit the above derivation. He is of opinion that
fil $Archal is compounded of the Latin words filum and auri-
chalcam -.

To this article, I shall add a few observations re-

conclude
specting filigrane works and spangles. The first name signi-
fies a kind of work of which one can scarcely form a proper
idea from a description. Fine gold and silver wire, often curled
or twisted in a serpentine form, and sometimes plaited, are
worked through each other and soldered together so as to
form festoons, flowers and various ornaments and in many ;

places also they are frequently melted together by the blow-

pipe into little balls, by which means the threads are so en-
twisted as to have a most beautiful and pleasant effect. This
Avork was employed formerly much more than at present in
making small articles, which served rather for show than for
use; such as needle-cases, caskets to hold jewels, small boxes,
particularly shrines, decorations for the images of saint* and
other church furniture. Work of this kind is called filag?'ame,
filigrane, ouvrage de filigrane ; and it may be readily per-
ceived that these words are compounded offilum and granum.
We are told in the Encyclopedie that the Latins called this
work " opus filatim eiaboratum," but this is to be understood
as alluding to the latest Latin writers ; for filalim occurs only
once in Lucretius, who applies it to woollen thread.
This art, however, is of great antiquity, and appears to have
been brought to Europe from the East. Grignon informs us
that he found some remains of such work in the ruins of the
Roman city before-mentioned 3 Among church furniture we
.

meet with filigrane works of the middle ages. There was

lately preserved in an abbey at Paris, a cross ornamented with
filigrane work, which was made by St. Eloy, who died in 665 ;

and the greater part of the works of that saint are decorated

1 —
Dictionnaire de Commerce, par Savary, ii. p. 599. Dictionnaire des
Origines, par D'Origny, ii. p. 285.

.
2 Dictionnaire Etymologique, i.
p. 593. The author quotes the following
passage from a French bible printed at Paris in 1544 " Ne ayes pas mer-
:

veilles, si tu lis en aucuns lieux a. la fois, que ces choses estoient d'airain*
et a. la fois arcal car airain et arcal est un mesme metal."
;

3 Bulletin des Fouilles d'une Ville Romaine, i. p. 22.

424 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in the like manner 1

. In the collection of relics at Hanover is

still to be seen a cross embellished with this kind of -work,

which is said to be as old as the eleventh or twelfth century 2 .
The Turks, Armenians and Indians make at present master-
pieces of this sort, and with tools exceedingly coarse and im-
perfect. Marsden extols the ingenuity of the Malays on the
same account 3 ; and articles of the like nature, manufactured
at Deccan, are, we are told, remarkably pretty, and cost ten
times the price of the metal employed in forming them 4 This .

art is now neglected in Europe, and little esteemed. Augs-

burg, however, a few years ago had a female artist, Maria
Euphros. Reinhard, celebrated for works of this kind, who
died in 1779. In 1765 she ornamented with filigrane work
some silver basons, which were sent to Russia for the vise of
the church, and which gained her great honour 5 .
Spangles, paillettes, are small, thin, round leaves of metal,
pierced in the middle, which are sewed on as ornaments and ;

though they are well-known, it might be difficult for those who

never saw them manufactured, or read an account of the man-
ner in which they are prepared, to conceive how they are
made. The wire is first twisted round a rod into the form of
a screw; it is then cut into single spiral rings, like those used
by pin-makers in forming heads to their pins ; and these rings
being placed upon a smooth anvil are flattened by a smart
stroke of the hammer, so that a small hole remains in the
middle,, and the ends of the wire which lie over each other
are closely united. I remember to have seen on old saddle-
cloths and horse-furniture large plates of this kind but the ;

small spangles seem to be of later invention. According to

Lejisugo 6 whose real name I do not know, they were first
,

made in the French gold and silver manufactories, and imi-

tated in Germany, for the first time, in the beginning of the
seventeenth century. The method of preparing them was long
kept a secret.
1
Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique, i. p. 593.
2
Jungii Disqviisit. de Reliquiis, &c. Hanov. 1783, 4to.
a
History of Sumatra. London, 1783, 4to, p. 145.
4 Kindersley Briefe von der Insel Tenerifta uiul Ostindien. Leipzig,
1777,
8vo. The Jesuit Thomans praises the negroes of Monomotapa on the same
account. SeehisIteiseundLehensbaschreihung. Augsburg, 1788, 8vo.
s
Von Stetten, Kunstgeschichte, i. p. 489, and ii. p. 287.
6
Uericht von Dratziehen, p. 192.
 ;;

425

BUCK-WHEAT.
Grasses alone, and of these the seeds only of those which are
so abundant in an eatable farinaceous substance that they de-
serve to be cultivated as food to man, are properly corn. Not-
withstanding this definition, buck-wheat, which belongs to a
kind of plants that grow wild in Europe, knot-grass, water-
pepper, &c, because it is sown and employed like corn, is
commonly reckoned to be corn also. Our wheat and oats,
however, were not produced from indigenous grasses, as has
been the opinion of some learned naturalists, who, never-
theless, were not botanists nor has buck-wheat been pro-
;

duced from the above-mentioned wild plants'. Both these

assertions can be proved by the strongest botanical evidence
and the latter is supported by historical testimony, which can-
not be adduced in regard to the proper species of corn, as
they were used before the commencement of our history.
Two centuries ago, when botanists studied the ancients,
and believed that they had been acquainted with and given
names to all plants, some of them maintained that buck-wheat
was their ocimum : others have considered it as the erysimum
of Theophrastus and some as the panicum or sesamum. All
;

these opinions, however, are certainly false. It is indeed dif-

ficult to determine what plant the ocimum of the ancients was
but it may be easily proved that it was not buck-wheat, as
Bock or Tragus 2 has confidently asserted. The ocimum, or a
species' of that name, for it seems to have been applied to
several vegetable productions, was a sweet-smelling plant,
called also, at least by later writers, basilicum one kind of
;

ocimum had a thick, woody root 3 , and others possessed a strong

1
It cannot however be denied that some indigenous grasses might be
brought by culture, perhaps, to produce mealy seeds that could be used as
food. It is at any rate certain that some grasses, for example, the slender-
spiked cock's-foot panic-grass, Panicum aanguinale, which we have rooted
out from many of our gardens, was once cultivated as corn, and is still
sown in some places, but has been abandoned for more beneficial kinds.
2 " If the learned
would lay aside disputing, and give place to truth,
they would be convinced, both by the sight and the taste, that this plant
—
(buck-wheat) is the ocimum of the ancients." Krcuterbuch, Augsburg,
3
1546, fol. p. 248. Theophrast. 1. vii. c. 3.
426 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

medicinal virtue The ancient writers on agriculture give it

1
.

a place between the garden flowers and the odoriferous herbs 2 ;

but none of these descriptions can be applied to our buck-
wheat, which is both insipid and destitute of smell. Two un-
intelligible passages of an ancient writer on husbandry make
ocimum to have been a plant used for fodder, or rather a kind
of green fodder or meslin composed of various plants mixed
together 3 .The erysimum of Theophrastus produced seeds
which had a very hot acrid taste 4 ; and he doubts whether it
was eaten by cattle 5 . Pliny says expressly that it ought to
be classed rather among medicinal plants than those of the
corn-kind 6 though Theophrastus has mentioned it more than
;

once among the latter.

It is not worth the trouble to enter into an examination of
more opinions of the like kind, as several respectable writers,
who lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century, consider
buck- wheat to be a plant first introduced into Europe in their
time, though they are not all agreed in determining its native
country. John Bruyerinus, or as he was properly called, La
Bruyere-Champier, physician to Francis L, king of France, who
in the year 1530 wrote his book, often printed, De Re Cibaria 7 ,
says that buck-wheat had been first brought to Europe a little
before that time from Greece and Asia. That well-known bo-
who wrote in 1536, and Conrade Heresbach 9 ,
tanist Ruellius 3 ,
who died in 1576, give the same account. The latter calls
the northern part of Asia the original country of this plant, or
1 2 Geopon. ix. c. 28.
Dioscor. 1. ii. c. 171. 1.
3
Varro, lib. i. cap. 31. That a kind of meslin
here to be understood,
is
lias been supposed by Stephanus, in his Pradium Kusticum, p. 493 and ;

Matthiolus is of the same opinion. See Matthioli Opera, p. 408. Buck-

wheat may have been employed green as fodder and it is indeed often ;

sown for that use but there are many other plants which can be employed
;

4 Dioscorid. 1. ii. c. 188. 5

for the like purpose. Theophrast. p. 941.
6
Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 10. He says in the same place, and also p. 291,
that the erysimum was by the Latins called also irio and hence it is that
;

Ruellius and other old botanists give that name to buck-wheat.

7 The first edition was published in octavo, at Lyons, in 1560. Two edi-

tions I have now before me ; the first is called Dipnosophia seu Sitologia,
Francofurti, 1606, 8vo. The other Joan. Bruyerini Cibus Medicus, Norim-
bergae, 1659, 8vo. The author was a grandson of Symphorien Champier,
whose works are mentioned in Haller's Biblioth. Botan. i. p. 246.
s De Natura Stirpium, Basilise, 1543, fol. p. 324.
9 Kei Rusticse Libri Quatuor. Spirae Nonreturn, 1595, 8vo, p. 120. He
calls it triticum faginum, fayoirvpov, or nigrum triticuui, buck-wheat.
 BUCK-WHEAT. 427

that from which it had a little before been brought to Ger-

many. A nobleman of Brittany, whose book, Les Contes
d'Eutrapel was printed after his death in 1587, remarks oc-
1
,

casionally, that at the time when he wrote, buck-wheat had

been introduced into France about sixty years, and that it had
become the common food of the poor. Martin Schook 2 wrote
in 1661 that buck-wheat had been known in Flanders scarcely
,

a hundred years. The old botanists, Lobelius, the brothers

Bauhin, Matthiolus, and others, all assert that this grain was
new in Europe 3 I shall here remark, that Crescentio, who
.

lived in the thirteenth century, and described all the then

known species of corn, makes no mention of buck-wheat. It
undoubtedly acquired this name from the likeness which its
seeds have to the fruit of the beech-tree 4 and in my opinion
;

another name, that of Heidenkorn (heath-corn), by which it

is known in Germany, has been given it because it thrives best

in poor sandy soil where there is abundance of heath. From the

epithets Turcicum and Saracenicum, its native country can-
not be determined, for maize is called Turkish wheat, though
it originally came from America. I consider also as impro-
bable the conjecture of the learned Frisch 5 that from the
,

word Heide (a heathen), an expression little known in Upper

Germany, has arisen the appellation of ethnicum 6 and thence ,

Saracenicum, given to this plant, though the Bohemians call

it pohanka, from pohan, which signifies also a heathen.

There is reason to believe that this grain must have been

common in many parts of Germany in the fifteenth century.
In a bible, printed in Low-German, at Halberstadt, in the
year 1522, entitled Biblia Dudesch, the translator, who is not
1
Le Grand d'Aussy quotes from this book in. his Histoire de la Vie Privee
des Francois, i. p. 106, the following words " Sans ce grain, qui nous est
:

venu depuis soixante ans, les pauvres gens auraient beaucoup a. suflfrir."•

2 M. Schookii Liber de Cervisia. Groningae, 1661, 12mo.

3 Lobelii Stirpium Adversaria.
—
Antv. 1576, fol. p. 395. Bauhini Hist.
Plant, ii. p. 993. —
Chabrad Stirpium Sciagraphia. Gen. 1666, fol. p. 312,
and in App. p. 627.— C. Bauhini Theatr. Bot. p. 530.
4
The beech-tree in German is called Buche or BuJce, in Danish Bog,
and in Swedish, Russian, Polish, and Bohemian, Buk.
5 Worterbuch,
p. 434. This derivation may be found also in Martinii
Lexicon, art. Fagopyrum.
6 Buck-wheat is sometimes
named by botanists frumentum ethnicum
(heathen-corn), and triticum Saracenicum, because some have supposed that
it was introduced into Europe from Africa by the Saracens.
428 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

known, but who supposed to have been a catholic, trans-

is

lates a passage of Isaiah, chap, xxviii. ver. 25, which Luther

translates er silet spelz, he soweth spelt, by the words he seyet
bockwete, he soweth buck-wheat '. The name heydenkorn
occurs in a catalogue of plants so early as the year 1552 2 and ;

Jos.Maaler, orPictorius,has in his Dictionary, printed in octavo,

at Zurich in 1561, Heidenkorn, Ocimum. I find there also,
Heydel, a plant, Panicum. Dasypodius 3 likewise in his Dic-
tionary, of which I have the edition printed in 1537, says Pa-
nicum, Butzweyss, Heydel and in a vocabulary of the names
;

of plants added to it, Heydel, Panicum. Butz Weysz, Pani-

cum. Frisch has the word Heydel-Fench, which he explains
by Buck-wheat and he remarks that in the Swiss dialect Such
;

is changed into Butz. RyfFor Rivius, a physician who lived

in the middle of the sixteenth century, has changed Buch or
Book mto Bauch, and such errors often arise by transforming
the High- into Low-German. It has, however, analogy in its
favour, for the long o of the Low-German is in High-German
often changed into au for example, look, lauch
: schmooken, ;

smauchen ook, audi ooge, auge. But the long o of the Low-
; ;

German becomes frequently the long u of the High-German;

as good, gut buch, buchbaum
; book, bookbaum, &c.
;

That buck-wheat was cultivated in England about the year

1597, is proved by Gerard's Herbal.
A new species of this grain has been made known of late
years, under the name of Siberian buck-wheat, which appears
by experience to have considerable advantages over the former.
It was sent from Tartary to Petersburgh by the German bota-
nists who travelled through that country in the beginning of
the last century and it has thence been dispersed o^er all
;

Europe. We are however told in the new Swedish Econo-

mical Dictionary, that it was first brought to Finland by a
soldier who had been a prisoner in Tartary 4 Linnaeus re- .

ceived the first seeds, in 1737? from Gerber the botanist 5 and ,

1
A particular description of this scarce bible may be found in J. H. a
Seelen's Selecta Litteraria, Lubecae, 1726, 8vo, p. 398, 409.
2
This small work is entitled Vocabula Itei Nummariae, &.c. Additae sunt
Appellationes Quadrupedum, et Frugum, a Paulo Ebero et Casp. Peucero.
Witebergae, 1552, 8vo.
3 Dictionarium Latino-Germanicum. Argentorati, 4to.
4 Nya Swenska Economiska Diet. Stockh. 1780, 8vo, vol. ii.
8
Abhandlungen der Schwedisch. Akad. der Wissenscbaften, vi. p. 107,
where is given, as far as I know, the first figure of it.
 BUCK-WHEAT. 429

described the plant in his Hortus Cliffortianus. After this it

was mentioned by Ammann ', in 1739; but it must have been
earlier known in Germany, at least in Swabia for in 1733 it ;

was growing in the garden of Dr. Ehrhart, at Memmingen 2 .

In Siberia this plant sows itself for four or five years by the
grains that drop, but at the end of that time the land becomes
so full of tares that it is choked, and must be sown afresh.
Even ceconomical gardens in Germany it is propagated
in the
in the same manner; and
it deserves to be remarked that it

grows wild among the corn near Arheilgen, a few miles from
Darmstadt, though it is cultivated nowhere in the neighbour-
hood. Had it been indigenous there, Ehrhart might in 1733
have raised it from German seed.

The appellation of Saracenicum gives me occasion to add

the following remark: Ruellius 3 says, that in his time a plant
had begun to be introduced into the gardens of France, but
merely for ornament, called Saracen- millet, the seeds of which
were brought to that country about fifteen years before. This
millet, which was from five to six feet in height, was un-
doubtedly a ffolcus, and perhaps the same kind as that sought
after by us for cultivation a few years ago, under the name of
Holcus sorghum 4 This Holcus, however, was cultivated, at
.

least in Italy, long before the time of Ruellius for there is ;

little reason to doubt that it was the Milium indicum which

was brought from India to that country in the time of Pliny 5 .

That ancient naturalist says it was a kind of millet seven feet

high that it had black seeds, and was productive almost be-
;

yond what could be believed. In the time of Herodotus it

1
Stirpes Rariores Imperii Russici, 1739, 4to.
2 Ehrhart's (Ekonomische Pflanzen Historie, viii. p. 72.
3
Ruellius De Natura Stirp. lib. ii. cap. 27. Some very improperly have
considered this plant as Turkish wheat.
4
Several species of this genus were cultivated in the southern districts.
Their distinguishing characteristics do not however appear as yet to be
fully established. Bauhin makes the proper sorghum to be different from
the durra of the Arabs. Linnaeus in his last writings has separated HoU
cus biculor from firghum. Forskal thus describes the durra " Holcus
:

panicula ovata; spiculis sessilibus, subvillosis alternatim anpendiculatis

;
;

flosculo uno vel duohus vacuis, sessilibus." There are kinds of it with white
and reddish-yellow (fulva) seeds. According to his account, however, the
Arabs cultivate another kind known under the name of dochna, though in
less quantity, chiefly as food for fowls.
6 lib. xviii. cap. 7. Holcus sorghum is sold at Venice for brooms, as we
are told by Eay in his Hist. Plant.
430 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

was cultivated at Babylon, but it must have been then little

known to the Greeks for that historian would not venture to
;

mention its size and fertility, as he was afraid that his veracity
might be called in question '. According to his account, it
grew to be as large as a tree. It is worthy of remark, that this
kind of millet is still cultivated at Babylon, where it was seen
and admired by Rauwolf 2 It is undoubtedly the monstrous
.

Holcus mentioned by Apollonius, who considered it as one of

the most remarkable productions of India 3 It appears that
.

it continued to be cultivated by the Italians in the middle

ages for it was described in the thirteenth century by Cres-
;

centio, who speaks of its use and the method of rearing it 4 .

The seeds had some time before been brought from Italy to
Germany, and we find that it is on that account called Italian
millet. The old botanists named it also Sorgsamen and Sorg-
saat; appellations formed from sorghum. The name Mor-
hirse, under which it again came to us from Switzerland, in
later times 5 has arisen either from the black colour of one
,

of the kinds, or it may signify the same as Moren-hirse

(Moorish-millet), because it is almost the only corn of the
sable Africans However this may be, it can never become
6.

an object of common cultivation among us, for our summer is

neither sufficiently long nor sufficiently warm, to bring it to
perfection. Last summer (1787) I could with difficulty ob-
tain a few ripe grains for seed.
[Thecultivation of buck-wheat has never been very ex-
tensive in this country, as it will not bear the frosts of our
springs or the severity of winter. The only counties in which
it is grown to a moderate extent are Norfolk and Suffolk,

where it is called brank. If a small patch is occasionally met

with elsewhere, it is in general principally for the sake of en-
couraging game, particularly pheasants, which are extremely
fond of it.
1
Herodot. lib. i. cap. 193.
2 Beschreibung der Reyss Leonhardi Rauwolfen. Frankf. 1582, 4to, ii.
p. 68. The author observes that this kind of millet is mentioned also by
Rhases and Serapion. 3 Philostrat. Vita Apollon. lib. iii. cap. 2.
4
Melica cioe saggina e conosciuta, et e di due manere, una rossa et una
bianca, e trovasene una terza manera che a piu bianca che l'miglio. Cres-
cendo D'Agricoltura. In Venetia, 1542, 8vo, lib. iii. cap. 17. It appears
therefore that in our dictionaries saggina ought not to be explained by
Turkish wheat alone. 6
Andrea, Briefe aus der Schweitz. Zurich,
e
1776, 4to, p. 182. Adanson, Voyage an Senegal.
 SADDLESo 431

The seed of the buck- wheat is said to be excellent for horses,

the flowers for bees, and the plant green for soiling cows, cat-
tle, sheep, or swine. No grain seems so eagerly eaten by
poultry, or makes them lay eggs so soon or so abundantly.
The flour is fine and white, but from a deficiency in gluten
does not make good fermented bread ; it serves well, however,
for pastry and cakes, and in Germany and Holland is exten-
sively used, especially by the farmers, dressed in a variety of
ways, among others as pancakes, which if eaten hot are light
and pleasant, but become very heavy as they cool. hasty A
pudding made of the flour with water or milk, and eaten with
butter and sugar, is considered a favourite dainty.]

SADDLES.
In early ages the rider sat on the bare back of his horse with-
out anything under him but, in the course of time, some
' ;

kind of covering, which consisted often of cloth, a mattress, a

piece of leather or hide, was placed over the back of the ani-
mal. We are informed by Pliny 2 that one Pelethronius first
,

introduced this practice but who that person was is not cer-
;

tainly known. Such coverings became afterwards more

costly 3 they were made frequently in such a manner as to
;

hang down on both sides of the horse, as may be seen by the

beautiful engravings in Montfaucon 4 and were distinguished
,

among the Greeks and Romans by various names 5 but even ;

1
J. Lipsii Poliorcet. seu de Militia Romana, lib. iii. dial. 7.
2 Lib. vii. Hyginns, fab. 274.
cap. 56.
3 Coverings
for horses made of the costly skins of animals are mentioned
by Silius Italicus, lib.iv. 270, and lib. v. 148. Also by Statius. See The-
baid. lib. iv. 272. Costly coverings of another kind occur in Virgil, iEneid.
lib. vii. 279 ; viii. 552 and Ovid. Metam. lib. vii. 33. Livy, lib. xxxi.
;

cap. 7, comparing the luxury of themen and the women, says, " Equus tuus
speciosius instructus erit, quam uxor vestita."
4
Antiquite Expliquee, torn. ii. lib. 3. tab. 27, 28, 29, 30.
5 Seneca, Epist. 80 "Equumempturus, solvijubes stratum." Macrob.
:

Saturnal. i. 11 " Stultus est, qui, empturus equum, non ipsum inspicit, sed
:

stratum ejus etfrenum." Apuleius calls these coverings for horses fucata
ephippia. They were called also arpa^ara.
432 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

after they were common, it was reckoned more manly to ride

without them. Varro boasts of having rode, when a young
man, without a covering to his horse and Xenophon re-
;
'

proaches the Persians because they placed more clothes on

the backs of their horses than on their beds, and gave them-
selves more trouble to sit easily than to ride skilfully. On
this account such coverings were for a long time not used in
war and the old Germans, who considered them as disgrace-
;

ful, despised the Roman cavalry who employed them 2 The .

information, therefore, of Dion Cassius 3 , according to whom

such coverings were first allowed to the Roman cavalry by
Nero, is very doubtful. This author, perhaps, alludes only to
reviews, at which, it is probable, the cavalry were before
obliged always to appear without them. In the time of Alex-
ander Severus, the horses of the whole Roman cavalry had
beautiful coverings 4 . Saddles, however, at that period were
certainly unknown, though they afterwards obtained the old
name ephippium, which originally signified nothing more than a
covering for a horse. Xenophon says, a rider, whether placed
on the bare back of the animal or on a covering, must not
assume a position as if he sat upon one of those seats which
people use in carriages 5 .

Our saddles at present consist of a wooden frame called the

saddle-tree, which has on the fore part the pommel behind it ;

the crupper and at the sides the stirrups.

; In the inside they
are stuffed like a cushion, and on the outside are covered with
leather or cloth. They are made fast to the horse by means
of a girth which goes round the animal's belly and the breast-
;

1
Paed. lib. viii.
2 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, lib. iv. 2. An old saddle with stirrups was
formerly shown to travellers at Berne in Switzerland, as the saddle of Ju-
lius Caesar. The stirrups, however, were afterwards taken away, and in
1685 they were not to be seen. Melanges Historiques, recueillis et coni-
mentez parMons. Amst. 1718, 12mo, p. 81.
3 After writing the above, I found with satisfaction that
Lib. lxiii. 14.
Le Beau, in l'Academie des Inscriptions, vol. xxxix. p. 333, forms the same
conjecture. Before that period, the cavalry, when reviewed, were obliged
to produce their horses without any covering, that it might be more easily
seen whether they were in good condition. This useful regulation was
abolished by Nero, in order that the cavalry might exhibit a grander ap-
pearance. He employed his soldiers for show, as many princes do at present.
4 Lamprid. Vita Alex. Severi, cap. 50.
5
De He Equestri, p. 602. Respecting the stool or chair placed in car-
riages for people to sit on, see Pitisci Lexic. art. Sella curulis.
 ;

SAPDLES. 433

leather and crupper prevent them from being moved either

forwards or backwards. It is extremely probable that they
were invented in the middle of the fourth century but it is :

hardly possible to rind any certain proof; for we have reason

to believe that the ancient covering was gradually transformed
into a saddle. Pancirollus thinks that the first mention of
'

a saddle is to be found in Zonaras and many have adopted ;

his opinion. This historian relates that Constantine the

younger was killed in the year 340 when he fell from his
saddle. But in this proof aione I place very little confidence ;
and Pancirollus seems to have founded his assertion on the
Latin translation, in which the word sella is used. Both the
Greek and Latin terms 2 it is true y were employed at later
,

periods to signify a proper saddle but the Greek word was;

used long before for the back of the horse, or the place where
the rider sat and the words of Zonaras may be so understood
;

as if Constantine was killed after he had fallen from his horse 3 .

Montfaucon 4 lias given a figure of the pillar of Theodosius
the Great, on which he thinks he can distinguish a saddle
and indeed, if the engraving be correct, it must be allowed
that the covering of the horse on which the rider sits seems,
in the fore part, to resemble the pommel, and behind the ex-
tremity of the saddle-tree of our common saddles.
The clearest proof of the antiquity of saddles is the order
of the emperor Theodosius in the year 385, by which those who
wished to ride post-horses were forbidden to use saddles that
weighed more than sixty pounds. If a saddle was heavier, it
was to be cut to pieces 5 . This passage appears certainly to
allude to a proper saddle, which at that period, soon after its
invention, must have been extremely heavy and we may con- ;

clude from it also, that every traveller had one of his own.
1
De Rebus Deperditis, lib. ii. tit. 16. 2
"Eopa and sella.
3 Zonaras, lib. xiii. cap. 5. 'EKweirrioe rfjs eSpas 6 Kovaravrivos.
Nicetas in And. Coinnenus, lib. i. TT/s ecpas drrofidWerai. The word eopa
occurs twice in Xenophon, De Re Equestri. He gives an account how the
back of the horse should be shaped in order that the rider may have a fast
and secure seat r<p avajSary ci(T(pa\ei7repav rrjv edpav and where he
; ;

speaks of currying, says that the hair on a horse's back ought to be combed
down, as the animal will then be less hurt by his rider. I have taken the
trouble to consult other historians who give an account of the death of
Constantine, but they do not, mention this circumstance.
4 Antiq. Expliquec, vol. iv. lib. iii. cap. 5
Codex Th?o-
75, tab. 30.
dosian. lib. viii. tit. 5, leg. 47. Codex Justin, lib. xii. tit. 51, 12.
VOL. I. 2 F
 434 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

As the saddle is here called sella, and as that word occurs

oftener at this than at any other period, for the seat of the
rider, it is probable that it is to be understood afterwards as
signifying a real saddle. Besides, it cannot be denied that
where it is used, many other little circumstances are found
which may with great propriety be applied to our saddles.
Nazarius, in his panegyric on Constantine the Great, de-
scribing the manner in which the enemy's cavalry were
destroyed, says that, when almost lifeless, they hung sedilibus.
Lipsius is of opinion that they could have hung in this manner
only by saddles but there is reason to think that they might
;

lay hold of the coverings of the horses, if it be certain that

these were girded to the animals like our saddles. Of this,
however, there is no proof; for though some have asserted
that posiilena signified a girth, that meaning has not been
supported by sufficient authorities; and it is more probable that
the words postilena, antilena, and also postella and antella,
as well as the girth itself, which they are supposed to express,
were not introduced till after the invention of saddles. The
first word occurs in Plautus ; but it perhaps alludes to some
'

part of the harness of draught-horses or cattle. Vegetius q

distinguishes saddle-horses from others ana the saddle-tree
;

seems to be mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris 3 In the fifth.

century saddles were made so extravagantly magnificent, that

a prohibition was issued by the emperor Leo I. in which it
was ordered that no one should ornament them with pearls or
precious stones 4 In the sixth century, the emperor Mauri-
.

tius required that the saddles of the cavalry should have large
coverings of fur 5 . Further information respecting saddles in
later times may be seen in Du Cange, who has collected also
various terms of art to which the invention of saddles gave
rise, such as sellatores, saddlers, of which the French have made
selliers; sellare, the saddle-tree; sellare and insellare, to saddle.
The ignominious punishment of bearing the saddle, of which
a good account may be found in Du Cange 6 had its origin,

in the middle ages. The conjecture of Goropius Becanus ',

that the saddle was invented by the Salii, and named after
1
Casina,
i. 37. See Scheffer, De Re Vehiculari. Frankf. 1671, 4to, p.
125 and Gesneri Thesaur. Ling. Lat.
;
* De Arte Veterinaria, iv. 6, 2
3 Lib. iii. epist. 3. 4
.and 4. Codex Justin, lib. xi. tit. 11.
5
Mauricii Ars Militaris edit. Scliefferi, lib. i. cap. 2.
;

6
See art. Sellain gestare. ' Lib. ii. Francicorum, p. 48.
 STIRRUPS. 435

them, is not worth refutation as it is perfectly clear that the

;

denomination of sella arose from the likeness of a saddle to a

chair; and by way of distinction Sidonius and the emperor
Leo say sella equestris and Jornandes says sella equitatoria.
;

Others, perhaps, will pass no better judgement on a conjecture

which I shall here venture to give. J consider it as probable that
the invention of saddles belongs to the Persians because, ac- ;

cording to the testimony of Xenophon, they first began to

render the seat of the rider more convenient and easy, by
placing more covering on the backs of their horses than was
usual in other countries. Besides, the horses of Persia were
first made choice of in preference for saddle-horses, on account,
perhaps, of their being early trained to bear a saddle, though
Vegetius assigns a different reason.
1

STIRRUPS.

Respecting the antiquity of stirrups several men of learning 2

have long ago made researches but as their observations are

;

scattered through a great variety of books, some of which are

now scarce, and are mingled with much falsehood, it will per-
haps afford pleasure to many to find here collected and re-
duced into order the greater, or at least the most important,
part of them. In executing this task I shall aim at more than
the character of a diligent collector for to bring together
;

information of this kind, to arrange it, and to make it useful,

requires no less readiness of thought than the labours of those

1
Vegetius, De Arte Veterin.
iv. 6, 4to, p. 1157.
2 The works
principal in which information is to be found on this sub-
ject are the following Hieron. Magii Miscellan. lib. ii. cap. 14.
: — Gruteri
—
Lampas, ii. p. 1339. Lipsii Poliorceticon sive de Militia Romana, Antv.
—
1605, lib. iii. dial. 7. Pitisci Lexicon Antiquit. Rom. iii. p. 482. — Salma-
sius in yElii Spart. Antonin. Carac. p. 1G3. —
G. J. Vossius, De Vitiis Ser-
—
monis,Amst. 1695, fol. p. 11. Polyd. Vergilius De Rerum Inventoribus, lib.
iii. cap. 18.— — —
Hugo De Militia Equestri, i. 4. Licetus De Lucernis. Mena-
giana, iv. p. 263. — —
Brown's Vulgar Errors. Berenger's History and Art of
—
Horsemanship, London, 1771, 4to. Montfaucon, Antiquite Expliquee, iv.
lib. 3, cap. 3, p. 77, and Supplement, iv. lib. ii. cap. 4.— Le Beau, in Mem.
de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, xxxix. n. 537.
2f2
436 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

who assume the character of original thinkprs, and who ima-

gine that they render others inferior to themselves when they
bestow on them the appellation of compilers.
We have here a new proof how much people may be de-
ceived, when they suppose that objects must be of gre.it an-
tiquity because they tend to common convenience and because
they appear even so indispensably necessary and easy to have
been invented, that one can scarcely conceive how they could
at any time have been wanting. I cannot, however, deprive
our ancestors of the merit of ingenuity and invention for they
;

must undoubtedly have possessed no small share of talents and

ability, to perform, without, the assistance of our arts, what
perhaps would be difficult even for the present age to accom-
plish. And who knows but there are many things still to be
invented, the discovery of which may give posterity equal rea-
son to reproach us ?
Stirrups are useful in two points of view for they not only
;

assist one mounting, but also in riding, as they support the

in
legs of the rider, which otherwise would be exposed to much
inconvenience. No traces of any invention for this purpose
are to be found in the old Greek and Latin writers ; and
though means to assist people to get on horseback were de-
vised in the course of time, neither stirrups nor any permanent
support to the legs were for a long period thought of. No-
thing that could perform the same service as a stirrup is to be
perceived on ancient coins which exhibit the representation of
persons on horseback ;on statues cast or formed with the
chisel, or on any remains of ancient sculpture. In the excellent
equestrian statues of Trajan and Antoninus, the legs of the
rider hang down without any support whatever. Had stirrups
been in use when these statues were formed, the artists cer-
tainly would not have omitted them ; and the case would have
been the same with those writers who speak so fully of riding,
and of the necessary equipage and furniture. How is it pos-
sible, that Xenophon, in the two books which he wrote ex-
pressly on horsemanship and the ari. of riding, where he gives
rules for mounting, and where he points out means for assist-
ing old people and infirm persons, should not have mentioned
stirrups had he been acquainted with them ? And how could
they have been passed over by Julius Pollux, in his Lexicon,
where he gives every expression that concerns riding- furniture?
 STIRRUPS. 4-37

Hippocrates and Galen 2 speak of a disease which in their

1

time was occasioned by long and frequent riding, because the

legs hung down without any support. Suetonius 3 also relates
that Germanicus, the father of Caligula, by riding often after
dinner endeavoured to strengthen his ancles, which had become
weak and Magius explains this very properly by telling us,
;

that as his legs hung down without stirrups, they would be

continually moved backwards and forwards, and of course
the circulation of the blood towards those parts would be in-
creased.
Neither in the Greek nor Roman authors do we meet with
any term that can be applied to stirrups, for staffa, stapia,
staphium, stapha, stapedium, stapeda, and stapes are words
formed in modern times. The last, as Vossius and others say,
was invented by Franc. Philelphus, who was born in 1398 and
died in 14-81 4 , to express properly a thing unknown to the
ancients, and for which they could have no name. The other
words are older, as may be seen in Du Cange, and appear to
be derived from the German stapf, which is still retained in
Fuss-stapf, a foot-step.
The name of one of the ear-bones, which, on account of its
likeness to a stirrup, has from anatomists received the same
appellation, may occur here to some of my readers and if ;

that expression was known to the ancients, it might invalidate

my assertion. That small bone, however, was first remarked
at Naples in the year 1546 by John Philip Ingrassias, a Sici-
lian, who called it stapes. To the ancient anatomists it was
not known 5 .
Montfaucon is of opinion that it is impossible there could
be stirrups before saddles were invented, because the former,
at present, are fastened to the latter. This conclusion, how-

1
De Aere, Locis et Aquis, sect. 3. The author here speaks in particu-
lar of the Scythians, who were always on horseback but he afterwards
;

extends his observations to all those much addicted to riding.

2 Galen. De Parvse Pilae Exercitio, cap. 5. De Sanitate Tuenda, lib. ii.
3 Vita Caligulae, cap.
cap. 11. 3.
4 Fabricii Biblioth. Med. et Inf. iEtatis, vol. v.
p. 845.
5 The history of this anatomical discovery, Written by Ingrassias himself,

maybefoundin J. Douglas, Bibliographiae Anatomicse Specimen Lugd.Bat.

;

1734, 8vo, p. 186. This discovery was claimed by a person named Co-
lumbus; but that it belongs to Ingrassias has been fully proved by Fal-
lopius in his Observat. Anatomicre.
438 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ever, is not altogether just. Stirrups might have been sus-

pended from leather straps girt round the horse. In mounting,
it would only have been necessary that some one should hold

fast the strap on the other side and stirrups arranged in this
;

manner would have supported the feet of the rider as well as

ours. It is certain that mounting on horseback was formerly
much easier than it has been since the invention of high sad-
dles; and it is probable that stirrups were introduced soon
after that period. The arguments which I have here adduced
will receive additional force when one considers the incon-
venient means which the ancients employed to assist them in
getting on horseback and which, undoubtedly, they would
;

not have used had they been acquainted with stirrups.

The Roman manners required that young men and expert
riders should be able to vault on horseback without any as-
sistance. To accustom them to this agility there were wooden
horses in the Campus Martins, on which practitioners were
obliged to learn to mount and dismount, both on the right
and the left side, at first unarmed, and afterwards with arms
in their hands In many public places, particularly high-
1
.

ways, stones were erected, to which a rider could lead his horse
in order to mount with more facility. Such stones Gracchus
caused to be set up 2 and they were to be found at many
;

cities, the sixteenth century, especially near the council-

in
houses, that they might be used by the members of the coun-
cil, who at that time did not ride in coaches. convenience A
of this kind was constructed at the Roman gate at Frankfort
in 1502 and steps for the same purpose may be still seen in
;

many parts of England, where they are employed principally

by the ladies. If a certain ludicrous inscription be ancient,
such a stone was called suppedaneum but this word occurs ;

nowhere else 3 .
People of high rank and fortune kept riding-servants to as-
2
1
Vegetius De Re Milit. i. 18. Plutarclius, Vita C. Gracchi.
3
This inscription may be found in Thorn. Porcacchi Funerali Antichi.
Venet. 1574, fol. p. 14.
•'
Dis pedip. saxum
Cinciffi dorsiferse et cluniferac,
Ut insultare et desultare commodetur,
Pub. Crassus mulse sure Crassce bene ferenti
Suppedaneum hoc cum risu pos."
Here Bis pedip. seems to be an imitation of Dis Manibus; saxum of the
usual word sacrum and benoferenii of bene merenti.
:
 STIRRUPS. 439

sist them in mounting, who were called stratores*. It was

usual also to have portable stools, which were placed close to
the horse when one wished to mount and this gave rise to
;

the barbarous practice of making conquered princes and ge-

nerals stoop down that the victor might- more easily get on
horseback by stepping upon their backs as upon a stool. In
this ignominious manner was the emperor Valerian treated by
Sapor, king of Persia 2 Some horses also were so instructed
.

3
that they kneeled until the rider mounted and warriors had on
;

their spears or lances a step or projection, on which they could

rest the foot while they got on horseback '. Winkelmann has
described a cut stone in the collection of Baron Stosch, on
which a rider is represented in the act of mounting with one
foot on the step of his spear; and it appears, by an ancient
drawing, that a leather loop 5 into which the foot could be
,

put, was fastened sometimes to the lance also.

Of those who believe that traces of stirrups are to be found
among the ancients, no one has erred more than Galeotus
Martius 6 who follows a wrong reading in Lucretius 7 and
, ,

translates still worse the words which he adopts. Magius and

others consider as authentic an inscription, in which stirrups
are clearly mentioned ; and because the letters D. M. (diis
manibus), usual in Pagan inscriptions, appear at the top, he
places it in the first century of the Christian aera 8 Menage 9 ,.

however, and others have already remarked that this inscrip-

tion was forged in modern times, and in all probability by
Franc. Columna, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth
centur}', and who sometimes called himself Polyphilus 10 Gru- .

1
Lipsius De Milit. Romana, p. 410. Pitisci Lexic. Antiq. These ser-
vants were called also avafioXels.
2
— —
Eutrop. lib. ix. cap. 6. Victor, epit. 46. Trebell. Pollio, Vita Vale-
riani. —Hofmanni Lexic. artic. Calcandi hostium corpora ritus, p. 642.
3 Strabo, lib. iii. says that the Spaniards instructed their
horses in this
4
manner. Lipsius understands in this sense what Livy says,
book iv. chap. 19, of Cornelius Cossus, " Quem cum ictum equo dejecisset,
5
confestim et ipse hasta innisus se in pedes excepit." Figures of both
may be seen in Berenger, tab. 8. 6
De Promiscua Doctrina, cap. 28.
7 Lib. v. 1296, "Et prius est repertum in equi conscendere costas.''

Martius reads clostris and thinks that closlra is the Greek name for a
;

ladder, which however is Kpocrud.

8 In this inscription the following
words occur, " Casu desiliens, pes hsesit
9 Menagiana. Paris,
stapise, tractus interii." 1715, vol. iv. p. 83.
10
Fabricii Biblioth. Med. et Inf. iEtatis, i. p. 1131.
 :

440 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ter, therefore, reckons it among those which ought to be re-

jected as spurious : and of as authority is the silver coin
little
on which the Emperor Constantine is represented on horse-
back with stirrups.
Magius quotes from the letters of Jerome, who died in the
year 420, the following words, " Se cum quasdam accepit lit-
teras jumentum conscensurum, jam pedem habuisse in bistapia."
These words have been again quoted by several writers and ;

we may readily believe that the author when he wrote them

alluded to a stirrup. Magius however quotes from memory,
and says, '* Si memoria non labat." But these words are not
to be found in Jerome and it is probable that Magius may
;

have read them in the works of some other author.

The first certain account of stirrups, as far as I have been
able to learn, is in a book by Mauritius respecting the art of
l

war, where the author says that a horseman must have at his
saddle two iron scalce. This work, commonly ascribed to the
emperor Mauritius, is supposed to have been written in the
end of the sixth century ; and it is not a sufficient proof to
the contrary, that mention is made in it of the Turks, Franks,
and Lombards. The first were then well known for Justin II. ;

some time before had concluded a peace with them the Lom- :

bards made themselves known in the middle of that century

and the Franks had been known much longer. The same
words are inserted by the emperor Leo VI., in his work on
tactics, which he wrote in the end of the ninth century 2 Still
clearer is another passage of Mauritius 3 , and of the emperor
Leo 4 where
, it is expressly said, that the deputati, who were

obliged to carry the wounded horsemen from the field, ought

to have two stirrups on the left side of the horse, one at the
fore part and the other at the hind part of the saddle-tree,
that they might each take a disabled soldier on horseback be-
hind them. That these scalce were re;d stirrups there seems
to be no reason to doubt and in my opinion, that word, and
;

other expressions of the like kind to be found in later writers,

may be understood in this sense, especially as concomitant
circumstances appear rather to strengthen than to oppose such
a conjecture.
1
Mauricii Ars Militaris, editaa Joh. Sclieffero. Upsalisc 1CG4, 8vo p. 22.
2 Leonis Tactica, edit. Meursii cap. vi. §10. p. 57.
3 Lib. ii. cap. 8. p. 64. * Tactica, cap. xii. § 53, p 150.
 STIRRUPS. 4-41

Isidore, in the seventh century, says " Scansuge, ferrum per

quod equus scanditur ;" and also "Astraba, tabella, in qua pedes
requiescunt :" both which expressions allude to stirrups. Leo
1

the Grammarian, in the beginning of the tenth century -, calls

them, as Mauritius does, scalce. Suidas,, who wrote about the
same period, says anaboleus signifies not only a riding-servant,
who assists one in mounting, but also what by the Romans was
called scala. As the machine used for pulling off boots is
named a Jack, because it performs the office of a boy, in the
like manner that appellation, which at first belonged to the
riding-servant, was afterwards given to stirrups, because they
answered the same purpose. Suidas, as a proof of the latter
meaning, quotes a passage from an anonymous writer, who
says that Massias, even when an old man, could vault on horse-
back without the assistance of a stirrup (anaboleus). Lipsius
thinks that the passage is to be found in Appian 3 respecting ,

Masanissa and in that case the first meaning of the word may
;

be adopted. Suiclas, according to every appearance, would

have been in a mistake, had he given Masanissa at so early a
period the Roman scalce, with which he could not be acquainted.
But that the passage is from Appian, and that Masanissa ought
to be read instead of Ma»sias, is only mere conjecture at any ;

rate Suidas could commit no mistake in saying that the Ro-

mans in his time made use of scalce. Lipsius, however, was
not altogether wrong in considering this quotation alone as an
insufficient proof of stirrups, because with the still older and
more express testimony of Mauritius he was unacquainted.
Eustathius, the commentator of Homer 4 speaks in a much
,

1
Both passages are quoted by Du Cange from the Gloss. Isidori. The
latter word signified also the saddle-bow ;for Suidas says, 'Aarpdfir], to
eiri rwv ktpnnriwv %v\ov o Kparovaiv ol Ka9eLOfievoi. Lignum quod est
in ephippiis, quod sessores tenent. Allusion is made to this saddle-bow bv
the emperor Frederic II. De Arte Venandi, ii. 71, p. 152, where he describes
how a falconer should mount his horse " Ponat pedem unum in staffa sellfe,
:

accipiens arcum sella anteriorem cum manu sua sinistra, supra quam jam
non est falco, posteriorem autem cum dextra, super quam est falco." Nicetas,
however, in Manuel. Comnen. lib. ii. p. 63, gives that iiame to the whole
saddle ; for we are told that the Scythians, when about to cross a river,
placed their arms on the saddle (Jtarpaft-qv), and laying hold of the tails
of their horses, swam after them.
2 Leonis Grammatici Chronographia, printed in the
Paris Collection of
the Byzantine Historians, with Theophanis Chronograph. 1655, fol. p.470.
s De Bellis Punicis, edit. Tollii, 4
Odyss. lib. i. 155.
p. 107.
442 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

clearer manner ; to understand that stirrups

but he gives us
in his time, that the twelfth century, had not become
is in
very common. On a piece of tapestry of the eleventh cen-
tury, which Montfaucon caused to be engraven ', the saddles
of all the horses appear to have stirrups. Aimonius calls them
scandilia 9 and in the twelfth century the word staffa occurs
-,

very often, and without doubt in that sense 3 . In the ages of

superstition, the clergy carried their boundless pride to such a
length, that they caused emperors and kings to hold their
stirrups when they mounted on horseback 4 . It however long
continued to be thought a mark of superior dexterity to ride
without stirrups, at least Phile praises Cantacuzenus on this
account^.

HORSE-SHOES.
It can be proved by incontestable evidence, that the ancient
Greeks and Romans endeavoured, by means of some covering,
to secure from injury the hoofs of their horses and other ani-
mals of burden but it is equally certain that our usual shoes,
;

1
Monumens de la Monarchie Frangoise, i. tab. 35.
2 Aimonius De Miraculis Sancti Benedicti, ii. 20.
3 to Du Cange, stir-
Fredericus II. De Venat. lib. ii. cap. 71. According
rups as well as spurs occur seldom on seals in the eleventh century. In
the thirteenth they are more frequent. See P. W. Gerkens Anmerkungeu
iiber die Siegel. Stendal, 1786, 8vo, part 2. Heineccius De Sigillis, p. 205.
I shall here remark that Ccelius Rhodiginus, xxi. 31, is mistaken when he
says that Avicenna calls stirrups mbsellares. Licetus, De Lucernis, p. 786,
has proved that this Arabian author speaks only of a covering to secure the
feet from frost.
4
Instances of this pride have been collected by Du Cange in his anno-
tations on Cinnamus, p. 470, and more may be found in his Dictionary,
vol. vi. p. 681. When steps w ere not erected on the highways, a metal or
r

wooden knob was affixed to each side of the saddle, which the rider, when
about to mount, laid hold of, and then caused his servant to assist him.
The servants also were often obliged to throw themselves down that their
master might step. upon their back. See Constantin. De Ccrcmoniis Aulae
Byzant. p. 242. A, 6 and p. 405, B, 3 also Reiske in his Annotations,
; ;

p. 135.
fi
In Cantacuz. edit Wernsdorfii. Lipsiae, 1768, 8vo, p. 218, who calls
stirrups jcXi/iacps', sealae.
 —

HORSE-SHOES. 443

which are nailed on, were invented much later We are told 1
.

by Aristotle 2 and Pliny 3 that shoes were put upon camels in

,

the time of war, and during long journeys and the former ;

gives them the same name as that given to the shoes, or rather
socks or soles, of the common people, which were made of
strong ox-leather. When the hoofs of cattle, particularly
oxen, had sustained any hurt, they were furnished with shoes,
made of some plant of the hemp kind 4 , wove or plaited to-
1
The principal works with which I am acquainted that contain informa-
tion respecting the antiquity of horse-shoes, are the following : Pancirollus
De Rebus Deperditis, ii. tit. 16, p. 274. —
J. Vossius in Catulli Opera. Ultra-
jecti, 1691, 4to, p. 48. — Lexicon Militare, auctore Carolo de Aquino.
Roma?, 1724, fol. ii. p. 307. — Gesner in his Index to Auctores Rei Rustics,
art. Solese ferrese. — Montfaucon, Antiquite Expliquee, iv. liv. 3. p. 79.
LeBeau, Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, vol. xxxix. p. 538.
in
Archseologia, London, 1775, 4to, iii. p. 35 and 39.
2 Histor. Anim. ii.
6, p. 165, edit. Scaligeri. They appear not to have
been used at all times, but only when the hoofs began to he injured.
3
Hist. Nat. lib. xi. cap. 43.
4
A fewobservations respecting spartum maybe of service to those who
wish to carry their researches further. The ancients, and particularly the
Greeks, understood by that appellation several species of plants which
could be used and manufactured like flax or hemp, and which appear to
have been often mentioned under that general name. The Greeks however
understood commonly by spartum a shrub, the slender branches of which
were woven into baskets of various kinds, and which produced young shoots
that could be prepared and manufactured in the same manner as hemp ;

and this plant, as has already been remarked by the old botanists, is the
Spartium junceum, or Spanish broom, which grows wild on dry land, that
produces nothing else, in the Levant and in the southern parts of Europe.
This broom is that described and recommended in Comment. Instituti Bon-
noniensis, vi. p. 118, and vi. p. 349. The French translator of the papers
here alluded to is much mistaken when he thinks, in Journal Economique,
1785, Novembre, that the author speaks of the common broom {Spartium
scoparium) that grows on our heaths. M. Broussonet, in Memoires d' Agri-
culture, par la Societe de Paris, 1785, p. 127, has also recommended the
cultivation of the' Spart. junceum, under the name of genet d'Espagne, and
enumerated the many uses to which it may be applied. The people in
Lower Languedoc, especially in the neighbourhood of Lodeve, make of it
table-cloths, shirts and other articles of dress. The offal or rind serves as
firing. This spartum of the Greeks, or Spartium junceum of the botanists,
is the species called by Pliny, book xxxix. chap. 9, genista, and which he
improperly considers as the Spanish and African spartum. The latter is
certainly the Stipa (Macrochloa) tenacissima, which grows in Spain and
Africa, called there at present sparto or esparto, and which is still prepared
and employed as described by Pliny, b. xix. c. 2. Baskets, mattresses, ship-
cables, and other strong ropes weie made of it and when this grass had
;
444 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

gethef '. These indeed were only a sort of chirurgieal band-

ages but such shoes were given in particular to mules, which
;

in ancient times were employed more than at present for

riding; and it appears by two instances of immoderate extra-
vagance handed down to us by Roman writers, that people of
rank caused these shoes to be made very costly. Nero, when
he undertook short journeys, was drawn always by mules which
had silver shoes 2 and those of his wife Poppaea had shoes of
;

gold 3 The information of these authors however is not suffi-

.

cient to enable us to conjecture how these shoes were made;

but from a passage of Dio Cassius we have reason to think
that the upper part only was formed of those noble metals, or
that they were perhaps plaited out of thin slips 4 .
Arrian also reckons these soles or shoes among the riding-
furniture of an ass 5 Xenophon relates that certain people of
.

Asia were accustomed, when the snow lay deep on the ground,
been prepared like hemp, it was used for various fine works. Even at
present the Spaniards make of it a kind of shoes called alpergates, with
which they carry on a great trade to the Indies, where they are very useful
on the hot, rocky and sandy soil. [Moritz Willkomm, in his Botanical
Notices from Spain (Annals of Natural History for March 1845), notices
among the most valuable vegetable productions of Spain, " the celebrated
Esparto {Macrochloa tenocissirna), which, growing on many of the hills
situated near the sea, forms an important article of trade in South Spain,
since this tough grass is used partly for the plaiting of coverings for rooms
and balconies, and for making various sorts of baskets, especially panniers
for mules, chairs, and the peculiar sandals which are worn all over the
kingdom; and partly worked into ropes, which are in great request, and
are manufactured in great quantity at Marseilles.] Whether the ancients
made shoes for their cattle of the Spar Hum junceum or the Stipa tenacis-
sima, I will not venture to determine. It is probable that the former was
used by the Greeks, and the latter by the Romans and it is highly worthy
;

of being here remarked, that in modern times a kind of socks for horses
were made of a species of spartum, as we learn from J. Leonis Africse De-
scriptio, lib. iii. p. 120. The same author however says expressly, p. 96,
that common shoes of iron were also used.
1
Columella, vi. 12,3: "Spartea munitur pes." vi. 15,1: " Spartea calceata
ungula curatur." Vegetius, i. 26, 3: " Spartea calceare curabis." See alsoii.
45, 3. Galen De Alim. Facult. i. 9 : 2-a,or6s < t ov ttXi-kovgi vnoSinxara
vvro'Cvyiois. Is there not some reason therefore to conclude that this
practice was followed not merely in regard to cattle only that were
2 Sueton. Vita Neronis, cap.
diseased ? 30.
3 Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 1 1
.
— Scheffer, De Re Vehiculari, proves that we
are here to understand she-mules.
4 Oio
Cassius, lxii. 28, and Ixxiii. Commodus caused the hoofs of a horse
5
to be gilt. Commentar. in Epictetum, lib. iii.
 HOUSE-SHOES. 445

to draw socks over the feet of their horses, as they would

otherwise, he adds, have sunk up to the bellies in the snow . 1

1 cannot comprehend how their sinking among the snow could,

by such means, have been prevented and I am inclined rather ;

to believe, that their feet were covered in that manner in order

to save them from being wounded. The Russians, in some
parts, such as Kamtschatka, employ the same method in re-
gard to the dogs which draw their sledges, or catch seals on
the ice. They are furnished with shoes which are bound
round their feet, and which are so ingeniously made that their
claws project through small holes 2 .
The shoes of the Roman cattle must have been very ill
fastened, as they were so readily lost in stiff clay 3 and it ;

appears that they were not used during a whole journey, but
were put on either in miry places, or at times when pomp or
the safety of the cattle required it; for we are informed by
Suetonius, that the coachman of Vespasian once stopped on
the road to put on the shoes of his mules -1
.

The reason why mention of these shoes on horses occurs so

seldom, undoubtedly is, because, at the time when the before-
quoted authors wrote, mules and asses were more employed
than horses, as has been already remarked by Schefrer and
others. Artemidorus speaks of a shod horse, and makes use
of the same expression employed in regard to other cattle '. 1

Winkelmann has described a cut stone in the collection of

Baron Stosch on which is represented the figure of a man
,

holding up one foot of a horse, while another, kneeling, is em-

1
Xenophon De Cyri Min. Expedit. p. 228.
2
B. F. Hermann, Beytrage zur Physik. CEkonomie der Russischen Lan-
der. Berlin, 1786, 8vo, part i. p. 250. The same account respecting the
dogs of Kamtschatka is given in Cook's last Voyage.
3 Catullus, viii. 23. By which passage it appears that the shoe was of
iron, iron wire, or plate-iron.
4 Sueton. Vita. Vespasian seems to have suspected that his driver had
been Imbed to stop hy the way, and that he had done so on pretence of
shoeing his horses. Had the mules been shod, and had the driver only
had to rectify something that related to the shoe, as our coachmen have
when a nail is lost, or any other little accident has happened, Suetonius
would not have said mulas, but mulam. The driver therefore stopped for
the first time on the journey to put on the shoes of his cattle, as has been
remarked by Gesner.
6
Artemidori Oneirocritica. Lutetiae, 1603, 4to, lib. iv. cap. 32.
G
Description des Pierres Gravees du Baron de Stosch, 1760, p. 169.
446 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ployed in fastening on a shoe. These are all the proofs of

horses being shod among the ancients with which I am ac-
quainted. That they were never shod in war, or at any rate,
that these socks were not sufficient to defend the hoof from
injury, seems evident from the testimony of various authors.
When Mithridates was besieging Cyzieus, he was obliged to
send his cavalry to Bithynia, because the hoofs of the horses
were entirely spoiled and worn out . In the Latin translation
1

it is added that this was occasioned by the horses not having

shoes ; but there are no such words in the original, which

.seems rather to afford a strong proof that in the army of Mi-
thridates there was nothing of the kind. The case seems to
have been the same in the army of Alexander for we are ;

told by Diodorus Siculus, that with uninterrupted marching

the hoofs of his horses were totally broken and destroyed-.
An instance of the like kind is to be found in Cinnamus, where
the cavalry were obliged to be left behind, as they had suffered
considerably in the hoofs an evil, says the historian, to which
;

horses are often liable 3 .

From what has been said I think I may venture to draw

this conclusion, that the ancient Greek and Roman cavalry
had not always, or in common, a covering for the hoofs of
their horses, and that they were not acquainted with shoes
like those used at present, which are nailed on. In the re-
mains of ancient sculpture, among the ruins of Persepolis 4 ,

on Trajan's pillar, those of Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, and

many others, no representation of them is to be found and ;

one can never suppose that the artists designedly omitted them,
as they have imitated with the utmost minuteness the shoes of
the soldiers, and the nails which fasten on the iron that sur-
rounds the wheels of carriages. The objection that the artists

1
Appian. De Bello Mithridat. edit. Tollii, p. 371.
2
Diodor. Sicul. lib. xvii. 94, edit. Wesselingii, p. 233. Vegetius, i. 56, 28,
mentions a salve, " quo unguhe nutriantur, et medicaminis beneficio sub-
erescat quod itineris attriverat injuria."
3
Job. Cinnamus De Rebus Gestis Imperat. edit. Tollii, 1G52, 4to, lib. iv.
p. 194. Vegetius, ii. 58, recommends rest for horses after a long journey,
i
on account of their hoofs.
4
No them are to be found in the figures given by Chardin, and
traces of
by Niebuhr in the second volume of his Travels. The latter mentions tbis
circumstance in particular, and says, p. 157, " It appears that the ancient
Persians had no stirrups and no proper saddle."
 HORSE-SHOES. 447

have not represented the shoes then in use, and that for the
same reason they might have omitted shoes such as ours though
common, is of no weight for the former were used only very
;

seldom; they were not given to every horse, and when they
were drawn over the hoof and made fast, they had an awkward
appearance, which would not have been the case with iron
shoes like those of the moderns A basso-relievo, it is true,
may still be seen in the Mattei palace at Rome, on which is
represented a hunting-match of Gallienus, and where one of
the horses has a real iron shoe on one of his feet. From this
circumstance Fabretti infers that the use of horse-shoes is of
1

the same antiquity as that piece of sculpture but Winkel- ;

mann has remarked, that this foot is not ancient, and that it
has been added by a modern artist 9 .

I will readily allow that proofs drawn from an object not

being mentioned in the writings of the ancients are of no
great importance, and that they may be even very often false.
I am however of opinion, whatever may be said to the con-
trary, that Polybius, Xenophon in his book on riding and
horsemanship, Julius Pollux in his Dictionary where he men-
tions fully everything that relates to horse-furniture and riding-
equipage, and the authors who treat on husbandry and the
veterinary art, could not possibly have omitted to take notice
of horse-shoes, had they been known at those periods when
they wrote. Can we suppose that writers would be silent re-
specting the shoeing of horses, had it been practised, when
they speak so circumstantially of the breeding and rearing of
these animals, and prescribe remedies for the diseases and ac-
cidents to which they are liable ? On account of the danger
which arises from horses being badly shod, the treatment of
all those disorders to which they ai'e incident has been com-
mitted to farriers and is it in the least probable that this part
;

of their employment should have been entirely forgotten by

Vegetius and the rest of the ancients, who studied the nature
and maladies of cattle? They indeed speak seldom, and not
very expressly, of the ancient shoes put on horses but this is ;

not to be wondered at, as they had little occasicn to mention

them, because they gave*rise to no particular infirmity. Where
they could be of utility, they have recommended them, which
plainly shows that the use of them was not then common.
1
Be Columna Trajani, c. 7. " Pierres Gravees de Stosch, p. 169.
M'S HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Gesner remarks very properly, that Lycinus, in Lucian, who

was unacquainted with riding, when enumerating the many
dangers to which he might be exposed by mounting on horse-
back, speaks only of being trod under the feet of the cavalry,
without making any mention of the injury to be apprehended
from iron slioes. To be sensible, however, of the full force of
this argument, one must read the whole passage Many of 1
.

the ancient historians also, when they speak of armies, give an

account of all those persons who were most necessary in them,
and of the duties which they performed but farriers are not;

even mentioned. When it was necessary for the horses to

have shoes, each rider put them upon his own no persons in ;

particular were requisite for that service but had shoes, such
;

as those of the moderns, been then in use, the assistance of

farriers would have been indispensable.
As our horse-shoes were unknown to the ancients, they em-
ployed the utmost care to procure horses with strong hoofs-,
and for the same reason they tried every method possible to
harden the hoofs and to render them more durable. Precepts
for this purpose may be found in Xenophon 3 Vegetius 4 and , ,

other authors. It indeed appears wonderful to us, that the

use of iron shoes should have remained so long unknown; but
it was certainly a bold attempt to nail a piece of iron, for the

first time, under the foot of a horse and I firmly believe that
;

there are many persons at present, who, had they never seen
such a thing, would doubt the possibility of it if they heard it
mentioned. Horse-shoes, however, are not absolutely neces-
sary horses in many countries are scarce, and in some they
;

1
Navigium seu Vota. " Nunquara equum ullura ascendi ante hunc diem.
Proinde metuo, tubicine classicum intonante, decidens ego in tumultu a
tot ungulis conculcer, aut etiam equus ferocior existens, arrepto freno in
medios hostes efferat me, aut denique oporteat me alligari ephippio, si ma-
lere super illud debeam, frenumque tenere." —
Had stirrups been then in
.ise, he would have been exposed also to the danger of being dragged along

by the heels. When I extracted the above passage, I had no edition of

Lucian at hand, but that of Basle, 15G3, 12ino. It may be found there,
vol. ii. p. 840.
2
The prophet Isaiah, chap. v. ver. 28, to make the enemy appear more
terrible, says, " The hoofs of their horses
;
shall be counted like flint " and
Jeremiah, chap, xlvii. v. 3, speaks of the noise made by the horses stamp-
ing with their hoofs. See Bochart. Ilierozoic. i. p. 160.
3 De Re Equestri, cap. iv. p. m. 599.
4 Lib. i. cap. 56, 28, 30; also lib. ii. cap. 57, 58.
 — — ;

HORSE-SHOES. 449

are not shod even at present. This is still the case in Ethio-
pia, in Japan, and in Tartary 1
In Japan, shoes, such as those
,

of the ancients, are used. Iron shoes are less necessary in

places where the ground is soft and free from stones and it ;

appears to me very probable, that the practice of shoeing be-

came more common as the paving of streets was increased.
There were paved highways indeed at a very early period, but
they were a long time scarce, and were to be found only in
opulent countries. But when roads covered with gravel were
almost everywhere constructed, the hoofs of the horses would
have soon been destroyed without iron shoes, and the pre-
servatives before employed would have been of very little
service.
However strong I consider these proofs, which show that
the ancients did not give their horses shoes such as ours, I
think it my duty to mention and examine those grounds from
which men of learning and ingenuity have affirmed the con-
trar3r .Vossius lays great stress, in particular, upon a passage
of Xenophon, who, as he thinks, recommends the preservation
of the hoofs by means of iron. Gesner, however, has ex-
plained the words used by that author so clearly as to leave

J. Ludolphi Hist. /Ethiop. i. cap. 10, and his Commentarium, p. 148.

1

—
Thevenot, vol. ii. p. 113. Voyage de Le Blanc, part ii. p. 75, 81, — Lettres
—
Edifiautes, vol. iv. p. 143. —
Tavernier, vol. i. c. 5. Hist. Gen. des Voyages,
vol.iii. p. 182.— Kasnipfer, Histoire du Japan, Amst. 1732, 3 vols. 12nio, ii.
p. 297. The passage of the last author, where he mentions the articles
necessary for a journey in Japan, is worthy of notice " Shoes for the ser-
:

vants and for the horses. Those of the latter are made of straw, and are
fastened with ropes of the same to the feet of the horses, instead of iron
shoes, such as ours in Europe, which are not used in this country. As the
roads are slippery and full of stones, these shoes are soon worn out, so that
it is often necessary to change them. For this purpose those who have the
care of the horses always carry with them a sufficient quantity, which they
affix to the portmanteaus. They may however be found in all the villages,
and poor children who beg on the road even offer them for sale, so that it
may be said there are more farriers in this country than in any other
though, to speak properly, there are none at all."
Almost the same account is given by Dr. Thunberg, a later traveller in
Japan. " Small shoes or socks of straw," says he, " are used for horses
instead of iron shoes. They are fastened round the ankle with straw ropes,
hinder stones from injuring the feet, and prevent the animal from stum-
bling. These shoes are not strong but they cost little, and can be found
;

every where throughout the country." Shoes of the same kind, the au
thor informs us, are worn by the inhabitants. Trans.
VOL. I. 2G
450 HISTORY OF INDENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

no doubt that Vossius judged too rashly. Xenophon" onlv

gives directions to harden the hoofs of a horse, and to make
them stronger and more durable which is to be done, he
;

says, by causing him to walk and to stamp with

his feet in a
place covered with stones. He describes the stones proper
for this purpose and that they may be retained in their posi-
;

tion, he advises that they should be bound down with cramps

of iron. The word which Vossius refers to the hoofs, alludes
without doubt to the stones which were to be kept together
by the above means. Xenophon, in another work, repeats
the same advice 2 and says that experience will soon show
,

how much the hoofs will be strengthened by this operation.

Vossius considers also as an argument in his favour the ex-
pressions used by Homer and other poets when they speak of
iron-footed and brazen-footed horses, loud-sounding hoofs, &c,
and is of opinion that such epithets could be applied only to
horses that had iron shoes. But if we recollect that hard and
strong hoofs were among the properties of a good horse, we
shall find that these expressions are perfectly intelligible with-
out calling in the assistance of modern horse-shoes. Xenophon
employs the like comparisons free from poetical ornament,
and explains them in a manner sufficiently clear. The hoofs,
says he, must be so hard, that when the horse strikes the
ground, they may resound like a cymbal. Eustathius, the
scholiast of Aristophanes, and Hesychius, have also explained
these expressions as alluding to the hardness and solidity of
the hoofs. Of the same kind is the eqims sonipes of the Ro-
man poet 3 ; and the stags and oxen with metal feet 4 , men-
tioned in fabulous history, which undoubtedly were not shod.
Epithets of the like nature were applied by the poets to per-
sons who had a strong voice 5 .

Le Beau quotes a passage of Tryphiodorus, which on the

first view seems to allude to a real horse-shoe. This author,
where he speaks of the construction of the Trojan horse, says
that the artist did not forget the metal or iron on the hoofs 6 .
2 Hipparch,
1
De Re Equestri, p. 599. p. m. 611.
3 Virg. jEneid. lib. iv. 135. lib. xi. 600, 638.
* Virg. Mneid. lib. vi. 803. Ovid. Heroid. ep. xii. 93, and Metamorph.

lib. vii. 105. Apollonius, lib. iii. 228.

5 Stentor is there called xaX/ceo^wvop. Iliad, lib.
Iliad, lib. v. 785.
xviii. 222, Achilles is said to have had a brazen voice. Virg. Georg. lib. ii.
6
44 : ferrea vox. Tryphiod. by Merrick, Ox. 1739, v. 86, p. 14.
 HORSE-SHOES. 451

But supposing it true (hat the author here meant real shoes,
this would he no proof of their being known at the time of
the Trojan war, and we could only be authorised to allow them
the same antiquity as the period when the poet wrote. That
however is not known. According to the most probable con-
jectures, it was between the reign of Severus and that of
Anastasius, or between the beginning of the third and the sixth
century. Besides, the whole account may be understood as
alluding to the ancient shoes. At any rate, it ought to be
explained in this manner till it be proved by undisputed au-
thorities that shoes, such as those of the moderns, were used
in the time of the above poet,
Vossius asserts that he had in his possession a Greek manu-
script on the veterinary art, in which there were some figures,
where the nails under the feet of the horses could be plainly
distinguished. But we are ignorant whether the manuscript
or the figures still exist, nor is the antiquity of either of them
known. It is probable that shoes were given to the horses by
a modern transcriber, in the same manner as another put a
pen into the hand of Aristotle.
In my opinion we must expect to meet with the first certain
information respecting horse-shoes in much later writers than
those in which it has been hitherto sought for, and supposed
to have been discovered. Were it properly ascertained that
the piece of iron found in the grave of Childeric was really
a part of a horse-shoe, I should consider it as affording the
first information on this subject, and should place the use of
modern horse-shoes in the eighth century. But I do not think
that the certainty of its being so is established in a manner so
complete as has hitherto been believed. Those who affirm
that this piece of iron had exactly the shape of a modern
horse-shoe, judged only from an engraving, and did not per-
ceive that the figure was enlarged . The piece of iron itself,
1

which seemed to have four holes on each side, was so con-

Thefirst figure may be found in Anastasis Childerici, Francorum regis,
1

sive Thesaurus sepulchralis Tornaci Nerviorum effossus auctore J. J. Chi-

;

fletio. Antverpiae, 1655, 4to, p. 224. Montfaucon, in Monarchie Francoise,

i. p. 16, has given also an engraving of it. Childeric died in the year 481.
In 1653 his -grave was discovered at Tournay, and a gold ring with the
royal image and name found in it afforded the strongest proof that it was
eally the burying-place of that monarch. In the year 1665, these anti-
quities were removed to the king's library at Paris.
2 G 2
 ;

452 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

sumed with rust, that it broke while an attempt was made to

clear them and undoubtedly it could not be so perfect as the
;

engraving.
The account given by Pancirollus induced me to hope that
I should find in Nicetas undoubted evidence of horse-shoes
being used about the beginning of the thirteenth century
but that writer has deceived both himself and his readers, by-
confining himself to the translation. After the death of Henry
Baldwin, the Latins threw down a beautiful equestrian statue
of brass, which some believed to be that of Joshua. When
the feet, of the horse were carried away, an image was found
under one of them which represented a Bulgarian, and not a
Latin as had been before supposed. Such is the account of
Nicetas but Pancirollus misrepresents it entirely for he says
; ;

that the image was found under a piece of iron torn off from
one of the feet of the horse, and which he considers therefore
as a horse-shoe. The image, however, appears to have re-
presented a vanquished enemy, and to have been placed in an
abject posture under the feet of the statue (a piece of flattery
which artists still employ), and to have been so situated that
it could not be distinctly seen till the whole statue was broken

to pieces. Hence perhaps arose the vengeance of the Latins

against the statue, because that small figure was by some sup-
posed to represent one of their nation 1 .
As it appeared to me that the words used by ancient authors
to express shoes 2 occurred less frequently in the writers of
later periods, I conjectured that modern horse-shoes, in order
that they should be distinguished from the ancient shoes,
might have received a particular new name, under which I
had never found them mentioned. In the course of my re-
searches, therefore, I thought of the Greek word selinaia, the
meaning of which I had before attempted to explain and I ;

am now fully convinced that it signifies horse-shoes, such as

those used at present, as has been already remarked by others.
As far as I know, that word occurs, for the first time, in the
ninth century, in the works of the Emperor Leo 3 and this :

antiquity of horse-shoes is in some measure confirmed by

1
The whole account may be found at the end of the Annals, in the
Paris edition by Fabrotti, 1G47, fol. p. 414.
2
The words biro^i]ftara and solem.
3 Leonis Tactica, v. 4. p. 51. — In the passage where he names every
 ;;

HORSE-SHOES 453

their being mentioned in the writings of Italian, English, and

French authors of the same century. When Boniface marquis
of Tuscany, one of the richest princes of his time, went to
meet Beatrix, his bride, mother of the well-known Matilda,
about the year 1038, his whole train was so magnificently de-
corated, that his horses were not shod with iron but with
silver. The nails even were of the same metal and when ;

any of them dropped out they belonged to those who found

them. The marquis appears to have imitated Nero but this ;

anecdote may be only a fiction. It is related by a contem-

porary writer but, unfortunately, his account is in verse
;

and the author, perhaps sensible of his inability to make his

subject sufficiently interesting by poetical ornaments, availed
thing belonging to the equipage of a horseman, be says, Trecu/cAa ceXivaia
aiSnpa fierd Kctpcpiwv abriov. I shall here first remark, that after 7reoi/c\a
there ought to be a comma, for by that word is meant the ropes with which
saddled horses were fastened. Du Cange says ireSiicXovv signifies to bind.
See likewise Scheffer's Annotations on Mauricii Ars Militaris, p. 395. The
translator also has improperly said, " Pedicla, id est calceos lunatos ferreos
cum ipsis carphiis." Kdpfyta means nails, as Du Cange has proved by se-
veral instances, and here horse-shoe nails. The word may be found for the
second time in the tenth century, in the Tactica of the Emperor Constan-
tine, where the whole passage, how ever, is taken from Leo without, the
r

least variation; so that we may suppose Constantine understood it in the

same sense as Leo. It is used, for the third time, by the same emperor,
twice in his book on the Ceremonial of his own court. In p. 265, where
ne speaks of the horses (ra lij-Trdpia) which were to be procured for the
imperial stable these, he says, were to be provided with every thing ne-
;

cessary, and to have also creXivala. In page 267 it is said further, that a
certain number of pounds of iron should be given out from the imperial
stores to make oeXivaia, arid other horse-furniture. The same word is
used a fourth time by Eustathius, who wrote in the twelfth century, in his
commentary on Homer, XolXkov Be vvv Xeyei ra aeXivaia v7rb rots 7ro<rl
tH>v "iiriroiv, ols BtaKOTrrovrai els ifXeov ra.'Karovp.eva. See Iliad, lib. xi.
152. Though I do not believe that Homer had tbe least idea of horse-
shoes, I am fully convinced that Eustathius alludes to them by that word.
This commentator has explained very properly various passages of the like
kind in Homer but he seems here, as was the case sometimes with his
;

poet himself, to have been asleep or slumbering.

When one considers that the aeXivaia, or aeXrjvaTa, belonged to horse-
furniture that they were made of iron that, as Eustathius says, they were
; ;

placed under the hoofs of the horses that the word seems to show its de-
;

rivation from the moon-like form of shoes, such as those used at present
and lastly, that nails were necessary to these <reXivcua I think we may
;

venture to conclude, without any fear of erring, that this word was em-
ployed to signify horse-shoes of tbe same kind as ours, and that they were
known, if not earlier, at least in the ninth centurv.
454" HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

himself of the license claimed by poets to relate something

singular and uncommon . However this may be, it is certain
1

that the shoes of the horses must have been fastened on with
nails, otherwise the author could not have mentioned them.
Daniel, the historian, seems to give us to understand that
in the ninth century horses were not shod always, but only in
the time of frost, and on other particular occasions 2 . The
practice of shoeing appears to have been introduced into
England by William the Conqueror. We
are informed that
this sovereign gave the city of Northampton as a fief to a cer-
tain person, in consideration of his paying a stated sum yearly
for the shoeing of horses 3 and it is believed that Henry de
;

Ferres or de Ferrers, who came over with William, and whose

descendants still bear in their arms six horse-shoes, received
that surname because he was entrusted with the inspection of
the farriers 4 I shall here observe, that horse-shoes have been
.

found, with other riding-furniture, in the graves of some of the

old Germans and Vandals in the northern countries but the ;

antiquity of them cannot be ascertained 6 .

FLOATING OF WOOD.
The conveying of wood in floats is an excellent invention ; as
countries destitute of that necessary article can be supplied by
water carriage, not only with timber for building and other
useful purposes, but also with fire-wood. The former is either
pushed into the water in single trunks, and suffered to be carried
along by the stream, or a number of planks are ranged close
to each other in regular order, bound together m that manner,
1
This life of Matilda may be found in Leibnitii Seriptores Brunsvi-
censes, vol. i. p. 629; but the fullest and most correct edition is in Muratori

Rerum Italicarum Seriptores. Mediolani 1724, fol. vol. v. p. 353.

2
Hisfoire de France, vol. i. p. 56G. The author here speaks of the ca-
valry of Louis le Debonnaire. 3 Dugd. Bar. i. 58. ex
Chron. Bromtoni, p. 974, 975, Blount's Tenures, p. 50.
4
Brook's Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, p. 198.
5
Beckmann in Beschreibung der Mark Brandenburg, Berlin, 17*51, 2 vols,
fol. i. p. 401, mentions an old shoefound in a grave, the holdfasts of which
did not project downwards but upwards. Arnkul in his Heidnischen Al-
terthumern speaks also of a horse-shoe found near Kiel.
 ;

FLOATING OF WOOD. 4?55

and steered down the current as boats are, by people accus- [

tomed to such employment. The first method is that most

commonly used for fire- wood. Above floats of the second kind
a load of spars, deals, laths, pipe-staves, and other timber, is
generally placed and with these, floaters will trust themselves
;

on broad and rapid rivers, whereas fire-wood is fit to be trans-

ported only on rivulets or small streams and sometimes ca-
;

nals are constructed on purpose 1

. However simple
the in-
vention of floating fire-wood may be, I consider the other
method as the oldest and I confess that I do not remember
;

to have found in ancient authors any information respecting

the former. Fire-wood was, indeed, not so scarce formerly in
the neighbourhood of large cities as it is at present. Men
established themselves where it was abundant and they used
;

it freely, without thinking on the wants of posterity, till its

being exhausted rendered it necessary for them to import it

from distant places. It is probable that the most ancient mode
of constructing vessels for the purpose of navigation gave rise
to the first idea of conveying timber for building in the like
manner ; as the earliest ships or boats were nothing else than
rafts, or a collection of beams and planks bound together, over
which were placed deals. By the Greeks they were called
schediai, and by the Latins rates and it is known from the
;

testimony of many writers, that the ancients ventured out to

sea with them on piratical expeditions as well as to carry on
commerce and that after the invention of ships they were
;

still retained for the transportation of soldiers and of heavy

burthens 2 .
1
Those who are desirous of particular information respecting everything
that concerns the floating of wood may read Bergius,Polizey- und Camera*-
magazin, vol. iii. p. 156 ; Krunitz, Encylopedie, vol. xiv. p. 286; and the
Forstmagazin, vol. viii. p. 1. To form an idea of the many laborious, ex
pensive, and ingenious establishments and undertakings which are often
necessary in this business, one may peruse Memoire sur les Travaux qui ont
Rapport a l'Exploitation de la Mature dans les Pyrenees. Par M. Leroy.
Londres et Paris, 1776, 4'to. So early as the time of cardinal Richelieu the
French began to bring from the Pyrenees timber for masts to their navy
but as the expense was very great, the attempt was abandoned, till it was
resumed in the year 1758 by a private company, who entered into a con-
tract with the minister for supplying the dock-yards with masts. After
1765 government took that business into their own hands; but it was
attended with very great difficulties.
—
2 Plinius, lib. vi. cap. 56. Strabo, lib. xvi. where he calls these rafts
—
crxediai. Festus, p. 432. — Scheffer, De Militia Navali Veterum, lib. i.
cap. —3. Pitisci Lexicon Antiq. Rom. art. Rates.
 —

456 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

The above
conjecture is confirmed by the oldest information
to be found respecting the conveyance by water of
in history
timber for building. Solomon entered into a contract with
Hiram, king of Tyre, by which the latter was to cause cedars
for the use of the temple to be cut down on the western side
of Mount Lebanon above Tripoli, and to be floated to Jaffa.
The words at least employed by the Hebrew historian, which
occur nowhere else, are understood as alluding to the con-
veyance of timber in floats and this explanation is considered
;

by Michaelis as probable. At present no streams run from

Lebanon to Jerusalem and the Jordan, the only river in Pa-
;

lestine that could bear floats, is at a great distance from the

cedar forest. The wood, therefore, must have been brought
along the coast by sea to Jaffa '. In this manner is the account

1 " My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea and I
:

will convey them by sea in floatsunto the place that thou shalt appoint
me." — I Kings, chap. v. ver. 9. " And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as
much thou shalt need and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to
as :

—
Joppa and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem." 2 Chronicles, chap. ii.
;

v. 16. Pocock thinks that the wood was cut down near Tyre. The accounts
given by travellers of Mount Lebanon, and the small remains of the ancient
forests of cedar, have been collected by Busching in his Geography.
The following is the account given of these cedars by the abbe Binos,
who visited them in the year 1778. " Here," says he, " I first discovered
the celebrated cedars, which grow in an oval plain, about an Italian mile
in circumference. The largest stand at a considerable distance from each
other, as if afraid that their branches might be entangled, or to afford room
for their tender shoots to spring up, and to elevate themselves also in the
course of time. These trees raise their proud summits to the height of
sixty, eighty, and a hundred feet. Three or four, when young, grow up
sometimes together, and form at length, by uniting their sap, a tree of a
monstrous thickness. The trunk then assumes generally a square form.
The thickest which I saw might be about thirty feet round and this size ;

was occasioned by several having been united when young. Six others,
which were entirely insulated, and free from shoots, were much taller, and
seemed to have been indebted for their height to the undivided effects of
their sap." These cedars, formerly so numerous, are now almost entirely
destroyed. In the year 1575, Rauwolff found twenty-four that stood
round about in a circle, and two others, the branches whereof are quite
decayed with age; Bellon, in 1550, counted twenty-eight old trees Fre- ;

menet, in 1630, counted twenty-two; La Itoque, in 1688, twenty Maun- ;

dreU.in 1606, sixteen Dr. Pococke.in 1738, fifteen and Schulze, in 1755,
; ;

counted twenty, besides some young ones; Burckhardt, in 1810, eleven

or twelve Dr. Richardson, in 1818, eight
; Mr. Robinson, in 1830, seven ;
;

Lard Lindsay, in 1836, seven. Mr. Buckingham, in 1816, differs greatly

from the other authorities, computing the whole number of trees at two
hundred, of which he describes twenty as being very large. Trans.
 FLOATING OF WOOD. 457

understood by Josephus; but although he assures us that he

gives the letters of both the kings as they were at that time
preserved in the Jewish and Tyrian annals, it is certain that
they are spurious, and that he took the whole relation from
the sacred books of the Jews which are still extant, as he him-
self tells us in the beginning of his work 1
.

An old tradition prevailed that the city Camarina, on the

southern coast of Sicily, was built of the clay or mud which
the river Hipparis carried along with it, and deposited in a lake
of the same name. This account seems to be confirmed by a
passage in Pindar, which Aristarchus quotes in explaining it 2 ;

and, according to Bochart, some proof is afforded also by the

name Camarina, as chamar or chomar signifies sealing-clay 3 .

In this tradition there is nothing improbable. In the like man-

ner the Egyptians drew up mud from the lake Mceris 4 and ;

thus do the Dutch at present fish up in bag-nets the fine mud

or slime which chokes up their rivers, such as the Issel, and
which they employ for various uses. This explanation, how-
ever, has not been adopted by the old commentators of Pindar.
Didymus b and others assert that the poet alludes to wood for
building the city being conveyed in floats on the river Hip-
paris. But whatever opinion may be formed of these eluci-
dations of the scholiasts, we have reason to conclude that the
inhabitants of Camarina were much better acquainted with the
floating of wood than with drawing up slime by means of bag-
nets.
The Romans transported by water both timber for building
and fire-wood. When they became acquainted, during their
wars against the Germans, with the benefit of the common
larch, they caused large quantities of it to be carried on the
Po to Ravenna from the Alps, particularly the Rhsetian, and to
be conveyed also to Rome for their most important buildings.
Vitruvius says 6 that this timber was so heavy, that, when alone,
the water could not support it, and that it was necessary to

1
Antiquit. lib. viii. These letters have been printed by Fabricms m
Co-
dex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testarnenti, i. p. 1026.
2 Olymp. v. 29. Gesner, in explaining Pindar, translated 0aos or (puis by

the word help, which Hebraism occurs in the New Testament, and also in
Homer. The stream therefore assisted the inhabitants while under a great
3 Chanaan, 4
inconvenience. i. 29, p. 605. Herodot. lib. iii.
5
See Pindar, ed. Welsted, 1697, fol. p. 53 and 56, a, 37.
6
Vitruv. lib. ii. 9, p. 77.
458 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

carry on ships or on rafts.

it Could it have been brought to
Rome conveniently, says he, itmight have been used with
great advantage in building. It appears, however, that this
was sometimes done for we are told that Tiberius caused the
;

Naumachiarian bridge, constructed by Augustus, and after-

wards burnt, to be rebuilt of larch planks procured from Rhee-
tia. Among these was a trunk one hundred and twenty feet
iu length, which excited the admiration of all Rome \.
That the Romans procured fire-wood from Africa, particu-
larly for the use of the public baths, is proved by the privi-
leges granted on that account to the masters of ships or rafts
by the emperor Valentinian 2 Those who have read the wri-
.

tings of the Latin authors with attention must have remarked

other testimonies but I have found no mention in the ancients
;

of floating timber in single planks, or of canals dug for that

purpose at least as far as I can remember. In the Latin lan-
;

guage also there are scarcely two words that allude to what
concerns the floating of timber whereas the German contains
;

more of that kind, perhaps, than are to be found in any other ;

and I am thence induced to conjecture that the Germans were
the first who formed establishments for this mode of convey-
ance on a large scale.
The earliest information respecting the floating of wood in
Saxony appears to be as old as the year 1258 3 when the ,

margrave Henry the Illustrious remitted by charter to the

monastery of Porta, the duty collected at Camburg from the
wood transported on the river Saale for the use of the mona-
stery 4 .It is, however, uncertain whether wood really con-
veyed in floats, or transported in boats and lighters, be here
meant. Much clearer information concerning wood floated on
the Saale is contained in a letter, expedited in the year 1410
by the two brothers Frederic and William, landgraves of Thu-
ringia, and margraves of Misnia, in which, on account of the
scarcity of wood that prevailed in their territories, they so
much lessened the toll usually paid on the Saale as far as
1
Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 39, p. 33 and 34.
2 Codex Theodos. lib. xiii. tit. 5, 10. Lexxiii. p. 78. Compare Sym-
macbi Epist. lib. x. ep. 58. As far as I know, sucb ordinances occur also in
the Code of Justinian.
3 See Sammlung verraiscbter Nachrichten zur Sachsischeu Gescbicbte,
by G. J. Grundig and J. F. Klotzsch, vol. vi. 221.
4 Pcrtuchii Cbronic. Portense, p. 54.
 FLOATING OF WOOD. 459

Weissenfels, that a Rhenish florin only was demanded for floats

brought on that river to Jena, and two Rhenish stivers for
those carried to Weissenfels ; but the proprietors of the floats
were bound to be answerable for any injury occasioned to the
bridge In the year 1431, Hans Munzer, an opulent citizen
1
.

of Freyberg, with the assistance of the then burgomasters, put

a float of wood upon the river Mulda, which runs past the city,
in order that it might be conveyed thither for the use of the
inhabitants and of the mines; which seems to be a proof that
the floating of timber was at that period undertaken by private
persons, on their own risk and at their own expenses. In 1486
the floating of wood on the Mulda by the people of Zwikaw,
was opposed by the neighbouring nobility but the rights of
;

the city were protected by the electors. When the town of

Aschersleben built its church in the year 1495, the timber used
for the work was transported on the Elbe from Dresden to
Acken, and thence on the Achse to the place of its destination.
This is the oldest account known of floating timber on the
Elbe. In the year 1521, duke George caused a large canal
to be cut at the village of Plauen, which was supplied with
water from the Weiseritz, and carried as far as Dresden. It
appears that in 1564 there was a float-master, who was obliged
to give security to the amount of four hundred florins ; so that
the business of floating must at that time have been of con-
siderable importance. Floating of wood was undertaken at
Annaberg in 1564, by George Oeder, one of the members of
the council, and established at the expense of 4000 florins. Of
the antiquity of floating in other German states I know nothing
more than what is to be gathered fr m
public ordinances re-
specting this object and forests by which we learn that in
;

the sixteenth century it was practised in Brandenburg, on the

Elbe, Spree, and Havel ; in Bavaria, and in the duchy of
Brunswick 2.

As the city of Paris had consumed all the wood in its neigh-
bourhood, and as the price of that article became enormous
on account of the distance of forests and the expense of trans-
porting it, John Rouvel, a citizen and merchant, in the year
1549, fell upon the plan of conducting wood bound together
along rivers which were not navigable for large vessels. With
1
Rudolpld Gotha Diplomatica, pars i. p. 279.
2 See the Forest Laws in Frits ctii Corp. Juris Yen. Forest.
 ;

460 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

this view,he made choice of the forests in the woody district

of Morvant, which belonged to the government of Nivernois ;

and as several small streams and rivulets had their sources

there, he endeavoured to convey into them as much water as
possible 1
That great undertaking, at first laughed at, was
.

completed by his successor Rene Arnoul, in 1566. The wood

was thrown into the water in single trunks, and suffered to be
driven in that manner by the current to Crevant, a small town
on the river Yonne where each timber-merchant drew out
;

his own, which he had previously marked, and, after it was

dry, formed it into floats that were transported from the Yonne
to the Seine, and thence to the capital. By this method large
quantities of timber are conveyed thither at present from Ni-
vernois and Burgundy, and some also from Franche-Comte.
The French extol highly a beneficial establishment formed by
one Sauterau, in Morvant, at his own expense, by which the
transportation of timber was rendered much more speedy, and
for which a small sum was allowed him from the proprietors
of all the wood floated on the Yonne.
The success of this attempt soon gave rise to others. John
Tournouer and Nicholas Gobelin, two timber-merchants, un-
dertook to convey floats in the like manner on the Marne
and canals were afterwards constructed in several places for
the purpose of forming a communication between different
rivers. The French writers consider the transportation of
large floats, trains de bois, like those formed at present, from
the before-mentioned districts, and also from Bourbonnois,
Champagne, Lorraine, Montergis, and other parts of the king-
dom, as a great invention but I am firmly of opinion that
;

this method was known and employed in Germany at a much

earlier period 2 .
[Victor Hugo gives the following animated account of
floating rafts. The traveller who ascends the river sees it, so
to speak, coming to him, and then the sight is full of charms.
At each instant he meets something
which passes him at one ;

time, a vessel crowded with peasants, especially if it be Sun-

day ; at another, a steam-boat then a long, two-masted ves-
;

1
Wood was conveyed in boats upon the Yonne so early as the year
1527. See Coquille in Hisloire du Nivernois.
2
Traite de la Police, par De la Mare, iii. p. 839. — Savary, Dictionnaire
de Commerce, art. Bois flotte and Train.
 ;

FLOATING OF WOOD. H>61

sel, laden with merchandize, its pilot attentive and serious, its
sailors busy, with women seated near the door of the cabin
here, a heavy-looking boat, dragging two or three after it
there, a little horse drawing a huge bark, as an ant drags a
dead beetle. Suddenly there is a winding in the river and ;

formerly, on turning, an immense raft, a floating house, pre-

sented itself, the oars splashing on both sides. On the ponde-
rous machine were cattle of all kinds, some bleating, and others
bellowing, when they perceived the heifers peaceably grazing
on the banks. The master came and went, looked at this, then
at that, while the sailors busily performed their respective du-
ties. A whole village seemed to live on this float, — on this
prodigious construction of fir.]
The floating of wood seems, like many other useful esta-
blishments, to have been invented or first undertaken by pri-
vate persons at their own risk and expense, with the consent
of governments, or at least without any opposition from them ;

but, as soon as it was brought to be useful and profitable, to

have been considered among regalia. Hence, therefore, soon
arose the float-regal, which, indeed, on account of the free use
granted of rivers, the many regulations requisite, and its con-
nexion with the forest-regal, can be sufficiently justified. But
when and where originated the tenuis grutice, under which
known by jurists?
this regal is
The few authors who have turned their thoughts to this
question have not been able, as far as I know, to answer it
with certainty, nor even with probability. They have only
repeated, without making any researches themselves, what.
Stjpmann l has said on the subject; and the latter refers to a
passage of Hadrian Junius, which I shall here more particu»
larly notice. Junius, speaking of the oldest families in the
Netherlands, says that the family of Wassenaer had formerly
a certain supremacy over the rivers in Rhineland, so that no
one, without their permission, could keep swans on them ,
and that the brewers paid for the use of the water a certain
tax called the gruyt-geld, from which arose the jus gruice.
The origin of this word he did not know but he conjectured;

that it was derived either from gruta, which signifies duck-

weed (Lemna), a plant that grows in the water and covers its
surface during the summer, or from grut, an ingredient used
1
De Jure Maritimo, p. i. c. 10. n. 100.
 —
;

4-62 HISTORY OF [NVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

in making beer 1
. It is certain that in the tenth, eleventh, and
thirteenth centuries gruta, grutt, or gruit, signified a tax which
brewers were obliged to pay 2 but the origin of the word has
;

been sufficiently explained neither by Junius nor any other

writer. I nowhere find that it was used in ancient times for
a float-duty and this meaning Junius himself has not so much
;

as once mentioned.
The word gruit occurs under a quite different sense in a
letter of investiture of the year 1593, by which the elector of
Cologne gave as a fief to the countess of Moers, the gruit within
the town of Berg, with all its rents, revenues, and appurte-
nances. " No other person was allowed to put grudt or any
plant in beer, or to draw beer brought from other countries.
On the other hand, the countess was to make good grutt, and
to cause it to be sold at the price usual in the neighbouring
parts she was bound also to supply the elector gratis with
;

what beer was necessary for family consumption and if more ;

was required than usual, on extraordinary occasions, she was

to ask and receive money. If any one in the town did not
deliver good gruidt, and should prove that he could not de-
liver better, as the fault was occasioned by the gruitte, the loss
that might arise should fall upon the countess. The word
grut or gruitt seems to occur here under a double meaning
as an ingredient in the beer, and as the beer itself which, was
made from it. Of this difficulty I have in vain endeavoured
to find an explanation. Grut, perhaps, may signify malt. In

1
—
H. Junii Batavia. Lugd. Bat. 1558, 4to, p. 327. Hugo Grotius de
Antiquitate Reipub. Batavicae, cap. 4. —
Delices de la Hollande. Amst,
1685, 12mo, p. 218 " Les Wassenaers tiennent leur origine d'une village
:

qtii est entre Leiden et la Haye, ou des droits qu'ils eurent les siecles pas-
—
sez sur les eaux, les estangs et les lacs de la Hollande." -Those who are
fond of indulging in conjecture might form the following conclusion :

The lakes and streams belonged to the Wassenaers, who kept swans, geese
and ducks upon them. When the brewers were desirous of clearing the
water from the duck-weed, which in Fritsch's German Dictionary is called
Enten-yrutz, in order that it might be fitter for use, they were obliged to
pay a certain sum to obtain permission and when the practice of floating
;

timber began, the floats disturbed the ducks, and destroyed the plant on
which they fed, and the proprietors of floats were on this account obliged
to pay a certain tax also. But was it customary at that period to float
timber in the Netherlands ?
2
Glossarium Manuale, iii. p. 850 " Gruta, Grutt, Gruit, appellant tri-
:

butuiu, quod pro cerevisia pensitatur."

 LACE. 463

Dutch and other kindred languages grut means the small re-
fuse which is separated from anything and to which grusch
;

bran, and griitze groats, have an affinity. May not ground

malt be understood by it ? I have thought likewise of a kind
of herb-beer, which was much esteemed in the sixteenth cen-
tury and that grut might signify a mixture of herbs used for
;

making that beer. It is probable that this word was confined

within the boundaries of the Netherlands ;and thence only,
perhaps, is an explanation of it to be expected.
I am, however, still unable to comprehend how the float-
duty obtained the name of jus grutice; and in our kindred
languages I can find no derivation of it. The German word
Jiosz, from Jiiessen, to flow or glide flusz, a river, occurs in
;

them all. The Dutch say vlot, vlothout; the Swedes, en Jiott,
Jlotta, to float Jlot-wed, float-wood
; ; and the English, a floaty
tojloat, &c.

LACE.
Fifty years ago, when a knowledge of many useful and in-
genious arts formed a part of the education given to young
women destined for genteel life, one who should have sup-
posed that any reader could be ignorant of the manner in
which lace is made, would only have been laughed at; but as
most of our young ladies at present employ the greater part
of their time in reading romances or the trifles of the day, it
is probable that many who have even had an opportunity of

frequenting the company of the fair sex, may never have seen
the method of working lace. For this reason, I hope I shall
be permitted to say a few words in explanation of an art to-
wards the history of which I mean to offer such information
as I have been able to collect.
Proper lace or point was not wove. It had neither warp
nor woof, but was rather knit after the manner of nets (jilets)
or of stockings. In the latter, however, one thread only is
employed, from which the whole piece or article of dress is
made; whereas lace is formed of as many threads as the pat-
 ;

464- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

tern and breadth require, in such a manner that it exhi-

and
bits figures of all kinds. To
weave, or, as it is called, knit
lace, the pattern, stuck upon a slip of parchment, is fastened
to the cushion of the knitting-box the thread is wound upon
;

the requisite number of spindles, which are called bobbins;

ami these are thrown over and under each other in various
ways, so that the threads twine round pins stuck in the holes
of the pattern, and by these means produce that multiplicity
of eyes or openings which give to the lace the desired figures.
For this operation much art is not necessary and the inven-
;

tion of it is not so ingenious as that of weaving stockings.

Knitting, however, is very tedious and when the thread is
;

fine and the pattern complex, it requires more patience than

the modern refinement of manners has left to young ladies
for works of this kind. Such labour, therefore, is consigned
to the hands of indigent girls, who by their skill and dexterity
raise the price of materials, originally of little value, higher
when manufactured than has ever yet been possible by any art
whatever. The pi'ice, however, becomes enormous when knit
lace has been worked with the needle or embroidered in :

French it is then called points.

The antiquity of this art I do not pretend to determine with
much certainty and I shall not be surprised if others by their
;

observations trace it higher than I can. I remember no pass-

age in the Greek or Latin authors that seems to allude to it
for those who ascribe works of this kind to the Romans found
their opinion on the expression opus Phrygianum: but the
art of the Phrygians', as far as I have hitherto been able to
learn, consisted only in needle-work and those ingenious
:

borders sewed upon clothes and tapestry, mention of which

occurs in the ancients, cannot be called lace, as they have
been by Braun- and other writers. I am however firmly of
opinion that lace worked by the needle is much older than
1
This is proved by the vestes Phrygionise of Pliny mentioned before in
the article on wire-drawing. Those who made such works were called
phrygioncs. In the Menacchmi of Plautus, act ii. scene 3, a young woman,
desirous of sending her mantle to be embroidered, says, " Pallam illam ad
phrygioncm ut deferas,ut reconcinnetur, atque ut opera addantur, quae volo."
Compare Aulul. act iii. scene 5; Non. Marccllus, i. 10; and Isidor. 19,
22. The Greeks seem to have used the words icevrelv and KaraoriZjetv
as we use the word embroider.
2
De Vestitu Saccrdot. llcbraorum, i. p. 212.
 lacs. 465

that made by knitting. Lace of the former kind may be found

among old church furniture, and in such abundance that it
could have been the work only of nuns or ladies of fortune,
who had little else to employ their time, and who imagined it
would form an agreeable present to their Maker; for had it
been manufactured as an article of commerce, we must cer-
tainly have found more information respecting it.
We read in different authors that the art of making lace
was brought from Italy, particularly from Genoa and Venice,
to Germany and France but this seems to allude only to the
;

oldest kind, or that worked with the needle, and which was by
far the dearest. At any rate, I have nowhere found an ex-
pression that can be applied to lace wove or knit. In the
account given of the establishment of the lace manufacture
under Colbert in 1686, no mention is made but of points 1
.

I willventure to assert that the knitting of lace is a German

invention, first known about the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury and I shall consider as true, until it be fully contradicted,
;

the account given us that this art was found out, before the
year 1561, at St. Annaberg, by Barbara wife of Christopher
Uttmann. This woman died in 1575, in the sixty-first year
of her age, after she had seen sixty-four children and grand-
children and that she was the inventress of this art is una-
;

nimously affirmed by all the annalists of that part of Saxony 2 .

About that period the mines were less productive, and the
making of veils, an employment followed by the families of
the miners, had declined, as there was little demand for them.
This new invention, therefore, was so much used that it was
known in a short time among all the wives and daughters of
1
Count de Marsan, the youngest sou of count d'Harcourt, brought from
Brussels to Paris his former nurse, named Du Mont, with her four daugh-
ters, and procured for her an exclusive right to establish and carry on the
laee manufactory in that capital. In a little time Du Mont and her dauglv-
ters collected more than two hundred women, many of whom were of good
families, who produced such excellent work that it was in little or nothing
inferior to that imported from other countries. — -Vie de Jean-Bapt. Colbeit,
Cologne, 1696, 12mo, p. 154.
2
The oldest information on this subjectis to be found in AnnabergseUrbit
Historia, auctore Paulo Jenisio. Dresdse, 1605, 4to, ii. p. 33. — C. Melzer,
Bcrgiauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg. 1684, p. 471. —
Historia
Schneebergensis. —
Schneeberg 1716, 4to, p. 882. Tob. Schmi it, Zwick-
auische Chronik. —
Zwickau, 1656, 4to. ii. p. 384. Lehmanns Historischer
Schar.platz des Obererzgebirges. Leipzig, 1699, 4to, p. 771.
2 h
466 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the miners and the lace which they manufactured, on account

;

of the low price of labour, soon became fashionable, in opposi-

tion to the Italian lace worked with the needle, and even
supplanted it in commerce.
A doubt, however, has often occurred to me, which may
probably occur also to some of my readers, that this Barbara
Uttmann may be entitled only to the merit of having made
known and introduced this employment and that, as has often
;

happened to those who first brought a new art to their own

country, she may have been considered as the inventress,
though she only learned it in a foreign land, where it had been
long practised. But I conjecture that this could not have
been the case, as I find no mention of the art of knitting lace,
nor any of the terms that belong to it, "before the middle of
the sixteenth century.
[The application of machinery to the manufacture of lace
dates from the early part of the present century, The original
fabric, called pillow or bone-lace, which formerly gave employ-
ment to so many thousands of the poorer classes, is now,
1

especially in this country, almost entirely abandoned, in con-

sequence of the invention of the bobbin-net machinery.
The bobbin-net trade is a branch of the cotton manufacture,
the net being almost invariably formed of that material. It
originated in successive improvements and alterations on the
stocking-frame, by which it was adapted to the weaving of
lace; though it is deserving of notice that it could have had
ao existence but for Samuel Crompton's invention, the mule,
which spins yarn suitable for that delicate fabric. The appli-
cation of the stocking-frame to lace-making was first attempted
by a frame-work knitter of Nottingham, named Hammond,
nbout 1768 but it was not rendered completely successful
;

till after improvements by John Heathcoat, also of Notting-

ham, for which a patent was secured in 1S09. His improve-

ments were of so important a character as to entitle him to be
justly considered the inventor of the lace-frame, and the father
of the bobbin-net manufacture. Means were besides discovered
for making the net into various widths, instead of only one
1
form an estimate of the number of persons employed
It is difficult to
in pillow-lace making during its prosperity but in a petition from the
;

makers in Buckingham and the neighbourhood presented to her Majesty

(|ueen Adelaide in 1830, it was stated that 120,000 persons were dependent
on the trade.
 ULTRAMARINE. 467

broad piece as at first, and likewise to work various ornaments

into by the aid of machinery, which, in point of complex

it

ingenuity, far surpasses that used in any other branch of hu-

man industry One of Fisher's spotting-frames, according to
'.

Dr. Ure, is much beyond the most curious chronometer in

as
multiplicity of mechanical device, as that is beyond a common
roasting-jack. The combined effects of these improvements
is, that fabrics, for which £5 were paid during the existence

of Mr. Heathcoat's patent, may now be purchased for 2s. 6d.

The different systems of bobbin-net machines are described in
Ure's Dictionary, or his Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain.
It has been found that no machines, except those upon the
circular-bolt principle invented by Mr. Morley of Derby, have
been found capable of working successfully by mechanical
power.]

ULTRAMARINE.
Ultramarine is a very fine blue powder, almost of the colour
of the corn-flower or blue-bottle, which has this uncommon
property, that, when exposed to the air or a moderate heat, it
neither fades nor becomes tarnished. On this account it is
used in painting but it was employed formerly for that purpose
;

much more than at present, as smalt, a far cheaper article,

was not then known. It is made of the blue parts of the lapis
lazuli, by separating them as much as possible from the other
coloured particles with which they are mixed, and reducing
them to a fine powder. The real lapis lazuli is found in the
mountains of that part of Tartary called Bucharia, which ex-
tends eastwards from the Caspian sea, and particularly at Kalab
and Budukschu. It is sent thence to the East Indies, and
from the East Indies to Europe. The Buchanans also carry
fragments of it, weighing sometimes a pound and more, to
Orenburg, though less frequently than some years ago. As
large pieces of a pure and beautiful colour are scarce even in
that distant country, and as they are employed formaking orna-

1
Waterston's Encyclopaedia of Commerce.
2 H 2
468 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ments and toys, the rough stone itself is costly ; and this high
price increased in the ultramarine by its laborious prepara-
is

tion, though in later times the process has been rendered

much easier 1
.

On account cf the scarcity and great value of the lapis

lazuli,other stones, somewhat like it only in colour, have
been substituted in its stead and hence have arisen the many
;

contradictions to be found in the works of different authors,

particularly those of the ancients, where they speak of the
properties and country of this species of stone. Many have
considered the Armenian stone, which is a calcareous kind of
stone tinged with copper; many the mountain blue or mala-
chite, and many also blue sparry fluor, and blue jasper, as the
lapis lazuli 2 and ultramarine of course is not always what it
;

1
The old method of preparing ultramarine may be found in De Boot,
Gemmarum Histor. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 8vo, p. 279. Formerly ultramarine
was improperly called a precipitate or magisterium.
2 Besides the before-mentioned proofs of the real lapis lazuli being found
in Tartary, the same thing is confirmed hy Tavernier in his Travels. Paulus
Venetus also seems to speak of that country when he says, " Suppeditat
quoque mons alius in hac provincia (Balascia) lazulum, de quo fit azururn
optimum, quale etiam in mundo non invenitur. Elicitur autem ex mineris
non secus ac ferrum prsebent quoque minerse argentum." A great many
;

however assert that this species of stone is brought from Persia but it is
:

not indigenous in that country, and is carried thither from Thibet. As the
Persians are remarkably fond of this paint, they endeavour to procure as
much of it as possible but Persia itself produces only the blue copper
;

ochre, which is sometimes used there instead of ultramarine. Tavernier

mentions this very particularly, and, as he dealt in precious stones, was not
liable to be deceived. To rectify a prevailing mistake, I shall here insert
his own words
—
" In the copper mines of Persia, veins of lazur, which is
:

much used in that country, and with which the flowers on the ceiling and
roofs of apartments are painied, have also been found. Before these were
discovered, the Persians had no other lazur than the real kind which comes
from Tartary, and is exceedingly dear. The Persian lazur is a sort of cop-
per ore; and when the stone is pounded and sifted, which is the process
employed with the real kind, it forms a fine paint, which appears very
bright and pleasant. After this discovery, the Persians durst no more
purchase the Tartarian lazur; and Mahomet-Beg issued an order that
painters should not use foreign but Persian lazur. This prohibition how-
ever did not long continue for the Persian lazur could not stand the effects
;

of the atmosphere like the real kind, but in the course of time became of
a dark and dismal colour. Sometimes it was full of scales, and w ould not
r

hang to the end of a soft hair brush. On this account it was soon neglected
as a coloured earth, and the lazur of Tartary again introduced." This
information is confirmed also by Chardin, in Voyages en Perse, iv. p. GG.
 ULTRAMARINE. 469

ought to be. At present, smalt of a good colour is often pur-

chased therefore at a dear rate and it is in greater request,
;

as it is certain that its colour is more durable in fire than even

that of the lapis lazuli. Good ultramarine must be of a beau-
tiful dark colour, and free from sand as well as every other
mixture. It must unite readily with oil; it must not become
tarnished on a red-hot tile or plate of iron, and it ought to
dissolve in strong acids, almost like the zeolite, without cau-
sing any effervescence. In the year 1763, an ounce of it at
Paris cost four pounds sterling, and an ounce of cendre cTou-
tremer, which is the refuse, two pounds. At Hamburg,
Gleditsch sold fine real Oriental ultramarine for a ducat per
ounce, and warranted it to stand proof by fire; but whether
it would stand proof by acids also, I do not know.

From what has been said, a question arises, whether ultra-

marine was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans ? And
this gives occasion to another, whether they were acquainted
with lapis lazuli ? The name lapis lazuli no one indeed can
expect to find among them for it is certain that we received
;

it from the Arabians; and the word ultramarinum is altoge-

ther barbarous Latin. Some centuries ago, many foreign

articles, brought from beyond sea, had a name given them
from that circumstance and the ancients applied the epithet
;

marinum to various productions on the like account. Hence,

in the decline of the Roman language was formed ultramari-
num, which some have endeavoured to improve by changing
it into transmafinum, but this among the ancients never sig-

nified a colour.
Though the ancient names of precious stones have neither
been examined with sufficient accuracy nor distinguished with
" In the country around Tauris," says the author, " is found lapis lazuli,
but it is not so good as that of Tartary, as its colour changes, becomes
dark, and afterwards fades." In page 255, he says likewise, " The lapis
lazuli, called lagsverd, from which we have formed the word azur, is found
in the neighbourhood, in the country of the Yousbecs, but the general
magazine for it is Persia." I do not believe that this species of stone was
formerly procured from Cyprus, as is asserted in many books. Copper is
a production of that island, and it produces even at present mountain blue.
Those also who assert that the colour of ultramarine fades in the fire,
must not have been acquainted with the genuine sort. See Schriften der
Schwedischen Acad. xii. p. 69. Montamy, in Abhandlung von den
Farben zum Porzellan, Leipzig, 1767, 8vo, p. 121, affirms that ultramarine
is not good for enamel-painting, but it is certain that it was once used for
that purpose.
 :
;

470 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the greatest possible certainty, I think I can discover among

them the lapis lazuli. I consider it as the sapphire of the an-
cients, and this opinion has been entertained by others ; but
I hope torender it more probable than it has hitherto ap-
peared. In the first place, the sapphire of the Greeks and
Romans was of a sky-blue colour with a violet or purplish
glance and sometimes it had a very dark or almost blackish-
;

blue colour. Secondly, this stone was not transparent. Thirdly,

it had in it a great many gold points, or golden-yellow spots,

but that which had fewest was most esteemed. Fourthly, it

was polished and cut but when it was not perfectly pure, and
;

had mixed with it harder extraneous particles, it was not fit for
the hands of the lapidary. Fifthly, it appears that it was pro-
cured in such large pieces that it could be employed for inlaid
or mosaic-work. Sixthly, it was often confounded with, or
compared to, copper-blue, copper-ore, and earth and stones
impregnated with that metal. Seventhly, such medicinal effects
were ascribed to it as could be possessed only by a copper salt
and lastly, it formed veins in rocks of other kinds of stone, as
we are informed by Dionysius l .
That a stone with these properties cannot be the sapphire of
our jewellers is beyond all doubt. Our real sapphire does not
form veins in other fossils, but is found among sand in small
crystals, shaped like diamonds; though they sometimes have
rather the figure of columns. Like other precious stones, they
are always transparent they have never gold points in them
;

their blue colour resembles more or less that of blue velvet,

and it is often very pale, and approaches seldom, or very little,
to purple. Powder of sapphire appears like fine pounded glass,
exhibits no traces of copper, and can in no manner produce a
blue pigment, or be confounded with mountain-blue.
The question, whether the ancients were acquainted with
our sapphire, and whether it may not belong to their ame-
thysts or hyacinths, I shall not here examine. I am inclined
rather to decide in the negative than the affirmative and at ;

any rate the proof will always remain dubious. It might per-
haps be difficult also to determine whether every modern mi-
neralogist who has spoken of the sapphire was acquainted with,
and alluded to, the real stone of that name.
1
— —
See Plin. lib. xxxvii. cap. 9 and 10. Isidori Orig. xvi. 9. Tbeophrast.
— —
dc Lapid. § 43. Dioscorides, v. 157. Dionys. Orb. Desc. v. 1105. Epi-—
—
phanius de xii gemmk, § 5. Marbodeus de Lapidibus, 53, p. 46.
 ULTRAMARINE. 4-71

On the other hand, we can affirm with the greatest cer-

tainty, that the sapphire of the ancients was our lapis lazuli.
The latter of a blue colour, which inclines sometimes to
is

violet or purple, and which is often very dark. It is altogether

opake, yet its colour will admit of being compared to a sky-
colour; in mentioning of which Pliny had no idea of trans-
parency, for he compares the colour of an opake jasper to a
sky-blue 1
The lapis lazuli is interspersed with small points,
.

which were formerly considered as gold, but which are only

particles of pyrites or marcasite. It can be easily cut and
formed into articles of various kinds, and at present it is often
used for seals. Pliny, however, informs us that it was not fit
for this purpose when it was mixed with hard foreign particles,
such as quartz and that which was of one colour was there-
;

fore much more esteemed 2 Many cut stones of this kind,

.

which are considered as antiques, may be found in collections.

I remember to have seen several works of this sort in the ex-
cellent collection of the duke of Brunswick, which, in all pro-
bability, are Egyptian, and which are worthy of an accurate
description. That lapis lazuli was used formerly for inlaid
works I am well convinced, though at present I can produce
no proofs. In how beautiful a manner it is employed for that
purpose in Florentine works, is well known. The largest and
most magnificent squares of lapis lazuli which I ever saw, are
in the apartments at Zarskoe-Selo, a summer palace near Pe-
tersburg, belonging to the empress of Russia, the walls of which
are covered with amber, interspersed with plates of this costly
stone. I was informed that these plates were procured from
Thibet. The doubt expressed by Epiphanius concerning stairs
overlaid with lapis lazuli, respects only the great expense, of it,
and he perhaps imagined that the steps were entirely cut from
the solid stone. The confounding the sapphire with the cya-
1
Lib. ii. p. 782. —
Jaspis aerizusa which I certainly do not, with Sal-
masius, consider as the turquoise. We have blue jasper still.
2 Plin. —
Inutiles scalpturse, intervenientibus crystallinis centris. Se-
veral learned men have understood this passage as if Pliny said that the
sapphire could not be cut but they seem not to have attended properly
;

to the author's words, and to have forgot what the ancient artists called
centra in stones and different kinds of wood which were to be cut. This
Pliny himself explains, b. xvi. c. 39. In b. xxxvii. c. 2, he reckons also
" praedurum ac fragile centrum" among the faults of rock crystal, which
however, when it had not this blemish, was very proper for being cut.
Theophrastus uses in the same sense the word Kevrpov.
472 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

nus, or comparing it to it, of which several instances occur,

proves that the former must have had a great resemblance to

copper-ore for that the cyanus is a kind of mineral or moun-
;

tain blue, tinged with copper, I have proved already . The 1

blue colour of lapis lazuli has always been supposed to be

owing to copper; but according to the latest discoveries it
originates from iron 2 The medicinal effects which the an-
.

cients ascribed to their sapphire could be produced only from

a mixture of copper, as they considered the Armenian stone,
or false lapis lazuli, to be the real kind. They recommended
copper ochre for an inflammation of the eyes 3 . In the last
place it agrees with what Dionj^sius says, that the sapphire
or lapis lazuli was produced in veins among other kinds of
stone 4 The sapphire also mentioned in the oldest writings of
.

the Hebrews, appears to be no other than the sapphire of the

Greeks, or our lapis lazuli; for it was said likewise to be in-
terspersed with gold points 5 .

The ancients therefore were acquainted with our lapis la-

zuli ; but the question whether they used it as a paint, or
prepared ultramarine from it, I cannot answer with sufficient
certainty. It is possible that their ccemdeum sometimes may
have been real ultramarine but properly and in general it,
;

was only copper ochre 6 The objection that the ancients

.

made blue glass and blue enamel, and if they had not smalt
they could use no other pigment that would stand fire but
ultramarine, I shall answer in the next article.
Before I proceed to the oldest information with which I am
acquainted respecting ultramarine, or the blue colour made
from lapis lazuli, I shall communicate what I know of the
origin and antiquity of the name commonly given to this stone.
That I might be able to offer something more on the subject
than what has been said by Salmasius 7 I requested the opi- ,

1
Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirabil. cap. 59, p. 123.
2 3
Systema Mineralium.i. p. 313. Dioscorides, Parabil. i. p. 10, II.
4 Some years ago my former colleague, H. Laxman, discovered lapis la-
zuli in veins of granite near Baikal in Siberia. These veins contained also
along with it felspar and a milky-coloured kind of stone, perhaps zeolite,
like pyrites.
5 Braun de Vestitu Sacerdotum. ii. p. 530. —
See Michaelis Supplementa
ad Lexica Hebraica, num. 1775. The name sapphire is very ancient.
Plin. lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. — Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.
7 De Homonymis Hyles IatricEO. Tiajecti ad Rhcnum, lG89,fol. p. 217.
 ULTRAMARINE. 473

nion of Professor Tychsen, which, with his permission, I have

here subjoined . It is, in the first place, certain that the word
1

is of Persian derivation, and the stone, as I have already re-

marked, has hitherto been brought to us from Pe^ia. Se-

condly, it signifies a blue colour. It was at first also the com-
mon name in Europe for blue stones and blue colours used in
painting and it was a long time used to express mountain-
;

blue impregnated with copper. The modern systematic mi-

neralogists, it appears, first appropriated the corrupted Persian
word to the present lazur-stone, properly so-called and those ;

therefore would commit an error in mineralogy who should

now apply this name to the Armenian stone, mountain-blue,
or any other blue mineral containing copper.
Without pretending to have discovered the first mention of
the name lazuli in those writings which have been handed
down to us, I shall here offer, as the oldest with which I am ac-
quainted, that found in Leontius 2 who, where he gives direc-
,

tions for colouring a celestial glebe, speaks of lazurium. If

Fabricius be right, Leontius lived in the sixth century 3 .
Among the receipts for painting, written in the eighth cen-
tury, which Muratori 4 has made known, we find an unintelli-
gible account how to make lazuri, for which cyanus cov\jpo-
situs, perhaps a prepared kind of mountain-blue, was to be
employed. There is also another receipt which orders blue-
bottles to be pounded in a mortar. It appears therefore that
this word was used in the corrupted Latin of that period to

1
Lazul or lazur is not of Arabic, but Persian extraction. Ladschuardi
or lazuardi in Persian signifies a blue colour and lapis lazuli. It ought
properly to be pronounced lazuver d; but the Arabs in their pronunciation
contract the v very much, so that it sounds like u ; and one can say there-
fore lazurd. The derivative lazurdi or lazuverdi signifies Hue.
The pronunciation lazul, with an / at the end, is agreeable to the com-
mon custom among the Arabs of confounding / and r; as instead of zin-
giber they say zengebil. The initial I is not the article, but seems to be-
long to the word itself, because it is not originally Arabic. It is worthy
of remark, that the Spaniards call blue azul, which is plainly derived from
the above word ; and the / has been omitted because it was considered as
the article, and thus the word was mutilated, as is often the case with
foreign words among the Arabs, who say, for example, Escandria, instead
of al Escandria {Alexandria).
2 Leontius de
Constructione Aratea; Sphserse, in Astronomica Veterum
Seripta, 15-89, 8vo, p. 144. 3
Biblioth. Grzeca, ii. p. 456.
4
Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Mvi, ii. p. 372, 378.
474- HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

signify a blue colour for painting. The same word, formed

after the Greek manner, seems have been used for blue by
to
Achmet, the astrologer, who lived in the ninth century and 1
,

by Nonus in the tenth for a blue earth 2 Of still more im-

.

portance is a passage of Arethas, who lived in the following

century, and who, in his exposition of a verse in the book of
Revelation 3 says, the sapphire is that stone, of which lazu-
,

rium, as we are told, is made 4 This, therefore, is a strong

.

corroboration that the sapphire of the ancients was our lapis

lazuli, and appears to be the first certain mention of real ultra-
marine. The word however occurs often in the succeeding
centuries for blue copper-ochre. Constantinus Africanus, a
physician of the eleventh century, ascribes to lapis lazuli the
same medicinal qualities as those of copper-ochre 5 ; as do also
Avicenna, Averroes, and Myrepsius. The first, under the
letter lam, gives a chapter entitled lazuard, to which the
;"
translator has prefixed " De azulo, id est, de lapide Armenio
and the last says expressly, that the lapis lazuli of the Latins
is the lazurios of the Greeks 6 . The words azura, azurum,
azurrum, occur often also in that century for blue.
The name ultramarine, or, as it was first called, azurrum ul-
tramarinum, I have not yet found in any writer of the fifteenth
century. But it appears that it must have been common about
the end of that century, as it was used by Camillus Leonardus
in 1502 7 . It is probable that it originated in Italy. In the
first half of the sixteenth century Vanuccio Biringoccio gave
directions for preparing the real ultramarine, which he distin-
guishes with sufficient accuracy from copper azur s , or, as he

2
1
Introductio in Astrolog. De Morb. Curat, cap. 143.
3 Chap. xxi. ver.- 19. * The exposition of Arethas is printed

with (Ecumenii Coram, in Nov. Test. Paris, 1630, 2 vols. fol.

5
De Gradibus, quos vocant Simplicium, p. 362. This passage serves
further to explain and confirm what I have said respecting Aristotelis
Auscultat. Mirab. cap. 59, where we are told that copper-ochre promotes
the growth of the hair and of the eye-brows. The works of Constantinus
were printed at Basle, 1536-39, in two folio volumes.
6
Matth. Silvaticus says, " Lapis lazuli Latinis, Arabibus Hager alzenar
sive alzanar;" and also, " Lauzud. Arab. Azurinum, lapis lazuli."
7 Speculum Lapidum. Hamb. 1717, 8vo, p. 125.
8
Of azur there are two sorts, one called by painters azurro oltramarino,
and the other azurro dell'Alemagna. The ultramarine is that made of the stone
known by the name of lapis lazuli, which is the proper matrix of gold ore.
This stone, after being pounded and washed, is reduced to an impalpable
 ;;

ULTRAMARINE. 475

calls it, the azurro dell' Alemagna. At that period, however,

the best method Jl preparing it must have been doubtful as
well as little known, and on that account of no great benefit
for, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the father of
the celebrated Giambatista Pigna, an apothecary at Modena,
was in possession of the secret for making the best ultra-
marine, by which he acquired more riches than would have
arisen from a large estate . It is not, therefore, altogether
1

true that Alexius Pedemontanus, as Spielmann relates -, was

the first person who mentioned ultramarine. I am of opinion
that this Alexius, or Hieronymus Ruscellai concealed under
that name, who wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury, only first published a complete account of the method 01
preparing it. At any rate, his receipt was long followed as
the best and the most certain 3
. But on what information is

powder. It is then brought back to its lively and beautiful colour by means
of a certain paste composed with gum, and is refined and freed from all
moisture. This kind is that most esteemed and according to its colour
;

and fineness is purchased at a high price by painters for it not only adds
;

—
great beauty to paintings, but it withstands fire and water two powers
—
which other colours are not able to resist. Pirotechnia, p. 38. The Ger-
man azur of Biringoccio is not smalt for he describes that colour before
;

under the name of zaffera.

See also Fallopius, who in 1557 wrote his book De Metallis seu Fossilibus,
chap, xxxiii. p. -338, who observes that ultramarine was then selling for
100 golden scudi per ounce.
1
As youngPigna applied too closely to study, Bartholom. Ricci, in aletter
still extant, advised him to be more moderate, as he was not compelled by
necessity to labour so hard. " Without it," he observes, " you are possessed
of an estate sufficiently ample. Farms, country and town houses, the
choicest furniture, all your own besides, you have a father who is as good
:

as a hundred estates to you ; who in preparing one blue colour, called ultra-
marine (to say nothing of his skill and large profits in compounding medi-
cines), has exclusively the secret, and is thereby enabled to acquire great
riches, and indeed is daily adding to his store." —
Riccii Opera, vol. ii. p. 336
and Tirabosci Bibliotheca Moclenese, vol. iv. p. 134.
2 Institut. Chemise,
p. 45.
3 The work of Alexius Pedemontanus De Secretis is no contemptible
source from which materials may be drawn for the technological History
of Inventions and on this account it will perhaps afford pleasure to many
;

if I here give an account of the author, according to such information as I

have been able to obtain. Conrad Gesner seems not to have known any-
thing of him, as he is not mentioned either in his Epistolfe Medicinal es or
his Bibliotheca. Ciaconius, in Bibliotheca Libros et Scriptores fere cunctos
complectens, Parisiis, 1731, fol. p. 94, says that his real name was Hiero-
nymus Ruscellai. Thesame accountis givenby Haller in Biblioth. Botan.,&c.
 ;

476 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

that assertion founded, which we read in English and French

authors ', that the preparation of ultramarine was found out
in England, and that a servant of the East India Company
disclosed it, in order to be revenged for some injury which he

had sustained?
[The following is the method of making ultramarine from
lapis lazuli. The tinest mineral is selected,
heated to a dull
red heat, and quenched in water it is thus rendered friable,
:

and is ground down into an impalpable powder. This is then

mixed with a tenacious paste made of linseed oil, wax, resin,
turpentine and mastic and the mixture being kneaded in
;

Gobet, in Les Anciens Mineralogistes de France, Paris, 1779, 8vo, ii. p. 705,
tells us that this Jerome Ruscellai died in 1565 ; and that his book was
composed from his papers by Franc. Sansovino, who published many works
not his own, and printed for the first time at Milan, in 1557. I have no-
where found a particular account of this Ruscellai and indeed it is always
;

laborious to searchout any of that noble family, which I have already spoken
in the article Lacmus. He appears to me to be none of those mentioned in
Jochers Gelehrten- Lexicon. I have met with no earlier edition of his works
than that of 1557 but I suspect that the first must be older. However
:

much the book may have been sought after, it seems to me improbable that
three editions should be published in Italian in the course of the first year
for, besides that of Milan, two editions printed at Venice the same year,
one in quarto and another in octavo, are still extant. A French translation
also was published at Antwerp, in 1557. Is it possible that an English
translation could be published at London in 1558, if the original appeared
for the first time only in 1557 ? At that period translations were not made
so speedily. The Secrets of Alexis, London, 1558, is mentioned in Ames's
Typographical Antiquities, p. 296. I have in my possession a French trans-
lation by Christofle Landre, Paris, 1576, 12mo, which 1 seldom find quoted.
It has a large appendix, collected from various authors.
It is well-known that Joh. Jacob Wecker, a physician at Colmar, trans-
lated into Latin this book of Alexius, and enlarged it with additions, under
the title of De Secretis Libri xvii. The first edition, as Mailer says, was
printed at Basle in 1559, 8vo. Every edition seems to differ from the pre-
ceding; many things are omitted, and the new additions are for the most
part of little importance. I have the edition of Basle, 1592, 8vo, in which

there is a great deal not to be found in that of 1662, and which wants some
things contained in the edition of 1582. The latest editions are printed
from that improved by Theod. Zwinger, Basle, 1701, 8vo. The last by
Z winger, was published at Basle in 1753. Though these books on the arts, as
they are called, contain many falsehoods, they are stillworthy of somenotice,
as they may be reckoned among the first works printed on technology, and
have as much induced learned men to pay attention to mechanics and the
arts, as they have artists to pay attention to books and written information.
1
See Savary, Diet, de Commerce, art. Outremer, which has been copied
into Holt's Dictionary of Trade, Lond. 1756, fol.
 ULTRAMARINE. 477

warm water gives out the blue particles, which are afterwards
collected by subsidence.
Chemists are not agreed concerning the cause of the colour
of ultramarine. Dr. Eisner considers it to arise from sulphu-
ret of sodium and of iron, the former being a higher sulphuret
than the latter. MM. Clement and Desormes show that the
iron is not essential, either to the lapis lazuli, or to the pig-
ment made from it.
An artificial method of making ultramarine was discovered
in 1828 by M. Guimet the process has been kept secret.
;

Processes have also been discovered by M. Gmelin of Tubin-

gen, M. Persoz of Strasburg, and others. M. Gmelin's pro-
cess consists in fusing a mixture of two parts of sulphur and
one of dry carbonate of soda in a Hessian crucible, and then
sprinkling into it by degrees another mixture of silicate of
soda and aluminate of soda. The crucible must be exposed
to the fire for an hour after this. The ultramarine thus pre-
pared contains a little sulphur, which can be separated by
means of water.
Some valuable observations on this subject have lately been
published by M. Priickner '. He states that the materials re-
quired in the preparation of ultramarine are alumina, sulphate
of soda, sulphur, charcoal and a salt of iron, the common sul-
phate or green vitriol being the best. The alumina is supplied
in white bole, or a very pure white clay. The sulphate of
soda is reduced by chat coal and heat to the state of sulphuret,
and its solution thus obtained afterwards boiled with sulphur
so as to form a persulphuret (penta-sulphuret, Berz.). The so-
lution is then mixed with the dried clay and stirred during the
;

mixing a solution of green vitriol is added and mixed. It is

then dried and very finely powdered as rapidly as possible. It
is afterwards heated in a muffle ; then washed, drained and

again heated in a muffle ; finally it is again washed, dried and

powdered.]
1
Chemical Gazette, May 31, 1845.
4-TS HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT.

The name cobalt is given at present to that metal and its ores,
the oxides of which are largely employed in the manufactures
of glass, porcelain and pottery, for the production of a blue
colour. The cobalt ores are first roasted and freed from fo-
reign mineral bodies, particularly sulphur, iron, nickel, bismuth,
and arsenic, with which they are united, and then well cal-
cined, and sold, either mixed or unmixed With fine sand,under
the name of zaffer (zaffera) ; or the cobalt is melted with sili-
ceous earth and potash to a kind of blue glass called smalt,
which, when ground very fine, is known in commerce by the
name of powder-blue. All these articles, because they are
most durable pigments, and those which best withstand fire,
and because one can produce with them every shade of blue,
are employed, above all, for tinging crystal and for enamelling;
for counterfeiting opake and transparent precious stones, and
for painting and varnishing real porcelain and earthen and
potters' ware. This colour is indispensably necessary to the
painter when he is desirous of imitating the fine azure colour
of many butterflies and other natural objects and the cheaper ;

kind is employed to give a blueish tinge to new-washed linen,

which so readily changes to a disagreeable yellow.
The preparation of this new colour may be reckoned among
the most beneficial inventions of modern times. It rendered
of importance an useless and hurtful production gave em- ;

ployment to a number of hands assisted in bringing many

;

arts to a degree of perfection which they could never before

attain and has drawn back to Germany a great deal of money
;

which was formerly sent out of it for foreign articles.

Though there is no doubt that the process used in the pre-
paration of cobalt and smalt was invented about the end of the
fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, we have
reason to ask whether the ancients were acquainted with co-
balt, and if they employed it for colouring glass. They opened
and worked mines in various parts; and it is at any rate
possible that they may have found cobalt they made many ;

successful attempts to give different tints to glass and they 1

1
See what is said under the article Artificial Rubies.
 ;

COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT. 479

produced blue glass and blue enamel. They may have learned
by an accident to make this glass, as they did to make brass
and they may have continued to make the former as long as
their supply of coloured earth lasted. When the mineral failed
them, they may have lost the art, in the same manner as the
method of preparing Corinthian brass was lost for a consi-
'

derable space of time. The use of cobalt does not imply a

knowledge of its metal for the moderns made brass and smalt
;

for whole centuries, before they learned to prepare zinc and

regulus of cobalt.
It seems, however, difficult to answer this question for one ;

can scarcely hope to discover cobalt with any certainty among

those minerals mentioned by the ancients. They could de-
scribe minerals in no other manner than according to their
exterior appearance, the country where they were found, or
the use to which they applied them. Now there is no species
more various and more changeable in its figure and colour than
cobalt ore, which on this account shows the impossibility of
distinguishing minerals with sufficient accuracy by external
characteristics. Besides, there are scarcely two passages of the
ancients which seem to allude to it; and these, when closely
examined, give us little or no information.
The meaning of the term cadmia is as various and uncertain
as that of the word cobalt was two centuries ago. It signified
often calamine sometimes furnace-dross
; ; and perhaps, in later
times, also arsenic ; but, as far as I know, itwas never applied
to cobalt till mineralogists wished in modern times to find a

Latin term for it 2 and assumed that which did not belong
,

properly to any other mineral. The well-known passage of

Pliny 3 , in which Lehmann thinks he can with certainty dis-
tinguish cobalt, is so singular a medley that nothing to be
depended on can be gathered from it. The author, it is true,
where he treats of mineral pigments, seems to speak of a blue
sand which produced different shades of blue paint, according
as was pounded coarser or finer. The palest powder was
it

called lomentum and this Lehmann considers as our powder-

;

blue. I am however fully convinced that the cyanus of Theo-

phrastus, the cceruleum of Pliny, and the chrysocolla 4 were ,

1
See the Annotations on Arist. Auscult. Mirab. p. 98.
2
I am of opinion that this Latin name for cobalt was first used by Agri-
3
cola. Lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. Theophrast. De Lapid. § 97
4
Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.
480 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the blue copper earth often already mentioned, which may have
been mixed and blended together. Besides, Pliny clearly adds
to it an artificial colour, which in my opinion was made in the
same mariner as our lake ; for he speaks of an earth, which
when boiled with plants, acquired their blue colour, and which
was in some measure inflammable. With these pigments walls
were painted; but as many of them would not endure lime,
they could be used only on those which were plastered with
clay (creia). The expression usus ad fenestras has been mis-
applied by Lehmann, as a strong proof of his assertion for ;

he explains it as if Pliny had said that a blue pigment was

used for painting window-frames but glass windows were at
;

that time unknown. I suspect Pliny meant to say only that

one kind of paint could not be employed near openings which
afforded a passage to the light, as it soon decayed and lost its
colour. This would have been the. case in particular with
lake in which there was a mixture of vegetable particles.
For my part, I find in this passage as few traces of smalt
as M. Gmelin ; and I agree with him in opinion that the strong
and unpleasant mixtures arising from cobalt would, had it
been known, have induced the ancients to make particular
mention of it in their writings. Would not the arsenic, which
is so often combined with cobalt, have given occasion to many

reports respecting the dangerous properties of these minerals ?

And would not arsenic and bismuth have been sooner known,
had preparations of cobalt been made at so early a period ?
It is a circumstance of great weight also, that in the places
wiiere the ancients had mines, and where antiquities painted
or tinged blue, and resembling in colour that produced by
cobalt, have been dug up, cobalt has not been discovered, or
has been discovered only in modern times. At present we
know nothing of Egyptian, Arabian, Ethiopian, Italian, and
Cyprian cobalt, and in Spain this mineral was first found in
; '

the reign of Philip IV. I shall here observe, that the island

of Cyprus was formerly so abundant in copper, that, in a

mineralogical sense, it might be called the island of Venus ;

and we can therefore entertain the less doubt that the cccruleum
C't/priwn was copper-blue.

1
Bowles, Tntroducion a la Ilistoria Natural y ala Geographia Fisica de
Espafia.— Madrit, 1775 p. 399.
 COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT. 481

The principal reason, however, why Lehmann, Pauw ', Fer-

ber, Delaval, and others, think that the ancients used smalt,
and were acquainted with cobalt, is that, as has been already
said, various antiquities both of painting and enamel have been
discovered, in which a blue appears that seems to give grounds
for conjecturing that it was produced by cobalt. Ferber 2
speaks of blue glass squares in mosaic-work and Delaval
;

mentions old Egyptian glass-work of this colour 3 It is well .

known also that the Chinese and people of Japan gave to

their porcelain that fine blue colour, for which it is celebrated,
long before the discovery of smalt in Europe. On mummies
a blue is seen likewise, which, even rfter so many centuries,
seems to have lost little or nothing of its beauty 4 We must .

therefore allow that the ancients used either ultramarine or

cobalt.
The first opinion seems, in regard of porcelain, to be con-
firmed by Duhalde 5 who speaks of a mine of azur, and re-
,

lates that the Chinese, in modern times, use instead of it, for
painting their porcelain, a blue colour brought from foreign
countries. It is probable that by the former he means lapis
lazuli, and by the latter smalt, which is sent in large quanti-
ties from Europe to China. The invention of ultramarine,
however, appears to me too new, its effect on porcelain too
uncertain, and its price too high to allow us to suppose that it
has been much used. We
should therefore have been almost
obliged to adopt the latter opinion, had not M. Gmelin proved
by chemical experiments 6 that it is not only possible to give
to glass and enamel a blue colour by means of iron, but that
the before-mentioned antiquities, upon which so much stress
has been laid, show not the smallest traces of cobalt. He even
made experiments upon blue tiles, found in a Roman tessel-
1
Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois. Berlin,
—
1773, i. p. 345. Delaval's Experimental Inquiry into the Cause of the
Changes of Colour in Opake and Coloured Bodies. Lond. 1774, 4to, p. 56.
2
Briefe aus Welschland. Prag, 1773, 8vo, p. 114, 136, 223.
3 Blue enameled figures
of the Egyptian deities may be found in Marbres
de la Galerie de Dresde, tab. 190. 4 [The blue colour of the glass,

of which the beautiful Portland Vase is composed, is owing to cobalt.]

5
Description de la Chine, ii. p. 223, 230, 232. I have, however, often
heard, and even remarked myself, that the blue on the new Chinese por-
celain is not so beautiful as that on the old.
6 De
Cseruleo Vitro in Antiquis Monumentis, in Comment. Soc. Gotting.
1779, vol. ii. p. 41.
VOL. I. 2 I
 ;

482 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

lated foot-pavement at Montbeillard and likewise on the

;

blue paint of the mummy

which was presented to our univer-
sity by the king of Denmark '. He has also mentioned vari-
ous articles on which a blue colour is produced by the vitrifi-
cation of iron. Of this nature are in particular those slags
found near the smelting-houses at the iron-mines of the Harz
forest and I myself have seen slags which were of a blue colour
;

exceedingly beautiful. Volcanic slags, or scoria?, found in the

neighbourhood of Verona, Vicenza, and other parts of Italy,
are mentioned also by Ferber 2 which seems to confirm the
,

conjecture of Dr. Bruckmann 3 that the ancients may have

,

used such slags for their works. It is probable that the an-
cients were first induced by the blue slag of their smelting-
houses to make experiments on the colouring of glass with
iron, and that in this art they acquired a dexterity not pos-
sessed at present, because it was abandoned by our ancestors
after the invention of smalt, which is much more beautiful
and which can be used more easily and with more certainty.
I cannot, however, deny that I have often lamented this loss
when I saw the excellent blue in the painted windows at
Gouda, Goslar, and other places though its beauty is much
;

heightened by the transparency of the glass, and the strong

light that falls upon it from without.
I shall now proceed to the invention of the colour prepared
from cobalt. About the end of the fifteenth century, cobalt
appears to have been dug up in great quantity in the mines
on the borders of Saxony and Bohemia, discovered not long
before that period. As it was not known at first to what
purpose it could be applied, it was thrown aside as a useless
mineral. The miners had an aversion to it, not only because
it gave them much fruitless labour, but because it often

proved prejudicial to their health by the arsenical particles with

which it was combined; and it appears even that the minera-
logical name cobalt then first took its rise. At any rate, I
have never met with it before the beginning of the sixteenth
century; and Mathesius and Agricolaseem to have first used
it in their writings. Frisch derives it from the Bohemian
word kow, which signifies metal but the conjecture that it
;

2 Briefe,
1
Comment. Soc. Gotting. 1781, iv. p. 20. p. 30.
3 Beytrage zu der Abhand. v. Edelsteineu. Bruns. 1778, 8vo, p. 55.
 ;

COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT. 483

was formed from cobalus, which was the name of a spirit that,
according to the superstitious notions of the times, haunted
mines, destroyed the labours of the miners, and often gave
them a great deal of unnecessary trouble, is more probable
and there is reason to think that the latter is borrowed from
the Greek. The miners, perhaps, gave this name to the
mineral out of joke, because it thwarted them as much as the
supposed spirit, by exciting false hopes and rendering their
labour often fruitless 1 It Avas once customary, therefore, to
.

introduce into the church service a prayer that God would

preserve miners and their works from kobolts and spirits.
Respecting the invention of making a useful kind of blue
glass from cobalt, we have no better information than that
which Klotzsch 2 has published from the papers of Christian
Lehmann. The former, author of an historical work respect-
ing the upper district of the mines in Misnia, and a clergy-
man at Scheibenberg, collected with great diligence every
information in regard to the history of the neighbouring
country, and died, at a great age, in 1688. According to his
account, the colour-mills, at the time when he wrote, were
about a hundred years old.; and as he began first to write to-
wards the end of the thirty years' war, the invention seems to
fall about 1540 or 1560. He relates the circumstance as fol-
lows " Christopher Schurer, a glass-maker at Flatten, a place
:

which belongs still to Bohemia, retired to Neudeck, where he

established his business. Being once at Schneeberg, he col-
lected some of the beautiful coloured pieces of cobalt which
were found there, tried them in his furnace and finding that
;

they melted, he mixed some cobalt with the vitreous mass,

1
Mathesius, in his tenth Sermon, p. 501, where he speaks of the cadmia
fossilis, says," Ye miners call it hobolt the Germans call the black devil,
;

and the old devil's whores and hags, old and black Jcobel, which by their
witchcraft do injury to people and to their cattle." Whether the devil,
therefore, and his hags gave this name to cobalt, or cobalt gave its name
to witches, it is a poisonous and noxious metal. Agricoia, De Animantibus
Subterraneis, says, at the end, " Dsemones, quos Germanorum alii, aut
etiam Grseci, vocant cobalos, quod hominum sunt imitatores." Bochart,
in his Canaan, i. 18, p. 484, gives a Hebrew derivation of k6(3o\os. It ap^
pears to be the same as covalus and yobelimis, the latter of which was used
by Ordericus Vitalis in the eleventh century as the name of a spirit or
phantom. See Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. 681.
2 Sammlung zur Sachsischen Geschichte, iv.
p. 353.
 ;

484 HIST0BY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

and obtained fine blue glass. At first he prepared it only for

the use of the potters but in the course of time it was carried
;

as an article of merchandize to Nuremberg, and thence to

Holland. As painting on glass was then much cultivated in
the latter, the artists there knew better how to appreciate this
invention. Some Dutchmen therefore repaired to Neudeck,
in order that they might learn the process used in preparing
this new colour. By great promises they persuaded the in-
ventor to remove to Magdeburg, where he also made glass
from the cobalt of Schneeberg but he again returned to his
;

former residence, where he constructed a handmill to grind

his glass, and afterwards erected one driven by water. At
that period the colour was worth seven dollars and a half per
cwt., and in Holland from fifty to sixty florins. Eight colour-
mills of the same kind, for which roasted cobalt was procured
in casks from Schneeberg, were soon constructed in Holland
and it appears that the Dutch must have been much better
acquainted with the art of preparing, and particularly with
that of grinding it, than the Saxons ; for the elector John
George sent for two colour-makers from Holland, and gave a
thousand florins towards enabling them to improve the art.
He was induced to make this advance chiefly by a remark of
the people of Schneeberg, that the part of the cobalt which
dropped down while it was roasting contained more colour
than the roasted cobalt itself. In a little time other colour-
mills were erected around Schneeberg. Hans Burghard, a
merchant and chamberlain of Schneeberg, built one by which
the eleven mills at Platten were much injured. Paul Nord-
hoff, a Frieslander, a man of great ingenuity, who lived at the
Zwitter-mill, made a great many experiments in order to im-
prove the colour, by which he was reduced to so much poverty
that he was at length forced to abandon that place, where he
had been employed for ten years in the colour-manufactory.
He retired to Annaberg, established there in 1649, by the
assistance of a merchant at Leipsic, a colour-manufactory, of
which he was appointed the director ; and by these means
rendered the Annaberg cobalt of utility. The consumption
of this article however must have decreased in the course of
time ; for in the year 1659, when there were mills of the same
kind at more of the towns in the neighbourhood of mines, he
had on hand above 8000 quintals." Thus far Lehmann.
 COBALT, ZAFFER, SMALT, 485

This information is in some measure confirmed by Melzer 1 ,

who says that the mines of Schneeberg, which were first dis-
covered in the middle of the fifteenth century, had declined so
much towards the middle of the sixteenth, that it was impos-
sible to get any profit by them till the year 1550, when a
greater advantage arose from the new method of using cobalt.
About this period a contract was entered into with the Dutch,
who agreed to take the roasted cobalt at a certain price.
Lehmann 2 says, but without adducing any proofs, that a
manufactory for making blue glass was erected by Sebastian
Preussler, between Platten and Eybenstock, so early as 1571.
Rossler 3 who died in 1673, in the seventy-sixth year of his
,

age, gives us to understand that a century and a half before

his time, cobalt was procured and sold as zaffer but that the
;

colour-mills in the country had been established only about

sixty years. I conjecture therefore that the roasted cobalt,
to which sand was added, in order that the nature of it might
be better concealed, and the further pi'eparation of it rendered
more difficult, was given up to the Dutch, even so early as
the beginning of the sixteenth century 4 , and that these people
by melting it anew, or at any rate by pounding it finer, de-
rived the greatest benefit from it long before the Saxons
themselves constructed mills according to the model of those
used in Holland. At present many Dutchmen grind German
cobalt with very great advantage 5 .

1
Melzer's Berglauftige Beschreibung der Stadt Schneeberg, 1684, 4to,
p. 405. The same account is given in his Historia Schneebergensis, 1716,
4to. In these works one may see the dispositions made from time to time
by the electors of Saxony, to support this highly profitable manufacture.
The latest information on this subject is to be found in Hoffmann's Ab-
handlung iiber die Eisenhiitten, Hof. 1785, 4to. 2 Cadmiologia, i. p. 14.
3 Speculum Metallurgiae Politissimum. Dresden, 1700, fol. p. 165.
4 I say, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the authority of

the following information in Melzer, which seems not to have been noticed
by others :
—
" Peter Weidenhammer, a Franconian, came hither poor but ;

by means of a colour he procured from pounded bismuth, and of which he

exported many quintals to Venice, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per
quintal, he 'soon acquired great riches, and built a beautiful house in the
market-place. His name is inscribed in the lower window of the chancel
of the great church, with the date 1520." At that period a great deal of
this paint was prepared at Venice, and it may therefore be easily compre-
hended how Vannuccio could be so early acquainted with zaflfera.
5 How early manufactories for blue paint were erected beyond the
486 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

It appears that this new colour was not made known in

books tilla late period. Agricola was not acquainted with
the blue glass, nor is zaffera mentioned either by him or Ma-
thesius. Albin also, who indeed derived the greater part of
his information from these two writers, says not a word re-
specting it but he tells us that bismuth when put in vessels
;

grew together again . He seems therefore to allude to cobalt

1

roasted and mixed with sand, which when packed up becomes

a solid body, whereas bismuth which has been purified by
roasting can never assume that state. Vanuccio Biringoccio,
the oldest writer in whose works I have as yet observed the
name zaffera, describes its use for painting glass, and calls it
a heavy mineral, without defining it any further. Cardan 2
gives the name of zaffera to an earth which colours glass blue.
Csesalpin says it is a stone 3 and Julius Scaliger must have
;

known as little of it, else he would have mentioned it in his

Exercitations on Cardan. Porta, who employed great dili-
gence to acquire knowledge of this kind, often mentions za-
jphara Jiglinorum, without telling us what it is but he de-
;

scribes how it must be melted, poured into water, pounded,

sifted, and reduced into a fine powder in order to be employed
for making artificial precious stones 4 Neri, who wrote about
.

the year 1609 5 knew nothing more of it; and Merret, the
,

commentator on Neri, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth

century 6 confesses that he knew not what zaffera was, but he
,

believed that it was a new German invention, at least that it

was brought from Germany, and that it seemed to him to be
made from copper and sand, with the addition perhaps of ca-
lamine. The first person who properly explained zaffera in
his writings, and gave a correct account of the method of
preparing it, is, in my opinion, Kunkel 7 in his annotations on
Neri and Merret. That writer says, zaffera was by the miners
called zaffoer, and that sand was mixed with it only that the

boundaries of Saxony and Bohemia I do not know, as I have found no in-

formation on that subject. We are however told by Calvor, in Beschrei-
bung des Maschinenwesens am Oberharze, ii. p. 202, that a person was
engaged to superintend the blue-paint-manufactory at St. Andreasberg in
the year 1698.
1
Meisnische Bergchronik, p. 133, tit. 1G. 2 Lib.
v. De Subtil.
3 4
Lib. ii. cap. 55. Magi<c Naturalis lib. vi.
6
De Arte Vitriaria. Amst. 1668, 12mo, lib i. cap. 12, p. 32.
6 Ibid. ? Glasmacherkunst. Numb. 1743, 4to, p. 46.
p. 327.
 TURKEYS. 487

powder-blue used by women for linen, and by painters called

blue smalt, might not be imitated in other countries.
Rosier says the Bohemian cobalt is not so good as that of
Misnia, and that its colour is more like that of ashes. That
Brandt, a member of the Council of Mines in Sweden, first
asserted that cobalt contained a peculiar kind of metal, must
be so well known to mineralogists, that it scarcely deserves to
be mentioned 1
.

TURKEYS.
That these fowls, which at present are everywhere common,
•were brought to us from a different part of the woi'ld, is, I be-
lieve, generally admitted ; but respecting their original country,
and the time when they were first introduced into Europe,
there is much difference of opinion among those who in later
times have made researches on that subject 2 . I shall there-
fore compare what has been advanced on both sides with what
I have remarked myself, and submit my decision to the judge-
ment of the reader.
The question, whether turkeys or turkey-fowls were known
to the Greeks and the Romans, will depend upon defining what
those fowls were to which they gave the name of meleagrides
and for in the whole ornithology of the
gallince Africaner ;

ancients, there are no other kind that can occasion doubt. It

has however been justly remarked by Perrault and others,
that every thing which we find related by the ancients of the
meleagrides can be applied only to the pintado or Guinea fowl
(JYumida meleagris, Linn.), and not to the turkey and that ;

the gallince Africance were only a variety of the former, or a

1
Act. Lit. et Scient. Upsal, 1733. Wallerii Syst. Min. ii. p. 164.
2The principal works in which information may be found on this sub-
ject, are Perrault in Memoires de l'Academie Itoyale des Sciences depuis
— —
1666 jusqu'a. 1699. Traite de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 726. Buffon,
Hist. Nat. — —
Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, fascic. iv. p. 10. Pennant, in the
—
Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxi. part i. p. 72. Pennant's Arctic
—
Zoology, vol. ii. Miscellanies by Daines Barrington. London, 1781, 4to,
p. 127.
488 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

species that approached nearly to them. Their spots, disposed

in such a manner as if formed by drops, on account of which,
in modern times, they have been called pintados and pientades,
and the marks on the feathers of the wings, accord perfectly
with the description given of them by Clytus, the scholar of
Aristotle '
though in northern countries, some Guinea fowls
;

are found, the colour of which is more mixed with white.

But this is a variation not uncommon among birds in general
when removed from their native country, as is proved by the
white peacocks, which were first observed in Norway. The
coloured hood of thick skin which covers the head has also
been accurately described by Clytus, as well as the coloured
fleshy excrescence on the bill (palearia carunculaced). In
size the meleagrides were like our largest common fowls, which
is true also of the pintado; and we must acknowledge with
Clytus, that its naked head is too small in proportion to the
body. The figure of the pintado, like that of the partridge,
and its drooping tail, correspond equally Avell with the epithet
gibberce, especially as the position of its feathers occasions its
back to appear elevated or bent upwards. The feet are like
those of the domestic fowl, but they are destitute of the spurs
with which those of the latter are furnished; and the pintado
lays spotted eggs, as described by Aristotle but these, by the
;

manner in which the fowls are reared in Europe, are liable to

variations. It deserves to be remarked above all, that both
sexes of the meleagrides are so like, that they can scarcely be
distinguished and this circumstance alone is sufficient to con-
;

fute those who pretend that the meleagrides were our turkeys.
Had that been the case, it is impossible that Clytus in his de-
scription, which seems to have been drawn up with great care,
should have omitted the proud and ridiculous gestures of the
turkey-cock when he struts about with his tail spread out like
a fan, or thrown into a circular form, and his wings trailing
on the ground, or the long excrescence that hangs down from
his bill, and the tuft of black hair on his breast. The un-
1 Athenseus, Deip. lib. xiv. p. 655. Most of those passages of the an-
cients in which this fowl is mentioned have been collected by Gesner, in
his Histor. Avium, p. 461, and by Aldrovandus in his Ornithologia, lib. xiii.
p. 18. When we consider the feathers as delineated by Perrault, we shall
find the comparison of Clytus more intelligible than it has appeared to
many commentators.
 TURKEYS. 489

pleasant cry, and the unsocial disposition of the meleagrides,

are observed in the Guinea fowls, which, as the ancients justly-
remarked, frequent rivers and marshes, where turkeys on the
other hand never thrive.
The ancients assure us that the native country of the me-
leagrides was Africa 1 , where the Guinea fowls are still found
in a wild state, but where our turkeys were never seen wild.
When writers however mention places not in Africa, to
which the former were brought, we are not to suppose that
they were carried thither directly from Africa. The differ-
ence which Columella and Pliny 9 make between the melea-
grides and gallince Africance is so trifling, as to imply only
a variety of the species and the opinion of Pallas, who has
;

occasionally collected a number of important observations

which may serve to explain the natural history of the an-
cients, is highly probable, that we are to understand under it
the Numida mitrata, which he has described. The red crest
which the last-mentioned bird always has, and which almost
alone distinguishes it from the common Guinea fowl, seems
fully to prove this opinion 3 . I shall here take occasion to
remark, that Buffon erroneously affirms that the Guinea fowls,
which were transmitted from the Greeks and the Romans, be-
1
Plin. Strabo. The following passage of the Periplus Scylacis, p. 122,
which have never found cited in the history of the meleagrides, is worthy
I
of remark. This geographer, speaking of a lake in the Carthaginian
marshes, says, "Circa lacum nascitur arundo, cyperus, stcebe et juncus.
Ibi meleagrides aves sunt ; alibi vero nusquam nisi inde exportatas."
2 Columella, viii. 2, 2, p. 634.
3
I have here quoted nothing more than what I thought requisite to
prove that the meleagrides of the ancients were our Guinea fowls, because
I had no intention of treating fully on a subject which has been handled
by so many others and because I had only to show that they were not
;

turkeys. Had not this been the case, it would have been necessary for me
to collect into one point of view everything that the ancients have said of
these fowls, with the words used by the different writers. It may how-
ever be said, that by this mode of examining a disputed point, a mode in-
deed practised by many, the reader may be led to an ill-founded approba-
tion, because what is not agreeable to the author's assertion may be easily
concealed. But this observation is not applicable to me for I confess
;

that I do not know with certainty whether the Guinea fowls are as care-
less of their young as the meleagrides are said to have been whether their
;

cry, which I have often enough heard, and which is indeed unpleasant,
agrees with the KaKKa^eiv of Pollux, v. § 90 and whether the aXeicrpvoves
;

ueyeQei fieyiaroi, mentioned in iElian's Hist. Animal, xvi. 2, belong to the

Guinea fowls, or, as Pennant will have it, to the Pavones bicalcarati.
 ;

4*90 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

came extinct in Europe in the middle ages for we find men-

;

tionmade of them in English writers, under the name of Aves

Africance, Afrce, so early as about the year 1277 J .
That the ancients were not acquainted with our turkeys is
still further confirmed by the testimony of various historians

and travellers, who assure us in the first place, that these birds
are still wild in America ; secondly, that they were brought
to us from that country; and thirdly, that before the discovery
of the New World they were not known in Europe. Besides,
we are enabled, from the information which they give us, to
see how and when these animals were conveyed to those coun-
tries where they at present are reared as domestic fowls and ;

these proofs appear to me so strong, that I conclude Barring-

ton asserted the contrary, that he might obtain assent not so
much by the force of truth as by advancing absurdities. All
animals multiply more easily, and become larger, stronger, and
more fruitful in those places which nature has assigned to them
for a residence, that is, where they originally lived wild and ;

this observation seems to hold good in regard to the turkeys

in America. It is indeed probable that the number of wild
animals will always decrease in proportion as countries are
peopled, and as woods are cut down and deserts cultivated
it is probable also, that at last no wild animals will be left, as

has been the case with sheep, oxen and horses, which have all
long ago been brought into a state of slavery by man. The
testimony therefore of those who first visited America, and
who found there wild turkeys, deserves the greater attention.
The first author in whom I find mention of them is Oviedo,
who wrote about the year 1525". He has described them
minutely with that curiosity and attention which new objects
generally excite ; and as he was acquainted with no name for
these animals, till then unknown to the Europeans, he gave
them that which he thought best suited to their figure and
shape. He calls them a kind of peacocks, and he relates that
even then, on account of their utility, and the excellent taste

1
Rennet's Parochial Antiquities, p. 287. The meleagrides also, which
Volateran saw at Rome in 1510, were of the same kind.
2 Sommario dell' Ind. Occid. cap. 3. In the"third volume of the Collec-
tion of Voyages by Ramusio, Oviedo describes them with great minuteness,
which it is unlikely he would have done had these fowls been so well known
in Europe as Barrington thinks they were.
 TURKEYS. 491

of their flesh, they were not only reared and domesticated by

the Europeans in New Spain, where they were first found, but
that they were carried also to New Castille, and to the West
India islands. The other fowls likewise which he describes
we have without doubt procured from America, such for ex-
ample as the Crax alector 1 . Lopez de Gomara, whose book
was printed in 1553, makes use of the name gallopavo ; and
says that the animal resembles in shape the peacock and the
domestic cock ; and that of all the fowls in New Spain its flesh
is the most delicious 2 . In the year 1584 wild turkeys were
found in Virginia 3 Rene de Laudonniere found them on his
.

landing in North America in 1564 4 . Fernandez also reckons

them among the birds of Mexico and takes notice of the dif-
;

ference between those that were wild and those which had
been tamed 5 Pedro de Ciesa saw them on the isthmus oi
.

Darien 6 , and Dampier in Yucatan 7 . Besides the testimony

of many other later travellers which have been already quoted
by Buffon, and which I shall not here repeat, the accounts of
Kalm and Smyth in particular deserve to be noticed. The
former, who visited Pennsylvania in 1784, says, " The wild
turkeys run about here in the woods. Their wildness ex-
cepted, they are in nothing different from ours, but in being
generally a little larger, and in having redder flesh, which is,
however, superior in taste. When any one finds their eggs in
1
The peacock pheasant of Guiana, Bancroft ;
Quirissai or Curassao,
Brown the crested curassow, Latham.
;

2 Hist, de Mexico, p. 343. 3

Hakluyt, vol. in. p. 274.
4 Pennant quotes also De Biy, but that author I never consulted.
5 " Huexolot gallus est Indicus, quera gallipavoneui quidam vocant, no-
—
runtque oimies." Thesaur. Rerum Med. Novse Hispanise, in Append. Bar-
rington remarks that Fernandez would not have said quern norunt omnes,
had these animals been first made known from America for Mexico was
;

discovered in 1519, and Fernandez appears to have written about 1576.

This reason, however, appears to me of little weight ; especially as it is
certain that these fowls, like many other productions which excited uni-
versal curiosity, were soon everywhere common. Besides, it is not certain
that these words were really written by Fernandez.
6
An English translation of Ciesa's Voyage may be found in Stevens's
New Collection of Voyages and Travels.
7 Vol. ii. part ii.
p. 65, 85, 114. Leri seems also to have found them in
Brazil, see Laet, in his Novus Orbis, Lugd. Bat. 1633, fol. p. 557. As his
description, however, is not clear, and as the dihgent Marggraf does not
mention it among the animals of Brazil, this information appears to be
very uncertain.
492 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

the woods, and places them under a tame hen to be hatched,

the young, for the most part, become tame also but when ;

they grow up they make their escape. On this account peo-

ple cut their wings before they are a year old. These wild
turkeys, when tamed, are much more mischievous than those
tamed by nature ." Smyth assures us that wild turkeys are
1

so abundant in the uncultivated country behind Virginia, and

the southern provinces, that they may be found in flocks of
more than five thousand 2 .
These testimonies, in my opinion, are sufficiently strong and
numerous to convince any naturalist that America is the native
country of these fowls but their weight will be still increased
;

if we add the accounts given us when and how they were

gradually dispersed throughout other countries. Had they
been brought from Asia or Africa some centuries ago, they
must have been long common in Italy, and would have been
carried thence over all Europe. We, however, do not find
that they were known in that country before the discovery of
America. It is certain that there were none of them there at
the time when Peter de Crescentio wrote, that is to say, in
the thirteenth century 3 else he would not have omitted to
;

mention them where he describes the method of rearing all

domestic fowls, and even peacocks and partridges. The ear-
liest account of them in Italy is contained in an ordinance
issued by the magistrates of Venice, in 1557? for repressing
luxury, and in which those tables at which they were allowed
are particularised. About the year 1570 Bartolomeo Scappi,
cook to pope Pius V., gave in his book on cookery several re-
ceipts for dressing these expensive and much-esteemed fowls 4 .
That they were scarce at this period appears from its being
remarked that the first turkeys brought to Bologna were some
1
Kalm's Reise, ii. p. 352.
2 Tour in the U. S. of America, by J. F. D. Smyth, 1784, 2 vols. 8vo.
3 Crescentio lived about the year 1280. [His work Ruralium Commo-
dorum lib. xii. was first printed in 1471.]
4 Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Venet. 1570, 4to. The copy in the
library of our university contains eighteen copper-plates, which represent
different kitchen utensils, and various operations of cookery. Among the
former is a smoke-jack, molinella a fumo. I am inclined to think that
turkeys at this period were very little reared by farmers ; for I do not find
any mention of them in Trattato dell' Agricoltura, di M. Affrico Clemente,
Padovano, in Venetia 1572, 12mo; though the author treats of all other
domestic birds.
 — — ; ;

TURKEYS. 493

that had been given as a present to the family of Buonocom-

pagni, from which Gregory XII., who at that time filled the
papal chair, was descended.
That these fowls were not known in England in the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, is very probable ; as they are
not mentioned in the particular description of a grand enter-
tainment given by archbishop Nevil' ; nor in the regulations
made by Henry VIII. respecting his household, in which all
fowls used in the royal kitchen are named 2 . They were,
however, introduced into that country about the above period
some say in the year 1524; others, in 1530; and some, in
1532 3 . We
know, at any rate, that young turkeys were served
up at a great banquet in 1555*; and about 1585 they were
commonly reckoned among the number of delicate dishes 5 .
According to the account of some writers, turkeys must
have been known much earlier in France but on strict ex- ;

amination no proofs of this can be found. The earliest period

assigned for their introduction into that country is given by
Beguillet 6 , who confidently asserts that they were brought to

1
It is certain that the name does not occur in the List of archbishop
Nevil's feast, nor mentioned in the Earl of Northumberland's House-
is it
hold-book, so late as the year 1512. See Latham's Birds.
2
This order, which is worthy of notice, may be found in the Archseolo-
gia, vol. iii. p. 157.
3
Anderson, Hist. Commerce. Hakluyt, ii. p. 165, gives the year 1532;
and in Barnaby Googe's Art of Husbandry, the first edition, printed in
1614, as well as in several German books, the year 1530 is mentioned.
4
Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, 1671, p. 135.
5
Pennant quotes the following rhyme from Tusser's Five Hundred
Points of Husbandry :

Beefe, mutton and porke, shred pies of the best,

Pig, veale, goose and capon and turkie well drest
Cheese, apples and nuts, jolie carols to heare,
As then in the countrie, is counted good cheare.
These lines he places in the year 1585, in which the edition he quotes was
printed but as there was an edition in 1557, a question arises whether they
;

are to be found there also. [They are not there. Ed.]

* Description du Duche de Boiirgogne, par MM. Courtepee
et Beguillet,
Dijon, 1775, 8vo, vol. i. p. 193, and in Description Generale et Particuliere
de la France, Paris, 1781, fol. In the Description of Burgundy, p. 196,
the following passage occurs —
" C'est sous le regne de Philippe le Hardi,
:

que les gelines d'Inde furent apportees d'Artois a, Dijon en 1385 ; ce qui
montre la faussete de la tradition, qui en attribue rapport a 1'Amiral Chabot
au seizieme siecle. Cent ans avant Chabot, Jaques Cceur en avoit trans-
 !

494 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Dijon under the reign of Philip the Bold, about the year 1385.
Had this French author quoted his authority, we might have
discovered what gave rise to his mistake but as he has not,
;

one cannot help suspecting that the whole account is a fiction

of his own. De la Mare also is in an error when he relates
that the first turkeys in France were those which Jaques Coeur,
the well-known treasurer to Charles VIL, brought with him
from the Levant, and kept on his estate in Gatinois, after he
had received the king's permission to return to the kingdom.
This Cceur, however, who was banished in 1450, never re-
turned, but died in the island of Chio in the year 1456 . x

Equally false is the account given by Bouche in his History

of Provence, that Rene, or Renatus, king of Naples and duke
of Anjou, first brought turkeys into the kingdom, and reared
them in abundance at Rosset 2 This author gives as his au-
.

thority the oral tradition of the neighbourhood, which certainly

cannot be put in competition with testimony of a more authen-
tic nature. Another Bouche 3 who a few years ago wrote
,

also a History of Provence, and who has collected many things

that do honour to Renatus, makes no mention of this service,
though he could not be ignorant of what had been before re-
lated by his namesake. Had these fowls been known so
early as the time of that monarch, who died in 1480, it is
impossible that they could have been so scarce in France as
they really were above a hundred years after. The assertion,
often repeated, but never indeed proved, that they were first
brought to France by Philip de Chabot, admiral under Fran-
cis I., is much more probable. Chabot died in 1543 and ;

what Scaliger says, that in 1540 some turkeys were still re-
maining in France, may be considered as alluding to the above
circumstance. This much however is certain, that Gyllius,
who died in 1555, gave soon after the first scientific descrip-
tion of them, which has been inserted both by Gesner and
Aldrovandus in their works on ornithology. The same year
portc de Turquie en son chateau de Beaumont en Gatinois, et Americ
—
Vespuce en Portugal." What impudence to make such an assertion without
any proof
1
See the works which give a particular account of this Jacques Cceut,
and which have been quoted by Meuseliu Algemeine Welt Historic, xxxvii.
2
p. 615. La Chorographie ou Description de Provence, par Ilonore
Bouche, Aix, 1664, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 479. 3 Essai sur l'Histoire de Provence,
a Marseille, 1785. 2 vols. 4to.
 .

TURKEYS. 495

thefirst figure of them was published by Bellon. About the

same time they were described also by La Bruyere-Champier,
who expressly remarks that they had a few years before been
brought to France from the Indian islands discovered by the
Portuguese and the Spaniards '. How then could Barrington
assert that this Frenchman meant the East and not the West
Indies ? They must, however, have been a long time scarce
in France; for, in the year 1566, when Charles IX. passed
through Amiens, the magistrates of that place did not disdain
to send him, among other presents, twelve turkeys 2 This .

information seems to agree with the account often quoted,

that the first turkeys were served up, as a great rarity, at the
wedding dinner of that monarch in the year 1570 3 but it ;

seems the breed of these fowls was not very common under
Charles IX. for they are not named in the ordinances of 1563
;

and 1567, in which all other fowls are mentioned. In the

year 1603, Henry IV. caused higglers to be punished who
carried away turkeys from the country villages without paying
for them, under a pretence that they were for the use of the
queen 4 I shall here also remark, that I can nowhere find
.

that the Jesuits are entitled to the merit of having introduced

these fowls into France 5 .

As these American fowls must have been carried to Germany

through other lands, we cannot expect to find them in that
country at an earlier period. Gesner, who published his Or-
nithology in 1555, seems not even to have seen them. We
are, however, assured by several authors, such as B. Heres-
bach 6 Colerus 7 and others, that turkeys were brought to
,

1
De Re Cibaria, lib. xv. cap. 73, p. 632. This work was first published
by the author in 1560, but it was written thirty years before. Turkeys,
therefore, at any rate, must have been in France in 1630.
2 Histoire de
la Vie Privee des Francais, par Le Grand d'Aussy, i. p. 292.
3 Anderson. Keysler's Travels.
4 This is related by Le Grand, from the Journal of L'Etoile.
3
"On lit, dans l'Annee Litteraire, que Boileau, encore enfant, jouant dans
une cour, tomba. Dans sa chute, sa jaquette se retrousse ; un dindon lui
donne plusieurs coups de bee sur une partie tres-delicate. Boileau en fut
toute sa vie incommode ; et de-la, peut-etre, cette severite de moeurs, . .
sa satyre contre les femmes Peut-etre son antipathie contre les dindons
occasionna-t-elle 1'aversion secrette qu'il eut toujours pour les Jesuites, qui
les ont apportes en France." —
Helvetius de l'Esprit. Amst. 1759, 12mo. i.
p. 288. 6
De Re Rustica. Spirae Nemet. 1595, 8vo, lib. iv. p. 640.
7 Hausbuch, vol. iv. Wittenberg, 1611, 4to, p. 499.
496 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Germany so early as 1530; and in the same year carritd to

Bohemia and Silesia Respecting the northern countries, I
1
.

know only, on the authority of Pontoppidan, that they had

been in Denmark two hundred years before his time.
As these fowls are found at present both in Asia and Africa,
it may be worth while to inquire at what period they were

carried thither, especially as these quarters of the world have

been by some considered as their native countries. In China
there are no other turkeys than those which have been in-
troduced from other parts, as we are expressly assured by Du
Halde, though he erroneously adds that they were quite com-
mon in the East Indies. They were carried to Persia by the
Armenians and other trading people, and to Batavia by the
Dutch 2 In the time of Chardin they were so scarce in Persia
.

that they were kept in the Emperor's menagerie 3 In the .

kingdom of Congo, on the Gold Coast, and at Senegal, there

are none but those belonging to the European factories. Ac-
cording to Father de Bourzes there are none of them in the
kingdom of Madura and we are told by Dampier that this
;

is the case in the island of Mindanao. Prosper Alpinus also

gives the same account in regard to Nubia and Egypt and ;

Gemelli Carreri says there is none of them in the Philippines ;

though I agree with Buffon in laying very little stress upon

the Travels known under that name, which we have reason to
suppose not genuine.
1 (Ekonomische Nachrichten der Schlesischen Geselschaft,
1773, p. 306.
For the festival of the university of Wittenberg, in 1602, fifteen Indian or
Turkey fowls were purchased at the rate of a florin each. They were in
2 Bell's Travels, i.
part dressed with lemon-sauce. p. 128.
3 " Turkeys (poulets d'Inde) are there foreign and scarce birds. The
Armenians, about thirty years ago, carried from Constantinople to Ispahan
a great number of them, which they presented to the king as a rarity but
;

it is said that the Persians, not knowing the method of breeding them,
gave in return the care of them to these people, and assigned a different
house for each. The Armenians, however, finding them troublesome and
expensive, suffered them almost all to perish. I saw some which were
reared in the territory of Ispahan, four leagues from the city, by the Ar-
menian peasants but they were not numerous. Some imagine that these
;

birds were brought from the East Indies but this is so far from being the
;

case, that there are none of them in that part of the world. They must
have come from the West Indies, although they are called cocqs d'Inde
because, being larger than common fowls, they in that resemble the Indian
fowls, which are of much greater size than the common fowls of other
countries." —Voyages de Chardin, iv. p. 84.
 TURKEYS. '197

worthy of remark, that Cavendish found a great number

It is
of turkeys in the island of St. Helena so early as the year
J58S; and Barrington misapplies this circumstance to prove
that these fowls did not come from America. It is, however,
very doubtful whether Cavendish really meant our turkeys, as
he says, " Guiney cocks, which we call turkeys ;" for the first l

name belongs to what are at present called pintados and it is ;

therefore uncertain which kind ought here to be understood.

But even allowing that they were turkeys, is it improbable
that they should be on an island which had often been visited
by the Portuguese? The account of De la Croix is of as
little weight for he says that in the woods of Madagascar
;

there are many coqs cTInde 2 De la Croix published his book

.

in 1688, at which time there were in South America wild

horses and wild cattle. Does this, therefore, invalidate the
certainty of these animals being carried thither from Europe ?
I intended to enter into a critical examination of those
grounds upon which Barrington endeavours to prove that
turkeys were originally brought from Africa but on reading ;

over his essay once more, I find the greater part of his argu-
ments are sufficiently refuted by what I have proved from the
most authentic testimony and nothing now remains but to
;

add a few observations. Barrington considers it improbable

that these fowls should be so soon spread all over Europe, as
Cortez first visited Mexico in 1519, subdued the capital in
1521, and returned to Spain in 1527. To me, however, it
does not appear incredible for I could prove by several in-
;

stances, that the curiosity excited by the most remarkable

American productions soon became general. Those, for ex-
ample, who take the trouble to inquire into the history of
maize or Turkish corn will make the same remark though it ;

is a truth fully established that we procure that grain from

America. How soon did tobacco become common In the !

year 1599 the seeds were brought to Portugal; and in the

beginning of the seventeenth century it began to be cultivated
in the East Indies. When Barrington asserts that these fowls
were carried America by the Europeans, in the same man-
to
ner as horses and cattle, this argument may be turned against
himself; for he must doubtless find it equally improbable that

1
Hakluyt, ii. p. 825.
2 Kelation Universelle d'Afrique. Lyon 1688, iv. p. 426.
VOL. I. 2 K
 !

498 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

they should so soon become common, numerous and wild, in

the New World, as they must have been according to the
authorities above quoted.
As many fat turkeys were purchased yearly in Languedoe
and sent to Spain in the time of cardinal Perron ', it is thence
concluded that these fowls were not brought to France through
the latter. Perron died in 1620. At that period turkeys
were very common and whoever is acquainted with the in-
;

dustry of the Spaniards v/ill not find it strange that the French
should begin earlier to make the rearing of these animals an
employment. How falsely should we reason, were we to say
that it is impossible the English and French should procure
the best wool from Spain, because the Spaniards purchase the
best cloth from the French and the English
One proof by which Barrington endeavours to show that
turkeys were esteemed so early as the fifteenth century is very
singular. He quotes from Leland's Itinerary that capons of
Grease were served up at an entertainment, under Edward IV.,
in 1 167. The passage alluded to I cannot find but an author ;

must be very self-sufficient and bold indeed, to convert capons

of Grease into capons of Greece, and to pretend that these
were turkeys 2 .

What, however, most excites my surprise is, that the name

of these fowls even should be assumed by this writer as a
ground for his assertion. Had they, says he, been brought
from America, they would have been called American or
West Indian fowls as if new objects had names given to them
;

always with reflection. Names are often bestowed upon ob-

jects before it is known what they are or whence they are

procured. Ray, Minshew 3 and others have been induced by

,

the name turkey-fowls to consider Turkey as their original

country but whoever is versed in researches of this kind
;

must know that new foreign articles are often called Turkish,
Italian, or Spanish. Is Turkey the original country of maize ?
or is Italy the original country of these birds, because they
have been sometimes called Italian fowls? Even allowing
that turkeys had acquired their German name (halekuter) from
Calicut, this, at any rate, would prove nothing further than
that it was once falsely believed that these animals were brought
1 Perroniana, p. 67. 2 Leland's Itinerary. Oxford, 1744, vol. vi. p. 5.
3 .Minshew's Guide into Tongues, 1617, foL
 BUTTER. 499

from Calicut to Europe : but I suspect that the appellation

kalekuter, as well as the names truthenne, putjen, and puten,
were formed from their cry. Chardin offers a conjecture
which is not altogether to be neglected. That traveller thinks
that these fowls were at first considered as a species of the do-
mestic fowl, and that they were called Indian, because the
largest domestic fowls are produced in that country

BUTTER.
Milk, the most natural and the commonest food of man, is a
mixture of three component parts, whey, butter, and cheese.
The caseous part is viscous ; the butter is the fat, oily, and
inflammable part, and properly speaking, is not perfectly dis-
solved in the serum or whey, but rather only diffused through
it like an emulsion, so that it may be separated by rest alone,

without any artificial preparation. When milk is in a state of

rest, the oily part rises to the surface, and forms what is called
cream. When the milk has curdled, which will soon be the
case, the caseous parts separate themselves from the whey ; and
this separation may be effected also by the addition of some
mixture, through means of which the produce is liable to many
variations. The caseous part, when squeezed and mixed with
salt, and sometimes herbs, and when it has been moulded into
a certain form and dried, is used under the name of cheese,
which will always be better, the greater the butyraceous part
is that has been left in it. The cream skimmed, and by proper
agitation in a churn or other vessel separated from the whey
and caseous parts, becomes our usual butter.
This substance, though commonly used at present in the
greater part of Europe, was not known, or known very im-
perfectly, to the ancients 1
. The ancient translators of the
1
The works with which I am
acquainted that treat on this subject, are
the following:—M.SchoockiiTractatus de Butyro accessit ejusdemDiatriba
:

—
de aversatione Casei. Groningas, 1664, 12mo. H. Conring De habitus
corporuin Germanicorum antiqui et novi caussis. Helrast. 1666, 4to, or
Frankf. 1727, Svo. — Vossii Etymologicon, art. Butyrum. Traite de la —
2k 2
 :

500 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

Hebrew writers 1 seem however to have thought that they

found it mentioned in Scripture 2 : but those best acquainted
with biblical criticism, unanimously agree that the word chamea
signifies milk or cream, or sour thick milk, and at any rate
does not mean butter 3 The word plainly alludes to something
.

liquid, as it appears that chamea was used for washing the

feet, that it was drunk, and that it had the power of intoxi-
cating and we know that mares'-milk, when sour, will pro-
;

duce the like effect. We can imagine streams of milk, but

not streams of butter. This error has been occasioned by the
seventy interpreters, who translate the Hebrew word by the
word boutyron. These translators, who lived two hundred
years after Hippocrates, and who resided in Egypt, might, as
Michaelis remarks, have been acquainted with butter, or have
heard of it but it is highly probable that they meant cream,
;

and not our usual butter. Those who judge from the common
translation, would naturally conclude that the passage in Pro-
verbs, chap, xxx., describes the preparation of butter by sha-
king or beating; but the original words signify squeezing or
pressing, pressio, frictio mulgentis educit lac ; so that milking
and not making butter is alluded to.
The oldest mention of butter, though it is indeed dubious
and obscure, is in the account given of the Scythians by Hero-
dotus 4 ."These people," says he, " pour the milk of their

Police, par —
De la Mare, lib. v. 7. ii. p. 799. Tob. Waltheri Dissert, de
Butyro. Altorfii, 1743. —
Conr. Gesneri Libellus de lacte et operibus lac-
tariis, 1543, 8vo. This small treatise I have hitherto sought for in vain.
1
Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. 45, p. 473.
2
Genesis, chap, xviii. ver. 8 " And he took butter and milk, and the calf
:

which he had dressed, and set before them." Deuteron. chap, xxxii. ver. 14
" Butter of kftie and milk of sheep." Judges, chap. v. ver. 25 " He asked
:

water, and she gave him milk ; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish."
2 Samuel,chap.xvii.ver.29: "And honey, and butter, and sheep." Job, chap.
xx. ver. 17 : "He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and
butter." Ibid. chap. xxix. ver. 6 " When I washed my steps with butter
:

and the rock poured me

out rivers of oil." Proverbs, chap. xxx. ver. 33:
" Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter." Isaiah, chap. vii. ver.
15 " Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil
:

and choose the good." Ibid. ver. 22 " And it shall come to pass, for the
:

abundance of milk that they shall give, that he shall eat butter; for butter
and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land."
3
Michaelis Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr. v. i. p. 807 and his Mosaisches Recht
;

(on the Laws of Moses), § 291 and 295.

1
iv. 2. p. 281 " Postquam emulxere lac, in cava vasalignea diffundunt;
:
 -;

BUTTER. 501

mares into wooden vessels, cause it to be violently stirred or

shaken by their blind slaves, and separate the part that arises
to the surface, as they consider it more valuable and more de-
licious than that which is collected below it." The author
here certainly speaks of the richest part of the milk being
separated from the rest by shaking and it appears that we
;

have every reason to suppose that he alludes to butter, espe-

cially as Hippocrates, who was almost contemporary, mentions
the same thing, but in a much clearer manner "The Scy-
1
.

thians," says the latter, " pour the milk of their mares into
wooden vessels, and shake it violently this causes it to foam,
;

and the fat part, which is light, rising to the surface, becomes
what is called butter. The heavy and thick part, which is
below, being kneaded and properly prepared, is, after it has
been dried, known by the name of hippace. The whey or
serum remains in the middle." This author, in my opinion,
speaks here very distinctly of butter, cheese and whey. It is
probable that the Scythians may have hastened the separation
of the caseous part from the whey by warming the milk, or
by the addition of some substance proper for that purpose.
These passages therefore contain the first mention of butter,
which occurs several times in Hippocrates, and which he pre-
scribes externally as a medicine 2 but he gives it another
;

term (pikerion), which seems to have been in use among the

Greeks earlier than the former, and to have been afterwards
neglected. That this word signified butter, and was no longer
employed in the time of Galen, appears from his translating
it, in his explanation of the obsolete expressions of Hippo-

etcompungentes ad ilia vasa csecos lac agitant (Soveovcri rb ya\a) cujus

quod sunimum est, delibatur, pretiosiusque habetur; vilius autem quod
subsidit." —That Soveeiv shake or beat, there can be no doubt.
signifies to
Theocritus uses the same word in speaking of a tree strongly agitated by
the wind. It is used also to express the agitation of the sea during a storm
and in Geopon. xx. 46, p. 1270, where the preparation of that sauce called
garum is mentioned, it is said that it must be placed in the sun, and fre-
quently shaken.
1
De Morbis, lib. iv. edit. 1595, fol. v. p. 67. Also in his treatise De
Aere, Locis, et Aquis, sect. iii. p. 74, he says the Scythians drink mares'
milk, and eat cheese made of it.
2 De Natura
—
Mulierum, sect. v. p. 137. De Morbis Mulier. 2. sect. v.
p. 191, 235, and in several other places. Vossius therefore, in his Ety-
molog. p. 84, says erroneously, that this word was first used by Dioscorides.
 ;

502 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

crates, by the word boutyron 1 . It was even before that pe-

riod explained in the same manner by Erotian, in his dic-
tionary of the words used by that Greek physician and he ;

remarks, from an ancient writer, that the Phrygians called

butter pikerion, and that the Greeks seemed to have borrowed
the word from these people. It however occuis very sel-
dom, and is to be found neither in Hesychius, Suidas, nor
Pollux a.
The poet Anaxandrides, who lived soon after Hippocrates,
describing the wedding oflphicrates, who married the daughter
of Cotys, king of Thrace, and the Thracian entertainment given
on that occasion, says that the Thracians ate butter 3 , which the
Greeks at that time considered as a wonderful kind of food.
It is very remarkable that the word butter does not occur
in Aristotle, and that he even scarcely alludes to that sub-
stance, though we find in his works some very proper infor-
mation respecting milk and cheese, which seems to imply
careful observation. At first he gives milk only two com-
ponent parts, the watery and the caseous ; but he remarks
afterwards, for the first time, in a passage where one little ex-
pects it, that in milk there is also a fat substance, which under
certain circumstances, is like oil 4 .
In Strabo there are three passages that refer to this sub-
ject, but from which little information can be obtained. This
author says that the Lusitanians used butter instead of oil
he mentions the same circumstance respecting the Ethiopians
and he relates in another place, that elephants, when wounded,
drank this substance in order to make the darts fall from their
1
Edition of Basle, 1538, fol. v. p. 715.
2 Itoccurs however in Phavorirms.
3 Athenseus, iv. p. 131. Respecting Anaxandrides see Fabricii Bibl. Gr.
4 Historia Animal, iii. ttuv Se yd\a e%et i%cJpa vdaTibrt},
20, p. 384
:

8 KakeTrai oppbs, teat awnariSSes/d KaXeiTai rvpos. Omne lac liabet succum
aquosum, qui dicitur serum, et alteram corpulentum, qui vocatur caseus.
— P. 388 :vTrdp%ei S' ev r<£ yaXaicri Xiwaporip, ?} icai ev rots Tenriyoai
ylverai eXaidSiji: Inest in lacte pinguedo, quae in concreto oleosa fit.
This is the translation of Scaliger; but by Gaza the latter part of the pas-
sage is translated as follows: "quae etiarn concreto oleum prope tiahit."
It appears to me doubtful what ev rots Treirr)yo<n properly means. The
comparison of oil occurs also in Dioscorides and Pliny. Aristotle, in all
probability, intended to say that the fat part of milk was observed under
an oily appearance in cheese made of sweet milk from which the cieam
had not been separated and that indeed is perfectly agreeable to tiuth.
;
 BUTTER. 503

bodies .1
I am much astonished, I confess, to find that the
ancient Ethiopians were acquainted with butter, though it is
confirmed by Ludolfus 4 . It ought to be remarked also, that
according to Aristotle, the elephants, to cure themselves, did not
drink butter, but oil 3 . In this he is followed by Pliny 4 ; and
iElian says, that for the above purpose these animals used
either the bloom of the olive-tree, or oil itself 5 ; but Arrian,
who lived a hundred years after Strabo, and who has related
everything respecting the diseases of the elephant and their
cures, in the same order as that author, has omitted this cir-
cumstance altogether 6 . Is the passage of Strabo, therefore,
genuine ? iElian however says, in another part of his book,
that the Indians anointed the wounds of their elephants with
butter 7 .

We are told by Plutarch, that a Spartan lady paid a visit

to Berenice, the wife of Dejotarus, and that the one smelled
so much of sweet ointment, and the other of butter, that
neither of them could endure the other. Was it customary,
therefore, at that period, for people to perfume themselves
with butter?
Of much more importance are the remarks made by Dios-
corides and Galen on this subject. The former says that
good butter was prepared from the fattest milk, such as that
of sheep or goats, by shaking it in a vessel till the fat was
separated. To this butter he ascribes the same effects, when
used externally, as those produced by our butter at present.
He adds also, and he is the first writer who makes the obser-
vation, that fresh butter might be melted and poured over
pulse and vegetables instead of oil, and that it might be em-
ployed in pastry in the room of other fat substances. kind A
of soot likewise was at that time prepared from butter for ex-
ternal applications, which was used in curing inflammation of
the eyes and other disorders. For this purpose the butter was
put into a lamp, and when consumed, the lamp was again
filled till the desired quantity of soot was collected in a vessel
placed over it.
Galen, who distinguishes and confirms in a more accurate
1 Lib. iii.
p. 233 ; xvii.p. 1176 ; xv. p. 1031.
2 Histor. iEthiop. lib. iv. 3 Histor. Animal, viii.
4, 13. 31, p. 977.
4 Hist. Nat. viii. 5 Hist. Animal,
10, p. 440. ii. 18.
e Indica. Amst. 7
1668, 8vo, p. 537. Lib. xiii. cap. 7.
 ;

504> HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

manner the healing virtues of butter, expressly remarks that

cow's-milk produces the fattest butter that butter made from
;

sheep's- or goat's-milk is less rich ; and that ass's-milk yields

the poorest. He expresses his astonishment, therefore, that
Dioscorides should say that butter was made from the milk of
sheep and goats. He assures us that he had seen it made
from cow's-milk, and that he believes it had thence acquired
its name .1
"Butter," says he, "may be very properly em-
ployed for ointments and when leather is besmeared with
;

it, the same purpose is answered as when it is rubbed over

with oil. In cold countries, which do not produce oil, but-

ter is used in the baths ; and that it is a real fat may be readily
perceived by its catching fire when poured over burning
coals 9 ." What has been here said is sufficient to show that
butter must have been very little known to, or used by, the
Greeks and Romans in the time of Galen, that is, at the end
of the second century.
The Roman writers who give an account of the ancient
Germans, all relate that they lived principally on milk but ;

they disagree in one thing, because many of them tell us that

they used cheese, while others affirm that they were not even
acquainted with the method of preparing it 3 Pliny, on the
.

other hand, says that they did not make cheese, but butter,
which they used as a most pleasant kind of food. He ascribes
to them also the invention of it for it is highly probable that
;

under the expression " barbarous nations " he meant the peo-
ple of Germany : and his description of butter appears to me
so clear, that I do not see how it can be doubted 4 . He very
justly remarks, that, in order to make butter in cold weather,
the milk ought to be warmed, but that in summer this precau-
tion is not necessary. The vessel employed for making it
seems to have had a great likeness to those used at present
we are told at least that it was covered, and that in the lid
there were holes*. What he says however respecting oxygala
is attended with difficulties ; and I am fully persuaded that
1
DeSiniplic. Med. Facultat. lib. x. p. 151. Edit. Basil, ii. p. 134.
2 DeAliment. Facultat. iii. cap. 15, p. 54. Edit. Basil, iv. p. 340.
3 Caesar
de Bello Gall. iv. 1. vi. 22. Strabo, lib. iv. speaking of the
Britons, says, " In their manners they are somewhat similar to Celts, but
more simple and barbarous so that many, although they abound in milk,
;

are unable to make cheese, through want of skill."

4 Lib. 6
xi. c. 41, p. 637. lb. lib. xxviii. cap. 9, p. 465.
 BUTTER. 505

his words are corrupted, though I find no variations marked

in manuscripts by which this conjecture can be supported.
Having made an attempt by transposing the words to dis-
cover the real sense, I found that I had placed them in the
same order as that in which they had been before arranged
by Dithmar, who, in his annotations on Tacitus, quotes them
in the same manner as I would read them, and with so much
confidence that he does not even hint they were ever read
otherwise. Had we both been critics, this similarity might
have given our conjecture perhaps more authority but Dith- ;

mar also was a professor of the ceconomical sciences 1

.

Oxygala was evidently a kind of cheese, the preparation of

which has been best described by Columella 2 In order to .

make it, sweet milk was commonly rendered sour, and the
serum was always separated from it. Of this process Pliny
speaks likewise but he first mentions under the above name
;

a kind of cheese formed from the caseous parts which remained

behind in the butter-milk, and which when separated from it
by acids and boiling, were mixed and prepared in various
ways. It must in general have been sourish for, according ;

to the account of Galen 3 it affected the teeth, though he men-

,

tions also another kind of cheese, under the name of casern

oxygalactium*, which was perfectly mild. In the Geoponica 5
directions are given how this cheese may be kept fresh for a
long time. If my reading be adopted, the medicinal effects
spoken of by Pliny are not to be ascribed to the butter, but
to the sour cheese 6 and physicians undoubtedly will be much
;

readier to allow to the latter than to the former. Whether

them
Tacitus by lac concretum, which he says was the most common
food of the Germans, meant cheese or butter I cannot ex-
amine, as we have no grounds to enable us to determine this
question, respecting which nothing more can be known 7 .
1

rato.
In my
Quod
opinion the passage ought to be arranged as follows
est maximum coactum, in summo fluitat.
prseli-
Id exemptum, ad-
:
—
dito sale,butyrum est, oleosum natura. Quod reliquum est decoquunt in
ollis. Additur paululum aqnse (aceti ?), ut acescat. Id quod supernatat,
oxygala appellant. Quo magis virus resipit, hoc prsestantius indicatur.
Pluribus compositionibus miscetur inveteratum. Natura ejus adstringere,
mollire, replere, purgare. —
Dithmar's emendation may be found in Taciti
Libel, de Moribus German. Francof. 1766, 8vo, p. 140.
2 Lib. xii. 3 De Aliment. Facultat. iii. cap.
8, p. 786. 16, p. 55.
4 Ibid. cap. 5
Lib. xviii. 12, p. 1188.
17, p. 57.
6 7 De Moribus Germ.
See Mercurialis, p. 38. cap. 23.
 ;

506 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

I have now laid before the reader, in chronological order,

every thing that I found in the works of the ancients respect-
ing butter and it is certain, from what has been said, that it
;

is not a Grecian, and much less a Roman invention but that ;

the Greeks were made acquainted with it by the Scythians,

the Thracians and the Phrygians, and the Romans by the
people of Germany l . It appears also, that when they had
learned the art of making it, they employed it only as an oint-
ment in their baths, and particularly in medicine. Besides
the proofs already quoted, a passage of Columella 2 deserves
also to be remarked, because that author, and not Pliny, as
Vossius thinks, is the first Latin writer who makes use of the
word butyrum. Pliny recommends it mixed with honey to be
rubbed over children's gums in order to ease the pain of teeth-
ing, and also for ulcers in the mouth 3 . The Romans in ge-

1
On this account some conjecture, and not without probability, that the
name also fioirvpos or fiovrvpov is not originally Greek, but that it may
have been introduced into Greece from some foreign country, along
with the thing which it expresses. Conring, for example, is of opinion that

it isof Scythian extraction. The Grecian and Koman authors, however,

make it to be a Greek word, compounded of fiovs, an ox or cow, and Tvpbs,
cheese, as we learn from the passages of Galen and Pliny already quoted.
Cheese was known to them much earlier than butter ; and it is therefore
possible, that at first they may have considered the latter as a kind of
cheese, as it appears that rupos once signified any coagulated substance.
The first syllable of the word, indeed, one should hardly expect, as the
Greeks used the milk of sheep and goats much earlier than cow's-milk
and for this reason Schook conjectures that the first syllable was added, as
usual among the Greeks, to magnify the object, or to express a superior
kind of cheese. Varro De Re Rustica, ii. 5, p. 274, says, " Novi majestatem
boum, et ab his dici pleraque magna, ut fioiiavKov, fioinraiSa, fiovXi/iov,
fiouiriv ; uvam quoque bumammam " and we find in Hesychius, " (3ov-
;

veos /xeyas' fiovireiva, fieyas Xi/xos jiovfayos, TroXvcpdyos." But this

-
7rais,
supposes that the Greeks preferred butter to cheese whereas they always
;

considered the former as of less importance, and less proper for use. The
same word being still retained in most languages determines nothing espe- ;

cially as the Swedes use the word smor, which is totally different, and which
was the oldest German name, and that most used in the ninth century ;
and Lipsius, in an old dictionary of that period, found the word kuosmer
butyrum, the first syllable of which is certainly the word Jcuh, a cow. See
Lipsii Epist. ad'Belgas, cent. iii. 44, and Wormii Litteratura llunica,
cap. 27. These etymological researches, which must always be uncertain,
I shall not carry further but only remark that, according to Hesychius,
;

butter, in Cyprus, where I did not expect it, was called e\<pos, which word
may also be foreign. See Martini Lexic. Philol. art Butyrum, who derives
2 Lib. vi. 8 Lib. xxviii. cap.
eA^os from albus. 12, p. 582. 19, p. 486.
 BUTTER. 507

neral seem to have used butter for anointing the bodies of their
children to render them pliable and we are told that the
' ;

ancient Burgundians besmeared their hair with it 2 . pas- A

sage of Clemens of Alexandria, in which he expressly says
that some burned it in their lamps instead of oil, is likewise
worthy of attention 3 . It is however certain, on the other
hand, that it was used neither by the Greeks nor the Romans
in cookery or the preparation of food, nor was
brought
it

upon their tables by way of was

dessert, as at a later period
the custom. We never find it mentioned by Galen and others
as a food, though they have spoken of it as applicable to other
purposes. No notice is taken of it by Apicius nor is there
;

anything said of it in that respect by the authors who treat

on agriculture, though they have given us very particular in-
formation concerning milk, cheese and oil. This, as has been
remarked by other writers, may be easily accounted for, by
the ancients having entirely accustomed themselves to the use
of good oil and in the like manner butter at present is very
;

little employed in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the southern

parts of France, where it is sold in the apothecaries' shops for
medicinal purposes 4 It is certain besides, that in warm
.

countries it is difficult to preserve it for any length of time.

To conclude, I shall offer one remark, which, in my opinion
is entirelynew. It appears to me, by the information which
I have here collected from the ancients, that at the period
when these authors wrote, people were not acquainted with the
art of making butter so clean and so firm as that which we
use on our tables. On the contrary, I am fully persuaded
that it was rather in an oily state, and almost liquid. They
all speak of butter as of something fluid. The moderns cut,
knead and spread butter but the ancients poured it out as
;

1
A
passage of Tertullian adversus Jud. alludes to this practice. The
same words are repeated Adversus Marcion. iii. 13.
2 Sidonius Apollinaris, carm. 12.
3
Clemens Alexand. Paedag. i. p. 107.
4
When Leodius accompanied the elector palatine Frederic II. in his
travels through Spain, he was desirous of purchasing in that country seve-
ral articles necessary for their journey. After much inquiry concerning
butter, he was directed to an apothecary's shop, where the people were
much astonished at the largeness of the quantity he asked for, and showed
him a little entirely rancid, which was kept in a bladder for external use.
H. Th. Leodii Vita et Res Gestte Frederici Palatini. Francof. 1665, 4to,
lib. vi.
508 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

one pours out oil. Galen tells us, that, to make soot of butter,
the butter must be poured into a lamp. Had the ancients
used in their lamps hard or solid butter, as our miners use
tallow in the lamps that supply them with light under ground,
they would not have made choice of the expression to pour
out. We
are told that the elephants drank butter ; and liquid
butter must have been very familiar to the Greek translators
of the Sacred Scriptures, when they could mention it as flow-
ing in streams. Hecatseus, quoted by Athenseus, calls the
butter with which the Pasonians anointed themselves, oil of
milk 1
Casaubon observes on this passage, that the author
.

makes use of these words, because butter was then employed

instead of oil, and spoken of in the like manner, as was the
case with sugar, which was at first considered to be a kind of
honey, because it was equally sweet and could be applied to
the same purposes. Hippocrates, on the like grounds, calls
swine's seam, swine's oil 2 . This explanation I should readily
adopt, did not such expressions respecting butter, as one can
apply only to fluid bodies, occur everywhere without excep-
tion. In warm countries, indeed, butter may be always in a
liquid state ; but I am of opinion that the ancients in general
did not know by means of kneading, washing and salting, to
render their butter so firm and clean as we have it at present.
On this account it could not be long kept or transported, and
the use of it must have been very much limited.
I shall remark in the last place, that butter appears to have
been extremely scarce in Norway during the ages of paganism ;
for we find mention made by historians of a present of butter
which was so large that a man could not carry it, and which
was considered as a very respectable gift 3 .
1
Lib. x. p. 447.
2 What Hippocrates calls e\aiov vbs Erotian explains by to veiov crTeap.
3 Sulim, in the eighth vol. of the Transactions of the Copenhagen Society,
where a reference is made, p. 53, respecting the above-mentioned circum-
atance, to Torfaei Histor. Norveg. pars. i. vi. sect. ill. cap. 2, p. 319.
 ;

509

AURUM FULMINANS.
If a solution of chloride of gold be precipitated by an excess
of ammonia, a yellow powder will be obtained, which, when
heated, or only bruised, explodes suddenly with a prodigious
report. The force of this aurum fulminans is terrible, and,
in the hands of incautious persons, has often occasioned much
mischief. But, however powerful, it cannot, as some have
imagined, be employed instead of gunpowder, even were not
this impossible on account of the high value of the metal from
which it is made for explosion does not take place when the
;

powder is confined. Phenomena of this kind are always of

importance, and afford subject of speculation to the philoso-
pher, though no immediate use can be made of them Ex- 1
.

periments, however, have rendered it probable that this powder

may possess some medicinal virtues, and we are assured that
it can be employed in enamel-painting.

He who attempts to trace out the invention of aurum ful-

minans is like a person bewildered in a morass, in danger
every moment of being lost. I allude here to the immense
wilderness of the ancient alchemists, or makers of gold to ;

wade through which, my patience, though pretty much ac-

customed to such labour, is not sufficiently adequate. Those
who know how to appreciate their time will not sacrifice it in
1
[That this and other similar chemical phasnomena may be of more
advantage than as affording merely subjects for speculation to the philo-
sopher, although not immediately applicable to any useful purpose, may
be inferred from the valuable application of fulminating mercury, a some-
what similar compound to that under consideration, This, at first, as with
fulminating gold at present, was a mere curiosity ; it has recently caused
the almost complete substitution of percussion for flint locks in fire-arms,
which in addition to the greater certainty caused by the increased rapidity
of the discharge, ceconomises the quantity of powder requisite.
Fulminating mercury is made by dissolving mercury in nitric acid and
pouring the solution into warm alcohol. Effervescence ensues, When this
has ceased, the mixture is poured upon a filter, and well-washed with water
after draining, the filter is expanded upon plated copper or stone-ware,
heated to 212° by steam or hot water. Dr. Ure recommends that the
powder be mixed with a solution of mastic in spirits of turpentine, to cause
attachment. Its extensive use in making percussion-caps is well-known.
It is however a very dangerous substance to experiment with, owing to the
readiness with which it explodes, and has caused many very serious acci-
dents.]
 — ;

510 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

endeavouring to discover the meaning of books which the au-

thors themselves did not, in part, understand, or to compre-
hend passages in which the writer tells us nothing, or, at any
rate, nothing of importance. I have, however, made my way
through this labyrinth from Spielmann to the works which are
ascribed to Basilius Valentin 1 .

The period when this powder was invented is as uncertain

as the accounts given of its composition. It is however pro-
bable that the discoverer was a German Benedictine monk,
who lived about the year 14-13 2
; and there is reason to think
that he may have made many useful observations, of which
we are yet ignorant. When new observations have been made
respecting gold, they have always been found afterwards in
the works of Valentin, in a passage which no one before could
understand. Such writings are of no more utility than the
answers of the ancient oracles, which were comprehended when
a knowledge of them was no longer necessary, and which mis-
led those who supposed that they comprehended them sooner.
But the account of aurum fulminans in Valentin is so uncom-
monly intelligible, that it almost seems he either wrote in an
explicitmanner without perceiving it, or that the words
escaped from him contrary to his intention. As the work
in which it may be found is scarce, I shall transcribe the pre-
scription 3 :

Take a pound of aqua regia made with sal-ammoniac

"
that is, take a pound of good strong aquafortis, and dissolve

in it four ounces of sal-ammoniac, and you will thus obtain a

strong aqua regia, which must be repeatedly distilled and rec-
tified until no more fasces remain at the bottom, and until it
becomes quite clear and transparent. Take fine thin gold-leaf,
in the preparation of which antimony has been used put it ;

into an alembic pour aqua regiu over it and let as much of

;
;

the gold as possible be dissolved. After the gold is all dis-

solved, add to it some olemn tartari, or sal tartari dissolved
in a little spring-Avater, and it will begin to effervesce. When
the effervescence has ceased, pour some more oil into it; and
do this so often till the dissolved gold falls to the bottom, and
1
Spielmann, Institut. Chem. p. 288.
2 See Preface of B.N.Petneus to the Works of Valentin, Hamb. 1717, 8vo.
8 Fr. Basilii Valentini Letztes Testament ; Von G. P. Nenter. Strasb.
1712, 8vo, p. 22.3.
 AURUM FULMINANS. 511

until no more precipitate is formed, and the aqua regia remains

pure and clear. You must then pour the aqua regia from
the gold calx, and wash it well with water eight or ten times.
When the gold calx is settled, pour off' the water, and dry
the calx in the open air when the sun shines, but not over the
fire for as soon as this powder becomes a little heated or
;

warm, it explodes, and does much mischief, as it is so power-

ful and violent that no man can withstand it. When the
powder has been thus prepared, take strong distilled vinegar
and pour over it keep it continually over the fire for twenty-
;

four hours, without stirring it, so that nothing may fall to the
bottom, and it will be again deprived of its power of explo-
ding; but take great care that no accident happens by careless-
ness. Pour off the vinegar, and, having washed the powder,
expose it to dry."
The latter part of the receipt shows that Valentin had made
experiments in order to discover how aurum fulrainans might
be deprived of its power of exploding, and he found that this
could be clone by vinegar. It appears from his writings that
he had discovered also that the same thing could be effected
by sulphur '.

After the time of Valentin, Crollius, who lived in the last

half of the sixteenth century, seems to have been best ac-
quainted with this powder, and to have principally made it
known 2 : at any rate his works are referred to by most of the
modern writers. He calls it aurum volatile, and speaks of its
being useful in medicine. The name aurum fulminans was,
as far as I know, first used by Beguin 3 The method of pre-
.

paring it is described by Kircher, who considers it as a thing

uncommon, and who calls it pulvis pyrius aureus 4 .

1
See Bergmann on Pulvis fulminans, in his Opuscula Physicaet Chemica,
1780, 8vo,ii. p. 133.
'
0. Crollii Basilica Chymica. Franc. (1609), 4to, p. 211.
3 J. Beguini Tyrocinium Chymicum was printed
for the first time at
Paris, in 1608, 12mo. In the French translation, Les elemens de chymie,
revues, expliquez, etc., par J. L. de Roy; Paris, 1626, 8vo, the receipt for
making or fulminant may be found p. 314.
4 Kircheri Magnes. Colonia?, 1643, 4to, p. 548. The author says that
he found the receipt for preparing it in Liber insignis de incendio Vesuvii.
That I might know whether this work contained anything respecting the
history of aurum fulminans, I inquired after it. Kircher undoubtedly meant
Incendio del Monte Vesuvio, di Pietro Castelli in Roma 1632, 4to but
; :

the directions given there, p. 46, for making or o fulminant e, are taken from
Crollius. Nothing further is to befound in Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus.
512 HISTORY OF INVFNTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

GARDEN-FLOWERS.
Some of the flowers introduced into our gardens, and now
cultivated either on account of their beauty or the pleasant-
ness of their smell, have been procured from plants which
grew wild, and which have been changed, or, according to
the opinion of florists, improved by the art of the gardener.
The greater part of them however came originally from di-
stant countries, where they grow, in as great perfection as ours,
without the assistance of man. Though we often find men-
tion of flowers in the works of the Greeks and the Romans, it
appears that they were contented with those which grew in
their own neighbourhood. I do not remember to have read
that they ever took the trouble to form gardens for the parti-
cular purpose of rearing in them foreign flowers or plants.
But even supposing that I may be mistaken, for I do not pre-
tend to have examined this subject very minutely, I think I
may with great probability venture to assert, that the modern
ta?te for flowers came from Persia to Constantinople, and was
imported thence to Europe, for the first time, in the sixteenth
century. At any rate, Ave find that the greater part of the
productions of our flower-gardens were conveyed to us by
that channel. Clusius and his friends in particular, contri-
buted very much to excite this taste; and the new plants
brought from both the Indies by the travellers who then con-
tinued still more frequently to visit these countries, tended to
increase it. That period also produced some skilful gardeners,
who carried on a considerable trade with the roots and see ds
of flowers ; and these likewise assisted to render it more ge-
neral. .Among these were John and Vespasian Robin, gar-
deners to Henry IV. of France, and Emanuel Sweert, gardener
to the emperor Rodolphus II., from whom the botanists at that
time procured many rarities, as appears from different pas-
sages of their works. As this taste for flowers prevails more
at present than at any former period, a short history of some
of the objects of it may not be disagreeable, perhaps, to many
of my readers.
Simon de Tovar, a Spanish physician, brought the tube-
rose to Europe before the year 1594 from the East Indies,
 GARDEN-FLOWERS. 513

where grows wild in Java and Ceylon, and sent some roots
it

of it Bernard Paludanus, who first made the flower publicly

to
known in his Annotations on Linschoten's Voyage '. The
full tuberoses were first procured from seed by one Le
Cour, at Leyden, who kept them scarce for some years, by
destroying the roots, that they might not become common 8 .
The propagation of them in most countries is attended with
difficulties but in Italy, Sicily and Spain, it requires no trou-
;

ble and at present the Genoese send a great many roots to

;

England, Holland and Germany. The oldest botanists classed

them among the hyacinths, and the name Polianthes tuberosa
was given them by Linnaeus in his Hortus Cliffortianus.
The auricula, Primula auricula, grows wild among the long
moss covered with snow, on the Lower Alps of Switzerland and
Steyermark 3 whence it was brought to our gardens, where,
,

by art and accident, it has produced more varieties than any

other species of flower. I do not know who first transplanted
it from its native soil. Pluche 4 says only that some roots
were pulled up by Walloon merchants, and carried to Brus-
sels. This much, at any rate, is certain, that it was first cul-
tivated with care by the Flemings, who were very successful
in propagating it. Professor Weismantel, who deserves to be
ranked amongst the principal writers on flowers 5 says that ,

the auricula was described and celebrated by Ovid, Pliny and

Columella but this I much doubt. The botanists even of
;

the seventeenth century, who searched for plants in the works

of the ancients with great diligence, and who took the liberty
of making very bold assertions, were net able to find any name
that would correspond with the auricula; for the conjecture
of Fabius Columna, that it is the alisma of Dioscorides, is
highly improbable, as that Grecian author extols his plant,
which was fond of water, on account of its medicinal virtues
only. In the time of Clusius, most of the varieties of the au-
ricula were scarce.
The common fritillary, or chequered lily, Fritillaria Me-
leagris, was first observed in some parts of France, Hungary,
Italy, and other warm countries 6 and introduced into gardens
,

1
Hagae, 1599, fol. 2 Miller's Gardener's Dictionary.
3 4 Spectacle
Haller, Histor. Stirpium, i. p. 272, n. 612. de la
Nature, ii. p. 49. • Des Blumisten vol. i. Erfurt, 1783, 8vo, p. 5.
6
[It also occurs wild in the eastern and southern parts of England.]
VOL. I. 2 L
51'i HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

about the middle of the sixteenth century. At first it was

called Lilium variegatum but Noel Capperon, an apothecary
;

at Orleans, who collected a great many scarce plants, gave it

the name of Fritillaria, because the red or reddish-brown
spots of the flower form regular squares, much like those of
a chess-board. It was called meleagris by Dodonaeus, be-
cause the feathers of that fowl are variegated almost in the
same manner 1
.

The roots of the magnificent crown imperial, Fritillaria im-

perialis,weve about the middle of the sixteenth century brought
from Persia to Constantinople, and were carried thence to the
emperor's garden at Vienna, from which they were dispersed
all over Europe. This flower was first known by the Persian
name tusac, until the Italians gave it that of corona imperialist,
or crown imperial. I have somewhere read that it has been
imagined that the figure of it is to be found represented on
coins of Herod, and that, on this account, it has been con-
sidered as the lily so much celebrated in the Scripture.
The Persian lily, Fritillaria Persica, which is nearly re-
lated to it, was made known almost about the same time.
The bulbs or roots were brought from Susa to Constantinople,
and for that reason it was formerly called Lilium Susianum s .
African and French marigolds, Tagetes erecta and patula,
were, according to the account of Dodonaaus and others,
brought from Africa to Europe, at the time when the emperor
Charles V. carried his arms against Tunis. This however is
improbable for these plants are indigenous in South America,
;

and were known to botanists before that period under the

name of Caryophyllus Indicus, from which is derived the
French appellation ceillet dlnde. Cordus calls them, from
their native country, Tanacetum Peruvianum*.
Amongthe most beautiful ornaments of our gardens is the
belladonna lily, Amaryllis formosissima, the flower of which,

composed of six petals, is of a deep-red colour, and in a strong

light, or when the sun shines upon it, has an agreeable yellow
lustre like gold.The first roots of it ever seen in Europe
were procured in 1593, on board a ship which had returned
from South America, by Simon de Tovar, a physician at
1
Clusii Hist. Plant, ii. p. 154.
3 Clusii Hist. Plant, i.
2 Ibid. i. Dodon<ei Pempt. p. 202.
p. 128. p. 130.
4 Dodonici Florum Hist. p. f>2. Bauhini Hist. Plant, iii. p. 98.
 GARDEN-FLOWERS. 515

Seville. In the year following, he sent a description of the

flower to Clusius and as he had at the same time transmitted
;

some roots to Bernard Paludanus and count d'Aremberg, the

former sent a dried flower, and the latter an accurate drawing
of it to Clusius, who published it in 1601 l . One of the
Robins gave in 1608 a larger and more correct figure, which
was afterwards copied by Bry, Parkinson, and Rudbeck but ;

a complete description, with a good engraving, was published

in 1742, by Linnaeus % who in 1737 gave to that genus the
name by which it is known at
present 3 . Sweert, Bauhin, and
Rudbeck, are evidently mistaken in assigning the East Indies
as the original country of this plant ; and Broke 4 , who was
not a botanist, but only a florist, is equally wrong in making
it a native of the Levant. Tovar received it from South
America, where it was found by Plumier and Barrere, and at
a later period by Thiery de Menonville 5 . At first it was
classed with the narcissus, and it was afterwards called lilio-nar-
cissus, because its flower resembled that of the lily, and its
roots those of the narcissus. It was named Jlos Jacobceus,
because some imagined that they discovered in it a likeness to
the badge of the knights of the order of St. James in Spain,
whose founder, in the fourteenth century, could not indeed
have been acquainted with this beautiful amaryllis.
x\nother species of this genus is the Guernsey lily, Ama-
ryllis Samiensis, which in the magnificence of its flower is
not inferior to the former. This plant was brought from
Japan, where it was found by Kasmpfer, and also by Thun-
berg 6 during his travels some years ago in that country. It
,

was first cultivated in the beginning of the seventeenth century

in the garden of John Morin, at Paris, where it blowed, for
the first time, on the 7th of October 1634. It was then made
known by Jacob Cornutus, under the name of narcissus Japoni-
cusjlore rutilo 1 . After this it was again noticed by John Ray 8 ,
in 1665, who called it the Guernsey lily, which name it
1 2
Abhandl. der Schwed. Akad. iv.
Hist. Plantar, i. p. 157.
3 4
Hortus Cliffort. p. Beobacht. v. einigen Blumen, 1769, 8vo.
135.
5
Barrere, Hist. Nat. de la France Equinoxiale. Traite de la Culture du
Nopal, par T. de Menonville, 1787, 8vo.
6
Flora Japonica. The Japanese consider the bulbs poisonous.
J. Cornuti Canad. Plantarum aliarumque Historia.
'•'
Par. 1635, 4to.
8
A complete Florilege, furnished with all the requisites belonging to a
florist. London, 1665, fol. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 74.
2l2
516 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

still very properly bears. A ship returning from Japan was

wrecked on the coast of Guernsey, and a number of the bulbs
of this plant, which were on board, being cast on shore, took
root in that sandy soil. As they soon increased and produced
beautiful flowers, they were observed by the inhabitants, and
engaged the attention of Mr. Hatton, the governor's son, whose
botanical knowledge is highly spoken of by Ray, and who sent
roots of them to several of his friends who were fond of cul-
tivating curious plants '. Of this elegant flower Dr. Douglass
gave a description and figure in a small treatise published in
1725, which is quoted by Linnaeus in his Bibliotheca, but not
by Haller.
Of the comprehensive genus Ranunculus, florists, to speak
in a botanical sense,have obtained a thousand different kinds 2 ;
for, according to the manner in which they are distinguished
by gardeners, the varieties are infinite and increase almost
every summer, as those with half-full flowers bear seed which
produce plants that from time to time yield new kinds that
exhibit greater or uncommon beauties. The principal part
of them, however, and those most esteemed, were brought to
us from the Levant. Some were carried from that part of the
world so early as in the time of the crusades but most of ;

them have been introduced into Europe from Constantinople

since the end of the sixteenth century, particularly the Persian
ranunculus (R. asiaticus, Linn.), the varieties of which, if I am
not mistaken, hold at present the first rank. Clusius describes
both the single and the full flowers as new rarities. This
flower was in the highest repute during the time of Maho-
met IV. His Grand Vizir, Cara Mustapha, well-known by
his hatred against the Christians and the siege of Vienna in
1683, wishing to turn the sultan's thoughts to some milder
amusement than that of the chase, for which he had a strong
passion, diverted his attention to flowers and, as he remarked
;

that the emperor preferred the ranunculus to all others, he

wrote to the different pachas throughout the whole kingdom
to send him seeds or roots of the most beautiful kinds. The
pachas of Candia, Cyprus, Aleppo, and Rhodes paid most
regard to this request and the elegant flowers which they
;

1
Morisoni Plantarum Historia, pars 2. Ox. 1C80, fol. p. 3G7.
2
Miller's Gardener's Dictionary. [Of one species alone no less than
eight hundred varieties were known at the end of the last century.]

Jf
 —

GARDEN-FLOWERS. 517

transmitted to court were shut up in the seraglio as unfortu-

nate offerings to the voluptuousness of the sultan, till some of
them, by the force of money, were at length freed from their
imprisonment. The ambassadors from the European courts
in particular, made it their business to procure roots of as
many kinds as they could, which they sent to their different
sovereigns. Marseilles, which at that period carried on the
greatest trade to the Levant, received on this account these
flowers very early and a person there, of the name of Malaval,
;

is said to have contributed very much to disperse them all over

Europe 1
.

[Among the favourites of the present day may be instanced,

The varied and social Pelargoniums (commonly called gera-
niums), which from their capability of living in the confined air
of rooms almost form a part of the household furniture in this
country. They are nearly all members of the Cape of Good
Hope. A large number however of those with which we are
familiar are not distinct species, but mere varieties. Gera-
niums were first introduced into this country at the end of the
seventeenth century. Pelargoniums differ from geraniums
principally in the irregularity of their flowers, their shrubby
stems and tubular nectaries. They were first separated by
L'Heritier.
The Dahlia, an universal favourite its exquisite symmetry,
;

when perfect, and the size of its flowers rendering it one of

the most beautiful of our garden-plants. It is generally stated
to have been introduced by Lady Holland in 1 804 ; but it was
introduced many years before thatperiod, and was only brought
from Madrid by Lady Holland, who apparently did not know
that it was already in the country. The first species of Dah-
lia known to Europeans was D. superflua (variabilis, Tie C.) it ;

was discovered in Mexico by Humboldt in 1789, and sent to

Professor Cavanilles, of the Botanic Garden at Madrid, who
named the genus in honour of the Swedish Professor Dahl.
Cavanilles sent a plant of it to the marchioness of Bute. From
this species, nearly all the varieties known in our gardens have
been raised, There are now in England ten or twelve species,
including innumerable varieties.
The Rose, which is one of our oldest favourites, and has
1
Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, vol. ii. p. 15.—Traite des Renoncuies
(par D'Ardene), Paris, 1746, 8vo.—Pliiche, Spectacle de la Nature, vol. i.
518 HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

been known from time immemorial among the civilized nations

of Europe and Asia. It occurs in almost every country of the
northern hemisphere, both in the Old and New World. It is
not found in South America nor in Australia. The name is
derived from rhos, which signifies red in Armorican, whence
poEov, Greek, and rosa, Latin. More than one hundred spe-
cies have been described, and more than two thousand varie-
ties may be procured in the nurseries.
And lastly, the Calceolarias, which are natives of South Ame-
rica. Their great variety has rendered them especial favourites.
They abound in Chili and Peru. The name is derived from
calceolus, from the resemblance of the corolla (coloured part
of the flower) to a slipper. In J 820, half-a-dozen species only
were known in this country. During the next ten or twelve
years, five or six more species were introduced from Chili.
Innumerable hybrids are now raised every year, varying in
colour through every possible shade of crimson, brown, orange,
purple, pink, and yellow : there are one or two of a pure white
colour.]

END OF VOL. I.

Printed by Richard aud John E. Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
 I
IW '

Accession no.
JFF
Author

Beckmann
History
Call no. 1846
v.l

ikgifepzy
 ,

111" !y